Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Druid Newbie questions

So I am for the first time since Jaheira in Baldurs Gate 1 going to have a Druid in my party, so I have some questions.
Going to run her as a Circle of the Moon and in Bear form during fights.

So first question, what gear do you get a bear? Does it even matter what weapon they get or is it just claws?
If they get firebrand does something of the magical properties pass through, like the fire?

Same for armor, does it affect armor class in bear form or does other properties of armor and shields still work?
There are armor that make the user reel if they hit, and gear that gives bonus to healing (lunar mend).

And lastly abilities, Wisdom is the primary for Druids, but that is for their spell casting ability, should I not go for Con (for tank), Dex (for armor), Str (for mauling things) instead?
Thanks in advance for the help, anything I am missing?

You physical animal stats replace yours. You do need Con for when out of wild shape, but other than that Wis is you best bet as your two primary stats.

As for what magic items carry over, who knows for sure. Maybe none do, which will become a problem in the latter game.

Maining a druid currently. Nothing carries over to animal form. You have a small set of actions that are moderately powerful in melee, bear and owlbear at least, but use is pretty niche and nothing close to what a fighter or barbarian can do. A bit underwhelming.

I'm enjoying playing the druid and it's a decent support class but you might be better off waiting until you can get Jaheira or Halsin as companion, kinda' late game for them though.

Minimize str, dex, as wildshapes override those stats, bad design. Dump all your points into WIS and leftover into charisma+int for proficiency checks, charisma of 14 got me through a lot of dialogue checks reasonably well.

You can then equip headband of intellect for 17 int, rare gloves for 18 dexterity, and basically have all your stats reasonably high for any check you want to pass. This works because magic item passives do not work with wildshapes outside a single armor in act 3 and a single ring you get from an optional quest. Gear is relatively worthless because of how Larian followed 5e and chose to gimp druids by disabling item passives while wildshape, and then on top made them even weaker by not letting them reactivate concentration spells while wildshaped.

So just slap on gear that gives your humanoid form high AC for when you're not in wildshape, throw on a faerie fire or stone skin or ice storm when you get those spells, and go into owlbear form if you expect multiple fights, or by lv10 you can use myrmidon elemental forms if you expect a hard fight, but remember your lv10 forms use 2 wildshape charges, so they are very costly and force frequent rests.

Unfortunately, Larian screwed over the druid class despite plenty of feedback in EA about how bad the class was. Thankfully, Shadowheart if you respec her to Life domain for powerful healing and with Gale in evocation subspec will carry your party quite far with strong healing and buffs and aoe, and then you can bring Karlach or Lazael and they will compensate for your druid. Your druid will mainly be a health sponge, and that's about it until Larian fixes druid wildshapes and the fact the druid spellbook is 95% concentration spells that break early because wildshapes have low AC and don't benefit from gear effects.

BTW don't be fooled, the game doesn't tell you, but you can wield both a staff and a shield at the same time. You would think a staff is a 2H weapon as it traditionally is in most games, but in dnd it can be used in a 1h slot. Always equip a shield, shield +2/+3AC is too powerful a perk to pass up, unfortunately. Doesn't look druid-like at all, but it is what it is, there is no perk to forgoing shield and just wielding a staff alone, your pathetic weapon damage will just be slightly higher and that's it.