Generally, a caster druid plays more like a "god" wizard with a little better defensive utility and a little worse offensive utility. The caster druid has 13 spells of 3rd or higher lever, the melee druid only 7. At 9th level, a spellcasting druid will have a wis of about 24 - giving him (including domain) 4/7/7/6/4/3 while a melee druid will have a wis of about 16, giving him 4/5/5/3/3/1 spells per day. The issue, however, isn't just the spell DC's but also the spells per day. Yes, his damage spells are really sucky, but he's got quite a few good battlefield control spells. Put all the spells that the druid has access to in the following categories:ĭon't you think that damage /debuff is rather weak when compared to the rest of his spells?Įspecially considering that a Blaster druid will have just a fraction of the damage output of a melee duid unless going against hordes of weak minions (how often does that happen)? The Pathfinder Druid is good, but it's not that good. He'll have some utility spells and buff spells, but he will suck at anything that offers a save. So, a druid who focuses on melee damage sacrifices his spells. This is because wildshape emulates the Beast Shape spells, which just modify base statistics, rather than replacing them (as 3.5 wildshape did). If a wildshaping druid wants to outdamage a barbarian (which is probably not possible, I've not crunched the numbers), he has to build himself like a barbarian, that is, all strength and constitution. I think you are thinking about the 3.5 version of the druid. So I replace wildshape with putting the various xyz shape spells on the duid spell list and be done with it. It is my opinion that the Druid is severely "imbalanced" in the mid levels (5-10) because of Wild Shape and Animal Companion being just that good.īeing able to out damage the Barbarian or the Bow Fighter AND have a bunch of useful spells and a lot of utility is just too much for my tastes as a GM. I'm not sure why it came up, but I decided to share the thought anyway.
I also thought of a quarterstaff druid, but that could be done just as well and with a naturey theme by an Oracle with the wood mystery. I had the idea of utilizing one of the shaman archetypes, not to wild shape but to utilize summons and the totem transformations, but not Wild Shape. I was sitting around with nothing to do, and that thought came up.Ĭombat doesn't assume not spells, the druid has plenty of buffs, control, and direct damage spells to sling around. Use your other spell slots for utility spells, or whatever, since you still have them. Drop a control spell to set up the battlefield to your liking and then pepper away with your arrows. I just had a friend build an archer druid who used her wolf companion to keep foes at bay. I assume by "combat" you mean "not spells", so go with archery. Make your medium armor out of something non-metal (darkwood maybe?) and wield a typical druid weapon (might even be the favored weapon of your nature god).Īlternately, go ranged. You then get all of the self-buffing goodness of a melee cleric. Honestly, my first inclination would be to go with a nature cleric and just call it a "druid". I'm very curious why you would want to play a combat druid and not want to use wildshape.