The issue with R5e Wild Shape - the one everybody's forgetting while they self-destruct over the first iteration of the One druid - is that it's not fair to the druid player. Every other class in R5e with one minor subclass exception is contained within the Player's Handbook, their rules are right there and easy to reference. But a druid? A druid has to go out and buy a Monster Manual and also probably a DMG to get a full listing of beast shapes they can change into, or wheedle and convince their DM to share access to books most DMs are loathe to let players touch. If the druid can do neither of these things? They get no Wild Shape.
Why should a druid player have to spend an extra hundred dollars just to gain access to one class feature?
This isn't really true, Circle of the Land Druid does not need to delve into either, there is in the PHB:
CR0 - Bat, Cat, Frog, Hawk, Owl, Rat, Raven
CR 1/8 - Mastiff, Mule, Poisonous Snake
CR 1/4 - Boar, Constrictor Snake, Panther, Riding Horse, Wolf
CR 1/2 - Black Bear, Crocodile, Reef Shark, Warhorse
CR 1 - Brown Bear, Dire Wolf, Giant Eagle, Giant Spider, Lion, Tiger
Sure, there is a lot more choice with more books, but then that goes for spells and sub classes too. The only Druid that really needs the extensive list of all the stat blocks is Circle of the Moon. For Circle of the Land there is enough for a lot of utility in there.
The issue with R5e Wild Shape - the one everybody's forgetting while they self-destruct over the first iteration of the One druid - is that it's not fair to the druid player. Every other class in R5e with one minor subclass exception is contained within the Player's Handbook, their rules are right there and easy to reference. But a druid? A druid has to go out and buy a Monster Manual and also probably a DMG to get a full listing of beast shapes they can change into, or wheedle and convince their DM to share access to books most DMs are loathe to let players touch. If the druid can do neither of these things? They get no Wild Shape.
Why should a druid player have to spend an extra hundred dollars just to gain access to one class feature?
Well... PHB has the most essential beasts in its monster block as far as I know. And for a druid, the animals they know is like a second spellbook, with access to all the senses, movement modes, and other features those beasts might have.
Also, there's a great deal of spells that are not in PHB and cost money to buy for your account. Two bucks for the OP silvery barbs anyone?
Right now Moon Druid is an absued broken cluster**** of too many good things.
I guess I'd like to know more about why you think this. (Not attacking you, I've just never seen the sub-class come even remotely close to being broken.)
and I guess I'll qualify that further to ask if it's ever overpowered in Tiers 1 & 2. Because I've seen it be impressive at, say, 4th level. One level later, they just kind of blend into the rest of the party, and only get worse from there.
The issue with R5e Wild Shape - the one everybody's forgetting while they self-destruct over the first iteration of the One druid - is that it's not fair to the druid player. Every other class in R5e with one minor subclass exception is contained within the Player's Handbook, their rules are right there and easy to reference. But a druid? A druid has to go out and buy a Monster Manual and also probably a DMG to get a full listing of beast shapes they can change into, or wheedle and convince their DM to share access to books most DMs are loathe to let players touch. If the druid can do neither of these things? They get no Wild Shape.
Why should a druid player have to spend an extra hundred dollars just to gain access to one class feature?
Hmmm, well that can be a problem for some Druid players. There are certainly some useful beast options in the PHB. That said, a certain degree of cooperation between the DM and player is important regardless. If the player asks for beasts that suit the campaign setting that can fly or swim or tunnel and the DM only points them to the PHB, that's a communication problem. There are several Druid-specific build guides I have found on the Internet for free that are quite helpful. A few even include statblocks from the Monster Manual. It does take a bit of digging, though. At the end of the day, I would still much rather have the option of doing my own research and pulling up 20 or 30 options of possible beasts to Wildshape into over whatever handful of options that a template-based system would likely allow.
Ultimately, it's not really a bigger problem than playing an Artificer. Any one book is not going to have all or even most of the magic items because new magic items keep getting created by the devs.
Wild Shape is awful. The best benefit wasn’t as a combat option but as a do anything option: need to stealth be tiny, need to dig under the wall, pick some stat block w/ borrowing, need to escape be a deer or whatever w/ a 120 ft. dash. Swimming and flying at higher levels just add more options.
The Wild Shape's lack of durability could be ameliorated by giving it resistance to piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing, like a raging Barbarian. Given they're a d8 class they'd still be less durable than the Barbarian, but they wouldn't be as squishy as they are in the current UA.
And allowing skill proficiencies to carry over from base form to Wild Shaped form, for example if you go Rogue 1 for expertise in Stealth, would allow a Wild Shaped form to adequately functional.
Then a handful of creature traits, like burrowing, collected into packages that you choose when Wild Shaping would compensate for the loss of particular beast forms.
The issue with R5e Wild Shape - the one everybody's forgetting while they self-destruct over the first iteration of the One druid - is that it's not fair to the druid player. Every other class in R5e with one minor subclass exception is contained within the Player's Handbook, their rules are right there and easy to reference. But a druid? A druid has to go out and buy a Monster Manual and also probably a DMG to get a full listing of beast shapes they can change into, or wheedle and convince their DM to share access to books most DMs are loathe to let players touch. If the druid can do neither of these things? They get no Wild Shape.
Why should a druid player have to spend an extra hundred dollars just to gain access to one class feature?
If you're self destructing over the fact that the class has a book that has a bunch of stuff they'd want (while ignoring the dozens of other books that class and half the other classes in the game wants that people will rarely buy, whereas this book is considered to be mandatory at the table, I'm reminded of the episode of the Simpsons when an American Indian shedding a tear when he sees the Simpsons drop a piece of litter, only to turn around and see the gigantic landfill), then the solution is very simple and has already been given - provide optional additional statblocks as possibilities. Literally, it allows everyone to have what they want while not losing anything that hasn't already been shown to be willing to be lost (page space for the statblocks).
If this is "the problem with R5e Wildshape", then it's turning a molehill into a mountain to say there's a problem. Provide the statblocks as optional extra ones, then move on. No need to start messing with what makes it a great feature.
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.
I am just going to throw my 2 cents here. Standardized stat blocks allow for me to flavor my shapeshifting however I want. But loss of utility in stat blocks is a major issue. Non-moon druids are still unlikely to use the forms for combat even if they were decent in combat because you have to take an entire action to shift into that form. As others have stated the real use is utility. My opinion level 1 should allow a combat and a tiny form that can climb. Level 5 can give the tiny stat block burrow or climb/spider climb option and the combat land animal climbing and extra attack as before. Unlock burrow as an option for combat land when we unlock swim speed. Keep skills and non-ancestry feats for all forms, if it is going to be YOU, let it be you, your skills, your feats, your knowledge. The only thing that changes is your body.
AC for Land and aquatic should be 12+wis instead of 10 (combat form), they literally have hide/leather that is what their bodies are made of. And flying should be the standard 10+wis. This d8 for damage is non-sense. If you lose your spells and everything give it a nice beefy d10, you aren't getting fighting styles or warrior feats with it, and yes the flying one should have a d6 for damage. Give 2* druid level temp HP when morphing into land or aquatic form. Boom, forms are fixed. They aren't a catch all for everything, but they provide better movement options at all levels and a decent martial buff at all levels without completely invalidating any class.
As written, the stat blocks have no reason to shift except for fly or swim on a very rare occasion, the inability to keep your skills makes this even more so.
The Wild Shape's lack of durability could be ameliorated by giving it resistance to piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing, like a raging Barbarian. Given they're a d8 class they'd still be less durable than the Barbarian, but they wouldn't be as squishy as they are in the current UA.
I think resistance isn't the right way to go; temporary hit-points makes the most sense, but tie the form's duration to them as for any temp. hp. spell with a rider effect.
I'd propose something like:
Move Channel Nature to 2nd-level with all three options. A single level dip shouldn't give you access to Wildshape IMO.
Start with the ability to choose a Tiny, Small or Medium form (most Large beasts are higher CR anyway so this is broadly the same as 5e).
Wildshaping gives temporary hit-points equal to your level in Druid and based on the size class (Tiny gets half Druid level, Small gets Druid level, Medium gets twice Druid level?), when these are lost the form ends. Using the bonus action to switch back to humanoid form will temporarily suppress these (they're tied to being in wildshape).
Animal of the Land should have a choice of features including:
Blindsight + burrowing speed + Keen Senses
Climbing + Acrobatics + Throw Rock
Keen Senses + Pack Tactics
Blindsight + Spider Climb + Web
Large sized Animal of the Land should be unlocked later instead of Tiny. Many Large sized beasts had higher CR anyway, while there were exceptions this is broadly consistent with 5e. Large form might need its own profile. It would grant more temporary hit-points (triple Druid level?) with slightly worse AC (easier to hit), and with the ability to Charge.
Circle of the Moon would double the temporary hit-points for all sizes, so in a Medium form at 5th-level they could have 20 temporary hit-points, maxing out with a Large form at 20th-level having 120 temporary hit-points. Combined with the limited Channel Nature uses (no more unlimited wildshapes) this should be a lot less abusable.
I think making Animal of the Land a bit more complex (four choices of special ability), and adding a fourth "charger" profile shouldn't make the template method too much more complex while adding back a lot of the utility of choosing from many different beasts. It's silly for Tiny form to be a high level feature when it should be Larger, beefier forms. Temporary hit-points add durability, but as a buffer (you can once again be forced out of a wildshape if a guard spots a cat being dodgy and gives it a kick).
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The issue with R5e Wild Shape - the one everybody's forgetting while they self-destruct over the first iteration of the One druid - is that it's not fair to the druid player. Every other class in R5e with one minor subclass exception is contained within the Player's Handbook, their rules are right there and easy to reference. But a druid? A druid has to go out and buy a Monster Manual and also probably a DMG to get a full listing of beast shapes they can change into, or wheedle and convince their DM to share access to books most DMs are loathe to let players touch. If the druid can do neither of these things? They get no Wild Shape.
Why should a druid player have to spend an extra hundred dollars just to gain access to one class feature?
Reply to this here as I did in the other thread: the majority of the relevant stats, including elementals, are freely accessible under Basic Rules. You don't have to pay a cent for them
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.
Those three all came in XGtE, so that's a somewhat different matter, as they don't seem to be porting those in the initial release.
The issue with R5e Wild Shape - the one everybody's forgetting while they self-destruct over the first iteration of the One druid - is that it's not fair to the druid player. Every other class in R5e with one minor subclass exception is contained within the Player's Handbook, their rules are right there and easy to reference. But a druid? A druid has to go out and buy a Monster Manual and also probably a DMG to get a full listing of beast shapes they can change into, or wheedle and convince their DM to share access to books most DMs are loathe to let players touch. If the druid can do neither of these things? They get no Wild Shape.
Why should a druid player have to spend an extra hundred dollars just to gain access to one class feature?
Druids also have conjure animals and conjure woodland beings. So they need the books for that. Or, as the spell says, ”The GM has the creatures' statistics. Sample creatures can be found below.”
The Wild Shape's lack of durability could be ameliorated by giving it resistance to piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing, like a raging Barbarian. Given they're a d8 class they'd still be less durable than the Barbarian, but they wouldn't be as squishy as they are in the current UA.
I think resistance isn't the right way to go; temporary hit-points makes the most sense, but tie the form's duration to them as for any temp. hp. spell with a rider effect.
I'd propose something like:
Move Channel Nature to 2nd-level with all three options. A single level dip shouldn't give you access to Wildshape IMO.
Start with the ability to choose a Tiny, Small or Medium form (most Large beasts are higher CR anyway so this is broadly the same as 5e).
Wildshaping gives temporary hit-points equal to your level in Druid and based on the size class (Tiny gets half Druid level, Small gets Druid level, Medium gets twice Druid level?), when these are lost the form ends. Using the bonus action to switch back to humanoid form will temporarily suppress these (they're tied to being in wildshape).
Animal of the Land should have a choice of features including:
Blindsight + burrowing speed + Keen Senses
Climbing + Acrobatics + Throw Rock
Keen Senses + Pack Tactics
Blindsight + Spider Climb + Web
Large sized Animal of the Land should be unlocked later instead of Tiny. Many Large sized beasts had higher CR anyway, while there were exceptions this is broadly consistent with 5e. Large form might need its own profile. It would grant more temporary hit-points (triple Druid level?) with slightly worse AC (easier to hit), and with the ability to Charge.
Circle of the Moon would double the temporary hit-points for all sizes, so in a Medium form at 5th-level they could have 20 temporary hit-points, maxing out with a Large form at 20th-level having 120 temporary hit-points. Combined with the limited Channel Nature uses (no more unlimited wildshapes) this should be a lot less abusable.
I think making Animal of the Land a bit more complex (four choices of special ability), and adding a fourth "charger" profile shouldn't make the template method too much more complex while adding back a lot of the utility of choosing from many different beasts. It's silly for Tiny form to be a high level feature when it should be Larger, beefier forms. Temporary hit-points add durability, but as a buffer (you can once again be forced out of a wildshape if a guard spots a cat being dodgy and gives it a kick).
I like these ideas but I don’t think the THP should be tied to size. I understand your reasoning but the THP is low enough and don’t want the player to feel cheated because they didn’t go medium for the extra. Especially if duration is tied to it. Make the damage for attacks half for tiny, normal for small and medium (or double for medium)
I like these ideas but I don’t think the THP should be tied to size. I understand your reasoning but the THP is low enough and don’t want the player to feel cheated because they didn’t go medium for the extra. Especially if duration is tied to it. Make the damage for attacks half for tiny, normal for small and medium (or double for medium)
I mean it's somewhat consistent with the difference in Small and Medium creatures now (smaller ones usually have worse hit-points). What if instead the special abilities were tied to size as well, so you only get flyby for animal of the air at Small or Tiny size, animal of the land's options might be structured as three features each but you only get the first two at Medium size etc.? i.e- the extra hit-points is the special feature at Medium size?
There are still added advantages to being Small rather than Medium when it comes to utility, as being smaller means you can access more locations, hide more easily etc. I'd probably keep Tiny as doing half damage but let Small and Medium do the same damage (same as player characters broadly do), so Small gives you some of the extra utility of a smaller size, but without the loss of damage.
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Right now Moon Druid is an absued broken cluster**** of too many good things.
I guess I'd like to know more about why you think this. (Not attacking you, I've just never seen the sub-class come even remotely close to being broken.)
and I guess I'll qualify that further to ask if it's ever overpowered in Tiers 1 & 2. Because I've seen it be impressive at, say, 4th level. One level later, they just kind of blend into the rest of the party, and only get worse from there.
Broken doesnt mean always its overpowered. Broken can literraly mean "not well working", "Not working as intended" and it all comes down to the point your GM saying "This okay and allowed, nope this goes too far".
YES, Moon Druid on its own loses from levels 7 - 9 and from 12 -19. Level 2 / 6 are very strong for CR 1 or CR 2 (Dinosaurs) wildshapes on level 10 you gain the elemental forms to use and as i mentioned at level 20 you become a Mammoth on every single turn for 120 HP with a massive to hit. Even Zariels single target Damage round in a 1v1 is not enough to bring this Character down, escpecially if you maintain concentration on a high level healing spirit (resilient con combined with the 21 Con of the Mammoth, if you can take Warcaster you are even better in concentrating while Zariel hits for 30-40 damage. But the mess begins at the moment you throw in every other class feature and racial feature to use.
Paladin Smites on your "Natrual Weapons" Barbarian Rages und Brutal Critical on D10 from Dinosaurs Aasimar Wings to gain up to +20 damage and flying including all the other great stuff about assimar (well these benefits changes depending which assimar you use, the fari or the unfair one :P) Shifter Temp Hp for additional HP Pool, Wildhunt Shifter denies the advantage against you although you reckless attack.
The wording of Magic items how they can change der size. A Goliath magic heavy armor can also fit a Gnome. You can argue that Amuletts, Rings similiar accessoires can still be worn you can still benefit from their passive magic capabilites.
For me i do play a Level 11 Beast Barbarian + Moon Druid Shifter in Theros. Starting with nyxborn and using a ring of fire resistance, i have 6 resistances. Due to the weird overlap of Beast Barbarians use of "natural Weapons" an "natural Weapons" of my Wildshapes my GM sees no difference. So to speak the level 3 Feature "Form of the Beast" with the claw effect stating: "Once on each of your turns when you attack with a claw using the Attack action..." any wildshape using a claw attack benefits from this this feature, so i do gain a third attack. The Level 10 Feature "Infectious Fury" says "When you hit a creature with your natural weapons..." so this will benefit aswell.
If you really try to "break" the Moon druid, the utterly bad wording by WoTC comes in hand. Its all up to your GM if your Moon Druid is really really strong and broken and can benefit from magic items passives or not and benefit from class features, passives, abilites do they work do they interact, how do they how do they interact.
You can dive real deep into this or you just keep the book closed and say "this is too much for me" and go for a smother and simplier class.
The issue with R5e Wild Shape - the one everybody's forgetting while they self-destruct over the first iteration of the One druid - is that it's not fair to the druid player. Every other class in R5e with one minor subclass exception is contained within the Player's Handbook, their rules are right there and easy to reference. But a druid? A druid has to go out and buy a Monster Manual and also probably a DMG to get a full listing of beast shapes they can change into, or wheedle and convince their DM to share access to books most DMs are loathe to let players touch. If the druid can do neither of these things? They get no Wild Shape.
Why should a druid player have to spend an extra hundred dollars just to gain access to one class feature?
But they don't not unless they are a pathological "gotta get them all" / "munchkin" player - remember the DM always has final say on what animals your druid would have seen and thus be able to WS into so TBH the druid really shouldn't be searching through every possible book to find the absolute most powerful forms anyway, the DM should give them a list of animal forms they know outside of those they interact with in the game itself.
But even with if you play as "the druid has seen every animal possible in any book", all you need is PHB and Monster Manual for 95% of the functionality of wildshape. Plus you're forgeting that Wizards also need a MM for their devil & demon summoning spells, and Clerics need it for their angel summoning spell. Plus all druids need it for Conjure Woodland Beings and Conjure Animals anyway - both cover a larger range of CR than non-moondruids get with their WS anyway. So no it isn't 1 feature that requires monster statblocks, lots of them do. I could also add Find Familiar and Find Steed / Find Greater Steed as needed a MM for the full array of options. The game assumes that the table has access to the PHB, DMG, and MM. That's really not all that much to ask.
The issue with R5e Wild Shape - the one everybody's forgetting while they self-destruct over the first iteration of the One druid - is that it's not fair to the druid player. Every other class in R5e with one minor subclass exception is contained within the Player's Handbook, their rules are right there and easy to reference. But a druid? A druid has to go out and buy a Monster Manual and also probably a DMG to get a full listing of beast shapes they can change into, or wheedle and convince their DM to share access to books most DMs are loathe to let players touch. If the druid can do neither of these things? They get no Wild Shape.
Why should a druid player have to spend an extra hundred dollars just to gain access to one class feature?
But they don't not unless they are a pathological "gotta get them all" / "munchkin" player - remember the DM always has final say on what animals your druid would have seen and thus be able to WS into so TBH the druid really shouldn't be searching through every possible book to find the absolute most powerful forms anyway, the DM should give them a list of animal forms they know outside of those they interact with in the game itself.
But even with if you play as "the druid has seen every animal possible in any book", all you need is PHB and Monster Manual for 95% of the functionality of wildshape. Plus you're forgeting that Wizards also need a MM for their devil & demon summoning spells, and Clerics need it for their angel summoning spell. Plus all druids need it for Conjure Woodland Beings and Conjure Animals anyway - both cover a larger range of CR than non-moondruids get with their WS anyway. So no it isn't 1 feature that requires monster statblocks, lots of them do. I could also add Find Familiar and Find Steed / Find Greater Steed as needed a MM for the full array of options. The game assumes that the table has access to the PHB, DMG, and MM. That's really not all that much to ask.
just to add to that, those other spells like Find Greater Steed are not PHB, so you need another book (XGtE, Tasha's, SCAG, etc), for those spells. Meanwhile those druid spells, the druid only gets to select CR, not the specific creatures, DM is the one that has the creatures' stat blocks, not the player.
The issue with R5e Wild Shape - the one everybody's forgetting while they self-destruct over the first iteration of the One druid - is that it's not fair to the druid player. Every other class in R5e with one minor subclass exception is contained within the Player's Handbook, their rules are right there and easy to reference. But a druid? A druid has to go out and buy a Monster Manual and also probably a DMG to get a full listing of beast shapes they can change into, or wheedle and convince their DM to share access to books most DMs are loathe to let players touch. If the druid can do neither of these things? They get no Wild Shape.
Why should a druid player have to spend an extra hundred dollars just to gain access to one class feature?
But they don't not unless they are a pathological "gotta get them all" / "munchkin" player - remember the DM always has final say on what animals your druid would have seen and thus be able to WS into so TBH the druid really shouldn't be searching through every possible book to find the absolute most powerful forms anyway, the DM should give them a list of animal forms they know outside of those they interact with in the game itself.
But even with if you play as "the druid has seen every animal possible in any book", all you need is PHB and Monster Manual for 95% of the functionality of wildshape. Plus you're forgeting that Wizards also need a MM for their devil & demon summoning spells, and Clerics need it for their angel summoning spell. Plus all druids need it for Conjure Woodland Beings and Conjure Animals anyway - both cover a larger range of CR than non-moondruids get with their WS anyway. So no it isn't 1 feature that requires monster statblocks, lots of them do. I could also add Find Familiar and Find Steed / Find Greater Steed as needed a MM for the full array of options. The game assumes that the table has access to the PHB, DMG, and MM. That's really not all that much to ask.
just to add to that, those other spells like Find Greater Steed are not PHB, so you need another book (XGtE, Tasha's, SCAG, etc), for those spells. Meanwhile those druid spells, the druid only gets to select CR, not the specific creatures, DM is the one that has the creatures' stat blocks, not the player.
I think they were referring to the statblocks to use with the spells that are in the MM rather than the spells themselves (which you're correct, are in yet other books again).
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It's probably reasonable to expect that a lot of the old summon spells that refer to specific monster stat blocks will be going away in favour of the more recent Tasha's Cauldron etc. spells like summon fey etc. I just hope that D&D Beyond actually bothers to implement them this time.
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You don't need to swap out of it (maybe). It now says you retain "your ability to speak" in your wildshape. So you may just be a magical talking animal.
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This isn't really true, Circle of the Land Druid does not need to delve into either, there is in the PHB:
CR0 - Bat, Cat, Frog, Hawk, Owl, Rat, Raven
CR 1/8 - Mastiff, Mule, Poisonous Snake
CR 1/4 - Boar, Constrictor Snake, Panther, Riding Horse, Wolf
CR 1/2 - Black Bear, Crocodile, Reef Shark, Warhorse
CR 1 - Brown Bear, Dire Wolf, Giant Eagle, Giant Spider, Lion, Tiger
Sure, there is a lot more choice with more books, but then that goes for spells and sub classes too. The only Druid that really needs the extensive list of all the stat blocks is Circle of the Moon. For Circle of the Land there is enough for a lot of utility in there.
Well... PHB has the most essential beasts in its monster block as far as I know. And for a druid, the animals they know is like a second spellbook, with access to all the senses, movement modes, and other features those beasts might have.
Also, there's a great deal of spells that are not in PHB and cost money to buy for your account. Two bucks for the OP silvery barbs anyone?
I guess I'd like to know more about why you think this. (Not attacking you, I've just never seen the sub-class come even remotely close to being broken.)
and I guess I'll qualify that further to ask if it's ever overpowered in Tiers 1 & 2. Because I've seen it be impressive at, say, 4th level. One level later, they just kind of blend into the rest of the party, and only get worse from there.
Hmmm, well that can be a problem for some Druid players. There are certainly some useful beast options in the PHB. That said, a certain degree of cooperation between the DM and player is important regardless. If the player asks for beasts that suit the campaign setting that can fly or swim or tunnel and the DM only points them to the PHB, that's a communication problem. There are several Druid-specific build guides I have found on the Internet for free that are quite helpful. A few even include statblocks from the Monster Manual. It does take a bit of digging, though. At the end of the day, I would still much rather have the option of doing my own research and pulling up 20 or 30 options of possible beasts to Wildshape into over whatever handful of options that a template-based system would likely allow.
Ultimately, it's not really a bigger problem than playing an Artificer. Any one book is not going to have all or even most of the magic items because new magic items keep getting created by the devs.
Wild Shape is awful. The best benefit wasn’t as a combat option but as a do anything option: need to stealth be tiny, need to dig under the wall, pick some stat block w/ borrowing, need to escape be a deer or whatever w/ a 120 ft. dash. Swimming and flying at higher levels just add more options.
Removing the versatility makes it lame.
The Wild Shape's lack of durability could be ameliorated by giving it resistance to piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing, like a raging Barbarian. Given they're a d8 class they'd still be less durable than the Barbarian, but they wouldn't be as squishy as they are in the current UA.
And allowing skill proficiencies to carry over from base form to Wild Shaped form, for example if you go Rogue 1 for expertise in Stealth, would allow a Wild Shaped form to adequately functional.
Then a handful of creature traits, like burrowing, collected into packages that you choose when Wild Shaping would compensate for the loss of particular beast forms.
If you're self destructing over the fact that the class has a book that has a bunch of stuff they'd want (while ignoring the dozens of other books that class and half the other classes in the game wants that people will rarely buy, whereas this book is considered to be mandatory at the table, I'm reminded of the episode of the Simpsons when an American Indian shedding a tear when he sees the Simpsons drop a piece of litter, only to turn around and see the gigantic landfill), then the solution is very simple and has already been given - provide optional additional statblocks as possibilities. Literally, it allows everyone to have what they want while not losing anything that hasn't already been shown to be willing to be lost (page space for the statblocks).
If this is "the problem with R5e Wildshape", then it's turning a molehill into a mountain to say there's a problem. Provide the statblocks as optional extra ones, then move on. No need to start messing with what makes it a great feature.
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I am just going to throw my 2 cents here. Standardized stat blocks allow for me to flavor my shapeshifting however I want. But loss of utility in stat blocks is a major issue. Non-moon druids are still unlikely to use the forms for combat even if they were decent in combat because you have to take an entire action to shift into that form. As others have stated the real use is utility. My opinion level 1 should allow a combat and a tiny form that can climb. Level 5 can give the tiny stat block burrow or climb/spider climb option and the combat land animal climbing and extra attack as before. Unlock burrow as an option for combat land when we unlock swim speed. Keep skills and non-ancestry feats for all forms, if it is going to be YOU, let it be you, your skills, your feats, your knowledge. The only thing that changes is your body.
AC for Land and aquatic should be 12+wis instead of 10 (combat form), they literally have hide/leather that is what their bodies are made of. And flying should be the standard 10+wis. This d8 for damage is non-sense. If you lose your spells and everything give it a nice beefy d10, you aren't getting fighting styles or warrior feats with it, and yes the flying one should have a d6 for damage. Give 2* druid level temp HP when morphing into land or aquatic form. Boom, forms are fixed. They aren't a catch all for everything, but they provide better movement options at all levels and a decent martial buff at all levels without completely invalidating any class.
As written, the stat blocks have no reason to shift except for fly or swim on a very rare occasion, the inability to keep your skills makes this even more so.
I think resistance isn't the right way to go; temporary hit-points makes the most sense, but tie the form's duration to them as for any temp. hp. spell with a rider effect.
I'd propose something like:
I think making Animal of the Land a bit more complex (four choices of special ability), and adding a fourth "charger" profile shouldn't make the template method too much more complex while adding back a lot of the utility of choosing from many different beasts. It's silly for Tiny form to be a high level feature when it should be Larger, beefier forms. Temporary hit-points add durability, but as a buffer (you can once again be forced out of a wildshape if a guard spots a cat being dodgy and gives it a kick).
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Reply to this here as I did in the other thread: the majority of the relevant stats, including elementals, are freely accessible under Basic Rules. You don't have to pay a cent for them
Those three all came in XGtE, so that's a somewhat different matter, as they don't seem to be porting those in the initial release.
Druids also have conjure animals and conjure woodland beings. So they need the books for that. Or, as the spell says, ”The GM has the creatures' statistics. Sample creatures can be found below.”
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I like these ideas but I don’t think the THP should be tied to size. I understand your reasoning but the THP is low enough and don’t want the player to feel cheated because they didn’t go medium for the extra. Especially if duration is tied to it. Make the damage for attacks half for tiny, normal for small and medium (or double for medium)
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I mean it's somewhat consistent with the difference in Small and Medium creatures now (smaller ones usually have worse hit-points). What if instead the special abilities were tied to size as well, so you only get flyby for animal of the air at Small or Tiny size, animal of the land's options might be structured as three features each but you only get the first two at Medium size etc.? i.e- the extra hit-points is the special feature at Medium size?
There are still added advantages to being Small rather than Medium when it comes to utility, as being smaller means you can access more locations, hide more easily etc. I'd probably keep Tiny as doing half damage but let Small and Medium do the same damage (same as player characters broadly do), so Small gives you some of the extra utility of a smaller size, but without the loss of damage.
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Broken doesnt mean always its overpowered. Broken can literraly mean "not well working", "Not working as intended" and it all comes down to the point your GM saying "This okay and allowed, nope this goes too far".
YES, Moon Druid on its own loses from levels 7 - 9 and from 12 -19. Level 2 / 6 are very strong for CR 1 or CR 2 (Dinosaurs) wildshapes on level 10 you gain the elemental forms to use and as i mentioned at level 20 you become a Mammoth on every single turn for 120 HP with a massive to hit. Even Zariels single target Damage round in a 1v1 is not enough to bring this Character down, escpecially if you maintain concentration on a high level healing spirit (resilient con combined with the 21 Con of the Mammoth, if you can take Warcaster you are even better in concentrating while Zariel hits for 30-40 damage. But the mess begins at the moment you throw in every other class feature and racial feature to use.
Paladin Smites on your "Natrual Weapons"
Barbarian Rages und Brutal Critical on D10 from Dinosaurs
Aasimar Wings to gain up to +20 damage and flying including all the other great stuff about assimar (well these benefits changes depending which assimar you use, the fari or the unfair one :P)
Shifter Temp Hp for additional HP Pool, Wildhunt Shifter denies the advantage against you although you reckless attack.
The wording of Magic items how they can change der size. A Goliath magic heavy armor can also fit a Gnome. You can argue that Amuletts, Rings similiar accessoires can still be worn you can still benefit from their passive magic capabilites.
For me i do play a Level 11 Beast Barbarian + Moon Druid Shifter in Theros. Starting with nyxborn and using a ring of fire resistance, i have 6 resistances. Due to the weird overlap of Beast Barbarians use of "natural Weapons" an "natural Weapons" of my Wildshapes my GM sees no difference. So to speak the level 3 Feature "Form of the Beast" with the claw effect stating: "Once on each of your turns when you attack with a claw using the Attack action..." any wildshape using a claw attack benefits from this this feature, so i do gain a third attack. The Level 10 Feature "Infectious Fury" says "When you hit a creature with your natural weapons..." so this will benefit aswell.
If you really try to "break" the Moon druid, the utterly bad wording by WoTC comes in hand. Its all up to your GM if your Moon Druid is really really strong and broken and can benefit from magic items passives or not and benefit from class features, passives, abilites do they work do they interact, how do they how do they interact.
You can dive real deep into this or you just keep the book closed and say "this is too much for me" and go for a smother and simplier class.
But they don't not unless they are a pathological "gotta get them all" / "munchkin" player - remember the DM always has final say on what animals your druid would have seen and thus be able to WS into so TBH the druid really shouldn't be searching through every possible book to find the absolute most powerful forms anyway, the DM should give them a list of animal forms they know outside of those they interact with in the game itself.
But even with if you play as "the druid has seen every animal possible in any book", all you need is PHB and Monster Manual for 95% of the functionality of wildshape. Plus you're forgeting that Wizards also need a MM for their devil & demon summoning spells, and Clerics need it for their angel summoning spell. Plus all druids need it for Conjure Woodland Beings and Conjure Animals anyway - both cover a larger range of CR than non-moondruids get with their WS anyway. So no it isn't 1 feature that requires monster statblocks, lots of them do. I could also add Find Familiar and Find Steed / Find Greater Steed as needed a MM for the full array of options. The game assumes that the table has access to the PHB, DMG, and MM. That's really not all that much to ask.
just to add to that, those other spells like Find Greater Steed are not PHB, so you need another book (XGtE, Tasha's, SCAG, etc), for those spells. Meanwhile those druid spells, the druid only gets to select CR, not the specific creatures, DM is the one that has the creatures' stat blocks, not the player.
I think they were referring to the statblocks to use with the spells that are in the MM rather than the spells themselves (which you're correct, are in yet other books again).
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It's probably reasonable to expect that a lot of the old summon spells that refer to specific monster stat blocks will be going away in favour of the more recent Tasha's Cauldron etc. spells like summon fey etc. I just hope that D&D Beyond actually bothers to implement them this time.
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You don't need to swap out of it (maybe). It now says you retain "your ability to speak" in your wildshape. So you may just be a magical talking animal.