# What is CoDZilla?



## Sqwonk (Jan 6, 2008)

I have seen that term a few times.  Huh?

Wazzit meen ?


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## Greylock (Jan 6, 2008)

It refers to Clerics and Druids being the uber-powerful PCs if you want to create a "broken" character.

hth


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## Sitara (Jan 6, 2008)

Cleric Or Druid Zilla. 

It refers to the fact that (according to many) cleric and druid classes are overpowered.

In my opinion ofcourse, just because a class does not need to get a PRC to be powerful does not mean its overpowered.

Clerics and Druids are good jacks of all trades. good warriors, but fightyers are better. Good casters, but wizards are better.


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## glass (Jan 6, 2008)

Sitara said:
			
		

> In my opinion ofcourse, just because a class does not need to get a PRC to be powerful does not mean its overpowered.



No, that isn't what makes clerics and druids overpowered! 


glass.


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## Emirikol (Jan 6, 2008)

Is that different from a PILF?

jh


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## Gez (Jan 6, 2008)

Sitara said:
			
		

> Clerics and Druids are good jacks of all trades. good warriors, but fightyers are better. Good casters, but wizards are better.



Err, not really. Wizards have better travel and damage-dealing spells; but they don't have healing spells, cast less spells per day, know only the spells in their spellbooks, and have no additional magical capacities. Clerics and Druids are much better spellcasters.


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## Drowbane (Jan 6, 2008)

Gez said:
			
		

> Err, not really. Wizards have better travel and damage-dealing spells; but they don't have healing spells, cast less spells per day, know only the spells in their spellbooks, and have no additional magical capacities. Clerics and Druids are much better spellcasters.




To add to this; a Cleric or Druid can out fight any warrior-type* (fighter, paladin, barbarian, etc) without straying from Core.  Through in splat books and its not even close.

Bo9S starts to address this... but CoDzilla can still run roughshod over even a tweaked out Warblade.

To make this even worse, CoDzilla can out melee the fighter and still be an awesome caster.

*with the assumption that the C or D is interested in melee.


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## Brother MacLaren (Jan 6, 2008)

CoDzilla is a largely mythical beast.  It is known to roam the Internet and the Character Optimization boards.
On occasion, a particularly careless DM may enable one to exist at a table, but this is rare.  When it does happen, the beast is usually chained or else quickly destroys the game; only in exceptionally rare cases does CoDzilla enjoy the prolonged domination that is talked about.
More than any other creature, CoDzilla fears Dispel Magic.  There is talk of a Reciprocal Gyre, an innovation devised specifically to kill CoDzilla.
CoDzilla feeds on splatbooks, nightsticks, and indulgent DMs.
CoDzilla is very slow-moving, taking considerable time to reach full strength and running out of energy quickly.  CoDzilla can be thwarted by foes temporarily withdrawing or taking cover behind a tower shield for one minute.


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## Elder-Basilisk (Jan 7, 2008)

Note that the Spell Compendium nerfed Reciprocal Gyre such that it is no longer especially effective against CoDzilla. 

The vast variety of dispel magic spells featured in PHB 2, however... CoDzilla no longer knows what to put in his ring of counterspells.



			
				Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> There is talk of a Reciprocal Gyre, an innovation devised specifically to kill CoDzilla.


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## Fenes (Jan 7, 2008)

I once had to ban a character build that would have been such a CoDZilla. Sure, there were possible counters, but they would have either done too much collateral damage to the game enjoyment of other players, ans/or would have resulted in too much work, both in preparation and background changes.


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## Sitara (Jan 7, 2008)

Oh come on people. In order to outfight fighters clerics need to buff, and by the time they are done the battle is usually over or close to it. Plus, once they have buffed once or twice, they are done for the day. the fighter can keep fighting all day long.


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## Testament (Jan 7, 2008)

Sitara said:
			
		

> Oh come on people. In order to outfight fighters clerics need to buff, and by the time they are done the battle is usually over or close to it. Plus, once they have buffed once or twice, they are done for the day. the fighter can keep fighting all day long.




Quicken Spell says otherwise.  Divine Metamagic says otherwise times 2.  Cheesesticks (AKA Metamagic Rods) also say otherwise by a huge margin.  And two of those are core book items!  Nightsticks just took the C part of CoDzilla into the stratosphere, the D didn't even notice.

Druids laugh uproariously at that claim.  I accidentally created CoDzilla with a Druid who cracked the 40 mark on AC at level 12 with only DMG magic items and a single casting of Barkskin, and was also capable of tearing most things to pieces in melee without cracking a sweat.   And this was in Living Greyhawk, so said character was somewhat behind the DMG's wealth for level guidlines.  All of this was without a single splatbook, I was able to go even more berserk with just Complete Warrior, the one that almost never gets called out for blatant cheese.

When you can _accidentaly _ break a character, something is very very wrong.


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## Fenes (Jan 7, 2008)

Sitara said:
			
		

> Oh come on people. In order to outfight fighters clerics need to buff, and by the time they are done the battle is usually over or close to it. Plus, once they have buffed once or twice, they are done for the day. the fighter can keep fighting all day long.




That depends on how many combats a day you have. In my campaign, it would have been very easy for a cleric to outfight a fighter.


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## glass (Jan 7, 2008)

Gez said:
			
		

> Err, not really. Wizards have better travel and damage-dealing spells; but they don't have healing spells, cast less spells per day, know only the spells in their spellbooks, and have no additional magical capacities. Clerics and Druids are much better spellcasters.



And after clerics and druids get flamestrike, they don't even much of an advantage in damage dealing either.


glass.


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## Testament (Jan 7, 2008)

glass said:
			
		

> And after clerics and druids get flamestrike, they don't even much of an advantage in damage dealing either.
> 
> 
> glass.




Druids get Firestorm, for when you absolutely, positively, have to nuke the absolute hell out of a large area.  They also get more battlefield control spells than you can shake a stick at, and having easy on-demand access to elementals is always fun.

Clerics get better than damage.  They get SoDs galore, and better yet, the 4 Words.  With the absolute truckload of ways to jack your caster level up, the ability to just shaft all hostiles within 40 ft of you, no save allowed, trumps any direct damage spell.  Do I really need to go into just how broken _Blasphemy_'s table of effect is?  I will anyway: the lowest tier of effect is Dazed.  Action deprivation at those levels is just two doors down from insta-gib effects.


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## Sitara (Jan 7, 2008)

First, clerics and to a lesser extent druids have far fewer singular damage dealing blasty type spells than wizards. flamestrike and fire storm arecool and all, but not much helpful since you are just as likely to hit your friends as your foes. Wizards and Sorcs though have their magic missiles, ray's, enervations disintegrate,e tc.

As for magic items, that is completely in the purview of the gm. If your gm hands out magic items willy nilly, its his fault the game gets broken, not the fault of a class.


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## Plane Sailing (Jan 7, 2008)

Plus the divine casters can burn a 4500gp block of incense of meditation and have all their spells maximised. They can use a bead of karma for +4 caster level.

I've used a 12th level druid loaded up with maximised flame strikes and maximised call lightning storms and caused damage that made wizards cry like little babies.

Summoned animals + animal growth makes for pretty sick melee beasties.

Wall of Thorns is a fantastic area control spell.

While wizards get better out of combat spells, when it comes to damage high level druids rule the roost (and they get wildshape, two good saves and better hp on top of that!)

As Testament mentions above, Clerics get the amazingly broken blasphemy (see bead of karma again) and single target save or die spells which are fantastic. Plus the ability to protect themselves against magic in ways which make wizards cry with envy.


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## prosfilaes (Jan 7, 2008)

Sitara said:
			
		

> As for magic items, that is completely in the purview of the gm. If your gm hands out magic items willy nilly, its his fault the game gets broken, not the fault of a class.




That specifically knocks out the popular style of play where DMs do make most magic items available at listed cost. Even if you don't play like that, the metamagic rods are fairly standard and useful items that could be expected to be reasonably common. Having to worry about every magic item whether giving it out could break the game is just not fun for the GM.


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## Testament (Jan 7, 2008)

Sitara said:
			
		

> First, clerics and to a lesser extent druids have far fewer singular damage dealing blasty type spells than wizards. flamestrike and fire storm arecool and all, but not much helpful since you are just as likely to hit your friends as your foes. Wizards and Sorcs though have their magic missiles, ray's, enervations disintegrate,e tc.
> 
> As for magic items, that is completely in the purview of the gm. If your gm hands out magic items willy nilly, its his fault the game gets broken, not the fault of a class.




Enervation and Disintegrate are awesome and all, but unless you're a Warmage, direct damage is kinda 'meh' at the top end.  I'd rather someone drop a Wall of Thorns* than a 5th level nuke, any day of the week.  And Firestorm is almost completely shapable, friendly fire is not much of an issue.

And as for magic items, what about Item Creation feats?  Some of the doomsday items are pretty easy to make.

*_Seriously, who wrote that thing?  As written they're invisible, semi-intagible doomsday vines that are near indestructible.  A Mountain Giant Warhulk with an adamantine greataxe has the same ability to hack through them as a quadriplegic halfling child with a spoon ._


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## Sitara (Jan 7, 2008)

Yes and wizards get metamagic feats for free every 5th level. 

Also, wizards get powerful teleportational spells; they also get blink, displacement and dimension door all of which are increadibly powerful in combat. Mirror image is just an insane spell; its basically 5 extra lives right there. 

Finally, wizards are not bad at summoning too. Furthermore they get more spells that use attack rolls (like rays) than clerics or druids, giving them more options. Also, disintegrate is more powerful than nearly anything clercis or druids get. 

Metoer Swarm completely crushes firestorm in terms of damage output and area of effect.

Druids and clerics are powerful yes, but IMO not near as much as people make them out to be. They are more useful in more situations than other clkasses, but not the most useful.


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## pawsplay (Jan 7, 2008)

Sitara said:
			
		

> Finally, wizards are not bad at summoning too. Furthermore they get more spells that use attack rolls (like rays) than clerics or druids, giving them more options. Also, disintegrate is more powerful than nearly anything clercis or druids get.




Well, except for disintegrate, I suppose. And summoning? The Thaumaturge can knock any wizard summoner on their butt.


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## Bacris (Jan 7, 2008)

Re-posted from the 4th Edition Forum:

Here's the original context:



> Haunted, the good answers (DMing your own game, ditching this fool for some sensible DMs in college) have been given. You wish to win an argument with a DM, however (try actually facing 3 groups of 4 goblins each in a day at level 1, with time to cast a CLW or two in between, and see if he still thinks you can't have more than 1 encounter a day at low levels) and for that you have chosen the correct tactic.
> 
> It bears saying: if up against a logic-impervious DM who thinks Core is balanced and Psionics (or Warlocks, or Fochlucan Lyrists, or anything balanced that's come out of splatbooks that aren't munchfests like Complete Divine) isn't, then the most powerful way to disprove that is to play a C.o.D. (Cleric or Druid). Noncore material will not be necessary unless you are going for pure overkill (Draconic Wildshape? Divine Metamagic?). So by all means, if you must win that argument, take you C.o.D. to town. Annihilate the opposition. Make the NPCs and other players scream "Oh no, it's C.o.D.zilla!!!!!" in badly dubbed English. Breathe radioactive fire. Knock down buildings. Then stomp out of the burning Tokyo that is the ruins of the game and swim off into the ocean, seeking a DM with some basic cognitive functions.
> 
> ...


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## Plane Sailing (Jan 7, 2008)

Sitara said:
			
		

> Yes and wizards get metamagic feats for free every 5th level.
> 
> Also, wizards get powerful teleportational spells; they also get blink, displacement and dimension door all of which are increadibly powerful in combat. Mirror image is just an insane spell; its basically 5 extra lives right there.
> 
> ...





a) Metamagic feats turn out to be not that great for wizards

b) wizard summonings are pants compared to druid summonings, especially once druids get to throw 'animal growth' into the mix

c) disintegrate is laughable now. One target, make a ranged attack AND they get a fort save (to reduce it to a paltry 5d6), AND it only does average 7 damage per level? Harm on the other hand is a touch attack which does 10 damage per level, Will ST for half and if you miss your touch attack you can try again.

d) so you could do 18d6 with firestorm, fully shapeable across an area of 36 10ft cubes, or you could do 4 lots of 6d6 fire damage (watch that evaporate in the face of any fire resistance at all) and possibly some bludgeoning damage if you hit with the ranged attacks; also doesn't allow you to make holes for your comrades to the same extent, it certainly isn't shapeable. No wait! Firestorm is 7th level and meteor swarm is 9th, so maybe we should be looking at an empowered firestorm for effectively 27d6 damage! No wait! The druid certainly has a bead of karma by this point and smoked his incense of meditation so his firestorm fills 44x10ft cubes doing 120 + 10d6 fire damage in every one of them

I know which looks more like army-destroying magic to me


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## Neil Bishop (Jan 7, 2008)

And don't forget that a 15th level druid casting _control winds_ is going to destroy any army of almost any size arrayed against him.


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## Drowbane (Jan 7, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> ...firestorm...
> 
> I know which looks more like army-destroying magic to me




Nwm (pronounced: quoted for truth)


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## Zelc (Jan 8, 2008)

Who cares about single target nukes when you can shapeshift into a Dire Lion, cast Bite of the Weretiger (OK, noncore and really powerful, but still), and charge for over 100 damage on a full attack - at level 13?  20d6 damage only averages 70 damage on a failed save.

If there's one weakness of Druids, it's their inability to do much at long range.  That's fixed if you go outside core, and grab the fantastically awesome Phantom Stag from Complete Divine? and Spell Compendium to give yourself a 300' move speed along with other perks (like all the benefits of the Extraordinary Concentration feat).

Clerics just have the ability to cast a ton of great spells AND melee well.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jan 8, 2008)

A game I run has a Cleric/Fighter of a war god. According to CoDZilla theory it should be a combat monster. While it can do a lot of hurt in short bursts, over the long run the (unoptimized) fighter tends to do more hurt. I suspect this has to do with the play style for my game and the greatly reduced access to magic items and splat books.


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## Brother MacLaren (Jan 8, 2008)

Zelc said:
			
		

> Who cares about single target nukes when you can shapeshift into a Dire Lion, cast Bite of the Weretiger (OK, noncore and really powerful, but still), and charge for over 100 damage on a full attack - at level 13?  20d6 damage only averages 70 damage on a failed save.



Is Bite of the Weretiger from Spell Compendium?  Sounds like the problem is that book, not the druid class. 

I played a 3.5 druid through 20 levels.  I found that, after the wildshape errata, melee combat became much less of an option.  No more Animal Growth, no more Nature's Favor, and by RAW no magic items would continue to function except wild armor.  Elemental forms are great for durability, mobility, and grappling, but don't do anywhere near the damage that a fighter or rogue does.  While my druid was a melee powerhouse at levels 8-13 or so, his AC was always poor, and he eventually realized that as the party's primary healer he needed to make sure he stayed on his feet.  So he picked up Rapid Spell to actually be able to complete a summoning spell now and then.

And, yes, Jerrin has destroyed armies with Control Winds.  The druid is an extremely strong and versatile class, but the errata appropriately toned down the melee side of things.


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## Doug McCrae (Jan 8, 2008)

DrunkonDuty said:
			
		

> reduced access to magic items and splat books.



Those should both help CoDzilla. Fighters for example, need Complete Warrior and PHB2 to get remotely close to the big three - wizard, cleric and druid. Druids don't benefit as much from magic items due to wildshape, which also means they have less to lose. The cleric can use Greater Magic Weapon and Magic Vestment, and would probably do so even if items were available to save money.

In general melee types need gear more than casters as they have more stats they have to keep high - ac, hit points, to hit and damage. Casters really only need to boost a single stat - int, wis or cha - and they can get by fine even if it isn't boosted.


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## Brother MacLaren (Jan 8, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> Casters really only need to boost a single stat - int, wis or cha - and they can get by fine even if it isn't boosted.



My experience was different than yours, I guess.  Here's what my druid looked like at level 1:
Str 12, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 10.  32-pt buy, and what you see is after the halfling racial modifiers applied.
He needed the high Dex to survive the low levels, and every character needs Con to survive.  The Int was because there were so many good druid skills (Knowledge-Nature, Survival, and Concentration being essential, with Heal, Listen, and Spellcraft being appealing).  Wis was necessary for casting, of course. 
Str might seem like an odd choice, especially for a halfling, but I figured he'd be conserving spells and throwing darts a lot at low levels, and that +1 damage means a lot when your base damage is 1d3.  I had also thought that, depending on party composition, I might eventually put another +1 into Str to get Power Attack and Cleave for use in wildshape forms.


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## Sitara (Jan 8, 2008)

First lets just look at things RAW, if we add magic items into the mix this discussion will never end. for every magic item/splat item/splat spell you give Clercis or Druids, I can give the other classes as well (heck I cab give wizards two for every one you give me!). Lets also ignore PRc's for now, simply because any PRC you toss out for COD will have to come up against Ultimate Magus, Raumathari Battlemage, Eldritch Knight, etc etc. That will not be a pretty confrontation for CoD. 

Ok:

Disintegrate beats Harm any day for the simple reason that harm is a touch attack that requires the CoD to go into melee, while the Wizzie can disintegrate from a ways away.

Firestorm is lower level than Meteor Swarm, and as such MUCH more prone to Spell resisitance. Meteor Swarm Wins. 

Wizards have a ton more spells they can maximize to far greater potential.

Mage armor , shield and magic missile. CoD has nothing on these. Nothing. Do not underestimate thepower of the duration of Mage Armor, and the power of lower level spell slots. (i.e. wizards have a ton of lower level slots for these 3 babies)

CoD has to focus on many stats to be effective at casting and melee. Theyneed high str for attack/damage, high con to survive in melee, his WIS for their spell DC's, and decent Dex for Ac boost. therefore they end up being not much good at anything. 

Wizard only needs high INT. Wizard wins.

Wizards get power word kill, along with the other power words. 

Wizrds have more feat slots to spare for item creation, spell focus, spell penetration etc, especially since they already get meta feats for free. CoD though has to split focus from martial feats (wepaon focus, cleave, power attack etc) to their divine feats, metamagic feats, item creation feats etc.


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## Testament (Jan 8, 2008)

Sitara said:
			
		

> First lets just look at things RAW, if we add magic items into the mix this discussion will never end. for every magic item/splat item/splat spell you give Clercis or Druids, I can give the other classes as well (heck I cab give wizards two for every one you give me!). Lets also ignore PRc's for now, simply because any PRC you toss out for COD will have to come up against Ultimate Magus, Raumathari Battlemage, Eldritch Knight, etc etc. That will not be a pretty confrontation for CoD.




Sorry pal, but Magic Items are part of the RAW and are intrisic to characters, so they NEED to stay in.  The game was designed around their existence, so any argument which ignores them is irrelevant.  I will stick to the Three Core Books however.

If we're gonna talk PrCs, I laugh at most of your choices there, and respond with RSoP, War Shaper (1,000,000,000 tentacles HOOO!) and then wipe them all with Ur-Priest, Void Disciple and Dweomercheater anyway.  Ultimate Magus is laughable, and Eldritch Knight is a patch-class.

Oh, and Greenbond Summoner.  Druid wins the cheese stakes.



> Disintegrate beats Harm any day for the simple reason that harm is a touch attack that requires the CoD to go into melee, while the Wizzie can disintegrate from a ways away."




Except that a saving throw makes Disintegrate laughable, as can poor rolls.  Harm will outdamage it most of the time, especially on a failed save.  And when you have a Beta BAB, the melee touch means little, plus, you get a second chance with it IF you miss.



> Firestorm is lower level than Meteor Swarm, and as such MUCH more prone to Spell resisitance. Meteor Swarm Wins.




Spell level means nothing, only Caster level when it comes to SR.  And Beads of Karma exist, so Divines win that round with ease, especially since any kind of DR or Fire Resistance reduces Meteor Swarm to Meteor Tickle.  There's a good reason its considered the worst 9th in the PHB.

As for the low level spells, Shield of Faith and Barkskin CRUSH Mage Armour and Shield, since they're a Deflection Bonus and a Natural Armour bonus that scale with (Wait for it!) CASTER LEVEL, that can be given to someone else too, unlike shield.  Mithril Buckler and a pair of Bracers of Armour take care of the 1st level spells and can be upgraded.



> CoD has to focus on many stats to be effective at casting and melee. Theyneed high str for attack/damage, high con to survive in melee, his WIS for their spell DC's, and decent Dex for Ac boost. therefore they end up being not much good at anything.
> 
> Wizard only needs high INT. Wizard wins.




Not really.  A cleric only needs to maximise DCs if he's going the caster route, and since hey tend to tin-can it, they don't need Dex at all.  A cleric can just focus around his Con and use Extend Spell to cover for the rest if he has to when he goes Self Buffer route.  And a Druid doesn't need physicals at all, thanks to the wonders of Wild Shape.  And a Wizard with low Con is a Wizard who doesn't make it to high level.  Failed Fort saves kill you.



> Wizards get power word kill, along with the other power words.




Power Word?  POWER WORD?  Please, if you're going to trot those out, you obviously aren't an optimiser of any stripe.  Power Word Stun is the only one worth putting in a spellbook, since PW:K needs them to be <100 HP, at which point they're dead anyway.  A Word of Faith, especially the all conqureing Dictum or Blasphemy crush it into the dust with their eyes shut and both hands behind their back, two levels earlier.



> Wizrds have more feat slots to spare for item creation, spell focus, spell penetration etc, especially since they already get meta feats for free. CoD though has to split focus from martial feats (wepaon focus, cleave, power attack etc) to their divine feats, metamagic feats, item creation feats etc.




A CoD DOESN'T split his focus.  Splitting focus is the fastest path to gimphood, no matter the class.  A Cleric or Druid who picks a path however will DOMINATE it with ease.


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## Quartz (Jan 8, 2008)

Drowbane said:
			
		

> Nwm (pronounced: quoted for truth)




Don't forget that Nwm had no magic items.


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## Plane Sailing (Jan 8, 2008)

Sitara said:
			
		

> Wizards have a ton more spells they can maximize to far greater potential.




Testament handled the others quite comprehensively, but left this one so I'll remind you once more of the startlingly cheap Incense of Meditation.

12th level wizard maximises his fireball? Well, he could do 3 with a rod of metamagic, but to get more than that he needs 6th level slots.

That druid could use his 6th level slots for maximised fire seeds (touch attack for 72 damage each) or empowered maximised flame strike (60+6d6 damage), 5th level slots for maximised call lightning storm (50 damage per round for 12 rounds per casting) 4th level slots for maximised flame strike (60 damage) etc. etc.



The problem is, the cost of maximising spells for wizards is prohibitive, while divine casters can get their entire spell load maximised for 4,500gp. Not something you would burn every day for sure, but on an offensive raid it is astonishingly cost effective.

It would be nice to think that the balance is redressed somewhat in 4e 

Cheers


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## Bacris (Jan 8, 2008)

Sitara, there's a reason when people go to the Character Optimization boards and ask for the best class to play for a Core games, Druid 20 is a common answer.

Splatbooks may go a long way to increasing the wizard / <insert other base class here> to the same level, but straight from the Core 3, the druid is hands down one of the strongest classes, especially after level 5 when Wildshape kicks in.

Just to see what all the fuss was about, I tried playing a druid from level 5 to level 10.  He was a wildshaping druid (typically in bear form) with a wolf animal companion.  I felt DIRTY after playing that character for those levels, because it trivialized so many encounters.  Sure, there were things that he couldn't cover as well (traps, for example), but my first attempt as a druid has left me never wanting to play the class again because of how easy it made things.  Sure, I don't want my character to die, but it's not fun when the fights become yawn-fests of "Oh, the druid just took out three enemies in one round, now what?"

And he was mostly a Core druid, didn't use a lot of stuff from splatbooks as Wizards are so fond of.


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## Brother MacLaren (Jan 8, 2008)

Testament said:
			
		

> And a Druid doesn't need physicals at all, thanks to the wonders of Wild Shape.



Not the case IME.
You still need high Con, since wildshape doesn't change HP.
You still need high Dex, to survive those first few levels (and all the times at higher levels when you aren't wildshaped, which IN ACTUAL GAMEPLAY, as opposed to the Internet, tends to be non-negligible).  If your DM isn't using the Magic Item Compendium, you'll want to stay in your normal form more often, since then you can retain the benefit of your magic items.  You also need high Dex to qualify for certain feats, such as Fast Wild Shape.

I would guess that over the course of all campaigns that have actually been played, PC druids are in their normal form for more rounds of combat than they are wildshaped.   A few of the reasons might include: games that take place mostly at lower levels, players who have enough taste to not annoy their fellow gamers and DM with the idiocy of a cloak-wearing bear, and DMs who enforce the communication barrier.


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## Testament (Jan 9, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> Not the case IME.
> You still need high Con, since wildshape doesn't change HP.
> You still need high Dex, to survive those first few levels (and all the times at higher levels when you aren't wildshaped, which IN ACTUAL GAMEPLAY, as opposed to the Internet, tends to be non-negligible).  If your DM isn't using the Magic Item Compendium, you'll want to stay in your normal form more often, since then you can retain the benefit of your magic items.  You also need high Dex to qualify for certain feats, such as Fast Wild Shape.
> 
> I would guess that over the course of all campaigns that have actually been played, PC druids are in their normal form for more rounds of combat than they are wildshaped.   A few of the reasons might include: games that take place mostly at lower levels, players who have enough taste to not annoy their fellow gamers and DM with the idiocy of a cloak-wearing bear, and DMs who enforce the communication barrier.




The "Beast Mode" DZilla was created from the original form of Wild Shape, which is why I use it as my point of reference for this.  I still stand by my theory that the real problem with it was Natural Spell and Animated Shields, not the ability itself.  And when Dragons and just about any monster in existence that has an Int score wears magic items, you better believe that Druids will do so*.

At any rate, as I said above, splitting your focus is the fastest path to gimpdom.  14-16 Wis is more than sufficient, especially if you throw the original Wild Shape 'fix' in the garbage (where it belongs, how many changes were made in the first 48 hours?) and use the Shapechanging ability from PHBII.

*I personally liked that Living Greyhawk ruling on it: amulet, cloak, rings, Ioun Stones and 'vest' stay.  The rest melds and switches off.


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## Arkhandus (Jan 9, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> Not the case IME.
> You still need high Con, since wildshape doesn't change HP.
> You still need high Dex, to survive those first few levels (and all the times at higher levels when you aren't wildshaped, which IN ACTUAL GAMEPLAY, as opposed to the Internet, tends to be non-negligible).




Who needs to be really nimble, strong, or tough when you have animal companions like this, or this, or this, right at 1st-level, who are better than 1st-level warriors?

And when you can cast Summon Nature's Ally 1 for another Wolf minion (albeit only for 1 round at 1st-level, but it still a very decent attacker), or Produce Flame for several ranged touch attacks (against the usual touch AC 10, 11, or 12 for many low-level critters).  Magic Stone isn't bad either, though not as handy as Produce Flame.  Shillelagh is similar to Magic Stone in usefulness.  And Entangle's rather effective too, though not for attacking (but it'll make your allies happy!).

In my experience, playing and DMing for several different druids from 1st-level onward (and the occasional druid of 6th, 12th, or so), these kind of animal companions are very effective early on.  You don't need to be anything more than an average joe, physically, as a druid.  Sure, an above average Constitution is nice, but you don't need it maxed.


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## Brother MacLaren (Jan 9, 2008)

Testament said:
			
		

> At any rate, as I said above, splitting your focus is the fastest path to gimpdom.



I've found the druid's versatility to be its greatest strength.  I prefer well-rounded characters and have found this to be a way to make an exceedingly fun, resilient, and capable druid PC.  You always don't know what challenges are coming up, and DMs often like to encourage players to be creative, so it's good to be more than a one-trick pony.


			
				Arkhandus said:
			
		

> Who needs to be really nimble, strong, or tough when you have animal companions like this, or this, or this, right at 1st-level, who are better than 1st-level warriors?



I often had enemies shooting or casting spells at my druid at low levels, especially when he tried to cast a Summoning spell.  The Dex and Con definitely kept him alive.  The campaign has been an absolutely thrilling one where we are usually pushed to our limits, have time constraints and no teleport (so no buff-scry-teleport or retreating home to nap), and many battles with dozens of enemies (where the druid's poor AC is a real glaring weakness).

I don't dispute that it's a very powerful and versatile class, but I can only say that in my experience the Dex and Con were essential for keeping my druid alive.


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