Coming Soon: Discussion Thread (2021)

[matelener]

I'd much rather see many shifters out of the gate enjoying themselves than everyone being dissapointed and no one playing them.
Even if its on pair with the current powerful builds, people picking up the class for mechanical might will eventually move on to the next flavour of the month powerbuild. And i see absolutely nothing wrong with another contender to the current established handfull of builds that can already solo the server. So unless those are also brought down, theres no sense destroying the shifter before it even gets here.

I dont think there are any builds that can get 10+Regen, 10DR, 40+AB, 55+AC, 26STR for damage... If you do, please share

Have you used Cornugon Shapechange? It has 31 str / 25 dex / 25 con / 16 natrual ac / 10 DR / 3 passive regen. I'm sure you can figure out how to get the remaining 7 regen

And well, the only class that actually is valid to be compared to main Shifter builds (whose power is contested) is a druid. Or rather, other druid builds because these Shifters are druids. They all fall into the same RP category, have the same heavy theme behind them and, i would even say because of it, they are powerful both in PnP DnD and here.

Now, mechanically, Shifter is a druid that loses his spells (including 40 DC SoVs) and the animal companion for high BAB, form versatility and 3 passive regen. Do try sometime a CON build on let's say Druid 20 / Cavestalker 6 / Fighter 4.

With water elemental (buffed or ability items): 38 STR / 26 DEX / 26 CON / 14 NAT AC, you can reach:
AB: 25 BAB + 5 GMF + 1 WF + 1 EP + 14 STR + 2 Unarmed Mastery = 48
AC: 10 base + 3 tumble + 14 form nat + 9 tortoise + 4 defl + 4 armor + 1 loh + 1 armored skin + 8 dex + 2 cavestalker = 56 AC, 62 with ICE, 68 with shield/IMA wand.

You can replace one epic feat and go for 3 x Fast healing and have 7 base regen. 17 with extended regeneration. All the elemental immunities, like crit immunity. An entire full CL druid spellbook. 10/- DR in Water ele or 15/- DR in Earth ele (which is a lot more than 10).

So, if you're looking for OMG OP builds, i'm sure you can find it in other (than Shifter's) forms.

[mrm3ntalist]

I'd much rather see many shifters out of the gate enjoying themselves than everyone being dissapointed and no one playing them.
Even if its on pair with the current powerful builds, people picking up the class for mechanical might will eventually move on to the next flavour of the month powerbuild. And i see absolutely nothing wrong with another contender to the current established handfull of builds that can already solo the server. So unless those are also brought down, theres no sense destroying the shifter before it even gets here.

I dont think there are any builds that can get 10+Regen, 10DR, 40+AB, 55+AC, 26STR for damage... If you do, please share

Have you used Cornugon Shapechange? It has 31 str / 25 dex / 25 con / 16 natrual ac / 10 DR / 3 passive regen. I'm sure you can figure out how to get the remaining 7 regen

And well, the only class that actually is valid to be compared to main Shifter builds (whose power is contested) is a druid. Or rather, other druid builds because these Shifters are druids. They all fall into the same RP category, have the same heavy theme behind them and, i would even say because of it, they are powerful both in PnP DnD and here.

Now, mechanically, Shifter is a druid that loses his spells (including 40 DC SoVs) and the animal companion for high BAB, form versatility and 3 passive regen. Do try sometime a CON build on let's say Druid 20 / Cavestalker 6 / Fighter 4.

With water elemental (buffed or ability items): 38 STR / 26 DEX / 26 CON / 14 NAT AC, you can reach:
AB: 25 BAB + 5 GMF + 1 WF + 1 EP + 14 STR + 2 Unarmed Mastery = 48
AC: 10 base + 3 tumble + 14 form nat + 9 tortoise + 4 defl + 4 armor + 1 loh + 1 armored skin + 8 dex + 2 cavestalker = 56 AC, 62 with ICE, 68 with shield/IMA wand.

You can replace one epic feat and go for 3 x Fast healing and have 7 base regen. 17 with extended regeneration. All the elemental immunities, like crit immunity. An entire full CL druid spellbook. 10/- DR in Water ele or 15/- DR in Earth ele (which is a lot more than 10).

So, if you're looking for OMG OP builds, i'm sure you can find it in other (than Shifter's) forms.

We both know what druids can do - you, more than me since you have more exp playing druids. Thats why i was a bit surprised that a class you implemented was this powerful since you know exactly what you are doing. The shifter is a non magic PRC and dwarfs most if not all melee builds. With that said thedifference between the water elemental build and the shifter is twofold
1. The shifter stats are permanent. 10Regen all the time - 15 with shapes, High 50s AC non-dispel able etc. Have you tried putting those stats that the shifter gets to a melee build? It is not possible
2. The water elemental build has no restrictions - from what i was told. You can shift in and out of the mastered shapes for ever while the water elemental is based on whildshape uses. Barbarian, has rages based on con, druid shapes based on wildshape uses and so on. But this has no restriction with extremely powerful shapes

Basically my question - and the two points i would try to restrict the PRC with - is why you thought that another 3 regen is needed and why there are no restrictions on taking shapes?

EDIT: Just to give a perspective, many feats of melee mostly PRCs have been nerfed. AK, WD had their spell resistance removed, Fast healing got nerfed from 2 epic feats giving +3 to 3 feats giving +2, classes had their AC lessened etc. This shifter PRC gives literally everything - with a variety of shapes - with 0 restrictions.

[DaloLorn]

1. The shifter stats are permanent. 10Regen all the time - 15 with shapes, High 50s AC non-dispel able etc. Have you tried putting those stats that the shifter gets to a melee build? It is not possible

The only way you're getting 10 regeneration in natural form is if you go heavy on CON, and take 3 epic feats after that. That kind of CON investment means you have far less room for INT (skill points, and possibly spells if you're a wizard), WIS (Will save, and possibly spells if you're a druid/shaman), and CHA (possibly spells if you're a sorcerer). TBH, if you're aiming for that kind of regeneration, you might as well make a CONlock with 7 natural regeneration, and 10/11 with Word of Changing.

As for the unbuffed AC, it's not much stronger than the AC on my dedicated martial builds, as I mentioned in an earlier post. The unbuffed AB shouldn't be too much better, either... I think.

2. The water elemental build has no restrictions - from what i was told. You can shift in and out of the mastered shapes for ever while the water elemental is based on whildshape uses. Barbarian, has rages based on con, druid shapes based on wildshape uses and so on. But this has no restriction with extremely powerful shapes

It's not clear what you're trying to say here. The water elemental build is a druid build, not a shifter build, so it does have the usual druid restrictions?

[YYA]

I have, which is also why I keep bring it up, I would just like a clarification.

[mrm3ntalist]

1. The shifter stats are permanent. 10Regen all the time - 15 with shapes, High 50s AC non-dispel able etc. Have you tried putting those stats that the shifter gets to a melee build? It is not possible

The only way you're getting 10 regeneration in natural form is if you go heavy on CON, and take 3 epic feats after that. That kind of CON investment means you have far less room for INT (skill points, and possibly spells if you're a wizard), WIS (Will save, and possibly spells if you're a druid/shaman), and CHA (possibly spells if you're a sorcerer). TBH, if you're aiming for that kind of regeneration, you might as well make a CONlock with 7 natural regeneration, and 10/11 with Word of Changing.

There are not many better options for shifters. Its not a caster druid so no need to focus on WIS and spellcasting feats so going CON and fast healing is straight forward. The spellcasting you mentioned about the wizards and Co does not matter because you get 20 levels of a non spell progression PRC. The shifter gets more than 7 regen ( it gets 10+) compared to your conlock and more than 15+ if the Ogre Magi is used, on top of the DR that some shapes have, HIGH STR for damage etc. Try to build a melee build that gets anything close to this.

As for the unbuffed AC, it's not much stronger than the AC on my dedicated martial builds, as I mentioned in an earlier post. The unbuffed AB shouldn't be too much better, either... I think.

Your dedicated martial builds get High 50s AC, High AB, 10 Regen, 10Dr, around 26STR for damage? Please share. It is very easy to paste the link here. I am curious to see

2. The water elemental build has no restrictions - from what i was told. You can shift in and out of the mastered shapes for ever while the water elemental is based on whildshape uses. Barbarian, has rages based on con, druid shapes based on wildshape uses and so on. But this has no restriction with extremely powerful shapes

It's not clear what you're trying to say here. The water elemental build is a druid build, not a shifter build, so it does have the usual druid restrictions?

What I am trying to say is that the druid shifting is limited on the number of wild shape uses. Shifter has no kind of limitation. Basically an infinite number of shifting. Nothing has been implemented to this day without somekind of uses per day or cooldown. Think of it like infinite barbarian rages, infinite wildshaping, infinite EDM.

[matelener]

1. The shifter stats are permanent. 10Regen all the time - 15 with shapes, High 50s AC non-dispel able etc. Have you tried putting those stats that the shifter gets to a melee build? It is not possible

I'd say melee builds are a lot tankier than shifters because of the access to consumables / UMD. Spamming Mirror Images or heal kits at your leisure goes a long way. Shifter has to waste 2-3 rounds to do the same and expose himself out of form. Also, only a single shape can have 15 regen and that shape has no DR and weaker AC.

2. The water elemental build has no restrictions - from what i was told. You can shift in and out of the mastered shapes for ever while the water elemental is based on whildshape uses. Barbarian, has rages based on con, druid shapes based on wildshape uses and so on. But this has no restriction with extremely powerful shape

I don't remember a single time where a high level druid ran out of wildshape uses. If that makes everyone happy, I can slap uses per day on Shifter forms but it just changes nothing while limiting the playstyle variety.

Basically my question - and the two points i would try to restrict the PRC with - is why you thought that another 3 regen is needed and why there are no restrictions on taking shapes?

The regen is there because I wanted to add a baseline self-sustain to Shfiter. It's going to help RP scenarios in which Shifter does not want to reveal himself out of a form or resort to UMD-tactics.

[YYA]

I'd much rather see many shifters out of the gate enjoying themselves than everyone being dissapointed and no one playing them.
Even if its on pair with the current powerful builds, people picking up the class for mechanical might will eventually move on to the next flavour of the month powerbuild. And i see absolutely nothing wrong with another contender to the current established handfull of builds that can already solo the server. So unless those are also brought down, theres no sense destroying the shifter before it even gets here.

I dont think there are any builds that can get 10+Regen, 10DR, 40+AB, 55+AC, 26STR for damage... If you do, please share

Well, I once made a constitution based Sorcerer 7/Fighter 3/Eldritch Knight 10/Arcane Scholar 10 with Fast Healing III.

Regeneration: If I use Five Headed Hydra Shape, I get additional +5 regeneration for a total of +11 hit points per round.

DR: I can have 10 points of DR with relative ease thanks to the 30 levels of caster I got, some of them are capped and some are not.

AB: 25 (BAB with Augment Form)
+ 4 (Greater Heroism)
+ 5 (Tenser's Transformation once the change goes in)
+ 10 (30 Strength with Bull's Strength)
= 44 (Too lazy to go over the spell book, so probably few points higher still)

AC: 22 (Base AC)
+ 6 (Improved Mage Armor)
+ 4 (Shield Spell)
+ 5 (Natural Armor from Spiderskin)
+ 4 (Deflection Item)
+ 2 (Dexterity from Cat's Grace)
+ 1 (10 Tumble)
+ 1 (Luck of Heroes)
+ 4 (Epic Spell Focus Transmutation)
= 49... (Yeah, but I still got Mirror Images and Displacement, so it is not the worst. I guess I could boost AB with few points from spells and feats and I get Improved Combat Expertise to land at that 55 AC while retaining '40+' AB.)

But personally I tended to ignore the Hydra shape entirely, as I made use of Frost Giant shape. I actually left my AC be as low as possible, and then made use of the 10 DR, 20 DR, or 30 DR spells to minimize the amount of damage monsters dealt at me, because whenever they landed a hit that did at least 1 point of damage, they would get hit by 1d6+30 fire damage thanks to Elemental Shield. It was fun to see whether enemies killed themselves faster than what my character did. Great fun against melee mobs. (As Frost Giant, you get that +5 Great Axe with Vampiric Regeneration, and whatever else your weapon possessed, so AB would be around 50~ with ease.)

Any other questions?

[mrm3ntalist]

I'd much rather see many shifters out of the gate enjoying themselves than everyone being dissapointed and no one playing them.
Even if its on pair with the current powerful builds, people picking up the class for mechanical might will eventually move on to the next flavour of the month powerbuild. And i see absolutely nothing wrong with another contender to the current established handfull of builds that can already solo the server. So unless those are also brought down, theres no sense destroying the shifter before it even gets here.

I dont think there are any builds that can get 10+Regen, 10DR, 40+AB, 55+AC, 26STR for damage... If you do, please share

Well, I once made a constitution based Sorcerer 7/Fighter 3/Eldritch Knight 10/Arcane Scholar 10 with Fast Healing III.

Regeneration: If I use Five Headed Hydra Shape, I get additional +5 regeneration for a total of +11 hit points per round.

DR: I can have 10 points of DR with relative ease thanks to the 30 levels of caster I got, some of them are capped and some are not.

AB: 25 (BAB with Augment Form)
+ 4 (Greater Heroism)
+ 5 (Tenser's Transformation once the change goes in)
+ 10 (30 Strength with Bull's Strength)
= 44 (Too lazy to go over the spell book, so probably few points higher still)

AC: 22 (Base AC)
+ 6 (Improved Mage Armor)
+ 4 (Shield Spell)
+ 5 (Natural Armor from Spiderskin)
+ 4 (Deflection Item)
+ 2 (Dexterity from Cat's Grace)
+ 1 (10 Tumble)
+ 1 (Luck of Heroes)
+ 4 (Epic Spell Focus Transmutation)
= 49... (Yeah, but I still got Mirror Images and Displacement, so it is not the worst. I guess I could boost AB with few points from spells and feats and I get Improved Combat Expertise to land at that 55 AC while retaining '40+' AB.)

But personally I tended to ignore the Hydra shape entirely, as I made use of Frost Giant shape. I actually left my AC be as low as possible, and then made use of the 10 DR, 20 DR, or 30 DR spells to minimize the amount of damage monsters dealt at me, because whenever they landed a hit that did at least 1 point of damage, they would get hit by 1d6+30 fire damage thanks to Elemental Shield. It was fun to see whether enemies killed themselves faster than what my character did. Great fun against melee mobs. (As Frost Giant, you get that +5 Great Axe with Vampiric Regeneration, and whatever else your weapon possessed, so AB would be around 50~ with ease.)

Any other questions?

You mean you expect shifter to get numbers close to those of the build you mentioned? They are not even close. We are not talking about 49AC... Add 10 to that before any umd... with no spell duration limitation... with no # of spell castings limitation. You get those numbers up all the time and you can use UMD/consumables to dwarf the Five Headed Hydra shape. Really there is no comparison, unless of course you think that shifter will get similar stats

[Steve]

Look, don’t get me wrong: I’ve been waiting patiently for the Shifter to come out and the basics of the PrC are awesome and I think matelenar has made something special for BGTSCC.

But even a dummy like me managed to put together a build that immediately surprised me by how easily powerful it got, such that I could make a pumped INT character for RP and still expect to rofflestomp content solo like.

The Druid + Shifter synergy is insane. Perhaps Shifter shouldn’t progress Wildshape (and as it DOES give access to the polymorph spell shapes for RP, the Wildshape just seems like cheese on top).

Shifter even outshines a ChangeLock, which I’ve played extensively the last 2 years, and this ChangeLock can solo 98% of the Server.

Even if we talk about the inability to use consumables while shifted, everyone and their mother knows that players will buff with CL 30 elixirs, and then Shift. Then Rest. Then wash and repeat.

One of the biggest issues I see in the current iteration of the Shifter is how much aspects Stack. Don’t let regen stack. Don’t let Shield and/or EB stack. Stacking is only appropriate when it has a cool down and/or short Duration, like the Paladin spellbook.

FWIW. The concept is absolutely awesome, but let’s not add another game breaking aspect to BGTSCC, please?

I mean, just imagine how all the Bear Warriors gonna be?!? *insert sound off Bear whimpering off to Shame Cave…*

[mrm3ntalist]

I think removing the extra regen they get and putting some kind of limit to changing shapes would help. Either # of uses or a cooldown timer to prevent changing out of shape, healing-using consumables and getting back into a shape continuously. They are going to still be very very strong

[mrm3ntalist]

I'm not sure this thread would be the right place to make the following suggestion:

I have noticed that some deities have only two or three domains on BGtSCC, whilst others have up to eight (!!!). Is this big domain update going to address that to some extent? It would be nice not to have any deities with only two domains, as that makes character concepts less varied because a cleric's identity within his faith is supposed to be represented by the domains he took.

I think this is the right thread to post which deities get very few domains and have it fixed, if possible. I think that every deity should have at least 4 domains, especially with the expanded domain list

[YYA]

I have a feeling we are just going to end up talking past each other.

You mean you expect shifter to get numbers close to those of the build you mentioned? They are not even close. We are not talking about 49AC... Add 10 to that before any umd... with no spell duration limitation... with no # of spell castings limitation. You get those numbers up all the time and you can use UMD/consumables to dwarf the Five Headed Hydra shape. Really there is no comparison, unless of course you think that shifter will get similar stats

You asked if a build can reach similar numbers, and after looking at those numbers I simply recalled a build of mine which would meet or beat your listed numbers after a tweak or two. And even if the Shifter squeezes out better numbers through UMD usage or something, I would still choose to play that Polymorph Sorcerer as it is much less item dependent, and could spam Magic Missiles and stuff if need be.

As for the numbers themselves, they are not so different to what some of my Barbarian builds once had on this server, while making use of Vampiric weapons. Sure, you can say that Barbarian's Rage is limited, but I do not recall a single instance where I would have ran out of uses of Rage and not been able to rest safely. Extra Rage, enough Extend Rage feats, and the rest timer really becomes a non-issue. Some feat investments usually fix problems.

Now, as for Shifter, it costs 20 levels to get the most out of the PRC, which means that you you do not get a fourth class if you do. You need to spend 5 or 6 levels in one of those spell casting classes, which leaves 4-5 levels for a third class. What will that third class be? Rogue for that UMD? Shadowdancer for HiPS, and using it without skill bonuses derived from items? A Shifter kind of does one thing and one thing only, and the moment you take one less Shifter level your special form abilities drop, which might encourage you to drop Shifter by a total of four levels, which in turn will cost 1 point of Shifter's innate regeneration, 1 Point of Enchantment Bonus, 2 points of Shield AC, and 2 points from ability scores. In other words, -1 to regeneration per round, and -2 to AB, Damage, and AC. Whatever that potential extra class provides, is it really worth it? If you cut down Shifter levels even further, these reduction begin to accumulate and those numbers continue to drop. Thus I would argue that once you have seen one Shifter, you kind of have seen them all. I suppose you could get +5 AC from 20 intelligence from either Duelist or Invisible Blade. I guess you could focus on charisma to boost up your Epic Divine Might and Shield values from Blackguard or something... You know, screw Epic Divine Might and just put everything you have into charisma. Aasimar 20, so "Spell casting class" 6/Blackguard 4/Shifter 20... with starting charisma of 20, +4 from ability score increases, +4 from Epic Feats, +4 from an item = 32, a modifier of +11, which means +22 to Damage and +11 to AC. (The build starts out with 18 in strength, 20 in charisma, and everything else is at bare minimum.) Yeah, kind of scary, but is it really all that different to any other EDM based build?

[Truthiness]

AB: 25 (BAB with Augment Form)
+ 4 (Greater Heroism)
+ 5 (Tenser's Transformation once the change goes in)
+ 10 (30 Strength with Bull's Strength)
= 44 (Too lazy to go over the spell book, so probably few points higher still)

Tenser's doesn't work in shapechange/polymorph, as stated by the post that announced the change. The only other increase in AB besides Greater Heroism is Haste for another +1 (For a total of 40 AB).

[mrm3ntalist]

If that makes everyone happy...

No, do not get me wrong. I am extremely happy with the state this PRC is in, if you think it is ok. Do not change anything "for us" if the team is ok. I am already set with multiple characters with stored xp to play the PRC as is and enjoy it.

I have a feeling we are just going to end up talking past each other.

No if you think that build of yours is similar to the Shifter, then we are good. Nothing more needs to be said

[[DM] Grinning Death]

I'm not sure this thread would be the right place to make the following suggestion:

I have noticed that some deities have only two or three domains on BGtSCC, whilst others have up to eight (!!!). Is this big domain update going to address that to some extent? It would be nice not to have any deities with only two domains, as that makes character concepts less varied because a cleric's identity within his faith is supposed to be represented by the domains he took.

The domain discussion has been ongoing between the DM team and the DEV team. Some deities will have more domains because they're lore accurate, and some will have less for the same reason.