They're retained the feature where wild shape no longer confers a hit point buffer...
Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the Beast, but you retain your Hit Points; Hit Dice; Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores; class features; species traits; languages; and feats. You also retain your skill and saving throw proficiencies and use your Proficiency Bonus for them, in addition to gaining those of the creature.
...except to Circle of the Moon druids - but that's been reduced in power:
When you assume a Wild Shape form, you gain a number of Temporary Hit Points equal to the form’s Hit Points or three times your Druid level, whichever number is lower. For example, if you turn into a Wolf (11 HP) as a 5th-level Druid, you gain 11 Temporary Hit Points, since three times your Druid level is higher than the Wolf’s Hit Points Abjuration Spells.
This is less than I'd wanted but honestly better than what I expected. This feels like a good balance: it grants a hit point buffer which scales with level but never reaches the ridiculous amounts possible with the 2014 build. This means a 15th level Moon druid can get 45 hit points as a buffer from wild shape - which is decent but not overpowered.
I know I'm either alone or in the minority on this position, which, fine. But I like it.
I haven’t had a chance to read the Ia, just finished watching the video but I like the changes they described for wildshape. Will have to dig deeper into it to be sure though.
I do like they went for known forms, so you basically have to prepare your forms.
I have seen cases where gameplay ground to a hold when the druids turn came up and they insisted looking trough the MM, volos and mordenkainens to figure out what shape to take for this encounter.
I think the new wild shape fixes a lot of things, but returns to the old issue of having to know what is in all source books else losing out on potential forms still. I still feel like there is a better compromise somewhere in the middle here, known forms at least means nobody should be having to look up stat blocks mid-session as the druid can have the stat blocks to hand that they wish to use.
Circle of the Moon druid is significantly improved at least, it's more viable. Losing your Shield AC is a bit meh but the temporary HP at least makes it a bit more viable. I feel like the higher number of charges is part of the reason for the decreased HP pool, I feel it limits choice more as well, since defence forms will just be straight up ignored for either utility or damage, since a Druid's AC often will be higher than the creature's stat block and even most utility and damage forms will have more than 3*druid level HP.
Circle of the Land, I dunno, Land's Aid seems a bit weak and Nature's Sanctuary is level 14...
Circle of the Sea, Wrath of the Sea seems pretty cool, how useful it'll be or not will probably come out in play testing.
FOMO is just a part of making any choices, just like you might potentially make a sub-optimal pick on a known spell. Do some research on your own time, the majority of beasts are in Basic Rules (including dinosaurs, I checked), and if a new player really makes a misstep then the table can work with them. Sad to see Elementals go, but that probably was a touch OP; can always just swap that feature in at a given table if you want to, I guess.
Really interesting that taking damage over the temp HP granted by wild shape does NOT automatically drop the Moon druid back to their original form. I'm ambivalent about this, but it's a fair exchange for reducing the HP buff, as well as granting limited spellcasting ability while in WS.
It seems to me a lazy design, to say the least. And quite cowardly. Since people complained, let's go back to what was there. I think the idea of the stats blocks was correct, but it was poorly designed. The brave solution was to give options to wild shape, such as eldtrich invocations. But they don't want to. For some reason, they are afraid of customization. Anyway, the changes that have been introduced in the 2014 version of wildshape seem necessary to me. No more temporary hit points except for the moon circle. Necessary. Having to prepare your animal forms as if they were spells. Necessary and many game groups already did it. Having to stop in the middle of the game for the druid to search for the beast he needs is not fun. No more restrictions on aquatic forms. Well, this is not that it was necessary, but it does not seem bad to me. In short, it's not that I dislike this wild shape. But it seems to me not very daring and, of course, it seems to me that they have not given it much thought.
Even the Moon druid combat WS forms aren't going to be dealing much in the way of damage though (low to-hit, 0 buffs to damage, no weapon mastery-type feature), so WS is mainly going to be a utility feature even for Moon druids. That's totally fine, WS is really fun as a utility feature. But it means I'm not particularly excited to play a moon druid, Sea looks fun and Stars is great, Land is on the cusp of being good as well.
It seems to me a lazy design, to say the least. And quite cowardly. Since people complained, let's go back to what was there. I think the idea of the stats blocks was correct, but it was poorly designed. The brave solution was to give options to wild shape, such as eldtrich invocations. But they don't want to. For some reason, they are afraid of customization. Anyway, the changes that have been introduced in the 2014 version of wildshape seem necessary to me. No more temporary hit points except for the moon circle. Necessary. Having to prepare your animal forms as if they were spells. Necessary and many game groups already did it. Having to stop in the middle of the game for the druid to search for the beast he needs is not fun. No more restrictions on aquatic forms. Well, this is not that it was necessary, but it does not seem bad to me. In short, it's not that I dislike this wild shape. But it seems to me not very daring and, of course, it seems to me that they have not given it much thought.
Agreed that they seem really wary of customization/substantive flavoring - but not just for this class and subclass.
I realize it's RAW but I found it weird that DMs were actually allowing players to flip through and choose ANY beast form that met the criteria. I was happy to construct a running list of forms the druid in my campaign could choose, based on what it was likely they'd actually seen. (Dinosaurs don't exist/are extinct in my campaign, for instance, so the druid won't be able to become a T-rex at any point.)
It seems to me a lazy design, to say the least. And quite cowardly. Since people complained, let's go back to what was there. I think the idea of the stats blocks was correct, but it was poorly designed. The brave solution was to give options to wild shape, such as eldtrich invocations. But they don't want to. For some reason, they are afraid of customization. Anyway, the changes that have been introduced in the 2014 version of wildshape seem necessary to me. No more temporary hit points except for the moon circle. Necessary. Having to prepare your animal forms as if they were spells. Necessary and many game groups already did it. Having to stop in the middle of the game for the druid to search for the beast he needs is not fun. No more restrictions on aquatic forms. Well, this is not that it was necessary, but it does not seem bad to me. In short, it's not that I dislike this wild shape. But it seems to me not very daring and, of course, it seems to me that they have not given it much thought.
Agreed that they seem really wary of customization/substantive flavoring - but not just for this class and subclass.
I realize it's RAW but I found it weird that DMs were actually allowing players to flip through and choose ANY beast form that met the criteria. I was happy to construct a running list of forms the druid in my campaign could choose, based on what it was likely they'd actually seen. (Dinosaurs don't exist/are extinct in my campaign, for instance, so the druid won't be able to become a T-rex at any point.)
I do think that adding invocations made it slightly more complex and could be less appealing to specific groups. I actually liked the idea of choice features but I am not willing to assume that I am in the majority. Large list of choices (that are not a complete set) seem to really be their aversion. Choice paralysis can be real.
However they made beast of the land, sea, and sky regular stat blocks , they could become the default 3 options. This would then satisfy both template desires and custom choice desires. (at the same time Ranger should get A stat block option back)
I know a lot of people are happy with the reversion to going through the monster stat blocks but I still prefer the templates (with obvious buff to what they had). I'd be fine if the stat blocks of all the creatures were made specifically for the players to use them (like spells) but they're not and that is going to cause some confusion. For example, you use your own proficiency bonus when you wild shape. Does that include attacks? I know the stat blocks include it when they calculate it, but it doesn't actually spell that out anywhere that I know of. Not to mention that sometimes beasts use dexterity for attacks instead of strength and it's not always obvious when they do. (Did you know wolves apparently use dexterity for their bite attacks?) None of this is particularly difficult to do, but there are enough changes to the stat block that you have to make your own customized version rather than just grabbing the existing stat block, and that is much more than you have to do for any spell. I do appreciate that they have spelled out all the things such as class features and feats still functioning, but again, there are plenty of weird interactions that are going to result by mixing things together.
I also don't like that they have moved away from gating off tiny creatures for higher levels like they do with fly. Being a tiny rat or spider with a dozen hit points is incredibly powerful for exploration, moving through medium and larger creature's spaces freely, escaping almost any reasonable level of captivity etc. Level 11 was a bit much, but being tiny could replace where they used to put the swim speed restriction.
I was okay with "curated beast list + scaling" and this is essentially that. The curation is just done by the table as opposed to WotC.
The AC combined with the THP and the ability to refresh said THP as a bonus action with a 1st-level slot solves my concerns about their defenses. In addition, while it might look like their AC is capped at 17, remember you can get magical half-plate now too.
They just need more higher level beasts with better attacks. But even then, Elemental Fury helps a lot with the damage scaling.
Not a fan of wild resurgence. Yes, I understand there's a cost to it (using up spell slots) but for moon druids - who likely aren't going to be leaning on spellcasting much anyway - this essentially is another endless HP buff. A 5th level moon druid gets two WS....and has nine spell slots to burn for additional uses. That equals 165 THP...at 5th level. Minimum, since moon druids can also get their normal WS slots back after a short rest. A 10th level moon druid could have the potential buffer of 510 hit points, and that's assuming no short rests.
This doesn't fix the problem. It makes worse.
ETA: So let's do a comparison with the barbarian, who also has a built-in HP buff via damage resistance. We'll compare at 5th, 10th, and 20th levels. For the sake of argument, we'll have the moon druid use only half of its available spell slots for additional uses of wild shapes. I'm also going to assume maxed out Constitution for both, as well as maximum number of potential rolled hit points, to make it was equal as possible. This also assumes neither character is healed of any damage (which of course is highly unlikely and only pushes the effective HP totals higher).
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.
10th level druid, with 130 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 400 hit points.
10th level barbarian, with 170 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 255. Less than the druid, and now with a much wider gap - almost 150 hit points difference in their buff abilities.
20th level druid, with 260 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 1,040 hit points.
20th level barbarian, with 340 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 510. Half of the druid's hit point buff - half.
I think it does help. The 3x THP cap seems like a lot, but compared to the beast forms they got previously it's often less. Say you hit 9th level and pick Giant Scorpion, you would have gotten 52 HP for the enemy to burn through before they can hurt you, and that 52 stacked with any other source of temp HP the party was handing out. Now, you're down to 27 THP, whch doesn't stack with any other source of THP, and your AC isn't even all that much higher.
If you did want to nerf it slightly, one way I could suggest would be for them to have Wild Resurgence require a spell slot equal to the CR of the thing you turn into. So if you want to be a CR 3 creature and you're out of wild shape uses, you need a 3rd-level slot, which is material at 9th level but not one of your biggest nukes. The main awkwardness there though is if nothing in your repertoire matches the slots you have left.
I think it does help. The 3x THP cap seems like a lot, but compared to the beast forms they got previously it's often less. Say you hit 9th level and pick Giant Scorpion, you would have gotten 52 HP for the enemy to burn through before they can hurt you, and that 52 stacked with any other source of temp HP the party was handing out. Now, you're down to 27 THP, whch doesn't stack with any other source of THP, and your AC isn't even all that much higher.
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.
I think it does help. The 3x THP cap seems like a lot, but compared to the beast forms they got previously it's often less. Say you hit 9th level and pick Giant Scorpion, you would have gotten 52 HP for the enemy to burn through before they can hurt you, and that 52 stacked with any other source of temp HP the party was handing out. Now, you're down to 27 THP, whch doesn't stack with any other source of THP, and your AC isn't even all that much higher.
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.
Moon druids can WS as a bonus action in 5E, that change is only for all other druid subclasses.
The number of wild shapes is definitely part of it, another part is just how much HP druid actually get in 5E, more so at level 20 when wild shape charges became infinite...
Another part is multi-classing, obviously Moon Druid traditionally multi-classes quiet well with Barbarian, but I'm also thinking this incarnation also multi-classes quiet well with Cleric and Paladin too, since they can both get high AC and have their own spells/spellcasting, more so cleric which is also Wisdom, their high ACs means higher AC wildshapes where Barbarian multiclass gives the the rage.
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.
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They're retained the feature where wild shape no longer confers a hit point buffer...
Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the Beast, but you retain your Hit Points; Hit Dice; Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores; class features; species traits; languages; and feats. You also retain your skill and saving throw proficiencies and use your Proficiency Bonus for them, in addition to gaining those of the creature.
...except to Circle of the Moon druids - but that's been reduced in power:
When you assume a Wild Shape form, you gain a number of Temporary Hit Points equal to the form’s Hit Points or three times your Druid level, whichever number is lower. For example, if you turn into a Wolf (11 HP) as a 5th-level Druid, you gain 11 Temporary Hit Points, since three times your Druid level is higher than the Wolf’s Hit Points Abjuration Spells.
This is less than I'd wanted but honestly better than what I expected. This feels like a good balance: it grants a hit point buffer which scales with level but never reaches the ridiculous amounts possible with the 2014 build. This means a 15th level Moon druid can get 45 hit points as a buffer from wild shape - which is decent but not overpowered.
I know I'm either alone or in the minority on this position, which, fine. But I like it.
I haven’t had a chance to read the Ia, just finished watching the video but I like the changes they described for wildshape. Will have to dig deeper into it to be sure though.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I do like they went for known forms, so you basically have to prepare your forms.
I have seen cases where gameplay ground to a hold when the druids turn came up and they insisted looking trough the MM, volos and mordenkainens to figure out what shape to take for this encounter.
Hm. This was a bit problematic in 2014 and it may be more problematic now:
Notably, ability score improvements are now feats.
I think the new wild shape fixes a lot of things, but returns to the old issue of having to know what is in all source books else losing out on potential forms still. I still feel like there is a better compromise somewhere in the middle here, known forms at least means nobody should be having to look up stat blocks mid-session as the druid can have the stat blocks to hand that they wish to use.
Circle of the Moon druid is significantly improved at least, it's more viable. Losing your Shield AC is a bit meh but the temporary HP at least makes it a bit more viable. I feel like the higher number of charges is part of the reason for the decreased HP pool, I feel it limits choice more as well, since defence forms will just be straight up ignored for either utility or damage, since a Druid's AC often will be higher than the creature's stat block and even most utility and damage forms will have more than 3*druid level HP.
Circle of the Land, I dunno, Land's Aid seems a bit weak and Nature's Sanctuary is level 14...
Circle of the Sea, Wrath of the Sea seems pretty cool, how useful it'll be or not will probably come out in play testing.
FOMO is just a part of making any choices, just like you might potentially make a sub-optimal pick on a known spell. Do some research on your own time, the majority of beasts are in Basic Rules (including dinosaurs, I checked), and if a new player really makes a misstep then the table can work with them. Sad to see Elementals go, but that probably was a touch OP; can always just swap that feature in at a given table if you want to, I guess.
Tempted to just produce 'CR 1/4 to 6' for a bunch of common creatures. Which would be perfectly useful as a general purpose resource.
Really interesting that taking damage over the temp HP granted by wild shape does NOT automatically drop the Moon druid back to their original form. I'm ambivalent about this, but it's a fair exchange for reducing the HP buff, as well as granting limited spellcasting ability while in WS.
It seems to me a lazy design, to say the least. And quite cowardly. Since people complained, let's go back to what was there. I think the idea of the stats blocks was correct, but it was poorly designed. The brave solution was to give options to wild shape, such as eldtrich invocations. But they don't want to. For some reason, they are afraid of customization.
Anyway, the changes that have been introduced in the 2014 version of wildshape seem necessary to me. No more temporary hit points except for the moon circle. Necessary. Having to prepare your animal forms as if they were spells. Necessary and many game groups already did it. Having to stop in the middle of the game for the druid to search for the beast he needs is not fun. No more restrictions on aquatic forms. Well, this is not that it was necessary, but it does not seem bad to me.
In short, it's not that I dislike this wild shape. But it seems to me not very daring and, of course, it seems to me that they have not given it much thought.
Patching together different options isn't Wildshape, though. The idea is to become a natural creature, not some chimera of different traits.
Even the Moon druid combat WS forms aren't going to be dealing much in the way of damage though (low to-hit, 0 buffs to damage, no weapon mastery-type feature), so WS is mainly going to be a utility feature even for Moon druids. That's totally fine, WS is really fun as a utility feature. But it means I'm not particularly excited to play a moon druid, Sea looks fun and Stars is great, Land is on the cusp of being good as well.
Agreed that they seem really wary of customization/substantive flavoring - but not just for this class and subclass.
I realize it's RAW but I found it weird that DMs were actually allowing players to flip through and choose ANY beast form that met the criteria. I was happy to construct a running list of forms the druid in my campaign could choose, based on what it was likely they'd actually seen. (Dinosaurs don't exist/are extinct in my campaign, for instance, so the druid won't be able to become a T-rex at any point.)
I do think that adding invocations made it slightly more complex and could be less appealing to specific groups. I actually liked the idea of choice features but I am not willing to assume that I am in the majority. Large list of choices (that are not a complete set) seem to really be their aversion. Choice paralysis can be real.
However they made beast of the land, sea, and sky regular stat blocks , they could become the default 3 options. This would then satisfy both template desires and custom choice desires. (at the same time Ranger should get A stat block option back)
I know a lot of people are happy with the reversion to going through the monster stat blocks but I still prefer the templates (with obvious buff to what they had). I'd be fine if the stat blocks of all the creatures were made specifically for the players to use them (like spells) but they're not and that is going to cause some confusion. For example, you use your own proficiency bonus when you wild shape. Does that include attacks? I know the stat blocks include it when they calculate it, but it doesn't actually spell that out anywhere that I know of. Not to mention that sometimes beasts use dexterity for attacks instead of strength and it's not always obvious when they do. (Did you know wolves apparently use dexterity for their bite attacks?) None of this is particularly difficult to do, but there are enough changes to the stat block that you have to make your own customized version rather than just grabbing the existing stat block, and that is much more than you have to do for any spell. I do appreciate that they have spelled out all the things such as class features and feats still functioning, but again, there are plenty of weird interactions that are going to result by mixing things together.
I also don't like that they have moved away from gating off tiny creatures for higher levels like they do with fly. Being a tiny rat or spider with a dozen hit points is incredibly powerful for exploration, moving through medium and larger creature's spaces freely, escaping almost any reasonable level of captivity etc. Level 11 was a bit much, but being tiny could replace where they used to put the swim speed restriction.
I was okay with "curated beast list + scaling" and this is essentially that. The curation is just done by the table as opposed to WotC.
The AC combined with the THP and the ability to refresh said THP as a bonus action with a 1st-level slot solves my concerns about their defenses. In addition, while it might look like their AC is capped at 17, remember you can get magical half-plate now too.
They just need more higher level beasts with better attacks. But even then, Elemental Fury helps a lot with the damage scaling.
Not a fan of wild resurgence. Yes, I understand there's a cost to it (using up spell slots) but for moon druids - who likely aren't going to be leaning on spellcasting much anyway - this essentially is another endless HP buff. A 5th level moon druid gets two WS....and has nine spell slots to burn for additional uses. That equals 165 THP...at 5th level. Minimum, since moon druids can also get their normal WS slots back after a short rest. A 10th level moon druid could have the potential buffer of 510 hit points, and that's assuming no short rests.
This doesn't fix the problem. It makes worse.
ETA: So let's do a comparison with the barbarian, who also has a built-in HP buff via damage resistance. We'll compare at 5th, 10th, and 20th levels. For the sake of argument, we'll have the moon druid use only half of its available spell slots for additional uses of wild shapes. I'm also going to assume maxed out Constitution for both, as well as maximum number of potential rolled hit points, to make it was equal as possible. This also assumes neither character is healed of any damage (which of course is highly unlikely and only pushes the effective HP totals higher).
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.
10th level druid, with 130 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 400 hit points.
10th level barbarian, with 170 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 255. Less than the druid, and now with a much wider gap - almost 150 hit points difference in their buff abilities.
20th level druid, with 260 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 1,040 hit points.
20th level barbarian, with 340 hit points, has resistance to damage (though not any spell or magical damage), which brings its effective hit points up to 510. Half of the druid's hit point buff - half.
I think it does help. The 3x THP cap seems like a lot, but compared to the beast forms they got previously it's often less. Say you hit 9th level and pick Giant Scorpion, you would have gotten 52 HP for the enemy to burn through before they can hurt you, and that 52 stacked with any other source of temp HP the party was handing out. Now, you're down to 27 THP, whch doesn't stack with any other source of THP, and your AC isn't even all that much higher.
If you did want to nerf it slightly, one way I could suggest would be for them to have Wild Resurgence require a spell slot equal to the CR of the thing you turn into. So if you want to be a CR 3 creature and you're out of wild shape uses, you need a 3rd-level slot, which is material at 9th level but not one of your biggest nukes. The main awkwardness there though is if nothing in your repertoire matches the slots you have left.
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.
Moon druids can WS as a bonus action in 5E, that change is only for all other druid subclasses.
The number of wild shapes is definitely part of it, another part is just how much HP druid actually get in 5E, more so at level 20 when wild shape charges became infinite...
Another part is multi-classing, obviously Moon Druid traditionally multi-classes quiet well with Barbarian, but I'm also thinking this incarnation also multi-classes quiet well with Cleric and Paladin too, since they can both get high AC and have their own spells/spellcasting, more so cleric which is also Wisdom, their high ACs means higher AC wildshapes where Barbarian multiclass gives the the rage.
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.