Hi all!
(beware, long posting! And please excuse my bad english, I'm not a native speaker)
I've some thoughts/ideas about the druids wildshape special, which I want to discuss with you. First of all, some information about me: I'm a long time RPG player (about 23 years now, and one campaign ran for over 10 years and even switched from one system to another more than once in that time), so IMHO I'm at least a little bit experienced in this area ;-)
But back on topic:
I can understand that you had to nerf the druid a little bit more than even the polymorph errata did - he was clearly too overpowered. But, as always, there is a big BUT if you do something like this without changing other things. While it's fine to change something which overpowers a class, you should be aware that (to keep this class interesting to play) you shouldn't overshoot the mark in doing so.
Let's start from the beginning: Why does a druid need wildshape, anyway?
That's a good question and I came up with some answers:
1. To be able to effectively attack enemies in physical combat (that's the one the druid in 3.5 is mainly build on). You wildshape into a dire bear and, boy, this stupid fighter looks like a wimp. This is way too overpowered and gets boring very fast (for everyone beside the druids player, that is).
2. If the druid gets engaged in physical combat, he can fight (like a cleric), but it's much more impressive if he changes to some wild animal/elemental/plant and does so. It would be OK just to scare enemies so much that they won't attack him at all.
3. To get some place he wouldn't be able to reach as a human(-like) being, e.g. he wildshapes into a snake to pass the portcullis in a dungeon, to an eagle to sound out the situation from above or into a heavy horse to get someone from one place to another - fast. I think this is what the wildshape special was meant to be.
4. To adopt to some environments which would/could be harmful for him in his normal form, e.g. when drowning, falling off a cliff, being surrounded by a forest fire or hit by a mud landslide and so on.
So, what can we do to change the druid to something which is worth playing but without giving him to much power? And how can we archive this without penalizing him compared to the other classes?
IMHO, the druids wildshape should be even more different to the beast shape and other spells than it's right now. I would like my druid to be a fearsome creature which can unleash the power of nature to his advantage - to protect himself. You see, a druid is e.g. very limited in the kind of armor he is able to wear. So why don't we use wildshape to get him some (small) advantages? Let me explain:
1. A druid should be able to wildshape at will as a standard action (same as it is right now), but he should be able to change into the appropriate creature for the environment/surrounding as a free action if he is in danger. Let him loose his DEX bonus when doing so and let other people have an attack of opportunity if he does it as a free action, that's fine. This would mean your druid falls from a cliff, but is able to wildshape into a bird before hitting the ground. Or if he is submerged and close to drowning (because he ran out of air) and can wildshape as a free action before doing so. He should only be able to change as a free action in the round in which he would take damage if he doesn't. This would add a lot of flavor and would be in accordance with most of the fantasy druid stories I heard. If this is still to powerful for you, simply define that he has to make a will save to prevent himself from wildshaping if such a condition appears.
2.a. Variant 1: let the druid get the special abilities as already mentioned in the corresponding beast shape, elemental body and plant shape spells. Most of them should be the actual reason for the druid to wildshape, anyway. Let him get a little bit of ability bonuses as well - even less than stated in the spells, but don't let them be enhancement bonuses. They should stack with the "standard" items.
2.b. Variant 2: Let wildshape be exactly what the name already says: a shape or hull, but not much more. Let his equipment meld into the new form, but keep its function (like it does with an enlarge spell, but in this case without the change in size). This means that your druid with his hide armor, wooden shield and his "scimitar+1, keen" would still attack and defend himself as if he was using them (even if you can't see them anymore). Other size related changes - like reach - should of course apply. If you use this variant, let the ability bonuses simply nullify the size modifiers (so the normal AC bonus for being small would be nullified - as well as the AC malus for being huge). This means: "no strength or dexterity bonus through wildshape at all".
3. If you nerf the druids wildshape like that (it doesn't matter if with variant 1 or 2), let him still be able to communicate with the others. No one really cares anyway - the player will be talking to other players while his character is in wildshape anyway, no matter what. That's simply a matter of fact, sorry for that. Enforcing the silence on a player never works out. Someone will be pissed all the time (either the GM, the player or even both). This of course means, that the druid would be able to cast spells with only verbal components while in wildshape - without taking any feat (but it would give away that the dog accompanying the group actually is a druid in wildshape (with natural spell, he would be just another barking dog...).
4. A druid should be able to use something I would like to call a "daunting aura" while in wildshape. Normally, while wildshaped, the druid resembles a perfectly normal animal/elemental/plant, but sometimes he would like to make it clear that it wouldn't be a good idea to attack him (for Terry Pratchett Fans: this is what I would like to call the "Greebo effect" :) ). This means that if the druid activates this aura, everybody in, let's say, 30 feet radius will have to make a will save (depending on the wild shape level. Hm, maybe the radius should be defined by that as well) against fear. If he misses his will save, he will get something equivalent to either Shaken, Frightened, Panicked or Cowered - but only in regards to the wildshaped druid. This means that if he e.g. is frightened, he would get the -2 penalty to every action against or from the druid. He won't run away as long as there ar other enemies to fight, but he would try to avoid fighting the druid at all costs. Of course, if you add such an aura, variant 1 from above is no choice anymore. You could even restrict the number of times a druid should be able to use this aura, let's say wildshape level*2, running for 1 round per 2 class levels which give you wildshape (ranger, druid, arcane hierophant, ...).
I think that's pretty much it. I think that especially the Variant 2 from above combined with 1, 3 and 4 would be a very nice character to play - even though he wouldn't be much of a fighter anymore. One could argue that these changes bring the druid to close to a cleric, but I don't think so.
IMHO the current ruleset in Alpha 3 is suboptimal - for both sides, as well for the side who wants to play a strong, impressive and interesting character as for the other side, which still thinks that giving away +1 ability scores over hours "for free" is a very bad idea.
If you are reading this right now - after reading everything above - you have a lot of patience! 8-)
What do you think? Is this something to consider and to improve the druid for gameplay and flavor?
Have fun,
Igor[Rock]
(If you find some spelling errors, feel free to keep them ;)
