Source Wilderness Origins pg. 9
Your melee weapons meld into your animal form.
Prerequisites: Wild shape class feature.
Benefit: When you use your wild shape ability, any melee weapons you are wielding and proficient with meld into your new form. Select one of these weapons; while in your new form, your natural attacks deal the same damage type as that weapon. Your natural attacks also gain all of the weapon’s properties (such as disarm), other than the double weapon property and the fragile weapon property; moreover, when using this feat to grant the trip property to your natural attacks, you gain a +2 bonus on combat maneuver checks to trip an enemy, but you cannot drop your weapon to avoid being tripped due to a failed trip attempt. Weapon Shift does not apply a magic weapon’s enhancement bonus to your natural attacks, nor does it grant your natural attacks any of a weapon’s magical special abilities.
Seriously considering this for my druid build. So been thinking about what weapons I would want to use it with.
Additional reach would always be nice.
Disarm is fun for opponents with weapon.
Trip is a blast for opponents with legs.
Brace is situationally useful, though not terribly common.
Manople has blocking and disarm.
Sarissa has extended reach of 15'
Boulder Helmet, +2 to bull rush attempts and +2 to AC vs crit confirm
Gnome Pincher to disarm or steal
Sibat to grapple if your form doesn't already have grab.
Boar Spear, +2 shield bonus to AC when braced against a charge.
Whip has 15' reach, trip, and disarm! (Would you also get the no damage vs opponents in armor? If so I guess you could use the scorpion whip.)
Sai gives +2 to sunder a weapon
Nine-section-whip has blocking, distracting, and trip
Kusarigama for reach, trip, and grapple
Will any of these not work the way I'm thinking?
What would you pick?
Guess I'm leaning toward an exotic weapon proficiency for the scorpion whip.
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Reach is so-so. You get "all of the weapon’s properties", but that means that your natural attack works as that weapon with that ability. With Reach, it means that you can attack at reach, but can't attack in the adjacent squares.
Take the Sarissa as an example: if you take a lion form, you get the 15' reach one of your natural attacks, let's say the bite. But you can bite at 15' only, you can't bite an enemy that is closer.
Taking the weapon type of damage is a drawback too. Most natural attacks have two or three kinds of damage, most weapons one.
The Boulder helmet is a piece of armor and a weapon. It is made of metal, so you can't use it as a druid unless you are a druid of Gorum.
Note that, as I read it, you can select a different weapon every time you wildshape. The benefit isn't that clear, but I feel that the RAI is to allow you to select any one of the melee weapons you are wielding when you wildshape.
As I read it, all of your natural attacks get the properties. It says pick one of the weapons you are wielding that meld into your new form. But then is says "... your natural attacks ..." It uses the plural each time. So I would be full attacking with claws and bite from 15' away behind our barbarian.
Forgot about the boulder helmet being metal. Maybe I will eventually get one made of ironwood.
I think it is pretty clear that you can use different weapons each time. But I think I would only get the one I started with each shift. So I was trying to get several useful properties at the same time. I have almost never used sunder. Bracing, blocking, and distracting don't seem as useful. So the scorpion whip seems to give the most that I would be likely to use.
One more question I thought of, can I stop and/or start using this feat without shifting back to my normal shape and then wildshaping again?
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I missed the plural. I had a mental fart and thought it was one weapon.
- The properties gained from a weapon do not include the description. YOu only gain reach, disarm, non-lethal, etc. This means that things like Sarissa or Whip where the special abilities are part of the description, are bad to choose.
Sarissa
Source Giant Hunter's Handbook pg. 24
Statistics
Cost 12 gp Weight 12 lbs.
Damage 1d6 (small), 1d8 (medium); Critical x3; Range —; Type P; Special brace, reach, see text
Special: Some weapons have special features in addition to those noted in their descriptions.
As I see it, you get what is in the Special column, but when the special column says "see text", you get what is in the text of the weapon description.
Will any of these not work the way I'm thinking?
There is no definition of what a "weapon property" is, but we have four examples, and all of them are what's usually called special properties (properties in the special column of a weapon's entry), and key-worded ones at such. We can thus deduct that only key-worded entries in a weapon's special section are transferred by the feat. Not a hard rule, but then again, Pathfinder is full of instances where a purely literal reading of the rules breaks the game.
There are many special weapon properties that just make no sense with natural attacks, like Barbed Spear (do you have to break off body parts?) or Dwarven Dorn Dergar. Rather than make a case-by-case evaluation in the murky waters of "does this make sense", I'd just simply have the feat work like what I'm pretty sure is the intend and only apply it to keyworded weapon special features.
It's not as if getting 30ft reach for the cost of but a feat and a trait wasn't powerful enough...
Reach is so-so. You get "all of the weapon’s properties", but that means that your natural attack works as that weapon with that ability. With Reach, it means that you can attack at reach, but can't attack in the adjacent squares. ...
On of the biggest reasons I'm considering the scorpion whip or kusarigama exotic weapon proficiency.
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The Scorpion Whip in the Adventurer's Armory does list it as having disarm, reach, and trip.
I forgot about the line of whips provoking AoO. That could be rough to provoke with every single attack. Especially if you are in a form that has like 5 natural attacks. But still... I would be provoking from a long ways away. Hopefully the bad guys wouldn't be close enough to take advantage of those.
However, if we are going with the rule of only getting what is designated by the 'keywords' not what is in the description, then this wouldn't apply since it is just in the description.
I'm going to have a level of fighter or barbarian. So I will have all the martial weapon proficiencies. Trying to decide if I want to take exotic weapon proficiency as well. Decisions... Decisions...
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"See text" is used when it is not worth creating a special quality entry for a weapon ability that only one or few weapons have.
A Sarissa has a 15' reach, the special ability is Reach and is in the Special column, but that column doesn't list the extended reach, it says see text.
Defining the Special quality would have required something as:
Special
Reach II
Reach II weapons: weapons with this special quality triple the reach of a small or medium creature.
But all that is already in the normal Reach text: "Most reach weapons double the wielder’s natural reach,"
...
There are many special weapon properties that just make no sense with natural attacks, like Barbed Spear (do you have to break off body parts?) ...
Ha! Never thought about that. I'm tempted to try that one just to see the looks on the faces when I say "Ok, my claw breaks off in his foot and ..."
"See text" is used when it is not worth creating a special quality entry for a weapon ability that only one or few weapons have.
Doesn't change the fact that there's a bunch of weird and even nonfunctional interactions, and that the feat is highly likely intended to only work with keyworded properties.
If you're using Weapon Shift with a Battle aspergillum, can you fill your teech and claws with holy water? If not, what's making that one not work while a sarissa does work?
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If you're using Weapon Shift with a Battle aspergillum, can you fill your teech and claws with holy water? If not, what's making that one not work while a sarissa does work?
(Tongue in check argument)
If you can be a creature with a poison bite and/or claw, why you can't be a creature with a holy water bite or claw? The limit is how much holy water you can store.