Are shifters worth it?

[Shadowbane13]

I am currently getting into a campaign and I am thinking of making a shifter swiftstride rogue. was really wondering if shifter is a race worth investing in. I am aiming towards becoming an arcane trickster. But one of my dnd buddies said shifter is a underpowered waste of a race. I want to hear from the pros.

[OldTrees1]

Pros
1 You wanted to play a shifter. That is a good enough reason in and of itself.
2 They are a +3 Race (+1 Dex & +2 more points in various combos). Only a couple of races are more.
3 They give 2 free proficiencys. That is very useful. Less useful on a Rogue or Bard, but still something they are willing to pay for.
4 Darkvision. Very nice.
5 Shifting is a lot of temp HP per day. Played right, that is like a bonus to Constitution.
6 And they also get another effect.


They seem comparable to Half Elf (a +4 race). More than good enough.

Cons
1 Your buddy doesn't understand the merits of shifters. I don't know how they will behave if you play one. That might be a minor, or a major con.

[firelistener]

Really the only thing shifters lose are language proficiencies, and they get a short rest ability instead of something they can always access like an extra cantrip or passive feature. Overall, I'd say they're a great race for barbarians or fighters and pretty decent for anything else. Plus they're cool lol.

[Griswold]

Shifters are a decent race as mentioned above, and the swiftstride subrace can be an excellent choice for a rogue. The move 10 feet as a reaction is very versatile. Think of all of the possibilities:

It's a free withdraw, allowing you to use your cunning action (or dual wield bonus action?) on something else.
It helps you get out of melee if you're trying to be a ranged combatant.
It works when any creature ends its turn within 5 feet of you. So if an ally or your familiar go right after you, you can move into melee, attack, and have an ally move into melee next to you, allowing you to move away.

[stoutstien]

All the shifters are fun picks that open up options and the THP is a nice later of cushion for anyone.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Pros
1 You wanted to play a shifter. That is a good enough reason in and of itself.
2 They are a +3 Race (+1 Dex & +2 more points in various combos). Only a couple of races are more.
3 They give 2 free proficiencys. That is very useful. Less useful on a Rogue or Bard, but still something they are willing to pay for.
4 Darkvision. Very nice.
5 Shifting is a lot of temp HP per day. Played right, that is like a bonus to Constitution.
6 And they also get another effect.

They seem comparable to Half Elf (a +4 race). More than good enough.

1 - True, play what you want
2 - +2/+1 Races are actually fairly common, in fact they're the most common distribution. What is notable about the ASI offered for Shifter subraces is that they're all fairly decent mixes.
3 - I don't know where you got two proficiencies from, perhaps an old version, but as it stands each subrace only offers one and the only features you get that aren't from your subrace are darkvision and shifting.
4 - True
5 - Temp HP is always nice, it doesn't even go away when your shifting ends so if your shifting feature isn't very useful (Longtooth's is fairly mediocre) you can opt to gain the Temp HP at the end of a rest and hold onto it from there, saving your bonus action in combat.
6 - The issue being the duration and frequency of these effects, being 1 minute per rest these useful effects aren't as powerful as I'd expect them to be considering that you give up having anything other than darkvision and a single skill proficiency to have them.

For comparisons I think Goliath is a much better one. The Temp HP from shifting and the damage reduction from Stone's Endurance are fairly similar, Goliath's having much better mitigation early on and probably into mid levels as well.

Half Elves just gain so much more than shifters do, it's not exactly fair to compare the two. Half Elves have +1 Asi over them, advantage against charms, actually 2 skills (of their choice) and 2 additional languages. Since the Half Elves +2 is in Charisma that's an even bigger push for them since Charisma is one of the most powerful ability scores offensively.

Shifter's really got a raw deal in the shift from Wayfinder's Guide into Rising from the Last War. Before they had minor benefits to make them stand out when they weren't shifted but now they only gain most of their racial traits while shifted.

[stoutstien]

1 - True, play what you want
2 - +2/+1 Races are actually fairly common, in fact they're the most common distribution. What is notable about the ASI offered for Shifter subraces is that they're all fairly decent mixes.
3 - I don't know where you got two proficiencies from, perhaps an old version, but as it stands each subrace only offers one and the only features you get that aren't from your subrace are darkvision and shifting.
4 - True
5 - Temp HP is always nice, it doesn't even go away when your shifting ends so if your shifting feature isn't very useful (Longtooth's is fairly mediocre) you can opt to gain the Temp HP at the end of a rest and hold onto it from there, saving your bonus action in combat.
6 - The issue being the duration and frequency of these effects, being 1 minute per rest these useful effects aren't as powerful as I'd expect them to be considering that you give up having anything other than darkvision and a single skill proficiency to have them.

For comparisons I think Goliath is a much better one. The Temp HP from shifting and the damage reduction from Stone's Endurance are fairly similar, Goliath's having much better mitigation early on and probably into mid levels as well.

Half Elves just gain so much more than shifters do, it's not exactly fair to compare the two. Half Elves have +1 Asi over them, advantage against charms, actually 2 skills (of their choice) and 2 additional languages. Since the Half Elves +2 is in Charisma that's an even bigger push for them since Charisma is one of the most powerful ability scores offensively.

Shifter's really got a raw deal in the shift from Wayfinder's Guide into Rising from the Last War. Before they had minor benefits to make them stand out when they weren't shifted but now they only gain most of their racial traits while shifted.

IMO shifers get a big bonus for being a very flavorful race. There is also some fun combos like wildhunt barbs or beasthide cavalier that can get a lot of mileage out of the race.

[ProsecutorGodot]

IMO shifers get a big bonus for being a very flavorful race. There is also some fun combos like wildhunt barbs or beasthide cavalier that can get a lot of mileage out of the race.

I agree, to an extent, the issue I have being that they're only "flavorful" once per short/long rest. If you're not taking short rests, you're not really standing out as a Shifter for more than 1 minute per day.

A lot of races suffer this same problem, Shifters simply highlight is better than most.

[Rfkannen]

IMO shifers get a big bonus for being a very flavorful race. There is also some fun combos like wildhunt barbs or beasthide cavalier that can get a lot of mileage out of the race.

So hildhunt cavalier one is interesting, you can use reckless attack without giving people advantage? That is is pretty cool! What is the beasthide cavalier synergy?

[OldTrees1]

3 - I don't know where you got two proficiencies from, perhaps an old version, but as it stands each subrace only offers one and the only features you get that aren't from your subrace are darkvision and shifting.

The source I checked was wrong. It wrongly claimed they also got Perception.


For comparisons I think Goliath is a much better one. The Temp HP from shifting and the damage reduction from Stone's Endurance are fairly similar, Goliath's having much better mitigation early on and probably into mid levels as well.

Half Elves just gain so much more than shifters do, it's not exactly fair to compare the two. Half Elves have +1 Asi over them, advantage against charms, actually 2 skills (of their choice) and 2 additional languages. Since the Half Elves +2 is in Charisma that's an even bigger push for them since Charisma is one of the most powerful ability scores offensively.

Shifters are more similar to Goliaths but that was not the point of my statement.
Half Elves get +4 ASI, 2 skills, Darkvision, and some ribbons.
Shifters get +3 ASI, 1 skill, Darkvision, a bonus to hp that scales with level*, and some ribbons.
Shifters might not be as strong as Half Elves, but they are rather close. The claim of "being comparable" was to refute the OP's friend's hyperbolic position. The claim of "Worthless" being contrasted by a respectable comparison vs an top tier race.

Edit: Although I am not sure Shifters are weaker. They sound mighty tempting and my default race of choice was Half Elf prior. Comprable indeed.

* Level + Con is better than d12+Con at around 6th level (rounding down because constant is better than random). So it is similar to Goliath at low levels. Good point. It gets even better with your point about the THP sticking around. So the shifter can shift before breakfast to basically get an extra batch of THP per day. 4/3 Level + 4/3 Con is pretty decent.

[MaxWilson]

Shifters are worse than Inspiring Leader humans, but Inspiring Leader has a Cha 13 prereq. If you're playing e.g. a Barbarian and no one else in the party has Inspiring Leader, I can see the appeal of going Shifter instead of Inspiring Leader.

[stoutstien]

So hildhunt cavalier one is interesting, you can use reckless attack without giving people advantage? That is is pretty cool! What is the beasthide cavalier synergy?

Cav fighter can pull off using a 2hd weapon and mark to generate some nasty attacks that utilize a bonus action on every round besides the first round. Having an open bonus action the first round makes it really easy to utilize the AC and temporary hit point boost.
It's definitely not as clever as the wild hunt Barbarian but it's easy to use.

[HappyDaze]

Shifters are worse than Inspiring Leader humans, but Inspiring Leader has a Cha 13 prereq. If you're playing e.g. a Barbarian and no one else in the party has Inspiring Leader, I can see the appeal of going Shifter instead of Inspiring Leader.

Why not take both? Our group has both a bard with Inspiring Leader and a wildhunt shifter druid. The druid is quite happy to use the shifting THP after the THP from Inspiring Leader have been chewed through.

[MaxWilson]

Why not take both? Our group has both a bard with Inspiring Leader and a wildhunt shifter druid. The druid is quite happy to use the shifting THP after the THP from Inspiring Leader have been chewed through.

Heh. Now tell me that the druid is also a Shepherd Druid with the Healer feat and I'll believe that nobody in that party will ever die from HP damage.

[HappyDaze]

Heh. Now tell me that the druid is also a Shepherd Druid with the Healer feat and I'll believe that nobody in that party will ever die from HP damage.

Nope. Circle of the Moon. She is very flexible and has taken up various roles depending on the encounter. The player doesn't want to play a character that does the same things over and over in every encounter.

The rest of the party consists of a 1/2E Bard (Lore), Warforged Cleric (Tempest), and 1/2E Paladin (Devotion) so there is a lot of magical healing in the group despite nobody using the Healer feat. They've had some close calls, but they also spend their gold on mercenaries and tend to have 4-6 Guards (the NPC) along on most adventures, and these are often the recipients of the Inspiring Leader THPs. A big part of the fun for our group is trying not to lose these redshirts.

[stoutstien]

Heh. Now tell me that the druid is also a Shepherd Druid with the Healer feat and I'll believe that nobody in that party will ever die from HP damage.
.... I actually DM for a party like this.
Warforged Shepherd druid/ gnome ancient pally with IL/ beast shifter tempest cleric/warding dwarf abj wizard.

I call them the iron brotherhood.