I'm investigating a ability to change into a tiger at will for my pc. I'm going to make my own race with this ability... I'm thinking of giving my PC the wild shape ability but an unlimited uses and only tiger shapes.
To balance this character I'm in doubt about when to allow this ability. At what level should I allow the shift into a tiger and when into a dire tiger? The druid gets a tiger at level 6 and a dire at level 8. Just use this?
All advice on balancing this skill is welcome also!
The druid can keep an animal form up all day starting around level 8, but it's not "unlimited," so they can't shift back-and-forth at will.
You're planning to put this on a custom race? That sounds really powerful and tricky to balance. My first thought is using one of the beast shape spells as an SLA and limiting it to a few times per day. That seems more in line with racial abilities, but it still quite potent, even if limited to tiger forms (they are pretty much the best combat forms among animals).
Unlimited uses seems like it's getting into CR-boosting territory, but I'm not a game designer.
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I'm investigating a ability to change into a tiger at will for my pc. I'm going to make my own race with this ability... I'm thinking of giving my PC the wild shape ability but an unlimited uses and only tiger shapes.
To balance this character I'm in doubt about when to allow this ability. At what level should I allow the shift into a tiger and when into a dire tiger? The druid gets a tiger at level 6 and a dire at level 8. Just use this?
All advice on balancing this skill is welcome also!
You could use the Big Cat statistics from the Druid Companion list, to try and balance it out for various levels (and so that it won't be overpowering at lower levels, and kind of meaningless at higher levels, as normal tiger stats might be).
It becomes something of an opportunity cost thing, since many class abilities don't really play well with being a furry quadruped unable to speak (or cast spells, in most cases), so the character would have to choose to be a halfway decent combatant, or use their actual class abilities.
You're basically talking about a 20th level druid ability in terms of unlimited use and duration. So think about that.
Sure, your limited to one specific form, but you've selected that form to be dire tiger.
You're basically granting them low-light vision, scent, pounce, rake, large size, 2 claw attacks, 1 bite, grab, +4 bonus to strength, +4 natural armor (and a -2 penalty to dex) at will. All day long, with no other drawbacks.
Nothing about that is remotely balanced. Like at all.
All you're going to do is have characters who optimize around a natural attack build that will be incredibly amazingly effective. I can't think of a reasonable way to balance this.
I strongly suggest that you simply play a were-tiger kin. That's going to be the closest you can get with any reasonable level of balance.
Ok.. Maybe i was a bid to enthusiastic :-) second plan:
Fang Lord skinwalker sounds fine and what I'm looking for but I still want a animal shape (not hybrid)... No dire tiger, only normal and progression an duration etc like wildshape? Maybe lose a trait of feat?
Or maybe a ranger who loses his companion for the ability to shift into a companion chosen from the Druid list? Progression of that companion is normal as a companion?
Better?? :-)
Isn't there a ranger archetype that grants some kind of shape-shifting ability?
Isn't there a ranger archetype that grants some kind of shape-shifting ability?
I'm fairly sure it's just reskinned wild shape.
Crimlock, You could always just not flavor your description to look like a tiger, and there isn't really a way to keep this balanced without harshly penalizing you in other areas (which doesn't really solve the problem) or by limiting the ability (which takes away from what you want) from basically acting as wildshape. My advice is to play a druid since they can be built in almost any direction or to talk to your GM about Gestalt being an option (for everyone).
To give you an ideal of the power level this is a tier 1 Mythic ability.
Mythic Wild Shape (Su): Choose one form you can take using wild shape. Using wild shape to take this form doesn't count against your daily uses of wild shape. You can select this ability multiple times. Each time you select it, choose another form to not count against your daily uses of wild shape. You must have the wild shape class feature to select this ability.
To be fair... There are many Mythic options that have nothing particularly powerful about them other than the fact that they have the word "mythic" slapped in front of their names.
That said, I do think at-will Wild Shape into a powerful form like Tiger is probably too good... Though it isn't anything to write home about beyond 10th level or so.
Don't judge the person, judge the statement... Give arguments why something is false, everybody plays the game in its one way and at different levels... That said.. Thanks for the advice so far!
My conclusion so far... It's to strong an ability to put in a race.... Maybe I should take another look at the feral hunter or Druid/ranger combo :-)
That is close in balance with the 19th level ability of the VMC Druid. I don't see any way to cram it into a race and make it balanced.
Check out the Pelt of the Beast.
"The wearer may take the form of the animal from which the pelt came three times per day as if using beast shape I."
"In addition, if the wearer is a skinwalker, her change shape ability is enhanced so that she may gain an additional bestial feature when taking her bestial form, selectable from the skinwalker heritage tied to the animal from which the pelt came."
/cevah