I'll be back. The guide to the Reincarnated Druid
by EgakuDrew
“One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche
This is my first guide, I have played 3.5 Druids for years but I am by no means an expert. I love the Reincarnated Druid archetype. Optimization guides would tell you that the price of the archetype is too high and for some campaigns this may be true.
The reincarnated druid has a very interesting relationship with death. Essentially where most people would die, this Druid only experiences a minor setback. In many ways the reincarnated druid is immortal at level 5. The power implications at the table will be discussed, but we will also examine what being an immortal means for roleplay. Likewise we will take a look at options within the druid class itself as well as multiclass options.
Color Coding and thanks:
I would like to thank the pathfinder community for providing optimization handbooks that have given me personally much guidance in the past when it comes to character building. I will be using Treantmonk's color coding guide and acknowledge the inspiration he provided in his own Druid guide.
Red: This is bad. Avoid it. Generally if it is an avoidable bad choice I won't even list it in the guide, but some things need to be listed as a standout bad choice (Like kobolds)
Orange: This won't ruin you but there are conceivably better options for most situations.
Green: This option is pretty good and you can build a solid character with Green options.
Blue: This is great and I fully recommend this.
Purple: There’s only a couple of these, but they are so good only niche should look elsewhere.
Table of Contents
The Reincarnate spell: Piece by piece.
Examining the main class feature of the reincarnated druid
Things that actually kill you for reals:
It may be hard at first for someone to wrap their head around the type of character a reincarnated druid could be. Of course, they can be played as a completely normal fantasy druid, but the Many Lives ability opens up options that wouldn't normally be available to players and this is where the fun lies in the archetype.
The Doctor
This classic character from science fiction has an immortal name but a changing face. For those unfamiliar with the series, The Doctor is the name of a time traveling alien who, upon death regenerates and gains a new face and persona. If there was a better archetype to play a pathfinder styled regenerating time-lord,
I haven’t seen it.
A straight classed druid is not known for being the best skill monkey (which I believe The Doctor should be) the big gimmick of the reincarnate druid is achievable at level 5, leaving plenty of prestige and multi-class options available. This type of character has seen much hardship and has a dark past, but continues to soldier on protecting the world and all of existence.
I rated this orange because the class's stats and abilities do not mesh well with the character style, but I love the concept and so together we will make it work. I can see Time being just as much an aspect of nature as trees and mud.
The Lich
The Lich's claim to fame in fantasy literature is their phylactery. The ability to be notoriously hard to kill with a well hidden trinket. To the reincarnated druid your phylactery is the world around you. Better yet, you do not need to be evil or undead. You do not run the risk of messing up the ritual and becoming a demi-lich, no paladins are hunting you down to put you to rest, and you gain this gimmick at level 5, for no gold. (Other than Restorations)
Though you do not need to be evil, a neutral evil reincarnated druid is a surprisingly good necromancer through the feat Shade of the Uskwood. This feat gives you access to many spells commonly associated with the Lich, and we'll be taking a look at it later. The flavor is easy as death is a permanent fixture in nature just as much as life is.
The Highlander:
Okay, so the highlander couldn’t get up repeatedly after having his head lopped off, but the image of the invincible warrior is well represented here. Going forward, I'll be referring to most melee character builds as a Highlander build. Note this doesn't mean you can be unkillable, but death is never the end for you.
Being a hunter of other immortals fits the bill well with Shapeshifting Hunter, a ranger feat that lets you stack some druid and ranger levels for favored enemy. Undead, Dragons, and Fey are all immortal and sometimes it takes an immortal to keep them from harming the mortal world. From a flavor standpoint, The Quickening is similar to druid flavor, you gain a deep connection with all life and the world around you. This fits druid very nicely.
A Druid
If you think of the type of flavor a Druid in standard fantasy has you will realize they are more often than not depicted as timeless sages or being so in tune with nature that the frailties associated with mans limited time on earth do not bother them. In fact, a standard issue druid receives an ageless body at level 15 and the Reincarnate spell at level 7. You are simply taking the control of life into your own hands earlier than some instead of focusing on wild shape like normal druids.
The only thing that doesn’t fit in with being a very straightforward Druid is immortality. Druids are known for being very opposed to undeath, considering it very unnatural. There is not so much difference between Many Lives and a Phylactery. As a player you will need to decide how your character justifies this duality.
At 2nd level, a reincarnated druids adds 1/2 her druid level to the DC of Sense Motive, Diplomacy, and Knowledge checks to learn about her.
This ability replaces woodland stride.
In many of the Pathfinder Adventure paths, I haven't had much use for Woodland Stride. Mysterious Stranger is useless for combat where-as woodland stride is potentially useful if you are fighting in a hazardous terrain environment. Still, a normal druid stops using this ability as soon as they can fly, and you can fly soon after them if difficult terrain is really a problem for you. For flavor, this ability helps The Highlander and Lich, (but hurts The Doctor depending on if he is going through a moody phase or not.) It helps on roleplaying intimidates if your enemies know your name or title, and with this they will have a more difficult time. Likewise, the benefits if you multi-class stop at a +2/3 to the DC which isn't much.
At 4th level, a reincarnated druid gains a +4 bonus on saving throws against death effects, energy drain, and necromancy effects, and on stabilization checks when dying.
This ability replaces resist nature’s lure.
Put simply, if you are going to be fighting fey, then resist nature's lure is better. However most campaigns will involve at least some level of undead, and so Resist Death's Touch is much more useful. Likewise the bonus is static, and it is a buff towards resisting the one thing reincarnate druids fear most: necromancy. Some people would rate this lower as at level 4 this is technically in exchange for wild shape which is obviously a bad trade.
A reincarnated druid gains this ability at 6th level, and it functions at her druid level – 2.
This is the biggest kick in the pants. Wild Shape is a defining class feature for the Druid, and yours basically is never as good as it should be. Consider asking your DM if Shaping Focus could apply here, as a feat tax is the best way to mitigate this loss. Since Wild Shape is crippled for the reincarnated druid, most of the building I will be doing in this guide works without it. As you get your Many Lives ability 1 level before Wild Shape, it is often not worth sticking around in Druid unless you want Shapeshifting Hunter.
That being said, Once you reach level 10, the gap is mostly gone. It's just unfortunate you receive all of your size upgrades 2 levels after they would be really impressive.
At 9th level, once per day, a reincarnated druid may reroll a save against a death effect, energy drain, or necromancy effect before the result of the roll is revealed, or reroll a failed stabilization check while dying. She must take the result of the second roll, even if it is worse than the original roll.
This ability replaces venom immunity.
Venom immunity is better usually because a lot of things will poison you, and Cheat Death is not providing you a straight immunity like venom immunity is. But here's the thing, if you die from poison it is no big deal, you will reincarnate from death by poison, but you will not reincarnate from death by death effect, so this once a day re roll will save your life against your only kryptonite. The fact that you have to keep the roll even if it is worse is to your detriment, but as a player you will probably know when you should and shouldn't re-roll. (Based on probability, you should re-roll below a 7.)
At 15th level, a reincarnated druid can speak with any living creature.
This ability replaces timeless body.
You no longer need a timeless body since if you die you simply reincarnate as a young adult. So in my opinion this is a perfectly fine trade. Coupled with Thousand Faces, you could be any race and speak the part. At this level though you should already be able to communicate with anything anyway. Note you get this two levels earlier than the Monk
With this spell, you bring back a dead creature in another body, provided that its death occurred no more than 1 week before the casting of the spell and the subject's soul is free and willing to return.
If the subject's soul is not willing to return, the spell does not work; therefore, a subject that wants to return receives no saving throw.
You receive an entirely new body, including new teeth. The 1 week is irrelevant unless your allies are trying to revive you, which won't happen often, after all why waste the 1000 gold? Well they may need their ally back immediately.
Since the dead creature is returning in a new body, all physical ills and afflictions are repaired. The condition of the remains is not a factor. So long as some small portion of the creature's body still exists, it can be reincarnated, but the portion receiving the spell must have been part of the creature's body at the time of death. The magic of the spell creates an entirely new young adult body for the soul to inhabit from the natural elements at hand. This process takes 1 hour to complete. When the body is ready, the subject is reincarnated.
The class ability Many Lives does not seem to indicate that any portion of the body is needed after death, since the resurrection occurs within 1 mile and not where they were killed. The one hour time frame is not important either. The most important thing about this section is that all physical ills and afflictions are repaired. This means lost limbs or eyes are restored in the new body. Afflictions like Lycanthropy and Spellphage are cured as well. (most likely)
A reincarnated creature recalls the majority of its former life and form. It retains any class abilities, feats, or skill ranks it formerly possessed. Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged.
This section is good at telling us what we keep, but not so good at telling us what we don't keep. From this we should infer that races providing bonus feats are superior choices and racial archetypes (and racial favored class choices) can be gained in the beginning and kept when the race is lost.
Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body. First eliminate the subject's racial adjustments (since it is no longer necessarily of his previous race) and then apply the adjustments found below to its remaining ability scores.
The official ruling on whether or not this resets Int, Cha, or Wis bonuses from race is unclear, it is commonly construed that only Str, Dex, Con bonuses from races are erased.
The subject of the spell gains two permanent negative levels when it is reincarnated. If the subject is 1st level, it takes 2 points of Constitution drain instead (if this would reduce its Con to 0 or less, it can't be reincarnated). A character who died with spells prepared has a 50% chance of losing any given spell upon being reincarnated. A spellcasting creature that doesn't prepare spells (such as a sorcerer) has a 50% chance of losing any given unused spell slot as if it had been used to cast a spell.
There’s two important things in this paragraph. You always gain 2 permanent negative levels when you reincarnate. These negative levels are hard to shake. The second thing is that if you had spells prepared you run the risk of losing them, this will not always be important, but some campaigns will not allow the druid to bide their time and build up their strength.
It's possible for the change in the subject's ability scores to make it difficult for it to pursue its previous character class. If this is the case, the subject is advised to become a multiclass character.
We will be building around multiple reincarnations, the important stat for a druid is wisdom and will not change upon reincarnation.
For a humanoid creature, the new incarnation is determined using the table below. For non-humanoid creatures, a similar table of creatures of the same type should be created.
We will examine the table in a moment.
A creature that has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can't be returned to life by this spell. Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can't be reincarnated. The spell can bring back a creature that has died of old age.
You cannot be animated, but an important thing to note about this is that your body can be animated by animate dead after you have been reincarnated. For the Uskwood lich, this can make for a fun bit of army making out of one's own corpses over time.
It is also important to note that if your party is not super clear on the way your Reincarnate works, that your body may show up claiming to be you. If you show up with someone else’s face claiming to be yourself they may not believe you.
The reincarnated creature gains all abilities associated with its new form, including forms of movement and speeds, natural armor, natural attacks, extraordinary abilities, and the like, but it doesn't automatically speak the language of the new form.
This means generally you want to be one of the monstrous races. The jury is still out on what constitutes “all abilities.” Your GM will be the ultimate arbiter on whether you gain a new feat for turning human or if you keep feats after you've left human.
A wish or a miracle spell can restore a reincarnated character to his or her original form.
As a Pathfinder Druid, you do not have access to these spells. So, ouch.
Examining the main class feature of the reincarnated druid
At 5th level, if a reincarnated druid is killed, she may automatically reincarnate (as the spell) 1 day later. The reincarnated druid appears in a safe location within 1 mile of her previous body. At will for the next 7 days, she can sense the presence of her remains as if using locate object as a spell-like ability. If she is killed during these 7 days, she remains dead and does not reincarnate. The many lives ability does not function if the reincarnated druid is slain by a death effect. A reincarnated druid cannot be raised from the dead or resurrected, though she can be reincarnated.
This is what we came to see. A free self resurrect with no gold or component cost. I'll give the bad news first.
Bad News:
Good News:
The Table
When you die as a Reincarnated Druid, you revive one day later with a new race. This race is rolled on a d%. Therefore your free cheapo phylactery comes at a heavy cost, the whims of lady luck. In general because you get to keep your mental stats you want to be reincarnated as a “monster” whenever possible.
d% | Incarnation | Str | Dex | Con |
01 | Bugbear | +4 | +2 | +2 |
02-13 | Dwarf | +0 | +0 | +2 |
14-25 | Elf | +0 | +2 | -2 |
26 | Gnoll | +4 | +0 | +2 |
27-38 | Gnome | -2 | +0 | +2 |
39-42 | Goblin (Advanced Race Guide Goblin) | -2 | +2 | +0 |
43-52 | Half-elf | +0 | +2 | +0 |
53-62 | Half-orc | +2 | +0 | +0 |
63-74 | Halfling | -2 | +2 | +0 |
75-89 | Human | +0 | +0 | +2 |
90-93 | Kobold (Advanced Race Guide Kobold) | -4 | +2 | -2 |
94 | Lizardfolk | +2 | +0 | +2 |
95-98 | Orc (Advanced Race Guide Orc) | +4 | +0 | +0 |
99 | Troglodyte | +0 | -2 | +4 |
100 | Other (GM's choice) | ? | ? | ? |
Bugbear: You've got a 2/100 chance of getting Bugbear (roll of 1 and GM's choice) but Bugbear is an awesome reincarnate. You gain +2 to dex AND con, and a +4 to strength, statistically this is the best option for wild-shaping. You also gain 2 racial hit dice which you lose if you reincarnate to something else.
Dwarf: 13/100 chance of becoming a Dwarf is not a terrible fate. You do not gain the wisdom bonus a dwarf would normally receive but you likewise do not take the hit to your charisma. The free +2 con won't help many bruisers deal damage but it will keep you alive and it will be sorely missed if your next roll is a kobold.
Elf: 13/100 chance of getting Elf, same as Dwarf. This is generally a bad roll, as you will lose 2 Con, dropping your hit points along with the penalties from the negative levels. In exchange you gain Dexterity, so enjoy your free +1 to initiative while it lasts.
Gnoll: Like Bugbear, low odds on this one. It is nearly as good as Bugbear, but it does not get the free dex and only gets 1 free racial hit dice. Still, huge strength that will only go higher in wildshape. If you do not have it yet, you get Power Attack for free. Better than most of the options.
Gnome: 13/100 chance same as Dwarf and Elf. Here you trade strength for con which is only super terrible if you are coming from a +4 strength race, where you will suffer the indignation of losing 6 strength total along with the ability to use your old gear.
Goblin: You only have a 5/100 chance of becoming a Goblin. Most of the fun of playing a goblin comes from their cool pathfinder flavor and the interesting feats and alternate racial choices, but you don't get to play around with those. If your DM picks monster goblin and not PC goblin, you gain Imp Initiative.
Half-Elf: 11/100 chance to be a half elf which is slightly less than average. You do not receive the benefit of getting to choose your half elf racial bonus and instead get stuck with dex. However, you may get to keep your new Skill Focus feat if you put it in a knowledge or any other skill based on wis, int or cha.
Half Orc: 11/100 same as half elf, half orc is a free strength bump and probably one of the better options thanks to receiving ferocity for the duration of being a half orc. Druids have many ways of taking advantage of ferocity. This would be rated higher if regular Orc wasn't a straight upgrade. If you make it to 5th level spells and get Half-Orc, consider doing a Half-Blood Extraction.
Halfling: 13/100 is the standard by this point, and the stat loadout is the same as a goblin. The free +1 to all saves is nothing to scoff at, but there's not much else helping you out here.
Human: 16/100 means that you are more likely than anything else to come back as a human. Though really this is not a terrible fate. You gain a bump to con just like a dwarf would, and you get a free feat if you didn’t already have one from being human before.
Kobold: 5/100 same as the goblin, the Kobold is the absolute worst on the table that you could roll. A -4 to strength AND a -2 to con, and only a +2 to dex to make up for it. If you are coming from a high strength race that’s a potential 8 strength lost and that is just brutal. This is the one race I would recommend abusing suicide mechanics on. If you got Kobold by GM choice then take that as a sign you did something wrong.
Lizardfolk: 2/100 chance like most of the good races, the Lizardfolk is just plain awesome if you get to keep their free Multiattack feat. +2 to both str and con with no penalties. Even if your DM says no to the free multiattack, you still gain a bite and claws, not impressive if you are wildshaping, but if you left druid at level 5 for the sake of multiclass then you can put those natural weapons to work with a gray gardner or a barbarian.
Orc: 5/100 like Kobold or Goblin. There is almost no downside to being brought back as an Orc vs coming back as a half-orc. You have all of the half orc's tricks plus +2 more strength.
Troglodyte: 2/100 chance, you get claws and bites with a huge +4 buff to constitution to go with your free racial hit dice, a minus to dex but a huge +6 to natural armor. Troglodytes are tanky as heck, with Greater Fortitude for free. The downside here is the Trog's Stench aura, which much like the blight druid gives you an aura of sickening that will effect your party members as well. If you decide to stick around Troglodyte consider offering your allies Delay Poison spells at the start of the day, removing the headache but sucking away spell slots.
Other: A roll of 100 is a “GM's choice.” This means that they can choose from any of the races on the list currently, or from any race in the game really. If you are a GM and are stumped or you roll a 100 and your GM is stumped, consider re-rolling or looking at races that are common in the area where you died.
Things that actually kill you for reals:
The trick here, going forward for spells not mentioned on this list, and spells that come out in the future, is the School necromancy [death] tag. If it has the Death tag, it ends you. These spells are, I feel, the most common threats to Many Lives. Note they are all, save one, Fortitude based and all of them are affected by Spell Resistance.
Spells:
Death Knell: Low level, Will save negates.
The most common way to die at low levels, an enemy knocks you unconcious with normal HP damage then walks up and sucks your lifeforce out. This is why I like Diehard.
Finger of Death: High level, Fort for reduced damage
You get bonuses towards saves against this spell, but it can still inflict 3d6+CL damage. If this piddly amount of damage kills you, you are dead.
Circle of Death: Mid level, Fort negates
This is a straight up “Save or Die” spell. You become Immune to this at level 9. Which is ironically when you would get your power to reroll against this spell. Considering a wizard gets this after you are already immune you only have to worry about this from big bads.
Symbol of Death: Mid-high level, Fort negates.
Dying from symbol of death I think is one of the worst ways to go. Especially if the party realizes you are unphased by traps and you end up opening a lot of doors and chests for your group. You do gain access to both spellcraft and Dispel Magic, but Dispel Magic is a level late for you and most multiclass Druid’s won’t get it.
Slay Living: Mid level, Fort for reduced damage
This is Finger of Death light, if you make the save you still take the damage and therefore can still die. I think this is technically the bigger threat because it is lower level and more likely to be encountered.
Destruction: Mid-high level, Fort for reduced damage.
Destruction is such bad news for you, not only is the reincarnated druid restricted to only the reincarnate spell for reviving, with Destruction you will have to be wished back. The worst part is that even if you save you still take 10d6 of damage which is a huge chunk of life.
Suffocation: Mid level, Fort partial
Suffocation is not labled as a Death effect spell but it is a necromancy spell that kills you. If your DM rules that this would end your run, pull out your melee weapon and Coup De Grace yourself before the spell kills you.
Canopic Conversion: High level, Fort half
This is a level 9 spell so you shouldn’t have to worry about it for a very long time. Still deals 10d6 on a successful save, which might still be enough to make you into a mummy. Normally you could not be animated as an undead but since this foregoes many lives due to being a death effect it might still mummify you.
Special mentions: Petrification and other means of preserving without death
The many lives entry states that you appear “In a safe location,” the only situation where this may be up for debate is if that place doesn't exist. Likewise situations that put you in a living death such as a coma or paralyzed should be treated with extra care. These are rated from Blue = You are screwed to Red = Only scary on paper.
Petrify
If you are petrified, you are most certainly doomed unless your allies help you. Granted, you are not truly dead but you are unplayable and frozen. There is nothing in the petrify entry that says that you are dead if you are broken as a statue. You do not possess the ability to end your own life or undo the petrification. You will need to rely on allies to remove the condition or to destroy you completely via disintegrate or dropping you into a volcano.
Soul Capture: Ironically some methods of soul capture do not shut you down completely. Magic Jar leaves you defenseless but the biggest threat (death) will allow you to reincarnate. (In fact if you can get ahold of Magic Jar via a scroll or otherwise it may make for a decent trick for a Lich build to attempt possession without fear of any sort of reprisal.) Trap the Soul however will trap you indefinitely like petrify.
Excessive Containment
If you are maimed, cut to pieces and thrown into a hole with a gag to prevent you from biting your tongue off and a just enough air allowed into your tomb to make it so that you do not suffocate, coupled with an infinite ring of sustenance, your foe may be able to hold you indefinitely. (See: Hidan) If you have made enemies with a particularly thorough bunch, consider keeping a Stilled/Silent spell handy to kill yourself with. Honestly unlike certain anime characters your character does die just not permanently, this is ultimately easier to play. This mental exercise of how to kill-the-unkillable is fairly common, don't flaunt your invulnerability and let it slow down the table or DM by having them create an overly elaborate trap just for your character. Just remember that generally everyone will try to think of a way to ultimately kill you somehow but your roleplay/gameplay will determine whether or not they want to try. I bet even you right now are thinking of ways to kill/survive ridiculous super-kill plans.
Outer planes:
There are places where mortals (even demigods) simply cannot go. If you are thrown into a plane where there is no air, or is literally suffused with negative energy, you will die, then be dead for 1 day before resurrecting on that plane and dying again, this time permanently due to cooldown. If you expect to do some planar hopping in your campaign, consider a different gimmick.
Oceans, Air, Underground:
There are many simple environmental hazards that can kill you permanently. If you are one mile above the surface of the earth in battle with a giant roc or dragon, and you die, you will resurrect within 1 mile, which may still be high enough to kill you if you cant fly yet. Likewise if you are swallowed by a kraken who swims further than one mile down into the deeps and you respawn in the middle of the ocean, if you cant swim you might drown and die again. A particularly vicious DM might make you respawn 1 mile below where you died, leaving you in a cavern or just stuck in bedrock to be crushed. Again one of the best things here is to have friends, you revive one mile from your body a day later. So even in the air if your body plummets and splatters, you’re fine. If your body floats to the surface of the water, also fine. Your friends in general have 24 hours to try and recover your body and get it to a safe place.
Having a quantifiable, obvious weakness can make for a very strong roleplaying scenario. Most good aligned pathfinder characters have moral quandaries about necromancy and undeath, and a natural fear towards those who can kill them with a few words and a failed save. For you there is a built in mechanical weakness that you can play your character towards.
The Doctor, though immortal has great fear for the things that could potentially destroy him. The Lich is obsessed with it, to the point of seeking ways to control death. The Highlander builds their courage facing enemies in combat so that when they finally meet an opponent as unshakable as them they do not blink.
Do not be afraid to avoid or even run from those who show to have the ability to cast those precious few death spells. Like the ancient ones, you can outlive most pests and upstart necromancers. Sometimes though, especially in the case of big bads you will encounter a character just as seemingly unkillable who has it out for you and knows your weakness. This is when you look for allies, the Paladin would love to help you kill a lich, and has the added benefit that it may quell their fears that deep down you and the lich really aren't that different.
Friends:
The Doctor needs companions, The Highlander needs rivals and The Lich needs minions. It can be easy to think that a character with virtual immortality is a solo powerhouse, but as it stands you can still die and set back your plans. If you are trying to stop a fiendish cult from summoning a demon, a greataxe from their bodyguards will still kill you and keep you from foiling their evil plans. Friends will keep you grounded in the tasks of mortals instead of looking at too long of a timeline. Their empathy and trust will keep you from devolving into another hateful long lived creature. You can sacrifice your life for them and your wealth of experience will keep them from making hasty mistakes.
They can save you when you cannot save yourself.
Turning Evil:
You can well imagine how easy it would be for a character like this to turn to the dark side. Immortal characters in fiction often place themselves above morality and law, having outlived many of the lawful. They may find it hard to relate to people who are on timers. Consider what keeps your character on the side of the good guys. After you kill your first Dragon or Vampire, consider what makes you different from them. Perhaps you are not truly that different, and you begin to seek friendship with others like you, old Undead understand death better than most and Dragons are so long lived they are practically gods. Devils and Angels fight endless wars for balance, surely Fiends can understand your existence. Even if your character intends to become a Lich and worship Zon Kuthon, it does not have to begin that way. Your mental state may degrade as soon as you hit level 5 and realize you are destined to never rest.
The art of Seppuku and the noble death:
One of the things that can be mentioned here is that you can very well be a master of your own reincarnation. Though the table may work against you (indeed, a dm who grows tired of your shenanigans may rebirth you as a Kobold multiple times.) knowing when to die and when not to die may save your character's ultimate fate and the lives of those around you. (See the end of this guide for ways to optimize your death in combat)
Your party is being chased by a Balor, you are not afraid of fire or falling damage, you know that they may all die if the Balor is not stopped, and their lives are precious and short.
You might think that ultimate sacrifice is somehow lessened by the fact that you aren’t going to die, but having confidence in ultimate success regardless of the giant death monster in your face still takes tremendous courage.
There is a trap threatening to kill your party and the lever to save their lives is inside a room filled with toxic gas/other deadly obstacle. These are the kinds of situations that adventuring parties should encounter many times, and the mark of a successful party is overcoming those impossible odds. Sometimes though the DM has the better of your party, and you can get them out of a corner.
Age:
Start Venerable.
If your dungeon master allows age adjustment it will behoove you to take a hundred years or so to hone your craft. Doing this nets you a cool +3 to your mental stats (Int, Wis, Cha) for the pricey cost of -6 to your physical stats (Str, Con, Dex.) The mental scores stay the same when you reincarnate, but your physical scores reset to young adult status.
For physical builds this may be too costly to limit your play style at lower levels. Indeed even venerable Liches and The Doctor need to figure out how to survive that long with a constant hit to their constitution. But for a campaign that starts at level 5 or close, there’s no reason you shouldn't start at such a high age. Simply find the best opportunity to throw yourself on a sword and save someones life, then enjoy bringing sexy back the next day.
Roleplaying the first rebirth: Inevitably with this archetype you may/will want to die to enjoy the roleplay aspect of coming back to life. How will you confront your old party? Will you come out directly and tell them who you are, or will you try to reintegrate with a new identity? How will you explain your connection with death, and if your companions have deep spiritual beliefs how will you calm their fears that you aren't one of the undead? Or embrace your destiny as the Lich by putting them in their place, they will know that nothing short of the end of the world could stop you.
Race:
Reincarnate the spell is left intentionally vague in order to give the DM freedom. My interpretation of the spell is similar to James Jacobs which is that you only lose racial hit dice if any and physical stats. You get to keep your racial bonuses such as extra skill points and the human extra skill. For our purposes therefore you should pick races that either allow you to assign points such as Human, Half Elf, Half Orc. Or you should pick races that give you mental bonuses, especially to Wisdom such as Aasimar or Dwarf. Samsaran offers good stats and a huge amount of options for advanced players, I have included a guide to those options below.
If your DM does not agree with this, and thinks that all racial bonuses are lost and new ones are gained (or even that you lose all, and gain none) Then your race does not ultimately matter, pick one that you think will survive till level 5, such as Human or Dwarf.
On Favored Class: When reincarnating you retain your class abilities, so if you were to start as a half-elf or dwarf, the option to get more uses of domain powers is attractive. The human option has some uses for The Lich. If you are going to make use of your wildshape, Elf and Half Orc provides some AC bonus.
Samsaran offers the interesting option of Mystic Past Life, allowing you to put Restoration on your Druid spell list, potentially saving you a feat. +2 to Int and Wis is a good start but the -2 to Con is hefty to pay if you are starting at level 1 and want to be Venerable, you would need to purchase an 18 just to have a 10 as you start at -8 con. Shards of the Past is good for picking knowledges or talk skills on The Doctor. Lifebound is great for an additional +2 against death effects.
Mystic Past Life:
At level 1 you choose a number of spells to add to your spell list equal to 1+ Wisdom mod. A Venerable Samsaran with full Wisdom dedication can end up with a whopping +6 to Wis mod, meaning they may choose up to 7 spells from any other divine list. Roughly equivalent to building your own domain spell list. For the Lich this means avoiding the Shade of the Uskwood feat, or adding on to it. For the Highlander both the Paladin and Ranger provide some choice spells for being in the thick of the action. Note it doesn’t specify you must take spells from one class, so picking and choosing to create your perfect immortal spellcaster is a go.
Due to length I have created a new document that goes into detail what sort of spells you should/can take from the Samsaran. If you prefer to start as a Human or otherwise skip ahead.
The Early Levels
The reincarnated Druid is a Midlevel loaded character, it starts weaker than a cleric, and never really finds it's niche with wild shape as a normal druid does. In combat, you are a subpar melee combatant in the beginning but a competent caster. If you are starting at level 1 you should play to your strengths as much as possible. Controlling the battlefield with spells, Summoning, Blasting, Melee, Ranged and Healing, roughly in that order. The druid is diverse and can fill nearly any role in a party but out of the gate you will not have many options.
Controlling: You are just as good at controlling a battlefield as any other Druid, at level 1 utilize Obscuring Mist, Entangle, and Frostbite to keep brutes at bay. At level 2 spells you become a solid buffer, but you also gain Fog Cloud, Flaming Sphere, Gust of Wind among others. You hit 3rd level spells at level 5 and can relax quite a bit about your own survival, but still gain Aqueous Orb, Shifting Sand and Wind Wall.
Summoning: You are just as good at summoning as any other Druid.
However, in the levels that you really need it, it won’t be as powerful as it could be. There are many guides to summoning but few focus on Summon Nature’s Ally. At first level you should be summoning Eagles for the most damage, but consider the lowly Stirge, it’s constitution drain should not be underestimated and the freebie chance of a disease is just icing on the cake. Summon nature’s ally 2 could be used for multiple eagles or stirges, but the Celestial Elk can smite, the Wolf can Trip, the Giant Spider can web+poison and Small Earth Elementals can burrow. Summon nature’s ally 3 is where things start to get pretty tanky, but the Celestial Dire Boar has nearly double the HP of some of the other summons at this level, and Augment Summon turns it into a real powerhouse.
Blasting: Your blasting options for level 1 are basically Produce Flame, Frostbite and Snowball, Snowball is a good blasting spell with a status kicker and shouldn’t be overlooked. However, blasting is not the best use of your spells in the beginning levels, as a well placed Entangle may turn the tide much faster. Level 2 spells introduces the Flaming Sphere, Burning Gaze and Frigid Touch. Flaming Sphere is great as a Blaster, allowing you to move a flaming beatstick around the battlefield while using your standard for more Snowballs. Cast Burning Gaze on your familiar if you have one, letting to set things on fire while you summon or blast. Level 3 brings Call Lightning, which isn’t the best damaging spell around, but has so many uses on one cast that when coupled with Flaming Sphere you can be a full blaster using only 2 slots per combat. Very Efficient.
Melee: A cleric survives at low levels with good armor, healing, and reach. You’ve got the same armor (though you cant upgrade to plate without felling a dragon) and even have shield proficiencies. Your healing is bad.
The Druid has very specific weapon proficiencies: club, dagger, dart, quarterstaff, scimitar, scythe, sickle, shortspear, sling, and spear. Of which the Scimitar is your best option for a number of reasons. It has high crit range, it is one handed meaning you can pull out a shield and it can be used even if you roll poorly on the table and end up small. A Highlander can two hand it for damage and even Dervish Dance if they feel so inclined. The Scythe is flavorful for the Lich and you can’t use it if you are small, but if you luck out and get a huge strength race like bugbear a crit will destroy most things quickly.
Even though you will be strapped for feats in the lower level game, I’m going to put Weapon Profiency *any reach weapon* as a solid option especially if your game allows retraining and you can get something else later.
Ranged: The only ranged weapon you start with is the sling, unless you pick Elf. You need multiple feats in order to make the bow work, and feats are scarce as a Druid. What keeps this from being red is that the Eagle domain gives you a swift action buff to ranged attacks, when combined with an early dip in Ranger you can be surprisingly effective at ranged combat in the lower levels.
Healing (combat): You are not good at this at all. You are worse than the Cleric and the cleric isn’t even good at healing in combat. Outside of combat you are equal, but that’s just boiled down to, “Who can use the wand?” Do not be discouraged and look for other ways to help your party.
Gray Warden/Gardener: The gray warden is totally accessible to the druid. Taking druid to 6 and taking the crocodile domain will give you a head start on sneak attacks. You must take Combat Expertise to gain access to this class, but it can open the way to Bodyguard so it is an okay deal. It Likewise if you want to complete the Inquisitor package you can take an Inquisition to go with your Inquisitor powers and be an inquisitor with level 9 spells. From the rogue perspective Wild Shaping into snakes and rats to infiltrate is awesome. At 4th level you can gain the Enforcer feat for free opening up Frostbite cheese. At 8th level you gain the Assassin prestige class’s signature ability in the form of Slaying Judgment but it keys off your Wisdom. I would suggest not taking the class all the way to level 10 because it makes Seppuku difficult.
Loremaster: This is a very expensive prestige class to get into, as it requires no less than 3 metamagic or item creation feats. However what would normally be a huge hurdle for wizards or sorcerers, Druids have divination aplenty, it is just rarely used. I think this prestige class is a good fit for The Doctor as it gives Bardic Knowledge and still progresses spell casting.
Agent of the Grave: Shades of the Uskwood gain access to this at Druid level 9 or 5th level spells. You lose a level of spell casting which hurts your ability to Animate Dead but you gain double progression so it ends up as a net gain. Lich’s Touch and Unholy Fortitude are not helpful to you. You also gain the ability to create a Desecrate aura, another spell you would not have access to as a Druid but is critical to an necromancer. The most interesting thing here is the Undead Manipulator ability to treat creatures as their original type before undead. So animate a bunch of furry friends then use your druid spells and handle animal to keep them in line. Take to level 3 because you don't have access to negative energy spells or channel to heal yourself.
Hellknight Signifier: Achievable by a lawful neutral druid because you start with medium armor. The warrior priest feat isn’t entirely a waste. If you picked a domain it will scale with your Hellknignt levels (or animal companion, see animal domains). The image of a hellknight in full dragonscale plate that is an immortal chaos hunting juggernaut is pretty sweet. I would rate this higher if a Druid could also bind the mask in place of their familiar from a domain. A DM may allow this if you ask nicely since they are similar.
Mystic Theurge: 5 levels of druid is a perfectly good base for a Mystic Theurge. The Mystic Theurge is a forbidden fruit of optimization, but coupled with the interesting Many Lives ability breathes some new life into an overshadowed Prestige Class. I like to pair Magus with Druid when it comes to Mystic Theurge as the Druid has a fair number of touch spells. You could of course also take 3 levels of Wizard and end up with Full level 9 Druid casting plus level 7 Wizard spells. These Wizard levels open you up to a familiar which you can use later to return your objects to you after death. You still end up with 3 attacks from BaB even with wizard levels. Natural Spell does work with any casting, and Magus gets an Arcana that allows them to Spell Combat with natural weapons. Spell Combat + Shocking Grasp + T-rex Wildshape = A truck load of d6.
Living Monolith (suggested by Arctic Sphinx): This Prestige class advances casting levels and at higher levels you become immune to many of the biggest threats you face, such as petrification and even becoming immune to death effects. With those immunities in place the only threat to your continued existence is acting in haste. Reincarnated Druid gains access at level 7, the only concern is whether you lose your spells with your body, as your spell casting becomes bound to a stone you insert into your flesh.
Green Faith Acolyte: Green Faith Acolyte (the feat) is required to take this class, and as a feat it is pretty lackluster. However, it fully progresses casting. The 3rd level ability Hibernate fits well with flavor and allows you to gain a mechanical advantage to lying in wait like a patient Lich after death. This allows you to restore your negative levels without cost of gold or spell slots, though since you have to take a feat either way (green faith or experimental caster) consider which one is more applicable. Animal Covenant allows you to drop AoE spells on your undead animal horde with impunity.
Skyseeker/Sunseeker- Qualifications for this are 2nd level divine spells and favored enemy of a specific type. (plus being adopted by dwarves) This class does NOT progress favored enemy but is a high BAB 3/4th casting class. In an adventure path like rise of the runelords, progressing down this class can give you 3d6+6 against any giant, orc or goblin, in addition to your bonuses from Holy Sword or otherwise. Statistically this is a strong class, but the specific bonuses may be underutilized versus something like Gray Gardners bane abilities.
Multiclasses
Barbarian: I like the barbarian multiclass for druids. A 1 level dip for rage is a pretty solid way to beef up your strength in a hurry, and helps for wild shape letting you pile on some strength in a hurry. You can cure fatigue pretty easily with spells. I like the wild rager archetype, normally too dangerous the druids high will save will help keep your party safe while you enjoy an extra attack each round. Take the rage inquisition for a domain and you can gain quite a bit of mileage out of a quick dip. Likewise if you want a lot of barbarian with a only level 3 spells, you can take the Mad Dog archetype and stack your barbarian levels with your druid levels for purposes of animal companion. If you start as a Half Orc you could take the Hateful Rager archetype for 2 levels and replicate the use of Shapeshifting Hunter from Ranger.
Ranger: Ranger, though already functioning as a Druid/Fighter makes a good multiclass for the Druid thanks to the feat Shapeshifting Hunter. A 3 level dip into Ranger will provide 1 free combat style feat, and 1 favored enemy. With Shapeshifting Hunter you get full favored enemy progression and the 3 levels means you get to keep full casting. Full BAB from ranger means you keep 15 bab. For the feat I suggest Power Attack. Also, you can choose between getting Endurance for free, (good for Diehard) or taking the Witch Guard Archetype for free Bodyguard, making it easier to get In Harms Way.
Edit 12/23/2014: There is a new Ranger Archetype “Divine Tracker” which can grant a Ranger Improved Unarmed Combat at level 1, which is a huge improvement over wild empathy and opens up loads of style options. Irori and Kurada are both neutral options for imp. unarmed.
“Galvanic Saboteur” is an option, being able to reprogram constructs actually works well for the Doctor.
Monk: Theres a couple of solid reasons to dip monk. The feat Feral Combat Training does not make you a powerhouse stacking claws and fists, but it does enable you to make use of unarmed combat utility while in wild shape, such as the ability to stunning fist or use style feats in wild shape. Monks get bonuses to their AC based on wisdom which will be a high stat for you, and it carries over to wild shape (May or may not stack with Wild enchanted armor). A 2 level dip into Sensei will award you with Insightful Strike, which when coupled with Feral Combat Training will allow you to always use your Wisdom to hit. A guided amulet of mighty fists trumps this ability easily, but if you get killed and lose your amulet you will be in a bad way. The Manuever Master/Tetori works very well in conjunction with Wild shape grapplers and trippers. The Master of Many Styles allows you to take a style on the cheap but an Unarmed Fighter is probably a better dip for that.
*Recently a guide was released for playing a Druid monk, and the benefits to being a kung-fu panda are outlined in that guide. For our purposes, being a Reincarnated Druid having Feral Combat training isn’t an option for many builds because you will strongly consider dipping out of druid before you even get wild shape.
Magus: This is a tricky one, but if you had the urge to play a Mystic Theurge, this is a good combo with druid. At level 6 the magus can take Broad Study, allowing you to use druid spells with spell combat. This wouldn't happen till character level 11 however, so like most mystic theurges it is a long slow burn. If you want to play a reincarnate spell sword character like the old Jade Pheonix Mage this may be a decent fit for you.
Word Casting
Word Casting is a tricky system, and takes many of the tools in the druid arsenal off the table. In it's place you receive some blasting power, some healing power, and Restoration (Purify) without the material component. If you want to be entirely self sufficient, or simply don't want to drag down the party with suicidal tendencies Word Casting may be worth a serious look. If you do not want to lose the more iconic Druid spells, consider taking the Experimental Spellcaster Feat and selecting the purify word spell.
A Word Casting Druid who gains Rage has the ability to use a level 1 spell (Boosted Soothing Touch) to cure Fatigue. This is not super powerful, but as you gain more spells you can begin to cure your fatigue and buff yourself at the same time. Or buff yourself and heal yourself at the same time. With Enhance Form you can prepare Bulls Strength, Cat’s Grace and Bear’s Endurance in one spell slot and select the bonus at time of casting. With Lightning Blast you can be a decent blaster without having to take a suboptimal Domain. Even though you are trading a lot of your utility for power, you still have the ability to spontaneously convert your spells into Summon Nature’s Ally with Servitor. Servitor is both worse and better than SNA. It is a standard action instead of a full round, but it is much more difficult to summon large amounts of smaller creatures.
Feats:
In general, feats that are good for a normal druid are good for you as well, however, since we are encouraging flavor and multiclassing unlike the normal Druid we will be looking at feats from that angle specifically.
Shade of the Uskwood/Shade of the Woodlands: This feat used to require you to worship Zon Kuthon, but now will accept any Evil god. It also requires you to be Neutral Evil. This feat gives you access to spells that you would not normally be able to ever get as a druid in exchange for swearing off fire spells. It gives you access to both Animate Dead and Phantasmal Killer. Even non liches such as the Highlander may consider taking this feat as it gives them access to invisibility as a 3rd level spell. If you only want this feat for Animate Dead, consider starting as a Samsaran instead
Shapeshifting Hunter: This feat is often overlooked but super cool for a reincarnated druid Highlander warrior. You basically have to take 6 levels of druid and then 1 level of ranger, but you gain retroactive scaling with your favored enemy class feature. The scaling then continues if you stay as a ranger or if you go back to druid.
Aspect of the Beast (Claws): Available past level 6 (or earlier if you dip ranger for 2 levels) I select claws with this feat. When reincarnating a player does not lose access to the feats they possessed, and so no matter what race you are reincarnated as, you still have your claws. The claws can also be used in wildshape with forms that don’t normally have claw attacks, such as a fire elemental who can throw burns on opponents with multiple claw attacks. At level 6 the Druid can gain access to Pounce once a day through the Plains Domain. This domain also gives you haste at level 5.
Rime Spell (frostbite cheese, Magical Lineage, Enforcer): Well documented by Magus's at this point, consider briefly that you also have access to the Frostbite spell, the Magical Lineage trait, and the rime spell metamagic feat. Theres no reason you could not take these feats and add a huge amount of control to your arsenal. Note that the use of Enforcer with Frostbite is debated as it is not the weapon dealing the nonlethal damage but the spell. Consider getting merciful if you go this route until an FAQ clears this up.
Boon Companion/Shaping Focus: These feats are for those who are only dipping out of druid for a couple levels, such as the Lich for Agent of the Grave. The will shore up your wild shape and your animal companion, if you have one. If you abandon druid at 5th level, do not bother. If you stick around to Druid level 6 and then multiclass out for the rest of your career Shaping Focus will still allow you to take the form of Huge Animals.
Experimental Spellcaster: I am a big fan of Word Casting, but for many people it is hard to commit to a whole system, there is one target word in particular you want from wordcasting and it is Purify. Purify functions as normal Restoration, which can remove your pesky negative levels. Purify for your purposes is way better. Purify costs no gold in components like a normal Restoration does. Even if you have a Cleric in the party willing to do the Restoration for you, it is still worth picking up this feat in order to do so cheaply as soon as you revive. Normal Restoration also limits the removal of negative levels to once per week. This extends your cooldown on your best gimmick by an extra week. Purify has no such limit, allowing you to remove your negative levels immediately, even same day, and return to your party fighting fresh.
Spell Focus Conjuration/Augment Summoning: If you never intend to multi-class or intend to multiclass while keeping your spell levels intact then these feats are just as powerful for you as they are for a normal druid.
Natural Spell: Blasphemy! This should be blue! Yes, for most Druids this is a feat tax, but because we receive our key ability BEFORE we receive wildshape, and wildshape is heavily nerfed for our purposes, it is not a 100% necessity. Still, if you stuck around in Druid long enough to get wildshape, then you should definitely get natural spell.
Planar Wild-Shape: If you stuck around for wild-shape, this is a great feat. For the Lich this lets you gain Fiendish and Smite Good in your favorite form to smack down those uppity Paladins. For most campaigns though the Celestial Template and Smite Evil really helps you to chew through DR if you prefer forms that have multiple attacks like big cats. (Note: This does not actually help you ignore DR like a normal Paladin smite, but still boosts damage on all your attacks)
Heavy Armor Prof: On one hand, you literally do not need armor, as anything that's going to target your AC will not ultimately end your character. On the other hand you have to survive till level 5 to no longer need armor. So you could use a large wooden shield and some dragon scale (or normal plate and be a crappy fighter) and really tank it up. If you aren't going to be getting Dragonscale, Ironwood or Stoneplate, just avoid this feat and wear the best you can and lean heavily on barkskin.
Weapon Proficiency (A reach weapon): You want this for all the same reasons a Cleric wants this. Use your reach to poke people with A-ops then use your standard actions for spell casting. Staying just outside of melee range will keep you alive in low level play till your destiny of immortality kicks in. Retrain this at 5,
or whenever you multiclass into a proficiency granting class,
or whenever you can afford to get an ioun stone that grants proficiency,
or wild shape, whichever any of these come first.
Power Attack: The Highlander's best friend, he wants to take his Scimitar or Spear two handed and wade in. Put as much two handed hurt on them as you can without fear of reprisal. You can gain this for free from two levels of Ranger if you went the Shapeshifting Hunter route and it's practically mandatory if you dipped out for Barbarian Rage. If you started as Venerable, you probably won't have the strength for this feat till level 5.
Improved Unarmed*/Feral Combat Training
If you are multiclassing out of Druid before you get wild shape, this will probably be a waste of feats for you. However it's still moderately useful for someone who lucks out and gets Lizardman or Gnoll early in their reincarnated career, you could take this feat to give your claw bite routine more flexibility. If you take these feats and then reincarnate as a Human or something without claws and bites you can still make use of unarmed strikes, or, take Aspect of the Beast. Note that Feral Combat Training can only be taken once and you must select a natural weapon when you do so. Consider in advance what type of wild shape you will want. (Claws is the safest bet but Bite has more power) *Edit 12/23/2014 With the addition of Divine Hunter in Ranger, Improved Unarmed Feats are available in a good dip.
Domain Strike
Taking this feat allows you to use one of your target domain powers on an unarmed strike, which for you is a natural attack. Imagine biting your foe, delivering a touch spell you held the charge on the round before, then delivering your domain power in the same round.
Dragon Style/Ferocity: Since your Claws and Bites and Slams and whatever now count as unarmed strikes for the purposes of feats, you can take Dragon Style to add additional strength damage on one attack. Dragon Ferocity adds an additional half strength. I would love to rate Dragon Ferocity higher, but unfortunately you need stunning fist to pull this off which will either be very late in your career or gated behind a dip in monk.
Monastic Legacy: I’d say this one is a trap. Requires 3 levels of monk (safe dip) but it will increase your unarmed damage specifically. As a Druid you should be taking advantage of your access to natural weapons. If you do take Monk, this is practically mandatory, and a Monk’s Robe will help you tremendously.
Strangler: If you have the Crocodile domain I have good news for you. You can maintain grapples and deal your sneak attack dice. Pick a creature with grab attacks, death roll and deal sneak attack while maintaining grapple. Also good for Gray Wardens. If you want to play a grappler, Druid has a couple of options for sneak attack, so this works well.
Combat Reflexes/ Body Guard/ In Harms Way
See your Sorceress friend standing next to you, throwing out lightning bolts and stuff? She is about to get cut in half with a greataxe, which would kill her. You however are not afraid of greataxes. With In Harms Way, you take that greataxe like a champ. Sure, you may die, but your game isn't over yet. Normally, it is argued that you should instead invest in doing damage to end a combat quicker or invest in more AC to avoid that damage in the first place. Accept the inevitability that damage will happen, someone will get rushed down, the DM will get lucky with a crit. Better you than them, nearly every time. This does not mean tank all the hits for your whole party, but when it hits the fan your party will come out clean and grateful. If you start as a Samsaran you can pull off these moves without the feat investment (see races) If you are playing with traits, the Suicidal trait for tieflings can be adopted into to allow you to do this for once a day, which is usually enough.
Toughness: You want more HP in those lower levels where you are vulnerable. It isn’t very exciting but you will be glad you have it especially if you are venerable. Retrain it after 5 if you can.
Endurance/ Diehard
Endurance is all but useless to you as a Druid, which is a heavy price to pay but Diehard is great. The major reason you want Diehard is so you can control you own death. Without Diehard you are subject to capture or Death Knell while at 0 hit points and unconscious.
Stalwart: If you have bought Diehard, consider also buying Stalwart on your Highlander build. An immortal warrior with Diehard and the damage reduction from Stalwart becomes barbarian tough to take down from HP damage. This would be blue but the easiest way to gain a good amount of DR is to take the Planar Wild Shape feat and these two sources don’t stack.
Troth of the Forgotten Pharaoh (suggested by Secret Wizard)
This feat allows you to as an immediate action or when you are actually dead cause a big explosion that totally destroys your corpse, dealing fire damage and blinding things in the area. The effects are not very powerful but the explosion makes your corpse safe from being affected by spells. There is a heavy cost, you lose 3 hit points permanently. There are two ways to interpret this;
If scenario 1 is true, this price is costly for someone who expects to die so much and live so long. In the scenario in which you have been killed by someone who has death spells and you know they are totally intent on ending your game, you can use this feat to save your character and that alone is worth the feat. If it is interpretation 2, then it is a contingency that eats up a feat slot, and you must get your tattoo back whenever you get your new body, this is a reasonable cost and makes the feat totally worth it. There are other ways of maximizing your suicide bombing, and ways to plan for taking out groups of bad guys with you, or even letting your death help your friends towards the end of the guide.
Leadership: If you are anything like The Doctor, you have “caused the death of other followers” 100 times or more. A leadership score of -100 is probably enough to make you reconsider the best feat in the game (:P) Still, it can be said that having a Cohort will definitely help you retain your things and keep you out of those ‘impossible to escape super kill scenarios’ mentioned earlier. It will be up to you and your character to figure out how your immortal maintains his following.
Graverisen: This is an achievement feat, and normally it would be impossible to argue for from an optimization standpoint. The trigger for qualifying for this feat however is to “Die and be brought back twice” which you can do really easy on your own. The feat lets you avoid death once per life. Which means if you die not on purpose, you have a second death to cover your butt during the cooldown period. Consult your DM on whether achievement feats are legal in their game.
Feats from advanced class guide
Advanced Class Guide has been released. Druid has a few new options, but like all the other options before, the new Archetypes cannot be used with Reincarnated Druid.
There are new feats that come from using Vital Strike, which will be discussed in the feat section. Winters strike is pretty good.
Channeling Force: If you took the Swamp domain in order to get channel energy dice, you can take this feat to gain a half level bonus to damage for three weapon attacks, which is a claw/claw/bite or three swings of something else.
Evolved Companion: If you have an animal companion and a beefy 13 charisma you can gain 1 evolution point. What can you gain for 1 evolution point? Pounce. Pounce. Pounce. Most optimal companions will have pounce anyway, but things like birds and sharks don't and now they can. You could also take Bite/Claws/Slam/Tentacles/Wing Buffet etc, Reach, or Skilled.
Evolved Summoned Monster: If you bought Monster summoning feats, now you can summon creatures with pounce or whatever else you want. Take pounce though. Best part is there is no messy Cha 13 requirement.
Improved Spell Sharing: This is a solid option for those with an Animal Companion OR a familiar, allowing you to buff yourself with Holy Weapon and have it apply to your companion. It's not higher rated because both you and your companion need to have the feat, making it difficult for the familiar to get.
Reckless Rage: Rage is a strong option for the Druid, if you acquired it from a domain/inquisition or multiclass, you will probably also want Power Attack. This feat is a +2 to damage, making it roughly equivalent to weapon spec without the weapon specific feat and the prereq of weapon focus. Basically if you want Weapon Spec take this instead.
Recovered Rage: If you have Rage, chances are you probably don't have as many rounds as you like. Hammer people to get Rage back.
Spirit's Gift: So this one is Animal Companions and Familiars. It allows you to gain a small bonus to apply to your companion, of the available options: Bones adds constant Blur, Life adds Fast Healing 1, And DR 5/adamantine.
Stalkers Focus: This lets you or your animal companion gain a small stat boost. Possibly useful at lower levels (available at level 3) but the bonus is an enhancement bonus, meaning it won't stack with other buffs most of the time.
Unfettered Familiar: You can use this since you can get a familiar and 5 caster levels. Is it useful? Potentially, helpful for using your familiar as an Assassin or scout.
War Blessing: Surprisingly, this is available to you as a Druid because you can take a domain. You gain 2 minor Blessings, and it doesn't technically need to be tied to a domain you have if you have a deity. Without a deity you are stuck with Animal, Air, Water, Earth, Fire, Weather, and Plant. If you take from the rest of the list, some stand outs are: Darkness, Destruction, Healing, Knowledge, Repose, Strength, Sun, Trickery.
Vital Strike related:
Faerie's Strike: Sometimes you have to fight a foe who you cannot see. This feat lets you automatically attempt to faerie fire people you hit with a melee attack. There are two reasons why this isn't worth it. First, the logical fallacy that if they are invisible/blurred/etc you probably aren't going to hit them, making this useful only after they make a mistake of coming out of stealth, if they ever do. The second reason is you get faerie fire as a level 1 Druid Spell. By the time you could get this feat (level 5) first level spells are cheap enough to prepare for ‘if when’ scenarios, or just get a scroll.
Grasping Strike: Entangle is a nasty effect. Entangling things is not difficult for you however, since you get Entangle the spell as a level 1 Druid spell. Sometimes though you do not want to have to fill a whole area in order to Entangle 1 target. If you already have Vital Strike, you probably cannot afford Rime Spell, making this a reasonable alternative.
Winter's Strike: Round 1 Run into combat and throw this on an enemy, when it is your turn next, use it again and the opponent is Exhausted. Better yet, cast Frostbite on yourself first, then fatigue your enemy with frostbite, and Winter's Strike with the same hit in order to exhaust. Frostbite cannot exhaust but Winter's Strike can.
Other Vital Strike feats not mentioned earlier:
Furious Finish: You need Rage for this as well. There is contention on whether or not this affects secondary dice. If your DM rules that it does affect all damage, then your Sneak Attack dice is maxed, your massive Earth Elemental form Slam attack is maxed, your Holy Sword bonus damage is maxed, your Spell Storing weapon spell damage is maxed. You become fatigued, but you can turn on Rage and then hammer something absurdly hard for the cost of 2 rounds of fatigue. If you take Recovered Rage, you can do this indefinitely as long as you always get the kill.
Animal Companions vs Domain
Your choice here will likely be decided by flavor, campaign need and how much multiclassing you will do. You can get away with 4 levels of multiclass with the Boon Companion feat. All in all unless you are wanting to cast a spell every round the animal companion will be superior in combat. I won't go over which companions are best since there are other guides that do that better and as a reincarnate druid there isn't anything different to consider mechanically when it comes to animal companions.
There are some story things to consider however when it comes to the companion. If you die and you leave all your items and companion with your former body, an animal companion will need to be well trained to understand that you will pop up precisely one day later within 1 mile. Most magical means of containing the companion, such as storing it in a figurine or a tattoo will not work. Likewise even the best bloodhound could not track you by scent because you have a new scent and a new body.
You always have the option of releasing your old animal companion upon death and taming a new one to go with your new face. Some reincarnate druids may prefer this option if they know that returning their companion to service would put them at risk due to the Druid’s actions, such as being wanted or damned in some way.
Roleplay, Outliving your animal companion: Though this will probably never happen in the campaign as they do not often take the course of dozens of years, the fact remains that if you choose an animal companion be prepared to outlive them. You might say, 'most Druids would outlive their animal companions.' You will outlive a hundred of them, maybe a thousand. Consider how this will affect your character, perhaps they have become jaded by the loss and now accept a domain instead. Perhaps your Druid has a companion they refuse to abandon, reincarnating them when they die of old age to keep them going with you. (Reincarnate as the spell works on animals, and works on creatures dying of old age.) When reincarnating your animal companion you and your DM should consider what would be appropriate based on it's current species (such as turning a lion into tiger) or geographic location. If you are playing an Uskwood lich druid, consider raising your high hit dice companion with Animate Dead before seeking a new companion, expanding your menagerie over time.
Domains
Picking the Domain option is often unpopular. With your Wild Shape nerfed and your animal companion replaced by a domain, if it wasn't for the Many Lives ability you would be functioning as a very crap Cleric. And indeed you are for the first 5 levels of your Druiding career. I'll be going over both Domains and Inquisitions (which are available as an option, just not a superb one.)
In general most of the domain’s for Druid have been picked apart, but I will mention some that I think work well with the flavor or archetype.
Crocodile: You get a familiar, a Death Roll, and some dice of sneak attack. If you plan to be a Gray Warden or The Highlander then the free sneak attack will be put to use. The Familiar is good if your DM permits you to take Improved Familiars. The Death Roll is free damage if you take a Wildshape form that comes with Grab. You also get the spell Legend Lore added to your spell list.
Desert: Heat Shimmer is a great low level power useful for basically any build, especially if you start as Venerable. I love the idea of an immortal desert druid summoning genies. Calling in century old favors they earned in adventures past.
Growth: Obviously useful to get larger, but beyond that power and the enlarge person spell being on your spell list there isn’t much here unless you want plant powers.
Plains: Even if you only go to level 5, the Plains domain will give you access to Haste. Going to level 6 to get the pounce power isn’t a terrible idea either.
Swamp: I would love to use this channel energy for the Lich build and pick up command undead but it isn’t flexible. However, if you take Agent of the Grave, you could count your animated dead minions as animals and heal them with this power. Reed Hunter will let you throw out Obscuring Mist and be unhindered sitting in it.
Vulture: It is a shame that the reincarnate themed domain isn’t very good for a reincarnated druid. The bonus against death spells is useful like you can imagine. The spell list is decent for the Lich to add more necromancy to their repertoire. If you can convince the DM that the reincarnate ability to roll twice on the table should affect Many Lives, then this may be Blue.
Wolf: Improved Trip for free lets you ignore Combat Expertise. Using Wisdom instead of +2 to flank will pay off for those who invested heavily in wisdom, such as Venerable starters.
Animal/Fur/Feather: Why would you ever want to take a domain that gives you a weaker companion in exchange for your normal animal companion? These become an option if you take a class like Hellknight Signifier, which will advance your domains outside of Druid. Feather is the best of the three as it will give you the Fly spell as a 3rd level spell, meaning you could gain flight before wild shape.
Inquisitions:
No, you aren't an Inquisitor, but you can still take Inquisitions if your deity matches up to the inquisition. With a good Inquisition, and the Gray Warden prestige class you can be a psuedo Inquisitor who isn't afraid of swords and has level 9 spells.
Reformation/Conversion/Heresy: You have to find a way to get diplomacy and intimidate as class skills, but being able to use your wisdom in place of charisma is a good buff. With the Conversion domain, you don’t gain the reroll ability like the reformation inquisition or the ability to charm person, but you get wisdom to bluff. When building The Doctor you need a high bluff. Remember rule one, The Doctor lies. If you don't mind losing diplomacy (IE you’re a jerk) then Heresy is better than Conversion because it allows you to reroll a bluff.
Anger: Hateful retort is useful if you can capitalize on an extra attack when hit, such as a Highlander build with high strength or a combat maneuver build. Considering that's all the domain gives you for 6 levels its a hard sell. But at level 6 you get Rage like a level 3 barbarian. I think this is still viable for the highlander who is going into Ranger and wants to clobber people with a two handed weapon. Remember that Rage can be used in Wild Shape as well, and you have lots of ways of curing fatigue. In a lot of ways this domain will be outclassed by Wolf or Plains.
Excommunication: Your biggest fear is necromancy, with this domain you can shut down evil spell casters with a quick chop to the throat. Your allies still need to deal some damage. You could charge up rimespell frostbites and discharge them while making touch of silence for silence entangled fatigue attacks. With domain strike you could potentially have silence fatigue shaken entangled.
Black powder: if you want to play a reincarnate gunman for a western themed game this is your quickest route to guns. Think Vash the Stampede or The man with no name. Arguably the Mysterious Stranger archetype from the gunslinger does this better, but that guy will die from bullets and you won't. The major problem with this domain is that A: it doesn’t actually give you a gun so you will have to craft one and B: if you reincarnate you will have to go find your gun to make use of this choice.
Banishment: I don't see the Righteous Awe being useful for most games, if you are fighting outsiders often at low levels I would bump this up to Orange. Dismissive Touch may be your only way to gain dismissal, and an immortal exorcist going around and banishing demons is a pretty wicked awesome concept, but it comes in late at level 8 and therefore isn't reachable by some builds.
Fervor: Fire of Belief isn't even as good as Fire Bolt from the Fire Domain. Fervent Action looks awesome! But since it specifically says “Inquisitor spells” you can't use it for a free quicken. If you could convince your DM to allow it to apply to Druid spells then cool, it will be overshadowed by actual quicken in 2-4 levels though.
Persistance: Free Step Up feat is always gravy. Relentless Footing is lame since it doesn’t stack with Longstrider and if you are a melee combatant there’s no reason you shouldn’t have longstrider every day. It is usable at low levels before longstrider gets to 5 hours. Inner Strength is interesting if you took levels of Barbarian, here using your Druid level as basically a once a day lay on hands with a free fatigue mercy. It is useful for other things as well such as Frightened or Nauseated. Useful if you do not have a full paladin or healer in the group.
Redemption: You cannot use the Atonement on yourself since if you are needing of an Atonement you couldn’t use the power. However you can do it for another character for essentially totally free if you are also a word caster and use Purify. Neat trick if you plan to be a Druid to 8 and hang out with crooked Paladins. I like Redeemers Mercy but it’s a +1 enchant…
Spellkiller: You are afraid of Necromancy and Spellkiller grants you Disruptive at level 1, and you get a free stagger power you can use on spell casters to try and limit their ability to flee and cast freely.
Vengeance: If you are a Druid till level 8, you get to make one free swing at an enemy if you were going to go to negative hit points. In conjunction with Diehard it’s a free attack once a day. However you could also take the Anger Inquisition and get a free swing in retribution AND rage.
A note about Familiars:
Some Druids will have access to familiars through Domains or feats and many would argue that if you gain a specific familiar from a domain, you cannot take improved familiar. If however you are in a group that thinks this is limiting, (DM permission) then there is a great option for you. There is an improved familiar known as a Shikigami Kami. This familiar gains a once a week spell like ability to Commune With Nature. This spell operates at a distance of 1 mile, easily enabling the familiar to locate your newly formed body and bring your things (and friends) to you. Likewise any familiar with Commune could try to ask a higher entity where your body is through yes or no questions. A Silvanshee can use speak with animals to try and see if birds and such have seen you, but this is less reliable since birds and such are stupid and your familiar won't know what you look like yet. From an RP standpoint I like the Nosoi Psychopomp because of their preference for those with strange connections to death, which you have. If you are in a campaign where time isn't a pressing issue (Such as Kingmaker adventure path) then the most powerful familiar is the Faerie Dragon, which gains some sorcerer spells.
Items and Gold:
The old saying goes, “You can't take it with you.” In regards to death and money. When you die you lose all your things, but you can hunt them down after you revive a day later using Locate Object. Unfortunately they could be scattered to the four winds by that point. In most situations your allies will do you a kindness of picking your corpse clean, and you should probably instruct them to bury or burn your old body so that nobody tries funny business. (Unless you want to raise your own body with Shade of Uskwood necromancy) If you have a Shikigami Kami familiar, they can collect your things for you and bring them to you.
Intelligent armor and weapons:
Another trick usable by those who don't want to spring for the familiar and who don't have friends ( :( ) Is to acquire a set of intelligent armor or weapons. Druids gain the ability to cast Scrying as a fourth level spell. Spring for intelligent items that can Teleport, cast your scry, send your message (which you can't do normally as a druid but level 0 spells are easy to acquire) and have your gear Teleport directly to you!
An even more costly option, but probably the more sound option, is to pay for your intelligent item to be able to scry upon you, then teleport itself to your location.
Roleplaying with an Intelligent item: Generally magic items do not die from old age. Just like you, in fact it may be easy for your character to develop a kinship with long lived magic items. An intelligent item is often doomed to change owners over and over, but if your alignment matches up to the item, it may find itself in the hands of a companion for centuries. Your intelligent item may be your rock in the storm, and you may be theirs. An intelligent item can serve as an identifier of your true identity, or it can change shape to match your new body with every new life.
Tomes of Stat gain:
Arguably one of the best and least gimmicky uses for your gold will be to buy Tomes such as Tome of Understanding in order to raise your mental stats, as they will carry through death. The Doctor will value the extra intelligence for increased skill points. All builds will value increased Wisdom.
Ring of Retribution
Nobody in their right mind would want a ring that essentially drops a fireball on their own head, but unlike daffy duck you can do this trick more than once. It is an immediate action to invoke it, so you can choose to pop it right before the enemy who is about to finish you off gets to deal their damage and kill you. Used in the right situation, you can take out a big bad as your last gasp, or simply soften them up for your allies to finish them off in your absence. Use the ring with care, as it may destroy your other possessions in the blast, but even so the ring itself is never destroyed, and so you may hunt it down after you fall in battle.
Spell Resistance:
Some items in mid game will offer you small amounts of Spell Resistance. Nearly all of the common necromancy spells to kill you are affected by Spell Resistance so naturally any amount of Spell Resist gives you another speed bump against that Finger of Death landing. There are two things to consider when looking for spell resistance, how much self buffing are you doing and does any one else in your party need it more than you. While it’s true that Spell Resistance will save your life it will save the life of others in your party, people who die from fireballs and lightning bolts like normal. You may find yourself saying you don’t need it until it is too late.
Spell-Storing:
The Highlander wants to get Spell Storing on his weapon or Amulet of Mighty fists fairly early in his career. For a +1 enchant this provides a great deal of burst potential to a class otherwise lacking some damage options. A Word Caster gets access to multiple straight d6 elemental type spells. The jury is out on whether you can use this with Frostbite or other multiple charge spells, so consider Snowball. With Samsaran, your range of spells you can put in this thing is amazing. The Spell-Storing weapon is not 100% necessary as you can eventually replace it with Holy Sword, but in the early levels it is great damage.
Other Magic items:
Hunter’s Headband: If you are a shape shifting hunter, this will improve your favored enemy.
Mask of Giants: If you stuck around till level 6 to get animal companions, consider saving up to buy one of these masks. Transform yourself into a giant, considerably better to use wild shape charges for multiclass characters to gain large size.
Ways to Optimize Death:
If you are playing a reincarnate druid, you are planning to die. Whether it is a slow, Shakespearean tragedy death or an explosive trap is up to you. Building a plan for how to martyr yourself properly will give your party a parting gift so that the sting of having one less party member for the rest of the dungeon is not as dangerous. Many of these options use Immediate Actions, and are highlighted so you know whether they stack at the moment of your death or not.
Samsaran Options:
These options are for the Samsaran with Mystic Past Life, most of the spells are covered in the spells section of the guide, but I will compile them here as well since they have a special use.
Martyr’s Bargain: This spell is a deal with the devil. When a spell is cast upon you that deals damage, as an immediate action you can not take no damage now for the ability to take the damage later (at the trade off of it being maximized.) You aren’t afraid of this damage being maximized, for all you know the spell may have killed you anyway and now you are on borrowed time. This borrowed time will let you save your party, scimitar the bad guy, hold open the closing portal or wrestle the balrog for another couple rounds. If you use it slightly before death, you can stack it with other immediate actions, or you can use it to avoid death for the moment.
Resilient Reservoir:
3rd level paladin spell, lasts for rounds, for the best use of this spell, you must cast it at the beginning of combat, and then get hit by people for the whole combat until you die from it. You gain 1 point of reserve for every attack you take, and when you die you can use this to explode in 15 feet dealing 1d6 for every 2 points you have. These points are easy to get for a tank, and even easier to get for someone who In Harm’s Ways for people. The duration on this is short, and the damage return is on average only going to be 5d6 or so. It costs an action to cast, but doesn’t cost an action to boom, so you could use this at the beginning of your ‘I’ll hold them back!’ moment and see it give returns later.
Blaze of Glory:
4th level paladin spell, this can be used as a standard action as what is essentially caster level based Channel Energy (1d6 per 2 caster levels of healing for good creatures.) Using it this way by dropping yourself to -1 hit points. This spell ignores normal Diehard by saying you specifically fall unconcious when you use it. You can choose to use this spell as a normal big healing spell and the martyring effect does not put you in as much danger as it would the others in your party you are trying to save.
This spell also can be used automatically as an immediate action when you hit 0, it will heal allies in an area for the same amount. It also heals you, (probably) keeping you in the fight longer and letting you drop to zero so you can do it again assuming you prepared it twice.
Either way you use it, it also harms evil creatures in the area for the same amount. You can use it at low HP to finish a fight and save others, you can use it at 0 to prolong the fight for a few more moments. Either way you are healing your party and hurting the enemy without fear.
For non-Samsarans:
Druid spells: You have a small set of Druid spells that you can use for similar effects.
Fire Trap: Druid level 2, This one is simple, cast this upon your gear that you don’t want someone to randomly take from your body while you are trying to find it. You can cast quite a number of these and they are permanent, only costing 25 gold a piece. Not useful in combat but useful outside of it. Be sure to tell your friends the password.
Fire Seeds: Druid level 6, you can make up to 8 Holly Berry bombs that explode with a command word. You can’t give this command word as an immediate reaction, but if you are in Diehard mode and things are looking bleak, you can simply blow up all the ones in your bag for a very large explosion. Each cast makes 8 bombs and each bomb is 1d8+ caster level. They have a long shelf life, so spending combat rounds making these and putting them in a bag isn’t a terrible idea.
Items, mostly explosions
Ring of Retribution: 15k gold
I already covered this ring in my items section, but I will cover it again in depth here. The true beauty of this item is that it causes a magical fire explosion centered on your body, this is good damage by itself but there are many other items in the game that can also be triggered by interacting with such an explosion. This explosion deals 10d6 damage and allows a reflex save.
Necklace of Fireballs: 1.6k - 8.7k
These things are surprisingly cheap but are consumable. A Type 1 necklace of fireballs has 1 5d6 fireball and 2 3d6 fireballs. “If the necklace is being worn or carried by a character who fails her saving throw against a magical fire attack” Which is automatically triggered by the Ring of Retribution. Carrying multiple cheap necklaces of fireballs, or one big one, can lead to a very explosive chain reaction. This may blow up all your other gear, don’t bring any other important things on your suicide mission.
Helm of Retribution: 150k gold
This one isn’t practical since it is so expensive an random but it is automatically keyed off of fire damage like the necklace of fireballs. The helmet provides 30 free fire resistance to the wearer and the helmet itself, meaning you would have to do quite a bit of fire damage from one source to even get it to active. You may have a necklace of fireballs chain trigger this though and when it does trigger it is a storm of magic. “Remaining diamonds become prismatic sprays that each randomly target a creature within range (possibly the wearer), rubies become straight-line walls of fire extending outward in a random direction from the helm wearer, and fire opals become fireballs centered on the helm wearer.” From a pure money > explosion standpoint, 150k worth of necklace of fireballs is a better investment.
Blade of the Rising Sun: 51k
Normally I wouldn’t suggest hunting down a specific weapon, especially one you aren’t proficient in. The Blade of the Rising Sun is a +1 glorious undead bane katana and a katana may not even fit into your game universe. The Katana allows you to stab yourself, or stab yourself as an immediate action upon death. When you do so, your body converts into pure energy casting a Sunburst on your location that never harms your allies. In fact, it allows you to use Breath of Life on close allies (10 feet) or mass cure light on allies within the sunburst. This destroys your body as a disintegrate would.
The blade itself comes with a 50% chance of providing it’s own reincarnate kicker that actives in 24 hours, exactly as your Many Lives ability but not activating cooldown. The only downside to this process is that the blade itself teleports 100 miles away in a random direction. For a highlander build, if this sword becomes available to your character there isn’t another weapon in the game that will fit flavor so readily.
Pale Orange Rhomboid (flawed and normal) 12k - 200k
This ioun stone functions as magic jar, when you die your soul enters into the ioun stone and waits until it can try to re-enter your body. This can serve a lot of uses. You may avoid dying inside your cooldown period, you may avoid having to trigger a cool down period. You may avoid having to leave your allies in the middle of a dungeon. You may avoid having all your items stolen. If the stone doesn’t work and you still die, no problem for you. The biggest boon to this item is for use if your foes know that you are a reincarnate druid, they certainly won’t expect you to pop up in the same body. The Flawed version is affordable but only works once, the normal version is an end game expensive item.
Feats:
Troth of the Forgotten Pharoah
This feat is expensive, it will cost you 3 hp permanently to use. When it comes to being a suicide bomber, you really want to pile on the damage. This will deal 1d6+ your character level, not caster. It honestly isn’t much, but it comes with a blind effect. If you are using ring of retribution and a necklace of fireballs 1, thats 22d6+ character level in damage.
Builds:
This section is still in progress, due to length like the spells, I will link it to a separate document.
