3rd Druid tree: Tender of the Grove V2.0

[HastyPudding]

Edit 1: renamed to Verdant Lord

So, yeah.

I made a crack at a third druid tree a while back, which was met with mixed opinions. I decided to try a go at it, again, and refine it a bit. So, I bring to you: the Verdant Lord.

- This is a support tree. While, currently, the game is not entirely needing a support tree, we have reaper mode on the very near horizon. With clerics being the only class with a full healing tree, (spellsinger is more of a support tree) and favored souls being a bit more on the offensive side of divine casting, I decided druids could use a support tree, as well.

- This tree focuses on positive energy healing, but also on transmutation DC's (such as entangle, snare, flesh to stone, etc) so that they can provide crowd control if they wish to focus on it.

- This tree also introduces the treant form: a druid wildshape focusing on healing and support, as well as personal defense, rather than melee offense or offensive spellcasting. The treant form gains better bonuses the more core abilities you take. Like all forms in the game, there is also a penalty, which takes place in the form of low dexterity and intelligence and a steep penalty to fire resistance (you're a tree, after all).


CORE 1 : Nature's Mending
+0.5 universal spellpower and +1 positive energy spellpower per point spent in this tree.

CORE 2 : Treant Form
Activate this ability to transform into a treant. While in treant form, you gain 25% fortification, +10 positive energy spellpower, and gain +1 caster level and maximum caster level with positive energy spells, but take a -4 penalty to dexterity and intelligence and -30 racial penalty to fire resistance. If you are a Warforged, you are no longer considered a living construct, and become immune to repair spells, but can be healed normally by positive energy spells. You are now considered a plant for purposes of most spells and effects and are immune to paralysis, stunning, sleep, poison damage, and most mind-affecting spells. Activation cost: 25 spell points.

CORE 3 : Hardened Bark
+1 to the DC's of your transmutation spells
While in treant form, you gain a +5 racial bonus to natural armor class, and an additional 25% bonus to fortification.

CORE 4 : Ancient One
+1 to the DC's of your transmutation spells
While in treant form, you gain a +3 bonus to spell penetration and +10% positive energy critical damage.

CORE 5 : Sturdy Roots
+1 to the DC's of your transmutation spells
While in treant form, you gain +10% maximum hit points and immunity to most knockdown effects.

CAPSTONE : Elder Treant
+2 wisdom
+2 constitution
+3 uses of wild empathy
+1 to the DC's of your transmutation spells
While in treant form, you gain +15 magical resistance rating and +100 spell points.


TIER 1
Positive Energy (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 2)
+2% critical hit chance with positive energy spells. Additionally, you gain +5% healing amplification.

Energy in Nature (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 1)
+30/+60/+100 spell points

Spell-Like Ability: Entangle (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 2)
Entangle: Primal magic awakens plants and vines to grasp at the caster's enemies. Entangled creatures suffer a 90% penalty to movement speed, a 50% attack speed penalty, and a -1 penalty to attack rolls, AC, and Reflex. A successful Reflex save negates this effect. Entangled creatures may leave the affected area to escape its effects, or attempt to make a Strength check every 2 seconds to negate. Area of effect fire spells will destroy these vines and free any entangled creature. Incorporeal creatures and oozes are naturally immune. Fire elementals and other fire creatures are immune because they burn through the plants. (Cost: 5 spell points, Cooldown: 8 seconds)

Leadership (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 1)
Your summons, pets, charmed creatures, and hirelings receive a +2/+4/+6 bonus to all ability scores. Rank 3: you gain +1 wisdom.

Empathy (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 1)
+1/+2/+3 concentration, heal, and wild empathy uses. Rank 3: your wild empathy uses regenerate at the rate of 1 every 3 minutes.


TIER 2
Positive Energy (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 2) (requires Positive Energy, tier 1)
+2% critical hit chance with positive energy spells. Additionally, you gain +5% healing amplification.

Efficient Metamagic (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 2)
Multiselector: choose between Quicken, Extend, and Empower Healing.

Spell-Like Ability: Snare (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 2)
Creates a snare that when triggered entangles a single enemy. An entangled creature may attempt to make a Strength check every 2 seconds to escape. Incorporeal creatures, and Oozes cannot be caught in the snare. (Cost: 8 spell points, Cooldown: 10 seconds)

Toughness (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 1) (requires Leadership, tier 1)
Your summons, pets, charmed creatures, and hirelings receive +10%/15%/20% maximum HP and +15%/+30%/+45% fortification. Rank 3: you gain +10 maximum hit points.

Herbalism (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 1)
Activate: expend a use of Wild Empathy. For 20 seconds, you gain +15/+30/+45 positive energy spellpower. Cooldown: 1 minute.


TIER 3
Positive Energy (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 2) (requires Positive Energy, tier 2)
+2% critical hit chance with positive energy spells. Additionally, you gain +5% healing amplification.

Efficient Metamagic (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 2) (requires Efficient Metamagic, tier 2)
Multiselector: choose between Quicken, Extend, and Empower Healing.

Refreshing Winds (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 1)
Activate: expend a use of Wild Empathy. For 20 seconds, you and nearby allies gain a +10%/+20%/+30% bonus to movement speed and healing amplification. Cooldown: 1 minute.

Ferocity (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 1) (requires Toughness, tier 2)
Your summons, pets, charmed creatures, and hirelings gain +10/+20/+30 melee power and ranged power, and +15/+30/+45 universal spellpower. Rank 3: you gain +5 universal spellpower.

Constitution or Wisdom (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 2)
Multiselector: choose one:
+1 Constitution
+1 Wisdom


TIER 4
Positive Energy (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 2) (requires Positive Energy, tier 3)
+2% critical hit chance with positive energy spells. Additionally, you gain +5% healing amplification.

Natural Magic (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 2)
+1/+2/+3 to the caster level and maximum caster level of your positive energy and transmutation spells.

Spell-Like Ability: Vigor, Mass (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 2)
Casts Vigor on multiple targets. A positive energy conjuration that heals 1d6, +1 per 3 caster levels (max +11 at level 33), every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. When the initial effect expires, a smaller healing effect that heals 1 HP every 5 seconds for 30 seconds is applied. (Cost: 20 spell points, Cooldown: 12 seconds)

Nature's Defense (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 1) (requires Ferocity, tier 3)
Your summons, pets, charmed creatures, and hirelings gain +15/+30/+45 physical and magical resistance rating. Rank 3: you gain +5 physical and magical resistance rating.

Constitution or Wisdom (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 2)
Multiselector: choose one:
+1 Constitution
+1 Wisdom


TIER 5
Positive Energy Mastery (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 1)
+20% positive energy critical damage.

Nurture (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 1)
When you heal allies with positive energy spells they gain temporary hit points equal to 33%/66%/100% of your heal skill for 20 seconds. This may trigger on healing-over-time spells such as vigor or regenerate, but no more than once every 10 seconds. Effects do not stack, but the duration and hit points are refreshed.

Spell-Like Ability: Flesh to Stone (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 2)
Turns a single fleshy target into a mindless, inert statue in a Petrified condition. In stone form, creatures are much more difficult to damage (Damage Reduction 10/Adamantine), but are Helpless and receive 50% more damage because of it. Only creatures made of flesh are affected by this spell. This effect lasts 60 seconds plus 10 seconds per caster level, but the target has a chance to remake its Fortitude save every 24 seconds. (Cost: 30 spell points, Cooldown: 15 seconds)

Fury of Nature (Ranks: 3, AP cost: 1) (requires Nature's Defense, tier 4)
Your summons, pets, charmed creatures, and hirelings receive +1/+2/+3 critical threat range with natural weapons and +15% chance to critically hit with spells.

Wisdom of the Ancients (Ranks: 1, AP cost: 2)
Passive: +1 to the DC's of your transmutation spells.
Activate: expend a use of wild empathy. For 20 seconds, you and nearby allies gain a +4 natural bonus to all stats. Cooldown: 2 minutes.

[silinteresting]

OK im a little lost here and perhaps im forgetting something important but from what i remember
there are 4-5 transmutation spells for a caster druid that seems a few to little to make a tree
around.

your friend sil

[unbongwah]

I like the idea of moving the summoning / healing bonuses out of NW into its own PrE (coupled with buffing NW melee DPS so it's actually worthwhile, ofc); as well as finding more uses for Wild Empathy. The idea of having a CC-focused divine PrE appeals to me too...at least in theory. In practice: well, let's face it, the best druid CC spell is still Earthquake which is Evocation-based; and Transmutation in general is a lousy spell school in DDO, IMO. So unless you add more Transmutation spells / SLAs which are worthwhile, it's largely moot.

So maybe add a Mass Snare SLA to one of the higher-level cores which works like Evard's but for druids. Flesh to Stone SLA simply isn't worth it; who's gonna use a single-target CC spell with a Fort-based save and long CD rather than just straight DPS or an instakill like FoD? Make it a Disintegrate SLA and then we'll talk. Might as well add Spike Growth as an SLA too.

OTOH, Mass Vigor SLA is probably too powerful for a mere tier-4 ability. As a general rule I think lvl 6+ SLAs should be either tier-5 or high-level core abilities.

EDIT: make this PrE the Conjuration & Transmutation tree while SH is the Evocation tree; move Storm of Vengeance SLA from SH core to here.

So my suggestion would be to have two lines of SLAs in the tiered enhancements plus a few in the cores:

• Entangle (T1) -> Snare (T2) -> Spike Growth or Sleet Storm (T4) -> Disintegrate (T5)
• Lesser Vigor (T2) -> Vigor (T4) -> Gtr Vigor (T5)
• Mass Lesser Vigor SLA in lvl 6 core; Mass Snare SLA in lvl 12 core; Mass Gtr Vigor SLA in lvl 18 core; Storm of Vengeance SLA in capstone.

Your line of summoning buffs is OP relative to, say, Arcanotechnican; but summoning is so weaksauce that it needs all the overbuffage it can get.

Basically the idea is it's a PrE for someone who wants to play a summoner / healer / crowd controller hybrid that can also instakill the occasional mob. Most likely complemented with SH for some extra caster DPS. Or vice versa: a SH caster DPS build which supplements its abilities with Mass Snare and a few Vigor SLAs for cheaper HoTs.

[changelingamuck]

Where is a "tender of the grove" from in the dungeons and dragons source material? Is it a prestige class from 3.5? The enhancement trees in DDO are based on dungeons and dragons source material.

[changelingamuck]

List of Prestige Classes

[HastyPudding]

OK im a little lost here and perhaps im forgetting something important but from what i remember
there are 4-5 transmutation spells for a caster druid that seems a few to little to make a tree
around.

your friend sil

Entangle, Snare, Quench, and Flesh to Stone are all transmutation. While druids don't innately have flesh to stone, I felt it was a classic 'nature' type of spell and fit in nicely with the supportive aspect of the tree. With proper DC's and spell focus, entangle and snare are elevated from useless spells to useful spells and flesh to stone becomes a much stronger spell than it already is. Besides of which, they fit in with the theme of the tree.

I like the idea of moving the summoning / healing bonuses out of NW into its own PrE (coupled with buffing NW melee DPS so it's actually worthwhile, ofc); as well as finding more uses for Wild Empathy. The idea of having a CC-focused divine PrE appeals to me too...at least in theory. In practice: well, let's face it, the best druid CC spell is still Earthquake which is Evocation-based; and Transmutation in general is a lousy spell school in DDO, IMO. So unless you add more Transmutation spells / SLAs which are worthwhile, it's largely moot.

So maybe add a Mass Snare SLA to one of the higher-level cores which works like Evard's but for druids. Flesh to Stone SLA simply isn't worth it; who's gonna use a single-target CC spell with a Fort-based save and long CD rather than just straight DPS or an instakill like FoD? Make it a Disintegrate SLA and then we'll talk. Might as well add Spike Growth as an SLA too.

OTOH, Mass Vigor SLA is probably too powerful for a mere tier-4 ability. As a general rule I think lvl 6+ SLAs should be either tier-5 or high-level core abilities.

EDIT: make this PrE the Conjuration & Transmutation tree while SH is the Evocation tree; move Storm of Vengeance SLA from SH core to here.

So my suggestion would be to have two lines of SLAs in the tiered enhancements plus a few in the cores:

• Entangle (T1) -> Snare (T2) -> Spike Growth or Sleet Storm (T4) -> Disintegrate (T5)
• Lesser Vigor (T2) -> Vigor (T4) -> Gtr Vigor (T5)
• Mass Lesser Vigor SLA in lvl 6 core; Mass Snare SLA in lvl 12 core; Mass Gtr Vigor SLA in lvl 18 core; Storm of Vengeance SLA in capstone.

Your line of summoning buffs is OP relative to, say, Arcanotechnican; but summoning is so weaksauce that it needs all the overbuffage it can get.

Basically the idea is it's a PrE for someone who wants to play a summoner / healer / crowd controller hybrid that can also instakill the occasional mob. Most likely complemented with SH for some extra caster DPS. Or vice versa: a SH caster DPS build which supplements its abilities with Mass Snare and a few Vigor SLAs for cheaper HoTs.

As to transmutation, see what I wrote above. I decided against spike growth because it has horrific damage and doesn't scale well, at all. Entangle is a huge movement/attack speed debuff, it just lacks DC's because people don't focus on transmutation. Flesh to stone is a very underrated single-target spell: it ignores mind-affecting-immune mobs like zombies, ghouls, and wights, it renders mobs helpless, it's great against high will save enemies like casters that can be difficult to CC with hold spells, and it can last a very, very long time with proper caster levels. I could see adding both evocation and transmutation DC's to this, tree, though, but it would be pushing it.

I had originally put lesser vigor, mass as a tier 4 SLA and people complained it was too weak.

I could see this tree being conjuration/transmutation focused. Druid has several conjuration/cloud spells to use that are wasted due to everyone only focusing on evocation.

That's way too many SLA's in one tree, and disintegrate certainly does not belong in a druid tree, especially a support one. SLA's are supplements, not the main focus, of trees.

Where is a "tender of the grove" from in the dungeons and dragons source material? Is it a prestige class from 3.5? The enhancement trees in DDO are based on dungeons and dragons source material.

Other than Hierophant (which is the SH capstone) I saw no proper nature-oriented druid PrE. I had thought of a Gatekeeper or Planar Shepard, but that is more of an anti-outsider/banishing type of druid. Moonspeaker is original to Eberron, but it's more heavily focused on werewolf lore and requires the Shifter race. There's also the Vadilis Beastkeeper, but that's more about mounts and companions.

[changelingamuck]

Other than Hierophant (which is the SH capstone) I saw no proper nature-oriented druid PrE. I had thought of a Gatekeeper or Planar Shepard, but that is more of an anti-outsider/banishing type of druid. Moonspeaker is original to Eberron, but it's more heavily focused on werewolf lore and requires the Shifter race. There's also the Vadilis Beastkeeper, but that's more about mounts and companions.

I don't mean to sound harsh; but that's a proposal-killing problem for this proposal then though. The enhancement trees are based on source material from dungeons and dragons. They just don't add entirely "homebrew" enhancement trees. They need to be derived from source materials in some way.

[psykopeta]

List of Prestige Classes

Call it verdant lord, fixed
It took me less time to find the pre, than took you to post 3 times "ddo is dnd based" lol

OP: don't forget to add some plants manipulation and summoning to make it more tree-ish

[HastyPudding]

I don't mean to sound harsh; but that's a proposal-killing problem for this proposal then though. The enhancement trees are based on source material from dungeons and dragons. They just don't add entirely "homebrew" enhancement trees. They need to be derived from source materials in some way.

If your entire objection to the tree is the name, then come back when you have something constructive to say. Not to sound harsh, of course.

Call it verdant lord, fixed
It took me less time to find the pre, than took you to post 3 times "ddo is dnd based" lol

OP: don't forget to add some plants manipulation and summoning to make it more tree-ish

I like the sound of Verdant Lord.

I had thought of adding some kind of plant summon, but then a tree form, entangle, snare, and some earth-themed abilities seemed good enough.

[unbongwah]

http://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild...dantlord.shtml

It's got treant form (albeit at lvl 6 not 3), its focus on plants makes sense when paired with Entangle etc. SLAs, and it gets some (modest) healing bonuses.

[HastyPudding]

http://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild...dantlord.shtml

It's got treant form (albeit at lvl 6 not 3), its focus on plants makes sense when paired with Entangle etc. SLAs, and it gets some (modest) healing bonuses.

That's it! We're renaming it Verdant Lord!

[Selvera]

I had originally put lesser vigor, mass as a tier 4 SLA and people complained it was too weak.

That was probably me. And I stand by it, lesser vigor, mass is too weak for a tier 4 SLA. Ranger gets lesser vigor, Mass as a Tier 2 enhancement which doesn't even cost spellpoints. Vigor, Mass... Is significantly more powerful, but It's still SLA material, there are 2 druidic AoE healing over time spells more powerful then it. Perhaps making Vigor, Mass a T5 enhancement and dropping flesh to stone to a T4 enhancement would be wise.

Either way, I'm still fully in support of a druid tree focused on healing/summoning with a side of CC. I think that general idea for a PrE is exactly what druid needs for their third tree, and would make the class a lot more attractive to me as a player.

[changelingamuck]

If your entire objection to the tree is the name, then come back when you have something constructive to say. Not to sound harsh, of course.

I didn't "object" like I was putting forth some opinion about your tree. I pointed out the fact that your proposed tree would never have a chance at inclusion in the game because you made a proposal that doesn't hew to the game's intellectual property license. And now you're offended that I pointed that out? You don't think it's kind of important for a proposed enhancement tree for a dungeons and dragons game to have a basis in... dungeons and dragons?

I was trying to point this out gently by saying "not to sound harsh"; but I guess that wasn't appreciated apparently!

Call it verdant lord, fixed
It took me less time to find the pre, than took you to post 3 times "ddo is dnd based" lol

It would've taken even less time if the proposals made on the forums used the intellectual property that the game is based on in the first place. For instance, recognizing that all of the enhancement trees are drawn from source material. It's kind of an important matter to acknowledge when undertaking projects like, I don't know, designing an enhancement tree.

Apologies for bringing realistic, practical matters into the discussion??? O_o

[changelingamuck]

That's it! We're renaming it Verdant Lord!

Nice. Your proposal could actually be viable now instead of entirely non-viable. I won't hold my breath for a thank you.

[HastyPudding]

That was probably me. And I stand by it, lesser vigor, mass is too weak for a tier 4 SLA. Ranger gets lesser vigor, Mass as a Tier 2 enhancement which doesn't even cost spellpoints. Vigor, Mass... Is significantly more powerful, but It's still SLA material, there are 2 druidic AoE healing over time spells more powerful then it. Perhaps making Vigor, Mass a T5 enhancement and dropping flesh to stone to a T4 enhancement would be wise.

Either way, I'm still fully in support of a druid tree focused on healing/summoning with a side of CC. I think that general idea for a PrE is exactly what druid needs for their third tree, and would make the class a lot more attractive to me as a player.

How about a tier 5 multiselector SLA, like spellsinger? You can pick the CC path or the healing path.

Nice. Your proposal could actually be viable now instead of entirely non-viable. I won't hold my breath for a thank you.

You remind me of congress. It takes 10 minutes to decide to pass a law and then 8 years to decide what the law does. :P