Being Everything: Eggynack's Comprehensive Druid Handbook

[Thurbane]

speech pearl is cheaper

Pearl of Speech is specific to one language: does that include verbal spell components?

[eggynack]

Also remember that enhance wild shape allows taking of Plant forms and you can be affected by different effects from the list simultaneously via multiple castings, making Kelp Anglers available to Druids at 11, Boar Topiary Guardians at 7, and certain other forms sooner than 12.

True, I suppose. Not sure if that necessitates adjustments.

Extract water elemental (Spell Compendium 86): This Druid6 and Sor/Wiz6 spell does d6 nonlethal damage per caster level (max 20d6) with SR: Yes and a Fort save for half. If you kill the subject with this spell, and this subject lacks the [Fire] subtype, you get a Water Elemental of the same size from this subject's corpse (max Huge) for 1 minute. It's a unique 2fer spell.

Seems kinda mostly bad. Like, it's a super overleveled blasting spell with occasional upside, and said upside could quite plausibly be nothing or very little, depending on target and situation.

Summon greater elemental (Spell Compendium 214): This Druid6 spell summons a Greater Elemental (water/air/fire/earth) for Concentration (max 1 round per level + 1 round) and otherwise lets you access Greater Elementals sooner. No SNA-linked bonuses though, like from Ashbound.

Decent, but the costs seem too big for the upside. Huge to greater is a reasonable buff, but the lack of spontaneity, the wonky duration, and, as you noted, the loss of synergies aren't ideal.

In the free online (3.0) adventure "An Icy Heart", there's a new magic item called the Amulet of Freedom of Speech:

...would this allow a Druid in Wildshape to cast spells without requiring the Natural Spell feat?

It'd clear the verbal components hurdle. You'd still need to clear the material and somatics components hurdles, but there's ways. Seems great though. Like a less wonky but more expensive pearl of speech.

[Endarire]

Thomils from Rashemi Elemental Summoning have the spiffy Engulf (Ex) ability which lets them eat smaller creatures (sometimes without a save!) then Earth Glide into a wall, ceiling, or floor and just trap a foe there. It's like being eaten and buried alive - 20' or more under!

[eggynack]

Thomils from Rashemi Elemental Summoning have the spiffy Engulf (Ex) ability which lets them eat smaller creatures (sometimes without a save!) then Earth Glide into a wall, ceiling, or floor and just trap a foe there. It's like being eaten and buried alive - 20' or more under!

I'm a bit skeptical that this would work that way. Being inside your rocky body doesn't confer the capacity to travel through rock to your victim, so while there doesn't seem to be anything stopping you from earth gliding while engulfing someone, the logical result of this would be the engulfee popping out of your body. It's a cool idea though.

[Endarire]

Earth Glide: I understood this to be like inside something while it's swallowing a victim. ("Engulfed creatures are considered grappled and trapped within the thomil's body..." -Thomil template) The Earth Elemental entry had nothing saying Earth Glide was self-only.

Orglash: Higher HD forms mean higher caster levels for SR-beating purposes. And whirlwind DCs.

Thomil: Higher HD forms mean higher caster levels for SR-boosting purposes. And engulf DCs.

These might make summon greater elemental worthwhile as a level 6 prepared spell.

[eggynack]

The Earth Elemental entry had nothing saying Earth Glide was self-only.

It has nothing saying it's not self-only, and nothing implying that sharing is an intrinsic part of the universe of this ability. Earth glide says it lets the earth elemental swim through rock and such. That does not imply in the least that it lets things holding or held by the earth elemental swim through rock, and engulfing in and of itself doesn't change that.

[Endarire]

Exalted Wild Shape says other [Good] Magical Beast forms generally of CR3 or below are available at GM discretion. What such creatures exist? (A quick scan of Monster Manuals 2-5 and the Planar Handbook and Fiend Folio and maybe others) and found nothing fitting this. (I don't count applying templates and the feat seemingly doesn't either.)

[eggynack]

Exalted Wild Shape says other [Good] Magical Beast forms generally of CR3 or below are available at GM discretion. What such creatures exist? (A quick scan of Monster Manuals 2-5 and the Planar Handbook and Fiend Folio and maybe others) and found nothing fitting this. (I don't count applying templates and the feat seemingly doesn't either.)

Dunno. I haven't put any work into finding them, cause they couldn't really go into the handbook. A monsterfinder search noted the elysian thrush from the planar handbook. Seems kinda mostly useless. However, it's notable that the feat doesn't limit the expansion to [good] magical beasts, but rather just says magical beasts, and those magical beasts presumably have to be good. So, that adds the senmurv from the fiend folio. Also kinda useless seeming. So, not much.

[Endarire]

I also considered the Elysian Thrush from Planar Handbook but found it not worthwhile. The Senmurv is something to use when you want to surprise your group with your Exalted Rainbow Owl Wolf Form. Mechanically, it's meh.

What about the Vanara race from Oriental Adventures 16? I heard Oriental Adventures content was updated in a "Dragon" magazine to 3.5, making it questionably legal in many places, but the base Vanara has:

-No LA!
-2 STR, +2 INT & WIS
-30' walk speed, 20' climb speed
-Other misc. stuff that probably won't matter to a typical Druid in Wild Shape.

[Endarire]

For feats, what about Open Least Chakra (Magic of Incarnum 39), especially Shedu Crown (Magic of Incarnum 85) for 100' telepathy? It solves all/most of the wild shape speech problem and opens Mindsight (Lords of Madness 126).

[Darrin]

What about the Vanara race from Oriental Adventures 16? I heard Oriental Adventures content was updated in a "Dragon" magazine to 3.5, making it questionably legal in many places, but the base Vanara has:

-No LA!
-2 STR, +2 INT & WIS
-30' walk speed, 20' climb speed
-Other misc. stuff that probably won't matter to a typical Druid in Wild Shape.

Dragon #318 removed the ability score adjustments. Yes, they are LA +0, but are now mostly "meh".

[bekeleven]

I guess this falls under wild shape? Bloodline breath weapons work in alternate form.

[Endarire]

What Small/Medium/Large Animal forms accessible by Druid8 are amphibious?

[Troacctid]

What Small/Medium/Large Animal forms accessible by Druid8 are amphibious?

All of them, if the Druid has the Amphibious template!

[jmax]

What Small/Medium/Large Animal forms accessible by Druid8 are amphibious?

Do you need truly amphibious, or is water-competent sufficient?

Strictly speaking, you never retain amphibiousness with Wild Shape unless you also use the enhance wild shape spell because, while Alternate Form (on which Wild Shape is based) grants you the Aquatic subtype when applicable, Wild Shape doesn't grant you special qualities. Per the Aquatic subtype text, Aquatic creatures can't breathe air unless they have the "amphibious" special quality - and you don't get it regardless. It's a weird limitation of the type system.

That said, I would expect most DMs to be lenient on that front and allow you to survive both in and out of water if you take a form that would be amphibious in nature.


In terms of the forms themselves, Core has no size-appropriate amphibious animals. The toad is amphibious, but it's too tiny. Monster Manual II has a Dire Toad. Dungeon Magazine 126 has a Killer Frog. And I think that's it for stuff with listed specs.

If you're willing to branch out to Real Life, try the Chinese Giant Salamander, which is solidly within size limits. There are other largish amphibians which would probably qualify, but stat-wise none of them is likely to be any better.


If you merely want forms that are capable on both land and in water, your options are much greater. Any statted Animal from Small to Large with both a land speed and a swim speed will do. Pick your favorite real-life water-competent animal bigger than a house-cat and go to town. A hippopotamus (Sandstorm p193) is slow but terrifying and just fits your hit-dice limit. Draw from real-life as well - but you'll have to create stat-blocks for a lot of things, and you should get your DMs approval on your stat judgments before trying to use them.

Finally, any non-Aquatic animal becomes amphibious (if not necessarily a competent swimmer) with water breathing. Heart of water from Complete Mage also adds nice swimming and other benefits.

[jdizzlean]

In your guide, you list Mage Slayer as a great feat for an animal companion, but the feat requires 2 ranks in spellcraft as a pre-req, how do you get around that?

[ApologyFestival]

In your guide, you list Mage Slayer as a great feat for an animal companion, but the feat requires 2 ranks in spellcraft as a pre-req, how do you get around that?

Animal companions gain skill points as they advance--a whopping one per level. Since Spellcraft is not a class skill for any printed animal, an animal companion which has gained four additional hit dice can get two ranks in Spellcraft by investing into the skill cross-class. You can also consider giving it a feat that makes Spellcraft a class skill (such as Apprentice) or Open Minded for extra skill points. Or, uh, Nymph's Kiss, but don't do that. It's creepy.

If that seems a bit of a waste, consider that there's not really anything better to spend their skill points on, and that the Mage Slayer tree is really good.

[jdizzlean]

awesome, thanks, i missed where they get skill pts :)

I'm thinking of just arbitrarily going mage slayer line and VoP for all animal comps :)

[jmax]

Animal companions gain skill points as they advance--a whopping one per level. Since Spellcraft is not a class skill for any printed animal, an animal companion which has gained four additional hit dice can get two ranks in Spellcraft by investing into the skill cross-class. You can also consider giving it a feat that makes Spellcraft a class skill (such as Apprentice) or Open Minded for extra skill points. Or, uh, Nymph's Kiss, but don't do that. It's creepy.

If that seems a bit of a waste, consider that there's not really anything better to spend their skill points on, and that the Mage Slayer tree is really good.

awesome, thanks, i missed where they get skill pts :)

I'm thinking of just arbitrarily going mage slayer line and VoP for all animal comps :)

While indisputably legal by rules as written, having an animal companion (or any animal, really) take Spellcraft or any skill that requires critical thinking is pretty dubious from a rules-as-intended perspective. Don't be surprised if your DM throws books at you. EDIT: See further down the thread for a citation from the Monster Manual that provides non-Rule-Zero grounds for a DM to reject this.


Be careful with Vow of Poverty (or Vow of Anything) on an animal as well - a clever adversary could trick your faithful friend into breaking its vow by yelling "fetch" and tossing a Masterwork stick. If you're using pedantic technicality to justify your build, be prepared for pedantic technicality to be used to fight it.

Of course, if your DM is totally cool with tricking out your animal companion this way, it's a non-issue. Unless your fellow players are jerks :-P

[Hiro Quester]

While indisputably legal by rules as written, having an animal companion (or any animal, really) take Spellcraft or any skill that requires critical thinking is pretty dubious from a rules-as-intended perspective. Don't be surprised if your DM throws books at you.

One argument would be that an animal does not have enough intelligence to take certain skills. Plus there is this in the monster section under skills:

Natural Tendencies
Some creatures simply aren’t made for certain types of physical activity. If it seems clear that a particular creature simply is not made for a particular physical activity, that creature takes a -8 penalty on skill checks that defy its natural tendencies.

In extreme circumstances the creature fails the check automatically.

Some DMs would see a 3 or lower intelligence as lacking the mental aptitude for certain skills. An animal taking skill ranks in spellcraft as about equivalent to taking ranks in Speak Language; you cant get your horse to speak Common by having it take two cross-class ranks in Speak Language.

The animal just does not have the natural tendency/intelligence/aptitude to take certain skills, like spellcraft or speak language. That would be like a warhorse taking ranks in "Sleight of Hand" or "Use Rope".

In other words, animals just are not intelligent enough to be able to distinguish between a person speaking common while swatting at a fly and a wizard making the verbal and somatic components of a fireball spell.

[Troacctid]

One argument would be that an animal does not have enough intelligence to take certain skills. Plus there is this in the monster section under skills:


Some DMs would see a 3 or lower intelligence as lacking the mental aptitude for certain skills. An animal taking skill ranks in spellcraft as about equivalent to taking ranks in Speak Language; you cant get your horse to speak Common by having it take two cross-class ranks in Speak Language.

The animal just does not have the natural tendency/intelligence/aptitude to take certain skills, like spellcraft or speak language. That would be like a warhorse taking ranks in "Sleight of Hand" or "Use Rope".

In other words, animals just are not intelligent enough to be able to distinguish between a person speaking common while swatting at a fly and a wizard making the verbal and somatic components of a fireball spell.

I would hesitate to call Spellcraft a physical activity.

I don't think it breaks verisimilitude for an animal to be trained to sniff out magic.

[sleepyphoenixx]

While indisputably legal by rules as written, having an animal companion (or any animal, really) take Spellcraft or any skill that requires critical thinking is pretty dubious from a rules-as-intended perspective. Don't be surprised if your DM throws books at you.


Be careful with Vow of Poverty (or Vow of Anything) on an animal as well - a clever adversary could trick your faithful friend into breaking its vow by yelling "fetch" and tossing a Masterwork stick. If you're using pedantic technicality to justify your build, be prepared for pedantic technicality to be used to fight it.

Of course, if your DM is totally cool with tricking out your animal companion this way, it's a non-issue. Unless your fellow players are jerks :-P

Animals can't take VoP anyway. It requires being good and animals are neutral.
The only way to get VoP on an animal companion is using the Exalted Companion feat, which gives it the Celestial template. And that has a minimum Int of 3, removing the issue.

One argument would be that an animal does not have enough intelligence to take certain skills. Plus there is this in the monster section under skills:


Some DMs would see a 3 or lower intelligence as lacking the mental aptitude for certain skills. An animal taking skill ranks in spellcraft as about equivalent to taking ranks in Speak Language; you cant get your horse to speak Common by having it take two cross-class ranks in Speak Language.

The animal just does not have the natural tendency/intelligence/aptitude to take certain skills, like spellcraft or speak language. That would be like a warhorse taking ranks in "Sleight of Hand" or "Use Rope".

In other words, animals just are not intelligent enough to be able to distinguish between a person speaking common while swatting at a fly and a wizard making the verbal and somatic components of a fireball spell.

Spellcraft on an animal companion is a "ask your DM" question.
I'm on the side that says "well, training your dog to recognize spellcasting sounds doable" because really, it's not much more complicated than some of the other tricks animals can learn.
It's certainly not the most complicated thing dogs can be trained to do in RL if you go for the "but realism" argument. Dogs can certainly learn to distinguish between words.
And recognizing spellcasting is really all that 2 ranks in spellcraft will accomplish with 2 Int, so it's not like your riding dog will suddenly match an archmage in theoretical knowledge.

But if your DM says no, animals can't learn that then that's fine too. But you should at least ask since there aren't many better feats for your AC to learn.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I would hesitate to call Spellcraft a physical activity.

I don't think it breaks verisimilitude for an animal to be trained to sniff out magic.

That's a good point; dogs can find drugs, explosives, people, some kinds of contraband... why couldn't animal companions find certain types of magic? And with there being no Sense Magic skill, Spellcraft is the obvious candidate (besides the usual Spot/Listen/Survival, which don't work on all spells).

[jmax]

One argument would be that an animal does not have enough intelligence to take certain skills. Plus there is this in the monster section under skills:

Natural Tendencies
Some creatures simply aren’t made for certain types of physical activity. If it seems clear that a particular creature simply is not made for a particular physical activity, that creature takes a -8 penalty on skill checks that defy its natural tendencies.

In extreme circumstances the creature fails the check automatically

Some DMs would see a 3 or lower intelligence as lacking the mental aptitude for certain skills. An animal taking skill ranks in spellcraft as about equivalent to taking ranks in Speak Language; you cant get your horse to speak Common by having it take two cross-class ranks in Speak Language.

The animal just does not have the natural tendency/intelligence/aptitude to take certain skills, like spellcraft or speak language. That would be like a warhorse taking ranks in "Sleight of Hand" or "Use Rope".

In other words, animals just are not intelligent enough to be able to distinguish between a person speaking common while swatting at a fly and a wizard making the verbal and somatic components of a fireball spell.

I stand corrected - it is absolutely disputable, just not with resources available in the Player's Handbook.

I would hesitate to call Spellcraft a physical activity.

I don't think it breaks verisimilitude for an animal to be trained to sniff out magic.

That's a good point; dogs can find drugs, explosives, people, some kinds of contraband... why couldn't animal companions find certain types of magic? And with there being no Sense Magic skill, Spellcraft is the obvious candidate (besides the usual Spot/Listen/Survival, which don't work on all spells).

I was thinking about that earlier today but ultimately decided it wouldn't necessarily work. All of the things you can train a dog to detect function from its sense of smell. The rules don't specify that magic inherently has an identifiable scent, so that may not be inherently workable. You could certainly ask the DM to make magic work that way, though. It doesn't really resemble Spellcraft, but while you're asking for house-rules anyway the DM can easily edit the feat's prerequisites.

Alternatively, instead of skills, you could ask for the creation of a new feat that as its benefit allows for qualifying for Mage Slayer. This gives it a feat tax, but since the basis of this discussion is finding things to spend animal feats on anyway, it's not as big a problem as it would be for a PC.

Animals can't take VoP anyway. It requires being good and animals are neutral.
The only way to get VoP on an animal companion is using the Exalted Companion feat, which gives it the Celestial template. And that has a minimum Int of 3, removing the issue.

Helm of Opposite Alignment might be able to fix that. 50-50 shot to go from Neutral to an extreme. If it comes up evil, take it off and put it back on. (Once used for the first time, though, it doesn't look like you can flip from the LG/CE track to the CG/LE track or vice versa.) Given the risk that your animal companion may briefly become Chaotic Evil, you may wish to muzzle it first :-P

[jdizzlean]

For feats, what about Open Least Chakra (Magic of Incarnum 39), especially Shedu Crown (Magic of Incarnum 85) for 100' telepathy? It solves all/most of the wild shape speech problem and opens Mindsight (Lords of Madness 126).

it opens the chakra, but it doesn't give you the ability to specifically bind one that you don't already know, so you'd have to gain the soulmeld some other way in order to then bind it. You could do Shape Soulmeld as a feat, but now you're up to 2 of your feats spent for arguably very poor return.

otherwise, this would go from just ok, to super awesome on the utility scale, a feat for free 100' telepathy, and +1 to Will saves to boot

[sleepyphoenixx]

Helm of Opposite Alignment might be able to fix that. 50-50 shot to go from Neutral to an extreme. If it comes up evil, take it off and put it back on. (Once used for the first time, though, it doesn't look like you can flip from the LG/CE track to the CG/LE track or vice versa.) Given the risk that your animal companion may briefly become Chaotic Evil, you may wish to muzzle it first :-P

The helm loses its magic after working once. It's right there in the description. So you'd potentially have to buy several, assuming cursed items can be bought in your campaign.
It also doesn't strike me as particularly good to force a cursed item onto your animal companion, but that's something to take up with your DM.
As is the question of the Helm even being able to affect animals, who are explicitly neutral because they lack the capacity to be good or evil.

And of course there's also the problem of allowing something with animal intelligence to make a sacred vow in the first place.
Exalted companions get around that because they gain Int 3, but normal animal companions don't.

[jmax]

The helm loses its magic after working once. It's right there in the description. So you'd potentially have to buy several

Sorry, I forgot that bit. However, you'd only need at most 2 to get your animal companion to Good because it's always a direct opposite unless you start out Neutral.

Most importantly, though, this was meant to be tongue-in-cheek rather than a serious suggestion - although I still maintain that a case can be made for it working.

As is the question of the Helm even being able to affect animals, who are explicitly neutral because they lack the capacity to be good or evil.

Do you have a citation for them being incapable of having alignment changed? There are counter-examples: Zombies are mindless and always Neutral Evil, so intelligence doesn't seem to be a guaranteed factor. The Animal type description does list "always neutral" among traits, but it also says "unless otherwise noted in the creature's entry" before listing the traits, which implies they can be changed.

Not rules-relevant, but I would also argue that certain animals in real life definitely exhibit alignment traits. There was a study in which 60 outdoor house cats were equipped with GoPro cameras to record their behavior when humans aren't around. The behavior exhibited was decidedly Chaotic Evil. (Notably, this may only apply to cats in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia - more research is needed to extrapolate to all house cats.)

And of course there's also the problem of allowing something with animal intelligence to make a sacred vow in the first place.

Many domesticated dogs put protecting their families ahead of all else - while not a spoken vow, the behavior seems to fit the pattern.

Vow of Poverty, on the other hand, is pretty questionable. Certainly the animal isn't going to understand the implications of its vow - though it's worth noting that people in real life enter contracts they don't understand all the time. When was the last time you read an End-User License Agreement for any software before using it?


I do think that trying to give an animal companion - or any other animal - Vow of Poverty is at best silly and and worst futile. But mechanically one can make a plausible argument. I don't consider it a particularly good argument, and I expect the animal to break the Vow unintentionally and lose the benefits in a matter of minutes, but it's plausible. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should :-P

[Endarire]

Using enhance wild shape once or twice lets Druids access Plant forms (and their special qualities on the second casting) early. Shambling Mound and Myconid Sovereign come online this way at Druid8!

Eggynack: It would be very handy if all listed Wild Shape forms had in their entries a chart with the creature's HD, STR, DEX, CON, and natural armor so people could, at a glance, compare forms.

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

Thankee, Eggynack, for making such a comprehensive and spiffy guide! It inspired me to make a similarly-thorough Druid guide for another game (Incursion) which is a Roguelike based on D&D's open gaming license (OGL).

Thus, I bring you Being Nearly Everything: An Incursion Game Guide Focused on Druids! Incursion's Druids are also that game's most powerful class. (If this topic warrants a separate thread, someone will put that there.)

[Baby Gary]

I was just reading through the spell section and I found a small typo. In the description of the 0th level spell Foraging Charm, you wrote "epect" which I is a typo.

P.S. thanks for this awesome handbook; I think it has helped make druids by my favorite class