Thats right, i want to discuss the druid class. Alot of people on this mud seem to think that druid is a very powerful and unbalanced classo, second opinion is very true, first one isnt really so.
Now i havent been playing higher level druids, but i did play it through all the newbie levels till 2x40.
Now im not going to talk about abilities of the forms, its a different story, what really bothers me is the Normal characters powers (ac, spells, skills, damage) versus shapeshifted characters powers.
Now there are 19 forms, forms starts with a ferret with a single attack and +9ac and at a single 40 you can shift into a wurm with 4x extremely hard attacks and -7ac, at 2x40 you can shift into a naga which has -8ac and 4x massacre/extreme attacks, and at 3x40 you shift into a dragon which has 4x massacre attacks and -9ac. Now you can presumably get shapeshiftable +stat eq to raise your stats when you are shifted - but there is almost none, you can presumably get ARMOR equipment - but again, there is not enough eq even to get you an extra -1ac point, now this is understandable because if there was - people with dragon form would be running -11ac at 3x40 with iron skin, immortals obviously dont want that. But herein lies the question - should low level forms be capped because high level forms will become stronger if there is alot of +stat and armor shapeshiftable equipment.
Now let me give you an example of how stupidly everything is oraginised
Dragon -9ac (3x40), Naga -8ac (2x40), Wurm -7ac(1x40), Wyvern -6ac (36), Roc -5ac (34), Croc -4ac (32), Elephant -3ac (30), Griffon -2ac (28), Cobra -1ac (24) Sealion 0ac (22), Hawk +1ac (20)
Now, at level 20, a warrior prime can actually be running -7ac!!! while druid in his form is actually running +1ac with 2 extreme attacks - and there is absolutely nothing to change it!!!!!! Of course a druid with relatively good stats and say being warrior second can be running -7ac and doing much more damage w/o ever using shapeshift untill level 38 when he gets wurm form, but at level 38 a warrior prime is already at -9ac if not -10 with iron skin. Of course having a dragon form at 3x40 is nice, but how about lowbie druids? Are we not to use shapeshift at all?
I have no clue why was it done this way, was it done to balance something else, or was it just never thought about,but the solution looks pretty simple to me. Since ac and damage and probably everything else is stat dependant while you are shifted, why not make a whole new bunch of +stat eq and make a stat cap of 18 on all the forms, so even a lowbie with a hawk form would have a chance to get nice AC with enough equipment to raise his dexterity from 14 to 18 and would have a chance to get somewhat decent AC, or to get a decent damage get a lot of str eq?