Post/Author/DateTime	Post
thefuzzzybear 04-12-05, 08:59 PM	wondering if anyones heard anything about the new shifter and if it would worth making it into a druid, cause from what i understand there may be some substitutaion levels floating around. just curious.
thefuzzzybear 04-13-05, 08:34 PM	shameless bump, page 4 and no comments, ughhhhhh. oh well.
J.B. 04-13-05, 08:56 PM	Well, I'm not so sure whether its going to be worth it or not for you. I was playing a shifter before the new version came out and the class lost a lot more than it gained in the revision. For example wildshapes/day are limited now (as opposed to doing it once per round at 10th level), several creature types are no longer available to the class (constructs, magical-beasts, etc). Thus they renamed the "Shifter" to "Master of Many Forms" since it wasn't really a shifter any more.
Pinky's brain 04-13-05, 08:59 PM	I think he was talking about the shifter race, given the substitution levels ...
Michael Tree 04-13-05, 09:53 PM	With RoE, Shifter druids may be the best choice for druid builds, as long as you don't mind losing an animal companion. The 1st and 4th level racial substitution levels are great boons for melee druids, though the 5th level one definitely isn't worth it. The 1st level one replaces the animal companion with an internal spirit, which gives the druid an unnamed bonus to any physical stat, and a variety of good abilities, including, at 12th level, the ability to cast summon nature's ally as a standard action. Shifting is a supernatural ability, so shifter druids can use it while wildshaped, gaining a +2 attribute bonus and a bonus to their natural attacks. It's not entirely clear how the natural weapons work while wildshaped, but the animal companion text on p.128 suggests that the wild shape doesn't gain new natural attack forms, but if it already has the natural attack form it gains the shifting bonus of +1 damage / 4 levels. In addition, the moonspeaker is a fantastic PrC for a 1-level dip. For one level, you gain augment summoning as a bonus feat, and count metamagic, item creation, and wild feats as shifter feats for the purposes of improving shifting. The main downsides of shifter druids is that the -2 to Int and Cha hurt, and that the Dex +2 doesn't help out much after 5th level. Try this build: Razorclaw Shifter Druid (a melee wildshaper, with good summoning at higher levels) 1 (Druid Sub lvl 1) - Improved Natural Attack (claws) 3 - Extra Shifter Trait (longtooth) 4 (Druid sub lvl 4) 6 - Natural Spell 9 (Moonspeaker 1) - Longtooth Elite, Augment Summoning (bonus feat) 12 (Druid 11) - Great Rend 13 (Druid 12, gain ability to cast SNA as a standard action) 15 (Druid 14) - Quicken Spell 18 (Druid 17) - (I can't decide what feat to take here) Fight in the nastiest leopard/lion/tiger/dire tiger form available. By 20th level, the character will have a +6 unnamed bonus that he can put into strength, your bites each inflict 1 Con damage in addition to hit points, and if you hit with two claw attacks you gain an additional rend attack. You can shift 4 times per day for 9+Con rounds each time. When you shift, you gain +2 Strength, and your claw and bite attacks gain an additional +5 damage.
jyshiow 04-14-05, 01:42 AM	Hey does the Master of Many Form's Class levels stack with the Druid's for determining the max HD that the Master can shift into?
Funny Slaughter 04-14-05, 02:28 AM	i dont think that losing the animal companion is worth it. its a trade-off as in almost any situations where core druid should be altered and as in almost any situation you pay to much amd gain to little. especially at lower levels the animal companion often is the partys second tank. while it suffers from low AC it has quite some hitpoints! later on all your self-buffing is shared with your companion like GMF, animal growth and the linke. very helpful to have some huge buddy nearby to grapple a bit. I do also like the idea of a druid to summon the same creatures as your companion, share its form and just roam the battlefield as a horde of lions or similar. like mirror image except that the images have a good damage output and dont die on one hit. gs Funny
Taliesin52 04-14-05, 10:14 AM	Hey does the Master of Many Form's Class levels stack with the Druid's for determining the max HD that the Master can shift into? Per errata posted on the forums by WotC and by custserv, yes. However the official errata has not been published. My goal right now for my 9th lvl character is dru5/mnk1/mmf3, carrying a huge sized quarterstaff, changing into either a troll or hag and spikes/brambles/shilleleigh-ing it for crazy melee damage.
thefuzzzybear 04-14-05, 06:15 PM	since you get a +2 to any physical stat its kinda of nice and the anmial companion for a lot of people is hard to control just because they are an oddity(sp) and many people forget about them, just from what ive seen. and for a more melee druid this sounds good, and you can shift while wildshaped, if you dont take the supposed substituation level, you can have some nice bonuses while shaped. oh well, hope that made sense.