D&D 5E Mid- to high-level Wildshape [Moon Druids]

[Hawk Diesel]

[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] Sorry if I was unclear. I wasn't saying don't do it. But rather that if you do so, approach with caution. Obviously I don't know the style of your table or how you guys play (personally my tables run higher on the power scale and flexibility in how rules are used). But realistically, no creature statted out in the Monster Manual, Volo's Guide to Monsters, or monsters statted in the adventure modules were created to be used by the players. They were created specifically to represent a variety of ways to challenge the players. They are a tool for the DM. And as such, generally not appropriate to put in the hands of the player. That's not to say all monsters are not appropriate. But that was not the intent behind their design. And so giving access players to them, whether via wildshape, polymorph, shapechange, ect can lead to situations of abuse or otherwise unbalance that player's character in comparison to his/her companions. So if you just open this door, it may have unintended consequences, since you would need to account for things never designed or playtested with the player in mind outside of being an obstacle to them.

 

[Zardnaar]

Allow 3pp critters. I recommend the Tome of Beasts they can use polymorph to turn into Savagers and a CR13 Dinosaur. Let wildshape be there more for utility.

 

[CapnZapp]

[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] Sorry if I was unclear. I wasn't saying don't do it. But rather that if you do so, approach with caution.

Noted. As evidenced by this very thread ;-)

Now, do you have any specific advice for me?

I'm looking for things like "it might seem the grokka-mokka, a CR 8 Monstrosity, should be a decent wildshape form for a level 16 Druid, but watch out for its dancing on ice ability. It can wreck whole adventures all by itself, and really should be kept out of the hands of any non-epic party". That's a made-up example, by the way

Once reports like that start dropping in, I might conclude that no, it appears that my current line of thought doesn't work after all.

Of course, you and others might instead say, "just by looking at the Monster Manual low-INT monstrosities, I'd say go for it, as I can't immediately find any real gotchas - stuff that a level 16 party couldn't do anyway".

Cheers

 

[CapnZapp]

Allow 3pp critters. I recommend the Tome of Beasts they can use polymorph to turn into Savagers and a CR13 Dinosaur.

That would indeed be completely appropriate for jungle adventures in Chult.

However, I am loath to add 3PP content wholesale. Cherry-picking individual items myself as a DM, yes. Allowing a player to suck the OP sauce out of it, nope.

Let wildshape be there more for utility.

In that case, I would have thought beasts wouldn't add much more, past the CR 6 or so forms in the Monster Manual?

I mean, I haven't checked the ToB examples you cite, but isn't high-CR beasts just bigger sacks of hit points with nastier bites? (Honest question)

What intrigues me about Monstrosities is that they would reignite the player's curiosity about the wildshape ability - since these guys get stuff no ordinary beast can have.

I mean, after you gain the abilities of the four elementals, what else is there to be impressed by unless you add a whole new monster type?

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Ahh. Let me check. I haven't looked into it, but it would be interesting to look into.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

[MENTION=59848]Hawk Diesel[/MENTION]: Thank you but could you please point to specific examples?

That is, can you direct me to, for example, Monstrosities of CR 8 or below, with say Int 6 or lower, that would in your mind be unacceptably broken as wildshape forms for a Druid participating in a level 16 scenario, in a way that, say, an Earth or Air Elemental is not at level 10?

Official sources only, please.

I'm asking since I don't want to turn this discussion into a general "don't do this" thread. I am genuinely curious, however, about what specific abilities you are concerned about, and I remain open to shelving the entire idea if I see that it truly is a minefield best left untrodden.

The hydra gets 1 attack per head it has. Consider a party that farms heads by dealing damage to it to remove heads, then letting it regrow heads and then finally healing up to full before heading into combat. You could probably pretty easily get 10 attacks a turn considering it starts with 5 heads. Then you start applying buffs like crusader's mantle.

A gorgon has petrifying breath that recharges making it pretty spammable. These types of abilities are usually pretty high level for PCs and come at a significant resource cost. The chimera's breath is similarly basically free area damage.

Phase spider gives easy access into and out of the ethereal plane. Again, not impossible for PCs but typically not spammable.

Whether these are game breaking will ultimately be up to you.

 

[CapnZapp]

The hydra gets 1 attack per head it has. Consider a party that farms heads by dealing damage to it to remove heads, then letting it regrow heads and then finally healing up to full before heading into combat. You could probably pretty easily get 10 attacks a turn considering it starts with 5 heads. Then you start applying buffs like crusader's mantle.

A gorgon has petrifying breath that recharges making it pretty spammable. These types of abilities are usually pretty high level for PCs and come at a significant resource cost. The chimera's breath is similarly basically free area damage.

Phase spider gives easy access into and out of the ethereal plane. Again, not impossible for PCs but typically not spammable.

Whether these are game breaking will ultimately be up to you.

To us all, I'd say. Thank you.

10-head hydra: is this so much worse than what you can accomplish with summon monster spells? Yes ten +8 attacks are good stuff, but remember to deduct the high-level spell the Druid isn't casting. Good for taking out mooks, but since the attacks aren't magical, this won't touch level-appropriate BBEGs.

Gorgon: free petrification is of course nice, if a novelty. The save DC isn't high, and petrification is much worse for the heroes than for the monsters (that kind of won't care how they die).

Phase Spider: nice catch. Etherealness is a high level spell that is nearly made redundant here. (We'll assume a phase spider can carry at least one hero over to the twilight zone each trip, so the spell is slightly quicker). I might be tempted to lower the INT requirement to lower than 6 instead of 6 or lower

Good work - very useful.

As for the general analysis: remember the opportunity cost of not turning into an air or earth elemental, so apart from maybe Ethereal Jaunt, there aren't many abilities here that can't be given to a high level druid.

Maybe I should clarify: I'm not looking to make a wholesale change to the entire ruleset here. That is, I'm not saying we should let all druids wildshape into monstrosities. Before maybe level 12 it wouldn't be right, and isn't needed either. It's when the elemental forms are starting to get overused and stale it's time for something else to take us to level 18 and spellcasting beasts!

 

[Zardnaar]

That would indeed be completely appropriate for jungle adventures in Chult.

However, I am loath to add 3PP content wholesale. Cherry-picking individual items myself as a DM, yes. Allowing a player to suck the OP sauce out of it, nope.


In that case, I would have thought beasts wouldn't add much more, past the CR 6 or so forms in the Monster Manual?

I mean, I haven't checked the ToB examples you cite, but isn't high-CR beasts just bigger sacks of hit points with nastier bites? (Honest question)

What intrigues me about Monstrosities is that they would reignite the player's curiosity about the wildshape ability - since these guys get stuff no ordinary beast can have.

I mean, after you gain the abilities of the four elementals, what else is there to be impressed by unless you add a whole new monster type?

Well the Savager clocks in at CR 8 and is resistant to non magical attacks and is large. Its basically a Dire Bear on steroids. Same book has a lot more beast/dinosaurs with a lot of Fey and Egyptian themed stuff in in. The CR 13 thing is a dinosaur, I don't think the moon druids thing is supposed to scale that well.

You could also check out the Morph from EN5sider here. Its basically a souped up Moon Druid who can turn into other things but can't cast spells.

 

[CapnZapp]

The CR 13 thing is a dinosaur, I don't think the moon druids thing is supposed to scale that well.

Well, it's nice its there for when the druid becomes level 39... (That is, just because you add more beast forms doesn't mean the "third of the druid's level" restriction disappears)

In general I would say that from the perspective of writing this rule back in 2014(?), it is quite reasonable.

But when you've actually played the game for a while you realize that you can't compare the 4 CR or levels difference between a level 6 druid and the CR 2 forms she can assume on one hand, and the whopping 10 CR/levels difference between a level 15 druid and her CR 5 forms.

What is quite reasonable at low levels just becomes irrelevant at high. (The PHB writers do acknowledge this by allowing level 10 druids access to CR 5 elementals. At that exact spot, you gain access to "half your level" forms, even if it doesn't scale as you level up)

So my first thought was: what about changing the formula for high-level druids? That is, add the following line to the "Circle Forms" feature, PHB page 69:

Starting at 12th level, you can transform into a beast
with a challenge rating as high as your druid level
divided by 2, rounded down.

The next step was to realize that, by RAW, that would amount to very little, since there simply aren't many high CR beasts.

Which brings us to this thread!

If we keep refraining from discussing Dragons, I would say Monstrosities (or, specifically, the Monstrous Beast type that used to exist) would be the obvious next type to open up, after Beasts and Elementals.

So. If my initial question, "are you aware of any existing fan doc that does the work for me?" gets a negative answer, my next line of approach is:

Would you say a limit on Intelligence is a simple and elegant, yet functional, method of filtering away those Monstrosities that might not be suitably "beastly" for a Moon Druid?

 

[Zardnaar]

Well, it's nice its there for when the druid becomes level 39... (That is, just because you add more beast forms doesn't mean the "third of the druid's level" restriction disappears)

In general I would say that from the perspective of writing this rule back in 2014(?), it is quite reasonable.

But when you've actually played the game for a while you realize that you can't compare the 4 CR or levels difference between a level 6 druid and the CR 2 forms she can assume on one hand, and the whopping 10 CR/levels difference between a level 15 druid and her CR 5 forms.

What is quite reasonable at low levels just becomes irrelevant at high. (The PHB writers do acknowledge this by allowing level 10 druids access to CR 5 elementals. At that exact spot, you gain access to "half your level" forms, even if it doesn't scale as you level up)

So my first thought was: what about changing the formula for high-level druids? That is, add the following line to the "Circle Forms" feature, PHB page 69:

Starting at 12th level, you can transform into a beast
with a challenge rating as high as your druid level
divided by 2, rounded down.

The next step was to realize that, by RAW, that would amount to very little, since there simply aren't many high CR beasts.

Which brings us to this thread!

If we keep refraining from discussing Dragons, I would say Monstrosities (or, specifically, the Monstrous Beast type that used to exist) would be the obvious next type to open up, after Beasts and Elementals.

So. If my initial question, "are you aware of any existing fan doc that does the work for me?" gets a negative answer, my next line of approach is:

Would you say a limit on Intelligence is a simple and elegant, yet functional, method of filtering away those Monstrosities that might not be suitably "beastly" for a Moon Druid?

You can't wildshape into those critters but you can use Polymorph which is not bad mileage out of a level 4 spell.

Moon Druids decent level 2,6, 9 and 10 and usually not to based the the other levels. I kind of like it that the Land Druid is probably the better Druid at high levels as the Moon Druids shapes become less good.