Help with a Spell-less Druid -- PEACH

[wotmaniac]

So, one of my players expressed an interest in playing a spell-less druid -- that's right, just drop the spells and play it as is.  However, I could not, in good conscience, allow that.  Sure, it would still be like a Tier 3-4, but it just feels like too much of a drop.
So, I decided to try to re-work the druid to operate without spells.  At first, I was just like "just play a wild shape ranger"; but then quickly saw the error of my ways.  Here's what I've come-up with:
everything stays as per regular druid, with the following changes:
- all good saves
- 6 skill points per level
- 1st level -- "healing touch": works like "lay on hands", except uses WIS.
- starts wild shape at 4th level -- don't change anything else, just start it 1 level earlier
- bonus wild feat at 5, 10, 15, 20
- at 5th level, cast magic fang once per day per every 5 levels (round down), caster level = class level ; upgrades to greater magic fang at 10th level.

So, what do you guys think?

[Havok4]

It is definitely more balanced. It would make druids more of a tanking/melee option than a caster. You probably should add a few more SLAs for healing and group support.

[RobbyPants]

Another option (if you want to get rid of the SLAs as well) could be to simply allow the druid's natural attacks to be treated as magical at level 4, and have various other progressions as they gain levels (treat as various material types at different levels, be able to hit incorporeal creatures, etc).

The healing touch could be replaced with something like Fast Healing as well.

I only suggest it because if the player doesn't want spells, I wonder if they want SLAs.

[kurashu]

You might want to pick through my ideas on this: The Shapechanger

[wotmaniac]

Another option (if you want to get rid of the SLAs as well) could be to simply allow the druid's natural attacks to be treated as magical at level 4, and have various other progressions as they gain levels (treat as various material types at different levels, be able to hit incorporeal creatures, etc).

The healing touch could be replaced with something like Fast Healing as well.

I only suggest it because if the player doesn't want spells, I wonder if they want SLAs.

well, I thought about Fast Healing; but unless you also extend it to the AC, then you'd still have a big gap to fill.
I do like just having the natural attacks being magical/whatever -- but as unto the first, it would probably need to also extend to the AC.

You might want to pick through my ideas on this: The Shapechanger

I like this alot -- I'll need to work in AC for the player in question (haven't fully evaluated your class yet, so I'm not sure if I would need to do any tweaking).