More Taste Less Filling: The shifter Any good or not?


Advice

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graystone wrote:
nighttree wrote:
I decided to go Metamorph/Alchemist after two levels of Oozemorph....it just doesn't really offer anything that versatile after 2nd level.

As it's written, the 'best' way to play an oozemorph is to take a shapechanger and 100% ignore blob form. For instance, be kitsune and all you 'lose' is your fox form. That way you don't have to figure out HOW the blob works unless you find an antimagic field.

That said, you might be better off just going straight Metamorph/Alchemist.

I have considered that as well....as I'm going for a "Mystique" type shapeshifter.

But the Ooze form, compression, and Morphic weapons, does sound fun as well.

Currently I'm doing Kitsune+ Realistic likeness..
2 levels of Oozemorph....then straight Metamorph....

Default form is still the Ooze thing....but I can use the Kitsunes Shape Change to take human form at will, and Realistic Likeness to take any human form...at will.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I had an idea using the Totemic Initiate feat and the new Tyrant Totem rage powers as an Oozemorph to create an ooze character that can actually engulf enemies while in no-RP mode.

Unfortunately I don't think Morphic Weaponry counts as a specific natural weapon, it loses Aspects so it can't get the rage power from Wolverine, and any attacks from Beast Shape don't count for feats. Pretty sure that even any natural bite attacks from the character's base race get removed by the whole "base form is an ooze now" thing.


Your only hope would be to VMC Barbarian and spend your 13th level feat to do so, but you'd be super feat-starved.

Shadow Lodge

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kyubi3009 wrote:
They need to make a dragon based shifter or give it an erata thatd give it bonus feats or something else. As it stands its barely better then fighter.

I'd rather not see Paizo mess up a cool idea again. That's just me though. Poor dragon options, they got the shaft...


Dragonborn3 wrote:
kyubi3009 wrote:
They need to make a dragon based shifter or give it an erata thatd give it bonus feats or something else. As it stands its barely better then fighter.
I'd rather not see Paizo mess up a cool idea again. That's just me though. Poor dragon options, they got the shaft...

Because if they were any good, people would just look at the dragons they fight and go "Meh, I can do that and more."

They would rather keep their flow of "Meh" on player options, which already have an arbitrary quota of "Meh"ness to them, instead of spread it to other options that are still cool and taint it with the aura of "Meh."

Shadow Lodge

And it's better to taint them with 'meh' directly? I don't care what dragon options we get as long as you are not punished for wanting to even imitate the most awe-inspiring entities in the game.

Right now we have about three. Bloodrager, Sorcerer, and Dragon Disciple. Then there's the new Draconic companion, which is a nice touch.

After that though... we have the awful drake archetypes and the druid dragon archetype.


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Dragon Disciple with Prestigious spellcaster is a marvelous experience.

I would also prefer to see no more time wasted on the shifter. Have it go the words of power route.

Shadow Lodge

I wish Words of Power would get an update. Such a wonderful idea done well enough to work. Spontaneous WoP is great.


Dragonborn3 wrote:
kyubi3009 wrote:
They need to make a dragon based shifter or give it an erata thatd give it bonus feats or something else. As it stands its barely better then fighter.
I'd rather not see Paizo mess up a cool idea again. That's just me though. Poor dragon options, they got the shaft...

Drake Shifter! Two wrongs do make a right, right?


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Rajnish Umbra, Shadow Caller wrote:
Dragonborn3 wrote:
kyubi3009 wrote:
They need to make a dragon based shifter or give it an erata thatd give it bonus feats or something else. As it stands its barely better then fighter.
I'd rather not see Paizo mess up a cool idea again. That's just me though. Poor dragon options, they got the shaft...
Drake Shifter! Two wrongs do make a right, right?

Nope! It's an NPC archetype FOR dragons that want to shift into humanoids!!! ;)


It's just taking three spells and spreading the availability across 20 levels. Surely it can't be hard to expand upon it like give elemental damage to attack or extra uses for breath weapon. Or do something cool like make you choose a chromatic or metalic subtype as aspects then you gain the age category special abilities for the subtype every even level with you starting with the wyrmling and very young at 1st level. Something like this:

Red Dragon Subtype
Level Age Category Special Abilities
1st Very young Fire subtype, smoke vision
2nd Young Detect magic
3rd
4th Juvenile Frightful presence, pyrotechnics
5th
6th Young adult DR 5/magic, spell resistance
7th
8th Adult Fire aura, suggestion
9th
10th Mature adult DR 10/magic
11th
12th Old Manipulate flames, wall of fire
13th
14th Very old DR 15/magic
15th
16th Ancient Melt stone, find the path
17th
18th Wyrm DR 20/magic
19th
20th Great wyrm Incinerate, discern location

Chugged that out in 5 minutes, makes you feel like a dragon. Have breath weapon scale with HD. Have it function like Form of the Dragon I at 1st level, Form of the Dragon II at 8th level, and Form of the Dragon III at 15th level. At 20th level have them change into a dragon at will and breathe every 1d4 rounds with no limit in uses. You'd be incredibly pigeon holed by type but I don't think you'll have unhappy players. Bam done.


Rhedyn wrote:
I would also prefer to see no more time wasted on the shifter. Have it go the words of power route.

Sadly, that's exactly what it's looking like will happen.


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nighttree wrote:
Rhedyn wrote:
I would also prefer to see no more time wasted on the shifter. Have it go the words of power route.

Sadly, that's exactly what it's looking like will happen.

I'm excited for the release of the Polymorphist in Ultimate Magic 2: "We can only make things with spells interesting"


nighttree wrote:
Rhedyn wrote:
I would also prefer to see no more time wasted on the shifter. Have it go the words of power route.

Sadly, that's exactly what it's looking like will happen.

Is it? I can't recall Paizo ever outright abandoning support for a class before outside the summoner and that was kind of a big deal. Even the brawler finally got some new archetypes via this same book.


I think we should at least wait for one player companion or similar that comes out and acknowledges the existence of the Shifter before we make long-term pronouncements on the class.

I mean, considering all the homebrew revisions of the class we've seen on the boards, you can guarantee there are some freelancers out there itching to make a feat or an archetype that will help the Shifter come closer to their vision of it. It's not like Paizo is going to say "no" to devoting a page to a shifter archetype here and there. I mean, new aspects are two paragraphs, and it's not like the ones presented in Ultimate Wilderness cover all the territory.


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swoosh wrote:
I can't recall Paizo ever outright abandoning support for a class before outside the summoner and that was kind of a big deal.

I've been abandoned? You'd think I'd notice something like that.

Fun fact: The Twinned Summoner from Legacy of the First World has rules for both chained ("bipedal base form") and unchained (special subtype) Summoners.

PFS has abandoned the chained Summoner, but Paizo won't let us die!


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swoosh wrote:
nighttree wrote:
Rhedyn wrote:
I would also prefer to see no more time wasted on the shifter. Have it go the words of power route.

Sadly, that's exactly what it's looking like will happen.

Is it? I can't recall Paizo ever outright abandoning support for a class before outside the summoner and that was kind of a big deal. Even the brawler finally got some new archetypes via this same book.

Well it's also because they've never released a class without a playtest before, they've never received this much backlash from a class before, and the class doesn't have many features to swap out while being tied to a nature theme.

So while we've never seen them abandon a class we've not seen a lot with this class so what's one more unique thing about it?

Also we have seen new features and ideas that never get touched in future material because there wasn't enough like of them.

My feelings is, like the brawler, the thematic space is limited and hard to come up with good archetypes for because the class doesn't fit with the theme of the book. So we'll see few archetypes and since we'll think they are bad cause the shifter is bad we'll complain about why they make archetypes for a useless class and then they'll stop.

Dark Archive

PossibleCabbage wrote:
I think we should at least wait for one player companion or similar that comes out and acknowledges the existence of the Shifter before we make long-term pronouncements on the class.

Exactly. Same issue with UC Summoner. Stiffling at first, early archetypes that hit the ground and faceplanted, but later in life the extra options.

I think, at the end of the day, we all want this class to shine. Keep your eyes peeled and consider supporting future books that address the imbalances. We've given plenty of criticism, but we also need to give positive reinforcement when it counts.


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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Chess Pwn wrote:
My feelings is, like the brawler, the thematic space is limited and hard to come up with good archetypes for because the class doesn't fit with the theme of the book. So we'll see few archetypes and since we'll think they are bad cause the shifter is bad we'll complain about why they make archetypes for a useless class and then they'll stop.

See I dunno about that. At the very focused level Brawler is thematically locked to "A guy who fights using his fists like a monk but without the discipline", yes, but if you break it down to a more general description of "Fightman who fights by imitating things he's seen" then it opens up a bunch of avenues. A brawler who fights like a Demon, a brawler who's learned how to use blood hexes and other tricks, a brawler who has a split identity with a different fighting style, etc.

The important thing is that the base brawler class actually has enough stuff to trade out for alternate class features, and they're spread out across enough levels that the archetypes can actually have a progression of features.

The Shifter gets... no new class features after 5th level, 9th if you consider Chimeric Aspect to be a separate ability from the base Aspect ability (because Greater and Final are just enhancements of Chimeric at best and shouldn't have been separate abilities).

Shifter is a little more thematically locked, but you can still apply "guy who shapeshifts" to a pretty wide variety of stuff, it's just... always going to be shapeshifting.


swoosh wrote:
nighttree wrote:
Rhedyn wrote:
I would also prefer to see no more time wasted on the shifter. Have it go the words of power route.

Sadly, that's exactly what it's looking like will happen.

Is it? I can't recall Paizo ever outright abandoning support for a class before outside the summoner and that was kind of a big deal. Even the brawler finally got some new archetypes via this same book.

Time will tell....but for the time being, it's dead in the water.

I also can't recall a class that Paizo has published that was this lackluster....that I couldn't come up with a character concept I was interested in playing without an archetype.

The Oozemorph has some playability conceptually....if you can get past all the badly written mechanics. But it's very niche.

Likewise the Weretouched fill certain niche character concepts...

But all in all the class is worse than the 3.5 Sorcerer....where it's only use is a dip....as near as I can see.


I mean, in a wilderness book you can't really trade out track, trackless step, wild empathy, and woodland stride in an archetype, but in a book with a different thing there's no reason you couldn't trade away those for better class features, not unlike how the Zen Archer monk trades Still Mind for Point-Bland Master or how the Tetori trades High Jump and Slow Fall for counter-grapple and break free, or how the Nornkith trades Diamond Soul for "1 ki to force a save reroll on anybody within 60'".

So if you're setting out to create a "good at espionage" shifter, you could trade out the wilderness stuff and alter wild-shape so you can shift forms a lot more frequently without being wasteful.


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I think the shifter class exist only to make people like the shifter archetypes other classes get more.


Moot point....it appears that any dissenting views are not permitted. I am going to have to make some hard decisions it appears....


nighttree wrote:
I also can't recall a class that Paizo has published that was this lackluster....that I couldn't come up with a character concept I was interested in playing without an archetype.

I mean, I feel better about the Shifter now than I did about the Gunslinger or Summoner on release, but it's a "don't care for the execution" vs. "don't care for the execution or the concept" thing.

But the issue seems to be that some people really like those two classes, but there don't appear to be a lot of really vocal supporters of the Shifter.


PossibleCabbage wrote:
nighttree wrote:
I also can't recall a class that Paizo has published that was this lackluster....that I couldn't come up with a character concept I was interested in playing without an archetype.

I mean, I feel better about the Shifter now than I did about the Gunslinger or Summoner on release, but it's a "don't care for the execution" vs. "don't care for the execution or the concept" thing.

But the issue seems to be that some people really like those two classes, but there don't appear to be a lot of really vocal supporters of the Shifter.

People like Gunslingers? I mean, I guess people take them for xboxhuge damage numbers, but even on those counts, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they actually find the class fun and always say "dump the class after L5"


I think people who want to play like permanently enlarged kasatha pistoleros with a two-level dip in juggler bard, so they can shoot like four large pistols a lot of times in a round like the Gunslinger.

I don't know any of those people, but they appear to exist (and are valid as people.)

A 5 level tenure in a class is still a pretty significant investment.


PossibleCabbage wrote:
nighttree wrote:
I also can't recall a class that Paizo has published that was this lackluster....that I couldn't come up with a character concept I was interested in playing without an archetype.

I mean, I feel better about the Shifter now than I did about the Gunslinger or Summoner on release, but it's a "don't care for the execution" vs. "don't care for the execution or the concept" thing.

But the issue seems to be that some people really like those two classes, but there don't appear to be a lot of really vocal supporters of the Shifter.

I have no interest in the Gunslinger class....so I don't really care how it fares. I feel the same way about Paladins, and so forth.

There are plenty of classes that I don't care for the basic idea of...

Shifter was not one of them.

Based on what Paizo has managed with classes in the past....Shifter is a HUGE disappointment.

Evidently that's not OK to say.....otherwise your posts will be deleted.

Shadow Lodge

I know my playground analogy post got taken down quick.

Dark Archive

I wonder, if you were to go Shifter 4 or 6 and then multiclass out, could you pull off some variation of the Songbird of Doom? Maybe not with ALL of the crazy fixings, but getting to add your Wisdom to AC has to be at least somewhat helpful to this build path.

A Rat of Wrath?


Dragonborn3 wrote:
I know my playground analogy post got taken down quick.

It's not personal. They deleted two hours of civil posts.

I'm done....just need to figure out If i'm interested in buying further products or not.


Rosc wrote:

I wonder, if you were to go Shifter 4 or 6 and then multiclass out, could you pull off some variation of the Songbird of Doom? Maybe not with ALL of the crazy fixings, but getting to add your Wisdom to AC has to be at least somewhat helpful to this build path.

A Rat of Wrath?

I think the fox of vengeance is better. Take enough levels of Water Dancer to add x2 charisma to AC along with Dex on a kitsune with the racial trait to start with fox form. Take a level of White-Haired Witch for the White-Haired Witch appendage [and 5' reach] and you have a tiny blaster.


Dragonborn3 wrote:
I know my playground analogy post got taken down quick.

That post would have been fine here, I suspect.

They didn’t delete “anti-shifter” posts. They deleted the enormous sidetrack about what’s an appropriate style of posting and discussion about the tone of the forums. Anything which wasn’t purely about UW was removed, as far as I can tell.

They expressly said it was fine to post comments critical of the book in that thread, just not discussion about other posters’ views.


What is the place of the shifter among the party members? Tank, damager, thief?

Dark Archive

PhD. Okkam wrote:
What is the place of the shifter among the party members? Tank, damager, thief?

Depends on how you run it. Disable Device is either a trait or a dip away from class skill status, and you have means of getting Darkvision which allowsd you to be a viable scout at low levels. As an extra bonus, shifters who take an item before they wild shape can smuggle things without issue. Boom, second story thief type.

Tank? Snake aspect on something with Grab and you've got a threat that the enemy can't always afford to run past. Get it on a large form and you're good to go.

Damage dealer? It's been brought up before, but you have free stats and forms with pounce.


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Rosc wrote:
Disable Device is either a trait or a dip away from class skill status, and you have means of getting Darkvision which allowsd you to be a viable scout at low levels.

He's going to quickly fall behind anyone with a dedicated trap finding feature. Add to that, mouse isn't going to be your 1st pick and you're at 5th to be good at sneak. Back up thief maybe?

Rosc wrote:
As an extra bonus, shifters who take an item before they wild shape can smuggle things without issue. Boom, second story thief type.

Not at low levels. You have to use TWO of your VERY limited wild shapes to pull this off. One to get in and one to get out.

Rosc wrote:
Tank? Snake aspect on something with Grab and you've got a threat that the enemy can't always afford to run past. Get it on a large form and you're good to go.

Could work but you have to wait till 5th for it to work. before that, you're kind of a warrior. This pretty much locks you into Tiger IMO, as it has grab on a 3 attack pounce...

Rosc wrote:
Damage dealer? It's been brought up before, but you have free stats and forms with pounce.

Yep, the ONE thing it can do is pile on some damage.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I'd like to underscore graystone's points about the level requirements. By the time a shifter can use their shifting reliably for anything other than combat (such as infiltration, stealth, etc) they're competing with casters who can do everything they can but better with a spell or two.

Even vanilla rogues have a few low levels where they're the useful "skills and sneaking" person without being made completely irrelevant by a scroll of knock or scrying or a summon spell.


graystone wrote:
Rosc wrote:
Damage dealer? It's been brought up before, but you have free stats and forms with pounce.
Yep, the ONE thing it can do is pile on some damage.

can they though? I feel I haven't seen any build for shifter that allows it's damage to keep up with other full martials especially as they progress. Like lv 9-12 is the range that I feel the shifter really is starting to fall behind like any damage dealing class.


It starts lagging behind anything with access to beast shape II or III as their dire tiger form doesn't get rake until much later on so anything that can turn itself into a dire tiger, allosaurus, or some other high damage form is going to outpace the shifter. And if he doesn't take a form that has pounce the other martials out damage them with a full attack routine. The shifter doesnt even have the decency to have d12 hd to tank properly.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Yeah, I’d also be interested in seeing the numbers a min-maxed shifter (with WBL expenditures) can put up, relative to the usual benchmarks at, say, lvls 1,4,8,12,16 and 20.


Chess Pwn wrote:
graystone wrote:
Rosc wrote:
Damage dealer? It's been brought up before, but you have free stats and forms with pounce.
Yep, the ONE thing it can do is pile on some damage.
can they though? I feel I haven't seen any build for shifter that allows it's damage to keep up with other full martials especially as they progress. Like lv 9-12 is the range that I feel the shifter really is starting to fall behind like any damage dealing class.

I was more looking at the shifter at the lower end of levels as Rosc mentioned "at low levels". For the first 1/2 or your levels, a Deinonychus seems solid with up to 6 attacks/pounce/round at 8th with power attack, mutated shape and shifter's edge added. Add in some magic items to buff charges [like mammoth hide/Belt of Thunderous Charging] add an extra natural attack [helm of the Mammoth Lord] and buffs all attacks [amulet of mighty fists] and I think it's competitive short term.

As to long term, mid-high teen+, I have no idea. I rarely play that high and as such, I'm terrible in high level characters. I'll defer to those that deal in such things. For the levels I'm likely to play, shifter should be fine as long as they NEVER EVER leave Deinonychus form... :P


graystone wrote:
Chess Pwn wrote:
graystone wrote:
Rosc wrote:
Damage dealer? It's been brought up before, but you have free stats and forms with pounce.
Yep, the ONE thing it can do is pile on some damage.
can they though? I feel I haven't seen any build for shifter that allows it's damage to keep up with other full martials especially as they progress. Like lv 9-12 is the range that I feel the shifter really is starting to fall behind like any damage dealing class.

I was more looking at the shifter at the lower end of levels as Rosc mentioned "at low levels". For the first 1/2 or your levels, a Deinonychus seems solid with up to 6 attacks/pounce/round at 8th with power attack, mutated shape and shifter's edge added. Add in some magic items to buff charges [like mammoth hide/Belt of Thunderous Charging] add an extra natural attack [helm of the Mammoth Lord] and buffs all attacks [amulet of mighty fists] and I think it's competitive short term.

As to long term, mid-high teen+, I have no idea. I rarely play that high and as such, I'm terrible in high level characters. I'll defer to those that deal in such things. For the levels I'm likely to play, shifter should be fine as long as they NEVER EVER leave Deinonychus form... :P

But I feel this pseudo build you listed isn't really going to do well. Like needing a 19 wisdom for mutated shape eats up A LOT of stat points. Then you're saying to have DEX be your primary attacking stat to work with Shifter's Edge and then str to still have damage.

So stat array of 13/16+2/14/7/16/7 would need to be the starting human array, to get power attack and using the lv4 bump into wis with wis headband to qualify for mutated shape. But I don't see offhand how 1d6+4 at lv 4 or 1d6+5 at 6 for your attacks will keep up the damage.


Chess Pwn: Sorry, was thinking off the top of my head. Most likely replace power attack with Piranha Strike to avoid strength minimum.

As to how it keeps up... How doesn't 3 attacks not vs a single weapon attack? Why don't you tell me what you consider a 'good' damage for a weapons user martial so I can reply?


graystone wrote:

Chess Pwn: Sorry, was thinking off the top of my head. Most likely replace power attack with Piranha Strike to avoid strength minimum.

As to how it keeps up... How doesn't 3 attacks not vs a single weapon attack? Why don't you tell me what you consider a 'good' damage for a weapons user martial so I can reply?

Well, like how's it's full attack DPR compared to other Full martials?

Like you've listed lots of stuff that will boost it with the helms and and belts of charging and whatnot. I'm just curious what a character progression from lv4-9 would be and how it's comparing to a fighter or a barbarian for DPR.
Like the only build I've seen stated out (I'm sure I've missed some) is placing DPR at like 35 at lv12 and power attack is a -4 to it's DPR and they said that their lv12 bloodrager was doing like 56 damage a round. Trying to do the velociraptor shifter's edge route. But that build wasn't factoring in all this gear being mentioned, so I'm curious like when the expected acquisitions are and if the damage is actually comparable to other fairly equally optimized martials.


As it stands....the Shifter doesn't do anything interestingly enough, to compel me to want to play the class. Anything I can do with Shifter, I can do far better with Feral Hunter, and have 6th level casting to boot.
I can imagine some character concepts that a dip may be useful...but that's about it.

Weretouched works for...well a Lycanthrope...so I can certainly see me rolling up that as a character at some point.

Fiendflesh Shifter....same, I can see dipping, but as the base class lacks anything really compelling to draw you to the class, this one suffers from the failings of it's parent class.

Oozemorph...is conceptually interesting, and the one I have actually been playing around with a build for....despite the less than clear write up, I think it's pretty easy to RAI, and work with....and I still can't actually find any reason for more than a two/three level dip really.

Rageshaper.....just no.

Elemental Shaper I have yet to play with, it looks like it may be the best written of the archetypes...but again looks very niche...will have to look at it more closely now that I'm done messing with the Oozemorph.....


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Chess Pwn: Ah, i see what you're looking for. I was just doing some mental character construction and thinking what would buff the build. I really wasn't thinking of a level by level character progression. I can try to toss something together when I have time to work it out.

nighttree: I agree oozemorph is interesting and I'll be looking at it IF they ever 'fix' it. Elemental Shaper seems to work best with someone with LOTS of attacks: Skinwalkers [Ragebred] seem like the go to race here. With an Extra Feature [gain 2 hooves] feat, Aspect of the Beast [2 claws] and a Pelt of the Beast [bite & +2 racial bonus on all saving throws] for an elemental damage bonus on 6 natural attacks. Throw in multiattack and/or weapon finesse in if you want.

Dark Archive

Bluh. Phone ate my post. Here's the TL;DR version for my own sanity

- Dex shifter with claw/claw/bite (from race) can output adequate damage in natural form.
- This only gets better with stuff like Helm of the Mammot Lord and the Fleshwarped Scorpion Twil.
- Dex build with a trait and cheap, big6-friendly items can still cover rogue skills decently, albeit without a solution to magic traps.
- I aware that a lot of the things that help close the gap can also be taken by stronger classes. However, Bull/Tiger aspects improve a Shifter's WBL in comparison to other noncasters.
- The whole "Wizards invalidate Rogues with spells" statement has some truth, but falters in actual play. The vast majority of players won't intentionally step on another player's toes, and I'd wager that most wizards would rather not feel obligated to waste multiple spell slots on niche spells like Knock.
- Ifrit elemental Shifter with Dervish Dance could be fun. Must investigate.


Personally, I really like Ultimate Wilderness. I'm used to having a minority opinion, but I've waited to voice it until I had some time to truly absorb the material.
I'm a huge fan of sub-systems, one of the reasons I run Pathfinder is that it has sub-systems that allow me to more easily generate content or randomize elements of the narrative.
I also don't mind the percentage of reprinted content (even though I own a lot of the original material) because I feel like they did a good job consolidating things I had to keep lots of minor supplements around to reference,

Most of all, I'm not disappointed by the Shifter. I get that a lot of people were expecting to be able to play Beast Boy, and this resulted in massive disappointment. However I also didn't expect the Shifter to compete with the Druid (perhaps the most powerful base class). I was hoping for something more like the Wolf Shifter (see Wayfinder #5) than the Mooncursed barbarian archetype we got in Horror Adventures... In that regard I was pleasantly surprised that the Weretouched Shifter allows you to be in either your Hybrid or Animal Forms for many hours at a time. The fact that it gets only one Aspect isn't really a problem for me, because I don't think a "Natural Weapon Master" really needs more than one form. Minor Aspect being so limited in duration does bother me a little.
I've been running Benchmarking numbers, and had no problem building a 12th level Shifter whose Damage and Defense values were in the Green for up to 12 hours at a time, 4 times per day (even using the 'expected post-errata' version of Shifter's Edge that only grants +1/2 lvl to damage).

In terms of design, I don't see the issues others are having with the wording of their abilities, it all makes sense to me. So that may be affecting my opinion. I feel like the Shifter has a really nice structure, like the Kineticist I think it was written around trying to be easier to expand upon, but not quite enough different class features. I wish the class had a few more weak class features it could afford to trade away in archetypes, but I'm sure as time goes on Paizo will release more Feats, Archetypes, and Aspects for the Shifter. It's structure gives it so much room to fill other Form-dependent niches (a martial Dragon Disciple).


Chess Pwn wrote:
Well, like how's it's full attack DPR compared to other Full martials?

I did this upthread already to rebut the ridiculously low lv12 DPR numbers. Here's the dino build again, except with some more detail and revised calcs:

Shifter Lvl12 (Transforms to Deinonychus, chimeric minor aspects of Bull + Tiger)

Key Stats: STR 20 (14+4enhance+2size) | DEX 24 (18+4enhance+2levelups) | WIS 16 (14+2enhance)

Feats: Weapon Finesse, Shifter's Edge (I assume shifters edge bonus damage only applies to the two claw-replacement attacks, in this case the talons), Power Attack, Weapon Focus (talons), rest flexible.

Items: WIS headband +2, Amulet of Mighty Fists +3, Deliquescent Gloves.

Attack Routine (all attacks include pow atk, DPR is vs. AC27):
Talon +19 (1d8+22+1d6acid) (DPR:20.36)
Talon +19 (1d8+22+1d6acid) (DPR:20.36)
Bite +18 (1d6+16) (DPR:12.30)
Foreclaw +13 (1d4+9) (DPR: 4.23)
Foreclaw +13 (1d4+9) (DPR: 4.23)
TOTAL DPR:61.48

Since you have pounce you're usually getting the +2 charge bonus on attack rolls...
Talon +21 (1d8+22+1d6acid) (DPR:23.49)
Talon +21 (1d8+22+1d6acid) (DPR:23.49)
Bite +20 (1d6+16) (DPR:14.33)
Foreclaw +15 (1d4+9) (DPR: 5.43)
Foreclaw +15 (1d4+9) (DPR: 5.43)
TOTAL DPR:72.18

This build uses roughly 2/3rds of your feats and half your gold (48k gp vs. 108k gp by wealth by level). Plenty of room for further improvement if anyone were so inclined.

Per this thread, a CRB 2-handed fighter at level 12 without haste has a DPR of about 80 when full attacking (the fighter build has also spent 48k on a +4 weapon and +4 STR belt). My build above is short of that, but instead has pounce. So maybe that's a roughly comparable trade-off.


Rosc said wrote:
- Ifrit elemental Shifter with Dervish Dance could be fun. Must investigate.

Thematically that sounds amazing.

On another note someone needs to TLDR these comments for me...


okay, so it is able to keep up with other full babs. that is good

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