Druid v.o.p

[kwilly69]

I was thinking of Druid with vow of poverty
Do all the vows bonuses carry over to wildshape
as thy are "innate: it appears they should

just thought it might be easier than dealing with magical items

gotta take sacred vow to get exalted companion and exalted wild shape anyhow
nymphs kiss and touch of golden rave look nice too

[eggynack]

The bonuses do carry over to wild shape forms. You definitely don't need sacred vow for exalted wild shape or exalted companion though. In any case, items are better, but druids do VoP best of any class, which gets it all the way up to decidedly mediocre status, instead of fully awful. Which is nice. I have a bunch of stuff on exalted druid stuff in my handbook.

[SangoProduction]

The bonuses do carry over to wild shape forms. You definitely don't need sacred vow for exalted wild shape or exalted companion though. In any case, items are better, but druids do VoP best of any class, which gets it all the way up to decidedly mediocre status, instead of fully awful. Which is nice. I have a bunch of stuff on exalted druid stuff in my handbook.

I'm pretty sure it's still bad though, as you still get weaker by taking it (in addition to the opportunity cost), unless your DM is stingy with items...or simply doesn't know what items to give out.

[kwilly69]

The bonuses do carry over to wild shape forms. You definitely don't need sacred vow for exalted wild shape or exalted companion though. In any case, items are better, but druids do VoP best of any class, which gets it all the way up to decidedly mediocre status, instead of fully awful. Which is nice. I have a bunch of stuff on exalted druid stuff in my handbook.

Yes i have read it :P thank you very much

my second character in 3.5 and 2nd in 10 years is going to be animporhic bat druid


with exalted companion, perhaps wildshape
wildshape dragon seems decidedly not exciting although sounds cool till i looked at the dragons that fit requirements


( learing the magic items seems daunting)

[SangoProduction]

Yes i have read it :P thank you very much

my second character in 3.5 and 2nd in 10 years is going to be animporhic bat druid


with exalted companion, perhaps wildshape

( learing the magic items seems daunting)

Well, that's reason enough to take it. I couldn't care for magic items either. But, here are some 'essentials' for moderate to high level play.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items

I've never seen them as truly essential, as it seems the majority of games are just not very high op at all. It's incredibly rare for DMs to use debuffs in my experience, and I play around the world and online.

I had one DM use entangle and deep slumber...and TPK'd the party...well, would have, if he didn't decide they actually only wanted the car.

Here's also a decently sorted list of items (though it is very flawed)
http://dictummortuum.blogspot.com/2011/12/complete-shopping-list.html

[kwilly69]

YEA GOTTA WILD CLASP EVERYTHING THATS NOT BEAsT OR WILD :p


sorry on caps

o and getting a riding dog :)

[Grod_The_Giant]

Yep. As eggynack said (he's kind of the Druid expert 'round these parts), Druids do better with Vow of Poverty than anyone else. They can even use more Exalted feats than most characters-- Exalted Companion, Exalted Wild Shape, Intuitive Attack, Nymph's Kiss, Sanctify Natural Weapon, and Words of Creation are all fine choices.

By the by, if you're finding Wild Shape to be daunting as well, I direct your attention to the Shapeshift variant in the Player's Handbook 2. It's a massive downgrade in power and versatiltiy, but also complexity-- instead of dozens of wildly different forms to keep track of, there are only a handful, and each of those are only a quick change to a few stats. Plus it's at will, which I always find fun. The Wild Cohort feat (a web enhancement) can give you back an animal companion that's nearly as good.

[kwilly69]

yea its like get free "druid" only feats its basically 8 free feats and about 4 of them are pretty good

then you could get a couple spell caster feats too

[eggynack]

I'm pretty sure it's still bad though, as you still get weaker by taking it (in addition to the opportunity cost), unless your DM is stingy with items...or simply doesn't know what items to give out.
Oh, it's definitely bad. It's just not really bad. It doesn't remove large chunks of your functioning as a character, and there are actual meaningful benefits you can point to, even if those benefits don't match up to the things you lose. In particular, Sacred vow and VoP match up against exalted wild shape and exalted companion as full feat value, and then all those other feats account for what is effectively a net of, say, two or three feats. Which is nice. Rather have a ring of the beast, a lesser rod of extend spell, and so on, but it's not nothing. Definitely way more than a monk gets from the feat, and you're definitely losing significantly less as well.

[kwilly69]

Oh, it's definitely bad. It's just not really bad. It doesn't remove large chunks of your functioning as a character, and there are actual meaningful benefits you can point to, even if those benefits don't match up to the things you lose. In particular, Sacred vow and VoP match up against exalted wild shape and exalted companion as full feat value, and then all those other feats account for what is effectively a net of, say, two or three feats. Which is nice. Rather have a ring of the beast, a lesser rod of extend spell, and so on, but it's not nothing. Definitely way more than a monk gets from the feat, and you're definitely losing significantly less as well.

typically our dm does wealth by level and you shop, played a wizard last time and never could buy the tome + 5 int and we couldnt stack wishes
but thank you I as thinking stacking wisdom for spells im actually reading your "guide" right now

[Kelb_Panthera]

typically our dm does wealth by level and you shop, played a wizard last time and never could buy the tome + 5 int and we couldnt stack wishes
but thank you I as thinking stacking wisdom for spells im actually reading your "guide" right now

If I were -really- concerned with getting the inherent bonus (something I usually don't worry about) then I'd spend the 2 extra levels worth of time at 17 to just scribe 4 scrolls of wish and wrack up the 5k experience for the fifth one. Unless you mean he was explicitly houseruling that particular use of wish out.

BTW, count your blessings. The way I hear it, a -lot- of GM's don't like letting you waltz on down to ye olde magik marte to get whatever you like just because you could afford it. A lot more get stingy with treasure and don't care about WBL. There's some overlap there which just plain sucks for anybody but a character like you're looking to make here.


Anyway, something helpful now;

Eggynack wrote a handbook for druids, which he links in his signature IIRC, that should include a section on druid spells. The trick to learning spells is the same as anything else large and complex like that; break it down into manageable chunks and learn the chunks. Perhaps break it down by level or effect type (battlefield control, buffs, debuffs, etc). There's a summoner's desk reference floating around for getting ahold of the summon nature's ally spells.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

typically our dm does wealth by level and you shop, played a wizard last time and never could buy the tome + 5 int and we couldnt stack wishes
but thank you I as thinking stacking wisdom for spells im actually reading your "guide" right nowIt's much cheaper to buy a scroll of polymorph any object and turn into something humanoid-shaped with a sky-high Int.

Beyond that, it's cheapest to planar bind a creature with wish (like a Good-aligned genie, for preference) and wish for a scroll with five wishes on it.

I'd suggest using a Twinned Fell Energy Spell wish after casting shroud of undeath on yourself (or possibly your party if you can Chain them), but you'd have to be able to cast really high level spells for that...or use metamagic reduction shenanigans or incantatrix. Still, the effort might be worth it. 5,000 XP and two spell slots to give the entire party +5 to their Int scores? Not a bad deal.

[kwilly69]

thank you all :P
after reading the spells i couldn't cast due to being poor, perhaps ill just use magic items :P
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