D&D 5E Low Level Druids Are Super Powerful

[Henry]

2.) Their animal forms have limitations. AC is low (11 without spells - 16 with barkskin if you can maintain concentration). You also can't speak. This is a disadvantage that the DM should enforce! Make them player gesture and growl.
3.) Bears don't have great initiative.
4.) Bears tend to feel real strong in combat until 5th level. Then, other classes catch up and pass you as a melee force.
5.) You only get 2 wildshapes - and that is a total of two hours, at most. That means that you will sometimes - maybe even often - will not have a wildshape available.

2) I have a LOOOOT of fun doing this at the table. My fellow players would say TOO much fun.

3) the bear doesn’t need great initiative, i’m Usually in Halfling form when the die is cast, and that’s the great advantage of shifting as a bonus action.

4) actually, about 7th level it drops a bit, because you get cave bear(polar bear) at level 6. However, the elemental forms at 10th level picks it back up (I rock the field as an Earth Elemental...)

5) actually, it’s 1 hr per 2 levels, so your wildshapes can last a VERY large part of your adventuring day, if used wisely. Plus, they come back with a short rest.

 

[Mistwell]

Erm Mistwell do you remember a long time ago on the WoTC forums when I said the Moon Druid was OP lol.

They peak at tier 2 nd now healing spirit makes Druids one of the best healers in the game and their offensive magic while not as good as an arcanist beats the cleric.

Wildshape levels off though.

The reason wildshape levels off is CR 1 at level 2 is alot better than CR 2 at level 6. The higher level combat forms are also huge which can make things difficult and the shapes you can turn into are huge which can make things difficult.

Its still good but the DM can start to ignore the Druid as they are not that big of a threat as they do not inflict enough damage in wild shape form to be that scary. As a DM you are mostly wasting your time hitting a Druid in wild shape form.

Yes I remember you saying that. I didn't have a lot of experience with druids at that point, as the one I had DM'ed wasn't really wildshaping much. But yeah, your posts are part of the reason I posted this. It sure seems like at this level they are very powerful.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

They peak at tier 2 nd now healing spirit makes Druids one of the best healers in the game

That's not the druid being overpowered. That's just one spell being overpowered, and the DM failing to do their job of weeding it out.

 

[Kobold Boots]

So here is where you're off base. 1. No one in tier 1 is going through 4 combats in a day, let alone before a short rest. The party would die. There aren't enough resources.

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.

2. If the druid is tanking, he's probably not going to come out of wild shape just to cast 1 spell, that just sounds dumb.

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.

3. Small combats, he may not decide to wild shape. There are plenty of combats that I don't. I've even played whole adventures when I decided just to be a caster. 4. If he does decide to come out of wild shape to cast spells, well, he's a caster, he will have plenty of spell slots at higher level.

No debate on points 3 or 4, pretty reasonable.

5. Who cares what you've read what the optimal shapes are, I think I've turned into a polar bear once. Most druids transform to fit the situation.

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*

6. How do they have weak concentration? Usually their animal forms have pretty good Con. Also, they can take the war caster feat to give themselves advantage.

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.

7. Wild shape lasts in hours equal to half your level, so you can, short rest and overlap shapes. You say you've played a druid to 13th lvl, but you sound like you've read how to play a druid off a forum. You don't sound credible at all. So I'll leave it at that.

^^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

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes I remember you saying that. I didn't have a lot of experience with druids at that point, as the one I had DM'ed wasn't really wildshaping much. But yeah, your posts are part of the reason I posted this. It sure seems like at this level they are very powerful.

And now they get healing spirit.

I think that early party accidentally hit a few of the more powerful archetypes. We had moon Druid, lore bard, diviner, Warcleric+ rogue and champion IIRC.

Not a massive fan of the 5E Druid, the moon druid falls off and to many of the base Druids abilities are for wildshape which kicks the other Druids in the nuts.

 

[jgsugden]

So here is where you're off base. 1. No one in tier 1 is going through 4 combats in a day, let alone before a short rest. The party would die. There aren't enough resources.

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.

2. If the druid is tanking, he's probably not going to come out of wild shape just to cast 1 spell, that just sounds dumb.

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!

3. Small combats, he may not decide to wild shape. There are plenty of combats that I don't. I've even played whole adventures when I decided just to be a caster.

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.

4. If he does decide to come out of wild shape to cast spells, well, he's a caster, he will have plenty of spell slots at higher level.

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.

5. Who cares what you've read what the optimal shapes are, I think I've turned into a polar bear once. Most druids transform to fit the situation.

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.

6. How do they have weak concentration? Usually their animal forms have pretty good Con.

But are not proficient in Con. +3 or +4 con saves fail over a quarter of the time on concentration saves.

Also, they can take the war caster feat to give themselves advantage.

That is an option. Few druids have it before 4, and most do not get it before 12. Some never get it.

7. Wild shape lasts in hours equal to half your level, so you can, short rest and overlap shapes. You say you've played a druid to 13th lvl, but you sound like you've read how to play a druid off a forum.

That is what your post sounds like to me.

You don't sound credible at all. So I'll leave it at that.

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.

 

[TwoSix]

^^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.

Most of your post makes sense, but I'm afraid I don't understand this one. The reason you have only two uses before resting is so that you don't spam wild shape in combat to have a ton of hit points, or change into a different shape every round to gain different abilities. The duration of wild shape could be a week per level, or even be permanent, and it would still need rules to indicate the amount of uses it has.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Most of your post makes sense, but I'm afraid I don't understand this one. The reason you have only two uses before resting is so that you don't spam wild shape in combat to have a ton of hit points, or change into a different shape every round to gain different abilities. The duration of wild shape could be a week per level, or even be permanent, and it would still need rules to indicate the amount of uses it has.

Got you. So here's where I'm coming from.

1. There can be many reasons why a rule exists. Your reason (spamming HP) is just as valid as mine (not staying in wild shape forever)

2. Once a rule is in place it should be internally consistent to all possible applications of its use.

So if you can't spam HP, that also means you can't be in wild shape forever. I feel that the intention is to provide a cool ability that augments the druid, not to create an ability that could potentially result in the druid hardly ever being in his or her natural form simply to gain statistical advantages. (Ex: You're a druid, not a bear.. but it's cool to be a bear every now and again.)

 

[Henry]

Most of your post makes sense, but I'm afraid I don't understand this one. The reason you have only two uses before resting is so that you don't spam wild shape in combat to have a ton of hit points, or change into a different shape every round to gain different abilities. The duration of wild shape could be a week per level, or even be permanent, and it would still need rules to indicate the amount of uses it has.

While true, our group ruled druids can’t stay in wild shape while short resting, to avoid the whole “one in the chamber cheat” issue - I recommended it because it didn’t feel right to me.

 

[TwoSix]

Got you. So here's where I'm coming from.

1. There can be many reasons why a rule exists. Your reason (spamming HP) is just as valid as mine (not staying in wild shape forever)

2. Once a rule is in place it should be internally consistent to all possible applications of its use.

So if you can't spam HP, that also means you can't be in wild shape forever. I feel that the intention is to provide a cool ability that augments the druid, not to create an ability that could potentially result in the druid hardly ever being in his or her natural form simply to gain statistical advantages. (Ex: You're a druid, not a bear.. but it's cool to be a bear every now and again.)

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.