What do you think?

[Immabozo]

This is something I suddenly thought up, I am not looking to use it in any of my games, but what do you guys think?

Epic Feat: Advanced Wild Shape

You can add templates to your forms, requiring 1 HD more per LA and/or racial HD needed to use the template for a player character.

Example: War Troll (12 HD), Half Dragon (3 LA), natural were crocodile (LA 3, 3 RHD) required 21 HD.

[mattie_p]

Couple of things. First, do epic druids really need to have this? They have a bazillion options already. Second, what about LA: - templates? Use CR instead? Frankly there would have to be some significant balancing in order for it to not be overpowered, I suspect there are some excellent templates to be stacked and abused for this that should not be used.

EDIT: look for the tauric creature monstrosity created elsewhere.

Or something like this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=251102).


Titanic Magebred Warbeast Beast of Xvim Monstrous Beast Mineral Warrior Thomil Faerzress-Infused Fiendish Imix-Blooded Lloth-Touched Chameleon Ti-Khana Dark Woodling Shadow Phrenic Voidmind Multiheaded (Lernaean x19) Guardian Feral Half-Troll Hooded Pupil Lycanthrope (Bunny) Reptilian Winged Wendigo Half-Fey Mistling Draconic Half-Dragon (Black) Half-Dragon (Blue) Half-Dragon (Green) Half-Dragon (Red) Half-Dragon (White) Half-Dragon (Gold) Half-Dragon (Brass) Half-Dragon (Silver) Half-Dragon (Copper) Half-Dragon (Bronze) Spellwarped Insectile Corrupted by the Abyss Greenbound Blightspawned Hivenest Aquatic Acidborn Half-Farspawn Pseudonatural Half-Fiend Half-Elemental (Fire) Half-Elemental (Water) Half Elemental (Earth) Half-Elemental (Air) Entropic Pseudonatural Paragon Bunny.

That's the best I can come up while at the same time doing minimal work. I'm also not going into something undead and then stacking Evolved, which you can do to an arbitrarily high point if you want. I'm also not messing with Tauric or Symbiotic, because they're more complicated than I want right now. You could also tag on the Half-Golem stuff with Incarnate Construct but I doubt it's worth the tradeoff.

[Alienist]

What do I think?

I think the game designers were on crack, butt-crack. Also, fifth edition is going to be a train wreck, because they abandoned all the good parts of 4th edition (hey balance, nice to finally meet you after all this time ... welp, gotta go) in order to remake a diet version of 3.5.

[Immabozo]

CR is a lower number than the LA + RHD usually, for templates anyway! CR of half dragon is +1 or +2 I believe. Were-something is likewise a smaller number than the CR. So I think that way is more balanced.

If you compare it to the creatures that you would be getting at those levels, I think it is on par!

[mattie_p]

CR is a lower number than the LA + RHD usually, for templates anyway! CR of half dragon is +1 or +2 I believe. Were-something is likewise a smaller number than the CR. So I think that way is more balanced.

If you compare it to the creatures that you would be getting at those levels, I think it is on par!

The CR question was for LA: - templates only, which tend to be more powerful than level adjustment permitted templates. What do you do in that case? CR? CRx2?

[Immabozo]

OH, I see your point. I am rather unfamiliar with those templates, but perhaps CR x2 is a good rule of thumb

[Phelix-Mu]

If it was previously a bunch of paperwork to run a wild shaping druid, this stands to make it ten times worse, as you'd want to tweak the exact templates used encounter to encounter to get the best effect.

Also, flavor-wise, you are getting awfully close to just allowing wild shape into anything. There already are feats for magic beast, dragon, and aberration, and probably others that I can't think of or hadn't heard of. The idea with wild shape is that it's supposed to be nature-based shape shifting, and a feat like this stands to make it into really long duration polymorph (or at least just as powerful, since some forms will still likely be unavailable...though savage species...ick...no, this is crazy crazy crazy).

Plus, access to the epic templates paragon and pseudonatural from the ELH are going to be less balanced. I haven't looked to see about the 3.5 update, but even if you put the paragon template on a 1HD animal or something, you end up with a pretty formidable beastie.

Overall, I'm going to say this is too much functionality for a class that already has it coming out their ears.

[Immabozo]

Plus, access to the epic templates paragon and pseudonatural from the ELH are going to be less balanced. I haven't looked to see about the 3.5 update, but even if you put the paragon template on a 1HD animal or something, you end up with a pretty formidable beastie.

Overall, I'm going to say this is too much functionality for a class that already has it coming out their ears.

...oh ... my.... god.... you are so right.... wow.... just... wow

I am glad that is not attainable by PCs. Geezus...

that is gross

ok, if templates were restricted to one every time you took the feat and only templates with a LA associated with them, would that still be too disgustingly amazing?

[mattie_p]

I think it would be too disgustingly amazing, yes. Let me put it this way, can you imagine a druid in your game not taking this feat? If everyone would take it, it is most likely too powerful.

[Immabozo]

Well the Colossal, magic beast and likewise feats are contenders too... but I see your point. After one, will invariably come the other.... Well played, good sir