I'm soon going to start a new campaign and one of the players is going for a melee focused druid. He wanted the character to use wild shape primarily. Now the uses of wild shape are fairly limited (we start at level 6) per day, so i was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to get him a few extra wild shapes without homebrewing.
I couldn't find any archetypes that focus on wild shaping and neither any other class or archetype for any other class that would make for a more viable beastmorph transformer build (that was basically what he wanted his character to do, be a melee-type that just uses an ability to transform into various creatures for fighting).
He already has druid's vestments so that one extra use is covered.
only option i can think of is to be a shaman and shift into that type of animal. but arguably his wild shaping 3 times a day for 6 hours each should be fine as it is.
There is a trait, Beast of the Society, that does this: "Whenever you use your wild shape class ability to turn yourself into a Small or Medium-sized animal, the effect lasts for 2 hours per druid level instead of 1 hour per druid level." If you don't have the pathfinder society in your campaign world, or your player doesn't want to be in it, you could easily adapt the trait to not require it. There are many useful melee creatures that are size medium or small. He may just have to stay in his wildshape in between combats. Make sure he picks up Natural Spell at level 5, so he can heal and buff if necessary between combat without dropping his shape.
At 6th level, he could spend all day in a medium or small shape with that trait.
All the Shaman archetypes are useful for additional Wild Shape as well, especially the Saurian shaman. Your player would need to be OK with that particular animal theme, of course, but the Saurian is the most versatile since it lets you pick creatures of diverse ecological niches.
3 times per day for 5 hours is good and he can use Vermin Shape I for back up to change into something small for scouting...
There is a item in UE that lets you change from as long as you under a spell from poloymorh subschool... maybe you could rule that it works with not only spells bit with wildshape, too.
That way the player can stay in wildshape when switching forms without wasting a use....
I personly think 3 times per day is engouh at 6 level ;)
If he does not want to stay an animal all day there the Mask of the Giants that let a Durid use wildshape to transform into a Giant...
Breiti
Shapeshifter Ranger and Shaman archetypes didn't appeal to him, because he wanted a variety of creatures to turn into, and do so completely, and not just adapting certain features.
We also looked at the dragon disciple, but the idea was dropped since the actual full polymorphing only starts happening at high levels.
I will think about allowing Wild Speech. It makes me a bit iffy because with natural spell (which i already recommended to him) it would allow him to remain in wild shape all day with virtually no significant drawbacks, and I'm generally not using 3PP material.
The only other two characters are a fighter and a goblin-ninja (actually a goblin/hobgoblin crossbreed which i constructed with ARG race creation) so they certainly won't have a lot to talk about with his animal shape.
The magic item Druid Vestments give an extra wild shape once per day.
"I will think about allowing Wild Speech. It makes me a bit iffy because with natural spell (which i already recommended to him) it would allow him to remain in wild shape all day with virtually no significant drawbacks, and I'm generally not using 3PP material."
I thought the point of Druid was to be in wild shape all day? That's what my Druid does as an air elemental.
wild speech is from ultimate magic, it isnt 3rd party.
and should there be drawbacks for being in wild shape? technically if each party member spends 1 skill point in linguistics to speak sign language, they would be able to communicate anyway. spending a feat is a more expensive way of doing that.
wild speech is from ultimate magic, it isnt 3rd party.
and should there be drawbacks for being in wild shape? technically if each party member spends 1 skill point in linguistics to speak sign language, they would be able to communicate anyway. spending a feat is a more expensive way of doing that.
We're both right. I just found the 4 Winds fantasy version first when looking up the feat on d20pfsrd.
There's also a magic item that increases wildshape by 1/day - Druid's Vestments (?).
Crap, didn't see EpicFail's post.
Ruyan.
Yeah, I'm with the rest of people. 18 hours a day spent Wild Shaped is plenty IMO.
Maybe you could butter up your DM to get him turned into a Lycanthrope or something and not have it be a liability.
With the message spell and natural spell feat he doesn't even need wild speech.
With the message spell and natural spell feat he doesn't even need wild speech.
How?
Yeah I dun get that one either.
It's basically taking a Standard action to send a short message. One that requires the player to make a fairly high Perception check to hear it.
first, i don't think message gives you the ability to speak when you can't. So i don't think it does what Umbranus thinks it does.
next i'd like you guys to look at the duration and range of message.
the perception check is for those people who are not targets of the spell to overhear you, not the targets themselves.
it allows people to speak back and forth with the caster for 10 minutes per level, not just once. it is the best thing for maintaining silent communication with the party scout. since it is 0 level once you are 5th level you should be able to keep it up on all party members just by casting it once every 50 minutes. it is by far the most useful 0 level spell. can even speak to party members silently during discussions with npcs, if those npcs cannot make the dc 25 perception check.
I thought it would create the words where the hearer is. But rereading it that is not clear enough to base a pc on.
[QUOTE="EpicFail"
I thought the point of Druid was to be in wild shape all day? That's what my Druid does as an air elemental.
Not necessarily. Being in wild shape is an important part, but Druids are also pretty powerful as casters too. Sure, they don't get as many damaging spells as full arcane casters, and are not as good as clerics at healing, but they do get spells like Fire Storm, Call Lighting, Liveoak and other minion-creating spells, and Polar Midnight. Heck, both versions of Fire Seeds are really useful.
Druids can have all sorts of specializations.
It sounds like he's doing everything that's Paizo legal already. I wrote an archetype for this, but if you're not into 3PP, that doesn't do you a whole lot of good.
