Feat choice for this wild shaper?

[Kaje]

So, I'm working on a Changeling Wild Shape Mystic Ranger / Warshaper / MoMF, and I'm wondering about my feat selection. The idea is that the wild shaping and such are the changeling just getting a whole lot better at changing, and she will likely be spending a great deal of time in wild shape.

I'll be taking Natural Spell, of course. Sword of the Arcane Order is very appealing, though I'm not sure if it would be worth it with only 5 levels of MR spellcasting. Thoughts on that?

Also, I'm looking at the feats Beast Totem and Beast Shape from ECS. They look good to me, but I'm also a terrible judge of these things at times. Are they decent feats, and if so, which totem/form would be best?

Extra Wild Shape is also appealing at early levels, but with an eventual 11 WS/day and the ability to shift among different forms unlimited times in 5 hours, it seems really unnecessary later on. And all the other wild feats seem pretty terrible, though some might fit with the character concept, as the changeling would gain the ability to change parts of herself without totally turning into an animal.

Thoughts, and any other good feats?

[Tvtyrant]

Frozen or Aberrant wildshape nets you a lot more shapes, particularly as there are few gargantuan animals.

[tyckspoon]

Sword of the Arcane Order is.. interesting. I'd probably skip it, since you advancing your casting any more, but there certainly are some good 1st and 2nd level spells you could make use of.

Beast Totem is pretty terrible, although the bonus for Displacer Beast is nice. Beast Totem Shape is nifty, but I don't know if it justifies burning a feat on Beast Totem to get it. Displacer Beast is probably the best option there, since Beast Totem Shape lets you use its (Su) abilities; its Displacement power makes a good defensive platform for spellcasting.. or would, if you were doing a more traditional primary-casting-druid build. Chimera, Gorgon, and Yrthak aren't terrible, but they're also not stupendously better than the other stuff you'll be able to turn into as an MoMF anyway (Gorgon's AoE save-or-die breath is something you won't really get any other way, but you'll likely be better just savaging things to death.)

There's always Improved Natural Attack and Multiattack/Improved as staples; almost everything worth using as a fighting form has claws, and with Warshaper in the mix if it doesn't you can just add them. Other than that.. I don't know all that many really good Wildshape feats. Frozen and Exalted Wildshape are decent, although Frozen is basically entirely for the purpose of turning into a Hydra.

[Gavinfoxx]

Have you seen this handbook?

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10830.0

Anyway, the basic Druid Wild Shape feats are as follows:
Natural Spell
Dragon Wild Shape
Frozen Wild Shape
Exalted Wild Shape
Assume Supernatural Ability
Multiattack
Improved Natural Attack

I think even going MoMF, the Wildshaping Ranger doesn't get better than Medium sized, right?? Thus negating much of the benefits of, sayyy, Frozen Wild Shape and the Cryohydra?

[Cog]

I think even going MoMF, the Wildshaping Ranger doesn't get better than Medium sized, right?? Thus negating much of the benefits of, sayyy, Frozen Wild Shape and the Cryohydra?
MoMF directly gives you new sizes rather than stacking with your original progression, so Wildshape Ranger's size limits are negated.

[Hazzardevil]

MoMF directly gives you new sizes rather than stacking with your original progression, so Wildshape Ranger's size limits are negated.

I've tried to play this sort of build before, although I didn't use Warshaper.
I heavily reccomend taking the 5th level though.

1. Wildshape into something small at start of day.
2. Climb into the party Barbarian's bag.
3. Get throw by the Barbarian two-handed at the start of combat.
4. Wildshape into something big while in the air.
5. Deal lots of damage
6. ???
7. Profit!

I've never done one of those before.

[Waker]

Savage Species has a lot of good options (though it is 3.0, so you may want to check with the DM first.) Some of my suggestions.
Assume Supernatural Ability, Improved: If you see yourself using a certain form repeatedly, you might like this.
Extend Reach: Works very well with the Warshapers Morphic Reach.
Multiattack, Improved: Tons of monsters have multiple attacks, take advantage of them all.


Sadly Quick Change only works for the alternate form special quality. You could wreak some real havoc with it if it worked for wild shape.

[Cog]

Sadly Quick Change only works for the alternate form special quality. You could wreak some real havoc with it if it worked for wild shape.
There is an alternative; Complete Champion gives us Swift Wild Shape. It has Fast Wild Shape as a prereq, but it doesn't specify the feat of that name - so the MoMF ability of the same name works.

[Togo]

I'd recommend looking at

Fast healing (CW)
Frozen wildshape (Frost)
Praemeval wild shape (Frost)

The first gives you more hp when you change shape, which can be useful. Combine with Healthful rest and MoMFs fast wild shape to burn shifts to heal yourself.

Frozen wildshape gives you a limited number of magical beast forms, which are generally excellent. Cryohydra is the most often cited, but don't neglect the others.

Praemeval wild shape gives str and con bonuses, at the cost of a very short duration. Useful for when you only need a form for a combat.


MoMFs gives you very useful bonuses for fighting, but it's the special abilities, available to no other class, that really make a MoMFs shine.

[Kaje]

Thanks for responses. I'm taking a look at Assume Supernatural Ability, and I confess I'm not sure how it actually works. Do I pick one ability of a single form when I take the feat, or do I pick one ability of a form each time I wild shape? I suspect it's probably the former, in which case I'll skip the feat entirely, as the point is to be able to mimic the form of anything, rather than just turn into a dragon or a sarrukh every day.

Other than that, it looks like here's my potential feat build:
WSMR 5 / MoMF 3 / WS 5 / MoMF 7
1 - Alertness
3 - Dunno. Maybe Blind-Fight?
6 - Natural Spell
9 - Sword of the Arcane Order
12 - Frozen Wild Shape
15 - Multiattack
18 - Exalted Wild Shape or Assume Supernatural Ability

[Fouredged Sword]

Find a creature that has wish as a SU ability. Win the game.

[Keld Denar]

I'm gonna go out there and say Improved Unarmed Strike. That allows you to make your full iterative attacks and then make your natural attacks as secondary natural attacks. If you had a BAB of say, +11, and you wildshaped into an octopus with Multiattack, your attack routine (pre Str) would be:

UAS: +11/+6/+1
Tentacle: +9/+9/+9/+9/+9/+9/+9/+9
Bite: +9

For a total of 12 attacks. That also opens up Improved Grapple for the extra +4 on grab checks with Improved Grab forms.