I was paging through the APG when I stumbled on the Cave Druid archetype and I immediately thought it just oozes (ha!) character and flavor. So many character concepts came to mind when I looked at it like an eccentric dwarf who tends to his submerged crystal garden and an exile drow who finds peace away from his mad people amongst tall fungal stalks and puffballs.
I do have some trouble with it mechanically though. Now let me preface this by saying I am no druid or system expert, so please tell me if I am completely off base here.
Let's take a look at the archetype:
Cavesense I feel is really solid, as is the addition of Darkness to your domain possibilities.
I don't think I have ever played a game where it was needed (or even possible) to go down a corridor that needed squeezing so that seems pretty circumstantial, but moving freely over rubble seems a decent enough trade for Woodland Stride assuming you are going to be inside most of the time.
I don't recall ever fighting anything with tremorsense (except maybe a thoqqua I think), but if you are going to be indoors, losing trackless step isn't a huge deal.
Now here comes the meat. We get Wildshape at level 6 and use druid level -2. Also you can't be plant. Ok, fair enough, because we have the option to turn into oozes at level 10. Awesome! Let's just check the wording on Beast Shape to see what we get with our cool oozey powers. Well first off we don't get a natural armor bonuses as it says in the APG when we are an ooze. Ok fair enough I guess, because I get to be an all-devouring blob.
At level 10 we can shift into a Medium ooze, looking around that leaves the good old grey ooze as the likely candidate. Cool. We get 1 slam attack with grab and constrict. Not bad. But we don't get the oozes acid attack or (weirdly I think) it's transparency ability. Ouch. The crystal ooze is another option that trades constrict for a paralytic poison and a swim speed. I think the crystal ooze may actually be the better option.
So to me it looks like we trade 2 wild shape levels for the ability to become sort of an interesting grappler that is light on the damage. Not quite as cool as I initially thought. It might be cool for sneaking up on lone targets and sentries, except you don't get the oozes stealth abilities. That might be easy to mitigate in other ways I suppose. I should say you also become immune to poison, sneak attacks, and crits while you are an ooze which is cool. I'm also not sure how all DM's would handle an ooze's oozey-ness, like being able to crawl into cracks and under doors.
Another thing I noticed while researching this concept is that vermin and animals are not the same for purposes of Beast Shape which means my Cave Druid can't turn into an awesome Albino Cave Solifugid or even a nightmare-inducing cave spider. I find this really odd because 1.)RAW you can actually turn into a Phase Spider with Wildshape because it is a magical beast and 2.) Beast Shape specifically mentions that you can gain the web special ability. I mean, what are you shaping into that shoots web that isn't a spider?
I really like the cave druid idea conceptually, but think it's just a little...off mechanically. When I think caves, I think bugs, bats, oozes and fungi. We don't get fungi or bugs, and oozes lose their signature acidic attack.
I guess my question is do you think this archetype is good as-is and if not how would you fix it in a balanced way? I am not a min-max kind of guy. One of the reasons I really like the Cave Druid is because it seems like such an awesome character to RP, but I feel like with a couple tweaks it could have all the flavor I feel like it should. For me this would almost be as simple as being able to Wildshape into oozes and vermin.
Thoughts?
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Another thing I noticed while researching this concept is that vermin and animals are not the same for purposes of Beast Shape which means my Cave Druid can't turn into an awesome Albino Cave Solifugid or even a nightmare-inducing cave spider. I find this really odd because 1.)RAW you can actually turn into a Phase Spider with Wildshape because it is a magical beast and 2.) Beast Shape specifically mentions that you can gain the web special ability. I mean, what are you shaping into that shoots web that isn't a spider?
I think you're wrong here. Druids don't actually use Beast Shape 1-3, they turn into an animal AS IF using Beast Shape. It specifically says you turn into an animal, so the part about Magical Beasts from Beast Shape doesn't apply.
Sorry.
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I've played a cave druid all the way through Rise of the Runelords. It's a viable archetype but you're right, ooze shape is a bit weird because it's built from the beast shape chassis. It improves a bit of you look at Bestiary 2 and 3, and once your wild shape simulates beast shape 3 and 4 you can start getting some of those weirder special abilities. Still, they are not combat forms (usually) as much as "get into places you aren't supposed to go" forms.
If your wildshape ability isn't that great then forget about it and focus on the other great aspects of being a Druid such as summoning and animal companions.
I suggest playing a deep gnome with a giant mantis companion. I can imagine the mantis hunting among the mushroom forest of your cave druid's underground home except maybe this mantis is white, red, or purple to match the giant mushrooms there rather than green to match a surface forest. You'd be able to ride your mantis as a mount from 1st level. It is a very mobile mount which should be reasonably good in combat.
With Mounted Combat you can defend the mantis, and if you give her the Bodyguard archetype from Animal Archive she'll end up being able to defend you too. It is only 5,000gp for +2 benevolent armor, which will allow the mantis to increase your AC by +4 as an AoO (of course she'll need Int 1 first)
1 Mounted Combat
3 Spell Focus (Conjuration)
5 Augment Summoning
7 Natural Spell
If you're not into summoning you could consider picking up Combat Reflexes and Bodyguard yourself to better protect your mantis and other PCs. Another option for higher levels would be to take a level of Monk somewhere around levels 9-13 to pick up the prereqs for Greater Grapple for free and end up being able to constrict twice per round while in your oozy wildshape.
Vanilla druid with the cave subdomain is an option and it might let you capitalize more on the "fungus gardener" vibe.
I like the idea of turning into an ooze, mostly because I can say, "My character melts into a man-size pile of grey sludge whips a pseudopod at the enemy." Also, being able to slime your way into cracks seems pretty cool. I do question whether or not most GMs think this is valid though, since no where does it say specifically, "While in ooze form you can move through tiny cracks."
@Ascalaphus
Oh yeah, so I guess the bit about the Phase Spider was incorrect, but still seriously what animal are you turning into that has web but isn't a spider? I guess it could just be an ability of similar power and they put it in just for completeness.
Vermin Shape is a possibility, but it only goes up to II and the selection of special attacks is pretty limited.
One way to look at it I guess is you lose plant form, gain ooze form and you get Wildshape two levels later. You can still be an elemental because you don't lose that you just get it later. That's not bad. I do wish you got the acid attack as an ooze though, I think it isn't unreasonable given at that level you could be wildshaping into things with rake and pounce.
And the archetype does have some spellcasting chops potentially by having access to the Darkness domain (and subdomains) and the Cave domain. Actually there is the Cave Domain in Ultimate Magic and there is the Cave subdomain (of Earth) in the APG. Both are ok, but the Cave subdomain gives you access to the Create Pit line of spells.
@Devilkiller
The whole Cave Mantis Rider is really cool idea by itself, possibly only matched by a Cave Raptor Rider.
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I've played a cave druid all the way through Rise of the Runelords. It's a viable archetype but you're right, ooze shape is a bit weird because it's built from the beast shape chassis. It improves a bit of you look at Bestiary 2 and 3, and once your wild shape simulates beast shape 3 and 4 you can start getting some of those weirder special abilities. Still, they are not combat forms (usually) as much as "get into places you aren't supposed to go" forms.
When does a druid ever use Beast Shape 4?
@Abudufdef: I just wanted to point out the mistake, it's an easy one to make. But not getting to change into magical beasts is quite significant.
| 2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
Oozes are blind. Wild shape does not give you blindsight. So by raw the whole archtype is a trap.
Oozes are blind. Wild shape does not give you blindsight. So by raw the whole archtype is a trap.
I did notice that you can only get blindsense and not blindsight from Wildshape, which I think is a bummer, but do you really lose your native senses when you change to your new form?
That would be sort of kick in the teeth.
Maybe other PC's could periodically store my character in a large jar and then throw him at enemies...
Yep, anything that depends on your original form is lost. See the polymorph article on the Magic page.Oozes are blind. Wild shape does not give you blindsight. So by raw the whole archtype is a trap.I did notice that you can only get blindsense and not blindsight from Wildshape, which I think is a bummer, but do you really lose your native senses when you change to your new form?
That would be sort of kick in the teeth.
Maybe other PC's could periodically store my character in a large jar and then throw him at enemies...
That sounds like something that needs an errata, because I doubt the designers intended you to lose all senses when you go ooze-mode. That makes the ability, literally, worthless.
Wow, this archetype really seems kind of lame. I guess the upside is that at least you'd be immune to gaze attacks...
For what it's worth, which isn't much, you wouldn't be bothered so much by blindness once you're grappling, and grappling for constrict damage is about the only good use I can think of for the oozy wildshape. I wonder if you'd have a miss chance if you attempted to grapple something your animal companion was already grappling.
The idea of ooze seems like a lot of fun, but in reality it seems like ooze abilities usually aren't very useful. I've noticed similar problems with the Alchemist ooze ability...kind of underwhelming...Conjure Black Pudding seems a little weak too by the level where you can get it...