Clarification on paramiters of Wild Shape

[Argent Silvermage]

Hi,
I was in a 'discussion' in another thread about how Wild Shape is used. I was under the impression that you had to choose a perminant animal shape for each size catigory. such as for Medium if I choose Cheetah than I was only allowed to assume a cheetahs for if I wanted to use the Medium form.

There are a few people who are saying that you are not that restricted. They say that you can choose the form when you Wild Shape and that it can not change with out wild shaping again but you can go from a wold to a cheetah to a wolverine... allin the same size catigory.
What is correct?

 

[Pielorinho]

Thanks for posting this here, Argent; this is a much better place for the argument, and you help me not hijack another thread .

Obviously, I believe that a druid can choose a new wildshape form with each use of the ability. Folks who are interested in the revised wildshape rules may find them here, on Wizard's Web site. A relevant section of the text:

At 5th level, a druid gains the spell-like ability to turn herself into a Small or Medium-size animal (but not a dire animal or a legendary animal) and back again once per day. The druid may adopt only one animal form per use of this ability.

If it said, "per size category," or "per use of this ability allowed per day," I'd agree with you, Argent. But one form per use implies (because of a lack of other restrictions) that each time the druid uses the ability, she must choose one form.

Is there somewhere besides the quote above that you see the rules restricting a druid to one form per size category?

Daniel

 

[Argent Silvermage]

In my mind it has been that way. tht you choose the one animal from that size catigory. to show this you have the feats of sent and blindsight. in each feat the prerequsite is that the druid has to have access to the form. I could be missing the point but I figure they are not just saying you have to be 5th level to use scent and 12th lervel to use blindsight, otherwise they would have said that.
But they are specific in stating that you have to have that animal form to gain the feats.
another thing... in the Shifter Prc it states that they can assume the form of Humanoids (they use the plurel to show it is not just one form they can take)

 

[Artoomis]

At 5th level, a druid gains the spell-like ability to turn herself into a Small or Medium-size animal (but not a dire animal or a legendary animal) and back again once per day. The druid may adopt only one animal form per use of this ability.

What odd phrasing. The last part is totally superflous as written- if you can only turn into a small or medium-size animal and back once per day, then obviously you can only use one animal form at a time when you do that.

I think this was originally meant to clarify that you could not change yourself multiple times like Polymorph Self. I think this because here is what's in the SRD:

Wild Shape: At 5th level, a druid gains the spell-like ability to polymorph self into a Small or Medium-size animal (but not a dire animal) and back again once per day. Unlike the standard use of the spell, however, the druid may only adopt one form. As stated in the spell description, the druid regains hit points as if he or she has rested for a day. The druid does not risk the standard penalty for being disoriented while in the wild shape.

Here a note about adopting only one form serves to clarify how this works differently from Polymorph Self.

It looks like you can do any animal every time you use Wild Shape.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

I'm Wrong! Hooray!

According to the FAQ. you choose the shape before you change. and not only 1 shape ever for that catigory. That's excellant!

 

[Pielorinho]

In my mind it has been that way. tht you choose the one animal from that size catigory. to show this you have the feats of sent and blindsight. in each feat the prerequsite is that the druid has to have access to the form. I could be missing the point but I figure they are not just saying you have to be 5th level to use scent and 12th lervel to use blindsight, otherwise they would have said that.
But they are specific in stating that you have to have that animal form to gain the feats.
another thing... in the Shifter Prc it states that they can assume the form of Humanoids (they use the plurel to show it is not just one form they can take)

I think the deal with scent and blindsight is to allow other shapeshifting creatures to take the feats. A werewolf PC, for example, can assume a form that has the scent ability, and can therefore take the "scent" feat. 3E is modular in nature: they try to build the game in such a way that new pieces can be added easily to it. If someone decides to add a race of beings to their campaign that can turn into porpoises 1/day, they can easily see that their new race has access to the blindsight feat.

And the use of "humanoids" rather than "humanoid" in the shifter PrC is hardly a strong argument. We already know that an 8th-level druid can assume the form of animals: even under your interpretation, they have two different forms. Yet the description of wildshape refers to assuming the form of an animal. I think this is just evidence that the writer uses slightly different phrasing in different places in the book.

I think the key restriction is in the phrase, "one form per use of this ability." If they'd wanted to restrict it further, they could have said something like,

"At fifth level, the druid may choose one animal whose form he may take once per day. At eighth level, he may choose a new form, for a total of two forms...."

The lack of any text like this makes me think you're playing with a nonstandard restriction to the wildshape ability.

Daniel

 

[Pielorinho]

Re: I'm Wrong! Hooray!

According to the FAQ. you choose the shape before you change. and not only 1 shape ever for that catigory. That's excellant!

Heh -- guess i shoulda checked the FAQ too. Thanks for verifying it, Argent!

Daniel

 

[wujenta]

I have another question about wild shape... Can you wild shape in a Dire Lion advanced to 24 HD (its maximum) or you have to wildshape only to standard animals? I am runnig a druid that has just reach level 15 and now is able to wildshape into huge animals and I will try this in the next sesion.

 

[Berk]

when you wildshape or shift you assume the form of an average creature.

 

[Pielorinho]

Sadly, I think Berk is right. However, I'm not clear what benefit you'd get, other than size, from wildshaping into an advanced version of an animal: animals advance by getting better HD and better BAB, and your HP and BAB are unchanged by wildshaping.

If you're looking to change into a huge version of a creature, you may be able to persuade your DM to have a section of the campaign world with superdire lions, lions who are on average huge in size. If you can travel there and see these superdire, you'd be able to wildshape into one.

Daniel