Good Druid Templates?

[Grams]

I'm playing in a small party Under Mountain Campaign. I am worried...

Buffer/Blaster Cleric
Fighter
Druid: Me

I've been told by the DM this will be very challenging and as such am trying to OP my druid.

He's a Strongheart Halfling. I'll be taking Exaulted Wildshape and Exaulted Companion to remove the issue of darkness.


Are there any good (free of druid level retardation, of course) templates I could tack onto him that make sense?

Thanks

[Grams]

Oh! Forgot, I am going to try and add the Warbeast Template to my animal companion BEFORE Exaulted Animal Companion.

[eggynack]

The only template I can think of that's worth much of anything is dragonborn (RotD, 8), and that one is counterproductive on a strongheart halfling, cause you lose the feat. Templates aren't all that good where druids are concerned, and even if they were, they wouldn't be a major factor in druid success. You may want to consider tossing VoP on your animal companion, after you get exalted companion, as it's a reasonably strong maneuver. Other than that, the only thing you really need for a good druid is a strong spell list. Focus on that, and things should be fine.

[Grams]

You may want to consider tossing VoP on your animal companion, after you get exalted companion, as it's a reasonably strong maneuver. .

Thanks for the input.

My DM is strict and would probably say that my companion (although has an Int of 3) would not have the decision making ability to take on a Vow even though it would work via RAW.

Maybe if I dump his HD gained ability points into INT?

The other issue is that what would the ape be losing with the Vow? He wouldn't have anything anyway haha. Unless my DM let's him wear magical jewelry and 0 ACP magical armor... Which is probably better but then again I don't have to spend Gold gearing two characters. I'll run it by.

[eggynack]

Thanks for the input.

My DM is strict and would probably say that my companion (although has an Int of 3) would not have the decision making ability to take on a Vow even though it would work via RAW.

Maybe if I dump his HD gained ability points into INT?

The other issue is that what would the ape be losing with the Vow? He wouldn't have anything anyway haha. Unless my DM let's him wear magical jewelry and 0 ACP magical armor... Which is probably better but then again I don't have to spend Gold gearing two characters. I'll run it by.
The latter thing is the relevant one. Your exalted companion is both heavily aligned, and intelligent enough to take any feat without a prerequisite that stops it from taking it. I could see disallowing it for not losing anything reasons, though it definitely works per RAW. Without that exploit exalted companion is probably a waste of a feat. Exalted wild shape is pretty fantastic though. One of the better additional form options available.

[Urpriest]

I'm playing in a small party Under Mountain Campaign. I am worried...

Buffer/Blaster Cleric
Fighter
Druid: Me

I've been told by the DM this will be very challenging and as such am trying to OP my druid.

He's a Strongheart Halfling. I'll be taking Exaulted Wildshape and Exaulted Companion to remove the issue of darkness.


Are there any good (free of druid level retardation, of course) templates I could tack onto him that make sense?

Thanks

As eggynack has said, unless you're getting the level adjustment for free you probably don't want to take any templates on this character.


Oh! Forgot, I am going to try and add the Warbeast Template to my animal companion BEFORE Exaulted Animal Companion.

That probably doesn't work. Warbeasts are born, not trained, the training section describes what it takes to train an existing warbeast to fight for you, wear armor, etc. Compare it to the 3.0 Handle Animal rules and you'll see the connection.


Thanks for the input.

My DM is strict and would probably say that my companion (although has an Int of 3) would not have the decision making ability to take on a Vow even though it would work via RAW.

Maybe if I dump his HD gained ability points into INT?

The other issue is that what would the ape be losing with the Vow? He wouldn't have anything anyway haha. Unless my DM let's him wear magical jewelry and 0 ACP magical armor... Which is probably better but then again I don't have to spend Gold gearing two characters. I'll run it by.

In terms of Int level, that's really all a matter of what your DM is comfortable with.

In terms of what you're giving up, even if you weren't planning on kitting your animal companion out like a PC, there are still a bunch of items that are made for animal companions to wear, including horseshoes, saddles, harnesses, and the like, that your companion would be unable to use. So there's still some sacrifice involved.

[Grams]

In terms of what you're giving up, even if you weren't planning on kitting your animal companion out like a PC, there are still a bunch of items that are made for animal companions to wear, including horseshoes, saddles, harnesses, and the like, that your companion would be unable to use. So there's still some sacrifice involved.

My Companion is an Ape so he could wear rings, chokers and humanoid armor at a non-humanoid price.

I talked to my DM and he allowed my Ape to take Sacred Vow and VoP. So that sorts out my Animal companion... but not my druid.

Seems like there are no free templates for my actual character though?

[Coidzor]

Arctic gives +2 con, -2 cha, as I recall, amongst some other benefits for a minor adjustment. LA+0, so there's that.

Magic-Blooded (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=155363) gives -2 wis, +2 cha, so if you were able to use a Fey Druid (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10546562&postcount=11) or Dynamic Priest from Dragonlance(and focused on spells without saving throws) you could get +2 constitution -2 wisdom and an array of minor benefits for +0 LA and switch your spellcasting over to Charisma.

Not terribly good, either Arctic Alone or Arctic>Magic-Blooded(AKA Spark), but they're LA+0. There's a couple of other ones, but they're not as good or are LA+1 from that same source, Dragon 306.

[geekintheground]

not really, but like eggy said that isnt that big a deal. just learn what your spells do and you should be fine. another tip would be wildshape related: desmodu hunting bat and fleshraker are 2 favorites around here depending on what you want to do (fleshraker is probably better as a companion, so it can do its melee while you cast, but ape can be fun to use since it isnt a stretch to give it some weapon proficiencies)

[Zweisteine]

Be an Anthropomorphic Bat instead!

Free flight and +4 Wisdom is delicious!

Also add the Arctic and Desert Racial Variants to get +2 Con for -2 Cha, +4 Survival (actual +4 Wilderness Lore and +2 Intuit Direction, but those became survival in 3.5), and, if you have earlier templates granting SLAs, you get Create Water (CL=level) and Ray of Frost (CL 1) once per day each!

[claypigeons]

The best template is Greenbound, via Greenbound Summoning (Lost Empires of Faerun? I think...).

Og course it doesn't apply to ~you~... but +8 str and GOOD SLAs on your summoned critters is amazing.

[eggynack]

Anthropomorphic bat is actually +6 wisdom. Utterly ridiculous. It's possibly worse than just having a feat at higher levels, but that kind of bonus is massive. As for arctic and desert, those don't look anything like templates to me. They look like, y'know, a race. You can be an arctic halfing, or you can be a strongheart halfling, but you can't be an arctic strongheart halfling.

[Darth Stabber]

Templates should probably be avoided for primary casters, especially druids who lose a lot of those kind of benefits when wild shaped, and after a certain point it makes very little sense for a druid to not be in animal form constantly (by lvl 8 you can be in animal form all day every day and you probably should).

Taking VoP on a druid is not as terrible as it is with most classes, especially since the benefits transfer to animal form with no additional work. It's still worse than items, but it's the best class for it. The other 2 classes that can make it work (totemist and incarnate) do so for the same reason, namely difficulty with magic items. Next time I get to play gestalt I am probably going to play a pixie druid//totemist with VoP, squeeze in the saint template, warshaper, and a couple levels of swordsage is possible

[Coidzor]

Anthropomorphic bat is actually +6 wisdom. Utterly ridiculous. It's possibly worse than just having a feat at higher levels, but that kind of bonus is massive. As for arctic and desert, those don't look anything like templates to me. They look like, y'know, a race. You can be an arctic halfing, or you can be a strongheart halfling, but you can't be an arctic strongheart halfling.

Arctic and Desert are also environmental templates from Dragon 306, though IIRC, the proper name for Desert there is Waste-dweller or something, just like how the Wild template there is properly called Savage when applied to a creature and Magic Blooded is properly called Spark when applied but Magic Blooded is the name of the template itself.

Which sorta annoyed me at first, I must admit. x,x

[eggynack]

Taking VoP on a druid is not as terrible as it is with most classes, especially since the benefits transfer to animal form with no additional work. It's still worse than items, but it's the best class for it. The other 2 classes that can make it work (totemist and incarnate) do so for the same reason, namely difficulty with magic items. Next time I get to play gestalt I am probably going to play a pixie druid//totemist with VoP, squeeze in the saint template, warshaper, and a couple levels of swordsage is possible
Yeah, they can do pretty decently at it for a few reasons. First, as you noted, items are something of a hassle for druids. Nowhere near an insurmountable one, but there's incentive to go itemless. Second, druids can do natively things that other classes get through items. They don't quite get everything (They actually might. Depends on how broadly you define everything, and on how deep you're willing to go), and the lack of item need means that they can pack in a lot of non-essential stuff for power boosting, but they can live.

Third, druids get access to some of the better exalted feats in the game, which cuts down on the amount of crap you end up taking on. In particular, they get both exalted wild shape and exalted companion, which are excellent (though the latter is only so if you use it for VoP), nymph's kiss is always good, and both intuitive attack and touch of golden ice work especially well on a druid. It goes a bit downhill after that, and the other options make nimbus of light look strong by comparison, but it's more than most get. Druids are definitely better with items, at least in a game with normal WBL, but they can do reasonably without them.

[Grams]

not really, but like eggy said that isnt that big a deal. just learn what your spells do and you should be fine. another tip would be wildshape related: desmodu hunting bat and fleshraker are 2 favorites around here depending on what you want to do (fleshraker is probably better as a companion, so it can do its melee while you cast, but ape can be fun to use since it isnt a stretch to give it some weapon proficiencies)

Well you have to be familiar with an animal to wildshape into it. Not sure if I'll find a fleshraker anytime soon. nore have it as my Animal comp

[eggynack]

Well you have to be familiar with an animal to wildshape into it. Not sure if I'll find a fleshraker anytime soon. nore have it as my Animal comp
That's actually a non-issue. According to the rules compendium, page 26, "The form chosen must be that of an animal the druid has seen or could reasonably know about." It's both a more lax and a less vague standard than the familiarity standard presented by the PHB, and as it's in the rules compendium it overwrites the original rule. That means that a simple knowledge (nature) check with a DC of 14 is sufficient for acquiring a form, and that's a rather trivial number to hit.

Edit: Also, while wild shape has some standard for acquiring a form, there is apparently no such standard for an animal companion. That means that fleshrakers are freely available as an animal companion, which also conveniently grants access to the wild shape form.

[Grams]

Edit: Also, while wild shape has some standard for acquiring a form, there is apparently no such standard for an animal companion. That means that fleshrakers are freely available as an animal companion, which also conveniently grants access to the wild shape form.

"A druid may begin play with an animal companion selected from the following list:..."

I'm confused.

[Coidzor]

"A druid may begin play with an animal companion selected from the following list:..."

I'm confused.

That's for level 1 Druids.

As you level up you get other options. Also, other books expanded the options you can get at 1st level.

Some recommended reading. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=940.0)

[eggynack]

"A druid may begin play with an animal companion selected from the following list:..."

I'm confused.
You can replace your animal companion with other ones, with no necessary knowledge of the new one, and that animal companion can come from anywhere on the animal companion list, depending on your level. Fleshrakers show up on the 4th level list, so you're allowed to call on a new one, technically without even knowing they exist. For wild shape purposes, you could view your newly acquired animal companion, and in so doing gain familiarity with it. You can even then replace that companion, obviously retaining your knowledge of the companion, and potentially pick up familiarity with every animal on the list with nothing spent but time. You can also do this with the SNA list, which is less time consuming. this is, of course, somewhat more involved than just boosting your knowledge (nature) a bit, so you should almost certainly just do that. It's a possible maneuver though.

[Coidzor]

You can replace your animal companion with other ones, with no necessary knowledge of the new one, and that animal companion can come from anywhere on the animal companion list, depending on your level. Fleshrakers show up on the 4th level list, so you're allowed to call on a new one, technically without even knowing they exist. For wild shape purposes, you could view your newly acquired animal companion, and in so doing gain familiarity with it. You can even then replace that companion, obviously retaining your knowledge of the companion, and potentially pick up familiarity with every animal on the list with nothing spent but time. You can also do this with the SNA list, which is less time consuming. this is, of course, somewhat more involved than just boosting your knowledge (nature) a bit, so you should almost certainly just do that. It's a possible maneuver though.

It all depends on how many hoops your DM decides to pull out for you to jump through, but you've got the tools to jump through them.

[eggynack]

It all depends on how many hoops your DM decides to pull out for you to jump through, but you've got the tools to jump through them.
Yeah, having backup methods is nice. The rules compendium quote seems to back up a straight knowledge check to the extent that they're likely unnecessary, but a druid should always have some ways to bypass DM intervention of various kinds, because they can.