Gameplayhelp/hints/discussions

You seriously need to chill guys. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, but this thread has completely degenerated. I suggest you stick to gameplay help, hints, and constructive discussion. Noone wants to read this pointless bickering. :thumbsdow

Maybe we could move away from the whole Rogue/Ranger :blahblah: and talk about other classes?

 

Druids can be customized in some interesting ways, and play a fair number of rolls in a party.

The Half-Orc Druid makes a suprisingly nice second string fighter. Go for STR 20 (18+2 racial modifier), the highest DEX and CON you can manage, and a WIS of 13 (to be raised at levels 4 and 8) or better (so you can spend those stat points elsewhere). Greatsword or Glaive, Craft Item, Craft Weapon, and (your pick) at 9 is not a bad feat progression for him if he's your only Druid and you need him to craft. If you don't need him for crafting, a more direct damage intensive feat path works fine. You might also want to stick with the Longspear as a weapon if you don't feel like spending a feat on a two-handed Martial weapon.

The Druid-as-summoner is a useful character type, if you take the time to make her work. Use a Human Druid, Spell Focus:Conjuration and Augment Summons at Level 1, Scribe Scrolls at Level 3, Craft Item at 6, Craft Weapon at 9. Fight with shield and scimitar, crafting the best items you can for her ASAP. Scribe the utility and direct attack spells that you plan for the Druid to use, and have her use her animals to block, flank, and (once you hit level 3) do a fair amount of damage to the enemy. This won't kill most foes by itself, but then every attack directed at a summoned creature is an attack that was not direted at one of your PCs, and animal attacks count as slashing, blunt, and piercing damage at once, which can be useful. A few buff spells on your summoned minions can make them more interesting as well.

A Black, Panda or Brown Bear animal companion with Greater Magic Fang, Bull's Strength, Bear's Endurance, Barkskin, and Cat's Grace is very useful. Throw on Stoneskin and Resist Energy when needed, and he'll do a good job of distracting the enemy (and hurting them) while your PCs prepare for more conclusive attacks.

 

Wildshape: To use or not to use?

Myself, I rarely use Wildshape for my Druids. Uually, they have enough enchanted gear and high enough stats that they end up losing BAB and AC in Wildshape. However, I know that some players swear by it. So, any tricks for making Wildhape work for your druid? Any types of Druids that Wildshape works well for?

 

i hate bards.. :dead: :tombstone

 

er yeah.. paladin, i find, is a very useful class.. the smite evil works wonders on bosses. and the courage she gives party helps too. :chairshot

 

Apart from the disadvantage that a paladin can't do some quests or becomes fallen, they are really good characters, strong tanks, turning undead, a small healing role. Good weapon and armour profincies, BAB and saving throws are the same as a fighters, basicly they're like a fighter that doesn't get the bonus feats instead they get other ablities.

<mumble mumble personally I don't use them anymore mumble mumble but I'll keep that to myself mumble mumble>
oke:​

 

woah, woah, woah, what's with all the hitler bashing!?!

anywho, play a human bard with a level of fighter (for additional feat and weapon prof). This is your party diplomat, backup healer and all around support character.

include a single class rogue with TWF

add an Elven wizard with archery feats (point blank shot, precise shot).

play a straight cleric for both healing and tanking, whatever race you prefer.

and finally, throw in a meatshield, a dwarven fighter4/barbarian6 works well.

You really can't go wrong with this party set up.

 

Personally, I prefer Clerics with Martial Weapon Proficiency:Greatsword or the War Domain over Paladins, but I agree that they can be a fun class. The Paladin's Save boosts, special abilities and earlier extra attack are never as useful to me as the martial Cleric's spells and crafting, and both characters do pretty much as well (when buffed) as blockers or damage dealers (Paladins get the edge from that extra attack, but the Clerics get a bit more damage with each hit after buffs, which evens things out a bit). On the other hand, if you don't like to take time for much spellcasting but still want to turn undead, a Paladin can make a good choice. The roleplaying is potentially fun as well, though you don't get to do much of that with a Paladin in ToEE.

 

So do I, I've never played without a cleric yet, and actually its getting a little boring, but I'm not sure what to use as a replacement altho my cleric was a tank style cleric.

 

Well, the Druid has some nice points as a Cleric replacement. At level 3 they can craft a few more items than a Cleric, and at level 8 (if you pick craft weapon at 6) they can craft weapons that do both shock and frost damage, which gives you bonus weapon damage a bit sooner than you'd get it with a cleric as your weaponsmith (Wizards can do the same, and having both can help to spread out the Crafting XP costs). If you go for a higher DEX, enchant some Masterwork Studded Leather (or Masterwork Cloth, or Barbarian, or Druid Hide, or), and remember to cast Cat's Grace (or craft Gloves of Dex), the Druid also has an AC almost as good as a similarly buffed up Cleric. The Druid's area attack and area control spells are better than the Cleric's, almost as good as those of a Wizard, and his Summon spells are good. He starts out able to use Longspears and Scimitars, both fairly good weapons, and can be given a Martial Weapon feat like anyone else. The Animal Companion is also potentially much better than it looks; buff the heck out of it, and it can hold its own in most combats. The Cleric trumps the Druid when it comes to personal buffs, and tanks a bit better. The Druid works better if you treat him like an old-school Fighter/Mage, casting spells until he runs out of useful stuff or the enemy breaks through, then going in HtH.

You can also try a Bard to replace the Cleric as a healer and buffer, but he's no kind of tank or crafter. Still, if you have a Fighter or two (or Barbarians, or...) on the front lines soaking up damage, a Bard can do the job of keeping the party in shape durring a fight pretty well. He has healing spells of his own, and can get his Use Item high enough to use any Cleric scrolls fairly early (Wizard scrolls as well). His party buffs are very good, both in and out of combat, he makes an OK archer, and his offensive spells will actually take out one or two (or more, with Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment) foes every round, either by knocking them out or turning them into your minions. Fascinate is a pretty useful ability; it can hold one foe out of the fight until you're ready to deal with him, even quite late in the game.

 

:blank: Oldbook, I must really say that you ARE a surprice for me.
I agree with nothing, but I appreciate the fantasy of your style.

First, answering some post above:
1 - I don't see why a player may want to play a druid with only Wis13 and to use it as a tank. If I want a druid, it is because I enjoy playing his abilities and to use his spells. If I want a tank, I may try to select spells in a different way. Effectively a druid with barkskin, stoneskin, cat's grace, bull's strength, bear's endurance and some other spell that I may forget is a good tank but a real tank with those spells on is even better. A cleric instead is a different matter, because he has some spells that he may cast on himself only and he will be an healer or a tank accordingly with the selected spells.
2 - multiclassing spellcasters is never a good idea, IMHO. Yes, maybe to obtain a greater variety of craftable items, but this brings several more problems. Lower ability to bypass spell resistance, because wizard spellcaster levels do not stack with druid ones; missing of important high-level spells and, more, there is another problem. If I multiclass a spellcaster from another class after that he already have 1 or 2 levels, the last spellcaster class' spells will be less useful because the monsters will be much more powerful. A 1d4+1 magic missile is good for defeating goblins, but not as good if the average opponent for the party is a minotaur. This gap will exist forever.

Comming back to O.B. post, I think that.
1 - a druid may be proficient as a cleric in closed combat fights but the problem is that druids have a lower AC than clerics, except if you are cheating or are extremely lucky to have an elven druid that rolls two 18: 1 for WIS and 1 for DEX (that will become 20). Dexterity is not the main druid's attribute and, except if they wear some special armor like the bone armor or the dragonhide armor, then thew will always have a lower AC than clerics that may take advantage from a full plate and metal magic shields.
2 - I love bards, because with a good selection of feats and spells they may become good secondary healer and secondatry warriors or archers but they cast just too few spells and they learn them too slowly to be a replacement for a druid or a cleric.

More, another preson asked why wild shape is not so used: the point is that it lower durid's AC so much because there are not "wild" armors and shields, that should grant their AC even during the wild shape. So if a druid goes into combat, he will deal much more damage but will recive much more damage as well. It is up to you then: use it when you prefer attack to defense or maybe in combo with magic fang and stoneskin on the druid himself

 

Seeing we seem to be heading in this direction; healers and harmers, the cure and inflict spells, ranged or not, who uses them and how.

 

A higher Wisdom is better, which is why I posted "13 or higher". However, if your Druid is going to take a tanking role, his STR, DEX, and CON also become vital; at that point, you have to make compromises. A WIS of 13 will let your Druid cast 5th level spells by the end of the game (add one WIS at 4 and one at 8). He won't get as many spells, but taking the Scribe Scrolls feat lets you work around that (if you feel the need).
Of course a "pure" tank will be better at that role. The Half-Orc Druid is a Tank-Item Crafter-Spell Caster, and does all of those jobs fairly well. Try him in play.

I'm not a fan of multiclasing spellcasters myself, and I never suggested multiclassing a Wizard with a Druid. Where are you getting that?

The AC issue is real, but it's not that bad. The Druid may take advantage of magic shields (buy a masterwork Wooden shield and craft it yourself), magic armor (Masterwork + Crafting), Gloves of Dexterity +6, rings of protection, Barkskin, etc, etc. If you work at it, an AC of 26+ or so for your Druid is easy enough to get to by around level 6, and you can do better. Your Cleric will have a higher AC, but not by much. Druids also get Stoneskin at level 9, which greatly improves their tanking potential by the end of the game. They also bring in Animal Companions and summoned animals, which can act a fairly good blockers and flankers themelves, espesially for a low level party.

If you refuse to scribe scrolls and craft items because you see it as "cheating", that's your choice.

They are not perfect replacements, but you can tweak and equip them to do the jobs of Healer and Buffer well. By the time they hit level 6 or so, they can also turn into fair blockers when buffed, but that's not the best use of the character.

 

With a larger party ,7/8 you can have access to about anything depending on party selection. But it takes forever to level-up because of the xp split. Multiclassing with a much smaller party is an option. I've been experimenting ,using the console, looking at different combos and feats. Play test it for awhile just to see how it works out. Right now everyone is level 9, with 90+Hp and AC30+. Meleny is a fighter/druid with Fragarach, Fruella has Scather, AC32, 144HP, Cleric, human male, AC32 HolyMace+3, and half-elf wizard, with lots of spells. I'm playing with 3.0.4fanfix and temple.dll and Drifters patches and having a ball. It's cheating big time but I'm having fun and enjoying myself plus learning some things in preparation for Liv2.0. eace:

 

I assume you're talking about the bonus attribute points. If so, those come at 4th and 8th level -- not 3rd and 5th. And beyond limiting the number of bonus spells you get, a low Wisdom score will make your Druid's offensive spells easier to save against.

But still, if you intend to use your Druid for melee combat as much or more than spellcasting, it's not a horrible idea. But I'd still try to start out with at least 15.