SteelDraco
First Post
I had a really good time playing Berrik Mountainheart, a dwarven druid. I tried to keep his spell list centered around stone and cold spells, since that's the kind of terrain he was from - the mountain peaks of his clan. His animal companions were a bear and a raven. The bear was incredibly useful in combat, and went from a six HD black bear (IIRC) to a 15 HD dire bear over the course of the campaign - check Masters of the Wild, there's rules in there for advancing your animal companion.
Let's see here. Feat choices... Power Attack is quite nice if you're going to be in melee combat, particularly once you can wild shape. Not terribly good until then, however. Mounted Combat is useful if you use your animal companion as a mount, as I did. The ability to negate an attack on your animal companion's low AC is pretty handy. Dodge is decent, but not exceptional - in wildshaped form, every little bit of AC is helpful. Still and Silent Spell are kind of fun in combination with Natural Spell, to completely baffle your enemies. If you don't gesture or make noises, how are they supposed to know it's the squirrel that's calling lightning down upon them?
As for spells... hm. People have given quite a bit of useful advice on this already. I used a lot of non-core stuff for Berrik. Defenders of the Faith has some really nice druid spells - Bear's Heart, for example, gives +4 Str and +1d4/level temporary hit points to the party for 1 round/level, but does a some subdual damage to everyone who was affected when it runs out. Very handy spell, at 4th, but probably not something you'll find useful for a while. The various Mark spells (Mark of Earth, Mark of Fire, Mark of Frost) spells in the Book of Eldritch Might I found useful for a druid, particularly to buff up your animal companion or your wildshaped form. The Relics and Rituals series and Magic of Faerun both have quite a few useful druid spells; those are worth a look.
Dang it, now I want to play Berrik again.
Let's see here. Feat choices... Power Attack is quite nice if you're going to be in melee combat, particularly once you can wild shape. Not terribly good until then, however. Mounted Combat is useful if you use your animal companion as a mount, as I did. The ability to negate an attack on your animal companion's low AC is pretty handy. Dodge is decent, but not exceptional - in wildshaped form, every little bit of AC is helpful. Still and Silent Spell are kind of fun in combination with Natural Spell, to completely baffle your enemies. If you don't gesture or make noises, how are they supposed to know it's the squirrel that's calling lightning down upon them?
As for spells... hm. People have given quite a bit of useful advice on this already. I used a lot of non-core stuff for Berrik. Defenders of the Faith has some really nice druid spells - Bear's Heart, for example, gives +4 Str and +1d4/level temporary hit points to the party for 1 round/level, but does a some subdual damage to everyone who was affected when it runs out. Very handy spell, at 4th, but probably not something you'll find useful for a while. The various Mark spells (Mark of Earth, Mark of Fire, Mark of Frost) spells in the Book of Eldritch Might I found useful for a druid, particularly to buff up your animal companion or your wildshaped form. The Relics and Rituals series and Magic of Faerun both have quite a few useful druid spells; those are worth a look.
Dang it, now I want to play Berrik again.
