Plain druid or Defender of the True World (DOTTW)

[Flip]

Trying to figure out if I should go plain druid or DOTTW.

Anybody have any advice? I would think that DOTTW would be better but not sure how big a loss sponteanous casting & venom immunity are.

[TaKo]

u can get temporary poison immunity from delay poison spell(has communal version, both last 1hour/caster level)

iirc isnt druid spontaneous casting just transforming memorized spells into summon monster ones?

[Flip]

Yeah, so it seems that DOTTW cannot summon fey creatures but still gets spontaneous summoning of nature creatures. To be honest I don't know how big of a loss that is, I prefer to buff pet and shoot arrows rather than summon (at least in theory).

[Shadenuat]

Defender is like pure upgrade for this campaign. On high levels spells like Elemental Swarm are better for putting bodies between you and enemy anyway.

[GrandMajora]

Defender of the True World gets a class ability that makes their natural attacks count as Cold Iron. This will be a life saver once you unlock the ability to transform into a smilodon, and Fey creatures start becoming a very common enemy type.

Regardless of what you pick, though, remember to get the feat that allows you to cast spells while in your Wild Shape form. I don't remember its name right now, but I think it's called Natural Spell, or something like that.

[Flip]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Defender of the True World gets a class ability that makes their natural attacks count as Cold Iron. This will be a life saver once you unlock the ability to transform into a smilodon, and Fey creatures start becoming a very common enemy type.

Regardless of what you pick, though, remember to get the feat that allows you to cast spells while in your Wild Shape form. I don't remember its name right now, but I think it's called Natural Spell, or something like that.

I plan to be more of a spell caster and archer with the following stats - is this still viable for shapshifting?

S: 14
C: 8
D: 16
I: 12
W: 18
C: 8

[Super-XIX]

8 Constitution on a melee Druid is not even close to enough. You WILL get hit and you have a meager d8 HD.

[Flip]

Originally posted by The Superjew:

8 Constitution on a melee Druid is not even close to enough. You WILL get hit and you have a meager d8 HD.

That's what I thought so shapeshifting doesn't really come into the equation for my build, mainly plan on sitting in the back and flinging spells or shooting bow. Still I assume the Defender is viable, just not sure if it is better than a regular druid for this. Thoughts?

[Marcos_DS]

Originally posted by Flip:

Originally posted by The Superjew:

8 Constitution on a melee Druid is not even close to enough. You WILL get hit and you have a meager d8 HD.

That's what I thought so shapeshifting doesn't really come into the equation for my build, mainly plan on sitting in the back and flinging spells or shooting bow. Still I assume the Defender is viable, just not sure if it is better than a regular druid for this. Thoughts?

If you don't focus on shapeshifting, getting the full summoning line is more important imo since the fey summons are quite useful, esp. at high level.

[Flip]

Originally posted by Marcos_DS:

Originally posted by Flip:

That's what I thought so shapeshifting doesn't really come into the equation for my build, mainly plan on sitting in the back and flinging spells or shooting bow. Still I assume the Defender is viable, just not sure if it is better than a regular druid for this. Thoughts?

If you don't focus on shapeshifting, getting the full summoning line is more important imo since the fey summons are quite useful, esp. at high level.

Thanks Marcus, are they fey summons better than the dmg bonus you and your pet/summons get vs fey as a defender do you reckon?

Appreciate the input.

[Marcos_DS]

Originally posted by Flip:

Originally posted by Marcos_DS:

If you don't focus on shapeshifting, getting the full summoning line is more important imo since the fey summons are quite useful, esp. at high level.

Thanks Marcus, are they fey summons better than the dmg bonus you and your pet/summons get vs fey as a defender do you reckon?

Appreciate the input.

Its a bit hard to decide, the very last 2 parts of the game (lvl 17+) are about 70% fey enemies so at that point, the damage bonus will be really good. That said, the ability to summon fey casters instead of the usual animals & elementals is also quite good. And the buff vs. fey only gets really good in those last few levels. Also, the bonus to hit vs those creatures won't stack with other morale boni (e.g. good hope AoE cast by linzi). So the main thing you get is the ability to bypass DR (which is still quite good, about +10 to +15 damage due to cold iron). Keep in mind, summon natures ally does not have the same selection as in P&P, its only one creature per level and the highest few levels are exlusively fey iirc.

Edit: Another thing: the animals you summon with natures ally and also your pet will get hit pretty hard by a gaze attack of those high level fey creatures which pretty often disables them (at least at high difficulty lvls), so basically you might be stuck to summon elemental spells - but those won't get cold iron attacks (only summon natures ally spell line is affected). So upon thinking about it, i cannot recommend the defender of the true world.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Flip:

I plan to be more of a spell caster and archer with the following stats - is this still viable for shapshifting?

S: 14
C: 8
D: 16
I: 12
W: 18
C: 8

Oh, something else you forgot to clarify: Did you pick an Animal Companion, or a Domain when designing this character? Because that can affect the play style, too.

[Gerarderloper]

I made Harrim Defender Druid,

I had one 90% playthrough where I was straight Druid and it was working out quite well (I restarted because...). I'm finding in general its not worth multi classing spell caster heavy classes, they just end up being a very weak version of the two. (except arcane trick)

I found this out the hard way with Tristan when I multi him as Sorc, also at first I was a Druid and Sorc, basically had spell casting 2-3 lvls below enemies and it was WEAK AS PISS....

[Flip]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Originally posted by Flip:

I plan to be more of a spell caster and archer with the following stats - is this still viable for shapshifting?

S: 14
C: 8
D: 16
I: 12
W: 18
C: 8

Oh, something else you forgot to clarify: Did you pick an Animal Companion, or a Domain when designing this character? Because that can affect the play style, too.

I took the Animal Companion (Leopard because it's a leopard!) directly.

[Flip]

Originally posted by Marcos_DS:

Originally posted by Flip:

Thanks Marcus, are they fey summons better than the dmg bonus you and your pet/summons get vs fey as a defender do you reckon?

Appreciate the input.

Its a bit hard to decide, the very last 2 parts of the game (lvl 17+) are about 70% fey enemies so at that point, the damage bonus will be really good. That said, the ability to summon fey casters instead of the usual animals & elementals is also quite good. And the buff vs. fey only gets really good in those last few levels. Also, the bonus to hit vs those creatures won't stack with other morale boni (e.g. good hope AoE cast by linzi). So the main thing you get is the ability to bypass DR (which is still quite good, about +10 to +15 damage due to cold iron). Keep in mind, summon natures ally does not have the same selection as in P&P, its only one creature per level and the highest few levels are exlusively fey iirc.

Edit: Another thing: the animals you summon with natures ally and also your pet will get hit pretty hard by a gaze attack of those high level fey creatures which pretty often disables them (at least at high difficulty lvls), so basically you might be stuck to summon elemental spells - but those won't get cold iron attacks (only summon natures ally spell line is affected). So upon thinking about it, i cannot recommend the defender of the true world.

Thank you, that's some good info and discussion there, I so I think I will stick to pure druid then.

Out of curiosity, anybody have a decent build for a melee druid / spellcaster? While I prefer the archer/spell caster that is mainly because I never got the stat mix right for melee.

[Gerarderloper]

Leopard is certainly easier to use and faster, better dex/ac, but I suspect it might be weak on attacks/crits compared to smilodon...