Item stat transference to wildshape

[Pandip]

I'm playing a druid for the second time and I'm having some difficulties adapting to some of the shortcomings of wildshape. I'm wondering if this is something that other people have been experiencing and agree on, or if it's just my own subconscious powergamer that's screaming at me each time I change shape. My issues lay with, as the title suggests, the way stats on items are allowed to transfer to wildshape. I don't know what parts of this are hardcoded and what parts aren't, but I figured I'd throw out the suggestion for consideration anyways.

As it stands, druids are an extremely powerful and versatile class. I'm not going to deny this in the least bit. They do, however, have a lot of commonly known shortcomings, the largest being that they can't use anything but potions when they're in wildshape. While I'm not necessarily asking for this to be changed in itself, I think it's an important detail to take note of when discussing changes to wildshape. On a server where useable items like healing wands, purple crystals, and various other useable items are integral to the balance of the server, not being able to use these items (and especially to not be able to heal other members of your party without having to shift back to normal) proves a serious hindrance to druids whose concept revolves around being in wildshape (a totem shaman, for instance). But this is a fine and understandable mechanic, and not something that I'm specifically sour about.

What does bother me is the fact that there are only three pieces of equipment whose stats are even considered when transforming into a wildshape: helmet, torso, and shield. To make matters more complicated, there are certain caveats to this limitation. For instance, all AC is immediately converted into a deflection bonus upon shifting, which means that shield potions are useless the moment you turn into wildshape. Get dispelled while you're running around as a bear? Too bad. Either shift back out and drink a shield potion, or suffer a significant loss of 4 AC that could make the difference between life and death in combat. Worse yet, certain aspects of these items that are transferable are ignored in wildshape: namely, and most prominently, skill bonuses, which are arguably the most prominent bonuses on loot on the server outside of useable abilities/spells (which, as I've already mentioned, are not available to druids).

Don't get me wrong; druids are powerful. I'm not saying that they need a buff. But it would be nice if those of us who consider wildshape to be a brilliantly immersive and incredibly fun mechanic could sit somewhere near the same level as other PC's when it comes to loot benefits. If it's at all possible, I'd like to see all statistics on items (especially torso, helmet, and shield equipment) transfer over to wildshape. More specifically (and hopefully at the very least), skill and save bonuses, which, again, appear to be the most prominent bonuses found on items on the server. As it stands, unless a DM who is extremely familiar with druid wildshape mechanics is willing to reward you with loot that is specifically designed to transfer to wildshape (which is a limited selection to say the least), druids are only allowed to scale in strength through levels, which give them increased wildshape uses (which allow them to shift out of wildshape and utilize useable items) and more powerful wildshapes (which is the only thing to make up for the lack of statistical scaling).

I cherish and appreciate each item I receive from a DM, both because of the obvious benefit of receiving an award of sorts and from the confidence it demonstrates in a character that I'm investing myself in. But it's a bit distressing when most of the standard benefits of loot (DM-given or earned through extensive exploration and questing), such as the aforementioned skills, saves, useable spells, and spell slots (which is something that I haven't even mentioned; druids lose their bonus spell slots when they shift and while that's likely hardcoded, it's an incredibly frustrating mechanic to juggle nonetheless), are all lost when utilizing a mechanic of your class. As it stands, my druid presently has more hide/ms outside of his shifted forms than he does in them, which is awesome and great, but when I'm looking to play a concept that revolves around exploring as a shifted totem animal for hours at a time, it's frustrating to know that even if I could earn +100 in gear for stealth/ms, it wouldn't make a difference while I'm shifted -- where is exactly where I want my character to be most of the time.

Long post, I understand. Thank you if you've sat through it and given it all consideration. I'm curious to see how other people feel about the way all this works.



tl;dr druids don't get a vast majority of the benefits from loot, DM's seem to be unaware of this when creating loot (even if it's geared explicitly towards druids), and it'd be cool if it was changed.

[Howlando]

I don't think we can change these aspects of wild shape.