Painful Bugger's page

There's never enough dragons, or monsters for that matter. I like to homebrew convert Monster Hunter monsters into Pathfinder monsters. Stuff like Rathalos and Rathians are just fire breathing wyverns. The Elder Dragons make for far more interesting encounters.

In the 15-minute adventure day reality of Pathfinder, that's absolutely not an issue after first few levels.

You and I play very different games. Duration of abilities matter quite a bit and just because you run out abilities doesn't mean you are out of danger and get to take a break. Such a character would quickly run out of wild shape uses during the first half of an adventuring day and for remainder of the day be a really weird warrior. Maybe he can fly or be really big but he won't be any kind of animal or plant. Hate to make a comparison to the druid but even when the druid is out of spells he can solidly be in a combat form that commands battlefield respect.

I just don't care for the time limit. Maybe if it was half level + wis modifier it wouldn't sting so much. It wouldn't need to reach at-will, just like for the posibility for a 6 to 14 hour day instead of a 3 to 10 from 6th level to 20th.

They fixed the base class

That's debatable. There's a few dead levels, issues with the aspects that need addressing, and the limited choices of wildshape. I don't really know any table that's currently allowing the shifter as they feel it's incomplete. Legendary Shifter is the only shifter being allowed and everytime it was a uphill battle against the "no 3pp" rule.

I've noticed that Shifter has been approved for PFS. I guess that's it then for the Shifter class. There was still issues with the Shifter like having dead 5 dead levels where they got nothing but an increase to either defensive instinct or shifter claws, the strange placement of A Thousand Faces at 18th level, and how wonky and unsatisfying the shifter aspects are especially when they last a short period of time. What about satisfying changes to wild shape? What about druid and shifter interactions with wild shape? I guess that's asking too much with a new edition on the way.

There should have been a playtest.

So for purposes of updating d20pfsrd.com, we ONLY update classes and such with OFFICIAL errata, that is, when Paizo releases a PDF that is OFFICIAL errata, or has an actual FAQ update. Is there such an update for the Shifter, or is it JUST a forum post thus far?

Here's a pdf of the shifter that's just regular shifter + errata as indicated by the FAQ errata and it's formatted like the Shifter on your site.

Paizo Shifter for d20pfsrd.

The only thing I'm not certain on 100% is how Shifter's Fury would be presented on the table.

EDIT: now that I look at it, I really dislike how they set up the Shifter table in the book, it's aesthetically unsatisfying.

I noticed the forums have gone through some recent changes and hyperlinks are differentiated much from the other text and since I can't go back and edit a old post so here's the bolded link to the Shifter Doc indicating all the shifter changes. I've corrected a few things:

Link: Updated Shifter with all the errata.

I'd love to see a feature that gives you a list of effects you can apply to a form when you shift into it, and you can pick and choose what gets added to that list for some actual character build choices. For example, choose the bonus DR, bonus natural armor, and fast healing options to play tanky, or choose the bleed, ability drain and sneak attack options to play a rogue-type.

HA! I updated it to match the current Shifter errata and it STILL has a smaller word count even with Druid Wild Shape.

I'd love to see a feature that gives you a list of effects you can apply to a form when you shift into it, and you can pick and choose what gets added to that list for some actual character build choices. For example, choose the bonus DR, bonus natural armor, and fast healing options to play tanky, or choose the bleed, ability drain and sneak attack options to play a rogue-type.

Funny enough I did a complete redesign of the Shifter just for fun that gave the shifter Wild Shape as per the Druid, ditched the Aspects, and instead allowed you to pick and choose Universal Monster Abilities to apply to your form. Some of them improved over time, getting better as you level while others had a level requirement. Overall to my surprise the word count for the redesign turned out to be less then the current Shifter.

I agree you don't get aspects often enough and too many bonuses of the minor forms are too situational or just straight replaced by a magic item dropped by an enemy. Rethinking it maybe minor and major aspects should be combined and turned into a much more fleshed out packages to justify how infrequently you get them. Maybe have these aspects last all day? I still like the idea of aspects being something that modifies your base form instead of being a substitute for wild shape. Kind of like a "template" you can apply to yourself or you wild shaped form to gain advantages.

I'd like to divorce stats from shape- allow me to bite just as well with the corgi aspect (...yeah, Mark added that in the shifter errata thread) as I do with the wolf aspect.

For reference I made a doc that's just the Shifter class with all the recent changes Paizo made. I also included the corgi just because.

Updated Shifter with all the errata.

I would prefer wild shape to be function similar to the druid's, I'm not a fan of such a hyper focused choice that you see maybe in an archetype. The Shifter doesn't necessarily need the access to all the same forms as a druid. I'll plant shape and possibly elemental shape but I would agree certainly agree to them having vermain shape and access to magical beast shape.

As for the aspects it's real simple. Don't make them forms you change into, rather make them changes you can apply to your base form and your wild shape form.
-Falcon Aspect + Beast shape III into a hippo = flying hippo with talons.
-Stag Aspect + Beast Shape III into a crocodile = really fast crocodile trying to gore you chasing you around.
-Tiger Aspect + Fire Elemental form = Fire Tiger with claws and pounce.
It's really that simple, chimeric aspect could even come into play. Could truely be something chimeric.

Cavall wrote:

I honestly just see shifter as a hunter with no pet that traded spells for full BAB. Aspects are just hunters focus, they really are.

I feel like trading an animal companion, and spells, and bonus feats for full BAB and (limited) wild-shape is at the very least vastly overestimating the value of full vs. 3/4 BAB.

Which is why I argue to open up wild shape to be like druid's wild shape. It gives the shifter many options to choose from right from the start, it'd be the one class you wouldn't have to wait for future books to get anywhere near the number of options the shifter has. And the amount of archetypes you could have made from beginning is enough to cover several pages worth of material. Such archetypes could be a giant shifter, magical beast shifter, a dragon shifter, a true ooze shifter, a true elemental shifter, a fey shifter, undead shifter, monstrous humanoid shifter, vermin shifter. And if you want to get creative you can force the dragon and elemental to choose a specific type.

Edit: And a real plant shifter, not that gimped version that can only wild shape minutes per day.

Edit 2: I just looked it up and realized I forgotten that it was in ROUNDS. Rounds per day!? Why? That's so terrible. Who would make such a decision?

The oozemorph reminds me an awful lot of Tensei Shi-tara Slime datta ken. It's a manga where some dude is reborn in another world in the form of a slime and he pretty much sucks in the same way the oozemorph does at low levels while later optionally getting the ability to turn into a human form that's more powerful. I'm not saying this is where the influence came from but I've seen enough archtypes that were way too blatant about their attempted subtlety to not smirk at them.

Quite frankly I rather them ditch the human form all together and just let you be an ooze that steadily gets more powerful, maybe getting stuff like engulf, corrosive touch, and the ability to vibrate and shape oneself to create noise. You can solve alot of problems just by saying that the oozemorph retains the same magic item slots as the based form and they have pseudopods with which to manipulate things and attack with. Or maybe just make an archtype based around the spells ooze form I - III.

Edit: I see that there's an auto-censor that doesn't recognize Japanese words so I put a dash in the middle of it.

I'd rather not have yet another MAD class but I'm in the minority. Anyway the enhancement bonuses granted by the minor aspects are terribly unimaginative when you could have used much more thematic bonuses in their place. Frankly I'm not a fan of the aspects, didn't like it on the hunter and I don't like it on the shifter.

If you ask me you should just ditch the idea of minor and major forms and have aspects be some form of improving "mantle" if you would that improves both your base form and wild shape. You don't necessarily turn into the animal but they grant you features and abilities of the animal along with cosmetic changes.

Considering "Shifter's Fury" is basically "treat one of your natural weapons as a manufactured weapon for purposes of iterative attacks, and the rest of your natural attacks as secondary natural attacks", is "your BAB is congruent to 1 mod 5 again" any more satisfying a class feature than "you get another +1 to AC"?

I like Shifter's Fury for it's ability to open up options for forms that are limited to one natural attack a round. Much more substantive then a +1 to AC, but don't get me wrong I appreciate every +1. You can make a really crazy trip build using wolf form and if wild shape wasn't so limited you could make a poison build by turning into various snake forms.

Just open up wild shape to be like the druid's. I want to change into a large fire elemental and then using chimeric aspect give myself bite, claws, and pounce like a tiger. Or wild shape into a lion and apply the falcon aspect to give myself flight and talons and BAM I'm a griffon.

I really, really want this.

I believe you guys are referring to my doc when talking about dead levels so I'm reposting it for reference (I also did a couple tweaks in presentation): Updated Shifter.

In my opinion there's roughly about 5 dead levels that needs attention and a few flaccid levels discarding what you get from aspects (which are not that impressive to me). 7th, 8th, 12th, 13th, and 17th levels are pretty much dead levels. The increases you get from Shifter Claws and Defensive Instinct leaves you wanting more.

You can easily do something like this
7th level: Bonus feat
8th level: Venom Immunity
12th level: Bonus Feat
13th level: A Thousand Faces
17th level: Bonus feat

There done. Now work on wild shape a bit more. Unchain it from the aspects and make the aspects abilities you can apply to your natural and wild shape form. Then chimeric aspect makes more sense. You would honestly not change the word count that much.

Painful Bugger wrote:

Whoops! Posted this in the wrong thread!

Hey guys I went and collected all the changes and errata that The Shifter went through and applied it to the class. Basically it's a single document you can refer to when you want to look up the Shifter without referring to various different sources until all the changes are final. I'll update it as more updates roll on through. I'm debating adding the errata'd archetypes to the doc.

Here's the link for you to view at your leisure: Updated Shifter.

This is very helpful! Thank you Painful Bugger.

You're very welcome.

There is no human FCB listed in that document.

Thanks for the catch, I just copy pasted that section since nothing changed for them and missed the humans.

It looks like the Shifter is really coming along. I think if they fill the currently dead levels with extra feats or abilities this will be a really fun class to play. As Mark was kind enough to show, there is a ton of potential in the form of new aspects that I'm sure Paizo and third party publishers will build on.

Aspects be fun but I still think they should be something that gets tacked on. The Shifter really needs a Wild Shape not limited by what aspects they've selected. All that really does is make people choose a small number of forms. I really just want a Wild Shape that is functionally very similar to druid with a progression like Beast Shape I, Beast Shape II, Beast Shape III, and so on.

I would want wild shape to work like a druid's and aspects to work something like this (gonna just grab the bear aspect since it's the simplest):

Bear Aspect:
1st level: You gain a bite attack (1d8 damage), two claw attacks (1d6 damage), and the grab ability with your claw attacks.
8th level: You gain Improved Natural Attack (Bestiary 315) with your claws.
15th level: The critical multiplier of your claw attack increases by 1 (×2 becomes ×3) to a maximum of ×4, and you gain the Awesome Blow feat (Bestiary 314).

And have them all work on that level with you being able to slap them onto your base form or whatever form you happen to be in at the time. So you can do something like turn into a small earth elemental shaped like a bear with a bite and claws.

Whoops! Posted this in the wrong thread!

Hey guys I went and collected all the changes and errata that The Shifter went through and applied it to the class. Basically it's a single document you can refer to when you want to look up the Shifter without referring to various different sources until all the changes are final. I'll update it as more updates roll on through. I'm debating adding the errata'd archetypes to the doc.

Here's the link for you to view at your leisure: Updated Shifter.

Painful Bugger wrote:

Is it so hard to just have all the archetypes be based off the various shapechange spell chains. Oozemorph is cool but just make it a shifter that changes into a ooze to save everyone the headache and grant him ooze abilities.

The problem with this approach is that archetypes essentially become same-y with themselves, and makes the Shifter not only a bland class, but also very bland archetypes as well, and is honestly why Druid archetypes are largely ignored.

For example, all of the "X Shaman" archetypes could have just been condensed into a single archetype that has better wording to cover the general idea of what the archetype could and could not permit, and allow creative space for other, cooler and more useful archetypes.

Following that formula, letting Shifters shape into whatever they want (they just don't get the Aspect benefits) could go a long way to solving the shoehorning problem the class has as a whole.

The creature shamans are bland. Mostly cause they avoid creature group types and narrowly focus to heavily on a theme groups like snakes or avians. The only ones that are I think are fun are those that specifically focus on a type of creature like the cave druid for oozes and goliath druid for giants. I think we can get an entire suite of archetypes like this with changes to other parts of the class to feel unique.

And I agree on the last point. I keep saying just let the Shifter have druid wildshape and let the aspects be something you can add to your wildshape form with the chimeric aspect ability. Yes I would very much like to be a crocodile with antlers while chasing you down with echolocation or a fire elemental in the shape of a tiger or a treant that looks like a bear.

Yeah. The update helps clarify some of the readability issues the archetype had, but it still suffers pretty heavily from not being great.

Low level gameplay in particular is still almost unmanageable when you get 1 un-incrementable hour of shapeshifting per day... which is the only time you can speak or hold objects.

As it stands I think the archetype needs to either lose all of its restrictions (so speech and full item/equipment usage regardless of form) or it really needs some sort of wow factor to make putting up with is various issues worthwhile.

I do like the ability to make iterative attacks with a natural weapon though. Though that class feature ends up highlighting another problem with natural attacks in that if you don't have a lot of them enhancing gets expensive since AOMF comes at a premium.

If they're making Wild Shape a number of hours equal to your level + wisdom modifier then you might as well give them Wild Shape at first level. Beast Shape I at first level is +2 strength and +2 natural armor isn't out of the ordinary from 1st to 3rd compared to other classes abilities. And the fly speed and maneuverability isn't out there when we have Strix, Wyvarans, and Gathlains flying about.

Painful Bugger wrote:

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

SNIP

I'm updating the class table: New Shifter Class Table 2.0

So if we are still trying to eliminate all "dead" levels, we would want to add one ability that is granted at 7th level and scales up at 12th and 17th levels one one ability that is granted at 13th level. 13th level might be the level for combining major aspects. Maybe 7th/12th/17th level grants access to major aspect forms equivalent to the Monstrous Physique spells?

And, based on precedent for existing archetypes, I don't see the point in nitpicking about dead levels created by peculiarities of archetype class feature replacements.

Bonus Feats would fit quite nicely there. Instead of placing A Thousand Faces at 18th level they can instead move it down to 13th level just like the Druid. Placing A Thousand Faces so far up there makes it really limiting.

Shifter' Fury is a step in the right direction. The change to Final Aspect should really be in the wild shape description much like the notification that you wild shape at will at 20th level in the druid's wild shape description.

I still really rather the Shifter had a flexible Wild Shape like the Druid and have the major forms be something you can tack on. And then make Chimeric Aspect let you combine one of your major forms with wildshape or let you combine multiple major form aspects at once.

As promised last week, we have made a few more adjustments to the shifter, adding a few abilities to cover up some empty levels on the class, and giving it a few boosts to its ability.

We have also put out an errata on the Oozemorph Shifter, covering some common questions with that archetype.

You can find those changes right here.

I want to thank all of you for your continued thoughts on this class. I also want to thank the vast majority of you for remaining civil and productive in these discussions.

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design
Paizo Inc.

I'm updating the class table: New Shifter Class Table 2.0

Just throwing this out there. If you re-arrange the Shifter class table like the monk's with the recent changes kept in mind we get something that looks like this: Shifter Table.

There's something like 8 to 10 dead levels depending on how you look at it. If you were to include druid wild shape options then that drops to about 6 dead levels. That's enough to throw in bonus feats and some 1 to 2 line abilities like maybe the ability to wild shape faster or some immunities. If you're feeling adventurous expand the wild shape options at higher levels.

Also what do you mean with full might of the druid? I feel like most people were pointing out just using obvious druid buffs like strongjaw, magic fang greater, barkskin and the likes, same thing for the shifting hunter. There doesn't seem like any TOP TIER OMG LOOK AT THAT RULES MASTERY builds needed to surpass the shifter, just the same stat array and using the obvious basic buff spells seems to outfight a shifter.

To be honest the druid really starts outpacing the shifter once they have access to Beast Shape III at 8th level for wildshape. The amount of options available for in and out of combat is quite diverse. There's a array of creatures you can build around for combat and there's plenty of diminutive and huge creatures that can be used for a wide variety of reasons.

No mounts? Turn in to something big enough to carry the whole party. If you have 20 Str and you turn into a elephant you can carry 1836 lbs easy as a light load and 5520 lbs as a heavy load. Can easily drag 27600 lbs so just buy a cart and hook you up whenever you start going on a journey. Wanna spy? Well how you wanna do it. There's an entire suite of options. Endless possibilities.

Something like that, no spellcasting, cause it's easier to remember creatures then the myriad spells that are out there is probably what people are wanting.

Or just give them the druid's wildshape options and have aspects be something you can tack on a form. This way "chimeric" aspect will truely be chimeric.

Curious lack of Intimidate as a class skill. Also you might as well treat Defensive Instinct and Shifter Claw Increase as a single class skill one time then the Shifter looks mighty empty. A lot of dead or near-dead levels. Step in the right direction but I think you need a lot of work done to improve the class. Especially with wildshape options and aspect abilities.

In Discworld wizards are all power-hungry, back-stabbing jerks that spend so much time fighting one another that everyone breathes a sigh of relief that they spend more time offing one another for power instead of ruling countries. It should be noted in Discworld the plural of the word wizard is WAR.

Shifters still need more versatility. Limited uses of Wild Shape, time limits on Minor Aspects, Limited Number of Aspects overall, Must Take Aspects, and No Bonus Feats, makes for Very Dismal Versatility and an overall lack of choice in playstyle.

Y'know I had a large post about woulda, shoulda, coulda as a response but it just circles back around that we see alot of potential to the class and we see the makings of a really fun and exciting class. Makes me ache for a playtest as all everyone is doing is making the same type of suggestions that would have been made for a playtest. :(

Really instead of that weird monk bonus to AC and conditional wisdom bonus they should have a scaling natural armor bonus. Either it starts as +1 or +2 and scales up to +5 to +8.

We might have a Shantae build at long last!

Please don't sully mai waifu's name. She's a half-janni bard archetype that grants beast shape and monstrous body as special abilities and has feats that allow her to use charisma to hit and damage with her hair.

I think this is one of the cons of releasing books that are so much combinations of GM and player material. Ultimate Wilderness by all accounts is a *great* resource for GMs looking for good rules and ideas to add wilderness elements to their campaigns or run full survivalist type adventures.

That doesn't really matter to people who just wanted a shape shifter martial class though.

So the review would really seem to be 4 or 5 stars if you're looking for GM stuff. 1/5 if you're looking for a new class.

I imagine classes in these books are like cakes (or ice cream cakes if you don't like cake) and everything else is delicious frosting. It's hard to be happy about delicious frosting when you really wanted some cake but it wasn't very good. Yeah some people will scrap the frosting off but most people will dump the cake in the trash. Yes that makes splat books the equivalent of spraying a can of whipped cream in your mouth.

I'll say it before and I'll say it again. I'm worried that we will get archetypes made for the Shifter in future books. Not only does that solidify the fact that they won't change the Shifter but puts a real fear in me that there's always going to be a section in future releases that I will never, ever bother reading and my only hope for a proper martial shapeshifter is some future prestige class or a unchained version years down the line completely incompatible with archetypes that have cool concepts but shackled by the current shifter. I really regret my purchase and I'm getting real sick of the circular discussion at my table about how much the class disappoints us, my group. Merry Christmas Paizo.

Phranklin wrote:

NoTongue says it. At this point the only thing that can save the Shifter is a revised Shifter (blog post or revised PDF).

Eh, I like it for the opportunity it allows to play a Beorn-like character without a heck of a lot of perusing multiple sources.

So, for that purpose, I don't think the Shifter even needs to be saved.

Have you considered that could have been a well made archetype to the shapeshifter everyone wanted ?

I'd honestly would play a Commoner with a trait that granted UMD and had twice the wealth by level of a PC of equal level then a Shifter. You can do much more interesting things trying to figure out how make yourself viable then the shifter. If anything you'd be FUN! The shifter is not fun! You can't do anything cool with it. Any minor cool you can possibly do you don't as it might screw you over for a future combat. And worst, you get to watch other classes do it without thinking about. They're throwaway things they do.

This is simply not a good class and any additional printed material, either archetypes or feats, that supports the current Shifter is going to be wasted space. Design decisions for future material are going to be constrained by the class as is. If some archetype comes out that turns a shifter into something good I guarantee it'll be incompatible with other cool but broken due to class chasis archetypes. This class is bad, the type of bad that's going to require a complete rework and I fear we won't see that for awhile.

I regret getting the hardcover and I dread any future paizo material because of the shifter cause I know I'm going to see something cool and have it be completely unfun to play because of the shifter.

SIDE NOTE: Since you revert to oozeform when unconscious, you can never get 24h perma bonuses.

Oh boy... A poorly written archetype for a poorly written class. Really should have had a playtest. God the biggest insult to injury would be if they made MORE archetype for this class.

I can honestly see two things possibly happening now. Somehow a druid archetype sneaks out the gate that gives up spellcasting and you get full bab, d10 hd, and a bonus feat at first level and every 4 levels after first. Then a product gets put out years later with a unchained shifter, incompatible with possibly a dozen cool archetypes that "fix" the Shifter.

There was very little power left over for another awesome class after the druid ate too much?

So much power that if he gave up spellcasting he's still better then the shifter.

You really give it your all too. It was tough to watch your enthusiasm die.

Painful Bugger wrote:

Bloodrealm wrote:

Weird that you guys are still discussing damage output when most of us seem to agree that it's serviceable-but-not-great as-is for damage and that EVERYTHING ELSE is the real problem.

It's basically getting to the stage where everyone had their say about how poorly this class is put together and now where we're getting to the number crunching and finding that it's still a poor class to play on top of the lack of versatility.

I don't think damage would be that big of issue if you had a greater flexibility with the forms at least because then you can change into a form that makes Shifter Claws a non issue.

This is absolutely the point. The lack of versatility is what makes this particular class bland at best. There's a niche for it to fill, but it does so in a particularly poor manner, and so it just seems to have no genuine place in the grand scheme of things. The add-ins from other classes could have been replaced by much better class features (on a whim, I'd give the class some animal version of leadership that grants some "pack magic"/"pack synergies" where if your "pack" is nearby, you get some fast healing, or damage reduction, or some other kind of supernatural benefit), and the chimeric abilities could have been rolled into a single ability with a more imaginative capstone.

Personally I think you should change the shifter in one of two ways. Both have wild shape act like the druid's.

First idea is to have the aspects each grant bonuses and abilities as you level. No minor or major form and have them act all day. They stack with wild shape and the chimeric aspect abilities let you combine aspects. Aspects can let you fly, swim, sneak, etc.

Second idea is to ditch aspects and on the odd levels you select universal monster abilities(including movement options) you can use. You can modify some monster abilities to scale in some way with level to make them unique. Chimeric aspect lets you use multiple monster abilities at the same time. At later levels instead of monster abilities you can take abilities that modify your wild shape like a improved elemental form, the ability to turn into magical beasts, dragon, or vermin. Of course there'd be limitations like having to take the dragon one three times to get huge dragon.

Weird that you guys are still discussing damage output when most of us seem to agree that it's serviceable-but-not-great as-is for damage and that EVERYTHING ELSE is the real problem.

It's basically getting to the stage where everyone had their say about how poorly this class is put together and now where we're getting to the number crunching and finding that it's still a poor class to play on top of the lack of versatility.

I don't think damage would be that big of issue if you had a greater flexibility with the forms at least because then you can change into a form that makes Shifter Claws a non issue.

The shifter is so bad that all discussion I could find about the class has died outside of this specific thread. In some places it's been a couple weeks since anyone talked about the new class. No excitement for it whatsoever. Just expressed disappointment. I figured there at least would be a few more weeks of people asking about shifter build advice followed by "Just play ____." Didnt even really get that. Just dead. Not even my group is interested in talking about, I have to initiate the discussion and all they do is talk about other classes. Anyone else talk to their groups about the shifter? How did it go?

I made myself sad typing that up. What's worse it was just a throw away idea I came up when I started to make a response.

Back on topic though there's not really a whole lot going for a Shifter. Everyone is gonna build around either the dino or tiger with most people opting dino just because it's objectively the better pouncer at low levels. There's nothing really varied you can think of as a good build besides always selecting like 5-6 aspects and then buy a bestial rag for utility. At higher levels you might you get so much money you might as well buy all the bestial rag aspects to feel like a complete class. Or just play another class and invest that 80k more wisely.

Mark Seifter wrote:

And the good news for polymorph options-junkies like you and me is that this thread is full of other options that provide us our fix, both from Paizo and some really cool 3pps! :)

Hey - here's one now! :)

Skin-Changer

Here's mine. ;^}

PainfulBugger's Shifter revision

Biggest thing, and the thing that probably crippled it's budget, is getting pounce at lv4, though it's a worse version than the pounce the druid gets at lv6 because the shifter's animal form is nerfed.

Adding to this: it gets rake at level 15 with tiger and the dino gets really weak foreclaws at level 8.

1. Just to clarify, I agree with the sentiment that the class seems pointless to me too. So do most NPC classes, and several PRCS; I don't find them useful to my playstyle. But the class wasn't written to be something beyond what it was stated to be, so I can't exactly evaluate it with what I want in such a class compared to what Paizo wanted in that class. Hence why I said they basically made a Beginner's Box class, and they were successful on that front, which to Paizo, was the goal they were wanting to meet.

2. Clearly, Paizo did. There are several blog posts detailing that very exact phrase. As to whether players wanted it or not, this thread, and several others, are proof of whatever that answer really is.

Honestly to me it's starting to sound like whoever was designing the Shifter was deadset on making it the way it is and there was little that could be done about it and Paizo was throwing that out to soften the blow.

Hey everyone, some of you might want to check out the Skin-Changer in the New Paths Compendium, which releases in the next week or so.

I think the Skin-Changer might be a lot closer to what many folks were hoping for in a full BAB shifting class...

You can check out a preview of the Skin-Changer and New Paths Compendium here!:

Skin-Changer

I can't help but smile at this. I admire such of striking of the iron while it's hot. Well here's to the first of many shapechanging 3pp classes attempting to fill a niche that Paizo themselves refuse to do so.

It might be disappointing to you, but for what they were striving to create (entry level shapeshifting class), it hits on all the marks it's supposed to hit.

I just think the expectations everyone was wanting were simply too much and too different compared to what was being promised and created.

Like I said, entry level = beginner box. I don't see the class being useful outside of NPC levels and the beginner box, which means they hit the mark they wanted to hit.

They just didn't hit the mark we wanted it to hit, which is more our fault than theirs.

I like to add that I DM on the regular for a group of variously busy players, many of which weren't even aware of the existence of the class until I handed it them. I said nothing and let them come to their own conclusions. They all didn't like it and prefaced many questions about the class with, "Why didn't they...". Of course the comparisons came and they were all the same classes and archetypes everyone was mentioning.

What I'm saying is its not our fault for having these expectations when there are people who expected nothing and were still disappointed.

...its actually kinda strange they put this out, very strange.

Ventnor wrote:

I wonder why a Shifter archetype called the Oozemorph does not reference in any way whatsoever the Ooze Shape spells, which can be found in the same book.

The author of the archetype probably never saw the spells before the book came out, Lack of design coordination most likely.

That's not a good thing and it explains alot of what we're seeing...

To add on to the houserules part you're gonna get different groups with different houserules. I've seen roughly about 3 dozen different takes and houserules to make the Shifter into something playable. Each distinctly unique to the person and group. Yet unsurprisingly (to me at least) they roughly agree on the same concepts about what could fix this class.

So what's really gonna end up happening is that everyone will have their own take on this class. Then they're gonna "fix" it, shelf it, and pretend it never existed, and hope it doesn't show up in a future AP. New people will come in and ask about the shifter in the new group, hear about the houserules, tell their new group about their old group's houserules, everyone feels disappointed, and then continue to never play the shifter.

Everyone is gonna play something else and just feel a twinge disappointed at what could have been. Yeah they can make something that feels more accurate to what a Shifter could be to them but likely won't cause it doesn't feel "official."

I've been workshopping on this since I first laid eyes on the class. I came up with this monster of a thing. It has the silhouette of what I kinda expected out of the class when I first heard about it but I have a poor understanding of restraint so I think I got a monster on my hands. That's okay, you can always trim.

PainfulBugger's Shifter revision

Generally I did this:

Ideas for archetypes I have
Titan Shifter(I know...): A shifter that wild shapes into Giants and maybe Monstrous Humanoids.
Draconic Shifter: Form of the Dragon I-III as your wild shape option. Get draconic features like the sorcerer and dragon disciple. Aspects are different dragon colors and improve dragon forms as you level such as adding additional breath attacks a day or elemental bites.
Necromorph(I know...): A shifter focused on turning into undead creatures. Gain undead traits as you level and become undead at 20th level. Maybe have aspects be for specific types of undead.