Hey everyone.

I'm a new DM, just starting my first campaign, me and the other players all played before and experienced to some extent.

One of my players pitched an idea for his character that he wants to be a druid that got cursed to be stuck in wild shape.

I think it's an intresting idea, but I'm trying to think of how it would work mechanically. And also trying to make it so that the player can continue to role play.

My current idea is that when he tries to get out of wild shape he roles a d20 and he gets 10% chance to get stuck, which increases by 10% everytime he succeeds and resets on failure. And the only way for him to get out of it is if he dies in wild shape.

But this might endup as the other players simply bashing his head in everytime after a fight when he is stuck. At the same time I'm a bit worried at the role play aspect  as if he is stuck, he can't speak and that might become boring quickly.

Any suggestions or ideas is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

I think the easiest thing would be to say he got stuck halfway in his wildshape, then pick one of the animal type races: tabaxi, griff, owlin, leonin, loxodon, there’s lots of them. Even more if you add in the humblewood races they just added. Then, they can just play a Druid trying to rid themselves of the curse. If they do, have them revert to human or elf or whatever. Or they just decide they like being part animal.

As a new DM, I’d steer clear of homebrewing, and especially clear of adding in new mechanics, 

Thanks for the reply!

I understand your approach, but I'm not too worried about homebrewing, our previous campaign had a lot of homebrew stuff.

Anyway, I don't think playing a tabaxi would give the player what he is looking for.

To avoid problems with being permanently stuck in Wildshape, he reverts to normal after a long rest. Maybe could also have a, say, 50% chance of reverting after a short rest. 

You've already identified the obvious way out - dropping to 0 hp.

I've tinkered with a subclass for druids focused on flipping wildshape so that the beast form is the default form. There are several issues with doing this:

• This is hard to scale just using offical beasts because they thin out a lot at higher levels. WS as-is is designed to be a temporary form with low AC that many creatures can chew through pretty quickly. Beasts are also simply designed and can lead to pretty monotonous play as your viable options dwindle.
• You can't cast in beast form, which is a problem for a full spellcaster. Some way to convert spell slots to beast melee damage (similar to Divine Strike) can help you convert your casting power to beast power.
• Communication can be an issue, as you have mentioned.

I like that, I will suggest something similar to him and look into the backstory.

I though of a mechanic to make his curse kind of work.

Everytime they try to get out of wild shape, either voluntarily or by reaching 0 hp, they roll a d20, the starting DC is 2 and it increases by 2 everytime they succeed and resets on failure.

If they fail, they are stuck for the rest of the day, even if they reach 0 hp they roll saving throws as the wild shape.

After a long rest, they can try to get out again by rolling a d20 and the DC gets lowered by 1 after every long rest.

So if they fail on a DC 6, after a long rest the DC is 5, if they fail again the DC becomes 4 after another long rest, once they succeed the DC goes back to 2 the next time they wild shape.

But I'm planning to buff up his wild shapes a bit to balance it out, and will allow him to change his wild shape without reverting back to human form first, so he can use a wild shape charge to change himself.

But I like the idea of allowing him to cast spells in a specific wild shape.

But regarding the mechanic, do you guys think it's too complicated? Or too unfair?

they were a thri-kreen while they were a humanoid. they kept their racial telepathy