[D&D 3.5] Druid Shapeshifter Variant (PHB2)+Warshaper PRC (CWar)

Voidspawn

Alright so I'm playing a Killoren Druid 5 (Shapeshifter Variant)/Warshaper 1 in a Stormwrack campaign and was wondering if anybody might have some tips, tricks, fear suggestions, etc. This is a persistent campaign hopefully going all the way to Epic levels. Since the 5th level Warshaper is utterly useless to the Shapeshifter Druid variant, I'm only doing the 4 level dip in Warshaper.

Now before anyone screams, "Stupid!", let me just say that I've taken this build path for flavor. I am well aware that it is nowhere close t
to being an optimal build for Druid. However, it is still totally playable. That being said, I'm curious to see what sort of min/max ideas fod this build might pop up.

Disco11

Voidspawn wrote: »

Alright so I'm playing a Killoren Druid 5 (Shapeshifter Variant)/Warshaper 1 in a Stormwrack campaign and was wondering if anybody might have some tips, tricks, fear suggestions, etc. This is a persistent campaign hopefully going all the way to Epic levels. Since the 5th level Warshaper is utterly useless to the Shapeshifter Druid variant, I'm only doing the 4 level dip in Warshaper.

Now before anyone screams, "Stupid!", let me just say that I've taken this build path for flavor. I am well aware that it is nowhere close t
to being an optimal build for Druid. However, it is still totally playable. That being said, I'm curious to see what sort of min/max ideas fod this build might pop up.

D&D was not meant to be played as a min/max game. Doing so kind of breaks it for the DM as he needs to up the challenge of the encounters and, speaking from experience, makes it much harder for him not to wipe you out.

Voidspawn

Precisely why I'm not min/maxing him. He's already been severely debuffed by the class variant and PRC I've taken.

Disco11

Voidspawn wrote: »

Alright so I'm playing a Killoren Druid 5 (Shapeshifter Variant)/Warshaper 1 in a Stormwrack campaign and was wondering if anybody might have some tips, tricks, fear suggestions, etc. This is a persistent campaign hopefully going all the way to Epic levels. Since the 5th level Warshaper is utterly useless to the Shapeshifter Druid variant, I'm only doing the 4 level dip in Warshaper.

Now before anyone screams, "Stupid!", let me just say that I've taken this build path for flavor. I am well aware that it is nowhere close t
to being an optimal build for Druid. However, it is still totally playable. That being said, I'm curious to see what sort of min/max ideas fod this build might pop up.

You asked that exact thing.

Enc

As a GM, I think the best way to build your character is to pick feats that give you some agency and mix in at least 1/3rd of them that give you flavor. Taking all your feats to be combat feats makes the game only combat oriented which is generally speaking boring to design for and boring to play. Taking non-combat/non-spellcrafting feats that grant you some niche or specific ability ~should~ provide your GM an indicator of how he should be building your encounters.

If I have a player that wants to craft, I'm going to design the campaign to have crafting opportunities and drops. If I have a player who took feats in longsword mastery and focsus entirely upon aesthetics on how his sword was a handed-down relic, im going to make that driving plot point. If I have a player that designed his character to deal the maximum amount of damage possible in combat with best consistency, and the rest of the players didn't the entire campaign will be absolute shit as everything will either be way overpowered for the other players or terribly underpowered for the min-maxed player.

Not all GMs operate the same way, but most games do. Build a character that seems fun and gives you some fun things to do. Once you focus on maximized stats you have already wrecked your campaign more likely than not (unless all involved, GM included, are playing in that exact style).

Disco11

Enc wrote: »

As a GM, I think the best way to build your character is to pick feats that give you some agency and mix in at least 1/3rd of them that give you flavor. Taking all your feats to be combat feats makes the game only combat oriented which is generally speaking boring to design for and boring to play. Taking non-combat/non-spellcrafting feats that grant you some niche or specific ability ~should~ provide your GM an indicator of how he should be building your encounters.

If I have a player that wants to craft, I'm going to design the campaign to have crafting opportunities and drops. If I have a player who took feats in longsword mastery and focsus entirely upon aesthetics on how his sword was a handed-down relic, im going to make that driving plot point. If I have a player that designed his character to deal the maximum amount of damage possible in combat with best consistency, and the rest of the players didn't the entire campaign will be absolute shit as everything will either be way overpowered for the other players or terribly underpowered for the min-maxed player.

Not all GMs operate the same way, but most games do. Build a character that seems fun and gives you some fun things to do. Once you focus on maximized stats you have already wrecked your campaign more likely than not (unless all involved, GM included, are playing in that exact style).

I'm playing a gnome sorcerer with a very high charisma in my current pathfinder campaign. The first magical item we found was a horn of fog. The first time we used it my GM asked me to make an untrained perform check to see if we would annoy some people around while playing (long story). I roll a natural 20 and with my charisma bonus it comes out pretty good and I rock out like Kenny G.

I leveled Perform (wind instrument) the next time I went up because what's better then a 3' gnome rocking a horn with it's own fog machine?

Would a point in diplomacy have worked better since i am the face of the group? Maybe. Is it as cool? Not a chance.

DevoutlyApathetic

I kinda think you're undermining your point there. Crafting feats are probably some of the most powerful feats in the game for 3.x. They essentially double your money, let you decide what gear you actually get and the penalty is XP which the system rubber bands you to catch back up. Ditto for the longsword thing, which translated into feats is basically be good at killing things with your primary weapon and maybe get a special way to effectively craft it into a magic item (again for 1/2 gold costs and XP). There is zero way that something like Athletic or Stealthy comes close to those.

The distinction isn't combat feat versus flavor feats but rather bothering to explain the feat in the larger context of the character and to actually work it into the character's narrative "hook". Some of the cheesiest characters I've seen had actual interesting backgrounds and stories and some of the worst had none. I don't really think there is a correlation between the depth of a character and how cheesy they are.

This is all besides the point that if the DM isn't operating on that level of character involvement that working out the flavor isn't going to be anything but a solitary diversion for you in your spare time.

Enc

DevoutlyApathetic wrote: »

I kinda think you're undermining your point there. Crafting feats are probably some of the most powerful feats in the game for 3.x. They essentially double your money, let you decide what gear you actually get and the penalty is XP which the system rubber bands you to catch back up. Ditto for the longsword thing, which translated into feats is basically be good at killing things with your primary weapon and maybe get a special way to effectively craft it into a magic item (again for 1/2 gold costs and XP). There is zero way that something like Athletic or Stealthy comes close to those.

The distinction isn't combat feat versus flavor feats but rather bothering to explain the feat in the larger context of the character and to actually work it into the character's narrative "hook". Some of the cheesiest characters I've seen had actual interesting backgrounds and stories and some of the worst had none. I don't really think there is a correlation between the depth of a character and how cheesy they are.

This is all besides the point that if the DM isn't operating on that level of character involvement that working out the flavor isn't going to be anything but a solitary diversion for you in your spare time.

The longsword feat i'm thinking about is one where you start with a +1 named longsword with a randomized enchantment and curse, not things like weapon focus (we play pathfinder). But regardless yes, things like Athletic or Leap or Leadership feats are things I encourage my players to take, or better yet the context specific background feats. Spending all of your customization on minor +1s for this and that really ends up ruining the game in my opinion.

Same with maxing out only 3 skill stats. When one player has 23 points in diplomacy whats the point of having that skill check. 19 out of 20 times it will pass beyond questioning and it makes all forms of use of that skill roll meaningless.

Disco11

Enc wrote: »

DevoutlyApathetic wrote: »

I kinda think you're undermining your point there. Crafting feats are probably some of the most powerful feats in the game for 3.x. They essentially double your money, let you decide what gear you actually get and the penalty is XP which the system rubber bands you to catch back up. Ditto for the longsword thing, which translated into feats is basically be good at killing things with your primary weapon and maybe get a special way to effectively craft it into a magic item (again for 1/2 gold costs and XP). There is zero way that something like Athletic or Stealthy comes close to those.

The distinction isn't combat feat versus flavor feats but rather bothering to explain the feat in the larger context of the character and to actually work it into the character's narrative "hook". Some of the cheesiest characters I've seen had actual interesting backgrounds and stories and some of the worst had none. I don't really think there is a correlation between the depth of a character and how cheesy they are.

This is all besides the point that if the DM isn't operating on that level of character involvement that working out the flavor isn't going to be anything but a solitary diversion for you in your spare time.

The longsword feat i'm thinking about is one where you start with a +1 named longsword with a randomized enchantment and curse, not things like weapon focus (we play pathfinder). But regardless yes, things like Athletic or Leap or Leadership feats are things I encourage my players to take, or better yet the context specific background feats. Spending all of your customization on minor +1s for this and that really ends up ruining the game in my opinion.

Same with maxing out only 3 skill stats. When one player has 23 points in diplomacy whats the point of having that skill check. 19 out of 20 times it will pass beyond questioning and it makes all forms of use of that skill roll meaningless.

I just use intimidate. Being a gnome, it has it's own challenges.

Min/maxers get put down hard in our group.