Does Force Spellpower affect Wolf/Bear form attack damage?

[HatsuharuZ]

Some druid attacks are listed as spells so there is a choice between spellcasting and melee. If you want all the attacks for Wolf, you give up spell slots for doing other things. You can change your mind in town, but not in the middle of a dungeon.

This mechanic, it seems to me, only makes problems for druid players. You see, these "attacks" are spells, and thus cannot be used when under the effects of rage, or under the effects of the beholder's anti-magic ability. It lowers the number of usable spells slots, which is not very relevant since druids have quite a few of those. As stated by others, the attacks-as-spells mechanic also prevents practical multi-classing and makes the druid weaker in melee. It makes sense for elemental form "attacks" to be spells, since they are clearly magical in nature. But bite and claw attacks? Pft.

Please consider changing this.

[PurpleTimb]

This mechanic, it seems to me, only makes problems for druid players. You see, these "attacks" are spells, and thus cannot be used when under the effects of rage, or under the effects of the beholder's anti-magic ability. It lowers the number of usable spells slots, which is not very relevant since druids have quite a few of those. As stated by others, the attacks-as-spells mechanic also prevents practical multi-classing and makes the druid weaker in melee. It makes sense for elemental form "attacks" to be spells, since they are clearly magical in nature. But bite and claw attacks? Pft.

Please consider changing this.

I completely agree. I've been trying to play a bear form druid tank, and this is just one of a long list of questionable design decisions that seriously gimp the bear form. If you need players to sacrifice a spell slot for some sort of "balance" then take away a spell slot while in animal form or take away a spell slot when the druid takes a new tier of Nature's Warrior or make shape shifting be a spell instead of a feat, lasting until the next time you rest. There are so many other ways you could implement this that (unlike live) would not gimp the animal form druid's abilities.

Please change druid melee attacks to be melee attacks and not spells.

[AzB]

Some druid attacks are listed as spells so there is a choice between spellcasting and melee. If you want all the attacks for Wolf, you give up spell slots for doing other things. You can change your mind in town, but not in the middle of a dungeon.

And why does the wolf spell "takedown", which uses wis as the dc modifier, share a cooldown with trip, a tactical feat based on str?

It makes no sense.

What would have made a lot more sense would be to put spell point and spell power enhancements in the caster tree, and put animal attacks in the melee tree.

Because now we have non caster melee wolves that can't attack in an anti-magic shield, take forever to take down the training dummy, and can't alternate trip and takedown.

And we have caster druids who have spells memorized that they never use because there aren't enough 8 and 9th level spells that aren't melee based to fill up our spell list. Add in the fact that EDs and SLAs replace several other 8 and 9th level spells, and you've got druids that rarely cast level 8 and 9 spells.

That can't possibly be what was planned.