Need help building a Druid for D&D 3.5

[Veldel]

Sense im poor iv mostly been using books found online and some things iv had trouble understanding some like how do I level up my animal companion?

The druid is a cohort and will not be in the party he is off doing his own thing to help his master

All books are allowed but only core races for making sutff

The druid is a cohort to my main char and will be starting at level 4
Race Human
Male
hes Chaotic N

He will mostly be off on his own thing working behind the scenes to aid his master who he owes a life debt to as she starts her own plans to break free from the evil rule of the Lawful Evil God's Rule

Only Chaotic N char in a all lawful evil party


Setting and gods are all custom

all I have so far is his core stats and a single feat
Str-12
Dex-12
Con-14
Int-14
Wis-18
Chr-10
Feats
1. Natural Bond
2. ???
3. ???

Taken from MM3 hes using a Dino Fleashraker sense you can at 4 with Natural Bond its level his boosted up i think but i don't know how to calculate the levels for monsters
dice rolled for health are always highest.

If you need more info or if i have put wrong info please help iv never rolled a druid before and im not super experienced in D&D

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

Are we trying for power gaming, or fun gaming? What role do you intend to have him fill?

Whatever the case, you absolutely 100% need natural spell (its a feat). It allows a druid to cast spells while transformed into an animal. You will need to make sure to pick that up for your 6th level feat.

Edit: It is arguable if you can up your animal companion like that with natural bond, by the way. You might want to clear that with your DM before assuming you can. If you can it is border line broken powerful.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Make your animal companion a Tarrasque.

Just put it down on your sheet and see if the DM notices.

 

[Veldel]

Are we trying for power gaming, or fun gaming? What role do you intend to have him fill?

Whatever the case, you absolutely 100% need natural spell (its a feat). It allows a druid to cast spells while transformed into an animal. You will need to make sure to pick that up for your 6th level feat.

Edit: It is arguable if you can up your animal companion like that with natural bond, by the way. You might want to clear that with your DM before assuming you can. If you can it is border line broken powerful.

He said any feat is usable and the druid is never going to be with that party hes mostly on his own thing building a base and gathering resources to start.

Yeah i heard about natural spell that's planned for 6th but as we only level up every few games it will be a while lol

Im not taking greenbound sense that seems to broken but its more 50/50 fun/power as my entire party all worship same god and 2 are completely devoted.

Make your animal companion a Tarrasque.

Just put it down on your sheet and see if the DM notices.

I dont even know what that is.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Make your animal companion a Tarrasque.

Just put it down on your sheet and see if the DM notices.

I dont even know what that is.

It's a 50 foot tall unstoppable giant reptile monster based off Godzilla

He likes death, destruction, long walks on the beach and the annihilation of everything in range (Which is a lot because he's massive)

 

[FillerDmon]

It's a 50 foot tall unstoppable giant reptile monster based off Godzilla

Actually, the Tarasque predates Godzilla by possibly 700 years. It was a French thing, from what I remember...

Op: Yeah, it's hard to be sure to give decent advice when you're playing with what is relatively the most simple of the strongest classes in the game. You can pretty much do what you want, so long as you remember to be able to cast spells while being an animal. What you'd like to be -ABLE- to do might be good info to aid you.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Get wild spell, turn into a bear, fire lighting as flying invisible bear with magic claws and fur. Also summon things and have your own pet bear who's stronger than anyone in the party who lacks spells. If you don't like bears, well first that just means you're the worst kind of person, and second you just turn into whatever. There's very few ways to play a Druid wrong, and like a million ways to break the entire game over your knee as it begs for mercy no longer existent in your all-powerful soul.

EDIT- You're human, where's your second feat?

 

[the December King]

It's a 50 foot tall unstoppable giant reptile monster based off Godzilla

Actually, the Tarasque predates Godzilla by possibly 700 years. It was a French thing, from what I remember...

This is true, although that illustration was inspired by the same modern trends that informed Godzilla's current look- the original Tarasque, by the legend, had the head of a lion, six legs, a scorpions tail and the shell of a tortoise. It was tamed by a saint, and killed by terrified villagers while docile.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

I'm going to break this into sections. Here is the thing you need to understand: Druids are stupid powerful, especially once they hit 6.

*** Animal Companion ***

The Fleshraker you chose happens to be stupidly powerful, even more so with the natural bond. Not sure if you did that on purpose.

Leveling up your animal companion: Since you have natural bond your effective druid level for leveling your animal companion is +3. Since you took a Fleshraker your effective druid level is at -3. So for your companion you just use your druid level. So, to advance your companion, look at the chart in the druid entry. You will see that for level 3-5 your animal companion gets +2 bonus hit dice, +2 natural armor, + 1 str and dex (this is not modifier, but the base stat!) 2 bonus tricks, and a few special abilities (Link, Share spells, and the feat evasion.) This will increase at level 6.

Hit dice are like monster levels. As you increase hit dice, you also increase hit points, base attack bonus, saving throws, skills, and earn feats for your animal. You will need to recalculate each of these based on the new HD amount. It is not as hard as it sounds, but I actually recommend creating a second character sheet for your animal to keep it straight.

Looking at the Fleshraker, it starts with 4 hit dice, which means it's new hit dice is 6.
Skills and feats are easiest to do in terms of difference, and in this case you will end up with 2 more skill points and 1 more feat.
The total HP will be 6d8+6*con mod, or 60 HP since you are using maximum values.
Animals use 3/4 base attack bonus progression, so it will have the same BAB of a level 6 cleric.
This dino has good saves on fort and reflex, and bad save on will. Like any character, use the base throw appropriate and modify it by the animals ability modifier.

The +2 natural armor is easy, just add 2.

The +1 str and dex will bump your animals strength and dex up to a new, higher modifier so make sure to take that into account in all relevant ways, including +1 more to melee hit and damage (for str) and +1 more to AC and reflex save for dex.

Tricks are how you command your animal to do things. Bonus tricks mean you can have your animal know extra tricks. Check the handle animal entry for more information, but make sure your animal at least knows come, attack x2 (allows it to attack strange creatures without a check) and something to tell it to stop killing.

You might consider some light barding for your animal, it isn't that much money and it will give it a bit more AC for almost no down side.

*** Skills ***

Concentration and Spell Craft are your important skills that you probably want to max. Knowledge nature, listen, spot are also good. Diplomacy is good if you need him to, you know, diplomacy. Handle animal is decent and flavorful, so is survival, and it comes with a nice synergy bonus. Consider getting the swift concentration skill trick.

*** Feats ***

Augment summoning is a great feat, but requires a second useless feat of Spell focus (conjuration). Still worth getting if you are going to be summoning often.
Companion spellbond increases the range of your spell sharing from 5 feet to 30 feet. It is very good if you are going to be buffing yourself for combat.
The usual metamagics are good if you want to go that route, but I find it boring myself.
At level 12 dragon wild shape is really, really good for utility. It gives you the extraordinary and Supernatural abilities of a dragon, so that means senses as well. Unfortunately, becoming a dragon is actually bad for combat purposes unless you are using it for mobility spell casting.

*** Spells ***
I am only going to note 0-3 level spells here, and only the most powerful or interesting. Note that you can substitute any prepared spell for summon nature's ally of the same level, so you never need to prepare that and it is always decent.
0:
Cure minor to stabilize an ally, Detect magic because yeah.
1:
Produce flame is a good damage over time spell. It will give you 1/level fireballs to punch people with or throw 120 feet.
Entangle: A great control spell.
Thunderhead: Summons a tiny thundercloud over a target that causes 1d6 damage per round for 1 round per level. I love this spell, so much flavor.
Aspect of the wolf is a good melee buff spell for you until you can wild shape.
2:
Blinding Spittle - a completely broken spell. This is just stupid. Blinds with no save on a -4 to hit against touch.
Kelpstrand - Basically web shooters. Completely awesome and good against anything you care to grapple. Stack the strands on one target for extra awesome.
Splinterbolt is a goodish damage spell.
3:
Call Lightning - this will give you several rounds of decent attacks. A good attack spell.
Spirit jaws - one of my favorite spells in the game. Creates magical dino jaws that fly to an enemy and eat them for several rounds, automatically grappling! I have had this spell completely neutralize an enemy spell caster for an entire combat at level 16 before.

 

[Veldel]

Snip

The dino thing is based on my basing the char of Diego Brando of Jojo BA Part 7 he can turn into dinos and make people into them so I was mostly looking for dino stuff on that didn't even know it was super OP

Thanks a ton for the advice your great help. Druids can only use non metal armour from what i heard what would be a good idea for gear a stupid buffed up quarterstaff or some basic gear? The starting gold for chars is 9k


Spells you had me at web shooters for the one xD

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Uh, wow. Well ThatOtherGirl just about covered everything and then some.

One thing I will add though, is to try to specialize your character. Druid's are good at just about everything without too much effort. A well built druid will be better at most things than the characters that actually specialize at it. This can be fun for you, but a little less so for the rest of the party that feels redundant. Try to focus your druid around doing one thing really well, that way everyone can feel useful

Actually, there's a number of prestige classes that can facilitate this. For example, if you want to focus chiefly on your transformations, the Warshaper or Nature's Warrior prestige classes (Complete Warrior) is really good for that. This option will probably be weaker than straight druid, particularly with the Warshaper as they lose spellcasting and wildshape progression (I'd only consider doing a small dip for Warshaper if anything), but both classes could do well for helping specialize your character

 

[Veldel]

Uh, wow. Well ThatOtherGirl just about covered everything and then some.

One thing I will add though, is to try to specialize your character. Druid's are good at just about everything without too much effort. A well built druid will be better at most things than the characters that actually specialize at it. This can be fun for you, but a little less so for the rest of the party that feels redundant. Try to focus your druid around doing one thing really well, that way everyone can feel useful

Actually, there's a number of prestige classes that can facilitate this. For example, if you want to focus chiefly on your transformations, the Warshaper or Nature's Warrior prestige classes (Complete Warrior) is really good for that. This option will probably be weaker than straight druid, particularly with the Warshaper as they lose spellcasting and wildshape progression (I'd only consider doing a small dip for Warshaper if anything), but both classes could do well for helping specialize your character

but he wont be in a party or involved with them with the exception of my main char as he is a cohort working to aid my char in her building of a uprising in secret

I was planning to just go straight druid unless theres somthing that will help him better but for now he needs to reach 5 for wildshape. Other then that he will rely on summons and spells.

 

[Pyrian]

Produce flame is a good damage over time spell. It will give you 1/level fireballs to punch people with or throw 120 feet.

Hilarious thing you can do with Produce Flame: Since the target is "Self", you can share it with your animal companion. ...Might take some training, lol...

 

[LetalisK]

Well, if the DnD-based video games are anything to go by there is one rule to making a Druid: Don't.

That could just be the video games, though. :B

 

[FillerDmon]

This is true, although that illustration was inspired by the same modern trends that informed Godzilla's current look- the original Tarasque, by the legend, had the head of a lion, six legs, a scorpions tail and the shell of a tortoise. It was tamed by a saint, and killed by terrified villagers while docile.

Funny. If they went with the older version, it'd probably be more difficult to defeat, wouldn't it?

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Well, if the DnD-based video games are anything to go by there is one rule to making a Druid: Don't.

That could just be the video games, though. :B

The video games are heinously wrong. Druids are the most easy to break class in 3.5. The game is their oyster. They're the best class for hitting things and not dying to things, with casting on par with the wizard (arcane spells are better than the druid's limited access to divine spells), and an animal companion who will likely be the second best person in the party for hitting things and not dying to things, with the sole exception of their Druid master. You can have a pet dinosaur. You can turn into a dinosaur. You can turn into a dinosaur then make your dinosaur and yourself bigger, flying, and invisible, all while shooting lightning out your ass. Then you can summon more dinosaurs.

 

[Xyebane]

I would tank* his STR, Dex, and CON since those are going to be modified by shapechange anyways, then pick up natural spell asap. With natural spell shapechange becomes very OP and this is a typical Druid munchkin character, but i think you can fit it with roleplaying if you don't munchkin it too much. Play him as a thin, intelligent charismatic man that isn't physically imposing who wanders the woods, but when shit hits the ground he turns into a bear to fight.

Once you get natural spell there is really no reason not to be shapechanged in combat, and since you are always shapechanged your str, dex, con are set by your form not your characters. Once you can elemental form, you become very strong.

*Edit: In case it's not clear, by tank i mean remove most or all points out of those stats.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

Snip

The dino thing is based on my basing the char of Diego Brando of Jojo BA Part 7 he can turn into dinos and make people into them so I was mostly looking for dino stuff on that didn't even know it was super OP

Thanks a ton for the advice your great help. Druids can only use non metal armour from what i heard what would be a good idea for gear a stupid buffed up quarterstaff or some basic gear? The starting gold for chars is 9k

Spells you had me at web shooters for the one xD

Gear is a bit complicated with a druid, because at level 5 and 6 you are likely going to want to start shifting for combat, and that means your fancy staff and armor is now near worthless. there are a few ways to solve this. The most direct is the wilding clasp, which costs 4000 gold. It allows anyone item you wear to be used in wild shape, but only if the shape could wear something like it. For example, a tiger shape could wear a belt. It could not wear full plate. For this reason you tend to want to get a few powerful items that can be clasped.

So lets run down armor. Your best two armors are leather for light and hide for medium. I recommend a set of leather for now, do not upgrade it at all. Mobility is important for a druid, and the 1 ac is not worth the 10 move, IMO. Also pickup a wooden shield. Eventually you are just going to throw these away, because none of your wild shapes can wear human shaped armor and only a few can use tools.

Your replacement is going to be the Monk's belt. Grants Wisdom modifier +1 to ac. Since you are a wisdom maxing class, I think you can see where this is going.

Lets check the numbers. without any change (no wisdom increase at all) the monks belt will give you +5 ac, and that is like a dex bonus so it works against touch. Very good. It costs 13k gold +4k for the clasp. And that is assuming you never buff your wisdom for any reason, which you will all the time, especially with magic items. The draw back is you can't wear armor or use a shield. Either or.

If you did leather armor and enchanted it to +3, it would grant +5 armor, and can't be clasped so you instantly lose it in wild shape (which is when you need it most). It is 9000k ish. allowing it to be used in wild shape is a +2 bonus modifier, if I remember correctly, making it cost a massive 25k gold. And, for reason I will explain, this is objectively worse than the belt.

You see, the belt is a different type of ac bonus and stacks with almost anything... including armor bonuses, such as from bracers of armor or more importantly at these low levels a magic armor potion. +4 armor for 1 hour as an armor bonus. So now you have +5 ac from belt, +4 from the potion, which is a respctable amount at 4 already. Then add some barkskin on top of that. And when you transform you use the dex of your form, not your own dex, for more ac bonus. And you also use the forms natural armor, for more ac bonus.

Weapon has the same problem, most forms can't use it, and most forms will hit better anyway. So pick up a stick and use one of the druid melee buff spells, like Shillelagh or Aspect of the wolf.

Oh, make sure to get familiar with all the bite of the wear[X] spells. If you use companion spellbond you can apply it to both of you for stupid powerful melee druid animal companion team fights.

So, what do you spend your 9000 on? Tools, that's what! Get some potions (mage armor potions, cure light, etc) And a wand of either cure light wounds, lesser vigor, or both, for out of combat heals. Get a lesser meta magic rod extend to increase the duration of your buffs to full combat length.

Get anklets of translocation. They are cheap and incredibly useful. They allow a 10ft teleport as a swift action on command word twice per day. SOOOOOO good. It's best feature is that it is a free get out of grapple as a swift action twice per day.

Finally, if you are going to be summoning, oh man this is the best, ring of the beast. Allows you to treat all your summoning spells as 1 spell level higher, except for your max one. So when you cast summon I it counts as summon II. Later on this is just amazing, and it is always good. A fantastic little bonus at 8000gp, and it has a special feature which means it does not require a wilding clasp!

And all the other staples: periapt of wisdom, resistance cloak, etc. Remember you are going to have to clasp every item you want in animal form, so a few big powerful items is better than many small ones. See if your DM will allow you to use the item creation rules to stack items, like a giant's belt with the monk's belt.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

I would tank* his STR, Dex, and CON since those are going to be modified by shapechange anyways, then pick up natural spell asap. With natural spell shapechange becomes very OP and this is a typical Druid munchkin character, but i think you can fit it with roleplaying if you don't munchkin it too much. Play him as a thin, intelligent charismatic man that isn't physically imposing who wanders the woods, but when shit hits the ground he turns into a bear to fight.

Once you get natural spell there is really no reason not to be shapechanged in combat, and since you are always shapechanged your str, dex, con are set by your form not your characters. Once you can elemental form, you become very strong.

*Edit: In case it's not clear, by tank i mean remove most or all points out of those stats.

Can't tank con since the errata, but other than that yeah.