Except as I point out above, it's not just 27 hit points. It's 27 hit points x 16 (two "regular" wild shapes + potential 14 more from spell slots). Even if the druid only uses half the available slots, that's 27 x 9. 243 hit points as buffer, and easily gained since using wild shape is now a bonus action. The moon druid can easily just use WS when its THP are low, to avoid even dipping into its own regular hit points.
Bear in mind it's only once per turn, 27 thp don't last that long at level 9.
Yes, you're of course correct about moon druids getting WS as a bonus action. Even so, it means that the moon druid can easily use WS many times to keep buffing hit points, especially at higher levels.
This is broken. This feature either needs to go or needs to be limited quite a bit.
It's not that broken, Druid is not a high AC class, it gets hit a lot. it's really middling on AC most of the time and usually needs a shield to get there, which WS doesn't benefit from. Moon druid is not looking like a viable tank any more, it's more a healer/DPS now, since moon beam is also meh due to concentration, it doesn't mix with being in melee combat/tanking.
I mean, I get that. A foe that a 9th level druid faces can conceivably deal out more than 27 hit points from attacks. But it's doubtful that the foe is going to deal out so much damage each turn as to make the druid's ability to use its bonus action to continually buff itself negligible. The druid at 9th level has 16 potential uses of wild shape - 16 x 27 is a LOT of THP.
It's not that broken, Druid is not a high AC class, it gets hit a lot. it's really middling on AC most of the time and usually needs a shield to get there, which WS doesn't benefit from. Moon druid is not looking like a viable tank any more, it's more a healer/DPS now, since moon beam is also meh due to concentration, it doesn't mix with being in melee combat/tanking.
A moon druid could easily have a 17 AC without a shield. This isn't great but it's not terrible, either.
It's not that broken, Druid is not a high AC class, it gets hit a lot. it's really middling on AC most of the time and usually needs a shield to get there, which WS doesn't benefit from. Moon druid is not looking like a viable tank any more, it's more a healer/DPS now, since moon beam is also meh due to concentration, it doesn't mix with being in melee combat/tanking.
A moon druid could easily have a 17 AC without a shield. This isn't great but it's not terrible, either.
But that same Moon druid could get 19AC with a shield, too. And if that's a +1 or higher shield, that is even more AC loss. It's really not the greatest trade...
This is a massive improvement over the last UA for me. I'm very happy they went back to the beast stat blocks. That said, I feel like the way they're handling HP is a tad clunky now. 5e's version was incredibly straightforward, and I liked that.
It also feels like a weird change if they were mainly worried about 2nd and 20th level moon druids being too tanky. They already removed infinite wildshapes from 20th level, and 2-4th level can be fixed by lowering the CR of the obtainable forms to 1/2 instead of 1. Have CR 1 obtainable at level 4 or 5. It's not all nice and symmetrical but it'll be more balanced.
I also don't like being forced into Moonbeam for everything for Moon Druid. It's a decent spell and everything, but I'd much rather the damage be coming from the beast's attacks. A mechanic to sacrifice spell slots for damage in Wildshape might be more thematic and fun. Maybe burn a spell slot for some added hit chance and damage for the rest of combat or something. Infuse your claws/fangs with lunar might.
Having a list of known forms is a decent compromise I suppose. It won't affect my playstyle anyway, as I tend to prefer to pick my forms based on my druid's preferences and personality anyway. I also like that they made it explicit that species traits, feats, etc. work in Wildshape form. It might be a little quirky, but it keeps your species choice relevant even when you transform.
It's not that broken, Druid is not a high AC class, it gets hit a lot. it's really middling on AC most of the time and usually needs a shield to get there, which WS doesn't benefit from. Moon druid is not looking like a viable tank any more, it's more a healer/DPS now, since moon beam is also meh due to concentration, it doesn't mix with being in melee combat/tanking.
A moon druid could easily have a 17 AC without a shield. This isn't great but it's not terrible, either.
But that same Moon druid could get 19AC with a shield, too. And if that's a +1 or higher shield, that is even more AC loss. It's really not the greatest trade...
Now this is really a cheesy thing to do, but I'm pretty sure that without any investment in AC a moon druid can have 18 AC on their wildshape as long as they have a bit of time to prepare before an encounter. All they need is a fighter or paladin or someone with plate armor in their party.
Step 1 ask party member to take off plate armor
Step 2 Druid puts on full plate armor (Doesn't matter that you don't have heavy armor training, it still gives the AC, and doesn't prevent you from using a magic action to wildshape).
Step 3 Wildshape into desired form allowing your party member's full plate armor to fall to the ground in your space.
Step 4 Allow party member to retrieve and put full plate armor back on. Proceed to encounter.
The only downside is that this takes a bit of time so any spell you cast before wild shaping, like call lightning, would end before you are ready. But you can still rely on Moon Beam and any abjuration spells.
It's not that broken, Druid is not a high AC class, it gets hit a lot. it's really middling on AC most of the time and usually needs a shield to get there, which WS doesn't benefit from. Moon druid is not looking like a viable tank any more, it's more a healer/DPS now, since moon beam is also meh due to concentration, it doesn't mix with being in melee combat/tanking.
A moon druid could easily have a 17 AC without a shield. This isn't great but it's not terrible, either.
But that same Moon druid could get 19AC with a shield, too. And if that's a +1 or higher shield, that is even more AC loss. It's really not the greatest trade...
Now this is really a cheesy thing to do, but I'm pretty sure that without any investment in AC a moon druid can have 18 AC on their wildshape as long as they have a bit of time to prepare before an encounter. All they need is a fighter or paladin or someone with plate armor in their party.
Step 1 ask party member to take off plate armor
Step 2 Druid puts on full plate armor (Doesn't matter that you don't have heavy armor training, it still gives the AC, and doesn't prevent you from using a magic action to wildshape).
Step 3 Wildshape into desired form allowing your party member's full plate armor to fall to the ground in your space.
Step 4 Allow party member to retrieve and put full plate armor back on. Proceed to encounter.
The only downside is that this takes a bit of time so any spell you cast before wild shaping, like call lightning, would end before you are ready. But you can still rely on Moon Beam and any abjuration spells.
You forgot Step 5: DM tells you you'll be using the block's DC or your own unarmored AC because they're not letting you cheese like that.
5th level druid, with 60 hit points, has two wild shapes (assuming no short rests) plus 4 spell slots (half of the available number, rounded down). Each instance of THP is 15. This means a total of 6 available uses of WS, which equals 90 hit points. So the 5th level moon druid effectively has 150 hit points.
5th level barbarian, with 80 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 120. Less than the druid, but not egregiously so.
Sorry where are these numbers coming from?? a 5th level druid has 38 hit points, a 5th level barbarian has 55 (65 with Tough) hit points...
I was really hoping for statblocks with a ton of customization on top... I was never a fan of the old wildshape so reverting to it is unsurprisingly disapointing. What I really liked about the statblock approach is that It would allow me to give my druid characters a theme. I really liked the idea of being the druid who always turns into snakes, without relying on a snake of appropriate CR being in the game. I just never found the current wildshape exciting, but it certainly comes down to personal preference.
5th level druid, with 60 hit points, has two wild shapes (assuming no short rests) plus 4 spell slots (half of the available number, rounded down). Each instance of THP is 15. This means a total of 6 available uses of WS, which equals 90 hit points. So the 5th level moon druid effectively has 150 hit points.
5th level barbarian, with 80 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 120. Less than the druid, but not egregiously so.
Sorry where are these numbers coming from?? a 5th level druid has 38 hit points, a 5th level barbarian has 55 (65 with Tough) hit points...
Please take a look at my post again. I used maximum hit points possible, and assume a 20 CON. The example assumes the druid rolls an 8 for every hit die gained and the barbarian rolls a 12.
But that doesn't even really matter (I realized after the post) for the comparison. Because even if we use average hit points for the barbarian, the moon druid soon far outstrips them in terms of buff/THP. If we assume average hit points for both classes (meaning the druid always rolls a 4, the barbarian always rolls a 6), a 16 CON, and that the moon druid uses only half their slots to reup on wild shape:
5th level druid, with 35 hit points, has two wild shapes (assuming no short rests) plus 4 spell slots (half of the available number, rounded down). Each instance of THP is 15. This means a total of 6 available uses of WS, which equals 90 hit points. So the 5th level moon druid effectively has 125 hit points.
5th level barbarian, with 45 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 67.
10th level druid, with 70 hit points, has two wild shapes (assuming no short rests) plus 7 spell slots (half of the available number, rounded down). Each instance of THP is 30. This means a total of 9 available uses of WS, which equals 270 hit points. So the 5th level moon druid effectively has 340 hit points.
10th level barbarian, with 90 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 135 - less than half the druid's capabilities.
20th level druid, with 140 hit points, has two wild shapes (assuming no short rests) plus 11 spell slots (half of the available number). Each instance of THP is 60. This means a total of 13 available uses of WS, which equals 780 hit points. So the 5th level moon druid effectively has 920 hit points.
20th level barbarian, with 180 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 270. Essentially 1/3 of the druid's hit point buff - 1/3!
5th level druid, with 35 hit points, has two wild shapes (assuming no short rests) plus 4 spell slots (half of the available number, rounded down). Each instance of THP is 15. This means a total of 6 available uses of WS, which equals 90 hit points. So the 5th level moon druid effectively has 137 hit points.
But why would a Moon druid do that? they aren't dealing much damage with those WSs since they are only transforming into a CR 1/2 creature you're look at your optimal DPR being a 2 attacks per round with +5 to hit with 1d6+3 damage on a hit from your generic Ape form. Whereas the Barbarian should be doing 3 attacks per round with +7 to hit and 1d6+6 damage on a hit, or 2 attacks per round dealing 2d6+6 damage + extra damage from Graze or 1d12+6 + extra damage from Cleave. Having double the hit points means nothing if it takes you twice as long to kill the enemies.
Thing bout thp is that its non healable or stackable so cant make use of other sources of thp were barbarian esp totem barbarian is fully healable. Yeah you could drop out and drop back in next turn to regain the temp but thats draining resources. I do like most of the new druid id make the thp into just hp and allow primal strike to affect all attacks not just one. Its intresting that they removed the non metal option from armour for the druid so higher ac without magic items is now possible
I feel like the biggest flaw with this version of Moon Druid is that you basically have two options.
Option A: Burn through your spell slots to survive one or two more attacks every round while doing sub-par damage.
Option B: Not do that and instead use those spell slots to cast powerful battlefield control spells, damage spells, or keep the party alive with heal spells.
Option B is the optimal play in almost every possible encounter I can think of. Moon Druid's entire kit is built around Option A. So the question becomes "Why play Moon Druid at all?"
Moon Druid is much superior to a Land Druid who just stood there swinging away with Shillelagh, but is it comparable to a druid who chose to use those spell slots actually casting spells? Because to be a viable subclass it needs to be.
Or they can just let druid cast spells in beast form much earlier so that Combat Wildshape is only competing with a druid using cantrips and not a druid casting high level spells.
It's better than the first playtest for sure. Moon druids are actually playable in this version, but I can see a couple issues. First, keeping track of the HP with Wildshape seems like it's getting to be more of an accounting chore. The 5e approach did give a lot of HP to the druid, but it was easy to use, other than the occasional spillover damage. The second thing is this wildshape AC option sounds complicated and hard to adjudicate. It's not really clear if they really mean it to go off of your actual total AC (including dex, armor magic bonuses, magic items, feats, class features, like barbarian Unarmored Defense) when you wildshape or just the AC from your armor itself (with or without magic bonuses?). The exception of shield AC feels a little like a hastily applied bandaid, and it makes it even harder to see how the RP idea of it works. Now yeah, the AC boost is nice and I certainly understand why adding the shield too would make it crazy, but this just seems like a clunky way to do it. I almost want to say that some form of Unarmored Defense in Wildshape would make more sense. Adding Wis bonus might be a little much, but adding Con like Barbarians get would give a little bit of a boost without making it easy to minmax. Most Druids opt for decent levels of Con, but they don't stack it up as heavily as they do Wis, and it would give moon druids something to play around with if they really want to boost wildshape combat at the expense of spellcasting ability. Adding always prepared Speak with Animals and especially Commune with Nature makes a lot of sense. From an RP perspective, it's always kind of weird when something that seems really core to the character concept hinges on whether you prepared it or not.
5th level druid, with 35 hit points, has two wild shapes (assuming no short rests) plus 4 spell slots (half of the available number, rounded down). Each instance of THP is 15. This means a total of 6 available uses of WS, which equals 90 hit points. So the 5th level moon druid effectively has 137 hit points.
But why would a Moon druid do that? they aren't dealing much damage with those WSs since they are only transforming into a CR 1/2 creature you're look at your optimal DPR being a 2 attacks per round with +5 to hit with 1d6+3 damage on a hit from your generic Ape form. Whereas the Barbarian should be doing 3 attacks per round with +7 to hit and 1d6+6 damage on a hit, or 2 attacks per round dealing 2d6+6 damage + extra damage from Graze or 1d12+6 + extra damage from Cleave. Having double the hit points means nothing if it takes you twice as long to kill the enemies.
It's not always about how much damage you can do. The "why" could easily be "to be a HP sink for the monster(s)" - to be something that occupies a foe and allows the rest of the party to focus fire/take down other monsters before focusing fire. Also, even CR 1 beasts can do more than just some paltry damage. Dire wolves can knock foes prone. Giant spiders have poison and webs. Giant toads can swallow prey whole. And so on.
I almost want to say that some form of Unarmored Defense in Wildshape would make more sense. Adding Wis bonus might be a little much, but adding Con like Barbarians get would give a little bit of a boost without making it easy to minmax. Most Druids opt for decent levels of Con, but they don't stack it up as heavily as they do Wis, and it would give moon druids something to play around with if they really want to boost wildshape combat at the expense of spellcasting ability.
Actually, this isn't a bad idea. Say we use WIS+CON of the new form. Let's see the results.
CR 1 at level 2 (16 WIS) Dire Wolf: 14AC to 15AC. Brown Bear: 11AC to 16AC. Deinonychus: 13AC to 15AC.
Brown Bear has the best AC, high HP, and dishes out a ton of damage. Dire Wolf has slightly worse AC and slightly more HP and can knock enemies prone and use Pack Tactics. Deinonychus has low HP and mid AC but does massive damage and can knock prone.
CR2 at level 6 (16 WIS) Giant Elk: 14AC to 15AC. Allosaurus: 13AC to 16AC. Gaint Constrictor Snake: 12AC to 14AC.
Giant Constrictor Snake has really low AC here, but it also has the most HP by a lot.
CR3 at level 9 (18 WIS) Giant Scorpion: 15AC to 16AC. Ankylosaurus: 15AC to 16AC.
Barely a difference.
CR5 at level 15 (20 WIS) Giant Crocodile: 14AC to 18AC. Triceratops: 13AC to 18AC.
Then we max out at level 18 with Mammoth. AC13 to AC20!
But at THAT level is 20AC really impressive? I think overall CON+WIS might actually be a little underpowered, but I do think it's a lot more appropriate than using the gear's raw AC from before we shift. It just needs a little more oomph. Maybe half your proficiency bonus added on top? That'd give Mammoth 23AC, Giant Crocodile would be at 20AC, and Giant Scorpion would be sitting at 18AC.
5th level druid, with 35 hit points, has two wild shapes (assuming no short rests) plus 4 spell slots (half of the available number, rounded down). Each instance of THP is 15. This means a total of 6 available uses of WS, which equals 90 hit points. So the 5th level moon druid effectively has 137 hit points.
But why would a Moon druid do that? they aren't dealing much damage with those WSs since they are only transforming into a CR 1/2 creature you're look at your optimal DPR being a 2 attacks per round with +5 to hit with 1d6+3 damage on a hit from your generic Ape form. Whereas the Barbarian should be doing 3 attacks per round with +7 to hit and 1d6+6 damage on a hit, or 2 attacks per round dealing 2d6+6 damage + extra damage from Graze or 1d12+6 + extra damage from Cleave. Having double the hit points means nothing if it takes you twice as long to kill the enemies.
It's not always about how much damage you can do. The "why" could easily be "to be a HP sink for the monster(s)" - to be something that occupies a foe and allows the rest of the party to focus fire/take down other monsters before focusing fire. Also, even CR 1 beasts can do more than just some paltry damage. Dire wolves can knock foes prone. Giant spiders have poison and webs. Giant toads can swallow prey whole. And so on.
CR1 isn't until level 6 even for Moon Druid and the DC for those abilities is very low and will never scale. A Barbarian can knock someone prone with one attack with a DC 8+STR+Prof = 15 at level 6 then make another attack, a Direwolf can make one attack which IF it hits can also knock prone with a DC 13. And there is no "greater direwolf" that the Moon druid could learn a higher levels, they will never have a DC higher than 13 for that knock prone effect. While the Barbarian will have a DC of 17 at level 9. Why would enemies bother attacking the WSed Moon druid rather than the Barbarian? When the Barbarian is a far greater threat to them.
Also note that if the Moon Druid instead used all their spell slots for Goodberry and they'd have approximately equal total HP than using it for thp for WS and they could use that healing on anyone, not just themselves.
I was really hoping for statblocks with a ton of customization on top... I was never a fan of the old wildshape so reverting to it is unsurprisingly disapointing. What I really liked about the statblock approach is that It would allow me to give my druid characters a theme. I really liked the idea of being the druid who always turns into snakes, without relying on a snake of appropriate CR being in the game. I just never found the current wildshape exciting, but it certainly comes down to personal preference.
3RD LEVEL: CIRCLE FORMS The rites of your circle grant you the ability to transform into more dangerous animal forms; the maximum Challenge Rating for your Wild Shape is 1.
A brown bear is still very solid damage output at level 3.
That said, once you hit level 5 using wild shape to attack is about as useful as in 2014, which is to say not.
Bear in mind it's only once per turn, 27 thp don't last that long at level 9.
It's not that broken, Druid is not a high AC class, it gets hit a lot. it's really middling on AC most of the time and usually needs a shield to get there, which WS doesn't benefit from. Moon druid is not looking like a viable tank any more, it's more a healer/DPS now, since moon beam is also meh due to concentration, it doesn't mix with being in melee combat/tanking.
I mean, I get that. A foe that a 9th level druid faces can conceivably deal out more than 27 hit points from attacks. But it's doubtful that the foe is going to deal out so much damage each turn as to make the druid's ability to use its bonus action to continually buff itself negligible. The druid at 9th level has 16 potential uses of wild shape - 16 x 27 is a LOT of THP.
A moon druid could easily have a 17 AC without a shield. This isn't great but it's not terrible, either.
But that same Moon druid could get 19AC with a shield, too. And if that's a +1 or higher shield, that is even more AC loss. It's really not the greatest trade...
This is a massive improvement over the last UA for me. I'm very happy they went back to the beast stat blocks. That said, I feel like the way they're handling HP is a tad clunky now. 5e's version was incredibly straightforward, and I liked that.
It also feels like a weird change if they were mainly worried about 2nd and 20th level moon druids being too tanky. They already removed infinite wildshapes from 20th level, and 2-4th level can be fixed by lowering the CR of the obtainable forms to 1/2 instead of 1. Have CR 1 obtainable at level 4 or 5. It's not all nice and symmetrical but it'll be more balanced.
I also don't like being forced into Moonbeam for everything for Moon Druid. It's a decent spell and everything, but I'd much rather the damage be coming from the beast's attacks. A mechanic to sacrifice spell slots for damage in Wildshape might be more thematic and fun. Maybe burn a spell slot for some added hit chance and damage for the rest of combat or something. Infuse your claws/fangs with lunar might.
Having a list of known forms is a decent compromise I suppose. It won't affect my playstyle anyway, as I tend to prefer to pick my forms based on my druid's preferences and personality anyway. I also like that they made it explicit that species traits, feats, etc. work in Wildshape form. It might be a little quirky, but it keeps your species choice relevant even when you transform.
Now this is really a cheesy thing to do, but I'm pretty sure that without any investment in AC a moon druid can have 18 AC on their wildshape as long as they have a bit of time to prepare before an encounter. All they need is a fighter or paladin or someone with plate armor in their party.
Step 1 ask party member to take off plate armor
Step 2 Druid puts on full plate armor (Doesn't matter that you don't have heavy armor training, it still gives the AC, and doesn't prevent you from using a magic action to wildshape).
Step 3 Wildshape into desired form allowing your party member's full plate armor to fall to the ground in your space.
Step 4 Allow party member to retrieve and put full plate armor back on. Proceed to encounter.
The only downside is that this takes a bit of time so any spell you cast before wild shaping, like call lightning, would end before you are ready. But you can still rely on Moon Beam and any abjuration spells.
You forgot Step 5: DM tells you you'll be using the block's DC or your own unarmored AC because they're not letting you cheese like that.
Sorry where are these numbers coming from?? a 5th level druid has 38 hit points, a 5th level barbarian has 55 (65 with Tough) hit points...
I was really hoping for statblocks with a ton of customization on top... I was never a fan of the old wildshape so reverting to it is unsurprisingly disapointing. What I really liked about the statblock approach is that It would allow me to give my druid characters a theme. I really liked the idea of being the druid who always turns into snakes, without relying on a snake of appropriate CR being in the game. I just never found the current wildshape exciting, but it certainly comes down to personal preference.
Please take a look at my post again. I used maximum hit points possible, and assume a 20 CON. The example assumes the druid rolls an 8 for every hit die gained and the barbarian rolls a 12.
But that doesn't even really matter (I realized after the post) for the comparison. Because even if we use average hit points for the barbarian, the moon druid soon far outstrips them in terms of buff/THP. If we assume average hit points for both classes (meaning the druid always rolls a 4, the barbarian always rolls a 6), a 16 CON, and that the moon druid uses only half their slots to reup on wild shape:
5th level druid, with 35 hit points, has two wild shapes (assuming no short rests) plus 4 spell slots (half of the available number, rounded down). Each instance of THP is 15. This means a total of 6 available uses of WS, which equals 90 hit points. So the 5th level moon druid effectively has 125 hit points.
5th level barbarian, with 45 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 67.
10th level druid, with 70 hit points, has two wild shapes (assuming no short rests) plus 7 spell slots (half of the available number, rounded down). Each instance of THP is 30. This means a total of 9 available uses of WS, which equals 270 hit points. So the 5th level moon druid effectively has 340 hit points.
10th level barbarian, with 90 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 135 - less than half the druid's capabilities.
20th level druid, with 140 hit points, has two wild shapes (assuming no short rests) plus 11 spell slots (half of the available number). Each instance of THP is 60. This means a total of 13 available uses of WS, which equals 780 hit points. So the 5th level moon druid effectively has 920 hit points.
20th level barbarian, with 180 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 270. Essentially 1/3 of the druid's hit point buff - 1/3!
But why would a Moon druid do that? they aren't dealing much damage with those WSs since they are only transforming into a CR 1/2 creature you're look at your optimal DPR being a 2 attacks per round with +5 to hit with 1d6+3 damage on a hit from your generic Ape form. Whereas the Barbarian should be doing 3 attacks per round with +7 to hit and 1d6+6 damage on a hit, or 2 attacks per round dealing 2d6+6 damage + extra damage from Graze or 1d12+6 + extra damage from Cleave. Having double the hit points means nothing if it takes you twice as long to kill the enemies.
Thing bout thp is that its non healable or stackable so cant make use of other sources of thp were barbarian esp totem barbarian is fully healable. Yeah you could drop out and drop back in next turn to regain the temp but thats draining resources. I do like most of the new druid id make the thp into just hp and allow primal strike to affect all attacks not just one. Its intresting that they removed the non metal option from armour for the druid so higher ac without magic items is now possible
I feel like the biggest flaw with this version of Moon Druid is that you basically have two options.
Option A: Burn through your spell slots to survive one or two more attacks every round while doing sub-par damage.
Option B: Not do that and instead use those spell slots to cast powerful battlefield control spells, damage spells, or keep the party alive with heal spells.
Option B is the optimal play in almost every possible encounter I can think of. Moon Druid's entire kit is built around Option A. So the question becomes "Why play Moon Druid at all?"
Moon Druid is much superior to a Land Druid who just stood there swinging away with Shillelagh, but is it comparable to a druid who chose to use those spell slots actually casting spells? Because to be a viable subclass it needs to be.
Or they can just let druid cast spells in beast form much earlier so that Combat Wildshape is only competing with a druid using cantrips and not a druid casting high level spells.
It's better than the first playtest for sure. Moon druids are actually playable in this version, but I can see a couple issues. First, keeping track of the HP with Wildshape seems like it's getting to be more of an accounting chore. The 5e approach did give a lot of HP to the druid, but it was easy to use, other than the occasional spillover damage. The second thing is this wildshape AC option sounds complicated and hard to adjudicate. It's not really clear if they really mean it to go off of your actual total AC (including dex, armor magic bonuses, magic items, feats, class features, like barbarian Unarmored Defense) when you wildshape or just the AC from your armor itself (with or without magic bonuses?). The exception of shield AC feels a little like a hastily applied bandaid, and it makes it even harder to see how the RP idea of it works. Now yeah, the AC boost is nice and I certainly understand why adding the shield too would make it crazy, but this just seems like a clunky way to do it. I almost want to say that some form of Unarmored Defense in Wildshape would make more sense. Adding Wis bonus might be a little much, but adding Con like Barbarians get would give a little bit of a boost without making it easy to minmax. Most Druids opt for decent levels of Con, but they don't stack it up as heavily as they do Wis, and it would give moon druids something to play around with if they really want to boost wildshape combat at the expense of spellcasting ability.
Adding always prepared Speak with Animals and especially Commune with Nature makes a lot of sense. From an RP perspective, it's always kind of weird when something that seems really core to the character concept hinges on whether you prepared it or not.
It's not always about how much damage you can do. The "why" could easily be "to be a HP sink for the monster(s)" - to be something that occupies a foe and allows the rest of the party to focus fire/take down other monsters before focusing fire. Also, even CR 1 beasts can do more than just some paltry damage. Dire wolves can knock foes prone. Giant spiders have poison and webs. Giant toads can swallow prey whole. And so on.
Actually, this isn't a bad idea. Say we use WIS+CON of the new form. Let's see the results.
CR 1 at level 2 (16 WIS)
Dire Wolf: 14AC to 15AC.
Brown Bear: 11AC to 16AC.
Deinonychus: 13AC to 15AC.
Brown Bear has the best AC, high HP, and dishes out a ton of damage. Dire Wolf has slightly worse AC and slightly more HP and can knock enemies prone and use Pack Tactics. Deinonychus has low HP and mid AC but does massive damage and can knock prone.
CR2 at level 6 (16 WIS)
Giant Elk: 14AC to 15AC.
Allosaurus: 13AC to 16AC.
Gaint Constrictor Snake: 12AC to 14AC.
Giant Constrictor Snake has really low AC here, but it also has the most HP by a lot.
CR3 at level 9 (18 WIS)
Giant Scorpion: 15AC to 16AC.
Ankylosaurus: 15AC to 16AC.
Barely a difference.
CR5 at level 15 (20 WIS)
Giant Crocodile: 14AC to 18AC.
Triceratops: 13AC to 18AC.
Then we max out at level 18 with Mammoth.
AC13 to AC20!
But at THAT level is 20AC really impressive? I think overall CON+WIS might actually be a little underpowered, but I do think it's a lot more appropriate than using the gear's raw AC from before we shift. It just needs a little more oomph. Maybe half your proficiency bonus added on top? That'd give Mammoth 23AC, Giant Crocodile would be at 20AC, and Giant Scorpion would be sitting at 18AC.
CR1 isn't until level 6 even for Moon Druid and the DC for those abilities is very low and will never scale. A Barbarian can knock someone prone with one attack with a DC 8+STR+Prof = 15 at level 6 then make another attack, a Direwolf can make one attack which IF it hits can also knock prone with a DC 13. And there is no "greater direwolf" that the Moon druid could learn a higher levels, they will never have a DC higher than 13 for that knock prone effect. While the Barbarian will have a DC of 17 at level 9. Why would enemies bother attacking the WSed Moon druid rather than the Barbarian? When the Barbarian is a far greater threat to them.
Also note that if the Moon Druid instead used all their spell slots for Goodberry and they'd have approximately equal total HP than using it for thp for WS and they could use that healing on anyone, not just themselves.
I'm in the same boat.
Read it again
A brown bear is still very solid damage output at level 3.
That said, once you hit level 5 using wild shape to attack is about as useful as in 2014, which is to say not.