Post/Author/DateTime	Post
SmiloDan 01-03-05, 09:44 PM	I currently have an elf druid 15 that fills a lot of rolls in my party, namely healer, blaster, secondary tank (tertiary with wardog), summoner, archer, utility spellcaster. For feats, I currently have: 1. Point Blank Shot. 3. Rapid Shot. 6. Natural Spell (duh! ;) ) 9. Craft Wand. 12. Empower Spell. 15. Improved Counterspell. What would you suggest for 18th? We might go epic. I'm considering Improved Initiative and Reactive Counterspell. I'm also considering Augment Healing. The rest of the party is a fighter/mystic, a pyromaniac evoker, and an arcane trickster.
SmiloDan 01-03-05, 10:17 PM	Also, is there a better Animal Companion than an advanced wardog (riding dog) with leather barding +5? HUGE AC for that beasty. Also, not bad speed or hitpoints. The only problem is damage output. But trip, and power attack can help too. And AoO. My DM let me replace Alertness with Dodge at 1st level, so a 12 HD Wardog can have Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Power Attack, and Cleave. And Track as a bonus feat.
Snarf 01-03-05, 10:29 PM	Neat character! I find it refreshing to see a "real" elf druid as opposed to the "optimized" builds, which would probably have focused their selections on one or two approaches to combat. You could take Precise Shot, which will make you a better melee archer. However, I suspect you're finding your bow less useful these days than spellcasting, and your party isn't super melee-oriented anyway. If you're good, consider Nymph's Kiss, an overall amazing feat. There is also Exalted Wildshape--both are in the Book of Exalted Deeds. The epic Magical Beast Wild Shape is better but not an option until 24th level. Probably most people would recommend Dragon Wild Shape from the Draconomicon at your level. The epic feat is far more powerful, but less versatile, and not an option until 27th level. I think Reactive Counterspell is an excellent choice, since it synergizes nicely with your existing feats. However, I wouldn't take Augment Healing, I'd look at Spontaneous Healer instead (Complete Divine). Since you seem to be your party's healing machine this might be the best choice for the good of the party rather than youself. It also frees up the slots you currently use for healing spells, granting you increased spell flexibility. My advice at high level, if you're playing into epic, is to plan out your desired feats though level 30 at least. The prerequisites for your desired epic feats might dictate your non-epic feat selection. Staying pure druid is helpful because of the bonus feats every 4 epic levels...but also check out prestige classes like Lion of Talisid, Nature's Warrior, and Warshaper. If you plan on dipping into prestige classes without full spellcasting progression, consider taking Practiced Spellcaster now to offset the future penalty. If you hate all of those options, there's always Spell Penetration. You'll find that SR is an increasingly annoying problem at higher levels.
SmiloDan 01-03-05, 10:52 PM	I'm Neutral, but I worship a home-brewed CG moon deity. Spell Penetration never sucks, but I have a Karma Prayer Bead (+4 spellcaster level for 10 minutes) that I can use in a pinch. I don't do much archery anymore, but am considering doing more. I now have 50 +1 evil-outsider bane arrows, and we're on a Save The World-type quest. And a few nifty shock and frost magic bows. And the arcane trickster has flame arrow. I also have a monk's belt, some bracers of Armor +4, and a Pearl of Wisdom +4 and Gloves of Dex +4, so my AC is one of the best in the party--especially when in Troglodyte form from Thousand Faces. Spontaneous healer might be a good choice...but it requires like 8 skill points, right? Knowledge-religion 4? I have the skill points, but it might be tough. I need to pick up Aquan, and I want to keep Con and Spellcraft maxxed, and I'm also trying to max out Listen and Spot again. +22 just isn't cutting it anymore!
fireangel37 01-03-05, 11:27 PM	Keep in mind that by level 18, your elemental form (probably earth) is probably your combat form of choice. Given that you get all of the nifty feats of the elemental along with its powers and wonderful stats, it is far and away a great choice for battle. I'd personally be tempted to dip into Nature's Warrior for five levels to have an even more awesome set of abilities to draw on, but it would be at the price of delaying ninth level spells by a couple of levels (19th instead of 17th).
Snarf 01-04-05, 03:17 AM	Keep in mind that by level 18, your elemental form (probably earth) is probably your combat form of choice. That is one possible way to take your character, and it does work...although for some weird reason, you don't gain the elemental type, so it's not as cool as it might seem for defensive purposes. Elemental wildshape remains potent for movement though, particularly quick escape (to small earth elemental, then 5 ft. step into the earth, or to air elemental and fly away casting spells, etc.). Im my experience, elemental wildshape pales in comparison to animal wildshape with Nature's Avatar, Animal Growth, and Nature's Favor in effect. We're talking "kill dragons" powerful. If you want to take your character in that direction, you'll find that Quicken Spell is crucial, otherwise you spend most of the combat buffing up rather than tearing the bad guys up. Also, at 17th level you'll have Shapechange at your disposal, so that will open all sorts of interesting options to you.
Evadyn 01-04-05, 06:23 AM	Im my experience, elemental wildshape pales in comparison to animal wildshape with Nature's Avatar, Animal Growth, and Nature's Favor in effect. This is a answer by the Wizards costumer service My question: The Animal Growth spell increases the size of an animal by one step (medium to large, large to huge.), the spell indicates that it must be cast upon animal but a Druid using Wild shape is considered an animal. So can a Druid cast Animal Growth upon himself? Answer: They can, but it will only benefit them if they did not increase their size due to the Wild Shape. No two magical effects can stack together to increase your size more than once, so in order to benefit from an Animal Growth a normal medium sized Druid would have to wild shape into a Medium sized or smaller creature. So that does not work.
phoenxhwk 01-04-05, 11:38 AM	Answer: They can, but it will only benefit them if they did not increase their size due to the Wild Shape. No two magical effects can stack together to increase your size more than once, so in order to benefit from an Animal Growth a normal medium sized Druid would have to wild shape into a Medium sized or smaller creature. So that does not work. I'm not a big fan of that ruling. It practically defeats the purpose of the druid getting that spell in the first place. If you do roll with this in your campaign, it's probably not that big a deal. I found that it didn't improve my druid all that much anyway. First, as a huge creature, it's hard to get around much. Second, your AC is crap and you become the focus of enemy firepower ("focus all firepower on that super star destroyer!" Third, your final bonus is: +3 to hit, +4 to damage, +4 resistance to saving throws, DR 10/magic, increased damage die, and larger reach. If you've got decent gear and/or exalted wildshape, a few of those things might not even matter (like the DR). So, the first thing you'll notice is that Nature's Favor is usually just as good, if not better than this one. I'm certainly not dismissing Animal Growth, but you can live without it. (Eh, not that I would want to).
SmiloDan 01-04-05, 11:55 AM	One plan I've had, but not had the opportunity to do, is Summon Nature's Ally a whole bunch of beasties (like Dire Wolves or Dire Bears), and then, while Wildshaped, use Animal Growth. With Adrenaline Surge cast, of course, and then maybe hit them with some Mass Bear's Endurances and Bull's Strengths and Cat's Graces. And we haven't played with that ruling. But we didn't know about it either. Hopefully my DM doesn't check out this thread! (Hi, Zetal!)
Gol 01-04-05, 12:44 PM	This is a answer by the Wizards costumer service They can, but it will only benefit them if they did not increase their size due to the Wild Shape. No two magical effects can stack together to increase your size more than once, so in order to benefit from an Animal Growth a normal medium sized Druid would have to wild shape into a Medium sized or smaller creature. So that does not work. I've yet to find a DM that doesn't house-rule to override this ruling from those idiots at customer service.
RabidWeasel 01-04-05, 02:34 PM	I've yet to find a DM that doesn't house-rule to override this ruling from those idiots at customer service. Surely you mean "I've yet to find a DM that doesn't ignore this house rule from those idiots at customer service" :P
Snow Savant 01-04-05, 03:08 PM	This is a answer by the Wizards costumer service My question: The Animal Growth spell increases the size of an animal by one step (medium to large, large to huge.), the spell indicates that it must be cast upon animal but a Druid using Wild shape is considered an animal. So can a Druid cast Animal Growth upon himself? Answer: They can, but it will only benefit them if they did not increase their size due to the Wild Shape. No two magical effects can stack together to increase your size more than once, so in order to benefit from an Animal Growth a normal medium sized Druid would have to wild shape into a Medium sized or smaller creature. So that does not work. Customer Service is WRONG. 3.5 PHB Animal Growth's text states thusly: " ... Multiple magical effects that increase size do not stack, which means ... " So what we want here, is to avoid a magical effect that increases size. That's where Wildshape comes in. Wildshape at 8th level does this (quote from 3.5 PHB pg. 37): " ... In addition, she gains the ability to take the shape of a Large Animal at 8th level, a Tiny Animal at 11th level ... " That's right, via strict interpretation of the semantics, the 8th level Druid does not increase size, but is instead gaining the ability to take the shape of a given animal type. No "size increase". Just "taking a different shape". Ergo, via literal RAW, you can cast Animal Growth all gosh darn day long on your human druid who is walking around in Dire Ape form. If you wish to house-rule this otherwise, that's your perogative. Now, if the SRD has different text, let's see it. My laptop has trouble downloading the SRD docs.
Snarf 01-04-05, 05:49 PM	Customer Service is WRONG. Precisely. This is another example of Customer Service not really thinking through their answers. Generally they get things right, but they are far from the last word in official rulings. The only logical way to define size-increasing magic is a spell which increases the size of the creature's base form. Multiple such effects should overlap rather than stack, i.e. only the largest increase has any effect. Wildshape changes the base form of the druid. Polymorph effects should not be categorized as size-increasing magic like Animal Growth, Enlarge Person or Righteous Might, any change in size is incidental to the new base form. A druid whose base form is now a large-sized bear is an equally legal target for Animal Growth as any other large-sized bear.
Snarf 01-04-05, 05:57 PM	One plan I've had, but not had the opportunity to do, is Summon Nature's Ally a whole bunch of beasties (like Dire Wolves or Dire Bears), and then, while Wildshaped, use Animal Growth. Yep, that's the beauty of Animal Growth, with one casting you can affect yourself (Wildshape + Natural Spell) and your animal companion and your Summon Nature's Ally friends...and maybe some of your party's animals too!
Snow Savant 01-04-05, 06:26 PM	Yep, that's the beauty of Animal Growth, with one casting you can affect yourself (Wildshape + Natural Spell) and your animal companion and your Summon Nature's Ally friends...and maybe some of your party's animals too! It gets even better that that. You can Animal Growth all your party mates as well, regardless of what freakin' race they are. Cast the 4th level spell Feathers (MotW) on them ... and your cohorts, familiars, summoned monsters, what-have-you. They are now each an [Animal]. Albeit, chickens. :chicken: Now cast Animal Growth on all the "feathered" creatures. BOOM. Big chickens. :turkey: Now dismiss (per the PHB rules on dismissing spells) the Feathers spell. All your priorly "feathered" friends are now back in their original form. But since Animal Growth is still active and running its standard duration, it applies to the current original form. This is because there is no rules mechanism in 3.5 core rules D&D that "checks on" legality status of targets for polymorph and quasi-polymorph effects *after* status effects change from the legality check of when a spell is first cast. Granted, this is a 2-spell combo. But if your party has a Barbarian, Paladin, and a summoned Earth Elemental floating around ... and you have the leisure of preparatory buff time, you can make a bunch of really kick ass melee combatants in relatively short order. And at higher levels, you might be able to get 2 combats out of your Animal Growthed party due to AG's 1 minute/level duration. XO, Snow :cloud9:
Snarf 01-04-05, 07:44 PM	All your priorly "feathered" friends are now back in their original form. But since Animal Growth is still active and running its standard duration, it applies to the current original form. This is because there is no rules mechanism in 3.5 core rules D&D that "checks on" legality status of targets for polymorph and quasi-polymorph effects *after* status effects change from the legality check of when a spell is first cast. While this is probably legal by the word of the rules, I doubt there are many people who would argue that it is legal by the spirit of the rules. By that logic you could extend Nature's Avatar etc. after Shapechanging to a dragon, which just reeks of brokenness. There are three ways a DM can decide to rule this. If a spell's target becomes illegal after the spell is cast but during its duration: The spell continues to affect the target as if it was still legal. The spell immediately ends as if its duration expired. The spell ceases to affect the target, but will resume should the target become legal before its duration expires. Personally, I am a member of the option 3 school of thought. Option 2 seems too cruel, especially for druids, and option 1 + a creative player = a completely broken game. And yes, Snow, that's a compliment :) Oh yeah, I'm sure this is common knowledge, but to round out the discussion: You can use Animal Growth in conjunction with Animal Shapes to turn your party into a really scary herd of something big.
SmiloDan 01-05-05, 02:43 PM	Craft Wonderous Item is also an option. Not a bad choice for druids, since they get lots of good buff spells that wouldn't suck if it was an item. +6 Str, +6 Dex, +6 Con, +6 Wis, +5 Natural Armor, +10 feet of speed. I can live with that.
Snow Savant 01-05-05, 06:30 PM	While this is probably legal by the word of the rules, I doubt there are many people who would argue that it is legal by the spirit of the rules. By that logic you could extend Nature's Avatar etc. after Shapechanging to a dragon, which just reeks of brokenness.If your Human Druid wildshaped into a wolf, then immediately shapechanged into a Dragon, yes ... he could indeed cast Nature's Avatar on himself. Why? According to pg. 2 of Skip William's document, you accumulate types and subtypes of assumed forms, but only lose subtypes when going from one form to another. And since your wolf wildshape is still running (nothing turned it off, nothing cancelled it) underneath the dragon wildshape, you *STILL* have the Animal types. Making you legal for Nature's Avatar. There are three ways a DM can decide to rule this. If a spell's target becomes illegal after the spell is cast but during its duration: The spell continues to affect the target as if it was still legal. The spell immediately ends as if its duration expired. The spell ceases to affect the target, but will resume should the target become legal before its duration expires. Personally, I am a member of the option 3 school of thought. Option 2 seems too cruel, especially for druids, and option 1 + a creative player = a completely broken game. By you choosing #3, you as a DM are houseruling, and not following the RAW. And as DM, it's your game world, and you are fully within your right to not abide by the RAW or make tweaks to it as you see fit. Just be sure to have the courtesy to tell your players why. XO, Snow :cloud9:
Snarf 01-05-05, 07:40 PM	If your Human Druid wildshaped into a wolf, then immediately shapechanged into a Dragon, yes ... he could indeed cast Nature's Avatar on himself. Why? According to pg. 2 of Skip William's document, you accumulate types and subtypes of assumed forms, but only lose subtypes when going from one form to another. And since your wolf wildshape is still running (nothing turned it off, nothing cancelled it) underneath the dragon wildshape, you *STILL* have the Animal types. Making you legal for Nature's Avatar. A creature can have only one type. It may have one or more subtypes. The section you refer to is talking about preserving the original type not as a second type, but as the [Augmented XXX] subtype. Since (for example) an [Augmented Animal] is not an Animal type, it is not a legal target for Nature's Avatar. I actually got into a debate about that a while back, since it is not intuitively obvious what game effect the [Augmented XXX] subtype has. In short, WotC's answer was that it has no real game effect, it is simply a marker. So, for example, the Celestial Lion in the MM p. 31 is not a legal target for spells that target only Animals. I couldn't find any text that precisely backs up up my statement about creatures having only one type. However, if you look at, well any example anywhere, including Skip's article, it should be plain how the "augmented" subtype is applied and the new type replaces the old. So your druid is, at that point, most probably a Dragon [Augmented Animal] (having lost the [Augmented Humanoid] subtype it had as a wolf). Now, if you choose to follow the "spells remain in effect when the target is illegal" path, you could still have a Nature's Avatar in effect, cast when you were a wolf. But you couldn't continue to target yourself with new animal spells. By you choosing #3, you as a DM are houseruling, and not following the RAW. And as DM, it's your game world, and you are fully within your right to not abide by the RAW or make tweaks to it as you see fit. Just be sure to have the courtesy to tell your players why. XO, Snow :cloud9: Granted. However, it could be equally stated that #1 is following the RANW, since this is territory not covered by the rules. Yes, by implication, that defends #1 as the most legally correct approach. I choose to house-rule #3 because of the many, many problems inherent in #1. P.S. I am really, truly, honestly not searching the boards for fights to pick with you Snow :weep:
Snow Savant 01-05-05, 08:05 PM	A creature can have only one type. It may have one or more subtypes. Can you quote a rule reference on that? SRD, PHB, or RotG? That's always been assumed, although there is no explicit statement stating that - just vague presumptions that are open to interpretation. Meanwhile, there are explicit statement made saying you can use lose or gain subtypes. So yes, by the RAW, you **can** accumulate creature types. Odd, but true. I couldn't find any text that precisely backs up up my statement about creatures having only one type. However, if you look at, well any example anywhere, including Skip's article, it should be plain how the "augmented" subtype is applied and the new type replaces the old. It doesn't matter though. This game's operations and ajudications are predicated on explicit rules. Many people are not like you and I who can figure this stuff out on our own. One man's common sense, is another man's crazy-town. So your druid is, at that point, most probably a Dragon [Augmented Animal] (having lost the [Augmented Humanoid] subtype it had as a wolf). Now, if you choose to follow the "spells remain in effect when the target is illegal" path, you could still have a Nature's Avatar in effect, cast when you were a wolf. But you couldn't continue to target yourself with new animal spells. Um ... no. P.S. I am really, truly, honestly not searching the boards for fights to pick with you Snow :weep: No worries! I actually dig and respect you, Snarf. Our collective bark sounds worse than our bite in this dialogue of ours... :) XO, Snow :cloud9:
Snarf 01-05-05, 08:49 PM	So yes, by the RAW, you **can** accumulate creature types. Odd, but true. That seems like a leap of logic to me. Now I will attempt to defend that statement :) Polymorph[/I] description"]The subject's creature type and subtype (if any) change to match the new form (see the Monster Manual for more information). Key word: change Polymorph[/I] part 3"]The subject temporarily gains the type and subtypes of the assumed form. The subject also temporarily gains the augmented subtype for its original type. The subject loses any subtypes it has in favor of the assumed form's subtypes. For example, a human turned into a troll gains the giant type and the augmented humanoid subtype. ...later example... Anlion (Troll Form): Male half-elf sorcerer 8; CR 8; Large giant (augmented humanoid); HD 8d4+48... The things to note here are, while the text does indeed use the word "gains", the PHB (a more legal source) uses the word change. Also, the later example concretely shows that Anlion (a half-elf by birth) does not retain his original Humanoid type when Polymorphed. The assumed form's Giant type replaced Humanoid. He gained the "Augmented Humanoid" subtype, which is also seen when creatures take templates that change their type. However, possessing the "Augmented Humanoid" subtype is not identical to possessing the "Humanoid" type. No worries! I actually dig and respect you, Snarf. Our collective bark sounds worse than our bite in this dialogue of ours...:) The feeling is mutual! ;)