D&D 5E Does "Unarmoured Defense" work with Druids who are shapechanged?

[Paul Farquhar]

For most monsters, you can "reverse engineer" the creature's AC and subtract any bonus from Dexterity to derive a bonus from other factors such as toughness, scales, magic, etc. IMO these additional factors should count.

The definitely should not. 5e rules are unambiguous about this: you can have AC from one source (e.g. unarmoured defence) or another (e.g. natural armour). They NEVER stack.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But what if it's a very wise snail?

Wildshape does not affect your wisdom score.

 

[Rabulias]

But what if it's a very wise snail?

The character retains their original Wisdom score while wildshaped. For any other shapechanging abilities where the new form's Wisdom applies, sure it would apply.

(That said, I am reminded that it's not the ability to move vast distances, but to make minute adjustments. For the prototype, think of any classic Sammo Hung.)

Fair point, but I would not say that Sammo has a Dexterity penalty, especially not to his face. ;-)

 

[Rabulias]

The definitely should not. 5e rules are unambiguous about this: you can have AC from one source (e.g. unarmoured defence) or another (e.g. natural armour). They NEVER stack.

Ah yes, you are correct. I still fall into 3.x thinking every now and then. D'oh!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Wildshape does not affect your wisdom score.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For most monsters, you can "reverse engineer" the creature's AC and subtract any bonus from Dexterity to derive a bonus from other factors such as toughness, scales, magic, etc. IMO these additional factors should count.

The point of that stance is to not need to. The player can make a simple comparison between two numbers and pick whichever is best.

In some cases, the new form's Dexterity will be lower than the original PC's, and I think this should be accounted for as well. If the character wildshapes into a giant snail with a Dexterity of 3 (for an extreme example), they will not be able to dodge blows as effectively.

Again, this is for mechanical simplicity, with the justification that all these things are unnatural to begin with. Monks' defenses are (at least in part) supernatural. Wild shape is supernatural. Pick whichever one of those two things you prefer (which, presumably, will always be the stronger one.) As you develop your personal style, as you unite these two distinct traditions into one cohesive whole, you can improve it further.

Ultimately, you can develop this style to the point that it spawns a new Circle or Way (or both!) that more innately intersects these two traditions. Way of Tooth and Claw, perhaps? Circle of Meditation? So long as the player is willing to work with me, I am quite happy to build toward better and better results. I just expect it to be a journey.

Well I'm not sure that there's a good reason why Unarmored Defense cannot be allowed.

The rules of 5e are that you use only one method to calculate your AC. Wild shape provides one method: use the monster's stats. Unarmored Defense provides another. Formally, AIUI, they don't stack for exactly the same reason mage armor and Unarmored Defense don't stack (or, more relevantly, mage armor and a Dragon Sorcerer's Draconic Resilience AC calculation.)

Can an animal move like a monk? Given that there are real world martial arts styles developed from emulating how animals move- I'm going to say probably?

Can they? Yes. Can they do so with absolutely identical skill and grace? I say no, unless they work to blend the two. This can be done by spending resources (e.g. money/items, or feats, or additional class levels, etc.), or it can be done by doing the work, in-character, of learning to master this unorthodox combination of skills, through a mixture of pure descriptive roleplay and, when relevant, appropriate checks.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. I used to have a Druid in my DW game (player is indefinitely on hiatus and has retired this character), and still have a Bard. The Bard wanted to learn to wild shape purely for utility purposes (no combat forms), and the Druid wanted to teach others the ways he had come to see his discipline in a new light. So I had them both make rolls, in effect forms of Defy Danger. They would make progress no matter what--simple failure would be boring--but fails might reveal mental blocks that must be overcome, or lock someone in wild shape form for a while, or whatever other results felt reasonable.

After I think three different "teaching sessions" where both players rolled well (and a couple more that induced complications which they subsequently resolved), the Bard got his ability to turn into bugs and sparrows and the like. He could have simply spent one of his few moves on taking wild shape, but he preferred the idea of exploring it himself, and thus earned it through roleplay and overcoming challenges. I found this process interesting as a GM (how to frame distinct teaching moments, so it isn't just the same thing every time?), and the players clearly enjoyed working through the lessons together and developing both the rapport between the two characters and the individual story of each player's own character.

Can an animal be as tough as a Barbarian?

Sure. But again, I want to see the player invest into blending these traditions. There are many ways to do that. Some are one and done mechanical things. Some are extensive roleplay-filled journeys. Not too extensive though, as I want the player to have plenty of time to enjoy the fruits of their labor! Some are investments of more fungible resources. Etc.

Now in your campaign, it appears you want the narrative to at least match the mechanics, if not trump them outright (if I misunderstood you, I apologize in advance). There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Ideally, every choice a player makes is one that is grounded in the narrative.

Neither--in the ideal case, what I want is for the mechanics to be the narrative, and the narrative to be the mechanics. Hence, investing resources to truly blend distinct classes into a new, cohesive whole, greater than the sum of its parts. With the 5e Druid/Monk thing, investing such resources may unlock "Wild Defense" that is even better than either component alone, or "Natural Ki" allowing conversion between wild shape uses and Ki points, or "Flurry of Claws" that lets you apply your Monk damage dice to your attacks while in animal form, or....

The narrative is, "I took two distinct traditions and found a way they could live in harmony, becoming something greater in the process." The mechanics are, "I learned two sets of powers, and built them up so they would stack additively or even multiplicatively." The two become one, because the player invested the resources and/or time and training to make these two things become one united thing.

However, sometimes choices that "make sense" actually hamper or hinder characters, and sometimes the best choice you can make is one that comes out of left field. While the GM can step in to make the former function, that doesn't necessarily mean that the GM should step in to police the latter- the player feels that their character is missing something, and I don't see a good reason to say to them "sorry, you can't do this because it doesn't make sense to me".

If you think I'm going to yuck a player's yum, I fear there's been some sort of massive miscommunication. I am nothing if not a diehard advocate for supporting and working with sincere player enthusiasm (meaning, not exploitative, abusive, or coercive), something I must have said a hundred times over the past few years. I have been accused of coddling my players, of handing them everything they ever wanted on a silver platter, of any number of serious and egregious failings as a GM. So I hope you see the irony, here, of now being accused of being a draconian jerk who vetoes perfectly good and reasonable player interests for light and transient reasons.

As long as it makes sense to them, that should be enough, at least that's how I think.

They are already getting something I am fairly confident is considered "against the rules," with the opportunity to get dramatically more, as in, literally me writing new rules with their input and approval to make their concept awesome, with the only cost being "invest some resources or do some roleplay that actually results in character growth, probably with a few reasonably challenging rolls along the way," explicitly moving at a pace quick enough that the player will (hopefully, RL permitting) get a good long time to enjoy their new, unique, synergized skills.

How is this in any way unfair to the players?

In discussions like these, I see a lot of people throwing around concepts like "unbalanced".

Given I am fairly sure you know that I care a lot about balance, I think it's worthy of note that I never used the word in this context. I did not even tangentially reference it. I assure you that that was intentional.

That's like saying a Barbarian shouldn't pick up a Shield because the durability boost of Rage is predicated upon poor Barbarian AC.

Not at all. The rules are quite clear that Barbarians can use shields and still benefit from Unarmored Defense, and Rage has no effect on that. Now, a Barbarian/Monk trying to argue that they should get Dex, Con, and Wis to AC and be able to wear a shield without issue? Well, we'd have to talk about that. Again, I would expect the player to put in resources or effort to make these things (which I know, for absolute certain, do not stack in 5e) actually combine together to offer the best of both worlds.

I have no problem with working with a player to develop something not in the rules. I have no problem with a player being utterly enthralled by a character concept that requires bending a few rules. But if that concept comes from trying to unite two distinct disciplines into one cohesive, better-than-the-sum-of-its-parts whole? I expect a bit of effort (or expenditure, if the player does not feel like making that effort) to do this. I don't think this is an unreasonable request. It has nothing to do with being a skeptic about player preferences, because I'm not one, I love the Rule of Cool and all those other things, I don't have the so-called "realism" hangups so many DMs have, I am eager to embrace my players' suggestions and interests. It is simply that I want to see a journey of discovery and learning that pays off, in reasonable time (meaning, fast enough to truly enjoy the results for a good long while, but slow enough that it feels like an actual journey, not an abrupt switch), to develop something new and potentially unique.

You mention wanting the player to be a hybrid of Monk and Druid; unfortunately the rules don't really support that sort of thing well. There's not enough synergy between the two paths; a Druid 10 is simply a better character than a Monk 5/Druid 5 (and quite probably a Monk 10 is better as well).

Yes....that was literally my point. I want to help the player create a hybrid that actually IS better than just Druid 10 or just Monk 10, because they earned it through investment and/or roleplay and challenges. I want them to be excited for the possibilities they have unlocked because they truly united Druid and Monk, rather than simply moving on from their quirky multiclass choice because it got them a nifty feature.

Rules give life to thematics if you use them well. Thematics give meaning to rules if you let them. The two are stronger together, but only if you (player and GM) work for it.

Ideally, we'd have a subclass along the lines of 3.5's Fist of the Forest

That is literally what I want to help the player create. Their work, their investment, is the tit-for-tat. My end is developing new rules which help realize their goals. No matter what system I run, that is what I will do (though some, e.g. 3.x, will be substantially more difficult than others.)

A Druid does not get very much use out of Martial Arts;

Yes. I'm aware. I want to fix that through both the player and me building something new and better.

Further, there is the loss of spells, which will be greatly felt when our Druid/Monk no longer has Wild Shape to work with, as he's now a poor Monk with the effective spell power of a Ranger! So imposing such a path on a character who just wanted better AC does not feel like a fair trade.

Then the player is, IMO, unserious about actually playing their character. They are simply chasing mechanical benefits without caring about what these choices mean, where they might lead, what new horizons await them. I find that incredibly boring. I would much rather draw out what the player truly cares about—which, I presume, is something like a magical, metamorphic martial arts guru and wise sage, as proficient with tooth and claw and talon as with staff and fist and spell—and bring that awesome concept to life, with rules that reward having sought it out.

If the player truly doesn't give a fig about that, I don't think they're going to be a good fit for my games. From where I'm sitting, they just...don't seem to care about the game as an experience, a story, a journey. It's just a pile of text bits that can be manipulated to spit out contextually large numbers. That's just...profoundly disappointing to me.

But that's just my opinion.

It's a hell of a lot more than that, but okay.

 

[Stalker0]

You can ask the same question for the defense fighting style and wildshape

 

[James Gasik]

You can ask the same question for the defense fighting style and wildshape

I think that style specifies you have to wear armor to use it, so that's a no go unless your Druid has some sort of barding/armor available for their animal form.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think that style specifies you have to wear armor to use it, so that's a no go unless your Druid has some sort of barding/armor available for their animal form.

How is that different? You are using the text of the rules to say that something doesn't fly.

 

[Kurotowa]

Wow, that's a lot of serious replies to an 8 year old thread that got necroed by a first time poster. You lot are way more dedicated than I am.