Core Only Druid

[iSalvation]

I'm wanting to make a druid and optimize it as much as possible with only the core books, I'm allowed to use some Monsters from MM1 as a race, but I was thinking of doing a human, as its easier and I can't think of something that might be better in the core books, and I dislike elves.
I'm going to be starting at level 7. We have a cleric, a rogue, a bard, and a sorcerer. Its a relatively squishy party and we're working our way through the Worlds Largest Dungeon.
Any suggestions would be nice.

[iSalvation]

Forgot to mention its 3.5

[Zombulian]

Human is a good choice. Your Str and Dex don't matter but make sure your Con is high, changing forms doesn't give you extra health. Get Natural Spell at level 6. Honestly just going straight Druid you're going to be really strong for the whole game without trying very hard. Hopefully Eggysnack will show up with more specific info because he's the one who really knows Druids around these parts.

[iSalvation]

Yeah, con and wisdom will be my main stats, I'm usually a tank when I play, so I wanna try a new thing out.

[eggynack]

Well, you're definitely going to want natural spell, because it's natural spell, but feat options really go down in potency beyond that. I'm not hyper-knowledgeable about the WLD, but I've heard that summoning is a non-object, so that'd cross augment off the list, leaving you with just stuff like extend spell, improved initiative, and maybe eventually something like multiattack. For your wild shape form of choice, I'd probably go with a deinonychus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#deinonychus) right now, and then swap over to dire bat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direBat.htm) in a level. Actually though, if you don't have summoning, then good maneuverability is a lot less important, so you might want something like eagle right now, though it's definitely nowhere near as good as the bat. As an animal companion, I suppose something like a brown bear is nice.

Really though, what's important for druid buildery is spell stuff, for spells are the most powerful thing you have. Starting at the top, for I'm vaguely in the mood for such a thing, at 5th level spells (for leveling is a thing), I'd tend towards baleful polymorph, control winds, maybe transmute rock to mud, wall of thorns, and if you have summoning, animal growth. At 4th, dispel magic is quite important if you don't have other sources of it in the party, freedom of movement can be quite powerful, and I suppose flame strike isn't the worst.

3rd level spells have all the things, so you're going to be torn between call lightning, greater magic fang, sleet storm, stone shape, and maybe wind wall. 2nd level spells have very few of the things, so you're going to be not so torn between, I dunno, barkskin, gust of wind, spider climb, and maybe soften earth and stone if you expect that to do a lot in this environment. For 1st's, entangle is amazing, though you may have to attach plants to your animal companion to make it usable, and both produce flame and obscuring mist are halfway decent. Finally, at 0th's, you want some mix of detect magic, create water, and cure minor wounds.

Overall, that's going to be mostly all you need as a core druid. Build stuff gets a lot more important and complicated when you open up more books, but in a core environment, it mostly comes down to a few critical choices that are made in the field. It's a lot like that in not-core also, because druids adapt, but perhaps not to this extent. Do note that my advice here is colored by a vague and distant impression of what constitutes the world's largest dungeon, so if there is summoning, or large quantities of plants, things change a bit. The summoning list especially becomes a lot more important, as you can obviously make some use of that.

[Rubik]

Actually, summoning is great in the World's Largest Dungeon, since everything that you summon is pulled in permanently. Just work on your minionmancy with Diplomacy, Handle Animal, and Charm spells, and you'll be rolling in minions in no time flat. Kind of like Scrooge McDuck and his money bin, but with minions instead.

[edit] Actually, that's a good way to pick up an animal companion too, if yours ever dies or you need an upgrade.

[eggynack]

Actually, summoning is great in the World's Largest Dungeon, since everything that you summon is pulled in permanently. Just work on your minionmancy with Diplomacy, Handle Animal, and Charm spells, and you'll be rolling in minions in no time flat. Kind of like Scrooge McDuck and his money bin, but with minions instead.
Huh. That's odd. The druid list does have charm animal on it, so just devoting 1st's to that, casting after combat but before the duration of the SNA fails, and killing the thing if the charm doesn't work, could get pretty crazy. Alternatively, for summons like the unicorn, a straight summon, cure, kill, could be the best way. You don't get that much utility after duration, after all, even if magic circle against evil is nice.

On that note, you should go with wolves from I, hippogriffs, or, if you want an animal, dire badgers from II, dire wolves and lions from III, brown bears, giant crocodiles, and unicorns from IV, and giant constrictors with vague consideration of janni for spell-like and scouting purpose from V. That about covers that, I think.

[Rubik]

The OP will probably want to take a look at this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?299469-Worlds-Largest-Dungeon-Builds-3-5) and ask his DM about those rules and how they'll affect the game.

[Eldariel]

- Your feats can do a bunch of things; Natural Spell is a must, Augment Summoning is well-rounded, Craft-feats (Craft Wondrous Items & Craft Magic Arms & Armor) can be worthwhile if you need specific items, Multiattack, Improved Trip, Flyby Attack, Improved Grapple & co. all work with certain Wildshape forms, Extend Spell and Quicken Spell are quite useful metamagic, Spell Penetration and Greater are nice for offensive casting in Core,
- Dire Bat, Bears, Tigers & co. are excellent companions. Make sure to use Greater Magic Fang to give their weapons the appropriate boosts when the levels get a bit higher and get them Barding Armor; that'll allow them to keep up. You can use Greater Magic Fang yourself when you Wildshape.
- Ursine & feline forms are largely among the best for wildshaping in Core. Some Dinosaur forms are pretty good too, and fliers & swimmers are their own numbers of course but for brawling, stuff like Brown Bear, Tiger, Dire Bear, Dire Tiger, etc. are excellent.
- Wild Armor & Shield (Dragonhide Fullplate & Heavy Darkwood Shield, or Tower Shield) are really nice later on for your Wildshape. When you Wildshape you keep the bonuses but don't have to deal with the penalties, like max Dex bonus or armor check penalty. Thus you get vast defensive boosts with no downside with these. With no Wilding Clasps, these are good investments in Core (if the party has a Cleric, they can further be Magic Vestmented). If availability is going to be a problem, you can take the appropriate Craft-feat yourself. You can also look at Ioun Stones, Tomes and such for magic items you can use in conjunction with Wildshape.

[eggynack]

- Wild Armor & Shield (Dragonhide Fullplate & Heavy Darkwood Shield, or Tower Shield) are really nice later on for your Wildshape. When you Wildshape you keep the bonuses but don't have to deal with the penalties, like max Dex bonus or armor check penalty. Thus you get vast defensive boosts with no downside with these. With no Wilding Clasps, these are good investments in Core (if the party has a Cleric, they can further be Magic Vestmented). If availability is going to be a problem, you can take the appropriate Craft-feat yourself. You can also look at Ioun Stones, Tomes and such for magic items you can use in conjunction with Wildshape.
Also notable along these lines is metamagic rods of extend spell. There aren't as many extend-worthy spells in core as there are outside of core, but it's a thing you can do before wild shaping. Pearls of power have some of that capability as well, letting you retrieve spells between wild shape uses.

[Keld Denar]

Empowered Produce Flame shared with an animal companion that has 3+ attacks per round (esp with pounce like a leopard) can result in some pretty high burst damage in core only.

[iSalvation]

Definitely something to look at. I'm gonna check with my DM what my starting gold will be... He might make me use gear we have stumbled across in the dungeon so far, which is nothing good.

[Zombulian]

So I've seen a few mentions to dire bats. What exactly is so great about them?

[eggynack]

So I've seen a few mentions to dire bats. What exactly is so great about them?
It's mostly about good maneuverability. Before that point, in a core setting, I'm pretty sure you're completely limited to average or worse, and that means a lack of hover, which in turn means that summoning is way more difficult. On top of that, 22 dexterity is a really good thing to have on a more defensive form, as it means high initiative, ranged (touch) attacks, and touch AC, as well as a fancy 20 regular AC. The attack routine could be much better, but the goal here is a platform for awesome magic, rather than a beatstick. Basically the dire bat is just a watered down version of the desmodu hunting bat, which means a creature that's still pretty awesome.

[Rubik]

So I've seen a few mentions to dire bats. What exactly is so great about them?Large size, low HD, good ability scores, good natural armor, and a good fly speed.

What's not to like?

[Gavinfoxx]

Definitely something to look at. I'm gonna check with my DM what my starting gold will be... He might make me use gear we have stumbled across in the dungeon so far, which is nothing good.

Did you ask DM that series of questions from the other thread yet?

[Gnaeus]

In core, depending on build, you might also consider Gnome. Human gives you a feat, but druids are pretty feat independent and your core feat options are meh. Gnome gives +2 con, which will help you tank more than any core feat and -2 str, which won't matter in wildshape. Compare +2 on saves vs illusions, +1 fighting goblinoids, +4 AC vs giants, low light vision, +2 listen vs 1 skill point per level. With splatbooks, I'd totally go human, but core I think Gnome is at least comparable. Especially since in WLD you might not have the option to item craft.

[iSalvation]

Did you ask DM that series of questions from the other thread yet?

A lot of those questions I don't really care about... But I'm gonna check about the summoning one for sure... I'd love an army of animals at my beck and call

[StreamOfTheSky]

WLD is a pretty horrible dungeon (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=15881303&postcount=6), and utterly stupid in how it works. You can't buy anything and have to rely on the assigned loot drops for whatever you may need. Nothing that enters can leave. Utterly blatant contradictions abound. Just....ugh. OP, you should be fine as WLD is like 3E on steroids: if you play a gear-dependent and/or non-caster class, you lose. Hard. You're making a druid so you'll be all set and can even enhance your own natural weapons via spells aside from being able to play a caster in general.

Summon a lot, then use animal charm/friendship spells to make them your allies and grow a nice big army.

For feats, beyond Natural Spell and Augment Summoning, don't overlook the Monster Manual, it has some real gems. Flyby Attack is incredible, Imp. Natural Attack can give a decent jump in damage, and if you plan to do a form with pounce and a bunch of 2ndary natural attacks, Multiattack is a +3 to hit on all of them. And in a game restricted to core, you likely won't be able to find a good combat form w/ Good or Perfect flight (and spells/feats to improve maneuverability are not available), so Hover is also very useful. Ability Focus and Quicken SLA are also good, but you probably lack anything to apply them to.

For race...you lose a bunch of racial features when you wildshape, so Human is a winner for not having anything that is lost. Past that....Forest Gnome (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gnome.htm#forestGnome) is a very good core caster race. Or if you prefer Halfling features, Deep Halfling is nice since it trades some skill bonuses out for dark vision. Dwarf is also a great choice simply because of the mountain of amazing features it gains, and in an environment like WLD, you might even strongly consider Deep Dwarf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dwarf.htm#deepDwarf).

[Gavinfoxx]

A lot of those questions I don't really care about... But I'm gonna check about the summoning one for sure... I'd love an army of animals at my beck and call

You sure? These will be relevant to druids:

-The question about burrowing and burrowing through stone (Thoqqua is a Druid Wild Shape form)
-Knowledge skills to be able to wild shape into things you haven't actually seen (remember that to know about a creature is 10+HD of creature, which you can take 10 on)
-The animal companion and summoning issue
-Taking 10 and Taking 20 on skills in general
-Adjustments to the security of rooms
-Changing the Treasure
-Availability of Battlefield Control spells (Entangle and similar)
-The heuristics issue

[Gavinfoxx]

Wait. summon nature's ally animals don't go away after the spell duration ends in WLD? :smallconfused::smalleek::smallconfused:

That's with all summonings, but they, by the book, end up murderously upset with you because of this, and apparently attack you immediately.

[Zombulian]

It's mostly about good maneuverability. Before that point, in a core setting, I'm pretty sure you're completely limited to average or worse, and that means a lack of hover, which in turn means that summoning is way more difficult. On top of that, 22 dexterity is a really good thing to have on a more defensive form, as it means high initiative, ranged (touch) attacks, and touch AC, as well as a fancy 20 regular AC. The attack routine could be much better, but the goal here is a platform for awesome magic, rather than a beatstick. Basically the dire bat is just a watered down version of the desmodu hunting bat, which means a creature that's still pretty awesome.


Large size, low HD, good ability scores, good natural armor, and a good fly speed.

What's not to like?

Yeah makes a lot of sense. Dire Bat caster would be pretty great.

Edit: Also an Anthro-bat Druid who focuses on casting and turning into larger bats would be pretty neat.

[Coidzor]

That's with all summonings, but they, by the book, end up murderously upset with you because of this, and apparently attack you immediately.

That seems like a horrendously bad idea, even with disabling wild empathy using handwavium. :smalleek:

[Rubik]

That seems like a horrendously bad idea, even with disabling wild empathy using handwavium. :smalleek:Just prepare Charm Animal, summon a dire wolf or something, and command it to drop its defenses when you Charm it. Then use Handle Animal to make it fanatic naturally. Then when the Charm wears off, you'll have a fanatically loyal dire wolf on your paws.

I'm sure Speak With Animals will help a lot, here.

[eggynack]

Edit: Also an Anthro-bat Druid who focuses on casting and turning into larger bats would be pretty neat.
That is the dream, though at that level of book access, you should likely default to the desmodu hunting bat, which is medium and also awesome.

[Coidzor]

Just prepare Charm Animal, summon a dire wolf or something, and command it to drop its defenses when you Charm it. Then use Handle Animal to make it fanatic naturally. Then when the Charm wears off, you'll have a fanatically loyal dire wolf on your paws.

I'm sure Speak With Animals will help a lot, here.

Is there a way to use Handle Animal to diplomance animals? The only ways I was aware to do it involved using Wild Empathy or Diplomacy + Speak with Animals spells.

You can arguably use Handle Animal to push animals even if they're not friendly to you, I suppose... With enough Pushing of the Down Trick, either a DC 25 or 27 Handle Animal check depending upon their condition, they'd no longer attack the party? It'd take an awful long time to get the animals to be trained though, with a week per trick, typically, and only one animal trained at a time(?) as opposed to being able to rear up to 3 animals at a time when domesticating wild young animals...

How long does the post-summoning berserking last for anyway? :smallconfused:

[Rubik]

I was thinking wild empathy instead of Handle Animal.

Well, the O.P. is a druid, so there you go.

[Coidzor]

I was thinking wild empathy instead of Handle Animal.

Well, the O.P. is a druid, so there you go.

Ah. Yes. Give the Druid infinite duration summons and don't take away his wild empathy...

@_@

edit: Does Core in this case even include Epic rules so that Fanatic is a condition that exists? If not, it caps at Helpful.

Also, does it include anything like traits? The Uncivilized Trait would give +1 on Wild Empathy and Handle Animal, though it'd also give a -1 on Diplomacy itself, but Diplomacy, as a skill proper, is a bit easier to buff.

Wild Empathy Check: 1d20 + 7 Druid Level + X Cha + 2 Synergy(5 ranks in Handle Animal) (- 4 if Magical Beast)

With a 14 Charisma, max check result is 31, average is 21.5, and Max 27 and Avg 17.5 for Magical Beasts. Before Cha buffing and the like, of course.

Eagle's Splendor would give a +2 for Max 33 and Avg 23.5 for Animals and Max 29 and Avg 19.5 for Magical Beasts...

Targets:
Indifferent: DC 25 from Hostile
Friendly: DC 35 from Hostile
Helpful DC 50 from Hostile
Fanatic is DC 150 from Hostile, so really, really not happening at level 7.

If brought to Indifferent and then released and re-encountered later or a retry is allowed:
Friendly is DC 15 from Indifferent
Helpful is DC 30 from Indifferent
Fanatic is DC 90 from Indifferent, so really not happening at level 7.

Once Friendly or Helpful, Fanatic is DC 60 or 50 away, respectively.

Huge ??? area for whether Charming the Animal and then Wild Empathying it to improve it to Helpful would result in bumping up the default state of the previously Hostile animal to Unfriendly allowing another check to raise them to Friendly with a 25...

If retries are allowed once you've successfully changed an animals attitude, then Taking 10 with a modifier of +10 or higher to the check will allow making any Hostile Animal or Magical Beast of Int 1-2 into a Helpful one after 4 or fewer 1-minute checks.

If Taking 10 isn't on the table, then one needs a modifier of +19 to prevent a natural 1 from failing to budge a Hostile creature... or retries on failures.

Calm Animals (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/calmAnimals.htm) will allow you to have more than enough time to use Wild Empathy without the -10 penalty from rushing.

Once you get access to things like Feeblemind that lower Int, that may allow Wild Empathy on more intelligent Magical Beasts as well, now whether it'd carry over once they were restored to their normal intelligence...

[some guy]

(edit: ignore; missed the Core only) If you can buy items (and from what I read so far, it seems you can't), a Chronocharm of the Uncaring Archmage (Magic Item Compendium pg. 86) is very nice. 500 gp, 3/day cast a 3rd level or lower spell as standard action instead of 1 round. Useful for summons.

[iSalvation]

Yeah, he's said no summons, as well as I won't be able to buy level appropriate gear as it'd be metagaming he said.

[Rubik]

Yeah, he's said no summons, as well as I won't be able to buy level appropriate gear as it'd be metagaming he said.Why are you wanting to play the World's Largest Dungeon, again? Because it's not a good adventure module, at all.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Yeah, he's said no summons, as well as I won't be able to buy level appropriate gear as it'd be metagaming he said.

Is he giving you something else to spont. cast? Because SNA 1-9 being spontaneous is a huge boon to making full use of all the druid's spell slots. Is he letting you replace your summoning spells with some others, for similar reasons?


Why are you wanting to play the World's Largest Dungeon, again? Because it's not a good adventure module, at all.

Also this.

[Coidzor]

Yeah, he's said no summons, as well as I won't be able to buy level appropriate gear as it'd be metagaming he said.

Well, that's worrisome. I don't think he understands metagaming. :smallconfused:

[Rubik]

I'd suggest passing on this campaign. WLD really isn't worth the time or effort, especially given the fact that most of that massive map is basically blank space with nothing in it but empty rooms and corridors.

[Threadnaught]

No level appropriate gear and having to rely on random item drops?

You're wanting to play as Druid, but don't like races with -Con?

Summoned monsters are permanent?


I'm confused, does this guy even need Natural Spell? He's pretty much chosen the best Class.

[IamTordek]

I played the WLD and used Master of Many Forms to overcome a lot of the obstacles. Using the Black Pudding to simply melt the locks of many doors, because even with a good rogue there are a lot of locked areas and if they fail they cannot try the same door until next level. I would ooze through the lock and melt it on my way through. Another way to bypass some areas would be to use a form like the Delver which was used in more than one situation where finding a secret door would just reveal another stone wall. Went through the wall and got the treasure inside.

Shapechange, if you go straight Druid, when you get 9th level spells would allow you to do the same thing.

[Invader]

I'm going to vote for

Extend Spell
Augment Summoning
Improved initiative
And natural spell

for your feats, it doesn't get a lot better for a Druid in core unless you're going for something specific.