Epic Wizard vs. Epic Druid [Archive] - Wizards Community

Epic Wizard vs. Epic Druid [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Deveral
06-07-07, 01:48 AM I would have posted Epic Arcane vs. Epic Divine but I already know a cleric can hold his own and I have never been super interested in sorcs.

I know wizards can hold their own at epic levels but what about Druids? Their wildshape yields to shapechange and both classes possess that. Also, both have intense buffs and can summon some intense creatures. It seems that it boils down to feat selections and damage spells. The druid feat list, imo, is lacking for epic levels in mind whereas a wizard has some amazing metamagic feats and some amazing damaging spells. Wiz's possess more damaging spells than a druid and more no save spells and save or die spells. What does the druid have to save itself?
bluemage55
06-07-07, 02:32 AM The main disadvantge of druids are a lack of certain key spells (mage's disjunction, wish, teleport, gate)

The biggest advantage of the druid is their animal companion. The druid can easily afford to skimp a little on their own equipment, and in turn equip their animal companion into a powerful fighting ally. An item that allows constant shapechange turns your animal companion into a Gloom. Pick the right feats and equipment and you end up very well compensated for the loss of those spells.
Deveral
06-07-07, 04:09 AM A friend of mine said that wild shape is superior to shapechange. The problem I see with wild shape is, without feats, you can only turn into plants, animals, and elementals. With feats, I believe you can turn into aberrations and magic beasts and possibly undead. That leaves out humanoids, constructs, swarms (I think), and creatures larger than huge and smaller than tiny. Now, does wild shape go off of HD, size, or what? Also, if you wild shape into a ten headed hydra, do you get to attack with all 10 heads? Same question for shapechange.

Being that feat intensive leaves little room for casting feats but then again druids cant metamagic spells as far as I know. Am I wrong about that assumption?

The animal companion is a nice boon to the class, I will agree with you there. However the other summons offered to the druid class are way underpar what the wizard can summon.
bluemage55
06-07-07, 05:22 AM A friend of mine said that wild shape is superior to shapechange. The problem I see with wild shape is, without feats, you can only turn into plants, animals, and elementals. With feats, I believe you can turn into aberrations and magic beasts and possibly undead. That leaves out humanoids, constructs, swarms (I think), and creatures larger than huge and smaller than tiny. Now, does wild shape go off of HD, size, or what? Also, if you wild shape into a ten headed hydra, do you get to attack with all 10 heads? Same question for shapechange.

Wild shape goes by the size of the creature you want to turn into. Shapechange goes by HD, with a cap at 25 HD.

If you become a 10-headed hydra, you could make 10 bites as a full attack (but you would not benefit from iterative attacks from high BAB).

Being that feat intensive leaves little room for casting feats but then again druids cant metamagic spells as far as I know. Am I wrong about that assumption?

I did not mention Wild Shape as an important asset, because it isn't at epic. It's a waste to burn epic feats on improving it, when you're perfectly happy using an item of shapechange to remain in Solar form all the time.

The animal companion is a nice boon to the class, I will agree with you there. However the other summons offered to the druid class are way underpar what the wizard can summon.

With the exception of epic summoing spells, summons rapidly become useless at epic since they do not scale well (except for gate, but the problem with gate is that it is possible to simply run away and come back later, leaving the caster down 1000 xp). Since druids can develop epic summons equally well, they are not at a disadvantage here.
Deveral
06-07-07, 01:38 PM What about PrC's? The druid has less damage intensive PrC's and, imo, less choices for PrC's in general than their arcane counterparts.

I keep coming back to the lack of metamagic feats. At epic levels, it would make sense in my mind that a wizard would use a lot of metamagic feats to augment their spells since they have the spell slots to sacrifice. The Druid has the same spell slots to sacrifice but no way to augment their spells.
Acrid
06-07-07, 01:51 PM Druids do have one of the best PrCs in the game though,

Planar Shepherd

A planar spherd druid would pwn a caster, easily

Getting to tae 10 actions to there 1? wow they lose
bluemage55
06-07-07, 08:50 PM Planar shepard is broken. If you allow it, then you might as well allow someone to play Pun-Pun too.
Deveral
06-07-07, 10:27 PM Very true. I just took a look at it and it is extremely broken.
Cryos, Icy Manipulator
06-08-07, 12:23 PM So I'm intrigued by Planar Shepherd. Which book is he in?

:behold:
rob_douglas
06-08-07, 04:31 PM Faiths of Eberron.

When looking for published material - look here
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/lists

ROB
Deveral
06-08-07, 06:44 PM So outside of the Planar Shephard, what PrC's are good for an epic druid? It seems to me that straight druid is your best bet.
bluemage55
06-08-07, 07:10 PM So outside of the Planar Shephard, what PrC's are good for an epic druid? It seems to me that straight druid is your best bet.

5 levels of Heirophant for Spell Power x5.
kreesteeyan
06-09-07, 09:55 AM Or five metamagic feats.
bluemage55
06-09-07, 10:33 AM Or five metamagic feats.

No, I meant what I said: Spell Power x5. There's no reason you can't pick up those 5 non-epic metamagic feats later, but you'll never be able to get an extra 5 CL (each worth an individual epic feat) later.
kreesteeyan
06-09-07, 10:44 AM Depends on the build. ;)
But why can't you pick up 5 epic metamagic feats? They are still metamagic feats.
rob_douglas
06-09-07, 11:22 AM Because Heirophant is a non-epic class, and doesn't grant bonus epic feats. Besides, there are only 2 epic metamagic feats anyway. But to allow a non-epic class to take epic bonus feats (as some suggest, take 2 levels of fighter at 21st and 22nd level to get two epic feats!) is pure cheese. The rule on acquiring epic feats says you only get them for the feat every 3 levels above 20th, and for epic progressions. I know the wording in the ELH that you think allows it, and among other things, that wording is not in the SRD at all. It was an attempt to clarify something that went totally awry.

I myself don't go for the caster level bonuses so much. Sure, you can't get them any other way, but For fun, Divine Reach and Miracle as a spell-like ability 2 or 4 times a day offer some nice options to your character.

ROB
kreesteeyan
06-09-07, 11:59 AM Because Heirophant is a non-epic class, and doesn't grant bonus epic feats.
It still does not answer my question. Hierophant does not give bonus metamagic feats, it gives you a metamagic feat instead of other special ability. Note the difference. You can choose epic metamagic as long as you satisfy the prerequisites for it.

Besides, there are only 2 epic metamagic feats anyway.
Automatic still/silent/quicken spell epic feats are metamagic feats according to Complete Arcane.

I know the wording in the ELH that you think allows it, and among other things, that wording is not in the SRD at all.
I also did not find it in DMG. Oh well, I am conceding to the point until I find it.;)
rob_douglas
06-11-07, 10:17 AM It still does not answer my question. Hierophant does not give bonus metamagic feats, it gives you a metamagic feat instead of other special ability. Note the difference. You can choose epic metamagic as long as you satisfy the prerequisites for it.
To take an epic feat you have to follow the rules for when you can take one:

Acquiring Epic Feats
Characters gain epic feats in the following ways:

At 21st level, and every three levels thereafter, the character may select an epic feat in place of a nonepic feat.

Each character class gains bonus epic feats according to the class description. These feats must be selected from the list of bonus epic feats for that class.

Hierophant does not list any epic feats, so by the RAW, you can't take an epic feat for that special ability. And it is hard to argue that the intention was to allow it, since epic feats didn't exist when Hierophant was written. You can do what you want of course, but it seems cheesy and unintended.

Automatic still/silent/quicken spell epic feats are metamagic feats according to Complete Arcane.
Ah - they are, though still not in the SRD. Given that the Sudden feats are also considered metamagic, this makes more sense, and they probably should have been from the beginning. They are strange because they are not the normal kind of metamagic. Of course Complete Arcane AutoQuicken suffers from just being a stupid nerfing that makes no sense. Before taking AutoQuicken 9 times, you could take Improved Metamagic 3 times, and Improved Spell Capacity 6 times to get a lot more Quickened spells per day as a result (albeit using higher slots....).

I also did not find it in DMG. Oh well, I am conceding to the point until I find it.;)
It is in the ELH on page 8, right side, last sentence before the Epic Barbarian:

When you have to choose from a list of bonus feats in your second class, you can also choose from the bonus epic feats described for each specific class below.

Again this is in opposition to the above rule about Acquiring Epic Feats, and was removed from the SRD and the DMG Epic updates, so it should be overruled in favor of the more sensible rule: Granting a bonus epic feat at every level makes no sense for even an Epic PrC, let alone a non-epic one. Same goes for non-epic loremaster and fighter levels.

ROB
kreesteeyan
06-11-07, 12:45 PM Hierophant does not list any epic feats, so by the RAW, you can't take an epic feat for that special ability.
Choosing a metamagic feat is a replacement for that special ability. It is not bonus metamagic feat so it does not need to be in some sort of epic bonus feat list.

You can do what you want of course, but it seems cheesy and unintended.
Being a cheese does not make something illegal.
And being it unintended or intended is hard to prove so leave it.

And it is hard to argue that the intention was to allow it, since epic feats didn't exist when Hierophant was written.
Epic rules and Hierophant prestige class are both written in DMG so epic feats exist when Hierophant was written.

It is in the ELH on page 8, right side, last sentence before the Epic Barbarian:
I was the one who said this on the other thread. ^__^

Again this is in opposition to the above rule about Acquiring Epic Feats,
What's written in SRD is a general rule. Specific rules allow exceptions. For example, Golem strike from Complete Adventurer allows the caster to make sneak attacks against constructs. It is an exception rather than opposition. The same can be said to the Hierophant, whether intentional or not, that it can be give a character epic feats as long as the feat is a metamagic feat. It does not discriminate whether the chosen metamagic feat is epic or not. It is an exception of getting an epic feat rather than opposition.

stupid nerfing
I agree it is stupid.
rob_douglas
06-11-07, 03:54 PM Epic rules and Hierophant prestige class are both written in DMG so epic feats exist when Hierophant was written.
Hierophant was written in 3.0 in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Before Epic came out. They didn't edit it much. So it is a lot easier to argue they weren't thinking about the Epic rules when they wrote it.

Like I said - you want to give out free epic feats, be my guest, but I don't think you should encourage others to use techniques that are questionable at best. That would be no better than encouraging use of Epic Spellcasting loopholes for ultimate power.

ROB
bluemage55
06-11-07, 04:53 PM As a rule, a bonus feat must specify that it is an epic bonus feat to be used for epic feats.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Deveral 06-07-07, 01:48 AM	I would have posted Epic Arcane vs. Epic Divine but I already know a cleric can hold his own and I have never been super interested in sorcs. I know wizards can hold their own at epic levels but what about Druids? Their wildshape yields to shapechange and both classes possess that. Also, both have intense buffs and can summon some intense creatures. It seems that it boils down to feat selections and damage spells. The druid feat list, imo, is lacking for epic levels in mind whereas a wizard has some amazing metamagic feats and some amazing damaging spells. Wiz's possess more damaging spells than a druid and more no save spells and save or die spells. What does the druid have to save itself?
bluemage55 06-07-07, 02:32 AM	The main disadvantge of druids are a lack of certain key spells (mage's disjunction, wish, teleport, gate) The biggest advantage of the druid is their animal companion. The druid can easily afford to skimp a little on their own equipment, and in turn equip their animal companion into a powerful fighting ally. An item that allows constant shapechange turns your animal companion into a Gloom. Pick the right feats and equipment and you end up very well compensated for the loss of those spells.
Deveral 06-07-07, 04:09 AM	A friend of mine said that wild shape is superior to shapechange. The problem I see with wild shape is, without feats, you can only turn into plants, animals, and elementals. With feats, I believe you can turn into aberrations and magic beasts and possibly undead. That leaves out humanoids, constructs, swarms (I think), and creatures larger than huge and smaller than tiny. Now, does wild shape go off of HD, size, or what? Also, if you wild shape into a ten headed hydra, do you get to attack with all 10 heads? Same question for shapechange. Being that feat intensive leaves little room for casting feats but then again druids cant metamagic spells as far as I know. Am I wrong about that assumption? The animal companion is a nice boon to the class, I will agree with you there. However the other summons offered to the druid class are way underpar what the wizard can summon.
bluemage55 06-07-07, 05:22 AM	A friend of mine said that wild shape is superior to shapechange. The problem I see with wild shape is, without feats, you can only turn into plants, animals, and elementals. With feats, I believe you can turn into aberrations and magic beasts and possibly undead. That leaves out humanoids, constructs, swarms (I think), and creatures larger than huge and smaller than tiny. Now, does wild shape go off of HD, size, or what? Also, if you wild shape into a ten headed hydra, do you get to attack with all 10 heads? Same question for shapechange. Wild shape goes by the size of the creature you want to turn into. Shapechange goes by HD, with a cap at 25 HD. If you become a 10-headed hydra, you could make 10 bites as a full attack (but you would not benefit from iterative attacks from high BAB). Being that feat intensive leaves little room for casting feats but then again druids cant metamagic spells as far as I know. Am I wrong about that assumption? I did not mention Wild Shape as an important asset, because it isn't at epic. It's a waste to burn epic feats on improving it, when you're perfectly happy using an item of shapechange to remain in Solar form all the time. The animal companion is a nice boon to the class, I will agree with you there. However the other summons offered to the druid class are way underpar what the wizard can summon. With the exception of epic summoing spells, summons rapidly become useless at epic since they do not scale well (except for gate, but the problem with gate is that it is possible to simply run away and come back later, leaving the caster down 1000 xp). Since druids can develop epic summons equally well, they are not at a disadvantage here.
Deveral 06-07-07, 01:38 PM	What about PrC's? The druid has less damage intensive PrC's and, imo, less choices for PrC's in general than their arcane counterparts. I keep coming back to the lack of metamagic feats. At epic levels, it would make sense in my mind that a wizard would use a lot of metamagic feats to augment their spells since they have the spell slots to sacrifice. The Druid has the same spell slots to sacrifice but no way to augment their spells.
Acrid 06-07-07, 01:51 PM	Druids do have one of the best PrCs in the game though, Planar Shepherd A planar spherd druid would pwn a caster, easily Getting to tae 10 actions to there 1? wow they lose
bluemage55 06-07-07, 08:50 PM	Planar shepard is broken. If you allow it, then you might as well allow someone to play Pun-Pun too.
Deveral 06-07-07, 10:27 PM	Very true. I just took a look at it and it is extremely broken.
Cryos, Icy Manipulator 06-08-07, 12:23 PM	So I'm intrigued by Planar Shepherd. Which book is he in? :behold:
rob_douglas 06-08-07, 04:31 PM	Faiths of Eberron. When looking for published material - look here http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/lists ROB
Deveral 06-08-07, 06:44 PM	So outside of the Planar Shephard, what PrC's are good for an epic druid? It seems to me that straight druid is your best bet.
bluemage55 06-08-07, 07:10 PM	So outside of the Planar Shephard, what PrC's are good for an epic druid? It seems to me that straight druid is your best bet. 5 levels of Heirophant for Spell Power x5.
kreesteeyan 06-09-07, 09:55 AM	Or five metamagic feats.
bluemage55 06-09-07, 10:33 AM	Or five metamagic feats. No, I meant what I said: Spell Power x5. There's no reason you can't pick up those 5 non-epic metamagic feats later, but you'll never be able to get an extra 5 CL (each worth an individual epic feat) later.
kreesteeyan 06-09-07, 10:44 AM	Depends on the build. ;) But why can't you pick up 5 epic metamagic feats? They are still metamagic feats.
rob_douglas 06-09-07, 11:22 AM	Because Heirophant is a non-epic class, and doesn't grant bonus epic feats. Besides, there are only 2 epic metamagic feats anyway. But to allow a non-epic class to take epic bonus feats (as some suggest, take 2 levels of fighter at 21st and 22nd level to get two epic feats!) is pure cheese. The rule on acquiring epic feats says you only get them for the feat every 3 levels above 20th, and for epic progressions. I know the wording in the ELH that you think allows it, and among other things, that wording is not in the SRD at all. It was an attempt to clarify something that went totally awry. I myself don't go for the caster level bonuses so much. Sure, you can't get them any other way, but For fun, Divine Reach and Miracle as a spell-like ability 2 or 4 times a day offer some nice options to your character. ROB
kreesteeyan 06-09-07, 11:59 AM	Because Heirophant is a non-epic class, and doesn't grant bonus epic feats. It still does not answer my question. Hierophant does not give bonus metamagic feats, it gives you a metamagic feat instead of other special ability. Note the difference. You can choose epic metamagic as long as you satisfy the prerequisites for it. Besides, there are only 2 epic metamagic feats anyway. Automatic still/silent/quicken spell epic feats are metamagic feats according to Complete Arcane. I know the wording in the ELH that you think allows it, and among other things, that wording is not in the SRD at all. I also did not find it in DMG. Oh well, I am conceding to the point until I find it.;)
rob_douglas 06-11-07, 10:17 AM	It still does not answer my question. Hierophant does not give bonus metamagic feats, it gives you a metamagic feat instead of other special ability. Note the difference. You can choose epic metamagic as long as you satisfy the prerequisites for it. To take an epic feat you have to follow the rules for when you can take one: Acquiring Epic Feats Characters gain epic feats in the following ways: At 21st level, and every three levels thereafter, the character may select an epic feat in place of a nonepic feat. Each character class gains bonus epic feats according to the class description. These feats must be selected from the list of bonus epic feats for that class. Hierophant does not list any epic feats, so by the RAW, you can't take an epic feat for that special ability. And it is hard to argue that the intention was to allow it, since epic feats didn't exist when Hierophant was written. You can do what you want of course, but it seems cheesy and unintended. Automatic still/silent/quicken spell epic feats are metamagic feats according to Complete Arcane. Ah - they are, though still not in the SRD. Given that the Sudden feats are also considered metamagic, this makes more sense, and they probably should have been from the beginning. They are strange because they are not the normal kind of metamagic. Of course Complete Arcane AutoQuicken suffers from just being a stupid nerfing that makes no sense. Before taking AutoQuicken 9 times, you could take Improved Metamagic 3 times, and Improved Spell Capacity 6 times to get a lot more Quickened spells per day as a result (albeit using higher slots....). I also did not find it in DMG. Oh well, I am conceding to the point until I find it.;) It is in the ELH on page 8, right side, last sentence before the Epic Barbarian: When you have to choose from a list of bonus feats in your second class, you can also choose from the bonus epic feats described for each specific class below. Again this is in opposition to the above rule about Acquiring Epic Feats, and was removed from the SRD and the DMG Epic updates, so it should be overruled in favor of the more sensible rule: Granting a bonus epic feat at every level makes no sense for even an Epic PrC, let alone a non-epic one. Same goes for non-epic loremaster and fighter levels. ROB
kreesteeyan 06-11-07, 12:45 PM	Hierophant does not list any epic feats, so by the RAW, you can't take an epic feat for that special ability. Choosing a metamagic feat is a replacement for that special ability. It is not bonus metamagic feat so it does not need to be in some sort of epic bonus feat list. You can do what you want of course, but it seems cheesy and unintended. Being a cheese does not make something illegal. And being it unintended or intended is hard to prove so leave it. And it is hard to argue that the intention was to allow it, since epic feats didn't exist when Hierophant was written. Epic rules and Hierophant prestige class are both written in DMG so epic feats exist when Hierophant was written. It is in the ELH on page 8, right side, last sentence before the Epic Barbarian: I was the one who said this on the other thread. ^__^ Again this is in opposition to the above rule about Acquiring Epic Feats, What's written in SRD is a general rule. Specific rules allow exceptions. For example, Golem strike from Complete Adventurer allows the caster to make sneak attacks against constructs. It is an exception rather than opposition. The same can be said to the Hierophant, whether intentional or not, that it can be give a character epic feats as long as the feat is a metamagic feat. It does not discriminate whether the chosen metamagic feat is epic or not. It is an exception of getting an epic feat rather than opposition. stupid nerfing I agree it is stupid.
rob_douglas 06-11-07, 03:54 PM	Epic rules and Hierophant prestige class are both written in DMG so epic feats exist when Hierophant was written. Hierophant was written in 3.0 in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Before Epic came out. They didn't edit it much. So it is a lot easier to argue they weren't thinking about the Epic rules when they wrote it. Like I said - you want to give out free epic feats, be my guest, but I don't think you should encourage others to use techniques that are questionable at best. That would be no better than encouraging use of Epic Spellcasting loopholes for ultimate power. ROB
bluemage55 06-11-07, 04:53 PM	As a rule, a bonus feat must specify that it is an epic bonus feat to be used for epic feats.