I really like the druid class but did not really enjoy playing a straight melee or straight caster version of the class. Is there a way to make a good fun balanced druid? Perhaps it is my lack of knowledge with the divine spell list that made my caster days unfun but it seemed I was relegated to Flame Strikes, Ice Storms, and the Lightning Lord ability if I wanted to be relevant in combat at all and melee wise, it just seemed like a less effective fighter. I guess what I'm looking for is a build that balances both aspects and is fun to play...I have a 20 point buy and this would be a level 12 character. Any advice?
Sure, with a build at level 12 that lets you create a character that takes advantage of not having to be useful at any other level prior to 12!
Forget power attack and cleave and all that crap and just use vital strike with the BAB of the druid, vital strike is an option that frees up other feats for some other crazy feats and ideas.
Vital strike works for both melee and ranged.
Once you are at BAB +11 you can (take improved vital strike) roll one attack at highest bonus and damage 3 times!
Depends how you see balanced. If you adapt this melee guide, I think you could be guite balanced. Just concentrate on buffing instead of damage spells so you don't need high DC.
Mine is balanced between melee and spells although superior summons seems less valuable than it did when I first built the character. I've substituted it for PA.
Traits: Reactionary, Dirty fighter
Feats
1: SF Conjuration
H: Augment summons
3: Power attack
5: Natural spell
7: Planar wildshape
9: Hammer the gap
11: Quicken or dazing spell I'm still undecided which is best.
Wild shape combat forms
4: Raptor after spells are gone
5: Eagle or raptor. Eagle gives you flight.
6: Dire tiger unless you're allowed to use giant octopus on land (You are, it's cheesy)
7: Celestial as above
8: Celestial Allosaurus if room is available, otherwise as level 7
9: As above
10: Interesting options it practically comes down to preference although the celestial octopus is still the highest damage while smiting.
11: As above
12: Quickwood. You set yourself in the middle of the board and threaten everything and then some.
Items
+ Str Belt
+ Wis Headband
Amulet of mighty fists (I Like acid for me and menacing for my pet but if you have self disipline holy is probably best)
+ Cloak of resistance
Eyes of the eagle - Perception is actually just THAT GOOD in my experience
+1 initiative cracked ioun stone
+1 diplo ioun stone
Druid's vestment (Potentially up to 3 if you're allowed to cycle them ALA Pearl of power)
If you can ever afford it Wild armor
With the above build you end up with DR, resistances, high AC, massive HP (Especially if you chose plant form or elemental form early on) superlative non reflex saves (They're much less important than fort/will) and SR all on the defense. On the offensive you've got 4-9 attacks to at most 6 attacks from an archer and your attacks hit harder thanks to the +6/+8 to STR and smite evil. On the spell front you end up with level 6 spell that have either DC22 or DC23 if conjuration. A dedicated wizard will only have about 2-3 points higher and will not be able to hit for over 100 damage or have overland flight as a SLA that gives him +3 initiative, or have over 20 con by swapping to water form. You're a pile of special effects and so often immune to critical hits something wizards aren't really able to duplicate. You're 80-90% of a wizard and 200% of the fighter. You're not going to beat dedicated damage builds (IE AM BARBARIAN, Ragelancepounce, Paladin archers smiting) most of the time but you'll do superb damage .
Some builds are more balanced than others, but you'll be much more powerful if you pick one or the other. For example, let's look at 3 rough sample builds:
Build 1 - The Melee Druid
Str 18, Wis 14
Nature's Bond: Animal Companion
Feats: Toughness, Power Attack, Natural Spell, Vital Strike/Weapon Focus...
Build 3 - The Balanced Druid
Str 16, Wis 16
Nature's Bond: Animal Companion
Feats: Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Natural Spell, Combat Casting...
How will they do? Well, the Melee Druid will be able to buff and maybe summon before entering battle, then wildshape and charge in. His high strength, feats, and buffs will let him land hits, and his companion, Toughness, etc. will let him survive.
Meanwhile, the Caster Druid will also be doing fine, as an eagle casting spells from up on high, or a badger/earth elemental casting summons from underground (check with your gm). His Domain spells and abilities will let him keep casting and doing things all day long.
But what about the Balanced Druid? He has almost as much strength as the Melee Druid, but without feats like Toughness or Power Attack he'll have trouble making his presence felt. Of course, if he feels like it, he can stay out of combat and cast spells... but without the feats or a massively pumped Wisdom, his save DCs won't be very high, his summons won't be as tough, and if he picked an Animal Companion he'll likely run out of spell slots fairly quickly.
Long story short: when it comes to combat, pick one aspect or the other to focus on, or you won't be effective at either.
Remember also that no matter how you build your druid, you'll still be one of the most versatile members of the party - no matter what, you get access to Wild Shape (which is incredible for scouting and surmounting obstacles) and all of the awesome Druid utility spells. If you're concerned about utility, I highly recommend you take Scribe Scroll - I took it on my melee druid at level 1, and it lets you fill your slots with buffs while maintaining a huge amount of versatility.
Some builds are more balanced than others, but you'll be much more powerful if you pick one or the other. For example, let's look at 3 rough sample builds:
Build 1 - The Melee Druid
Str 18, Wis 14
Nature's Bond: Animal Companion
Feats: Toughness, Power Attack, Natural Spell, Vital Strike/Weapon Focus...
Build 3 - The Balanced Druid
Str 16, Wis 16
Nature's Bond: Animal Companion
Feats: Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Natural Spell, Combat Casting...
How will they do? Well, the Melee Druid will be able to buff and maybe summon before entering battle, then wildshape and charge in. His high strength, feats, and buffs will let him land hits, and his companion, Toughness, etc. will let him survive.
Meanwhile, the Caster Druid will also be doing fine, as an eagle casting spells from up on high, or a badger/earth elemental casting summons from underground (check with your gm). His Domain spells and abilities will let him keep casting and doing things all day long.
But what about the Balanced Druid? He has almost as much strength as the Melee Druid, but without feats like Toughness or Power Attack he'll have trouble making his presence felt. Of course, if he feels like it, he can stay out of combat and cast spells... but without the feats or a massively pumped Wisdom, his save DCs won't be very high, his summons won't be as tough, and if he picked an Animal Companion he'll likely run out of spell slots fairly quickly.
Long story short: when it comes to combat, pick one aspect or the other to focus on, or you won't be effective at either.
Remember also that no matter how you build your druid, you'll still be one of the most versatile members of the party - no matter what, you get access to Wild Shape (which is incredible for scouting and surmounting obstacles) and all of the awesome Druid utility spells. If you're concerned about...
I disagree with this at least somewhat.
Precombat you've got a number of 10 min/level spells like resinous skin and wind spells which have DC's.
Combat round 1: If you think it can die in no more than 2 rounds Pounce, grab, rake, dead. If you believe combat will be even slightly difficult cast SNA.
Combat round 2: If there is a preponderance of weaker enemies (5+) cast a BC spell. If you're truly outgunned drop a second summons before wading in.
Round 3+: Full attack unless a spell is needed.
From above
Build 1: This gains 1 damage and 1 to hit vs having another high level spell, +1 will save, +1 perception. If it was 16/16 and bumped wis you'd gain more than +2 hit/damage which you can gain FROM SPELLS that you gain for free. As an aside vital strike is demonstraitably worse than hammer the gap, toughness worse than planar wild shape.
Build 2: This build just gives up all of the power of the druid for nothing. Any STR score of 12+ is better than this because it gives you valid options. Combat casting is terrible for a class that shouldn't ever be in reach thanks to earth elemental form. What domain would you pick? The extra spells from every domain are mediocre to bad.
Build 3: This is close but you're giving up a huge amount of power by taking subpar feats. Don't take imp init and combat casting, take SF conjuration and augmented summoning. Boom good casting.
My above build is more or less what I'd recommend and it's close to the third build but without the fluffy feats. If you take dazing spell it should be noted that targeting reflex (Something you can do) is the equivalent of adding +10 to a stat or +5 to the DC due to the low REF on most monsters past 7th.
Final note: Domains are terrible for spells. Absolutely no domain grants you 1 spell/spell level as they all have abominable spells at some level. AC is by far the most powerful choice even for a caster druid as the AC is essentially a permanent summon with gear. If you need a domain for something specific that's fine (Cave for tremorsense + Earth elemental form) but domains don't make you a better caster than just starting with a 20 wisdom does.
@Undone: My point is that put together, having +2 Str AND Power Attack AND Toughness, not to mention investing more GP and more later feats to combat effectiveness, makes a big difference. SF Conjuration and Augment Summoning (and maybe Superior Summoning) will make you an excellent summoner, but good luck taking hits and penetrating DR.
Also, if you're going caster druid, you probably want to dump strength, and you almost certainly need a domain. Yes, it's nice to have 12 or 14 str so you can hit things occasionally, and yes it's nice to have an animal companion, but casters will spend most of their time tiny and casting spells. That means that those points that would go to strength are better spent boosting wisdom, dexterity, or constitution. It also means that if you run out of spells, you're not doing much; and an extra spell of each level, not to mention a spammable Wis-based attack, make a big difference. (Thus why very few wizards opt to be Universalists.) And you're underselling domains. Air gives you a nice mix of battlefield control, buffs, and even a nice blast spell (Chain Lightning), not to mention a spammable attack for lower levels and lightning resistance to boot. Weather and Earth are pretty good, too.
@OP: All of this also depends on your campaign and GM. There's always a balance between power and versatility. If this is a high-difficulty, munchkin-filled campaign, you probably need to build one way or the other to really contribute. But if this is for PFS, where you don't know your party and versatility is king, or if the difficulty of the campaign is such that enemies don't have really high saves, then by all means, play what's fun for you!
The high-strength pouncing druid and high-wis summon-spamming caster druid are probably the two most powerful druid builds (without starting to get really specific with multiclassing combos, etc.), but they're by no means the only way to play. You could build a druid that likes to transform into a snake and grapple/poison the enemy into submission. You could play a druid that likes to turn into a bunny rabbit, then ride his T-Rex animal companion around and do nothing but buff it while it murders things. You could play a druid that turns into a tree and uses combat reflexes to smack anything that moves. Up to you!
@Undone: My point is that put together, having +2 Str AND Power Attack AND Toughness, not to mention investing more GP and more later feats to combat effectiveness, makes a big difference. SF Conjuration and Augment Summoning (and maybe Superior Summoning) will make you an excellent summoner, but good luck taking hits and penetrating DR.
First off DR5/evil, SR level+6 (Because the template bumps your CR by 1) and resist elements 10 trumps toughness in a way so comical that it's almost embarrassing. As for power attack feat list of 1+H:SF Conjuration + Aug summon, 3: Power attack, 5: Natural spell, 7: Planar wild shape gives you substantial power for doing damage. As for damage reduction I actually panicked about that a lot. It frustrated me to run into constructs over and over. Then I realized it just didn't matter. Between me and my big cat we were doing ~20-25 points a turn though DR which was more than any other player at the table could. Resinous skin goes a long way to upping survival and if I hadn't started with a 16 wisdom I'd not have it at level 5.
Reynard_the_fox wrote:
Also, if you're going caster druid, you probably want to dump strength, and you almost certainly need a domain. Yes, it's nice to have 12 or 14 str so you can hit things occasionally, and yes it's nice to have an animal companion, but casters will spend most of their time tiny and casting spells. That means that those points that would go to strength are better spent boosting wisdom, dexterity, or constitution. It also means that if you run out of spells, you're not doing much; and an extra spell of each level, not to mention a spammable Wis-based attack, make a big difference. (Thus why very few wizards opt to be Universalists.) And you're underselling domains. Air gives you a nice mix of battlefield control, buffs, and even a nice blast spell (Chain Lightning), not to mention a spammable attack for lower levels and lightning resistance to boot. Weather and Earth are pretty good, too.
Let's hypothetically say you dumped STR completely and took a 20 wisdom. Explain to me what set of spells (Prior to say level 15-17 where 9th level magic overshadows EVERYTHING ELSE) is superior to having a free all day (+6 level's spell adjustment based on 3.5) summons that follows and aids you fearlessly is. I'd love to see the domain which trumps almost +3/4ths your damage is. If you run out of spells aid another your lion/raptor is still a decent action, often (READ ALWAYS) Better than 1d6+1/2 caster level. Wizards don't opt to specialize because they gain 9 specific spells one per level. They specialize because it's 1 additional out of ~30-50 options that can be changed on the fly. As for the storm domain blast honestly... It's piddling. 3d6 LIGHTNING Damage that you can't stack on one target and have to pointlessly spread out. Average of 10.5 damage spread out limited times per day. As for having a spam-able attack, you know what's spam-able? A full attack. It does 11.5 average damage if everything hits.
Reynard_the_fox wrote:
@OP: All of this also depends on your campaign and GM. There's always a balance between power and versatility. If this is a high-difficulty, munchkin-filled campaign, you probably need to build one way or the other to really contribute. But if this is for PFS, where you don't know your party and versatility is king, or if the difficulty of the campaign is such that enemies don't have really high saves, then by all means, play what's fun for you!
I agree on playing what's fun for you. But as a note if you're playing in a high power game just alter the above build to bump str and buy the STR item first because magic will rarely/ever work due to SR, resistances, AMF's, and so on.
Reynard_the_fox wrote:
The high-strength pouncing druid and high-wis summon-spamming caster druid are probably the two most powerful druid builds (without starting to get really specific with multiclassing combos, etc.), but they're by no means the only way to play. You could build a druid that likes to transform into a snake...
Each build only loses +2 wisdom or +2 str off the other until level 16. A pure caster druid might have +3 to a DC and a pure melee might have +2-3 to hit and damage. That's 10% on a save or die which means in 80% of the remaining cases (1 and 20 are automatic) baleful polymorph is still going to make them an ant. At first level the difference is smaller at a measly +1 on either end of the build.
