Dragonborn Druids breathe fire in wildshape form?

[fissionessence]

Not really an optimal build considering no ability score bonus overlap with the druid's key scores, but . . .

Wildshape says, "While you are in beast form, you can't use attack, utility, or feat powers that lack the beast form keyword, although you can sustain such powers." No reference to not being able to use racial powers. The obvious one you can use is Elven Accuracy, but a shadar-kai or eladrin can teleport, a minotaur can turn into a small bull (or big weasel) and charge, and the coolest one IMO is that a dragonborn can breathe fire from his tiger form (or wolf, or hyena, or bear, etc.) The weirdest is the doppleganger, who can wildshape, then use Change Shape to look like "any Medium humanoid, including a unique individual" . . . while still being wildshaped!

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[Alisair Longreach]

A Dragonborn Druid cannot use his breathweapon in beastform because:

1. It is a racial attack power

2. The Dragon Breath power do not have the Beastform keyword.

3. It is cheese that deserves a smackdown.

 

[Runestar]

What's overpowering about being able to use your breath weapon while wildshaped? Rules conflicts aside, I am not quite seeing the imbalance...

 

[MarkB]

A Dragonborn Druid cannot use his breathweapon in beastform because:

1. It is a racial attack power

What's a racial attack power? I can't find any such thing in the PHB. Dragonborn breath attacks are a Dragonborn Racial Power according to their stat-block.

2. The Dragon Breath power do not have the Beastform keyword.

3. It is cheese that deserves a smackdown.

It's a racial power. Why is it cheesy for him to retain its use? Is it equally cheesy for a beastform halfling to use Second Chance?

 

[Fede]

A Dragonborn Druid cannot use his breathweapon in beastform because:

1. It is a racial attack power

2. The Dragon Breath power do not have the Beastform keyword.

3. It is cheese that deserves a smackdown.

1&2) It has the attack line, so i'd say it's an attack and it lacks the beast keyword, so i'd say that by RAW you can't use it while beastformed. But...

3) i totally disagree. Cheese? why? If (as other posters have said) an halfling or an elf can use their racial, why couldn't the dragonborn use it's own? It could also be thematic, for example, imagine a dragonborn druid shapeshifted in a snake beastform using a poison breath

 

[MarkB]

1&2) It has the attack line, so i'd say it's an attack and it lacks the beast keyword, so i'd say that by RAW you can't use it while beastformed.

That's not what defines an attack power. Attack powers are distinct from utility and racial powers in that they have the word Attack in their power type description.

The only Attack powers are those granted to you by your class as At-Will, Encounter and Daily powers.

 

[andarilhor]

As others had said: he can't use the power because it don't have the beast form keyword, but nothing a feat cannot fix!

 

[Byronic]

If I look at page 15 in the PHB I don't think it counts as an attack, utility or feat power. Therefore I believe it is allowed by RAW.

And I'd allow it even if it wasn't, it's not cheese at all.

 

[reticent]

"While you are in beast form, you can't use attack, utility, or feat powers that lack the beast form keyword, although you can sustain such powers."

Isn't English an awfully imprecise language? The strictest reading of that means when wildshaped the only powers you can use are feat powers that have the beast form keyword. Clearly that isn't the intent though.

Regardless, racial powers seem to be separate from attack powers even when the racial power is used to attack. Consider for example the Druid power Flame Seed which is a "Druid Attack 1" vs Dragon Breath which is a "Dragonborn Racial Power". Both are cosmetically similar attacks that lack the Beast Form key word but only one of them is expressly an "Attack" power.

I believe the intent of allowing racial powers to function in wildshape is based on the understanding that races are balanced with the racial powers in mind. Denying racial power access to a wildshape focused Druid would put even more emphasis on race selection with regards to character effectiveness compared with other the classes.

 

[MarkB]

"While you are in beast form, you can't use attack, utility, or feat powers that lack the beast form keyword, although you can sustain such powers."

Isn't English an awfully imprecise language? The strictest reading of that means when wildshaped the only powers you can use are feat powers that have the beast form keyword. Clearly that isn't the intent though.

That would be an inaccurate reading. The sentence is fairly simple - it refers to attack, utility and feat powers, and then it pares down the selection still further, to the subset of those particular powers that also lack the beast form keyword, saying that those powers may not be used in beast form, though they may be sustained.

Aside from that small subset of powers, the sentence doesn't mention any other powers at all, and therefore it has no bearing on whether other powers may or may not be used whilst in beast form.