Epic Druid Forms?

[Ed-Zero]

So I'm going to be playing in a game that starts at 21st level and I'm considering a straight up druid. That's all fine and dandy but my question is, what cool forms are there for druids to take at 21? With one epic feat, I want to focus on wildshaping rather than just getting epic spellcasting.

So, with all the epic feats the srd has, which form is good?

[spoiler]Colossal Wild Shape [Wild][Epic]
Prerequisite
The ability to wild shape into a Gargantuan creature.
Benefit
You can use your wild shape to take the shape of a Colossal animal.
Normal
Without this feat, you cannot wild shape into an animal of greater than Huge size.

Diminutive Wild Shape [Wild][Epic]
Prerequisite
Ability to wild shape into a Huge animal.
Benefit
You can use wild shape to take the shape of a Diminutive animal.
Normal
Without this feat, you cannot wild shape into an animal of smaller than Tiny size.

Dragon Wild Shape [Wild][Epic]
Prerequisites
Wis 30, Knowledge (nature) 30 ranks, wild shape 6/day.
Benefit
You may use wild shape to change into a dragon (black, blue, green, red, white, brass, bronze, copper, gold, or silver). The size limitation is the same as your limitation on animal size. You gain all extraordinary and supernatural abilities of the dragon whose form you take.

Fine Wild Shape [Wild][Epic]
Prerequisite
Ability to wild shape into a Diminutive creature.
Benefit
You can use your wild shape to take the shape of a Fine animal.
Normal
Without this feat, you cannot wild shape into an animal smaller than Tiny size.

Gargantuan Wild Shape [Wild][Epic]
Prerequisite
Ability to wild shape into a Huge animal.
Benefit
You can use your wild shape to take the shape of a Gargantuan animal.
Normal
Without this feat, you cannot wild shape into an animal greater than Huge size.

Improved Elemental Wild Shape [Wild][Epic]
Prerequisites
Wis 25, ability to wild shape into an elemental.
Benefit
Your ability to wild shape into an elemental is expanded to include all elemental creatures (not just air, earth, fire, and water elementals) of any size that you can take when using wild shape to become an animal. You gain all extraordinary and supernatural abilities of the elemental whose form you take.
Normal
Without this feat, you may only wild shape into a Small, Medium-size, or Large air, earth, fire, or water elemental.

Magical Beast Wild Shape [Wild][Epic]
Prerequisites
Wis 25, Knowledge (nature) 27 ranks, wild shape 6/day.
Benefit
You can use your normal wild shape ability to take the form of a magical beast. The size limitation is the same as your limitation on animal size. You gain all supernatural abilities of the magical beast whose form you take.

Plant Wild Shape [Wild][Epic]
Prerequisites
Knowledge (nature) 24 ranks, wild shape 4/day.
Benefit
You can use your normal wild shape ability to take the form of a plant. The size limitation is the same as your limitation on animal size.

Vermin Wild Shape [Wild][Epic]
Prerequisites
Knowledge (nature) 24 ranks, wild shape 6/day.
Benefit
You can use your normal wild shape ability to take the form of a vermin. The size limitation is the same as your limitation on animal size. [/spoiler]

Off the top of my head, I'd like to take either the vermin feat or the elemental feat. Vermin so I can be a swarm, be immune to weapon damage or elemental for all those other cool elementals out there..

Any suggestions?

[zioth]

Magical Beast covers a lot, so that could be nice. Then again, until level 25, Shapechange might work better than Wild Shape.

Gargantuan is probably the best if you're going for combat. Then you can get Colossal, and then Dragon.

If you want more general utility, Diminutive could be fun. You could be the party scout, or cast spells seemingly from nowhere (higj hide check and touch AC). Fine would make this even better. But again, you might be better off with Shapechange for these. You're not likely to find a lot of good 25+ HD forms that are diminutive or fine.

It's fun to change into a swarm (if your DM allows it), but it's not as powerful as Dragon or as flexible as Elemental. If you want the swarm's defence, you're probably better off with Diminutive. If you want resistences, elementals are better. If you want fighting power, Dragon, Magical Beast or Gargantuan is better.

[sirpercival]

You should get Aberration Wild Shape pre-epic... that's fun. 

[Ed-Zero]

So does anyone have any cool monsters that are 21 HD or up? I'm gonna be looking and will post a few that I find interesting.

[E-mail]

Elemental Monoliths are amongst my favorite monsters ever, as they are simply good at anything. Especially the Earth one. But they do require you to know a lot of feats to get.

Btw, you MAY want to start out as a Druid 19/Human Paragon 2, so that you can get twice as many Epic feats at level 21. Druids are the only class that can really use Epic feats to accomplish things that are worth blowing feats on by 21st level.

[Ed-Zero]

Here's the Elementals I thought were cool:

Elemental Monsters:

Elemental Wierd - MM2 - 15HD
Ability to take control of any elemental with a DC 23 will save check, can do this as many times as you want and the elementals are under your command forever. My favorite is Earth for burrow and 4d6 damage to everything within 20 feet and able to summon other elementals.

Tempest - MM2 - 24HD
Being all 4 elements is pretty nice

Storm Elemental - MMIII - Elder Size 21 HD
Immune to electrical and sonic damage and throw out huge bolts of lightning 1/min

Omnimental - MMIII - 32HD
Not that great except that if you die you turn into 4 elementals.. I have no idea what the repurcussions of this would be in game.

Unfortunately, the epic elementals are 65 HD

[Phoenix00]

Another option to consider is doing an arcane hierophant build since the game starts at level 21.

[OblivionSmurf83]

I suppose Planar Shepherd is banned? Pick the right Plane, and you'd have a whole host of Outside Wild Shape forms to choose from.

[KellKheraptis]

Assuming no Planar Shepherd, I second going for Colossal Dragons.  And further, see if you can select a race which qualifies for Rapidstrike, with access to Wraithstrike.  Nothing quite like pouncing for +40 per claw on all touch attacks with 6-8 claw attacks, let alone if you can do the same for wing buffets as well.

EDIT : Energy Substitution (something other than fire), a means of poison on all those natural attacks, and Venomfire will also get really nasty fast.

[Ed-Zero]

I suppose Planar Shepherd is banned? Pick the right Plane, and you'd have a whole host of Outside Wild Shape forms to choose from.

Yeah, no planar shepard :/ Would've been nice lol.

So seeing as how Shapechange will get me by (hopefully I can use 3.5 Shapechange as the one in PF is horrid) till 25 that gives me a couple feats to get ready to wild shape into a colossal dragon. I was also looking at aberrations but I don't really know of any past 25 HD.

[zioth]

I looked into this some more, and found that there aren't really any colossal dragons that have a non-ridiculous number of hit dice. In fact, there are very few colossal monsters with fewer than 30-40 HD.

Also, Shapechange gives you extraordinary and supernatural abilities, and lets you change once per round as a free action, so it might be better than Wild Shape all the way up to 30 or so.

If you want to focus on Wild Shape (as opposed to druid casting), so good classes to look at are:

Master of Many Forms: 10 levels makes Wild Shape almost as good as Shapechange, by giving you Extraordinary abilities and a ton of new forms and sizes.

Warshaper: gives immunity to stun+crits, +1 weapon size, +4 str/con, +5 reach, fast healing 2 and changing your form once per round as a standard action. All of these are in any form, which gives it an edge on Shapechange. Then again, these work in Shapechanged forms too.

Nature's Warrior: Various useful special abilities in all forms.

Fist of the Forest: Gives you good unarmed damage, which is often better than your Wild Shape damage, especially when you increase your size.

[X-Codes]

I heard mention of PF.  PF Shapechange was nerfed along the same lines that all PF Shapechanging was nerfed.  It's still not a bad spell at all, it doesn't leave you free to ditch your Strength and Dexterity anymore, however.

The most versatile is clearly Improved Elemental Form.  Elemental Weirds are the ultimate Diviners, and you get their full host of Divination abilities with the feat.  If you're in PF, the feat gets even better since nobody can Shapechange into them anymore.  Also, there are elemental swarms so you're getting the whole immune-to-weapon-damage option, too.

That said, I think you'll find some really unique creatures that you can change into if you also pick up Magical Beast Shape.

[bkdubs123]

Seriously just take Aberration Wild Shape pre-Epic...

[X-Codes]

Seriously just take Aberration Wild Shape pre-Epic...

There's another feat... Ashbound something?  Lets you turn into vermin with wild shape pre-epic.

Aberration Wild Shape isn't all that hot, though.  You don't get Su abilities, which is usually what makes Aberrations dangerous.

[Ithamar]

There is like a 12 HD aberration in MMV that is pretty awesome as I recall, especially when combined with Enhance Wild Shape spell.  It has a split consciousness or something so it gets 2 initiative counts and can take extra purely mental actions each round...

[sirpercival]

Seriously just take Aberration Wild Shape pre-Epic...

There's another feat... Ashbound something?  Lets you turn into vermin with wild shape pre-epic.

Aberration Wild Shape isn't all that hot, though.  You don't get Su abilities, which is usually what makes Aberrations dangerous.

Metamorphic transfer?

[X-Codes]

Meh... sometimes they're awesome because they have more than 1 supernatural ability, though.

[CantripN]

Meh... sometimes they're awesome because they have more than 1 supernatural ability, though.

And sometimes it's because they have 12 arms that can use weapons...

[Ed-Zero]

This is pretty nice:

Wild Shape Amulet - Magic of Faerun
wild shape as a druid 4 levels higher. 40,000gp

[X-Codes]

This is pretty nice:

Wild Shape Amulet - Magic of Faerun
wild shape as a druid 4 levels higher. 40,000gp

This would be really nice if you could get it around level 8 or so.  At that price, though, you're probably waiting until level 14ish... I guess that's still alright.