Dr octo-druid?

[GureiKun]

Hey all

So for an upcomming game me and some friends have decided to play druids - all of us. None of us have before but we decided to go all treehuggin.

So we have also each picked an element - im water.

Ive fallen in love with the idea of a dark brooding druid with a bulbous cloak which turns out to contain his animal companion - an octopus!!!

However i have no clue how to nmake this work - and how to make it maximally effect effective thereafter.

Ideas?
=)

[Imbicatus]

I would go with a domain. An all druid party will have a lot of companions and summons, so anything to keep the combat moving is best. That said, if you want to be octopus related, have you seen monktopus?

[tsuruki]

Theres an item, i forget if it was listed as mundane or magical, that is a self sustained water pouch for companion storage. Just a little material feed for Octodruid

[Avoron]

If you do want an octopus animal companion, your first challenge will be letting it breathe. You'll probably need an iridescent spindle ioun stone, which can sustain creatures without air. I'm not sure it would necessarily work with water-breathing creatures, but I think most GM's would allow it. Your other option would be to do something weird like keep it in a water filled bag of holding or strapping a decanter of endless water to its back, both of which would probably not work well.

Assuming you can find a way to let it breathe, there are some cool things you can do with it. Most of these involve the Evolved Companion feat. This takes up feat slots and isn't the most optimal choice, but if you're using an octopus animal companion, then you deserve to have some fun with it, regardless of gaming power:

You could have an octopus that has a 10 ft reach with its tentacles for great grabbing of foes (combines well with the Combat Reflexes feat for the octopus).

You could have an octopus that can can get another (damage dealing) tentacle attack for every feat the druid spends. This octopus could also potentially pounce.

You could have an octopus that can serve as a mount for a small sized character with Undersized Mount.

[Atarlost]

If your theme is water the tempest or storm druid archetypes are worth looking at.

[boring7]

I'm going to assume you have access to the necessary money, if you don't you'll just have to wait until you do.

First, the Bag of Holding full of water works, so go with it. Have the bag mounted in a cut-down Masterwork Backpack frame and have the Octopus treat you like a mount and attacks from the bag.

Now, you'll want it to be good at grappling, so have use the monster advancement rules in the Bestiary to get it up to medium size (or use a Large-sized Giant Octopus if the DM allows it). You may or may not get 10 foot reach with medium (you get no reach with small, 20 foot reach with Large, *quizzical shrug*) but try for it.

You'll probably have to decide if it's freshwater or salt water, but that's campaign specific.

In keeping with your idea, you have a big billowing cloak and smell of mildew (you have to cycle the water fairly regularly) and when combat starts you dramatically throw off you cloak, the tentacles come out, and large-eyed schoolgirls scream in terrorcombat begins. If the DM allows it you might Awaken the octopus and start giving it fighter levels for mounted combat feats (this is highly unlikely to be allowed).

You might need an enchantment on your cloak with an illusion spell to get the full effect.

Now, stat-wise, you're making things up, basically ALL of this requires DM approval (especially fighting from inside a bag of holding) but an animal companion that usually sits on your shoulders is fairly self-explanatory. It fights from higher ground (your back), it attacks normally, and it doesn't go anywhere. The back and backpack may have to be specially enchanted to remain attached when you wild shape into a giant frog or something, and whenever there's water around you try to make the fight happen there.

[Avoron]

Even the largest bag of holding can only hold about 24 cubic feet of water (because it's so heavy), as compared to the total space of 250 cubic feet inside of it. Even if the water were all gathered into one place, most octopuses would have a hard time living in an area of water smaller than a 3x3x3 cube. This could work for a very small octopus, though, if it weren't for the second problem with using a bag of holding in combat: if any sharp object pierces it, then the bag is ruined, and your octopus is gone forever.

That said, you don't have to make up any stats, really. There are stats for an octopus animal companion, which is small sized. You can't just increase the size of an animal companion unless the 4th or 7th level advancement specifies that, which it does not, for the octopus. If you want a 10ft reach (which I agree, would be really fun), that's what the Evolved Companion feat is for.

If you want things like mounted combat feats, you don't need to ask the GM if you can Awaken it and then actually give it class levels. If you use one of the animal companion ability score increases on its intelligence, then when it gets feats when you level up it will be able to take any feat it can physically use.

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

This is a job for

MONKDOPUS!!!:

lternately, Monkthulu as suggested by BadBird
Half elf, human, half orc, whatever... just something with a str bonus. Level 12 (20 pt)
Druid 4, Monk (Master of many styles) 3, Barbarian 5
(seems weird, but follow me here. Take Monk first.)

Str: 22 (+2 race, +2 levels, +2 belt)
Dex: 14 (+2 belt)
Con: 16 (+2 belt)
Int: 10
Wis: 19 (+1 levels, +4 headband)
Cha: 8

Feats:
Monk:
1: Dragon Style, Imp. Unarmed Strike
2: Dragon Ferocity
3: Weapon Focus (Tentacle)
Druid
5: Feral Combat Training
7: Shaping Focus
Barbarian:
9: Monastic Legacy
11: Power Attack or extra rage

Gear:
+1 impact amulet of mighty fists
+2 ring of protection
+1 Brawling leather armor
+2 belt of physical perfection
+3 cloak of resistance
+4 headband of wisdom
+3 bracers of armor
Monk's Robes
everything else is butter.

Features:
Fast Movement +20 (barb and monk stack)
Rage
Rage Powers: Superstition +3, Reckless Abandon +2 to hit, -2 AC
Uncanny Dodge
Trap Sense +1
Improved Uncanny Dodge
AC Bonus +3/+4 wisdom
Unarmed Strike
Stunning Fist
Evasion
Maneuver Training
Still Mind
Spontaneous Casting
Nature Bond
Nature Sense
Wild Empathy
Woodland Stride
Trackless Step
Resist Nature's Lure
Wild Shape, as level 8 druid, 3/day

So here is the schtick... your form of choice is a Giant Lake Octopus... it still has a 20ft. land speed, so you can move around just fine.

With monastic legacy you count as a level 7 monk for unarmed strike damage, and with monks robes, you count as +5 more for total of level 12. So your unarmed strike damage is 2d6. When you shape, you are huge, so it becomes 4d6. With your impact amulet, it becomes 6d6.

You are also getting +3 ac from monk levels and +4 from wisdom, so that is bonus. The extra weirdness here is that brawling armor property still functions while you are shaped, but you are technically not wearing armor because it merges, so you get the best of both worlds.

So, the idea is this... the Octopus gets 8 tentacle attacks, but their damage is generally pretty low...since you are able to sub in monk damage, you can make it fairly high, and these are all at full bab.

DEFENSES:
HP: 104 (7d8+5d12+36 con, +5 FCB(barb))
Rage HP: 128
AC: 22 (10, +3 monk levels, +4 wisdom, +3 bracers, +6 natural armor, -2 size, -2 reckless, -2 rage, +2 ring)
Rage/Shape Saves: Fort: +20 Ref: +11 Will: +18

OFFENSES:
So wild shape bonuses: +6 str, -4 dex, +6 nat armor
Rage bonuses: +4 str, +4 con, -2 AC

Attack bonus is then: +21 (+9 BAB, +11 str, +1 amulet, +1 focus, +2 armor, +2 reckless abandon, -3 power attack, -2 size)
Damage for each tentacle is: 6d6+20 (+11 str, +2 armor, +1 amulet, +6 power attack)
Your bite is still only +19 since it doesn't benefit from FCT, and hits for 3d6+16

Your full attack looks like this:
Tentacles: +21/+21/+21/+21/+21/+21/+21/+21, 6d6+19
Bite: +19, 3d6+15

If everything hits, you can slap a target for a total of 51d6+176, That is 354.5 average damage if they all hit, with a maximum of 482. you can rage for 15 rounds, which should get you through a lot. Take extra rage at 13th and you will be up to 23 per day which should be more than enough.

Tentacles have 20 ft reach... so just sit back and Kung-fu octopus your way to victory

[prototype00]

Note: The tentacle attacks of a giant lake octopus are its secondary natural attacks. (Its bite is the primary natrual attack)

Sure, you get 8 of them, and you get to do your monk unarmed damage with them (with feral combat training), but they are all at -2 to hit and 1/2 strength to damage.

prototype00

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

prototype00 wrote:

Note: The tentacle attacks of a giant lake octopus are its secondary natural attacks. (Its bite is the primary natrual attack)

Sure, you get 8 of them, and you get to do your monk unarmed damage with them (with feral combat training), but they are all at -2 to hit and 1/2 strength to damage.

prototype00

I'm assuming all of this is true. The Monkdopus is just one of my favorite absurd concepts and I bring it up at every opportunity.

[prototype00]

Sure, sure. The OP is asking for advice though, so I thought it might be politic to bring up the drawbacks.

prototype00

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

prototype00 wrote:

Sure, sure. The OP is asking for advice though, so I thought it might be politic to bring up the drawbacks.

prototype00

Fair enough and much appreciated.

[GM_Solspiral]

Why Choose between a domain and an animal companion when you can have both?

As your GM if he'll allow the primal blooded bloodlines to take the Sylvan bloodline at 3rd level. Take Human and the alternate race trait that gives you 3 skill focus feats for your free feat. Take Eldritch HEritage at 3rd for your Octipus.

For Domains take River )flowing is very decent as a domain power and your get Hydrolic push which is a good spell swap.

The octopus has a land speed so I'd argue you just need to keep it wet once an hour or so so make sure create water at the ready.

I'd take a 1 level dip into Oracle on a feat level. It gets you a revelation and you can use subsequent feats for "Extra Revelations" and typically revelations trump the power of feats. Good options are available that meet the theme in the Waves Revelation and a number of the revelations do not specify oracle level meaning they get better. Also curses advance albeit at a slower rate.

One thing a fairly intelligent Octopus companion could be good for is weapon swaps and attacks of opportunity. Worn outside a pack on a moist cloak it could reach and grab wands for you. Put a point into Int for the companion to make sure it can take any skill and at some point put an evolved companion feat into Skilled- for UMD to add a +8 to UMD. Now your octi cloak can be a worn wand caster.

These are just thoughts, hope they help

[Avoron]

An octopus has a land speed, but it also has the aquatic subtype, which means that it can't breath air. It would need to hold its breath, even if it's a little bit wet. Assuming it's not in combat and isn't attacking or something like that, it could hold its breath for about 3 minutes before needing to roll Constitution checks. If it is in combat and is taking standard or full round actions, it could only hold its breath for less than 90 seconds before needing to roll Constitution checks. These times will increase if the octopuses Constitution score increases, but never to the level that a character wouldn't need to regularly immerse the octopus in water. In combat, 90 seconds is a lot of time, so it might be feasible to lug around a barrel of water for the octopus to crawl in and out of, but if something happened to the barrel and a character with create water was otherwise occupied or had no container to store the water in, then the octopus could suffocate and there would be nothing anyone could do about it.

Use Magic Device seems like a wonderful idea for the octopus. You could also do some pretty cool things if you got an at will magic item for the octopus, like a Ring of Telekinesis or a Rod of Wonder.