Druid build help

[Unkabear]

I am thinking about running a druid in an upcoming game but don’t know a thing about how to play one. They have several options and in the end I am not sure about how I should best suit the party. There is a cleric, a fighter, and a wizard. The DM doesn’t deal out all that much for the rogues in the world and I am tired of feeling useless unless I can get into a good flank.

I am not looking to min/max, I just want to know the best way to wield this new class so I don’t end up staring at the phb during a game holding up everything during combat to figure out what I should do. Should I be buffing or summoning or changing shape at the beginning of combat? We will be starting at level 2 or 3 but I like to look at my character in the future and have an idea of what direction I should take and focus on.

Any help you could offer would be appreciated.

 

[Hedgemage]

In my experience, the Natural Spell feat is a must-have for druids. Without it you end up having to bounce in and out of animal form too much.
Also, when fighting in animal form, I found grappling to be incredibly useful, especially when you can be a large creature or bigger. Your natural weapons are still effective, and most humanoid opponents are at a real disadvantage. If you plan on doing lots of melee, look into feats that help you in a grapple.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'll second Natural Spell- but you can hold off on that until you can actually wildshape, so leave that for 3rd level. If you wait until 6th level, it might be too late.

Hedgemage is also dead on about grappling & natural weapons- you're already proficient with them, after all. Some DMs allow druids to take Improved Natural Weapon for use in their Wildhsaped forms, some don't. If yours does, take it.

Druids have some decent summoning spells, and their animal companions can be useful combatants and scouts...if your DM has no objections. Like the aforementioned problem with rogues, he might be a little anti-pet, and if he is, your critters will be quickly toasted. You need to find out his position on that.

Flaming Sphere for druids is almost like Magic Missile for Wizards- a solid, possibly combat altering spell. Your low-level healing ability is almost as good as a clerics- he just has that swap-out going for him.

In melee combat, your light armor is a hinderance, but scimitars are actually pretty good one-handed weapons and spears are flexible. If you get a Quiver of Ehlonna, you can load up on your Darts and Spears and become "mobile artillery." Because of your low AC from armor, your PC will probably have a higher Dex than average.

With Trackless Step and Woodland stride, you'll be among the best scouts a party can have in the wilderness.

 

[Darklone]

Hmm. For the start, you'll be the secondary healer and the secondary caster damagewise. Don't feel useless though. Always keep an Entangle up your sleeve, it's sick and often better than web. The usual druid has three builds IIRC, the wrestling/grappling melee monster in wildshape, the druid archer and the druid spellcaster/summoner.

Some not yet mentioned spells:
Goodberries: Use one every day, the long duration allows you to store them for several days at higher levels, so you always begin adventures after a downtime with a full stock of healing "potions".
Fairy Fire: Nice. Useful.
Produce Flame: My favorite. Good range, easy to hit, good damage and later when you wildshape it's one spell that boosts your damage with fire for several attacks.
Flaming Sphere: Cast one, move it around and cast Produce Flame the round afterwards. At low levels, you can do a lot of damage over several rounds, more than a wizard with two level 1 spells (and without Reserve Feats).

Wildshape:
The druid starts to shine at level 7. Flame Strike. The cleric can't do it yet, the wizards fireball isn't strong enough alone, but combined with your Flame Strike, some encounters are over.
At level 8, your wildshape breaks the sonic barrier. Being large, tripping and grappling works like hell and the bigger animals hit well, have many weapons and deal good damage.
At level 9 with Animal growth, it gets worse. Summon some nice big monsters, wildshape into the same thing, give everyone Animal Growth. Even if you don't pick the crazy Giant Octopus, most dragons of a comparable CR are well advised to turn tail and run before the groups druid grapples them and rips them to pieces singlehanded. And no, that's no exaggeration. Granted, the druid I'm talking about had a maxxed out Wisdom plus a race with racial wisdom bonus (golden halfling) and one monk level... yet I'm convinced any druid might have done it.

Archery:
Which race are you looking at? In the same group as the golden halfling wrestler I had an elven druid archer. She loved it, picked most archery feats and didn't care a lot for wildshape, yet she was awfully effective with "ground control" spells like Firewall, Entangle and other stuff. More than once, she saved the group with one well placed spell or at least bought them the time to buff up and waste the enemies (group with 2 clerics, 2 druids, 2 wizard/sorcerer, 1 ftr/rog and some others: deadly after preparation, dead without). One thing for a similar build: She prepared one Cure Critical wounds for emergency healing during combat. If she didn't need it, she spontaneously cast it to summon a unicorn that had some more healing spells.
The archer usually casts one spell in combat, either a battlefield control spell, a summon monster or one buff spell, then she kept on shooting arrows. Nearly all her resources went into that bow and the feats needed to use it, yet you don't need more than three feats to be a pretty good archer. Bracers of archery, a bow with extra damage (druid has fire, cold and electricity spells, so perhaps sonic or/and acid) helps a lot.

 

[Pielorinho]

Even if you don't pick the crazy Giant Octopus, most dragons of a comparable CR are well advised to turn tail and run before the groups druid grapples them and rips them to pieces singlehanded. And no, that's no exaggeration. Granted, the druid I'm talking about had a maxxed out Wisdom plus a race with racial wisdom bonus (golden halfling) and one monk level... yet I'm convinced any druid might have done it.

Until that last sentence, I was really wondering what on earth you were talking about . Wildshape, in my experience, has a huge weakness for druids: animal armor classes are absolutely terrible. I hardly ever go into combat as a druid (I've played one for several years now to level 17), and almost every time I do, I get my butt handed to me, no matter what the form I take. That's because monsters of a comparable CR can hit me with almost every attack, and my hit points aren't barbarianlike enough to take that kind of damage.

So if you decide to wildshape, you really need to pay some attention to your AC. Taking a level in monk is one great way to do it: as a primary melee monster, you can afford to give up a level of spellcasting. You have a party wizard, who needs to understand that it's her duty to cast mage armor on you whenever you need it. You're a great target for a magic circle against evil as well, and you should have barkskin up at all times also. With all those spells going at once, your AC should be decent enough to help you survive melee.

I've found myself primarily effective in a couple of areas. First, summoning is awesome for druids, completely awesome. You've got the best list of monsters in the game, and you can summon spontaneously. The small elementals aren't that great, but you can summon a black bear with SNAII, and it'll be a great addition to the party. Once you start getting medium elementals, they start becoming viable, and the large and huge ones are great. Just be careful with summoning to have your stats ready and to pay attention to the number of attacks each of your critters gets: when you start summoning 1d4+1 creatures each of which gets 3 attacks plus some special ability (improved grab, rend, etc.), it can make your turn take way too long. Again, speaking from experience .

Second, you've got some great spells for damage. Produce flame is awesome at low levels, with a touch attack (your choice of ranged or melee). Flaming sphere, as already mentioned, is quite powerful. At level 17, I'm still finding that flamestrike is the meat and potatoes of my damage-dealing (with other spells being saved for special occasions); get it and love it at level 7.

Finally, druids are great at battlefield management. If you're going to be adventuring outdoors, entangle is a lovely spell (just make sure you're aware of its huge AoE: a 40' radius is occasionally difficult to pull off without catching your friends as well as the enemies). Summon swarm does a small amount of damage but is mainly useful for irritating enemy spellcasters; again, read the rules on the swarms carefully to make sure you're clear on how their distraction ability works (essentially, anyone in the swarm risks being nauseated if they don't make a low-level save, and casters must make a concentration check DC 20+spell level or fail in spellcasting). Eventually you'll get wall of thorns, which is an astonishingly broken spell: after I used it to enable our party's escape from a nasty dragon, I and the DM had a long talk and made a gentleman's agreement that I'd stop using the spell. Hopefully your DM won't ask the same .

Good luck--it's a very fun class to play!

Daniel

 

[Darklone]

Sorry, Pielo, scientists do tend to talk in circles

Two things I forgot to mention
- about Produce Flame: Don't forget you can throw as many balls per round as your attacks allow, so enjoy Rapid Shot. Or use it in melee
- Monk level: Stunning fist gets better with character level

 

[anon]

Wildshape, in my experience, has a huge weakness for druids: animal armor classes are absolutely terrible. I hardly ever go into combat as a druid (I've played one for several years now to level 17), and almost every time I do, I get my butt handed to me, no matter what the form I take. That's because monsters of a comparable CR can hit me with almost every attack, and my hit points aren't barbarianlike enough to take that kind of damage.l

This has been my experience as well. The situation was made far worse with the recent Alternate Form revision to Wildshape which forced all magic items to meld and become useless. Wildshape ought be renamed Quick Furry Death if used for combat.

Scouting is the best use for Wildshape at this point, and perhaps ranged spell delivery with Natural Spell.

If you will be needed in combat (e.g. because your party doesn't have enough bruisers) then try to convince your DM to create a method to keep your items active while Wildshaped so that you can achieve a decent AC.

 

[Pielorinho]

If you will be needed in combat (e.g. because your party doesn't have enough bruisers) then try to convince your DM to create a method to keep your items active while Wildshaped so that you can achieve a decent AC.

In Masters of the WIld (a 3.0 sourcebook) there were wilding clasps, 4,000 gp items that attached to a cloak or amulet and kept them active while wildshaping. We've expanded their use slightly so that they can attach to any two items of magical clothing; I've attached mine to my periapt of wisdom and my good-for-all-spellcasters version of a robe of the archmage, and that works really well.

Daniel

 

[Darklone]

What's the problem? Craft your own items. You'll have a druid that wears a doggy collar. Strange, but it works.

 

[Unkabear]

Wow...so many choices. I may take the level of monk for the ac anyway, but the way it is sounding I really shouldn't go in and grapple unless I have a good line to the enemy spell caster and will not be swarmed by fighters when I do. Or grapple the guy with the greatsword making his attacks useless.

But really by the sounds of it I should be more focused on the spells for summoning, damage and area control.

Thanks for the suggestions guidance.