Working on a flame druid idea


Advice


So, I've been feeling like making a druid that is as far from plants & animals as possible. So I've decided to try to build a fire druid. The only fixed conditions I have are the following:

1) Must take fire domain (ash subdomain)
2) Must be able to use "flame blade" to moderate effectiveness (preferably with dex so as to best use fire elemental form)
3) Must be able to FIREBALL effectively

For the moment, here's the plan:
Class: Druid (archetype?), fire (ash) domain
Race: ? (probably human, though I'm open to ideas)
Stats (20 pts) (pre-racial)
Str: 10 Dex: 14 Con: 14 Int: 12 Wis: 16 Cha: 8

Traits: Magical lineage (fireball), ?

Feats:
1 Weapon Finesse
2
3 Dervish Dance
4
5 Natural Spell
6
7 ?
8
9 Intensify Spell
10
11 Empower Spell
12
13 ?

Any ideas?


Well, while there is some degree of debate about it in terms of wildshaping, the elemental subtype does include a condition that humanoid shaped elemental gains simple weapon proficiency. So, following that line of logic, elementals are substantial enough to use weapons (and maybe wear armor, but that is a separate issue).

Using this as the basis of your design, why not focus on turning into a fire elemental? That turns wildshape into something similar to a rage like ability for a dex based character. And you could go large to get more reach, which is always a decent tactic in its own right.

And if you ONLY use wildshape to turn into an elemental...would you need natural spell? This is another subject of debate- if you are humanoid in shape, and you can speak a language, then is there anything stopping you from casting normally?

Shadow Lodge

For extra fun with Metamagic traits, take Wayang Spellhunter[Flame Strike]

For Race, Gnome is a decent choice for fire-based casters, getting a +1CL to fire spells with the Pyromaniac option.

As a few feat ideas, Spell Focus[Evocation] or Elemental Focus[Fire] are both good choices, and if you can find a way to raise Int to 13, you can get Spell Specialization[whatever].


Better to focus on strength instead of Dex -- two feats to get ok damage, that could have been spent on weapon focus and power attack instead to do much better damage.

Scarab Sages

With Fire domain you only get one fireball per day. The druid archetypes that allow you to spontaneously cast domain spells don't include the fire domain or it's subdomains. However, Druid does have a lot of great fire spells in it's own right.


Just in case you missed it, one thing to keep in mind is that the Flame Blade scimitar doesn't use strength to boost it's damage, so Dervish Dance will do nothing but boost it's attack. Also since the blade just needs to hit Touch AC you really don't need a high attack roll in most cases.

Shadow Lodge

Suma3da wrote:
Just in case you missed it, one thing to keep in mind is that the Flame Blade scimitar doesn't use strength to boost it's damage, so Dervish Dance will do nothing but boost it's attack. Also since the blade just needs to hit Touch AC you really don't need a high attack roll in most cases.

Says the Gunslinger as s/he walks into a room full of high-level Crane Style monks...


EvilPaladin wrote:
Suma3da wrote:
Just in case you missed it, one thing to keep in mind is that the Flame Blade scimitar doesn't use strength to boost it's damage, so Dervish Dance will do nothing but boost it's attack. Also since the blade just needs to hit Touch AC you really don't need a high attack roll in most cases.
Says the Gunslinger as s/he walks into a room full of high-level Crane Style monks...

As I said..."in most cases". How often does a Druid find themselves walking into a room full of hostile Crane Style Monks?


Suma3da wrote:
EvilPaladin wrote:
Suma3da wrote:
Just in case you missed it, one thing to keep in mind is that the Flame Blade scimitar doesn't use strength to boost it's damage, so Dervish Dance will do nothing but boost it's attack. Also since the blade just needs to hit Touch AC you really don't need a high attack roll in most cases.
Says the Gunslinger as s/he walks into a room full of high-level Crane Style monks...
As I said..."in most cases". How often does a Druid find themselves walking into a room full of hostile Crane Style Monks?

*shudders* Too often ;p


@ lemeres: That's a debate that is still open. For the moment, I'll consider that elemental form inhibits spellcasting.

@ Paladin of baha-who: As I said, I am focusing on the flame blade (and not the actual scimitar). If I want to use the flame blade with dex to attack, dervish dance is necessary, since scimitars arent otherwie finessable. Power attack dont apply anyway, so...

@ Imbicatus: I thought spells on your domain list allowed you to prepare domain spells in any slot (and not just the domain slot)?

Shadow Lodge

williamoak wrote:

@ lemeres: That's a debate that is still open. For the moment, I'll consider that elemental form inhibits spellcasting.

@ Paladin of baha-who: As I said, I am focusing on the flame blade (and not the actual scimitar). If I want to use the flame blade with dex to attack, dervish dance is necessary, since scimitars arent otherwie finessable. Power attack dont apply anyway, so...

@ Imbicatus: I thought spells on your domain list allowed you to prepare domain spells in any slot (and not just the domain slot)?

Domain wrote:
If a domain spell is not on the cleric spell list, a cleric can prepare it only in her domain spell slot.


Become a Samsarans and take the following alternate racial trait:

Mystic Past Life (Su)
You can add spells from another spellcasting class to the spell list of your current spellcasting class. You add a number of spells equal to 1 + your spellcasting class's key ability score bonus (Wisdom for clerics, and so on). The spells must be the same type (arcane or divine) as the spellcasting class you're adding them to. For example, you could add divine power to your druid class spell list, but not to your wizard class spell list because divine power is a divine spell. These spells do not have to be spells you can cast as a 1st-level character. The number of spells granted by this ability is set at 1st level. Changes to your ability score do not change the number of spells gained. This racial trait replaces shards of the past.

This will add it to your class spell list. Not really sure if this is what you would be looking for or not.


Mystic Past Life probably doesn't work for Fireball as it's an Arcane spell (only on arcane spell-casting lists). That said, if you're a Divine caster with access to it once per day as a domain spell, it would be reasonable for a DM to say that Mystic Past Life allows you to prepare it in non-domain spell slots. But that's probably a house-rule.

That said, why bother? Flamestrike is a 4th level spell for Druids that caps at 15d6 damage. Sure, it's got a smaller radius, but you don't need to intensify it, so it might save you a feat if you make this your primary damagespell. Also, the spell deals half divine damage which is a lot better for when you have to deal with fire resistance. (It's the most common resistance/immunity, so being able to deal half damage when it comes up is a hell of a lot better than being able to deal no damage.)


2 levels of Pathfinder Savant PrC (Arcane Savant on d20) gives you the Esoteric Magic ability which lets you choose a spell from any spellcasting class and put it on one of his base spellcasting class's spell lists. This won't be until lvl 7 at the earliest, mind you. So a Druid 5/Savant 2 will be able to take the Fireball spell and put it on his Druid spell list. You still won't be able to spontaneously cast it, but you can at least prepare it.

Scarab Sages

Kazaan wrote:
2 levels of Pathfinder Savant PrC (Arcane Savant on d20) gives you the Esoteric Magic ability which lets you choose a spell from any spellcasting class and put it on one of his base spellcasting class's spell lists. This won't be until lvl 7 at the earliest, mind you. So a Druid 5/Savant 2 will be able to take the Fireball spell and put it on his Druid spell list. You still won't be able to spontaneously cast it, but you can at least prepare it.

Spells not on your list gained through Esoteric Magic are treated as one spell level higher. It's not worth a two level dip into a PrC that costs a caster level to get fireball as a 4th level spell when you can just cast flame strike.


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The Naga Aspirant Archetype give fireball as spell known. So a human (racial heritage) Naga Aspirant may become interesting, even if you loose your elemental shapeshifting.


I wouldn't even mess around with more than the 1 domain fireball anyway. Flaming Sphere is a druid spell and with Wayang Spellhunter and Magical Lineage on it that means Dazing Flaming Sphere is a 3rd level spell. I would rather have 1 Fireball and 2 Dazing Flaming Spheres (that I can drop for SNA III) than be able to memorize 3 Fireballs in the first place.

Fireball is the best blast spell because huge area + long range + 3rd level is exactly what you want. You don't need it though. Flaming Sphere, Flamestrike and Fire Seeds are all good spells that can be situationally better than Fireball that you already get, I wouldn't stress over not having #1 when you have #1 once/day and #2-#4 however often you memorize them.


I believe you could fill your higher-level domain slots with metamagicked fireball, if you wanted.

Scarab Sages

Paulicus wrote:
I believe you could fill your higher-level domain slots with metamagicked fireball, if you wanted.

You could. You could even prepare a non-metamagiced fireball in them if you didn't have a metamagic feat. Probably not worth it, but it's an option


I guess I should focus on flame strike. Hm. Sad about domain spells though. Oh well. I think I should focus on flame strike then. Flame strike & flame blade.

Sczarni

I would second focusing on Strength as well, and save yourself some feats. Weapon Finesse is of dubious use anyway, but to have to take two feats just to get DEX to attack isn't worth it.

I know you want to take advantage of the +DEX bonus you get from assuming Fire Elemental form, but you don't have to Dervish to do that. The DEX bonus will help your attack rolls when making thrown attacks with Produce Flame, as well as just boosting your AC and Reflex saves. You can even just go with 10 DEX, secure in the knowledge that you'll get a bonus when in elemental form.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

fire elemental grant dexterity and con, but no strength bonus.


once again another thread that proves paizo sorely missed out on druid archetypes. I mean sure there are Lion Shamans and Saurian Shamans and eagle, Bear, Ape, Wolf Shamans. But WHERE IS MY FREAKING ELEMENTAL SHAMAN ARCHETYPE?


I considered the blight druid archetype for my fire druid, flavoring her aura as smoke & such. Takes a little working with your party to get them inured each day though.


there is a feat that allow oyu to memorize domain spells.
take it.
take elemental spell.

Dark Archive

I wanted a flame based character and defaulted to druid-and I was so disappointed that I learned about the oracle class and have not looked back.

It is a shame that flame blade does not work with dervish dance. You could still do some neat things with it, though.

Gnome pyromaniac.
Druid x/ Crossblooded sorc 1. (Draconic, and orc).
Magical Lineage (flame blade), Wayang SpellHunter (Flame Blade).

Feats to grab:
Arcane Strike
Extra Traits (Adopted-Aasimar-Pyromancer, Reactionary or elemental affinity),
Dazing Spell
Sickening Spell
Burning Spell.
Mages Tattoo (Evocation).

Wear Blazing Robes.

The flame blade is at +3 caster level and ignores up to 2 metamagic level adjustments and is capable of sickening, dazing and/or burning any target you hit with it.

At fifth level the flame blade would deal:
1d8 +2 bloodlines, +1 pyromancer, +1 Arcane Strike, +3 Caster Level.
So 1d8+7 and you could attach a metamagic feat on top of it for any additional effect. The damage would scale with level eventually doing 1d8+18 with multiple status effects. Not sure if there are magic items to make it better. The good news is that your fire spells have a boosted caster level and the metamagic feats still apply to them.

Not really sure what to do about the dervish dance/finesse option. It sucks that you can't do it (we could add 3-5 more damage before wildshape) and that does sound pretty cool.

If you were interested in multiclassing, I'm certain that we could go nuts with flame blade and still get decent casting and a very obvious theme of fire. Or build some crazy distantly related character concept that dips and min/maxes its way to flame blade and elemental optimization.

Anyway, best of luck making it work. I feel your pain about dervish dance.


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What about:
Preferred Spell (Fireball)?

Does that work for a domain-only spell?
If yes, you can use any spell slot above and incl. 3rd level to spontaneously cast fireball. Including metamagic!

Okay, you need heighten spell as a prereq.


The Preferred Spell feat or Naga Aspirant are your best bet for fireball.

Dazing flaming spheres are pretty lethal!

Lantern Lodge

666bender wrote:

there is a feat that allow oyu to memorize domain spells.

take it.
take elemental spell.

I don't think the Elemental Spell feat does what you think it does:

"Benefit: Choose one energy type: acid, cold, electricity, or fire. You may replace a spell’s normal damage with that energy type or split the spell’s damage, so that half is of that energy type and half is of its normal type."

Scarab Sages

What I have done as a house rule that worked very well is to allow the Urban Druid to take the fire domain. Urban, Storm, and Tempest Druids have the ability to spontaneously cast domain spells, and fire can be one of the building blocks of civilization. Gathering around a communal fire is a theme that works with the Urban Druid. However, it doesn't work for PFS.


I dont know if said feat actually exists, just clarifying the previopus posters post.

And still Paizo refuses to answer why they never made an elemental shaman.


I already said it: preferred spell is the name of the feat in advanced players.

Preferred Spell
You find it very easy to cast one particular spell.
Prerequisites: Spellcraft 5 ranks, Heighten Spell.
Benefit: Choose one spell which you have the ability to cast. You can cast that spell spontaneously by sacrificing a prepared spell or spell slot of equal or higher level. You can apply any metamagic feats you possess to this spell when you cast it. This increases the minimum level of the prepared spell or spell slot you must sacrifice in order to cast it but does not affect the casting time.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a different spell.

Scarab Sages

Perferred Spell lets you do it with one spell, yes. But there isn't a feat that allows you to prepare all domain spells in regular slots.

Digital Products Assistant

Removed a post and the replies to it. Personal jabs about reading comprehension aren't helpful. Take a moment to remember there's another person on the other side of the screen. Thanks!


you cant just remove my post and not answer the elemental shaman question...its not fair.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

you could get heritage feats to get elemental bloodline and get real fiery and fire resistant.


Dotting.

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