Plant Race Druids, can they Wildshape?!

[Wolfswift]

So I was working on a making a race using race building rules for a friend's campaign and I was making a very in touch with nature race, I thought making a Druid would be an ideal choice, but now I'm not so sure. I realized it seems plants are immune to polymorph effects, which I became concerned might include Wildshape as it functions as Beast Shape, which is a transmutation (polymorph) spell and it functions as that spell except where noted and nothing in it mentions making it not a polymorph effect. I might just make it a Fey... But I liked the idea that they were like made of flowering greenery

A friend suggested it was probably an external resistance, but I'm more skeptical. I liked the planty feel to the race and Plant may be expensive, but it offers some nice resistances, but if it's polymorph immunity makes my desired class have a dead class feature I'd heavily consider against it... I realize final say is up the GM, but I want to know my facts before I begin a debate as I may only have one chance to convince him. But for the life of me I can't find if anywhere there is an instance of a plant being able to benefit from internal polymorph effects and only immune to external attempts to change their shape.

The other thought is: is it just immunity to the specific spell Polymorph? But I kind of doubt that's what they mean.

[the_david]

The race building tool isn't intended for players to make their own races because it's easy to optimize. It's more of a DM tool.

As for your question, they can't. That's why Ghorans have this trait:
"Plant: Ghorans have the plant type but lack the immunities to mind-affecting, paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep, and stunning effects that type usually has."

[stack]

As a class feature, I would rule the wild shape used on yourself has "harmless " in the saving throw line (or would if it were a spell), so bypasses the immunity to polymorph.

Also, the plant type is my number 1 example of why the race builder is a broken mess.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by the_david
As for your question, they can't. That's why Ghorans have this trait:
"Plant: Ghorans have the plant type but lack the immunities to mind-affecting, paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep, and stunning effects that type usually has."

Not sure I follow this. If Ghorans lack an immunity to polymorph, then shouldn't it affect them normally, meaning no trouble with polymorph?


Originally Posted by stack
Also, the plant type is my number 1 example of why the race builder is a broken mess.

Care to elaborate?

[stack]

Creature types in the race builder have different RP values. The actual creature types, though, carry value in things that PC-class, no-racial-HD characters don't get. The dragon type gets D12 HD, full BAB, good skills. If you have no dragon HD, this means nothing. The RP points in the race builder seem to fail to account for this.

Compare dragon and plant types.
Dragon (10 RP)

A dragon is a reptilian creature with magical or unusual abilities.

A dragon race has the following features:

Dragons have the darkvision 60 feet racial trait.
Dragons have the low-light vision racial trait.
Dragons are immune to magical sleep effects and paralysis effects.
Dragons breathe, eat, and sleep.

Plant (10 RP)

This type encompasses humanoid-shaped vegetable creatures. Note that regular plants, such as those found in ordinary gardens and fields, lack Wisdom and Charisma scores and are not creatures, but objects, even though they are alive.

A plant race has the following features:

Plants have the low-light vision racial trait.
Plants are immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).
Plants are immune to paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep effects, and stunning.
Plants breathe and eat, but do not sleep, unless they want to gain some beneficial effect from this activity. This means that a plant creature can sleep in order to regain spells, but sleep is not required to survive or stay in good health.

For the same RP cost, plants get a list of immunities only comparable to undead and constructs, without the weaknesses of those types (though without the general immunity to Fort saves that don't affect objects) for less RP points. Dragons get immunity to sleep and paralysis (which plants get also) plus darkvision. This is probably the biggest example. I haven't bothered looking at the race builder since shortly after it came out; I know there are numerous other issues with point balance, but I don't care enough to dig them up. I decided at the time it was, at best, a rough guideline for the GM to create new races if they weren't confident in their balancing skills. More likely, it would mislead them if they tried to do anything other than shuffle minor bonuses and should be ignored entirely.

[Psyren]

Not sure I follow this. If Ghorans lack an immunity to polymorph, then shouldn't it affect them normally, meaning no trouble with polymorph?

He's saying that plant races that are intended to be playable like Ghoran and Vine Leshy have that line so that they CAN use wild shape. Other plant type monsters don't have that line, so the immunity applies, making it harder for those creatures to be druids (which is counterintuitive, because why else would you play a plant? No need to answer that.)

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
Other plant type monsters don't have that line, so the immunity applies, making it harder for those creatures to be druids….

I get what you’re saying, just couldn’t follow the_david’s syntax too well.


Originally Posted by Psyren
…because why else would you play a plant?

I can think of plenty of reasons to play a plant that wouldn’t involve being a druid. Why should plants only be druids? Some plants are closer to blighters than druids in their approach to the world.

[Wolfswift]

Well see, so it's complicated... Our group doing this awesome thing where we're each making a deity and creating a world from scratch, such that it culminates in a unique setting with something for each of us. Once we have the world set up, each deity will make a race, well, one race that can be like their penultimate race, they can also have other minor races, like I'm making a Mother Nature type of god, creating plants, animals and fey, so she is loving and peaceful, with domains like plant, light and healing, but I wanted my penultimate race to mix all three. I was going to make them anthropomorphic animals with feylike features like gossamer wings and such and also be made out of flowering plant matter.

Once everything is done we will then be making characters, we're not required to use the races we made or worship the gods we made, but c'mon, everyone knows we're each going to want to flesh out the lore we made ourselves the most. So I was thinking what kind of class I would end up playing and decided a Druid, Shaman, Oracle, Witch, Alchemist, Ranger, Shifter or Barbarian would likely fit the theme best. Of those, I'm most interested in playing a Druidic Herbalism Druid, so I could have heals on hand in the form of Herbal Concoctions(thicker potions by another name), but not worry too much about having to prepare the heals and using all my spell slots on the heals. I may yet change my mind, but regardless, even if I don't ultimately play a Druid, if the naturey plant race can't be effective Druids, it's kind of lame.

So Ghoran are plants without any real plant immunities? That might be doable, but I don't know if that would thereby cost less RP to make it more manageable. I mostly want the type for the theme, it doesn't need to be OP, I can still accomplish my idea with the Fey type I suppose. In the end, the GM will be deciding what is and isn't allowed for the races, I was just spitballing ideas and thought they'd be cool and different if they were planty people, but realized it's a lot of RP and for good reason, but the polymorph immunity might screw them being all sorts of good nature servants. The race I make will continue to exist if our group uses this setting again and I wanted them to be geared toward the naturey classes, all of them.

[Biggus]

In 3.0 there was a prestige class called Verdant Lord (Masters of the Wild) which changed your type to plant at 10th level, it specifically said that you're immune to polymorph but retain use of your wild shape ability.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Wolfswift
Our group doing this awesome thing where we're each making a deity and creating a world from scratch….

…the polymorph immunity might screw them being all sorts of good nature servants.

If you’re making your own world and your own deities, I’d say you could slip in an exception to the polymorph immunity without too much trouble.

Cool approach to worldbuilding, I’d be interested to see the result.


Originally Posted by Wolfswift
So I was thinking what kind of class I would end up playing and decided a Druid, Shaman, Oracle, Witch, Alchemist, Ranger, Shifter or Barbarian would likely fit the theme best.

Sounds great, but I’d hate to try ordering a pizza with you. :smalltongue:


Originally Posted by Biggus
In 3.0 there was a prestige class called Verdant Lord (Masters of the Wild) which changed your type to plant at 10th level, it specifically said that you're immune to polymorph but retain use of your wild shape ability.

Nice catch here.

[Psyren]

I can think of plenty of reasons to play a plant that wouldn’t involve being a druid. Why should plants only be druids? Some plants are closer to blighters than druids in their approach to the world.

I was largely being facetious with that comment, but it didn't come through text very well :smalltongue: of course there are non-druid classes that a plant race could be interested in.

[upho]

I highly recommend you and your fellow players don't use the Race Builder when designing your races. Or rather, do use it as inspiration and a compilation of racial abilities you can copy, but don't use its point and various limitations as rules. And definitely do not use it as some kind of tool for balancing power. As mentioned by stack above, the "point cost" for plenty of abilities are horribly off, so the system is unfortunately just about as likely to make you create less balanced races as more balanced ones. Even if you have no intent of "gaming the system" and optimizing your race.

In short, you're going to have to balance your races as best you can based on your knowledge and experience, the race builder won't help.

And I also agree with stack that you should definitely allow this race to be affected by harmless polymorph effects. Or you could simply copy the properties of the ghoran "plant-lite" type.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by upho
In short, you're going to have to balance your races as best you can based on your knowledge and experience, the race builder won't help.

For those of us without much experience balancing racial abilities, is there another tool you can recommend?

[upho]

Yep, the Homebrew Design (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?15-Homebrew-Design) sub-forum. I'm quite certain you'll get far better results by posting and discussing your ideas there than any existing system are able to produce. I unfortunately don't know of anything decent closer to an actual tool (like the race builder).

[Psyren]

^ I'll also add the Paizo forums (Advice and General) and the Pathfinder subreddit as potential avenues for vetting customized races.

[Rynjin]

For those of us without much experience balancing racial abilities, is there another tool you can recommend?

The best tool in general, for any homebrew, is more experience with the system. Knowing generally what races, classes, abilities, etc. are balanced and why that already exist in the game is naturally going to help in any homebrew endeavor.

If you don't have it yourself, as other said you can always borrow others' by throwing out what sounds good to you and letting other people critique it.

[Wolfswift]

So after finding RP costs for most of their racial things and working backward to figure it out, Ghorans are 19 RP including 10 RP for the plant type despite all its immunities being stripped, at that point it's about as good as most any other non humanoid type, just granting low light vision and immunity to person spells. In the long-run I guess the race builder really does suck for balance.

[Kyutaru]

Plants spending most of their time in animal form is heresy of the highest caliber.