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- Shapechange seems not to have a trainer for Malarites.

That said I had difficulty to find the following spells on my Chauntean druid:
- air walk (I think there is one suitable teacher but it is kind of hard to reach, so one more would not hurt)
- ice storm
- drown
These spells are actually easily available in game, but they are taught by priests of enemy faiths.

These spells I was not able to find after searching and asking quite a bit:
- detect buried
- spider climb

This was available to my druid but not to my ranger, due to an intercept program:
- charm animal

Of course these spells may be available somewhere, and I would need to explore more, but it struck me as odd that they were either so difficult to acquire, despite being minor, or easily available but taught by mobs who are enemy of faith for most druids.

I am late to the party, but regarding spell trainers and top 5 requests here goes.

Spell trainers that seem to be missing(at least for good aligned druids, and they may be available but are hidden away in some deep dark corner or at a unrealistic location such as enemy faith etc):
detect buried
spider climb
spider swarm
dominate animal
call lightning storm
mass drown

Every other spell on the druid list is accessible to good aligned druids in one way or another, and has been personally verified.

Top 5 things I would like to see done with druids:
1)Allow malarites to spontaneously cast cause spells
2) Either significantly alter shapechange, and or lower the polymorph spell for druids to a much lower level
3)Would be good for the game overall, but especially or rangers and druids. Add several herb type vendors to wilderness/ranger/druid encampments. These would really just be potions of various things but would be more fitting to be using a herbal salve, or a herbal tincture etc, or eating a leaf of this or that etc etc
4)Add in much stronger animal companions available only to druids,or maybe druids and rangers. Druids currently have quite a few utility spells that only work on animals....yet the animal companions we can get are bested by bandits and rats, and fiesty goldfish.
5) I know adding spells to a class is difficult, so if we can't add more druidesque spells to the druid spell list. Would it be possible to modify some of the existing ones. For example thorn spray is indeed significantly underpowered, as is storm of vengeance for that matter. in DnD thorn spray can target multiple creatures, and you also get more thorns per level. Would a simple fix be to perhaps keep it a single target but make it more like magic missile so where you can additional thorns as your skill increases?

Just some thoughts.

Suggestions have been taken into consideration, and changes will continue to be made, which may or may not stick. But remember this section is for 'suggestions.'

Also when a suggestion is made, there is value in debating its merits, but not in just repeating the same ones already stated over again.

Disclaimer: We are 3.5 based so we will always look to SRD first, but we are not solely governed by it either. Mud vs PNP can and will dictate variances. Diverging from SRD does not make something a bug, nor guarantee all changes will be made to match it.

Somewhat in the same vein... I agree that some classes are unfinished or unbalanced.

Proposals overall:

1. Add spontaneous casting as a feature (for all casters that are able to do this). This would give Druids the needed edge to survive the newer content/DC. It could also be used as a platform to add new classes later (warlock/sorcerer) and as a way to introduce Wild magic and/or the Shadow Weave.

[I know that Planes are a WIP - but this would be a nice place to find outsiders for pacts - I'm just saying.]

2. Add the ability to choose deity portfolio (clerics/druids/paladins). It would most likely be a big revamp to do this, but it would greatly improve the game in terms of balance and PC flavor later on.

3. More Spells and Portfolio. The game needs more spells to make more portfolio viable, which would make the ability to choose possible. This would not only help all casters, but it would create a way for clerics to specialize based on deity (which is what they are supposed to do).

4. Not only more spells, but different class spell lists. I think this is one of the main issues in terms of balancing classes. All of the classes use the same 'magic' system and when spells and prayers overlap with these classes in FK, they get the same coded spell. If different instances of the spells existed based on class - then you could adjust the affects and power level of the spell accordingly without unbalancing the other classes that have access to them. It would allow the "similar but different" spells to be represented within the game.

In summary, power creep is inevitable... building to deprecate this for the sake of balance never seems to work. It always breaks something else. In most of the games that I have played, the solution was variety. If you isolate the class and allow them a different set of mechanics, you can then tweak that specific set without skewing the others.

Yo

Adding to this old post, druids have always been weak. Not meaning to criticize just stating their status. The why of this is due to a few different factors most of which have already been mentioned in this thread but I am summarizing IMO what the main factors are below:

My perspective is based on mostly Malarite druids but these exist to some extent for all druids. Ideally solutions to the below would be accessible to all druids. Silvanus or non-faith areas tend to be the best way to do this as they are accessible to all faiths/alignments.

Just because I list them doesn't mean I think they need to be changed, but need to be understood for balance reasons.

Mechanics:
AC - Being limited to non-metal armor tends to limit their choices. The fact that ironwood plate isn't able to be gotten puts a hard cap on druids ACs that makes them weaker than other priests. I don't really think adding ironwood plate would be a good fix to this as then all druids would run around with the same BIS armor set. But this is a major contributor to them being weaker and usually in tabletop this is offset by other things such as shapechange.
Spell Levels - Spells are generally higher level for druids than other classes. This limits how many they can have. Again, this is meant to be offset by their other abilities. Dispel magic for instance. Polymorph for an extreme example.
Spell trainers - Trainers for 6th level spells or above are rare especially for evil druids. I'd be willing to provide my spell list for anyone for reference. Evil druids could get around this in an IC way by shapechanging into another race if you could train skills while doing so.

Shapechange/Polymorph:
The fact that these spells/skills for druids is not balanced for combat is problematic. They are just taking stats from the base race files. You can't cast while shapechanged, which is fine but needs to be understood when considering balance.
Shapechange - There's no trainer for this for Malar druids. Also, limited uses per day make it difficult to train and the duration makes it difficult to roleplay (time in game does not always match up with roleplay time). If I had to say I would make the duration infinite or very very long and keep the limited uses per day.
Polymorph - This is a 9th level spell for druids. Right now it is essentially the only shapechange available for evil druids. Being 9th level makes it slower to train and it is equivalent to the 4th level wizard spell. In fact, it is even weaker because it was always stated that druids should only be using it to polymorph into animals and elementals.

Animal Companions:
Currently the only animal companions available to druids are from vendors (or summon natures ally but that is short duration and also confounded by spell trainers) or from animal empathy (which druids of Malar do not get). It has been my experience that all of these pets are weak in combat even with spell buffs. Also, the lack of a companion makes certain spells less useful: magic fang, greater magic fang, heal animal companion, enlarge animal. These spells appear to have been intended for this.

The previous posters mentioned spontaneous casting of natures ally. While nice, I'm not sure if it would contribute much to fixing the problem (maybe if this means they learn all the natures allies innately without needing to train them). I also think their current spell list is fine, but my spell list is also older than current druids so I acknowledge I may not have the problems they do, and stone skin and heal go a long way. I'd also like to see druids get harm. If they get heal, why not its inverse.

Now, a lot of these above could be fixed with area support which is understandable. But not all and some of them would require game code. Ideally animal companions would be a coded thing that levels up with you, has certain stats, etc. Shapechange being balanced for combat would require code.

I only have knowledge of Malarite druids but it'd be nice if Malarite druids could get treated the same code-wise as other druids. I think some spells and things are locked behind that. I sometimes see odd circumstances where there appears to be some code that looks for druids or druids and rangers, but doesn't actually recognize Malarite druids as druids.

A few more suggestions:

The lack of trainers for Summon Natures Ally has already been brought up but another issue is the components necessary. Getting earth shards isn't exactly easy for all druids and for something supposed to be such a core spell line for druids, makes it very hard to use them. Could this be changed out to something more common?

Also since animal companions might be difficult to code/cause balance issues, an alternative might be giving druids the non-nature domain attached to the helpfile of their gods so Prowess for Malar, Renewal for Chauntea, and Travel for Mielikki. They'd only have one domain in this case.