Need some help on a druid- Wild Shape

[Donnovin]

I need some help with my druid feats. So far I have Natural Spell, and Multiattack. I would love some help on what I should pick for my next couple feats. I find plenty of posts about good feats but nothing really in order of level what would be suggested. Please if I even have these two wrong please let me know. I'm trying to maximize my Wild Shape ability. When you give me a feat can you give me an idea of what it does and why you feel that would be best. Thank you for any and all help!

[JimboG]

Well, if you're just going to focus on Wild Shape, then just spec as a Fighter. Weapon Focus for whatever natural weapon you're using, Improved Natural Weapon to make you hit harder, Toughness for HP, the appropriate Improved Maneuver for whatever special thing your wildshape attacks have, and make sure to purchase some armor that allows you to keep it after changing (I forgot the exact name for it). Bam, you're now a nasty piece of shape-shifting work. Now go tear some faces off.

[Kaje]

If you're really trying to maximize your wild shape ability you may want to take a look at the warshaper and master of many forms prestige classes. Their strictly weaker than druid 20 (they don't progress spellcasting) but for a wild shape focused character you can't get any better.

[Donnovin]

I'll pass on the fighter feats. I was looking at
extra wild shape feat
Adaptive wild shape
Exalted wild shape
Initiate of Nature
Exalted Wildshape
Frozen Wild Shape


Just looking for a path to build to these. Just not sure where to start on my 3 feats that I have available at level 5.

[eggs]

I need some help with my druid feats. So far I have Natural Spell, and Multiattack. I would love some help on what I should pick for my next couple feats.
Do you mean those are your level 1 and 3 choices? Typically a Druid won't qualify for those until its level 6 and 9 feat slots. Before that, there's room for all its low-level qualifications like Augment Summoning, Companion Spellbond, Initiate of Nature/Greensinger Initiate/Nightbringer Initiate, or whathaveyou. Maybe even Quicken Spell, if you want to keep the higher-level feat slots loose (but if you went that route, you'd probably want to start with a more useful filler feat to retrain into Quicken at ECL 10 or so).

[Togo]

I'll pass on the fighter feats. I was looking at
extra wild shape feat
Adaptive wild shape
Exalted wild shape
Initiate of Nature
Exalted Wildshape
Frozen Wild Shape


Just looking for a path to build to these. Just not sure where to start on my 3 feats that I have available at level 5.

Frozen wildshape is superb. Exalted is disappointing, since the main benefit, celestial animals, only really kicks in after you get better forms to choose from.

I'd also recommend Fast wild shape (CChampion), particularly if you can get it more than once.... I rate it over natural spell, for which I'm often regarded with horror.

Remember that, if you're going for any kind of p-class, you'll need to fulfill those requirements first, which may involve planning ahead by as many as six levels.

[Gavinfoxx]

By level 8 you should be in Wild Shape pretty much all the time. After all, there are several humanoid forms with useful hands, and its a simple and cheap item to let you communicate while in Wild Shape... so why not?

I usually like:

Dragon Wild Shape (Draconomicon)
Exalted Wild Shape (Book of Exalted Deeds)
Frozen Wild Shape (Frostburn)
Assume Supernatural Ability (Savage Species)
Multiattack (Monster Manual)
Improved Natural Attack (Monster Manual)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=239383

[tyckspoon]

Frozen wildshape is superb. Exalted is disappointing, since the main benefit, celestial animals, only really kicks in after you get better forms to choose from.


I disagree. Frozen Wildshape doesn't give you any special features above and beyond normal wildshape unless you're *really* excited about the Cold subtype, which means until you hit the infamous (cryo)Hydra most of the new options it gives you are functionally cold-themed versions of things you could already turn into. Exalted Wildshape gives you all the Ex and Su abilities of what you turn into, so in addition to being able to chill as a Blink Dog (with constant, you know, Blink and free Dimension Door on demand) everything you turn into gets DR, energy resistances, SR, and a Smite Evil attack. It also does not distinguish between 'qualities' and 'attacks' unlike normal Wildshape, so turning into, say, a Celestial Dire Bat will get you Blindsense while standard Wildshape does not.

[Togo]

I disagree. Frozen Wildshape doesn't give you any special features above and beyond normal wildshape unless you're *really* excited about the Cold subtype,

True, not the best for straight druid. In conjunction with MoMFs (ex abilities) or something that grants (SU) abilities, it is excellent, with a good few interesting choices.

[Darth Stabber]

Exalted wildshape arguably gives you (ex) and (su) abilities.

[VGLordR2]

Exalted wildshape arguably gives you (ex) and (su) abilities.

I'm not sure where you're getting "arguably".


You can use your wild shape ability to turn yourself into a blink dog, giant eagle, giant owl, pegasus, or unicorn. You can also turn into a celestial version of any animal you could normally transform into. (At the DM's discretion, other magical beast forms might be available to you. In general, only creatures of CR 3 or lower are possible.) You gain the extraordinary and supernatural abilities of the creature. This ability counts as a use of your wild shape ability and functions the same way.

[Darth Stabber]

I'm not sure where you're getting "arguably".

I meant "by RAW" since I know of several gms that will put the kibosh on that. I just wish it had interaction with abberant wildshape. If it does work it usually follows into my standard good druid build.

Human druid20 (or druid10/lion of talasid 10)
Human: sacred vow
flaw: VoP
1st: spell focus(conj)
2nd (exalted): ???
3rd: augment summoning
4th (exalted): ???
6th: natural spell
6th (exalted): exalted wildshape
And when you first get it the blinkdog form is nice, there after it is more useful for the celestial templated animals and getting the (ex) abilities.

[Gavinfoxx]

Eh, I would never encourage vow of poverty for a 'good' build. If there is ever any chance whatsoever that you will at all be able to approach wealth by level, or have any chance in customizing gear appropriate to your job... yea, it's not a good idea.

Why not look at this relatively wild shape focused druid character sheet?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17bYfVxcXM8uKmxtQAOHgKN7MNchvqcMw31R-k-NPrTw/edit?authkey=CLWf4ugH

[Snowbluff]

When in a pinch, spellcast!

Aberrant Wildshape + Assume (Su): Choker's Quickness.

You gain an extra standard action! Yay~!



If you are going MMoF or Warshaper, I would suggest Divine Minion (They Wildshape as 11th level druids) for MMoF and being a Tibbid for Warshaper (Kitty of Death).

[Darth Stabber]

Eh, I would never encourage vow of poverty for a 'good' build. If there is ever any chance whatsoever that you will at all be able to approach wealth by level, or have any chance in customizing gear appropriate to your job... yea, it's not a good idea.

When is say good, I mean alignment. If I had WBL and could customize my gear it would be better to utilize equipment than VoP. But for druids you need both, or your money will likely be wrapped up in spell completion items, or in a small few pieces of good gear and wilding clasps. And even still VoP is nice because you get leveling "gear" that you never have to worry about and it is "on" in all your forms (since it's all from a feat, and thus kept when you wildshape) freeing you from the tracking down of a wilding clasp for each slot. The druid spell list has the depth of effects that is needed to mostly overcome the inherent downside (not giving access to effects needed for higher level play), and the bonuses to physical stats transfer over to your wildshaped forms by RAW. It is the easy way of making character, because you know exactly what your character will have regardless of what loot your gm sees fit to drop. It's taking a sure thing over a risk, and even if you take the risk there is a lot of related bookkeeping and splat diving needed to keep it up.

If you are in gestalt, and you really want to make sure you're okay: totemist20//druid20 with VoP. At that point you are better off with VoP since you have multiple class abilities that turn off magic items, and the only thing you have to lose is potions, wands, scrolls, metamgic rods, and staves. Yeah, you can spend a ton of money making your items work, but given the extra costs, and increased specificity, there is no way you will have the right equipment. I have a more optimized version than above still using VoP over items on purpose, and I did the math, and unless I wanted to focus on spell completion items, I was significantly better off with VoP since all of my stuff needed a wilding clasp, and several also needed the the magic property that allows it to work with chakra binds (or spending a feat to allow that at a rate of one feat per chakra). You end up as one weird holy animal, but it works.

[Deophaun]

Everyone always talks about this Aberrant Wild Shape. I have to ask: what book is it in and how does it differ from Aberration Wild Shape? :P

If you're going for AWS, make sure to reserve a 4th level spell slot or two for Enhance Wild Shape. Your already good forms now become unbelievably powerful.

[Darth Stabber]

Everyone always talks about this Aberrant Wild Shape. I have to ask: what book is it in and how does it differ from Aberration Wild Shape? :P

If you're going for AWS, make sure to reserve a 4th level spell slot or two for Enhance Wild Shape. Your already good forms now become unbelievably powerful.

AWS is in Lords of Madness, and I stand corrected on the name it's "Aberration wildshape".

I especially love the hound of gloom for this since it doesn't even need enhance wilshape. 12hd and large, climb speed 20', and you get 22str, 15dex, and 24con, with a nice 13 natural armor. You get 5 natural attacks (bite, 2*claw, 2*tentacle), pounce, improved grab, and poison and 10' reach on both tentacle attacks (the only special qualities it has are scent and darkvision 60). Plus you get to be a massive dog with a mane of tentacles.

[Togo]

If you are going MMoF or Warshaper, I would suggest Divine Minion (They Wildshape as 11th level druids) for MMoF and being a Tibbid for Warshaper (Kitty of Death).

Some DMs won't allow Divine Minion as an entry for MoMFs.

MoMFs specifies you need wildshape as a class ability. It comes down to whether you think divine minion grants you the wildshape class ability, or whether you think that for something to be a class ability, it needs to come from a class (Divine Minion is a template).

One option that mentioned only briefly is Assume Supernatural Ability (from savage species). Well worth it depending on how it is interpreted and whether your DM will allow a 3.0 book as a source.