Help me Optimize my Druid!

[Zovc]

I'm going to try to PvP with a Druid. I'm starting at level 1, but (assuming I survive) I also may level up.

Currently, I'm thinking of being a Mongrelfolk Druid with a Riding Dog as my pet.

Is Water Devotion a good idea? Swarm tactics seem like they'll work well, Riding Dog + Summon Nature's Ally I (Wolf?) + Water Devotion (Small Water Elemental). Instead of worrying about Strength, I'll just use Dexterity for AC and to-hit with a Sling or a thrown Shortspear.

Am I doing it right? I only have 80gp to spend as a druid.

[Eloel]

You could try Swindlesplitter as an animal companion. Check out MM3.

[Fishy]

Summon Nature's Ally takes a full-round action to cast, and lasts rounds/cl. At level 1, you're trading one full round action for a wolf that takes one full round worth of actions- not really that great.

I prefer the halfling with a riding dog, a ranged weapon and Entangle, myself.

[Zovc]

Apparently I'm doing it wrong.

I can't find "Swindlesplitter" for the life of me.

Okay, being small does have its advantages I'll see what races are out there that I like... Druids are only proficient with Slings as actual ranged weapons (without considering thrown weapons). :(

Mongrelfolk does carry immunity to sleep. :3 I like the race because it hits two stats I don't really care about in a munchkin environment... and I get 2hp per level in return.

[SoD]

You playing a druid? Good. Got a good score in wisdom? Good. You're done.

[Jack_Simth]

Well... if you want to cheese it up a little, there's the Savage Species race: Anthropomorphic Bat. +6 Wis, Fly 20 (Average). Which means that if you have a base 18 in Wis, for a 24, your Entangle spell is DC 18. 19, if you spend your one feat on it. Add in a simple sling and some stones (unfortunately, you'll need to fire every other round), and take a Riding Dog animal companion (the combat monster of the 1st level group - Core, at least), pick up some Barding for your dog (standard Leather Barding costs 20 gp for a Riding Dog, and with no ACP, you don't need to worry about questions of proficiency). Your Riding dog then has an AC line of 18 (+2 Dex, +4 Natural, +2 Armor) Touch 12 Flat-footed 16. Start out with Entangle, attempting to catch your opponent at the edge of the area (so that your riding dog can attack without being caught up in the radius), and go at it.

[Eldariel]

Apparently I'm doing it wrong.

I can't find "Swindlesplitter" for the life of me.

MMIII, see the "Dinosaur"-section.

[Yuki Akuma]

When you hit level 6, take Natural Spell.

That's the only optimization you need.

[Cieyrin]

Add in a simple sling and some stones (unfortunately, you'll need to fire every other round)

Why stones? Sling bullets are cheaper than arrows are, plus he can fire every round, since it's move action reload on a sling, not a full round. The only reason I'd pick up some stones was if I was gonna cast a magic stone to nuke some undead (2d6+2+Str bonus ftw!).

[Zovc]

MMIII, see the "Dinosaur"-section.

There it is! So, I'm not quite sure how I'm able to take that as my pet (then again, I don't quite get the core ones, either). I have one level in Druid... why can I have a pet with more than one hit die?

Should I take that cute little dino as my pet? His poison spray has a DC of 12 (although blinding people is really cool).

What about Water Devotion, is that a good idea? I just was trying to get as good of an action economy as possible.

[HCL]

-If you are set on mongrelfolk, try to talk your DM into allowing you to take the Halforc druid sub level from races of destiny (depends on how the emulate race ability is interpretted). If that isnt allowed, try a Dragonborn (template from races of the dragons) Desert Half-orc (unearthed arcana). The point here is to use your str modifier instead of your cha modifier for wild empathy (good for low level since you can focus on strength and beating things with your scimitar/club, and at high level you shapeshift into something with high strength), and get toughness for your animal companion as a bonus feat. Oh, and a d10 hit die, and will get augment summoning as a bonus feat later on if you want it. I don't know if you give up anything for those features.

- If they are allowed, Natural Spell, Rashemi Elemental Summoning (unnaproachable east), and Greenbound Summoning are all crazy overpowered.

- Early on, grab power attack, things to improve your summons, and other stuff that scales well with level. Later, go for feats that improve wildshape.

[Akal Saris]

HCL has some good advice (though I'd stay away from greenbound summoning: it requires a lot of book-keeping and headaches, as broken as it is)

Check out the Spell Compendium for a ton of great spells, by the way! Kelpstrand, Bite of the <XYZ>, Enhance Wildshape, Enrage Animal, and Mass Snake's Swiftness are all terrific spell choices.

Good luck, and have fun!

[PinkysBrain]

Camel and horse have more than 1 HD too.

The advantage of the swindlespitter apart from the AoE attack is that it has a very good attack bonus.

How about Sudden Extend + Sandblast? Follow up with an entangle and let your animal companion melee him while you stay at range.

[TelemontTanthul]

Just a side note. When a Druid summons an Animal Ally, for example, a whale.

Does he get to choose where the Whale appears?

If so, wouldn't it simply be easier to drop whales from on high? Smashing anyone who gives you the evil eye?

Someone did that in one of my quests, I had spent some time building up a final, climatic encounter for the party, when the Druid simply states "I just drop a whale on it and get the heck outta there".

Calculating the weight of a blue whale, and the damage that would be transferred to a dragon 100 ft below, was insane.

My reason for asking is thus:

Instead of wasting time building up a druid character, wouldn't it be easier to go plain Druid, but be rather... resourceful?

[Gralamin]

Just a side note. When a Druid summons an Animal Ally, for example, a whale.

Does he get to choose where the Whale appears?

If so, wouldn't it simply be easier to drop whales from on high? Smashing anyone who gives you the evil eye?

Someone did that in one of my quests, I had spent some time building up a final, climatic encounter for the party, when the Druid simply states "I just drop a whale on it and get the heck outta there".

Calculating the weight of a blue whale, and the damage that would be transferred to a dragon 100 ft below, was insane.

My reason for asking is thus:

Instead of wasting time building up a druid character, wouldn't it be easier to go plain Druid, but be rather... resourceful?

Have to summon creatures into environments that can sustain them. So you can't summon a whale into the air.

[TelemontTanthul]

Then how about a large Dinosaur?

And it DID happen to be raining (poor choice of mine, I wanted to set the mood)

The druid used that as a loophole.

I really shouldn't have said it was pouring rain...

[HCL]

Then how about a large Dinosaur?

And it DID happen to be raining (poor choice of mine, I wanted to set the mood)

The druid used that as a loophole.

I really shouldn't have said it was pouring rain...

Summoning animals in a hostile environment is probably not allowed because it causes the summoned animal an unpleasent death experience (well they dont actually die, they just experience the death and reform back in Arborea), and would be against the druid code.

On the other hand, constructs dont have hostile environments. And Conjure Ice Beast I-IX (Frostburn) creates a construct made out of ice that mimics anything on the Summon Monster/Nature's Ally list. So prepare those if you want to drop whales on people.

[KillianHawkeye]

You can only summon a creature in the air if it can fly. Land creatures have to summoned onto land (or a solid surface at least) and aquatic creatures have to be summoned into water.

[Lycanthromancer]

So summon a (half?) celestial whale. With wings. And command it not to fly.

Might not be an orca, but it's still a killer whale.

[PinkysBrain]

Falling objects get a DC15 reflex save to negate damage (Heroes of Battle).

[Lycanthromancer]

Falling objects get a DC15 reflex save to negate damage (Heroes of Battle).

Kinda hard to negate something that weighs 100 tons and covers every space within 20 ft (blue whales are Colossal size).

Good luck dodging that. Really.

But RAW are RAW, assuming you use HoB (though I've never met a DM who did).

I'd probably use the Crush (Ex) attack of True Dragons, using the appropriate DC (but using the whale's Str modifier rather than Cha for the "breath weapon").

[theMycon]

Have to summon creatures into environments that can sustain them. So you can't summon a whale into the air.

Mammals can't breathe water. Whales are also more dense than water- thus an aquatic environment can't "support" them by either definition of the word.

Thus, you're only allowed to summon them onto solid ground, and must perform an opposed strength check (with the whale Aiding Another) to crush the opponent by rolling the whale on top of them.

Really, my opinion is "this trick should work once, for the novelty, then be met with the above argument for all future attempts to summon a whale, period."

[PinkysBrain]

The D20 modern falling object damage rules are better than the D20 ones.

[TelemontTanthul]

So.... I guess what I need to do is cast some sort of Tenser's Floating Disk, but one able to fly up like 100 ft.

That shouldn't be too hard.

Thus, I could theoretically summon a Nature's Ally above my enemies heads, winged or otherwise, and then cease functioning the hovering disk thing.

Then we would have an extremely large animal plummeting to the earth. I agree with the guy who mentioned whales are pretty hard to dodge, since it is essentially an AoE attack.

I love it.

[deuxhero]

I wish I could put this in flow chart form but.

1
V
Do you have a high wisdom N-> Get a high wisdom score->go to 1
Y
V
Do you have Natural Spell N->Get Natural Spell-> go to 1
Y
V
You are broken.

[Lycanthromancer]

Don't forget that, RAW, animal companions gain size as they gain HD. That means a wolf gains +4 natural armor, +4 Con, and +8 Str, reach, and increases in base damage, in addition to what they get as animal companions (not to mention bonuses based on HD). At level 3 no less.

Something makes me think that this was a slight oversight on the writers' parts...

[Eldariel]

If you wanna go with Summoning, it is possible to pick the following feats on level 1:
Greenbound Summoning
Ashbound (Human/Strongheart Halfling bonus)
Extend Spell (Flaw)
Metamagic School Focus (Flaw)

If you finally take Spellgifted-trait in Conjuration, you'll be able to summon 8-round lasting summons. Since that's probably an overkill, switching the Extend Spell to Rapid Spell would allow Standard Action summoning. Of course, this requires campaign specific material from two sources, but hey, it works! The only problem is that your maximum caster level for spells other than Conjurations is 0 so you can't cast 'em until next level, but hey, who needs non-Conjuration (well, Entangle would be hawt, I admit...but as your summons can cast it, you're fine either way)? Leaving Spellgifted out but the other feats in place still gets you 4 rounds so that's another decent option.

[Zovc]

- If they are allowed, Natural Spell, Rashemi Elemental Summoning (unnaproachable east), and Greenbound Summoning are all crazy overpowered.

- Early on, grab power attack, things to improve your summons, and other stuff that scales well with level. Later, go for feats that improve wildshape.

I'll see about being a "Half-Orc" Druid, do my non-half-orc druid levels keep the d10 hit dice?

Will look up those three feats.

So, is that a yes or no to Water Devotion? It does scale with level? Would I be better suited to take other feats?

--

I'm allowed two traits and two flaws.

Traits I'm looking at:
Abrasive
Farsighted
Illiterate
Inattentive
Quick
Reckless
Uncivilized

Flaws I'm looking at:
Frail
Pathetic
Unreactive
Vulnerable

Thoughts? What feats should I take with that in mind?

[PinkysBrain]

Water devotion won't get you much at higher levels (your summons will be better). Same is true for sudden extend of course.

Can you retrain at higher levels?

[Sir Giacomo]

Don't forget that, RAW, animal companions gain size as they gain HD. That means a wolf gains +4 natural armor, +4 Con, and +8 Str, reach, and increases in base damage, in addition to what they get as animal companions (not to mention bonuses based on HD). At level 3 no less.

Something makes me think that this was a slight oversight on the writers' parts...

Fortunately, there is no oversight: per RAW core AC description, size does not change with bonus HD.

- Giacomo