D&D 5E (2014) L&L: new playtest packet 10/15, Druid update

[am181d]

Still on its way - should be soon, though.

Yeah. I think I got mixed up because I read the column last night (Sunday night, after midnight) and was thinking "Oh, it'll be up tomorrow." But of course that probably means Tuesday afternoon.

 

[Blackbrrd]

As far as D&D is concerned, the druid DID originate with 1E and was neither overpowered or lame. 2E made it lame and 3e made it overpowered.

Could you explain the difference between 1E, 2E and 3E druid and why you think it got lame and overpowered to still my curiosity?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

In 3.5 you regained hp as if you rested overnight. That may be more than temporary hp from the new form. So I don´t know why you have so many problems with the temporary hp. I also find it neat, that you now can knock the druid out of the form. Overall I like the wildshape. The only thing we need to know if it is balanced, is how often the druid will be able to change shape.

And since the druid needs to follow the universal spell advancement table, I guess at least druid of the moon battle wild shapes will use up daily uses of spells. Which in turn will reduce the druids casting of real heal spells which in turn will make the temporary hp even more balanced!

 

[Zardnaar]

Lol i thought the 1st ed druid was a bit OP, the 2nd ed one about right and the 3rd ed one broken. I did love my 1st ed Druid but he was a bit nuts. The main difference between a 1st ed Druid and 2nd ed Druid is the spell pattern. 1st ed Druid got 2nd level spells at level 2 and 3rd ed spells at level 3. 1st ed Druid also kept on rolling hit dice up to level 15, 2nd ed Druid stopped at level 9.

 

[Li Shenron]

Very unhappy with the temporary HP issue, and pretty unhappy with gaining the stats of the animal. But, I can't make any final judgments until I see the stats of all the animals that you can turn into.

It sounds like you're mostly interested in wildshape for battle, am I wrong?

Because I am mostly interested in wildshape out-of-combat, and that means to me that I don't care about the animals stats, unless they are too good and turn again wildshape focus to combat.

This also means that it dashes any hopes I had of wild shape being at-will. I really hate the daily limit on it, but since it gives you a massive number of temp hp, the daily limit is necessary. I've never liked the daily limit on it.

...

The thing I really dislike is how the "combat" forms are only available to circle of the moon druids. The result has always been that CoM druids are way better at shapeshifting than CoL druids, but CoL druids are only a little bit better at spellcasting. The result? CoL druids suck.

I think they certainly need to revise the daily limits AND durations carefully now, and think of the 2 together. Maybe first decide the daily limit based on max temporary HP they want available, but then possibly increase the duration, which enables more out-of-combat uses without influencing combat use much.

About your second point, keep in mind that a lot of people detested wildshape abuses in combat in previous editions. This is why they moved combat-effective animal shapes under a subclass. It's a way to say, "if you are afraid combat wildshape is going to spoil your game, you only need to ban a subclass, you don't need to change anything in the Druid's class itself".

 

[Rune]

I don't think I would have a problem with unlimited wildshaping if it took long enough to do (say, uskng up an action, move, and reaction).

Or, I could see a hybrid. Limited wildshaping, but a ten-minute-to-cast ritual version that dosn't count against the limit.

Either of these would still make changing forms in combat difficult while freeing non-combat wildshaping up quite a bit.

 

[JamesonCourage]

It sounds like you're mostly interested in wildshape for battle, am I wrong?

Yes.

Because I am mostly interested in wildshape out-of-combat, and that means to me that I don't care about the animals stats, unless they are too good and turn again wildshape focus to combat.

To me, the temp HP only helps in combat, and using monster stats in the past has been a problem (usually in combat). While I'm not only interested in combat, I definitely have combat-related concerns here.

But, like you, I'm totally into using wild shape in a variety of ways, especially outside of combat. Flying, scouting, spying, having fun, whatever. I just have concerns about combat balance with these rules.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

So, anyone else tried to extract the character sheets from the zip file and find out that they used invalid characters in the file name and it won't let you?

 

[Kobold Stew]

So, anyone else tried to extract the character sheets from the zip file and find out that they used invalid characters in the file name and it won't let you?

Nope - mine works fine, I think.

 

[tuxgeo]

Mearls is making it sound as though Druids who want to have more choice about which animals they can turn into at 2nd level will have to go "Circle of the Moon" to get the same Hound and Steed shapes that they were able to use in the previous versions. (Or maybe he just said it badly again.)

I'll take a look when the update becomes available tomorrow.

(And here I go, replying to myself again.)

I called it: ". . . [Mearls] just said it badly again."

Mearls had said (paraphrasing) that the new Druid could change into Tiny animals.

That's not the case in the new update to the packet: instead, they can change into (alphabetically) a Bat, Cat, Deer, Dog, Fish, Hawk, Horse, Owl, Raven, Snake, Toad, or Weasel. Of those, Deer, Dog, and Horse are not Tiny: the Deer is Medium, the Dog is Small, and the Horse is Large.

(Either I need to learn to read better, or Mearls needs to express himself better.) (Having both occur at the same time might cause the Universe to explode. )