3.5 Druid. Core plus two books.

[evisiron]

Hi.

I'm finally getting to play a Druid, and wondering if anyone had some advice on how to tweak it, as well as any general tips. I will be playing a really old Kobold who was an NPC in the last campaign.
Level: 10
Book access: We have our choice of two splat books at the moment. I was thinking races of the dragon for Dragonwrought feat to remove age penalties and MIC for Wilding Clasps.
Party: a pixie warlock and a melee cleric.
My DM has allowed me a Psuedodragon as an animal companion for theme reasons. I know it won't be too powerful, but telepathy will come in handy while I'm wild shaped.

I still need to pick feats after obligatory Natural Spell and Dragonwrought, as well as pick my gear and spells.
(Is 17000 for Monks Belt plus wilding clasp worth it?)

Any advance for choosing wild shape forms would also be greatly appreciated, along with any other advice.

Thanks in advance!

[Yajirobe]

MIC and SpC...

Be happy.

edit: about spell selection, wild shape advice and other related stuff: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=940.0

[Chronos]

You really don't need anything but core. What will help, though, is Magic Item Compendium, mostly just for Wilding Clasps and Pearl of Speech, and of course Spell Compendium.

My previous character was a druid in a core-only game, and not being able to speak in wildshape was my one biggest frustration. If we had gone far enough with those characters to get a chance to buy more equipment, I was going to ask the DM for an exemption just for Pearl of Speech or something similar... And he also said that it was really annoying for him, too, so he probably would have granted it.

[ArcturusV]

Might want to check on what counts as "Splat book access" because you're going to want Monster Manuals for Wildshaping, more so than you'd want Spell Compendium or Magic Item Compendium. In which case I'd pick my favorite MM for wild shaping (Which in part depends on what you wanted to do with your shaping) and the MiC, and just stuff Dragonwrought away for later.

That said, thinking about it... you wouldn't need Dragonwrought, at least for your stated purpose, right? I mean, Age Penalties would go away when you Wildshape due to Wildshape being "Set your physical stats to X" not "Adjust them by this amount". So if all you're doing it for is eliminating age penalties... well... you already got that built into your class.

[Alabenson]

My recommendation for the first book would definitely be for the Spell Compendium, which will give you a huge boost in versatility.

For the second book, I'd either recommend the Magic Item Compendium for wilding clasps if you're going to focus on Wild Shape, or the Eberron Campaign Setting for the Ashbound feat if you want to focus on summoning.