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“I hate these woods.”

The voice was coming from the woman in the long white coat, mounted on her horse and all senses in overdrive.

“Weren’t you born in them?” Her companion asked, a smirk on his face as he was caressing his young beard. He was dressed nobly, yet in dark colors as a stark contrast to his beloved lady next to him.

She gave him a glance and a grimace.

“This is exactly why I hate these. Bad memories, and also, the fact that I am a lycanthrope doesn’t sit particularly well with some of the druids around here.”

The man nodded silently in understanding, yet rode closer to caress her hand. They smiled softly to each other before the man continued.

“I understand. But we need to do this. My brother and your sister are dealing with the first half of our enigma in the city. We need to find our half here, and unfortunately, the druids apparently have the second half.”

She was about to reply when a gigantic dire tiger appeared from between the branches and walked to the middle of the road in front of them. On it was riding a young halfling, a sling in one hand, ready to fight.

“Why do you trespass on the Grove? He asked with the calm of a predator looking down at its prey.”

Race

Halfling

Classes

Druid 17/Hierophant 3

Ability Scores

Str 8/Dex 16/Con 14/Int 10/Wis 18/Cha 8

Skills

There is a FAQ that specifically states that Druids can qualify for Hierophant via Knowledge(Nature) 15 instead of Knowledge(Religion) 15. So we are doing that.

Feats by Level

1-Point-Blank Shot

3-Precise Shot

6-Nature Spell

9-Spell Focus(Conjuration)

12-Augment Summoning

15-Extend Spell

18-Mounted Combatant

Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot make the usage of our Sling and Magic Stone into an effective combat tactic in the earlier levels, which is already going to be surprisingly effective as a Halfling.

Nature Spell at sixth level might as well be a class feature for the Druid. It is that good. Augment Summoning and Extend Spell let us double down on our ability to Spontaneously cast Summon Nature’s Ally and make this already very powerful spell list even more powerful.

We finish our career by taking Mounted Combatant for those times riding is going to be more beneficial than being Wild Shaped.

Special Abilities

We get an Animal Companion at first level and it becomes stronger, or we can switch it for another one in later levels.

At first level, your best bet is either a Riding Dog or a Wolf. At level 4, you may change it either to a Black Bear or a Leopard, or you can keep your puppo, there isn’t really a right or wrong at this point.

At 7th level you are taking a Tiger though. Pounce+Rake is terrifyingly powerful.

At 10th level you switch to a Dire Lion. Because Dire animals are stronger almost 9/10. You can also take a Megaraptor at this point.

At level 13 you should either keep your current animal companion or switch to a Dire Bear.

Finally, at level 16 you are switching a final time. The obvious choice is the Dire Tiger because, once again, Pounce is disgustingly good. But you could also go for a T-Rex if only because it is stupidly cool and even though it will deal less damage, it will almost certainly out grapple almost anything else thrown in its general direction.

We have three Hierophant Special Abilities to choose at level 18, 19 and 20. Our choices, respectively, will be Power of Nature, Divine Reach and Spell Power.

Equipment

We are grabbing a Sling, a Wooden Heavy Shield and some Hide armor, along with a Quarterstaff for our starting equipment. As we level, we will want to invest in making some Ironwood armor of higher quality, like a Breastplate, or an armor made of Dragonscales. We will also want an Ebony Heavy Shield.

We want to invest in a good magical staff. A Staff of the Woodlands or a Staff of the Python is always a good investment, and grabbing Gloves of Dexterity and a Periapt of Wisdom are no-brainers, the first for our ranged combat, the latter for increasing our spellcasting.

Enchanting our armor with the Wild enchantment is another no-brainer, and we probably want to invest in some Barding Armor for our animal companion.

Final Thoughts on the Build

This build relies solely on the Core books, and yet it easily demonstrates the raw power of the CoDzilla (Cleric or Druid zilla). We begin play as a capable ranged combattant via Magic Stone which we can combine with our Sling and various Halfling bonuses, on top of Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot.

Being small means we begin the game with an AC of 19 which is nothing to laugh at, and once again, by virtue of being a Halfling, our Saving Throws are quite excellent.

Starting level six due to our Nature Spell, we get to cast spells while Wild Shaped, meaning our main combo of casting spells while taking various animal forms is up. This makes you ridiculously resilient and a terror on the battlefield, letting you shift into say a bear and get in melee (and eventually, into a Dire Bear, Dire Tiger, T-Rex, you name it. At higher level you can even turn into a Large Elemental!)

As you continue leveling up, your ability to spontaneously cast Summon Nature’s Ally makes you one of the best summoner class in the entire game as it is, and you further amplify this with Augment Summoning, making all of your beasties that much stronger and, with Extend Spell, make then stay twice as long.

At the highest levels, you gain successively access to some extraordinarily powerful abilities, like Power of Nature, which lets you give some portions of your Wild Shape to allies. Have your party Barbarian Wild Shape into a Dire Tiger and see where that goes.

Divine Reach lets you cast touch spells at 30ft away which will come up at some point, and by taking Spell Power at level 20, we end up casting Spells with a Caster Level of 21, all the while having full access to our Wild Shape, 9th level spells and a fully leveled Animal Companion.

If this does not sell you on how just powerful the Druid truly is, let me remind you. This is a Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual I only build. It gets so much worse if you merely open splats for say spells.

Level	Class	HD	Feats	Special
1	Druid	10	Point-Blank Shot	Animal Companion, Nature Sense, Wild Empathy
2	Druid	1d8+2	–	Woodland Stride
3	Druid	1d8+2	Precise Shot	Trackless Step
4	Druid	1d8+2	–	Resist Nature’s Lure, +1 Wis
5	Druid	1d8+2	–	Wild Shape 1/Day
6	Druid	1d8+2	Nature Spell	Wild Shape 2/Day
7	Druid	1d8+2	–	Wild Shape 3/Day
8	Druid	1d8+2	–	Wild Shape (Large), +1 Wis
9	Druid	1d8+2	Spell Focus(Conjuration)	Venom Immunity
10	Druid	1d8+2	–	Wild Shape 4/Day
11	Druid	1d8+2	–	Wild Shape (Tiny)
12	Druid	1d8+2	Augment Summoning	Wild Shape (Plant), +1 Wis
13	Druid	1d8+2	–	A Thousand Faces
14	Druid	1d8+2	–	Wild Shape 5/Day
15	Druid	1d8+2	Extend Spell	Wild Shape (Huge), Timeless Body
16	Druid	1d8+2	–	Wild Shape (Elemental 1/Day)
17	Druid	1d8+2	–	–
18	Hierophant	1d8+2	Mounted Combattant	Power of Nature
19	Hierophant	1d8+2	–	Divine Reach
20	Hierophant	1d8+2	–	Spell Power, +1 Wis

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