Yup, it's a PC RPG, the items make for night and day, if it had stuck to tabletop rules it would have been a very boring experience in terms of progression. I sure know I prefer a +2 shield with reflective shell or other skill or a +perception check than a bland +3 shield even if the extra 1 AC will probably be better than those two in terms of raw stats. But the lack of items working for druids really sucks.
And the ones that ARE there are undertuned garbage. Even Moonbasking is overrated, it merely tries to make up for natively low AC on forms by adding +2 AC and saving throws on them, but by that point in Act 3 Helldusk armor is granting other classes 24-25 AC, crit immunities, a scorching ray equivalent, and a misty step with an aoe landing.
Spore druid armor and Land are the worst by far. +1 Spell DC and a pathetic +1 necrotic damage to necromancy spells (for reference, martials get a 1d6 on gloves and other casters with dribbles clown get a 1d8) and some weak once per long rest spore clouds. By Act 3 I'm rolling in speed potions, a Haste spore cloud that only lasts 1 turn and can also benefit any entity entering it is hardly anything to write home about. Land druid is the worst by far, 1 spell DC and plant growth heals you for 4 health per turn in plant growth.
Really? 4 health in act 3? My character HP pool is 100-135+ 30 temp HP, and enemies are multiattacking for 30-40 damage, and you think 4 hp per turn standing on plant growth is an appreciable effect?
Druid armor and weapons are so bad. Same for Faithwarden staff in Act 1. Might be workable if entangling vines wasn't a garbage spell crippled by a concentration requirement with high fail rates due to a STR save, but here we are, it costs a spell slot and is completely underbudget on top of being a concentration spell. People call druids full casters, but their spell book is so bad, in Act 1 and early 2 Moonbeam and Call Lightning may seem decent, but they fall off a cliff in scaling by Act 3 where mobs have 90+ HP and the spells even upcasted are still doing 30 damage at best, on average mostly 24 damage for lv5+ spell slots. Sun Beam is pretty bad, the blind does not make up for it. And since druids have no way to remove friendly fire from aoe spells like wizards and sorcs can, their aoe spells become highly inefficient as you need to affect less targets if you don't want to splash your allies.
Last edited by Zenith; 07/09/23 03:39 PM.
