When the alternate class features and the wildfire druid UAs came out Crawford spoke in a video about potentially giving druids pre-made scaling wild shape forms and how that would allow them to make those forms stronger and more unique instead of having to balance 100 different beasts.
I'm thinking of homebrewing such a system, basing it on both the new alternate ranger companions and the new summon spells.
My first thoughts were to have a nonspecific scaling tiny creature as a base and allow the druid to customize it, gaining more options as they level like choosing between wings or claws (the chimera building system from Theros comes to mind)
The main problem I see with that system is that it can easily make the druids turn last ages if they have to decide on every little aspect of the transformation every time they want to use it. The solution that comes to mind would be to use a broader range of pre-built forms with fewer choices (like the choices for the new summon spells) but that might make it too restrictive.
I'd love to hear any inputs, suggestions, or thoughts from the community on how to make this fun without slowing the game down too much. Also if anyone else attempted something like this before I'd love to see the results!
To keep it manageable what I'd maybe do is have this be in addition to regular wildshape, i.e- you can always turn into a regular beast you're aware of, but in addition to that you'd have a limited number of "specialist forms", maybe limited by proficiency bonus or Wisdom modifier?
The player would prepare each new specialist form as they gain a slot, and can swap one out during a long rest; this way all the preparation is done before using it, so the player is encouraged to do it outside of a session, or in the background, rather than in the moment when they use the shape.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I really like this solution, it fixes the issues without making it less fun to play with!
I'm gonna try and tinker a bit with this, see if it doesn't get too complicated. with different sizes and stuff on a single base, otherwise, I might try creating more than one base creature, but try and keep them as generic as possible.
Thanks you very much!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
When the alternate class features and the wildfire druid UAs came out Crawford spoke in a video about potentially giving druids pre-made scaling wild shape forms and how that would allow them to make those forms stronger and more unique instead of having to balance 100 different beasts.
I'm thinking of homebrewing such a system, basing it on both the new alternate ranger companions and the new summon spells.
My first thoughts were to have a nonspecific scaling tiny creature as a base and allow the druid to customize it, gaining more options as they level like choosing between wings or claws (the chimera building system from Theros comes to mind)
The main problem I see with that system is that it can easily make the druids turn last ages if they have to decide on every little aspect of the transformation every time they want to use it. The solution that comes to mind would be to use a broader range of pre-built forms with fewer choices (like the choices for the new summon spells) but that might make it too restrictive.
I'd love to hear any inputs, suggestions, or thoughts from the community on how to make this fun without slowing the game down too much. Also if anyone else attempted something like this before I'd love to see the results!
I like the idea!
To keep it manageable what I'd maybe do is have this be in addition to regular wildshape, i.e- you can always turn into a regular beast you're aware of, but in addition to that you'd have a limited number of "specialist forms", maybe limited by proficiency bonus or Wisdom modifier?
The player would prepare each new specialist form as they gain a slot, and can swap one out during a long rest; this way all the preparation is done before using it, so the player is encouraged to do it outside of a session, or in the background, rather than in the moment when they use the shape.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I really like this solution, it fixes the issues without making it less fun to play with!
I'm gonna try and tinker a bit with this, see if it doesn't get too complicated. with different sizes and stuff on a single base, otherwise, I might try creating more than one base creature, but try and keep them as generic as possible.
Thanks you very much!