First time Epic Campaign - Help please!

[ddude987]

Edit: Old post got snipped

Hello and good afternoon playground,

I am participating in my first epic campaign soon. I decided I want to play a Druid. I was considering the option of being summoning focused but I am not sure how well that will do in epic levels.

So far what I've thought up is as follows: Dragonwrought Kobold - 1 Cloistered Cleric/19 Druid

The prestige class I have considered is "The Dispassionate Watcher of Chronepsis"

I have no idea for feats, other than natural spell and dragonwrought. I do know I want a Fleshraker Dinosaur but I do not know what feats or gear to give him either!

I know that Druids are good at being party face, or scouts, or summoning, and also crowd control but I do not know which to focus on for this game in epic levels.

The party will be around a mid level of optimization (but will probably not be all casters or not all full casters) Please, any help is appreciated. I read several Druid guides but I have no idea what is going to work as we are going to be in epic levels.

[ddude987]

Bumping because I really need the help... and for great justice!

[mregecko]

Is Epic Spellcasting available? If so, take it, learn how to abuse it, win the world.

If it isn't, things will probably be more interesting.

I'm assuming you're using the Cloistered Cleric levels to get DMM:Persist channels? Make sure your DM is OK with you using those channels to boost non-cleric spells. RAW it works iirc, RAI I wouldn't allow it personally.

How broke are you allowed to be? If you're going all-out, take levels in Planar Shepherd and win the world.

If you like your build setup, then look into the wildshape feats. Draconic Wildshape, Aberrant Wildshape, etc. They can give you some forms that at 20th level will give you insanely high defense and some incredible abilities.

Google the 3.5 druid's handbook for a guide to good wildshape forms and lots of other love.

Do you have any specific goals in mind?

[ddude987]

Is Epic Spellcasting available? If so, take it, learn how to abuse it, win the world.

If it isn't, things will probably be more interesting.

I'm assuming you're using the Cloistered Cleric levels to get DMM:Persist channels? Make sure your DM is OK with you using those channels to boost non-cleric spells. RAW it works iirc, RAI I wouldn't allow it personally.

How broke are you allowed to be? If you're going all-out, take levels in Planar Shepherd and win the world.

If you like your build setup, then look into the wildshape feats. Draconic Wildshape, Aberrant Wildshape, etc. They can give you some forms that at 20th level will give you insanely high defense and some incredible abilities.

Google the 3.5 druid's handbook for a guide to good wildshape forms and lots of other love.

Do you have any specific goals in mind?

Well yes cleric is for persisting Druid spells. It says it works therefore it works is how my DM allows things. I would assume epic spellcasting is allowed but from what I've read on it it doesn't seem fun. My big goal is to really just outshine the rest of the party and also not die. I really want my Fleshraker Dinosaur to kick ass as well but I feel it won't have enough survivability

Edit: I also think summoning is really cool but I don't think it will be good enough at such high levels. Basically I want to be optimized but ave no idea how

[Mishkov]

Well yes cleric is for persisting Druid spells. It says it works therefore it works is how my DM allows things. I would assume epic spellcasting is allowed but from what I've read on it it doesn't seem fun. My big goal is to really just outshine the rest of the party and also not die. I really want my Fleshraker Dinosaur to kick ass as well but I feel it won't have enough survivability

Edit: I also think summoning is really cool but I don't think it will be good enough at such high levels. Basically I want to be optimized but ave no idea how

Look up the spell venomfire. If that's in, your fleshraker will outshine the rest of the party. Remember to advance it by the HD that it should be at that point.

I don't think that prestige class is good either. Druid 21 gets you all the extraordinary abilities of creatures you can shapeshift into. AND now you can shapeshift into a lot of scary things at 21 HD with feats.

I just looked at the ELH and it had this weird line about druid getting "a maximum number of animal companions equal to twice her class level, as normal." What is that about? Can anyone explain?

[distant quasar]

Druids have access to shapechange. That spell alone can optimize your character if you persist it via DMM (and optional: take Tenacious Magic: Shapechange (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#swarmOfArrows).) See this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=241305) thread for some starting ideas on how to use that.

You might consider vow of poverty, since gear isn't that good for druids.

[ddude987]

Okay. So do you think that wild shape is the best way to optimize a druid? Druid can only turn into animals from my knowledge and not magical beasts or anything.

[Phelix-Mu]

At epic levels, there are crazy options for wild shape.

Non-Epic:

Dragon Wildshape: why did this become non-epic? It's from Draconomicon.

Aberrant Wildshape: Lords of Madness. Also quite silly, especially thematically. But there are druids of all sorts, so go for it. Definitely an optimization plus.

Frozen Wildshape: They have to be cold subtype. But then you have energy immunity spell, and the drawback vanishes in a poof of smoke. Cryohydra is nice to have pre-epic, but extremely not necessary, as existing druid tricks are already legion.

Epic:

Magical Beast Wild Shape: I think it's still off of a list, but there are some interesting options. Found in the Epic Level Handbook 3.5 update.

Improved Elemental Wildshape: Depending on DM interpretation of the original Elemental Wildshape class feature, this might not be necessary. Non-crazy DMs (strictly imho), probably rule that only basic elementals are allowed by the normal class feature, and that this is why this epic feat exists, in the DMG, no less. Anyway, so the point is, this feat opens up some crazy, crazy stuff. My favorite is Living Holocaust, MM2 if I recall correctly, for all day "burn, baby, burn"-type fun.
There are literally a hundred other options (though they are all less impressive if you do take Planar Shepherd), especially if your DM gives you access to the Planescape expansion material (was this stuff even official? I couldn't tell looking at the .pdfs, and grandfathered most of it into my world, since it was like 150% awesome). So, in short, have fun. I'd pick up that final level of druid, and heavily consider just more druid; unless you are looking for a specific flavor of broke, then more druid is pretty darn good. Then again, you can always splurge a few levels of wizard and then go Arcane Hierophant, but this is probably sub-optimal (levels in excess of 21 druid levels will net you bonus epic feats, which can be a nice way to boost your power level).

But, as a final comment, wildshape is a tactical prop and fallback plan at high levels. Magic rules the game because it is the Big Bag of Disappearing Problems. . Read every druid spell printed; I would start in Frostburn (yay, frostfell!), personally, but the aforementioned venomfire from Serpent Kingdoms (FR setting) is a gem of poor game design. Remember to metamagic rod energy substitute it, as appropriate. Between venomfire, animal growth, and nature's avatar, the animal companion of a high-level druid is practically unstoppable in combat (even without fleshraker hijinks).

[ddude987]

[snip]

Thanks so much! I looked up magical beast wildshape. Its take-able at level 24 I think. Also no limit on the magical beast you chose and you gain the super naturals.
Also, I've started to read up on Druid spells. There are so many it'll take a while. Lastly, do you think taking all of the Wild Shape feats is worth it? How effective is a small or medium dragon going to be in epic levels?

Also, what are some existing (legion) Druid tricks?