Alternate Druid

[Hand of Horus]

A player of mine wants to play a druid without spellcasting, but super-enhanced Wildshape. How would you do this, starting at first level?

 

[Herobizkit]

1) Allow him to be a Hengeyokai (from the OA): they are natural shapeshifters.

2) He should take the feat Extra Wild Shape (originally from the splatbook for Rangers, Druids and Barbarians).

3) He should advance into the Master of Many Forms PrC as early as possible.

4) My memory might be off, but I think there was some kind of Shapeshifter "kit" in the old AD&D2's Druid's Handbook. Might be some mining worth doing there.

 

[eamon]

Unearthed Arcana includes a Ranger Variant which can wild shape.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#ranger

This ranger loses his Combat Style tree, and gains Barbarian fast movement and nerfed WildShape.

I'ld say you could grant him PHB2 Shapeshift instead, if you further remove the animal companion, remove ranger favored enemies, remove spellcasting.

You'd basically end up with a character with full BAB, PHB2 Shapeshift, and Barbarian fast movement. I wouldn't let him use normal wild shape as it's horrendously annoying and often broken. If you use the far simpler PHB2 variant, then make sure you try and accommodate abilities that, as worded, only apply to wild shape specifically (such as Wilding Clasps which at 4k gp allow you to keep a magic item when you shapeshift, or Wild Armor, which explicitly mentions wild shape, but simply predates shapeshift).

 

[wolff96]

I'ld say you could grant him PHB2 Shapeshift instead, if you further remove the animal companion, remove ranger favored enemies, remove spellcasting.

You'd basically end up with a character with full BAB, PHB2 Shapeshift, and Barbarian fast movement. I wouldn't let him use normal wild shape as it's horrendously annoying and often broken. If you use the far simpler PHB2 variant, then make sure you try and accommodate abilities that, as worded, only apply to wild shape specifically (such as Wilding Clasps which at 4k gp allow you to keep a magic item when you shapeshift, or Wild Armor, which explicitly mentions wild shape, but simply predates shapeshift).

I would say eamon is on the right path here. That would give you a nasty combatant -- especially since the attacks of a Shapeshift Druid pick up enhancement bonuses to attack and damage.

I would recommend considering a couple of extra "form" feats for the PHB2 shapeshift, though. A feat that granted an aquatic form and perhaps a burrower or climber would really round out the package for a character that did nothing but shapeshift.

 

[eamon]

I would recommend considering a couple of extra "form" feats for the PHB2 shapeshift, though. A feat that granted an aquatic form and perhaps a burrower or climber would really round out the package for a character that did nothing but shapeshift.

That sounds like a good idea. I guess the basic principle here is that the PHB2 shapeshift variant is an improvement on wild shape, but there aren't any means of improving it further, unlike Wild Shape, simply because it's so new. I'd definitely allow new forms via feats just as wolff suggests! The best part about it is that you can get the player to do the designing for you if he likes it, and all you have to do is check if it's balanced. The basic shapeshift forms all follow a similar pattern and it's easy to extrapolate a new one. My personal preference would be to make sure that any new forms have a few fun special abilities rather than increased power. A normal druid could cast spells while wild shaped so it's not crazy to let a shapeshifted druid have a few funky, flashy abilities (they don't even need to be super powerful, just fun).