Shifter Underpowered?

[Oni]

Don't think its really necessary to give the Shifter more, it seems that the general concensus of the thread is that the Shifter is pretty good on its own, and I would concur, it ranks right up there with an equal level fighter or rogue, and I'd say that is more than good enough. It may not be the most powerful class but its wouldn't be the weakest if compared to all the core classes so I'd say that it has pretty much achieved balance.

 

[kreynolds]

Then the Shifter turns into a Nyth from the Monsters of Fearun. Looks just like a will-o-wisp, but it reflects magic missiles.....

"Hahaha! Fear my magic missile you weakling of a' will-o'-wisp! Hahaha!...oh crap...is that a nyth!?!...gulp

 

[Shard O'Glase]

The shifter already gains something the wizard shapechaged doesn't. And that is feats for sure, and I don't think shapechange grants attack routines. Honestly other than a few really broken spell examples like shapechange the shifter easily is balanced with other classes. A shifter oriented towards fighting will probably out fight the fighter all around. And a well run shifter might very easily end up unbalanced, as in too good. Yeah, yeah they playtested it but they also playtested the PH and look at the original version of poly self that got through until some non playtester gamers pointed out the abuses.

 

[EOL]

Shard brings up an interesting point. Most of the discussion has been whether the Shifter is balanced when compared to a wizard with shapechange, perhaps the question should be rather is shapechange balanced. Quite possibly the answer is no, or mostly, but it is open to abuse.

 

[Crothian]

Anything that open and versitile is going to be abused. Especially with the thousand and one books that are now out for d20. It's one of those things the PC has to work with the DM to make sure everything they plan to use it for is fair, while the DM tries not to limit the creativity of the PC that much.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Anything that open and versitile is going to be abused. Especially with the thousand and one books that are now out for d20. It's one of those things the PC has to work with the DM to make sure everything they plan to use it for is fair, while the DM tries not to limit the creativity of the PC that much.

What he said.

My opinion is that it is really broad and open for a lot of abuse, so as a dm I want to know my party before I'd let this in. For example the current group I play with has 2 people who powergame heavily so they can always be the best in the party, and 3 others who are more into building the character they want. This would be a bad group to let this class into, one of those two could really abuse the class and either make the DMs job of making good challenges for the whole group problimatic or make other players feel a bit left out as they play the wonderful adventures of powergaming shifter man. But on the other hand a good group either all powergamers, or no powergamers this class could work well with. In fact in a gorup where the player who is the shifter, is willing to work with the dm a bit on how the shifter abilities play out could be a great asset to the enjoyment of the group.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Shard brings up an interesting point. Most of the discussion has been whether the Shifter is balanced when compared to a wizard with shapechange, perhaps the question should be rather is shapechange balanced. Quite possibly the answer is no, or mostly, but it is open to abuse.

Shapechange is way wrong in the hands of the wrong players. Free action changes, changes into objects, size limit 200' on a side. What does that equal a fly is flying over head, and turns into a mountain of grainite 200' on a side doing a thousands and thousands of d6 in damage to all those beneath the wiz with shapechange, and that is just one example of abuse, there are tons of others, this is just one of my favorites.

Poly any has similar problems since size changes aren't mentioned as a limit, rock to mountain, mountain to rock and other porblems crop up in any spells with absurb variability and few limits written into them.

 

[twjensen]

shapechange spell

I think the shapechange spell is just a red herring. Any DM who allows it is going to be laughed at behind his back by the Sage and pretty much anyone else who finds out.

There's always a couple of April Fool's jokes in these games, the ShapeChange spell SCREAMS April 1.

 

[The Iron Mark]

So it seems that the general consensous(sp?) is that Shapechange is overpowered, and that the Shifter is not underpowered. That still doesn't change the fact that Shapechange is still better, and that it has not been altered. I think allowing templates and no HD limit would make the Shifter even IMHO.

 

[hong]

So it seems that the general consensous(sp?) is that Shapechange is overpowered, and that the Shifter is not underpowered. That still doesn't change the fact that Shapechange is still better, and that it has not been altered. I think allowing templates and no HD limit would make the Shifter even IMHO.

Mind you, seeking to achieve parity with a spell that's been shown to be off-scale doesn't strike me as very reasonable or desirable. For example, would you suggest that because harm (as written) is more powerful than a lot of other 6th level cleric spells, that means all the other spells should be bumped up to match?