Post/Author/DateTime	Post
FarmerGiles 11-30-07, 06:04 AM	One thing I'd like to clarify about the wild shape ability with regards to skills. How does your skill modifiers change upon wild shaping? For example, my druid at Level 5 will have a Spot modifer of +12 (8 ranks + 4 ability). Now eagles for example have +8 racial modifiers to Spot but the books don't say how many ranks they have in skills. How does the change over work and therefore based on those rules is it actually beneficial or detrimental to shape shift into an eagle for purposes of scouting? (besides the obvious benefit of flying!)
Merestil Haye 11-30-07, 06:24 AM	One thing I'd like to clarify about the wild shape ability with regards to skills. How does your skill modifiers change upon wild shaping? For example, my druid at Level 5 will have a Spot modifer of +12 (8 ranks + 4 ability). Now eagles for example have +8 racial modifiers to Spot but the books don't say how many ranks they have in skills. How does the change over work and therefore based on those rules is it actually beneficial or detrimental to shape shift into an eagle for purposes of scouting? (besides the obvious benefit of flying!)Wildshaping does not change what ranks you have in skills. You do not get what the creature has, you get what you have. (In any case, the MM entry does tell you how many skill ranks the creature has in a skill, but you have to "reverse engineer" it from the skill modifier, ability score and other information. They don't give skill ranks because the extra information adds costs but doesn't help gameplay much (if at all).) Since the shapeshifting would give you the racial bonus on top of your existing modifier, giving you a +20 Spot modifier, it would be beneficial.
NorthSaber 01-10-08, 02:46 PM	I thought you don't get racial skill bonuses from wild shape? At least I don't think they're mentioned specifically as something you *do* get, and so by default I don't think you get them.