Druid is fine, I have played it several times. If you don't care for shape shifting then Spore Druid is the way to go. It's my fav of three classes and can be offensively powerful, summoner, defensively strong all at the same time. It's a great build no multiclassing needed. You can use one of your feats to get heavy armor, use a shield and with your built-in extra hp, be unassailable.
If you want to wait until Act 2 to recruit Jaheira that works fine and you can respec her to Spore, but fine to start as main/Tav.
I use Shadowheart every playthrough as Tempest Cleric but also works great with Light or Life and you get heavy armor but she does develop slowly and it'll be lvl 5 until she starts to bloom.
