I'm starting to feel that the druid (ach!) is better than the cleric. I've been experimenting more with the druid and the biggest thing for me about them is that they can be neutral good and worship Ehlonna, getting the animal, good, earth, fire, air and water domains, which means they are the supreme crafters in the whole game. They can do holy, they get almost all the pre-req animal spells for crafting, except for arguably the most important one, fox's cunning. I'm not sure if their elemental things allow them to craft the flaming/shocking/icy bursts yet though. I need to get to the higher levels and see. I don't know when druids switched from being true neutral to neutral good though. That's kinda weird. They've always been true neutral since I first started playing D&D about 27-28 years ago. Also, I noticed that they start with medium armor proficiency but still cannot wear chain. I wonder if they can wear elven chain. I hope so. We shall see. I'm still not terribly happy with their spell selection though. Having spells that are geared towards prancing around in the woods and talking to trees, animals and plants don't really have much use in a dungeon. How do you call lightning in the basement of the temple? Kinda weird. Can a druid charm/dominate fungus, like the little mushroom pods with the lamia or the yellow mold spores or even all the fungus in the basement?
You can't craft holy weapons though, right? Since you need holy smite for that (whatever that domain spell was). In addition to that, how does the druid's melee power compare to that of a priest in full plate with divine power (and other buffs) active?
And studded leather and scale mail. And turtle shells and dragon skin. Not sure about their fighting strength yet, only level 5 right now. He's dual-wielding scimitars right now and I'm doing 5.5 because I want to see how a 20th level druid rolls.
No Holy, but mine can do the flaming, shock, cold, and burst weapons. Also she can do most of the wonderous items, but she sucks at melee. I gave her Hedrack's striking wand, and pumped it up to +3, she made herslf a Belt of Str+6 for a 22 STR, but hits like a pixie. The only good thing she does in combat is summon huge earth elementals FTW! Oh, and ah Fong's Ivy armor is great!
I was wrong in my original post. I saw all the pre-reqs for crafting without actually testing them on the druid. I have to say that I'm fairly disappointed with the druids still. Clerics overshadow them in every important aspect, crafting, melee, weapons, armor, spell selection and can destroy lots of undead in 1 round. I'd rather have a cleric that can craft holy and all the animal crafts while the wizard takes care of elemental bursts. Druids make for an interesting different experience when you don't want to beat the game like a drum. Now I remember why I was always said that if you want to handicap yourself for a game, create a party of all hybrids, barbarian, bard, druid, sorcerer, paladin, ranger, monk. The hybrids just don't have the big cajones of the straight classes. It takes them longer to do the same things. Not that there's anything wrong with that. :mrhappy: But, like I said, it's an interesting diversion playing them. I feel the hybrids were originally created to add a larger element of role playing and to facilitate role playing ideas. They give you a better role playing base because of their specific classes rather than the blank slate of the straight classes. But, role playing doesn't translate very well into game mechanics. When you want to get stuff done with minimum hassle, you go for the straighties and not the swirlies. We haven't had a discussion on hybrids vs. straights for at least a month or two now. It might be coming up on that time again! :mrhappy: Or maybe to be different, we could call it power gaming vs. role playing, because that's what it really is all about when you get right down to it.
Hi Necro I agree that if you can only take a Cleric or a Druid, I would opt for a Cleric (either Heironeous or Corellon Larethian with Good and War Domains) in a heartbeat. On the other hand when putting together a 5 PC party, I would pick both just as fast. Why ? Spells and Crafting. Here are some of the "spell advantages" that a Druid has over a Cleric: 1st level: Entangle: other than Magic Missle and the occasional Cure Light Wounds, this is the one first level spell you will be using right up until you go into the nodes. It can literally save your behind in places like the "Fish Story" or the Big Bugbear fights in the temple. 2nd Level: Barkskin: +4 to AC, stacks with any and every "Armor" you can think of, and lasts longer than the Cleric's "Shield of Faith" . 3rd Level: Call Lightning: OK, it doesn't do as much damage as a Wizards Fireball, but it has two things going for it. First, you are able to call one bolt per level. Second, it's smaller area of effect makes it more useful in tight quarters. 4th Level: Flamestrike and Ice Storm are decent attack spells, and Reincarnation is a "poor mans Resurrection". 5th Level: Stoneskin: Being able to shrug off 10hp of damage is very nice. Call Lightning Storm is like Call Lightning only better. Two other nice things about Druids are their Animal Followers which when deployed properly can take out just about anything, and the Spontaneous Summoning ability they have. Being able to call in a large or Huge Elemental (assuming your Druid is at a high enough level) is not to be taken lightly. I often end up having Meleny spontaneously summon a Huge Water Elemental or two when I fight the Balor. Regarding crafting, it seems to me that the more crafters you have, the better off you are, as your crafters don't end up so far behind in experience points. Yes I know, you can "farm" exp. but to me, that is about as fun as watching the grass grow. The Royal Canadian
First of all, let me say that I dont craft, becose I'm a pen & paper D&D GM and player, and I never see a player that uses any craft feat, so I have no idea of wich spell is needed to make any armour/weapon bonuses, and I dont care. I play with what the game gives me, and I like this way very much. This point clear, I like much more druids than clerics in game terms. Animal companion means one more hitter in the group, and with the right feats, a Druid makes a summoner of first class. They have te potencial to clear one entire level of the temple without running out of spells, becose some of the spells they shall cast just stay working for a entire batle, like produce flame - much useful in low levels, and yet in high levels as a "emergency spell" - call lightning and call lightning storm. Beggin a hard battle with a summon and then casting one of this long duration spells and the battle is over control. Different of clerics, there are no need of a good score in Charisma - if ya wish to use a cleric to make any diference against undeads - and so they shall use the secound highest number on a more useful stats - like Dexteritiy, that helps in the AC, in Reflexes saves and for the ranged touch attacks. About weapons and armours... Bad options, maybe. But think in this way: At the beggining of the game, everyone will have a very close (and poor) possibility of armours and weapons for yer characters. Its impossible to buy a breatplate for yer fighter and another for yer cleric! And very expensive to buy a couple of chainmails too. So ya cleric will have a low AC, as the druid, in the very beggining of the game. And at higher levels, yer AC roles a less important role. More than this, the poor selection of armours means better mobility for the druids, and this makes diference always in the game! As a last note, Druids have more skill points than clerics and a better skill array, including one of the more useful of all skills in the game: Survival. In my point of view, druids and clerics play a different role in the game. Druids are someking of "jack-of-all-trades" with decent offensive and support spells, excelent battlefield control spells, and even some cure spells, if need. All in the same pack. Clerics must focus his habilities in some way. They shall be good "undeadslayers" and spellcasters OR good crafters OR good frontmen with the right combination of race/domains/feats, but they will not make more than one of those things each time, or they will be mediocre in his role.
Surprised no one mentioned shape shift. I know Shapeshift is lame in that other DnD Computer game NWN, but in ToEE its really good, here's why: Forget STR as a druid stat, also CON is not that important either. Take Improved trip, possibly power attack. Once you shapeshift to some bear you get *INSANE* natural STR (CON goes up too). You have Bulls STR on too, which stacks with natural Bears STR. I think you can possinbly go "up" a size as well. Anyway, to cut a long story short there's pretty much nothing you can't trip. Once a monsters tripped its AOO happy time for all the melee types, and the bear can hit pretty hard too with the right feats. The reason for power attack is that I don't think having it "on" affects the trip roll, thus you can have it on to make the follow up attack stronger. Of course you have barkskin or whatever on, and you can still call down lightning as a bear! People also forget that again unlike NWN, there's no limit on how many summons you can have (as in PnP), so you can pretty much sommon level 1 monsters behind everyone to give your rogues free flank attacks.
For what this is worth, this was also available in NWN2. But I agree that the ability of having your healing available without having to use spell slots fro them is nice and allows your clerics to be more versatile. Though having a druid with its spontaneous summoning is nice as well. Think I will try them both again in my next group.
