I see a lot of people boast about the power and utility of this class, yet it is one of my least favorites. I am trying to like it, and have had fun making silly builds using various Druid archetypes (like an incorporeal Wild Shaping Lich)... I even made Nyrissa more Druid than Sorcerer (still gave her the missing levels in Sorcerer, though... and made her a Lich). I am just not a fan of their biggest mechanics.
My personal favorite is the Nature Fang archetype VMC Cleric... I don't really like Wild Shape, and Nature Fang replaces it with Studied Target (something I do like). Slayer Talents are something I know how to better use, and thus appreciate, more than Wild Shape, as well. VMC Cleric gets healing spells on my Spontaneous Casting list... nice. I don't like summoning, so the Druid's Spontaneous Casting is wasted for me. Healing is good, though, and Druid's have healing spells (that no longer need to be prepared). Plus, you can combine things like Divine Alchemy and Druidic Herbalism, which is pretty rad. Oh yeah, and you can Channel, which is neat...?
What's yours? And more importantly, why? I'm trying to like this class more... please convince me.
That is an awesome response, thank you.
Wild Shape has always been something awesome to me for scouting or traveling... I like the Wilderness Whisperer archetype quite a bit. Access to the Effortless Aid Investigator Talent is 100% worth giving up access to Large or larger Wild Shapes. It is so rad to turn into a bird or fish when you want to, and I think Rangers should get it if they don't want a companion. Very cool.
Turning into a bear, or the stupid amphibeous octopus, or whatever to fight...? Meh. The dinosaur thing could be fun, because literally freaking dinosaurs!
My friend has played a werewolf in 3 or 4 campaigns, spanning 5e and PF1. Lol. He clearly gets a kick out of it, as well. And in a 5e campaign he is running, my character happens to have a certain dark secret that may force me to explore this madness on my own. But I look forward to it.
I've always respected Druids, they have been very consistent. Hard to not want around, honestly, they can prove quite versatile. I almost dislike them for having it TOO easy. But, they don't seem to get played overly often. Nor have I played one.
You can specialise a druid to be all kinds of odd things - like a plains druid with the monkey domain makes a decent rogue, as well as potentially being a Sun Wukong expy. And they still have their wide but quirky spell list to go with that.
Many archetypes sacrifice some of the wild shape ability and that's OK; while being a shapeshifter is fun it can also be a bookkeeping headache and lead to decision paralysis.
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Got a couple of fun themed druid builds.
The sea snake: an undine druid (menhir savant) with a 1 level dip in monk to get wis to ac and grab snake style. With one of your traits being Beacon of Faith, you can get up to +3 caster level on your domain spells (+4 if you can convince your GM to let the undine's water affinity apply to the water domain/oceans subdomain even though you're not technically a cleric). Stay wildshaped into water elemental form for flavor, a con boost, and +5 ac over your base form. Since elementals can communicate naturally, might not need the wild speech feat, but you can grab it anyway.
One Punch Gem: 1 level of barbarian, 10 levels of druid (cave druid), more barb or druid as you please after that. Go oread and grab the cave domain for extra flavor. Grab vital strike somewhere along the line and furious finish at 11. Wild Shape into a carnivorous crystal and cast strong jaw on your slam attack to go from 7d8 to 16d6 according to this faq. Vital strike takes that to 32d6, furious finish will maximize all those dice to 192+str damage as a standard action that ends your rage. That's enough to one-shot your average cr13. Grabbing improved vital strike will boost that to 48d6 or 288+str damage, enough to one-shot an average cr17. Get enough barb levels to reach the bab +16 needed for greater vital strike and that's 384+str, or enough to one punch the average cr20.
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I'm currently playing a Half-Orc Bear Shaman (Druid Archetype from APG) with a grizzly bear companion in our Jade Regend campaign.
Thanks to being a half-orc I was able to grab a Greataxe as my primary weapon and this combined with the my strenght (I play him more like a barbarian) makes me a real combat brute.
At the first levels his AC was a little bit low, but thanks to totem transformation, barkskin and my new Dragonhide Breastplate it will get better now.
I plan to keep the focus on melee combat, using totem transformation, a Falchion (which I found and can use thanks to being a half-orc). Wild shape will be more of a support tool for me.
I also thought about dip into Barbarian but decided not to do so, as I want to keep my spell & special ability progression on level.
Same goes for the idea of choosing the Nature Warden PrC. While I like the idea of this PrC, the tradeoff is not worth taking it (especially as I would had to take some Ranger levels before).
Fun Fluff fact: The Dragonhide breastplate and Falchion are from a treasure chest in brynewall and so they are asia-looking. Just imagine the "Barbaric Half-Orc Druid, wielding a Dadao in a breastplate engraved with asian ornaments." :)
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I think my favourite concept is for a Dwarven Goliath Druid, who has a sabretooth tiger AC and turns into a giant wielding a warhammer (and maybe a heavy shield). Less focus on casting, more on smacking things.
Perhaps his clan/town/family was destroyed by marauding giant warbands and he's decided to fight fire with fire.
The reincarnated druid always peaked my interest. Coming back from death on your own is pretty cool, especially at level 5. Reincarnate is also more exciting than raise dead - even though it's a loss of control. The rest of the archetype is rather lame, though the two save boosters are helpful. I crafted a few builds with just 5 or 6 levels of reincarnated druid, the rest being martial. Or psychic with self-perfection discipline, to get rid of the negative levels myself on the long run.
As a sucker for natural attacks I am a bit angry druid got an easy way for spamming tentacle attacks: The kraken caller. It can be combined with any other natural attacks, but you will need 12 levels for all the tentacles, meh. I would have preferred such an ability on a class that doesn't have a lot of baggage I don't want (spells, animal companion, weird situational resistances etc.).
I recently played a bear shaman as well, but once I was able to choose earth elemental as a form, I pretty much stuck with it. combine that with the summon spells, and you can own a battlefield. at once I time, including myself, I had 8 greater earth elementals on the battlefield. (Playing Kingmaker and it was the battle with the enemy army)
No Archetype Druid and Goliath Druid are my fav's.
Death Druid. That being said I like a lot of the other archetypes and the Druid in general.
Technically I've only ever played the Death Druid. I realize straight up ass kicking it's on the low end but utility wise I think it can beat the other archetypes.
The phantom is amazing and I don't have to worry about bookkeeping for all the wild shape stuff.
Lastly, ignoring difficult terrain is very nice. :)
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That Cave Druid build is just silly.
I threw a Cave Druid together with the Oozemorph Shifter for the ultimate wierd gestalt. Not that either one fixes the other... it's just funny that you are either a slime ooze or a crystal ooze.
Green Scourge Druid has my vote because it improves on two of my favorite spells, Flame Blade and Shillelagh.
That does sound cool.
I imagined a bearded woodsman in a long brown robe wielding a staff in one hand and flame blade in the other. Except the staff is two handed. :9
Okay maybe a Keleshite styled nomad with white and red robes trimmed with gold and a Sargon like beard. Flame blade in one hand and elaborate dark wood club in the other. :)
Varient MultiClassing. You give up half your feats for class features from a different class.
My favorite Druid? Gary the Druid.
Gary the Druid? You actually like that guy? Not going to lie, Gary the Druid and I don't get along. I called his mother a goat and said he smells like toe-jam.
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I had a blast in Giantslayer with my Half-Orc Nature Fang Druid that focused on two-handed weapons, vital striking on charge and dealing sneak attack damage. I only used spells as buffs and minor problem solvers, so the 4 levels I multiclassed into Rogue (Scout) did not hurt in the least. That was done after level 10 so that I could get Opportunist and combo off my animal companion in combat.
Personally, I am not much of a fan of a spellcasting focused druid, as I see it as a waste of their other abilities, and I LIKE to play highly versatile characters. The closest I came to be a spellcasting druid was with the Elemental Ally Druid, with their ability to summon four different eidolon of the four elements, each tailor suited to specific roles needed at the moment. The small number of evolution points never really mattered, as it was feat and skill selection that made all the difference. With the melee options handled by the Eidolons (and an animal companion gained through other means), I felt free to focus on casting.
One of my absolute FAVORITE druids was a Druid/Ranger multiclass, that made use of Shapeshifting Hunter and Shaping Focus in order to be highly effective in combat. Planar Wildshape to get smite evil/good on command, and you have one scary monster.
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My favourite druid is the protocol one, it is fluent in over six million forms of communication^^
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Green Scourge Druid has my vote because it improves on two of my favorite spells, Flame Blade and Shillelagh.That does sound cool.
I imagined a bearded woodsman in a long brown robe wielding a staff in one hand and flame blade in the other. Except the staff is two handed. :9
Okay maybe a Keleshite styled nomad with white and red robes trimmed with gold and a Sargon like beard. Flame blade in one hand and elaborate dark wood club in the other. :)
I am currently playing a brewer/merchant family druid, given his magic by a fey deal. He destroys aberrations, the fey give his family new things to make ales and the like from.
He has been beating things over the head with his masterwork oak cane for 11 levels now thanks to Green Scourge. :)
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Desert druids have cool powers. You can turn into a dust devil or giant scorpion, meld with sand, or create a heat mirage. I just think it's neat.
Do you know what a "gear" Gnome is?
Apparently if you follow is special formula of alternative racial features, you come out with this like racial archetype called a Gear Gnome... apparently distinct from "regular" Gnomes. Fancy, right?
Now, imagine this steampunk tinkerer Gear Gnome as a DRUID!!! How fun is this?
There's this neutral Gnome god that has it all, like it was meant to be.
Useful, hopefully. Might also be able to shoot stuff?
Druid:
- Nature’s Fang
VMC:
-Cleric (Brigh, N)
Gear Gnome
... Academician
... Master Tinker
Traits:
... Acolyte of Apocrypha (Faith)
... Spark of Creation (Magic)
... Voices of Solid Things (Regional)
... xxx (Drawback)
1. Orisons
1. Spells (Druid)
1. Nature Bond
... Druidic Herbalism
1. Studied Target +1/+1 (move action)
1(VMC): Aura/Spontaneous Casting
1(level): Combat Reflexes
2.
3. Trackless Step
3(VMC): 1st Domain Power
... Divine Alchemy
4. Sneak Attack 1D6
4. Slayer Talent
... RCS: Precise Shot
5. Studied Target +2/+2
5(level): Craft Magic Arms & Armor
6. Slayer Talent
... RCS: Improved Precise Shot
7(VMC): Channel Energy 1D6
8. Slayer Talent
... RT: Weapon Focus small Orc HornBow beause I built it myself!
9. Studied Target (swift action)
9(level): Fey Spell Lore
10. Studied Target +3/+3
10. Slayer Talent
... RCS:
11(VMC): Channel Energy 4D6
12. Advanced Talent
... Assassinate
13. A Thousand Faces
13(level): Deific Obedience
14. Advanced Talent
...
15. Studied Target +4/+4
15. Timeless Body
15(VMC): 2nd Domain Power
... Dancing Weapons
16. Advanced Talent
...
17(level): Craft Wondrous Item
18. Advanced Talent
...
19(VMC): Channel Energy 9D6
20. Studied Target +5/+5
20. Advanced Talent
...
Brigh Unique Spell Rules:
At 3rd level: Make Whole can be spontaneously cast as a 2nd-level spell
At first level: Mending can be spontaneously cast as a 0-level spell
At 7th level: Soothe Construct can be spontaneously cast as a 4th-level spell
Deific Obedience (Brigh):
Exalted
Source Inner Sea Faiths pg. 29
1: Creator (Sp) crafter’s fortuneAPG 3/day, make whole 2/day, minor creation 1/day
2: Protected by the Machine (Su) Your body gains a bit of the resistance of a construct, perhaps appearing as bronze plates shielding vital organs or bronze gears on your limbs to help push them past their limits, much as Brigh’s own clockwork armor is said to change form to suit her needs. You gain a +2 sacred or profane bonus (of the same type as that provided by your obedience) on saving throws against effects that cause ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, exhaustion, fatigue, or nonlethal damage.
3: Inspired Crafting (Su) The quest for discovery and innovation never stops. By applying Brigh’s deep insights into efficient time management and technical innovation, you can craft items in spare moments squeezed in while adventuring or otherwise serving your god’s ideals. When crafting magic items while adventuring, you can devote 4 hours each day to creation and take advantage of the full amount of time spent crafting instead of netting only 2 hours’ worth of work. In addition, you can use fabricate once per day as a spell-like ability. Although you can’t create magic items with the fabricate spell, you can use it to create items that you later enhance magically.
Halcyon druid. They trade out their wildshape for some wizard spell choices, and they spontaneously cast from the good domain rather than summon natures ally. They aren't as focused on nature based benefits, so they don't lose a bunch of class abilities in urban or other planar environments. They get a bonded object instead of a pet. And their 13th level embody mask ability gives you some pretty cool and shorter term transformation options. My preference is draconal but there's plenty of other good choices.
Honorable mention to:
Leshy Warden for Green Man form at 6th level
Feral Shifter for access to planar focus feat
Goliath druid for being able to wild shape into forms that don't lose their equipment.
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Druid is, imo, the most powerful class in the game. 9th level caster able to do everything. The druid spell list has spells of all varieties- offense, control, buffing, healing, condition removal, summoning... They are also capable of being a martial with extreme defenses (planar wildshape is op) and good damage output. They also have various utility abilities. and of course, a pet.
The downside, is that they're also the most complicated class in the game. With the ability to turn into numerous forms, plus full spellcasting, and everything else, it's like playing 4 characters with the amount of work it takes. The complication also makes the rift between an optimized druid and a poorly built druid immense. A bad druid is also a nightmare to play with when their turns take forever as they roll their fistfulls of dice and stumble to add their plethora of modifiers. Then the people who do play one end up sticking to only a small selection of all the abilities they could be using, just to make it easier on themselves, but also then gimping their effectiveness.
Taken all together, it adds up to one of the least played classes in the game.
I've only played a druid twice in the decade plus of pathfinder, and the first hardly counted, it was only a few games over one summer. The second was a full ap, I made a dwarven menhir savant. While I do enjoy the druid, I don't think they have a lot of replay value. Once you've played one, making another is like a slight variation on the same theme, and I'm the type of player who likes to make a fairly different character for every game.
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I like multiclassing with Druid and Warpriest. Wildshape into huge animals with lots of attacks, then your Natural Attack Damage, which is usually pretty lame, gets replaced by Warpriest Sacred Weapon Damage which then Sizes up. Lots of high damage attacks, and watch your enemies evaporate in red mists as you tear through them.
And you can eat them! I mean, umm...
First, I find it actually quite easy to avoid anything that introduces a penalty to accuracy. No Power Attack, TWF, or Deadly Aim. Instead, look towards Combat Reflexes, Bodyguard, and Weapon Focus.
Secondly, buff up, buddy. As a 9th level caster, you have spells at your disposal to help you and your friends. Metamagics to Extend or Quicken these buffs are worth investing in (be it feats or metamagic rods).
Third, if you're going to have a pet, learn how to fight with it. Teamwork feats, and more importantly actual teamwork, can go a long ways. Flanking is free, and now being 3/4 BAB sucks a little less. Since we took Weapon Focus instead of Power Attack, and we are flanking, it's almost like hitting isn't quite the problem it once was. Did your pet Trip your opponent? Is that a +4 to attack them because they are prone?
If you have a pet, you essentially have two characters... you have absolutely no excuse not to be flanking at least half the time. None. Battlefield position should be your thing. You and your pet can block lanes, hold the line, funnel enemy movements... you should have no problem setting up flanking and AoO.
Traits like Heirloom Weapon can give you bonuses to AoO, some weapons like the Elven Branched Spear have built in bonuses to AoO... that's enough to make a difference on a 3/4 BAB character.
Only ever played one Druid: Dag of the Dirt.
Dwarven Earth-Domain Druid (too many enemies have fire/cold/electricity resist/immune, not many can counter acid damage.)
It was a homebrew world. Campaign went to 9th level. I purposely kept him away from being animal-focused, "Yea... not that kind of druid, friend."
Hated water, rolled around to take dirt baths. Metallurgist, party crafter, control spells & melee wildshaper. Earned the nickname, "Face-Eater," after a timely crit while wildshaped.
Menhir Savant is really really good(You can teleport two levels sooner than a Wizard). Nature Fang makes your Spell DCs absurd(Studied Target applies to spells). Death Druid is great(Spiritualist, but has a good chassis). Reincarnated Druid is cool(Reincarnate once a week for free).
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I have a player in one of my campaigns running a Swamp Druid. The player says he doesn't understand how folks consider this 3/4 BAB class a potential melee monster...
Druids are all about self buffing. My druid is currently level 12. She started with only a 14str, and never raised it. Didn't take any combat feats except planar wild shape because every druid should. So not exactly built to be a combat beast, however: 9bab+2str
Greater magic fang-all day buff, +3 enhancementWild shape also lasts all day. Larger forms give more str, but more size penalty, so regardless of size it's +1 to hit.
Not being combat focused, I don't have a belt of str, so I just cast bull's strength if I want to melee. +2 to hit
So that's +17. Against average CR+1 AC, that's a 50% chance to hit. Not amazing, but totally viable and that's on a caster that took no combat feats and a 14str. Built for melee you could easily have a base 20str for +3 higher and weapon focus for another +1.
Using a form like dire tiger, you are charging and pouncing for a full attack, giving you an 80% chance to hit on each of the 5 attacks you get.
I mean, you're not a fighter that hits on 2s, but I'm not seeing an accuracy problem.
Or you can do things like life bubble (also an all day buff), turn into a giant octopus. Air walk, longstrider (also longterm buffs). Now you fly about tentacling things with your 9 attacks per round. So maybe your accuracy is a bit lower than the fighter but you're also taking 3 times the attacks he is and have a 20 foot reach.
Note: druids often carry rods of extend for all their pre-buffing. Also often a handful of pearls of power 3. Druids love bards. The numerous attacks a druid gets mean that those buffs are amplified a lot. Also the smite from planar wild shaping is a ridiculous damage boost 1/day at +12damage for each of those 5+ attacks per round.
(Minor note: swamp druid does take a -2 to wild shape level, which is a penalty to combat prowess)
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Gonna also jump in here on Green Scourge, but specifically a Green Scourge/SkinShaper Druid with the Herbalism Nature Bond.
So, you've given up nearly every druid class feature at this point. In exchange you get:
1: Spellbased magic weapons that scale with your level at 0 gold cost
2: Wisdom Mod free potions each day
3: Bonuses to your Human form from Skinshaper to a total of +10 spread across your stats (Max +4 to any one catagory except Dex/Str, +2 must be assigned to either Dex or Str based on your chosen form using Alter Self)
4: 9th level spell casting
5: Monk unarmed scaling for when you're too lazy to conjure a +5 Vicious Flameblade
You're a jack of all trades and its fantastic.
Gonna also jump in here on Green Scourge, but specifically a Green Scourge/SkinShaper Druid with the Herbalism Nature Bond.
So, you've given up nearly every druid class feature at this point. In exchange you get:
1: Spellbased magic weapons that scale with your level at 0 gold cost
2: Wisdom Mod free potions each day
3: Bonuses to your Human form from Skinshaper to a total of +10 spread across your stats (Max +4 to any one catagory except Dex/Str, +2 must be assigned to either Dex or Str based on your chosen form using Alter Self)
4: 9th level spell casting
5: Monk unarmed scaling for when you're too lazy to conjure a +5 Vicious FlamebladeYou're a jack of all trades and its fantastic.
And to the drawing board, I go... this intrigues me.
It IS quite awesome, I could use this as a more useful Monk in a lot of situations:
Green Scourge-Skinshaper Druid
1. Orisons/Spells
1. Nature's Armaments
1. Nature Bond
... Druidic Herbalism
1. Aberration Sense
1. Wild Emparhy
1(level):
2. Woodland Stride
3. Scentless
3(level):
4. Resist Unnatural Influence
4. Skinshaping 1/day
5(level):
6. Skinshaping 2/day
7(level):
8. Skinshaping 3/day
9. Venom Immunity
9(level):
10. Skinshaping 4/day
11(level):
12. Skinshaping 5/day
13. Flashmorph
13(level):
14. Skinshaping 6/day
15. Timeless Body
15(level):
16. Skinshaping 7/day
17(level):
18. Skinshaping 8/day
19(level):
20. Skinshaping at will
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Also worth noting, Skinshaping can be used to buff Flame Blade's Damage Output by +2 with the feat Flame Blade Dervish that lets you put your Cha Modifier to Flame Blade's damage. Combined with enhancement bonuses and the Vicious enchantment and you can do some silly things at Touch AC.
Plus all the other goodies on Flame Blade Dervish, +10ft land speed, ignoring Fire Resistance on enemies (and you still have the Green Scourge option of subbing in for Ice or Lightning against stuff immune to fire).
And you literally don't need to spend any other combat feats at that point. Maybe power attack for your Shillelagh, but otherwise you're free to put your feats to Metamagic, skill boosts, VMCs, all sorts of stuff.
EDIT: VMC Magus gets silly almost immediately, since you can use the Arcane Pool to enchant your conjured weapons/hand wraps. Later on, once you get access to Spellstrike by default there are only so many spells you can use with Spellstrike since they need to be shared across the druid and magus spell list but if you take the Broad Study Magus Arcana most GMs should read that as allowing you to Spellstrike with any druid touch spell. Which is fun. You might lack Spell Combat, but you've got 9th level spellcasting so Quickened Spells are a lot easier. The Close Range Magus Arcana also helps expand the spells you can cast via Flame Blade. Round that off with Bane Blade and you've got a deadly weapon in your hands at all times.
That VMC Magus with Flame Blade Dervish is nasty. That look's like a lot of fun.
Druid wants Wis, VMC magus wants Int, flame blade dervish wants Cha; then you want to fight in melee? Can you say MAD?
I was thinking Battle Poi and the feat Weapon Shift made for the best fire themed druid, but this does look pretty good.
It's interesting that Green Scourge doesn't specify that the spells spent on flame blade need to be druid spells, just prepared spells. I can't think of build that could use that 1 level dip for buffed flameblade, but it could be fun.
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Druid wants Wis, VMC magus wants Int, flame blade dervish wants Cha; then you want to fight in melee? Can you say MAD?
Its less mad than you think, but just as MAD as any druid that wants to melee fight. I wouldn't play this build without a 20 point buy, 14, 14, 14, 10, 14, 10 before race bonuses. Pick a race that gives +Str without a stat negative (Human, Aasimar subvariant, Half-X, etc) and you're good for melee combat at low levels with Lamellar Horn + a Heavy Wooden Shield.
Since you don't need to spend money on weapons with the build, you can put all your money into better armor, shields, and stat up belts. Especially if your GM allows crafting (9th level spell caster woot woot).
VMC magus only wants INT for Arcane Pool (since our Discoveries are gonna focus either on improving the pool or Spellstrike, we don't care about our Int mod too much) and Flame Blade Dervish still gives +10ft movement speed and lets you ignore 10-30 fire resistance with flame blade even with +0 cha. But we can use Skinshifting to boost our Flame Blade's damage (since its a touch attack we really don't care about its accuracy) by boosting our Cha by +4. Oh, and when we're spell striking with our Flame Blade we're doing so at Touch AC, so thats nice.
At the end of the day, our lowish starting wisdom hampers our DCs when casting but if we only focus on buff and utlity spells it ends up working out okay at the end of the day. Plus, 2 free potions to hand out daily. Its a fun build, MAD as any combat druid, but fun.
Drovier is one of the few Druid archetypes that can pair with Green Scourge along with Skinshifter and Feral Shifter.
Definitely not the strongest Druid archetype, but I personally think the Death Druid has a pretty strong theme and could be fun to play in an undead-focused campaign.
Definitely not the strongest Druid archetype, but I personally think the Death Druid has a pretty strong theme and could be fun to play in an undead-focused campaign.
As I mentioned above it is my favorite. I'm playing one in Iron Fang.