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View Full Version : A Quick Tier 3 Druid Fix [3.5, Fix, PEACH]



Amechra
2013-12-03, 06:52 AM
1. All Druids use the Shapeshift Druid ACF.

2. All Druids gain the Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) feat as a bonus feat at 3rd level.

3. Druid spellcasting is replaced by Spirit Shaman spellcasting, using a Bard's spells per day progression. Your spells retrieved each day are equal to a Bard's spells known.

There; now the Druid is still effective but not godly powerful anymore.

Grod_The_Giant
2013-12-03, 09:38 AM
If you're cutting back to a 6-level progression, why steal the Spirit Shaman's mechanic?

nonsi
2013-12-03, 09:42 AM
1. All Druids use the Shapeshift Druid ACF.

2. All Druids gain the Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) feat as a bonus feat at 3rd level.

3. Druid spellcasting is replaced by Spirit Shaman spellcasting, using a Bard's spells per day progression. Your spells retrieved each day are equal to a Bard's spells known.

There; now the Druid is still effective but not godly powerful anymore.

Allow me:
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. No. No. No. I want my nature-tied primary spellcaster to be a full castes. Storm of Vengeance is a rightly-so 9th level spell and it sits nicely on the Druid. And no thanks on the Spirit Shaman's spell retrieval mechanics. That's the biggest no-no on the vancian spellcasting approach - having to guess what to use today.

Reduce them to low BAB until they shift - then deprive them of spells and you're good to go.

PairO'Dice Lost
2013-12-03, 04:42 PM
And no thanks on the Spirit Shaman's spell retrieval mechanics. That's the biggest no-no on the vancian spellcasting approach - having to guess what to use today.

Spell retrieval actually makes the guess-today's-spells minigame easier than standard Vancian casting, since you just have to guess "I'm probably going to need spells W, X, Y, and Z today" as opposed to "I'm probably going to need two copies of W, three of X, and one each of Y and Z." And it's also superior to spontaneous casting: if you retrieve the same set of spells each day you're effectively a normal spontaneous caster, except that you can swap those spells out for more niche spells during downtime if needed without wasting a precious spells known slot on that spell for normal adventuring.


Also, while I do agree that the higher-level druid spells are really thematic and fun, it's not necessarily a dealbreaker to limit the druid to 6th level spells; the bard has "only" 6th level spells, but some of his 5th- and 6th-level spells are higher-level spells from other lists. It goes past a quick-'n'-dirty fix, but it would be possible to alter or re-level higher-level druid spells to fit a bard-like progression.

Here are the 7th+ level core druid spells that I think are actually druid-y, as opposed to just being standard fare for high-level casters, and whether they would work as lower-level spells:
animate plants: Can be lowered to 6th level, just like animate objects.
changestaff: Just add "treant" to the SNA VI monster list.
control weather: Can be very powerful if used right. Iffy.
creeping doom: Summoning 10 swarms does not need to be 5 levels higher than summon swarm. Fine at 6th.
sunbeam: Basically two scorching rays spread out over 6 rounds, plus blinding. Can easily be reduced to 5th or 6th, maybe even 4th.
transmute metal to wood: Drop the range to Medium and it would work at 5th, like transmute rock to mud.
wind walk: Can be lowered to 6th, since clerics get it at 6th already.
animal shapes: Clerics already get it at 7th instead of 8th, but a mass polymorph even into animals only is still iffy.
control plants: Dominate person is bard 4 and controls humanoids (fairly common) for days/level, but control plants is druid 8 and controls plants (fairly rare) for minutes/level? Pssh. Drop this to 4th.
earthquake: Fairly powerful. This one's iffy.
repel metal or stone: Repel wood is 6th, this can be too.
sunburst: Drop the double damage portion and it could be lowered to 5th.
whirlwind: Fairly powerful. Iffy.
elemental swarm: Fairly powerful. Iffy.
regenerate: Could be 3rd for all that limb-removal effects show up in 3e.
shambler: The only really amazing part about this is the duration, but it's still iffy.
shapechange: Broken, but not just for druids so it's probably already banned.
storm of vengeance: Powerful, but it's cool enough that it should be kept.

Of those spells, the only ones that are really too good to drop to 5th or 6th are control weather, earthquake, whirlwind, animal shapes, shambler, storm of vengeance, and elemental swarm. The easy solution would be to make it a class feature for high-level druid to get to pick one of those spells to add to their list as a sort of capstone spell. Do the same for non-core spells, lowering spells that are over-leveled and adding powerful ones to the capstone list, and a bard-progression druid should work out just fine.

johnbragg
2013-12-03, 05:15 PM
1. All Druids use the Shapeshift Druid ACF.

2. All Druids gain the Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) feat as a bonus feat at 3rd level.

3. Druid spellcasting is replaced by Spirit Shaman spellcasting, using a Bard's spells per day progression. Your spells retrieved each day are equal to a Bard's spells known.

There; now the Druid is still effective but not godly powerful anymore.

Suggested Druid spellcasting system, with spontaneous casting

Spells Known as Sorcerer, plus Summon NAture's Ally at each spell level

Spells per Day as Adept, plus one spell per spell level at normal progression.

eggynack
2013-12-03, 05:17 PM
Of those spells, the only ones that are really too good to drop to 5th or 6th are earthquake,
Heh. The irony here is that earthquake is already basically a 6th level spell for druids, because they can summon an oread with SNA VI. Also, storm of vengeance actually probably could be dropped to a 6th or so. Is it really better than control winds, or to use a more level appropriate example, sandstorm? I'm honestly somewhat doubtful.

Rebonack
2013-12-03, 05:45 PM
To be fair you could reduce the Druid's spell list to nothing but SNA and they would still be a solid class.

My feelings on the Druid is that the best thing to do is split it into several classes akin to what was done with the Warmage, the Beguiler, and the Dread Necro.

Have a Wildshape/Master of Many Forms druid, an animal companion/summons druid, a weather/elemental druid, and an earth/plant/healing druid. Each could be balanced into T3 land pretty easily.

PairO'Dice Lost
2013-12-03, 05:46 PM
Heh. The irony here is that earthquake is already basically a 6th level spell for druids, because they can summon an oread with SNA VI.

Huh, I'd forgotten they were added to the SNA list. Then yes, that could be dropped to 6th without adding any balance problems.


Also, storm of vengeance actually probably could be dropped to a 6th or so. Is it really better than control winds, or to use a more level appropriate example, sandstorm? I'm honestly somewhat doubtful.

There are two main differences between control winds/sandstorm and storm of vengeance: First, storm of vengeance deals 6d6 automatic damage to all creatures in a 360-foot radius and a minimum of 5d6 more to up to 6 people in the area (such as the commanders of an army), while the other spells don't actually start dealing damage to Medium creatures until hurricane winds (which only deals 4d4 nonlethal per round) or tornado winds (which requires the tornado funnel to touch a target to deal lethal damage, and you might not be able to create a tornado if it's calm and your CL isn't high enough), so SoV is a much better army-killer at the CLs when you first get those spells while the others are mostly useful against stationary targets like buildings. Second, SoV is castable at Long range while the other two are centered on the caster, so even given an eye of calm around the caster it's safer to blast an army from a half-mile away than to try to get to the middle of the target army/town and destroy it that way.

Taking those two factors into account, I don't think SoV should be a 9th level spell, but I don't know if it would be balanced to drop it all the way to 6th, and even leaving it at 7th level would make it capstone-worthy for this druid.

eggynack
2013-12-03, 06:17 PM
There are two main differences between control winds/sandstorm and storm of vengeance: First, storm of vengeance deals 6d6 automatic damage to all creatures in a 360-foot radius and a minimum of 5d6 more to up to 6 people in the area (such as the commanders of an army), while the other spells don't actually start dealing damage to Medium creatures until hurricane winds (which only deals 4d4 nonlethal per round) or tornado winds (which requires the tornado funnel to touch a target to deal lethal damage, and you might not be able to create a tornado if it's calm and your CL isn't high enough), so SoV is a much better army-killer at the CLs when you first get those spells while the others are mostly useful against stationary targets like buildings. Second, SoV is castable at Long range while the other two are centered on the caster, so even given an eye of calm around the caster it's safer to blast an army from a half-mile away than to try to get to the middle of the target army/town and destroy it that way.

Taking those two factors into account, I don't think SoV should be a 9th level spell, but I don't know if it would be balanced to drop it all the way to 6th, and even leaving it at 7th level would make it capstone-worthy for this druid.
SoV does have its advantages over control winds and sandstorm, certainly, but they're more than tempered by weaknesses. Control winds comes into effect immediately, and that's after a standard action. SoV, by contrast, has a one round casting time, and then you get deafening in the first round, 1d6 damage in the second round, and then moderately better stuff in following rounds These effects are competitive against massive piles of chaff, but against any sort of small group, you're doing nothing. I'd much rather have the BFC effects imposed by control winds, especially with that crazy duration.

If you want to talk army destroyers, how about something like blizzard? It has long range, a 100 ft./level radius spread, and quickly kills the movement of an approaching army. In three rounds, you can either deal a few d6's, or you can make an entire army pay four squares of movement for every five feet. You also completely cut off ranged attacks, like SoV, and you absolutely destroy vision in the entire radius. Blizzard even slowly takes out your enemies with non-lethal damage, which is highly relevant with that level of BFC. You can even screw with the enemy army by adding a couple instances of blood snow to your list. If I want to kill an army, I'll take blizzard over SoV any day.

Edit: Alternatively, if you just want damage in a wide range, why not boreal wind? That's some solid damage in a solid area right there.

nonsi
2013-12-03, 06:34 PM
Huh, I'd forgotten they were added to the SNA list. Then yes, that could be dropped to 6th without adding any balance problems.



There are two main differences between control winds/sandstorm and storm of vengeance: First, storm of vengeance deals 6d6 automatic damage to all creatures in a 360-foot radius and a minimum of 5d6 more to up to 6 people in the area (such as the commanders of an army), while the other spells don't actually start dealing damage to Medium creatures until hurricane winds (which only deals 4d4 nonlethal per round) or tornado winds (which requires the tornado funnel to touch a target to deal lethal damage, and you might not be able to create a tornado if it's calm and your CL isn't high enough), so SoV is a much better army-killer at the CLs when you first get those spells while the others are mostly useful against stationary targets like buildings. Second, SoV is castable at Long range while the other two are centered on the caster, so even given an eye of calm around the caster it's safer to blast an army from a half-mile away than to try to get to the middle of the target army/town and destroy it that way.

Taking those two factors into account, I don't think SoV should be a 9th level spell, but I don't know if it would be balanced to drop it all the way to 6th, and even leaving it at 7th level would make it capstone-worthy for this druid.

Seems like, in the aftermath, the only really problematic spell is Shapechange (which which isn't really a big issue with Wild Shape, but is with shapeshift). Everything else is within reason, so I see no real motivation to mess with the Druid's spell progression.
Druid spells seem inferior compared to the other fullcasters.
So this brings us back to:
1. Wild Cohort at 3rd over Animal Companion at 1st.
2. Shapeshift over Wild Shape.
3. low BAB when not shapeshifted and no spellcasting while shapeshifted.

eggynack
2013-12-03, 06:43 PM
Seems like, in the aftermath, the only really problematic spell is Shapechange (which which isn't really a big issue with Wild Shape, but is with shapeshift). Everything else is within reason, so I see no real motivation to mess with the Druid's spell progression.
Druid spells seem inferior compared to the other fullcasters.
So this brings us back to:
1. Wild Cohort at 3rd over Animal Companion at 1st.
2. Shapeshift over Wild Shape.
3. low BAB when not shapeshifted and no spellcasting while shapeshifted.
If you want a tier three druid, you can't do it without cutting the list, either in height, or in scope. It's not quite up to wizard or cleric standards, at least at high levels, but it is enough to make a class tier one, even on a commoner. If you just want a weaker druid, those changes are fine, but if you want a druid that's as weak as a bard, the changes here aren't nearly sufficient.

Just to Browse
2013-12-03, 06:47 PM
Decent high-level spells become crap or disappear, and the overpowered ones now become decent, so truly Tier 3 druids are mostly cookie-cutter with identical desired stats, identical transformations, and even identical spell choices day-to-day. You can't even make good SoD druids with the reduced save DCs, so everyone will want blinding spittle.

PairO'Dice Lost
2013-12-03, 07:36 PM
If you want to talk army destroyers, how about something like blizzard?

That is an excellent point; I'd forgotten druids get that one, I was mixing it up with obedient avalanche which is Cold domain only. Given the extra AoE oomph that Frostburn gives druids, I could definitely see dropping SoV to 5th or maybe even 4th.

So yeah, a druid with bard-progression casting is totally doable. Whether it's actually tier 3 and/or fun to play is another question, of course.

eggynack
2013-12-03, 07:40 PM
That is an excellent point; I'd forgotten druids get that one, I was mixing it up with obedient avalanche which is Cold domain only. Given the extra AoE oomph that Frostburn gives druids, I could definitely see dropping SoV to 5th or maybe even 4th.

So yeah, a druid with bard-progression casting is totally doable. Whether it's actually tier 3 and/or fun to play is another question, of course.
I think the lesson we all must take from this is that frostburn is frigging amazing for druids. It's not a very profound lesson, and it is one that I learn often, but I think it is a good one. I mean, blizzard isn't even really as good as call avalanche, even if it can handle large scale scenarios more efficiently. The more I read call avalanche, the more it looks like a reflex save or lose that hits an area, lacks SR, and deals damage no matter what. It's a ridiculous spell.

Edit: The second and third lessons are that the druid list is amazing, and that I likely wouldn't cast SoV as a 5th level spell. Honestly, the only things that make it really interesting are that it kills ranged attacks, and that it hits spell casting in two separate ways (deafened and the concentration check).

Carl
2013-12-04, 08:41 AM
Not familiar with blizzard but for sheer army killing a Firestorm is pretty snazzy too, particularly if you can get a metamagic reducer so you can widen it.

eggynack
2013-12-04, 02:19 PM
Not familiar with blizzard but for sheer army killing a Firestorm is pretty snazzy too, particularly if you can get a metamagic reducer so you can widen it.
Firestorm is a spell level higher than is relevant, and it's not as good as blizzard. Basically, at long range, in a 100 ft./level radius, blizzard creates a foot of snow every round for rounds/level. That cuts off all visibility, all ranged attacks, reduces the maneuverability of everyone in its radius more and more each round, and incidentally deals a tiny bit of non-lethal damage. It's a pretty ridiculous spell. Also, the snow lasts until it melts naturally, which could be a hell of a long time, and blizzard is SR: no.

Carl
2013-12-04, 05:19 PM
Okay that's a just stupid radius, at max level with widen it's basically a 1.8 mile diameter circle. Whoever came up with that needs their head examining, the Orb spells from Complete Arcane are unbelievably broke, but they look like a paragon of balance by comparison to that.

eggynack
2013-12-04, 05:52 PM
Okay that's a just stupid radius, at max level with widen it's basically a 1.8 mile diameter circle. Whoever came up with that needs their head examining, the Orb spells from Complete Arcane are unbelievably broke, but they look like a paragon of balance by comparison to that.
Heh, yeah, frostburn is cool. Call avalanche is, as I noted, potentially even better. It's not at that big radius, but the effect is crazy. These are both 5th level spells, if that wasn't clear. Frostburn is actually one of the better sources of druid stuff out there, though there're a lot of other great sources. For example, the book of exalted deeds has several feats that are pretty broken on a druid, like exalted wild shape, and using exalted companion to put VoP on your animal companion, and there's also a pretty great spell list out of there. You can do some crazy stuff with sufficient knowledge/splat book access. I think that folks tend to underestimate the sheer power that druids can bring to bear, which is pretty meaningful given how ridiculously powerful people think they are.

Edit: Also, if you want orb of fire style action on a druid, you should look into splinterbolt. It's like scorching ray, except it takes a ranged attack instead of ranged touch, and it's crazy difficult to resist. It cuts right through AMF's, spell resistance, and energy resistance alike. It deals even more damage if you take it from hereabouts (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040710a), and cast it in a forested area. The ranged attack is a real setback, but druids can get ridiculous dexterity.

Yitzi
2013-12-05, 10:21 PM
Okay that's a just stupid radius, at max level with widen it's basically a 1.8 mile diameter circle. Whoever came up with that needs their head examining, the Orb spells from Complete Arcane are unbelievably broke, but they look like a paragon of balance by comparison to that.

On the other hand, I don't think it's that good against a small number of powerful enemies.

I think it's a good example of what a high-level druid should be able to do; druids of sufficient level should, like the power they serve, be army- or even civilization-killers (or -savers). But of course for balance that would need to come at a cost of capability in smaller-scale encounters...

Also, I will agree that it's unbalanced simply due to having a low casting time; something that big should take hours if not days to pull off. Again, like nature: Powerful, extremely large in scale, but not exactly quick.

eggynack
2013-12-05, 10:32 PM
On the other hand, I don't think it's that good against a small number of powerful enemies.

I think it's a good example of what a high-level druid should be able to do; druids of sufficient level should, like the power they serve, be army- or even civilization-killers (or -savers). But of course for balance that would need to come at a cost of capability in smaller-scale encounters...

It's not too bad against smaller encounters. You completely shut off vision and ranged attacks, which are two things that are always good to shut off. The snow piles up pretty fast, and at the higher depths you really slow movement to a crawl. Finally, frigging blood snow. Yeah. Blizzard is much better against big encounters, and call avalanche is much better against small encounters, but they're both reasonable in non-ideal situations.