Feats for a Storm Druid?

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All,

I want to make a caster Druid, but I want him to be a Storm Druid who takes the Storm Domain, and later Air (for Chain Lightning). However, I am not sure what feats to take. Should I focus on control feats and traits? Damage? Which ones?

I have read Treatmonk's old guild, but his caster uses the summon spells, but of course the Storm Druid wont have the summon nature's ally stuff, or a companion. So I am wondering which feats I should take, since his are in part based on other considerations.

The rest of the party will be a Sword & Board Fighter; a Wizard; a Rogue; and a Magus.

Thanks!

[Zarzuakar]

Dot. Sorry, no access to my materials to make suggestions.

Edit: Out of curiousity, do you know what the Wizard is going to roll out with in terms of spells? Have they specialized at all?

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I believe the Wizard will be focusing on battlefield control effects, especially conjuration AOE save or suck stuff. The wizard will probably be a conjurer, but I think mainly to use the bonus slot for more conjuration AOEs. I dont think the Wizard plans to really focus (use feats on, or many/any spell slots on) summons. Just the stuff like Stinking Cloud, etc.

[Darigaaz the Igniter]

I'd prioritize WIS > CON > DEX > everything else
You want various feats that boost your ability to control the battlefiled, like Improved Initiative and maybe Extend Spell or Persistent Spell. Level 5 get Natural Spell, consider Wild Speech at 7th so you can talk while wild shaped. Spend as much time as possible shaped into something that gives great defensive value. Usually the smallest form with a fly speed you can get.

With your party composition, I'd keep a cure spell or two memorized in your second-highest spell level in case of emergencies. I'd focus on battlefield control spells and debuffs, let your wizard cover save-or-die and buffs. Between the two of you utility spells should be easy access. Just because you can't cast Summon spells spontaneously doesn't means that prepping a couple is a bad idea. You can also get some pretty decent combat maneuvers from Mad Monkey and Hydraulic Push/Torrent. With all of these, you can spontaneously swap them to a domain spell if needed, and Air and Storm have some really nice options there.

[Zarzuakar]

If the Wizard is going to be doing more of the battlefield control, I might advise trying to lean yourself towards Damage. I usually play my druids differently, so you'll have to wait for me to actually make any viable recommendations, but it sounds like the group could use more damage than control.

With the Fighter, he'll be able to take care of himself for the most part. Maybe not a ton of damage, but he'll be something of a beast.

With a Rogue, especially working in tandem with Magus or Fighter, he'll be able to flank and help out with the damage dealing end of things.

Magi are just monsters. They'll be focusing more on damage, but he'll always be trying to close in with the opponent.

If the Wizard is going to be more concerned with debuffing and controlling the movement of the baddies, I think ranged damage support would round out the party. I'll have to look over what materials would work, though.

Edit: For now, definitely take other people's opinions over mine.

[tonyz]

If you're planning to use a lot of lightning spells, then Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus (evocation) might be handy.

[Makarion]

As always, the single best feat in the game is Leadership. If you truly want to powergame it, don't leave home without.

As a druid, consider whether you plan to shapechange a lot. If you do, consider the feats that allow you to cast spells while transformed - flying around is a good way to avoid 90% of all danger.

[soupturtle]

Go-to feats for any storm druid would be improved initiative and natural spell, and at higher levels (probably 11 or 13 and 15) quicken spell and spell perfection. Scribe scroll can also be a very nice feat for a druid.

Beyond that it all depends on what you want to do. If you've got the required 13 charisma, you could spend two feats on skill focus and eldritch heritage to get a familiar. If you want to focus on damage, some metamagic feats. Spell focus to improve the DCs of your favorite school is always a decept option. Heighten spell into preferred spell can be useful as a prepared caster. Dazing spell is very powerfull and works quite well for a storm druid.

Also, if you're considering making your storm druid a blaster, I highly recommend this (old) post by Ashiel:

[Lord Foul II]

Craft wondrous, always useful for any dedicated caster.

[Animation]

Thanks for the replies!

I kinda want to take Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus Evocation, in conjunction with Elemental Focus and Greater Elemental Focus for Electricity. Then maybe Dazing Spell, Persistent Spell, and Quicken Spell. Then I could get Spell Perfection on Ball Lightning along with the trait that reduces metamagic on it by one (Magical Lineage, iirc).

The problem with that is ... such a progression eats up all my feat slots, and I would still crave improved initiative, toughness, spell penetration, greater spell penetration, natural spell, heavy armor proficiency for Ironwood armors, etc.

I would really need to be a Human Wizard to pull that off. Because he would have room for improved init and both spell penetration feats, due to being able to shift the three metamagic feats to his wizard feat slots. Also. a wizard wouldnt need Natural Spell or armor proficiency.

So I am kinda stumped. But I really like the idea of moving ball lightning around to zap people, while also directing call lightning/storm bolts at people. I just kinda wish i could reach the wonderful (+4)x2 save with spell perfected call lightning, persistent & dazing. Woof! But again ... guess I will have to save that for a Wizard.

I also like the idea of Ice Storm with Rime Spell, just to get control plus damage in one casting.

That reminds me. Can one take both Magical Lineage *and* Wayang Spellhunter on different spells? What about on the same spell? I know it wont matter for this character since both Ice Storm and Ball Lightning are 4th level spells and Wayang Spellhunter only works on spells of level 3 or below. But I have been wondering for some time and just now remembered to ask.

Thanks everyone!

[soupturtle]

Yes, you can take both of those traits. One is a magic trait, the other is regional, so there's nothing against it. So taking them on two different spells is entirely possible, and if you're making a dazing focused character probably quite useful.

Taking them on the same spell is also allowed, but doesn't do anything, because the wording lets you treat the spell as one level lower than its actual level for determining the adjusted level (or some such wording anyway), rather than actually reducing the final level by 1. So you'd have two feats to let you treat ice storm as a second level spell for metamagic purposes.

[MiniGM]

Dont forget about metamagic rods! That can save you some feats. Not sure which are the most cost effective but it is worth looking into

[Animation]

Yeah, metamagic rods are cool, but I havent even worked out what my feats should be, since I cant decide what my character's focus/emphasis should be.

But I will keep thinking about it. Thanks all!

[Makarion]

Consider 1 level of fighter? Free heavy armour proficiency plus a bonus feat at the cost of a caster level.

[Atarlost]

I'd consider dazing spell and working towards spell perfection and picking up spell penetration and greater spell penetration on the side. The best carriers if they work are flaming sphere, ball lightning and call lightning (storm). Elemental spell is probably a requirement, but nettle burst might pass muster as a general purpose dazing spell carrier to perfect.

[Animation]

I definitely want spell penetration. And I guess with my spells being about half-and-half conjuration and evocation, taking spell focus is perhaps not the best approach. So that leads me to this template:

1) improved initiative
3) undecided metamagic feat
5) natural spell
7) undecided metamagic feat
9) undecided metamagic feat
11) spell penetration
13) greater spell penetration
15) spell perfection

I agree that I really want Dazing Spell. I also sorta want Rime spell but about all I can think of that it works well with would be Ice Storm. Is there a Greater Ice Storm? :) Would be cool.

But other good metamagic feats would be elemental spell (i guess) and quicken spell and persistent spell. So I have 5 metamagic feats I like but room for only 3.

In a way I wonder if Quicken Spell is pointless. Well not pointless, thats silly. But maybe not optimal. Its not like I am making some crazy fireball blaster and I am trying to drop a quickened empowered spell perfected lineage fireball in the same round I am dropping a dazing maximized intensified spell perfected lineage fireball, or whatever.

I dunno. And then I still dont know which spell to take spell perfection on, or which spell to take magical lineage on, or whether to take reactionary vs wayang spellhunter for my other trait.

I almost want Magical Lineage on Ice Storm so that I could use Rime spell and entangle with no save for a 4th level slot. But then again, Magical Lineage and Spell Perfection on Ball Lightning would eventually let me keep a persistent ball lightning in a level 5 slot and then throw on dazing for free so that i can keep 3 or 4 targets stunned, and they would have to save twice every time.

But then again, maybe I should use lineage+spellPerfect on something I can spontaneously cast. I was thinking of Storm Domain first, then Air. Then I can spontaneously get Call Lightning, Call Lightning Storm and Chain Lightning.

Oh yeah, Chain Lightning. Maybe I should play for the really long haul. Get Magical Lineage on Chain Lightning and Spell Perfection. Then I could do either a normal quickened chain lightning in a level 6 slot (assuming that lineage works to remove 1 level from the spell perfected free quicken to meet the rule that my freebie from spell perfection cant effectively exceed 9th level as a spell). But I should definitely be able to do chain lightning with elemental spell (keeping it level 6) and then using spell perfection to put Dazing Spell on it.

But dang, thats a long road.

Anybody got any suggestions relating to these thoughts?

Thanks!

[soupturtle]

If you're building towards spell perfection, I think the best strategy is to get some big powerful metamagic feats, because getting them for free means more. Quicken is especially great with spell perfection, as it'll allow you to get your perfected spell off from a relatively low slot as a swift action, so effectively you can spend every single turn casting your perfected spell plus something else.

Dazing ball lightning is an incredible tactic, but doesn't really require spell perfection - it's 'only' a 7th level spell slot, so you get it earlier than spell perfection, and you never need to cast it more than once per combat. Making it persistent with spell perfection is probably overkill, and will just make your GM hate you.

When thinking of what metamagic feats to take, also consider the value of metamagic rods. A metamagic rod of a metamagic feat that increases the spell level by 1 is quite cheap, even if you want to use it on higher level spells. Thus, you could easily get your elemental spells and your rime spells from a rod. Quicken and dazing make very expensive rods, and add much more value to a spell when you get the free metamagic feat from spell perfection, so are better as feats.

If you really want to make dazing a main thing, you might even consider using your magical lineage (or one of the two, if you take both the traits) on flaming sphere, so you can start dazing things for two rounds with your move actions as early as level 7.

Edit: Finally, I nominate baleful polymorph as your perfected spell, because it's without a doubt the most funny spell to cast every round. And if you go crazy with spell perfected dazing quickened blasts the rest of your group might hate you for it, while trying to turn things into squirrels every round (but giving them a decent chance to save) is just plain fun.

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Interesting points. Too bad there isnt a Call Squirrel Storm spell that works like Call Lightni g except instead of the 3d6 lightning damage, the bolts will baleful polymorph the targets into squirrels. I think it should be 8th level. Oh! And then there could be an epic Storm of Squirrel Vengeance that turns whole cities into squirrels!

Anyway, my reason for wanting Persistent Spell on Ball Lightning (or whatever) is simply that each Ball is save-or-nothing, and that is pretty frustrating. And the higher you go, the higher enemy reflex saves get. Sure, when I first get Ball Lightning at level 7, my save DC would be 19 or 20. Not necssarily awful. But by the time I am throwing around spell perfected ones at level 15, my DC would be 21 plus whatever I can get from +wisdom gear. Maybe 23 or 24. But lots of foes will have spell immunity and resistance, which is bad enough, but also crazy high reflex saves. Heaven forbid they have a cloak of resistance. At that point, all Persistent does is make it palatable.

Anyway thanks for the response. I do like the idea of Persistent, Dazing and Quicken. I can perhaps get Rime or Elemental on a Metamagic Rod.

Then again, we dont really have magic shops in our games, as such. We use the random determination/low magic rules. Tho we can roleplay finding someone who will craft for us, or I could take craft rod. But I dont have room on this character. :)

[soupturtle]

Dazing ball lightning may do nothing on a save, but it's 2-5 balls that can each force a save from something every round, for many rounds in a row. That hardly requires an unpassable save to be effective. If you really want to take a particular enemy out, throwing two balls at them is already equal to making the spell persistent, and you'll probably still have more balls to spare, and you can target them again the next round if they make their save this round.

Also, reflex saves are on average the lowest saves of higher level monsters in the bestiary (someone posted statistics at some point, can't find it now), as higher level monsters tend to be big and have awfull dex.

[Animation]

Ok so Quicken Spell at 9th, Dazing Spell at 7th.

But which MM feat at 3rd? I still want Persistent, even if I dont use it on Ball Lightning all the time. Because a Persistent entangle would be cool. Or whatever.

I still am unsure what to Lineage/Perfect. Ball Lightning seems cool, but its frustrating that BL isnt one of the possible spells for a spontaneous selection for a Storm Druid.

Anyway, thanks!