Can druids be effective without Wildshape specialisation?

[tetsujin28]

Touch attacks! I forgot that bit, that'll definitely go in my bag of tricks. Cool.

Hmm, I wonder if you can combine Flame Blades with Two Weapon Fighting and Two Weapon Defense...

We've done it -- ranger/druids are nasty. Flame Blade is your friend. I've seen a 5th level druid go through things like butter that even the fighters were having trouble with. Remember that it's energy damage, too, so it gets past DR. Nasty.

 

[tetsujin28]

Standard vanilla Druids tend to have pitiful Armor Classes. Without a great AC or some DR, you can easily find yourself sucking up well over 100+ HPs damage in a round.

The solution is dragonhide armour. Gets you the base AC of full plate. You have to blow a feat on heavy armour proficiency, but I'd say that the additional 5 points of AC are well worth it. Add in some cool enchantments, and you're good to go. If you really want to get nasty, give the armour the wildshape ability, so that you can use it in animal form. There's nothing to peeve your GM off like being an animal with +12 to its AC

 

[Rystil Arden]

unless (1) your DM has allowed some funky armor into the game that boosts your wildshaped AC significantly

The solution is dragonhide armour. Gets you the base AC of full plate. You have to blow a feat on heavy armour proficiency, but I'd say that the additional 5 points of AC are well worth it. Add in some cool enchantments, and you're good to go. If you really want to get nasty, give the armour the wildshape ability, so that you can use it in animal form. There's nothing to peeve your GM off like being an animal with +12 to its AC

My Druid has Darkweave full plate from A&EG and RotW. No feat necessary, since its Medium Armour. She plans on getting the Wild enhancement so that she keeps it in bear form

You may call the Darkweave funky, but the Wild enhancement is core--its in the DMG. So its not that weird

 

[skippy_the_witch]

No, wild shape is not necessary. One of my players in my homebrew is running a shifter druid modified from Unearthed Arcana. This druid loses ALL wildshaping abilities, but instead gains AC/Move bonus of a monk (including adding WIS bonus to AC), tracking and favored enemy of ranger, while keeping most of the other druid abilities. They also are not proficient in armor, but don't really need to be, as a druid is already likely to have a high wisdom and dexterity, so they become hard as hell to hit, especially with touch attacks. My player loves it.

skippy
the GM of The Cursed Earth Campaign

 

[Dinkeldog]

The druid that I DM for is quite effective at lower levels with his bow. Point Blank and Precise Shot allow him to shoot into melee.

 

[Klaus]

I have been pondering this question myself. I have a shifter druid in our Eberron game, and am seriously considering taking the 5th level racial substitution, which gives up wild shape all together. I am hoping that I won't sacrifice viability.

The shifter druid in my upcoming Eberron campaign is geared towards all racial substitution levels, and then possibly into Weretouched Master. I did some calculations and by 12th level (Druid 7/WTM 5), she'll be shifting 5 times per day, each for 11+Wis mod. rounds and getting +6 Strength, +4 Constitution (at this level it's +24hp), with two primary claw attacks for 1d6+2+Str mod. damage, DR 4/silver, Pouce and See invisibility (Razorclaw, Shifter Instincts, Healing Factor, Extra Shifter Trait: Dreamsight, Shifter Defense, Greater Shifter Defense, Dreamsight Elite; Weretouched Master form is Tiger).

 

[Pseudonym]

The shifter druid in my upcoming Eberron campaign is geared towards all racial substitution levels, and then possibly into Weretouched Master.

I plan on going to Druid 8 then on to Moonspeaker. The feats that I was considering for 6th level (Augmented Summoning, Extend Spell) are class features of the PrC further on. I went with Dreamsight Elite and Shifter Senses, so if I take the 5th level substiitution I'll need to take another shifter feat at 6th.

Not to threadjack, but after last night's session, I am convinced that the no wild shape option isn't a hinderance.

 

[Drowbane]

How about this?
4 Star General Stupid Druid: She had an assortment of animal compainions. They included a pig-sized goldfish who's sheer destructive power rivaled the gods, a 30 foot mobile statue of the Egyptian cat goddess Bast, a floating flaming skull named Skeleton (named by the druid, of course), a retarded Nightmare, and a ranger cat-girl. All at fouteenth level. In Second Edition. This was in Faerûn. Absolutely unbalanced idiot.

Eh... it may've been run in Faerun... but you can't pin that BS on the setting.

 

[The Druid Merlin]

Eh... it may've been run in Faerun... but you can't pin that BS on the setting.

I know. But I can pin that on four players trying to drive the DM nuts.

 

[Azul]

IMC the "druid as summoner" type has been very effective in or out of dungeons.

Dungeons limit the application of animal growth some what, if they are tight on space, but otherwise I find 3.5 druids to be useful to the party no matter the environment (unlike in 1e & 2e)

Yep, our party druid is a summoning-focused druid. She very rarely wildshapes and usually hangs in the rear of the party alongside the mages. She'll summon critters and use ranged attack spells for the most part.

Only when things get ugly, the party needs a fresh warrior and she's low on spells does she tend to enter melee. She normally dislikes using wildshape because her AC isn't particularly good in animal form (so she lacks the resiliance of the party tanks). However, when she wades in at the tail end of a fight, that can sometimes tip the scales in the party's favour.

She mostly uses her wildshape to assume forms convenient for travel (e.g. horse to carry a party member, eagle to scout ahead, bear to sleep outside during cold weather, a beaver to cut down a tree). She's also been known to use her brown bear form to grapple and immobilize (i.e. sit on) party members that are under some form of mind control or confusion.