PHB II Druid alternate wild shape

[hazmat]

Has anyone here used the alternate wildshaping where the druid loses the animal companion and there is a set progression of bonuses applied to the druid's base stats?

I'm thinking about using this variant for a character in an upcoming campaign.

 

[Christian]

I'm playing one that just hit 9th level ... What do you wish to know? It's a lot simpler to keep track of everything than with a standard druid, that's for sure.

[ETA: Here is the last thread on this subject I participated in ...]

 

[joshjurg]

I used it also on a NG mountain orc druid with a huge str. it worked well.

EDIT : i guess I should elaborate - it enforces the fact that you can build a melee oriented druid. However since you only get a bump to str, you cant make it a dump stat.

 

[DreadArchon]

It's super-spiffy. The mobility alone is worth it (Heavy Armor, speed of 20 or 15 and lots of check penalties --> no armor check penalty and speed 50, as a Swift action, at will--as your level 1 ability!), the usefulness as a disguise is nice, and if you really want an animal companion, use your free feat (the one that you should normally have devoted to Natural Spell ) to take Leadership. (Heck, it's even level 6, just like Natural Spell. Coincidence? I think so, but it's a good one.)

 

[Torx]

A player in my game is has played one of these druids from 3rd-9th level so far. As others have noted in this and other threads, the bookkeeping goes down quite a bit (btw, 'bookkeeping' has three consecutive double letters). It's also a step down in power, but not in a bad way.

But two side effects occur that may be hard to notice at first glance:

First, magical items, at least the big six (besides Wis booster), are limited in usefulness. The druid is confined to non-combat magic items, or at least items that only boost spellcasting. Our druid has been using magic items that help communication, spot & listen, and other utility items. But he always glazes over when the party is dividing the spoils of war, since it's doubtful anything is useful for him. I have to purposefully leave magic items that may be useful for the druid.

Second, the feat support is limited. There are no feats that specifically apply to the shapeshifter variant. The druid doesn't get enough feats to focus on combat feats, and is kind of left with sub-par feat choices as levels progress. It's even hard to adapt many of the current collection of wild shape feats to work for the shapeshifter, since many require expending wild shape uses and the shapeshifter has, well, an unlimited number (actually 14,400 swift actions per day).

Those caveats said, it's still a wonderful variant and I prefer it over the druid as written. Still, some more feat support and perhaps a few targeted magical items would do wonders.

*edit - fixed bad math.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

After proving that the two-weapon fighting ranger is a valid melee combat character, one of the players in our group decided to roll up (read: 25-point buy) a Druid Shapeshifter.

So far, the character was very effective, and in some ways very similar to a Barbarian - Dishing out tons of damages, taking tons of damage, and eating tons of cure spells.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I made one up and have so far picked Improved Natural Attack for each of the attack types (Bite, Claw, Talon). I also took some grappling and tripping feats.

And I also cheesed it and went into Warshaper to get reach, more bonuses to Str and Con, and eventually fast healing...

 

[Christian]

First, magical items, at least the big six (besides Wis booster), are limited in usefulness. The druid is confined to non-combat magic items, or at least items that only boost spellcasting. Our druid has been using magic items that help communication, spot & listen, and other utility items. But he always glazes over when the party is dividing the spoils of war, since it's doubtful anything is useful for him. I have to purposefully leave magic items that may be useful for the druid.

Second, the feat support is limited. There are no feats that specifically apply to the shapeshifter variant. The druid doesn't get enough feats to focus on combat feats, and is kind of left with sub-par feat choices as levels progress. It's even hard to adapt many of the current collection of wild shape feats to work for the shapeshifter, since many require expending wild shape uses and the shapeshifter has, well, an unlimited number (actually 86,400 swift actions per day).

Those caveats said, it's still a wonderful variant and I prefer it over the druid as written. Still, some more feat support and perhaps a few targeted magical items would do wonders.

My feats so far (elven druid 9) are Extend Spell, Empower Spell, Craft Wondrous Item, and Multiattack. Craft Wondrous I mainly use for the rest of the party--just did a Periapt of Wis and a Pearl of Power for myself, and I think a Cloak of Resistance. And the metamagic is handy because our group uses the spontaneous metamagic alternate rule (from Unearthed Arcana, I think?); I probably still would have taken Extend without that rule, but not Empower.

Dead-on with the magic items. I have a +1 longbow I virtually never use. My melee weapon? A mundane club that I've carried forever. (Oh, I think I have a backup dagger. So I have a 9th-level character with 2 GP total value in his melee weapons.) On the rare occasion that I use it, it's a handy target for Shillelagh. The DM just very kindly gave me a custom magic item that affects my shapeshift forms as well as creatures I summon. Other than that, virtually all of my magic items are non-combat-oriented. Once combat starts, I'm either tossing spells, or shifting ... On the plus side, that leaves some room in the standard character wealth progression for some pretty cool & unusual miscellaneous items. When you don't have to worry about keeping your arms & armor ahead of the power curve, you can afford to pick the far-out stuff from the loot piles.

 

[hazmat]

I'm interested in how this character will play out. I went in with the druid as an add on to a Wolf Totem Barbarian. Though I think I'll have more druid levels than barbarian levels before I go into Nature's Warrior.

My feats at third (Druid 1/Wolf Totem Barbarian 2) are:
Combat Reflexes, Vexing Flanker, Dodge, Mobility, Practised Spell Caster. (Human with 2 Flaws)

I plan on taking Adaptive Flanker and Elusive Target as my next feats.

 

[atomn]

I'm interested in how this character will play out. I went in with the druid as an add on to a Wolf Totem Barbarian. Though I think I'll have more druid levels than barbarian levels before I go into Nature's Warrior.

Unfortunately that's another detriment that the variant has, since it doesn't have the Wild Shape class ability it won't qualify for most typical Druid PrCs. So RAW, you won't be able to enter the Nature's Warrior PrC. The same rule goes for magic items and feats which specify "Wild Shape".