How to stay organized as a Druid?

[mcgeedis]

So, I'm playing a Druid for the first time, and already after our first adventure, I think I need some tools to help me with book keeping.

Our DM is a great DM, but he hasn't DM'ed in four years.. He has a computer to help him with all the "fun" stuff, but I he doesn't have everything memorized and I want to be able to help, at least with my character.

Has anyone ever used or come up with any tools to help keep track of all the summoned animals and wildshaped animals that a Druid would use in any given gaming session? Not to mention the Animal Companion too!

I was thinking of just writing on some index cards the vital stats of all the summoned animals, but what about the animals that my Druid would wild shape into? The stats can/will change for my core druid at every level up, and the number of animals that can be wildshaped into are numerous.

Any advice or thoughts on Druid bookkeeping would be greatly appreciated.

 

[deClench]

I'm playing a druid right now in the Savage Tide AP. The best advice I could give you would be to take the druid shapeshifting alternate class ability from PHB2. It's so great! You give up the ultimate flexibility from the wild shape ability, but this is more than made up for by the benefits to bookkeeping. There are predefined forms that can can shift into, and they are fully competent forms, and there is no limit to the length of the shift or the amount of shifts per day.

You would still have to worry about your summoned creatures though. I tend to pick a few favorites (creating a short list of possible creatures to summon) and make sure they're handy if I'm gonna use them and I usually have an idea of what I might use. For instance, at level 10, I'm unlikely to ever want to cast a summon nature's ally I or II. Most likely, I'll be using summon nature's ally IV or V, and as long as I pull only from MM1, I have all my creatures pre-statted and handy (assuming I brought that book).

"OK, well I summon a Large water elemental [opens to proper page...]"

Hope that helps!

 

[SteelDraco]

When I played a druid, I only found myself shapeshifting into a handful of forms, depending on what was needed at the time. I found I was almost always in either dire bear (for combat), eagle (for scouting and flying), or a housecat (for sneaking and blending in). Anything else wasn't really necessary. Therefore, I wrote up stat blocks for my PC in each of these three forms. It wasn't any more complicated than keeping my regular character sheet up to date - I just changed a few small things every time I leveled or added new equipment. I had another page with these stat blocks on it, at the end of my printed character sheet.

As to summoning - yeah, just put them on index cards. If you have Augment Summoning or anything else that modifies them, reflect that in the cards. You won't have much trouble keeping track of them.

 

[krissbeth]

Index cards and an index card file box (just a small plastic thingie).

You can do stat blocks on a sheet with your character sheet or cut them out and stick them onto index cards too.

 

[Angerland]

as far as wildshaping there are really only so many forms you will use so, as mentioned, make a cheat sheet of those yu will use most often.
For example:
Combat
Scouting
Flying
Swimming

Those should cover nearly any situation you will find yourself in. Same goes for summoned animals. Go through each level and find the animals that you will use most often on each level and do a stat block on them. I use the Character sheet from the wizards site and it has a nice area on page 3 I think for your familiar or animal companion so that helps with a bit of the paper work.

 

[Vorput]

Someone... I forget who... (hypersmurf maybe?) made a pre-generated list of cards with all the animals from summon nature's ally on them... including stats, special abilities, the whole nine yards.... perhaps they'll stumble across this thread...

Was an incredibly useful resource... wish I still had it...

 

[szilard]

Make a spreadsheet with your stats in various wild-shaped forms. It will save a ton of time...

-Stuart

 

[IceFractal]

Although there are tons of choices, generally only a few are needed 90% of the time. For instance, Summon Nature's Ally I - you pretty much always want a Wolf, unless there are special considerations (underwater a Porpoise would be better).

I'm ambivalent on the PHBII variant. While simpler, the lack of compatibility with Wildshape-based feats/spells and the incompatibility with Natural Spell, not to mention the loss in flexibility, make it primarily useful as a power-down for Druids. This may or may not be the right thing for your game.

 

[Blue]

When I played a druid, I did a list of all of my summons, already affected by any feats like Augment Summoning that I had so I didn't have to figure it out. All of the SNA creatures are int eh SRD, easy to cut and paste. Here somebody already did it:

http://www.spellbooksoftware.com/d20/summons/index.html

My DM was fairly strict on wildshaping as the per PHB rules - it had to be an animal I was familiar with, which cut out a lot of terrains I hadn't experienced (polar bear, may aquatic forms early in the campaign, etc). His campaign world also never had dinosaurs (more animals). Because of this I had a fiarly detailed list of animals that my DM and I agreed I could shift into, and I just pre-stated those out.

Let me tell you, running a character with alternate forms and multiple sumons can take a lot of time on your action. The more prep work you do to make it go smoothly, the more the other players will appreciate that. It's worth the time not to slow down combats.

Cheers,
=Blue

 

[mcgeedis]

When I played a druid, I did a list of all of my summons, already affected by any feats like Augment Summoning that I had so I didn't have to figure it out. All of the SNA creatures are int eh SRD, easy to cut and paste. Here somebody already did it:

http://www.spellbooksoftware.com/d20/summons/index.html

You're my boy Blue! This will be ideal for SNA. I will cut and paste these onto index cards, as mentioned.

As for wildshaping - What are the main stats, qualities, attacks, etc. that will change from my main form? STR, CON and DEX, are one. AC is another... Special Qualities and Movement are two more. The types of attack (bite, claw and the like) is another. And finally my overall attack bonus is another.

The main reason I ask is because I was thinking of printing all of my main character's stats on transparicies, and then just switching them out as I wild shape. Thoughts? Too much of a pain, or should I just create extra character sheets instead?

Thanks so far for all the advice.