For Druids Wild Form - Animal Shape ability, can you not get bigger?

[Dargath]

So when using the focus Spell Wild Shape, at level 4 you automatically unlock animal form abilities as it heightens to level 2.

As you level the spell obviously automatically heightens, so by level 10 it is automatically heightened to level 5. As the spell heightens your forms get bigger and bigger, and it even says if you can't expand you lose the spell.

Is there any way to stay medium sized but get the better stats? I just want to play the equivalent of a World of Warcraft Feral Druid (100% uptime in combat in cat form for DPS) if at all possible but I don't necessarily want to be massive on the battlefield if I can help it, but still want good stats.

[breithauptclan]

Many people have requested this as well.

And in general being able to use lower levels of automatically heightened spells. I think the Light cantrip is another one. Maybe you don't want quite such a big light area?

But definitely Wild Shape is the one that causes the most problems.

[Dargath]

Also as a follow up: Can you play as a Minotaur in any fashion?

[breithauptclan]

Beastkin perhaps?

[Dargath]

So essentially: no and no. No, you cannot willingly choose to be smaller than the form forces you to be (Large, Huge, etc..) and no, there's no real way to play as a Minotaur. That's alright an Elvish Feral Druid would be fine, just frustrating in a few ways.

I found that the animal form attack bonus is equal to a normal Martial, but behind a Fighter by 2 of equivalent level, however animal form doesn't scale past level 10 (5th level heightened) so then your attack bonus will fall behind if you are a pure druid, so it seems the best way to play a full animal form druid would be to be a Fighter and dedication into a Druid to keep a scaling attack bonus while just choosing to use animal form wild shape the character's entire career, eschewing Dinosaur Forms and Kaiju and Dragons, etc.

[breithauptclan]

I'm not personally familiar with all of the 3rd party expansion books. But I know there are some that add a lot of different Ancestry options. I am not sure if Minotaur is among them or not, but I would suspect so.

[Deriven Firelion]

I wish they would let you stay smaller and improve battle stats. The WoW druid in wild shape forms is cool. Size is such a disadvantage in so many rooms and battles. Hell, the paizo module designers can't even explain how some creatures of certain sizes end up in some of their rooms much less trying to fit a large or bigger wild shaped druid in there.

[Dargath]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I wish they would let you stay smaller and improve battle stats. The WoW druid in wild shape forms is cool. Size is such a disadvantage in so many rooms and battles. Hell, the paizo module designers can't even explain how some creatures of certain sizes end up in some of their rooms much less trying to fit a large or bigger wild shaped druid in there.

Do you think they will ever errata this or even create an item to choose to stay medium size but still gain stats? I don’t know. I don’t really want to be a dragon, a Kaiju, a dinosaur etc. I get the appeal, I understand why some people want to be Godzilla, or a massive T-Rex tearing it up… but I just want to be a panther or mountain lion and do DPS. I always liked how it felt like being an ambush predator like an alternative way to play Rogue.

[Deriven Firelion]

Dargath wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I wish they would let you stay smaller and improve battle stats. The WoW druid in wild shape forms is cool. Size is such a disadvantage in so many rooms and battles. Hell, the paizo module designers can't even explain how some creatures of certain sizes end up in some of their rooms much less trying to fit a large or bigger wild shaped druid in there.

Do you think they will ever errata this or even create an item to choose to stay medium size but still gain stats? I don’t know. I don’t really want to be a dragon, a Kaiju, a dinosaur etc. I get the appeal, I understand why some people want to be Godzilla, or a massive T-Rex tearing it up… but I just want to be a panther or mountain lion and do DPS. I always liked how it felt like being an ambush predator like an alternative way to play Rogue.

They have not ever done it in the past, so I doubt it. It would be nice to have a usable battle form for an animal or whatever favorite creature you want to do, but Paizo never seems to adjust for it.

Hopefully you have a kind DM that let's you do it.

[Dargath]

I only have access to pathfinder society :/

[Dargath]

I guess it’s just shocking to me that this game has so much build diversity and so many different ways to play but the wild form option is completely railroaded into “just get bigger. Just be more exotic.”

[Deriven Firelion]

I wish they would have battle forms effective at high level, but were just animals of regular size as well or elementals. The size increase may be impressive, but it makes them unusable which isn't fun.

[WatersLethe]

Definitely an unfortunate gap in the rules.

[Castilliano]

I interpret it that you can cast a Focus Spell or Cantrip at a lower level (undercast), mainly because you can still cast the highest version of a Focus Spell even when you're casting it at even a higher level (say a 5th level version when your 11th+ level). This itself is a form of undercasting.
I'd rule this way in PFS too, but that would not get you the level-appropriate stats so it'd be fatal in combat. I think for viability it might require a Shifter-martial class or Archetype...

...or the Animal Barbarian which if "fighting as an animal" is your PC's main shtick would be most appropriate. It'd fight better too, albeit at the cost of casting. Yet you could take MCD Druid for the minor magic when not raging. That's not the only route, but it's the simplest and requires no reskinning.

[Dargath]

Castilliano wrote:

I interpret it that you can cast a Focus Spell or Cantrip at a lower level (undercast), mainly because you can still cast the highest version of a Focus Spell even when you're casting it at even a higher level (say a 5th level version when your 11th+ level). This itself is a form of undercasting.

I'd rule this way in PFS too, but that would not get you the level-appropriate stats so it'd be fatal in combat. I think for viability it might require a Shifter-martial class or Archetype...

...or the Animal Barbarian which if "fighting as an animal" is your PC's main shtick would be most appropriate. It'd fight better too, albeit at the cost of casting. Yet you could take MCD Druid for the minor magic when not raging. That's not the only route, but it's the simplest and requires no reskinning.

Does the Animal Barbarian literally transform into their chosen animal when raging? If so that’s cool.

[Lollerabe]

That's not how it's flavored but most people would be completely fine with you flavoring it that way. It's often referred to as 'fluff' - a way you describe something that has no mechanical bearing.

My ruffian rogue uses a longspear. In fiction it's actually a spiked ball on a long chain, very akin to a meteor hammer. Stats are the same.

If you wanna emulate a tauren feral druid from modern wow, a barb might be a closer fit either way. As a druid your a full caster and you are doing yourself a massive disservice by not using your spells alot.

Animal instinct barb with a monk dedication is a super viable build for what you are going for. The wrestler archetype with the animal barb is also great. Might be more of bear druid vibe, alotta crushing and throwing. Plus acces to the coolest feat in pf2e history - whirling throw.

[Dargath]

Lollerabe wrote:

That's not how it's flavored but most people would be completely fine with you flavoring it that way. It's often referred to as 'fluff' - a way you describe something that has no mechanical bearing.

My ruffian rogue uses a longspear. In fiction it's actually a spiked ball on a long chain, very akin to a meteor hammer. Stats are the same.

If you wanna emulate a tauren feral druid from modern wow, a barb might be a closer fit either way. As a druid your a full caster and you are doing yourself a massive disservice by not using your spells alot.

Animal instinct barb with a monk dedication is a super viable build for what you are going for. The wrestler archetype with the animal barb is also great. Might be more of bear druid vibe, alotta crushing and throwing. Plus acces to the coolest feat in pf2e history - whirling throw.

I think the aspect I like most about the WoW Druid is flexibility when exploring. You can fly at will pretty much, save yourself from falling, breath under water and swim faster, and so forth. It seems there’s no real way of getting that flexibility, and I would be using the classic spells like remove curse, healing, having a ranged cantrip (like wrath basically), and all that. I know this game has a massive problem with casters also being good at dealing damage for whatever reason, but I think an animal instinct Barbarian dedication Druid with spellcasting can get me a lot of the way there. Could possibly even grab the wild shape for the other utility forms (maybe). Not sure if you can get aerial form via dedication or if it’s too high level.

[Lollerabe]

Dargath wrote:

Lollerabe wrote:

That's not how it's flavored but most people would be completely fine with you flavoring it that way. It's often referred to as 'fluff' - a way you describe something that has no mechanical bearing.

My ruffian rogue uses a longspear. In fiction it's actually a spiked ball on a long chain, very akin to a meteor hammer. Stats are the same.

If you wanna emulate a tauren feral druid from modern wow, a barb might be a closer fit either way. As a druid your a full caster and you are doing yourself a massive disservice by not using your spells alot.

Animal instinct barb with a monk dedication is a super viable build for what you are going for. The wrestler archetype with the animal barb is also great. Might be more of bear druid vibe, alotta crushing and throwing. Plus acces to the coolest feat in pf2e history - whirling throw.

I think the aspect I like most about the WoW Druid is flexibility when exploring. You can fly at will pretty much, save yourself from falling, breath under water and swim faster, and so forth. It seems there’s no real way of getting that flexibility, and I would be using the classic spells like remove curse, healing, having a ranged cantrip (like wrath basically), and all that. I know this game has a massive problem with casters also being good at dealing damage for whatever reason, but I think an animal instinct Barbarian dedication Druid with spellcasting can get me a lot of the way there. Could possibly even grab the wild shape for the other utility forms (maybe). Not sure if you can get aerial form via dedication or if it’s too high level.

You gain access to:

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=151
At lvl 8. Which should help with that aspect and alot of the jump skill feats etc can make you pretty legit at jumping around etc both in and out of combat.

Yeah you can't be a full caster with a full martials frontline capabilities. For good reason imo, but hey.

[Ravingdork]

Dargath wrote:

Does the Animal Barbarian literally transform into their chosen animal when raging? If so that’s cool.

Not by default. Instead, you get a natural attack in a pseudo-half transformation. However, if you want to be wholly an animal, there's a feat for that called Animal Rage.

[YuriP]

It's not really "animal" form there's also other forms that druid can take keep the size while are stronger like Aerial Form, Elemental Form and Nature Incarnate Green Man form. This allows to keep medium sized strong forms at last until level 10 and at level 20. The problem is that all forms between level 10-20 are larger or greater.

It's a house rule but it's easy for a GM to allow you to keep your medium size after polymorph it isn't like doing this increases your power instead will diminish your reach.

[breithauptclan]

Dargath wrote:

I think the aspect I like most about the WoW Druid is flexibility when exploring. You can fly at will pretty much, save yourself from falling, breath under water and swim faster, and so forth.

4th level Animal Feature. So by level 7 you will need to be a ranger or have Ranger Dedication, then get Gravity Weapon and Animal Feature.

[breithauptclan]

Also, link to previous discussion on this topic. Though most of that has been covered in this thread again already.

[Dargath]

breithauptclan wrote:

Dargath wrote:

I think the aspect I like most about the WoW Druid is flexibility when exploring. You can fly at will pretty much, save yourself from falling, breath under water and swim faster, and so forth.

4th level Animal Feature. So by level 7 you will need to be a ranger or have Ranger Dedication, then get Gravity Weapon and Animal Feature.

Interestingly with the new ranger spells like soothing mist it’s possible to get a little bit of healing and all the supporty Druid stuff so maybe Animal Barbarian with Ranger dedication could pull it off too.