Would you rule at your table that:
A. You have to be familiar with the animal that you wild shape into -meaning you have to be familiar with only the base form of the animal you are wild shaping into
Or
B. You have to be familiar with the planar form of the beast that you are wild shaping into
I am interpreting it as you imbuing yourself with celestial power as you wild Shape. Wouldn't it say You have to be familiar with the Planar form that you wish to wild shape into?
Please help with any advice. Thank you!
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The feat adds a template to the animal, and the template is linked to the druid alignment, I see no reason to require the player to be familiar with the templated form of the animal.
RAW, there is no rule requirement to be familiar with the animal in which you are wild shaping. Some GMs require you to know about the animal but it is not a RAW requirement, only something that is reasonably logic.
I can see why a GM could say that a druid living in a desert can't turn into a plesiosaur unless he has some way to know what is a plesiosaur, but the rulebooks don't limit the forms you can take.
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The last sentence, first paragraph on Wild Shape on Nethys reads "The form chosen must be that of an animal with which the druid is familiar."
So is wolf or celestial wolf the form? My inclination is to say that wolf, or lion or whatnot, is the form. But I don't know of a RAW quote to support either interpretation
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The form chosen must be that of an animal with which the druid
is familiar.
I was wrong.
Wild Shape works like Beast Shape and allows you to transform into a normal version of an animal, not one with a template.
Polymorph spells cannot be used to assume the form of a creature with a template or an advanced version of a creature.
The Planar Wild shape allows you to add a template to that.
The feat allows you to bypass a limitation of the spell and requires 5 ranks in Knowledge (planes). As I see it, the two things are linked. With 5 ranks of Knowledge (planes) you know what are the effects of adding the celestial template or fiendish template to your animal form, so you are familiar with the templated forms of the animals.
"Familiar" isn't a defined term, so I think that the feat requirement should be taken as the requirement to extend your knowledge and familiarity to the template forms of the animals.
An alternative is to require the character to have enough skills in Knowledge (Nature) and Knowledge (Planes) to identify the templated animal while taking 10, but that, in a game where skill points are limited is a tough requirement.
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The feat states you are infusing the wild shape with planar energies. The prerequisite of the feat is knowledge planes 5, and wild shape. What template you use is partially determined by the druid’s alignment. The fact that only a druid who is neutral on the good/evil axis can choose which template implies you are simply drawing on the planar energy of the appropriate alignment, not changing into a specific animal.
I would say that given the prerequisite of knowledge planes 5 that any druid capable of taking this feat has enough knowledge of planes to assume the celestial/fiendish animal of any form they are capable of assuming.
"The form chosen must be that of an animal with which the druid is familiar."
"When you use wild shape to take the form of an animal, you can expend an additional daily use of your wild shape class feature to add the celestial template or fiendish template to your animal form."
The feat is a conditional ability that triggers when you use Wild Shape, which means after you chose a form. The feat also says you add the template to your form, not that yozu can take on teh form of an animal affected by the template.
RAW, you need to be familiar with what you select with Wild Shape, regardless of PWS. And I believe that the line in question in the WS description is merely an artifact from 3.5, as Paizo completely rewokred polymorphing and yet no other polymorph effect has that restriction.
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RAW, you need to be familiar with what you select with Wild Shape, regardless of PWS. And I believe that the line in question in the WS description is merely an artifact from 3.5, as Paizo completely rewokred polymorphing and yet no other polymorph effect has that restriction.
Components V, S, M (a piece of the creature whose form you plan to assume)
In theory, the requirement to have a piece of the creature is even more stringent than the requirement of being familiar with it. In practice, the "a spell pouch has all the inexpensive components" and the lack of a price for a piece of a creature makes that limitation moot.
I am not a fan of the "there is not a listed price for XX, so it cost nothing" argument. Some item hasn't a listed price because the price is extremely variable depending on the location, not because it cost nothing.
On the right beach, I can gather plenty of shark teeth in an hour, in the middle of a desert I will never see one without paying a merchant to bring one from the coast.
Pathfinder economy is simplified, so that kind of economic hurdle isn't reflected by the rules.
If you stop and think about it how anyone is supposed to change into something they have never heard of before? If I have never heard of a creature I don’t know even exists why would I even try to turn into one? I am not talking about the rules here but rather how can you attempt to turn into something you don’t know exists.
As was pointed out earlier the term familiar with is not really defined so is hard to pin down what it really means. I have always held that as long as you have at least heard some things creature you don’t need extensive knowledge of it to wild shape into it. If you are able to figure out what it is by looking at it that is good enough.
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In theory, the requirement to have a piece of the creature is even more stringent than the requirement of being familiar with it.
There is no "in theory", the material components were written under the knowledge that having a SCP (or Esschew Materials) takes care of them. They were never designed as a limitation, rather only for flavor.
"The advantage of spells that don’t require material components is they don’t require a spell component pouch (and in the rare circumstance in which if you’re grappled, you needn’t already have your material components in hand to cast the spell). Most material components are part of a spell for flavor rather than to satisfy rules. The guano and sulfur material components of fireball are there because early gunpowder (black powder) was made from guano and sulfur. The fur and glass rod material components of lightning bolt come from the ability to create a buildup of static electricity by rubbing fur against a glass rod. The game could present those spells without material components at all, and it would have a negligible effect on how the game plays (as proven by the “it has whatever I need” spell component pouch, and the sorcerer class getting Eschew Materials as a bonus feat)—they’re just in the spell for fun." UM pg. 133
For some reason, this topic always comes up in regards to polymorph spells. By all logic, guano should be costly in areas where no bats live, and yet, I've never seen someone mentioning making Fireball's material component costly. Hipocrisy at it's best.
I am not a fan of the "there is not a listed price for XX, so it cost nothing" argument.
- It's not an argument, it's simply what the rules say. "Unless a cost is given for a material component, the cost is negligible." CRB pg.213
It explicitly says what is and what isn't a "negligible cost", there is no room for interpretation.
If you stop and think about it how anyone is supposed to change into something they have never heard of before?
How does any magic work? How does a caster know how to cast spells they learn upon levelup? I get what you mean, but there's a huge part of the game that isn't explained, including how you get better at profession (sailing) after spending the entire levle in a desert tomb, or how you can take Weapon Focus with a weapon you've never touched.
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I am not talking about magic or even the rules, I am talking about ignorance. Use the example of writing a book. How can anyone write about something that they do not know exists? You can write about something you don’t know a lot about, but you cannot write about something where you are not even aware it exists. For example, could an uneducated peasant in medieval Spain write a book about VM Vsphere when they have no concept of what a computer is much less cloud computing?
You have to be aware that something exists or at least could exist before you can interact with it in any way including imaginary interaction or magic. If a spell gives you a choice you have to be aware the choice exists before you can choose it. Beast shape allows you to take the form of an animal that actually exists. You don’t simply choose what abilities and appearance you want and create a new animal. You take the form of a real animal and gain the abilities of that animal.
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For some reason, this topic always comes up in regards to polymorph spells. By all logic, guano should be costly in areas where no bats live, and yet, I've never seen someone mentioning making Fireball's material component costly. Hipocrisy at it's best.
The spell requires bat guano, so seabirds guano isn't a valid substitute, but finding a place without bats is really hard.
Bats are present throughout the world, with the exception of extremely cold regions.
Bat guano would be hard to get in the extreme northern and southern areas of a world and very tall mountain ranges. In those regions, it will not be a non-expensive item.
So, your argument is a simple attempt at deflection.
Let's use the whole citation about material components:
Material (M): A material component consists of one or more physical substances or objects that are annihilated by the spell energies in the casting process. Unless a cost is given for a material component, the cost is negligible. Don’t bother to keep track of material components with negligible cost. Assume you have all you need as long as you have your spell component pouch.
As already said plenty of times, if we take that assume as you absolutely have a spellcaster with a component pouch, and the right spells will never fear to die of hunger or thirst.
He will always have unlimited tiny fruit tarts thanks to Hideous Laughter and unlimited drops of water thanks to Control Water and other spells.And to cite what you have said today in another thread:
Oh, and one more thing, just in case: Pathfinder rules are written by people for people, not by lawyers for lawyers. They aren't written like legal documents that have to be 100% loophole proof because otherwise the company can get sued for billions or a murderer gets free or something like that. They're written with the assumption that a human being interprets them using common sense.
So, how does it work? It is not legalese only when it is convenient?
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Maybe a simpler way to look at this is that if the feat requires 5+ ranks in Kn Planes, then that includes the knowledge about your closely aligned plane. You make a Kn Planes check to know the features of a specific plane (alignment, time, etc.), so it would make sense that you could easily combine this information to know what a "[planar] [animal]" would be assuming you also know the animal already.
Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.I appreciate all of your input.