3.5 DRUID wild shape Im ignorant

[Martial_law]

My girlfriend is playing a druid who has the ability to wild shape a tiger, when I look up its stats for her, I dont know what stays the tigers and what changes to her stats.

Do all stats change to hers, or just some of the stats, or does her HP augment to add her hit die to the tigers?

Can anyone solve my problem?

[ArcturusV]

Well, she regains all her Hitpoints when she wild shapes. Then gets the physical stats of the form (Strength, Dex, Con) but keeps her normal mental stats (Int, Wis, Cha). Also gains all the Extraordinary Special Attacks of the form, but none of the special qualities, supernatural, or spell like abilities.

If she turns into an Elemental, she gets all the Extraordinary, supernatural, and spell like abilities of the Elemental.

[sabelo2000]

As a tiger, she gains the movement rate, attack forms, extraordinary special attacks, and any special modifiers for combat actions (bonus to Bull Rush/Trip for having 4 feet, bonus to Grapple if she's Large). She does not gain any supernatural or spell-like abilities, or special qualities (such as scent, darkvision, or blindsight).

Her Int, Wis, and Cha stats stay the same. Use the MM Tiger's stats for Str, Dex, and Con. Her hit points don't change, neither does her base attack bonus. She uses her base save bonuses (as well as any class- or race- based bonuses, such as if she also had levels in Paladin or was a Halfling) but uses the new Dex and Con modifiers to calculate them.

[Karnith]

My girlfriend is playing a druid who has the ability to wild shape a tiger, when I look up its stats for her, I dont know what stays the tigers and what changes to her stats.

Do all stats change to hers, or just some of the stats, or does her HP augment to add her hit die to the tigers?

Can anyone solve my problem?
A druid's wild shape functions as the Alter Self special ability, which you can find described here on the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#alternateForm).
Short version:
Her type and subtype(s) will remain the same.
She will gain the size of her new form. For a tiger, this means that she will become a Large creature while wildshaped.
She will gain the natural weapons, natural armor, movement modes, and extraordinary special attacks of her new form. For a tiger, this means that she will get 2 claw attacks that deal 1d8 base damage, a bite attack that deals 2d6 base damage, +3 natural armor, a movement speed of 40 feet per round, and will gain the improved grab, pounce, and rake special attacks.
She will keep all of her normal special qualities.
She will gain the physical ability scores of her new form. For a tiger, this means that her physical stats will be set to Strength 23, Dexterity 15, Constitution 17. Remember to calculate her new attack bonuses, saves, and skill bonuses with these new ability scores. Her hit points will remain unchanged, though she will regain hit points as though she rested for a night whenever she uses wild shape.

[TuggyNE]

Basically, what Karnith said; essentially all you need to do is start with the SRD Druid entry (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm) and follow the trail of "it's like this, except for X, Y, and Z" until there's nothing more to track down.

[Garagos]

Well, she regains all her Hitpoints when she wild shapes.

I believe she only gets her character level in HP back for wild shaping, not a full heal. See last sentece of first paragraph in Wild Shape entry.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm#wildShape

[Zanthy1]

Would just like to take the opportunity to say that she picked the right animal to wild shape into. Tigers are awesome! (for realsies, I actually do not know their stats in dnd, but I really like tigers)

[Togo]

The information given above is correct.

The easiest way to work out her attacks is just to take the Tiger entry, and adjust the full attack line for the change in BAB. Take her BAB, subtract the Tiger's BAB, and add the result to all the attacks. (so if her BAB is 3 and the Tiger's is 4, then subtract 1 from each attack. If her BAB is 6, the Tiger's BAB is 4, then add 2 to every attack.) .Then adjust attack and damage and AC by any feats or running spells she has.

-Item merge into her new form, and are non-functional until she changes back (unless the item says otherwise specifically)
-Use her existing hp, without modifying them for the her new con.
-Use her existing inititive, modified by her new Dex.
-For saves, adjust her existing saves to account for her new con and dex.
-She gets all the special attacks, unless they are marked (Su) or (Sp).
-For movement, and space/reach use the tiger's.
-For feats give her the feats marked with a 'D' (racial bonus feats) on top of existing feats
-For skills ignore Tiger skills entirely, and just add anything in the description that's described as a racial bonus to her existing skills.
-She can't speak, she can't cast spells without the natural spell feat.

[Flavel]

She can speak in her wild shaped form, but only tigers will understand her.

[mcv]

From what I understand (and I think this means my group has been doing this wrong), you only get the physical stats and the special attacks. So you don't get a wolf's scent ability, or anyone's blindsense or anything like that. You do get the animal's movement, but I'm not entirely certain what that means for the squid's Jet.

Tigers are definitely cool. With Spider Climb, you can be a tiger walking on the ceiling. No idea how a tiger dropping from the ceiling works mechanically, but it's a cool visual.

[Karnith]

From what I understand (and I think this means my group has been doing this wrong), you only get the physical stats and the special attacks. So you don't get a wolf's scent ability, or anyone's blindsense or anything like that. You do get the animal's movement, but I'm not entirely certain what that means for the squid's Jet.
Your interpretation is correct; while wild-shaped, a druid gains none of the special qualities of the new form, so she would not gain scent if wild-shaped into a wolf.

I am fairly certain that, since Jet is an extraordinary special quality of the squid, that a wild-shaped druid would only gain the squid's 60 ft. swim speed, and not the jet ability. The SRD's explanation of movement modes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#movementModes) would seem to indicate that you only gain the movement modes in the "Speed" part of a monster's stat block.

[Urpriest]

In terms of reading the Tiger's statblock to understand what you get, you need to be able to take apart a monster and understand which stats have which implications. Without much D&D experience, you're best off reading a handbook that explains monster stats, like the one linked to in my sig.

[Stygofthedump]

The information given above is correct.

The easiest way to work out her attacks is just to take the Tiger entry, and adjust the full attack line for the change in BAB. Take her BAB, subtract the Tiger's BAB, and add the result to all the attacks. (so if her BAB is 3 and the Tiger's is 4, then subtract 1 from each attack. If her BAB is 6, the Tiger's BAB is 4, then add 2 to every attack.) .Then adjust attack and damage and AC by any feats or running spells she has.

-Item merge into her new form, and are non-functional until she changes back (unless the item says otherwise specifically)
-Use her existing hp, without modifying them for the her new con.
-Use her existing inititive, modified by her new Dex.
-For saves, adjust her existing saves to account for her new con and dex.
-She gets all the special attacks, unless they are marked (Su) or (Sp).
-For movement, and space/reach use the tiger's.
-For feats give her the feats marked with a 'D' (racial bonus feats) on top of existing feats
-For skills ignore Tiger skills entirely, and just add anything in the description that's described as a racial bonus to her existing skills.
-She can't speak, she can't cast spells without the natural spell feat.

Does this mean it is possible to get extra attacks in tiger form as a lv 8 druid gets +6/+1?

[Khedrac]

Does this mean it is possible to get extra attacks in tiger form as a lv 8 druid gets +6/+1?
Generally No. Iterative attacks don't apply to natural weapons (other than unarmed strike).

There are a few ways - such as a "mouthpick" weapon (wield instead of the bite and as it is a weapon iteratives apply) but you really need to be very familiar with the rules before using them (or they are likely to come up).

[johnbragg]

How does a one-level Monk dip stack with wildshaping?

Wisdom bonus to AC.
Flurry of Blows for an extra attack (-2 to all of them).
Improved Grapple.
d6 "Unarmed Strike" damage, or d8 for Large Monks.

Would the monk's Unarmed STrike damage boost a natural attack from d4 to d6? Say a black bear with 2 claws +6 melee (1d4+4) and bite +1 melee (1d6+2).
As a Druid 6, that's 2 claws at +8 (d4+4) and a bite at +3 (d6+2)
Add a Monk level and that becomes 3 claws at +6 for d6+4 and bite +1 for d6+2?

Of course you give up one CL, for an AC boost and an extra attack.

[Pluto!]

Does this mean it is possible to get extra attacks in tiger form as a lv 8 druid gets +6/+1?
Yes, but natural weapon attacks don't get extra attacks from high base attack.

So if you're only using the Claw/Claw/Bite routine, nothing changes.

If you're only using Unarmed strikes, you do attack at +6/+1.

And if you're mixing Unarmed strikes with Claws and Bites in the same round, get ready for prolonged talks over what's legal, what's reasonable and what's just stupid.
(At the end of the day, you're probably looking at a +6/+1 unarmed strike along with a claw and a bite at +1 each, assuming that a claw is doing the unarmed striking.)

[Threadnaught]

Well, she regains all her Hitpoints when she wild shapes.

1HP per level.


Each time you use wild shape, you regain lost hit points as if you had rested for a night.


Natural Healing

With a full night’s rest (8 hours of sleep or more), you recover 1 hit point per character level. Any significant interruption during your rest prevents you from healing that night.

If you undergo complete bed rest for an entire day and night, you recover twice your character level in hit points.

Though I've personally house ruled it so my players fully heal after resting. I'm gonna have to remove this safety net eventually. :smallamused:

[Bronk]

Stygofthedump and johnbragg:

If you had an eighth level druid wildshaped into tiger form, he/she would have the regular 'claw/claw/bite' attack routine (the two claws would be the primary attack at full BAB and full strength bonus to damage, while the bite is the secondary attack at BAB-5 and with half strength bonus to damage) unless the druid also had the 'rapidstrike' feat, or 'improved rapidstrike' at higher levels. In that case, one of the claws would gain an iterative attack, followed by the rest of the attacks. Or, as Khedrac mentioned, you could use a 'mouthpick' weapon, then follow it up with two secondary claw attacks (the bite is gone because the mouth is holding the weapon).

If your druid, of whatever level, also had a level of monk and wildshaped into tiger form (for example), yes, they could use their iterative unarmed strike attacks first (dealing damage from the 'large monk' table and flurrying if desired) as a full attack, then follow up with their 'claw/claw/bite' as all secondary attacks (BAB-5 and half strength bonus to damage). They would get all three natural attacks because unarmed strikes use the entire body, and do not tie up any particular body part... a monk could use kicks, headbutts and elbows if they wanted to. The tiger monk would also gain wisdom to AC unless using a 'wild' armor, and would also have a better grapple modifier due to increased size.

In both cases, the druid and druid/monk would gain the special attacks of the tiger (improved grab, pounce and rake) but would have the base damage of the claw and bite attacks reduced by one size level because the attacks listed in the tiger's description are influenced by 'improved natural attack' feats that aren't gained from the wildshape. Additional feats or magic items would have to be used to get that back.

[eggynack]

How does a one-level Monk dip stack with wildshaping?

Just pick up a monk's belt, and stick a wilding clasp (MIC, 190) on it. Cheap, easy, and efficient.

[Keltickope]

This may be a bit late, but i ask this for my own knowlegde as well as the OP, as they specifically stated the Tiger.

The Tigers attacks as per the stat block do 1d8 claw and 2d6 bite. Now my issue comes up with the feats the base tiger has, imp natural weapon (claw) and improve natural weapon (bite).

It is my undertanding that you do not gain feats of the wildshape form unless the are bonus (how do you know when a feat is bonus?).

So as it stands when you turn into a tiger, do you have to reduce the damage of the tiger attacks?

And if anyone could at all provide the source for ruling please do =)

Thank you very much in advance for your input.

[Chronos]

Quoth Zanthy1:

Would just like to take the opportunity to say that she picked the right animal to wild shape into. Tigers are awesome! (for realsies, I actually do not know their stats in dnd, but I really like tigers)
As it happens, they are in fact a very strong choice as far as the game rules go, too. Opinions are divided on whether the big cat forms or bear forms are better overall, but one of those two is definitely the best combat form. Well, aside from fleshraker dinosaurs, but those are just broken.

[Greenish]

She can speak in her wild shaped form, but only tigers will understand her.Well, I'd interpret the "animals of the same general grouping" as a bit more generally. So a tiger could talk with other cats (or if you want to limit it, other big cats).


It is my undertanding that you do not gain feats of the wildshape form unless the are bonus (how do you know when a feat is bonus?).Man, polymorph effects are a mess. I can't parse the stuff on keeping feats, but bonus feats are (ideally) marked as such with B, and are in excess of normal feats from HD. See, for example, the cat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/cat.htm) entry.


Use the Shapeshifter druid from PHBII. :smalltongue:

[Maginomicon]

You might want to consider using The Giant's fix to shapeshifting in-general (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172910), which streamlines the whole process (scroll down to the polymorph sections).