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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Michael Tree" data-source="post: 17055" data-attributes="member: 1455">Halflings and gnomes make great druids.  Wild shape isn't dependant on the size of the druid (unlike Polymorph Self), and when in your own shape Shillelagh makes any club or staff do d10 base damage regardles of size.  For melee combat, Spikes (from DotF) is essential.If you want to multiclass, by far the best choices are Ranger and Monk.  Ranger gives you extra weapon proficiencies, which is only useful if your DM doesn't use the strict druid weapon rule, and Track.  Ranger also gives you TWF and ambidexterity, which can be nice when combines with the Spikes spell and a club and shield.  Take Shield Expert and you won't even lose the shield AC bonus when fighting that way.  Monk may be an even better choice; The Wisdom bonus to AC, saving throw bonuses, and Evasion are extraordinary abilities, so they are retained when you wildshape.  Flurry of blows is also nice with a Spiked club or quarterstaff.  If your GM lets you swap out the Stunning Fist virtual feat for another martial arts feat, monk is an even better choice.  You will lose spells, BAB, and animal companion hit dice if you multiclass though, so don't do it lightly.If you're going to rely on your animal companions a lot, you will definitely want the Chain Spell metamagic feat.  Chain spell allows you to take a spell that normally only applies to a single target and apply it to 1 target/level.  For offensive spells, secondary targets take only half damage, or have +4 to their saving throws, but the best use of the feat is for miscellaneous buffing spells.  A 4th level spell will let you Magic Fang one target/level, and a 6th level spell will let you Greater Magic Fang one target/level.  Another great feat is Versatile, which sadly is in the Rokugan book, even though it's a good general feat.  It essentially allows you to turn two cross-class skills into class skills.  If you do this with Hide and Move Silently, your druid becomes one of the best at stealth.To really min-max the character, at some point you're going to want to take a Prestige Class that gives you a domain of your choice.  When a druid gains a domain, he gains an additional spell per spell level, just like a cleric, as well as the granted power.  The best prestige classes for this are Contemplative and Divine Disciple (from FRCS).  The best domain for Druids is the Hero domain from Oriental Adventures.  It gives you 1) Divine Favor, 2)Bull's Strength, 3)Endure Elements, 4)Divine Power, 5)Righteous Might (though this slot can also be used for a nasty Persistent Divine Favor, if you have that metamagic feat), 6)Stoneskin, 7)Tenser's Transformation, 8)Giant Size (or Persistent Divine Power, which is just nasty), and 9)Shapechange.  To be truly nasty, at higher levels you're going to want the Persistent Spell metamagic feat, and its prerequisite Extend Spell.Gah, I feel dirty even talking about this level of min-maxing. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />  Masters of the Wild will be out within a few weeks, so their should be even more cool options for druids in there.  The feats that allow a druid to speak and cast spells while wildshaped sound particularly tasty. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

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