i have a player who wants to ride the Druid in beast shape (with the druids permission) .... my question is how does this effect the Druids speed .... the beast will be large and the player is medium .... does the druids speed get halved by letting a player ride him ? What if a small player rides him ?
I believe horses are large, and players are medium. Riding a horse imposes no movement penalty on the horse, so it's the same with a player. Remember in your situation that they both have full, independent turns from each other. It sounds like a fun idea!
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
The only requirement is that the mount be one size larger than the rider and have "appropriate anatomy" to accept a rider. There is no speed reduction.
If you're thinking it's overpowered in some way, there are some costs to riding in this way. It takes the rider 1/2 movement to mount or dismount. You can only mount or dismount once a turn. Any forced movement of the mount will force a DC 10 Dex save with the rider falling off and landing prone on the ground if they fail.
Really the only thing the rider gains here is maybe a quick way to the battlefield and "free" disengages.
The Druid will be classified as an "An independent mount".
I did this in a game, it started out as necessity because my WildShape was 10' and so was the hallway. It then became a joke, and finally the Fighter in our group took "Mounted Combat" feat at 4th lvl. It was amazing!
The hardest thing in it is coordinating turns during a round. Remember because the Druid has it's own Init the mounted character can't voluntarily move! So it's very possible they are out of position and might need to Ready an Attack. Sadly Ready Attacks don't get the benefit from Extra Attack.
Real Talk: The part I considered the most OP is that while being ridden by a character with the Mounted Combat feat, The Rider can force the enemy to target them instead of the Mount. Druid's Wildshapes are great on the offense, but have terrible defense. Having a heavily armored and shielded character riding me meant that he could direct attacks away from my low AC, making my Wild Shape last longer. In addition against any target that was medium the Rider get's Advantage on all attacks. In addition because he could do that, I picked up Sentinel at 4th level. So when the enemy's couldn't target me as part of Mounted Combat, I got a Reaction attack against then.
Other useful things was I would often turn into a Female Steeder, before one of the new books changed them to Monstrosities instead of Beast (special F* you to that developer!). They had less hitting power, but they had great mobility.
I'm playing a Circle of the Moon Druid right now and we're planning on having one of the other characters ride me into combat at some point. The OP synergies that FullMetalBunny is mentioning have a cost because both characters have to take feats for them to work. They're nice, but they lock two characters into working together in combat or else they've both wasted an ASI.
It is fun! My cleric (with the spell sniper feat) was able to ride on the back of our Druid as a horse to keep shooting at with a fleeing Orc riding a giant bat with a possible kidnapping victim. The awesome thing was the Druid ran up to where I was, threw down the Horse Shoes of Speed she had been carrying, dove between my characters legs and then transformed into a horse with the shoes attached (DM allowed this out of cinematic coolness). A couple athletics/acrobatics checks later, I was on horseback and we were in hot pursuit.
There is another OP synergy that only works when mounted, and it is dual wielding lances.
Since the Dual Wielder feat lets you dual wield any 1-handed weapons, and lances are 1-handed while riding a mount, you can dual wield weapons that each do 1d12 with reach.
If you play with the Mounted Combatant feat too, requiring custom races or variant human to pull off at Lvl 4, then you can make 2 attacks each turn with advantage, and, assuming you play as a Hexblade Warlock, also assuming you have a +3 Strength modifier, you can get a total of two attacks, with the first doing 1d12+2+3+1d6 damage, and the next dealing 1d12+2+1d6.
Although, at that point, just use a Lvl 5 vengeance paladin with the double lances.
If a fighter is riding a wildshaped druid and the Druid attacks a monster, could the fighter then use action surge to attack the monster as well?
Intelligent mounted creatures act independently, so if the Druid attack on it's turn, the Fighter can only use Action Surge during his own turn, not Druid's one.
i have a player who wants to ride the Druid in beast shape (with the druids permission) .... my question is how does this effect the Druids speed .... the beast will be large and the player is medium .... does the druids speed get halved by letting a player ride him ? What if a small player rides him ?
I believe horses are large, and players are medium. Riding a horse imposes no movement penalty on the horse, so it's the same with a player. Remember in your situation that they both have full, independent turns from each other. It sounds like a fun idea!
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
The only requirement is that the mount be one size larger than the rider and have "appropriate anatomy" to accept a rider. There is no speed reduction.
If you're thinking it's overpowered in some way, there are some costs to riding in this way. It takes the rider 1/2 movement to mount or dismount. You can only mount or dismount once a turn. Any forced movement of the mount will force a DC 10 Dex save with the rider falling off and landing prone on the ground if they fail.
Really the only thing the rider gains here is maybe a quick way to the battlefield and "free" disengages.
The Section you, the Druid, and the other character should read is: https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/combat#MountedCombat
The Druid will be classified as an "An independent mount".
I did this in a game, it started out as necessity because my WildShape was 10' and so was the hallway. It then became a joke, and finally the Fighter in our group took "Mounted Combat" feat at 4th lvl. It was amazing!
The hardest thing in it is coordinating turns during a round. Remember because the Druid has it's own Init the mounted character can't voluntarily move! So it's very possible they are out of position and might need to Ready an Attack. Sadly Ready Attacks don't get the benefit from Extra Attack.
Real Talk: The part I considered the most OP is that while being ridden by a character with the Mounted Combat feat, The Rider can force the enemy to target them instead of the Mount. Druid's Wildshapes are great on the offense, but have terrible defense. Having a heavily armored and shielded character riding me meant that he could direct attacks away from my low AC, making my Wild Shape last longer.
In addition against any target that was medium the Rider get's Advantage on all attacks.
In addition because he could do that, I picked up Sentinel at 4th level. So when the enemy's couldn't target me as part of Mounted Combat, I got a Reaction attack against then.
Other useful things was I would often turn into a Female Steeder, before one of the new books changed them to Monstrosities instead of Beast (special F* you to that developer!).
They had less hitting power, but they had great mobility.
I'm playing a Circle of the Moon Druid right now and we're planning on having one of the other characters ride me into combat at some point. The OP synergies that FullMetalBunny is mentioning have a cost because both characters have to take feats for them to work. They're nice, but they lock two characters into working together in combat or else they've both wasted an ASI.
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It is fun! My cleric (with the spell sniper feat) was able to ride on the back of our Druid as a horse to keep shooting at with a fleeing Orc riding a giant bat with a possible kidnapping victim. The awesome thing was the Druid ran up to where I was, threw down the Horse Shoes of Speed she had been carrying, dove between my characters legs and then transformed into a horse with the shoes attached (DM allowed this out of cinematic coolness). A couple athletics/acrobatics checks later, I was on horseback and we were in hot pursuit.
There is another OP synergy that only works when mounted, and it is dual wielding lances.
Since the Dual Wielder feat lets you dual wield any 1-handed weapons, and lances are 1-handed while riding a mount, you can dual wield weapons that each do 1d12 with reach.
If you play with the Mounted Combatant feat too, requiring custom races or variant human to pull off at Lvl 4, then you can make 2 attacks each turn with advantage, and, assuming you play as a Hexblade Warlock, also assuming you have a +3 Strength modifier, you can get a total of two attacks, with the first doing 1d12+2+3+1d6 damage, and the next dealing 1d12+2+1d6.
Although, at that point, just use a Lvl 5 vengeance paladin with the double lances.
If a fighter is riding a wildshaped druid and the Druid attacks a monster, could the fighter then use action surge to attack the monster as well?
You can eat anything if you try hard enough
he/him
Intelligent mounted creatures act independently, so if the Druid attack on it's turn, the Fighter can only use Action Surge during his own turn, not Druid's one.