Core Druid 3.5 looking for advice !

[Gardakan]

Hi folks.

I'm currently playing a campaing this autumn-winter as a Druid. Planning to go full caster progression.

Current stats are :

STR : 11
DEX : 14
CON : 14
INT : 16
WIS : 18
CHA : 11

(Playing a mid-age women, having - 1 on physical attributes (STR, DEX, CON) and + 1 in mental attributes (INT, WIS, CHA). Can't have a 16 in Constitution)

Feats : School focus (summoning) (level 1)
Augment summoning (human)

As an animal companion I have a Wolf.

So far, I'm casting Cure light wounds and Cure minor wound to maintain my party alive. Sometimes, I can cheese with Shillelagh, having fair combat stats for a mature lady !

What's good not looking past level 7-8, to plan as a good reliable ol' druid build.

Role : Keep the party alive and protect my weakest mates. (A sorcerer for the moment). Got also a Paladin/Monk and Warrior.

Thanks for your input.

[Warrnan]

Grab a wooden tower shield. Buff and heal your animal companion. If you do this you will easily survive the lower levels. Buy a wand of cure light wounds as soon as possible, having the party pay equally since it's really an item for Everyone and not just you. This is the cheapest way to heal in Core.

Grab the natural spell feat at level 6. Use your remaining feats on anything you want. Or waste them on getting toughness 10 times. You'll still be one of the most powerful heroes at the table.

If you run out of spells at low level just use your sling and plink people in the face will staying a safe distance back while the Warrior-types hold the line for you. You have a decent enough Dex so this should work fine.

[Gardakan]

Grab a wooden tower shield. Buff and heal your animal companion. If you do this you will easily survive the lower levels. Buy a wand of cure light wounds as soon as possible, having the party pay equally since it's really an item for Everyone and not just you. This is the cheapest way to heal in Core.

Grab the natural spell feat at level 6. Use your remaining feats on anything you want. Or waste them on getting toughness 10 times. You'll still be one of the most powerful heroes at the table.


Level 3 feat is definitely going toward this ! Tower Shield doesn't impact casting on Druid. Never thought of this before, sounds pretty good for the early stages. The +4 AC will be handy since it's a fairly low-budget campaign in term of equipment.

[Warrnan]

The trick with tower shield is as follows: Druids aren't profecient. You take the nasty -12 to attack rolls and -10 to skill checks involving dex or strength.

Spend your time casting spells with no attack rolls and you enjoy +4 AC or use it for TOTAL cover. This means you will be impossible for most people to hit.

If you want to attack with a sling or spear, etc; just use a free action and drop your shield. Then all those nasty penalties go away.

I wouldn't blow a feat on it because you'll be wild shaping later in your career and will have no use for it.

[stanprollyright]

Level 6 you're taking Natural Spell. Period.

Level 3...Craft Wondrous Item is great to boost your whole party's wealth by level. If you feel like you have adequate loot or don't want to be the party crafting slut, Scribe Scroll can also be a good option to boost your number of spells/day, as well as always having those circumstantial spells available. Remember you can cast anything on your spell list, so in your downtime you can craft scrolls you'd never think of preparing.

Since you've got the Dex for it, Combat Reflexes is one of the best combat feats you can get. Longspear is one of the better Druid weapons, and eventually you'll be wildshaping into creatures with reach. Plus, your wolf's trips will provoke AoOs when the bad guys stand up. Also since you mentioned "protecting your weakest mates" having a reach weapon and Combat Reflexes makes it harder for folks to run past you to get to your squishy friends.

[eggynack]

Aside from natural spell, the build is mostly irrelevant in core. It's all about the spells. You're presumably using SNA a decent amount, and that's good, and you mentioned cure minor, which is alright, but cure light and shillelagh are less good. What you really want in the early game, because the feats imply early game, is entangle and lots of it. Best way to keep the party safe is getting your foes falling over themselves. Obscuring mist is also decent, and for 0th's you should consider adding detect magic and create water to your repertoire.

As you level, your main goal should be to continue picking good spells. Magic items are probably the secondary concern, with some metamagic rods of extend spell near the top of the list, and feats are tertiary aside from natural spell. You should check out the handbook in my sig for specific stuff along those lines. Beyond that, it's worth note that a riding dog is significantly better than a wolf as animal companions go, and @stanprollyright: the longspear is inevitably not the best druid weapon because it is not a druid weapon. Normal spears work reasonably though.

[stanprollyright]

@stanprollyright: the longspear is inevitably not the best druid weapon because it is not a druid weapon. Normal spears work reasonably though.

OMG you're right! Spear and shortspear, but no longspear. I've been giving longspears to druids for years!

[Warrnan]

I know you are spending most of your time summoning, buffing, and healing, however it is worth noting:

improved trip, combat reflexes, and knockdown are all in the SRD and are thus core feats. Take them in that order if possible and you will be quite competent at keeping your weaker friends safe. Tripping is the best non-magical crowd control available.

Not great for you now as your strength is low but when you wildshape you can be a Tripping monster!

[eggynack]

improved trip, combat reflexes, and knockdown are all in the SRD and are thus core feats. Take them in that order if possible and you will be quite competent at keeping your weaker friends safe. Tripping is the best non-magical crowd control available.
Actually, core is, by definition, only the PHB, DMG, and MM. Thus, while improved trip and combat reflexes are fine, knock-down isn't likely allowed in this game. I'm also not sure that this feat plan is an ideal one for a druid. Druids don't have great reach with core forms, which is the major way that tripping is used, and I don't think that the high strength and high dexterity forms tend to be the same forms. Moreover, forms with the trip special ability aren't all that good, and that's a point of synergy I'd want in a plan like this.

Thus, if going the face punching feat route, I'm inclined to think that improved grapple is the superior combat maneuver. You're less reliant on reach for success, and the improved grab forms are pretty solid. The big downside there is that you're kinda wasting the non-numerical aspect of the feat. Going simple with multiattack might be the best way to go as a result. However, my preference is to not do any of that, and instead pick up things that augment the druid's druidness. So, in core, metamagic feats like extend spell, crafting feats like craft wondrous, summoning feats like augment summoning (and basically only that in core), and maneuverability boosters like flyby attack. The overall impact of these feats isn't all that big, because such is the way of core druid feats, but it's a better setup than most.

[Warrnan]

True. Core is just the original 3 books. Knockdown is just one of my favorites and with it being SRD your DM may allow it as it is almost core. Haha.

It's just really nice to do damage whether or not you can trip them. Area effect crowd control is how you protect squishies. This can also be accomplished with spells of course and Magic is usually stronger than mundane, so you are totally correct.

[atemu1234]

Yeah, playing Core Druid doesn't really need a PrC or build.

Natural Spell is a must at level six.

[Seto]

Got also a Paladin/Monk

So, how many levels of Samurai does that Paladin/Monk have ? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html) :smallbiggrin:

[atemu1234]

So, how many levels of Samurai does that Paladin/Monk have ? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html) :smallbiggrin:

Hey, if you can get it into the Ronin PrC...