My Shifter is currently only very low level (Druid5/Shifter4), but I've got to agree with the current opinions. There are only a couple forms I can shift into without suffering a huge drop in AC - forms that are very weak offensively. If I want decent offense, I become a minotaur, and get shredded to ribbons faster than I do as a human. And that's not even including the item merges breaking. If it's going to be this way for all of the shapes, I would rather just make a dru39/mnk1 for AO or LA and end up with Dragon Shape anyway.
I think a good rule of thumb for a prestige class is that if a character gets a prestige class at the earliest possible levels, the abilities it offers them should be useful and desirable. There's something wrong with me going 'Great, now I get to slog through five more levels of Shifter using fifth level Call Lightning and Summon Monster 3, until I finally get something halfway decent.' I'm not trying to say the shifter should be the best at everything. I just think that every form he takes should be viable for a realistic role in a party. And 'the tank who has to run as soon as a monster targets him' isn't a real role
crippe13 wrote:but I thought druid/shifter forms gained power based on druid/shifter levels...
Yeah, AC improves, stats improve, melee weapons become more powerful, etc. Worth running through an offline leveling mod to see which forms get better at what.
Learning new shapes in-game would be very cool. It would encourage wide exploration and give the Shifter sort of a wizard-like feel to him, with knowledge literally being power. Personally though, I would even be happy with a reduction in the number of shapes available as long as each shape a) serves a distinct role and b) is effective in that role. The strength of the Shifter should be that, if he picks a form to be like his enemy, he will be at a disadvantage - but for just about any given foe, there is some form that will give him the edge.
For instance, the kobold commando is stealthy and has sneak attack. He's like becoming a rogue temporarily. Is the kobold commando as good a rogue as a player who has dedicated all of his levels to rogue? No. But he's pretty decent at it, and a party that doesn't have a rogue will be happy to have the kobold commando join them. His skills are based on yours, so you can invest in them to keep them high as you level, and his epic form gains more stealthy skills and sneak attack. Other distinct, viable forms are the spectre (improved invisibility and strength drain make him a tank killer) and rakshasa (immunity to nearly all spells, and dispel magic/ice storm at will make him a great mage killer). Note that none of these forms are without their weak points. I'm not asking for Shifters to be gods. A high Spot skill owns the kobold commando. Divine damage puts a hurting on spectres, not to mention turning. Rakshasas are physically vulnerable, especially if someone has a blessed weapon.
When I talk about forms being distinct but not effective, the mind flayer form is a good example. It's got excellent defense against spellcasters, only so-so AC but inertial barrier is like stoneskin, and it's capable of locking down enemies with low Will saves. That's great... except that the DC on Mind Blast is fixed, as is the spell resistance. At medium to high levels, both of them become more or less useless, and the mind flayer is just a big soft target with drooling tentacles.
The truly awful forms are ones like gargoyle. For those of you who don't know, the gargoyle has abominable damage-dealing abilities and middling armor class. In exchange for this, he gets DR 15/+1, which comes in really handy against all those people who don't wield magic weapons.
I would be utterly thrilled to have a Shifter class that, if it chooses all the necessary feats, has at least one shape for each of:
-Melee fighter: high defense and high damage. No outstanding magic defenses. Many shapes could fill this role with better AC/DR.
-Ranged attacker: like the manticore, but with more ammo and not nerfed to heck by Neversummer's ridiculous amount of DR. Lower defenses than the melee fighter.
-Magic attacker: like the mindflayer, but with some scaling abilities. Reasonable damage against groups of monsters. Strong against magic, though physically vulnerable.
-Stealth attacker: kobold commando. Enough said.
-Fighter killer: the Spectre. Highly vulnerable to magic attacks, this character can take down a lone fighter like it ain't no thang, given enough time.
-Mage killer: the Rakshasa. Resistant to magic on multiple levels (spell immunity, saving throw bonuses, SR) and able to break down an enemy caster's defenses, but soft against frontline fighters.
-Rogue killer: the Vampire is the closest. He can't go toe-to-toe with a tank, and he's nothing special against mages, but immunity to sneak attacks means that a rogue had better be packing Use Magic Device if he wants to inflict any real damage. High listen and/or spot and/or movement speed would be a definite plus - after all, what's the point of surviving the sneak attack if the little punk can just run home to mommy? - perhaps a Vampire Monk would be ideal here.
The last couple aren't necessarily as core to the concept, but I would enjoy them anyway and I don't think they'd be unbalancing:
- the Brick: like the Iron Golem, but with DR that will actually be tough to break. He can't dish out nearly as much damage as the other forms, but taking him down will be a task of truly epic proportions.
- the General: low damage output and average defense. This character's strength would be in some combination of area buffing/debuffing effects and summoning magic.
Whew, that was a long post. Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions?
Do you have any freaking idea how much spectre sucks? STR drain has for save so good luck using that against tank. Spectre couldn't take down a lone epic fighter(it is epic shape after all)fighter if he sat on his [censored] for hours. DC around 25 fort to drain STR?? Pfft! Also in case you haven't noticed spectre does not meld rings, amulets, cloaks, belts, bracers, boots, thus having a LOT less resistances allowing fighter to take it down at will. Also unless there is a haste armor or helm or shield, any shapes that melds only those is pointless since it will be slow and will have less attacks. Such shapes are dire tiger, basilisk, manticore, dragon, stone and demonflesh golem, spectre, death slaad.
Also you missed the point entirely. We are talking about multiclassing options, not changing shapes. Shapes are quite OK if the server is not too munchkin and if monk is allowed. But without monk tank shapes like minotaur are goddamn sissies since your life drops faster than in human shape and you need to level very high to get any decent shape. Currently shifter usually spends most of the time at levels 6 to 10 as a lvl 5 druid caster. Which really really really really really really really really sucks.
Alternatively you can implement proper AC items and stats items stacking instead of allowing monk(both together CAN make insane AC so doing one of these would be enough)
Shifter is entirely customizable
No need to customize, just allow monk or get Iz's improved wildshape script.
I guess it was just the mod I was playing where the Strength drain didn't have a save DC. And I don't think haste items are an issue, since NS4 seems to not have any of them.
And maybe to you it is just about multiclassing options. Personally I think that it's ridiculous to say 'Shifters are great... with a level of monk. Otherwise, they are useless.' I would prefer having the shapes be useful on their own.
I'd have to disagree with whoever said shifters are not a powergamers class....I have a shifter on one server with 151 AC, 65 AB, very fast monk speed (and empty body) lvl 9 druid spells etc....
QuickLightning wrote:I'd have to disagree with whoever said shifters are not a powergamers class....I have a shifter on one server with 151 AC, 65 AB, very fast monk speed (and empty body) lvl 9 druid spells etc....
151 AC? I'm gonna BS that one, unless you can prove it (i'd love to know how to get more than 95 on an unedited server)
Oh btw, i'd also like to add dragon breath to the list of sucky spell like abilities, it's easily avoidable, takes a full round to cast (and takes a while sometimes for the engine to recognize you want to cast it), and because it's an elemental spell, any caster worth his meat (or sometin) has elemental protection, or if you're a rogue/archer/dex char you have huge reflex to resist the breath, bringing it down to 12d10 to someone who succeeds at their reflex save (BTW, you get 24d10 damage at lvl 40 and that is only if you have druid AND shifter lvls, and only druid/shifter lvls, anything else takes a big hit to the damage)
IMO something that does a measly (12*5.5) 72 damage at lvl 40 and that can be avoided by running away from it and has pathetic DC (at lvl 40, a DC of 34-35 really isn't that great), AND takes a full round to cast, IMO could use a big boost
You can do better. You can use IZ's script which melds each AC as its own but that in combination with monk can lead to high AC. With monk only, I don't think you can get past 70 AC without improved expertise. 150 AC is AC stacking and +20 AC items. Any class can get close to that with +20 AC items. Also changing AC type to dodge is a bad bad bad idea since you lose dodge flatfooted or flanked while you don't lose deflection. Also dodge IS capped at +20 I think.
There are no haste items?!?!?!?!?!?!?! That means that TC has like no means of stopping mages from LA from raping everyone. The only class in TC with haste is bard. Cleric is plant/animal. With haste out of the picture for most chars, what is to prevent mage from running then casting when he is far enough? Rinse and repeat...
Ok that was a bit off topic. So, what is the Devs' vote on this subject?(asking cos I will need to make some choices pretty soon based on this)
Adding monk to TC. Look on it as balancing the factions. Since all classes but shifter can be done in other factions that allow monks, and shifters need monks badly due to AC and unarmed shapes, I think it would be fair if this rule was changed. So what's the call on this?
STR CON DEX NATURALACBONUS HPBONUS 48 32 36 20 100
So you get 13 dex + 20 natural ac - size modifier so base AC in the mid 30s, pretty good start there.
Anyway, I have a better way to work the bonuses and gear melding and so forth, it'll be after the current projects though...no ETA yet.
Ok lets say I have +5 AC items and +6 dex item(multiple +dex items don't stack anyway). Then AC is 10 base+20 innate AC+5 AC from all AC items together+11 AC from dex+(druid has no dex buffs)3 AC from dex item+4 AC tumble=53 AC. Not exactly high. This is lvl 40. And don't forget shifter->dragon transition = loses a lot of item properties
Besides, dragon is highest AC perhaps. Try playing with druid 5 shifter 3 with minotaur. 17 AC or so. I currently get 22 AC at lvl 5 in being a human. That tells you all. With 5 AC from my wisdom I would get 22 AC in minotaur shape, which is exactly the AC I have now at lower level in human shape. Not having monk also pulls not having evasion and having 3 attacks on unarmed shapes(that really hurts unarmed shapes since 5 attacks per round instead of 3 was what gave them equal damage per round than armed shapes. So giving monk to shifter is more than just about AC.
The hard part about changes without a client-side hak is stuff that would be much easier to handle from the GUI. There isn't anything in the module yet to compare it too either, so it might be just working with the horrid feat driven version Bio gave us--that's really the only problem to solve.
For example, it's much easier to have a button that will say Shapeshift: Firebolg than to configure the Elemental Shape ability to change you into one from a conversation and remember what you will change into when you hit Elemental Shape. Alternatively, we could make these abilities out of combat only (Shapeshift, Wildshape...) and shapechange from a list of known forms (conversation).
Tep wrote:I login and there's a dwarf to kill. You can't ask for much more than that.
Alkapwn wrote:NC has the most amazing melee build there is. Its a friggin unstopable juggernaut of pain.
