[RPG] How to manage the Druid’s wildshapes

druidpathfinder-1e

My druid picked up the wildshape ability a few levels back, but hasn't had a chance to use it yet. The wide-open nature of the ability (and the labyrinthine rules) has left me reluctant to bog down the game by trying to figure it out during play.

  • Is there a good way to quickly look up animals with given characteristics (particularly the special abilities that wildshape can grant)? (I'll have access to the Internet while at the table, if that makes a difference.)

  • Pre-statting a few forms seems like a good idea to me. Are there any animals that are important to have in my "stable" of pre-generated forms? Are there any particular characteristics I should try to have available? What makes for a good form?

Best Answer

The D20 Pathfinder SRD Monsters DB has a spreadsheet of Pathfinder creatures, which you can use to search by type, size, whether the creature can fly/climb/burrow/swim, and so on. The spreadsheet includes columns for useful things like special attacks, climb/fly/swim/movement speeds, and which senses the creature has.

It's worth keeping perhaps three to five different forms, each of which is suited to different challenges you expect to face. You'll want a tough form for combat, a form with flight, a form with scent, and so forth. As you gain new types of wild shape, you'll want to expand the list to take advantage of things like elemental forms.

To get around the filtering limitations, I exported the data from the Monsters DB into LibreOffice Base. This allowed for more advanced filtering/searching.

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