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Master of Many forms

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
sudojin
Apr 03, 2009 11:17:05 I was wondering if this was a good presteige for a druid and advice on items/builds for this class. I really like the wildshape ability of the druid and this class makes their wildshape powerful in exchange for spellcasting levels. Is it worth it? It doesn't seem like the druid spell list is that great and being able to wildshape into anything would be worth the loss. Any advice?
#2
theswordsmaster
Apr 03, 2009 11:25:47 Master of many forms is great but you need a least 7 level in the class to make it good but even then you loose 7 caster level. I've played both a druid with and without master of many form and although the wildshaping of the MoMF is great I found the spellcasting better.

The Swords Master
#3
pithica
Apr 03, 2009 13:04:34
I was wondering if this was a good presteige for a druid and advice on items/builds for this class. I really like the wildshape ability of the druid and this class makes their wildshape powerful in exchange for spellcasting levels. Is it worth it? It doesn't seem like the druid spell list is that great and being able to wildshape into anything would be worth the loss. Any advice?

Planar Shepherd potentially allows you to wildshape into a lot more useful things than MoMF without costing caster levels. Shapechange (the 9th level Druid Spell) lets you change into any of the forms MoMF would allow.

MoMF can work, if you're willing to put effort into it, but it makes much more sense for a Wildshape variant Ranger than it does for a druid.
#4
sudojin
Apr 03, 2009 13:28:48 What book is the Planar Shepherd from and what is a wildshape variant ranger?
#5
keyes2k4
Apr 03, 2009 13:35:14 In one campaign I'm in, the MoMF is a bit overpowered, but it may just be because of how our DM let him "know" a few overpowered races.

He can turn into a Beholder, and has the "assume supernatural ability" feat for its "eye beams" ability, which allows him a variety of abilities at will, including disintegrate, sleep (on any one target), flesh to stone, telekinesis, and that's on top of flight and some natural armor.

He can turn into a quickling, giving him constant haste, improved invisibility (I could have this one wrong), an insane hide check bonus, 240 feet of speed per round walking, and some other rediculous scouting abilities. All of this without needing to use assume supernatural ability.

He can turn into a will-o-the-wisp, which allows him improved invisibility, touch attacks for ability damage, and flight.

I believe he's only 14 HD right now, but even at lower levels, 7-12, he was turning into rediculous things like trolls for imperviousness to non-fire, non-acid sources, snakes for arbitrarily high grapple checks, and humans/elves/dwarves/gnomes/halflings for changes to his appearance and disguises (he's playing a kobold). Most of this is because of MoMF.

He doesn't like the character anymore because he feels too overpowered. I think he should tie the knot and take warshaper for his last 5 levels, which basically makes him immortal for the purposes of combat, but he wants to fluff his character because of the forms he intends to take at higher levels. MoMF exploits the hell out of wildshape, and it all depends on what your DM allows your character to "know" to determine how overpowered you can become.
#6
pithica
Apr 03, 2009 13:46:40
What book is the Planar Shepherd from and what is a wildshape variant ranger?

Faiths of Eberron and a Variant version of the Ranger class presented in Unearthed Arcana/The SRD that exchanges the Combat Style Feats for Wildshape as a druid; respectively.
#7
dr_rocktopus
Apr 03, 2009 14:55:39 MoMF is very powerful, but I'm not convinced it's strictly better than normal druid using enhance wild shape from the spell-compendium combined with the aberrant wild shape feat from lords of madness. This ends up covering a pretty significant portion of the good abilities from MoMF...

If it were a prestige for any other class, my answer would be a resounding yes, but druid is just an exceptionally, almost nightmarishly, powerful class when you have a fair set of splatbooks open to you.

Planar shepherd is so powerful that it's hard to discuss with seriously meaningful comparisons. It has soft entry requirements, immensely powerful abilities, strong caster progression, and a hideously wide selection of possible forms. It's so strong that it's very difficult to play a weak one unless you just play poorly outright.
#8
darkpawn
Apr 03, 2009 15:00:49
Planar shepherd is so powerful that it's hard to discuss with seriously meaningful comparisons. It has soft entry requirements, immensely powerful abilities, strong caster progression, and a hideously wide selection of possible forms. It's so strong that it's very difficult to play a weak one unless you just play poorly outright.

Would you say that Planar Shepherd may be the most broken build known to 3.5? ;)
#9
streakster
Apr 03, 2009 15:04:22
Would you say that Planar Shepherd may be the most broken build known to 3.5? ;)

*Cough Pun-Pun Cough*
#10
darkpawn
Apr 03, 2009 15:07:50
*Cough Pun-Pun Cough*

WOW! That BAD!!
#11
pithica
Apr 03, 2009 15:18:58 In actual play versus a competent DM, it's not quite nearly that broken (as Pun-Pun).

It is, however, certainly in the top 5 most broken PrC's, though, and theoretically, is pretty close and/or very enabling to I/NI builds.
#12
dr_rocktopus
Apr 03, 2009 15:38:26 I would agree precisely with that assessment and would add one thing.

Unlike most of the other tremendously powerful PrCs like Incantatrix, you don't need to know what you're doing with Planar Shepherd. This sounds great, but what it actually means is that it's very easy for a well-meaning player to come to accidentally dominate the group due to his aberrant and unintended power level.
#13
darkpawn
Apr 03, 2009 15:39:22
In actual play versus a competent DM, it's not quite nearly that broken (as Pun-Pun).

It is, however, certainly in the top 5 most broken PrC's, though, and theoretically, is pretty close and/or very enabling to I/NI builds.

What are the top 5 then? What is I/NI?
#14
keithio
Apr 03, 2009 15:52:37 I/NI is Infinite/NearInfinite

As for the top 5, I dunno. Ur-Priest and Hulking Hurler might be on there. Incantatrix too.
#15
dr_rocktopus
Apr 03, 2009 17:29:37 My unordered top eleven:
Incantatrix
[INDENT]I really love meta-magic. Halruaan Elder is my actual preference, but Incantatrix is stronger.[/INDENT]
Hulking Hurler
[INDENT]Bombing the moon is a pastime of mine.[/INDENT]
Planar Shepherd
[INDENT]Discussed.[/INDENT]
Ur-Priest
[INDENT]Flavor, power, elegance, and a lunatic spell progression.[/INDENT]
Sublime Chord
[INDENT]Because yes, I would like to get a second set of 9th level spells.[/INDENT]
Nar Demonbinder
[INDENT]Polly wants a cracker.[/INDENT]
Ruby Knight Vindicator
[INDENT] Because seriously? Yes, I would like to mix Crusader with Cleric. Two CLs lost, but the excellent abilities of the class are worth it.[/INDENT]
Bloodstorm Blade
[INDENT] Not necessarily in power level, but just in weird things it can make happen.[/INDENT]
Abjurant Champion
[INDENT]Simple and superb with a capstone to kill for.[/INDENT]
War Weaver
[INDENT]Biased. Probably shouldn't make the list, honestly[/INDENT]
Frenzied Berserker
[INDENT]If I'm going to hit things, you're not going to talk me into stopping.[/INDENT]
#16
thewingsofoblivion_dup
Apr 03, 2009 19:50:02 have you seen this?

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=639448
#17
darkpawn
Apr 03, 2009 20:05:02
My unordered top eleven:
Incantatrix
[INDENT]I really love meta-magic. Halruaan Elder is my actual preference, but Incantatrix is stronger.[/INDENT]
Hulking Hurler
[INDENT]Bombing the moon is a pastime of mine.[/INDENT]
Planar Shepherd
[INDENT]Discussed.[/INDENT]
Ur-Priest
[INDENT]Flavor, power, elegance, and a lunatic spell progression.[/INDENT]
Sublime Chord
[INDENT]Because yes, I would like to get a second set of 9th level spells.[/INDENT]
Nar Demonbinder
[INDENT]Polly wants a cracker.[/INDENT]
Ruby Knight Vindicator
[INDENT] Because seriously? Yes, I would like to mix Crusader with Cleric. Two CLs lost, but the excellent abilities of the class are worth it.[/INDENT]
Bloodstorm Blade
[INDENT] Not necessarily in power level, but just in weird things it can make happen.[/INDENT]
Abjurant Champion
[INDENT]Simple and superb with a capstone to kill for.[/INDENT]
War Weaver
[INDENT]Biased. Probably shouldn't make the list, honestly[/INDENT]
Frenzied Berserker
[INDENT]If I'm going to hit things, you're not going to talk me into stopping.[/INDENT]

What is wrong with Abjurant Champion? I looked the PrC over and nothing immediately jumped out at me as game breaking.
#18
sofawall
Apr 03, 2009 20:23:26
My unordered top eleven:
Hulking Hurler
[INDENT]Bombing with the moon is a pastime of mine.[/INDENT]

Fixed.
#19
keithio
Apr 03, 2009 20:44:39
What is wrong with Abjurant Champion? I looked the PrC over and nothing immediately jumped out at me as game breaking.

Not game breaking, just plain good. It has an uncanny knack for showing up in like half the builds on these boards.
#20
darkpawn
Apr 03, 2009 20:50:22
Not game breaking, just plain good. It has an uncanny knack for showing up in like half the builds on these boards.

Pray tell why?
#21
keithio
Apr 03, 2009 20:57:50
Pray tell why?

Something to do with d10 hit die, full bab, full casting, swift action casting, +10 AC, caster level finangling and a swift action spellslot burn with multiple applications.

Oh, and you get to sing "We are the champions" whenever you win an encounter.
#22
darkpawn
Apr 03, 2009 21:02:03
Something to do with d10 hit die, full bab, full casting, swift action casting, +10 AC, caster level finangling and a swift action spellslot burn with multiple applications.

Oh, and you get to sing "We are the champions" whenever you win an encounter.

Hmm....that is it? Here I thought there was something good about the PrC. ;)
#23
pithica
Apr 03, 2009 22:21:44 Missed...

Sovereign Speaker (9 level cleric PrC that grants 9 bonus domains and 7 caster levels) also in Faith's of Eberron,

Shadowcraft Mage (5 level PrC that lets you cast, potentially, 9th level empowered (efectively) evocations and conj (sum/crea) with a 7th level slot) from Races of Stone,

and Battle Howler of Gruumsh (5 levels Full Bardic Music + Full Bardic Casting + Full Bab + Rage + Enhanced bardic music + music while in rage all in a nice little package with the only cost being that you have to play an Orc/Half-orc and take two optimal feats for a charger, darn) from Dragon Magazine.

There are a number of PrC's out there with some pretty amazing tricks, that are also quite scary, like

Master of the Unseen Hand (3 level dip costs you caster levels, but makes Telekinesis even more disgusting)

But that's just what I usually point out to people looking to play archetypal badasses.
#24
sudojin
Apr 03, 2009 23:46:45 Mabye we should change the topic of this thread lol. But it seems that master of forms is a bad prestege overall. Got it.
#25
flawless_p
Apr 04, 2009 1:28:33
I was wondering if this was a good presteige for a druid and advice on items/builds for this class. I really like the wildshape ability of the druid and this class makes their wildshape powerful in exchange for spellcasting levels. Is it worth it? It doesn't seem like the druid spell list is that great and being able to wildshape into anything would be worth the loss. Any advice?

I'm currently playing a momf and its not too bad on the list of forms considering the rule about having to have knowledge of a specific race in game in order to use it...I had that small idea nixed because well its dumb...especially since polymorph has no such restriction.

I routinely flip through the MM's to find a forms to try out. I have noticed however that I am constantly wanting a form I cannot have.

It seems like everytime there is a form i can have its not that useful anymore...

Wildshaping ranger is a much better idea for Momf because it offers full BAB and endurance as a bonus feat.
#26
dr_rocktopus
Apr 04, 2009 1:56:06 MoMF isn't bad, it's just not the best. I consider it ban-worthy for certain specific reasons, so..
#27
pithica
Apr 04, 2009 9:14:32 Yeah, I agree, as I said Earlier, MoMF isn't a 'bad' prestige class, there are just better ones for a druid, as anything that lets you get 9ths effectively gives you much more than wildshape, just from the Shapechange spell.

MoMF is a great class for Wildshape rangers.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 sudojin Apr 03, 2009 11:17:05	I was wondering if this was a good presteige for a druid and advice on items/builds for this class. I really like the wildshape ability of the druid and this class makes their wildshape powerful in exchange for spellcasting levels. Is it worth it? It doesn't seem like the druid spell list is that great and being able to wildshape into anything would be worth the loss. Any advice?
#2 theswordsmaster Apr 03, 2009 11:25:47	Master of many forms is great but you need a least 7 level in the class to make it good but even then you loose 7 caster level. I've played both a druid with and without master of many form and although the wildshaping of the MoMF is great I found the spellcasting better. The Swords Master
#3 pithica Apr 03, 2009 13:04:34	I was wondering if this was a good presteige for a druid and advice on items/builds for this class. I really like the wildshape ability of the druid and this class makes their wildshape powerful in exchange for spellcasting levels. Is it worth it? It doesn't seem like the druid spell list is that great and being able to wildshape into anything would be worth the loss. Any advice? Planar Shepherd potentially allows you to wildshape into a lot more useful things than MoMF without costing caster levels. Shapechange (the 9th level Druid Spell) lets you change into any of the forms MoMF would allow. MoMF can work, if you're willing to put effort into it, but it makes much more sense for a Wildshape variant Ranger than it does for a druid.
#4 sudojin Apr 03, 2009 13:28:48	What book is the Planar Shepherd from and what is a wildshape variant ranger?
#5 keyes2k4 Apr 03, 2009 13:35:14	In one campaign I'm in, the MoMF is a bit overpowered, but it may just be because of how our DM let him "know" a few overpowered races. He can turn into a Beholder, and has the "assume supernatural ability" feat for its "eye beams" ability, which allows him a variety of abilities at will, including disintegrate, sleep (on any one target), flesh to stone, telekinesis, and that's on top of flight and some natural armor. He can turn into a quickling, giving him constant haste, improved invisibility (I could have this one wrong), an insane hide check bonus, 240 feet of speed per round walking, and some other rediculous scouting abilities. All of this without needing to use assume supernatural ability. He can turn into a will-o-the-wisp, which allows him improved invisibility, touch attacks for ability damage, and flight. I believe he's only 14 HD right now, but even at lower levels, 7-12, he was turning into rediculous things like trolls for imperviousness to non-fire, non-acid sources, snakes for arbitrarily high grapple checks, and humans/elves/dwarves/gnomes/halflings for changes to his appearance and disguises (he's playing a kobold). Most of this is because of MoMF. He doesn't like the character anymore because he feels too overpowered. I think he should tie the knot and take warshaper for his last 5 levels, which basically makes him immortal for the purposes of combat, but he wants to fluff his character because of the forms he intends to take at higher levels. MoMF exploits the hell out of wildshape, and it all depends on what your DM allows your character to "know" to determine how overpowered you can become.
#6 pithica Apr 03, 2009 13:46:40	What book is the Planar Shepherd from and what is a wildshape variant ranger? Faiths of Eberron and a Variant version of the Ranger class presented in Unearthed Arcana/The SRD that exchanges the Combat Style Feats for Wildshape as a druid; respectively.
#7 dr_rocktopus Apr 03, 2009 14:55:39	MoMF is very powerful, but I'm not convinced it's strictly better than normal druid using enhance wild shape from the spell-compendium combined with the aberrant wild shape feat from lords of madness. This ends up covering a pretty significant portion of the good abilities from MoMF... If it were a prestige for any other class, my answer would be a resounding yes, but druid is just an exceptionally, almost nightmarishly, powerful class when you have a fair set of splatbooks open to you. Planar shepherd is so powerful that it's hard to discuss with seriously meaningful comparisons. It has soft entry requirements, immensely powerful abilities, strong caster progression, and a hideously wide selection of possible forms. It's so strong that it's very difficult to play a weak one unless you just play poorly outright.
#8 darkpawn Apr 03, 2009 15:00:49	Planar shepherd is so powerful that it's hard to discuss with seriously meaningful comparisons. It has soft entry requirements, immensely powerful abilities, strong caster progression, and a hideously wide selection of possible forms. It's so strong that it's very difficult to play a weak one unless you just play poorly outright. Would you say that Planar Shepherd may be the most broken build known to 3.5? ;)
#9 streakster Apr 03, 2009 15:04:22	Would you say that Planar Shepherd may be the most broken build known to 3.5? ;) Cough Pun-Pun Cough
#10 darkpawn Apr 03, 2009 15:07:50	Cough Pun-Pun Cough WOW! That BAD!!
#11 pithica Apr 03, 2009 15:18:58	In actual play versus a competent DM, it's not quite nearly that broken (as Pun-Pun). It is, however, certainly in the top 5 most broken PrC's, though, and theoretically, is pretty close and/or very enabling to I/NI builds.
#12 dr_rocktopus Apr 03, 2009 15:38:26	I would agree precisely with that assessment and would add one thing. Unlike most of the other tremendously powerful PrCs like Incantatrix, you don't need to know what you're doing with Planar Shepherd. This sounds great, but what it actually means is that it's very easy for a well-meaning player to come to accidentally dominate the group due to his aberrant and unintended power level.
#13 darkpawn Apr 03, 2009 15:39:22	In actual play versus a competent DM, it's not quite nearly that broken (as Pun-Pun). It is, however, certainly in the top 5 most broken PrC's, though, and theoretically, is pretty close and/or very enabling to I/NI builds. What are the top 5 then? What is I/NI?
#14 keithio Apr 03, 2009 15:52:37	I/NI is Infinite/NearInfinite As for the top 5, I dunno. Ur-Priest and Hulking Hurler might be on there. Incantatrix too.
#15 dr_rocktopus Apr 03, 2009 17:29:37	My unordered top eleven: Incantatrix [INDENT]I really love meta-magic. Halruaan Elder is my actual preference, but Incantatrix is stronger.[/INDENT] Hulking Hurler [INDENT]Bombing the moon is a pastime of mine.[/INDENT] Planar Shepherd [INDENT]Discussed.[/INDENT] Ur-Priest [INDENT]Flavor, power, elegance, and a lunatic spell progression.[/INDENT] Sublime Chord [INDENT]Because yes, I would like to get a second set of 9th level spells.[/INDENT] Nar Demonbinder [INDENT]Polly wants a cracker.[/INDENT] Ruby Knight Vindicator [INDENT] Because seriously? Yes, I would like to mix Crusader with Cleric. Two CLs lost, but the excellent abilities of the class are worth it.[/INDENT] Bloodstorm Blade [INDENT] Not necessarily in power level, but just in weird things it can make happen.[/INDENT] Abjurant Champion [INDENT]Simple and superb with a capstone to kill for.[/INDENT] War Weaver [INDENT]Biased. Probably shouldn't make the list, honestly[/INDENT] Frenzied Berserker [INDENT]If I'm going to hit things, you're not going to talk me into stopping.[/INDENT]
#16 thewingsofoblivion_dup Apr 03, 2009 19:50:02	have you seen this? http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=639448
#17 darkpawn Apr 03, 2009 20:05:02	My unordered top eleven: Incantatrix [INDENT]I really love meta-magic. Halruaan Elder is my actual preference, but Incantatrix is stronger.[/INDENT] Hulking Hurler [INDENT]Bombing the moon is a pastime of mine.[/INDENT] Planar Shepherd [INDENT]Discussed.[/INDENT] Ur-Priest [INDENT]Flavor, power, elegance, and a lunatic spell progression.[/INDENT] Sublime Chord [INDENT]Because yes, I would like to get a second set of 9th level spells.[/INDENT] Nar Demonbinder [INDENT]Polly wants a cracker.[/INDENT] Ruby Knight Vindicator [INDENT] Because seriously? Yes, I would like to mix Crusader with Cleric. Two CLs lost, but the excellent abilities of the class are worth it.[/INDENT] Bloodstorm Blade [INDENT] Not necessarily in power level, but just in weird things it can make happen.[/INDENT] Abjurant Champion [INDENT]Simple and superb with a capstone to kill for.[/INDENT] War Weaver [INDENT]Biased. Probably shouldn't make the list, honestly[/INDENT] Frenzied Berserker [INDENT]If I'm going to hit things, you're not going to talk me into stopping.[/INDENT] What is wrong with Abjurant Champion? I looked the PrC over and nothing immediately jumped out at me as game breaking.
#18 sofawall Apr 03, 2009 20:23:26	My unordered top eleven: Hulking Hurler [INDENT]Bombing with the moon is a pastime of mine.[/INDENT] Fixed.
#19 keithio Apr 03, 2009 20:44:39	What is wrong with Abjurant Champion? I looked the PrC over and nothing immediately jumped out at me as game breaking. Not game breaking, just plain good. It has an uncanny knack for showing up in like half the builds on these boards.
#20 darkpawn Apr 03, 2009 20:50:22	Not game breaking, just plain good. It has an uncanny knack for showing up in like half the builds on these boards. Pray tell why?
#21 keithio Apr 03, 2009 20:57:50	Pray tell why? Something to do with d10 hit die, full bab, full casting, swift action casting, +10 AC, caster level finangling and a swift action spellslot burn with multiple applications. Oh, and you get to sing "We are the champions" whenever you win an encounter.
#22 darkpawn Apr 03, 2009 21:02:03	Something to do with d10 hit die, full bab, full casting, swift action casting, +10 AC, caster level finangling and a swift action spellslot burn with multiple applications. Oh, and you get to sing "We are the champions" whenever you win an encounter. Hmm....that is it? Here I thought there was something good about the PrC. ;)
#23 pithica Apr 03, 2009 22:21:44	Missed... Sovereign Speaker (9 level cleric PrC that grants 9 bonus domains and 7 caster levels) also in Faith's of Eberron, Shadowcraft Mage (5 level PrC that lets you cast, potentially, 9th level empowered (efectively) evocations and conj (sum/crea) with a 7th level slot) from Races of Stone, and Battle Howler of Gruumsh (5 levels Full Bardic Music + Full Bardic Casting + Full Bab + Rage + Enhanced bardic music + music while in rage all in a nice little package with the only cost being that you have to play an Orc/Half-orc and take two optimal feats for a charger, darn) from Dragon Magazine. There are a number of PrC's out there with some pretty amazing tricks, that are also quite scary, like Master of the Unseen Hand (3 level dip costs you caster levels, but makes Telekinesis even more disgusting) But that's just what I usually point out to people looking to play archetypal badasses.
#24 sudojin Apr 03, 2009 23:46:45	Mabye we should change the topic of this thread lol. But it seems that master of forms is a bad prestege overall. Got it.
#25 flawless_p Apr 04, 2009 1:28:33	I was wondering if this was a good presteige for a druid and advice on items/builds for this class. I really like the wildshape ability of the druid and this class makes their wildshape powerful in exchange for spellcasting levels. Is it worth it? It doesn't seem like the druid spell list is that great and being able to wildshape into anything would be worth the loss. Any advice? I'm currently playing a momf and its not too bad on the list of forms considering the rule about having to have knowledge of a specific race in game in order to use it...I had that small idea nixed because well its dumb...especially since polymorph has no such restriction. I routinely flip through the MM's to find a forms to try out. I have noticed however that I am constantly wanting a form I cannot have. It seems like everytime there is a form i can have its not that useful anymore... Wildshaping ranger is a much better idea for Momf because it offers full BAB and endurance as a bonus feat.
#26 dr_rocktopus Apr 04, 2009 1:56:06	MoMF isn't bad, it's just not the best. I consider it ban-worthy for certain specific reasons, so..
#27 pithica Apr 04, 2009 9:14:32	Yeah, I agree, as I said Earlier, MoMF isn't a 'bad' prestige class, there are just better ones for a druid, as anything that lets you get 9ths effectively gives you much more than wildshape, just from the Shapechange spell. MoMF is a great class for Wildshape rangers.