You really don't get it? In 3.X you could nerf your physical stats down to nothing and maximised your caster stats. THEN, by taking on a powerful form you got super maxed out physical stats, combined with the Natural spell Feat to be in essence a Fighter's wet dream AND a powerful caster.... a monster appropriately named Druidzilla.Wild-shaping into anything and getting all physical stats of that creature, regardless of what your stats are, is what made the 3rd edition druid OP.A note - its spells were what made 3.5 Druid powerful. Wildshape was nice, yes, but you could honestly never use it and still mop the floor with the game world's face.
I'm perfectly aware, Lazar. What I'm saying to you is this: Wildshape was just gravy. The spells alone would make Druid a powerful, dynamic class. All of their other features, Wildshape included, were just kickers on top of that.
Wizards, sorcerers, casting focused druids, rogues trying to use ranged weapons, cavaliers who actually use tactician, and medium BAB humans who realized that almost all the feats they care about have a +1 BAB prerequisite.Who takes Improved Initiative?Incidentally, the occasional small space isn't going to cripple a Vital Strike Hippo. Just choose another form that benefits from Vital Strike. Heck, forgot Vital Strike--it's just a feat, and nobody gets to use any feat in every single encounter they're in.Improved Initiative says hi.
Pfft. Not real PCs.
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You get the most benefit from wild shape turning into a deinonychus at 4th level for 3 primary natural attacks and one secondary natural attack. Then at 6th level you get pounce, 3 natural attacks with grab and rake as a dire tiger. At 8th level you get pounce, grab, rake and 15 feet of reach as an allosaurus.
The earliest a barbarian gets pounce is 10th level. And don't forge that the size bonuses stack with enhancement bonuses, moral bonuses and alchemical bonuses to strength and constitution.
If you cherry pick forms you wind up ahead of other classes by a lot with wild shape.
And that's ignoring all of the plant, magical beast and elemental shapes you can assume for utility's sake. Look again at the immunities that elemental and plant creatures gain.
Compare that to what other classes get at those levels, and wild shape seems pretty good.
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I played a bear shaman in Kingmaker.
I never felt like a weak character, even though I knew I would have been more powerful as a lion shaman. With my various melee, summoning and animal companion attacks I could do damage comparable to a martial character, and I still had the flexibility of magic.
I started out with a strength of 14. This really wasn't enough to be a melee druid. I was almost always better off casting a spell than attacking directly. (Kingmaker tends to have short adventuring days, so conserving spells wasn't much of an issue.)
If you really like the flavor of a melee bear druid, then you can do it, as long as you aren't trying to out-compete power-gaming PC allies. I'd recommend:
Max out your strength. A wisdom of 12 is adequate for a druid who isn't focused on spells.
Don't be a Bear Shaman unless you also want to summon lots of bears. Summoning young-template bears as a standard action is great for both damage and battlefield control, but bear shamans really don't have much advantage when it comes to turning into bears. It seems they have to wait until level 6 when regular druids can do it at level 4.
Consider buying bear-shaped armor and wearing it while adventuring in bear form.
Once you're satisfied with your bear-shaping abilities, you can start taking levels in a martial class like barbarian. If you start with 18 strength and have +4 from wild shape and +4 from Bull's Strength and +4 from Rage, that's 30 strength.
And that's ignoring all of the plant, magical beast and elemental shapes you can assume for utility's sake. Look again at the immunities that elemental and plant creatures gain.
NOTE: You can't assume magical beast forms.
Huh. I just double checked Wildshape, and found I remembered wrong. I could have sworn they could become magic beasts...
I played a bear shaman in Kingmaker.
I never felt like a weak character, even though I knew I would have been more powerful as a lion shaman. With my various melee, summoning and animal companion attacks I could do damage comparable to a martial character, and I still had the flexibility of magic.
I started out with a strength of 14. This really wasn't enough to be a melee druid. I was almost always better off casting a spell than attacking directly. (Kingmaker tends to have short adventuring days, so conserving spells wasn't much of an issue.)
If you really like the flavor of a melee bear druid, then you can do it, as long as you aren't trying to out-compete power-gaming PC allies. I'd recommend:
Max out your strength. A wisdom of 12 is adequate for a druid who isn't focused on spells.
Don't be a Bear Shaman unless you also want to summon lots of bears. Summoning young-template bears as a standard action is great for both damage and battlefield control, but bear shamans really don't have much advantage when it comes to turning into bears. It seems they have to wait until level 6 when regular druids can do it at level 4.
Consider buying bear-shaped armor and wearing it while adventuring in bear form.
Once you're satisfied with your bear-shaping abilities, you can start taking levels in a martial class like barbarian. If you start with 18 strength and have +4 from wild shape and +4 from Bull's Strength and +4 from Rage, that's 30 strength.
I've actually played kingmaker, wonderful campaign. I was our group's tracker ranger/horizon walker. I could see many benefits from a Druid in tht campain. And I may give what you're talking about a shot. I guess I didn't really think about multiclassing. I'll look into it. Thank you.
I personally houserule that druids can become magical beasts that normally have an intelligence of 2. So owlbears and sea cats, for example, will work.
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Who takes Improved Initiative?
Damn near everyone I've ever played with.
Who takes Improved Initiative?Damn near everyone I've ever played with.
Yeah, in our games it's basically _the_ go to feat when you're not aiming to take any other specific feat. That and iron will.
I'd say about half of the characters I've seen at my table has improved initiative when they've gained their level 7 feat. About one in four has iron will. No other feat is so common on such a wide variety of characters. Power attack is probably about as common as iron will, but it only exist on a limited subset of character types.
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There are plenty of druid options out there. The main difference between 3.5 and Pathfinder druids is that it is more difficult to play both a melee focused and spell focused druid at the same time.
With an agile amulet of mighty fists you can play dex focus and go for either smaller forms (great to combine halfling druid with risky striker) or fire/air elementals for a high ac.
One of my favorites is to go Druid 6, with weapon finesse, piranha strike and natural spell. Get an amulet of mighty fists and keep GMF up all day (rod of extend) When you start a fight cast frostbite or produce flame move up and attack once, then full attack. With an 18 starting dex you can have a 22 dex with a belt and unload 3 attacks that do 1d4 + 6 (dex) + 4 (piranha strike) + 1 (GMF) + 1d6 + 5/6 (spell). If you get board, just memorize call lightning and flame sphere fly in the air, drop call lightning then next round strike with a bolt and cast flaming sphere, then each round move the flaming sphere call down a bolt while staying safely away.
I just ended masterizing a level 21 druid and it is clearly overpowered, so much that it outclass the paladin figthing demons !
My player character took quick wild shape and heavy armor as feat and he bougth himself a dragonscale full plate+5, a +5 shield, and so much more objects for around 550.000gp of value (the whole campaign value of goods).
With the help of several high levels spells he ended up with a AC67, 5 attacks with a spinosaurus jump and an holy smite and usualy deal around 150hp on the first round and 100hp without jump.
He started of course with a 18 strentgh and 8 charisma (he was no friend of animals).
All the party has the same amount of gold for their equipment, but i struggle to stop the druid, i needed to invent new monsters that only him was able to figth.
I just ended masterizing a level 21 druid and it is clearly overpowered, so much that it outclass the paladin figthing demons !
My player character took quick wild shape and heavy armor as feat and he bougth himself a dragonscale full plate+5, a +5 shield, and so much more objects for around 550.000gp of value (the whole campaign value of goods).
With the help of several high levels spells he ended up with a AC67, 5 attacks with a spinosaurus jump and an holy smite and usualy deal around 150hp on the first round and 100hp without jump.
He started of course with a 18 strentgh and 8 charisma (he was no friend of animals).
All the party has the same amount of gold for their equipment, but i struggle to stop the druid, i needed to invent new monsters that only him was able to figth.
You do realize that the armor and shield go away when you wildshape. Unless you have the +3 wild enhancement. And a huge critter has a lousy touch AC, so guns and spells will do a number on the druid.
AC is 14 armor (+5 full plate)11 natural armor (widshape natural armor and barkskin)
7 shield (+5 heavy wood shield)
5 deflection
1 dex (Max dex for full plate still applies when wildshaped)
1 insight (ioun stone)
-2 size
total 47