So they're taking all of the tactics that come with choosing specific wild shapes, and making it a pointless cosmetic thing... got it. Since my very first 5e character was a druid and it's the one class I have chosen multiple times, gotta say, this is the worst idea I have ever seen. Simplifying things is nice, but druids are already the least picked class in the game, and kneecapping the one thing they have, that no one else can do, is just going to further relegate druids to a novelty pick.
After their announcement video for onednd, I realized they lacked the creativity to actually make a good game; but this terrible idea just cemented the reality that this is just the next 4th edition.
There is an interesting possible exploit to mitigate the low AC problem with the new Wildshape. You can make the form whatever you want, so you could make it a more or less humanoid form, no? A medium sized monkey/ape at the very least. Then you could keep your armor to keep most of your AC (actually it might increase if your Wisdom mod is 3 or more higher than your Dexterity mod)
This is assuming that you can still follow the rule choosing which formula for AC to use according to whatever the highest among those you have available. The beast form gives you a new option of AC = 10 + Wis which you are ignoring for the more standard (let's assume studded leather armor) AC = 12 + Dex where your Dex is conveniently the same as your wisdom modifier while in the new form
While you are no longer proficient with armor, that only gives disadvantage on d20 tests that involves Strength or Dexterity (The Bestial Strike specifically calls out wisdom as the damage and spell attack modifier as the attack mod so it's not affected), and you can’t cast spells (Which I suppose does effect the moon druid). Sadly, a shield requires the proficiency to gain the ac benefit, so you do still lose that.
Not really b/c you can't keep any of your current equipment with you in the UA, and no where does it say you can use equipment, so by default I'd assume you cannot use equipment - even a monkey is significantly different shape that you can't put human armour on a monkey IRL.
Yes, this was a Druid/Barbarian. However, this build just goes to show how easily exploited and powerful all the extra hit points are. Honestly though, all Druids have a lot of effective HP. This build is just one of the crazy powerful ways this feature can be used, and it is already very important to Druid even when they aren't optimized to make use of it.
Honestly, it isn't. Druid Barbarian is amazing for levels 3-6 and then it is garbage. You are extremely weak offensively or in terms of battlefield control without being able to concentrate on a spell b/c of rage, your beast attacks aren't magical, and their damage scaling is awful. Sure you can take tons of hits but that is all you can do.
First, druids are spellcasters. It's their essence, and it's why you'd pick the class - to cast primal spells. The primal spell list is pretty good in that it offers you both support and damage, you can heal like a cleric and nuke like a wizard. You may not have the entire range of their options, but you have what it takes to get the job done. However, due to a strange way wild shape has been implemented in druid class, people just got the wrong idea. Wild shape basically summons a creature and pulls it over the druid like a meat armor. No other shapeshifter in the game works like that! Creatures like werewolf or doppelganger don't get a buffer of HP when they change shapes, nor do they get different stat blocks. Their features, actions, and AC may change, but they don't get a second pool of HP. Players, however, got used to use wild shape to make their druid completely untouchable while inside the "tank" of wild shape. Granted, it's only tanky at starter levels, but that's where most games happen.
But what is the purpose of wild shape, if not to tank? The way I see it, the answer is pretty simple - utility. It's to access animals' senses, movement modes, and special features like spiders' ability to traverse web, as well as just passing yourself for an animal as means of camouflage, like shifting into a horse, a stray cat, or a pigeon to infiltrate and spy. It's also to gain access to skills like stealth, athletics, acrobatics, and perception, in case druid lacks them. Druid's "library" of shapes is like a second spellbook with solutions to different situations. In that, generic stat block completely misses the mark. The solution I see is either to provide players with multiple templates to cover all possible senses, movement modes, skills and features that common beasts may have, or revert back to using animals from Monster Manual, but keeping druid's own HP and ability scores.
Regarding the Circle of Moon subclass, the reason why people pick it is to turn wild shape into full-on warrior mode. As a warrior, you need three things: durability, damage, and options. As for durability, I think the simplest solution to return tankiness is to double the moon druid's HP while in the wild shape, cutting it back in half when they revert back to humanoid form, and use a different calculation for AC, like monk's 10+Dex+Wis, or take 13+Wis, because natural armor usually sets character naked AC at 13. That'll make moon druid like a barbarian with high constitution score. For damage, they'd need extra attack at level 5, which has already been taken care of, and for their natural weapons to be considered magical. Lastly, regarding options, things to do, that's what variety of forms is for. In one situation you might need trample and large size, in another you might need ambush. Again, you need multiple forms for multiple situations.The solution is pretty much the same - either multiple templates, or Monster Manual.
Also, a pet peeve of mine - while elemental shape is really cool with its damage resistances and things like earth glide, turning into an extraplanar outsider never felt... natural to me. I'd rather have moon druid unlock monstrosity and plant shapes to turn into an actual hippogryph, displacer beast, or shambling mound - living creatures native to material plane (yes, I know not all monstrosities are). these creatures tend to be more powerful, with more dangerous features.
Sucking all the flavor out of wild shape with those generic stat blocks, huge mistake, people were excited about the potentiality of turning into owlbears, we wanted shapeshifting expanded not contracted, now we can turn into nothing, dont know how you thought that would be recieved well, into the trash, back to the drawing board.
The change to the third level druid (wood elf/circle of the moon) at my table doing the playtest. We use standard array at our table, so only 17 Wisdom.
Humanoid form: AC 16 (14 Dex, Hide, Shield), 1d8+3 damage (shillelagh), 35 speed, Keen senses, Darkvision, Able to cast all spells.
Wildshape from: AC 13, 1d8+3 damage (bestial strike), 40 speed, Keen senses, Darkvision, Able to cast abjuration spells, free unarmed attack per round.
A sylvan elf druid is a typical archetype so it's not a cherry-picked race to make the comparison worse.
One use of channel nature nets: -3 AC, +5 speed, Inability to cast all non-abjuration spells, one free unarmed attack per round. (This doesn't address the confusion on whether his humanoid form benefits from the unarmed attack as well, since it doesn't explicitly say so).
For argument purpose for a non-circle of moon druid it nets: -3 AC, +5 speed, inability to cast spells.
What am I missing? My player asked me why he would wild shape anymore? I didn't know what to tell him, am I missing something? I told him it starts to get more useful at level 5+ and above and he agreed the elemental mixing was cooler than turning into a straight elemental (even if not more powerful).
What am I missing? My player asked me why he would wild shape anymore? I didn't know what to tell him, am I missing something? I told him it starts to get more useful at level 5+ and above and he agreed the elemental mixing was cooler than turning into a straight elemental (even if not more powerful).
You're not missing anything. Damage gets better at level 5+ but that's also when your cantrips start scaling and your stronger spells come online. You're tankier and more dangerous in caster form at pretty much all levels.
Your druid could turn into a very slow horse (40ft vs 60ft) and carry a party member, though.
One big thing that needs to be answered when looking at class designs: should we allow classes that can fill every role in a group? If yes, why not allow all classes to fill every role? If no, how many roles do we design each class to fill? Do we introduce subclasses to every class that allow for things like a barbarians that can cast wish and true polymorph eventually? A monk that can cast divine spells like a cleric by spending ki? Where is the line where adding more functionality to a class steps on the role of other classes?
One big thing that needs to be answered when looking at class designs: should we allow classes that can fill every role in a group? If yes, why not allow all classes to fill every role? If no, how many roles do we design each class to fill? Do we introduce subclasses to every class that allow for things like a barbarians that can cast wish and true polymorph eventually? A monk that can cast divine spells like a cleric by spending ki? Where is the line where adding more functionality to a class steps on the role of other classes?
I don't think every class needs to fill every role, but some classes will be more generalist in bent and cover more roles though they likely wont be as good as a more specialized class in that role. The thing they should do though is when making an ability is avoid adding arbitrary restrictions to narrow the role. Let players shape the ability into what fits their character, let players come up with creative ways to use abilities. Pact of the blade has had ranged smites from the get go. The ranged damage has never been a issue for it, the auto trip yeah that at range can cause issues. A paladin doing a bit more damage here and there with a bow wont break things, if someone wants to play a elven sniper paladin, let them it is not breaking things and not stepping on roles. A monk is already a blend of combat, sneaky stuff and mystical abilities, its poorly designed and sucks but its not stepping on toes. A rogue can get some spell casting, it was not stepping on toes, like I said I think find familiar does as its a no risk option, but a druid changing into a squirrel doesn't in 5e as they are a 1HP creature running around and druids don't have things like dimension door if stuff goes wrong.
Design the classes and give them abilities that makes sense for that class and don't overly restrict those abilities, so yeah true poly-morph on the barbarian likely would never fit but maybe some polymorph self like ability might for a beast barbarian as its end tier 14th level ability given its a barbarian that has limited shapechange abilities. Would that step on druid toes, not really as shapechanging isn't their only thing.
One big thing that needs to be answered when looking at class designs: should we allow classes that can fill every role in a group? If yes, why not allow all classes to fill every role? If no, how many roles do we design each class to fill? Do we introduce subclasses to every class that allow for things like a barbarians that can cast wish and true polymorph eventually? A monk that can cast divine spells like a cleric by spending ki? Where is the line where adding more functionality to a class steps on the role of other classes?
Yes if they are worse at each role than classes that specialize in it. Compared to Druid: Barbarians and Paladins are better font liners Bards and Clerics are better support Everyone is better social Most classes are better DPR Rangers are better explorers Wizards are better utility Bards and Wizards are better battlefield control Cleric is a better healer
Druid is like Monk but better balanced. Druid is good at several things but not the best at anything.
Everyone hates on Druid only because of Moon Druid turning into a brown bear or dire wolf at level 2, which yeah is totally broken but that's only one subclass at a handful of levels. If you consider the entirely of a 1-14 campaign, Moon Druid as a whole isn't the most OP druid subclass - that honor goes to Shepherd. Land Druid is broken the opposite direction - it's complete garbage - which proves that 5e Wildshape is not a broken class feature, Combat Wildshape is what is broken.
Am I the only one who likes this iteration of the Druid?
Let's be honest, Circle of the Moon Druid needed to be hit with the nerfbat *hard.*
Most of the criticism seems to me to be coming from the place of the Druid having gotten to have its cake and eat it, too. I always felt that the Druid's armour restriction leading to a generally lower AC was part of the trade-off and, to some extent, balanced the class's otherwise overpowered features. Needless to say, even if they officially lift the "no metal armour" rule, no Druid at my table will ever be permitted anything beyond leather, unless they maybe re-add wood or bone lamellar back in from 2e.
I'm also completely fine with Wildshape being toned down significantly like this; even in the shape of a bear, it's wrong for the Druid to be able to be a better front-line combatant than the Fighter. I'd also like to see the Heat Metal spell removed from the Primal spell list; it's thematically wrong for the Druid to wield power over metal like that. Taking a cue from folklore, in which "cold iron" was often the bane of all things belonging to the primal world, and a charm against magic (horseshoes over the door, etc.), I'd like to see this idea carried into D&D with iron being absolute anathema to druids, fae, etc.
All the magic-using classes could stand to be toned down a bit, and I hope the trend continues.
Am I the only one who likes this iteration of the Druid?
Probably. On a more serious note, you're in a not insignificant minority, but a minority nonetheless.
Let's be honest, Circle of the Moon Druid needed to be hit with the nerfbat *hard.*
Honestly, I'm not sure. The Moon Druid spike, from what people have said, seems to run from L2 and lasts to about L6, then falls behind the other classes and then jumps up at L20, which is outside of most campaigns anyway.
That's not insignificant, but it's hardly a universal boost and they do pay for that boost by lagging outside of that range. Given that Druids are one of the least popular classes, I'm reluctant to just hit them with a nerfbat. I wouldn't mind reeling WS back a bit (they still went too far regardless), but only if it's to provide space for the non-WS aspects Druids...which they haven't done either. The other issue is that if you don't make the 1D&D Druid attractive in its own right, people will just use 5e Druid anyway.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
The new wildshape is utter trash. Shillelagh is better for combat and the Wild Companion (find familiar) is better for non-combat problem solving. The only possible use I can think of for the new wildshape is to be a shuttle bus to carry your allies.
Darkvision is not important, and the forms get zero interesting abilities, their AC sucks, you get no extra HP pool (arguably will can have less HP than your original form since you no longer benefit from feats like Tough), their damage is no better (and often worse than) casting a cantrip, you lose all your feats (so no Warcaster to protect your concentration), and class/racial abilities, can't cast spells, can't make ranged attacks, you are just a worse version of you...
Lol, that’s pretty much most of what I do with my Circle of the Land Druid now.
If they move back towards using monster stats blocks they at least need to create an official list of allowed shapes. Or perhaps a list of allowed features from shapes to keep players from shifting into specialized shapes from adventures that have features like damage resistances and multiple heads granting advantage on saves. Combo that with the removal of the separate HP pool (possibly replaced with some temp HP for moon druid subclass when you shift) and that could work to curb the worst imbalances like having access to a CR 0 shape at level 2 that gives you 52 extra HP.
Im honestly a little confused about the UA wildshape. In terms of combat, the base druid wildshape seems to be stronger than the base druid we have now. Granted, the hp thing is an issue, but it does scale with your own HP and gains extra attack... I mean at higher levels the current wildshape do not scale at all for combat. All UA druids get a very "meh" combat shape that is serviceable but does not do anything exciting... On top of that moon druids feel very underwhelming, Im confused why they didnt get any new stat blocks to pick from, just fairly minor improvements to the base druids wildshape.
In terms of utility its all pretty much dead.. There is no access to special abilities to experiment with... Im actually all in favor of standardised stat blocks, but the suggested selection is very lackluster.
So what im confused with is what the intended use case for wild shape is in the UA.. It is hardly worth it to use in combat beyond a fallback when you are out of spell slots, and they arent any exciting abilities to play with for exploration.. beyond flight of course.
What Id like to see is the replace the current base druid wildshapes with 4 or so utility focused ones, each with some kinda non-combat use, like spiderclimb or stealth boosts... Then Id have the moon druid subclass introduce the combat statblocks on top of that as new options and Id have them be more impactful than the ones in the UA.
What might also be cool is the idea of the moon druid getting modifiers to enhance their wildshape stat block. Lets say your first sublcass feature lets you pick between 3 different things when wildshaping, the next subclass feature would add another choice of 3.. sort of a "build your own beast" kinda mechanic.
The "be tiny for 10 mins at lvl 11" feature is very odd to me. Youd think that being tiny had huge mechanical advantages with such restrictions.
Am I the only one who likes this iteration of the Druid?
Let's be honest, Circle of the Moon Druid needed to be hit with the nerfbat *hard.*
Most of the criticism seems to me to be coming from the place of the Druid having gotten to have its cake and eat it, too. I always felt that the Druid's armour restriction leading to a generally lower AC was part of the trade-off and, to some extent, balanced the class's otherwise overpowered features. Needless to say, even if they officially lift the "no metal armour" rule, no Druid at my table will ever be permitted anything beyond leather, unless they maybe re-add wood or bone lamellar back in from 2e.
I'm also completely fine with Wildshape being toned down significantly like this; even in the shape of a bear, it's wrong for the Druid to be able to be a better front-line combatant than the Fighter. I'd also like to see the Heat Metal spell removed from the Primal spell list; it's thematically wrong for the Druid to wield power over metal like that. Taking a cue from folklore, in which "cold iron" was often the bane of all things belonging to the primal world, and a charm against magic (horseshoes over the door, etc.), I'd like to see this idea carried into D&D with iron being absolute anathema to druids, fae, etc.
All the magic-using classes could stand to be toned down a bit, and I hope the trend continues.
The issue with making blanket table rules such as yours is that the class will have been balanced based on Druid’s being allowed to wear metal armour. By all means flavour the extra AC armor as a hide or heavy duty leather thematically, but as a DM I do not restrict character choice because it doesn’t match my sensitivities or the world. I work with the player to change the way it works. A great example, I have a player who wants to play and oath breaker paladin but not be evil. That’s easy, he was an orc in the fighting pits of an evil empire and so, at a young age, gave his oaths to the emperor before he even realised he was a slave. So he has now broken those oaths, is good alignment and we have tweaked the oath breaker abilities to match the circumstance. I didn’t just say “no oath breaker because no evil characters”. He doesn’t worship any god, after all they all abandoned him and his kind (all green skins in my world are refugees or former refugees who escaped slavery).
I have no issue with druids using or wearing metal. A Druid does not have to be a nature crazy live in the woods hippy and the best ones I have DMd or played with over the years have played against this trope. I think one dnd should do as much as possible to present as in tripe like classes as possible so players can get truly creative with how they are the character working.
Am I the only one who likes this iteration of the Druid?
Let's be honest, Circle of the Moon Druid needed to be hit with the nerfbat *hard.*
Most of the criticism seems to me to be coming from the place of the Druid having gotten to have its cake and eat it, too. I always felt that the Druid's armour restriction leading to a generally lower AC was part of the trade-off and, to some extent, balanced the class's otherwise overpowered features. Needless to say, even if they officially lift the "no metal armour" rule, no Druid at my table will ever be permitted anything beyond leather, unless they maybe re-add wood or bone lamellar back in from 2e.
I'm also completely fine with Wildshape being toned down significantly like this; even in the shape of a bear, it's wrong for the Druid to be able to be a better front-line combatant than the Fighter. I'd also like to see the Heat Metal spell removed from the Primal spell list; it's thematically wrong for the Druid to wield power over metal like that. Taking a cue from folklore, in which "cold iron" was often the bane of all things belonging to the primal world, and a charm against magic (horseshoes over the door, etc.), I'd like to see this idea carried into D&D with iron being absolute anathema to druids, fae, etc.
All the magic-using classes could stand to be toned down a bit, and I hope the trend continues.
ive seen a few youtube vids in support for this version of the druid which scares me. i really hope our dislike out weighs their priase
So they're taking all of the tactics that come with choosing specific wild shapes, and making it a pointless cosmetic thing... got it. Since my very first 5e character was a druid and it's the one class I have chosen multiple times, gotta say, this is the worst idea I have ever seen. Simplifying things is nice, but druids are already the least picked class in the game, and kneecapping the one thing they have, that no one else can do, is just going to further relegate druids to a novelty pick.
After their announcement video for onednd, I realized they lacked the creativity to actually make a good game; but this terrible idea just cemented the reality that this is just the next 4th edition.
Not really b/c you can't keep any of your current equipment with you in the UA, and no where does it say you can use equipment, so by default I'd assume you cannot use equipment - even a monkey is significantly different shape that you can't put human armour on a monkey IRL.
Honestly, it isn't. Druid Barbarian is amazing for levels 3-6 and then it is garbage. You are extremely weak offensively or in terms of battlefield control without being able to concentrate on a spell b/c of rage, your beast attacks aren't magical, and their damage scaling is awful. Sure you can take tons of hits but that is all you can do.
So... my hot take on the matter of wild shape.
First, druids are spellcasters. It's their essence, and it's why you'd pick the class - to cast primal spells. The primal spell list is pretty good in that it offers you both support and damage, you can heal like a cleric and nuke like a wizard. You may not have the entire range of their options, but you have what it takes to get the job done. However, due to a strange way wild shape has been implemented in druid class, people just got the wrong idea. Wild shape basically summons a creature and pulls it over the druid like a meat armor. No other shapeshifter in the game works like that! Creatures like werewolf or doppelganger don't get a buffer of HP when they change shapes, nor do they get different stat blocks. Their features, actions, and AC may change, but they don't get a second pool of HP. Players, however, got used to use wild shape to make their druid completely untouchable while inside the "tank" of wild shape. Granted, it's only tanky at starter levels, but that's where most games happen.
But what is the purpose of wild shape, if not to tank? The way I see it, the answer is pretty simple - utility. It's to access animals' senses, movement modes, and special features like spiders' ability to traverse web, as well as just passing yourself for an animal as means of camouflage, like shifting into a horse, a stray cat, or a pigeon to infiltrate and spy. It's also to gain access to skills like stealth, athletics, acrobatics, and perception, in case druid lacks them. Druid's "library" of shapes is like a second spellbook with solutions to different situations. In that, generic stat block completely misses the mark. The solution I see is either to provide players with multiple templates to cover all possible senses, movement modes, skills and features that common beasts may have, or revert back to using animals from Monster Manual, but keeping druid's own HP and ability scores.
Regarding the Circle of Moon subclass, the reason why people pick it is to turn wild shape into full-on warrior mode. As a warrior, you need three things: durability, damage, and options. As for durability, I think the simplest solution to return tankiness is to double the moon druid's HP while in the wild shape, cutting it back in half when they revert back to humanoid form, and use a different calculation for AC, like monk's 10+Dex+Wis, or take 13+Wis, because natural armor usually sets character naked AC at 13. That'll make moon druid like a barbarian with high constitution score. For damage, they'd need extra attack at level 5, which has already been taken care of, and for their natural weapons to be considered magical. Lastly, regarding options, things to do, that's what variety of forms is for. In one situation you might need trample and large size, in another you might need ambush. Again, you need multiple forms for multiple situations.The solution is pretty much the same - either multiple templates, or Monster Manual.
Also, a pet peeve of mine - while elemental shape is really cool with its damage resistances and things like earth glide, turning into an extraplanar outsider never felt... natural to me. I'd rather have moon druid unlock monstrosity and plant shapes to turn into an actual hippogryph, displacer beast, or shambling mound - living creatures native to material plane (yes, I know not all monstrosities are). these creatures tend to be more powerful, with more dangerous features.
Sucking all the flavor out of wild shape with those generic stat blocks, huge mistake, people were excited about the potentiality of turning into owlbears, we wanted shapeshifting expanded not contracted, now we can turn into nothing, dont know how you thought that would be recieved well, into the trash, back to the drawing board.
The change to the third level druid (wood elf/circle of the moon) at my table doing the playtest. We use standard array at our table, so only 17 Wisdom.
Humanoid form: AC 16 (14 Dex, Hide, Shield), 1d8+3 damage (shillelagh), 35 speed, Keen senses, Darkvision, Able to cast all spells.
Wildshape from: AC 13, 1d8+3 damage (bestial strike), 40 speed, Keen senses, Darkvision, Able to cast abjuration spells, free unarmed attack per round.
A sylvan elf druid is a typical archetype so it's not a cherry-picked race to make the comparison worse.
One use of channel nature nets: -3 AC, +5 speed, Inability to cast all non-abjuration spells, one free unarmed attack per round. (This doesn't address the confusion on whether his humanoid form benefits from the unarmed attack as well, since it doesn't explicitly say so).
For argument purpose for a non-circle of moon druid it nets: -3 AC, +5 speed, inability to cast spells.
What am I missing? My player asked me why he would wild shape anymore? I didn't know what to tell him, am I missing something? I told him it starts to get more useful at level 5+ and above and he agreed the elemental mixing was cooler than turning into a straight elemental (even if not more powerful).
You're not missing anything. Damage gets better at level 5+ but that's also when your cantrips start scaling and your stronger spells come online. You're tankier and more dangerous in caster form at pretty much all levels.
Your druid could turn into a very slow horse (40ft vs 60ft) and carry a party member, though.
One big thing that needs to be answered when looking at class designs: should we allow classes that can fill every role in a group? If yes, why not allow all classes to fill every role? If no, how many roles do we design each class to fill? Do we introduce subclasses to every class that allow for things like a barbarians that can cast wish and true polymorph eventually? A monk that can cast divine spells like a cleric by spending ki? Where is the line where adding more functionality to a class steps on the role of other classes?
I don't think every class needs to fill every role, but some classes will be more generalist in bent and cover more roles though they likely wont be as good as a more specialized class in that role. The thing they should do though is when making an ability is avoid adding arbitrary restrictions to narrow the role. Let players shape the ability into what fits their character, let players come up with creative ways to use abilities. Pact of the blade has had ranged smites from the get go. The ranged damage has never been a issue for it, the auto trip yeah that at range can cause issues. A paladin doing a bit more damage here and there with a bow wont break things, if someone wants to play a elven sniper paladin, let them it is not breaking things and not stepping on roles. A monk is already a blend of combat, sneaky stuff and mystical abilities, its poorly designed and sucks but its not stepping on toes. A rogue can get some spell casting, it was not stepping on toes, like I said I think find familiar does as its a no risk option, but a druid changing into a squirrel doesn't in 5e as they are a 1HP creature running around and druids don't have things like dimension door if stuff goes wrong.
Design the classes and give them abilities that makes sense for that class and don't overly restrict those abilities, so yeah true poly-morph on the barbarian likely would never fit but maybe some polymorph self like ability might for a beast barbarian as its end tier 14th level ability given its a barbarian that has limited shapechange abilities. Would that step on druid toes, not really as shapechanging isn't their only thing.
Yes if they are worse at each role than classes that specialize in it. Compared to Druid:
Barbarians and Paladins are better font liners
Bards and Clerics are better support
Everyone is better social
Most classes are better DPR
Rangers are better explorers
Wizards are better utility
Bards and Wizards are better battlefield control
Cleric is a better healer
Druid is like Monk but better balanced. Druid is good at several things but not the best at anything.
Everyone hates on Druid only because of Moon Druid turning into a brown bear or dire wolf at level 2, which yeah is totally broken but that's only one subclass at a handful of levels. If you consider the entirely of a 1-14 campaign, Moon Druid as a whole isn't the most OP druid subclass - that honor goes to Shepherd. Land Druid is broken the opposite direction - it's complete garbage - which proves that 5e Wildshape is not a broken class feature, Combat Wildshape is what is broken.
Am I the only one who likes this iteration of the Druid?
Let's be honest, Circle of the Moon Druid needed to be hit with the nerfbat *hard.*
Most of the criticism seems to me to be coming from the place of the Druid having gotten to have its cake and eat it, too. I always felt that the Druid's armour restriction leading to a generally lower AC was part of the trade-off and, to some extent, balanced the class's otherwise overpowered features. Needless to say, even if they officially lift the "no metal armour" rule, no Druid at my table will ever be permitted anything beyond leather, unless they maybe re-add wood or bone lamellar back in from 2e.
I'm also completely fine with Wildshape being toned down significantly like this; even in the shape of a bear, it's wrong for the Druid to be able to be a better front-line combatant than the Fighter. I'd also like to see the Heat Metal spell removed from the Primal spell list; it's thematically wrong for the Druid to wield power over metal like that. Taking a cue from folklore, in which "cold iron" was often the bane of all things belonging to the primal world, and a charm against magic (horseshoes over the door, etc.), I'd like to see this idea carried into D&D with iron being absolute anathema to druids, fae, etc.
All the magic-using classes could stand to be toned down a bit, and I hope the trend continues.
Honestly, I'm not sure. The Moon Druid spike, from what people have said, seems to run from L2 and lasts to about L6, then falls behind the other classes and then jumps up at L20, which is outside of most campaigns anyway.
That's not insignificant, but it's hardly a universal boost and they do pay for that boost by lagging outside of that range. Given that Druids are one of the least popular classes, I'm reluctant to just hit them with a nerfbat. I wouldn't mind reeling WS back a bit (they still went too far regardless), but only if it's to provide space for the non-WS aspects Druids...which they haven't done either. The other issue is that if you don't make the 1D&D Druid attractive in its own right, people will just use 5e Druid anyway.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Lol, that’s pretty much most of what I do with my Circle of the Land Druid now.
But I agree, the UA is a much worse version
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
If they move back towards using monster stats blocks they at least need to create an official list of allowed shapes. Or perhaps a list of allowed features from shapes to keep players from shifting into specialized shapes from adventures that have features like damage resistances and multiple heads granting advantage on saves. Combo that with the removal of the separate HP pool (possibly replaced with some temp HP for moon druid subclass when you shift) and that could work to curb the worst imbalances like having access to a CR 0 shape at level 2 that gives you 52 extra HP.
Im honestly a little confused about the UA wildshape. In terms of combat, the base druid wildshape seems to be stronger than the base druid we have now. Granted, the hp thing is an issue, but it does scale with your own HP and gains extra attack... I mean at higher levels the current wildshape do not scale at all for combat. All UA druids get a very "meh" combat shape that is serviceable but does not do anything exciting... On top of that moon druids feel very underwhelming, Im confused why they didnt get any new stat blocks to pick from, just fairly minor improvements to the base druids wildshape.
In terms of utility its all pretty much dead.. There is no access to special abilities to experiment with... Im actually all in favor of standardised stat blocks, but the suggested selection is very lackluster.
So what im confused with is what the intended use case for wild shape is in the UA.. It is hardly worth it to use in combat beyond a fallback when you are out of spell slots, and they arent any exciting abilities to play with for exploration.. beyond flight of course.
What Id like to see is the replace the current base druid wildshapes with 4 or so utility focused ones, each with some kinda non-combat use, like spiderclimb or stealth boosts... Then Id have the moon druid subclass introduce the combat statblocks on top of that as new options and Id have them be more impactful than the ones in the UA.
What might also be cool is the idea of the moon druid getting modifiers to enhance their wildshape stat block. Lets say your first sublcass feature lets you pick between 3 different things when wildshaping, the next subclass feature would add another choice of 3.. sort of a "build your own beast" kinda mechanic.
The "be tiny for 10 mins at lvl 11" feature is very odd to me. Youd think that being tiny had huge mechanical advantages with such restrictions.
How does pathfinder handle wild shape druids? Is there anything to be learnt from there?
The issue with making blanket table rules such as yours is that the class will have been balanced based on Druid’s being allowed to wear metal armour. By all means flavour the extra AC armor as a hide or heavy duty leather thematically, but as a DM I do not restrict character choice because it doesn’t match my sensitivities or the world. I work with the player to change the way it works. A great example, I have a player who wants to play and oath breaker paladin but not be evil. That’s easy, he was an orc in the fighting pits of an evil empire and so, at a young age, gave his oaths to the emperor before he even realised he was a slave. So he has now broken those oaths, is good alignment and we have tweaked the oath breaker abilities to match the circumstance. I didn’t just say “no oath breaker because no evil characters”. He doesn’t worship any god, after all they all abandoned him and his kind (all green skins in my world are refugees or former refugees who escaped slavery).
I have no issue with druids using or wearing metal. A Druid does not have to be a nature crazy live in the woods hippy and the best ones I have DMd or played with over the years have played against this trope. I think one dnd should do as much as possible to present as in tripe like classes as possible so players can get truly creative with how they are the character working.
ive seen a few youtube vids in support for this version of the druid which scares me. i really hope our dislike out weighs their priase
WHY NERF DRUID SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!
At level 2, yes. At level 5+, it's really not that awesome.