Now it is the druid’s turn to make his presence known. He moves closer and casts adrenaline surge (2nd level, MOTW), giving each Orca a +4 bonus to strength. Next he tries to weaken the Kraken with a languor spell (4th level, MOTW). The save DC is 22. Let’s see what the Kraken gets…a natural 17 makes it an easy save for the Kraken with its +16 Will save. And the Kraken is now aware of the druid, who is only 70 feet away.

Orcas turn. They all attempt to grapple again. The Kraken directs its AoO against the wounded Orca D. It hits with a tentacle rake for 23 points of damage. The other three succeed in their touch attacks. How do the grapple checks go? Orca A’s 51 versus the Kraken’s 54 results in a miss. Orca B gets a 45 and the Kraken gets a 45, and the tie goes to Orca B due to its higher strength. Orca C doesn’t get lucky and scores a 46 to the Kraken’s 49. Orca B’s bite deals 33 points of damage to the Kraken.

The Kraken counterattacks again. First, it decides to shake off Orca B. No problem (61 versus 41). It decides to finish off Orca D and then lay into Orca C. Tentacle rake (18), Arm 1 (miss), Arm 2 (critical for 24 points). That’s 42 points of damage and the Orca is dying. The Kraken is not satisfied with "dying" Orcas, though, it wants DEAD Orcas, and so it attacks again – Arm 3 brings the Orca to -9 and the Kraken moves on to Orca C. Four attacks later, Orca C is bleeding from multiple slashing attacks from the tentacles (38 points of damage).

Damage dealt this round:                      Orcas: 33    Kraken: 198

Total damage dealt tally so far:             Orcas: 72        Kraken: 244

It's not looking too good for the druid and his Orcas. They better get crackin'next round!  heh heh...ugh.

I am going to use an underwater combat example to exemplify the potency of druidic magic. In this example, a 14th level druid needs to get to an underwater city that is being guarded by a Kraken. The druid has scried on this Kraken already and it is no run-of-the mill Kraken, it is really huge! Unfortunately, the druid's usual adventuring party is taking a vacation on Elysium and he is going to have to deal with it himself. First thing is first, he decides to cast cloak of the sea (5th level, from MOTW). You could also use a combination of water breathing (3rd level, PHB)and freedom of movement (4th level, PHB), but cloak of the sea lasts longer (1 hour per level). You could conceivably do without these if you have the Natural Spell feat and you wanted to take the shape of a shark or porpoise. Next, our intrepid druid uses embrace the wild (4th level, MOTW) to get the porpoise's blindsight ability. If he was already in porpoise shape, he might get the shark's keen scent instead, it has a range of 180 feet or 1 mile for blood! Yes, you can use your wilderness lore to track with the special quality of keen scent.

It shouldn't be too hard to find the Kraken now, especially considering that it is around 150 feet long from tentacle to tip. Our druid decideds to maintain a tab on his be-tentacled foe with greater scrying (6th level, PHB). Our druid's keen sense of smell and echolocation should enable him to get the drop on the Kraken. He makes sure to cast hawkeye (2nd level, MOTW). It confers a +5 competence bonus to the spot skill.  As our druid descends to the depths, he is also casting his other "power-ups" such as  barkskin (2nd, PHB), spikes (3rd, DOTF), magic fang (3rd PHB), speak with animals (2nd, PHB) and anything else that seems like a good idea (e.g., fire seeds, protection from fire).

The druid detects the Kraken from a distance before the Kraken is even aware of him. Boy is that sucker huge! Our druid assumes his normal form and invokes his boots of speed (He's 14th level, remember? He has cool stuff! Actually, the boots of speed are optional). He waits a moment to time the attack correctly...Now! From a distance of 120 feet (the limit of his blindsight), he casts summon nature's ally VII and selects Orcas, a level V creature. Because Orcas are two steps lower than his maximum summoned creature level 1d4+1 Orcas will answer the call. Let's roll...a three! Excellent! Plus one equals four. Four Huge Orcas show up and immediately rush to attack the Kraken (which is flat-footed, err...tentacled). Our druid conjured up the Orcas 70 feet from himself (at maximum range) and 50 feet from the Kraken.  Since the druid is hasted by his boots of speed, he can cast a follow-up spell right away: animal enlargement.

Let's pause to take a quick look at the Orca's stats before and after they are enlarged.

Orca (Huge)
AC 16 / Attack: Bite +12 / Damage: 2d6+12 / HD 9 / HP 85 / Str. 27, Dex 15, Con 21 / Speed: 50 / Saves: +11 / +8 / +5

Orca (Garagantuan/Enlarged)
AC 18 / Attack: Bite +25 / Damage: 2d8+18 / HD 18 / HP 206 / Str. 35, Dex 15, Con 25 / Speed: 50 / Saves: +18 / +13 / +8

What a difference a spell makes, eh? So, back to the action. Our Kraken is now aware that it is being attacked by four Gargantuan Orcas. Depending on how the summoning went they might have already been able to attack. Our druid preferred to stay out of sight of the Kraken and have the Orcas rush forward. Roll initiatives...a 22 (20+2) for the Orcas, a 19 (15+4) for the Kraken, and an 18 (13+5) for the druid. If the Kraken had gotten the initiative, it would have been best for it to try to flee, even though it has 30 HD and 435 hit points -- that would be be its best chance to live today.

Our intrepid druid is now instructing the orcas to grapple the Kraken. It will be relatively easy for the Orcas to hit the Kraken (rolling...yep...all four hit). However, grappling does incur an Attack of Opportunity, which the Kraken makes with one its nasty barbed tentacles...oh, a critical! The 23 points of damage is doubled to 46 points of damage. That hurts! It also breaks the grapple attempt from one of the orcas. The other three push ahead. Orca A gets a 5, ugh, plus strength and BAB gives it a 42. The Kraken gets an 18 with the strength and BAB it is 55. Sorry, Charlie. You'll have to try again. Orca B gives a go with a 20 on the opposed grapple check! Add in strength and BAB for a total of 52. The Kraken rolls a 6 for a total of 43. Orca B has a hold and does normal biting damage but it's only 14 points...minimum damage. Orca C rolls its grapple check, a 6, total is 38. The Kraken rolls a 1, for a total of 38. The win goes to the creature with a higher Strength which is...the Orca (35 vs. 34)! Damage is 15 points...sheesh can we roll something above a three, here?

The damage dealt tally so far:    Orcas: 39    Kraken: 46

Tune in later this week for The Kraken counterattacks!

Like the other class books, Masters of the Wild opens up with a brief overview of each class.  We get a quick discussion of the class's role in the world, strengths and weaknesses, and then an overview of how well each race falls into the roll.  A nice touch that i haven't seen before is a quick look at non-standard races for each class (such as lizardmen for druids).  It then moves on to the class's opinions towards each class.  All in all, it is mildly useful.  Where this chapter really shines though is the special sections devoted to eack class.  Barbarians get a discussion on Raging, when to do it and when not to.  Druids get a total rewrite of Wildshape that makes it much more streamlined and actually makes it a little more powerful in my opinion. You will find a discussion of useful wildshape animal forms for different situations and levels.  Rangers get a Urban Ranger Variant (more at home in the city than in the woods) as well as a discussion of favored enemy selection plus some variant rules for it as well.

Chapter Two is Skills and Feats.  It starts off with a bang giving us a bunch of new tricks to teach out animal companions.  theres also rules for tailing someone though the city with hide, and covering tracks with wilderness lore to hinder being followed.  then we move into feats.  there are 42 new feats and virtually all of them are excellent.  my personal favorites: natural spell, which allows for casting while in animal form, though you still must provide the material componants.
Instantaneous Rage, whic hallows you to rage at any time, even when it's not your turn and even after you know something is gonna hurt you, but before damage is applied.  there's also a good number of wildshape related feats giving us a number of new ways to use it.

Chapter Three is Tools of the Trade.  it opens with a number of new exotic weapons.  in my opinion these are really unneccesary.  most are pretty silly, ranging from a caber (a 100 lb log you fling at people) to the winch crossbow which should have been in song and silence isntead, to the Ankus, which is used to herd elephants.  However this chapter takes a turn towards the light as we move into new magic items.  A couple of magic item attributes stand out nicely here: the Wild bonus to armor (+3) which allows the armor to remain effective when you wildshape; and the Hunting attribute, a +1 enhancement which doubles a rangers bonuses vs his favored enemy.  also nifty are a pair of collars for animal companions, one that raises thier saves, the other which increases the number of tricks they can learn.  Kinda interesting as well, rules for standing stones, which allow druids to cast a certain spell as if they we empowered, enlarged, and extended as long as they are touching the stone.  WOW! though in case you didn't get it, standing stones aren't exactly easy to move around.  The chapter ends with rules for infusions.  infusions rock.  basically a druidic method for writing scrolls using edible herbs instead.  VERY NIFTY.

Chapter Four is a great read, all about animals.  to start off we get three and a half pages devoted to animal companions.  everything is covered here, from care and feeding, to how they act while adventuring, how they respond to the party, and how to train 'em.  we also get a "ritual" that allows a druid to spend 250 xp to increase his animal companions strength.  the animal gets +1 hd providing they have an advancement range that would allow it.  nice.  there is also a good overview of awaken.  Six new dire animals are covered (phear my Dire Toad!).  Then we see a handfull of legendary animals.  legendary animals are basically extremely powerful versions of normal animals that are created specifically by nature to act as animal companions for high lvl druids.  otherwise they are EXTREMELY rare to simply be found wandering the woods.

Chapter Five covers prestige classes.   the largest section of the book, we get 20 prestige classes, though it's more like 35 since two of them are actually half a dozen different prc's in one (animal lord is different depending upon what animal you choose, everything from the requirements to enter to the benefits you recieve).  since i mentioned it, i'll just say that animal lords are VERY cool, not overly powerful, but tons of fun.   While most the Prestige Classes we get seem pretty balanced and very flavorful (yay oozemasters!) there is also one that kinda irks me.  It just seems to be that the Forsaker PrC is simply over the top.  In exchange for swearing off all magic they gain ability bonuses every level, damage reduction (up to 11/+5), spell resistance, fast healing, and a number of other bonuses.  scary.  but all in all we get some really good stuff here, and there's something for everyone, barbarians, druids, rangers, good guys and bad guys alike.

Chapter Six is the final chapters and probably the most immediately useful to existing characters: SPELLS!  there are tons of new spells here, more than i care to count at the moment (2-10 per level from 0 to 9) and some are even useable by classes not covered i nthe book (wizards, sorcerers and clerics).  we get some amazingly useful regeneration healing spells (nothing like healing someone for 15 points with a lvl 1 spell, 1 point at a time over the course of 15 rounds), as well as some increased damage spells (a lvl 2 spell that does 6d6 points over 3 rounds).  theres also a lot of generically useful spells like feathers that transforms a group of willing friends into birds, might of the oak (+4 str, -2 dex), forest fold (+20! to hide and move silent).

hands down this book is a must have for any druid.  rangers and barbarians prolly won't find nearly as much useful stuff here, but i would still reccomend it for both classes.  on a scale of 1 to 5 i give it:

                                for rangers: 4.5
                                for barbarians:  4.5
                                for druids: 9

For an average of 6.  gotta have it.  go get it.  hell, buy two so you can loan one to a friend and still have your copy when you need it.