Druids. What to do with my druid.

Druids. What to do with my druid. Several questions.

I like druids. I liked them in the pnp, and in other video games I've liked them too.

I made a 5 man party with a human druid, a human cleric, and a gnome wizard (I didn't realize at the time that there were a grand total of 3 illusion spells that require saving throws in this game). There are 3 classes in ToEE with 9th level spells. I have one of each.

I recently made a spreadsheet with all the spells that require saving throws for my three casters. I was wondering what schools, if any, I would like my casters to focus on. In doing so, I noticed that wizards seemed to have the most spells, and the most useful spells available. Druids seemed to have the least.

It seems that using wild shape to scout terrain or to hide isn't going to bring me any advantage in this game, due to the limited amount of forms that I can take. All I can think to use it for is combat, and it looks like the armor and magic item restrictions (goodbye, amulet of wisdom) will make that a self imposed disadvantage. Is there ever an advantage, in ToEE, to using Wild Shape?

Can a higher level druid wild shape into an elemental in ToEE?

I get the pnp bonus against fey SLAs, but so far I'm not seeing a lot of dryads or pixies in this game. Does this ever come up?

For anyone who's played ToEE as a druid, what was your strategy in building your character's abilities? So far, for feats, I'm planning on grabbing augment summoning with it's required spell focus conjuration (I don't really plan on using cure spells on the undead, but the feat is required), quicken and maximize spell (for each of my casters, actually), natural spell if I can think of some reason why I would ever use wild shape, and improved initiative. I'm thinking I might spend the remaining feats on spell penetration or spell focus evocation, widen or heighten spell, but I'm not certain. I'm delegating item creation to NPCS like Spugnoir and Ronald. As a human, I'll eventually have 8 feats.

I haven't seen many enemies yet with spell resistance. I'm assuming it shows up later. How useful, in ToEE, is spell penetration?

How does tracking work? With my druid already spending points in survival, how useful is the track feat?

Is there a point after which additional survival ranks stop having an effect on random encounters?

In the pnp, I could stand next to my animal companion, cast barkskin on myself, and the companion would get it as well. Does that work in ToEE?

Is it true that newly summoned animal companions do not get their hit dice and abilities adjusted based on my druid's level in ToEE? As in, calling a wolf animal companion with a lvl 4 druid would give me a wolf with the same stats as at level one animal companion?

 

To answer some questions: I play druids as nature fighters with spells- not quite a ranger, not quite a wizard. As such, I take Augment Summoning and the schools that go with it. I rarely take metamagic feats (except Maximize Spell) and since I don't play with NPC's I tend to have them focus on the crafting skills, as well as Improved Initiative, Spell Focus X, Greater Spell Focus X, Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration (I've actually been able to affect the balor guardian and Zuggtmnov with Stinking Cloud and Mind Fog (and both are vulnerable to Magic Missiles from a high level wizard).

I use the druid for crowd control with Spike Growth, Spike Stone and Summon Nature's Ally. Attack spells I like are Heat Metal, Call Lightning, Flame Strike, Ice Storm and Call Lightning Storm. Protective spells I like are Protection from Elements and Stoneskin. I've played the game with a druid and bard in place of a cleric and rogue respectively- except for turning undead the druid fares comparably- and if you make your druid an elf they get the benefit of racial weapons like longbows and long swords.

1- no real advantage to using wild shape IMO

2- AFAIK, no to wild shape: elemental

3- no dryads or pixies to my knowledge (unless it's something new in the post-temple adventures)

4- no real use for tracking

5- not sure to tell the truth

6- to the best of my knowledge Barksin has to be cast on an individual target in this game

 

I like druids and especially elvish druids in this game. Summoning is their main strength imo and they make decent artillerists with call lightning and related spells. Barkskin scales up with levels and remains useful for most of the game. Summoned elementals can go toe to toe with many of the enemies you find in this game. IMO, their only weakness is the lack of decent armor.

 

Druids are best used as spell casters. Wild Shape is very limited in functionality compared to PnP (No bear hugs) and generally isn't worth using most of the time. You can't change into an elemental in this game either, so its not even worth using it to gain DR. Dipping a level in Monk makes up for the lack of armor (Must be Lawful Neutral however). I usually run with Druid17/Monk3. This makes my Druid a decent quarterstaff user and gets access to most of the Druid's best spells.

As for my spells of choice, I typically go for Entangle, Shillelagh, Flame Strike, Call Lightning, Call Lightning Storm, Spike Stones, Spike Growth, Fire Storm, Barkskin, Stoneskin, Heal, and Finger of Death. Spontaneously casting Summon Nature's Ally when I feel its needed.

IMO, Druids aren't as strong as a Wizard or Cleric though, with both of those classes having better features and spells. Druids are however stronger than the non-casters, and also serve as a good middle line between Wizard and Cleric. Also their summons are vastly superior over those two said classes.

 

My druid is 6th level now. I've been maxing out my spot, listen, and survival, and boosting my wisdom. I also bought myself a spyglass, and crafted an amulet of wisdom. Is there some cutoff to these skills where I'd be better off spending more skill points in other skills instead, such as there is with heal and my rogue's appraise skill?

I read in this thread:

http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?t=10160&page=2

that a newly called wolf animal companion would have the same amount of hit dice if summoned by a level 20 druid or by a level 1 druid, and that the extra stats for my animal companion are only given if that companion is alive when my druid levels up to level 4, 7, 10, etc. Is this true? Is there some way for me to test how many hit dice my current animal companion has?

If my druid was level 20 and summoned a new animal companion, would there be any way to train him up to where he should be?

 

Don't know the specifics of how animal companion power-ups work, but don't recall animal companions being of much use beyond mid-levels. At first level they are like having an extra fighter in the party, but they start being vulnerable fairly soon and a liability thereafter. If you have a druid, a cleric and a wizard in your party, you have enough firepower and versatility that you don't need to worry about optimising feats that much, as your spells will become your most potent weapons and you have enormous flexibility here. Very few enemies in the game can deal with things like spike stones or your high-level summonings.

 

Another drawback to animal companions is that they tend to make the game crash when you enter the Nodes- found this out the hard way with my neutral parties (I tend to have rangers and druids in them)...

 

In this game, Druids are a support character, like bards. While they cannot tank, they can hold their own in melee, especially with a long spear from the second rank. They have some great spells, at all levels. Entangle is a life saver at low levels, you can take out the giant at 1st level with entangle and ranged weapons.

One good trick for druid, they can use wands from clerics, so have the cleric make wands of his good spells, be it cure serious wounds, or flame strike, and the druid can use them.

Druids are the only ones who can craft certain magic items, if you have a monk in the party, you need the druid to make amulets of natural armor.

 

Thank you guys for all the advice on building and playing a druid. I think I'm going to take my 2 game mechanic questions and start a new thread for those.

@general ghoul I've never been able to kill the hill giant without using entangle. It is frustrating that the kobolds and goblins get +20 to their strength checks when I use the spell in welkwood bog, though. The spell seemed tailor made for those guys. And when I use it against the frogs before the moathouse, they seem to lock up and not even try to get free. weird.

Overall, though, good spell.

 

All this talk about Druids has me going through again with a Druid and her two barbarian brothers, (all half-Orc).

Btw, the giant just ripped my entangle spell apart and almost tpk'd my little party.

 

I personally always have a human druid as my diplomancer. Of the full spellcasting classes he has the most skillpoints and doesn't care about his physical stats if you are content with wild-shaping your druid for dex -> init and ref and con -> hp and fort purposes and not giving him an amulet of wisdom. At the beginning give him a longspear (as somebody else has already mentioned), take spell focus (conjuration) -> augment summoning at first level and natural spell at sixth level and the rest is up to you (I prefer to take extend spell and crafting feats). If you take extend spell you can cast an extended owl's wisdom on yourself, select your spells, go to sleep and still profit from an increased wisdom while in bear-form for a few hours.

As soon as you can wildshape your druid will simply stay with your wizard and let the cleric, animal companion and summons do the melee-part while controlling the battlefield with awesome spells such as entanglement, sleet storm (i hope its duration is fixed now) or spike growth/spike stones.

Btw, some people don't like to use weapons with reach (apart from the spiked chain) because they are bugged insofar as you can still attack adjacent squares, but since this game doesn't play fair in other parts of the rules (no improved grab, no wilding clasps, no summoning of unicorns, etc.) I'd say you stick to the rules in this particular game and take advantage of the best weapon available to you.

 

I dislike cheating with my longspear, but I just always take a 5 ft step back with it. It's fine. I do the same thing with my cleric.

I made my druid my party face too.

 

Why is that cheating? The game/program works like this. Accept it. The program won't let you cast fly or wildshape into a badger either. Worst thing you could call it, would be "abuse".

Btw, that 5-foot-step thing doesn't make it 3.5 pnp proof either, because you still threaten squares adjacent to you and thus can still make aoo's in that range. By your definition you're still "cheating".

 

I don't know how to post images so that they display in my text window. If I did, I'd be putting Darth Vader's "NOOOOooooooo" right here.

 

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