[PFS] Which Druid?

[Nohwear]

I want to make a Druid, but I am torn on which one. My three main choices are Hunter, one of the (animal) shaman archetypes, and Sky Druid. Yes, I do have a Sylph boon. No, I will only be cashing it in at this time if I make a Sky Druid.

[Dafydd]

Storm Druid is my favorite. Lightning is a rarer element to be immune/resistant to and is very blasty. Also, air elementals fly and flying is awesome, and large size lets you increase the damage of the terror you are calling down (Call Lightning [Storm]).

Assuming you do not want storm, I suggest Hunter as pets are great and can lead to funny role play.

[Ms. Pleiades]

The major highlight of the animal shaman archetypes is the standard action summons.

[WagnerSika]

If you go animal shaman, the best ones are saurian, lion and maybe eagle. Personally I'm fond of menhir savant, you get nice abilities and don't sacrifice Wild Shape.

[Praxiteles the Golem]

Blight Druid is a ton of fun, especially with a caster/melee focus.

[WagnerSika]

Praxiteles the Golem wrote:

Blight Druid is a ton of fun, especially with a caster/melee focus.

The familiar is nice.

After 5th level, make sure you stand away from your allies at all times, or make sure they are immune to your miasma.

[Taenia]

Actually you just stand next to them for a couple of minutes in the morning and make sure they eventually make their save. Immune to 24 hours after that. Just means everyone gets to throw up a bit before breakfast, no problem.

[WagnerSika]

Definitely one of those "possible only in RPGs" things. I mean, who would travel for any length of time with some weird stranger that is so repulsive that you have to start every morning incapacitated with retching and vomiting.

What kind of things would make someone immune to nausea or sickness?
Any feats or magic items?

[Dafydd]

Why do the Peanuts hang out with Pigpen? Hmm, a blighter druid named Pigpen... [files idea for later]

Think paladin and monk both gain immunity to those (that whole "pure body" thing they have). Also an alchemist archetype gets resistances and, eventually immunity to diseases.

Strong Fort save is all anyone needs. Also, a kind blighter will hand out resistance to help.

[Praxiteles the Golem]

Well being a level 9 blight druid makes you immune to sickness and nausea...

[Atarlost]

Sky druid isn't great so I wouldn't go cashing in that sylph boon. The stat mods aren't well suited to druidism so it would take a great archetype to make up for not being a human or dwarf.

Saurian Shaman is good if pterosaurs are classed as reptiles (they're not dinosaurs). You still kind of suck until level 6 or 7 because of the wildshape delay even if you get to immediately shape as beastshape III for most of the good forms (unless pterosaurs don't count as reptiles).

Lion Shamans lack huge wildshape forms, but get access to the nobility domain which has divine favor (use preferred spell to cast in non-domain slots or just prepare in higher domain slots) and magic vestment (cast once per day, possibly with an extend rod). Your wildshaping selection sucks, though. You only have two good forms

Storm is good. Their domain options are pretty good to spontaneously cast from and none of the swaps really hurt. They don't always play well with others with spontaneous fog spells that only they can see, through.

Menhir Savant is pretty much a straight upgrade to the base druid.

I wouldn't touch hunter or anything with a non-mount animal companion because of the trick limits and handle animal being charisma based. Maybe if AA had never been published, but that took a lot of things that had been part of existing tricks and made them separate without increasing the number of tricks an animal gets.

I wouldn't touch any shaman other than saurian or lion. Eagle has nobility as well, but no ground combat forms.

[WagnerSika]

Atarlost wrote:

Lion Shamans lack huge wildshape forms, but get access to the nobility domain which has divine favor (use preferred spell to cast in non-domain slots or just prepare in higher domain slots) and magic vestment (cast once per day, possibly with an extend rod). Your wildshaping selection sucks, though. You only have two good forms

Actually there is now a huge form for Lion shamans, the warcat.

Agree on your other points.

[Ryzoken]

WagnerSika wrote:

Atarlost wrote:

Lion Shamans lack huge wildshape forms, but get access to the nobility domain which has divine favor (use preferred spell to cast in non-domain slots or just prepare in higher domain slots) and magic vestment (cast once per day, possibly with an extend rod). Your wildshaping selection sucks, though. You only have two good forms

Actually there is now a huge form for Lion shamans, the warcat.

Agree on your other points.

Not in PFS, as the only legal options in the book according to the Additional Resources are the bristleboar, whisperfall vulture, and tusk blades. For warcats to be legal for Wildshape (and other polymorph effects), text akin to that under the Bestiary entries would need to be included.

Too bad, since that's a pretty nasty critter. But then, one supposes that might be why they don't want people turning into the beasties.

[Entryhazard]

Ryzoken wrote:

But then, one supposes that might be why they don't want people turning into the beasties.

That is keeping an archetype essentially gimped?

[Ryzoken]

Entryhazard wrote:

Ryzoken wrote:

But then, one supposes that might be why they don't want people turning into the beasties.

That is keeping an archetype essentially gimped?

"OH noes! I can't use Option X in PFS! Clearly the organizers hate Archetype Y and don't want us using it! It couldn't possibly be for any other reason but that! Curse them and their sudden but inevitable betrayal of my searing need to play Archetype Y, despite it being potentially slightly mechanically inferior* to Archetype Z!"

Don't put words in my mouth, I won't put words in yours. Deal?

*: this is up for debate.

[WagnerSika]

Ryzoken wrote:

Not in PFS, as the only legal options in the book according to the Additional Resources are the bristleboar, whisperfall vulture, and tusk blades. For warcats to be legal for Wildshape (and other polymorph effects), text akin to that under the Bestiary entries would need to be included.

It seems that PFSRD omits such information from their entries as I don't see it on bristleboar either.

[ElterAgo]

Druids are already so powerful (and PFS is not as challenging as most home campaigns) that really any of them will perform just fine. It is really much more a matter of which one would you find more fun to play? Personally to me, the Sky Druid sounds awesome.

[Just a Guess]

Nohwear wrote:

I want to make a Druid, but I am torn on which one. My three main choices are Hunter, one of the (animal) shaman archetypes, and Sky Druid. Yes, I do have a Sylph boon. No, I will only be cashing it in at this time if I make a Sky Druid.

The big question is: What kind of char do you want to play?

- Caster
- Melee
- mix of both

I have several druids I want to play some time. Storm druid, nature fang druid and classic druid being the main ones.
Storm is good for casters and the other two are viable choices for both ways. Especially as the nature fang's studied target ability increases the save DC of your spells vs the studied target.