Discussion Thread: Becoming the Beast - A Shifter Player's Guide

[Argent Fatalis]

DISCUSSION
Becoming the Beast
A Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Edition Shifter Player's Guide

Becoming the Beast - A Shifter Player's Guide

A fairly random guide, I know, but I can't help but be drawn to make such a thing for the Shifter race, even if it is largely irrelevant to most members here given their ability for optimization as it is. Regardless, feel free to post your comments, questions, concerns, suggestions and opinions.

[Argent Fatalis]

The primary function of the guide is officially now complete, with the bonus content such as spells and example builds coming in the near future.

To those who have read it, any remarks you would like to make?

[eggynack]

Well,  I'd probably alter my assessment of wild shifting if I were you. Sure, you get back wild shape from moonspeaker, but you miss out on eight levels of progression, on top of the four you lose from moonspeaker itself. You end up with a wild shape level of eight at level twenty, getting large when you would otherwise be getting huge, the domain of the dire tortoise, and slowing down everything else considerably. That wouldn't be that bad, except wild shifting is terrible, even in a wild shapeless vacuum. The bonuses are all so damnably marginal.

On a somewhat separate note, I would include the fact that level four is a good break point for moonspeaker. If you read through it, there's nothing especially enticing between level five and eleven, especially when you consider the fact that ditching moonspeaker lets you advance beast spirit further. Rapid summons is some sweet business, and you don't get it at all from druid 8/moonspeaker 12.

As a final druid thing, I don't know if it's worth mentioning in a shifter guide, but there exists no shifter feat that qualifies as gold on a druid. Not even mostly prerequisiteless extra shifter trait is all that good when it's up against the oft ridiculous druid feat list. Lots of shifter things change in a druid context, actually, though again, not sure  if that information has its place in a shifter guide. As an arbitrary example consider the altered utility of longtooth and razorclaw when you consider that most wild shape forms already run those natural weapons. It's actually pretty hard to come up with a form fit for beat stickery that doesn't have a bite attack, though it's somewhat easier with form adding feats.

[Argent Fatalis]

I've edited it accordingly, as upon re-reading each a few times over, your arguments are valid.

Wild Shifting isn't great, and a four level dip in Moonspeaker just for its more notable perks (outside of getting Gate as a Druid) then going back to advancing the Beast Spirit racial substitution is ultimately a better option in the long run. You're also correct that Shifter feats and traits don't do too much for a Shifter Druid - Moonspeaker 1 even makes Item Creation, Metamagic, and Wild feats all count as if they were Shifter feats themselves, further dampening the value, and as such I lowered the value of Dreamsight Elite's feat.

By all means if you have something specific for a Shifter of a class, please note it.

[eggynack]

I mostly just know this stuff from the druid end, because I ended up tossing a whole section devoted to the topic into the druid handbook I'm working on. On that note, there's not all that much missing, aside from the occasional differing valuation of things of various kinds, though I think you're missing the couple of spells that are halfway specific to the race. The big one is wild instincts (RoE, 191), which boosts spot and listen by two all day (instead of by one, on a non-shifter), and maybe aspect of the werebeast (RoE, 183), which boosts shifting duration by a round all day. Also arbitrarily notable is the fact that moonspeaker has knowledge (religion) on its skill list, which is a thing of some import if you're trying to enter something like contemplative.

[Argent Fatalis]

The guide is more or less finished, lacking only example builds which I will get around to - they're hardly a priority by comparison.

[Krika]

Ok, I was browsing through Eberron books, and I noted that Secrets of Sarlona has an additional Shifter Trait in it, in a side-bar. You don't have it listed here, so I figured you had missed it, and so I thought I should bring it to your attention.

Here's an image of the text for your benefit (it's located on page 112 of the book, sidebar at the bottom of the page): linky

It's basically a Beasthide variant that trades a point of NA for cold resist and a very situational Fort bonus, but it's at least worth mentioning I would think.

[Argent Fatalis]

Ok, I was browsing through Eberron books, and I noted that Secrets of Sarlona has an additional Shifter Trait in it, in a side-bar. You don't have it listed here, so I figured you had missed it, and so I thought I should bring it to your attention.

Here's an image of the text for your benefit (it's located on page 112 of the book, sidebar at the bottom of the page): linky

It's basically a Beasthide variant that trades a point of NA for cold resist and a very situational Fort bonus, but it's at least worth mentioning I would think.

Great find Krika, as I've never even heard of a Winterhide Shifter before, but it is a pretty decent choice, especially for any campaign that deals with a lot of inclement weather.

I will import it here momentarily.

[Chemus]

I've personally misliked the shifter for the same reasons that I mislike barbarians; too limited of resources. Your guide gives a lot of good info, and I might consider playing one.

Your analysis of the Warshaper PrC seems a bit... mistaken, though. The class features are very specifically called out at the very beginning as only functioning when the Wsh is not in its normal form, even calling out that for Dopp's and Phasms that will be most of the time. Morphic weapons, et al, only work when transformed in some fashion. Baleful polymorph would be a hilarious way to have continuous access to the Wsh abils, w/o having to be a changeling.[edit]Oops, BP says you lose access to all class features. Damn.[/edit]

[Argent Fatalis]

I've personally misliked the shifter for the same reasons that I mislike barbarians; too limited of resources. Your guide gives a lot of good info, and I might consider playing one.

Your analysis of the Warshaper PrC seems a bit... mistaken, though. The class features are very specifically called out at the very beginning as only functioning when the Wsh is not in its normal form, even calling out that for Dopp's and Phasms that will be most of the time. Morphic weapons, et al, only work when transformed in some fashion. Baleful polymorph would be a hilarious way to have continuous access to the Wsh abils, w/o having to be a changeling.[edit]Oops, BP says you lose access to all class features. Damn.[/edit]

I believe the extremely limited use of Shifting is probably the greatest flaw Shifters have as a race, so much so that it makes them pigeonholed into sinking feats for improving it, and feats aren't exactly "free" as we're well aware for most classes, builds and games. I believe a fair house rule would be to give all Shifters 1 + Wisdom modifier Shifting uses; in my mind it plays out reasonably (most players will only gain 1-2 additional uses while a few, like those who don't benefit much from being Shifting like Clerics and Druids won't get much larger of an advantage) and the stat synergy and concept make sense from a lore perspective on Shifters.

I've only seen the actual book - Complete Warrior - the Warshaper is from once, back when I wrote this topic originally, but I'll go search around for a copy. Most of this material is from what I could scrounge up and from the old D&D Tools site (thank God there are awesome people like Captnq and his wife who saved it, among others).

Without any material but from the abilities themselves it works as if it doesn't matter, though I admit this is sketchy. The artwork and idea suggests that they can sort of "shapechange" and alter at-will, as does the intro fluff if I remember.

Overall I'll check, but that would be pretty disappointing if it is indeed nerfed in the actual book when it doesn't much need one (the deathblow to Weretouched Master was enough for the race as a whole, barring Moonspeaker silliness).

EDIT: You are indeed correct, the Complete Warrior version does explicitly call out that the Warshaper must be "... in a form other than her own..."

That's... enormously confusing, then again this is a Wizards of the Coast product.

[sambojin]

Alter self to the rescue? Maybe even disguise self, if disguised as a specific individual (not you though). I wonder if expansion would count as a "not you" form, or just as a "big you" form? Really pushing RAW here though.....

Hmmm, Animal Affinity says you can take on some characteristics of your stat bonus. Is that a "not you, close, but looks a bit like a bear, and you're usually more catty" form of you?