Class building aid for a newbie

[johnsoma]

My friend recently got me into D&D, and is setting me up on a crash-course solo campaign. It will be starting at level 1, and all he told me is that I will be preventing an apocalypse, sounds fun. Considering the circumstances, I think it would be good to be able to handle several different roles. For this, a Druid class seemed like the best choice.

I've done some basic reading of the handbook of the druid's abilities and my current strategy is to have magic be primarily support and summon based, while keeping direct combat pretty much exclusive to when I am in wildshape. To that end, strength and dexterity do not seem to be that important (said friend told me about the change in polymorph mechanics in handbook 2), while constitution, intelligence, and wisdom are.

All I really need to know right now is if I seem to be on the right track with my planning and if there are any good tips for building a druid. To start, I'll list some things that caught my eye in the handbook.

Wildshape: obvious.
Natural Spell: I'm fairly certain that this is golden. Spells while wildshaped? Yes please.
Spontaneous casting w/ summon nature's ally: I think I can use this to get some pseudo-allies if problems arise.
Concentration: since this is a solo, I will definitely need to be able to easily cast. So I'll work on this.
Spellcraft: I know my friend to love throwing traps in his campaigns. I will want this in that case.

Anything else?

[Godskook]

1.There's only 2 ways to deal with traps. Reserve feats and trap-monkey skill checks. If you're going Druid, trap-monkey is on the short list of things you can't do well, so reserve feats are your source of fixing this issue. Summon Elemental is your best tech here, but doesn't come online until level 9. Acidic Splatter comes online at level 3, but you'll need to go out of your way to have an acid spell, while Druids 'default' on summoning spells.

2.You sound like you've got 'basics' down pat, so that's a good start.

3.What're character generation rules with your DM? Which books, which options, etc, etc.

[Darrin]

Spontaneous casting w/ summon nature's ally: I think I can use this to get some pseudo-allies if problems arise.

Get your hands on some Golden Desert Honey (Complete Mage p. 136) ASAP. This allows you to "quicken" your conjuration (summoning) spells to a standard action. It's expensive, but since the honey is actually tree sap, it's non-magical vegetable matter, and thus you can make lots of it via psionic minor creation (via the Hidden Talent feat or the party's psionicist), or by summoning a djinn (paying for a SMVII = 910 GP) to use his major creation SLA.

Ring of the Beast (Complete Champion p. 141) should also be on your "must get" list. "Heightens" your SNAs, so you can get more bengals for your buck.

Also, check out the conjure ice beast spells in Frostburn. This gives you access to both the SNA and SM lists of creatures. Although it strips out all the SAs and SQs, you can pick some interesting SAs in return: "engulf", particularly with the large- and huge-sized centipedes, and "cold aura", a 10' burst of 1d6 cold damage as a free action with no save (you can create multiple ice beasts for Xd6 damage, no save). Ask your DM if, "In all other ways, conjure ice beast I functions like summon monster I" means that you can use Augment Summoning or Ring of the Beast with these spells.

Even if you're only going to use summons occasionally, be considerate of the other players. Summons immediately bog down combat and the rest of the group often has to sit there bored out of their skulls while you spend 10 minutes looking for the stats for a "dire platypus" or whatever. Create a library of "stock" summons with stats, scratch sheets for HP, etc. so you don't bring the entire game to a halt whenever you want to summon some cannon fodder.

Feats:
Once you get Natural Spell at 6th, it doesn't really matter what feats you take, but there are a few options for 1st- and 3rd-level feats. The general advice is:

1) Spell Focus: Conjuration (useless to you, but an important prereq)
3) Augment Summoning

If you want to focus more on battlefield control, then I would recommend:

1) Extend Spell
3) Sculpt Spell

However, druids generally don't have easy access to metamagic-reducers like Divine Metamagic or Incantatrix, so stick to low-level metamagic feats and save up for things like Circlet of Rapid Casting and metamagic rods.

Traps:
Getting Trapfinding on a druid chassis can be tricky... but the best method is probably take some Planar Druid substitution levels for Knowledge (the Planes), take the Planar Touchstone feat, and link it to the Catalogues of Enlightenment for access to the Kobold domain power. If you're familiar with Magic of Incarnum, you can also use Shape Soulmeld and Open Least Chakra to get the Theft Gloves soulmeld. The Kobold domain is better, however, since it gives you Search and Disable Device as class skills as well.

If not, get your hands on the Fabulous Four items: Collar of Perpetual Attendance for unseen servant at will, Gloves of Object Reading to detect traps by touch, Stone Dragon Belt to "disable device" the old fashioned way, and Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments to create really bizarre work-arounds out of thin air.

[johnsoma]

Update on the campaign: My friend decided that a solo campaign was a bit too much for a first time player like myself, so he will be joining me as what he calls a DM PC. I don't know what he'll use, but this changes things. I think I'll stick with my original strategy for now, though.

Pretty much anything is fair game as far as books go, the one exception being that fleshrakers, both summoning and wildshaping into them, are banned (makes sense, I looked them up, and their stats and abilities are sky high compared to other creatures of their level). I think it's ultimately up to my friend the DM what I get in the campaign as far as items, but I'll keep those suggestions in mind if I find them.

My friend isn't telling me what he'll use for some stupid reason (he knows what I'm using), but we can guess. My friend is the kind of guy who looks for ways to break game mechanics, both for fun and profit, so what classes out there both work with a balanced druid and offer ways to exploit game mechanics?