Being Everything: Eggynack's Comprehensive Druid Handbook

[DogBoy]

Hey, I was just reading through your guide while preparing spells for my upcoming druid and I noticed that you had wall of water labeled as the Spell Compendium version, but the wall of water you were actually talking about was the original Sandstorm version. Was just wondering what was up.

[eggynack]

Hey, I was just reading through your guide while preparing spells for my upcoming druid and I noticed that you had wall of water labeled as the Spell Compendium version, but the wall of water you were actually talking about was the original Sandstorm version. Was just wondering what was up.

Probably just assumed they were the same, cause honestly, they're super similar. Unfortunately, the way they're different is that the SpC version removes a lot of the utility of the sandstorm version, in that you can walk through it where the original forced swim checks. Also the lack of save. Duration's nice, but that tends to be relatively irrelevant on this kind of spell, as is the increased durability. So, in summary, looks like I'ma drop it. Nice catch.

Edit: A decently likely reason is that I had the entry set up, cause I've heard the spell talked about, and I kept not adding it because it seems kinda like crap. Then there was a not-crap version, and obviously that's a thing worthy of more enthusiasm, so I used that sweet spell as the basis for the description.

[Troacctid]

Here's a interesting 5th level spell: Ice Dragon. It creates 1 medium animated object per 5 levels and lasts for 1 hour/level. Not the strongest minions in the world, but the duration is pretty nice.

[eggynack]

Here's a interesting 5th level spell: Ice Dragon. It creates 1 medium animated object per 5 levels and lasts for 1 hour/level. Not the strongest minions in the world, but the duration is pretty nice.

Yeah, that's decent. I do always love me some long duration creature having. Prolly gonna add that at some point.

[daremetoidareyo]

http://archive.wizards.com/default.a...d/re/20030428a

Behold, crazy unbalanced thing from the archive!!!

Spoiler: Tainted Druid

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Tainted Druid [General]

Your druidic powers are tainted by fiendish influences.

Prerequisite: You must forsake all that is good and peaceful in the natural world. Typically, this means you must be an outsider with the Evil subtype, possess the Fiendish template, or be undead. Other unique qualifiers could apply, based on the DM's discretion.

Benefit: All of your spells and abilities that normally apply to animals now apply only to animals, vermin, or beasts that have the fiendish template. You can gain a fiendish animal/beast companion with the animal friendship spell (but not fiendish vermin, since they are immune to mind-affecting magic), can summon fiendish animals/beasts/vermin with summon nature's ally spells, can awaken fiendish animals/beasts/vermin, and can increase the size of fiendish animals/beasts/vermin with the animal growth spell. You can also assume the form of a fiendish animal/beast/vermin with wild shape, although this feat does not allow you to gain any of the new form's supernatural abilities.

[eggynack]

http://archive.wizards.com/default.a...d/re/20030428a

Behold, crazy unbalanced thing from the archive!!!

Spoiler: Tainted Druid

Show

Tainted Druid [General]

Your druidic powers are tainted by fiendish influences.

Prerequisite: You must forsake all that is good and peaceful in the natural world. Typically, this means you must be an outsider with the Evil subtype, possess the Fiendish template, or be undead. Other unique qualifiers could apply, based on the DM's discretion.

Benefit: All of your spells and abilities that normally apply to animals now apply only to animals, vermin, or beasts that have the fiendish template. You can gain a fiendish animal/beast companion with the animal friendship spell (but not fiendish vermin, since they are immune to mind-affecting magic), can summon fiendish animals/beasts/vermin with summon nature's ally spells, can awaken fiendish animals/beasts/vermin, and can increase the size of fiendish animals/beasts/vermin with the animal growth spell. You can also assume the form of a fiendish animal/beast/vermin with wild shape, although this feat does not allow you to gain any of the new form's supernatural abilities.

It looks like the only thing you're really getting out of this is the wild shape forms, and that means it's a weird vermin wild shape. The spells and abilities part, the awakening part, and the animal growth part are all kinda marginal. The SNA part is weirdly undefined, with the animal companion part doubly undefined (both in that you have no idea what you're becoming and in that animal friendship isn't a thing anymore). I'm not entirely sure what this is doing that's so crazy. I could definitely be missing something though, because it's a really weird feat. Prerequisite isn't that bad though, because of necropolitan. i guess it's somewhere around the cheapest sources of vermin forms, with the extra fiendish upside?

[daremetoidareyo]

It looks like the only thing you're really getting out of this is the wild shape forms, and that means it's a weird vermin wild shape. The spells and abilities part, the awakening part, and the animal growth part are all kinda marginal. The SNA part is weirdly undefined, with the animal companion part doubly undefined (both in that you have no idea what you're becoming and in that animal friendship isn't a thing anymore). I'm not entirely sure what this is doing that's so crazy. I could definitely be missing something though, because it's a really weird feat. Prerequisite isn't that bad though, because of necropolitan. i guess it's somewhere around the cheapest sources of vermin forms, with the extra fiendish upside?

1. all of your SNA spells now summon critters with DR and SR with the fiendish template, also int 3? At int 3, they can take verbal commands and get rid of the handle animal checks.

2. Alienist? Fiendish summoning specialist to add fiends to the sna list?

3. A work around for the necessary outsider type on Brand of the 9 hells feat? This gives mark of maladomini an offswitch (just exit fiendish wildshape).

4. Actually, any ability that usually applies to animals or vermin is affected...even those that aren't druidic. Drow Judicator and lolth's boon come to mind.

Regardless, it will eventually make its way to the optimize this feat contest, which I'm sure will unearth some amazing stuff.

[Troacctid]

3. A work around for the necessary outsider type on Brand of the 9 hells feat? This gives mark of maladomini an offswitch (just exit fiendish wildshape).

How so? The fiendish template doesn't make you a devil. It doesn't even change your type or subtype.

[daremetoidareyo]

How so? The fiendish template doesn't make you a devil. It doesn't even change your type or subtype.

It grants the extraplanar subtype to those on the material planes...which sort of implies that you're an outsider.

[Troacctid]

Not really. Every creature, regardless of type, has the extraplanar subtype when it's not on its home plane.

[Ieagleroar]

Agreed. Outsiders are atleast partially composed of the essence (but not necessarily the material) of some plane other than the Material Plane. Further more, it is a type, not a sub-type. Extra planar is a sub-type. Creatures not labeled as extraplanar are natives of the Material Plane, and they gain the extraplanar subtype if they leave the Material Plane. The exceptions are when they are in the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, and the Plane of Shadow, cause these are the transitive planes.

[eggynack]

1. all of your SNA spells now summon critters with DR and SR with the fiendish template, also int 3? At int 3, they can take verbal commands and get rid of the handle animal checks.

Are we even sure of this? The feat, as it stands, is completely undefined with regards to what it's adding to your list and where. Are we to assume that it just plugs in the fiendish versions of the creatures where the originals once stood? Because that's not strictly what the feat says it does. You can summon fiendish beasts and such, but which ones can you summon? When can you summon them? This is especially problematic because you're expected to be targeting the summons with your newly kinda restricted spells. Speaking of, it's not ideal that you don't get a fiendish companion anymore, at least by RAW, meaning your animal only spells fail to hit said companion.

2. Alienist? Fiendish summoning specialist to add fiends to the sna list?

Neither of these really seem to work. Both abilities demand that you be using summon monster, and you, without effort, do not have summon monster. I'm not really sure what the goal of these things is either. Alienist sucks, and fiendish summoning specialist is problematically undefined (it's hard to claim a feat grants some marginal benefit over ordinary stuff when you're strictly limited by the DM). Actually, wouldn't alienist be something of a nonbo with tainted druid? Cause you can no longer cast spells on your now fiendish summons?

3. A work around for the necessary outsider type on Brand of the 9 hells feat? This gives mark of maladomini an offswitch (just exit fiendish wildshape).

First, even were you extraplanar, which as has been noted it doesn't seem like you are, you're definitely not a devil. So it doesn't look like you can do this. Second, maybe way more important, why in the 9 hells would you want to be doing this? You're spending two feats for decent but non-remarkable benefits here. Three, if you include the original tainted druid. This feels like an extension of my criticism of the SNA plan you have a step above this one. Beyond asking whether you can do something, it seems critical to ask whether doing that thing is worthwhile. We can argue about the prerequisites all day, but if the prerequisites aren't getting you anywhere, who cares?

4. Actually, any ability that usually applies to animals or vermin is affected...even those that aren't druidic. Drow Judicator and lolth's boon come to mind.

Again, the two core issues come to mind. First, does this work? Not apparently. Tainted druid specifically accepts as input spells that target animals, not spells that target animals or vermin. Second, would it be useful if it did work? Not especially. Drow judicator is awful, maybe for everyone, definitely for druids. Lolth's boon is mediocre at best on a cleric, and would thus be really bad on a druid. So, neither especially can or should be used.

Sure, those are two specific cases, but, thinking on it further, my suspicion is that this particular line of inquiry is invalid. Consider, ignoring the creatures that the druid itself produces, would one expect to see more animals, or more fiendish animals+vermin in the wild? I would strongly expect the former to be the more present creature, and it's not like you're getting that much value back from some crazy creature upgrade here. So, the clear conclusion here is that the altered targeting stuff is mostly downside. It's a necessity to let you work with your now presumably (but not necessarily) fiendish army, but that means the abilities are at best holding neutral, and it's the responsibility of the in-the-world effects to make improvements. Thus, abilities premised off of this aspect of tainted druid are rarely, if ever, going to be better now than they were before, and are often going to be worse, so seeking out things that happen to target animals in the hopes that they've picked up an upgrade seems pointless.

Regardless, it will eventually make its way to the optimize this feat contest, which I'm sure will unearth some amazing stuff.

It's a good choice for that, I think. It feels like there's a lot of potential, because it's a cool feat with a lot of impactful elements. I hope it does turn up amazing stuff, especially because I always like alternatively themed druids, and if something good turns up, it'll likely wind up in the handbook. As is though, unless I'm missing something critical, the feat seems mediocre at best, mostly premised on it being a relatively cheap way to access generally crappy vermin forms.

[Troacctid]

Second, maybe way more important, why in the 9 hells would you want to be doing this? You're spending two feats for decent but non-remarkable benefits here.

Actually, Brand of the Nine Hells and its child feats are up there with the most powerful "fair" feats in the game. It would be pretty rare to have a character who wouldn't want at least one of them. (Although Mark of Maladomini wouldn't be my first choice—it's good for making melee defender-types more sticky, but it's not really what a Druid is looking for, generally.)

[eggynack]

Actually, Brand of the Nine Hells and its child feats are up there with the most powerful "fair" feats in the game. It would be pretty rare to have a character who wouldn't want at least one of them. (Although Mark of Maladomini wouldn't be my first choice—it's good for making melee defender-types more sticky, but it's not really what a Druid is looking for, generally.)

Only looked at the one mentioned. Suppose I could look at the rest, though the fact that this doesn't seem to get you there at all makes the whole thing have limited interest.

[Troacctid]

No need to bother, they're only for NPCs anyway. That's why they're allowed to be more powerful.

[eggynack]

Added ice dragons, a quick note on the siabrie about a couple of good shapechange uses given that zodar is off the table, and did some light editing on urban druid to note that it's in dragon compendium (which is closer to first party than the dragon magazine source I had originally listed), as well as to fix the claim that they get polymorph at 8th level (when they obviously get polymorph any object instead). On a future plans note, I'm strongly considering doing the heir of syberis entry with almost nothing aside from the stuff directly offered by the class as well as those two feats. I don't seem to recall finding any good dragonmark spells, but I'll probably check that out too. Probably all the arbitrary stuff listed in this thread as well on the topic... I guess my point is that I'm unlikely to do much independent research. But, y'know, if anyone has something that'd be worth using on a druid if you assume they happen to have a high quality dragonmark, then it could be worth a mention.

[Troacctid]

Just remember the errata for the Siberys dragonmarks—no xp-free true creation shenanigans.

Dragonmark handbook

[eggynack]

Looking through that handbook kinda arbitrarily lead me to this article, which indicates that druidic is magically gained rather than taught. I recall folks taking issue with the fact that druids are somehow gaining this language at first level despite the fact that teaching it removes your powers, so this seems to solve that problem neatly. Definitely neater than my old fix which was that druids still count as druids for this purpose. This might be the most specific source for a really general rule I've seen, but it appears solid. Point being, I added an FAQ entry about it. It's actually starting to look like a real section now.

[stanprollyright]

Looking through that handbook kinda arbitrarily lead me to this article, which indicates that druidic is magically gained rather than taught. I recall folks taking issue with the fact that druids are somehow gaining this language at first level despite the fact that teaching it removes your powers, so this seems to solve that problem neatly. Definitely neater than my old fix which was that druids still count as druids for this purpose. This might be the most specific source for a really general rule I've seen, but it appears solid. Point being, I added an FAQ entry about it. It's actually starting to look like a real section now.

That article makes it seem like Druidic is a nature dialect of Truespeech...

[remetagross]

Yeah, this is a very elegant explanation for all the weird stuff related to Druidic learning and transmitting. Well done, WoTC!

[eggynack]

Just found the oriental adventures update document, which seems to be official. Downside is that the courtier's obi was made way worse, reduced from +10 to +5 and increased in cost by 500 GP. Removed the entry as a result. Not too unhappy about that, because that item was always there for its ridiculous efficiency rather than for any true connection to the druid. Upside is that the dokufu was updated into an aberration, and I might add it cause it has this nice great old master neogi vibe, with its weird infinite spiders move, and the web and frightful presence aren't bad either. Web especially has surprisingly high numbers. Might be a bit weak, but I have a soft spot for aberrations that aren't obviously aberrations, because of how hard they are for folks to find.

[Troacctid]

Yep those are scans of Dragon #318 alright. Can confirm.

[eggynack]

Yep those are scans of Dragon #318 alright. Can confirm.

Huh. Not sure if that makes it more actual text or less actual text than before when it was just some arbitrary PDF that said it was updating stuff. Still gonna go with it though, especially because it has the same author as Oriental Adventures. One weird thing about it is that it doesn't seem to update the mamono's type from shapechanger.

[Jopustopin]

eggynack your handbook probably has the best writing style I've seen. Just wanted to say good job man very entertaining read.

I'm playing a druid in a game where no campaign specific feats are allowed (and no unearth Arcana) and the optimization level is low (most of the people are playing third edition for the first time-they have been playing 2nd edition since like 1990 or something).

Anyway I decided to go with a low-key "strong at everything I do, but trying not to steal the show" druid 20.

Not sure if you are going to put in a build section. You'd be surprised at how hard it is to find a simple druid 20 build with google. Here is a simple, low paperwork, druid 20.

Spoiler

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Half-Orc Druid 20 (taking all three substitution levels)

1. Martial Study: Charging Minotaur (Alternatively Fell Weakened if ToB is not allowed)
3. Fell Frighten (You may have to take this at 1st level and take Martial Study at 3rd depending on your DM)
6. Natural Spell
9. Imperious Command (I like scary armored bears)
12. Dragon Wild Shape
15. Craft Contingent Spell
18. Quicken Spell


Skill Tricks: Never Outnumbered
Items of note: Belt of Stone Dragon for the stance "Crushing Weight of the Mountain"
Fell Frightened Decomposition

If you can't fear it then grapple it (or grapple it anyway). If you can't grapple it then cast spells at it. Or just cast spells at it.

Anyway summoning buffed, combat buffed, spellcasting buffed, wild shaping buffed. Nothing broken.

[Troacctid]

1. Martial Study: Charging Minotaur (Alternatively Fell Weaken if ToB is not allowed. I like Grappling Bears. And Charging Armored Bears)

Yeah, you can't take that at level 1.

[Jopustopin]

Yeah, you can't take that at level 1.

The feat has no prerequisites other than meeting the maneuvers prerequisites. The maneuver has no prerequisites.

[eggynack]

eggynack your handbook probably has the best writing style I've seen. Just wanted to say good job man very entertaining read.

Glad you enjoyed reading it.

Not sure if you are going to put in a build section. You'd be surprised at how hard it is to find a simple druid 20 build with google. Here is a simple, low paperwork, druid 20.

I was working on a sort of crazy aberration thing where I try to go into the meat of high op druid construction, but it's been languishing in oblivion for awhile. Might return to it at some point.

Spoiler

Show

Half-Orc Druid 20 (taking all three substitution levels)

1. Martial Study: Charging Minotaur (Alternatively Fell Weaken if ToB is not allowed. I like Grappling Bears. And Charging Armored Bears)
3. Fell Frighten
6. Natural Spell
9. Imperious Command (I like scary armored bears)
12. Dragon Wild Shape
15. Craft Contingent Spell
18. Quicken Spell


Skill Tricks: Never Outnumbered
Items of note: Belt of Stone Dragon for the stance "Crushing Weight of the Mountain"

If you can't fear it then grapple it (or grapple it anyway). If you can't grapple it then cast spells at it. Or just cast spells at it.

Anyway summoning buffed, combat buffed, spellcasting buffed, wild shaping buffed. Nothing broken.

Seems neat as a mid-op build, apart from the noted issue. Making more serious use of half-orc intimidation is an interesting maneuver.

Anyway, long as I'm here, I added mark of the unfaithful, and there's a good chance I'll add control sand tonight.

[Troacctid]

The feat has no prerequisites other than meeting the maneuvers prerequisites. The maneuver has no prerequisites.

IL 1 is required for all 1st level maneuvers. As a 1st level non-initiator, your initiator level is 0, which is too low to select 1st level maneuvers.

If you could just ignore initiator level requirements, then you'd be pretty crazy to take Charging Minotaur over, say, Mountain Tombstone Strike.

[Jopustopin]

IL 1 is required for all 1st level maneuvers. As a 1st level non-initiator, your initiator level is 0, which is too low to select 1st level maneuvers.

If you could just ignore initiator level requirements, then you'd be pretty crazy to take Charging Minotaur over, say, Mountain Tombstone Strike.

If you have a DM that is making this call swap 1 and 3. But we've I've always played that it's a minimum IL of 1. It looks like I have some community support over at the Unofficial Tome of Battle Errata Project. They came to the same ruling (minimum IL = 1).

I'll add that your DM may decide to declare IL = 0 a valid call in my build and if he does just to swap the 1st and 3rd level feats.

[Jopustopin]

Seems neat as a mid-op build, apart from the noted issue. Making more serious use of half-orc intimidation is an interesting maneuver.

Thanks man! I saw that the substitution levels gave you intimidation and size modifiers is a thing... If you can get a party member to combo off of it makes this even better. You normally don't want a druid wasting spending an action to intimidate in combat. If I got someone else to take imperious command... Then you'd free up one feat... hmm..... well I got probably a year to figure that out.