Druid character -- need advice

[Mighty Halfling]

More hints

Animal Companion
Since she has a riding dog, you might want to offer her a few specialty items for that purpose.
A Masterwork riding saddle. This would add a +2 bonus to ride checks.
A "myrnud's spoon" (spelling) for animals. This would provide a meal once a day for your mount. It's a lot better than packing all those rations.
Another thing that would be interesting would be creating a "collar of venom" that works for animals (but not wild shaped druids). This would add a poison to bite attacks.
Equipment
Druid's Vestments are a good thing to give your druid now. This will help her wild shape more often once she gets the ability.
Wand of Cure Light Wounds. I know you said she already has one, but give her another one that only works on animals. This helps protect her animal companion and doesn't get the other players mad at her when she "wastes" the wand on a dog. I guess it could be called a Wand of Cure Light Animal Wounds.
Spells
Summon Nature's Ally -- Hippogriffs are another useful creature. They fly and have decent BAB.
"Fix" spells -- I made a deal with my party's cleric. He provided all the healing spells and I provided all the "fix" spells -- such as Neutralize Poison, Lesser Restoration and so on. This frees both the cleric and the druid up to "do good" and also pick some offensive spells too.
Cat's Grace -- For gnomes and halflings, this is the ideal spell because it really improves your Dexterity beyond its natural "spike." It helps with your accuracy with touch spells, ranged touch spells, thrown weapons and ranged weapons. Likewise it really gives a boost to your usually measly AC.
Bear's Strength -- Once the Druid gets wildshape ability, this really helps!

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Re: natural spell; that was a screwup of mine. She originally had "Spontaneous Healer" from CompDiv (AKA "no, I don't _want_ to memorize healing spells). When we went spontaneous that feat got traded in; I didn't look up prereqs. Oops

Spontaneous healing and/or Scribe Scroll would be extremely valuable to the druid in question.

A lot of Druid spells are pretty effective but rather specialized and inflexible. Spells like Hide from Animals, Pass without Trace, Speak with Animals, Animal Messenger, Gust of Wind, Hold Animal, Spider Climb, Quench, Snare, and Spike Growth are fabulous spells when the time is right, but they do not get used much because you do not want usually know that they will be applicable in advance. These are perfect spells to have on a scroll. The Druid benefits a lot from building up a scroll library -- more so than other spellcasters IMO.

Spontaneous healing will help a lot here, too. It will allow the Druid to take the occasional odd spell for fun because converting it to healing OR summoning means there is never going to be a dead slot.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Consider taking a level in Monk, and use that pumped up Wis bonus to add it for AC. Use a long spear or other reach weapon that will give you an AoO if an enemy closes to fight you directly, then pummel them with unarmed strikes or 5' step and use the spear again (getting another AoO if they close again). Hmm... does a small-sized longspear still have 10' reach? I'll have to look that up later...

1) Taking a level of monk is going to hit the character with a lifetime of XP penalties, unless druid is a favored class for forest gnomes.
2) The reach-AOO tactic requires you to get 15' between you and the other dude. At 10' he can just do 5-ft step. Spring Attack is really the essential feat here, and that requires a total of 3 feats and a minimum BAB of +4. Mostly a fighter or rogue trick in my opinion. Tumble can help if you don't have SA, but because you can't split your movement in that case you'll be using a natural attack at 5' (or some feat to attack at 5' with the spear butt) and then tumbling back to 15'.

I've found that small-sized druid on riding dog is a very versatile and survivable character and a lot of fun to play.

 

[uzagi_akimbo]

Spontaneous healing and/or Scribe Scroll would be extremely valuable to the druid in question.

A lot of Druid spells are pretty effective but rather specialized and inflexible. Spells like Hide from Animals, Pass without Trace, Speak with Animals, Animal Messenger, Gust of Wind, Hold Animal, Spider Climb, Quench, Snare, and Spike Growth are fabulous spells when the time is right, but they do not get used much because you do not want usually know that they will be applicable in advance. These are perfect spells to have on a scroll. The Druid benefits a lot from building up a scroll library -- more so than other spellcasters IMO.

Spontaneous healing will help a lot here, too. It will allow the Druid to take the occasional odd spell for fun because converting it to healing OR summoning means there is never going to be a dead slot.

Ahem, you did notice that the druid in question is actually a spontaneous-casting variant of the standart druid already, using the sorceror's "spells's known" and "spells per day " lists ? Which means, she can pick any of her known spells at any time.... so making the spontaneous healer feat rather pointless.
Also, scribe Scroll is pretty weak for a spontaneous caster, who simply cannot write some copies of rarely used spells to whip out when needed, once in a blue moon, because he lekely doesn't know them in the first place (and if he did, he could cast them at any he choose anyway ) ?

 

[fett527]

I was pointed to this thread, which contains a lot of info, when I was building a Druid. I didn't agree with it all but you might find it informative:

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?threadid=81385

 

[kenobi65]

I'd also recommend (though maybe on your "B-list", since they aren't always useful) the "minefield" spells: Entangle, Spike Growth, Stone Spikes.

They cover a fairly massive area, can be absolutely devastating to armies of grunt opponents, and are effectively invisible. In our group, we quickly determined that they were way broken -- and didn't get fixed at all in 3.5.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

They cover a fairly massive area, can be absolutely devastating to armies of grunt opponents, and are effectively invisible. In our group, we quickly determined that they were way broken -- and didn't get fixed at all in 3.5.

Broken?

At lowish levels and in wild open spaces Entangle and Spike Growth are better than Sleep and Fireball. But these spells are also useless indoors and in town.

Spike Stones is devastating to large hordes of weak critters but again it is less flexible. Wall of Fire and Confusion are almost as good against the hordes and work against the big nasties as well.

Just because the Druid has the very best spell in the game under very specific game conditions does not make that spell broken. The Wizards enjoys having the best spell in the game most of the time. The Cleric occasionally does as well. Is there something wrong with the Druid dishing out the best once in a while too? Is he supposed to always be the second string spellcaster like a Bard?

But I do agree in one respect, most people underestimate just how amazingly efficient Druids are at smashing an army sitting out in the open. That is not a flaw, it is a feature.

It is conceivable that your game group adventures enough outdoors that these spells may seem too powerful, but this is not a problem for most game groups. Unless there is a strong campaign specific reason to meet so many hordes, the easy fix is for your DM to rely more on fewer stronger opponents rather than hordes.