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When do you think we are likely to see more support for battleforms, such as spellcasting during or having scaling AC / using own AC / "wild" runes?
So many times I think about playing a druid but for the character fantasy I'd want to stick to only a handful of forms (preferably the ones i get early on), which unfortunately is a very bad choice due to 2e crit system and "outgrowing" the form's AC at higher levels. I'm amazed they couldnt figure out a way with heightening (+1) to keep all battleforms relevant for damage and AC as the character levels. That seems like it should have been a no-brainer.
In 1e ultimate wilderness and publications around that time introduced a fair bit of support for wild shaping, including the shifter class which, while not the best designed class, seemed like something that should have been in the game from the start. Those books hit right at the end of 1e. Are we likely to be waiting until a similar point in this editions lifespan for this kind of stuff?
I know there's probably no way to know for sure, but im interested in peoples thoughts on this.
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I seriously doubt we'll get something like that - ever. Don't hold your breath.
With a few errata passes and additional publications with no change, it's pretty clear at this point that battleforms are working exactly as intended.
The most you are likely to get are some answers about interactions with gear that appear every few weeks on the forum.
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When do you think we are likely to see more support for battleforms, such as spellcasting during or having scaling AC / using own AC / "wild" runes?
Personally I would prefer never.
In D&D 3.x and PF 1 casters made martials effectively obsolete. If you wanted to be good at melee, your best bet was to go CoDzilla.
In PF2, there is a hard divide between casters and martials. Casters still get to tell the laws of physics to shut up and sit down, but never shall they advance past Expert in any weapon skills.
However, battle form spells allow them to mimic a competent melee character. For a minute at a time. But thanks to limited spell slots, that isn't quite the same as making martial characters obsolete.
Oh and because of the whole 'can't cast spells while polymorphed' thing. You get to do melee or casting, not both. You don't get to eat your cake and have it.
Meanwhile, a martial character clawing their way towards getting their own battle form spells largely finds them to be sidegrades at best, downgrades most of the time. Which is nice for the whole 'casters are still the best at casting' thing which mirrors the 'martials are the best at melee/ranged combat' nicely.
Personally, I think that is a huge improvement, and I hope future publications do not change that.
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When do you think we are likely to see more support for battleforms, such as spellcasting during or having scaling AC / using own AC / "wild" runes?Personally I would prefer never.
In D&D 3.x and PF 1 casters made martials effectively obsolete. If you wanted to be good at melee, your best bet was to go CoDzilla.
In PF2, there is a hard divide between casters and martials. Casters still get to tell the laws of physics to shut up and sit down, but never shall they advance past Expert in any weapon skills.
However, battle form spells allow them to mimic a competent melee character. For a minute at a time. But thanks to limited spell slots, that isn't quite the same as making martial characters obsolete.
Oh and because of the whole 'can't cast spells while polymorphed' thing. You get to do melee or casting, not both. You don't get to eat your cake and have it.
Meanwhile, a martial character clawing their way towards getting their own battle form spells largely finds them to be sidegrades at best, downgrades most of the time. Which is nice for the whole 'casters are still the best at casting' thing which mirrors the 'martials are the best at melee/ranged combat' nicely.
Personally, I think that is a huge improvement, and I hope future publications do not change that.
I agree mostly. Wildshape should get close to martials but never exceed. The two action cost to get into battleform should not be forgotten
But I would like to see the rules here fixed first. I am also not afraid of a few tweaks and extras.
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That said, I would love a transforming martial.
@lycar These are all good points, though i feel a "use your own ac if it's higher" feat wouldn't put casters above martials, given martials have higher ac.
(Or the same ac)
Even if it was baked into a shifter class/archetype that would be fine.
I seriously doubt we'll get something like that - ever. Don't hold your breath.
Is this really the prevailing sentiment? I dont understand why shifter wouldn't be something theyre considering, and using less powerful forms shouldnt result in effectively being auto-ctit by every attack...
With a few errata passes and additional publications with no change, it's pretty clear at this point that battleforms are working exactly as intended.
The most you are likely to get are some answers about interactions with gear that appear every few weeks on the forum.
I think you misunderstand, I too think they're working exactly as intended and wont feature errata, but I believe paizo left design space for new druid feats / archetypes to build on it for characters that want to specialize in it. Im not saying "hey this game is bad and broken and needs fixing", im gaguing peoples interest in further support in the form of new material.
For example, a spell-less shifter archetype or class to make battle forms a competitive option for martials would be awesome. Like the 1e version it wouldn't need to be the best or outpace any other class, just some thematic shifting with a dab of decent action economy, changing forms on the fly (perhaps even each turn) and unleashing a flurry of claws and slams. If such a class/archetype had a feat that said "you can use your own ac if higher" i cannot understand how that would be game breaking. Hell, this could even be made into a "wild" rune for armor.
Similarly there could be a druid feat that allows you to cast spells while wild shaped, but limits you to cantrips or perhaps spells of a level 4 lower than the highest you can cast (pulled a number out of the air, subject to balancing) Boom, you'd have a little bit of magical sparkle to your shifting capabilities, a tiny bit of versatility with what you can do once shifted.
What about celestial or fiendish themed template feats to the animal forms, or shadow themed, or constellation themed, or construct themed, or elemental animal form hybrids? I know you guys are somewhat jaded from these forums but "not going to happen, dont hold your breath, everything should stay exactly as it is now, personally I'd prefer never" seems like such a dull view.
I was expecting more excitement and discussion from people at the possibilities of future cool stuff in pathfinder, not such blunt pessimism!
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i feel a "use your own ac if it's higher" feat wouldn't put casters above martials, given martials have higher ac.
This is a common misconception. Most martials have better AC than casters at level 19 and 20. And that's it. For 90% of the game, a caster has the same AC as a martial.
Is this really the prevailing sentiment? I dont understand why shifter wouldn't be something theyre considering, and using less powerful forms shouldnt result in effectively being auto-ctit by every attack...
[...]
For example, a spell-less shifter archetype or class to make battle forms a competitive option for martials would be awesome.
I haven't checked the math myself, but there was a post on reddit some time ago. It basically said that a fighter with Wildshape via druid Archetype is among the top damage builds in the game. And that is with the very limited access to wildshape feats of the druid dedication. If that post was correct, having a fighter with access the higher level wildshape feats would most likely break the game.
Adding such an Archetype to something like a monk also seems like it has serious potential to break stuff.
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i feel a "use your own ac if it's higher" feat wouldn't put casters above martials, given martials have higher ac.This is a common misconception. Most martials have better AC than casters at level 19 and 20. And that's it. For 90% of the game, a caster has the same AC as a martial.
Except for champion and monk. And even accounting fir martials and casters having the same AC, then a "use your own ac if its higher" feat would benefit everyone equally
I haven't checked the math myself, but there was a post on reddit some time ago. It basically said that a fighter with Wildshape via druid Archetype is among the top damage builds in the game. And that is with the very limited access to wildshape feats of the druid dedication. If that post was correct, having a fighter with access the higher level wildshape feats would most likely break the game.
Adding such an Archetype to something like a monk also seems like it has serious potential to break stuff.
All "damage builds" are about equal due to the tight maths of this edition and a fighter with druid archetype is not the absolute best by any means. You're only focusing on damage too, not factoring in the associated AC liabilities of shifting, which is one of the things it'd be cool to see support for. By honing in on just these two things i mentioned i think youre missing the vast majority of points from my last post. Im not saying they need to be more powerful, im talking about rounding out their drawbacks through significant investment and adding cool utility, themes and fun to the builds.
People here have some paranoia that everyone is a dpr junkie looking to power creep and want bigger more powerful stuff. I just want to see more variety and get hyped about the possibilities of what they can do with the game going forward. Letting my druid continue to slap enemies with his frog tongue without instagibbing every time he's tickled sounds nice too. If he gets to have devil horns or be on fire while he's at it even better! That's the kind of stuff that makes a character fun, invalidating that image because the frog form AC isnt viable past 5th spell level just isnt fun, so why wouldn't they want to add support for that?
While I think there are a great number of things that should have be designed differently, Ive accepted the game as it is and dont think they should be making any major errata to the fundamentals. Again, I'm mostly interested in what people think should be added in future books.
Ive rattled off my long list of cantrip only wild casting and celestial/fiendish/shadowy themed feat augmentations, alongside any shifting archetype having a focus on on-the-fly form changing and "using own ac" support, but what do others want to see, and are there any upcoming products that you reckon might cater to your shifting needs and wants?
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i feel a "use your own ac if it's higher" feat wouldn't put casters above martials, given martials have higher ac.This is a common misconception. Most martials have better AC than casters at level 19 and 20. And that's it. For 90% of the game, a caster has the same AC as a martial.
You sure about that? Seems like anyone who is a champion, a monk, or wearing heavy armor would have better AC.
Even those martials who aren't, their AC scales sooner so that they are slightly ahead by a couple levels for a small part of their career. Fighters, rangers and animal skin barbarians are notable for this.
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i feel a "use your own ac if it's higher" feat wouldn't put casters above martials, given martials have higher ac.This is a common misconception. Most martials have better AC than casters at level 19 and 20. And that's it. For 90% of the game, a caster has the same AC as a martial.You sure about that? Seems like anyone who is a champion, a monk, or wearing heavy armor would have better AC.
Even those martials who aren't, their AC scales sooner so that they are slightly ahead by a couple levels for a small part of their career. Fighters, rangers and animal skin barbarians are notable for this.
I don't want to derail this topic so this'll be my only comment on the matter. Feel free to make another topic if you want to discus this further.
The way I look at this, it comes down to proficiency. Assuming you care about your AC, you will have Dex + Item = 5 or heavy armor. Both options are available to casters by various means. Yes, there are classes that have superior proficiency scaling and thus superior AC at some/most levels. But those are the "tank-y" classes - with the exception of the Ranger who gets Expert at level 11 for Gorum-know-whatever-reason. I still think its a typo they didn't feel like fixing.
It doesn't change the fact that the base line for armor proficiency is trained at 1, expert at 13 and Master at 19. And other than that master proficiency at 19, casters have the same AC as base line martials.
And really, I can't think of a single reason not to allow character to use the forms they want regardless their level.
It's because heightened spells need to be worse than spells that are just natively higher. It is the same reason why a fireball heightened to 9th is weaker than Meteor Swarm. Heightened spells are meant to be a valid choice, but because learning a higher level spell costs more in relative value (or gold, for that matter) the heightened spells are in an awkarf position.
When do you think we are likely to see more support for battleforms, such as spellcasting during or having scaling AC / using own AC / "wild" runes?
Never.
I'm pretty sure Paizo explicitly doesn't want any of those things to happen, or it will be confined to a very narrow usage that will be a less powerful battleform to compensate.
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Can we run through why being able to cast while polymorphed is a big deal again?
If a player burns through their limited time during polymorph to use spells they could have used normally, isn't that a pretty big downside? Even if they just use buffing spells they're just adding round after round to the time until their martial capability can actually be fully utilized. There are also spells that grant things from polymorph like flight that don't disallow casting.
I'm not saying it's definitely not a problem, but I was hoping someone could give me their viewpoint on it.
I really like how the form spells work out overall. For a short time, they have vaguely martial AC and to-hit plus a gimmick or two. That comes at the cost of an important spell slot and your ability to cast at the same time. It works out well in pretty much every department, including attack modifier (you can use your own as the form's doesn't scale) and AC. For the most part, anyway.
What I definitely agree with is that form spells should heighten at every level instead of the weird progression we have now. Not because the statistics at the current heightened levels don't work out, that progression works. No, it is because several form spells just become obsolete. For example, there is no reason for you to use animal form at later levels. There might be a good reason for that, I just don't see it.
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Concerning the shifter class - basing a martial class around spells designed to be a somewhat weaker imitation of martials (and that also come with extreme limitations) is a recipe for disaster. Especially since Change Shape is a mechanic that is already well established for actual shapeshifting.
G%~ d+!n my long carefully written thorough post failed to send and was lost. Fine. Shorter version of it:
"The AC of battleform spells meets or exceeds martial AC if you're using an appropriate spell for the spell level and a top level slot."
Obviously "appropriate level" spells work fine, nobody is suggesting otherwise. AC, attack and damage scale just fine if using the highest spells you have. I dont think anyone is suggesting any way of skyrocketing AC. I suggested the idea of a feat investment that allows using own ac if higher. Would this break the game? No, because your AC wouldnt be increasing beyond what it was before casting and as you pointed out appropriate level spells are on par, whereas if youre using a lower level spell you'd also have less attack/damage/other stuff so the form would likely be a sidestep at best to what it was possible for you to do already.
If you have a higher proficiency AND are using the highest level spell slot then you're obviously a champion or monk, not a caster, and therefore must be using lower level spells, making them significantly less good to start with. The lower spell still simply can't measure up to the "appropriate level" spell with just a feat protecting your AC, but it would go a long way for characters that simply want to have fun with a character theme. For example "oh,im bob the frog shaman but i haven't turned into a frog for like 8 levels now. Yeah its been nothing but stegosaurus for the last few years... maybe i should change my name." A silly example perhaps, but If a player wants to play a themed druid that spends the majority of time in a certain form, having feat support to ease that concept would be a nice thing for them. They wouldn't be winning any dpr contests compared to better forms but that shouldn't be as important as staying alive, otherwise the player would be punished with likelier character death for having a fun theme.
I feel much of the thread has turned from the intended "lets discuss cool shifting possibilities that could be added in the future" into "lets get grumpy and argue about numbers".
Is anyone else optimistic about the game and the possibilities of things that could be added to expand on polymorphing magic?! Do you think there is likely to be anything polymorphing related in any upcoming books?
Edit: There has been a fair few posts more on topic since i started typing this. To briefly address them: Yeah full casting would be way too much while in battle form. I like the idea of it being accessed via feats and limited to either just cantrips or super restricted, lest you have seagulls raining meteors on people...
Happy to see the numbers talk has relented though!
I've said this in another thread, but a lot of the issues people have with form spells, can be fixed with summoner that takes the synthesis feat (or whatever it gets renamed to). And it'll be even better when the synthesis style class archetype comes out, somewhere down the road.
You can be whatever you want from level 1 to 20. Not limited to turning into your favorite form for limited levels (say I wanted to exclusively turn into a bear, I can only do it from levels 3 to 11 while staying competitive).
Annoying size heightening is no longer a problem. Your chosen form isn't forced to become huge as it gets stronger.
Your stats stay competitive. You keep martial AC, and martial attack, the whole game. Yes, you might not do as much dpr as a full martial (yet to be determined, really, but I don't think anyone should expect it while the summoner is in their eidolon forms) but you don't have to worry about iffy battle form rules, which bother me to no end.
Your form is much more exciting. Most battle forms simply give one a new strike and a few other little stats - eidolon form will give all sorts of abilities chosen through type of eidolon and evolution feats. Including being able to do some casting.
When do you think we are likely to see more support for battleforms, such as spellcasting during or having scaling AC / using own AC / "wild" runes?
Spellcasting is kinda already in there.
Unless otherwise noted, the
battle form prevents you from casting spells, speaking, and
using most manipulate actions that require hands. (If there’s
doubt about whether you can use an action, the GM decides.)
Tbh Paizo could just left "can't speak, cant use manipulate". Which automatically means - "Can't cast".
Unless that is you CAN speak and/or manipulate. Like dragon form.When do you think we are likely to see more support for battleforms, such as spellcasting during or having scaling AC / using own AC
Absolutely. It's really sucks when in specific situation you get worse AC than your own. Because game just provides you raw numbers.
For attack as well.It would work so much better if they would provide simple formula like that for upscaling:
Dragon Form. Attack: Your Level + master weapon proficiency in unarmed strikes (unless your is legendary) + 3 strength modifier (unless yours is higher).
Damage: 3 (master weapon specialization, unless yours is legendary) + 3 (strength modifier, unless yours is higher).
Boom, you have exactly the same numbers on the start (level 13), but you CAN properly upscale them with better strength, higher level, and maybe legendary proficiency.
For AC it would be 10 + master unarmored proficiency (unless yours is legendary) + 2 (natural armor) + your level.
For lower levels battle forms obviously there should be used expert proficiency in unarmed and/or unarmored, or even just proficient (for lowest level animal forms). Although it still should hit master proficiency at specific heightened levels.
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Personally I would prefer never.In D&D 3.x and PF 1 casters made martials effectively obsolete. If you wanted to be good at melee, your best bet was to go CoDzilla.
Over-nerfing is not an answer. Don't make them better, just make them equal... situationally that is. And spells exist precisely for that. Right tools for right situations.
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Bluntly, I don't think they should be equal. That is the same as making martials obsolete. Why be only a martial when you can have full spellcasting when necessary and full martial ability when necessary?
Oh but they get so much more than that. Not only they get their weapon and armor proficiency PERMANENTLY, but they get access to their higher level feats (above level 10, which you can't get through multiclassing), and of course number of base class features. Which you either get either in super-nerfed form (via multi-classing), or not getting at all.
Plus. They also can multiclass into spellcaster. And unlike multiclassing into martials, multiclassing into spellcaster reeeeeealy buffs your character A LOT!
Bluntly, I don't think they should be equal. That is the same as making martials obsolete. Why be only a martial when you can have full spellcasting when necessary and full martial ability when necessary?Over-neerfing not an answer. Don't make them better. Just make them equal... situationally that is. And spells exist precisely for that. Right tools for right situations.
Personally I would prefer never.In D&D 3.x and PF 1 casters made martials effectively obsolete. If you wanted to be good at melee, your best bet was to go CoDzilla.
I agree with the last point.
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In 1e ultimate wilderness and publications around that time introduced a fair bit of support for wild shaping, including the shifter class which, while not the best designed class, seemed like something that should have been in the game from the start. Those books hit right at the end of 1e. Are we likely to be waiting until a similar point in this editions lifespan for this kind of stuff?
One of my favorite parts of Ultimate Wilderness's expansion of spellcasting was the Fey Form spells, which were shapeshifting that provided a minor buff to spellcasting rather than taking it away. We're getting Fey Form in Secrets of Magic soon and I am hoping it doubles down on the niche of being a buff for spellcasting instead of martial prowess. I know PF2 mechanics aren't trying to be PF1 mechanics, but I think conceptually turning into a fey feels like something more closely tied to enhancing magical skill than martial skill. We're also getting some other form spells in Secrets of Magic, I'm excited to see what they do.
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it's pretty clear at this point that battleforms are working exactly as intended.
I think that it is literally impossible for this to be the case. There are currently too many unknown ways in which battleforms interact with other class abilities and the sum of the differences adds up to a considerable amount. So, a battle form at one table will be substantially more or less powerful than a battle form at another table. Given that, it is literally impossible for them to be working as intended at BOTH tables. Well, I guess the intent could be that GMs MUST decide how battle forms actually work at their table
full spellcasters should not tie martials in martial combat. And yet there are already levels where they do. That's enough, thanks.
That's just a poor design choice. "Hey, that not gonna work well in this edition, so you should just not goin that direction." Especially for D&D/Pathfinder, who have rich history of "doing cool s&@*" with multiclassing and all (well, except for 4e and 5e D&D).
There's also with battle forms you don't need to multiclass into a martial as a spellcaster.
Problem is - they are not scales well with higher level, and/or multiclassed choices.
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full spellcasters should not tie martials in martial combat. And yet there are already levels where they do. That's enough, thanks.That's just a poor design choice. "Hey, that not gonna work well in this edition, so you should just not goin that direction." Especially for D&D/Pathfinder, who have rich history of "doing cool s@%&" with multiclassing and all (well, except for 4e and 5e D&D).
Except it's not it's just a design choice you don't like. They didn't want casters to outstrip martials or vice versa and they've mostly succeeded at that goal. If you don't like it you're free to house rule it or play a different game. PF2 isn't for everyone.
There's also with battle forms you don't need to multiclass into a martial as a spellcaster.
Problem is - they are not scales well with higher level, and/or multiclassed choices.
Hence this, and hundred more topics on this forum about Battle Forms.
Battle forms are competitive with a similar level martial and there are times where they exceed them. The battle form also brings along a whole host of other abilities like fly, speed, breath weapon, etc that a martial doesn't have.
While I understand people wanting battle forms to scale I'm not sure that a bear form should ever scale to do as much melee damage as a dragon. That's just my opinion but it appears to align with the intent.
I had a druid player till level 14 when they died in age of ashes (a really sucky 7 rounds of failing con saves)
They worked fine with wildshape.
Non druids work okay but not great unless you are making specific use of abilities.
While a +2 does matter quite a bit in PF2e; by the higher levels there are so many math adjusters being utilized (on the player's side) I have found being 1-2 lower doesn't matter a huge amount given the dice entropy inherently involved in multiple d20 rolls.
Form spells being better again would be a huge buff to casters.
One change I would like is the wildshape status bonus to be untyped, just because being with a bard or someone casting a different status buff (bless) feels bad as a druid.
Same as the channel smite is only avalable for clerics, i would have some wild shape options be avalable only for druids. Like the +2, should be a class only option. Other options, locked behind druid only feats could be: keep your AC, minimal spell casting for example heal self while in battle form, choose size (not need be huge per default at higher levels). This would make wild shape druids more playable and more unique compared to others who use battle forms. While still not much stronger.
Unfortunately the rules quite specifically say there are no untyped bonuses so that would require multiple errata.
It feels like the simple answer would be to make it an item bonus except for the inaccuracy in description.
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Same as the channel smite is only avalable for clerics, i would have some wild shape options be avalable only for druids. Like the +2, should be a class only option. Other options, locked behind druid only feats could be: keep your AC, minimal spell casting for example heal self while in battle form, choose size (not need be huge per default at higher levels). This would make wild shape druids more playable and more unique compared to others who use battle forms. While still not much stronger.
If any class needs more improvements on their shapeshifting it definitely isn't the Druid.
Don't scale well in what way? AC wise they're practically the same, occasionally higher. Attack modifier for about half the levels there's at least one that's identical and the rest of the levels they're only usually 1 or 2 lower. They give you temp HP and generally have some utility, and give you reach in the majority of forms.
They're actually really close, and arguably situationally already better. The only issue with them is the wording that makes it look like RAW you can't use maneuvers or Escape.
Say you want to use permanent duration of Dragon Form via wildshape and perfect form control. Sounds cool? On the paper. On practice you can use it earliest on level 15, when you would normally get access to heightened version of it. And what would we have on level 15:
AC 33. That's about as much as wizards/sorceress get with +3 explorer outfit. Good enough not to be hammered with critical hit on every single hit. But absolutely NOT to be involved in melee combat... which whole purpose of form is about.Even worse with attack. AT this point your own attack modifier absolutely will be higher than puny +22.
But "hey", will you say, "druids have +2 status bonus, if they using Battle Form via wildshape!" Yeah. And that will bring you just at equal status to those who have unarmed proficiency naturally. More to that, since it status bonus, it WON'T stack with other status bonuses. Specifically Heroism spell. So all those bearers of of master and legendary proficiency can get another +2 to attack from heroism (including martials who multiclass into spellcaster, so don't even need to rely on another divine spellcaster). And you not.
Goes so much worse with lower Battle Forms. What if RP-wise i want to stay at bear form, even on higher level?
What if i am wizard/sorcerer, who doesn't even get that +2 status bonus, and only freaking 1 minute duration per spell. "Guys, i am out of both my level-8 slots. Yeah, after our first combat this day. Can we take a long rest?".
Can battle forms work well? On starting level when you get them they work...ok. Just ok. On higher level same battle forms are just bad.
And. That. Is. A problem.
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I think it would be a really simple and uncontroversial fix to simply add "up to" when describing how large your battle form gets with heightening.
It'd make the forms a lot more usable in dungeons at higher levels, but doesn't actually make the character that much stronger.
If any class needs more improvements on their shapeshifting it definitely isn't the Druid.
Have to agree here too. Wild druids are already the gold standard for shapeshifting. They do it incredibly well and can basically build their whole playstyle around it since Wild Shape is a focus spell.
TBH I think druids are actually the source of some of the problems people have here.
One of the balance points of the Wild druid is that they have to spend feats to improve their shape access over time to keep up... if form spells scaled more naturally and across a fuller ranger of levels, that would be a direct buff to the wild druid as a result because that problem goes away.
Unfortunately it's a solution that sort of comes at the expense of flavor and everyone else.
Can we run through why being able to cast while polymorphed is a big deal again?
If a player burns through their limited time during polymorph to use spells they could have used normally, isn't that a pretty big downside? Even if they just use buffing spells they're just adding round after round to the time until their martial capability can actually be fully utilized. There are also spells that grant things from polymorph like flight that don't disallow casting.
I'm not saying it's definitely not a problem, but I was hoping someone could give me their viewpoint on it.
I allow casting as a house rule for creatures that have the manipulate trait and should be able to speak. I don't like Paizo's version or limiters. Feels unnatural and goofy.
The main concern is the mobility. From a power perspective it's fine. You can only attack or cast, not both. The power of attacking doesn't exceed the power of fighting. That part doesn't matter.
But the mobility from some of the battle forms is exploitable and extremely powerful, far in excess of what you could obtain as a player while being able to cast. That's probably a big reason to limit them for standard play or with an inexperienced GM.