Wild Shape, Dragons, and Magical Beasts

[Endarire]

I was pondering granting Druids access to Plant, Magical Beast, and Dragon forms via Wild Shape, as inspired by the appropriate feats.  (Dragon Wild Shape is in the Draconomicon.)

I wouldn't grant the casting, (Su) or (Sp) abilities of these new forms.  (That's asking for trouble as freebies, but may be worth a feat or two.)

Magical Beasts seem OK for Druid13 and Dragons for Druid19.  What say y'all?

[AriasDerros]

Are you asking if we think you need to power up CoDzilla even more? Cause, I think that would make me cry a little as a DM.

Remember, the magical beast offers stuff that you may be remiss about letting them have, and even things you don't allow may be picked up with little tricks here or there.

And with the Set of the Beast out of Complete Champion, and a Wild Shape Amulet out of MoF, you have your effective Druid level +5 for determining what you can wildshape into.

[weenog]

I say there's already a class for this (MoMF), and unlike your proposal it costs the druid dearly, as it should.  No magical beast form there, though.

I don't think turning it into feats you can pick up pre-epic is a great Plan B, either.  Druid wants Natural Spell, doesn't even need it to thrive, and beyond that its feats are wide open for whatever advantage it can find.

[AriasDerros]

I say there's already a class for this (MoMF), and unlike your proposal it costs the druid dearly, as it should.  No magical beast form there, though.

I don't think turning it into feats you can pick up pre-epic is a great Plan B, either.  Druid wants Natural Spell, doesn't even need it to thrive, and beyond that its feats are wide open for whatever advantage it can find.

+255

As a Druid player, we don't need any more strength in contrast to our teammates. Anything that makes the Druid any better should be focused on bettering the teamwork, not the solo-play.

[bearsarebrown]

I approve of the change. It doesn't actually make them more powerful, Polymorph and Shapechange come online faster and offer far more. All changing Wildshape does it allow it for longer/more times per day. At that point it's mostly just flavor.

[Endarire]

At what number of daily Wild Shape uses is more just more?  More specifically, what's the practical limit to the number of daily Wild Shape uses?

[AriasDerros]

Depends on encounters per day. And whether the druid is using their forms to fulfill tool positions for the party (mount, flying scout, tunneler, etc.).

My current Druid has to deal with 1, 2, or 3 encounters per day, and only one or two special rolls per day. At 14th level, with gear but no feats I have 8 wild shapes per day. So usually I have 3-4 uses remaining at the end of each day.

To put that in context for the campaign I'm in.[spoiler]
I am the only T1 in the party, as well as the only player with a high amount of game knowledge, I have not OPed my feat choices or anything else, and I am still playing my druid down to a painful extent. I am only playing one so that someone in the party isn't a beatstick and so someone can deal with being a multi-tool, but if I went Wis I would break this game, just because of the power-level (the others are T4-3).[/spoiler]