How does the Eagle Shaman's Wild Shape work with Rocs?

[Rycaut]

The Eagle Shaman druid archetype states:

Quote:

Wild Shape (Su): At 6th level, an eagle shaman's wild shape ability functions at her druid level – 2. If she takes on the form of an eagle or roc, she instead uses her druid level + 2.

So how exactly would an Eagle Shaman take the form of a Roc?

The bestiary lists the Roc as a Gargantuan Animal - so too large for any level of druid to wild shape into (since I don't see Gargantuan size creates as options for the any of the Wild Shape levels for the Druid.

The bestiary does also list a Medium and a Large sized Roc for use as an animal companion perhaps these are what an Eagle Shaman can wild shape into? But what benefit does he then get from being at level+2?

i.e. at 6th level the druid would have an effective level of 8 for wild shape into Eagles or Rocs. However there are no Huge (or Diminutive) Roc's (without applying a template) nor are there any huge eagles (just the "Giant Eagle" which is a Large creature).

And as the druid gains levels I don't see any advantage at all for the Shaman in terms of wild shape for having an effective level of 2 higher.

Perhaps the only advantage is having one extra Wild Shape if the druid uses it for an Eagle or Roc shape? (and one fewer Wild Shape use for non-Eagle/Roc forms? (and slowed access to elemental, magical beast and plant forms?)

i.e. mostly disadvantages? (though the Shaman appears to get unlimited wild shape into Eagles/Rocs at level 18 which is nice but at that level not overly useful.

[LazarX]

The Eagle Shaman is not the choice to take if you're looking to be a wild shaping melee monster.

It's strengths lie elsewhere. But being able to fly at will is not something to totally diss. With natural spell, you're essentially a mobile aerial platform of magical distruction. or buffering support.

The shamanic paths have different strengths, you don't approach an eagle druid the way you would a bear.

[Quatar]

Rycaut wrote:

But what benefit does he then get from being at level+2?

[...]

Perhaps the only advantage is having one extra Wild Shape if the druid uses it for an Eagle or Roc shape? (and one fewer Wild Shape use for non-Eagle/Roc forms? (and slowed access to elemental, magical beast and plant forms?)

That's one advantage of the +2, that you get one additional wildshape for that (so at level 6 you get 3/day to go eagle or roc). The -2 for all other in return gives you 1 less per day.

+2 also increases the duration by 2 hours per wildshape.

So at level 6 you get 3 wildshapes for 8 hours each, meaning you can spend the entire day wildshaped.

However you're right, it's not a super huge advantage, and is really only one for 2 levels (as a normal druid at level 8 can do that too, and got far more choices to turn into - it takes you till level 10 to have the same selection of animals).
I myself thing the biggest thing the Shaman druids get is the ability to cast Summons as a standard action, which is pretty awesome.

[Rycaut]

In a home game (not PFS) I would probably allow similar rules that apply to the Shaman's summons (i.e. around applying young or other templates) to apply to their selections of wild shape options to allow them to have a few more size options to choose from at different levels (especially of Rocs)

I was by no means dissing the advantages of a long duration wild shape that can fly (it was a reason I was considering playing an Eagle Shaman in the first place) but I wanted to understand the implications of the extra class level bump with the restrictions around polymorph and templates (i.e. generally speaking you can't polymorph into a creature with a template applied - just into creatures as they are in the books).

For PFS play this makes sense but it does seem to mean the shaman's aren't as useful for PFS play (especially since long duration wild shapes are better in home campaigns than in PFS scenarios where travel times and exploration rarely are part of the active play parts of the scenario)

[Wolf Alexander Vituschek]

At level 6 you should be able to use shift into a young roc. In do believe the shaman classes can apply templates to wild shape as well as SNA.

[Quandary]

Wolf Alexander Vituschek wrote:

At level 6 you should be able to use shift into a young roc. In do believe the shaman classes can apply templates to wild shape as well as SNA.

...based on...???

[mplindustries]

Wolf Alexander Vituschek wrote:

At level 6 you should be able to use shift into a young roc. In do believe the shaman classes can apply templates to wild shape as well as SNA.

They totally cannot apply templates via Wild Shape any more than a normal Druid can, which is to say, they can't.

Now, in a home game, most GMs would let you do it so the archetype doesn't suck, but in offical games or games by RAW, yeah, the archetype sucks for wild shaping.

What most people don't seem to get is that the Shaman archetypes are really all about summoning. Excepting dino shamans, they actually penalize Wild Shaping.

[Wolf Alexander Vituschek]

This statement should make it very clear:

Quote:

At 6th level, an eagle shaman's wild shape ability functions at her druid level – 2. If she takes on the form of an eagle or roc, she instead uses her druid level + 2.

Teleological interpretation suggests that you can make use of the templates provided in the preceding paragraph about totemic summons.