The Hound

[Val666]

Hello everyone (: As for most of my builds and character goes I always try to left casters out. Why? I really dont like them...i dont know why haahha but this time something changed my mind and told me to play a Druid. Druid is the caster a hate the less because he can...you know...BECOME A MOTHAFUKING BEAR and stuff c: but I want to play this Druid with some requirements for you. The concept is to make a guy that can track you,follow you, he cant loose your smell know matter what. His animal companion would be a Wolf or something like that. I'd like him to fight in melee with no need of wildshape. So while pumping Wisdom as a druid taking intuitive attack and maybe 1 level of shiba protector is a good idea right? Zen archery can make him a ranged fighter too. But what I really want is a way to transform (wildshape) in a kind of hybrid lycanthrope (is there any creature out there that can acomplish this?)

Hope you can hep guys e.e

[Vogonjeltz]

If you don't want him to shapeshift, just play a ranger.

[eggynack]

It sounds like you're looking for something like the shifter (ECS, 18), which is a good race for druids, and offers something like lycanthropy without LA. You can even pick wildhunt as your trait of choice, as it grants some quantity of scent. You might be better off relying on your animal companion for that aspect, however. On that note, you should probably swap wolf for riding dog, as it's significantly better in most ways.

I'm somewhat confused by your plan, however. It seems like you want to fight in wild shape, fight in not wild shape, and use archery not in wild shape. It's a bit unfocused, is the problem. Ranged weapon options on a druid are pretty weak, so you may want to go with some form of elf for that purpose, maybe using that to access seeker of the misty isle (CD, 61) for a dip, because the travel domain is sweet. As a final note, shiba protector is a bad idea. It doesn't advance casting, and costs three feats for the privilege. Neither of those are places you want to be.

[Val666]

If you don't want him to shapeshift, just play a ranger.

You not helping bro Dx


It sounds like you're looking for something like the shifter (ECS, 18), which is a good race for druids, and offers something like lycanthropy without LA. You can even pick wildhunt as your trait of choice, as it grants some quantity of scent. You might be better off relying on your animal companion for that aspect, however. On that note, you should probably swap wolf for riding dog, as it's significantly better in most ways.

I'm somewhat confused by your plan, however. It seems like you want to fight in wild shape, fight in not wild shape, and use archery not in wild shape. It's a bit unfocused, is the problem. Ranged weapon options on a druid are pretty weak, so you may want to go with some form of elf for that purpose, maybe using that to access seeker of the misty isle (CD, 61) for a dip, because the travel domain is sweet. As a final note, shiba protector is a bad idea. It doesn't advance casting, and costs three feats for the privilege. Neither of those are places you want to be.

Thanks for the advice, I'll check that out.

After thinking about what I want I've decided to go on a melee druid. I knew about shifters but his shifting ability (I love it) seems...i dont know, it bothers me that have uses per day and you have to spend feats in order to increase use. Id like to play something that have class all the time, aslo scent and stuff. The Feral template seems a good idea. As for fighting I'll drop any idea of ranged combat (with weapons not magic) and focus on melee, using Wildshape for serious battles. Any suggestions?

[eggynack]

Thanks for the advice, I'll check that out.

After thinking about what I want I've decided to go on a melee druid. I knew about shifters but his shifting ability (I love it) seems...i dont know, it bothers me that have uses per day and you have to spend feats in order to increase use. Id like to play something that have class all the time, aslo scent and stuff. The Feral template seems a good idea. As for fighting I'll drop any idea of ranged combat (with weapons not magic) and focus on melee, using Wildshape for serious battles. Any suggestions?
The actual shifting is really a side benefit. Really, if you're going shifter, it's because you want some combination of moonspeaker (RoE, 143), and shifter druid substitution levels (RoE, 126), specifically the first two. The usual build I advise goes druid 8/moonspeaker 4/druid 8. Might not work out well overall though, because beast spirit, the big substitution level, loses the animal companion.

As for scent, come to think of it, you could always just run enhance wild shape (SpC, 82), which is a 4th level spell that grants the Ex ability of the form you take. A good number of animals, particularly the ground-bound beat stick ones, get scent as an Ex ability. There are much better ways to use enhance wild shape, but y'know, if you want scent over a long period, and not just on the animal companion, that's one of the better ways to pull it off.

As for melee, I don't think it makes all that much sense to invest feats, like multiattack or improved natural attack, into that plan, because druid feats are just that ridiculously good. You can get some decent mileage out of spells though, especially if you run companion spellbond (PHB II, 77) to make share spells work in some reasonable way, thus allowing you to get double duty out of your buffs.

On that note, using the animal companion to beat face, with stuff like enrage animal (SpC, 82) at early levels, and animal growth in later levels, is usually the best plan for melee, but you can do reasonably well also. The bite of the were X line, from the spell compendium, is a pretty strong set of spells for that purpose, and earlier levels can allow for passable melee with a quarterstaff, using shillelagh as the buff of choice.

A lot of druid melee is about form selection. At early wild shape levels, you're mostly going to want to stick to fleshraker form (MM III, 40), both because it can really destroy things, and because it has enough AC that it won't die to a slight breeze. Later on, you can transfer bigger game, like polar bear form, for reasonable grappling, or big cat forms, for pounce, or smilodon (Frost, 118) for some unholy combination of the two. You can do pretty well in this arena just by sticking to the D section of the monster books, seeking out dire animals, dinosaurs, and desmodu bats (MM II, 65) for great value.

At really late levels, if you still want to punch things, frozen wild shape (Frost, 48) for twelve-headed cryohydra form (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hydra.htm#cryohydra) is a decent way to go, though it's not really my favorite. You could also pick up aberration wild shape (LoM, 178), which offers some really ridiculous stuff, including the thoon elder brain (MM V, 121), which may allow you to cast a buff and beat face in one turn, as well as a bunch of other exceedingly silly stuff. You may also wish to consider exalted wild shape (BoED, 42), which is mostly notable because it enables blink dog form (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/blinkDog.htm) for free dimension door action, but in your case, it may be especially notable because it provides a minor buff to animal forms, including access to Ex abilities, which means free scent access without needing enhance wild shape every time. Form adding feats are some sweet business.