I've seen threads on how every class is either really powerful or really weak. The exception to this rule has been Druids. Is this because they are balance or do not many people play as them?
Any-ways, I think it would be really amusing if the class about maintaining the balance was actually balanced.
Thoughts?
They are very situational. In the right ones they are too strong. In the wrong ones they are useless. They are also tough to role-play without being the stereotypical Druid.
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Druids are among the most powerful classes in the game. They are full casters plus they get wild shape, decent skills and an animal companion.
People don't talk that much about druids being "overpowered" anymore because they were perhaps THE most powerful class in 3.5, and Pathfinder nerfed the most egregious exploits, particularly around wildshaping.
Besides the raw spellcasting power that druids have, and the wildshaping, AND THE animal companion, druids have some of the best battlefield control spells in the game, some decent blasting options and they can heal.
Wildshape is not as hugely overpowered as it was in 3.5, but it is still an extremely useful ability and makes druids among the most versatile classes in the game, and with a reasonable GM who doesn't metagame their encounters, is probably the single best scout in the game.
Anyway, I didn't respond at first, but I felt like Avatar and Obolus are not giving druids enough respect.
I play a druid in a party with a battle cleric, barbarian, rogue and sorcerer. At level 9 I believe she is the most powerful, versatile and interesting character in the party.
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It's probably a little comparable to the paladin.
The paladin has The Code, and is a typical fighter type with some funkiness to it, but no bonus feats.
The druid isn't allowed to wear metal, and has some unusual spell choices, and has to take an animal companion and wild shaping into account to play the character. A wizard or cleric by comparison is more simplified, has no restrictions, even a summoner tends to overshadow it.
Druids Rawk.
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I think druids are on the strong side, but not out of control strong. They've got good action economy, but that's not unique anymore in PF. They've got decent spells but not the best ever. They've got decent fighting abilities but aren't the most extreme.
In general, they're good enough at a lot of things, but aren't so excessively good at anything that they trigger most people's antennae. Like, at several things they're 90% as good as the best class in that field. On the whole, they're versatile and competent enough to participate in a lot of things.
They get perception as a class skill which really helps the party out at low levels and get better skills than a cleric. A lot of the archetypes are actually a slight nerf. An exception may be menhir savant that is a good archetype as does not hurt wildshape and can get higher caster level.My experience with them is mainly before wildshape though.
They are very situational. In the right ones they are too strong. In the wrong ones they are useless. They are also tough to role-play without being the stereotypical Druid.
In what situation is a druid useless? A posh party or something? Because the barbarian and the fighter arent doing all that much there either, and they dont have the ability to turn into a sparrow and scout out the secret meeting incognito.
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Druids have been toned down greatly from 3.5 due to changes in wildshape rules. Having played a 3.5 game up to a druid 7/wildshaper 3/master of many forms 3, I can fully understand why they were taken down a few notches.
Now, the key to being a good druid is to use your spells to support what you want to do. Many people think it is either spell casting OR wildshaping. In fact, you need to use both to be an exceptional druid. Buff yourself to become a frontline fighter; deliver spells as an air elemental flying around the sky; use earth glide to get behind the wall to take out the hidden spell caster.
It is a very versatile class that can find a lot of synergy between its abilities. It is also easy to ignore some aspect of the class and end up gimping yourself.
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I think druids are on the strong side, but not out of control strong. They've got good action economy, but that's not unique anymore in PF. They've got decent spells but not the best ever. They've got decent fighting abilities but aren't the most extreme.
In general, they're good enough at a lot of things, but aren't so excessively good at anything that they trigger most people's antennae. Like, at several things they're 90% as good as the best class in that field. On the whole, they're versatile and competent enough to participate in a lot of things.
This has been my experience. Druids are very versatile and make fantastic scouts, but there's nothing else that they are really the best at. My druid was a decent melee combatant, decent blaster, decent buffer, decent battlefield controller, but the fighter, barbarian, and paladin were all better in melee, the alchemist was a better blaster, the sorcerer was a better debuffer/controller, and while I was the usually primary buffer it was only because no one else felt like taking that role.
Now, I built my druid to be versatile and I expect that someone could easily make a more specialized/optimized druid, but I still doubt that they'd beat an optimized specialist class at their primary function.
Druid is very very strong, especially compared to the other main Core Dvine Caster, the Cleric. You effectively get more actions per round, thanks to your animal companion. You can basically full-attack with all sorts of claws, bites, trips, whatever your animal companion has... and still have your own round of actions. What's worse is that compared to the Cleric, their spell selection and effect effectiveness are just as good (if not better).
The only thing that MIGHT counter a Druid is situational adventures where you have to be part of a grand gala or be someplace where they don't allow animal companions... but then you have to deal with whining players.
Druids are so brokenly overpowered that I've pretty much given up on my Cleric and am re-rolling Druid for PSOP.
While I have no problem calling the druid one of the most powerful classes, yet I have to disagree with the put down on the cleric.
Clerics can take animal companions with the correct domain choices. 1 feat makes that animal druid strength. Clerics have amazing buff spells and better summons and have channel powers (not just the simple heal channels either). With an archetype they can give up a domain and some channels dice (and med armor) and get the important bard features. So a cleric can go crazy with actions once it reaches mid levels. Add quicken channel and its absolutely insane how many relevant actions a cleric can do in one round. The amazing cleric buffs and condition removal IMHO the cleric with full archetype and build choices is a bit stronger than the druid with similar levels of optimization.
Druids are not the best full caster in the game, but they are still a full caster. They are not the best at scouting, or tanking, but they are still good at them. They are not the best with skills, but they are better than many.
In short, the druid is probably the best 'all round' class in the game, and is very good at a number of things. It pretty much the best class if you are stuck for choice, and they RULE their home environment.
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Druid's aren't considered OP yet because word hasn't gotten out about their new secret weapon. With the release of Animal Archive they now have access to one of the most ridiculously terrifying animal companions out there.... The Panda. With SKR's recent Multiattack clarification, this little bugger gets 2 bite attacks both at 2x STR thanks to Powerful Bite and 2 Claw attacks at 1x STR at 9th level. Put that little ball of death side by side with a druid casting Animal Growth and Strong Jaw and you've got a full caster capable of potent shapeshifting backed by pure death.
What's black and white and red all over? The panda that just ate the BBEG.
They are also tough to role-play without being the stereotypical Druid.I tend to enjoy the Hippy Druid cliche from time to time :)
Indeed. But the savage mystic, the evoking-natural-forces-even-when-they-damage-nature caster, and so on are all good choices as well.
As far as archetypes go, most of the animal shaman archetypes are underpowered, save for the Saurian Shaman. The sheer variety in its totem animals give it great practicality in both wild shape and summoning, especially if your GM counts flying reptiles as dinosaurs.
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Druid's aren't considered OP yet because word hasn't gotten out about their new secret weapon. With the release of Animal Archive they now have access to one of the most ridiculously terrifying animal companions out there.... The Panda. With SKR's recent Multiattack clarification, this little bugger gets 2 bite attacks both at 2x STR and 2 Claw attacks at 1x STR at 9th level. Put that little ball of death side by side with a druid casting Animal Growth and Strong Jaw and you've got a full caster capable of potent shapeshifting backed by pure death. What's black and white and red all over? The panda that just ate the BBEG.
Wow, yeah. Powerful bite is SICK! Might have to give up my dinosaur companion for a panda once I hit a higher level.
Just on the subject of most druid archetypes being a nerf, let me point out that summoning a pouncing big cat as a standard action instead of a full round action is an action economy windfall in many fights. In round one My druid can send her pouncing animal companion AND a pouncing tiger into the fray. It's hard to top ten attack rolls in the first round of combat...
I'll enjoy participating as "quite good" in everything, instead of only sometimes being really the very very best.
This how I feel. To me the class seems too good. At no point in the game will I be sub-par with a druid, unless I dump stats. The animal companion is really good at low levels, taking away some of the fighters thunder. At mid levels your solid and you're not left behind at high levels because you're a full-caster.
Even though they're not the best at anything, they have almost no weak points. I feel like Pathfinder is not a game that you "win", but it is a game that you can lose. Druids are really good at not losing. I think more so than any other class.
As good as druids are, and I think they are really, really good, I don't think they are "too good" since the PF nerfs. I do think they were "too good" in 3.5. There are too many other "too good" classes now that outdo the druid, some, like the summoner, outdo the druid at what was once considered the druid's core function.
At low levels druids are as good as any other class in the game. At mid levels they are still very good but are no longer as good as any other class, and at the highest levels their spell selection causes them to fall behind other full casters, but not terribly far behind.
And the idea that druid role playing is restricted to a few stereotypes is just silly. Druids are probably the most flexible class for role playing in the game.
And the idea that druid role playing is restricted to a few stereotypes is just silly. Druids are probably the most flexible class for role playing in the game.
True neutral is my favourite alignment to role-play. I don't have to worry about weird moral codes. I can just do whatever seems reasonable because it seemed reasonable.
Not quite. That pesky alignment restriction does put a damper on a few concepts, depending on GM of course.
The real beauty of a "neutral" alignment is that you can play it any way you like, so long as you balance it out, which is just more role playing fodder anyway.
Not seeing any real limitation to a druid's role playing, except that after a while you have to switch gears. But I like switching gears.
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I suppose a lot of the time you can play TN as just being a moderate influence on the party's more extreme tendencies. ("Yes, we could decimate the village for offending us, but wouldn't it be better if we..." and also "Well, you can be all righteous about those people getting attacked by goblins, but that's what you get for expanding into another race's territory. I think we should tell them to evacuate, rather than protecting these colonies.")
An NG Druid of Erastil - could be an awful lot of fun to play :P
