The Druid Guide

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The Druid Guide So Far 
General Druidic Rules 

First and foremost, Lanfear is the coder of the druids. Use the bug, commend, 
and idea commands at him for anything related to the druids. 

The recommended races for druids should see in the dark and have good wisdom. 
The infravision will be useful if you cast star light at all (the spell does 
more damage in dark areas) and the high wisdom will affect most of your spells. 

Use the druids channel when asking details about certain druid spells or skills, 
or for specific advice. Also use it if you see the pool going dry. Know who 
the guild leader and assistants are, and contact them if necessary. 

The apprentice system is there for good reason. The lowering of spell and skill 
costs is much more noticable as the costs get high. The 'cast xxx' skills in 
particular get quite expensive and the experience 'discount' offered by the 
system is very profitable. If you plan to get any skill or spell above 60%, 
or even 50% for the expensive stuff, use the channel to ask for apprenticeship. 
The worst thing that could happen is nothing, which is no worse than not asking. 

This is rule number one of druids: You will NEVER starve. The plant lore skill, 
even at low levels, will let you pick many fruits and vegetables as you wander 
outside areas. Just don't pick too many, for Gaea will punish you harshly 
for abusing her bounty. Further, you have access to the create food and satiate 
person spells.If water is a problem, the rain spell is a good solution, especially 
if you can cast water walking first (or do it naturally). 

When you enter BatMud, take a peek at your staff charge.The better the charge, 
the stronger many of your spells will be (anything with type runes). If it is 
not bright red, take a little while to charge it up. A campfire and/or the 
enhanced sp-regen of the races unicorn and owl will make this downtime shorter 
(building a campfire in the old newbie square -- just outside the church -- 
is always a good idea, people will thank you). Swing by Damogran or the cheap 
weapon shop for a bludgeon or two, preferrably light weight. You may also wish 
to stop by the guild for a bless from a fellow druid. While there, you can buy 
gems of burning lava for the gem fire spell (if you use it), and dump extra exp 
in to spells and/or skills if you plan something extra dangerous today. 
Don't forget the newsboards upstairs. 

There are two things in the druids guild, Mithrandir and the pool. Mithrandir 
will give you a poster if you type 'tell mithrandir poster'. Use the poster to 
donate sp, items, and exp to the guild. The sp you donate will be usable later 
by the spell 'drain pool'. 

The pool has colors indicating its charge, like the staff. If the pool ever goes 
dry, the whole guild will feel it. So start to donate like mad if you see the 
pool is eerie green. While at the pool you can type 'list+' and 'list-' which 
will show the donaters/drainers. Try to stay on list+. 

Also in the guild is the plant shop, which sells the components for gem fire, 
hoar frost, replenish energy, and vine mantle. The forest outside the guild 
usually has at least one mistletoe and one vine plant for you, so you probably 
won't need to buy those, but the others can come in handy. Note that what you 
buy here is NOT a real plant and is not edible for the usual effects. 

Try to become as good as possible. Almost every druid can baptize, so this 
is a quick way. Some spells have their chance and/or cost improved if your 
alignment is very good. 

Soloing, general rules 

Druids are like mages in that they have no attack skills like push or bash. 
What this means is, if you sit there and heal yourself in combat, you are 
taking skill-hits unnecesarily. Instead, use hit-and-run tactics, getting 
out in two rounds before the skill goes off. Heal yourself outside of combat. 
If you use an animal form, of course you cannot do this, but getting hit by 
the monster's skills is still avoidable. Between cure XXX spells, campfires, 
runic heal, and the regeneration spell and/or the natural regen of an animal
form, you should heal faster than the monsters. Earthquake and wither flesh 
are much slower than you would like, and are also the hardest spells to 
learn, so probably aren't the best for soloing. 

Remember to use consider on every non-aggresive monster you have never killed 
before, and use detect alignment (since you want to stay good). 

Aggressive monsters you can generally guess at after a few hits and after it 
uses its first combat bonus attack (push, bash, thorn spray, disintegrate, 
etc.), and are as a general rule, not good. Be warned that consider lies 
because it does not take into account spells. The third time the monster 
heals itself up to excellent shape, or nails you with a fierce evocation 
spell, consider calling the fight off. 

Soloing as a beginning druid (5th-6th levels) 

Use the shapechange spells aggresively for clearing a newbie area out of small 
creatures. At this level, the experience needed for spells and skills is 
relatively low, and the exp drain of being in animal form is not as bad now 
as it will be later. However, reserve your true form for big kills, so you 
don't waste any experience from them. Dispose of all corpses, since you are 
to low level to be mucking around with undead. 

The newbie park just outside of town, Bob's apple orchard, Digga's newbie area, 
and Wane's mountain have extra incentive for solo druids: they are outside. 
You can make full use of any fire building and plant lore ability you have. 
Sadly none of these areas have extra bludgeons lying around. 

Expect kills of 500 exp or so. 

Soloing as a low-level druid (10th-11th levels) 

The natural weapons and armor of the bear and shrike forms outclass the average 
enemy you will face at this level. You will lose some experience and all spell 
capabilities, but can still camp and make fires. Try using these forms for hostile 
creatures or large groups of medium to weaker ones, since the opening attacks of 
a hostile creature can stop spells and the weaker monsters are generally not 
worth a gem fire spell. 

The natural hp regen of these forms will make up for the loss of the cure XXX wounds 
spells. Use your own form, unicorn, or maybe owl against creatures you will need 
spells against, and remember that your damage- causing abilities are low. 

Earth skin is nice, because you don't have a whole lot of skills which suck up ep, 
and multiple layers of earth skin will drop that ep fast. Fire building and fresh 
pants are big ep-drain skills but there are ways around fresh pants (shovels, 
tinning kits, and the bear form can eat corpses). 

The orc treehouse and the rock-diggers in Wane's mountain have both a large amount 
of evil creatures you can handle, plus an abundance of bludgeons. Sadly plants don't 
grow there, although the treehouse is 'outside' for use of some skills. 

Tonze's mines are also good, for druids like everyone else, but some monsters down 
there are a little strong for a solo druid. Fortuneately only one monster (the 
beholders) is hostile. 

Expect 1k kills. 

Soloing as a mid-level druid (14th and 15th levels) 

At this level, druids make fair to good solo-ers, better than the average blaster 
due to the higher attack and bludgeons skills, the protection offered by earth skin, 
and the ability to recover after an assault. 

Remember that, even with maxed out attack and bludgeon, the monster will be hitting 
back harder than you unless you have good weapons. 

If you have the spell points and the charge in your staff to spare, and have even 
half-decent bludgeons, use earth power to pump yourself up, for this will start to 
even the odds in terms of purely physical damage. 

Use the shapechange forms of bear and shrike cautiously. Once transformed, you will 
be stuck until you get a restore spell, and you will be unable to use any weapons. 
However, the incredible natural armor and weapons of these forms, as well as the hit 
point regeneration, can be quite tempting. You can donate the (useless) spell points 
you accumulate in these forms to the druid pool. Unicorn is a better form in general, 
since your spells are more valuable than your skills, but the armor of this form is 
worse. The owl form has the worst weapons and armor of all and is probably a 
bad idea to use in combat. 

If you cannot decide which attack spell to use, I recommend star light for any race 
which can see in the dark or anyone who can cast the infravision spell well. It is 
free and tends to do more damage. Gem fire does next to nothing with the run-of-the-mill 
gems found in corpses, and it is a rare day indeed where the 3000 gold spent on a 
Lava Gem (sold in the guild) will net you more experience than if the money were 
MIP'ed instead. 

If you need the alignment, you can wait around for corpses to animate, but I recommend 
the fresh pants skill since you can sell the results. Tinning kits are heavy and you don't 
need the food that way. If you have a castle, though, you can try this trick: make your 
starting room have no exits. Then, cast call pigeon on about a dozen small corpses 
(like, bunnies). When you get home there should be one or two undead waiting for you, 
weak ones easily killed by a single spell. It won't get you much exp but a good alignment boost. 

As a general rule, up to this level solo druids are poor money makers. Fresh pants and 
torch creation get at most 90 and 10 gold respectively. 

You can make some fair money healing and/or restoring at the newbie sign, but you don't 
have the raw power at this point to solo the real money-getters. 

When you get kicked out of Tonze's mines, start to expand your area search a little. 
The newbie cornfields, Sarku's temple, and giantkillers have monsters you can smack, 
many (but not all) evil, most (again, but not all) not hostile (except Sarku's, but 
the hostile ones are generally wimps). 

Expect kills up to 2k. 

Soloing as a high level druid (20-21st level) 

You have hoar frost now, so use it to start fights with non-aggressive monsters, 
then switch to gem fire or star light for speed. If you feel lucky and /or have 
good quick chant, you can specialize in hoar frost, but that means carrying 
around a bunch of the plants -- buy them or (maybe) find them before setting 
out. You can also start using flex shield effectively, if you happen to like 
that spell. As always, don't forget the earth skin, earth power, and regeneration 
spells. With your mastery, they will start to get good. 

Look for the whirlpool, the ninjas, and/or creatures in town/Raven/Shadowkeep. 
The ninja area is particularly cool because the ninjas are all evil and carry 
bludgeons a lot...but remember consider! 

BatCity monsters, on the other hand, will chase you down, plus you could wander 
into a fight with some other player, typically a tank. So excercise caution there. 

Expect 3k kills. 

Soloing as a very high level druid (25-26th level) 

You can make half-decent money at this level. Use the hit-and-run attacks you 
have perfected so you don't get crushed by killer spells and skills. Hoar frost 
and star light will work fine, and with your mastery you will start doing brutal 
damage. Crystaline plants are hard to find and identify, but can be bought at 
the druid shop relatively cheaply if you need them.  

At this point gem fire will fall by the wayside as an attack spell due to its 
cost and lack of effective damage. Earthquake, the area effect spell, will not 
be used much, since druids, like all blasters, have problems with multiple 
targets at once. 

Druids at this level can cast reincarnation, but at a low percent. Be warned 
that, if you fumble, your target will suffer and get mad. At the least, you 
will get a reputation as a poor reincer and not get future business. But if 
you still want to reinc, max out reinc, train cast special skill and use ceremony. 

Many of the areas mentioned before have stronger monsters you have been waiting 
to kill. Check them out. However your blasting power has not greatly improved 
over 20-21st level druids. 

Expect 4k kills. 

Soloing as a maxed-out druid (29th-30th level) 

You are a reincer first and foremost. A good reinc will get you from 7 to 40k 
in experience, not bad at all. At this level, you can also cast wither flesh 
more accurately. This spell has devastating effects, including the ability to 
STUN the target. If the target is stunned, try to get a fast spell in before it 
recovers, say, star light. If it is not stunned, you will want to sit there and 
heal yourself, since Wither Flesh will continue to hit the target every four 
rounds or so until it drops or you leave. Flex Shield and Vine Mantle/Earth Skin 
greatly increase the time you can stay in the same room. Earth power and mastery 
are also important. 

At this level you will rarely solo. Casting reinc will get you more exp than a 
good solo kill, with much less chance of death or losing eq. But good kills for 
you will be around 6k. 

Partying as a beginning druid (5th-6th levels) 

You will have a hard time. Fire building and first aid are about the only party 
skills you have. Your cure XXX spells are inferior to those of a pure healer 
at the same level, and your gem fire spell will do more harm to your pocketbook 
than to the monsters. Your bless and/or baptize will fail more often than not. 
If desperate, you can change to animal form and tank for a mage or healer friend. 
Do not dispair, better times are coming. 

Expect kills at 4k or so for 3-member parties. 

Partying as a low-level druid (10th-11th levels) 

Compared to pure healers of Tarmalen, druids at this level are limited. Earth skin 
and detect/remove poison are handy but the lack of strong attack and healing spells 
will make getting parties difficult. 

Gem fire is about as good as you are going to get, but the high cost of useful gems 
may restrict a low-level druid to only party for money. Use campfires to assist 
party regeneration, and make use of the cure XXX spells you learned in the 
good_religious background. In any case, you will probably be the best torchmaker 
and/or tinner in the party. Remember also that if you party with trolls, orcs, or 
vampires that you can darken your staff to block light, but the more you darken 
it the more sps you lose, so keep it bit dark or so. Since your strength will 
generally be higher than that of any mages in the party, you will be the 'mule' 
so grab the coins and equipment after the battle is over. 

Get a good amount of the first aid skill. At this level, the monsters you face 
will not be super-dangerous (read: do not poison, banish, or disintegrate much) 
and you will probably have the few rounds it takes to revive an unconcious tank. 

Also, cast generic is good, not just to help cast the spells but to reduce the 
chance of fumbling a healing spell onto a tough monster and ruining hard work. 

Your plant lore and rain spells are at the point where your parties will never 
run short of food and water. Use create food only in desperate times, due to 
the high sps cost. 

Use the shapechange spell as little as possible. In bear and shrike forms you 
cannot use your healing spells, while in unicorn and shrike you cannot use 
fire building or camping. Also the lessened exp rate of these forms will just 
about cancel out the benefit you get from partying. 

Expect kills of 12 to 15k (again, for 3-person parties). 

Partying as a mid-level druid (14th and 15th levels) 

Druids make great party members. You won't need to keep your staff dark, since 
you won't be casting star light as much, but if you have vampiric or orcish 
friends you can certainly help out with darkness. You can lug about a tinning 
kit, since the occasional refreshing can will spare you many a spell point, 
and since you will not be in the front rank. Know which monsters poison. 
Against these creatures, always save enough spell points to cast detect 
poison with enough power to remove it. I find 150 usually suffices, you might 
be able to do it with less. 

If your plant lore is strong enough to find healing plants, keep an eye out 
for them. Like refreshing cans, they can save you some spell points for later. 
Good berries work the same way, but these disintegrate after a while, so 
use just before a fight only. 

Against the more dangerous monsters, use the 'command' ability to set up a 
first aid shortcut. As a druid you will have the hps to survive one or maybe 
two rounds of being hit should the tank in front of you get killed, so 
try to hang in there until the first aid goes through. However, keep an 
eye on the exits when doing so. 

Pick plants to feed your party (particularly if the party has no tinning 
kit) and use rain spells as a kind of party-thirst avoider. This is much 
more mana-efficient than casting satiate person at each member, doubly so 
in large parties. Keep your tanks happy with earth power, one (more, at 
your and their option) layer of earth skin, and any infravision, water 
walking, see invisible, and regeneration spells you can. Earth power is 
particularly useful and welcome, but water walking is good for seasick 
races/players too. 

If your tanks agree, you could also baptize them to good and give them 
a bless. Stay clear of the flex shield spell, since its high cost and 
low chance of success combine to quickly strip your spell points for a 
spell which will have low effect if it does go off. 

One very important note: mid-level druids are NOT combat healers! Even 
with the quick chant available at 15th level and/or a small quick lips 
boon, runic heal is far too slow to use in combat. Worse, since your 
percent will be relatively low (43, tops) and you have no mastery, 
there is always the risk of fumble, which will drain about 100 hp 
from the tank. 

In the middle of combat, this can be fatal, but outside by a campfire 
it is easier to recover from this mistake. Also, your percents of the 
cure XXX wounds spells is low as well, and fumbling the spell onto a 
monster is also bad, but much less dangerous. Since these spells are 
faster you might want to use the cure XXX wounds, if anything, in 
combat and runic heal outside. 

If your tanks are doing especially well, and you have spell points 
to spare, try blasting a little. If your tanks are getting chewed 
up badly, and your spell points are low, consider draining the pool 
to resupply and returning the sp later, that's what its there for. 

Expect kills of 20 to 25k. 

Partying as a high level druid (20-21st level) 

By using various protective, healing, and blasting spells, a druid 
of this level can have two tanks all to himself/herself, if you 
have good sp regen and/or a good stash of sp in the pool you can 
drain from. While hoar frost is unreliable, the extra layer of 
protection offered by two tanks gives you the time for multiple 
tries. If you use the more accurate star light instead, make sure 
your tanks are enchanted with infravision. 

Earth skin, earth power, and regeneration spells are of course a must 
for your tanks, and flex shield, while quite expensive, makes a 
nice finishing touch -- although its protection is relatively small 
by prot spell standards. With your quick chant level, you might be 
able to use runic heal in combat, too. Use the strategies learned 
at the earlier levels, they still hold true. 

Expect kills of 30k or so. 

Partying as a very high level druid (25-26th level) 

At this point, you will start to get party offers as a blaster. Hoar frost 
and star light will be your weapons. Note that hoar frost has a casting 
time of 5, longer than star light, but your quick chant will make up for 
this. Also note that vine mantle and flex shield will replace earth skin 
for defensive spells. Avoid using wither flesh at this time, it is unreliable. 

Earthquake is ok, for it is area effect and you have good mastery. Be warned 
that the spell is slow. Replenish energy is good, too, for helping tanks 
with their devastating skills. 

One note about components: replenish energy, hoar frost and vine mantle 
require plant items to use. They are available at the druid shop, of course, 
but vine plants and mistletoe are easy to find and need little plant lore % 
to recognize. As mentioned before, crystaline plants are much harder to find 
and recognize, so stock up at the druid shop. 

Expect kills of 40k and higher. 

Partying as a maxed out druid (29-30th level) 

Your spells are truly dangerous now. At this point, you can start using wither 
flesh on big party kills, and the tanks in front of you will allow the spell 
to do great damage (you can stay in the room much longer). Flex Shield and 
Vine Mantle should now be very efficient. For the average monster, continue 
to use hoar frost, star light, and earthquake, to save on sps. 

Expect kills at 60 to 100k, depending on tune. 

Once the druid guild is maxed out, the Tarmalen guild is recommended. You 
have the water walking/wilderness location spells to find all the guilds 
easily. Healer spells also make you MUCH more dangerous in a party, giving 
you true remove poison, unstun, rais, ress, and summon. 

Exp from kills will go through the roof. You may also consider the navigator 
guild, which gives you relocate and go, both very useful if you have an 
apprentice. And finally, remind your tanks that you have no iron will or 
unstun powers. They may need to shift their parry/dodge skills accordingly. 

Dealing with Annoying Players 

There will always be times when someone will tick you off -- stealing a kill, 
leaving corpses to animate, badmouthing you or whatever, and sometimes these 
nuisances do not respond well to verbal warnings. Druids are perhaps the 
worst guild for hunting other players at low to mid levels, having none of 
the pkiller spells or skills (summon, banish, curse, grapple, etc). 

But they do have a few tricks if necessary. Just be very careful before starting 
a war -- sometimes the best way to strike at an annoying player is to let everyone 
know what he or she is doing. In any event, use 'help player killing' before 
trying these at home. 

Pick a few poisonous roots or flowers and keep them on you. Should a player 
killer whack you, he or she might be tempted to eat them -- after all, why would 
you carry something harmful? :) This works equally well (i.e.rarely at best) 
with sticky-fingered thieves. If you are a particularly convincing liar, 
you could give the poisonous herbs to someone and persuade them to eat...
this works best if they don't know you are mad, of course. When they beg on the 
wanted channel for a poison remove, make sure you let the potential rp-ers know 
the deal. If you want to be truly sneaky, use barberries instead -- while they 
heal ( hopefully removing any suspicions your enemy has, prompting them to eat 
more) they can be addictive, and cure player spells are much more expensive 
than remove poisons. 

If you fumble the detect poison spell and use enough power, you poison the target. 
While this could be disatrous on party members, it works much better on newbie-sign 
thieves or murderers. As an additional note, this use of the spell is not considered 
an attack and will not cause the player to automatically attack you, nor will 
guardsmen recognize it as an assault. Should the poisoned player attack you back, 
in front of a guard, they will be arrested, which when poisoned means death. Due 
to the time and multiple tries needed to make this work, this is not suitable in 
combat, only as a surprise spell. Again, use the channels and/or tells to prevent 
the target from being summoned and cured. 

The create mud spell, when sucessful, will halt the target in his or her tracks and 
hamper their fighting style. If the player is not expecting this, the confusion 
combined with the sticky mud may be enough to give you one or two 'free' spells 
before they can cast a spell back or flee. 

If you have friends helping out, this could easily force a player to go link dead 
or die. Unfortuneately this spell cannot be cast where it is needed most, the city, 
and does no damage while provoking attack. 

If the person who bugs you is a troll, thrikhren, vampire, tinman, or low level, 
you might be able to bottleneck the entrance of the area they are in with a rain 
spell or six. Swim or water walk your way out and let the flowing waters burn and/or 
drown them. This spell, like create mud, does not work in the city, and it will also 
flush out anyone else in the area, so think twice before doing this. 

Individual skill/spell review: 

Attack/Bludgeons: get these skills as high as you can if you plan to solo at all, 
maxed out if possible. Attack is of course more valuable, since it will apply to 
the natural weapons of animal forms as well. 

Cast Generic: the most expensive skill you will get, especially at low- to mid- 
level, since you need it at a high level. This skill affects every spell you cast. 
Get it to 50 to 60% of guild max for your level, and if at all possible more. 

Cast Runes: the druid spells which rely on your staff's power all use cast runes. 
The spells star light, detect poison, runic heal, drain pool, charge staff, gem 
fire, earth power, earthquake, earth skin, transfer mana, replenish energy, and 
earth skin are runic spells. Keep this skill high as well for the sake of these 
spells, at least 40%, with 60% being optimal. 

Cast Help: as far as I can tell, this only affects the casting of regeneration. 
You can skip this for now. 

Cast Information: Affects see invisible, detect alignment, aura detection and 
infravision. Despite the name it does NOT affect detect poison. All of these 
spells are cheap and repeated attempts probably won't hurt you much. Not necessary, 
but a good place to put extra exp before a risky party run. 

Cast Control: affects water walking, rain, and drying wind. All of these spells 
are useful but not often emergencies, so don't put too much into this. 

Cast Special: this affects create food and good berry and reincarnation. It is for later levels. 

Consider: more for solo druids than party-going druids, obviously. If you plan 
to solo, get this skill about 30 to 40% at least and use some known monsters as 
practice, like the various critters in Digga's or Wanes. 

Fire Building: very cool skill, especially for parties. The higher the percent, 
the better the fire, so at least consider maxing out this skill. 

Plant Lore: at 20% (minimum) you can get fruit, which are food and water, and 
at 60% a few weird plants with healing or poison capabilities. That's all you 
need, although if you really want to find the extravagant stuff (which you will 
find only once every two or three days unless you search for them) like ginseng 
and mandrake root, be prepared to fork out a bunch of exp -- these plants hover 
around 60-70% plant lore. This skill also affects your good berry output. 

Torch Creation: if you can cast infravision you won't need this much, but 
sometimes its nice for a tank friend not in your party. It is also good for 
lower-level druids without racial infravision. Remember, if your party friends 
use torches to see, your star light won't do much. This isn't a big problem, 
since druids are not really blasters, but worth the mention. Put a few percent 
in this, so you can make one if you really have to, but don't bother more than 20%. 

Detect Alignment: as a good_religious guild, being purely good will help your 
spells. Use this spell when soloing on unfamiliar monsters before blasting away. 
You can also see the effects of your baptizes, and see who is ready for blessing. 
A useful spell, get at least 30%. 

Charge Staff: a very important spell indeed. The long casting time can make 
misfires very frustrating, as waiting around to return to max sp is boring enough. 
Plus, a high percent may (not sure) affect how efficiently you power the staff up. 
You have it at least 45%, but five or ten more percent will only help in the long 
run, and due to the casting time you will notice the difference. 

Essence Eye: Lets you know how close to complete your long spells, charge staff 
and ripen, are. With low to none in the quick chant department you can probably 
just as well guess. Don't bother more than 20%. 

Ceremony: If you solo, get this to 40% minimum, as it is a very important skill. 
Runic heal is a slow spell and use of ceremony beforehand doesn't slow it much 
further. Besides it helps you blast. Less important to partying druids who tend 
to have little time to work with. 

Mana Control: You are gonna fail, but you always have the pool to back you up. 
And, the spells which require extra sp when they work -- charge staff and detect 
poison -- do not drain those sp when they fail. Also the staff's flooding power 
does not work when you miss a spell. This skill is useful but don't go nuts over 
it. 20 to 30% is fine, more if you like casting spells with small percents, and 
let the natural learning process (you feel like you got better at saving sp) 
do the rest. 

First Aid: slower than death's door, but as good as you are gonna get. If you 
party, get this high, like 40 to 50%. Solo druids won't have the chance to use it, 
of course, but even a beginning druid can save the life of someone collapsed 
on the city streets. 

Stargazing: if you have the batmap.gif, or any location memory/wilderness location 
at all, this skill is useless. Put nothing into it you don't have to. 

Detect Poison: remember this also functions as a remove poison. Essential for 
partying druids, very cool for soloers, but many midlevel solo druids couldn't 
handle a poisoning monster well anyway. You have it at least 45%, I recommend 
ten to fifteen more percent for heavy partiers. 

Rain and Drying Wind: rain is good for parties where everybody forgot a canteen. 
Drying wind is good for cleaning up after your rain spell, or when someone gets 
nasty and floods Digga's/the Mines/any other newbie area. But you can't use rain 
in town. Each also is a force field, and as such stop other force fields from 
springing up, which is nice for monsters who cast those damn anti-magic fields. 
Put no more than 20% in each, maybe 25% to 30% in rain if you party a lot with 
non-allergic people. 

Gem Fire: You will need this spell to 45%. Remember that it uses up expensive 
equipment to have any visible effect. At low levels, you won't have much choice, 
but at higher levels consider using infravision and star light instead. 

Shapechange: the bear and shrike forms are combat monsters, the bear having great 
strength and the shrike great dexterity and eyesight. Neither can cast spells, so 
use sparingly and carefully. The owl and unicorn forms are much better overall, 
since you can restore yourself. The unicorn can fight well, and the owl is better 
than human unarmed but not by much. Neither can use skills besides essence eye, 
plant lore, quick chant, and the cast XXX skills. The 45% you are required to have 
is probably enough for most, but some party-druids will want the extra sp given 
by the unicorn or owl form more than the ceremony or fire building skills, and some 
solo druids will like the bear or shrike's armor bonus. For those, get 5 to 10% more, 
less if your skill that saves sp is strong as this is an expensive spell to cast. 

Cast Transformation: only good for shapechange and restore so get as much as you 
feel reflects your needs, but it can be expensive at higher levels...not necessarily 
worth it for two spells. Also remember shapechange and restore are rarely emergency 
spells, so failure won't kill you. Get no more than 50%, 30% being fine for many. 

Bless: since the effect is permanent per reboot, screw up or not, only use this skill
frequently if you have a good percent, which happens about level nine if you max the 
skill out. Used more by party druids, who will want 40% in this skill at least. 

Fresh Pants: since even a failure will dest the corpse, get this skill at least to 1%. 
Pantsing the corpse is preferrable to tinning to soloers but not partygoers. Again, 
if you like stomping undead don't bother with this skill. The cash return is mediocre, 
so don't put too much exp into this skill, 10% being enough for most partiers and 20-30% 
for soloers. 

Ripen: as seasons change some plants won't be usable. Nothing is worse than finding a 
cluster of useful healing herbs in the winter. However, if you botch the spell you kill 
the plant and may get burned, so don't bother casting without a ceremony first and spell 
percent of 30 or more. If you party you won't use this horribly long spell much so 
don't bother. 

Baptize: help Tarmalen and druids out by getting them more good, if you are an angel in 
disguise. Or, use on tanks who couldn't care less about alignment so you can bless them. 
A useful skill, consider getting at least 30% if you party. Since failure or fumble have 
no serious effect, and since the person must accept, don't worry about using this skill 
at low percentages. 

Scouting: for when you know you're close to a given area, since only at high levels will 
this skill give you much more than 'map' would. It uses a lot of ep, though, so use 
sparingly. Get to 40, 50% or so if you do not have the batmap.gif and avoid otherwise. 

Runic Heal: an incredibly useful spell. Get to 50%, minimum. Just remember it is slow 
for a healing spell, so use in combat is restricted. 

Earth Skin: remember that multiple coats can slow you the target down. This won't worry 
the spellcasters much, and one coat will help the thick-skinned tank races enough anyhow. 
A good spell, get to 50% (*a guild requirement*) to start and see how you like it from 
there... party druids might add 5 to 10% more. 

Moon Sense: the moon affects spell costs but you can read them in the help files. Not 
a super useful spell and cheap so failure doesn't hurt much. Don't put much into it. 

Camping: solo users need this much more than partiers, since a sleeping healer is a 
useless healer. If a partier needs sp that badly they can drain the pool. Soloers should 
max this out of course. 

Swim: if you can water walk by spell or by race, this skill is next to worthless. At 
lower levels, though, put a little in to give you a fighting chance, like 20-30%. 

Restore: essential for shapechangers, or for those who have shapechanging friends (this 
will return a bear, shrike, draconian or frog to their normal self). You need 45% to get 
to level 15 anyway, and that will do fine. 

Hear Noises: good for solo druids, since being ambushed will hurt them much more than the 
druid behind a tank. Still, it's cheap, so maxing it out won't hurt too bad, but party-going 
druids need this much less and can put it off. If you are a clairvoyant race, don't bother. 

Location Memory: next to useless with the batmap.gif, very useful without it. Also useful 
if you get banished, which will tend to happen more in parties since banish is a potent 
spell. Since even a small amount gives you relatively many locations, you can get away 
with just 5 to 10%. 

Aura Detection: since tanks will get a message when a spell wears off, this spell isn't 
that useful. Occasionally, though, they will miss it in the heat of battle. Get some if 
you party, 20% being fine. Solo druids won't need it as much, but you too can lose messages 
in battlespam. Get it if you have a small text window to 20%. 

Call Pigeon: the low weight limit is a problem. Use to return valuable plants, gems, keys, 
and perhaps corpses to your castle room before you quit and re-enter. If your starting room 
is in town, don't even bother since someone will grab your stuff. The bags you make with 
fresh pants sometimes can be carried when not completely full. A special note: for people 
with castle starting locations, call pigeon is currently worthless. 

Word of Recall: Get this for sure, you can always turn it off. Get at least 40% when you can, 
more if you solo. If you don't mind a little punishment this can be a free but painful ride 
into the city.At higher levels, when you could solo creatures with nasty stun effects, 
this will save your life. 

Camouflage: You can never tell if you got it right...unless of course you get slightly better 
at it. Monsters never seem to be fooled anyway. This skill is good only for druids who like 
casting rain in newbie areas. 

Tinning: like those refreshing cans? Higher skill doesn't seem to help you get those, but 
it keeps the kit from breaking. More of use for party druids who can lug around a big heavy 
kit without losing combat points. Solo druids should get no more than 10%, partiers more 
like 30% (its a cheap skill). 

Create Mud: can stop a monster or player from running away -- or chasing you. This is hostile, 
though, so be careful. Since so few monsters run into dangerous areas (the chessboard pawns 
will) keep this spell for those ever-increasing chasing monsters and/or wandering undeads you 
cannot handle. If you cast this at one of many monsters, who do not all go aggresive, you 
can try to trip or push them in. If you see any of these situations a lot, get 30% or maybe 
more, but otherwise put extra exp into this when risking death and save it for a rainy day. 
At this time you cannot cast this spell in town. 

Drain Pool: party stuff almost exclusively. Still, a boost never hurts, as long as you stay 
in list+. Max out party-goers, keep down at 10-15%, soloers. 

Wilderness Location: not only can you use this to find the places you memorized, but track 
players as well. If you have batmap.gif and do not get banished you will almost never use 
this, but without batmap.gif this is a very cool spell. Learn accordingly. 

Track: Good for wandering monsters and/or sewers expeditions.However, you can live without it. 

Earth Power: very useful for partiers, quite useful for soloers who need the extra ep and/or 
carry heavy stuff and/or like to force boxes. Get a lot, 50-60%, and you won't regret it. 

Star Light: put a lot of exp into this if you can see in the dark by natural or magical 
infravision. Otherwise, consider sticking with gem fire and sucking up the costs. In a dark 
place, this spell does plenty of damage. Since this spell will never go out of use, get 
50-60% when you can. 

Create Food: this is for emergencies only, when you have no fruit and cannot cast satiate 
person. The spell is expensive and you can't have that much in this spell, so you may want 
to consider missing it altogether for now. 

Good Berry: just before a party or a solo goes into battle, if your sp are maxed out give 
this spell a shot. Remember they rot away fast so use just before battle or not at all. 
Percent affects yield so get a lot. 

Infravision: if you are gonna hang out in the dark, casting star light, you will need this 
spell on yourself and/or your friends. Unlike other information spells, this one could be 
an emergency, so get a lot -- its cheap. 

Water Walking: an incredibly useful spell, max it out. You will have allergic friends and/or 
need to cross deep water at least once. 

Quick Chant: you might jump at the chance to grab this skill, but hear me out: you only get 
so many free skill improves before they stop. Wouldn't you rather have quick chant jump from 
25 to 26 than from 5 to 6? You should be used to being a little slow by now, anyway. Get this 
skill if you party a lot, otherwise at least consider saving it for later. 

Flex Shield: at low levels, the high cost and minimal effect makes this spell a bad idea. If 
you get it, don't cast it unless you have a decent percent, 30% being usable, 40% being recommended. 

Regeneration: a super spell indeed, both for solo druids and partiers, as the hp return for 
the sp cost are one of the best you will ever get if you don't mind a little waiting. Get a 
lot of this spell, in the 40% area at least (note that percent of this spell does not 
affect the bonus). 

Satiate Person: fills the target with food and water. If you run out of fruit, cast it. You 
can also sell this at the newbie sign. Max it out if you don't hit the outdoors much, or 
party a lot, otherwise you can afford to put it off. 

See Invisible: Low level druids shouldn't be playing with invisible monsters. Invisible players, 
though, can be a pain. It's cheap to learn and to cast, rarely an emergency. 40% will be 
enough for most. 

Mastery of Runic Sigla: Max out this skill. It is very important. 

Vine Mantle: a superior version of earth skin, complete with side effects of stacking. Worth getting 
for party druids and solo druids alike. The vine seeds for the component are found by the tens in 
the forest. If you or your friends are unprotected (have no armor) this is worthwile, but it is 
expensive sp-wise. 

Hoar Frost: a dangerous spell that does cold damage, so useless against undead (but that's what 
star light is for). The crystalline plants needed to cast it are found in the druid shop. Get 
a good amount of this. Hoar frost can make you catch cold, not a very dangerous side effect. 

Earthquake: an area effect spell. Much more for party druids, but a fun spell to have. Does mana 
damage so affects undeads. Get some for fun, more for parties. 

Reincarnation: the famous spell that lets someone change race and/or class for a portion of 
their total exp worth. Be careful with this, fumbles could be very bad for your health if you 
mess up the wrong player. 

Wither Flesh: being hit with this spell does a big chunk of damage, which has severe combat 
effects. It can also stun, which is nice, but don't count on it. In any case, every few rounds 
the victim will double up in pain from the spell's continuing effect (think of it as a 
poison-like effect) as long as the two of you are in the same room. This makes it a poor 
pkilling spell these days, dispite the stunning power. You will want a huge amount of this 
spell but don't bother to cast at 25% or less, where the risk of fumble is very serious. 

To give any feedback, criticisms, flames, or additions/corrections at all, please send mail to the 

Druid GuildMaster -=Lanfear=- 

This document is the courtesy of: Shinarae, Jupek and Deagh. 

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