Druids - Underpowered?

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I am soloing a druid at the moment and the only thing that stands out is, well druid spells just don't hold up to the power of some of those higher level (and even lesser level) mage and cleric spells.

The few decent spells are:
Barkskin
Call lightning/static charge
Spike growth (and the other level 6 one)
Insect plague
Smashing wave
Storm Shell
Finger of death

The other spells do very little damage, or are capped very early. Some, like creeping doom are supposed to last for 1 turn/level, but end up lasting 1 round/level. The level 9 shambler summon spell is not a particularly powerful summon. Giant Vermin is pretty cool at higher levels, but the only great summoning spells are elemental legion and nature's ally IX, but these are pretty short duration. Level 9 tremor does bugger all damage (4D10+2) and takes forever to cast.

Even the shapeshift forms suck. Dire panther or bear would be the best, but AC is shockingly low; elemental transformations attack once per round, and usually miss.

So are druids still underpowered in IWD2?

 

Out of your mind . Druids are another way of saying: sorcerer/clerics with the ability to turn into animals. They get healing spells a little later, but use them effectively (eg. I use mine as a crossbow-holding firepower) and they're powerful. Take Smashing Wave, for instance. The d8 to damage means that at 15th level, druids will be dealing 15-120 damage, instead of flamestrike's 15-90. Plus knockdown! And the later shapechanges really rip some *ahem* up when used against guys like archers and mages. Storm Shell is equivalent to an Elemental Barrier (high-level wizard spell) among many other things. And Finger of Death? All of this, and you will still tell me they are underpowered? True, they're not necessary to any party you might be creating, but they're useful and downright fun to play.

 

I have to disagree with you. Druids are NOT underpowered at all in IWD2. If anything, they've finally come into their own after being downplayed in games like IWD, Baldurs Gate's entire series, etc etc.

Druids get lots of awesome spells, like Imost already said. Anyway, to add my two cents AND to wrap it up, Druids are way cool in IWD2!!

 

It is good to hear support for the druid. I guess after all, my druid is still *alive* and that probably says enough.

 

Druids are like bards: they are interesting people to use, and you can get good use out of them, but they are nowhere near as powerful as the likes of wizards, clerics, and sorcerers.

More like wizard/cleric without buff, spontaneous casting, debuff, animate dead, and a bunch of other things that make one choose clerics or wizards.

It's actually 15d8 vs. 15d6*1.2, which is an average of 63 bludgeoning and 25% stun vs. an average of 60 fire.

Or, I can stay back behind the safety of my lines and use Mordekain's Sword.

 

ok... druids are by far the best class in the game... at level 30. by then you have about 9 different wild shapes to choose from. the elemental half dragon cant be touched (unless they get a hit above 40). so keep leveling him up and youll be awesome.

 

Why don't I apply a mod to the game that gives rangers a L1 spell that confers 20 ability bonus to everything, 100/- resistance to everything, 50 spell resistance, 75 generic AC, 50 damage and to hit bonus, and a critical range improvement of 20 then say that rangers are the best class in the game? It's kind of like how you are using something given by Weimer's mod to argue that "druids are awesome" when, in reality, the default shapes have limited uses, one of which is listed above, the other of which is to carry a lot of stuff.

But lets assume that only Weimer's Ease of Use mod has been applied. By L30, you are up against Slayer Knights of Xvim. Those guys do easily over 150 damage per hit. That's over 100 damage to your elemental dragon for each hit. With a cleric, wizard, or sorcerer, you can bring out stronger apocalyptic boneguards. With your druid, you are stuck with a bunch of mediocre elementals at best that will fall to one or two hits from the Slayer Knights of Xvim. If you go in with your actual guy, he'll be slaughtered in 2 rounds.

 

Despite of its many bad attributes (my opinion), IWD2 is (relatively) balanced in case of classes and races.
As for me, druids are not underpowered.