Color & Druids

[rob_donoghue]

Ok, so 4e has a disconnect between the description of what a power does and it's mechanical effect, and universally the description (also called color) carries pretty much no weight. As an example, imagine an attack which is described as leaping high into the air and coming down on your enemy to do some damage. If you were faced with an obstacle

Comments

[wyldelf]

Of course there's nothing stopping the social rules - I found myself bounded by them when considering what I could shapeshift into. The description of what you could change into (roughly your size, your movement limitations) did proscribe turning flounders that could not swim (or those that could) in the way I interpreted it. It certainly stopped me from creating my pirate captain that could turn into a shark, anyway. While I could have made a land-walking, non-swimming shark form, I felt a barrier was there and went for something more fitting. But if your experience was like mine, that's not the primary issue.

When I first made the character, and through the first combat, I had assumed that the shape you chose was the shape you were stuck with, and that the various dailies unlocked other possibilities. So, instead of the shark, I picked polar bear, and built a character concept on that (a white bearded dwarf pirate-druid named Frostbeard). It was only half way through the second combat that I realized that I could pick ANYTHING evertime I used wildshape. At that point, I butted up against that suspension of disbelief and thought "Well, then what's the point of picking anything?" With the color so malleable, and with no mechanical effect, the idea of settling on any color seemed pointless.

So what I did was kept the polar bear. When I used the raven flight daily, or the wolverine attack, I picked other forms (a raven and a griffon type monster respectively) but for my standard wildshape I stuck with a standard animal shape that I had built a character concept on, and I think that made all the difference. There wasn't this blank sheet of unbounded, and unimportant, shape options, there was primarily the polar bear. But I also knew that if I wanted to for color I could pick another form, and that idea appealed as a fan of shapeshifting powers in general. So, it's nice that I could turn into a dog as a form of disguise, or exploit someone's fear of snakes by turning into one. But the solution for me is the idea that druids have a form (or maybe a small number of forms) that are comfortable and natural, even though they are not limited by that.

(Of course, it goes without saying, it was a Medium-sized polar bear)

[rob_donoghue]

There's an interesting assumption in there which reflects something I read differently. The power says your movement won't change, but I did nt read that as a limit to forms which would have similar movement, I read it as "You can become a hawk, but if you do you can't fly". The other reading had not occurred to me until I read this, and it may well be correct, but the text provides no further clarity.

That said, I think you speak to the thing I want to see - I like limitations. The "Things a polar bear can do" are more interesting for me to explore (mechanically) than "All the things anything might be able to do ever" and if I end up drilling into shapeshifting, that's the sort of route I'm likely to pursue.

[wyldelf]

I also got the sense from the builds of a form limitation, which I think helped feed my initial assumption. I was a guardian, so a polar bear seemed like a good fit. If I had gone predator... well, I probably would have gone with a land-walking, non-swimming shark actually.

Thinking of how to explore various shapes with more limited forms in mind makes me realize there's a load of potential in not just more paragon classes (where you could probably make one for each animal type if you wanted) but also more build options. That would be a great supplement, and I hope Primal Power taps into some of it.