Druid shapeshifting
Loldrup
Member Posts: 291
So I'm running a fighter lvl 9 dualled to druid (currently level 11). He has gotten three nifty animal forms he can shapeshift into (black bear, brown bear and wolf).
I'm playing in Legacy of Bhaal mode and use lots of animal summons for cannon fodder.
But would it be any advantage to also shift myself into an animal? Can't I deal more damage with my staff (with 5 proficiency points...) than any of these animal forms?
Do they have any advantage to my human form?
PS. fire elementals are pretty awesome against vampires, mummies, "shadows" and djinnies. Like - **really** awesome. A-walk-in-the-park grade awesome.
I'm playing in Legacy of Bhaal mode and use lots of animal summons for cannon fodder.
But would it be any advantage to also shift myself into an animal? Can't I deal more damage with my staff (with 5 proficiency points...) than any of these animal forms?
Do they have any advantage to my human form?
PS. fire elementals are pretty awesome against vampires, mummies, "shadows" and djinnies. Like - **really** awesome. A-walk-in-the-park grade awesome.
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even in normal mode, shapeshifts aren't really all that great, only every once in a while in certain situations will shapeshifting be good,
so if I were you I would just stick with spell casting, and using whatever magical weapons you find
The static shapeshifted forms are calibrated to be balanced in BG1, and is fine because is better to have them not useful in bg2 or tob then to have them OP in the first game. They are still marginally useful at the very beginning of BG2, but at that point the single class druid begin to be a decent spellcaster and summoner, at the end of bg2 he is a very good spellcaster and with AOF, Ironskins and the high level thaco and hp he can do something also in mlee, without being a fighter as he lacks APR, but enough to be a soloer or add something to what the tanks/dps dealers do.
Dualing from fighter mean that all the mlee potential come from the fighter part, not at the level that a multi (Jaheira) can reach, but being a much better spellcaster until very very late in the game in a 6 men party, is still more casting oriented but very good at both.
The multi is the more balanced one but you have to wait forever for that fire elementals and the much better elemental princes.
About the weapons if you have the GM in staves there is an other very useful, the staff spear. At the beginning is much cheaper than the staff of rynn and is useful trough the whole game against the enemies immune to blunt weapons like the stone golems. You don't have so much proficiency points and with rynn-woodlands-ram + spear staff you can focus on a single 2 hander GM, get that points in 2hand weapons to double the crits and have something for the sling. Or have GM in sling that with good strength enhancers make you a really effective ranged fighter and specialize in staves if you have to go mlee for some reason. The ranged fighter->druid can be very effective as divine magic has very long casting times and in mlee you can easily be disrupted, send mlee your party members or your summons as you help them with very good ranged damage and useful spells like the lighting and the insects, much better than trying to do too much things at the same time. A F->D will never be as good in mlee as a F->M, that have PFMW, Blur, Improved Invisiblity, Spell Immunity and the Spell Shields, against high APR enemies Ironskin (and mage's stoneskin) fade away very fast and even if the F->D can use armor the F->M with good bracers and few spells can reach a better AC, a lot better, he loses five points, AC 3 (early in the game) vs AC-2 (a lot later), but adds more with the buffs, and has ways to make the buffs undispellable.
I am not promoting FM, just pointing out some differences when they go mlee, F->D is a very good class.
At a first look it seems really interesting, now i am experiencing my first vanilla EE run (and is ages since I did play the original vanilla game the last time, so is a mix of new things and old, almost forgotten ones), but I will surely give it a try later.
I suppose that I will try it before trying LoB, that does not appeal me much.
But I was thinking at something different, like a shapeshifted form that remains useful until ToB, maybe not something that improves so much that at level cap a shapeshifted druid can go mlee against a fire giant, but something that is not completely not useful past the first couples of quests of SoA, and maybe even before that point. I wander how many players use the druid in animal form in SoA or ToB, when many people complain about how is underpowered even the shapeshifter kit.
Your mod is a complete revision of the clerical casters, but the shapeshifted form is still not so useful in late SoA or ToB as with the right sling and bullets, and some STR enhancing belt, he can easily do more DPR and has a good thac0, while he is safe far from the mlee zone and not prevented from casting. Hasted with a potion or spell he can deal 40-50 dpr, half if not hasted, and at lev 15 he has a natural thac0 of 12, plus the bonuses from bullet, launcher and eventually other items, he can reach a thac0 of 4 and hit enemies that require a +2 enchantment, +3 in ToB.
The shapeshifted form at that point of the game, let's say lev 15 should hit at least as a +2 weapon with a thac0 of something like 6 and a DPR of maybe 30, spitted in 3 attacks so they become 40 with haste and need improved haste to go up to 60. Starting at lev 7 like the vanilla brown bear form and scaling up gradually.
Imo not so OP as he has to be in the mlee zone and prevented from casting. In comparison a mage with MMM can do better with 1/3 of the xp and a cleric with the same xp can do about the same damage with a sling and RM + DUHM (and a lot more if DW two good weapons), while they are not prevented from casting.
And Cleric's magic is different but almost as good (you loose insect plague but gain chaotic commands) and the arcane magic ... well, everybody knows it, IA, PI, DB, ADHW, should I tell more ?
As you see I was thinking of something quite different from what you have done, a small tweak to make the vanilla druid shapeshifted not completely unuseful like is now but not more powered than a cleric or mage, where you have completely reworked the divine casters.
I was thinking at something that make the vanilla druid shapeshift ability something useful, and still very marginally useful, between the initial dungeon and the moment he gets the really good summons, the moment the druid can cast areal servant, fire elemental and elemental prince why should he shapeshift into a bear that deals maybe 10 dpr more than what he do normally with a sling and prevent himself from casting implosions, insect plagues and creeping dooms?
Imo for a mod can be a good idea, certainly not unbalancing and it's purpose is just to add some flavor to the class, not power, to try to give some sense to an almost completely not useful class ability.
About pushing your mod on me, is not needed
I already told you that I find it interesting and that I want to try it after playing a little the vanilla EE. But the notebook that I normally use for BG2 seems to be not compatible with EE, is installed and starts, but freezes during the character creation, and the one on which I am playing EE is shared with the rest of the family and we have no television. So we use it to listen to music (is connected with an hi fi amplifier), listen music, watch DVDs and I can not use it for long gaming sessions.
So if your mod is compatible with the original game I can start trying it also tomorrow, other way I will do it later, depending on how much my family members use the computer with EE.
So I have to wait some time, but is surely on the list of the things to try, maybe right in the first modded run.