I really hate the whole discussion around Wild Shape. Druids are one of my least favored classes, but I don't want them to be. I want them to be awesome primal shamans and element-wielding badasses, but they don't get to be. Nah. Their spellcasting doesn't matter, their class features don't matter, their weapons and equipment doesn't matter. NOTHING ******* MATTERS about Druids save that twice a day you get to turn into a fuzzy fuzzy critter and make your party roll for adorbz.
I want the druid to be a badass avatar of nature's fury, but even in this thread it was made extremely plain that people who want to like druid but who dislike Wild Shape are not allowed to speak. We got told "you guys all ******* suck, Wild Shape is literally the only reason to play Druid. Maybe they'll give you one throwaway subclass but until they do gedda**** ouddahere with your non-shapeshifting garbage."
Ahem: no. "I don't care about Wild Shape I want to be a nature wizard" is a valid opinion to have, and you don't get to dismiss it as irrelevant when trying to figure out how to make a class where over half its class features specifically and solely affect Wild Shape to stop being "The Wild Shape Class" that only occasionally does other non-turning-into-fuzzy-fuzzy-critters junk.
Not really b/c now we have 20-40 unique statblocks to keep track of which is doing absolutely nothing to simplify the class and make it more approachable for new players. It also is not addressing the "Wildshape is so OP nerf it!" crowd who hate that extra HP from WS and hate Druids being as effective as martial characters while WSed. Nor is it addressing those who don't want to WS as it is making WS a huge core aspect of the class that is very powerful.
All stat blocks are in the class so it is simpler. It provides temp hp instead of actual hp and it’s not all beast but specifically designed for WS statblocks so it is nerfed. I’m not sure if there is a way to address the last group. I already stated that the Nature Wizard concept couldn't be addressed in core class. That’s because making the core class just a nature wizard makes it nigh impossible to make the other subclasses unique users of wild shape and CN, but as is you can make a subclass that focuses on Spellcasting and uses CN for other options than WS.
I don't see why the "nature wizard" can't be addressed in the class. I don't think we are asking for WS to be removed from the class. Although some have said something along those lines due to how bad the UA druid WS is. But I do think it can be addressed. Not every feature needs to be focused on WS. The Channel Nature: Nature's Aid feature Healing Blossoms is not a good ability and could be replaced by something that helps boost the spellcasting aspect of the druid class. They are a full caster, after all. And Wild Resurgence is not needed. Something else can be put in its place to support the spellcasting side of the class. So you can actually have a little balance in the base class between spellcasting and WS.
Land Druid can then build on that part of the base druid class, if you really want to focus on the nature wizard theme. And all the other subclasses can do what they do.
Not sure what you mean when you say "they don't get to be? If a player wants to play a "Nature Wizard" why can't they do that now with a Druid?
I am playing a Forest Gnome Druid that virtually never uses Wildshape right now, and is a Shaman Healer badass, much as you describe. It's going just fine. When I do use Wildshape it's to use awesome area affect or concentration spells and get into a form that allows me to move more quickly than my little Gnome feet allow. It's not to wade into combat.
Wild Shape, including the extra HP as it stands in 5e is an option that gives choices. The extra HP is there so the Wild Shape can be used to skirmish, melee and/or keep the form long enough for this to be a significant part of whatever is happening. The tradeoff is not being able to cast spells. But it is a tradeoff only when wildshape is in operation, so why are we messing with it at all? Leave it as is in 5e and allow players to choose to use it or not. It's not required that a Druid uses Wildshape, right? Just call your familiar and be a "Nature Wizard." Druid spells are awesome!
Wildshape is just fun, and it's fun because it's fluid, and because it allows a lot of situational choices. If you haven't played a Druid through a campaign it's hard to see how those choices are as useful as they really are, and mostly OUT of combat.
The idea that players who encounter D&D are going to be turned off by the complexity of a Druid's Wildshape before they get turned off by the Multiverse, the various pantheons, the many many iterations and combinations of races now possible, the volumes of monsters, wondrous objects, potions, spells and everything else is kinda silly. This is a BIG GAME.
I find Druid much easier, with fewer confusing and conflicting choices than Wizard, Sorcerer, or Bard. Even Clerics and Warlocks have the potential to be very complex given certain builds that blend casting with marital abilities. So again, is Wildshape in 5e really a problem?
Yes, druid spells are awesome. I've been playing a Circle of the Land (mountain) druid for years. But I think some of our concerns with the UA is the complete an almost universal focus on Wildshape. If the entire base class is focused like a laser on WS and you choose to not use it because you want to play more of a nature wizard then the class does nothing to support that and actively works against it by making you, basically, play half a class.
I'm not sure what you're saying. The UA is trying to streamline Wildshape for time-saving and complexity avoiding for the mythical newcomer who is supposedly unable to deal with these difficult concepts (while easily mastering choices involving multiple Druid Circles, a huge number of spells, weapons, items, etc).
It's not focused on Wildshape, it's gutting Wildshape.
The class does a lot to support any way you want to play it currently in 5e. A "Nature Wizard" is your background and design choice in any system, and you could play a Wizard and do this too, but your nature focused spells would be fewer.
Yes, WS was gutted in this UA and from the last video WotC knows this. So lets put that aside for a minute.
Let's look at the class: ignoring things like subclass features and ASIs.
Level 18: Archdruid (Wildshape feature, sort of, since you regain a use of Channel Nature when you roll initiative. And a ribbon feature)
Level 20: Epic Boon
Looks pretty WS focused to me. Where in that list of features do you see anything to support spellcasting beyond level 2? The druid is a full caster with a lot of great spells, but where in this version of the druid supports any of this?
The templates can be fleshed out and made almost as flexible and interesting as any of the 5E beast forms. Granted, I know for a fact they won't be able to give use everything that every beast stat block had in 5E. We will lose something, as pretty much all the classes, so far, in the UA's did. But I think we could get back a good portion of the unique abilities that are lacking in the current templates with a good assortment of customization options.
Edit: If the UA was only intended to streamline wildshape for newcomers that was accomplished at level 1 with Animal of the Land. Sea and Air forms basically just gave swimming/waterbreathing and flight/flyby. So all the streamlining was basically done right from the start.
I really hate the whole discussion around Wild Shape. Druids are one of my least favored classes, but I don't want them to be. I want them to be awesome primal shamans and element-wielding badasses, but they don't get to be. Nah. Their spellcasting doesn't matter, their class features don't matter, their weapons and equipment doesn't matter. NOTHING ******* MATTERS about Druids save that twice a day you get to turn into a fuzzy fuzzy critter and make your party roll for adorbz.
I want the druid to be a badass avatar of nature's fury, but even in this thread it was made extremely plain that people who want to like druid but who dislike Wild Shape are not allowed to speak. We got told "you guys all ******* suck, Wild Shape is literally the only reason to play Druid. Maybe they'll give you one throwaway subclass but until they do gedda**** ouddahere with your non-shapeshifting garbage."
Ahem: no. "I don't care about Wild Shape I want to be a nature wizard" is a valid opinion to have, and you don't get to dismiss it as irrelevant when trying to figure out how to make a class where over half its class features specifically and solely affect Wild Shape to stop being "The Wild Shape Class" that only occasionally does other non-turning-into-fuzzy-fuzzy-critters junk.
So you want a clone of the wizard that cast spells with wisdom instead. You have your right to your opinion and I have my right as well. A clone of the wizard that uses nature instead sounds boring and lazy to me.
I really hate the whole discussion around Wild Shape. Druids are one of my least favored classes, but I don't want them to be. I want them to be awesome primal shamans and element-wielding badasses, but they don't get to be. Nah. Their spellcasting doesn't matter, their class features don't matter, their weapons and equipment doesn't matter. NOTHING ******* MATTERS about Druids save that twice a day you get to turn into a fuzzy fuzzy critter and make your party roll for adorbz.
I want the druid to be a badass avatar of nature's fury, but even in this thread it was made extremely plain that people who want to like druid but who dislike Wild Shape are not allowed to speak. We got told "you guys all ******* suck, Wild Shape is literally the only reason to play Druid. Maybe they'll give you one throwaway subclass but until they do gedda**** ouddahere with your non-shapeshifting garbage."
Ahem: no. "I don't care about Wild Shape I want to be a nature wizard" is a valid opinion to have, and you don't get to dismiss it as irrelevant when trying to figure out how to make a class where over half its class features specifically and solely affect Wild Shape to stop being "The Wild Shape Class" that only occasionally does other non-turning-into-fuzzy-fuzzy-critters junk.
It’s unfortunate that the UA seems hellbent on making every Druid a wild shaping class. But considering all the features of the 5E PHB Druid, with the exception of spell casting and Timeless body (a ribbon feature) all the “features” were WS focused as well.
Exactly the UA isn’t hell bent on making all the features WS it only spread the feature across levels instead of having one feature that gave all the same abilities at different levels.
Yes, druid spells are awesome. I've been playing a Circle of the Land (mountain) druid for years. But I think some of our concerns with the UA is the complete an almost universal focus on Wildshape. If the entire base class is focused like a laser on WS and you choose to not use it because you want to play more of a nature wizard then the class does nothing to support that and actively works against it by making you, basically, play half a class.
My suggestions would be, get rid of Healing Blossoms and replace it with something that supports the spellcasting side of the class. Or fits the nature wizard or master of nature theme. Get rid of Wild Resurgence and replace it with something that supports the spellcasting side of the class. Or fits the nature wizard or master of nature theme. You can still use wildshape when you want to, but you have other options, besides ignore your entire class list of features and just cast spells. And this would have absolutely no negative effect on WS (unless you think a free Healing Blossoms when you WS an utterly indispensable feature)
Maybe I'm forgetting something, but is there another full caster class out there that has the entire base class focused on one aspect completely divorced from spellcasting?
There is no more focus in the UA on Wild shape than there was in 5e. The simply spread it out across multiple features and levels to remove the look of dead levels. Also the Base 5e Wizard has one feature that aids Spellcasting until 18th level. Arcane Recovery is it. Also the Base 5e cleric does not have a single feature that aids its Spellcasting at any level.
The only thing comparable to Druid is the Wizard class in that both of them get hardly any class features. Personally I've never understood why that is, since Druid is much closer to a Cleric in terms of casting than a Wizard, and Cleric get tons of class features.
Healing Blossoms is a meh? feature I don't care one way or the other. But Wild Resurgence should be completely changed so that using your Healing Blossoms also restores spellslot to you of a total level equal to your Wisdom modifier.
Wildshape should go back to being one feature, not 8 or 10 or whatever it is... or honestly.. if they want to stick with it being a combat-focused ability remove it from the base class and make it a Moon Druid subclass feature, and replace it with a Channel Nature ability that creates or removes difficult terrain in an area (that works on the ground, in water, and in the air) which upgrades at higher levels to deal damage to enemy creatures that move through it.
I agree Wild Resurgence is pointless for anyone who doesn’t use Wildshape, but lets not act like this isn’t just a bonus thing compared to 5e Druid that honestly just had dead levels.
Im coming to the conclusion that there is no happy middle. My hope was people would help me find what a nice middle ground looked liked because I don’t believe I alone truly found it, but what I’m really seeing is there is no middle ground. Most people want the Druid to be their version of the Druid with no room for exception.
Honestly, I would prefer it if wild shape were either (a) one or more spells, or (b) mostly a feature of the moon druid. Move channel nature to other purposes, such as letting you talk to and befriend animals, which are clearly things any nature-themed character would be expected to do.
So you want a clone of the wizard that cast spells with wisdom instead. You have your right to your opinion and I have my right as well. A clone of the wizard that uses nature instead sounds boring and lazy to me.
Why does the druid have to be defined solely and exclusively by its ability to turn into fuzzy fuzzy critters and kill forty-five minutes of session time playing with a ball of yarn? Why can't Channel Nature be used to invoke powerful spirits of the wild, instead? Or used to take on aspects of the natural world and embody the elements or the storm? Why can't a druid use Channel Nature to fuel a dream quest to try and gain advice from the spirits of nature and the anectors of their order?
Why can't druids be allowed to use Channel Nature to do literally anything else that a primal shaman of the wilds might be expected to do? Why does it HAVE to be Wild Shape?
So you want a clone of the wizard that cast spells with wisdom instead. You have your right to your opinion and I have my right as well. A clone of the wizard that uses nature instead sounds boring and lazy to me.
Why does the druid have to be defined solely and exclusively by its ability to turn into fuzzy fuzzy critters and kill forty-five minutes of session time playing with a ball of yarn? Why can't Channel Nature be used to invoke powerful spirits of the wild, instead? Or used to take on aspects of the natural world and embody the elements or the storm? Why can't a druid use Channel Nature to fuel a dream quest to try and gain advice from the spirits of nature and the anectors of their order?
Why can't druids be allowed to use Channel Nature to do literally anything else that a primal shaman of the wilds might be expected to do? Why does it HAVE to be Wild Shape?
Right, because they clearly haven't been moving to give those charges alternate uses since Tasha's. Those other things are what subclasses are for. However, Wild Shape is a core element of the classic D&D Druid, thus it's a core class feature just as turning undead is a core class feature of clerics.
Right, because they clearly haven't been moving to give those charges alternate uses since Tasha's. Those other things are what subclasses are for. However, Wild Shape is a core element of the classic D&D Druid, thus it's a core class feature just as turning undead is a core class feature of clerics.
It really isn't. Wild Shape was pretty much a ribbon feature in previous editions; it wasn't completely useless but there were usually better choices.
Right, because they clearly haven't been moving to give those charges alternate uses since Tasha's. Those other things are what subclasses are for. However, Wild Shape is a core element of the classic D&D Druid, thus it's a core class feature just as turning undead is a core class feature of clerics.
It really isn't. Wild Shape was pretty much a ribbon feature in previous editions; it wasn't completely useless but there were usually better choices.
I'm not saying it was super useful, only that it's strongly associated with the image of the D&D Druid.
Why does the druid have to be defined solely and exclusively by its ability to turn into fuzzy fuzzy critters and kill forty-five minutes of session time playing with a ball of yarn? Why can't Channel Nature be used to invoke powerful spirits of the wild, instead? Or used to take on aspects of the natural world and embody the elements or the storm? Why can't a druid use Channel Nature to fuel a dream quest to try and gain advice from the spirits of nature and the anectors of their order?
Why can't druids be allowed to use Channel Nature to do literally anything else that a primal shaman of the wilds might be expected to do? Why does it HAVE to be Wild Shape?
I am deeply curious who you've been talking to who is insisting Channel Nature should only ever be used for Wildshape. I've not seen that take anywhere on this forum. Everyone seems to agree that Channel Nature is one of the few positive additions to the class. The main failing point is that it doesn't bother to provide interesting alternatives.
The reason discourse about druid is dominated by Wildshape is because of how brutally it was gutted to the point that those of us who love the ability would likely never use it in its current condition. Simply talking about ways to make Wildshape fun and useful again does not mean we're opposed to Channel Divinity being expanded.
Personally, I think it'd be ideal if at each level Wildshape improves Druid gets another use for Channel Divinity (like restoring spell slots, conjuring vines to bind a single target, growing food, getting a free-cast of Speak with Animals/Plants, etc) or an upgrade to an existing use of Channel Divinity so they stay appealing next to Wildshape.
Moon Druid obviously is focused on Wildshape, but I'd be shocked if other sub-classes didn't have their own uses for Channel Divinity like Spores or Wildfire druids do currently.
Honestly, I would prefer it if wild shape were either (a) one or more spells, or (b) mostly a feature of the moon druid. Move channel nature to other purposes, such as letting you talk to and befriend animals, which are clearly things any nature-themed character would be expected to do.
Making it a spell makes it susceptible to counterspell and dispel magic. It also makes means other classes could use it, killing the flavor. Considering how many people are complaining about find steed and smite spells I can imagine the outrage of the bard gaining access to Wild shape.
If you move WS to only Moon Druid all the people who liked to WS as other druids lose the ability completely. It’s like moving lay on hands to one Paladin subclass just because some players want to be holy attackers and don’t want to waste a feature on healing.
Okay let’s say level 1 CN let’s you cast speak with animals that feels weak, but for the sake of this experiment let’s run with. So with CN you get free castings of nature based spell at level 1. At 2nd you get options of WS, Find Familiar, or Healing Blossoms. We gut all the other Wild Shape features and move them to moon Druid. So no climbing, swimming, or flying forms if you aren’t a moon Druid unless they change from the current stat block system. Then you might get climbing speeds and spiders back at level 2. At 5th CN gains Speak with Plants. At 7th I’m at a point were I must ask do I just keep adding free castings of spells to NC like locate creature or should I give it an actual feature at this point. I would go with feature, but I can’t give it much because I don’t want it overpowered and it needs to be at least somewhat useful to all subclasses or I’ve simply recreated the same mistake you believe WotC made with WS. Let’s steal the Circle of the Land Druid’s Land stride for this. It’s not too strong and it’s thematic and situationally useful for all druids. At 9th let’s upgrade our original CN, When you use CN to cast speak with animals or speak with plants you can speak with both animals and plants and call it Speak with Nature. At 11th I’m struggling, but let’s go with advantage on all natural environmental checks and saves, let’s call it One with Nature. 13th it’s getting hard not to have dead levels. We don’t want this to be too strong. So at 13th let’s say you can use CN to cast the commune with nature spell but as an action. 15th we change Wild resurgence into quick resurgence. This allows healing blossoms to be used as a bonus action. 17th we have to keep beast spells or the moon Druid will be trash and this is a feature that brings both Spellcasting and WS together. 18th Arch Druid can remain same. This is a complete class rework and is more of a 6e change than a 5.5, but does this satisfy you?
So you want a clone of the wizard that cast spells with wisdom instead. You have your right to your opinion and I have my right as well. A clone of the wizard that uses nature instead sounds boring and lazy to me.
Why does the druid have to be defined solely and exclusively by its ability to turn into fuzzy fuzzy critters and kill forty-five minutes of session time playing with a ball of yarn? Why can't Channel Nature be used to invoke powerful spirits of the wild, instead? Or used to take on aspects of the natural world and embody the elements or the storm? Why can't a druid use Channel Nature to fuel a dream quest to try and gain advice from the spirits of nature and the anectors of their order?
Why can't druids be allowed to use Channel Nature to do literally anything else that a primal shaman of the wilds might be expected to do? Why does it HAVE to be Wild Shape?
They can literally use it to summon a creature and heal in this UA. If you factor in other subclasses they can use it to become a cosmic star cloaked being, summon necrotic energy, and summon a flaming elemental creature. We don’t know how they will handle circle of the land CN in the future. Everything you named a Druid could do with spells. Why are you so focused on them being able to do all that with channel nature? That is like expecting clerics to do everything a cleric can do with just CD. Considering you can make a blaster nature wizard with a 5e Druid and never use WS why couldn’t you do that in one dnd with just spells?
Honestly, I would prefer it if wild shape were either (a) one or more spells, or (b) mostly a feature of the moon druid. Move channel nature to other purposes, such as letting you talk to and befriend animals, which are clearly things any nature-themed character would be expected to do.
Making it a spell makes it susceptible to counterspell and dispel magic. It also makes means other classes could use it, killing the flavor. Considering how many people are complaining about find steed and smite spells I can imagine the outrage of the bard gaining access to Wild shape.
If you move WS to only Moon Druid all the people who liked to WS as other druids lose the ability completely. It’s like moving lay on hands to one Paladin subclass just because some players want to be holy attackers and don’t want to waste a feature on healing.
Okay let’s say level 1 CN let’s you cast speak with animals that feels weak, but for the sake of this experiment let’s run with. So with CN you get free castings of nature based spell at level 1. At 2nd you get options of WS, Find Familiar, or Healing Blossoms. We gut all the other Wild Shape features and move them to moon Druid. So no climbing, swimming, or flying forms if you aren’t a moon Druid unless they change from the current stat block system. Then you might get climbing speeds and spiders back at level 2. At 5th CN gains Speak with Plants. At 7th I’m at a point were I must ask do I just keep adding free castings of spells to NC like locate creature or should I give it an actual feature at this point. I would go with feature, but I can’t give it much because I don’t want it overpowered and it needs to be at least somewhat useful to all subclasses or I’ve simply recreated the same mistake you believe WotC made with WS. Let’s steal the Circle of the Land Druid’s Land stride for this. It’s not too strong and it’s thematic and situationally useful for all druids. At 9th let’s upgrade our original CN, When you use CN to cast speak with animals or speak with plants you can speak with both animals and plants and call it Speak with Nature. At 11th I’m struggling, but let’s go with advantage on all natural environmental checks and saves, let’s call it One with Nature. 13th it’s getting hard not to have dead levels. We don’t want this to be too strong. So at 13th let’s say you can use CN to cast the commune with nature spell but as an action. 15th we change Wild resurgence into quick resurgence. This allows healing blossoms to be used as a bonus action. 17th we have to keep beast spells or the moon Druid will be trash and this is a feature that brings both Spellcasting and WS together. 18th Arch Druid can remain same. This is a complete class rework and is more of a 6e change than a 5.5, but does this satisfy you?
Or we could take inspiration from cleric which is the most similar class in terms of play style and have features other than just channel nature as part of the base class. Here's some directly inspired by One D&D Cleric:
Druidic Rites At 2nd level you focus on one set of rites that connect your druid with the natural environment. Choose one of the below:
Elemental Rites You gain proficiency in Arcana skill checks, and when you finish a long rest you can imbue your armour with an element of your choice and gain resistance to that damage type: Fire, Lightning, Thunder, or Cold.
Herbalist Rites You gain proficiency in Nature skill checks and Herbalism tools, which you can use to create magical poultices, teas, soups, and remedies. To do so you imbue the creation with one abjuration spell you have prepared, expending a spell slot as normal. Any creature can use an action to use your creation on themselves or on another creature within 5ft of them affected them with the imbued spell for its normal duration. You creations retain their magic until you complete a long rest.
Animalist Rites You gain proficiency in Animal Handling and Perception, you can communicate simple idea to any Beast with an intelligence of 6 or lower, and have advantage on checks to befriend or convince Beasts to aid you.
Arboreal Rites You grow a thick layer of bark or moss over your body, you gain a +2 bonus to your AC. You can use an action to cause an area covered in dense non-magical plants up to a 60ft radius of yourself to either become difficult terrain or cease to be difficult terrain.
Ritual Rites You can cast any spell on the primal spell list that has the ritual tag as a ritual without needing to prepare it. The spell must of a level that you could normally prepare to cast it in this way.
Primal Rites You can prepare two additional spells from the primal spell list of 0th level.
Fierce Companion
Starting at 5th level, when you summon a familiar using your Channel Nature, your familiar gains a bonus to their hit points and damage rolls equal to your druid level.
Water & Flying Forms
When you use Wildshape you can choose aquatic and flying forms.
Druidic Rites
At 9th level you expand your knowledge of Druidic Rites. You gain the benefits of one additional Druidic Rite.
Channel Elements
At 11th level, When you cast a spell that deals damage of one of the following types: fire, cold, lightning, thunder, poison. You can expend one use of your Channel Nature to deal additional damage equal to your Wisdom modifier + your druid level to one damage roll of that spell. Alternatively, when you take damage of one of the listed types you can expend one use of your Channel Nature to gain resistance to that instance of damage.
Command Nature
At 18th level, as an action you can call on the forces of nature for aid. You can cast any spell from the primal spell list of your choice, even one that you do not have prepared. you must expend a spell slot as normal. If the spell normally requires you concentration, it doesn't when cast using this feature. Once you use this feature you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.
Making it a spell makes it susceptible to counterspell and dispel magic. It also makes means other classes could use it, killing the flavor. Considering how many people are complaining about find steed and smite spells I can imagine the outrage of the bard gaining access to Wild shape.
It would probably be more than one spell, of varying level, but... so what if a bard gets access to wild shape? I would expect it be a pure utility spell unless you have a feature that makes it better.
Making it a spell makes it susceptible to counterspell and dispel magic. It also makes means other classes could use it, killing the flavor. Considering how many people are complaining about find steed and smite spells I can imagine the outrage of the bard gaining access to Wild shape.
It would probably be more than one spell, of varying level, but... so what if a bard gets access to wild shape? I would expect it be a pure utility spell unless you have a feature that makes it better.
Turning Wildshape into a spell is not viable for a number of reasons, but most of all due to the fact that it's just not necessary.
A few comments here are writing as if Wildshape is destroyed by this UA, but this is a process, and as mentioned by Crawford in the video, they can just dump the statblock idea altogether as they did before when they tried it. That is what I advocate. So we don't have to keep this discussion in the how to fix statblocks area. Talk about the problems, not one potential (and poor) solution.
Looking at this from a Design Thinking background:
NEED STATEMENT: New and Experienced players need a Druid class that can use the wildshape feature more quickly and easily, while still keeping it's flavour and utility options plentiful, and mitigating the advantages of an extra HP pool to balance with other class types.
If you want to refine wildshape and limit it's HP pool feature, which seems one of the biggest complaints (from players who don't play Druids, and don't necessarily get that there is a tradeoff in LOSING spell casting ability to offset the HP gain, which is temporary), why not focus on that aspect. Make it a standard temp HP bonus of x amount per CR rating. Done.
For the timesuck complaint, some of that can be mitigated at the table by a halfway decent DM who has a turn time limit, plus some frontloading by the player based on situation, landscape, etc of the game session. Other ideas could be to have a section (not the extras area, but a dedicated section) on D&D Beyond built into the character sheet for a Druid with CR level filtering, landscape/environment filtering, ability filtering, etc . This is really an organizational issue. (I just have a tab open with the monster section open and do this in that tab and have it ready, but that's me).
IT'S NOT SO HARD as everyone makes it sound, and if people are taking too much time, that is on the DM and the player. (We have several players who take too much time per turn currently, and none of them are druids BTW. Cleric has a lot of stuff possible too, as does Wizard, or in our case a Totem Barbarian who is the slowest trying to figure out all of his rage and extras).
Besides wildshape being an all around better option than it currently is, I would actually love to see Wild Companion let you choose Fiend or Celestial at higher levels, and I would also love for it to say "when you cast find familiar in this way treat the spells level as equal to half your druid level rounded up". This way it would scale with druid levels since find familiar now scales with spell levels. Nature's aid can easily scale at some of the same levels as wild shape becoming d6's at level 5 and d8's at level 9 and d10's at level 13. Spreading all of the channel nature's out like this would go a long way for people who feel it is "all wild shape". Finally, of course, keep Nature's aid seperate from wild shape and vice versa, don't combine them at 15. In this way level 18 would be perfectly fine since it is just giving a channel nature back, which your druid will use on its favorite use.
But Wild shape's templates need to actually be useful. As is, land gives 10 feet of movement and advantage on perception checks while losing all proficiencies while lowering your AC and doing nothing for your health. At 5 it gives a climb speed, that is useful, at 7 and 9 you can now swim or fly. That is it. If you kept your skills and feats that would go a long way to making it better, there is also a case of giving other ability options. But you can have more ability options without having to choose specific monsters from the monster manual. We have already seen them do better with templates with the summon spells than this.
Besides wildshape being an all around better option than it currently is, I would actually love to see Wild Companion let you choose Fiend or Celestial at higher levels, and I would also love for it to say "when you cast find familiar in this way treat the spells level as equal to half your druid level rounded up". This way it would scale with druid levels since find familiar now scales with spell levels. Nature's aid can easily scale at some of the same levels as wild shape becoming d6's at level 5 and d8's at level 9 and d10's at level 13. Spreading all of the channel nature's out like this would go a long way for people who feel it is "all wild shape". Finally, of course, keep Nature's aid seperate from wild shape and vice versa, don't combine them at 15. In this way level 18 would be perfectly fine since it is just giving a channel nature back, which your druid will use on its favorite use.
But Wild shape's templates need to actually be useful. As is, land gives 10 feet of movement and advantage on perception checks while losing all proficiencies while lowering your AC and doing nothing for your health. At 5 it gives a climb speed, that is useful, at 7 and 9 you can now swim or fly. That is it. If you kept your skills and feats that would go a long way to making it better, there is also a case of giving other ability options. But you can have more ability options without having to choose specific monsters from the monster manual. We have already seen them do better with templates with the summon spells than this.
Templates are not the answer! No need for templates if you focus on the issues at hand and develop changes based on the need.
Adding a bunch of stuff to Templates will just transfer the problem of complexity to a new area and not solve the time issue on turns. (Which as mentioned above is often a table rules issue, not a Druid Wildshape issue).
Just refine HOW a Druid can find and choose Wildshape forms and you've solved 90% of the issues. Then work on the non-Druid players complaints about HP pools and balance, and you've solved the problems. This isn't a problem of 5e Wildshape not being fun and interesting to those who play Druids, it's about making it work for everyone else at the table. (The new player not choosing Druid because it's too complex is probably a complete myth and we'd have to see some kind of data on that to actually buy into that idea. The game is massive and complexity is not limited to the the Druid's wildshape).
Besides wildshape being an all around better option than it currently is, I would actually love to see Wild Companion let you choose Fiend or Celestial at higher levels, and I would also love for it to say "when you cast find familiar in this way treat the spells level as equal to half your druid level rounded up". This way it would scale with druid levels since find familiar now scales with spell levels. Nature's aid can easily scale at some of the same levels as wild shape becoming d6's at level 5 and d8's at level 9 and d10's at level 13. Spreading all of the channel nature's out like this would go a long way for people who feel it is "all wild shape". Finally, of course, keep Nature's aid seperate from wild shape and vice versa, don't combine them at 15. In this way level 18 would be perfectly fine since it is just giving a channel nature back, which your druid will use on its favorite use.
But Wild shape's templates need to actually be useful. As is, land gives 10 feet of movement and advantage on perception checks while losing all proficiencies while lowering your AC and doing nothing for your health. At 5 it gives a climb speed, that is useful, at 7 and 9 you can now swim or fly. That is it. If you kept your skills and feats that would go a long way to making it better, there is also a case of giving other ability options. But you can have more ability options without having to choose specific monsters from the monster manual. We have already seen them do better with templates with the summon spells than this.
Templates are not the answer! No need for templates if you focus on the issues at hand and develop changes based on the need.
Adding a bunch of stuff to Templates will just transfer the problem of complexity to a new area and not solve the time issue on turns. (Which as mentioned above is often a table rules issue, not a Druid Wildshape issue).
Just refine HOW a Druid can find and choose Wildshape forms and you've solved 90% of the issues. Then work on the non-Druid players complaints about HP pools and balance, and you've solved the problems. This isn't a problem of 5e Wildshape not being fun and interesting to those who play Druids, it's about making it work for everyone else at the table. (The new player not choosing Druid because it's too complex is probably a complete myth and we'd have to see some kind of data on that to actually buy into that idea. The game is massive and complexity is not limited to the the Druid's wildshape).
One thing to remember.... a stat block is just another type of template. The only difference between a template and a statblock is the stat block specifically tells you what it is, while a template is a stat block with the flavor defined by you. Whether it is 12 templates that you can choose from that you can flavor as you want or 12 currated statblocks it is the same thing.
Besides wildshape being an all around better option than it currently is, I would actually love to see Wild Companion let you choose Fiend or Celestial at higher levels, and I would also love for it to say "when you cast find familiar in this way treat the spells level as equal to half your druid level rounded up". This way it would scale with druid levels since find familiar now scales with spell levels. Nature's aid can easily scale at some of the same levels as wild shape becoming d6's at level 5 and d8's at level 9 and d10's at level 13. Spreading all of the channel nature's out like this would go a long way for people who feel it is "all wild shape". Finally, of course, keep Nature's aid seperate from wild shape and vice versa, don't combine them at 15. In this way level 18 would be perfectly fine since it is just giving a channel nature back, which your druid will use on its favorite use.
But Wild shape's templates need to actually be useful. As is, land gives 10 feet of movement and advantage on perception checks while losing all proficiencies while lowering your AC and doing nothing for your health. At 5 it gives a climb speed, that is useful, at 7 and 9 you can now swim or fly. That is it. If you kept your skills and feats that would go a long way to making it better, there is also a case of giving other ability options. But you can have more ability options without having to choose specific monsters from the monster manual. We have already seen them do better with templates with the summon spells than this.
Templates are not the answer! No need for templates if you focus on the issues at hand and develop changes based on the need.
Adding a bunch of stuff to Templates will just transfer the problem of complexity to a new area and not solve the time issue on turns. (Which as mentioned above is often a table rules issue, not a Druid Wildshape issue).
Just refine HOW a Druid can find and choose Wildshape forms and you've solved 90% of the issues. Then work on the non-Druid players complaints about HP pools and balance, and you've solved the problems. This isn't a problem of 5e Wildshape not being fun and interesting to those who play Druids, it's about making it work for everyone else at the table. (The new player not choosing Druid because it's too complex is probably a complete myth and we'd have to see some kind of data on that to actually buy into that idea. The game is massive and complexity is not limited to the the Druid's wildshape).
One thing to remember.... a stat block is just another type of template. The only difference between a template and a statblock is the stat block specifically tells you what it is, while a template is a stat block with the flavor defined by you. Whether it is 12 templates that you can choose from that you can flavor as you want or 12 currated statblocks it is the same thing.
I'm advocating we should aim to avoid the proposed UA statblock for Wildshape. It's taking something that works, and is fun for those who play it, but is confusing to those who don't play it (in the same way that a Wizard's Spellbook might be confusing and complex.)
If you refine the mechanism of searching and choosing beast forms, and solve the balance issue of the HP pool fr wildshape, you don't need a statblock or template for wildshape.
Besides wildshape being an all around better option than it currently is, I would actually love to see Wild Companion let you choose Fiend or Celestial at higher levels, and I would also love for it to say "when you cast find familiar in this way treat the spells level as equal to half your druid level rounded up". This way it would scale with druid levels since find familiar now scales with spell levels. Nature's aid can easily scale at some of the same levels as wild shape becoming d6's at level 5 and d8's at level 9 and d10's at level 13. Spreading all of the channel nature's out like this would go a long way for people who feel it is "all wild shape". Finally, of course, keep Nature's aid seperate from wild shape and vice versa, don't combine them at 15. In this way level 18 would be perfectly fine since it is just giving a channel nature back, which your druid will use on its favorite use.
But Wild shape's templates need to actually be useful. As is, land gives 10 feet of movement and advantage on perception checks while losing all proficiencies while lowering your AC and doing nothing for your health. At 5 it gives a climb speed, that is useful, at 7 and 9 you can now swim or fly. That is it. If you kept your skills and feats that would go a long way to making it better, there is also a case of giving other ability options. But you can have more ability options without having to choose specific monsters from the monster manual. We have already seen them do better with templates with the summon spells than this.
Templates are not the answer! No need for templates if you focus on the issues at hand and develop changes based on the need.
Adding a bunch of stuff to Templates will just transfer the problem of complexity to a new area and not solve the time issue on turns. (Which as mentioned above is often a table rules issue, not a Druid Wildshape issue).
Just refine HOW a Druid can find and choose Wildshape forms and you've solved 90% of the issues. Then work on the non-Druid players complaints about HP pools and balance, and you've solved the problems. This isn't a problem of 5e Wildshape not being fun and interesting to those who play Druids, it's about making it work for everyone else at the table. (The new player not choosing Druid because it's too complex is probably a complete myth and we'd have to see some kind of data on that to actually buy into that idea. The game is massive and complexity is not limited to the the Druid's wildshape).
One thing to remember.... a stat block is just another type of template. The only difference between a template and a statblock is the stat block specifically tells you what it is, while a template is a stat block with the flavor defined by you. Whether it is 12 templates that you can choose from that you can flavor as you want or 12 currated statblocks it is the same thing.
I'm advocating we should aim to avoid the proposed UA statblock for Wildshape. It's taking something that works, and is fun for those who play it, but is confusing to those who don't play it (in the same way that a Wizard's Spellbook might be confusing and complex.)
If you refine the mechanism of searching and choosing beast forms, and solve the balance issue of the HP pool fr wildshape, you don't need a statblock or template for wildshape.
So are you saying get rid of beast stat blocks in the monster manual? A stat block is just another type of template. Whethe it is 12 creature stat blocks at the back of the PHB in the appendix or 12 templates it can literally be the exact same thing. A template is just a type of scaling stat block.
Turning Wildshape into a spell is not viable for a number of reasons, but most of all due to the fact that it's just not necessary.
The main reason to turn wild shape into a spell is balance: it means that a druid who chooses to focus on wild shape is an inferior spellcaster to a druid who does not, and therefore the wild shape ability can be more powerful without creating balance problems or making every druid think that they must use it.
Turning Wildshape into a spell is not viable for a number of reasons, but most of all due to the fact that it's just not necessary.
The main reason to turn wild shape into a spell is balance: it means that a druid who chooses to focus on wild shape is an inferior spellcaster to a druid who does not, and therefore the wild shape ability can be more powerful without creating balance problems or making every druid think that they must use it.
That is exactly how it works now, in 5e!
A Druid who wildshapes LOSES spellcasting ability while wildshaped. So the balance is there. If you don't play Druids regularly you fail to notice that this is a significant tradeoff. Druid spells are pretty fun and some quite unique, and it's one reason I play Druids. Sometimes the situation warrants skills, shapes, sizes or other attributes I can't achieve with spellcasting, so I then use Wildshape and the powers and abilities of the natural world. That is pretty cool to do, but it's not a MUST use or an addition to spellcasting in the moment of use. It's binary.
The Druid is either an animal, or a caster. The HP allow staying in the form enough to play a few turns in combat as that form, or to do the scouting/stealth/spying/exploring mission required, and then disappear. So it's not a pool to just use whenever like a Fighter's Second Wind, a Paladin's Lay on Hands. It's gone after the Druid goes back to normal form.
You seem to be implying that a Druid "should" or "could" focus primarily on one aspect of the class, and Wildshape EVERY time something happens, whether that be combat or another challenge. Firstly it's not possible since there are not enough slots to do that. Secondly, why? Can't a Druid be both and make that tradeoff whenever they decide i's a fun moment to use an animal form? Like taking on the bully in the bar fight as an Ape, or skittering over the ceiling of the baddies lair to listen to their plans as a spider?
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Yes, WS was gutted in this UA and from the last video WotC knows this. So lets put that aside for a minute.
Let's look at the class: ignoring things like subclass features and ASIs.
Wildshape feature, sort of)Looks pretty WS focused to me. Where in that list of features do you see anything to support spellcasting beyond level 2? The druid is a full caster with a lot of great spells, but where in this version of the druid supports any of this?
The templates can be fleshed out and made almost as flexible and interesting as any of the 5E beast forms. Granted, I know for a fact they won't be able to give use everything that every beast stat block had in 5E. We will lose something, as pretty much all the classes, so far, in the UA's did. But I think we could get back a good portion of the unique abilities that are lacking in the current templates with a good assortment of customization options.
Edit: If the UA was only intended to streamline wildshape for newcomers that was accomplished at level 1 with Animal of the Land. Sea and Air forms basically just gave swimming/waterbreathing and flight/flyby. So all the streamlining was basically done right from the start.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
So you want a clone of the wizard that cast spells with wisdom instead. You have your right to your opinion and I have my right as well. A clone of the wizard that uses nature instead sounds boring and lazy to me.
Exactly the UA isn’t hell bent on making all the features WS it only spread the feature across levels instead of having one feature that gave all the same abilities at different levels.
There is no more focus in the UA on Wild shape than there was in 5e. The simply spread it out across multiple features and levels to remove the look of dead levels.
Also the Base 5e Wizard has one feature that aids Spellcasting until 18th level. Arcane Recovery is it. Also the Base 5e cleric does not have a single feature that aids its Spellcasting at any level.
I agree Wild Resurgence is pointless for anyone who doesn’t use Wildshape, but lets not act like this isn’t just a bonus thing compared to 5e Druid that honestly just had dead levels.
Im coming to the conclusion that there is no happy middle. My hope was people would help me find what a nice middle ground looked liked because I don’t believe I alone truly found it, but what I’m really seeing is there is no middle ground. Most people want the Druid to be their version of the Druid with no room for exception.
Honestly, I would prefer it if wild shape were either (a) one or more spells, or (b) mostly a feature of the moon druid. Move channel nature to other purposes, such as letting you talk to and befriend animals, which are clearly things any nature-themed character would be expected to do.
Why does the druid have to be defined solely and exclusively by its ability to turn into fuzzy fuzzy critters and kill forty-five minutes of session time playing with a ball of yarn? Why can't Channel Nature be used to invoke powerful spirits of the wild, instead? Or used to take on aspects of the natural world and embody the elements or the storm? Why can't a druid use Channel Nature to fuel a dream quest to try and gain advice from the spirits of nature and the anectors of their order?
Why can't druids be allowed to use Channel Nature to do literally anything else that a primal shaman of the wilds might be expected to do? Why does it HAVE to be Wild Shape?
Please do not contact or message me.
Right, because they clearly haven't been moving to give those charges alternate uses since Tasha's. Those other things are what subclasses are for. However, Wild Shape is a core element of the classic D&D Druid, thus it's a core class feature just as turning undead is a core class feature of clerics.
It really isn't. Wild Shape was pretty much a ribbon feature in previous editions; it wasn't completely useless but there were usually better choices.
I'm not saying it was super useful, only that it's strongly associated with the image of the D&D Druid.
I am deeply curious who you've been talking to who is insisting Channel Nature should only ever be used for Wildshape. I've not seen that take anywhere on this forum. Everyone seems to agree that Channel Nature is one of the few positive additions to the class. The main failing point is that it doesn't bother to provide interesting alternatives.
The reason discourse about druid is dominated by Wildshape is because of how brutally it was gutted to the point that those of us who love the ability would likely never use it in its current condition. Simply talking about ways to make Wildshape fun and useful again does not mean we're opposed to Channel Divinity being expanded.
Personally, I think it'd be ideal if at each level Wildshape improves Druid gets another use for Channel Divinity (like restoring spell slots, conjuring vines to bind a single target, growing food, getting a free-cast of Speak with Animals/Plants, etc) or an upgrade to an existing use of Channel Divinity so they stay appealing next to Wildshape.
Moon Druid obviously is focused on Wildshape, but I'd be shocked if other sub-classes didn't have their own uses for Channel Divinity like Spores or Wildfire druids do currently.
Making it a spell makes it susceptible to counterspell and dispel magic. It also makes means other classes could use it, killing the flavor. Considering how many people are complaining about find steed and smite spells I can imagine the outrage of the bard gaining access to Wild shape.
If you move WS to only Moon Druid all the people who liked to WS as other druids lose the ability completely. It’s like moving lay on hands to one Paladin subclass just because some players want to be holy attackers and don’t want to waste a feature on healing.
Okay let’s say level 1 CN let’s you cast speak with animals that feels weak, but for the sake of this experiment let’s run with. So with CN you get free castings of nature based spell at level 1. At 2nd you get options of WS, Find Familiar, or Healing Blossoms. We gut all the other Wild Shape features and move them to moon Druid. So no climbing, swimming, or flying forms if you aren’t a moon Druid unless they change from the current stat block system. Then you might get climbing speeds and spiders back at level 2. At 5th CN gains Speak with Plants. At 7th I’m at a point were I must ask do I just keep adding free castings of spells to NC like locate creature or should I give it an actual feature at this point. I would go with feature, but I can’t give it much because I don’t want it overpowered and it needs to be at least somewhat useful to all subclasses or I’ve simply recreated the same mistake you believe WotC made with WS. Let’s steal the Circle of the Land Druid’s Land stride for this. It’s not too strong and it’s thematic and situationally useful for all druids. At 9th let’s upgrade our original CN, When you use CN to cast speak with animals or speak with plants you can speak with both animals and plants and call it Speak with Nature. At 11th I’m struggling, but let’s go with advantage on all natural environmental checks and saves, let’s call it One with Nature. 13th it’s getting hard not to have dead levels. We don’t want this to be too strong. So at 13th let’s say you can use CN to cast the commune with nature spell but as an action. 15th we change Wild resurgence into quick resurgence. This allows healing blossoms to be used as a bonus action. 17th we have to keep beast spells or the moon Druid will be trash and this is a feature that brings both Spellcasting and WS together. 18th Arch Druid can remain same. This is a complete class rework and is more of a 6e change than a 5.5, but does this satisfy you?
They can literally use it to summon a creature and heal in this UA. If you factor in other subclasses they can use it to become a cosmic star cloaked being, summon necrotic energy, and summon a flaming elemental creature. We don’t know how they will handle circle of the land CN in the future. Everything you named a Druid could do with spells. Why are you so focused on them being able to do all that with channel nature? That is like expecting clerics to do everything a cleric can do with just CD. Considering you can make a blaster nature wizard with a 5e Druid and never use WS why couldn’t you do that in one dnd with just spells?
Or we could take inspiration from cleric which is the most similar class in terms of play style and have features other than just channel nature as part of the base class. Here's some directly inspired by One D&D Cleric:
Druidic Rites
At 2nd level you focus on one set of rites that connect your druid with the natural environment. Choose one of the below:
Elemental Rites
You gain proficiency in Arcana skill checks, and when you finish a long rest you can imbue your armour with an element of your choice and gain resistance to that damage type: Fire, Lightning, Thunder, or Cold.
Herbalist Rites
You gain proficiency in Nature skill checks and Herbalism tools, which you can use to create magical poultices, teas, soups, and remedies. To do so you imbue the creation with one abjuration spell you have prepared, expending a spell slot as normal. Any creature can use an action to use your creation on themselves or on another creature within 5ft of them affected them with the imbued spell for its normal duration. You creations retain their magic until you complete a long rest.
Animalist Rites
You gain proficiency in Animal Handling and Perception, you can communicate simple idea to any Beast with an intelligence of 6 or lower, and have advantage on checks to befriend or convince Beasts to aid you.
Arboreal Rites
You grow a thick layer of bark or moss over your body, you gain a +2 bonus to your AC. You can use an action to cause an area covered in dense non-magical plants up to a 60ft radius of yourself to either become difficult terrain or cease to be difficult terrain.
Ritual Rites
You can cast any spell on the primal spell list that has the ritual tag as a ritual without needing to prepare it. The spell must of a level that you could normally prepare to cast it in this way.
Primal Rites
You can prepare two additional spells from the primal spell list of 0th level.
Fierce Companion
Starting at 5th level, when you summon a familiar using your Channel Nature, your familiar gains a bonus to their hit points and damage rolls equal to your druid level.
Water & Flying Forms
When you use Wildshape you can choose aquatic and flying forms.
Druidic Rites
At 9th level you expand your knowledge of Druidic Rites. You gain the benefits of one additional Druidic Rite.
Channel Elements
At 11th level, When you cast a spell that deals damage of one of the following types: fire, cold, lightning, thunder, poison. You can expend one use of your Channel Nature to deal additional damage equal to your Wisdom modifier + your druid level to one damage roll of that spell. Alternatively, when you take damage of one of the listed types you can expend one use of your Channel Nature to gain resistance to that instance of damage.
Command Nature
At 18th level, as an action you can call on the forces of nature for aid. You can cast any spell from the primal spell list of your choice, even one that you do not have prepared. you must expend a spell slot as normal. If the spell normally requires you concentration, it doesn't when cast using this feature. Once you use this feature you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.
It would probably be more than one spell, of varying level, but... so what if a bard gets access to wild shape? I would expect it be a pure utility spell unless you have a feature that makes it better.
Turning Wildshape into a spell is not viable for a number of reasons, but most of all due to the fact that it's just not necessary.
A few comments here are writing as if Wildshape is destroyed by this UA, but this is a process, and as mentioned by Crawford in the video, they can just dump the statblock idea altogether as they did before when they tried it. That is what I advocate. So we don't have to keep this discussion in the how to fix statblocks area. Talk about the problems, not one potential (and poor) solution.
Looking at this from a Design Thinking background:
NEED STATEMENT: New and Experienced players need a Druid class that can use the wildshape feature more quickly and easily, while still keeping it's flavour and utility options plentiful, and mitigating the advantages of an extra HP pool to balance with other class types.
If you want to refine wildshape and limit it's HP pool feature, which seems one of the biggest complaints (from players who don't play Druids, and don't necessarily get that there is a tradeoff in LOSING spell casting ability to offset the HP gain, which is temporary), why not focus on that aspect. Make it a standard temp HP bonus of x amount per CR rating. Done.
For the timesuck complaint, some of that can be mitigated at the table by a halfway decent DM who has a turn time limit, plus some frontloading by the player based on situation, landscape, etc of the game session. Other ideas could be to have a section (not the extras area, but a dedicated section) on D&D Beyond built into the character sheet for a Druid with CR level filtering, landscape/environment filtering, ability filtering, etc . This is really an organizational issue. (I just have a tab open with the monster section open and do this in that tab and have it ready, but that's me).
IT'S NOT SO HARD as everyone makes it sound, and if people are taking too much time, that is on the DM and the player. (We have several players who take too much time per turn currently, and none of them are druids BTW. Cleric has a lot of stuff possible too, as does Wizard, or in our case a Totem Barbarian who is the slowest trying to figure out all of his rage and extras).
Besides wildshape being an all around better option than it currently is, I would actually love to see Wild Companion let you choose Fiend or Celestial at higher levels, and I would also love for it to say "when you cast find familiar in this way treat the spells level as equal to half your druid level rounded up". This way it would scale with druid levels since find familiar now scales with spell levels. Nature's aid can easily scale at some of the same levels as wild shape becoming d6's at level 5 and d8's at level 9 and d10's at level 13. Spreading all of the channel nature's out like this would go a long way for people who feel it is "all wild shape". Finally, of course, keep Nature's aid seperate from wild shape and vice versa, don't combine them at 15. In this way level 18 would be perfectly fine since it is just giving a channel nature back, which your druid will use on its favorite use.
But Wild shape's templates need to actually be useful. As is, land gives 10 feet of movement and advantage on perception checks while losing all proficiencies while lowering your AC and doing nothing for your health. At 5 it gives a climb speed, that is useful, at 7 and 9 you can now swim or fly. That is it. If you kept your skills and feats that would go a long way to making it better, there is also a case of giving other ability options. But you can have more ability options without having to choose specific monsters from the monster manual. We have already seen them do better with templates with the summon spells than this.
Templates are not the answer! No need for templates if you focus on the issues at hand and develop changes based on the need.
Adding a bunch of stuff to Templates will just transfer the problem of complexity to a new area and not solve the time issue on turns. (Which as mentioned above is often a table rules issue, not a Druid Wildshape issue).
Just refine HOW a Druid can find and choose Wildshape forms and you've solved 90% of the issues. Then work on the non-Druid players complaints about HP pools and balance, and you've solved the problems. This isn't a problem of 5e Wildshape not being fun and interesting to those who play Druids, it's about making it work for everyone else at the table. (The new player not choosing Druid because it's too complex is probably a complete myth and we'd have to see some kind of data on that to actually buy into that idea. The game is massive and complexity is not limited to the the Druid's wildshape).
One thing to remember.... a stat block is just another type of template. The only difference between a template and a statblock is the stat block specifically tells you what it is, while a template is a stat block with the flavor defined by you. Whether it is 12 templates that you can choose from that you can flavor as you want or 12 currated statblocks it is the same thing.
I'm advocating we should aim to avoid the proposed UA statblock for Wildshape. It's taking something that works, and is fun for those who play it, but is confusing to those who don't play it (in the same way that a Wizard's Spellbook might be confusing and complex.)
If you refine the mechanism of searching and choosing beast forms, and solve the balance issue of the HP pool fr wildshape, you don't need a statblock or template for wildshape.
So are you saying get rid of beast stat blocks in the monster manual? A stat block is just another type of template. Whethe it is 12 creature stat blocks at the back of the PHB in the appendix or 12 templates it can literally be the exact same thing. A template is just a type of scaling stat block.
The main reason to turn wild shape into a spell is balance: it means that a druid who chooses to focus on wild shape is an inferior spellcaster to a druid who does not, and therefore the wild shape ability can be more powerful without creating balance problems or making every druid think that they must use it.
That is exactly how it works now, in 5e!
A Druid who wildshapes LOSES spellcasting ability while wildshaped. So the balance is there. If you don't play Druids regularly you fail to notice that this is a significant tradeoff. Druid spells are pretty fun and some quite unique, and it's one reason I play Druids. Sometimes the situation warrants skills, shapes, sizes or other attributes I can't achieve with spellcasting, so I then use Wildshape and the powers and abilities of the natural world. That is pretty cool to do, but it's not a MUST use or an addition to spellcasting in the moment of use. It's binary.
The Druid is either an animal, or a caster. The HP allow staying in the form enough to play a few turns in combat as that form, or to do the scouting/stealth/spying/exploring mission required, and then disappear. So it's not a pool to just use whenever like a Fighter's Second Wind, a Paladin's Lay on Hands. It's gone after the Druid goes back to normal form.
You seem to be implying that a Druid "should" or "could" focus primarily on one aspect of the class, and Wildshape EVERY time something happens, whether that be combat or another challenge. Firstly it's not possible since there are not enough slots to do that. Secondly, why? Can't a Druid be both and make that tradeoff whenever they decide i's a fun moment to use an animal form? Like taking on the bully in the bar fight as an Ape, or skittering over the ceiling of the baddies lair to listen to their plans as a spider?