Item Merge for Shapechange Spells

[Amoenotep]

the doors are already there..they just need to be discovered and worked out. mages as bigby/igms spammers is a choice of the caster and a result of the opponent not preparing better.

the reason you want more from spells is because the shapes suck to shift into..which doesn't make sense, because you want to be shifted into a new form and can't cast the spells anyway..

so isn't what your looking for is a bit of a beef up to current polymorph/shapechange spells as is to make them more interesting to play?

[DM_Kim]

so isn't what your looking for is a bit of a beef up to current polymorph/shapechange spells as is to make them more interesting to play?

That's a not to bad an idea Amoenotep. This might be the route to go then have polymorph/shapechange spells "unwritable". That way they can not be scrolled for use by UMD.

[Gornickthy]

That's a not to bad an idea Amoenotep. This might be the route to go then have polymorph/shapechange spells "unwritable". That way they can not be scrolled for use by UMD.

Thats not a bad idea at all.

so isn't what your looking for is a bit of a beef up to current polymorph/shapechange spells as is to make them more interesting to play?

The reason I brought this up was because I saw this used VERY effectively on a low magic server. Spell slots and stats were not an issue because the items do not exist to create those situations. I played with the concept on NS4 and found it to be very frustrating, and not worth the effort vs. the gain from taking on other forms. It is not so much a "beef up" to the forms, but rather just a way not to have to re-slot 15 spells after taking the form. Take a scenario into consideration... a MA wizard, which by story line is suppose to be the elite of the wizard world, is fighting either in a PvP or a PvM situation and assumes a shifted shape via spell. The battle turns and the wizard needs to re-assume normal form in order to cast spells. The wizard cannot tell a mob to hold on while he re-selects all those spells, and if he tells a PC to hold on then.. well.. that would actually be funny. Anyways, the caster then is missing part of his spell supply and needs to escape to re-slot the spells. Yes, preparation for this can help, but even such preparation cannot help fully. Again, I do not advocate item abilities being merged, just spell slots.... the stat bonus would be nice, but if item bonus spell slots were kept even at the expense of stat bonus being lost it would still be a great help to casters.

[Amoenotep]

i thought thats where you post was going anyway....you want your cake and eat it too. that can't happen so why not take someone else's cake and step on it?

[Bargeld]

I have no shifters/druids but i have used shapechange a bit. If I was building for shapechange, I would not be aiming to get gear that was +spells, I would be gearing for battle, similar to a tenser build. I would have feats to enhance the form also... for example, know that the weapon is retained, take an exotic feat and scythe. I too am annoyed by having to reslot spells after using shapechenge and have simply shifted to using tenser's instead (which is incredibly powerful!)

If a cleric wm gets hit with a chr decrease, do they lose their turn undeads if it goes negative?
If you take a dex decrease, do you lose epic dodge mid-battle?
Con decrease, do you lose epic DR?

I agree that the slots should disappear if the int goes down. The hard part is that you can't make a global change to the forms in order to compensate with the casters ability score. sorc vs wiz vs druid that would be, in order to satisfy all casters, the forms would need to make sure that the stats were all high enuf to support the highest amount of spell slots that any player could ever have... in every caster stat: chr int wis. I don't agree to that, cuz now you are effecting saves and more.

Shifters have been a burden to this server since I started here late '07. Since then, I've seen them move from a toon that everyone on the server hated, due to crashes, to a hipsing death machine with 108 ac. From what I've seen, the recent changes they've implemented have at least been attentive and consistant and they have sought out and listened to player input. Cut 'em some slack when they swing the nerf stick like an epileptic at a pinata party. We're all gonna get candy in the end anyway.

[Amoenotep]

once again i have to ask about your shifting wiz build....if your a caster and you decide to shift into a shape to fight....aren't you technically...."a dumbass"?

wouldn't it make more sense to set your spells and slots to things that are usefull to the fact that you will shift...and not the possibility that you "might want to shift later on"?

maybe i'm not exactly understanding how you want your build to work, maybe i'm understanding it too well and telling you no...

i'm a wiz..i'm casting my uber spells at ppl, hey i have an idea...i'll shift into a balor and do some melee damage...well, that was fun time to deshit and hammer in some more uber spells at ppl

is that what your looking at wanting? cuz i can pretty much tell you thats not gonna happen.

[Lorkar]

Having to reset all of your slots is really just a pain in the keister. From what I have read (hopefully we are reading the same post although judging by responses we aren't) he isn't looking to have anything "beefed" up, he is looking to have some fun with a spell and not have to go through the hassle of stopping everything he is doing, remembering where everything went and then re-slotting everything.
And since you cant cast spells when shifted what does it matter if the spell slots merge?
Its not like he is getting more spells than he already had memorized nor is he getting the spells he cast back.
When I play my caster I do not use shapechange/polymorph anymore simply for the fact it is too much of a pain to do it. I apply the same approach to any spell...if its more of a hassle to use it or the effects suck then I dont use it. And that Tep is where you get the tunnel visioned caster who only use bigbies and IGMS.

[Bargeld]

The reality is that the spell slots being lost are due to 2 factors:

1) Loss of slots from items - the abilities of gear are lost while shifted.
2) Loss of spell slots due to decreased ability - the main ability (int or chr) is lowered, thereby lowering the amount of slots for memorized spells.

Now approach these each with a solution:

1) either the gear retains their properties or the the gear is left as-is (unused while shifted). I will make the assumption that gear is rendered inactive while shifted for a reason, propably due to balance reasons. So, I consider this aspect set in stone (correct me if i am wrong!)

2) The only way to correct this problem is to increase the shape's natural stats to be equal (or greater) than the casters main casting stat, as seen on the charsheet. Note that this needs to be taken into account for any class able to cast shapechange... Meaning that ALL the shapechange forms must have both int and chr of at least 50 in order to maintain slots for the truly specialized, high stat caster. Take the following example:

10 cleric 30 wizard - charsheet reports 40 int and 24 chr - has taken divine feats
casts the shapechange spell into dragon form
stats are raised to 50 int and 50 chr in order to maintain spell slots for both wiz and sorc
divine feats can now be used with a 50 chr as the applicable stat, rather than the 24 the original player had

Feel free to poke holes in this theory, or provide an alternae solution to #2 above.

[Amoenotep]

when you shift your gear goes into a "limbo". even if it doesn't merge with your body...it still goes into the same limbo hole. as far as i'm aware there is no way to make items that aren't on your person work for you....your buddie's +8 int helm can't help you.

if you raise casting stats on shapes then the saves based on those stats are going to go way up.....way up. not to mention having to do that with all shapes, not just int/cha based casters. wizards, sorcs, rangers, druids, shifters.

something you should also think about is some forms can still cast a few spells while shifted..i believe...shifter dragons? don't know, i stay away from dragonshape on most builds....however, if it still holds true and we beef up the casting stats and they still cast. how do you beat someone with that big of a power boost.

what it all boils down to is simple. item bonuses don't carry over. boosting stats isn't something i see us doing just so a caster doesn't have to relearn spells. a tweak here and there on the shapes themselves are acceptable to make them more playable. otherwise...just don't use it because you don't like it.

[Amoenotep]

oh..and btw...when you change form your items are removed and some properties stack over. when you shift back your items are re equipped fresh and new.

which is why when you die shifted you have to re equip everything on your person. so just merging the items with your skin isn't good enough since it un equips then re equips upon deshift anyway.

but i like the ideas anyway

[Tsavong]

I was just playing about with the shape change spell with my wizard fighter WM build. I found a odd thing the forms which had weapons, they didn't get them instead the weapon in question such as a great sword for example appeared in my inventory with my reapers stats merged onto it I could not use the weapon but I though it a bit odd that this would happen.

So I'm wondering is it suppose to happen do forms with weapons are they suppose to use them or not? And ether way should it be in my inventory?

[LinuxPup]

Tsavong, should be fixed next reset.

[Tsavong]

Cool thanks LinuxPup