Homebrew Challenge: Tier 3 Spellcasting Druids

[johnbragg]

I've been trying to build and collect class-fixes for the Tier 1-2 classes for Tier 3-4 campaigns. I looked in Morph Barks' Homebrew Tier Compendium, and I didn't see any casting-focused Druid fixes.

Now some parts are obvious--no wildshaping takes away a lot of the druid's melee power. A caster-type probably shouldn't have d8 HD and 3/4 BAB either.

But you still have a Tier 1 spell list. Spontaneous Divine Caster is one way to go, but that's Tier 2 by analogy. Just the Summon NAture's Ally line might put you at Tier 3 based on flexibility. And do we want the druid to be limited to the Sorcerer's spells known plus SNAs?

Limiting to 6-level Bard-progression casting is an option too, but I think the spellcasting Druid *should* have access to the high-level city-wrecking wrath-of-nature spells.

Does the spells-only Druid need to be split up into a bunch of fixed-list casters by climate region? Forest druids and arctic druids and desert druids and mountain druids and desert druids?

Thoughts?

[dspeyer]

Just off the top of my head, I may have overlooked important things...

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special	Spells/Day (major)										Spells/Day (minor)
						0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	3	4	5
1	0	0	2	2	Wild Empathy	3	1									1
2	1	0	3	3		4	2									2	1
3	2	1	3	3		4	2	1								3	1
4	3	1	4	4	Second Minor	5	3	2								3	2
5	3	1	4	4		5	3	2	1							4	2
6	4	2	5	5		6	3	3	2							4	2	1
7	5	2	5	5		6	4	3	2	1						4	3	1
8	6	2	6	6	Animal Companion (half ranger)	6	4	3	3	2						4	3	2
9	6	3	6	6		6	4	4	3	2	1					4	4	2
10	7	3	7	7		6	4	4	3	3	2					4	4	2	1
11	8	3	7	7		6	5	4	4	3	2	1				4	4	3	1
12	9	4	8	8	Third Minor	6	5	4	4	3	3	2				4	4	3	2
13	9	4	8	8		6	5	5	4	4	3	2	1			4	4	4	2
14	10	4	9	9		6	5	5	4	4	3	3	2			4	4	4	2	1
15	11	5	9	9		6	5	5	5	4	4	3	2	1		4	4	4	3	1
16	12	5	10	10	Rebuke Animals and Plant Creatures	6	5	5	5	4	4	3	3	2		4	4	4	3	2
17	12	5	10	10		6	5	5	5	5	4	4	3	2	1	4	4	4	4	2
18	13	6	11	11		6	5	5	5	5	4	4	3	3	2	4	4	4	4	2	1
19	14	6	11	11	Fourth Minor	6	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	3	3	4	4	4	4	3	2
20	15	6	12	12	Second Major	6	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	3

Prepared wis-based caster. Track major and minor spell slots seperately. You may use a major list as one of your minors, but you never get the high level spells on it.

Major Lists

animal

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0
1

• Calm Animals
• Charm Animal
• Detect Animals or Plants
• Hide from Animals
• Speak with Animals

2

• Animal Messenger
• Animal Trance
• Hold Animal
• Reduce Animal

3

• Dominate Animal

4

• Giant Vermin
• Repel Vermin

5

• Animal Growth
• Awaken

6

• Antilife Shell

8

• Animal Shapes

9

• Antipathy
• Shapechange
• Sympathy

healing

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0

• Cure Minor Wounds
• Virtue

1

• Cure Light Wounds
• Goodberry

2

• Delay Poison
• Restoration, Lesser

3

• Cure Moderate Wounds
• Neutralize Poison
• Remove Disease

4

• Cure Serious Wounds
• Reincarnate

5

• Cure Critical Wounds
• Death Ward

6

• Cure Light Wounds, Mass

7

• Cure Moderate Wounds, Mass
• Heal

8

• Cure Serious Wounds, Mass

9

• Cure Critical Wounds, Mass
• Regenerate

plant

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0
1

• Detect Animals or Plants
• Entangle

2

• Tree Shape
• Warp Wood
• Wood Shape

3

• Diminish Plants
• Plant Growth
• Speak with Plants

4

• Antiplant Shell
• Blight
• Command Plants

5

• Tree Stride
• Wall of Thorns

6

• Liveoak
• Repel Wood
• Transport via Plants

7

• Animate Plants
• Changestaff
• Transmute Metal to Wood

8

• Control Plants

9

• Shambler

summoning

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0
1

• Summon Nature's Ally I

2

• Summon Nature's Ally II
• Summon Swarm

3

• Summon Nature's Ally III

4

• Summon Nature's Ally IV

5

• Insect Plague
• Summon Nature's Ally V

6

• Summon Nature's Ally VI

7

• Creeping Doom
• Summon Nature's Ally VII

8

• Summon Nature's Ally VIII

9

• Elemental Swarm
• Shambler
• Summon Nature's Ally IX

survival

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0
0

• Create Water
• Detect Poison
• Guidance
• Know Direction
• Mending
• Purify Food and Drink
• Resistance

1

• Detect Snares and Pits
• Endure Elements

3

• Snare

4

• Scrying

5

• Commune with Nature

6

• Find the Path

7

• Control Weather
• Scrying, Greater
• True Seeing

9

• Foresight

violence

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0
1

• Magic Fang
• Magic Stone
• Shillelagh

2

• Barkskin
• Bear's Endurance
• Bull's Strength
• Chill Metal
• Heat Metal

3

• Contagion
• Magic Fang, Greater
• Poison

4

• Rusting Grasp

5

• Baleful Polymorph
• Stoneskin

6

• Bear's Endurance, Mass
• Bull's Strength, Mass
• Ironwood

7

• Fire Storm

8

• Earthquake
• Finger of Death

9

• Storm of Vengeance

Minor Lists

air

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0
1

• Obscuring Mist

2

• Fog Cloud
• Gust of Wind

3

• Wind Wall

4

• Air Walk

5

• Control Winds

earth

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0
2

• Soften Earth and Stone

3

• Meld into Stone
• Spike Growth
• Stone Shape

4

• Spike Stones

5

• Stone Tell
• Transmute Mud to Rock
• Transmute Rock to Mud

energy

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0
0

• Light

2

• Resist Energy

3

• Call Lightning
• Daylight
• Protection from Energy

5

• Call Lightning Storm

fire

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0
0

• Flare

1

• Faerie Fire
• Produce Flame

2

• Fire Trap
• Flame Blade
• Flaming Sphere

3

• Quench

4

• Flame Strike

5

• Wall of Fire

magic

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0
0

• Detect Magic
• Read Magic

2

• Owl's Wisdom

3

• Dispel Magic

5

• Atonement
• Hallow
• Spellstaff
• Unhallow

motion

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0
1

• Jump
• Longstrider
• Pass without Trace

2

• Cat's Grace
• Spider Climb

4

• Freedom of Movement

water

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0
1

• Obscuring Mist

2

• Fog Cloud

3

• Sleet Storm
• Water Breathing

4

• Control Water
• Ice Storm

[ngilop]

I would recommend splitting the druid up into 2 different classes, the spll casting animal companion one. and a wild shape focused one

dspeyer has a good idea there. though I think that igving them 1.5 the number of spells per day is a not going to drop it down to 'tier' 3. but giving an animal companion at 8th level is pointless if anything sneezes its dead.. I am just against handing over class abilities that are actually hindraces

if you are taking the druid's casting down a few notches then I see no reason with letting the druid get an animal companion at 4th ( I switched ranger and druid companions myself) also I think it be ok to give the Druid 7th level spells


I have the Primal, wildshape in a class with invocations. If you wanna take a look at what a wildshape class would look like.

[johnbragg]

I would recommend splitting the druid up into 2 different classes, the spll casting animal companion one. and a wild shape focused one

I think that's a given. The problem is that, with or without an animal friend, the Druid's spellcasting is way above Tier 3.

dspeyer has a good idea there. though I think that igving them 1.5 the number of spells per day is a not going to drop it down to 'tier' 3.

I like it as a start, too. I like that it keeps 9th level casting--the Beguiler and Dread Necromancer etc have 9th level casting in their niche, so should the Tier 3 Druid.

The majors-and-minors is an idea that has promise. Maybe instead of two separate lists, just a rule that you can't prep more than 1 spell/spell level from a minor list, and nothing above 5th or 6th?

The PRimal doesn't look too bad, but it's the opposite focus--it replaces the already-serviceable Wildshape Variant Ranger. Cool bells and whistles, I like it.

[Alent]

It's nowhere near ready for use, but I'm working on a Psionic druid that currently looks something like this:

Druid

Hit Die: D6

Spoiler: Beta Table, subject to change

Show

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |

Power Points/Day

|

Powers Known

|

Maximum Power Level Known

1st|+0|+2|+0|+2|Animal Companion, Nature Sense, Wild Empathy|

3

|

3

|

1st

2nd|+1|+3|+0|+3|Woodland Stride|

5

|

5

|

1st

3rd|+1|+3|+1|+3|Trackless Step, Wild Shape (Animal) |

7

|

7

|

1st

4th|+2|+4|+1|+4|Resist Nature's Lure|

12

|

9

|

2nd

5th|+2|+4|+1|+4||

15

|

11

|

2nd

6th|+3|+5|+2|+5|Wild Shape (Large)|

28

|

13

|

2nd

7th|+3|+5|+2|+5||

36

|

15

|

3rd

8th|+4|+6|+2|+6||

52

|

17

|

3rd

9th|+4|+6|+3|+6|Wild Shape (Plant)|

67

|

19

|

3rd

10th|+5|+7|+3|+7|Venom Immunity|

81

|

21

|

4th

11th|+5|+7|+3|+7|Wild Shape (Tiny)|

97

|

22

|

4th

12th|+6/+1|+8|+4|+8||

111

|

24

|

4th

13th|+6/+1|+8|+4|+8|A Thousand Faces|

127

|

25

|

5th

14th|+7/+2|+9|+4|+9|Timeless Body|

141

|

27

|

5th

15th|+7/+2|+9|+5|+9|Wild Shape (Elemental)|

157

|

28

|

5th

16th|+8/+3|+10|+5|+10|Wild Shape (Huge)|

171

|

30

|

6th

17th|+8/+3|+10|+5|+10||

187

|

31

|

6th

18th|+9/+4|+11|+6|+11||

201

|

33

|

6th

19th|+9/+4|+11|+6|+11||

217

|

34

|

7th

20th|+10/+5|+12|+6|+12|Wild Shape (Magical Beast)|

233

|

36

|

7th

[/table]

Balance points I'm working on:

Wild Shape:

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The maximum HD of creature you can wildshape into is limited by your BAB. This will limit you to 10 hit dice forms at the high end.

Wildshape will cost PP/hr to use as if it were a psionic power. This will put it in direct competition with your spellcasting resource. When I start cost testing I'll also look at the duration of Wildshape. It seems too cheap as an hourly resource.

The more wildshape features you manifest, the more expensive the PP cost. Wildshaping into a medium animal is cheap. Wildshaping into a Large Elemental is expensive. Exact costs need to be mathed out still, but I was thinking a 10 HD Elemental would be equivalent to a level 9 power, or 17 points.

When Wildshaping into a creature you gain bonus hit dice equal to the creature's that function as the temporary HP gain from Rage, instead of magically healing you to full or giving you their exact HP.

Under this model, Natural Spell would not be a requirement to manifest powers in Wild Shape, it would however still be a requirement to cast spells from other classes in Wildshape.

Spellcasting:

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I'm limiting it to 7ths because as I recall, that's how 2e druid domains worked. You can swap it to 9ths if you want.

Druids gain all levels of Summon Nature's Ally when appropriate, it does not count against powers known.

Druids choose a domain (Animal, Plant, Earth, or Air) and gain powers from either it or the Druid powers list. Domains would go to 7th level, the druid powers list would only go to 6th level.

I've been busy with day job stuff and haven't been able to flesh this out as much as I'd like, but on my todo list is to build the domain powers list and the generic druid list.

Druidic:
There is no Druidic. You gain Mindlink as a bonus power.

Assumptions:
You houserule that PP regen exploits don't work.

Again, this is still horribly unfinished, until I actually get a day or two to sit down and finish reviewing the Psionics rules, build the spell lists, and math out appropriate PP costs for Wildshape, it probably only moves it to T2 at best.

[dspeyer]

giving an animal companion at 8th level is pointless if anything sneezes its dead.. I am just against handing over class abilities that are actually hindraces

Good point.

I needed to put something at 8th and 16th levels, and aggravatingly the druid doesn't have much in the way of features. Three powerful *progressions*, yes, but things to stick at a single level, not so much.

Maybe there's a more elegant solution...

[Yitzi]

I think the most promising approach is to give druids a poor selection of weak combat spells, but complement it with the ability to get animal allies (either the SNA line or multiple animal companions with fewer boosts) and with extremely powerful, but slow-to-cast, "wrath of nature" type spells at higher levels.

[ngilop]

you can improve woodland stride at 8th level to make it work against magical thorns and terrain.


but that is just an idea and I am against giving spellcaster class abilities that increase their power.

[dspeyer]

Hmm, maybe this will be more elegant.

One set of spell slots, but each list goes into your class spell list at a different rate. Which means you could use a 6th level slot for a minor list spell with metamagic on it. Pick 4 lists and then get the very bottom of all the others at high level.

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special	Spells/Day										Max Spell Level Known
						0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	All
1	0	0	2	2	Wild Empathy	3	1									1
2	1	0	3	3		4	2									1	1
3	2	1	3	3		4	2	1								2	1
4	3	1	4	4		5	3	2								2	2
5	3	1	4	4		5	3	2	1							3	2
6	4	2	5	5		6	3	3	2							3	2	1
7	5	2	5	5		6	4	3	2	1						4	2	1
8	6	2	6	6		6	4	3	3	2						4	3	1
9	6	3	6	6		6	4	4	3	2	1					5	3	1
10	7	3	7	7		6	4	4	3	3	2					5	3	2	2
11	8	3	7	7		6	5	4	4	3	2	1				6	3	2	2
12	9	4	8	8		6	5	4	4	3	3	2				6	4	2	2
13	9	4	8	8		6	5	5	4	4	3	2	1			7	4	2	2
14	10	4	9	9		6	5	5	4	4	3	3	2			7	4	3	3	1
15	11	5	9	9		6	5	5	5	4	4	3	2	1		8	4	3	3	1
16	12	5	10	10		6	5	5	5	4	4	3	3	2		8	5	3	3	1
17	12	5	10	10		6	5	5	5	5	4	4	3	2	1	9	5	3	3	1
18	13	6	11	11		6	5	5	5	5	4	4	3	3	2	9	5	4	4	1
19	14	6	11	11		6	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	3	3	9	5	5	4	2

[Alent]

I think the most promising approach is to give druids a poor selection of weak combat spells, but complement it with the ability to get animal allies (either the SNA line or multiple animal companions with fewer boosts) and with extremely powerful, but slow-to-cast, "wrath of nature" type spells at higher levels.

As I understand it, the action economy hack of Summon Nature's Ally, by itself, is one of the more imbalancing things about Druids. You can give yourself an ever increasing number of turns. Who needs to tumble when you can run your opponent out of AoOs by giving him a "Bad either way" situation where he can AoO one of a few summoned bears, your bear, your bear mount or you in bear form. Odds are he doesn't have more than the one AoO, and even if he does, you still would have more summoned bears. Just have a bear grapple him and forget about AoOs, anyway.

For how abusive SNA can be, I'm not sure you can remove it without taking away one of the staples of what makes 3.5 druid a druid.

On the other hand, giving them weak combat spells? Yeah, Blasting makes casters overpowered.