how op is a moderately optimized druid v tier 3 classes

[bassmasterginga]

im going to be running a campaign in a week or so that is going to have all tier 3 classes except for a druid. I was wondering how concerned i should be about the druid outshining the other PCs. None of the other players are very optimizationaly inclined and the druid in particular only has about 5 months of DnD experience or so and doesn't read these forums so so i wont be seeing any cheese from her but still, at a level of basic optimization how much is a druid going to have over classes like sword sage or dread necromancer, and are their any steps i could take to try to mitigate this (banning spells etc?)

[Circle of Life]

If she's not really trying, just ban Natural Spell. 75% of your headaches will be gone from that simple fix, and the other 25% shouldn't show up with a new player.

[ImperatorK]

Ban the Druid.

[Darthteej]

Ban the Druid.

This could work, but I actually see a much better solution at hand. Simply ask the druid to be a Wildshape Ranger instead. The druid player gets to play a very similar class, and you get a party comprised entirely of Tier 3s. It's a win-win solution!

Huh, guess that wall of text did help. Oh well, now it's lost forever.

[bassmasterginga]

So describe the party to me, because right now I don't have enough to go off of.

I have a dread necro who is a hellbound and wants to use zombies for good. He is the only member of the party who reads these forums and will probably be the most optimized. i also have a swordsage, a crusader, a warblade, and a binder of equal skill to the druid.
thanks for the help!

edit - lol yes indeed it did help. i was momentarily confused by its disaperance :smalltongue: I will talk to her about the wild shape druid if it seems to be the best option with the party

[faceroll]

If the druid goes with a pet like a goat or an eagle, and spends most of her time turning her prep'd spells into SNAs, it'll be a time consuming turn, but shouldn't be too much of a problem.

The biggest issue is a new character messing around with summoned creatures and wildshape- kind of a mechanical headache. Lots of paperwork.

[Darthteej]

I have a dread necro who is a hellbound and wants to use zombies for good. He is the only member of the party who reads these forums and will probably be the most optimized. i also have a swordsage, a crusader, a warblade, and a binder of equal skill to the druid.
thanks for the help!

Oh yeah, that's a very balanced party. All three Tome of Battle classes? At once? They'll certainly have no problem in melee! What I said before still stands, the druid is leaning on the other characters. Tier 3s can do one thing just as well as tier 3 can, so 4 of you will be great at smashing things, 2 of you will be great against living oppoents, and 2 will be great at battlefield control.

In my experience, the kinds of tier nightmares people like to talk about only exists when the difference is Tier 1s or 2s playing with 4s or 5s. Your party is a poster child of the tail end of 3.5. which has mostly achieved balance.

[Godskook]

You shouldn't have a problem. Druid is a lot harder to optimize than people think it is, mostly cause around here, we're all really good at optimizing. I'd ask for builds up-front, so that you could trouble-shoot problems before they start.

Also, what's the rest of the group playing that they're all tier 3? That's a hard target number to hit without handing out multiple copies of ToB, but if you did that, ToB characters can [B]easily/B] co-exist with tier 1 characters at most practical levels of optimization without any issues.

Found your second post. Yeah, you're not going to have any problems whatsoever. Dread Necros are nearly impossible to outshine at what they do, and certainly not by a Druid(you'd *NEED* a cleric or wizard for that). And as I said before, ToB characters do just fine in parties with casters. The binder may or may not need help, and if he does, there's plenty of ways to buff a binder.


In my experience, the kinds of tier nightmares people like to talk about only exists when the difference is Tier 1s or 2s playing with 4s or 5s. Your party is a poster child of the tail end of 3.5. which has mostly achieved balance.

To expound on this, the 'problem' party would look like:

CW Samurai
CA Ninja
DMM Persist Cleric
Incantrix

You're party has one outlier from an otherwise single-tier party, and the outlier isn't that great at optimization, so you should be fine(new druids tend to be moar-daka druids who spec for combat like they'd spec a fighter or hippy druids who do things like choosing a camel as an AC, neither of which is very effective relative to what a real druid can do).

[bassmasterginga]

excellent, then i shal simply ban natural spell and i will be golden. Thank you all for your help!:smallsmile:

[Draz74]

If the Druid still ends up feeling more powerful than the others, just make him convert to the PHB2 Shapeshift Variant Druid.

[Gnaeus]

Or use the Pathfinder rules for wildshape, available on the srd.

[Ernir]

You'd be fine with a Planar Shepherd if the player is inexperienced/non-committed enough.

But the player won't stay inexperienced forever. Some people learn easily, and fast. Bite of the Werebear-ed Dire Bear poo could hit the fan if your player learns the value of simply reading the Spell Compendium and creating a buffstack before battle. And I haven't seen a simple fix invasive enough to change that.

[aquaticrna]

even well buffed the bear is still just a melee slugger in a party of melee sluggers, so while a bit stronger that still doesn't make the rest of the party irrelevant.

edit: typo

[Grendus]

Yea, as they've said it really shouldn't be a problem. Unlike the fighter, paladin, and rogue (the core analogues to ToB classes), they won't be outclassed by the druid's animal companion, and Binders and Dread Necromancers are both flexible and powerful. I wouldn't even be surprised if, in their elements, the other party members outshine the druid on a regular basis. T1's only become problematic with optimization, or if the party is using craptastic classes (even a basic druid will make the CW Samurai look bad).

You probably don't even need to ban Natural Spell, though it can't hurt. T3 classes hold their own very well, shouldn't be a problem.

[Fouredged Sword]

White raven abilites from two characters plus a swarm of zombies and animals to infulence will dominate all combat. Anything chargeable will die when the warblade causes the 20-30 sparrows the druid wild empathied and handled into war animals all are given a +10 damage AOO free charge.

All you need to complete the sillyness is a dragonfire insperation bard to grant all the sparrows +5d6 sonic damage:smalltongue:

[NNescio]

White raven abilites from two characters plus a swarm of zombies and animals to infulence will dominate all combat. Anything chargeable will die when the warblade causes the 20-30 sparrows the druid wild empathied and handled into war animals all are given a +10 damage AOO free charge.

All you need to complete the sillyness is a dragonfire insperation bard to grant all the sparrows +5d6 sonic damage:smalltongue:

Charging Sparrow Hengeyoukai Bard?

http://ompldr.org/vOXFkcQ/2fb394590aafa397a671451354134472.jpg

[bassmasterginga]

You'd be fine with a Planar Shepherd if the player is inexperienced/non-committed enough.

But the player won't stay inexperienced forever. Some people learn easily, and fast. Bite of the Werebear-ed Dire Bear poo could hit the fan if your player learns the value of simply reading the Spell Compendium and creating a buffstack before battle. And I haven't seen a simple fix invasive enough to change that.

are there any spells i should be particularly scared of, particularly in the low - medium level range? she does have access to the spell compendium and ive already got a wif of snakes swiftness mass.

edit - how do I become a member of the super special awsome fanclub? i must know! long live little koriboh

[Glimbur]

Spirit Shaman from Complete Divine has some of the same abilities and flavor as the druid, but their special spontaneous spellcasting and lack of wildshape make them Tier... 2, I think. It's another option.

Alternately, you could change absolutely nothing and see how it plays out. It causes more resentment to ban someone's toys after they use them, but it is also lazier now.

[Fouredged Sword]

ENTANGLE for the love of palor!

[aquaticrna]

blinding spittle and kelp strands are both incredibly good... the first is instant blindness on a touch attack (-4 to hit but who cares!) and the second allows you to grapple multiple people at once (without having to continue grappling them) and for your check it's d20+BAB+CL+wis so you're very good at it and you can hit the same creature with multiple strands! (they're both lv 2 spells)

[Fouredged Sword]

You are unlikely to run into this, but fell drain + any spell that allows for lots of seperate attacks is very powerful. Produce flame is such a spell on the druid list.

[magic9mushroom]

Once they level up a bit, beware Control Winds.

[Ernir]

are there any spells i should be particularly scared of, particularly in the low - medium level range? she does have access to the spell compendium and ive already got a wif of snakes swiftness mass.

It's not really any particular spell, or a group of them. It's more the fact that most of them stack.

At ECL 8, wildshaping into a dire lion can make you a fair melee machine for the level. Bite of the Wereboar is pretty cool too, but not really going to change you into a melee-er in one go. Neither is Girallon's Blessing.
But now, apply all of the above (or, hell, more! No reason to stop there), and compare to a not-very-optimized ToB character.



If you want to hear spell names, I suppose the Bite of the X series of spells is among the bigger mid-level druid superbuff offenders, but that's not really the core of the issue. The issue is that the Druid has a powerful casting mechanic.

[Quietus]

excellent, then i shal simply ban natural spell and i will be golden. Thank you all for your help!:smallsmile:

This shouldn't be too necessary if the player is new. If they spend time trying to be a melee brute in a party of competent melee, whatever.