Druid of the Air: Blasting with Storms

[MesiDoomstalker]

Soon I'll be starting up a game in a homebrew world where continents float in an air-ocean, airships are a thing (and we'll eventually obtain one). I decided now would be the best time to play a Druid (why I have no idea). I've been kicking around the idea of playing a Air-focused Druid, however the GM restricted races, so I can't take my go-to Raptoran. We are doing an amalgam of 3.5 and PF. I know PF races and we get to pick and choose weather our classes are 3.5 or PF (but that decision is only for ourselves. PF Druids and 3.5 Druids both exist). It seems the races I can choose from are the typical races (Human, Elf, etc) and a number of the anthropomorphic animals in PF (Ratfolk, Catfolk, etc). I decided on Tengu, if only for the bird flavor.

Anyways, I've never played a Druid before, and I'm going to try and focus on my Air theme. I'm going to take the Storm Druid Archetype, which gives me quite a few flavorful and useful additions, but beyond that, I'm not sure what to do. I'm not even sure what good [Air], [Electric], and [Sonic] spells are on the Druid list. I just know they have a lot.

[Red Fel]

I'm going to speak to 3.5 content, because I know it just a bit better than I know PF.

Let me start here. That thread went into a lot of storm-related stuff, but the big two takeaways from that thread, for your purposes, are these:

• Mark of Storms
• Stormlord

The Mark of Storms is a Dragonmark from the Eberron setting, which means that your DM might not allow it. It is embodied in several feats (such as Least/Lesser/Greater Dragonmark) and PrCs (Dragonmarked Heir and Storm Sentry). The various levels of Dragonmark grant you various weather-related SLAs, which the feats and PrCs allow you to diversify and use multiple times a day. The remarkable thing is that, with a handful of feats and levels, and an item, you can conjure a 720' radius tornado that lasts about three hours, once per day. You want wrath of weather? You've got it. Note that the Mark of Storms is exclusive to Half-Elves, so that might require you to reconsider your Tengu choice.

The Stormlord is a PrC from Complete Divine. It requires divine casting, which you have as a Druid; it also requires you to worship Talos, which may be a problem, as he's a CE deity. (You can easily refluff Talos to fit your setting-local CE storm god, but still.) The benefits of the class are manifold: 10/10 divine casting, increasing resistance and eventual immunity to electricity, the ability to imbue spears and javelins with the shocking burst and thundering properties, the ability to use Storm of elemental Fury 1/day, and my personal favorite, the ability to ignore the various impeding effects of storms, magical and natural, including his own. Later, he can actually fly in them.

Now, the prereqs of Stormlord are steep; further, while it's great for casting, it does nothing for a Druid's Wild Shape progression or similar elements. But if your focus is on creating a storm rather than becoming an air elemental, it's pretty nice.