Druid form size woes

[Gaulin]

I've been very excited to make a form focused druid for the campaign my group is running. But something I'm sure most others have already realized hit me; wild shape, at medium to high levels, forces you to become large or huge. I can't find any concrete rules on squeezing either. So if we end up doing a dungeon or the like with 5 ft wide hallways, and I'm sure it'll happen depending on what ap or Homebrew we do, my character is going to be really lame.

Is there something I'm overlooking? I was really excited for my character but after this realization I feel a little deflated.

[Aservan]

I'm not sure "forces you" is the right phrasing. Strongly encourages you?

You can still access the lower level forms. They aren't much use in combat, but retain their out-of-combat utility. Pigeons can go and spy pretty much everywhere without attracting attention.

Have you considered that the vast majority of high level foes are also large or bigger? High level demons, devils, dragons, worms, and the like are all big. That means if the GM wants them to have space you'll have space.

You also don't have to shapechange. There are several threads around here where folks are whining about how druids are "more better" than wizards at being awesome spellcasters. It's mostly crud, but it should tell you that druids are very good spellcasters. Druids are not reliant on shapechange to be useful.

[Sebastian Hirsch]

The fact that higher level battle forms tend to get bigger and bigger is also a reason why I have held off focussing on it.
Kinda sad that being a small or medium animal isn't really all that viable in the mid to high levels, though I would not be surprised that we eventually get an option that fixes that.. in due time.

If you really want to polymorph and you likely also want to multiclass into fighter or monk.

[Gaulin]

Wild shape does actually force you to use the highest level of form spell, as it is automatically heightened. Unless you're referring to things like pest shape, but that doesn't have much to do with focusing on playing through encounters with a focus on shapeshifting. And saying that druids are great casters is great, but not if that's not what I want the character to do. It's like saying I wanted to be a sword and board fighter, but it sucks, but it's okay because they're good archers so that's how you should play them (totally not true, just a hypothetical).

I also realize that high level monsters are usually big, but I don't want the stars to align to be able to do what I built my character to do. And if I do build a druid with a focus on wild shaping, it will affect how my stats are laid out, especially if multiclassing is in its future for things like flurry of blows. And that means casting will fall by the wayside to a certain degree.

I do wonder how squeezing would work. If a character focused on acrobatics and eventually got quick squeeze, that might be enough to make wild shape more functional

[ErichAD]

It looks like you need the quick squeeze feat to squeeze at all outside of exploration mode. You may be stuck in forms with a burrow speed at higher levels. Blue and Brass dragons, earth elementals and purple worms. I don't see the various earth glide like effects on these forms though, even when their monster version has them such as the earth elemental and the purple worm.

That said, maybe you don't need to squeeze at all. The squeeze DCs listed give descriptions like can't fit your shoulders through and such. They also say that in many cases a tight fit is just difficult terrain. Given that compression is gone, a giant anaconda is going to have the same troubles as any other huge creature, it may be deliberately free form reserving squeezing for tasks that are much smaller than you are. Purple worm ignoring greater difficult terrain may be as close as you get to a larger form for smaller spaces.

There's still the space requirement for initial transformation though. It's not pretty. You could always use a lesser form and use your own to hit modifier, but your AC is in the toilet.

[Aservan]

I understand why you think they force you to be the larger size, but I'm not sure that's true.

The form spells when heightened use the word "is," so what you're saying makes sense. On the other hand the rules for heightened call these modifiers advantages or benefits. Both words can only refer to something positive, or in this case something your character wants.

I think it's meant that you can use the lesser effect if it's not advantageous or beneficial for you to use the higher level benefit. Thus you can use a high level form spell to gain the smaller size if the larger isn't an advantage.

The jerk GM who wouldn't read it that way isn't someone I want to play with.

[Gaulin]

ErichAD wrote:

It looks like you need the quick squeeze feat to squeeze at all outside of exploration mode. You may be stuck in forms with a burrow speed at higher levels. Blue and Brass dragons, earth elementals and purple worms. I don't see the various earth glide like effects on these forms though, even when their monster version has them such as the earth elemental and the purple worm.

That said, maybe you don't need to squeeze at all. The squeeze DCs listed give descriptions like can't fit your shoulders through and such. They also say that in many cases a tight fit is just difficult terrain. Given that compression is gone, a giant anaconda is going to have the same troubles as any other huge creature, it may be deliberately free form reserving squeezing for tasks that are much smaller than you are. Purple worm ignoring greater difficult terrain may be as close as you get to a larger form for smaller spaces.

There's still the space requirement for initial transformation though. It's not pretty. You could always use a lesser form and use your own to hit modifier, but your AC is in the toilet.

Ah, I missed that bit about tight fits and difficult terrain. That's good to know! I'm fine with a penalty, that's something to balance being so big. It's just being unable to continue without becoming humanoid and wasting the point would be too much for me to make the character.

But yeah quick squeeze should be enough. In the skill description it says you can fit through something as big as your head (at a high DC), so I think even a huge creature should be able to squeeze through a 5 ft wide hallway.

[lemeres]

Large isn't too bad (anyone that used to play tiger focused druids would know). Huge can be a problem though.

They might want to resurrect the animal druid archetypes, and make it into a feat line that basically just gives you the barbarian animal instinct version of wildshape- where you keep your nonwildshaped stats. That would allow more subdued options to remain relevant.

Because right now... high level druids pretty much HAVE to become kaiju eventually.

[NemoNoName]

lemeres wrote:

Large isn't too bad (anyone that used to play tiger focused druids would know). Huge can be a problem though.

They might want to resurrect the animal druid archetypes, and make it into a feat line that basically just gives you the barbarian animal instinct version of wildshape- where you keep your nonwildshaped stats. That would allow more subdued options to remain relevant.

Because right now... high level druids pretty much HAVE to become kaiju eventually.

You mean like Wild Morph Focus Spell?

Also, for the guy talking about losing a point... 10 minutes rest and it's back.

[lemeres]

NemoNoName wrote:

lemeres wrote:

Large isn't too bad (anyone that used to play tiger focused druids would know). Huge can be a problem though.

They might want to resurrect the animal druid archetypes, and make it into a feat line that basically just gives you the barbarian animal instinct version of wildshape- where you keep your nonwildshaped stats. That would allow more subdued options to remain relevant.

Because right now... high level druids pretty much HAVE to become kaiju eventually.

You mean like Wild Morph Focus Spell?

Also, for the guy talking about losing a point... 10 minutes rest and it's back.

The Wildmorph focus spell is nice for basic melee, but wildmorph has always been heavily influenced by utility as well. Additionally, there is just the flavor of turning into a straight up tiger- growing tiger claws is nice, but it just isn't quite the same.

And as a note- 10 minutes is not always a trivial investment. It depends on the campaign, the dungeon, and the play style of the GM.

Kingmaker? I wouldn't even waste my breath to say that I am taking a rest, and everyone should just assume that we auto rest in most situations. But a full on raid of an enemy base that is expected to have numerous encounters as you approach the boss- that can have critical elements due to the length of buffs (also, taking a lot of breaks could give the GM an excuse to call in reinforcements to help balance out the fact that you got resources back).

Part of the reason why the 2 focus recharge feats have such value is not only because you can burst several focus spells a round- you can also use it to recharge after having a couple fights in a row that did not give you much time to rest.

[Ellias Aubec]

Indeed as mentioned above, difficult terrain is how it has been used in the Plaguestone adventure when the PCs go into a small cave. Not sure if that is an explicit rule in the rulebook though.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Ellias Aubec wrote:

Indeed as mentioned above, difficult terrain is how it has been used in the Plaguestone adventure when the PCs go into a small cave. Not sure if that is an explicit rule in the rulebook though.

It is, actually.

CRB page 241, Squeeze wrote:

You contort yourself to squeeze through a space so small you can barely fit through. This action is for exceptionally small spaces; many tight spaces are difficult terrain (page 475) that you can move through more quickly and without a check.

[Gaulin]

Yeah that's good news. Thanks guys. Always nice to have actual solutions when you ask for help! Back to being excited for my wild shaping Iruxi!