Remember a while ago when I made a thread about how I thought the Class Groups were a bad idea from a design perspective, because it would lead to the design in 1D&D focussing too much on making every class in the group fit the group's 'gimmick'?
Yeah, well if you look at Druids and Wildshape in the newest doc, you can (hopefully) see exactly what I mean.
Since the 'Priest' class group design philosophy is all about designing the rest of the features of the classes in the group around Channel Divinity (or Channel Nature, in the Druid's case) and the closest thing Druids had to a 'channel divinity' ability in 5e was Wildshape, the entire class now revolves around Wildshape, where previously Wildshape was a relatively minor feature for Druids, except when they chose the Circle of the Moon sub-class in order to explicitly focus on getting the most out of Wildshape.
And in the process they made Wildshape actively worse too, even for Druids choosing to focus on it through Circle of the Moon. (Being able to case Abjuration spells while in Wildshape is obviously meant to allow Circle of the Moon Druids to continue being the party healer while in Wildshape, since healing spells are Abjuration now... Which is kinda pointless, because back in the early days of 5e, when Circle of the Land and Circle of the Moon were the only options, people who chose Circle of the Moon did so because they wanted to turn into cool animals and explicitly didn't want to be the main healer).
Obviously this is my perspective based on my experience. However, except for subclasses like circle of stars or circle of spores, all the druids I've seen in play make wild shape their main feature (circle of stars and circle of spores too, just they don't transform into an animal). In fact, it's the reason most players I've seen choose to play a druid. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that WoTC gives prominence to that druid feature, since they probably have the same impression as me.
What I do agree on is that Wild Shape is now worse. I think their design is lazy and poorly worked. They wanted to make it more accessible and simpler, which is cool. But they have made a very bad choice. It can be saved, however. And I think they will do so in future revisions as I anticipate a big "no" in the polls.
Obviously this is my perspective based on my experience. However, except for subclasses like circle of stars or circle of spores, all the druids I've seen in play make wild shape their main feature (circle of stars and circle of spores too, just they don't transform into an animal). In fact, it's the reason most players I've seen choose to play a druid. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that WoTC gives prominence to that druid feature, since they probably have the same impression as me.
What's strange is that in the video interviews Crawford makes it sound like their aim is to make Wildshape just one of several viable options for Druid, but then 90% of the Druid features are literally just Wildshape improvements, on a much worse version of Wildshape. So instead of making it possible to build a druid as an elemental mage with a useful familiar, or as a nature healer, you just end up making Wildshape bad and the other options don't scale.
It's a very, very weird UA. I'm not against some of the ideas, I like the idea of the Channel Nature having several options, since this is what a lot of sub-classes have done in the past anyway (different ways to spend Wildshape) but they've made all of the options bad, as Wildshape is the only one that scales (and not that well). I don't mind the generic wildshape options for simplicity, but it needs to either also support beasts for more advanced players, or those generic wildshapes need to have more ways to customise them (e.g- pick from options like pack tactics, spider climb/web etc.).
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.
Spare the Dying now restores 1hp - and people thought healing word was bad enough!
Yeah, but only if your Dying, and it leaves you unconscious and starts you on a short rest. It seems okay by me.
Actually I think the way it's currently worded it would revive you; if you're in the Dying condition and gain any hit-points, the condition ends.
If the intention is to trigger the "stable" state it would need to say something like "[The target] is stabilised as if it succeeded at three death saving throws". I think that's the proper way to implement it as revival is too strong for a cantrip IMO; if their aim is to make the cantrip more useful for non-grave clerics they should make it a bonus action as standard but give grave domain the range (and some other bonuses).
The problem is that previously a healer's kit was just as good and didn't take one of your precious cantrip choices.
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.
Spare the Dying now restores 1hp - and people thought healing word was bad enough!
Yeah, but only if your Dying, and it leaves you unconscious and starts you on a short rest. It seems okay by me.
Actually I think the way it's currently worded it would revive you; if you're in the Dying condition and gain any hit-points, the condition ends.
If the intention is to trigger the "stable" state it would need to say something like "[The target] is stabilised as if it succeeded at three death saving throws". I think that's the proper way to implement it as revival is too strong for a cantrip IMO; if their aim is to make the cantrip more useful for non-grave clerics they should make it a bonus action as standard but give grave domain the range (and some other bonuses).
The problem is that previously a healer's kit was just as good and didn't take one of your precious cantrip choices.
Well then that should be changed. If it still left you Unconscious and resting it would be fine.
Thinking more about this, I think their goals are twofold. 1) They want to eliminate the need for DMs to be the arbiters of what a druid can change into. Currently it's up to the DM to decide what beasts are in their world and what beasts the PC would have possibly seen in their lives. That falls squarely in the mother may I design category. 2) They want to avoid having a class that can do everything, and do it better than classes who are supposed to be built to fill a specific niche for essentialy zero cost. Best scout? Druid. Best tank? Druid. Best damage in tier 1 (the most often played tier) that's right....druid. They're also the best healers, best infiltrators, they eliminate the need for bringing supplies, they're every transport solution, etc ..... They need to be pulled back in line somehow.
1) I haven't seen any DM limiting their players too much in that regard. I don't either, unless it's something completely insane.
2) Well yes and no. I mean, to me Druids aren't the best at anything, but they are second best at a lot of things. My impression is this new Druid the only role he's really been nerfed in is as a tank (as a damage sponge, actually. Since as a tank he was never at the top. But I don't want to get into the debate of what is a tank really).
Thinking more about this, I think their goals are twofold. 1) They want to eliminate the need for DMs to be the arbiters of what a druid can change into. Currently it's up to the DM to decide what beasts are in their world and what beasts the PC would have possibly seen in their lives. That falls squarely in the mother may I design category. 2) They want to avoid having a class that can do everything, and do it better than classes who are supposed to be built to fill a specific niche for essentialy zero cost. Best scout? Druid. Best tank? Druid. Best damage in tier 1 (the most often played tier) that's right....druid. They're also the best healers, best infiltrators, they eliminate the need for bringing supplies, they're every transport solution, etc ..... They need to be pulled back in line somehow.
Druid as a whole aren't the best healers one specific subclass is and I agree it needs to be pulled back, and they weren't the best explorer/scout b/c they had to put themselves at risk to do it. Wizard familiars were the best explorer/scout so they have technically buffed the druid explorer/scout role by giving them a super cheap familiar. Tier1 moon druid needs a nerf for sure, but wildshape for non-moon druids was entirely fine in 5e. The proposed UA makes wildshape entirely useless to all druids, yet fills up their class with a dozen features related to it, which is just terrible design - if they don't want druids wildshaping don't build the entire class around it, give them other stuff! Clerics only have 2-3 class features related to Channel Divinity, if Channel nature is supposed to be druid equivalent then why is every single class feature related to it in the Druid class? Right now if you gave this class description to a newbie they would probably think that wildshaping is the core feature of the class and they should be doing it all the time, just like a rogue uses sneak attack or barbarian uses rage all the time. But that's false, they should never use it.
Ok.. I just want to make sure Im reading the Epic Boon of Fate right. When a creature fails a D20 test, you can apply a 2d4 as a bonus(makes sense), or penalty. The penalty part doesnt make much sense to me since its triggered when something has already been declared to fail. Applying a penalty to a failed roll seems either really situational, or entirely pointless
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
NNCHRIS: SOUL THIEF, MASTER OF THE ARCANE, AND KING OF NEW YORKNN Gdl Creator of Ilheia and her Knights of the Fallen Stars ldG Lesser Student of Technomancy [undergrad student in computer science] Supporter of the 2014 rules, and a MASSIVE Homebrewer. Come to me all ye who seek salvation in wording thy brews! Open to homebrew trades at any time!! Or feel free to request HB, and Ill see if I can get it done for ya! Characters (Outdated)
Remember a while ago when I made a thread about how I thought the Class Groups were a bad idea from a design perspective, because it would lead to the design in 1D&D focussing too much on making every class in the group fit the group's 'gimmick'?
Yeah, well if you look at Druids and Wildshape in the newest doc, you can (hopefully) see exactly what I mean.
Since the 'Priest' class group design philosophy is all about designing the rest of the features of the classes in the group around Channel Divinity (or Channel Nature, in the Druid's case) and the closest thing Druids had to a 'channel divinity' ability in 5e was Wildshape, the entire class now revolves around Wildshape, where previously Wildshape was a relatively minor feature for Druids, except when they chose the Circle of the Moon sub-class in order to explicitly focus on getting the most out of Wildshape.
And in the process they made Wildshape actively worse too, even for Druids choosing to focus on it through Circle of the Moon. (Being able to case Abjuration spells while in Wildshape is obviously meant to allow Circle of the Moon Druids to continue being the party healer while in Wildshape, since healing spells are Abjuration now... Which is kinda pointless, because back in the early days of 5e, when Circle of the Land and Circle of the Moon were the only options, people who chose Circle of the Moon did so because they wanted to turn into cool animals and explicitly didn't want to be the main healer).
Obviously this is my perspective based on my experience. However, except for subclasses like circle of stars or circle of spores, all the druids I've seen in play make wild shape their main feature (circle of stars and circle of spores too, just they don't transform into an animal). In fact, it's the reason most players I've seen choose to play a druid. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that WoTC gives prominence to that druid feature, since they probably have the same impression as me.
What I do agree on is that Wild Shape is now worse. I think their design is lazy and poorly worked. They wanted to make it more accessible and simpler, which is cool. But they have made a very bad choice. It can be saved, however. And I think they will do so in future revisions as I anticipate a big "no" in the polls.
The reason for this is that Wild Shape is the only unique feature in the 5e Druid class. In fact it's the only class feature that 95% of druid players will get to play with in a typical campaign. Besides Wild Shape there is a handful of unique spells on their spell list but that's it, everything else that Druids can do can also be done by either a cleric or a wizard, and usually done better by the cleric or wizard. Since Nature Cleric is a thing, if you just wanted to play a nature-themed healer that never uses Wild Shape, you would probably choose Nature Cleric rather than Druid. And since Evocation Wizard is a thing, if you just wanted to play a caster who manipulates the elements to destroy their enemies, you would probably choose Evocation Wizard. And since Beastmaster Ranger is a thing, if you wanted to play a combat-oriented defender of nature with a close bond to animals, you would probably choose Beastmaster Ranger. It's why druid is not that commonly played as a class, their only unique feature is Wildshape so you have to want to use it to have a reason to choose the class.
I don't mind having druid being 80~90% about wild shape as some are complaining, as long as they make it good even for caster druids. And some tankiness+exploration+utility sounds like a good deal, but right now all 3 of those either are bad or come to late in to the game.
About Spare the Dying, I think coming back from the dead should grant one level of exhaustion. Especially since now the Exhaustion mechanics are not as bad as they used to be with the 10 levels total to die. That would fix 90% of the Yoyo effect we see regardless healing in combat.
If that is too harsh maybe add a - DC 15 - Constitution Roll when a character comes back from the dead to see if he gets the exhaustion or no OR character can regain 2 levels of Exhaustion on a long rest.
That way you can use spare the dying, healing world, mass healing world, etc. As much as you like, but there is a cost on the long run. Also, it does make healing before the character goes down much more appealing if you can try to reduce the chance of gaining one Exhaustion level.
1) I haven't seen any DM limiting their players too much in that regard. I don't either, unless it's something completely insane.
2) Well yes and no. I mean, to me Druids aren't the best at anything, but they are second best at a lot of things. My impression is this new Druid the only role he's really been nerfed in is as a tank (as a damage sponge, actually. Since as a tank he was never at the top. But I don't want to get into the debate of what is a tank really).
Druid in general was never a tank. Only moon druid was a tank, and that was the entirety of their subclass. If they don't want druids to tank just get rid of the Circle of the Moon subclass et voila, druids can't tank anymore. Wildshape for the vast majority of druid subclasses was a utility feature, not a combat one. But now that has been nerfed to oblivion because none of your wildshapes get the interesting unique utility abilities of different animal forms you had before. One of the most useful Wildshape forms for non-Moon Druid was Giant Badger because of its burrow speed - being able to dig a burrow for the party to sleep in out of the elements, or dig a tunnel under or around a trap, or dig an escape route from a kobold nest you've found yourself in. Another super useful Wildshape form was one of the Spiders - SpiderClimb to reach something the rest of the party can't, and Blindsight to lead the rest of the party through an area of darkness or obscurement. Both now gone entirely! The new wildshape has almost no utility value, and almost no combat value, so what is it for? If a feature has no purpose, then it should be removed and replaced with features that do have a purpose. I'd rather see Wildshape removed entirely and replaced with something else, than this UA version of Druid.
Seven of the druid's class features now strictly and solely affect Wild Shape.
If you were one of those druids who played the class despite Wild Shape because you liked doing other things on the druid chassis (Stars, Wildfire), you get to suck one and find a new class.
That is...frustrating.
But hey - somehow, Aura of Protection on the paladin didn't get nerfed! It already didn't stack due to 5e stacking rules (two effects with the same name, the higher magnitude applies), they're just making it crystal clear. Quite possibly the strongest non-spells class feature in all of 5e remained completely untouched. Somehow.
Late to the party here. I looked at the base Druid 2014 and you get spellcasting (like UA), Wildshape (UA has that too) then nothing outside of ASI’s and Wildshape improvements until level 18: Timeless Body and Beast Spells. And at 20 Archdruid. I don’t see how, if you played Druid despite wildshape, you’re screwed. I mean waiting to get anything for 18 levels wasn’t a plus for the 2014 Druid.
The new wildshape needs to give some temp HP or something and I don’t like that you can’t become a cat (or other tiny animal) without a special ability. I play a 15th level Land Druid in my current campaign and WS has always been utility. I lose some of that by having to be at least small sized no matter what I turn into.
i dont like the temp hp idea that people keep suggesting as thats unhealable which is a bit meh and a lot of the 'new features' are just the ws table being split into class features instead with some minor exceptions but those exceptions didnt matter in 2014 version as they were allowed from level 2
Seven of the druid's class features now strictly and solely affect Wild Shape.
If you were one of those druids who played the class despite Wild Shape because you liked doing other things on the druid chassis (Stars, Wildfire), you get to suck one and find a new class.
That is...frustrating.
But hey - somehow, Aura of Protection on the paladin didn't get nerfed! It already didn't stack due to 5e stacking rules (two effects with the same name, the higher magnitude applies), they're just making it crystal clear. Quite possibly the strongest non-spells class feature in all of 5e remained completely untouched. Somehow.
Late to the party here. I looked at the base Druid 2014 and you get spellcasting (like UA), Wildshape (UA has that too) then nothing outside of ASI’s and Wildshape improvements until level 18: Timeless Body and Beast Spells. And at 20 Archdruid. I don’t see how, if you played Druid despite wildshape, you’re screwed. I mean waiting to get anything for 18 levels wasn’t a plus for the 2014 Druid.
The new wildshape needs to give some temp HP or something and I don’t like that you can’t become a cat (or other tiny animal) without a special ability. I play a 15th level Land Druid in my current campaign and WS has always been utility. I lose some of that by having to be at least small sized no matter what I turn into.
Yeah, the UA is a buff for druids in general (wild shape form controversy aside).
The issue with tiny shapes as I see it, is it allowed things like "I turn into a spider and crawl into the room, shift out, fill my bag of holding with gold, then exit as a spider and take a nap" or "I turn into a spider, crawl through the key hole and open the door" while other classes needed to make rolls that could fail or use a more limited resource like a spell slot.
The issue with tiny shapes as I see it, is it allowed things like "I turn into a spider and crawl into the room, shift out, fill my bag of holding with gold, then exit as a spider and take a nap" or "I turn into a spider, crawl through the key hole and open the door" while other classes needed to make rolls that could fail or use a more limited resource like a spell slot.
I'm not sure that's something that's really broken; if you're still shifting back into druid form to do the looting then your DM could just as easily ask for a stealth check to avoid making too much noise. It also looks like in OneD&D they're trying to be more clear about what's magical, so anything to detect magic can limit wildshape shenanigans when it's supposed to be the rogue's time to shine.
But really that's spending two full uses of a limited ability, which IMO is fine; if anything they'll arguably be making the issue worse later on with the UA because it allows freely switching between forms later on (by which time you'll have access to tiny forms already).
If they want to limit it a bit they should make the transition noisy, because as Hollywood has taught it is mandatory that you roar into the camera after transforming into a beast. This way you can still use it with a little planning, but people might be alerted and wary of unexpected cat.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
There are some good and bad changes here but I want to focus on whatever it is they did to wildshape. Yea, it is unbalanced both ways as is, and it needs both buffing and nerfing in certain places. It needed changing but… where is the versatility? Where is the fun? Where is… I mean anything? It isn’t strong. There is no benefit to to. There is no flavour. There are no interesting mechanics. You give up your spellcasting to get a likely worse ac, to become a fighter that has less health, less options, less features, less damage. It is actually a trap ability outside of roleplay/environmental use. When would you ever use this in combat?
I feel like they need to actually go through their creatures and make a tag specifically to state druids can wildshape into them. We have big old spell lists. Just take a bunch of creatures that they are comfortable using and slap that tag on it. AND Introduce some generic templates too. Because picking a creature to turn into was part of the fun and I would love that expanded on. Hell I would love an actual Druid subclass that was entirely wildshape. Take the spellcasting away in exchange for a true good wildshape feature. Perhaps with the ability to burn multiple uses for stronger creatures. or you can use spellslots to become something stronger.
sure there needs to be a limit to how much they can tank. and getting the creatures full healthbar is a bit much. But man… give it something.
I have seen some fair balance changes overall so I was excited for this but MAN this is as disappointing as it comes.
They've definitely nerfed wildshape as it stands by not giving any additional hit-points; this will need to be fixed. (...) I don't see druids mastering shapeshifting the moment they start learning to be a druid, it makes sense for it to not be a 1st-level feature IMO.
My thoughts exactly when I saw wildshape at first level. Wait, beginner druids can wildshape right away? If anything, shapeshifting should be pushed back, except perhaps for Moon Druids at 2nd level.
For the wildshape stat blocks... aside from not getting any extra/temp hp anymore (admittedly, you had too much extra hp as a druid in the 2014 version, but removing all extra hp seems too much of a nerf for melee combat druids)... I suggest adding the possibility to choose one special trait among a limited list of traits that you can use when you transform that makes sense for the chosen form : ex: pounce, charge, burrow, jump (standing leap), spider climb...
I like the idea of a small selection of templates. (And pretty sure WotC are gonna stick with them). Just not sure these templates are good or interesting enough.
Not sure how I feel about druids being able to talk while in wildshape form. A bit too Disney cartoon for me (but I know there are a lot of other Disney-esque moments in this game). But if druids can talk in animal form, why can't they cast other spells beside Abjuration that uses only Verbal components?
I'd rather have the animal form druid be able to communicate telepathically with its allies. And perhaps a Variant rule sidebox for DMs to allow wildshape speech.
Obviously this is my perspective based on my experience. However, except for subclasses like circle of stars or circle of spores, all the druids I've seen in play make wild shape their main feature (circle of stars and circle of spores too, just they don't transform into an animal). In fact, it's the reason most players I've seen choose to play a druid. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that WoTC gives prominence to that druid feature, since they probably have the same impression as me.
What I do agree on is that Wild Shape is now worse. I think their design is lazy and poorly worked. They wanted to make it more accessible and simpler, which is cool. But they have made a very bad choice. It can be saved, however. And I think they will do so in future revisions as I anticipate a big "no" in the polls.
What's strange is that in the video interviews Crawford makes it sound like their aim is to make Wildshape just one of several viable options for Druid, but then 90% of the Druid features are literally just Wildshape improvements, on a much worse version of Wildshape. So instead of making it possible to build a druid as an elemental mage with a useful familiar, or as a nature healer, you just end up making Wildshape bad and the other options don't scale.
It's a very, very weird UA. I'm not against some of the ideas, I like the idea of the Channel Nature having several options, since this is what a lot of sub-classes have done in the past anyway (different ways to spend Wildshape) but they've made all of the options bad, as Wildshape is the only one that scales (and not that well). I don't mind the generic wildshape options for simplicity, but it needs to either also support beasts for more advanced players, or those generic wildshapes need to have more ways to customise them (e.g- pick from options like pack tactics, spider climb/web etc.).
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.
Yeah, but only if your Dying, and it leaves you unconscious and starts you on a short rest. It seems okay by me.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Actually I think the way it's currently worded it would revive you; if you're in the Dying condition and gain any hit-points, the condition ends.
If the intention is to trigger the "stable" state it would need to say something like "[The target] is stabilised as if it succeeded at three death saving throws". I think that's the proper way to implement it as revival is too strong for a cantrip IMO; if their aim is to make the cantrip more useful for non-grave clerics they should make it a bonus action as standard but give grave domain the range (and some other bonuses).
The problem is that previously a healer's kit was just as good and didn't take one of your precious cantrip choices.
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.
i agree the way i see it spare the dying brings you back
Well then that should be changed. If it still left you Unconscious and resting it would be fine.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Thinking more about this, I think their goals are twofold. 1) They want to eliminate the need for DMs to be the arbiters of what a druid can change into. Currently it's up to the DM to decide what beasts are in their world and what beasts the PC would have possibly seen in their lives. That falls squarely in the mother may I design category. 2) They want to avoid having a class that can do everything, and do it better than classes who are supposed to be built to fill a specific niche for essentialy zero cost. Best scout? Druid. Best tank? Druid. Best damage in tier 1 (the most often played tier) that's right....druid. They're also the best healers, best infiltrators, they eliminate the need for bringing supplies, they're every transport solution, etc ..... They need to be pulled back in line somehow.
1) I haven't seen any DM limiting their players too much in that regard. I don't either, unless it's something completely insane.
2) Well yes and no. I mean, to me Druids aren't the best at anything, but they are second best at a lot of things. My impression is this new Druid the only role he's really been nerfed in is as a tank (as a damage sponge, actually. Since as a tank he was never at the top. But I don't want to get into the debate of what is a tank really).
Druid as a whole aren't the best healers one specific subclass is and I agree it needs to be pulled back, and they weren't the best explorer/scout b/c they had to put themselves at risk to do it. Wizard familiars were the best explorer/scout so they have technically buffed the druid explorer/scout role by giving them a super cheap familiar. Tier1 moon druid needs a nerf for sure, but wildshape for non-moon druids was entirely fine in 5e. The proposed UA makes wildshape entirely useless to all druids, yet fills up their class with a dozen features related to it, which is just terrible design - if they don't want druids wildshaping don't build the entire class around it, give them other stuff! Clerics only have 2-3 class features related to Channel Divinity, if Channel nature is supposed to be druid equivalent then why is every single class feature related to it in the Druid class? Right now if you gave this class description to a newbie they would probably think that wildshaping is the core feature of the class and they should be doing it all the time, just like a rogue uses sneak attack or barbarian uses rage all the time. But that's false, they should never use it.
Ok.. I just want to make sure Im reading the Epic Boon of Fate right. When a creature fails a D20 test, you can apply a 2d4 as a bonus(makes sense), or penalty. The penalty part doesnt make much sense to me since its triggered when something has already been declared to fail. Applying a penalty to a failed roll seems either really situational, or entirely pointless
NNCHRIS: SOUL THIEF, MASTER OF THE ARCANE, AND KING OF NEW YORKNN
Gdl Creator of Ilheia and her Knights of the Fallen Stars ldG
Lesser Student of Technomancy [undergrad student in computer science]
Supporter of the 2014 rules, and a MASSIVE Homebrewer. Come to me all ye who seek salvation in wording thy brews!
Open to homebrew trades at any time!! Or feel free to request HB, and Ill see if I can get it done for ya!
Characters (Outdated)
The reason for this is that Wild Shape is the only unique feature in the 5e Druid class. In fact it's the only class feature that 95% of druid players will get to play with in a typical campaign. Besides Wild Shape there is a handful of unique spells on their spell list but that's it, everything else that Druids can do can also be done by either a cleric or a wizard, and usually done better by the cleric or wizard. Since Nature Cleric is a thing, if you just wanted to play a nature-themed healer that never uses Wild Shape, you would probably choose Nature Cleric rather than Druid. And since Evocation Wizard is a thing, if you just wanted to play a caster who manipulates the elements to destroy their enemies, you would probably choose Evocation Wizard. And since Beastmaster Ranger is a thing, if you wanted to play a combat-oriented defender of nature with a close bond to animals, you would probably choose Beastmaster Ranger. It's why druid is not that commonly played as a class, their only unique feature is Wildshape so you have to want to use it to have a reason to choose the class.
I don't mind having druid being 80~90% about wild shape as some are complaining, as long as they make it good even for caster druids. And some tankiness+exploration+utility sounds like a good deal, but right now all 3 of those either are bad or come to late in to the game.
About Spare the Dying, I think coming back from the dead should grant one level of exhaustion. Especially since now the Exhaustion mechanics are not as bad as they used to be with the 10 levels total to die. That would fix 90% of the Yoyo effect we see regardless healing in combat.
If that is too harsh maybe add a - DC 15 - Constitution Roll when a character comes back from the dead to see if he gets the exhaustion or no OR character can regain 2 levels of Exhaustion on a long rest.
That way you can use spare the dying, healing world, mass healing world, etc. As much as you like, but there is a cost on the long run. Also, it does make healing before the character goes down much more appealing if you can try to reduce the chance of gaining one Exhaustion level.
Druid in general was never a tank. Only moon druid was a tank, and that was the entirety of their subclass. If they don't want druids to tank just get rid of the Circle of the Moon subclass et voila, druids can't tank anymore. Wildshape for the vast majority of druid subclasses was a utility feature, not a combat one. But now that has been nerfed to oblivion because none of your wildshapes get the interesting unique utility abilities of different animal forms you had before. One of the most useful Wildshape forms for non-Moon Druid was Giant Badger because of its burrow speed - being able to dig a burrow for the party to sleep in out of the elements, or dig a tunnel under or around a trap, or dig an escape route from a kobold nest you've found yourself in. Another super useful Wildshape form was one of the Spiders - SpiderClimb to reach something the rest of the party can't, and Blindsight to lead the rest of the party through an area of darkness or obscurement. Both now gone entirely! The new wildshape has almost no utility value, and almost no combat value, so what is it for? If a feature has no purpose, then it should be removed and replaced with features that do have a purpose. I'd rather see Wildshape removed entirely and replaced with something else, than this UA version of Druid.
Late to the party here. I looked at the base Druid 2014 and you get spellcasting (like UA), Wildshape (UA has that too) then nothing outside of ASI’s and Wildshape improvements until level 18: Timeless Body and Beast Spells. And at 20 Archdruid. I don’t see how, if you played Druid despite wildshape, you’re screwed. I mean waiting to get anything for 18 levels wasn’t a plus for the 2014 Druid.
The new wildshape needs to give some temp HP or something and I don’t like that you can’t become a cat (or other tiny animal) without a special ability. I play a 15th level Land Druid in my current campaign and WS has always been utility. I lose some of that by having to be at least small sized no matter what I turn into.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
i dont like the temp hp idea that people keep suggesting as thats unhealable which is a bit meh and a lot of the 'new features' are just the ws table being split into class features instead with some minor exceptions but those exceptions didnt matter in 2014 version as they were allowed from level 2
Yeah, the UA is a buff for druids in general (wild shape form controversy aside).
The issue with tiny shapes as I see it, is it allowed things like "I turn into a spider and crawl into the room, shift out, fill my bag of holding with gold, then exit as a spider and take a nap" or "I turn into a spider, crawl through the key hole and open the door" while other classes needed to make rolls that could fail or use a more limited resource like a spell slot.
I'm not sure that's something that's really broken; if you're still shifting back into druid form to do the looting then your DM could just as easily ask for a stealth check to avoid making too much noise. It also looks like in OneD&D they're trying to be more clear about what's magical, so anything to detect magic can limit wildshape shenanigans when it's supposed to be the rogue's time to shine.
But really that's spending two full uses of a limited ability, which IMO is fine; if anything they'll arguably be making the issue worse later on with the UA because it allows freely switching between forms later on (by which time you'll have access to tiny forms already).
If they want to limit it a bit they should make the transition noisy, because as Hollywood has taught it is mandatory that you roar into the camera after transforming into a beast. This way you can still use it with a little planning, but people might be alerted and wary of unexpected cat.
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.
There are some good and bad changes here but I want to focus on whatever it is they did to wildshape. Yea, it is unbalanced both ways as is, and it needs both buffing and nerfing in certain places. It needed changing but… where is the versatility? Where is the fun? Where is… I mean anything? It isn’t strong. There is no benefit to to. There is no flavour. There are no interesting mechanics. You give up your spellcasting to get a likely worse ac, to become a fighter that has less health, less options, less features, less damage. It is actually a trap ability outside of roleplay/environmental use. When would you ever use this in combat?
I feel like they need to actually go through their creatures and make a tag specifically to state druids can wildshape into them. We have big old spell lists. Just take a bunch of creatures that they are comfortable using and slap that tag on it. AND Introduce some generic templates too. Because picking a creature to turn into was part of the fun and I would love that expanded on. Hell I would love an actual Druid subclass that was entirely wildshape. Take the spellcasting away in exchange for a true good wildshape feature. Perhaps with the ability to burn multiple uses for stronger creatures. or you can use spellslots to become something stronger.
sure there needs to be a limit to how much they can tank. and getting the creatures full healthbar is a bit much. But man… give it something.
I have seen some fair balance changes overall so I was excited for this but MAN this is as disappointing as it comes.
My thoughts exactly when I saw wildshape at first level. Wait, beginner druids can wildshape right away? If anything, shapeshifting should be pushed back, except perhaps for Moon Druids at 2nd level.
For the wildshape stat blocks... aside from not getting any extra/temp hp anymore (admittedly, you had too much extra hp as a druid in the 2014 version, but removing all extra hp seems too much of a nerf for melee combat druids)... I suggest adding the possibility to choose one special trait among a limited list of traits that you can use when you transform that makes sense for the chosen form : ex: pounce, charge, burrow, jump (standing leap), spider climb...
I like the idea of a small selection of templates. (And pretty sure WotC are gonna stick with them). Just not sure these templates are good or interesting enough.
My Homebrew: Magic Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | My house rules
Currently playing: Fai'zal - CN Githyanki Rogue (Candlekeep Mysteries, Forgotten Realms) ; Zeena - LN Elf Sorcerer (Dragonlance)
Playing D&D since 1st edition. DMs Guild Author: B.A. Morrier (4-5⭐products! Please check them out.) Twitter: @benmorrier he/him
Not sure how I feel about druids being able to talk while in wildshape form. A bit too Disney cartoon for me (but I know there are a lot of other Disney-esque moments in this game). But if druids can talk in animal form, why can't they cast other spells beside Abjuration that uses only Verbal components?
I'd rather have the animal form druid be able to communicate telepathically with its allies. And perhaps a Variant rule sidebox for DMs to allow wildshape speech.
My Homebrew: Magic Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | My house rules
Currently playing: Fai'zal - CN Githyanki Rogue (Candlekeep Mysteries, Forgotten Realms) ; Zeena - LN Elf Sorcerer (Dragonlance)
Playing D&D since 1st edition. DMs Guild Author: B.A. Morrier (4-5⭐products! Please check them out.) Twitter: @benmorrier he/him