Wildshaping into a Solar (Need bonus hit die for a druid)

[Goaty14]

Ok, so I'll get right to the point. I have a Druid 5/Planar Shepherd 9 (14 HD) who wants to use his (Outsider) Wildshape to turn into a Solar (22 HD), but he can't because his hit die is too low. So I want to find enough (+8) sources of temporary hit die or effective druid level to do this. Right now I'm looking at:

-Wildshape Amulet: +4 Effective Druid level for wildshape
-9th level Bard: Uses Inspire Greatness when I wildshape for +2 HD
-Set of the beast (not the exact name): +1 Effective Druid HD

I just need one more HD, but I'm a bit stuck looking.

[Troacctid]

Have you tried gaining a level? :smalltongue:

[Crake]

Ok, so I'll get right to the point. I have a Druid 5/Planar Shepherd 9 (14 HD) who wants to use his (Outsider) Wildshape to turn into a Solar (22 HD), but he can't because his hit die is too low. So I want to find enough (+8) sources of temporary hit die or effective druid level to do this. Right now I'm looking at:

-Wildshape Amulet: +4 Effective Druid level for wildshape
-9th level Bard: Uses Inspire Greatness when I wildshape for +2 HD
-Set of the beast (not the exact name): +1 Effective Druid HD

I just need one more HD, but I'm a bit stuck looking.

Druid wildshape makes no mention of your HD, only your druid level. If you happen to gain HD that are not druid levels, they will not help you wildshape into more powerful forms at all.

[ApologyFestival]

Crake is right; increasing your hit die does nothing for your ability to wild shape, since the hit die of the form you can turn into is dictated by your effective druid level.

To pull this off, you need access to Dragon Magazine and a permissive DM. The skin of Kaletor (Dragon Magazine #324) is a powerful magic item that increases your effective druid level by 4 for wild shape. At druid level 14, wearing both the skin and the wild shape amulet gets you to druid level 22 for the purposes of your wild shape abilities.

However, the wild shape amulet has a caveat that it can not increase your effective druid level above 20. In D&D 3.5 there is a general understanding that you can apply bonuses in the order that gives you the most benefit, which doesn't come up often but is sometimes needed for sanity's sake. So in my opinion you should be allowed to use the wild shape amulet to boost your effective druid level to 18 (not triggering its maximum benefit condition) then apply the skin of kaletor second to raise it to 22.