What gear do you already have? Are you focused on summoning, melee in wild shape, buffing your fuzzy friend, blasting, battlefield control, something else? Hard to answer without a little more info.
Depends of the focus of your Druid. Tipical melee shapechanger would like to have:
Amulet of mighty fist +1 (4K)
Belt of giant strength +2 (4K)
Ring of deflection +1 (2k)
Cloak of protection +2 (4K)
2 pearls of power lvl 1 (2k) - convince a friendly caster to cast you Mage armor with these (those are 12 hours of mage armor)
As a note- you might be able to get armor for your preferred wildshape form.
Just saying- you can turn into a tiger now, you can pounce, you can wildshape for a total of 12 hours/day, and you should have natural spell feat. Making tiger your default is not exactly a bad move, eh?
Maybe grab wild speech next level and abandon this whole 'humanoid' nonsense entirely. Just buy a set of large sized armor made for a tiger, put that on after you wildshape first thing in the morning, and just go around like that all day.
If you aren't built for wild shape, don't do invest to much in it.
I'm playing a druid in Kingmaker (made it to12th level) and I mostly focus on summoning and control. I only wild shape to fly, and any other reason is for very unusual circumstances. Some examples include ferrying my party members across a river (which was a problem at lower levels), or chasing a mysterious raven that turned out to be a bad guy's familiar.
If you are focused on control, I'd recommend making a very large kit of scrolls of all the niche spells that are awesome control spells under the right circumstances.
Also, if you cast spells that require saving throws (basically everything except buffs and summons) definitely grab a headband for your wisdom score if you don't already have one.
Also, wands of cure light wounds and a big cure potion (greater than moderate) are useful for incase you are unconscious and your ally can't use your wand, but can give you the potion
If you have a pet you can take them shopping too
I agree with Blackberry since most of the items focus on delicious defense; just pop-err-swap out the Pearls *wow that sounded weird...* for a Handy Haversack to carry stuff around -always a good item to have and you have your own innate defensive spells, albeit not Mage Armor.
On a side note, asides the base cost of a masterwork suit of Druid-approved Armor, it would take all 16k to make it +1 Wild so finally you could have Armor Bonus AC whenever, wherever, you'll be together.
BRB... Shakira videos
On a side note, asides the base cost of a masterwork suit of Druid-approved Armor, it would take all 16k to make it +1 Wild so finally you could have Armor Bonus AC whenever, wherever, you'll be together.
Of course, that is if you want to go around with various forms all the time, instead of buying equipment to put on your form after you wildshape.
Again- being a tiger is PRETTY SWEET. And yes, you wouldn't fly...but druids ahve tons of spells that deal with flying. Besides some basic blasting, there is even a spell that specifically causes fliers to land (burdening thoughts; makes things get heavy encumbrance too.).
Of course, out of combat utility flying is its own thing, of course. I can't deny that. But you might be able to fiddle with armor before and after such tasks.