Are shifters too powerful?

[Ahrimon]

First off, I'd like to thank korasukage and blargney the second for their input on my razorclaw shifter. I've been away for a while and the thread kind of died, so I figured I'd just let it go.

Now on to the subject at hand:

Why is it so difficult to get extra uses of the shifters shifting? Barbarian rage, the closest thing in the rules, can be increased with a feat. But there isn't much a shifter can do. I'm guessing because it's a racial ability compared to a class ability. A racial ability is available to any character regardless of class. I can see where it could be considered better from that point of view.

I guess I'm getting frustrated because I want to make a character that is a front line warrior using his claws as his primary weapon. A large portion of our time is spent in dungeons where I can expect five to six encounters per day. I want to make a character that is reliable enough to be in every fight. Not just the first two or three per day. I'm having a very hard time making a warrior that can shift enough to be viable at the lvl 6 to 10 range.

I've managed to find two ways that a shifter can gain more shifting per day. One would be to take shifter feats. For every two feats a shifter has they can shift one extra time per day. I guess I have an issue with that. For anyone other than a fighter, feats are too few and too precious to be using every single one just to get a few extra shifts per day. Even the weretouched master, a five level prestige class that seems to be designed to let a shifter get more in touch with his animal side doesn't increase the number of times per day a shifter can shift. It does give you a bonus shifter feat at levels two and four though. Which to me calls for a big unenthusiastic "wow". Four levels of a prestige class who's primary abilities only activate when the character shifts, and it let's him shift a while one extra time per day. By 10th level a character could shift a whopping four times per day and only had to take every single feat as a shifter feat.

The other way was taking levels of druid and using the shifter substitution levels. This option isn't so bad if you want to be a caster. I'm trying to make more of a warrior though. I do have issues with the fact that you give up bieng able change you whole body into another form for five plus hours at a time in order to tap into a natural ability that modifies your body slightly for an whopping 20 to 40 seconds.

The best option I've come across so far is the warshapper prestige class. A shifter meets the biggest requirement by haveing the shapechanger subtype. After that it's all skills. One level of warshapper and a character can grow claws as many times as he needs to. One level of a prestige class is all it takes to mimic something that seems extrmely limited from every other option. Unfortunately, I can't relly solely on a warshapers ability. It takes the extra damage increases from being a shifter to make the character concept work. At best the character can deal 1d6 base damage with a claw attack without shifting.

I thought I had an epiphany the other night. Action points. And then I double checked and found out that they can't be used on a racial ability such as shifting. They can be used on wild shape, but technically, with the racial substitution level you give up wild shape in order to shift more times per day so that doesn't work either.

Have I missed any feats or abilities that allow a shifter to shift more times per day? If so, could anyone point them out. Are there anything like a shifter paragon that gets more shifting per day? Anything that would let a character use a SU ability more times per day?

I'd start creating something right now, but I'm not the DM and it's already been established that we are using only official WotC material.


Thanks,

The frustrated character designer,

Ahrimon

 

[UltimaGabe]

My post is mostly in response to your title, not your post- but that's only because I don't quite know enough about min/maxing to help you out with that.

Anyway, I happen to be of the opinion that Shifters are powerful. Very powerful. All of the Eberron races are, in fact, but this isn't about free 25% fortification or immunity to poisons or immunity to disease as well as a free natural attack or any of those other things the Warforged gets that a human could only achieve through ridiculous amounts of money and/or specific levels of classes, this is about the Shifter.

The Shifter's Shift ability, as I said, is powerful. The get one of many different abilities that not only give you a boost to an ability score, but they afford you some other bonus as well (in your case, claws). Two free natural attacks are a VERY big benefit, especially considering (if I'm not mistaken) they can be used in addition to attacks with manufactured weapons- as well as the bonus to Strength that comes with them. Races of Eberron made things even worse, such as allowing Shifters to begin with Flight or the ability to deal Con damage with every attack (courtesy of one of the new Shifter Traits, and the re-done Longtooth Elite or whatever the feat's called). These don't apply to you, but I don't think ANY character should be able to fly at first level, or get a Wounding attack for free (even if it's only for a few rounds a day).

Why am I even posting this? I haven't added anything to the discussion- all I've done is rant about Shifters. Heck, not even Shifters- the only thing I'm ranting about is Races of Eberron. And not just Races of Eberron, either- all of the newer books are getting this extremely-apparent power creep. Geez, first, Races of the Wild, and now this? Why do people still buy this garbage?

 

[Diirk]

The Shifter's Shift ability, as I said, is powerful. The get one of many different abilities that not only give you a boost to an ability score, but they afford you some other bonus as well (in your case, claws). Two free natural attacks are a VERY big benefit, especially considering (if I'm not mistaken) they can be used in addition to attacks with manufactured weapons- as well as the bonus to Strength that comes with them.

Eh? I don't consider +2 strength and 2 claws (at 1d4 damage) to be 'powerful'. Remember its only for 5ish rounds once/day if you don't spend a good deal of resources boosting it. Assuming you're using a manufactured weapon, you can only use at most 1 of those claw attacks (as a secondary attack at -5 penalty and 1/2 str to damage), and if you're using a 2hander, fighting with TWF or using a shield you can't use the claws at all. The human free feat is probably more powerful, heh.

Of course if you spend 4+ feats and/or PrCs beefing up your shifting it gets alot better. And it damn well should, for that sort of investment.

 

[Crimson_Manticore]

If shifting isn’t all that powerful, then why are you so concerned about being able to shift in every single encounter? The fact that you feel your character is useless when not shifted indicates that you personally believe that shifting is indeed quite powerful.

I myself do not think that shifting as it currently stands (can only be used a small number of times per day) is overpowered. Being able to only shift 1 or 2 times per day keeps the character interesting IMO. That way you have to make a decision at the beginning of each encounter whether or not to shift. If you could shift 6 times a day, then you never have to decide – you just always shift every encounter. Making decisions keeps things interesting.

Also, since shifting is a free action, if you can shift often enough to shift in every single encounter, that is almost the same as being permanently shifted. So imagine the shifter race with no shifting but instead with all their shifter benefits active at all times. Is such a race more powerful than the other LA+0 races? If you say yes, then being able to shift in every encounter without significant cost is overpowered.

Personally, I would allow a feat that let you add one extra shift per day. If I were playing a shifter, I would probably never take such a feat, since you can get more benefits by taking the shifter feats instead, but YMMV. I would also have no problem allowing the use of an action point to gain an extra shift, so long as action points are fairly rare and non replenishable. Otherwise, just pick your shifting opportunities carefully. Your shifter should still be reasonably effective even when not shifted.

 

[blargney the second]

Talk to your DM. See if you can't take the Weretouched Master and turn it into a 10 level PrC. At the 10th level, you become a werewhatever that can shift anytime.

-blarg

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Is shifting better of worse than rage? I think it's a bit worse, so I'd allow an "Extra Shifting" feat that gave +2 shifts/day, and counted as a shifter feat. I'd probably require the shifter to have another shifter feat.

 

[Crimson_Manticore]

I would argue that shifting is roughly equal to raging. True, the shifting benefits are less powerful than the raging benefits, but raging incurs a penalty (-2 AC, cannot cast spells and use some skills), while shifting generally does not. IMO, gaining 2 extra shifts per day for a single feat would be a bit much, especially if that feat also counted as a shifter feat. Gaining one extra shift per day with a feat that also counted as a shifter feat would probably be okay. That would effectively give you 3 extra shifts for two feats and all your shifts would last 2 rounds longer. That does not seem too unreasonable.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

If shifting isn’t all that powerful, then why are you so concerned about being able to shift in every single encounter? The fact that you feel your character is useless when not shifted indicates that you personally believe that shifting is indeed quite powerful.

I think you missed the point.

The OP is saying something much more like, "Hey, I've got a character idea kind of focused around using a longsword. Unfortunately, it seems like I can only draw my longsword once per battle and at most 3 times per day."

 

[Crimson_Manticore]

I think you missed the point.

The OP is saying something much more like, "Hey, I've got a character idea kind of focused around using a longsword. Unfortunately, it seems like I can only draw my longsword once per battle and at most 3 times per day."

Well no, I also understand that part as well, but I chose to speak about shifting generally since that is how the question was asked.

The razorclaw shifter adds an additional layer to the discussion, since his shifting ability also provides a set of weapons. Of course there are many solutions to this, the simplest being to carry a short sword. But that could conflict with the concept. You could choose to take a level of monk or to take the Improved Unarmed Strike feat to approximate, or you could choose the Phychic Warrior route.

Truthfully, however, if your concept is a man-feline fighter who always uses his claws and never any other weapon, than a shifter is not really a good fit. You can make it work, but it's not going to be perfect unless you play a race that actually has permanent, honest to goodness "natural weapon" claws.

 

[Ahrimon]

Crimson Manticor:
Patryn of Elvenshae is correct. I guess I titled my thread from a different point of view than the subject. I'm sorry if that caused any confusion.

Patryn pretty much hit the nail on the head. I don't feel shifting is powerful, it's bonuses don't quite stack up to raging, but it doesn't have any of the drawbacks. Like Patryn said, it like having a character concept built around using a longsword. A longsword in and of itselft isn't very powerful, but there are some feats and prestige classes that I can use to make a longsword a very powerful weapon. I have to focus my classes and feats around using a longsword and the end result is that a longsword is a devistating weapon in my hands. The only problem is, I can only use my longsword twice per day. The rest of the time I could use a shortsword, but the character concept is designed to use, and gains the most benefit from, a longsword.

I'm going for a character that uses claws. Starting with the shifters 1d4 I can get increases from Weretouched Master, Warshaper and Improved Natural Attack. This puts me at 2d6 for each claw attack. But it's only usable two, maybe three times per day. The rest of the time I can use the Warshaper and INA for a 1d6 natural attack. For a character that I'm trying to make into the primary melee damage dealer, 1d6 with the occasional 2d6 isn't that much. And for some people, a couple of times per day may be more than enough. Unfortunately the campaign I'm in is the Worlds Largest Dungeon. Which means I can pretty much count on about six encounters per day. I want to be at my best combat ability for as many of those encounters as possible.

I'm guessing the designers expected characters to be more focused on thier class abilities and not design a character around thier racial abilities.

Blargney the second:
Talking to the DM is an idea, but for me it's the last resort. She's new to the DM'ing chair, and for the most part I've been the DM up until now. We are sticking to WotC matterial only so she doesn't get overwhelmed with all of the options we could throw at her. Not that there isn't a pleathora of options in WotC books, but that's the line in the sand we chose as a group. Personally I would feel, whether it's right or wrong, that I'm taking advantage of a new DM by asking for something that's not in the rules.



Ahrimon