Master of Many Forms - Suggestions?

[Gardener]

I've been meaning to play a Master of Many Forms for a while, and I may be getting a chance soon. I have a couple of questions for people more familiar with the class in play.

1) I know Warshaper is really nice in a MoMF build, especially the capstone, but I was wondering where a good breakpoint for MoMF would be? Or should I just go straight for Everchanging Form and the immunity to transmutations?

2) What would people recommend gestalting alongside MoMF/Warshaper? Is it more important to cover the lost BAB and smallish hit dice, or the poor will saves? Is there some way to not make this trade-off?

3) Any other general tips on shapeshifting for fun and profit?

[supermonkeyjoe]

Master of many forms is all about the versatility, you either want to end at 7 for the Ex abilities or go for all 10 levels depending on if you want to change into oozes/dragons/plants and be immune to transmutations or improve other aspects.

warshaper does have some nice benefits but doesn't benefit wildshaping at all which means you cap out at 15HD maximum for your forms. The other option is Nature's warrior which advances wildshaping but doesn't give as good benefits as Warshaper.

I can't comment on the gestalt options but you can make Will saves moot if you find a form immune to mind affecting spells and abilities (i.e. all plants and oozes)

I'm sure you'd get some better advice at the Master of Many forms bible (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19528526/updated_Master_of_Many_Forms_Bible__official_wild_ shape_rules)

[Rhaegar14]

If you're playing a gestalt game, what I would honestly recommend is putting something that'll be useful early in your other column (can't really comment specifically though), then once you qualify keep a straight Druid progression in the main column and put your Wild-Shaper classes in the secondary column. That way, you don't sacrifice your spellcasting.

Also, I would recommend a level or 3 in Nature's Warrior; the +3 damage on natural attacks can add up in the right forms, and the +1 magic enhancement bonus to attack rolls helps you not be crippled against a lot of enemy types (for instance, Dragons, incorporeals... pretty much anything with DR X/magic or that requires magic weapons to hit at all).

Edit: Actually, find a nice prestige class that'll advance your Druid casting but give you different class features; most of what makes Druid worthwhile will be covered in that second column.

[Gullintanni]

Honestly? Warshaper is a 3 level PrC. The capstone is cool, but it's also overkill. 7 levels of MoMF grants you an additional seven uses of your Wildshape. Use a Wildshape Variant Ranger for entry into MoMF and you can have upwards of 10 Wildshape uses per day, each lasting for 17 hours (assuming your build is Ranger10/MoMF7/WS3).

That means you can make use of upwards of 10 different forms every day, and stay Wildshaped all day long. Taking all 5 levels of Warshaper on the other hand, means you're limited to 15HD forms, whereas with only 3 levels of Warshaper, you can take forms up to 17HD. That's potentially a lot of lost versatility for the ability to change shape more often.

Your optimum build should be this:

Wildshape Ranger5/MoMF7/WS 3/Wildshape Advancing Class 5.

I'm not really a fan of gestalt and I don't know the rules well enough to make recommendations, but in a non-gestalt, that's the build you want.

[Feytalist]

Your optimum build should be this:

Wildshape Ranger5/MoMF7/WS 3/Wildshape Advancing Class 5.

I'm not really a fan of gestalt and I don't know the rules well enough to make recommendations, but in a non-gestalt, that's the build you want.

That Wildshape Advancing Class might as well be Nature's Warrior. Some nice abilities in there.

[MeeposFire]

In a gestalt gae you will already be a melee menace due to MoMF so I recommend ways to increase your versatility even further without the use of wild shape. Spells are a common choice (though I don't care for them) but outside of that some good choices include binder, incarnate, totemist, warlock, and factotum.

Each provides some passive and active abilities and generally make you more versatile and effective.