Druids seems weak, but they also seem useful.
Eg., with the Spherincal battle I did not lose a single hit point, I did not use a single protective spell, and my party level was around 9-10th.
The killer spells were spike stones (the one where huge red stalagmites pop out of the ground) and rainstorm (2X each). Niether spell is that powerful but with web, entangle, and stinking cloud to freeze the monsters in the kill zone they become deadly. (Cloud-kill, fireball, and animate dead spells don't hurt iether.)
You can just sit back and watch the damage fly by so fast in the info box that you can't even read it.
However, I knew they would come to me in the tunnel. Is this virtual cheating, or just cheating?
And will such a tactic work at the higher levels?

No this isn't cheating nor anything close to it.

i am glad that you have found some use for your druid. Well, i like druid (partly because i am an environmentalist) and i always bring one along in this kind of game. However, i haven't found anything useful about them. i focus too much on direct damage spells and often don't see the potential of disabling and enchancing spells. Hope that you can keep on discovering more usefulness about your druid.

I just started IWD2 and I have a druid in my party. Until now, a lot of battles are outside and my druid's Entangle has been very usefull against the Broken Tusk Clan I just defeted.
Beast Claw was a nice tool against the troll and there are some more spells I like.

For me a Druid seems powerfull in the open. So, are there much battles outside in the game, or are we playing indoors mostly after some chapter?
What can you tell me about the shapechange of the druids? Worth trying or should I continue casting offensive spells?

indoor druid is useful ... you can use static spell that works like call lightning but indoors and many druid offense spells work in- and outdoors. look forward to firestorm ;)

shapeshifting isnt that good ... bears work when you can choose them but later too weak. elemental shapes are ridiculous : you look like elemental but attack like druid (bad attack rating) plus you loose some max HP for the time you are shaped ... at least with fire and water ele.

For me a Druid seems powerfull in the open. So, are there much battles outside in the game, or are we playing indoors mostly after some chapter?
What can you tell me about the shapechange of the druids? Worth trying or should I continue casting offensive spells? There seems to be about the same amount of time spent indoors/underground and outdoors in the game, possibly a little more of the former. Still, there are plenty of Druid spells that work just fine indoors.

As for the shapechange abilities, they seem to match the progress of the game pretty well. Wild Boar and Winter Wolf is good for the early parts of the game (Chapter 1 and most of Chapter 2), and then, as things get tougher, you get Polar Bear and Dire Bear. The latter two, especially the Dire Bear, rocks; you get 4 (or was it 3?) attacks per round, about +16 to STR (my Druid (14 STR) had 30 STR as a Dire Bear, which means +10 to damage... :) ). All in all, I'd say Druids are worth bringing along.

A few comments on shapeshifting ...

There are some circumstances where shapeshifting is very useful.

1) If a lot of monsters have been slowed down or other rendered less able to attack and defend themselves, shapeshifting then becomes useful both because the lower Armor Class is less of a concern and because the animal form will really start to crank out the damage on the debilitated foes.

2) In monster groups that include both warrior and archer types, let the main fighters take on the brawny monsters. Have the druid shapeshift and then shred the archers apart.

3) The Druid's Stone often makes the shapeshifting abilities simply awesome because the damage reduction of the Stoneskin spell remains in place even after your Druid has taken animal form.

Even beyond this, the Druid still provides a useful secondary healer and secondary damage caster.

On the topic of druids, my cousin made an interesting party. She made a Wild Elf Druid/Ranger, a Half-Orc Barbarian/Druid, Human Ranger/Barbarian. She swears by this combination in that's it tactically challenging and fun supposedly. I'm inclined to try it because the combinations make sense since it's in the north.

Gabriel

the druid is the only character that could defeat the fire/brass monks in the 8th chamber of lvl two in the monestary.
I tried every other class, and they all could at best kill one monk. The cleric got roasted before he even crossed the room. The fighter/orc/supa-tank killed one monk easy, but lost 168 hp in no time; and died before he could harm the other. The thief, with 20 something dex (+17 reflex save and magic resistance [deep gnome]) could just sit in flame forever and take no damge, but neither could she really inflict any. The wizard, forget it.
After too many tries with rogue and fighter, i tried the druid. And with shape shift to panther, for speed, and monster summoning iv, she won first time and easy, easy.
this may be helpful for the walkthrough