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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Old Gumphrey" data-source="post: 1677828" data-attributes="member: 12872">Ok then, I'll just inform the DM that my druid has traveled the world and visited every terrain on the planet at least once. Why not? If before this issue came up I wanted a world-traveled rogue and that would be allowed, this also has to be allowed, or else it's a double standard arbitrary DM fiat.This discussion of late is really just a silly semantics debate and is pussyfooting around the heart of the issue: that yes, it really *is* that easy for a core druid to be able to change into anything he wants to. So the PHB says I can't change into a polar bear if I've never left my temperate forest. Contradicts what's already said, but OK. Then I want to make this traveled druid and that's probably going to be countered with "well the DM is stupid if he lets you do that" or something similar. I'm not buying it. If in-depth knowledge of something doesn't qualify as familiarity, what does? I don't buy that casually observing a polar bear is somehow more familiar with it than studying it extensively and knowing where it lives, what it eats, its mating habits, what it looks like, how big it is, etc, etc, etc. Also, I'm sure in a world with D&D magic it's not too far off by a long shot to have an indoor zoo of sorts with things like polar bears in them. None of the semantics prevent me from defining something like this and would back up your views just fine.Hmm, weird, I don't see that quote ANYWHERE in the text you offered.That's a pretty good solution but instead of pushing I'd like to impose a set limit...maybe one form per two ranks in Knowledge (nature)? Despite my arguments in favor of a core druid easily shifting into anything, I am greatly opposed to it.Except that Polymorph doesn't require anywhere near that kind of precision and that is what Wild Shape is based on. You presumably hold the image in your head and shift into that. It's bunk to put the crunch on an innately wild-shaping druid like that but allow the other casters total freedom. Can anyone tell I'm not a big fan of arbitrary restrictions? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Now if you want to apply that same type of restriction to all polymorphing, that seems a lot more fair to me.I'm already using that actually, except with +1 levels, and thinking about changing it to +2. I do not believe that the druid is somehow fundamentally weaker if it cannot be a full spellcaster while in Dire Bear form. If a wizard polymorphs to a dire bear and he wants to cast spells he has to make them silent and stilled and have Eschew Materials...so I put Eschew Materials as a requirement for Natural Spell and I think +2 levels is a fair trade. Almost all spellcasters take Spell Focus, but 100% of druids take Natural Spell as-written. That means it's way too good. I have never even heard of a 3.5 druid that skipped out on Natural Spell. What could possibly be a better choice? It's not like Natural Spell doesn't fit every druid concept in existence.</blockquote>

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