Aspect of the Dragon/ Nature

[Fightmaster]

So I was looking at wildshape variants (I think turning into an animal is boring usually) and I found the aspect of the dragon and aspect of nature variants. I'd like to build a melee Druid with decent casting using these variants. Do you guys have any suggestions on how to best do that?

[eggynack]

There's not really much to optimize thereabouts. The abilities do what they say on the tin, and I don't think there's anything that modifies them. For what it's worth, aspect of the dragon is a significantly better option, due to a superior duration, use time, and ability set. So, y'know, all the reasons. It's not really the path to melee druidry, as the only thing it offers over wild shape is a breath weapon, a wisdom bonus, and a couple of crappy immunities. Aspect of nature offers close to nothing over wild shape, by contrast, especially when you consider the fact that the duration plus the standard action use time means that you're using this in combat a good chunk of the time.

If you want to build a druid for beat-sticking purposes, you're thus mostly stuck with wild shape. Other ACF's that trade wild shape, like swift hunter, are generally rendered even more useless when compared to wild shape. So, what's it about animal transformation that ya find boring? There's lots of wacky fun to be had thereabouts if you know what you're doing.

[Fightmaster]

I've never found any of the forms interesting. Bears, wolves, lions, apes, pretty much anything without hands just doesn't appeal to me. Which is strange seeing I want to play a druid

[Nihilarian]

I've never found any of the forms interesting. Bears, wolves, lions, apes, pretty much anything without hands just doesn't appeal to me. Which is strange seeing I want to play a druidYou could go Master of Many Forms, instead.

[Phelix-Mu]

Aspect of the Dragon is decent and much easier to keep track of than wild shape. It is strictly inferior to wild shape mechanically, but the mechanic is much more straightforward and balanced. If you don't like the dragon flavor, a reasonable DM would let you just whitewash/refluff that part as having to do with normal animals or whatever.

Otherwise, eggy is right.

[eggynack]

I've never found any of the forms interesting. Bears, wolves, lions, apes, pretty much anything without hands just doesn't appeal to me. Which is strange seeing I want to play a druid
Well, in what manner do you seek to fight things? One nifty system for form selection is to follow the three D's of druidry: dire animals, dinosaurs, and desmodu hunting bats. A good knowledge of forms should give you reasonable access to any style of combat, as well as movement modes, on a spontaneous basis, from tripping to grappling to trampling. There's also a bunch of other stuff, like vision modes with enhance wild shape, or wacky abilities from a couple of forms, like dire tortoise for the absurd lightning strike, or burrow root for the less absurd speed burrow and split abilities.

If you seek more exotic animals, you could always use one of the form adding abilities. There's draconic wild shape (Draconomicon, 105) for small and medium dragons, exalted wild shape (BoED, 42) for blink dogs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/blinkDog.htm), unicorns (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/unicorn.htm), andenhanced animals (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/celestialCreature.htm) (all three get Ex and Su, including celestial animals), aberration wild shape (LoM, 178) for aberration forms (best I've found is the will-o'-wisp (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/willOWisp.htm), which grants immunity to magic if you cast enhance wild shape, though the best stuff comes from assume supernatural ability (SS, 30)), fangshields druid substitution levels (CV, 40) for small and medium humanoid forms, and the vestment of verminshape (DMG II, 273) or wasteland druid substitution levels (Sand, 47) for vermin forms). MoMF also adds a bunch, as was noted. Long story short, if there's a specific thing you're trying to do, wild shape could probably get you there.

[Yuki Akuma]

I've never found any of the forms interesting. Bears, wolves, lions, apes, pretty much anything without hands just doesn't appeal to me. Which is strange seeing I want to play a druid

Apes have hands, so, wut?

Drop your weapon. Wildshape into an ape. Pick up your weapon.

[eggynack]

Apes have hands, so, wut?

Drop your weapon. Wildshape into an ape. Pick up your weapon.
Oh, I thought he was saying that he disliked things with hands, like the whole ape category. That was an odd misreading. If handedness is all that you're seeking, just use a non-humanoid race, like anthropomorphic bat (or even dragonborn anthropomorphic bat), and get fangshields druid substitution levels. The fifth level allows you to manifest hands in a wild shape, except it doesn't even force you to do so, and you lose nothing for the privilege. The other abilities are pretty decent too. So, that seems like it'd just solve this problem.

[Fightmaster]

I find the idea of something bipedal with slam and/or claw attacks interesting, although I don't know what would offer that. What kinds of forms does MMF offer that would be similar to that?

[Nihilarian]

I find the idea of something bipedal with slam and/or claw attacks interesting, although I don't know what would offer that. What kinds of forms does MMF offer that would be similar to that?The first 3 levels offer you Humanoid, Giant and Monstrous Humanoid, up to Large size. The class is in Complete Adventurer, if you're interested.

[Urpriest]

I find the idea of something bipedal with slam and/or claw attacks interesting, although I don't know what would offer that. What kinds of forms does MMF offer that would be similar to that?

If you go for Master of Many Forms, then War Troll is great for that sort of thing, with things like Cave Trolls and Annis Hags available at lower levels. Of course, that's more of a Ranger PrC.

Apes remain pretty fun in the bipedal category. Not a lot of other options in that vein for a non-MMF, though, even with feats.

[eggynack]

Apes remain pretty fun in the bipedal category. Not a lot of other options in that vein for a non-MMF, though, even with feats.
True enough. Bipedalness isn't exactly wild shape's strong suit. Humanoid forms from, once again, fangshields, could probably help with it though. It feels like that ACF comes up to a far greater degree than its power level would indicate, primarily because it just does a good amount of unique things.