So the part of my post you cut out, how do you respond to that then? Either Human Druids will be the strictly superior option, or they will actually become more complex in play than they are in 2014. Neither option seems desirable.
If it is so important to you that you be a Druid of a specific species, then why are you spending so much time in wildshape? The whole point of wildshape is that you're becoming a different creature, that's why you do it.
I dunno, this doesn't seem like an issue to me; I've got a few different druids and only one of them is a human. My swamp dwelling green dragonborn feels very different because she favours different forms for starters, and when she's not wildshaped she can breathe poison in pretty much every sense.
For retaining species traits there are circles such as Circle of Spores, Circle of Stars etc. which can spend their wildshape to augment rather than completely transform themselves.
Plus I just don't see how you could realistically allow species traits when some are much more powerful than others for a wildshape as several others have already mentioned; you'd need such a complex list of what's allowed that it just isn't worth it. Plus it would actually create the problem of there being "best" species for playing a wildshaping Druid. Also, in the Character Origins playtest humans are limited to 1st-level feats so they don't seem as broken as 5e's variant human can be, so I don't see how they'd clearly be best?
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Already certain species are strictly superior to others for Moondruids (in 2014, Kalastar is the optimal choice), if you are building entirely around being in WS all the time (which TBH seems kind of silly to do but I digress), so that is nothing new and cannot be avoided unless you completely wipe all species traits entirely including species-feats, species-proficiencies, species-bonus hit points etc.. which certainly could be done but would be a total pain to actually run at the table.
But that does seem to be their goal, it's just poorly thought out with regards to species that get bonus feats or bonus proficiencies as species trait. For one, they've created an unstoppable force/immovable object situation (WS says you keep feats but don't get species traits, so does the human/CL lose their feat or not), and for two, no matter which way they land they've added complexity to the game.
Yes, certain species are better for Moon druid than others, but so what? certain species are better or worse for every class/subclass.
That would be the case even if they kept species traits, except there would be more variety than one clear winner. Instead of "these two species get a feat and proficiencies while wildshaped, all the other species get nothing, you'd be a fool to go with the options that get nothing" we'd have a much more interesting landscape of "is Lucky better than Relentless Endurance? Is Stonecunning better than Fey Ancestry?" to evaluate - just like literally every other class gets to. And there wouldn't be one clear optimal choice.
Already certain species are strictly superior to others for Moondruids (in 2014, Kalastar is the optimal choice), if you are building entirely around being in WS all the time (which TBH seems kind of silly to do but I digress), so that is nothing new and cannot be avoided unless you completely wipe all species traits entirely including species-feats, species-proficiencies, species-bonus hit points etc.. which certainly could be done but would be a total pain to actually run at the table.
But that does seem to be their goal, it's just poorly thought out with regards to species that get bonus feats or bonus proficiencies as species trait. For one, they've created an unstoppable force/immovable object situation (WS says you keep feats but don't get species traits, so does the human/CL lose their feat or not), and for two, no matter which way they land they've added complexity to the game.
Good luck with that interpretation. WS says you keep your hit points, proficiencies and feats - so you keep them regardless of where they come from b/c anything else would be incredibly annoying. This means:
Human keeps their feat Dwarf keep their extra hit points Elf keeps Perception proficiency Halfling keep Stealth proficiency
Already certain species are strictly superior to others for Moondruids (in 2014, Kalastar is the optimal choice), if you are building entirely around being in WS all the time (which TBH seems kind of silly to do but I digress), so that is nothing new and cannot be avoided unless you completely wipe all species traits entirely including species-feats, species-proficiencies, species-bonus hit points etc.. which certainly could be done but would be a total pain to actually run at the table.
But that does seem to be their goal, it's just poorly thought out with regards to species that get bonus feats or bonus proficiencies as species trait. For one, they've created an unstoppable force/immovable object situation (WS says you keep feats but don't get species traits, so does the human/CL lose their feat or not), and for two, no matter which way they land they've added complexity to the game.
Good luck with that interpretation. WS says you keep your hit points, proficiencies and feats - so you keep them regardless of where they come from b/c anything else would be incredibly annoying. This means:
Human keeps their feat Dwarf keep their extra hit points Elf keeps Perception proficiency Halfling keep Stealth proficiency
But the Human feat comes from a species trait - "Versatile." Order of operations therefore becomes important. The same is true of everything else you listed: Dwarven Toughness, Keen Senses, and Naturally Stealthy.
Already certain species are strictly superior to others for Moondruids (in 2014, Kalastar is the optimal choice), if you are building entirely around being in WS all the time (which TBH seems kind of silly to do but I digress), so that is nothing new and cannot be avoided unless you completely wipe all species traits entirely including species-feats, species-proficiencies, species-bonus hit points etc.. which certainly could be done but would be a total pain to actually run at the table.
But that does seem to be their goal, it's just poorly thought out with regards to species that get bonus feats or bonus proficiencies as species trait. For one, they've created an unstoppable force/immovable object situation (WS says you keep feats but don't get species traits, so does the human/CL lose their feat or not), and for two, no matter which way they land they've added complexity to the game.
Good luck with that interpretation. WS says you keep your hit points, proficiencies and feats - so you keep them regardless of where they come from b/c anything else would be incredibly annoying. This means:
Human keeps their feat Dwarf keep their extra hit points Elf keeps Perception proficiency Halfling keep Stealth proficiency
But the Human feat comes from a species trait - "Versatile." Order of operations therefore becomes important. The same is true of everything else you listed: Dwarven Toughness, Keen Senses, and Naturally Stealthy.
It doesn't matter that is completely irrelevant information. What matters is simplicity in execution, you can tell people they should jump through hoops to adjust this or that on their character sheets, but they aren't going to do it because it is too much hassle for what it is worth.
Like I said earlier, I do respect this point of view, but for me personally the fire-breathing bear seems really cheesy and as Agilemind states, breaks immersion like the Aarakocra or Tortle examples given. One other thing influencing me is that when I have had Moon Druids in my party (I have never played one yet personally), they do not spend all of their time in beast form and so have chances to use their species traits when not wildshaped. So, for them the species choice still is relevant, but maybe your experience is different. Now, the Lizardfolk and Half-Orc examples certainly do seem like more mentally-focused traits and as with Halfling Luck, I certainly see the argument for keeping them. However, I think there needs to be a much better definition of which species traits are anatomical (wings, shell), which are "magical" (I'd argue Firbolg's invisibility and probably Dragon's Breath), and which are mental (Orcish Rage, Feeding Frenzy, bonus skills) and a clear rule for which of these are usable in Wildshape (I'd say only the mental abilities, but would be okay with magical as well).
This is why earlier I said I'd just make each species trait have a designation between Physical, Mental, and Magical and say Wildshape can't access Physical traits but can access Mental and Magical, while Polymorph can't access Physical or Mental. Still undecided if Polymorph should get Magical traits, but you get the idea.
It's clear, concise, leaves no room for interpretation (save for Rule 0 of course, if the DM disagrees with a labeling for their world), and makes the distinction between Wildshape and Polymorph effects even more clear.
My thoughts on each of the things listed by @PsyrenXY
Can speak during wildshape - this could help tactics, but there's not a lot of teamwork tactics in D&D (e.g., you grapple X, then I'll push X off the cliff, etc.). It does, however, allow for casting while WS for spells that only have a V component. Not sure how I feel about casting while in WS. I tend to view WS and spellcasting as separate things, that don't (shouldn't) stack. I'll need to look at all of the spells with only a V component to judge.
Can convert spell slots to wildshape - I don't like this. This can result in the druid who just continually wild shapes--> takes damage reducing them to 0 HP, then repeats as many times as they have spell slots. IMO this approaches making the druid OP, breaking the game relative to other classes.
Can convert wildshape to spell slots - I suppose this is harmless, but would the spells that the druid uses in place of WS need to be spells they already have prepared or could they trade out WS for an unprepared spell? (The latter seems slightly unfair)
The FINAL DEATH of the incessant metal armor debate - Yay! People have far too strong opinions about this, and have wasted too much time debating this.
Full duration familiar - cool
Caster druid buffs (cantrip damage/range, lots of good 1st-level feats for casters) - this is an improvement. Druids are one of the weakest casters and needs better spells, including at higher (esp. 7th and 8th) levels
No more book-diving - I don't understand druids who don't have a full grasp of their WS options, and the details of those WS options. For me, knowing your WS options very well is part of playing a druid. But maybe that's just me. The other side of this is the change: the templates! The templates are bizarre, i.e., the druid doesn't really assume the form of the beast, but appears as a beast, so can choose be any sized version of the beast, lose the special abilities of the beast (e.g,. poison, web, etc.). Why would anyone WS into a spider, scorpion, etc.? I don't understand this, and really dislike it.
No more army summoning - this is an improvement. Summoning tends to make druids OP
Better wildshape damage and HP scaling - maybe, maybe not. This is related to the book-diving bullet above. UA8 attempted to make HPs scale better and did, but IMO this could've been done by reducing CR levels for lower level Moon druids.
Templates are already gone, are you looking at the latest druid playtest?
As I said, some of these are quality of life. Speaking during Wild Shape for example, allows the Druid to scout or spy and then report their findings back to the group without needing to waste uses shifting back and forth. (How many of us have had our wildshaped druids draw arrows in the dirt, or point like setters?)
Converting WS and spell slots back and forth is something I'm definitely in favor of. It makes short rests useful for all druids (not just moon) and allows us to burn long rest resources on additional wild shapes to recreate scenes like the D&D movie escape sequence in a balanced way. They just need to calibrate the cost-benefit side of things much like Sorcery Points. HP from wildshape are better now but that needs adjusting too.
Sorry about the templates reference. (Full disclosure: I just started immersing myself back into D&D a few months ago. I understand now that UA is cumulative, so there's no reason to refer to any UA for a class except the most recent.) While the many uses of WS was cool in the movie, I do think it can be abused.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Started playing AD&D in the late 70s and stopped in the mid-80s. Started immersing myself into 5e in 2023
Already certain species are strictly superior to others for Moondruids (in 2014, Kalastar is the optimal choice), if you are building entirely around being in WS all the time (which TBH seems kind of silly to do but I digress), so that is nothing new and cannot be avoided unless you completely wipe all species traits entirely including species-feats, species-proficiencies, species-bonus hit points etc.. which certainly could be done but would be a total pain to actually run at the table.
But that does seem to be their goal, it's just poorly thought out with regards to species that get bonus feats or bonus proficiencies as species trait. For one, they've created an unstoppable force/immovable object situation (WS says you keep feats but don't get species traits, so does the human/CL lose their feat or not), and for two, no matter which way they land they've added complexity to the game.
Good luck with that interpretation. WS says you keep your hit points, proficiencies and feats - so you keep them regardless of where they come from b/c anything else would be incredibly annoying. This means:
Human keeps their feat Dwarf keep their extra hit points Elf keeps Perception proficiency Halfling keep Stealth proficiency
But the Human feat comes from a species trait - "Versatile." Order of operations therefore becomes important. The same is true of everything else you listed: Dwarven Toughness, Keen Senses, and Naturally Stealthy.
It doesn't matter that is completely irrelevant information. What matters is simplicity in execution, you can tell people they should jump through hoops to adjust this or that on their character sheets, but they aren't going to do it because it is too much hassle for what it is worth.
There does seem to be an impression among some of the responses on this thread that the latest version of Wild Shape explicitly excludes Species Traits. It doesn’t: it just doesn’t list them as features that are carried over into WS. So, features that are explicitly carried over into WS, including HP, skill proficiencies and feats, are carried over regardless of source. Any other Species Traits are not.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
If it is so important to you that you be a Druid of a specific species, then why are you spending so much time in wildshape? The whole point of wildshape is that you're becoming a different creature, that's why you do it.
I dunno, this doesn't seem like an issue to me; I've got a few different druids and only one of them is a human. My swamp dwelling green dragonborn feels very different because she favours different forms for starters, and when she's not wildshaped she can breathe poison in pretty much every sense.
For retaining species traits there are circles such as Circle of Spores, Circle of Stars etc. which can spend their wildshape to augment rather than completely transform themselves.
Plus I just don't see how you could realistically allow species traits when some are much more powerful than others for a wildshape as several others have already mentioned; you'd need such a complex list of what's allowed that it just isn't worth it. Plus it would actually create the problem of there being "best" species for playing a wildshaping Druid. Also, in the Character Origins playtest humans are limited to 1st-level feats so they don't seem as broken as 5e's variant human can be, so I don't see how they'd clearly be best?
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
But that does seem to be their goal, it's just poorly thought out with regards to species that get bonus feats or bonus proficiencies as species trait. For one, they've created an unstoppable force/immovable object situation (WS says you keep feats but don't get species traits, so does the human/CL lose their feat or not), and for two, no matter which way they land they've added complexity to the game.
That would be the case even if they kept species traits, except there would be more variety than one clear winner. Instead of "these two species get a feat and proficiencies while wildshaped, all the other species get nothing, you'd be a fool to go with the options that get nothing" we'd have a much more interesting landscape of "is Lucky better than Relentless Endurance? Is Stonecunning better than Fey Ancestry?" to evaluate - just like literally every other class gets to. And there wouldn't be one clear optimal choice.
Good luck with that interpretation. WS says you keep your hit points, proficiencies and feats - so you keep them regardless of where they come from b/c anything else would be incredibly annoying. This means:
Human keeps their feat
Dwarf keep their extra hit points
Elf keeps Perception proficiency
Halfling keep Stealth proficiency
But the Human feat comes from a species trait - "Versatile." Order of operations therefore becomes important. The same is true of everything else you listed: Dwarven Toughness, Keen Senses, and Naturally Stealthy.
It doesn't matter that is completely irrelevant information. What matters is simplicity in execution, you can tell people they should jump through hoops to adjust this or that on their character sheets, but they aren't going to do it because it is too much hassle for what it is worth.
I agree it would be jumping through hoops. Thankfully this is a playtest where we can relay them that kind of feedback. I certainly intend to.
This is why earlier I said I'd just make each species trait have a designation between Physical, Mental, and Magical and say Wildshape can't access Physical traits but can access Mental and Magical, while Polymorph can't access Physical or Mental. Still undecided if Polymorph should get Magical traits, but you get the idea.
It's clear, concise, leaves no room for interpretation (save for Rule 0 of course, if the DM disagrees with a labeling for their world), and makes the distinction between Wildshape and Polymorph effects even more clear.
My thoughts on each of the things listed by @PsyrenXY
Started playing AD&D in the late 70s and stopped in the mid-80s. Started immersing myself into 5e in 2023
Templates are already gone, are you looking at the latest druid playtest?
As I said, some of these are quality of life. Speaking during Wild Shape for example, allows the Druid to scout or spy and then report their findings back to the group without needing to waste uses shifting back and forth. (How many of us have had our wildshaped druids draw arrows in the dirt, or point like setters?)
Converting WS and spell slots back and forth is something I'm definitely in favor of. It makes short rests useful for all druids (not just moon) and allows us to burn long rest resources on additional wild shapes to recreate scenes like the D&D movie escape sequence in a balanced way. They just need to calibrate the cost-benefit side of things much like Sorcery Points. HP from wildshape are better now but that needs adjusting too.
Sorry about the templates reference. (Full disclosure: I just started immersing myself back into D&D a few months ago. I understand now that UA is cumulative, so there's no reason to refer to any UA for a class except the most recent.) While the many uses of WS was cool in the movie, I do think it can be abused.
Started playing AD&D in the late 70s and stopped in the mid-80s. Started immersing myself into 5e in 2023
There does seem to be an impression among some of the responses on this thread that the latest version of Wild Shape explicitly excludes Species Traits. It doesn’t: it just doesn’t list them as features that are carried over into WS. So, features that are explicitly carried over into WS, including HP, skill proficiencies and feats, are carried over regardless of source. Any other Species Traits are not.