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Hudson wrote:

Awesome! Thanks.

I doubt I will ever use the dragonbreath anyways. Bad for the forest and all

Druid of Kossuth would fix that.

Haha, I am not entirely sure Kossuth cares enough about nature to have druids but if he does (I honestly dont know) I imagine they are about burning and then seeing new life spout from the fertile ashes indeed.

IIRC, Kossuth is actually more invested in mortal affairs than the other 3(+?) Elemental Lords, especially given his considerable Thayan following. He's also a nature god if only by technicality, and if the other equally apathetic ones can have them I don't see why he can't.

Since we have all these coders (who are awesome, keep up the great work guys!), why not actually just *fix* the shifter reqs to canon? Let wizards/sorcerers of 7th level, rangers of 14th lvl, and clerics w/ the animal domain of 9th lvl also be able to access shifter? IE, every character w/ polymorph self.

It would be nice and end these monthly shifter posts finally.

Most of the posts have nothing to do about changing the shifter to canon by making other classes be able to pick them.

But also they would have to rebalance them unless you want a 20/- Slashing, 20/- Piercing, 20/- Bludgeoning, 25/+10 Crit/sneak immune tank who can chug heal potions running around because you have a epic Gargoyle palemaster. Who knows what other combos people might do that could be kind of crazy.

TeroSNS wrote:

Eizendur wrote:

Yes but if you want diversity in terms of epic shapes - undead , outsider and construct you simply can't reach 30 wis...

according to my own calculations you can have 3 of the epic shapes, including dragon...

Only with +wis subraces or maybe sacrificing shifter levels for DC.

Eizendur wrote:

TeroSNS wrote:

Eizendur wrote:

Yes but if you want diversity in terms of epic shapes - undead , outsider and construct you simply can't reach 30 wis...

according to my own calculations you can have 3 of the epic shapes, including dragon...

Only with +wis subraces or maybe sacrificing shifter levels for DC.

Yes I used the human subrace with +1 to wisdom, and maximized wisdom in the start.

MightNMagic wrote:

why not actually just *fix* the shifter reqs to canon? Let wizards/sorcerers of 7th level, rangers of 14th lvl, and clerics w/ the animal domain of 9th lvl also be able to access shifter? IE, every character w/ polymorph self.

I can't think of anything, off the top of my head, that this would do to ruin the balance. Even a wiz7/pm10/shifter13 is going to be pretty much awful. You'll lose more AC than you'll gain, you'll end up with 2 attacks per round...

Arcanists also unlock Arcane Archer, which in theory would boost the Medusa - but you're limited to wiz7/shifter19/aa4 if you want the epic version.

Rangers would probably downright suck. Clerics would just provide an alternative caster class to druid, and that's not going to break anything except being able to cast 2 minutes of Divine Power - short duration burst damage that will most of the times just serve to exhaust your shape uses.

So the question is, why bother introducing something that has negligible mechanical benefits, and probably would make a big mess lore-wise, that's going to overshadow the added RP possibilities? If you want the shifter RP as a non-druid, i'm pretty sure you can handle it with DC requests for spells and/or maybe the 1k Faces widget.

Back to the topic at hand (i was asking questions earlier =P)

I think shifter models could use a visual facelift and there's just the thing for it:

http://www.qnwn.net/home/

Stone Golem suggestion:

There are also some nice stone guardians that could fit the stone golem shape as well ( can't direct link but it's in their gallery)

Minotaur suggestion:

Unfortunately, Amia doesn't have those models available unless we have another hak update, which won't be soon!

Love those tight manboobs on those golems.

They're sculpted pectorals, you philistine!

Shifter suggestion

Fix the Spell penetration on all shapes that can cast spells. (All shapes).
None take into account shifter levels, Only druid levels.

What happens? - Well, The spells can be exchanged for wet noodles. Noodles do more damage.

Aeqvinox wrote:

MightNMagic wrote:

why not actually just *fix* the shifter reqs to canon? Let wizards/sorcerers of 7th level, rangers of 14th lvl, and clerics w/ the animal domain of 9th lvl also be able to access shifter? IE, every character w/ polymorph self.

So the question is, why bother introducing something that has negligible mechanical benefits, and probably would make a big mess lore-wise, that's going to overshadow the added RP possibilities? If you want the shifter RP as a non-druid, i'm pretty sure you can handle it with DC requests for spells and/or maybe the 1k Faces widget.

viewtopic.php?f=4&p=1213251#p1213251
Here are some good reasons why

Very_Svensk wrote:

Shifter suggestion

Fix the Spell penetration on all shapes that can cast spells. (All shapes).
None take into account shifter levels, Only druid levels.

What happens? - Well, The spells can be exchanged for wet noodles. Noodles do more damage.

So shifter spells still use druid levels for CL?

Aeqvinox wrote:

MightNMagic wrote:

why not actually just *fix* the shifter reqs to canon? Let wizards/sorcerers of 7th level, rangers of 14th lvl, and clerics w/ the animal domain of 9th lvl also be able to access shifter? IE, every character w/ polymorph self.

So the question is, why bother introducing something that has negligible mechanical benefits, and probably would make a big mess lore-wise, that's going to overshadow the added RP possibilities? If you want the shifter RP as a non-druid, i'm pretty sure you can handle it with DC requests for spells and/or maybe the 1k Faces widget.

Aside from getting rid of the issues surrounding taking druid OOCly, wouldn't MightNMagics suggestion make more sense lore-wise? and increase the RP possibilities?

O'Raghailligh wrote:

Aeqvinox wrote:

MightNMagic wrote:

why not actually just *fix* the shifter reqs to canon? Let wizards/sorcerers of 7th level, rangers of 14th lvl, and clerics w/ the animal domain of 9th lvl also be able to access shifter? IE, every character w/ polymorph self.

So the question is, why bother introducing something that has negligible mechanical benefits, and probably would make a big mess lore-wise, that's going to overshadow the added RP possibilities? If you want the shifter RP as a non-druid, i'm pretty sure you can handle it with DC requests for spells and/or maybe the 1k Faces widget.

Aside from getting rid of the issues surrounding taking druid OOCly, wouldn't MightNMagics suggestion make more sense lore-wise? and increase the RP possibilities?

I concur! I want to be a sorcerer/Or wizard specializing in transmutation magic and shape shifting - Because damnit, I don't want my wife to see me when i go out to drink so i disguise myself as the cat!

Very_Svensk wrote:

I concur! I want to be a sorcerer/Or wizard specializing in transmutation magic and shape shifting - Because damnit, I don't want my wife to see me when i go out to drink so i disguise myself as the cat!

'

Request a spell, shifter is based on a devine class and should be treated as such. Dont flip the class 180 Degrees, just to make it easier to rp something, might aswell make palemasters only requirement BAB.

Arcane is not Devine

Arcane and divine are more a subtype to spells. Supernatural abilities like wildshape isnt divine or arcane unless explicitly stated. You should probably read up on the thread.

Terra_777 wrote:

Arcane and divine are more a subtype to spells. Supernatural abilities like wildshape isnt divine or arcane unless explicitly stated. You should probably read up on the thread.

shifting is still granted through devine power, as part of the druid class

Divine*

And noooo... Its treated as a supernatural ability

Well, Druid class shifting is divine (maybe) but Shifter class shifting is not.

Naivatkal wrote:

Well, Druid class shifting is divine (maybe) but Shifter class shifting is not.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm

Egen druid shifting is super natural (SU)

That settles that, then, hah. Yeah I didn't think it was divine, honestly. That'd be weird.

Cant we just let the mentioned classes be able to take wild shape at level x y z. Or does that require a hak update?
Maybe its been answered Already? (Checks topic)

Muspelkvist wrote:

Naivatkal wrote:

Well, Druid class shifting is divine (maybe) but Shifter class shifting is not.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm

Egen druid shifting is super natural (SU)

and who gave that supernatural ability, you do know what the word means right..its not natural, next you will say that wizards getting hurt from familiars dying has nothing to do with magic.

And even if this made sense, that shifting as a druid somehow had nothing to do with thier devotion to thier gods, it still means that it makes no sense whatsoever that mages get access to the class

Kraniumbrud wrote:

Muspelkvist wrote:

Naivatkal wrote:

Well, Druid class shifting is divine (maybe) but Shifter class shifting is not.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm

Egen druid shifting is super natural (SU)

and who gave that supernatural ability, you do know what the word means right..its not natural, next you will say that wizards getting hurt from familiars dying has nothing to do with magic.

And even if this made sense, that shifting as a druid somehow had nothing to do with thier devotion to thier gods, it still means that it makes no sense whatsoever that mages get access to the class

This is irrelevant, as the PnP Shifter class specifies that casters with spells like Polymorph Self are eligible to take the Shifter class. Shifters are absolutely not inherently divine.

Manarethan wrote:

This is irrelevant, as the PnP Shifter class specifies that casters with spells like Polymorph Self are eligible to take the Shifter class. Shifters are absolutely not inherently divine.

This is correct.

Masters of the Wild, Shifter prestige class wrote:

Requirements
To become a shifter, a character must fulfill the following
criteria.
Feats: Alertness, Endurance.
Spells: Able to cast 3rd-level spells.
Special: Alternate Form—must either know polymorph
self or have a natural alternate form, alter self, polymorph
self, shapechange, or wild shape ability.

Although, Complete Adventurer updates the Shifter prestige class with Master of Many Forms.

Complete Adventurer, The class description presented here is an updated version of the shifter prestige class that originally appeared in Masters of the Wild. wrote:

REQUIREMENTS
To qualify to become a master of many forms,
a character must fulfill all the following
criteria.
Feats: Alertness, Endurance.
Special: Wild shape class feature.

There is nothing lorewise that states shifters are strictly divine.

Rewrite the information in the forums:
They imply that all shifted abilities scale with shifter levels but my maths so far show that it's still druid CL?

Which ability have you found that doesnt use druid+shifter for its numerical values? Note that shifter levels is only added when you're actually shifted.

Also: Name any other core or WoTC sanctioned non core class that gets Wild Shape.

Admittedly in the first incarnation it was wider open.

Suggestion: Allow kobold commando/spectre's sneak attack to stack with rogue/assassin levels

Reason: allows for different builds to prosper and it's not that overpowered since at best we're talking about 5 rogue/assassin levels (5 druid and 17 shifter minimum for epic kobold).
Also as far as i know any other source of sneak die stack...

Suggestion: Allow shifters to stack skill bonuses at least partially
Reason: currently from my testing only the highest bonus counts and given that players can easily hit the skill cap (one epic item , several non epics) it wouldn't hurt balance that much if shifters could do it

A shifter gets a particular bonus per shape so that if he is geared towards maxing out one skill it doesn't help him outside of those shapes.

The concern i see here is a shifter who gets all the epic skill gloves and switches on demand.. that's why i wrote partial stacking.

The Spell Resistance thing is a huge problem. At the moment, Shifters barely land any spells at all because everything is resisted by NPCs. It would be a different story if Druid + CL counted in terms of beating SR.

I was under the assumption that anyone with a "natural shapeshifting" ability was able to qualify for the shifter prerequisite. So, for example, a human wizard would not be able to, on the basis that while they can change shape, it is through a learned magical ability (polymorph), but if that same wizard was a fey, doppleganger, or some other creature with natural shapeshifting, they qualify for the prerequisite, and (assuming they meet the other requirements) would be able to take levels in shifter.

However, a brief gander through some older threads has proved me wrong. Spell-given forms also count, at least as far as prior rulings go, which irks me somewhat.

Referance: Tormak's post over here, and discussed previously in more detail here (Note that both of these are pretty old, stances and rulings may have changed in my absence.

Thus, if such changes are to be made, we'd really want to get DM and player input on what would fit best with Amian lore and balance.

For now, I would suggest that rather than allow certain classes access to the prerequisite, perhaps simply create some sort of widget or feat that, when possessed by a player, allows them to forgo the Wild Shape requirement. This widget could then be given to players on a case-by-case basis, either through requests, or by simply automatically giving the widget to qualifying races. (Probably both. It's almost certain that at least someone will drink one to many polymorph potions and gain natural shapeshifting, or other such shenanigans). If the feat option is chosen, then all that is required is to force-give the characters in question the Wild Shape feat. Whether such a thing is possible, I have no idea.

In reference to the above, shifters are not necessarily divine, and neither is the ability to shift. Consider it like the Blackguard's Bull's Strength; the spell is granted via divine means, but that doesn't mean every sorcerer who can cast Bull's Strength is using a divine ability. Shifting is simply a supernatural ability that may come from one of many sources.

I agree with Elzendur's suggestion for the sneak-attack-stack. It seems logical, as sneak attack stacks in all other cases. I'm less certain on the skill-stacking though.

Shifter Suggestions

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