No Druid flight abilities akin to Cloud Chariot?
- Thread starter Tellerve
- Start date
First welcome to the forums.
Let me get how you are reading this;
You're saying as long as you are in Raven form at the end of the encounter your are good to go for the rest of your natural born life essentially? If after the encounter is done and you are in Raven form (which I'm still not sold on) and you transform again you're now screwed out of transforming back into a Raven.
I just don't agree with you all with it stating until the end of the encounter. I think it was meant as a battlefield spell in which the druid can move about the battlefield and change forms then move to another point and change and attack again. As that it is a pretty neat spell, and certainly if you have a decent DM I can see it being quite useful, in fact easily as useful as the other utility powers of that level.
What would make it exceedingly powerful, however, is you guy's interpretation which would allow the person to stay in raven form for hours and fly like that.
Let me get how you are reading this;
You're saying as long as you are in Raven form at the end of the encounter your are good to go for the rest of your natural born life essentially? If after the encounter is done and you are in Raven form (which I'm still not sold on) and you transform again you're now screwed out of transforming back into a Raven.
I just don't agree with you all with it stating until the end of the encounter. I think it was meant as a battlefield spell in which the druid can move about the battlefield and change forms then move to another point and change and attack again. As that it is a pretty neat spell, and certainly if you have a decent DM I can see it being quite useful, in fact easily as useful as the other utility powers of that level.
What would make it exceedingly powerful, however, is you guy's interpretation which would allow the person to stay in raven form for hours and fly like that.
Last edited:
CapnZapp
Legend
I'm not sure why you continue the discussion, Tellerve.
You started a thread asking if you missed something that would enable a feature that you obviously would like the game to offer.
Other posters answer you, telling you what you missed.
Why not simply believe them. After all, that's what you want, right?
Or, if you believe that's against the rules, why not make it a house-rule to go with their interpretation of the rules?
Either way I don't see why the argument must go on, or why you have a need to "agree to disagree".
Those posters took the time to answer your query, after all.
You started a thread asking if you missed something that would enable a feature that you obviously would like the game to offer.
Other posters answer you, telling you what you missed.
Why not simply believe them. After all, that's what you want, right?
Or, if you believe that's against the rules, why not make it a house-rule to go with their interpretation of the rules?
Either way I don't see why the argument must go on, or why you have a need to "agree to disagree".
Those posters took the time to answer your query, after all.
DracoSuave
First Post
A power does not need to say 'until end of encounter' for their effects--all powers are assumed to have a maximum duration of 'until end of encounter or five minutes' unless they state otherwise.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
It is indeed a general principle with powers that they end at the end of the encounter. There are a few explicit exceptions, and some powers that it would make sense to use outside of an encounter, in which case they work for 5 minutes (again unless there is some explicit text saying otherwise).
Outside of combat or for long duration effects you pretty much have to go with rituals. Aside from a very few high level utility powers that is really the only way to get long lasting effects.
So why wouldn't the best solution be a ritual? Especially when we already have the Tree Shape ritual to use as an example. It seems nearly perfect, just up the level to an appropriate level and make it allow various shapes. Call it "Wild Shape" or "Shape of the Wild" or whatever. You could make a series of such rituals for different shapes, but really it seems easier to simply make it use a Nature check result to determine what shapes are available when you cast it. If the check isn't good enough to get the shape you really wanted, then it is functionally a check failure, though you would have the choice to become a squirrel even though you wanted to be a raven ideally. The definition of success really being up to the caster.
At high levels the ritual, or a variation of it, could allow transforming multiple characters. There could also be versions with somewhat less strictures placed on it, like ability to take damage without dispelling the ritual, etc.
The casting cost can be relatively low, it is really in essence just an extension of the character's existing powers.
It could work something like:
Wild Shape
You assume the form of a creature of the wilderness.
Level: 6
Category: Exploration
Time: 10 minutes
Duration: 6 hours
Component Cost: 50gp
Market Price: 360gp
Key Skill: Nature
You transform into the shape of a natural beast. While you are in this state you are indistinguishable from a normal natural beast to ordinary senses. You retain all of your statistics, but you cannot use any of your powers or perform rituals. All your clothing and gear transforms along with you. The ritual ends and you revert to your normal form if you take any damage or take action, or at the end of the ritual's duration.
You must make a Nature check in order to determine the type of form which you can assume. After making the check you may choose any form allowed by your success roll.
[pre]
Nature Check Result Allowed Forms
9 or lower Medium or Small size
10-19 Tiny size, swim, climb, or terrain walk at speed 6
20-29 Fly, speed 8
30+ Large or Huge size, Hover
[/pre]
This probably needs a bit of editing, but it should give you a pretty good idea of where I'm going with this. Perhaps animal types could also be related to the check roll, so low level casters could mostly be just mammals, while higher levels would get you into birds, fish, insects, etc.
Comments?
Outside of combat or for long duration effects you pretty much have to go with rituals. Aside from a very few high level utility powers that is really the only way to get long lasting effects.
So why wouldn't the best solution be a ritual? Especially when we already have the Tree Shape ritual to use as an example. It seems nearly perfect, just up the level to an appropriate level and make it allow various shapes. Call it "Wild Shape" or "Shape of the Wild" or whatever. You could make a series of such rituals for different shapes, but really it seems easier to simply make it use a Nature check result to determine what shapes are available when you cast it. If the check isn't good enough to get the shape you really wanted, then it is functionally a check failure, though you would have the choice to become a squirrel even though you wanted to be a raven ideally. The definition of success really being up to the caster.
At high levels the ritual, or a variation of it, could allow transforming multiple characters. There could also be versions with somewhat less strictures placed on it, like ability to take damage without dispelling the ritual, etc.
The casting cost can be relatively low, it is really in essence just an extension of the character's existing powers.
It could work something like:
Wild Shape
You assume the form of a creature of the wilderness.
Level: 6
Category: Exploration
Time: 10 minutes
Duration: 6 hours
Component Cost: 50gp
Market Price: 360gp
Key Skill: Nature
You transform into the shape of a natural beast. While you are in this state you are indistinguishable from a normal natural beast to ordinary senses. You retain all of your statistics, but you cannot use any of your powers or perform rituals. All your clothing and gear transforms along with you. The ritual ends and you revert to your normal form if you take any damage or take action, or at the end of the ritual's duration.
You must make a Nature check in order to determine the type of form which you can assume. After making the check you may choose any form allowed by your success roll.
[pre]
Nature Check Result Allowed Forms
9 or lower Medium or Small size
10-19 Tiny size, swim, climb, or terrain walk at speed 6
20-29 Fly, speed 8
30+ Large or Huge size, Hover
[/pre]
This probably needs a bit of editing, but it should give you a pretty good idea of where I'm going with this. Perhaps animal types could also be related to the check roll, so low level casters could mostly be just mammals, while higher levels would get you into birds, fish, insects, etc.
Comments?
So I guess you're saying that Wild Shape into anything always wears off in five minutes or at the end of the encounter? I see now that this does appear to be RAW, but it sure does feel odd to me. A druid can change to beast-form at will... but has to take at least a minor-action "breather" every five minutes? I'm not convinced that was the intent.
DracoSuave
First Post
We're -not- talking about the Wild Shape power. We're talking about powers that shape you into other creatures, like birds. The Wild Shape power is an at-will, and that 'breather' can be an instant, and is negligible. The others are dailies, and therefore require extended rests to get beyond that single encounter use. That's no subtle difference between them.
CapnZapp
Legend
If a Druid can turn into a bird as an encounter power that lasts the entire encounter, then that means he can be the bird (very) roughly 50% of the time.
This I'm basing on the observation an encounter lasts about 5 minutes, and so does a short rest.
If, on the other hand, the power is an at-will (again lasting an encounter), then you would be right: the druid would then be able to spend 99% of his time in bird shape, only "flickering" once every five minutes.
And in this case I would be inclined to agree to just let the Druid spend hour after hour in bird form.
But only in this, latter, case (which I do not think has any bearing on the real circumstances)...
This I'm basing on the observation an encounter lasts about 5 minutes, and so does a short rest.
If, on the other hand, the power is an at-will (again lasting an encounter), then you would be right: the druid would then be able to spend 99% of his time in bird shape, only "flickering" once every five minutes.
And in this case I would be inclined to agree to just let the Druid spend hour after hour in bird form.
But only in this, latter, case (which I do not think has any bearing on the real circumstances)...
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
The whole issue of using at-wills outside of an encounter and what the limitations should be is a lot more general question, it also comes up with a lot of at-will powers. I believe there have been several CS answers posted around here on the subject. The long and short of it is there is no official hard and fast rule. It is entirely up to the DM as to how they want to handle it.
If a DM decides that constant use of an at-will outside an encounter is not causing a game balance problem or subverting some aspect of the game, then it makes sense to allow it. OTOH if a character is gaining some really big advantage from it or the power use is just giving the party a cheap way of getting past an encounter, then the DM is certainly within their rights to rule along the lines of "well, you can use the power 10 or 15 times, so it is at-will, but it does tire you out eventually and so at some point you need to take a rest" that is reasonable as well. Or a DM could just rule that it cannot be used at all outside of an encounter, although it will be helpful to supply some rationale (fluff) for that.
Avoiding the whole question is one nice thing about providing rituals. We know they are designed for use outside of encounters, and can give some advantages at times during an upcoming encounter. Plus you get to put some kind of tangible cost or other limiting conditions on it.
Now I'm confused again. The Black Harbinger power does not polymorph you into bird form. It changes the rules for another power, allowing you to become a raven by using Wild Shape. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion... it works by modifying Wild Shape, and Wild Shape is an at-will with no explicit duration.
There's no argument that the effect of Black Harbinger ends at the end of an encounter. It's the effect itself that's in question. It appears (to some of us) to be worded to mean "add tiny raven to the list of Wild Shape forms". So until the end of the encounter, you can Wild Shape into that form. But what happens when you're in that form at the end of the encounter?
One side seems to be saying that the raven form ends immediately because Black Harbinger ends (and you presumably return to humanoid form).
The other side says that you lose the ability to Wild Shape to raven form, but you stay in your current form until the Wild Shape duration expires. Now if Wild Shape also expires at the end of the encounter (which seems to be RAW for powers with no explicit duration), then the raven form ends and this winds up being equivalent to the previous interpretation.
But ultimately we -are- talking about Wild Shape, because all the Druid utility powers we're talking about do -nothing- by themselves but give you new uses for Wild Shape.
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