Moonspeaker Help?

[Nightly]

For this character I'm playing around with I'm looking for a bit of help.
Never played a druid before and when I learned about the Shifter/Druid/Moonspeaker I feel in love with the flavor.

I'm planning on going Druid 8/Moonspeaker 12 taking the lvl 1 and 4 Shifter alternate levels. Starting with Dreamsight

I can't decide if I should take Razorclaw or Longtooth with Extra Shifting Trait. NonElite, Razorclaw seems better, but Elite Longtooth's Con damage looks wonderful. Either way, I'll get them all with later Moonspeaker levels

Mostly I need help with feats and the order I should take them.
I'm thinking about...

Natural Spell
Ashbound
Augment Summoning (Free with Moonspeaker)

Dreamsight Elite
INA(Bite or Claw)
Longtooth/Razorclaw Elite
Extra Shifter Trait
Shifter Multiattack


So if you can, I'd greatly appreciate some suggestions

[eggynack]

Well, to start, you should consider stopping with the moonspeaker levels after 4. If you look at the actual abilities from 5 to 11, they're not actually all that great, and getting another powerful 9th isn't really all that important. My preference is something like druid 8/moonspeaker 4/druid 8, but there's always room for something like a holt warden/contemplative dip. Anyway, the main idea is that you get rapid summoning, which is great stuff, along with maybe some of that dip power.

As for shifter feats, I would advise just skipping all of them without exception. They're just much worse than what you could be doing otherwise. You should probably tend towards some variety of wild shape form adding feat, whether it be aberration, dragon, or exalted (arranged by both alphabetical order, and from most to least powerful), as well as maybe one of the big summoning feats, rashemi elemental summoning or greenbound summoning.

If you do end up picking up extra shifter trait, and you shouldn't, you should probably stay away from the natural attack ones. They sound cool, but if you start reading wild shape forms, you'll notice that most of them have claws or a bite in their natural state, and the horn just doesn't work well with anything. As replacement, I dunno, maybe wild hunt, cause it grants an always on bonus, or swiftwing, to make not-flying forms fly. These abilities just don't stack up all that well by the time you get them, so it's not all that important how you use them.

[Nightly]

Well, to start, you should consider stopping with the moonspeaker levels after 4. If you look at the actual abilities from 5 to 11, they're not actually all that great, and getting another powerful 9th isn't really all that important. My preference is something like druid 8/moonspeaker 4/druid 8, but there's always room for something like a holt warden/contemplative dip. Anyway, the main idea is that you get rapid summoning, which is great stuff, along with maybe some of that dip power.

As for shifter feats, I would advise just skipping all of them without exception. They're just much worse than what you could be doing otherwise. You should probably tend towards some variety of wild shape form adding feat, whether it be aberration, dragon, or exalted (arranged by both alphabetical order, and from most to least powerful), as well as maybe one of the big summoning feats, rashemi elemental summoning or greenbound summoning.

If you do end up picking up extra shifter trait, and you shouldn't, you should probably stay away from the natural attack ones. They sound cool, but if you start reading wild shape forms, you'll notice that most of them have claws or a bite in their natural state, and the horn just doesn't work well with anything. As replacement, I dunno, maybe wild hunt, cause it grants an always on bonus, or swiftwing, to make not-flying forms fly. These abilities just don't stack up all that well by the time you get them, so it's not all that important how you use them.
Kinda loses it's flavor...
Is the shifter really just not worth it outside dreamsight's 2 wis?
Like I said, never played a druid, but extra str/dam during wildshape seems great for a druid.

So if I went 8/4/8 I should go with

Natural Spell
Ashbound
Greenbound
Aberration blood
Aberration wild shape
Dragon wild shape
Exalted wild shape

With these that would be 4 shifter feats?

What about multiattack or improved natural attack?
Or any other feats that I can swap for Aberration/Dragon/Exalted/Greenbound

[eggynack]

Kinda loses it's flavor...
Is the shifter really just not worth it outside dreamsight's 2 wis?
Like I said, never played a druid, but extra str/dam during wildshape seems great for a druid.
Druids are mostly in it for a combination of the substitution levels and moonspeaker. Where some classes would reap decent benefits from stuff like shifter feats, or some of the traits, druids gain a lot less, simply due to how powerful their other abilities are. As for the strength bonus, it's decent, but worse than what you could be doing otherwise, which is either different feats or a different progression, depending on how you get it.


So if I went 8/4/8 I should go with

Natural Spell
Ashbound
Greenbound
Aberration blood
Aberration wild shape
Dragon wild shape
Exalted wild shape

With these that would be 4 shifter feats?

What about multiattack or improved natural attack?
Or any other feats that I can swap for Aberration/Dragon/Exalted/Greenbound
I'd probably get rid of some quantity of the wild shape feats. You can't become more than one thing at once, after all. I tend towards aberration, because it's absurdly powerful, but any are reasonably viable. As replacement, you could always take some of the more miscellaneous druid feats, like initiate of nature, craft wondrous item, versatile spellcaster, extend spell, quicken spell, or nightbringer/gatekeeper initiate. They're all pretty reasonable options.

As for the feats you have listed, none of them would count as shifter feats. Wild is actually a specific group of feats, which is uniformly pretty terrible, and none of the form adders fit in the group. Similarly, neither ashbound nor greenbound summoning is a metamagic feat. I've never been the biggest fan of the beatstick style of druidry, as casting is generally more powerful/interesting, and as you can bring those resources to bear with less risk by summoning (or on a different character, through the animal companion), but if you do want something like multiattack or INA, I would go with the former, because it's just a stronger feat in general.

[Nightly]

Thanks for the help,

For abilities would
10 str
10 dex
18 con
12 int
18 wis
6 cha

work?

[eggynack]

Thanks for the help,

For abilities would
10 str
10 dex
18 con
12 int
18 wis
6 cha

work?
Seems alright, though it might be worth ditching two of the strength to pick up charisma a bit. Wild shape replaces the former, after all, and wild empathy is a thing of some variety, if not one a shifter is particularly likely to be great at.