D&D 5E A L12 (level 12 limit) Variant

[Horwath]

I would not give blank advantages on 3 skills without any conditions on it.

expertise would be better IMHO.

good example for advantage would be:

Track(druid, ranger or barbarian): you have advantage on Survival checks made for tracking.


Maybe make wild shape at-will but without getting HPs in the proces.
More like utility power not combat.

Or have it both,

1. utility wild shape: at-will, beasts up to 1/4 your level. Use your own HPs
I would delay flight forms until level 4 at least.

2. combat wild shape: 1/short rest, beasts up to 1/2 your level. Gain beast HPs as bonus HP pool.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I would not give blank advantages on 3 skills without any conditions on it.

expertise would be better IMHO.

good example for advantage would be:

Track(druid, ranger or barbarian): you have advantage on Survival checks made for tracking.


Maybe make wild shape at-will but without getting HPs in the proces.
More like utility power not combat.

Or have it both,

1. utility wild shape: at-will, beasts up to 1/4 your level. Use your own HPs
I would delay flight forms until level 4 at least.

2. combat wild shape: 1/short rest, beasts up to 1/2 your level. Gain beast HPs as bonus HP pool.

Sorry, that was just from my old L10 which was definitely higher-powered. For this I would just have it a choice of one of the three and make it expertise as well. It was just idea for something to help out Druids.

I am sure about splitting up Wild Shape. I don't mind making things a bit more complex, but that would be pushing it a bit I think.

 

[tetrasodium]

Honestly, they were my greatest concern in removing the subclass.

I am hoping the adjustments to Wild Shape (which are quite good) make up for it.

1. You gain flying speed and swimming speed at level 2, not waiting until level 4 and 8.
2. You can change forms multiple times with a single use as long as you don't return to your normal form (by choice or by force).
3. You can (ultimately) change into CR 2 creatures, with normally is not allowed (unless you are Circle of the Moon).

Now, I have extra features I could put in with Druid, but I didn't want to make them too powerful or give them too much compared to other classes. Here are some options I have thought of:

View attachment 121037

Would any of those help without being too much?

No they don't help much if at all. The fly/swim thing & wildshape in general is pretty much a ribbon for non-moon druids & the progression itself is way behind a moon druid. Even going by just levels 2-4 in the phb archetypes they get

Spoiler: land

Spoiler: moon

While the core gets

&

The druidic language at first is like thieve's cant but less useful. For wildshape comparison, here is a pdf wuth all the wildshape forms & conjurable fey up till about xge (can't remember if I made it before or after volo's) put together for a moon druid I had way back.


With that said... Druid is kind of a poorly put together class that slots into two different party niches depending on archetype. Moon druid is kind of somewhere between fighter & barbarian with self healing instead of second wind & rage but can sorta fit the role of a sneaky type well enough in a pinch if the party is lacking. Land druids are somewhere between generic cleric & generic arcane caster with an oddish mishmash of spells for that analogy. Circle of dreams might lean a little towards a refluffed life cleric - arcane caster midpoint with shepherd maybe genericc cleric - refluffed necromancer army conjurer. This might be useful or inspiration* if you don't like the current niche & want to find a new niche

*scroll down to druidic traditions

 

[DND_Reborn]

No they don't help much if at all. The fly/swim thing & wildshape in general is pretty much a ribbon for non-moon druids & the progression itself is way behind a moon druid. Even going by just levels 2-4 in the phb archetypes they get

Spoiler: land

View attachment 121039
View attachment 121040

Spoiler: moon

View attachment 121041
View attachment 121042

While the core gets
View attachment 121045
&
View attachment 121044
The druidic language at first is like thieve's cant but less useful. For wildshape comparison, here is a pdf wuth all the wildshape forms & conjurable fey up till about xge (can't remember if I made it before or after volo's) put together for a moon druid I had way back.


With that said... Druid is kind of a poorly put together class that slots into two different party niches depending on archetype. Moon druid is kind of somewhere between fighter & barbarian with self healing instead of second wind & rage but can sorta fit the role of a sneaky type well enough in a pinch if the party is lacking. Land druids are somewhere between generic cleric & generic arcane caster with an oddish mishmash of spells for that analogy. Circle of dreams might lean a little towards a refluffed life cleric - arcane caster midpoint with shepherd maybe genericc cleric - refluffed necromancer army conjurer. This might be useful or inspiration* if you don't like the current niche & want to find a new niche

*scroll down to druidic traditions

Really, I thought adding swimming and flying early on would be quite a boon. It opens up a lot of forms and utility that otherwise you have to wait for. Now, I don't expect it to make up for all the stuff they lose by removing the subclass, that was by design, but they also get the proficiency like the other classes. Also, I am not sure how useful it will really be personally, but Extra Attack is available, something they never get normally.

 

[tetrasodium]

Really, I thought adding swimming and flying early on would be quite a boon. It opens up a lot of forms and utility that otherwise you have to wait for. Now, I don't expect it to make up for all the stuff they lose by removing the subclass, that was by design, but they also get the proficiency like the other classes. Also, I am not sure how useful it will really be personally, but Extra Attack is available, something they never get normally.

I think that you might not be factoring in the fact that you can't cast spells & have the hp of a level 1-2ish character at best with a pretty awful melee attack for a non-mood druid & that doesn't really change till 20 when they get archdruid to cast spells.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think that you might not be factoring in the fact that you can't cast spells & have the hp of a level 1-2ish character at best with a pretty awful melee attack for a non-mood druid & that doesn't really change till 20 when they get archdruid to cast spells.

I think it is also that you seem to think the Wild Shape of the druid is meant for combat more than utility. Being able to shift multiple times during within the time allotted, and fly at 2nd level for up to an hour can be very useful. Not for combat, probably, but a strong feature nonetheless.

Players of Moon Druids might find this shift difficult to deal with but it is more in keeping with the feel from AD&D (which was my goal). If anything, I would be more inclined to restore Druids so they heal some when they return out of Wild Shape.

Anyway, I am sure I will add something more as I have said I have been concerned about them not being on par with other classes.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think it is also that you seem to think the Wild Shape of the druid is meant for combat more than utility. Being able to shift multiple times during within the time allotted, and fly at 2nd level for up to an hour can be very useful. Not for combat, probably, but a strong feature nonetheless.

Players of Moon Druids might find this shift difficult to deal with but it is more in keeping with the feel from AD&D (which was my goal). If anything, I would be more inclined to restore Druids so they heal some when they return out of Wild Shape.

Anyway, I am sure I will add something more as I have said I have been concerned about them not being on par with other classes.

No not just the utility of wildshape, it is about combat for moon druid who gets stuff to make it so while non-with moon druids barely a ribbon for others who get stuff to bebetter casters. If the improvement does not notable change it from ribbon to something else meaningful for the remaining core caster part then what is it offsetting? You don't strip font of magic/metamagic/pact boon/arcane recovery from sorcerer/warlock/wizard base classes, but with druid those kinds of things are built into the archetypes themselves & stripped as a result. If your "improving" wildshape as a replacement to the things being dropped that improvement needs to have at least a meaningful utility rather than just fluff.

You bring up "utility"... and that's fine if that's your goal, but very contrived situations like escaping from prison after the rogue type is killed & the not very common situation of wanting a birds eye view or something are you expecting the new wildshape to give? Sure it "might be useful" to fly at second level for an hour, but you can't bring anything or anyone & really cant do a whole lot someone else can't also do with their owl familiar at zero risk to themselves unless you have some super flying critter with a low cr in mind?

 

[DND_Reborn]

No not just the utility of wildshape, it is about combat for moon druid who gets stuff to make it so while non-with moon druids barely a ribbon for others who get stuff to bebetter casters. If the improvement does not notable change it from ribbon to something else meaningful for the remaining core caster part then what is it offsetting? You don't strip font of magic/metamagic/pact boon/arcane recovery from sorcerer/warlock/wizard base classes, but with druid those kinds of things are built into the archetypes themselves & stripped as a result. If your "improving" wildshape as a replacement to the things being dropped that improvement needs to have at least a meaningful utility rather than just fluff.

You bring up "utility"... and that's fine if that's your goal, but very contrived situations like escaping from prison after the rogue type is killed & the not very common situation of wanting a birds eye view or something are you expecting the new wildshape to give? Sure it "might be useful" to fly at second level for an hour, but you can't bring anything or anyone & really cant do a whole lot someone else can't also do with their owl familiar at zero risk to themselves unless you have some super flying critter with a low cr in mind?

Ok, first you should stop calling for things like moon druids, etc. because there aren't any. That is the point.

I didn't strip the other things because those are core class features, just as wild shape is.

It is meaningful utility. I can't help that you don't see that. There are all sort of situations, having used the ability in AD&D often enough, I know from experience. And they certainly don't have to be "contrived". Even in our 5E group, our druid uses his wild shape for utility all the time. One example was changing into a giant spider while carrying my female elf (invisible) into the lair for the assault we had planned. I would not have been able to get into that position by myself since I can't concentrate on more than one spell.

I might be able to see an argument for bumping the CR a bit, so it caps out around CR 3 instead of 2. But that's about it.

EDIT: Let me explain this. Characters are not meant to be as powerful as RAW when I removed the subclasses. Look at my fighter write-up. Do you think a few proficiencies and Many Leagues makes up for the BM maneuvers? Or the criticals and remarkable athlete features? No. I am removing huge damage potential from the fighter class. But that is by design. So, your issue seems more related to my druid is not as strong as a RAW druid with subclasses. It isn't supposed to be. Maybe that helps?

 

[TwoSix]

I might be able to see an argument for bumping the CR a bit, so it caps out around CR 3 instead of 2. But that's about it.

It’s fine as is. It’s a nerf compared to the PHB Druid, of course, but that’s sort of the point. As you said in the OP, you want to encourage a careful, cautious playstyle; that’s exactly the sort of play style where a strong exploration and utility option like flying wild shape at 2 is going to shine.

 

[tetrasodium]

Ok, first you should stop calling for things like moon druids, etc. because there aren't any. That is the point.

I didn't strip the other things because those are core class features, just as wild shape is.

It is meaningful utility. I can't help that you don't see that. There are all sort of situations, having used the ability in AD&D often enough, I know from experience. And they certainly don't have to be "contrived". Even in our 5E group, our druid uses his wild shape for utility all the time. One example was changing into a giant spider while carrying my female elf (invisible) into the lair for the assault we had planned. I would not have been able to get into that position by myself since I can't concentrate on more than one spell.

I might be able to see an argument for bumping the CR a bit, so it caps out around CR 3 instead of 2. But that's about it.

EDIT: Let me explain this. Characters are not meant to be as powerful as RAW when I removed the subclasses. Look at my fighter write-up. Do you think a few proficiencies and Many Leagues makes up for the BM maneuvers? Or the criticals and remarkable athlete features? No. I am removing huge damage potential from the fighter class. But that is by design. So, your issue seems more related to my druid is not as strong as a RAW druid with subclasses. It isn't supposed to be. Maybe that helps?

Absolutely not If they exist or not is irrelevant to the comparison showing how much of the druid comes from the archetype. The problem you are overlooking is that the core class features are cranked down because the archetypes bring parts of the core class up to snuff & it would be unbalanced if they were all already on par with the core class features of the other classes.

It's great to claim that it's meaningful utility, but when that meaningful utility is so meaningful you can't even give examples it calls into question how meaningful it is in actual play. You talked about the ability to fly in wildshape. for an hour.. what exactly do you forsee it being capable of doing that one of these tiny cr0 flying creaturesin the hands of a wizard or something with find familiar

Spoiler: Your Find Familiar

I'm not denying that there are not occasionally useful edge cases for wildshape on druids other than moon druids who have the base wildshape very similar to the "improved" one you have... I'm pointing out that you are vastly overestimating that value. Your "I might be able to see an argument for bumping the CR a bit, so it caps out around CR 3 instead of 2. But that's about it." comment shows a complete misunderstanding of just how different moon druids & other druids are. Without the healing & CR bump from combat wildshape it's just a ribbon that might very occasionally be useful. Without the spellcaster enhancing stuff the druid spell list is pretty much just a pool for combatwildshape's healing ability.

It's fine if you think druids should be a caster... but you need to make them a caster instead of improving a ribbon to still be a ribbon. If you want to improve wildshape it needs to be an improvement that understands they won't be casting while wildshaped & be improved accordingly.

Also yes.. Alice acting as mount so Bob can benefit from spiderclimb while he concentrates on invisibility in a location where nobody notices a giant spider roaming about is extremely contrived. Not only that but if Cindy is a drow sorcerer warlock wizard artificer or (peerviously) mountain/underdark land druids she could have carried bob the invisible gnome while spiderclimbing and had all the cool stuff sorcerer warlock wizard or artificer still has in your thing.