Front-Line Druid #2 (Age of Worms)

We've been given the green light to think about characters for the Age of Worms campaign. It looks like we were already naturally falling into party roles that complement one another, which is very good. Thankfully, nobody will get saddled with a role they don't want. Caroline has expressed interest in playing a favored soul, James has offered to take on the expert role (in the form of a scout), and Kris had already pretty well decided on an arcane caster when we saddled him with that particular party position. Excelsior! The only person who hasn't quite made up his mind yet is Kyle (who was talking some sort of hex-blade multiclassing madness, with an eventual leap into the cavalier prestige class). He's got the flexibility to do just about anything, though I'd certainly appreciate a secondary melee combatant for when things get really tough. We'll see how it all turns out soon enough, I suppose; our Shackled City game is very nearly over.

At any rate, I've been thinking over my prestige class options for my druid. I could probably leave him alone and do quite well, but there are a few prestige classes that would certainly assist him in his role as the group's resident warrior. I need to make a decision about this now, or at least as far ahead of time as I possibly can. It will affect my selection of skills, and possibly feats as well.

Therefore, today we're going to weigh the pros and cons of the two prestige classes I've been considering: the Nature's Warrior (from the Complete Warrior) and the Warshaper (also from the Complete Warrior). We'll also assign skills and choose our first-level feat. Hang on, it's another long, boring technical discussion!

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The Warshaper is the easiest class to qualify for, and grants some very nice abilities. Most notable among them is the (+4 Strength, +4 Constitution) boost when in an alternate form. Those extra hit points are always pretty nice, and would put my dwarf's total Constitution score when shapeshifted up to a nice healthy 20. Pretty hard to resist, and when you combine it with the other class features (immunity to stunning and critical hits, extra natural weapons or improved existing natural weapons at will, an extra five feet of reach for attacks, and fast healing 2), you end up with a fairly battle-ready shapeshifter. The downside is that the class offers absolutely no spell progression, and its final level grants an ability that does not affect the druid in any way. Also, the class does not stack with druid levels for shapechanging purposes, which is fairly undesirable.

The Nature's Warrior, conversely, has more skill requirements and a feat requirement (Track) as well, making my choices a little more predetermined when assigning my skills. This is unfortunate, because I value the ability to make good and interesting use of skill points, and this dwarf will have precious few left over after meeting the prerequisites. However, the class has several advantages over the Warshaper, most notably the multitude of options when selecting class features. Yes, that's right; the class offers you a choice of extra abilities at 1st, 3rd, and 5th level, and includes many useful items (natural armor boost, extra damage, damage reduction, fast healing 1, improved fly speed, etc). The real difficulty lies in choosing among them! In addition, the class allows for continued spell progression (albeit quite a bit slower). Best of all, however, is the class's wilding ability, which causes the class levels to stack with druid levels for the purposes of determining which forms are available. It's also a largely druid-specific class, which is nice for purely aesthetic reasons.

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I've already stated that I'm not particularly concerned with the character's spellcasting, and as I would undoubtedly skip the final Warshaper class level, I'm looking at either losing three spellcasting levels or four spellcasting levels. Not such a big difference in the long run, really, and cerrtainly not a deciding factor for me. The Warshaper's abilities are very nice, probably more so than the Nature's Warrior, but in the end, I think I'd prefer to keep my form progression completely intact. Nature's Warrior it is, then (and if I really think I need it by 16th level, I can always branch into the Warshaper at that time).

So, I have four skill points to assign, and three of them must go towards meeting prerequesites. The class only asks that I have two ranks in Knowledge (the Planes), so after first level I can begin putting the fourth skill point into whatever skill I might choose. I'm also required to take the Track feat, but I can easily do that at 3rd or 6th level if I want to. There's a "+4 Base Attack Bonus" requirement, too, which will keep me from entering the class until at least 7th level ... plenty of time to meet the prerequisites.

So, my skills (with ability modifiers) will look as follows:

Hide +3
Knowledge (nature) +4
Knowledge (the Planes) +2
Move Silently +3
Survival +6

Not too shabby, and I'm able to get almost all of the skills I was hoping to have. A few ranks in Listen and Spot would have been nice, too, but we can't have it all. Not to mention that the Nature's Warrior gets a meager 2 skill points per level, which means I'll have to get used to not having enough points to go around. At least it's only five levels long, right?

Now, for feats, I had a couple of wants. First, I will need to take that pesky Track feat at some point, but I'm going to put that off as long as possible. I was also hoping to take Stealthy, which adds +2 to my Hide and Move Silently checks. Skill Focus for each of those skills would be a beautiful thing as well, though by the time I have free feat slots, I probably won't want to bother with those. Lastly, I really wanted to take the Martial Weapon Proficiency feat for the dwarven waraxe (this character is still a dwarf, after all). It's probably completely unnecessary, but I can't shake the image of him holding a spiffy axe when he's not in one of his animal forms. Somewhere down the line, I should strongly consider taking Improved Toughness as well.

I suppose I will end up taking the feat to use dwarven waraxes; they're just too hard to resist. At 3rd level, I can take Improved Toughness, and at 6th, I'll nab Track. After that, it's an open book ... but there are some cool Combat Form Feats in the Player's Handbook II that would help this little guy be a mighty warrior some day ...

"But that is a tale for another time."