(PFS) Best Domain for a Wildshape Druid?


Advice

Grand Lodge

I've heard that the conventional wisdom is to take an animal companion if your druid intends to go with wildshape. However, I'd rather not have to deal with the hassle of tricks, determining AC stats and all the other things my first attempt at a druid deals with.

Having a domain would also help with having enough spell slots even without a phenomenal wisdom score, and Handle Animal skill points could go elsewhere.

I'm looking at this for stats at Level 1:

Race: Half-Orc
Alternate Racial Traits: Toothy, Sacred Tattoo

Traits: Fate's Favored, ???

STR 17, DEX 14, CON 12, INT 10, WIS 16, CHA 7

Feats: Toughness

At higher levels I'll invest in Wild Bone Full Plate (+8 Armor Bonus that carries over to Wildshape) while having picked up Heavy Armor Proficiency along the way. An Amulet of the Mighty Fist will also keep my character's natural attacks (and their bite attack outside of wildshape) relevant. When outside of wildshape they'd have a Heavy Wooden shield equipped and bite enemies that get too close, leaving him with a free hand for spellcasting. Obviously the Level 4 Ability increase would go to strength.

Sczarni

I took the Blight druid archetype, which allows for the destruction domain.

At lvl 8, all of my party's crits shall be automatically confirmed!

(Monsters' crits against us as well, but that's what a Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier is for!)


Goliath Druid can grab the Rage subdomain. If you want to turn into a Velociraptor and rip and tear it sounds good.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Early on the Growth (subdomain of Plant) works pretty well.

http://www.archivesofnethys.com/DomainDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Plant Same stuff as plant domain but you replace wooden fists with swift Enlarge Person and add Enlarge Person to your list, which is useful early on.

Plus you could always buy a L club (cost freex2 = still free). While Enlarged you don't take the attack penalty and buff with Shillelgah for a nice 3d6+str+1 attack with reach.


I was going to say Animal with the Feather Subdomain, but that gives you an animal companion too.

I know Saurian Shaman, the Shaman most everyone seems to like, gives some nice domains.


Lion gives the perfect glory domain...
Add lvl to all cha checks, hetoism for the tiger summons and more.

Saurian add destruction that work well.

Fire gives fire balls...

Scarab Sages

Crocodile gives a familiar that is useful in combat and sneak attack, as well as some good animal form buff spells.


Ms. Pleiades wrote:

I've heard that the conventional wisdom is to take an animal companion if your druid intends to go with wildshape. However, I'd rather not have to deal with the hassle of tricks, determining AC stats and all the other things my first attempt at a druid deals with.

Having a domain would also help with having enough spell slots even without a phenomenal wisdom score, and Handle Animal skill points could go elsewhere.

I'm looking at this for stats at Level 1:

Race: Half-Orc
Alternate Racial Traits: Toothy, Sacred Tattoo

Traits: Fate's Favored, ???

STR 17, DEX 14, CON 12, INT 10, WIS 16, CHA 7

Feats: Toughness

At higher levels I'll invest in Wild Bone Full Plate (+8 Armor Bonus that carries over to Wildshape) while having picked up Heavy Armor Proficiency along the way. An Amulet of the Mighty Fist will also keep my character's natural attacks (and their bite attack outside of wildshape) relevant. When outside of wildshape they'd have a Heavy Wooden shield equipped and bite enemies that get too close, leaving him with a free hand for spellcasting. Obviously the Level 4 Ability increase would go to strength.

Toothy, Sacred Tattoo cant be taken same time... both replace same ability.

Grand Lodge

No one has pointed it out yet, so I will.

Call Lightning and Call Lightning Storm become stronger when around large air elementals in whirlwind form. This means, you can wild shape into an air elemental, go whirlwind and call down some awesome smite power.

As such, my vote would be Air or Weather (and maybe storm subdomain) to gain the spell on domain. However, I would also go Storm Druid to gain spontaneous casting for the domain spells.


Here is an interesting approach- Cave Domain (the terrain one, not the earth subdomain one) for its tremor sense. And then focus on making an armed and armored earth elemental.

It may seem like a weird suggestion, but apparently, according to elemental subtype, elementals gain simple weapon proficiency if they have a humanoid shaped form. While wildshape doesn't grant you the subtype, it does grant you basic feature of the form (such as hands). Thus, it is entirely possible to use weapons as an elemental.

Now, this might go against the common logic for druids of being able to turn into anything, anytime... but imagine just sticking with a single, powerful form, and then getting equipment to fit that form (as in you would simply buy large bone armor, instead of waiting until you could get the wild enhancement). The large earth elemental seems like the perfect form for buff vs. usage (huge elementals might have problems fitting into dungeons). As such, you could turn into one for the entire day. Heck, you have hands and the ability to speak (elementals have a language), so there should not be too many problems even in daily life.

+6 str and natural armor is nothing to sneeze at. And you will have large sized reach and the ability to use scimitars (18-20/x2) or spears (they hit like greatswords when you are large). And let us not forget that you also gain DR 5/- and immunity to crits, sneak attacks, and bleed at level 10.

And with tremor sense, you could earthglide without too many problems. The lack of tremor sense is pretty much the single flaw with earth elementals in the elemental body spell.

Overall, while this lacks the flexibility of the traditional way druids are used, it has many advantages while keeping a similar level of power in offense, defense, and tactical abilities that should be more than enough to let you keep up.


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I agree with lemeres that earth elemental forms are great, especially if you use a reach weapon for that 30 foot reach, then Combat Reflexes and maybe even Whirlwind Attack. And since earth elemental Wild Shape gives you earth glide but not tremorsense, that would definitely be helpful.

The Desert Domain is also quite nice. It gives you 20% miss chance from concealment for 3+Wis rounds/day. That can help shore up the issue of having a d8 hit die as a front line fighter, and it's activated as a free action, so it doesn't interfere with your combat performance. It's best for dwarves and half-elves using the favored class bonuses, but it's helpful for pretty much any druid. The domain spells can come in handy, and the ability to use Planar Ally later on is just icing on the cake.

Grand Lodge

The Blight Druid and Destruction Domain powers seem rather double-edged, especially with the Blight Druid if my party has a lot of fellow melee characters.

While Saurian Shaman delay's wildshape, it ends up improving arguably the best set of animal forms (dinosaurs), and gets totemic transformations at lower levels.

Saurian Shamans also get access to the Strength Domain, which after I've looked over, I personally love the spell list it grants: Enlarge Person, Bull's Strength, Magic Vestment, and Spell Immunity are all great buffing options to grant to either myself or allies. Having these kinds of options always available is exactly what I was looking for.

I think I'll go with a Saurian Shaman with the Strength Domain. Any Feats to Recommend pursuing besides Power Attack and Augment Summons?

Grand Lodge

lemeres wrote:

Here is an interesting approach- Cave Domain (the terrain one, not the earth subdomain one) for its tremor sense. And then focus on making an armed and armored earth elemental.

It may seem like a weird suggestion, but apparently, according to elemental subtype, elementals gain simple weapon proficiency if they have a humanoid shaped form. While wildshape doesn't grant you the subtype, it does grant you basic feature of the form (such as hands). Thus, it is entirely possible to use weapons as an elemental.

Now, this might go against the common logic for druids of being able to turn into anything, anytime... but imagine just sticking with a single, powerful form, and then getting equipment to fit that form (as in you would simply buy large bone armor, instead of waiting until you could get the wild enhancement). The large earth elemental seems like the perfect form for buff vs. usage (huge elementals might have problems fitting into dungeons). As such, you could turn into one for the entire day. Heck, you have hands and the ability to speak (elementals have a language), so there should not be too many problems even in daily life.

+6 str and natural armor is nothing to sneeze at. And you will have large sized reach and the ability to use scimitars (18-20/x2) or spears (they hit like greatswords when you are large). And let us not forget that you also gain DR 5/- and immunity to crits, sneak attacks, and bleed at level 10.

And with tremor sense, you could earthglide without too many problems. The lack of tremor sense is pretty much the single flaw with earth elementals in the elemental body spell.

Overall, while this lacks the flexibility of the traditional way druids are used, it has many advantages while keeping a similar level of power in offense, defense, and tactical abilities that should be more than enough to let you keep up.

As nice as tremor sense is, and the overall power of elemental forms, I'd rather not deal with shenanigans with a separate set of armor and trying to be The Polar Bear King*. I can get the +1 Bone Full Plate fairly early and then have the wild enchantment tacked on afterwards,

That'd give AC of 10 + 1 DEX + 2 Shield + from magic boneplate, add in Jingasa of the fortunate soldier, ring of protection, etc, and outside of wildshape I'll still be pulling weight in the amor department. Wildshape would have me lose the armor bonuses, but gaining natural armor in the mean time.

* = The Polar Bear King is a reference to the Polar Bear in "The Golden Compass" that wears golden armor. Somebody at my usual gaming haunt wanted a druid's bear shape to look like that, so he had the idea of buying a separate piece of armor for his bear form that others would put on after he shapechanged. The tables there now collectively refer to the act as "Trying to be The Polar Bear King".


Ms. Pleiades wrote:

As nice as tremor sense is, and the overall power of elemental forms, I'd rather not deal with shenanigans with a separate set of armor and trying to be The Polar Bear King*. I can get the +1 Bone Full Plate fairly early and then have the wild enchantment tacked on afterwards,

That'd give AC of 10 + 1 DEX + 2 Shield + from magic boneplate, add in Jingasa of the fortunate soldier, ring of protection, etc, and outside of wildshape I'll still be pulling weight in the amor department. Wildshape would have me lose the armor bonuses, but gaining natural armor in the mean time.

* = The Polar Bear King is a reference to the Polar Bear in "The Golden Compass" that wears golden armor. Somebody at my usual gaming haunt wanted a druid's bear shape to look like that, so he had the idea of buying a separate piece of armor for his bear form that others would put on after he shapechanged. The tables there now collectively refer to the act as "Trying to be The Polar Bear King".

Fair enough, it is not to your taste.

Although again, you would not get separate armor, but instead just be an earth elemental. You have hands, and you can speak since elementals have a langauge.

Basically, I suggest trading in wildshape in for just gaining a near constant str/natural armor bonus, and eventually a constant size change. You wouldn't even have more than 1 set of armor at a time (well, I suppose maybe as sleepwear when you allow yourself to turn into your squishy meat and bone form at night; you might go through a few set as your wildshape allows you to progress to bigger elementals)

Plus, with earth elementals in a human form...I could imagine them as more 'statue' like. Imagine throwing stoneplate ontop of that, and you are one mean hunk of rock.

Side note- can you even make bone full plate? The special material section says this:

CRB wrote:
Studded leather, scale mail, breastplates, and wooden shields can all be constructed using bone

You could always make it from dragon hide though, I suppose.

Grand Lodge

lemeres wrote:
Ms. Pleiades wrote:

As nice as tremor sense is, and the overall power of elemental forms, I'd rather not deal with shenanigans with a separate set of armor and trying to be The Polar Bear King*. I can get the +1 Bone Full Plate fairly early and then have the wild enchantment tacked on afterwards,

That'd give AC of 10 + 1 DEX + 2 Shield + from magic boneplate, add in Jingasa of the fortunate soldier, ring of protection, etc, and outside of wildshape I'll still be pulling weight in the amor department. Wildshape would have me lose the armor bonuses, but gaining natural armor in the mean time.

* = The Polar Bear King is a reference to the Polar Bear in "The Golden Compass" that wears golden armor. Somebody at my usual gaming haunt wanted a druid's bear shape to look like that, so he had the idea of buying a separate piece of armor for his bear form that others would put on after he shapechanged. The tables there now collectively refer to the act as "Trying to be The Polar Bear King".

Fair enough, it is not to your taste.

Although again, you would not get separate armor, but instead just be an earth elemental. You have hands, and you can speak since elementals have a langauge.

Basically, I suggest trading in wildshape in for just gaining a near constant str/natural armor bonus, and eventually a constant size change. You wouldn't even have more than 1 set of armor at a time (well, I suppose maybe as sleepwear when you allow yourself to turn into your squishy meat and bone form at night; you might go through a few set as your wildshape allows you to progress to bigger elementals)

Plus, with earth elementals in a human form...I could imagine them as more 'statue' like. Imagine throwing stoneplate ontop of that, and you are one mean hunk of rock.

Side note- can you even make bone full plate? The special material section says this:

CRB wrote:
Studded leather, scale mail, breastplates, and wooden shields can all be constructed using bone
You could always make it from dragon...

Eh, at that point I'd just go with the Eastern Armor Stone Coat if one can't get Bone Full Plate, I'd lose 1 extra touch AC, but it's loads cheaper than Dragon Hide.

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