D&D 5E Moon Circle Druid Play Report

[bleezy]

Yeah, I think you're doing something wrong there. For starters, a Druid at 2nd level would have around 17 hit points (8+5+4 for a 14 CON). He turns into a Brown Bear with 34 HP. A brown bear has an 11 AC, so the Hill Giant will hit it on a 3+. This is an 85% to hit, and the Druid itself likely has only around a 13 or 14 armor class, so after transforming the Hill Giant will hit 75% of the time. So the druid changes, the Hill giant deals an average of 30 damage. This will bring the Druid down to 4 hit points in his bear form. On the next round, the druid will die, because the Hill giant will deal another 28 damage on average. The first 4 will be to the bear form, and the last 24 will be to the druid himself, killing him instantly. Either you're underestimating the amount of help the wizard did, not taking into account that a Hill Giant with 70 hp would have far less experience, or something with the math was wrong at some point.

I don't remember the exact combat sequence and I don't have my books with me but I don't think any serious rules errors were made. The fight went something like this:

1.Party surprises giant and wins initiative, getting two rounds worth of attacks in.
2.Giant hits once and misses once. (lucky druid)
3.Another round of attacks on the giant, druid gains hp from combat wildshape.
4.Giant hits once, turns druid back to human form, misses (druid has 16 or 17 AC, i think, due to shield studded leather and dex)
5.Druid morphs back into bear (bonus action) so both characters can still make a round of attacks on the giant.
6.Giant hits druid twice, changing him back to human form and then severely injuring him.
7.Druid hits giant with Shillelagh, wizard casts sleep and rolls 20+, putting the giant to sleep.

The party got very lucky, but I think it was pretty legit. They did get a nice crit against the giant at one point. But I still rolled all the dice in front of the players, tracked human and bear HP separately, and no one had any magic items or even feats.

It was definitely a monster I expected the players to entangle and run from, not turn to fight. The wizard was useful, but the druid's ability to absorb massive damage was clearly the party's saving grace. At 3rd and 4th level, the druid has still been good, but his power seems more appropriate for these levels.

 

[Stalker0]

that's what we keep trying to say, and why white room theory crafting is a horrible tool to use in analysis in an RPG.

Theorycrafting in a vacuum is absolutely a problem, I would agree. Mainly because the models used are so limited compared to the variety of things that can happen in a real RPG scenario.

That said, they are not useless. One thing they can help with is remove some of the player bias from Real World accounts. Its easy for someone to get critted twice in a combat and come away saying "this class is aweful!". Or for a class to get a lucky roll with that d12 and look like a damage machine. Our initial accounts can so color our assessments, that raw theory-crafting can bring in some balance.


Again, just looking at the numbers I've done, I've come away with a few conclusions:

1) A druid with combat wildshape looks like it can be very strong in combat at low levels. It can beat the barbarian both in damage and in durability but a good margin.
2) Without wildshape and just spells, the druid can do okay in combat...in the ballgame with the barbarian.
3) Wildshape provides the Druid a lot of flexibility.
4) In campaigns with frequent short rest (which I would not consider an anomaly, but certainty not how all campaigns are run), the druid has the potential to be OP at low levels.

So just potentials, but strong potentials. My theorycrafting tells me as a DM that I should "watch a moon druid very carefully in a low level game". It doesn't necessarily mean "nerf outright", but there is enough concern in the numbers to pay close attention.

 

[SilverfireSage]

I posted that barb vs druid comparison that you asked for. Again, its a rough shot, but the druid was able to hold their own with their spells vs a rageless barb.

Yup, a good analysis and I very much enjoyed reading it.

While true that the Druid can lose their wildshape pretty quickly, I think that's fair to say of any class. Most classes are going to want to rest if given the chance. The druid for wildshapes, the barb to recover his health.

I'm still not sold on classes that rely on being able to rest for an hour numerous times in a dungeon, but it does make them a bit more powerful overall than someone with only daily abilities.

One error in your statement above, Druids can benefit from spells cast on them before wildshaping. The book even mentions that you can keep using call lightning while in beast form.

True, but that's only one spell. I don't think there are any other spells that would work in that case, although looking at Barkskin it seems that that may stack, which would make that spell ridiculously more powerful.

Over what levels have you been dming that druid? From what I'm gathering, the issue is strictly in the 2-6ish range. So far, everything I have heard past that point says its much more balanced.

So far 9-12. And yeah, I haven't had any issues with balance with any of the characters so far. It does seem that at the extreme levels there are some classes that are more powerful than others, but in the middle it seems to be much better.

 

[Authweight]

no Authweight, you are objectively incorrect. If a class can do something without any limitations, and another class can do that same thing with a bonus, but is limited by a lot of other factors, that second class is not objectively better. It's only situational. You simply cannot make that conclusion with any sort of credibility when you're ignoring or not accounting for all of the in-game factors that implement said limitations.

that's what we keep trying to say, and why white room theory crafting is a horrible tool to use in analysis in an RPG.

I agree that the druid's strength is situational. There are certainly times where it is better to be a fighter than a moon circle Druid. However, I think that, at least in my games, those situations are much rarer than the situations in which the Druid makes the fighter (and everyone else in the party) look like a joke.

Like I said, it mostly revolves around how often you're taking short rests and how often you need to revert to regular form. If you figure on getting 1-2 short rests per day, follow the DM guidelines of 8-9 encounters per day, and figure that the Druid can typically squeeze two encounters out of a wild shape usage, then the Druid looks really, really good. If you have 0-1 short rests per day, fight 12 encounters each day, and the Druid is only getting to keep wild shape going for one encounter at a time, then wild shape is dramatically weaker, although IMO still pretty strong when used well (plus your warlock may be sad about the lack of short rests). My games typically look closer to the first scenario than the second - I want to let short-rest characters get their powers back at least once a day, and I like pushing encounters on them back-to-back to keep the pressure up.

You are right that simplified math models don't tell the whole story. But they tell a part of the story. In this case, they tell us that the Druid, when he becomes an animal, becomes extremely powerful in terms of both damage soaking and damage output. There are drawbacks, yes, but I do not feel they come even close to matching the advantages a bear or direwolf's form brings to the table in most circumstances.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

My concern is that the druid seems to outperform the fighter at what the fighter does best. Sure, the fighter can do it more often (if he has healing support), but the druid is so much better than the fighter that he is at worst equal to the fighter in the fighter's own thing, and more realistically--he's better.

Then the druid has a suite of other sweet abilities, while the fighter has...nothing.

I'm not a caster-hater, balance nazi, or combat-fixated player, and I think that the other classes look really well balanced (including the warriors and spellcasters), but even I can see a major problem here, at least at the specified levels.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

(Duplicate)

 

[Cannyjiggit]

One thing I've noticed reading this as an impartial observer is that parts of the ability are getting mixed up. The concern is about levels 2-6 but then people are talking about changing to a hawk or other bird. According to the PHB, the druid can't become a creature with a flying speed until level 8 so that part can be left out of the discussions.

One thing I will say as a DM is that if a particular something (player, class, race or some particular rule) is causing problems in the dynamic of your game then consider whether you can change the dynamic. If the moon druid in bear form is overpowering the evil Warlocks armoured minions then maybe he and his spellcasting minions would target the big bear thats tearing their defence apart as a priority. Create situations where the druid sneaking around as a rat (or performing in some other key utility role) will give the rest of the party a huge advantage - these types that foster teamwork are very useful, the druid (or whoever performs the key utility role) gets to feel and know that the encounter would have been much harder if not impossible without him but the rest of the party feels like they did the work.

 

[Authweight]

One thing I've noticed reading this as an impartial observer is that parts of the ability are getting mixed up. The concern is about levels 2-6 but then people are talking about changing to a hawk or other bird. According to the PHB, the druid can't become a creature with a flying speed until level 8 so that part can be left out of the discussions.

One thing I will say as a DM is that if a particular something (player, class, race or some particular rule) is causing problems in the dynamic of your game then consider whether you can change the dynamic. If the moon druid in bear form is overpowering the evil Warlocks armoured minions then maybe he and his spellcasting minions would target the big bear thats tearing their defence apart as a priority. Create situations where the druid sneaking around as a rat (or performing in some other key utility role) will give the rest of the party a huge advantage - these types that foster teamwork are very useful, the druid (or whoever performs the key utility role) gets to feel and know that the encounter would have been much harder if not impossible without him but the rest of the party feels like they did the work.

I think this is good advice on how to work around the problem as a DM. This works especially well if the player essentially agrees to "play ball" with the DM and use their ability in suboptimal ways to keep the game from breaking.

 

[Pickles JG]

The druid (qua wildshape combat monster) is obviously relatively more powerful at level 3 6 9 etc. rather than 5, 8, 11 as his shapes do not improve while other people's combat potential does.

Level 2 is a special super outlier as he gets level 3 shapes, already strong, while the other PCs are at level 2 which is very weak.

I suspect WotC just wanted to avoid a special exception rule for level 2 & were happy to live with the awry balance (characters are not balanced at every level but over a range of levels they are pretty good as different characters get bigger or smaller boosts each level).

I prenerfed the druid at level 2 (to CR 1/2 shapes) & can live with his super tankiness at other levels (if he soaks 68 damage then probably 1/3 or more of that would have been soaked by a fighter by missing his AC or by a barbarian halving it (& being missed).
I feel moon druids are noticeably stronger than land ones though.

I am not sure Moon Druids are there there but something can still be broken no matter how much Kool Aid the believers wish to swallow.

 

[Lrdroland]

Nothing said has made me think that at one level out of twenty that there needs to be a change. Second level is one of the shortest levels and see no reason to make any changes as this balances itself out. Yes the first time a Moon Druid shifts to a Brown Bear will surprise everyone but it gets weaker and weaker as the levels go on. I don't think this breaks the game at all unless you keep your players at lvl 2 forever.