D&D 5E Mike Mearls Twitter Poll: "The druid gets one of the following: Spellcasting | Shapeshifting | Animal companions. Choose."

[mellored]

The thing about spells, is you can just add a shape-shifting spell.

Beastal Fury:
You gain 20 THP, grow claws that deal 1d8 damage, and can make 2 attacks. This spell ends when you run out of THP, or you end it as a bonus action.

Swarm Form:
When you are hit by an attack, you can turn into a swarm. While in swarm form you gain resistance to bludgoning, slashing, and piercing damage, and are vulnerable to damage that affects an area. (insert other swarm abilities).

Oak Form:
You turn into a trent.

Wolf Pack:
You and a number of allies upto your Wisdom modifier can turn into wolves....

ect...

 

[Lanliss]

The thing about spells, is you can just add a shape-shifting spell.

Beastal Fury:
You gain 20 THP, grow claws that deal 1d8 damage, and can make 2 attacks. This spell ends when you run out of THP, or you end it as a bonus action.

Swarm Form:
When you are hit by an attack, you can turn into a swarm. While in swarm form you gain resistance to bludgoning, slashing, and piercing damage, and are vulnerable to damage that affects an area. (insert other swarm abilities).

Oak Form:
You turn into a trent.

Wolf Pack:
You and a number of allies upto your Wisdom modifier can turn into wolves....

ect...

Thanks to a post on the last page, I now have a Warlock style Druid on my list of things to do. It will have invocations, of course, some of which will be bonuses like you have here. Also probably things like "You can now turn into Fiends as part of your shapeshifting ability."

Land druids will get some things like spells at-will, and land-based bonuses like an Arctic Druid getting resistance to cold. Only rough stages yet, but I am liking how these classes convert to the Warlock Chassis.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Another thing to remember too, from those of us who played back in 1e, is that Druids progressed at an extremely fast rate. 7th level (when you got shape change) was only 35000 xp. ..

And it was shapechange, not polymorph - all the abilities of the form assumed, not just appearance & movement - and made 7th+ level druids 'shapechangers,' essentially immune to polymorph other (OK, and some magic swords were +4 vs you instead of +1) ...

I guess, looking back at is, this is why I never saw Shapechange as some high level power.

Druids also got the first 3 spells levels by level 3. 3rd level 1e Druids were casting Call Lightning. Yeah.

Note, this progression was kept in 2e as well. (I had to look it up, and, yup, 35000 xp for 7th level).

The exp progression, but not the crazy 3rd-level-spells-at-third-level spell chart.

 

[HobbitFan]

I'm a little puzzled by why Mr. Mearls would be asking he question.

 

[cbwjm]

Could just be an idle question. Perhaps they were talking about the druid identity around the office and then decided to do a twitter poll. I voted for spellcasting. That seems more integral to the Druid identity in my opinion.

 

[steeldragons]

Steeldragons' KISS Druid.

HD: 8 + Con mod., + d8 + Con. mod. per level.
Armor: Light, Medium, Shields, none of which can be [predominantly] metal.
Weapons: Spear, Sickle, Scythe, Scimitar, Dagger/Knife, Staff, Club/Cudgel, Sling, Darts.
Profs
Tools: Herbalism Kit/Pouch.
Skills: per the PHB
Saves: Wisdom, Constitution.

1st level: Nature Magic: no cantrips, yes Ritual Casting, see Nature Magic spell list, add Wisdom modifier to your total number of castable spell levels (not number of spells) per long rest. Wisdom is your spell casting ability. Druidic focus per PHB. See Spell Progression below.
Element Resistance: +2 (or, I guess for 5e use "advantage") to saves vs. elemental damage: fire, cold, lightning.

Use ASI's per PHB as normal. If you want to use the subclass system, choose your Circle at 2nd level and gain Circle features a normal. Otherwise...

Druid Level...Spell level:1...2...3...4...5...6...7
1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2...-... -... -...-... -...-
2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3...-...-... -...-... -...-
3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3...1...-...-...-... -...-
4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3...2...-...-...-... -...-
5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4...2...1...-....-...-...-
6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4...3...2...-...-...-...-
7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4...3...2...1...-...-...-
8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4...3...3...2...-...-...-
9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5...4...3...2...1...-...-
10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5...4...3...3...2...-...-

[table="width: 500"]
[tr]
[td]1st level[/td]
[td]2nd level[/td]
[td]3rd level[/td]
[td]4th level[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Animal Form I[/td]
[td]Animal Friend I[/td]
[td]Animal Form II[/td]
[td]Animal Friend II[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Detect Magic[/td]
[td]Barkskin[/td]
[td]Call Lightning[/td]
[td]Conjure Woodland Beings[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Entangle[/td]
[td]Charm Person/Animal[/td]
[td]Dispel Magic[/td]
[td]Control Water[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Faerie Fire[/td]
[td]Cure Wounds[/td]
[td]Plant Growth[/td]
[td]Ice Storm[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Goodberry[/td]
[td]Gust of Wind[/td]
[td]Protection from Energy[/td]
[td]Stone Shape[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shillelagh[/td]
[td]Heat Metal[/td]
[td]Speak with Plants[/td]
[td]Wall of Fire[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Speak with Animals[/td]
[td]Woodshape[/td]
[td]Water Breathing[/td]
[td][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5th level[/td]
[td]6th level[/td]
[td]7th level[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Animal Form III[/td]
[td]Animal Friend III[/td]
[td]Animal Form IV[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Commune with Nature[/td]
[td]Find the Path[/td]
[td]Fire Storm[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Conjure Elemental[/td]
[td]Heal[/td]
[td]Plane Shift[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Reincarnate[/td]
[td]Move Earth[/td]
[td]Regenerate[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Scrying[/td]
[td]Wall of Thorns[/td]
[td][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Tree Stride[/td]
[td][/td]
[td][/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Animal Form I: small or medium animals, nothing with a fly speed or water breathing. AFII: add large size, can have fly speed and breathe water. AFIII: add huge size, including giant-size normal animals, and speaking/spellcasting in animal form. AFIV: add elemental versions.

Animal Friend I: befriend a small or medium normal creature(s), total CR can't exceed more than the druid's level at any given time. Friend II: add large animals, includes automatic fully understood two-way speech with the druid, and hostile creatures save vs. charmed. Friend III: Able to fully mentally command -or dominate hostiles, if necessary- animals totaling druid's level +wisdom mod.

 

[Dualazi]

The thing about spells, is you can just add a shape-shifting spell.

Beastal Fury:
You gain 20 THP, grow claws that deal 1d8 damage, and can make 2 attacks. This spell ends when you run out of THP, or you end it as a bonus action.

Swarm Form:
When you are hit by an attack, you can turn into a swarm. While in swarm form you gain resistance to bludgoning, slashing, and piercing damage, and are vulnerable to damage that affects an area. (insert other swarm abilities).

Oak Form:
You turn into a trent.

Wolf Pack:
You and a number of allies upto your Wisdom modifier can turn into wolves....

ect...

It’s worth noting that this opens up a whole ‘nother bucket of worms, because locking it into a spell effect has ramifications outside the description box. For one, now you have to address if it can be counterspelled or dispelled. Additional concerns include the components of the spell, its poach-ability from other classes (bard in particular), and scaling issues requiring either dozens of spells for each form/benchmark. I really think that the shape-shifting feature works best when it’s hard-baked into the class, it allows for more options in how it’s approached and makes it more protected in its niche.

I find it hard to accept any argument that presents all magic as the same 'thing'. There's hundreds of different spells with different affects, uses, and 'feel'. A druid spell-list should feel and play very differently from a wizard's or a cleric's (nature or otherwise).

If wizards had done a better job protecting exclusivity then this might be the case, but it is not at all as such in the present game. Many of the really desirable spells like dispel magic and lesser/greater restoration appear on multiple spell lists, domains and subclasses liberally dip into other classes lists, and you even have half casters like the paladin, ranger, EK and AT to water things down even more. Bless ceases to be a defining spell when tons of people can cast it. You yourself kind of allude to this when you bring up how a nature cleric and druid should play differently, but I don’t feel that they do, at least for where most people play the game (3-11).

 

[Ketser]

I picked spellcasting, but would have liked if there would have been an option of spellcasting and shapeshifting. For me druid is a wielder of nature magic that has evolved to be a wider concept than just a celtic priest, encompassing a lot of similar pagan, animistic or shamanistic concepts and ideas (to be honest a lot players in my groups pretty much equate druids and shamans). Shifting to animal forms is for me a part of the nature magic idea, but i would prefer it to be a separate mechanic, with there being subclasses that focus on shifting and subclasses that focus on casting.

Not a fan of the animal companion as a part of the druid class. i could see some sort of spirit animal guide/assistant subclass, but i think the companion works better as a ranger mechanic.

Although D2, WC3 and WoW have had their influence in druid class, i wouldn't say that those games are the only reason shape-shifting has become a main thing in the druid class. A lot of players, especially new ones tends to be interested in the class because of this feature. To be honest i feel that the latter might be a far more important factor than whatever Blizzard and any other video game company has done with the class/concept.

 

[HermanTheWize]

So I don't know why people think they are going to take away spell casting from Druids.

Did you guys ever think this was just for a UA or Subclass and they wanted to focus on 1 of the 3....

Sent from my SM-G930V using EN World mobile app

 

[Ratskinner]

I figure shapeshifting is fine. Makes the class unique. If you want a nature priest, make a nature priest. Now, what I'd really like is for them to go ahead and use the spell mechanics to contain the shapeshifting, not create some wide-ranging loosely-defined balance-flaunting special abilities that grind the table to a halt.

My $.02.

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