So while googling around about some of the coolest Druid features, I stumbled upon someone explaining the cool combo of turning into an Air Elemental and then using Call Lightning for 3d10 damage a turn. I was wondering if there were other of these awesome plays using any of the Druid's features. Perhaps utilizing Animal Companions or such? Kudos for cool and original wombo-combo's!
I like shillelagh + greatclub, wall of brambles + be a druid, elemental summoning plus ranks in Linguistics, and animal companion + barding.
( some people will tell you that a greatclub isn't a club. Funny, though, no one says a Greatsword isn't a sword)
Earth elemental form might be one of the few ways to actually accomplish a proper siege. Imagine an entire squad of druid assassins, all bursting from the ground, either smashing you or shooting off blasts like lightning, and then going back into the ground before you can finish them off.
Oh, sure, there are spells that can interfere with earth glide and such... if you have them prepared. But taking pot shots at the wizard trying to take 15 minutes to prepare new spells is like...assassination 101.
I think you can make your players paranoid and ALWAYS prepare those spells from then on.
Getting some great ideas here! The Earth Elemental using guerilla tactics going underground is pretty epic. Any more ideas anyone?
I think you can make your players paranoid and ALWAYS prepare those spells from then on.
That is exactly the reason scrolls exist.
Rapid Shot + produce flame. It doubles the damage per round at lower levels.
Summoning &/or wildshaping into an earth elemental, using earth glide to get to the top of a cavern over an opponent, drop down onto the opponent (using falling object rules for additional damage), then using earth glide to "dive" into the floor of the cavern, and thus avoiding falling damage.
Summon a thoqqua (do they still have thoqquas? Or are they 3.X only?) to bypass barriers. They melt tunnels.
Actually, using summoning to get the tricks of what you can summon.
Metamagic Rod of Extend Spell for animal companion buffs like greater magic fang.
Protection from energy on your animal companion
Fire Seeds on your animal companion
Charge! bite claw claw rake rake BOOOM
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Aqueous orb. Summon sharks.
Or worse, summon minor nature's ally: Candiru.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Earth elemental + stealth. You always have cover to stealth with.
Blindsense, tremorsense, or even scent + farie fire. Invisibility is common and druids have 6 ways from sunday of shutting it down.
|
Imo resist energy > protection from energy. Each seed does 1d8+11, so in an explosion you only need a lv 7 resist energy to cover it. A protection from energy would take 8d8+88 and might not even cover the application - avg dmg of 112. Lv 11 protection from energy covers 110 points of fire damage.
Then you need to explain how you put those light fire seeds on your animal companion so that they don't fall off while he's charging yet have line of effect(not in a bag or what), so you can utter command word to trigger them.
Using yourself as a carrier of those seeds is more reasonable.
Irony-as a druid you can change into an earth elemental. Unfortunately, you still need to breathe, so you cant stay there forever. Since elemental body spell lines of which wildshape is does not give you tremorsense, you're effectively blind each time you use earthglide.
Doting this so much. Carry on.
Wild shape to dino, install howdah.
Load party, cast longstrider.
Cruise through jungle at high speed.
(The halfing savages eventually stopped trying to stop us- they couldn't keep up.
When they put a pit trap in front of us, the sorcerer cast fly on me and awaay we went.)
Also, Quench is an awesome spell.
And Cave Domain gives tremorsense (and darkvision).
|
Well....
Hangman tree has 60' reach, and huge size.
Add grt trip... And non can get close.Druid with tremorsense )a few ways you gain that), earth elemental and spring attack, perfect Skirmisher.
Shaman druids , that summon as standard action, and a good mobility form, let others kill..
Grab and fly by attack... Pick up, let go
Hangman tree has a 15ft reach according to PRD
And its Grab and pull, not Trip
|
|
You get what the elemental body spell line says you get, nothing more(except as per polymorph spell rules), nothing less.
In addition, each polymorph spell can grant you a number of other benefits, including movement types, resistances, and senses.
Note the word can, before grant. Since elemental body does not state you gain a burrow speed, you do not. Since you do not gain a burrow speed, you do not gain the ability to breathe in the earth.
You get what the elemental body spell line says you get, nothing more(except as per polymorph spell rules), nothing less.
In addition, each polymorph spell can grant you a number of other benefits, including movement types, resistances, and senses.Note the word can, before grant. Since elemental body does not state you gain a burrow speed, you do not. Since you do not gain a burrow speed, you do not gain the ability to breathe in the earth.
Elemental body 1 grants the ability to earth glide.
1) Wild shape into a diminutive bat or a tiny rat
2) Summon Swarm (bat or rat, depending on what you Wild Shaped into)
3) Stay within your own swarm
4) Enemies can't target you** Requires GM houserule. By RAW, you just take damage and nausea.
I would say they can still find you. I would make it into a disguise check- can you act like part of a hive mind created via a spell? Do you have the flocking instinct to stay in line, so that you don't seem like the odd one out in the school that sharks can detect like blood in the water?
I mean...I would give a rather nice bonus to disguise, obviously. But I wouldn't make it automatic success.
The way I'm looking at it - if you can gain a burrow or swim speed, you maintain the ability to breathe. Earth glide is not the same as a burrow speed, so you do not maintain the ability to breathe. They are two different abilities altogether.
Is that even relevant?
No-seriously- you can hold your breathe for a number of rounds equal to your constitution SCORE. Not modifier- score. That is practically like saying '14 rounds by default' for a lot of people. Sure, there are ways to reduce that, but it is also just a check to do it longer too.
As a scout, if you can't go out, figure out the situation, and come back in 14 rounds...when WALLS ARE NOTHING TO YOU... then you should not have gone out that far. And you could also just find a safe spot to pop your head out too.
This all assumes tremor sense, of course, since you are basically going blind by default since earth glide alone is already very strong (at least compared to fire's "get 30 more movement"), but druids have access to domains that give tremor sense by the time you can go earth elemental anyway- thematic ones (the cave environment domain). Sure, no animal companion, but hey- tremor sense is fairly strong anyway.
|
|
Vanilla druid earth gliding to scout doesn't make much sense, as you have no tremorsense. If you get it from a domain, well and good, you certainly can sit in the earth and use your tremor sense to detect vibrations. For non cave domain druids, Earth elemental form gives decent str bonus, darkvision, and an emergency escape via earth glide, but nothing more. Elemental body spell does not give tremorsense.
I will agree Earth Elemental Form for druids, RAW, doesn't make a lot of sense.
Any spell to freeze water + Aqueous Orb.
Vanilla druid earth gliding to scout doesn't make much sense, as you have no tremorsense. If you get it from a domain, well and good, you certainly can sit in the earth and use your tremor sense to detect vibrations. For non cave domain druids, Earth elemental form gives decent str bonus, darkvision, and an emergency escape via earth glide, but nothing more. Elemental body spell does not give tremorsense.
I will agree Earth Elemental Form for druids, RAW, doesn't make a lot of sense.
Just poke your head out at the surface.
Even without tremorsense, Wildshaping into an Earth Elemental is wildly powerful.
1.) You can bypass walls. With a big enough magic bag, that means your whole party can. This is insane. It defeats many encounters better than flight.
2.) Avoiding murder by 5 foot stepping into the ground is both stylish and powerful.
3.) Combined with stealth, you are a scout master.
4.) 1 hour/level?! so like all adventuring day?
It has risks:
1.) Things that burrow better than you do are often bigger and meaner. It is my opinion that more druids are lost to Purple Worms than anything.
2.) If you go too far, you can get lost.
Just poke your head out at the surface.Vanilla druid earth gliding to scout doesn't make much sense, as you have no tremorsense. If you get it from a domain, well and good, you certainly can sit in the earth and use your tremor sense to detect vibrations. For non cave domain druids, Earth elemental form gives decent str bonus, darkvision, and an emergency escape via earth glide, but nothing more. Elemental body spell does not give tremorsense.
I will agree Earth Elemental Form for druids, RAW, doesn't make a lot of sense.
And unlike other scouts, you have a firm plan when it comes to being found- go back underground.
Up until the GM throws in burrowing creatures, of course.
CL-boosted Call Animal, then (no save) Extended Wartrain Mount to turn the indifferent animal into a high-powered animal companion.
Take 1 level of monk, gain your casting stat to ac and a decent boost to saves. Also a decent list of bonus feats to choose from, especially if taking moms or zen archer.
or
Take 1 level of barb, go cave druid, wildshape into a carnivorous crystal, use strong jaw+vital strike+furious finish. Your base, enlarged, maximized weapon dice damage is 96. Multiplied by vital strike, plus str and other modifiers.
May require gm interpretation: when using wildshape to take elemental form, you shouldn't need natural spell or wild speech, seeing as elementals can communicate naturally anyway.
One thing I've always wanted to try at lvl 1 or 2 is using thorn javelin, then when you stab someone with it cast spark on it. This means sickening your opponent as well as (if I am correct) dealing some fire damage.
1: Worship Magdh.
2: Take Magical Lineage: Frostbite.
3: Go four levels of Druid with the Arctic Domain.
4: Go Unchained Monk.
5: Take Crusader's Flurry.
6: Take Shaping Focus.
7: Take Rime Spell.
By level 9, you've got a Druid 4/ Unchained Monk 5 who spends all day as a medium humanoid air elemental that can speak, and who keeps a scythe while in elemental shape by dropping it when shifting every 8 hours. He wields his scythe with two-handed Flurry of Blows Power Attack while flying around in air elemental form, and makes quite literal Flying Kick attacks that discharge the Rime Frostbite he maintains on himself into his targets to soften them up for scythe flurry.
Catch and release in a grapple is a little iffy.
|
Cave Druid level 10, turn into Carnivourous Crystal, cast Strong Jaw and Vital Strike for 32d6 + 1.5 Str damage.
Whirlwind Druid very high Wisdom, Powerful Shape, turn into a Whirlwind and pick up the enemies. If you want fly high into the air and drop them. Cast spell to buff damage on your slam and grab Blight Druid to sicken and plus entangle foes inside you to make it harder to get out.
Go Leshy Warden and at 8th turn into a Sargassum Fiend. 2 slams with a +8 Grab bonus that can grab up to Huge Creatures. Combine with usual grapple feats plus Powerful Shape for more CMB/CMD.
Turn into a Dimunitive Bat on a high Dex Halfling Druid and combine Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists, a lvl of Unchained Monk with Piranha Strike and Risky Striker and have fun rolling 1d3 + 23 for damage.