First time Druid help 3.5

[kweek]

This is my second campaign and first time as a Druid. We're playing 3.5 and starting at level 5. Party info first: Half orc fighter, half orc barbarian, halfling rogue (soon to be arcane trickster), elf ranger, human bard, and human cleric (not dedicating himself to healing), and me the Elf Druid (str 8, dex 10, con 10, int 14, wis 18, cha 14). I think I'll focus quite a bit on summoning nature's allies. Feats I've chosen are Spell Focus (conjuration) with Augment Summoning, following with natural spell next level. Since there is no dedicated healer on our team I'll have to take that obligation too. I'm curious to hear recommendations on animal companions, favorite nonmetal weapons, cool tactics with druid spells, wild shape favorites, skills to focus on, healing; any input would rock. It seems like there's so much to a Druid! I've also got 9000 gold to spend on equipment before beginning, any recommendations there? I know that's a lot to question. Thanks people!

[retaliation08]

Wands of lesser Vigor (or Cure light wounds if core only) will be your friend.

If you plan to fight with weapons, most of your spell support will be for quarterstaff and sling with spells like Shillelagh and magic stone.

Typically, big cats will offer you the best bang for your buck for animal companion and wildshape forms, especially if dinosaurs are not on the table.

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?439991-Being-Everything-Eggynack-s-Comprehensive-Druid-Handbook) is the go to resource for all things Druid.

[kweek]

Prime info, thanks a lot! That link is an awesome resource

[eggynack]

Sounds like you're in core only, which changes a lot. First, might wanna change that stat line. Intelligence and charisma are okay, but constitution is way better, and you're going to want to push that above a 10. 14 is the ideal, but anything is good. Second, healing. You should probably skip preparing healing spells, as they're inefficient in combat, and instead pick up a wand of cure light wounds. In two levels you get unicorn summoning, which is excellent spontaneous healing. The best core animal companion at that level is probably either the riding dog or the ape.

You'll mostly want to stay out of direct melee combat, using the companion to deal damage and your spells to do stuff, so something as simple as a sling is a good option, letting you turn your actions into a bit of value when you have nothing better to do. For spells, good 0th's are cure minor wounds (cause it stabilizes the target), create water, and detect magic. 1st's are entangle, obscuring mist, and faerie fire. Core 2nd's aren't my favorite, but soften earth and stone, summon swarm, and maybe fog cloud are reasonable combat options, and spider climb and gust of wind are decent utility (though spider climb might not be worth it given your wild shape having). 3rd's are really sweet. Greater magic fang, plant growth, sleet storm, stone shape, wind wall, and maybe call lightning are all really good.

On wild shape forms, I'd honestly mostly skip them outside of occasional utility until 6th. You'll want to spend most of your time elfing about, and then maybe swap over to a combat or flight form (or any other movement mode form, I suppose) in a pinch. That said, the best core combat option at that level is probably deinonychus, and the best flight form is eagle. Eagle isn't ideal, cause it doesn't have hover from good maneuverability, but that's not an option at this level in core, so you take what you can get.

For skills, you want concentration, for casting, knowledge (nature), for familiarity with wild shape forms, and a decent amount of handle animal, for your animal companion. After that it's more optional, but diplomacy is always excellent, spot and listen are very good, and spellcraft is strong as well. Finally, for items, a big struggle is getting stuff that works well with wild shape. Metamagic rods, particularly lesser extend ones, are great for this, cause they provide utility by extending your morning buff routine (which is admittedly a bit limited in scope in core).

Anyway, most of that assumes core only. If you're not that (or close to that, cause an extra book or two isn't necessarily going to set all of that on fire), then things can change substantially. My handbook is more useful in more expansive environments, so that'd be the place to go if this advice wasn't particularly applicable.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Druids can use metal weapons, they just can't use metal armor or shields.

Get hide armor and a heavy wooden shield, with a scimitar. Since you want to focus on summoning, get a Ring of the Beast in Complete Champion, it will be useful for your entire career.

For healing, it shouldn't be done in combat or with spell slots unless someone is about to die, as in-combat healing is a waste of actions since you can never out-heal the damage someone is taking. Better to just neutralize the threats to prevent them from dealing more damage in subsequent rounds. Get the party to all contribute to buying a Wand of Lesser Vigor, it heals 11 hp per charge (over 11 rounds) and costs 750 gp. Use that to top everyone off between encounters, and they'll just need to play smart or buy themselves potions if they want healing during combat.

With a Wisdom score that high, you should try to use crowd control spells as well. Prepare Sleet Storm and Kelpstrand (Spell Compendium), and try not to use more than one or two spells per encounter. Prepare Enrage Animal (SC) in several of your 1st level slots and cast that then concentrate on it to buff your animal companion once you don't need to spend more spells in a fight.

Your animal companion should be either a Fleshraker dinosaur (MM3) or a Dire Eagle (RoS), both are 4th+ level 'level -3' companions. You can take the feat Natural Bond in Complete Adventurer to cancel out that -3 and count your full Druid level toward their benefits. The Fleshraker is the better combatant, the eagle can fly and be used as a mount but may have issues indoors.

Once you get 4th level spells you can summon a Unicorn, whose Magic Circle effect can keep extraplanar enemies at bay and suppress mind control effects, and it can put out more healing than your 4th level cure spell. With the Ring of the Beast you can summon that with a 3rd level spell, but you need to be able to cast 4th level spells to do that.

[SecondCid]

Spamming summons is a good way to go as druid. You can combine with the Natural Spell feat (it's in SRD, I just can't link it because I don't have enough posts) so that you can constantly be in wild shape and still cast spells. Turn into dire bear for big stat gains and voila, super-beefy summoner.

[kweek]

Killer advice people. Is there anything like Natural Bond in core 3.5? I can't find it in 3.5 srd. How important are the animal companion's specials (link, evasion, devotion etc)? I've been thinking about choosing the leopard, for its grapple, pounce, and rake, but I'm not sure if I should take that -3 to the druid level. Thoughts?

[eggynack]

Killer advice people. Is there anything like Natural Bond in core 3.5? I can't find it in 3.5 srd. How important are the animal companion's specials (link, evasion, devotion etc)? I've been thinking about choosing the leopard, for its grapple, pounce, and rake, but I'm not sure if I should take that -3 to the druid level. Thoughts?
There is not such an effect in core, no. I wouldn't worry too much about the loss of the fancy abilities though. Evasion is decent, but as a completely defensive ability it's not all that critical on the totally replaceable animal companion. Devotion is pretty close to worthless. It's nice to have, obviously, but sufficiently narrow that you're not likely to recall its absence. Multiattack is good, but, y'know, it's not on the table. Way too high in level, and so is devotion, actually. Realistically, the question is going to simply be whether evasion is worth losing this other stuff, and the answer will typically be no. Unless the companion you're picking up sucks, anyway, though it's unlikely that evasion would make the difference there either.

[MeimuHakurei]

Killer advice people. Is there anything like Natural Bond in core 3.5? I can't find it in 3.5 srd. How important are the animal companion's specials (link, evasion, devotion etc)? I've been thinking about choosing the leopard, for its grapple, pounce, and rake, but I'm not sure if I should take that -3 to the druid level. Thoughts?

Natural Bond isn't core, it's in the Complete Adventurer book. But even without it, the Leopard is still a powerful choice just because Pounce is such a great ability for melee damage. Just note that as a Druid, you're pretty tight on feats (you generally want Spell Focus Conjuration, Augment Summoning and Natural Spell early on, and later Greenbound Summoning).

[eggynack]

Just note that as a Druid, you're pretty tight on feats (you generally want Spell Focus Conjuration, Augment Summoning and Natural Spell early on, and later Greenbound Summoning).
I disagree on a few points here. First, if you're taking greenbound summoning, you want to take it as early as is possible. Spontaneous walls of thorns start out insane and then hold at that same level of insanity for the rest of the game, which becomes relatively less insane as you get access to other things. Even if you ignore that specific capacity, taking augment first makes little sense because greenbound is strictly better. It actually provides +6/+4 to strength and constitution respectively, and that's before all the other crazy combat junk it gets. Second, if you're taking greenbound summoning, then your feat access is presumably wide enough that augment summoning is just pretty good as opposed to the be all and end all. When you have all books, it's not necessarily something you'd want to take even if you could take it in one feat (and you basically can by a few methods).

Finally, I don't think druids are all that feat tight. Don't get me wrong, they have some incredibly and must take feats, but I tend to think it's pretty easy to get what you want. Consider something like greenbound, aberrant blood, natural spell, aberration wild shape, some initiate feat, and maybe companion spellbond as a basic barebones feat ordering. You could do more with more feats, obviously, but there aren't any clear holes here. You can get even cleaner setups with some plan swapping. Ditch aberration wild shape for dragon and you get a free feat and some maneuverability early on. Swap greenbound for rashemi elemental summoning and you have even more early room. Racial choices and prestige classes can lighten the load on your feats as well.

It's a weird situation. There is a sense in which druids are feat tight, in that they really need all the feats they get (at least the early ones, cause the ones after level nine or twelve, depending on the build, are decidedly less critical). There's another sense, however, in which druids are decidedly not feat tight, in that they don't particularly need more feats than they get.

[MeimuHakurei]

I disagree on a few points here. First, if you're taking greenbound summoning, you want to take it as early as is possible. Spontaneous walls of thorns start out insane and then hold at that same level of insanity for the rest of the game, which becomes relatively less insane as you get access to other things. Even if you ignore that specific capacity, taking augment first makes little sense because greenbound is strictly better. It actually provides +6/+4 to strength and constitution respectively, and that's before all the other crazy combat junk it gets. Second, if you're taking greenbound summoning, then your feat access is presumably wide enough that augment summoning is just pretty good as opposed to the be all and end all. When you have all books, it's not necessarily something you'd want to take even if you could take it in one feat (and you basically can by a few methods).

Finally, I don't think druids are all that feat tight. Don't get me wrong, they have some incredibly and must take feats, but I tend to think it's pretty easy to get what you want. Consider something like greenbound, aberrant blood, natural spell, aberration wild shape, some initiate feat, and maybe companion spellbond as a basic barebones feat ordering. You could do more with more feats, obviously, but there aren't any clear holes here. You can get even cleaner setups with some plan swapping. Ditch aberration wild shape for dragon and you get a free feat and some maneuverability early on. Swap greenbound for rashemi elemental summoning and you have even more early room. Racial choices and prestige classes can lighten the load on your feats as well.

It's a weird situation. There is a sense in which druids are feat tight, in that they really need all the feats they get (at least the early ones, cause the ones after level nine or twelve, depending on the build, are decidedly less critical). There's another sense, however, in which druids are decidedly not feat tight, in that they don't particularly need more feats than they get.

Okay, I may have misjudged the druid's feat access since they have no bonus feats or useful feat-granting ACFs and they pretty much always want Natural Spell.

[KillianHawkeye]

Since there is no dedicated healer on our team I'll have to take that obligation too.


For healing, it shouldn't be done in combat or with spell slots unless someone is about to die, as in-combat healing is a waste of actions since you can never out-heal the damage someone is taking. Better to just neutralize the threats to prevent them from dealing more damage in subsequent rounds. Get the party to all contribute to buying a Wand of Lesser Vigor, it heals 11 hp per charge (over 11 rounds) and costs 750 gp. Use that to top everyone off between encounters, and they'll just need to play smart or buy themselves potions if they want healing during combat.

I agree with what Biff says, but I also want to add a couple thoughts.

You say that the Cleric is not focused on healing. You didn't really mention alignments, but if he isn't Evil there's a good chance he can still spontaneously cast cure spells. There's also the Bard, who gets access to healing magic. If you can convince him to take at least cure light wounds, then you can do the lessor vigor wand thing between fights and share the load of emergency healing between the three of you (Cleric, Druid, and Bard).

Since you seem to be in a big party, it's a good idea to spread out this responsibility, and if a few people can devote a little bit of effort into it then no one will have to really focus hard on healing.

[Nifft]

IMHO you could be a Druid with above-average power with no feats at all, standing well above many other PCs who did get feats.

A big step up from that would come from just adding Natural Spell.

So, yeah, you don't need any feats in particular, but you really want Natural spell, and then everything after that comes from your desired interaction with the world and your party.


It sounds like you're playing a Core game, so there's no point in looking at feats like Greenbound / Gatekeeper / etc. or [Reserve] feats like Fiery Burst, right?

Item Creation feats can either amazing, or they can be worthless.
- Does your game allow significant downtime? That increase the value of Item Creation feats.
- Does your game have magic item stores? If buying custom items is possible, that reduces the value of Item Creation feats.
- Does your party contain a Wizard who wants to be a crafter and who takes all sorts of Item Creation feats? Then you can collaborate with that PC instead of taking the feats yourself.
- Does your DM give the players a wish-list to request magic items which tend to show up later? Then you might not need Item Creation feats.

It really depends on your DM, your campaign specifics, and the other PCs in your party.


In my (limited) experience, the most valuable Animal Companion perks are Link and Share Spells, which every AC gets automatically. So if you want the Leopard, take the Leopard. Pounce is great.

Getting an AC you can ride into battle is amazing, because your Share Spells applies for longer and in more situations. If you do this, consider taking Mounted Combat, to keep your ride alive longer.