I'm curious about a few things regarding Shifters.

1) Has the Dragon Shape epic feat been changed at all? Does it use its original calculation or the same one Wyrmlings now use?
2) Does the Wyrmling / Dragon Shape use Druid levels in its damage calculation, or does it just use Shifter levels now?
3) What's the damage and DC for the Salad's Chaos Spittle and Confusion Howl?
4) Does the Epic Minotaur / Stone Golem's Hurl Rocks attack have default damage / DC, equal to the monster ability?

Thanks for any answers you can provide ^-^;

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Zeskija Inalka - Catkin Meadowleaf - Xyme Thanas'ka

1: Hasn't been changed at all.
2: I'll assume you mean the breath. Shifter wyrmling does 1d10/shifter level, max of 10d10. Unless somethin has slipped my mind.
3: I don't kknow the polymorph stuff, that's Suney's thing.
4: Probably works just like the monster ability.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

3)

The majority of the form's DCs are ?10 + 1/2 shifter level + wisdom modifier. (thats how I've come to work it out as anyway)

That gives a theoretical total (excluding any spell focus feats) DC of 36, provided you have 30 base wisdom and 20 shifter levels.

4)

Pretty much what Tormak said, however several of the monster ability DCs have been altered (ie the mindflayer, the medusa, basilisk, harpy to name a few) to match the above DC calculation.

I will have to double check before I can guarantee this for you.

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Plays:

"I'll think of something once Amia:EE drops."

Thanks you two ^^;

Also, for spells I thought it was druid + shifter level = caster level and normal DCs as if you had cast the spell as a druid, so they wouldn't follow the 10 + 1/2 level + wis mod formula, they'd be 10 + spell level + wis mod + spell focus feats.

This makes me quite tempted to take all my epic feats as Great Wisdom, so I'd get +8 more wisdom. Wizards will still trump me by a fairly sizeable chunk of DC, but abilities being infinite use makes up for that ^^


Thanks again for the infos! :3 I'll have to go and ponder over this a while.

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Zeskija Inalka - Catkin Meadowleaf - Xyme Thanas'ka

Okay, so I've been looking at this and according to this page default hurl rocks at level 30 will deal 6d6 + strength mod. A Stone Golem gets 24 base strength, an Epic Minotaur gets 26 given a +12 strength buffs, you'd have 38 (+14) strength, which means 35 average damage. The DC at level 30 with 20 Shifter levels would be 25 vs. reflex for half, evadable.

35 average damage which can be resisted and halved with a reflex DC of 25 is really weak, especially for an epic ability. The Illithid's concussive blast rolls nearly thrice the dice, adds wisdom modifier (which as a shifter is bound to be higher and due to Owl's Insight is generally easier to raise) and has no save against the damage, plus a 35 DC will save against being knocked down.

In a similar vein, the Slaad's default Chaos Spittle at level 30 with 20 Shifter levels deals 8d4 damage, thus an average of 20 to a single enemy.


So I know Tormak doesn't like asking for things to be better to suit your own build, but these things seem pretty bad o_o; Given the changes made to things like the Medusa stare DC and wyrmling breath damage, I suspect these abilities have already been updated to deal better damage, so I'm curious to know what it now is.

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Zeskija Inalka - Catkin Meadowleaf - Xyme Thanas'ka

I don't mind them being changed. We did it before for Manticore Spikes. At the time we did the overhaul I simply didn't know what they did, and no one came forth with the info so I erred on the side of safety and let them be.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Okay Tormak ^^ Probably the best policy in general, but truth be told Shifter abilities were never good, barring spellcasting shapes like Rakshasa when coupled with Maximise Spell.
The Epic Dragon Shape's breath wasn't too bad either, dealing 16d10 fire, 16d8 lightning or 16d6 gas at 30 DC by level 30 (if going 10 Druid / 20 Shifter or 20 Druid / 10 Shifter), though its always been more of a Druid form than a Shifter form, because the damage counts Druid and Shifter levels equally so long as you have 10 Shifter levels. Shifter levels don't really do much but unlock more forms so if you're set on Dragon Shape you can just get 10 more Druid spell levels.

Actually come to think of it, that makes proper green dragon breath 1 damage better than wyrmling breath attacks and at least 6 DC less if you go 20 Shifter. '~'


By the way! How much damage does the Manticore do now? Is it the standard Shifter damage or has it been buffed up at all?

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Zeskija Inalka - Catkin Meadowleaf - Xyme Thanas'ka

As much as I hate to say it as I too have a shifter toon, Moth raises a good point. In comparison to the tweaked/added abilities, the ones that were left as bioware standard are comparatively weaker. Considering some of them you only get with epic forms (insert the minotaur/golem's stone throw ability) this is certainly rather interesting to know.

Quite frankly I'm not too fussed about the epic dragon breaths as I see it more as icing on an already rich cake. The Dragon Form has the distinct advantage over the wyrm in other aspects; stats, hitting power, resilience and HP. For a wyrm's breath damage to be near equal to its epic dragon as Moth mentioned, you require the 20 shifter levels; its not world-shiftingly unbalanced or broken.

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Plays:

"I'll think of something once Amia:EE drops."

Melee combat shapes pretty much just suck if you actually want to stand a chance against any other halfway-decent build, whereas Rakshasa/Illithid/Slaad can counter most unprepared opponents. A mage with a scabbard of blessing and a crossbow may prove to be a problem, though, whereby you'd just have to tank it with one of the latter two. Even Dragon Shape has barely-average AB/AC, and the breath weapon is basically useless against anyone with Evasion.

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You might want to ask for this to be moved to IA for the Mods/Devs to see better and get more feedback. I know Disco said he definitely read Gen Disc. less often than those forums!

we are shifters we are not ment to be that strong, we can still combat most monsters, you cant balance for PVP no matter what you do so dont count that.

does not mean I wont spend all my time IC attempting to correct that by items,abilitys...ect

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================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

Not particularly effectively. Tarich has some pretty OP epic gear, yet he still gets completely tanked in any high level areas, whereas many straight combat classes with average equipment can easily solo these. At level 30, all I can really solo is the Fire Giant place. And yes, I do see the obvious flaws in that argument. Blah blah, jack of all trades master of none support class etc.

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I bet you can solo firegiants,mindflayers,beholders, good side of actand...ect or at least give them a fair run for thier money.

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================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

Beholders are very neatly countered by Risen Lord, so yeah, anyone can do that, albiet very slowly. The others, really, cannot be managed with any melee-focused form. Without your DR 700/- stuff, that is. Actand can chew me up in moments.

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I agree, this has kind of developed into an Improving Amia thread.

As to Shifters being good combatants generally, we're dynamic combatants who aren't as good as any specialised character, but who get a lot of options available to us and some are quite unique. That said, a lot of the standard abilities, even when they should make good counters to certain enemy types, are too weak to be viable against enemies of roughly equal level.

In terms of melee, you can make a good melee shifter, but it's difficult to know if things like weapon focus / weapon spec / improved crit in unarmed will help with say, tiger form or vampire form. The real problem is that 5 Druid levels means -2 bab, 10 Shifter means -3 bab and 15 bab isn't so good. You have to cut shifter levels pre-epic and put them on higher bab classes in order to fair well. If you can put on something which grants increased ab too, then all the better. Mostly I've found meleeing Shifters are tanks and you have to come up with something quite clever to be anything else.


p.s. When soloing, I find that I deal damage incredibly slowly, but I feel safe while doing so. Shifters are quite robust.

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Zeskija Inalka - Catkin Meadowleaf - Xyme Thanas'ka

Make a list of what you deem as underpowered, untouched shifter abilities and it will be looked into.

I suggest you communicate it with the experienced Amian players first (it seems they've already poked their nose into this thread..) to ensure the abilities you're going to describe are stuff we've not already buffed here.

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"Let's unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words."

Before we go on, remember that shifters are Jacks of All Trades but Masters of None. They provide a little of everything for every situation, but as a class they are not designed to excel at any particular function (unless manipulated in that way by a particular style of build etc.)

Hence as Cory said, they are good party players; that's their job and their shapes are suited for that. Please keep that in mind when providing suggestions for underpowered/overpowered etc.

Remember also that the shifter abilities are unlimited use which will greatly influence how they can be tweaked aswell.

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Plays:

"I'll think of something once Amia:EE drops."

Unless these've been changed on Amia:

Hurl Rocks (Possessed by Epic Minotaur and Stone Golem):
At level 30 it deals an average 35 bludgeoning damage with 25 reflex save. This is weak because the damage is low, resistable and easily halved/evaded, meaning that by the time you get it enemies will be making their saves of 25 often, thus it will deal 17 damage or 0 damage per round. The damage gradually increases, so to get the full 35 you need to be level 30, losing 1d6 every 5 levels below.
My suggestion would be to up the damage to whatever you deem fair, change the damage power to DAMAGE_POWER_PLUS_TWENTY to ignore damage reduction and set the saving throw to 10 + 1/2 shifter level + wisdom mod (Or possibly strength mod given the ability, whichever you feel makes more sense).

Chaos Spittle (Possessed by Death Slaad):
At level 30 it deals an average 20 magic damage based on a touch attack. This is weak because the damage is low and it only targets a single enemy. The damage gradually increases, so to get the full 20 you need to be level 28, losing 1d4 every 3 levels below.
My suggestion would be to simply up the damage, maintaining its design as saveless magic damage on a single creature, since it allows the slaad to be a form for taking out otherwise difficult to damage creatures.

Dragon Breath (Possessed by Dragon Shapes):
At level 30 (With no levels other than Druid and at least 10 Shifter), it deals 16d10 damage for the red dragon, 16d8 for the lightning dragon and 16d6 for the green dragon. The DC would be 30 vs. reflex.
My suggestion would be to set all forms to 16d10 damage and make the saving throw equal to 10 + (Druid + Shifter level)/3 + wisdom modifier. I say divide by 3 because that keeps it in line with a level 20 Shifter's DCs. The idea being that each dragon form should be equally viable and be a little more epic than a wyrmling, without overpowering them.

Sonic Howl (Possessed by the Harpy):
At level 30 it deals 7d6 sonic damage with a 20 DC fortitude save for half. The DC is low, but the real problem is that the damage scales gradually and takes a long time to hit 7d6, reducing by 1d6 per 4 levels below 28. Harpy is a form you get very early on as a shifter, so by the time the damage is reasonable you already have better ways to deal the same damage.
My suggestion would be to scale the damage as 1dwhatever per level to ensure it is useful pre-epic, possibly following a method similar to Hurl Rocks or Concussive blast, applying +1 damage per wisdom modifier for decent out-the-gate damage. I'd also consider capping the damage at 10dwhatever or reducing its progression to 1 die per 2 Shifter levels at epic so that it isn't stronger than the Mindflayer's blast. The DC should be increased to 10 + 1/2 Shifter level + wisdom mod.
The Fear Howl and epic level Stun Howl should be given the same DC if they don't have it already.

Of course you don't need to listen to my suggestions, it's more opinion than anything, but I'm trying to keep in mind other classes and Shifter shape roles. Like for instance the epic level Dragon Disciple will still deal more damage with a much higher DC than an epic Shifter with Dragon Shape and an epic level wizard should still be able to take out high AC / DR enemies more easily than a Slaad.

Anyway, I'll add more if I come across them :3 I think in general all Shifter abilities should follow a similar 10 + 1/2 Shifter level + wisdom mod DC, which I'm not sure the Harpy does right now for her Howl attacks. I'd have to test it so I'll get back to you on that, but right now it's Christmas so I'm gonna' go unwrap prezzies :3


(Editted regarding a bug fix)

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Zeskija Inalka - Catkin Meadowleaf - Xyme Thanas'ka

Personally, I am happy with the Chaos Spittle as it is. A small damage boost could be nice, with the obvious comparison being to the arcane Shapechange Death Slaad, which reaches around 50-60 acid damage, if I remember correctly, but to me, the Black Slaad is something of an Illithid shape with higher AC and mass confusion capability. Somewhere closer to 40-50 would be sufficient at a high level, given that acid or the Mass Concussion's bludgeoning can be resisted far easier.

Pretty sure Sonic Howl was added in, but I can't really remember. Haven't really used the Harpy form much, on account of the puuurty low AC.

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Has Chaos Spittle already been modified then? Because by NWN default it deals 20 magic damage at level 30, which nobody in their right mind could be happy with.

Either way, its damage should be at least equal to the Mindflayer's Mass Concussion because a) it's an epic shape ability and b) it targets just one creature. Mass Concussion is DAMAGE_POWER_ENERGY anyway, so it -should- ignore damage reduction (but doesn't due to a bug) and sources of bludgeoning resist / immunity beyond 5/- or 10% are quite rare as far as I've seen.

(Editted regarding a bug fix)

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Zeskija Inalka - Catkin Meadowleaf - Xyme Thanas'ka

Don't think so. I suppose those new armours have made magic damage a great deal less viable.

There are those Tempus rings with 10/- bludgeoning. Those are pretty common. But yeah, fair point.

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Okay, so I was testing the Illithid's Psionic Mass Concussion yesterday against Yuan-ti and it wasn't bypassing their Premonition, despite the default script using DAMAGE_POWER_ENERGY.

After a little research I found that since HoTU DAMAGE_POWER_ENERGY has become bugged and should be replaced with DAMAGE_POWER_PLUS_TWENTY to replicate the same effect.

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Zeskija Inalka - Catkin Meadowleaf - Xyme Thanas'ka