Good druid spells at higher levels?

[Adumbration]

Say you decide to be different, and play a druid as a full caster instead of wildshape-into-a-fleshraker-and-maul-them-while-casting-spells, using this variant. What would be good druid spells, especially at high levels?

I've got a short list here of spells that might be useful at higher levels, gathered from SpC. Most of them are picked due to having SR: no or no save granted, or they advance with CL.

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- Ice flowers (spc page 119)
- Kelpstrand (spc p.128)
- Last Breath (spc pg. 130)
- Master Earth (spc pg. 139)
- Nature's Avatar (spc pg. 145)
- Panacea (spc pg. 152)
- Plant body (spc pg 159)
- Sheltered vitality (spc pg. 188)
- Sirine's Grace (spc pg. 191)
- Spiritjaws (spc pg. 202)
- Tremor (spc pg. 223)
- Whirlwind, greater (spc pg. 239)

What other good druid spells are out there? Apart from the obvious Shapechange and the ilk, of course.

[Saph]

Our game's been mostly Core-only, with only a few noncore spells, but the ones I've found effective:

• Superior Resistance - Especially good if you have limited shop access.
• Sheltered Vitality, Death Ward - Prevent nasty stuff happening to you.
• Sunburst - The area on this spell is enormous. Good for taking out small armies, useless in close quarters.
• Control Winds - Can easily get silly-powerful.
• Control Weather - Very useful with some advance planning.
• Finger of Death - does what it says on the tin. Still hurts even with a save.
• Heal Animal Companion - handy.
• Sunbeam - four to six shots for one spell slot is very economical.
• Heal - always good.
• Spellstaff - One free top-level spell of your choice.
• Shambler - Various silly tricks you can do with this, but it's good even without cheese.
• Storm of Vengeance - For when you absolutely, positively, have to kill every last ************ in a 360' radius.

It's worth bearing in mind, though, that Druids don't have the best selection of direct attack spells - Clerics and Wizards do it better.

- Saph

[Epinephrine]

Really depends on what you want to do with your spells.

Control Winds is very strong, especially as you level.

Poison is a pretty potent spell, as the DC scales nicely.

Poison Thorns has the same DC scale as Poison, and allows you to repeatedly deal strength damage. If you have an animal companion it can do a nice job with this, since it applies a high DC poison with every natural attack they make.

Wall of Thorns is a great battlefield control spell.

Animate Plants is fun, it can provide attackers or serve as a REALLY big entangle with a super high DC.

Enveloping Cocoon is neat, since it can deny a foe a save against spells.

Murderous Mist has no SR, is AoE, and can force as many as 6 save attempts vs blindness in combination with effects that prevent movement. If your foes are caught in Plant Growth (5' per round movement), Entangled, or stuck in a Wall of Thorns, they may well fail one of the 6 attempts.

Giant Vermin is only a 4th level spell, but at high levels, being able to make gargantuan or colossal sized foes with a standard action is pretty cool. A colossal scorpion with 300 HP, +34 to hit, and a DC 33 1d10 Con/1d10 Con venom is pretty deadly.

[Pyredup]

Don't know if you're talking 3.5 or 4, but Unyielding Roots from Complete Divine appears to be pretty nice. Cast it on a buff melee ally and every round they: heal 30 damage, neutralize poisons automatically, and wipe away negative levels. Additionally they receive +4 to Will and Fort saves but -4 to Reflex saves. Finally they cannot be moved from their current space except by an action equivalent to a major earthquake.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Frostburn has some great choices, plus you've left out quite a few classic tricks:

-(Metamagic Rod of) Empowered Fire Seeds (berry bombs), cast it 3 times (get two 6th level Pearls of Power), put them in a pouch, summon a small fire elemental to deliver them. At caster level 11, you'll be dealing ((1d8+11)x1.5)x24 damage in a single shot, averaging 558 fire damage to up to four creatures.

-Extended (Greater) Creeping Cold, it deals 1d6, then 2d6, then 3d6 normally, extended it deals that and then 4d6, then 5d6, then 6d6, for a total of 21d6 over 6 rounds, all for a 3000 gp lesser rod of extend and a 2nd level spell slot, possible as soon as level 3 and still good later on. Greater Creeping Cold is even more amazing.

-Call Avalance, and at least one more spell at each spell level in Frostburn.

-For a Metamagic Rod of Extend, one 6th level Pearl of Power, and two 6th level spell slots each day, you'll always be immune to all 5 energy types and get a +6 Enhancement bonus on all saving throws. Every other day cast Extended Energy Immunity x3 (48 hr duration), and on the days in between cast Extended Energy Immunity x2 (that's all 5 constantly up) and Extended Superior Resistance (also 48 hr duration). Use the Pearl of Power on an Energy Immunity each day to save a spell slot. That's all the rod's uses, the pearl of power, and two 6th level spell slots each day, to continually get immunity to all 5 energy types and a +6 to all saves.

[Darrin]

Some lower-level Druid spells full of all-natural whoopass:

Cloudburst (SPC): Check with your DM if this satisfies the "rain shower" conditions for upping the damage on call lightning. If so, then this 1st level spell is much easier to cast than waiting for control weather to kick in. (Add the Sculpt Spell metamagic feat from Complete Arcane to turn your vertical lightning bolts to four 10'x10' cubes/40' cone/20' burst.)

Conjure Ice Beast II (Frostburn): Creates a construct of any creature that can be summoned via summon monster or summon nature's ally. While SNA generally has tougher animals, summon monster II gives you access to the larger-sized vermin... combined with the "engulf" special ability from the ice beast template, a large monstrous centipede can engulf up to medium-sized creatures. This is an easy way to take at least one enemy out of the fight for a few rounds, and it deals cold energy damage that bypasses saves/DR/SR. Conjure Ice Beast III gives you a huge monstrous centipede, which you can use to engulf large creatures. Gargantuan centipede shows up in CIB-VI, and colossal centipede in CIB-VIII.

Creeping Cold (Complete Divine/SPC): Great spell to Extend, essentially chill metal but target doesn't have to be wearing metal armor. Persistent spell would just be horrendously cruel.

[Fax Celestis]

Girallon's blessing gets you an extra set of arms, four claw attacks, and a rending attack for minutes/level.

Remember, the spell's effects maintain through shapechanges, so you can be a giant bear with four arms--if you had wildshape, that is. It's best applied, actually, in conjunction with spells like bite of the werebear to give you four claws and a bite. There are other spells that give you natural attacks, so you can turn downright nasty very very quickly.

[Chronos]

I'll just add another vote for Control Winds. At CL 9, when it first becomes available, you can turn strong winds into hurricane-force, everywhere within 360 feet of you. That's enough to make ranged attacks impossible and siege attacks nearly so, and sends anything Medium or smaller flying and batters them with nonlethal damage. At CL 12, it's a range of 480 feet (or 960 feet if you widen it), and you can produce the same effect starting with a moderate wind, or turn a strong wind into tornado-force winds, dealing 1d10*6d6 damage on a single failed save. By 18th level, you can produce tornado-force winds starting with any wind conditions at all, and the radius is up to 720 feet (1440 feet widened). So you're spending a single fifth-level spell slot to be almost guaranteed to both keep yourself safe and to kill almost anything else in an area half a mile across.

[Thrawn183]

Why does everyone forget Blinding Spittle. Blindness on a ranged touch attack, second level, no save and no SR. The thing gets better at high level because things' touch ACs go down.

[Epinephrine]

Why does everyone forget Blinding Spittle. Blindness on a ranged touch attack, second level, no save and no SR. The thing gets better at high level because things' touch ACs go down.

I forgot it as it was removed from our campaign...

[Adumbration]

Why does everyone forget Blinding Spittle. Blindness on a ranged touch attack, second level, no save and no SR. The thing gets better at high level because things' touch ACs go down.

Where's this? SpC?

Anyway, I'm specifically curious about druid spells that are effective up to the Epic levels, since I'm making a character for lvl 70 game, but since I'm interested in druids as spellcasters as-is, everything else is game too.

Thanks for pointing me to Frostburn, by the way. I found the most evil spell to use against a great enemy. Whiteout.

[Jack_Simth]

Where's this? SpC?

Anyway, I'm specifically curious about druid spells that are effective up to the Epic levels, since I'm making a character for lvl 70 game, but since I'm interested in druids as spellcasters as-is, everything else is game too.

Thanks for pointing me to Frostburn, by the way. I found the most evil spell to use against a great enemy. Whiteout.

Well, there's Poison, as the save DC scales based on caster level (10+1/2 caster level + Wis modifier), rather than spell level like everything else. Mind you, at those levels, even if you Intensify it for 20 Con damage, you probably won't kill anything outright... and it's probably immune to poison anyway....

[Douglas]

We'll be fighting a greater deity. Of course she's immune to poison. Even if she weren't, she's immune to ability damage.

[Adumbration]

We'll be fighting a greater deity. Of course she's immune to poison. Even if she weren't, she's immune to ability damage.

Jeah, but I feel there are many good spells to utilize against her, even if they're mostly on the battlefield control side. Well, at least she'll have to use some of her swift actions to dispel the effects, which means a few fewer to use for killing us.

And she isn't immune to blinding, so she'll have to expend one spell to get rid of that each round if I use it. And there's always shapechanging into a Force dragon for the breathweapon...