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I liked the idea of a druid that could wildshape into magical beasts but the only other archetype, from RPG Superstar 2011, round 2, was completely unbalanced First World Druid so I thought I'd have a go.
I played around with some fey abilities like Unearthly Grace or Evasion, but couldn't balance things sufficiently and provide the same fey feel. Some abilities are quite weak and just for flavour, but others required significant sacrifice. The bonus creatures added to Summon Nature's Ally is pulled straight from the First World Summoner list.
An idea I was toying with was adding the Fey Creature template to the druid's animal companion, but I think it would make the animal companion broken. The idea of a restricted list of improved familiars also had some appeal as an animal companion replacement. Ultimately, I dropped them.
Anyway, here for your scrutiny is my take on a First World Druid.
Bonus Language: A First World Druid gains Sylvan as a bonus language.
Nature Bond: A First World Druid who chooses a domain as her nature bond must choose from the Animal, Charm, Luck or Trickery domains (or one of their subdomains).
Magical Empathy: A First World Druid does not take the –4 penalty to Wild Empathy or Handle Animal checks when using those abilities on magical beasts.
First World Magic: At each new spell level (including 1st), a First World Druid can choose an Illusion or Enchantment spell from any spell list that is of a spell level the First World druid has access to and add it to the First World Druid’s spell list. Fire magic is foreign to a First World Druid so she treats all spells with the Fire descriptor as though they were not on the druid spell list.
Fey Summons: A First World Druid adds the following creatures to their Summon Nature’s Ally list.
Summon nature’s ally II: gremlin (jinkin, pugwampi, or vexgit).
Summon nature’s ally III: gremlin (nuglub).
Summon nature’s ally IV: unicorn.
Summon nature’s ally V: pixie, satyr.
Summon nature’s ally VII: nymph.
This ability replaces A Thousand Faces.
Grace of the Fey (Su): A First World Druid learns how to move like the fey, being able to dodge attacks not so much through moving out of the way, but rather through luck. A First World Druid possesses a good reflex save and, at 5th level, adds her Wisdom bonus as a luck bonus to her AC. This ability works whenever the First World Druid wears light or no armour. This does not stack with the monk’s AC Bonus ability. This replaces medium armour proficiency and shield proficiency.
Wild Shape: A First World Druid gains the ability to wildshape into magical beasts by expending an additional wildshape use (i.e., 2 wildshape uses to wildshape into a magical beast). A First World Druid can wildshape into a small or medium magical beast at 10th level, as the spell Beast Shape III. At 12th level, the First World Druid can wildshape from a tiny to a large magical beast as Beast Shape IV. This ability replaces the druid’s Elemental Form wildshapes.
Blood of the Fey (Ex): At 9th level, a First World Druid is treated as Fey in addition to their race for any effect related to race. She also gains the following benefits and penalties:
She gains low-light vision, or if she already possesses low-light vision, it’s range increases to triple normal vision range.
She gains ranks equal to her druid level in two of the following skills: Acrobatics, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, and Use Magic Device. She also gains these two skills as class skills. This also means the chosen skills continue to improve by one rank for each druid level gained after 9th level. This ability cannot raise the number of ranks in any skill to more than the First World Druid's Hit Dice.
She reduces her maximum hit points by 1/druid level, as though her Constitution were 2 lower (but only for druid levels). This also means she gains one less hit point each time she levels up as a First World Druid.
She gains damage reduction 10/cold iron. This improves to 15/cold iron at 17th level.
When interacting with fey, the First World Druid will always be regarded as no worse than indifferent. In addition, she gains a +2 bonus on Diplomacy checks with fey creatures.
This replaces Venom Immunity.
Edit: Clarified some ambiguous wording.
Looks interesting, but a couple of things stood out to me:
1. I don't make look through monster stats too often; as per the Beast Shape spell line (which limits the abilities you can get), does a Druid really need to be penalized (two uses of Wild Shape) for choosing to go Magical Beast, especially because they lose the option to choose Elemental forms?
2. Blood of the Fey: It seems a really sudden change to happen all at once. I'd suggest breaking it up over several levels. I'd probably put the HP reduction and the skill bonus at level 1, then low light. Perhaps have the DR happen gradually (maybe something like 5/cold iron at 7th, and 1 more per level up til 17th... might be too low to level to start that high though)? I do think the skill change should happen right away though; it's annoying from a planning perspective to think "ok so I can't put points in any of these skills up to 9 or I wasted a class feature".
Magical Beasts are better than animals, but the base Druid can turn Elementals (which are also better) without having to spend to extra uses was what I was getting at. I also don't have any real specifics for comparison between Magical Beasts and Elementals though.
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Sorry for the delay. There were substantial changes made that I think adds a lot of interest and keeps wildshape combat-effective to later levels.
There are some powerful forms such as the hydra or aurumvorax that get many attacks, but elementals get resistances and immunities instead, so it probably evens out. I've reduced the cost down to standard for magical beasts because of that. I've added a couple of interesting changes. What do you think?
Armour Restriction: The First World Druid has even tighter armour restrictions. She is only permitted to wear light armour that is not made of metal and cannot use shields.
Bonus Language: A First World Druid gains Sylvan as a bonus language.
Nature Bond: A First World Druid who chooses a domain as her nature bond must choose from the Animal, Charm, Luck or Trickery domains (or one of their subdomains).
Magical Empathy: A First World Druid does not take the –4 penalty to Wild Empathy or Handle Animal checks when using those abilities on magical beasts.
First World Magic: At each new spell level (including 1st), a First World Druid can choose an Illusion or Enchantment spell from any spell list that is of a spell level the First World druid has access to and add it to the First World Druid’s spell list. Fire magic is foreign to a First World Druid so she treats all spells with the Fire descriptor as though they were not on the druid spell list.
Fey Summons: A First World Druid adds the following creatures to their Summon Nature’s Ally list.
Summon nature’s ally II: gremlin (jinkin, pugwampi, or vexgit).
Summon nature’s ally III: gremlin (nuglub).
Summon nature’s ally IV: unicorn.
Summon nature’s ally V: pixie, satyr.
Summon nature’s ally VII: nymph.
This ability replaces A Thousand Faces.
Grace of the Fey (Su): A First World Druid learns how to move like the fey, being able to dodge attacks not so much through moving out of the way, but rather through luck. A First World Druid possesses a good reflex save and, at 5th level, she adds her Wisdom bonus as a luck bonus to her AC. This ability works whenever the First World Druid wears light or no armour. This does not stack with the monk’s AC Bonus ability. This replaces medium armour proficiency and shield proficiency.
Wild Shape: A First World Druid gains the ability to wildshape into magical beasts. A First World Druid can wildshape into a small or medium magical beast at 10th level, as the spell Beast Shape III. At 12th level, the First World Druid can wildshape from a tiny to a large magical beast as Beast Shape IV. This ability replaces the druid’s Elemental Form wildshapes.
Perpetual Shape At 13th level, a First World Druid can wildshape for an unlimited period of time (i.e., she is no longer bound to a 1 hour/level duration). This replaces Timeless Body.
Preferred Form At 15th level, the First World Druid can choose a preferred form from the list below. The First World Druid gains the listed abilities whenever she wildshapes into that form. At 17th level, the First world druid can choose a second, different, preferred form, and at 19th level, she can pick a third preferred form different from the first two. This ability replaces the ability to wildshape at will at 20th level.
Any Animal, Magical Beast, or Plant – Gargantuan size (if base creature is at least Gargantuan) Use the wildshape rules for huge size as listed in the spell Beast Shape III or Plant Shape III (whichever is applicable) but modify the ability score adjustments by +4 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, and the natural armour bonus increases by +2.
Any Animal, Magical Beast, or Plant - All racial bonuses (e.g., skills, combat manoeuvres, bonus feats (but not regular), etc.)
Behir: Breath weapon
Blink Dog – SLAs
Bulette – Leap
Bunyip – Blood Rage
Chimera – Breath Weapon
Chupacabra – Chupar
Cockatrice – Petrification
Hodag – Trackless, Toss
Hydra – Hydra traits, Regenerate Head
Kraken – Ink Cloud, Rend Ship
Phoenix – Shroud of Flame
Rhemoraz – Heat
Shocker Lizard – Electricity Sense, Shock
Sleipnir – Breath Weapon
Sphynx (any) – all Special Abilities except spellcasting
Stymphalidies – Glare, Wing Razors
Unicorn – Magic Circle, Magical Strike
Winter Wolf – Breath Weapon
Yrthak – Blindsight, Blind, Explosion, Sonic Lance
Zoog – Otherworldly Touch, Spellsight
Blood of the Fey (Ex): A First World Druid is treated as Fey in addition to their race for any effect related to race. She also gains low-light vision, or if she already possesses low-light vision, it’s range increases to triple normal vision range. She also gains the following benefits and penalties:
Friend of the Fey When a First World Druid first encounters a fey creature, the fey will recognise the kinship to her and have a starting attitude no worse than indifferent. In addition, the First World Druid gains a +2 bonus on Diplomacy checks with fey creatures.
Skills of the Fey At 1st level, a First World Druid chooses two of the following skills to become class skills: Acrobatics, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, and Use Magic Device. She also gains two bonus skill points that can only be spent on these two skills. At each level beyond 1st, the First World Druid gains two additional skill points that can only be spent on the two chosen skills.
Hardiness of the Fey Starting at 1st level, a First World Druid reduces her maximum hit points by 1, as though her Constitution were 2 lower. At every level beyond first, the First World Druid reduces her maximum hit points by 1 (but only for druid levels).
Resilience of the Fey At 7th level, a First World Druid gains damage reduction 2/cold iron. Every 3 levels after 7th, this damage reduction improves by 2, to a maximum of 10/cold iron at 19th level.
This replaces Venom Immunity.
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Realised an incompatibility. Magical beasts can't gain huge size from Beast Shape IV so the description under Preferred Form should change to allow huge magical beasts instead of gargantuan. The modifiers remain the same though.
I also didn't check the size of the magical beasts (aaargh!) so there may be some invalid choices in there.