3.5 Epic Druid

[hicegetraenk]

I want to create an epic Druid for our next mini-adventure that'll happen next week. The general idea is to rely on wildshape and transforming into dragons. We're playing on 27th level. That'd leave me with 10 feats, 3 of them epic, if I'm correct (not counting possible bonus for human or something). The epic ones will be the ones to get to the dragonshifting (gargantuum ws -> colossal ws -> dragon ws).

As I've never built a druid past level 7, I guess theres a lot of stuff you can do to complement the idea I just don't know of. What's very important to me is, that the character is not hardcore optimized with maybe 10+ different classes, exotic races from 3rd party rulebooks with 2 templates. It should be strong, but not completely broken, and: flavorfull. I am willing to spend feats on characterdriven choices. That's why I'd want my druid to have enough levels to be immune to aging, he shall be a very, very old man, who has seen things come and go, just like the oldest of the dragons.

I have thought of getting feats like fly-by-attack, snatch & wingover, to make most of the dragon form, and I guess I wanna cast while being a dragon, so that'd be another one already reserved.

I'd be very grateful for maybe good PrCs (I don't know any worth taking that do not hurt shapeshifting, with the exception of that shifter from Masters of the Wild), fancy items and such.

All original books are available to me, but no dragon magazine shenanigans. ;)

[Sith_Happens]

Dragon Wild Shape was updated in Draconomicon as a non-epic feat. The restriction to metallic and chromatic dragons only is gone, but it specifically limits you to small or medium only.

[ksbsnowowl]

Go straight Druid.

Look into getting the non-epic feat Dragon Wild Shape from Draconomicon. While limited to Small and Medium forms, they can be any dragon, not just the core ten, and you get all the Ex and Su abilities of said forms.

If you want long-lived, look into Killoren from Races of the Wild.

[ksbsnowowl]

Dragon Wild Shape was updated in Draconomicon as a non-epic feat. The restriction to metallic and chromatic dragons only is gone, but it specifically limits you to small or medium only.

It isn't an "update." Someone just forgot there was already a feat w/ that name. They both exist, and you can take either or both.

WotC's feat index:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/feats


Dragon Wild Shape Dr 105 You can take the form of a dragon.
Dragon Wild Shape EL 53 You can take the form of a dragon.

[hicegetraenk]

The epic feat gives me the 10 Core Dragons including their abilties, and not limiting their size. And I guess a colossal golden Dragon is quite the deal in comparison to a non-core medium one?

[sleepyphoenixx]

Dragons don't need Natural Spell, they can cast without it. If you only plan to use dragon forms you can skip that feat.
You also don't need Collossal Wildshape since the only dragons that are collossal are in the 30-40HD range.

Since the animal companion loses a lot of value at the higher levels i suggest taking shifter as your race along with the first substitution level from Races of Eberron.
The beast spirit gives you standard action summoning, +6 to a physical ability score of your choice, one extra quickened spell of up to 6th level per day, slippery mind and some other stuff.

For prestige classes, Planar Shepherd is probably out unless you want to break the game.
Moonspeaker is a shifter-only PrC from RoE that mainly boosts summoning but has a few universally useful goodies. You'd lose WS levels though so it's probably not for you.

Another PrC option is one level of Contemplative (CD). There's plenty of good domain choices, but my favorite is probably the Luck domain for the reroll chance and access to Miracle (and access to all cleric spells of 8th level and lower & all spells of 7th level and lower. Using Miracle that way does not cost XP.
This gives you access to Body outside Body, Turning you from one dragon into 6 or more depending on how far you push your CL.

For your feats metamagic is always useful even if you want to focus on WS.
Quicken at least is a must imo. Your other feats are completely open.

That's at least mostly reasonable so far imo. If you want to go for more power, use Miracle to Chaos Shuffle your feats into Improved Spell Capacity x8 and Innate Spell (Miracle).You can now cast Miracle at will, once per round. It also gives you lots of extra spell slots that you can use to persist any spell you might want.

[ksbsnowowl]

The epic feat gives me the 10 Core Dragons including their abilties, and not limiting their size. And I guess a colossal golden Dragon is quite the deal in comparison to a non-core medium one?

Ah, was going off memory. Still, some of the other dragon forms are amazing. Shadow dragons, for instance...

[hicegetraenk]

Dragons don't need Natural Spell, they can cast without it. If you only plan to use dragon forms you can skip that feat.
You also don't need Collossal Wildshape since the only dragons that are collossal are in the 30-40HD range.

Since the animal companion loses a lot of value at the higher levels i suggest taking shifter as your race along with the first substitution level from Races of Eberron.
The beast spirit gives you standard action summoning, +6 to a physical ability score of your choice, one extra quickened spell of up to 6th level per day, slippery mind and some other stuff.

For prestige classes, Planar Shepherd is probably out unless you want to break the game.
Moonspeaker is a shifter-only PrC from RoE that mainly boosts summoning but has a few universally useful goodies. You'd lose WS levels though so it's probably not for you.

Another PrC option is one level of Contemplative (CD). There's plenty of good domain choices, but my favorite is probably the Luck domain for the reroll chance and access to Miracle (and access to all cleric spells of 8th level and lower & all spells of 7th level and lower. Using Miracle that way does not cost XP.
This gives you access to Body outside Body, Turning you from one dragon into 6 or more depending on how far you push your CL.

For your feats metamagic is always useful even if you want to focus on WS.
Quicken at least is a must imo. Your other feats are completely open.

That's at least mostly reasonable so far imo. If you want to go for more power, use Miracle to Chaos Shuffle your feats into Improved Spell Capacity x8 and Innate Spell (Miracle).You can now cast Miracle at will, once per round. It also gives you lots of extra spell slots that you can use to persist any spell you might want.

Ah yes. Thanks for pointing out the mistakes and the advice. A lvl in Contemplative also seems very neat. Very likely to pick it up.

For the broken stuff: Nah. I think it's fascinating how easily the game goes out of bounds, but I think creating a really challenging and interesting adventure for 4 epic characters is enough for our DM, and I found myself powergamging enough throughout the years, I want more focus on more 'realistic' (as dumb as it sounds in fantasy settings) approaches to roleplay.
:)

[Rebel7284]

Druid 24/Holt Warden 1/Contemplative 1/Sacred Exorcist 1
Not necessarily in that order.

Having extra domain slots is nice. Contemplative gives you an extra domain to fill those with too. I like Spell domain for Anyspell/Greater Anyspell, but there are many other great choices too.

Sacred Exorcist gives you turn undead so you can keep your buffs up all day with Divine Metamagic.

Persisted Shapechange, especially if you can increase the cap by 3 via reserves of strength, is probably better than wildshape, but that's neither here nor there.

[ksbsnowowl]

Persisted Shapechange, especially if you can increase the cap by 3 via reserves of strength, is probably better than wildshape, but that's neither here nor there.

The one big advantage wild shape has over shapechange, is that wild shape can't be dispelled.

Shapechange is still awesome, though.

[Feilith]

Theres an epic feat in complete divine that lets you turn into magical beasts with your wild shape ability. I think the requirements were easy enough kn- nature and kn-the planes edit: wis 25 and wildshape 6/day, but is a doable feat and then you cant be dispelled from your shapeshift.

Also. Warshaper complements well with druid. Druid 22/warshaper 5 is a solid build. Warahaper gives you fast healing 2, crit and stun immunity, +5ft reach, and you can change shapes during a single wildshape charge, very useful if you wanna be different types of dragons

[EyethatBinds]

Also. Warshaper complements well with druid. Druid 22/warshaper 5 is a solid build. Warahaper gives you fast healing 2, crit and stun immunity, +5ft reach, and you can change shapes during a single wildshape charge, very useful if you wanna be different types of dragons

Warshaper isn't really that vital if you're doing it for fast healing. There's an epic feat that gives you fast healing as well, and fast healing 3 at that. It's simply not worth giving up spellcasting levels for minor tricks that could be done with spells.

[sleepyphoenixx]

You can get fast healing from your spells. You should spent your feats on things that you can't easily accomplish with an ability you already have.
The same goes for crit immunity (Heart of X series), reach (there are WS forms with a natural 60ft reach, do you really need 5ft more?) or anything else you can already do.

Dragon Wild Shape is a gimmick feat because being a melee brute is a gimmick at epic levels.
Even if you're a really big melee brute.

There just aren't all that many feats you need on a druid to be effective in melee so you might as well push your spellcasting or take feats for fluff or cool gimmicks.

[Feilith]

Warshaper isn't really that vital if you're doing it for fast healing. There's an epic feat that gives you fast healing as well, and fast healing 3 at that. It's simply not worth giving up spellcasting levels for minor tricks that could be done with spells.

The capstone is what makes it truely worth it though. The ability to switch forms without wasting your charge of wildshape lets you be tons more versatile mid combat if your initial strat tanks.

[hicegetraenk]

But I want the druid the be a dragon and then stay a dragon, not shape into direshark, legendary wolf, roc, bronze dragon, brass dragon, polar bear, then elemental...

You get the idea: fast shifting / not spending charges is not what I need because I am most likely wildshaping my character once per fight or less.

I know, that is not the optimum, but it's the way I designed my character and I think it's more fitting to him. If I wanted full optimization and power, I'd go for epic spellcasting all the way and keep normal wildshaping as an extra.

Anyway thanks for all your thoughts. Many of them were very helpful to me.

[Spuddles]

The Wild Reaper druid variant from a dragon magazine loses 2 skill points a level and must restrict animal companion and wild shape forms to carnivores. In exchange, he gets the ability to cast several spells spontaneously (like how SNA works), and, most importantly, turn undead at 13th level.

This lets you use persistent spell via divine metamagic fairly easy. Good options would be stuff like Undermaster.