Animal Druid. Where is the key?


Rules Questions


Hiho!

Tiger shaman for exampe.

I get lvl 4 the wildshape ability -> Beastshape 1.
At lvl 6 i get the next wildshape -> Beastshape 3 for cats and beastshape 1 for any other animal.

Now the problem. I dont find any bear or cat in huge form. There is no advantage for my wildshpape. Is that right?

Liberty's Edge

Check out the dinosaurs. Stegosaurus with vital strike, strong jaw and greater magic fang is pretty nasty.


obadiah wrote:
Check out the dinosaurs. Stegosaurus with vital strike, strong jaw and greater magic fang is pretty nasty.

Is that a cat or a bear?


Tesailion wrote:

Now the problem. I dont find any bear or cat in huge form. There is no advantage for my wildshpape. Is that right?

The advantage is presumably that you get access to Beast Shape III abilities like Rake or Constrict or Poison (etc.). Of course, that doesn't really help the Bear Shaman -- bear special abilities are pretty much limited to Grab. But the Lion Shaman can get Rake, which is pretty snazzy.

Liberty's Edge

I'm sorry I was trying to assist you by broadening your horizons. I sometimes forget that people on message boards aren't like normal human beings who appreciate someone trying to help them. Have a nice day.


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Tesailion wrote:
obadiah wrote:
Check out the dinosaurs. Stegosaurus with vital strike, strong jaw and greater magic fang is pretty nasty.
Is that a cat or a bear?

Maybe you can see if your gm will let you wildshape into cats or bears with the 'Giant Creature' template.


Im sure he will let me, if that is a legal rule with beastshape :) But is it? And where can i find the sentence that allow me to.


Matrixryu wrote:
Tesailion wrote:
obadiah wrote:
Check out the dinosaurs. Stegosaurus with vital strike, strong jaw and greater magic fang is pretty nasty.
Is that a cat or a bear?
Maybe you can see if your gm will let you wildshape into cats or bears with the 'Giant Creature' template.

I thought polymorph spells didn't let you assume the form of anything with a template on it.

SRD: Transmutation (Polymorph)

Quote:
Polymorph spells cannot be used to assume the form of a creature with a template or an advanced version of a creature.

So as great as that would be it probably wont work. The best thing you can do is to get the GM to make a custom huge cat/bear instead without using a template.

Unfortunately there need to be a lot more PF creatures for the druid to get full use out of all of its abilities right now. Until then a lot of specialist druids (like cat and bear) require the GM to come up with new options to keep things interesting.

That said you can deal insane damage in dire tiger form and the lion shaman can pick up rake earlier than should be normal which gives him 5, count 'em, 5 attacks on the pounce (2 claw, 1 bite, 2 rake). That should pretty much kill anything (or a group of anythings).

If you have an animal companion or summon to trip hard targets and provide flank then you can pile on the hurt accurately. At level 6 getting access to rake will make you a damage dealer to be reckoned with (and just imagine adding power attack to all those to boot!).

Then just pick up some barding for your dire tiger form and you'll even have decent AC (and since you likely wont use much else due to restrictions it isn't such a bad proposition either).

But later on you should definitely work with your GM to see about either converting an older 3.5E creature to PF or get him to make an upsized dire tiger without a template. Dire Tiger should probably serve you well as a main combat form till level 8 to 10 or so before you will start wanting something with more oomph.


obadiah wrote:
I'm sorry I was trying to assist you by broadening your horizons. I sometimes forget that people on message boards aren't like normal human beings who appreciate someone trying to help them. Have a nice day.

While I understand you were trying to help... the class archtype he went for required a cat or a bear to use the power. A normal druid can take anything... but some of the shamens and other archtypes are more limited in the forms they can choose.

Dark Archive

I thought the polymorph spell rules governed spells and spell-like abilities. Isn't Wildshape a supernatural ability? Wouldn't it disregard the rules for polymorph spells?


The "level + 2" thing is tripping me up. Can a Bear Shaman Wild Shape into a bear starting at level 2? Does he have an additional 2 Wild Shape uses for shifting into a bear? Has there been any official explanation on this point?
Part of my confusion stems from the fact that Hero Lab is giving the bear shaman I built a use of Bear Wild Shape at level 2.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Gavin Mutter wrote:

I thought polymorph spells didn't let you assume the form of anything with a template on it.

SRD: Transmutation (Polymorph)

Quote:
Polymorph spells cannot be used to assume the form of a creature with a template or an advanced version of a creature.

Well, if it really does refer to polymorph spells, then that seems to indicate that wild shape CAN turn into templated creatures since its not a spell, but a supernatural ability.


Wild Shape class feature specifically states it functions like Beast shape I, therefore is constrained by the rules of polymorph except when it specifies otherwise.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Stubs McKenzie wrote:
Wild Shape class feature specifically states it functions like Beast shape I, therefore is constrained by the rules of polymorph except when it specifies otherwise.

Yeah, you're probably right. When I looked into it further, I noticed it says "spell" over and over and over again. If it didn't apply to wildshape, nothing in the polymorph subschool would.

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