Good Druid PrCs?

[Giegue]

As the title asks. I am going to be playing as a Gramireist(Biollurgy specialist)/Grauhstman||Anthropomorphic Animal(Homebrew Monster class,,with a capstone that lets its levels stack with divine casters to determine spells per-day and spells/spell levels known.)/Druid in a level 30 game and I am looking for good Druid PrCs. I am using a feat to make my druid casting fully int-based and as a result will be locked out of a lot(but not all) of the epic wildshape-based feats, so I am as a result not looking to focus on wildshape(though I'll most certainly be making use of it with natural spell and taking the epic wildshape feats that do not require a massive wisdom score.). With that in mind, what PrCs should I take on the Druid side? Homebrew is allowed on a case-by-case approval basis, so if you know any homebrew classes that would be nice feel free to mention them.

Fluff-wise, the character is based somewhat on the Simic Guild from Ravnica. He's a naturalist who sees that nature is losing it's fight for survival against the technological and magical advances of human(oid) kind and as a result feels that for nature to survive it must evolve and adapt, and sees himself as the one who will ignite that evolution. He's a mad scientist type, who creates new creatures and "enhances" existing animals. Chaotic Neutral alignment, and is somewhat similar to Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Monroe.....except instead of being driven by a desire to defy and control nature he is driven by a drive to preserve it in the face of a vastly advancing industrial world.

Anyway....with that out of the way, does anybody have any ideas for possible druid PrCs to take/which druid PrCs are good?

[rockdeworld]

Planar Shepard if you can get away with it.

This guide (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19868802/Druid_Handbook_revived)may help also.

[Kazyan]

Planar Shepherd is the only official PrC that advances casting, animal companion, and Wild Shape. Planar Shepherd being Planar Shepherd, the usual advice is "More Druid". You don't need to PrC with such a preposterously powerful class.

EDIT: Font of Typos.

[eggs]

Stock advice:
The Druid class does a lot (cast, shapeshift, have a level-dependent companion follow it around), and there aren't a lot of PrCs that do that at the same time. If you want to be good at all those, Druid is usually your best bet.

But there are 3 PrCs that advance all those to certain degrees:
Planar Shepherd (Faiths of Eberron), Lion of Talisid (Book of Exalted Deeds) and Moonspeaker (Races of Eberron). Of those, Planar Shepherd is just ridiculously powerful (even without using alternate timeflows, its wild shape abilities are way too good), but the other two are pretty close to fair tradeoffs. Those three that are probably the least contentious suggestions.

My advice, which flies pretty much directly against conventional board wisdom:
At high levels, Wild Shape and the animal companion don't matter all that much: on WS, the Animal Shapes spell mirrors Wild Shape anyway, and Shapechange is just better; on the companion, Urban Companion (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) scales better than the normal companion into high levels - even without classes that stack for AC advancement. So from that perspective, the Skypledged (Races of the Wild) is very useful for picking up access to Cleric spells, as are classes which grant domains (Divine Disciple, Contemplative, Seeker of the Misty Isle and so forth) because they can patch some of the holes in the Druid's spell list (teleports, illusions, calling spells, action economy-breakers, that kind of thing).

[Giegue]

Yeah. Also, I was never specificly focusing on wildshape anyway since I won't have the wis to get the epic wildshape stuff like dragon wild shape and such(As my druid casting is based on int, not wis, thanks to lost traditions.) Anyway...my build as of now looks like this...

Anthropormic Animal 4/Druid 16/PrC 10||Gramireist 20/Garuhstman 10

If planar Shepard is allowed, I'll probably make the PrC 10 planar Shepard. If not, then I'll probably take contemplative...note that anthropomorphic animal has a possible capstone(You can choose between several) that lets it count all anthropomorphic animal levels as levels in your divine spellcasting class for the purpose of determining spells per-day, spell and spell level acssess and spells known(if applicable). It does not boost wildshape or anything else like that, though.

[Tvtyrant]

I have to disagree with Eggs here. You don't get Shapechange until level 17, after 85% of the game is over. Until that point Wildshape is just about the best none-casting ability in the game, as it nets you basically whatever you want. Flight, burrowing, natural armor, natural attacks, swim, breathing underwater, pounce, gigantic strength and dexterity boosts, size boosts, etc. The fact that you can cast while doing it is just gravy on the potatoes.

I don't know why you would prefer the Urban Companion (a glorified familiar!) to a Horrid Elephant or Horrid Tiger, but I don't know the argument against it so I will wait on that one.

Or for that matter a Dire Elephant. It is not as flexible as some companions, but you get Reduce Animal and Animal Growth as spells. It would have a grapple mod in the 50s with Animal Growth, and you can squeeze it through tunnels if you Reduce it. A Horrid Elephant could be made to go through medium tunnels with Reduce Animal, so you could bring it underground without any worries.

[eggs]

I have to disagree with Eggs here. You don't get Shapechange until level 17, after 85% of the game is over. Until that point Wildshape is just about the best none-casting ability in the game, as it nets you basically whatever you want. Flight, burrowing, natural armor, natural attacks, swim, breathing underwater, pounce, gigantic strength and dexterity boosts, size boosts, etc. The fact that you can cast while doing it is just gravy on the potatoes.

I don't know why you would prefer the Urban Companion (a glorified familiar!) to a Horrid Elephant or Horrid Tiger, but I don't know the argument against it so I will wait on that one.
Remember we're talking level 30. Shapechange effects are cheap, long-lasting and gamechanging.

Firstly, they change the value of Wild Shape. WS is a big valuable ability in the level 5-14 range, but Shapechange does everything WS does and more, and better. Shapechange lasts 5 hours at almost no noticeable cost (a staff of shapechange is around 2% of level 30 WBL). There's no reason to muck around with WS anymore, unless something like Planar Shepherd is thrown into the mix to access the assumed form's SLAs.

Secondly, it obviates the value of companions' physical attributes, so comparing the companion and a familiar, you're looking at things like skills/special abilities/HD. In all those regards, the urban companion is at least a match. The Dire Elephant and Gargantuan Spider match the companion for HD, but still come out behind in mental abilities, skill points and minor abilities like touch spell delivery and their assorted minor numbers boosts - and those two are the best-case scenario.

[Tvtyrant]

Remember we're talking level 30. Shapechange effects are cheap, long-lasting and gamechanging.

Firstly, they change the value of Wild Shape. WS is a big valuable ability in the level 5-14 range, but Shapechange does everything WS does and more, and better. Shapechange lasts 5 hours at almost no noticeable cost (a staff of shapechange is around 2% of level 30 WBL). There's no reason to muck around with WS anymore, unless something like Planar Shepherd is thrown into the mix to access the assumed form's SLAs.

Secondly, it obviates the value of companions' physical attributes, so comparing the companion and a familiar, you're looking at things like skills/special abilities/HD. In all those regards, the urban companion is at least a match. The Dire Elephant and Gargantuan Spider match the companion for HD, but still come out behind in mental abilities, skill points and minor abilities like touch spell delivery and their assorted minor numbers boosts - and those two are the best-case scenario.

I somehow missed the "level 30" part. Okay, I will give you this one! *Shakes fist at being wrong*

[silverwolfer]

what are the sources for theses


Gramireist 20/Garuhstman 10

[Blueiji]

what are the sources for theses


Gramireist 20/Garuhstman 10

The Gramarist and the Graughtsman are both homebrew classes by Kellus.

However, upon looking over the class features of those two classes, neither seem to have any sort of Druid spell casting abilities, so I'm not sure what he's referring to when he mentions that capstone.

I'm not at my desktop, so I can't hyperlink, but here's a normal link to Kellus' homebrew anyway: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252794