I would take the position that your hitpoints are the number that is written on your character sheet, and if a feature replaced your hitpoints, then it would do exactly that.
By the way, what is level drain? Can you point to it in this edition?
If you were level drained, would you expect to keep them? I don’t see how writing “Tavern Brawler, improvised weapon prof., 1d4 DMG, +1 Str” on my character sheet leads to the conclusion that some of that is “continuous” while other parts are over and done with. How about Tough, y’all taking the same bad position on that?
Level drain isn't a thing in 5e, thankfully, so your hypothetical doesn't have an answer.
No, it is all continuous, just some parts are temporarily overwritten. Like wearing a red shirt and putting on a black jacket, you are still wearing the red shirt, but it isn't visible. Or a character puting on a band of intellect or gauntlets of ogre power, suddenly their ASIs in those stats don't matter because it is 19, period.
For tough, since HP is replaced, it wouldn't transfer either. This one in fact would make less sense if it did transfer since you still benefit from having increased human HP when the wild shape is brought to 0 HP. And giving the druid 100 temporary HP a day might make the barb jealous.
EVERYTHING is overwritten, not just HP, and not just ability scores. That’s what I really feel your camp is losing sight of. Square 1 is (like Polymorph), “throw out your character sheet, you’re a tiger.” There is nothing about HP, or ability scores, that is any more or less replaced than every other statistic on your character sheet. But then, you’re told to add back in certain info from your character sheet. Class features is one of them. Tough (and every other feat or ASI) is incontrovertibly a class feature. If you don’t add that to the tiger, if you think there’s hidden language telling you to treat Tough different from Savage Attacker or whatever, its because you think you are so correct about RAI that you’re willing to ignore the plain RAW language that says to do so.
Hubris, and misguided hubris at that. Just do what Wild Shape tells you, be a tiger that benefits from ALL of your class, race, and other features.
Well, yes, imprecise wording was being used to simulate the order of steps ones thought process navigates while building a wild shape’s stat block. Certain features are “retained”. Which means to me, whatever they added on top of your base level 1 statistics you had as a new character before you obtained them, they add on to your new base tiger stats in precisely the same manner.
You do retain all of your ASIs, they are why your 13 humanoid strength is a 13 rather than a 12. Your ASI does not indicate that you get a bonus to your strength, it indicates that your strength increases by 1, which it has already done. Your strength doesn’t matter after it is replaced, even though you’ve retained the bonus provided by the ASI.
Again the benefit of an ability score increase is increasing your PCs ability score, but your PC’s strength is not a factor in determining the strength of a creature in wildshape. At all. It is a game statistic that is replaced by the first sentence of the first bullet listed under the rules that apply while you are in wildshape. A PC’s strength has no hysteresis attached to it. If it is replaced, the whole thing is replaced.
It just seems to come down to you viewing an ASI as some sort of consumable, which is done and over with, but (most?) other feats as being lasting features which continue to apply ongoing effects. There’s no textual support for that division, and I reject it. It is not “already done,” it is a live class feature that continues to say “whatever your ability score would be without this ASI, take that number and add X to it.” Wild Shape tells you to retain “the benefit” of your class features while Wild shaped, so to say “you still have this feature. but it only benefits your humanoid ability scores” is to disregard the plain text.
It just seems to come down to you viewing an ASI as some sort of consumable, which is done and over with, but (most?) other feats as being lasting features which continue to apply ongoing effects...
Yep, it is and they are. You get the ASI immediately, it cannot be reversed, replaced or used again. Some feats also increase a stat in the same way. These features offer no lasting benefits at all. Any benefit is now from your stats. You aren't a STR 15 character with +1 Str - you're a STR 16 character.
Other features and feats grant abilities with ongoing uses and effects - which might or might not be usable or suppressed under various conditions like Wildshape.
It just seems to come down to you viewing an ASI as some sort of consumable, which is done and over with, but (most?) other feats as being lasting features which continue to apply ongoing effects. There’s no textual support for that division, and I reject it. It is not “already done,” it is a live class feature that continues to say “whatever your ability score would be without this ASI, take that number and add X to it.” Wild Shape tells you to retain “the benefit” of your class features while Wild shaped, so to say “you still have this feature. but it only benefits your humanoid ability scores” is to disregard the plain text.
No, an ASI says “When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.” It is described as a choice that you make when you level up. Again, no hysteresis is implied, it does not imply that you can move this bonus to anything other than your ability score (Which the bests’s score is not), etc.. The thing that it provides is a change to something that is replaced by the first sentence of rules that apply while wildshaped.
By the way, what does wasting time trying to recompute a beast’s strength even get you? A better athletics skill (as long as the beast doesn’t have one in its block)? All of a beast’s attack bonuses and damage bonuses are static numbers. Or, are you inventing rules that aren’t written that say that you can take apart a +7 (an integer listed in a stat block with no context on how it was constructed) and assume where it came from and change parts that you assume about it?
The question of what do with a beast’s ability scores, and when (if ever) their stat block actions can be recalculated, is a question for another time. the advantage of better Dex and con is apparent enough.
“When you reach,” “starting at,” and “beginning at” are the intro words for virtually every class feature. Assigning “when you reach” special limiting significance for ASI to imply that they aren’t persistent class features, is reading too much into those words, which they clearly don’t hold for any other feature they’re used for.
You still have to be capable of using any benefit that you retain from class and race features. You continue to fail to show that you are capable of using an increase to an ability score that is no longer relevant.
An ASI is not something that you can use, therefore it is not something you can use in wildshape.
Again, I am not hanging my hat on the fact that an ASI occurs at a particular time (though it would be hard to argue that any choice that you make at level up isn't made at level up, and 'when' is fairly indicative of 'at the time something occurs' within class features). I am basing it on the fact that an ability score increase changes a thing that explicitly gets replaced per the rules of the feature.
Are you trying to argue that there is some hidden text that says that rather than your ability score being one of the replaced game statistics, it is actually recomputed in some manner that is not straightforward and not described in any text within the feature? Do you also only imply that your level 1 hit points are the only ones replaced by the beasts, and you keep the rest of those?
"You are all wrong. The designer of the game is wrong in his interpretation of the rule he wrote. The most counterintuitive interpretation is correct. Anybody who disagrees with me is guilty of hubris."
You still have to be capable of using any benefit that you retain from class and race features. You continue to fail to show that you are capable of using an increase to an ability score that is no longer relevant.
An ASI is not something that you can use, therefore it is not something you can use in wildshape.
If you take JCs rulings on Wild Shape as persuasive, surely you remember that he said physically capable meant “has eyes”, “has a mouth,” etc? Not “only a humanoid body is physically capable of benefiting from class features”????
Are you trying to argue that there is some hidden text that says that rather than your ability score being one of the replaced game statistics, it is actually recomputed in some manner that is not straightforward and not described in any text within the feature? Do you also only imply that your level 1 hit points are the only ones replaced by the beasts, and you keep the rest of those?
You still have to be capable of using any benefit that you retain from class and race features. You continue to fail to show that you are capable of using an increase to an ability score that is no longer relevant.
An ASI is not something that you can use, therefore it is not something you can use in wildshape.
If you take JCs rulings on Wild Shape as persuasive, surely you remember that he said physically capable meant “has eyes”, “has a mouth,” etc? Not “only a humanoid body is physically capable of benefiting from class features”????
But the actual rule indicates that you retain the benefits and "can use them" in your new form. That is straight out of the rule. What does using an ASI entail, considering that your physical ability scores are replaced?
Everything is replaced, your whole sheet, set it aside and replace it with a tiger. But then, go through your set-aside character sheet, and find everything that’s a class, race, or other feature, and apply its benefit to the tiger.
That’s what Wild Shape says to do, when contrasted with Polymorph. Yes, your ability scores are replaced. Yes, your hit points from class hit dice are replaced. But the class feature you picked up at level 4 that let you increase your Con by +2? Or the feat that gives you +10 speed and special movement rules? You now apply that benefit to the tiger . NOT applying the benefit, that contradicts the plain words on the page in the most blatant way imaginable.
This is one of the more black and white rule questions I can think of with Wild shape. Where we draw the line on “class features” can be pretty hard, but I don’t see how a feature listed in the class table and class feature narrative list can be argued not to be one with a straight face. And once you accept that feats/ASI ARE class features, Wild Shape in no uncertain terms says you keep their benefit, unless your beast isn’t physically capable.
Physically capable doesn’t mean “is a humanoid not a beast,” to read it that way is a ludicrous perversion of intent that would rob Wild Shape of ALL class, race, and other features.
Hitpoints are a class feature. They come at each level. Your argument fails inspection.
Values that include contributions from class features, but are still replaced by wildshape, are still replaced by wildshape. Once you accept that your ability score is the total value that is on your character sheet, then you have to accept that when that value is replaced, it is entirely replaced.
That's where the "what's a class feature?" fuzzy line becomes an issue, yes, because if Hit Dice are a "class feature" (as opposed to, a "class [term not defined]") that would indeed set us up for a real problem. But luckily, we aren't having every debate about every aspect of Wild Shape right now, just whether 1) ASI/Feats are class features, and 2) since they are, why on earth would you not benefit from them while Wild Shaped?
I would take the position that your hitpoints are the number that is written on your character sheet, and if a feature replaced your hitpoints, then it would do exactly that.
By the way, what is level drain? Can you point to it in this edition?
Level drain isn't a thing in 5e, thankfully, so your hypothetical doesn't have an answer.
No, it is all continuous, just some parts are temporarily overwritten. Like wearing a red shirt and putting on a black jacket, you are still wearing the red shirt, but it isn't visible. Or a character puting on a band of intellect or gauntlets of ogre power, suddenly their ASIs in those stats don't matter because it is 19, period.
For tough, since HP is replaced, it wouldn't transfer either. This one in fact would make less sense if it did transfer since you still benefit from having increased human HP when the wild shape is brought to 0 HP. And giving the druid 100 temporary HP a day might make the barb jealous.
EVERYTHING is overwritten, not just HP, and not just ability scores. That’s what I really feel your camp is losing sight of. Square 1 is (like Polymorph), “throw out your character sheet, you’re a tiger.” There is nothing about HP, or ability scores, that is any more or less replaced than every other statistic on your character sheet. But then, you’re told to add back in certain info from your character sheet. Class features is one of them. Tough (and every other feat or ASI) is incontrovertibly a class feature. If you don’t add that to the tiger, if you think there’s hidden language telling you to treat Tough different from Savage Attacker or whatever, its because you think you are so correct about RAI that you’re willing to ignore the plain RAW language that says to do so.
Hubris, and misguided hubris at that. Just do what Wild Shape tells you, be a tiger that benefits from ALL of your class, race, and other features.
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Nothing gets "added back," only "retained." Which means kept, or not lost. The premise of your argument is incorrect.
Well, yes, imprecise wording was being used to simulate the order of steps ones thought process navigates while building a wild shape’s stat block. Certain features are “retained”. Which means to me, whatever they added on top of your base level 1 statistics you had as a new character before you obtained them, they add on to your new base tiger stats in precisely the same manner.
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You do retain all of your ASIs, they are why your 13 humanoid strength is a 13 rather than a 12. Your ASI does not indicate that you get a bonus to your strength, it indicates that your strength increases by 1, which it has already done. Your strength doesn’t matter after it is replaced, even though you’ve retained the bonus provided by the ASI.
Again the benefit of an ability score increase is increasing your PCs ability score, but your PC’s strength is not a factor in determining the strength of a creature in wildshape. At all. It is a game statistic that is replaced by the first sentence of the first bullet listed under the rules that apply while you are in wildshape. A PC’s strength has no hysteresis attached to it. If it is replaced, the whole thing is replaced.
It just seems to come down to you viewing an ASI as some sort of consumable, which is done and over with, but (most?) other feats as being lasting features which continue to apply ongoing effects. There’s no textual support for that division, and I reject it. It is not “already done,” it is a live class feature that continues to say “whatever your ability score would be without this ASI, take that number and add X to it.” Wild Shape tells you to retain “the benefit” of your class features while Wild shaped, so to say “you still have this feature. but it only benefits your humanoid ability scores” is to disregard the plain text.
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Yep, it is and they are. You get the ASI immediately, it cannot be reversed, replaced or used again. Some feats also increase a stat in the same way. These features offer no lasting benefits at all. Any benefit is now from your stats. You aren't a STR 15 character with +1 Str - you're a STR 16 character.
Other features and feats grant abilities with ongoing uses and effects - which might or might not be usable or suppressed under various conditions like Wildshape.
No, an ASI says “When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.” It is described as a choice that you make when you level up. Again, no hysteresis is implied, it does not imply that you can move this bonus to anything other than your ability score (Which the bests’s score is not), etc.. The thing that it provides is a change to something that is replaced by the first sentence of rules that apply while wildshaped.
By the way, what does wasting time trying to recompute a beast’s strength even get you? A better athletics skill (as long as the beast doesn’t have one in its block)? All of a beast’s attack bonuses and damage bonuses are static numbers. Or, are you inventing rules that aren’t written that say that you can take apart a +7 (an integer listed in a stat block with no context on how it was constructed) and assume where it came from and change parts that you assume about it?
The question of what do with a beast’s ability scores, and when (if ever) their stat block actions can be recalculated, is a question for another time. the advantage of better Dex and con is apparent enough.
“When you reach,” “starting at,” and “beginning at” are the intro words for virtually every class feature. Assigning “when you reach” special limiting significance for ASI to imply that they aren’t persistent class features, is reading too much into those words, which they clearly don’t hold for any other feature they’re used for.
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You still have to be capable of using any benefit that you retain from class and race features. You continue to fail to show that you are capable of using an increase to an ability score that is no longer relevant.
An ASI is not something that you can use, therefore it is not something you can use in wildshape.
Again, I am not hanging my hat on the fact that an ASI occurs at a particular time (though it would be hard to argue that any choice that you make at level up isn't made at level up, and 'when' is fairly indicative of 'at the time something occurs' within class features). I am basing it on the fact that an ability score increase changes a thing that explicitly gets replaced per the rules of the feature.
Are you trying to argue that there is some hidden text that says that rather than your ability score being one of the replaced game statistics, it is actually recomputed in some manner that is not straightforward and not described in any text within the feature? Do you also only imply that your level 1 hit points are the only ones replaced by the beasts, and you keep the rest of those?
Heh, funny. Ironic.
"You are all wrong. The designer of the game is wrong in his interpretation of the rule he wrote. The most counterintuitive interpretation is correct. Anybody who disagrees with me is guilty of hubris."
XD
I like to throw red meat to the wolves now and again :)
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If you take JCs rulings on Wild Shape as persuasive, surely you remember that he said physically capable meant “has eyes”, “has a mouth,” etc? Not “only a humanoid body is physically capable of benefiting from class features”????
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Are you trying to argue that there is some hidden text that says that rather than your ability score being one of the replaced game statistics, it is actually recomputed in some manner that is not straightforward and not described in any text within the feature? Do you also only imply that your level 1 hit points are the only ones replaced by the beasts, and you keep the rest of those?
But the actual rule indicates that you retain the benefits and "can use them" in your new form. That is straight out of the rule. What does using an ASI entail, considering that your physical ability scores are replaced?
Everything is replaced, your whole sheet, set it aside and replace it with a tiger. But then, go through your set-aside character sheet, and find everything that’s a class, race, or other feature, and apply its benefit to the tiger.
That’s what Wild Shape says to do, when contrasted with Polymorph. Yes, your ability scores are replaced. Yes, your hit points from class hit dice are replaced. But the class feature you picked up at level 4 that let you increase your Con by +2? Or the feat that gives you +10 speed and special movement rules? You now apply that benefit to the tiger . NOT applying the benefit, that contradicts the plain words on the page in the most blatant way imaginable.
This is one of the more black and white rule questions I can think of with Wild shape. Where we draw the line on “class features” can be pretty hard, but I don’t see how a feature listed in the class table and class feature narrative list can be argued not to be one with a straight face. And once you accept that feats/ASI ARE class features, Wild Shape in no uncertain terms says you keep their benefit, unless your beast isn’t physically capable.
Physically capable doesn’t mean “is a humanoid not a beast,” to read it that way is a ludicrous perversion of intent that would rob Wild Shape of ALL class, race, and other features.
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Hitpoints are a class feature. They come at each level. Your argument fails inspection.
Values that include contributions from class features, but are still replaced by wildshape, are still replaced by wildshape. Once you accept that your ability score is the total value that is on your character sheet, then you have to accept that when that value is replaced, it is entirely replaced.
That's where the "what's a class feature?" fuzzy line becomes an issue, yes, because if Hit Dice are a "class feature" (as opposed to, a "class [term not defined]") that would indeed set us up for a real problem. But luckily, we aren't having every debate about every aspect of Wild Shape right now, just whether 1) ASI/Feats are class features, and 2) since they are, why on earth would you not benefit from them while Wild Shaped?
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