not sure these days. In 3.5 it was because of how polymorph worked. In pathfinder I'm really not certain. They're interesting, but I don't know about powerful.
I don't know if I'd call them powerful, but I'd say they're unique.
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Three things: SNA, Wildshape, and the Animal Companion.
Summons are some of the most powerful spells in the game, and only the Druid gets it essentially for free. At any time a Druid can wreck your action economy by spontaneously summoning 4 _______ and having them outflank your big bad.
Wildshape, even though nerfed from 3.5, still provides automatic Scent, Darkvision, Flight, Pounce, and a whole host of other abilities that would otherwise be impossible for a PC to have. You could have a level 4 character with flight who can see Invisibility without wasting a spell slot.
Finally, the animal companion. HOLY CRAP! Have you seen what an Ape looks like at a 4th level adjustment? Or a lion at Level 7? And they can just keep switching animals out for whichever is most powerful. You know all those arguments about how broken the Leadership feat is? Here it is in animal form.
Yeah, animal companions do a lot. Not even just level adjustment, but later on you get spells to increase their size, their natural armor, give them magic attacks, and so on. I had a pet viper in one of our campaigns, and we went toe to toe with a dragon. I increased it to a large sized creature, used atavism, gave it energy resistance, damage reduction, natural armor, the works. It went after that dragon like a champ, probably got the most hits off on him too.
Could someone please explain to me why druids are seen as such a powerful class? Is it just the summoning?
Thanks!
Numbers matter in Pathfinder more than just about anything. The more attacks you can field, the more damage you can do.
The druid brings an animal companion on top of the ability to summon at need. That gives him 3-4 times as many actions as the average character.
It's not the end-all best class in the game, but it is a good class.
It's kinda the same situation as with the summoner class.
Shape change is probably not as powerful as the combined sythesist summoner but can certainly give you a boost and nice abilities.
The animal companions are probably not quite as good as a optimised eidilon, but very good.
The druid's SNA are not quite as good as the summoners SMx creatures, but they are close.
The druid is usually considered a bit better of a caster than the summoner even if not up to the level of the cleric or wizard. Some even like them better than the cleric.
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Its also quite a versatile class.
This can be especially valuable in PFS play. If you've got a reasonably balanced Druid (ie, one that did NOT slavishly follow the Druid Optimization Guide :-)) then you can be the brick, the damage dealer or the supporting caster as required with any particular group.
If you're playing a normal campaign where you know that you'll spend a lot of time in a particular environment some of the Archetypes can also be substantially more powerful in their preferred environment.
Best of all, there is lots and lots of roleplaying potential if you want it. You can embrace your inner Tree Hugger, take a Shaman and pretend to be the crittur of your choice, go all Survival of the Fittest, etc. Lots of interesting (and different) characters are possible
It's that they can do a s&!@ ton. Here's a small list of everythign they can do.
Divine Spellcasting - One of the most powerful forms of spellcasting hands down and druids have a list that's arguably better than clerics in terms of offense and a much better list in terms of battlefield control. With the right domain choice they can get access to all sorts of delightful spells including haste, fly, stinking cloud, and others. The only other class with close to the ginormous list of options of spells available to them is clerics.
Wild Shape - Turn into any animal you know of and can within the limitations. This is much weaker than before but has not lost any of its versatility. Need to scout? Pick an animal not unusual for the terrain that's small and move ahead of the group. Need a bruiser? Bear or dinosaur. Cavalier needs a flying mount? Pterodactyl, bat, or giant vulture.
Summon NAture's ally - Spontaneous spells are great because you can risk taking a spell or two that is situational and pop it for summon nature's ally if the situation never presents itself. Summon spells are pretty pwoerful and versatile in and of themselves. With feats they can get even better. I've flipped the outcomes of many fights purely by dropping a timely dog down the badguy's trouser's.
Miscellany - Than on top of this you get the following:
A pet!: Great flanking partner or scout or distraction that you can buff with any number of animal only spells at your disposal.
Or a domain!: Some of which also give you pets. Each one gives you two powers many of which come in handy.
+2 Know NAture and Survival
Woodland Stride: Let's you ignore natural terrain problems such as thorns. A druid can really abuse this at some points.
Resist nature's lure: another abusable ability that makes you that much harder to be bothered by fey. Combine with dwarf and steel soul to get a +8 bonus to saves versus fey shenanigans. It makes you no fun at all.
Immunity to poison.
Alter self at will(!)
Become unaging (though you still die of old age oddly enough)
Overall druids are a very crowded class. So yes they are very powerful but they are also very difficult to play well.
It probably depends a great deal on level. My guess, without having done exhaustive study on the matter, is that druids become really powerful about the time they gain "wildshape" and they remain one of the most powerful classes in the game until about level 12 or so when the awesome cosmic powers of the cleric and wizard begin to overtake the druid. Even so I would suspect the druid remains competitive up until the very highest levels and is still pretty formidable at level 20.
I play a pathfinder druid. She is level 8 and was converted over to Pathfinder from 3.5 at the point when she leveled up from level 6 to level 7. Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth.
In 3.5 my druid was so dramatically and obviously more powerful than any other character in our group (sorc, cleric, rogue, ranger) that it was actually pretty silly. In one session our GM dominated my druid and she and her animal companion took out half of the remaining party members in two rounds and almost totally wiped the party except for rolling a 1 on a key attack roll using a spell that would have grappled the battle cleric. A successful roll would have been a 7.
So in 3.5, at level 6 or 7, druids were just freaking awesome in comparison with other classes. However, upon porting her over to Pathfinder there was no doubt that she had been severely nerfed. Her wildshape form went from being a melee powerhouse to being a so-so melee combatant, so she rarely wildshapes in combat anymore. Her spell list was seriously limited since we used the "Spell Compendium" which had some of the most awesome spells imaginable ("bite of the wererat" anyone?) So her spells became less potent as well.
However, her animal companion actually got more powerful, slightly. And got large in the bargain.
But, in spite of all the nerfs, she is still, by far, the most powerful member of the party. And she's as versatile, if not more so, than our rogue or ranger (well, actually the ranger died, so he doesn't really count anymore, he was replaced by a half-orc barbarian).
In a typical encounter she unloads with her +1 shocking bow for up to four arrows per round, plus her pouncing tiger AC gets in a bite/claw/claw/rake/rake quite frequently. And on occasion she will summon a few leopards just to make things interesting.
In a more difficult encounter she can bring down serious hurt with "flamestrike" or "lightning sphere" or just make the enemies cry with walls, winds, entanglement or manipulation of the stone, dirt or mud.
I would say that druids are among the most powerful classes in the game from level 6 - 12 or so. Which, to me, has always been the sweet spot for fun in playing 3.5 or PF anyway.
But even more than that, because of the flavor of the class, the role playing options are just off the chart. I love my druid...
I will also say it is probably one of the tougher classes to play well. { I really didn't do a very good job last time I tried. }
You nee to know what shapes to change to to give you what abilities at what times it will be useful.
You need to know what animal companion will suit you best and how to make good use of it without just constantly getting it killed for no real gain.
SNA can really gind play to a halt if you are not well organized and on the ball.
Their spells can be very good, but if you don't do a good job of planning ahead they can be completely useless. This is true of any prepared caster, but I think even more so for the druid.
This is true of any prepared caster, but I think even more so for the druid.
I'm going to have to disagree on this point. Between spontaneous summons, open slots, and scrolls. I think it's easier for a druid to have a decent prepared list than it is for a cleric and especially a wizard. The key is to remember what your class can do.
This is true of any prepared caster, but I think even more so for the druid.I'm going to have to disagree on this point. Between spontaneous summons, open slots, and scrolls. I think it's easier for a druid to have a decent prepared list than it is for a cleric and especially a wizard. The key is to remember what your class can do.
I would agree with this. SNA as a spontaneous combat spell is pretty hard to beat, frankly. So even if you picked something absurd like "talk to plants" you can always immediately change that to "throw a big cat into the fight".
Plus there are lots and lots of brain-dead obvious spells for druids to take. Buffs like "magic fang" or "bull's strength" should be on every druid's "pretty good idea" list. "Entangle", "obscuring mist", "call lightning..."
Heck the druid's spell list almost writes itself if you want to just stick with the obvious stuff.
Why is Call Lightning good? Or Call Lightning Storm? They have always seemed mediocre to me.
Oh, so, on the subject of Druids, I had a heck of a time figuring out the stats and such for wild shaping, as you have to take into account the actual spell effects, as well as size modifications, etc. I found this calculator online, which as far as my number crunching has been concerned, is accurate. Thought it might be helpful to some in this thread still playing a druid char.
Why is Call Lightning good? Or Call Lightning Storm? They have always seemed mediocre to me.
I suppose it depends on how you use or view them.
I like Call Lightning at low levels because in the long run it provides some serious damage per spell cast. At level 5 you can get 15d6 potential damage out of the spell. As a reflex save spell it does 1/2 damage even on a successful save, and a metamagic rod can boost the spell damage significantly for very little cost.
I also like how it allows my druid to conserve her spells while still doing spell damage during the fight.
Now, as you go up in level it gets less useful. But even at level 8 my druid finds it useful, especially for "finishing off" mooks that the melee dudes are pounding on.
It's especially nice if you have "natural spell" and are flying around in the shape of an eagle or something...
Makes sense. I have always wanted a blaster/elemental druid but when I tried, it was underwhelming. I didnt have a metamagic rod either, because we dont use magicmarts. You craft, commission, or find (for anything more powerful than level 1 magic).
But I guess I can see that it combos with stuff. You could zap stuff your animal companion was attacking too.
Thanks!
Hegemonizing Ursine swarm.
One of my class features is a bear. The other class feature is also a bear. I'm also a full caster, which can be leveraged into more bears.
One of my class features is a bear. The other class feature is also a bear. I'm also a full caster, which can be leveraged into more bears.
That's the simple bear necessities of life as a Druid.
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Makes sense. I have always wanted a blaster/elemental druid but when I tried, it was underwhelming. I didnt have a metamagic rod either, because we dont use magicmarts. You craft, commission, or find (for anything more powerful than level 1 magic).
But I guess I can see that it combos with stuff. You could zap stuff your animal companion was attacking too.
Thanks!
Just to be clear...
Having a metamagic rod =/= playing in a "magic mart" campaign.
Even "low magic" campaigns have "magic."
I dont consider metamagic rods to be the kind of magic just hanging about trivially available, both from the perspective of the cost as well as the limited population of people who use them. But we may play in very different campaigns, and thats cool.
Best wishes!
What? 9 spell levels, wildshape and a pet? seems pretty strong to me.
They are the Jedi Knights of the fantasy world, both deadly and versatile.