Understanding the Saurian Druid

[Ravingdork]

One of my fellow players is making himself a saurian druid and he's asked for my help. However, I have little experience with druids, and even less experience with their archetypes.

I wanted to check with you to make sure I understand his modified wildshape abilities correctly:

He is 6th-level. Therefore he is treated as 8th-level for the purposes of wildshaping into reptiles and dinosaurs, and 4th-level for everything else.

That means that he can wildshape a total of three times each day, two of which can be a diminutive to huge reptile/dino (as per Beast Shape III) and one of which can allow any small or medium animal (as per Beast Shape I).

In the latter instance, the effect lasts for up to four hours. In the former, 8 hours.

He cannot transform into elementals or magical beasts, and will not gain that ability until he reaches 8th-level (at which point he will be treated as 6th-level for said abilities).

Is this right?

Also, he has vestments of the druid, which grants him one additional wildshape per day. I assume that this can be used for the improved reptile/dino form, or for the weaker animal form, correct?

Thanks for any clarifications you provide.

[Ravingdork]

Also, does anyone have any good build advice for the archetype? My friend said he wanted to be a potion brewer, a traveling elixir salesman of sorts, so he will have Brew Potion as well as a higher than average Charisma and ranks in Diplomacy.

[ShadowcatX]

Note that druids never gain the ability to transform into magical beasts.

And I believe you'd be right about the vestments.

[Vestax159]

Your rules sound correct.

Just a quick glance but in my opinion so far. For the Saurian Shaman her advantage is in the summoning (Standard action, temp HP, and templates can be applied). So pick up the summoning feats to increase this further and swarm the field as needed. I would suspect most of your highest / second highest spells will be used for summoning critters so I would leave the rest for buffing / healing. None of the domains looked incredible interesting from an optimization stand point but I just looked real quick for good AoE buffs. The companion would serve well as it's an extra flanking buddy for your summons, companions, or wild shaped self.

Since I would invest so much in summoning, buffing, and healing I wouldn't bump wisdom above the 19 / 20 for highest level spells. Most damaging spells of interest will be lagging compared to her awesome summoning ability which doesn't get anything from high wisdom. In general summons > damaging spells anyhow and with the bonuses she gets I would argue they are better then a lot of the control spells.

Instead I would pump up strength, con, dex in that order for some degree of melee when wild shaping. She won't be a front line fighter but with her increase in strength (plus size) along with abilities like pounce, grab, etc from wild shaping she can make a good opportunistic skirmisher. However, if this char really wants to brew potions / diplomacy sticking to "normal form" may be a better option since this would need to dump cha or int. You may be to busy commanding animals around the field anyhow.

[Ravingdork]

We use 25 point buy by the way, so he's got a fair bit of leeway when it comes to ability scores.