Thousand Forms, the final feature of Circle of the Moon, obtained at 14th level, offers you the benefit of free Alter Self spell. Now, it can do three things
Aquatic adaptation. Lets you swim and breathe water. Your wild shape does it better.
Natural weapons. Lets you grow natural weapons, but not natural armor or anything else. Your wild shape does it better. Even Shillelagh does.
Change appearance. Now this is useful, as it is a great solution for impersonation and scouting. In scouting, though, you're still required to have proper clothing/equipment for the situation, as well as information to pass for a person you're impersonating. A tiny animal doesn't need all that, few people raise intruder alert over a sparrow on a nearby tree or a quiet mouse hiding in a dark corner. Your wild shape does it about as good, if not better, though changing faces has social applications. But does it fit a druid?
The point I'm making is that Thousand Forms is pretty useless aside from facedancer shenanigans, which, in turn, don't really fit the druid thematically.
The first alternative I'd suggest is pretty simple: at level 14, let your wild shape no longer expend the use of Channel Nature. In combat, since you no longer get an HP buffer, this does not make you OP anymore (no more shapeshifting into an earth elemental for 126 fresh HP every turn), rather, it makes you extra adaptable, mercurial like Corellon Larethian. This essentially doesn't provide you with any additional power, but lets you use your wild shape for every situation it could apply to without worrying about limited uses; you become a true master shapeshfter.
Another alternative is power. Young dragon form. White and brass young dragons are the weakest of their kind and their challenge rating falls into the range of what CotM druids can wild shape into in 5e, though only by 18th level.
Its a terrible feature as is, same for the high level warlock invocation. Your early stuff does it better. Maybe and this is a stretch if it did not require concentration with this ability it would be at least okay. Out of those options I choose unlimited wild shape and monstrosities etc.
I feel like what they were going for is some kind of partial transformation ability. Assuming the template+mods people are suggesting got through, unlimited of adding one mod at a time to your base form would be decent. So while still in your human form you add, flight, or burrow, or constrict etc as an ability.
Thousand Forms/Faces is awful as moon's capstone. If they want to keep Druids altering their appearance at will, that should be a baseline ability for all druids, and then Moon should get something much more powerful/impactful. My personal vote for Moon would be to add a pool of abilities you can add to the various forms (such as Tremorsense, Constrict, Swallow Whole, damage resistances etc.) and then the capstone would be getting to combine more of these into one shapeshift.
Yes, currently it is a useless improvement, and that should be changed because otherwise it is a useless level up, a serious alternative not only that you can cast it at will and without concentrating, but also that it improves the spell, for example: You can cast it on an ally yours so it can accompany you in aquatic combats, or you can apply it to yourself when you are in wild shape, granting you some additional bonus/trait, such as that you can cause crits when it comes out 19 or 20, or each time you deal damage to an opponent, you reduce it by 1 armor point (cumulative), lasting until you take a long rest, short rest, 1 min, etc.
Thousand forms is terrible, I don't know why they kept it. I would like to see that feature allow infinite chimeras:
Thousand Forms While you are in Wildshape you can use a bonus action to gain, lose, or replace any special abilities, special senses, movement speeds, or actions in your wildshape statblock with those of another form you can take becoming a new hybrid or chimeric creature, or you can shift to a new form without expending another use of your Channel Nature.
Thousand forms is terrible, I don't know why they kept it. I would like to see that feature allow infinite chimeras:
Thousand Forms While you are in Wildshape you can use a bonus action to gain, lose, or replace any special abilities, special senses, movement speeds, or actions in your wildshape statblock with those of another form you can take becoming a new hybrid or chimeric creature, or you can shift to a new form without expending another use of your Channel Nature.
But isn't it kind of unnatural to turn into a mutant that doesn't exist in the wild?
For my survey response, I requested being able to Wild Shape to Huge size instead of Thousand Forms. It is thematic and allows for more interesting grapples. And it could be paired with a larger weapon dice size or longer reach.
Thousand forms is terrible, I don't know why they kept it. I would like to see that feature allow infinite chimeras:
Thousand Forms While you are in Wildshape you can use a bonus action to gain, lose, or replace any special abilities, special senses, movement speeds, or actions in your wildshape statblock with those of another form you can take becoming a new hybrid or chimeric creature, or you can shift to a new form without expending another use of your Channel Nature.
But isn't it kind of unnatural to turn into a mutant that doesn't exist in the wild?
What exactly is "the wild?" Do only mundane forests count? What about the Beastlands, or the Feywild, or Arborea?
Thousand forms is terrible, I don't know why they kept it. I would like to see that feature allow infinite chimeras:
Thousand Forms While you are in Wildshape you can use a bonus action to gain, lose, or replace any special abilities, special senses, movement speeds, or actions in your wildshape statblock with those of another form you can take becoming a new hybrid or chimeric creature, or you can shift to a new form without expending another use of your Channel Nature.
But isn't it kind of unnatural to turn into a mutant that doesn't exist in the wild?
Not anymore than turning into an Elemental or using Shapechange to turn into a beholder. At the levels where Thousand Forms comes online Druids are already doing tons of unnatural things, they are supra natural at that point. I agree that I wouldn't want to see low level druids turning into mutant monsters but once you are a master of the natural world why shouldn't you be able to be two different animals at the same time?
Not anymore than turning into an Elemental or using Shapechange to turn into a beholder. At the levels where Thousand Forms comes online Druids are already doing tons of unnatural things, they are supra natural at that point. I agree that I wouldn't want to see low level druids turning into mutant monsters but once you are a master of the natural world why shouldn't you be able to be two different animals at the same time?
To answer both posts: IMO druids are supposed to shapeshift into creatures that are native to the prime material plane, or at least inner planes, which is the source of their primal magic. In that sense elementals are kind of a stretch; I always liked them from mechanics POV, since the ability to glide through earth or blend with water were super cool, but in a RP sense, they felt awkward if not wrong. Why not turn into certain monstrosities (because this is a catch-all category) and plants? Creatures like displacer beast, basilisk, peryton, and shambling mound are of flesh and blood, native to material plane, and they're not artifically made as far as I know, they're basically just magic animals. Makes more sense to shapeshift into those rather than some kind of extraplanar outsider. Even an ooze form might do.
To answer both posts: IMO druids are supposed to shapeshift into creatures that are native to the prime material plane, or at least inner planes, which is the source of their primal magic. In that sense elementals are kind of a stretch; I always liked them from mechanics POV, since the ability to glide through earth or blend with water were super cool, but in a RP sense, they felt awkward if not wrong. Why not turn into certain monstrosities (because this is a catch-all category) and plants? Creatures like displacer beast, basilisk, peryton, and shambling mound are of flesh and blood, native to material plane, and they're not artifically made as far as I know, they're basically just magic animals. Makes more sense to shapeshift into those rather than some kind of extraplanar outsider. Even an ooze form might do.
The explanation that I can give you is that since the druids, among other dangers, usually maintain the balance between the 4 elemental planes, those of the circle of the moon in 5e could transform into elementals for that reason, if the balance was lost on one side you were fighting fire against fire, using elemental forms to restore balance.
But apart from that reasoning, yes, I saw more logical if a Druid could transform into plants, and into some monstrosities that were not very far from beasts (The owlbear also includes among them), which could have a magical origin although not necessarily artificial... there is magic everywhere, and influence between the different planes.
I don't like the idea that druids can become Frankenstein beasts because yes, a creature's limb, another's head and so on... if it was because of the possibility of transforming into Owlbear, like in a certain movie, well, put exceptions or double labels, or whatever to cover creatures that already exist in the world but that are not beasts, but don't tell me they can be the ugliest possible mutants, take what you want from each beast (And if we all would grab arms monkey to be able to grab weapons and shields, what a joke... and how deformed we would be)
Thousand forms, if it is improved for the circle of the moon to further enhance wild form it should not be to deform it considerably, but to enhance something it already had, such as sharpening its claws so that it causes more damage or more ease of crits, improve even more visual acuity, make it more difficult to escape from a grip because the nails / claws of my beasts get hooked with the skin / clothing of the creature, make my limbs stronger to move faster for a short period of time, improve my sense of smell and hearing, or allow a slow and constant regeneration in combat because I'm constantly altering my wounds to heal them or at least make it less lethal (Or toughen the skin of the beast increasing AC to protect internal organs), or even showing it slightly more dangerous by ruffling the fur, sharpening teeth and dilating pupils to intimidate with advantage
They should not be big changes, and even less aesthetically, and nothing that does not have logic for a beast, it could be like a rare trait that only alphas present so to speak (It could even only give an advantage in concentration, they are alphas, They tend to dominate the other beasts, they are always alert so as not to stop being at the top of the pack), they dominate their packs for a reason... therefore the improvements could be universal in all animals, subtle but useful to enhance something common in beasts.
EDIT:
Mmmmm, now that I think about it, and following the line of the circle of the moon being considered as an Alpha animal, instead of boosting the wild shape, Thousand forms could be used but not to improve itself, but considering the pack as an extension of you, infecting certain buffs, you could temporarily transfer one, or two traits (Preferably combat, like pack tactics, run and takedown, give them temporary life/armor buff) that your Wild shape has to your "Pack ", potentially this could be his animal summons and the familiar (Maybe extend to allied beasts obtained through other means, such as animal friendship, animal dealings, mounts, endow consciousness even if the latter is a plant, etc. but I DO NOT think that a good idea to non-animal allies, such as other players.)
Thousand forms is terrible, I don't know why they kept it. I would like to see that feature allow infinite chimeras:
Thousand Forms While you are in Wildshape you can use a bonus action to gain, lose, or replace any special abilities, special senses, movement speeds, or actions in your wildshape statblock with those of another form you can take becoming a new hybrid or chimeric creature, or you can shift to a new form without expending another use of your Channel Nature.
But isn't it kind of unnatural to turn into a mutant that doesn't exist in the wild?
What exactly is "the wild?" Do only mundane forests count? What about the Beastlands, or the Feywild, or Arborea?
When I hear moon druid and shape changing my mind always goes to lycanthropy.
So maybe a ability like : Hybrid
While in your animal form you can decide to shift into a hybrid form, while in hybrid form you have all the stats of your animal form but : you have the ability to handle objects and even do fine manipulation needed for things like thievery or medicine checks. When you shift to hybrid form you can chose to manifest any equipment that was merged into your animal form equipment manifested in this way adds their abilities to your animal form. If you manifest any armor use your animal forms ac or the AC granted by the armor whichever is higher. You can shift between hybrid form and the original animal form without losing your current use of wild shape.
your communication is still telepathic and you can only cast Abjuration Spells ( until you gain : BEAST SPELLS at lvl 17)
Personally I would also replace : ELEMENTAL WILD SHAPE at lvl 6 with resistance to non silver weapons. If we intend the moon druid to be the one that goes into melee in animal shape.
Not anymore than turning into an Elemental or using Shapechange to turn into a beholder. At the levels where Thousand Forms comes online Druids are already doing tons of unnatural things, they are supra natural at that point. I agree that I wouldn't want to see low level druids turning into mutant monsters but once you are a master of the natural world why shouldn't you be able to be two different animals at the same time?
To answer both posts: IMO druids are supposed to shapeshift into creatures that are native to the prime material plane, or at least inner planes, which is the source of their primal magic. In that sense elementals are kind of a stretch; I always liked them from mechanics POV, since the ability to glide through earth or blend with water were super cool, but in a RP sense, they felt awkward if not wrong. Why not turn into certain monstrosities (because this is a catch-all category) and plants? Creatures like displacer beast, basilisk, peryton, and shambling mound are of flesh and blood, native to material plane, and they're not artifically made as far as I know, they're basically just magic animals. Makes more sense to shapeshift into those rather than some kind of extraplanar outsider. Even an ooze form might do.
1) The Feywild is an inner plane.
2) As you yourself mentioned, there are indeed strange/magical animals (they used to be called Magical Beasts in prior editions, but Monstrosities now) that are native to the material plane, like griffons and rocs etc. I don't see an issue with Druids becoming those. And even WotC seems excited about the new druid letting players become an owlbear. There's a chance they move away from that, but I hope (and voted) that they don't.
The first alternative I'd suggest is pretty simple: at level 14, let your wild shape no longer expend the use of Channel Nature. In combat, since you no longer get an HP buffer, this does not make you OP anymore (no more shapeshifting into an earth elemental for 126 fresh HP every turn), rather, it makes you extra adaptable, mercurial like Corellon Larethian. This essentially doesn't provide you with any additional power, but lets you use your wild shape for every situation it could apply to without worrying about limited uses; you become a true master shapeshfter.
One issue with this is the current wording of Wild Resurgence which base Druid gets at 15th level. Unlimited wild shape could then be interpreted as unlimited healing by getting Healing Blossoms as part of the same use despite the use not being expended. Updating the wording on Wild Resurgence from "When you use your Wild Shape" to "When you expend a use of Channel Nature to use your Wild Shape" would resolve that pretty easily.
Granted, I've already put into the feedback survey that Wild Resurgence shouldn't be limited to just enhancing wild shape but should just let you pick two Channel Nature effects for the price of one.
When I hear moon druid and shape changing my mind always goes to lycanthropy.
So maybe a ability like : Hybrid
While in your animal form you can decide to shift into a hybrid form, while in hybrid form you have all the stats of your animal form but : you have the ability to handle objects and even do fine manipulation needed for things like thievery or medicine checks. When you shift to hybrid form you can chose to manifest any equipment that was merged into your animal form equipment manifested in this way adds their abilities to your animal form. If you manifest any armor use your animal forms ac or the AC granted by the armor whichever is higher. You can shift between hybrid form and the original animal form without losing your current use of wild shape.
your communication is still telepathic and you can only cast Abjuration Spells ( until you gain : BEAST SPELLS at lvl 17)
Personally I would also replace : ELEMENTAL WILD SHAPE at lvl 6 with resistance to non silver weapons. If we intend the moon druid to be the one that goes into melee in animal shape.
I considered this option, and it even existed before if my memory isn't screwing with me, as a druid subclass in 2e, I remember seeing it in Baldur's Gate 2. Druid had a subclass that substituted wild shape with lycanthropy, they had only one form - werewolf - but it was powerful. Thing is, I considered it for 5e, and while it kind of might be possible, the biggest deal with lycanthropes is their immunity to physical damage that isn't inflicted by silvered or magical weapons, and players clearly can't have that. And lycanthropes themselves don't offer much variety, not as much as various monstrosities anyway.
When I hear moon druid and shape changing my mind always goes to lycanthropy.
So maybe a ability like : Hybrid
While in your animal form you can decide to shift into a hybrid form, while in hybrid form you have all the stats of your animal form but : you have the ability to handle objects and even do fine manipulation needed for things like thievery or medicine checks. When you shift to hybrid form you can chose to manifest any equipment that was merged into your animal form equipment manifested in this way adds their abilities to your animal form. If you manifest any armor use your animal forms ac or the AC granted by the armor whichever is higher. You can shift between hybrid form and the original animal form without losing your current use of wild shape.
your communication is still telepathic and you can only cast Abjuration Spells ( until you gain : BEAST SPELLS at lvl 17)
Personally I would also replace : ELEMENTAL WILD SHAPE at lvl 6 with resistance to non silver weapons. If we intend the moon druid to be the one that goes into melee in animal shape.
I considered this option, and it even existed before if my memory isn't screwing with me, as a druid subclass in 2e, I remember seeing it in Baldur's Gate 2. Druid had a subclass that substituted wild shape with lycanthropy, they had only one form - werewolf - but it was powerful. Thing is, I considered it for 5e, and while it kind of might be possible, the biggest deal with lycanthropes is their immunity to physical damage that isn't inflicted by silvered or magical weapons, and players clearly can't have that. And lycanthropes themselves don't offer much variety, not as much as various monstrosities anyway.
Yes it would have to be reduced to resistance to damage from weapons that are not silver if they would give it to the moon druid while in wild shape. That would put it more on par with the damage resistance a barbarian gets while in rage.
This resistance would make the moon druid the druid that goes into combat in wild shape, while not having to come up with something new like wild shape granting them PH.
Yes it would have to be reduced to resistance to damage from weapons that are not silver if they would give it to the moon druid while in wild shape. That would put it more on par with the damage resistance a barbarian gets while in rage.
This resistance would make the moon druid the druid that goes into combat in wild shape, while not having to come up with something new like wild shape granting them PH.
Frankly I'd just double druid's HP in wild shape for Circle of the Moon. Matches high Con barbarian's resilience more or less.
Thousand Forms, the final feature of Circle of the Moon, obtained at 14th level, offers you the benefit of free Alter Self spell. Now, it can do three things
Aquatic adaptation. Lets you swim and breathe water. Your wild shape does it better.
Natural weapons. Lets you grow natural weapons, but not natural armor or anything else. Your wild shape does it better. Even Shillelagh does.
Change appearance. Now this is useful, as it is a great solution for impersonation and scouting. In scouting, though, you're still required to have proper clothing/equipment for the situation, as well as information to pass for a person you're impersonating. A tiny animal doesn't need all that, few people raise intruder alert over a sparrow on a nearby tree or a quiet mouse hiding in a dark corner. Your wild shape does it about as good, if not better, though changing faces has social applications. But does it fit a druid?
I feel like there's an underestimation of the possibilities present in the first two aspects of the Thousand Forms feature. Just as two quick examples: Aquatic Adaptation. What if you're having to solve a puzzle-ridden underwater labyrinth and need a humanoid form to perform some of the tasks? Gills, webbed fingers, and fins. Natural Weapons. What if you've been captured or are partaking in a society event where you were stripped of your weapons? Claws and fangs to attack your captor or catch the evil noble off guard.
The latest playtest got rid of Thousand Forms so it's moot I'd say.
Maybe it's not moot because if the original design is still available (per compatibility statements) but if the alter self spell gets redesigned this "could" change the way the 2014 balances out.
Thousand Forms, the final feature of Circle of the Moon, obtained at 14th level, offers you the benefit of free Alter Self spell. Now, it can do three things
The point I'm making is that Thousand Forms is pretty useless aside from facedancer shenanigans, which, in turn, don't really fit the druid thematically.
The first alternative I'd suggest is pretty simple: at level 14, let your wild shape no longer expend the use of Channel Nature. In combat, since you no longer get an HP buffer, this does not make you OP anymore (no more shapeshifting into an earth elemental for 126 fresh HP every turn), rather, it makes you extra adaptable, mercurial like Corellon Larethian. This essentially doesn't provide you with any additional power, but lets you use your wild shape for every situation it could apply to without worrying about limited uses; you become a true master shapeshfter.
Another alternative is power. Young dragon form. White and brass young dragons are the weakest of their kind and their challenge rating falls into the range of what CotM druids can wild shape into in 5e, though only by 18th level.
Its a terrible feature as is, same for the high level warlock invocation. Your early stuff does it better. Maybe and this is a stretch if it did not require concentration with this ability it would be at least okay. Out of those options I choose unlimited wild shape and monstrosities etc.
I feel like what they were going for is some kind of partial transformation ability. Assuming the template+mods people are suggesting got through, unlimited of adding one mod at a time to your base form would be decent. So while still in your human form you add, flight, or burrow, or constrict etc as an ability.
Thousand Forms/Faces is awful as moon's capstone. If they want to keep Druids altering their appearance at will, that should be a baseline ability for all druids, and then Moon should get something much more powerful/impactful. My personal vote for Moon would be to add a pool of abilities you can add to the various forms (such as Tremorsense, Constrict, Swallow Whole, damage resistances etc.) and then the capstone would be getting to combine more of these into one shapeshift.
Yes, currently it is a useless improvement, and that should be changed because otherwise it is a useless level up, a serious alternative not only that you can cast it at will and without concentrating, but also that it improves the spell, for example: You can cast it on an ally yours so it can accompany you in aquatic combats, or you can apply it to yourself when you are in wild shape, granting you some additional bonus/trait, such as that you can cause crits when it comes out 19 or 20, or each time you deal damage to an opponent, you reduce it by 1 armor point (cumulative), lasting until you take a long rest, short rest, 1 min, etc.
Thousand forms is terrible, I don't know why they kept it. I would like to see that feature allow infinite chimeras:
Thousand Forms While you are in Wildshape you can use a bonus action to gain, lose, or replace any special abilities, special senses, movement speeds, or actions in your wildshape statblock with those of another form you can take becoming a new hybrid or chimeric creature, or you can shift to a new form without expending another use of your Channel Nature.
But isn't it kind of unnatural to turn into a mutant that doesn't exist in the wild?
For my survey response, I requested being able to Wild Shape to Huge size instead of Thousand Forms. It is thematic and allows for more interesting grapples. And it could be paired with a larger weapon dice size or longer reach.
What exactly is "the wild?" Do only mundane forests count? What about the Beastlands, or the Feywild, or Arborea?
Not anymore than turning into an Elemental or using Shapechange to turn into a beholder. At the levels where Thousand Forms comes online Druids are already doing tons of unnatural things, they are supra natural at that point. I agree that I wouldn't want to see low level druids turning into mutant monsters but once you are a master of the natural world why shouldn't you be able to be two different animals at the same time?
To answer both posts: IMO druids are supposed to shapeshift into creatures that are native to the prime material plane, or at least inner planes, which is the source of their primal magic. In that sense elementals are kind of a stretch; I always liked them from mechanics POV, since the ability to glide through earth or blend with water were super cool, but in a RP sense, they felt awkward if not wrong. Why not turn into certain monstrosities (because this is a catch-all category) and plants? Creatures like displacer beast, basilisk, peryton, and shambling mound are of flesh and blood, native to material plane, and they're not artifically made as far as I know, they're basically just magic animals. Makes more sense to shapeshift into those rather than some kind of extraplanar outsider. Even an ooze form might do.
The explanation that I can give you is that since the druids, among other dangers, usually maintain the balance between the 4 elemental planes, those of the circle of the moon in 5e could transform into elementals for that reason, if the balance was lost on one side you were fighting fire against fire, using elemental forms to restore balance.
But apart from that reasoning, yes, I saw more logical if a Druid could transform into plants, and into some monstrosities that were not very far from beasts (The owlbear also includes among them), which could have a magical origin although not necessarily artificial... there is magic everywhere, and influence between the different planes.
I don't like the idea that druids can become Frankenstein beasts because yes, a creature's limb, another's head and so on... if it was because of the possibility of transforming into Owlbear, like in a certain movie, well, put exceptions or double labels, or whatever to cover creatures that already exist in the world but that are not beasts, but don't tell me they can be the ugliest possible mutants, take what you want from each beast (And if we all would grab arms monkey to be able to grab weapons and shields, what a joke... and how deformed we would be)
Thousand forms, if it is improved for the circle of the moon to further enhance wild form it should not be to deform it considerably, but to enhance something it already had, such as sharpening its claws so that it causes more damage or more ease of crits, improve even more visual acuity, make it more difficult to escape from a grip because the nails / claws of my beasts get hooked with the skin / clothing of the creature, make my limbs stronger to move faster for a short period of time, improve my sense of smell and hearing, or allow a slow and constant regeneration in combat because I'm constantly altering my wounds to heal them or at least make it less lethal (Or toughen the skin of the beast increasing AC to protect internal organs), or even showing it slightly more dangerous by ruffling the fur, sharpening teeth and dilating pupils to intimidate with advantage
They should not be big changes, and even less aesthetically, and nothing that does not have logic for a beast, it could be like a rare trait that only alphas present so to speak (It could even only give an advantage in concentration, they are alphas, They tend to dominate the other beasts, they are always alert so as not to stop being at the top of the pack), they dominate their packs for a reason... therefore the improvements could be universal in all animals, subtle but useful to enhance something common in beasts.
EDIT:
Mmmmm, now that I think about it, and following the line of the circle of the moon being considered as an Alpha animal, instead of boosting the wild shape, Thousand forms could be used but not to improve itself, but considering the pack as an extension of you, infecting certain buffs, you could temporarily transfer one, or two traits (Preferably combat, like pack tactics, run and takedown, give them temporary life/armor buff) that your Wild shape has to your "Pack ", potentially this could be his animal summons and the familiar (Maybe extend to allied beasts obtained through other means, such as animal friendship, animal dealings, mounts, endow consciousness even if the latter is a plant, etc. but I DO NOT think that a good idea to non-animal allies, such as other players.)
When I hear moon druid and shape changing my mind always goes to lycanthropy.
So maybe a ability like : Hybrid
While in your animal form you can decide to shift into a hybrid form, while in hybrid form you have all the stats of your animal form but :
you have the ability to handle objects and even do fine manipulation needed for things like thievery or medicine checks.
When you shift to hybrid form you can chose to manifest any equipment that was merged into your animal form equipment manifested in this way adds their abilities to your animal form. If you manifest any armor use your animal forms ac or the AC granted by the armor whichever is higher.
You can shift between hybrid form and the original animal form without losing your current use of wild shape.
your communication is still telepathic and you can only cast Abjuration Spells ( until you gain : BEAST SPELLS at lvl 17)
Personally I would also replace : ELEMENTAL WILD SHAPE at lvl 6 with resistance to non silver weapons.
If we intend the moon druid to be the one that goes into melee in animal shape.
1) The Feywild is an inner plane.
2) As you yourself mentioned, there are indeed strange/magical animals (they used to be called Magical Beasts in prior editions, but Monstrosities now) that are native to the material plane, like griffons and rocs etc. I don't see an issue with Druids becoming those. And even WotC seems excited about the new druid letting players become an owlbear. There's a chance they move away from that, but I hope (and voted) that they don't.
One issue with this is the current wording of Wild Resurgence which base Druid gets at 15th level. Unlimited wild shape could then be interpreted as unlimited healing by getting Healing Blossoms as part of the same use despite the use not being expended. Updating the wording on Wild Resurgence from "When you use your Wild Shape" to "When you expend a use of Channel Nature to use your Wild Shape" would resolve that pretty easily.
Granted, I've already put into the feedback survey that Wild Resurgence shouldn't be limited to just enhancing wild shape but should just let you pick two Channel Nature effects for the price of one.
I considered this option, and it even existed before if my memory isn't screwing with me, as a druid subclass in 2e, I remember seeing it in Baldur's Gate 2. Druid had a subclass that substituted wild shape with lycanthropy, they had only one form - werewolf - but it was powerful. Thing is, I considered it for 5e, and while it kind of might be possible, the biggest deal with lycanthropes is their immunity to physical damage that isn't inflicted by silvered or magical weapons, and players clearly can't have that. And lycanthropes themselves don't offer much variety, not as much as various monstrosities anyway.
Yes it would have to be reduced to resistance to damage from weapons that are not silver if they would give it to the moon druid while in wild shape.
That would put it more on par with the damage resistance a barbarian gets while in rage.
This resistance would make the moon druid the druid that goes into combat in wild shape, while not having to come up with something new like wild shape granting them PH.
Frankly I'd just double druid's HP in wild shape for Circle of the Moon. Matches high Con barbarian's resilience more or less.
I feel like there's an underestimation of the possibilities present in the first two aspects of the Thousand Forms feature. Just as two quick examples:
Aquatic Adaptation. What if you're having to solve a puzzle-ridden underwater labyrinth and need a humanoid form to perform some of the tasks? Gills, webbed fingers, and fins.
Natural Weapons. What if you've been captured or are partaking in a society event where you were stripped of your weapons? Claws and fangs to attack your captor or catch the evil noble off guard.
The latest playtest got rid of Thousand Forms so it's moot I'd say.
Maybe it's not moot because if the original design is still available (per compatibility statements) but if the alter self spell gets redesigned this "could" change the way the 2014 balances out.