Druids
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MonkeyDragon
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I heart druids! I played a druid for a couple of years in one campaign. The things I found for that character:
I couldn't fight in melee. I didn't have a great strength or many hit points, and my AC sucked. Part of that dealt with the rest of the party, though. The cleric had a 30+ AC, and the soul-drinker always had a ton of HP, his own and temp. Since the monsters were scaled to deal with them, they would have made mince meat of me. I
Summoning critters was great up until 10thish level. After that they just got in the way, since they couldn't hit the monsters. Everyone loves the unicorn brigades, though, especially when fighting a room full of vrocks.
My animal companion wasn't that useful at higher levels, until I got my third one and tricked that wolf out to the nines. Then he wasn't always useful, but was a tripping machine when he was.
I wasn't the best at anything, but I was the second best at a lot of stuff. I was the secondary blaster and the secondary healer. The cleric tended to be stingy with his healing, so some party members came to me to get patched up. I wasn't any good at fighting, but I could stand between the wizard and danger as a last line of defense. Basically, I loved that character.
The second druid that I played had a couple levels of monk and an outrageous wisdom. I stayed in wildshape (polar bear) all the time and spent my spells on buffs. With some potions of greater mage armor, my AC was great and I could deal a ton of damage.
I couldn't fight in melee. I didn't have a great strength or many hit points, and my AC sucked. Part of that dealt with the rest of the party, though. The cleric had a 30+ AC, and the soul-drinker always had a ton of HP, his own and temp. Since the monsters were scaled to deal with them, they would have made mince meat of me. I
Summoning critters was great up until 10thish level. After that they just got in the way, since they couldn't hit the monsters. Everyone loves the unicorn brigades, though, especially when fighting a room full of vrocks.
My animal companion wasn't that useful at higher levels, until I got my third one and tricked that wolf out to the nines. Then he wasn't always useful, but was a tripping machine when he was.
I wasn't the best at anything, but I was the second best at a lot of stuff. I was the secondary blaster and the secondary healer. The cleric tended to be stingy with his healing, so some party members came to me to get patched up. I wasn't any good at fighting, but I could stand between the wizard and danger as a last line of defense. Basically, I loved that character.
The second druid that I played had a couple levels of monk and an outrageous wisdom. I stayed in wildshape (polar bear) all the time and spent my spells on buffs. With some potions of greater mage armor, my AC was great and I could deal a ton of damage.
Warren Okuma
First Post
My notes on druids...
Standard PHB? 3.5 Druid. Get augmented summoning and summon a wolf with it's automatic trip. Your companion is wolf with the automatic trip. When the enemies stand up they get an attack of opportunity. Then switch to dire wolf at higher levels. If your target flies, summon a flying critter to grapple.
At higher level wild shape into a plant from the MM2 or MM3. (No crits)
Okay, PHB only you can't beat a straight-class druid who really knows his spells, summons, and available forms and uses them to the full extent possible. It does take some sweat and paperwork, though. You have to know your available summons and keep stat sheets for every one. You have to know all your wildshape forms and keep (constantly updated) stat sheets for each one.
Do that, though, and you've got the win. Animals forms have very high strength, good movement, and pretty good natural attacks. Just make sure to keep your AC buffed with Barkskin, Cat's Grace, Wild Armor, and Wild Shield. Also, most animal forms have great little tricks like free trip attacks, free grapple attacks, pounce, or rend.
Buff yourself with Bull's Strength, Greater Magic Fang, and Stoneskin, and you can outfight the melee fighters.
You can also use Wildshape to scout effectively. Fly around as a hawk with that +10 to Spot checks and no every detail of the enemy encampment before you go in.
But wait! You're a full caster too. Druids get great battlefield control spells. Use Fog Clouds to stop ranged attacks (your only weakness). Heal yourself with cure spells. Occupy the enemy with Sleet Storm. Teleport around with Tree Stride (and at higher levels Transport through Plants). Baleful Polymorph the enemy and Dispel their spells. Entangle them or blast them with Flamestrike.
Oh, and you're a spontaneous Summoner too, which means never having to fight alone. I can't tell you the laughs I've had summoning a couple of Brown Bears, enlarging them with Animal Growth, and sending them out to grapple giants and golems.
Until level 15, when wizards own. But even then, you can still make a pretty good sidekick to the wizard, which is more than the Fighter can say.
Oh god. Druids. (shudder)
Never. Ever. EVER allow a druid to see an Inevitable.
ing guy in my TT game kept turning into a Marut and ripping my campaign a new one. Jesus.
Shapechange, level 9 spell. So, granted, it's only something to worry about at very high levels.
At lower levels, apes (which have high strength and can wield weapons) can be annoying, too.
True, but a druid has a number of abilities that are unique in leveraging the spell, including decent attack bonus and various 'while in another form' abilities (including natural casting).
I would recommend Dwarf. I wouldn't have before, but under the recently errata wildshape rules:
1. It is now clear that you keep the hitpoints your natural constitution score gives you, rather than your wildshaped constitution score.
2. Under the new rules, you now get to keep your darkvision in all forms.
The other strong pick is Human. That extra feat is really nice, and druids have a lot of nice skills you could use the extra skill point per level to keep maxed. If he envisions a lot of talking in the campaign, he should go human and use the extra skill points to keep Diplomacy maxed. Then he's a great spellcaster, a combat monster, and a fair social back-up for the win.
Feats, go Augment Summoning. It's totally worth the two feats it takes to get there. Natural Spell is a requirement at sixth level. Any druid would be a fool not to take it. Beyond that, just whatever appeals. He could go metamagic, item creation, or combat feats depending on what he wants his druidic focus to be.
For items, get a Wisdom-enhancing necklace and get Wild-enchanted Armor and Shield as soon as its practical. Also, get a Ring of Protection. A druid's #1 problem in combat is keeping his AC up, and most forms can wear rings.
Summoning druids rape all at low levels. Greenbound Summoning + Augmented Summoning + Ashbound Summoning lets you call out packs of heavily augmented wolves with abilities far out of proportion to their level.
Ah, you might want to look into purchasing the monk's belt. Wild shape then have someone put it on you.
Need information? Ask the land itself, or the animals. Or use diplomacy. Very flexible. Dump the fighter and rogue (who were nerfed) and, choose the druid. Or un-nerf the fighter and rogue.
Standard PHB? 3.5 Druid. Get augmented summoning and summon a wolf with it's automatic trip. Your companion is wolf with the automatic trip. When the enemies stand up they get an attack of opportunity. Then switch to dire wolf at higher levels. If your target flies, summon a flying critter to grapple.
At higher level wild shape into a plant from the MM2 or MM3. (No crits)
Okay, PHB only you can't beat a straight-class druid who really knows his spells, summons, and available forms and uses them to the full extent possible. It does take some sweat and paperwork, though. You have to know your available summons and keep stat sheets for every one. You have to know all your wildshape forms and keep (constantly updated) stat sheets for each one.
Do that, though, and you've got the win. Animals forms have very high strength, good movement, and pretty good natural attacks. Just make sure to keep your AC buffed with Barkskin, Cat's Grace, Wild Armor, and Wild Shield. Also, most animal forms have great little tricks like free trip attacks, free grapple attacks, pounce, or rend.
Buff yourself with Bull's Strength, Greater Magic Fang, and Stoneskin, and you can outfight the melee fighters.
You can also use Wildshape to scout effectively. Fly around as a hawk with that +10 to Spot checks and no every detail of the enemy encampment before you go in.
But wait! You're a full caster too. Druids get great battlefield control spells. Use Fog Clouds to stop ranged attacks (your only weakness). Heal yourself with cure spells. Occupy the enemy with Sleet Storm. Teleport around with Tree Stride (and at higher levels Transport through Plants). Baleful Polymorph the enemy and Dispel their spells. Entangle them or blast them with Flamestrike.
Oh, and you're a spontaneous Summoner too, which means never having to fight alone. I can't tell you the laughs I've had summoning a couple of Brown Bears, enlarging them with Animal Growth, and sending them out to grapple giants and golems.
Until level 15, when wizards own. But even then, you can still make a pretty good sidekick to the wizard, which is more than the Fighter can say.
Oh god. Druids. (shudder)
Never. Ever. EVER allow a druid to see an Inevitable.
ing guy in my TT game kept turning into a Marut and ripping my campaign a new one. Jesus.Shapechange, level 9 spell. So, granted, it's only something to worry about at very high levels.
At lower levels, apes (which have high strength and can wield weapons) can be annoying, too.
True, but a druid has a number of abilities that are unique in leveraging the spell, including decent attack bonus and various 'while in another form' abilities (including natural casting).
I would recommend Dwarf. I wouldn't have before, but under the recently errata wildshape rules:
1. It is now clear that you keep the hitpoints your natural constitution score gives you, rather than your wildshaped constitution score.
2. Under the new rules, you now get to keep your darkvision in all forms.
The other strong pick is Human. That extra feat is really nice, and druids have a lot of nice skills you could use the extra skill point per level to keep maxed. If he envisions a lot of talking in the campaign, he should go human and use the extra skill points to keep Diplomacy maxed. Then he's a great spellcaster, a combat monster, and a fair social back-up for the win.
Feats, go Augment Summoning. It's totally worth the two feats it takes to get there. Natural Spell is a requirement at sixth level. Any druid would be a fool not to take it. Beyond that, just whatever appeals. He could go metamagic, item creation, or combat feats depending on what he wants his druidic focus to be.
For items, get a Wisdom-enhancing necklace and get Wild-enchanted Armor and Shield as soon as its practical. Also, get a Ring of Protection. A druid's #1 problem in combat is keeping his AC up, and most forms can wear rings.
Summoning druids rape all at low levels. Greenbound Summoning + Augmented Summoning + Ashbound Summoning lets you call out packs of heavily augmented wolves with abilities far out of proportion to their level.
Ah, you might want to look into purchasing the monk's belt. Wild shape then have someone put it on you.
Need information? Ask the land itself, or the animals. Or use diplomacy. Very flexible. Dump the fighter and rogue (who were nerfed) and, choose the druid. Or un-nerf the fighter and rogue.
Last edited:
lukelightning
First Post
Warren Okuma said:
I'd say apes can't weild weapons. They lack the manual dexterity and fully-opposable thumb. Real life apes certainly wouldn't be able to weild a weapon with any skill matching even an untrained human.
Warren Okuma
First Post
Rats. I loaned out my Monster Manual to the Druid player. Can someone look up the ape's stat's?lukelightning said:
Warren Okuma
First Post
Take, take, take, why not give?smetzger said:
Just un nerf all the non-primary spellcasters and some monsters.
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