Is Aberration Wild Shape Overpowered?

[inertia709]

I player in a campaign I'm starting is playing a homebrewed "eldritch horror" race as a druid and wants to take aberration wild shape, since it fits his character. (Because he's an aberration and not allowing him to take the feat when humanoids can, I'm waving the aberration blood prereq.) Anyway, I want to know to if you think the feat is overpowered. Right now, it's looking like the party is going to be the druid, a diviner/war weaver, a war blade, a spell thief and two others who are undecided.

[eggynack]

Yes, very much so, though it somewhat depends on how many books you have access to. It's a feat that grants access to everything from double spells every round (nilshai, from unapproachable east), to magic immunity (will-o'-wisp), to 360 ft. blindsight (dolgaunt from eberron campaign setting), to a different sort of action doubling that makes a druid about as good as he can be at melee, and that's saying a lot (thoon elder brain, from MM V), to the ability to shift back and forth across the ethereal plane, and attack and cast across that border (dharculus, from the planar handbook), and a whole lot more. If you want to keep the feat in, but nerf it some, I'd advise removing the ability of enhance wild shape, from the spell compendium, to interact with these forms. It doesn't stop all of the good forms, but it stops a lot of them, and you end up with something more in line with the other major wild shape options, exalted and dragon.

[inertia709]

I wasn't aware of enhance wild shape before. Yeah, that combo would be pure cheese. The (Ex) abilities you listed alone are ridiculous. What's your opinion of the feat if it doesn't interact with enhance wild shape? I know you said that it's in line with exalted and dragon wild shape, but since we're talking about wild shape feats that doesn't mean that it's not broken haha.

[Snowbluff]

2 levels of Chameleon will give a floating feat for Assume (Su).

[eggynack]

I'm a bit AFB at the moment, so I lack perfect information on which things are special qualities, and which are special attacks, but I think that stuff like the thoon elder brain's dual action, the kython's (BoVD, 178) phase organ, and the cloaker lord's (MoF, 28) debuffing moans are special attacks. I could always toss you the druid handbook I've been working on, if you'd like, as it contains a reasonably complete list of borked aberration wild shape forms. Just hit 100,000 words, too.

Edit:
2 levels of Chameleon will give a floating feat for Assume (Su).
I'm not the biggest fan of the feat. As my list indicates, you can do most of the more interesting stuff out there without it, leaving mostly just wacky stuff like beholder eye rays.

Double-edit: As for my opinion of the feat, without enhance wild shape, it's probably not as good as other options out there, though it does provide a bit more of a combat focus than exalted or dragon. Thoon elder brain is still possibly the most powerful melee form, after all. Also, I'm pretty sure you get to use grand old master neogi form to spit out massive amounts of tiny aberrations, so that's cool. It's a tricky little feat, that one, and far more powerful than it looks on the surface.

[Pan151]

Also, I'm pretty sure you get to use grand old master neogi form to spit out massive amounts of tiny aberrations, so that's cool. It's a tricky little feat, that one, and far more powerful than it looks on the surface.

Funnily enough, old master neogi is Vermin, not Abberation.


My favourite use of the feat, btw, though not strictly the most powerful one, is as follows.

a) Get a form with as many natural attacks as possible. There are many out there that have 10+ natural attacks.
b) Get 1 level in monk. Now, you have a full unarmed attack on top of your 10+ weapons.
c) Get 1 level in Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian. Now you have at least a dozen attacks every round.
d) Add as many on-hit effects as you can. Now each of your dozen+ attacks does a bazzillion damage.
e) Go to town (and bring with you a dice-rolling program, because physical dice are not gonna cut it with the few hundred rolls necessary for each full attack)

[Grod_The_Giant]

Perhaps as a slight balancing factor it could replace normal animal forms?

[Pan151]

Perhaps as a slight balancing factor it could replace normal animal forms?

To be entirely honest, that's not gonna do a thing about balance. There's not a single animal that does anything that an aberration cannot do better. I mean, can you find me an animal that you would take over a Rukanyr or a Will-o-Wisp?

As soons you get Aberrion Wildshape, you'll never turn to an animal again, aside for RP reasons.

[eggynack]

Funnily enough, old master neogi is Vermin, not Abberation.

It was in the MM II, but it was later reprinted in lords of madness, page 91, where it is an aberration. It's a bit annoying, actually, as grand old master neogi was one of the few really interesting creatures worth mentioning in conjunction with the many methods of obtaining vermin wild shape, while it's now just another silly aberration form.

[Pan151]

It was in the MM II, but it was later reprinted in lords of madness, page 91, where it is an aberration. It's a bit annoying, actually, as grand old master neogi was one of the few really interesting creatures worth mentioning in conjunction with the many methods of obtaining vermin wild shape, while it's now just another silly aberration form.

Hmm, never noticed that.

Now, time to find a bard to buff my army of cute tiny aberrations:smallsmile:

[eggynack]

Hmm, never noticed that.

Now, time to find a bard to buff my army of cute tiny aberrations:smallsmile:
I don't think that works, unfortunately, as if memory serves, they have immune to mind affecting. However, it is notable that the LoM version of the neogi is somewhat better than the MM II version, with 2 HP spawn, and I believe some higher stats on the master himself. It's pretty good stuff. Most interesting use I can think of is combining it with linked perception for insane spot and listen, available faster than you'd be able to get it otherwise.

[Deophaun]

...and a whole lot more.
The Grell always seems to get left off these lists, and I can never understand why. 11 natural attacks, massive racial bonus to grappling (so it works with kelpstrand), blindsight, flight, paralysis, immunities to electricity, paralysis, and gaze attacks. And, due to the writer's poor understanding of how spells work, complete immunity to an entire school of magic that isn't Enchantment by RAW? One that could even mess with the Will O' Wisp? Yes, please.

[eggynack]

The Grell always seems to get left off these lists, and I can never understand why. 11 natural attacks, massive racial bonus to grappling (so it works with kelpstrand), blindsight, flight, paralysis, immunities to electricity, paralysis, and gaze attacks. And, due to the writer's poor understanding of how spells work, complete immunity to an entire school of magic that isn't Enchantment by RAW? One that could even mess with the Will O' Wisp? Yes, please.
I have it on the full list, along with the destrachan and tooth beast, which have the same immunity. I haven't gone through the trouble of running the big comparison yet, though, so grell might still be best, but I suspect that they each have advantages. For example, while the grell definitely has better movement, combat, and other immunities than the destrachan, the latter has an extra 40 ft. on its blindsight, which helps a bunch when it's your only method of seeing. Similarly, the tooth beast has an even worse movement mode, and negative initiative, but reasonable combat abilities, and best of all, 120 ft. blindsight. It's neat stuff. I also have a bunch of other wacky junk on there, like the ethergaunt, whose total vision ability might be the best way a druid has to deal with darkstalker.

[Deophaun]

The problem with the destrachan (and likely the tooth beast, as it's mentioned in the creature's description but not in the ability) is that its blindsight is defeated by silence. A grell's isn't, at least not on its own. And while the tooth beast does have a really great range, everything else about it is awful.

I'd also be careful with the great old master. There's nothing in the description that actually gives it control of the spawn it creates, they aren't above cannibalism. If you aren't careful, you could find yourself in a bad sci-fi movie.

[eggynack]

The problem with the destrachan (and likely the tooth beast, as it's mentioned in the creature's description but not in the ability) is that its blindsight is defeated by silence. A grell's isn't, at least not on its own. And while the tooth beast does have a really great range, everything else about it is awful.
True enough, I suppose, though the tooth beast does have reasonable AC, and I rather like their attack routine as compares to the grell. I decided to ditch the destrachan, incidentally, as it just doesn't seem to have much to recommend it over the other two options. As for the comparison between the grell and tooth beast, I think that the grell is probably a better option in most situations, especially because flight is always good, but the tooth beast has to have a spot in the running on the basis of the blindsight range factor.


I'd also be careful with the great old master. There's nothing in the description that actually gives it control of the spawn it creates, they aren't above cannibalism. If you aren't careful, you could find yourself in a bad sci-fi movie.
Quite so, though there's always fun stuff you can do with it. It's like a horrific and much slower variation on chicken infested, allowing you to do stuff like slowly fill a pit with neogi spawn. They're definitely more combat oriented though, so you can always just spit massive numbers of the things into the enemy's place of stuff doing, and see what happens. It's definitely a cool ability, at the very least.

[Spuddles]

Just hit 100,000 words, too.

Oh man, looking forward to that. I love your work on druids. Theyve become my favorite class.


Funnily enough, old master neogi is Vermin, not Abberation.


My favourite use of the feat, btw, though not strictly the most powerful one, is as follows.

a) Get a form with as many natural attacks as possible. There are many out there that have 10+ natural attacks.
b) Get 1 level in monk. Now, you have a full unarmed attack on top of your 10+ weapons.
c) Get 1 level in Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian. Now you have at least a dozen attacks every round.
d) Add as many on-hit effects as you can. Now each of your dozen+ attacks does a bazzillion damage.
e) Go to town (and bring with you a dice-rolling program, because physical dice are not gonna cut it with the few hundred rolls necessary for each full attack)

Fax´s pauper of smack (variant of the king of smack build) used an aberration that had a skillion natural attacks. This thing (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ff_gallery/50150.jpg), the Rukanyr, from FF.

[Bronk]

b) Get 1 level in monk. Now, you have a full unarmed attack on top of your 10+ weapons.


The good news is you don't even need this... you always have the option of making iterative unarmed attacks, it's just that normally they would be nonlethal damage. You could make the damage lethal with the one monk level, or a monk's belt, or the fanged ring, or the improved unarmed strike feat.

[Deophaun]

It should also be noted that VoP is more attractive with Aberration Wild Shape, simply because there are a lot of forms that don't have all the body slots (Will o' Wisp being the most egregious), so even a wilding clasp won't be of much benefit.

[ddude987]

While it is a powerful feat, it not only has a prereq feat tax, but I would say most people are not accepting of tentacled monsters walking around. In my experience, a druid going around as a bear or whathave you is, while scary, still just a natural animal. But what happens when people see scary floating tentacle monsters? What I'm saying is as a DM you could keep a leash on the player through NPC reactions to tentacled horrors. But Eggynack, the as far as I can tell resident druid expert, is very correct on the borkedness of this feat if the player isn't kept on a leash, the feat nerfed, or a friendly gentlemans agreement between player and dm.

[Pan151]

The good news is you don't even need this... you always have the option of making iterative unarmed attacks, it's just that normally they would be nonlethal damage. You could make the damage lethal with the one monk level, or a monk's belt, or the fanged ring, or the improved unarmed strike feat.

Yes, but then I wouldn't get the monk's Wis to AC, would I? (and before mentioning monk's belt with wilding clasp, try finding me a way to put a belt on a Will-o-Wisp or a Dark Tentacles)


While it is a powerful feat, it not only has a prereq feat tax, but I would say most people are not accepting of tentacled monsters walking around. In my experience, a druid going around as a bear or whathave you is, while scary, still just a natural animal. But what happens when people see scary floating tentacle monsters? What I'm saying is as a DM you could keep a leash on the player through NPC reactions to tentacled horrors. But Eggynack, the as far as I can tell resident druid expert, is very correct on the borkedness of this feat if the player isn't kept on a leash, the feat nerfed, or a friendly gentlemans agreement between player and dm.

Alternatively, you could spend your day wildshaped into a Will-o-Wisp, be permanently invisible, monitoring the area from above, wandering around the place undetected, sneaking into girls' bathrooms and suddenly appearing as a glowing sphere out of nowhere before people, trying to convince them that they have found god.

[Necroticplague]

(and before mentioning monk's belt with wilding clasp, try finding me a way to put a belt on a Will-o-Wisp or a Dark Tentacles)

Well, a Darktentacles presumably still has a torso under the tentacles. So just find it, and but the belt around it. Admittingly, this is probably a bit thicker than what a normal belt is designed for, but considering magic items resize, that shouldn't be a problem. Similarly, a will-o-wisp can have the belt wrapped around the equator of its round body.

[Deophaun]

Similarly, a will-o-wisp can have the belt wrapped around the equator of its round body.
Assuming this worked, you would now have a belt floating around in mid-air, as will-o-wisps turn invisible by ceasing to emit light, which wouldn't help anything they're carrying.

[Pan151]

Well, a Darktentacles presumably still has a torso under the tentacles. So just find it, and but the belt around it. Admittingly, this is probably a bit thicker than what a normal belt is designed for, but considering magic items resize, that shouldn't be a problem. Similarly, a will-o-wisp can have the belt wrapped around the equator of its round body.

Well, I would never let anyone in my game wear belts as a floating spongy sphere, for what that's worth. Not to mention rings, amulets, cloaks etc.

This is one of the few instances where Vow of Poverty is legitimately a better option than using magic items (since you can't actually use most of them anyway).

[eggynack]

This is one of the few instances where Vow of Poverty is legitimately a better option than using magic items.
I don't think that's necessarily the case. I mean, on the most basic level, you still have rods of extend spell. That item changes things a lot. On top of that, you can always make use of something like the raiment of the stormwalker, as that set of items actually absorb into your body and continue to work, and that set includes a ring, which covers a lot of druid essentials (counterspells, of the beast, spell-battle, maybe mighty summons). On top of that, there's also a set of aberrations that are not just floaty puffy balls, and many of those are capable of wearing a solid set of items. Overall, I don't think that this is enough to make VoP better, especially because exalted wild shape is a lot less interesting if you're already running aberration wild shape. Incidentally, while the fluff of the will-o'-wisp invisibility does support floating belts, the ability does say that it works as the spell, which would support the idea that the items do pop out.

[Deophaun]

Incidentally, while the fluff of the will-o'-wisp invisibility does support floating belts, the ability does say that it works as the spell, which would support the idea that the items do pop out.
The thing is, the will o' wisp has no means to hold an item (and a Str of 1), and has no body slots to wear an item, so the two interpretations work just fine. It's when you house rule the will o' wisp to support wearing gear that a conflict emerges.

[Pan151]

I don't think that's necessarily the case. I mean, on the most basic level, you still have rods of extend spell. That item changes things a lot. On top of that, you can always make use of something like the raiment of the stormwalker, as that set of items actually absorb into your body and continue to work, and that set includes a ring, which covers a lot of druid essentials (counterspells, of the beast, spell-battle, maybe mighty summons). On top of that, there's also a set of aberrations that are not just floaty puffy balls, and many of those are capable of wearing a solid set of items. Overall, I don't think that this is enough to make VoP better, especially because exalted wild shape is a lot less interesting if you're already running aberration wild shape. Incidentally, while the fluff of the will-o'-wisp invisibility does support floating belts, the ability does say that it works as the spell, which would support the idea that the items do pop out.

Yes, there are items that could be useful. It's just that, depending on what kind of build you're going for, VoP's benefits can be more substantial than items. I mean, if you are primarily trying to build a melee monster druid, chances are VoP and all the bonus exalted feas that come with it give you more useful stuff than your money could ever buy you, let alone that you could have equipped at all times (not to speak of whether or not there's even a conveniently placed magic mart where you can find all these things in the first place)

[eggynack]

The thing is, the will o' wisp has no means to hold an item (and a Str of 1), and has no body slots to wear an item, so the two interpretations work just fine. It's when you house rule the will o' wisp to support wearing gear that a conflict emerges.
I dunno. The belt seems vaguely plausible, and you do have a little carrying capacity. Also, + strength items don't actually seem like the worst idea on a druid, as that would stick around in a wild shape, and that's working off of the same slot. A head slot item could also maybe work.

Edit:
Yes, there are items that could be useful. It's just that, depending on what kind of build you're going for, VoP's benefits can be more substantial than items. I mean, if you are primarily trying to build a melee monster druid, chances are VoP and all the bonus exalted feas that come with it give you more useful stuff than your money could ever buy you, let alone that you could have equipped at all times.
I'm doubtful, to be honest. That metamagic rod keeps your buffs up, which is important when you're entering combat, and really, a druid that's just a melee monster has a massive amount of wasted potential around the edges. Pick up a ring of the beast, and right there you have crazy summoning powers on the cheap. You're also going to want that ring of counterspells to protect those buffs from earlier, a mantle of the beast to grant some versatility of form, and a belt of battle to be amazing.

[AlsoD]

Funnily enough, old master neogi is Vermin, not Abberation.


My favourite use of the feat, btw, though not strictly the most powerful one, is as follows.

a) Get a form with as many natural attacks as possible. There are many out there that have 10+ natural attacks.
b) Get 1 level in monk. Now, you have a full unarmed attack on top of your 10+ weapons.
c) Get 1 level in Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian. Now you have at least a dozen attacks every round.
d) Add as many on-hit effects as you can. Now each of your dozen+ attacks does a bazzillion damage.
e) Go to town (and bring with you a dice-rolling program, because physical dice are not gonna cut it with the few hundred rolls necessary for each full attack)

Then get Shadow Pounce and the PF feat Dimensional Dervish to more than square that number
(some cheese is needed for the prereqs and you also need 5ft of teleport distance per attack).

[Snowbluff]

Then get Shadow Pounce and the PF feat Dimensional Dervish to more than square that number
(some cheese is needed for the prereqs and you also need 5ft of teleport distance per attack).

This is wrong. You have to complete the teleport. Dimensional Dervish is useless.

[AlsoD]

This is wrong. You have to complete the teleport. Dimensional Dervish is useless.

Ah I see. Probably a good thing on reflection.

[Necroticplague]

The thing is, the will o' wisp has no means to hold an item (and a Str of 1), and has no body slots to wear an item, so the two interpretations work just fine. It's when you house rule the will o' wisp to support wearing gear that a conflict emerges.

Its wearing the item with a wilding clasp before it was a wisp. So when it becomes a wisp, its already wearing it. Also, citation for saying it has no body slots. Just because it doesn't have the parts, doesn't mean it doesn't have the slots (though it would require some creativity to wear them).

[Snowbluff]

Ah I see. Probably a good thing on reflection.

Yeah. I wish Dimensional Dervish was more versatile. It's a terrible feat.

[Deophaun]

Its wearing the item with a wilding clasp before it was a wisp. So when it becomes a wisp, its already wearing it.
Read the description for the wilding clasp. If it cannot wear the item in the new form, then it merges and becomes useless.

Also, citation for saying it has no body slots. Just because it doesn't have the parts, doesn't mean it doesn't have the slots (though it would require some creativity to wear them).
DMG page 214. Magic Item Compendium page 219 provides more detailed guidelines. Substitute "globe" for "cube," and the physical description of a will o wisp reads like several oozes, which are considered amorphous by MIC.