Making Magical Beast Shape and Dragon Shape Useful

[Vaeliorin]

Okay, so I'm new, and my first post is a suggestion. Cheeky, I know. However, I do have a concern, and I thought I would bring it up. I'm playing a druid who is heavy on the shapechanging, and I'd like to eventually get magical wild beast shape (but not dragon shape, not that that's entirely relevant.) Anyway, as they stand, magical wild beast shape and dragon shape...well...are terrible. Anyway, there's a nice little script fix on the vault here http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view....Detail&id=160 that allows magic fang and greater magic fang to work with both of these abilities (which they should, but don't). It also lets Nature's Avatar work with both shapes, but that can be done away with (I don't know that it's really necessary, but I wouldn't argue against it.)

Anyway, just a thought. (I'm hoping to mainly use wolf shapes and wolf->dire wolf->winter wolf just seems like a nice progression to me. As an aside, magic fang/greater magic fang/nature's avatar work with the plant shapes, which are actually somewhat better than the magical beast shapes, so I don't think it's unbalancing to have.)

[Blue_Wyrm]

I have no experience at all in playing a high-level druid, so I'll just speak about what I know regarding Sundren. The developpers have made it known they wish to keep the place a low-magic item world, and this makes it so everyone wanders around with +1 weapons, very, very few with better than that without the appropriate cleric buff on. This in turn sets the difficulty level for some tricky dungeons like the Necropolis, where you'll have a hard time hurting a Wight Guard (I know I am) if you don't have magical enhancements.

Your request for a buff, in turn, becomes this question: how strong can a shapeshifted druid hit for, taking into account that his paws can be +2/3/4/5 weapons with those spells? Would it make the feral-oriented druid an imbalanced (and overly popular) choice in the Sundren environment since he can tear through ghosts/wights/Michael Jackson? I can't answer these questions, I'm just raising them for the sake of discussion.

[Vaeliorin]

Well, the fact of the matter is that a shape-shifted druid hits fairly hard either way, though without magic fang (which again, should work on magical beasts and dragons) they are unable to overcome X/magic damage resistance (which hardly seems fair, given that the spell should work and only doesn't because Obsidian was lazy. For that matter, the spell should work on unarmed monks, but that's neither here nor there.)

Regardless, the spell already works on animal/dire animal and plant shapes (and as I mentioned, the treant shape is statistically speaking better than any of the magical beast shapes, and probably the dragon shape as well, since it's pretty crummy, though I haven't compared them side by side since I hate the way the dragon shapes look.)

That being said, I suppose I can just skip magical wild beast shape, which would free up a feat anyway. It just seems silly to spend a feat on something that's actually worse than something a druid gets for free anyway. That being said, if those in charge wish to discourage those feats, that's fine. I'll simply make do with dire wolf shape (I'm not a fan of the plant shapes appearance, even though they're fairly insanely strong.)

Edit: Just thought I'd point out that both clerics and mages get greater magic weapon (which I can only assume is what you're referring to, since it's basically the weapon-based equivalent of magic fang, giving the +X to a weapon, so I don't know that it's particularly unbalancing in that respect.)

[GodBeastX]

I don't think we really have any X/eb creatures. I'll let the players confirm that though because I might have went overboard and not remembered

[Vaeliorin]

I'll admit...you've managed to confuse me. X/eb? What sort of damage reduction are you referring to?

[Blue_Wyrm]

So the wight guards don't require an enchantment bonus? I thought I heard Roger say his "My weapon has no effect!" line, but then that may be because he hits for so low (-_-) and that they have fairly high damage reduction X/-. On the other hand, though I haven't paid much attention because those fights tend to throw groups in total chaos (lol good job team), those wight guards might be undead summoned by the necromancers/master necromancers, and their stats might have avoided your falcon scrutiny because they are summoned creature. *shrugs* Just guesses.

GBX says X/eb it means damage reduction (how much) / (enhancement bonus +1/2/3/4/5)

And regarding the druid, yes, I guess if all arcane casters and cleric got magic weapon spells, I think you should in all fairness as a druid have access to the spell to cast on yourself since the manual apparently allows it so.

[Vaeliorin]

Ah, okay. That doesn't exist any more. It's just damage reduction X/magic (meaning anything +1 or higher will overcome it.) It's possible that the wights have damage reduction silver, cold iron, adamantine, evil, or good, or some combination of these instead of just straight damage reduction.

Of course...it's possible that they've reinstated damage reduction X/+Y on this server? Like I said, I'm new, so I don't know

[Blue_Wyrm]

Meh, I'm so left behind in the dust by this whirlwind of ever-changing D&D rules... I'll let the experts answer in my stead. >_>

[Aux]

Meh, I'm so left behind in the dust by this whirlwind of ever-changing D&D rules... I'll let the experts answer in my stead. >_>

I know what you mean, I learnt the 'new ways' playing DDO... my warforged character ended up having a collection of bastard swords that the Imperial War Museum would be proud of, for all the different types of damage reduction and immunities etc... oh and yeah the stuff that doesnt stack anymore

[Ithildin]

I also play a druid that will be using its shapes more then his normal form so its not that I don't care but, I rather them focus on things that will effect our characters than on something that we may never get. People likely won't be able to get magical beast shapes until around level 25, unless you min/max your stats and dragon form is even harder to get. As far as I know noone is epic yet and they plan on having epic levels hard to get.

[Blue_Wyrm]

That's another point... the server has a hard cap of level 20 after which only DM-awarded XP gets in the level piggy. I don't even think there has been any epic player character in Sundren, and I'm not even sure someone reached the 18-20's. So yeah... if you enjoy making builds for your character, I suggest centering it around the mid-levels, because that's where your character will probably spend a good chunk of his life on Sundren.

[Vaeliorin]

Fair enough. 'Twas just a thought.

[Felnak]

That's another point... the server has a hard cap of level 20 after which only DM-awarded XP gets in the level piggy. I don't even think there has been any epic player character in Sundren, and I'm not even sure someone reached the 18-20's. So yeah... if you enjoy making builds for your character, I suggest centering it around the mid-levels, because that's where your character will probably spend a good chunk of his life on Sundren.

I agree. Make a character you can enjoy playing at mid-level.

[Vaeliorin]

I just like to look ahead to the future. It's not as if Magical Beast Wild Shape is something you can just stumble across, with it having a wisdom requirement of 25. Winter Wolf form just seemed a natural progression for my character, anyway.


That being said, I'll take these thoughts to heart, and perhaps apply them to a different character, should I make one.

[Saulus]

It may be simple to suggest a change to how spells function especially when someone tosses something up on nwvault be we have to consider the rammifcations of such a change in our carefully tuned low magic environment.