| 45 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the FAQ. 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry that this keeps on coming up, Mr. Nelson.
For a long time, there's been a question to the what the wording of the various druid Shaman archetypes actually means.
Here it is:
At 6th level, a bear shaman’s wild shape ability functions at her druid level – 2. If she takes on the form of a bear, she instead uses her druid level + 2.
Just about every one is based off of this wording. The question, naturally, is at what level do they actually get wildshape?
Do they have a normal wildshape until level 6, when some aspects get much stronger, and some actually get worse than they were at 5th level?
Now, there are half a dozens by Mr. Jason Nelson, the author, regarding this. Some of them have been FAQ'd with the response of 'no reply necessary'. Unfortunately, this does not quite work for some people.
I'd like to kill this question once and for-all with a FAQ entry on the topic, whether it agrees with the various posts of Jason or not.
Note also that the same author did the same thing, stating at what level they get an ability when it differs from the base class, with the archivist bard and their early access to the Loremaster abiliter. See here. So if changes are necessary, that might be a good place too.
Wild Shape (Su): At 6th level, a bear shaman’s wild shape
ability functions at her druid level – 2. If she takes on the
form of a bear, she instead uses her druid level + 2.
Same thing.
Sounds good!
It does not say it replaced wild shape which is normally gained at 4th level. I do think it is weird that when a bear shaman druid hits level 6, his big cat wildshape is weaker than when he was level 5. On the other hand, his bear wildshape is now as strong as a normal druid 8th level.
I still FAQed for clarity, because it isn't easily read.
I don't think that we will get a FAQ this time either but i hit the button anyway.
By the way i know what Nelson has said and i know what his intent was but i think (and i prefer it this way) that paizo decided, later, to change it.
I personally think the wording could be better, but the intent is clear. To me, the first 3 words, "At 6th level", mean that you get the ability at 6th level.
Despite the fact that the wording could be better, I'm not going to hit the FAQ button at this time as I believe it's clear enough and there are quite a few other things I'd rather see the Paizo Team address first.
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Apologies. Apparently it's the Naga Aspirant I was getting confused with the Saurian Shaman (my character is a Nagaji, and I was choosing between the two archetypes originally).
Naga Shape(Su): At 6th level, the naga aspirant can use her wild shape (gained at 4th level, as normal) to assume the form of a true naga.
That would definitely explain why I was so confused.
That would definitely explain why I was so confused.
'That would be a start but i doubt it would be the entire explanation... :)
Something like that!
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This came up in my campaign:
Druid 4th:
- Gain Wild Shape (as at current level)
Druid 6th:
- Gain Wild Shape (Everything but totem - Wild shape -2 levels lower than current level)
- Gain Wild Shape (Totem - Wild shape +2 levels higher than current level)
So at 4th level you can shape into anything as normal.
At 6th level you would normally go up one Wild Shape category, but instead you remain at your 4th level ability (for non-totem creatures) and progress as normal from there.
Also at 6th level you gain a boost of 2 levels to your Wild Shape ability for your totem creature type (so you shape as an 8th level druid for that animal type ONLY).
Well, that certainly jumped up fast.
Thanks!
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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I clicked FAQ, but I really don't see this getting answered any time soon.
I think to solve this problem and other problems would require quite a bit of rewriting of a lot of things.
There are a number of abilities gained at different levels that they don't say explicitly that it replaces (Wild Shape from Shaman, Pistol Training replacing Gun Training, etc) and FAQ-ing one of them doesn't fix the others.
I think they would rather we get what they mean and not obsess over minute details (like whether or not they explicitly spell out that Wild Shape replaces Wild Shape.)
I think they would rather we get what they mean and not obsess over minute details (like whether or not they explicitly spell out that Wild Shape replaces Wild Shape.)
Given that the text as written has spawned at least 10 different threads that I've counted, and that each thread has had a significant amount of disagreement over how this works, I disagree that this is "obsessing over minute details".
If it were a situation where everyone said, "Yeah, the text is wrong, but we all agree that we should run it like X," then it would be a different matter. That's not the case here.
FAQ'd
I'm in the camp of they still get it at 4th level and at 6th level it is modified.
The APG has sections that say the wild shape ability is gained at x level and then right below those they also have the shaman sections that omit the text that says they gain it at x level. Instead they say how it functions at level 6 not that they gain the ability at level 6.
All of the descriptions are together on the same few pages in the APG. It is obvious (to me at least) that they intended it to be different otherwise they would have kept the same descriptive text as the other archetypes.
Official Rules Response
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FAQ: http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fn#v5748eaic9rqp
Druid, Animal Shamans: At what class level do these archetypes gain wild shape?
The animal shaman archetypes for the druid class do not gain wild shape until class level 6.
(The other druid archetypes in this book use clearer phrasing to explain that the character doesn't gain the ability until level 6, and the animal shamans should also use that language. Furthermore, the descriptions of the modified wild shape class ability should include "This ability replaces wild shape.")