# Would you say the Dragon Wild Shape feat is a bit powerful?



## Perun (Oct 28, 2004)

Since many people on various forums keep mentioning Dragon Wild Shape feat as an excellent option for druids, I decided to see what it was all about. I was quite surprised. The feat says the druid gains "all the extraordinary and supernatural abilities of the dragon whose form you take, but not any spell-like abilities or spellcasting powers".

Note the "extraordinary and supernatural *abilities*" bit. Not "extraordinary attacks", like normal wildshape grants. 

Such supernatural abilities common to all true dragons, for example, include:

breath weapon (Su),

immunities (Ex),

blindsense 60 ft. (Ex),

keen senses (Ex).

That's what all true dragons get. A druid may get additional abilities, depeding on the dragon species he chooses.

A couple dragon forms (gold, silver, bronze, IIRC), for example, will give the character the Alternate Form Su ability, that allows him to assume any Small or Medium animal or humanoid form, at will, which functions as th_polymorph_ spell. This ability is actually *better* than the A Thousand Faces ability the druid gets at 13th-level (A Thousand Faces functions as the _alter self_ spell, and the Alternate Form ability emulates _polymorph_).

Depending on the forms, the character might also get:

water breathing (Ex),

sound imitation (Ex),

icewalking (Ex),

spider climb (Ex),

cloudwalking (Su).

Compared to the standard wildshape forms (animal and plant) available at those levels, Dragon Wild Shape seems way better.

So, I was wondering has anyone had problems with this feat? Have you noticed that it actually disturbs game balance in any way? Does it make druids (already quite powerful characters) too powerful?

Thanks in advance!


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## Rackhir (Oct 28, 2004)

Perun said:
			
		

> Since but not any spell-like abilities or spellcasting powers".
> ...
> This ability is actually *better* than the A Thousand Faces ability the druid gets at 13th-level (A Thousand Faces functions as the _alter self_ spell, and the Alternate Form ability emulates _polymorph_).
> 
> ...




That alternate form ability sounds like a SPELL-like ability to me and thus would not be granted according to the text you quoted.


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## Diirk (Oct 28, 2004)

Spell-like ability is clearly defined and differs from a Su ability that is similair to an existing spell. Or should wildshape be a 'spell like' ability too, as its similair to polymorph?


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## calypso15 (Oct 28, 2004)

I don't see it being a problem, as long as they can't assume a form with more HD than they have caster levels.


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## DanMcS (Oct 28, 2004)

It's an epic feat that can't be gained until level 27 minimum, by which point they have already had access to Shapechange for 10 levels or so.  So no, I don't think the feat is overpowered.


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## Lawmage (Oct 28, 2004)

Bahhh...The entire epic concept is broken anyway and this feat just demonstrates one more aspect of what is broken about it.  The entire epic level idea creates a break point at which characters achieve god-like powers.  A character with even one epic level is so far superior than a character of 20th level that there is little common ground.  Of course, if you like the Epic level stuff and you are comparing characters with 7 epic levels to each other, then no, the feat is not 'broken' in that it is not unbalanced compared to the power available to other such characters.


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## Perun (Oct 28, 2004)

Rackhir said:
			
		

> That alternate form ability sounds like a SPELL-like ability to me and thus would not be granted according to the text you quoted.




While it might sound as a spell-like ability, it's actually a supernatural ability, as listed in the 3.5 MM (p. 82, 85, 87).



			
				DanMcS said:
			
		

> It's an epic feat that can't be gained until level 27 minimum, by which point they have already had access to Shapechange for 10 levels or so. So no, I don't think the feat is overpowered.




I should probably have mentioned I was referring to the Dragon Wild Shape feat from _Draconomicon_ (p. 105). Prerequisites are: Wis 19, Knowledge (nature) 15 ranks, wild shape ability; and thus can be easily met by a 12-th level druid.


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## DanMcS (Oct 28, 2004)

Perun said:
			
		

> I should probably have mentioned I was referring to the Dragon Wild Shape feat from _Draconomicon_ (p. 105). Prerequisites are: Wis 19, Knowledge (nature) 15 ranks, wild shape ability; and thus can be easily met by a 12-th level druid.




Mmm, so basically, the prereq is "be a 12th level druid", because what druid doesn't max out that skill?

Must ponder more deeply.

Looking at the dragon stats real quickly, I don't think it's outrageous, even at those levels.  They're limited by hit dice in what they can transform into with wild shaping.  By 20th level, the best they're going to be doing is a young adult or adult dragon, which is generally CR 12-14.  At 12th level, they can do things like a juvenile white dragon, or a very young red dragon, which isn't all that intimidating to 12th level opposition.  They can fly, which is pretty good, but many 12th level characters have access to flight, through items or spells.  They get some not-bad physical stats, natural attack routines, blindsense and keen senses are pretty good.  Breath weapon is OK, but they have attack spells they could be using on those rounds that would be better than the breath weapon.  Of all the abilities, I'd actually rate the fact that they can fly as the best one.  Flying completely changes combat at mid levels.  You can dominate those that can't fly, and can bring your attacks to bear on those that can.  It's a paradigm shift on the order of the first time your wizard casts fireball and clears out a whole room.

No, I don't think it's too good, even as a 12th level druid feat.  It won't make them into a combat dominator at any level because they're stuck using their own BAB and base hit points, despite the good stats they get from the dragon shape.  An equivalent level fighter or barbarian will probably still be outclassing them toe to toe.


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## Brother MacLaren (Oct 29, 2004)

DanMcS said:
			
		

> Of all the abilities, I'd actually rate the fact that they can fly as the best one.  Flying completely changes combat at mid levels.  You can dominate those that can't fly, and can bring your attacks to bear on those that can.  It's a paradigm shift on the order of the first time your wizard casts fireball and clears out a whole room.



I'd agree and go a bit further.  Not only can they fly, they can fly *really fast.*  Nothing in the core books can fly as fast as a dragon, not even an air elemental.  And Natural Spell should still work in dragon form, true?  I'd say that's a pretty devastating combination.


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## FireLance (Oct 29, 2004)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> I'd agree and go a bit further.  Not only can they fly, they can fly *really fast.*  Nothing in the core books can fly as fast as a dragon, not even an air elemental.  And Natural Spell should still work in dragon form, true?  I'd say that's a pretty devastating combination.



They can fly *really fast* with Poor or worse maneuverability if they assume the form of a Medium or larger dragon. A recipe for disaster in enclosed areas, IMO.


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## Brother MacLaren (Oct 29, 2004)

FireLance said:
			
		

> They can fly *really fast* with Poor or worse maneuverability if they assume the form of a Medium or larger dragon. A recipe for disaster in enclosed areas, IMO.




Still, in the open it lets you get away from just about anything.  And against another dragon, you can keep up him when you've got him on the ropes, when normally it's high movement would let it escape.  But I agree, you wouldn't take dragon form if you needed maneuverability.  You have other shapes to use in that case.


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## Falling Icicle (Oct 30, 2004)

How is this any worse than the Shapechange spell?


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## Brekki (Oct 31, 2004)

Falling Icicle said:
			
		

> How is this any worse than the Shapechange spell?



It's not worse, just a different kind of "bad" 

This feat can be taken @ lvl 12, so comes into play way before shapechange ... and wildshape is supernatural so can't be dispelled.


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## Sammael (Oct 31, 2004)

It's not broken. I made a PrC that allows the player to take the shape of a silver dragon (gradually more and more powerful), without most of its supernatural abilities, and I ended up having to give it d12 and two good saves just to make it plausible. So, even though this is a bit on the powerful side, I don't think it is broken - because of the aforementioned HD limit.

And for anyone bothered with dragon's flight speed, consider the druid's _tree stride_ spell. Vastly superior for transportation.


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## Perun (Oct 31, 2004)

Falling Icicle said:
			
		

> How is this any worse than the Shapechange spell?




It's not "worse" than _shapechange_. It's just that with one feat (which *is* limited to higher-level characters) you gain a nice bundle of goodies when you wild shape.

_Shapechange_ can do all of that, and more (you're not limited neither by size nor by creature type), but it is a 9th-level spell, available to 17th-level characters, that lasts for 10 minutes/level (which equals to about 3 hours at tzhose levels). Dragon wild shape is a feat that lets you wild shape into a Small or Medium dragon. At 12th-level (the earliest you can take it), you can wild shape 4 times per day, with each use lasting up to 12 hours.

Compared to standard wild shape options, dragon wild shape gives much more abilities. You can get better ability scores by wild shaping into an animal (true dragon form will give you, at best, Str 17, Dex 10, Con 15, other dragon forms might provide better ability scores), do more damage, etc. But no other option (short of _shapechanging_) will give you the nice abilities I mentioned in my original post (blindsense, darkvision, low-light vision, incredible overland speed (160 miles per day!), breath weapon, plus generally one special ability, some energy immunity, etc.)

I don't believe any of the abilities a character gains by choosing this feat is game-breaking per se (it's 12th-level we're talking about here, after all -- that's about the low-end of high levels, and some of the better Medium dragon forms aren't available until 13th-level), I'm just wondering if it's simply too much of a possible benefit from a single feat (and I'm referring to quantity here).

I'm currently playing a 10th-level druid. I'd *love* to pick this feat at 12th level. I'm just not certain what I'd have said if a player approached *me* with this feat when I was a DM.


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## Patlin (Oct 31, 2004)

It's a really good feat, and I've enjoyed playing it.  In my experience, though, a big bear is a better shape to beat things up in, so using it has its downsides.  The limitation on the size of Dragon is significant, and Dragons tend to have high HD for their power level, which limits it further.


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## aurance (Oct 31, 2004)

Lawmage said:
			
		

> A character with even one epic level is so far superior than a character of 20th level that there is little common ground.




This, of course, is completely untrue.

Can you back up this assertion, or is this just a knee-jerk reaction?


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## Patlin (Oct 31, 2004)

Hmm.  Some confusion here, there are actually two feats by the same name.  One is epic, one is in Draconomicon.  Both are very nice...


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## Saeviomagy (Nov 1, 2004)

Personally, I'd say it's way, way out of the league of what a single feat should do.

Really.

Mind you, the same is true of exalted wildshape.

I'd say to allow it, but not allow any of the SU abilites other than the breath weapon.


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