[B]Dragon Druid - Need help settling on a build!!![/B]

[Ratharyn]

Ok guys, so i'm going to be rolling a character for a high powered series of sessions. I have access to all books and the focus is on making the strongest character possible. I'm thinking I want to make a toon that is all round solid, i'm not aiming for max dice damage rolls.

I've narrowed it down to:

Venerable Dragonwrought Kobold Druid/Dragon Wild Shape build

or

Human Vow of Poverty Druid/Dragon Wild Shape build + Frozen Wildshape for the hell of it.

I can't quite figure out how VoP balances out against level 15 character items. I'm really keen on Dragon Wild Shape for this Druid and taking dragon feats to go with it sounds hilarious. Can anyone tell me if either of these choices stands out?

[Extra Anchovies]

VoP - no. Not at level 15. Not even for a druid. The only situations when VoP works is when magic items can't actually help you, which is very rare (gestalt Druid//Incarnate springs to mind, but that's pretty much it).

If Sovereign Archetype shenanigans are allowed, take Child of Eberron and take levels in sorcerer while casting from the druid list. Then you can cast Alter Self and turn into a dragon that way :smallbiggrin:

Anyways, the first build (Kobold) is better. And Dragon Wild Shape is a good thing, yes.

[Ratharyn]

Thanks for the reply. I'm thinking the dragon vibe is where this things at, i'm gonna write up the dragon wrought and see how it looks ^^

[eggynack]

VoP is a bad idea if you're going for power, as proper itemization is ridiculously useful on a druid, or any class really. It's a better feat on a druid than on just about anything else, but it's still worse than not taking it. As for the racial choice, I'd probably take a third option, like maybe dragonborn (RotD, 8) anthropomorphic bat (SS, 215). You could also swap out anthro bat for desert half-orc (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/environmentalRacialVariants.htm#desertHalfOrcs), with half-orc druid substitution levels. (RoD, 159). You keep a lot of that dragon-theming, except you end up more powerful in most ways

As for the other feat options you've mentioned, I don't think there exists a draconic feat that's especially useful on a druid, though I could be mistaken. Frozen wild shape is also somewhat underwhelming. If you're good with other form adding feats, and you apparently are, and if you're going for power, and you're apparently doing that also, you might be interested in aberration wild shape (LoM, 178). Ridiculous power wrapped up in that feat. Might overwhelm dragon wild shape though, making it harder to justify using those forms.

Another pair of options you may be interested in, from a prestige class perspective, are dracolyte (Draconomicon, 122) and singer of concordance (RotD, 91). They're not really the best options out there to pull off druid domain shenanigans, that's almost certainly holt warden (CC, 84) combined with contemplative (CD,30), but they're certainly the most dragon themed I'm aware of. I think that covers the basic stuff I would do based on the information presented, though if you just seek general druid knowledge, I could send over the now massive handbook I've been working on. Should cover a lot of the non-dragon stuff you need, and has a solid dragon wild shape form list to boot.