How would you build an effective melee focused wildshape drain shaman build?
I was thinking ranger1/ druid X/mammoth rider 1 with shaping focus and shape shifting hunter so I get a huge full animal companion, okish casting for self buffs, essentially full wildshaping effective level and full scaled favoured enemy(which is just a bonus on top I guess)
I thought about using this above fully Druid since saurian shamans wildshape as level-2 for non reptile/ dinosaurs and so you need to Multiclass into something to get shaping focus so your wildshape is you character level for everything and character level+2 for dinos
Is there any other way I could build this? Also what feats should I take to improve wildshape? There’s the planar shape and natural spell, power attack and other melee focused feats is that it?
Side note: I am not 100% set on saurian shaman btw just thought turning into a dino was cool but I am also open to using any melee focused wildshape builds
dinosaurs are good wildshape forms. Reptiles/lizards are not dinosaurs.
You basically have 3 choices for wildshaping;
Druid arch Saurian Shaman{not the shaman class} Dinos & Reptiles. Check out Versatile Nature's Ally.
Druid arch Goliath Druid very much Ntrl or Mfg weapon melee.
Druid arch Dinosaur Druid basically adds to Druid.
You have a lot of Race choices; aasimar, human(feats ya know), samsaran, tiefling, maybe svinfneblins. Some people like half-orc sorcerers...
Usual multiclassing is;
Monk, Ranger, Alchemist, and I'll add Wizard for the caster, Brawler if you go CM/dirty tricks. Mammoth Rider @9th for 1 Lvl. Huge Anml Cmpn. Feats to check out: Animal Soul, Boon Companion.
Ability:
for combat: Str, Con, Wis/Dex ...
for casting: Wis, Dex, Int/Str ...
just outlining your options, not that many really. Role(combat(Ntrl/Wpns), spellcasting, mix of both, and skills...) will really be the determining factor. I put the classes in my preferred order(power & versatility) BUT it really depends on what Role you want to play. I tend to run Wizards which requires planning, paperwork, and system mastery which is not everyone's forte. Since you said Melee, I'd choose between the first two. The Saurian is a bit more of a caster than Goliath.
There are many threads on various builds of these classes in this(Advice) forum. There's also the build guides.
Azothath wrote: dinosaurs are good wildshape forms. Reptiles/lizards are not dinosaurs.
You basically have 3 choices for wildshaping;
Druid arch Saurian Shaman{not the shaman class} Dinos & Reptiles. Check out Versatile Nature's Ally.
Druid arch Goliath Druid very much Ntrl or Mfg weapon melee.
Druid arch Dinosaur Druid
You have a lot of Race choices; aasimar, human(feats ya know), samsaran, tiefling, maybe svinfneblins. Some people like half-orc sorcerers...
Usual multiclassing is;
Monk, Ranger, Alchemist, and I'll add Wizard for the caster, Brawler if you go CM/dirty tricks.
for combat: Str, Con, Wis/Dex ...
for casting: Wis, Dex, Int/Str ...
So if I am not wrong, dinosaur Druid seems weaker since it’s min/lvl instead of hour/lvl for non dinosaurs
So between saurian shaman and Goliath Druid the difference is:
Saurian: dinos, animals, plant, elementals wildshape
Goliath: dinos and giant wildshape
Is giant shape worth the lost of elementals and plant shape?
Goliath is mostly if you want to utilize weapons instead of natural attacks. You could be a dwarf with a battleaxe or a half-orc with a falchion, or even just rely on the druid scimitar. It’s hard to say if you will miss elemental or plant forms. That will depend on the individual.
How much of the other druid class abilities are you willing to sacrifice? Druids are full caster with a decent spell list and a lot of other class abilities. Are you willing to give up caster levels, venom immunity, a thousand faces and timeless body?
Since Saurian Shamans get delayed access to Wild Shape that means you must have at least 6 levels in druid to get wild shape. When taking a reptile or dinosaur form the Saurian Shaman does not gain any benefit from further levels in druid other than increased duration and extra uses. A Saurian Shaman at 6th level can already become a huge reptile or dinosaur 2 times a day and works like beast shape III. Further levels do not improve the size or abilities you can assume in those forms. Further levels in druid will only allow you to assume more powerful forms of other types.
You will also need to be at least a 4th level ranger to have the levels stack for your animal companion. Rangers do not gain Hunters bond until 4th level so until then they do not actually have the animal companion class feature. Once they gain hunters bond, they gain the class feature and the levels do stack.
Shapeshifter Hunter does not increase your wild shape; all it increases is the number of times per day you can use it. You still are limited to your actual druid level for all other purposes.
So, your build will have to be Ranger 4/Druid 6/Mammoth Rider X. That means you have 3rd level druid spells, 1st level ranger spells Your wild shape will max out at 12th level for a reptile or dinosaur and 10th level for everything else but will get a few extra uses.
Playing this character until everything comes online will also be difficult. If you do not have the full 4 levels of ranger first your animal companion will be weak as you gain those levels. That means you do not gain wild shape until 10th level. Both Shapes shifting focus and shapeshifting hunter also require the wild shape feature so you cannot take them until you have 6 levels of druid. That means you will need to be 11th level to pick up the first one and 13th level to take the second if you are trying to have a full-strength animal companion. If start with Druid you can pick up the first at 7th level and the second at 9th, but then your animal companion will be stuck at 6th level until 10th level.
so you can see the last option (Dinosaur Druid) is if you want to be a druid spellcaster with some dino action.
People focus too much on 20th level. You have to play this puppy through many levels so I'd worry about 1-12 before I got worked up about what happens at 16th... this is the problem with a lot of the mixed/blended builds, they are often not practical in actual play. I'd only dip 1-2 level and be very picky about the classes involved (you want diverse abilities or synergy with the primary class). PrCs are mainly flavor choices. Variant Multi-Classing(VMC) is a thing onto itself and I'd never allow it as a GM.
Mysterious Stranger wrote: How much of the other druid class abilities are you willing to sacrifice? Druids are full caster with a decent spell list and a lot of other class abilities. Are you willing to give up caster levels, venom immunity, a thousand faces and timeless body?
Since Saurian Shamans get delayed access to Wild Shape that means you must have at least 6 levels in druid to get wild shape. When taking a reptile or dinosaur form the Saurian Shaman does not gain any benefit from further levels in druid other than increased duration and extra uses. A Saurian Shaman at 6th level can already become a huge reptile or dinosaur 2 times a day and works like beast shape III. Further levels do not improve the size or abilities you can assume in those forms. Further levels in druid will only allow you to assume more powerful forms of other types.
You will also need to be at least a 4th level ranger to have the levels stack for your animal companion. Rangers do not gain Hunters bond until 4th level so until then they do not actually have the animal companion class feature. Once they gain hunters bond, they gain the class feature and the levels do stack.
Shapeshifter Hunter does not increase your wild shape; all it increases is the number of times per day you can use it. You still are limited to your actual druid level for all other purposes.
So, your build will have to be Ranger 4/Druid 6/Mammoth Rider X. That means you have 3rd level druid spells, 1st level ranger spells Your wild shape will max out at 12th level for a reptile or dinosaur and 10th level for everything else but will get a few extra uses.
Playing this character until everything comes online will also be difficult. If you do not have the full 4 levels of ranger first your animal companion will be weak as you gain those levels. That means you do not gain wild shape until 10th level. Both Shapes shifting focus and shapeshifting hunter also require the wild shape feature so you cannot take them until you have 6 levels of druid. That means...
Wait what? No the build is ranger 1/druid X/mammoth rider 1(mammoth rider taken when BAB is 6). Mammoth rider stacks with Druid levels for companion so even assuming I only take animal domain my animal companion will be Druid-4( animal domain -3, ranger -1) which can be made up for by boon companion no?
So in the last level I will be have all Druid wildshape at max level(shaping focus gives effective Druid level+4 more than enough to cover both dino and non dino wildshapes), animal companion max level(boon companion), level 18 casting(CL 20 with magical knack), and favoured enemy as a lvl 19 ranger(shapeshifting hunter(favoured enemy=druid+ranger level). Of course will have to choose my feats carefully because space is tight but should be fine. The biggest lost is spellcasting but still get 9th level spells and my wildshaping is at max character level.
Though I am going into play as lvl 10 but still it’s in total ranger 1/druid 8/mammoth rider 1.
Azothath wrote: so you can see the last option (Dinosaur Druid) is if you want to be a druid spellcaster with some dino action.
People focus too much on 20th level. You have to play this puppy through many levels so I'd worry about 1-12 before I got worked up about what happens at 16th... this is the problem with a lot of the mixed/blended builds, they are often not practical in actual play. I'd only dip 1-2 level and be very picky about the classes involved (you want diverse abilities or synergy with the primary class). PrCs are mainly flavor choices. Variant Multi-Classing(VMC) is a thing onto itself and I'd never allow it as a GM.
We start at level 10 so when we start my multiclassing will be done since mammoth rider only needs BAB 6 and animal companion. If my calculations are correct, my wildshape will be lvl 10 for non dinos(focus shaping makes up for 4 levels), lvl 12 for dinos, animal companion should be lvl 10(mammoth and Druid stack, ranger and animal domain impose a -4 penalty so take boon companion) and favoured enemy for 2 enemy types. I cast as an 8th level Druid so I am one spell level behind but it’s ok since I will likely focus on buffing
I could also go just normal Goliath Druid or Saurian shaman but I won’t get giant shape at lvl 10 and will wild shape as 8th level Druid for non dinos since it can only take shaping focus with multiclassing. That was actually where I got the idea for multiclassing since that feats looked pretty good for wild shaping.
Your idea of a dino Druid is also pretty good since it doesn’t really lose much and the only drawback is the dino shape doesn’t last as long so probably will stat out both and see which one is better
I should probably clarify the reason I want a dip in both mammoth rider and ranger is:
Mainly shaping focus because its boost your Druid level for wildshape is one way for me to mitigate the -2 wildshape level penalty that saurian shaman applies for non dinos shape. But shaping focus specifically requires I multi classes. If I want my wildshape to be at max power, I can only have at most 2 levels in another class so I looked for classes that provide some synergy to Druid features
Mammoth rider stacks with Druid for my animal companion, its requirement for a specific companion is ok because saurian shamans only get dino companions any way and it boosts my dino to huge with some size bonuses(also with ranger 1 instead of ranger 2 I get a full level companion instead of a 19th level one with boon companion)
Ranger is because the shapeshifting hunter lets my Druid and ranger levels stack for favoured enemy as a bonus(just for some extra damage)
I was just asking if there was any other build that was also specialised in wildshape that I missed because I have never actually build a Druid before so I probably missed something. Which I did in Goliath and dino Druid
The level of ranger does not stack for the animal companion until level 4 of ranger. Before that you do not have the class feature animal companions, so the levels do not stack. You can take Boon companion but that is another feat.
Mammoth rider also has a prerequisite of handle animal 9, Ride 9 and survival 5. You can not have more point in a skill than your total class level. So, to take 9 points in a skill you need to be 9th level. That means the absolute earliest you can gain Mammoth Rider is at 10th level.
The earliest you can pick up the shapeshifting feats is 7th level. That means it will be 9th level before you get both. If you are only playing till 10th level, you are using up most of your feats for the build and have only 2 (3 if you are human) for anything else.
The build works but does come online late in the campaign.
Mysterious Stranger wrote: The level of ranger does not stack for the animal companion until level 4 of ranger. Before that you do not have the class feature animal companions, so the levels do not stack. You can take Boon companion but that is another feat.
Mammoth rider also has a prerequisite of handle animal 9, Ride 9 and survival 5. You can not have more point in a skill than your total class level. So, to take 9 points in a skill you need to be 9th level. That means the absolute earliest you can gain Mammoth Rider is at 10th level.
The earliest you can pick up the shapeshifting feats is 7th level. That means it will be 9th level before you get both. If you are only playing till 10th level, you are using up most of your feats for the build and have only 2 (3 if you are human) for anything else.
The build works but does come online late in the campaign.
Yup I am will aware it is quite feat intensive, basically my only free feats are the first 3 which I plan to get improved initiative, toughness and power attack.
Rough outline would be:
Druid 1-4, ranger 1, Druid 5-8, mammoth rider 1
So on level 5 boon companion(level 4 I get the companion)
Level 7: shaping focus
Level 9: either shapeshifting hunter or natural spell(haven’t decided yet)
Shapeshifting hunter is just for favoured enemy but since mammoth is at 10 I will probably go with natural spell or another wildshape upgrade then shapeshifting hunter at 11. Myself and my DM like fast leveling and the build already functions so it should be fine I thinki
I would start with the level of ranger for first. That will give you better HP and proficiency in martial weapons. It also gives you the option of taking power attack at 1st level, which the druid cannot do because of the BAB prerequisite. Druids do not have any restrictions on what weapons they can use other than not having proficiency in many weapons. Having access to good weapons until you wild shape comes online will make surviving the early levels much easier.
This will also mean when you gain your animal companion at 5th level (4th level druid) you will be able to take boon companion. If you take 4 levels of druid first, you still cannot take boon companion until 5th level. If you do not have boon companion when you gain your animal companion from the animal doming it will probably have around 9 HP and a 17 AC, if you have boon companion, it will probably have around 22 HP and an AC of 20. The first level companion at 4th level will be a liability instead of a benefit. This assume you are taking the animal domain. If you are not taking the animal domain, boon companion is probably not worth taking.
Mysterious Stranger wrote: I would start with the level of ranger for first. That will give you better HP and proficiency in martial weapons. It also gives you the option of taking power attack at 1st level, which the druid cannot do because of the BAB prerequisite. Druids do not have any restrictions on what weapons they can use other than not having proficiency in many weapons. Having access to good weapons until you wild shape comes online will make surviving the early levels much easier.
This will also mean when you gain your animal companion at 5th level (4th level druid) you will be able to take boon companion. If you take 4 levels of druid first, you still cannot take boon companion until 5th level. If you do not have boon companion when you gain your animal companion from the animal doming it will probably have around 9 HP and a 17 AC, if you have boon companion, it will probably have around 22 HP and an AC of 20. The first level companion at 4th level will be a liability instead of a benefit. This assume you are taking the animal domain. If you are not taking the animal domain, boon companion is probably not worth taking.
Good points I will start with ranger then, I forgot about the Starting BAB and proficiency. Probably will do animal domain since there’s no reason not to
Mysterious Stranger wrote: I would start with the level of ranger for first. That will give you better HP and proficiency in martial weapons. It also gives you the option of taking power attack at 1st level, which the druid cannot do because of the BAB prerequisite. Druids do not have any restrictions on what weapons they can use other than not having proficiency in many weapons. Having access to good weapons until you wild shape comes online will make surviving the early levels much easier.
This will also mean when you gain your animal companion at 5th level (4th level druid) you will be able to take boon companion. If you take 4 levels of druid first, you still cannot take boon companion until 5th level. If you do not have boon companion when you gain your animal companion from the animal doming it will probably have around 9 HP and a 17 AC, if you have boon companion, it will probably have around 22 HP and an AC of 20. The first level companion at 4th level will be a liability instead of a benefit. This assume you are taking the animal domain. If you are not taking the animal domain, boon companion is probably not worth taking.
The OP is actually starting play at 10th level, so the effectiveness of the build at any earlier level is largely academic (though starting with a level of ranger is probably wise for the tiny boost in HP).
Honestly, I think I'd probably just go with the actual Animal Companion class feature rather than the Animal domain: The domain benefits don't seem particularly good for the -3 level adjustment to the Animal Companion, even if you can offset this with a feat.
I don't have a lot of personal experience with animal companions, but I'm under the impression that they typically lag behind when you hit double digit levels as their BAB is only slightly better than a Wizard, so I'm not certain if a Huge companion will be worth the complications it will likely bring (it will literally take up a huge amount of space on the map and will have issues in narrow hallways).
the problem with any companion, mount, henchman is threefold; CR/HD, failing Will saves, care/support.
The party is usually pretty tough but the tag alongs are not. Sometimes there are class incentives to protect your companion but mostly it is left to roleplay. Clever foes can turn the strategic table causing the companions to become a resource sink and/or making them into foes.
You also have to consider that their role was taken into account when balancing the Class. It's why a bonded object is better past 5-7th level than a familiar.
Maniacwyrm wrote: ...
Rough outline would be:
Druid 1-4, ranger 1, Druid 5-8, mammoth rider 1
So on level 5 boon companion(level 4 I get the companion)
Level 7: shaping focus
Level 9: either shapeshifting hunter or natural spell(haven’t decided yet)
Shapeshifting hunter is just for favoured enemy but since mammoth is at 10 I will probably go with natural spell or another wildshape upgrade then shapeshifting hunter at 11. Myself and my DM like fast leveling and the build already functions so it should be fine I think.
given your last line - you'll be okay.
You have a decent amount of cash, so make sure you have 4-6 wands. Armor and barding are good ideas and you will need special armor. Check your Magic Item Body Slots of both forms so you know what slots are stable.
Magic Jar (Arcn), Soulswitch, Polymorph (Arcn) can be useful.
If the character is start at 10th level the order is not as important, but still gives a few extra HP.
For this build the boon companion will make it a bit stronger. Without boon companion the level of ranger puts the animal companion down a level until the ranger gains hunter’s bond and chooses an animal companion. It seems a waste to blow a feat for the one level difference, but when you add it a few extra spells and speak with animals it is less painful.
The huge size does make the companion a lot tougher, so falling behind the rest of the party in toughness is probably not going to be that big of a deal. An animal companion gets feats and can take Iron will to boost its will save, they also get a +4 bonus vs enchantments so the will save is not as big of a deal. At 10th level it should have a +6 (+10 vs enchantments) will save. Also, as an animal it will not be affected by a lot of spells that target humanoid targets. Fear affects are often necromancy instead of enchantment so those will the ones that can cause problems. If that really becomes a problem the feat valiant steed gives a +4-bonus vs fear.
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