[3.5] druid

Help! Playgrounders!

The way the planescape game that I am in is looking i may lose my current character soon and was looking at making a backup charater just in case this happens.

The new char i was looking at was a druid (even though i didn't roll up the best stat array... 11, 15, 11, 13, 15, 15). All books are allowed however no homebrew.

I was hoping that the collective genious of the Playground would be able to assist me here with building a Druid starting at lvl 14 with WBL for starting gear. Could you please cite which books the suggestions proposed are in?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: oh and no 3rd party without DM approval

what sort of optimization are you looking for? anthro bats or plain old human?

you can up your wisdom and constitution with items easily, and other than that thanks to wildshape you have no need for any other stats.

straight druid is actually a great build, and you can build it using whatever gear you want to use (get stuff that helps casters if you want to play a caster, if you want to focus on fighting get items that will help you hit harder)

i was hoping to avoid using anthro but high op is what i was looking for.

Was looking at going into Planiar Shepherd at some point with the build.

waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait. you don't want to use an anthro bat but you'll use planar shepherd? you need to make up your mind on how optimized you want to be.

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Originally Posted by The Rabbler

waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait. you don't want to use an anthro bat but you'll use planar shepherd? you need to make up your mind on how optimized you want to be.

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The reason i say no to Anthro is because i KNOW that i DM would burn my char sheet for taking anthro bat but not plan shephard.

He only wants humanoids... sorry should have made that clear ::headdesk::

You are aware that in terms of power and brokenness, Planar Shepard actually makes Incantatrix look up from its tea and furrow its brow?

Anyway, if you want obscene raw damage all day long for the cost of one spell slot, Admixtured Venomfire. You're welcome.

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Originally Posted by Zaq

You are aware that in terms of power and brokenness, Planar Shepard actually makes Incantatrix look up from its tea and furrow its brow?

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I am aware of that and i confirmed with my DM before hand and he agreed to let me use Planar Shepherd so i am not going to complain

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Originally Posted by Zaq

Anyway, if you want obscene raw damage all day long for the cost of one spell slot, Admixtured Venomfire. You're welcome

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Admixtured Venomfire? What does it do and from which book?

Lesser Aasimar [PGtF] would be a good race. Otherwise, Human or Strongheart Halfling [PGtF]. You should definitely start Middle-Aged. This is -1 to all physicals, +1 to all mentals. Given all your numbers are odd, it's a no-brainer really.

Stats: 15 Wis (boosted to 16 by Age), 15 Con (dropped to 14 by Age) and rest don't really matter; 15 Dex can be a decent idea but see if you want skills from 15 Int instead. Then prioritize mental stats and use Wildshape a lot. At level 14, you'll have 19 base Wisdom from Middle-Aged + 3 level-ups. Then you should have a +6 item giving you a composite Wisdom of 25, quite passable.


Feats: You need Natural Spell at level 6. Rest, tailor to taste; Rapid Spell [CDiv], Greenbound Summoning [LEoF], Rashemi Elemental Summoning [UE], Ashbound [ECS] & Augment Summoning for Summon-focus - Multiattack, Improved Trip, Lion's Pounce [CDiv] and/or Improved Grapple for Combat-focus - Quicken Spell, Extend Spell & such for casting focus. Natural Bond [CAdv] and Companion Spellbond [PHBII] are fine feats if you want Animal Companion boosts.


Skills: Concentration & Knowledge: Nature are obvious auto-maxes. Handle Animal is great for having a bunch of animal friends. Need at least +6 (with the +4 from companion) to train your companion all tricks. Spot & Listen are obvious and very useful. Spellcraft is necessary if you're the primary caster; otherwise you don't need it but it's still useful. If you plan on lots of melee combat, cross-class Tumble & Balance (5 ranks to avoid flatfootedness) are nice.


Items: Beads of Karma, Con/Wis(/Str/Dex)-boosters, Rod of Extend Spell, Wilding Clasps [MiC/MotW] (to wear stuff), Orange Prism Ioun Stone, Circlet of Rapid Casting [MiC], Belt of Battle [MiC], Pearls of Power, Monk's Belt - try for one more caster level boost out of somewhere (Ankh of Ascension is easy) for +5 Greater Magic Fang and maxed Tortoise Shell [SC]/Barkskin.



Spells/Wildshape Forms/Animal Companion Choices: Too long a list, read Druid Handbook instead. Planar Shepherd; don't need, you're strong enough as is. Planar Shepherd is ridiculous. If you want it tho, pick a plane with lots of creatures (learn the SLAs by heart) and fast time (Planar Bubble acts as a super Time Stop that way).

Energy Admixture is a metamagic feat from CArc that essentially doubles your dice of damage on a spell that does energy damage.

Venomfire is a horrifically overpowered spell from Serpent Kingdoms that adds your CL in d6s of acid damage to every natural poison attack you make. (As a druid, you can make a lot of these.) It lasts hours per level and has NO CL cap, so go crazy with the CL boosters and kill everything.

This is stupidly powerful. Forgetting the GM, make sure the rest of the party doesn't mind you upstaging them if you use this.

i spoke to the rest of the party and they are fine with it... at the moment we have a psion in our party that is upstaging the rest of us badly.

EDIT: Any other suggestions people have or even a link to the obligitory handbook?

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Originally Posted by mobdrazhar

i spoke to the rest of the party and they are fine with it... at the moment we have a psion in our party that is upstaging the rest of us badly.

EDIT: Any other suggestions people have or even a link to the obligitory handbook?

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Obligatory Handbook: http://community.wizards.com/go/thre...ndbook_revived

one of the druids playing in a game I ran made various abuse of

Displacer Form (SC)
Girallions Blessing (SC)
Claws of the beast (BoVD)

and ofc Bite of the "waaaaa" spells.

and did I mention fleshraker animal companion (MM2) and companion spellbond?

druids are crazy

you can probably put to gether a pretty solid Persist build via arcane thesis and metamagic school focus, poss extend as well for those higher level spells.

oh, purely for giggles - persisted Call of stone. *hides*

I'd go with a Water Halfling (UA), Dragonborn of Bahamut (RotD), using the Mind aspect. You'll keep the ability score adjustments, size, and land/swim speeds of Water Halfling and gain everything Dragonborn offers, most of which will stay active when Wild Shaped.

You can trade Ride for Tumble as a class skill, so if you want to get Tumble ranks you may as well do that.

You'll want to go Druid 5/ Planar Shepherd, so you'll need to get its prerequisite feat at 1st or 3rd level. You'll also want to have Natural Bond with either a Fleshraker dinosaur (MM3) or Dire Eagle (RoS) animal companion, which is often taken at 3rd level, and of course Natural Spell at 6th. If you can get a Magebred (ECS) version of your companion creature, definitely do so as there are no drawbacks. You can also use Handle Animal to add the Warbeast template (MM2) to it for no drawback. You can cast Venomfire on the Fleshraker and it will get (CLd6) damage to three of its natural weapons. If you don't get the Fleshraker for some reason, get Celestial Companion (BoED) to get a Celestial version of whatever you pick and then your animal companion can take Sacred Vow and Vow of Poverty (BoED). Creatures with poison cannot use exalted feats, so sadly this cannot be used with a Fleshraker.

I should mention that Item Familiar (UA) is one of those feats that's way too good, you get an item at half cost since you can upgrade it yourself, and it's an intelligent item which counts as a construct which means it functions in an AMF and dead magic areas. You get a 10% XP bonus, unnamed skill bonuses, and you can give it a special purpose and dedicated power of your choosing among other things.

Get a few Unguent of Timelessness to put on a bunch of Bone Talisman spell foci, so it will end up lasting about 60 hours per caster level (365 times longer than normal). Cast it a bunch between adventures and take them along with you to get Turn Undead at a cleric level equal to your caster level. This would be a reason to use Illumian (RoD) with the Naenhoon runeword and get Extend Spell and Persistent Spell.

Get a standard Metamagic Rod of Extend and a 6th level Pearl of Power. Every other day prepare Energy Immunity (SC) twice and cast it on yourself three times, using the pearl to recover one, extending all three with the rod so they each last 48 hours. On the days in between prepare Energy Immunity once and Superior Resistance (SC) once, cast each and use the pearl to recover and cast Energy Immunity a second time, again extending all three with the rod so they each last 48 hours. For two 6th level spell slots each day this will give you constant immunity to all five energy types and a +6 Resistance bonus on all saving throws, and don't forget to share it with your companion. Be sure to wait until you're about to rest to cast those, so if they get dispelled you can have everything back up by the next morning.

So far i have:
Human Druid (5)/Planar Shepherd (9)

Str:10 Dex:15 Con:16 Int:14 Wis:19 Cha:12

Feats: Natural Spell, Greensinger Initiate, Frozen Wild Shape, Assume Supernatural Abilities, Dragon Wild Shape

ACF's: Urban Sense (1st), Voice of the City (1st) and Heat Endurance (4th)

What are people's opinions of this build and what items should i buy for it? I haven't spent any gold yet.

You're a Planar Shepherd, don't waste your feats on Wildshape Forms; PS provides you with all you could ever want, complete with Spell-Likes. This obsoletes the whole Frozen Wildshape/Dragon Wildshape/Assume Supernatural Ability-line and then some.

Items...well, read my last post.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

You're a Planar Shepherd, don't waste your feats on Wildshape Forms; PS provides you with all you could ever want, complete with Spell-Likes. This obsoletes the whole Frozen Wildshape/Dragon Wildshape/Assume Supernatural Ability-line and then some.

Items...well, read my last post.

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True... didn't think about that... especially since i attuned myself to the plane of dreams.

thanks loads for your help

ok. so i swapped Frozen Wild Shape and Dragon Wild Shape for Extend Spell and Greenbound Summoning.

On those levels, Rashemi Elemental Summoning has more implications. Also, Assume Supernatural is equally useless; you could pick some other feat in its stead.

if you took aberrant wildshape, assume supernatural is silly

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Originally Posted by Malbordeus

if you took aberrant wildshape, assume supernatural is silly

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He took Planar Shepherd. He can turn into anything with Ex, Su & SLAs. Everything else is silly including Shapechange.

The only reason i took Assume Supernatural was because i thought i still didn't get their abilities. Where is Rashemi Elemental Summoning from?

And what are your ideas about quicken spell?

:smallfrown: I want to play in a such a high optimization level game; though I am sure if I would play in such a game I would be really outclassed.....

Now to try to make this post useful.... maybe get a monk's belt with a wilding clasp??

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Originally Posted by Malbordeus

oh, purely for giggles - persisted Call of stone. *hides*

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He'd need to get Ocular Spell first, since the range on Call of Stone isn't fixed.

Also, as was pointed out in response to a question I asked in the Q&A thread, you can dip 1 level of cleric to get Divine Metamagic and apply that to your druid spells. If you pick up Craft Rod, you can make your own Nightsticks, too.

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Originally Posted by Dusk Eclipse

:smallfrown: I want to play in a such a high optimization level game; though I am sure if I would play in such a game I would be really outclassed.....

Now to try to make this post useful.... maybe get a monk's belt with a wilding clasp??

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i got a Belt of Battle (with Clasp) for the extra actions in the combat. Would you recommend Monk's Belt instead?

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Originally Posted by gomipile

He'd need to get Ocular Spell first, since the range on Call of Stone isn't fixed.

Also, as was pointed out in response to a question I asked in the Q&A thread, you can dip 1 level of cleric to get Divine Metamagic and apply that to your druid spells. If you pick up Craft Rod, you can make your own Nightsticks, too.

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May have to look into Cleric later in this build... the only thing i'm not sure about is the crafting costs.

Edit: and what about Initiate of Nature Feat?

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Originally Posted by mobdrazhar

i got a Belt of Battle (with Clasp) for the extra actions in the combat. Would you recommend Monk's Belt instead?




May have to look into Cleric later in this build... the only thing i'm not sure about is the crafting costs.

Edit: and what about Initiate of Nature Feat?

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I think belt of battle is a better option than monks belt (unless you can combine them, IIRC as of the MIC you can just add the price of both items and have all of the abilities of both items.

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Originally Posted by mobdrazhar

May have to look into Cleric later in this build... the only thing i'm not sure about is the crafting costs.

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The Nightstick is on p.78 of Libris Mortis.

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Originally Posted by mobdrazhar

The only reason i took Assume Supernatural was because i thought i still didn't get their abilities. Where is Rashemi Elemental Summoning from?

And what are your ideas about quicken spell?

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Rashemi Elemental Summoning is Unapproachable East; gives you some fun nuke elementals to summon. Quicken Spell is always good.

Oh, another way to get persist is the feat set: Hidden Talent + Psycarnum Infusion + Midnight Metamagic. That lets you apply all of your metamagic feats you want to all of your spells at once without increasing their spell level at all.

What if i took Initiate of Nature instead of Assume Supernatural Abilities. For the Turn Plants abilities and then 2 Cleric and DMM at lvl 16?