Hey guys,
I'm new to P&P RPGs and we are starting our first session to Pathfinder next week. All players and even the GM are beginners to this. I decided to start with a Druid because the GM wouldn't allow me to play a blind Archer XD Druid seems to be a nice all-rounder to play with. But I always enjoyed pet classes. So I was thinking how to setup my druid right to have as many pets as I can get.
Starting with a wolf to fight along side with, I also like to have some sort of bird as a scout and maybe a weasel just because of style and have something that can climb and get into narrow places our group doesn't fit in.
Other than that I like the idea of a druid that has a very prominent presence in nature. Meaning, when I'm outdoors and in danger there is a chance that random animals come to my aid or something. Is there such thing in the rule book?
I also wouldn't want to ignore the wild shape, even tho fighting in shape doesn't have to be top prior.
My attribute prior order would be as followed (high to low): WISDOM, INTELLIGENCE, CHARISMA, CONSTITUTION, STRENGTH, DEXTERITY
Is that solid or do I need more of a specific attribute to perform crucial actions like Dex for example?
Depending on how much Intelligence I will have I thought something like this could be a possible for skills:
+0 Handle Animal, Heal, Survival, Perception
+1 12-13 (Intimidate)
+2 14-15 (Knownledge Nature)
+3 16-17 (Spellcraft)
+4 18-19 (Use Magic Device)
+5 20 (Sense Motive)
Feats would look something like this:
Lv01| Animal Affinity - +2 bonus on Handle Animal and Ride checks
Lv03| Self-Sufficient - +2 bonus on Heal and Survival checks
Lv05| Combat Casting - +4 bonus on concentration checks for defensive casting
Lv07| Eschew Materials - Cast spells without material components
Lv09| Intimidating Prowness* - Add Str to Intimidate in addition to Cha
Lv11| Magical Aptitude - +2 bonus on Spellcraft and Use Magic Device checks
Lv13| Natural Spell - Cast spells while using wild shape
Lv15| Silent Spell - Cast spell without verbal components
Am I missing anything important or is this more or less a solid starting point for an animal affine Druid?
Thank you very much for advice in advance.
Well, druids don't normally get more then one animal companion. However, depending on how you're planning on using animal companions there different options.
1. Pack Lord Archetype - This lets you have multiple animal companions, by splitting levels among different companions. The downside to this is that without a way to gain additional animal levels (like the feat boon companion for example) your animal companions are less useful for combat.
2. Gain a familiar - There are a lot of feats that can allow you to gain a familiar that will progress independently from your animal companion. Since you're looking for a scout type creature this is probably your best option. Your familar can be geared toward scouting and your animal companion built for combat. Some feats for gaining a familiar: Wasp Familiar, Improved Familiar Bond, Hand's Detachment
3. "build" some scouts - So long as you have the appropriate skills/feats anyone can make a Homunculus and other constructs. Since you can basically make them look like whatever you want you can flavor them to be more "naturey". There are major downsides to this though, they can be quite expensive and they don't level with you. Meaning that they will lag behind your character and if/when they get killed its painful to replace them.
4. Purchase/Raise animals - You do have wild empathy and so you'll have an easier time controlling trained and wild animals. Unfortunately, they also will not automatically level with you and so you'll be forced to find and/or replace them with more powerful animals while you level. While cheaper than constructs, wild animals may wander off and/or even attack the party if you botch a handle animal / wild empathy check.
5. Spells - druids do have the ability to temporarily summon the aid of animals (eg. Summon Nature's Ally). So, unless you have your heart set on having your animal friends with you at all times this is the easiest way to do it. Especially since it's already baked into the class and essentially costs nothing. The downside is that these spells only last for a very short time and you get a limited number of spells per day.
There are numerous problems with your character. First of all your stat priority is going to make your character vulnerable in combat. A low DEX and Con means less HP, AC, and low reflex saves. Second your skill priorities seem to be ignoring important class skills at the expense of skills that are not class skills. Your feats are also focused too much on short term bonuses to skill at the expense of combat. The few good feat choices you take are taken much later than they should. For example combat casting and Natural spell should be taken as soon as they can. You are also taking Intimidating powers on a character with a low STR. Eschew Materials is not a good choice for a divine caster as most of their spells use a divine focus instead of a material component.
Numerous animal companions sound like a good idea, but it is the worst thing you can do. Having multiple weak companions means they will get killed of way too easily. Take a single animal companion and purchase or summon others.
Wild empathy will allow you to befriend animals you encounter. There are a couple of feats that can improve this and this would be a better use of your feats than what you have chosen.
I am leaving for work so don’t have time to go into a lot of recommendations, but will post further when I get the chance.
Ok, First, I think you need to clarify for us what materials are allowed, I don't see anything from outside the Core Rule Book in your build, and if that is a campaign limitation (not a bad idea for an all new group) the quite a bit of the specific advice above is not relevant.
Next, you need to think about what you want your 'job' to be in the party. As a Druid you could pretty much do anything, it is a very versatile class, but any given round you can only do one thing so building for a primary role will make you more useful. In general there are strikers (damage the bad guys), support (buff up your strikers including heal) and control (limit the abilities of the bad guys to damage your teammates.) The best druid builds for each of these is quite different.
Based on what you have written, I'd look at a controller druid primarily using summon nature's ally (short term pets) to accomplish it. Without other investment, that might not be possible in your campaign, a summon spell is going to take a full round, meaning you spend your entire turn casting and then starting at the beginning of your next turn the creature(s) you summon appears on the battlefield, so keeping yourself out of danger (maybe holding back your wolf to protect you) is pretty important. Usually the best use of summons isn't primarily to damage opponents (that is only a secondary concern) but as blockers and to keep opponents from ganging up on your guys as well as providing flanking opportunities.
With this kind of a plan, I would use wild shape as mobility/scouting/defense not offense. You can be the 'bird' scout or the 'weasel' sneak if those things are necessary.
I'd go for stats of WIS > DEX/CON > CHR/INT > STR
Spellcasting is important, Dex and Con will help keep you alive and the last three are not going to be that significant for you.
Skills I would focus on: Perception (most used skill in the game) Handle Animal, perhaps Spellcraft/Knowledge Nature/Survival depending on if other members of the party had then, usually one member having them is enough and if you want to scout, Stealth is a really good idea. You probably won't need heal too much (you have magic for that) and most likely someone else will be better at intimidate anyway a use magic device isn't hugely important for you, with your spell casting there plenty of wands and scrolls that you can use without it.
For feats (assuming Core Rulebook only) I would start with
1) Spell Focus (conjuration)
3) Augment Summoning
5) Natural Spell
Hmm... Does it just have to be 'animals' or are you looking for 'companions' that can serve in the same role as an animal companion? If its the later ... Well, how does 7 companion creatures sound to you? You can only have three out at one time (two plus one of you choice), but you can mold them to fit whatever role you want them to serve.
Anyway, let me know if you are interested.
First of all thanks for all the advice so far.
Yes sorry I forgot to mention, since we are a starting group full of freshmen, we decided to start with the Core Rule Book only to keep things simple. Min-Maxing isn't that important to us for now. But sooner or later it is natural to optimizing the odds, especially for me as the master of nat1 rolls.
Oh and I forgot to mention my choices for my wolf.
So even tho there are many good feats for him I thought of Intimidating Prowess because I want my wolf to keep evil away from us. Don't want to end up fighting everything.
Animal Tricks I think Combat Training looks solid and as far as I can tell I got to pick one more of my choice? So I thought Track could be useful and sounds like a wolf should be capable of?
Ok now I'll try to answer posts chronologically as far as I can with the understanding I have right now.
Pack Lord Archetype: Splitting the levels among the companions sounds like a bad idea. I'd like to keep the wolf as my main companion for fighting and protection. But seems not to be in the Core Rule Book anyways.
Gain a Familiar: The Familiar for the Bird and Weasel sounds great. Definitely a possibility that is noted, thanks!
Homunculus/Constructs and buying animals doesn't sound like something I would like to roleplay with.
Spells: Didn't looked into each Druid spell yet. The Summon Nature's Ally sounds like a valid option indeed. Tho calling already living creatures from around sounds more like the Druid I'd like to play as. But in the end it just is about roleplaying with the rules we have I guess. Maybe I just give that spell a different name and I have what I wanted :D
Thank you very much for you input.
I forgot to mention in my initial post that I only have the Core Rule Book to work with. Seemed like some solid picks, but I surely will look over them to get some better picks for the role I'd like to play.
Traits aren't in the Core Rule Book I think, so guess that's a pass there :(
Thanks to you as well.
Stat Prior: Thank you, I will reconsider my stat priority.
Feat Choices: After some thinking and reading through your comments I already see why some choices may have been not the best idea. For intimidation I already will use my wolf I guess. And beside that we also got a Fighter and even a Bard who are going to skill that, so I guess I can ditch that without any second thought for sure.
Numerous Animal Companions: I guess I can live with the idea of having one companion, later on a familiar and use some summons with the Nature's Ally spell. Not exactly what I had in mind, but something I can work with. And you can be dead sure I'm going to try to pet every animal I come across with :D
Core Rule Book: Yes, sorry I forgot to mention. The Core Rule Book is all I have to choose from. Thanks for pointing out.
My Job: My job in the party isn't really set yet. As far as our plans goes we might will have a Fighter, a Wizard and a Bard. The Bard already stated he wants to support. The Fighter hopefully will do the tanking and some damage and the Wizard naturally is pure damage I suppose? Can't tell for sure tho, because we will create characters in about a week. Before that nothing is final. So back to my role I think I will do the Jack-of-all-Traits and aid everywhere I can.
Controller: A controller sounds fun, but not sure if that is all I want to do. I was thinking of some "into the action" with the Wild Shape form, but I guess that would mean I have to drop some other stuff to be useful in that fighting action. So I better let my wolf do the fighting instead. Blocking enemies from ganging up on my mates is exactly what I had in mind with those pets. But I wouldn't want them to be cannon fooder only. No problem with summoned creatures but living ones I wouldn't sacrifice willingly.
Stats: I thought Charisma is one of the more important stats because it is used for Handle Animal? But I see now why Dex and Con is more important and Wisdom obviously is my main stat. So that leaves Charisma and Intelligence which both also sorta are important to the order you already placed them in. Thanks.
Skills: Depending on how much intelligence I will end up with I might consider picking those you mentioned. But Stealth definitely isn't something I want to go with. My pets can do that job if there is the need or we might just leave it to our Bard if he wants to be a more Rogue-like Bard, which I don't know yet for sure.
Feats: Conjuration sounds awesome! Guess that's a solid feat to start with. For level 3 I hopefully will have a better understanding of the game and my role in our party till then.
Thank you very much for your advice and input.
Yes I would like to keep the companions as animals. I even didn't wanted them to be summoned at first, but that at least is one way my thoughts could play out somehow. I guess the 7 companion creatures you are referring to are also summoned spirits or something?
Ah, well, if you only have the core book to work with, than my multiple companion creatures wouldn't be an option for you. But, yes, the companion creatures would be: 5 Eidolons, 1 phantom animal, 1 animal companion, ... and 1 Familiar. Eidolons and phantoms don't play well together, so you'd only be able to manifest one of those at one time.
I see, well thanks anyways. Maybe worth a look in the future :)
Okay so today we created our characters. I decided to go with a more supportive casting Druid with the Wolf companion doing some damage. Later I might join in with some Wild Shape animal, but I don't have much strength so I need to add in my Dex Bonus with a Feat first.
Anyhow I'm a bit confused right now. What exactly does it take for the Druid to learn how to summon a Familiar? I can't find anything in the Core Rulebook for that.
ah damn okay, well guess I have to replan my feats a bit then. Thank you.