Although it's only only core, not even APG yet, Treantmonk's guide is an excellent read to guide you through the choices. Note that it's broken into three parts- one for a caster oriented player, another for a melee guy, and the third for spells.
Druids are a homework heavy class in that your animal companion (if you elect to have one) and the summoned monsters you can conjure should be written down before hand- which to me is a lot of fun. Since you start at level two, it should come pretty intuitively. Enjoy.
PS: I don't know of any other Druid guides out there. Are there??
Not that i have heard of.
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If you decide to do a Wildshape Druid on a 25 point buy, you might want to consider a level of Monk (you'll need to be Lawful Neutral).
You'll get a big bump to your AC and CMD (really big depending on what your Wisdom winds up at).
It'll slow down your Wildshaping and spell progression by 1 level, but you still might find it worthwhile.
Beware of losing Druid levels. The loss includes animal companion progression as well.
Beware of losing Druid levels. The loss includes animal companion progression as well.
Though that would be mitigated if they chose the domain option. My current character is a 5th level Dragon Shaman Druid with 1 level of fighter, and opted for the Fire Domain instead of an animal companion. I went with Fighter because I wanted Dragonhide Plate and liked the bonus feat.
A note on the monk though is the AC/CMD option only works when unarmored. Offhand, without looking it up, I assume that would still hold true in wild shape.
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A note on the monk though is the AC/CMD option only works when unarmored. Offhand, without looking it up, I assume that would still hold true in wild shape.
Actually, that's why a level of Monk has such good synergy with Druids. Once you get wild shape, you're probably going to be spending most of your time in wild shape. If you wore any armor (or a shield), you'd gain no benefit from them while wild shaped anyway (unless they had the Wild quality, which is very pricey). Plus, in a high point buy game, you can afford a high Wisdom.
I had a Druid 9/Monk 1 in a 25 point game that had a 26 Wisdom (+8 to AC, including Touch AC, and +8 to CMD). Of course, my physical stats were all at 14 without enhancement bonuses. My character had the best AC and CMD in our group.
It's an option, although if you really want to be effective in melee in wild shape, you probably need more Str. Still, worth considering, especially if you're using wild shape primarily for utility, and relying mostly on casting.
A level of barbarian does different, but also good things for your character in wild shape. I'd start with barbarian, and run with quarterstaff, shilleleagh, for a while. Then, rage and wild shape.
The advice is a little dated, but the Living Greyhawk 3.5 game had it's own Yahoo Group for discussing various things. Probably still there.