NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emberashh" data-source="post: 9022074" data-attributes="member: 7040941">I don't think so. What could be done instead is to have the stats be universal (which is thematic; especially given most shapeshifters in media tend to transfer their wounds to their other forms, so it follows logically that theres some commonality regardless of the specific form), and then special abilities can be consolidated and even mixed/matched to suit whatever arbitrary form. Done that way you don't need a bunch of statblocks, just a list no more obtuse than invocations or the massive spell list that the druid already contends with. The stat blocks aren't really what people are married to, but even then, theres nothing saying certain special abilities can't come with stat modifiers. It makes sense that, say, a "Gnashing Maw" ability comes with a +X to Strength or that a "Swift Slash" with a +X to Dex, and with the base stats being standardized (or at least predictable, if we say that the Druids stats in human form just transfer over) then it can be pretty trivial to design these stat riders to correlate with the real statblocks. It also incidentally gives a big incentive to give beasts a more indepth design, as more special abilities means you can split up the stat riders more easily, which in turn means the game has more control over how powerful a shapeshifter can be and when. Say a bear has three specials, and we assume the bear would need to boost Str, Dex, and Con. If a Druid at a certain level can only take 1 or two abilities at a time (with more coming at later levels) then that lets you keep things balanced and removes any need to be overly conservative with beast design. Some abilities could even be level locked to further alleviate thay concern, and it wouldn't be too out of the question as theres a logic in some beast forms not just being available to a measly level 1 Druid. (After all, thats how Druid works in 5e anyway, even if CR is a cruddy way to do it)</blockquote>

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