I love druid especially druid of the moon. But yeah I kind of agree they are boring in combat at least, for RP hell no. Things I dont like about druid is you cant really multiclass cause you are missing out on good druidic feats like living forever(this doesn't really matter), Spellcasting in shapeshift form (this is pretty much a must) and shapeshifting infinitely (also a must cause you basically cant die in combat cause of this). Now all those feats come in the super late levels. Also at lvl 17 you gain access to shape change which pretty much allows to become a dragon or something other than the basic animals. And if circle of the moon you get the ability to cast alter self at 14, become a master of altering yourself. This sounds amazing right but most D&D campaigns dont get to these high ass levels, Heck I ask my DM if we getting to these high ass levels he said "that's up to you guys" while just this week he said "mwahaha you will all die". He most likely isnt wrong we are currently in a dungeon with no way out cause some door closed on us and I already used up 1 of my shapeshift charges well two since I'm currently in snake form and we are currently in a boss room so this might actually be the end for everyone especially since we cant rest while enemies are around I'm only lvl 6. On a side note we aren't leveling based on experience, we are leveling based on main story progression which is kind of annoying since a lot of times people start doing random side quest. Anyways as you level older wildshape form tend to become obsolete in combat. So what I'm trying to say is in combat they are a bit lack luster, I think to fix this I would say make it so you get those feats earlier but that probably wouldnt be balanced although they should change the spellcasting ins shapeshift form to be able to use spells from any class not just druid so if you are multiclass and maybe put this slightly earlier level so you can multiclass effectively. Other than that the main thing I would like to happen is change the animal so they ether gain new abilities as you level and or gain better stats so they aren't completely useless. Example for cats or feline family they are so good at sneaking that they become invisible, or give them prowl (this one makes it so they are invis aslong as you aren't in 5ft range of them, if you are 5ft you can see them. While they are invis/prowl they can use pounce/claw combo and get maybe a crit on their attack or add a base sneak attack mod. Or make it so when you level all of their skills level up too so eventually a cat can have a +10 in stealth. I basically stole the idea from WoW. I main a druid. All this being said I still love my druid it's just a bit of a slow start for the fun to happen.
If you're playing a moon druid and you find combat boring, you're not moon druiding right.
You can summon a whole pack of animals and then send them after the bad guy while you shift into a rat and hide in a corner. You can turn into a dire wolf, get advantage on attacks when attacking with the other melee guys, and constantly trip someone so they get smacked around. Your attacks are magical in animal form. You can tank or provide solid secondary DPS in an animal form.
You don't need to buff the class. They're already very good.
I can see how somebody playing a moon druid boring in combat. Because you might have different forms overall your turns are "I attack this person. I attack that person. I move here and attack this one." It's the same reason some have problems with playing martial characters in general and why the Battle Master is perceived as better and is more popular than say the Champion.
I stop summoning wolf packs cause having 8 wolfs took to long of a turn(even with a macro since I play online). Didn't make it fun for anyone. And I would of let them control it but it still would have been long of a turn and we would just end up attack the same people. Also my character isn't the type to hide while the animals attack. But lets say I do go rat that's 1 less wildshape slot on a rat which has 1 hp and no advantage in stealth checks no bonus to it ether so hiding wont work unless I'm super lucky. In wildshape/shapeshift you cant use items unless you have it so you drop your stuff on the floor everytime you transform (which would be super annoying cause you would have to pick it up or the dm might try to make it so someone steals from you when you aren't noticing), You cant use spells till 18 and those spells are only from druid class " you can cast many of your druid spells in any shape you assume using Wild Shape." which sucks if you want to multi class for 2 reason lvl 18 is high a.f and if you get there you wouldn't even be able to cast those spells in shapeshift. And I wanted them to buff the animals so there would be more choices in combat instead of dire wolf for advantage prone, cobra for single target cc. You also have to consider your character roots, where he/she been cause you cant transform into everything right off the bat. Like if I'm from the forest I cant become a scorpion/dinosaur unless I've seen it in the current campaign cause those things are not in the forest lol. So basically what I'm saying is I want more choice in animals cause right now there is probably only a hand full of usefull ones in combat. In RP anything is pretty much useful. The other thing is that I wanted the beast spells to come earlier cause I wanted to multi class into a sorc or warlock and be able to cast but even if I did i couldn't cast the spells from that school. I thought it would be funny if i could use the breath spell in wildshape form or turn invis, or use mirror image like im so quick that I make mirror images of myself (some pokemon shit). With warlock I could of made it apart of my story that I made a pact with a fey creature and it showed me the druid ways and now follows me on my adventures (pact of the chain). So I'm not saying give druids flat out dmg increase, what I'm saying is I want more options cause right now druid (of the moon atleast) I think is legit the only class you cant multiclass cause you'd be missing out on to much, and the animals need some new mechanics or something to get more choices. BTW I would never hide while my team is fighting. I would only hide if they are all "dead" so I can rez/heal them later when we de-agro
Also my character isn't the type to hide while the animals attack. But lets say I do go rat that's 1 less wildshape slot on a rat which has 1 hp and no advantage in stealth checks no bonus to it ether so hiding wont work unless I'm super lucky.
The benefit of going rat isn't the skill check it's the fact you're tiny and can go into places your enemies cannot follow. If you're in an urban area or sewers or something you have the advantage of being able to mix between other rats, like a "lost in the crowd" type of stealth and this would be highly effective as a rat since to most eyes rats are not visually unique like people are. If the enemy did not see you turn into a rat then it is not going to know that rat is you unless it would be super obvious, which in an urban/sewer environment it definitely won't be. You have to remember not everything relies on a dice roll bonus. Going rat can often be more effective than even the stealthiest rogue because it's a highly common and unassuming form so they could see the rat and would just outright ignore it: unless the enemy knows you are specifically a druid with an understanding of druid powers or saw you change into the rat then even if they see you they'll ignore you.
You also have to consider your character roots, where he/she been cause you cant transform into everything right off the bat. Like if I'm from the forest I cant become a scorpion/dinosaur unless I've seen it in the current campaign cause those things are not in the forest lol. So basically what I'm saying is I want more choice in animals cause right now there is probably only a hand full of usefull ones in combat. In RP anything is pretty much useful.
You are not limited to what you see in the campaign but yes you have to consider your background and what environments your character has likely been in. There is absolutely nothing forcing you to stick to "forest" background: nature is everyone, not just where there's lots of trees. There is a Desert option for Circle of Land, by the way. There is nothing to say your character did not learn their craft in a desert, or next to one. Take a look at your background and the environments your character would most likely have been in fore considerable time periods. Pretty much anything tagged in those environments you can consider yourself to have seen, with few exceptions. It's a talk to the DM thing. Most DMs are pretty free about it.
The other thing is that I wanted the beast spells to come earlier cause I wanted to multi class into a sorc or warlock and be able to cast but even if I did i couldn't cast the spells from that school. I thought it would be funny if i could use the breath spell in wildshape form or turn invis, or use mirror image like im so quick that I make mirror images of myself (some pokemon shit).
So... JUst cast the spell then wildshape? Can even do this on the same turn if a Moon Druid. You can maintain spells in wild shape form. So there is nothing stopping you casting Dragon's Breath or Mirror Image as an action then wildshape as a bonus if Moon Druid or using those spells as bonus as a Sorc with Quicken Spell metamagic and then using the action to wildshape. Only issue is for concentration spells if you get hit you make a concentration check, but if you have good Con, prof in Con or warcaster then this isn't a big deal, especially if in a form with good Con, like an Earth Elemental for Moon Druids.
Personally it doesn't seem like "druids are boring" but rather you just prefer something different or don't know how to play one effectively. I'm going with the latter since you seem confused on some features and how they work.
Please show me the macro cause when I do it I get very unlucky with role so i usually have to reroll(cause advantage lets you do that) 3-4 of them a lot of the time. That rat thing would have not worked for me that is too situational. And it'd be weird to shape shift in front of the enemy and for them to be like "oh it's just a rat..." Also I said my character is forest I know you dont have to be from the forest to be the druid but I checked what animals I wanted to be and what animals are the most optimal and most of them are in the forest. And my DM said you get all the animal forms from that area and what ever you see in the campaign. Which honestly makes the most sense if you are starting from levels 1-5. Also I'm usually forced to be a cc tank, so casting anything but conjure animals before wildshape wouldnt be helpfull to the team trust me I've tried sleet storm and it was not worth. Conjure animals is extra body, extra cc(most of the time) and extra dmg. and to get those spells I would need to dip 3 levels into sorc which would make me miss out on moon druids beast spells which is not worth it. And before you say something then why dont you just play sorc and use polymorph, polymorph cant be used till lvl 7, that means 6 full levels of no animal form so no fun rp trolling npcs or your teammates pretending to be a random mule. Not only that when you use polymorph none of your stats or feat's get carried over to the form like druid wildshape so you are animal that is dumb. Trust me I dont prefer anything else druid is and always will be my favorite class in any game. WoW, DCUO , it's the main class I go to. Shapeshifting is the best being whatever you want that's why when I hit lvl 17 I get shapechange and I'm becoming a dragon. I've already seen 1 dragon in the campaign and accepted the quest. I'm making my character become the face of the group and level 14 I can alter self so I can pretend to be enemies this could give me the enjoyment I'm missing for combat. But yeah the main reason I find it boring now is cause I'm forced to be a tank cause that's what we are missing in my current party. I dont want to be stuck to one role I want to be everything which is why I picked a druid. But since I'm tanking I'm usually going giant constrictor snake and I summon one also with conjure animals so I take constrict 1 enemy and my summon handles another. It's the same thing everytime it gets boring but that's legit the best option if I want the whole party to survive with little to no scratches. It's been working very good. But yeah the repetitiveness is boring (which is why i dont understand how people just spam eldritch blast every encounter, first few times wow nice dmg but then its boring a.f) also why I said I want better animal options, Giant snake has the most health I think at CR2 lvl 6 moon and the best single target cc which doesn't miss. This makes me want to homebrew some animals like a porcupine and have an attack where it spray it's quils at someone or on the ground so it can be a hazard making enemies take dmg and having a movement penalty. But yeah the only other class I want to play is something I'm holding out for another play through it's a sorc/warlock/rogue. It's going to be called Faceless Shadow. I'm going to play super greedy on that character. I might make the other players hate me when I play that but I dont care lol.
OK so on reading that I realise you miss the point on this thread which is to decide if the druid class is boring as a class as a whole compared to all other classes. This means outside of personal situation/preferences.
You are not finding "druid" a boring class. You are just finding it boring playing the tank role as a personal preference. This has nothing to do with the class: it's all on you. A druid is not forced to be a tank because of being a druid. A druid can be a large variety of things. You are thinking too much as a videogamer for "cc". and "dps" and such things. This is causing you to get stuck in a routine - you choices are being determined by efficiency rather than fun and interesting, so you often make the same choices over and over. If you're outside or in a big room, what is stopping you from casting Call Lightning and then choosing a fast wildshape form with good health? You can zap people and use the form for keeping you safe. Or indeed become an interesting form to fight in. Not just because of some feature it has, but perhaps just because it would look awesome? Perhaps become something another character can use as a mount: your speed as a mount will get you around the battlefield better, your action is used to zap lightning down while your rider uses their action for mounted attacks? Even if you get hit, if a moon druid you can heal yourself in wild shape form. Much more interesting than the same old thing, right? Is it more effective than wolf packs? Nope, but hot damn if it aint more fun!
Your party can adjust without you tanking. We have no tank in my campaign and we've gone from level 1 to 15. 5th edition is very adjustable game where the standard "party composition" is no longer restricted to the same old set ups. You can be an entire party of squishy casters or sneaky rogues and still have an absolute blast.
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On to the macros thing, are you using Roll20? I don't have my macros anymore as I haven't played my druid for quite a while but I can certainly recreate how I did some of them if you want to stick to the same-old "conjure wolf pack" method.
Well that's actually the thing for us that are real old school D&D players. We didn't just have tanks and dps and supports and you were only that spot to begin with. That stuff came around as video games and more importantly MMO style games became popular and the player bases blended together. I under stand the use for classifying your role but I've been one to argue that sticking just to those roles can be very limiting as well.
Druids are a fine example of exactly why they are limiting. Many ask for what is the single optimal form or the single best form in the greatest amount of situations so they can only turn into that. But the reality that Druid forms have more in common with a puzzle game in a strange way. Your Forms, your Spells, Your Class Features. They are all like key item pieces to different puzzles and as a bonus they are re-usable. Sometimes the best form for a combat encounter is not actually the most efficient one.
Let me explain what I mean a little bit. Imagine fighting around a chasm with a bridge in the middle. Perhaps your party has approached from one side and the enemy is approaching from the other (let's say Orc's for example). Spells like Vine Whip can be useful I this scenario to drag things off the bridge or with the some lucky geometry off the cliff side. If your party has decided to play defensively and keep off the bridge and make the enemy come to them you might cast movement affecting spells like Sleet storm on the bridge itself to make the crossing dangerous but also to filter down the enemies to fewer targets at a time. you might even be able to tactically take on a MUCH larger force this way. Depending on your level another thing you might be able to do is actually to Cast Call Lightning and rain down damage while taking a small flight form that might have few hit points but at a good range in a storm your hard to see and hit and your bringing the pain on enemies with lightning bolts every round while staying relatively safe. Another option is you could turn into something like a giant eagle and actually be snatching up opponents with decent grapple checks and actually tossing them off of the cliff side or knocking them off of the bridge. A Moon Druid could potentially turn into something like a Rhino or other charging creature and charge across the bridge to just bulldoze enemies out of the way and off the bridge (though I advise a mage or something as backup to rescue you in case the bridge breaks). Or there is even a better trick that you can try to pull if you have the level to pull it off. Hallucinatory Terrain to change how the enemy even perceives the chasm so they perhaps run into it before they expected or make it look somewhat wider than it is to funnel them even sooner into a more grouped up attack formation.
That same character could in a different setting such as a small cavern or dug tunnel could actually change into a spider or if you find an intersting burrowing creature. And actually walk around on the ceiling shooting webs to restrict people even more in an already restricted space or to make attacks in and out of burrow using the terrain to your advantage. With Moonbeam active a creature that can dig from just about any direction into that same tunnel and take the pre-casted spell shots at enemy could be extremely dangerous because it's hard to predict and could come up just about anywhere. Being able to avoid or disrupt defenses that the enemy force may be trying to put together. You could cast earth moving and shaping spells to actually potentially collapse tunnel parts on the enemies head Or open up holes underneath them. Create barriers for your party to take a moment to heal up and reread themselves. or even cause certain dangerous terrain conditions that might cause damage even up onto the walls because of the nature of a cavern or tunnel and then the fighter or monk or somebody else can actually use their own powers to knock enemies about into damaging hazards. Or if you really want to give your party a heart attack you could fill that cavern or tunnel with water with a certain couple of spells and then cast water breathing or other advantageous spells on your party to mitigate the dangers of the sudden environment shift on them. Tunnels and hallways are also fairly defendable by gust of wind to potentially block off an avenue of attack or even slow down pursuers so that your party can get away if that's the scenario you find yourself in.
And there are ideas just in these two scenarios that I haven't even covered that others could likely come up with. For example the last time my party had to face the chasm and bridge scenario. We actually lured much of the enemy onto a long bridge and then our Druid cast Wall of Fire at the opposite end with the damaging side of the wall aimed back towards the bridge and then our barbarian and cleric blocked the other end and slowly made their way across backed up by the wizard and the bard and forced the enemy into a choice. Brave the fires and take a bunch of damage or to face the barbarian and the cleric which were an intimidating pair with good AC's and backed up with healing in limited manageable numbers. The ranged and healers were mostly what got caught behind the fire wall and had to decide to risk jumping through onto the bridge without being able to see the bridge or sit as well as taking damage or to wait until the fires died out and prepare themselves to try and counter attack when it did. The fight was a little close a couple times but did end up working in our favor. But the DM admitted after it wasn't quite where and quite how he expected the counter to be based on how we play. He expected us to take the fight on our side of the bridge to keep distance and wall of fire was a new spell for us this time around and he had prepared his npc casters with that and the expected ability to retreat in mind. But this was a tactic that used the Synergy of our specific group build to pull off and other specific groups can and will have their own.
Druids are fantastic casters if you're willing to do more than just melee; use Faerie Fire or Entangle to give your party Advantage on every hit (assuming failed saves), and they will love you. Wildshape is for so much more than just fighting; I recently had my druid turn into a cat to scout out an enemy camp, then later turn into a draft horse to haul people out of a pit trap. So much fun and versatility!
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"Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable." - Carl Jung
Yeah I play on roll 20. But yeah you're right I made the combat boring cause I pretty much separated the combat from the rp aspect of the game. I should look for fun ways to win fights instead of the "optimal" wa. That being said I would still like it if animals get new traits/skills as you/them level, this would probably make beast master ranger more fun and viable (also why do they get conjure beast instead of being able to tame two beast or command a beast higher than 1/4 rating, what ever that's a different topic). Maybe like every 2 levels felines could get a +1 to stealth.Or they could get a skill called prowl making them practically invis to anyone that is 10ft+ away from them then you could combine that with punce for like a stealth attack.
Conjure animals has different options. You can get eight CR 1/4 creatures, or four CR 1/2, or two CR 1, or one CR 2 if I recall correctly.
Most catlike beasts do have some pretty steep bonuses to stealth built in. Some also have darkvision.
Your wildshapes also do improve every few levels. You just have to use different shapes. (And it's possible you may have seen even, say, up to a wooly mammoth at CR 6 as part of your background...)
As soon as you can go Circle of the Moon you get CR 1. At CR 1 the Crag Cat is great - stealth plus a chance to reflect spells back at the caster. Brown Bear is also good, as is Dire Wolf and riding horse (if you need speed). Giant Spider can crowd control with web AND has blindsight, so you're effectively immune to darkness.
At level 4 you can get animals with swim speed - hello crocodile, giant octopus and (my favorite) giant toad - you can swallow an enemy whole and take them out of the fight.
At level 6 you're up to CR 2 creatures - giant elk, allosaurus, polar bear, and hunter sharks...
Level 8 lets you get creatures with flying speeds - giant eagle, quetzalcoatl, you name it.
Level 9 lets you bump to CR 3 - giant scorpion is lethal, three attacks, including two claws that grapple and a sting that does poison damage...
By level 10 you can shift to elemental forms - earth elemental is a massive tank AND can glide through dirt and rock. Water elementals can engulf and suffocate enemies.
Holy shit, I just read about a bit about crag cats, there skill sound sick good if I'm going against mages. They are unaligned and it would be weird if I just edit my back story just to say I've seen them but apparently they appear in storm kings thunder which I'm currently playing so I hope I get to see them soon. I seen a tressym but druid cant turn into them by normal means. Have to wait for shapechange at lvl 17
I am playing a moon druid in a campaign that starts tomorrow. He is a Yuan-Ti Pureblood, exiled from his home city in Chult. He believes his people have half the right idea with their focus on transformation and self-improvement but reasons that the current Yuan-Ti way cannot be the best way or his people would be on top and in control. By cultivating an intimate understanding of the natural world, rather than simply trying to set himself above it, he has begun to attain powers of malleability which, he believes, shall rival his peers. Reality itself is malleable, he figures - both without and within. I imagine that, like most of his people, his emotions are at least partially suppressed...except when he uses druidic magic, which opens his body, mind and spirit to such influences. This strikes him as almost being like a new sense - a new way to understand the world around him. To deliberately cut such a thing from oneself is, to his understanding, foolish and wasteful. Eliminating a sense to strengthen others can be done, yes - it is more powerful, however, to master all of one's senses and have them work together in harmony.
So that's where the character begins, at any rate. I named him Ophidius, of course, and he is working on thesis for his thoughts titled - naturally - Ophid's Metamorphoses. This seems to me a druid concept which gets away from the two most common druid types: the "tree-hugging hippy" and the "anarchic Social Darwinist, red in tooth and claw." We shall see.
I look forward to reaching level 10, so that Ophidius, in a moment of inspiration during combat, can opine "of course, in a world so cold, why not be utterly changed to fire?" And then he just transforms into a Fire Elemental.
I personally love the druid, I have played every class (except bard ) more than once and have had a blast doing so, but my favorite by a country mile is the druid. One of the main reasons I love the druid so much is that I love nature, I keep a captive ant colony, spend weeks hiking outside, and I'm even majoring in zoology, so I can really get in touch with the druid. Unfortunately, I feel that doing this is hard for a lot of players because the motives of a druid are so alien to most other classes, this is because they serve nature and but nature first leaving common human desires behind, a wizard, fighter, rogue, or bard could all be motivated by gold but not a druid, a druid will only seek out gold if it is imminently useful in some plan the druid is concocting. Their devotion to nature seems to also put them in conflict with civilization because civilization encroaches, with other players it would be easy to convince to save a town, if they are good they will do it because its the right thing to do, if neutral or evil a good bag of coin will do it, but a druid no matter their alignment will require a reason that doing so would help nature otherwise even a good druid would let an innocent town get wiped out. The reason is that to be a druid one devotes themselves entirely to the service of the natural world, losing part of their own humanity to become sort of an avatar of nature, there is no such thing as a selfish druid. A druid worth their salt will care more about the spiders, mosquitos, and centipedes of an area than the humanoid inhabitants. And because its so hard to roleplay a selfless force of nature that couldn't care less about politics, warlords, or wealth, most players just play druids as a wizard or cleric that loves nature (which is fine if your having fun).
Druids are fine, but they have to compete with Clerics as wisdom-based full-casters, and Clerics are just better. Clerics get Domain spells, divine channel, some of the best spells in the game and decent armour and weapon selection. Druids in comparison only have wild shape, all of their good spells require concentration, and the limit on "non-metal wepon and armour means they're stuck with leather and hide unless your GM is generous and allows scalemails or half-plates made of bone or crystal or wood Japanese-style.
Tasha and Xanathar made it blindingly obvious by basically transplanting Cleric mechanics (circle spells and alternative uses for wild shape) into Druid in order to make them seem comparable.
I would say druids are cool if you want to do things differently. They have lots of abilities that only get stronger, plus with wild shape there are many thing no other characters can really do. But if you want to play in a classic way of swords and spells a druid might not be too fun.
If you don't want to play a stereo typical Druid from a secret organization of Druids, you can always flavor the Druid into a Witch of the Wild... I've always seen Druids more as a Hedge Witches that learned their abilities on their own or were inherited of the sorts rather than someone from a Circle of Druids. Morgan from Dragon Age always struck me more as a Druid than Wizard... Ask your DM if it works...
A lot of the class background can be changed to match however you want to make a character, as long as you aren't breaking the game mechanics or rules.
Druids are fine, but they have to compete with Clerics as wisdom-based full-casters, and Clerics are just better. Clerics get Domain spells, divine channel, some of the best spells in the game and decent armour and weapon selection. Druids in comparison only have wild shape, all of their good spells require concentration, and the limit on "non-metal wepon and armour means they're stuck with leather and hide unless your GM is generous and allows scalemails or half-plates made of bone or crystal or wood Japanese-style.
While I agree with you that Druids have a mechanically clunky Medium Armor proficiency, I don't see how Wildshape compares badly to most Cleric divine channels. Having access to forms that can fly, that fit into small gaps, that can burrow, etc. are all useful. Their use might not be as straighforward as Channel Divinity because it takes a bit more imagination to use them well, but that's like saying that the Illusion school is automatically worse than Transmutation. Everyone's mileage may vary, but Wildshape in the right hands is as useful as most Channel Divinity options unless your DM is a very strict "by the book" kind of DM.
Think of Wildshape as getting two castings of the Fly spell but better in some ways b/c no need use your concentration slot. So cast a concentration spell, Wildshape to Giant Owl/Pteranadon/Eagle, and get out of there.
240 ft fly speed per round for 10 minutes. That's 24,000 ft (approx 4.5 miles) in 10 mins, for just a 1st level spell combined with 1 wildshape from the 2 per short rest you get. If you cast Longstrider (no concentration - 1 hour) that's even faster.
I love druid especially druid of the moon. But yeah I kind of agree they are boring in combat at least, for RP hell no. Things I dont like about druid is you cant really multiclass cause you are missing out on good druidic feats like living forever(this doesn't really matter), Spellcasting in shapeshift form (this is pretty much a must) and shapeshifting infinitely (also a must cause you basically cant die in combat cause of this). Now all those feats come in the super late levels. Also at lvl 17 you gain access to shape change which pretty much allows to become a dragon or something other than the basic animals. And if circle of the moon you get the ability to cast alter self at 14, become a master of altering yourself. This sounds amazing right but most D&D campaigns dont get to these high ass levels, Heck I ask my DM if we getting to these high ass levels he said "that's up to you guys" while just this week he said "mwahaha you will all die". He most likely isnt wrong we are currently in a dungeon with no way out cause some door closed on us and I already used up 1 of my shapeshift charges well two since I'm currently in snake form and we are currently in a boss room so this might actually be the end for everyone especially since we cant rest while enemies are around I'm only lvl 6. On a side note we aren't leveling based on experience, we are leveling based on main story progression which is kind of annoying since a lot of times people start doing random side quest. Anyways as you level older wildshape form tend to become obsolete in combat. So what I'm trying to say is in combat they are a bit lack luster, I think to fix this I would say make it so you get those feats earlier but that probably wouldnt be balanced although they should change the spellcasting ins shapeshift form to be able to use spells from any class not just druid so if you are multiclass and maybe put this slightly earlier level so you can multiclass effectively. Other than that the main thing I would like to happen is change the animal so they ether gain new abilities as you level and or gain better stats so they aren't completely useless. Example for cats or feline family they are so good at sneaking that they become invisible, or give them prowl (this one makes it so they are invis aslong as you aren't in 5ft range of them, if you are 5ft you can see them. While they are invis/prowl they can use pounce/claw combo and get maybe a crit on their attack or add a base sneak attack mod. Or make it so when you level all of their skills level up too so eventually a cat can have a +10 in stealth. I basically stole the idea from WoW. I main a druid. All this being said I still love my druid it's just a bit of a slow start for the fun to happen.
If you're playing a moon druid and you find combat boring, you're not moon druiding right.
You can summon a whole pack of animals and then send them after the bad guy while you shift into a rat and hide in a corner. You can turn into a dire wolf, get advantage on attacks when attacking with the other melee guys, and constantly trip someone so they get smacked around. Your attacks are magical in animal form. You can tank or provide solid secondary DPS in an animal form.
You don't need to buff the class. They're already very good.
I can see how somebody playing a moon druid boring in combat. Because you might have different forms overall your turns are "I attack this person. I attack that person. I move here and attack this one." It's the same reason some have problems with playing martial characters in general and why the Battle Master is perceived as better and is more popular than say the Champion.
I stop summoning wolf packs cause having 8 wolfs took to long of a turn(even with a macro since I play online). Didn't make it fun for anyone. And I would of let them control it but it still would have been long of a turn and we would just end up attack the same people. Also my character isn't the type to hide while the animals attack. But lets say I do go rat that's 1 less wildshape slot on a rat which has 1 hp and no advantage in stealth checks no bonus to it ether so hiding wont work unless I'm super lucky. In wildshape/shapeshift you cant use items unless you have it so you drop your stuff on the floor everytime you transform (which would be super annoying cause you would have to pick it up or the dm might try to make it so someone steals from you when you aren't noticing), You cant use spells till 18 and those spells are only from druid class " you can cast many of your druid spells in any shape you assume using Wild Shape." which sucks if you want to multi class for 2 reason lvl 18 is high a.f and if you get there you wouldn't even be able to cast those spells in shapeshift. And I wanted them to buff the animals so there would be more choices in combat instead of dire wolf for advantage prone, cobra for single target cc. You also have to consider your character roots, where he/she been cause you cant transform into everything right off the bat. Like if I'm from the forest I cant become a scorpion/dinosaur unless I've seen it in the current campaign cause those things are not in the forest lol. So basically what I'm saying is I want more choice in animals cause right now there is probably only a hand full of usefull ones in combat. In RP anything is pretty much useful. The other thing is that I wanted the beast spells to come earlier cause I wanted to multi class into a sorc or warlock and be able to cast but even if I did i couldn't cast the spells from that school. I thought it would be funny if i could use the breath spell in wildshape form or turn invis, or use mirror image like im so quick that I make mirror images of myself (some pokemon shit). With warlock I could of made it apart of my story that I made a pact with a fey creature and it showed me the druid ways and now follows me on my adventures (pact of the chain). So I'm not saying give druids flat out dmg increase, what I'm saying is I want more options cause right now druid (of the moon atleast) I think is legit the only class you cant multiclass cause you'd be missing out on to much, and the animals need some new mechanics or something to get more choices. BTW I would never hide while my team is fighting. I would only hide if they are all "dead" so I can rez/heal them later when we de-agro
Then you're using macros wrong. WHen I played druid with a summon wolf pack my "wolf" turns took about 15-20 seconds.
The benefit of going rat isn't the skill check it's the fact you're tiny and can go into places your enemies cannot follow. If you're in an urban area or sewers or something you have the advantage of being able to mix between other rats, like a "lost in the crowd" type of stealth and this would be highly effective as a rat since to most eyes rats are not visually unique like people are. If the enemy did not see you turn into a rat then it is not going to know that rat is you unless it would be super obvious, which in an urban/sewer environment it definitely won't be. You have to remember not everything relies on a dice roll bonus. Going rat can often be more effective than even the stealthiest rogue because it's a highly common and unassuming form so they could see the rat and would just outright ignore it: unless the enemy knows you are specifically a druid with an understanding of druid powers or saw you change into the rat then even if they see you they'll ignore you.
You are not limited to what you see in the campaign but yes you have to consider your background and what environments your character has likely been in. There is absolutely nothing forcing you to stick to "forest" background: nature is everyone, not just where there's lots of trees. There is a Desert option for Circle of Land, by the way. There is nothing to say your character did not learn their craft in a desert, or next to one. Take a look at your background and the environments your character would most likely have been in fore considerable time periods. Pretty much anything tagged in those environments you can consider yourself to have seen, with few exceptions. It's a talk to the DM thing. Most DMs are pretty free about it.
So... JUst cast the spell then wildshape? Can even do this on the same turn if a Moon Druid. You can maintain spells in wild shape form. So there is nothing stopping you casting Dragon's Breath or Mirror Image as an action then wildshape as a bonus if Moon Druid or using those spells as bonus as a Sorc with Quicken Spell metamagic and then using the action to wildshape. Only issue is for concentration spells if you get hit you make a concentration check, but if you have good Con, prof in Con or warcaster then this isn't a big deal, especially if in a form with good Con, like an Earth Elemental for Moon Druids.
Personally it doesn't seem like "druids are boring" but rather you just prefer something different or don't know how to play one effectively. I'm going with the latter since you seem confused on some features and how they work.
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Please show me the macro cause when I do it I get very unlucky with role so i usually have to reroll(cause advantage lets you do that) 3-4 of them a lot of the time. That rat thing would have not worked for me that is too situational. And it'd be weird to shape shift in front of the enemy and for them to be like "oh it's just a rat..."
Also I said my character is forest I know you dont have to be from the forest to be the druid but I checked what animals I wanted to be and what animals are the most optimal and most of them are in the forest. And my DM said you get all the animal forms from that area and what ever you see in the campaign. Which honestly makes the most sense if you are starting from levels 1-5. Also I'm usually forced to be a cc tank, so casting anything but conjure animals before wildshape wouldnt be helpfull to the team trust me I've tried sleet storm and it was not worth. Conjure animals is extra body, extra cc(most of the time) and extra dmg. and to get those spells I would need to dip 3 levels into sorc which would make me miss out on moon druids beast spells which is not worth it. And before you say something then why dont you just play sorc and use polymorph, polymorph cant be used till lvl 7, that means 6 full levels of no animal form so no fun rp trolling npcs or your teammates pretending to be a random mule. Not only that when you use polymorph none of your stats or feat's get carried over to the form like druid wildshape so you are animal that is dumb. Trust me I dont prefer anything else druid is and always will be my favorite class in any game. WoW, DCUO , it's the main class I go to. Shapeshifting is the best being whatever you want that's why when I hit lvl 17 I get shapechange and I'm becoming a dragon. I've already seen 1 dragon in the campaign and accepted the quest. I'm making my character become the face of the group and level 14 I can alter self so I can pretend to be enemies this could give me the enjoyment I'm missing for combat. But yeah the main reason I find it boring now is cause I'm forced to be a tank cause that's what we are missing in my current party. I dont want to be stuck to one role I want to be everything which is why I picked a druid. But since I'm tanking I'm usually going giant constrictor snake and I summon one also with conjure animals so I take constrict 1 enemy and my summon handles another. It's the same thing everytime it gets boring but that's legit the best option if I want the whole party to survive with little to no scratches. It's been working very good. But yeah the repetitiveness is boring (which is why i dont understand how people just spam eldritch blast every encounter, first few times wow nice dmg but then its boring a.f) also why I said I want better animal options, Giant snake has the most health I think at CR2 lvl 6 moon and the best single target cc which doesn't miss. This makes me want to homebrew some animals like a porcupine and have an attack where it spray it's quils at someone or on the ground so it can be a hazard making enemies take dmg and having a movement penalty. But yeah the only other class I want to play is something I'm holding out for another play through it's a sorc/warlock/rogue. It's going to be called Faceless Shadow. I'm going to play super greedy on that character. I might make the other players hate me when I play that but I dont care lol.
OK so on reading that I realise you miss the point on this thread which is to decide if the druid class is boring as a class as a whole compared to all other classes. This means outside of personal situation/preferences.
You are not finding "druid" a boring class. You are just finding it boring playing the tank role as a personal preference. This has nothing to do with the class: it's all on you. A druid is not forced to be a tank because of being a druid. A druid can be a large variety of things. You are thinking too much as a videogamer for "cc". and "dps" and such things. This is causing you to get stuck in a routine - you choices are being determined by efficiency rather than fun and interesting, so you often make the same choices over and over. If you're outside or in a big room, what is stopping you from casting Call Lightning and then choosing a fast wildshape form with good health? You can zap people and use the form for keeping you safe. Or indeed become an interesting form to fight in. Not just because of some feature it has, but perhaps just because it would look awesome? Perhaps become something another character can use as a mount: your speed as a mount will get you around the battlefield better, your action is used to zap lightning down while your rider uses their action for mounted attacks? Even if you get hit, if a moon druid you can heal yourself in wild shape form. Much more interesting than the same old thing, right? Is it more effective than wolf packs? Nope, but hot damn if it aint more fun!
Your party can adjust without you tanking. We have no tank in my campaign and we've gone from level 1 to 15. 5th edition is very adjustable game where the standard "party composition" is no longer restricted to the same old set ups. You can be an entire party of squishy casters or sneaky rogues and still have an absolute blast.
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On to the macros thing, are you using Roll20? I don't have my macros anymore as I haven't played my druid for quite a while but I can certainly recreate how I did some of them if you want to stick to the same-old "conjure wolf pack" method.
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Well that's actually the thing for us that are real old school D&D players. We didn't just have tanks and dps and supports and you were only that spot to begin with. That stuff came around as video games and more importantly MMO style games became popular and the player bases blended together. I under stand the use for classifying your role but I've been one to argue that sticking just to those roles can be very limiting as well.
Druids are a fine example of exactly why they are limiting. Many ask for what is the single optimal form or the single best form in the greatest amount of situations so they can only turn into that. But the reality that Druid forms have more in common with a puzzle game in a strange way. Your Forms, your Spells, Your Class Features. They are all like key item pieces to different puzzles and as a bonus they are re-usable. Sometimes the best form for a combat encounter is not actually the most efficient one.
Let me explain what I mean a little bit. Imagine fighting around a chasm with a bridge in the middle. Perhaps your party has approached from one side and the enemy is approaching from the other (let's say Orc's for example). Spells like Vine Whip can be useful I this scenario to drag things off the bridge or with the some lucky geometry off the cliff side. If your party has decided to play defensively and keep off the bridge and make the enemy come to them you might cast movement affecting spells like Sleet storm on the bridge itself to make the crossing dangerous but also to filter down the enemies to fewer targets at a time. you might even be able to tactically take on a MUCH larger force this way. Depending on your level another thing you might be able to do is actually to Cast Call Lightning and rain down damage while taking a small flight form that might have few hit points but at a good range in a storm your hard to see and hit and your bringing the pain on enemies with lightning bolts every round while staying relatively safe. Another option is you could turn into something like a giant eagle and actually be snatching up opponents with decent grapple checks and actually tossing them off of the cliff side or knocking them off of the bridge. A Moon Druid could potentially turn into something like a Rhino or other charging creature and charge across the bridge to just bulldoze enemies out of the way and off the bridge (though I advise a mage or something as backup to rescue you in case the bridge breaks). Or there is even a better trick that you can try to pull if you have the level to pull it off. Hallucinatory Terrain to change how the enemy even perceives the chasm so they perhaps run into it before they expected or make it look somewhat wider than it is to funnel them even sooner into a more grouped up attack formation.
That same character could in a different setting such as a small cavern or dug tunnel could actually change into a spider or if you find an intersting burrowing creature. And actually walk around on the ceiling shooting webs to restrict people even more in an already restricted space or to make attacks in and out of burrow using the terrain to your advantage. With Moonbeam active a creature that can dig from just about any direction into that same tunnel and take the pre-casted spell shots at enemy could be extremely dangerous because it's hard to predict and could come up just about anywhere. Being able to avoid or disrupt defenses that the enemy force may be trying to put together. You could cast earth moving and shaping spells to actually potentially collapse tunnel parts on the enemies head Or open up holes underneath them. Create barriers for your party to take a moment to heal up and reread themselves. or even cause certain dangerous terrain conditions that might cause damage even up onto the walls because of the nature of a cavern or tunnel and then the fighter or monk or somebody else can actually use their own powers to knock enemies about into damaging hazards. Or if you really want to give your party a heart attack you could fill that cavern or tunnel with water with a certain couple of spells and then cast water breathing or other advantageous spells on your party to mitigate the dangers of the sudden environment shift on them. Tunnels and hallways are also fairly defendable by gust of wind to potentially block off an avenue of attack or even slow down pursuers so that your party can get away if that's the scenario you find yourself in.
And there are ideas just in these two scenarios that I haven't even covered that others could likely come up with. For example the last time my party had to face the chasm and bridge scenario. We actually lured much of the enemy onto a long bridge and then our Druid cast Wall of Fire at the opposite end with the damaging side of the wall aimed back towards the bridge and then our barbarian and cleric blocked the other end and slowly made their way across backed up by the wizard and the bard and forced the enemy into a choice. Brave the fires and take a bunch of damage or to face the barbarian and the cleric which were an intimidating pair with good AC's and backed up with healing in limited manageable numbers. The ranged and healers were mostly what got caught behind the fire wall and had to decide to risk jumping through onto the bridge without being able to see the bridge or sit as well as taking damage or to wait until the fires died out and prepare themselves to try and counter attack when it did. The fight was a little close a couple times but did end up working in our favor. But the DM admitted after it wasn't quite where and quite how he expected the counter to be based on how we play. He expected us to take the fight on our side of the bridge to keep distance and wall of fire was a new spell for us this time around and he had prepared his npc casters with that and the expected ability to retreat in mind. But this was a tactic that used the Synergy of our specific group build to pull off and other specific groups can and will have their own.
Druids are fantastic casters if you're willing to do more than just melee; use Faerie Fire or Entangle to give your party Advantage on every hit (assuming failed saves), and they will love you. Wildshape is for so much more than just fighting; I recently had my druid turn into a cat to scout out an enemy camp, then later turn into a draft horse to haul people out of a pit trap. So much fun and versatility!
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Yeah I play on roll 20. But yeah you're right I made the combat boring cause I pretty much separated the combat from the rp aspect of the game. I should look for fun ways to win fights instead of the "optimal" wa. That being said I would still like it if animals get new traits/skills as you/them level, this would probably make beast master ranger more fun and viable (also why do they get conjure beast instead of being able to tame two beast or command a beast higher than 1/4 rating, what ever that's a different topic). Maybe like every 2 levels felines could get a +1 to stealth.Or they could get a skill called prowl making them practically invis to anyone that is 10ft+ away from them then you could combine that with punce for like a stealth attack.
A few things:
Conjure animals has different options. You can get eight CR 1/4 creatures, or four CR 1/2, or two CR 1, or one CR 2 if I recall correctly.
Most catlike beasts do have some pretty steep bonuses to stealth built in. Some also have darkvision.
Your wildshapes also do improve every few levels. You just have to use different shapes. (And it's possible you may have seen even, say, up to a wooly mammoth at CR 6 as part of your background...)
As soon as you can go Circle of the Moon you get CR 1. At CR 1 the Crag Cat is great - stealth plus a chance to reflect spells back at the caster. Brown Bear is also good, as is Dire Wolf and riding horse (if you need speed). Giant Spider can crowd control with web AND has blindsight, so you're effectively immune to darkness.
At level 4 you can get animals with swim speed - hello crocodile, giant octopus and (my favorite) giant toad - you can swallow an enemy whole and take them out of the fight.
At level 6 you're up to CR 2 creatures - giant elk, allosaurus, polar bear, and hunter sharks...
Level 8 lets you get creatures with flying speeds - giant eagle, quetzalcoatl, you name it.
Level 9 lets you bump to CR 3 - giant scorpion is lethal, three attacks, including two claws that grapple and a sting that does poison damage...
By level 10 you can shift to elemental forms - earth elemental is a massive tank AND can glide through dirt and rock. Water elementals can engulf and suffocate enemies.
And so on...
Holy shit, I just read about a bit about crag cats, there skill sound sick good if I'm going against mages. They are unaligned and it would be weird if I just edit my back story just to say I've seen them but apparently they appear in storm kings thunder which I'm currently playing so I hope I get to see them soon. I seen a tressym but druid cant turn into them by normal means. Have to wait for shapechange at lvl 17
I am playing a moon druid in a campaign that starts tomorrow. He is a Yuan-Ti Pureblood, exiled from his home city in Chult. He believes his people have half the right idea with their focus on transformation and self-improvement but reasons that the current Yuan-Ti way cannot be the best way or his people would be on top and in control. By cultivating an intimate understanding of the natural world, rather than simply trying to set himself above it, he has begun to attain powers of malleability which, he believes, shall rival his peers. Reality itself is malleable, he figures - both without and within. I imagine that, like most of his people, his emotions are at least partially suppressed...except when he uses druidic magic, which opens his body, mind and spirit to such influences. This strikes him as almost being like a new sense - a new way to understand the world around him. To deliberately cut such a thing from oneself is, to his understanding, foolish and wasteful. Eliminating a sense to strengthen others can be done, yes - it is more powerful, however, to master all of one's senses and have them work together in harmony.
So that's where the character begins, at any rate. I named him Ophidius, of course, and he is working on thesis for his thoughts titled - naturally - Ophid's Metamorphoses.
This seems to me a druid concept which gets away from the two most common druid types: the "tree-hugging hippy" and the "anarchic Social Darwinist, red in tooth and claw." We shall see.
I look forward to reaching level 10, so that Ophidius, in a moment of inspiration during combat, can opine "of course, in a world so cold, why not be utterly changed to fire?" And then he just transforms into a Fire Elemental.
I personally love the druid, I have played every class (except bard ) more than once and have had a blast doing so, but my favorite by a country mile is the druid. One of the main reasons I love the druid so much is that I love nature, I keep a captive ant colony, spend weeks hiking outside, and I'm even majoring in zoology, so I can really get in touch with the druid. Unfortunately, I feel that doing this is hard for a lot of players because the motives of a druid are so alien to most other classes, this is because they serve nature and but nature first leaving common human desires behind, a wizard, fighter, rogue, or bard could all be motivated by gold but not a druid, a druid will only seek out gold if it is imminently useful in some plan the druid is concocting. Their devotion to nature seems to also put them in conflict with civilization because civilization encroaches, with other players it would be easy to convince to save a town, if they are good they will do it because its the right thing to do, if neutral or evil a good bag of coin will do it, but a druid no matter their alignment will require a reason that doing so would help nature otherwise even a good druid would let an innocent town get wiped out. The reason is that to be a druid one devotes themselves entirely to the service of the natural world, losing part of their own humanity to become sort of an avatar of nature, there is no such thing as a selfish druid. A druid worth their salt will care more about the spiders, mosquitos, and centipedes of an area than the humanoid inhabitants. And because its so hard to roleplay a selfless force of nature that couldn't care less about politics, warlords, or wealth, most players just play druids as a wizard or cleric that loves nature (which is fine if your having fun).
Druids are fine, but they have to compete with Clerics as wisdom-based full-casters, and Clerics are just better. Clerics get Domain spells, divine channel, some of the best spells in the game and decent armour and weapon selection. Druids in comparison only have wild shape, all of their good spells require concentration, and the limit on "non-metal wepon and armour means they're stuck with leather and hide unless your GM is generous and allows scalemails or half-plates made of bone or crystal or wood Japanese-style.
Tasha and Xanathar made it blindingly obvious by basically transplanting Cleric mechanics (circle spells and alternative uses for wild shape) into Druid in order to make them seem comparable.
I would say druids are cool if you want to do things differently. They have lots of abilities that only get stronger, plus with wild shape there are many thing no other characters can really do. But if you want to play in a classic way of swords and spells a druid might not be too fun.
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If you don't want to play a stereo typical Druid from a secret organization of Druids, you can always flavor the Druid into a Witch of the Wild... I've always seen Druids more as a Hedge Witches that learned their abilities on their own or were inherited of the sorts rather than someone from a Circle of Druids. Morgan from Dragon Age always struck me more as a Druid than Wizard... Ask your DM if it works...
A lot of the class background can be changed to match however you want to make a character, as long as you aren't breaking the game mechanics or rules.
While I agree with you that Druids have a mechanically clunky Medium Armor proficiency, I don't see how Wildshape compares badly to most Cleric divine channels. Having access to forms that can fly, that fit into small gaps, that can burrow, etc. are all useful. Their use might not be as straighforward as Channel Divinity because it takes a bit more imagination to use them well, but that's like saying that the Illusion school is automatically worse than Transmutation. Everyone's mileage may vary, but Wildshape in the right hands is as useful as most Channel Divinity options unless your DM is a very strict "by the book" kind of DM.
Think of Wildshape as getting two castings of the Fly spell but better in some ways b/c no need use your concentration slot. So cast a concentration spell, Wildshape to Giant Owl/Pteranadon/Eagle, and get out of there.
Mark of Passage Human Druid
Cast Expeditious Retreat
Wildshape into Giant Eagle
240 ft fly speed per round for 10 minutes. That's 24,000 ft (approx 4.5 miles) in 10 mins, for just a 1st level spell combined with 1 wildshape from the 2 per short rest you get. If you cast Longstrider (no concentration - 1 hour) that's even faster.
You'd be rather hard to catch.
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