I would like to create a magic item that grants 1 extra use of Wild Shape to a Druid (and possibly a single use of Wild Shape to a non-druid). I've run into some problems, and would love some help in making this work smoothly.

1. Ideally, I'd make the item and the item would directly grant an additional use to the existing Wild Shape ability, but I assume that'd be difficult to implement with the current system, so no worries.
2. The second-best option would be for the magic item to grant an Action which I can call Wild Shape, so a Druid player would see their normal Wild Shape with 2 uses, and an additional Wild Shape action with 1 use - but magic items can't grant Actions, apparently.
3. My 3rd option would be to make a Feat (which can grant an Action that behaves as above), and have the magic item grant that Feat - except magic items can't grant homebrew Feats for some reason.
4. My 4th option is to make a Spell called Wild Shape, which the item grants the user, costing 1 charge from the item. I did that, initially setting it as a Cantrip (but costing 1 charge) as I didn't want it trying to interact with spell slots. Realizing that would be listed under spells as "at will", I edited the spell to be a 1st level spell, but even after deleting & re-adding the item to a character, the spell it grants is still listed as an at will cantrip, no matter what level I've actually set the spell to.

The spell thing aside, I really, desperately want to just have the item grant the Action, or have the item grant the homebrew Feat I made. That gets the best user experience (ie. "oh look, more Wild Shape uses right where I find my normal ones"). How is it that items can't grant Actions in the current setup? How many canon items say "You can do the thing 3 times / day" or something similar?

This feature is apparently already being requested:

• Custom Actions for Magic Items
• Custom Actions for Homebrew Magic Items
• Add Limited-Use Abilities to Magic Items

Is there a way to make my item work well that I've overlooked?

1. Subclass, feats, magic items, races and so on cannot directly edit/change a base class feature beyond what has already been officially released. This is probably going to remain true until homebrew classes are coded up and that's a long ways off.

2. Magic Items cannot grant actions yet. It's something the devs are planning to look into. It'll happen, just not yet as they've got other stuff to prioritise at the moment.

3. Magic Items cannot grant feats. A feat, when used as intended, is something your character has learned how to do - it's part of them. Conceptually it is not something granted by items, although items may impart knowledge and abilities, they do not do so permanently. A feat is something your character learned or gained on their own and is therefore permanent. This is why items were never designed to be able to grant feats. Therefore this will never be implemented. It makes it harder for us to make workarounds but this is only until they get to upgrade the homebrew magic item system.

4. Set spell to 1st level, 1 charge cost and give item the charges you want. Edits take time to update in the system on character sheets - make the change, wait about 20 or so minutes, and check and the changes should be in place on the sheets now. However, this item will be unable to be published to public use as homebrew things cannot link/use other homebrew things when being published. You can still use it for private use and it can be shared with other players if you're all in the same campaign on here (no subs required).

-

If you want something to work better and it's just for a player in your game (or your own character) you can make the item without any modifiers and make a feat that adds the action with limited use data and whoever is getting the item can then just add the feat manually as well. Not perfect but will do what you intend.

As far as #3: Am I misinterpreting this?

Sort of. Yes the modifier is there. But no, it doesn't actually do anything.

Modifiers and so on are a shared list across the homebrew tools but some will only work for certain things and only in certain ways. The Homebrew tools are kind of a lite system of what Devs use to make official things. As a result, the system we get to use is imperfect, has stuff we don't have the rights to use (so they won't work when we try), and isn't fully organised.

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

... the system we get to use is imperfect, has stuff we don't have the rights to use (so they won't work when we try), and isn't fully organised.

 Ain't it the truth! 

I got around some of the other problems by creating a feat and an item to share a name, and I have to just add both to my character sheet.  Similar with some class features, like the Runeknight Fighter.  I expanded the rune selections to include the rest of the Giant alphabet and entered each one as a feat that provides a limited use bonus action.  It ends up blending into the character sheet very nicely, but it was a heck of a lot of trial and error to figure out how all the various options show up on the sheet.

Quote from yourmajesty18>>

It ends up blending into the character sheet very nicely, but it was a heck of a lot of trial and error to figure out how all the various options show up on the sheet.

 Isn't that the fun part though?