Epic D&D campaign (still recruiting)

[Jemal]

I'd suggest dropping some levels for Nature's Warrior (Complete Warrior). It's a 5 lvl prestige class, gives full wild shape, 2 spellcasting, and three 'nature's armaments'. It's also full bab.

How bout:
Druid3/Wizard3/ArcaneHeirophant10/NaturesWarrior5/ArcaneHeirophant9
Would give you @20: BAB 14, Fort 11, Ref 6, Will 14,
Also gives Druid casting 24, wiz casting 22, Wild shape 27

I could also suggest things like Warshaper(Comp War) and Master of Many Forms(Comp Adventurer), but they both have the same problem : While they give some nice bonuses to your alternate forms, they don't give any casting increase or Wild shape HD.
I also know some nice Arcane buff classes, but they wouldn't give you any druid casting or Wild shape increase.


**EDIT: I'd say look through the MM and ELH and see what creatures you can find that you'd like to wild shape into with HD between 20-27, list a couple of them, and then decide how much you're willing to give up to buff other things. The primary decision is what do you want to be your main form? (Also don't forget to look at dragons/etc, there are epic feats that allow you to Wild Shape into them, or Master of Many Forms if you're willing to give up some wild shape HD and casting)
As far as Casting goes, if you're just using it for self buffs, then so long as you have maxed casting (~20) then you'll be fine, meaning loosing some caster level for other things wouldn't impact you all that greatly.

I believe Shayuri's also fairly knowledgable on Shifters, playing one in my Epic Campaign.

 

[Shayuri]

All right, I've read the Natural Spell description and nothing there says it's limited to druid magic...so yeah, get it. Druidic wildshape, without MMoF or epic feats, is not actually terrifically great for combat, but there are some good forms snuck in there.

Giant Octopus is nice, for example. Use Fly to circumvent its crappy land movement score. The elemental forms are also useful, especially since you can get Huge forms which have DR, and movement modes that are very nice.

My suggestion to you is this. Plot out three or four shapes you'll be using frequently. Work out how each one will modify your combat stats...Str, Dex and Con, AC, saves and Init and so on. Make a spot on your sheet to write all that down. Then when you change into a dire tiger, you'll be able to tell very easily what your claw to hit bonus is (your BAB + your str mod adjusted by the dire tiger form). Remember that your physical stats really need not be any higher than 10, since you'll probably be spending most of your time in other shapes anyway. Oh, Con should be higher though, cuz your Hit Points stay the same regardless of form. Pump Con in your base form. Get it decently high, because you'll be spending more time in melee than most wizards.

 

[rangerjohn]

Those are base stats plus books. Level adj and enhancements have not been applied. Would the bite of line of spells adjust the animals base stats?

 

[Shayuri]

If memory serves, those are enhancement bonuses. So they'd not stack with magic items.

 

[rangerjohn]

I didn't ask about items, I asked about an animal's/elemental's/dragon's base stats.

 

[Shayuri]

The Bite spells are bonuses to your stats. Enhancement bonuses.

As to "base stats" I don't know if that's different from "stats" or not.

If your Strength is 12, the Bite spell will change it. If your Strength is 16 the Bite will change it by the same amount.

Just remember that when you Wildshape, your "base" stat becomes the average stat for your shape. Then you apply bonuses (like a Bite spell) to that. Clearer?

 

[Jemal]

your BASE stat changes, and you loose racial modifiers, but Inherent, Enhancement, and Level bonuses all apply to the new form if possible.

The bite spells are Enhancement bonuses and would still apply (Though as mentioned before, they do not stack with other Enhancements such as from Items).

For example, using the stat examples you provided:
Str:16 +5 inherent
Dex: 10 +5 inherent
Con: 18 +5 inherent

If you were to use Bite of the WearBear(The best of the bunch), you would gain +16 Str, +2 dex, +8 con.
If you were to change into a Hydra (for example), you would gain its base physical stats: Str 23, Dex 12, Con 20
Your end stats would be:
STR: 23 base + 5 Inherent + 16 Enhancement = 44
Dex: 12 base + 5 Inherent + 2 Enhancement = 19
Con: 20 base + 5 Inherent + 8 Enhancement = 33

Also note that if the new forms stat is LOWER than your current stat, it still changes (So for example if you were to change into something with a Con of 12, yoru base con would reduce to 12 before adding Inherent and Enhancement.

As Shayuri pointed out, it's usually easiest to pick several forms and note the relevant changes to your abilities for each. (Using the above Hydra Example, your changes would be STR + 7, Dex +2 , Con + 2)

 

[rangerjohn]

Except you say the hydra has a dex of 12 then give it a 10 in the example?

 

[Jemal]

Typos happen to the best of us. It hath been corrected.

 

[rangerjohn]

Elwynn's HD rolls

Elwynn's base hps.

I give up! My luck with dice rollers has struck again. I would never be able to survive this with my luck. Much less as a melee character. Come on 14 rolls of two or below?!