Feats for a druid [core 3.5]

[Teapot Salty]

Hey guys. I making my human druid, I realized that I honestly have no idea on what to take for feats. So I turn to the playground. My ability scores are: 10, 8, 14, 14, 16, 12. I am level one. I plan to go spellcaster until I get wildshape. Thanks, and as always, go nuts.

[eggynack]

There are a few main fields of druid featery. First, you've got summoning, which consists of stuff like greenbound (LEoF, 8) or rashemi elemental summoning (UE, 45), along with less critical stuff like augment summoning and ashbound (ECS, 50). Later, you have wild shape, which is mostly form adders like exalted (BoED, 42) and dragon wild shape (Draconomicon, 105). There's animal companion optimization, which is pretty much just natural bond (CAdv, 111) and companion spellbond (PHB II, 77), with a side order of exalted companion (BoED, 42) if you're willing to toss vow poverty on the companion. Finally, you have more generic or casterish stuff, like extend spell and initiate of nature (PGtF, 81). Of course, along with all of that stuff, you're inevitably going to pick up natural spell at 6th.

Really, while I've listed these things as separate fields, you should ideally be picking up a few items from each group. You don't get much benefit from having exalted and dragon wild shape instead of one or the other, and you similarly don't get much additional benefit from rashemi elemental summoning and greenbound summoning. There is synergy between the animal companion stuff, but you probably don't want that much of that, because the animal companion is the least of your big class features. That set of information should be approximately sufficient to be-feat a standard druid, though the advice does change a bit with specific build goals or book restrictions.

Edit: You're apparently in core, so most of that stuff doesn't apply. You're definitely going to want natural spell, and you're almost certainly going to want augment summoning, so that's 3 feats right there. After that, extend spell is a reasonable option, as is craft wondrous. You could pick up a combat feat after that, like multiattack, or maybe a generic feat like improved initiative. There's not really all that much there in core, so your power level isn't going to be significantly impacted by this stuff, apart from natural spell.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Core only?

Take Natural Spell at level 6.

Augment Summing (and its prerequisite by extension) are good feats to take if you intend to summon.

Improved Initiative is a good feat in general in core.

[Seerow]

Natural Spell. Spell Focus(Conjuration)/Augment Summoning. Extend Spell. Improved Natural Attack/Power Attack (after natural spell of course). Improved Initiative.



So something like:
1) Improved Initiative
1) Spell Focus(Conjuration)
3) Augment Summoning
6) Natural Spell
9) INA (which natural attack will depend on what forms you favor. Claws and Bites tend to be the most common)
12) Extend Spell
15) Power Attack
18) If you get this high and are still core only take toughness just to show how much you don't care about feats anymore. (Alternatively pick up another metamagic feat)

[Teapot Salty]

Natural Spell. Spell Focus(Conjuration)/Augment Summoning. Extend Spell. Improved Natural Attack/Power Attack (after natural spell of course). Improved Initiative.



So something like:
1) Improved Initiative
1) Spell Focus(Conjuration)
3) Augment Summoning
6) Natural Spell
9) INA (which natural attack will depend on what forms you favor. Claws and Bites tend to be the most common)
12) Extend Spell
15) Power Attack
18) If you get this high and are still core only take toughness just to show how much you don't care about feats anymore. (Alternatively pick up another metamagic feat)

How does spell focus work since I don't have schools?

[Deophaun]

1) Toughness
3) Toughness
6) Natural Spell
9) Toughness
12) Toughness
15) Toughness
18) Toughness

Although the list is sarcastic, if you took it, you'd be fine. You're already a Druid.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Good feats:

Leadership
Natural Spell
Imp. Initiative
Flyby Attack
Augment Summoning
Quicken Spell
Extend Spell
Imp. Natural Attack (bite or claw)

Maybe Imp. Grapple and Imp. Trip, but the pre-reqs kinda suck. Power Attack probably isn't worth it, if you even have the Str 13 out of wildshape to qualify.

Stats: Str 10, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 8

[Zanos]

How does spell focus work since I don't have schools?
Druids still have spell schools, they just can't specialize or ban them like a Wizard does. All spells on the druid spell list will still say which school they belong to.

[eggynack]

1) Toughness
3) Toughness
6) Natural Spell
9) Toughness
12) Toughness
15) Toughness
18) Toughness

Although the list is sarcastic, if you took it, you'd be fine. You're already a Druid.
Yeah, the difference between this and an optimized druid feat list out of core is enormous, but the difference between it and a good core list is pretty marginal. You miss out on some stuff, but not a massive amount.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Since it's core, I don't think Human is the best race. I'd go with Forest Gnome or Dwarf.

Feats by level:
1 Spell Focus (Conjuration)
3 Augment Summoning
6 Natural Spell
9 Flyby Attack
12 INA (Claw or Bite)
15 Quicken Spell
18 Extend Spell

Or...
1 Imp. Initiative
3 Extend Spell
6 Natural Spell
9 Flyby Attack
12 INA (Claw or Bite)
15 Quicken Spell
18 INA (Claw or Bite)

[Teapot Salty]

And also, how would sf:conjuration help me, since the spells it will effect (I assume you guys think I should take it is for the summoning help) since summoning doesnt have a dc?

[Deophaun]

Spell Focus is a feat tax for Augment Summoning, nothing more.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Spell Focus is a feat tax for Augment Summoning, nothing more.

Well, in core. Out of core, there's some decent conjurations with save DCs.

In any case, that's why unless you want to use summoning frequently, and not just as a fallback plan, it's really not worth going for Augment Summoning. If you do want to summon, it's a great feat, though.

[Deophaun]

Well, in core. Out of core, there's some decent conjurations with save DCs.
While true, it doesn't change the tax nature of the feat. Conjuration gets by just fine without having to worry about save DCs, so the benefit you get from it is more one of style than effectiveness.