Attempt at Improving/Balancing the Druid Shapeshifter varient

[Suldulin]

Shapeshifter Varient:

Goal: Make the forms more focus in a niche, keep them potentially useful at all levels. Such a level 20 druid can have as much reason to assume the form of a 'wolf' (pred form) as elemental fury, what matters is the situation and the tactics.

Moved the enhancement modifiers to be independent of the particular form to achieve part of this result. Also to hopefully provide even easier record keeping. Rather than your ability scores and saving throws having 6 versions; each has two shifted and unshifted.

***********************

Changes/Basics:

Dependent upon druidic spellcaster level rather than druid level. Make prcs and multi-classing more of an option rather than a non-option, similar to clerics and wizards. You still miss out on features akin to the wizard's bonus feats or cleric's turning ability improving, but the 'heart' of the class continues. This is 'part' of the trade off of losing your animal companion.

A multi-class/prc druid still misses out on improving wild empath, venom immunity, timeless body, and alter-self at will.

Still: Replaces wild shape, and removes animal companion feature.

Enhancement bonus to hit and damage are the same as before

The 'form'/appearance of a shift is chosen at will rather than being 'locked'.

level 1: +4 strength, +4 natural armor
Level 5: +4 strength, +4 natural armor, +2 reflex save
level 8: +8 strength, +8 natural armor, +4 fort save, +2 reflex save
Level 12: +12 strength, +12 natural armor, +4 fort save, +2 reflex save, +4 will save
Level 16: +16 strength, +16 natural armor, +4 fort save, +4 reflex save, +4 will save

(possible/simpler alternative): +1/level to strength and natural armor, save bonuses are the same as/tied to the enhancement bonus to hit and damage. Smoother progression but slight power increase overall.

**************************

Stalker/Pred:
Vipers, wolves, cats, rats. Assume this form if you want to stalk, hunt things down, perform assassinations, or engage in wolf-pack tactics.

Level 1:
Normal size or up to two sizes smaller
Base speed: 50ft
Bite: 1d6

level 4:
Track
Scent (or improves scent range by 2x)

level 8:
Sneak Attack: +2d6
Wolven Trip

Level 12:
Sneak attack: +3d6
+4 to Trip checks
+4 to Hide and Move Silently

Level 16:
Sneak attack: +4d6
+8 to trip checks
+8 to hide and move silently

***************************************

Mobility:
Flying birds and bats, sharks, monkeys, cheetahs, and other such creatures. Assume this form when you want to get around or perform hit and run attacks.

5th level:
Slam or Talons: 1d6
One of the following (choosen with each shift):
--Swim 50ft
--Fly 40ft (good)
--60ft base speed + sprint
--Climb 30ft
--Burrow 20ft

7th level:
Move-by Action
Speed of all modes increase by 10ft

9th:
Spirited Charge

12th level:
Speed of all modes increase by 10ft

16th:
Size +1 (optional)
Trample

****************************

Slayer:
Often preditory cats, apes, and bears. Assume this form if you want to just raw damage and leave foes bloody and dying in your wake.

8th level:
Increase size 1 step (long)
Bite: 1d8
Claw: 1d6

10th level:
Rake or Rend: 2x claw damage + 1.5 strength

12th level:
Bite: 2d6
Claw: 1d8

16th level:
Improved Grab
Rake and Rend

***************************

'Tank'/Plant:
Assume this form if you want to take a beating and keep on ticking, hide as a tree, or place yourself between your foes and the rest of your party.

Level 12
Size +1 (tall)
Slam/Slam: 1d8
Speed: 20ft
Improved Grab
DR 5/slashing

14th level:
Defensive Roots and Vines: Area within reach is treated as difficult terrain to foes
Combat Reflexes

16th level:
Size +2 (tall)
Constrict (slam + 1.5 strength)
No penalty for using one only limb to maintain grapple.

****************************

Elemental Fury:
Versitile and adaptable, the other forms can be better at their focus. Mobility is still best at hit and run, slayer at straight up damage, and plant at defending the party. But combinations and clever uses can prevail.

Level 16
Size +2 (tall)
Slam/Slam: 2d6

Air: Immune Electricity, Fly 60ft (perfect)
Fire: Immune Fire, +2d6 fire damage to natural attacks, burn (DC: 10 + Str mod)
Earth: Immune Acid, Earthglide
Water: Immune Cold, Swim 70ft

Level 20:
Air: Whirlwind (slam damage, DC: 10 + Str mod)
Fire: Searing Flames: Vulnerable foes take 2x fire damage (rather than 1.5), ignores resistance, immune still takes half-damage.
Earth: DR 10/--
Water: Vortex (slam damage, DC: 10 + Str mod), +2d6 cold damage

 

[Suldulin]

Take 2 rough draft:

This version does away with the specific forms and instead goes for straight modifiers and special abilities.

While shifted you gain an enhancement bonus to strength, and a bonus to your natural armor equal to your caster level. Addtionally, at DM's fiat, can gain +10 to disguise to seem like a specific animal.

You gain an enhancement bonus to hit and damage, and a bonus to saving throws equal to caster level/4

Additionally you make pick 2 + caster level/4 trait from the following list, with more options becoming available later.

Size changes effect: attack damage, skill and graple modifier, space/reach, and attack/defense

1st level:
One natural attack.
Base Speed 50ft
Carry Capacity 2x
Scent
Track
+4 bonus to hide, move silently, spot, listen, or survival (can stack)

4th:
Attach
Burrow: 20ft
Climb: 30ft
Flight: 40ft (good)
Sprint
Swim: 40ft and hold breath (8xcon)
Waterbreathing
Wolven Trip

8th:
Size + or - 1
Size
2 claws
2 slams
Move-by Action
Pounce or Powerful charge (2x damage)
Blindsense: 30ft
Poison: 10 + 1/2 caster level + con mod (1d6 str or dex; or 1d3 con)
Speak and Manipulate (still does _not_ allow spellcasting)
Jet

12th:
Size + or - 2 (requires size + or - 1)
Blindsight: 30ft
+10ft movement speed
Improve Grab
Rake (claw damage + 1.5*str mod)
Rend (claw damage + 1.5*str mod)
Constrict (slam + 1.5*str mod)
Trample
Ink
Web
Speak with Animals
Speak with Plants


16th:
Immunity to Fire
Burn (2d6) (requires immunity fire)
Immunity to electricty
whirlwind (requires immunity electricty)
Immunity to cold
vortex (requires immunity cold)
Immunity to acid
earthglide (requires immunity acid)
Extra Swift action

20:
Size + or - 3 (requires size + or - 2)
DR 5/-- or DR 10/(damage type)
Searing Flames: Vulnerable foes take 2x fire damage (rather than 1.5), ignores resistance, immune still takes half-damage.
Speed: +30ft
Poison: 1d12 str or dex; or 1d8 con

*************

Examples:
Level 1 druid shifts: (dog-like form)
+1 to str and natural armor
bite attack and scent

Level 8 druid shifts: (lion/tiger-like form)
+8 to strength and natural armor
+2 to hit and damage
+2 to saves
2 claws, bite attack, size large, pounce

level 20 druid shifts: (fiery tiger)
+20 to strength and natural armor
+5 to hit and damage
+5 to saves
2 claws, bite, rake, fire immunity, burn, size huge

 

[Arkhandus]

Eh, I dunno. I liked the kinda specific forms used in the PHB2. The more open-ended you make it, the more abusable it becomes, and the more fiddly, to where it's more likely to slow down play. Sure, normal wild shape is already that way, but the shapeshift variant made it vastly simpler and quicker, which was one of its advantages.

And I just don't particularly see it making much sense for a druid, a scion of nature, to try taking wierd, not-natural forms. I just think it makes more sense for them to mimic actual animals, plant creatures, and elementals. It'd be nice if there were, for example, one form that could represent a shark, porpoise, narwhal, orca, or similar (like, a Medium aquatic form that could be Large size at upper levels), another form that could represent a man-sized or bear-sized land predator (climb speed probably available at some point; maybe at upper levels they could use either climb speed with Medium size or no climb speed with Large size), another form for birds of prey, dire bats, and similar (probably small or medium), a small or tiny land form for burrowing and scouting type stuff, then keep the plant form and elemental fury forms as upper level ones. I dunno, maybe it wouldn't be as useful, but whatever.


In any case; minor note on the attack forms from the first post. Your Mobility form should probably use Bite or Talons, since the kinds of creatures it would represent would more likely have a beak or teeth rather than some kind of bludgeoning attack. Slayer form probably needs 2 Claw attacks to go with the Bite, seeing as Rend and Rake generally use 2 Claws, and the forms that would be used for that would typically have big claws or something.

Also, I think the Elemental Fury form defeats most of the purpose of the Mobility, Slayer, and Tank forms. Air version is more maneuverable and just as fast as the flying Mobility form, hits harder, and just needs one of the druid's normal feats to get Fly-By Attack. While the Water version is similar for the swimming Mobility form, with more damage output but no extra maneuverability.

Earth version's earthglide is better than the burrowing Mobility form, and of course hits harder and is much tougher. Earth version is also better than the Tank form for durability and damage output, if only a little, while also more maneuverable (to be fair though, it does lack the battlefield control sort of capability). Fire version is about as damaging or or slightly moreso than the Slayer form, but larger, though notably it is about on-par, so it doesn't really eclipse the Slayer form, but rather makes one or the other just redundant.

 

[Nifft]

IMHO the available forms could keep improving with caster level, while access to new forms only comes from actual Druid levels. That gives some benefit to those who multi-class while still keeping the top-shelf goodies for only pure Druids.

If you really want to make the animal forms better, consider dropping plant & elemental forms, and make them Feats which have 12th or 15th level Druid as a prereq. Then not every Druid will have access to all forms, and Prestige Classes will look even better. (Though if you do this, you shouldn't also give free improvements to the basic animal forms. Those should remain connected to Druid level.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[Suldulin]

First of all thank you for replying

re: Arkhandus:
*nods* the second one is still quicker/more balance than wildshape I think? with power remaining consistance regardless of the monster books you may or may not have. (see: wildshape: fleshripper)

None natural forms would be a definite problem aye, but that's something that a DM can and should clamp down on unless it is somehow fitting rp-wise.

Excellent point on the mobility form, my main concern was being able to imitate birds, diggers, climbers, and dolphins.

*checks* ah, I did typo and give the slayer only one claw

Good point on the air elemental, the speed should likely be dropped to 30ft for it? Though the spirited (should likely be changed to 'powerful'? the intention is 2x damage on a charge) may keep the flying version relevant, especially given the extra speed.


True on earthglide being better, but the mobility burrowing is faster. So it's a speed vs power thing. And the Being better than plant/tank in durability and power is semi-intentional (else what's the point of going earth?) You trade off the ability to help control the battle-field and protect your allies in exchange for being slightly tougher and stronger.

How would you change the various forms exactly to keep each one relevant in their role but not overpowering? (I'm thinking the sneak attack of the stalker form should be dropped by one dice?)

***************************
re: nifft:

Hrm I kinda like that idea. The goal though is to make it so that all the forms remain relevant. Where once you get slayer you can pretty much dump pred form, and can pretty much dump slayer once you get plant and/or elemental fury forms.

Make it so each is useful, depending on the tactical situation.

While making it so that the druid is. . . acceptable to prc or multiclass. But not like the cleric and sorcerer are (where there's nothing that you really lose).

Though mobility seems like one of the 'big ones' to grab. Maybe have the form availability and power based on caster level still.

But give the druid core class extra benefits in regards to shifting?

Like maybe at level 15 the druid can shift an extra time in a round for example? So you can cast from the air without dropping like a stone, but you can't hide as a tiny sparrow while doing so?

Or ability to cast level 0, level 1, level 2, and level 3 spells while shifted at druid levels 5, 10, 15, and 20 respectfully?

*pondering* feel free to suggest such

****************************

personally I'm at a toss up as to which I like better

I came up with the 'base modifier, then select some traits' idea after I recently tried statting up an 8th level version of a druid using the first set of rules.
Due to noticing how much better the stalker form seemed than the slayer at that level (especially if you facter in either improved/superior unarmed strike and/or the warshaper morphic weapons ability)

 

[Arkhandus]

Not going to do a serious analysis of the stuff right now, but, a few things to mention -

Earthglide is just plain better than the mobility form's burrowing. You don't list any speed changes for the earth or fire forms, so it can be assumed earth form would use the character's normal base speed. So it'd be 30 feet of earthglide speed for a human druid as opposed to 20 feet of burrowing speed. You need to specify if the different elemental forms have different movement speeds (as it is, you only address flight speed for air form and swim speed for water form; you don't even say what their base land speed is, for example).

I think it'd make more sense if each form gave different stat adjustments, since I really don't think each form, regardless of size, provided the same amount of strength and such; taking a ratlike predator/stalker form should not make the druid just as strong as a polar bear slayer form, nor should it make them just as dextrous (or rather, it should make them much more dextrous than the slayer form).

I don't know why Nifft suggested letting the druid keep getting some shapeshift improvements based on caster level instead of actual druid level. Wizards multiclassed into PrCs don't keep getting wizard bonus feats, and fighters multiclassed into PrCs don't keep getting fighter bonus feats, and so on and so forth, so why should a druid keep advancing in all but their most minor of class features (thousand faces, venom immunity, etc.) when multiclassing into a prestige class that never originally advanced wild shape?

I don't know if stalker form is really better than slayer form just from sneak attack; it only gets one attack to apply those extra dice to, each round, after all. The slayer gets multiple attacks each round. But, maybe it does make sense to reduce the stalker's Sneak Attack by one die (right when it's gained at 8th-level) only because stalker form gets those sneaky, trippy, and sensory extras.

 

[Nifft]

I don't know why Nifft suggested letting the druid keep getting some shapeshift improvements based on caster level instead of actual druid level.

Actually the OP suggested it. I'm just trying to show him he can separate out form acquisition from form improvement, and that if he wants to advance the one without the other that could give him the "PrC boost" he's looking for.

- - -

Suldulin: If you want Sneak Attack to be important, give the form more attacks. Predator form only has the one, right?

Slayer form could combine flying and attacking -- as a Hippogriff, for example. Hybrid animal form? I dunno.

Elemental Fury doesn't need to grant an energy immunity. Acid, for example -- there are other ways to make Earth form tough without granting Acid immunity.

Air: Evasion; then Improved Evasion.
Fire: Fire immunity is perfect.
Earth: Temporary HP, maybe? Then the DR/--. Or DR 5/-- and temp HP equal to your class level; then DR 10/-- and temp HP equal to twice your class level.
Water: Fast Healing, perhaps, but only of damage inflicted while you are in this form.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Suldulin]

The burrowing form would have a 40ft speed by the time of earth element. Hrm, should include that the burrowing can go through rock at higher level maybe.

Aye, unless otherwise stated the element forms go off of base speed.


Aye, the pred form gaining the sneak attack is to attempt to somewhat mitigate it only having the one attack. But problems occur when more attacks are gained in some fashion, such as improved unarmed strikes and/or warshaper. In that the sneak attack makes it more tempting than the slayer form.

Slayer gaining flying would somewhat impend upon the mobility form's shtick though? in the original the mobility form can eventually become large.

Good point on the immunities.

The temporary hp in combination with DR is too much though I think, as they could be renewed each round basically with a swift action. Or by 'dancing' from plant to earth.


Any suggestions regarding the alternative/2nd version, whether traits should be changed or moved up or down?