Kimberlite wrote on Mar 20
th, 2012 at 5:14pm:
I know diddly squat about druids, since last time I played pen and paper was first edition. My failing memory (I'm almost as old as Stainer) has no recollection of druids.
Wouldn't it be more likely that you keep your druid spells, and gain access to the spells cast by those specific forms?
I'm guessing it will be like the SLAs - you'll pay in enhancement points to be familiar with any given wild shape, and once you buy it, you can drag SLAs for each wildshape to the toolbar. They'll only be active when in that specific wildshape, just like monk abilities like finishers and feats like stunning fist are only active when in a stance. Of course, it will be amazingly bugged, so we will be able to cast lightning spells from water ellie form.
This sounds almost 100% certain to be accurate.
One big question for me is if you're going to have to waste a feat for Natural Spell. Either way, though, you're still going to be able to have access to all of your class spells while you're in your wild shape, because otherwise it would be fucking stupid and no one would go into their wild shape unless it provided insane melee benefits or something (which Dire Bear form might, if available.)
I can definitely see PnP Druids absolutely ruling during leveling, thanks to Wall of Fire and summons and pets and wild shape and self-buffs and plenty of other benefits. I think they'll actually be pretty much on par with other classes by the time they hit cap, though. They do get Finger, but not Wail, so there's a chance that pure caster DC builds will be viable, but I'd imagine that they'll be better off focusing more on melee builds that have synergy with wild shape. I'd imagine that TWF feats will still be needed for claw/claw/bite.