On Shifters and Shifting [3.5]

[CockroachTeaParty]

The shifter race, originating in Eberron, has never really struck my fancy. Something about their flavor and mechanics interests me less than the other original races introduced in Eberron.

One of my major problems with shifters is the whole shifting mechanic. If you are a shifter character, and plan on getting any mileage out of your racial ability to shift, you need to invest pretty much all of your feats into shifter feats. For such an intense investment, it would seem shifting is still a pretty unimpressive ability.

Shifting provides a small boost to an ability score (typically STR, DEX, or CON), and provides some other benefit, such as a new movement mode, a natural attack, or other small boost in power. These benefits are finite in duration, and limited in use per day. The more shifting feats you have, the more you can shift, and the longer your shifting lasts.

Maybe I'm yet to see a well optimized shifter really wow me with a powerful bout of shifting... But as it stands, it just seems too big an investment for too small a benefit. Wizards are pretty much blowing shifting out of the water at level 3 with Alter Self. Why should the shifter race get the shaft?

Would it unbalance things to let shifters shift once per encounter? Does anybody have any experience playing shifters that would like to share? Any other ideas towards making shifters a better race? Or are they fine as-is and I'm missing something?

[Dusk Eclipse]

Shifters are my favorite race:smallbiggrin:

I have some experience with them, and yeah the shifting mechanic is extremely bad, I have been playing the shifter since level 5 (now 10) and the only time shifting was useful for me, was when we were stranded in Dal Quor and I botched my will save to keep my gear (houserule) so I had to use my bite attack to defend myself.

I think that maybe making shifting a per encounter mechanic is a good ide... with maybe increasing the number of times you can shift by one per shifter feat...

Also I think that changing their stat modifiers to +2 Dex and either -2 cha or -2 int might make them more playable.

[Corbeau]

I happen too enjoy shifters, atleast conceptually. I will say that they are by no means on par with humans and whisper gnomes as far as optimization goes, but they are definately flavorful. The thing is, IMO, that they can produce decently powerful builds but they are rather resticted in options. Barbarian rage does stack with shifting which can make for some high damage output. As for comparing them to a wizard, that's not really a worthy competition; seeing as shifters are effectively were-creatures-lite and thus lean toward melee.

[Choco]

Shifters qualify you for Warshaper. That alone is worth it.

[Person_Man]

Ragewild Fighter is a moderately useful Shifter feat. It's an easy way to Fatigue your enemy. When combined with another Fatigue effect, it Exhausts them, which is a semi-potent debuff.

[Bibliomancer]

The Shift mechanic, while underpowered, is not totally useless. It allows you to get +4 Dexterity (if you choose the right type) for a few rounds one combat per day, which is quite good for an LA+0 race.

Apart from that, shifters have very interesting fluff, and the base land speed boost from longstrider (which grants a boost to Dexterity) is fairly useful for a rogue or ranger.

[The Cat Goddess]

My biggest problem with Shifters lays in the lack of powerful higher-end Shifter Feats.

Though the PrC that lets you become a true Were, combined with the PrC in ToB, can make for a pretty powerful melee character.

[Skaven]

An entire race whose entire concept is beaten by a level 2 spell.

[Keld Denar]

Though the PrC that lets you become a true Were, combined with the PrC in ToB, can make for a pretty powerful melee character.

Except that the errata neutered the Weretouched Master so bad it's still licking the wound. So bad.

Yea, making shifting 1/encounter, or giving more attempts with increased HD (independant of class or feats) would be a good idea. Having natural weapons, especially the ones that don't involve your hands, is pretty decent since you can still bite for free while wielding a 2handed weapon. Biting doesn't penalize your normal attack routine, and at -5, its no worse off to hit than your 2ndary iterative. If you have alternate +damage from say...Knowledge Devotion or Sneak Attack or spells, then more attacks means more damage, regardless of how little damage the base attack does.

[HunterOfJello]

were shifters improved much in 4e?

I always liked the ideas behind the race, even though the implementation was poor.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Outside of Eberron, I find shifters perhaps even more boring. The 4E stab at them seems uninspired, randomly shoving them into the generic setting without a backward glance. At least in Eberron they have a place, history, culture, and other details to redeem them. I personally find shifters in other settings one of the most vestigial races, barring intense care on the DM's part.