Best Plane for a Planar Shepherd?

[CrazyYanmega]

Hello, Giants! I've got another question for you.

I have an anthropomorphic bat Druid, and I plan on taking the Planar Shepherd PrC (I chose the Nightbringer Initiate Prereq feat because, you know, BAT). What I want to know is what plane is the best for each of the Planar Shepherd's powers? He is True Neutral, so he shouldn't have any restrictions on what plane he associates with. Would choosing the Beastlands be too easy?

Best Plane for:

Magical Beast Wildshapes

Planar Bubbles

Elemental/Outsider Wildshapes

[HammeredWharf]

Magical Beasts: Lamannia, probably
Planar Bubbles: Dal Quor
Outsider Wildshape: Debatable. Several of them are utterly broken. Fernia gives you free wishes. Shavarath gives you a lot of handy forms. Syrania lets you become a Solar.

Generally, almost anything is too easy for a Planar Shepherd.

[sleepyphoenixx]

If non Eberron planes are allowed Beastlands gives you pretty much anything you want as far as wild shaping goes but it has no planar traits that benefit your Planar Bubble.
On the other hand you get access to pretty much any good aligned outsider you can think of which is huge since a lot of them have really powerful abilities and SLA's.

If you want a good Planar Bubble Dal'quor's 10:1 time trait is pretty hard to beat (and the #1 reason why Planar Shepherd is seen as broken OP) but it's only inhabitants are the Quori which are kinda underwhelming imo.

There's a few others that add metamagic to specific types of spells, fast healing or other minor stuff but in general they are not worth it unless you like the fluff.

[Ketiara]

If non Eberron planes are allowed Beastlands gives you pretty much anything you want as far as wild shaping goes but it has no planar traits that benefit your Planar Bubble.
On the other hand you get access to pretty much any good aligned outsider you can think of which is huge since a lot of them have really powerful abilities and SLA's.

If you want a good Planar Bubble Dal'quor's 10:1 time trait is pretty hard to beat (and the #1 reason why Planar Shepherd is seen as broken OP) but it's only inhabitants are the Quori which are kinda underwhelming imo.

There's a few others that add metamagic to specific types of spells, fast healing or other minor stuff but in general they are not worth it unless you like the fluff.


"Ehlonna has taken advantage of the Beastlands’ divinely
morphic trait to give her realm the enhanced magic trait.
All spells cast by rangers within the Grove of the Unicorns
are extended (as the Extend Spell feat), and all spells
that create food or water are maximized (as the Maximize
Spell feat). Ehlonna has the power to make other alterations
to the traits within her realm, if she so desires."

So some form of metamagic exist in Beastlands... Either its only for rangers the class or rangers of the beastlands, as in people that roam beastlands.

Outlands plane does have both evil and good outsiders and pretty much inhabitants of every plane.

[CrazyYanmega]

Okay. Assuming I choose the Beastlands, and assuming I take the "Assume Supernatural Ability" feat and use the "Enhanced Wild Shape" spell, what are the best Magical Beasts I can transform into at various Hitdice levels?

[sleepyphoenixx]

"Ehlonna has taken advantage of the Beastlands’ divinely
morphic trait to give her realm the enhanced magic trait.
All spells cast by rangers within the Grove of the Unicorns
are extended (as the Extend Spell feat), and all spells
that create food or water are maximized (as the Maximize
Spell feat). Ehlonna has the power to make other alterations
to the traits within her realm, if she so desires."

So some form of metamagic exist in Beastlands... Either its only for rangers the class or rangers of the beastlands, as in people that roam beastlands.

Outlands plane does have both evil and good outsiders and pretty much inhabitants of every plane.

Those traits apply to Ehlonna's domain (which you can't select since it's not a plane).
The plane in general is what's important for Planar Bubble and the Beastlands have pretty much no improvement over the Material Plane except being mildly good aligned (so your bubble could be used as a minor debuff against evil foes i guess).

I'd avoid Assume Supernatural Ability since it only affects one specific (Su) ability of one specific form.
Most Magical Beasts don't have any worthwhile ones and when you get Outsider Shape you'll use that anyway.
Of the top of my head i don't know any magical beasts that stand out with those criteria. You can take Celestial forms of anything you'd normally take for some minor benefits while you wait for PS 9 if nothing else.

[Psyren]

The best one if you're not locked to a specific non-core setting is Region of Dreams from MotP - fast time, highly morphic and contains every creature in D&D so you can pick something capable of granting wishes.

[Ketiara]

The Leskylor from exalted deeds is pretty good, or just take a celestrial legendary ape.

[CrazyYanmega]

The best one if you're not locked to a specific non-core setting is Region of Dreams from MotP - fast time, highly morphic and contains every creature in D&D so you can pick something capable of granting wishes.

Okay, can you give me more details on this? Does "Every Creature" include Magical Beasts for wildshaping?

Also, are there any feats that can increase my abysmal fly speed.

[Endarire]

Planar Shepard Handbook (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1081076)

[CrazyYanmega]

Thanks for the handbook!

So what is the best way to get supernatural and spell-like abilities from my wildshapes?

[Aliek]

You already do!
"In addition to the normal effects of wild shape, you gain all the elemental or outsider's extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities."

At least for the outsider shape.

Also, if every plane is available, how about I think Carceri? I might be mistaken, but I think Carceri was the plane whose effect on mortals was something like "If you went there thrice, you'd be trapped forever", so it might be a funny effect for recurring villains. I might be mistaken as to which plane it is, tough. And even more on how it would work with planar bubble.

But it sounds fun, at least.

[CrazyYanmega]

Okay, so my druid will be a sort of Guardian for the Region of Dreams.I used some flaws to land Gatekeeper initiate, so it fits.

Now to improve him in his normal form. How can I increase Flight speed of a creature that already has Flight? I already know how to increase flight agility, but I can't seem to find anything that boosts my flight speed.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Now to improve him in his normal form. How can I increase Flight speed of a creature that already has Flight? I already know how to increase flight agility, but I can't seem to find anything that boosts my flight speed.
Air Heritage? It's a feat from the Planar Handbook, boosting your racial fly speed by 30ft.

[OldTrees1]

Planar Bubbles

Genesis

[CrazyYanmega]

Thank you for your suggestions! One last question, more in regards to working in a team: In a party of about 7-9 members, I am the only caster. How should I play to benefit the group the most?

[Kraken]

Make sure the region of dreams actually exists in the world in which your playing. If you're playing in Eberron, it explicitly exists (it's called Dal Quor there), but otherwise Manual of the Planes explicitly says that it does not exist unless added by the DM.

[CrazyYanmega]

Make sure the region of dreams actually exists in the world in which your playing. If you're playing in Eberron, it explicitly exists (it's called Dal Quor there), but otherwise Manual of the Planes explicitly says that it does not exist unless added by the DM.

The DM explicitly said that ALL planes across all settings exist in this campaign. Something about cross-dimensional threats to the fabric of something or other.

[eggynack]

Thank you for your suggestions! One last question, more in regards to working in a team: In a party of about 7-9 members, I am the only caster. How should I play to benefit the group the most?
I'd recommend not doing this thing. Even in a caster party, a planar shepherd has some capacity to dominate, really only finding parity once those other casters also take high power prestige classes, especially if you're running one of the higher powered planes like dal quor. As a druid in a non-caster party, you're going to be solidly the strongest party member, even at low to moderate optimization levels.

Tossing planar shepherd on there means that you're liable to make your non-caster chums look like tiny ants, with your power level potentially outstripping that of the entire rest of the party, depending on relative optimization levels. If you still want to do this, then I'd advise at least toning down the plane choice by quite a lot, hopefully making planar shepherd into druid+ instead of druid+++.

[Annos]

You could always try the Dragon Eyrie, it is basically the home of the Draconic pantheon and every dragon that ever died... ever!

[CrazyYanmega]

I'd recommend not doing this thing. Even in a caster party, a planar shepherd has some capacity to dominate, really only finding parity once those other casters also take high power prestige classes, especially if you're running one of the higher powered planes like dal quor. As a druid in a non-caster party, you're going to be solidly the strongest party member, even at low to moderate optimization levels.

Tossing planar shepherd on there means that you're liable to make your non-caster chums look like tiny ants, with your power level potentially outstripping that of the entire rest of the party, depending on relative optimization levels. If you still want to do this, then I'd advise at least toning down the plane choice by quite a lot, hopefully making planar shepherd into druid+ instead of druid+++.

I'll make sure to hold back so I don't outstrip the other players by too much. Furthermore, I'm probably going to be serving as a shared mount for the other players (Spider Eater wildshape is gonna be NICE)(Can you change gender while wildshaping?).

We did some practice skirmishes, and I am close to the weakest character in the party. I understand I will get stronger as I level up, but for now I am the weak link.

Also, the Realm of Dreams seems to have a major weakness: Things that occur in it don't really happen. So having the rogues launch a ranged assault from within the bubble, or activating a bunch of buffs, or anything else, won't work because they'll disappear when they leave the bubble.

[eggynack]

I'll make sure to hold back so I don't outstrip the other players by too much.
It's a vaguely plausible thing, but at the same time, insanely difficult. Druids kinda break the game incidentally, without even really thinking about it, and planar shepherds are like ultra-druids. It's problematic. You can do things you want to do, as you possess volition, but I think it's a bad idea. You should try asking yourself if there's a way to accomplish your goals that don't involve using one of the most powerful classes in the game, combined with one of the most powerful prestige classes in the game, because unless your primary goal is gamesplosion, you would likely be able to.


(Can you change gender while wildshaping?).

I don't think so, though this seems rather like one of those DM asking things, cause it wouldn't change the game much if you could.


We did some practice skirmishes, and I am close to the weakest character in the party. I understand I will get stronger as I level up, but for now I am the weak link.
Skirmishes aren't really that meaningful, when it comes to determining character power level, and they're not even meaningful in the context of knowledge obtained through skirmishes without understanding the context. All I know is, at a reasonably high level, probably 10th when planar bubble comes online, I'd likely be capable of using this planar shepherd to destroy this entire mundane party in a skirmish. Because druids are cool like that, and planar shepherds are even more so. I'm somewhat doubtful that your low level druid, well played, would be the skirmish based weak link of this party, particularly because of the animal companion, but that's irrelevant to some degree. At the very least, keep always in mind the absolute game breaking power you can constantly access within six seconds, for as a druid, such power is always yours.


Also, the Realm of Dreams seems to have a major weakness: Things that occur in it don't really happen. So having the rogues launch a ranged assault from within the bubble, or activating a bunch of buffs, or anything else, won't work because they'll disappear when they leave the bubble.
I don't think this is a thing. Planar bubble copies planar traits, and this thing about things in dal quor not really happening is not a planar trait. I don't even think it's a normal aspect of the plane, as I'm pretty sure that things that happen in dal quor are really happening. So, y'know, craziness.

[Heliomance]

The Realm of Dreams is not the same as Dal Quor. Dal Quor is an Eberron-specific plane of dreams, with its own rules. The Realm of Dreams is from the MotP, and has different rules, as it's a different plane, albeit with the same theme.

[eggynack]

The Realm of Dreams is not the same as Dal Quor. Dal Quor is an Eberron-specific plane of dreams, with its own rules. The Realm of Dreams is from the MotP, and has different rules, as it's a different plane, albeit with the same theme.
It's possible that that's the plane that was meant, but that plane is actually called the region of dreams, while dal quor is the plane referred to as the realm of dreams.

Edit: Also, it looks like spells may retain their reality as long as you don't step outside the realm of dreams. That might actually lead to its own kind of crazy, as you can seemingly toss spells at enemies that are either inside or outside of your bubble, and then turn off the planar bubble, causing you to recoup your slots. Weird stuff.

[CrazyYanmega]

It's possible that that's the plane that was meant, but that plane is actually called the region of dreams, while dal quor is the plane referred to as the realm of dreams.

Edit: Also, it looks like spells may retain their reality as long as you don't step outside the realm of dreams. That might actually lead to its own kind of crazy, as you can seemingly toss spells at enemies that are either inside or outside of your bubble, and then turn off the planar bubble, causing you to recoup your slots. Weird stuff.

What about stuff like arrows? Like I said previously, the group is almost entirely mundane barring the passive buffer Dragon Shaman. Do mundane weapons still work in the Region of Dreams?