Natural cunning - a rather odd druid

[FuzzyDuck81]

A rebuild of one of my characters that I put together to see how it'd work.. and was pleasantly surprised It's somewhat outside the box but hey, that just adds to the fun.

Human
36 point build
+6 tomes across the board on mine cos i had a bonus, but none really essential
17 druid 3 fighter
Starting stats:
STR - 10
DEX - 12
CON - 15
INT - 18 (told you it was odd!) all level-ups go here
WIS - 14
CHA - 9

Feat list, in no particular order.. there's naturally a bit of wiggle room for personal preference:
Toughness
epic toughness (requires combination of CON tome & level-ups)
shield mastery
improved shield mastery
improved shield bash
IC:slash
Precision (requires +1 dex tome or a level-up)
empower healing
maximise spell
quicken spell
enlarge spell
empower spell
overwhelming criticals
holy strike
epic spellpower: positive

Enhancements:
Stalwart defender: 13 APs - primarily for the MRR/PRR one, and greater stance bonus of +6 CON - +20% hp could work a little better overall maybe, but i wanted con because of those bloody doomspheres.
Vanguard: 15 APs - shield smash, stunning shield, missile shield & fatal bulwark were the main considerations.
Season's herald: 13 APs - beguile, produce flame SLA & creeping cold SLA were the main considerations.
Harper Agent: 35 APs - up to the 5th core ability, INT as the stat choices, Strategic combat 1 & 2, know the angles, Harper enchantment, Throat dagger, highly skilled, enchantment of righteousness & magic of patience were the main ones.

That makes 76, 4 left over to put wherever.

Skillpoints were mainly in the class stuff, though a bunch in tumble & balance too, so can have some diplomatic stuff, or can intim pretty effectively.

Gear-wise, dragonscale plate & a big non-metallic shield, then a scimmy or whatever other sword in main-hand - i'm working on the runestone one ideally, though there's a nice stone shield coming in u24 that i'll be going for too & will hopefully be easier to get. In the meantime, i've been rocking EN wall of wood which is decent & reliable, and it's only 20% healing amp, so stacks with the 30% from pdk gloves/iron mitts.

It's proving to be a slightly off-the-wall, but rather fun build - i've been fighting in fire elemental form & using body of the sun, AoEs & SLAs to supplement dps & giving party healing through mass regenerate & cocoon. Probably not ee-soloing material, but a good one for most groups as a nice blend of melee dps, offensive casting & healing/support, with some great damage absorbtion - a real hybrid, like a druid should be

Ditching a load of the metamagics & precision then going total melee with dwarf axe/bastard sword, just enough str for PA & cleave & the 2hf feats would be an interesting option too, but probably less powerful & versatile overall i think.

[FuzzyDuck81]

After some more experimentation, a few further observations with this build:

- Hadn't really paid attention to it before, but energy burst hits far more reliably now, since INT or CHA is used to determine the DC... bit of a numpty moment not to realise before, but is certainly nice. Ditto hellball. And daunting roar for CC... hell, draconic incarnation in general is just even better than previously when just a regular WIS based druid.
- Stunning shield DC is phenomenal, reliable even when i was running some EE stormhorns - so long as the hit connects, silly enemies backing away, almost like they don't want to be destroyed.
- Kinda miss the ability to use stuff from dreadnaught.. but it's manageable, this build really shines when fighting together with AoEs, so crusader is probably better anyway.

[unbongwah]

Did you consider druid 15 / ftr 4 / wiz 1 instead? Give up lvl 9 spells, gain two extra feats and access to T4 SD (Swift Defense, +6 CON) and T4 Vanguard (Shield Charge). Or maybe even D 15 / F 5: T5 Vanguard seems more interesting than Harper, IMHO.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Did you consider druid 15 / ftr 4 / wiz 1 instead? Give up lvl 9 spells, gain two extra feats and access to T4 SD (Swift Defense, +6 CON) and T4 Vanguard (Shield Charge). Or maybe even D 15 / F 5: T5 Vanguard seems more interesting than Harper, IMHO.

or even 16 wiz 4 fighter, since it's an int build...

[unbongwah]

I presume OP wants to stick with druid for his primary class, otherwise there's little point to this build. Harper opens doors to alternatives to the typical "STR+CHA-based w/Div Might" melee builds. Maybe not good alternatives, but alternatives nonetheless.

[FuzzyDuck81]

This character was a melee animal form druid in previous lives, then the current one i specced it out as pure caster initially, but decided to go back to primarily melee with a bunch of spells for extra damage etc..unfortunately the animal form doesnt really work well in epic levels so elemental form with body of the sun was a good option instead (i use freezing spray on bosses as a combat opener to boost DoTs & then switch back to fire, hence why i wanted both elly forms), which gives far better damage since i dont go in for that whole monksplashed-rely-on-bugs-to-make-the-build-work kinda thing.

No animal form means no real need for most of the natures warrior tree, so figured a 3rd fighter level for stalwart stance & I've been enjoying vanguard too on alts (plus had already gone sword & board on this in earlier melee lives for more durability & heavy armour because Iorek & wasn't about to give up that tasty shadow plate) then some season's herald for the SLAs would be a good bet. I already really enjoy the harper tree & LOVE throat dagger for knocking out a troublesome caster (already had it in caster build) and you'd be surprised what kind of things have throats, so by that point i figured i'd just pump some extra into the tree for the extra weapon enhancement bonus (also incidentally a bonus to implement spellpower, thus servicing both aspects of the build) & free extend spell.

The whole INT specced thing really just kinda grew out of that since if i was investing that much in harper, i might as well save some build points on having only sub-par strength & stick it all there, rather handily also giving me plenty of skillpoints to include UMD, balance & tumble for mobility. There was also stunning shield to take into consideration, which runs off your single highest stat (INT & CON are pretty much tied at about 48 each atm with ship buffs on this toon), and in addition to the damage know the angles adds half INT modifier to tactical feats too to boost it even higher.. already got epic boots of the innocent & once i add in a combat mastery item somewhere plus twist in tactics from dreadnaught, it'll be comfortably in the mid-90s which isn't too bad i guess.

And finally, a big part of the reason for it... because i could? I enjoy making unusual builds & making them work! I don't care too much if it's not the absolute optimal build out there, it's fun for me to play & because i designed it myself, i know all it's little ins & outs & how to make the most out of all it's assorted tricks. Oh, and if bear form becomes more viable again, then i'll be renaming the bear companion to BooBoo