Druid Help

[Adalwolf]

Good afternoon everyone! I require general assistance concerning the druid class (tips, advice, suggestions, simple guides...etc etc). What i know for sure about the campaign is that we will start at level 8, only phb 1, dmg, mm 1-4 and the complete warrior books will be available to us and we will begin play with about 2k gold and basic equipment and gear. Other than that, no restrictions whatsoever.Any and all help is appreciated, thanks in advance!

[ddude987]

If you have the monster manual 1-4 you have more than enough goodies to wild shape into. just stay druid, don't multiclass. Human is a fine race to be. At level 6 you need to take natural spell (this is a requirement, I'm not joking.) so you can cast in wildshape form. For your animal companion if you want to go full power go with fleshraker dinosaur. If you and your group are more interested in having fun, not optimizing, just pick whatever animal is fun. Personally I like bears because bears. At level 8 you will probably be wild shaped all day, since it lasts 8 hours. Just pick a form you like being in normally, and stat out a few other forms ahead of time so you can switch if you need to without slowing the game down by re-statting stuff. Remember your items merge with you in wild shape form. Spells just shop around in the player handbook, there are plenty of good ones, just pick what looks like fun. Crowd control is always good.

[WeaselGuy]

Eventually Eggynack will see this and offer you more insight, but, as the guy above me said, you will take Natural Spell at level 6. It's non-negotiable. It's practically a class feature you get instead of your level 6 feat.

Beyond that, Wild enchantment on your Dragonhide Breastplate, so you can be a bear, wearing dragon armor, summoning bears, while casting entangling roots and call lightning.

But seriously though, this Druid Handbook (http://www.brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1354.0) will probably help some...

[ddude987]

What weasel said it correct, just a word of caution, if your party and DM are not going to be playing at a high power level you will outshine them. Normally, from experience, this isn't a problem if nobody knows what they are doing (in optimization terms) or if everyone knows what they are doing. Just a word of caution.

edit: Also yes, eggynack, the resident druid expert, will most likely post here eventually.

[eggynack]

By complete warrior books, do you mean just complete warrior, all of the completes, or some sort of in between situation? The former is pretty useless, and either of the latter two could prove comparatively somewhat useful. Either way, you're definitely somewhat feat-limited, and we're talking maybe companion spellbond (CAdv, 111) over a core situation, with the possibility of a couple of other things here and there. That generally means stuff like augment summoning, maybe extend spell, perhaps craft wondrous item, and possibly even improved initiative, if you're going deep. This is obviously aside from natural spell, which is just a thing to take. For wild shape forms, I tend to favor the desmodu hunting bat (MM II, 65), and for the animal companion, as was noted, the fleshraker is quite powerful.

Beyond that, it's mostly down to the spell list, and it is the most important of things, because magic is your most powerful feature. Solid fourths in core include freedom of movement, dispel magic, maybe flame strike, and possibly spike stones, with giant crocodiles and unicorns as the spontaneous summons of choice. Core thirds are a bit better, in my opinion, featuring stuff like sleet storm, wind wall, stone shape, and possibly greater magic fang and call lightning, with dire wolf as best summoning option. Seconds get worse again, topping out with summon swarm, soften earth and stone, maybe barkskin, and hippogriff as your go to summons. Firsts revert back to good (like Star Trek in reverse, the core druid list is, granting everything from control winds to wall of thorns to baleful polymorph when you gain a level), with entangle as your primary spell of choice, and obscuring mist, faerie fire, and longstrider as support, and wolves as the best summons. Finally, for zeroth's, you want some combination of detect magic, create water, and cure minor wounds. In any case, for advice beyond that, I would need to better know which completes you have access to, and if you want massive piles of general druid information, I can always PM over the druid handbook I've been poking away at.