Wild Shape and Druid familiarity

[Legildur]

The new Wild Shape ability limits a Druid to what animal forms they are familiar with.
I'm assuming for the moment that means animals from their home terrain type, i.e.
temperate forest, arid plains, tropical swamp, etc....

I hate to ask, but what new Wild Shape ability? The PHB currently states "The form chosen must be that of an animal the druid is familiar with. For example, a druid who has never been outside a temperate forest could not become a polar bear."

I understand the logic behind the 'home terrain type', but I wonder if it really adds to the game. Druids are supposedly balanced against the other classes when including this ability unrestricted. After all, it is a simple task to construct a background that would include this familiarity.

That being said, I like the idea of the shamanesque bag of bones - purely for flavor mind you (imagine trying to get bones from a shambling mound or a fire elemental).

 

[Christian]

I hate to ask, but what new Wild Shape ability? The PHB currently states "The form chosen must be that of an animal the druid is familiar with. For example, a druid who has never been outside a temperate forest could not become a polar bear."

The new Wild Shape ability in v 3.5, compared to the original ability description in v 3.0. Check the datestamp on the original post ... It was new then!

 

[Legildur]

The new Wild Shape ability in v 3.5, compared to the original ability description in v 3.0. Check the datestamp on the original post ... It was new then!

LOL! Wow! A five year thread resurrection.... Thanks for the pointer...

 

[Angerland]

one bit I noticed that hasn't come up yet is the starting age of your character. If you use the tables to roll for this in the PHB you will find that Druids have an older starting age than other characters. This means the druids have a good ammount of time (well a couple of years anyway) to wander the lands and see what there is too see nature wise. They are alrready preety self sufficient and outdoor types. Seems feasible that they could have spent time wandering the land exploring plants and animals in a pretty wide area. this all means I am in support of keeping wildshape familiarity as is from the PHB

 

[lukelightning]

That's what ranks in knowledge (nature) is for. However I would never limit a druid's ability to wildshape into whatever animal, provided the stats for it is appropriate (e.g. no weirdo-bizarro third-party dire glyptodonts with 35 AC, 50 strength, and an attack doing 8d8+30 damage).

After all, a druid can cast summon nature's ally to summon a wide variety of animals; I would assume that during druidical training they are exposed to a host of animals summoned by their teachers, or even shown through the use of the teachers' own wildshape ability.

 

[zeroorez]

So any ideas on how I might convince my DM
that his restriction of living with a creature for one month is to harsh

I mean I can see this for a druid and animal forms
but for a shape shifting class like the master of many forms its too restrictive.

for example what restriction is there on a mage when they need to level and gain new spells

I didn’t see our mage have to be roasted be a fire ball to learn that spell.
why do I have to be passed through the digestive system of a troll before I can take its shape.

 

[SolosAddie]

I would say unless your DM is forcing downtime on the other classes for key abilities. ie wizards have to find spells written to add to their spell book on leveling etc. then he/she's being consistent and you just have to see whether your whole party is cool with that down time or not. Otherwise, I'd ask for a knowledge-based check or something. Like being able to shift into troll is DC 25 etc.

If you already have ideas on the most likely forms you'll want to shift into, maybe you can sit down and just have level requirements set or a straight yes/no on whether you can shift into that form ever.

In a given campaign maybe dragonshape would be too much power etc.

 

[zeroorez]

True resurrection of thread

So i have been playing with the restrictions of 1 month of living with the creature to wildshape into it or 4 months of reading about it from books.

my character is druid 7 / MoMF 5
my wildshape limits include
animal, humanoid, giants, monsterous humanoids, fey
sizes tiny, small, medium, large.

the restrictions come from my DM and after leveling the last 4 levels in MoMF and not gaining any new forms i finaly convinced him that its to high a restriction.

with that he is now allowing me to gain one form per level ontop of the ones that i research but it has to be a form that we have encoutered.

ok so the downtime not such a bad idea i thought at the begining but there has been no downtime in the last 4 levels of the character.

and to make the situation even better we have been fighting only humans and undead, oh with one random encounter against a beholder, ya if i gain 2 more levels that might be my first new form since level 1.

and to top the fun off our mage last session turned his familiar into a dragon with draconic pollymorph.

so what i need is help i need a rule an offical call on what familiarity is supposed to be.

I have been of some use to the party with some of my animal forms i have been able to take the form of mounts so that we can travel quickly across land or charge into battle but other then that i sit on the side and call ligthning for 3d6 a round / 2 because everything makes it reflex save against my week spellcasting level.

 

[lukelightning]

I'd say part of druidic education involves being introduced to just about every animal. Between druids' summoning, wildshape, and animal companions, a druid circle could show apprentices just about ANY animal.

If you really feel the need to nerf druid wild shape, it should be a function of knowledge (nature). But I can't see why this is needed.

 

[Nifft]

IMC "familiarity" means "knowledge of" in the Biblical sense.

Keeps people from playing Druids entirely...

Baaaah, -- N