D&D 5E custom wildshape forms

[pukunui]

Except Jeremy says "The intent is that the druid uses the bonus in the beast's stat block for any proficiency the druid lacks." This makes me think there's not meant to be any recalculating. You just use either the number that is on your character sheet or the number that is in the beast's statblock. That seems to be what he is saying.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

That may be the intent, but that's not what is said in the PHB...

Edit: My bad. I read it wrong. You use the stat bonus of the form. If both forms have proficiency, seems you just use the higher of the two.

 

[pukunui]

Edit: My bad. I read it wrong. You use the stat bonus of the form. If both forms have proficiency, seems you just use the higher of the two.

Yes, that's what I'm getting too. It talks about what proficiencies you have but not what numbers you use with those proficiencies, other than to say that you can use the beast's number if it's higher. This makes it sound like you wouldn't recalculate it.

However, it's still a bit unclear. The druid in question has a Wisdom of 18. This means that, even without proficiency in Perception, he's making Perception checks at +4. The bear, on the other hand, is only making Perception checks at +3, despite having proficiency in it. So which number do I use?