| Matthew McCullen |
Hey guys! Let's cut to the quick. If you don't care about design philosophy or goals, skip all of this Wall of Text with the TL:DR version of: Scaling, Non-Spellcasting Shapeshifter. Mashup of Druid, Ranger, and Barbarian PF classes
For those of you who care:
I designed this because I felt like Master of Many forms was a blast to play out of the box in 3.5. It really opened an entire new archetype and did it in such a way that it avoided being a poly wizard. I saw that there were already plenty of ideas and sculpts for a MoMF archetype but I wanted to see if I could make this into a base class to fit more specifically into the PF mentality of solid, scaling base classes that add mechanical backing for thematic builds without having to dip across classes (a la 3.5).
So, to that end, I had a few major goals to start:
1. Create a class that involved the progression of shapeshifting abilities found in 3.5 MoMF (shifting into an ever growing list of subtypes (vermin, giant, ooze, dragon, etc) and sizes
2. Drop Spellcasting - MoMF archetypes and even the 3.5 prestige class implied druid progression into it. There was also the option of a ranger variant that traded animal companion for Wild Shape in 3.5 and I decided to pursue this for 2 major reasons:
1. The original PrC idea didn't scale any spellcasting. This meant that druids who PrC'd into it cast as a 5th level druid all the way to 15th level at which point it was a moot point most of the time outside of some corner cases involving self-buffing.
2. Scaling a spell list with this class without gutting the shapeshifting was very much OP. In order to focus on the Shapeshifting as the key mechanic and treating this as a base class, even using a shorter spell list such as a "Druidic Paladin" might use still left the class far too many options at mid to high levels. Shapeshifting into such a wide variety of things so often is powerful and opens as many options as the GM allows sourcebooks for monster entries and there are some incredibly good monsters to change into.
From there, I worked on several things before coming to two realizations:
1. The Beast Shape Spell reference in PF's Wild Shape did not reflect or allow for the same flexibility of shifting as 3.5 and it was seriously hampering the class. To that point, I basically had to create a new "Wild Shape" class ability that encompassed a few key points from 3.5's.
2. I wanted to make this character feel distinctly different from the other melee characters in the game in terms of combat presence and capability. Offensively, you are a crazy-flexible shifter who develops the ability to shift rapidly through forms as the situations warrant. Second, defensively, you are not armored. I won't go into a huge treatise about the design thought for this but I will add a note at the end and encourage you to look at the Beastkin class ability as well as the return of healing to the process of Wild Shaping.
Ok so enough of my rambling, next post is the class and ability descriptors if it will all fit in one post effectively. Enjoy the class and thanks for reading this far! I am seriously looking to have the balance of the class examined and I am very willing to tweak the ideas within it to try and make the balance points more stable. The design goals are important to me unless they are unbalanceable. If that is what you think, I would very much like to hear a more detailed reason why because it will help show me a specific of the system I may not understand fully. Anyway, enjoy.