Being Everything: Eggynack's Comprehensive Druid Handbook

[Jdq38]

Hey! I’ve just read this awesome guide. Thank you.

I know I’m a bit late to the party, but this guide doesn’t list dwarf as a potential race for Druid. Is this just because it’s a bad (red) choice?

[Vrock Bait]

Hey! I’ve just read this awesome guide. Thank you.

I know I’m a bit late to the party, but this guide doesn’t list dwarf as a potential race for Druid. Is this just because it’s a bad (red) choice?

From my point of view as a non-expert, I’d say the Dwarf is at best a mediocre choice. Most of its traits can be replicated by Wild Shape or are completely useless in combat.

[Endarire]

Dwarf is an alternative to Human as a core choice for +2 CON and Darkvision, but it's mostly a low-level pick for those two things.

[NotASpiderSwarm]

Dwarf is core-only and has a con boost, which is probably worth mentioning, as well as having a decent pile of misc modifiers. It's not as good as the human's bonus feat(unless the moving full-speed in armor thing sticks around while wildshaped), but I'd say it's decent.

[Him]

But, what about epic?
.
.
.
Bwahahahah, couldn't resist, but seriously, epic wildshape feats change the build dramatically, especially if you want to go something like, oh, I dunno, a dragon.

[noce]

Hey! I’ve just read this awesome guide. Thank you.

I know I’m a bit late to the party, but this guide doesn’t list dwarf as a potential race for Druid. Is this just because it’s a bad (red) choice?

Dwarf brings a lot to the table.
The increased CON boosts your Fort save while outside wildshape, and your total hit points even in wildshape. Also, save bonuses against spells, spell like abilities and poison apply in wildshape, too.

Another thing to note is the Ancestral Knowledge feat, a dwarven-only feat which allows you to use WIS instead of INT for Knowledge checks, and makes you trained in all Knowledge skills.

[Jdq38]

Thank you for all your replies. Noce, I will look into the ancestral knowledge feat. However, I will also dig into some of these other races for my build. I’m still fairly new to D&D so this is all very helpful.

[noce]

Thank you for all your replies. Noce, I will look into the ancestral knowledge feat. However, I will also dig into some of these other races for my build. I’m still fairly new to D&D so this is all very helpful.

You're welcome. While you're at it, take a look at the Dream Dwarf subrace.
Favored Class Druid, no cha penalty, improved darkvision, can see ethereal creatures, +1 caster level with Divination and [Earth] spells.

[Kenadius]

You state in the guide that summoning is one of the most powerful facets of any druid, even if that druid isn’t focused on summoning. I was therefore wondering how you would deal with "protection from..." spells that explicitly block the beatstick and grappling applications of SNA? It seems to me (with my laymans eyes) that a low-level spell effectively counters one of the classes strongest suites. Is there a workaround or do you simply have to rely on SNA3+ to get something that has SLAs?

[skuzzle]

Hey there awesome guide but I got a question regarding wild shape as you listed some of the possible best wild shape forms for level 8 which don't require level 8 like dire wolf (6HD) or Dire bat (4HD). Is there a reason for that? Aren't they useful at the level they can be used initially?
Thanks in advance :)

[bekeleven]

Hey there awesome guide but I got a question regarding wild shape as you listed some of the possible best wild shape forms for level 8 which don't require level 8 like dire wolf (6HD) or Dire bat (4HD). Is there a reason for that? Aren't they useful at the level they can be used initially?
Thanks in advance :)

Level 8 is when druids unlock large forms.

[skuzzle]

oh boy I should read descriptions more carefully :D Thanks a lot for the quick answer :)

[jmax]

You state in the guide that summoning is one of the most powerful facets of any druid, even if that druid isn’t focused on summoning. I was therefore wondering how you would deal with "protection from..." spells that explicitly block the beatstick and grappling applications of SNA? It seems to me (with my laymans eyes) that a low-level spell effectively counters one of the classes strongest suites. Is there a workaround or do you simply have to rely on SNA3+ to get something that has SLAs?

So funny story: Protection From Evil blocks bodily contact from all non-good summoned creatures, but Protection From Good, Protection From Chaos, and Protection From Law only block the opposed alignments. Most of the Summon Nature's Ally list is True Neutral, so while Protection From Evil shuts down druid summons, the rest don't.

Of course that's almost certainly an oversight in how the spells were written - but it's a thing.

[Zombulian]

So I've been checking out your Shifter Section and I have an addition: Saurian Shifters are objectively better than vanilla shifters - not a lateral move. In the section describing the Shifting (Su) ability for Saurian Shifters on page 62, it is mentioned that Saurian Shifters are not at all restricted to the trait list presented in the magazine.

In addition to a number of common shifter traits, several unique to saurian shifters are described in the following section.

[Gusmo]

There's one small advantage riding dogs have that's not listed. Dogs are a ubiquitous working animal and pet, and therefore generally far less likely to draw suspicion and scrutiny from observers. It's similar to the caveat with huge creatures that have excellent abilities, but being huge won't necessarily be able to accompany you 100% of the time. The best ability is availability.

[el minster]

A wolf can look like a dog.

[Rebel7284]

A wolf can look like a dog.

At first glance, yes, but anyone with any ranks in Knowledge Nature will be able to tell very easily in-game and, realistically, in a medieval society which is closer to nature and where people DO need to protect their farm animals from wolves, people will know.

[el minster]

Say you tamed a wolf.

[Gusmo]

A druid cannot likely afford to invest much in the skills necessary to explain their way through many sticky situations. With that said, I have pulled the very same con about passing a wolf off as a dog, but ultimately wolves, as mentioned in the guide, are a slightly mechanically inferior choice anyway. Even among dog choices, I would avoid anything that might be mistaken as a wolf such as a malamute or husky, and stick with a St. Bernard. Conveniently, St. Bernards are specifically mentioned in the riding dog entry. I can't think of a comparably sized dog that appears *less* intimidating than a St. Bernard.

[Doctor Despair]

Not sure if this is the appropriate place to mention this, but it looks like part of the Constitution section was accidentally deleted.

[el minster]

Not sure if this is the appropriate place to mention this, but it looks like part of the Constitution section was accidentally deleted.

It's fine to mention it here.

[Endarire]

@eggynack
Is Druid your class of choice for when you're playing a PC? What about NPCs? If not, which is your class of choice and why?

[el minster]

@eggynack
Is Druid your class of choice for when you're playing a PC? What about NPCs? If not, which is your class of choice and why?

What about Spirit Shamans

[thethird]

Hey Eggy this might have already been asked, if so my apologies, but how do you feel on mother cyst (and the necrotic cyst spell line) for an evil druid?

It doesn't give you much at 1st lvl but starting at 3rd and going forward you have some nice stuff. You can probably do some handle animal to get friendly animals on which to implant the cyst and then they become good targets for scrying. You can also get to dominate stuff at 7th lvl, if you can summon a yellow musk creeper then and get a permanent one by having it turn a critter into a zombie and then a new plant then that would be a good target to dominate. Down the line you can make critter bombs easier than most other people by simply using animals. Necrotic Empowerment gives you less wisdom for your spell slot than owl's insight but it should stack with it no problem.

[danielxcutter]

...Actually, *can* any caster use Necrotic Cyst? I’m AFB but I thought the spells could only be used with the Wiz/Sorc and Cleric lists.

[thethird]

...Actually, *can* any caster use Necrotic Cyst? I’m AFB but I thought the spells could only be used with the Wiz/Sorc and Cleric lists.

Prerequisite: Caster level 1st, [...]
Benefit: [...] The mother cyst grants you access to a selection of cyst-related spells listed below (and described in Chapter 4 of Libris Mortis). You cast these spells like any other spell you can cast, once you host a mother cyst (if you are a caster who prepares spells, you can prepare all necrotic cyst spells without referring to a spellbook, as if you had the Spell Mastery feat for each such spell).

I think so.

[Wombles]

Is it possible do download this master thesis of a handbook as a single pdf? all i seem to be able to get are 80 page chunks at a time... which you would think... would be.. enough.. but instead that's just spell levels 5-9.

[Biggus]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before (I'll admit I haven't read through all 29 pages of comments) but might it be worth adding the Grizzly Mastodon (MM2) to the list of level 15 Wild Shape forms? As far as I can see it's got the best melee attacks of any animal up to that point.

[watupwithdat]

It looks like the Uldras (Frostburn) is missing in the races section. -2 Str, +2 Wis/Con and a bit of other things for +1 LA seems kinda comparable to Lesser Aasimar.

[Covenant12]

It looks like the Uldras (Frostburn) is missing in the races section. -2 Str, +2 Wis/Con and a bit of other things for +1 LA seems kinda comparable to Lesser Aasimar.

Lesser Aasimar is +0 LA, though. (and reasonable to argue unbalanced, as well). Druids get a lot per level (casting, wild shape, animal companion, skills aren't terrible). Core Dwarf or Human is superior to Uldras. If Unearthed Arcana LA buyoff is in play, it might barely be worth considering. But LA buyoff isn't standard or balanced, I don't think Uldras makes the cut.