[BUILD ADVICE] Planar Shepherd

Aktariel · Post by **Aktariel** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 4:23 am

I was allowed to play a druid in my friend's upcoming vanilla 3.5 campaign, and I was also allowed to take Planar Shepherd. (He doesn't know any better, though I have no doubt I will school him well.) (I think we're running Savage Tide at least as an opener until he has a chance to flesh out his own world some more, so building to that adventure alone is folly - he's also stated that we're going to be facing a myriad of enemies [a "well-rounded" campaign]).

That being said, I looked over the class again and while I can imagine the abuse potential, none immediately spring to mind (I was never very good at game balance analysis or breaking things).

How do you like to break your game with Planar Shepherd? (Wish is allowed but the DM may be a dick about it.) Also, the game starts at second level so I have some time before it ramps up to crazy town - and no guarantee that we will ever finish up at crazy high levels.

Thoughts? Build suggestions?

TavishArtair · Post by **TavishArtair** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 4:31 am

Breaking the game with Planar Shepherd is easy mode. It's so pointless I don't know why you would do it. You simply turn yourself into an efreeti and burn three wishes on breaking the game. It doesn't really matter what, because you have infinite game-breaking power.

shau · Post by **shau** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 4:34 am

It's been a while for me, but I remember that the huge thing with Planar Shepard is that they get to have the traits of another plane affecting them. So you you plug into one of those funny time planes and take like fifty actions for everyone other people take.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 5:28 am

There are three distinct ways to break the game with Planar Shepherd:

1) Abuse the "gaining SLAs" ability. Turn into Efreet for wishes, or just turn into one of the celestials/fiends that have a boatload of potent SLAs.
2) Abuse the "can turn into creatures with templates" ability, for instance, turning into a Paragon Fiendish animal with as many other templates as you can fit.
3) Abuse the "Immune to plane traits / Planar Bubble" abilities with a fast or slow time plane to get 50x the actions of your foes.

Also, even without actually breaking the game, it's still a straight power-up with no downside for a class that's arguably the strongest already.

Aktariel · Post by **Aktariel** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 5:39 am

Yeah, I was looking at Fernia for the Efreet/Pit Fiend/Balor/moar awesome shapeshifting, or Dal Quor for the 10x time rate.

What planes do people favor? (and the DM is flexible, so almost anything that has at least been described somewhere is fair game - making my own plane if not.)

EDIT: Remind me how a wish loop with yourself as the Efreet works? Don't they apply only to "non-genies"?

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 5:55 am

Seriously, go to the plane of "I win D&D." There's gotta be one. And if not, you can always find a way to create it.

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 6:20 am

Aktariel wrote:EDIT: Remind me how a wish loop with yourself as the Efreet works? Don't they apply only to "non-genies"?

You grant three wishes to one of your minions. Or buddies. Or whatever. As long as you have someone you can trust who isn't a genie, you're golden.

To loop it, I guess you'd bring in another Efreeti with one of the wishes.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 6:59 am

The 3.5 wish allows you to explicitly create magic items of any cost. Even Epic Magic items, so long as they are not "uncosted" artifacts. The only caveat is that the XP Cost of the wish is higher the more powerful a magic item you create. An efreet does not have to pay the XP Costs no matter how high or low they are.

So if you become an Efreet, you can in three standard actions create three +40 magic items. Epic crap is Core now. If taking several days to make all your shit seems like it would take too long, you can use one of the wishes to make a staff of wishes - that's Core too.

-Username17

Aktariel · Post by **Aktariel** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 3:56 pm

Oh damn. That's hot. I think my DM would try to pimp slap me for that, though.

Dal Quor with the time difference seems like it might be more acceptable... even though it would still fuck shit up hardcore.

That's how you get a wish economy started though, right? Pool your money and get a candle of invocation, and then summon an Efreet to give you a wish, which you use to wish for a staff of wishes. Which you can then use to get a ring of infinite wishes. Or even skip the step, and just get the ring. (I seem to recall that's how the Wish got his mojo on).

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 4:06 pm

Look, asking for an honest use of the Planar Shepard is like asking for a Spelldancer loop that won't break the game.

If you're going to cheese, then cheese, but don't try to do it while gaslighting them towards something 'not that bad'.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 4:30 pm

Aktariel wrote:Oh damn. That's hot. I think my DM would try to pimp slap me for that, though.

Dal Quor with the time difference seems like it might be more acceptable... even though it would still fuck shit up hardcore.

That's how you get a wish economy started though, right? Pool your money and get a candle of invocation, and then summon an Efreet to give you a wish, which you use to wish for a staff of wishes. Which you can then use to get a ring of infinite wishes. Or even skip the step, and just get the ring. (I seem to recall that's how the Wish got his mojo on).

The "Wish Economy" assumes for the moment that you are using the "less broken" version of wish from the original 3e PHB before Andy Collins drove it off a cliff in the 3.5 revisions. That one is capped at a 15,000 gp value. But if you're just trying to be The Wish and The Word, then yes it's LE Candle of Invocation -> Efreet -> Staff of Wishes -> Win D&D. You can do it at first level if you can make the DC 25 Knowledge Planes check to dumpster dive for Pazuzu and the free magic item you can get that way.

Lago wrote:Look, asking for an honest use of the Planar Shepard is like asking for a Spelldancer loop that won't break the game.

If you're going to cheese, then cheese, but don't try to do it while gaslighting them towards something 'not that bad'.

Pretty much. Planar Shepperd is a PrC whose merest existence is an affront to game balance and good sense. It's one of those things like the 3.5 revisions of wish and shapechange that are so obviously broken that you wonder with open mouthed confusion how they could ever have been printed.

-Username17

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 8:28 pm

though I have no doubt I will school him well

Don't be a dick.

Sunwitch · Post by **Sunwitch** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:32 am

Psychic Robot wrote:
though I have no doubt I will school him well
Don't be a dick.

Words to live by. And yeah, don't do stuff that you know is just going to screw up the campaign.

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:18 pm

What follows is the true discussion of how Planar Shepherds were created:

*looking at druids* "you know what these guys need? More Awesome"
"Yea, they don't get enough splat book love"
"well, what you you want if you were a Druid"
"I dunno, to turn into Dragons?"
"There's a feat for that already"
"Yea, but I want to be a Hell Dragon - that's with a template!"
"Okay, why don't we add that"
"what about my animal companion, it should keep getting better"
"Okay, why don't we add that"
"I want him to be a Planar Druid"
"okay, so he won't get hurt by planes and stuff"
"and he should shapeshift into planar things!"
"Okay, we add that"
"And he should be able to add planar stuff to whatever plane he is on"
"Okay, we add that"

Seriously, you lose the ability to transform into plant monsters, and venom immunity to get these things. It does not resemble balance.

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/ ... d_Handbook
Dal Quor - The Region of Dreams - 10 rounds of combat for every one that everyone else gets. Also, you can fly.

Even something as generally awesome as "I want to be a fire druid" is amazingly good - All fire spells are enlarged and maximized, immune to fire, cold supression, and the ability to use at will (Maximized, Enlarged) Fireball as a Firre is pretty crazy-good. I mean, what would you think if someone had a 5 level PrC that gave unlimitted Maximized Enlarged Fireballs after a few levels, with an animal companion and full casting? Tome gives this to a Conduit of the Lower Planes at level 6 (IRCC) as essentially their only ability.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 9:26 pm

You actually don't lose the ability to turn into plants, 'cause enhance wildshape is a spell that all Druids get.

I've been wanting to play a Planar Shepherd for a long time now.

Mostly to turn into eladrins and be all Platonic Elf all over the place.

Aktariel · Post by **Aktariel** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 8:20 am

Psychic Robot wrote: Don't be a dick.

Too late. I think I was born that way.

It was not meant as "be a dick to the DM" it was "show him the true power of the Force."

Also, thanks for everyone's help so far.

What animal companions would you recommend? Riding Dog to start with, pretty obviously, but beyond that...?

Also, are there any +2 Wis LA 0 races aside from the Tome Aasimar?

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 11:48 pm

Anthropomorphic Bat or Toad. Jermlaine.

EDIT: Those are technically Wis +6, though, so they may not be what you want.

Aktariel · Post by **Aktariel** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 1:30 am

I mean, sure. I was ideally shooting for something reasonably humanoid... and while the Jermlaine sort of is, it's fvcking ugly. Yes, I have a pro prettiness bias.

What spells should I be looking at? I know sorc/wiz pretty well, but druid not so much. Time to start splatbook diving, I guess.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:11 am

Aktariel wrote:I mean, sure. I was ideally shooting for something reasonably humanoid... and while the Jermlaine sort of is, it's fvcking ugly. Yes, I have a pro prettiness bias.

What spells should I be looking at? I know sorc/wiz pretty well, but druid not so much. Time to start splatbook diving, I guess.

What levels?

Kelpstrand's pretty awesome at level 2. You should ideally take advantage of Druid no SR Ref based lockdowns at high levels. Since most people don't get those.

shau · Post by **shau** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:01 am

Good Core druid spells:

All levels: Summon Nature's Ally. It's a buffed summon, combine with other summon buffers for a super buffed summon. Then go nuts.

1st: Entangle 40 ft radius reflex save or lose with negative effects even on a save and min/level duration. Quite possibly the best first level spell. You could seriously run around with just this and heightened versions of this.

2nd: Summon Swarm: Looks kinda underwhelming, but it can be used as a damage engine with Entangle/Solid Fog/Wall of Thorns etc. and you would be surprised how much just can't counter it.

Now a huge jump

5th
Wall of thorns: Magic wall of arbitrarium almost nothing can get through in a reasonable amount of time. Frank's choice

Control winds: You can control the wind for 10/min a level and for a radius of 40 feet a level. Controlling the wind includes making everything a tornado. You can cast this and then destroy whole armies by just walking by them. Seriously, cast this and everything within 360 feet of you that's large or smaller has to make a DC 30 save or take or take 6d6 damage per round for 1d10 rounds. If they somehow survive the tornado can pick them up again. Oh yeah, you are also immune to range attacks. This spell is completely goddamn crazy and I don't know why people don't talk about it more. My choice.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:05 am

I always liked Sleet Storm (4th).

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 6:06 am

shau wrote: Control winds: You can control the wind for 10/min a level and for a radius of 40 feet a level. Controlling the wind includes making everything a tornado. You can cast this and then destroy whole armies by just walking by them. Seriously, cast this and everything within 360 feet of you that's large or smaller has to make a DC 30 save or take or take 6d6 damage per round for 1d10 rounds. If they somehow survive the tornado can pick them up again. Oh yeah, you are also immune to range attacks. This spell is completely goddamn crazy and I don't know why people don't talk about it more. My choice.

The real crazy stuff doesn't kick in until you have caster level 15 since that is when you get the DC 30 tornado. It is sort of unclear whether the fortitude negates listed in the spell description is your normal spell DC, or the natural environmental spell DC. That and also that most folk don't like looking up environmental effects to figure out what their spell does, I think that is a large factor for why that spell slips under the radar. By the time you get that tornado though, your range is 600' with a 600' area.

Even at lower levels it functions as a mass knockdown ability in addition to being ranged attack proof. Definitely is nice.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 6:35 am

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 6:53 am

More Favorite Spells:

2. blood snow
2. numbing sphere
3. column of ice
4. boreal wind
5. call avalanche
6. entomb
7. whiteout
8. frostfell

Yep, Frostburn is pretty much the book of Druid powuh.

And kelpstrand is totally the shit. Don't ignore venomfire, either.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 7:04 am

Aktariel wrote:I mean, sure. I was ideally shooting for something reasonably humanoid... and while the Jermlaine sort of is, it's fvcking ugly. Yes, I have a pro prettiness bias.

What spells should I be looking at? I know sorc/wiz pretty well, but druid not so much. Time to start splatbook diving, I guess.

use the 2e version, it's less ugly:

http://www.dotd.com/mm/MM00148.htm

honestly... I look at a 2e book everytime that I want to use something. 3e seems to have missed so many things.

also, I tend to pick and choose the art.

2e Kenku's have a better write up in terms of fluff and how they act; but MM3 Kenkus actually look un-retarded.