| Ash the Rogue Tengu |
I will start saying that this is a very long post but there is recap if you just jump to to end and/or just read the words in bold
I'm about to start a campaing on thursday and decided to make a grippli druid (stat wise could have been undine for for the spell like ability and cold resistance and i'm still a little bit undiceded or a tengu for the linguistics and +2 perception).The campain will start at level 4 and should go up to 20. Unless some other player changes mind the concept will be a group of mercenaris all neutral (lawful or chaotic as one preffers. i will be nn) that will service those who pay the best. (are previous campaing was good focused and the one before was evil). We can use any paizo pathfinder manual. The setting will be based on a faerun in the future are GM imagined (no not future like star wars, just a few centuries after the canons described in the setting of 3.5).
In the party there will be a human bard playing standard buff/debuff jack of all trades role; a tiefling warrior (free hand fighter) that will become a duelist specializied in disarm and a gnome alchemist with high dex that will focus on poisons in addition to regualr bombs taking two weapon fighting etc (we house rould that the fast bomb can make you use maximum bomb for round equal to your normal bab attacks but can use the extras from two weapon fighting to throw posioned daggers)his first discoveryes are infuse and tumor familiar, the next ones sticky poison and fast bombs.
I will focus on crowd control and summoning following as base line the very useful wild mystic guide from treantmonk. Differeing from the guide lines since new manauls and options are available i decided to take the animal domain and will take the boon companion feat to be able to have it at full level. It's true that the first 3 spell levels of that domain are terrible but the ones later are usable pretty well. The other option was to save a talent and give up the domain to get the standard animal companion bond since for the party described i think we will need some extra tanking and imho an animal companion is one of the most usueful crow control.
buy point is 20 and what i'm going for would be with the racials and a +1 increment since we start from level 4:
str 10
dex 16
cos 10
int 10
wis 21
cha 7
Now imost definitly want to keep the dex and wis how they are, but i'm open to suggestions on how to redistribuite the others. I started from this because i did not want a negeative str base stat so that at higher levels i can use they whirle wind more effectivley but probabile it would be better to leave it to 8 or 6 and put extra cos first and then maby raise back a little the cha for handle animals or even better int for an extra skill point. Maby an extreme str 6 but cos and int 12 instead of the 3 tens?
For the equipment the GM allowed me to go a little over the 6k cap of level for and will have druid vestments and ring of suistanace plus other standard non master work equipment. For the future do you have suggestions in what to invest? I didin't read very much the equipment and magic objects form the books other than the core, and from the core i would go for the very standard head band of wisdom+2, +1 ring of armor, +1 amulet of armor, +1 cloack of resistance and then invest in low level metamagic staves, a dex belt and then simply upgrade the mentioned items.
For the feats i will start with spell focus conjuration and augmentet summoning and then plan on taking at level 5 and 7 boon companion and natural spell, probably in this order since usually at lower levels the companion is better than the spells, but could switch order. At 11° i plan to take divine interference. For the 9° level and from 13° onward don't have a precise scheduele but my favorites are quiken spell, reach spell, bouncins spell, intensified spell, improved initiative, the one that actually allows you to talk while in wild shape (don't recall the name), and last(and probably least) scribe scroll witch for a divien is a not so bad feat. Are they any other feats that you can suggest me that i might have overlooked?, or any optimal order to take them? With all the very good metamagic feats from the apg that take up just one level should i take a few of those first and give up (at least to higher levels) the augmented summoning? I tried them previousley with a spontaneous caster(fire oracle) and they saved the day almost every day, but probably would get used less with a regualr caster..
Finally coming to the title of the topic for this charter in this party do you think it would be better to be a word caster or a regular spell caster? I like the flavor of the word caster and think that if some classes should word cast those would be sorcerer oracle the druid. Especially if played with a non core race like gippli it can feel even more primitive. Sure the standard action summons is the selling feauture for me of this magic sistem but how many are the cool druid spells i could not replicate?Witch ones in particualr could be considerd on a top 10 of best druid spell (that i could not replicate) How many(and how cool) are the significative effects i could make with word casting that i could not with regualr spells?
I don't care to much of having lots of diffrent elemental damage spell, mainly want to divide the bad guys to make it easyer for my party, summun, be able with my wildshapes+companions+ spell to make the party fly when needed, occasionaly heal and possibly have a few spells that do mage to a very large area or number of targets since nobody else in the party could easaly deal with a great mass of small minions.
I still didn't read all the word spell, but other than the hold monster that a druid couldn't have and the standard action for the summoning that a nonshaman druid couldn't have so far didn't notice anything amazing.
For archetypes i didn't notice anything that really satisfied me the most for the druid and for prestige classes i didn't spot any for a non multiclassed druid. is there somthing that could be better for me than the standard? I don't want to focus on a single terrain or animal, i would've liked focusing on an element if that could of gived me better wildshapes and summoning for the air elemental but didn't see them.
Making a short as i can recap i ask for advice on several things. first of: to be or not to be a word caster, this is the most important thing since its first of all the stuff i know less about, and second a thing not easy to live up to if choosed wrong like a magic item, skill point or even a feat.
second buy point allocation
third race selection especially if not a word caster i could reconsider undine, tengu (linguistics is useful in faerun) or even dwarf with the spell resistance alternative racial trait)
fourth feat selection
fifth optimal equipment to resarch
sixth are they any archetypes or prestige classes to consider?
seventh what animal companion wuold you suggest? for first level i will take a medium flying one so that i(if a stay gippli) or the gnome alchemist can ride it, better if a vermin one since until i could not have the int 3 anyway i might as well get the mindless trait. As soon as it hits the 4° HD and obvious increase to int 3 i want an ape just to play the genius idea that i read here on the boards of the ape with a lance riding you wildshaped as a mount, afterwards from level 7 or so as a standard a would like a flying animal companion to help the party get around OR a tough resistant one that can take the hits while or duelist chops the bad guys. If you have suggestions for the flying vermin, the flying large one and/or the tough one let me know.
lastly to know if as regular spell caster what are the best druid spells from books other than the core(and from the core that i might have overlooked), or for word casters if there are any particular good combinantions for druid that you could suggest me especially for the first 3 levels of spell, hopefully for when i hit the level 4 spell a should have hade time to read all the spells form the source books and/or have learnd how to combine to the best word spells. Is there anywhere a sort of hit list for the best druid spells for level? UC came out quite recentlly so i don't expect to see necessarly that included but at least with core-apg-um it would be nice.
Thanks to all those ho had the patiance to read the post, and forgive me if i made some language mistakes but english is my second language.