I'm helping a new player start to get an idea for their second character in the playtest, and I see that Animal Form already lists attack bonuses and damage bonuses, along with AC.
Does this mean nothing, including level, matters when in wild shape with the except of Con for HP?
Also, does the Druid seem a little weak compared to other classes? The plant order seems meh other than the 1st level familiar, animal companions have been nerfed, the wild shape is something you can do with spells anyways, and the storm order seems limited. The best power seems to gain Wild Shape uses based on your Strength, but this is only from looking over the Druid and not playing one.
Some quick answers:
Note that the form spells don't touch your saves. (So your DEX, CON and WIS are all important). STR influences the number of uses of Wildshape you get per day.
Druid seems on par or better than other spellcasters. Animal companions are a good match for 2-action spellcasting (you often have a spare action). Tempest Surge is one of the best ways to use spell points, as it does reasonable damage while applying an uncommon debuff. The familiar is admittedly bad (but all familiars are). Wild Order + Wild shaping in general seems underwhelming.
Form spells grant you stats that are often approximately on-par with a barbarian of your level. Plus, like a barbarian you gain temp HP, along with a smattering of special abilities. Its OK, but you're not going to pull out Fighter-level damage numbers while wildshaping.
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I love druids right now (now means NOT counting the new Focus Rules). With a human its quite feasible to have a wild shaping druid with a pet. That character is VERSATILE. He doesn't do the raw damage of a barbarian or the healing of a cleric but he does more damage than the cleric and more healing than the barbarian :-). The Animal Companion is sometimes useful, sometimes isn't. But its there when you need it.
Is it better to go Wild Order and grab a pet or Animal Order and just use the spells or pick up the wild shapes as feats?
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I am now officially changing my mind on druids. While I wouldn't go as far as to say they suck, they're definitely under performing at reasonably high levels.
I just played Frozen Oath with my L10 druid. His primary combat technique is to wild shape into a battle form.
There are several problems with this
1) Depending on the encounter there often just isn't room for the larger battle forms, forcing him to go for a weaker form
2) Even in his best battle form (a huge form) he was basically doing the same (or less) damage as the monk or cleric. But without all the cool extras that the monk had. His AC was less than he had as a druid. About the only things that he gained from wildshape was reach and not having to have bought a magic weapon. Getting the feats that martials do would have been a lot better investment
But, you say, he is ALSO a spell caster. Yeah. He has heals. Which he can only cast in human form. So, for some fights, he WAS using his staff and blasting the bad guys. For essentially the same damage as the archer was doing with his explosive ammunition.
Being able to heal and fight IS great. As the monk who had multiclassed into paladin showed. Paladin multiclass is now the way to go for healing on a martial.
I did get to use air walk to some effect. Certainly better than taking on one of the underpowered flying wild shape forms.
He didn't suck. He DID have versatility. But that came at a very high cost. He would have been just about as effective in combat just wielding a +2 weapon. The wild shaping side is weak. The versatility is enough that I wouldn't go as far as to call it a trap but that versatility is ALL that your're getting and its not as good as it appears on the surface.
I'm VERY disappointed with the fact that the L12 Druid I'm building for Doomsday Dawn doesn't even get access to Dragon Form. So, my wild shape specialist will be using spells to, uh, wildshape. <Aside>The AC for Dragon Form is almost suicidally low</aside>
So, the L12 druid will probably use a weapon and multiclass to get the cool feats. Maybe get healing from Paladin so that he can use his spells for something else.
Edit: At least the new Focus Rules won't matter all that much (assuming the Wild Shape remains a separate pool). Claw shape is an absolute trap, they are nearly totally useless at this level.
<Aside>The AC for Dragon Form is almost suicidally low</aside>
I thought they fixed that...ah, no, they fixed the Barbarian's dragon form.
Druid is actually pretty strong whereas the wizard and sorcerer are weak.
It's just that polymorphing is awkward because of these reasons.
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Druid is actually pretty strong whereas the wizard and sorcerer are weak.
It's just that polymorphing is awkward because of these reasons.
I haven't seen and wizards or sorcerers in high ish level play so I have no informed opinion on the matter.
In the combat heavy scenarios we're getting, I think wild shaping druids and animal companion druids are weak compared to the martials and, of course, clerics (EVERYTHING is weak compared to a cleric. At the moment the optimal group is pretty much always going to be Team Cleric (perhaps with a few Martials multiclassed into Team Paladin on the side)
Edit: The sheer fact that I'm seeing no sorcerers or wizards in play is a pretty strong indication that they're now seen as under powered. At least locally. I'm sure that different groups will have different experiences
Edit: The sheer fact that I'm seeing no sorcerers or wizards in play is a pretty strong indication that they're now seen as under powered. At least locally. I'm sure that different groups will have different experiences
Even just looking at what each class gets makes it easy to see sorcerers and wizards are underpowered. The bard, cleric, and druid all get more skills, infinitely better proficiencies, and better saves. Wizards and sorcerer only get maybe one extra spell each day as a result of being crippled everywhere else.
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Even just looking at what each class gets makes it easy to see sorcerers and wizards are underpowered. The bard, cleric, and druid all get more skills, infinitely better proficiencies, and better saves. Wizards and sorcerer only get maybe one extra spell each day as a result of being crippled everywhere else.
Wait...Skills? Everyone but Bard, Ranger and Rogue gets the same skills now, which means high Int characters get more.
And 'better Saves' mostly amounts to +1 to a single Save (and a +1 that you can get with an otherwise not super useful General Feat).
Better Proficiencies, however, are a fair point.
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Are you grabbing Handwraps of Mighty Fists? Because they become really essential to high-level Druids, and are easy to overlook the need for.
I don't think they work for wild shaped characters. To quote Animal Form
"These special statistics can be adjusted only by penalties,circumstance bonuses, and conditional bonuses". Handwraps give item bonuses so they don't work.
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Are you grabbing Handwraps of Mighty Fists? Because they become really essential to high-level Druids, and are easy to overlook the need for.I don't think they work for wild shaped characters. To quote Animal Form
"These special statistics can be adjusted only by penalties,
circumstance bonuses, and conditional bonuses". Handwraps give item bonuses so they don't work.
The extra to-hit is an item bonus and does not apply, you're quite correct.
The extra dice of damage, however, are untyped, not technically a 'bonus' in the sense the spell description uses, and are a 'constant ability of your gear'. I'm pretty much positive they thus apply, and are absolutely essential for high level shapeshifters.
Extra dice of damage do adjust those statistics though, and are not penalties, circumstance bonuses or conditional bonuses. Their being untyped is a strike against them in this case.
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Extra dice of damage do adjust those statistics though, and are not penalties, circumstance bonuses or conditional bonuses. Their being untyped is a strike against them in this case.
I remain convinced that the intent is that the bonus damage dice would apply. In terms of wording it strongly depends on what qualifies as a 'bonus'. I'm mostly contending that 'bonus' is a specific mechanical term...and that nowhere are the extra dice ever referred to as a bonus.
That was my primary point there (the untyped thing was in reference to them not being a bonus at all, not whether they were any type of bonus...I clearly could've worded that better). I mean, it's colloquially a bonus in the sense of being good...but so is flanking, and mechanically, that's not a bonus at all. I remain pretty positive that neither are the extra damage dice.
However, I will agree that this should definitely be clarified, since it's clearly not actually something everyone reading the rules will come to the same conclusion on.