Tiger Druid Gestalt

[Llyendar]

Okay, So I had an idea for a druid character in a gestalt campaign that a friend wants to run. The back story in a nut shell is that he is a man that had inflicted upon him the  were-tiger template and over the years ended up spending more and more time in his animal form until he believed himself to be a tiger. He no longer goes by a name and has adapted the lifestyle of a wild animal staying in his tiger form at all time and hunting for his food as well as sleeping in natural environments. The problem comes in with his inability to communicate with the rest of the party. While this could easily be accomplished with Psionic telepathy it leaves me with little choices for wisdom stacking and durability in armor class. I would like to go Druid/Monk and prc into Fist of the Forest and maybe even a few levels of Electrokineticist assuming I pick up Wild Talent somewhere through my progression, but I am looking for some more ideas as I tend to tunnel vision heavily. Thanks in advance for all of your time!

I hope for this build to eventually (in epic levels) to end up being a Tiger viewed as Byakko the Guardian Animal

[ImperatorK]

I believe there should be an item that allows speaking in animal form. If there isn't, two levels of Master of Many Forms give you such an ability.

[Nunkuruji]

Functionally, a straight Totem Druid from DR335 might work well.
You might also find Druidic Avenger from UA attractive, to pick up Rage to beef up your melee capability.

Being an actual were-tiger eats a lot of RHD and LA, this might be an option as well
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031212a

[ImperatorK]

Instead of Druid/Monk, just go this.

Being an actual were-tiger eats a lot of RHD and LA

He's playing gestalt. He can afford it.

[nijineko]

a continuous message effect magic/psionic item would not be too expensive. would allow you to do message once per round. make it a third eye for the flavor of having a gem embedded in the head of the tiger. (i'm avoiding the pun...)

[Llyendar]

Functionally, a straight Totem Druid from DR335 might work well.
You might also find Druidic Avenger from UA attractive, to pick up Rage to beef up your melee capability.

I was actually considering that variant paired with the Druidic Avenger variant since I won't be using wild shape or an animal companion at all.

Being an actual were-tiger eats a lot of RHD and LA, this might be an option as well
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031212a

This is essentially what I'm doing at the moment taking my first 8 levels on one side of the Gestalt simply as "Weretiger" and not in any class levels.

Instead of Druid/Monk, just go this.

What I want from monk is the unarmed attack progression assuming my DM would rule the tigers natural attacks as unarmed attacks. Otherwise I'm stuck with 1d8 bite and 1d6 claw attacks through out the full progression

[sirpercival]

Unarmed strike =/= natural attack.  If your DM rules it so, then awesome, but rules-wise it's not the case.

Is homebrew allowed?

[Llyendar]

homebrew might be accepted if it isn't too crazy, but generally speaking most homebrew isn't allowed.

[sirpercival]

You could see if Were-tiger suits your fancy; alternatively, with this variant Druid, you could make your wild shape permanent by combining it with Wild Companion. 

Yet another option (with a lot of choices for boosting natural attacks) is Morphling, though that's much less likely to be approved by a homebrew-wary DM (not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's more "out there").

Either way, forget about monk.  What you want instead is a combination of Totemist and Swordsage.

[phaedrusxy]

What I want from monk is the unarmed attack progression assuming my DM would rule the tigers natural attacks as unarmed attacks. Otherwise I'm stuck with 1d8 bite and 1d6 claw attacks through out the full progression

The monk's unarmed strikes don't replace your natural attacks, but you can make them in combination. So a tiger monk could make his flurry of blows with unarmed strikes, then add a bite-claw-claw routine on top of that. All of the natural attacks would be considered "secondary", though, and so would be at full bab-5 and half str mod to damage.

[Llyendar]

What I want from monk is the unarmed attack progression assuming my DM would rule the tigers natural attacks as unarmed attacks. Otherwise I'm stuck with 1d8 bite and 1d6 claw attacks through out the full progression

The monk's unarmed strikes don't replace your natural attacks, but you can make them in combination. So a tiger monk could make his flurry of blows with unarmed strikes, then add a bite-claw-claw routine on top of that. All of the natural attacks would be considered "secondary", though, and so would be at full bab-5 and half str mod to damage.

This was a ruling that I wasn't aware of and while it's still not quite what I was looking for the pure sheer number of attacks would likely make up for the lack of damage progression with the claws.

You could see if Were-tiger suits your fancy; alternatively, with this variant Druid, you could make your wild shape permanent by combining it with Wild Companion. 

Yet another option (with a lot of choices for boosting natural attacks) is Morphling, though that's much less likely to be approved by a homebrew-wary DM (not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's more "out there").

Either way, forget about monk.  What you want instead is a combination of Totemist and Swordsage.

I'm not quite sure how/what you would be combining Wild Companion with to achieve that effect. Would you be combining it with the Wild Shape ability or with the Drift Ability?

All in all this may be a viable option but I would prefer to be able to start play (at 9th level) as a tiger. Mainly for roleplay reasons and because according to back story he has been in his tiger form he's forgotten that he was ever human (perhaps Maenad) to start with.

[sirpercival]

Yes, you combine Wild Shape (which would normally last as long as the spell lasts) with Wild Companion, making the duration permanent.  So you become a tiger permanently, until you choose to end it (which he wouldn't).

EDIT: Oh, and: unarmed variant swordsage is better than monk in almost every way.  Flurry of blows isn't worth it, IMO.

[nijineko]

using the monk flurry acf for double damage on every hit is an option....

[Llyendar]

Yes, you combine Wild Shape (which would normally last as long as the spell lasts) with Wild Companion, making the duration permanent.  So you become a tiger permanently, until you choose to end it (which he wouldn't).

EDIT: Oh, and: unarmed variant swordsage is better than monk in almost every way.  Flurry of blows isn't worth it, IMO.

That is the problem that I have with monk. It is a class that I really want to play but the same thing is accomplished so much better by other classes that it is never really worth playing an actual monk. I was also unaware of any variants for the Tome of Battle classes.

[sirpercival]

It's in the "adaptation" section at the end of the class.

[phaedrusxy]

using the monk flurry acf for double damage on every hit is an option....

Is that thing worded ambiguously enough to allow that? 

I still think unarmed swordsage is a better option. There's a lot more to the game than doing a lot of damage. And once you do enough damage so that you're pretty much assured that whatever you just attacked is dead, any more is a waste of character building resources.

[Llyendar]

The swordsage adaption is something I'll look into (albeit, most likely I'll completely ignore the ability to use martial manuevers if I do as druid spell list is enough for me I don't need to complicate and slow combat down more with those.) Totemist seems like a good idea but I'm not at all familiar with Magic of Incarnum so it's a bit confusing to look at.

[phaedrusxy]

The swordsage adaption is something I'll look into (albeit, most likely I'll completely ignore the ability to use martial manuevers if I do as druid spell list is enough for me I don't need to complicate and slow combat down more with those.) Totemist seems like a good idea but I'm not at all familiar with Magic of Incarnum so it's a bit confusing to look at.

Oh god, don't do that! You'll only have a few known, anyway. Just pick out some utility ones that are really handy in the right situation (the one that lets you teleport 60', for example, and the one that lets you turn invisible as a swift action). Then you can ignore them until you need them.

[sirpercival]

The swordsage adaption is something I'll look into (albeit, most likely I'll completely ignore the ability to use martial manuevers if I do as druid spell list is enough for me I don't need to complicate and slow combat down more with those.) Totemist seems like a good idea but I'm not at all familiar with Magic of Incarnum so it's a bit confusing to look at.

Oh god, don't do that! You'll only have a few known, anyway. Just pick out some utility ones that are really handy in the right situation (the one that lets you teleport 60', for example, and the one that lets you turn invisible as a swift action). Then you can ignore them until you need them.

Phaedrus is right.  You only need to look at 3 disciplines: Shadow Hand, Diamond Mind, and Tiger Claw.

And for incarnum, it sounds much more complicated than it actually is:

1) Pick soulmelds you like.  They are associated with body slots, but unless you start binding them to chakras (which you may want to do at some point), they don't actually stop you from wearing magic items.
2) You can power up those soulmelds with essentia, which are kind of like permanent power points used to augment the soulmelds.  You move around your essentia as a swift action.

Done.

[Llyendar]

Chakra binding was what had condused me I wasn't certain when you couldn't/couldn't wear additional armor but your description makes it pretty simple. The other question was about applying a soulmeld to the totemists totem. Does doing this take up the totem slot and a body slot? Or does it just require 2 essentia instead of 1 to power it  up?