It's a carryover from BG1. It's the same situation for other classes like bards. It also doesn't help that the D&D druid stereotype (treehuggers, basically, same as how bards as supposed to be pansies) lowers the class' appeal, regardless of in-game performance.
Anyway BG2 druids are plenty powerful on their own. Everyone keeps mentioning the 13->14 gap but it's also worth mentioning that before that druids can gain levels faster than even the rogue classes. This means you can force higher level NPCs to spawn earlier, so if you plan ahead your party mates will potentially have a higher average level than normal. Level 13->14 on a druid won't seem as bad then, unless you have more than one druid in the party I suppose.
Variety gives the game its particular flavor, not really sure if getting rid of it is a good thing.
Druids are fine in NwN2 as long as you have the expansions. Even if you don't use mods druids will destroy everything with feats like Dinosaur Companion and spells like Nature's Avatar. The only thing wrong with druids in NwN2 is that unlike other casters they have precious few ways to abuse the system (like spells/feats/abilities for AC stacking or spells with no saves/that ignore MR) but you don't have to worry about that in the OC/expansion campaigns. It only becomes an issue if you play in Persistent Worlds, and you're not interested in playing online so meh.
No big loss if you can't play Neverwinter (the MMO), that game doesn't have the druid class yet. It also uses a combination of 4th/5th edition rules which is very different.
.... an extremely good stat roll on my druid 94.................so damn easy escaping irenicus dungeon....................did not rest a single time and I cleared the entire place as well and it only took me like 20mins......woodland beings + flame blade + bless + iron skins is awesome, oh and the summon snake from totemic druid
I quoted only the parts I want to comment. Good stats help, when you have not special equipment to compensate help even more. Woodland Beings and summons of Totemic Druid don't scale, they have still some power in end game, but they are averaged for the mid game, in early game are OP. The more you progress the less they are powerful. Flame Blade is a very strong summoned weapon in Chateau Irenicus, where you have few enchanted weapons and equipment, in late game you probably will use it no more, or only for special situations, as you will find much better weapons that don't cost you a spell. Iron Skin is always good, but with the late game enemies that have fantastic thac0 and APR last a lot less, also they adsorb physical damage but don't protect from elemental damaged or level drain that some creatures or weapons associate with the normal physical damage. Obviously leveling up the Druid has the summon elemental prince and deva, the other elemental summons, the aereal servant, the insects spells, energy blades and implosion. He is strong also in end game.
But I think that you are now over estimating him for the reason that I have told, all the things that I quoted are specially good for the situation.
@Nuin looking at GoG both NWN and NWN2 come with their expansions as well so I should be fine. I am really convinced to buy it now.
@gorgonzola have you read JuliusBorisov's guide he says that the spirits still remain worth while to the very end of the game, and beside the wolves have both level drain and hold. And woodland beings still have hold lightning and domination, with a lot more of ToB being outside iirc (last time I played was 8/10 years ago so I don't remember much and am practically brand new to the game again) lightning is still powerful sure their squishy you just need aggro focused somewhere else?
One great thing about avenger is that they are among the best assassins in game, second only to assassin=>Cleric
Using Harm, Improved invisibility to get close, hitting with Harm and instantly casting Chromatic Orb is clean assassination that can be carried out before contingencies trigger and bypasses long buffs. Very few enemies are immune to acid, making this technique particularly powerful.
I have both read that guide and used a Totemic Druid until the end of the game, even if I never soloed him. I know it. My point was "Woodland Beings and summons of Totemic Druid don't scale, they have still some power in end game, but they are averaged for the mid game, in early game are OP", not they become completely not useful after some time. An early enemy probably will die for a lighting or fail the ST against domination, in end game, also with not bosses, is different. A spirit animal can probably win for you every battle in the initial dungeon, send him alone against an end game boss and the things will be different. They don't scale, enemies and the Druid do, that was my point. They are still useful until the last battle, but their relative power will decrease, the impression that playing only the first dungeon can give, a Totemic Druid is the Superman of the game as he can cut trough the initial dungeon solo with no effort when some whole parties have an hard time to win, is not true later, even if is probably the best Druid kit and a well played Druid is a strong class, like a well played Cleric is. They are not just the "healers" that some people think is their main role, they are much more.
I think their bad rep comes from their rather lackluster low level selection and because their spells don't synergize as well as Clerics' for Fighter based multiclasses. They have Ironskins but Clerics have DUHM, Righteous Magic, Protection from Evil, get Blade Barrier before Globe of Blades is available and also Aura of Flaming Death. All those spells are great for a melee character and Druid can only be combined with Fighter (not to mention the Druid ethos makes them unable to use all the powerful maces and flails). The popularity of the glitchy Ranger/Cleric is a testament to this: all the goodies of a F/C but with Ironskins.
As a pure class comparison the difference between the two isn't that pronounced, but class comparisons are often made with munchkin builds, which favor Clerics more.
Druid have Armor of Faith, Chant, Defensive Harmony, Strength of One, Flame Blade, Barkskin (the strongest armor spell), Nature's Beauty, Shield of the Archons and other protections they have blonde of buffs to synergize with fighters both at low and high levels plus every character has access to DUHM
And doesn't the fighter ethos semi override the druid ethos? The fighter ethos override the clerics armor etho and "improves" their weapon etho
Clerics are predominantly geared towards buffing and healing with bonus offensive capabilities whereas the druid is geared more towards offensive casting with bonus utility/healing spells.
The cleric has some crucial spells that the druid lacks, restoration for example. But from a healing perspectve the druid can be more effective when using woodland beings especially since g. restoration was nerfed.
Druid have Armor of Faith, Chant, Defensive Harmony, Strength of One, Flame Blade, Barkskin (the strongest armor spell), Nature's Beauty, Shield of the Archons and other protections they have blonde of buffs to synergize with fighters both at low and high levels plus every character has access to DUHM
And doesn't the fighter ethos semi override the druid ethos? The fighter ethos override the clerics armor etho and "improves" their weapon etho
In terms of armor yeah. But not weapons. A Fighter/Druid can't use DUHM/Righteous Magic combo, but can't compensate with Crom either. Also no Flail of Ages. And no, Druids don't learn DUHM unless they're the Bhaalspawn and had it as a Bhaalpower and even then it's only until Spellhold.
The cleric spell list just complement Fighters a lot better than druids. And you can combine Cleric to Thief, Ranger and Mage too while Druids have only Fighter.
Anyways what my previous post was trying to point is that their lack of really broken dual/multiclasses might have played a role in Druids getting a worse rep than they deserve.
Abouth ethos as philosophical matter I don't know, about game mechanics the druid and cleric weapon restrictions always prevail on what other classes allow, so fighter druids and fighter clerics can only use weapons allowed to the single class ones. The F/C have access to some very good flails, maces and hammers, but can not use a +1 APR weapon. The F/D can , but has to trade the good blunt weapons with scimitars, a couple of good clubs are in the game, but the best triggers a not party friendly effect so needs some caution.
Bareskin is a very good spell, for the single class druid. but starts with AC 6 and then improve it of 1 every 5 levels. In a party a single class Druid have to be near the end of ToB to have a better protection than the one that the multi version or every cleric can have with an armor. Mages, not Druids, have the best protections against physical damage, clerics have the best protections against crowd control spells, and druids have the best divine summoning and damaging-disabling spells. Still bareskin is very useful for the single class, because of the armor limitations that he has.
No one here is telling that Druid is not a good class, Kurona was only bringing some reasons why sometime they don't get love. The fact that a F/C with a -1AC armor, FoA, DoE and 25 STR using his buffs, protected by his cahotic command is probably more effective than a F/D with spectral brand and belm seems to me a good possible reason. An other possible reason that I suggest now is that some players try Cernd, without putting enough effort in learning how to play him effectively or patience to let him reach the 3M xp when he get all that level 7 spells at once. Druids, like Bards, are classes that you have to get accustomed to to play them effectively, this is the reason why they are often underrated, I did read many times in many places that Cernd and Haer Dalis are meh NPCs, but I have also read of players that use them properly and tell us how they can rook.
Each bar is how much additional XP is required after the previous level.
The little purple lines are the original XP caps for BG2:SoA and BG2:ToB respectively, though I think the Enhanced Edition uses the ToB cap for both parts of the game. The original SoA cap was very unfriendly for druids - they would spend half the game trying to go from level 14 to level 15, but then hit the cap just before actually reaching level 15.
It's an unpopular opinion, but I think that the BG druid progression if fine. I often read "oh, the XP required to reach the 15th level after the 14th level is too much, it's freakin 1.5 mln XP". But I think that the 14th level druid already has enough to contribute to the party all the way till the end of SoA.
At the 14th level, that is available at 1,5 mln XP, a druid has 1 7th level spell, 2 6th level spells, 3 5th level spells. Druid high-level spells are very strong, Summon Insects (lvl 5), Conjure Fire Elemental (lvl 6), Creeping Doom (7th level) are the spells that can win the majority of battles in SoA, even with SCS. Fire Elementals have weapons that hit as +4, Creeping Doom goes through various magic protections. To me, a druid of the 14th level, which she will be till getting 3 mln XP, is already a powerhouse. Yes, she's not a wizard with contingencies and Project Images and ADHW, but she's very powerful. I would like to add that a cleric, while having more 5th and 6th level spells, gets 2 7th level spells at 2,025 mln XP. So a cleric doesn't have a lot more 7th level spells if compared to a druid, and I would say that cleric spells are less offensive than the druid ones.
And that long wait for the 15th level does pay. As soon as a druid reaches 3 mln XP, she has 6 (!) 7th level spells, as well as 6 spells for the 5th and 6th spell levels. You get amazing amount of high-level spells, if compared to a cleric (or amount of times you summon a Deva, for example). A cleric at 3,15 mln XP has only 3 7th level spells.
Contrary to above, I feel druid progression blows . I'm not saying they're weak or anything, but the chart they use gives you incredible power early on, with huge power spikes which I don't like, I like more "smooth" progression. It's kind of unavoidable for any caster not to suffer from "spiking" but druids are a bit overboard with this. On-topic: Druids are fine, with one caveat - a lot of their spells are total junk, while a few select are gamebreakers (insect plague/Nature Beauty). I tried a vanilla setup Shaman. I got to level 2 spells. Now I wonder, what to pick that isn't trash at level 2? Confusion at level 7? Animal summoning III on same level as Elementals? No pun intedned, but I always had this tought that druids were the last class implemented in BG2 and that nobody had the time to balance them out. And ofc, with the abomination called ranger/cleric there's zero reason to ever play a druid if you're powergaming.
I'm of two minds when it comes to the Druid XP gap. On the one hand its fine in theory, it makes sense and the druid is plenty powerful at 14th level however from personal ingame "experience" as a Druid it does suck that everyone else in the party is getting level-ups n your PC doesn't change.
So I'm not against it perse but I can relate to the frustrations that many have.
If you look at how much XP you save by forcing higher level NPCs to spawn you'll see that a PC druid more than makes up for the XP gap. You can even argue that having the option to force Viconia with Harm/Heal/Aerial Servant or Nalia/Edwin with Cloudkill to spawn early is a different kind of powergaming in itself. And then there is the fact that druids have access to higher levels spells (and more of them than any other caster) at lower levels thanks to Call Woodland Beings. If you actually studied the facts, you'll see that BG2 druids were meticulously balanced. It was obvious that the devs learned from their mistakes in BG1 and thought long and hard about how to implement the "Great Druid" aspect of D&D into the game. One could even argue that they went too far, considering that one of the first things SCS does is nerf them.
Animal Summoning is a divine spell, not a druid-exclusive spell. The druid-exclusive version is Conjure Animals, which gives you multiple tanky fodder.
Variety is what gives the game its particular flavor. If everyone was equally powerful at the same exact points in the game then why bother with giving players the option to choose at all?
It's an unpopular opinion, but I think that the BG druid progression if fine. I often read "oh, the XP required to reach the 15th level after the 14th level is too much, it's freakin 1.5 mln XP". But I think that the 14th level druid already has enough to contribute to the party all the way till the end of SoA.
At the 14th level, that is available at 1,5 mln XP, a druid has 1 7th level spell, 2 6th level spells, 3 5th level spells. ....................
And that long wait for the 15th level does pay. As soon as a druid reaches 3 mln XP, she has 6 (!) 7th level spells, as well as 6 spells for the 5th and 6th spell levels.............................
Yes, the spell and lvl progression for druids can seem strange if compared to other classes but they don't mean a druid "suffers", in my opinion.
I would also like to add an excerp from the AD&D 2nd edition PHB, p. 53 (1989):
"The Great Druid (14th level) is unique in his region . . .
The highest ranking druid in the world is the Grand Druid (15th level).
. . . only one person in a world can ever hold this title at any time. Consequently, only one druid can be 15th level at any time."
So to me the implementation of a druid in BG is PNP-ish.
Imo everything begun to be not PNP-ish the very moment ToB was introduced . Before no lev9 spells for mages, no HLA, no high druid, and no NPCs reaching levels that in novels or in PNP only people at the level of Elminster or Kelben should reach... Drittz is far from there and is famous in all the realms. Jaheira, a multi, High Druid? With the ToB level cap is possible even in SoA.
This does not mean that I complain about, in some runs I use more PnPish spell tables, and so even if she has to wait 3Mxp to get the second lev 7 spell she don't get all the pack at once. At 6M she get the second, than she level up like in PnP, getting 1/level more on average. I don't complain, but I also don't say that My Jaheira's growth is smoth, and with vanilla tables it would have been even less smoother, growing about like the others untill 1.5M in the druid class, than completely stopped in druid growth for other 1.499M. At last, a dead goblin more, she would have become like the other classes at lev 40. There is absolutely no balance, and I don't say in game balance that imo is often a false problem, I say balance inside the class. Imo with the spell tables that I use, but getting levels in a more common way, it would be better balanced. If now I compare Jaheira with my F/M, not comparing the power of their different magics, but looking how their power in the party change as levels go up, is clear how she grows less smoothly.
The multi only exacerbates what is not smooth also in the single class. The F/C has a different growth from the single class cleric, but his growth is smooth. Still the druid is funny and playable in both versions, in some moments lags behind the cleric, that at 11 gets his first spell, in others is really powerful, like as he hits that magic 3Mxp. Funny, playable, with his own power, but not smooth at all. Even the single class, in a party of 6, waits forever until he gets that 1.5M xp the next level is far, about the half of the whole SoA XP to get a single level. And this for reasons that where good before ToB, now every druid, even a multi, will be the high druid, every mage an archmage, the whole lev7 at 3M xp was a joke, just like the few lev 9 arcane scrolls, you could only have a taste, with the only lev7 spell of druid14 and using the arcane scrolls from quick item slots, but it was a level not supposed for adventurers, a typical PnP campaign has not the high levels of ToB.
Comments
It also doesn't help that the D&D druid stereotype (treehuggers, basically, same as how bards as supposed to be pansies) lowers the class' appeal, regardless of in-game performance.
Anyway BG2 druids are plenty powerful on their own. Everyone keeps mentioning the 13->14 gap but it's also worth mentioning that before that druids can gain levels faster than even the rogue classes. This means you can force higher level NPCs to spawn earlier, so if you plan ahead your party mates will potentially have a higher average level than normal. Level 13->14 on a druid won't seem as bad then, unless you have more than one druid in the party I suppose.
Variety gives the game its particular flavor, not really sure if getting rid of it is a good thing.
Druids are fine in NwN2 as long as you have the expansions. Even if you don't use mods druids will destroy everything with feats like Dinosaur Companion and spells like Nature's Avatar.
The only thing wrong with druids in NwN2 is that unlike other casters they have precious few ways to abuse the system (like spells/feats/abilities for AC stacking or spells with no saves/that ignore MR) but you don't have to worry about that in the OC/expansion campaigns. It only becomes an issue if you play in Persistent Worlds, and you're not interested in playing online so meh.
No big loss if you can't play Neverwinter (the MMO), that game doesn't have the druid class yet. It also uses a combination of 4th/5th edition rules which is very different.
Good stats help, when you have not special equipment to compensate help even more.
Woodland Beings and summons of Totemic Druid don't scale, they have still some power in end game, but they are averaged for the mid game, in early game are OP. The more you progress the less they are powerful.
Flame Blade is a very strong summoned weapon in Chateau Irenicus, where you have few enchanted weapons and equipment, in late game you probably will use it no more, or only for special situations, as you will find much better weapons that don't cost you a spell.
Iron Skin is always good, but with the late game enemies that have fantastic thac0 and APR last a lot less, also they adsorb physical damage but don't protect from elemental damaged or level drain that some creatures or weapons associate with the normal physical damage.
Obviously leveling up the Druid has the summon elemental prince and deva, the other elemental summons, the aereal servant, the insects spells, energy blades and implosion. He is strong also in end game.
But I think that you are now over estimating him for the reason that I have told, all the things that I quoted are specially good for the situation.
@gorgonzola have you read JuliusBorisov's guide he says that the spirits still remain worth while to the very end of the game, and beside the wolves have both level drain and hold. And woodland beings still have hold lightning and domination, with a lot more of ToB being outside iirc (last time I played was 8/10 years ago so I don't remember much and am practically brand new to the game again) lightning is still powerful sure their squishy you just need aggro focused somewhere else?
Using Harm, Improved invisibility to get close, hitting with Harm and instantly casting Chromatic Orb is clean assassination that can be carried out before contingencies trigger and bypasses long buffs. Very few enemies are immune to acid, making this technique particularly powerful.
My point was "Woodland Beings and summons of Totemic Druid don't scale, they have still some power in end game, but they are averaged for the mid game, in early game are OP", not they become completely not useful after some time.
An early enemy probably will die for a lighting or fail the ST against domination, in end game, also with not bosses, is different. A spirit animal can probably win for you every battle in the initial dungeon, send him alone against an end game boss and the things will be different. They don't scale, enemies and the Druid do, that was my point.
They are still useful until the last battle, but their relative power will decrease, the impression that playing only the first dungeon can give, a Totemic Druid is the Superman of the game as he can cut trough the initial dungeon solo with no effort when some whole parties have an hard time to win, is not true later, even if is probably the best Druid kit and a well played Druid is a strong class, like a well played Cleric is. They are not just the "healers" that some people think is their main role, they are much more.
As a pure class comparison the difference between the two isn't that pronounced, but class comparisons are often made with munchkin builds, which favor Clerics more.
And doesn't the fighter ethos semi override the druid ethos?
The fighter ethos override the clerics armor etho and "improves" their weapon etho
The cleric has some crucial spells that the druid lacks, restoration for example. But from a healing perspectve the druid can be more effective when using woodland beings especially since g. restoration was nerfed.
The cleric spell list just complement Fighters a lot better than druids. And you can combine Cleric to Thief, Ranger and Mage too while Druids have only Fighter.
Anyways what my previous post was trying to point is that their lack of really broken dual/multiclasses might have played a role in Druids getting a worse rep than they deserve.
Bareskin is a very good spell, for the single class druid. but starts with AC 6 and then improve it of 1 every 5 levels. In a party a single class Druid have to be near the end of ToB to have a better protection than the one that the multi version or every cleric can have with an armor. Mages, not Druids, have the best protections against physical damage, clerics have the best protections against crowd control spells, and druids have the best divine summoning and damaging-disabling spells.
Still bareskin is very useful for the single class, because of the armor limitations that he has.
No one here is telling that Druid is not a good class, Kurona was only bringing some reasons why sometime they don't get love. The fact that a F/C with a -1AC armor, FoA, DoE and 25 STR using his buffs, protected by his cahotic command is probably more effective than a F/D with spectral brand and belm seems to me a good possible reason.
An other possible reason that I suggest now is that some players try Cernd, without putting enough effort in learning how to play him effectively or patience to let him reach the 3M xp when he get all that level 7 spells at once.
Druids, like Bards, are classes that you have to get accustomed to to play them effectively, this is the reason why they are often underrated, I did read many times in many places that Cernd and Haer Dalis are meh NPCs, but I have also read of players that use them properly and tell us how they can rook.
Each bar is how much additional XP is required after the previous level.
The little purple lines are the original XP caps for BG2:SoA and BG2:ToB respectively, though I think the Enhanced Edition uses the ToB cap for both parts of the game. The original SoA cap was very unfriendly for druids - they would spend half the game trying to go from level 14 to level 15, but then hit the cap just before actually reaching level 15.
More graphs here.
At the 14th level, that is available at 1,5 mln XP, a druid has 1 7th level spell, 2 6th level spells, 3 5th level spells. Druid high-level spells are very strong, Summon Insects (lvl 5), Conjure Fire Elemental (lvl 6), Creeping Doom (7th level) are the spells that can win the majority of battles in SoA, even with SCS. Fire Elementals have weapons that hit as +4, Creeping Doom goes through various magic protections. To me, a druid of the 14th level, which she will be till getting 3 mln XP, is already a powerhouse. Yes, she's not a wizard with contingencies and Project Images and ADHW, but she's very powerful. I would like to add that a cleric, while having more 5th and 6th level spells, gets 2 7th level spells at 2,025 mln XP. So a cleric doesn't have a lot more 7th level spells if compared to a druid, and I would say that cleric spells are less offensive than the druid ones.
And that long wait for the 15th level does pay. As soon as a druid reaches 3 mln XP, she has 6 (!) 7th level spells, as well as 6 spells for the 5th and 6th spell levels. You get amazing amount of high-level spells, if compared to a cleric (or amount of times you summon a Deva, for example). A cleric at 3,15 mln XP has only 3 7th level spells.
You can check progression tables here - https://www.siegeofdragonspear.com/files/AdventurersGuide.pdf
Yes, the spell and lvl progression for druids can seem strange if compared to other classes but they don't mean a druid "suffers", in my opinion.
I would also like to add an excerp from the AD&D 2nd edition PHB, p. 53 (1989):
"The Great Druid (14th level) is unique in his region . . .
The highest ranking druid in the world is the Grand Druid (15th level).
. . . only one person in a world can ever hold this title at any time. Consequently, only one druid can be 15th level at any time."
So to me the implementation of a druid in BG is PNP-ish.
On-topic: Druids are fine, with one caveat - a lot of their spells are total junk, while a few select are gamebreakers (insect plague/Nature Beauty). I tried a vanilla setup Shaman. I got to level 2 spells. Now I wonder, what to pick that isn't trash at level 2? Confusion at level 7? Animal summoning III on same level as Elementals? No pun intedned, but I always had this tought that druids were the last class implemented in BG2 and that nobody had the time to balance them out.
And ofc, with the abomination called ranger/cleric there's zero reason to ever play a druid if you're powergaming.
So I'm not against it perse but I can relate to the frustrations that many have.
And then there is the fact that druids have access to higher levels spells (and more of them than any other caster) at lower levels thanks to Call Woodland Beings.
If you actually studied the facts, you'll see that BG2 druids were meticulously balanced. It was obvious that the devs learned from their mistakes in BG1 and thought long and hard about how to implement the "Great Druid" aspect of D&D into the game.
One could even argue that they went too far, considering that one of the first things SCS does is nerf them.
Animal Summoning is a divine spell, not a druid-exclusive spell. The druid-exclusive version is Conjure Animals, which gives you multiple tanky fodder.
Variety is what gives the game its particular flavor. If everyone was equally powerful at the same exact points in the game then why bother with giving players the option to choose at all?
Before no lev9 spells for mages, no HLA, no high druid, and no NPCs reaching levels that in novels or in PNP only people at the level of Elminster or Kelben should reach... Drittz is far from there and is famous in all the realms.
Jaheira, a multi, High Druid? With the ToB level cap is possible even in SoA.
This does not mean that I complain about, in some runs I use more PnPish spell tables, and so even if she has to wait 3Mxp to get the second lev 7 spell she don't get all the pack at once. At 6M she get the second, than she level up like in PnP, getting 1/level more on average. I don't complain, but I also don't say that My Jaheira's growth is smoth, and with vanilla tables it would have been even less smoother, growing about like the others untill 1.5M in the druid class, than completely stopped in druid growth for other 1.499M. At last, a dead goblin more, she would have become like the other classes at lev 40.
There is absolutely no balance, and I don't say in game balance that imo is often a false problem, I say balance inside the class. Imo with the spell tables that I use, but getting levels in a more common way, it would be better balanced.
If now I compare Jaheira with my F/M, not comparing the power of their different magics, but looking how their power in the party change as levels go up, is clear how she grows less smoothly.
And this for reasons that where good before ToB, now every druid, even a multi, will be the high druid, every mage an archmage, the whole lev7 at 3M xp was a joke, just like the few lev 9 arcane scrolls, you could only have a taste, with the only lev7 spell of druid14 and using the arcane scrolls from quick item slots, but it was a level not supposed for adventurers, a typical PnP campaign has not the high levels of ToB.