Druid or bard?

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Which would be better to add to my 5-party roster: a druid or a bard? I already have all of my "serious" characers made, sorcerors and warriors and whatnot, but now I want a silly chamberpot cleaner sort of character (which I have a nasty feeling will turn out to be more useful than everyone else)and I just can't seem to decide what to have. My cousin tells me that "you haven't really seen anything 'till you've seen Flamestrike and Spirit of Flame dance", but the melodies of the bard seem persuasively intriguing. What do you guys think? (note: some silly names would be helpful, too)

 

Depends on the other four members of your party. If you're cleric-heavy, pick the bard; and vice-versa if you already have a sorceror or wizard. Me, I prefer bards because they're just more fun - my best game so far was a party of four bards - but I think you'll find druids more useful in the long run. Especially if you have the Protection from Evil magic to make elemental summoning practical.

 

I personally perfer Druids, just due to their shape-shifting abilites. But like Grey said, it would depend on the rest of your party.

 

Gotta vote for the Druid. I'm currently playing a 4-person party that doesn't have room for a bard .

I miss the bard a lot, but couldn't live without Entangle for those outdoor areas (much, much more successful "hold 'em up" spell than Web). Produce Fire is great for those times that you can't Fireball because friendly or allied creatures are nearby, or just a few enemies are remaining out of range of the main group (as spellcasters and archers often do). Spike Growth just chews up Webbed/Entangled enemies, very cool. I haven't even used the shapeshifting yet, but the Druid is still an essential part of the initial strategy for making sure that the enemy fights on our terms, not theirs.

Druids are more difficult to use in indoor areas, though, and I do miss the chance to see "War Chant of the Sith" in action. Ultimately, however, if I am going to miss one of the two, the Bard is turning out to be a lesser loss than the Druid would be, imo.

 

For some reason I usually wind up as my character in the story being a bard, and my other characters backing him up. With this question, I want to know if you are looking for extra spellcasting or just an extra fighter with spell casting as a bonus?

Extra Spellcasting: Go with the druid, they make good fighters too but their spells kick ass, stuff like Thorn Spray and all the animals you get to conjure. Plus the charm anmal ability helps a great deal, especially when you are at places like Shaengarne Bridge, when you have all those animals attacking you.

Extra Fighter: Bard. To me, Bards are like fighting sorcerers. They are good in battle but I only ever used their casting abilities as defensive/protection spells. After casting those, which I could get from a cleric if need be, though it does save some of a cleric's space, I would send them to the front and let them slash it out. As some will say, Bards are useless in this game, unless you are playing one yourself; they die semi-fast, slow in spell progression, and their Bard songs dont do all that much to your party.

 

Druid is definately the better pick, IMO, because all they need is one or two levels of fighter to make just as good a front-liner as a cleric, and their spells are both unique and useful. As for character wise, who is more kooky than a druid? just look at Salvatore's Cleric Quintet for a perfect example.

 

I'd vote for druid, too.

I've tried to solo one and it was pretty good, though I never made it till the end of the game, but that's because I tend to restart the game after a few missions.

I didn't read all posts up there, but if someone said that the druid is a perfect offensive spellcaster (mainly outdoors), then they were absolutely right.

I love to entangle my enemies and take them out one by one with my archers, while storm and lightnings are frying them to ashes.

I also like spells like beastclaws and other spells that turn your druid into a powerfull melee-fighter, mainly used for indoor fights.

Since I tried a druid once, I always have one in my party. My druids seem to have the highest amount of kills in my party (No, not deaths, but kills )
I don't like bards that much. I can't find a good way to asign my abilities. And they don't excell in one thing.

Edit:
Since I don't play the game *that* often: Are Spellfocus Evokation and Conjuration usefull?
I mean, most of the Druid spells are Evokation, Transmutation or Conjuration. I was wondering if Spellfocus would be a good choice for a feat, or would I be better of with other feats?

 

I don't think that Spell Focus is useful at all for a Druid because, just like a Cleric or Paladin, their spells are Divine, not Arcane.

Evocation, Transmutation, Necromancy, etc are Arcane spell designations (used by Wizards and Sorcerors), and I don't think they relate to Divine spells at all-- but if anyone knows different, please correct me.

I do give everyone who can cast spells of any kind Spell Penetration, though, since I think that works for all spellcasters, Divine or Arcane.

Edit-- OK, I just looked in DaleKeeper, and I see that the Druid spells are given a school/type in the Arcane style as well, but does it really count, since these are not actually Arcane spells (and 3rd Ed is so much stricter about these little things)?

 

The choice between druid and bard is an easy one - leave the singing, prancing, sissy-boy wannabe pop star where he belongs (outside your party) and take up the rowan staff.

True power lies within the realm of nature and her servants. With the elemental forces of the Mother behind you, you cannot falter or fail. The priest of the only true church, Nature, is highest of all, and yet most humble of all, as he reconciles the massive power of the everchanging worlds-realm with the miniscule machinations of man, who is but a small thing to the Mother. Revere the powers of the earth, the sea, the sky, and the flame, for as they will be your doom, so will they be your salvation.

From the Mother ye came, and to the Mother ye shall return.


Yes, druids rock.
(Especially with the Druid Spells/Shapechange mod that comes with the IWD ease-of-use mod)

 

And Blessed Be to you, too, Falstaff. Thanks for sharing .

(....I'm going to be singing that all day, now... which is not a bad thing....)

 

Love both classes. Wish you could have more than 6 party members. Then again you can always do the multi-class route and have a bardxx/druidxx character but your character will not be as good as single class bard or druid.

Bards get some nifty toys to play with and their summoning/charm/disabling spells complement a wizard/sorc to focus on damage/insta-death spells.

 

After reading all the informative posts and some serious philosophical pondering, I've made my decision: Druid all the way! (you guys were all pointing to druid anyway ) His name is Abryas the Green, and his Barkskin- Flame Blade combination is a force to be reckoned with! I'm at Shaengarne Bridge at this moment, and Abryas really rips some Nature-produe up. I can safely say that I'm happy with, of course, our decision. Thanks to all those who helped, and may Abryas the Green never need a Resurrection spell cast on him!

 

Spell Focus feats affect the spell whether it is arcane or divine as long as they are relevant to the specific school of magic.

 

Oh crumbs, now I have to give my druid/cleric extra feats instead of weapons specializations...

 

I think the druids probably better

 

AFAIK evocation etc focuses work on divine spells. I'm still not sure etc, but the requirement doesn't say 'arcane' and it's possible to specify arcane or divine as it's done in some other feats (e.g. Heretic's Bane requires divine).

Haven't played with either. My only party consisted of: paladin (holy fighter, talking guy, spells and abilities etc), fighter (HP monger dwarf), rogue/ranger (perfect scout and finesse warrior, also spells), cleric (Lathander, evoc. focuses, spell penetration, spirit of flame) and two sorceresses (both evoc, one heavy evoc, the other transmutation and some evoc). Those guys were deadly. Two sorcs amount to 16 fireballs later in the game

So, you could get a second sorcerer (never take more than one wizard for scroll shortage reasons) or a second, different, specialty priest. Ilmater isn't bad in fight, Tempus is almost a fighter in melee, some other ones might be quite good if nicely multiclassed for better potential.

 

My druid is multi-classed as a Priestess of Selune, and so far it's working out pretty well. I chose Selune because 1) It seems to be the order that a druid would most likely be compatible with (I was torn between Selune and Lathander on this count); 2) I had great admiration for the priestess of Selune you meet early in the game (that girl kicked butt!); but most importantly 3) the "Selune's Freedom" power is quite handy when my character, as a druid, has thrown one too many entangles and she or another party member is caught. "Wall of Moonlight" looks to be pretty cool as well, but I haven't tested it yet.

 

Point to note: Druids are obscenely powerful at high levels. Bards are obscenely versatile at high levels.

Which one would you prefer, then? If your party has all the roles already filled, a bard would be awesome.

If more ass-kicking is required, a druid would fill in most nicely with his uber spells and nifty shapeshifting ability.

One other thing, though: Aren't druids prohibited from using certain weapons in D&D 3.0/5? If they use a say, longsword, they lose their powers for 24 hours. Neither can they use bows or wear any metallic armor.

This is not implemented in IWD2, but if it was, a Druid will be far less versatile than he/she is.

 

Bit

Druid's arent allowed to wear any metal at all. So even armor is limited to leather and hide. That wasnt implemented in any crpg i've seen. (except in ALFA of course)

And weapons... club, dagger, dart, quarterstaff, scimitar, sickle, spear, sling. And thats all. Even multiclassing should not allow you to gain any new weapon proficencies, as they are prohibited by oath rather than training.


So, yes. If all this would be implemented druids sure would be quite hampered. But then there are also animal companions....


oh, to respond to the topic... I prefer having both. Druid becouse of really nice shapeshifts(beware, without easy-of-use alternate shapeshifts), and bards becouse of their coolness.
Lingering song makes 2 free rounds for a bard to cast two spells, shoot with massive damage(becouse of the song), or whatever. Only thing a bit strange is that eventhough all songs are useful at occasions, grand majority of the time he plays song of the three heroes (or ballad? *shrugs*). Others are mostly for special stuff.

As for druids... they're my favourite class... in any crpg. Thats why i always have them in my party
Just a bit of advice... in easy-of-use mod there is a component called "alternate shapeshifting". It makes shapeshifts severely unbalanced. Its so powerful you never need any warriors anymore. See the first shift...
Verbreeg - 7/0 damage resistance to psyhical damage. 3 attacks, massive damage. Only thing thats a weakness is AC only 12 or so. But with 7 DR you dont need much AC.
At lvl 5! *shakes head*
And it gets stronger and stronger.
At lvl10 you get Treant, as a feat (my avatar ). He has 20 damage resistance. I could fight in HoF toe-to-toe with him. Not without help of summoned mosters naturaly but still i could hold my stand.

wow, what a post

 

Druids in IWD2 work well in a fighter / mage role. Bards make the best diplomat characters - high charisma, no self-righteousness and the widest dialog choices in the game. Bards have good party support spells, but stop getting better after level 11. Druids keep getting better, but I find that the nature's ally summons in particular are rather feeble.