Shifter (PnP) question

[ViciousCabaret]

Hi,

I'm playing a Shifter through the HoTU campaign and have been seeing some odd behavior from it. When shifting, it seems like the effects from the weapon my character has equipped persist through different forms, instead of being replaced by whatever on-hit effects and special damage types are native to the form.

For instance, when changing to a Fire Elemental with a weapon that has +2d6 sonic damage on it, according to the combat log and onscreen FX the damage done on hits stays sonic, rather than doing the +Xd6 fire damage that's listed when shifting and on the creature weapon in my inventory. If I trying unequipping a weapon, either before or while shifted, I don't gain any fire damage either. None-damage on-hit effects like the Mummy's Rot likewise don't appear to work properly.

There's a similar problem with damage reduction; the only way the character can hit through +X/Y reduction is to equip a weapon or monk glove that has enough bonus to penetrate it. Even on creatures that have creature-weapons with enough enhancement bonus, any damage my character does is reduced.

I thought this might be from my specific build (Changeling Bard/Dragon Disciple/Shifter) and the creature-weapon used for the Dragon Disciple's claw attack, but I wanted to make sure that this isn't just the way the class works before restarting the character.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

[CapnQ]

Hi,

I'm playing a Shifter through the HoTU campaign and have been seeing some odd behavior from it. When shifting, it seems like the effects from the weapon my character has equipped persist through different forms, instead of being replaced by whatever on-hit effects and special damage types are native to the form.

For instance, when changing to a Fire Elemental with a weapon that has +2d6 sonic damage on it, according to the combat log and onscreen FX the damage done on hits stays sonic, rather than doing the +Xd6 fire damage that's listed when shifting and on the creature weapon in my inventory.

I've seen the same, but haven't yet looked into it enough to figure out why.

If I trying unequipping a weapon, either before or while shifted, I don't gain any fire damage either. None-damage on-hit effects like the Mummy's Rot likewise don't appear to work properly.

I would expect the effects on the creature weapons to work only if you unequip your other weapons--but, as you say, they don't work even then. I'll see if I can figure out why.

There's a similar problem with damage reduction; the only way the character can hit through +X/Y reduction is to equip a weapon or monk glove that has enough bonus to penetrate it. Even on creatures that have creature-weapons with enough enhancement bonus, any damage my character does is reduced.

I expect the reason is the same.

I thought this might be from my specific build (Changeling Bard/Dragon Disciple/Shifter) and the creature-weapon used for the Dragon Disciple's claw attack, but I wanted to make sure that this isn't just the way the class works before restarting the character.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

I don't think it has anything to do with your character.

[ViciousCabaret]

Thanks for the response. Just to give a bit more feedback/info/whatever, I've tried a non-Dragon Disciple character (Bard/Dirgesinger/Shifter) and I'm still not getting on-hit effects or damage reduction properly, just as you said. However, I haven't had a problem with leftover creature-weapons in my inventory, so there does seem to be a problem with removing creature weapons when one already exists/is equipped on the character. I haven't had the chance to see if this is true for other classes that equip creature weapons to represent natural attacks (if there are any), but my guess is that the same would happen.

[CapnQ]

I've finally had a chance to look into this, and it looks like the problem is this: creature weapons are only used if you have *both hands* empty: in other words, you have to unequip all weapons *and shields* before creature weapons are used.

Let me know if this doesn't fix the problems you were seeing.