You can’t cast spells, and your ability to speak or take any action that requires hands is limited to the capabilities of your beast form.
Whilst actor feat states:
You can mimic the speech of another person or the sounds made by other creatures. You must have heard the person speaking, or heard the creature make the sound, for at least 1 minute. A successful Wisdom (Insight) check contested by your Charisma (Deception) check allows a listener to determine that the effect is faked.
So could a wild shaped druid actually speak with this feat?
Eg general no talking, to specific can make the right noises.
I'd imagine broken language (eg speak with your tongue out as limited noise making) or high pitched squealy voices but either talking or 'making the right noises' could communicate to the party, without having to use magic or telepathy! Just sounds fun!
This is a place where "specific beats general" has a bit of a problem because these rules don't really exist in a hierarchy that says this feat is more specific or less specific than this class feature.
I would expect that the feat allows you to mimic with your natural vocal ability, which wild shape still replaces with the beast's. You can do these things not because of some magical, physiology defying ability, but because you're an actor.
But there are plenty of other ways to gain communication in Wild Shape. Telepathic might be a better feat, allowing you to boost your wisdom rather than charisma.
While Actor modifies the properties of your speech, it is still speech, and must follow the limitations laid out in Wild Shape. Your ability to speak is limited by your beast form, and Actor does nothing to override this limitation.
I would probably argue that the portion of Actor that allows you to mimic creature soundscould still apply, as that would not be considered 'speaking' and wouldn't be limited by Wild Shape's rules.
If you're a player trying to do this to your character, I'd say this is a "talk to your DM" situation. I can see good arguments for both sides. On the one hand, the beast form can't speak, so one would expect that you couldn't "disguise your voice." But it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that you could mimic other animals' sounds in wild shape, so why not humanoids' voices? Either way, I think you need an animal which is capable of making noises in order to speak. You're not gonna speak in spider form no matter what the ruling says, because there is no way you can make that make sense.
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Panda-wat (I hate my username) is somehow convinced that he is objectively right about everything D&D related even though he obviously is not. Considering that, he'd probably make a great D&D youtuber.
"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair
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So druids with wildshape:
Whilst actor feat states:
So could a wild shaped druid actually speak with this feat?
Eg general no talking, to specific can make the right noises.
I'd imagine broken language (eg speak with your tongue out as limited noise making) or high pitched squealy voices but either talking or 'making the right noises' could communicate to the party, without having to use magic or telepathy! Just sounds fun!
(Still no spell casting it seems - pah)
This is a place where "specific beats general" has a bit of a problem because these rules don't really exist in a hierarchy that says this feat is more specific or less specific than this class feature.
I would expect that the feat allows you to mimic with your natural vocal ability, which wild shape still replaces with the beast's. You can do these things not because of some magical, physiology defying ability, but because you're an actor.
But there are plenty of other ways to gain communication in Wild Shape. Telepathic might be a better feat, allowing you to boost your wisdom rather than charisma.
While Actor modifies the properties of your speech, it is still speech, and must follow the limitations laid out in Wild Shape. Your ability to speak is limited by your beast form, and Actor does nothing to override this limitation.
I would probably argue that the portion of Actor that allows you to mimic creature sounds could still apply, as that would not be considered 'speaking' and wouldn't be limited by Wild Shape's rules.
If you're a player trying to do this to your character, I'd say this is a "talk to your DM" situation. I can see good arguments for both sides. On the one hand, the beast form can't speak, so one would expect that you couldn't "disguise your voice." But it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that you could mimic other animals' sounds in wild shape, so why not humanoids' voices? Either way, I think you need an animal which is capable of making noises in order to speak. You're not gonna speak in spider form no matter what the ruling says, because there is no way you can make that make sense.
Panda-wat (I hate my username) is somehow convinced that he is objectively right about everything D&D related even though he obviously is not. Considering that, he'd probably make a great D&D youtuber.
"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair