Elf Only Druid. (Pathfinder)

[Eddieddi]

I've been invited to a game with weird rules. Elf only (half elves are allowed).
Its a 20 point buy, Pathfinder, and the party needs me to play Druid. Wasn't told why, just got told by the DM. though they lack a healer, AND a caster.
Any suggestions? Do I go with the animal Companion or the domain for extra spells? Do I burn spell slots for the extra summon natures ally or do I go CLW? I've been torn between wild-shape caster, and focusing on summoning and such.
Starting at first level. starting gold is normal for class.

[Geddy2112]

I've been invited to a game with weird rules. Elf only (I've been talking to the DM about half elves).
Its a 20 point buy, Pathfinder, and the party needs me to play Druid. Wasn't told why, just got told by the DM. though they lack a healer, AND a caster.
Even in core only, the cleric is really good at healing and casting. Hell, a bard would work. If you have access to outside core, then you have witch, oracle, inquisitor, alchemist, and shaman. All of which have CLW on their spell list and can cast it at first level. Almost all of those have the heal skill as well, if you gotta do it the mundane way. Witch and alchemist would be strongest for elf race, but elves are not bad at any of the other classes listed.


Any suggestions? Do I go with the animal Companion or the domain for extra spells? Do I burn spell slots for the extra summon natures ally or do I go CLW? I've been torn between wild-shape caster, and focusing on summoning and such.
Starting at first level. starting gold is normal for class. The short answer is that you either go melee beast shaping monster with an animal companion, or you get the domain and cast away, using your wild shape to take defensive forms. You can always prep CLW as a druid and then just dump it for a nature's ally, never prep summon nature's ally. Once you get a wand you will be fine for healing. At first level, summon nature's ally is rarely worth it for the short duration, so you probably won't be doing that until at least level 2.

For starters, check out this guide (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xrMC87TpmdfjB9xorkhY3_xWz3guOunTaotgWhoKYMA/edit?pref=2&pli=1) which is pretty dated, but holds true and is a good starting point.

[Eddieddi]

Even in core only, the cleric is really good at healing and casting. Hell, a bard would work. If you have access to outside core, then you have witch, oracle, inquisitor, alchemist, and shaman. All of which have CLW on their spell list and can cast it at first level. Almost all of those have the heal skill as well, if you gotta do it the mundane way. Witch and alchemist would be strongest for elf race, but elves are not bad at any of the other classes listed.

The short answer is that you either go melee beast shaping monster with an animal companion, or you get the domain and cast away, using your wild shape to take defensive forms. You can always prep CLW as a druid and then just dump it for a nature's ally, never prep summon nature's ally. Once you get a wand you will be fine for healing. At first level, summon nature's ally is rarely worth it for the short duration, so you probably won't be doing that until at least level 2.

For starters, check out this guide (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xrMC87TpmdfjB9xorkhY3_xWz3guOunTaotgWhoKYMA/edit?pref=2&pli=1) which is pretty dated, but holds true and is a good starting point.

Awesome, So I got the green light for Half-Elf, so I suspect I'll be using that. and the DM has just said that I 'need' to play druid (I suspect because the campaign outlaws arcane spell casters) as for classes, its Core Only.
Any suggestions on point buy?

[Geddy2112]

Awesome, So I got the green light for Half-Elf, so I suspect I'll be using that. and the DM has just said that I 'need' to play druid (I suspect because the campaign outlaws arcane spell casters) as for classes, its Core Only.
Any suggestions on point buy?

Well, you could still be a cleric if you wanted. Be a nature cleric if you gotta meet halfway. But if you wanna do druid, both are incredibly good. If you are going half elf, toss the multitalented racial trait for any of the alt traits if you can-you won't be multiclassing most likely.

For a caster/domain druid, I would go 8/16/12/12/18/8 with a +2 in wis. For a martial druid, I would go 18/14/12/12/14/7, +2 in strength. Season to taste-I personally like skills so I tend to like a 12 in INT if I can afford, but you could go to 10 or even 8 int to get better stats elsewhere.

[Eddieddi]

Well, you could still be a cleric if you wanted. Be a nature cleric if you gotta meet halfway. But if you wanna do druid, both are incredibly good. If you are going half elf, toss the multitalented racial trait for any of the alt traits if you can-you won't be multiclassing most likely.

For a caster/domain druid, I would go 8/16/12/12/18/8 with a +2 in wis. For a martial druid, I would go 18/14/12/12/14/7, +2 in strength although you could put it in dex if you wanted. Season to taste

I was intending to have Charisma higher, because the DM is allowing full use of the Handle animal's rules (the one that lets you train animals and use them as companions) and the druid gets a bonus to it. Should I swap the Int round in to charisma? or would you advise something else? My current statline reads 7/14/12/9/17(19)/14 with the bonus in wisdom. With the intent of grabbing Conjuration, Augment summoning, Wild-spell, as my first 3 feats, and my first stat bonus going in to Wisdom to grab the extra spell slots.

[Geddy2112]

I was intending to have Charisma higher, because the DM is allowing full use of the Handle animal's rules (the one that lets you train animals and use them as companions) and the druid gets a bonus to it. Should I swap the Int round in to charisma? or would you advise something else? My current statline reads 7/14/12/9/17(19)/14 with the bonus in wisdom. With the intent of grabbing Conjuration, Augment summoning, Wild-spell, as my first 3 feats, and my first stat bonus going in to Wisdom to grab the extra spell slots.

The thing is, INT serves you better than CHA in the long run, as you get more skill ranks to max handle animal and other skills than. Likewise, the DC's for handle animal are pretty dang low, and you have it as a class skill. Even with a -2 from charisma penalty, if you are trained in handle animal it is a +2 bonus; with 10 charisma that is a +4. You can take 10 most times to auto pass the DC10 check, and in combat 10 is not hard and autopass at higher levels. For newer animals that you get at higher levels, you will have enough int to max out handle animal and then continue training, eventually just taking 10 and automatically passing. Since you have a domain instead of companion at level 1, you don't need to be worry about this right away. Remember that you won't get a +4 for animals you train yourself because they don't count as your nature bond animal companion.

If you are willing to get to 10 CHA, you could go 7/14/12/10/18/10, +2 wis from racial and get 20 int off the bat. Or have the best of both worlds of INT and CHA, for a 7/14/12/12/17/12. Don't go over 12 int unless you need to fill in as a group skillmonkey. 12 covers knowledge:nature, handle animal, perception, and spellcraft maxed out, then you get a floating rank for the other class skills for the trained bonus, and then a cross class skill or two. You can always use your favored class bonus to get an extra rank if you really need it.

That is the right feat progression, and maxing wis is crucial for the caster.

[Eddieddi]

Awesome, Got it build and mostly organized. Just putting together the spell list and we are good. Thanks for the help! I love building for these aquard and odd campaigns just for the challenge and learning it gives.

[Garktz]

Here goes a small tip from my own experience with tbe druid we have in our group (we are now lvl 11)

tame the animal companion over the domain.
Domain powers and 1 extra spell is nice, but in my experience, are very situational and rarely matter while an animal companion, even using it as a back up, is more usefull and reliable...
I would go (after what i saw with our druid) with an animal to act as a scout and as a light melee suport

[avr]

Garktz is more generally right, but if you're the only caster then more casting is good and there should be plenty of meatshields.