Broken Wildshape?

[Gamer Girl]

I just don't get it.

I've played a druid character lots of times, and had plenty of druids in games I have been the DM of......But I've never come across whatever the problem with wildshape was?

All over boards like this one, I will see posts about what is 'wrong' or 'broken' about wildshape, but few details.

And then Pathfinder nerfed wildshape, for some reason?

What was and is the problem?

My druid who can wildshape into fire elemental is cool, but she is not exactly going to burn down the whole world or anything....

[dragonsamurai77]

Certain Wildshapes are as powerful as a non-optimized Fighter, and Wildshape gives the druid freedom to completely dump physical stats.

[Coidzor]

As opposed to being MAD. It's kinda damned if you do, damned if you don't, that kind of feature on a caster.

OP: Basically, Wildshape allows the Druid to basically do anything except for the very highest tier of spellcasting, because they don't get Miracle.

Since Animal Companion allows for a better fighter than a non-optimized fighter and Wildshape allows the druid to become a better fighter than a non-optimized fighter while being able to cast all of his control/blasting/summoning spells, things can very shortly become a cluster of bears being summoned and riding other bears and attacking people. "Bears, my god," indeed.

[jiriku]

Wildshape is really just one of the ingredients in the stewpot of druid brokenness. Try this on for size: wild shape into a tiger, or a dire lion. Cast animal growth and girallon's blessing on yourself, along with air walk so that you can fly. Add bite of the weretiger just for fun. You're now a flying pouncing kitty the size of an elephant, with up to seven attacks per round, Str, Dex, and Con stats in the high 20's or low 30's, and an extremely respectable AC. And you have an animal companion. And you can cast druid spells.

Or you could be a fighter and take Greater Weapon Specialization.

EDIT: BTW, I am greatly entertained that you chose an imaginary creature for your forum nickname.

[Greenish]

Wildshape is really just one of the ingredients in the stewpot of druid brokenness. Try this on for size: wild shape into a tiger, or a dire lion. Cast animal growth and girallon's blessing on yourself

Objection! Even wildshaped, you're not a valid target for Animal Growth.

That said: "I'm a druid! I have class features more powerful than entire classes!"

[Edit]: Also, no need to marginalize others based on their gender.

[WarKitty]

Certain Wildshapes are as powerful as a non-optimized Fighter, and Wildshape gives the druid freedom to completely dump physical stats.

Pretty much this. PF druids retain their physical stats with a minor bonus to one stat and are still a Tier 1 class.

BTW, I am greatly entertained that you chose an imaginary creature for your forum nickname.

I'm hoping you forgot the sarcasm tag?

[ShriekingDrake]

What others have said . . . and . . .

You get to become some really cool creatures with Wild Shape, even if you just stay in core. If you can add non-core material, then the doors you can get five attacks with poison by becoming a Fleshraker (MMIII) and if you get access to a variety of wild shape feats, you can turn into a dragon (Steel Dragon), a cold-type creature (12 headed Cryohydra), or aberrations (Choker, rust monster, will o' the wisp), among others. It can let you fly, swim, climb, jump, burrow and the like without using a spell. And once you add the Natural Spell feat at 6th level, you can cast spells while you're in that form.

Check out some of the handbooks to see the best forms.

[Marnath]

EDIT: BTW, I am greatly entertained that you chose an imaginary creature for your forum nickname.

This is not the best place for a joke like that, considering how many playgrounders are female gamers.

[InkEyes]

The problem is WotC didn't design most of its animals with the Druid in mind. Technically, a druid needs to observe an animal before polymorphing into it, but in some campaigns running into super-strong animals, like Dinosaurs, is a non-issue. Three poison attacks +venomfire +werebear's bite? Yes, please!

The class ability gets more obscene when you stack it with feats like Natural Spell, which lets you Call Lightning as you fly high in the air in Eagle form. Better yet, get Frozen Wild Shape and turn into a Cryohydra all day. Need to talk to your friends? Let the Wizard cast telepathic link on you! You'll never need to go back to your pitiful ape form again.

EDIT: BTW, I am greatly entertained that you chose an imaginary creature for your forum nickname.

I hate to dogpile, but clarify this, please.

[Kantolin]

If you ask me, druids aren't necessarily broken, but they are generally very powerful. Wildshape makes you as good a fighter as the fighter without any actual work put into it, and makes your physical stats quite moot.

In one of the games I'm in, for example, we have a psychic warrior, an offensive stabbing dragon shaman, and a paladin all up front , and we have a druid. Everyone except the druid has spent most of their feats/etc in being a combatant. None of us are optimized in the slightest, min dyou.

The druid, who has spent no feats on being a good fighter at all (most of his feats are ranged), and is usually slightly better of a fighter than anyone else.

It's not to the point where the druid is infinitely better or anything, but that's a telling statement - the druid turned into a bear, and later a dire bear, and just goes up to things and smacks them until they go away, sometimes casting a buff on himself. He and I (The psychic warrior) compete for most purely physical damage.

But then he's also a full spellcaster. When we get into a fight where physical attacking is a less pleasant idea, he shrugs, turns into a bird if he feels like it, and starts throwing spells at people instead.

So essentially, a druid (or cleric) is overpowered because they can easily become a better fighter than the fighter, and also they're full spellcasters on top of this. Wildshape is in large part how a druid accomplishes this.

[Keld Denar]

You'll never need to go back to your pitiful ape form again.

Dire ape form would like to have a word with you...that word is REND!!!!!

I hate to dogpile, but clarify this, please.

I think it was an insinuation that there is no such thing as a person who is both a gamer, and a girl. It was a joke, I'm guessing. Gamer girls are rare, but they do exist (and have feelings too!). There are more than a few VERY active ladies around, from Serpentine to Saph to Jarien and many others.

Really, I'm more surprised that the forum name "Gamer Girl" wasn't in use. Her register date says Nov 2010, this month, which means in the ~7 years this forum has been active, nobody's registered it.

PS: Welcome to the forums!

[d13]

EDIT: BTW, I am greatly entertained that you chose an imaginary creature for your forum nickname.

This is not the best place for a joke like that, considering most of the playgrounders wouldn't recognize a joke even if it was dancing naked in front of their eyes.

Anyway...

Basically, everything that everyone said so far. Wildshape is broken, because that simple class feature makes other classes redundant, even while it doesn't hurt the druid at all.

[InkEyes]

This is not the best place for a joke like that, considering most of the playgrounders wouldn't recognize a joke even if it was dancing naked in front of their eyes.

Yes, that's exactly why what he said is problematic. Forum posters are humorless. Nothing else.

[Keld Denar]

There is no humor, Citizen, go back to your fun.

[Eloel]

Yes, that's exactly why what he said is problematic. Forum posters are humorless. Nothing else.

Seconding this. No humor in forum dwellers. Everyone knows girls that game do not exist.
[/sarcasm] Here, that should tag the end of your post as well.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Let me break down for you a Core example of why Wildshape is very strong. Mind you, this is using ONLY materials in the SRD (the DMG, PHB, and MM):

At level 6, just one level after you get access to Wildshape, you are able to get both Natural Spell, and use a Brown Bear to wildshape into.

Here's the advantages over a core Fighter:

1) Strength 27. This more than makes up for your 3/4 base attack bonus (which, at level 6, is only a difference of +2 anyways), meaning better odds of hitting, AND higher damage output.

2) As a full attack, you get 2x Claws and 1x Bite attack. That's 3 attacks, a Fighter would have to go down the Two-Weapon Fighting chain to match that. And that bite does more damage than most Greatsword attacks.

3) Large size. This means you now have a natural reach of 10'. This means opponents will generally threaten an AoO before they can even make their first attack. If you Entangle them, you basically get free hits, because you can reach further than most of them can. Against Large opponents, you negate this advantage that they normally would have against you.

4) Improved Grab. You can grapple as a *free* action if you land a Claw attack. That generally means they're stuck taking damage without being able to counter. It also greatly inhibits opponent casters from casting, unless they somehow have Still Spell and remembered to apply it to the right spells.

Mmmkay, so that's just what the FORM has over the fighter. Now let's proceed to what a Druid can actually DO with it.

At 6th level, a Druid can cast up to 3rd level spells. This gives them the following options:

Greater Magic Fang. All their natural weapons (claws and bite) now get an enhancement bonus to attack and damage and count as magic weapons for bypassing DR. Basically, free magic weapons. And duration is hours/level, so after a few more levels, this effectively means 'all day long'.

Poison. 1d10 Con damage. This hurts. And you can cast it. As a bear. With reach.

Sleet Storm. Blocks line of sight, makes it very difficult to move around, and ignores SR. One of the best battlefield control spells around.

Summon Monster III. Lot of people bypass this. Don't. On this list includes a Lion, with FIVE attacks on a charge (two claws, bite, and two Rake attacks), Improved Grab (and can add in two Rake attacks while grappling for THREE attacks while immobilizing the opponent). Dire Wolf is also on this list, which gets a free Trip attack when they hit with their Bite, making them also very handy battlefield control. Either one can provide Flanking for rogues.

Neutralize Poison. Yes, you get this before even Clerics do.

Call Lightning. Yes, you are a bear. That can strike you with lightning from a clear blue sky, or even underground. As a standard action.

Barkskin. Increase your AC.

Soften Earth And Stone. More battlefield control.

Wood Shape. Impress the orc with the spear by tying it into a pretzle. As a bear.

Entangle. One of the best 1st level battlefield control spells around.

Then we have your Animal Companion, which either has received bonus HD, or has been traded up. In fact, next level, you can have a Brown Bear, Lion, or Rhino as your animal companion.

That's all by level 6.

By level 9, you get a really fun and nifty spell called Animal Growth. Read it over really good. Then realize that you can cast this on yourself while Wildshaped, and hit your Animal Companion and any summons that are still active with this at the same time.

Then we get to the feat Improved Natural Attack to further increase damage output.

So now you begin to understand, young padawan, the power of the force Wildshape.

All this is done with zero attempt at 'optimization', which can get truly sick. Also done with zero additional books other than the Core books. And done off the top of my head with minimal thought involved.

Top off with the ability to cast healing spells, and you begin to see how they can really be a party of one.

[InkEyes]

Durr, didn't see this.

Dire ape form would like to have a word with you...that word is REND!!!!!

Pitifiul apes don't know how to REND!!! But, yes, that is another very nice form. Again, WotC didn't balance creature abilities with PC Druids.

I think it was an insinuation that there is no such thing as a person who is both a gamer, and a girl. It was a joke, I'm guessing. Gamer girls are rare, but they do exist (and have feelings too!). There are more than a few VERY active ladies around, from Serpentine to Saph to Jarien and many others.

The novelty of gamer girl jokes wears thin when you've been on the receiving end of them more then once. I'm not saying this is the worst joke ever!!! and I'm not a spokeswoman for girlkind, but I didn't find it funny, just for reference. I guess I'm coming off as a humorless feminist here so I'll make a better joke:

Spoiler

Show

A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, "I forgot to store acorns for the winter and now I am dead." Ha! It is funny because the squirrel gets dead.

[Cicciograna]

stuff

[/thread]

The more you advance in level, the more the gap between Tier 1 and lower Tiers gets big and deep.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Summon Monster III. Lot of people bypass this. Don't.

It has a one-round casting time which makes you quite vulnerable to spell disruption.

On the topic of the gamer culture joke, while it wasn't in particularly poor taste, I didn't find it amusing. As male-centric as the hobby is, there are enough female gamers that it felt like an obvious, ridiculous untruth instead of a humorous if inaccurate observation.

[Coidzor]

Really, I'm more surprised that the forum name "Gamer Girl" wasn't in use. Her register date says Nov 2010, this month, which means in the ~7 years this forum has been active, nobody's registered it.

...I...I can't believe I didn't check the date. but... yeah. Wow

By level 9, you get a really fun and nifty spell called Animal Growth. Read it over really good. Then realize that you can cast this on yourself while Wildshaped, and hit your Animal Companion and any summons that are still active with this at the same time.

As far as I've understood it, wildshape does not change one's type and thus a wildshaped druid isn't actually an animal and so can't be targeted by the spell. Doesn't seem to indicate that casting it on the companion would have it affect the druid either.

Additionally, the druid may cast a spell with a target of "You" on her animal companion (as a touch range spell) instead of on herself. A druid and her animal companion can share spells even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the companion’s type (animal).

So, it could be interpreted to go both ways or just one way.

[Susano-wo]

I think everyone pretty well covered wildshape (though I did find it funny that one poster said that its not proken, but powerful, and proceded to talk about how the druid in the party was as good if not better than the fighter, and had full casting.)

Oh, to clarify/repeat. The real kick in the teeth is natural spell, which makes choosing between awesome bear form and spellcasting a non issue, and allows for you to use some things like greater magic fang on yourself (your type does not change so you are still not a legal target for animal targeting spells. Unless you're an animal druid)especially if its the kind of campaign where you don't often need to come out of your wildshape form for the whole day.

One thing I did not realize until recently as I had never actually played a druid, was that Wildshape is Infinite time, X times per day. I htink my brain automatically assumed that of course is must be 1rnd/lvl...
ok, looking it up, that is not true, according to the SRD. it's 1hr/lvl, which by the time you get to sixth and you have natural spell, is 12hrs a day using both your usages. so pretty much whenever you need it

Now upon researching this to fact check my post I encountered something interesting in AlternateForm, which the wildshape ability emulates except wehre it specifies differently. Actually 2 things.
First, I seem to recal Dire animals being a pretty common choice (dire Bears, for instance). Correct me if I am wrong, but is that not a template? That makes it not legal for Wildshape.
Second, you keep your same HP(though I think this means base, since you do get the critter's CON score). this means that in the case of certain beasties at least, you might actually be of lower HP than if you were naturally that beastie.

(oh, and RE: no girl gamer jokes...at worst, it was tired and clumsy...is it really worth making a fuss over? especially in absence of actually commenting on the thread? Its hardly insulting...at least to the girls)

[Coidzor]

Dire animals are not actually templated, as there is no Dire template except from 3rd party sources.

So, in WOTC products, dire animals are just a variety of animal related to the lesser versions of them. I believe the official idea is to think of dire bears as the kind of bears that were around back when everything was bigger and nastier than it is on modern earth.

Also, yes, Druids keep their normal HP, which is why they can't actually dump Con if they want to fight. However, they can heal and buff themselves while animals can't, and the damage output is the same or better than the base animal. Unless one remembers to not allow the animal's non-bonus Improved Natural Attack feats to be used, in which case, several animal forms' natural weapons go down a notch(though not that much since it's mostly strength that's being done as damage anyway)

[Kantolin]

Well, the game hasn't been wrecked by the fact that there's a druid in it. The druid is the most effective, but not by the leaps and bounds that people generally imply.

It's very powerful, but this isn't chain-gating solars or ending all encounters on round one or something. He's just slightly more effective than others.

It's like most practical low-optimization games with a monk in them. The monk may be a bit under par, but not by significant enough to really care about it.

[Lev]

Objection! Even wildshaped, you're not a valid target for Animal Growth.

That said: "I'm a druid! I have class features more powerful than entire classes!"

[Edit]: Also, no need to marginalize others based on their gender.

http://objection.mrdictionary.net/go.php?n=4473669

[Coidzor]

http://objection.mrdictionary.net/go.php?n=4473669

Ahh, but on the other hand...
This is far too much fun.

[Susano-wo]

Thanks for the clarification, Coidzor. I can see either way (as far as Dire being template vs just a different version). mostly, templated seems to indicate otherworldlyness or unattural effects, such as undeath, so it makes sense that it be excluded. And dire animals are naturally occruing, DnD wise, so that makes sense as well.

Oh, but if you are using wildshape to fight, you can most certainly dump con, since you change CON scores to the new form :P. There really isn't anything you can do about the HP issue aside from being aware that critters with bigger HD than you might still be tougher than you in WS form (such as dragons).

@Kantolin. I gotcha. not broken in a practical, game is still fun and everyone contributes sense

@Lev Thank you. I don't know the URL, but I crave that thing everytime someone uses that meme

dammit, the comp I am on does not want to load the site...I'll have to wait until I get home to view them ; ;

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Also, at 12th level, you get Plant Form, which is nearly worthless except for one obnoxious trick:

Shambling Mound has an interesting interaction with electricity. Namely, temp Con points. Now then, what can Druids start calling, as of 3rd level? Figure it out, and go to town.

[Urpriest]

Thanks for the clarification, Coidzor. I can see either way (as far as Dire being template vs just a different version). mostly, templated seems to indicate otherworldlyness or unattural effects, such as undeath, so it makes sense that it be excluded. And dire animals are naturally occruing, DnD wise, so that makes sense as well.

Oh, but if you are using wildshape to fight, you can most certainly dump con, since you change CON scores to the new form :P. There really isn't anything you can do about the HP issue aside from being aware that critters with bigger HD than you might still be tougher than you in WS form (such as dragons).

You change Con scores, but your Con bonus to your hit points stays the same. Weird but true.

[Coidzor]

Also, at 12th level, you get Plant Form, which is nearly worthless except for one obnoxious trick:

Shambling Mound has an interesting interaction with electricity. Namely, temp Con points. Now then, what can Druids start calling, as of 3rd level? Figure it out, and go to town.

Summon Nature's Ally 2? Do Storm Elementals get added to that list for a small storm elemental?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Summon Nature's Ally 2? Do Storm Elementals get added to that list for a small storm elemental?

Energy Substitution (Electricity) Produce Flame.

However, I meant to say third *spell* level with Call Lightning.