Offensive Druid? How?

[felixsimon]

From what i saw in druid spellbook so far, they seem to LOVE huge aoe spells that damage and hinder enemies... and allies alike(entangle-like spells), that also remain active for an hour or so! So am i missing something, or how am i supposed to use those spells? Not only am i hurting my own party, but im also turning a huge area of the map into a friggin flytrap! Am i supposed to use this spell from a screen away or something? Are they bugged and actually not supposed to hurt partymates, is there some sort of immunity spell that im supposed to cast before nuking entire map? Im just not sure how im supposed to use druid offencively, or should i just stick to buffing duties and occasional call lightning?

[glenn3e]

Cast sirrocco. Set everyone to ranged weapons. Laugh as you see the army of cyclops trip themselves over and over.

Call Lightning is fiddly to use, I prefer a pinpoint flamestrike. Most is protection duty and buffing my animal.

[felixsimon]

Flamestrike is kinda difficult to pull of, since i have 4 animal companions and 5 partymates with superior summoning, so every enemy gets completely surrounded within seconds and unless its an "enemy-only" or single target spell, like rays, i do more harm than good with aoe damage dealing spells...

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by glenn3e:

Cast sirrocco. Set everyone to ranged weapons. Laugh as you see the army of cyclops trip themselves over and over.

Call Lightning is fiddly to use, I prefer a pinpoint flamestrike. Most is protection duty and buffing my animal.

Sirocco is great. It's even better when combined with Entangle or Web. First Entangle ensures they can't just run through Sirocco without getting hit. Second, whenever they do make their saves and stand up, they'll be moving too slow because of both exhaustion and entangle that they won't be able to get out of the area for several more turns, so they'll likely fail another save or at least take a bunch of damage from Sirocco. It's quite easy to wipe out entire enemy groups with just these two spells, it's my preferred way of dealing with specters, because removing negative levels is a serious pain in the butt.

I prefer entangle in this strategy. Web can completely immobilize targets which is great, but that also makes the area impassible for your own party after the enemy are all dead. Entangle only slows, which is more then deadly enough with Sirocco around, but once Sirocco is gone it just takes a little extra time to walk through the area which is no big deal.

One other thing though: A Wizard or Sorcerer is better for both of those spells. Druids don't tend to max out their casting attribute or really worry all that much about spell focus, they usually spread their stats out more so they are capable fighters as well as casters. Wizards and Sorcerers usually like to stack their casting attribute as high as it can possibly go, so the save DCs are much higher.

[Kyutaru]

Druid is more of a "hold my beer" class. Don't have him throw all that magical goodness near the party. Have him summon some soldiers, go in solo, and murderate all the weaklings with Cataclysmic natural catastrophes. Once the earth stops literally moving, send your party in to finish off the boss.

[Elgroscriss]

Even in Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, spells like Web, Entangle, Fog (Acid Fog, Cloud Kill, Stinking Cloud), are big AoEs that hurts you and the enemy. Those spells in my opinion transfer badly from pen and paper to a game because in games, the actual "map" you are in are simply too small for those spells to be used effectively most of the time. In pen and paper, youd be outdoor with kms of terrain so you could either close up an area with spells like that to prevent from being flanked or use for example high grounds, sneak up there with a druid and cast that while you rain down arrows on the stuck mobs.

In a computer game, sadly, its almost impossible unless the creators developped that specific map for you to actually do this.

So yea, in short, those spells are working as they should BUT are hard to take advantage of in small area maps.

[felixsimon]

im just trying to fit in druid for greater fang/animal growth since i have 4 animal companions and my player character is dragonshifter sorc, so druid would be a big help, but making a character just to be a buff bot... feels like a waste, since all my other chars can fight as well as buff.
Melee druid? Ive heard they are not that great and i already have a dragonshifter...
Spellcaster? Sorc/Wiz is apparently way better, but i already have sorc.
Ranger druid? Will need to spend feat for weapon prof since they cant even use crossbows and with conj/augment/superior summoning theres no space for point blank, precise, rapid... Too many feats needed, too few levels...
Can anyone beside druid get greater fang/animal growth?

[solthusx]

The 'real time with pause' combat also makes such spells difficult to use properly. The big fire and forget AOEs tend to be best used as alpha strikes.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by felixsimon:

im just trying to fit in druid for greater fang/animal growth since i have 4 animal companions and my player character is dragonshifter sorc, so druid would be a big help, but making a character just to be a buff bot... feels like a waste, since all my other chars can fight as well as buff.
Melee druid? Ive heard they are not that great and i already have a dragonshifter...
Spellcaster? Sorc/Wiz is apparently way better, but i already have sorc.
Ranger druid? Will need to spend feat for weapon prof since they cant even use crossbows and with conj/augment/superior summoning theres no space for point blank, precise, rapid... Too many feats needed, too few levels...
Can anyone beside druid get greater fang/animal growth?

Sorc can Animal Growth, Druid and Ranger are still the only one with Greater Magic Fang though (animal domain cleric gets lesser). I don't recommend using a Ranger for it.

Druid buff bot is perfectly fine, just don't limit it to those 2 buffs. Barkskin is great for your animal companions as well (stacks with everything else they have), and the Druid can be in charge of your bulls strength/cats grace/bears fortitude (communal) spells, and even Stoneskin Communal if you want/need it. He also has Resist Energy/Protection from elements. Go all the way with buffing and the Druid can dump his entire spellbook on the party in one go.

Since the Druid's going to be all about buffs, his Wisdom doesn't need to be all that high, just high enough to cast his spells is all you need. After that, he can focus on attacking things either with a bow or in wild shape. Personally I prefer ranged because wild shape is too risky.

[glenn3e]

I use Feyspeaker so my druid is maxed out on casting with Charisma. I also chose Elf for that Longbow proficiency. So my druid isn't worst than an arcane caster DC-wise.

High casting stat is required to get more bonus spells per day.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by glenn3e:

I use Feyspeaker so my druid is maxed out on casting with Charisma. I also chose Elf for that Longbow proficiency. So my druid isn't worst than an arcane caster DC-wise.

High casting stat is required to get more bonus spells per day.

Feyspeaker has reduced BAB compared to a normal druid (1/2 level instead of 3/4ths level). Between that and the loss of spontaneous summons, it's really not a good archetype, especially in this game where the selection of spells is pretty poor.

Oh, and wisdom is preferable to charisma casting because wisdom adds to your saves while charisma doesn't do anything. Just on its own at least, there are reasons you might want to prefer charisma casting.

[felixsimon]

Feyspeaker provides things like heroism, mirror image, displacement, which are normally not avaliable to druid though... Is it not enough to pick it over other archetypes?

[glenn3e]

The only thing I liked from that archtype is getting mirror image. The other spells can be gotten elsewhere. In truth, its a bad archtype imo.

Charisma based means you can get a lot of points in Persuasion which helps as MC, and I think it gets bonus skills too. The loss to BAB and spontaneous is annoying though.

If you go druid, I would recommend Defender of the True World instead. Its supposed to get Persuasion as a class skill too, but Wisdom based casting. Bonus against Fey, and you fight a LOT of fey in the game. Most of the druid abilities are intact too.