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<blockquote data-quote="Ridley's Cohort" data-source="post: 2655195" data-attributes="member: 545">You do not need to be a specialized shaper.Once you get past 10th level, wildshaping and wading into combat is not really a big benefit unless (1) your DM has allowed some funky armor into the game that boosts your wildshaped AC significantly, or (2) you cast Animal Growth on yourself, or (3) both.&nbsp; None of these are a given in any campaign I have played in.&nbsp; You could theorectically always wander around wildshaped and ready to cast Animal Growth, but being in critter form has its downsides unless your DM coddles you.Standard vanilla Druids tend to have pitiful Armor Classes.&nbsp; Without a great AC or some DR, you can easily find yourself sucking up well over 100+ HPs damage in a round.&nbsp; That is why some of those odd wildshaping boosts are so useful -- Druids can easily find themselves one unlucky critical away from death, so eliminating the threat of a critical completely gains the Druid a welcome bit of predictability on his lifespan.Most enemies for which offensive wildshaping is useful can also be effectively attacked by summoned critters.&nbsp;&nbsp; Six of one, half dozen of the other.I think the key strengths of the Druid is flexibility and breadth of abilities.&nbsp; For all I am not in the &quot;Druids are superpowerful&quot; camp, it is quite obvious that the class is above average at everything.&nbsp; Do not put all your eggs into one basket.&nbsp; A Druid with Augment Summoning and a diverse selection of prepped spells has a lot of options.&nbsp; Neat trick: For a 4th level spell slot a summoned Unicorn can heal an average of 42 HPs.&nbsp; Outside of combat (it takes 4 rounds), that is a much better deal the than Cleric's Cure Critical for a measly ~28 HPs.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ridley's Cohort, post: 2655195, member: 545"] You do not need to be a specialized shaper. Once you get past 10th level, wildshaping and wading into combat is not really a big benefit unless (1) your DM has allowed some funky armor into the game that boosts your wildshaped AC significantly, or (2) you cast Animal Growth on yourself, or (3) both. None of these are a given in any campaign I have played in. You could theorectically always wander around wildshaped and ready to cast Animal Growth, but being in critter form has its downsides unless your DM coddles you. Standard vanilla Druids tend to have pitiful Armor Classes. Without a great AC or some DR, you can easily find yourself sucking up well over 100+ HPs damage in a round. That is why some of those odd wildshaping boosts are so useful -- Druids can easily find themselves one unlucky critical away from death, so eliminating the threat of a critical completely gains the Druid a welcome bit of predictability on his lifespan. Most enemies for which offensive wildshaping is useful can also be effectively attacked by summoned critters. Six of one, half dozen of the other. I think the key strengths of the Druid is flexibility and breadth of abilities. For all I am not in the "Druids are superpowerful" camp, it is quite obvious that the class is above average at [i]everything[/i]. Do not put all your eggs into one basket. A Druid with Augment Summoning and a diverse selection of prepped spells has a lot of options. Neat trick: For a 4th level spell slot a summoned Unicorn can heal an average of 42 HPs. Outside of combat (it takes 4 rounds), that is a much better deal the than Cleric's Cure Critical for a measly ~28 HPs. [/QUOTE]

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