D&D 5E Low Level Druids Are Super Powerful

[Kobold Boots]

I respect your opinion, but I feel you're incorrect as to the intention. I believe the intention was to allow the druid to spend most of their time in animal form if so desired, albeit at the cost of lack of access to your most potent abilities (spells), as well as the ability to communicate. Note that this was the most common playstyle for druids in the previous two editions, except in those editions, wildshaped druids had even greater potency (Natural Spell in 3.5, at-will shifting in 4e). I see no reason not to assume that the designers made the duration in 5e what it is, and indicated that the shape lasts through rests, except to support the "mostly animal form druid" playstyle that existed previously.

Respect is shared. I have no experience with the animal form first play style as I've never allowed it to happen in 3.5 (house ruling broken) and didn't have a druid PC in my 4e game.

Four thoughts that only matter if you agree with them, but they solve a lot of problems.

1. If your race is human or elf or whatever, it's not bear or hawk. The intention is not to spend all of your time playing a bear or hawk. The ability is a feature of your class, not your class.

2. If the power has been toned down from previous editions, they're walking back the problem.

3. Specific abilities always trump general abilities when it comes to the details. If that's like rule number 3, then you can't ignore it whenever you feel like it if you expect anyone to know what the intention is or what the rules really are for any situation.

Last, I love that the designers answer questions. I hate that they do it over twitter. That medium allows for fast communications with limited detail, and the faster you can answer, the less likely you'll take the time to consider the right answer.

The game needs less rules overall, but the ones that it does have need to be clear and unambiguous guides so you can know what it is you're ruling on or why you're house ruling. Seems like the only time I'm looking at Sage Advice these days is when something off is said at my table and I have to house rule it. Don't remember the old Dragon columns being as problematic.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

That's cool. Now I know what to play if I don't want to waste time counting experience points and leveling up!

 

[neogod22]

As a DM I can kill a party whenever I'd like whether it's 1 fight or 4. Beyond this, there are plenty of resources for a party to handle a challenge appropriate level appropriate encounter multiple times before a short rest if the party is composed well.

End of day, it's game dependent. So using your experiences to counter another person's is a bit difficult if there's no effort made on your part to understand where he's coming from first.



If your druid is tanking, it better be because he's your off-tank and someone went down or because you're in the sweet spot for druid power compared to the rest of the group. Druids are utility players and shouldn't be primary tanking in the first place. See the bit on party composition above.




No debate on points 3 or 4, pretty reasonable.



You're just being a jerk here, but I'll play. Who cares about what your opinion is if you don't care about his? *tumbleweeds rolling between ears*



Except you can't cast in wild shape until you're level 18, and then you can't cast anything that has material components until level 20. So unless you're talking about a high level campaign this is a pretty useless question to ask.



^^This is one of my pet peeves.

The rule is that you can wild shape twice between short rests. I realize that Jeremy and Mike have outright forgotten about the specific vs. general rule too many times via Sage Advice (they've actually said that you can overlap your wild shapes across short and long rests by simply resting and staying in wild shape indefinitely) but here's the problem with that logic.

If you can stay in wild shape indefinitely then there's no reason to have the rule about two uses between rests.

So enjoy the loophole caused by the designers (and perpetuated by folks that want to overcomplicate things on Reddit) but at my tables, when specific overrules general, the description of the ability overrules the general rest rules and we get rid of this problem.

Anyhoo, game on.
KB

So to reply on the last 2 things, you can cast spells before changing and maintain concentration.

The last thing isn't a loophole but by design. I've read somewhere how some druids don't like to be in human form and will stay in animal form as long as they can. You may not like it, and in your game feel free to change it. But the point is, when CotM druids get to the level where they can cast in animal form, they don't have to come out of it. Of course when they get to lvl 20, good luck trying to kill them. Lol.

 

[neogod22]

My notes from running Sunless Citadel most recently: PCs fought wilderness blights rats, rat, 2 mephitis, (met) Meepo, and a rat swarm - and then took their first short rest. They then met the Kobold King, and were afforded the chance to long rest. There was also some traps in there. They advanced to 2nd level at that time. This was atypical as I find - even though level 1 is very short if you follow guidelines - PCs usually rest once or twice before advancing. They then proceeded to fight through the goblins and enter the lower level. They took 1 short rest and one long rest before advancing to third level early in the lower level - after 13 more encounters. They finished the adventure *without resting* and then started Forge of Fury as 3rd level PCs fully rested and close to 4th level. Their first rest was a Long Rest after the Orc Shaman.

I don't feel like that experience was atypical.

But they'll leave it so he can be a halfing to get slightly better initiative for the next combat? And forget the dying fighter - he doesn't need healing because I'm a BEAR! Yes - you do spend time outside Wildshape. You generally go for wildshape for the big combats, but you can't always tell when you need to use the resource.And those become the focus of the character at higher levels, usually. Moon druids become the tertiary melee force and spend more time casting those more powerful spells.Again, that is not what most threads from druid players indicate. They spend a LOT of time as bears. Not all druids, and certainly not the ones that are more highly RP focused, but most of the ones interested in fight strength do it. Honestly, not recognizing this makes me doubt how much you have played a druid.But are not proficient in Con. +3 or +4 con saves fail over a quarter of the time on concentration saves.That is an option. Few druids have it before 4, and most do not get it before 12. Some never get it.That is what your post sounds like to me. I hope you do.

Regarding the elemental form - It is nice, but as you only get one use per rest, it can leave you formless if you have a prolonged adventuring day.

Different tables are run differently, but after level 4, the great weapon fighters tend to leave the druid behind as a melee combatant, and the spellcasting is hard to use the longer you spend in a form.

Comparing anything to a fighter is a fail. Fighters are the highest dps class in the game. Then warlocks close behind them. Druids aren't supposed to replace fighters, they aren't even warriors, they are spell casters that are pretty good at different things. They are better healers than fighters, better tanks than rogues and, better DPS than clerics and better at sneaking than paladins. See what I did there?

 

[Kobold Boots]

So to reply on the last 2 things, you can cast spells before changing and maintain concentration.

Entirely fair, but as an example.. if you cast, and need to maintain concentration, then you're not dropping into bear form to tank after said casting Of course, I chose the example most favorable to my point and there are plenty of other good uses of the ability.

The last thing isn't a loophole but by design. I've read somewhere how some druids don't like to be in human form and will stay in animal form as long as they can. You may not like it, and in your game feel free to change it. But the point is, when CotM druids get to the level where they can cast in animal form, they don't have to come out of it. Of course when they get to lvl 20, good luck trying to kill them. Lol.

Surprisingly if this is the intention, I'm completely good with it as I like the idea of the totemic druid. That said, I'd rather see this interpretation as a variant druid with the appropriate documented change to wild shape, than have it be the default druid and affect all of them.

Thanks for that tidbit, completely changed my perspective.
KB

 

[neogod22]

Entirely fair, but as an example.. if you cast, and need to maintain concentration, then you're not dropping into bear form to tank after said casting Of course, I chose the example most favorable to my point and there are plenty of other good uses of the ability.



Surprisingly if this is the intention, I'm completely good with it as I like the idea of the totemic druid. That said, I'd rather see this interpretation as a variant druid with the appropriate documented change to wild shape, than have it be the default druid and affect all of them.

Thanks for that tidbit, completely changed my perspective.
KB

It's good for other druids too, because even though they aren't changing into powerful animals for combat, they can use they're animal forms for things like spying. Who's going to pay attention to the cat lazily sleeping in the corner while the bad guys are hatching their evil plan. One adventure, my druid turned into an owl and followed a suspicions character around as he was trying to set up an ambush for us. Which was funny because I knew their position, we ended up ambushing the ambushers, a d using their secret entrance into the temple they had a captive.

 

[neogod22]

What I would like to play, is a Circle of Spores druid, but since I play mostly in AL, I probably won't get to play it anytime soon.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

^^This is one of my pet peeves.

The rule is that you can wild shape twice between short rests. I realize that Jeremy and Mike have outright forgotten about the specific vs. general rule too many times via Sage Advice (they've actually said that you can overlap your wild shapes across short and long rests by simply resting and staying in wild shape indefinitely) but here's the problem with that logic.

If you can stay in wild shape indefinitely then there's no reason to have the rule about two uses between rests.

So enjoy the loophole caused by the designers (and perpetuated by folks that want to overcomplicate things on Reddit) but at my tables, when specific overrules general, the description of the ability overrules the general rest rules and we get rid of this problem.

Anyhoo, game on.
KB

I'm not sure that I understand why you think that there is no reason for the two uses per rest limit on wild shape. I've seen a moon druid run out of uses in a single fight quite regularly, sometimes to cast a needed spell, but more often getting knocked out of animal form due to damage.

Technically it is possible to stay in wildshape form indefinitely once you hit a duration of 4 hrs. However adventuring PC druids, being in what might be termed a "high risk" occupation are quite likely to be forced out of wildshape on a regular basis. Thus the number of times that they can reenter it is relevant.

And while I realise that passive-aggressive personal attacks on the developers are all the rage amongst a certain segment of ENWorld's demographic, I'm really not seeing where general and specific rules are actually clashing here.

 

[Kobold Boots]

I'm not sure that I understand why you think that there is no reason for the two uses per rest limit on wild shape. I've seen a moon druid run out of uses in a single fight quite regularly, sometimes to cast a needed spell, but more often getting knocked out of animal form due to damage.

Technically it is possible to stay in wildshape form indefinitely once you hit a duration of 4 hrs. However adventuring PC druids, being in what might be termed a "high risk" occupation are quite likely to be forced out of wildshape on a regular basis. Thus the number of times that they can reenter it is relevant.

And while I realise that passive-aggressive personal attacks on the developers are all the rage amongst a certain segment of ENWorld's demographic, I'm really not seeing where general and specific rules are actually clashing here.

First, thanks for the reply. I appreciate the candor.

It's probably best to classify me as "simply aggressive". I don't see much that's passive in my approach. I'm pretty biased against Twitter in general. As to the devs, it's really pretty simple. I can dislike something that someone does, without disliking them as a person or making the matter personal. Once we moved away from TSR does D&D to Magic the Gathering does D&D I've not been on board with the direction of the core rules except for 4th edition.

Nuff said
KB

 

[jgsugden]

Comparing anything to a fighter is a fail. Fighters are the highest dps class in the game. Then warlocks close behind them. Druids aren't supposed to replace fighters, they aren't even warriors, they are spell casters that are pretty good at different things. They are better healers than fighters, better tanks than rogues and, better DPS than clerics and better at sneaking than paladins. See what I did there?

Yes, I just wouldn't be so proud of it. Comparing these classes to roles they do not fill does not equate to comparing a moon druid to a melee role - they fill a melee role and the argument in general in this thread is that they are powerful at it.

The complaint is that they're overpowered, primarily because they're an awesome melee force that can cast spells - except (until high levels) they can't cast when in animal form and only get 2 (or later 1) form per SR. So, you're pretty much in a position to use spells, shape, use spells, shape, then use spells. Or, if elementaling, cast, shape, cast. (Yes, they can also use up those slots to heal their form - so they're not wasted, but that healing is not very efficient).

When you compare the melee strength of the moon druid to a fighter, paladin (vengeance paladins offer more damage per LR cycle when factoring in smites, spells, etc... than fighters, btw - not even close), barbarians, bladelocks, valor bards, and even bladesingers ... they blow them out at levels 2 to 4, and then are comparable for a few levels... but then fall behind.

If you compare the druid spell list to that of other classes and factor in the limitation that you can't cast in wildshape until very high level... they're a tier 2 caster.

I'd go so far as to say that a 15th level moon druid in a party with a great weapon battlemaster fighter, a great weapon vengeance paladin, and a pure wizard may feel underpowered relative to the rest of their party at that level.