Cold Druid/planar shepherd help

[OrkneysFinest]

So in an evil side story/campaign to one of the main campaigns my friends and I are doing I'm doing an evil Druid/planar shepherd that's pretty much a cryomancer. His race is human with the arctic template added. Starting level is 9 and I planned on doing druid 5 and going into planar shepherd asap with Risia obviously as the plane. I'm taking the Love of Nature flaw to get an extra feat.

My original plan was: 1st level- piercing cold, spell focus (conjugation), and green singer initiate
3rd level- energy substitution (cold)
6th- Natural Spell
9th- Augmented Summons
12th- Lord of the Uttercold
15th- Frozen Wildshape (coz Cryohydra)
18th- Beckon the Frozen

But looking at it I'm wondering if Beckon the Frozen is even worth 3 feats and if there's better options out there for the flavor I'm looking for.

Also any recommendations on gear would be helpful. I was thinking of getting an armor with the soulfire enchantment just because there is a party member that's essentially a broken character who's a death touched/dread necromancer with the unseeily fey, necropolitian, and spellstitched templates stacked with each other, so he has a lot of spells that are save or die and he likes to play the op-force within the group. So any and all suggestions on that and other gear are welcome.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Beckon the Frozen is seriously lackluster. I'd do the following instead:

1. Take Rashemi Elemental Summoning in Unapproachable East. This allows you to summon Orglash versions of air elementals, which grants the cold subtype, among other (significant) benefits. Note that this can also be applied to Storm Elementals in MM3.

2. Take a cold-themed adaptation of the Goliath Druid 1 substitution level in Races of Stone. Instead of earth elementals, this would apply to elementals with the cold subtype, and you wouldn't be able to summon elementals that don't have the cold subtype. Even if Rashemi Elemental Summoning isn't allowed, see if you can still take this and summon cold versions of fire elementals and storm (blizzard?) elementals.


Also, flaws state that they must be taken during character creation, it doesn't say they must be taken at 1st level. If you're building a 9th level character, the feats you gain from flaws can be at any of the levels you're beginning play with. I would take either Cold Blooded or Bestial Instinct from that same issue/page as Love of Nature. Cold Blooded can be negated by Endure Elements (or a 500 gp armor crystal) and fire resistance (automatically at 13th level, see below), and Bestial Instinct only matters if you're using manufactured weapons, which you likely won't ever be doing.

Make sure you take all the benefits of the Druid spells in Dragon Magic that have "A character who learns this spell gains..." at the bottom, provided you're high enough level to cast them:
Vision of the Omniscient Eye (Druid 3): +1 competence bonus to Spot checks.
Call of the Twilight Defender (Druid 6): +1 competence bonus to Knowledge (nature) checks.
Haze of Smoldering Stone (Druid 7): Resistance to fire 3, which stacks with any other resistance to fire you may have.


Be sure to get a Ring of the Beast in Complete Champion if you're going the summoning route, that whole set wouldn't be a bad idea. Ashbound is also a pretty good feat to pick up, it's often better than Augment Summoning and costs you one fewer feat due to prerequisites. Invisible Spell is also amazing for summoning permanently invisible creatures, and you can use that with (Lesser Rod of Extended) Obscuring Snow from Frostburn every day to have an unseen chill wind constantly swirling around you. Enemies who can see invisible objects and even opponents with true seeing will be completely blocked from viewing anything in the spell's area!

If you want to completely break the game, get everyone else in the party to each pitch in 2,000 gp for a 1st level Pearl of Power and to go in thirds on Lesser Rods of Extend for you to cast Extended Snowsight on each of them every day, you'll cast it on yourself and use the pearls to not spend any extra spell slots on theirs. You and anyone with the Cleric or Sorcerer/Wizard spell list can all cast Extended Obscuring Snow every day, and enemies will be effectively blinded with very few ways of overcoming it. Keep in mind that fire effects will only temporarily remove a portion of the effect, which should return on the following round. Again, this is way too powerful so I'd just use it with Invisible Spell and give Extended Snowsight to anyone with a permanent See Invisibility or similar every day.


Get a Magebred Ghost Tiger (arctic tigers are a thing) and take Natural Bond to reduce the penalty to Druid Level -3 for its animal companion benefits. Say you used Handle Animal to add the Warbeast template in MM2 to that, and its additional skills and feats from HD should include enough cross-class Spellcraft ranks to get the Mage Slayer line of feats in CA.

[Venger]

aside from Biffoniacus_Furiou's thorough advice, anything else you could want to know is addressed in eggynack's druid handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?439991-Being-Everything-Eggynack-s-Comprehensive-Druid-Handbook)

[OrkneysFinest]

Thanks guys!

Armor wise I was looking at Blue Ice. Is that one worth it? And is it already considered masterwork? I also couldn't find what that does for AC.

Where would a human find the feat like that Goliath racial trait you mentioned? I didn't think taking that would be possible.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Thanks guys!

Armor wise I was looking at Blue Ice. Is that one worth it? And is it already considered masterwork? I also couldn't find what that does for AC.

Where would a human find the feat like that Goliath racial trait you mentioned? I didn't think taking that would be possible.

Regarding the elemental summoning stuff, see if your DM will allow you to take a house ruled adaptation of it that applies to cold elementals.

For armor, just get some decent armor with the Wild property so you retain the AC bonus when you wild shape, Armor of the Beast in CC is great if you get the whole set. Or get a Monk's Belt with a wilding clasp from MIC, to add your Wis bonus to your AC. Or do both, since wild armor melds into you when you wild shape you're not considered armored even though you keep the AC bonus, so you'll still get the Monk AC bonus on top of that.

[Troacctid]

Also, flaws state that they must be taken during character creation, it doesn't say they must be taken at 1st level.
That's a somewhat disingenuous way to put it. It says that after 1st level, flaws can only be taken with special permission from the DM.


Make sure you take all the benefits of the Druid spells in Dragon Magic that have "A character who learns this spell gains..." at the bottom, provided you're high enough level to cast them:
Vision of the Omniscient Eye (Druid 3): +1 competence bonus to Spot checks.
Call of the Twilight Defender (Druid 6): +1 competence bonus to Knowledge (nature) checks.
Haze of Smoldering Stone (Druid 7): Resistance to fire 3, which stacks with any other resistance to fire you may have.
Druids cannot gain these benefits because they do not have spells known (unless you use the spontaneous variant).


Get a Magebred Ghost Tiger (arctic tigers are a thing) and take Natural Bond to reduce the penalty to Druid Level -3 for its animal companion benefits. Say you used Handle Animal to add the Warbeast template in MM2 to that, and its additional skills and feats from HD should include enough cross-class Spellcraft ranks to get the Mage Slayer line of feats in CA.
An animal companion is a normal creature of its kind. That presumably means no extra templates.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

That's a somewhat disingenuous way to put it. It says that after 1st level, flaws can only be taken with special permission from the DM.

"A player may select up to two flaws when creating a character. After 1st level, a character cannot take on additional flaws unless the game master specifically allows it (for examples of times when doing this might be appropriate, see Character Traits)."

The first sentence is cut and dry. The second sentence applies only to flaws gained in addition to those that were added during character creation, with the assumption that all characters are created at 1st level.


Druids cannot gain these benefits because they do not have spells known (unless you use the spontaneous variant).

"Characters who can cast divine spells undertake a certain amount of study between adventures. Each time such a character receives a new level of divine spells, he or she learns new spells from that level automatically. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/divineSpells.htm#newDivineSpells)"

Once you've learned something, you know it. Spells you've learned are spells you know.


An animal companion is a normal creature of its kind. That presumably means no extra templates.

That's a general rule, there's a specific exception made for the Magebred Ghost Tiger. It's possible to add acquired templates after it becomes an animal companion.

[Venger]

That's a general rule, there's a specific exception made for the Magebred Ghost Tiger. It's possible to add acquired templates after it becomes an animal companion.
Horrid is also a popular one.

[Endarire]

Warbeast is a common template obtained after a creature becomes an animal companion.

Also, venomfire Fleshrakers are nuts.

[Venger]

They are. Does anyone actually allow venomfire?

[eggynack]

The first sentence is cut and dry. The second sentence applies only to flaws gained in addition to those that were added during character creation, with the assumption that all characters are created at 1st level.
Given that the second sentence explicitly makes note of first level, it's at best ambiguous whether the "additional" flaws are relative to character creation flaws or first level flaws. I'm pretty strongly inclined to think that it's an added restriction, rather than an overlapping one meant to clarify the first sentence. Note that, by your reading, the "after first level" text would be entirely pointless.


"Characters who can cast divine spells undertake a certain amount of study between adventures. Each time such a character receives a new level of divine spells, he or she learns new spells from that level automatically. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/divineSpells.htm#newDivineSpells)"

Once you've learned something, you know it. Spells you've learned are spells you know.
List of spells known, not spells you know. The text is very explicit on this in a way that makes arguing this point pointless, however. To quote: "This applies to any character who has a list of spells known... but not to characters who prepare spells from a class list or spellbook, such as a cleric or wizard."

[OrkneysFinest]

Thanks guys. I was going to use a polar bear as my animal companion at level 10 so I'll probably just switch out the brown bear. I know it's not optimal but it fits the role playing flavor I'm looking for. I have a ghost tiger in another campaign I'm playing though and they are truly magnificent lol.

Definitely going to do away with the Beckon the Frozen line, and substitute them with natural bond and ashbound summons for sure. Open to suggestions on the third feat, if it's cold related even better.

Question, I've seen it said on this site that if I go into a planar bubble of Risia anything living dies from the effect of dropping to 0 degrees. Is this true? If so what's the source? If that is true that's a trick I'd intend to make use of.

[Troacctid]

Warbeast is a common template obtained after a creature becomes an animal companion.
Adding the warbeast template requires you to rear the animal from infancy. By the time the animal is your companion, it should be too late for that.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Adding the warbeast template requires you to rear the animal from infancy. By the time the animal is your companion, it should be too late for that.

It only says it requires two months training if it's a domestic animal, or one year plus two months for a wild animal. An animal companion is already bonded to you, so that one year doesn't typically even apply if it's normally a wild animal.

[OrkneysFinest]

"Pick a plane of cold, the temperature instantly drops to 0 degrees and every living thing dies from the "flash frost."

This is from the planar shepherd handbook on this forum. Can anyone verify if this is true or not?

[Quertus]

Adding the warbeast template requires you to rear the animal from infancy. By the time the animal is your companion, it should be too late for that.


It only says it requires two months training if it's a domestic animal, or one year plus two months for a wild animal. An animal companion is already bonded to you, so that one year doesn't typically even apply if it's normally a wild animal.

Granted, it's total homebrew, but, for Druids that know what animal companion they want, I allow them to take "baby" versions of any high-level companion, at level 1. Under this scenario, even if "from infancy" was a requirement, there'd be no issue getting the War Beast template, right?

[Troacctid]

"Pick a plane of cold, the temperature instantly drops to 0 degrees and every living thing dies from the "flash frost."

This is from the planar shepherd handbook on this forum. Can anyone verify if this is true or not?
I mean, if every living thing stays there unprotected for, like, multiple days, sure. At that temperature, you only take 1d6 damage per hour from the cold, and you get a save to negate each instance of damage.


Granted, it's total homebrew, but, for Druids that know what animal companion they want, I allow them to take "baby" versions of any high-level companion, at level 1. Under this scenario, even if "from infancy" was a requirement, there'd be no issue getting the War Beast template, right?
Just time and DM discretion.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

"Pick a plane of cold, the temperature instantly drops to 0 degrees and every living thing dies from the "flash frost."

This is from the planar shepherd handbook on this forum. Can anyone verify if this is true or not?

Complete BS, unless he's talking about 0 Kelvin, which isn't in any plane's description that I've ever seen. For detailed rules on cold dangers, take a look in Chapter 1 of Frostburn.



Granted, it's total homebrew, but, for Druids that know what animal companion they want, I allow them to take "baby" versions of any high-level companion, at level 1. Under this scenario, even if "from infancy" was a requirement, there'd be no issue getting the War Beast template, right?

Right, but Warbeast doesn't even have verbiage alluding to "from infancy" so it doesn't even matter. It requires a maximum of 14 months, and nothing you'd want to make into a Warbeast goes from infancy to adult in 14 months. Even then, it doesn't mention anything about a maximum starting age/maturity, you could get it as an adult and spend the necessary 14 months to make it a warbeast.

[DrMotives]

I think the Warbeast template is pretty clear that you can train an animal in it later in the animal's life, so adding it to a druid's companion is a pretty reasonable straightforward thing that RAW allows.

Anyway, on summoning elementals, if you look in Manual of the Planes, it has Ice Paraelementals, and a template for "cold element" creatures that are native to cold planes. There's a Dragon Mag article with half-paramental templates to make anything an "ice creature", (or ooze, magma, or smoke) as well as para-elemental versions of the elemental monolith monsters.

The Rashemi elemental summoning adds cold subtype to any elemental type with the air descriptor, so even things like invisible stalkers & breath stealers have a cold element variation from that feat.