D&D 5E Druid 20 = Infinite Hit Points

[TwoSix]

"Once per Short Rest, the designers will come to your house, kiss your sister, eat all of your mother's cookies, kick your dog, duct tape you to the wall and force you to watch Gigli from the excruciating beginning to the godawful end. No save."

That would actually be kind of nice...my sister HAS been lonely lately.

Gigli, on the other hand, is beyond the pale.

 

[bganon]

"
7. "Even if you are immortal, that makes no difference if you are just standing there taking hits and doing nothing"
8. "It's just a PvP problem"

I think you're misunderstanding the argument here. If the moondruid is powerful because she has infinite HP and 9th-level spells, then is the problem with the HP or the spells? And when considering how the moondruid does against monsters, it's not about whether the moondruid "wins" or not, it's about how well the moondruid contributes compared to other classes.

And I haven't studied the spell lists in huge detail, but the Druid's list does not particularly impress me compared to the Cleric's or Wizard's. It's not clear to me whether I would rather have an invincible druid or a "mortal" cleric 20 or wizard 20 in the party. And if it's not clear, that suggests to me that maybe the infinite hp is not such a big deal.

 

[Manbearcat]

Gigli, on the other hand, is beyond the pale.

Consider this. In a couple of years, Supes is going to turn to a grizzled caped crusader and say "...who are you?..." The specter, clad in cowl as dark as (k)night, will grimly reply "...I'm that dude from Gigli."

The world is not ready.

 

[Wrathamon]

How many people play to 20 and then continue playing at 20th? How many more adventurers/ encounters are you going to have after hitting 20? Curious, I have only been in a couple campaigns that reached max level and we normally only had 1 or at most 3 sessions after hitting max (after 25+ years if playing).

How many people do PVP player arena in their games? Do you always brawl at lvl 20? DMs normally don't let this sort of thing happen in the games I have played. Only once did I do an arena where players had to fight each other and that was mid level.

As a DM, I think both of these issues are solvable, but I get in organized play it might be an issue. This isnt a video game, if its a problem you can change it. And, I think the designers are looking at it from that perspective as well. If something looks abuse able, it's up to the DM to say stop it. A lot of people don't like that answer. I use to be one of them, I am embracing change.

 

[sithramir]

How many people play to 20 and then continue playing at 20th? How many more adventurers/ encounters are you going to have after hitting 20? Curious, I have only been in a couple campaigns that reached max level and we normally only had 1 or at most 3 sessions after hitting max (after 25+ years if playing).

How many people do PVP player arena in their games? Do you always brawl at lvl 20? DMs normally don't let this sort of thing happen in the games I have played. Only once did I do an arena where players had to fight each other and that was mid level.

As a DM, I think both of these issues are solvable, but I get in organized play it might be an issue. This isnt a video game, if its a problem you can change it. And, I think the designers are looking at it from that perspective as well. If something looks abuse able, it's up to the DM to say stop it. A lot of people don't like that answer. I use to be one of them, I am embracing change.

I kind of feel one of the biggest problems in most of the editions was that the higher levels weren't really playable without a lot of tweaking or avoiding "abusive" spells and powers. I love higher level play because you can have much more "epic" concepts like traveling the planes and fighting truly horrific monsters.

But it always was impossible to balance right. The fighter would kill anything in one shot if they had a full round in front of it, or the wizard had some spell that just totally obliterated things, etc. I just think that people would get to those higher levels and realize it didn't work out well for all parties.

My hope with 5E was that these limits on stats, etc would make it more possible for people to play higher levels and not just "start over" because it got crazy. Do you feel that might attribute why you didn't see a lot of those higher levels? My hope was that you'd see more higher level campaigns because it might actually work within the basic rules?

I guess i'd expect more people like me who love casters to want to play higher levels to get to see those cool spells. I'd be fine if the broken spells were tweaked to be reasonable, etc.

The point of this post I think is that this power seems a bit broken. It might take away some "fun" for players to have a nearly unkillable character. Heck it might be the least fun for the Druid to realize he's rarely going to be "challenged". Wizards are powerful but when your defensive spells fail and that BBEG is charging you shaking off some of your best spells it kind of makes that experience fun that you still able to be "scared".

I don't feel the Wildshape is the most crazy thing but it definitely is disappointing that such a huge "jump" happens at 20 for people who might want to play EPIC levels.

 

[Vowtz]

I think you're misunderstanding the argument here. If the moondruid is powerful because she has infinite HP and 9th-level spells, then is the problem with the HP or the spells? And when considering how the moondruid does against monsters, it's not about whether the moondruid "wins" or not, it's about how well the moondruid contributes compared to other classes.

And I haven't studied the spell lists in huge detail, but the Druid's list does not particularly impress me compared to the Cleric's or Wizard's. It's not clear to me whether I would rather have an invincible druid or a "mortal" cleric 20 or wizard 20 in the party. And if it's not clear, that suggests to me that maybe the infinite hp is not such a big deal.

As this thread title suggests, the problem is his infinite Hit Points.

I was introduced to two examples of monsters, Tarrasque and Pit Fiend, that are suposed to be very strong, but both seem to have a great difficulty / zero chance to win against moondruid.

10. Is the ArchMoonDruid absolutely invincible?

Most certainly not, he is vulnerable to some things, but is invincible to a lot of challenges that should pose a threat.

But I understand your point, you don't care that an unoptmized level 20 druid can ignore the almight rage of two barbarian warlords at the same time without spending any resource.

My opinion is different, it's normal for people to disagree.

 

[drjones]

Shall we update the thread title to Druid 20 = Something I Have An Opinion About

 

[MightyZehir]

I really don't see the problem anymore. It is obvious that the druid must switch to druid form to shift to another form, requiring an extra round. Problem solved

But the RAW allows you to shift from one form to another. Under wildshape, there is a paragraph that states you retain the benefit of any features from your class(which includes wildshape), race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so.

 

[daddystabz]

How would you place your point spread for the Adventurers League for your ability scores as a Human (variant build)? I put the 15 into Wisdom and the 14 into Constitution. Now sure how I want to do the rest as a Circle of the Moon Druid.

 

[bleezy]

The mammoth and the earth elemental both have 126 HP, the air elemental (the druid's best flying form) has 90 HP. So the druid has a 130 HP/round buffer on the ground and 90 in the air.

The ancient red dragon (CR 24) can do about 90 points of damage per round, maybe 100 in its lair. That won't make for a very dramatic fight. I don't necessarily have a problem with a 20th level character single-handedly killing a monster of that caliber, but it should at least pose some level of threat, right?

If my campaign ever got to that point I would probably rule that the druid couldn't return to any form more than once per long rest. (but once per rest let the druid return to only one form a second time, so that the archdruid ability is never worse than the basic wildshape)

For example the druid could go mammoth, mammoth again, earth elemental, air elemental, water elemental, fire elemental, and then on to lower HP forms. (because he already used mammoth twice, he can only use forms once from then on). Naturally I would assume that there would be an infinite number of birds, fish, rodents, etc. that a druid could turn into. I think that's a great solution that still gives the druid the awesome ability that was intended without the oversight of near infinite HP.