Levelling Diary: Shifter

[Izaich]

Alternate Title: Man Regrets His Mistakes in Real Time

So I've recently rolled up a Shifter, and I thought it would make for constructive feedback to log my experience levelling him. I'd also like to hear other's thoughts about Shifters, so feel free to use this thread to discuss the class and all its features.

Character's stats are:
10 STR
16 DEX (+2 Gift)
6 CON (i know, it's for rp)
14 INT
20 WIS (+2 Gift)
10 CHA

Build layout will be 5 Druid / 20 Shifter / 5 Elective (Monk, Rogue, or Fighter- help me choose!)

One thing worth noting about Shifter forms is that not every physical stat is adjusted. Different forms will keep some of the base physical stats of the original character.

Druid levels 1-5: Relatively easy levelling here. Summon/animal companion takes most of the weight, while Camo/OWTL make sure my character isn't targeted while he satisfies a healer role. Commanding summons can be finnicky when they're in stealth mode, as Attack Nearest doesn't seem to work. Rightly so, Animal Empathy doesn't work whilst in stealth - the critter needs to see you for you to empathize with it.

Level 6-7: First Shifter level. The forms are fairly underwhelming in a fight. Dragon breath's DC 15, so there's a base 25% chance anyone can win the save against it. Still, it's immensely satisfying to use it on a pack of weakened enemies and clear them all out at once. Shifting locks you out of item use, which makes it more difficult to heal your companions. Switching to potions solves this, but I don't think you can hotbar potions to feed to your pets.

Level 7 is a 'dead level', as there's nothing gained for the Shifter class. I found myself sticking to my initial strategy of staying in my base form and healing my companions through stealth. Enemies are getting tougher, and since my pets aren't scaling anymore they're at risk of being overwhelmed.

[Jagel]

Shifter is horribly implemented in NWN. I’ve played on to character lvl 15 or so and the mechanics of most shapes are just too weak and unwieldy.

Several shapes have some niche utility but going from one shape to another is cumbersome.

I’ve shelved my shifter for the time being. The mechanics are just so clunky and overall weak for me to enjoy the rp potential of the class.

Shifters lack consistensy in terms of power and the few powerspikes they have only let them slightly catch up for a lvl or two before being horribly underpowered again.

I would not go monk. You will be tanky but your ab will be useless. I’d go for a full bab class, a hide/ms/tumble class or some such. I don’t really see much synergy with any other class. Maybe fighter and get feats for either polearm (risen lord, drider) or one hand bladed (kobold, drow, azer).

[Izaich]

I've played a Shifter in the past, and this was also my experience. I ended up shelving him because content became virtually impossible. This time I'm going to document my slow descent into madness so that hopefully some of its larger flaws can be exposed.

So far, level 8 (Shifter 3) has been a mixed bag. Gargoyle is tanky as all get out for at-level content, but deals measely damage with low accuracy and speed. Under the right conditions, it serves as a useful tank while my pets deal out the DPS. Minotaur's damage per hit is respectable, as is its accuracy. The one attack per round is the real problem, and really offsets any benefit accuracy and damage provide. Minotaur gets hit a lot, but it's fairly beefy in the health department.

As a side note, one of the weirdest things about Shifter is that they have Hide as a class skill, but not Move Silently. If it actually had MS, I wouldn't feel the need to dip into a third class.

[Amnesy]

Shifter, for now, is for fluff only.

Pure druid has better anything, the best that could possibly happen is to remove Shifter and make Arelith version of Master of Many Forms (which is already PrC coded in some haks).

Other than that, RP is fantastic, leveling is horrible even with parties.
Just remember to not take Undead Form as it might be reserved for Blighters and requires an award.

Have a blast,
Cheers,

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

[Deleted]

[Skibbles]

Shifter probably should have gone the way of the Kensai long ago. I don't think I've seen anyone play one for at least two or three years. The last Shifter character I saw disappeared around about level 12 or 13 after thoroughly voicing dissatisfaction with the class. This probably says enough.

[RollerToaster]

I played a Shifter for nearly two years, got all the way up to 30. Went 5 Druid, 20 Shifter, 5 Rogue and had all the Epic Shapes. A lot of the shapes are just bad and I would say theres only five real good ones to use.

Kobold is probably the best overall. Decent AC and AB, has HIPS and gives bonuses to Open Lock and Disarm Trap.

Dragon. It's a dragon. Only downside is its fat booty that often gets stuck in doorways.

Lich is probably second. The best source of melee damage you'll get out of a shape. Has undead immunities.

Rakshasa is also decent. Decent in combat. IMMUNE to nearly all spells. Old School Truesight. And has some okay spells you can infinite cast.

Iron Golem. Not as good as the others above in dealing damage, but makes up for it in tankiness and immunities.

[Drowboy]

Is the kobold hips nerfed too?

[RollerToaster]

I assume so, because it had the old cooldown which isn't default NWN.

[Izaich]

Level 9-11: I haven't had much opportunity to use the level 3 forms, since they're so wild it's difficult to justify using them from an RP standpoint. Minotaur's been my go-to form up until this point, though it's starting to fall behind in power. High accuracy, low speed, and damage. I've been spending oodles of gold on healing potions and ripping through them like crazy. My pets, though under-levelled, have still been doing their part to help clear content.

There was a really interesting discussion on our server's Discord a few days ago about the problems with reworking Shifter. The class is basically a dozen classes in one, and having to tweak each form individually is like trying to balance all those classes within the current ecosystem. It doesn't help that the class is very niche, meaning that a rework would require maximum effort and only affect a small handful of players.

I think that if the class is ever to be reworked, there are two approaches that might help. The first is to create "categories" of forms that all have the same stat block. This greatly reduces the amount of balancing requires, while keeping up the variety of forms. The second idea is to take it slow, and simply add new forms one at a time when the mood strikes.

[garrbear758]

Everytime shifter comes up in contributor chat:

Wow shifter really sucks mechanically.

Let's get someone to rework it.

Oh wow this is a lot of work. Its the equivalent of building 10-20 new classes.

Is this even worth doing for an application class that only a few people get to play?

I'm going to hold off on this project and work on things that will affect more than just a few players.

1 month later:
Wow shifter really sucks mechanically...

---

Its something we want to rework eventually, but its a ton of work for very little return, so its a project that keeps getting put off in favor of other things that are either more important or will impact more of the server population.

[Skibbles]

That's why I think it should just be Kensai'd. It'll save some people a lot of time.

[ReverentBlade]

Everytime shifter comes up in contributor chat:

Wow shifter really sucks mechanically.

Let's get someone to rework it.

Oh wow this is a lot of work. Its the equivalent of building 10-20 new classes.

Is this even worth doing for an application class that only a few people get to play?

I'm going to hold off on this project and work on things that will affect more than just a few players.

1 month later:
Wow shifter really sucks mechanically...

---

Its something we want to rework eventually, but its a ton of work for very little return, so its a project that keeps getting put off in favor of other things that are either more important or will impact more of the server population.

Scrap the idea of literal polymorphs, and have the class features apply various thematic buffs to the base character along with a cosmetic model change.

Trying to balance actual, full polymorphs and wrestling with the nightmare that is item merging will drive you mad.

[Rico_scorpion]

Maybe then the "way out" for it, would be to have its "big rework" contribute to make it more "medium-magic server friendly/less exceptional", then remove the reward need (or maybe minor/medium), maybe that would make the rework more worthwhile in terms of prodtime. But yeah, absurd amount of work for a 5% class can hardly be justified in terms of "production rationalization".

I'm a firm believer that classes should all converge to no reward involved/no DM involved anyhow. Gating core player buildingbricks always felt wrong to me, but that's entirely subjective. Note: gating races however i completely understand/vouch for, classes? much less so.

[Jagel]

Totally get that it’s a daunting tsk of going through the mess of weird that is shifters and making a coherent class out of it. I’d be suprised if there ever comes a time where a DEV looks at the pile of projects and only shifters remain.

I would understand if the class was just diacontinued a la kensai. Obviously I would personally be disappointed.

While you wait for the time when someone takes it upon them to fix this heap of wtf here are some ideas that -could- be used in a temporary tweak (Pick and choose):

- disable all monk synergy
- wis mod to ab (with some sort of cap perhaps)
- grant weapon focus/imp crit/spec feats when shifted (epic feats with epic shapes)
- shifter levels count as full bab when shifted (or gain 1 additional attack when shifted - loose this if you don’t have X % of shifter lvls)
- add move silently as class skill
- +1 AC (other) per x lvls of shifter (or just add tumble as class skill)
- make shifting a free action once you have the appropriate inf wildshape (add a turn or so cooldown so you can change between different shapes but not just use it to reapply temp hp etc.)
- replace unarmed shapes stats with totem progression tied to shifter lvls)
- give access to elemental shapes at, say, lvl 8 and 12 shifter (perhaps no monolith or perhaps monolith at shifter lvl 20)
- a bit of scaling dmg immunity

ANYTHING to make them just mediocre. Shifters don’t need to be competetive in high lvl pvp. Just useful in pvm would be #thedream

[Izaich]

Level 12-13: Kobold Commando is immensely fun. It doesn't feel particularly powerful, but the playstyle is very engaging. Hopping in and out of shadows and performing guerilla warfare on packs of enemies is really fun. Although HiPS does give the dialogue prompt of a cooldown, Kobold Commando's HiPS does not actually has a cooldown. I hope this is kept as is, because even with instant HiPS it can still be a challenge to tackle even under-level content.

[Jagel]

Although HiPS does give the dialogue prompt of a cooldown, Kobold Commando's HiPS does not actually has a cooldown. I hope this is kept as is, because even with instant HiPS it can still be a challenge to tackle even under-level content.

Ooh good to know

[fading]

Maybe then the "way out" for it, would be to have its "big rework" contribute to make it more "medium-magic server friendly/less exceptional", then remove the reward need (or maybe minor/medium), maybe that would make the rework more worthwhile in terms of prodtime. But yeah, absurd amount of work for a 5% class can hardly be justified in terms of "production rationalization".

I'm a firm believer that classes should all converge to no reward involved/no DM involved anyhow. Gating core player buildingbricks always felt wrong to me, but that's entirely subjective. Note: gating races however i completely understand/vouch for, classes? much less so.

It's not an award race though, least according to the wiki. It requires a token, like the assassin, that's it.

Which like, assassin got a lot of love, both equipment wise and abilities. By the looks of it, if the wiki isn't wrong, they're about the same level of availability, I can't see why shifters shouldn't get some work done on them. I imagine this will increase the shifter playerbase as well, so it's not like it'll be wasted work. Shifter is a very interesting and compelling class, lots of people would want to play one, I'm sure, they don't because it's terrible mechanically.

I imagine there could even be secret-ish societies made by Shifters, once they have an okay playerbase, rather than being snowflakes, which would overall bring lots of interesting RP, both for the shifters and the general population and how they relate to such weirdos.

I understand it's not a priority at the moment, and that's fine, but it definitely should be looked at in the future. It's just kind of a waste of potential, and that makes me big sad :v

[The GrumpyCat]

Maybe then the "way out" for it, would be to have its "big rework" contribute to make it more "medium-magic server friendly/less exceptional", then remove the reward need (or maybe minor/medium), maybe that would make the rework more worthwhile in terms of prodtime. But yeah, absurd amount of work for a 5% class can hardly be justified in terms of "production rationalization".

I'm a firm believer that classes should all converge to no reward involved/no DM involved anyhow. Gating core player buildingbricks always felt wrong to me, but that's entirely subjective. Note: gating races however i completely understand/vouch for, classes? much less so.

It's not an award race though, least according to the wiki. It requires a token, like the assassin, that's it.

Which like, assassin got a lot of love, both equipment wise and abilities. By the looks of it, if the wiki isn't wrong, they're about the same level of availability, I can't see why shifters shouldn't get some work done on them. I imagine this will increase the shifter playerbase as well, so it's not like it'll be wasted work. Shifter is a very interesting and compelling class, lots of people would want to play one, I'm sure, they don't because it's terrible mechanically.

I imagine there could even be secret-ish societies made by Shifters, once they have an okay playerbase, rather than being snowflakes, which would overall bring lots of interesting RP, both for the shifters and the general population and how they relate to such weirdos.

I understand it's not a priority at the moment, and that's fine, but it definitely should be looked at in the future. It's just kind of a waste of potential, and that makes me big sad :v

Just to clarify.
Shifter does not need an award, but as above said - it does need an application.
That said we are quite stringent on applications generally, more so than assassin, as we like to keep t he Shifter numbers relitivly low, so that the class doesn't get too common.

That being said - it would be nice to see some rework on them at some point in the future. But when or what priority I couldn't say.

[Beard Master Flex]

What about picking one of the earlier tier Shifter Shapes and just making it the Druid '-polymorph' totem shape?

Have it scale reasonably like it does for Druid and that way you always have ~something~ to shift into thats a bit tanky and can at least do content with some mediocrity. Since you need druid to take Shifter anyway maybe just have Shifter levels stack with Druid levels for determining the strength of the base druid polymorph.

Monk has been decoupled from it and other then being reasonably tanky its going to lack the druid buffs from spells and pets so I cant see it being anywhere close to being an overpowered addition.

Maybe Shifter levels can add divine caster levels too so you can still use your Druid spells but you're not going to go beyond 5th level.

[Kuma]

your self-torture is bringing a real issue (shifters) to light and i commend you for it. godspeed

[Drowboy]

remove shifter

Druid Path, loses 7-9 casting, gains shifter shapes as it levels in addition to regular shapes, retains shapechange as a sort of native clicky thing.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I actaully have a cool, and viable, idea i been sitting on and slowly storming up backstory for application involving shifter and would be sad to see ot go before I execute said idea.

*edit*

And said idea requires me to be able to still qaulify as a mundane character for dispel purpsoes.

[Jagel]

Another exciting part of levelling a shifter: deciding how to spread dem levels.

You can take a maximum if 10 shifter levels preepic and you would probably want to do that to get the epic shapes as fast as possible. But...

Shifter is a 3/4 bab class that needs 5 lvls in a 3/4 bab class to meet the prereqs. Going for 10 shifter lvls nets you 7 bab from shifter, the 5 lvls of druid another 3. 10 druid /10 shifter ends with bab 14 (Lol) and the extra druid lvls does not give any bebefits to outweigh the miserable bab. If you decide to multiclass into a full bab class you either need 6 lvls of full bab to outweigh the 5 lvls of drood if you want the 4th attack, or you need 8 lvls of druid, 8 lvls of shifter and 4 lvls of full bab.

Also when multiclassing you want discipline, full bab but also hide/mis to take advantage of kobold shape and generally to stay out of trouble because of the meh combat prowess. So that means ... ranger. Which is a class you want to use as a three lvl dump or heavy investment . Also means no tumble as class skill which would really help in the ac department

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Another exciting part of levelling a shifter: deciding how to spread dem levels.

You can take a maximum if 10 shifter levels preepic and you would probably want to do that to get the epic shapes as fast as possible. But...

Shifter is a 3/4 bab class that needs 5 lvls in a 3/4 bab class to meet the prereqs. Going for 10 shifter lvls nets you 7 bab from shifter, the 5 lvls of druid another 3. 10 druid /10 shifter ends with bab 14 (Lol) and the extra druid lvls does not give any bebefits to outweigh the miserable bab. If you decide to multiclass into a full bab class you either need 6 lvls of full bab to outweigh the 5 lvls of drood if you want the 4th attack, or you need 8 lvls of druid, 8 lvls of shifter and 4 lvls of full bab.

Also when multiclassing you want discipline, full bab but also hide/mis to take advantage of kobold shape and generally to stay out of trouble because of the meh combat prowess. So that means ... ranger. Which is a class you want to use as a three lvl dump or heavy investment . Also means no tumble as class skill which would really help in the ac department

so i been playing around with shifter in the PGCC due to a character concept I came up with and i can confirm shifters can make a variety of interesting builds. I was actually shocked as I hardly was even trying and just running a little experiment; one of their main benefits it being able to unlock an epic shifter feat form with only 11 shifter levels allowing for more room for other classes.