Best Druid Spell for a Psychic

[Maat Mons]

Magaambyan Telepath (https://www.aonprd.com/ArchetypeDisplay.aspx?FixedName=Psychic%20Magaamby an%20Telepath) / Wildepath Psychic (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/psychic/archetypes/paizo-llc-psychic-archetypes/wildepath-psychic-archetype/) gives you one Druid spell of each level 1-9. What are the best choices? Here’s what I’ve thought of so far.

1st-Level Spells
Cure Light Wounds: Lets you use a wand of Cure Light Wounds without a UMD check.
Entangle: Solid spell.

2nd-Level Spells
Restoration, Lesser: Useful, but maybe a bit niche.
Sickening Entanglement / Soften Earth and Stone / Stone Call: Solid battlefield control.

3rd-Level Spells
Neutralize Poison / Remove Disease: Even more niche.
Spike Growth / Thorny Entanglement / Wind Wall: More BFC.
Plant Growth / Stone Shape: Not worth the spells know, much as it pains me to admit. I think these are fun downtime spells.

4th-Level Spells
Air Walk: Psychic has access to Fly, but maybe it would be nice not to have to make Fly checks while flying? No, probably not worth it.

5th-Level Spells
Air Walk, Communal: Okay, this might have actual value, since I don’t see any “Communal” flight spells on the Psychic list.
Death Ward: Not a bad choice, I guess.
Wall of Thorns: Well, it’s longer lasting than Wall of Force, I guess.

6th-Level Spells
Move Earth / Wall of Stone: More spells I like for downtime construction projects. Also probably not worth the spell known.

7th-Level Spells
Control Weather: Another downtime spell for making villagers like you. Not any more worth the spell known than the last couple.
Heal: Good, solid pick.

8th-Level Spells
Animal Shapes: I don’t know. Is a group polymorph something most groups would welcome?
Wall of Lava: Is there a reason to use this over Prismatic Wall?

9th-Level Druid Spells
Regenerate: I guess those crippled villagers are going to have to find a different high-level caster, because I don’t see myself using a spell known on this either.
Shapechange: Good spell.

[Curse]

It is hard to say without knowing your style of play and what role you see yourself in within the group. The spells you selected seem to be about fights and benefits in dangerous environment. Noone will complain about healing options and being able to group polymorph. I just don't find a character concept and personality there. Also none of the spells seems to support a telepathic concept.
Where does your character come from, what are their goals and methods?
Is your game more oriented towards roleplay or battles?

[Maat Mons]

I don’t have a specific character concept in mind. I originally started looking over the Psychic class as a thought experiment involving NPCs. This archetype drew my attention in that context.

More specifically, a hypothetical D&D nation trying to massively upscale the training available to their populace. I figured they’d want an Int-base full casting training program available, as part of rounding out the options they offer their people. It seems to me that Wizards, Arcanists, and Witches would be cost prohibitive to train at a large scale. People with the right bloodline for Sage Sorcerer are probably rare. That only really leaves Psychic as a reasonable option to build a school system around. This is a tad annoying, because some of the biggest issues a D&D nation might want to address by training casters would be injury, disease, and crop failure, which the baseline Psychic isn’t very well suited to fixing. This is why it excited me that there’s an archetype that can give a Psychic access to healing magic and Plant Growth.
But putting that aside, I’ve more recently started musing on the use of this archetype for player characters, and that’s what I started this thread for. I’m not currently in a D&D game, and the group I play with has been on a Magic: The Gathering kick lately, so a new D&D game might not get started anytime soon. Nevertheless, I like to keep bits and pieces of ideas around in case any of them might serve as fodder for future characters. So I’m afraid I can’t narrow things down very much for what I’d be interested in. I was hoping this thread could act as a list of interesting options to consider for whatever character concept I might have in the future. I guess, at the least, I can say that my group, at such time as we get back to D&D, will likely continue our trend of leaning more towards combat than roleplay.

[Curse]

Mage academies exist as well as temples. It may not be necessary to completely overturn existing structures. But taking your concept as given - that might provide a very interesting background - there is already something to work with as you are now able to check every spell against that background.
So as you said: healing, diseases and farming would be the main themes (dealing with poisons would also be useful). Probably the schools would be organized in different aspects - e.g. some students deal with the farming aspect more than others.

Here are some suggestions where I hope I got the correct spell list:

Lvl0
Create water
Detect poison
Purify food and drink
Stabilize

Lvl1
Alter winds
Antitoxin touch
Calm animal
Charm animal
Cure light wounds
Diagnose disease
Endure elements
Expeditious excavation
Ferment
Hibernate
Read weather
Rite of bodily purity

Lvl2
Carry companion
Companion life link
Delay disease
Delay poison
Dousing rain
Endure elements, communal
Forest friend
Greensight
Harvest season
Invigorating poison
Protection from spores
Restoration, lesser
Soften earth and stone
Solidify earth
Wood shape

Lvl3
Cure moderate wounds
Detoxify
Diminish plants
Life current
Neutralize poison
Quench
Remove disease
Soothing mud

Lvl4
Alter river
Bountiful banquet
Cure serious wounds
Life bubble
Remove radioactivity

Lvl5
Cure critical wounds
Death ward
Jungle mind
Neutralize poison, greater
Raise animal companion
Sturdy tree fort
Tree stride

Lvl6
Cure light wounds, mass
Move earth
Terraform
Transport via plants

Lvl7
Control weather
Cure moderate wounds, mass
Heal

Lvl8
Cure serious wounds, mass
Remove radioactivity, greater
Wandering weather

Lvl9
Cure critical wounds, mass
Regenerate

[Of course summoning can also be an important path and depending on the region there might be other important spells]

[Maat Mons]

Thanks for the suggestions. As a small nitpick, the archetype doesn’t give access to 0-level spells, only 1-9. Also, Endure Elements and it’s Communal version are already on the Psychic spell list, so I think it makes more sense to use a normal spell known for one of them and save the Druid spell list pick for something else.

[TiaC]

Fire Seeds is actually a surprisingly strong damage spell if you have a way to be resistant or immune yourself. 8d8+8xCL with a free action trigger is a good answer to a melee threat in your face.

[Curse]

Thanks for the suggestions. As a small nitpick, the archetype doesn’t give access to 0-level spells, only 1-9. Also, Endure Elements and it’s Communal version are already on the Psychic spell list, so I think it makes more sense to use a normal spell known for one of them and save the Druid spell list pick for something else.

Ah sorry, I missed that. Yeah, that makes sense.

Due to only one single spell being available per spell level there should be intense consideration as to what will be chosen / taught. I would imagine very narrow paths within those schools - maybe even a fixed selection for all spells 1-9 if you choose the farm-supporting path and another for the healing path ... or something like that.

[Maat Mons]

Thinking a bit more on, er, “degree programs” for Psychic academies, here are some things that I think would make sense as, er, “required course.”


Agriculture
1: Goodberry or Abstemiousness
2: Harvest Season
3: Plant Growth
4:
5:
6:
7: Control Weather
8:
9:

I considered Read Weather, but then remembered that a DC 15 Survival check predicts the weather for 24 hours, and you can get an extra 24 hours for every 5 by which you beat the DC. I also considered Wandering Weather, but for agricultural purposes, it doesn’t seem to offer anything over Control Weather.

I’m on the fence about Bountiful Banquet. It pretty much just does the same thing as Harvest Season, except you don’t need a plant to cast it on.


Medicine
1: Cure Light Wounds or Goodberry
2: Lesser Restoration
3: Remove Disease or Neutralize Poison
4:
5:
6:
7: Heal
8:
9: Regenerate

I considered Reincarnate or Cyclic Reincarnation, but it’s probably not feasible to acquire the components for those at large scale. Oddly, there’s a Rogue archetype that can gain zero cost Resurrection once per day at 18th level. It’s so far my best lead on making such things available to the masses. Though there’s also the option of a particularly buff Shaman learning Blood Money with Arcane Enlightenment.

I’m on the fence about Greater Neutralize Poison. If there are some Psychics around that have Neutralize Poison, it seems like you wouldn’t really need anyone to also have Greater Neutralize Poison. But then again, it does have a higher success rate against the more potent poisons.

I’m also on the fence about Mass Cure Light Wounds or Mass Cure Serious Wounds. An area-of-effect heal could be nice, but I’m not sure how often civilian doctors would have a whole bunch of wounded show up all at the same time.