Shifter Avenging Druid/Moonspeaker good Wild feats <3.5>

[Tokuhara]

After a quick showing of Maho to my DM, he said "by the books," thus demolishing my plans for world domination...

So I thought to return to my roots: nature-themed divinist

so, while scrounging around Eberron, Moonspeaker struck me as "Awesome." Granted, with Druid entry, not so nice. However, this fits more fluff-wise than crunch-wise.

So here's a rough look at the build in question:

Race: Longstride Shifter (Speed is King)
Class: Avenging Druid (Racial Substitutions where applicable) 6/Moonspeaker 10/Ruithar 3/Weretouched Master (Wolverine) 1

I choose to not weild a weapon, because I picked up the Longtooth and Razorclaw Extra Traits in tendem with Shifter Savagery, and with Moonspeaker, I'll pick up Wildhunt

So, what could I choose for Wild feats, since I have like 1/day (I shift more than I'd wildshape), so it has to count.

[Tokuhara]

Okay, I'll admit: not the best PrC/Class combo ever, but one must remember he is trying to outfight the warblade without maneuvers, so straight-up damage is key

[T.G. Oskar]

Actually, Druid/Moonspeaker is quite good. Don't understand why you're going for Weretouched Master: it's usually a bad idea because what you get doesn't compare to getting more Druid or Moonspeaker levels.

First: it's risky, but I'd change the last four levels with levels in Warshaper. Immunity to crits, extra Strength and Constitution, reach, higher damage and fast healing are insanely good, though you lose four caster levels by doing so (and Druid spellcasting is awesome). You can decide to leap-frog by using Druid 6/Warshaper 2, then find good points where to break off Moonspeaker to enhance your Warshaper levels. Recall that you need 11 ranks of Knowledge (nature), which you can't get until 8th level; you can buy ranks cross-class and get to Moonspeaker at 9th level, losing a spell level but gaining a series of great benefits. Then, you can shift as much as you desire.

Once you reach Moonspeaker, the rest goes as follows: at Druid 6/Warshaper 2/Moonspeaker 6, you can either finish Warshaper (that way you get fast healing 2 whenever you shift or wild-shape at level 16, which isn't that late, or decide to finish Moonspeaker's last two levels (level 11th is awesome and level 12th is just plain nifty).

A few pointers: you can only choose ONE Extra Shifter Trait. So you'd have either Longstride and Longtooth, or Longstride and Razorclaw, or Longtooth and Razorclaw. Moonspeaker 9th only allows you to take one extra shifter trait beyond the limits you can get, so at most you can have three shifter traits (not four). I don't see much what you get by Longstride, so I'd suggest you start with Longtooth or Razorclaw, so that the 6th level of Moonspeaker permanently increases your Strength by 2, and you can take advantage of the other increases.

Shifter Savagery is kind of a trap. Reason is because you can't get more increases other than getting actual size increases. However, if you still insist, Wolverine's Rage (Complete Divine) allows you to expend a use of wild shape to rage, which can allow you to qualify for Shifter Savagery without touching Weretouched Master. That's a good wild feat if you're not going the way of wild shaping (which, quite honestly, is technically better than shifting and still takes advantage of Warshaper). Talk to your DM to see if he allows the Warshaper's morphic weapons ability to stack with Shifter Savagery, but if you can't, at least you can use Morphic Weapons to create another natural weapon (which, by RAW, would allow you to take benefit of Shifter Savagery, so that's three weapons with 19-20 crit threat range and two size categories larger, and Morphic Reach allows you to attack from a distance so that means go Large or Huge and strike from about 15-20 ft. with four size category increases with three weapons.

Thought of Longtooth Elite, Great Bite and Great Rend? All these three attacks make you really brutal when shifting, and you get one extra use per day and three extra rounds. Great Bite + Longtooth Elite + Warshaper means you can get a bite with a crit of 19-20/x3, dealing 2d6 plus 1 point of Con damage and a range of 10 ft; that alone will scare your DM. Then you get Great Rend, and a successful attack with two claws means you get rending damage. Great Rend is not as necessary, but Great Bite alone makes your day; consider it just because of what I mentioned above (although that makes three feats, along with Extra Shifter Trait, Wolverine's Rage and Shifter Savagery means you consume all of your feats aside from one).

Also, remember you can use metamagic feats. Extend Spell is just brutal, and it counts for your shifting as well.

However, since you asked for Wild feats, I'd say...Great and Small, from Complete Champion, further increases your size and can reduce it if it were necessary; that way, you further stack with Shifter Savagery and Warshaper. Lion's Pounce (from Complete Divine) is cool if you wish to get pounce, but Spirit Lion Totem (Complete Champion) barbarian nets you that, plus the rage you need for Shifter Savagery (though remember you need to be shifting AND raging for that one, so in the end Wolverine's Rage is still superior).

Remember that Moonspeaker helps your summoning abilities, so that means you don't need to go that much further into summoning: Augment Summoning and Extend Summoning makes your Summon Nature's Ally spells even more powerful (and expands the list as well), so consider summoning as well.

All in all: the build as presented doesn't help that much (don't see the use to Ruathar other than qualifying for Moonspeaker, which would make the build Druid 6/Ruathar 3/Weretouched Master 1 [Wolverine]/Moonspeaker 10, in that order). As for Wild feats, Great and Small and Wolverine's Rage help a lot, even more if you wish to get Shifter Savagery (though you may need to justify using that feat to qualify for the other one). From then, you can go Longtooth Elite and Great Bite and call it a day.

Oh, I almost forgot: with Wolverine's Rage, you can go vanilla Druid and specifically not lose spontaneous summoning. Using Summon Nature's Ally at any level (once you reach that level) and with all the benefits of Moonspeaker means you (and your beast) can outfight anything, even more if you suddenly summon a group of boosted bralani.

[Tokuhara]

Actually, Druid/Moonspeaker is quite good. Don't understand why you're going for Weretouched Master: it's usually a bad idea because what you get doesn't compare to getting more Druid or Moonspeaker levels.

First: it's risky, but I'd change the last four levels with levels in Warshaper. Immunity to crits, extra Strength and Constitution, reach, higher damage and fast healing are insanely good, though you lose four caster levels by doing so (and Druid spellcasting is awesome). You can decide to leap-frog by using Druid 6/Warshaper 2, then find good points where to break off Moonspeaker to enhance your Warshaper levels. Recall that you need 11 ranks of Knowledge (nature), which you can't get until 8th level; you can buy ranks cross-class and get to Moonspeaker at 9th level, losing a spell level but gaining a series of great benefits. Then, you can shift as much as you desire.

Once you reach Moonspeaker, the rest goes as follows: at Druid 6/Warshaper 2/Moonspeaker 6, you can either finish Warshaper (that way you get fast healing 2 whenever you shift or wild-shape at level 16, which isn't that late, or decide to finish Moonspeaker's last two levels (level 11th is awesome and level 12th is just plain nifty).

A few pointers: you can only choose ONE Extra Shifter Trait. So you'd have either Longstride and Longtooth, or Longstride and Razorclaw, or Longtooth and Razorclaw. Moonspeaker 9th only allows you to take one extra shifter trait beyond the limits you can get, so at most you can have three shifter traits (not four). I don't see much what you get by Longstride, so I'd suggest you start with Longtooth or Razorclaw, so that the 6th level of Moonspeaker permanently increases your Strength by 2, and you can take advantage of the other increases.

Shifter Savagery is kind of a trap. Reason is because you can't get more increases other than getting actual size increases. However, if you still insist, Wolverine's Rage (Complete Divine) allows you to expend a use of wild shape to rage, which can allow you to qualify for Shifter Savagery without touching Weretouched Master. That's a good wild feat if you're not going the way of wild shaping (which, quite honestly, is technically better than shifting and still takes advantage of Warshaper). Talk to your DM to see if he allows the Warshaper's morphic weapons ability to stack with Shifter Savagery, but if you can't, at least you can use Morphic Weapons to create another natural weapon (which, by RAW, would allow you to take benefit of Shifter Savagery, so that's three weapons with 19-20 crit threat range and two size categories larger, and Morphic Reach allows you to attack from a distance so that means go Large or Huge and strike from about 15-20 ft. with four size category increases with three weapons.

Thought of Longtooth Elite, Great Bite and Great Rend? All these three attacks make you really brutal when shifting, and you get one extra use per day and three extra rounds. Great Bite + Longtooth Elite + Warshaper means you can get a bite with a crit of 19-20/x3, dealing 2d6 plus 1 point of Con damage and a range of 10 ft; that alone will scare your DM. Then you get Great Rend, and a successful attack with two claws means you get rending damage. Great Rend is not as necessary, but Great Bite alone makes your day; consider it just because of what I mentioned above (although that makes three feats, along with Extra Shifter Trait, Wolverine's Rage and Shifter Savagery means you consume all of your feats aside from one).

Also, remember you can use metamagic feats. Extend Spell is just brutal, and it counts for your shifting as well.

However, since you asked for Wild feats, I'd say...Great and Small, from Complete Champion, further increases your size and can reduce it if it were necessary; that way, you further stack with Shifter Savagery and Warshaper. Lion's Pounce (from Complete Divine) is cool if you wish to get pounce, but Spirit Lion Totem (Complete Champion) barbarian nets you that, plus the rage you need for Shifter Savagery (though remember you need to be shifting AND raging for that one, so in the end Wolverine's Rage is still superior).

Remember that Moonspeaker helps your summoning abilities, so that means you don't need to go that much further into summoning: Augment Summoning and Extend Summoning makes your Summon Nature's Ally spells even more powerful (and expands the list as well), so consider summoning as well.

All in all: the build as presented doesn't help that much (don't see the use to Ruathar other than qualifying for Moonspeaker, which would make the build Druid 6/Ruathar 3/Weretouched Master 1 [Wolverine]/Moonspeaker 10, in that order). As for Wild feats, Great and Small and Wolverine's Rage help a lot, even more if you wish to get Shifter Savagery (though you may need to justify using that feat to qualify for the other one). From then, you can go Longtooth Elite and Great Bite and call it a day.

Oh, I almost forgot: with Wolverine's Rage, you can go vanilla Druid and specifically not lose spontaneous summoning. Using Summon Nature's Ally at any level (once you reach that level) and with all the benefits of Moonspeaker means you (and your beast) can outfight anything, even more if you suddenly summon a group of boosted bralani.

Okay. Didn't know you could only choose one (never found it in the book, so ran with the ball they gave me)

Wolverine's Rage gives me an extra rage?! Sweet!

Reason I took one level of Weretouched Master was so I could make my already vicious bite attack even deadlier. Longstride is in there for mobility. Able to move a total of 70 feet (with Longstride Elite, Avenging Druid, and Quick trait) a round is great, since I can technically do Hit-and-Run-type tactics, after casting Buff spells on myself. Heck, if Wizard McPompous casts Haste on me, I'm golden.

Will also pick up Extend (was planning on it) and Instantneous Rage and Reactive Shift. This way, I can flip into a Bestial Monster in a heartbeat

However, would Barbarian with a dip into Wildshape Ranger help me at all instead of Druid (granted, no Moonspeaker, but could go Runescarred...)

[T.G. Oskar]

Okay. Didn't know you could only choose one (never found it in the book, so ran with the ball they gave me)

As a rule of thumb, unless the feat says you can take it more than once, you can't take the feat more than once. Notice that's on feats like Weapon Focus (and the WF line). Thus, essentially you can't take a feat more than once, and Extra Shifter Trait works that way.


Wolverine's Rage gives me an extra rage?! Sweet!

It's basically one use of rage per use of Wild Shape, so you'll get about 4 uses, give or take. You must also take damage for it to work, so you need to shift first, then get hit, then activate the rage afterwards. And it only lasts for 5 rounds, which should be enough to end a battle. So it's not the best method to rage, but it's nonetheless a good one.


Reason I took one level of Weretouched Master was so I could make my already vicious bite attack even deadlier.

Warshaper's Morphic Weapon makes your bite attack just as deadlier. Also: consider that Shifter Savagery and Weretouched Master don't mix: at the moment you activate Shifter Savagery, your bite attack increases by one more size than that you already have. To explain: Weretouched Master grants you a bite attack OR increases the size of your bite damage. What Shifter Savagery does is replace that increase with a double increase (essentially, instead of dealing 1d8 as per Weretouched Master's wolverine bite, you'd get a mere 2d6, not 3d6 as you'd expect). Even then, the Warshaper's Morphic Weapons allow you to deal bite damage as one size category larger IF you already have the natural weapon, so you gain the same benefit (and more!) by going Warshaper, and you still lose one caster level in that way. Oh, and you get Morphic Immunities, so essentially you get more than what you'd get from Weretouched Master. Hence, why I say it's a bad idea (you generally take Weretouched Master if you're a fighter, probably alongside Bloodclaw Master for greater synergy with your claw damage).


Longstride is in there for mobility. Able to move a total of 70 feet (with Longstride Elite, Avenging Druid, and Quick trait) a round is great, since I can technically do Hit-and-Run-type tactics, after casting Buff spells on myself. Heck, if Wizard McPompous casts Haste on me, I'm golden.

Recall what's one of your first spells in the book? Longstrider, and it has a really huge movement speed. You really want fly speeds, climb speeds, swim speeds, burrow speeds, not necessarily a faster land speed. And if you want hit-and-run tactics, you'd need Spring Attack, which is not the best idea. You don't really need more than Haste would otherwise grant you, so it's basically a moot point to waste Extra Shifter Trait on a trait such as Longstride, unless you REALLY want that Dex (and how I see it, you want more Strength than Dexterity actually). I personally find Beasthide (+2 Con, +2 natural armor bonus to AC) better than Longstride.


Will also pick up Extend (was planning on it) and Instantneous Rage and Reactive Shift. This way, I can flip into a Bestial Monster in a heartbeat

Thing is, raging is already a free action, and you don't need more than 5 rounds to react. Instantaneous Rage and Reactive Shift only mean you can either shift or rage as an immediate action, but not both; generally, you want to rage as a free action and shift as a swift action, so you can get both abilities online no less than two turns. So both feats are mostly unnecessary. Also, that way you won't get many feats, such as Longtooth Elite and Great Bite which help your uses of shifting, your duration of shifting (2 rounds per use of shifting) and your bite attack will be monstrous.

Extend Spell, though, is not a bad idea. Especially if you find ways to reduce the spell level requirement, since in that case you can pretty much extend Superior Magic Fang which is just brutal.

However, would Barbarian with a dip into Wildshape Ranger help me at all instead of Druid (granted, no Moonspeaker, but could go Runescarred...)