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So, the druid caps out at beast shape 3, and doesn't have access to magical beasts.
I'm considering opening up magical beasts through a druid prestige class I'm working on. I would like some feedback as to whether this becomes too powerful for the druid.
I went through all the magical beasts and here are my discoveries:
Beast shape three only allows access to small or medium magical beasts.
Beast shape four, which druids don't currently get, allows for tiny and large magical beasts.
These are based on damage, since the abilities are the same as those granted by other, non-magical forms.
Best Tiny Form:
The Stirge. That's only because there's only one tiny form in the bestiary :D The stirge doesn't even deal damage :P
Best Small Form:
The cockatrice, darkmantle, and shocker lizard all have 1d4
Best Medium Form:
Basilisk at 1d8 damage
Best Large Form: Here is where the forms get powerful.
The Chimera gets 5 attacks, for a total of 2d8 and 3d6 damage. No pounce though.
The Girallon gets 1d6, 4d4, and rend, which requires all four hit and deals an extra 1d4 damage. Still no pounce.
The manticore is the last contender. 1d8 and 4d4 damage.
And that's it. Going through the entries, I didn't see anything particularly overpowering. Most of the magical beasts have special abilities that give them power. However, those are automatically ignored unless listed in the spell text. I think as druid shapes not available until, minimum, level 12 for small and medium, level 14 for tiny and large in the prestige class, there isn't anything here that is unbalancing.
I'd like people's opinions on whether it's unbalancing, and additionally on anything I may have overlooked.
How about the Sphinx?
Fly speed, pounce, rake, claw attacks with 2d6 base damage, darkvision and low-light vision, speech and spellcasting possible...
Not worth it or just an oversight? ;-)
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Note that we're talking about base damage here.
Sphinx is large and deals 4d6 damage normally.
chimera gets 2d8 and 3d6
natural spell = spellcasting possible... insert form :p
Flight, and dark vision by that level are easily *and usually* fixed via spells.
The rake and pounce is nice, but most animal forms have it anyhow. It's nice for magical beasts, but doesn't really benefit the form that much, in my opinion :)
Flight is great with flyby attack. With pounce, you might as well be land based.
Rake knocks the sphinx's damage up to 6d6 *if it succeeds on the grapple rolls, which lets everyone else beat on it.
Even with rake, it's less damage than the chimera, since the chimera will get strength damage on three more attacks, two more if the rend hits.
Or am I overlooking something else?
You overlooked 2d6 damage from the rakes. ;-)
So, all in all, the sphinx does 8d6+(4xStr bonus) when charging or with the grapple check.
I don't know if that's terribly much in your equations, just wanted to mention it since you asked for more possible creatures.
And yes, I know about the feat. And the spells. But here it is, all in one package and achievable with the same action, no sweat.
The gorgon is a notable magical beast form to take because it gets to keep its breath weapon (according to Beast Shape IV).
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Eh, you're right, I was reading it as 2 rake claw attacks for a total of 2d6, not 2d6 each.
Chimera gets 5 attacks for 2d8 and 3d6
Max damage before str is 34
Sphinx gets 4 claw attacks for 8d6
Max damage before str is 48
Sphinx gets str on all of them
Same with Chimera.
hogarth, you bring up a good point about the breath weapons. Something I missed :/
The Chimera also has a breath weapon for 6d8 1d4/rnds. I think that helps equalize them a bit, though I'll have to go through and check the other beasts for breath weapons.
The gorgon is actually pretty nasty. The only thing that reduces it is that the DC for its ability uses the DC of the spell used to create the polymorph effect. Since wildshape is a SU ability and can't be dispelled, it doesn't have a caster level. It's not even spell-like. So the DC would be 0.
Although alternatively, you could use the dc as if the druid had cast a spell of the appropriate type *BS4 in this case* which would put the DC at 10+6+wis mod which would put it around the same dc the creature itself uses. Somewhere between 19 and 23, I'd say.
I think the first one would be best for balance purposes, but the second one is probably how it actually works.
Looking at the creatures again, I believe those are the only two that have breath weapons. With only two magical beasts with breath weapons, the designers who put the spell together had to know that they were giving those two abilities to wizards. Then again, a wizard would only be a gorgon for 11ish rounds and would only get a handful of uses out of those abilities.
So, there are a couple ways to balance this for the druid. The druid gains use of Beast Shape four but does not gain access to breath weapons.
Or alternatively, The druid may use the breath weapon effect 2d6 times per day. Note that multiple uses of wildshape will not grant additional uses per day of breath weapons. This limit applies on a total basis, not per creature. For example, the druid rolls 2d6 and gets 7 uses for that day. He transforms into a gorgon and uses the breath attack three times. Later that day, he transforms into a chimera. He can only use the chimera's breath weapon four times today.
Or alternatively, The druid receives one use/day of a breath weapon for every four druid levels she possesses. Multiple wildshapes do not provide additional uses/day.
How does that sound? I think it's better to address breath weapons rather than just the two forms, since additional books might include other abusable forms :D