So does anyone play as the shifter class?
Do you play the class as is, archetypes only, or both?
I play in a PbP on these forums with a shifter (no archetype). I asked her what she thought of the class, and this was her reply:
I really like it, actually. I'm not sure how many of them you could play, though. Without getting into archetypes they would probably start to feel very similar. The only real difference is going to be your aspects/wild shape choices, and whatever skills/feats/flavour you give them. The unlimited use claw attacks make them a good choice to multiclass into for a single level, as long as you don't mind the armour restrictions.
Also, my husband and daughter both have shifters of their own for PFS play, and they both enjoy the class as well.
I never have good enough stats to play as this class(and Monk). A 15-20 point build is not good enough and I rarely roll good as well.
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I played an oozemorph shifter in a campaign once… it was horribly impractical and we had to make some houserules regarding some of its abilities just to make it even remotely playable… was insanely tanky though… sadly the character died to an impossible choice situation… I had taken a ton of damage holding a foe we couldn’t beat at bay, and was not in a position where I could feasibly escape or be reached for healing without someone dying… the rest of the party escaped through a portal and I died to make it happen…
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Yeah, many of archetypes were more of mess then the base class.
...No. The Shifter class never appealed to me, at all. I'd rather play an actual Lycanthrope.
I never have good enough stats to play as this class(and Monk). A 15-20 point build is not good enough and I rarely roll good as well.
This makes no sense. Why would you need more than a 20 point buy for either Shifter or Monk? unMonk, at least.
I know there're people who took one look at the Shifter, saw it to be weaker than Druid, and immediately decided is it was unplayable bad. I've seen posts where Shifter was called a "tier 6" class or "one of the worst classes in the game". But none of that has any truth to it. There are fundamental flaws in the class's design, don't get me wrong - but a class with flawed design must not be unplayable. And of course Shifter can't compete with Druid regarding how much a character of that class contributes to a party - but the same can be said about every martial class.
Some people just love to focus on the negative aspects of things while ignoring the positives, and tend to not differentiate between "X has a flaw" and "X is utterly terrible". You see it for other things, too - unMonk is a huge upgrade to any (melee) damage based monk build, but when it came out, all the talk was about that unMonk lost strong will save progression and the incompatibility with archetypes, and not about how good the class is at what it does.
Of course there's also the "some of the options are bad so I'll designate the whole class as bad" crowd, where people blame the class on their own bad choices, but that isn't even worth discussing.
In order to do a fair evaluation of Shifter, one has to compare it to other martial classes (or rather their melee builds) and possibly even the melee part of gish classes.
One particular, common complaint about Shifter is how it limits your choices for which animal you can shapeshift into, with most people talking about how much worse the Shifter's Wild Shape was compared to a Druid's. This is, again, people loving to complain. It's like you get an offer for a new car, where you can only choose from the colors black, silver, or dark blue, but you get the car at half price. People might whine about the lack of choices, but in really, they'd have picked one of these colors anyway. Shifter's wild shape is just like that. The Druid's flexibility in being able to pick any form they want is purely hypothetical, because no one ever does that. How many different forms does a WS Druid actually adapt? Pretty much every time a Druid wild shapes, they adopt the best combat form for the maximum available size (Deinonychus, Dire Tiger, Allosaurus). They only adopt a different form if they need to fly, or need to swim.
So, what of the above can't a Shifter do? They don't get different combat forms, but they don't need to (they can start at large if they want, or if they picked Deinonychus, get two additional attacks at 8th). They don't get a land, a water, and an air form until 10th level, but in most campaigns, you won't notice (because it either doesn't do aquatic combat/exploration, or does it so much that you won't need a flying form).
Meanwhile, the upsides of Shifter's Wild Shape are usually overlooked. First, there's pounce at 4th level. That's huge. It's two levels earlier than Druid! There're only two way in the game to get a move-and-full-attack option earlier than that (cSummoner, either regular or Synthesist, and Swordmaster Rogue, which is unreliable and crappy). The other awesome thing is that you get WS uses in 1-hour-packages. If a, say, 6th level Druid is in a fight were an enemy flies away (or jumps over rooftops away, etc.), and thus wants to turn into a swimming or flying form, they likely can't go back to their combat form for the rest of the day. Shifter doesn't have any such issues, thanks to having ~8 hours of distinct uses at that level.
What about the meat and bone? How does a Shifter fare compared to other martials?
Very well, actually - even against other full attacking characters (archers, WS Druids, etc.) is the Shifter able to go toe-to-toe, and they blow any competition lacking that option away. It's lacking notable class features at the first three levels, but that isn't really different from most others. Just grab a spear and maybe Power Attack.
On the versatility and problem solving side, having flight (or swim speed & water breathing) at 5th level is amazing, that's something even most gishs and even many full casters only dream about at that level. It doesn't even a significant amount of resources.
Now that I have talked about the positiv stuff, what about the downsides and flaws?
The first thing is that the reward from class levels drops hard after 5th level. WS at 4th and a second form at 5th are very powerful, but most subsequent levels are pretty much dead. You don't need more than two major aspects unless you expect both aquatic and aerial combat, and everything else is small numeric bonuses (smaller than you would get from multiclassing). Deinonychus aspect gets two additional attacks at 8th level (RAW even primary attacks), and Wilderness Origins added a small incentive to stay in class (the feat allows one to combine pounce and flight), but that's nothing multiclassing couldn't grant, either.
And then there's the Weretouched Shifter archetype that grants most of the class's goodies, only better. No flight, but 5 instead of 3 primary natural attacks + pounce at 4th level, and no issues with armor or other equipment, making for an excellent base to add a multiclass on; for most builds, Weretouched (multiclassed out after 4th) is just better than vanilla Shifter.
The other thing, that I mentioned earlier, is the truly atrocious class design. The dead levels are actually a part of that, but it goes much deeper. I'm gonna put it in spoiler, because it's a fairly extensive analysis.
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Every single Shifter class feature was copied from another class (mainly Druid, Hunter, and Monk), and its supposed novelty of spell-less shapechanger was already done by Metamorph Alchemist and Beastkin Berserker Barbarian - the later even has the exact same "select one form each at 1st/5th/10th/15th/20th level" feature.
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Shifter is completely overshadowed by Druid (plus the two above mentioned archetypes).
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Without a single new class feature in sight, it's no big surprise that the answer is "neither".
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Half the levels only grant increases to small bonuses, and sometimes nothing at all, so plenty of dead levels.
The problem is not power level - Shifter is already doing relatively well when it comes to raw damage - but its versatility. In short, what the Shifter is lacking is what I call Character Shaping Choices™.
Such character shaping choices come in three forms:
1) Daily: Mostly spell preparation and the Medium's spirit.
2) On levelup: Spells known, rage powers, etc., doesn't have to be every level up
3) Onetime: Domains, bloodline etc., mostly done at first level
I don't count feats, skills, and equipment because it should be obvious that options that literally every class can take have to be relatively weak (otherwise almost every character would take them, cf. Leadership for what happens when this rule is broken). I also don't count choices that don't affect play style and only grant minor numeric bonuses, such as a Fighter's weapon training.
Archetypes are technically onetime choices as well, if these are included depends on what we want to compare.
Naturally, the more choices you can make, the more you can (in general) shape your character. Also, the more often you can make choices, the more flexibility the character can have. Daily choices don't add power over on levelup choices, but they add a lot of flexibility.
The following classes are generally accepted to be the weakest ones in Pathfinder: Fighter, Brawler, Rogue, Cavalier, Samurai, Gunslinger, Swashbuckler, Monk.
Apart from the Rogue *, you'll notice that none of these classes have a daily or on levelup choice **. Cavalier and Samurai have a onetime choice at first level, while the others don't get to make any character shaping choices at all. It's also noteworthy that there are no classes lacking daily or on-levelup choices that are generally considered good.
Now, choices don't automatically contain strong options (few rogue talents are better than feats), some fixed class features are fairly powerful as well (like rage), and there are options that offer choices to make on the fly, like wild shape or a Summoner's SLA (not character shaping by definition, but can be very powerful). But if you look at both power level and flexibility, there's almost no getting around having class features that allow character shaping choices fairly often.
*) Whoever thought that a pure martial with medium BAB, no accuracy increasing abilities, d8 HD, and the worst possible saves a PC class can have was a good idea?
**) Fighter got on levelup choices with AAT and AWT, while Monk got on levelup choices with UnMonk's Ki Powers and Style Strikes.
The Shifter get's to make one such choice every five levels, and quite frankly, it's just not enough. Since many aspects are very similar, after the second (combat form + flying form), you basically only get the minor form bonuses, and those aren't even remotely character shaping. The class description says the Shifter can "fuse [forms] together with devastating effect", so where is the class feature for that? A limited use Skill Focus is not helping me be devastating!
We already have "can turn into one type of creature all day long" with Druid and Metamorph (and Agathiel Vigilante), and "can turn into one of the few previously selected animals multiple times per day" with Beastkin Berserker.
I like the dragon and fey archetypes but wished they used Cha for AC/class abilities.
I have one character that dips Adaptive Shifter to get a Tail Slap attack and he's been pretty fun to play. I also have a Weretouched Shifter but I doubt I'll ever be able to play him. It was a theory build to get every natural weapon possible. I really want to play him though.
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I like the dragon and fey archetypes but wished they used Cha for AC/class abilities.
The concept of those two archetypes is good, but what the writer apparently didn't realize is that both Fey Form and Form of the Dragon are downgrades compared to Beast Shape.
Dragonblood Shifter is honestly one of the worst archetypes in the game. It gains virtually no class features until 9th level, and even then you get the seriously underwhelming Form of the Dragon I. For a couple minutes. You can transform as part of a move action via Shifter's Rush, but FotD is just not good at fighting. The breath weapon is pretty much the selling point, but 6d8 ref/half is worse than a Fireball (it has the DC of a 6th level spell, but uses charisma).
The archetype's main draw is the flavor, but because of that asinine reduction in duration (why? why?), combined with an almost lack of class features, it isn't really good at letting people be a dragon.
Feyform Shifter is actually very powerful, but in a weird way. Turning into a fey is not actually that good - sure, you can get five primary natural attacks and flight at fourth level, but so can a falcon aspect Weretouched Shifter, and that one has ten times the duration. However, Fey Aspect "alters and replaces all improvements to shifter aspect", which means you still select the first animal aspect, and Fey Shape does not remove the ability to adopt your animal aspect's form (and even retains the hour duration of unmodified Wild Shape if you do so). Since Fey Aspect grants concealment and a fly speed (but isn't a polymorph effect), the archetype is actually a huge upgrade over vanilla Shifter if used this way. Still pretty much dead after 5th level, though...
The archetype is still playable if you want to turn into a fey (or your GM doesn't let you do the above), because Fey Aspect is awesome, Fey Shape is still gained at 4th level, and there are a bunch of combat-suited fey forms. The higher level versions even have a little bit of versatility. Still a downgrade compared to vanilla or Weretouched Shifter (until 9th level, where it becomes awesome compared to a straight vanilla Shifter).
Overview over the other Shifter archetypes:
Adaptive Shifter: The good part is that it gets Druid Wild Shape, and has a proper selectable class feature that allows character shaping choices. You can get a flying pouncing form by turning into a dire tiger or allosaurus, and take Sky Hunter Form. At 9th level, it's even permanent.
But remember what I wrote above about Shifter's Wild Shape not actually being worse? The writer of Adaptive Shifter didn't get that memo... and thus nerved the Wild Shape. The daily hours are seriously limited, pretty much preventing you from spending any on anything but your combat form, thus making the wild shape actually less flexible than a vanille Druid's. And for reason's I can't fathom, you have to wait until 6th level to get WS at all.
Adaptive Shifter has more "live" levels than regular Shifter, but still not worth sticking in forever. It gets WS at 6th, so that's obviously a minimum, and 8th level grants huge size animal and rake. But afterwards, it's pretty much dead. By 8th level you have all the reactive forms worth using, although gaining two at the same time might be worth taking 9th level for. Note that Lasting Adaptation keys off character level, and thus you can use it for Sky Hunter Form regardless of which class your levels 7-9 are in.
You pretty much need Shifter's Rush.
Elementalist Shifter: For those who think elementals are cool. Your Wild Shape variant is very weak, not the least because it always stays at medium size. Quite frankly, the archetype is better when you don't polymorph, with unconditional 1d6 + (1d6 every four levels) to all melee attacks.
Fiendflesh Shifter: Oh look, another Shifter who doesn't shift. This archetype never even grants a polymorph effect! The fly speed at 5th is nice, and the defensive boosts are okay, but the only offensivive stuff your class offers are three natural attack.
Holy Beast: This is more alike to your generic class archetype - it doesn't really do much. Your claws pierce alignment DR, and you get Favored Enemy (outsider types only), but you don't lose anything you'll miss. If you can even get some mileage out of the two class features it has, this is (slightly) better than vanilla Shifter.
Leafshifter: Another archetype that doesn't change much, only changing the minor aspects. Mostly a (small) downgrade, though.
Oozemorph: I'm not touching this one. At least an FAQ gave it the ability to move more than one hour per day...
Rageshaper: Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! The good thing about this archetype is that you don't have to use its "hulk out" ability (unlike the Brute Vigilante), but you also should never, ever do so when in a party. Ever. This is literally the second worst archetype in the game, because you'll likely end up killing your party members.
Style Shifter: This... is a weird one. As written, it pretty much doesn't work. It has Druid's Wild Shape, but the daily hours are ridiculously low. Style Shifter is, quite frankly, a mess: There are some abilities that only ever work with unarmed strikes, but the archetype doesn't grant IUS. You count as having IUS for feat prereqs and can apply such feats (but not the mentioned class features) to claws, but only when not polymorphed. Polymorphing, however, is the main combat ability. Some of the styles work with natural attacks (Crane Style for defense, Monkey Style for offense), so it's not unplayable. And I must admit a melee build that wants to fight from prone as much as possible is kinda funny - but that's mostly granted by 1st level. If you use it for more than a dip, Shifter's Rush is vital.
Swarm Shifter: Yet another Shifter who doesn't polymorph. It's main selling point is the enlarge person (without reach increase, though) and can-share-space ability, which is gained at 1st level. The 4th level ability is weirdly written, but unless your GM lets you full attack with it, it's terrible.
Verdant Shifter: Unlike Leafshifter, this actually lets you turn into plant creatures. For a few rounds per day, as a standard action, at 6th level. Wait, rounds per level? Seriously? This is truly atrocious.
Weretouched: The gold standard. Not just for Shifter, but for the first four levels of martial classes in general. Four levels in this can get you five primary natural attacks, pounce and +2 strength (or five primary attack plus flight and +2 dex, at small size), all while keeping your general body shape (and thus you keep your armor, and can access your equipment and magic items). It's seriously dead afterwards, but this is an absolutely amazing chassis for a martial character. You can multiclass into virtually everything afterwards. Four levels is in the realm of Boon Companion or Phantom Ally for full progression companion. Investigator (possibly Jiinyiwei for wis-based), Warpriest, Medium, Barbarian, and plenty others can grant attack and damage bonuses. Scout Rogue can get ridiculously huge damage numbers if your GM let's you apply Scout's Charge to every attack in a pounce. You could even go into full casters, including arcane ones, so strong is this base.
Wild Effigy: A low-key archetype that loses the no-one-cares abilities for a better defense, gaining fortification and DR/adamantine pretty much for free.
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The Adaptive Shifter is my favorite Shifter archetype.
Dragonblood Shifter is honestly one of the worst archetypes in the game. It gains virtually no class features until 9th level, and even then you get the seriously underwhelming Form of the Dragon I. For a couple minutes. You can transform as part of a move action via Shifter's Rush, but FotD is just not good at fighting. The breath weapon is pretty much the selling point, but 6d8 ref/half is worse than a Fireball (it has the DC of a 6th level spell, but uses charisma).
The archetype's main draw is the flavor, but because of that asinine reduction in duration (why? why?), combined with an almost lack of class features, it isn't really good at letting people be a dragon.
Don't forget that you do NOT get Form of the Dragon 3 at level 20th...
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Well, no one cares about 20th level, so that wouldn't have made a difference. Critizising the progression in general is ver valid, though. The three FotD spells have consecutive spell levels, meaning they're gained two levels apart each. Druid's Wild Shape perfectly follows the progressions of the spells it allows using WS as, with every one of the ten different spells it can function as being 'unlocked' one level before a Wizard could cast it. Wyrmshifter grants FotD1 two levels prior to a Wizard, but FotD2 at the same level (and thus five levels after FotD1). Granting FotD3 five levels after a Wizard gets it would've been utterly terrible, too. FotD2 at 11th and FotD3 at 13th level would've been the natural progression. 9th/12th/15th would also have been an okay progression.
To be honest, trying to fit a 6th level spell into the Wild Shape mold was a terrible choice to begin with - total "square peg, round hole" situation. The author should've made the archetype based on Shifter's WS, rather than Druid's, with an explicit list of what the polymorph effect grants at which levels.
For example (breath weapon damage would probably be set to 1d8 per two levels):
4th: small, bite, 2 claws, resist 5, weakness
6th: darkvision 60ft, breath weapon 1/hour 15ft cone or 30ft line
8th: medium, resist 10, 2 wing attacks
10th: darkvision 90ft, full range breath weapon 1/minute 30ft cone or 60ft line
12th: large, resist 20, tail slap
14th: darkvision 120ft, frightful presence, breath weapon every 1d4 rounds 40ft cone or 80ft line
16th: huge, immunity, blindsense
18th: breath weapon every other round 50ft cone or 100ft line
The archetype might even hand out specific spell-like abilities fitting for the selected type of dragon (to make the choice somewhat character shaping, something my above draft lacks).
I think many of the archetypes suffer from the author not understanding how Druid's WS and Shifter's WS compare (and how the different polymorph spells compare).
I would like to see an analysis of the class that shows any aspects that might be different enough (or even occasionally superior) to the Druid or Hunter to make the class truly worthwhile.
Didn't I do that already?
You've discussed Character Shaping Choices on several threads. Have you considered doing a class by class guide on those features? I for one would be very interested in such a project.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Could you expand?
Didn't Paizo do a "fixed" version of the Shifter as a download, but not printed in any book?
That was just the addition of Lv6's Shifter's Fury, wasn't it ? Maybe some other minor thing on top ?
The biggest fault of the Shifter was not being what people expected (not that they really knew or agreed on what that was, mind you)(myself included). It's also somewhat counter-intuitive for those with 10-20 years of druid experience, as we're creatures of habit.
It's still a cool and interested concept, and not nearly as bad as the rumors make it. It's functional and can hold its own.
I sadly haven't gotten to play one yet but it's very much on my list.
Well if the base version of the class was better put together we could have had those different versions people wanted with good archetypes/paths. If it was it would have been one of my favorite classes after Kineticist, Sorcerer, and Oracle.
I wish I could remember where I read that "fixed" version. They could have reprinted it in the pocket version of Ultimate Wilderness.
Some of us do care about Lvl. 20 :p
Yeah, and some people care about the latest celebrity divorce. I'll regard people as weirdos in either case! :-p
You did a good analysis of the Shifter class, but what was missing (or maybe I just overlooked) was any aspect of the Shifter Class that is clearly superior to the Druid or Hunter, no matter how niche it may be.
I did adress in what ways Shifter's Wild Shape is better than the Druid version (in my first post, look for "Meanwhile").
From the Shifter side, there're four things that're different:
• Wild Shape, as detailled in my first post. Shifter's Wild Shape is clearly superior at levels 4th to 7th. Afterwards it depends on how well huge creatures function in the respective campaign. You could say it makes a huge difference!
• BAB - not as big a deal as it is for weapon users. Natural attack builds don't get iterative attacks, and there usually aren't any relevant feat with high BAB prereqs, either. It's basically just an attack roll boost (and via Power Attack a small damage roll boost at some levels, although that gets offset by the smaller size).
• Defensive Instinct - which ultimately does just what Barkskin does for a Druid.
• Minor aspects - as briefy touched upon in my first post, most of these don't do much. You don't have enough aspects to pick them for their minor form until at least 10th level, likely even 15th level, and most minor forms are crap (basically a time-restricted Skill Focus, as I've said) - Deinonychus especially is very rarely even usable. Electric Eeel offers a bit of bonus damage, the enhancement bonuses to ability scores are pretty nice, and Giant Wasp is good. Indeed, that the minor aspects are so minor that ther selection isn't character shaping is a big issue with the class. Imagine for example if the minor bat aspect granted blindsight, or some of the flying forms would grant a fly speed!
Not listed: That you only need four (or five, at most) levels. If this is an upside or huge downside is subjective. A Druid wants to stay in-class because they continue to get good stuff from the class (spells and the pet, mainly, as WS doesn't actually progress in a meaningful way past 8th level). Shifter allows many interesting, different multiclass-builds, as it peaks in an extreme way at 4th level, but you're rather hosed if you don't want to do that.
When you say Hunter I presume you mean Feral Hunter? That archetpe is just weird, as it completely reworks the class... to turn it into a downgrade of a Druid in virtually ever way. I' pretty sure that the author of Shifter took Feral Hunter as their prime inspiration, and the minor aspects are straight up copy-pasted from the Hunter's Animal Foci.
A Shifter still can't compete for versatility/problem solving, because even "just" 6/9 casting still beats everything else in that regard, but the advantages in the martial aspect obviously play a bigger role.
Regarding Character Shaping Choices stuff: I'll consider it, but don't get you hopes up too high. I'm not sure how many people would be interested, to be honest, and it's indeed be quite a bit of work.
Didn't Paizo do a "fixed" version of the Shifter as a download, but not printed in any book?
- They released a bunch of FAQs. The main changes are:
• Listing every piece of needed information - theoretically at least. The idea is that you don't need to look at stat blocks at all. This was promptly broken for some of the new aspects in Wilderness Origins, and also has the consequence that RAW the large-long creatures (e.g. lion) gain reach, and that Deinonychus' foreclaws are primary attacks. Both of which I consider fair, by the way. More stuff that differentiates Shifter from Druid is good!
• They changed the duration of Wild Shape from the Druid version (hour per level, with one use level 4, and an additional use ever 2 levels thereafter), to the distinct hours system (level+wis mod uses per day, each use lasts one hour), which is much better (as discusses in my first post). Ironically, this is actually what makes multiclassing after 4th level viable in the first place.
• Shifter's Fury, with is terrible for forms with multiple attacks, which includes the good forms, and not even close to being enough to make the single-attack-forms not awful.
If the class was done earlier in 1st eds life it would have gotten the love it needed.
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My build of a shifter (1 Monk+12 shifter) grapple build
has monsterous DPS (tiger form)
Bite, 2xClaws(shifter claws)
Mutated shape adds a 4th attack(all primary no penalties)
5th attack CMB grapple claw or bite must hit.
power attack really benefits this class.
at 13(w/ bestial rags)/15 while grappled you get 2 additional claw attacks(rear) but as secondary attacks -5 to hit
so 2nd round(grappled) 2x claw primary, 1 bite(primary),1x mutated shaped, 2x claw rear(while grappled) not sure if shifters claws effect those so kept mine at 2d4
1x CMB to maintain or improve grapple[pined]
Tiger also has pounce which allows full attacks even while moving. each attack benefits from power attack (+12/-4)
now if you wanted to go nuts on attacks (shifters fury)
1st claw attack(shifters claw) full damage 0/-5/10
2x bite, 1 claw listed as secondary(-5) +2 rear claws(-5)
8 attack rolls + 1 CMB roll 654
the mutated shape can be anything of course like an additional claw which would benefit from shifters claws. I was going for a more Chimera feel so 2 heads(eagle/tiger)
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Honestly, the shifter class could have been greatly improved by giving it some bonus feats… at either every 3rd level or every 4th… how feat starved the shifter is as a martial class really is one of its greatest weaknesses, behind its complete lack of character shaping choices and huge number of dead levels… bonus feats would help alleviate some of the dead levels, provides some minor form of character shaping choices, and allows them a healthy feat progression rate.
@Emeketos
The Rake attacks aren't secondary, they'd be done at your full BAB just as any other primary natural attack.
Rage Shifter is the biggest disappointment. With just a couple of fixes it could have been awesome. Love the savage leap or whatever it was. :(
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So does anyone play as the shifter class?
Do you play the class as is, archetypes only, or both?
I just saw this thread, apologies for the late response. I'm playing a Shifter in a Jade Regent campaign currently. No archetypes, but my GM agreed with me that the class is massively underpowered, so he made a house rule that allows my character to learn a new Aspect every level. I think that house rule is the only thing keeping my character competitive.
Legendary Games came out with a product called Legendary Shifters. It's a redesign of the Shifter class and it's fantastic. I highly recommend using that if you're planning to play a Shifter. As written, the original class is really just awful.
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I play this one Legendary Shifters but it's 3rd party
I highly recommend that as well. My next Shifter character will use that product.
I think that house rule is the only thing keeping my character competitive.
I have a hard time believing this - not only because Shifter isn't actually underpowered unless you make bad choices, but also because the effect of the minor forms isn't that big (not enough to compensate for picking a bad major form).
What level are you talking about here, and what major form are you fighting in?
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I think that house rule is the only thing keeping my character competitive.I have a hard time believing this - not only because Shifter isn't actually underpowered unless you make bad choices, but also because the effect of the minor forms isn't that big (not enough to compensate for picking a bad major form).
What level are you talking about here, and what major form are you fighting in?
Remember you can only wild shape into a form provided by one of your Aspects, and you only get 1 Aspect every 5 levels (unless they changed this in errata). Compare that with a Druid, who can turn into any Animal, Elemental or Plant form, has full spellcasting, AND an Animal Companion on top of all that. Yes, Shifters are absolutely putrid.
To answer your questions, my party is 8th level. My main land combat form is Deinonychus, my aerial combat form is Giant Dragonfly, and my water combat form is Crocodile. Like I mentioned, due to my GM's generous house rule, I have 8 aspects/major forms.
If we were using the rules as written, I'd have all of 2 forms/aspects. For a class named Shifter, that's really pathetic. If I had known about the Legendary Shifter, I would've recommended that from the beginning, but we were already well into the AP by the time I discovered it.
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You also need to look at the Aspects themselves. For the most part, they give you less than you would get if you had regular Wild Shape or cast the appropriate spell. Take Deinonychus. A 4th lvl Druid wild shaping into that form gets 5 attacks. A Shifter has to wait until 8th lvl to get all 5 attacks. Giant Scorpion is another example. Someone casting Vermin Shape to turn into a Giant Scorpion gets 3 primary attacks. A Shifter turning into a Giant Scorpion gets 2 primary and 1 secondary attacks. By RAW, a Shifter turning into a Giant Wasp doesn't even get an attack! They have to wait until 8th lvl to get the Sting attack, which is ludicrous and was probably an oversight.
There are alot of similar examples. They really went out of their way to nerf the class into submission for some reason.
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It makes great 1 level dips. Lots of good level 1 abilities.
My samurai took 1 level of Swarm Shifter and that enlarge-while-sharing-square was very nice.
I don't think I ever used it, but elemental shifter looked nice.
I also have an oozmorph that started with one level of ooze, stayed oozy 23 hours a day, then went into a mix of things and did Dirty Tricks and trap disarming. Has 43 ioun stones. At level 10 DC's are starting to be tough.
Remember you can only wild shape into a form provided by one of your Aspects, and you only get 1 Aspect every 5 levels (unless they changed this in errata). Compare that with a Druid, who can turn into any Animal, Elemental or Plant form, has full spellcasting, AND an Animal Companion on top of all that. Yes, Shifters are absolutely putrid.
- Compare that to a Barbarian, who can't turn into anything, whose strength bonus is matched by the one granted by Druid's WS, and doesn't get casting or an animal companion, either. Yes, Barbarians are absolutely putrid.
As I said in my first post in this thread, "of course Shifter can't compete with Druid regarding how much a character of that class contributes to a party - but the same can be said about every martial class."
You haven't explained how getting more aspects fixes any of the above. indeed, you could get every aspect in the game at 1st level and still wouldn't have casting, an animal companion, or the ability to turn into elementals and plants.
If you compare Shifter to Druid, the number of aspecs doesn't matter. If you compare Shifter to other martials, it's not underpowered. Thus your original claims that the class was "massively underpowered" and yet that the additional-aspects-houserule made you "competitive" can't both be true. Which is why I said I didn't believe you.
Take Deinonychus. A 4th lvl Druid wild shaping into that form gets 5 attacks. A Shifter has to wait until 8th lvl to get all 5 attacks.
- Take Deinonychus. A 4th lvl Shifter wild shaping into that form has pounce. A Druid has to wait until 6th lvl to get that.
This is exactly what I meant with "Some people just love to focus on the negative aspects of things while ignoring the positives" in my first post. You're concentrating on what a Shifter loses, and ignoring what it gaines. Also, Deinonychus only has four attacks, one of them secondary, which results in a Shifter's full attack in Deinonychus form dealing more damage than a Druid's (due to the BAB difference) - so unless you literally care more about the number of attacks than the character's overall damage, your complaint is invalid.
There are alot of similar examples. They really went out of their way to nerf the class into submission for some reason.
"Nerf" means weakening an existing option. There was no previous, stronger version of the class, so the term doesn't apply.
Yeah, not sure what the argument is here either.
Casters will outclass martials eventually, yes. That's been true since the CRB (and before that, realistically).
Shifters most certainly don't get the versatility of the Druid's WS, yes. Mostly because that's not the point - though they do have an archetype specifically for that, getting the actual Druid's WS almost as is (which seems to be what you're looking for btw).
Getting more aspects does give more versatility/adaptability, but does little for raw power.
Does that make them that much worse than other martials ? I'm not convinced.
They seem very, very average to me. Which isn't great but nor is it that terrible, by definition. Could be better, but still workable and enjoyable.
They do suffer from some issues, the worse of which is kind of outside the game : Their WS working differently than the Druids seems to have confused writers more than once.
I'm not sure why you singled out the Wasp but the book it's from is one of those occasions : 2 of the other 4 aspects in Heroes of Golarion get no attacks at all, ever, by raw. And the Wasp has the issue you mentioned.
A shame as I kinda like the Lion, but also an obvious oversight and it's a fairly easy one to correct : a vast majority of the time (short of when the size of the pertinent beast is different) the type and damage of an aspect's natural attack are the same as the creature's.
It's also the second to last thing ever published for PF1, I can only imagine the added constraints.
The Shifter's crime is not being what people expected from its name, but that doesn't make it the disaster some want it to be.
Remember you can only wild shape into a form provided by one of your Aspects, and you only get 1 Aspect every 5 levels (unless they changed this in errata). Compare that with a Druid, who can turn into any Animal, Elemental or Plant form, has full spellcasting, AND an Animal Companion on top of all that. Yes, Shifters are absolutely putrid.Compare that to a Barbarian, who can't turn into anything, whose strength bonus is matched by the one granted by Druid's WS, and doesn't get casting or an animal companion, either. Yes, Barbarians are absolutely putrid.
As I said in my first post in this thread, "of course Shifter can't compete with Druid regarding how much a character of that class contributes to a party - but the same can be said about every martial class."You haven't explained how getting more aspects fixes any of the above. indeed, you could get every aspect in the game at 1st level and still wouldn't have casting, an animal companion, or the ability to turn into elementals and plants.
If you compare Shifter to Druid, the number of aspecs doesn't matter. If you compare Shifter to other martials, it's not underpowered. Thus your original claims that the class was "massively underpowered" and yet that the additional-aspects-houserule made you "competitive" can't both be true. Which is why I said I didn't believe you.
Take Deinonychus. A 4th lvl Druid wild shaping into that form gets 5 attacks. A Shifter has to wait until 8th lvl to get all 5 attacks.Take Deinonychus. A 4th lvl Shifter wild shaping into that form has pounce. A Druid has to wait until 6th lvl to get that.
...
This is exactly
My use of the word nerf is correct because the existing option for comparison IS WILD SHAPE. Not the horrifically limited version the Shifter gets, but the one Druids get. There's another nerf as well, this one to Aspects. Hunters automatically get all aspects. Shifters only get one every 5 levels.
More Aspects fixes one huge issue with Shifter; that it barely has any shifting ability at all. The Druid can choose from any Animal in any book, but the Shifter, at 20th lvl, gets only 5 forms? Awful. At my level now, I have flying forms, swimming forms, combat forms and scouting forms. If I played by RAW I'd have a combat form and...a flying form I guess? Extremely limiting.
I could've played a Feral Hunter or Feral Shifter Druid and been exponentially more powerful. Without the house rule, I wouldn't even have bothered with Shifter, I would've picked one of those two options instead. Shifter just doesn't live up to the name. If they had called it something different, maybe ppl wouldn't hate on it as much. But by calling the class Shifter but severely limiting it's Shifting ability, I feel the criticism the class has received is more than justified. Shifter should be BETTER at shapeshifting than a Druid, not worse.
My use of the word nerf is correct because the existing option for comparison IS WILD SHAPE.
- Not it's not, because you were talking about the whole class. "They really went out of their way to nerf the class into submission for some reason." This statement means there was a previous version of the class that was stronger. That's not the case.
If you want to say "Shifter recieved a nerfed Wild Shape", than say that. Of course, as I've already counter-arguments to that point (in my first post), you should address them if you want to make a disagreeing statement.
Er, you did read the thread before posting, didn't you? If not, you really should.
More Aspects fixes one huge issue with Shifter; that it barely has any shifting ability at all.
Doesn't make it "competitive" if it was otherwise "massively underpowered".
I could've played a Feral Hunter or Feral Shifter Druid and been exponentially more powerful.
True. Doesn't change that your statement of "the class is massively underpowered" either doesn't hold up, or applies to every non-(full-)caster in the game.
But by calling the class Shifter but severely limiting it's Shifting ability, I feel the criticism the class has received is more than justified. Shifter should be BETTER at shapeshifting than a Druid, not worse.
Hey, you don't need to tell me - I've been very vocal about criticizing the class for years. Including in this thread. And if you had voiced criticism, I wouldn't have said anything. But you didn't do that, you merely badmouthed the class in a completely unconstructive, and actually untrue way.