Totem Druid & Master of Many Forms

[Tibbaerrohwen]

I've seen the Totem Druid pop up in conversations about early entry into Master of Many Forms. There seem to be some disagreements about the legality of it. I haven't found a dedicated thread of full, final discussion on the topic. So, I figured I'd open one.

The keep focus here is the Totem Shape class feature. It is available at 1st level and is worded as follows.

Totem Shape:

Totem shape uses the same rules as wild shape, although a druid can only take the form of her totem animal.

Now it says it uses the same rules as wild shape. That being said, the second section says you can only take the form of the totem animal. With this in mind:

1) Would Totem Shape counts as Wild Shape for qualifying for PrC's and/or feats?

2) It stipulates that you can only take the form of your totem animal. In the hypothetical that you could enter MoMF with Totem Shape, would you still gain the additional forms?

Thanks

[Wacky89]

All of my dm's have allowed me to early entry with Totem Druid and gain the additional wild shapes from MoMF.

[Tibbaerrohwen]

There is an issue here, though, isn't there? Until your second level of MoMF, you still can only turn into your totem animal, because you never gain the ability to wild shape into medium or small creatures. Furthermore, you never gain this ability at all. This limits some of your choices, especially in the humanoid & monstrous humanoid fields, amongst others.