Monstrous Druid AC...

[Majere]

As I said, my answer was slightly snarky rules lawyering. But it seems like your players are doing that, so it is one way to discourage this build without house ruling.

As other people have said, if the druid wants to burn all the feats and money to do this his spell casting will suffer alot, you will also have "fighter cleric syndrome" where the druid spends much of a fight buffing himself just to be on par with the fighters.

Zoso

 

[azmodean]

The RAW says "the armor cannot be seen", this leaves it to DM interpretation as to wether the shield is considered armor or not. That having been said, there is no way I'd let a character get the benefits of using a shield without taking the primary penalty, which is that it ties up one of your limbs. Either the shield ties up a hand (paw, whatever) and gives at least it's AC bonus and you describe it as you will, or it melds and is nonfunctional.
The rest of the scenario seems pretty straightfoward assuming:
a: character has taken heavy armor proficiency
b: character has taken tower shield proficiency (it looks like you say he does)
c: you look at the spell in complete divine and approve it.
d: the character takes the penalties for the heavy armor and the shield including:
1: not using the limb carrying the shield
2: taking the -2 attack penalty from the shield
3: light encumbeance is over 600 lbs, so probably no encumberance.

He should be able to use the ring, items only meld if the creature shifted to can't wear the item in question, seems pretty resonable to me for a bear to wear rings.

Other than that, seems pretty resonable, as others have said, this character is spending a lot of resources on their AC, so they should get the benefits. (really hurts that he's going to be immune to crits as well, eh?) Barkskin does stack btw.

 

[Nail]

Why all the trouble over the Tower Shield?

(Pssssst: We're talkin' 3.5e, right?)

...has 'wild' wood armor (crafted to be like a plate mail) and 'wild' tower shield (has the feat). He has enhanced both armor and shield with +2/+5 enhancement bonus respectively.

First of all: How are you using the Ironwood spell? (How would you price it? 6th level spell, 11 level caster, continuous effect => 66,000gp each!!!) This sounds way too expensive to me. I think your prices are all goofed up!

Second: Why is he going up to +5 with the tower shield? He knows that enhancement bonus isn't applicable to attacks, right?

Third: The wild full plate +2 "can't be seen", according to the SRD. That seems like an illusion ability to me, and is not a force affect of any kind. In any case the wild property does nothing for the ACP (-5). I'll assume the druid has the feat Armor Proficiency (Heavy).

Fourth: The wild tower shield, OTOH, does not dissappear. There is no implication that it does in the RAW...and in fact if it did, it couldn't provide a shield bonus to AC. So the Dire Bear is running around with one of its paws taken up by a tower shield and -2 on attacks and an ACP of -9 (total -14!). Good luck with that, bub.

....again, I'm not sure why he's put so much money into the tower shield. he could have done it more cheaply by balancing out the enhancement bonuses......

....and that assumes that you've got some cheap way of making wooden armor *without* the expensive ironwood spell!

...He believes also that ring of deflection stacks, but since it is melded in when wildshaping I pointed it out that it wouldn't...

Your call. Bears do have digits, but it's up to you to call 'em "finger-like" or not. Since they can't manipulate objects with their digits, IMC I say no.

 

[Spatula]

First of all: How are you using the Ironwood spell? (How would you price it? 6th level spell, 11 level caster, continuous effect => 66,000gp each!!!) This sounds way too expensive to me. I think your prices are all goofed up!

MotW has a suit of +2 wooden full plate, though it's priced at 137k. The 3.5 DMG's dragonhide plate (with a +2 enchantment added on) is a much more reasonable choice at 7k - perhaps this is what he was referring to.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I agree that the shield will not operate if it melds. That is just very cheesy ruleslawyering. Just say no.

If the Druid is willing to pay the hefty feat costs or gruesome ACP costs, I see nothing wrong with this approach.

It is hardly news that a Fighter or Cleric can superboost their AC to the statosphere. That does not imbalance the game. It is not suddenly a problem just because the Druid can do it, too.

 

[Shin Okada]

Why you need a wild shield when an animated shield will do?

 

[Scion]

good question, more benefit and less cost.

I suppose the only difference is that with wild no one sees it. So, the extra +1 makes it meld and cannot be seen easily.

::shrugs:: I still see no big problems here. That is the slowest, nonsneakiest bear in the world

Oh, and any equipment that could possibly seen as working will still be able to be worked. Bear wearing a cloak? no problem. Amulet? cool. Rings? sure. Hat? go for it. Belt? yep. Etc.

 

[Nail]

The 3.5 DMG's dragonhide plate (with a +2 enchantment added on) is a much more reasonable choice at 7k - perhaps this is what he was referring to.

That's it. Thanks!

Interestingly enough, dragon hide is cheap -- too cheap to be reasonable, IMHO.

Dragonhide armor costs double what masterwork armor of that type ordinarily costs, but it takes no longer to make than ordinary armor of that type.

To put that in context: to make a Medium-sized Full Plate out of dragonhide, you need a corpse of a size Colossal dragon. That's a minimum of a CR 26 dragon (red, of course!), and not something that is deafeated and dragged into town everyday. Yer gonna sell the hide of that beast for a measly 3,300 gp? Wow.

Since the Wild ability on a shield gains no benefit while wildshaped (the shield wouldn't get absorbed anyway, since a bear has a limb to carry it with), go with animated, so you get the extra claw attack.

The druid should go with dragonhide full plate, since Ironwood is too expensive. Let's say he spends his money wisely, and buys enhancement bonuses for his armor and shield that are about the same:

Wild dragonhide Full Plate +3 [AB: +11, ACP: -5, Max Dex: +1, 39,300gp]

Animated darkwood Tower Shield +4 [AB: +8, ACP: -9, Max Dex +2,
-2 on all melee attacks, may take cover behind it, 36,630gp]

That's 75,930 gp, or 69% of his level wealth, for an AC of 36 as a Dire Bear. Just for the record, for encounters of EL 13 (the PCs level), most creatures will have less than a 33% chance of hitting him. I should hope so, given his expenditures.

To sum up: You've made a mistake, Ruvion, in that the Ironwood spell does not get you cheap wood armor.

Comments?

 

[Ferret]

(Pssssst: We're talkin' 3.5e, right?)



First of all: How are you using the Ironwood spell? (How would you price it? 6th level spell, 11 level caster, continuous effect => 66,000gp each!!!) This sounds way too expensive to me. I think your prices are all goofed up!

Second: Why is he going up to +5 with the tower shield? He knows that enhancement bonus isn't applicable to attacks, right?

Third: The wild full plate +2 "can't be seen", according to the SRD. That seems like an illusion ability to me, and is not a force affect of any kind. In any case the wild property does nothing for the ACP (-5). I'll assume the druid has the feat Armor Proficiency (Heavy).

Fourth: The wild tower shield, OTOH, does not dissappear. There is no implication that it does in the RAW...and in fact if it did, it couldn't provide a shield bonus to AC. So the Dire Bear is running around with one of its paws taken up by a tower shield and -2 on attacks and an ACP of -9 (total -14!). Good luck with that, bub.

....again, I'm not sure why he's put so much money into the tower shield. he could have done it more cheaply by balancing out the enhancement bonuses......

....and that assumes that you've got some cheap way of making wooden armor *without* the expensive ironwood spell!



Your call. Bears do have digits, but it's up to you to call 'em "finger-like" or not. Since they can't manipulate objects with their digits, IMC I say no.

I'll second that, It's how I would play it.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

To sum up: You've made a mistake, Ruvion, in that the Ironwood spell does not get you cheap wood armor.

Comments?

The Ironwood spell by itself does grant you cheap wood armor, if you are willing to cast it every couple of weeks. Just not cheap magical (wild) and permanent wooden armor.

Maybe a 4th-level spell that allows any armor to meld for 1 hr/level? Compare that wild property is +3 equivalent, and GMW (a 3rd-level spell)gives a +1-+5 bonus for 1 hr/level.