The Gaming Den

Druids have always been my favorite 3.5 class because of their awesome spellcasting, stat replacement, and free fighter. But they have a lot of problems. The ability to know all druid spells ever is a bummer, and the animal companion scales really weirdly. But the thing that's always bothered me is wildshape. Sure at late levels you can be whatever you want for as long as you want (pretty much), but at low levels it's so clunky (both in duration and your ability to choose different forms) and it also makes no sense to me that a druid would be able to shapeshift into any animal even if it hasn't seen them before. And you don't even get that till level five, which is pain in the butt.

I was wondering if the Den has any ideas on how to reboot the druid, ideally preserving the animal companion, magic nature powers, and wildshape, while still letting druids be druids from the get-go. Messing around with attributes is pretty boring, but I've looked at Dungeonomicon's polymorph substitutions (and considered at-will lycanthropy) or a diluted version of ubernoob's shifter plus magic.

Vaguely related:

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50 ... w=previous

A discussion of how wild shape should work in Tome.

Game On,
fbmf

Does the Druid really need to be changed?

I don't like waiting until level 5 to get my coolest schtick and the "power now for power later" trade that it requires of any druid beginning before level 5. I also don't like having to choose from cool animal companions that suck (like dire rats and monkeys) or boring animal companions that rock (the overused wolf).

Surgo wrote:Does the Druid really need to be changed?

It has the power, but not the simplicity.

...You Lost Me wrote:and the "power now for power later" trade that it requires of any druid beginning before level 5.

I wouldn't say that the druid below level 5 is without power. You've got cure spells that you can turn into summons, you've got Entangle and can just grab a ranged weapon, and you've got an animal companion that's pretty bad ass (eg: war dog with a chainshirt).

It's not wildshape, but it's plenty of power.

Yes, yes, the druid is strong. But a druid player is given the option to override their physical stats at level 5, which means that at levels 5+ they are encouraged to dump Str/Dex, but before then they are encouraged to keep those numbers just like everyone else.

This does not mean the druid isn't powerful, but it's a trade in power and it's bad design.

Yeah, you'd probably want to design something more like that PHB2 druid variant that just gives you some stat boosts, natural attacks, and movement modes.

But like, maybe tome it up, so they'd all be magic weapon natural attacks and crazy

Full casting, stat replacement, and an animal companion are why CoDzilla has the "oD" in it. As much as other classes need boosties, the Cleric and Druid need it toned down a bit.

So you give them three tracks:

1. Full Caster
2. Wild Shape
3. Animal Companion

Pick two. If you're feeling charitable, the third track gets cut in half and added in at level 5.

And depending on spell/feat selection, the Druid is probably still better than the Barbarian, Ranger, or Bard.

The Druid in my Greyhawk game used that PHB2 ACF, and I had to ask him recently "Dude, why aren't you just playing a barbarian?"

Shapeshifter (the poorly chosen name of the ACF in question) is cool flavourwise, but it basically makes you a shitty barbarian. You still have your d8/medium BAB chasis, but you lose your iconic druid abilities:

• Lose
• Animal Companion
• Wild Shape
• Spellcasting (when shapeshifted, Natural Spell does not work in this case)
  Gain
• At will, Swift action Buffing. Hands cannot wield weapons, gear absorbs into your form, no casting. All weapons below do benefit from an enhancement bonus equal to 1/4 druid level, and are treated as magical from 4th level on. So there's that. All bonuses are enhancement, though Natural Armour is a straight improvement ("your natural armour improves by")
  • Predator Form (1st lv): 1d6 primary bite, +4 str, 50 land speed. Mobility as bonus feat at 4th
  • Aerial Form (5th): 1d6 primary talon, +2 str and reflex, +2 natural armour, Fly 40 ft (good). Flyby Attack at 7th.
  • Ferocious Slayer Form (8th): 1d8 primary bite, 1d6 secondary talons, increase 1 size category (max colossal), +8 str, +4 Fort, +8 natural armour, 40 ft land speed. Improved Crit (claw and bite) at 10th.
  • Forest Avenger Form (12th): 1d8 primary slam, increase 1 size category (max colossal; Tall), +12 str, +4 Fort and Will, +12 natural armour, 20 ft land speed. Improved Overrun at 14th.
  • Elemental Fury Form (16th): 2 primary 2d6 slams, increase 2 size categories (max colossal; Tall), +16 str, +4 all saves, +16 natural armour. Immune to extra damage from crits, immune to an energy related to the specific elemental form you're aping. Great Cleave at 18th.

Three notable things that turn this ACF from "complete shit" to "completely broken"
1. It seriously doesn't state that the enhancement bonuses are in place of the bonuses from changing size. While that seems to be the intended way to handle it, it's just as reasonable to interpret the enhancement bonuses as being in addition to the size changes, especially since the obvious thing to compare it to (enlarge person) calls its bonuses size bonuses.
2. The forms available to you are linked to a level, rather than your druid level. Again, while that was probably the intent, there is nothing that says you can't dip a level of Shapeshifter Druid and then hop into the totally-stacks-with-shapeshifting-bonuses Barbarian.
3. Though it's obviously the way it should work, there's nothing saying that all bonuses and changes are relative to your base form, rather than the form you're shifting from. There is technically nothing stopping you from shifting Ferocious Slayer>Forest Avenger>Elemental Fury and netting four size increases, a 50 point increase to Natural Armour and 32 point increase to Str from size changes at the cost of a 4 point decrease to dex and -8 to AC/attack rolls.

My first step for nerfing the divine casters is putting them on Sorcerer-chassis casting. Animal Companion should just be your Leadership feat.

That would probably help a lot, really. There's a very definite progression of companions you take if you're trying to make the fighter question his life choices:
Wolf (2 HD at level 1)->Bison (5 HD at level 4)->Rhinoceros (8 HD at level 7)->Huge Constrictor (11 HD at level 10)->Tyrannosaurus (18 HD at level 16).

Between inherent HD and bonus HD from animal companion, this track means your companion always has at least as many HD as the fighter, and will usually be no more than 1 or 2 points under on BAB, compensated for with strength score. Of course size starts to hurt, but even so, you can just cast Magic Fang. Which you want to do anyways because you need it on yourself for your wild shape attacks.

Cleric and Druid don't really need to be toned down much. Just shave a tiny bit off of the min/maxing edges.

The average player doing a cleric or druid just won't see the obvious path to power, the same way that you can see the obvious way to be strong as most Tome classes.

Shapeshifter (the poorly chosen name of the ACF in question) is cool flavourwise, but it basically makes you a shitty barbarian. You still have your d8/medium BAB chasis, but you lose your iconic druid abilities:

Yeah just nix the part about no animal companion because that's bullshit. and drop the part where you lose your items. basically don't import the bullshit parts that the WotC designers always try to add in because they're dumb as hell.

You can shift at will, so it's not a huge deal that you can't cast spells while shifted. Just make it a Swift action to change forms or something so that you can be a bear or a hawk or a humanoid when you want.

Changing divine casting to Sorcerer style casting is out and out a good thing.

Cleric and Druid both suffer from option paralysis and dumpster diving due to the crappy design of knowing all spells on their list. They also suffer from being monotone since their selectable class features are all either identical or changed daily (with the exception of domains for clerics). You can fix that on all fronts by restricting spells known a la sorc casting.

Restricting it to a few that a player doesn't have to think about preparing each day makes the class more diverse rather than just about every druid or cleric being able to be the same on a day-to-day basis, and it gets rid of the stupidity of every new sourcebook adding a stack of spells known.

Wild Shape is neat but bullshit because it uses polymorph rules. fbmf's thread and post seems as good a fix as any and I endorse it. Have a list of forms with bonuses/traits and there to go.

So spontaneous casting off a limited list derived from the druid list, an animal companion, and something like fbmf's wildshape: pick two.

I'd like to see a druid version of the simple Tome Mage that casts from spheres.

So you get iconic "EVery druid should have this" class abilities, then you pick from nature themed spheres that include shapeshifting.

Honestly, I'd do something like that for both the Druid and the Cleric, so that you pick thematic abilities based on what terrain you're from/animals you like/god you worship.

I don't think spheres are supposed to include / feature buff spells, but if a sphere's granted power was shapeshifting that would be pretty nifty.

It would be difficult to make shapeshifting a granted ability without it being clunky, or referring to something else. Conceivably you could make a function call to Shapechange, but you'd still have to have a list of exceptions and changes, I think.

Edit: actually.... it could work. ish. Granted Ability: Shapechange at will, animals and plants only.

It already says you can't turn into something with more HD than you have CL, so a first level druid could do Baboon, Badger, Bat, Carcas Eater, Cat, Dog, Eagle, Hawk, Lizard, Monkey, Owl, Rat, Raven, Tiny and Small Viper, Weasel, Junior Worker Myconid, Twig Blight and Yellow Musk Zombie Orc. And that's not a particularly broken list.

Honestly, I'd do something like that for both the Druid and the Cleric, so that you pick thematic abilities based on what terrain you're from/animals you like/god you worship.

It's also thematic that a divine caster's power schedule matches up with Angels & Demons.

I could see shapeshifting (to something combat capable in particular) be like Totemist's Soulmelds, you equip X iconic creature features ("Tough fatty hide, grabby claws, bitey face, I'm a bear!"). If you refluffed Totemist's soulmelds to be physical changes instead of blue monster costumes that'd be a fleshed out shapeshifter class right there.

I was thinking a sphere granted ability like: "You can take the form of a swift hunter. As a standard action, you become quadrupedal, gain 10' move speed, and the trip attack of a wolf. You can't be in multiple forms at once."

Then that would grant spells like longstrider and camouflage.

Give a choice between shifting and a companion.

Having a wolf ally AND turning into a wolf seemed ridiculous to me when done at the same time. It's too much.

Unless you want to be a pack leader a la Bigby Wolf.

Or have the ability to both borrow animal bodies and also alter morphic fields al Granny Weatherwax.

Or have a companion and take on its traits ala FitzChivalry Farseer

Or you want to do something like this

Jennifer Roberson on her fiction, which I haven't read wrote: they bond with an animal, like a killer mammal, in a way---they have an ability to assume a like shape. They don't become that animal, but they assume a like shape.