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Zergrusheddie
2009-02-22, 01:51 PM
I've read huge long threads that more or less say the same thing: "Who the hell designed this class?!" Apparently, everyone feels that it's too powerful. Me being the newbie that I am, I found it hard to accept that Druids were a little too powerful so the idea of being a Planar Shepherd just flies over my head. I have no idea what's so powerful about it; would anyone be kind enough to explain or just give some examples of why this guy is so vicious?

Y'all are awesome.
-Eddie

kjones
2009-02-22, 01:57 PM
From the Wizards boards:



Planar Bubble

Effectively, you bring part of your "home plane" back with you. This can enhance some of your spells, abilities, etc. Remember, you are unaffected by its' negative traits (such as fire, etc.). OUTRAGEOUS ability!!!! This allows you to harvest the time traits of planes as well. Dal Quor will give you 10 rounds to play with for every one round on the Material Plane. Xoriat will allow a minute to be an hour...awesome.


If you can't see what's wrong with that, then I'm not sure I can help you.

EDIT: Forgot that being able to wildshape into anything from your chosen plane also introduces ludicrous quantities of cheese. If your chosen plane is the Plane of Fire, you can wildshape into an Efreet - Wish as an SLA 3/day.

aje8
2009-02-22, 02:21 PM
Don't forget the planar bubble ability.

Choose the Dream plane where time is 12x faster.

Activate Planar Bubble, your party now gets 12 rounds to the enemies 1.

It also advances Wildshape, Animal Companion, and Spellcasting.

So in total, you lose NOTHING and so gain 2 OF THE MOST POWERFUL ABILTIIES ANYWHERE IN DND!!!!!!!!!!

Belial_the_Leveler
2009-02-22, 02:52 PM
Meh. My campaign world is timeless and dimensionally disjointed. Go ahead; cast planar bubble. No matter how much time passes in Erebus, no time passes in most other planes. You'll be eternally frozen in time.

Flickerdart
2009-02-22, 02:58 PM
Meh. My campaign world is timeless and dimensionally disjointed. Go ahead; cast planar bubble. No matter how much time passes in Erebus, no time passes in most other planes. You'll be eternally frozen in time.
Yes, but that doesn't stop all the Planar Shepherds that aren't in your campaign from abusing this.

The Glyphstone
2009-02-22, 03:00 PM
Yeah - but does Oberoni apply to normally campaign-specific material like the Shepard, where simply taking it out of its context (say, into a cosmology without a fast-time plane) hampers its power significantly?

monty
2009-02-22, 03:01 PM
Meh. My campaign world is timeless and dimensionally disjointed. Go ahead; cast planar bubble. No matter how much time passes in Erebus, no time passes in most other planes. You'll be eternally frozen in time.

Hooray for a sample size of 1.

Belial_the_Leveler
2009-02-22, 03:07 PM
Hooray for a sample size of 1.

Exactly. Planar Shepherd is from one specific campaign world. And as others pointed out, that campaign world has no fast-time plane. If the DM allows setting-specific material out of said setting, it's his problem, not the material's problem.

kjones
2009-02-22, 03:19 PM
Exactly. Planar Shepherd is from one specific campaign world. And as others pointed out, that campaign world has no fast-time plane. If the DM allows setting-specific material out of said setting, it's his problem, not the material's problem.

Incorrect. On Dal Quor, the plane of dreams in Eberron, time passes at 10:1 with respect to the Prime Material Plane.

Furthermore, you can still be pretty cheesy even without time differences. Note (as stated in my previous post) the ability to wildshape into any denizen of that plane. There are a lot of extremely powerful outsiders that you should not be able to wildshape into with anything short of [i]shapechange[i].

Just read this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=709233) if you need any more evidence. Ask yourself - would you allow one of those in your game? I sure as hell wouldn't, regardless of setting.

Frog Dragon
2009-02-22, 03:19 PM
Still doesn't mitigate being able to take outsider forms. If animal forms are cheese (which some are) then wait till you see that!

Edit: Arrgh ninja:smallmad:

monty
2009-02-22, 03:41 PM
Exactly. Planar Shepherd is from one specific campaign world. And as others pointed out, that campaign world has no fast-time plane. If the DM allows setting-specific material out of said setting, it's his problem, not the material's problem.

I was referring to your example, where Planar Shepherds are weakened by the nature of the setting. Most settings aren't like that.

Besides, it still doesn't change the fact that their Wildshape is basically Shapechange++ at an earlier level.

Draz74
2009-02-22, 03:45 PM
Don't forget the best thing of all about Planar Shepherd:

It still progresses all of your important Druid features at every level.

Yes, even the mighty Druid is losing nothing by taking this PrC instead of his base class. Anything else that the PrC gives him is just icing on the cake. (And it's a lot of icing ... planar traits besides Time can also be pretty awesome to emulate.)

Zergrusheddie
2009-02-22, 03:52 PM
Don't forget the best thing of all about Planar Shepherd:

It still progresses all of your important Druid features at every level.


I remember that it gives you your Animal Companion, but considering that a certain friend (Lenny!) still hasn't given me my book back I am unable to look it up at the moment. Does it progress spell casting?

kjones
2009-02-22, 04:01 PM
I remember that it gives you your Animal Companion, but considering that a certain friend (Lenny!) still hasn't given me my book back I am unable to look it up at the moment. Does it progress spell casting?

Full spellcasting progression. Every single aspect of this prestige class is a munchkin's wet dream.

Zergrusheddie
2009-02-22, 04:09 PM
Full spellcasting progression. Every single aspect of this prestige class is a munchkin's wet dream.

Damn. Just damn.

monty
2009-02-22, 04:14 PM
I remember that it gives you your Animal Companion, but considering that a certain friend (Lenny!) still hasn't given me my book back I am unable to look it up at the moment. Does it progress spell casting?

Full casting. Full wildshape. Full AC.

I have to wonder what combination of drugs the writers were on when they thought this was a good idea.

Kroy
2009-02-22, 04:23 PM
Full casting. Full wildshape. Full AC.

I have to wonder what combination of drugs the writers were on when they thought this was a good idea.

Probably the same as when they made the Monk (or CW Samurai for that matter).

tyckspoon
2009-02-22, 10:21 PM
Probably the same as when they made the Monk (or CW Samurai for that matter).

No, if they were still on that mix the Planar Shepherd would advance none of the pre-existing Druid abilities and instead give you the ability to, I don't know, summon Celestial/Fiendish/Planetouched sheep. Which would be advanced according to the Familiar chart and not the Animal Companion chart.. but it's ok, the class makes up its power by having the capstone of once per day summoning a PLANAR SHEEP STAMPEDE for 10d6 damage.

The Glyphstone
2009-02-22, 10:43 PM
No, if they were still on that mix the Planar Shepherd would advance none of the pre-existing Druid abilities and instead give you the ability to, I don't know, summon Celestial/Fiendish/Planetouched sheep. Which would be advanced according to the Familiar chart and not the Animal Companion chart.. but it's ok, the class makes up its power by having the capstone of once per day summoning a PLANAR SHEEP STAMPEDE for 10d6 damage.

Somebody homebrew this Planar Sheep-Herder. NOW.:smallbiggrin: