3.5 Druid Equipment + Feats

[Zaninel]

Hello all, this is my first post and I was wondering what everyone would recommend as far as equipment and feats for the immediate or near future. Right now I'm a level 11 Druid however due to some business practices I have a little over a million gold to spend.

So far for feats I have:
Natural Spell
Natural Bond
Dragon Wildshape
Spell focus (Conjuration)
Augment Summoning

For equipment I have:
Armor of the Beast
Mantle of the Beast +2 wisdom modifier (attempting to raise it to a +4)
Ring of the Beast
Armbands of Might
Monk's belt with the effects of Belt of the Wide earth equipped with a wilding clasp
And a Wildshape Amulet (attempting to get necklace of adaptation added to it)

I'm attempting to get a Cowl of Warding for the mindblank effect due to an enchanter in our group who likes to dominate people to get them to do his will, as well as the tome to raise my wisdom by 4.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated. Thank you in advance!

[eggynack]

So far for feats I have:
Natural Spell
Natural Bond
Dragon Wildshape
Spell focus (Conjuration)
Augment Summoning
Augment summoning is a pretty weak option out of core. It's a solid feat, don't get me wrong, but the competition gets kinda fierce. Best alternative options depend some on book access though. Classic high end includes greenbound (LEoF) or rashemi elemental (UE) summoning, and middle of the road is something like ashbound (ECS, 50). It might be worth swapping out natural bond for companion spellbond (PHB II) at this point as well, as a lot of your companion's power should be from spells rather than intrinsic by this level. Finally, aberration wild shape (LoM) is a stronger option than dragon if you want to go all out.


For equipment I have:
Armor of the Beast
Mantle of the Beast +2 wisdom modifier (attempting to raise it to a +4)
Ring of the Beast
Armbands of Might
Monk's belt with the effects of Belt of the Wide earth equipped with a wilding clasp
And a Wildshape Amulet (attempting to get necklace of adaptation added to it)
First off, you're going to want some metamagic rods of extend spell. Druids get a ton of spells that are great for extending, like the primal line (DrM), the heart of X line (CM), energy immunity (SpC), and so on. The lesser version is a must have for the price, and you should probably actually have several, but at your cash in hand, you should be buying some standard ones too. Second, you're going to want a bunch of pretty standard items, like a belt of battle (MIC), a ring of counterspells tuned to dispel magic, a ring of spellbattle (MIC) also generally aimed at dispel magic, maybe a ring of mighty summons (CM), probably a +constitution item in there somewhere, a pearl of speech (MIC), some pearls of power, an ankh of ascension (RoF), really a lot of items.

Really, at a million GP, you should be just buying most things. Jeez, that is a lot of money. There are really few "Maybe" druid items that don't become "Definitely" druid items at that price range. In any case, if you desire, I can send you the handbook I'm working on. Should help more with this sort of thing, and has a good aberration wild shape list if you're interested in that sort of thing.

[Zaninel]

I will happily accept any materials you're willing to give me.

[Zaninel]

Alright I have confused myself by reading Masters of the Wild. According to the wildshaping rules in that book, which is supposed to be more of an explanation than what's in the PH, you gain all Ex abilities of what you wildshape into. At that point it renders that part of the Enhance wildshape useless. Am I reading that right, or am I just crazy?

[eggynack]

Alright I have confused myself by reading Masters of the Wild. According to the wildshaping rules in that book, which is supposed to be more of an explanation than what's in the PH, you gain all Ex abilities of what you wildshape into. At that point it renders that part of the Enhance wildshape useless. Am I reading that right, or am I just crazy?
You likely are reading it right, but MotW is 3.0, and thus completely superseded by the PHB 3.5 wild shape rules, and by extension the errata to the PHB 3.5 wild shape rules. Thus, wild shape is based on alternate form (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#alternateForm), and does not grant extraordinary special qualities.

[Zaninel]

Thanks for clearing that up. I was going crazy. My DM let me borrow Masters of the Wild recently and I had been using enhance wildshape so I thought I had been wasting spells.

[eggynack]

Thanks for clearing that up. I was going crazy. My DM let me borrow Masters of the Wild recently and I had been using enhance wildshape so I thought I had been wasting spells.
Yeah, 3.0 sources are tricky. You can only really use them insofar as they don't get contradicted by 3.5 sources, which requires a decent quantity of knowledge. MotW has a few spells of note which don't get contradicted though, so it has its moments as an actually useful druid source.

[Rebel7284]

Wouldn't Armor of the Beast not work with Monk's Belt? I mean, you can go with the interpretation that the armor melds but still functions and thus you are not wearing armor, but that always seemed super-cheesy to me.

[Zaninel]

That's the only reason my DM allows it to function is that I'm not wearing armor while wildshaping.