Becoming A Force of Nature: 
Iluzry’s Guide to the Pathfinder 1e Druid

Introduction

Heyo Internet, my name is Ilzury or Polypan if you’ve seen me around! I am not what one would call a veteran, I don’t think, but I’ve been playing this game for a longer time! This guide, and the ones following it are all a part of my overall goal to give people more up to date content for pathfinder players to use, because I love the game and I want to help everyone become the ungodly kaiju monster of their DM’s dreams/nightmares.

To See My List of Guides, Go Here

I guess if I keep doing this I should get like a patreon or something. For now, I’m just a girl who likes making people feel strong. I’m new to this so if you are looking at this guide in the future, I hope it helps!! From one player to another. NOW onto the guide.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Table of Contents

Rating System

Class Overview

The Chassis

Class Features

Roles and Ability Scores

(5/5) Controller Caster (The Force of Nature) [Wis>>>Con/Dex>Cha>Int/Str]

(5/5) Scout (The Piped Piper) [ Wis/Dex > Int/Cha > Con/Str]

(4/5) Natural Weapon Melee (The Brutal Beast) [Str > Con > Dex/Wis >>>> Cha/Int]

(4/5) Melee Tank/Melee Disruptor (Turtle of Heaven) [Str/Con > Dex > Wis >>> Cha/Int]

(3/5) Healer (Life Incarnate) [Wis > Con/Int > Cha/Dex/Str ]

(2/5) Blaster (The Elemetal Overlord) [Wis >>>> Dex/Con> Int/Str/Cha]

(2/5) Manufactured Weapon Melee (Branch of Blades) [Str > Con > Dex/Wis >>>> Cha/Int]

(1/5) Ranged Combat (The Lord of the Wild) [Dex >>> Str > Con/Wis > Int/Cha]

(1/5) Face/Skill Monkey [Cha/Int > Wis/Dex > Con > Str]

Races

(6/5) Extreme Stat Bonuses, and  Multiple Powerful Abilities

(5/5) Bonus to Main Stat, Bonus to Secondary, and Powerful Race ability

(4/5) Races: Bonus to Main Stat, Bonus to Secondary or Powerful Race Ability.

(3/5) Races: Bonus to Main Stat

(2/5) Races: No bonus to Main Stat

(1/5) Races: Penalty to Main Stat

Wild Shape FAQ

Druid Domains

Cleric Domains

Animal and Terrain Domains

Animal Companions

Archetypes

Standout Archetypes

Death Druid [Caster/Combat]

Goliath [Caster/Combat]

Feyspeaker [Caster/Combat]

Supernaturalist [Caster/Combat]

Saurian Shaman [Caster/Combat]

Menhir Savant [Caster/Combat]

Nature’s Fang [Caster/Combat]

Planar Extremist [Caster/Combat]

Storm Druid [Caster/Combat]

Multiclassing

(4/5) Alchemist (Vivisectionist):

(4/5) Monk/Unchained Monk:

(3/5) Bloodrager (w/Mad Magic Feat):

(5/5) Crossblooded Sorcerer [Draconic/Orc Bloodline]:

(5/5) Ranger:

Prestige Classes

Progresses Class Features

(5/5) The Evangelist [Entry Level 5 or 7]

(4/5) The Green Faith Acolyte [Entry Level 5]

Does Not Progress Class Features

Full Spell Progression

(5/5) Stargazer [Entry Level 5]

(4/5) Mystic Theurge [Early Entry Level 4]

(5/5) Veiled Illusionist [Entry Level 5]

(3/5) Harrower [Entry Level 5]

(3/5) Spherewalker [Entry Level 7 or 10]

(5/5) Ritualist [Entry Level 8]

(5/5) Loremaster [Entry Level 7] (One Level Dip)

(4/5) Argent Dramaturge [Entry Level 6]

Loses One Level of Spells

(4/5) Pathfinder Savant [Entry Level 5]

(4/5) Brewkeeper [Entry Level 5]

(5/5) Agent of the Grave [Entry Level 5]

(5/5) Davirat [Entry Level 7]

Special Mention

(4/5) Mammoth Rider [ 1 Lvl Dip, Entry Level 9]

Feats

General Feats

Combat Feats

Animal Companion Feats

Wild Shape Feats

Summoning Feats

Healing Feats

Metamagic Feats

Channel Energy Feats

Teamwork feats

Equipment

Sample Build Ideas

General Druid Tactics

Damage an enemy with high armor class?

Want to control or disable an enemy?

I need to scout an area, what should I do?

Sleeping time, what can I do to improve our campment?

Need some long time buffs?

What about combat buffs?

What can I do to debuff an enemy?

If things are getting difficult, what are some good contingency spells.

How can I buff my animal companion.

What type of status ailments can I cure?

Wild shape tactics

Rating System

All Guides use the Color Rating System and honestly? It’s a good Idea.

• Game Breaking (6/5): This feature or option is so powerful, so useful, so unapologetically ridiculous that it very well make snap the game in half. DM’s reading this guide are welcome to ban these options, or are warned to somehow work around them. Players? Use these powers carefully.
• Take Me Now (5/5): Class defining. Taking them changes the game, or adds so much power it's insane not to.
• Fantastic (4/5): Incredibly solid, and always a good pick. Not class breaking, but if you can, you should.
• Okay/Fine (3/5): Pretty good. They'll be helpful and have some use, but aren't likely to make things incredibly amazing. 
• Maybe Don’t (2/5): Unhelpful. It probably doesn’t...do much for you to pick these. Either they make your life slightly harder, or the bonuses just aren't very relevant to what you do.
• Actively Bad (1/5): God why. These options are the least helpful. They either are pointless, replaceable or completely outdated. These are abilities that will likely never be used and make you ask why they are there in the first place.
• Unrated (?/5): This is rare but some options are unratable. Likely a class feature that is powered on DM fiat, in which case...ask the DM, something that is campaign dependent or something that literally does nothing.

Class Overview

The Embodiment of Nature’s will. Guardians of the forest. Children of the elements. Druids have lots and lots of lore, but at their core, they are often forces of nature, aspects of the beast and masters of the world. A lot of traits that we now ascribe to wizards often applied to druids in folklore and their class features show it!

The Druid is a divine caster with a fairly unique spell list...and a LOT of class features. Like a LOT. Most fullcasters are lucky to get two major class features. Familiars and Arcane School. Hex and Patrons. Mystery and Curses. You get THREE and all of them are incredibly versatile and useful. You are a powerful Generalist, and if built right, can handle any problem and fit into any role in the party!!! Yes, ANY ROLE. It’s my job to tell you how to be the monster that you were born to me. Lets get into it!

The Chassis

• (3/5) Hit Die - D8: Not great. Not the worst, but not great! D8 is very common, but if you plan on being a melee druid, this hurts. If you are a caster druid, this is great! So middling. For Generalist Druids, most of us, you’ll want to have your spells back this up.
• (3/5) BAB - ¾ or (Medium): Easily the most common. Usually, not amazing because you don’t get that many attacks, and for most melee, more attacks is better. But wait...you are the druid...so you can get natural attacks...which means this is really only for accuracy's sake..and well there is plenty that can be done about that.

• Don’t know what natural attacks are? That’s fine. I’ll explain it in the FAQ section.

• (3/5) Skills - 4+int: So it’s not...horrible! Better than the sorc...but you also aren’t an int based character..and have little reason to invest into your skills...so...not like actively terrible but also not super great? That said, the skills they have known are pretty nice.

• Class Skills Worth Paying attention to:

• Craft (Int): Technically you can do it...but you don’t get any bonus feats and you aren’t an int based character. So...it’s doable just not...great.
• Fly (Dex): You can turn into a bird, and that means the DM can give you fly checks. So it’s nice to just have it on the list.
• Handle Animal (Cha): You don’t have to have this, but it helps you teach your animal companion new tricks, and also, you are the druid. Handle the animals, you are really good at it.
• Heal (Wis): Normally this isn’t great...until you get into skill unlocks + Healing hands to make you a healing BEAST. Make the Cleric think twice about giving you mouth.
• Know. Geo (Int): Knowing stuff is helpful.
• Know. Nature (int): Knowing stuff is helpful.
• Perception (Wis): The most rolled skill in the game. Every class from every build uses this, and you are a Wisdom-based class that picks it up as a class skill. Top shelf.
• Ride (Dex): So, for most people this is red. For MOST PEOPLE, this is basically useless...BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT you can get an animal companion. That you can ride. That can actually be an amazing mount and save you lots of action economy if you like....soooooo yeah no put some points in this so you can pass the basic checks.
• Spellcraft (Int): Identifying spells and helping with magic stuff. You are a fullcaster. This is nice. Woo! But you aren’t great at crafting.. .and we dont have a spell book. And we aren’t int based so less helpful for us… booo.
• Survival (Wis): So I’m obligated to include this...because you are the druid...but it’s bad. And you will likely rarely use it...and the few things you use it for, you have spells for...so...yeah no it’s just...no….no….

• Non Class Skills Worth Paying Attention To:

• Acrobatics: Not getting hit by AoO’s is tight. 
• Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate: So outside of Intimidation builds, these are social skills...which means their use is based around what the DM lets you get away with. So, unrateable. You aren’t a skills-based class, idk what to tell you.
• All knowledges: Knowing stuff continues to be helpful
• Stealth: Anti-perception. Not always useful, but when you fail a stealth check, you’ll wish you’d put more points into it.
• Use Magic Device: You aren’t charisma based, BUT being able to use magic items that you aren’t supposed to is helpful

• (4/5) Saves - Good Fortitude/Will: Now that’s what I’m talking about! Sure, a Fireball is still a problem, but some of the most dangerous spells in Pathfinder hit your fort and will saves. Charm X, Cloudkill, Disintegrate, etc. You can heal from a Fireball. You can’t really cure a Domination. This stops it before it becomes a problem. NICE.
• (1/5) Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: Ouch. Club, dagger, dart, quarterstaff, scimitar, scythe, sickle, shortspear, sling, and spear. That’s it. That’s all of it. Wait wait you say. We have proficiency in medium armor! Yeah… which is great… but you polymorph all the time and the armor can’t be metal...so unless you are the crafter, good luck getting darkwood. This uh...well it’s not the worst but it’s definitely not fun either.

Class Features

• (6/5) Spellcasting and Orisons [0-9, Prepared, Divine]: So this gets the very rare and prestigious rating of super bright pink god level good. This class feature is so good, so powerful that if you didn’t have any other class features, LITERALLY NO OTHER CLASS FEATURES, just this, you’d still be one of the STRONGEST CLASSES IN THE GAME. This is not an exaggeration.  Look at the wizard. Not only that, your spellcasting is particularly powerful because:

• You are a Fullcaster: You get more spells than people have class features. Each one of these spells can basically be considered a once a day class ability, and you have DOZENS. Which only becomes stronger because...
• You are a Prepared Caster: That means you can customize your abilities to the problem each day. Need to be the sneak lord? Prep spells for that. Need to scry and fry? Just switch it up. This gives you god-like versatility, so long as you have the right spells known. Which is super convenient because…
• You can Prep anything on your Spell List: YES THAT'S RIGHT. ANYTHING. Your spell list is your spells known. Options options options. Options!!!! Anything you see on that list is game, which means that even super situational spells can be useful once in a blue moon!!! Not to mention…
• You are a Divine Caster:  What does that mean? It means arcane armor penalties mean NOTHING to you. Yes, I know you will be polymorphing. Yes, I know what I said about your proficiencies. For the rare few of you who want to be in armor though, this is awesome!! It also opens you up to some unique feats that arcane casters can’t get access to AND a couple that SHOULD be cleric only...should. ;)

• (5/5) Spontaneous Casting [Summon Nature’s Ally]: Hey, remember how spellcasting is busted? Your next ability lets you, a prepared caster, decide to use any of your slots to spontaneously cast one of the best spells in the game: Summon Nature’s Ally. Is it as good as Summon Monster? No. Is it better than 80% of the spells in the game? Heck yeah. And you can cast it at any level, whenever you want, no planning needed.

• Having extra bodies is always helpful!
• Pick up a ring of attunement (I suggest kami) to really have this pop off.
• Want to be amazing at summoning? There’s a guide for that! It’s amazing and you should read it.

• (?/5) Alignment Spells: Basically, you aren’t allowed to cast spells of an alignment that opposes your own...but alignment is weird. So this kinda depends on how much your DM cares. Still, if your dm cares, this is just a nerf, but it depends on how alignment works.
• (3/5) Bonus Languages [Sylvan, Druidic]: You know sylvan and druidic...uh...well..that’s...well it’s not bad? But...also I mean it’s only useful if your DM cares about this, and languages aren’t that hard to get. Still, its free language, and Sylvan is a fun language.
• (5/5) Nature’s Bond: Technically...technically I should be giving this a mixed review because it depends on what you pick...but since you get to CHOOSE whose shtick you get to steal from (better ranger companion, cleric domains, or alchemist brews) that’s an easy 5/5. Seriously, why do druids get so much stuff???

• (?/5)Domain: SO, getting access to domains is GREAT...but the power depends on what domain you pick. I’ll go get them rated later, but just know that having a domain gives you access to a number of neat supernatural abilities and extra spells!

• Special Note 1: Choosing a domain gives you access to domain spell slots! Basically a free spell slot you get at each level to prepare your domain spell of that spell level or lower. Yay more staying power!!!
• Special Note 2: Just by having a domain, you can get access to a number of neat little feats, because yes, we will be stealing the cleric’s shtick.
• Special Note 3: Druids can select any subdomain of the cleric domains they have access to instead of the base domain, with the exception of Metal.

• (5/5) Animal Companion: Battle buddy? Meat Shield? Armored Tank of Death? Scout? More bodies is more bodies, and having an entire other creature worth of action economy is amazing. If you don’t know what to pick? Pick an animal companion.

• For Frontline Druids, they can make great flankers, shields, and fellow damage dealers.
• For Backline Druids, they can make amazing shields, keep enemies away from you and reposition teammates.
• Special Note: Replacing animal companions is actually super easy. They can be dismissed whenever and getting a new one only requires 24 hours of prayer and maybe spending money to find a specific one if you want.

• (3-5/5) Druidic Herbalism [Lvl 1-6/7+]: So at first you basically get brew potion, only specifically for spells on the druid list...and you can make a few for free. Cool. Whatever. Not bad, you can make a few equal to your Wis Mod and can make other potions. That’s nice or whatever.
  
  Okay at 4th level, their potion-not-potions cost half money, and can be any spells, so long as you can cast them. So if you take something that lets you get some extra spells from another list, this is nicer. Sure. Still limited to third level obviously. So quarter cost potions from anything you can cast below level 4th, for 1/4th total cost. Nice.
  
  Okay at 7th level...HOLY MOLY. You can make any potion-not-potion in ONE MINUTE. Any spell you can cast below level 4, you can have a potion whipped up in one minute! You get Wis-Mod of them for FREE. These are potions, remember, so they last indefinitely. Have fun getting some strong low level buffs set up every morning, from healing to ac, and having them just on hand. Sell them, hold them, congrats, your spell stamina just JUMPED.  
  
  Well obviously that’s got to be the best part...wait what did you say...a huh..yeah...a huh...wait ALCHEMIST EXTRACTS??? WITH THE INFUSION DISCOVERY. You sacrifice a spell slot of that level to craft an extract of ANY SPELL YOU COULD CAST at ANY LEVEL. Now these special concoctions only last 24 hours...but they are free and now you can pass out the best personal spells on your list to whoever is on your team or at the very least, let’s you be a spontaneous caster. Don’t have the spell prepped? Make an extract!!! On its own, this is an amazing trick. It’d be even crazier if there were a way to...I don’t know...get access to incredibly powerful spells from the best list in the game. If you are a caster druid, this is your go to.
  

• (2/5) Nature Sense: +2 to Know Nature and Survival. Oh okay...sure...I guess...um..thanks.
• (2/5) Wild Empathy: Make weird Diplomacy checks on animals. So like...Charisma isn’t your main stat in most cases (but you’ll likely want to keep it at 14 in general) and you are the druid...which means you have spells to make animals like you...and also do whatever you say. So this is uh...i guess neat if you ever use it.
• (2/5) Woodland Stride: Be immune to overgrown plants and don’t treat them as difficult terrain. This would be pretty cool...if it worked on magical undergrowth. As it is, it only matters if your DM specifically cares about this...which well...I’m not sure who does.
• (1/5) Trackless Step:  You can’t be tracked...yeah. That’s it. Look, you are going to be in a party...so unless ALL OF YOU are untrackable, this is basically useless in 9/10 games.
• (3/5) Resist Nature’s Lure: +4 Bonus on saves against spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities from fey creatures. Also, any spells that affect plants. This is basically what woodland stride should be, and BARELY sneaks into green because it’s all SLA’s from fey and ALL plant affecting spells.
• (5/5) Wild Shape: The final of the Big Three reveals themselves! Wild shape! The ability to transform yourself into a little beastie for HOURS per level. This is one of the things that put the druid on the map, and for good reason. Polymorphing gives you access to new attacks, abilities, and buffs that can make you an amazing scout, melee combatant, and all around support. You don’t need to call the eagles, if you ARE the eagles. For Melee Druids, this is your best friend. For everyone else? It’s still great. Furries unite.

• Oh and just as a cute side note, its supernatural. So it can’t be dispelled and you don’t take attacks of opportunity for using it. Ahahahahahaha.

• (3/5) Venom Immunity: So now you are immune to poisons. YAY. While this may not come up all the time, when it counts, you’ll remember. Ya know, between being able to turn into animals, and manipulate the world, druids are strangely good assassins. I mean, the only thing that would make them better is if they could turn into different people!
• (3/5) Thousand Faces: ...Okay, I asked for that. Still, at-will Alter Self is fun, and can be even more fun in social games. The only reason it isn’t ranked higher is because it’s a second level spell, and at this level you should be ruling cities, and warping fate and well...you can do better than this.
• (1/5) Timeless Body: Now you get to be...Immune...to aging….ah...hm...wow, that is even lamer than it looks. So, okay, the main thing about this is that there aren’t many things that can make you age in the game. So being immune to aging only matters if your game lasts forever, or you are thrown into a time vortex… neither of which are very common!!!!
• Capstones: So capstones are weird. Normally you wouldn’t really get one, and well most campaigns do not reach level 20. That said, Chronicles of Legends released a bunch of optional alternate prestige classes...that I have to rank individually. Gosh darnit.

• (4/5) The Great Beast (Su): Your animal companion gets a +4 to STR/DEX/CON/WIS. So for people who stan animal companions, I mean, this is great...but better than a minor artifact?
• (3/5) Home Ground (Su): Constant commune with nature and +4 to your caster level...so long as you stay in your secret lair area. Doesn’t really say how big the area can be but these aren’t the most AMAZING effects.
• (5/5) With This Sword (Ex): You gain a Noble Phantasm minor artifact!!! This is not only powerful, but also really really cool. Love that.
• (4/5) Won’t Stay Dead (Ex): Once per week, when you should lose, you don’t.
• (5/5) Perfect Body, Flawless Mind (Ex): Get 8 points that can be added to any ability score in any way. 5 to one, 3 to another. Best strat? Add 6 to your main stat and 2 to your secondary stat.
• (5/5) The Boss (Ex): You now are dumbledore! Or any other mysterious old powerful mentor that runs an entire faction. Get super leadership! Luckily everything else is so busted at this level, so this is fine.

  ---

Roles and Ability Scores

Now, it’s sort of hard to talk about what ability scores you need without talking about what roles the druid can take...which, of course, is all of them. So first, let’s cover the roles that the druid can take, and we’ll choose abilities based on that. Try to have a 16 in your main stat and a 14 in your secondary stat. All of the following reviews are for the Base Druid, without any archetypes, multiclasses, or Prestige Classes which would augment their ability.

Also because a lot of feats require it, try to have a charisma of 13. No higher but...at least that.

(5/5) Controller Caster (The Force of Nature) [Wis>>>Con/Dex>Cha>Int/Str]

Battlefield Control, Buff, and Debuff, i.e, The God Caster. You are a full caster with a list filled to the brim with world warping power, and plenty of ways to give your team the way to shift the world in your favor. Any druid can fill this role, and frankly you have to try to be bad at it.

(5/5) Scout (The Piped Piper) [ Wis/Dex > Int/Cha > Con/Str]

You have access to scrying, speak with animals/plants, wild shape. Nature SPEAKS to you. The trees have ears...and GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRL they got some tea to SPILL.

(4/5) Natural Weapon Melee (The Brutal Beast) [Str > Con > Dex/Wis >>>> Cha/Int]

Between Wild Shape, your spell list, and your animal companion (should you take one) you can scrape it up in melee with the best of them. It takes a bit more investment, but with the right buffs, transformations and items, you will be a blender unlike any other.

(4/5) Melee Tank/Melee Disruptor (Turtle of Heaven) [Str/Con > Dex > Wis >>> Cha/Int]

Want to keep your melee buddies out of trouble? Beastmaster style, Trip companions, and mind boggling transmutations will make you a pain to attack, and make attacking a pain. Using Weapon Shift, you can make it so that any of your many attacks can trip, grapple, dirty trick, or ruin your opponent’s life in any way you need.

(3/5) Healer (Life Incarnate) [Wis > Con/Int > Cha/Dex/Str ]

So good news! You actually have a lot of good healing spells. All the cure spells, a bunch of Remove spells, Heal, Goodberry. This makes you a pretty solid healer in general..but those cost spell slots. In combat, you can keep up with a cleric who doesn’t try.  Out of combat? Take Glorious Heat for infinite out of combat healing. You’re no oradin, but you aren’t half bad.

(2/5) Blaster (The Elemetal Overlord) [Wis >>>> Dex/Con> Int/Str/Cha]

So you get some fun blaster spells but… you're not the wizard. You don’t get the BEST blaster spells. Nor do you get the ability to change your damage type. Or boost your damage, via bloodline abilities. So it’s not that you are a BAD blaster. It’s just you don’t really have the things to make a good one.

(2/5) Manufactured Weapon Melee (Branch of Blades) [Str > Con > Dex/Wis >>>> Cha/Int]

You can’t wear metal armor, you are only ¾ bab, none of your abilities make you better at fighting, and the weapons you start with suck. It’s not impossible, but all of your class features, from your spell list, to your supernatural abilities are begging you to go Claw and Jaw. This is just harder for you in general.

(1/5) Ranged Combat (The Lord of the Wild) [Dex >>> Str > Con/Wis > Int/Cha]

Ranged combat takes a lot of feats. You need a lot of feats. You don’t have full BAB. You don’t get free feats. It’s doable but...why??? No seriously why? Any action you spend shooting arrows you COULD be turning into a Doom Scorpion. If you want arrows and nature, be a Hunter or a Ranger.

(1/5) Face/Skill Monkey [Cha/Int > Wis/Dex > Con > Str]

Base druids, this isn’t for you. You have 4+int skills, and no reason to boost int or charisma (besides a weak class feature.) Feyspeaker Druids? Kill the runway. Be gay, do crimes, get away with them.

Races

So here’s the thing about races. Besides ya know, flavor for your campaign and your character… they don’t actually… matter. They are balls of stats and abilities, which is good! If you want to play a human fighter, but you want the elf stat block, really there isn’t much reason to deny you because again...they are just stat balls. If your dm doesn’t let you split your flavor and your stats, that’s fine! Either way, I think its more important to rate races on what they give you, rather than what they are. I won’t go into a lot of detail on any one race, but I’ll give you the gist of what is worth looking at.

(6/5) Extreme Stat Bonuses, and  Multiple Powerful Abilities

• Duergar Tyrants (+2 STR/WIS, +4 CON, -2 CHA): Great stats, Amazing SLA’s and Kineticist Abilities, GREAT Spell Resistance, and Great passive bonus to saves
• Drow Noble (+4 DEX, +2 INT/WIS/CHA, -2 CON): REALLY REALLY GOOD SLA’S, Good stats, and Fantastic Spell Resistance.
• Munavri (+4 Dex, +2 CON/INT/WIS/CHA, -2 STR): Way way way too many good stats. A little telepathy pushes it over the edge. Basically good for any class.
• Deep One Hybrid [Post Final Change] (+6 STR, -4 DEX, +8 CON, +2 WIS): Dummy Strong Stats. So high in fact that it doesn’t even really need a cool ability, this is just insane
• Drider (+2 STR/DEX/WIS, +4 CON): Large Fast, Great Spell Resistance, Hit’s hard.

(5/5) Bonus to Main Stat, Bonus to Secondary, and Powerful Race ability

• Humans (+2 to Main Stat): Why do they get to be 5/5? Because you are a druid, and you have a LOT of feats that can make you powerful. Your class is very feat starved. This gives you a free feat. It’s that strong.
• Sahuagin (+2 STR/WIS, -2CHA): Blindsense 30! Enough Said
• Samsaran (+2 WIS/INT, -2CON): Mystic Past Life! The ability to snag spells, at level, from any divine class, most of which are different from you, is so powerful, it bumps this race up. There is an entire guide on this. It’s that good.
• Green Martian (+2 STR/WIS, -CHA): Large, Multiarmed and In Charge. Yes, it’s real. Go click the link, I promise it’s not a prank
• Svinfneblins (+2 DEX/WIS, -2 STR, -4 CHA): Free AC bonuses, Lots of SLA’s, Constant Nondetection, and POWERFUL Spell Resistance.
• Tiefling [Qlippoth-Spawn] (+2 STR/WIS, -2 INT): Good Stats, Blur SLA. Probably the weakest on this list, but it barely makes it.
• Aasimar [Garuda-Blooded] (+2 DEX/WIS): Good stats, Invisibility SLA. Weaker end but still solid.

(4/5) Races: Bonus to Main Stat, Bonus to Secondary or Powerful Race Ability.

• Aasimar [Base, Archon-Blooded]
• Tiefling [Oni-Spawn, Asura-Spawn, Demodand-Spawn]
• Normal Duergar
• Orang-Pendak
• Vine Leshy
• Syrinx
• Half-Orc
• Half-Elf
• Rougarou

(3/5) Races: Bonus to Main Stat

• Anything else with a bonus to Wisdom for Casters
• Anything with a bonus to Dex/Str or Wisdom for Melee
• Anything with a Bonus to Dex for Ranged
• Anything with a Bonus to Charisma for Feyspeakers

(2/5) Races: No bonus to Main Stat

• Anything that doesn’t have a bonus or penalty to whatever your role’s stat.

(1/5) Races: Penalty to Main Stat

• Anything that has a penalty to your role’s stat. Really that simple.

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Wild Shape FAQ

Q: Okay you say wild shape is good, but I don’t really know how this works! Beast shape I? Which forms are good? What do I do???

A: No worries, I got you. Luckily, people have been wild shaping for quite some time now, so we have some experts on deck. If you want to know how Wild Shape works in general, this guide on Wild Shape explains EVERYTHING.

Q: Agh NO! Size bonus? Polymorph? This is so much! I’m new here!!! Just tell me what it does! What happens when I use wild shape???? Why is it cool??? Can I be a bear? Do I have to find the bear stats now????

A: Oh whoa whoa calm down. It’s okay! Look, wild shape is a pretty weird ability, so I can get why you are confused. How about this? I’ll give you a quick little TLDR.

• Activating wild shape is a standard action (unless you have the Quick Wild Shape Feat) that does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
• When activated, you are able to take the form of an animal, elemental, or plant monster that the druid is familiar with of a specific size based on the Beast Shape (at level 4), Elemental Body (at level 6), or Plant Shape (at level 8) spells lines.  
• When you transform into a specific animal, elemental or plant, you gain access to a limited number of its abilities/characteristics of that creature, as listed in the description for the spell used. You also change to the size of whatever creature you chose and gain a size bonus to your stats based on the spell description and your new size.

• You do not gain the stats of the creature you turn into. Sorry 5e players, if you turn into a bear, you get a buff, not a whole new health pool.

• If you transform into an Animal or Plant, you lose the ability to speak to other humans (but not to other animals of your kind), or cast spells that require verbal components. 

• Obviously this is a huge problem...that we do have a solution to.

• All of your armor and equipment is melded into your new form. Weapons, Armor, Bags, all of that. Items melded into you do not function unless they provide a constant bonus, with exception of armor and shields, which just stop working entirely.
• This transformation lasts for 1 hour per druid level that you have.

A: “Was that a lot huh? Even simpler? Okay. Choose your creature (animal, elemental or plant). Check its size, and then which spell that coincides with (beast shape X, elemental body X, plant shape X) .  You change your size to the size of the creature and get any of the abilities or bonuses listed in your spell and all of your equipment and armor fuse into you when you do. This means you can’t provide material components.  If you are something that doesn't have a language, you can't use verbal components, and if it doesn't have hands, you don’t get somatic components. So unless you have Natural Spell, you can’t cast anything. You now look like whatever you are turning into and are cooler.”

Q: Okay but how do I be the BEST at wild shaping. Like how do I know what is good and what is bad and what is scary and how I make people cry?

A: Hey don’t worry. I’ve got you! Sounds like you might be...Polymorphamorous ;). If you wanna shapeshift with the best of ‘em kid, here’s how!!!

• All jokes aside, it's a really good guide for polymorphing. Definitely something that you will be doing a lot of and be very good at.
• Wild shaping is incredibly helpful for Scouting and Melee Combat.

Q: So...this is a little embarrassing but how do natural attacks work…

A: Fair question! The rules for natural attacks can be found here, but I know you don’t to read this, so I’ll just give you another TLDR;

• Primary natural attacks use the player's full Base Attack Bonus and add the player's full Strength bonus to damage.
• Secondary natural attacks are made at a -5 penalty to hit and add only half the
• player's Strength bonus to damage.
• If the player has only one natural attack, this is treated as a primary natural attack that adds 1 and 1/2 the player's Strength bonus to damage.
• If a player wields a weapon, it can still make its natural attacks, but they are all counted as secondary attacks.
• Weapon attacks do benefit from iterative attacks; i.e. the player gets an extra attack for every 5 points of BAB above +1. Natural attacks do not benefit from iterative attacks; you get one attack per natural weapon and that's it.

Druid Domains

So Domains!!! Finally! Took me forever but now I’m finally getting to it. Druids get access to the  Air, Animal, Earth, Fire, Plant, Water, or Weather cleric domains (as well as any of their Subdomains) and all of the Animal and Terrain Domains. This is a lot and I’m going to try and cover everything in a way that doesn’t make me lose my mind.

Important notes for these reviews.

1. I will rate abilities that get you something synergistic higher, because you’ll actually get uses out of them.
2. You get Domain slots and spells! When rating domain spells, I’ll sometimes have to consider if a spell is good as a domain spell vs just as a spell on its own. I mean, Is this spell better or worse knowing that It is one of the few spells i can prepare into this special slot that I will be using every day? Thus some spells will get a different rating as a domain spell, using a [D]

Okay are we ready? Let’s dive in.

Cleric Domains

Animal and Terrain Domains

Animal Companions

I imagine you all are wondering what amazing insights I have about animal companions. Well fortunately for all of us, so many other people have written about them, I have decided to defer to their expertise, which is much better than mine.

• AC Guides:

• Hussar Guide: Technically for Path of War, a third party supplement for martials by dreamscarred press, but the advice is incredibly solid. Great read, very in depth. Definitely the first thing I’d suggest reading if you want to see how powerful an animal companion is.
• ANIMAL COMPANION ARCHETYPES: You can augment  your crazy monsters even further! Don’t ignore these.
• Druid’s Log: A bit out of date, but the information is useful. Don’t snub your nose at the fundamentals. Also includes some FAQ’s
• Having Multiple Animal Companions: If you wanna be crazy, please go for it. Have as many as your DM will allow. Be your own wolf pack!!!! WOOOOOO!!!!
• Quick Guide to Animal companions: Super old, super small, but hits the high points. Good for refreshers.

Archetypes

Iluzry continues her horrid criminal streak, robbing so many content creators of their beautiful guides. Why? Because I am lazy, and honestly, these people put a lot of work into their stuff. Honestly? The only thing I’m going to do is pull out archetypes that are either classics or what I’d consider stand-outs. Not necessarily the BEST in all cases but the ones I think are worth looking at or I think are interesting.

Ratings For All The Druid Archetypes

Standout Archetypes

Multiclassing

In general, don’t! Why? Remember your ridiculously versatile and powerful class feature known as MAGIC. Yeah that scales with your class level. So does wild shape. So does your nature bond. Which means taking levels in other classes makes it less powerful...and its really really powerful. So in general, don’t!

...but if you must!! A few rules. Yes we have rules here.

1. It must give you a massive benefit and synergize with your role.
2. You must not dip more than 2 levels. Total. You don’t want to lose out
3. Try to mitigate losses. Take Shaping Focus or Boon Companion as needed.

Okay...now that’s that...we can talk. Most of these will be for combat druids, as caster druids should just...keep being druids. Saves you time.

• (4/5) Alchemist (Vivisectionist):

•  MUTAGEN! +4 alchemical bonus to your fave physical stat, with some natural armor for 10 minutes
• Consider Vivisectionist for even more sneak attack! Why can druids get so much sneak attack???

• (4/5) Monk/Unchained Monk:

• Unarmored AC Bonus thats wild shape compatible
• Scaled Fist Unchained Monk for Feyspeakers
• Master of Many Styles Monks for Beastmaster or Linnorm Style

• (3/5) Bloodrager (w/Mad Magic Feat):

• Mystic rage! +4 to Str and Con, but you can’t use skills or cast...unless you take Mad Magic. Which you will be taking...btw.
• Costs a feat, but the buff is pretty nice!
• If only there were an archetype that gave us the ability to rage...oh wait.

• (5/5) Crossblooded Sorcerer [Draconic/Orc Bloodline]:

• If you are going to be a blaster you ARE taking this. Just trust me.

• (5/5) Ranger:

• Why? Favored enemy, that’s why!!! Lots and lots of bonus accuracy and damage. Feel free to take an archetype that swaps out track and wild empathy
• “But wait, you only get a +2. Isn’t that pretty small for a one to two level dip?” Haha my friend, that is where I have a trick: Shapeshifting Hunter. This allows your druid levels to scale your favored enemy, and every time you get a new favored enemy, the bonus goes up by 2.
• Nature’s fang warriors LOVE this. Congrats, you are now a better Ranger than the Ranger.

Prestige Classes

Okay but what about prestige classes? They progress spells!!! I’m sure they must be good. Which ones are good for that???

Okay but remember your other amazing class features? Your domain? Your Animal companion? If you plan on progressing any of your class features besides spells, prestige classes are usually awful.

For those of you that don't know, prestige classes are a special type of class made for multiclassing. They have special requirements to take levels in, and can sometimes progress class features that you already have or give you new ones. You take levels in a prestige class otherwise like how you'd take levels in a normal class.

 Prestige classes work best when you have nothing to progress, or nothing you care about progressing, and you want to get extra abilities.On top of that most of the abilities you get from prestige classes aren’t even that good! I’m serious. Most prestige classes are garbage and they don’t even make a lot of them anymore.

Okay...now that I’ve had my rant..I’m going to separate these into Progress Class Features and Does Not Progress Class Features. Neither is particularly better or worse, it just matters what you care about.

Progresses Class Features

These are actually very rare. A lot of prestige classes are meant to give you something NEW, not keep giving you something old. Luckily, paizo loves to keep doing stuff, so well, we have a few options. Not many, but a few.

• (5/5) The Evangelist [Entry Level 5 or 7]

• Woo starting off strong! The Evangelist is a prestige class all around Obedience Feats (I’ll link a way too comprehensive guide for them here).

•  TDLR, swear your loyalty to a god, do a cool trick for them, and get neat powers
• The more feats you get, the more neat powers you’ll have, but they are usually character level gated

• What makes it so useful is its level 2 class feature, Aligned Class, which means that any level you take in Evangelist from 2-10 also progresses your base class’s features as if you’d taken a level in that class.
• Frankly, this is the best it gets, as The Evangelist gives you everything you need and more. Sure you lose one level for your class features, but only one, and you gain a number of potentially powerful boons early

• (4/5) The Green Faith Acolyte [Entry Level 5]

• AKA the druid replacement service. Remember all of those archetypes that gave away our favorite abilities? Well congrats, this just gives them back to you! And progresses your spell casting! Sure they are on the weak side but hey, better to have them than to not.
• Alternatively, if you are reading this guide, and are jealous of us druids, and want to borrow some of our almighty power...well I wouldn’t blame you.
• Why 4/5 then? Well because it’s old...meaning it doesn’t progress any abilities other than animal companion and wild shape...which really just means that unless you chose an animal companion, and kept your wild shape, you should dip two levels to get your class features back and stop taking more levels.

• (5/5) Dawnflower Anchorite [Entry Level 5]:

• So you lose a level of spellcasting...which is recoverable. We have ways around that. In exchange you get...lesser inspire courage, neat feats, full level progression for your nature’s bond and wild shape...WAIT WHAT???
• Yes that's right. With the Focused Class Feature credence, you can progress your Domain, or Animal Companion and Wildshape...along with your spells!! And you get other stuff!!!! Yes yes yes. If you don’t want to take evangelist, this is your best prestige class for the base druid, easily.

Does Not Progress Class Features

Much more common, but because they DON’T progress your class features. Still, they are fun and can be really strong for certain builds but well, we will see okay?

• Full Spell Progression

• (5/5) Stargazer [Entry Level 5]

• Great prestige class! Easy access, lots of class features! Hexes, A free Domain (with spells) and Revelations! Not to mention a bunch of handy supernatural abilities. Best example of what a prestige class SHOULD be.

• (4/5) Mystic Theurge [Early Entry Level 4]

• So basically, if you can get in early as possible, you can progress your druid spells and an arcane class’s spells for 10 levels!!! Woo, thats a lot of spells!!! I’d suggest Empyreal Sorceror as it’s also wisdom based.
• Lots and lots of spells is great, and we like that here.
• Wait wait wait. You ask. Early entry? I thought SLA’s no longer counted? How do we get in early? TLDR: Sunrod Equipment Trick: Like The Sun. Requires +1 BAB. Lets you cast a light spell at +1 level for all purposes, which is cheesy but raw allowed.
• Or if you want to make everyone mad, use some Djezet (Thanks ksarner)

• (5/5) Veiled Illusionist [Entry Level 5]

• If you want to do illusions, this is the illusion prestige class. Mainly for Feyspeakers I think. You get more illusions, you can disguise yourself and you are super cool. Best at illusions. #nowyouseeme
• So my review is assuming you are in love with illusions. Otherwise, skip.

• (3/5) Harrower [Entry Level 5]

• Neat little buffs around drawing cards like a yugioh character. You need a lot of divination spells, but that shouldn’t be hard.
• It’s not like...bad, just kinda weird and silly.

• (3/5) Spherewalker [Entry Level 7 or 10]

• Niceu! Telepathic bond, 4 hour sleep, divine luck, and (while not powerful) BUTTERFLY SWARM. Gay dracula, eat your heart you.
• Entry has a lot of requirements tho we aren’t great with...BAB +5 and a bunch of silly feats...and we really need our feats.

• (5/5) Ritualist [Entry Level 8]

• Does your DM allow Occult Rituals? Do you and your party regularly perform spooky dark rituals? Then this is the prestige class for you!
• Rituals are a relatively new feature that came with occult classes and is incredibly powerful...if you can do it. Basically its a super skill challenge. If you pass? Something really sick happens. If you fail? You get wrekt’d. (Actually GREAT for BBEG, so DM’s, pay attention)
• Rating based on you both being willing and allowed to play the ritual mini-game. Otherwise??? Skip.

• (5/5) Loremaster [Entry Level 7] (One Level Dip)

• 5/5 for a one level dip? Loremaster must give you something really powerful! Nope. All it gives us is access to the Secret’s class feature, and most secrets are incredibly lame..
• BUTTTTTTT you need secrets to pick up Secret of Magical Discipline which allow you to cast ANY SPELL from ANY CLASS at that classes spell level once a day. Not at it +2 or +1. Same level. This is dumb
• Take the feat to get another use of ultimate anyspell.

• (4/5) Argent Dramaturge [Entry Level 6]

• Get some neat anti outsider/devil bardic performances, including “everything is silver now” and “teleporting is for punks.”
• This also gets you access to bardic masterpieces. Which are the best? Probably these two:  Music Beyond The Spheres and Pageant of The Peacock

• Loses One Level of Spells

• For any of these classes, take Favored Prestige Class and Prestigious Spellcaster to get your spell level back.

• (4/5) Pathfinder Savant [Entry Level 5]

• 9 spells from any spell list, spontaneous dispel magic, and a bunch of bonuses to sigil spells and item bonuses. Nice!!!
• Okay feat requirements, but still sorta annoying. Still, very solid prestige class.

• (4/5) Brewkeeper [Entry Level 5]

• You become the potion master! If you are a druidic Herbalist, you get into this super easy, but some of the abilities might be a little redundant. Still it does give you extra metamagic, and some neat bonus effects on touch spells so, I think it’s definitely worth it.

• (5/5) Agent of the Grave [Entry Level 5]

• Okay do you want to be undead, summon undead, and be the best spook lord? Yes? Alright well for my friend lich druids...who are more common than I thought, there is your prestige class. Otherwise Skip.
• Free wizard spells, more animate undead HD, free desecrate, charisma to HP. Great pick up.
• For extra spook, take Shade of the Uskwood.

• (5/5) Davirat [Entry Level 7]

• You are here for Spell Fetch. Basically, at level 3, you can spend 10 minutes and ask your genie friend you bring you a spell from any list. Yes any. It counts as being 2 levels higher if you couldn’t cast already, BUT adds an incredible level of versatility, because if you need it? You’ve got it. (also fun note, there is no limit on how many times you can do this per day.)
• Requires Spell Focus: Conjuration...which you should already probably be taking for Augmented Summons and Versatile Nature’s Ally, so uh...congrats!!!

• (5/5) Deadeye Devotee (Arcane Archer PrC Archetype) [Entry Level 5] (4 Level Dip)

• Holy balls there are archetypes for Prestige classes now? Nice. Well this comes from a Paizo blogs so I’d consider it 1.5 Party. ANYWAY. We are here for Imbue Arrows, which allows us to drop our myriad of kickass AOE’s at bow range. Why is this fun? Well you can aim the arrow at the ground, which has an AC of 5, and attack with spells that would usually be bursts.
• This rating is specifically for Nature’s Fang Archer Druids going in NO MORE than 4 levels. For anyone else? This is trash.

• Special Mention

• (4/5) Mammoth Rider [ 1 Lvl Dip, Entry Level 9]

• So it doesn’t progress your spells..or your class features...so why even take a dip??? Because it makes your animal companion Huge. That’s right. You replace any animal companion you had with a megafauna. Is it hard to fit places? Yes. Does it kick ass? Also yes. We have other ways of getting great monsters, but this is pretty solid.
• Basically, if you want a massive companion, this is for you.

Feats

Feats are one of the most important parts of Pathfinder, and are your primary ways of augmenting your character outside of your class features. As a druid you have a lot of features that can be base boosted by feats! We LOVE feats. Druids are super feat starved because we have so many that make us awesome, that we have to choose carefully on what KIND of awesome we are.

Pathfinder has waaayy too many options as per usual, and as such, I’ll only be doing the stand outs.

General Feats

• (5/5) Dreamed Secrets: Two wizard spells that you get to choose daily, which require a WILL SAVE to cast. This VASTLY VASTLY VASTLY increases your versatility, and all it requires is that you worship Cosmic Horror (Nothing says you can't be polytheistic…) If you have ANY Room, then FUCKING TAKE IT
• (4/5) Fey Spell Lore: What’s that? Free spells? Free good spells? Sweet.
• (4/5) Gifted Mesmerist: gain a once a day compulsion SLA. NICE. Take the highest level spell you can get away with and have fun with your new sharingan. Feyspeakers? This is for you.
• (6/5) Leadership: Our first 6/5 feat. Why? Because for a feat at level 7, you get ANOTHER CHARACTER SHEET. This is far and away the strongest feat in all of pathfinder...and it barely has any prerequisites. If your DM allows this, it’s objectively the best option.
• (3/5) Improved Initiative: Going first is amazing! It’s a pretty solid bonus.
• (4/5) Spell Focus [Conjuration]: So +1 to your DC for conjuration spells isn’t like..the most interesting, but you have a LOT of conjuration spells annnd you need this for a lot of your summoning feats.
• (4/5) Shade of the Uskwood: Sacrifice all fire feats forever in exchange for a bunch of death related powers. For you dark necrodruids? This is for you. Why there are necrodruids amazes me. For anyone who likes fire spells or not being creepy? Skip.
• (4/5) Stalker’s Focus: Once per day, steal the Hunters bit! Animal Focus for a minute is still pretty good, and having a versatile buff is nice.
• (4/5) War Blessing: If you have a domain, you can steal the Warpriest’s schtick!!!! HAHAHAHAHA. Ahem probably uh pick one of the following, most of them sort of expect you to have a lot of uses: War/Destruction/Protection/Air(good for range)/Darkness (blur for free)/Nobility/Scalykind (Barkskin?
• (4/5) Wasp Familiar: Familiars are tight! Enjoy having a better one than most!!!!!!
• (5/5) Vaporous Potion: Hey remember how drinking a potion and stuff takes a bunch of actions and is dumb? Why not just fucking THROW THEM AT YOUR FRIENDSD and have them instantly get the buff just by standing there? Or better yet, pick up like 5 potions and then drop them on the ground in front of you, thus getting all of the buffs for yourself? This is amazing, and if you are a Druidic Herbalist (which let me remind you, is a really good idea) this should be one of your first feats.

Combat Feats

• (5/5) Power Attack/ (5/5) Piranha Strike/ (5/5) Deadly Aim: Do you plan to be in combat...at all? Take one of these three feats. Why? They are the three scaling damage feats in the game. Yes that's right. Scaling. Most pathfinder feats give you a static bonus at best, much less get better as you level up! If you are in combat, you are taking one of these!!!! No questions!!!!
• (4/5) Combat Reflexes: Extra attacks of opportunity! You can get pretty big so lots and lots reach. Extra smacks are extra smacks!!!
• (3/5) Toughness: More health is what you need to take more hits!!!
• Wilding/Wildling Strike:
• (4/5) Combat Rhythm: Get more accuracy just for bapping people. Normally, this doesn’t matter too much...but you have natural attacks. Potentially a lot of them!!!  
• (3/5) Point Blank Shot / (5/5)  Precise Shot / (5/5) Clustered Shots: Are you doing archery? Yes? Then these feats are your prerequisites. You WILL be taking them. Point blank shot is just connected to too many ranged feats. Consider it your Spell Focus as it were.
• (5/5) Rapid Shot/Manyshot: Get more arrow attacks! These feats are part of why ranged can be such a powerful playstyle!!!
• (5/5) Rapid Reload: IF you have to reload your ranged weapon you are taking this. Thats just how it is.
• (2/5) Weapon Focus / (4/5) Erastil’s Blessing: Wisdom to ATTACK for ranged weapons! WOO. Makes it so that archers can boost their casting stat. The only issue is that as an archer and a druid you are even MORE feat hungry and while this is good, it’s not...necessary.

Animal Companion Feats

• (5/5) Animal Soul: If it can’t affect an animal AND your base type? You can decide it doesn’t work. YEAH. No save, no nothing. Hold Person? Dominate Person? Just no! Just for having an animal companion!!!! FUCK YES that’s powerful.
• (3/5) Spirits Gift: Give animal companion shaman animal power that changes every day. Even though it only lasts minutes per level, when you need it, this can be a serious power up for your companion, and its versatile! Shame most of the buffs are so low level...
• (5/5) Boon Companion: +4 to your animal companion level, up to your total character level. Are you multiclassing even though I told you not to? Do you want your animal companion to be strong? Take this.
• (4/5) Beast Speaker: oh hey, improved familiar, but for AC. Nice. It gives you a very SHORT list of better animal companions, but in exchange, you don't lose any animal companion progression, unlike Monstrous Companion
• (2/5) Monstrous Companion: Leadership but for AC. Notoriously not great because your monstrous companion can’t really scale well...soo...rip
• (4/5) Corpse companion: Companion is now undead. Lots of resistances and immunities!
• (3/5) Curious Companion: Get a Plant/Vermin Companion. You can usually only get plant companions if you are a elf treesinger, so this does a thing.
• (4/5) Skaveling Companion: Get a neat bat. Has pretty cool stats but is basically just a big undead bat...but it flies and has a strength of 23 base so, hey, no shade. Since its very specific, and it gets a lot of resistances, I wouldn't call it a bad option in any case, but if you don't want a big undead bat...well!!!!
• (4/5) Vampiric Companion: Companion becomes undead AND gets fast healing. Ha. Always better than corpse companion for a dhampir.
• (5/5) Spell Sponge: Great for animal companion to pick up. Free extend spell for all spells is free. Niceu.
• (3/5) Linnorm Hunter Style: You threaten one of us? You threaten the BOTH OF US. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. Lmao but really expending an AoO is no big deal and this is a pretty neat ability if you have different forms of reach.
• (4/5) Beast Master Style / (4/5) Beastmasters Salvation / (5/5) Beastmasters Ire: Use handle animal to prevent your battle buddy from taking damage! Ha! Eventually you can replace its saving throws AND get a bonus to attack. Combine this with intercept blows???? Congratulations you are now both constantly defending the other one and probably invincible.
• (5/5) Pact Tactics: Animal companion has all the teamwork feats you do. Can be very good for battle buddy style, and makes teamwork feats actually good!
• (4/5) Celestial Servant: AND BECOMES A MAGICAL BEAST. SNUCK THAT IN THERE HUH. Not as good as the blood of baphomet, but its also not an evil creature and the celestial template gives really nice resistances. Combine this with an animal companion archetype and you might be something fierce.
• (5/5) Evolved Animal Companion: first level evolution points are tight. You can’t get pounce or reach, but you can still give your animal companion NEW natural attacks (for more damage), skilled to make them a god at perception or acrobatics, extra AC, magic natural attacks. An incredible pick up for any animal companion.
• (4/5) Intercept Blow / (5/5) Improved Intercept Blow: So this is a feat for your animal companion to take, but basically, itll try to play get down mister president. Using your animal companion as a meat shield is not a bad idea and it kinda gets more amazing if you combine it with Beastmaster style, so that the animal companion can be saved from the attack it just saved you from.
• (1/5) Nature’s Soul / (5/5) Animal Ally: Okay nature’s soul blows BUTTTTTT animal ally gets you an aNIMAL COMPANION!!! YAY!!!! So even if you didn't get one from your natures bond OR your domain, yOU CAN STILL GET IN ON THE ACTION. LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO

Wild Shape Feats

• (5/5) Nature Spell: Do you plan to wild shape EVER. Even once? You are taking this feat. Remember how spellcasting is your strongest class feature? Remember that wild shape hours per level and is really strong? So yeah imagine them at the same time!!! The only reason this isn't bright pink is because its basically a feat tax that the designers put in for druids for being so god damn powerful.
• (4/5) Shaping Focus: +4 to your level up to max character level for wild shape. Are you multiclassing? Do you want to keep your wild shape. Take this.
• (4/5) Powerful Shape: Useful if you plan to be doing a lot of disruptive combat maneuvers while in wild shape!! Not for everyone but its a good pickup for what it does.
• (4/5) Planar Wild Shape: AYE more templates. Wild shape lasts a very long time, and the celestial and fiendish templates come with some JUICY resistances. It costs two uses of your wild shape though, which makes it a later pick up.
• (5/5) Weapon Shift / (3/5) Improved Weapon Shift / (2/5) Greater Weapon Shift: So weapon shift allows you to take any weapon your a wielding, and gain ALL of its base weapon properties, including the damage type. This is amazing for getting through DR, and some of your crazier combat maneuvers and is incredibly versatile. So why do I rate the later versions worse? Because they basically give you what an Amulet of Mighty Fists would give you and high level weapons aren’t cheap. Take the first feat and become a whirlwind of blades.
• (5/5) Mutated Shape: Gain an extra natural attack while wild shaping! This is really really good, because your number of attacks is limited by the number of natural attacks you have. That’s it. So getting an extra one, especially modular, is great!!!
• (3/5) Quick Wild Shape: Matters if you get caught with your pants down. Not really worth it otherwise. Martials might like it?
• (3/5) Frightful Shape: Debuff people by bapping them. Good for Melee, and if you have feats that can stack around being scary af.

Summoning Feats

• (5/5) Augment Summoning: All summons get a +4 to Str and Con! Score! This is an amazing ability on its own, and just so happens to be the prereq for a lot of other really good abilities.
• (5/5) Superior Summoning: Summon more monsters!!! More monsters means more actions!
• (5/5) Versatile Summon Nature’s Ally: Hell yes. Whenever you summon a monster, instead of giving it +4 to Str and Con you can choose to apply one of five templates! Each of the templates comes with different abilities and resistances, making your summons that much more potent. If you are planning on being a summoner? Take this. Love it.
• (5/5) Summon Guardian Spirit: Jeezzzz this is bonkers. First summon a monster from the improved familiar list. Then give them omni smite. Then give them guidance cantrip at will. THEN Give them a whole MESS of spell-like abilities. ALSO SPELL RESISTANCE. GOD FUCK THIS THING IS A BEAST. The only thing that sucks is that you can only summon one at a time...for minutes per level. God. This is so unnecessarily good. Take it. Take it and go.
• (4/5) Summon Plant Ally: You add a bunch of plants to your SNA list. Yay more plant friends! One of the few ways to expand your list, so yay, we like this.

Healing Feats

• (4/5) Glorious Heat: Infinite free healing for the cost of a cantrip. Nice. The only reason it isn't rated higher is because well, it’s not great in combat healing. Otherwise? Heck. Yes.
• (5/5) Signature Skill: You get signature skills! What do we want this for? HEAL OF COURSE. Treat Deadly Wounds now heals twice their character level in HP and 2 ability damage to every ability score damaged AND THAT’S JUST AT 5 ranks. Shame it takes a whole hour to do….
• (5/5) Healing Hands: Add ranks in knowledge planes to heals AND Treat Deadly Wounds as a FULL ROUND ACTION. AND YOU CAN DO IT MORE THAN ONCE. AND ITS POWERED BY THE PLANE OF HEALING. YES YES YES YES. HECKS TO THE YEAH. IF YOU ARE DOING SKILL HEALING THEN YOU ARE TAKING THIS FEAT NO QUESTIONS ASKED
• (4/5) Healer’s Touch: Maximized Healing!!! It’s a story feat, but its pretty good. Makes all of your cure spells pretty solid
• (5/5) Lifting Hands of God: Now all healing is pre buff!!! WOO OKAY. Load up your team with heals beforehand and have them activate on command.
• (4/5) Incredible Healer: Healing = Heal Check or normal, whichever is higher. Considering that it’s way easier to get your skill ranks up, this is just gold.

Metamagic Feats

• (6/5) Sacred Geometry: Free metamagic. FREE METAMAGIC. Combined with the right metamagic feats, this ability is downright godly, the qualifications are dirt easy and you can make every spell unstoppable. Why don’t most people take it! Well all of that horrible math of course! If only someone had made an online easily accessible and useful calculator...hint...hint!
• (5/5) Spell Perfection: More free metamagic! Very late game, but its incredibly useful, and all that it asks from you is that you take more metamagic! Can do!!! (Also remember that it doubles ANY other feat based numerical bonuses. Caster level, DC, anything.) This is the capstone for any blaster
• (2-6/5) Ascendant Spell: Okay so basically, ascendant spell lets you cast a spell as its MYTHIC version which is...completely ridiculous. All mythic spells are just straight up better versions of the base spell, and getting access to them in non mythic games is great...or it would be if it didnt bring you up +5 spell levels. Damn. If only we had a way, that was relatively easy, to be able to use metamagic without raising the actual level of the spell! Then well this would be amazing wouldn’t it? Probably busted.
• (5-6/5) Cherry Blossom Spell: If a target takes damage from a spell (even if they succeed their save) They take 2 ABILITY DAMAGE to either all their mental or physical scores. You are the druid. Not only is this thematic, you also have a bunch of spells that have ongoing damage effects that make this TERRIFYING. So long as your spell has a save, they don't get a fort save to negate it. Even for +3 spell levels, this is probably worth it. Imagine if we didn’t have to do that?
• (4/5) Extend Spell: Doubles your duration. Short sweet, gets the job done, great for long term buffs or other effects. Definitely worth picking up.
• (5/5) Quickened Spell: You are probably going to get a rod of this, because its sort of expensive BUT action economy is the name of the game. Being able to cast two spells in one round is ridiculously powerful, don’t forget it.
• (6/5) Dazing Spell: HAHAHA IF THEY TAKE DAMAGE FROM THE SPELL THEY ARE DAZED. DAZED. Dazed creatures can take no actions, completely removing potentially dozens of enemies from the board. And all you have to do is damage them. Dazing fireball is classic for a reason, and honestly this is one of the best debuff tools in the game. Fucking terrifying.
• (4/5) Rime Spell: Ice spells entangle. Good cute debuff and you have plenty of ice spells.
• (3/5) Heighten Spell: Usually, whatever, just makes a spell count as a higher level than it is. Gives you some extra DC’s. Not great...unless you are getting into Angel Summoner Cheese, in which case, it’s necessary.
• (5/5) Studied Metamagic: Make a knowledge check. If you pass, you completely ignore the targets energy resistances or DR from its race...which is what most monsters have. Congrats, fireball now works on the fire elemental and everyone is very angry with you. Better for the wizard I think, but still great on you. BLASTERS YOU ARE PICKING THIS UP.
• (5/5) Empowered Spell: All numerical effects...ALL OF THEM are increased by 1.5. All of them. Thats damage dice, damage added, possibly creatures affected. It just says all. Go off I guess. Blasters, you are also taking this.
• (4/5) Maximized Spell: All variable numeric effects are maximized. Healing is maxed, damage is maxed yadda yadda.

Channel Energy Feats

• (4/5) Bless Equipment / (4/5)  Improved Bless Equipment / (3/5) Greater Bless Equipment: As a standard action, expend uses of channel energy to give your weapon or armor a special ability from a short list. Standouts are Bane and Ghost Touch. If you have a er...not great version of channel energy, this turns it into something useful! YAY
• (3/5) Channeled Shield Wall: Expend channel energy to get a small deflection bonus to AC. Hey its cheap and it counts. Until you get your ring of protection that is...
• (3/5) Channel Viciousness: Expend channel, everyone gets vicious weapons which do an extra 2d6 to the enemy, SWEET, but 1d6 to you, oof. That can really stack up, both ways, so without a healer, this can really only be used by class cannons. But if you have HP to spare and want to rip and tear? This is a good option.
• (5/5) Liberation Channel: Freedom of movement, the fourth level spell, whenever you heal someone with channel energy. Honestly, most of the ways you channel aren’t going to be able to take advantage of htis as a druid but GOLLY is it strong.
• (5/5) Thicket channel: NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE IT. Channel energy and then grow plants! Woo! We love plants here!!! Get Quick channel to have base boosted plant spells whenever you need.
• (4/5) Selective Channel: Hit only the things you want to hit. Good if you don’t want to heal enemies or harm allies
• (5/5) Quick Channeling: Channel quicker! Burns through your uses, but hey, action economy matters!
• (3/5) Reactive Channeling: Channel energy to heal yourself when you'd normally die. Only works if you have channel energy that can, you know...actually heal you.

Teamwork feats

• (4/5) Outflank: +2 becomes a +4 flanking bonus. We love that here. More bonuses to attack rolls please!
• (4/5) Pack Flanking: Are you beside your homie? Yes? You are flanking. Yeah this gets dumb
• (5/5) Broken Wing Gambit: Alright as a free action you do more damage to me...BUTT anyone else who has this feat gets an attack of opportunity against you for attacking me. Why Come And Get Me, is a feat, I don't know, but this can be NASTY
• (5/5) Coordinated Charge: DOUBLE CHARGE. With a pounce beast, this is pure carnage.
• (3/5) Escape Route: You don’t provoke in any spaces adjacent to someone who has this feat. Time to dance around
• (4/5) Paired Opportunists: If both of you threaten, you get a bonus to attacks of opportunity. Pair with broken wing gambit to get LOTS AND LOTS of bonuses.
• (5/5) Improved Spell Sharing: Split buffs between you and your animal companion! Go hard!!!!
  

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Equipment

SO reader I am going to level with you. I HATE EQUIPMENT SHOPPING. I hate it, I hate it I hate it. Least favorite part of character creation. There is too much equipment in the game, and too many ways it can be used, and it’s EXHAUSTED. So I refused to tell you all of the best things. Luckily, someone else has done all the work for me. So if you want to know what the best gear is, read The Armamentarium, a guide written by Allerseelen.

So as per usual, instead of getting into the gritty details, I’ll tell you about some standouts. 

• THE BIG SIX: Basically, the six items the game is expecting you to get. Can be replaced by the Automatic Bonus Progression System, but if not, here they are:

• Magic Weapon (or in your case, Amulet of Mighty Fists)
• Magic Armor (or possibly animal barding for you, post transformation)
• Cloak of Resistance
• Stat-boosting item (headbands for mental stats, belts for physical)
• Ring of Protection
• Amulet of Natural Armor

• Ring of Natural Attunement: Kami is really strong for adding summons and pretty cheap!
• Mask of Giants: Lets you get lesser Giants Form basically.
• Scarab Breastplate: +3 Breastplate that also gives you Vermin Shape. Woo!
• Metamagic Rods: Basically let you use some metamagic for free a couple times a day.

• Extend
• Dazing
• Quicken
• Rime

• Rod of Giant Summoning: Make things you summon are really big. Cast Mad Monkeys and have a ball.
• Evergreen Seed Pouch: Pouch that has all your seeds that you need for all your plant spells! In a dessert? Now its a forest. In a tundra? Now its a grassland.
• Druid Vestments: Extra Wild Shape! Cheap Too!
• Polymorphic Pouch: Place to hold material components, also items! Yay! Super useful for wild shaping
• Pearl of Power: Lets you recall a spell that you have already cast! Wow! More spell endurance!!!! Super great!!!
• Ring of Eloquence: Talk while in wild shape. Doesn’t cost a feat and is actually pretty cheap. Completely worth it.
• Ring of Continuation: HOLY SHIT. If a spell duration is 10 minutes per level and personal, it now lasts 24 hours!!! THAT'S SO GOOOD
• Cloak of Displacement: Amazing for combat druids! Still good for normal druids!!!
• Blood of Baphomet: Hey so as long as you are okay with it being evil, this makes your animal companion a BEAST and its dirt cheap. Throw it a goblin every now and then and put it on a tight leash.
• Shifting Jerkins: This is for our Nature Fangs. Swap out your talents once per day. Over the course of downtime, you can change your entire build. Incredible item, cheap, if you can take it, take it.
• Healers Satchel: Are you doing skill healing? Then you should take this. It’s pretty cheap and just gives you more heals.

Sample Build Ideas

• Titanic Rage: Duergar Tyrant (Bloodrager 1/Golaith Druid X)
• SNEAK ATTACK: Samsaran (Vivisectionist Alchemist 1 / Croc Domain Natures’ Fang TWF X)
• All The Spells: Samsaran (Herbalism Druid 7/ Darivat 8/Loremaster 1 with Secrets of Magical Discipline/Stargazer 4)
• Ten Thousand Arrows: Ranger 1/Nature’s Fang Archer X
• Summon Template Tiamat: Saurian Shaman w/ Versatile Summon Monster and Summon Guardian Spirit

• End with the ability to summon a Celestial Aerial Young Advanced Giant Guardian Spirit Viper. Is this effective in combat? You tell me.

General Druid Tactics

Stealing this STRAIGHT from Prometeus Guide to the Druid because I think talking about HOW to play a class and how to respond to problems is really solid. Without further ado? Prometheus tactics guide.

PROMETEUS TACTICS

I want you to think of Druids as a class that have the wits to know the strengths of his surroundings and be the swiss army of nature. On every campaign there are a lot of challenges and we need to have in mind some common ways to overcome them.

Feel free to leave you comment to add more challenges, combos and common Druid tactics. This tactics are focused for lower levels because at later levels you will learn more solutions simply by playing.

Damage an enemy with high armor class?

Combat builds: Cast Flame Blade and dive to combat. Summon Swarm for the auto hit traits of swarms, transform as vermin with Vermin Shape I

Casters: Use spells to damage him like Produce Flame or Flaming Sphere. Summon Swarm for the auto hit traits of swarms.

Want to control or disable an enemy?

Combat builds: With Stone Call you can make their surroundings a difficult terrain, Wild Shape as a Wolf for trip. Cast Lockjaw on your animal companion to gain the grab ability.

Casters: There are plenty of spells to handle that like Entangle to keep him in place, Thunderstomp to trip him, Stone Call to make their surroundings a difficult terrain, etc

I need to scout an area, what should I do?

Wild shape as an animal form according to the region like an Owl, Eagle, Dog, Rat, etc. Additional you can cast Commune with Birds to gain additional information on the zone or Negate Aroma so you can't be tracked back or Heightened Awareness to detect clues to track and additional information.

Sleeping time, what can I do to improve our campment?

With Goodberry you can provide food and rations to your team, with Read Weather you can always have the forecast the weather at your location, Hide Campsite provide invisibility to the campment. Make Snare traps to protect it. Dream Feast to sleep as if having a nutritious meal.

Need some long time buffs?

Endure Elements to provide protection on hot or cold environments, Longstrider to increase movement speed, Pass without Trace to leave no trails while moving, cast Aboleth's Lung if you need to swim for a prolonged period of time, talk in animal form with Beast speak, cast Wild Instinct to sharpen your instincts,  with Barkskin you can improve your natural armor, Ward of the Season to provide additional bonuses, Echolocation for blindsight.

What about combat buffs?

There are plenty like Magic Fang to improve damage to you while wild shapes and your animal companion, Shillelagh to provide a big bonus to a club, Bull's Strength to improve strength, Savage Maw to gain bite attack, Strong Jaw to improve damage while wild shaped, Barkskin for natural armor.

What can I do to debuff an enemy?

Endothermic Touch to stagger your target, Faerie Fire to cancel blur and prevent invisibility, Flare Burst to dazzled all around 10 ft, Frostbite for fatigue, Mudball for blindness, Nauseating Dart for sickened, Snowball for damage and stagger a foe, Thunderstomp to trip someone, Accelerate Poison if applicable, Burdened Thoughts to make flying targets land from heavy encumbrance, Frigid Touch staggered and cold damage, Fury of the Sun fatigue, Hold Animal to paralyze an animal, Pox Pustules subject is sickened and has –4 Dex, Vine Strike to entangle your opponent, Contagion for disease, Poison touch deals 1d3 Constitution damage. Sirocco to cause damage fatigue and prone.

If things are getting difficult, what are some good contingency spells.

Air Bubble to create a small pocket of air around your head, Cheetah's Sprint for a powerful sprint out of trouble, wild shape to assume any form, Liberating Command to make Escape Artist checks, Remove Sickness to suppress disease, nausea, and the sickened condition, Wave Shield to prevent an attack, Delay Disease, Delay Poison, Resist Energy for damage reduction to one element, Cloak of Winds to prevent archers, Eagle Eye to make an invisible factor a help.

How can I buff my animal companion.

There are a lot of buff like Bristle to trade armor for damage, Acid Maw to gain acid damage, Magic Fang to enhance one natural weapon, create a Companion Life Link to protect them, Lockjaw to gain grab for a natural attack, Savage Maw to gain a bite attack if doesn’t have one, Companion Mind Link to talk to your companion, Strong Jaw to augment his damage, Animal Growth to double his size, Bloody Claws to cause bleed damage with natural attacks, etc.

What type of status ailments can I cure?

Suppress disease, nausea, and the sickened condition with Remove Sickness. Remove Disease, Delay Disease, Delay Poison. Accept Affliction to transfer afflictions to caster, Death Ward

Wild shape tactics

• Glide as an elemental, with earth elemental
• Shapeshift to Arsinoitherium or a Behemoth Hippopotamus and you will have the best damage in one single attack, add things like Strong Jaw and Vital Strike you will be doing a lot of damage, awesome for overcoming some DR’s

Wild shape notes

• Items that provide constant bonuses and do not need to be activated continue to function while melded in this way (with the exception of armor and shield bonuses, which cease to function unless they have the Wild enchantment). Items that require activation cannot be used while you maintain that form.
• You can only be affected by one polymorph spell at a time. If a new polymorph spell is cast on you (or you activate a polymorph effect, such as wild shape), you can decide whether or not to allow it to affect you, taking the place of the old spell. In addition, other spells that change your size have no effect on you while you are under the effects of a polymorph spell.
• You lose all your racial abilities that depend on your form in exchange for whatever abilities you gain from polymorphing.
• You get +10 to disguise to look like whatever you transformed into.
• You also get bonuses to your stats based on what you turn into. I’m looking at you 3.5 and 5e players. No you don’t just replace your stats with whatever you turn into. You just get a bonus to your current stats. No turning into a bear to heal. So your stats matter.