Wild Shape familiarity

[Lord Il Palazzo]

Regarding Wild Shape, the SRD says "The form chosen must be that of an animal the druid is familiar with."

How do you determine if a druid is "familiar" with a given animal? It certainly seems reasonable to say that, if the druid has lived in a temperate forest for most of his life, he is familiar with the various animals you would find there, but does anyone else have any other thoughts or ideas?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

1. "Is my character familiar with a given animal?"
2. Roll a Knowledge: Nature (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/knowledge.htm) check, DC 10 + animal's HD. If taking ten on this check will succeed, then you always take ten.
3. Success means that yes, your character is indeed familiar with that animal, and can thus wild shape into it.

[Lord Il Palazzo]

I like the concept (especially since it gives knowledge(nature) a use beyond just identifying a few monsters) but it seems a little too easy. For example, a druid who's never been anywhere near the ocean is suddenly "familiar" with all sorts of marine life with just a couple of ranks.

[noparlpf]

I guess that works. So all you need is one rank in Knowledge (nature) per level because your wildshaping ability is limited by your own HD too?

[tyckspoon]

I like the concept (especially since it gives knowledge(nature) a use beyond just identifying a few monsters) but it seems a little too easy. For example, a druid who's never been anywhere near the ocean is suddenly "familiar" with all sorts of marine life with just a couple of ranks.

It's the closest thing to 'familiar' you're going to find in the rules. Otherwise it's entirely up to DM calls, because none of the familiarity requirements in any of the books have definition or guidelines as to what they actually mean. (Well, maybe the ones in Teleport for determining your miss/mishap chance.)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You've got three choices, actually:

A. Use Kn: Nature as described.
B. Let your DM arbitrarily determine whether or not your character is familiar with a given animal.
C. Keep a running list of every animal your character has ever crossed paths with.

Most people would prefer to go with A, since it's the easiest one to use, plus it brings your character's own capabilities into consideration.

[supermonkeyjoe]

The way I play it is:

If it's on the summon nature's ally list then Yes,
If it's in the Monster manual 1 then make a Knowledge check for familiarity
If it comes from elsewhere then subject to DM approval.

[Oppolo]

I like the concept (especially since it gives knowledge(nature) a use beyond just identifying a few monsters) but it seems a little too easy. For example, a druid who's never been anywhere near the ocean is suddenly "familiar" with all sorts of marine life with just a couple of ranks.

But their knowledge (nature) ranks mean that they are familiar with the habitat, skills, abilities, typical temperament, etc. of that marine creature.
Unless you want to rule in a knowledge (marine life) skill, you just have to live with the fact that DnD knowledge ranks don't make that much sense.

[Lord Il Palazzo]

You've got three choices, actually:

A. Use Kn: Nature as described.
B. Let your DM arbitrarily determine whether or not your character is familiar with a given animal.
C. Keep a running list of every animal your character has ever crossed paths with.

Most people would prefer to go with A, since it's the easiest one to use, plus it brings your character's own capabilities into consideration.As the DM for the druid in question, I don't see any problem with option B. :smallbiggrin:

In seriousness, unless the player has some other idea, I'll probably run with this, with an added bonus or penalty for having spent time or not in the environment in which the animal belongs. (Any animal the druid's specifically seen or fought in-story gets an automatic success.)

[Quietus]

The way I play it is:

If it's on the summon nature's ally list then Yes,
If it's in the Monster manual 1 then make a Knowledge check for familiarity
If it comes from elsewhere then subject to DM approval.

I think this is fair, but I also add in that you gain familiarity with any creatures native to a place you've spent a while living in. My druid that lived in a swamp? Familiar with all kinds of snakes, crocodiles, etc. When she lived in a forest for a while, she gained familiarity with wolves, bears, that sort of thing. When they captured a major foe's reptile-ostrich-thing mount, she gained familiarity with that. That way instead of keeping a running list, you can think "Have I spent a month living somewhere these are native to?", and outside of that can roll against knowledge for it.

[Urpriest]

The way I play it is:

If it's on the summon nature's ally list then Yes,
If it's in the Monster manual 1 then make a Knowledge check for familiarity
If it comes from elsewhere then subject to DM approval.

I'm not sure why the MM1 is relevant. A druid from a desert would be much more likely to be familiar with a Dire Tortoise than a Dire Shark.

[Lord Il Palazzo]

The way I play it is:

If it's on the summon nature's ally list then Yes,
If it's in the Monster manual 1 then make a Knowledge check for familiarity
If it comes from elsewhere then subject to DM approval.I don't think the limitation to MMI makes much sense (as noted above) but I really like using Summon Nature's Ally as a guide. Presumably a druid has to be familiar with Animal X to summon one.

Edited for spelling.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

"The form chosen must be that of an animal the druid is familiar with."

A person can be familiar with engines without ever having worked on a car. He can be familiar with clocks without ever having taken one apart. Someone could be familiar with a nation's culture without ever visiting that nation or meeting someone who'd lived there.

It does not say that the druid must have encountered a given animal, or fought one, or reared one from infancy, only that he must be familiar with it. A Knowledge check represents exactly that: knowledge of and familiarity with a given subject. A druid serves all of nature, not just the local neighborhood. It doesn't matter if a druid's travels have never taken him to the sea, that doesn't stop him from being able to cast Water Breathing or similar, and it doesn't give him a penalty to Wild Empathy checks when he encounters a type of animal for the first time. The sea is just as much a part of nature as the forest, or the desert, or the arctic, and its natural inhabitants are his to command. If a DM is going to arbitrarily decide what a character knows about, then why bother investing in any knowledge skills at all? If a player knows what components are needed in what ratios to make gunpowder, that doesn't mean his character knows the same; in a role-playing game, you use your character's knowledge and capabilities rather than your own (or your DM's). To decide that a character doesn't actually know anything about a given animal, even though his character clearly does know about that animal according to the rules of this game, is nothing short of unfair.

[Doug Lampert]

I like the concept (especially since it gives knowledge(nature) a use beyond just identifying a few monsters) but it seems a little too easy. For example, a druid who's never been anywhere near the ocean is suddenly "familiar" with all sorts of marine life with just a couple of ranks.

How is this too easy. ONE RANK represents enough to speak a language fluently and read and write it fluently, after spending that rank you know it as well as any native speaker.

ONE RANK represents enough skill to go from "no one will hire you except as unskilled labor" to "you can earn a good living as an architect or whatever".

ONE RANK is enough to go from 20th place or worse at the olympics to a first place (seriously, figure out what +1 on a jump actually means).

ONE RANK lets you go from not knowing anything with a DC over 10 to being able to roll for knowledge on anything up to DC 21+Int Modifier+other bonuses.

One rank is a big deal, EVERY skill where we have any way to judge what a rank means tells us quite clearly that one rank is a really big deal. Spending one rank represents more knowlege and effort than is involved in more or less memorizing the entirety of every Monster Manual ever released for any edition of D&D.

The DC 10+HD is already grossly restrictive for familiarity, and it's in the rules. Go with it.

[Lord Il Palazzo]

"The form chosen must be that of an animal the druid is familiar with."

A person can be familiar with engines without ever having worked on a car. He can be familiar with clocks without ever having taken one apart. Someone could be familiar with a nation's culture without ever visiting that nation or meeting someone who'd lived there.One can be familiar with a subject on a conceptual level without being familiar with the subject on a practical level. "Familiarity" is such a nebulous concept that it can be interpreted in many different ways. This is a big part of the reason I'm trying to pin down some rules before it actually comes up at the table.


It does not say that the druid must have encountered a given animal, or fought one, or reared one from infancy, only that he must be familiar with it.Of course not. You'll notice I never even implied this would be a requirement, only that such things would be considered automatic successes on the relevant knowledge check.


A Knowledge check represents exactly that: knowledge of and familiarity with a given subject. A druid serves all of nature, not just the local neighborhood.True, but even so, he's far more likely to be "familiar" (however you define it) with a creature from his own back yard than with one from half a world away.


It doesn't matter if a druid's travels have never taken him to the sea, that doesn't stop him from being able to cast Water Breathing or similar, and it doesn't give him a penalty to Wild Empathy checks when he encounters a type of animal for the first time. The sea is just as much a part of nature as the forest, or the desert, or the arctic, and its natural inhabitants are his to command.True, but it's a part the druid hasn't experienced and thus is less "familiar" with. Also, when last I checked, a Druid's spells and class features weren't drawn from his own experience but rather divine support of some sort (and are thus the spells are divine rather than arcane) so the water breathing and wild empaty things aren't exactly a perfect analogy here. Skill ranks are personal, rather than being drawn from an external source.


If a DM is going to arbitrarily decide what a character knows about, then why bother investing in any knowledge skills at all?Who said I would "arbitrarily decide what a character knows about"? (And please don't tell me you took my remark about option B, with the smiley and the "but seriously" following it as anything but a joke.) Last I checked, DMs were well within their rights (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm#favorableAndUnfavorableConditions) to apply relevant circumstance modifiers to the DC's of skill checks. This doesn't make the skill useless by any means. Some information is more likely to be known than other, and thus will have different DCs.
If a player knows what components are needed in what ratios to make gunpowder, that doesn't mean his character knows the same; in a role-playing game, you use your character's knowledge and capabilities rather than your own (or your DM's). To decide that a character doesn't actually know anything about a given animal, even though his character clearly does know about that animal according to the rules of this game, is nothing short of unfair.Show me the rules of the game that declare that a character "clearly does know about [an] animal" on a knowledge check for which there can be no circumstance modifiers and I'll agree with you. I never said I wouldn't use Knowledge(Nature), only that different animals would have different DCs and it should vary by more than simply the HD of the animal. Are you really telling me that a druid who's spent his entire life in a temperate forest is more likely to be "familiar" with an octopus (2 HD) than a black bear (3 HD) even though he's had a million opportunities to hear about, see and/or study black bears and not a one to do so for an octopus? I'm sorry, but I don't agree.

[noparlpf]

The funny thing is, anybody without any ranks in Knowledge (nature) can't identify dogs, bears, badgers, humans...

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Look at it this way: A Druid level X can Wild Shape into an animal of up to X HD, so the Kn: Nature DC is 10+X. That Druid can have X+3 ranks in Kn: Nature, and gets another +2 at 1st level, so taking ten on the check gives a result of 15+X, enough to make the familiarity DC of anything he could Wild Shape into at that level. Even if you impose a -2 penalty to the check, and a +2 to the DC, he can have Int 8 and still make the check for anything he could currently Wild Shape into. Thus, as long as a Druid is willing to invest max ranks into Kn: Nature, it would be arbitrary and unfair to not allow him to Wild Shape into any given animal on the basis of familiarity.

[Lord Il Palazzo]

Look at it this way: A Druid level X can Wild Shape into an animal of up to X HD, so the Kn: Nature DC is 10+X. That Druid can have X+3 ranks in Kn: Nature, and gets another +2 at 1st level, so taking ten on the check gives a result of 15+X, enough to make the familiarity DC of anything he could Wild Shape into at that level. Even if you impose a -2 penalty to the check, and a +2 to the DC, he can have Int 8 and still make the check for anything he could currently Wild Shape into. Thus, as long as a Druid is willing to invest max ranks into Kn: Nature, it would be arbitrary and unfair to not allow him to Wild Shape into any given animal on the basis of familiarity.(Underlined by me, for emphasis.)

Again, you seem to be making some false assumptions about my intentions. Please, quote the post where I proposed doing any such thing as vetoing a potential form on the basis of familiarity if the druid's player has passed his Knowledge(Nature) check.

All I have said is that circumstance modifier will apply as appropriate to the check. If the player is willing to put enough ranks in the skill that this isn't an issue, then it isn't an issue (tautologically enough). If the player passes his knowledge(nature) check, he's good to go. I honestly can't tell who or what you're arguing with, as it's pretty clear we agree on this.