Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder-Bo9S hotswapping

[StreamOfTheSky]

That's because the problems with Wild Shape existed in core.

Know what stats a druid in 3.5 needs? Wisdom. And nothing else. Ever. And you know what? That druid can still be a better fighter then the Fighter can, because all he needs to do is wildshape into something else that has huge amounts of strength.

The problem wasn't that more and more monsters were printed that were more and more powerful. That just made the problem more apparent.

A Druid needs Con. Wildshape didn't give you a new hp based on your new con score. Already, in terms of needed stats, Druid's tied with mosto ther primary casters. If you don't always walk around as an animal because...maybe you like talking(?)...then a fair dex is also useful for the initiative roll, since you can't reroll that if you later acquire a much high dex in the same combat. If you're not starting at level 5 (level 6, actually, 1/day and no spellcasting makes Wildshape too unreliable at level 5 to depend on), you need a respectable or at least average human (10-11) str and dex just to not completely suck in combat or get encumbered easily.

And no, a Druid is not a better Fighter than the Fighter. He can get higher str and a bunch of natural attacks with much lower base damage than the Fighter's 2H weapon, pounce sometimes. He can get larger than the Fighter by level 8, assuming both are using enlarge person (I never particularly agreed with the ruling that Wildshape doesn't change your type, but that's a whole other rant). The Fighter will have higher AC generally. Druid can probably tie him up or possibly beat him a little, but will lose a lot of the aforementioned offensive bonuses by his choice of form. Fighter will have better hp and BAB, and a whole bunch of handy combat feats, while the Druid only actually gets 6 feats over 20 levels (Natural Spell is actually a class feature in disguise, dontch'ya know?).

Now Druid + animal companion + summons + battlefield control spells? Yeah, that will beat a Fighter. But hey, guess what? So will any full spellcaster. And sadly, so will many other full BAB classes.

Want to pick a sample level, preferably something in the "sweet spot" of levels, build a Druid, and I'll build a Fighter, so the two can engage in a melee duel to the death (probably better is if we could just run the values into some excel program and get the result of hundreds of battles)? Any WotC books are open, but just as a favor to me, stick to MM1 for your animal choice. Let's do 32 point buy, I like 32 point buy. Of course, if we're starting level 6+, you have the benefit of nerfing str and dex knowing you won't need them, especially for a single theoretical duel where you'll be wildshaped. But I'm willing to overlook that. I'm eager to stop people from saying crazy things like a Druid "outfights a Fighter." At least any more than other classes outfight them.

 

[Nifft]

I guess this is what I find elegant about the solution. PF Wildshape enumerates the powers it can provide and gives a fixed bonus to stats. This frees up designers and developers to make whatever monster they'd like knowing it won't be abused by a 4th level spell (which is commonly in play).

Yep, PF was wise to follow the 3.5e PHB2 "Shapeshift" variant. Since something very similar is also used -- for several classes -- in 4e, it looks like that particular mechanic has been uniformly triumphant over the 3.0e polymorph solution.

Cheers, -- N