Reading the newest Adventure Path volume, I noticed Lini the iconic druid, has a strength of 6. With her strength penalty, it seems like she'll be hard put to use Wildshape in battle effectively.
Poisonous creatures would work, I imagine, but it seems like Wildshape tilts fairly heavily towards druids who already have a good strength score.
Reading the newest Adventure Path volume, I noticed Lini the iconic druid, has a strength of 6. With her strength penalty, it seems like she'll be hard put to use Wildshape in battle effectively.
Poisonous creatures would work, I imagine, but it seems like Wildshape tilts fairly heavily towards druids who already have a good strength score.
Yes, you can no longer dump all your low stats into your physical stats and assume that you'll just compensate with wild shape as wild shape just gives bonuses to stats rather than replacing them outright. The polymorph-style spells are now very similar to the PHB2's "shapeshifting druid" variant.
Reading the newest Adventure Path volume, I noticed Lini the iconic druid, has a strength of 6. With her strength penalty, it seems like she'll be hard put to use Wildshape in battle effectively.
Poisonous creatures would work, I imagine, but it seems like Wildshape tilts fairly heavily towards druids who already have a good strength score.
She'd do well in flight forms flinging spells, as opposed to clawing on the front lines.
If she's a "wildshape fighter druid", then 6 str is a huge problem.
However as someone said if she goes into bird form, and casts spells, summons nature's allies etc, then no, then str is a completely valid dump stat.
Druids can still fill all roles like they did in 3.5, they just can't do all at once anymore, they need to decide. If they want to be a caster they won't be good fighters, if they want to be fighters they won't have the max number of spells etc.
like others have said, it's only a hindrance if she wants to get into combat. With an animal companion, a robust spell list, wild shape for utility, and summon nature ally spontaneously, you certainly dont NEED to use wildshape for combat.
You don't NEED to cast offensive spells as a sorcerer, nor do you NEED to backstab as a rogue. No class NEEDS to do anything, as the apologists will assure you, but if you're planning to use wildshape in combat then your physical stats are going to matter in PF, unlike in 3.5, plain and simple.
Iconics are flavour - it is unlikely they represent any sort of optimized character concept, so don't look at them too hard in that respect.
|
Plainly put, you only need a high strength if you plan on running into melee with wildshape. If you instead want to use wildshape to turn into a tiny flying animal and assist through spells during combat, then that's a very effective way to use wildshape as well. Not every druid can afford to be good with spells and be a monster in melee anymore, however.
Fair enough...
Being able to turn into a rhino and have a rhino's ability scores kind of did make your Str score obsolete in the older editions. It was subject to abuse.
But... robust spell list? I... dunno.
Maybe I'm just finding the list feels narrower because I'm playing a druid who's been brought to the big city. Entangle? Not so good. Tree Shape? Um... hm.
Sacking spells for Summon Nature's Ally seems the best option a lot of the time. Plant and animal based spells are very subjective, but dropping a giant air elemental into play is seldom ineffective.
|
|
Yeah, having a strong Animal Companion and Augmented Summon Nature's Ally spells can make up for you not being in the melee. Actually, I prefer summoning because they don't need healed when the battle's over, which means every hit that they draw is one not aimed at someone that might be missed were they to be killed.