Gimme some cool druid tactics!

[Felon]

My party's going to be fighting evil druids at some point in the future. They've fought'em in the past too though, and I'm looking for a change of tactics. I'd like to hear some battle plans that don't involve the use of entangle, plant growth, or any summoning spells. The first two I've already used extensively, and the last one takes a full round so it's too easy to disrupt.

We're looking at about 5th-9th level here.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ForceUser]

I've always favored barkskin + bull's strength + wild shape (large) into a dire ape and rend rend rend. This works best indoors, preferably in cramped corridors where party spellcasters have trouble applying big AE spells without hitting their own guys. However, if your party is foolish enough to attempt to tackle a bunch of druids in a natural environment, they deserve what they get (the aforementioned entangle, etc.) For outdoors, you might also consider having multiple evil druids wild shaping into small birds and summoning up call lightnings. They can coordinate their efforts and nail the arcane spellcasters first. If they are flying above the party outdoors, the melee specialists are greatly reduced in effectiveness.

If the party is unlucky enough to try to fight the evil druids in a woodland environment, have the druids throw animal companions at them over the course of the day (preferably dire animals). There need not be any reason for the druids to show themselves until the party's gone through a few fights and gotten banged up a bit. When its time for the druids to begin their assault, have them lead off by throwing a pack of dominated wolves at the party, and then - in wolf form themselves - have them start casting spells from the periphery of the fight or mingled amidst the wolves. It will be tough for the PCs to distinguish between who's a snarling wolf and who's a druid casting a spell.

 

[Skwave]

One tactic that I used for my druid while he was still at level 5-9 was spell casting while aerial (thanks to natural spell). Depending on what resources you have, the druids spell arsenal can be far larger than normal. The Miniatures handbook has several excellent spells, including a pounce spell that can work wonders for a melee oriented druid, while there are several electrical and energy spells that work well also.

Masters of the Wild also has several good spells. If you have it, the regeneration spells work wonders, as long as they are cast beforehand.

If the party is outside, in cloudy/stormy weather, then call lightning works wonders, esp from mid-air. If the druids have metamagic rods (empower or maximize) then the damage would be far higher. The Mini's HB also has Sudden metamagic feats that would allow spells to be spontaniously meta'ed once daily, which works wonders for a greater call lightning at level 9 on a cloudy day (50 damage every round for 9 rounds hurts a lot).

Animal companions can work wonders to create flanking situations as well, which may help out Druid/Rogues (or what have you). Dire Wolverines make an excellent choice, since they have rage powers, and Dire Weasels have con-drain abilities also.

Altering the environment to fit the battle is the druids focus. From simple entangle and briar webs, to sleet storm, snare, spike growth/spike stones (slows down tank fighters lots), and the all time favorites like transmute rock to mud, wall of thorns and so on. Multiple druids working together to alter the fighting zone first, then starting out with damage is a huge benefit, especially against melee oriented fighter types.

Using similar tactics, my lv 12 druid was able to alter a fighting zone so much that my adventuring party (6 of us) destroyed 10 fomorian giants (15HD each) and their dire animals without any damage recieved in return. However, that was only due to their utter lack of ranged attack ability; which if they had, then things would have been worse.

 

[Greatwyrm]

Altering the environment to fit the battle is the druids focus. From simple entangle and briar webs, to sleet storm, snare, spike growth/spike stones (slows down tank fighters lots), and the all time favorites like transmute rock to mud, wall of thorns and so on. Multiple druids working together to alter the fighting zone first, then starting out with damage is a huge benefit, especially against melee oriented fighter types.

Couldn't agree more. I played a druid for a while and ground control is definitely their strength, especially at the levels you're talking about. Some of the spells don't look that impressive at first, but consider the area of effect too. Spike Stones doesn't do all that much damage, until you consider an affected creature takes it for EVERY square they move through. And if you manage to get a spellcaster in a Wall of Thorns, he literally can't even twiddle his thumbs without risking losing them.

 

[Kalendraf]

There's an 8th level druid in my main campaign right now that is making very good use of Wildshape. He functions as a scout, taking the form of a bird for outdoor areas or a bat for indoor/underground ones and flying ahead of the party to survey. This alone has completely made the rogue's scouting function an afterthought. The druid has amazingly high spot and listen checks as well, so he is almost never caught off-guard and easily spots nearly all ambushes well in advance.

Once he sees something, he usually heads back and uses some means to communicate danger ahead (circling, landing on a shoulder, etc), and then retakes to the air to start the battle. He has the feat that lets him cast in wildshape, and does pin-point strikes with devestating spells like Flamestrike or Call Lightning which is usually the default signal for the others to charge or launch there own attacks and start the battle. In many cases, would-be ambushers have themselves been ambushed by the party by just such a tactic.

If he spots a caster or other lightly armored foe, he often dives down near them and then wildshapes into some a large bear and grapples them to death. Once grappled, most spellcasters are pretty useless unless they've got stilled spells available.

What is interesting, is the druid has the lowest AC in the whole party, and his hit points are not that great either, yet he has a huge impact on nearly every battle thru smart use of his abilities.

His only real achilles heal so far has been when he is out of spells and wildshapes, at which point he's pretty useless to the party. But by then, other casters are running low on spells as well and it's time for them to go and rest.

 

[milotha]

I'd vote for wildshape plus natural spell plus the fighting bump spells such as bull's strength, barskin, protection spells, etc.

I've also seen guerrilla tactics used. Flying as a bird in the air and dropping spells like warp wood, heat metal, spike stones etc on the players and their items.

You can also try the all flame druid. Flame blade, flame sphere, etc.

 

[ForceUser]

I'd vote for wildshape plus natural spell plus the fighting bump spells such as bull's strength, barskin, protection spells, etc.

I've also seen guerrilla tactics used. Flying as a bird in the air and dropping spells like warp wood, heat metal, spike stones etc on the players and their items.

You can also try the all flame druid. Flame blade, flame sphere, etc.

Once, while flying over the head of an enemy goblin, my druid wildshaped midair back into his normal form - a 270 lb. orc - and landed on top of the goblin. Squish.

Druids are fun.

 

[Li Shenron]

I would like to exploit their weather-control spells, especially if they are 4-6 druids they can make quite a mess around the party and hamper spellcasting.

Otherwise you can plan a simple nice trap+ambush through the use of Snare and Tree Shape for example.

In an environment by the sea or a lake, they may take advantage of the use of Control Water to trap characters inside a cave or drown them by suddenly raise the tide.

A more complicated tactic may involve druids wildshaped into mounts, with illusions of druids riding them - druids don't have much illusions IIRC so this must be sorted out in another way, for example with UMD - so that the party may believe the "druids" are casting spells while instead the spells come from the "mounts", and it may take a while before noticing.

 

[BASHMAN]

2 nasty things

2 really nasty things:

2 weapon fighting and shileleigh spell cast on a quarterstaff. It makes a +1 double weapon that does d10 damage!

Also, there is a feat in 3.5 PHB that lets you cast in wild-shape. Turn into an owl and cast call lightning on the party before they even know you are there. You could even turn into a rat and do it. If you also have 100+ rats in the area, it makes you VERY hard to pick out of the crowd...

 

[Eccles]

That single 9th level druid can cast Awaken, so there's not a single safe tree in the area. And the animals might be self-aware.

He (or she) can also cast Insect Plague, which is probably one of the most annoying anti-wizard spells I've met in a way. (Well, it certainly was in 3.0; 3.5's swarms might actually make things easier).

Transmute Rock To Mud coupled with an automatically successful Dispel Magic from the same caster is a terrific (or terrifying) way to get rid of heavily armoured fighters.

Finally, an Unhallow spell, coupled to either a Dispell targetted on everyone non-neutral who enters the area, or coupled to a Protection from Energy targetted on everyone allied to the Druidic Faith would mean that all the druids and their companions and summons could be practically immune to electricity within the circle.

Then just let rip with some Weather Control and have every druid go ape (pun intended) with the Call Lightning spells...