[3.5e] best Wheel planes for a Shepard

[Goldlizard]

My DM only uses the great wheel, AKA the Manual of planes and other “general campaign setting” sourcebooks. What are the best planes among these for a Shepard?

[KillianHawkeye]

You mean a literal guy with a flock of sheep?

I'm not sure why he wouldn't just be on the Material Plane, but if you want to be on the Great Wheel you'd be fine avoiding the Evil planes as well as Pandemonium. The Good and Neutral and Lawful planes should all be fine places to raise a sheep.

[Fero]

A few suggestions

Astral--> Free quicken on spells. No aging/ hunger. Flight. Arguably all distances become subjective.

Fire--> Empower & Maximize fire spells (use Energy Substitution to make other spells do fire damage). Automatic fire damage.

Ysgard--> Fast healing and possibly free True Resurections to allies.

Limbo --> Flight. Highly Morphic (see also Perinarch). (Beware wild magic).

[Beni-Kujaku]

You mean a literal guy with a flock of sheep?

I'm not sure why he wouldn't just be on the Material Plane, but if you want to be on the Great Wheel you'd be fine avoiding the Evil planes as well as Pandemonium. The Good and Neutral and Lawful planes should all be fine places to raise a sheep.

I think I would avoid most of the Outer Planes. They're just too extreme in their interpretation to allow a humble shepherd doing his job. In neutral good and lawful good planes, they'll ask you to share your sheep with everyone. In Chaotic Good planes (notably the Beastlands and Arborea), they'll ask you to release your sheep. Bytopia would be good, if not for the fact that animals there become sentient, and probably wouldn't stay in a herd submitted to a shepherd. Ysgard and Arcadia would probably be the best places in my opinion, just good enough to allow you to live, but not enough that you can't exploit animals for your personal sustenance.

Now, if you were talking about Planar Shepherd, the druid prestige class... First, why is your DM allowing it in a purely Great Wheel cosmology since it's an Eberron prestige class? And then, I'd say, if your DM allows ridiculous Planar Bubble shenanigans, see the above response. If not, then I'd say any plane of good to gain access to angel Wild Shape, which is ridiculously broken. Devas (astral, movanic, monadic), notably, are ridiculously overpowered for their number of RHD, and becoming a planetar is one of the most overpowered thing you can do still north of "ban on sight".

[AnonymousPepper]

-snip-

Now, if you were talking about Planar Shepherd, the druid prestige class... First, why is your DM allowing it in a purely Great Wheel cosmology since it's an Eberron prestige class?

TBH, Planar Shepherd is definitely written in a fairly setting-agnostic way as far as what it's actually dependent on, if memory serves. There's prestige classes that absolutely cannot work without rewriting when used in other settings, like, say, Hathran, but Planar Shepherd is not one of them.

[KillianHawkeye]

I think I would avoid most of the Outer Planes.

I don't know if people disagree, but in my understanding the Outer Planes ARE the Great Wheel. The Material plane, the Astral/Ethereal/Shadow, and the Elemental planes are not on the Wheel. They are, at best, parallel to it or within it or adjacent to it. The Great Wheel is the arrangement of the Outer Planes such that each one borders two others, all in a circle, and with one neutral plane at the center to unify them.

So if that's not what this thread is about, I hope the OP says so.... :smallconfused:

[Crake]

I don't know if people disagree, but in my understanding the Outer Planes ARE the Great Wheel. The Material plane, the Astral/Ethereal/Shadow, and the Elemental planes are not on the Wheel. They are, at best, parallel to it or within it or adjacent to it. The Great Wheel is the arrangement of the Outer Planes such that each one borders two others, all in a circle, and with one neutral plane at the center to unify them.

So if that's not what this thread is about, I hope the OP says so.... :smallconfused:

The great wheel is the name of the entire cosmology in which thats the case, as explained in the DMG

[Alabenson]

Planar Shepard 9 plus Elemental Plane of Fire equals Wild Shape into efreet, i.e. 3 free wishes a day.

This is part of the reason Planar Shepard is one of the very few things I ban at my table.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Take the Lucid Dreaming feat, ranks in the Lucid Dreaming skill, and any other options you know of for altering reality in your sleep, then take the Plane of Dream for your chosen plane.

What better for a planar shepherd than the best place to count sheep? You can use the above options to basically rewrite reality as you like, including on-the-fly changes to the planar traits. Why bother choosing one set when you can choose all of them?

[Fero]

Take the Lucid Dreaming feat, ranks in the Lucid Dreaming skill, and any other options you know of for altering reality in your sleep, then take the Plane of Dream for your chosen plane.

What better for a planar shepherd than the best place to count sheep? You can use the above options to basically rewrite reality as you like, including on-the-fly changes to the planar traits. Why bother choosing one set when you can choose all of them?

I feel like such a character should be aware he/she exists solely in a TTRPG, but just not care. Like achieving Chim in the Elder Scrolls.