Michael Loy's page

Earth glide is just a modification of burrowing, allowing traceless and silent passage. If a creature can drag another creature along while burrowing, an elemental can drag another creature while earth gliding (and do it tracelessly and silently).

If you object to an elemental burying someone alive by dragging them underground, that has nothing to do with earth glide. It also applies to, say, an ankheg dragging someone down.

I also don't see anything in the rules to prevent the ankheg situation. When you grapple someone, you have the option of dragging them half your speed as part of the action to maintain the grapple, and there is nothing to suggest it can't be half your burrow speed, if you have one.

However:

• The earth elemental would have to waste an entire turn setting up the grapple in the first place.

• It would provoke an AoO when it attempted the grapple, and if the AoO deals damage, the grapple fails.

• The target then has three opportunities to escape: first on its turn, then when the elemental maintains the grapple, and lastly when it gets (as Ravingdork pointed out) a free escape attempt with a +4 bonus. And that's ignoring help from other party members.

It's not too much of a threat, really. But that ankheg! That guy has grab, so he could be pretty scary.

Anyway, you wouldn't object to a flying monster using grapple to pull someone up into the air and drop them, would you? Seems like it's just part of the danger of fighting a monster that can burrow through the earth beneath your feet.

As for friendly earth elementals carrying around their buddies, I don't see why not. Again, earth glide follows the same rules as any other form of burrowing, except as noted in the earth glide ability.

The sensei monk is another interesting monk archetype for a druid.

Ranger/druid with the Shapeshifting Hunter feat is solid. Maybe the trapsmith ranger, if you don't want to mess with a pair of stunted spell progressions. He'd also have insight into deathtraps, in that case.

Why not just take Magical Knack (oracle) in place of Gifted Adept? Is there a conflict I'm missing? Banned in PFS for some reason?

Remember you can only transfer hp to the eidolon to offset damage that would destroy the eidolon. Not just whenever you feel like it.

Unless you have the life conduit spell, which is (for that reason) very useful for a synthesist. Cast it after a fight, shift damage from temporary hit points to real hit points, then benefit from wand of cure light wounds or party cleric. Generally, that's more efficient than rejuvenate eidolon.

Sorcerer (of whatever stripe) with a focus on summoning and illusion? If you want to show the glory of the First World, that would let you go ahead and show it, literally.

The Eldritch Heritage (arcane) option is there, too. And if you pursued that, another feat or so could eventually get you a few sorcerer spells, possibly including spectral hand. That's a lot of feats, though.

If you have UMD, you could use a wand of spectral hand to great effect. The spell gives you the ability to deliver touch spells at Medium range for 1 minute/level. Very nice.

Without that, the rod might be a better option than the feat, if you can afford it. Metamagic feats are a rough road for partial casters like inquisitors, but the rods cover more ground ... a lesser rod covers half your spell progression, and a normal rod covers all of it. Unlike a cleric, say, you'd never even need to look at a greater rod.

It also depends on how often you expect it to be needed, though. I think the rod's 3/day is fine for most people, but if you'd definitely need more than that, take the feat. It's only +1 spell level, so that's manageable.

I believe they errataed Qinggong to replace the Still Mind class feature, which makes it incompatible with many or most of the monk archetypes (including martial artist). Kind of irritating.

No, this actually would deal damage to attended objects. It's an exception, and that's arguably the point of the spell (since 2d6 damage per round is pretty poor for a 6th level spell, even if it does also count as solid fog).

Consider fireball, which says: "deals 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 10d6) to every creature within the area. Unattended objects also take this damage."

(And then if someone rolls a natural 1, there's a chance of one of their possessions taking damage, due to those rules in the magic chapter.)

As opposed to this, which specifically says: "deals 2d6 points of acid damage to each creature and object."

That said, it could be a tremendously unfair trap, in the wrong circumstances.

Weird.

It looks like if you, say, cast EBIV, you can assume any size from Small to Huge, and you'll be immune to bleed, crits, and sneak attacks. You'll also gain DR 5/–.

It also notes, "The abilities you gain depend upon the type of elemental into which you change."

Which is vague. It could be read that, okay, now I look below that text and use the stat modifiers listed in EBIV, regardless of size. After all, there really is nothing saying that size affects which stat line you use.

I think that might be wrong, though, since some of the stat modifiers are explicitly size modifiers, so it's probably intended that you match size to spell ... if you assume a Medium form with EBIV, you take the EBII stats (though you still definitely get immunities and DR).

That's a sketchy assumption, though, since the size modifiers are weird. +6 size modifier to Dex for being Huge? Eh? That's pretty non-standard. Might make more sense as racial modifiers.

I'd be interested to hear something official too! I'm also playing a druid, and I hadn't noticed how poorly phrased this bit is.

We found the uniform, and my alchemist put it on and crossed to the door, but I tripped the trap after picking the lock. We were told there was a doorbell you had to ring to summon the invisible servant (which would then open the door), but I failed to spot it.

We did realize the elemental was a summoned monster, but our party is, uh, fairly unique, and we have no full casters, so no access to dispel magic. It got pretty ugly. The gunslinger and the summoner got thrown off the bridge, the other alchemist just barely managed to escape into the guard tower, the barbarian actually jumped off the bridge (to keep the gunslinger from drowning). I'd gotten the door unlocked, at least, so I was able to hide inside the castle.

We only lost the summoner, though slightly different dice rolls could have left everyone dead but the barbarian and I. We did almost no damage to the thing, either ... the gunslinger and the other alchemist couldn't hit its touch AC, the barbarian and the eidolon couldn't get close to it, and I'm a vivisectionist, so I was pretty thoroughly useless. The survivors ended up waiting out the summon's duration, then regrouping.

What gets me is how little motivation we had to continue on at that point. The only reason the module gives the party for even being there is a vague notion of maybe getting rewarded for getting the Beast out of jail. And maybe there's something wrong with the lord of the castle, whom we've never met and who seems to have unsavory hobbies?

And then the front door nearly wipes the party. Well, to hell with that. Our GM had to do some fancy business just to convince the PCs to reattempt the dungeon. In the metagame, it was obvious to all that doing the castle was necessary to advance the plot of the AP, but damn we had no motivation to mess with it.

^ Yes. The quotes further up were out of context. The text is pretty clear that only physical stats change.

Eh? No, it's not formless. You still pick base form, and that dictates natural armor, ability scores, and starting evolutions just like with any other eidolon.

I'm not sure if i would consider Hawkeye an Arcane Archer, i'd see more of him being a Ranger 20, but with an archetype that instead of favored enemy/terrain he gets new arrow types, ala alchemist. Not sure if that is an archetype yet for ranger, however i wouldn't be surprised.

The trapsmith ranger can attach his traps to arrows for launching at people.

Oh, and Craft Wondrous Item is ... a feat. Potentially very practical. But that depends on your table's crafting rules, the other PCs, and so forth.

As an aside, if you take just one more level of paladin, you could adopt the Oath of Vengeance and gain the ability to convert Lay on Hands into extra uses of Smite Evil (2 for 1 ratio). That could be very nice, a definite step up from your 1/day smite you have right now. You'd also get access to the paladin spell list, if you want to use paladin wands or something.

Radiant Charge, maybe. Your lay on hands is indeed pretty feeble, but that lets you convert your uses of it directly into damage. Right now, you'd be looking at adding 4d6+Charisma damage to any charge attack 1/day, and that would scale up as your Charisma increases.

Glaive? Power attack is sort of a must, particularly if you have ready +attack buffs (which you do, since you're a bard).

Combat reflexes is a good match for a reach weapon. Your Dex isn't high, but the extra AoO could come in handy (and you might well bump up Dex with a belt, later).

How about maneuvers? You can trip with any weapon, so picking up Improved Trip and/or Adept Champion could make that fun. With Inspire Courage (and sometimes Smite) also adding to your trip attempts, your CMB would be looking pretty good. This would have good synergy with that Combat Reflexes. Don't bother with Adept Champion unless you also pick up a silver smite bracelet.

Fearless Aura, possibly, if you expect that kind of thing to come up much. It probably won't, though.

If you have Intimidate, you could think about playing with Dazzling Display and Shatter Defenses. It could be thematically appropriate for an oratory bard.

I'd say to pick up Power Attack right away, absolutely, then consider getting into tripping, since you could be pretty good at that.

If I were to just pump up the base monster, I'd probably do that. Make it Advanced, add some HD, and probably dicker around with its variant Grab ability so that it's capable of dealing halfway decent damage.

Still, there will be some other monsters on site, and I want to give this one a twist to make him a little different. Giving an actual class adds a little weight to a monster: I'd like these two to be memorable as a pair (plus monsters), not just as the oracle plus monsters (including a scaled up crawling claw).

And admittedly it's also kind of an intellectual challenge. A severed hand is just a weird place to start.

CMB isn't that bad, really. To start, the CMB in the SRD stats is wrong, unless I'm missing something. Should be -3 (+1 grapple). Not impressive, but we're still on base stats there. Adding HD and class levels has me probably bumping Strength to 17 or 18, which is really a pretty good starting place, and grab balances out the size penalty. Use monk or something with full BAB, and there's no reason the hand can't be about as good at grappling as any tricked out grappler PC.

If that's even where I want to go with this, I don't know. That's really where I'm stuck. I need to take it up a notch from "weird monster" to supporting character or minor villain, on par with his sister. But I don't really have a clear direction for that.

(Witch levels aren't great for a very low Int critter. But that's where I was going with thinking about a touch of oracle. The Misfortune revelation is pretty much the same thing.)

So, two characters here, a brother and a sister from a cursed family that has ancient ties to mad entities of the Dark Tapestry. They're minor villains, though I could also see circumstances falling where they end up helping the party. The sister, at least, is pretty crazy but not all that terribly evil, so it could go that way.

Now, the sister is simple enough to spec out, a dual-cursed (haunted/tongues) oracle of the Dark Tapestry focused on debuffing and mind control, plus the various Dark Tapestry oracle tricks of black tentacles, telekinesis, forced re-rolls, all that. I'm good here. I still need to pick some feats, gear, etc, but that's no problem to figure out.

Her brother, though, is somewhat less ... intact. Due to circumstances years ago, all that's left of him is his spontaneously-animated undead hand, using the crawling hand stats. Crawling hands are really stupid, but they are still "intelligent" undead, and I want to add some class levels onto him. Call it 5 to 8 class levels. Oh, and there's one or two +1's from HD increase, too.

But, yeah. I have no idea what to do from here. He's a disembodied hand, which puts a lot of special constraints on what I can do. So this is a spitballing thread. Anyone have some suggestions?

The crawling hand statline is really pretty decent: Str 13, Dex 11, Con —, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 14.

I'm sticking with those base numbers, but of course switching to class levels lets us add modifiers per the Monster Advancement rules: +4, +4, +2, +2, +0, and -2. One of the +2 bonuses will go to bringing Int up to 4, just so he's not quite so stupid, and I think the +0 goes into Con, for fairness' sake. Other than that, open season.

• I don't really want to set him up as a primary spellcaster, since that's what his sister is. It's cool if he has magic, I just don't want a full sorcerer or another full oracle. A little magic would be nice, actually, particularly if focused on the family's Dark Tapestry hooks.

• I also don't want to do anything that really messes up the flavor of the crawling claw. He should be skittering around on his fingers, lurking in the shadows, and leaping at people and trying to strangle/claw/whatever them.

• For the sake of argument, let's say that he can take barbarian levels and use rage, moral effect or no moral effect. I'm not sure that that would be a good direction to go, but it did catch my eye.

• I'm at least strongly considering dipping a level of oracle (dual-cursed deaf and wasting, not sure of the mystery) for thematic link to his sister, and also for double-teaming the Misfortune revelation.

• The diminutive size, the lack of limbs/mouth, and the really low Intelligence make for fairly bizarre restrictions. The undead traits, blindsense, and the Mark Quarry ability are interesting toys. Also grab, I suppose, though it's really only counterbalancing his size penalty to CMB.

On one hand, I'm looking at going barbarian / oracle dip / rage prophet. That's a complex build, though, and tricky to make work even on a normal character. Though it might be a little easier with undead, since they use Charisma for Constitution in most cases, making it less MAD than a typical rage prophet.

Or bard might work, going the dervish dancer route. Or a ninja? A martial artist monk? A human-bane ranger? I can bend this a lot of ways, but I'm finding myself kind of at a loss.

What would you do?

It can be pretty nice on a barbarian, actually. Because it's "identical with a barbarian's rage", the barbarian gets his rage powers while the spell is up. The bonuses aren't as good as an actual rage, but it can be handy to have a fallback for if the day is running long and you're low on rounds of rage. 1 round/level is often enough to keep raging for another fight.

Regardless, it's per a 1st level wizard. First level wizards can't take Improved Familiar, due to the level requirement in that feat's prerequisites.

Addressing the OP issue:

If you try to push your mount, and you're using the animal companion rules (druid, ranger, cavalier, paladin, etc), it's only a move action. Slightly better.

Well, the brace property explicitly works on readied actions only. So it wouldn't work on an AoO.

However, yeah, you'd get a readied attack when the target entered your threatened square, then get an AoO when it left your threatened square.

I believe more detailed rules on this are in the Planar Binding spell.

-edit-

Yup: link

Note that an eidolon does have to meet the prerequisites of an evolution to get it with evolution surge, including level requirements. So bumping to large or huge isn't feasible with a synthesist dip.

The Ultimate Magic FAQ notes that there is FAQ pending on whether Enlarge Person works on a synthesist, so the legality of that is as yet unclear. There's some screwy language in the synthesist that makes size-changing, specifically, uncertain.

Though it doesn't sound like OP wants to multiclass in any event.

The synthesist's grab ability only works on smaller creatures, though, and it isn't clear that Enlarge Person works on a transformed synthesist. Also, dipping a level of synthesist is almost never a good idea, since it will usually penalize your key physical abilities.

The Lockjaw spell grants a natural weapon the grab ability, functioning on creatures your size or smaller. You can put that on your unarmed strike. That would also probably let you apply any Magic Fang / Mighty Fists enhancement bonus.

I think the Resinous Skin spell also gives a small grapple bonus.

Depending on your build and gear, adopting animal forms with Beast Form might be good or might be bad.

Otherwise, yeah, best to just focus on improving your attack bonus.

I think the rules already cover this pretty well, actually.

Intimidate changes the target's attitude to, effectively, "friendly". Cool, that's useful.

But at this point, consult the Diplomacy rules:

If a creature's attitude toward you is at least indifferent, you can make requests of the creature. This is an additional Diplomacy check, using the creature's current attitude to determine the base DC, with one of the following modifiers. Once a creature's attitude has shifted to helpful, the creature gives in to most requests without a check, unless the request is against its nature or puts it in serious peril. Some requests automatically fail if the request goes against the creature's values or its nature, subject to GM discretion.

So when you intimidate someone, they become effectively friendly, meaning that they won't actually act against you: they're too cowed to attack you, shout for guards, whatever.

If you want them to actually do something for you, roll Diplomacy and apply the appropriate rules for making a request of a friendly character.

For minor things (giving you basic information, offering simple aid), the DC will be pretty simple, in the range of 5 to 15 plus Charisma modifier. For serious things, like making a guard betray his superiors, it's going to be more like 25 plus Charisma, with the DC increasing by +5 with every additional request.

Those higher DCs are still quite doable, but they will require that you focus on both Intimidate and Diplomacy. Someone who focuses solely on Intimidate will still be rewarded, since his checks can neutralize potential enemies and squeeze out a certain amount of basic aid and information, but getting more than that requires finesse in addition to just being really scary.

I don't think that I'm describing a hack or anything like that. I think the Intimidate rules are vague about "offers limited assistance" and all because you're supposed to look to the Diplomacy rules for resolution. The description in Intimidate of what an intimidated target might do is really just a summary of the "friendly" attitude.

The symbol of revelation spell should probably have the [light] descriptor, since it works like faerie fire? This is important for interactions between light spells and darkness spells, where darkness-type spells can dispel and suppress light-type spells.

If you fail a roll by 5 or more, and you are using wings to fly, you fall.

Otherwise, it really is completely unclear what happens when you fail. I guess you have to conform to the limitations of what you can accomplish with your check? Like, if you're trying to hover and roll a 13, you have to move, or if you roll a 9, you have to move at least half your speed?

But that's conjecture, if fairly reasonable conjecture. Note that you certainly do not simply fall, unless you are using wings and fail by 5 or more. Rather, you cannot "remain flying at the end of [your] turn", so at the very least you'd have a chance to set down safely.

If you fail a roll to turn more than 45 degrees, I suppose you just can't turn more than 45 degrees during that turn. If you're, say, flying into a wall and need to turn, it's not clear where you go from there. Can you make another Fly check to slow or hover? Or do you just slam into the wall and apply the collision rules?

Unless I'm missing something, Weapon Master is incompatible with the fauchard: Perfect Strike, Weapon Focus, and Weapon Specialization work only with monk weapons. Are you somehow treating a fauchard as a monk weapon?

The Lunge feat only works until the end of your turn ... it shouldn't be of any help with AoOs.

Due to frankly rather weakly worded rules in this matter, I don't think it's clear that it's possible to use dirty trick at reach. As far as I know, the current official stance is that sunder, disarm, and trip work in conjunction with weapons, and other maneuvers generally do not ... except if your GM says it's okay, on a case-by-case basis. Or something:

Disarm, sunder, and trip are normally the only kinds of combat maneuvers in which you’re actually using a weapon (natural weapons and unarmed strikes are considered weapons for this purpose) to perform the maneuver, and therefore the weapon’s bonuses (enhancement bonuses, feats such as Weapon Focus, fighter weapon training, and so on) apply to the roll.

For other maneuvers, either you’re not using a weapon at all, or the weapon is incidental to making the maneuver and its bonuses shouldn’t make you better at attempting the maneuver. For example, just because you have a +5 greatsword doesn’t mean it gives you a +5 bonus on dirty trick checks (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player’s Guide 320), and just because you have a +5 dagger doesn’t mean it gives you a +5 bonus on grapple checks. Of course, the GM is free to rule that in certain circumstances, a creature can apply weapon bonuses for these maneuvers, such as when using a sap in a dirty trick maneuver to hit an opponent in a sensitive spot.

From here.

Your GM may allow it (I would), but depending on that for your build is probably not wise in Society play.

I print spell cards, keep them in a deck. When preparing spells, I can shuffle through, pull the ones I want, and put the deck away. Then I pull a prepared card when I cast, keep it around until the spell's effects have resolved, then discard it back to the deck.

If I'm preparing multiples of a given spell, I usually just sort of "tap" the card until I've used one of the multiples ... that doesn't work when preparing 3 or more of a spell, but then I never really do that, so it's fine.

This is useful. You can set up the cards, print to cardstock, and cut them out. I make my own cards, though ... this app has flaws. Particularly, longer spells overflow their card, and variant spells don't give you the necessary text (charm animal just refers you to charm person, which is fine in a book but less so on a reference card).

I'm pretty certain that bloodline arcana apply to all classes you have, not just sorcerer. Check the FAQ ... I think it might be in there.

Honestly, I'm looking more at the negative effects. It seems clear that ghost touch would let me make my tentacle (grab) attacks, and similar. The tentacle, at least, is ghost touch, so there you go. It might be less clear if I was just doing a normal grapple attempt, rather than a grab. But I'm a druid, so I'll pretty much always be using grab.

The fuzzier bits are, you know, can the ghost grapple me? Can it make natural attacks on me while incorporeal? Because this specific thing is a giant damn snake monster with like six heads and six poisonous bite attacks. When it's corporeal, it's vicious. Am I making it so that it can attack me like that even while incorporeal?

Mind, I've already kicked it to the GM, and her word is what I really care about. I think we'll end up just saying to treat it like I can touch ghosts freely, and vice versa, so that yes: the incorporeal snake monster can full attack me, kill me, and then wield my body as a bludgeoning weapons against my allies. Which is fine. (c:

But it's not really clearly addressed by the rules, so here I am in case someone can point me at something official. It's a deep corner case, so I assume not, but hey.

Well, yes. But I quoted the ghost touch property up there. I'll do it again:

The weapon can be picked up and moved by an incorporeal creature at any time. A manifesting ghost can wield the weapon against corporeal foes. Essentially, a ghost touch weapon counts as both corporeal or incorporeal.

That's what the ghost touch property does. I'm looking at the ramifications of that.

Are we niggling that some parts of my body aren't natural attacks? At the very least, I can explicitly do unarmed strikes with "fist, elbows, knees, and feet", and there's that generally understood thing where a monk can make an unarmed strike with any part of his body. At any rate, I'm pretty sure it's fair to include other attacks, headbutts and such, and we must add in any new limbs/attacks I acquire through wild shape.

So even if, say, my calves and sternum are not ghost touch, it still seems like enough of my body is that an incorporeal creature should be able to attack me, bull rush me, whatever. Likewise, if I wild shape into a lion or octopus, my tentacle/claw attack is ghost touch and would allow me to use the associated grab special ability on an incorporeal creature, yes?

You can use a ghost touch chain to trip a ghost (well, they typically fly, but whatever), a ghost touch mancatcher to grapple one, all that. And a ghost can use the disarm maneuver to relieve you of a ghost touch weapon, or it can presumably sunder a ghost touch weapon. When the ghost touch weapons are part of my body, how does that translate?

( The thing about getting natural armor against incorporeal touch attacks probably is reading too much into it, but I just thought I'd toss it out there anyway. As I said, it sounds sketchy. )

Having recently been forced to flee a fairly unpleasant fight with an incorporeal outsider-thing, my druid/monk sits down and spends two and a half days fast-crafting a +0 ghost touch amulet of mighty fists, in order to be ready for a second go at that fight.

So that's good. But I'm seeing some possibly-odd corners of the rules in this. I've mentioned it to my DM, but might as well ask here.

Ghost touch:

A ghost touch weapon deals damage normally against incorporeal creatures, regardless of its bonus. An incorporeal creature's 50% reduction in damage from corporeal sources does not apply to attacks made against it with ghost touch weapons. The weapon can be picked up and moved by an incorporeal creature at any time. A manifesting ghost can wield the weapon against corporeal foes. Essentially, a ghost touch weapon counts as both corporeal or incorporeal.

It's those last few lines that are interesting. Check my logic:

• Wearing the amulet basically make my body ghost touch, yeah? So I count as corporeal and incorporeal, both.

• If so, that should mean that a ghost and I interact normally, basically as if we were both corporeal. It can grapple, bull rush, make normal attacks (beyond incorporeal touch attacks), all that, and I can do the same to it.

( The above matters particularly for this upcoming encounter, since "incorporeal outsider-thing" can flip back and forth between corporeal and incorporeal, and it has attacks and abilities that only work while it's corporeal. Probably it can use those attacks on me regardless, while I'm wearing the amulet? )

( On the other hand, being able to grapple incorporeal creatures could be handy for me. )

• And this seems sketchy, but would I gain my natural armor bonus (from wild shape or whatever) against incorporeal attacks? If the ghost touch starts at my skin/scales/etc, that seems logical, but ... I dunno.

Also, that giant mask, mentioned above, might be just the thing. The lesser version isn't too great, but at least you'd retain all your gear ... it's like an hours-duration enlarge person, which is hard to argue with. The greater mask would be pretty hot, but 13th caster level means it's a bit out of your reach for now.

No, elementals are one of the ones where you absorb all your gear, unfortunately. Nothing keeps you from just dropping your scimitar, wild shaping, then picking it up again, though you'll start running into size mismatches that way.

Is there a weapon ability that lets you adjust your weapon's size? I can't recall. Or if you can arrange to summon an appropriately-sized weapon to your hand after the wild shape. Or get a sword-bearer hireling, I suppose.

A level of monk might make a good bit of difference. It doesn't sound like the loss of a caster level will hurt her play style much, and her Wisdom is excellent. Get that monk's Wisdom to Ac, and it will translate through to wild shape.

Also monk's unarmed strike, plus Multiattack, would also let her stack iterative unarmed strikes with her natural attacks, improving her pouncing. And Stunning Fist and a monk bonus feat (Dodge?) wouldn't hurt either.

It's not great for a serious caster, but it sounds like it should be fine for how she's playing it. And she has access to her best beast forms already, so she's not even delaying wild shape much.

Oh, and she's an item crafter, so she should be able to pretty cheaply knock together a Wis-boost item, a Dex-boost item, and bracers of armor. Buy a ring of protection, too.

Against single targets, she might consider grappling. Dire tigers are good at that, and she could even drop feats in it. If you get someone pinned, they can't do much to fight back.

Ohhhh. Well. Then, yeah, you're kinda screwing yourself. The animal forms are by far the best for straight melee. Pounce, grab, and etc, plus all the natural attacks is just too good.

Elementals tend to have good stats boosts, but you'll be stuck with just one slam attack (two at higher levels) and not really that much in the way of special stuff. Fire elementals have Burn, but I think that's about it. Air form gives you Whirlwind, but that's more for control than melee.

And the plant forms, again, are fairly crappy, though you might look at the mandragora in Bestiary 2 ... otherwise, wild shape generally doesn't permit you to get any of the interesting plant abilities that would make plant wild shape useful. Though if you specialize in a lockdown build, I think there are one or two plants with obscenely long reach, so that's something.

You might give the [polymorph] spells a hard look. Druids get a lot of good ones, but they're of limited use because they don't stack with wild shape. Aspect of the Bear and so on can give you a nice edge, if you're avoiding wild shape.

It's not necessary to be a good wild shaper. In fact, it's difficult to hit both spellcasting and combat shaping equally well ... it sounds like you're already focusing on casting, so just stick with that.

Do eventually pick up Natural Spell, though. Once you hit 6th level, you can start using elemental wild shapes for utility and tactical advantage. Air form lets you fly, earth form lets you walk through stone walls, that kind of thing. Very handy, even if you aren't wading into melee. You can expect something like a +4 AC bonus from any of those wild shapes, too, which is nice.

Note that you can also keep a few buffs on the back burner to drop if you really must wade into combat: buff, apply wild shape, and move in. You'll be an adequate fighter, even if you can't compete with a wild shape specialist.

Hows about elemental forms? There's only a 2-level space in there where animals are your only options.

Eventually there's plant forms, too, but they're pretty uniformly terrible.

I think you missed my earlier post, let me quote myself:

SKR wrote:

The general rule for combat maneuvers is:
When you attempt to perform a combat maneuver, make an attack roll and add your CMB in place of your normal attack bonus. Add any bonuses you currently have on attack rolls due to spells, feats, and other effects.
That second sentence means that if you're a creature that gets an automatic followup disarm, sunder, or trip on a successful attack roll, any extra bonuses to the normal attack roll apply to the free followup combat maneuver. It doesn't matter if the weapon is normally a "trip weapon" or not, you get the bonus.
Example: A wolf with a +1 enhancement bonus on its bite attacks from a magic fang applies that +1 to its free trip combat maneuver. Likewise, an advanced/companion wolf with Weapon Focus (bite) applies that +1 to its free trip combat maneuver.

Couple things:

1) I think disarm, sunder, and trip are fairly clear. What about other things, though, where some other maneuver is explicitly delivered by a weapon attack? Specific example: The +1 from magic fang is on a bear, not a wolf, and the bear attempts a claw attack, hitting and attempting a free followup grab/grapple. Does the +1 apply to the maneuver?

2) What about one-shot, one-attack bonuses? If the wolf above is actually a wild shaped druid who has managed to choke down a potion of true strike, he gets the +20 attack on the attack, but does the followup trip maneuver inherit that bonus? My guess is not, but the language used could be read that way. That is, you say "any extra bonuses to the normal attack roll apply to the free followup combat maneuver".