I just noticed a peculiar combo with the moon druid wild shape due to Quick Attack. It requires a bit of a set up and the enemy to fail a STR/DEX saving throw, but after that it is remarkably consistent.
Turn 2: Bonus Action Quick Attack Unarmed Strike to Grapple. Dash Action to drag the target through the Spike Growth. If the enemy succeeds against the grapple, that still leaves the action available for attacking.
With a 40 ft speed, dashing brings the total to 80 ft, then the slow grapple brings it back down to 40 ft. Spike Growth deals 2d4 per 5ft traveled, which averages to 1 damage per 1 foot. Thus, a level 3 druid could be doing consistently 40 damage a turn. If the enemy is small, the movement is not reduced for 80 points of damage. The Resistance cantrip (abjuration, reaction) can be cast in Wild Shape unless I am missing something, which will help with concentration.
Is this unrealistic due to the setup round? Or is it showing how the weird Quick Attack can be actually be too strong?
That's already do able using a WildShape form with 80ft movement right now. There are all kind of theory-crafting shenanigans with Spike Growth (Repelling Blast + Spike Growth by a Dao Genie Warlock is the same thing) or even more practical someone casts Spike Growth and the Barbarian grapples the enemy and drags them through the Spike Growth on the same round using the Barbareian's Adv + Proficiency on Athletics and 40ft move speed. It's fun occasionally, but gets boring quick plus the DM learns to just have the enemies focus-fire the druid to break concentration on Spike Growth if you keep using it.
1. Everyone saying all the Druid base features are now too focused on Wildshape are wrong. Look at the 5e druids features. They are all Wildshape improvements. Nothing has really changed about that. They only change the level you get it and they combined timeless body and archdruid. Druids uniqueness came from the subclasses that allowed Wildshape to be used in different ways. I’m sure the other subclasses will have unique Channel Nature abilities that will set them apart. 2. I was to heavy handed with the temp hp suggestion for Wildshape. I now believe it should only be Moon druids what get temp hp in Wildshape. Also Moon still needs its 5e version of self heals while in Wildshape forms. It allows them to be tanky because it was a bonus action and wasn’t taking up there action nor casting a spell.
In 5e all those upgrades are part of 1 feature, and there are a lot fewer of them. The problem with the UA having all their class features be upgrades to Wildshape is that it makes players think that Wildshape is the core feature of the class like Barbarian Rage or Bardic Inspiration and thus that they should be using it all the time. But Wildshape was never that (except for moon druids) it was a nice utility feature but not the core of the class, and mainly saw use during exploration. In the UA wildshape is even worse and should never be used except for extremely niche situations to ferry the party from point a to point b. Thus it is misleading to players to have so many features focused on what is a useless ability.
I see a lot of good things and a lot of bad things in this UA. If I want to have more HP in WS I can increase my CON.
However, the three animal forms lack flavor. They are all very similar. It's fine to keep levels for acquatic and aeral (the current druid already does), but they need special traits to improve versatility.
Now, I can't get tiny, but I can send my familiar out exploring. I spend no uses of the WS and maintain control over it. Also, if someone catches me, the familiar may die while I stay alive where I am. Without risking separating myself from the party.
That's a good point. The complaints about lack of a tiny form for utility scouting are forgetting that they can just summon a tiny familiar to scout and look through their eyes.
I'm of the opinion they should have removed find familiar as a spell. The scouting is too safe and really takes away from stealth oriented characters.
The Wild shape presented is bad. Dumbs down the flavor, and the point.
The whole point of turning into an animal, was to BE the animal...not some sort of "thing" that somehow can hang with a Warrior, even if in the form of a non-lethal animal... as a DM, there is no way I am letting a low level druid, as basic harmless form, do damage = to a longsword to an armored opponent. Yup, it was tough for some people look Beasts up, but that is due lack of time, simple laziness, or lack of access to books...easily fixable things. I cringe watching Criticalrole, as players WHO KNOW that they are going to be transforming into something every game...every week...and simply do not have a book beside themselves, or printout of choices that takes 30 min to research, or they cannot find it...I love them, but MAN!. As a DM, I provided what was needed to players who needed the help, helped look things up pre/post game, and helped them print the pages out they wanted...it was always a non-issue. There were not enough late game Beast/Animal choices, again, that can be fixed. The Elemental forms presented here are garbage too, there is no flavor anymore...the elemental forms are already here with cool features, there is no reason why thus type of change is need.
This is another issue with the new wildshape. While I definitely don't mind the ability to add tons of flavor to our forms you can do a lot of really nonsensical stuff with it too.
Wanna turn into a shark? You have a land speed by default. Wanna be a horse? You're not nearly as fast as a real horse but you CAN climb up walls. Technically by raw you don't need wings to be your flying form so a druid could legitimately turn into a flying pig.
I feel like DMs who had a hard time wrangling in their druid players when they picked an animal form that didn't fit the setting or tone are going to have an even harder time with this new "anything you can imagine" style of wildshaping.
1. Everyone saying all the Druid base features are now too focused on Wildshape are wrong. Look at the 5e druids features. They are all Wildshape improvements. Nothing has really changed about that. They only change the level you get it and they combined timeless body and archdruid. Druids uniqueness came from the subclasses that allowed Wildshape to be used in different ways. I’m sure the other subclasses will have unique Channel Nature abilities that will set them apart.
No, they very much are not wrong.
Yes, the 5e Druid had a Wildshape feature that would improve at higher levels and other than that it only had very few non-wildshape features added by the main class...
But that was with a system that didn't give you a class feature absolutely every level, like 1D&D does. And more importantly: It was a system where Wildshape was its own feature that got better as you levelled, rather than one of several option for a 'Channel Nature' feature that then gets a whole slew of separately mentioned 'Channel Nature' features that only improve Wildshape and neither add more things to do with 'Channel Nature', nor improve any of the things you can do with 'Channel Nature' that don't involve Wildshape.
Even if you include the Subclass features of Subclasses that will inevitably (one hopes) use Channel nature for purposes other than Wildshape, every Druid in 1D&D gets at least 7 level up features that improve Wildshape vs. only 5 (of which only 1 is on the main class and 4 come from subclasses) that improve Channel Nature in some other way. Compared to 5e where Wildshape was its own feature, not a subfeature of Channel Nature, that improved at 4 level brackets and which some subclasses allowed you to spend uses of on something other than changing into an animal.
The Wild shape presented is bad. Dumbs down the flavor, and the point.
The whole point of turning into an animal, was to BE the animal...not some sort of "thing" that somehow can hang with a Warrior, even if in the form of a non-lethal animal... as a DM, there is no way I am letting a low level druid, as basic harmless form, do damage = to a longsword to an armored opponent. Yup, it was tough for some people look Beasts up, but that is due lack of time, simple laziness, or lack of access to books...easily fixable things. I cringe watching Criticalrole, as players WHO KNOW that they are going to be transforming into something every game...every week...and simply do not have a book beside themselves, or printout of choices that takes 30 min to research, or they cannot find it...I love them, but MAN!. As a DM, I provided what was needed to players who needed the help, helped look things up pre/post game, and helped them print the pages out they wanted...it was always a non-issue. There were not enough late game Beast/Animal choices, again, that can be fixed. The Elemental forms presented here are garbage too, there is no flavor anymore...the elemental forms are already here with cool features, there is no reason why thus type of change is need.
This is another issue with the new wildshape. While I definitely don't mind the ability to add tons of flavor to our forms you can do a lot of really nonsensical stuff with it too.
Wanna turn into a shark? You have a land speed by default. Wanna be a horse? You're not nearly as fast as a real horse but you CAN climb up walls. Technically by raw you don't need wings to be your flying form so a druid could legitimately turn into a flying pig.
I feel like DMs who had a hard time wrangling in their druid players when they picked an animal form that didn't fit the setting or tone are going to have an even harder time with this new "anything you can imagine" style of wildshaping.
Yes, that is my worry as a DM too. There are some good changes, in fact, I like a couple of the other Druid changes, and lots of the Paladin changes. But this type of change done to the Wild Shape, is the sort when an MMORPG, after many years and many expansions, starts to dumb everything down, and make the game equal for all races and classes, until it is just a equalized stat fest of characters running around in goofy skins/outfits...meaning the Pig and Bear are the same thing...and their damage is really no different from a one-handed weapon wielding fighter. A snake should poison or constrict...that is what it should do. I am seeing some of that in the UA overall. Sure, this makes it easy to look at the stats on the character sheet, but when a player turns into a bear, as written, it can now climb up a castle wall/roof at 40ft per turn, why ever be a spider, since you cannot poison something...or a player can be a large goose with dark vision...when a regular Human does not even get Dark Vision...but a goose does??? So... if you are a Human, and you want to see in the dark...just be a Druid goose? Also, why just Str and Dex from WIS, but the others are your normal stats...that makes no sense. None of that makes sense...so I can morph into a large pig with STR/DEX prob equal or higher than our Rouge and Fighter's...that can walk on a roof, has dark vision, has keen senses, can communicate in all known languages, at one point can do two attacks, with the damage around that of a Rogue not using sneak attack. I am ok with a big Brown Bear out doing a Rogue, but not a super Puppy!
Not cool imo...what is wrong with just turning into a Cave Bear? What they should do it keep the general concept of Wild Shape the same...but, then re-work current beasts, make more beasts in the base books, and more options at higher levels for 6e. Then use some of the level features to boost the base Wild Shape power...the big boosts come from the Circle of the Moon...if fact, what they have proposed in that section, is not tooooo bad, if one could turn into a higher leveled Dire Bear, some of the Moon abilities would work quick well.
I'm not seeing the issue either. The 2014 druid got zip, zilch, nada that was "non-shapeshiftery" from its base class, until Tasha's came along with the familiar. And this took that and buffed it even further - the familiar lasts all day at level 2, and the healing blossoms are net new. At worst, non-shapeshiftery druids are no worse off, and in most cases I'd say they're clearly doing better.
I think a lot of the issue is that the shapeshifting on the 2014 druid was clearly useful, so even if it wasn't something you terribly wanted, at least it didn't feel bad.
Exactly. It's like, say, eating at a restaurant and saying "you do great meats, but I think your veggies could be better", then coming back next time to find that in response the meats have been all but removed from the menu and the veggies are...pretty much the same as before and being asking if your opinion has improved.
But it’s more like eating at a restaurant and they have 5 meat dishes 5 veggie dishes and the next time they still have 5 meat dishes and 5 veggie dishes, but with different recipes and saying “this restaurant has turned too meat focused! what about us veggie lovers who get screwed over?”
Not really. They've made Wildshaping substantially worse, while not really doing anything to make non-Wildshaping Druids any better. My analogy is much better.
If they were nerfing Wildshaping to allow them to make other Druid traits better while not increasing overall power, I'd be more ambivalent. They haven't, they've just made one aspect worse and somehow that is meant to make non-Wildshaping Druids more attractive. They've screwed the meat parts of the dish while ignoring the criticism of the veggies.
To the bolded, I never said they made wildshape better. My point was to those saying they focused too much on WS in the UA leaving others in the dust. Druids have always been WS focused in 5E (the base class without subclass). The 2014 Druid had spellcasting and WS. With features at 4, 8, 18, and 20 basically all but timeless body focused on WS. The UA is the same, but worse, with Tasha’s Wild Companion and Healing Blossoms added on.
I never said you did. You "corrected" my analogy to imply that we got more or less the same Druid we got in 5e. We didn't. Wildshaping is just worse now. The design objective was that those who who wanted Druids who were.more nature casters, rather than centered around WS, could also be viable, except they didn't really do anything for non-WS centered Druids while just nerfing WS. That's why your "corrected" analogy is wrong and why many people don't like the UA Druid.
Everything else for the Druid comes from subclasses. And we will see what they do in future UA’s.
We can see one Circle already. Granted, it's the WS centered one (assuming there'll be a similar setup as 5e where Moon is the WS Circle, then the others will depart from that focus to varying degrees). Potentially the statblock in early levels are better (I don't have the time to analyse it), getting the extra damage (which will often be negated due to the 5e WS forms potentially scaling in damage too) at level 10 and being able to cast abjuration spells, not great compared to its losses. No ability to become an elemental, plus the substantial nerfs to WS itself - no effectively additional HP (the big one), fewer transformations per day, much less versatility in what abilities you can gain and what creatures you can be mechanically (and even flavour-wise until towards the end of most campaigns).
They've nerfed Wildshape and the subclass we have shows that they're not really intending to make back the power via subclasses - if that were the case, they could have really ramped up WS again with the Moon subclass and made it on a par again with 5e (or close to it). They didn't, and I don't see any evidence that it's for better caster Druids - they could have included better support for them in the base class to fill the void left by the WS nerf (which would have allowed Moons to retain power, albeit in a different way), but didn't. They've nerfed the base Druid class and made alterations to the subclass that make it different, but I wouldn't say better. As the things stand, it's just a general nerf, with little indication that there is intention to make it back in other ways.
Edit: and what non-WS druids are we talking about?
I believe that's been answered.
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The changes are interesting, Divine Smite definitely got it's damage potential nerfed, not the worst change but now Find Steed just looks very overpowered. It's basically an extra normal attack per turn. I think some more of the bonuses to find steed should have been shifted back to Paladin since Cleric now gets this spell, and a free cast doesn't really give it the power to compete, a 5th level paladin find steed vs. a 9th level cleric find steed, obvious which is winning here with over 40 more HP, 4 more hit die, 4 more damage per hit and got flight way earlier (level 7 vs 13).
Sacred Weapon being moved to Bonus Action just makes too much sense, really should have happened sooner for devotion paladin, the smite of protection seems really good, you've now got a bonus action heal that doesn't even need the bonus action, just to land an attack and divine smite. The healing amounts are a little small but given this is a bonus on doing a divine smite (which is significant damage), it's definitely powerful. Smite spells also a lot better now, scaling damage and cast on hit.
Wild shape seems quiet a bit more stable now, before, all the different forms did make things rather... crazy and some forms were just plain broken (Giant Constrictor Snake, I'm looking at you!). Not replacing your HP does have some negative effects for Moon Druid but overall really isn't a big issue for other druid subclasses. Overall wild shape isn't just an RP tool for some subclasses now but serves a specific purpose.
For Moon Druid, I think all it's missing is an increase to Maximum HP and some Temp HP (instead of Current HP) and I think that would actually be preferable to abjuration spells. Give it a bit of the old resilience back, not sure how much HP that should be wisdom modifier*proficiency bonus maybe?
Everyone is going on about the big tank creatures. At my tables Druids have had the most fun at low levels becoming a weasel or a rat to scout out ahead, or hide in a pocket.
I understand the frustration of some about wildshape in 5E, personally as a dm I have never had those issues despite having Druids at several tables. I think wizards have hinted at the solution here.
Wildshape exists as is, you pick a creature from the monster manual based on CR and get all its stats and abilities, except for hit points. Now I feel there should be some small buff to hit points, maybe based on Druid level. Or, maybe your wild shape takes your max hit points? So it is a sink of sorts but one that scales better? This way we keep the flexisbilty of wildshape, that level 1 Druid can be a mouse. But, they now have more HP as that mouse.
I think the easiest fix for durability is to grant temporary hit-points when you first transform, have them scale to the class level, and maybe change with size (it should be Large forms that unlock later, not Tiny which should come in at the start). Temporary hit points should remain tied to the form, and if you lose them all you're forced to change back, or if you change back willingly the temporary hit-points disappear as well (but return if you go back to the animal form again).
I do think the generic profiles are the way to go, but they desperately need to give some more access to special abilities of beasts; animal of the land for example might have keen senses + pack tactics as one option, blindsight + spider climb + web as another, and maybe a large form with charging attack as a third option? They could potentially have only one of these initially (or only part of the ability) and unlock more later, e.g- the charging form might be a later addition.
What confuses me though is the talk of bolstering non-wildshape druids only to not do that at all. Healing blossom needs to scale by class level rather than Wisdom, but not scale too quickly, it could also possibly gain other abilities so it's not competing too hard with Cleric. Wild Companion needs to be cast at higher levels based on Druid level (e.g- casts at your druid level divided by 4 rounded down?).
I'd also have the feature for combined wildshape and healing blossom to instead allow any two Channel Nature to be triggered at the same time; this could justify each one being individually a bit weaker if you'll eventually be able to double up, as it means you could wildshape and summon a familiar at the same time, maybe even being the same type of creature for a joint reconnaissance mission.
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1. Everyone saying all the Druid base features are now too focused on Wildshape are wrong. Look at the 5e druids features. They are all Wildshape improvements. Nothing has really changed about that. They only change the level you get it and they combined timeless body and archdruid. Druids uniqueness came from the subclasses that allowed Wildshape to be used in different ways. I’m sure the other subclasses will have unique Channel Nature abilities that will set them apart. 2. I was to heavy handed with the temp hp suggestion for Wildshape. I now believe it should only be Moon druids what get temp hp in Wildshape. Also Moon still needs its 5e version of self heals while in Wildshape forms. It allows them to be tanky because it was a bonus action and wasn’t taking up there action nor casting a spell.
In 5e all those upgrades are part of 1 feature, and there are a lot fewer of them. The problem with the UA having all their class features be upgrades to Wildshape is that it makes players think that Wildshape is the core feature of the class like Barbarian Rage or Bardic Inspiration and thus that they should be using it all the time. But Wildshape was never that (except for moon druids) it was a nice utility feature but not the core of the class, and mainly saw use during exploration. In the UA wildshape is even worse and should never be used except for extremely niche situations to ferry the party from point a to point b. Thus it is misleading to players to have so many features focused on what is a useless ability.
1. Everyone saying all the Druid base features are now too focused on Wildshape are wrong. Look at the 5e druids features. They are all Wildshape improvements. Nothing has really changed about that. They only change the level you get it and they combined timeless body and archdruid. Druids uniqueness came from the subclasses that allowed Wildshape to be used in different ways. I’m sure the other subclasses will have unique Channel Nature abilities that will set them apart.
No, they very much are not wrong.
Yes, the 5e Druid had a Wildshape feature that would improve at higher levels and other than that it only had very few non-wildshape features added by the main class...
But that was with a system that didn't give you a class feature absolutely every level, like 1D&D does. And more importantly: It was a system where Wildshape was its own feature that got better as you levelled, rather than one of several option for a 'Channel Nature' feature that then gets a whole slew of separately mentioned 'Channel Nature' features that only improve Wildshape and neither add more things to do with 'Channel Nature', nor improve any of the things you can do with 'Channel Nature' that don't involve Wildshape.
Even if you include the Subclass features of Subclasses that will inevitably (one hopes) use Channel nature for purposes other than Wildshape, every Druid in 1D&D gets at least 7 level up features that improve Wildshape vs. only 5 (of which only 1 is on the main class and 4 come from subclasses) that improve Channel Nature in some other way. Compared to 5e where Wildshape was its own feature, not a subfeature of Channel Nature, that improved at 4 level brackets and which some subclasses allowed you to spend uses of on something other than changing into an animal.
Do either of you look before you make replies. The 5e Druid has Wildshape at 2nd lvl, Wildshape improvement at 4th and Wildshape improvement at 8th. It has timeless body at 18th and arch druid at 20th. All the other levels are dead. The only changes are naming the Wildshape improvements so you know what the improvement is and moving them to dead levels so the class doesn’t look dead. So yes everyone saying the 1dnd version is more Wildshape focused is wrong. Technically while it moved Wildshape itself to level 1 it moved both the improvements up levels from 4 to 7 and from 8 to 9. So it’s honestly less Wildshape focused in that regard. Please take two seconds to look at the 5e Druid table before you respond. You will see only one thing was added and that was the Tiny critter feature which is actually garbage, because it’s more of them taking away your ability to be a tiny creature until lvl 13 than them actually adding a feature to Wildshape. So again the base 1dnd Druid is not more Wildshape focused than the 5e base Druid. Please stop spreading that false rhetoric. We can’t possibly get the fixes we need to make this an enjoyable class if people are too concerned with something that isn’t even true. Again I beg everyone to look at the 5e Druid table. You don’t have to take my word for it.
Everyone is going on about the big tank creatures. At my tables Druids have had the most fun at low levels becoming a weasel or a rat to scout out ahead, or hide in a pocket.
I understand the frustration of some about wildshape in 5E, personally as a dm I have never had those issues despite having Druids at several tables. I think wizards have hinted at the solution here.
Wildshape exists as is, you pick a creature from the monster manual based on CR and get all its stats and abilities, except for hit points. Now I feel there should be some small buff to hit points, maybe based on Druid level. Or, maybe your wild shape takes your max hit points? So it is a sink of sorts but one that scales better? This way we keep the flexisbilty of wildshape, that level 1 Druid can be a mouse. But, they now have more HP as that mouse.
That is because people are talking specifically about Moon Druid, most other Druid Subclasses don't get the beefy/tank forms like circle of the moon gives, so wild shape mostly serves as just being an RP tool for most druids and they get most of their strength from subclass. Star Druids and wildfire druids gets alternative uses out of their wild shape charges. Else wise, yea, really not usable for druids in combat else.
For example Moon druid can become a Brown bear at level 2, while a Land Druid can not become a Brown Bear until level 8. by level 8 Moon Druid can already become a Polar bear or Giant Constrictor Snake and is only 1 level away from Giant Scorpion and Killer Whale or 2 levels until elemental form wild shapes, meanwhile at level 8 the land druid has basically peaked their wild shape. Moon druid drops a bit in late game but tier 3/4 are also the least played, so overall moon druid is a powerful choice for the vast majority of campaigns, it's wild shape gets it's last CR increase at 18, for CR 6, meaning it's nearly got all the forms of the polymorph spell but without using spell slots, concentration and has all it's damage counted as magical.
So when people are talking about Wild shape being worse, they are really talking about Circle of the Moon being worse, as it no longer gives you overpowered forms like it did in 5E. For all other subclasses, wild shape was worse than what we are seeing in this UA for combat. Moon druid clearly got nerfed and the nerf goes too far without giving them more resilience to make up for HP loss, also the Bonus Action unarmed attack needs to be more clear if that is something that applies while wild shaped, if it doesn't, then the wild shape needs a slight damage bonus for moon druid too... can be achieved a few different ways.
One thing I've found here that is kind of bothering me. Every class, so far, has felt like it has a very distinctive method of getting its abilities. Like, the Cleric. We're told that clerics get their magic specifically from a blessing from a god or some kind of high rank celestial. Paladins forge a tie to the Outer Planes (and thus the Divine power source) via Oaths.
Druids don't have anything. The UA just says, "individual Druids gain their magic from a nature deity, from nature itself, or both." What about their bond to the Inner / Elemental Planes, via the Primal power source? If a Nature god who lives in the Neutral Good planes blesses a druid, why would that not make them a cleric? What is "nature itself?"
I really like the concrete nature of how the cleric and the paladin get their abilities (and how each of the Expert classes' abilities seem related to their Skills). But Druid seems to be just handwaving it away. Which makes me sad.
ON MOON druid quick attack unarmed attack bonus action
can it Work with divine smite?
yes druid 3 levels with paladin 2 levels Multiclass.
Depends on what they mean. If RAI are you only get that bonus action unarmed attack while in Wildshape form then no because you lose all features not in your stat block. If they did mean it as it is RAW then you have that bonus action attack in your normal form and could smite punch with a bonus action. But it doesn’t benefit you much since you can only divine smite once per turn.
So when people are talking about Wild shape being worse, they are really talking about Circle of the Moon being worse, as it no longer gives you overpowered forms like it did in 5E.
To be fair, Land Druids were well known for using Wildshape to turn into mice or birds and go out scouting, so its use as an exploration power was something people enjoyed. The 1d&d version got rid of the exploration potential until much higher level.
Which, okay, maybe it was stepping on the Expert classes' toes when it came to their roles as better scouts. So, I suppose you could argue that its still overpowered forms. But just making the point that its not all about combat power.
ON MOON druid quick attack unarmed attack bonus action
can it Work with divine smite?
yes druid 3 levels with paladin 2 levels Multiclass.
Technically, the Wildshaped druid isn't taking the Attack action. They're taking the Bestial Strike action. So, strictly by the rules, its not an Unarmed Strike nor a weapon-based Attack, and technically you can only smite when making an Attack action with a weapon or Unarmed Strike.
I'm sure a lot of DMs will say yes, but some will say no.
I'm surprised more people aren't noticing the removal of some key non-concentration spells for the Druid. Absorb Elements, Ice Knife and Tidal Wave were all low level spells that Druids could use whole concentrating on another spell.
The list of Abjuration Spells is stupid limited.. it's not like Moon Druids get Shield or other defensive spells to cast while Wild Shaped. Healing Word and Cure Light Sounds are useful, but it's healing others should fall on a different character roll if you're trying emphasize on face tanking or melee'ing.
Im okay with Channel Nature mimicing Channel Divinity... but I don't get the need to simplify wildshape to this degree. I understand a need but this is ridiculous.
One thing I will say, is that the unarmed strike now includes the ability to Shove, Grapple or strike, so moon druids can still do that as a bonus action... but that's extra dice rolling... isn't that generally bad? Also, only Land Animals gets Strength = Wisdom score... Water and Air WS creatures only get Dex, which makes those useless... I'm surprised they didn't provide a Buff for Water and Air AS for moon druid.
Technically, the Wildshaped druid isn't taking the Attack action. They're taking the Bestial Strike action. So, strictly by the rules, its not an Unarmed Strike nor a weapon-based Attack, and technically you can only smite when making an Attack action with a weapon or Unarmed Strike.
I'm sure a lot of DMs will say yes, but some will say no.
Actually it doesn't seem to matter; you don't need to be taking the Attack action on your turn, any attack will do so long as you only use the smite once per turn. I don't think it would work with bestial strike specifically since it's neither a weapon or an unarmed strike, but it would work with an unarmed strike in the wildshaped form.
I do wonder though what the intention with the Cirlcle of the Moon bonus action attack actually was though; it says unarmed strike but I feel like they probably meant bestial strike, in which case that wouldn't qualify either.
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So when people are talking about Wild shape being worse, they are really talking about Circle of the Moon being worse, as it no longer gives you overpowered forms like it did in 5E. For all other subclasses, wild shape was worse than what we are seeing in this UA for combat. Moon druid clearly got nerfed and the nerf goes too far without giving them more resilience to make up for HP loss, also the Bonus Action unarmed attack needs to be more clear if that is something that applies while wild shaped, if it doesn't, then the wild shape needs a slight damage bonus for moon druid too... can be achieved a few different ways.
Wrong! The UA Wildshape is much, much, much worse for non-Moon Druids as well. To be honest, I would prefer they go back to 5e Wildshape and remove Moon Druid entirely, than the current UA druid. Baseline Wildshape (non-Moon Druid) offered so much utility for exploration, RP, and creative play - Druids almost always dump Cha so it was very common for my druid players to use WS in social situations becoming a cute cat, a friendly puppy a cheeky parrot to befriend others, or using rat or bird forms to spy on people. Alternatively, becoming a rat inside the pocket of the rogue when they go scouting give the rogue a backup if they get stuck, and an emergency healer in case they trigger a trap, or someone who can escape and go get the rest of the party if the rogue gets spotted and captured. Druids also almost always dump Strength, turning into a black bear or a draft horse can let them help out with Strength-based tasks, sure they probably aren't as good as the Barbarian but if Barb rolls a 1, the druid can sub in to give the party a second shot. Finally there is so many creative uses of the unique characteristics of different animals - low CR Spider forms give you blindsight to lead the party through magical darkness or other obscurement, and spider climb to let you climb up to a trap door in the ceiling, or to scale a vertical cliff with ease. Giant Badger is another massively useful form that is now just gone - burrow speed can let you dig a tunnel under the BBEG's fortress walls, or dig a burrow for the party to sleep in comfortably, or dig an escape route out of the bandit's lair.
Now tell me, what can anyone use the new UA wildshape form? it is completely useless in combat because you do better damage with spells and you will be killed if you try to take the WS into melee (AC 13-15, d8 hit die, 0 defensive abilities or spells), and it's only exploration feature is Darkvision. Wild Companion is now your utility use of Channel Nature, and the Blooms is your combat use. The UA wildshape isn't useful for anything, for anyone.
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Agree about the bonus actions on the mount, they just feel really weird and out of place.
That's already do able using a WildShape form with 80ft movement right now. There are all kind of theory-crafting shenanigans with Spike Growth (Repelling Blast + Spike Growth by a Dao Genie Warlock is the same thing) or even more practical someone casts Spike Growth and the Barbarian grapples the enemy and drags them through the Spike Growth on the same round using the Barbareian's Adv + Proficiency on Athletics and 40ft move speed. It's fun occasionally, but gets boring quick plus the DM learns to just have the enemies focus-fire the druid to break concentration on Spike Growth if you keep using it.
In 5e all those upgrades are part of 1 feature, and there are a lot fewer of them. The problem with the UA having all their class features be upgrades to Wildshape is that it makes players think that Wildshape is the core feature of the class like Barbarian Rage or Bardic Inspiration and thus that they should be using it all the time. But Wildshape was never that (except for moon druids) it was a nice utility feature but not the core of the class, and mainly saw use during exploration. In the UA wildshape is even worse and should never be used except for extremely niche situations to ferry the party from point a to point b. Thus it is misleading to players to have so many features focused on what is a useless ability.
I'm of the opinion they should have removed find familiar as a spell. The scouting is too safe and really takes away from stealth oriented characters.
The only classes that give heavy armour proficiency when multiclassing are those that give it as a subclass feature, like Cleric.
Paladins and Fighters have only ever given heavy armour proficiency if you take them at first level.
This is another issue with the new wildshape. While I definitely don't mind the ability to add tons of flavor to our forms you can do a lot of really nonsensical stuff with it too.
Wanna turn into a shark? You have a land speed by default. Wanna be a horse? You're not nearly as fast as a real horse but you CAN climb up walls. Technically by raw you don't need wings to be your flying form so a druid could legitimately turn into a flying pig.
I feel like DMs who had a hard time wrangling in their druid players when they picked an animal form that didn't fit the setting or tone are going to have an even harder time with this new "anything you can imagine" style of wildshaping.
No, they very much are not wrong.
Yes, the 5e Druid had a Wildshape feature that would improve at higher levels and other than that it only had very few non-wildshape features added by the main class...
But that was with a system that didn't give you a class feature absolutely every level, like 1D&D does. And more importantly: It was a system where Wildshape was its own feature that got better as you levelled, rather than one of several option for a 'Channel Nature' feature that then gets a whole slew of separately mentioned 'Channel Nature' features that only improve Wildshape and neither add more things to do with 'Channel Nature', nor improve any of the things you can do with 'Channel Nature' that don't involve Wildshape.
Even if you include the Subclass features of Subclasses that will inevitably (one hopes) use Channel nature for purposes other than Wildshape, every Druid in 1D&D gets at least 7 level up features that improve Wildshape vs. only 5 (of which only 1 is on the main class and 4 come from subclasses) that improve Channel Nature in some other way.
Compared to 5e where Wildshape was its own feature, not a subfeature of Channel Nature, that improved at 4 level brackets and which some subclasses allowed you to spend uses of on something other than changing into an animal.
Yes, that is my worry as a DM too. There are some good changes, in fact, I like a couple of the other Druid changes, and lots of the Paladin changes. But this type of change done to the Wild Shape, is the sort when an MMORPG, after many years and many expansions, starts to dumb everything down, and make the game equal for all races and classes, until it is just a equalized stat fest of characters running around in goofy skins/outfits...meaning the Pig and Bear are the same thing...and their damage is really no different from a one-handed weapon wielding fighter. A snake should poison or constrict...that is what it should do. I am seeing some of that in the UA overall. Sure, this makes it easy to look at the stats on the character sheet, but when a player turns into a bear, as written, it can now climb up a castle wall/roof at 40ft per turn, why ever be a spider, since you cannot poison something...or a player can be a large goose with dark vision...when a regular Human does not even get Dark Vision...but a goose does??? So... if you are a Human, and you want to see in the dark...just be a Druid goose? Also, why just Str and Dex from WIS, but the others are your normal stats...that makes no sense. None of that makes sense...so I can morph into a large pig with STR/DEX prob equal or higher than our Rouge and Fighter's...that can walk on a roof, has dark vision, has keen senses, can communicate in all known languages, at one point can do two attacks, with the damage around that of a Rogue not using sneak attack. I am ok with a big Brown Bear out doing a Rogue, but not a super Puppy!
Not cool imo...what is wrong with just turning into a Cave Bear? What they should do it keep the general concept of Wild Shape the same...but, then re-work current beasts, make more beasts in the base books, and more options at higher levels for 6e. Then use some of the level features to boost the base Wild Shape power...the big boosts come from the Circle of the Moon...if fact, what they have proposed in that section, is not tooooo bad, if one could turn into a higher leveled Dire Bear, some of the Moon abilities would work quick well.
I never said you did. You "corrected" my analogy to imply that we got more or less the same Druid we got in 5e. We didn't. Wildshaping is just worse now. The design objective was that those who who wanted Druids who were.more nature casters, rather than centered around WS, could also be viable, except they didn't really do anything for non-WS centered Druids while just nerfing WS. That's why your "corrected" analogy is wrong and why many people don't like the UA Druid.
We can see one Circle already. Granted, it's the WS centered one (assuming there'll be a similar setup as 5e where Moon is the WS Circle, then the others will depart from that focus to varying degrees). Potentially the statblock in early levels are better (I don't have the time to analyse it), getting the extra damage (which will often be negated due to the 5e WS forms potentially scaling in damage too) at level 10 and being able to cast abjuration spells, not great compared to its losses. No ability to become an elemental, plus the substantial nerfs to WS itself - no effectively additional HP (the big one), fewer transformations per day, much less versatility in what abilities you can gain and what creatures you can be mechanically (and even flavour-wise until towards the end of most campaigns).
They've nerfed Wildshape and the subclass we have shows that they're not really intending to make back the power via subclasses - if that were the case, they could have really ramped up WS again with the Moon subclass and made it on a par again with 5e (or close to it). They didn't, and I don't see any evidence that it's for better caster Druids - they could have included better support for them in the base class to fill the void left by the WS nerf (which would have allowed Moons to retain power, albeit in a different way), but didn't. They've nerfed the base Druid class and made alterations to the subclass that make it different, but I wouldn't say better. As the things stand, it's just a general nerf, with little indication that there is intention to make it back in other ways.
I believe that's been answered.
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.
Everyone is going on about the big tank creatures. At my tables Druids have had the most fun at low levels becoming a weasel or a rat to scout out ahead, or hide in a pocket.
I understand the frustration of some about wildshape in 5E, personally as a dm I have never had those issues despite having Druids at several tables.
I think wizards have hinted at the solution here.
Wildshape exists as is, you pick a creature from the monster manual based on CR and get all its stats and abilities, except for hit points. Now I feel there should be some small buff to hit points, maybe based on Druid level. Or, maybe your wild shape takes your max hit points? So it is a sink of sorts but one that scales better? This way we keep the flexisbilty of wildshape, that level 1 Druid can be a mouse. But, they now have more HP as that mouse.
I think the easiest fix for durability is to grant temporary hit-points when you first transform, have them scale to the class level, and maybe change with size (it should be Large forms that unlock later, not Tiny which should come in at the start). Temporary hit points should remain tied to the form, and if you lose them all you're forced to change back, or if you change back willingly the temporary hit-points disappear as well (but return if you go back to the animal form again).
I do think the generic profiles are the way to go, but they desperately need to give some more access to special abilities of beasts; animal of the land for example might have keen senses + pack tactics as one option, blindsight + spider climb + web as another, and maybe a large form with charging attack as a third option? They could potentially have only one of these initially (or only part of the ability) and unlock more later, e.g- the charging form might be a later addition.
What confuses me though is the talk of bolstering non-wildshape druids only to not do that at all. Healing blossom needs to scale by class level rather than Wisdom, but not scale too quickly, it could also possibly gain other abilities so it's not competing too hard with Cleric. Wild Companion needs to be cast at higher levels based on Druid level (e.g- casts at your druid level divided by 4 rounded down?).
I'd also have the feature for combined wildshape and healing blossom to instead allow any two Channel Nature to be triggered at the same time; this could justify each one being individually a bit weaker if you'll eventually be able to double up, as it means you could wildshape and summon a familiar at the same time, maybe even being the same type of creature for a joint reconnaissance mission.
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Do either of you look before you make replies. The 5e Druid has Wildshape at 2nd lvl, Wildshape improvement at 4th and Wildshape improvement at 8th. It has timeless body at 18th and arch druid at 20th. All the other levels are dead. The only changes are naming the Wildshape improvements so you know what the improvement is and moving them to dead levels so the class doesn’t look dead. So yes everyone saying the 1dnd version is more Wildshape focused is wrong. Technically while it moved Wildshape itself to level 1 it moved both the improvements up levels from 4 to 7 and from 8 to 9. So it’s honestly less Wildshape focused in that regard. Please take two seconds to look at the 5e Druid table before you respond. You will see only one thing was added and that was the Tiny critter feature which is actually garbage, because it’s more of them taking away your ability to be a tiny creature until lvl 13 than them actually adding a feature to Wildshape. So again the base 1dnd Druid is not more Wildshape focused than the 5e base Druid. Please stop spreading that false rhetoric. We can’t possibly get the fixes we need to make this an enjoyable class if people are too concerned with something that isn’t even true. Again I beg everyone to look at the 5e Druid table. You don’t have to take my word for it.
That is because people are talking specifically about Moon Druid, most other Druid Subclasses don't get the beefy/tank forms like circle of the moon gives, so wild shape mostly serves as just being an RP tool for most druids and they get most of their strength from subclass. Star Druids and wildfire druids gets alternative uses out of their wild shape charges. Else wise, yea, really not usable for druids in combat else.
For example Moon druid can become a Brown bear at level 2, while a Land Druid can not become a Brown Bear until level 8. by level 8 Moon Druid can already become a Polar bear or Giant Constrictor Snake and is only 1 level away from Giant Scorpion and Killer Whale or 2 levels until elemental form wild shapes, meanwhile at level 8 the land druid has basically peaked their wild shape. Moon druid drops a bit in late game but tier 3/4 are also the least played, so overall moon druid is a powerful choice for the vast majority of campaigns, it's wild shape gets it's last CR increase at 18, for CR 6, meaning it's nearly got all the forms of the polymorph spell but without using spell slots, concentration and has all it's damage counted as magical.
So when people are talking about Wild shape being worse, they are really talking about Circle of the Moon being worse, as it no longer gives you overpowered forms like it did in 5E. For all other subclasses, wild shape was worse than what we are seeing in this UA for combat. Moon druid clearly got nerfed and the nerf goes too far without giving them more resilience to make up for HP loss, also the Bonus Action unarmed attack needs to be more clear if that is something that applies while wild shaped, if it doesn't, then the wild shape needs a slight damage bonus for moon druid too... can be achieved a few different ways.
One thing I've found here that is kind of bothering me. Every class, so far, has felt like it has a very distinctive method of getting its abilities. Like, the Cleric. We're told that clerics get their magic specifically from a blessing from a god or some kind of high rank celestial. Paladins forge a tie to the Outer Planes (and thus the Divine power source) via Oaths.
Druids don't have anything. The UA just says, "individual Druids gain their magic from a nature deity, from nature itself, or both." What about their bond to the Inner / Elemental Planes, via the Primal power source? If a Nature god who lives in the Neutral Good planes blesses a druid, why would that not make them a cleric? What is "nature itself?"
I really like the concrete nature of how the cleric and the paladin get their abilities (and how each of the Expert classes' abilities seem related to their Skills). But Druid seems to be just handwaving it away. Which makes me sad.
Depends on what they mean. If RAI are you only get that bonus action unarmed attack while in Wildshape form then no because you lose all features not in your stat block. If they did mean it as it is RAW then you have that bonus action attack in your normal form and could smite punch with a bonus action. But it doesn’t benefit you much since you can only divine smite once per turn.
To be fair, Land Druids were well known for using Wildshape to turn into mice or birds and go out scouting, so its use as an exploration power was something people enjoyed. The 1d&d version got rid of the exploration potential until much higher level.
Which, okay, maybe it was stepping on the Expert classes' toes when it came to their roles as better scouts. So, I suppose you could argue that its still overpowered forms. But just making the point that its not all about combat power.
Technically, the Wildshaped druid isn't taking the Attack action. They're taking the Bestial Strike action. So, strictly by the rules, its not an Unarmed Strike nor a weapon-based Attack, and technically you can only smite when making an Attack action with a weapon or Unarmed Strike.
I'm sure a lot of DMs will say yes, but some will say no.
I'm surprised more people aren't noticing the removal of some key non-concentration spells for the Druid. Absorb Elements, Ice Knife and Tidal Wave were all low level spells that Druids could use whole concentrating on another spell.
The list of Abjuration Spells is stupid limited.. it's not like Moon Druids get Shield or other defensive spells to cast while Wild Shaped. Healing Word and Cure Light Sounds are useful, but it's healing others should fall on a different character roll if you're trying emphasize on face tanking or melee'ing.
Im okay with Channel Nature mimicing Channel Divinity... but I don't get the need to simplify wildshape to this degree. I understand a need but this is ridiculous.
One thing I will say, is that the unarmed strike now includes the ability to Shove, Grapple or strike, so moon druids can still do that as a bonus action... but that's extra dice rolling... isn't that generally bad? Also, only Land Animals gets Strength = Wisdom score... Water and Air WS creatures only get Dex, which makes those useless... I'm surprised they didn't provide a Buff for Water and Air AS for moon druid.
Booo for this version of the Druid.
Actually it doesn't seem to matter; you don't need to be taking the Attack action on your turn, any attack will do so long as you only use the smite once per turn. I don't think it would work with bestial strike specifically since it's neither a weapon or an unarmed strike, but it would work with an unarmed strike in the wildshaped form.
I do wonder though what the intention with the Cirlcle of the Moon bonus action attack actually was though; it says unarmed strike but I feel like they probably meant bestial strike, in which case that wouldn't qualify either.
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.
Wrong! The UA Wildshape is much, much, much worse for non-Moon Druids as well. To be honest, I would prefer they go back to 5e Wildshape and remove Moon Druid entirely, than the current UA druid. Baseline Wildshape (non-Moon Druid) offered so much utility for exploration, RP, and creative play - Druids almost always dump Cha so it was very common for my druid players to use WS in social situations becoming a cute cat, a friendly puppy a cheeky parrot to befriend others, or using rat or bird forms to spy on people. Alternatively, becoming a rat inside the pocket of the rogue when they go scouting give the rogue a backup if they get stuck, and an emergency healer in case they trigger a trap, or someone who can escape and go get the rest of the party if the rogue gets spotted and captured. Druids also almost always dump Strength, turning into a black bear or a draft horse can let them help out with Strength-based tasks, sure they probably aren't as good as the Barbarian but if Barb rolls a 1, the druid can sub in to give the party a second shot. Finally there is so many creative uses of the unique characteristics of different animals - low CR Spider forms give you blindsight to lead the party through magical darkness or other obscurement, and spider climb to let you climb up to a trap door in the ceiling, or to scale a vertical cliff with ease. Giant Badger is another massively useful form that is now just gone - burrow speed can let you dig a tunnel under the BBEG's fortress walls, or dig a burrow for the party to sleep in comfortably, or dig an escape route out of the bandit's lair.
Now tell me, what can anyone use the new UA wildshape form? it is completely useless in combat because you do better damage with spells and you will be killed if you try to take the WS into melee (AC 13-15, d8 hit die, 0 defensive abilities or spells), and it's only exploration feature is Darkvision. Wild Companion is now your utility use of Channel Nature, and the Blooms is your combat use. The UA wildshape isn't useful for anything, for anyone.