I'm not trying to find any direct correlations between druids and clerics at all. I understand why they have things like Holy Orders, due to subclasses all coming online at level 3. And I don't want to make druid a wizard/cleric clone. I'm not sure if others are, but I don't take it that way from the comments. What I'm saying is, with the UA's, they are incorporating some previous pre-3rd level abilities that were for subclasses and making them part of the base class. And that they either aid spellcasting or fit the theme of the class better than what the Druid UA (or Druid 2014) has to offer.
And I would be willing to bet that Wizards will get some more class features as it seems WotC is opposed to have any empty levels on their class tables. Even if they have to spread out one class feature over several levels to make it look like every level you get something. I mean, look at the 5E wizard table. A whole lot of blanks for WotC to fill somehow. Especially with the change to every spellcaster being a prepared caster now. Not sure what that will mean for the wizard and their spellbook, but they have to do something.
As for Healing Blossoms, if they want to keep a spectral plant theme, instead of making it a worse version of the clerics CD healing, how about making it the same 30' range, 10' radius sphere of spectral plants that, once per turn, can make an unarmed strike (grapple only) with the DC your spellcasting DC. Or maybe attempt to grapple WIS modifier number of creatures in the sphere? That would feel more druidy to me.
And with the exception of Wild Resurgence, I think the rest of the features could stay as WS features. WR could then be changed to something else, like adding Restrained to the grappling spectral plants CN. Or elemental damage on spells that make a spell attack. Agilemind had some good ideas in Post #31 that could work as well.
There are definitely some people posting here who would like druids to be wizard clones. They literally want WS to be a spell and at least one person doesn’t believe WS is a core function of the Druid. Even though druids have been able to WS since I first played the game in 2003. 20+ years of WS, but somehow it’s not core to the class? It doesn’t sound right. Again as far as healing blossoms and WR I can agree. Healing Blossoms isn’t bad but I can understand not wanting another healing ability option when you have spells. Especially when the option isn’t good enough for you to skip preparing a healing spell. WR is bad unless you use WS. I think the fix is to expand WR so it improves all the base CNs. So they already have when you WS you can HB as well. Add an improvement to the animal companion like Temp Hp, better movement speeds, and/or better attacks. It should also improve whatever the third CN option would be. I’m struggling to find a proper 3rd CN option. Originally I thought speak with animals but that’s a ritual spell anyway so it would be a waste. Then speak with plants but that doesn’t come online until your 5th level and this would be giving access 3 levels early. Anything that boost elemental damage of spells is a FU to Dragon sorcerer who wouldn’t get that until 6th level. How about Natural Selection- as a magic action you can cast any cantrip from the druid list you did not prepare that takes an action to cast. Then when you get WR it improves by letting you cast 1st level spells you didn’t prepare if you expend the 1st level spell slot as well.
First let’s address the 4 main groups I’ve seen when it comes to Wildshape.
I want individual stat blocks that do unique things like 5e
I want to be single creature that is strong as I level
I want something simpler than 5e
I don’t care about Wildshape I want to be a nature wizard
Well let’s talk about point 4 first. Hopefully they cover that play style with the circle of the land subclass. I can’t really think of a way of altering WS to accommodate this group and everyone else.
You're getting it backwards. Druid is "nature wizard" first and foremost. Primal spell list offers both the damage of a wizard and healing of a cleric; druid is an exceptionally powerful spellcaster. Wild shape is there for utility, it isn't meant to compete with martial classes. That's what Circle of the Moon is for, a dedicated subclass for combat wild shape. If druid's wild shape was a competitive combat tool in its base form, then Circle of the Moon becomes pointless, and we get a class that is a blaster, a healer, and a melee tank all in one. Just slap Expertise on top of it and you can solo the game.
First let’s address the 4 main groups I’ve seen when it comes to Wildshape.
I want individual stat blocks that do unique things like 5e
I want to be single creature that is strong as I level
I want something simpler than 5e
I don’t care about Wildshape I want to be a nature wizard
Well let’s talk about point 4 first. Hopefully they cover that play style with the circle of the land subclass. I can’t really think of a way of altering WS to accommodate this group and everyone else.
You're getting it backwards. Druid is "nature wizard" first and foremost. Primal spell list offers both the damage of a wizard and healing of a cleric; druid is an exceptionally powerful spellcaster. Wild shape is there for utility, it isn't meant to compete with martial classes. That's what Circle of the Moon is for, a dedicated subclass for combat wild shape. If druid's wild shape was a competitive combat tool in its base form, then Circle of the Moon becomes pointless, and we get a class that is a blaster, a healer, and a melee tank all in one. Just slap Expertise on top of it and you can solo the game.
It’s never been my argument that Wild Shape was meant to compete with martial melee classes. The people who want to be a “Nature Wizard” in this case want wild shape gone and replaced with features that improve their spell casting.
First let’s address the 4 main groups I’ve seen when it comes to Wildshape.
I want individual stat blocks that do unique things like 5e
I want to be single creature that is strong as I level
I want something simpler than 5e
I don’t care about Wildshape I want to be a nature wizard
Well let’s talk about point 4 first. Hopefully they cover that play style with the circle of the land subclass. I can’t really think of a way of altering WS to accommodate this group and everyone else.
You're getting it backwards. Druid is "nature wizard" first and foremost. Primal spell list offers both the damage of a wizard and healing of a cleric; druid is an exceptionally powerful spellcaster. Wild shape is there for utility, it isn't meant to compete with martial classes. That's what Circle of the Moon is for, a dedicated subclass for combat wild shape. If druid's wild shape was a competitive combat tool in its base form, then Circle of the Moon becomes pointless, and we get a class that is a blaster, a healer, and a melee tank all in one. Just slap Expertise on top of it and you can solo the game.
It’s never been my argument that Wild Shape was meant to compete with martial melee classes. The people who want to be a “Nature Wizard” in this case want wild shape gone and replaced with features that improve their spell casting.
"If you want to be a shapeshifter, play a moon druid" isn't a terrible option, except it's one of those concepts people often want from first level. Maybe give druids a choice of first level features.
"If you want to be a shapeshifter, play a moon druid" isn't a terrible option, except it's one of those concepts people often want from first level. Maybe give druids a choice of first level features.
Missing my point. All of the Channel Nature abilities are relatively underwhelming in the base class: alternate Find Familiar, basic Wildshape, and a low power healing AoE. Moon Druid is what theoretically makes Wildshape viable for combat, which is basically what "improved spellcasting" is meant to apply to, ergo if they're going to add CN options that do something along those lines, it follows that they will be a part of the 3rd level sublcass features, as with the Tasha's Druid options.
So, thinking about the capabilities that (non-combat) wild shape matches up with, it's basically equivalent to spells. The major exploration features of wild shape are:
Exotic movement types: climb (no spell), spider climb (spider climb), swimming (alter self), jumping (jump), flight (fly)
Exotic senses: acute (enhance ability, only worse), darkvision ([Tooltip Not Found]), blindsight (no spell; generally better than [Tooltip Not Found]).
So really, no exploration capabilities that aren't available with third level spells. However, wild shape is self only (-), disables gear (-), disables a lot of class abilities (--), doesn't require concentration (+), and allows stacking effects (+), and may replace physical attributes (+). Still, this is useful because it lets us assign a 'level' to special abilities: equal to the level of the spell, -1 if the spell doesn't require concentration or is significantly worse than the spell, +1 if the spell has very short duration or the feature is better than the spell in some important way. This gives us the following
1 point features
Advantage on Stealth (enhance ability is level 2, this is is worse)
Blindsight 10'
Climb Speed (spider climb is level 2, this is worse)
Dark vision 60' (+60' per additional point) (dark vision is normally no concentration)
Movement speed +20
Spell: Jump
Tiny (can fit through a 6" gap) (extrapolating down from gaseous form)
2 point features
Spell: Enhance Ability
Spell: Pass Without Trace
Spell: Spider Climb
Swim Speed
Tiny (3" gap)
3 point features
Flight Speed 40' (the spell is only duration 10 minutes)
"If you want to be a shapeshifter, play a moon druid" isn't a terrible option, except it's one of those concepts people often want from first level. Maybe give druids a choice of first level features.
But all druids should be able to Wild shape. There is historic precedence for wild shape. CN is the new thing and it’s a statement of we can do more with this class. We can fulfill more character types with this class. Note: “If you want to be a Nature Wizard, play a land Druid” isn't a terrible option… could also apply. We don’t know how WotC will adjust the Land Druid. Honestly we don’t know if they will have a land druid at all. Technically as Kamchatmonk pointed out all druids are Nature Wizards by default of their spell list. Druids are full casters and if they had nothing but dead levels they would still be comparable in spell casting to most 5e casters base classes. We don’t know what WotC are going to do with the one dnd Wizard to fill those dead levels. It could be Arcane Recovery stretched out across levels (I hope not).
I see room for CN improvement. Possibly a third choice to Nature’s Aid or every other subclass giving its own CN. Tiny Critter should go away and WR should be reworked to include other play styles and that should give enough variety to appease some. Honestly this thread has proven there is no half way point that will make everyone happy. That was my original question and it’s been more than answered.
"If you want to be a shapeshifter, play a moon druid" isn't a terrible option, except it's one of those concepts people often want from first level. Maybe give druids a choice of first level features.
But all druids should be able to Wild shape. There is historic precedence for wild shape. CN is the new thing and it’s a statement of we can do more with this class. We can fulfill more character types with this class. Note: “If you want to be a Nature Wizard, play a land Druid” isn't a terrible option… could also apply. We don’t know how WotC will adjust the Land Druid. Honestly we don’t know if they will have a land druid at all. Technically as Kamchatmonk pointed out all druids are Nature Wizards by default of their spell list. Druids are full casters and if they had nothing but dead levels they would still be comparable in spell casting to most 5e casters base classes. We don’t know what WotC are going to do with the one dnd Wizard to fill those dead levels. It could be Arcane Recovery stretched out across levels (I hope not).
I see room for CN improvement. Possibly a third choice to Nature’s Aid or every other subclass giving its own CN. Tiny Critter should go away and WR should be reworked to include other play styles and that should give enough variety to appease some. Honestly this thread has proven there is no half way point that will make everyone happy. That was my original question and it’s been more than answered.
I agree. A better option than Healing Blossoms would be good. A replacement of Wild Resurgence would be good. Or WR could be expanded, as you suggested above. Personally, I think a completely different feature in WR's place would be best. Leave CN with WS (level 1) and Wild Companion + HB replacement (level 2). The rest of CN should be left to the subclasses.
If you really want to go full "nature magician" as JC put it, that should be where Land subclass steps in. It could have it's own CN abilities plus possibly access to certain schools of spells from either Divine or Arcane lists, or both. Or keep the "always prepared" additional spells like the 5E version. Moon will be the combat WS specialist as it should be. The other subclasses will fill their own niche like they do now, and use CN in ways that fit that subclass.
Why? The people who want to play shapeshifters are gonna pick moon druid anyway, and for everyone else it's a random wart on their character.
I've been playing a Land Druid for several years and I don't find WS to be a wart, in fact it's fairly useful in certain situations. As the UA WS is now, yeah, that's kind of a wart, but I'm sure it will be improved one way or another. I don't feel the need to get rid of WS in 1D&D. It just needs to be improved.
There are definitely some people posting here who would like druids to be wizard clones. They literally want WS to be a spell and at least one person doesn’t believe WS is a core function of the Druid. Even though druids have been able to WS since I first played the game in 2003. 20+ years of WS, but somehow it’s not core to the class? It doesn’t sound right. Again as far as healing blossoms and WR I can agree. Healing Blossoms isn’t bad but I can understand not wanting another healing ability option when you have spells. Especially when the option isn’t good enough for you to skip preparing a healing spell. WR is bad unless you use WS. I think the fix is to expand WR so it improves all the base CNs. So they already have when you WS you can HB as well. Add an improvement to the animal companion like Temp Hp, better movement speeds, and/or better attacks. It should also improve whatever the third CN option would be. I’m struggling to find a proper 3rd CN option. Originally I thought speak with animals but that’s a ritual spell anyway so it would be a waste. Then speak with plants but that doesn’t come online until your 5th level and this would be giving access 3 levels early. Anything that boost elemental damage of spells is a FU to Dragon sorcerer who wouldn’t get that until 6th level. How about Natural Selection- as a magic action you can cast any cantrip from the druid list you did not prepare that takes an action to cast. Then when you get WR it improves by letting you cast 1st level spells you didn’t prepare if you expend the 1st level spell slot as well.
Funnily enough, you started playing three years after Druids got Wild Shaping in 3rd edition. Before that point, they were very solidly 'nature wizards', being basically Clerics with limited melee options but a lot more animal summoning and attack spells. So it's 30-some years of 'nature wizard', and then 20-some years as 'shapeshifter'. Personally, I don't mind the shapeshifter part, since a lot of the Celtic Myths I grew up with had people shapeshifting all over the place, and I'm aware other cultures have similar stuff going on.
I've been playing since 1978, and I've played a lot of Druids before Wild Shape became a thing, and after. Usually, I play Druids as stereotypical Shaman-types, and when Wild Shape was added to Druidical powers, it flowed naturally, pun intended. But I'm not feeling this One D&D version at all. There's simultaneously so much focus put on Wild Shape that all the other Druidic-ness is pretty much vanish into the background, and yet it's so neutered both in combat and utility as to be pointless. If I was to translate any of my old Druid characters to One D&D... I don't think I would make them as Druids anymore. Except for the Fey Warlock/Dream Druid, that one was just... strange, and what Wild Shaping she did was just an extension of her strangeness.
It couldn’t have been 30 years of “Nature wizard” since druids weren’t playable class until 2 years before you started playing. That’s a funny coincidence. So the time of having Wild shape is much closer to equal to it’s time of not having it. But yes, during that time before they could Wild shape they were like the middle ground of cleric and wizard. They had a ton of restrictions back then. I thought 3e had a lot of restrictions, but wow. I guess some of the restrictions were built in story hooks.
I can’t agree on your view that the other aspects of Druid being neutered because of the focus on WS. The other aspects are spells. The Druid hasn’t lost any spell casting. In previous editions spell casters have had dead levels because the designers consider getting new spells as the treat for leveling up. Even 3e Druid had a bunch of dead levels. Most of the levels with features modified WS. So if anything it’s still “you're a nature wizard” and then here is something else you can do with these features.
Why? The people who want to play shapeshifters are gonna pick moon druid anyway, and for everyone else it's a random wart on their character.
Why did you ask why and delete the part of my post were I already answered your why? What’s the point of quoting my post if you are going to leave a chunk of my post off. Are you intentionally trying to misquote me. Anyway like I said before there is a 20+ year precedence for WS on druids. Also I have used WS when not a moon Druid. I’ve seen others use WS when not a moon Druid. Again if you strip all the features except Spellcasting from base 5e Druid it is still a comparable spell caster to base wizard, this is also true of base one dnd Druid. So if your complaint is about Spellcasting druids have that covered. They are still Nature Wizards. Wild shape is a bonus and one they have had for 3 editions now. Now if one dnd decides to have a Barbarian without rage, a monk without flurry of blows, or a wizard without a spellbook, then I will consider a Druid without WS.
Why did you ask why and delete the part of my post were I already answered your why? What’s the point of quoting my post if you are going to leave a chunk of my post off. Are you intentionally trying to misquote me. Anyway like I said before there is a 20+ year precedence for WS on druids.
I know. I don't actually care, the fact that druids have been able to turn into animals for 40+ years doesn't mean they actually used that ability, or that it's a particularly signature feature of the druid (there are a number of features of classes that have quite long histories that have been removed in 5e). The signature features of druids in 3.x were spellcasting and animal companion (one of those missing features); wild shape basically required you to take Natural Spell (so you could cast spells in wild shape) and get armor with the Wild enhancement (still provides full AC in beast form) to be usable, so it was a ribbon feature unless you really focused your build around it.
Why did you ask why and delete the part of my post were I already answered your why? What’s the point of quoting my post if you are going to leave a chunk of my post off. Are you intentionally trying to misquote me. Anyway like I said before there is a 20+ year precedence for WS on druids.
I know. I don't actually care, the fact that druids have been able to turn into animals for 40+ years doesn't mean they actually used that ability, or that it's a particularly signature feature of the druid (there are a number of features of classes that have quite long histories that have been removed in 5e). The signature features of druids in 3.x were spellcasting and animal companion (one of those missing features); wild shape basically required you to take Natural Spell (so you could cast spells in wild shape) and get armor with the Wild enhancement (still provides full AC in beast form) to be usable, so it was a ribbon feature unless you really focused your build around it.
But none of that changes the fact that it is part of the Druid core class, along with spell casting, in 5E and will continue to be in 1D&D. They are not going to remove WS from Druids so why not try to make the UA versions more useful. I know I use WS on my Land Druid now. I used it in our session last night. And I would like to see improvements over the UA version as well as giving something more Druidic in place of a couple UA features.
It’s never been my argument that Wild Shape was meant to compete with martial melee classes. The people who want to be a “Nature Wizard” in this case want wild shape gone and replaced with features that improve their spell casting.
I definitely wouldn't side with that bunch. IMO, there should be a clear line, a distinction that would spell a purpose for wild shape. Circle of the Moon is for shapeshifter combat - that's where the power belongs to. Base class then would use it outside of combat - mostly for utility. But I also think that devs put a bit too much emphasis on wild shape. There should be more to druid than that one aspect. For example, a cleric is expected to turn undead - in the same manner, a druid is expected to befriend beasts and plants, or at least make them nonhostile for a period of time. That would be a good addition to channel nature uses.
It’s never been my argument that Wild Shape was meant to compete with martial melee classes. The people who want to be a “Nature Wizard” in this case want wild shape gone and replaced with features that improve their spell casting.
I definitely wouldn't side with that bunch. IMO, there should be a clear line, a distinction that would spell a purpose for wild shape. Circle of the Moon is for shapeshifter combat - that's where the power belongs to. Base class then would use it outside of combat - mostly for utility. But I also think that devs put a bit too much emphasis on wild shape. There should be more to druid than that one aspect. For example, a cleric is expected to turn undead - in the same manner, a druid is expected to befriend beasts and plants, or at least make them nonhostile for a period of time. That would be a good addition to channel nature uses.
They've already got spells for that, though, while there's not really a good equivalent to Turn Undead in any spell list that comes to mind. Plus, as I already observed, all of the base applications of Channel Nature are only marginally better than ribbon features, which suggests they're saving the stronger stuff to be subclass specific. Granted, speaking with plants and animals is still pretty niche, but unlike with Turning Undead it is something that's thoroughly supported in the class spell list already.
It couldn’t have been 30 years of “Nature wizard” since druids weren’t playable class until 2 years before you started playing. That’s a funny coincidence. So the time of having Wild shape is much closer to equal to it’s time of not having it. But yes, during that time before they could Wild shape they were like the middle ground of cleric and wizard. They had a ton of restrictions back then. I thought 3e had a lot of restrictions, but wow. I guess some of the restrictions were built in story hooks.
I can’t agree on your view that the other aspects of Druid being neutered because of the focus on WS. The other aspects are spells. The Druid hasn’t lost any spell casting. In previous editions spell casters have had dead levels because the designers consider getting new spells as the treat for leveling up. Even 3e Druid had a bunch of dead levels. Most of the levels with features modified WS. So if anything it’s still “you're a nature wizard” and then here is something else you can do with these features.
Eh, my math is likely wrong (re: 30+ years). I'm old, give me a break. :) Yeah, the whole 'fight through the ranks' thing at higher levels was a pain in the ass. But then, that was the time when non-humans had level limits and higher levels automatically gained minions, so some stuff was just weird relative to now.
As for stuff being neutered, yeah that's the wrong word. I just don't find them particularly *distinctive* as a divine caster anymore thanks to the increasingly combined spell-lists edition over edition, and the genericization of mechanics. Again, in *older* editions, the Druid spell lists were full of Druid-only spells, like most of the Animal Summoning stuff, Reincarnation (I had *so* much fun with that admittedly stupid spell.), etc. And they had slightly different casting mechanics, so Druids *felt* different from other Divine casters. Yeah, the game was more needlessly complex then and definitely got easier to learn over time, but I miss that distinctiveness, honestly.
Edit: I'm fine with WS being part of Channel Nature. Channel Nature just needs better options.
I dunno. I kind of want Nature Druids to be able to use Wild Shape as an important part of their character and their character's theme. However, having all the naturey parts of the class be in Channel Nature makes it so this isn't easily accomplishable. Perhaps we could have a small amount of cool and viable nature abilities in Wild Shape, so long as the rest of the Druid class also has some important and cool features to play into this theme that aren't tied to CN.
That way, Nature Druids could have Wild Shape be an important part of their character theme and still have lots of nature powers, or they could have it not be so important and have even more of that cool stuff (through using channel nature for the non-Wild Shape abilities).
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There are definitely some people posting here who would like druids to be wizard clones. They literally want WS to be a spell and at least one person doesn’t believe WS is a core function of the Druid. Even though druids have been able to WS since I first played the game in 2003. 20+ years of WS, but somehow it’s not core to the class? It doesn’t sound right. Again as far as healing blossoms and WR I can agree. Healing Blossoms isn’t bad but I can understand not wanting another healing ability option when you have spells. Especially when the option isn’t good enough for you to skip preparing a healing spell. WR is bad unless you use WS. I think the fix is to expand WR so it improves all the base CNs. So they already have when you WS you can HB as well. Add an improvement to the animal companion like Temp Hp, better movement speeds, and/or better attacks. It should also improve whatever the third CN option would be. I’m struggling to find a proper 3rd CN option. Originally I thought speak with animals but that’s a ritual spell anyway so it would be a waste. Then speak with plants but that doesn’t come online until your 5th level and this would be giving access 3 levels early. Anything that boost elemental damage of spells is a FU to Dragon sorcerer who wouldn’t get that until 6th level. How about Natural Selection- as a magic action you can cast any cantrip from the druid list you did not prepare that takes an action to cast. Then when you get WR it improves by letting you cast 1st level spells you didn’t prepare if you expend the 1st level spell slot as well.
You're getting it backwards. Druid is "nature wizard" first and foremost. Primal spell list offers both the damage of a wizard and healing of a cleric; druid is an exceptionally powerful spellcaster. Wild shape is there for utility, it isn't meant to compete with martial classes. That's what Circle of the Moon is for, a dedicated subclass for combat wild shape. If druid's wild shape was a competitive combat tool in its base form, then Circle of the Moon becomes pointless, and we get a class that is a blaster, a healer, and a melee tank all in one. Just slap Expertise on top of it and you can solo the game.
It’s never been my argument that Wild Shape was meant to compete with martial melee classes. The people who want to be a “Nature Wizard” in this case want wild shape gone and replaced with features that improve their spell casting.
That’s what subclass abilities are for
"If you want to be a shapeshifter, play a moon druid" isn't a terrible option, except it's one of those concepts people often want from first level. Maybe give druids a choice of first level features.
Missing my point. All of the Channel Nature abilities are relatively underwhelming in the base class: alternate Find Familiar, basic Wildshape, and a low power healing AoE. Moon Druid is what theoretically makes Wildshape viable for combat, which is basically what "improved spellcasting" is meant to apply to, ergo if they're going to add CN options that do something along those lines, it follows that they will be a part of the 3rd level sublcass features, as with the Tasha's Druid options.
So, thinking about the capabilities that (non-combat) wild shape matches up with, it's basically equivalent to spells. The major exploration features of wild shape are:
So really, no exploration capabilities that aren't available with third level spells. However, wild shape is self only (-), disables gear (-), disables a lot of class abilities (--), doesn't require concentration (+), and allows stacking effects (+), and may replace physical attributes (+). Still, this is useful because it lets us assign a 'level' to special abilities: equal to the level of the spell, -1 if the spell doesn't require concentration or is significantly worse than the spell, +1 if the spell has very short duration or the feature is better than the spell in some important way. This gives us the following
1 point features
2 point features
3 point features
But all druids should be able to Wild shape. There is historic precedence for wild shape. CN is the new thing and it’s a statement of we can do more with this class. We can fulfill more character types with this class.
Note: “If you want to be a Nature Wizard, play a land Druid” isn't a terrible option… could also apply. We don’t know how WotC will adjust the Land Druid. Honestly we don’t know if they will have a land druid at all. Technically as Kamchatmonk pointed out all druids are Nature Wizards by default of their spell list.
Druids are full casters and if they had nothing but dead levels they would still be comparable in spell casting to most 5e casters base classes. We don’t know what WotC are going to do with the one dnd Wizard to fill those dead levels. It could be Arcane Recovery stretched out across levels (I hope not).
I see room for CN improvement. Possibly a third choice to Nature’s Aid or every other subclass giving its own CN. Tiny Critter should go away and WR should be reworked to include other play styles and that should give enough variety to appease some. Honestly this thread has proven there is no half way point that will make everyone happy. That was my original question and it’s been more than answered.
I agree. A better option than Healing Blossoms would be good. A replacement of Wild Resurgence would be good. Or WR could be expanded, as you suggested above. Personally, I think a completely different feature in WR's place would be best. Leave CN with WS (level 1) and Wild Companion + HB replacement (level 2). The rest of CN should be left to the subclasses.
If you really want to go full "nature magician" as JC put it, that should be where Land subclass steps in. It could have it's own CN abilities plus possibly access to certain schools of spells from either Divine or Arcane lists, or both. Or keep the "always prepared" additional spells like the 5E version. Moon will be the combat WS specialist as it should be. The other subclasses will fill their own niche like they do now, and use CN in ways that fit that subclass.
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Why? The people who want to play shapeshifters are gonna pick moon druid anyway, and for everyone else it's a random wart on their character.
I've been playing a Land Druid for several years and I don't find WS to be a wart, in fact it's fairly useful in certain situations. As the UA WS is now, yeah, that's kind of a wart, but I'm sure it will be improved one way or another. I don't feel the need to get rid of WS in 1D&D. It just needs to be improved.
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Funnily enough, you started playing three years after Druids got Wild Shaping in 3rd edition. Before that point, they were very solidly 'nature wizards', being basically Clerics with limited melee options but a lot more animal summoning and attack spells. So it's 30-some years of 'nature wizard', and then 20-some years as 'shapeshifter'. Personally, I don't mind the shapeshifter part, since a lot of the Celtic Myths I grew up with had people shapeshifting all over the place, and I'm aware other cultures have similar stuff going on.
I've been playing since 1978, and I've played a lot of Druids before Wild Shape became a thing, and after. Usually, I play Druids as stereotypical Shaman-types, and when Wild Shape was added to Druidical powers, it flowed naturally, pun intended. But I'm not feeling this One D&D version at all. There's simultaneously so much focus put on Wild Shape that all the other Druidic-ness is pretty much vanish into the background, and yet it's so neutered both in combat and utility as to be pointless. If I was to translate any of my old Druid characters to One D&D... I don't think I would make them as Druids anymore. Except for the Fey Warlock/Dream Druid, that one was just... strange, and what Wild Shaping she did was just an extension of her strangeness.
It couldn’t have been 30 years of “Nature wizard” since druids weren’t playable class until 2 years before you started playing. That’s a funny coincidence. So the time of having Wild shape is much closer to equal to it’s time of not having it. But yes, during that time before they could Wild shape they were like the middle ground of cleric and wizard. They had a ton of restrictions back then. I thought 3e had a lot of restrictions, but wow. I guess some of the restrictions were built in story hooks.
I can’t agree on your view that the other aspects of Druid being neutered because of the focus on WS. The other aspects are spells. The Druid hasn’t lost any spell casting. In previous editions spell casters have had dead levels because the designers consider getting new spells as the treat for leveling up. Even 3e Druid had a bunch of dead levels. Most of the levels with features modified WS. So if anything it’s still “you're a nature wizard” and then here is something else you can do with these features.
Why did you ask why and delete the part of my post were I already answered your why? What’s the point of quoting my post if you are going to leave a chunk of my post off. Are you intentionally trying to misquote me. Anyway like I said before there is a 20+ year precedence for WS on druids.
Also I have used WS when not a moon Druid. I’ve seen others use WS when not a moon Druid. Again if you strip all the features except Spellcasting from base 5e Druid it is still a comparable spell caster to base wizard, this is also true of base one dnd Druid. So if your complaint is about Spellcasting druids have that covered. They are still Nature Wizards. Wild shape is a bonus and one they have had for 3 editions now. Now if one dnd decides to have a Barbarian without rage, a monk without flurry of blows, or a wizard without a spellbook, then I will consider a Druid without WS.
I know. I don't actually care, the fact that druids have been able to turn into animals for 40+ years doesn't mean they actually used that ability, or that it's a particularly signature feature of the druid (there are a number of features of classes that have quite long histories that have been removed in 5e). The signature features of druids in 3.x were spellcasting and animal companion (one of those missing features); wild shape basically required you to take Natural Spell (so you could cast spells in wild shape) and get armor with the Wild enhancement (still provides full AC in beast form) to be usable, so it was a ribbon feature unless you really focused your build around it.
But none of that changes the fact that it is part of the Druid core class, along with spell casting, in 5E and will continue to be in 1D&D. They are not going to remove WS from Druids so why not try to make the UA versions more useful. I know I use WS on my Land Druid now. I used it in our session last night. And I would like to see improvements over the UA version as well as giving something more Druidic in place of a couple UA features.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I definitely wouldn't side with that bunch. IMO, there should be a clear line, a distinction that would spell a purpose for wild shape. Circle of the Moon is for shapeshifter combat - that's where the power belongs to. Base class then would use it outside of combat - mostly for utility. But I also think that devs put a bit too much emphasis on wild shape. There should be more to druid than that one aspect. For example, a cleric is expected to turn undead - in the same manner, a druid is expected to befriend beasts and plants, or at least make them nonhostile for a period of time. That would be a good addition to channel nature uses.
They've already got spells for that, though, while there's not really a good equivalent to Turn Undead in any spell list that comes to mind. Plus, as I already observed, all of the base applications of Channel Nature are only marginally better than ribbon features, which suggests they're saving the stronger stuff to be subclass specific. Granted, speaking with plants and animals is still pretty niche, but unlike with Turning Undead it is something that's thoroughly supported in the class spell list already.
Eh, my math is likely wrong (re: 30+ years). I'm old, give me a break. :) Yeah, the whole 'fight through the ranks' thing at higher levels was a pain in the ass. But then, that was the time when non-humans had level limits and higher levels automatically gained minions, so some stuff was just weird relative to now.
As for stuff being neutered, yeah that's the wrong word. I just don't find them particularly *distinctive* as a divine caster anymore thanks to the increasingly combined spell-lists edition over edition, and the genericization of mechanics. Again, in *older* editions, the Druid spell lists were full of Druid-only spells, like most of the Animal Summoning stuff, Reincarnation (I had *so* much fun with that admittedly stupid spell.), etc. And they had slightly different casting mechanics, so Druids *felt* different from other Divine casters. Yeah, the game was more needlessly complex then and definitely got easier to learn over time, but I miss that distinctiveness, honestly.
I dunno. I kind of want Nature Druids to be able to use Wild Shape as an important part of their character and their character's theme. However, having all the naturey parts of the class be in Channel Nature makes it so this isn't easily accomplishable. Perhaps we could have a small amount of cool and viable nature abilities in Wild Shape, so long as the rest of the Druid class also has some important and cool features to play into this theme that aren't tied to CN.
That way, Nature Druids could have Wild Shape be an important part of their character theme and still have lots of nature powers, or they could have it not be so important and have even more of that cool stuff (through using channel nature for the non-Wild Shape abilities).
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