Levelling Diary: Shifter

[Jagel]

Lots of interesting things to do but in the end gimmicks and one trickish things that aren’t really viable.

[Izaich]

Level 15-17: The long slog begins. Five five levels without any new forms makes Izaich a dull boy. I still find myself relying heavily on kobold commando, although clearing at-level content has become impossible. Below-level content is also fairly slow as commando deals lackluster damage on its own.

I have a DEX-based monk sitting at level 17 in my vault, so I thought it would be a good idea to compare the stat-blocks of the two for funsies. Hopefully this works, as I haven't uploaded images in forever.




It's worth noting that in these pictures, my monk is unbuffed while my shifter has Bear's Endurance, Cat's Grace, and Barkskin. While slightly under-statted, the main drawback of the kobold form seems to be its lackluster damage output.

[Jagel]

Just to point out that weapons merge so getting a blade of the elements or just a weapon with a few damage properties that arent overwritten will help slightly

[WanderingPoet]

Having played a shifter into epics, it was one of my favourite leveling experiences, and that was even with releveling from 28 to 20 again. A really fun class over all. The RP is what makes it, of course, and it's not the strongest but it's so adaptable. There are a few forms that are rather useless (I'm looking at you harpy), but Minotaur, Gargoyle, Lizard folk, drow, kobold, manticore, drider, and dire tiger are all very useful.

I did something a little different where I didn't go high wisdom at all; deciding to go high int/con and lost out on the epic forms.

Minotaur was my main damage form until I got humanoid form, and then epic minotaur took over until epic drider/humanoid again. Gargoyle is an outrageously good tank, I've survived fights that have wiped entire parties long enough to get everyone out. I remember a time that we fought around 50 devils with a party of 2 level 30 mono druids and several rangers and only me and another ranger survived. Kobold and drow allowed for sneaking into the UD and scouting around down there; and the manticore was great for ranged attacks.

The fun of the shifter is variety. There are definitely some useless forms that don't even make sense for RP (such as medusa) or redundant (lizard folk); but for the most part I never found myself thinking shifter was weak.

Getting a good weapon is definitely needed.

The only things I think need changes would be:
- Replace the bad rp forms with someone that fits better - replacing the medusa or basilisk with something with healing would be great.
- Give us the Rakshasa ability to change into all humanoids when humanoid form it received!
- Remove the polymorph magical affect on transition so that we don't give ourselves away when we're RPing as other races
- Reduce druid requirement to 4, or even 0 to open more builds; with it at 5 is awkward because it takes one BAB. If you go rogue or monk then you need 4 levels of that preepic too to maximize BAB. Which means you're basically stuck with 8 druid, 4 monk (or rogue, or other medium BAB) and 8 shifter preepic if you want high BAB - which 8 druid isn't always wanted.
- The base game will lower your physical attributes if they are higher than the polymorph while sometimes using your base (like gargoyle sets your dex/con to 18 and doesn't set your str but EPIC gargoyle sets your str/dex to 20 and doesn't overwrite your con). All the forms really need to use your physical attributes and only overwrite if higher. Otherwise a 10 con shifter is better without epic gargoyle.

The last one likely requires a lot of reworking, but the others shouldn't. Really giving the ability to Rakshasa polymorph would be a godsend and open it up as a greater RP class.

At Izaich, I met your shifter, he's great and I hope he remains enjoyable!

[Kalopsia]

Personally, I'd be really happy if the Druid requirement was dropped altogether. As Arelith chars need to roleplay all their classes, being forced to play a Druid kind of limits Shifter RP options. In theory, there could be many explanations for the shapeshifting abilities, but the Druid requirement shoehorns Shifters into the nature archetype.

Changing the prerequisites to Alertness and 3 levels of any class with spellcasting abilities would be an interesting buff because of all the new build options. If they then got some CL progression and shifted AB/AC that scales with their actual casting stat, I think they'd be in a decent spot for the time being. (Ideally many of the forms should also be adjusted to merge armor and items, but I think that's a fair bit of extra effort).

[Jagel]

Wandering, I must say I admire your ability to see a few droplets as a class half full

The weirdo damage reduction on some of the shapes (like... 20/+7 on gargoyle and the prize: 5/+20 on drider) can of course win the day in a party where the shifter can play to their niche strengths. Doesn’t change the fact that most shapes fare horribly against lvl appropriate content.

Also I see where you are coming from forgoing epic shapes (you can even get undead, no wis req on that) it just seems very weird to have to abstain from taking construct (only sneak/crit immune shapes) or outsider (dat 8> spell immunity tho) to be viable.

I do wonder how much would be won by adding move silently and tumble as class skills, give wis as soft ab bonus (or just a flat +1 per 4 shifter lvls) when shifted. Might be half decent as it would open up to more flexible third class choices.

[Nevrus]

I don't know what these BAB discussions are about.

BAB is rewarded as fractional numbers which add up on leveling.

Druid gives 0.75 BAB per level. Shifter gives 0.75 BAB per level. If you have 2 levels of druid and 2 levels of shifter your BAB will still be 3- because it's 0.75 + 0.75 + 0.75 + 0.75. The charts shown on NWN Wiki are only demonstrative of typical progression with the class alone. Additional points of BAB are not awarded at specified class levels; it's all cumulative.

This is a slight aside. Carry on otherwise.

[WanderingPoet]

I don't know what these BAB discussions are about.

BAB is rewarded as fractional numbers which add up on leveling.

Druid gives 0.75 BAB per level. Shifter gives 0.75 BAB per level. If you have 2 levels of druid and 2 levels of shifter your BAB will still be 3- because it's 0.75 + 0.75 + 0.75 + 0.75. The charts shown on NWN Wiki are only demonstrative of typical progression with the class alone. Additional points of BAB are not awarded at specified class levels; it's all cumulative.

This is a slight aside. Carry on otherwise.

Actually incorrect, the numbers are rounded. If you have 4 or 5 levels of druid then you'll have 3 BAB. So if you did 5 druid, 5 rogue and 10 shifter preepic then you would have 3 + 3 + 7 BAB = 13, vs a level 20 druid would have 15 BAB.

@Jagel Good points, I'd like to syngerize less to open up more build options. Personally I'd rather it not need wis at all but be a charisma based class not tied to druids, since shapeshifting is more a force-of-personality thing; plus makes it easier to be a spy.

[Baron Saturday]

This thread has taken a strange turn. BAB progression in pre-epic is exactly as shown on the NWN wiki's class tables.

[Izaich]

18-21: The long slog ends. Ranger levels added some much needed accuracy and beefiness. Most of my XP gains came from a Adventure XP and delivery quests. At level twenty, a full suite of delivery quests would get me about %25 of the required XP to level up. An hour's worth of RP nets about 5%, give or take.

Justifying undead shape as a go-to form is very difficult. Epic minotaur is beefy (ha) and hits very hard, but has lower defense and so gets hit often. Luckily it's infinite, so I can re use is indefinitely for those sweet temporary hit points. Gargoyle is an amazing tank like Wandering Poet wrote, but has terrible damage output. It's not good for clearing content, but it is good for some scenarios. Kobold Commando is still my go to, as that infinite HiPS is a frequent lifesaver. Next up will be Outsider Shape at level 23, which I'm excited for.

[Nevrus]

So it is. I got that very wrong. Just verified it myself in-game.

Shame, Nev.

[WanderingPoet]

18-21: The long slog ends. Ranger levels added some much needed accuracy and beefiness. Most of my XP gains came from a Adventure XP and delivery quests. At level twenty, a full suite of delivery quests would get me about %25 of the required XP to level up. An hour's worth of RP nets about 5%, give or take.

Justifying undead shape as a go-to form is very difficult. Epic minotaur is beefy (ha) and hits very hard, but has lower defense and so gets hit often. Luckily it's infinite, so I can re use is indefinitely for those sweet temporary hit points. Gargoyle is an amazing tank like Wandering Poet wrote, but has terrible damage output. It's not good for clearing content, but it is good for some scenarios. Kobold Commando is still my go to, as that infinite HiPS is a frequent lifesaver. Next up will be Outsider Shape at level 23, which I'm excited for.

If you have spare skill points, getting high levels of parry really beefs up your defense (especially with the parry buffs, as they should work with kobold). Gargoyle with parry for the bonus damage can pack a punch. You could also get death armor potions to kill them through attrition.

[fading]

18-21: The long slog ends. Ranger levels added some much needed accuracy and beefiness. Most of my XP gains came from a Adventure XP and delivery quests. At level twenty, a full suite of delivery quests would get me about %25 of the required XP to level up. An hour's worth of RP nets about 5%, give or take.

Justifying undead shape as a go-to form is very difficult. Epic minotaur is beefy (ha) and hits very hard, but has lower defense and so gets hit often. Luckily it's infinite, so I can re use is indefinitely for those sweet temporary hit points. Gargoyle is an amazing tank like Wandering Poet wrote, but has terrible damage output. It's not good for clearing content, but it is good for some scenarios. Kobold Commando is still my go to, as that infinite HiPS is a frequent lifesaver. Next up will be Outsider Shape at level 23, which I'm excited for.

Yeah, undead shape doesn't make much sense for a class tied to druid. Think someone suggested that druid levels shouldn't be a requirement for the class, as it would open up the RP substantially, I very much agree with that sentiment. Druids are about nature and balance, shifters are about shapeshifting, there's no need for that to be linked to druid RP.

[Jagel]

Wandering, I see your point from a thematic perspective. Int or cha would make more sense. They would, however, open new cans of worms as synergy with divine dips would become very strong if shifter became a charisma based class.

The undead thing is definitely a stretc but depending on your concept I’d say it could make sense to see the Character as someone who started on the path of a druid and left it for more shapes

[Amnesy]

If Shifter was a standalone class or at least druid was dropped then perhaps it could be coded so it is not reliant on any specific mental stat.
Just redo shapes improve Shifter's current hard physical stats. So there is limit at dumping your physical stats bc poly will overwrite them (like a bonus of the new form's stat -10). And you could go Str/Con/Dex for shapes you had in mind and playstyle.