Optimizing Core Druid

[gamma]

Hello guys.
My character is a druid 15th, human. I have to choose feats, and equipment...

I wish I had some advice to optimize it, however we play
only with the 3 core rulebooks and latest errata corrige (so
the druid does not use magic items in wild form!).
I searched and read various guides, but usually they refer to the class
before of these changes (when she was a really overpowered class ) or they include all published handbooks.

So I want to know what are your concerns about the best feats, spells,
animal companions, wild forms, magic items, tricks, strategies, etc ... that
you would use with just with the core rulebooks allowed and at this level (from 15 to 20).

Thank you

[BobVosh]

"when she was a really overpowered class "
Was?

Anyway pick up natural spell as it is really quite incredibly good. Then let us know what kind of druid you wish to go so we can help more accurately.

[Little Brother]

Core only druid optimization?

Step 1) Take natural Spell
Step 2) ???
Step 3) Profit.

Seriously, in core only, it is REALLY hard to screw up a mono-classed druid. Turn into a dire bear and eat people. Style points to have a mounted fighter riding you as bear cavalry. Or, you know, being a bear riding a bear while shooting bears.

[sonofzeal]

Core only druid optimization?

Step 1) Take natural Spell
Step 2) ???
Step 3) Profit.

Seriously, in core only, it is REALLY hard to screw up a mono-classed druid. Turn into a dire bear and eat people.
*sigh* (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223072)

(edit)
To be a little more helpful - you need armor in Wildshape in order to bite face. You're lvl 15, and Core Only so Wild armor's probably your best bet here. That said, your best asset is still your spellcasting. You've got great utility, battlefield control, and summons. Biting faces off should be pretty far down your list of priorities.

[gkathellar]

*sigh* (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223072)

Alas, in core-only this is pretty close to the truth. Once you start throwing around Fleshrakers and Wild Clasps and warforged and buffing to high heaven, things change. But up to that point, you need to be a little more careful playing a druid.

[gamma]

Alas, in core-only this is pretty close to the truth. Once you start throwing around Fleshrakers and Wild Clasps and warforged and buffing to high heaven, things change. But up to that point, you need to be a little more careful playing a druid.
I agree.

Anyway, i rarely use wild shape, i don't want lose bonus granted by magic items and i like to talk xD , so usually i stay in human form, casting control or summoning spells.
These are my feats:
Spell Focus (conjuration)
Agument Summoning
Improved Initiative
Natural Spell
Scribe Scrolls
Quicken spells

Suggestion about feats or magic items?

[sonofzeal]

Monk's Belt + Bracers of Armor (+ Ring of Protection + Amulet of Natural Armor) likely gets you a quite competitive AC. You're up in the levels where AC stops mattering as much, but that also depends on the campaign. It's at least worth pointing out.

Pearls of Power are always good for extra low level utility slots.

Metamagic Rods are awesome, get one or two of Extend if nothing else!

[Darrin]

The key to breaking the world in half with a Druidzilla is spell selection. In this other thread, I highlighted (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12183941&postcount=4) some key spells (but completely failed to notice the OP was playing Pathfinder). Here's a cut&paste of the Core spells:

1st
Entangle (core). Your bread-and-butter debuff, particularly at low levels, and unless you have Sculpt Spell you want to get this off early before everyone closes to melee and friendlies get in the way.

Faerie fire (core). Negates invisiblity, blur, blink, and most other forms of concealment (except for magical darkness). Another good spell to "paint" enemies on the first round, and then follow up with obscuring mist/fog cloud so you can pepper them with ranged attacks while they stumble through fog/entangle squares.

Produce flame (core). The "druid crossbow", ranged touch attacks out to 120', or shift into wildshape and add fire damage to one of your claw attacks. Can also be used to light things on fire, such as oil, webs (via the spell or monstrous spider summons), incendiary slime, or wall of thorns (hey it's magical fire).

2nd
Fire Trap (Core). Cast this on every flask of acid, oil, alchemist's fire, or other grenade-like weapon your party can get their hands on.

Flame Blade (Core). Melee touch attacks with a scimitar, so it's like getting wraithstrike for free.

Soften Earth and Stone (Core). Lets your dire badgers tunnel throw solid rock.

Spider Climb (Core). Standing on the ceiling gets you out of melee, and lets you to rain down fire and lightning.

Summon Nature's Ally II (Core). Dire badgers are one of the few creatures that leave tunnels behind them when they burrow. Use soften earth and stone to let them tunnel through solid rock. When DMs design impregnable fortresses and deathtrap dungeons, they hardly ever anticipate tunneling.

Summon Swarm (Core). Battlefield control, area-effect damage, and nausea all wrapped up into a single spell.

3rd
Call Lightning (Core). Your basic druidzilla artillery spell. Cast cloudburst to increase the damage to 3d10, and add Sculpt Spell to go from artillery to carpet-bombing.

Sleet Storm (Core). Battlefield control to block LOS and force balance checks (slippery surface = more sneak attacks).

Summon Nature's Ally III (Core). Upgrade your dire badger burrowers to a thoqqua, the only other creature in core that leaves a tunnel behind when it burrows, only this one can dig through solid rock without softening it up first.

4th
Flame Strike (Core). You get this before any of the other top-tier casters, and it remains one of your best blasty-spells up to 15th level.

Ice Storm (Core). Not quite as satisfying as flame strike, but a good area-effect damage spell, particularly if you get tired of hearing "Evasion, no damage" or "roll for Spell Resistance".

5th
Wall of Thorns (Core). Treehugger version of solid fog.

6th
Fire Seeds (Core). Throw acorn grenades up to 100' (20d6 max damage), or create remote-activated claymore mines.

7th
Fire Storm (Core). Up to 20d6 fire damage with a bunch of 10' cubes.

9th
Shapechange (Core). Tops most if not all lists of "broken spells".

[RedWarrior0]

Also, take off your magic items, wildshape, put your magic items back on.

And don't get command word magic items.

Finally, see if you can get telepathy somehow instead of talking.

[Urpriest]

Finally, see if you can get telepathy somehow instead of talking.

To add to this last, in core you can do this with Rary's Telepathic Bond from a friendly Wizard, or the cursed Medallion of Thought Projection.

[erikun]

Augment Summoning is generally good, as druids get some of the tougher summoned creatures by default. Natural Spell will allow you to cast regardless of if you are wildshaped or not, and can be quite useful.

Remember that your buffs will affect your animal companion as well if they are next to you when casting, so Barkskin + Magic Fang can be very beneficial.

Druids are very good at breaking the action economy. One druid plus one animal companion equals two actions a round, which may not sound like much but works very well with animals with good abilities (riding dog's trip) or when straight-up meleeing something. Throw in a summon or two, and you can easily be taking more actions per round than the rest of the party. Wildshape may not be amazing without Fleshrakers and wild clasps, but it is still the ability to go anywhere you want to, at any time.

Darrin highlighted a bunch of useful spells; Entangle in particular is a day-one way to shut down many enemies. Shillelagh (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shillelagh.htm) is nice if you want to step into melee with a 2d6+1 weapon, or give one to your melee guy. [Edit] You can't hand off the Shillelagh to another character, sorry.

You might want Scribe Scroll and Craft Wand if your campaign allows item creation. Both are a great way to store "extra" spells for anytime you need them, and the GP/XP costs are pretty minimal.

[BobVosh]

Shillelagh (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shillelagh.htm) is nice if you want to step into melee with a 2d6+1 weapon, or give one to your melee guy.

This spell only works if you are the one wielding the weapon. So you can't hand it off, unfortunately.

[erikun]

This spell only works if you are the one wielding the weapon. So you can't hand it off, unfortunately.
Whoops; thanks for correcting me on that point. :smallredface:

[deuxhero]

If you have anyone with Mage Armor in the party, just buy them a Pearl of Power 1st level and have them cast Mage Armor on you. Then maul face.

If you started lower, I'd say take Spell Focus: Conjuration and Augment Summoning, but summoning is rather useless in core only at 15 (remeber Unicorn does give some good healing for your spontaneous SNA 4s), though you don't have much better options in core. Improved Initiative and metamagic (extend for your buffs) are fairly good as far as core only goes.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If you have anyone with Mage Armor in the party, just buy them a Pearl of Power 1st level and have them cast Mage Armor on you. Then maul face.

If you started lower, I'd say take Spell Focus: Conjuration and Augment Summoning, but summoning is rather useless in core only at 15 (remeber Unicorn does give some good healing for your spontaneous SNA 4s), though you don't have much better options in core. Improved Initiative and metamagic (extend for your buffs) are fairly good as far as core only goes.

Empower + Poison spell = good times. 1d10 * 1.5 Con damage on a touch attack.

You want to be in a wildshape because many of the forms you can take (any of the Large or larger animals) increase your reach, so you can hit opponents with a touch spell (Poision, Produce Flame, Rusting Grasp, and using Holly Bombs from Fire Seeds with a Large reach means you can throw them an extra 5' and be out of the blast radius when they go off...).

[Killer Angel]

Alas, in core-only this is pretty close to the truth. Once you start throwing around Fleshrakers and Wild Clasps and warforged and buffing to high heaven, things change. But up to that point, you need to be a little more careful playing a druid.

Indeed. Flying and casting from a safe position is usually good and safer than go in cc.

[Little Brother]

Indeed. Flying and casting from a safe position is usually good and safer than go in cc.But you cannot taste the sweet and salty tears of the fighter at that range.

[hex0]

Core only huh? Core-core or SRD core?

No one mentioned Multiattack and Improved Natural Attack yet?

[Killer Angel]

But you cannot taste the sweet and salty tears of the fighter at that range.

Probably that's precisely the reason behind the fact that the druid is usually the one with the highest bonus in spot in the entire game... :smalltongue:

[candycorn]

Probably that's precisely the reason behind the fact that the druid is usually the one with the highest bonus in spot in the entire game... :smalltongue:

This is truth. With Spot as a class skill, and wisdom as the single overriding primary focus for the class, you're usually sitting pretty on spotting. Add listen to that, and possibly scent... and while you'll not taste the fighter's tears from 30 feet up, you'll see them, smell them, and hear the fighter sobbing.

[gkathellar]

But you cannot taste the sweet and salty tears of the fighter at that range.

It's okay. Your animal companion can do that for you.

[Piggy Knowles]

The key to breaking the world in half with a Druidzilla is spell selection. In this other thread, I highlighted (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12183941&postcount=4) some key spells (but completely failed to notice the OP was playing Pathfinder). Here's a cut&paste of the Core spells:

Pretty good selection, but you missed a few of my favorites:

2: Gust of Wind. Excellent against flying enemies, small enemies, swarms, fog effects, boats, etc. Debuffs ranged attacks and listen checks. Turn it into an AoE attack by adding fire, sand, whatever. A seriously multipurpose spell that you can pretty much always find a use for.

Warp Wood. Stays good at higher levels, as you gain the ability to warp much bigger objects. A lot of things are made out of wood. This is more effective than fire at dealing with them.

3: Wind Wall. Complete immunity to arrows, gases, and pixies. One of my favorite defensive spells.

4: Giant Vermin. If you're 15th level and have a bead of karma (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#strandofPrayerBeads), this means that you can create, say, three gargantuan monstrous centipedes per casting. That said, I prefer monstrous spiders - milk them for their excellent venom (2d6 Str damage - be sure to buff their Con up before milking, so that you boost the DC!), and they can web anything in the game.

5: Control Winds. Gigantic area with built-in shaping, really powerful effects, and unlike Control Weather, it's only a standard action to cast. This is one of those army-destroying spells, and one of my favorite in the game, Core or not.

Animal Growth. Nice when you've got a good number of summoned critters out. Ordinarily I'm not a huge fan of buffs that you can't cast well in advance, but this one is worth it. More powerful natural weapons, better reach, +8 Str, +4 Con, improved natural armor, damage reduction, save bonuses, and it will effect every animal you've got out on the field.

6: Find the Path. You know, Contact Other Plane gets a lot of grief for breaking campaigns, but in many ways, this is worse. One spell makes you better at the rogue's job than the rogue could ever be. Just be careful not to hurt the poor sap's feelings...

Spellstaff. Got downtime? Fill up a bunch of mundane wooden staff with a utility spell. It's permanent until discharged, so this is an excellent way to expand your spell list, and if you're starting at high levels, it's a way better solution than crafting scrolls.

7: Transmute Metal to Wood. Long range, large area, no saving throw. Just turn a bunch of stuff into wood. Fairly minor debuff on its own (-2 to attacks/AC, and a chance of weapons breaking, is not much for a level 7 spell.) But again, permanently turn every piece of metal in a rather large area to wood, with no saving throw, as a standard action. And druids are really good at messing around with wood.

8: Reverse Gravity. No save, just flail around helplessly for a while. Sure, it comes in a level later than wizards get it, but it's still an excellent spell.

9: Foresight. Good for all the same reasons wizards love it. Especially nice because, in a core-only game, you can't just turn into a dire tortoise.

And, while you're at it, by 15th level, you can pretty much expect you and your animal companion to always have the following buffs up, as they either last hours per level, or last 10 minutes per level and can be extended to last 6+ hours.

HOUR/LEVEL BUFFS:

Longstrider (1st)
Pass without Trace (1st)
Greater Magic Fang (4th)
Tree Stride (5th)
Wind Walk (5th)

10 MIN/LEVEL EXTENDABLE BUFFS:

Barkskin (2nd)
Resist Energy (2nd)
Air Walk (4th)
Freedom of Movement (4th)
Stoneskin (5th)

[gamma]

This is what i like! Druid is an awesome caster, why spend feats, actions, hp, etc...just to be a decent fighter?



Spellstaff. Got downtime? Fill up a bunch of mundane wooden staffs with utility spells. It's permanent until discharged, so this is an excellent way to expand your spell list, and if you're starting at high levels, it's a way better solution than crafting scrolls.

A bunch? mmmh...i remember you can have just one of that

[candycorn]

A bunch? mmmh...i remember you can have just one of that
This.


You store one spell that you can normally cast in a wooden quarterstaff. Only one such spell can be stored in a staff at a given time, and you cannot have more than one spellstaff at any given time.Emphasis mine.

Still, it's great for emergency spells, that you don't want to prepare every day, but could be vital to have at some time or another.

[Piggy Knowles]

A bunch? mmmh...i remember you can have just one of that

Good catch - it has been years since I've played a high level druid. Still an excellent spell, but not quite as completely amazing.