Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Wilderness

Maybe the shifter can still change into a small or tiny animal at level one 1/day or can at least alter their hair, skin, and eye color at will.

I admit personally I was hoping for something more along the lines of Wild Shape at level one, but having a limited number of options for the early levels. Like maybe you can only shapeshift into one form at level 1, which you choose at character creation.

Not gonna lie, kind of was too. Something along the lines of the 3.5 totem druid where what animal companion you chose, that's the only form you could turn into. Or even the 3.5 shapeshift druid, where you transformed into a single creature at-will, and then gained a new transformation every 4-5 levels.

Maybe we'll see that for the archetypes.

Wild shape at level one would be too good unless they didn't get stat mods until level 4/5.

It's only a +2 Dex or Str and a bit of natural armor, Barbarian gets far more than that at level 1, and unlike Wildshape is usable more than once a day (though 1 Wildshape will last a while if you don't need to be Humanoid for something or other.) The bigger issue IMO would be the abilities, which could probably be easily trimmed down (say, 15 foot move speeds, 30 foot Darkvision, and just cut Scent.) Or heck, just make it so you only gain one of the creature's abilities as applicable instead of all of them.

Well barbarians at level one wouldn't get flight, swim, climb, darkvision, scent, low-light vision, etc. combined plus turning into a small or smaller animal can get you out of situations that you normally might not be able to otherwise.

Getting flight and swim at level 1 is one of the main reasons why wild shape at level one is a bad idea. Wrecks way too many adventures which were designed under the "can't fly or breathe underwater realiably before 5th level" core paradigm.

I'm one of the ones who gave initial information on the Shifter from PaizoCon, and I need to clarify something.

I'm the one who suggested that they got wild shape at level 5, because I never play druids and forgot they get it at 4th, and the panelists said something about the Shifter getting it about the same time as druid, so that much is my fault. I don't know if they'll get it at 5th or 4th.

However, the reason they decided against shapeshifting at game start was simple. New players. They want all classes to be relatively easy for a brand new player to sit down and play a level 1 version, and any form of wild shape at level 1 will confuse things dramatically. Thus they tried to give a few options for the flavor of shapeshifting, while giving the players some time to get used to the class and system.

I wonder if we will get Clawed Gauntlet, similar to the "Demon Talon" (from Book of the Damned) and the "Claw Gauntlet" (from Horror Adventures)? maybe with mechanics similar to them, outside of being grafts.

One of the things I enjoyed about playing a druid in the original World of Warcraft MMO was the quest to learn (finally) how to shape-shift. It wasn't nearly as much fun after Blizzard nerfed it. IIRC, you finally finished it somewhere around 14th level. OTOH, max level at that time was 60, so about the same, proportionally, as PF.

I am just glad that in Pathfinder you don't need to go on quests just to get class features.

I am just glad that in Pathfinder you don't need to go on quests just to get class features.

Could be an interesting concept for a game however.

Interesting if you are gaining abilities, spells, skills, etc. that you would not normally have. But lame if you had to quest for stuff you would normally get from the class you are playing.

Define "normally".

Define "normally".

IE...the Norm....what the majority are doing :)

Ed Reppert wrote:

Define "normally".

IE...the Norm....what the majority are doing :) AKA BORING

Though questing to get a spell added to your class list, a stat increase, more class skills, more skill points, etc. would be just as interesting as standard new magic items, followers, treasure, etc.

Anyway back to the subject of this product.

I wonder if this book will talk about wilderness terrain beyond the prime material and the first world.

I wonder if there will be a feat that grants anyone energy resistance of 5 or at least lets races with energy resistance to improve their resistance to 10 (or more). I hope there will be feats that grant save bonuses vs heat, cold, poison, disease, sickness, nausea, weather, and other environmental and nature related effects.

I am just glad that in Pathfinder you don't need to go on quests just to get class features.

Not RAW, but some campaigns have such for Prestige Classes, etc. In ours, I have to hit the Magic Market or one of the Guildes to get my 'free' spells and Wizard feats. You can't just take a level in some Classes without a RP event/reason (for Sorcerer, it requires intimate contact with that Bloodline. Intimate includes bleeding all over each other).

Racial advances are innate and there is overlap. You can't just declare you're a noble at level 7; in campaign, that's a feat with serious benefits and hassles. Ancestral weapons seem a great thing until you have to temper it with Dragonfire before it becomes 'flaming'. It may seem unfair, etc., but the group all RP more than H&S, so this kinda nonsense is par for the course.

Not for every group, but...

hey'll get it at 5th or 4th.

However, the reason they decided against shapeshifting at game start was simple. New players. They want all classes to be relatively easy for a brand new player to sit down and play a level 1 version, and any form of wild shape at level 1 will confuse things dramatically. Thus they tried to give a few options for the flavor of shapeshifting, while giving the players some time to get used to the class and system.

You know, by the time your picking up books like advanced wilderness, I'd be surprised if more than a few players were new at all. It also seems like a case where if that's the main reason, they're also harming the utility of the class by toning down it's defining trait.

Will there be any artifacts in this one?

Benjamin Medrano wrote:

hey'll get it at 5th or 4th.

However, the reason they decided against shapeshifting at game start was simple. New players. They want all classes to be relatively easy for a brand new player to sit down and play a level 1 version, and any form of wild shape at level 1 will confuse things dramatically. Thus they tried to give a few options for the flavor of shapeshifting, while giving the players some time to get used to the class and system.

You know, by the time your picking up books like advanced wilderness, I'd be surprised if more than a few players were new at all. It also seems like a case where if that's the main reason, they're also harming the utility of the class by toning down it's defining trait.

Nah, that's not how it works for a lot of groups. New players often just see a list of all the classes on the site, or present an idea for what they want to play so the GM can work something out. I have new players gravitating towards the newer occult classes or vigilante plenty of times. In my games, shifter will hopefully handle requests for werewolf characters, take over monster characters from the more complicated synthesist summoner (the mention of an ooze option is promising!), and provide me with some race-neutral shapeshifting trickster options.

So no pup shape (self only) at level one? Sad.

Benjamin Medrano wrote:

hey'll get it at 5th or 4th.

However, the reason they decided against shapeshifting at game start was simple. New players. They want all classes to be relatively easy for a brand new player to sit down and play a level 1 version, and any form of wild shape at level 1 will confuse things dramatically. Thus they tried to give a few options for the flavor of shapeshifting, while giving the players some time to get used to the class and system.

You know, by the time your picking up books like advanced wilderness, I'd be surprised if more than a few players were new at all. It also seems like a case where if that's the main reason, they're also harming the utility of the class by toning down it's defining trait.

I've had brand-new players who had never even touched an RPG ask me to play some of the weirdest things, from Dante from Devil May Cry to Yuna from Final Fantasy X, as two off the top of my head. I have a friend who grew up with Animorphs, who loves shapeshifting, and I know there are others. If a new player asks me "How can I play X?" I tell them. If it isn't user-friendly, what's the point of the class?

I agree with the choice to delay the full ability to shapechange, but I hope it'll be more than just Wild Shape Redux. We don't know if it will be or not, though. It's possible they may have Wild Shape effectively at-will. It might add additional abilities. Thing is, we don't know yet. Personally, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and wait and see. Since it's the only new class in the book, I'm far more hopeful than I was for the Advanced Class Guide, and not just because I look forward to the contents of the book as well.

We do know some things. Like, we know the abilities you can gain won't be strictly limited to those listed in beast shape. We also know that you can mix and match abilities from your different animal aspects. That's a pretty big plus for the class, in my opinion.

I agree, we know some things, but we don't have a clear picture of everything that's possible. It's possible with what we know that the class could utterly suck. It's also possible for it to be overpowered (unlikely, since it isn't a spellcaster). I'm looking forward to seeing it, personally.

I hope the shifter will get the ability to alter eye/hair/skin/fur/feather/scale color at will.

When/where did they say that abilities you can gain will not be strictly limited to those listed in beast shape?

I hope the shifter will get the ability to alter eye/hair/skin/fur/feather/scale color at will.

When/where did they say that abilities you can gain will not be strictly limited to those listed in beast shape?

PaizoCon panel discussions. Check out the Ultimate Wilderness Preview panel.

Thank you for posting KingOfAnything.

I really don't like the idea of nerfing the plant immunities for plant based 0HD races. Just give us alternate racial traits and let us decide if want to change or alter stuff like that.

Thank you for posting KingOfAnything.

I really don't like the idea of nerfing the plant immunities for plant based 0HD races. Just give us alternate racial traits and let us decide if want to change or alter stuff like that.

You *really* think that a 0hd race with immunity to all mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep effects, and stunning with the doesn't need to sleep cherry on the top is something that should exist?

Dragon78 wrote:

Thank you for posting KingOfAnything.

I really don't like the idea of nerfing the plant immunities for plant based 0HD races. Just give us alternate racial traits and let us decide if want to change or alter stuff like that.

You *really* think that a 0hd race with immunity to all mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep effects, and stunning with the doesn't need to sleep cherry on the top is something that should exist?

Yeah, GMs might actually allow me to play a ghoran or the upcoming vine leshy now. Maybe.

All right then, I take that back, we have a precedent. But really, a *plant* 0-hd race? All one really needs now is to wait until there's a class/archetype which has some mind-effecting/poison debuff as an offset balancing its strengths.

Whoever designed plants to be not sleeping (day/night cycle) and being immune to poison (herbicides) has been doing a questionable job anyway. ;-p

*Looks about in a shifty manner.*

I... totally agree!

Whoever designed plants to be not sleeping (day/night cycle) and being immune to poison (herbicides) has been doing a questionable job anyway. ;-p

Indeed. Immune to polymorph? Why? What exactly makes a plant less susceptible to transmutation magic than an animal, or a rock?

Plus racial blanket immunities are rarely a great idea anyway. Too all-or-nothing, IMO.

Eberron had to deal with that with the Warforged (PC Construct race), creating a kind of living construct sub-type, so that the 1st level PCs didn't start out with a raft of immunities, and the same problem creeps in for attempts to make PC races out of undead (like the necropolitan), plants (like the ghoran), oozes (drawing a blank, here...), even dragons, to a lesser extent.

Just giving the creature types racial bonuses to resist certain affects would probably work better, so that it's no longer impossible to paralyze a dragon-type creature, or whatever, just really hard.

I would rule that (most) mind-affecting effects would work on every player race regardless of creature type though most of the other immunities I am fine with. But I agree about polymorph, never understood why plants where immune to that one.

I would rule that (most) mind-affecting effects would work on every player race regardless of creature type though most of the other immunities I am fine with. But I agree about polymorph, never understood why plants where immune to that one.

For PF, Backward compatibility with DnD 3.5?

Yeah, I know that, but it never made sense then as well.

I don't see why the new version of the Ghoran only gets immunity to sleep because immunity to paralysis and stunning is hardly game breaking. Well if they are taking most of their plant immunities away then they should take away their weaknesses as well.

I wonder when we see these changes for androids, duergar, and wyrwood.

Immunity to paralysis and stunning is pretty powerful, those are extremely nasty conditions. Being stunned disarms you usually in addition to not letting you act, while being paralyzed not only makes your AC very low - especially in melee - but it can let an enemy coup de grace you.

Plants don't really have any weaknesses, though? They're not proficient with armor and weapons automatically due to their type, but a 0-HD plant race will get that from their class anyways...

The ghoran have two weaknesses(delicious and light dependent).

Also being immune to paralysis and stunning is not game breaking a all. Now being immune to mind-affecting effects, ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, death effects, and curses would be.

The ghoran have two weaknesses(delicious and light dependent).

Also being immune to paralysis and stunning is not game breaking a all. Now being immune to mind-affecting effects, ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, death effects, and curses would be.

Well, obviously being immune to two nasty conditions isn't gamebreaking compared to being immune to almost every other nasty condition.

Sorry, meant to say "and/or" not just "and".

Why are plants immune to curse?

I meant, even Jesus cursed a tree. :o

Maybe it only works when divinities do curses? I dunno.

Plants are not immune to curse effects but I was listing immunities much more powerful then paralysis, sleep, and stunning.

Yeah, plants are immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms), as well as to paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep effects, and stunning, and get low-light vision.

I don't think immunity to curses would be that powerful comparatively, I've run into paralysis and stunning much more often than I've run into curses. Just last night, I got paralyzed for 9 rounds by a ghoul...or was it a ghast? Can't remember the last time I had to worry about a curse as a PC, other than cursed NPCs.

Wyrwood do have a much worse set of immunities, though it comes with some hefty prices, such as dying at 0 HP, no Constitution bonus to HP, being unable to benefit from normal healing, and not being able to be raised or resurrected normally.

Luthorne,

Depends on the curse involved.

lycanthropy, baleful polymorph, cursed magic items, many witch hexes, linnorm death curses, etc. are all curse effects.

lycanthropy, baleful polymorph, cursed magic items, many witch hexes, linnorm death curses, etc. are all curse effects.

And I very rarely run into any of those. Lycanthropes are only used on occasion, same with linnorms, there aren't that many witch NPCs I've ever fought, if any (not that that many witch hexes are curses, most of the ones that are aren't that dangerous), cursed magic items are also rare, and baleful polymorph is something I don't think I've ever had cast on a character of mine...usually I've only seen PCs use it. If anything, immunity to lycanthropy seems more convenient for the GM, since they don't have to worry about the player gaining a template.

Also, in the case of wyrwoods, they may be made of wood but count as constructs not plant creatures (like me).

Also, in the case of wyrwoods, they may be made of wood but count as constructs not plant creatures (like me).

Indeed. I was saying that a true construct race (unlike the toned down android race) has even more immunities, though the downsides are indeed pretty harsh.