Fayne of Groves (Druid 38/Pal 1/Monk 1)

[felicity]

Posting this druid build here for self reference because I keep forgetting which feats to take, and probably get some feedbacks to improving the build.

Class: Druid 38/Pal 1/Monk 1

Race: Human Half-Celestial (40% xp pen I know... but I don't have Rilmani)

Starting Stats:
str 8
dex 12
con 14
int 12
wis 18 (24) +6
cha 8 (12) +4

Level Progression
1-19 druid
20 paladin
21-39 druid
40 monk (max disc and tumble at this level)

Book: Abjuration

Pre-Epic Feats
1. combat casting
2. silent spell
3. sf: trans
4. gr. sf: trans
5. sf: conj
6. gr. sf: conj
7. spell pen
8. gr. spell pen

Epic Feats
1. imp. combat casting
2. epic trans
3. epic conj
4. epic evo
5. epic pen
6. wis 1
7. wis 2

Druid Bonus Feats
1. wis 3
2. wis 4
3. wis 5
4. wis 6
5. wis 7
6. wis 8

Legendary Feats
1. L pen
2. L trans
3. L conj
4. epic reflex
5. gr. ruins
6. wis 9
7. wis 10

Saves @60
Fort 63
Reflex 59
Will -- (too high to bother)

Wis@60 = 66

Skill Points Allocation:
Total skill points = 376
concentration 63, heal 63, animal empathy 63, spellcraft 50, disc 43, parry 54, tumble 40

AC in light armor and large shield = 10 + 8 (tumble) + 25 (wis ac) + 7 (dex ac) + 19 (light armor) + 17 (large shield) + 17 (deflection) + 17 (natural) + 20 (dodge) = 140

Features:
- Max DC on trans and conj school.
- Have 4 epics - fraility, shunt, shroud and immute.
- Two casts of gr. ruins for instant killing power on nasty spawns like falx, brach, dogai etc.
- No AoO triggered from casting - ease of play.

[Rain]

Not sure if your druid is hell orientated, but personally i'd skip the legendery spell focus on conjuration and get epic spell focus: necromancy and armor skin instead. necromany for epic and as well for better dc in Infestation of Maggots
which helps both ur spell save check( fortitude decrease due to con decrease) and meleer's fighting feat like disarm( dicipline decrease).dc may be low for this spell but just a choice for ur lvl 3 spell slots unless u prep lots of mini shunt or silenced blood frenzy.

i'd skip greater ruin for empower spell as well cuz empower spell helps in both pre-LL runs and LL runs, like empowered firestorm before u get ur elemental swarm dice becomes d10(both for non- loot breaking reason), empowered crumble( thids), empowered drown( desert) and empowered icestorm( pre-LL runs as a spell to work on those monsters with (improved)evasion like drows), empowered healing circle. tho in hell empower spell will be less useful cuz u got nature balance and elemental swarm, or cast in stone if ur a stoner druid for ur lvl 8 and 9 spell slot.

just my thought cuz personally i donot like building chars for hell as the final goal so i may be wrong if that's what u focus on. anyway a nice build cuz personally i think HC is better for pally druid than scroll reading druid or u wonot make full use of the HC bonus.

[felicity]

Thanks for your comments.

It's built for hell specifically but it's doing well in any pre-hell areas. In LL areas I usually fill my level 8 with bombardment and level 9 with silented bombardment. This spell alone is sufficient for mass spell, I do not miss empower so far. Level 8 spellslots are too precious to be slotted with empowered crumble. In general bombardment will do more damage on failed save and it's an aoe attack. I find filling level 6 and level 7 with drown sufficient in most cases.

I took conjuration because of 3 spells - grease (ignore sr and kd), stonehold (immobilize and flatfoot) and elemental swarms. Elemental swarms is one of the best mass spell in game. Crowd control and aoe damage all in one school, would be a shame to miss it.

[Rain]

i donot use bombardment too much considering it loot-breaking except for places like Myconid, Uroboros. but for these runs, i found harm series work faster.
empower for per-LL runs is the best. u may need empowered flamestrike, icestorm for say zhent assasins, web lvl2, drow assasins in xul/lolth. now that your focus on hell, it's been less that essensial as you said.
for conjuration focus, i said "personally" cuz grease and stonehold are too much for my graphic card especially in hell. grease dc is actually pretty low, i only used it in sissy run as far as i can remember. it penetrates spell mantle series without sr check that's all i used it for. and btw, storm of vengeance does help too on bridge if u got those foci.
i'm now thinking of a stoner druid for hell cuz i could stone well there even with a non-dc druid but elemental swarm is still there as lvl 9.

[johannhowitzer]

but personally i'd skip the legendery spell focus on conjuration and get epic spell focus: necromancy and armor skin instead.

Armor skin is nigh useless for druids with monk splash. Your AC is already so high that the only thing that will get you in trouble is standing flat foot or being knocked down.

i'd skip greater ruin for empower spell as well cuz empower spell helps in both pre-LL runs and LL runs,

Main reason for skipping Ruin is the DC. Druids don't rely on DC as much as other casters, and typical druids will have lower wisdom than typical clerics; thus Ruin is better left to those classes. You might get lucky with it on a hard mob, but I can't see that being worth a whole feat.

Crumbles might be a little useful for Thids but you'll be using Bombards more there; Crumble shines the most against the S'gobs in Ssithrak, the orb on the bridge at the end of Ssithrak, and the Machines in Hell. For the Machines, the instant kill will rarely go off; rather, you want to be using Crumble to decrease their fort saves so Implosions will hit more often - which means they don't have to be empowered.

Bombardment is a vastly underrated druid spell. A lot of people don't like it because it breaks loot and epic walls, but that is part of the challenge of playing a druid. Good druids can cast bombardment from inside epic wall without breaking it, and good druids know to pop loot before using lootbreakers. At the cost of 1 SP and DC, Bombardment gets ALL the damage of Meteor Swarm, can be used twice as often due to being meta-able, and is long range, meaning you don't have to stand in the middle of a group of mobs to get the best effect.

- No AoO triggered from casting - ease of play.

Having played a druid to demi without ICC, I can safely say you don't really need it. Druids benefit the least from avoiding AoO, since they hardly get hit with their AC in the first place. You'll get hit by other stuff, but not often by physical attacks. If you're building for Hells, drop CC, ICC, and maybe LSF conjuration, and get another epic. You could even drop two Great Wisdoms for something if you seem a little cramped.

On that topic, Dust to Dust is nice in some instances, but Illusion is also an option for the physical inflicts on Creeping Doom (aka the Boss-Killer). Many things in Hell are immune to petrification, and the duration isn't great. That's more of a play style choice though.

[mishimayukio]

Jul 7, 2008 1:34:18 GMT johannhowitzer said:

Druids don't rely on DC as much as other casters

Utter nonsense, DC is actually more important for druids than it is for say a wizard or sorcerer. In the hells(the serpent's coil most notably), nature's balance should be applied to every monster with SR above 73(almost all of them), especially now that bard song doesn't lower SR any more. Drown, stonehold, cast in stone, and grease are also excellent crowd control spells that should not be ignored.

[chirikov]

Jul 7, 2008 1:34:18 GMT johannhowitzer said:

Main reason for skipping Ruin is the DC.

this is a little odd, considering one of the main benefits of greater ruin is that the dc is not dependent on any stat. a druid with two splash classes gets a dc of 63, which is excellent

[johannhowitzer]

this is a little odd, considering one of the main benefits of greater ruin is that the dc is not dependent on any stat. a druid with two splash classes gets a dc of 63, which is excellent

Ah, I've never seen any HG documentation for the source of Ruin's DC, and it's never come up in conversation. I thought primary caster ability score played a part.

Utter nonsense, DC is actually more important for druids than it is for say a wizard or sorcerer. In the hells(the serpent's coil most notably), nature's balance should be applied to every monster with SR above 73(almost all of them), especially now that bard song doesn't lower SR any more. Drown, stonehold, cast in stone, and grease are also excellent crowd control spells that should not be ignored.

This I can blame on my long absence. Back when I used to play (and I haven't been to the Hells since returning), Bardsong did lower SR, and my druid was expected to NB only some mobs. Also Cast in Stone had not been implemented, Drown was usually overshadowed by implosion (so I used other more useful spells), and Grease was rarely called for. I guess things have changed a lot; that's part of the reason I passed up some Hells parties when I'd just returned.

Back when I played my druid, NB worked on a lot of things but usually on very low rolls, and my druid has very respectable DC, even artifact. In my Hells runs, DC wasn't paramount - NB was unreliable anyway and I'd usually try it in large groups, so a few of the wanted mobs would get tagged with it after a little spam. Elemental Swarm was the typical spam spell, and it could scatter quite a bit of damage even on mobs making saves (and I hear it's been nerfed somewhat). Crumble didn't have a good success rate and just pushed the fort on machines lower for implosions, with the occasional lucky kill for spice.

Thanks for the update, Mish. I stand corrected.

[chirikov]

from the spell changes thread:

Greater Ruin
- Does 70d6 damage to the target.
- Receives an extra use per day at 50 base Spellcraft.
- When cast using the feat, the target must make a Fortitude save against a DC of (CL + 5) or be reduced to quivering jelly.
- To be immune to this effect, the target must be immune to mind spells, death magic, the Implosion spell, and be immune to critical hits or have a Parry skill of 100 or higher.

[felicity]

Thanks for your share johann.

Illusion focus is very good indeed, but I find illusion draughts sufficient for the very few situations where I need the maximum phyiscal vulnerabaility effect from creeping doom. In most other circumstances in which it calls for a creeping doom, I find the focus from staff good enough.

As for dropping ICC, you are probably right tho like you said it depends on player and playstyle. I like to wade into crowd and spam spells aggressively, so I very often trigger lots of AoO - even I have high enough ac, I will get hit still by autohit due to the number of AoO I generate, thus a good chance of disrupting my spell.