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.