Pathfinder Druid

[bebelmakor]

So I have a couple of friends interested in playing a d20 system that have never played anything like it before. It's going to be a small group of players, probably 3 or 4 and I was going to do a module from the pathfinder since it is already done and I can focus more on helping them learn than worrying about what is going on with the story.

That aside, I have a player who absolutely has his heart set on playing a druid. While I have no problem with it in the story, all I can recall is that it is hands down the hardest class in the game to learn and to play.

I am relatively new at DMing myself and having actually never played a Druid before, I have no clue on where to start on helping him. My question to you, Playground, is what exactly makes the Druid so complicated to play? Are they MAD classes or is it that they just have a whole lot of stuff going on?

I looked around a little bit but was unable to find a simplified handbook on the class as a whole. Is there one out there that is simple to understand or specifically situated around pathfinder?

Any help here would be much appreciated.

[HammeredWharf]

Treantmonk's PF druid handbook (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xrMC87TpmdfjB9xorkhY3_xWz3guOunTaotgWhoKYMA/edit)

It's rather long, but probably good, considering who wrote it.

[VexingFool]

The Druid is a difficult class to play because it has so many options available to it. He can cast spells to buff, control the battlefield or do direct damage. He can summon in a small army of animals to assist him. He can wild shape into an animal that can provide him with a tactical advantage like flight, alternate modes of movement like climb or swim or he can turn into a combat machine with multiple attacks. On top of that he gets an animal companion who is about as good as any melee fighter during the early levels. The pathfinder druids can be MAD especially if you want to fight while wild shaped due to them not being able to dump physical stats.

I would discourage any new player from the class unless they are a highly motivated individual. The guide linked above is pretty good but a little outdated but should provide a basis for a new player to decide what kind of druid he wants to play. Make sure if he is going to summon animals he has the stat blocks beforehand, no fumbling through the books during combat. Use Treantmonks guide and have him pick out 3-5 summons every level and then printout the stat blocks before the game adding in Augment summoning if he takes the feat. Same thing for wild shape have him decide on 2-4 forms per size category and figure out his stats and write them down before hand. The key to successfully playing a druid is preparation.

[Alent]

What is it about Druid that's drawing him to it? Is it the flavor? Is it a different game/story's idea of Druid? Is it that he has a specific build in mind? That will help everyone describe what you need to know more specifically.

If your friend is just wanting to turn into something really big and punch out c'thulu, you might point him at Synthesist summoner, or houserule druid's wildshape to work like Synthesist Summoner's Fused Eidolon does, stat and HP-wise. (That'd make Druid a little more newbie friendly by itself- it's practically how it worked in 3.5)

[Corlindale]

It might be helpful if he figured out whether he wants to focus on being a caster or a beast shape fighter, then he can focus on learning those elements of the class.


If he wants to cast, perhaps point him to the Storm Druid archetype. It has no animal companion and isn't geared towards summoning, eliminating two complicating aspects right there.
Since it's focused on casting it usually also means that Wild Shape will primarily be used to obtain flight (so he could get away with just getting to know the Air Elemental form, which incidentally fits the flavour of this archetype perfectly).

The limited access to spontaneous casting might also make being a prepared caster somewhat less painful, since he will always be able to substitute any "duds" he prepared for various weather-related blast and control spells.

But of course this kind of build loses many aspects of the traditional druid, so it might not be for him.

[Psyren]

It's just that they have a lot of abilities to keep track of. You have to know how spellcasting works, how summoning works (since they can do it spontaneously), how animal companions or domains work, and above all, how shapeshifting works.

Definitely dive in - you'll never learn if you don't try, after all - but you and your player have some homework ahead of you. Treantmonk's guide is a great place to start because it focuses on the core druid.

In fact, it may be a good idea to restrict the druid to core PF even if the others can use more books; you'll have less forms, companions and spells to worry about that way.