I am brainstorming about building a druid who aims to fight in elemental body (earth) form as soon and as often as possible and would like to collect ideas about it.
Why: Another player and I are thinking about building team PCs who use teamwork feats to work together. When using animal forms I would not be able to afford the teamwork feats because there are too many feats I would want for that one.
What: A melee druid who starts fighting with a weapon and aims to become an earth elemental as soon, as often and as long as possible.
I haven't decided yet what to do for levels 4+5. Beast shape would be availiable but elemental body not.
In beast form I can't talk and cast spells without the feats and I can't afford those feats.
Animal companion: A small cat with weapon finesse that stays small at level 4 (taking +2dex +2 con instead of the normal advance). It has trip and trip is a combat maneuver you can make with your weapon so weapon finesse applies. It will have a nice attack bonus and a equally nice CMB for trip. Damage is nearly nonexistant but you can't have everything. Problem is it can only trip up to medium creatures.
What I'm not sure about what to do once I have elemental form. Do I try to put a weapon away before changing so I can pick it up as elemental? Or do I just use my slam? Small and medium elementals only have one slam.
Any advice/ideas?
I've only ever seen elementals use natural attacks. While an earth elemental wielding a scythe would look intimidating, I doubt any GM would approve it so you're probably going to have to rely on slam attacks. Be careful of walking places that can't support your weight!
The weapon usage stuff is something I'll have to discuss with my gm but my point is:
Elemental Subtype
An elemental is a being composed entirely from one of the four classical elements: air, earth, fire, or water.
An elemental has the following features.
•Immunity to bleed, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning.
•Not subject to critical hits or flanking. Does not take additional damage from precision-based attacks, such as sneak attack.
•Proficient with natural weapons only, unless generally humanoid in form, in which case proficient with all simple weapons and any weapons mentioned in its entry.
•Proficient with whatever type of armor (light, medium, or heavy) it is described as wearing, as well as all lighter types. Elementals not indicated as wearing armor are not proficient with armor. Elementals are proficient with shields if they are proficient with any form of armor.
•Elementals do not breathe, eat, or sleep.
This hulking, roughly humanoid creature of dirt and stone explodes up from the earth, faceless save for two glowing gemstone eyes.
If generally humanoid elementals get weapon proficiencies I would say that being roughly humanoid should be enough to keep on using those weapons you already have the proficiency for.
I've thought about a somewhat similar druid lately. My problem with the class used to be that I never could choose between an AC or a domain. AC always seemed like too much of a hassle (for me anyway) but none of the druid domains seemed quite good enough to be a valid replacement.
And then I took a closer look at the blight druid. He has access to the darkness domain, which is pretty awesome. Summoning 1d3 shadows (up to 3d6 str damage almost guaranteed against most large enemies) is great. Shadow Conjuration is pure versatility and Obscuring Mist and Blindness are good, too. Also, the level 1 domain power is basically blur for everyone in the group and doesn't allow a save.
Miasma is a mean debuff for anyone coming too close to you and Plaguebearer can be anything from ability damage to an ability score of your choice to blindness. And the DC scales better than the contagion spell itself.
Also, Blight druid is one of the few archetypes that don't delay your wildshape progression.
Get a conductive and sepllstoring weapon and you can hit a foe for damage + touch of darkness + Blindness (or poison or whatever). And all this while he's choking because you stink like rotten eggs. Works like a charm if you play a dwarf with Cha 5 or something like that :D
Personally, I'd use a conductive/spellstoring amulet of mighty fist instead of a waepon so I'm not limited to medium shapes (unless your GM allow the weapon to change its size when you wildshape).
Just get a larger weapon crafted. You can enchant two for the price of an AMF.
Not quite. The amulet doesn't need a +1 enchantment before you add conductive and spell storing. So technically it's one +2 amulet vs two +3 weapons. The +1 bonus to all attacks is easily added via greater magical fang.
Also, a druid can eventuall turn into 4 different sizes of elementals. Yes, even the small elemental form can be useful at higher levels as it is better at stealth and fly checks.
The amulet is also usefull if you change to other forms. How about a Quickwood? Three root attacks with 60 ft reach!
If Domains are your problem take a look at the shoanti shaman archetype from the paizo blog.
http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lc9y?Golarion-Day-The-Shoanti-Shaman
The domains they give are not in the blog entry but can be found in the forums here somewhere.
About the blight druid: not being able to go near your allies without harming them is too much of a drawback for me to play it. If it was possible to turn miasma off I'd play one. But like that? Who will heal you if you're below 0 if they have to expose themselves to the miasma?
I plan on taking teamwork feats together with another pc. That's why I have few feats to spare.
Spell components are a good point but perhaps I can drop the spell component pouch before shifting, as I want to do with the weapon.
If Domains are your problem take a look at the shoanti shaman archetype from the paizo blog.
http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lc9y?Golarion-Day-The-Shoanti-Shaman
GM doesn't allow anything beyond Core + APG. Also, I'd like to be a dwarf and one being raised by the shoanti doesn't appeal to me.
About the blight druid: not being able to go near your allies without harming them is too much of a drawback for me to play it. If it was possible to turn miasma off I'd play one. But like that? Who will heal you if you're below 0 if they have to expose themselves to the miasma?
They are immune for 24 hours once they make their save. Even with abysmal Fort save, being around you for two minutes will work as they (statistically) will roll a 20 in that time. It might not be pleasant for them, but they should be immune before breakfast is over.
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The weapon usage stuff is something I'll have to discuss with my gm but my point is:
Elemental Subtype
An elemental is a being composed entirely from one of the four classical elements: air, earth, fire, or water.
An elemental has the following features.
•Immunity to bleed, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning.
•Not subject to critical hits or flanking. Does not take additional damage from precision-based attacks, such as sneak attack.
•Proficient with natural weapons only, unless generally humanoid in form, in which case proficient with all simple weapons and any weapons mentioned in its entry.
•Proficient with whatever type of armor (light, medium, or heavy) it is described as wearing, as well as all lighter types. Elementals not indicated as wearing armor are not proficient with armor. Elementals are proficient with shields if they are proficient with any form of armor.
•Elementals do not breathe, eat, or sleep.This hulking, roughly humanoid creature of dirt and stone explodes up from the earth, faceless save for two glowing gemstone eyes.If generally humanoid elementals get weapon proficiencies I would say that being roughly humanoid should be enough to keep on using those weapons you already have the proficiency for.
You're actually still Humanoid whether you change into beastform, elemental body, plantform, etc. You're still considered Humanoid, but just polymorphed. You gain no subtype nor does your primary type change.
You gain literally only what is listed by Elemental Body in regards to what Wildshape specifies.
http://paizo.com/prd/spells/elementalBody.html
You only gain immunity to Crit, Sneak attack, and Bleed, and eventually you gain DR 5. A few abilities as listed in elemental body I are also included in respect to their element. You are not immune to poisons, sleep, paralysis, and stunning. I believe flanking still applies as well.
Just to be clear.
If you're DM is treating it otherwise, than that's a nifty houserule.
In order to wield a weapon, as long as you have the proficiency somehow, albeit feat or from your class, you just need a legitimate pair of hands to hold it in.
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If Domains are your problem take a look at the shoanti shaman archetype from the paizo blog.
http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lc9y?Golarion-Day-The-Shoanti-Shaman
The domains they give are not in the blog entry but can be found in the forums here somewhere.About the blight druid: not being able to go near your allies without harming them is too much of a drawback for me to play it. If it was possible to turn miasma off I'd play one. But like that? Who will heal you if you're below 0 if they have to expose themselves to the miasma?
That is probably the only real downer of Blight Druid, is that damn Miasma hurting all creatures, including team members. It would also make for horrible ending RP I'm sure. If you can convince your GM of you being able to turn that ability on and off as a swift action or something, Blight would so be worth it.