The damage on a hit is not going to be that low, they will just miss more. How does the monster know the miss was because the wild shaped form at +4 to hit vs they just screwed up. And after even 2 rounds of give to the druid, they kind of served their purpose as a distraction since most fights are in the 3ish round range anyways.
The monster doesn't need to know; the measure is just "how much damage did it actually do" (yes, someone who normally has low offense but lands a couple crits round 1 is probably going to get more attacks than they really deserve). In any case, being unkillable in a 3 round fight generally doesn't matter because no-one was going to be in serious danger anyway, and the exceptions tend to involve large area effects.
If that is how you want to play it, cool. Me for how I interpret a few rounds of combat a monster knowing that feels like metagaming.
If that is how you want to play it, cool. Me for how I interpret a few rounds of combat a monster knowing that feels like metagaming.
The monster knows "that guy hit me really hard, so I'm going to whack him back". That's not metagaming, that's moderately stupid tactics (more tactically inclined monsters will... also ignore the druid in favor of killing the people casting spells).
I agree. Let moon Druids, whose fantasy is turning into a beast for fighting use their primary resource, spell slots, to fuel that transformation in various ways. They’re shaping that primal magic into buffs for their wildshape.
All the other Druids can use their primary resource, spell slots, for casting and their wildshape for utility, or other subclass options like they do now anyway.
If they brought back Channel Nature they could easily tie all of this together into a single big resource for druids to use. Let the number of Channel Nature uses you have scale as you level. Have Channel Nature let you convert uses into spell slots or convert spell slots into Channel Nature uses. Then just have the Moon Druid's unique use of Channel Nature be a way to buff their wildshape damage output.
Heck, if we get enough Channel Nature uses as a resource they could have Combat Wildshape cost more Channel Nature points the higher CR animal you are turning into. This would limit turning into a combat-ready form to only two or three times a day while allowing the Moon Druid to still use low CR Wildshape forms for exploration and roleplay. All while burning through their spellslots, if they choose to, in order to maintain their shapeshifting power by converting them into more Channel Nature.
Meanwhile, druids of other subclasses can burn their Channel Nature for more magic or for whatever unique powers their subclasses have.
If that is how you want to play it, cool. Me for how I interpret a few rounds of combat a monster knowing that feels like metagaming.
The monster knows "that guy hit me really hard, so I'm going to whack him back". That's not metagaming, that's moderately stupid tactics (more tactically inclined monsters will... also ignore the druid in favor of killing the people casting spells).
Yeah I'd get that if beasts hit for crap damage. But a CR3 beast can hit for 4d6+4 on a tank style beast, and the dPS styles hit harder. I'm not sure around 20 points of damage is bad. And its coming from something large and more visibly dangerous looking. Their to hit frequently sucks, but If some large creature comes at me and misses with some giant tail swipe my thought process wouldn't be dude its weak it would be damn, I'm glad that missed me as that would probably hurt a lot. I as the DM know the giant scorpion has a +4 to hit on its 3 attacks, I don't think a enemy will know that in 6 seconds. And even if it did the threat of the poison if the enemy isn't poison immune would always be there.
Yeah I'd get that if beasts hit for crap damage. But a CR3 beast can hit for 4d6+4 on a tank style beast, and the dPS styles hit harder. I'm not sure around 20 points of damage is bad. And its coming from something large and more visibly dangerous looking. Their to hit frequently sucks, but If some large creature comes at me and misses with some giant tail swipe my thought process wouldn't be dude its weak it would be damn, I'm glad that missed me as that would probably hurt a lot. I as the DM know the giant scorpion has a +4 to hit on its 3 attacks, I don't think a enemy will know that in 6 seconds. And even if it did the threat of the poison if the enemy isn't poison immune would always be there.
The monster is only going to react to successful hits. It doesn't know how much damage the misses would have done.
Yes agreed. It should start at CR 1/2 at level 2, be CR 1 at Level 4, CR 2 at Level 6, CR 3 at level 6, and CR 6 at level 8.
It would've been so easy to just adjust the CR scaling like this and remove infinite wildshape at level 20. Moon Druid really didn't need a full redesign, yet here we are.
Out of curiosity, did you mean to have CR2 and 3 both reached at level 6? Also, if we're hitting CR6 at level 8, why not let it go higher? Polymorph can hit CR8 and it always seemed weird to me that Wildshape, a unique class feature for THE shapeshifter subclass, couldn't.
CR8 at level 14, maybe? So druids can turn into Giant Ape and Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The CR2 and CR3 at level 6 was because I initially thought +1 CR every 2 levels would be enough, but then thought about it more and realized it needs to be even faster than that. Yes it should go up to CR 8 eventually, I'd probably go for at level 12-14 when a 4th level slot for Polymorph is cheap.
I agree. Let moon Druids, whose fantasy is turning into a beast for fighting use their primary resource, spell slots, to fuel that transformation in various ways. They’re shaping that primal magic into buffs for their wildshape.
All the other Druids can use their primary resource, spell slots, for casting and their wildshape for utility, or other subclass options like they do now anyway.
If they brought back Channel Nature they could easily tie all of this together into a single big resource for druids to use. Let the number of Channel Nature uses you have scale as you level. Have Channel Nature let you convert uses into spell slots or convert spell slots into Channel Nature uses. Then just have the Moon Druid's unique use of Channel Nature be a way to buff their wildshape damage output.
Heck, if we get enough Channel Nature uses as a resource they could have Combat Wildshape cost more Channel Nature points the higher CR animal you are turning into. This would limit turning into a combat-ready form to only two or three times a day while allowing the Moon Druid to still use low CR Wildshape forms for exploration and roleplay. All while burning through their spellslots, if they choose to, in order to maintain their shapeshifting power by converting them into more Channel Nature.
Meanwhile, druids of other subclasses can burn their Channel Nature for more magic or for whatever unique powers their subclasses have.
Someone pointed out that UA6 Wild Shape uses is just Channel Nature by another name. You can expend Wild Shape uses to do things other than Wild Shape. Calling the thing you expend Channel Nature and turning into beast Wild Shape would clean up the language and make it easier to understand.
Someone pointed out that UA6 Wild Shape uses is just Channel Nature by another name. You can expend Wild Shape uses to do things other than Wild Shape. Calling the thing you expend Channel Nature and turning into beast Wild Shape would clean up the language and make it easier to understand.
Indeed. I really have no idea why they went back to calling it Wildshape Uses when 90% of the ways you can use it aren't Wildshaping. It's just unnecessarily confusing wording and makes it more confusing when adding other mechanics to it. Their whole deal with druid this UA was to make it more user-friendly and they backtracked on the one thing they did that I'm pretty sure was universally liked. At the very least I didn't see anyone complaining about Channel Nature.
I agree. Let moon Druids, whose fantasy is turning into a beast for fighting use their primary resource, spell slots, to fuel that transformation in various ways. They’re shaping that primal magic into buffs for their wildshape.
All the other Druids can use their primary resource, spell slots, for casting and their wildshape for utility, or other subclass options like they do now anyway.
If they brought back Channel Nature they could easily tie all of this together into a single big resource for druids to use. Let the number of Channel Nature uses you have scale as you level. Have Channel Nature let you convert uses into spell slots or convert spell slots into Channel Nature uses. Then just have the Moon Druid's unique use of Channel Nature be a way to buff their wildshape damage output.
Heck, if we get enough Channel Nature uses as a resource they could have Combat Wildshape cost more Channel Nature points the higher CR animal you are turning into. This would limit turning into a combat-ready form to only two or three times a day while allowing the Moon Druid to still use low CR Wildshape forms for exploration and roleplay. All while burning through their spellslots, if they choose to, in order to maintain their shapeshifting power by converting them into more Channel Nature.
Meanwhile, druids of other subclasses can burn their Channel Nature for more magic or for whatever unique powers their subclasses have.
I liked Channel Nature when they introduced it. Although they should have had something different than Healing Blossoms, imo. But I’m not sure about giving too many uses, the UA gave you up to 4, as I don’t know if Druids needed another big resource in addition to spells slots to track. I think using spell slots, which you are not using a ton of while WS anyway, would probably be a better option. Moon Druids already spend slots to heal in WS now so why not add other options?
I could also see an option where you could expend two uses of your WS to get a significant buff to your form. Elemental Wildshape used two uses to be an elemental. Why not two uses to get a buffed up Beast form?
Yeah I'd get that if beasts hit for crap damage. But a CR3 beast can hit for 4d6+4 on a tank style beast, and the dPS styles hit harder. I'm not sure around 20 points of damage is bad. And its coming from something large and more visibly dangerous looking. Their to hit frequently sucks, but If some large creature comes at me and misses with some giant tail swipe my thought process wouldn't be dude its weak it would be damn, I'm glad that missed me as that would probably hurt a lot. I as the DM know the giant scorpion has a +4 to hit on its 3 attacks, I don't think a enemy will know that in 6 seconds. And even if it did the threat of the poison if the enemy isn't poison immune would always be there.
The monster is only going to react to successful hits. It doesn't know how much damage the misses would have done.
You seem all to willing to ignore that its a 20 foot tall tiger or something, and have enemies react to things they don't really know like why something missed you. Somehow I doubt you do the same thing when the barbarian rolls a 2 and a 1 on their attacks. Oh the barbarian isn't a threat I'll ignore him.
Yeah I'd get that if beasts hit for crap damage. But a CR3 beast can hit for 4d6+4 on a tank style beast, and the dPS styles hit harder. I'm not sure around 20 points of damage is bad. And its coming from something large and more visibly dangerous looking. Their to hit frequently sucks, but If some large creature comes at me and misses with some giant tail swipe my thought process wouldn't be dude its weak it would be damn, I'm glad that missed me as that would probably hurt a lot. I as the DM know the giant scorpion has a +4 to hit on its 3 attacks, I don't think a enemy will know that in 6 seconds. And even if it did the threat of the poison if the enemy isn't poison immune would always be there.
The monster is only going to react to successful hits. It doesn't know how much damage the misses would have done.
You seem all to willing to ignore that its a 20 foot tall tiger or something, and have enemies react to things they don't really know like why something missed you. Somehow I doubt you do the same thing when the barbarian rolls a 2 and a 1 on their attacks. Oh the barbarian isn't a threat I'll ignore him.
But just like adventurers, the folks that one might face should have enough experience with the world and combat to size up their opponents at least in general. They might not know exactly for whichever animal it might be, but even then a skilled combatant should be able to read a bit from the way an enemy moves and acts generally what kind of a threat it poses.
I agree. Let moon Druids, whose fantasy is turning into a beast for fighting use their primary resource, spell slots, to fuel that transformation in various ways. They’re shaping that primal magic into buffs for their wildshape.
All the other Druids can use their primary resource, spell slots, for casting and their wildshape for utility, or other subclass options like they do now anyway.
If they brought back Channel Nature they could easily tie all of this together into a single big resource for druids to use. Let the number of Channel Nature uses you have scale as you level. Have Channel Nature let you convert uses into spell slots or convert spell slots into Channel Nature uses. Then just have the Moon Druid's unique use of Channel Nature be a way to buff their wildshape damage output.
Heck, if we get enough Channel Nature uses as a resource they could have Combat Wildshape cost more Channel Nature points the higher CR animal you are turning into. This would limit turning into a combat-ready form to only two or three times a day while allowing the Moon Druid to still use low CR Wildshape forms for exploration and roleplay. All while burning through their spellslots, if they choose to, in order to maintain their shapeshifting power by converting them into more Channel Nature.
Meanwhile, druids of other subclasses can burn their Channel Nature for more magic or for whatever unique powers their subclasses have.
I liked Channel Nature when they introduced it. Although they should have had something different than Healing Blossoms, imo. But I’m not sure about giving too many uses, the UA gave you up to 4, as I don’t know if Druids needed another big resource in addition to spells slots to track. I think using spell slots, which you are not using a ton of while WS anyway, would probably be a better option. Moon Druids already spend slots to heal in WS now so why not add other options?
I could also see an option where you could expend two uses of your WS to get a significant buff to your form. Elemental Wildshape used two uses to be an elemental. Why not two uses to get a buffed up Beast form?
One reason why I might avoid the two uses of Wildshape to buff the form (and instead might have it use spell slots), is because if the Druid gets knocked out of Wildshape then, they will have lost their main schtick. It certainly should cost something significant, but using up all the Wildshape resource at once seems too restricting. If the buffs are based on spell slots, then the player can choose to be more of a regular Druid that maybe has decent beast forms, but also tosses around spells when in human form, or one that is almost always in beast form (at least for combat) and uses all of their spell slot resources on buffing the form.
You seem all to willing to ignore that its a 20 foot tall tiger or something, and have enemies react to things they don't really know like why something missed you. Somehow I doubt you do the same thing when the barbarian rolls a 2 and a 1 on their attacks. Oh the barbarian isn't a threat I'll ignore him.
Actually, I do. Barbarians are pretty high on the 'easiest to ignore' list too.
I agree. Let moon Druids, whose fantasy is turning into a beast for fighting use their primary resource, spell slots, to fuel that transformation in various ways. They’re shaping that primal magic into buffs for their wildshape.
All the other Druids can use their primary resource, spell slots, for casting and their wildshape for utility, or other subclass options like they do now anyway.
If they brought back Channel Nature they could easily tie all of this together into a single big resource for druids to use. Let the number of Channel Nature uses you have scale as you level. Have Channel Nature let you convert uses into spell slots or convert spell slots into Channel Nature uses. Then just have the Moon Druid's unique use of Channel Nature be a way to buff their wildshape damage output.
Heck, if we get enough Channel Nature uses as a resource they could have Combat Wildshape cost more Channel Nature points the higher CR animal you are turning into. This would limit turning into a combat-ready form to only two or three times a day while allowing the Moon Druid to still use low CR Wildshape forms for exploration and roleplay. All while burning through their spellslots, if they choose to, in order to maintain their shapeshifting power by converting them into more Channel Nature.
Meanwhile, druids of other subclasses can burn their Channel Nature for more magic or for whatever unique powers their subclasses have.
I liked Channel Nature when they introduced it. Although they should have had something different than Healing Blossoms, imo. But I’m not sure about giving too many uses, the UA gave you up to 4, as I don’t know if Druids needed another big resource in addition to spells slots to track. I think using spell slots, which you are not using a ton of while WS anyway, would probably be a better option. Moon Druids already spend slots to heal in WS now so why not add other options?
I could also see an option where you could expend two uses of your WS to get a significant buff to your form. Elemental Wildshape used two uses to be an elemental. Why not two uses to get a buffed up Beast form?
One reason why I might avoid the two uses of Wildshape to buff the form (and instead might have it use spell slots), is because if the Druid gets knocked out of Wildshape then, they will have lost their main schtick. It certainly should cost something significant, but using up all the Wildshape resource at once seems too restricting. If the buffs are based on spell slots, then the player can choose to be more of a regular Druid that maybe has decent beast forms, but also tosses around spells when in human form, or one that is almost always in beast form (at least for combat) and uses all of their spell slot resources on buffing the form.
I would prefer the use of spell slots for buffing WS, which I mentioned in the quote. But since Chanel Nature came up and I was responding to it, I brought up the idea of, like Elemental Wildshape, using two uses (as part of CN), but for buffing beast forms since they are not doing elementals. It could also come online at the same time (10th level) and you would have 3 WS uses then so you wouldn’t lose your entire schtick but just the more powerful version.
Also, except for incapacitated or dead you can’t get knocked out if WS since it’s using your HP so less likely to be an issue.
I liked Channel Nature when they introduced it. Although they should have had something different than Healing Blossoms, imo. But I’m not sure about giving too many uses, the UA gave you up to 4, as I don’t know if Druids needed another big resource in addition to spells slots to track. I think using spell slots, which you are not using a ton of while WS anyway, would probably be a better option. Moon Druids already spend slots to heal in WS now so why not add other options?
I could also see an option where you could expend two uses of your WS to get a significant buff to your form. Elemental Wildshape used two uses to be an elemental. Why not two uses to get a buffed up Beast form?
The thing about using spell slots exclusively is you only have so many first-level slots to burn. Once you start converting second or third-level slots into Find Familiar or Wildshape uses things can get difficult to balance.
By having two main resources, Channel Nature and Spell Slots, it makes things easier to balance and more intuitive. It also leads to fewer wasted slots, if you were out of first-level slots but really wanted to use Find Familiar you'd need to potentially burn a third or fourth-level slot on it, which would be a supreme waste.
With Channel Nature, you just decide how many Nature Points each spell slot tier is worth. Then you can convert, say, a fourth level slot into four Nature Points, which can be used to cast Find Familiar four times or Wildshape twice or what have you.
This especially becomes an issue if we expect Moon Druids to be burning this resource constantly as they fight, as they'll be out of first-level spell slots extremely fast and need to be constantly either converting or wasting higher-level slots depending on how it's done. Being able to just look at your Channel Nature pool and go "Okay, I have enough points for the next fight" is just easier than eyeballing your many spell slots and doing the math in your head to decide if you need to be more conservative with your wildshaping or not.
It also lends itself to being limited to encourage preparation better. Spell Slots alone can't be converted into combat power before a fight starts. It's the sort of resource that lends itself to being burned mid-fight. But if you can convert them into a separate resource you can then make rules where it takes an action to facilitate the conversion process or it can only be done outside of combat via a short meditation period. This way the druid would need to plan ahead whether or not they want to convert a ton of spell slots into Nature Points so they can burn them to empower their Wildshape or if they'd rather go in with a bunch of spell slots intact and play this fight out as a caster.
Not to mention the other subclasses. Land has a lot of "Wildshape Uses" that can just be Channel Nature. Sea Druid looks like it'll function similarly to Moon Druid and mainly be about burning WIldshape Uses to empower their storm aura. You could have all this cost Spell Slots too, but then you need to figure out how many turns in your Storm Aura a 7th level Spell-Slot is worth. Or a 7th, Third, and two Fourth level slots are worth.
Having Channel Nature act as a middle-man style resource just seems easier on the player and has more versatile applications in terms of restrictions and benefits.
Druid in general, clean up of the rules for Wild Shape and Species (Racial) Traits. The 2014 Wild Shape utilises the Species Trait if the new form is physically capable of doing so. The UA Wild Shape removes this limitation.
UA Wild Shape
Known Forms. you know three forms of CR 1/4 that lack a fly speed
Game Stats. your games stats are replaced by the stats of the beast, but you retain your hit points, hit dice, int, wis, char scores, class feats, SPECIES TRAITS, languages & feats
So depending on your species (race) your traits grant you: swimming, water breathing, flight, bouncy-bounce, extra arms, etc
Objects. Your ability to handle objects is determined by the form's (beasts) limbs, rather than your own.
The new rules for Wild Shape would be contradictory and just plain messy if allSpecies Traits are carried over while in Wild Shape
some brief examples below (not an exhaustive list)
Aarakocra - Flight: because of your wings, you have a flying speed
Fairy - Flight: because of your wings, you have a flying speed
Sea Elf - Speed: you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed
Triton - Speed: you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed
Water Genasi - you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed
Haregon - Rabbit Hop: as a bonus action you can jump X feet equal to 5 times your PB
Thi-kreen - Secondary Arms: you have two extra arms that you can do shit with
If that is how you want to play it, cool. Me for how I interpret a few rounds of combat a monster knowing that feels like metagaming.
The monster knows "that guy hit me really hard, so I'm going to whack him back". That's not metagaming, that's moderately stupid tactics (more tactically inclined monsters will... also ignore the druid in favor of killing the people casting spells).
If they brought back Channel Nature they could easily tie all of this together into a single big resource for druids to use. Let the number of Channel Nature uses you have scale as you level. Have Channel Nature let you convert uses into spell slots or convert spell slots into Channel Nature uses. Then just have the Moon Druid's unique use of Channel Nature be a way to buff their wildshape damage output.
Heck, if we get enough Channel Nature uses as a resource they could have Combat Wildshape cost more Channel Nature points the higher CR animal you are turning into. This would limit turning into a combat-ready form to only two or three times a day while allowing the Moon Druid to still use low CR Wildshape forms for exploration and roleplay. All while burning through their spellslots, if they choose to, in order to maintain their shapeshifting power by converting them into more Channel Nature.
Meanwhile, druids of other subclasses can burn their Channel Nature for more magic or for whatever unique powers their subclasses have.
Yeah I'd get that if beasts hit for crap damage. But a CR3 beast can hit for 4d6+4 on a tank style beast, and the dPS styles hit harder. I'm not sure around 20 points of damage is bad. And its coming from something large and more visibly dangerous looking. Their to hit frequently sucks, but If some large creature comes at me and misses with some giant tail swipe my thought process wouldn't be dude its weak it would be damn, I'm glad that missed me as that would probably hurt a lot. I as the DM know the giant scorpion has a +4 to hit on its 3 attacks, I don't think a enemy will know that in 6 seconds. And even if it did the threat of the poison if the enemy isn't poison immune would always be there.
The monster is only going to react to successful hits. It doesn't know how much damage the misses would have done.
The CR2 and CR3 at level 6 was because I initially thought +1 CR every 2 levels would be enough, but then thought about it more and realized it needs to be even faster than that. Yes it should go up to CR 8 eventually, I'd probably go for at level 12-14 when a 4th level slot for Polymorph is cheap.
Someone pointed out that UA6 Wild Shape uses is just Channel Nature by another name. You can expend Wild Shape uses to do things other than Wild Shape. Calling the thing you expend Channel Nature and turning into beast Wild Shape would clean up the language and make it easier to understand.
Indeed. I really have no idea why they went back to calling it Wildshape Uses when 90% of the ways you can use it aren't Wildshaping. It's just unnecessarily confusing wording and makes it more confusing when adding other mechanics to it. Their whole deal with druid this UA was to make it more user-friendly and they backtracked on the one thing they did that I'm pretty sure was universally liked. At the very least I didn't see anyone complaining about Channel Nature.
I liked Channel Nature when they introduced it. Although they should have had something different than Healing Blossoms, imo. But I’m not sure about giving too many uses, the UA gave you up to 4, as I don’t know if Druids needed another big resource in addition to spells slots to track. I think using spell slots, which you are not using a ton of while WS anyway, would probably be a better option. Moon Druids already spend slots to heal in WS now so why not add other options?
I could also see an option where you could expend two uses of your WS to get a significant buff to your form. Elemental Wildshape used two uses to be an elemental. Why not two uses to get a buffed up Beast form?
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
You seem all to willing to ignore that its a 20 foot tall tiger or something, and have enemies react to things they don't really know like why something missed you. Somehow I doubt you do the same thing when the barbarian rolls a 2 and a 1 on their attacks. Oh the barbarian isn't a threat I'll ignore him.
But just like adventurers, the folks that one might face should have enough experience with the world and combat to size up their opponents at least in general. They might not know exactly for whichever animal it might be, but even then a skilled combatant should be able to read a bit from the way an enemy moves and acts generally what kind of a threat it poses.
One reason why I might avoid the two uses of Wildshape to buff the form (and instead might have it use spell slots), is because if the Druid gets knocked out of Wildshape then, they will have lost their main schtick. It certainly should cost something significant, but using up all the Wildshape resource at once seems too restricting. If the buffs are based on spell slots, then the player can choose to be more of a regular Druid that maybe has decent beast forms, but also tosses around spells when in human form, or one that is almost always in beast form (at least for combat) and uses all of their spell slot resources on buffing the form.
Actually, I do. Barbarians are pretty high on the 'easiest to ignore' list too.
I would prefer the use of spell slots for buffing WS, which I mentioned in the quote. But since Chanel Nature came up and I was responding to it, I brought up the idea of, like Elemental Wildshape, using two uses (as part of CN), but for buffing beast forms since they are not doing elementals. It could also come online at the same time (10th level) and you would have 3 WS uses then so you wouldn’t lose your entire schtick but just the more powerful version.
Also, except for incapacitated or dead you can’t get knocked out if WS since it’s using your HP so less likely to be an issue.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
The thing about using spell slots exclusively is you only have so many first-level slots to burn. Once you start converting second or third-level slots into Find Familiar or Wildshape uses things can get difficult to balance.
By having two main resources, Channel Nature and Spell Slots, it makes things easier to balance and more intuitive. It also leads to fewer wasted slots, if you were out of first-level slots but really wanted to use Find Familiar you'd need to potentially burn a third or fourth-level slot on it, which would be a supreme waste.
With Channel Nature, you just decide how many Nature Points each spell slot tier is worth. Then you can convert, say, a fourth level slot into four Nature Points, which can be used to cast Find Familiar four times or Wildshape twice or what have you.
This especially becomes an issue if we expect Moon Druids to be burning this resource constantly as they fight, as they'll be out of first-level spell slots extremely fast and need to be constantly either converting or wasting higher-level slots depending on how it's done. Being able to just look at your Channel Nature pool and go "Okay, I have enough points for the next fight" is just easier than eyeballing your many spell slots and doing the math in your head to decide if you need to be more conservative with your wildshaping or not.
It also lends itself to being limited to encourage preparation better. Spell Slots alone can't be converted into combat power before a fight starts. It's the sort of resource that lends itself to being burned mid-fight. But if you can convert them into a separate resource you can then make rules where it takes an action to facilitate the conversion process or it can only be done outside of combat via a short meditation period. This way the druid would need to plan ahead whether or not they want to convert a ton of spell slots into Nature Points so they can burn them to empower their Wildshape or if they'd rather go in with a bunch of spell slots intact and play this fight out as a caster.
Not to mention the other subclasses. Land has a lot of "Wildshape Uses" that can just be Channel Nature. Sea Druid looks like it'll function similarly to Moon Druid and mainly be about burning WIldshape Uses to empower their storm aura. You could have all this cost Spell Slots too, but then you need to figure out how many turns in your Storm Aura a 7th level Spell-Slot is worth. Or a 7th, Third, and two Fourth level slots are worth.
Having Channel Nature act as a middle-man style resource just seems easier on the player and has more versatile applications in terms of restrictions and benefits.
Druid in general, clean up of the rules for Wild Shape and Species (Racial) Traits. The 2014 Wild Shape utilises the Species Trait if the new form is physically capable of doing so. The UA Wild Shape removes this limitation.
UA Wild Shape
Known Forms. you know three forms of CR 1/4 that lack a fly speed
Game Stats. your games stats are replaced by the stats of the beast, but you retain your hit points, hit dice, int, wis, char scores, class feats, SPECIES TRAITS, languages & feats
So depending on your species (race) your traits grant you: swimming, water breathing, flight, bouncy-bounce, extra arms, etc
Objects. Your ability to handle objects is determined by the form's (beasts) limbs, rather than your own.
The new rules for Wild Shape would be contradictory and just plain messy if all Species Traits are carried over while in Wild Shape
some brief examples below (not an exhaustive list)
Aarakocra - Flight: because of your wings, you have a flying speed
Fairy - Flight: because of your wings, you have a flying speed
Sea Elf - Speed: you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed
Triton - Speed: you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed
Water Genasi - you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed
Haregon - Rabbit Hop: as a bonus action you can jump X feet equal to 5 times your PB
Thi-kreen - Secondary Arms: you have two extra arms that you can do shit with