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Or should I'm just better off to just have my animal companion/summons to fight for me? Wildshape gives a measly +2-6 ENHANCEMENT bonus to strength
Natural Weapons:
Natural weapons are inferior weapons because of a majority of reasons. Bonuses to hit are expensive compared to manufactured weapons (I'm looking at you amulet of mighty fists) and lack any bonuses(such as Holy, disruption etc). Require high strength or outside damage to bypass many damage reduction due to the lack of Adamantine, Sliver, Cold Iron and Alignments (where is my align fang at ; ;).
MAD:
This update makes Druids more of a MAD character then before.
Str to hit.
Dex for AC unless they take a feat for heavy armor and have it crafted not to be metal. Now good luck finding heavy armor for druid in chronicle treasure.
Con: To be in melee I need HP right
Wis for spells
Int and CHa are not really needed so it could be a dump stat.
Even if you forgo Str for dex and weapon finesse, you have no outside damage for by passing damage reduction and out a feat. Then the wildshapes that provide Dex bonus are usually small or smaller creatures which means low natural attack die damage combined with low strength.
Spells:
Bull strength which doesn't stack with wildshape
Magic Fang Line spells: Only replaces Amulet of Mighty fist and can be dispelled. Also if the talks about adding buff slots to high level play pans out it would take 1 or more buff slots.
Defensive Spells: There is a wide variety of defensive spells so I'm not complaining.
So is there anyway to bring back my melee druid aside from relaying on my animal companion? I would rather sacrifice my animal companion to return to gain some melee abilities.
There are some levels where buffing and healing the animal companion might be the way to go, but I hear you. The druid was a bit over the top in 3.x, so it's been tuned down. The tuning might need tweaking.
Do you want a melee druid that is comparable to other melee characters or uber druid the melee character from he11?
Don't dump strength.
Start with a lower wisdom, if you are not focused on spellcasting you only need just enough wisdom to cast your highest level spells. This means 15 WIS at 5th level so you can start the game with a 14 wisdom and bump it at 4th level. Plan on using magic items to boost your wisdom to 17 by 7th level. Start with a higher core STR/ CON. Coordinate with your Animal Companion on attacks.
Overall your AC will be pretty good so unless you want to go with slightly lower damage and finesse you can have a fairly low dex... Things like Bracers of Armor, Amulet of Natural Armor, and rings of protection work on you while in animal shape (without resorting to super expensive armor) which is a big help.
But overall... melee smashing druids are gone and many of us don't miss him (well actually we don't miss the melee smashing full spellcaster with a giant pet). Maybe there will be a PrC down the road that sacrifices spell casting to boost the druids shifting.
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Do you want a melee druid that is comparable to other melee characters or uber druid the melee character from he11?
Don't dump strength.
Start with a lower wisdom, if you are not focused on spellcasting you only need just enough wisdom to cast your highest level spells. This means 15 WIS at 5th level so you can start the game with a 14 wisdom and bump it at 4th level. Plan on using magic items to boost your wisdom to 17 by 7th level. Start with a higher core STR/ CON. Coordinate with your Animal Companion on attacks.
Overall your AC will be pretty good so unless you want to go with slightly lower damage and finesse you can have a fairly low dex... Things like Bracers of Armor, Amulet of Natural Armor, and rings of protection work on you while in animal shape (without resorting to super expensive armor) which is a big help.
But overall... melee smashing druids are gone and many of us don't miss him (well actually we don't miss the melee smashing full spellcaster with a giant pet). Maybe there will be a PrC down the road that sacrifices spell casting to boost the druids shifting.
Comparable, and care to explain how are you going to get Decent AC with medium armor with 3 stats that need boosting aside from Dex? Bracer of armor doesn't stack with any other armor bonus. And in order to have decent AC with bracer of Armor then you need to have high dex which defeats the purpose of low dex. One more thing bracers of armor is only slightly cheaper (like 350 gold cheaper) regardless of bonus and the fact that armor gives more bonus. Then there is also slot competition between Wis and Natural armor for the same slot.
If you're confident in building a melee druid then please do so, I'll be waiting.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Comparable, and care to explain how are you going to get Decent AC with medium armor with 3 stats that need boosting aside from Dex? Bracer of armor doesn't stack with any other armor bonus. And in order to have decent AC with bracer of Armor then you need to have high dex which defeats the purpose of low dex. One more thing bracers of armor is only slightly cheaper (like 350 gold cheaper) regardless of bonus and the fact that armor gives more bonus. Then there is also slot competition between Wis and Natural armor for the same slot.
If you're confident in building a melee druid then please do so, I'll be waiting.
You've got a couple of mistakes thre. First of all bracers of armor provide an armor bonus, and would stack with a natural armor bonus as these are two different bonus types. However, all polymorph effects don't allow armor bonuses to carry through, once your gear melds with your new form, unless it has the magic armor Wild quality. This could be applied to bracers of armor as well as regular armor, so you're probably better off with hide armor with the wild quality once you can afford it.
Also, an amulet of natural armor uses the neck slot, but wisdom enhancing items now use the headband slot, along with all other mental stat boosting items. This is a change in pathfinder compared to 3.5.
You can also use a physical stat boosting item, but since it won't stack with the enhancement bonust from wildshaping, I'd suggest Dex, since long term you'll most likely be gaining Str and Con bonuses from the larger animal types.
As for assigning your ability scores, you don't need to have a LOW dex to have a decent score in wisdom, strength and constitution, you should still be able to have a 10-12, which, while nothing great, is still not low in my opinion.
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Comparable, and care to explain how are you going to get Decent AC with medium armor with 3 stats that need boosting aside from Dex? Bracer of armor doesn't stack with any other armor bonus. And in order to have decent AC with bracer of Armor then you need to have high dex which defeats the purpose of low dex. One more thing bracers of armor is only slightly cheaper (like 350 gold cheaper) regardless of bonus and the fact that armor gives more bonus. Then there is also slot competition between Wis and Natural armor for the same slot.
If you're confident in building a melee druid then please do so, I'll be waiting.
You've got a couple of mistakes thre. First of all bracers of armor provide an armor bonus, and would stack with a natural armor bonus as these are two different bonus types. However, all polymorph effects don't allow armor bonuses to carry through, once your gear melds with your new form, unless it has the magic armor Wild quality. This could be applied to bracers of armor as well as regular armor, so you're probably better off with hide armor with the wild quality once you can afford it.
Also, an amulet of natural armor uses the neck slot, but wisdom enhancing items now use the headband slot, along with all other mental stat boosting items. This is a change in pathfinder compared to 3.5.
You can also use a physical stat boosting item, but since it won't stack with the enhancement bonust from wildshaping, I'd suggest Dex, since long term you'll most likely be gaining Str and Con bonuses from the larger animal types.
As for assigning your ability scores, you don't need to have a LOW dex to have a decent score in wisdom, strength and constitution, you should still be able to have a 10-12, which, while nothing great, is still not low in my opinion.
I never said Bracers of Armor didn't stack with natural armor, I meant regular armor bonus. Although I didn't look at new stat enhancing items but I'll conceded on the natural armor bonus and wisdom item. But your suggestion of 10-12 and the bracer of armor still leaves a glaring AC problem.
A person is spending 9,000 gold for bracers of armor meanwhile someone can wear a Hide or Studded leather (not to mention they can add the 9,000 gold to the hide or studded leather armor for better bonus. Also please not I know druids can't wear studded leather armor). Then there is this excerpt from the Beta guide for polymorph subschool
"Items that provide constant bonuses and do not need to be activated continue to function while melded in this way (with the exception of armor bonuses, which cease to function)."
Bracers of Armor provide an armor bonus so a direct interpretation would mean they don't work. There's nothing in Beast Shape nor bracers of armor passages (aside for getting wild upgrade) that indicates other wise.
I think the bracers of armor issue is an oversight, so well spotted. I think the simplest solution is to alter the bracers description that unlike other armor bonuses (from physical armor), the bracers continue to function while polymorphed. Even at lower levels, the druid can get a friendly mage to mage armor them.
If you want to make a melee druid, the wild armor power is where it's at. If we exclude dragonhide (from the SRD) and ironwood (with no rules for permanency) and the wood armor from Moose & Squirrel, (I mean, Masters of the Wild), we're still left with hide armor.
No feats required, and for the low cost of 16,165 GP your druid too will get a +6 armor bonus from +1 wild hide armor whilst wild shaping.
Well still playing with the numbers but multiclassed druids seem alot more possible in Pathfinder.
Key reason wildshape for the most part maxes out at 12th level (apart from shifts/day)
with that in mind you've technically got 8 levels of multiclassing to play with. although it feels a bit meta to be multiclassing just to make a melee druid but at least its an option.
Barb1/Druid12/Barb7
take extra rage and just use rage points to get your +4STR and it should last 80-90% of daily combats. although AC seems to be an issue.
Monk1/Druid12/Monk7
Better AC to cover the low nat armor extra attack handy but without a large STR bonus you attk will be a touch low to be effective.
If it were me and I was looking for a strong melee druid I'd go with at least a level or two in Barbarian or make them a half orc [strength & wisdom bonus + orc ferocity]? - I'm currently converting a half-orc character into Pathfinder and he's a multi-class barbarian/druid and is looking plain nasty on paper...
Also think about your weapon choice - nothing makes foes think twice than a druid wielding a scythe that has Heat Metal cast upon its blade [heheh]
My 10th level druid has been faring just fine in melee. I wildshape into a large earth elemental, barkskin & halo of sand for defense (maybe mage armor potions or greater mage armor from party sorcerer, too); also I'll meld into stone walls & floors as much as possible for a cover bonus.
Offense is covered by the bite of the XXX spells, improved/superior magic fang, and bardic bonuses. Use good tactics, swim around in stone as much as possible, and flank as much as possible (summons are great for this), and you'll be doing just fine.
Of course, this is assuming you gain the slam attacks elementals have. There's nothing in the rules that states this, but our DM said it was ok. If you're not allowing the slam, adjust for whatever large-sized simple weapon you want (the 2d8 slam damage is really nice, though).
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Of course, this is assuming you gain the slam attacks elementals have. There's nothing in the rules that states this, but our DM said it was ok. If you're not allowing the slam, adjust for whatever large-sized simple weapon you want (the 2d8 slam damage is really nice, though).
The general description of the polymorph subschool in the magic chapter does state that these spells grant the natural attacks of the form assumed, so you're covered on that point.
Druids went from being two melees and a spellcaster at the same time (Oh noes!) to one and one. This is a good thing.
With that said, if you still want to do it there is no reason to ever lose druid levels. Taking levels of a melee class to get better at meleeing sounds intuitive but still is not and will actually have the reverse effect.
Of course, this is assuming you gain the slam attacks elementals have. There's nothing in the rules that states this, but our DM said it was ok.
Under the boilerplate for Polymorph subschool spells, it says you get the natural attacks of whatever form you adopt.