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Also, Call of the Beast needs some rewording, in my opinion. It shouldn't require the target to attack one of YOUR allies, it should require the target to attack one of ITS enemies. I've had three way fights going before, and the theme of the power breaks down in those situations due to this minor wording issue.
Some line by line critique, and then some thoughts at the end to sum up.
This is absolute genius. This is going to be the hidden MVP of the entire Druid class.
If it weren't for this, you'd basically start by casting spells, then shift to beast form for some melee cleanup. But thanks to this one line here, you can switch to beast form, charge into melee, do some damage, shift back and shift back a space to throw down a control spell, then shift to beast form again next round and reenter the fray. This one little line permits the class to function as a sort of dance between beast and human form, instead of just one or the other.
Don't forget "Special: You can use this power once per round."
Also, for the zero people who care- yeah, this class sort of makes my personal Beastform Shifter redundant. That's the homebrew class I sketched up over the weekend based on conversations with my wife while driving to and from Thanksgiving dinner.
My class was pretty different, as it was intended to be a Defender who gets his power from shifting into a beast form. Each character had just one beast form, with broad traits selected from a menu. These traits provided you with your class abilities. They also opened up access to various powers, with different traits opening up access to different powers. So if your beast form had the trait "Venom," you could pick powers related to poisonous claws or bites. Describing the beast form was still up to you, but the traits provided a guide, and meant that the form you described was relevant to the mechanics of your character.
Things I did that they did: the idea of powers thematically customizing your beast form, the idea of wisdom as the attack statistic for melee powers while in beast form.
Things I did that they didn't: made the specifics of the form relevant.
Things I didn't do that they did and I should have done: noticed that Wis v Ref obviates the need for a proficiency bonus to claw attacks more efficiently than Wis+2 v AC, or any of the other workarounds I considered. Duh.
So I think I'm going to add a druid to an encounter tomorrow night. The players are in a large forest in search (skill challenge) of a green dragon - at some point they run into a heavily themed dragonkin kobold that are associated with the dragon.
I think I'll have the human druid start out with Skittering Sneak and hopefully go unnoticed - or if noticed will scurry away. Then at some point when combat seems to turn to the party's favor, he'll jump in beast form and show up as just some natural monster as far as the players are concerned. Finally, he'll reveal himself, drop some controllery spells until the dragonkin are defeated and then distance himself for some good roleplay.
Afterwards I can say "You just playtested the druid!" Works with in a more unaligned sense and jumping in to help the underdogs... heck, it implores me to make the initial combat harder in case he decides to come in to their aide.
At this point the Druid will be my first PC from PHB2. I could see maybe invoker taking over, but thematically I don't think I can tear myself away from it.
There seems to be so many options it looks like it will win the award for "most prone to retraining for fun" class. Maybe that fits well with the theme - the connection with nature constantly changing the druid's abilities with the seasons...
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But thanks to this one line here, you can switch to beast form, charge into melee, do some damage, shift back and shift back a space to throw down a control spell, then shift to beast form again next round and reenter the fray. This one little line permits the class to function as a sort of dance between beast and human form, instead of just one or the other.
I am not sure you can do that, exactly, since you can only shift to/from once per round (see last line of the ability). So you'd use the ability once that round to shift to the form. And you're have to wait until next round to use the ability to shift back to humanoid form.
Of course, it is past 1am here and I'm tired so I may be misreading what you said or misreading the power....
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An interesting thing about this Druid is that their wildshape doesn't have to be anything distinct as an animal.
And if it can be a mass of fur or claws, it could even be scales and tentacles and wings. Somehow I could see a few druids being "Aberration" druids with their wildshape being really alien forms.
An interesting thing about this Druid is that their wildshape doesn't have to be anything distinct as an animal.
And if it can be a mass of fur or claws, it could even be scales and tentacles and wings. Somehow I could see a few druids being "Aberration" druids with their wildshape being really alien forms.
I expect to see options like that as feats, possibly with racial tie ins.
An interesting thing about this Druid is that their wildshape doesn't have to be anything distinct as an animal.
And if it can be a mass of fur or claws, it could even be scales and tentacles and wings. Somehow I could see a few druids being "Aberration" druids with their wildshape being really alien forms.
*Nods* That is the style I am going for if I played a Druid, it be a weird ever shifting mass of animal parts, which will occasionally (when a Power is used) have part of its body concentrate into a complete whole like a jaw or claws.
You know some of these if you didn't want to make it seem like a full alteration. You could say the Druid keeps its humanoid form, but with the Primal Spirit unleashed he can't concentrate on weather spells and such. But instead his body is shifting and leads to said Powers.
I was really hoping that this would be a real playtest of either 30 levels or even 10 levels like the bard. Dang, I wanted to play around with this....
I would hope there will be feats that let you specialize in a particular animal type, and give you some traits of that animal. Or maybe those will just be paragon paths.
Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiird Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!
I wonder at what level you'll get a utility that makes you large or gives you reach.
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I am not sure you can do that, exactly, since you can only shift to/from once per round (see last line of the ability). So you'd use the ability once that round to shift to the form. And you're have to wait until next round to use the ability to shift back to humanoid form.
Of course, it is past 1am here and I'm tired so I may be misreading what you said or misreading the power....
Well, switching forms every round is still a much more fluid implementation of wild shaping than we had in 3E.
Anyway, I also think the free shift upon reverting to humanoid form is a nice touch. It's true that even without this free shift, a druid who begins her turn in beast form next to an enemy could still revert to humanoid form as a minor action, shift away as a move action, and use a ranged attack as a standard action. But that would leave her only a square apart from her foe. With the free shift, she can use her move action to move to safety. I think this is the dance Cadfan mentioned, the ability to move fluidly from melee with one enemy to attacking from several squares away the next round to perhaps engaging another enemy in melee the following round.
"You can wild shape into a bear. In bear form, you have the following bear themed powers. As you level up, you will get additional bear themed powers, as you master your form." It doesn't seem that I'm getting this. The wild shape powers previewed so far don't go into this much.
I'd put good money down on a Paragon Path for this stuff a la the ranger's beast companions.
Not a lot, but it's a bone.
Aside from that, nothing's stopping you from fixing it in the fluff: your powers are all about your specific form, even if a druid who can turn into a totally different form does the same thing theoretically, it won't matter in actual play.
Overall, I don't mind it. I like a lot of the human-form powers, and the beast-form powers get away with it pretty well. I didn't need a wildshaper, but it doesn't seem to weaken the weather-mage, so I'm okay with it being there. The biggest complaint I could have is that grasping claws has dumb fluff that doesn't match the mechanics, but since that applies to large swaths of the core books, it's a drop in an ocean, there. Really, the preview pulls it off okay.
I'm down with it. It's inoffensive, and I look forward to playing a Priest of the Old Ways some day.
They could easily do a beast companion Druid by removing Wildshape and adding a Beast Companion that all the Druid Beast At-Wills and powers would emanate from.
Say, what was the wording about how you count as your own ally in 4E? I am wondering about that and how Call of the Beast is worded.
"Hit: The target can't gain combat advantage until the end of your next turn. In addition, on its next turn the target takes psychic damage equal to 5 + your Wisdom modifier when it makes any attack that doesn't include your ally nearest to it as a target."
Hehe, this power is really cool for a solo druid. "My closest ally? That would be the wife, back in waterdeep."
And no, you are not your own ally.
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After having a more considered look at the preview, they seem to have captured the essence of the D&D druid better than I had dared hope.
A nice set of nature themed spells, giving the ability to control the battlefied. Also has a decent shifting ability, with the option of using powers to make your shifting more versatile (Fleet Pursuit, Skittering Sneak). And they have even thrown in some leader abilities (Barkskin, Fires of Life) to complete the set.
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