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I have a friend in one of the campaigns I'm in right now, and she is playing a druid pack lord. Currently lvl 2 with a lvl 1 bird companion, and a lvl 1 wolf companion. By lvl 10, she wants to have lvl 7 wolf, and a lvl 3 bird(eagle). She is more interested in melee combat over magic, and thinks she might want to take a mounted combat route, how might she do that, and do you guys have any other ideas for what she might want to do? this is her first campaign, and I'm afraid I'm not much help, because I've never played a druid before.
Has she decided to completely not use Wild Shape then? That is where a druids melee capability mostly comes from.
prototype00
Edit: If she wants to play a mounted character with a buff animal companion, Cavalier works a lot better. If she wants a mounted character with spells, Summoner is the best at that IIRC.
Has she decided to completely not use Wild Shape then? That is where a druids melee capability mostly comes from.
prototype00
Edit: If she wants to play a mounted character with a buff animal companion, Cavalier works a lot better. If she wants a mounted character with spells, Summoner is the best at that IIRC.
I have no clue why she wants the eagle companion, she says she doesn't know if she plans to make use of wild shape in combat, but she seems interested in the idea of riding the wolf in combat, we are not allowed to change out class, but we can change our archetype any better ideas or ideas on how to make her suggested build work are much appreciated. I tend to play characters focused on ranged combat, so I'm not much help to her.
What race is she? I'm not sure you can ride medium creatures into combat if you're medium yourself. Which nixes the wolf idea until you can get animal growth, and even that is temporary (minutes/level).
Does your friend know that as an 8th level character, she can do 4d8 per attack when wildshped into the appropriate form (Behemoth Hippo) and that translates easily to 8d8 with vital strike?
prototype00
She picked the wrong class.
If you want to be a combat druid, you need to either - a) give up companions for a strong combat domain (i.e. Battle, Rage), b) use Wild Shape to take advantage of the sheer size bonus, c) multiclass.
An alternative is to be a Saurian Shaman, but she loses her choice pets.
A good multiclass option however is Roughrider Fighter. It will give her really good abilities, tons of feats (which allow her to take Horse Master to make her Wolf level with her Fighter levels, so she could start multiclassing right now [which she should do if she wants nothing else out of druid]) and she gets weapon/armor proficiencies to boot.
Link to Roughrider: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fig hter-archetypes/roughrider
@prototype00 wolves grow to large at level 7.
She picked the wrong class.
If you want to be a combat druid, you need to either - a) give up companions for a strong combat domain (i.e. Battle, Rage), b) use Wild Shape to take advantage of the sheer size bonus, c) multiclass.An alternative is to be a Saurian Shaman, but she loses her choice pets.
A good multiclass option however is Roughrider Fighter. It will give her really good abilities, tons of feats (which allow her to take Horse Master to make her Wolf level with her Fighter levels) and she gets weapon proficiencies to boot.
@prototype00 wolves grow to large at level 7.
I wouldn't have said it quite so strongly myself, but yes, nothing in the druid class lends itself to mounted combat except for the presence of a loyal animal companion.
Though if wolves do grow, I suppose that isn't bad, but almost any other class can make use of that with Animal Ally and Boon Companion.
prototype00
Saurian shaman has raptor and crocodile, both of which will murderate dungeons.
The wolf can grow to large at 7th, I think. Ninja'd
That said mounted combat in the traditional form (lance atks) would be difficult. No lance proficiency, lots of feats (mounted combat, ride by attack, spirited charge). And the crazy chaos that is mounted combat (how does a reach lance work with a non reach mount).
However, do not despair, you can play a combat Druid. Focus on str, make use of your wildshape, (tiger/dire tiger) makes a good form. Take advantage of the wolf as a flanking partner, (helps over come the 3/4 BAB) and remember he can trip.
Also remember you can try one quick buff spell at the beginning of combat.
My build was a human Druid, beginning with an 18 str, the bonus from wild shape boosted that and I was fairly vicious into the low teens. That is when your low attack BAB starts to catch up and hitting can be a pain.
Power attack is nice , as is furious focus, craft wonderius items can help offset the huge cost of a amulet of mighty fists.
There are two ways I can think of to do this, and both involve being a ranger to some extent:
1.)Tell her to swap out her druid levels for a beastmaster ranger. You get the basic druid flavor, a full martial class, and multiple companions (but it's at ranger level -3 until level 12). If your GM will let you take Boon Companion, do that early even though you get full companion levels at level 12. If your GM won't allow boon companion (i think it's a bit goofy myself), ask to play a half orc and take the beast rider feat (it's in the hardback books, so some GMs consider it a little more legit). You only get +2 to the level, but that makes you Druid-1, not Druid-3 on your animal companions.
2.)If she's stuck with her druid levels, tell her to multiclass into one level of ranger and take the "Shapeshifting Hunter" feat. It allows your favored enemy bonus to progress with your druid level, so with 1 level of ranger and 1 feat, you'll have 3 favored enemies at level 10 AND you get martial weapon proficiencies. This is an amazing boost to the druid's combat abilities, with the only drawback being you'll be 1 level down on spellcasting.
By the way, I done goofed. She can't take Horse Master because Druids don't have Expert Trainer. She needs to take Boon Companion like, four times, so the Roughrider multiclass seems less attractive (unless you house-rule the Expert Trainer description out).
I think that then the best option then is for her to go for Cavalier for mounted prowess. Depending on her race and stat distribution, there are some options that are better than others. For boilerplate, I recommend Gendarme following the Order of the Sword, if you want something more flavorful, Beastrider Emissary following the Order of the Beast.
Going Ranger is also pretty good. Beastmaster is a good option if you want both companions to grow in level, and take Mounted Combat Style.
After showing her the thread, she has decided to abandon the mounted combat route, and go for the spirit of the beast build. any ideas on how to keep her alive until she can wildshape? Also, there is some debate amongst our group if her animal companion will be able to understand her if she take it's form, I say it can't, she says it does.
Did you have her build at the moment? Knowing how her character looks like now, we can give suggestions.
prototype00
Edit: Actually, just tell us what her race, stats and feat choices are.
tiefling 25 point buy (to offset that our dm likes to HEAVILY weight things against his groups) after racial mods 17/16/14/15/13/5
plans to put a few ranks in heal, and nearly all in nature and handle animal,and the only magic she plans to use are healing and buff.
adopted (human) trait gives her an extra feat at first level( the dm didnt say she could take that until now, but it was worked into her back story, so he will allow it. currently she has the tiefling feat "armor of the pit" ad has not decided on the allowed bonus feat, she is level 2, so she will not gain another feat until next level.
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I'm playing a Saurian Shaman in a Wrath of the Righteous campaign, and from my experience at least, wild shape is the way to go for a combat druid. Power attack on something with a primary natural attack, combined with improved natural attack (I reccommend bite since most animals have a bite attack) and vital strike make for a very effective melee bruiser.
You don't need a very high Wis stat if you stick to buff spells and plan on doing damage on the front lines in melee, so you can spend the extra points on Con and Str. Spend your FC bonus on extra HP too since your AC will suck and rampaging beasts seem to attract a lot of attention.
Animal companions are very useful at lower levels, especially if they have Grab or another useful combat ability, but their HP quickly fall behind the damage output of higher challenge foes. If you can retrain in your campaign, I suggest doing so once you hit 8-10th level and picking up a domain instead.
adopted (human) trait gives her an extra feat at first level( the dm didnt say she could take that until now, but it was worked into her back story, so he will allow it. currently she has the tiefling feat "armor of the pit" ad has not decided on the allowed bonus feat, she is level 2, so she will not gain another feat until next level.
That is not how adopted works. It only gives you access to a Trait (like Adopted), not a Racial Trait (like the free Feat).
I've built druids players in a few campaigns now, so I can give you some pointers:
1) Never trade out your AC for a domain on a combat druid (or any kind of druid, really!). A well built AC is practically another character and effectively doubles her damage output and HP pool. Get a big cat or dinosaur. Domains give you nothing of equivalent power outside of boon companion/animal domain cheese.
2) She can talk with her animal companion if she is wildshaped into a similar creature. Here's the relevant text from the CRB:
"A druid loses her ability to speak while in animal form because she is limited to the sounds that a normal, untrained animal can make, but she can communicate normally with other animals of the same general grouping as her new form. (The normal sound a wild parrot makes is a squawk, so changing to this form does not permit speech.)"
3)Is that 13 wisdom? I REALLY don't recommend starting with 13 wisdom. Even with a combat focus you always want enough of your main casting stat so that, with stat increases, you aren't dependent on a stat boosting item to get access to 9th level spells. Considering she will want to put at least one point into STR to get it to 18, she should be starting with a minimum of 16 wisdom (putting the point into WIS at 8th,12th,16th). If she swaps her INT and WIS and then drops INT for more WIS she can get to 16 without touching her combat stats. Druids don't need INT.
4) Really, trust me on that last one. Normally I would even recommend dumping a little bit more DEX for an 18 WIS on a combat druid. Every druid I've DMed or helped thinks they'll be a wildshape machine and then finds out in mid levels that casting things is just... better. They usually figure this out at about the time spike growth and earth elemental shape comes online... and then wish they had dumped a little to get to 18 or 20 INT.
5) Her level 3 feat is power attack. Her level 5 feat is natural spell. These are absolute musts. Everything else is gravy!
she decided to go with being a wolf shaman, and our dm took the popular house rule that animal companions act with yo on your turn. she will focus more on the totem transformation than wild shape, because it allows her to use her humanoid weapons, and flank with the wolf.