Need a good non-core book for druid

[lyko555]

As titled I am currently playing in a game and the dm is getting upset at my
war blades maneuvers and how they work so i may have to make a new character so Im aiming at druid. We just hit 8th lvl so i figured id build for that.
Book allowance is Core plus 1 Splatbook. just wondering what would give me the most bang for my book.

Also the dm is very much melee should not have nice things, but casters should nuke the world so i figured id play up to his expectations.
thanks in advance

[eggs]

Spell Compendium, without a doubt. Nothing else adds that many or that versatile of bonuses at once. The only exception would be if your group is really open to independent research.

[tyckspoon]

For 'one splat', seconding Spell Compendium for any kind of caster. If you wanted to focus on Wildshaping instead, I'd go for something with a *really good* Wildshape form appropriate to the levels you expect to use the character or possibly one of the alternate wildshape feats. But casting-centric, definitely Spell Compendium.

[Sith_Happens]

Also the dm is very much melee should not have nice things, but casters should nuke the world so i figured id play up to his expectations.

Better idea: Rub a melee druid in his face.:smalltongue:

Not sure if there's any one splatbook that would let you pull that off though.

[lyko555]

We already use the spell compendium. the dms wife browbeat him into using it so she could have more cleric spells. So its kinda like the core stepkid.
i was just wondering about feats or prestige class's. should i just go pure core?

[NOhara24]

We already use the spell compendium. the dms wife browbeat him into using it so she could have more cleric spells. So its kinda like the core stepkid.
i was just wondering about feats or prestige class's. should i just go pure core?

So you've got Core and the Spell Compendium. Your Druid is already broken. Want to drive your DM insane? The only book you'll need is Faiths of Eberron.

Druid 5/Planar Shepard 10. One of the most broken 15 level combinations in existence.

[Sith_Happens]

So you've got Core and the Spell Compendium. Your Druid is already broken. Want to drive your DM insane? The only book you'll need is Faiths of Eberron.

Druid 5/Planar Shepard 10. One of the most broken 15 level combinations in existence.

AFB right now, does SpC have good stuff for a melee druid? Because I still say the only proper response to a "melee can't have nice things but casters can" DM is to make a caster focused on melee.:smallamused:

[The Glyphstone]

AFB right now, does SpC have good stuff for a melee druid? Because I still say the only proper response to a "melee can't have nice things but casters can" DM is to make a caster focused on melee.:smallamused:

It has the Bite of the Were-X spells and Enhance Wild Shape. So, yes most definitely.

[hamishspence]

Complete Divine? has druid PRCs and feats. The DM's wife will appreciate it for the cleric stuff too.

[Gavinfoxx]

Why don't you read the Druid Handbook and ecide what you want most urgently from that?

I would maybe suggest one of the Monster Manuals with good forms, or a book with really good feats.

Oooh, How about Magic Item Compendium, for Wilding Clasps and Pearls of Speech?

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1354.0

[Yajirobe]

Hi everyone! First post ever!

Well, I'm not really an optimizer, but have you considered Wild Fury of Chislev from Dragonlance Holy Orders of the Stars? You have to burn 2 subpar feats (endurance and Toughness) but the prestige is 10/10 casting, full Wild shape, +20 to speed when wild shaped, permanent Magic Fang on you at your caster level (replaced by greater magic fang later) and 5 bonus feats from the list: Great fortitude, Imp. critical, Imp. Natural Armor, Imp. Natural Attack, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack, Natural Spell, Weapon Focus.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

MM II I believe is the one with the Fleshraker in it...

[Dusk Eclipse]

MM 3 for the delicious Fleshraker :smallamused:

[Gavinfoxx]

Fleshraker is great, IF you need a medium sized form (ie, you are under level 8 and are considering doing lots of dungeon delving), but there are LOTS of other great forms out there too!

What levels do you expect to spend most time at?

[docnessuno]

Spell compendium => Spells.

Races of Eberron => A great PRC (moonspeaker), great racial sub levels and the race to use both (shifter).

Complete champion => The best magic item for summoning druids (ring of the beast). The rest of the set is also nice.

Lost empires of faerun => An incredibly overpowered feat for summoners (greenbound summoning).

Draconomicon => An amazing feat (dragon wild shape).

Serpent Kingdoms => One of the most overpowered druid spell ever made (venomfire).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Fleshraker is great, IF you need a medium sized form (ie, you are under level 8 and are considering doing lots of dungeon delving), but there are LOTS of other great forms out there too!

What levels do you expect to spend most time at?

Fleshrakers also make excellent animal companions starting at level 5.

And yea, MM3... my bad.

[Randomguy]

What about frostburn? I heard that there were tons of great battlefield control spells there. Stuff that could bury your enemies in snow and then drain the life out of them. I think it's also got frozen wildshape.

[lyko555]

Hi everyone! First post ever!

Well, I'm not really an optimizer, but have you considered Wild Fury of Chislev from Dragonlance Holy Orders of the Stars? You have to burn 2 subpar feats (endurance and Toughness) but the prestige is 10/10 casting, full Wild shape, +20 to speed when wild shaped, permanent Magic Fang on you at your caster level (replaced by greater magic fang later) and 5 bonus feats from the list: Great fortitude, Imp. critical, Imp. Natural Armor, Imp. Natural Attack, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack, Natural Spell, Weapon Focus.

Woot very helpful first post ever. i didn't know that class existed thanks for pointing it out ill get bonus points for using dragonlance material. and it still counts as a core book so i can still pull feats or spells from another source.
so now its a druid with fighter type feat progression with a fleshraker (if i can find one) and fleshrakers doable at lvl 5 before i lose my companion advancement?



edit for clarifications. right now we are lvl 7 with the xp to hit lvl 8 I expect the dm to either kill my warblade once i start showing off 4th lvl manuevers or just ask me to make a new character. I cant really use setting specific books tho unless they are from dragonlance.

[Yajirobe]

Wait a minute... Dragonlance material counts as "core" to you???

Well, that way I'd second the ones saying to grab Draconomicon's Dragon Wild Shape and go to town on Dragonlance's Dragons of Krynn.

[Gavinfoxx]

http://web.archive.org/web/20080919131238/http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-404381 Well, there are the forms you can use with Dragon Wild Shape normally. I dunno if there is anything in Dragons of Krynn which you can use..

I like Frostburn for Frozen Wild Shape if you are level 15. Cryohydra!

[Yajirobe]

Since it seems that Dragonlance is "fair game" and I am a Dragonlance junkie, allow me to elaborate:

Unless your DM forfeits the "suggestion" on Bestiary of Krynn (that to only grab the monsters from MM1 and some specific ones from Fiend Folio and MM2), you should never get the Fleshraker, since they are on MM3. If he does allow it, you only need to pray to your god (Chislev in this case) for 24 hours and you shall get your Companion. Even if you are in the middle of the Blood Sea.

Someone with more knowledge than me on this please enlighten me: In Dragon Wild Shape, can you shape into any form with the type "Dragon"? If not, you still get the "classical" dragons and since it's Wild Shape, they get all the perks from Wild Fury when you take the form. If any Dragon creature is fair game, you may shape into Draconians(noble and regular), Dragonspawn, Chaos Dragons and lots of Dragon stuff.

[Uncensored]

Make a Druid
Utilize the Warshaper prestige class
???
Profit!

[Gavinfoxx]

Draconomicon's Dragon Wild Shape has a TON of restrictions, actually. The earliest you can take the feat is level 12.

You can't get any sizes other than Small and Medium, for example. You gain only the Extraordinary and Supernatural, not spell like and spellcasting.

That's why that handbook is full of forms like:

Wyrmling Red
Wyrmling Gold
Young Fang
Young Black
Young Brass
Very Young Silver
Young Shadow
Young Green
etc.

If you want to be a Young Adult, you have to be level 16, and you are limited to Shadow or Steel, or Song at level 17.

[Yajirobe]

But can you get stuff like Dragonne and other "fake dragons"?

Because Draconians are medium sized and the strongest ones get like 2 extra hit dice. You can't Dragon Wild Shape into tiny at all? I ask that because there is a Dragon on Bestiary of Krynn that gets a huge bonus (something like +10 or +15) on Disguise checks when he is trying to pass as an ordinary dagger.

Dragonspawn is medium as well. Probably the Chaos Dragons would be out, but I wouldn't rule a wyrmling or Very Young Chaos Dragon out.

I thought of Dragon Wild Shape because he would get the bonus from the prestige and there is a bazillion dragons on Dragonlance. The thing is: most of them are "fake dragons", stuff that got the Dragon type but is not a dragon like the mental picture that apears when you think "dragon".

[Gavinfoxx]

Hmmm.

Well that handbook DOES have things like

the MM2 Felldrakes
Portal Drakes
Faerie Dragon
Ssvalkor
Plains Landwyrm


Are the Dragonlance non true dragons (ie, no power increase with age categories) ever medium or small, NOT templated, and under 15 hit dice?

[Yajirobe]

Draconians are a separate race (with the dragon type). the strongest one got 8 HD. They have a variation for each base dragon (all 10 types).
Draconian goodies (Death Throes, Kapak saliva (male and female versions), Aurak Alternate form, Sivak Shapeshift and etc...) are all Supernatural. With exception to Sivak, which is Large, all base Draconians are Medium. Flame and Lightning Noble Draconians are Large. Every other Noble Draconian is medium

Feeder (the dagger-dragon) is 2 HD, but he is Diminutive, so it would be off-limits.

Dragonspawn is a Template.

Hatori is 10 HD, but is Large

Chaos Dragons, Amphi-Dragons, Sea Dragons and Aquatic Dragons (yes. different species) are all true dragons.

[Eldariel]

This...isn't really close. Outside Planar Shepherd, nothing offers the sheer expansion of versatility that Spell Compendium does. PS is broken so I suggest against that. Spell Compendium though simply expands upon your abilities; out of all Core casters, Druid benefits of it the most since they gain a vast array of things they had poor access to before.

True standouts include:
- Master Earth [7th Level]: Teleportation for Druids, more or less.
- Enhance Wildshape [4th Level]: An absolutely incredible hour/level buff capable of duplicating Extraordinaries of your Wildshape targets (this includes things like Regeneration, Blindsight and company) - can also be cast multiple times for some stat buffs and stuff.
- Bite of the Werebear [6th Level] (less so Weretiger, Wereboar, Wererat, etc.): Highest Enhancement-bonuses to stats available in the game; obvious utility.
- Blinding Spittle [2nd Level]: One of the best ranged attack spells, especially for its level. Saves suck. This really improves a Druid's ability to meaningfully attack Touch AC.
- Resistance, Superior [6th Level]: An easy way to remove the need for a Resistance-item.
- Lesser Vigor [1st Level]: Most slot-efficient healing in the game, perfect for Wands.
- Listening Lorecall [2nd Level]/Blindsight [3rd Level]: Who needs silly See Invisibilities again? Blindsight FTW.
- Lion's Charge [3rd Level]: Swift Action that removes the need for Pounce inherent to forms you use. Eats spellslots quite fast though, of course.
- Snake's Swiftness [2nd Level]: Makeshift Haste (the extra attack part, at least).
- Last Breath [4th Level]: Free Revives (with provisos)? Yeah, it's nice.
- Pancaea [5th Level]: Not quite Restoration but complements Lesser Restoration and Heal nicely in Druid's restorative arsenal.
- Sheltered Vitality [4th Level]: Nice complement to Death Wards.
- Owl's Insight [5th Level]: Massive Insight-bonus to Wisdom. The utility should be fairly obvious.


The amount of utility you get out of SC is just unrivalled. Other options include anything with Wilding Clasps (probably Magic Item Compendium) and some monster books. Generally though, nothing does as much as Spell Compendium does here.

You get specific companions from certain books, specific spells from others and so on but nothing does the whole deal like Spell Compendium does. They might do individual things better but they'll invariably miss out on others.

[Yajirobe]

He said Spell Compendium is already in. He already got 90% of the cheese he needs. He just wants to do that extra mile

[Eldariel]

He said Spell Compendium is already in. He already got 90% of the cheese he needs. He just wants to do that extra mile

Oops, true. Huh, I missed that response. I'd go for Wilding Clasps then. Though Book of Exalted Deeds has a few fun Sanctified Spells too if that's up your alley.

[Gavinfoxx]

Wilding Clasps from Magic Item Compendium are fun!

What level are you starting at?

[lyko555]

Starting at lvl 8 all dragonlance books are considered core as its a Dragonlance campaign. That also means that i cant use other faction specific books so no forgotten realms or ebberon pretty's

[Darrin]

He said Spell Compendium is already in. He already got 90% of the cheese he needs. He just wants to do that extra mile

If Spell Compendium is already in, then I'd just go with Frostburn. Conjure ice beast, skull talismans, frozen wild shape cryohydras.

[Rejusu]

Starting at lvl 8 all dragonlance books are considered core as its a Dragonlance campaign. That also means that i cant use other faction specific books so no forgotten realms or ebberon pretty's

Such a shame, planar shepard from Faiths of Ebberon would have made him cry. See if he'll allow it anyway and hope he doesn't notice how broken it is.

[Person_Man]

I'm going outside of the box and will vote for Lords of Madness, which has:

Aberration Wild Shape Feat: You can now Wildshape into Aberrations of the same size as your animal forms.
30ish new/revised aberrations for you to turn into! My favorite is the Urophion (12hd, large aberration), which has 6 strands (grabbing tentacle things), a bite, and the (Ex) Weakness (anyone grabbed takes must Save or take massive Strength damage) and Extraction (full round action, extract the brain of a creature you bite, killing it) abilities.
Darkstalker Feat: When you Hide , creatures with Blindsense, Blindsight, Scent, or Tremorsense must make a Listen or Spot check to find you. Since so many animal/aberration forms grant massive Hide and Move Silently bonuses, all Druids should invest in them cross-class, and get in the habit of using them constantly (both to ambush enemies, and to avoid enemy ambushes).
Deepspawn Feat: +2 tentacle attacks. And since it's a Feat, it's always functional, even when you Wildshape!.
Inhuman Reach Feat: +5 feet to your natural reach. Now all of your natural weapons are reach weapons, making attacks of opportunity much easier.
Occular Spell Feat: Can store 2 ray spells in your eyes, and cast both of them together as a Full Round Action. Laser eyes!
Starspawn Feat: Flight = 1/2 your base land speed, plus Cold Resistance 5.
Dust of Negation: One time Anti-Magic Field for a reasonable price.

[Malachei]

Sandstorm. And it has "broken" stuff, like Frostburn, as well. I'd say proceed with caution :)

[Gavinfoxx]

I would say that Magic Item Compendium is such a powerful boost for EVERYONE that it should be allowed...

[Feralventas]

A lot of good suggestions thus far. I'd like to toss my hat in for Unearthed Arcana for the druid variants available there. One of them trades away Wild Shape, but in return gains a Monk's unarmored AC bonus and unarmed attacks, and the Ranger's Favored Enemies and Tracking, both scaling with your druid level as your effective level for the alternate features. It's a little weaker than the regular druid at levels 5-15, but before then it's got a step above the normal core, and after that you've got Shape-change and the like anyway.

If you want to emphasize the combative aspects rather than just transforming into a bear that flies around shooting lightning out of its eyes, it might be an easier way to go.

[Gavinfoxx]

But you can get Unearthed Arcana on the SRD... and SRD is in, isn't it?

Anyway, all the UA variants are Druids nerfs. Really! They do sometimes make things simpler, though...

Also, Frostburn gets you lots of useful spells, too.

But Pearl of Speech & Wilding Clasp are just sooo gooood...

[Yajirobe]

If Spell Compendium is already in, maybe MIC is in as well. TC, could you please say if it's so?

[Darth Stabber]

I'm going outside of the box and will vote for Lords of Madness, which has:

Aberration Wild Shape Feat: You can now Wildshape into Aberrations of the same size as your animal forms.
30ish new/revised aberrations for you to turn into! My favorite is the Urophion (12hd, large aberration), which has 6 strands (grabbing tentacle things), a bite, and the (Ex) Weakness (anyone grabbed takes must Save or take massive Strength damage) and Extraction (full round action, extract the brain of a creature you bite, killing it) abilities.
Darkstalker Feat: When you Hide , creatures with Blindsense, Blindsight, Scent, or Tremorsense must make a Listen or Spot check to find you. Since so many animal/aberration forms grant massive Hide and Move Silently bonuses, all Druids should invest in them cross-class, and get in the habit of using them constantly (both to ambush enemies, and to avoid enemy ambushes).
Deepspawn Feat: +2 tentacle attacks. And since it's a Feat, it's always functional, even when you Wildshape!.
Inhuman Reach Feat: +5 feet to your natural reach. Now all of your natural weapons are reach weapons, making attacks of opportunity much easier.
Occular Spell Feat: Can store 2 ray spells in your eyes, and cast both of them together as a Full Round Action. Laser eyes!
Starspawn Feat: Flight = 1/2 your base land speed, plus Cold Resistance 5.
Dust of Negation: One time Anti-Magic Field for a reasonable price.


You forgot the abolisher PRC. It's no planar shepard, but it has 8/10 casting, full animal companion, full wildshape, and a number of useful, if not super powerful abilities (though mostly against aberrations, a few are just generally useful). One of my house rules I have used requires tier 2 casters to lose at least one caster level by 10, and tier 1 casters to lose 1 by 10, and another by 15, and abolisher is how a player got away with his druidzilla.

With that being said I would still pick MiC if your gm gives you anything like magicmart. If you can't reliably aquire items other than what the GM throws out (and don't want to get involved in crafting), MM3 has some good candidates for wildshape/animal companions.