D&D 5E Tortle Druid

[jgsugden]

Paul - seriously - you're being rude at this point. These types of comments are the reason I generally have you blocked (It used to be that if you blocked someone, your threads no longer appeared to them, either... sigh).

How many times does it need to be reiterated that you're commenting on something irrelevant to the thread? The point of this thread is to see if there is something I am missing, and your repeating yourself after being told you're off tone is just petulant.

To be clear: I have a player. They want to play a Tortle. They want to play a moon druid. They were sad that when they're wildshaped, which is a lot of the time for a moon druid, they would not have any benefits from their humanoid type. As a DM, I try to give players a fun experience, so I looked for options. I evaluated the situation and decided, for the campaign in question, SO LONG AS THERE WAS NOTHING I WAS MISSING, it would be fine to allow them to give their turtle shells to the wildshapes. However, knowing it would be strong, in general, I wanted to make sure I was not missing anything.

So, if you do not have anything to offer that is on topic (as defined by me, the person that authored the topic), the mature thing would be to either say, "I can't see anything" or not post at all. Alternatively, if you had an actual related issue you want to piggyback off of this discussion, you could do so, but as you have a clear belief that nothing related to this is reasonable, that seems highly unlikely.

 

[Ancalagon]

To be fair, the OP didn't specify moon druid...

 

[jgsugden]

To be fair, the OP didn't specify moon druid...

I am the OP. I clarified it twice in the thread, now. And, for most, it was pretty clear by context as most answers implied they understood it was for a moon druid.

Regardless, the question is whether there is an a non-obvious problem offering the tortle racial abilities while in wildshape. I get that there are some (likely most) DMs that would consider it overpowered for the obvious reasons. That is not a concern to me for this situation. All I care about is whether there is anything non-obvious I am missing.

 

[Oofta]

I am the OP. I clarified it twice in the thread, now. And, for most, it was pretty clear by context as most answers implied they understood it was for a moon druid.

Regardless, the question is whether there is an a non-obvious problem offering the tortle racial abilities while in wildshape. I get that there are some (likely most) DMs that would consider it overpowered for the obvious reasons. That is not a concern to me for this situation. All I care about is whether there is anything non-obvious I am missing.

I'm not criticizing, but I don't know why you asked the question.

Overpowered is in the eye of the beholder, if you don't think giving most forms a +6 to AC is broken, then it's not for you. Since that's literally the only benefit we're talking about I'm not sure I see the point.

Just trying to explain why you're getting the pushback.

 

[jgsugden]

I'm not criticizing, but I don't know why you asked the question.

Clearly.

Overpowered is in the eye of the beholder, if you don't think giving most forms a +6 to AC is broken, then it's not for you. Since that's literally the only benefit we're talking about I'm not sure I see the point...

Not to be rude, but this is not rocket science.

I'm asking if anyone sees any non-obvious interraction that I am missing. The answer seems to be no, yet people are hung up saying, "BUTITGIVESHIMAHIGHACBROKENOHMAWGAWD" despite that being absolutely obvious, it being something I have already considered, and it is irrelevant to the topic at hand. 100% absolutely irrelevant.

As nobody else has said they're considering using this idea, and as in my situation I am aware of the situation and feel no need to go into a thorough explanation as to why it is not a concern for me here, arguing it here is entirely wasted unless your reason is more about you wanting to be heard, than you wanting to contribute to the community. You offer nothing if there is no audience for your statement.

 

[tetrasodium]

Clearly.Not to be rude, but this is not rocket science.

I'm asking if anyone sees any non-obvious interraction that I am missing. The answer seems to be no, yet people are hung up saying, "BUTITGIVESHIMAHIGHACBROKENOHMAWGAWD" despite that being absolutely obvious, it being something I have already considered, and it is irrelevant to the topic at hand. 100% absolutely irrelevant.

As nobody else has said they're considering using this idea, and as in my situation I am aware of the situation and feel no need to go into a thorough explanation as to why it is not a concern for me here, arguing it here is entirely wasted unless your reason is more about you wanting to be heard, than you wanting to contribute to the community. You offer nothing if there is no audience for your statement.

Your seeing that sort of pushback for the same reason wotc tends to use pretzel logic to rule as restrictively as possible for druid so often. A lot of people remember CoDzilla of 3.5 & are of the view that druids are still a serious risk if becoming CoDzilla if they are treated like every other class instead of being punished for the sins of the past.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Paul - seriously - you're being rude at this point. These types of comments are the reason I generally have you blocked (It used to be that if you blocked someone, your threads no longer appeared to them, either... sigh).

How many times does it need to be reiterated that you're commenting on something irrelevant to the thread? The point of this thread is to see if there is something I am missing, and your repeating yourself after being told you're off tone is just petulant.

To be clear: I have a player. They want to play a Tortle. They want to play a moon druid. They were sad that when they're wildshaped, which is a lot of the time for a moon druid, they would not have any benefits from their humanoid type. As a DM, I try to give players a fun experience, so I looked for options. I evaluated the situation and decided, for the campaign in question, SO LONG AS THERE WAS NOTHING I WAS MISSING, it would be fine to allow them to give their turtle shells to the wildshapes. However, knowing it would be strong, in general, I wanted to make sure I was not missing anything.

So, if you do not have anything to offer that is on topic (as defined by me, the person that authored the topic), the mature thing would be to either say, "I can't see anything" or not post at all. Alternatively, if you had an actual related issue you want to piggyback off of this discussion, you could do so, but as you have a clear belief that nothing related to this is reasonable, that seems highly unlikely.

You are the one who keep putting words into people's mouths: "It doesn't break anything".

This is wrong. It does break something: It breaks the internal logic of the game world. Druids can change into any beast they have seen. Thus, in order to turn into a turtle-wolf, they would have to have seen a turtle-wolf. It would also have to be a beast - an natural creature in your world, and not a monstrosity. And once a non-tortle druid had seen your tortle druid turn into a turtle-wolf they would also be able to turn into a turtle-wolf. And they could show it to their friends, and pretty soon all druids would be able to turn into turtle-wolves.

As DM, you are free to make changes to how things work in your game world, but you have to work through the consequences of those changes to keep the fantasy internally consistent. Can my human druid turn into a T-Rex with a human head and arms, and thus cast spells and wield weapons whilst wildshaped? can my Aarakocra druid wildshape into a flying elephant? If not, why not?

Did it occur to you that you might be underestimating your player, and they want to play a tortle druid because they like the idea of role-playing that character, and not because they want to use immersion breaking gameplay cheese?

The vast majority of D&D rules have nothing to do with "gameplay balance" whatever that might mean, and can be changed without breaking anything mechanical. They exist to create and internally constant fantasy, and if you change them you have to do so in a way that maintains your players' suspension of disbelief in the setting. Otherwise you might as well be playing an abstract game like Chess or Ludo.

 

[Ancalagon]

It does break something: It breaks the internal logic of the game world. Druids can change into any beast they have seen. Thus, in order to turn into a turtle-wolf, they would have to have seen a turtle-wolf. It would also have to be a beast - an natural creature in your world, and not a monstrosity. And once a non-tortle druid had seen your tortle druid turn into a turtle-wolf they would also be able to turn into a turtle-wolf. And they could show it to their friends, and pretty soon all druids would be able to turn into turtle-wolves.

Now that's a very, very good point. I had a sort of ... gremlin... version of this idea saying "but why can't human druids turn into pink, hairless wolves?" - but it felt very trolley and I didn't post it.

But this? Yes that is a real problem.

However, it could be part of the world!

Perhaps all druids would have a choice of a variety of knacks like "way of the shelled ones" to have turle-wolves, or "way of the wings" to have flying deers and whatnots. Or perhaps the turtle variant of animals is common, and has a fixed "+2 to AC, - X to Y" bonus/penalties, and this choice is available to all druids?

The end result would be that races would be balanced, and the tortle druid would only have an edge on AC in humanoid form.... which is exactly the case now as per RAW.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's actually quite easy to work with the rules and achieve the same effect. The DM can create stat blocks for beasts that are "familiar" to tortle druids but are likely unfamiliar to other druids. For example:

Giant Tortoise
medium beast, unaligned

Armor Class 17
Hit Points 77 (9d8+36)
Speed 10 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
12 (+1)	5 (-3)	18 (+4)	2 (-4)	10 (+0)	6 (-2)

Saves STR +3, CON +6
Senses Passive Perception 10
Languages --
Challenge 1

Shell Defense
You can withdraw into your shell as an action. Until you emerge, you gain a +4 bonus to AC, and you have advantage on Strength and Constitution saving throws. While in your shell, you are prone, your speed is 0 and can’t increase, you have disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws, you can’t take reactions, and the only action you can take is a bonus action to emerge from your shell.

ACTIONS
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4+1) slashing damage.


Add in a CR 3 giant snapping turtle combat form and a giant sea turtle that is big enough to serve as a boat for the whole party and you are good to go.

 

[Oofta]

Clearly.Not to be rude, but this is not rocket science.

I'm asking if anyone sees any non-obvious interraction that I am missing. The answer seems to be no, yet people are hung up saying, "BUTITGIVESHIMAHIGHACBROKENOHMAWGAWD" despite that being absolutely obvious, it being something I have already considered, and it is irrelevant to the topic at hand. 100% absolutely irrelevant.

As nobody else has said they're considering using this idea, and as in my situation I am aware of the situation and feel no need to go into a thorough explanation as to why it is not a concern for me here, arguing it here is entirely wasted unless your reason is more about you wanting to be heard, than you wanting to contribute to the community. You offer nothing if there is no audience for your statement.

Sorry for trying to give some friendly feedback.

I don't care what you do in your game, but I also don't understand the hostility. I don't know what kind of "unforeseen consequence" there could possibly be other than higher AC. Since you've decided it's not an issue, it's not for you. But conversations on a message board are not under the control of the OP, they're frequently people just musing on the topic. The moment anyone puts out a thread it no longer belongs to them.

In other words, you asked about one single variation from most other races. Some people think it's a big deal, you did not. No need to get cranky about it.