Shapeshift druid vs regular druid

[Cactot]

I am glad to hear your enjoying the variant, I will be interested to hear what you think about them at lvl 10+

 

[Drowbane]

Not at all. He's grandfathered. I'm not going to force him to rebuild a lvl 9 druid from the ground up mid-campaign. Besides, he's attached to Skellig and would miss him.

favortism!!

Hehe, just yanking your chain.

I'm the player of the druid in ForceUsers game. I really like Shapeshift. I think a lot of the naysayers are over looking that you gain a +1 per 4 lvs bonus to hit and damage and can go through DR/Magic at 4th lv. That is like casting 3 Greater Magic Weapon spells on yourself at lvs 8+. Plus you don't have to take Natural Spell at 6th lv, freeing up a feat. Shifting as a swift action is also very nifty and adds a lot of mobility to the druid, you can still do the flying nuking guy if you want to, you just need to depend on Air Walk or other magical means of flying.

The bonus to Strength being an enhancement bonus is a good thing, stacking unnamed bonuses is one place where D&D characters get crazy. You are still able to boost your Dex and Con scores through magic. Barkskin still works great for increasing your AC, in most cases a Shapeshift druid will have a higher Natural AC bonus than a Wildshape druid.

Shapeshift does not make the druid any more MAD than a cleric. A cleric wants Str, Con, Wis, Cha, the shapeshift druid wants Str, Dex, Con, Wis. Shapeshift stops druids from using all physical stats as dump stats. Which I alwasy though was fairly silly since most characters would have a rough time getting to lv 5 with 10's in Str, Dex, and Con.

Shapeshift does have some shortcommings though. It currently has less utility forms than wildshape. The addition of a swimming, burrowing, or tiny/small form would be quite nice or maybe a choice between the two or make them available via feats. Allowing Wild armor and Wildling clasps to work would go a long way to making the class actually have a use for some magical items. Despite these two things I'm pretty pleased with the way things have worked out, I'm sure Bjarne would be quite different if he were a druid rather than a druid/natures warrior.

Holy jeebus... I totally forgot that you're on ENworld too! How the heck are ya man? Anyways, I'd be all over the Shapeshift Variant once they fix the flaws. The Form choices are too limited, as others (including yourself) have pointed out. And when I say "all over it" I mean I'd be cool with it being an option alongside normal Druids. I like my pets, damnit. And I've yet to actually see a Borken Druid.

Did you miss that it's a swift action to shift back and forth? As long as it's a swift action, there's no loss of spellcasting ability for the character--he just can't do it in animal form. I really don't see the problem, unless you want to be the distantly flying nuking druid, in which case, I don't really have any sympathy.

but... but... but... Nwm is my HERO!

 

[Drowbane]

oops