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I think that it could use a touch up and clarification in rules .
they should also allow runes to work for battle forms at least partially.
I know some people complain that they don't want a caster to do melee damage however,
the druid already does that and more if they are in caster form so I think the main issue is it should probably cost them more resources so maybe some way to convert spell slots to enhance the form
honestly melee should be rewarded more especially at the feat cost of the untamed order.
If its really to hard to make it work then add the shifter back or an intermediary like the battle harbinger is for the cleric.
either that or allow casting in wild shape wild shape should grant more power for sealing off your spellcasting, war priest and other hybrid casters can still cast unlike the druid in form .
no one is asking to surpass the fighter just would like to actually be able to enjoy a seat at the table.
its way too weak atm with not much that can make it better in its current format. in older editions druid also had 3/4 bab progression
I think they should have a higher default weapon proficiency then the wizard. also if we are about niche protection why has no one protected the druids
druid should be the king of the primary spell list like the wizard is arcane . the answer shouldn't be if you want to be a better druid play a sylvan sorcerer very . paizo please consider fixing this or add more druid variants.
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I think the goal is that a battle form gets you 90% of the melee power of a martial with far, far less investment. You can be a druid that ignores strength but turn into a gorilla that still hits just as hard.
The change I'd personally like would to to make Untamed Form a 1-action spell. It feels like right now it just takes a bit too long to get started in combat if you decide to brawl it out, compared to slinging spells. Making it 1-action would allow you to transform, move and strike in one turn.
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The druid's Battle Forms are not weak as the people think they are. They are a very versatile way to get access to many Form spells without using spell slots allowing the druid to temporary act as martial whatever the druid wants/needs.
If we compare the form stats with default martial chassis (that who gets weapon proficiency boosts at levels 5 and 13, and armor proficiency boosts at levels 11/13 and 17/19) we get:
Attack Proficiency with potency runes/ABP:
LvL 3: Martial 10|Animal Form 10
LvL 4: Martial 11|Animal Form 10
LvL 5: Martial 14|Animal Form 14
LvL 6: Martial 15|Animal Form 14
LvL 7: Martial 16|Animal/Insect Form 16
LvL 8: Martial 17|Animal/Insect/Dinosaur/Aerial Form 16
LvL 9: Martial 18|Animal/Insect/Dinosaur/Aerial Form 18
LvL 10: Martial 21|Animal/Insect/Dinosaur/Aerial/Elemental Form 18
LvL 11: Martial 22|Elemental Form 23
LvL 12: Martial 23|Elemental Form 23
LvL 13: Martial 26|Dinosaur/Elemental Form 25
LvL 14: Martial 27|Dinosaur/Elemental Form 25
LvL 15: Martial 28|Dragon Form 28
LvL 16: Martial 30|Dragon/Monstrosity Form 28
LvL 17: Martial 32|Monstrosity Form 31
LvL 18: Martial 33|Monstrosity Form 31
LvL 19: Martial 34|Monstrosity Form 31
LvL 20: Martial 36|Nature Incarnate 34
In general, battle forms follow the proficiency levels of martial, usually decreasing by one point at even-numbered levels until level 16, where the last potency rune is added, and at the following level, APEX is introduced, creating a considerable gap in proficiency that is no longer overcome.
Therefore, in practice, in terms of accuracy, especially in adventures that end before level 16 (such as in PFS, for example), the druid's battle form is not significantly behind that of an average martial master; it is simply one level slower.
So I don't think that in terms of accuracy the battle forms doesn't need adjustments except starting from level 16/17 where the attack bonus could be one point higher.
The other noticeable point is in the level 20/rank 10 where the battle form is too limited to be used too. This is a noticeable change over the progression that uses focus to be able to enter in a battle form whatever you need, and due to how the Paizo treats the rank 10 spells like they are way stronger than they really are.
The other interesting point is that a player also can take the battle forms with martial class like fighters via druid archetype that will use the fighter's martial proficiency solving most of the problems but only will work from levels 4-10 because the animal form stop to heighten due to the multiclass archetype level limitations you can only get some other forms and when they no more worth too. But once again, probably works pretty well in PFS games and low level adventures.
Now comparing a giant barbarian avg damage with d8 melee weapon with Striking runes added separately some proficiency energy damage runes vs druid's battle forms:
LvL 3: Martial 14,5|Animal Form 10
LvL 4: Martial 19|Animal Form 10
LvL 5: Martial 19|Animal Form 14
LvL 6: Martial 19|Animal Form 14
LvL 7: Martial 25|Animal Form 18
LvL 8: Martial 25+3,5|Animal Form 18+3,5*
LvL 9: Martial 25+3,5|Animal Form 25+3,5*
LvL 10: Martial 26+7|Animal Form 25+7*
LvL 11: Martial 26+7|Elemental Form 24+7*
LvL 12: Martial 30,5+7|Elemental Form 24+7*
LvL 13: Martial 31,5+7|Dinosaur Form 33+7*
LvL 14: Martial 31,5+7|Dinosaur Form 33+7*
LvL 15: Martial 42,5+7|Dragon Form 32+7*
LvL 16: Martial 42,5+10,5|Monstrosity Form 33+10,5*
LvL 17: Martial 43,5+10,5|Monstrosity Form 36,5+10,5*
LvL 18: Martial 43,5+14|Monstrosity Form 36,5+10,5*
LvL 19: Martial 48+14|Monstrosity Form 36,5+10,5*
LvL 20: Martial 49+14|Nature Incarnate 31+10,5*
* This property runes additional damage are in a greyzone where depending from you GM would be added or not. Some say that it cannot be added because the polymorph trait doesn't allows to change the damage because battle forms special statistics can only be changed by circumstance bonuses, status bonuses, and penalties, while others says that's is legal to add property runes damage because they are extra/additional damage and not a direct change to the batte form statistic damage.
In terms of damage battle forms stays considerably behind most martial specially due to the extra damage that many classes like barbarians, inventors, magus, rogues, swashbucklers, and thaumaturges adds to the damage. Other martials can add some damage or critical hit in other ways too while the druid's battle form basically can't.
There's a notable exception that is Barbarian's Dragon Transformation that uses the barbarian's AC and attack bonus instead of the form, sums the temp HP while uses the dragon form and even if your GM allows adding your property runes to the dragon's damage still weaker due the lack of weapon specialization while you are in the form. But when you reach the level 18 it becomes stronger due the +12 to damage and similar at level 19 due the major striking rune.
But also notice the battle forms are unarmed attack focused and always have free hands to do athletics checks and many times have agile trait in many of their attacks (but generally they are a bit weaker).
And at last an AC comparison between default martial AC using heavy armor vs battle form AC:
LvL 3: Martial 21|Animal Form 19
LvL 4: Martial 22|Animal Form 20
LvL 5: Martial 24|Animal Form 22
LvL 6: Martial 25|Animal Form 23
LvL 7: Martial 26|Animal/Insect Form 25
LvL 8: Martial 27|Animal/Insect/Dinosaur/Aerial Form 26
LvL 9: Martial 28|Animal/Insect/Dinosaur/Aerial Form 27
LvL 10: Martial 29|Elemental Form 29
LvL 11: Martial 31/33*|Elemental Form 33
LvL 12: Martial 32/34*|Elemental Form 34
LvL 13: Martial 35|Elemental Form 35
LvL 14: Martial 36|Elemental Form 36
LvL 15: Martial 37|Dragon Form 36
LvL 16: Martial 38|Dragon Form 37
LvL 17: Martial 39/41*|Monstrosity Form 39
LvL 18: Martial 41/43*|Monstrosity Form 40
LvL 19: Martial 44|Monstrosity Form 41
LvL 20: Martial 45|Nature Incarnate 45
* Some non-tank martials improves their AC proficiency 2 levels earlier.
In AC we have another disadvantageous situations to battle forms with punctual levels where battle form can compete with a heavy armored martial (29-36 with elemental form) however if we compare with medium and light armored martial reasonable well with most levels becoming with similar AC.
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So in general, druid's battle forms performs poorly when compared with a truly martial, but we can never miss that these forms are available to all full casters without make then to reduce their casting capabilities before enter the form, allowing them to use the form as a very versatile alternative (specially for elemental forms and higher) to same some spell slots.
The other noticeable point is that the forms are not Strike damage only options, they allow some damage type changes, many speed options, many resistance options (including physical resistances), even special abilities like breath weapon for dragon forms, strong passive abilities for monstrosity form and Nature Incarnate.
Yet the levels 19-20 have a noticeable resource problem to use your strongest battle forms.
Another interesting thing is that druids have some cool feats that give some extra benefits when you transform/dismiss, like Healing Transformation, Defensive Dismissal,
Explosive Metamorphosis, Bizarre Transformation and Towering Transformation.
Another good thing that the battle forms give that many doesn't notice is that it basically give a top athletics/acrobatics skill basically as strong as any str based character with maximum proficiency for its level. Do it be temporary it cannot be used to get skill feats, but it still very strong to make the basic athletic checks like trip, grab, shove and relocate, many times being even better to use it instead of just Strike.
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Another option if you game allows some 3rd party material is to use Aspect Forms from Magic+ that solves most imbalance and heighten issue of battle forms just using your Spell DC/Attack for most things. Also give some very good special abilities to choose for each battle forms, it's a very cool alternative.
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Right now a shifting druid is a very good character as long as they take advantage of their versatility.
And the animist already has somewhat different shifting abilities that make it a competitor to the druid, a bit better in some circumstances and a bit worse on others.
Which means that pretty much the only way paizo will make shifting better is to come up with a shifter class. A pure martial.
I'd love to see a good implementation of that but it will be difficult to balance. And between druid, animist, druid archetype and various polymorph feats a lot ( not all, but a lot) of the player shape shifting fantasies are already covered. So I wouldn't expect this to be a high priority for them.
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So in general, druid's battle forms performs poorly when compared with a truly martial, but we can never miss that these forms are available to all full casters without make then to reduce their casting capabilities before enter the form, allowing them to use the form as a very versatile alternative (specially for elemental forms and higher) to same some spell slots.
That's the core problem, right there: Untamed Druid works great if what you want is versatility. It delivers that in spades.
But if what you want is "be a frontline martial except as a shapeshifter"? It's not good. You effectively lose the first round of combat and your spellcasting ability to be a C-Tier (maybe B-Tier at some levels) martial. And there's really not much you can do about this, because even speccing fully STR and loading handwraps up doesn't get you anything most of the time.
People want Shifter because they want the fantasy of turning into an Owlbear and smashing things as your primary deal. Older edition Druids could do that really effectively and PF2 Druids just don't deliver that nearly as well.
My wife played an Untamed Druid in Ruby Phoenix and it really was good at being able to do lots of things, but ultimately the most powerful stuff was still spellcasting. Nature Incarnate in particular was kind of a letdown because it sounds really cool but it's not actually terribly effective at level 20, both compared to other martials and also compared to what other stuff you could be doing.
So in terms of what she wanted it to do? It didn't really deliver that fantasy. That's the gap Shifter can fill. And yeah, it'd probably have to be a class to actually do it because it's going to need to drop most/all of the spellcasting and work differently from what we have now to really deliver the fantasy without being a balance nightmare.
(Avatar on Cleric has the same basic problem, though it's just not much of an issue because it's easy to simply not take that spell. But I think it's the spell with by far the most page space devoted to it across books that I almost never see anyone use.)
Ya that is the main problem, and people are not acknowledging you can do good damage as a druid in caster from using spells, so doing damage is not the issue. Its more like they want to gatekeep melee capabilities specifically
I think you should be able to either convert the spells into making the from more workable or lose some slots for more baseline effectiveness.
people should be able to play as a bear or golem and do well , they really need to clarify the rules on runes as well .
war priests doesn't have to worry about if their runes work . a druid shouldn't outdo a martial for free but if you are using the proper amount of resources you should be competitive,
the reverse is also true, it is cheap if a fighter can do double your damage resource free.
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The druid's Battle Forms are not weak as the people think they are. They are a very versatile way to get access to many Form spells without using spell slots allowing the druid to temporary act as martial whatever the druid wants/needs.
If we compare the form stats with default martial chassis (that who gets weapon proficiency boosts at levels 5 and 13, and armor proficiency boosts at levels 11/13 and 17/19) we get:
Attack Proficiency with potency runes/ABP:
LvL 3: Martial 10|Animal Form 10
LvL 4: Martial 11|Animal Form 10
LvL 5: Martial 14|Animal Form 14
LvL 6: Martial 15|Animal Form 14
LvL 7: Martial 16|Animal/Insect Form 16
LvL 8: Martial 17|Animal/Insect/Dinosaur/Aerial Form 16
LvL 9: Martial 18|Animal/Insect/Dinosaur/Aerial Form 18
LvL 10: Martial 21|Animal/Insect/Dinosaur/Aerial/Elemental Form 18
LvL 11: Martial 22|Elemental Form 23
LvL 12: Martial 23|Elemental Form 23
LvL 13: Martial 26|Dinosaur/Elemental Form 25
LvL 14: Martial 27|Dinosaur/Elemental Form 25
LvL 15: Martial 28|Dragon Form 28
LvL 16: Martial 30|Dragon/Monstrosity Form 28
LvL 17: Martial 32|Monstrosity Form 31
LvL 18: Martial 33|Monstrosity Form 31
LvL 19: Martial 34|Monstrosity Form 31
LvL 20: Martial 36|Nature Incarnate 34In general, battle forms follow the proficiency levels of martial, usually decreasing by one point at even-numbered levels until level 16, where the last potency rune is added, and at the following level, APEX is introduced, creating a considerable gap in proficiency that is no longer overcome.
Therefore, in practice, in terms of accuracy, especially in adventures that end before level 16 (such as in PFS, for example), the druid's battle form is not significantly behind that of an average martial master; it is simply one level slower.
That's a very good comparison, and i would agree if not because the Untamed Druid needing to spend 2 actions to "become" a martial, and still be worse than one, even if we consider runes working with their battle forms.
The Animist, in counterpart, needs only 1 action, which means they can cast Bless/Heroism on themselves (because Divine spell list) and enter battle form or just Stride+Strike immediately after entering battle form, even though both the Stalker in Darkened Boughs and Lurker in Devouring Dark options being sustained, the sustain gives Temporary HP (a good Tank frontliner) and a free Strike (a good Damage frontliner) respectively, which gets even better as a Liturgist from LV 9 onward. Making it just plain better in my view than the Untamed Druid.
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lets be clear to those who claim untamed shouldn't be competitive. your not accounting for the feat cost if you put every feat into untamed you come up short.
not to mention the action cost of shifting your first turn is down the drain. and you are barred from spellcasting.
I cant take anyone who thinks it should be weak with all those considerations seriously as someone who cares about balance. its actually unbalanced in how weak it is . there is no reason it should be as weak as it is.
I'm completely in favor of a fully-realized Shifter class, and I do think a class chassis would be necessary to achieve the fantasy rather than an archetype.
As YuriP lists in detail, the problem with battle forms as they currently exist is that they get you a lot of the way towards martial-grade Strikes and AC, but are ultimately far weaker. A caster using battle forms is effectively only playing at being a martial, and falls behind quite severely at higher levels. Meanwhile, a martial class trying to use these battle forms would end up downgrading their own stats unless allowed to override the form's AC with their own. This is also just factoring in base statistics, and the gap widens even further when you consider how casters can't use most of their feats and spells while transformed. A properly-realized Shifter in my opinion not only needs a solid martial chassis built to support battle forms well, but in my opinion also needs class features and feats designed to complement battle forms, so that their fighting style is enhanced rather than limited.
I also think transforming into a different creature needs to be explored beyond just battle form spells: battle forms effectively exist to give casters a taste of martial power, which is why so much of their text is dedicated to stat overrides that make those spells less appealing on martial classes. Using the current battle form model for a character whose main thing is fighting while transformed means that character is going to be saddled with a lot of largely useless overrides and only limited abilities without additional support. Although a Shifter should easily be able to access battle forms and their abilities (and not just from the primal tradition either), I also think they should be able to access bespoke battle forms made for a martial class, and dip into those battle form abilities far better than any caster with those same spells, and both I think are things that can only really be allowed on a class as part of their core shtick.
I think the goal is that a battle form gets you 90% of the melee power of a martial with far, far less investment. You can be a druid that ignores strength but turn into a gorilla that still hits just as hard.
The change I'd personally like would to to make Untamed Form a 1-action spell. It feels like right now it just takes a bit too long to get started in combat if you decide to brawl it out, compared to slinging spells. Making it 1-action would allow you to transform, move and strike in one turn.
The other orders are already stronger because they all stay in caster from.
ya exactly. good points. they should make it properly scale on every level.
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One key problem with any shapeshifter class is that Paizo would pretty much HAVE to come up with official positions on how shapeshifting currently works (things like what is "your own attack modifier", what effects do things like rage have on damage, etc etc etc).
I have no idea why Paizo is so reluctant to answer these questions but we've been asking since the playtest and they have yet to answer.
And some of them have fairly significant impact on how well a shapeshifted character fares
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My point about battle forms is that, up to level 15, IMO they meet their goal that is to allow a caster to have an option to fight like a martial using only its spell without really needing to build your character around your physical attributes and heavily investing into martial focused items.
It's not a perfect solution, specially because it fails to meet the full heightening (IMO all forms should have up to lvl 20 progression) and as long you get close to end game it becomes expensive and inefficient even for druids. That's also the reason that I mentioned the Magic+'s Aspect Forms. Because exactly these problems.
The other point is that the fact that battle forms being a more way more limited as martial than a real fully martial is avoiding the issues that the D&D traditionally have with it that makes the full casters like druid being good in everything putting in check the balance and viability to play as martial as general once you can instead just take a caster that can reach every role whatever you need.
I still remember I'm playing as druid in BG3 in a wild shape that basically allows it to fight as a fully martial, able to reshape when it's too damaged, surrounded by summons and healing itself. It's fun, yes, except for the rest of the party that looks like just one more in the middle of the druid full mighty magical army.
The PF2e druids battle form allows this, but limited to prevent that druids shines over the others. You're still a full caster, still can have a summon company you before enter into battle form but requires setup, can Haste your self before enter in the form but requires setup, so when you are ready in your own form quickened with summon or simply a floating flame/phantom orchestra you had to make a long setup. You probably will be a good damage sustaining your spell while fight quickened with your form but due to the lower stats, all the needed setup time you clearly aren't better than a martial. You just are having some taste to play temporary like a martial and save some spell slots because you can take the rest of the fight just Striking, Tripping, Grabbing, Shoving, Relocation and moving your sustained spell around the battle field.
But if you want to play as a strong fully martial focused shape-shifter this would fit your needs. For this we probably need a new class focused on this. I don't think not even the current battle form system would work making the shape-shifter as a class archetype because IMO the battle form system was developed focused in spell caster and isn't good for fully martial even if you are able to get the forms feats at same levels that druids get.
About the Animist it's a very good class, but I usually see people underestimating its limitations as shape-shifter. Be able to enter in the form with just one action is good. Be able to change the forms as you Sustain is good. Not having to heavily invest into feats is also good too. But keep sustaining it every round it's a heavy price specially if you meet an long encounter. Even being able to Sustaining it with Step, Leap, and Tumble Through (that still probably will get a nerf in some errata due to some strange interactions with Elf Step and people arguing that you can use Tumble Through to just Stride) you still are reserving one-action every turn just to do this and doesn't have natural access to Haste spell nor Effortless Concentration to try to compensate. Also you still suffer from the same problems that battle forms gives to all. It still doesn't progress well after level 15 probably making you to abandon it after this to focus into other vessel spell.
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Untamed form is one of my small pet peeve with the game, with the way it's a focus spell that need feat investment to remain relevant through the levels. I really feel like insect form and dinosaur form should have been included in the base spell the way animal form was, insect shape is a sidegrade that don't give new impactfull feature, and dinosaur shape is basically "animal form but bigger and for a higher level range", the former feel like a flavor tax, and the second a straight feat tax.
Things like soaring shape, elemental shape, plant shape, those I get, they do give you really impactfull option like the ability to fly or deal/resist elemental damage, but having to pick up new feat just for the ability to remain usefull just feel bad. It's somewhat emblematic of my main issue with the druid (or probably with spellcasters in general), that a lot of their feat feel like a tax you need to take instead of cool new stuff as they should. Some feature feel like they should be part of the class/subclass and not be locked behind a feat, like monstruosity form, and some feel like they should be available at an earlier level, like the ability to switch between form without having to go through the "normal" shape (which I am convinced isn't locked to a level 20 feat because of balance consideration, but because the designers just though "what is the coolest feature we can give to cap off wildshape?" and slapped it onto the capstone feat, hereby locking it away for 95% of the level range just to make the capstone feel a bit more special).
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I really doubt a hyphotetical shifter class would use battle forms. I think the most likely feature would be something like generic animal "stances" to cover the basic types of animals kinda like how each heritage of awakened animal covers the basic animal types, plus maybe a few forms to cover non-nature stuff like aberrations, dragons, etc. The class feats then probably would either allow the shifter to poach more specific stuff like senses, special attacks like rend, or type-specific inspired stuff like taking planar energy from the elemental planes and becoming a half-element that deals elemental damage or whatever.
Battle forms need revision and also the ability to choose your size . sucks if you cant shape due to being indoors.
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At this point, we'll need a 3e that rethinks martial/caster hybrids that aren't separate classes and summoning spells.
*Monkey's paw curls and 4e is remade.* I would be down for this though, lol
Battle forms need revision and also the ability to choose your size . sucks if you cant shape due to being indoors.
So, it's annoying, and I agree, but overall it's not as problematic as it is for the companions due to the duration of the spell.
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Druid overall falls into the same bad initial design as war priest. At least war priest was able to cast spells and got buffed via errata.
My guess is that there are enough other orders and strong druid options so no one really cares to play untamed.
I may be an outlier but I love untamed druids. And find them quite effective too. The trick is to make sure that your wild shape is ONE in your bag of tricks, only to be pulled out when the situation warrants it.
Would still love a dedicated shifter martial, mind. IF it was well done. From a very high level perspective I'd expect it to be a little less effective in straight up combat than a normal martial but with lots and lots of situational tricks from wild shape to make up for that small (and it would have to be fairly small) reduction in raw power.
I'd expect the Archetype to be absolute garbage just to make the job of balancing it much easier :-).
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Paizo DID remake D&D 4e already, it's called Pathfinder 2e. The first time I opened the rules for 2e and read focus points, I laughed so hard that it alerted people. There's something so funny about the company that existed to compete with 4e just looping around to reinventing "at will, encounter, and daily powers".
*Monkey's paw curls and 4e is remade.* I would be down for this though, lol
It hasn't gone *quite* far enough. We still have to dispose of spell slots
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Paizo DID remake D&D 4e already, it's called Pathfinder 2e. The first time I opened the rules for 2e and read focus points, I laughed so hard that it alerted people. There's something so funny about the company that existed to compete with 4e just looping around to reinventing "at will, encounter, and daily powers".
*Monkey's paw curls and 4e is remade.* I would be down for this though, lol
Good ideas don't have to be ditched only because they were attached to something not as good.
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One key problem with any shapeshifter class is that Paizo would pretty much HAVE to come up with official positions on how shapeshifting currently works (things like what is "your own attack modifier", what effects do things like rage have on damage, etc etc etc).
I have no idea why Paizo is so reluctant to answer these questions but we've been asking since the playtest and they have yet to answer.
And some of them have fairly significant impact on how well a shapeshifted character fares
Well, Paizo did answer "what's an instance of damage" finally and we've seen how well that's gone. One would think the answers to this would be far less game-warping than that, but at this point who knows.
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Way too dramatic of an opinion. We're gonna see clarifications on instance of damage quite soon, pretty sure. In the end, they needed to clarify it so even a bad interpretation is better than none.
The thing is, most people with a stake in the answer to the question had basically already settled on how to do it. We wanted an answer more as a formality.
Then they gave us an answer that we pretty much universally liked less than what we were already doing, even though what we were already doing was available as a way to answer.
Then they started backtracking and saying, no, we mean this other thing that's better but still confusing and still not what we were already doing and thought was fine.
The crux of it is, there was already a received interpretation. It's not errata vs. nothing. It's errata vs. what we were doing already.
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Paizo DID remake D&D 4e already, it's called Pathfinder 2e. The first time I opened the rules for 2e and read focus points, I laughed so hard that it alerted people. There's something so funny about the company that existed to compete with 4e just looping around to reinventing "at will, encounter, and daily powers".
*Monkey's paw curls and 4e is remade.* I would be down for this though, lol
Paizo didn't exist to compete with 4e, they just had to do something to keep the lights on after Dragon and Dungeon were abruptly cancelled, and 4e's license was too restrictive so revising 3e was the only option.
They certainly didn't shy away from taking money from people who didn't like 4e, but it's misrepresentation to suggest the devs themselves disliked 4e as a game.
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Paizo DID remake D&D 4e already, it's called Pathfinder 2e. The first time I opened the rules for 2e and read focus points, I laughed so hard that it alerted people. There's something so funny about the company that existed to compete with 4e just looping around to reinventing "at will, encounter, and daily powers".
*Monkey's paw curls and 4e is remade.* I would be down for this though, lol
Maybe 4e's... polarizing design would have succeeded better if the whole encounter powers design was opt-in, like Focus Spells are. Or if they had tried at all to tie them into the fiction and pacing with things like refocus activities. Or if most martials didn't have to interact with the same resource as casters do, which made classes feel less mechanically varied.
I do find the "Focus Spells = Encounter Powers" and "PF2 is 4e in a trenchcoat" takes hilariously reductive, but I'm glad some people are able to feel smart when they find parallels between related things!
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For those who don't want to wait until Paizo provides a solution to most of the Battle Forms problems mentioned here, and who have no problem using third-party materials, here's a link to a post I wrote describing how Magic+ solves most of these issues (except for the martial Shape Shifter part).
Paizo DID remake D&D 4e already, it's called Pathfinder 2e. The first time I opened the rules for 2e and read focus points, I laughed so hard that it alerted people. There's something so funny about the company that existed to compete with 4e just looping around to reinventing "at will, encounter, and daily powers".
*Monkey's paw curls and 4e is remade.* I would be down for this though, lol
Maybe 4e's... polarizing design would have succeeded better if the whole encounter powers design was opt-in, like Focus Spells are. Or if they had tried at all to tie them into the fiction and pacing with things like refocus activities. Or if most martials didn't have to interact with the same resource as casters do, which made classes feel less mechanically varied.
I do find the "Focus Spells = Encounter Powers" and "PF2 is 4e in a trenchcoat" takes hilariously reductive, but I'm glad some people are able to feel smart when they find parallels between related things!
D&D 4e is an RPG that I like to say has the problem of being released ahead of its time. In addition to some other strategic errors on the part of WotC and the designers at the time.
It was basically made to solve and simplify the balancing and continuity problems that exist in D&D 3.x. However, by drastically and suddenly changing the workings of several system foundations that players had been using for years, it ended up being poorly received by the community at the time.
Furthermore, overly universalizing the mechanics created a feeling in many people that the class options were too similar to each other, especially for players who came from an extremely dimorphic system between classes like D&D 3.x.
To add to this, WotC/Hasbro, in its greed, abandoned the use of the OGL, underestimating the importance of all the third-party material created around D&D, which made the system universally used by many to avoid relearning rules and allow cross-integration of materials by players.
And finally, the point of being heavily criticized (and still is) for being a system with low support outside of combat, especially to help Dungeon Masters with the roleplaying aspect.
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It's true that PF2e borrows heavily from D&D 4e (as well as PF1e and even D&D 5e). But Paizo's designers learned from the mistakes that D&D 4e made and knew how to balance things to take advantage of several good ideas from 4e while avoiding problems such as the lack of class dysmorphia and the use of a closed license, in addition to having better material to help Dungeon Masters with roleplaying.
I think the similarity of powers between classes was what killed 4e for my group. When you have a warrior ability which is a forward cone that has basically same use/stats as a mage flaming spell had our warriors going I cast x ability and it just really wrecked immersion.
I know a lot of stuff is already kinda like that anyway but in 4e it was so blatant it you just couldn't unsee it.
Druid overall falls into the same bad initial design as war priest. At least war priest was able to cast spells and got buffed via errata.
My guess is that there are enough other orders and strong druid options so no one really cares to play untamed.
I may be an outlier but I love untamed druids. And find them quite effective too. The trick is to make sure that your wild shape is ONE in your bag of tricks, only to be pulled out when the situation warrants it.
Would still love a dedicated shifter martial, mind. IF it was well done. From a very high level perspective I'd expect it to be a little less effective in straight up combat than a normal martial but with lots and lots of situational tricks from wild shape to make up for that small (and it would have to be fairly small) reduction in raw power.
I'd expect the Archetype to be absolute garbage just to make the job of balancing it much easier :-).
I love the concept too but I think people forget that the druid cannot cast while in battle from `so it is not unbalanced for it to be better at its job in melee. if warrior is rank S in melee it would be fine for druid to be B+. currently its d-. you have to account for the fact it cannot cast while morphed
If you want it to stay d- they should allow for spellcasting.
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if warrior is rank S in melee it would be fine for druid to be B+. currently its d-. you have to account for the fact it cannot cast while morphed
It is currently very, very far from D-. At some levels it is probably A.
For example (assuming sufficient space) a Str Druid with Plant Shape at L10 has a +20 to hit, a 15 ft reach, and does 2d10+11.
At L12 it has a +24 to hit, a 20 ft reach and does 2d10+16
Now, those 2 specific levels are absolutely chosen to be the best possible levels for a druid. But with those numbers they're pretty much comparable or superior to lots of martials (if you've chosen to go this route you've probably picked up reactive strike or champions reaction).
But a Str -1 Druid at L7 who has invested 1 entire feat into wild shape has a 10 ft reach attack at +16 for 2d8+9.
Compare this with a Precision Ranger who when hitting his hunted target has a +16 to hit with a D10 reach weapon for 2d10+d8+6. The druid is worse but I'd claim not a D- worse.
Druids DO definitely start to fall off a lot at high levels but that isn't important in many campaigns. And by high levels their spells are ruling the game. Oh no, poor me, I'm just a legendary spell caster. Whatever will I do ? :-) :-) :-)
Note that the numbers for druid make the most conservative assumptions about how wild shape works. Under some rules interpretations the numbers could be higher.
There is pretty much ZERO room to improve Wild Shape for the Druid without just making it overpowered. Its already far too competitive.
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if warrior is rank S in melee it would be fine for druid to be B+. currently its d-. you have to account for the fact it cannot cast while morphedIt is currently very, very far from D-. At some levels it is probably A.
For example (assuming sufficient space) a Str Druid with Plant Shape at L10 has a +20 to hit, a 15 ft reach, and does 2d10+11.
At L12 it has a +24 to hit, a 20 ft reach and does 2d10+16
Now, those 2 specific levels are absolutely chosen to be the best possible levels for a druid. But with those numbers they're pretty much comparable or superior to lots of martials (if you've chosen to go this route you've probably picked up reactive strike or champions reaction).
Except they don't have any of the features and abilities that other martials get to help buff that and they lose the entire first round of combat turning it on.
And that's the absolute best case. The more common cases are not that, and it falls off harder as other martials get more abilities, more features, and more runes.
D- is too low, though. Untamed Druid is definitely above that. It's C level a lot of the time and higher than that when it's good.
Druids DO definitely start to fall off a lot at high levels but that isn't important in many campaigns. And by high levels their spells are ruling the game. Oh no, poor me, I'm just a legendary spell caster. Whatever will I do ? :-) :-) :-)
Which is exactly why people want Shifter to exist: because Untamed falls off at high level and the thing that replaces it is "you're a spellcaster again." If you want the wild shape feel as the character concept, you really can't get it for a whole campaign right now.
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D- is too low, though. Untamed Druid is definitely above that. It's C level a lot of the time and higher than that when it's good.
I'd pretty much agree with that
Druids DO definitely start to fall off a lot at high levels but that isn't important in many campaigns. And by high levels their spells are ruling the game. Oh no, poor me, I'm just a legendary spell caster. Whatever will I do ? :-) :-) :-)Which is exactly why people want Shifter to exist: because Untamed falls off at high level and the thing that replaces it is "you're a spellcaster again." If you want the wild shape feel as the character concept, you really can't get it for a whole campaign right now.
Absolutely agreed. I REALLY, REALLY want a good shifter class. But
1) I don't think starting from the druid is going to work. Even making it a bounded caster would take too much of the power budget2) Its going to be difficult to balance and I really don't think Paizo is very interested in the concept.
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I mostly just want the forms to keep scaling. If I want to be a wolf because Untamed Form is my reflavoring of a werewolf PC, then I would like to be able to commit the form without it eventually having a hard stop on progression.
I get wanting to do some magic in Untamed Form because I too try to make that my first move in combat and end the day with way to many unspend spellslots, but that would be to powerful so instead I would ask for a shifter class or shifter like class arch for the druid which becomes like the non-magic shapeshifter.
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And as a second thought, remember that you have options a fighter and barb will never have at the cost of that -1 or -2 to hit comparatively.
I might not be the strongest thing on the table when I do a rank 5 animal form, BUT turning into a Huge animal with a 15 foot reach makes one hell of a statement.
For me that has always been the trade off. If you can be Huge, be Huge, its awesome. And not everyone can get huge for a focus spell! (I do wish it wasn't 2 Actions though. It does make the first turn pretty boring)
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2) Its going to be difficult to balance and I really don't think Paizo is very interested in the concept.
I don't know if it's so difficult to balance because IMM the general idea of a shifter is already partially covered by eidolons and animal barbarians but without flexibility.
Basically would be a default martial chassis that in place, or we have an extra damage source or hit/critical rate, the shapes would transit between different benefits similar to what we get with rangers, eidolons subclasses but with the flexibility that we have with exemplar, thaumaturges to switch its benefit on the fly. With the main differential of the class being the fact that you can “change” your subclass on the fly when you shape-shift with the trade of that this will cost you some actions during an encounter.
While feats could be more like a mix of eidolons feats that gives some biological/magical features and fighters/monks technics.
While the class would be kept inside the main numbers expected by a martial we can have a good place to make it uniq.
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I feel there are two separate points to be made here: point #1 is that the Untamed Druid falls off at high level, and point #2 is that a fully-realized Shifter would probably need more than just the Druid's chassis to thrive.
For point #1, I think the underlying issue here is actually that the entire Druid class, not just the Untamed Druid, falls off at very high level: at low level, the class really shines by having amazing defenses compared to other casters, plus really strong focus spells, but at high level they have the same AC and saves as other casters, focus spells that have fallen more notably behind slot spells at that stage, and a primal list that mostly just does more of the same as lower-rank spells with bigger numbers, as opposed to other spell lists that can pull some genuine BS like magic an enemy away with quandary. With regards to untamed form, giving the Druid master Fort saves at level 15 and master Strike proficiency at level 19 would in my opinion help lessen the gap between them and martial classes, while giving them back some of the edge they had over other casters at lower levels.
For point #2, I'm personally in favor of a brand-new class as well. I think what could help draw comparisons away from the Animal Barbarian could be to emphasize different mechanical strengths: if battle forms aren't known for dealing huge damage, that's great, the Shifter can do a whole bunch other things instead! Notably, there's a lot of cool utility to be had in gaining the abilities and senses of other creatures, and a lot of AoE to be found as well. A disruptive tank with lots of utility, reach, and AoE in addition to monster attacks I think would be quite a novel mechanical addition to the game's class roster beyond the theme, plus it'd be distinct from the Barb, and the Shifter as a full class I think would be a good way to realize that kind of niche.
Absolutely agreed. I REALLY, REALLY want a good shifter class. But
1) I don't think starting from the druid is going to work. Even making it a bounded caster would take too much of the power budget
2) Its going to be difficult to balance and I really don't think Paizo is very interested in the concept.
I wouldn't start it from Druid either, no. We saw how that went with Battle Harbinger which a lot of folks didn't find satisfying.
This is going to be best done as a class so all the class features are pulling in the same direction. Also they always need new class ideas, heh. If they don't want to do it then that's that, but classes sell, as we've been told.
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There's so much narrative space for a shifter character far outside of Druid that starting from the assumption that it should be druid related, let alone a Druid class archetype, is completely off the mark in my opinion. That's before we get into the mechanical reasons.
I want a Shifter class that has no anathema or other requirements forcing them to be reverent of nature. If a player wants to build a character that shifts into animals and worships nature, they can, but they can also play a Skinwalker who makes a mockery of nature and uses natural forms purely for nefarious purposes. The class should also support turning into monsters, unnatural creatures cooked up by a wizard, magical beasts, or other such things. I would also want them to be able to explore the Animorphs narrative question of losing sight of your original form, or the love-hate relationship with your alternate forms in werewolf stories.
Mechanically, I want the entire focus being on the shifting, with no distractions like spellcasting. I want them to be able to focus on one or two forms like a WoW Feral Druid and take on standard martial roles, or have more flexibility to be a as-the-situation-requires shapeshifter and have more of a utility role. They should be able to change forms lighting fast (free action once per turn type of fast). They should also start with a full body transformation at level 1, so you're not mucking around with baby "I grow some mediocre generic claws to be a bad Barbarian for 2 levels" stuff.
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Mechanically, I want the entire focus being on the shifting, with no distractions like spellcasting. I want them to be able to focus on one or two forms like a WoW Feral Druid and take on standard martial roles, or have more flexibility to be a as-the-situation-requires shapeshifter and have more of a utility role. They should be able to change forms lighting fast (free action once per turn type of fast). They should also start with a full body transformation at level 1, so you're not mucking around with baby "I grow some mediocre generic claws to be a bad Barbarian for 2 levels" stuff.
I think that, purely mechanically, the Kineticist might well be the place to start. Several different "Paths (Animal, Avian, Dragon, Plant, etc etc)" with the character having the option of specializing or going more broadly.
With huge amounts of reflavouring the Kineticist is actually sort of almost close at mid levels. Versatile blasts are just your taking on several different attacking appendages. You can grow wings (ie, air impulses), turn into a dragon and breath fire (fire impulses) etc.
Obviously you'd need to increase the damage of melee attacks, lose bunches of powers, gain bunches of powers. But I think that it is conceptually a good place to start and would make implementation both easier and likely more balanced.