Druid feats and ideas...

[Talya]

Playing a exalted VOP druid in an upcoming campaign. (let's not turn this into another VOP thread.) It's Forgotten Realms, she's a druid of Lurue (Mielikki's unicorn mount, a goddess of magical beasts.)

DM has waived the exalted companion requirement for my character that a unicorn can only be a companion to a CG character, due to the religious synergy here. Also, unicorn is a level 4 companion now.

Character sheet here: (Semi NSFW portrait.)
http://www.thetangledweb.net/forums/profiler/view_char.php?cid=47777

40 point buy, character has the 3.0 "magic blooded" template, and spellcasting has been moved to Charisma (based on Rich Burlew's Fey Druid option.)

Natural spell is banned. (I like this rule anyway...I don't like a druid to become a "furry." Wildshape should be situational, rather than "always on.")

Initiate of Lurue is the Initiate of Malar feat refluffed for Lurue, and the spells added to the caster list changed accordingly.

I'm allowed to use an "{spell} Animal" spells on my animal companion as if it were still an animal rather than a magical beast.

I'm not inclined to multiclass, ever. However, I'm debating future feats.
TOB is allowed in this game. I'm wondering if I should take some martial study/martial stance feats. Not sure which ones synergize well with wildshape forms. I'm also not really going to be a wildshape focused druid...more of a spellcaster who wildshapes for particularly difficult combat sequences or when I'm out of spells.

[Tvtyrant]

I would suggest feats that allow you more wildshape options honestly. Frozen Wildshape from Frostburn, Aberration Wildshape from Lords of Madness, Assume Supernatural Ability from Savage Species, maybe Dragon Wildshape from the Dracomonicon. Lion's Pounce lets you pounce whatever form your in, so you can take the form of something with an epic number of attacks (giant squid) and hit with them.

[Talya]

I would suggest feats that allow you more wildshape options honestly. Frozen Wildshape from Frostburn, Aberration Wildshape from Lords of Madness, Assume Supernatural Ability from Savage Species, maybe Dragon Wildshape from the Dracomonicon. Lion's Pounce lets you pounce whatever form your in, so you can take the form of something with an epic number of attacks (giant squid) and hit with them.

I will get Exalted Wildshape from the Vow of Poverty basically for free, which will add a few forms, too, but more importantly add all the EX and SU abilities of anything I wildshape into. (As well as make all of my animal forms Celestial.) However, the Dm has reversed the order in which I aquire large and tiny wildshape forms, meaning Large Wildshape isn't coming until 11. This will further limit what I can do with wildshape for a long time. (Although...dragon Wildshape is limited to medium size anyway, isn't it?)

[Tvtyrant]

Yeah, medium sized dragons. But it gets you their supernatural and extraordinary abilities, which is worth it if you ignore true dragons. A medium true dragon is rather wimpy.

Faerie dragon gets you a daze breathe for instance, Juvenile battle dragon gets you some nice special abilities and flight, Shadow Dragon Young Adult is medium :D Shadow Dragon will take a while to get the HD for (16) but you get a treasure troves worth from it. A breathe weapon that deals negative levels, a DC 22 fear aura, total concealment anywhere but in full daylight, etc.

[Talya]

Faerie dragon gets you a daze breathe for instance, Juvenile battle dragon gets you some nice special abilities and flight, Shadow Dragon Young Adult is medium :D Shadow Dragon will take a while to get the HD for (16) but you get a treasure troves worth from it. A breathe weapon that deals negative levels, a DC 22 fear aura, total concealment anywhere but in full daylight, etc.


Faerie dragon is fluffily quite appropriate to this character...mmm...

[Tvtyrant]

Faerie dragon is fluffily quite appropriate to this character...mmm...

It also grants you perfect flight and a good swim score; I can't figure out which stat its breathe is geared to though. Its DC 15 but its con is 12 so obviously not con. Oh well.

[Talya]

It also grants you perfect flight and a good swim score; I can't figure out which stat its breathe is geared to though. Its DC 15 but its con is 12 so obviously not con. Oh well.


No that's con. The SRD rule matches the monster entry:


The save DC against a breath weapon is 10 + ½ dragon’s HD + dragon’s Con modifier.

Faerie dragon has 8 Hit Dice, and 12 con. That's 10 + 4 + 1.

[ShriekingDrake]

Why go with "Initiate of Lurue" over Initiate of Nature and worship Mielikki. Would the flavor not be close enough? I have found IoN to be an outstandingly useful feat.

[Talya]

Why go with "Initiate of Lurue" over Initiate of Nature and worship Mielikki. Would the flavor not be close enough? I have found IoN to be an outstandingly useful feat.

I like getting Augment Summoning without taking the utterly useless "Spell Focus (Conjuration.)"

Hmm. With the Church of Lurue being integrated with the Church of Mielikki...wonder if I could take BOTH initiate feats? :)

[ShriekingDrake]

I get that. But I think the benefits of IoN might outweigh the benefits of taking the almost useless Spell Focus (conj.). I admit it's a close call.

I say go for both, if you can.

[Talya]

I don't imagine Rebuke/Command Plants&Animals technically qualifies for Divine Metacheese, either.

[Tvtyrant]

No that's con. The SRD rule matches the monster entry:



Faerie dragon has 8 Hit Dice, and 12 con. That's 10 + 4 + 1.

Sweet, pump con and you have the best status effect in the game as a 1d4 round attack. Suddenly I want to play a Faerie Dragon Druid...

[Talya]

Sweet, pump con and you have the best status effect in the game as a 1d4 round attack. Suddenly I want to play a Faerie Dragon Druid...

Wildshape changes your con to that of the base creature. Doesn't change your hit points, at all, but it does change the ability score for other purposes. Even Inherent bonuses wouldn't help, as they modify your base ability score which gets changed by the wildshape. So the only way to boost con in this case is through gear+wilding clasp (or in this case, Vow of Poverty ability modifiers.)

[ShriekingDrake]

I don't imagine Rebuke/Command Plants&Animals technically qualifies for Divine Metacheese, either.

Nope. But I believe you can use Bone Talisman for that (hoping that I'm not about to start a flame war).

[Talya]

:smallwink:
Nope. But I believe you can use Bone Talisman for that (hoping that I'm not about to start a flame war).

Bone Talisman? Is that an item or a spell. (Remember VOP.)

[Cog]

It's a spell, but it creates a temporary item that arguably might not play nicely with VoP. The spell is here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040721a) unless it's been reprinted.

[ShriekingDrake]

I think that bone is worth less than 1 gp. You should be able to use one from an animal you find dead.

[Keld Denar]

If you are going to be using Dragon Wildshape, it might be worthwhile to pick up a metabreath feat, particularly Heighten Breath. It lets you increase the DC of your BW by 1 for each extra round of recharge delay you add, up to a maximum of your +Con mod. This lets you double your Con's "con-tribution" to the DC, assuming you don't mind only using it once per combat.

Other feats that might help include those that speed up your Wildshape. If you aren't gonna be spending all day in forms, it would be very useful if you didn't have to burn a whole round of combat to "dragon out".

Spell Focus: Conjouration isn't completely useless. There are a decent number of offensive druid conjourations. Arc of Lightning is fun, SR: No, and has that whole "wrath of nature" feel. Other things, like various clouds and such are also very useful.

[Cog]

I think that bone is worth less than 1 gp. You should be able to use one from an animal you find dead.
The problem isn't the bone itself, the problem is that you've turned the bone into a magical item.

[ShriekingDrake]

The problem isn't the bone itself, the problem is that you've turned the bone into a magical item.

That would affect many more spells then BT. My own reading of VoP is that it would not prevent such uses. But each campaign has it's own interpretations.

[Talya]

My DM is allowing a druid with VOP to sue a shillelagh, so that wouldn't be an issue. The main issue I see here is fluff...we're not playing in the moonshaes, and these spells are supposed to be very rare spells that require you to find a specific item in the setting we're playing in...

Also, I'm not convinced DMM cheese is worth it for something that gets you a single turn attempt.

[ShriekingDrake]

My DM is allowing a druid with VOP to sue a shillelagh, so that wouldn't be an issue. The main issue I see here is fluff...we're not playing in the moonshaes, and these spells are supposed to be very rare spells that require you to find a specific item in the setting we're playing in...

Also, I'm not convinced DMM cheese is worth it for something that gets you a single turn attempt.

I've never even bothered to take the spell for DMM. But I often seek it for the turning benefits. My uses of turning have been rare, but they've existed, especially when we're having problems with the unnatural undead.

[Talya]

Party has a cleric going into prestige paladin, so turn-undead shouldn't be lacking.