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Wildshape oddities.
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<blockquote data-quote="kerleth" data-source="post: 6117244" data-attributes="member: 84383"><p>So I've noticed something odd about wildshape. The description of the ability says it replaces your game statistics, and then lists the exceptions (intelligence, wisdom, charisma, and hp). My understanding is that you lose racial abilities, class abilities, feats, and skills, since these are all game statistics. If this is true it creates some odd situations for the druid.</p><p></p><p>1) You lose your druidic class abilities. Many of these represent mystical abilities gained from your connection with nature. It is particularly odd that while using your mystical shapechanging you lose your poison and disease immunity, your increased healing rate (which is specifically stated to have come from studying and shapechanging into animals), and your slowed aging.</p><p></p><p>2) You technically lose access to all your hd since they are not mentioned in the new statistics. These could be interpreted as being retained along with your hit points, but I believe it should be called out.</p><p></p><p>3) Though you retain your own mind and (intelligence, wisdom, and charisma) you lose training in sneak and similar skills. Most odd of all is that you lose your advantage on recall natural lore checks from being a druid. I should point out that this is understandable and flavorful if you assume that your mindset has changed into a more animal like one, but retaining your own intelligence, wisdom, and charisma seems to contradict this.</p><p></p><p>4) You would retain the effects of a feat that increased your maximum hp, but would not gain the benefits of one that allowed you to regain more hp when spending hit dice. This is because the wildshape ability specifically calls out your hp as a statistic that doesn't change even if you technically don't have that feat in this form, but says nothing about hd or healing rates. Particularly noticeable since the druid gains an increased healing ability, as stated above.</p><p></p><p>5) You can wildshape and bite someone's head off as part of the same action, but cannot wildshape directly from one animal form to another. This is because in animal form you technically lose the wildshape abiliy. The ability to change back as an action is easily interpreted as being part of the initial activation of wildshape (like a spell that you can dismiss as an action), rather than as a class ability.</p><p></p><p>6) You lose the abiliity to cast spells, and the benefit of your feats and skills while using the "Thousand Faces" class feature. I do believe a more reasonable interpretation of this ability would be that it consumes a use of your wildshape but does not use the same rules. It should be pointed out that "none of your statistics change from using this ability" to avoid possible confustion.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think that if nothing else the druid's class abilities should be called out as remaining active during wildshape. Also, I would advocate that intelligence, wisdom, and charisma are changed as well, though your personality remains mostly the same. This would then dovetail better with the loss of skills and feats. I see some possible issues with this as well, but they seem to be less jarring than #3 above. I expect others to feel differently on that one though. Anyways, I just thought I would point this out for discussion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="kerleth, post: 6117244, member: 84383"] So I've noticed something odd about wildshape. The description of the ability says it replaces your game statistics, and then lists the exceptions (intelligence, wisdom, charisma, and hp). My understanding is that you lose racial abilities, class abilities, feats, and skills, since these are all game statistics. If this is true it creates some odd situations for the druid. 1) You lose your druidic class abilities. Many of these represent mystical abilities gained from your connection with nature. It is particularly odd that while using your mystical shapechanging you lose your poison and disease immunity, your increased healing rate (which is specifically stated to have come from studying and shapechanging into animals), and your slowed aging. 2) You technically lose access to all your hd since they are not mentioned in the new statistics. These could be interpreted as being retained along with your hit points, but I believe it should be called out. 3) Though you retain your own mind and (intelligence, wisdom, and charisma) you lose training in sneak and similar skills. Most odd of all is that you lose your advantage on recall natural lore checks from being a druid. I should point out that this is understandable and flavorful if you assume that your mindset has changed into a more animal like one, but retaining your own intelligence, wisdom, and charisma seems to contradict this. 4) You would retain the effects of a feat that increased your maximum hp, but would not gain the benefits of one that allowed you to regain more hp when spending hit dice. This is because the wildshape ability specifically calls out your hp as a statistic that doesn't change even if you technically don't have that feat in this form, but says nothing about hd or healing rates. Particularly noticeable since the druid gains an increased healing ability, as stated above. 5) You can wildshape and bite someone's head off as part of the same action, but cannot wildshape directly from one animal form to another. This is because in animal form you technically lose the wildshape abiliy. The ability to change back as an action is easily interpreted as being part of the initial activation of wildshape (like a spell that you can dismiss as an action), rather than as a class ability. 6) You lose the abiliity to cast spells, and the benefit of your feats and skills while using the "Thousand Faces" class feature. I do believe a more reasonable interpretation of this ability would be that it consumes a use of your wildshape but does not use the same rules. It should be pointed out that "none of your statistics change from using this ability" to avoid possible confustion. I think that if nothing else the druid's class abilities should be called out as remaining active during wildshape. Also, I would advocate that intelligence, wisdom, and charisma are changed as well, though your personality remains mostly the same. This would then dovetail better with the loss of skills and feats. I see some possible issues with this as well, but they seem to be less jarring than #3 above. I expect others to feel differently on that one though. Anyways, I just thought I would point this out for discussion. [/QUOTE]
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