My Wife Has a List of Demands! Part Two: Wildshape

[Charwoman Gene]

My marriage is in serious trouble ever since 2008 put us on opposite sides of and edition war. So much that I almost tried converting to Pathfinder of all things, despite my revulsion for all things Paizo*. Unfortunately, they actually moved the disputed issues in the same direction as Wizards, so that was ruled out. I agree with her on the points but I liked other aspects of 4E enough to not want to run 3e anymore.

I have my concerns that 5th Edition will not include these things. So I am hoping to rally support and find out if others feel the same.

Demand two: Wildshape

Oh for the love of all that is holy. (Or Primal even.)

Can we please see an option where I can play a druid that can turn into an animal for NON COMBAT UTILITY? I can see adjusting the bonus, I turn into an eagle, maybe I can't see as well as an eagle, but let me see better.

Neither PF* or 4e even attempted to address this so I'm kinda annoyed. Hell, if it wasn't for this issue I'd have grafted 3.5 skills onto Pathfinder and called it a day.

*[sblock]If Pathfinder adresses this please tell me specifically how and where.[/sblock]

 

[TerraDave]

I now that if they do a good job with the druid, and pretty much just that, one of my players will be all for it.

As for wildeshape, that was really the original intent...animal functionality. Of course, it was more like guidelines then rules...and for all we know, D&DNX will be the same.

 

[Hassassin]

*If Pathfinder adresses this please tell me specifically how and where.

There are a lot of non-combat uses for PF wild shape. It does give the eagle's low-light vision, but not the spot bonus. It gives a size bonus to Dexterity for turning into a rat, so you can sneak better. Turn into something that swims or burrows and you get that. I don't think the ability lost that much, except abuse potential.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

There are a lot of non-combat uses for PF wild shape.

We want skill bonuses. Simple, easy to use skill bonuses.

 

[DEFCON 1]

To keep the game balanced, you need to keep Wild Shape constrained. You can't let druid players gain extra stuff over the other players for no other reason than they get to be a different shape.

That being said... there might be a way of balancing the druid who has wild shape by house-ruling skills for them. Say for instance that the druid is required to spend like 3/4ths of their skill points (assuming the presence of skill points) on skills when they level up. However, the remaining skill points are kept in a pool that the player can turn into and add to whatever skill they want when they have wild shaped. Then when they go back to human, those skill points go back into the neutral pool.

So say for example the druid currently has 36 skill points. 27 of those points have to be spent on skills like usual, and which are usable by the PC all the time, regardless of what form he is in (human or animal). The remaining 9 points are in a flexible pool that the player can spend however he wants each time he wild shapes. So if he wild shapes into an aquatic creature, he can max out his Swim for that instance. Or if he turns into a squirrel to go across a ledge, he can max out his Balance or Acrobatics. Etc. etc. But once he turns back into a human, those points disappear. Thus, the druid has less overall skill, but more flexibility.

The biggest thing about this though is balancing the druid class by removing a bunch of other stuff they otherwise get, because they have become the ultimate skill-monkey (no pun intended) and are trodding upon the rogue's ground. Which is fine for a particular game and a particular DM... but might cause problems if trying to introduce it into the game as a whole.

 

[Number48]

I would be happy if the Druid's Wildshape ONLY had noncombat use, although I am not arguing against combat use. Just what I like.

Could Wildshape not simply give some choices? Pick three from the lists of combat, movement and skill bonus. Either choose 3 that make sense for an eagle when you transform, or decide which 3 you want and try to come up with an animal that describes. Then, because you don't want the druid to be the do-all, end-all, he gets a limited number of shapes he can do.

There. Done. Took me 60 seconds, hadn't even thought about it before now.

 

[Dausuul]

We want skill bonuses. Simple, easy to use skill bonuses.

Yick. No. Hate the skill bonuses, precious. They proliferated through 3E like cockroaches. If Wildshape modifies your skills (which I agree it should, in certain cases), I'd much rather it just set them to a flat value.

 

[Number48]

Yick. No. Hate the skill bonuses, precious. They proliferated through 3E like cockroaches. If Wildshape modifies your skills (which I agree it should, in certain cases), I'd much rather it just set them to a flat value.

Potato, potato (that doesn't really work without hearing it). We agree that in at least some instances being an eagle should make it easier to see stuff. How that is accomplished depends on a system we know nothing about, so we can't really say a skill bonus is right or wrong just yet.

 

[Dausuul]

Potato, potato (that doesn't really work without hearing it). We agree that in at least some instances being an eagle should make it easier to see stuff. How that is accomplished depends on a system we know nothing about, so we can't really say a skill bonus is right or wrong just yet.

I disagree. I can say that one of the things I hated most about 3E was the profusion of fiddly little modifiers for this and that and the other thing. Adjusting your character's stats on the fly is one of the things I was very happy to see gone (mostly) in 4E.

What I would like to see from Wildshape is simple: A statblock for each animal you can turn into. Anything in that statblock overrides your own stats. It might have to be finessed a little (do you lose your knowledge of Arcana because you turn into a hawk?), but that's the general direction.

 

[Rune]

Could Wildshape not simply give some choices? Pick three from the lists of combat, movement and skill bonus. Either choose 3 that make sense for an eagle when you transform, or decide which 3 you want and try to come up with an animal that describes. Then, because you don't want the druid to be the do-all, end-all, he gets a limited number of shapes he can do.

There. Done. Took me 60 seconds, hadn't even thought about it before now.

That's pretty much how Trailblazer does it.