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One note for the Storm Druid. If you have Call Lightning going as an Air Elemental and Whirlwind it counts as a Storm increasing the damage of the blasts. Combine with an Elemental Rod (i suggest acid) for those Electricity resistant/immune foes.
The Blight Druid really needs a good Wisdom for the DC of Miasma and any spells he wants to use and because he needs to be in close combat for it to work you should consider boosts his AC in a couple of ways:
Having a low to decent dex (10 - 12) and grab Wild Full Plate + Heavy Armor Proficiency.
Have a low Str and good Dex, grab Weapon Finesse and a level of Monk. This puts your casting down a level but a lot of your spells tend to be low level anyway. You defense can be really strong though, as you end up in either small forms or flying forms that boost dex and provide a really strong AC plus bonus saving throws do to the Monk dip. Grab Sensei if you want to include some bard buffs, Sohei if you want to go in the Surprise round or Unchained if you want more melee options, especially with an Agile AoMF.
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One small qa,
On the lion shaman build, you offered to summon feline like wolves.... Wrong type ;)Other than that great guide.
More tactics:
Tremor boots are amazing for earth elemental form scouting.
Rime spell is well worth it, on frost bite, no saves stacking effects, add enforcer and wow...
Thanks for this advice, already made the change on the Lion shaman build
Already added the Rime spell for tactics on the blight druid, but this may work for a lot of builds, changed the rating to green on the feats sections
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Thank you for making this guide, Prometeus. I tried creating a Druid as a boss character in an adventure in 2014 and I didn't know what I was doing. I think it is good that you are giving back to the community.
Thanks for passing by Dover, I am not an expert of Druids or pathfinder in general but i am learning a lot from this guide
If you need a really nasty boss try the blight Druid or a caster focused one, they are scary thing when are properly played
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One note for the Storm Druid. If you have Call Lightning going as an Air Elemental and Whirlwind it counts as a Storm increasing the damage of the blasts. Combine with an Elemental Rod (i suggest acid) for those Electricity resistant/immune foes.
The Blight Druid really needs a good Wisdom for the DC of Miasma and any spells he wants to use and because he needs to be in close combat for it to work you should consider boosts his AC in a couple of ways:
Having a low to decent dex (10 - 12) and grab Wild Full Plate + Heavy Armor Proficiency.
Have a low Str and good Dex, grab Weapon Finesse and a level of Monk. This puts your casting down a level but a lot of your spells tend to be low level anyway. You defense can be really strong though, as you end up in either small forms or flying forms that boost dex and provide a really strong AC plus bonus saving throws do to the Monk dip. Grab Sensei if you want to include some bard buffs, Sohei if you want to go in the Surprise round or Unchained if you want more melee options, especially with an Agile AoMF.
Your approach is better than mine, I saw the build and the priority is to be right next to the enemy and have decent endurance and defenses for miasma to work, I changed some stuff a bit and put heavy Armor Proficiency at level 5 and Natural Spell at 7
The dip is amazing in some ways but is a personal choice, I believe that the delay on the casting and wild shape hurt so much to overcome it, but the beauty of all Druid builds is that have a lot of room for customization that you can take a lot of different ways and is very hard to screw it.
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I agree it is really hard to give up that caster level. My blight druid is really focused on whirlwind so giving up the caster level hurt but the added defense and Shaping Focus feat made up to keep at least wild shape up.
On tactics, cheetah's sprint really makes jump check insane. If you have a speed of 30 your speed jumps to 300, or +270. That is a total of +108 to your jump check. Need to get up that 30' cliff, take 10 on a jump check and hope you have a total of +2 Acrobatics and your there in one turn. Need to cross that 100' chasm? I jump it, no problem even in my full plate.
Keep in mind that some of your spells are Racial, so in general (and in PFS in particular) you need to make sure you are that race to cast the spell. I really like Oread druids for that reason, the sudden cover for a 1st level spell is pretty nice. Also good for the Druid/monk for a ranged option with mighty fist of the earth.
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thanks a lot for the comments and sugestions.
For the sample buils part I think that with the 16 samples I put on this guide is a very good starting point, if somone want or need another concept tell me so I can put a sample for it.
Also if you have more tactics and spell combos feel free to comment and I will add them.
These are the things that still need to develop, this will take some time but will be amazing to have all the information on the same guide.
-Spells
-Multiclassing
-Domains
-Summons
What more thing you guys want to see on this guide?
Mention Incense of Meditation somewhere, especially for the caster druids. Basically, you waste 8 hours of your adventuring day, but get the bonus of having all of your prepared spells Maximised. Those blast spells? Maximised. Those summoning spells? Maximised again. Probably not an item that you would use everyday, but its really nice to consider having in a pinch.
Domains: you have linked to the exellent Rogue Eidolons guide. It however dos not mention the Animal and terrain domains for druids. I would like to hear your thoughts on them.
Some notes from domains I found interesting:
Crocodile: pretty good for melee, you get sneak attack and deathroll. Also a small familiar that could be handy. Almost all the domain spells are on your list, you get Mass heal as 8th level spell, one level earlier than cleric!
Cave domain: you get tremorsense! Combine with earth elemental earth glide and attack from below. Spells are not very interesting except Wall of stone one level earlier than normal.
Desert domain could be great for a summoner as you get Sp ability that works like Planar ally spells to call janni genies to aid you.
Eagle domain gives a familiar and evasion while flying. Too bad the many of the spells you get are not so useful since you can already fly with wildshape.
Plains domain: you get pounce! Well ok, you have pounce on many wildshape forms already but this way you can pounce with any form. The spell list is mostly meh, but you get haste! It is almost worth it to take this domain for that alone.
Wolf domain: Improved trip with no questions asked, pretty sweet. Pack tactics gives you easier time flanking. You get some ok spells, some of them normally unavailable to a druid. Aspect of the wolf is 2 levels early.
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Domains: you have linked to the exellent Rogue Eidolons guide. It however dos not mention the Animal and terrain domains for druids. I would like to hear your thoughts on them.
Some notes from domains I found interesting:
Crocodile: pretty good for melee, you get sneak attack and deathroll. Also a small familiar that could be handy. Almost all the domain spells are on your list, you get Mass heal as 8th level spell, one level earlier than cleric!
Cave domain: you get tremorsense! Combine with earth elemental earth glide and attack from below. Spells are not very interesting except Wall of stone one level earlier than normal.
Desert domain could be great for a summoner as you get Sp ability that works like Planar ally spells to call janni genies to aid you.
Eagle domain gives a familiar and evasion while flying. Too bad the many of the spells you get are not so useful since you can already fly with wildshape.
Plains domain: you get pounce! Well ok, you have pounce on many wildshape forms already but this way you can pounce with any form. The spell list is mostly meh, but you get haste! It is almost worth it to take this domain for that alone.
Wolf domain: Improved trip with no questions asked, pretty sweet. Pack tactics gives you easier time flanking. You get some ok spells, some of them normally unavailable to a druid. Aspect of the wolf is 2 levels early.
Aquatic, Arctic, and Swamp all bear mention too. They gain a channel energy variant that can allow a Druid to use feats that require channel energy, such as Guided Hand, and they each have decent spells and abilites. Swamp is the stand out with Blindsense/Blindsight vs concealment and cover from fog, vegetation, or water.
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Domains: you have linked to the exellent Rogue Eidolons guide. It however dos not mention the Animal and terrain domains for druids. I would like to hear your thoughts on them.
Some notes from domains I found interesting:
Crocodile: pretty good for melee, you get sneak attack and deathroll. Also a small familiar that could be handy. Almost all the domain spells are on your list, you get Mass heal as 8th level spell, one level earlier than cleric!
Cave domain: you get tremorsense! Combine with earth elemental earth glide and attack from below. Spells are not very interesting except Wall of stone one level earlier than normal.
Desert domain could be great for a summoner as you get Sp ability that works like Planar ally spells to call janni genies to aid you.
Eagle domain gives a familiar and evasion while flying. Too bad the many of the spells you get are not so useful since you can already fly with wildshape.
Plains domain: you get pounce! Well ok, you have pounce on many wildshape forms already but this way you can pounce with any form. The spell list is mostly meh, but you get haste! It is almost worth it to take this domain for that alone.
Wolf domain: Improved trip with no questions asked, pretty sweet. Pack tactics gives you easier time flanking. You get some ok spells, some of them normally unavailable to a druid. Aspect of the wolf is 2 levels early.
Thanks a lot for the notes, Im writing my own domains guide and hope to put it as soon as I can, but in the meantime i changed the link to a external guide that was posted on RPG BOT
Pass by the new link ot RPG BOT, is a very good guide and is focused on Druids
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Can't wait for that spell spreadsheet to get filled out. I like your opinions on things/builds. Looking forward to the rest.
This is my next step to finish, there are a lot of spells and I will rate them on the spreadsheet.
When I choose a caster I tend to pick spells of the same type and forget to pick some utility and variety spells, with this file I tried to be organized and to keep more options to overcome more situations.
Love the guides! Holy crap that's a lot of sample builds, love the breakdown.
Here's a few things that I noticed...
Bred for War trait +1 CMB and Intimidate
Jingasa got hosed
Elf Treesinger wasn't among the archetypes, along with some others from the ARG. Check out the Fey speaker specifically, a great "specific" gnome/halfling archetype. But a nagaji can use it for a solid Wild shape tank build, despite the reduced bab.
Under animal companions, the deinonychus is identical to the velociraptor.
Have you had a chance to check out the Bestiary 5 ACs?
I like the spinosaurus having great stats, despite not special attacks.reduced maybe up to green? No purples, but maybe push the roc to that? They are insane.
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Have you visited http://pftools.pixub.com?
It's a powerful tool that druids will love.
A note on Urban Druid: Nobility with spontaneous domain casting means spontaneous Divine Favor, which means a major combat buff. It's a way to go 'Battle Cleric' on a Druid that doesn't use Wildshape (or only uses it later). Eagle Shaman can kind of do it as well with Domain slots and/or Pearls. Ultimately, Divine Favor and Fate's Favored is like a +8 to combat stat, so it's not a bad Wildshape surrogate in battle.
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A note on Urban Druid: Nobility with spontaneous domain casting means spontaneous Divine Favor, which means a major combat buff. It's a way to go 'Battle Cleric' on a Druid that doesn't use Wildshape (or only uses it later). Eagle Shaman can kind of do it as well with Domain slots and/or Pearls. Ultimately, Divine Favor and Fate's Favored is like a +8 to combat stat, so it's not a bad Wildshape surrogate in battle.
And alter self at will much earlier than a normal Druid is nothing to ignore either. It's a +2 to Str, a possible +10 to move rate, water breathing, disguise, and access to claw/claw/bite natural attacks. Not to mention keeping your armor and weapons.
A note on Urban Druid: Nobility with spontaneous domain casting means spontaneous Divine Favor, which means a major combat buff. It's a way to go 'Battle Cleric' on a Druid that doesn't use Wildshape (or only uses it later). Eagle Shaman can kind of do it as well with Domain slots and/or Pearls. Ultimately, Divine Favor and Fate's Favored is like a +8 to combat stat, so it's not a bad Wildshape surrogate in battle.And alter self at will much earlier than a normal Druid is nothing to ignore either. It's a +2 to Str, a possible +10 to move rate, water breathing, disguise, and access to claw/claw/bite natural attacks. Not to mention keeping your armor and weapons.
Exactly... even Stone Plate might be tolerable when you've got Longstrider.
Have you visited http://pftools.pixub.com?
It's a powerful tool that druids will love.
This is very helpful thank you. By the way you wouldn't happen to have one for summoned monsters would you?
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I'm currently building a caster druid.
She's a Storm Druid and I'm not trying to fit either in the control nor blaster type.I find that blasting as a spellcaster druid is only a lesser version of what a sorcerer/wizard can do and building specially for that (spell specialization/empower/maximize) is a bit of a waste as our powers granted from domain, as opposed to bloodlines for exemple, doesn't grant us the edge on that role.
I don't mean that druid is a bad blaster, its spell list sure is better blaster oriented than say, a cleric.
However I feel like caster druid is extremely polyvalent. We got some decent buffs, we got some blast (some are even move action and great for metamagic) and some of the best ground control spells (stone call, entangle, ...).
I've chosen to go for this polyvalent role as I feel it's the best route to go for a non summoner build :
- I'm taking rime spell to make winter's grasp my bread and butter control spell : with magic lineage it's no save, no SR, zone entangle + double square movement
- I'll probably go for extend spell for buffs (extend communal are the way to go)
- Most of the druid's control spells also do damage and we still got flamestrike, and most notably Explosion of Rot (go through energy resistance like a breeze), if ponctual blast is needed in the group
- Storm Druid's domains give me the option to spontaneously cast fogs, sirroco or even chain lightning to prepare utility spellsIn the guide we got a pur blaster storm druid, however I just feel like going pure blast is a bit of a waste knowing how amazingly polyvalent can be this archetype.
Sorry for the late reply but you are right about it and think that you hit the right spot, you really need know what is the best action to take on your turn. I often then to choose the action that generate the best impact sometimes is to buff your party, another one is to cast a control spell and sometimes just blast things up
Hi there fellow Pathfinders,
I will like to start this guide by telling you that the priority of making this is not break the game or to make the ultimate optimization possible for the Druid, my mission here is to share my thoughts of this awesome class and with your support and contribution we can make this guide a good place to start building a functional Druid and to share solutions to the challenge of being one of the most versatile class on Pathfinder.
Im not an expert of the class or Pathfinder in general, in fact this is my first guide ever on internet, but for the last 2 years I been lurking the forums for help and tips to make my own characters and creations and it's time to give something back to the community
Enjoy and any comment and sugestion is more than welcome
This is a work in progress
Prometeus guide to Druids
Hey Prometeus, why the nobility feat over the Glory/Heroism domain? It seems like the Heroism subdomain has better utility spells than the Nobility subdomain. The leadership feat is nice, but ultimately ruled out by most DM’s b/c it causes more headaches than it is worth.
That RPG Bot domain guide is a mess. It frequently ends one spell rating with "but it's already on the druid list" and then ends the next with "but it's not on the druid list". There's a ton of written ratings that say that an option is good, but it's red coded. There's some overview paragraphs that say a domain is full of good spells, and then a list of all red and yellow rated spells. Plus a lot of references to cleric spell lists.
Prometeus hasn't posted at paizo.com in almost two years Jute, and the last update on the guide was three years ago. Your request won't go anywhere.
Just now rediscovered this guide, and it obviously had a lot added since the last time I saw it, so that it's almost like a new guide. I like the breakdown of tactics and the extensive list of sample builds, even though I didn't get to spend as much time on that as I would like. Will have to go back later and look over those more carefully.