Any good prestige classes for a caster druid?

[BlackRabbit]

I'm playing a druid and my DM has been gently pushing me to eventually take levels in Master of Many Forms. I'm more interested in the spell side of things (perhaps I should have been a wizard). Are there any good prestige classes for a caster druid? :smallconfused:

[Spuddles]

I am currently tits over ass for arcane heirophant, from races of the wild, right now. Progresses spells of a druid, wildshape, animal companion, and wizard spells. You'll need to be able to cast 2nd level wizard spells to do that, but a dip in wizard conjurer (trade out familiar and scribe scroll for augment and rapid summoning), and the versatile spellcaster feat has you qualify. Just make sure you add a second level spell to your book.

But druid is it's own prestige class. The feats Dragon wildshape and aberrant wildshape are practically prestige classes in themselves. Tell your dm no thanks, but you take your druid like your whiskey- straight.

[Zombulian]

Or Moonspeaker. Considered one of the best-non-cheese Druid PrCs out there. It's shifter only btw.

[Namfuak]

Druid 20 gets enough goodies and spellcasting to be alright on its own, as noted. Although Planar Shepard can obviously be abused very highly, it also has quite a lot of merit as a good prestige class, both thematically and mechanically, as long as you avoid the cheese (basically, don't take a plane with altered time-flow and don't shapeshift into an efereti to grant wishes to your party mates). As Spuddles said, arcane hierophant is pretty nifty, especially if you use practiced spellcaster for early entry on the wizard side.

[Saintheart]

Seconding Planar Shephard. Druid +. /thread. :smallbiggrin:

[Feytalist]

BoED has a few. Swanmay is one (heh), Sentinel of Bharrai is another. Silly Sacred Vow feat prerequisites though.

[Elric VIII]

I have a build in the works that's a caster Druid + Bardic Music.

Bard 1/Druid 4/Green Whisperer 4/Arcane Heirophant 1/Fochlucan Lyrist 10, using Chaos Music, Shape Soulmeld: Impulse Boots, and the Druid ACF that trades away Wildshape for fast movement. You end with Druid 19 casting, Bard 16 casting, Druid 5 AC/Familiar, Bard 19 music, and +16 BAB (if you ever feel like wading into combat).

Green Whisperer and Chaos Music are in Dragon Magazine.

[Invader]

I have a build in the works that's a caster Druid + Bardic Music.

Bard 1/Druid 4/Green Whisperer 4/Arcane Heirophant 1/Fochlucan Lyrist 10, using Chaos Music, Shape Soulmeld: Impulse Boots, and the Druid ACF that trades away Wildshape for fast movement. You end with Druid 19 casting, Bard 16 casting, Druid 5 AC/Familiar, Bard 19 music, and +16 BAB (if you ever feel like wading into combat).

Green Whisperer and Chaos Music are in Dragon Magazine.

This sounds like a good build. When does it start getting viable at lower levels, I'm not familiar with some of the prestige classes so would you want to play this anywhere below level 20?

[Togo]

MoMFs isn't very similar to druid. Don't take it unless what you really want is to be a meat sheild/rogue character.

[Psyren]

Skypledged is a nice one for Raptoran Druids, getting you a metric ton of Cleric spells (including goodies like Miracle) to shore up the Druid list. You also get other benefits, like at-will Feather Fall and a 20th-level Wild Shape analogue - and all for 10/10 casting. Finally, the adaptation (RotW 130) lets you strip out the racial/elemental stuff and turn it into a divine MotAO.

Walker in the Waste is also good, making you a lich with 7 phylacteries at the capstone.

Contemplative is a good choice for any divine caster.

[BlackRabbit]

Wow, some good suggestions here. Sorry I didn't reply earlier. Yes, I'm not really interested in being a meatshield. I mean I'll do it if needed (our current group is a necromancer, an archivist, a swashbuckler, and a rogue), so we're not really heavy on the killpower. Perhaps I should have gone duskblade. Stupid altitis. Anyway, I'll definitely look into these suggestions and keep you folks posted. I'm a lizardman, if that adds to any suggestions, and down the road we MAY be getting wishes granted, so mebbe I'll ask for one of these then.

[eggynack]

Generally you should just skip prestige classing on a druid. Apart from planar shepard, there's not really anything out there that advances casting, wildshape and your animal companion. Luckily though, you're already a druid, so you're set up to be one of the most powerful members of the party (the necromancer and archivist could be as powerful with the right build). You can already fight reasonably well with wildshape (though buffs might be a good idea) and the casting is about as good as it's going to get. Moonspeaker might've been nice if you wanted to be on the casting side of things, but lizardfolk puts a stop to that. Just play a druid 20, and if you ever get bored druids can change everything about themselves pretty easily. Just prepare different spells, wildshape into something new, summon a weird creature from the fiend folio just for the novelty of it, and suddenly you're a whole new character. Druids are one of the worst classes in the game in terms of prestige classes.