D&D 3.5e - Wildshapes & leveling them

[CoyDK]

Do druids wildshape become stronger as they level, by this I mean fx: do a druids "Raven" wildshape get more hp as he levels? fx: level 16 as I am right now. Or, do they keep the normal stats as shown in the monster manual?

/thanks :)

[Urpriest]

In D&D 3.5 your wildshapes always have the same hit points as you (this is in the 3.5 errata, as it was part of a later, widesweeping change to the polymorph rules). You also keep your own base attack bonus and base save bonuses. You gain the animal's physical ability scores, and apply them to everything they normally apply to (except hit points). You don't gain all of their abilities, but you do gain some of them, detailed in said errata.

[gbprime]

To get more powerful as an animal, you want to take advantage of the larger sizes and HD you can handle. For example... Hawk, Dire Hawk, Legendary Eagle.

[The Glyphstone]

Correct. A level 5 druid who Wildshapes into a Brown Bear will have the exact same physical stats as a level 15 druid who Wildshapes into a Brown Bear. The difference is that the level 15 druid can Wildshape into a Dire Bear instead.

[gomipile]

If the animal has less HD than the druid, and the animal can be advanced, may the druid wild shape into a version of that animal with a HD advancement which does not exceed the druid's level?

[Urpriest]

I've looked, and while there probably should be a "typical of its kind" coda, I couldn't find one. Regardless, if you could arbitrarily advance the target animal, then what's to stop you from applying a template, like, say, Paragon? In general you should stick to non-templated, non-adjusted monsters.

That said, advancing doesn't get you a whole lot, since wildshape doesn't change any of the things monsters get from hit dice. The most you could get would be a size increase, and generally there are better monsters of the new size with accessible HD.

[Sindri]

IIRC, it says somewhere that it's as per the polymorph spell with a few exceptions, and that specifies that you can't turn into anything with a template (otherwise, since most templates don't change hit dice or size, you'd just layer all of them on). I don't think there's anything preventing you from advancing the HD, tho. That means that you could, for example, turn into a Huge tiger at 15th level, and get +8 Str, -2 Dex, +4 Con, +3 nat armor, and increased die sizes on natural weapons (actually better than the Dire Tiger you get at 16HD). In most cases, however, since you keep your normal hit dice regardless of form, there's no point in advancing them; nothing changes unless they go up a size category and most animals never do.

Edit: the only animals in the MM that you could turn into advanced versions of are:
Wolverine (large at 4+ HD)
Wolf (same as ^)
Tiger (huge at 13+)
Squid (Large at 7+)
Constrictor Snake (Large at 6+)
Rhinoceros (huge at 13+)
Porpoise (Large at 5+)
Owl (Small at 2+)
Giant Octopus (Huge at 13+)
Octopus (Medium at 3+)
Monkey (small at 2+)
Hyena (large at 4+)
Eagle (medium at 2+)
Dire Weasel (large at 7+)
Dire Rat (medium at 4+)
Dire Lion (huge at 17+)
Dire Boar (huge at 17+)
Dire Bear (Huge at 17+)
Dire Badger (large at 4+)

Of these, the only ones I've actually used are the tiger and the giant octopus. Wolf might be good for tripping, and constrictor snake or squid for grappling (if you can't do giant octopus), but for the most part advancing animals doesn't get you much, since the animals you can advance are typically the ones you wouldn't use anyway.

[CoyDK]

Thanks for the help :)

Exampel:

HP: Druids Normal HP and NOT wildshapes hp.
AC: Druids ac modified by the Animals Natural Armor, Dex & Size and so on.
BASE: Druids normal base attacks

Is this right?

[Frosty]

Thanks for the help :)

Exampel:

HP: Druids Normal HP and NOT wildshapes hp.
AC: Druids ac modified by the Animals Natural Armor, Dex & Size and so on.
BASE: Druids normal base attacks

Is this right?

No. The AC is calculated as thus: Animal's normal AC (which takes into account their size, natural armor, dex, etc) + special abilities (Wisdom to AC if you dipped Monk or Swordsage for example) + Spell effects (Barkskin would boost your Natural Armor) + any items that you manage to wear in wildshape (so if you have an armor with the Wilding enhancement, or if you stick WIlding clasps onto your rings of deflection, for example, they'd help out)

The BAB is still that of the Druid's yes. Just remember that you do NOT get extra attacks due to high BAB with natural attacks. Although if you took Improved Unarmed Strike you can in theory use that as your main attack routine and then use all of your natural attacks as secondary attacks (-5 penalty. -2 with Multi-attack feat)

[CoyDK]

I see, thanks for clearing it for me. I may have played a druid for 1½ year but now I acualy understand this "wildshape" stuff