Author Topic: VoP Druid  (Read 5223 times)

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heffroncm

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VoP Druid
« on: June 21, 2008, 12:16:16 PM »
Making one because I never have, and have never played a Druid, and the campaign world was set up perfectly for the backstory.
Posting here because I have almost no idea what I'm doing and have trouble accessing Failmax for information.

DM is allowing Natural Bond to offset high level companion penalties.  DM will not allow a karate chopping bear with Improved Unarmed Strike.  Any WotC non-setting book is allowed, as long as I let my DM know exactly what I'm taking and what it will do before hand.  He wants me to work this character for all I can mechanically, 'cause most of the party just plain sucks mechanically.  Currently level 7.

Human Druid 20
STR 8
DEX 8
CON 16
INT 14
WIS 18
CHA 8

1: Sacred Vow (Human), Vow of Poverty, Nymph's Kiss (VoP)
2: Intuitive Attack (VoP)
3: Natural Bond
4: Exalted Companion (VoP)
6: Natural Spell, Sanctify Natural Attack (VoP)
8: Exalted Wild Shape (VoP)
9: Spell Focus: Conjuration
10: Favored of the Companions (VoP)
12: Augment Summoning, Gift of Faith (VoP)
14: Vow of Abstinence (VoP)
15: Frozen Wild Shape
16: Nimbus of Light (VoP)
18: Quicken Spell, Stigmata (VoP)
20: Open Exalted feat

Everything is fluid, though I like how the character plays at level 7.  I'm considering Assume Supernatural Ability, but it seems rather limited.  Same with Dragon Wild Shape.  Improved Grapple is an option, but it means 'wasting' a feat on Improved Unarmed Strike. 

Dragon Wild Shape comes very highly recommended.  I can't seem to figure out what's so great about it.  Could one of you explain?

I'm wondering about dropping my starting WIS to 16 and pumping CHA to 14, for fluff reasons mainly.  How much would that hurt me?

Another option is to multi in a level of Cloistered Cleric for Knowledge Devotion and a couple other useful Domain or Devtions, and swap out some feats for DDM: Persistent to really overdo the buffs on me and my Animal Companion.  Doesn't seem compatible with Vow of Poverty though, as I'm lacking a decent source of Extra Turns.  I could just grab Natural Spell, DMM: Persistent, and 2 Extra Turnings with my non-Exalted feats, but that seems like wasted potential.

Thanks for all your help folks.  It seems noone has done an in-depth handbook to Druids in a couple years.  Maybe it's all self-evident and I'm blind, maybe things just haven't changed enough to update, but I feel like I'm missing the awesome somewhere.

« Last Edit: June 21, 2008, 02:47:39 PM by heffroncm »

Radijs

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2008, 02:07:22 PM »
The thing about dragon wild shape isn't that the forms are very powerful. But every dragon can speak, and they all have insanely high fly speeds. So they make great aerial artillery platforms.

Assume Supernatural ability is insane when you combine it with abberant wild shape and then turn into a beholder. Eye rays are (Su).

Lowering wisdom isn't recommended. Charisma doesn't really get you a lot with the druid. Very few skills it has profit from a higher CHA and most of them get so many bonuses from your class levels or have low enough DC's that it doesn't make it profitable.
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heffroncm

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2008, 02:16:55 PM »
The thing about dragon wild shape isn't that the forms are very powerful. But every dragon can speak, and they all have insanely high fly speeds. So they make great aerial artillery platforms.

Assume Supernatural ability is insane when you combine it with abberant wild shape and then turn into a beholder. Eye rays are (Su).
I see where you're going with this.  I think Dragon Wild Shape isn't for me, as party dynamics are forcing me towards a front-line role.  We have too much artillery already.

My biggest problem with Assume Supernatural Ability is it only applies to ONE ability, and it seems you have to pick which ability when you take the feat!  However, all 10 Eye Rays are a single ability (!) which makes it much more palatable.
Quote
Lowering wisdom isn't recommended. Charisma doesn't really get you a lot with the druid. Very few skills it has profit from a higher CHA and most of them get so many bonuses from your class levels or have low enough DC's that it doesn't make it profitable.
Might be worth the loss of 1 DC, a 1st level slot, and a 6th level slot to enhance the flavor of the character.  Might not.  I'll have to weigh the actual RP gains, as I'm not losing too horribly much.

Ubernoob

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2008, 02:41:41 PM »
Random bonus: the text of VoP says if you take it at 1 you get a bonus exalted at 1 and every even level ala fighter feats.
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heffroncm

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2008, 02:49:09 PM »
Random bonus: the text of VoP says if you take it at 1 you get a bonus exalted at 1 and every even level ala fighter feats.

Forgot all about that.  Fixed the OP.  Helpful now, but I have NO IDEA what I'm going to do about a lvl 20 Exalted feat.  Maybe I talk my DM into writing up some homebrew Exalted feats or something.

Side note, I never noticed just how BROKEN the Luminous Armor spells were before.  I think I'm going to have to get my DM to give special approval on those, just so he knows that he'll never hit me or my blink dog in melee again.

Also, should I work in Touch of Healing, or just rely on Summoned Unicorns?
« Last Edit: June 21, 2008, 02:59:08 PM by heffroncm »

SixthDeclension

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #5 on: June 21, 2008, 02:55:26 PM »
There really is a lack of applicable exalted feats. That is one of the pitfalls of VoP.  :wall
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dman11235

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #6 on: June 21, 2008, 04:13:26 PM »
You could always embrace/shun the dark chaos...
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Radijs

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #7 on: June 21, 2008, 04:24:21 PM »
If you've got a feat to spare touch of healing is nice. You can fill the rest in with wands of lesser vigor and/or belts of healing.
I've never been a fan of a druid as a primary healer anyway.

You can try and talk to your DM and see if he allows the various 'devotion' feats from Complete champion as exalted feats for your VoP.
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BowenSilverclaw

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2008, 04:40:52 PM »
Agreed, especially the ones that are a little bit more nature oriented.

That being said, Touch of Healing can be nice if you've got feats to spare, but a Druid isn't as great as a dedicated healer as a Cleric and besides it's just a damn boring role so don't focus on it too much ;)

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dman11235

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2008, 04:52:18 PM »
Touch of Healing will let you heal them without persisted mass lesser vigor between battles.  Won't let you heal them to full, but that's what other spells are for  Though, your party is a bunch of ungrateful bigots (read the other thread which I assume is linked to this character).
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heffroncm

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #10 on: June 21, 2008, 05:05:33 PM »
Well, yeah, couple of them are anti-optimizing elitist jerks.  The Fighter who did all the heavy lifting is cool though, and I want to be able to back him up.

I shot an e-mail to my DM about the Devotion feats, he'll probably like the idea.

How would Embrace / Shun work with VoP?  I thought they had a distinctly Evil tinge to them, which would cost me my Exalted status, thereby losing my VoP and ALL the feats I got from it, leaving me with nothing to Embrace / Shun.  Also, how would I pay someone to do this?

Put the DM into an interesting position.  He tried to tell me that my intelligent Blink Dog animal companion would be bound by my Vow of Poverty, and unable to own or use any equipment.  I told him that if that was the case, he'd be taking the feat himself, which would give me a Blink Dog with a 40ish AC at level 7.  He's re-examining this idea ^.^

We actually can't fill in with Wands of Lesser Vigor.  I can't use Wands, and the Bard doesn't have UMD.  I'll stick with my original plan: soak up enough damage and kill things fast enough that I don't need to heal.

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #11 on: June 21, 2008, 05:09:48 PM »
How would Embrace / Shun work with VoP?  I thought they had a distinctly Evil tinge to them, which would cost me my Exalted status, thereby losing my VoP and ALL the feats I got from it, leaving me with nothing to Embrace / Shun.  Also, how would I pay someone to do this?
As written, the spells are Chaotic, not evil (although they are printed in a Fiendish Codex, so your DM might houserule otherwise). You can pay an NPC spellcaster the price to cast both spells, turning an exalted feat into any other feat you qualify for at the time of casting.
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heffroncm

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #12 on: June 21, 2008, 05:11:09 PM »
How would Embrace / Shun work with VoP?  I thought they had a distinctly Evil tinge to them, which would cost me my Exalted status, thereby losing my VoP and ALL the feats I got from it, leaving me with nothing to Embrace / Shun.  Also, how would I pay someone to do this?
As written, the spells are Chaotic, not evil (although they are printed in a Fiendish Codex, so your DM might houserule otherwise). You can pay an NPC spellcaster the price to cast both spells, turning an exalted feat into any other feat you qualify for at the time of casting.

Even assuming I wouldn't lose my Exalted status for this, my Vow of Poverty pretty much precludes paying an NPC to do it.

dman11235

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #13 on: June 21, 2008, 05:14:04 PM »
I still say Touch of Healing will help you out with survivability between combats.  And if you could find a way to persist mass lesser vigor, you're golden.

And yeah, they're chaos, not evil.  No loss of VoP using them.  Although, even if they were evil, you wouldn't be the one casting them, and thus you wouldn't have any problem with it.  You might school the caste in the ways of good after wards, though.

As for VoPov: you can get an NPC to do it for free.  It's not a material possession.  Therefore you can have it done on you.  There are ways, including diplomacy and friendly NPCs from the same church as you.
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heffroncm

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #14 on: June 21, 2008, 05:30:40 PM »
Okay, it's possible.  Not worth the kind of world-bending I'd have to do to make it happen though.

How would you suggest changing things to fit in Touch of Healing?  Or, how would you suggest changing things to fit in Persistent Mass Vigor?  The easiest thing to give up IMO is Augment Summoning, which can get me Touch of Healing and Extend, or Extend and Persistent Spell.  I'd have to wait for level 17 to Persist a Mass Lesser Vigor, though.  I could do the Cloistered Cleric thing, and it wouldn't really mean much reflavoring, but it would slow down Druid progression and would need either a hefty CHA investment and a hefty Feat investment to make it worthwhile.

dman11235

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #15 on: June 21, 2008, 05:46:06 PM »
If the dark chaos trick is a go, then you have no problems.  Otherwise, I don't really have a suggestion right now.  I've got to get to work.
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heffroncm

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #16 on: June 21, 2008, 06:21:33 PM »
The Dark Chaos trick isn't going to happen in this game.

Thanks for your help folks, I think I'm set with what I got.  Maybe it's not perfect, but it's good enough and lets me cover all of the bases that I need to.  Which is to say, being one of only 2 effective characters dealing with fights designed for 5.

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Re: VoP Druid
« Reply #17 on: October 09, 2008, 05:46:45 PM »