Toning Down the Druid: Options/Suggestions?

[wayfare]

Hey All:

I have a player interestedin in playing a druid with a party of tier 3/4 characters (Duskblade, Swordsage, PsyWar, and a Divine Bard -- Party level 6). I didn't want to reject him out of hand, so I gave him the following options:

1) Play a druid that gets full casting, and a wizard style familiar, but no animal companion and wildshape.

2) Play a druid that gets Bard casting (and thus only lvl 6 spells), but gets wildshape and a familiar.

Do either of these options bring the druid down to tier 2 or 3?

Many thanks

--Wayfare

[NNescio]

Hey All:

I have a player interestedin in playing a druid with a party of tier 3/4 characters (Duskblade, Swordsage, PsyWar, and a Divine Bard -- Party level 6). I didn't want to reject him out of hand, so I gave him the following options:

1) Play a druid that gets full casting, and a wizard style familiar, but no animal companion and wildshape.

2) Play a druid that gets Bard casting (and thus only lvl 6 spells), but gets wildshape and a familiar.

Do either of these options bring the druid down to tier 2 or 3?

Many thanks

--Wayfare

1) Tier One (Druid Casting is that powerful)

2) Tier Three

[tanderson11]

Well . . . full casting by definition is tier 1 - 2, depending on how versatile it is. That means your first options results in the druid being a slightly less powerful tier 1.

The second options drops the druid from tier 1 to tier 3, but still on the middle or higher end of that tier due to some spell casting and wild shape.

[TehLivingDeath]

Full casting is what makes the Druid Tier 1, WS and the extra Fighter are just (very) helpful extras. So the first option wouldn't bring him down.

2nd option gets him to Tier 3, I'd say.

damn ninjas

[Talya]

Use the spontaneous divine caster variant in UA. That brings their spellcasting down to at least tier 2, anyway. Of course, they still have wildshape and animal companions...

Note that bardic-style casting is a lot of work. Bards get a lot of spells you wouldn't think they would--they just get lowered to lower spell levels. For instance, the spell "Otto's Irresistable Dance," Level 8 for wizards/sorcerers, is Level 6 for bards. You'd need to go through the entire druid's spell list with a fine-toothed comb and figure out what you want them to be able to cast, at what level, and what you want to be rid of altogether (EG. Shapechange.)

[opticalshadow]

just dont play him optimized, and dont do all the things it can do.

seriously there are tons of peopel that have problems with teir one characters, but its not hard to not play them that strong. just dont do everything you can.
druid is strong for three things
pet,spells,wild shape.

so dont use an optimized pet, use a flavor one. dont scour the books for over powered wild shapes, keep it simple or use it for utility (scouting travel) and just dont use all the cheest you can with your spells.

[Jack_Simth]

just dont play him optimized, and dont do all the things it can do.

seriously there are tons of peopel that have problems with teir one characters, but its not hard to not play them that strong. just dont do everything you can.
druid is strong for three things
pet,spells,wild shape.

so dont use an optimized pet, use a flavor one. dont scour the books for over powered wild shapes, keep it simple or use it for utility (scouting travel) and just dont use all the cheest you can with your spells.
That works OK if you're the player, not so hot if you're the DM and you've got a player prone to doing such things. OP specified he's the DM.

[wayfare]

Thanks for the responses! A couple of things:

1) I though the Druid spell list was considered far inferior to the cleric or wizard spell lists.

2) With the Bard-type spellcasting option, I wouldn't chage the spell list, just cap it at level 6 spells like the bard.

[Draz74]

PHB2 Shapeshift Variant is an excellent way to nerf Wild Shape.

Combine that with the Bard-progression casting option, and I'd say you'll have a Tier 3 Druid. Note that, as Talya said, using Bard progression without adjusting spell levels might lead to the Druid not being able to cast some spells that really aren't overpowering anyway.

The nice thing about this nerf is that, unlike a Wizard or Cleric that's nerfed to the Bard progression, the Shapeshift Druid doesn't become boring to the point of pointlessness at low levels, since he can still turn into a friggin' mini-tiger from Level 1. As often as he likes.

Tiers aren't the end-all of balance, though. If your Druid player isn't all that careful about his spell selection -- and especially if he sticks to Core Druid spells, except for a couple of problem spells like Shapechange -- then a no-Wild-Shape, no-Animal Companion Druid could probably fit in with a Tier 3 party fine, even if he's technically still Tier 1.

[Curmudgeon]

1) I though the Druid spell list was considered far inferior to the cleric or wizard spell lists.
No, it's just different. In particular areas the Druid is greatly superior to other casters. Just look at the difference with Control Weather (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/controlWeather.htm): a Druid of the same level is 4.5 times more powerful than a Cleric or Wizard (2.25 times the area and 2 times the duration). With Commune with Nature the Druid can get an idea of people, presence of powerful unnatural creatures, and the general state of the natural setting covering many square miles around them. Cast once or twice daily the Druid will have advance notice of potential trouble that's coming through anything other than teleportation. Of course, with an empathic link to a flying animal companion, or using wild shape to assume a flying form, that's just divination gravy on some already meaty surveillance capabilities ─ but it is handy to know about enemies who are too stealthy to be seen coming.

In other areas, the Druid can greatly benefit from Greenbound Summoning (Lost Empires of Faerûn, page 8), which turbocharges all Summon Nature's Ally creatures with virtually no downside. (How often do you come across enemies with attacks specific to plants?) And this stacks with the benefits of Augment Summoning. The Druid can crank out some seriously nasty attack plantimals with that combination of feats. Wizards and Clerics boost their spells with metamagic feats, but virtually all of that comes with the price of higher spell levels. Since Summon Nature's Ally isn't on the Wizard or Cleric spell lists, this is a clear win for the Druid.

If you want overall breadth, other spell lists are indeed superior. If you concentrate on what the Druid does well, you'll kick the butts of other Tier 1 spellcasters.

[Ravens_cry]

Ithink one way to nerf them it to make three separate classes that are different aspects of the druid. Call them, say, Skinchanger, Beastmaster, and Druid. The Skinchanger changes into different animals. The Beastmaster is basically pokemon, controlling animals with 4th level casting to buff and heal. Druid is the Druid casting abilities.
So yeah, Ban the Druid, but still allow people to play at least part of what they want to play when they play a druid.

[Philistine]

Combine Talya's and Draz's suggestions, and have a Spontaneous Casting (UA) Shapeshift (PHB2) Druid. No actual houseruling or homebrewing required, and it certainly bumps him down at least one tier - maybe two.

[Psyren]

Hey All:

I have a player interestedin in playing a druid with a party of tier 3/4 characters (Duskblade, Swordsage, PsyWar, and a Divine Bard -- Party level 6). I didn't want to reject him out of hand, so I gave him the following options:

1) Play a druid that gets full casting, and a wizard style familiar, but no animal companion and wildshape.

2) Play a druid that gets Bard casting (and thus only lvl 6 spells), but gets wildshape and a familiar.

Do either of these options bring the druid down to tier 2 or 3?

Many thanks

--Wayfare

Tiers represent potential, not actual. I would let your player play the Druid as-is, and only step in if it looks like he is abusing the privilege. Nerfing him ahead of time before you even know if he plans to powergame or not isn't exactly fair unless he has a history of such.

Ban Natural Spell though, Druids don't need it.

[Coidzor]

(Wildshaping) Mystic Ranger with the Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a)feat. Maybe tweak the casting progression slightly to give some 6th level spells and/or adjust the spell list to taste.

[NecroRick]

Full casting is only Tier 1 when you (the DM) let them (the players aka the enemy) bully you into letting them take anything they want.

Consider for a moment the Divine Crusader prestige class from complete divine. It gets ninth level spells in nine levels of prestige class, so it is (in that regard) every bit as broken as the Ur-Priest. However, you hear about the Ur-Priest all the time, and never hear about the Divine Crusader... why would that be? Because of their extremely limited spell selection, the munchkins won't touch them with a ten foot pole.

If you limited the Druid to six or so DM approved spells at each level then it would put a big damper on the brokenness, and just about knock their casting right back to tier 3.

-----

Shapechanging is again only as abusive as you let it be. It seems like most of the bad abuses are things like people turning into troglodytes for +6 natural armour, some other humanoid (winged) race to get flying etc.

If you restrict them to naturally occurring animals (like the RAW says) then I think there are fewer problems. Also, slap them heavily with this:



The form chosen must be that of an animal the druid is familiar with.


So don't let them bully you into letting them change into a giant beetle or scorpion (it's classed as vermin not an animal), or an Owlbear (magical beast, not natural), or something from another plane (it's not natural _here_), or some obscure splatbook (it's not something you're familiar with).

Your more ... shall we say 'enterprising' players are going to notice that if you stick to the ordinary, boring animals, the medium ones tend to be around 3 HD - not very exciting at 5th level. The large ones (which you get at level 8) tend to be around 4-6 HD, but they will straight away spot that a polar bear gets 2 more HD than a grizzly bear, or they will want to be a rhino or a tiger. But that is where you slap them on the nose with a rolled up newspaper, tell them "Bad Druid! No Biscuit!", and then give them a list of animals that qualify for what they are familiar with.

If you don't want them flying, don't give them bats and owls.

The thing is that players will see something vaguely worded like that and leap on it as wriggle room that they can try to leverage into something that is contrary to the 'normal' or 'obvious' reading of the sentence. But as a DM do not be scared of that, because it gives you just as much wriggle room to lock them down and restrict them, and it's all perfectly within RAW, so the rawslawyers don't have a case.

-----

For the animal companion, it seems the worst abuses come from arbitrarily slapping splatbook templates on them. DO NOT LET THE PLAYER DO THIS. If they try to come up with convoluted explanations why, or want to argue the point, simply turn to them and say calmly:

"This is why you cannot have good things"

And then hand them a character sheet of a ranger instead.

If they keep complaining, take the ranger away, and give them a monk.

If they still don't get the hint, take the monk away and give them a samurai...

[Rei_Jin]

Consider the Prestige Ranger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/prestigiousCharacterClasses.htm#prestigeRanger) as another option. Combine this with the Wildshape Ranger variant and you basically have toned down casting and toned down wildshaping. Just drop the requirement to have the Combat Style for admission into the Prestige Ranger, change the animal companion gained to be equivilent to that of a standard Ranger and you're golden.

Put simply, if the player went...

Ranger 2/Druid 3/Prestige Ranger 15

In a twenty level build, they would have...

+19 BAB
+16 Fort
+13 Refl
+8 Will
Cast as a level 11 Druid (Level 6 spells)
Animal Companion as a level 11 Druid
Wildshape as a druid equal to their level, with only small or medium sized animals as options
+10ft Land Speed

[Coidzor]

Shapechanging is again only as abusive as you let it be. It seems like most of the bad abuses are things like people turning into troglodytes for +6 natural armour, some other humanoid (winged) race to get flying etc.

If you restrict them to naturally occurring animals (like the RAW says) then I think there are fewer problems.

So don't let them bully you into letting them change into a giant beetle or scorpion (it's classed as vermin not an animal), or an Owlbear (magical beast, not natural), or something from another plane (it's not natural _here_), or some obscure splatbook (it's not something you're familiar with).

Your more ... shall we say 'enterprising' players are going to notice that if you stick to the ordinary, boring animals, the medium ones tend to be around 3 HD - not very exciting at 5th level. The large ones (which you get at level 8) tend to be around 4-6 HD, but they will straight away spot that a polar bear gets 2 more HD than a grizzly bear, or they will want to be a rhino or a tiger. But that is where you slap them on the nose with a rolled up newspaper, tell them "Bad Druid! No Biscuit!", and then give them a list of animals that qualify for what they are familiar with.

:smallconfused: Where have you heard of this being a common issue where people were doing illegal things with wildshape? Also, the HD of the creature the druid turns into doesn't particularly matter for much, as it uses the Druid's HD and BAB and saves anyway. I'd suggest re-reading how wild shape works, really, as your information seems just a tad off.

Wildshape is a rather potent and useful class ability that allows the druid to dominate melee when being used in the RAW manner. That is to say, when only transforming into animals. Adding in vermin and magical beasts is unnecessary.

Further, familiarity is a knowledge nature roll away, as it is, and patronizing your players by hitting them with rolled up newspapers and playing "gotcha" with them in this manner as you're encouraging the OP to do is both the Oberoni Fallacy in spades and just plain deleterious to game and group cohesion.


For the animal companion, it seems the worst abuses come from arbitrarily slapping splatbook templates on them.

...Ok. This right here. Animal companion... abuse... No, just no.

The issue with the animal companion from a balance perspective is that it's essentially between 3/4 to 5/4 of a Fighter, that the Druid gets for free, not that people have a tendency to put template upon template upon the animal companion and have it level cities.

[NecroRick]

:smallconfused: Where have you heard of this being a common issue where people were doing illegal things with wildshape?


On these forums, actually.


...Ok. This right here. Animal companion... abuse... No, just no.

The issue with the animal companion from a balance perspective is that it's essentially between 3/4 to 5/4 of a Fighter, that the Druid gets for free, not that people have a tendency to put template upon template upon the animal companion and have it level cities.

In case you forgot, the animal companion would only beat the fighter if it had the template. Hence my suggestion to, you know, drop the template.

-----

Let's concede, for the sake of argument, that the animal companion is a good feature. Now, there is a certain kind of player that will take that good feature, and try to make it even better (by slapping on templates or what have you†). This is exactly the sort of player who needs to be firmly told "no".

It doesn't mean they're a bad person, it just means that they need clear boundaries, and unless the DM lays down guide-lines and enforces them strongly, that sort of player will ride rough-shod all over his campaign. And when at last, exhausted and weakened, the poor DM beholds the utter ruination of his beautiful setting and turns to that player and asks in a beseeching and anguished voice "WHY?! Why have you done this?" the player will turn to him and with a look of confusion, and utterly unable to comprehend why the DM's is upset, he will reply "well... you didn't say I couldn't".

-----

In any case, I am offering suggestions for how to tone down the Druid - in a thread started by someone asking for suggestions on how to do this. I have offered some easy to justify and simple to implement boundaries to put around the Druid, and you seem to have taken umbrage.

{Scrubbed}


†And frankly, the game designers deserve a slap in the face with a wet fish for making something as obviously broken and abusable as templates, but that is another story.

[Talya]

In case you forgot, the animal companion would only beat the fighter if it had the template. Hence my suggestion to, you know, drop the template.



No. He said the Animal Companion is 3/4 to 4/5ths a fighter, and the druid gets it free, in addition to all their other goodies. I would argue the Animal Companion is better than the fighter without shenanigans. Why? Because, just as most players don't attempt to put templates on their Animal Companions, most fighters take weapon focus, power attack, and cleave at level 1. Of those, power attack is pretty good (and at 1, cleave is nice, too), but it's hardly optimized. The Druid's companion is going to be better than this. Then at level 4, it gets broken wide open with combos like Natural Bond + Fleshraker dinosaurs. Suddenly even the dungeoncrasher fighter is getting overshadowed.

Things don't start looking better for the fighter as you level, either. Hey! If the druid really wants to optimize their AC, a 1 level dip in Beastmaster might hurt the spellcasting (a bad thing), but it seriously boosts that animal companion. Suddenly at 5 that magebred ghost tiger, combined with a Beastmaster dip and natural bond, has all the boosts that a riding dog would normally have had by now.

See where I'm going here? This is all unambiguously RAW. There's no questionable template shenanigans going on.

[Haarkla]

2) Tier Three
No way.

A druid with medium (Bard) casting is way better than a Bard as it has more hitpoints, can choose different spells every day, and Wildshape and animal companion >> bardic music and lore.

I say a medium casting druid is a solid tier 2 and easily the equal of a sorcerer.

[Psyren]

No way.

A druid with medium (Bard) casting is way better than a Bard as it has more hitpoints, can choose different spells every day, and Wildshape and animal companion >> bardic music and lore.

I say a medium casting druid is a solid tier 2 and easily the equal of a sorcerer.

A class with only up to 6ths, the equal of a sorcerer? I don't think so.

[NNescio]

No way.

A druid with medium (Bard) casting is way better than a Bard as it has more hitpoints, can choose different spells every day, and Wildshape and animal companion >> bardic music and lore.

I say a medium casting druid is a solid tier 2 and easily the equal of a sorcerer.

No access to 9th level spells like Timestop, Gate, and more glaringly, Shapechange means it can't hold a candle to the Sorcerer.

And we haven't started talking about sevenths and eights yet. Or Favored Souls and Psions, for that matter.

Compare the proposed druid variant with other Tier 3 classes like the Factotum, Warblade, and Psionic Warrior. Or Tier 3 list casters with 9th level spells like the Beguiler and Dread Necromancer. Heck, the aforementioned Factotum even gets to cast a single 7th level spell, drawn from the Sorc/Wiz list to boot.

A Wildshape Ranger with Sword of the Arcane Order is shockingly similar to this druid variant as well, and is still Tier 3.

[Haarkla]

No access to 9th level spells like Timestop, Gate, and more glaringly, Shapechange means it can't hold a candle to the Sorcerer.
How many games use 9th level spells?

Its not untill 12th level that the sorcerer is 2 caster levels ahead.

In a typical game a medium casting Druid would prove more flexible than a sorcerer, and would be closer to a sorcerer in power than a bard.

[Marnath]

How many games use 9th level spells?

Its not untill 12th level that the sorcerer is 2 caster levels ahead.

In a typical game a medium casting Druid would prove more flexible than a sorcerer, and would be closer to a sorcerer in power than a bard.

So add the bard spells known list too instead of letting them prepare freely from the druid list.

[NNescio]

How many games use 9th level spells?

Its not untill 12th level that the sorcerer is 2 caster levels ahead.

In a typical game a medium casting Druid would prove more flexible than a sorcerer, and would be closer to a sorcerer in power than a bard.

Friggin' seventh and eighth-level spells before then, natch. And then getting first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth level spells sooner than your variant druid before then. At increasing speeds. With significantly more spell slots. And drawn from the Sorc/Wiz list, plus some Sorc-only gems.

And really, medium casting? A medium casting class like the bard gets 1st level spells at Bard 2, seconds at Bard 4, thirds at Bard 7, fourths at Bard 10, fifths at Bard 13, and sixths at Bard 16. They only have matching access to spell levels at Level 4 and 5, and the Sorc has nearly twice as many 2nd-level spell slots at those particular character levels.

Also, you are confusing caster levels with spell levels.

In a typical game most Tier 3 classes are more 'flexible' than Tier 2 classes. Says so right there in JaronK's tier descriptions. Factotums and Beguilers have the variant druid beaten in terms of flexibility, and even in combat-heavy campaigns loaded with mindless creatures the Factotum still has the action advantage, stronger ability synergies, and more potent nova-ing capabilities. Granted, he cannot battlefield control as well (especially due to the crippling small amount of SLAs), but this particular variant druid isn't significantly stronger than other Tier 3 classes.

The Bard isn't the only Tier 3 class, and he's on the low end of the scale in core* and requires greater system mastery to build (outside core) as his options are scattered over various splatbooks.

*Ignoring the more broken uses of Diplomacy, which are almost never at play.

[Coidzor]

On these forums, actually. Without it being pointed out to them that the only way to do that is to houserule it due to being an illegal move? I'm finding the idea that you're running into this often just a tad far-fetched.


In case you forgot, the animal companion would only beat the fighter if it had the template. Hence my suggestion to, you know, drop the template.

No, your suggestion was to ban druids from having template stacking cheese. Which they're already not allowed to do by the rules, as most templates cannot be applied to the animal companion without making it ineligible to be an animal companion.

So, unless you really seriously think that the OP does not know what the rules of the game are, there's no real need to tell him to disallow people from breaking the rules.

This is especially egregious as it makes it seem like you think the only possible way that Druids have power is from illegal builds and bullying the DM rather than from the innate capabilities of the class by RAW.



Let's concede, for the sake of argument, that the animal companion is a good feature.

No need. It is. It's a free fighter that one advances just by taking more levels in Druid. That you can replace for free.


Now, there is a certain kind of player that will take that good feature, and try to make it even better (by slapping on templates or what have you†). This is exactly the sort of player who needs to be firmly told "no".

The player can't do that in the first place because it's against the rules. See my point about assuming that the OP doesn't know what the rules are.

[Rei_Jin]

I love it. A guy asks for help and suggestions, and it turns into an argument.

Is the OP still around? I'd like to get his opinion on what's been put up so far.

[Leon]

I love it. A guy asks for help and suggestions, and it turns into an argument.

Is the OP still around? I'd like to get his opinion on what's been put up so far.

Its fairly normal these days

[MeeposFire]

Another option is to keep wild shape and animal companion and give them soulmelds instead. Give them incarnate essentia, binds, and soulmeld numbers and the totemist list. Don't give them totem chakra unless you want totemists to not exist. This would be far weaker but thematic and fun than a standard druid.