D&D (2024) Playtest Packet 6: They knocked Druid out of the Park

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Please don't encourage druids to leave the park. They're protected there and live and reproduce safely within its confines.

 

[codo]

Also, the THP for Moon Druids being the lower of Druid Level*3 or the animal's HP seems needlessly complex. Who cares if turning into a house cat gives you the same THP as a bear

They don't care about the THP of a cat. It's the bears THP that is the problem. When a 3rd level moon druid turns into a brown bear they should not get more THP than a 3rd level fighter total pool of hit points. A third level fighter with a 16 constitution can have a max of 31 hit points (if they take the default, and don't roll). A Moon druid can wild shape twice at 3rd level. That gives a druid effectively 3 times the health of the fighter.

Also at 5th level druids gets wild resurgence which lets them wild shape for any spell slots. If the THP wasn't limited a 5th level moon druid using all of its spell slots to turn into a brown bear would receive 306 THP for the day. Does that seem balanced to you?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I can see a lot of Moon Druids salivating at getting Wild Resurgence at level 5. Why use cure wounds and an action in combat when you can convert a 1st level spell slot into 15 THP (with potential for more at higher levels) at the cost of a bonus action? Being able to shift many times in a short period like Doric from the D&D movie is now possible. It just costs a lot of spell slots.

Making Moon Druids not have to cover elemental stuff is a great thematic win. Now make a new subclass that focuses on elemental wild shapes and give us another shape changer please.

Also, the THP for Moon Druids being the lower of Druid Level*3 or the animal's HP seems needlessly complex. Who cares if turning into a house cat gives you the same THP as a bear? You don't lose the THP when you end the wildshape so you could go bear first and then cat and with wild resurgence you've really only cost yourself one spell slot at most. Archdruid doesn't give unlimited wild shapes anymore so it's not like you can abuse this for infinite HP like the 2014 druid could.

Last bit about Moon Druids and wildshape in general: barring WotC putting more animal stat blocks out, they should include the ability to use your spell attack modifier in place of the animal's attack modifier if it is higher. It doesn't change damage on a hit so house cats aren't going to out compete bears. Combine this with a flat Druid Level*3 THP for Moon Druids and you can make lower CR animals last a lot longer.

Otherwise I think everything else in the main Druid features is good or better. Land Druid looks way better, Moon is solid, Sea is pretty good but I feel like each subsequent use should also require a Bonus Action like the Storm Herald Barbarian's Storm Aura feature.

Yeah, the attack bonuses was one of the big things I'd be worried about as a moon druid. Since my temp hp is severely limited, going from swinging a greatsword with a +7 mod to making a dire wolf bite at +5 is a serious downgrade.

 

[Chaosmancer]

They don't care about the THP of a cat. It's the bears THP that is the problem. When a 3rd level moon druid turns into a brown bear they should not get more THP than a 3rd level fighter total pool of hit points. A third level fighter with a 16 constitution can have a max of 31 hit points (if they take the default, and don't roll). A Moon druid can wild shape twice at 3rd level. That gives a druid effectively 3 times the health of the fighter.

Also at 5th level druids gets wild resurgence which lets them wild shape for any spell slots. If the THP wasn't limited a 5th level moon druid using all of its spell slots to turn into a brown bear would receive 306 THP for the day. Does that seem balanced to you?

Right, so just make it all Druid level x 3 instead of worrying that you turned into a cat and got the same temp hp as turning into a bear.

 

[DeviousQuail]

They don't care about the THP of a cat. It's the bears THP that is the problem. When a 3rd level moon druid turns into a brown bear they should not get more THP than a 3rd level fighter total pool of hit points. A third level fighter with a 16 constitution can have a max of 31 hit points (if they take the default, and don't roll). A Moon druid can wild shape twice at 3rd level. That gives a druid effectively 3 times the health of the fighter.

Also at 5th level druids gets wild resurgence which lets them wild shape for any spell slots. If the THP wasn't limited a 5th level moon druid using all of its spell slots to turn into a brown bear would receive 306 THP for the day. Does that seem balanced to you?

While I didn't make my preference clear in the part you quoted I did say further down that just using Druid level times three is the way they should do it.

 

[Vael]

They don't care about the THP of a cat. It's the bears THP that is the problem. When a 3rd level moon druid turns into a brown bear they should not get more THP than a 3rd level fighter total pool of hit points. A third level fighter with a 16 constitution can have a max of 31 hit points (if they take the default, and don't roll). A Moon druid can wild shape twice at 3rd level. That gives a druid effectively 3 times the health of the fighter.

Also at 5th level druids gets wild resurgence which lets them wild shape for any spell slots. If the THP wasn't limited a 5th level moon druid using all of its spell slots to turn into a brown bear would receive 306 THP for the day. Does that seem balanced to you?

Well, the Moon Druid can't wildshape into a Brown Bear at Level 3 or Level 5. Their ability to access higher forms doesn't come online until level 6, when they get CR2, but they are following the Druid's Wildshape restrictions until then. So at level 5, it's CR1/2 creatures. This means they probably don't bother with Brown Bear as a form at all, because you can jump from CR 1/2 to CR 2 when the Druid gets to 6th level.

But, taking your example at level 5, the likely land combat forms are Ape, Black Bear and Giant Goat. All have the same HP, 19. So the difference is 15 tmp hp or 19 ... not exactly the insanely big difference here. And since the Druid doesn't revert unless knocked unconscious, to refresh that pool of temp hp in the same combat means reverting to normal form as a bonus action, then shifting again on your next turn. I'm not seeing the problem here.

What I am seeing is that the attack bonuses on these forms are +3 and +5 ... so not great.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

I agree with just letting the WS give the 3x Druid level temp only would be simpler. I also think allowing the Moon Druid to choose their spell attack bonus in place of the beast’s attack bonus to attack with would help with the low accuracy issue of the beast’s attack.

 

[nevin]

known forms makes me sad but since I only follow the rules I like not a big deal.

 

[Marandahir]

The Dark Sun setting is a cautionary tale about what happens when the elements get out of balance. In that setting, the annihilation of the element of water caused the other three elements to go wrong.

EXACTLY!!!

Even the relatively liveable Forest areas and urban gardens are actually everything-is-out-to-kill-you nightmare realms.

This flavour text seems to heavily presage the return of Dark Sun in the coming years.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I get why some people like the limited forms, since we're apparently stuck with hunting through the MM, but it was a... let's say 'choice' to make it even more impossible to play the druid in the feature film you literally just released.