Need some help with some balance issues

[Morjoko]

So we have a campaign that we plan on doing in the near future and a friend of mine is going to be a Unseelie Fey Druid and he is planning on going somewhat high-optimization and while I dont mind that, I think the Unseelie Fey template is waaaaaay too strong for LA +0. He already has his character planned out, so I was thinking like a +2 with random wings selection, +3 if he selects. I kind of just want your opinion on it playground, am I right or wrong? Too Strict or not strict enough? Also this is my first thread here! Greetings.

[eggynack]

What's the base race? It is a template, after all. As for the template, it's strong, but it won't meaningfully impact the power level of a druid. Really, with a -2 constitution, it might even be a lateral or negative move. The template is a +1 at best, even with all of the qualities intact. I'd just let it exist as is, or perhaps ban it. The crazy LA method just feels kinda like you're banning it without having to say you're banning it, and realistically, a game that won't be broken in half by a well played druid won't be broken by a well played unseelie fey druid, and a game that will be broken in half by a well played unseelie fey druid will be broken in half by a well played druid. It's just not all that impactful.

Edit: Just to be clear, the amount of games that can be broken in half by a well played druid is a lot of them. Cause druids are crazy. Also, hello new-fellow.

[Morjoko]

You really think so? The base race is human I believe and is going for a wild shape centric build with some MoMF and Warshaper. Hmm. I'll trust your word over mine since I assume youve been playing DnD longer than me. I dunno it just sounds crazy with all that stuff with like no penalty.

[ericgrau]

With flight, the power and DR it looks like LA +2. Though flight and the ability scores don't seem as great on a wild-shaping druid. If the rest of your group is also high optimization then it might be ok with LA +1 on a druid.

Keep in mind the flight is only average maneuverability which means he needs a 10 foot radius to turn and needs to blow a feat if he wants to hover. Otherwise he must continue moving past the foe and this provokes an attack of opportunity even if he gets flyby attack. If he doesn't get flight I'd only count that as half an LA less.

[Firechanter]

As eggy said, it's mostly the Druid bit you should be worrying about.

[eggynack]

You really think so? The base race is human I believe and is going for a wild shape centric build with some MoMF and Warshaper. Hmm. I'll trust your word over mine since I assume youve been playing DnD longer than me. I dunno it just sounds crazy with all that stuff with like no penalty.
It's great, don't get me wrong, but I'm saying that if something's going to be breaking your game, it's not going to be the unseelie fey. Also, as ericgrau notes, very little of the fey's stuff is going to carry over into a wild shape. He's going to be capable of flying on a pretty much constant basis, just by being a bat of some variety, the vision modes are pretty mediocre compared to what a druid gets access to (once again, through being a bat), and everything else is decent but not significant.

It's like, you have this small thing that's rather broken, which is the fey, and you're attaching it to this monumental and overpowered structure, which is the druid. The druid is happy that these abilities are there, but it's barely a blip on the radar when compared to all the shenanigans that are native to a druid. If you want to add LA to the thing, just tossing a +1 on it would take the template from overpowered to pretty much unplayable from an optimization perspective in no time at all.

Edit: If you want to understand the scale of power I'm talking about here, his unseelie fey human druid entering MoMF is significantly less powerful than a straight human taking 20 levels of druid, because just being more of a druid is that strong.

[ericgrau]

Doesn't the scaling DR carry over into wildshape forms though? That and the constant magic circle against evil effect makes it still worth something regardless.

[eggynack]

Doesn't the scaling DR carry over into wildshape forms though? That and the constant magic circle against evil effect makes it still worth something regardless.
That is a true thing, and a druid with unseelie fey will likely be better than one without it. Still, significantly worse on a druid than on a not-druid, especially because I think neutral good is the best alignment on a druid, and that neutral evil is the worst. You lose not only the pile of fancy sanctified spells that you could be tossing out (particularly luminous armor if you're all the way good instead of neutral), and cool good-only feats, but also unicorn summoning. When you add on the constitution penalty, there is some possibility that this is actually worse than a druid not using it. It's not definite, but it's certainly possible.

[Morjoko]

It seems like a somewhat equal trade in terms of what he is giving up and what he is gaining from the looks of it. He said that while he will do spellcasting when he needs to his main thing is the shapeshifting into all animals. I guess we will just roll with it and see what happens. I dont remember what everybody else is playing but I myself am just doing Binder (I know its not optimized just doing Binder 20 but Im still really new at DnD and I want to try out the base classes that interest me before I get crazy with optimization) and from what I can tell is a pretty sick class and I love it fluff-wise.

Unrelated question: Not sure if I should just make another thread but Im curious about any tips or tricks for Binder, I mean Ive thoroughly read this:
http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1102006
But is there anything else I should know? Any crazy combos that would work really well? Im not looking for a build or anything. Just some little bits of knowledge that'll make my Binder experience awesome, as of right now Binder is looking to be my favorite base class in DnD 3.5

Edit:Thanks for all the responses btw, it helps a bunch.

[eggynack]

It seems like a somewhat equal trade in terms of what he is giving up and what he is gaining from the looks of it. He said that while he will do spellcasting when he needs to his main thing is the shapeshifting into all animals.
Master of many forms is a perfectly reasonable class, granting access to a bunch of good cheese, but druid is druid, and spells are spells. Spells are pretty much always going to be better than not-spells, and MoMF is pretty much always going to be worse than more druid. Also, just tossing this out there if he wasn't aware, druids can already turn into pretty much all animals, even the few gargantuan ones that are within HD limits if you know what you're doing. MoMF is mostly about becoming other things.

Druids can become other things sometimes too, if they're so inclined. Offhand, the list of forms accessible non-natively is something like vermin, humanoids, aberrations, small and medium dragons, cold subtype'd magical beasts, and the stuff that exalted wild shape grants. Druids are awesome like that.