Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General hows everones druid playthroughs going?

Personally having a blast with the druid. However late game...tapering off. Seems like enemy ai targets you immediately and wildshape ac isn't great. Seems like i get one attack in wildshape, then i take a full round of damage from every enemy. Which drops my wildshape. Rinse and repeat. As such i been having better luck playing as wolf, not bear. Use wolf to trigger next hit to be crit and have next player hit with something big. Killing enemies more effective then tanking damage. Druid spells pretty good, but missing conjure animals. Would be nice to summon wolfs and then wildshape and attack with the pack. Think my favorite spell so far is the moonlight one. That can really damage a fair bit of enemies. Thornwhip was nice, but im wishing now i took produce flame instead. Need ranged damage. And half elf doesn't have bow proficiency.

Druid dialogue is on point, but i did miss the shadow druid fight. Just learned about it today.

I keep dying a lot, and many of the Druid dialogues are the same as the Ranger ones from a previous patch. I love watching my chonky bear sneak, though, that's lot's of fun.

I don't know if is because I know the mecanics, or because I have the druid character but I feel like the game has become too easy: out of nautiloid, killed the mindflier, recruited all companions, did the old ruins, helped in the battle at gates, and my party is already level three. O.o

I do love an easy run, but uh. This is extreme.

How did you build your druid? I went half elf, dumped str and some int so i could get 16 dex, con, and wis. Cha was 12 i think. Ac actually seems to decent. They hit me less as a druid then in animal form. I actually been playing as a caster untill i take enough damage, then i wild shape and charge into the fray. Late game has been brutal though. Enemies all seem to have larger numbers and multi attack. As a dm...id never build encounters this way. Those minotaurs in the underdark are waaaay more powerful then they are supposed to be for a cr3 monster..and minotaurs are nasty encounters as they are. And they are making you fight 2 of them. Nasty. The kuotoa fight is kicking my butt right now.

The balance abruptly changes later. I felt the same at first.

I dumped intelligence (but I'll plain on get the int circlet so that the penalty is not so hard) in favor of const (brought at 15), dext (13 but I start to regret not having done the opposite), and char (14, I need the bonus because if possible I prefer dialogue solutions to battles), circle of land (so that I have some spells, I'm adicted to spells ), choosed swamp for the granted spells, the Ac not so high (12, 11 +1 from armor).

With Lae'zel as battle master, Astarion as arcane trickster, Shadowheart as healer/support for now battles are easy (well, when I put a bot of attention on what I'm doing I am a messy player ).

Yeah dex is imperative early on. im tempted to go circle of land next play thru. Might even go elf...but i so like my beard lol

I think that's a just the way the druid is designed in 5th. Possibly the strongest class in the early game, big dip in the middle game, and then demi god like in the late game. In the middle game wildshape is really just a hit point sponge.

I have a wood elf and a half elf druid, but playing the half elf atm. She is Circle of the Land: Coast (for mirror image and misty step - the latter is possibly my most used spell in the game). So far, it's nice. She has high dex (16) and a decent armor class. Since I have Gale as a steady in my non wizard playthroughs, he is the one, that gets normally targeted by enemies. I mostly use wildshape outside of combat to prepare a sneak attack, talk to other animals (which is tons of fun) or to get through something (badger). In battle I used the spiderform mostly for web. If I know, that a battle is about to start, I'll go into spiderform, throw a web at the enemies and then turn back into humanoid form for spells.

I'm not that far into the game, I'm at the Blighted VIllage now, because I have some real life stuff that keeps me from playing as much as I want for the next 2 weeks, but so far, I like the druid. I think Moonbeam is a very powerful spell, that whip cantrip is cool and using a staff with Shillelagh is really great. My druid does a lot of damage that way.

Awesome! More and more im liking the idea of circle of the land. Every review was talking up circle of moon, and honestly...in this game versatility is key. I find id rather have more spells

I am running through with a wood elf Moon Circle druid now. I am having lots of fun in the animal forms.

I tried using the method of casting a concentration spell then shifting to bear to fight, but druids by deign don't tank by avoiding hits but rather by soaking damage, so a hit or two in and the concentration was broken and the spell slot felt lost. If you want to try out the new cool control/ area denial spells (flaming sphere, spike growth, etc...) you probably want to go land druid.

I did notice there is no restriction against using metal armor, scale mail works fine, with a shield and club for shillelagh you can get really nice AC and to hit chance.

Used bird form to reach some rooftops I had never been on before and found some secret stashes, just some lore items, like books, so far but it has opened me to exploring more just for exploration's sake. Has anyone noticed we aren't supposed to get flying form at low levels under the 5e rules? I wonder if flying form will substitute for feather fall on the drop into the underdark.

The badger form is using the misty step code with shorter range. You have to see the destination, so going under walls and doors doesn't work, and the material you burrow through doesn't matter. For example the wooden tower at the top of the mountain, you can burrow from the ground at the top and exit through the floor of the platform on top without ever traveling through the empty air in between. I still feel like there are ways to abuse this I haven't found yet but I don't know how much I'll use it after level 4 and flying form. I did burrow to the bottom of a cliff by one of the bridges and it wouldn't let me burrow back up "too high" so watch out for one way trips.

Haven't tried out the cat yet.

Spell wise Spike growth is my new best friend. I have to assume they will make the AI smarter to keep out of it in the future, but for now whole packs of enemies will shred themselves just trying to get at me, I love it. the sphere is really cool too, I wish it shared initiative with the druid though so it felt more like using your action to move it instead of taking no action and then the sphere may get a turn later if you can keep the concentration up. Moonbeam is crazy powerful. I used it in the Blighted Village and from a rooftop, I could target a different goblin every turn and one shot them. I did always picture moving it though as the illuminated area moving along the ground and not just dropping another beam at the new location.

Yeah, haven't messed with badger yet. Really tempted to start over. Getting my butt kicked in the underdark. Think ill go club and shield. Should fet pretty good ac, as you say.i didnt realize flame sphere acted on its own. Thats actually kinda nice. Spike growth is awesome for slowing things down, but I haven't seen it do much damage yet.

Part of the issue is the deviation from the 5e ruleset. All moon circle forms should be higher rating than all land circle forms, but instead they gave moon a bear and all druids share the rest of the same forms. There are other slight variations (shifting as a bonus action and healing in forms using spell slots), but for the moment the Land Druids seem to be the more optimized (not better) choice.

Makes sense. I just want to play a tortle spore druid. That's all i ask lol

I like that it makes you think tactically to control the battlefield. For example I was having trouble with the redcap fight in the swamp just tanking in bear, so instead funneled the fight up one of the narrow paths, spike growthed the whole path and then hit one at long range to trigger the fight, they all ran up through it, usually taking at least two turns, sometimes more if Wyll knocked them back with agonizing blast.

Despite not being that keen on druids...I started another playthrough. The Druid is quite fun - I do have issues with with things like the badgers overpowered teleport-burrow (which I have used to good effect of course but the main thing so far, is my party members running through my moonbeam (which I can't dismiss). "Ow!""Stop that! Why are you damaging me !?" etc... Please Larian - make concentration spells dismissable (as they are supposed to be) and also stop party members running through spells like moonbeam and obvious surface effects that we can all see....it's very frustrating. Next patch maybe? It's weird because they clearly do avoid some surafce hazards, and path around those.

I played a druid with a club and shield (shillelagh is pretty good for combat) and spells like entangle are great for crowd control. Haven't used flaming sphere yet...

I already have a Tiefling moon druid planned for one of my next playthroughs. I think, playing a not wisdom optimized race as a moon druid and using shape-shifting more, is not a bad combo, if you don't want to stick to the wisdom optimized races.

Honestly you can use anythingband still pump wisdom. Str dex and con dont matter when you are wild shaped. Con and dex only important for ac and concentration when not wild shaped.

Dude! Inr? Get this. Had two members go down during a fight. Used revivify after combat, they spawned walked through a blood pool that had necrosis and immediately died. Camera janked on me and they died before i could help action. Cast revivify again. Apparently...too close to my party and it did aoe damage to my party as they "landed"(?). Knocked out 3 party members. Im like are you fing kidding me? The controls and character Pathfinding in this game are horrible.

I am a little concerned about the "devour intellect" ability on the intellect devourer form. I'd gotten so used to the relatively low threat level from this chapter I forgot how scary those little buggers can be. I presume they will have this ability as we encounter them at higher levels and we are going to be looking for ways to cure intelligence loss (one circlet may not cut it).