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One of my players is running her first druid, and had never dealt with wildshape before. She found the rules for what exactly she gets and loses when she changes shape fairly complex, and asked me if I knew of any guides on how to do it. I didn't, and couldn't find one, so I wrote it. I give you:
On Skin Changing: Being a Most Concise and Helpful Guide to the Noble Arts of Wild Shaping and Polymorphing (PDF, 4 pages)
What it is: an attempt to get all the rules for this in ONE place, and in the order you need to apply them, to simplify the process of making a character sheet for a shape-changed version of a PC (or other creature).
What it is NOT: an optimization guide. There is no discussion of what forms offer the most damage per second, highest number of attacks, or whatever else. I figure it's up to the player to work out what shapes they like.
I hope you all find this useful. If you find any typos, errors, missing things, or have any suggestions, please let me know in this thread and I'll update the guide.
Enjoy!
Nicely done! Quick suggestion: You mention that if you turn into a humanoid, you keep your gear and it reforms to fit your new form. I believe this also happens with Monstrous Humanoids, not just humanoids.
Minor correction: the Wild armor enchantment only applies to Wild Shape and not to polymorph effects as a whole. (I realize you intended this for your Wild Shaping player but as a general polymorph guide it needs correction.)
Also: Bracers of Armor stop functioning despite being a constant bonus.
Nice PDF :)
- Gauss
Tinalles: Yeah, I was surprised about the Bracers of Armor too. Then I read a post by James Jacobs where he said it is nonfunctional if it is absorbed. Makes Mage Armor all that much better.
BTW, you should add this to the Guide to the Guides
- Gauss
What I'm having issues with, in terms of understanding the Wild Shape, is that certain animals have different damage dice from what's listed in the Natural Attacks by Size table.
Examples:
Black Bear (Med): Bite d4, claw d4, claw d4 (instead of d6 bite per table)
Boar, Common (Med): Gore d8 (instead of d6 per table)
Eagle (Small): d4 Talons (instead of d3 per table), and d4 bite (same as table)
Thoughts? I was thinking that the animal might have been designed with an Improved Natural Attacks feat, that wasn't actually listed. How does this fit in with having your druid turn into stuff, and actually getting the benefits (or penalities) he's entitled to? From my examples above, there's no reason to turn into a boar instead of a bear if the boar only gets a d6 Gore attack instead of the d8 listed in its profile, especially when the bear gets a BETTER bite attack if you use the table instead of the profile.
I was also a little concerned that druids could turn into a Medium-sized "Giant" animal, and get WAY better damage dice, but I read somewhere that "Giant" is considered a template, and that druids can't use "templated" creatures as their wildshape options.
Tinalles - thanks for taking the time to put together the PDF and making it available online. Very clear, very useful.
That's quite a handy PDF, especially because I was thinking of using a character that relied heavily on polymorph spells. Thanks :D
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since you mentioned what this is *NOT* where would I find an optimization guide to polymorphing?
dotting
Handy handouts for lazy players - what could be better!
Great stuff, thanks.