I have been contemplating playing my first caster in Pathfinder and really have thought the idea of a blaster druid focusing on destroying with the elements as a fun time. I have heard quite often that compared to other casters, druids are not quite as good with straight damaging spells and really excel when they focus more on summoning.
I am not really into the idea of summoning and I love the druid flavor. Some of the spells that stand out to me are wind manipulation spells, sirocco and horrid wilting.
With all of this prefaced I am mainly just looking for some guidance. Maybe help point me in the direction of some helpful feats, items, wildshape and maybe a fun domain (I like Water/Ocean, Plains and Desert the most so far though).
I will only be level 1 but would like to have some idea of what to build towards. This is for society play.
Any help at all would be appreciated. Thank you!
I just finished running for a Fire domain Druid who used practically nothing but fireball and snowball for her offense. It was a rare case when she was unable to do something useful.
How? He gets just 1 fireball (from his domain spell), doesn't he?
The Storm Druid is just what you are looking for.
You get 2 domains (ok, 1 domain at first and a second at 9th level) and can spontaneously cast those spells. He does not have the power to spontaneously cast his summoning spells, but you did not want a summoning focus, so who cares.
Note, you do end up with a lot of focus on lightning between Call Lightning and Chain Lightning but you can toss in earth/acid, fire and water with the generic druid list in what you prepare. Also note you can prepare basic cure spells too and have better weapon choices then the standard blaster caster (ace in the hole Flame Blade or Gozreh Trident too)
So as a Storm Druid I am forced into Weather or Air domains. I can deal with that but is my spontaneous casting on limited to these two domains or can I spontaneous cast from any domain if the spell is of correct level or lower?
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I'm having fun playing a Tattooed Sorc 1 (Orc Bloodline) / Naga Aspirant Druid (rest of levels) (Fire Domain). The Naga Aspirant gives you access to a lot of fun arcane spells (like Fireball). Start off with Druid - pick Racial Heritage (Nagaji) as your first feat, and Spell Focus (Evoc) as your second.
Magic Missile is a good level 1 Asprirant's Bond (although I picked it for fighting robots - ymmv). I picked up Tattooed Sorc at 3, which gives you Varisian Tattoo (Evoc), and took Spell Specialization (Magic Missile), which left me casting Magic Missile at +3 spell levels and +1 damage per die. You also get a tattooed familiar, which I used for the +4 init, always good for a blaster.
Add Fireball to your spell list at level 7 with your Aspirant's bond. At level 6, you can switch the Spell Specialization to Fireball, and at level 7 you are casting it for 10d6+10 damage (assuming you took Magical Knack as a trait).
It's fun to wildshape while also having access to spells like Improved Invis.
Not sure how many of these options are available for PFS, but hopefully this will give you a few ideas.
You do have to choose between Air or Weather domain OR Storm, Cloud or Wind Subdomain.
That said, the only subdomain I would consider is Storms.
Standard combat soon becomes:
Round 1: Call Lightning [Storm once this is an option]
Standard action casting, something like obscuring mist or wind wall or turn into w whirlwind as an Air Elemental, then bring down the lightning with the move action.
Calling the bolts down is a standard action, unfortunately. What you could do is cast Aggressive Thundercloud, then every round, if necessary, use move action to move the cloud and standard to call down lightning. Get some way to change the energy type in case you run into electricity resistant monsters as any amount of energy resistance will ruin your day.