Are Shapeshifting Druids weak?

[Ariakas6]

I came along some people saying dragon forms are weak compared to other classes. Why they are considered weak? I see some crazy numbers on them like 80 AC, 50 str etc.

[Lady MacBeth]

In a high magic world the way shifters merge items hurts them so they are average at best. However in a low or mid magic enviroment they are certainly very strong. Typically you see something like Druid/shifter/monk of some variant in those cases.

[red255]

If you take a shifter form and take the minotaur form there are a variety of rules.

so if you have a magic weapon equiped on the druid the minotaur's axe gets some of the properties of the weapon, the minotaur being a larger form creature gets a bonus to knockdown.

if you were a halfling druid you would be both small and large.

A druid shifter eventually gets the outsider form allowing it to shift into a Rakasha who is immune to all spells under a certain level.

there was a guy who was really proud of his druid/shifter/rogue. which was something of a utlity character able to shift to fill many rolls.

you use some druid buffs though like stoneskin and bulls strength, then shift to minotaur and knock things down. its not the greatest per se but its fully functional.

[Ariakas6]

Originally posted by Ming:

In a high magic world the way shifters merge items hurts them so they are average at best. However in a low or mid magic enviroment they are certainly very strong. Typically you see something like Druid/shifter/monk of some variant in those cases.

so i am building a druid 28/ monk 9/ shadow dancer 3 which i found on the net and it seems interesting. I am playing on Blackstone keep server which i think a high magic world. So will my character be weak at the end? My planned stats:

Dragon Shape Unbuffed Stats:
Hitpoints: 854
STR: 48
DEX: 36
CON: 32

AB: 49/46/43/40/37 (factoring in the +6 claws and -2 size modifiers)
AC 65

2d8+19 damage (+2d6 sneak attack, 19-20 x2 Crit)
Saves (Fortitude/Will/Reflex): 33/33/29

Dragon Shape Self-Buffed Stats (no items):
Hitpoints: 975
STR: 60
DEX: 40
CON: 38
WIS: 44

AB: 55/52/49/46/43 (factoring in the +6 claws and -2 size modifiers).
AC: 77 (87 in Improved Expertise mode)
2d8+25 damage (+2d6 sneak attack, 19-20 x2 Crit)
Saves (Fortitude/Will/Reflex): 37/41/32

I plan to play as dragon form.

[Reifam]

I remember one of the most broken builds for epic level was to multiclass druid with 1-2 levels of monk. You need like 30 wisdom for Dragon Shape, so if you take monk and wear robes, you get extra AC for your wisdom modifier. Plus if you save up skill points and take a second monk level as your last level, you could dump them all into tumble, which gives you a free AC for every 5 points. If you played it right you'd be basically unhittable.

I forget if there were any other classes that went well with this build. I do know that you don't need shifter to get to dragonshape though, just druid.

[Lady MacBeth]

Originally posted by Ariakas:

Originally posted by Ming:

In a high magic world the way shifters merge items hurts them so they are average at best. However in a low or mid magic enviroment they are certainly very strong. Typically you see something like Druid/shifter/monk of some variant in those cases.

so i am building a druid 28/ monk 9/ shadow dancer 3 which i found on the net and it seems interesting. I am playing on Blackstone keep server which i think a high magic world. So will my character be weak at the end? My planned stats:

Dragon Shape Unbuffed Stats:
Hitpoints: 854
STR: 48
DEX: 36
CON: 32

AB: 49/46/43/40/37 (factoring in the +6 claws and -2 size modifiers)
AC 65

2d8+19 damage (+2d6 sneak attack, 19-20 x2 Crit)
Saves (Fortitude/Will/Reflex): 33/33/29

Dragon Shape Self-Buffed Stats (no items):
Hitpoints: 975
STR: 60
DEX: 40
CON: 38
WIS: 44

AB: 55/52/49/46/43 (factoring in the +6 claws and -2 size modifiers).
AC: 77 (87 in Improved Expertise mode)
2d8+25 damage (+2d6 sneak attack, 19-20 x2 Crit)
Saves (Fortitude/Will/Reflex): 37/41/32

I plan to play as dragon form.

I used to play on blackstone keep alot before I got burned out and not playing nwn as much anymore, but yes alot of things will kill you. That being said, I was Ming the shifter on that server so I can speak from first hand experience. Once you get dragon form things do become much easier, since you can spam breath attacks. So yes its doable, but up till dragon form its not as easy as it is for other classes on that particular server.

[red255]

just an FYI I'd take Champion of Torm instead of Shadow dancer.

Champion of Torm gets great wisdom as an Epic Bonus feat, so if you take levels 2,4,6,8, and 10 you'd get epic bonus feats which would allow up to 5 extra wisdom for 10 levels.

30 WIS is quite the hike. this allows you to get there much sooner.

assuming 18 starting WIS we'd have 23 WIS at level 20, 21 GREAT WIS (24) 22 Great WIS (25), 24 +1 WIS (26) (great WIS Great WIS 28) 26 Great WIS (29) 28,,,

before level 30 is what I mean. otherwise Dragon form is extremely high level.

[Lady MacBeth]

Originally posted by Reifam:

I remember one of the most broken builds for epic level was to multiclass druid with 1-2 levels of monk. You need like 30 wisdom for Dragon Shape, so if you take monk and wear robes, you get extra AC for your wisdom modifier. Plus if you save up skill points and take a second monk level as your last level, you could dump them all into tumble, which gives you a free AC for every 5 points. If you played it right you'd be basically unhittable.

I forget if there were any other classes that went well with this build. I do know that you don't need shifter to get to dragonshape though, just druid.

Typically their were two versions of the build that were common after patch 1.69. With patch 1.69 they made it where you needed 18 lvls of druid for dragon form, prior to that you could get it with 14 lvls so that patch killed many builds off.

The first and the one I prefer to play is 5 druid, 29 shifter, 6 monk. As it gives you Ikd for free. Obviously self buffing and spell casting are out in this build, but it gets every shifte form, and has dragon form by lvl 33 easily thanks to great wisdom feats. The other common buld went along the lines of Druid 21/Shifter 17/monk 2.

Of course like everything there are exceptions to the rules, like the Druid/shifter/dwarven defenders that take advantage of the bug that lets you pick an epic shifter feat at shifter 10 instead of having to wait till shfiter 11 and they stack on the damage reduction from feats and dd to become pretty much immune to all slashing and piercing damage.

[jesusbvf]

I've tried to play the game as druid is AWWFUL, is not EASY at all, as they say about the level, I have died thousands of times, I regret very much the money i spent in this f.. game, dragons are impossible to kill, f... the game,

[:)]

Yes

[FireGryph]

Druid is one of the classes that is far more powerful, useful and versatile in pen and paper than it is in this game.

[Lady MacBeth]

Originally posted by jesusbvf:

I've tried to play the game as druid is AWWFUL, is not EASY at all, as they say about the level, I have died thousands of times, I regret very much the money i spent in this f.. game, dragons are impossible to kill, f... the game,

Pure druid isn't great, but if you are just playing the campaigns it can still complete them easily. Are you using druid shape shifting into forms? Without at least 1 lvl of monk I would suggest never, ever, ever using your druid wildshapes just because the AC will be so much worse then what you can get in your normal form.

[drunken.dx]

Originally posted by jesusbvf:

I've tried to play the game as druid is AWWFUL, is not EASY at all, as they say about the level, I have died thousands of times, I regret very much the money i spent in this f.. game, dragons are impossible to kill, f... the game,

Just in case, you DO know a thing or two about DnD 3rd edition, right?

Because if you do not, NWN is steep learning curve (it was my first encounter with DnD and boy was that a ride)

[Shiroi Ren]

Shifters sacrifice spellcasting for versatility in shapeshifting. Technically, Dragon shape is usually enough for Epic Druid in most situations and spellcasting can partially replase versatile shapes.

[wendigo211]

Druids are a bit harder to play than the Cleric and Wizard/Sorcerer in NWN.

• Most of the spells that make them part of CoDzilla in 3.x weren't included in the game. They also can't craft Ironwood gear.
  
• Item merging in NWN is a little weird, and tends to work to the Druid's disadvantage. It's even more confusing with Shifters. It doesn't help that there's no Natural Spell feat (they can't cast spells while shifted).
  
• Unlike Clerics they aren't strong melee characters. They don't have a lot of buffs to help them in melee, they have some buffs that help their Animal Companion (like Awaken and Greater Magic Fang), but not that much for themselves (Blood Frenzy, Bull's Strength, Barkskin).
  
• They don't have a Wizard/Sorcerer's spell defenses, concealment spells, damage shields, epic spell selection or CC abilities. They do have Harm, but otherwise they don't have spells like the Bigby spells or missile storm spells that aren't resisted by saving throws.
  
• They don't get the Cleric's domain spell, granted this is a bug in NWN's spell implementation, but it means they effectively get 1 less spell per level than a Cleric of the same level.

They kind of end up playing like a Cleric without the melee capabilities. If a Cleric, even a caster Cleric, is fighting a monster they can't take out with spells, they can buff up and beat them to death in melee. A Druid doesn't have that option, at least until they get Dragon Shape. Even then Dragon Shape only tends to be good as long an enhancement levels are under +7 or +8.

As for playing a Shifter, it's a bit like playing rock/paper/scissors with the enemies. You have to have metaknowledge of the enemies abilities so you can pick the right shape to use against them. You also have know the capabilties of your shapes and which item properties get carried over to which form when shifted. It's not something I would recommend to a new player.

[n00bdragon]

OP's question lacks enough context, such as the module/campaign/server being played on. Whether wildshape is "good" is wildly dependent on these factors (not least of which because the forms themselves can be modified drastically at the whim of the module creator). If, for example, you are playing the OC, then you can't really plan for a level 40 build because you will likely end the campaign somewhere around level 15. HotU can take you as high as maybe 32-34 if you really squeeze every bit of XP out of it. So it really depends.