Would you say the Dragon Wild Shape feat is a bit powerful?

[Brother MacLaren]

They can fly *really fast* with Poor or worse maneuverability if they assume the form of a Medium or larger dragon. A recipe for disaster in enclosed areas, IMO.

Still, in the open it lets you get away from just about anything. And against another dragon, you can keep up him when you've got him on the ropes, when normally it's high movement would let it escape. But I agree, you wouldn't take dragon form if you needed maneuverability. You have other shapes to use in that case.

 

[Falling Icicle]

How is this any worse than the Shapechange spell?

 

[Brekki]

How is this any worse than the Shapechange spell?

It's not worse, just a different kind of "bad"

This feat can be taken @ lvl 12, so comes into play way before shapechange ... and wildshape is supernatural so can't be dispelled.

 

[Sammael]

It's not broken. I made a PrC that allows the player to take the shape of a silver dragon (gradually more and more powerful), without most of its supernatural abilities, and I ended up having to give it d12 and two good saves just to make it plausible. So, even though this is a bit on the powerful side, I don't think it is broken - because of the aforementioned HD limit.

And for anyone bothered with dragon's flight speed, consider the druid's tree stride spell. Vastly superior for transportation.

 

[Perun]

How is this any worse than the Shapechange spell?

It's not "worse" than shapechange. It's just that with one feat (which is limited to higher-level characters) you gain a nice bundle of goodies when you wild shape.

Shapechange can do all of that, and more (you're not limited neither by size nor by creature type), but it is a 9th-level spell, available to 17th-level characters, that lasts for 10 minutes/level (which equals to about 3 hours at tzhose levels). Dragon wild shape is a feat that lets you wild shape into a Small or Medium dragon. At 12th-level (the earliest you can take it), you can wild shape 4 times per day, with each use lasting up to 12 hours.

Compared to standard wild shape options, dragon wild shape gives much more abilities. You can get better ability scores by wild shaping into an animal (true dragon form will give you, at best, Str 17, Dex 10, Con 15, other dragon forms might provide better ability scores), do more damage, etc. But no other option (short of shapechanging) will give you the nice abilities I mentioned in my original post (blindsense, darkvision, low-light vision, incredible overland speed (160 miles per day!), breath weapon, plus generally one special ability, some energy immunity, etc.)

I don't believe any of the abilities a character gains by choosing this feat is game-breaking per se (it's 12th-level we're talking about here, after all -- that's about the low-end of high levels, and some of the better Medium dragon forms aren't available until 13th-level), I'm just wondering if it's simply too much of a possible benefit from a single feat (and I'm referring to quantity here).

I'm currently playing a 10th-level druid. I'd love to pick this feat at 12th level. I'm just not certain what I'd have said if a player approached me with this feat when I was a DM.

 

[Patlin]

It's a really good feat, and I've enjoyed playing it. In my experience, though, a big bear is a better shape to beat things up in, so using it has its downsides. The limitation on the size of Dragon is significant, and Dragons tend to have high HD for their power level, which limits it further.

 

[aurance]

A character with even one epic level is so far superior than a character of 20th level that there is little common ground.

This, of course, is completely untrue.

Can you back up this assertion, or is this just a knee-jerk reaction?

 

[Patlin]

Hmm. Some confusion here, there are actually two feats by the same name. One is epic, one is in Draconomicon. Both are very nice...

 

[Saeviomagy]

Personally, I'd say it's way, way out of the league of what a single feat should do.

Really.

Mind you, the same is true of exalted wildshape.

I'd say to allow it, but not allow any of the SU abilites other than the breath weapon.