Tarzan-esque

[cartejos]

I want to make a wild man, preferably a druid, but I would not like am animal companion or wild shape. What I would rather go for would be the character gaining the special qualities that make some wild shape forms good. And yes, I know it would be easier "just to wild shape" but thats not what I had in mind

A druidic avenger huntsman druid has the basic feel of a tarzan-like character.
And through variant chaining, pounce is grabbable, as well as I think improved grab, but only one or the other and not both.

Scaled Horror I believe grabs improved grab too. Though Im not sure what the best way to get constrict is.

What other ways might there be to grab special qualities and jam them on a pc?

Soulmelds and ToB stuff arent enabled

[Grim Reader]

I want to make a wild man, preferably a druid, but I would not like am animal companion or wild shape. What I would rather go for would be the character gaining the special qualities that make some wild shape forms good. And yes, I know it would be easier "just to wild shape" but thats not what I had in mind

A druidic avenger huntsman druid has the basic feel of a tarzan-like character.
And through variant chaining, pounce is grabbable, as well as I think improved grab, but only one or the other and not both.

Scaled Horror I believe grabs improved grab too. Though Im not sure what the best way to get constrict is.

What other ways might there be to grab special qualities and jam them on a pc?

Soulmelds and ToB stuff arent enabled

Changeling Durid (or widshape Ranger or Feral Hunter) into Master of Many Forms can give a lot of that while looking human. Tarzan-like brachiation etc.

[Goaty14]

Use the Druidic Avenger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druidVariantDruidicAve nger) variant to drop the animal companion for rage, and then use the Aspect of Nature (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/classFeatureVariants.htm#wildShapeVariantAspectOfN ature) variant to gain bonuses to certain things whenever you would normally wild shape. Both variants are strictly worse than what you're trading them for, but should fit your concept.

EDIT: Taking the track feat and dipping Nature's Warrior (CWar) and taking the "Serpent's Coils" Nature's Armament should get you a good pseudo-constrict.


Changeling Durid (or widshape Ranger or Feral Hunter) into Master of Many Forms can give a lot of that while looking human. Tarzan-like brachiation etc.

Except that's not what the OP wants. He wants to "get feral", not turn into something feral.

[The Viscount]

You might find some use in Fist of the Forest (especialy thematically) and Black Blood Cultist for mechanical power (not to be confused with Black Blood Hunter, which you do not want).

[Rebel7284]

Geomancer?

[PhantasyPen]

The Shapechange ACF in Player's Hanbook II might be what you need?

[cartejos]

Aspect of Nature is kinda cool, but doesn't give the right bonuses, and I still kind of want to stay awayfrom form changing here.

Natures warrior looks cool until you read the part about needing to be wild shaped to use the natures armaments.

Black blood cultist definitely seems very powerful for grappling, ALL of your natural attacks for constrict? Gross

Geomancers get an alteration every level, but the first two I believe are just flavorful. And I am unsure at the moment but I dont think many of the drifts are good, Im sure one has constrict but its probably after spending 7 or 8 levels in a theurge class on a druidic feral character. Dont know how well that would work out

[Zaq]

What specifically do you want this character to be able to do? "Being like Tarzan" seems almost as much just pure roleplaying as it does any particular mechanical effects, plus or minus being good at climbing and perhaps good at communicating with animals. What mechanical options do you want this character to have? That's easier to build around.

Also, the feat is not generally useful, but there is a feat called Brachiation in Complete Adventurer that lets you swing through the trees. That seems fairly mandatory.

There are several options for trading away Wild Shape in favor of miscellaneous bonuses (notably Aspect of the Dragon in DrM and Aspect of Nature in UA). They aren't usually better than WS, but you know that already.

[cartejos]

Well, I was trying to find ways to get some special abilities like improved grab, constrict, pounce, et al. Without having to change forms. A person who fights like a beast, but doesnt change forms, stays his same form

[hamishspence]

A person who fights like a beast, but doesnt change forms, stays his same form

You want someone who can Run Like a Hare and Fight Like A Bear then?

[Diovid]

Barbarian (with the city-brawler variant and either ape totem or bear totem) into the Fist of the Forest prestige class and possibly the Frostrager prestige class?

Personally for Tarzan I'd go barbarian 5 / fist of the forest 3 / beastmaster 2 / animal lord 10 but you said no animal companion..

[hamishspence]

It's an unusual choice. In the Tarzan novels, Nkima the monkey, Tantor the elephant, and Jad-bal-ja the lion are very animal companion-ish.

Jad-bal-ja and Nkima are even friends - way out from the normal predator-prey interaction.

[Grim Reader]

Well, I was trying to find ways to get some special abilities like improved grab, constrict, pounce, et al. Without having to change forms. A person who fights like a beast, but doesnt change forms, stays his same form

The point of a Changeling Master of Many Forms is that you can use the Changelings Minor Change Forms to keep your form the same while accessing the extraordinary abilities (and some supernatural with a feat) of many creatures. Basically Wild Shapes abilities without the form change.

Does not work for creatures too far out of the human form, but between humanoids, monstrous humanoids, giants, fey etc there should generally be something that does what you want.

[Buddy76]

Lion of Talisid 5 gives you scent and pounce. It also advances spellcasting.

If you're open to templates, Feral from Savage Species can also fit the bill.

[Diovid]

Thinking about it more, you might want to check out the shifters race. See this handbook: http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=13383.0

[JyP]

I think the right way to do a Tarzan character may be through Neanderthal Barbarian 8 / Primeval 10 - race and prestige class described in Frostburn.

If you want to have nice special qualities but less BAB, I think Barbarian 4 / Totemist 2 / Totem Rager 10 would match even better - this time with Magic of Incarnum.

[Fizban]

Druids don't even need anything special to get pounce, as they already have access to the (much more balanced, if you can call it that) spell of Lion's Charge, so you can just prepare that however many times you think you'll actually use it. The [wild] feats from Complete Divine let you spend Wild Shape uses to get various animal abilities, but of course when most people don't see any downside to turning into an animal and Natural Spell is in core, they never get picked, and the small usage pool and 1 hour or instant durations don't help.


"Improved Grab" is the tricky one, because unlike the mutation of "pounce" over time, Improved Grab remained a monster ability tied to natural weapons. Huge+ monsters that don't have it naturally can get something similar (but not identical) by taking the Snatch feat, but Tarzan is not huge.

I give you the feat: Scorpion's Grasp. Dunno why it's hidden in Sandstorm (there might be another version somewhere I've missed?) but that's your PC version of Improved Grab, lets you grab on after any attack with an unarmed/light/one-handed weapon, lets you hold onto people without counting as grappled at penalty, only weird bit is that if you grab with a weapon it seems to cut off unarmed damage. You do need to have Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved Grapple.


Of course a druid that fights like a Tarzan doesn't make much sense, 'cause druids are already druids and can already turn into animals and cast crazy buff spells and crazy attack spells for that matter. A Shaman on the other hand (from Oriental Adventures), those specifically get unarmed combat stuff. They also have an animal companion, spontaneous cure or inflict, domains (including some potentially unique Shaman domains), and a unique spell list that has a lot less of that fire and lightning and conjuring giant plants in exchange for some more clerical stuff. If you want a spell casting fist fighter, Shaman has a lot more reason to go there than Druid*.

Human-like racial options aside from Human include the obvious Neanderthal from Frostburn, or Spirit Folk (Mountain) from Unapproachable East for a climb speed- the latter also including a speak with birds 1/day effect. But really the Neanderthal is just a gimmick for primitive weapons and not needing Endure Elements (which you can obviously cast), while the -2 int makes it a lot harder to get Improved Grapple. A climb speed is pretty dang necessary though, since the Brachiation feat just lets you mysteriously move, but doesn't get you into the trees any faster.

*Because let's be real, the only reason the Druid has those all those combat ACFs is because they're trading on their glut of originally undervalued class features. Accounts say that Wild Shape wasn't really tested for combat, but it's so strong that the "hunstman" druid gets a bunch of stuff for trading it. Animal Companion was originally the Animal Friendship spell (like a lower level Animate Dead) with a stronger statement that you must "truly wish to befriend" the animal, but was changed into another separate class feature in 3.5 that lacks such language. Then because people still didn't like preparing cure spells, spontaneous summoning was added to match the Cleric- and because these are all powerful features the "druidic avenger" gets to trade them for more power.