My suggestion is to go Medium-sized. 2 Strength increases your ability to hit and deal damage, and you'll still basically gain the 2 Armor from if you went Small-Sized anyway.
I'd suggest you look this over, as it can give you a better idea as to what you should be building for if the expectation is you plan to become an off-tank of sorts.
Also, it doesn't hurt to throw out Summons as a means of soaking up HP damage. They can be quite effective.
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You actually gain one more point of AC going small size
Dex +1 from +2 Dex
Size +1
NA +1
It really depends on your stats and role. If you are a Str based char, look at medium forms and Eagle when you need flying. If you are dex based, consider investing in an Agile Amulet of Might Fists and focusing on smaller forms.
@ Taenia: I always forget the Size adjustments...I don't know why...just like how I always forget that Barbarians get temporary HP when they Rage. In either case, 1 AC won't absolutely kill you. Might get hit a couple more times, but that's it.
@ Scott: There's nothing in the rules that says you no longer breathe normally, or that you suffocate unless you're in an aquatic region. I also never seen a GM rule as such. Maybe they should because their new form doesn't provide normal breathing, maybe they shouldn't because you only assume the form, and only gain the listed benefits/limitations, and breathing isn't one of them.
Though, if you lose your land speed from your new form, you can only ever move 5 feet/round on land. Which is why I wonder how come beached whales can't just move back into water in 6 seconds...
I would recommend the OP start turning into a Deinonychus. I would recommend one or more levels in Warpriest and taking the Blessing of Destruction. Every Natural Attack the OP takes Weapon Focus in will have a Base damage of 1d6, and the Destruction Blessing gives a +1 per 2 WP level on every one of those attacks.
If the OP takes Shaping Focus, his nondruid levels count as Druid levels until level 8, which will allow for Huge Animals, including the Megaraptor and the Allosaurus. I'm not sure which I like better.
If the OP is Human, then he can take Martial Versatility Weapon Focus and apply WF, and therefore Sacred Weapon Damage, to all natural attacks regardless of what form he takes. He can also take 2 levels in Ranger, Improved Natural Weapon, and Martial Versatility Improved Natural Weapon.
And he can always just cast Strong Jaw on himself, perhaps via a Wand.
Wow, that's impressive.Some REALLY good ideas here.
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If you're having off-tank issues, sounds like you need to up your threat gain, and save up your rage to charge/cleave the adds. Make sure the healer bubbles you, and tell the DPS to hold off the AoEs until you've got solid aggro. You might be a little under-geared, so consider upgrading to some low-tier epics before hitting the tougher stuff.
The whole Beached Whales thing was a joke, naturally. If it didn't across as such, then my apologies. In addition, I thought Orcas were a species of Dolphin, and not a Whale.
Interesting, I never thought about combining Waaaaughpriest with Druid. The synergy is definitely there thanks to that feat, and when he hits 8th level, he could remain Wildshaped for perpetually 24 hours. This means that he would also get Pounce with it by 6th level (thanks to Beast Shape II providing the special ability), and that he can use Warpriest Spells with the Natural Spell feat.
Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to take Martial Versatility until 10th level, as Martial Versatility is a 4th level Fighter feat, which means he must spend a Bonus Feat (which he wouldn't qualify as a 4th level Fighter until 10th level). He could retrain it if he wishes, to get it earlier, but aside from that, 10th level is the breaks.
If you can, I'd look into getting Improved Unarmed Strike, as the Martial Versatility feat when used with Natural Weapons also applies to Unarmed Strike attacks, which means your Unarmed Strike dice will scale just as if it were a Sacred Weapon. This also means that when you Full Attack, you can throw in Unarmed Strikes equal to your normal BAB in addition to your Natural Attacks, since you can basically do bodychecks to perform the Unarmed Strikes. If not, I'd certainly consider disposing of the secondary Natural Weapons and carry the Unarmed Strikes that way.
You might want to look into Sacred Fist, but I wouldn't be too worried about it. Getting Wisdom to AC and CMD is nice, especially when Wildshaped.
Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to take Martial Versatility until 10th level, as Martial Versatility is a 4th level Fighter feat, which means he must spend a Bonus Feat (which he wouldn't qualify as a 4th level Fighter until 10th level). He could retrain it if he wishes, to get it earlier, but aside from that, 10th level is the breaks.Ooh, that is a sticky wicket, that I didn't consider. Thanks for the heads-up.
Martial Versatility requires 4 levels in Fighter, but Warpriest counts as levels in Fighter, so 4 levels in Fighter and/or Warpriest. I'm not sure where you get the level 10 thing from, but the level 4 thing is kind of a big deal.
To make this work for my own PFS character, I need to work in some levels in Fighter.
Grr, I'll figure it out.
Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
You have 4 levels of Druid, and 6 levels of Warpriest. The earliest Warpriest level you could count as for Martial Versatility is 6th. Ergo, 10th level is required unless he can retrain it via Ultimate Campaign rules, but as far as I know, PFS doesn't use Retraining rules. Even so, it would still be, at earliest, 8th level.
Those are some solid statistics. Certainly better than my melee Druid, and he's seen some action. I'd consider specializing in some Summons so as to help soak up some damage you might take; Augment Summons (which requires Spell Focus [Conjuration]) might be worthwhile, since it increases HP and Attack/Hit of summons, and if you can stomach the feat cost, Superior Summons is absolutely awesome for high-end summoning (effectively doubles your highest-level summon numbers per cast). They can also take out some mooks in the event you're surrounded and you have to deal with them and the BBEG at once.
What feats did you select? You don't have Natural Spell yet (need 5th level to do so), so I'd only Wild Shape in dire circumstances; I'd also see if you could bum a Mage Armor spell (or two) from your party Wizard when you Wild Shape, so as to keep your AC up until you get Wild armor. Unless he memorizes Magic Missiles for every slot, I'm sure he could spare you a couple.
Quick Wild Shape will be helpful later down the road, as the feat lets you Wild Shape for lesser actions at the cost of reducing your effective Druid Level to determine Wild Shape effects. (For example, a 10th level Druid using Quick Wild Shape to transform into a Deinonychus as a Swift Action only receives the benefits of Beast Shape II.) Reducing the Action Economy for Wild Shape can save you a lot of trouble and hassle of deciding between buff/blasting or going into melee mode.
You b]might[/b] want to look into Sacred Fist, but I wouldn't be too worried about it. Getting Wisdom to AC and CMD is nice, especially when Wildshaped.
It would take a fair amount of multi-classing but if you go 4 monk MOMS/4 fighter/12 druid you could take monotistic legacy, feral combat training + martial versatilaty. This combined with monk robes would give all your natural attacks a base 2d8 DMG die.
Then combine this with a wildshape form with a lot of attacks+pounce and ... Well... You see where I'm going
Four levels of Druid plus Shaping Focus means access to small/medium elemental forms by level 6/8, including medium air elemental (+4dex, +3 natural armor, 60ft fly) and medium earth elemental (+4str, +5 natural armor). Combined with at least one level of Monk, Unchained Monk or Sacred Fist to add your wisdom to AC, you would have an enormous armor class advantage with the ability to use Flurry of Blows with a humanoid elemental, and the ability to cast things like magic fang on your "fists".
While it's kind of weird to be using Unarmed Strike with animal forms, once you can turn into a small elemental at 6 it gets pretty interesting. If you typically stay in earth/air elemental form (which is more functional since you can talk and are a "humanoid" form instead of a big animal), you can even carry a weapon if you want (you just have to drop it while changing form).
You have 4 levels of Druid, and 6 levels of Warpriest.Do I? 4 levels in Druid, surely, because Wildshape, but I haven't committed to 6 levels in Warpriest. I like the idea, you get 1d8 SW Damage and +3 Destruction Blessing, but I'm still working that out.
Also, I only need 4 levels in Warpriest.
for the purposes of these [Combat] feats, the warpriest can select feats that have a minimum number of fighter levels as a prerequisite, treating his warpriest level as his fighter level.But that does mean 8th level.
as far as I know, PFS doesn't use Retraining rules.Sure it does. It's been a while since I used it, but there sure USED to be retraining in PFS. Are you aware of a rules change?
Martial Versatility is academic anyway vis a vis the OP. His character is not Human
I know 4th is the minimum, but you only count as Fighter Levels when you're configuring Bonus Feats. Warpriests gain Bonus Feats every 3 levels. Meaning, unless he retrains at 8th level, or goes to 6th level Warpriest, he can't take the feat.
His character has the Humanoid (Human) subtype. Ergo, he should count as Human for effects related to race, which means he does qualify for Martial Versatility, the same way he would qualify for the Human FCB, if he wanted. So the concept isn't invalidated for him just yet.
His character has the Humanoid (Human) subtype. Ergo, he should count as Human for effects related to race, which means he does qualify for Martial Versatility, the same way he would qualify for the Human FCB, if he wanted. So the concept isn't invalidated for him just yet.
I'm not even sure why I know this, but while the official ruling in general is that a Half-Elf counts as Human for things like FCB and feats, Pathfinder Society specifically doesn't allow it for some reason. So depending on situation...
Pathfinder Society does allow Half-Elves to count as Elves or Humans, the only restriction is that Half-Orcs can't get Orc feats/traits.
EDIT: And yes re-training is still allowed.
Forgot to add cites: Link
Favored Class Bonus for Half-Elves and Half-Orcs:
For the purpose of qualifying for favored class bonuses, half-elves are also treated as both elves and humans, and half-orcs are also treated as humans (but not orcs)—a byproduct of their respective elf blood and orc blood racial traits. Only characters that have the elf blood or orc blood racial trait count as a member of another race for this purpose.
Bolding mine.
As for the number of Attacks, we have 1 Gore, 1 Bite, 1 Hair, 2 Unarmed, and 8 Tentacles for 13 Attacks, but Grab and later Hamatula Strike will allow every one of those attacks to get a Free Grapple Attack, with Constrict and Armor Spikes, so effectively it will be more like 26 attacks/round.
Do you get to keep your hair when polymorphing? I mean it says "you get the ability to use your hair" but says nothing about actually growing any hair unlike some class features.
While under the effects of a polymorph spell, you lose all extraordinary and supernatural abilities that depend on your original form (such as keen senses, scent, and darkvision), as well as any natural attacks and movement types possessed by your original form. You also lose any class features that depend upon form, but those that allow you to add features (such as sorcerers that can grow claws) still function.
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I think this goes back to the Aspect of the Beast debate.
White Haired Witch gives you a natural attack using your Hair.
White Hair (Su): At 1st level, a white-haired witch gains the ability to use her hair as a weapon. This functions as a primary natural attack with a reach of 5 feet.
When you polymorph you lose your natural attacks.
Now if you were using the Prehensile Hair Hex and activated it after Wild Shape/Polymorph it would work. White Hair Witch does not.
Helm of the Mammoth Lord also doesn't work unless you put it on after polymorphing, as the tusks you use are the ones on the helm and do not transform with you, falling under the same polymorph guidelines and confirmed by James Jacobs.
If you want to add natural attacks to Wild shape/Polymorph you need to be able to grow them or activate them. For example barbarians can grow horns when they rage (lesser fiend totem) and claws (abyssal blood, lesser, draconic blood, lesser) as rage powers. If you raged while polymorphed these effects would activate.
Also not sure how you are doubling damage with Armor spikes. Armor spikes add their damage when you make a grapple as extra damage, so not double damage but + 1d6 P or 1d8 if you are large. Now constrict would definitely apply but remember as secondary attacks you are at 1/2 str damage for all of them.
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I did not say Kobolds/Nagaji/Tengu could not use White Haired Witch abilities. I said that polymorphing removes them, period.
The difference is simple, abilities either:
Give you natural attacks
Allow you to temporarily gain natural attacks
If the ability like Aspect of the Beast, White Haired Witch, Tusked Trait, Claws ability from Tengu or a base Tengu's bite attack are all natural attacks of the base form and go away as described under the polymorph rules. It isn't "does this form have hair?" it is a natural attack of the base form and those are lost.
Relative power level isn't a reason to ignore rules except in a home game. They are two different abilities. Again the rules above apply, one is a constant natural attack the other an activated one, the rules are clear here.
Aspect of the Beast fits in with the basic rules, polymorph subschool is pretty clear. You lose the natural attacks of your form. It is right there in the rules. Not going to argue that White Haired Witch is underpowered, it is, but that is a different argument.
Armor spikes don't add str damage in a grapple they add Extra piercing damage. Tentacles are secondary attacks so add only half strength.
Are you saying that if I were a Tengu, and polymorphed into a crocodile, I would lose my Bite Attack? Surely you aren't saying that if I Polymorph from 1 creature with a Bite Attack into another creature with a Bite Attack, that I lose my Bite Attack.
It seems that it's not fair to say that Polymorphing simply removes the WHW ability. If I polymorphed from human to horse, why should I be unable to animate my horse's hair and still have a hair attack? The class ability says that you can animate your hair. If you turn into a form that still has hair, why shouldn't you still be able to animate whatever hair you have?
And if you don't even need hair, then what's the problem? I'm not sure I understand why White Hair is dependent upon form and lost when Polymorphing.
He's saying you'd lose the natural attacks of your previous form, as they are replaced with the natural attacks of your new form. Of course, certain options (such as Unarmed Strikes) are certainly still valid to perform regardless of form, though it is intended for said creatures to have a semblance of humanoid-like intelligence to perform Unarmed Strikes in concert with their Natural Weapons.
At any rate, if you have a Tengu with a Bite and 2 Claws, and then transform into a Crocodile, you'd use the Crocodile's Bite attack (which means better damage dice, etc.), and your previous Bite attack is gone (meaning no 2 Bite attacks). Your claw attacks are also lost, as those were dependant upon your Tengu form (and the feat/racial trait, for example, requires that you are Tengu, or count as Tengu, in order to select them).
It's not much different than Wildshaping from say, a Deinonychus to a T-Rex. You'd lose the Claws and Talons of your Deinonychus form, but you'd gain the Bite attack of the T-Rex form (over your old Deinonychus Bite).
As for White Hair, that falls into GM FIAT territory. I will remind you that Devs have stepped in and put in their RAI on the matter. More specifically, Steven Radney-Macfarland stepped in. That post summarizes that although you might have the pre-requisites for fulfilling a feat which grants an attack that you could make, you still need to have the limb present in order to actually make the attack in relations to said limb. In that thread, this means that if a Human who takes Racial Heritage (Kobold) (which is technically not allowed per RAW, but besides that,) he must possess a tail in order to perform a Tail attack. (People argued that humans in real life possess tails upon birth, but Steven further clarifies that the Humanoids in Pathfinder, unless described as generally having a tail, do not have a tail.)
I'm sure GMs will handwave the whole "requires Hair" issue of the matter, so as to make the Archetype viable. After all, there's nothing about having prosthetic/fake hair to fulfill the pre-requisite. (It actually makes for some cool flavor on the matter, too.) But it is certainly contested by one (if not more) of the Paizo developers to not function unless said limb (or what functions as it) is present.
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I will be the first to admit I am not as familiar with Armor Spikes as others. My interpretation stems from the description:
You can have spikes added to your armor, which allow you to deal extra piercing damage on a successful grapple attack (see "spiked armor" in the Martial Weapons Table).
In this case you can attack with armor spikes, which deals Armor Spike damage plus Str Mod.
or It deals extra piercing damage with a successful grapple attack. Now extra damage has its own rules and is the same language as Sneak Attack for rogues. For this reason I assume that it is damage in addition to the normal damage dealt and not an additional damage roll. I do not know whether this means you have to grapple to do damage to get the extra damage or whether you get the extra damage with each attack.
As for WHW if this was a home game I would follow your interpretation. The WHW just doesn't balance what you gain with what you lose. I personally would love to see the WHW get modified to be more in line with prehensile hair hex.
As Darksoul explained regarding natural attacks you lose yours and gains the one of the relevant creature.
Now sometimes the polymorph rules are really confusing for example if I am a Dwarf wizard and alter self to a Half-Orc, I lose my darkvision. This is because I lose my extraordinary senses when I polymorph and Alter Self does not give Darkvision. This is one of those cases where the rules make little sense but can't deal with weird corner cases.
Freebooter Ranger is an awesome dip. Good skills, good saves, another spell list (though some overlap with Druid) and the untyped bonus that applies to everyone is great. Consider also that Gravity Bow is now on your list for ranged combat options (especially with a high strength and adaptable bow)
Cat shapes are nice for attacking because you eventually get Pounce. Elemental shapes can be great for mobility, and at higher levels the air elemental whirlwind can be a powerful weapon. A level of Monk (possibly around 9th level) can let you easily pick up Greater Grapple and maybe get a little AC boost without spending a lot of gold on Wild Armor.
Summoning can create some useful melee helpers even without Augment Summoning. With it they can be downright powerful.
Cats get to use Rake when they Pounce. I think that becomes available at 8th level. If you can find a way to hit consistently while using Power Attack you can cause quite a lot of damage this way. An animal companion with Outflank and or a Menacing Amulet can help a lot with that. Summoning stuff into flank helps at least a little.
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Beast Shape II allows Pounce, so a Druid of 6th level or higher would be eligible for it. I'd be thinking Dire Tiger for that sort of thing. Of course, if the rider is Small-sized, a Deinonychus mount would be pretty wicked all the same.
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Pounce is available at 6th level, but Rake doesn't show up until 8th. Dire Tiger is indeed a fine shape for these sorts of shenanigans. You also get Grab at 8th level, which is why I mentioned picking up Greater Grapple around 9th if possible. In the level 4-5 range I guess a Cheetah with 3 attacks and a free Trip might not be bad if you want a cat theme all along.