Druid Praise

[Dictum Mortuum]

So i decided to make a druid handbook. I know the basics of ourse, but it's still a lot of work. So i open this thread so that everyone can share combos, tricks, favorite wild shape forms, etc.

Druid Overview

• Abilities: You need high wisdom and constitution. Both are great attributes since they are keyed to several nice skills (like spot/listen) and the most important saving throws. Strength and dexterity are irrelevant after 5-6th level. That leaves you some bonus points to spend on your other mental stats.
• BAB: Average. Since with wild shape you are able to get great strength scores, your attack bonuses rival that of martial classes. Animal companion and summoned buddies can provide flanking bonuses as an added benefit. Last but not least, iterative attacks don't matter with natural attacks you'll use.
• HD: Considering that in average d8 is one hit point less than d10 and constitution is one of the two attributes that you're going to focus on, your hit point total's gonna be quite large.
• Alignment: This is the first problem to the class. You are restricted to neutral alignment. That may prove a problem when fulfilling requirements for prestige classes or feats. Also some spells won't be available if you have a certain alignment subtype.
• Class Skills: Wow. All the other full spellcasters (i mean cleric, wizard and sorcerer) all get 2+int skill points. You are getting 4+int from a beautiful list. Concentration and spellcraft covers spellcasting, spot and listen let you scout and you can even be a party face with diplomacy.
• Animal Companion: Well besides providing you with extra muscle, it can save you skills (survival namely, your animal companion can track) and provide you with several customizable levels to work with. Feats that have an aura effect work just fine with you.
• Wild Shape: You can use it as a melee destroyer form or a spellcasting defensive platform, thanks to natural spell. At any rate, free high stats for the whole day are fine in my book.
• Rest Stuff: Huge amounts of flavor. Free hat of disguise and immunities. Hell, you even stop aging at some point. As an added benefit you get a bonus secret language only druids use.

You're welcome to add anything you like

[AfterCrescent]

I think my favorite trick with druids is the feat Natual Bond. Using the general rule that you apply effects in the order most beneficial to you, it allows for you to get a stronger animal companion levels before other druids.

[Dictum Mortuum]

I think my favorite trick with druids is the feat Natual Bond. Using the general rule that you apply effects in the order most beneficial to you, it allows for you to get a stronger animal companion levels before other druids.

Well technically, it works with multiclassed druids
But if i were a DM, i'd allow the player to offset the stronger-companion penalty to druid levels.

[AfterCrescent]

Well I know how it's intended to work. But yeah, the wording is vague enough to allow it to offset the penalty.

[Blade2718]

Don't forget to start a skeleton on the Handbook child forum.

[ksbsnowowl]

Things to mention:

Dragon Wildshape feat - absolutely awesome in its flexibility.

Rashemi Elemental Summoning - great feat (summon a Thommil to engulf foes and then earthglide down into the earth...taking the foes with it.)

Greenbound Summoning - tasty template on your animal summons.

Touch of Healing [Reserve] - a useful feat if you are the party's main healer, but not a must-have.

[CannibalSmith]

Ahem!

Should I admit defeat and ask Wikia to close it down?

[Dictum Mortuum]

No you shouldn't!
I want to make this here, because the problem i have with the wiki is that people can't discuss it that easily. Forums are a lot easier for questions, suggestions, etc.

[CannibalSmith]

Then let this be the discussion thread for the handbook on Wikia, and let's stack not overlap our efforts. How about that?

[Eldariel]

Survival definitely needs to be mentioned in the skills-section; if there's a relevant amount of wilderness adventuring going on, you'll want at least one party member with high Survival and Druid with their Wisdom-focus is perfect for the job. If one manages to fit in Track-feat, you'll be much better a tracker than the Ranger simply because you have forms with Scent, magic to aid in the process and complete Wisdom-focus.

Oh yeah, may be worth mentioning that you tend to want some points in Handle Animal to teach your Animal Companion the basic tricks, and at least few to Push it when need be. Also, may be worth pointing to the general direction of the Handle Animal-guide (it's over at 339 at least) of how to raise your own army.


I'm playing a level 6 Human Druid in an online campaign and I'm the party Tank, the party Healer, the party Tracker, the party Face and apparently an Arcane Caster too; can't pull the last off at the same time as the rest yet though - need Quicken Spell and few levels first. Oh yeah, and the party spotter too. All this works just fine while still fitting Extend Spell, Natural Spell, Augment Summoning et co.'

So yea, it's just amazing how many different roles Druid can successfully pull off at once. The character above is basically a party unto himself, lacking only basically a Trapfinder, and there's always the "Summon Creatures"-solution to that (that particular Druid has 3 other party members though...just one is a Warmage and thus doesn't contribute terribly much).


Druid is also by far the PHB class best suited for military warfare (as ironic as it is). They can easily pump Handle Animal and generate an army (they even have a racial +2 bonus to it, and their companion to act as a sort of "general" for the rest along with magic to talk with them) out of them and all the massively destructing spells seem to be found on the Druid list (Control Winds - Tornadoes 4 U!), making Druids extremely efficient at wiping out massive numbers of mooks (which is basically what an army is). A single Druid can literally be a one-man army. And we aren't talking about hundreds or thousands of men worth of power here.

[CannibalSmith]

Take 10 +3 from Wis +2 Synergy from Knowledge (nature) = 15 - just enough for most uses. Unless you play in a particularly hazardous or stressful environment a lot or need to know where's north often, ranks in Survival are not necessary. In fact, in all my Druid experience I've never been asked to do a Survival check.

[Tshern]

Identify race/kind of creature(s) by tracks.

Seeing that recognizing the tracks of an animal is a DC 60 check, I'd say Survival is pretty useless since those results cannot be achieved anyway. Stupid as that may sound..

[Eldariel]

Speeding up the overland movement has been handy for me, especially in unknown planar environments where teleportation isn't really an option. Likewise, tracking is occasionally useful and can solve otherwise unsolvable problems. Predicting weather also seems to come up every now and then (especially when making longterm plans), and just having those 5 ranks to always know North is kinda handy.