How would infinite Wild Shaping impact things? Could it be balanced by longer transformation time?

[The Once and Future Kai]

I've been reading the various reactions to the Resonance Focus Test and one in particular stuck out to me.

pauljathome wrote:

My druid (built around wild shape) is now almost non functional.

Any scenario with more than 2 encounters and the druid can't use what they're built around. Previously, it had both Wild Claws AND Wild Shape, using two different pools, so pretty much could last a reasonable adventure.

Now, nope.

In my opinion, Wild Shape has seen a couple significant nerfs in the playtest; duration has been drastically reduced and Natural Spell is MIA.

The Barbarian is in a similar situation except that they can Rage as many times as their little angry hearts desire. I wonder if offering the same to Druids would simplify things by removing a meta-currency and give them back some of their versatility. I miss Druid scouts.

The Threefold Proposal
1) Assuming Wild Shape is a three action activity that transforms the Druid for ten minutes. The Druid can end the transformation prematurely at any point but ending Wild Shape is also a three action activity (either way, the transformation takes time).
2) A Wild Order Druid gains the special ability to use Wild Claws while in Wild Shape and gains Focus Points equal to Ancestry Bonus + CHA + STR. However, they must pay double the cost in Focus Points to Activate an Item that is not made of Wood, Stone, Hide, or similar thematic nature stuff.
3) Druids gain the ability to burn a focus point to extend the duration of Wild Shape to one hour but the form selected must be a Class feat of half their Druid level or lower.

[PsychicPixel]

I can't find anything that says a druid no longer gets the wild shape pool that they should gain upon getting the wild shape feat. The only thing that the focus point would adjust would be the spell points or the pool used for wild claws in this case so it's still 2 separate pools.

You also aren't likely to try and combine the two since you lose the morph on a polymorph unless your polymorph also has hands.

A lvl 10 class feat allows the druid to stay in animal form for at least an hour at the cost of wild shaping at 1 level less than your max spell level and 1 more wild shape pool point.

[The Once and Future Kai]

PsychicPixel wrote:

A lvl 10 class feat allows the druid to stay in animal form for at least an hour at the cost of wild shaping at 1 level less than your max spell level and 1 more wild shape pool point.

Missed that. Nice! Shame that it's hidden up at level 10 but nice.

[Cellion]

I agree that druid animal-form scouting is a super fun and thematic aspect of the class (and one I'd like to return), but I'm not so sold on unlimited wildshaping when it comes to combat forms. What you're proposing above seems to make Wild shaping clunkier for some situations (you're ambushed), while too good in others (you have prep time to alpha strike). I'd much rather look to how the other martial classes are balanced to rebalance the druid. Here's the changes I would make:

If you're a wild order druid, using your wild shape pool to cast a form spell takes only a single somatic casting action. (The various form spells grant you stats that increasingly look like the same stats a barbarian gets when raging: so-so attack rolls, good damage, tempHP, and special movement and senses. The druid is still behind the barbarian in damage, so it doesn't make sense that they should have to spend 2 actions to transform, effectively losing their first turn in combat.)

Wild Claws becomes an at-will power (The claws are weak enough that being able to form them at-will does not represent a significant unbalancing element. Especially because they last 1 minute and take 2 actions to cast.)

All form spells grant an attack modifier, AC, TAC and one skill that scales with your character level. For attack roll, +3+1.5*CharacterLevel. For AC, 14+1.5*CharacterLevel. For TAC, 12+1.5*CharacterLevel. For the chosen skill +4+1.5*Characterlevel. These scaling levels can be adjusted for an individual form, but they roughly reflect the stats of a reasonably optimized barbarian. Special abilities, movement modes, and most importantly damage don't scale with character level and still require you to cast higher level form spells. (This solves the problem that on even levels wildshaped druids are significantly weaker than other characters for no good reason. It also prevents the current 'dead zones': level brackets where there are few or no form spells available and therefore no viable combat form stats available.)

Add a feat to allow Wild Order druids to trade away access to their highest level or levels of spellcasting in order to get: A) extra Wild Shape uses/day. B) +1 to attack rolls when wild shaped. (Just +1 extra to attack rolls, combined with the above changes, brings wild order druids on par with the damage/round of most other martial classes. This feat is intended to allow for there to be a real tradeoff between more magical druids and more martial ones)

Add a feat that allows Wild Order druids to cast Pest Form at will, and for it to last until dismissed. (This can fulfill all your scouting and wilderness traversing dreams :>)