My favorite thing about D&D has always been the fact that D&D is both simple yet complex. So many options to customize your character, yet with guidelines and standards that are intuitive. However, Wild Shape has never been able to fulfill this fantasy, in my opinion. Although Wild Shape has always been a sort of Swiss Army Knife meant to address all sorts of problems with a myriad of unique tools, most people generally have only a few forms they stick to. Even Moon Druids, who generally stick with their favorite CR appropriate beast form have to occasionally take a dive into the Bestiary of D&D.
What if I like being a Dire Wolf? Why can't I stay in the same beast form I always was? How would I be able to solve this issue? That's when I discovered the homebrew subclass Circle Of The Marked from the Supers & Sorcery sourcebook. Oh! This could work! Therefore, I took some inspiration and created my Circle Of The Scarred.
The Circle Of The Scarred is a subclass where you choose a beast that works for you and allows you to not only stick with that single beast form throughout your entire campaign, but also introduces a brand new method to customize your character in ways never seen before! Click the link below to check it out! I would appreciate any and all comments and criticism, so please tell me what you think!
I'm not sure this would work out in play. At level 2 it's going to be really powerful, and at high levels I think it's going to really fall off.
Ultimately I think it suffers from trying to take an existing beast stat block and pile on buff after buff to try and scale it up. And some of these optional choices are absolutely needed if you want to stay relevant in combat.
I think you really need to base this on a generic stat block that scales damage, AC, and HP in a uniform way and then provide a list of customizations you can add as you go - movement types, size changes, senses, etc. This would prevent trap options and be massively easier to balance.
I'd also allow on-the-fly customizations at some point. Maybe you think you want to be a Dire Wolf for 19 levels, but I'm pretty sure at some point along the way you're going to get a little bit bored of it. This would give you some of the utility of a regular druid's wild shape but still flavored to whatever happens to be your favorite animal. Plus it would provide moments of tactical choice during the adventuring day, which I think helps keep the class interesting.
Also as a biology grad I feel compelled to say that mandibles are mouthparts and wouldn't aid in climbing unless you're using your mouth to climb like a parrot or something. I'd probably go with another name for the climbing appendages.
I agree with a lot of your points, including your last one, which should probably be replaced with imperceptible bristles that hook onto surfaces.
In my opinion, I think the best way to go about this is to firstly change how wild Shape works. Taking inspiration from the one dnd wild shape I think having the hp remain the same while only str and dex change is the best way, with wild shape focused subclasses like the moon druid and the circle of the scarred being given temp hp that scales off class level like 3 X level or smth. Kinda like the spores druid. I also think preset stat blocks that scales with wis mod and stuff make sense, as well. Finally, I think there should be like an Invocation system for warlocks for druids that grant them access to traits like charge, pack tactics, rampage, flying speed, climbing speed, etc.
If you were to combine these with the only somatic/verbal component spellcasting, I think there's a real possibility for an awesome subclass that piggybacks off a simpler wild shape.
However, if we were to work with what we already have, I was looking to work with moon druid scaling: strong tier 1, weak tier 2, power spike into weak tier 3. The lvl 2 power spike is big, into a lvl 6 feature that ups damage, lvl 10 feature that affects play style while increasing hp and stats, and a lvl 14 that gives free conjure animals basically.
The problem is, I don't really have much experience at higher levels of play, so I tried to follow moon druid progression. If I were against a set stat block, what do u think would be the best way to fix this, then?
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My favorite thing about D&D has always been the fact that D&D is both simple yet complex. So many options to customize your character, yet with guidelines and standards that are intuitive. However, Wild Shape has never been able to fulfill this fantasy, in my opinion. Although Wild Shape has always been a sort of Swiss Army Knife meant to address all sorts of problems with a myriad of unique tools, most people generally have only a few forms they stick to. Even Moon Druids, who generally stick with their favorite CR appropriate beast form have to occasionally take a dive into the Bestiary of D&D.
What if I like being a Dire Wolf? Why can't I stay in the same beast form I always was? How would I be able to solve this issue? That's when I discovered the homebrew subclass Circle Of The Marked from the Supers & Sorcery sourcebook. Oh! This could work! Therefore, I took some inspiration and created my Circle Of The Scarred.
The Circle Of The Scarred is a subclass where you choose a beast that works for you and allows you to not only stick with that single beast form throughout your entire campaign, but also introduces a brand new method to customize your character in ways never seen before! Click the link below to check it out! I would appreciate any and all comments and criticism, so please tell me what you think!
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/1600115-circle-of-the-scarred
I'm not sure this would work out in play. At level 2 it's going to be really powerful, and at high levels I think it's going to really fall off.
Ultimately I think it suffers from trying to take an existing beast stat block and pile on buff after buff to try and scale it up. And some of these optional choices are absolutely needed if you want to stay relevant in combat.
I think you really need to base this on a generic stat block that scales damage, AC, and HP in a uniform way and then provide a list of customizations you can add as you go - movement types, size changes, senses, etc. This would prevent trap options and be massively easier to balance.
I'd also allow on-the-fly customizations at some point. Maybe you think you want to be a Dire Wolf for 19 levels, but I'm pretty sure at some point along the way you're going to get a little bit bored of it. This would give you some of the utility of a regular druid's wild shape but still flavored to whatever happens to be your favorite animal. Plus it would provide moments of tactical choice during the adventuring day, which I think helps keep the class interesting.
Also as a biology grad I feel compelled to say that mandibles are mouthparts and wouldn't aid in climbing unless you're using your mouth to climb like a parrot or something. I'd probably go with another name for the climbing appendages.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I agree with a lot of your points, including your last one, which should probably be replaced with imperceptible bristles that hook onto surfaces.
In my opinion, I think the best way to go about this is to firstly change how wild Shape works. Taking inspiration from the one dnd wild shape I think having the hp remain the same while only str and dex change is the best way, with wild shape focused subclasses like the moon druid and the circle of the scarred being given temp hp that scales off class level like 3 X level or smth. Kinda like the spores druid. I also think preset stat blocks that scales with wis mod and stuff make sense, as well. Finally, I think there should be like an Invocation system for warlocks for druids that grant them access to traits like charge, pack tactics, rampage, flying speed, climbing speed, etc.
If you were to combine these with the only somatic/verbal component spellcasting, I think there's a real possibility for an awesome subclass that piggybacks off a simpler wild shape.
However, if we were to work with what we already have, I was looking to work with moon druid scaling: strong tier 1, weak tier 2, power spike into weak tier 3. The lvl 2 power spike is big, into a lvl 6 feature that ups damage, lvl 10 feature that affects play style while increasing hp and stats, and a lvl 14 that gives free conjure animals basically.
The problem is, I don't really have much experience at higher levels of play, so I tried to follow moon druid progression. If I were against a set stat block, what do u think would be the best way to fix this, then?