Greenbound template & Wild Shape

[QOShea]

Morning everybody,

Question for the board! At 12th level a druid gains the ability to Wild Shape into a plant. At that point, could they turn into an animal with the Greenbound template?

Dire Bear + Greenbound... nasty.

QOShea

[DazEvil]

You can't wildshape, or polymorph, into creatures with a template.

[sir_argenon]

You can't wildshape, or polymorph, into creatures with a template.

+1, afaik this is true...

[QOShea]

That sucks!  

Is that spelled out somewhere? I must have missed it when going through Wild Shape.

[Agita]

That sucks!  

Is that spelled out somewhere? I must have missed it when going through Wild Shape.

Yes, under the Alternate Form rules, which Wild Shape works off of.

A creature cannot use alternate form to take the form of a creature with a template. Assuming an alternate form results in the following changes to the creature:
[...]

Emphasis mine.

[QOShea]

Man, that sucks. Especially since you can already turn into a plant.

Wonder if my DM would allow it if it used 2 wild shape uses....

[telehax]

As long as the DM doesn't catch on how imbalanced that would be.

[sir_argenon]

question.. if you already *have* a template, can you retain its abilities if you take an alt form?

[Agita]

question.. if you already *have* a template, can you retain its abilities if you take an alt form?

You'd retain all abilities you would normally retain (SLAs and (Su) abilitites, SQs), and lose all you would normally lose (NA, Natural Weapons, (Ex) SAs not dervied from class levels).

[QOShea]

Which is why Warforged make lousy druids.

[Agita]

Which is why Warforged make lousy druids.

Why? Everything that matters to a Druid about Warforged is either a SQ (immunities) or hit points (+2 Con), and thus retained. You do have to burn a feat on Ironwood Body if your DM is picky about the metal armor, but Druids aren't exactly feat starved.

[QOShea]

They lose just about everything.

From the SRD:
The creature loses the natural weapons, natural armor, and movement modes of its original form.

Pretty much makes Warforged pointless as druids.

[Agita]

They lose just about everything.

From the SRD:
The creature loses the natural weapons, natural armor, and movement modes of its original form.

Pretty much makes Warforged pointless as druids.

None of these matter, because chances are that your new form will have better stuff anyway. Natural weapons don't matter because the WF has exactly one: Its slam, and that deals 1d4 damage. NA doesn't matter because the Warforged only has its inherent armor bonus, and that's +2, +3 if you took Ironwood Body, or +0 if you took Unarmored body. Movement modes don't matter because the Warforged's are average. The things that do matter are the Living Construct subtype, which grants a lot of immunities and other neat stuff, and the Con bonus. The former you keep. The latter you lose, but the bonus hp you got stays.
Honestly, the big problem with Warforged is that they take a hit to Wis, not what they lose when they Wild Shape.