Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 3252749" data-attributes="member: 259">Until that last sentence, I was really wondering what on earth you were talking about <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.  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 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.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 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.Good luck--it's a very fun class to play!Daniel</blockquote>

Verification