Spells:
LvL1: Heal, Create Water and Summon Fey*
* Summons are weaker in melee fight yet the magical ones have many utilities, specially for prepared spellcasters like druids. You can summon Unicorns to heal you or your allies when needed and sustain it while your are shaped. Summon Satyr it's like a summonable bard once they have inspire competence, inspire courage, triple time ready to used.
LvL 2: Barkskin, Create Food and Flaming Sphere.
LvL 3: Haste and Wall of Wind.
LvL 4: [url=https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=6]Air Walk, Fly or Stoneskin
LvL 5: Healing Well
LvL 6: True Seeing
Also remember that the Wild Shape isn't a fixed resource per encounter. They are focus spells and as so, specially in highest levels, it allows you to "unshape", cast a spell, then re-shape again.
Another very good one is Longstrider, especially heightened to level 2. And if you can get the focus points for it, Wild Morph is actually a good buff that you can combine with Wildshape to give yourself reach or some resistance. And it's only a single action so you can use Wild Morph and Wild Shape on the same turn.
Though honestly, casting a short duration buff on turn 1 and then use wildshape at turn 2 doesn't seem too effective in most situations. By the time you're ready to enter melee, the fight will be halfway done and you won't really have contributed anything to it. I'd much rather use Wildshape on turn 1 and go in without any extra buffs. The battle forms are balanced to be a bit less powerful than a martial and I think having 85% of a martial at turn one is better than having 95% at turn two.
If you want to cast a spell before using wildshape, chances are a fireball will be much more effective than using haste on yourself (this will probably change once you can cast haste on multiple targets).
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So...you kind of hinted at this within your post. I highly suspect that the class and wild shape are exactly what you think they are and there are no ways around it. This is because, for good or ill, the designers wanted to make sure that there was no way for full spellcaster classes to be even equal to martials in martial combat.
As such, even Blave's suggestion of Wild Morph has limits built in via the morph and polymorph tags.
There doesn't currently exist a class chassis made to make very effective use of polymorphing. Though, druid is currently the best one.
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There are a few long duration spells. Longstrider II is a no-brainer. Vital Beacon for healing.
I encourage you to keep a Heal or 2, as you can unshape and heal when it's really the best thing to do.
And AoE effects, like Fireball, because Wild Shape is definitely not the best idea if you face a swarm of opponents.
There's also a big issue with Wild Shape: you take a lot of space. In cranked spaces, you sometimes won't be able to Wild Shape. In that case you have your spell list as a backup plan.
As a side note, if what you want is to Wild Shape at each and every fight and do nothing else, I encourage you to take a look at Fighter or Monk with Druid Dedication. Martial classes will give you better combat abilities (Fighter chances to hit, Monk Flurry) at the cost of your spell list (that you seem to have hard time using). At higher level, you'll grab Form Control and be Wild Shaped all the time, gaining 2 actions during the first round.
Air Walk not Fly.
Fly lasts an hour at level 7, I think that's what Leo was referring to.
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My personal recommendation is to focus in on crowd control spells or AoE damage/debuffs to lob at your enemies until they close the distance a little, or toss out sustain spells, then wildshape when they get closer. Also, while your attack bonus won't be great enough to throw two strikes, you can definately do a strike and an athletics action since skills scale much faster. I know it's beyond the scope of what you asked, but wrestler will make a wildshaper that wants to spend most of the fight in wildshape a lot more powerful and fun.
That said; spells!
1st: Summon animal and summon.fey have some fun support options within certain level brackets, mud pit is a basic difficult terrain spell, fear is nice, amd level 3 fear is especially nice, Illusory Object is absolutely amazing if you have fey caller
2nd: Ash Cloud; if you have fire lung, Entangle is fun, Flaming Sphere for sustain damage, Obscuring mist if you can see through fog, Barkskin
3rd: any of the wall spells, stinking cloud, fireball or crashing wave for an opening volley, blazing dive to move in AND damage, slow (imo self targeted level 3 haste is a downright terrible spell, and ally targeted is only worthwhile if younhot someone below you in initiative; otherwise it just takes too long to pay itself off), Aqueous Orb, Oneiric Mire, Life Connection if you are okay with playing a secondary tank role
4th: Air Walk, Coral Eruption (a blast, difficult terrain, and hazardous terrain wrapped into one spell; pretty nice), Draw the Lightning (single target blast AND a damage buff to your wild shape!), Elephant Form (grabbing trunk is REALLY good and pairs well with wrestler feats like Spinebreaker), Ice Storm (blast, difficult terrain, and damage for staying in the area; damage is low enough that giving yourself cold resistance lets you largely or totally ignore it), Petal Storm (good ol pain field), Stoneskin, Solid fog (again, if you can see through fog), Spike Stones
5th: the walls, lighting storm, acid storm, Cloudkill
6th: Chain Lightning, Flame vortex, blanket of stars, Elemental Confluence, Nature's Repraisal
7th: Mask of Terror, Regenerate, sun/moonburst
8th: Burning Blossoms, Whirlwind, Punishing Winds
9th: Implosion, Storm of vengence, meteor swarm
10th: Element Embodied, Primal Phenomenon, Summon Kaiju
This list doesn't include generally helpful spells like heal, nor utility spells; this is mostly a list of handy things to help wildshaper fight
It's not an oversight if it's done with intention
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Side Note:
I made a chart diagramming the relationships between the Wild Shape Feats and the various Form Spells.
You might find it useful when building your character.
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Not sure if this will help but I'd suggest NOT planning on totally focussing on wild shape.
Wild shape should be one of 2 or 3 weapons available to you.
But have some AoE blasty spells for the encounters with lots of lower level opponents. If nobody else has them have a couple of heal spells for emergencies. Have some control spells, some utility spells, etc.
Sometimes wild shaping is a WONDERFUL thing to do. But you will be less effective than a martial. You pretty much NEED to also bring spell casting to the table as well in order to be a fully contributing member of the group.
The other thing is that there is HUGE rules ambiguity around wild shape. Find out how your GM handles things like sneak attack damage or rage damage wild wildshaped. Some multiclassing MAY help depending on GM ruling. Find out how they interpret things
One thing you'll REALLY want is flurry of blows at level 10. Which means human multitalented at Level 9 and then a level 10 or 12 feat. Or an earlier multiclass (the Dex requirement may hurt for that).
Form Control is very useful, especially if you're often in tight quarters. Your damage goes down but at least your to hit and defences stay up
As a side note, if what you want is to Wild Shape at each and every fight and do nothing else, I encourage you to take a look at Fighter or Monk with Druid Dedication. Martial classes will give you better combat abilities (Fighter chances to hit, Monk Flurry) at the cost of your spell list (that you seem to have hard time using). At higher level, you'll grab Form Control and be Wild Shaped all the time, gaining 2 actions during the first round.
Other interesting martial option is animal barbarian with Animal Rage and dragon barbarian with Dragon Transformation
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As a side note, if what you want is to Wild Shape at each and every fight and do nothing else, I encourage you to take a look at Fighter or Monk with Druid Dedication. Martial classes will give you better combat abilities (Fighter chances to hit, Monk Flurry) at the cost of your spell list (that you seem to have hard time using). At higher level, you'll grab Form Control and be Wild Shaped all the time, gaining 2 actions during the first round.Other interesting martial option is animal barbarian with Animal Rage and dragon barbarian with Dragon Transformation
All of these options are only effective at some levels (druid dedication falls strongly off at level 10 or so, animal and dragon barbarian come online mid to late game). So whether these are good options will largely depend on what levels you're hoping to play at.
But they also aren't too limited to have to keep changing you form while progress because the spell form don't progress (specially for barbarian's Dragon Transformation).
All of these options are only effective at some levels (druid dedication falls strongly off at level 10 or so
Not at all. At these levels, you switch to Form Control. What you lose on damage is compensated by the action economy bonus. You'll keep on being more efficient than a Wild Shaped Druid.
Other interesting martial option is animal barbarian with Animal Rage and dragon barbarian with Dragon Transformation
Animal Rage really doesn't feel like Wild Shaping. It does absolutely nothing but give you new movement forms.
And Dragon Transformation comes way to late to be considered.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Animal Rage really doesn't feel like Wild Shaping. It does absolutely nothing but give you new movement forms.
And Dragon Transformation comes way to late to be considered.
What wild shape does for druids:
-temp hp-status bonus on attack rolls
-better unarmed attack
-bonus to damage
-better movement speed
-new senses
-no casting
What rage+animal rage does for barbarian
-temp hp
-better unarmed attack
-bonus to damage
-better movement speed
-new senses
-no casting
Seems pretty similar to me. You also don't take nearly as big of an AC hit than the wildshaping monk.
Quite frankly, if you want to turn into and animal and beat people up, completely eschewing spells, barbarian is probably the best, or something like a beastkin monk and reskinning the beast form as an actual animal form
Druids don't even get the status bonus to unarmed attacks. Wild Shape is something you only really use for flavor, an emergency when you're out of slots, or to dodge the abysmal caster early game.
Wild shape gets a +2 status bonus to attacks if you use your own score; which basically makes you kinda close to a martial (but if a martial didn't get the bard's accuracy buffs)
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Wild shape gets a +2 status bonus to attacks if you use your own score; which basically makes you kinda close to a martial (but if a martial didn't get the bard's accuracy buffs)
No it doesn't work. Read it, look at the numbers. It applies to a martial multiclassed into druid, never a single class druid except to the optimised druid at level 4 (and only level 4 not levels 1-3 or 5-20) or a druid who is deliberately using a weaker form with a lower attack value.
It is not a useful ability for a Druid.
Wild Shape on druid is more to compensate the low proficiency progression than a real bonus.
For a martial class with a druid dedication it's works more like a bonus but due the max heightened of available forms feats stops in 7th they basically stop to progress in level 14th. So they are good in "earliest" levels only.
That's why I prefer the barbarian's shape changing. At long term for adventures that ends in level 20 they are better.
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Wild shape gets a +2 status bonus to attacks if you use your own score; which basically makes you kinda close to a martial (but if a martial didn't get the bard's accuracy buffs)No it doesn't work. Read it, look at the numbers. It applies to a martial multiclassed into druid, never a single class druid except to the optimised druid at level 4 (and only level 4 not levels 1-3 or 5-20) or a druid who is deliberately using a weaker form with a lower attack value.
It is not a useful ability for a Druid.
Partly depends on GM interpretation (does greater than mean greater than or equal? Do you add the +2 before deciding if you're greater?)
But even using the most conservative interpretation plant shape rocks at level 10-11.
Partly depends on GM interpretation (does greater than mean greater than or equal? Do you add the +2 before deciding if you're greater?)
Wow. This is basic maths and logic here. If you think it is wrong then as a GM just fix it. But don't pretend it is not clear.
I certainly think it is a mistake.
I've never seen an instance where the spell wasn't interpreted as greater than or equal allows a swap, and that's general consensus I've seen on these forum; something about a typical assumtion that an ability works. I'm gonna take a wild guess that you probably don't rule that arcane cascade automatically drops after using another action because you're no longer meeting the conditins of the stance, right?
Idk why you're being so cranky and condscending in your replies to people
pauljathome is saying 2+2=3. It is just not unclear. It is not true.
I am sorry if being told someone is wrong comes across are confrontational or cranky. It is just a matter of written record.
The reason a lot of people get it wrong is they just don't read it together. It is in a separate spot and they put it together how they think it should be, not how it is actually written. As a gaming community there are a lot of misconceptions out there for PF2 as the rule book is all over the place. Most rules need to be checked in a few places. It is a terrible design. But this is a game, Paizo doesn't care as long as people are happy and neither really should we.
I raise it in the hopes that Paizo will fix it. That is all.
For pure shape shifter druid in an AP that ends at level 11 probably the Animal Druid + Wild via Order Explorer is the best option available. Starts with Wild don't worth once you only have access to animal form only after level 2 and as you said other orders don't combine so well due the inability to cast while you are in the form.
Unless you want to take some specific form you don't need to worry about high feat demand of this combination because the animal form will auto heightening well until spelllevel 5, only when you reach level 10 you may take soaring shape or elemental shape (I recommend elemental due high versatility, energy resistance, better AC and hit at spelllevel 6 than soaring) due their heightened 6.
The main problem of this pure animal+wild druid build is that while you are in the form you are unable to heal your companion so unless there's other healer in the party you may sometimes ends your transformation to be able to heal your companion.
For non-pure wild druid with some archetype dedication there's some interesting options you can take in place of a companion:
My wild shape druid build
I dumped wisdom
I took buff and utility spells
I wild shape when my buffs and utility options are up and running that I wanted
I did not take battle medicine
You don't need to dump your wisdom for Wild Shape once with exception of lvl 4 your Battle Form stats are unaffected by your stats. It's the opposite just focus in Wiz, Con, and Dex to keep your saves high.
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pauljathome is saying 2+2=3. It is just not unclear. It is not true.
No, pauljathome is saying that many GMs think that 2+2=3. I'm completely aware that
1) The words are unambiguous and clear (at least in terms of what greater than means)2) Greater than is routinely misinterpreted by many people. For example, in roll20 1d20>19 means that you crit on a 19 or 20. Ie, > means >=. But I've heard lots and lots of innumerate people get it wrong
I must admit that I find it hilarious that the post immediately above Gortles post is a person saying that they have NEVER seen a GM interpreting things correctly
But back to the OP, some of my wild shape druids dump STR, ALL of them max out Wisdom. Its NICE to have the option of hitting somebody from 20 feet away for 2d10+16 with a to hit modifier equal to that of a fighter (when the fighter does NOT have a status bonus, admittedly) OR to hit people with a chain lightning spell.
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I must admit that I find it hilarious that the post immediately above Gortles post is a person saying that they have NEVER seen a GM interpreting things correctly
PF2 as a system probably encourages this.
I think that many tables just wing it and keep going. I mean it is a game and life is too short. I'm currently butchering the Kingmaker kingdom rules at the moment in my home game. They don't quite make sense to me yet so I'm just going with something reasonable to me, until I do understand them.
As far as RAI for battle forms, I really don't know if the +2 status bonus to hit was always supposed to apply, or if additional damage was supposed to add. I wish Paizo would be clear.
RAW wise +2 generally doesn't apply, and additional damage is undefined. I allow the additional damage as that is my understanding of Mark's comments on damage. Probably most people play with the opposite rulings.
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You don't need to dump your wisdom for Wild Shape once with exception of lvl 4 your Battle Form stats are unaffected by your stats. It's the opposite just focus in Wiz, Con, and Dex to keep your saves high.Is Strength a dump stat? I know it doesn't *normally* impact battle forms. But what about when I have to go into a small space and can't transform into a large form? I know that I can use my own attack +2 if it's higher than the form provides. If I'm downsizing my form to fit, does strength increase my attack bonus to help me hit? Or can dexterity do the same? I know bites aren't agile, but claws are. Not sure if dexterity increases attack for both, though?
I hope that made sense. Feels like a bit of a jumble to me with a good example.
Remember that you still are a druid. Your martial proficiency don't progress well and Str isn't your key stat. So in situations where you cannot use a battle form (that's usually pretty rare, usually the battle maps have enough space for a party fight and if you need to pass through corridors during an encounter rarely they are less than medium sized this probably is just a difficult terrain for you:
You contort yourself to squeeze through a space so small you can barely fit through. This action is for exceptionally small spaces; many tight spaces are difficult terrain that you can move through more quickly and without a check.
Critical Success You squeeze through the tight space in 1 minute per 10 feet of squeezing.
Success You squeeze through in 1 minute per 5 feet.
Critical Failure You become stuck in the tight space. While you’re stuck, you can spend 1 minute attempting another Acrobatics check at the same DC. Any result on that check other than a critical failure causes you to become unstuck.
Sample Squeeze Tasks
Trained space barely fitting your shoulders
Master space barely fitting your head
So unless you need to pass into a space where your battle form barely fitting your shoulders you probably can pass thought it.
About "I know that I can use my own attack +2 if it's higher than the form provides" for a caster like a druid this only happens at level 4. During all other levels you Battle Form attack is bigger or equal even using Handwraps.
My final recommendation is if you are in a situation where you cannot enter into a battle form, remember that you have spells and cantrips. Probably is better to cast EA + shot something than go to frontline without the form. I still don't recommed you to focus in Str because you will have to take from Dex, Con or Wis. If you remove points from Wiz you will diminish your will and Perception, if you remove from Con you will diminish your HP and Fort, if you remove from Dex you diminish your Reflexes.
Thank you for tbe spell list.
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None of this answered my question. I'm not asking "What else should I do?" I'm specifically asking if, in one of Pathfinders NUMEROUS towns, buildings, dungeons, etc that don't have space to transform into a large or huge form (such as virtually every single hallways ever on their battle maps), if I use a lower spell level battle form (and thus smaller size and lower attack bonus), is it still wise to have some strength to boost my normal attack bonus and be higher than my form gives me? Or does dexterity give attack for unarmed strikes?
It's simply not worth taking a form of a lower level (curiously this is not even possible to do with Wild Shape, only with spell slots, although many GMs accept that you can cast a cantrip or a spell focus of a level lower without major problems), you will end up getting not only with less hit but also with much below average damage, even investing everything in your strength and using it instead, you will end up in a situation where you will cause little damage against creatures with a lot of HP or resistances.
In this situation it's probably better to forget about form, grab a magic weapon and a shield and go fight without form at all (or just cast ranged spells).Interestingly, in AP you hardly have battles in corridors, I think 99% of them take place in rooms or in open fields.
As for the shape being bigger than the hallway, that's only an issue if you want to transform into this hallway. If you transform into a normal room with enough space in your 3x3 form and then try to enter a hallway that's only 2 squares wide, you can! It's just difficult terrain for you, and even smaller spaces like 1 square you probably can too, it's just going to be treated as very difficult terrain. It's only really problematic if the space is the size or smaller than the "shoulders" of your shape, in this situation you could only get by using squeeze or canceling the shape. But as I said, it's a very rare situation, almost always where there's room to fight, there's room to transform. In practice it is more common to have trouble walking with a large animal companion out of combat than to find yourself in a situation where a fight takes place in a tight space.
Let's say I'm level 10. Animal form gets to be huge (3x3) at this level and gives +18 att. But oh no! We're in a dungeon with 2 square wide hallways! So I use wild shape to merely become large. The 4th spell level size with +16 att. Gee, that sucks! But my level gives me +12 proficiency to attack. I'm wearing Handwraps +2. That's +14 total.
In this example if you use a lvl 4th shape your damage will be smaller (will fall from 4d8+7 to 2d8+9) and unless an encounter begins in this hallway you can simply get out of it (returning or advancing) and then transforming. The other option that works exclusively for this situation (lvl 10, 2 squares large corridor) you can enter into Elemental Form instead. It's stronger and smaller.
Now, my question is this: Does DEXTERITY add to my attack modifier for unarmed strikes? Or is it only strength? Because if strength adds, then it's clearly worth it to not dumpstat it since I *might* need to add it on to beat battle forms' attack and get an additional +2. For a grand total of at least +18 to tie or beat my huge form in a large or smaller form. But if strength isn't needed at all because dexterity can be used, then obviously I'll raise that and dump extra points into intelligence for more skills or something.
So long story short: What contributes to the unarmed attack modifier? Just strength? Or the higher of strength or dexterity?
As for the question of using dex to attack, you can, if the form's attack has the finesse trait, the problem is that there are no forms with this trait, so in practice, no, you can't.
None of this answered my question. I'm not asking "What else should I do?" I'm specifically asking if, in one of Pathfinders NUMEROUS towns, buildings, dungeons, etc that don't have space to transform into a large or huge form (such as virtually every single hallways ever on their battle maps), if I use a lower spell level battle form (and thus smaller size and lower attack bonus), is it still wise to have some strength to boost my normal attack bonus and be higher than my form gives me? Or does dexterity give attack for unarmed strikes?
Different people will give you different answers on that. I have investigated the issue as much as possible and I've even written up a 20 page discuassion on Battle Forms
Paizo haven't defined properly the terms they use. The term in question is your unarmed attack modifier. It is calculated using the unshifted druids unarmed attack. That part has been partially clarified by Paizo. The item bonus from your hand wraps of might blows does apply to the druid - even though it is not legal to add that bonus to the wildshape itself.
Nowhere does it say if you must use strength or dexterity. There are certainly unarmed attacks like Fist that are Finesse. But it is also clear that the default ability for melee is strength.
So are you allowed to look at a specific unarmed attack and thus choose dexterity. I mean I think the answer is yes but other people disagree.
There are a couple of forms where dex or str is specifically mentioned - Elemental Form. But one case doesn't establish a general principle as the wordings are different.
Then there is the fact that some wild shape feats have a strength requirement.
You are just going to have to make a ruling in your game and move on. I've been calling this out for 3 years and it is still not addressed.
There are a couple of forms where dex or str is specifically mentioned - Elemental Form. But one case doesn't establish a general principle as the wordings are different.
Then there is the fact that some wild shape feats have a strength requirement.
You are right I forget there are some elemental forms that attacks are dex based. Same for Aerial Form
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I really want to see Shifter ported across to 2e basically because of this thread. Combat wildshape can easily cover a class rather than just being another option for druids.
I'd love to see this too but I don't envy the job of trying to make it balanced (not that the PF1 shifter was balanced :-(). ESPECIALLY if there is any remote chance of it being balanced when Free Archetype is in play.
Probably would be done as some kind of archetype that just gives access to higher level beast forms at some level higher than N and less than 2N (where N is the level the druid gets it at).
The fundamental problem is that right now a wild shaped druid who NEVER casts spells other than wild shape or wild morph is already pretty close to balanced (or even overpowered) at some levels in the right circumstances. Plant Shape absolutely rocks and a wild shaped druid can take great advantage of flurry and attack of opportunity, even with the most conservative interpretations of how wild shape works. And that balance is JUST looking at raw damage output. If you consider the flexibility that a wild shape brings to the table (again, JUST considering his wild shape abilities) then a druid is already pretty much a top tier character at the appropriate levels (I just played the L12 adventure The Last Dream and my druid was probably the MVP of the group. He did somewhere between as much and more damage as the barbarian AND his great flexibility was very useful several times).
Of course, one major impediment is that Paizo would pretty much HAVE to decide how the existing wild shape works first which would (regardless of how they decide) piss off a whole bunch of people.
I will continue to dump wisdom with my wild order druid.
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Of course, one major impediment is that Paizo would pretty much HAVE to decide how the existing wild shape works first which would (regardless of how they decide) piss off a whole bunch of people.
Yes and this is the real issue I think. They judge that clarifying it would require that the admit they made a mistake and would annoy everyone who is doing it differently. So it is easier to leave it be.
They also have a really poor track record of fixing things. I mean they put out errata to patch a couple of things with Soothe and healing undead as there are some blatant rules conflicts there, but they haven't got anywhere near fixing the problems in healing PC undead. Then there is the flanking fix they did for ranged weapons that wasn't a problem in the first place. It could have just been left alone. It was clear and it wasn't broken.
For me though battleforms are a major drag to my enjoyment of the game, as I can't really talk about druid builds as there as so many different house rules here.
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For me though battleforms are a major drag to my enjoyment of the game, as I can't really talk about druid builds as there as so many different house rules here.
Personally, I find it a minor nuisance but that is at least partially because I play PFS (or in groups that originally came from PFS) a lot.
Within those groups one just takes the most conservative interpretation of Wild Shape and plans appropriately. Even with this Wild Shape is still VERY useful to druids or other spellcasters.
It unfortunately DOES mean that I've never played a martial using a druid archetype for wild shape. With the most conservative interpretations that just isn't a particularly viable character for most levels. Its pretty much done better by a monk or a barbarian (with only Animal Shape in the mix its pretty much just a mobile fighter sort).
One of my (minor) peeves is that the Magic Warrior archetype just gives you animal shape, NOT wild shape. You could build a quite interesting martial around that IF it gave you the +2 that wild shape gives, but without that you're just much better off going Druid.
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Even with this Wild Shape is still VERY useful to druids or other spellcasters.
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Huh. I hadn't considered how it might be useful for other spellcasters beyond things like flight.
Is useful for many pontual situations specially for the parties with just one melee.
For a party that by some reason there's only one or none frontline. Wild Shape can be a very good alternative. A wild shaped druid won't be so strong as a true martial class but still strong enough to take the frontline. Maybe is too risky to go alone (in a party with just one wild shaped druid + 3 ranged chars) but if have another melee player they are good enough to help to flank and to help with some athletics maneuvers and do some damage. Also Elemental and Dragon shapes can help vs flying creatures or exploiting some elemental weakness.
Currently the caster forms are not really made to compete with martials but one more tool to casters to help in a situation that requires an additional frontline martial and Wild Shape focus spell can be versatile to adapt to many terrain and oponent weakness.