if you have darkvision/low light vision in your normal form when you Wild Shape you LOSE that since it is part of your natural form. It is unclear what traits of say elemental forms you get (I'd assume various breathing features - or specifically lack of needing to breath but the rules as written aren't entirely clearĤ) Any special abilities/traits of your NATURAL form (i.e. For example a Druid needs to be able to change into HUGE elemental before you get any DR from Wild Shape. This means you can't just use the stat blocks from the Bestiary, you have to adjust for:ġ) your ability scores vs the creature's defaults (this might change the DC's of special attacks IF you get them)Ģ) your feats vs the as statted creature's feats this might dramatically change attack to hits etcģ) the features of the given form you do NOT get. You also keep ALL of your own ability scores & feats (but as a Druid you have proficiency with any natural attacks of a form you wild shape into) and get a small set of bonuses (to natural armor and ability scores) per the spell. Which means that magical beast forms like Giant Eagle may be out of bounds for Druids however thematic (in a home game I would almost certainly allow many magical beasts such as the Giant Eagle for druids especially if they had a character reason such as Eagle Domain/Eagle Shaman) to take that form.Įach level tier (4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th) changes the effective spell(s) your Wild Shape acts as - and those spells, in turn, determine which special abilities of the forms you can get (including setting a maximum on movement speeds/maneuverability). Most notably I think this means you can't Wild Shape into a magical beast - since the Druid ability states "animal, elemental or plant" and "magical beast" is another type.
Your level as a druid will determine the sizes and TYPES of creatures and how long you can remain in the form (and how many times each day). One big "gotcha" to keep in mind with Pathfinder and Druid Wild Shapes is that you have a lot of stats to modify & keep track of/pay attention to: