-polymorph ?

[Jagel]

I maintain that what totems have is nice perks and a badass wildshape. Epic spellcasting and a powerful companion is a druid ability. And compared to a vanilla druid, a totem is made of wet paper when casting spells.

And as far as power goes I'd take infinite elemental shape over totem shape any day. That still means that totem wildshape adds a ton of survivability when compared to a vanilla druid until they can access elemental shape, but endgame powet for a totem is not vastly different from a vanilla druid IMO.

[Lorkas]

I am not saying that the animal companion is more powerful than powerbuilds of the same level, but it is more powerful than many.

And keep in mind that the top-tier builds get to optimize just a few of those things I listed. No build will every be able to have the STR, CON, DEX, AC, and saves of a shifted druid. Only the best builds are going to match 1 or 2 of the shifted totem's scores in those areas, though most will admittedly have better damage due to having a weapon. This is true even when you don't have monk levels, but the possibility of adding monk to it only underscores the potential of the totem druid as it is now.

This doesn't make them unkillable by any means, and says nothing about the animal companion. We're talking about whether or not the totem's abilities are in line with the power of other characters, and the answer is no at this point (outliers notwithstanding). They were powerful, but fine before the animal companion and -polymorph changes, keeping in mind that they heal all temporary HP every time they walk to a new area since doing so essentially does a force-doubletap of the -polymorph hotkey to reapply the form.

Look at it from another angle: imagine just a typical (non-powerbuild) level 30 melee build with say 40 AC, 40 AB, and normally achievable values for STR, CON, and DEX, then imagine that they regenerate 110 HP every time they walk to a new area and at any time can shapeshift into a weaker form that has a full druid spellbook, then we give them a companion with around the same melee ability level as themselves and the ability to regenerate those 110 HP at will instead of every time they walk to a new area.

[Jagel]

The easy fix seems to be slapping a timer on polymorph (or giving druids the infinite wildshape feat at lvl 5) and removing the temp hp bonus.

I'm still not convinced of arguments you present power-wise. Having a super wrak humanoid form and lacking uncanny dodge are huge factors in the class balance in my experience. [hipsterkitty] Mind you, I levelled my dr00d before the summon/companion buff and the polymorph command [/hipsterkitty]

[Lorkas]

That would probably, and whenever the animal companion rebalance happens that will take care of the other issue. Unfortunately, it is a lot more work than the familiar rebalance, because familiars were rebalanced by just keeping them at level 1, while balancing the animal companions means working on lots of different creatures, since keeping them at level 1 is not a serious option like it was for familiars.

It helps make them more reasonable power-wise when they don't have monk levels. The weak humanoid form is definitely a disadvantage, but it's only really a class balance issue when the character needs to cast a spell during battle. Outside of combat it just means that you can't carry as much stuff and (until the -polymorph addition) would need a small amount of time to shift into your melee form.

[Scurvy Cur]

Hooking it back into an infinite wildshape would solve just about all of the general problems with totems, especially if any and all HP adjustment came from con. The remaining issues are more specific to certain totems. Leave the wacky command stuff to the 5%ers.

Edit: Jagel, regarding druids, polymorph, new companions, and your old school druid experiences, I can only say that the new totem Druid with a halfway decent setup that shamelessly picks the most advantageous options available to it can pretty effortlessly solo from 3 to dragonshape. A conjuration/evo or conj/necro setup gets access to the summoned spider at 3 (starting gold should go to a level 3 spell slot item, enabling early access to the level 4 summon with an early greater conjuration focus pickup). In tandem with barkskin and strength buffs, plus the animal companion, and a super tanky shifted form, the the Druid can pretty safely solo out to Wharftown. By the time they hit 17 or so, they have pretty much the best DCs of any caster class in their selected schools because they all take raven, save for like one guy with a bear totem. They also have an elemental that is capable of soloing Dis indefinitely (presuming the caster doesn't get dispelled), and their companion is pulling more weight than probably about 60-70% of melee characters at that level. Somewhere between 18 and 21, depending on the relative patience of the druid, they pick up monk, and if they built right, they have the skill points banked to grab stealth on top of about +18 AC from tumble and monk levels. At 24, they get dragonshape, and the remaining 6 levels go from being a cakewalk to being a freebie.

The weak casting form would be a more significant drawback if they were reverted to using wildshape to access their totem form, I'll grant it that, but so long as the shifting is an instant, unconditional macro command, it's a negligible problem. Uncanny dodge lack is also a legitimate issue for anyone with a large dex component to AC, but if your standard issue raven totem Druid doesn't pick it up, that's an unforced build error. not a class drawback.

[Lorkas]

It might be interesting if instead of giving no temp HP and more CON, instead give less CON and more (?) temp HP, but force the druid out of totem form when the temp HP are depleted. Unshifting deliberately would carry some cooldown, but being forced out of totem form through HP loss would give a much longer cooldown (and maybe even prevent reshifting until rest after a certain number of times since resting).

That way the weak normal form could actually matter in combat for reasons other than needing to cast Premonition or Heal or Storm of Vengeance.

[Flameborn]

This is sounding less and less like a polymorph issue (give it a cooldown) and more of a raven totem dragonshape/monk uberbuild problem (which it is)

[Scurvy Cur]

Yeah, as alluded to in my last post, the cooldown (and possibly locking out ability to -polymorph while disabled) takes care of everything that is a problem with -polymorph.

There is a whole seperate can of worms in that most totem shapes confer a modest, flavorful bonus to some skills and a stat or two while shifted, whereas one standout totem animal allows a starting wisdom of 24, and simultaneously:

1) Boosts primary casting stat by a lot.
2) Makes the already attractive monk multiclass tons more appealing.
3) Shifts dragonshape from a level 30 capstone feat to a level 24 progression feat
4) Opens up a crapload of design space in the build. Without that +4 wisdom, a monk/dragonshaper has to give up just about everything else to get the Great Wisdom feats needed. With it, there is practically no necessary sacrifice, the feat becomes a casual pickup that takes no backup investment.

4 is a particularly large problem, because part of what balances out strong epic feats or class features is the need (usually) to invest a ton of dead-end feats to make it happen. Think e-dodge, great smite, or WM crits. Dragonshape is one of the stronger feats in this category, but is available to raven totems and raven totems only as a casual pickup.

Companions are also somewhat problematic, but a little tone down will probably bring them in line, ditto the ease of getting the ancient water elemental, compared to its potency. These are probably only really serious when they serve to amplify the problems caused by the raven totem monk.

[Flameborn]

I'd suggest doing what Amia did to avoid monk powerbuilds.

+1 wisdom AC per monk level.

So that 27/3 monk druid dragonshape now only gets +9 ac for its monk levels instead of +23.

This still gives them discipline and tumble dump, but meh.

This still allows dragonshape, but nerfs its ability to get unhittable ac (I know someone who built a dragonshape with almost 90 ac)

[Lorkas]

I think that isn't possible without haks, sadly. On FL you need 6 levels of monk to receive monk WIS AC, but without haks you can only turn monk WIS AC on or off.

[The Rambling Midget]

If it were up to me, I'd have it turn off if less than half of your levels are Monk, kinda like the Fighter movement penalty reduction.

[Morderon]

http://arelith.com/node/142318

The more important posts are on pages 2 and 3 (though that's pretty much where I stopped

[Paint It Black]

This issue is not about druid/monk combos. This is not about Dragonshape. This is not about raven totems.

The defense against a strong casting class is either to survive the damage long enough or to disable them In some manner.

Even a single use of -polymorph, independent of whether or not subsequent uses will have to wait for cooldown, has been seen to create a breakdown of game mechanics which allows for the Totem subclass to be able to avoid what has been the intended tradeoff of the pact.

The issue is also compounded by the requirement that other players must know of the aspects of this feature which are already deemed explorations I'm order to even know to report them.

As well as the -polymorph feature puts additional strain on the DM team in order to be knowledgeable about its potential exploits and to actively police it.

These appear to be real issues, as we are learning through this thread that players were not knowledge enough about the issue to know of what should have been reported.

[Flameborn]

Polymorph is the only thing giving a pure druid any ability at all to survive.

For example, wicket has a standard ac of 9. 9 ac, able to be hit 95% of the time by even a level 3.

Shifted, her ac is 47, which is still less then a mage with Epic Mage Armor. This doesnt include the fact that mages get imp invis, nearly permanent haste and an acid shield that hits for 50+ damage.

Even a poor build can hit 40 ab, while a top tier can hit 45-50+, or able to hit a polymorphed totem nearly 100% of the time.

Totems don't get tumble as a class skill, OR any level of discipline, able to be knocked down by players significantly lower level then themselves.

[Scurvy Cur]

Okay, as it seems this year's "In which we discuss nerfing monk/druids" has come about 3 months ahead of schedule (usually, this is a July topic). For the tl;dr version, see bottom.

I disagree just a little. I would go so far as to say that the issue isn't the monk AC, or even the potency of dragonshape, but the raven totem itself. I've never personally found dragonshape/monk to be terribly unbearable by itself, so long as it is a strictly level 30 phenomenon, and comes at the expense of epic spell foci, epic spells, and any sort of flexibility in adding other classes. This represents a serious investment that most characters will never reach, even if building for it, and feels in line with the benefits granted (most of these characters wind up heavily skewed towards defense, and have some serious weaknesses, which I would be happy to detail separately in a PM, if you'd like). Raven totem completely shortcuts the investment of feats and levels, and makes the feat much more accessible in a level range that more characters are likely to reach (level 24 takes 63% of the XP that level 30 does, and if memory serves, the number of characters that get to 24 vastly outstrips the number of characters that get to 30). Besides, it's not the AC that's a problem 80 AC isn't too hard to pull off on a bard or a PM, it's the ease with which raven totem allows DS, the associated resistances and immunities, and the AC to be added onto an offensive powerhouse option.

I understand your reluctance to blame raven totem as a bad idea, and blame monk instead, given it exculpates the class feature you have while blaming the one you don't, but without raven totem, you wouldn't be able to take a strong build with some weaknesses and turn it into a strong build with hellball/gruin, uncanny dodge, UMD, and an assortment of tools to completely cover those weaknesses. Or to build a dragon shaper with next to 2 minutes of 58 AB, for maximum silly bullcrap.

If any nerf to monk/druids in particular needs to be made, I'd rather see all shifted form skins count as light armor. Monk remains viable for AC when not shifted, but doesn't stack with the +12-20 dodge AC that most shapes get. Thus avoiding the unfortunate side effect of nerfing a number of perfectly reasonable builds into oblivion just to get the monk dragonshapers. In threads past, we've had the following come up as a quick synopsis for dealing with monk AC and it's interaction with DS:

-Remove monk/druid multiclassing entirely (feasible, but largely arbitrary)

-Remove monk AC when shifted (mechanically wonky, AC bonus may bug out as removed/restored)

-Apply 1 monk AC per level (your suggestion, but has been suggested before. Issues are that other builds get crippled. Wis based monks have even more trouble leveling, as they do no damage and have craptastic AC until 10+. Caster clerics hurt badly; functional setups require high stat investment, with little room for the strength to use plate+tower and armor move speed loss hurts when you need touch range to heal. 3 monk helps make caster route more survivable, and caster clerics should be encouraged; the less viable they are, the less you will see of them, and most clerics already go for the more efficient "hit things" route. Dex tanks hurt inadvertently, as one of the strongest ways to set them up is to take 6 monk, for a 9-10 point AC benefit, while freeing the offhand up to mitigate weak damage. Zen archer, one of the few archer builds with an attractive level of defense, becomes much less practical. The 80 AC monk/DSer drops from 80 AC to 70 AC which is a meaningless distinction for most of the server, all of the other broken features remain the same.)

-leave stuff alone and smite people who use DS to abuse RP flow.

TL:DR version, most suggestions dealing with monk AC don't mitigate issues posed by ease of dragonshape accquisition allowed by raven totem, while horribly borking a number of far less problematic builds.

Paint it Black is right in saying that monk/DS and even DS really aren't the issues at hand. There are two issues: first is polymorph, which has had a reasonable solution proposed, the second, and admittedly tangentially related, is that amongst totems, there are many options that are neat and flavorful, and one that completely breaks the class power curve.

[Lorkas]

@flameborn

You're comparing something that a druid can do instantaneously to something that a mage would have to spend quite a lot of time spellcasting in order to produce, and several of the spells you're talking about are rounds/level, not unlimited+instantaneous. On top of that, mages are walking around with half as much base HP as a druid and less AB, so they have a severe melee tradeoff for their spellcasting abilities.

On the other hand, you're comparing the druid to pure meleers with no spellcasting abilities that don't come from UMD. Those meleers have a severe magical tradeoff for their melee abilities.

The fact that you're comparing druids to both pure mages and pure meleers is evidence for the problem that many people see. A druid has to be worse at magic than a mage and worse at melee than a pure meleer, because that's the nature of class balance. If you have a little of both, you need to be worse at both for it.

[Flameborn]

There is no druid in history who had enough ab or damage to do a damn thing in melee compared to any cleric or spellblade build. Druid doesnt get a single spell that helps their melee, at all.

And a mage can cast a single Greater Sanctuary and have enough time to fully buff themselves with 60 round duration on all of the round/level spells.

[Scurvy Cur]

Flameborn, I have to say from your description of Wicket's out-of-shapeshift abilities, it sounds as though you have purposefully built a massive weakness into the character, ostensibly for RP Reasons, and while that is laudable, the overall power of the class or path should not be judged based on an intentionally constructed flaw.

I can think, off of the top of my head, 27 points of AC you have left on the table without going for any multiclassing at all, and 3 more AC and full discipline you could have picked up without multiclassing monk.

Also I think you are misreading Lorkas: he is not saying that your companion is a match for top tier builds (though it is more than a match for middle of the road builds), but that your polymorph is. And certainly the dragonshape is.

[Flameborn]

Polymorph is unable to damage any build, with a max of 37 ab and unable to do damage since its scripted to use +0 1d3 fists, its not a match for anything, its just a much needed survivability to a druid that normally has NO way to escape or keep a melee from just KD spamming them to the ground.

They don't get AC, haste, invis, or any sort of damage shield.\

Im just saying that polymorph is the only method of survivability that a druid has without monk levels.

[Scurvy Cur]

Unless I'm vastly mistaken, a totem druid that invests a couple of feats and cross classes into something melee based (much as any halfway decent battlecleric sort of has to), it should be pretty easy to achieve the following:

(I'm going to use the 23 caster/4 fighter /3 rogue setup that is pretty much standard for a battlecleric).

40-41 AB (+1 when outside)
24 damage per hit (31 on sneak attacks)
58-62 AC, without expertise use, depending on feats
(Approximately) 728 HP, 928 HP if you count 200 HP of soak from premon.
35 SR (superior to the normal reward gift)
UMD.

Plus the ability to pack high DC, very potent spells, albeit largely limited to a single school, especially if raven totem was selected.

All of it using only spells with hour/level or extended minute/level spells.

Additionally, to deal with DR, you have a 48-ish AC elemental wildshape which will bypass DR with its natural weapon, up to +5 if you have a stoneskin or premon running.

Completely without monk. Or dragonshape.

[SwampFoot]

I personally think DS should, as stated before, be a top-tier, completely focused feat. Raven totem makes it a less focused and lower tiered feat.

A fighter has to take 30 straight levels of fighter to touch a DSer. A mage, though very powerful, has to bypass its SR bonuses and hope the DSer doesn't choose green dragon to negate their acid sheath. Rogues, rangers, barbarians... well, they are just fodder. A feat this strong should not come at level 24.

[Flameborn]

Unless I'm vastly mistaken, a totem druid that invests a couple of feats and cross classes into something melee based (much as any halfway decent battlecleric sort of has to), it should be pretty easy to achieve the following:

(I'm going to use the 23 caster/4 fighter /3 rogue setup that is pretty much standard for a battlecleric).

40-41 AB (+1 when outside)
24 damage per hit (31 on sneak attacks)
58-62 AC, without expertise use, depending on feats
(Approximately) 728 HP, 928 HP if you count 200 HP of soak from premon.
35 SR (superior to the normal reward gift)
UMD.

Plus the ability to pack high DC, very potent spells, albeit largely limited to a single school, especially if raven totem was selected.

All of it using only spells with hour/level or extended minute/level spells.

Additionally, to deal with DR, you have a 48-ish AC elemental wildshape which will bypass DR with its natural weapon, up to +5 if you have a stoneskin or premon running.

Completely without monk. Or dragonshape.

I hate to say it, but that build is ~significantly~ worse then just going a cleric/fighter/rogue.
The only change would be the HP on a battlecleric.

[Lorkas]

We all know that clerics are ridiculously overpowered when powerbuilt--that's why the "How does this nerf clerics?" joke exists. And it's largely for the same reasons that the druid is overpowered. A character should not have level 9 spells and also be able to even think about tangling with high level meleers in melee.

The cleric is worse in the sense that it can get better damage and AB, spellcasting without turning weak, and its level 7-9 spells are better I'd say (apart maybe from an effectively-used Creeping Doom or five), but it's not as bad in the sense that the cleric doesn't have premonition, an animal companion, uber HP or saves, or the ability to instantly regenerate 110 temp HP as soon as they're lost (just by moving to a new area, if not by double-tapping the -polymorph hotkey).

On the whole I'd say a battlecleric comes out on top, but then, we already knew they were overpowered.

[Ferret Roll]

For 5% totems specifically, slapping a cooldown on polymorph would be problematic. The dragon grows to ridiculous sizes, and only remains really usable because you can easily shift down to slip through whatever terrain/obstacle it was hung on before then quickly resuming the form.

If -polymorph gets a cooldown, shrinking the size of the dragon (and any other huge totems that aren't occurring to me) would be almost necessary if these special forms are intended to be playable.

[Scurvy Cur]

I hate to say it, but that build is ~significantly~ worse then just going a cleric/fighter/rogue.
The only change would be the HP on a battlecleric.

Polymorph is unable to damage any build, with a max of 37 ab and unable to do damage since its scripted to use +0 1d3 fists, its not a match for anything, its just a much needed survivability to a druid that normally has NO way to escape or keep a melee from just KD spamming them to the ground.

The posted build spec was actually directly in response to this comment, which is patently incorrect.

There is no druid in history who had enough ab or damage to do a damn thing in melee compared to any cleric or spellblade build. Druid doesnt get a single spell that helps their melee, at all.

And to this comment, which seems to somehow imply that druids don't get to buff for melee (premon, stoneskin, bull's strength, and aura of vitality are on the line, waiting for an answer).

Polymorph is the only thing giving a pure druid any ability at all to survive.

<Extended explanation of why you don't equip any AC items or buffs on Wicket here>

And to this one, which implies that druids are super fragile special flowers, and points to what I can only assume is a criminally undergeared caster form as the proof.

The point Lorkas has been bringing up, and which you seem to be attempting to hide in a field of strawmen, is that totem druids have a perfectly capable melee form that does not require monk to be effective. When you can effortlessly swap between a caster that pulls down the highest DCs of any class and a servicable melee mode that will outsurvive and outlast the majority of Arelith's meleers, and give it dragonshape and give it epic gruin and epic hellball, you may have given a class too many features (and yes, the above mentioned build can pick up every last option listed).

And this is using a 100% intentionally gimped build for the class, which ignores multiclass option for which it was designed (Might need TRM to dig up a quote here, but I distinctly remember Mithreas explaining that Totem form was designed with the full understanding that 99% of them would take monk, and balanced around that).

Since we keep pointing to clerics, I'll address this.

You can do better with Cleric, but not without having to buff for 3 rounds or more to make it happen, and being limited to being able to top your numbers out 1-4 times per day (most of the highest battlecleric numbers are achieved using a 1/day domain power).

The advantage of the druid setup is that you press a single button, the activation of full combat readiness is instantaneous, and you have literally no limit on it.

And you can add dragonshape completely for free.

And we're still happily free of any conditions that let us blame monk, rather than raven totem, as the problem.