[3.5] Druid Spell Help (Last Thread, Promise!)

[Sayren-Hai]

Hi all once again,

Sorry for yet another post regarding Druids!
With the sheer amount of spells that can be considered useful from a Druids spell list, which are the most essential? I'm a 10th level True Neutral Druid. Wisdom is 22.

Just so everyone knows I will be starting out with a Staff of the Fauna (50 charges) which gives the following spells / charges used

Animal Growth / 2 Charges
Barkskin / 1 Charge
Greater Magic Fang / 1 Charge.

I'm planning on playing a caster / animal companion buffer.
This way my Tiger handles melee and I can cast spells from range.

Any help would be appreciated!


Also what feats should I be taking? Im a human, so 5 feats in total.

I have:
Natural Bond - +3 on ECL for my Animal Companion (DM has allowed this)
Natural Spell - Spellcasting in wildshape
Spellbound Companion - Share spell now reaches out to 30' rather than 5'
Fast Wild Shape - Wild Shape as move action and not a standard action

Again any help is appreciated, please suggest spells and reasons :)

[JeminiZero]

I'm planning on playing a caster / animal companion buffer.
This way my Tiger handles melee and I can cast spells from range.

Spellbound Companion - Share spell now reaches out to 30' rather than 5'


If your plan is to stay in the back, how often do you think your companion will be within 30 ft of you?

As a Druid, you should always seriously consider Augment Summoning. Remeber, you can spontanouesly cast Summon Natures Ally.

What is the rest of your party? Spell selection should take that into account.

Take for example Kuo Toa Skin (Stormwrack pg 118) which is Druid 1. Lasts 1hr/level,so the whole day at level 10. Grants immunity to webs, so an obvious combo, would be to cast it on the whole party, while the Wizard/Sorcerer throws out webs without fear of friendly fire.

Also, if you have a Cleric, he should focus on the common spells which Clerics do better. For example, Clerics get Deathward (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/deathWard.htm) and Heal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/heal.htm) 1 level lower.

Anyway, heres a quick list of non-core Druid spell I like:

1. Spider Hand (Book of Vile Deeds): Scouting spider
1. Wood Wose (SpC): Druidic Unseen Servant
2. Blinding Spittle (SpC): No save blindness
2. Interfaith Blessing (Complete Champion): provides fairly rare sacred bonus
2. Kelpstrand (SpC): Druidic web shooters
2. Master Air (SpC): Druidic Fly
2. Summon Dire Hawk (Races of The Wild): This lasts minutes/level. Might be useful in a wand.
2: Whispering Flame (Five Nations): Candle walky talkies
3: Blindsight (SpC): One of the best senses available
3: Haboob (Sandstorm): Damaging Cloud
3: Heart of Water (Complete Mage): Freedom of Movement! The water breath is gravy
3: Mass Resist Energy (SpC): To protect the whole party at once.
4: Boreal Wind (Frostburn): Damage AND crowd control
4: Friendly Fire (Exemplars of Evil): Range attacks begone!
4: Heart of Earth (Complete Mage): Stoneskin without the costly componet
4: Sheltered Vitality (SpC): Very few sources of immunity to abilty damage/drain. This is one of them
5: Plant Body (SpC): Immunities galore!

[Sayren-Hai]

My plan was to wild shape into either a bird of some sort, or a cheetah for the fast speed and just stay 30ft behind my companion.

I was looking into the augment summoning to be honest, especially with the 1d3 summon bears and the animal growth spell from my staff.

I believe there is a cleric of st cuthbert, a wizard (not sure what build), a fighter with spiked chain and also a rogue that doesnt do much combat.


[Edit] Also I'll be having a Tiger that is 10ft, with Animal Growth it shall be 15ft base, which means I should be able to get easily within 20' and be fairly safe from melee fighters, if it comes to it, I can always wildshape into something with a beefier Con or decent AC, can always cast barkskin on myself to buff both me and my companion. Theres a variety of ways I plan to play this char.

Was just seeing if theres an optimum way to do it. Would you reccommend taking Spell Focus Conjuration and then Augment Summoning (at 12th) then?

[Darrin]

With the sheer amount of spells that can be considered useful from a Druids spell list, which are the most essential?


My standard treehugger advice (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12183941&postcount=4).



Also what feats should I be taking? Im a human, so 5 feats in total.

I have:
Natural Bond - +3 on ECL for my Animal Companion (DM has allowed this)
Natural Spell - Spellcasting in wildshape
Spellbound Companion - Share spell now reaches out to 30' rather than 5'
Fast Wild Shape - Wild Shape as move action and not a standard action


Except for the last, those all sound like good choices. Fast Wild Shape probably won't be all that useful, since you mentioned you prefer to cast at range, and as a 10th level druid, you can already stay in wildshape pretty much all day. If you wanted to get your hands dirty in melee and focus on wildshape, then it's somewhat marginally useful... but you can still spend all day in your main combat form, so why would you need to change any faster?

Some other feats to consider:

1) Spell Focus: Conjuration, Augment Summoning
3) Extend Spell (if only for extended creeping cold)
6) Natural Spell
9) Summon Elemental (Complete Mage)

You may want to ask your DM about Greenbound Summoning (Lost Empires of Faerun), but expect to hear a firm "No" from any sane DM.

[Sayren-Hai]

Except for the last, those all sound like good choices. Fast Wild Shape probably won't be all that useful, since you mentioned you prefer to cast at range, and as a 10th level druid, you can already stay in wildshape pretty much all day. If you wanted to get your hands dirty in melee and focus on wildshape, then it's somewhat marginally useful... but you can still spend all day in your main combat form, so why would you need to change any faster?

Some other feats to consider:

1) Spell Focus: Conjuration, Augment Summoning
3) Extend Spell (if only for extended creeping cold)
9) Summon Elemental (Complete Mage)


This is very sound advice in all honesty, would you maybe suggest dropping the fast wild shape for spell focus conjuration then augment summoning, Extend spell takes up how many higher slots? is it one or two levels?

[EDIT] I also have a lesser rod of extend so that can do 3 spells per day up to 3rd level. Still worth taking the Extend feat?

[Darrin]

This is very sound advice in all honesty, would you maybe suggest dropping the fast wild shape for spell focus conjuration then augment summoning, Extend spell takes up how many higher slots? is it one or two levels?


Extend is just one spell level. I usually take it as a prereq to grabbing Sculpt Spell (Complete Arcane), because four 10'x10' cubes of call lightning is all sorts of fun (among other things).



[EDIT] I also have a lesser rod of extend so that can do 3 spells per day up to 3rd level. Still worth taking the Extend feat?

It depends on how much Metamagic you want to get into later. If you'd rather not bother with Metamagic, then the lesser rod of extend is much better than locking up your higher-level spell slots. If you already have the rod, then I'd say take Natural Bond at 3rd instead of Extend Spell.