How viable is it to be a melee druid without being a Druid of the Wild Order. Say a Druid with a starting 16 in Wis and Str, He would essentially be a Reach Druid I imagine with say a Spear possibly spending a general feat to get Weapon Proficiency in order to wield a Halberd or another superior martial reach weapon? (Would the Druid though never reach Expert Proficiency in martial weapons?) The idea would be to get Fighter dedication at 2/4 for AOO, cast low level spells (ie Grease, Shockwave) to knock opponents down and then attack, and attack again to capitalize with his AOO. His Reach would be 10ft (15 with Enlarge). Or is this melee druid just too far behind the Wild Order druid in order to work well? I see damage issues? The issue with the Wild order druid is that he can't do both cast and attack which makes it tricky. However the big strength is the added damage in Wild Order along with superior Reach (eventually at gargantuan). I should add the party would also have another martial with AOO to help take advantage of these spells.
Square peg, round hole in my opinion.
The melee attack for the druid is going to be about as valuable as a fighter's second attack. But, if your spellcasting is valuable, your character overall will be effective.
That's a damn shame, Warpriest problems I see.
Definitely seems viably to me.
I'd go 16 str 12 dex 12 con 10 int 18 wis 10 cha
There's no need to sacrifice casting, all you lose in going this route is just a couple points in dex and con and a couple feats. You're still just as good casting, and you get a nice reaction when approached.
Any order would work. You can spend another feat past 11, or just sick with the long spear then.
Definitely seems viably to me.
I'd go 16 str 12 dex 12 con 10 int 10 wis 10 cha
There's no need to sacrifice casting, all you lose in going this route is just a couple points in dex and con and a couple feats. You're still just as good casting, and you get a nice reaction when approached.Any order would work. You can spend another feat past 11, or just sick with the long spear then.
Spell DCs with a 10 Wis simply won't cut it.
Mistyped that…
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One of my players is toying with the idea of building a druid with a similar stat array to what citricking posted and focusing on the Shillelagh spell right out of the gate.
Couple advantages.. At low levels your depth of spell options is lower, and using a spell to make your staff REALLY good is a great way of using a spell slot. Sure you're only going to be able to do that a few times each day, but you could only do ANYthing a few times each day, and at least Shillelagh lets you strike repeatedly.
It's similar to a cleric casting Magic Weapon on a martial character (or on themselves if they like), which is a fine use of a spell slot.
At higher levels when Druid melee proficiency starts to fall off (and when Wild Shape would be powering up via feats to make up for that), you'll also have loads more options with spells. Extra bonus points because you're not wasting spells known as a Druid, so you simply stop preparing Shillelagh as soon as it's not relevant, and Bob's your uncle.
Potential downside, I suppose, is that if you're not planning on investing in melee capabilities down the line, that STR 16 ends up being a bit of a wasted investment... but as your primary casting stat remains in the right spot, it's not like you've wasted critical resources.
And retraining in downtime is a thing.
I was going to say, Shillelagh actually makes the early game pretty freaking solid. Long term it might slacken, but overall your spells should help make the melee piece work if you choose appropriately.
I mean, it works about as well as any other caster leaning gish. Maybe better since you get medium armor naturally.
Shillelagh is pretty strong at level 1, negating your reduced attack bonus from only being 16 strength and giving you some nice damage (even more if you can convince your GM to take a permissive reading of club).
Then later on you can transition into a stronger weapon.
Taking general weapon proficiency to get a halberd won't let you advance. You need to look into picking up fighter multiclass or use a racial weapon training feat to give you scaling proficiency.
meh you do you at your table, but for my table, I'm reading club and staff as specific weapons.
The club weapon group includes the staff, so if the intent was to call out weapon groups there, why also write staff?
If it were requiring a weapon in the club group, I think it would read "Targets 1 non-magical weapon in the club group that you hold"
That said, if you're going for a melee druid build you'd use a staff 2 handed for d8 damage, and d10 damage is only a smidge better so I don't think you're going to trash the game's balance...
...though you may consider going Cleric and using Magic Weapon if you want to get a big damage die.
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Viable but not optimal.
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The thing that's important to know about base caster gishes is that their weapon attack shouldn't really be assumed to be a primary method of damage dealing.
Math wise, you'll be about 3 to 5 lower on your bonus to hit compared to a fighter, assuming you start with 16 str and raise it at every opportunity. That doesn't mean the attack is worthless by any means; it just means that you should be seeing your attack as an action filler after a spell rather than your bread and butter. The primal spell list is filled with great blasts and crowd control effects that don't incur MAP, and a blast followed up by an attack without MAP is a very solid turn. Also, unlike the warpriest, you still have full progression for spell proficiency AND still have medium armor.
You can actually pull off this fighting style right out of the box; you might want to invest an ancestry feat to pick up a better weapon (longswords are always nice for their ability to be one hand when you need a free hand, and two hand for that sweet d12 damage die), but, as long as you understand the the limits and benefits of your martial abilities, you'll be a versatile force to be reckoned with
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I remembered this thread while looking through focus spells- is wild morph an option?
it gives you a variety of options, including bites, claws, reach, and flight (higher levels let you pick multiple options). The real winner here is this:
Heightened (6th) You can choose up to two of the effects from the list. Wild claws leave terrible, ragged wounds that also deal 2d6 persistent bleed damage on a hit, and wild jaws are envenomed, also dealing 2d6 persistent poison damage on a hit.
While 6th seems a bit later, the consistent extra persistent damage is not really something to sneeze at. It also come right when you would also be able to grab reach at the same time.
While 6th seems a bit later, the consistent extra persistent damage is not really something to sneeze at. It also come right when you would also be able to grab reach at the same time.
Wild Morph is extremely valid. I made damage simulations between a wild shaped druid and a wild morphed one. Wild morph was obviously behind, but not that much to not be an option. And it allows you to continue casting spells.
6th level is the sweet spot where wild morph starts to really be a thing.
While 6th seems a bit later, the consistent extra persistent damage is not really something to sneeze at. It also come right when you would also be able to grab reach at the same time.Wild Morph is extremely valid. I made damage simulations between a wild shaped druid and a wild morphed one. Wild morph was obviously behind, but not that much to not be an option. And it allows you to continue casting spells.
6th level is the sweet spot where wild morph starts to really be a thing.
Curious how you got that, because wild morph will always be 2 to hit behind wild shape (unless using heroism or some other status bonus)
Curious how you got that, because wild morph will always be 2 to hit behind wild shape (unless using heroism or some other status bonus)While 6th seems a bit later, the consistent extra persistent damage is not really something to sneeze at. It also come right when you would also be able to grab reach at the same time.Wild Morph is extremely valid. I made damage simulations between a wild shaped druid and a wild morphed one. Wild morph was obviously behind, but not that much to not be an option. And it allows you to continue casting spells.
6th level is the sweet spot where wild morph starts to really be a thing.
Yes, but Wild Shape raises the question of elemental runes. Without elemental runes, Wild Shape is roughly equivalent to Wild Morph (with more Reach and abilities, still).
While 6th seems a bit later, the consistent extra persistent damage is not really something to sneeze at. It also come right when you would also be able to grab reach at the same time.Wild Morph is extremely valid. I made damage simulations between a wild shaped druid and a wild morphed one. Wild morph was obviously behind, but not that much to not be an option. And it allows you to continue casting spells.
6th level is the sweet spot where wild morph starts to really be a thing.
I've had trouble understanding the spell heightening by level, does Heightened (6th) mean 6th character level, or when you are able to cast 6th level spells? Two very different meanings.
6th spell level means 12 character level
recently confused that too but as a reminder the usual wording for innate cantrips is 'heightened to half your character level' - which translates 1:1 to availibility of spell levels
I've had trouble understanding the spell heightening by level, does Heightened (6th) mean 6th character level, or when you are able to cast 6th level spells? Two very different meanings.
Yeah, 12th level (slightly behind 6th level spells I think). So rather late, but still worth considering- it is at the same level where you can get double focus regain so you can use wild morph a lot more often.
Curious how you got that, because wild morph will always be 2 to hit behind wild shape (unless using heroism or some other status bonus)Yes, but Wild Shape raises the question of elemental runes. Without elemental runes, Wild Shape is roughly equivalent to Wild Morph (with more Reach and abilities, still).
I think it is worth considering the fact that you don't have to play "keeping up with the Joneses" any more.
Citricking, in your guide on wildshape, you noted how you people have to pretty much continuously switch to the next spell up in order to keep up their damage. That is a lot of feat investment.
In comparison, wild morph only gets additional options from getting more wild shape feats. It is nice, but you could just as easily take a dedication in order to seek more damage.
Sidenote- are those damage calculations based off of the one hit, or does it take into account the fact that you have two different damaging status effects you can use?
I've had trouble understanding the spell heightening by level, does Heightened (6th) mean 6th character level, or when you are able to cast 6th level spells? Two very different meanings.Yeah, 12th level (slightly behind 6th level spells I think). So rather late, but still worth considering- it is at the same level where you can get double focus regain so you can use wild morph a lot more often.
Curious how you got that, because wild morph will always be 2 to hit behind wild shape (unless using heroism or some other status bonus)Yes, but Wild Shape raises the question of elemental runes. Without elemental runes, Wild Shape is roughly equivalent to Wild Morph (with more Reach and abilities, still).I think it is worth considering the fact that you don't have to play "keeping up with the Joneses" any more.
Citricking, in your guide on wildshape, you noted how you people have to pretty much continuously switch to the next spell up in order to keep up their damage. That is a lot of feat investment.
In comparison, wild morph only gets additional options from getting more wild shape feats. It is nice, but you could just as easily take a dedication in order to seek more damage.
Sidenote- are those damage calculations based off of the one hit, or does it take into account the fact that you have two different damaging status effects you can use?
For wild morph you need striking runes, while with wild shape you don't.
Animal form keeps up for a long time so you don't need to many feats.
I did a calculation with animal form vs wild morph at 11, with wild morph getting 1 d6 elemental damage rune and wild shape getting none (I think those runes might work with wild shape too). Counting the 2d6 persistent damage as applying once for each attack.
For 1 strike they came out pretty close, but with animal form ahead against moderate ac. 2 strikes was the same.
So for wild morph to come out ahead it would have to apply the persistent damage more than once for each attack.
3d8+1d6+4str = 21, so I added 4 damage to get animal forms 25
Just added 7 damage for persistent damage applying once (a little generous because of criticals)
Your graphs are not very clear :)
But anyway, they are pretty close.
So, between Wild Morph and Wild Shape, the only question is: Do you need the extra "stuff", like Reach, special senses, move speed and such or do you prefer to cast spells.
For me, it's really a question of character build.
Still, Wild Shape is better at low level, you need the persistent damage to trigger and the elemental runes for Wild Morph to be competitive.
Also, Wild Shape benefits from runes. Maybe not the damaging ones, but things like Ghost Touch work with it. It gives even more abilities to Wild Shape.
The biggest benefits of wild morph are
A) isn't as restrictive in size as wild shapes tend to be.
B) unlike the shape spells you can cast spells while morphed.
Both worthy considerations as a druid.
I think my graphs are clear :(
But I think the biggest considerations are
A: 1 vs 2 actions to cast
B: can cast spells
For the op, a d12 weapon would do pretty much the same as the insect bite from wild morph, so definitely viable because you don't need to cast the spell but always worse than wild shape in terms of expected damage.
I think my graphs are clear :(
Which one is Wild Shape and which one is Wild Morph? :D
Your graphs are not very clear :)
But anyway, they are pretty close.
So, between Wild Morph and Wild Shape, the only question is: Do you need the extra "stuff", like Reach, special senses, move speed and such or do you prefer to cast spells.
For me, it's really a question of character build.Still, Wild Shape is better at low level, you need the persistent damage to trigger and the elemental runes for Wild Morph to be competitive.
Also, Wild Shape benefits from runes. Maybe not the damaging ones, but things like Ghost Touch work with it. It gives even more abilities to Wild Shape.
Wild shape benefits from runes? I didn't know that. So you could have a Trex with a Flaming weapon rune?
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6th spell level means 12 character level
recently confused that too but as a reminder the usual wording for innate cantrips is 'heightened to half your character level' - which translates 1:1 to availibility of spell levels
6th level spell slots and 6th level heightened cantrips both click in at 11th level, don't they?
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6th level spell slots and 6th level heightened cantrips both click in at 11th level, don't they?
Correct. Cantrips/Focus spells heighten to half your level, rounded up.
6th level spell slots and 6th level heightened cantrips both click in at 11th level, don't they?6th spell level means 12 character level
recently confused that too but as a reminder the usual wording for innate cantrips is 'heightened to half your character level' - which translates 1:1 to availibility of spell levels
Yep, half your level rounded up is the spell level.
I think my graphs are clear :(
But I think the biggest considerations are
A: 1 vs 2 actions to cast
B: can cast spellsFor the op, a d12 weapon would do pretty much the same as the insect bite from wild morph, so definitely viable because you don't need to cast the spell but always worse than wild shape in terms of expected damage.
Very good point citricking. Before level 11 Wild Morph would grabbing a two handed Bastard Sword (or a Halberd for exceptional reach) and casting Enlarge (Huge size) be good first round? Damage should be pretty close I imagine to Animal form while retaining spell casting ability, Trained only in weapon also of course so a bit behind there.
Druid melee seems viable enough as a 3rd action. I'd actually rely a lot on haste to get your attack in; I think that will server you better than Enlarge since you really need to worry about defense as well.
At level 11 and 12, you will have 2 less armor than the martials. I'd back off of this plan during those levels, since you'll be a crit magnet.
cool, ya the idea was to switch to Wild Morph at level 11, before that use Enlarge with Reach and have our Fighter tank the damage infront of me. What you suggested casting a spell and then third action attack seems like a good plan.
I've had trouble understanding the spell heightening by level, does Heightened (6th) mean 6th character level, or when you are able to cast 6th level spells? Two very different meanings.Yeah, 12th level (slightly behind 6th level spells I think). So rather late, but still worth considering- it is at the same level where you can get double focus regain so you can use wild morph a lot more often.
Curious how you got that, because wild morph will always be 2 to hit behind wild shape (unless using heroism or some other status bonus)Yes, but Wild Shape raises the question of elemental runes. Without elemental runes, Wild Shape is roughly equivalent to Wild Morph (with more Reach and abilities, still).I think it is worth considering the fact that you don't have to play "keeping up with the Joneses" any more.
Citricking, in your guide on wildshape, you noted how you people have to pretty much continuously switch to the next spell up in order to keep up their damage. That is a lot of feat investment.
In comparison, wild morph only gets additional options from getting more wild shape feats. It is nice, but you could just as easily take a dedication in order to seek more damage.
Sidenote- are those damage calculations based off of the one hit, or does it take into account the fact that you have two different damaging status effects you can use?
For wild morph you need striking runes, while with wild shape you don't.
Animal form keeps up for a long time so you don't need to many feats.
I did a calculation with animal form vs wild morph at 11, with wild morph getting 1 d6 elemental damage rune and wild shape getting none (I think those runes might work with wild shape too). Counting the 2d6 persistent damage as applying once for each attack.
For 1 strike they came out pretty close, but with animal form ahead against moderate ac. 2 strikes was the same.
So for wild...
If you had Wild Jaws instead of Wild Claws would the poison damage instead of 2D6 be 2D8?