Healing under the new wild shape rules

[nameless]

Formerly, whenever someone Wild Shaped, they would heal as if they rested for a day. The new wild shape rules make no mention of this as far as I can tell. Should a druid still gain this benefit?

The repercussions of this are important when some of the PrCs in MotW are taken into account which allow for unlimited Wild Shaping at certain levels (Animal Lord 3rd and Shifter 10th).

-nameless

 

[Rybaer]

Interesting question. First, the new version of Wild Shape does mention that you still heal as if having rested for a day. (MotW Pg 11, paragraph 4, "Upon changing to an animal form, she regains lost hit points as if she had rested for a day, though this healing does not restore temporary ability damage or provide any other benefits of resting for a day, and changing back does not heal her further.")

Those two prestige classes make no mention of this not still being a feature of their use of wild shape. I'm not sure if it would be game breaking to allow the player essentially unlimited healing on their own person or not. On the one hand, they would always have full hit points while resting. On the other, because wild shape requires a standard action to activate, they probably wouldn't be using this feature much while in a fight. (Assuming they prefer fighting in animal form, they'd have to un-wild shape, then re-wild shape to gain the few hit points equal to their level...two rounds. Most likely, a cleric of similar level would be capable of healing as much or more per round in a fight.)

Tough call. I think removing it entirely from those classes would be too penalizing. Perhaps limiting the added healing benefit to once per level of prestige class per day would give the necessary bit of balance to the ability. Personally, I think I'd allow it's use in an unlimited fashion for a while and then work with any player to restrict it should it prove unbalancing.

-Rybaer

 

[Skaros]

Hi nameless,

I've been looking at this as well lately.

I don't believe it is unbalancing, and here is why.

For the Shifter PrC: They are a 10th lvl Shifter before they have unlimited wild shapes. By this time they are at least 15th level. Think about all of the healing that is normally available to a character like that through spells? They've given up 10 levels of spellcasting ability for their new shifting abilities.

Further, they have access to various forms that can heal themselves, like troll.

For the Animal Lord PrC: This is a cool trick for them. By 8th character level they could be a lvl 3 animal lord, allowing unlimited shifts into and out of animals in their domain. As mentioned above, however, this requires a standard action (until they are high enough level to shift into dire animals, allowing them to take the fast wild shape feat), reducing its usefulness in combat.

Mostly they will be waiting until combat is over, and then using their shifting to heal themselves after combat (much as any cleric or druid or bard will be through spells and magic items.

I think it IS possible to put some work into optimizing this ability...by taking the faster healing feats, etc. I don't think it is much any more unbalancing than a lot of other abilities that can be optimized by this level though.

Just my opinion...I haven't seen one of either class in action yet.

-Skaros

 

[nameless]

Okay, with the animal lord sharing his lesser form (level 5 or 6, I believe), can't he also heal any number of subjects as much as he wants (1 target per level per use)? Doesn't that trump the healing ability of any other possible class? Is _that_ overpowered?

-nameless

 

[orbitalfreak]

How about adding the PrC levels to Druid levels, and then determine the number of wild-shapes a Druid of this level would have. This number would be the number of "healing wild-shapes" available to the Druid. Other wild-shapes beyond this number would not allow further healing.

For Share Lesser Form, how about one of these:

1. Limit it as above for unlimited wild-shaping.
2. Have the healing function once per day.
3. No healing from using this ability.
   [/list=1]
   
   I'm leaning to number 1, maybe a little more restrictive, but not quite as strict as number 2.

 

[Skaros]

Okay, with the animal lord sharing his lesser form (level 5 or 6, I believe), can't he also heal any number of subjects as much as he wants (1 target per level per use)? Doesn't that trump the healing ability of any other possible class? Is _that_ overpowered?

-nameless

Good point. I'm still inclined to wait until this presents itself as a major problem before writing a bunch of house rules for it.

I've never really seen healing outside of combat as a problem in our group thus far. There are always enough healing magics to go around.

Healing others with share lesser form would be a major benefit to any party. Would it cause problems in a game? I think it depends on the campaign.

-Skaros