Shifter possibilities!

[sunzhao]

Hello there, 

I know I'm pretty new around Cormer/Dalelands and I've tried to look at other posts to try and not make a repeat post.


My suggestions would be to modify the forms to actually be more than fluff (besides that beautifully nasty Kobold form.) Most forms before 'epic' forms are lackluster and my suggestion would be to either add more combat functionality to the current forms, if editing the forms isn't possible then maybe adding more of the "Master of Many Forms" shapes that actually hold their own, eg: Plant form, Vermin form, Aberration Form, Ooze Form, etc.

I think that Shifter could be a real asset to a party if they had forms which were suitable for different situations, but seeing as that might be a pretty sizable project It may be unlikely. There's so much untapped potential in the other forms that even if they just got an all around retweak they'd end up being useful instead of everyone just going the couple that work at epic levels. 


Thank you guys for all your hard work and hopefully this starts a bit of a discussion about it, since these are just my attempts at rectifying bioware's terrible class implementation.

[sunzhao]

EDITED: 10/21/2021 To reflect some more coherent thoughts, instead of just throwing out a sweeping 'hey this don't work' type of post.

[Edge]

We have made some pretty substantial edits to Shifter as-is. They now merge all their equipment rather than some pieces yes and some pieces no based on form, add the bonuses from equipped weapons to natural weapons as well as forms that come with weapons (kobold, drider, minotaur), and even stack combined AC from items (armor, dodge, deflection, natural) up to the +20 Dodge cap (and spells like Mage Armor/Icyscales, Shield, Barkskin, Shield of Faith/Armor of Darkness, etc. can increase it further). Furthermore, Shifter here gets full spellcasting progression, so a Druid 10/Shifter 10 will have the casting ability of a 20th-level Druid.

I'm not sure how doable adding new forms is, as to whether or not NWN will even support such and how much work it would be to add and implement. As for buffing the extant forms, they're already one of the best ways to get extremely high AC - only really behind high-Dex Monks - and have respectable combat capability as well as full spellcasting, if not quite on the level of Cleric/FS or EK/AW. Improving them further is probably not in the cards, without risking pushing their current exceptional points further out of balance.

[Mistle]

The shifter changes addressed all the flaws in the class it's actually quite strong as it is right now if I had to offer anything for change it would be to address the redundancy of Basilisk and Medusa they are essentially the same shape, Double check that shifter abilities scale the DCs correctly (looking at Harpy song and Iron golem breaath), and make sure that the Minotaur uses a greataxe in place of it's battle axe the shape really has no business using a one handed medium sized weapon when it's a large creature it could be as easily using a great axe in one hand or a better thought a two handed weapon since it's a strength form. Also Let's double check the shifter skills give them disguise and bluff or even the chance to pick up a weapon prof. feat. Aside from the weapon prof. those would be lateral shifts in power leaning heavily into the classes theme without turning into a large grab for might. Shift into Gear!

EDIT: For ref the non epic minotaur uses a battle axe, the epic one uses a two handed greataxe. Kinda wish it was a two handing shape the whole way. The Hapry song DC only goes up by 1/3 shifter level and starts at base 15 so it's really only useful for dispersing the grunts (kinda the way for the whole shape honestly it just doesn't hold a candle to even a druid in Natural shape) Again the bigger focus on here is the skills and the making the shapes all individually worthwhile, Medusa and Basilisk feel like the same shape, Harpy isn't useful at all, Sometimes the shapes stop changing stats when you move to epic like how gargoyle stops affecting con (with some trade off) But manticore actually just stops affecting CON while keeping the STR and DEX the same?