Druid Class

[Sir Garanok]

I am working on a druid of 15-16 level,no multiclassing.

Need build suggestions(or links to them),feat suggestions,spells any kind of directions
to a person that has never played a high level druid before.

[Lightlawbliss]

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=399.0
first post, base classes, divine casters, druid

[Red Fel]

Obligatory handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1354.0).

Frankly, starting play with a mid-to-high-level Druid is hard; Druids are a wildly diverse and capable class (that's why they're Tier 1), and the leveling process eases you into their various abilities. Starting at level 15-16 means you're diving into the deep end first thing.

Let's discuss a few of the things you could be doing as a Druid: Caster: Druids have an exceptional list, which they cast from without ASF (because divine casters scorn you and your armor problems). Their spells are excellent for battlefield control. Natural Spell is practically a feat tax for this reason - you want to be able to cast at all times, even while Wild Shaped. Speaking of... Bears!: Druid Wild Shape makes him one of the most physically versatile of the Tier 1 classes. Yes, the Wizard can Shapechange, but your Wild Shape makes it easy. Need to fly? Sneak? Grapple? Trip? Or simply melee like a boss? Wild Shape is your friend. Many people recommend taking a specialized Wild Shape feat, such as Dragon Wild Shape (because Dragons) or Frozen Wild Shape (because Cryohydras). Minionmancy: Druids start with an animal companion. In addition, they can spontaneously cast Summon Nature's Ally. It's not difficult, at all, for a Druid to turn into a field commander. Many people take a feat, such as Greenbound Summoning, to augment their minionmancy.

But basically? You don't really need a "Druid build," because a Druid can do whatever you want it to, with a minimum of investment. The only limitation is the player's experience, or lack thereof. The challenge for you will be keeping track of all the winning you can do.

[Sir Garanok]

Awesome stuff I guys,i am looking into it.

[eggynack]

If you just seek general druidry of various kinds, I could send over my now reasonably massive handbook on the topic. If you want to do something specific with your druidry, that could be separately aided, as druids can do just about anything you put your mind to.

[Darrin]

You need to decide what sort of "flavor" you want your treehugger to be:

Summoner: Spell Focus Conjuration, Augment Summoning, Imbued Summoning, and then maybe consider the Rashemi/Greenbound Summoning stuff.

Metamagic: I like starting as an Azurin with Extend Spell, Sculpt Spell, and Midnight Metamagic. Toss on a Soulmeld somewhere, then maybe some Bonus Essentia. 10' cubes of call lightning!

Mr. Biggles: Natural Bond, Companion Spellbond, Exalted Companion, Coordinated Strike.

Petshop: Wild Cohort, Soulspark Familiar, Dragon Cohort, Summon Elemental.

[defiantdan]

I would love a copy of that handbook. Druids are my favorite class.

[eggynack]

You need to decide what sort of "flavor" you want your treehugger to be:

Not necessarily. Running something like greenbound, aberrant blood, natural spell, aberrant wild shape, companion spellbond, something initiate, and maybe versatile spellcaster is quite a bit more optimal than pushing your feats into stuff like imbued summoning or coordinated strike. Really, the only downside is that it might be too optimal, making you keep track of a ridiculous amount of power and possibilities. Might be a real downside too, depending on the game.

[Sir Garanok]

Well i wanted to learn some general stuff about druid and its t1 capabilities.

But i am looking for a summoner druid with mostly core book options(and no multiclassing).

(books my dm usually allows)

All Complete ..( divine/warrior etc)
All Races of ..(Destiny/Stone etc)
Spell Compendum
PHB PHBII
BoED BoVD(maybe)

certainly no settings like eberon,faerun

[eggynack]

Well i wanted to learn some general stuff about druid and its t1 capabilities.

But i am looking for a summoner druid with mostly core book options(and no multiclassing).

(books my dm usually allows)
you
All Complete ..( divine/warrior etc)
All Races of ..(Destiny/Stone etc)
Spell Compendum
PHB PHBII
BoED BoVD(maybe)
The issue is, there really isn't much you can do to optimize summoning with those books. Like, you can mostly, summon, because summoning is fine without too much work, but you don't have much you can do with feats, or with prestige classes (mostly moonspeaker). Still, you're definitely going to want a ring of the beast, from complete champion, because it's awesome, and you can pick up augment summoning for relatively free with a dragonborn (RotD, 8) desert half-orc (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/environmentalRacialVariants.htm#desertHalfOrcs) with half-orc substitution levels (RoD, 159), which is one of my favorite racial combos.

You're pretty limited beyond that though, so you might want to branch out some. Animal companion stuff is well supported in those books, with companion spellbond (PHB II, 77), natural bond (CAdv, 111), and maybe exalted companion (BoED, 42) if you're allowed to combine that with VoP. Out of wild shape feats, you seem pretty limited to exalted wild shape (BoED, 42), so you should probably pick that one up at 9th. As a final note, if you have any access to monster manuals beyond I, or even the fiend folio, that's a thing worth note. Druids use monster books like crazy.

[Shining Wrath]

If you wish to focus upon things summoned, this guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?255219-The-Summoner-s-Desk-Reference-D-amp-D-3-5) may help.

[Sir Garanok]

Feats woud be:Spell Focus(Conjuration),Augment Summoning,Imbued Summoning,Nature Spell and that's pretty much about Summoning
unless there is something else note worthy outside the guides.

So i could take wild shape feats or some metamagic stuff about,2-3 feats

I am more close to metamagic since our play style is a bit like:
How on earth you got a Dragon Wild Shape feat when you have never seen a dragon.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

How on earth you got a Dragon Wild Shape feat when you have never seen a dragon.

If you can make the relevant Knowledge check (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/knowledge.htm) at a DC of 10 + creature's HD, you can prove that your character is familiar with a given creature. It's a lot easier than keeping track of everything he's ever encountered or observed, especially starting out at a higher level.

[HammeredWharf]

I am more close to metamagic since our play style is a bit like:
How on earth you got a Dragon Wild Shape feat when you have never seen a dragon.

"Why on earth would my level 16 druid not have seen a dragon?"

A level 16 character is probably one of the most powerful and, in the druid's case, knowledgeable and wise people of his country. If he lives in a world with dragons, he almost certainly knows what they're like and has seen some. Maybe he hasn't seen a really powerful dragon, but that doesn't apply to Dragon Wild Shape, anyway.

Here's a summoning handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11186).

[Sir Garanok]

It was just an example,of course a 15-16 level druid has knowledge and probably seen dragons and you can prove that.

What i am saying is,we try to take feats and skills as close to what our characters do.
That's why i would go towards the metamagic feats a bit more rather than Dragon Wild Shape or Frozen Wild Shape.

So If i had to pick 2-3 metamagic feats,what would it be.

[HammeredWharf]

If you want to focus on summoning, Rapid Spell + Metamagic School Focus (Conjuration) will let you summon as a standard action for "free" thrice per day. For a more powerful, but also more costly solution, pick a draconic race and Practical Metamagic (Rapid Spell). You could also Empower and/or Maximize your summons, but it's not worth it in my opinion.

[sleepyphoenixx]

If you want to focus on summoning, Rapid Spell + Metamagic School Focus (Conjuration) will let you summon as a standard action for "free" thrice per day. For a more powerful, but also more costly solution, pick a draconic race and Practical Metamagic (Rapid Spell). You could also Empower and/or Maximize your summons, but it's not worth it in my opinion.

You can save a feat and just pick up a Ring of the Beast (CC), effectively negating the cost of Rapid Spell. And it lets you summon as a full-round action since the original casting time is 1 round, not a standard action.
This is significant because a 1 round casting time is significantly easier to interrupt and the summon doesn't show up immediately.

A spell that takes 1 round to cast is a full-round action. It comes into effect just before the beginning of your turn in the round after you began casting the spell. You then act normally after the spell is completed.

A spell that takes 1 minute to cast comes into effect just before your turn 1 minute later (and for each of those 10 rounds, you are casting a spell as a full-round action, just as noted above for 1-round casting times). These actions must be consecutive and uninterrupted, or the spell automatically fails.

When you begin a spell that takes 1 round or longer to cast, you must continue the concentration from the current round to just before your turn in the next round (at least). If you lose concentration before the casting is complete, you lose the spell.

Emphasis mine.
That makes getting the casting time down to a full round or less pretty significant for a dedicated summoner. Because otherwise you effectively do nothing for the first round of combat and invite any enemy to attack you and interrupt your spell. Because they all get to act one turn before your monster actually shows up, either in the first turn (after you) or in the second turn (before you).
Needless to say this can be a problem if you don't have cover available.

[Sir Garanok]

I'm not sure i got it right.

You suggest cutting Metamagic School Focus out,
since you can't cast higher than your max level of summon with Ring of the Beast,
so casting a rapid spell of max level-1 is the same

Metamagic School would be useful only for 3 spells of max summon level -1 or lower.

Also in order to use rapid spell the spell slot has to be prepared when daily spell list is made.

So can i use a rapid spell slot spontaneously to make it a summon spell or it has to be declared that this
spell slot contains a rapid summon spell?

[HammeredWharf]

You can save a feat and just pick up a Ring of the Beast (CC), effectively negating the cost of Rapid Spell. And it lets you summon as a full-round action since the original casting time is 1 round, not a standard action.

Oh, true. Still, as you pointed out, the main goal is getting your summon to appear on the same round.


Also in order to use rapid spell the spell slot has to be prepared when daily spell list is made.

So can i use a rapid spell slot spontaneously to make it a summon spell or it has to be declared that this spell slot contains a rapid summon spell?

You can use it spontaneously, but shouldn't, because applying metamagic to spontaneous spells lengthens their casting times. So yes, you'd have to prepare them.

[sleepyphoenixx]

You can use it spontaneously, but shouldn't, because applying metamagic to spontaneous spells lengthens their casting times. So yes, you'd have to prepare them.

Not with Rapid Spell. Using metamagic on a spontaneous spell increases casting time by 1 round. Rapid Spell turns a spell with a casting time measured in rounds into a full round action, no matter how many rounds.

This feat can be applied to a spell cast spontaneously as long as its original casting time was longer than 1 full round.

So with Rapid Spell & Ring of the Beast you can use a spell slot of X level to use SNA X spontaneously as a full round action.

[Darrin]

You can also use Golden Desert Honey (300 GP, Complete Mage) to cast summon spells as a standard action.

[HammeredWharf]

Not with Rapid Spell. Using metamagic on a spontaneous spell increases casting time by 1 round. Rapid Spell turns a spell with a casting time measured in rounds into a full round action, no matter how many rounds.

Actually, scratch what I wrote previously. Why? Let's see. First, you've got the spell itself.


Casting Time: 1 round

...then you apply RS to it...


A rapid spell with a casting time of 1 full round can be cast as a standard action.

Note that it says "1 full round", not "a full-round action". So, this is the rule that applies to the "1 round" casting time of SNA1. You can't cast a rapid SNA spontaneously, because...


This feat can be applied to a spell cast spontaneously as long as its original casting time was longer than 1 full round.

And SNA's original casting time is clearly 1 round. So, you can use Rapid Spell to prepare a standard action SNA, but can't use it on spontaneous SNA at all.