D&D 5E Question about Druid Wild Shape

[Gwarok]

Ok, so I have my players encountering a 20th Lvl Druid soon. There will be a bit of a fight, and at 20th Druids can Wild Shape as often as they want. Question is, when they change into an animal, they get it's HP, and upon being knocked to 0HP, they revert to normal form. RAW it seems to me the druid(Moon) can then just use Wild Shape again into say a Mammoth, and use up those HP until he reverts, rinse repeat. So until the carry over damage gets his normal human form to 0, a 20th level druid can just keep this up for a very long time. Am I reading this correctly? If so it seems a 20th level druid can keep fighting for a VERY long time in a standard fight. Not that this is a problem, I want him to survive the encounter.

Cheers

 

[guachi]

Yes, you have the gist of it. Infinite mammoths.

 

[Croesus]

He can wild shape infinite times, but each time he is knocked to zero or less, the damage carries over. So if his mammoth has 22 hit points when he's hit by dragon breath for 77, he'll revert to normal form minus 55 hit points. So, yes druids can have lots of hit points. But that's not much different than the barbarian raging all the time, taking half damage.

I think the best part of infinite wild shape is the utility. Need to scout ahead, wild shape and scout. Need to track prey, wild shape and track. Need to spy on someone, wild shape and spy. Lots of flexibility.

 

[neogod22]

He can wild shape infinite times, but each time he is knocked to zero or less, the damage carries over. So if his mammoth has 22 hit points when he's hit by dragon breath for 77, he'll revert to normal form minus 55 hit points. So, yes druids can have lots of hit points. But that's not much different than the barbarian raging all the time, taking half damage.

I think the best part of infinite wild shape is the utility. Need to scout ahead, wild shape and scout. Need to track prey, wild shape and track. Need to spy on someone, wild shape and spy. Lots of flexibility.

A smart druid would just wild shape into something else before the animal's HP gets to 0, and never worry about carryover damage. They only have to worry about insta-death.

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[neogod22]

Or keep changing into elemental at that point.

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[neogod22]

When you think about, a 20th lvl druid should never be in their natural form in combat. They can speak can cast spells in animal form at that point.

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[thethain]

The druid can keep shifting to heal. So he can go Mammoth->Fire Elemental->Earth Elemental. As long as he does it before he gets to 0 hp, his "real" hp will stay full.

 

[Croesus]

When you think about, a 20th lvl druid should never be in their natural form in combat.

Which would be really cool.

 

[jgsugden]

It isn't too well thought out for this reason. I used a 20th level druid like this as an enemy for midlevel PCs and it was not fun.

 

[Gwarok]

Thanks for the feedback. It does appear to be crazy powerful as is, I'll house rule some limits probably just for my sanity. Each form has hp, retains damage between shifts, and if a form "dies" it can't be used again that day. Not much of a limit, but bopping between Air and Earth Elemental or whatever as a bonus action each round sounds pretty crazy unstoppable all on it's own. The druid is mostly a plot device, styled after one of the Ten Who Were Taken from the Black Company books, "Shifter", so it's not like I need it to maintain game balance.

Yes, you have the gist of it. Infinite mammoths.

I don't know why, but the phrase "Infinite mammoths" made me laugh.