The Horsiest Horse

[Serpentine]

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The party has been directed to a tribe of centaurs to get a piece of the map they need to get through the underdark. The centaurs will be willing to give them the piece, but only if the party does something for them: acquire enough horses, preferably including the stallion, from the nearby herd of (very rare and very new in this part of the world) horses to make a viable breeding herd. Trouble is, this herd is guarded by the powerful and very protective horse-druid (beastiality squickiness by the druid being one of the stallion's mares, optional).

So, basically, I need an extremely horsey druid-type character, and I could use some ideas for it.
Can be almost any race, except not centaur and not, for example, a werehorse or similar (this area is based on the Americas, and horses have only just been introduced - no room or time for werehorses to have sunk in).
The main thing I have in mind is that it should be able to stay in horse form almost, or actually, all day and night, and should be able to cast spells and things while in horse form.

The party is 6 level 13s - according to the d20srd encounter calculator, an effective party level of 14 and a bit - so the Druid should be about level 16. I'm open to ways to raise the encounter level, although the Druid's probably too protective to, say, send the horses to attack the party.

Any thoughts?

Bonus: Anyone fancy building a native American (Mohawk, maybe) themed centaur tribe for me?

[Runestar]

I don't have the time or patience to stat up an entire camp for you, so here's all you get.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20041015b

A web enhancement about a wemic (basically tiger-equivalent of centaurs) camp, but should be compatible with centaurs.

Also, if you want a backstory for your horse druid (and the horses), here's one.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20051114a

Will think about the druid and see what inspiration strikes me.

[Fouredged Sword]

Both varrients from the SRD together will give you +20ft move speed at 1st level, very horselike. Then take some levels of ranger, posibly getting more speed and the endurence feat.

Then get the run feat.

[Runestar]

I am thinking that a typical high lv druid would suffice. The article I linked has some nice suggestions like taking mounted combat and using a bow, but I am not sure how significant they would be in fleshing out the druid.

Easiest would be a straight human druid16 with natural spell. If you want a little more exotic, an awakened animal might do the trick, or even a nature-themed creature like nymph (with additional lvs in druid or a prc that advances spellcasting).

Or dragons. Maybe make it a metallic dragon with lvs in druid? Then maybe in a generation or 2, we will start seeing half-dragon horses? Using non-associated class lvs, a young adult brass dragon druid11 would be cr16?

[Parra]

Anthropomorphic Horse that lead his fellow horses to the 'new world' to escape the oppression of horses in the 'old world' With a twist that his 'animal' companion is some humanoid that he carries around the place.

[Flickerdart]

What's wrong with Awakened Horse? Horses have good Wisdom (+2) so just give him some PB, Druid levels (non-associated, so you can stick Druid 16 on top of an Awakened Light Horse and get about CR16) and you're all set. Nonverbal Spell (PlH) means he can whinny up spells instead of chanting them, if you want him to not learn to speak for some reason.

[Urpriest]

I'm seconding the Nymph idea. A Nymph Druid 9 would have just enough Wild Shape HD to turn into a Dire Horse (MMII), but not enough to turn into something dramatically more powerful (and hence make the horse form implausible and/or unoptimized).

If there's some way to boost the HD cap by two, the Legendary Horse has 18 HD.

[Serpentine]

Hokay, I think I'm liking the ideas of the nymph Druid and the awakened horse, and I'm now thinking of having them both. I'm also thinking I'd like to have several other creatures involved, on their side, as well. Maybe, say, the Druid and her partner have been performing some experiments in breeding with some of the horses. In that case, what are some templates I could apply to these horses and/or monsters that look like horses? Preferably ones that at least look like normal horses at a casual glance or until they do something not so horsey.

[Urpriest]

Greenbound and Woodling are both decent Druid-y templates that you can fluff to look a lot like the base animal before they start shooting vines all over the place.

[Serpentine]

Hokay!
I'm running this tomorrow so I'd really better get cracking... Anyways.

I've finished making the nymph Druid. Can post the whole lot if anyone's really interested, but basically she's a horse totem Druid who turns into a light warhorse, celestial light warhorse, dire horse, unicorn and pegasus (latter two thanks to a feat). Feats are all wild shape-enhancing, spells are mostly support and battlefield control.

But now I'm on to the awakened horse companion... And I'm indecisive :/
What I know is that he's the nymph's mate, he's a big tough dire horse (but appearance-wise toned down), and he's blasty and weather-oriented-leaning. But I'm not sure where to go from there.
I've been looking at the Storm Druid variant in Dragon Magazine #328. Loses everything from the Druid except nature sense, resist nature's lure, venom immunity, a thousand faces, timeless body and spell casting. Instead it gets spontaneous casting (various weather-related spells each level), deafness immunity, frightful presence (vs. animals only), thunder strike (electricity + thunderclap on a successful melee attack), wind sense, electricity resistance and improved initiative.
The Thunder Strike ability makes me think this could be a tanky melee character, but I'd still like him to be blasty and dramatic. Annnd... I'm not sure how to build a decent melee spellcaster :/
I don't have my heart set on the Storm Druid, either. So... Uh... Yeah, indecision.

I guess my questions are more or less these:
- Do I want to take Storm Druid?
- If so, do I want to emphasise the melee side or the blasty spellcasting side, or is it possible to do both?
- Whichever I choose, what's the best way to do it with a horse?
- If I don't want Storm Druid - and, presumably, stay away from the melee aspect - what else should I use?

[Fouredged Sword]

Can't go to far off with swordsage. See if your DM will let you reflavor Desert Wind in to Storm Wind or something. Just change all the fire damage to electrical damage.

[Serpentine]

*ahem*
I am the DM This is for an encounter.

And I don't think Swordsage works. At the very least, I want him to be able to do things like call lightning and similar, at least a few times a day.

[drakir_nosslin]

(beastiality squickiness by the druid being one of the stallion's mares, optional)

Cannot unread

Besides that... I got nothing, sorry.

[Serpentine]

Yes, that's very helpful, thanks

Anyone got anything else? I'm meant to be running this in 16 hours...

[Urpriest]

You can probably emphasize both the blasting and the melee: have the guy lay down some weather-based battlefield control, then charge in and thunder hoof people to protect his mare.

[Serpentine]

Are there any prestige classes, feats or other options that enhance a melee Druid or natural attacks in general?

[drakir_nosslin]

Are there any prestige classes, feats or other options that enhance a melee Druid or natural attacks in general?

Warshaper perhaps? Or you might want to multiclass with totemist for some deadly melds.

EDIT: For feats there's always improved natural attack, not the best there is but it's an improvement.
If you want you can let damage stack with a monk's unarmed strike and give the druid a monk's belt.
EDIT2: Totemist handbook, here you can find some good tips on how to deal a lot of damage if you want.

[Fouredged Sword]

How about a 2 level dip in swordsage. You can at least get a stance and put all your strikes in lightning reflavored desert wind. Your horse strikes lightning with every step of it's hooves, and can strike blows that explode with electricity, even throw lightning a short distance.

Then go druid or anything else, posibly a 1 level dip in warblade for some iron heart and another stance.

Totemist or Incarnate could be an interesting concept. There are lots of lighting theamed melds, and pegusus cloak would allow for limited flight (and be horse theamed). I think there is a totemist meld that adds lightning damage to natural weapons, and I know there is lightning gauntlets for incarnate.

How many levels do you want to add to the horse?

[Serpentine]

Warshaper perhaps? Or you might want to multiclass with totemist for some deadly melds.

Warshaper's a nice idea, but Storm Druid drops wild shape.

EDIT2: Totemist handbook, here you can find some good tips on how to deal a lot of damage if you want.

I was about to ask you where Totemist is. I'll check that out.

How about a 2 level dip in swordsage. You can at least get a stance and put all your strikes in lightning reflavored desert wind. Your horse strikes lightning with every step of it's hooves, and can strike blows that explode with electricity, even throw lightning a short distance.

Maybe... I'll consider it.

How many levels do you want to add to the horse?

Not sure. Dire horse gets 8d8 HD with all-good saves, so that may be worth keeping, but if I want I can just replace them with class levels. A total of about 14 HD, though - perhaps a bit more if I'm keeping the animal HD, so about 6-14ish...

[Fouredged Sword]

I would strongly consider totemist or swordsage if you want to keep the racial HD, as the abilities gained by those classes are increased by the racial HD.

Meldshapers have essence capacities based on thier HD, not class level.

martial classes gain 1/2 non martial class levels to thier initiator level (allowing you to take higher than normal abilities)

Druid would suffer from those racial HD painfuly. 6 levels of druid isn't really worth that much at 14th level.

If you are going to drop the racial HD, druid is a much more powerful class (but you already have a druid, so I think something else may be interesting)

[Serpentine]

Gack! I like the look of the Totemist, but it's full of stuff I've never used before >.<
Can someone give me a quick, simple rundown of chakras and essentia and all that jazz? If I can't handle it quickly - like, within the next half-hour, say - I'll probably just go full Storm Druid and work with feats and items and stuff instead.

edit: Seriously. I'm reading the words, but they mean absolutely nothing to me in game terms. Binding chakras? Soulmelds? Essentia? Whut.

[Ivellius]

Chakras = meld slots. If you have something shaped on your hands, you can't add another meld to your hands. If you bind something to your hands, you get an additional bonus from the meld but lose the ability to wear magic items on your hands (i.e., gloves or gauntlets).

Essentia = floating energy pool. You can mix up where you put it every round as a swift action. Essentia points make melds more powerful.

Also, you get different numbers of melds and "open" chakras (i.e., you can bind to them) depending on what class you take.

That's the really quick version.

[drakir_nosslin]

I don't have the book here and it was a while since I used it but it's something like this:

Soulmelds: These take up the same type of slots as magic items, but as long as you haven't bound it to a chakra you can use an item at the same time. They provide bonuses or unique abilities to a meldshaper. You pick soulmelds from a list and each morning you pick wich ones you want to use for the day.

Essentia: This is used to power your soulmelds, the more essentia you invest into a soulmeld the more power it gains. IIRC you can shift 1 essentia/round or something like that. Your HD or level (can't remember) decides how much essentia you can bind to a single soulmeld.

Chakra: You can bind a soulmeld to your chakra to increase it's power or gain a second, better ability. Binding a soulmeld means that the slot can't be used by a magic item (binding a meld to your throat chakra means that you can't use a necklace for example)

Totemist's gain a special chakra called the Totem chakra that can be used to gain some pretty cool abilities such as pounce, at-will teleporting, awesome ranged combat, petrifying gazes etc.

Hope that helps, if you got any more questions I can go get the book

[Serpentine]

That's a good start. Thanks guys.

[Fouredged Sword]

You have a chakra in every magic item slot

Hands - gloves
Brow - hat/crown
Sholders - cloak
feet - boots

there are something like 7 of them.

A totemist at level 6 should have the least and their totem chakra ( a special chakra that acts a little difrent) open.

A meld is a magic item like effect that has a set of effects.
-First just having a meld shaped provides a benifit (bonus to skill check, teleportation, AC bonus, DR).
-Second they have a bonus that scales with the amount of essence you have invested in the meld (sometimes it is the base bonus that scales, sometimes not)
-Third a Meld can be Bound to a item slot, makeing that slot no longer useable by magic items. This provides another bonus that may or may not scale with essence. Othertimes this changes the function of the base bonus (letting you use the effect as a lower action mostly)

Now forming, investing essence, and binding soulmelds can't be done as much as you want. There are several restrictions on what can be done.
-First you have a limited number of soulmelds you can SHAPE at a time, based on your class level (refer to the chart of each class)
-Second you have a limited amount of TOTAL essence determined by your class (and there are some feats that grant extra). This can be destributed to any of your soulmelds as a swift action. You can completly redrestibute your essence as you wish at any time. Essence isn't lost when it is destributed. Think of it as diverting magic power between your effects.
-Third you can only put an amount of essence in a single meld based on your HD. There is a chart in the begining of chaper 2 (i think) showing this. It doesn't matter what thos HD are from for this list, just that you have them.
-Fourth you have a limited NUMBER of BINDS you can form based on your class levels. Also you have a limited SELECTION of BINDS also based on class level. Pick them wisely.
-Fifth all soulmelds occupy a slot even of they are not bound. Only one soul meld can occupy a slot at a time. A magic item can be in that slot if the meld isn't bound, but not another soulmeld. There is a feat to get around this.
-Sixth soulmelds can only occupy a particular slot or slots based on the soulmeld. Some have lots of options, others can only sit in a single slot with no options.

As a totemist you have a extra bind slot not avalable to any other class and not associated with a item slot. The totem chakra can't have a soulmeld occupy the slot, but may have a soulmeld BOUND to that slot (the soulmeld still occupies another slot, preventing a second soulmeld from sitting there). Totem binds get some extra goodies (based on totemist levels) and are generaly powerful effects.

A meld is shaped every morning when you prepare then for the day, and can't be changed.

I would pick out a set of melds for the NPC and just leave them that way.

[Serpentine]

Hokay. Thanks a lot for the help, and the Totemist definitely looks interesting, but after all that I've decided against it. Sorry guys.
That makes my questions these: what feats, possibly items, and prestige classes are there that would enhance a Storm Druid - spellcasting melee-fighter, Dragon #328? And also, what options are there for doing without items? I mean, they're just horses...

edit: Oh, and I'm just gonna smoosh together the Druid and animal HD - keep the dire horse saves, go with Druid everything else.

[Fouredged Sword]

Horses have all the slots a human has for items.

Horseshoes for boots, bridle for necklace, armor for armor, forleg guards for bracers ect.

Horseshoes of leaping and strideing come to mind, as well as an ironwood brestplate of ease (allowing for medium loads to not slow them down and sleeping in armor). A monkey trained in ride with a bridle of battle makes for an interesting (if cheezy) defence.

For feats, set him up as a charger. There is precedent for letting horse like creatures have the ability to use mounted feats as if always mounted. If so ride by attack and spirited charge are great feats.

The feat Shape soulmeld (impulse boots)(I think, may have the wrong soulmeld. Look in the soulborn list for it. Stuns on a charge) may also be up your ally if you want to taste soulmelds without the class issues. Take extra essence and open chakra (boots) if you are able. (stun on a charge attack)

[Serpentine]

I know they have the slots for items, it's just the idea of a bunch of wild horses covered in bling... It doesn't sit right with me. I'm not adverse to any items though, and I guess I could always refluff things into horseshoes (as you said), mane and tail decorations and the like...

edit: Side-question: how does multiple attacks interact with having... uh... multiple attacks?
i.e. This Dire Horse Druid has a base attack of +10/+5, and on a full attack has 2 hooves and a bite. Does it get two lots of the two hooves and a bite with the second lot at -5 attack, like so: 2 hooves +19/+14 melee and bite +14/+9 melee?

[drakir_nosslin]

Raiment of the Stormwalker (MiC) fits the theme, though it's probably too expensive.
Power attack + leap attack + lance makes for a pretty good charger.
Take quickened spell and prepare a quickened obscuring mist charge in and (hopefully) deal a lot of damage. Cast mist and retreat under cover then charge in again.
EDIT: Make a custom item (necklace perhaps?) that casts Divine Power once a day on the wearer to improve the BAB, makes for an even better charger.

[Serpentine]

How's a horse gonna carry a lance?