My idea for the druid shapechange ability

[andarilhor]

I thinked in a simple system to the druid shapechange ability and wanted to hear the opinions of you guys about:

Beast Skin Druid Feature
The druid invokes the spirit of a animal which lend him his form and power.
Daily * Primal, Shapechange
Standard Action Personal
Effect: The druid assumes the form of any animal of his level or less. In this form the druid acquire all the abilities of his new form, but keeps his mental abilities (int, wis and cha) as his thoughts and memories. The transformation lasts until the next sunset or sunrise, or until the druid turns back to his normal form.


I thinked in some variations of this rule, like making as a encounter power or making similar to
lay on hands (at will, but with limited daily uses). In both cases the duration falls to the end of the encounter.

 

[malcolm_n]

It feels too much like 3.5 ran over 4e with a mack truck, to be honest. In all fairness though, it's not necessarily broken either. Try to get away from taking on stats from different things and it should go farther. Maybe something along the lines of a +3/+4/+5 to Str related checks and attacks at 1/11/21 while in this form? anyway, just a suggestion . GL

 

[Wik]

Ah, I love it. Designing class features for a class that doesn't exist yet in a game that hasn't been released yet. It's just so... pure.

 

[KKDragonLord]

Its a good idea, i have been thinking along the same lines for a while, but it may need some limitations to not have some of the shapechange pitfalls of 3.5 shapechange.

hit points are unchaged
maybe a size limitation, for small and medium at heroic, Large and Tiny at Paragon and Huge on Epic
The most important one though is this: Must be a real life animal kind. So that it does not go back to beign an ability that gets exponentialy better after every release of a new monster manual, and thus, vulnareble to the same exploit potencial.

But still, i think we should wait for the books to be released, not long now, to take a look at the animal section of the MM