Lockdown Druid

[SirAxealot]

Let me preface the rest of this by saying that I am not building for maximum druid power. I want to be a druid that focuses on melee and wildshaping. I'm not really experienced with 3.5 but I have done a bit of digging around, and now I need advice on how to put the pieces together.

Now the first question is, do I want to be a Druid or a Wildshape Ranger, and I'm thinking Druid at this point, but if anyone has a good argument in favor of ranger, please speak up. The rest of this is based on going with druid.

So far I've found 4 classes that advance wildshaping abilities: Warshaper, Master of Many Forms, Shapeshifter (from OA, updated for 3.5), and Nature's Warrior.

Then there are things like ToB dips for crusader and warblade (or even swordsage) or even fighter for some extra feats and better BAB, though these do sacrifice some wildshape advancement and imo fighter probably doesn't add enough to be worth it. Dipping barb for pounce or trip. Psionics is off limits, so no psywar shenanigans sadly.

Druidic Avenger vs Animal Companion - I don't really care about summoning, still can't decide between these two. Obviously, Druidic Avenger opens up things like Bear Warrior, Fist of the Forest, Frenzied Berserker, and Black Blood Cultist, which may or may not be worth going into. However, most of those buff unarmed damage, and I'm not sure how that works with things like bites and claws.

Feats - Natural Spell at 6, of course. Other than that, nothing is set in stone. Bestial Charge, Multiattack, Improved Natural Attack, and so forth all seem decent ways to improve Wild Shape fighting, and Stand Still, Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades, Combat Reflexes, Robilar's Gambit, Defensive sweep, knockdown, etc. etc. are standard for various lockdown builds However getting all of them is obviously impossible, so I need some input on which ones would be most helpful in this particular instance

[Urpriest]

Remember, summons are a big part of how Druids manage lockdown: you likely won't be able to grapple more than one enemy at once, while with summoning you can grapple as many foes as you have summons on the field.

[LTwerewolf]

Use battlefield control spells to help you even more, such as entangle (core) and spore field (CS). There are a lot of other spells that can help you manage the field as well. You can use these in conjunction with summons and wild shaping to control the fight start to finish.

If you do dip into nature's warrior you're not going to want to take all the levels, only take 1, 2 or 4 (probably 2).

Very few people will argue to take ranger over druid.

[dungeonnerd]

I preference this comment by saying that I am, in general, a mid-op player, and I answer these questions on the assumption that your game will be as well. All responses are personal, and YMMV depending on the game style you are in, the DM you have, and other players that you play with.

How quickly do you want to become the shaper of all things?

For shapers, the sheer versatility and expansion of going druid5/Master of many forms 10/whatever x gets you gargantuan dragons at the end of the run. I suggest Druidic Avenger > fist of the forest, but that's a personal preference. The others are good, but don't advance the options that you get as much.

Natural spell is great, but you're not going to have hardly any spells that matter toward the end of your progression this way, and ends up being a loss of a feat for True-Shaping in my opinion. Yes, your first four levels will be caster levels, but once you get wild shape at level 5 and MoMF at 6, you shouldn't need to cast except in extremely dire circumstances.

For feats, see if you can qualify for the multi-attack/pounce/rend set, so you can quickly pin and destroy a target while your party stalls the rest - eventually you might trade this out for dragon shift > breath weapon feats for control effects (entangling, etc) > then claw claw bite wing tail your way to Valhalla.

ToB classes make for a great filler of those five levels, if you don't want to do a second prestige class, and with the various MoMF shifts that you gain, can produce some hilarious (and scarily effective) results.

Taking level dips during the progression of MoMF severely slows down the size and types of shifts that you get, so you will need to weigh the gains/losses for your personal character on the fly. In general, I don't dip out unless its for one level to gain something that majorly increases my effectiveness as a shifter - which is largely game dependant.

Combat Reflexes is a must - you just choose a form with reach and a high dex, then pounce into battle and control the field with AoO. Combine with Improved Trip and Thicket of Blades to keep people in their place, plus standing from prone provokes AoO and another trip attempt.

Another thought, for those last five levels, is that you could take one level dip of Shiba Protector (WIS to attack and damage) to help increase your to-hit. It requires Alterness, Expertise, and Iron Will as feats though, so you might want to skip it.

[Spuddles]

Remember, summons are a big part of how Druids manage lockdown: you likely won't be able to grapple more than one enemy at once, while with summoning you can grapple as many foes as you have summons on the field.


Use battlefield control spells to help you even more, such as entangle (core) and spore field (CS). There are a lot of other spells that can help you manage the field as well. You can use these in conjunction with summons and wild shaping to control the fight start to finish.

If you do dip into nature's warrior you're not going to want to take all the levels, only take 1, 2 or 4 (probably 2).

Very few people will argue to take ranger over druid.

Judging by the actual words in OP's OP, I would guess that he wants to build a wildshaping melee character, not literally built around teh ultimate locksdown. Otherwise ashbound augmented dire crocs and blizzard & bloodsnow would be the way to go.

That said, wildshape ranger has the advantage of being mystic and having full BAB for maximum grappling.

[LTwerewolf]

Judging by the actual words in OP's OP, I would guess that he wants to build a wildshaping melee character, not literally built around teh ultimate locksdown. Otherwise ashbound augmented dire crocs and blizzard & bloodsnow would be the way to go.

That said, wildshape ranger has the advantage of being mystic and having full BAB for maximum grappling.

But wildshape ranger can't buff themselves as effectively, even when mystic.

[SirAxealot]

Remember, summons are a big part of how Druids manage lockdown: you likely won't be able to grapple more than one enemy at once, while with summoning you can grapple as many foes as you have summons on the field.


Use battlefield control spells to help you even more, such as entangle (core) and spore field (CS). There are a lot of other spells that can help you manage the field as well. You can use these in conjunction with summons and wild shaping to control the fight start to finish.


Perhaps I could better indicate what I want by saying that I'm looking to be something like a feral druid in WoW - they can still cast magic and summon and all that, but their main schtick is using various forms to fight in different ways. Hopefully that gets the concept across better : )



How quickly do you want to become the shaper of all things?

For shapers, the sheer versatility and expansion of going druid5/Master of many forms 10/whatever x gets you gargantuan dragons at the end of the run. I suggest Druidic Avenger > fist of the forest, but that's a personal preference. The others are good, but don't advance the options that you get as much.

Natural spell is great, but you're not going to have hardly any spells that matter toward the end of your progression this way, and ends up being a loss of a feat for True-Shaping in my opinion. Yes, your first four levels will be caster levels, but once you get wild shape at level 5 and MoMF at 6, you shouldn't need to cast except in extremely dire circumstances.

For feats, see if you can qualify for the multi-attack/pounce/rend set, so you can quickly pin and destroy a target while your party stalls the rest - eventually you might trade this out for dragon shift > breath weapon feats for control effects (entangling, etc) > then claw claw bite wing tail your way to Valhalla.

ToB classes make for a great filler of those five levels, if you don't want to do a second prestige class, and with the various MoMF shifts that you gain, can produce some hilarious (and scarily effective) results.

Taking level dips during the progression of MoMF severely slows down the size and types of shifts that you get, so you will need to weigh the gains/losses for your personal character on the fly. In general, I don't dip out unless its for one level to gain something that majorly increases my effectiveness as a shifter - which is largely game dependant.

Combat Reflexes is a must - you just choose a form with reach and a high dex, then pounce into battle and control the field with AoO. Combine with Improved Trip and Thicket of Blades to keep people in their place, plus standing from prone provokes AoO and another trip attempt.

Another thought, for those last five levels, is that you could take one level dip of Shiba Protector (WIS to attack and damage) to help increase your to-hit. It requires Alterness, Expertise, and Iron Will as feats though, so you might want to skip it.

Hm, well let's see. I'm not concerned with being able to wild shape into every possible creature, in fact I would probably stop MoMF at level 7 if I do go into it.

What is true-shaping? Wasn't able to find anything on a quick search.

Pounce and multi-attack are easy enough one way or another, but I'm not seeing Rend as a feat. Is it two-weapon rend using your paws or whatever?

Unfortunately, as you noted, the feat tax on shiba protector is extremely high. Are there any good Druid-compatible ways to get Con or Wis to AC? That's pretty much the main attraction of FotF, for example.

[LTwerewolf]

My point was not to say that you wouldn't be wild shaping, my point was to say that you would use your spells first, and then proceed to tear them apart with your shapes and companion/summons. Set them up so you can knock them down. Using the spells i mentioned you won't actually be damaging them, that's left to your wild shaping shtick; it's just that wild shaping isn't nearly as effective at controlling the field as the spells are. It's meeting you in the middle from "heavy crazy caster" druid to "i don't want to ever cast spells" druid.

[Spuddles]

My point was not to say that you wouldn't be wild shaping, my point was to say that you would use your spells first, and then proceed to tear them apart with your shapes and companion/summons. Set them up so you can knock them down. Using the spells i mentioned you won't actually be damaging them, that's left to your wild shaping shtick; it's just that wild shaping isn't nearly as effective at controlling the field as the spells are. It's meeting you in the middle from "heavy crazy caster" druid to "i don't want to ever cast spells" druid.

It's actually better to specialize, due to action costs. While it's good to have a spell or two on reserve, druids don't have a very easy way to get extra actions unless they summon, and conpared to a specialized wildshaper, summons are freakin weak. Which means once the dm scales combats up to march bite of the weretiger on a legendary dire ape, summoning a vanilla animal isn't going to do much.

Just turning into an animal and going into battle is kind of bad, insamuch that wildshape is pretty weak withou barding/monk's belt/and 3 splats worth of spells. All those spells means fewer slots, and more importantly, fewer actions, to spend on casting wall of thorns or whatever.

One source of con to ac would be that dwarf prestige class. Forgot what it's called, but with it you use con instead of dex. No castig or anything, unfortunately. A monk's belt, FoF, the class mentioned above, and wildshaping armor should get you more AC than a Pit Fiend.

[LTwerewolf]

Deepwarden is the one you're thinking of.

[Spuddles]

Deepwarden is the one you're thinking of.

Ah, thank you.

[SirAxealot]

Just turning into an animal and going into battle is kind of bad, insamuch that wildshape is pretty weak withou barding/monk's belt/and 3 splats worth of spells.

That's pretty much the exact opposite of everything I've ever heard. What's your rationale? Wildshape is often touted as being enough for a class in and of itself

[Spuddles]

That's pretty much the exact opposite of everything I've ever heard. What's your rationale? Wildshape is often touted as being enough for a class in and of itself

Most people parrot what they hear from others without understanding what makes it good. Go look at animals. They tend to have low damage and low AC, and when using a druid's HP, not much HP. It requires specialization to be good- gear, feats, and spells.

Otherwise you're going to get splattered.

A fighter will out damage and out "tank" you UNLESS you buff and etc. in which case you will be like a furry god.

[SirAxealot]

Most people parrot what they hear from others without understanding what makes it good. Go look at animals. They tend to have low damage and low AC, and when using a druid's HP, not much HP. It requires specialization to be good- gear, feats, and spells.

Otherwise you're going to get splattered.

A fighter will out damage and out "tank" you UNLESS you buff and etc. in which case you will be like a furry god.

So how would you build and play a character like this?

[limejuicepowder]

This would lose a significant amount of caster levels, but warshaper is worth a look as well. 4 levels gets you all of the good stuff (well the last level has something good, but it's probably not worth losing yet another caster level).

Warshaper makes your wildshaping better, to the tune of +4 str and con, increased natural weapon size, extra natural weapons, fast healing, and most importantly, extra reach.

Grab all of the regular tripping feats: imp trip, combat reflexes, etc. Turn in to the animal with the most reach you can, then increase it with warshaper. Go to town.

Your reach won't be as good as a fighter-based tripper, but you will have several other advantages: buffing spells, natural ability to change your size, and no chance to get tripped back/drop weapon.

[Urpriest]

So how would you build and play a character like this?

Essentially the main thing people forget is AC. There was a thread awhile back by a prominent poster here which deconstructed the "wild shaping as a Druid is easy" myth but also promoted various ways to narrow the gap. Basically, you want Wild Armor and a Monk's Belt at the least. With both of those you should be solid, especially if your Wild Armor is Dragonhide Plate, but you should try to invest in typical AC boosters as you level up as well, as well as sources of miss chance.

[Togo]

The main decision is whether you want to keep spellcasting past druid 5. Because spells get better the more level you have the answer really should be 'yes' or 'no', and not anything in between.

If you want to keep spellcasting, then that sharply limits the p-classes you can get into, and you're proabably best off with straight druid, advancing your spells and using them to buff yourself. Animals are dangerous but fragile without good buffs, you get plants at 12th which are tough but not that dangerous without buffs, and elementals make a great chassis for buffs at very high level.

If you don't, then you can more easily afford to focus on wildshape. Master of Many Forms is an excellent choice, giving you the (ex) abilities at level 7, and a great many different types of forms, meaning you'll almost never be caught in a situation where you can't act. The great strength here is the variety of special powers, given that you can fly, burrow, swim, grapple, as well as spit poison (naga), rusting grasp (rust monster) and so on. Getting a high AC and fast healing/regen is trivial, you can afford to have high hp, and wildshaping itself allows you to self heal remarkably quickly. There is no tougher and more versatile combatent in 3.5.

Unfortunately, your damage is a bit sucky at high level, since your tough forms don't get great attacks, your good attack forms aren't that tough, and you simply don't get the vast quantities of damage that straight melee classes. You're a superb grappler, and take people out with special powers, but straight hp damage isn't your thing.

When you want to leave MoMFs is up to you, but it really is worth getting the whole 10 levels. What may disuade is the sheer bookeeping involved, far more complicated than a mere wizard. If you can realistically only keep track of 3-4 different forms, then you won't get the full benefit.

After that, warshaper is probably the next best class. The big problem here is that it doesn't advance wildshape. It gives you immunity from crits, a bonus attack +4 str and con, fast healing and faster wildshape, but the hit dice cap that you can turn into doesn't improve, and it's not even a full BAB class. (One way around this is the amulet of wildshape, from magic of Faerun.)

Feats:
Frozen wildshape is excellent if you go MoMFs, since magical beasts have some great abilities. Fast wildshape is also well worth it, since it means you can wildshape into a new form and attack in the same round, or blow multiple wildshapes for emergency healing just by changing shape several times a round. I wouldn't bother with nautral spell for a MoMFs, since you won't have spells worth using a combat action to cast. I got excellent use out of Hawk's Vision, stacking my spot high enough to spot invisible creatures with ease. Combat Reflexes may be useful, but I didn't take it, and didn't miss it. Many of your best forms have poor dex in any case.

Special mention goes to unarmed strike, which gives you many many attacks. As a monster, you tend to use natural attacks, which don't increase with BAB. But if you have unarmed strikes as your primary attack, you can then attack with natural attacks as secondary attacks at -5 (-2 with multiattack). This also qualifies you for improved grapple, which is handy as you may be grappling a fair bit.

[SirAxealot]

Essentially the main thing people forget is AC. There was a thread awhile back by a prominent poster here which deconstructed the "wild shaping as a Druid is easy" myth but also promoted various ways to narrow the gap. Basically, you want Wild Armor and a Monk's Belt at the least. With both of those you should be solid, especially if your Wild Armor is Dragonhide Plate, but you should try to invest in typical AC boosters as you level up as well, as well as sources of miss chance.

I sort of took that type of thing as a given lol. Would you happen to have a link or other way of finding said thread?



If you don't, then you can more easily afford to focus on wildshape. Master of Many Forms is an excellent choice, giving you the (ex) abilities at level 7, and a great many different types of forms, meaning you'll almost never be caught in a situation where you can't act. The great strength here is the variety of special powers, given that you can fly, burrow, swim, grapple, as well as spit poison (naga), rusting grasp (rust monster) and so on. Getting a high AC and fast healing/regen is trivial, you can afford to have high hp, and wildshaping itself allows you to self heal remarkably quickly. There is no tougher and more versatile combatant in 3.5.

Unfortunately, your damage is a bit sucky at high level, since your tough forms don't get great attacks, your good attack forms aren't that tough, and you simply don't get the vast quantities of damage that straight melee classes. You're a superb grappler, and take people out with special powers, but straight hp damage isn't your thing.

When you want to leave MoMFs is up to you, but it really is worth getting the whole 10 levels. What may disuade is the sheer bookeeping involved, far more complicated than a mere wizard. If you can realistically only keep track of 3-4 different forms, then you won't get the full benefit.

After that, warshaper is probably the next best class. The big problem here is that it doesn't advance wildshape. It gives you immunity from crits, a bonus attack +4 str and con, fast healing and faster wildshape, but the hit dice cap that you can turn into doesn't improve, and it's not even a full BAB class. (One way around this is the amulet of wildshape, from magic of Faerun.)

Feats:
Frozen wildshape is excellent if you go MoMFs, since magical beasts have some great abilities. Fast wildshape is also well worth it, since it means you can wildshape into a new form and attack in the same round, or blow multiple wildshapes for emergency healing just by changing shape several times a round. I wouldn't bother with nautral spell for a MoMFs, since you won't have spells worth using a combat action to cast. I got excellent use out of Hawk's Vision, stacking my spot high enough to spot invisible creatures with ease. Combat Reflexes may be useful, but I didn't take it, and didn't miss it. Many of your best forms have poor dex in any case.

Special mention goes to unarmed strike, which gives you many many attacks. As a monster, you tend to use natural attacks, which don't increase with BAB. But if you have unarmed strikes as your primary attack, you can then attack with natural attacks as secondary attacks at -5 (-2 with multiattack). This also qualifies you for improved grapple, which is handy as you may be grappling a fair bit.

I was planning to treat spellcasting and summons as more of a pleasant bonus than the main focus. So while I won't trade it away for nothing, I don't mind losing a few levels. Why is 5 the optimal cutoff point?

Also, I'm not really dedicated to MoMF, I just listed it as one of the few classes that work well with wildshaping. I'm not at all opposed to it, just saying that it's not a requirement : )

Just as a hypothetical, how would something like 4 levels in warshaper, 4 levels in nature's warrior, maybe a 2 level dip in something else, and 10-12 levels in druid perform? Would have 12-14 levels of druid casting. I'll be starting somewhere around level 8-10, for what it's worth.

Also, the druidic avenger ACF would boost things a little, no?

EDIT: Druid 12/Natwar4/Warshaper4 gets an effective druid level of 16 for wildshape purposes thanks to the Wilding class feature from Nature's Warrior, and with one of several items that enhance your wildshaping you could get all 20 levels of druid wildshape progression.

[Togo]

I sort of took that type of thing as a given lol. Would you happen to have a link or other way of finding said thread?



I was planning to treat spellcasting and summons as more of a pleasant bonus than the main focus. So while I won't trade it away for nothing, I don't mind losing a few levels. Why is 5 the optimal cutoff point?

Also, I'm not really dedicated to MoMF, I just listed it as one of the few classes that work well with wildshaping. I'm not at all opposed to it, just saying that it's not a requirement : )

Just as a hypothetical, how would something like 4 levels in warshaper, 4 levels in nature's warrior, maybe a 2 level dip in something else, and 10-12 levels in druid perform? Would have 12-14 levels of druid casting. I'll be starting somewhere around level 8-10, for what it's worth.

Also, the druidic avenger ACF would boost things a little, no?

EDIT: Druid 12/Natwar4/Warshaper4 gets an effective druid level of 16 for wildshape purposes thanks to the Wilding class feature from Nature's Warrior, and with one of several items that enhance your wildshaping you could get all 20 levels of druid wildshape progression.


Well, let's compare:

Druid 12/Natwar4/warshaper4 is... a bit odd, since Warshaper 4 isn't particularly good (fast healing isn't worth much at 20th high level), whereas another power from the nature's warrior list is probably a better choice. So Nature's warrior 5/warshaper 3 may be better. But see what you fancy.

So with this you are turning into... huge animals or plants, and large elementals. So you're looking at treant or tendriculous as your best forms from the core books, and maybe some legendary animals and octopus tree from the more advanced books. You're then buffing that with 14th level druidic casting, and adding to say +4AC and +4 to grapple checks with nature's warrior. You can change 5 times a day.

Not bad, but I'd still be tempted to dump warshaper, and take 4 more levels of druid, netting you 18 levels of spell casting, enough to get 9th level spells. (9th level spells nets you shapechange, which is strictly better than wildshape until you get to epic)

Alternatively, as a MoMFs10/ warshaper 5, you have very poor spellcasting, but can turn into Young Adult gold dragon, a storm giant, or a huge elemental, as a move action, as many times as you want per day. You'll also get all the (ex) abilities of your forms, like regen, DR, tremoursense and so on. So it's simply a better, tougher, stronger chassis for your build, but then you aren't getting those great buff spells, or the AC bonus and grapple bonus from nature's warrior.

So that's the question - 9th level spells, or better and more varied forms?

[Spuddles]

9th lvl spells get you shapechange. There is nothing better than that. Gate, maybe, but I am pretty sure you can get Gate with shapechange. At least via loose rules interpretation and rules compendium.

For buffs, halo of sand from sand storm is basically druid shield of faith. Bite of X is awesome. Venomfire is kind of the only way to get weak sauce pounce forms to do legitimate damage, other than crazy str stacking.

Shillelagh, spikes, girallon's blessing legendary ape form and a quarter staff get good returns. Technically you could turn into anything and sprout some arms with girallons blessing. Get full iteratives and natural attacks.

Find a way to get DMM for the persists. Bone talisman and unguent of timelessness would be the easiest.

[SirAxealot]

Well, let's compare:

Druid 12/Natwar4/warshaper4 is... a bit odd, since Warshaper 4 isn't particularly good (fast healing isn't worth much at 20th high level), whereas another power from the nature's warrior list is probably a better choice. So Nature's warrior 5/warshaper 3 may be better. But see what you fancy.

So with this you are turning into... huge animals or plants, and large elementals. So you're looking at treant or tendriculous as your best forms from the core books, and maybe some legendary animals and octopus tree from the more advanced books. You're then buffing that with 14th level druidic casting, and adding to say +4AC and +4 to grapple checks with nature's warrior. You can change 5 times a day.

Not bad, but I'd still be tempted to dump warshaper, and take 4 more levels of druid, netting you 18 levels of spell casting, enough to get 9th level spells. (9th level spells nets you shapechange, which is strictly better than wildshape until you get to epic)

Alternatively, as a MoMFs10/ warshaper 5, you have very poor spellcasting, but can turn into Young Adult gold dragon, a storm giant, or a huge elemental, as a move action, as many times as you want per day. You'll also get all the (ex) abilities of your forms, like regen, DR, tremoursense and so on. So it's simply a better, tougher, stronger chassis for your build, but then you aren't getting those great buff spells, or the AC bonus and grapple bonus from nature's warrior.

So that's the question - 9th level spells, or better and more varied forms?

I want to turn into a bunch of different animals and rip things apart. Basically I want to be an animorph. However, I don't really care about a wide variety (for instance, I have no interest in turning into a swarm, a vermin, an ooze, an elemental, etc).

Druid casting is nice and a good way to buff and get some general utility, but I don't have to have 9th level spells. I doubt I'll be at level 18 any time soon, so building towards shapechange is not the most important thing to me right now.

I guess my question is, what's the best way to turn into a bear, shark, elephant, etc and whoop some ass? MoMF doesn't seem to contain the most hurt per class level. And Druid 20 is absolutely great, but it doesn't appear to be quite as melee oriented as I want. That's why I was contemplating a martial adept dip earlier

[Spuddles]

Either use spells to bring your melee up to par, or use mystic wildshape ranger.

[Nightgaun7]

Either use spells to bring your melee up to par, or use mystic wildshape ranger.

I fail to see how this does anything better than Druid, aside from better BAB, which becomes increasingly unimportant at higher levels.

[Spuddles]

I fail to see how this does anything better than Druid, aside from better BAB, which becomes increasingly unimportant at higher levels.

It gets you more BAB and without much spell progression beyond level 10, there's no secret pain in multiclassing to some warshaper.

It also opens up the field for sword of the arcane order fun times. Wraith strike baby.

Oh, and full BAB gives you 25% more power attacking as well as letting you qualify for martial feats, like multiattack,leap attack and shocktrooper, earlier in your career. Don't even need shocktrooper when you have wraithstrike.

Mystic Ranger gets you 5th level spells and full BAB by level 10. If you aren't playing much beyond that, it's awesome. Even if you are, half casting, full BAB, and near full wildshaping seems exactly what OP wants.

And don't forget- girallon's blessing lets you get iteratives on top of your natural attacks.

[nedz]

Ranger 4ths and 5ths (Mystic only) are pretty bland though.
Still Metamagic and SotAO are good.
Druid 4ths and 5ths are much better, and they go all the way to 9ths also.

[Spuddles]

Ranger 4ths and 5ths (Mystic only) are pretty bland though.
Still Metamagic and SotAO are good.
Druid 4ths and 5ths are much better, and they go all the way to 9ths also.

It's like you guys aren't even reading OP :(

[Tvtyrant]

9th lvl spells get you shapechange. There is nothing better than that. Gate, maybe, but I am pretty sure you can get Gate with shapechange. At least via loose rules interpretation and rules compendium.

For buffs, halo of sand from sand storm is basically druid shield of faith. Bite of X is awesome. Venomfire is kind of the only way to get weak sauce pounce forms to do legitimate damage, other than crazy str stacking.

Shillelagh, spikes, girallon's blessing legendary ape form and a quarter staff get good returns. Technically you could turn into anything and sprout some arms with girallons blessing. Get full iteratives and natural attacks.

Find a way to get DMM for the persists. Bone talisman and unguent of timelessness would be the easiest.
Friends do not let friends use Shapechange or DMM. Especially when the OP says he is middle op.

My suggestion for battlefield control as a Druid type is to get Snap Kick and Improved Trip. Whenever you make a trip attempt you get a second attack from Snap Kick, which you can use to make a second trip attempt if the first fails, and then hit them when they are tripped. Drastically increases your chance of tripping someone, and it even works on AoOs.

[Togo]

II guess my question is, what's the best way to turn into a bear, shark, elephant, etc and whoop some ass? MoMF doesn't seem to contain the most hurt per class level. And Druid 20 is absolutely great, but it doesn't appear to be quite as melee oriented as I want. That's why I was contemplating a martial adept dip earlier

The most obvious approach is something like Druid5/Nature's warrior5/Warshaper5/Druid5, for a total of 10 druid levels, 12th level casting, 15 levels of Wildshape, +5 to AC, two other nature's warrior powers, immunity to criticals, bonus natural weapon attack, +4 Str, +4Con, fast healing, unlimited numbers of changes, and the ability to turn into any animal in the game short of Mastadons and blue whales. I'd recommend the feats, fast wildshape, so that you can shift and attack in the same turn, and unarmed strike, so you get many many attacks per turn.

Optimisers will inform you, however, that more druid spellcasting would be more powerful.

You may also want to check out bear warrior (Complete Warrior). It only allows bears, but the combat bonues and mayhem are huge, and you get to pretend to be Bjorn from the Hobbit.

[Spuddles]

More spellcasting will only be more powerful for your purposes if you can find a way to cast spells and full attack in the same round. Otherwise your spells will be spent on not doing what you want (summoning, blasting, being annoying, etc), or used to buff you to more powerful levels. Without quicken, persist, or other methods to get buffs up quickly, you'll find that you will lose a few turns of actions, which means for many combats, combat will be halfway over by the time your buffs surpass the competency of a pure melee build.

You can always fill higher level slots with quickened spells, of course.

[Oscredwin]

Druid 20.

Spells are for buffs and for out of combat usage. Barkskin, (greater) magic fang, bite of the wear X, other things that people have mentioned here (I haven't played a druid) keep you competitive on animal shapes for crushing people. Take extend spell and use it, stay super all day long. WoW druids cast mark of the wild and thorns on themselves (they still do that right?), you have to do that too.

Or......

What level are you starting? Some sort of barbarian bear warrior build would be an awesome way to be an animal in melee.

[SirAxealot]

Another question: How well would a shifter druid work? I understand that you can shift while wildshaped. How well could shifting work to augment wildshaping? Do shifter feats help with wildshaped forms?

Also, how do natural attacks, unarmed strikes, offhand attacks, etc. interact? The rules seem to be pretty unclear. I have seen that you can get your iterative attacks and then add your natural attacks on afterwards?

[Spuddles]

If you can get your iteratives via a manufactured weapon or unarmed strike, you can also make your natural attacks at -5 (though I believe multiweapon fighting line will reduce these penalties). Note that you can't make weapon attacks with the same limb that makes natural attacks and vice versa. A half fiend with a greatsword can only make a bite if he uses the sword cause his hands are full/already attacked.

Getting dragon or aberration type can be useful for picking up rapidstrike.

[SirAxealot]

If you can get your iteratives via a manufactured weapon or unarmed strike, you can also make your natural attacks at -5 (though I believe multiweapon fighting line will reduce these penalties). Note that you can't make weapon attacks with the same limb that makes natural attacks and vice versa. A half fiend with a greatsword can only make a bite if he uses the sword cause his hands are full/already attacked.

Getting dragon or aberration type can be useful for picking up rapidstrike.

So say you take a level in monk, or unarmed swordsage or something. Since it specifically says that you can make unarmed strikes with any part of your body, could you turn into a bear, hit the enemy with a headbutt as an unarmed strike, and then claw and bite them, or something like that?

[Togo]

Yes, you get your full allotment of unarmed attacks, including flurry if any, and then you can take all your natural weapon attacks as secondary attacks, at -5 to hit. The multiattack feat reduces that to -2.

The only real problem with that is that you're a fricking martial artist bear, which may not fit your campaign style all that well.

[SirAxealot]

Well, you don't have to flavor it as kung-fu. Heck you could be a swordsage bear and still just have it be clawing, biting, etc. Some maneuver choices might make it a bit tougher, but still.