Why WOULDN'T a druid take Natural Spell??

[Velenne]

In all the various druid threads I've read, I've noticed that they seem to singularly agree that all druids should take Natural Spell. With few exceptions, most people agree (including myself) that wild shaping is fundamental to a druid's contribution to the party. Being able to cast spells while wildshaped is even better.

That said, why wouldn't it be a Class Ability instead of a feat? If every druid worth his salt is gonna take it, why not say 6th level druids gain it free? Natural Spell is a departure from the other classes who's options are not so narrowly defined. Not all fighters would take Power Attack, just as not all monks would take Deflect Arrows.

But certainly an 11th level Barbarian would get a hold of Greater Rage as soon as he could. So they made that a class ability. They could have easily made Greater Rage a feat with as specific a set of requirements as Natural Spell.

And it's not like any other class besides Druid can even take Natural Spell. So why make it a feat instead of a class ability? Huh? Tell me that, great ones.

 

[Crothian]

Ya, it does seem to be a feat that all Druids would take. Personally, I'd give it to them at 9th level.

 

[jgbrowning]

yep, me too crothian...

joe b.

 

[Velenne]

Why 9th?

 

[Thanee]

This is especially true, since the feat is exclusive for druids. Ok, there are other feats like this (i.e. Spell Mastery), but they are quite rare.

My only druid (here on the boards) is a puny 2nd level , yet to emerge on her first adventure, so I havn't put much thought into this, but I guess that Natural Spell would be something to pick up sooner or later, especially since I do not really know what feats to pick anyways (don't qualify for Improved Grapple and do not really want that... will probably go for Combat Expertise and for Improved Trip, maybe Track; given her affinity for wolves these feats also make sense).

But yeah, Natural Spell really sounds like a no-brainer feat.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Crothian]

Why 9th?

Because at this Druid level the class ability is not one of the strongest.

 

[reapersaurus]

So why make it a feat instead of a class ability? Huh? Tell me that, great ones.

Well, one reason is because that would increase the power of the Druid class.
If you require a feat to be spent, than that's part of the Druid's resources being used.

A similar (though not as good) statement could be:
Why not give Ride-By Attack and Spirited Charge feats to the paladin as class abilities?
He gets a mount, but not the feats that make that ability useful?

 

[Thanee]

The "reason" for it not being a class ability is probably, that the game evolves and the Natural Spell feat was developed long after the core rules were first released. They just thought up more cool abilities and lacking any other tools to put them in, they decided to make them feats.

Sure, with 3.5 they could have made it a druid special ability, they could have made Eschew Materials a sorcerer special ability as well. But they didn't... most probably for balance issues, as reaper points out, or simply traditionalism.

Bye
Thanee

 

[The Little Raven]

It's the same reason that a Fighter gets Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus, and Greater Weapon Specialization as options, but not as bonuses.

 

[green slime]

hmmm.... While I see what Thanee and Reaper are saying, I still think that creating a feat that every build of a certain single character class takes, and only that single character class is something that requires serious reconsideration. What ever happened to player options? They have just basically removed a feat choice from the player. So Druids for all practical purposes only have 6 feat choices if they are non-human. Otherwise a druid that decides to take another feat instead is seriously reducing his options. This feat leads to too many carbon copies of Druid characters. Whch was the original complaint about Monks. Now it isn't as bad as monks and druids do provide some more use in a party, but it is forcing them into a funnel (paladin's suffer their own funnel)

The Druid character has two schtiks; 1) spell casting 2) wild shaping. WHAT?!?!??! You want to use both? I'm afraid you'll have to purchase a feat.

Its like saying the Cleric suffers no penalty Metallic armour, except he can't cast spells in metallic armour unless he takes a feat "Metallic Armoured spellcasting". How many clerics would be without that feat?

And it isn't like weapon focus at all: The fighter gets to choose which weapon to specialise in. And he has the feats to take another weapon, if he desires