Druid 3.5 Help

[Jackler123]

Hi guys, I'm new to D&D and thus, new to the forum as well. I'm looking into making a character for a campaign this weekend and I wanted to play a Druid.
We rolled for stats and I rolled really well: 18, 16, 15, 14, 14, 12.

I wanted to know your thoughts on how I should "build" this character.
DM has told me this:
•We start at level 4, naked, no items
•We're playing until level 20, long term campaign.

So what are your thoughts, guys and gals?

[eggynack]

What does book access look like? Also, is there anything in particular that you want the druid to be focused on?

[Zweisteine]

The 18 goes into wisdom, no matter what else you do. I'd say the order you want those scores in is 12, 14, 16, 14, 18, 15. I'd say you can probably switch charisma and intelligence, but charisma is good for getting gear, or at least help. Depending on stuff, you might even want to put your extra point into the 15.

Make sure you have some way to find some mistletoe (or whatever you use) as a divine focus for your better spells.

Your sixth level feat will be natural spell, unless you take the shapeshifter variant. If you do use it, and your DM rules that natural spell works with said variant, you should start with natural spell.

Strongheart Halfling is always a solid race choice*. Probably better is Anthropomorphic Bat.

Also, for all your druid optimization needs: The Druid Guide (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=940.0)


*And Racial substitution levels might be good (didn't check them, Races of the Wild).

[Jackler123]

DM says all books are green-lighted as long as I can cite them.

Three of us in the group have iPad and thus we keep a lot of the book PDFs on them so any book is available at the session.

Wild shape sounds really cool, I'm honestly looking to have fun.

[Zweisteine]

Wild shape is much of what makes the druid so powerful (besides casting).

Skills: You need Concentration and, to a lesser degree, spellcraft. Survival is also good, especially for the whole druid=nature thing.

And another, simpler, smaller guide (http://dictummortuum.blogspot.com/2011/08/quickstart-druid.html).

[Illarion]

Since you are just starting to play, I would recommend sticking with the core books and Spell Compendium. You can always pull from more sources as you go, but you are going to have a complicated, versatile character either way. Read the druid handbook that was linked and you should be good to go. The best advise I can give you is to start simple and read a lot. The more you learn about the game the better you will get.

Also, for your 2nd level spells, you can never go wrong with Mass Snake's Swiftness. It's in the Spell Compendium.

Good luck and welcome to the game.

[eggynack]

Y'alright. So, first thing to keep in mind is spells. Spells are basically everything, wrapped up in a neat little bow. You can get everything else wrong, from the feats to the animal companion to the chosen wild shape forms, and if your list is good, you shall be too. The inverse generally also holds. Anyway, with that out of the way, I'll start with things that aren't spells. At level four, the best animal companion is the fleshraker dinosaur (MM III, 40), and in the absence of that, you'd likely do best with a riding dog. The best races are human, strongheart halfling (FRCS, 18), and anthropomorphic bat (SS, 215) as generically good options, and shifter (RoE, 25) and desert half-orcs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/environmentalRacialVariants.htm#desertHalfOrcs) as options that push you down a particular path.

For feats, I'd recommend some quantity of them focused on each facet of the druid, because the gains for each feat devoted to those facets goes down with each one. For summoning, that means greenbound (LEoF, 8) or rashemi elemental summoning (UE, 45), along with ashbound (ECS, 50) and augment summoning as support for the style. For wild shape, that generally means picking up one of the big form adders later on, like exalted wild shape (BoED, 42), frozen wild shape (Frost, 48), or dragon wild shape (Draconomicon, 105). For the animal companion, that means natural bond (CAdv, 111), companion spellbond (PHB II, 77), and maybe exalted companion (BoED, 42) so you can give the animal companion vow of poverty (BoED, 48). Finally, natural spell is an absolute must, and if you're likely to be lacking on the item front going forward, craft wondrous item might be worthwhile. Druids need pretty specific items, if they want those items to be useful.

Next on the list is wild shape forms, and items, each of which I'll only touch on briefly. For wild shape forms, the single best option, at least until you get large, is the desmodu hunting bat (MM II, 65). They have high AC, high initiative, and one of the best flight patterns of any form accessible at those levels. For more face beating, you could also go with the aforementioned fleshraker, but I prefer using the bat as a sort of platform for spell slinging. As for items, some of the best are a ring of the beast (CC, 141), a belt of battle (MIC, 73), a monk's belt, a +wis item, a rod of lesser extend, and last but certainly not least, as many wilding clasps (MIC, 190) as you can get your paws on. There's a whole bunch more, but that's a decent start.

Finally, the most important thing ever, spells. I'm just going to start off with some zeroth through third level spells, and if you want a wider range, I can PM over a handbook that's absolutely full of them. For zeroth's, I'd recommend some mixture of cure minor wounds, detect magic, and create water. It's a strong little list that does things you can't really find with higher level spells. Alternatively, you could always pack a copy of fire eyes (MotW, 88) and use smoke sticks (and things like smoke sticks) to get one way concealment. Anyways, for firsts, you get a pile of the best BFC's in the game, and you should make use of them. Entangle and impeding stones (City, 66) are the two big ones, and spore field (CS, 104) and wall of smoke (SpC, 235) are great backup options. There's also a good amount of utility at that level, like omen of peril (SpC, 149), spider hand (BoVD, 104), and wood wose (SpC, 242).

Now, with second level spells, I would mostly stay away from core options. The best choices for that level are blinding spittle (SpC, 32), and kelpstrand (SpC, 128) as debuffs, luminous armor(BoED, 102) and mass snake's swiftness (SpC, 192) as buffs, and (extended, probably with a rod) creeping cold (SpC, 55) and splinterbolt (SpC, 203) as blasting options. At third level, the best spells, in alphabetical order, are heart of water (CM, 107), greater magic fang, plant growth, primal instinct (DrM, 72), sleet storm, spiritjaws (SpC, 202), stone shape, and wind wall.

So, that's basically the basics. Druids, if you haven't noticed, are crazy dense, pulling their information from just about every facet of the game. That's not even close to all the awesome things you can do, because the amount of awesome things you can do could literally fill a novel. As I mentioned at the top of the spells section, the handbook I've been working on can give you more details about a lot of this stuff, if you desire it. It's not really all the things, because the thing is incomplete, but it's more things.

[Jackler123]

Thanks Eggy, that handbook would be completely welcome! And thanks to everyone for contributing, Im doing the best I can reading on everything, it's just a bulk of material. I'll let you know how it's going. Post if you can think of anything else~

[eggynack]

it's just a bulk of material.
Yeah, druids are big. Like many casting classes, just about every source book in existence is useful for your purposes, between the fact that most books have spells, and the fact that most that don't have animals, plants, or even vermin, dragons, or whatever that you can become, summon, or befriend, depending on your build. The druid has several completely separate lines of optimization, all of whom have their own feats, items, rules, and quirks. The druid, ultimately, is simultaneously one of the simplest classes in the game, and one of the most complex. All it takes to make a good druid is natural spell, one or two good wild shape forms, and a halfway decent spell list. To make a great druid though, you need to know pretty much everything about the game. Also, you'll probably want to make up a couple dozen character sheets, between the wild shape forms, obscure summons, and animal companion. It's a lot of stuff.

Edit: You probably shouldn't let all that intimidate you though. Druids adapt, and they start off good, so you can easily enter the first session with only the knowledge required for a good druid, and that'll leave you with one of the more powerful classes in the game, and apply any new knowledge you might gain with basically no cost. It only takes a day or so to swap out your whole spell list, your animal companion, and your planned list of wild shape forms and summons. Druids are neat like that.

[Coidzor]

Before you commit to any plan concretely, make sure you ask your DM what gear availability will be like once you're playing. Will you be getting back up to Wealth-By-Level over the course of play? Are there any particular idiosyncracies he has about gear availability?

What about magical items? Does he hate magic-mart? Does he use magic mart? Does he allow crafting? Does he allow *time* for crafting?

What are the other players playing as far as you know and how many of them are there?

Is web content kosher?

If you're all starting naked then your animal companion is going to be the best fighter in the party, unless there's someone playing a martial adept character(Warblade, Crusader, or Swordsage) from Tome of Battle or a natural-attack based build such as a Totemist from Magic of Incarnum, especially if your party doesn't get gear quickly once the game starts, barring a well-built unarmed combatant build. Granted, that's not going to be particularly relevant if you're not allowed to have an animal companion at start or if it gets killed/imprisoned separately before you're really playing.

Wild Cohort (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) gives a second, about 2/3 to 3/4(IIRC) strength animal companion which can be quite useful working together with your animal companion or as a mount(for you or a party member) while the animal companion acts as the expendable pet fighter that it is or as a mount for a mounted combatant character.

[Jackler123]

In response to Coidzor's questions chronologically:
We will probably achieve over wealth by level.

He's rather new at DM'ing so magic items are going to be infrequent but definitely present.

He will allow crafting, as we have what he said was an "Artificer" in the party.

The other players haven't really reported in much, so far we have:
Me, a Druid
A "God" Wizard
An Artificer
A Rogue
A Warblade
A Monk (He's going to become a drunken master)
And a cleric of some sort

Web content would have to be run through him first.

[Phelix-Mu]

With a rogue and a monk in the party, you will probably want to tone it down a bit. Work on buffing frequently, general support casting, some battlefield control.

It's a seven-person party. That is huge. If all of them are going to be even vaguely effective, combat rounds are going to be brutally slow (assuming the DM doesn't lowball all of the encounters). I'd advise avoiding too much summoning of beatsticks in combat, since that can slow stuff down even more. Copy down/copy-paste/hyperlink/print out stat blocks for your regular wild shapes and common summons ahead of session; this will minimize time spent leafing through .pdfs or books at the table.

Consider not having an animal companion. There are a couple decent ACFs that get rid of it, though some are only available to certain races. The AC is basically another combatant, one that will likely rival the monk in damage output (depending on optimization, ofc).

Also, talk to the "god" wizard about similarly toning it down. Wizard and druid of sufficient op can pretty much obsolete the entire rest of the party, and while you might not be trying for this, there is a good 4-tier gap in the party makeup. Even with minimal optimization, this will likely show up at some point, and not in a good way. Some people might not care about a gap in effectiveness, but it usually helps to take steps to minimize that gap anyway, as a prophylactic measure.

[danielwpeer]

I wouldn't worry about toning it down for the Rogue or the Drunken Master. (Especially not the Rogue.) And, by all means, summon things to flank for the Rogue. That's how higher CR enemies die. Excel where you're meant to excel and aid the others in places they are meant to excel.

[Socratov]

eggynack: could you cite your books in full titles for our fledgeling druid? I could see him trying to find the books he needs to cite, without knowing what the acronyms are for (as a matter of fact some of them confuse me as well).

the list:
MM II, III: Monster Manual II, III
FRCS: Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
SS: Savage Species (edited)
RoE: Races of Eberron
LEoF: Lost Empires of Faerun (edited)
UE: Unaproachable East (edited)
ECS: Eberron Campaign Setting
BoED: Book of Exalted Deeds
Frost: Frostburn
CAdv: Complete Adventurer
PHB II: Player's Handbook II (yes, they made a second to supplement the first)
CC: Complete Champion
MIC: Magic Item Compendium
SpC: Spell Compendium
MOTW: Masters of the Wild (edited)
City: Cityscape
CS: Complete Scoundrel
BoVD: Book of Vile Deeds
CM: Complete Mage
DrM: Dragon Magic

Edit: Thanks eggynack for filling in the blanks :smallsmile:

[eggynack]

SS: Song & Silence?
LEoF: ???
UE: ???
MOTW: ???

These are savage species, lost empires of faerun, unapproachable east, and masters of the wild respectively. Incidentally, SS is pretty much the worst initialism ever, as it can simultaneously stand for the two books that have been mentioned, as well as shining south. I've yet to come across a place where I'd need to cite song and silence, though I suspect I would use S&S.

[WinWin]

With your party composition you may want to focus on debuffs and battlefield control. That way the punchy characters in your group get to beat up the opposition with improved odds.

Buff spells for your allies can also be handy, not just for combat, but for stealth and other skills. Keep in mind that you can Share Spells with your Animal Companion if you plan on dabbling in melee yourself. The flanking bonus provided by your pet will benefit you if you need it, but it can also be used to aid the Rogue, if it is a melee build.

Goodberry is something you might want to prepare and cast while your characters are not on an adventure. It appears that you are the only healer in the group, at least until the Artificer gets their act together. So at this level, Goodberries can provide useful, out-of-combat healing that does not touch on your daily allotment of spells. They last a day per level, so preparing a pouchful before you go on an adventure will theoretically allow you to get away with preparing less Cure spells for emergencies. One you get a few levels under your belt, you can use Summon Nature's Ally (SNA) to sommon a Unicorn if you need to, so emergency healing becomes a trivial thing. Until then, I highly reccomend preparing Goodberry during downtime.