Quote from: Sacrosanct;700081A short rest is an hour.  Don't know about what types of games you play, but in my experience, being able to rest for an hour in the middle of a dungeon crawl or hostile territory is very rare.

Sorry I edited my post...that was just for 2nd level, when you get the ability.  By 8th level, it's basically all day long.

And sometimes you can arrange to rest in a dungeon for an hour, and sometimes not.  I do not think holing up for an hour in a secured room is all that unusual, and given how many rules reset after an hour I think the rules strongly encourage it.  Particularly since rituals also take a long time to cast, and that seems to be how most magic items are being identified.

In my current game the party found a set of ancient secret doors that nobody has entered in years, and they've been holing up there when they can (until something follows them back there...that will be fun).

I can even see the rules encouraging the use of a new type of henchman - the "Room Securer Guy".  He'll be the guy in charge of spiking the door, then casting wizard lock on it, then arranging the items for identification, then assisting with rituals.  When he's not securing a room for the party, he will assume the normal henchman treasure-carrying and torch-bearing duties

Quote from: Mistwell;700086Sorry I edited my post...that was just for 2nd level, when you get the ability.  By 8th level, it's basically all day long.)

How do you figure?  At 8th level and beyond, you just get to use it twice between rests, not all day.

Quote from: Bill;700031After all, a cleric with a 'nature domain' is essentially a Druidic priest.

Nah, those are the druid wanna-bees.
Only those cool druid kids get to date nymphs and dryads.
Probably get picked on by real druids because they cant shapeshift.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;700091How do you figure?  At 8th level and beyond, you just get to use it twice between rests, not all day.

I figure like this:

Quote from: Mistwell;700079By 8th level, they are shapeshifted for 4 hours, then shapeshifted into another form for 4 hours, then resting for 1 hour, then doing it all again.  So, with just a brief stop for an hour during the day, they can be in shapeshift form the entire day by 8th level.

Unless you think 16 hours with a single hour rest between isn't "all day"? Heck, with a second short rest you can go 24 hours!

Quote from: Mistwell;700106I figure like this:



Unless you think 16 hours with a single hour rest between isn't "all day"? Heck, with a second short rest you can go 24 hours!

But who would do that?  You can't cast spells or use any of your other abilities while in animal shape.  Not to mention if you take enough damage you are automatically reverted back to human form.

So while you can be in animal shape for that long, I highly doubt in actual play that that is what is going to happen.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;700065There are three types of druid.  Only one is more focused on shapeshifting than the other.  And even then, you can only do it once (twice at 8th level) for an hour long.  So it's not like you're going to see druids going around in wild shape 24/7 or anything.



Yeah, I saw that too.  Both are fucked if they happen to get kicked, so who the fuck cares if a cat and weasel aren't perfectly balanced mechanically.  Those are clearly flavor options.

I guess some people have to bitch about everything.  I wonder how they function in real life.


 
I don't have issues with it.  What % of gamers are going to be playing at end game levels a lot?  Probably a small %.  I almost never do.  So for those powergamers out there who start at level 20 and wank to how powerful their PCs are can keep doing that while the rest of us just keep playing the game like normal.

Actually the length is half your Druid level so a level 20 Druid can be in Wildshape 20 hours total with Natural Spell but they are level 20 so that's fine.

Quote from: mhensley;699874I dislike that somewhere along the line the druid became all about being a shapeshifter and less about being a priest of nature.

This.

The way the class is structured, you decide if you want to be more about being a priest of nature, or more about shapeshifting, and there is a sub-class for each.  The only default shapeshifting in the class is "you can turn into something fairly meager, that lets you scout well but not really overcome most types of challenges in the game that are not scouting-related".

I think the druid's been a bit overdesigned since 3E. In 3E they could've just had Druid as a cleric domain with 'animal friendship' as their L1 domain spell, 'polymorph self' as L3, 'reincarnate' as L4 and domain ability: gain Survival & Knowledge (nature) and they'd be halfway there.

Quote from: Iosue;700022I have just found the threshold for how much I give a damn about balance.  And that's where people complain that the Druid's weasel shape is not balanced with the cat shape.

Jesus Christ.

That's maybe the worst thread I've ever read on an RPG forum. Honestly. It made me ashamed to be in the same hobby as those freaks.

Quote from: Bill;700074I have played very few games past 20.

Usually the pc's are essentially gods at that point, and it is more fun to start a new character.

We usually retired the character around level 20. Castle, keep, tower, druids grove, temple, thieves guild, master of the world, whatever.

Quote from: Mistwell;700268The way the class is structured, you decide if you want to be more about being a priest of nature, or more about shapeshifting, and there is a sub-class for each.  The only default shapeshifting in the class is "you can turn into something fairly meager, that lets you scout well but not really overcome most types of challenges in the game that are not scouting-related".

That's my take. You aren't supposed to be some shapeshifting, summoning armies of creatures freak to embody nature and balance.

I'll stick to OD&D and AD&D Druids for now.
Shapeshift at level 7 (level 5 in OD&D), 3 times per day, each of the 3 changes has to be a different animal, no duration limit and no mention of not being able to cast while in animal form.

And the 10-60% heal gained when they shift on top of that.

Quote from: Omega;700340I'll stick to OD&D and AD&D Druids for now.
Shapeshift at level 7 (level 5 in OD&D), 3 times per day, each of the 3 changes has to be a different animal, no duration limit and no mention of not being able to cast while in animal form.

And the 10-60% heal gained when they shift on top of that.

That's barely less powerful than a 3x Druid all it's missing is spontaneous summoning. I never realized how powerful they were under anything less than no spellcasting in animal form, very interesting. Even though like 1e bards and monks it was a bitch to advance to any level worth a crap.

I never ordinarily allowed casting as an animal or non-humanoid in 1e. You need to be able to make human gestures to fulfill the somatic components and human sounds to fuifill the verbal components. If you were, say, a monkey or a parrot you might be able to do one or the other.