So the idea for this comes from the Predator alternate class feature for rangers found in the D&D 3.5 book Unearthed Arcana.
I've always really liked this ACF because it puts a unique spin on the class and offers up some great roleplaying opportunities as well. What's more, I think it could work really well on Arelith, and similarly to Pen and Paper, give some great opportunities to roleplay the animalistic shapeshifter without having to default to Druid.Predator
A ranger might forgo training in weapon combat in exchange for the ability to take animal form and move swiftly through the woodlands.
This variant simply swaps one or more of a class's features for one or more class features of another class. A class feature gained works just as it did for its original class, including the level at which it is gained and any other effects, except as noted below.
Lose: Combat style, improved combat style, combat style mastery.
Gain: Wild shape (as druid; Small or Medium animals only), fast movement (as barbarian).
I have two different ideas for implementation.
- 1) Simply strip the archery and dual wielding abilities and their improvements and give basic Wildshape as a vanilla druid gets it
2) Strip archery, dual wielding and their animal companion, but give them an improving -shapeshift command as a totem druid has, with the same animal selection and totem bonuses.
Which is exactly why for this version I suggest removing Animal Companion as well since it might get a bit nasty having deadly shapeshifter ranger and his Totem companion too. (Then you could also be literally a lone wolf )