Hello people, I am done. I have spen the entire past 5 days doing nothing but theorycrafting a build around growing and utilizing plants, trying to avoid the druid.
I hate druids, druids do no plant stuff except that they have the spell list for it, I dislike beast/plant shape and I hate animal companions. I see no reason why I should play a Druid over a Shaman. SO please, don't say go play a druid. It is literally my most hated class in game.
Now I can't decide between going Oracle or Shaman, which is partly due to my lack of understanding of full casters and the plant spells.
As oracle I would have taken the Spirit Guide Archetype to grab the Wood Spirit from the Shaman, giving me some neat spell like abilities such as freely creating plant terrain. Also I would get super cool plant related spell like ability and become proficient with fighting with wood. BUT I wouldn't get a single friking plant related spell . . . yet this would make the perfect plant warrior, which was what I was striving for. Now I don't know though wether my few plant related spell like abilities (creating light undergrowth at will unlimited/ plant growth unlimited/ thorn burst only few times per day (10 feet blast around myself with thorns dealing 1d6xlevel dmg can be halfed)/ wood shape and woop warp unlimited with a few uses of repel wood.
What can I do with these abilities? I know I won't be able to deal damage with them, but may I be able to efficiently create terrain as in, provide battle field control and being able to split enemies etc? Or am I just a weaker melee character by then that can make some useless bushes????
Should I just go shaman and be able to cast druid spells?
You will be able to make difficult terrain. Check out the environmental rules for Forrest Terrain: "A space covered with light undergrowth costs 2 squares of movement to move into, and provides concealment. Undergrowth increases the DC of Acrobatics and Stealth checks by 2 because the leaves and branches get in the way."
This sort of control can be difficult to use effectively, as you have to be careful to not mess up your allies, but it can be quite effective.
A wood oracle can be a pretty good warrior, either with a staff or with a bow. Personally, I wouldn't take the Spirit Guide Archetype if you only want the wood spirit. It is a powerful archetype because of the flexibility of choosing different spirits depending on what you are facing, if you would only take wood spirit you are probably better off with just wood oracle revelations.
(also either with or without the Spirit Guide, you would have the plant based spells from the wood oracle mystery, you would gain the wood spirit spells with spirit guide and wandering spirit: wood, but they are the same as the wood mystery bonus spells, another reason wood oracle and always bonding wood spirit ins't really optimal )
Your big problem is you seem to want something that isn't really there: a lot of cool plant based damage spells. If this is a home game, you might be able to convince your GM to reflavor some spells into a plant based theme for you. For example, the cause wounds line could manifest as shadowy thorns when you touch someone. This change would just be flavor, the damage type, saves etc would remain exactly the same. More significant changes, such as Flame Strike to "Rain of Coconuts" with the same damage amount but 1/2 being divine damage and the other 1/2 being bludgeoning are also possible.
I hope this helps.
not really .-. I know all of that already, but thing is i find the spell like abilities of these classes SUPER cool. Like thorn burst and spines&shambles, no one else can do that and all plant related a druid ever does is not stepping on a friking flower. If only I could get access to a plant domain while being a oracle. . . to bad i cant.
Sooo, how to play a shaman that wants to be somewhat meleish and really only uses plant related spells?
In a local game I have a custom-race(tiny flying plant) Witch-dipped(Prehensile VINE, Swamp's Grasp planned) Alchemist(Bramble Brewer? She's not, but you could be).
So, Bramble Brewer with a Witch dip?
My local toon has been allowed to use the Rogue Genius swaps (which are like what unchained wanted to be, but they were there first) to keep her Hexen level up (swapped for Bombs) and take Youxia (swapped for Mutagens).
Alchemist might flavorfully leverage phytotoxins and drugs? My toon's not yet rich enough for such toys.
Not exactly what you're asking for but I recommend taking this feat…
War Blessing
Your fervent call to your deity imbues you with a temporary blessing.Prerequisites: Mystery or domain class feature.
Benefit: Choose two warpriest blessings when you take this feat. Each of these blessings must be tied to a domain granted by your deity or to one of the two domains that represent your spiritual inclination and abilities. Twice per day, you can call upon the minor blessing from one or the other of your chosen blessings. This ability otherwise acts like the warpriest blessings class feature. Your effective warpriest level is the highest level that you have in the class that has the mystery or domain class feature.
…to get this Blessing…
Plant Blessing
Deities: Erastil, Gozreh.Creeping Vines (minor): At 1st level, upon hitting with a melee attack, as a swift action you cause the creature you hit to sprout entangling vines that attempt to hold it in place, entangling it for 1 round (Reflex negates).
Battle Companion (major): At 10th level, you can summon a battle companion. This ability functions as summon nature’s ally IV, with a duration of 1 minute. This ability can summon only one animal, regardless of the list used, and the creature’s type changes to plant instead of animal. For every 2 levels beyond 10th, the level of the summon nature’s ally spell increases by 1, to a maximum of summon nature’s ally IX at 20th level.
As an Oracle or Shaman, you don't actually have to be tied to a specific deity so all of the blessings are open to you.
Have you considered going Druid but picking a domain and not an animal companion? I generally dislike them too, as a personal taste. I usually do plant based druid builds.
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The Reaching Vines Fungal Graft might make a "bad touch" Cleric plant-relevant.
to bad that the druid domains suck, right now i am looking into how to make druids less hated by mysel. I think there is a archetype that replaced wildshape with aspect of the animal and i try to get a build that lets me ride a animal compagnion going for a charging lance build rather then ur OVERUSED FRIKING NATURAL ATTACK **** DRUIDS
anyone any ideas? any cool input?
Is third-party available? "Spheres of Power" has the Nature (plant) sphere that has a ton of thematic abilities.
welp this looks lke my best bet, i will miss the cool oracle and shaman special abilities that let me shoot thorns from my body, grow wildlife at will etc. but mr. broken bear lover just to op -.-
i am also looking at the nature fang atm. seems cool, you still get an animal companion as slayer right? can I also take the bear totem archetype or smth? I found it ridiculously fun to play a slayer-druid that can do plantstuff while lance charging ppls
so anyways back to the original question. Since I wanna cast a ton of plant spells, how do I go about it in areas without plants? My gm has ruled that in order to cast plant growth simple bushes are not enough as in Spines&shambles, there must be also trees. So what . . . waste one round creating spine&shambles, waste another round creating trees. ????. Profit?
I don't see it . . .
isn't there any way to create a bunch of plants, or maybe even alter entire terrain? Don't tell me we can travel through interdimensional planes and meet gods and ask frikin goddes of death if she wants a sandwich, but not grow a friking field of sunflowers.
I'm going to throw out a couple of ideas.
The Horticulturist Alchemist from Heroes of the Wild.
You can summon plant monsters, speak with plants, and you get a plant familiar. Plus Alchemists can make Barkskin and Thorn Body elixirs for plant-style combat.
Sorcerer with the Verdant Bloodline, or with the Wildblooded version, Groveborn.
Plant-based spells and lots of powers that make you part plant.
so anyways back to the original question. Since I wanna cast a ton of plant spells, how do I go about it in areas without plants? My gm has ruled that in order to cast plant growth simple bushes are not enough as in Spines&shambles, there must be also trees. So what . . . waste one round creating spine&shambles, waste another round creating trees. ????. Profit?
I don't see it . . .
isn't there any way to create a bunch of plants, or maybe even alter entire terrain? Don't tell me we can travel through interdimensional planes and meet gods and ask frikin goddes of death if she wants a sandwich, but not grow a friking field of sunflowers.
Plant Growth is supposed to work on any vegetation that isn't a creature, even if they're just grasses. If they're house-ruling it to be less useful to you, it seems as though they don't like your character idea. =[
Have you read up on the Leshy Warden?
yeh i try to avoid any form of summoning plants as from class ability. As we can only have 1 minion and I much rather awaken trees etc.
Plant shapes overgrowth has that one line where it says: The area must have brush and trees in it for this spell to take effect.
and they take that 1 to 1.
Also yes they hate me. I asked if i could turn into a moss lich someday, no. I asked if there was any way for me to get my character any plant looks. No. Later I look at one of the GMs characters which he plays, its a oread made of wood instead of stone. . .