Relatively New Adventuring Druid Looking for a Bit of Help

[TheEyesofSyn]

Hey, so essentially, I'm fairly new to D&D, (Less than a year new) and have been playing a Druid in a campaign as the first character I've played. It's a RP intensive, low-gold campaign with a strict no mid-maxing rule.

Fairly soon our "tank" of the party is retiring, leaving a group of mostly squishy magic users, my Druid, with her brown bear (we're all level 11 at present) being one of the sturdier characters in the group. Now, I've built my character more for RP and the occasionally fireball or two than anything else, but now that I'm feeling a little more comfortable (having recently discovered how utterly awesome and useful wild shape is and how versatile some of the other spells are) I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a semi-newbie who wants to really dig her heals in and be of more use to the party.

In addition, I was wondering if anyone out there had any suggestions for how one would become a bit better with RP. I get a little stuttery and tongue tied when RP situations arise, and it's getting in the way of letting my character's personality shine through.

Thanks a ton
-Syn

[TheMonocleRogue]

I have a good friend who swears by the druid class. The druid is one of the most versatile class in D&D. From experience in a large number of campaigns he has always been of use to the party in more than one way. This is what he has to say:

"You shouldn't worry too much about optimizing since aside from feats a druid has a lot of mold-able aspects which separates them from many other classes. While a fighter or a sorcerer is locked into choosing one style of play, a druid can modify his play style with his incredibly versatile class abilities. Basically he is the ultimate toolbox class."

To start with, lets go over wild shape. A Druid can choose from a huge list of forms to wild shape into (limited by only hit dice, typing, and your imagination). This gives you multiple forms of movement and attacks all with a single ability. Having the Natural Spell feat allows you to cast while wild shaped further adding to the usefulness of wild shaping.

Being a prepared divine spell caster gives you a massive list of spells to cast with that you can modify to suit your party's needs. You can also cast nature's ally spells which have a multitude of uses depending on what you summon (scent, flying, and grappling animals tend to be the most useful). Druids have access to great crowd control spells (entangle, move earth) and access to every good healing spell.

In terms of role playing, druids can have some great moments with their animal companions. Having an animal in the party tends to lighten up the mood for everyone, especially when they participate in combat. I'd suggest using them as much as possible when role playing. There's also the reincarnate spell which should be seldom used but can produce hilarious results (turning a dead human paladin into a gnoll paladin) :smallbiggrin:

Anyway the most important thing to remember is to have fun. Druids can be very fun to play no matter how you're doing and I guarantee you will have fun if you experiment with the many skills you have at your disposal.

[TheEyesofSyn]

Thank you for the input it was really well thought out and immensely useful:) Yeah, I do plan on taking Natural Spell given I'll be using wild shape far more.
As for role playing with my bear companion, it seems I do far more role playing as him in the form of the bear's inner dialogue, formerly the shenanigans involving the interaction between our former Ranger's dire badger, and his interactions with other members of our party. In addition, Bjorn is my Druids mount (thanks to our very cool DM who thought it would be fitting that my character ride a giant bear into battle).

It's my druid that I have the most difficulty with, only recently when faced with some powerful dragon armor, did her powers truly shine, as she used wild shape to turn into a giant owl, grapple with it, and subdue it long enough for the rest of the party to finish it off...and to be honest, that confidence boost she'd have as a character is something I'm simply having trouble role-playing.
I suppose what I'm asking advice on is, how does one go about removing themselves from their character, and getting into character for a session. I've tried sort of verbally practicing dialogue and her speech patterns, getting the feel for how she would speak, but it seems the minute we get into game I clam up and miss golden plot opportunities due to cold feet. I'm looking for suggestions on how I could get over this stage fright I suppose.

[Zweisteine]

If you have a hard time roleplaying because you can't think of what to say, there are a few things you can do.

1. Learn stuff. I actually don't know how to learn to be a better roleplayer, besides practice. Verbal free-form roleplaying might help.

2. Shape the character's personality to match yours, rather than vice versa. If your character is stuttery and socially awkward, your problem is half gone.


There is not a wide, fluorescent line between min-maxing and not min-maxing. In fact, there isn't a fine line either. It's more of a jumbled, heavily-forested, foggy, alligator-infested swamp at night, really.

This is what I mean:
"You took natural spell! That's min-maxing! Choose another feat! You chose to be a Druid; now you can turn into a bear when you're in a fight, negating your squishy weakness to point objects!"
(Exaggerated examples chosen for emphasis.)

[TheEyesofSyn]

Thank your for the advice. :) Our DM is more strict on mid-maxing in the sense of,
"You can take powerful things as long as it makes sense for your character to do so and it's not stupid broken."
The campaign is more about role playing and plot, by that I mean, my druid taking Natural spell makes sense. However, some of our other players can say, use very powerful undead related spells, but they don't, because their character wouldn't (and also, it would severely piss off a few of the other characters). It's less about not mid maxing, more about being creative and having things your character does make sense in plot. ^_^ I kinda really like our DM, being it's the first campaign I've been in, she has been immensely patient and worked really hard to make a campaign we'd all really enjoy playing. The depth of the story plot and the freedom she's given us in creating out character and their back-stories is really awesome and I've had quite a bit of fun simply working out the little details regarding my character...which is why I'm so intent on becoming better at getting into character, I want to do justice to both the character I created, and the world our DM worked so hard to make for us to play with.

[eggynack]

What kinda stuff do you want to do with your druid, in particular among the list of stuff you aren't doing already? The druid list can do most things in existence, and the things that aren't covered by that are often covered by wild shape, and the things that aren't covered by those are covered by build choices, so that pretty much covers everything. Also, what does your book access look like? In the meantime you should definitely pick up natural spell, because it is somehow the best druid feat on a list populated by greenbound summoning, dragon wild shape, and natural bond. It's a vital thing.

[Asherion]

1) Don't forget your companion. Pets, animal companions, familiars, etc seem to so easily be forgotten until particularly necessary during a conflict. I have more than once had a PC attempt to recursively add up several turns worth of actions for an animal after remembering it (I don't allow that :D ). But especially during roleplay, as mentioned above, animals or creatures can often provide for levity or amusement, or even be the catalyst of problems ("What, I can't bring my elk into your inn????").

2) Don't get hung up particularly on language, or on projecting the character. As said above, let yourself work out through your character, if that's easier for you.

3) Also, try and think of things your character might be interested in. I almost always give my own PCs as well as the NPCs I particularly like when DMing a couple of flaws and quirks, etc - usually not game influencing, but just little things. My longtime favorite character, a Stormcaster with a colorful background who is an orphan (gag), carries an accursed sword that he means to destroy, is being chased by a gang of evil elves, is the leader of a pirate crew without a ship (by merit of the previous captain of said crew leaving for Florida), and is the slayer and sole survivor of a fight with a massive black dragon (sole survivor of a TPK, but was rescued by NPC guards, and was unconscious for most of the fight; but who's going to contradict him, that was leagues from here). Some of that came from gameplay, some came from my head. I could spend several pages describing him. You do that too. Did your character experience something in the past that altered their personality or outlook on life? Are they locals, do they know people you're encountering? Also, have they experienced things in recent sessions or campaigns that would have changed them, or that they'd remember on a regular basis in conversation?

Hope some or any of that helps.

[Hurnn]

if you can wild shape and cast while wild shaped you can pretty much do anything your party needs you to. Tank? yes, Dps? Yes, heal? Yes. Abusive CC, yes. For extra fun you can combine them sometimes (triceratops shuffle)

[Dugong]

I'm playing a level 9 druid for the first time and what I've learned so far has been:

Don't worry about optimisation. Druids are extremely versatile out of the box and the one feat you want to have, Natural Spell is often considered a class feature you get instead of a feat :), other than that you can effectively do what you want. In my case I went with extend spell, companion spellbound, craft wonderous item, persist spell (probably should have gotten fast wild shape, but oh well).

RP is hard to do well, so start simple. My first character I ever created was 'Max Power' (no really) and that was a horrible character, I made stupid decisions, got killed a few times but I learned a lot. Now when I create characters I look for a core concept to base the characters personality around. A quick example was a rogue/swashbuckler with the daring outlaw feat. I based the entire characters personality on the daring outlaw feat, I figured he's probably a live fast die young type, speaks quickly and without thinking before hand (getting him in trouble), takes what he can get away with and doesn't trust anyone. So I decided to RP trust issues with the party thinking that a daring outlaw would have trouble truely knowing who he can trust to not turn him in to the authorities or slit his throat at night.

Getting back to the druid, I'm basing him closer to Jack Reacher (as I've been reading the books lately). He's strong and he knows it, talks frankly and has seen a lot of the world (which reflects my growing personal knowledge of d&d). The one quirk I've added is that I'm assuming he doesn't have as much control in wild shape as he'd like since he only wildshapes when someone is trying to kill him. Hence in wildshape form he's very aggressive and kills ruthlessly (flesh to salt!:smalleek:), the only exception was when I was carring a bandit in Dire Eagle form from a very high height, the bandit was begging and pleading for her life and I decided my character would snap out of it (that and the DM said dropping her would be an evil act and would result in my alignment being shifted).

The tl;dr form is to do two things, think of a character you'd like to act out and make sure its personality is similar to your own but slightly different. That way when you're talking in character you're thinking to yourself 'what would I say' rather than 'what would this character say'.

Have fun!:smallsmile:

[tadkins]

Had a quick question regarding Druids that I thought I'd ask here. It's been said that Druids can do pretty much anything. Is planar travel among them? Looking through their list and I'm not really seeing anything along the line of Gate or Plane Shift.

[eggynack]

Had a quick question regarding Druids that I thought I'd ask here. It's been said that Druids can do pretty much anything. Is planar travel among them? Looking through their list and I'm not really seeing anything along the line of Gate or Plane Shift.
Not that I'm aware of, no. At least not without some build effort. You could probably pull it off with a contemplative dip though, or if you're playing a high power game, you could definitely do it with planar shepherd.

[tadkins]

Not that I'm aware of, no. At least not without some build effort. You could probably pull it off with a contemplative dip though, or if you're playing a high power game, you could definitely do it with planar shepherd.

Interesting. So you dip Contemplative to get access to a domain that has those spells on there?

[Dugong]

Oh good grief Planar Shepard is Cray-Cray, wildshape into a planetar angel AND get it's Su and Cleric casting? And that's if you don't pick the time plane where you essentially get 10 rounds to their 1.

You can plane shift (kind of) if you use summon natures ally 7 to summon a Djinni, which can plane shift to the Astral or Material plane for you.

[eggynack]

Interesting. So you dip Contemplative to get access to a domain that has those spells on there?
I've been strongly considering it, yeah. The most notable and obvious domain that's worth picking up is the spell domain, which fills pretty much all of the gaps in existence. Anyspell and greater anyspell cover ridiculous ground, limited wish covers any ground that they don't (including this), and the other spells on the list are pretty strong too. The only complication is the knowledge (religion) rank requirement. You can definitely spend a feat to bypass that, like knowledge devotion or education, but I think the ideal way may be a level of holt warden beforehand. I'm pretty sure that you can put spell domain spells in the plant domain slots, which would be a pretty strong trick.

Edit:

You can plane shift (kind of) if you use summon natures ally 7 to summon a Djinni, which can plane shift to the Astral or Material plane for you.
Janni can actually do it at SNA V, but it unfortunately doesn't work. To quote SNA, "A summoned monster cannot summon or otherwise conjure another creature, nor can it use any teleportation or planar travel abilities."

[tadkins]

Oh good grief Planar Shepard is Cray-Cray, wildshape into a planetar angel AND get it's Su and Cleric casting? And that's if you don't pick the time plane where you essentially get 10 rounds to their 1.

You can plane shift (kind of) if you use summon natures ally 7 to summon a Djinni, which can plane shift to the Astral or Material plane for you.

Planar Shephard looks fun but I will not count on being allowed to play that in a normal game. xD

Djinni works though. I figured that since it wasn't on the druid list, it would be possible through either wildshaping or summoning. Just wasn't sure which one.

[tadkins]

I've been strongly considering it, yeah. The most notable and obvious domain that's worth picking up is the spell domain, which fills pretty much all of the gaps in existence. Anyspell and greater anyspell cover ridiculous ground, limited wish covers any ground that they don't (including this), and the other spells on the list are pretty strong too. The only complication is the knowledge (religion) rank requirement. You can definitely spend a feat to bypass that, like knowledge devotion or education, but I think the ideal way may be a level of holt warden beforehand. I'm pretty sure that you can put spell domain spells in the plant domain slots, which would be a pretty strong trick.

I like this trick. Wonder if it would be possible though.


Edit:
Janni can actually do it at SNA V, but it unfortunately doesn't work. To quote SNA, "A summoned monster cannot summon or otherwise conjure another creature, nor can it use any teleportation or planar travel abilities."

D'aw, that's a shame.

[Kennisiou]

If you're really looking to ever pull out all the stops, fleshraker is a good choice for mid and even high level melee druid stuff. Slap some buffs on and proceed to be able to charge, full attack, trip, grapple, and pin all in one round. With poison. Yeah. It's more than a little absurd. If you're looking to avoid min-maxing I'd say keep this as a sort of gambit maneuver, a thing to only pull out in the extreme dire situations, maybe only once or twice (if you want a story reason for this, maybe that wildshaping into a fleshrakerr is for some reason scary to your druid, perhaps because the predatory instincts of the form are really strong and while your character can handle them without fear of losing themself the feeling is really unpleasant).

For other times if you want less powerful pouncing shenanigans, lions and dire lions are a good choice. For out and out grappling power without worrying about pounce shenanigans on top of it brown bear and dire bear (accessible at levels 8 and 12 respectively) are a good way to go. If you need to get around in water, shark and dire shark are pretty much go-to forms, as are alligator and dire alligator. Never underestimate the usefulness of turning into a local bird, dog, horse, or cat for getting around in towns unnoticed. Also, you can turn into a tiny viper, cat, rat, or hawk at your current level, which is pretty much hide in plain sight unless the people you're spying on have reason to be suspicious of every animal they see (so if they know they're on the wrong side of a wildshaping druid be careful).

The thing about druid is that they're pretty good at being always able to contribute without necessarily needing to overshadow the other party members. Feel like you're overstepping your bounds a bit and outshining the frontline? Turn into a high AC, high saves form and just buff. Want to not make it clear that the rogue is kind of superfluous with you around? Don't use your magic much when infiltrating, only when it's to aid the rogue rather than to do something they've failed to do. Think of yourself as the perceptive sneaking partner keeping watch as the rogue infiltrates (with spot and listen as class skills and good wis you should be much better at the lookout aspect of scouting/sneaking/infiltrating than the rogue is). Yeah, sure, if you needed to bust your friends out of jail a druid of your level could turn into a rat, sneak into the jail, stone to mud or warp stone or soften earth or warp wood or any number of spells the relevant doors/walls/metal bars away and then get them all out while the rogue just watches, but you can also sit on the rogue's shoulder as a rat, letting them know when the guard is about to come around a corner, help them search out traps, and if you're willing to blow a skillpoint or two in being able to make the checks use aid another to help with picking locks or disabling traps. Druid just has a great chasis for if you want to help the party be better at everything even without the need to just do it all yourself better than they can.

Also! The spells you'll want most in combat are generally buff spells and battlefield control spells. In general look at spells that make it hard for enemies to move around but won't necessarily impede you or your allies much and spells that pump stats or give more mobility options. Don't worry too much about power level, as even the weakest of spells that have these effects are still useful, while the strongest may be very strong but are usually not flashy obvious "I just won the encounter with a single spell" type deals (even when your single spell does, in fact, win the encounter -- with enough buffs and battlefield control a commoner with a sickle can kill a dragon). Debuffs are nice too, but the druid list isn't quite as good for this as other spell lists like Wizard and even Cleric.

[eggynack]

I like this trick. Wonder if it would be possible though.
I don't see a reason why it wouldn't be. In fact, there's reason to indicate that you actually can't do it in another way, because you can't prepare more than one domain spell at each spell level. Fortunately, the plant domain spells are pretty much universally worse than the spell domain spells, except for possibly mage armor vs. entangle, and in that case it's trivial to go the other way.


D'aw, that's a shame.
Indeed so. I had this whole long paragraph about how cool janni summoning is because of planeshift, and then it was no more. Now it's just a regular summons that's reasonably useful for scouting purposes.

[tadkins]

I don't see a reason why it wouldn't be. In fact, there's reason to indicate that you actually can't do it in another way, because you can't prepare more than one domain spell at each spell level. Fortunately, the plant domain spells are pretty much universally worse than the spell domain spells, except for possibly mage armor vs. entangle, and in that case it's trivial to go the other way.

True that, just wasn't sure if it worked that way. My knowledge on domains is limited.


Indeed so. I had this whole long paragraph about how cool janni summoning is because of planeshift, and then it was no more. Now it's just a regular summons that's reasonably useful for scouting purposes.

Hmm, I might be wrong but aren't there ways you can turn into a Janni or Djinn yourself as a druid through Wildshape?

[eggynack]

Hmm, I might be wrong but aren't there ways you can turn into a Janni or Djinn yourself as a druid through Wildshape?
I can't think of a way to pull it off natively. You can probably do it with planar shepherd, but that just puts us back at square one.

[tadkins]

I can't think of a way to pull it off natively. You can probably do it with planar shepherd, but that just puts us back at square one.

I know there's stuff like Draconic Wildshape, figured there might be something along the lines of Elemental Wildshape or similar.

[eggynack]

I know there's stuff like Draconic Wildshape, figured there might be something along the lines of Elemental Wildshape or similar.
Well, there's dragon, exalted, frozen, and aberration out of the feat options, and there's stuff that can get you vermin and human forms, but I don't know of anything that gets plane shift. At least not offhand.

[tadkins]

Well, there's dragon, exalted, frozen, and aberration out of the feat options, and there's stuff that can get you vermin and human forms, but I don't know of anything that gets plane shift. At least not offhand.

If not, then the Contemplative/Holt Warden path might be the most reliable method in that case.

[eggynack]

If not, then the Contemplative/Holt Warden path might be the most reliable method in that case.
Seems probable, though as it's rooted in limited wish, it's a bit expensive XP-wise. It's definitely one of my preferred methods, as you simultaneously fill just about every gap in the druid list. Anyspell is cool like that.

[tadkins]

Seems probable, though as it's rooted in limited wish, it's a bit expensive XP-wise. It's definitely one of my preferred methods, as you simultaneously fill just about every gap in the druid list. Anyspell is cool like that.

The only issue I'm facing with that is trying to justify a Druid following a "magic" god like Boccob, in order to get the Spell domain.

[Invader]

The Druid handbook found here http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1354.0 has a lot of useful information for all the different roles a druid fills plus information on the best wildshapes and their roles.

[eggynack]

The only issue I'm facing with that is trying to justify a Druid following a "magic" god like Boccob, in order to get the Spell domain.
I can't say I've thought about it that much, but it doesn't seem that far off flavorwise. Magic domain having gods tend to have some neutrality, which fits druids well, and druids obviously aren't completely disconnected from magic. I could definitely see putting together a neutral good Mystra follower of some variety. Either way, it seems reasonably workable.

[tadkins]

I can't say I've thought about it that much, but it doesn't seem that far off flavorwise. Magic domain having gods tend to have some neutrality, which fits druids well, and druids obviously aren't completely disconnected from magic. I could definitely see putting together a neutral good Mystra follower of some variety. Either way, it seems reasonably workable.

Was talking about this with a friend just now. From my view the Magic-type gods would be about *every* type of magic, and that a Druid following one is no different from a Necromancer following one; they're about magic and knowledge, just different types. I figured it would work, in that case.

[TheEyesofSyn]

Wow...you guys all really know your stuff. I feel just a tad over my head, but thank you guys for all your input, seriously, there just so much to learn with D&D and I'm really enjoying getting into it all. ^^

[TrueJordan]

The rest of the people got basically everything, just if you're playing a core game, there are few items you really need to buy, either Wild Dragonhide Breastplate or Monk's Belt (depending on style and money allotment, the former is about 18-19K iirc and Monk's Belt is 13K, but they give different bonuses, also Wild Armor works with Wild Shape, so that's awesome) and the periept of Wisom +x. As far as I'm aware there aren't any other items in core, at least, that can boost wisdom unfortunately. After you have this much gold, you can splurge on a Greater Maximize Rod, be able to summon an ungodly amount of elementals on level 17, and it's also really good before that.

Also depending on how often you use summoning spells (which should be fairly often, at IV you should basically be chucking tigers or unicorns (if need be) left and right, and it greatly helps to have the Augment Summon feat, though it also requires Spell Focus (conj.) which is basically useless for you. And never underestimate the power of Animal Growth, a fifth level spell that can be used on you as well as your companion and summons.

Ooh, also a fun 'exploit' that I found: There's nothing stopping you from turning into a Giant Octopus, even on land (provided you don't 'drown), and slapping some sap 10 times in the face. Bonus points if you grew yourself beforehand.

[Dugong]

The rest of the people got basically everything, just if you're playing a core game, there are few items you really need to buy, either Wild Dragonhide Breastplate or Monk's Belt

Why not both? If you have both Wild Dragonhide Fullplate and a monk's belt with a wildling clasp you can start laughing. What happens is outside of wildshape you have the AC bonus of just the fullplate, since you're not proficient in heavy armor you'll take a penalty to your attacks (but so what).

When in wildshape form, you get the AC bonus of both the armor AND the monks belt! Plus since you're no longer wearing the armor (it's absorbed into you) there are no penalties. Of course you could take the feat heavy armor proficiency, but you don't have to.


Certinly if you're going for spell damage grab the rod of maximise, but if you're looking defensive grab a rod of extend. If you get a normal rod (so 6th lvl spells and lower) you can extend spells like energy immunity and superior resistance, both have 24 hour durations extended to 48, use this to become immune to all types of energy and not need a cloak of resistance!




Ooh, also a fun 'exploit' that I found: There's nothing stopping you from turning into a Giant Octopus, even on land (provided you don't 'drown), and slapping some sap 10 times in the face. Bonus points if you grew yourself beforehand.

Great idea!! No one expects a giant octopus to the face in the desert!!

[WhamBamSam]

Well, there's dragon, exalted, frozen, and aberration out of the feat options, and there's stuff that can get you vermin and human forms, but I don't know of anything that gets plane shift. At least not offhand.It's not full-on Plane Shift, but using Dragon Wild Shape to change into any of the Gem Dragons gets you (Su) planar travel between the inner planes and the prime material. Getting anywhere else is more problematic, and you'll need to get creative if you want to bring your friends along (toss them in a bag of holding with a bottle of air or three maybe?), but it's something.

[tadkins]

Just discovered the Arcane Hierophant. That's another way to go it looks like. :)

[eggynack]

Why not both? If you have both Wild Dragonhide Fullplate and a monk's belt with a wildling clasp you can start laughing. What happens is outside of wildshape you have the AC bonus of just the fullplate, since you're not proficient in heavy armor you'll take a penalty to your attacks (but so what).

When in wildshape form, you get the AC bonus of both the armor AND the monks belt! Plus since you're no longer wearing the armor (it's absorbed into you) there are no penalties. Of course you could take the feat heavy armor proficiency, but you don't have to.
Seems like you'd be better off casting (greater) luminous armor. Wild armor is all kindsa expensive, and I've never been entirely sure if it maintains the dexterity limit. Either way, luminous armor generally provides a bigger bonus at a lower cost, as long as you're good anyway.


Certinly if you're going for spell damage grab the rod of maximise, but if you're looking defensive grab a rod of extend. If you get a normal rod (so 6th lvl spells and lower) you can extend spells like energy immunity and superior resistance, both have 24 hour durations extended to 48, use this to become immune to all types of energy and not need a cloak of resistance!
Definitely seconded on that account. Druids are absolutely chock full of spells that can do with an extending. A lesser rod is a must buy, given the low cost, and maybe even in multiples. A regular rod is a bit worse, but still probably worth it. I mean, spells of 3rd level and lower alone are packing such gems as primal hunter, primal instinct, creeping cold, heart of air, heart of water, snowsight, obscuring snow, greater magic fang, venomfire, luminous armor, wood wose, and SNA's I, II, and III. That's just a start too.


It's not full-on Plane Shift, but using Dragon Wild Shape to change into any of the Gem Dragons gets you (Su) planar travel between the inner planes and the prime material. Getting anywhere else is more problematic, and you'll need to get creative if you want to bring your friends along (toss them in a bag of holding with a bottle of air or three maybe?), but it's something.
True enough. That feat be rather crazy.

[Dugong]

Seems like you'd be better off casting (greater) luminous armor. Wild armor is all kindsa expensive, and I've never been entirely sure if it maintains the dexterity limit. Either way, luminous armor generally provides a bigger bonus at a lower cost, as long as you're good anyway.


Definately! if you can get (greater) luminous armor, cast it and never look back! Presumably you're a good alignment (which most characters are) and you can mitegate the sacrifice cost with say a rod of bodily restoration or the Sheltered Vitality spell from Spell compendium. I think there's no max Dex for wild armor when you wildshape because you're not wearing it, it's absorbed into you and you only get the AC bonus because the wild property specifically states you do when in wildshape.



Definitely seconded on that account. Druids are absolutely chock full of spells that can do with an extending. A lesser rod is a must buy, given the low cost, and maybe even in multiples. A regular rod is a bit worse, but still probably worth it. I mean, spells of 3rd level and lower alone are packing such gems as primal hunter, primal instinct, creeping cold, heart of air, heart of water, snowsight, obscuring snow, greater magic fang, venomfire, luminous armor, wood wose, and SNA's I, II, and III. That's just a start too.


I didn't think about extending primal instinct (another 24 hour duration spell from dragon magic), good idea. Creeping cold is CRAZY good when extended, for me that spell solo killed a variation of a chocker as it tried to hide for a second ambush attack. The second benefit of taking the extend spell feat is so you can take persist later on for things like vigor (fast healing all day, every day? Yes please!)