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If wildshape bugs you look into the naturefang archetype.
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You think a tier 1 class, arguably the 3rd most powerful class in the game is garbage?
Plant Shape is probably the worst use of Wildshape, it has the fewest possible choices, and even fewer good ones.
Maybe just play a vanilla druid and wildshape into an eagle (later an air elemental) and fly above the combat raining death, amazing control spells, party buffs, etc.
Druids are amazing utility characters...they can turn into tiny, super stealth creatures and make amazing scouts. They can heal. They can spontaneously summon armies of creatures if their memorized spells aren't helpful. They can shape the environment around them, collapse entire buildings, buff their party members. Turn into flying spell casting nightmares, or turn into a super tank and wade into the front lines of combat.
Personally, I think a well played druid is more powerful than most wizards or clerics.
I'm not sure why you think plant shape is better, particularly the nerfed version that a treesinger gets until 8th level.
I suppose a fuldrex's bite and 3 slams is probably the best plant shape I form for natural attacks, before poison or constrict get involved.
The plant shape version of Wildshape that the Treesinger gets isn't very good, but normal Wildshape is pretty darn good.
Druid . . . druid is . . . druid is garAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAA!
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Right. One of the strongest classes in the game is garbage without plate. Okay.
There's a "dragonhide" on line 1 for you. Something about full functionality for a price increase that's inconsequential in the long run? Not sure what it's about.
I don't know, I've been talking to stoneplate over here, I realize it can be hard to understand such a heavy dwarven accent but the jist is similar.
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Folks, you ... you just won't. Stronger men and women have tried and failed. Sideromancer thinks metal is nature, druids are nature, druids not being able to wear metal armour is an assault against the universe itself. It's HWalsh and Paladins being LG level of, well, let's be diplomatic here, oh: persistence.
So let's bring it back around, could you try to restate the question in more neutral way so folks are less likely to wonder off on tangents? Neutral being doubly proper for a druid thread.
I'm playing a druid in Serpent's Skull, and it's a blast! You get so many useful utility spells, and wild shape is quite versatile. Huge dino for killing? Check. Tiny flyer for scouting? Quite. Elementals for passing through walls and private conversations on the wing (not to mention carrying your while party long distances)? Loads of fun. :)
Had a friend who played a treesinger with a treant companion named "Rustle Rustle." He mostly cast spells from atop it and turned into various mushroom forms to spread poison, I think. (The biologist in me winced at the idea of calling fungus plants every time, but that's Pathfinder for you!) I don't know specific forms, but there are some okay ones if you look.
Druids are amazing utility characters...they can turn into tiny, super stealth creatures and make amazing scouts. They can heal. They can spontaneously summon armies of creatures if their memorized spells aren't helpful. They can shape the environment around them, collapse entire buildings, buff their party members. Turn into flying spell casting nightmares, or turn into a super tank and wade into the front lines of combat.
Personally, I think a well played druid is more powerful than most wizards or clerics.
I've certainly toyed with the idea of a clan of earth elemental focused druid assassins/bandits for hire- they can sneak up from under the ground, and then sneak away when things turn bad the same way.
With enough of them working in shifts, they can do serious siege gameplay- the hurt ones move back via earthglide so their allies can cast cure spells, and the rest keep on pressure with intermittent melee ambushes and the occasional flaming sphere or lightning spell.
This idea also transitions to my own 2 cents on Sideromancer's nonsense- elementals are a decent gameplay style for druids that have problems with the equipment problems usually seen when wildshaping. Elementals have the ability to speak and hands (their subtype even lets them get weapon proficiencies if they are human shaped; you don't get that, but you get the hands that this implies). So it is possible to play a druid that turn into an elemental 24/7.
This is important, because you can then choose to just buy equipment sized to your preferred elemental size, and just use that. Grab a large scimitar and some nonmetal armor. If you use an earth elemental (the best melee elemental due to stats), you already get a +6 to natural AC, so even slightly poor nonmetal armor choices still put you at 'really good tank' levels. So you could make a discount version of the goliath druid- you trade in equipment resizing for more versatile wildshape options and probably earthglide.
Oh, and on that note- GOLIATH DRUIDS. They turn into giants, a type of humanoid. Which means their equipment resizes with them. Similar principle- you use natural armor to make up for the poor armor choices-... but you can use the same items the party finds.
Yeah, getting regenerate all day is pretty awesome.
Yeah, getting regenerate all day is pretty awesome.effectively immortal if they don't have a way to stop your regen.
I mostly just view it as "a way to prevent us from needing a raise dead because of an accident".
The problem with regeneration is that you pass out while at negative numbers. That means that the enemy can take their time to slowly start a fire with a flint and get a burn-y stick. So it doesn't help in the event of a TPK.
It is still really nice. Bleed is basically nothing to you, and you never worry about wasting time/money to top off on health.
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What kind of fresh blasphemous hell did I just walk in on? Druids are garbage?
PFFT, sir. PFFFFFT, I say. Absolute heresy.
Druids are one of the most versatile classes in the game. I would argue that only the Wizard is more versatile, and only by half of a smidgeon minus 1.
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@danzibe1989 if you want to be a controller druid, get the Natural Spell feat.
Sickening Entanglement, Sheet Lightning, Rain of Frogs, Wall of Fire, all kinds of stuff.
With lvl 8 wild shape, you can turn into a diminutive mosquito and cast spells while being nigh-completely unnoticed.
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If you want to blast, here's all your blaster spells:
1st Produce Flame, Entangle, Wild Shape into something with lots of Natural Attacks and cast Frostbite - Frostbite lasts for 1hit/lvl
2nd Tar Ball, Stone Call, Flame Blade, Frigid Touch, Burning Disarm
3rd Call Lightning, Spike Growth, Ash Storm
4th Ball Lightning, Obsidian Flow, Geyser, Flame Strike
5th Fire Snake, Call lightning Storm, Wall of Thorns (+lvl 3 plant growth)
6th Tar Pool, Roaming Pit, Sirocco
7th Fire Storm, Sunbeam
8th Reverse Gravity, Finger of Death, Stormbolts, Earthquake, Sunburst
9th Clashing Rocks, Tsunami
Get Empower/Maximize/Intensify/Heighten Spell, Spell Specialization/Greater Spell Specialization, and Spell Perfection and you will melt faces.
Grab Endurance and Diehard as feats, then you don't have to worry about it.......did I just discover something scary??
How about deathless initiate?
Half orcs are a rather powerful choice for goliath druids- they get access to falchions and great axes (for a 2d6 18-20 weapon and for a really big single hit weapon).
And you come with a built in backstory- all your orc brothers made fun of you and kicked sand into your face. But now, you are the biggest, meanest, greenest one of them all!
Still, the point remains- things go bad when you face a TPK. A determined GM WILL find ways to restrain you or burn you if you abuse your undying nature.
@danzibe1989 if you want to be a controller druid, get the Natural Spell feat.
Sickening Entanglement, Sheet Lightning, Rain of Frogs, Wall of Fire, all kinds of stuff.
With lvl 8 wild shape, you can turn into a diminutive mosquito and cast spells while being nigh-completely unnoticed.
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If you want to blast, here's all your blaster spells:
1st Produce Flame, Entangle, Wild Shape into something with lots of Natural Attacks and cast Frostbite - Frostbite lasts for 1hit/lvl
2nd Tar Ball, Stone Call, Flame Blade, Frigid Touch, Burning Disarm
3rd Call Lightning, Spike Growth, Ash Storm
4th Ball Lightning, Obsidian Flow, Geyser, Flame Strike
5th Fire Snake, Call lightning Storm, Wall of Thorns (+lvl 3 plant growth)
6th Tar Pool, Roaming Pit, Sirocco
7th Fire Storm, Sunbeam
8th Reverse Gravity, Finger of Death, Stormbolts, Earthquake, Sunburst
9th Clashing Rocks, TsunamiGet Empower/Maximize/Intensify/Heighten Spell, Spell Specialization/Greater Spell Specialization, and Spell Perfection and you will melt faces.
Doesn't Frostbite apply to only 1 attack though not all natural attacks?
Burning Disarm has already been ruled by GM as being unable to be acquired unless your from Cheliax (He's a region specific person which is BS when it comes to spells like this but whatever)never really took Druids as blasters, always pegged them as more utility support casters. I'll give this a try sometime.
Frostbite says: "Your melee touch attack deals 1d6 points of nonlethal cold damage + 1 point per level, and the target is fatigued. The fatigued condition ends when the target recovers from the nonlethal damage. This spell cannot make a creature exhausted even if it is already fatigued. You can use this melee touch attack up to one time per level."
If you were level 20, you would have 20 charges. And they would go off every time you successfully hit, even if you accidentally touch one of your allies.
Holding the Charge: If you don’t discharge the spell in the round when you cast the spell, you can hold the charge indefinitely. You can continue to make touch attacks round after round. If you touch anything or anyone while holding a charge, even unintentionally, the spell discharges. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates. You can touch one friend as a standard action or up to six friends as a full-round action. Alternatively, you may make a normal unarmed attack (or an attack with a natural weapon) while holding a charge. In this case, you aren’t considered armed and you provoke attacks of opportunity as normal for the attack. If your unarmed attack or natural weapon attack normally doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity, neither does this attack. If the attack hits, you deal normal damage for your unarmed attack or natural weapon and the spell discharges. If the attack misses, you are still holding the charge.
So the idea here is to get Rime Spell at lvl 1 or 3, your choice, and you get Wild Shape at lvl 4, and Natural Spell feat at lvl 5.
So Wild Shape into something with lots of attacks, preferably 4+. Deinonychus and Octopus are my favorites, and go nuts.
Every hit is whatever your dmg is from the natural attack + the Rimed Frostbite, which causes 1d6+lvl damage and now your target is Fatigued and Entangled.
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Deinonychus attacks: 2 talons +5 (1d8+2), bite +5 (1d6+2), foreclaws +0 (1d4+1)
So at level 5, let's say all your attacks hit (being generous with this).
A Rimed Frostbite takes a lvl2 spell slot and would give you 5 charges.
Talon1: 1d8+2 + 1d6+5 + Fatigue/Entangle
Talon2: 1d8+2 + 1d6+5 + Fatigue/Entangle
Bite1: 1d6+2 + 1d6+5 + Fatigue/Entangle
Foreclaws: 1d4+1 + 1d6+5 + Fatigue/Entangle
So 2d8+4, 1d6+2, 1d4+1, 4d6+20 = 13+5.5+3.5+34 = 56 average damage (generously assuming all attacks hit), and you would still have one charge of Frostbite left.
The mob is now Fatigued and Entangled, so -2 attack, -2 str, -6 dex, cannot run or charge, moves at half speed, and automatic conc check for spells.
After your Frostbite charges are expended, hit him with a Snowball or Frigid Touch spell to Stagger him, if he's still alive.
Fatigued
A fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a –2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. Doing anything that would normally cause fatigue causes the fatigued character to become exhausted. After 8 hours of complete rest, fatigued characters are no longer fatigued.
Entangled
The character is ensnared. Being entangled impedes movement, but does not entirely prevent it unless the bonds are anchored to an immobile object or tethered by an opposing force. An entangled creature moves at half speed, cannot run or charge, and takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and a –4 penalty to Dexterity. An entangled character who attempts to cast a spell must make a concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) or lose the spell.
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Edit: Those numbers are from a base medium-sized Deinonychus from the bestiary. Those damage numbers will be changed according to your Druid's own ability scores, and whatever size you choose to become when you Wild Shape.
You don't actually need Rime Spell to make this good. But the debuff is awesome for crowd control and protection vs enemy casters.
Strength domain isn't a terrible choice, but since it's an enhancement bonus it won't stack with bull's strength or items based on it, so you may not get a lot of mileage out of it at higher levels. IMO the rage domain is more useful since it gives you barbarian rage at 8th level.
Also, you can save yourself a feat by taking the Shaman’s Apprentice trait. Additionally, since you're going for deathless initiate anyway, you could also take the toothy trait for fun. Since having both orc ferocity and die hard is redundant.
Alternatively, you could just take the Orc Atavism trait. The only downside is that while it effectively gives you diehard, it doesn't call it diehard so it can't act as the pre-reqs for deathless initiate.
... I figured I would go with a druid (I know, I know, they're garbage, but its thematic so meh)...
HAHAHAHAhahaHAhahaha ha ha ha.
No.
@ danzibe1989
remember that while nuking with WildShape+Frostbite, all you have to do is defeat the target's Touch AC. Your Natural Attack damage is actually quite secondary in comparison:
So let's say you're lvl5 and you casted a lvl2 slot Rimed Frostbite on yourself, then Wild Shape into a Deinonychus (or something with 4+ attacks), and you're making 4 Natural Attacks vs a mob with a 16 AC, a 14 FFAC, and a 12TAC, and you rolled 7, 8, 9 and 15. So let's also say at level 5, you have 5 Frostbite charges and you also have a bab of +3 and with a Str of 12, so a mod of +1, so in this example you'd have a +4 to attack without other factors such as Power Attack or Flanking Bonuses or buffs and other things.
So here's the point: Essentially, if you defeated the target's TOUCH AC on any one of those attacks, your Frostbite is delivered and deals damage + fatigue/entangle per the spell, while your Natural Attack would not actually cause damage.
In this hypothetical example, you rolled a 7, 8, 9, and 15 with a +4 to hit, so you hit AC: 11, 12, 13, and 19. The mob's actual AC is 16, but his Touch AC is 12.
So, your first attack of 11 would whiff. And it would not consume one of your Frostbite charges.
Your second attack of 12 would not cause damage from Natural Attack, but it would cause damage from Frostbite because you successfully touched the mob. Essentially, you touched this target's Touch AC and made some scratch marks on his armor/natural armor, but you still touched, therefore the Frostbite charge goes off. The target therefore takes 1d6+5 Frostbite damage, and now has a -2 att, -2 str, -6 dex, cannot run or charge, moves at half speed, and has automatic conc check for any spells he might cast.
Similarly, your third attack of 13 would normally not cause damage from Natural Attack, but since his TAC has been reduced by -3 from fatigue/entangle debuffs, this attack would barely hit; it would cause any damage from your Natural Attack + the damage from Frostbite because you successfully hit the mob properly, whose 16AC has now been reduced by -3dex mod to 13AC. So you hit properly and cause your Natural Attack Damage + the Frostbite proc damage.
With your last attack of 19, you would cause your Natural Attack damage + Frostbite damage.
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In the end, with your 4 attacks, you would have done 0dmg with the first attack, the second attack would be no dmg from NatAtt but a 1d6+5 from Frostbite because you touched their TAC and debuffed with fatigue/entangle, third attack would be vs 13AC so NatAtt + 1d6+5Frostbite because the debuffs reduced their AC by -3, and lastly NatAtt + 1d6+5Frostbite damage, and you'd still have two charges of Frostbite remaining for the following round.
And all this would be done even despite coming short of the target's actual AC with the first two attacks. You really just have to hit the Touch AC of the opponent for the nukes/debuffs to go off, thus making it easier for your subsequent attacks in that round and all subsequent rounds to hit and cause damage. Bonus points if you get Power Attack and Cornugon Smash by lvl 9 for extra damage and the shaken/sicken combo, which is a -4 att, skills, abil checks, and SAVES, and a -2 dmg. And if you have Natural Spell, you can re-cast Rimed Frostbite while Wild Shaped as long as you want, and as long as you have additional Rimed Frostbite spells prepared.
Also, if you have Natural Spell, this opens up LOTS of potential in the mid-game obviously, but especially the late game, for being shapechanged into a diminutive <insert any animal here> while casting game-changing spells. Seriously, game-changing spells, and you can cast these things while Wild Shaped as something as small as a dragonfly.
Druids are not garbage sir. And neither are you. Your effort with learning how to play Druids, is.
There are no garbage classes, just garbage players.
There are no garbage classes, just garbage players.
Well, there can be garbage classes... but druid has 9 spell levels and the ability to change into a wide variety of forms (which allows for melee, utility, and stealth options). It might require a garbage player to mess that up.
Now, if we are talking about shifters... well, that would just be punching down. The elementalist archetype is rather good though (it has a damage option that puts it on par with cavaliers, and it can switch between elements as needed).