A few of my druid suggestions

[riexau]

It looks like I'll be capping my druid tonight or tomorrow. Before I go and TR again, I thought I'd post my thoughts while the life is still fresh in my mind.

** I'd like to state that this life has been a blast to play. The druid class has a lot of fun/unique mechanics that are quite enjoyable. That said, onto the list.

- Enhancements are a bit expensive. Maybe consider a 2/2/2/2 progression instead of 1/2/3/4? (or 2/3/4/5 in some cases)
- Reincarnation cast time 'might' be a touch long.
- Call lightning storm cast time is too long or duration too short.
- Word of balance would be much better if it didn't have a SR check. (Also, tooltip needs to be fixed)
- Spring resurgence should be undispellable.
- Maybe change the targetting for spring of resurgence, so it can be used while moving? (PlayerX instead of loc x/y/z)
- Druid of summer/winter should be undispellable and persist through death.
- Maybe make crown of summer use the FVS name champion/crown of retribution system? Losing 15% healing amp because someone randomly gives me a weapon buff makes me a sad panda.
- Wolf form: I'd love if the tooltip, buff mouseover and character sheet all said the same thing. And they were an actual representation of in game damage.
- The pet has a leeching bite enhancement. That would make a pretty cool druid wolf-form enhancement.
- Elemental forms: 200% fortification WAI?
- Passive past life: Just another step towards completionist for me, but it'd be nice if it granted the druid himself a benefit. I suggested a passive hp regen in another thread, but there are lots of ideas floating around.
- Druid pet: 25% hp and sp loss on pet death is harsh. Fluffy is so squishy. A way to toughen him up, or an uncaring master enhancement, or reduce the 25% please!

That's at the forefront of my mind right now. I'll probably add to this tonight/tomorrow when I hit 20.

Thanks.

[dterror]

It looks like I'll be capping my druid tonight or tomorrow. Before I go and TR again, I thought I'd post my thoughts while the life is still fresh in my mind.

** I'd like to state that this life has been a blast to play. The druid class has a lot of fun/unique mechanics that are quite enjoyable. That said, onto the list.

-- Reincarnation cast time 'might' be a touch long.
- Word of balance would be much better if it didn't have a SR check. (Also, tooltip needs to be fixed)
- Maybe change the targetting for spring of resurgence, so it can be used while moving? (PlayerX instead of loc x/y/z)
- Druid pet: 25% hp and sp loss on pet death is harsh. Fluffy is so squishy. A way to toughen him up, or an uncaring master enhancement, or reduce the 25% please!

MIGHT be a touch long? Understatement of the year there.

Word of Balance, a spell meant for pure damage, definitely should NOT have an SR check. SR checks were removed from Wiz spells that were primarily for damage, now fix WoB please.

Lost the heal so many times now while trying to avoid traps that can't be shut off and hustling to the next safe spot. (Pit, I'm looking at you!!)

Fluffy is squishy, yes, but a lot less so if you have a crafter. Getting the best tiered leather armor you can and adding fort and/or ac to it helps a lot. Being a caster build with the -hate enhancements on Fluffy helps too. Everything goes after me, leaving Fluffy to get sneak and flank attacks in. Fluffy with a melee oriented druid is very squishy though and needs toughening up.

[Dolphious]

Good ideas, here are a few more for the devs to consider:

Flame blade: Love the idea, but right now it's just too weak. Reduced cost to 5, or even 1sp (so switching between it and a caster stick is less costly). Add radiance at lvl 5, keen at 10, radiant burst at 15, and greater incineration at 20. That will put it more in line with a decent weapon at those levels and it will still have major disatvantage of doing minimal damage to the many fire-immune creatures so will still be quite inferior to actual melee investment.

Storm of vengeance: fix duration to match description (now it's only 30 secs), allow to be extended, follow caster around like lightning storm (it's a lvl 9 spell... right now it's weaker than firewall for a higher cost...)

Lightning storm: allow to be extended (I think allowing these to be extended would make extend an interesting option for a druid, but not a "must have," just where it should be)

Ice flowers: up the damage, reduce the cost, and/or remove the save. Right now it's a really weak, evadable AoE that costs as much as your persistent AoEs, and can only be used in one form. Even better scrap it and replace it with something cooler (literally and figuratively), maybe some kind of freezing aura with a fort save or be frozen.

Elemental forms: +2 CL +30 SP to main element, -2 CL -30 SP to opposition element, no mod to the other two elements (earth and air for the current water/fire forms)

Protection from elements and mass PfE should be added to the druid spell list. really, why isn't it on there?

Mass death ward. Make it level 9 if you have to, but really, it's a convenience thing it doesn't add much real power.

Anger of the noon day sun: 2% fort reduction? really? 10% is about the bare min to be noticed. -10% fort, -10 FR.

Season herald: 10 mins per season, switchable every 12. It's a neat idea, but right now it's just too uncontrollably to be useful.

Spellpower enhancements: just make them in line with wiz/sorc. I thought you guys were moving AWAY From the silly increased cost for the same gain mechanic? Troubling to see you use this mechanic on a NEW class, I hope it's not a sign of things to come with the enhancement pass.

The class is really a lot of fun, and there's a lot of great ideas in there, but it *needs* tweaking to be a viable end game class. I hope you consider these suggestions

[Vesuvium]

Thanks for the feedback! Some useful stuff in here.

- Word of balance would be much better if it didn't have a SR check. (Also, tooltip needs to be fixed)

What problem are you seeing with the tooltip, just to make sure I'm on the same page?

[riexau]

Thanks for the feedback! Some useful stuff in here.


What problem are you seeing with the tooltip, just to make sure I'm on the same page?

The description says it does 5-8 damage per two levels.

Then right in the next paragraph it says: In DND dice d8+6 per 2 levels.

d8+6 = 7-14

[dragons1ayer74]

In additon to many of the good ideas listed above many of the druid spells with durations seem far too short allowing extend on many of them or doing a spell pass to extend the spell as the caster rises in level would be helpful:

-All healing over time (Vigor, Regen, plus mass versions)
-Storm Spells (Lightning Storm, Storm of Veng)
-Area of Effect Spells (Earthquake, Spike Growth, Entangle, etc)
-Some form spells (Rising Fury, Unstoppable , etc)

[Ertay]

There was much more in depth criticism going on in the druid are weak thread, maybe chiming in there would be appreciated as well. The general consensus there was, that caster forms are too weak to be viable at endgame anyway, so the only viable option would be wolf melee with full feat investment in doublestrikes, and even this was not considered to be that strong.

So while we're at it, let me add some pressing bugs:

- winter wolf crit range is broken. It lists 18-20 base but actually is 19-20.
- monk levels actually decrease animal form damage dice, because of the new way monk fists damage steps are coded (as of the last update, might be fixed by now)

and now for additional suggestions:

- everyone else gets modified base weapon damage from epic stuff. If possible, it would be cool to see the 2W modifier from weapons apply to animal forms as well
- shifting shapes costs sp currently, shape specific buffs fall off every time, either letting them stay or suspend them if possible would help, encouraging frequent shapeshifting to utilize different abilities would be nice, as long as it's not overdone (in a similar vein, actually lessening the restrictions by a druid destiny could be a nice perk "you have mastered the art of shifting to a degree where it becomes second nature. Each time you use a combat ability that is usually restricted to certain a druid form, you automatically shift to the form required (for the animation) and back to the one you had before, effectively allowing you to use those abilities out of form."
-caster forms are very weak currently. No boni to melee, no SLAs, no way to gain sp back. The best comparison I've seen so far would be "you're a wis based wizard that plays like a sorc."
- allow flame blade's wis modifier to work in wolf form, at least for attack or preferrably for both. It still is weaker then a real weapon, but would allow people who chose to go full wis regardless a chance to reliably hit with their special attacks in wolf form

[fatherpirate]

Druids SHOULD get augmented summoning as a free feat

also

Druids should get +10 diplomacy, bluff and intimidate with respect to animals

[losian2]

I posted this elsewhere, but may sa well put it here too.

Winter's Bite is too weak by far to be worth it. The first circle magic fang ends up a +4/+5 or so about the time you get Winter's Bite and is arguably better by a wide margin. Many things resist/reduce cold damage, and 1d10 averages out to about 5 damage anyway, so at best winter's bite is almost on par, except that Magic Fang also buffs the enhancement bonus of any equipped shield, boosting AC as well, and cost less SP anyway. Not enough oomph in Winter's bite to be worth it.

Also the wolf-form based Shrike enhancement, the one that debuffs 2/4/6 AC when making a bluff check, never seems to work. I bug reported it, but may as well mention here. I've never seen it take affect on anything EXCEPT occasionally myself - if you use the bluff-based ability without a target it applies the debuff to yourself. :|

Higher levels with higher base weapon damages are a problem as animal forms will get no benefit from that and be stuck at base 1d10/12. Garments of Equilibrium, though not something I would use, lowered by wolf form damage rather than raise it, so seems bugged.

I also noticed that although there are ninth-cricle spell components, no ninth-circle spells use any components, at all. Also not sure if wolf companion's trip is working, much less howl, as there's really no feedback there and it can be kinda hard to tell.

Does the dryad of the ninth circle summon do anything special? I can't see why you wouldn't stick to the air elemental for the annoying trip/knockdown and instead go with the fire elemental's mediocre 30 damage fireballs or the dryads 20 damage poking, I was a tad underwhelmed with the final two summons there.

Also a general thought.. the greatest catch-22 of using, for example, fire elemental form. Okay, fire damage boost, I can use it to beat up ice-based things. But wait! Ice based things use ice, which the fire elemental is itself that much weaker to. I found myself considering using it for an ice dragon fight but then realizing I'd probably just be more liable to be anihilated by ice breath in one-shot.

Let's see, what else.. I like a lot of the neat enhancements, though it's hard to tell if Blood Moon Frenzy's haste/movement speed are working properly, some sort've tooltip/charsheet numbers for all this stuff would help a lot. It's also hard to tell when some abilities affect you AND your pets/hirelings or just your pets/hirelines, IE pack strength vs the pack buff which gives the knockdown on 20s and flanking bonus. I also haven't seen the knockdown on 20s from that trigger, but again, it's pretty hard to test, and it's unclear if it should work on myself and my hirelings/pets or not.

Goodberry still can't be cast in public areas, thus making it kinda pointless.

Snowslide is pretty cool but for heaven's sake can we rename it to Avalanche, perhaps? It sounds too fun and cute for a penultimate ninth circle spell! Though I will admit I at least put it to good use in the "Missing" quest Snowsliding down the children's slide outside the school house. It felt appropriate.

Do impact/keen work when in animal form? Or does only impact work since it's bludgeoning/unarmed? Or does it matter?

If using a shield but in animal form can we still count as centered, or will having the shield despite being in animal form counter it?

[Schmoe]

Druids SHOULD get augmented summoning as a free feat

Eh, I'm not so convinced about that.

also

Druids should get +10 diplomacy, bluff and intimidate with respect to animals

Definitely. Unless they want to introduce the Animal Handling skill.

Also, Fire Elemental wildshape should grant immunity to fire. I mean, you are elemental fire for crying out loud.

[losian2]

OH! Another one. Nature's Warrior enhancements, the 1d6/2d6 against enemies under 50%.. it seems to only happen sporadically, whereas the tooltip indicates it should happen on every hit. I assume this is the 1d6 force damage I see trigger randomly and someones show 'immune'. Also, I've never seen it do more than 6 damage, so the 2d6 from the second rank of Nature's Warrior is broken for that.

Edit: Another thing! It'd be really nice to have SOME kind of casting animation in wolf/bear form so we can tell what in the heck is going on with earthquak/reinc/etc. Oh, and the shadow of your character's race still displays even while in wolf/bear form.

Edit edit: All the tooltips for Nature's Ally summons, except the first, show the wrong SP cost until you click on them and get the sub-menu of summons, which reflect the right cost.

[jsaving]

There was much more in depth criticism going on in the druid are weak thread, maybe chiming in there would be appreciated as well. The general consensus there was, that caster forms are too weak to be viable at endgame anyway, so the only viable option would be wolf melee with full feat investment in doublestrikes, and even this was not considered to be that strong.

Animal-form druids aren't particularly weak, but they suffer very strongly from the "feat tax" issue that Wizards of the Coast has repeatedly warned against on their site. Basically, when designers create feats that give straight numerical attack bonuses that anyone must take in order to be competitive -- like natural fighting -- it's a feat tax. These are seen as problematic for versatility/creativity because they force builds down a very narrow channel, problematic mechanically because the devs begin to assume everyone will have them and then ramp up monsters accordingly, problematic for casual players because they're hosed if they step outside the narrow viable build channel, and problematic for flavor as well. (Their most recent post against this kind of thing can be found at http://community.wizards.com/dndnext...axes_and_bloat.)

I also think wildshape's "fun factor" has been compromised by the in-game obstacles to changing form. Druids need to be able to change form without cost and have their form-specific buffs suspended rather than dispelled when they enter a new form, so that they don't feel like they're "locked in" to any particular form. The natural fighting feat chain promotes lock-in as well, as there aren't enough feat slots to be melee-viable outside form if you're taking natural fighting feats instead. Those feats need to be accommodated either with additional feat slots for the druid or simply by being auto-granted to druids over time. Or even better, perhaps the TWF/THF feat chains could be made to function like natural fighting while in form, giving players somewhat more choices and ensuring at least a moderate amount of melee viability both in and out of form.

Druids are cool, and it's obvious that a lot of work has gone into them thus far. While they may not be fully hitting the mark at this point, with some tweaking they can become the viable and entertaining class we'd all like to see -- in my opinion at least.

[Expalphalog]

Also the wolf-form based Shrike enhancement, the one that debuffs 2/4/6 AC when making a bluff check, never seems to work. I bug reported it, but may as well mention here. I've never seen it take affect on anything EXCEPT occasionally myself - if you use the bluff-based ability without a target it applies the debuff to yourself. :|

The ability you're looking for is Shifting Rake. I've seen the debuff applied some of the time when I actually use the Bluff skill or the Half-Elf Bluff. However according to the tooltip it is supposed to always trigger, so there's a bug there. I have also never seen it trigger with Baiting Bite which supposedly makes a bluff check, but I believe that's because Baiting Bite is simply not making a bluff check.

it's hard to tell if Blood Moon Frenzy's haste/movement speed are working properly, some sort've tooltip/charsheet numbers for all this stuff would help a lot. It's also hard to tell when some abilities affect you AND your pets/hirelings or just your pets/hirelines, IE pack strength vs the pack buff which gives the knockdown on 20s and flanking bonus. I also haven't seen the knockdown on 20s from that trigger, but again, it's pretty hard to test, and it's unclear if it should work on myself and my hirelings/pets or not.

This. I have no idea if Blood Moon Frenzy actually does anything or not and if the pack buff is supposed to affect me, it's not; if it's supposed to affect my pets/summons, it might be but I doubt it.

[Conflaag]

<Season herald: 10 mins per season, switchable every 12. It's a neat idea, but right now it's just too uncontrollably to be useful.>

1) Building off your suggestion: When season herald is active, the mouse-over description provided is the OPPOSITE season of the symbol shown.

For example: When the Summer season is active and I mouse over the active Summer image, it provides the summer title but then says I am attuned to Winter and begins listing the winter enhancements.

The reverse is also true for Winter stating that I'm attuned to Summer.

Kinda confusing... Since I can't turn off the seasons once they are activated, I have not been able to test if I'm actually receiving the enhancement benefit from either season (regardless of which symbol is shown).

2) When I have used my druid ability/spell to dominate an animal, I have no ability to prematurely dismiss the charm effect. In cases where a quest objective relies on slaying all opponents before progressing, this can be an issue for a party that doesn't want to wait 5 minutes for my charm to wear off. A dismiss charm feat would alleviate this issue, similar to the feat given to Wizzies and Sorcs.

Thank you,



Conflaag

[QuantumFX]

Bear and Wolf forms Should offer full BaB when in form. (Perhaps as a function of Natures Warrior?) Someone scoring grazing hits all the time is not going to make a worthwhile tank or DPS character. Also, forcing a druid to carry a dozen Divine Power clickies isn’t a workable solution either.

Fix the Dire Wolf form natural weapon stats to match the description. Since wildshaped druids are locked into the sword and board attack format, you are going to have to cover a lot of ground to make it a “DPS” form.

The Druid Animal Companion needs a lot of work. One of the nice things about the Artificer Iron Defender is that he can be built to be fairly durable. The Druid companion seems to be built to force a druid to take all the pack enhancements to make it roughly equal to the Iron Defender. At the very least make it auto attack any foe that the druid is currently meleeing so that the aggro management spells mean something.

[Expalphalog]

Bear and Wolf forms Should offer full BaB when in form.

I dont understand what you mean here. Are you saying that in-form we are not currently getting our Base Attack Bonus? I don't think that's the case. Where did you come by this information?

[riexau]

I dont understand what you mean here. Are you saying that in-form we are not currently getting our Base Attack Bonus? I don't think that's the case. Where did you come by this information?

Druids are a 3/4 BAB class, and get a BAB progression at 0,1,2,3,3,4,5,6 etc. At level 20 a druid has a BAB of 15.

Monks are another 3/4 BAB class, however with flurry of blows, they change to a 1 per 1 while centered (20 BAB at level 20).

I imagine he would like wild form to act like flurry of blows. Which makes sense to me (it could be tacked onto the Wild Shape feat itself, of which all the forms are sub feats).

[LupusVai]

Druids are a 3/4 BAB class, and get a BAB progression at 0,1,2,3,3,4,5,6 etc. At level 20 a druid has a BAB of 15.

Monks are another 3/4 BAB class, however with flurry of blows, they change to a 1 per 1 while centered (20 BAB at level 20).

I imagine he would like wild form to act like flurry of blows. Which makes sense to me (it could be tacked onto the Wild Shape feat itself, of which all the forms are sub feats).

It's a pretty good idea.

[riexau]

As promised, more druid thoughts.

A really irksome part of building a melee druid is that you are 'feat locked'. While the d20 system allows you to pick any feat you want at levels 3,6,9,12,15,18 a melee druid is locked into his level 9,12,15 and 18 feats. This stems from the 'natural fighting' feat. The problem lies in that it requires 9 levels of druid and requires a 'pure' feat slot (cannot be taken by any class as a 'bonus' feat). This causes three problems.

First, your 9+ feats are locked in, and if you take toughness (creation) and power attack (level 3), you're left with your level 6 feat to 'pick'. That's not a whole lot of diversity, and even less if you have a past life feat you want to take.

Second, you will never get overwhelming critical on a pure melee druid without sacrificing natural fighting, toughess (or both).

Finally, with the feat requirements as they are, the second you splash any class before taking 9 full levels of druid, you lock yourself out of either 1 natural fighting feat or improved critical (unless you get a bonus fighter feat after character level 11). Mr. Newbie starts off with 1 druid, then decides to take 1 barb to run faster, not realizing that this level 2 decision is locking him out of 1 of his primary dps feats at 18. That's kind of ... harsh.

Problem presented, what can be done to fix it? Well, I have two suggestions (I'm sure there are more).

1) Make natural fighting selectable as a fighter or monk bonus feat. Pros: If you splash early, you can take a level of monk or fighter to recover. Cons: 9 druid/2 fighter with 18% doublestrike at level 11 (which is around greensteel level so I don't see that as 'too' overpowered).

2) Get rid of natural fighting altogether and tie the doublestrike chance into the Wilderness Lore feat (say 1% doublestrike per feat level whie in Wild Shape). Pros: Frees up feat slots and allows more diversity. Since rangers and barbs also gain wilderness lore, this could make some very interesting 18/2 barb/wolf or 12/8 ranger/bear builds pop up. Cons: Probably not the easiest thing to code, but I have faith.

Thanks for reading.

[Expalphalog]

Druids are a 3/4 BAB class, and get a BAB progression at 0,1,2,3,3,4,5,6 etc. At level 20 a druid has a BAB of 15.

Ah, I've just never heard it broken down like that before. In my head it's always been that different classes simply have different progressions - never thought of it as being 3/4 of a 'full' progression.