Please help me munchkin my druid

[Garloth]

Hi everyone.
Last session I was lying on the floor with -7 HP and my party did nothing to help me.
I basically want to stop this from happening again.
Our party consists of: fighter (wanting to go ranged weapons), ranger (also going ranged), rouge (the most anty-teamwork player I've ever seen), and me - a druid.
The ability scores are predetermined: 16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 (any combination).
We can play any PHB race.
I need help to make it impossible to kill me without killing the party in the process.
All the WotC books are allowed.
My idea was Druid 3/Wizard 1/Mystic Theurge 4/Arcane Hierophant 10/Mystic Theurge 2 with feats Natural Spell and Alternative Spell Source (to qualify for PrCs).
Is this a good idea?

[muktidata]

Reduce Person?

 

[Garloth]

I want to buff myself not debuff the team.

[phaedrusxy]

I want to buff myself not debuff the team.

It was a joke...

What level are you starting at? And what level do you reasonably expect to play to? Just playing a druid means you're playing one of (if not THE) strongest class in the game. I don't understand what Alternate Spell Source is doing for this build, though. And I'd suggest just going druid 20. Arcane Heirophant is OK, but I think it probably isn't as strong overall as a straight druid. It definitely isn't as easy to play (but is much easier to screw up).

[Threadnaught]

In order to become a Mystic Theurge, you need to be able to cast 2nd level Arcane and Divine Spells. I'm not clear on how this build lets you cast 2nd level Arcane Spells before the first Theurge level.

Also as far as Druids go, the only thing more beneficial for a Druid than Druid levels, is Planar Shepherd or Gestalting with Barbarian, Cleric, Fighter, Monk or Ranger. Since you probably aren't using a Gestalt, go ahead and pick up a Monk's Belt as soon as you can and get a Wilding Clasp to go with it. The only PHB race I can think to recommend is Human for the bonus Feat.
If you were allowed to go MM1 races, definitely go Kobold, be a Dragonborn of Bahamut and take the Dragonwrought Feat (Races of the Dragon), you may now choose to have a Breath Weapon, Blindsense or Flight in your natural form and can take Feats to improve it. Go for the Breath Weapon, it's useful when you can't Wildshape and afterward you can mess around with Feats gained from it when in the form of a Dragon. In addition to Dragonborn allowing you to choose a nice selection of Feats, you may choose any Feat, Template or PrC that has being a Dragon as a prerequisite.

As a Human, I suggest you ignore all the advice from the handbooks and make Augment Summoning your 3rd level Feat. Since you're able to cast Summon Nature's Ally, Spontaneously, take Versatile Spellcaster from Races of the Dragon. As a Druid, you know all Spells on your list that your Class Level qualifies you for, so if you manage to mess up your Spell selection, you'll have even less to worry about and have additional 1st level Spellslots at 1st level. Level 6 Feat has to be Natural Spell, no debate. Make it so.

Animal Companion should be a Riding Dog at 1st-3rd levels, switch out for a Fleshraker at 4th, if you're allowed to use Venomfire, then go ahead and break the game into whatever from there, if not a Dire Tortoise is just as useful at 10th level and beyond. If you can get it's Natural Armour to count toward it's Touch AC using certain Spells, it'll be even more of a tank.


Once you get to level 6, turn into an Eagle/Desmodu Hunting Bat for as long as you need to and just stay out of range of any enemies when the fighting starts. At level 7 and above, you'll be able to stay Wildshaped into a form with Flight most of the day and potentially have a Spare Wildshape for a combat form. 8th level is where you can start to get the more useful combat forms. Any Magic Items you wish to use while Wildshaped, must be attached to you by a Wilding Clasp which costs an additional 4000gp to buy, or 2000gp, 160xp and 4 days to make.
If you don't want to bother with Magic Items, then a 1 level dip in Monk and the Vow of Poverty Feat shouldn't hurt you too much, as long as you still have Natural Spell and Versatile Spellcaster. The loss of a Caster Level will definitely sting though.


I realize Versatile Spellcaster uses two Spellslots to cast a single Spell, but I'm recommending it for emergencies. When you absolutely have to cast a certain Spell and have no time to prepare new Spells. I recently found my Dragonborn Dragonwrought Kobold Bloodline (cheesy homebrew) Kobold in such a situation.

If your DM lets you Prestige as a Planar Shepherd, bite his arm off and pick Dal Quor as your Attuned Plane. It's better than straight Druid.


And don't forget to take this advice with a grain of salt, I'm not sure if any of it will be of any actual use to you.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

... Last session I was lying on the floor with -7 HP and my party did nothing to help me ...

Even if nobody had ranks in the Heal Skill, the checks should still succeed.
Highest Wis dude + Take 10 + 2 Aid Another attempts = First Aid
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/heal.htm
Result = you shouldn't have died.

2nd-ing Druid 20

[muktidata]

Investing your time and energy into figuring out how you can stack multiple classes and prestige classes will likely end up just diluting your build in the end. Why don't you explore what a straight druid is capable of and focus on playing to a druid's strengths. You'll end up much stronger than if you had split your focus in other directions. Get a handle on which of the druid spells are good and in which situations they shine. Memorize your summon nature's ally and wildshape options. Explore every nook and cranny of the magic item compendium/dnd gear threads to make sure you're investing your gold wisely. I'd do this, rather than pretend going MAD and having some wizard tricks is going to help you.

[Kasz]

Fighter, Ranger, Rogue and Druid?

And the Druid ended up on the floor? What level are you playing at? At lower levels maybe a lucky crit or something... but you could probably stand at the back and do nothing all day and still be contributing as much as the fighter by virtue of your animal companion.

Take Greenbound Summoning and Ashbound as level 1 and level 3 feats and just laugh all day as your pet and summons out damage everyone else. Natural spell at level 6 and voila. You never need to get near enemies.

If you really want to never be knocked out again, ring of fast healing?

[Garloth]

... Last session I was lying on the floor with -7 HP and my party did nothing to help me ...

Even if nobody had ranks in the Heal Skill, the checks should still succeed.
Highest Wis dude + Take 10 + 2 Aid Another attempts = First Aid
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/heal.htm
Result = you shouldn't have died.

2nd-ing Druid 20

It was not because they could not, they did not want to.
About the arcane spells: that's what the ASS feat is for - it let's me cast a lvl 2 divibe spell as arcane.
But if you say druid 20 than ok.
Why the riding dog? Aren't humans too big to ride them?
EDIT: lvl 1, just bad luck - got attacked and they did nothing to help me.

[muktidata]

Have you perused the druid handbooks and various druid help threads yet?

[Sinfire Titan]

A note: The term "munchkin" implies you are willing to cheat or ignore the rules in ways that favor your character. As optimizers, we do not condone this attitude because it removes the necessity for rules (there's very little to stop someone from God Modding their character when they ignore the rules). What you want is for us to Optimize the character.

As others have stated, the only thing better than Druid 20 is Druid 10/Planar Shepherd 10. It really doesn't matter which plane you choose, but Dal Quor (the Realm of Dreams) is the most powerful. Any creature that dreams in Eberron becomes a valid choice for your Wild Shape, and the Planar Bubble class feature becomes ungodly overpowered.

[Threadnaught]

A note: The term "munchkin" implies you are willing to cheat or ignore the rules in ways that favor your character. As optimizers, we do not condone this attitude because it removes the necessity for rules (there's very little to stop someone from God Modding their character when they ignore the rules). What you want is for us to Optimize the character.

Alternatively, it could imply that he's willing to use legal abilities so powerful that it appears to be cheating. As long as he doesn't have to go through another stupid death like he did with his last Character.
Munchkins may be horrible people who we should all hate with a burning passion, but maybe the term Munchkin is referring to the goal of hearing a less optimized group use the term, as a result of our maximized optimization skills.

Why the riding dog? Aren't humans too big to ride them?

Yeah, right. Medium Mounts for Small Druids. How silly of me, I forgot to mention that it's basically a Fighter you can buff and have complete control over, but without the Bonus Feats. Don't get a mount as a Druid unless you're Small, or it's a Dire Tortoise.

As others have stated, the only thing better than Druid 20 is Druid 10/Planar Shepherd 10.

Remember, Druid for the first five levels, full Planar Shepherd, then Druid the rest. And make sure you know which Feat your DM wants you to take to qualify for it if you can pass it by them. If your DM knows anything about optimization, good luck getting it passed.

[spacemonkey555]

Expensive, feat wise, but aberration blood and aberration wild shape from Lords of Madness would let you wild shape into a willowisp, which has a nice set of defenses and mobility. 50' perfect flying, (ex) invisibility, and (ex) immunity to magic. Turns you from a melee monster into a mobile stealth caster, but you'll probably be the last to die in any situation. Only problem is it looks like you get wildshape around level 10, and need to take aberration wild shape after you already have wildshape, which i'm guessing would be level 12.

[dna1]

Well your in luck because Druid is within the top 5 strongest classes.

Oddly enough it seems there has been a few "help my druid" threads lately. Just look around and take notes from those as well. Also definitely give the handbooks a look through.

Level 1?
What Race? What Feats do you have selected already? What animal companion?

Since you are already in play, that info would be nice to have before we can get to far into it. Really the best thing you can do as a Druid is know your capabilities. Druids strongest asset is that it usually has an answer to any situation. I would stray away from focusing on any one path of the Druid to much. Meaning like don't go just a summoner, or focus solely on your animal companion.

I would stay with just straight Druid 20. This is my favorite class, I've played a lot of variant builds with it and straight Druid works the best. Trust me just resist the inner min/max urge to take dips or PRC's.

Feats you want IMO: Greenbound Summoning, Natural Spell, Ocular Spell. What ever else you want.

Go download and print out the Greenbound Summoning list. That way you have everything on hand and you won't need to flip through books to decide which summon is best for the moment.

Now to me it sounds like you want to be a killer. So these are the spells I would keep on hand

(click to show/hide)

SPELLS
0: Detect magic, light, resistance, cure minor wounds, guidance,
know direction, create water.

1st: Cure light wounds, pass without trace, produce flame,
faerie fire, entangle, obscuring mist, speak with animals,
summon natures ally 1.

2nd: Flame blade, heat metal, resist energy, lesser restoration,
bull’s strength, barkskin, summon natures ally 2.

3rd: Cure moderate wounds, protection from energy, call lightning,
meld into stone, plant growth, stone shape, greater magic fang,
summon natures ally 3.

4th: Cure serious wounds, flame strike, dispel magic, command
plants, scrying, freedom of movement, giant vermin, summon
natures ally 4.

5th: Cure critical wounds, stoneskin, baleful polymorph, wall
of fire, call lightning storm, commune with nature, death ward,
tree stride, summon natures ally 5.

Play style
Low levels - sit back and let summons/animal companion do most of the work.
Mid levels - Same as above, except now you can start to throw damaging spells in as well. Also Wildshape comes into play now. Fly around as a bird and launch summons into the battlefield .
High levels - K at this point your going to be the main force on the battlefield. charge right into melee as a brown bear or something. take a bad ass animal companion, and launch summons from your eyes via Ocular Spell.


Hope this helps.
 

[JohnnyMayHymn]

frozen wildshape feat adds the cryohydra to your WS repertoire

if Planar Shepherd is allowed, keep in mind, the second level ability specifically allows WS into templated magical beasts(native to chosen plane), so if you choose the Plane of Shadow, there is an old version of the 'Shadow Creature' template that can turn any corporeal creature in to a magical beast, I think there is a newer, weaker version printed, but you did say 'munchkin'

even more munchkiny, is the Planar Shepherd from Clockwork Mechanus, there are 3.0 Modrons with higher sorcerer and cleric spellcasting than they have HD, so a very debatable reading of Planar Shepherd's 9th level ability grants the druid the spellcasting(via EX, SU and SP abilities) of the outsider forms.  If this were ruled legal, you could get 9th level sorcerer and cleric spells at 14th level

[DavidWL]

Have you perused the druid handbooks and various druid help threads yet?

I agree.

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=399.0

Best,
David

[phaedrusxy]

frozen wildshape feat adds the cryohydra to your WS repertoire

if Planar Shepherd is allowed, keep in mind, the second level ability specifically allows WS into templated magical beasts(native to chosen plane), so if you choose the Plane of Shadow, there is an old version of the 'Shadow Creature' template that can turn any corporeal creature in to a magical beast, I think there is a newer, weaker version printed, but you did say 'munchkin'

even more munchkiny, is the Planar Shepherd from Clockwork Mechanus, there are 3.0 Modrons with higher sorcerer and cleric spellcasting than they have HD, so a very debatable reading of Planar Shepherd's 9th level ability grants the druid the spellcasting(via EX, SU and SP abilities) of the outsider forms.  If this were ruled legal, you could get 9th level sorcerer and cleric spells at 14th level

You don't even need 3.0 material for cleric. There is a core monster who casts as a 17th level cleric and has 14 hd.

The couatl is 9HD and casts as a 9th level sorcerer. I'm sure there are lots of others.

[jameswilliamogle]

Last session I was lying on the floor with -7 HP and my party did nothing to help me.
I basically want to stop this from happening again.

Get a new party?
In a game in which multiclassing was forced I dipped Cleric w planning and undeath domain. Persist spell at 1st. And nightstcks later. Broke down pretty fast after that. Lesser vigorous persist works great.