[3.5] Druid vs Cleric, which is "better"?

[eggynack]

It's kind of more than that through.

Like you just undersold Turn Undead & Domains. It's not that the Cleric's Class Features suck but his Spell List is so damn good it's easy to forget how campaign breaking Turn Undead (specially DMM) and Domains (command misc types, +20 charisma, trapfinding clerics, etc) can be and the Cleric starts with them instead of needing to progress.

Cleric class features are plenty good. They're just not as good as druid class features, especially at low levels. Or, y'know, probably also at high levels, when you account for those crazy form adding feats. The animal companion is a big part of what makes the druid the most powerful class at first level, and a few levels after that, and wild shape takes up the charge from 6th level on, when you get access to natural spell. I don't think it's underselling the cleric to say that, as good as their class features are, they're not really as good as what the druid brings to the table.

[SorO_Lost]

The animal companion is a big part of what makes the druid the most powerful class at first level

Wild Cohort.

And quite a few Domains offer the Cleric free Feats, so really "Animal Companion" is worth about a single Domain Choice to a Cleric.

[eggynack]

Wild Cohort.

And quite a few Domains offer the Cleric free Feats, so really "Animal Companion" is worth about a single Domain Choice to a Cleric.

A wild cohort isn't really on the same power level as a companion, especially as you progress up in level. And, while numerous domains add feats, few of those feats are on the same power level as druid accessible feats like greenbound summoning or aberration wild shape. Actually, few of their feats in general are on that level, cause druid feats are sweet business. In any case, the equivalence you're drawing has multiple holes in it, both in the quality of feats gained and in the ability of feats to mirror the companion. It's also notable that the domain based feat thing often leads to lower quality spells. Like, you pick up the planning domain, and you wind up with a rather mediocre set of new spells (looks like clairaudience/clairsentience and detect scrying, and that's it), and you wind up not getting ahead of the druid by much at all in the spell battle. As another example, look to undeath, which has circle of death and control undead. It's pretty tricky getting full feat value and full spell value at the same time. 

[phaedrusxy]

It's pretty tricky getting full feat value and full spell value at the same time.

With the Time domain being a notable exception.

[SorO_Lost]

A wild cohort isn't really on the same power level as a companion, especially as you progress up in level.

Seriously?

The animal companion is a big part of what makes the druid the most powerful class at first level,

So which is it?

Btw, I'm the one that brought up Aberrant Wild Shape, as a Divine Minion Cleric which gets Wild Shape three levels sooner (with an HD cap six levels higher) than a Druid when they can finally use it. And for such a "sweet" Feats, you also skimmed past Natural Spell being Feat tax and then there is this

It's also notable that the domain based feat thing often leads to lower quality spells. Like, you pick up the planning domain, and you wind up with a rather mediocre set of new spells (looks like clairaudience/clairsentience and detect scrying, and that's it), and you wind up not getting ahead of the druid by much at all in the spell battle. As another example, look to undeath, which has circle of death and control undead. It's pretty tricky getting full feat value and full spell value at the same time.

Undeath gives Extra Turning, it's one of the top Domains to consider for any DMM(persist) Cleric so you literally get great Spells and an amazing feat, nice example. And hell, you missed freaking Time Stop from the Planning Domain too.

Would you like a redo?

[eggynack]

With the Time domain being a notable exception.

It seems like a good domain, but I dunno that I'd call improved initiative "full feat value". The core question is whether an optimized cleric would actually spend a feat slot on the thing being gained, and I think the answer in this case is no. I could be wrong though, if the cleric feat situation is really that bad after you get past DMM stuff. I know that'd never show up on a list of good druid feats that looks outside of core (even while it'd absolutely show up on a list in only core or with a limited quantity of additional books).

Seriously?

So which is it?

It's both. The companion is most potent at first level, and the cohort does capture that potency, but it's still quite useful for a lot of the game's run past that, especially if you use a fleshraker or similarly high quality creature, and the wild cohort fails to capture that later potency, slowing as soon as level three. You're basically trading away future power to capture the same sort of power the druid has at level one.

Btw, I'm the one that brought up Aberrant Wild Shape, as a Divine Minion Cleric which gets Wild Shape three levels sooner (with an HD cap six levels higher) than a Druid when they can finally use it. And for such a "sweet" Feats, you also skimmed past Natural Spell being Feat tax and then there is this

Given that you're eating caster levels, divine minion seems a pretty bad deal to me. As for natural spell, it's far less a feat tax than DMM, which eats far more resources at the best of times. Besides, a druid can pull together pretty much all the amazing feats they want, even with that tax. You usually don't want more than one amazing summoning or form adding feat, after all. Druids are kinda interesting like that, in that they tend to have amazing feats for most of their slots (I find you sometimes put in an initiate feat or something into one of the last couple slots), and yet limited quantities of slot shortage.

Undeath gives Extra Turning, it's one of the top Domains to consider for any DMM(persist) Cleric so you literally get great Spells and an amazing feat, nice example. And hell, you missed freaking Time Stop from the Planning Domain too.

Undeath is one of the things I was talking about as a feat based domain, rather than a spell based one. I don't really think the undeath spells are all that great. Telling me it has a feat is completely pointless. And I did miss time stop, but it doesn't really change evaluation much. Things by that point are already past the singularity.

Edit: Also, on the cohort, the feature may just be better on a druid than on a cleric. Druids get those BFC's which are at their best when you have some melee to make use of it, and buffs which work well with a companion like enrage animal or mass snake's swiftness. The companion just seems to fit their style better.

Double-edit: I forgot that aberration wild shape is also way worse on clerics, because of the lack of enhance wild shape. I guess you have to pick up assume supernatural ability, which isn't the absolute worse but it's not as good as the druid's ability to do this stuff with minimal effort. Moreover, unless you have dragon magazine, I don't think this is even a usable trick. As I recall, there's a dragon feat that replaces aberrant blood for non-humanoids, but if you lack that resource you're stuck with the humanoid only aberrant blood. And, given that you're using a template that makes you an outsider, it's not a feat you can pick up.

[Ice9]

Depends on the optimization levels.  I'll do the easiest one first:
No-holds-barred TO: Everyone has unlimited power, so both classes are effectively identical.

At very low-op - as in, "Spells are too complicated, wild shape is too complicated, I just want to hit things", then it come down to whether the Druid:
1) Picks a combat-type companion.
2) Remembers to use it.
If so, the Druid wins, otherwise the Cleric does by having better armor.

Normal low-op, the Druid usually wins by having an animal companion and having more "fixed effect" spells, rather than multiplicative stuff like buffs.  But in individual cases a Cleric could be better.

Mid-op is hard to make a statement about, it depends on what the table considers reasonable.  "DMM: Persist and win" requires a lot less dumpster-diving than optimal Wild Shape or Summoning use, but is also a move that some tables would consider too cheesy, while not complaining about the latter.

High-op means that summons are likely becoming less effective.  But Wild Shape still works quite nicely.  So before 9th-level spells are on the table, I think Druid has the advantage, because it's easier to grab Turning for DMM than it is to grab Wild Shape.  But once Shapechange is in use, Wild Shape becomes somewhat obsolete - barring Planar Shepherd anyway.

[KellKheraptis]

The number one deciding factor, all things being equal, is the ease of gaining the real game-breakers from the Sor/Wiz list, which goes to the Cleric.  Also, a high op Cleric will be able to spam/cast/use those game breakers from within an AMF they are immune to.  Combine with more divination and I think that's an advantage a Druid will have a hard time matching.

[SorO_Lost]

and the wild cohort fails to capture that later potency, slowing as soon as level three.

Who cares if Wild Cohart doesn't scale at the same rate.

Your original point of saying Animal Companion at the 1st level is useful was right, because in a higher level game the Cleric's undead hydra army beats the ever living shit out of the combined Voltronbot made out of every single Animal Companion printed, advanced with Druid 20th bonuses, and slapped together in an amalgamation of fur, teeth and claws. And my rebuttal to that was the Cleric can spend a feat to walk away with both.

Sort of like how the point on Divine Minion. One the best things the Druid offers can be over half stolen for +1 LA and get it sooner & more advanced than the Druid does. And that's pretty much how the rest of the posts go. If you make any attempt to optimize or play smart, the Cleric pwns period. But if you play dumb, the Durid has a use. In other words, in a very specific set of circumstances that greatly favor playing a Druid, the Druid is better. Well no kidding. 

Well, if spells are too complicated I hear the Barbarian doesn't have any and it's totally noob friendly. It's pretty hard to screw up using that class for what anyone could expect out of it...

[Ice9]

Sort of like how the point on Divine Minion. One the best things the Druid offers can be over half stolen for +1 LA and get it sooner & more advanced than the Druid does.

I knew I forgot something: what extent of material is allowed - core only, physical WotC books only, web content, 3rd party, homebrew.

I'm pretty sure that "core only" favors the Druid more.  I'm less sure, but still going to guess that, allowing web/3rd party/homebrew content favors the Cleric more.

Edit: Also, setting specific stuff - Initiate of Mystra is a "killer app" for Clerics that other classes have a hard time duplicating.  Dweomerkeeper too.  On the flip side, there's Planar Shepherd.

[eggynack]

Who cares if Wild Cohart doesn't scale at the same rate.

Your original point of saying Animal Companion at the 1st level is useful was right, because in a higher level game the Cleric's undead hydra army beats the ever living shit out of the combined Voltronbot made out of every single Animal Companion printed, advanced with Druid 20th bonuses, and slapped together in an amalgamation of fur, teeth and claws. And my rebuttal to that was the Cleric can spend a feat to walk away with both.

There's a gulf of territory between first level, where the animal companion is outclassing same level melee folks, and 20th level, where the companion is completely irrelevant. In particular, say, 4th level, where you have a fleshraker making a meaningful impact, or one level subsequent, where a venomfire using fleshraker is making even more meaningful impact. Your wild cohort, unlike the animal companion, does not maintain much in the way of real value as you level, which makes it a not all that useful way to spend a feat in the long term. So, the answer is that I care, and care quite a bit.
 

Sort of like how the point on Divine Minion. One the best things the Druid offers can be over half stolen for +1 LA and get it sooner & more advanced than the Druid does. And that's pretty much how the rest of the posts go. If you make any attempt to optimize or play smart, the Cleric pwns period. But if you play dumb, the Durid has a use. In other words, in a very specific set of circumstances that greatly favor playing a Druid, the Druid is better. Well no kidding.

Are you just straight up ignoring all the points against this? Without form adding feats, you get an incredibly limited set of forms, which means, of course, that you have to look at the form adding feats you do get. Unless we're looking all the way out to dragon magazine, you can't really take aberration wild shape, because aberration blood is limited to humanoid type, a thing lost by divine minion, and while dragon wild shape and exalted wild shape are decent, they're both significantly less potent and require a rather high level. And, even if you do manage to get aberration wild shape, you lack the access to enhance wild shape that makes the feat so amazing on a druid. Without these things, your wild shape is pretty craptacular, and you're spending a caster level on it.

Your claim that optimization somehow gives clerics ultimate victory is similarly ridiculous. Druids have an excellent spell list, one capable of doing most things that a cleric can and quite a few that a cleric can't. A druid may be missing some things natively, but it's trivial to make up the difference through the use of feats and prestige classes (and non-shepherd ones at that). Druids, after all, are the ones with a variety of teleportation options, the ability to cast spontaneous earthquakes out of 6th level slots, and even the insanity offered by summon fey if you're so inclined, along with such classics as control wind, heart of water, and friendly fire.

[SorO_Lost]

I knew I forgot something: what extent of material is allowed - core only, physical WotC books only, web content, 3rd party, homebrew.

Worst smart ass ever. Hydras are core, and hell the Divine Minion is free content provided on WotC's website. Greenbound Summoning, pretty much the only defending argument outside of Eggnack's circumstances and double standards*, on the other hand is buried in Lost Empires of Faerun. Which means you need paid splat to pull if off, and it's technically not even applicable in the official Gray Hawk, Dragonlance, or Ebberon Campaign settings without the frequently assumed houserules that you can combine them (well technically divine minion is FR too but you get the undermine here I hope), and the author (well, at least someone claiming to be him?) who wrote the Feat has outright said it was written as a +2 Metamagic Feat. So uhh, great point that meaningfully contributes in a helpful way?

(click to show/hide)

Are you just straight up ignoring all the points against this? Without form adding feats, you get an incredibly limited set of forms,

However, I think that may be changing somewhat, with more advanced optimization technology. Aberration wild shape is absolutely absurd, allowing access to a smorgasbord of incredibly powerful abilities for only two feats and an occasional enhance wild shape casting,

And, while numerous domains add feats, few of those feats are on the same power level as druid accessible feats like greenbound summoning or aberration wild shape.

Besides, a druid can pull together pretty much all the amazing feats they want, even with that tax. You usually don't want more than one amazing summoning or form adding feat, after all. Druids are kinda interesting like that, in that they tend to have amazing feats for most of their slots (I find you sometimes put in an initiate feat or something into one of the last couple slots), and yet limited quantities of slot shortage.

I you want eggynack to stop relying on Aberrant Wild Shape to make a point, just bring up how your side of the debate can use it too and he'll tell you how much your side sucks if they didn't have it.

Unless we're looking all the way out to dragon magazine, you can't really take aberration wild shape, because aberration blood is limited to humanoid type, a thing lost by divine minion

Minor nitppick. In the rules you only need to meet prerequisites to select and use a Feat, even if you later fail to meet the prerequisites of Aberration Blood you don't lose the actual Feat.

And Aberration Wild Shape doesn't care if you can use Aberration Blood, only that you have it. Unless of course, you want to play by a perception of what's intended. Like the writer's comment on Greenbound maybe?

[eggynack]

I you want eggynack to stop relying on Aberrant Wild Shape to make a point, just bring up how your side of the debate can use it too and he'll tell you how much you side suck if they didn't have it.

But the problem is, your side doesn't have it to the same extent. Clerics would, I suppose, rely on assume supernatural ability. Meanwhile, druids have enhance wild shape, which enables a far more complicated and versatile selection of cheese that doesn't take a feat. Also, you again need to drop a caster level for this, which is "Breaking the cardinal rule of high optimization," bad. You're taking a second action each round, while a druid is doing that, casting across the ethereal plane, gaining immunity to magic, gaining immunity to piles of other things, gaining ridiculous vision modes, or taking other crazy forms with other crazy abilities. Where this subject is concerned, the druid can go where the cleric cannot follow, at least not without heavy investment. That the druid also happens to have a wide variety of strong animal (like dire tortoise), plant (like myconid sovereign), and occasionally elemental (I guess air, though this is honestly not a big selling point) forms also seems rather relevant.

[eggynack]

I you want eggynack to stop relying on Aberrant Wild Shape to make a point, just bring up how your side of the debate can use it too and he'll tell you how much you side suck if they didn't have it.

But the problem is, your side doesn't have it to the same extent. Clerics would, I suppose, rely on assume supernatural ability. Meanwhile, druids have enhance wild shape, which enables a far more complicated and versatile selection of cheese that doesn't take a feat. Also, you again need to drop a caster level for this, which is "Breaking the cardinal rule of high optimization" bad. You're taking a second action each round, while a druid is doing that, casting across the ethereal plane, gaining immunity to magic, gaining immunity to piles of other things, gaining ridiculous vision modes, or taking other crazy forms with other crazy abilities. Where this subject is concerned, the druid can go where the cleric cannot follow, at least not without heavy investment. That the druid also happens to have a wide variety of strong animal (like dire tortoise), plant (like myconid sovereign), and occasionally elemental (I guess air, though this is honestly not a big selling point) forms also seems rather relevant.

[KellKheraptis]

All of that is irrelevant, even at 10 turns to 1 from Planar Shepherd (which is kinda subsumed by Planar Bubble...which Clerics can get easily enough), when said high-op Cleric is immune to HP damage, in Ethergaunt form because 5 levels of Divine Disciple make him an outsider (giving the Sor/Wiz list), and buffed to the 9s with persistextend tech a la Divine Metamagic and the Priest of Mystra freebie inside his own AMF at likely twice or at least 1.5 the CL of the druid.

Can a druid match the form?  Sure.  The buffs?  Yep.  But Mystra-crack trumps planar traits, especially when they can roll it into their repertoire just as easily.  At high end op, Cleric wins, hands down.  It takes a TBS to take one down, and I have yet to see (or for that matter try to build) a druid TBS.

[SorO_Lost]

Also, you again need to drop a caster level for this, which is "Breaking the cardinal rule of high optimization" bad.

Hmm, is that
Reification (hypostatization) – a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a "real thing" something that is not a real thing, but merely an idea.
or
False authority (single authority) – using an expert of dubious credentials or using only one opinion to sell a product or idea. Related to the appeal to authority fallacy.
Because honestly, I don't consider Caelic's intentionally joking post some type of authoritative reference or that assuming an absolute is the correct way to go about things. Like I think what should really be asked is if 11 levels of Wild Shape is worth 1CL, and judging how you're so threatened by it I can think of at least two people that'd agree that it is.

Anyway eggy, it's been fun but things are done. I mean the whole double standard on buffing Wild Shape, which you're right back into doing, could have been an idiot's mistake. But this

You're taking a second action each round, while a druid is doing that, casting across the ethereal plane, gaining immunity to magic, gaining immunity to piles of other things, gaining ridiculous vision modes, or taking other crazy forms with other crazy abilities. Where this subject is concerned, the druid can go where the cleric cannot follow, at least not without heavy investment.

Was full on retarded.

Every single one of those listed things can be recrunched to only a few Spells the Cleric, and not the Druid, has and the Druid can't even directly deliver on any of it. Like extra turns? Dire Turtle gives one extra Surprise Round not multiple turns, so you have to use Assume Supernatural Ability(quickness) & Aberration Wild Shape for a Druid to land multiple turns. How is that comparable to Eyes of the Oracle's bonus Ready Actions every round? Or Domain Access to Celerity, Contingency, and Time Stop? How about the hundreds of turns to one round advantage that the Planar Bubble Spell offers the Cleric, but again not the Druid, gets?

And spell immunity? The Druid gets Freedom of Movement & Deathward, well so does the Cleric except the Cleric also gets the Protection from X Spells, Antimagic Field, Golem Immunity (literally spell immunity), Domain access to Mind Blank, and dozens of Save buffing Spells. Enhanced sight? You know what's better than seeing Invisible People (oh, that's a cleric spell & not druid thing too)? Being able to Scry on them form miles away or asking your Deity what the heck someone else is up to or casting a Spell that lets you auto-detect or ding the location of whatever you feel like looking for, and even if you don't know what you want hell the Cleric has spells that'll help with that too. And ffs how is the Druid even getting to the Ethereal Plane? Ethereal Jaunt is a Cleric/Arcane Spell and so Planesshift & Gate, they are not Druid Spells either.

It's like you're just shouting words into the air and hoping you can later find an Aberration or Dragon with the ability to use the things you claimed through a two Feat chain and some how missed every single thing you brought up represents a fraction of the Cleric's daily spell choice that often doesn't even require a specific Domain to completely out perform in a given area.

Edit - And now that I think of it, I can't help but notice the total lack of building, buffing, and supporting minions in your examples. So I guess you learned something new today.

[eggynack]

Hmm, is that
Reification (hypostatization) – a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a "real thing" something that is not a real thing, but merely an idea.
or
False authority (single authority) – using an expert of dubious credentials or using only one opinion to sell a product or idea. Related to the appeal to authority fallacy.
Because honestly, I don't consider Caelic's intentionally joking post some type of authoritative reference or that assuming an absolute is the correct way to go about things. Like I think what should really be asked is if 11 levels of Wild Shape is worth 1CL, and judging how you're so threatened by it I can think of at least two people that'd agree that it is.

I think his stance is a rather reasonable one, joking or not. Ditching caster levels puts you behind on the most powerful metric that exists in the game. Wild shape is important, and turn undead is too, but that's all secondary to the all consuming power that is spells. It doesn't matter if you think it's an authoritative source or not. All that matters is whether he's right, and while it's certainly true that there are things worth a caster level, it's still a massive cost. A massive cost that you're taking, which the druid is not taking. Sure, maybe it's optimal for the cleric to pay that cost, but you're going behind in casting to match the druid's power in this area, and I think that lends the cleric a big disadvantage.

 The druid, meanwhile, tends to steal tricks from the cleric in ways that don't compromise their caster level overmuch, with stuff like holt warden plus contemplative giving full slots and all access to the spell domain, or the various methods of getting turning (which I don't honestly feel are all that worth it). Whether you value a caster level as highly as Caelic claimed to or not, the fact remains that it is still one of the highest costs that exists in the game. And if you're paying it to access druid stuff, well, I feel like that says something good for druid stuff.

Anyway eggy, it's been fun but things are done. I mean the whole double standard on buffing Wild Shape, which you're right back into doing, could have been an idiot's mistake. But this
Was full on retarded.

It would be "retarded", as you say, had I no citations to back me up. But I, y'know, do have citations, as you'll see below.

Every single one of those listed things can be recrunched to only a few Spells the Cleric, and not the Druid, has and the Druid can't even directly deliver on any of it. Like extra turns? Dire Turtle gives one extra Surprise Round not multiple turns, so you have to use Assume Supernatural Ability(quickness) & Aberration Wild Shape for a Druid to land multiple turns.

Except that's not what I'm doing. Instead, I'm taking nilshai form from unapproachable east and using enhance wild shape for its wonky partial action thing, an ability which explicitly grants extra cating.

How is that comparable to Eyes of the Oracle's bonus Ready Actions every round? Or Domain Access to Celerity, Contingency, and Time Stop? How about the hundreds of turns to one round advantage that the Planar Bubble Spell offers the Cleric, but again not the Druid, gets?

Very comparable to most of the non-bubble things, I think. But, at that point, I think we're in shepherd territory, where otherwise I'd generally avoid it in optimization discussions for being too ridiculous, and druids can definitely access that shtick through that method.

And spell immunity? The Druid gets Freedom of Movement & Deathward, well so does the Cleric except the Cleric also gets the Protection from X Spells, Antimagic Field, Golem Immunity (literally spell immunity), Domain access to Mind Blank, and dozens of Save buffing Spells.

No, we're getting actual magic immunity. As in from the will-o'-wisp. Druids also kinda get protection from X in the form of protection from winged fliers, if that means anything to you, though will-o'-wisp is really where it's at.

Enhanced sight? You know what's better than seeing Invisible People (oh, that's a cleric spell & not druid thing too)? Being able to Scry on them form miles away or asking your Deity what the heck someone else is up to or casting a Spell that lets you auto-detect or ding the location of whatever you feel like looking for, and even if you don't know what you want hell the Cleric has spells that'll help with that too.

Druids also have scry, and in a lower level form than clerics have. They also have teleportation spells, which I'm pretty sure clerics don't have much of natively. However, on the point of enhanced sight, I wasn't speaking simply of see invisible. I mean something like the dolgaunt from the eberron campaign setting's 360 ft. blindsight, or the ethergaunt from the fiend folio's total vision, the latter having much smaller radius but notably also the ability to pierce darkstalker.

And ffs how is the Druid even getting to the Ethereal Plane? Ethereal Jaunt is a Cleric/Arcane Spell and so Planesshift & Gate, they are not Druid Spells either.

Dharculus form from the planar handbook. Seriously, when I say I'm doing this all with aberration wild shape combined with enhance wild shape, you should probably just assume that's what I'm doing.

It's like you're just shouting words into the air and hoping you can later find an Aberration or Dragon with the ability to use the things you claimed through a two Feat chain and some how missed every single thing you brought up represents a fraction of the Cleric's daily spell choice that often doesn't even require a specific Domain to completely out perform in a given area.

No, I'm actually making claims based upon massive amounts of research into the topic. Research which I sometimes forget this site wasn't massively party to, given I mostly hang out on Giantitp. Your loss, I suppose.

Edit - And now that I think of it, I can't help but notice the total lack of building, buffing, and supporting minions in your examples. So I guess you learned something new today.

What kinda minions are you looking for here? My favorite druid minion is probably the fey ring derived siabrie, followed by animate with the spirit for a movanic deva, and then summon fey for a pixie if you want to go cheesy. Also, as always, aberration wild shape gets some of this too, this time with the deepspawn from lost empires of faerun. Granted, clerics probably do better in the field of complicated minions, but there are some ways for druids to play that game with some efficiency.

[SorO_Lost]

Really eggy?

*sigh*
It's no secret that I consider GitP to be one of the worst forums to discussion rules on and that I consider it's entire user base to be full of profession baiting trolls but can do not contribute to that image? I mean really, you've slide back and forth on a few things and just now tried playing the card of being some competent well researched knowledgeable guy on the subject someplace else. I'd love to meet this guy, when do I get to meet him?

Anyway, a couple "helpful" things for you. Most of your post is dedicated to how specific build - A planar druid with 5 specific feats, maybe six - is trying to push how the Durid's none-spell Features compensate for the Cleric's superior Spellcasting and it overlooks how you can't be in multiple forms at once. Like you want to be 15th level and turn into an Etherealgaunt to see creatures combined with Will-O-Wisps turtling because-blocking-is-supposed-to-be-winning. When you're your stance is something like that, never, ever, post something like this

Wild shape is important, and turn undead is too, but that's all secondary to the all consuming power that is spells.

But another thing is this

Very comparable to most of the non-bubble things, I think. But, at that point, I think we're in shepherd territory, where otherwise I'd generally avoid it in optimization discussions for being too ridiculous, and druids can definitely access that shtick through that method.

I think you really need to understand the Planar Shepard.

The Shepard can manifest the traits of a single Plane, the choice is permanently made when you obtain your first level and cannot be changed without rebuilding. The effect requires Concentration, a Standard Action each round, and as a Supernatural Ability you cannot use something like Swift Concentration because that only works with Spells. The duration is 1d10 rounds the moment you spend that Standard Action to attack or cast a Spell. So in effect, to directly benefit from it and anything other than being limited to AoOs a Planar Shepard has to Quicken every Spell they cast which also means the Spells they put out are four Spell levels, or eight Class Levels, behind par or invest into a triple Feat chain and pay the Feat tax of Natural Spell and permanently remain in a single low level form.

And yes I mean triple Feat chain. There is no such thing as a Partial Action in 3.5, stuff that granted Partial Actions like Haste were nerfed to +1 attack during a Full-Attack so your "research" into the Nilshai is none existent. Sort of like how you brought up the Etherealgaunt thinking usually bypasses Spot/Listen checks to notice creatures is the same thing as seeing Invisible Creatures even through Spot/Listen cannot negate Total-Concealment. So you're going to need something like Assume Supernatural Ability(quickness) with Abberation Wild Shape(choker) to pull it off, through other form variants exist.

In the absolute best case, this specific build of around 15 Class Levels and six Feats when optimized can pull off a 10:1 Standard Action ratio. Comparatively, the real power house casters of D&D, the Cleric/Wiard/Sorcerer, can use the actual Planar Bubble Spell with really zero investment. No Feats, no Class Levels, no dedicated build choices. They just use one of their Spells to call/enslave a tiny creature (or make one) and they have instant access. When it comes to turns they have a maximum potential of 240:1 which is totally hands free, so if they also use a trick for double actions this Spell is literally forty eight times better than the Planar Shepard. But there is also an added benefit, which the Shepard is permanently locked into a single plane each casting of the Spell allows you to select a new set of traits. Maybe using the Morphic Trait to freely reshape the environment will solve the none-combat obstacle better than extra turns will or maybe some of the several free Metamagic options will win out because you only have so many Slots per day and more boom per use is better in the long run. The Spell brings a superior grade of utility because it can do everything the locked in choice the Shepard can do, plus so much more.

[eggynack]

Really eggy?

*sigh*
It's no secret that I consider GitP to be one of the worst forums to discussion rules on and that I consider it's entire user base to be full of profession baiting trolls but can do not contribute to that image? I mean really, you've slide back and forth on a few things and just now tried playing the card of being some competent well researched knowledgeable guy on the subject someplace else. I'd love to meet this guy, when do I get to meet him?

You can have the opinions you like of the place, though for my money, I prefer the site where people don't toss around pointless insults and where the rate of posts is at least halfway reasonable. I haven't really waffled much at all, meanwhile, and I consider myself quite knowledgeable on the topic indeed, given that I've produced the most lengthy and detailed druid handbook in existence.

Anyway, a couple "helpful" things for you. Most of your post is dedicated to how specific build - A planar druid with 5 specific feats, maybe six - is trying to push how the Durid's none-spell Features compensate for the Cleric's superior Spellcasting and it overlooks how you can't be in multiple forms at once. Like you want to be 15th level and turn into an Etherealgaunt to see creatures combined with Will-O-Wisps turtling because-blocking-is-supposed-to-be-winning. When you're your stance is something like that, never, ever, post something like this

I never said you're using multiple forms at once. You use forms which suit the situation you're in. Will-o'-wisp against casters, ethergaunt against rogues, and nilshai when you just want some offense. And blocking is absolutely winning, at least when you're a druid. Druids have spells, after all.

Wild shape is important, and turn undead is too, but that's all secondary to the all consuming power that is spells.

Don't really see why I wouldn't post something like that. The main reason all that wild shape stuff is so great is because you have spells to back it up. As you yourself said, simple turtling doesn't win battles. Why should the enemy care that you're immune to magic? What are you even doing with your actions that makes getting more of them useful? The answer, of course, is spells. Nilshai is good for druids in a way it wouldn't be for, say, a wild shape ranger, because you have something great to do with that extra action. Everything really does come back down to spells in the end.

But another thing is this

Very comparable to most of the non-bubble things, I think. But, at that point, I think we're in shepherd territory, where otherwise I'd generally avoid it in optimization discussions for being too ridiculous, and druids can definitely access that shtick through that method.

I think you really need to understand the Planar Shepard.

The Shepard can manifest the traits of a single Plane, the choice is permanently made when you obtain your first level and cannot be changed without rebuilding. The effect requires Concentration, a Standard Action each round, and as a Supernatural Ability you cannot use something like Swift Concentration because that only works with Spells. The duration is 1d10 rounds the moment you spend that Standard Action to attack or cast a Spell. So in effect, to directly benefit from it and anything other than being limited to AoOs a Planar Shepard has to Quicken every Spell they cast which also means the Spells they put out are four Spell levels, or eight Class Levels, behind par or invest into a triple Feat chain and pay the Feat tax of Natural Spell and permanently remain in a single low level form.

1d10 rounds is more than sufficient when you're casting massive numbers of spells in that time. And, besides, if the dal quor plan really does fail, there's always that infinite wishing thing. Granted, everyone can infinitely wish trivially, but this is definitely one of the more direct methods. Planar shepherd is admittedly not the area of my greatest focus, but there's definitely some cheese you can pull off with it.

And yes I mean triple Feat chain. There is no such thing as a Partial Action in 3.5, stuff that granted Partial Actions like Haste were nerfed to +1 attack during a Full-Attack so your "research" into the Nilshai is none existent.

I'm aware that partial actions were removed, but the nilshai was never updated and is thus a fully legal creature as is. And, while we don't know exactly how a partial action is supposed to function when taken into the 3.5 environment, one thing we do know for certain is that you're allowed to cast spells during said action, because that's what the ability says in this case.

Sort of like how you brought up the Etherealgaunt thinking usually bypasses Spot/Listen checks to notice creatures is the same thing as seeing Invisible Creatures even through Spot/Listen cannot negate Total-Concealment.

Regardless of that line, the ability says you can discern all objects in range. The setup is admittedly a bit unclear given that word though.

Edit: Just checked swift concentration. It says, "You can maintain concentration on a spell or similar effect." Given that planar bubble is based on an actual spell, it seems like fair game to me. Seems to solve most problems with this issue.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

as an aside to KellK's idea ... some might
remember the various old-old threads like
a Monk-less Monk and a Fighter-less Fighter.

I wonder how hard it is to make a Druid-less Druid ?
Or a Cleric-less Cleric, and comparing the two.

I mean Cleric is somewhat easier with Archivist,
towns and access to all the same PrCs.