Moon Druid Homebrew Redo

[Crioni]

Hey all, I've been really unsatisfied with the vanilla Moon Druid . . . OP at low levels, boring and dry at high levels. This is my attempt at completely reworking how the Moon Druid functions. Rather than shapeshifting into an actual MM animal with unique stat blocks and all, I'm instead having them keep their own stats, and gain certain buffs to melee, including Wis to Str/Dex and a Temp HP pool.

Attached is a word document giving the basic details and level up info. Constructive criticism appreciated! I should point out that I've made other homebrew changes to the basic 5e mechanics that result in all classes being a bit more powerful, so if this is a tiny bit OP, that's not an issue for me. But I'd love to hear suggestions for improvement!

Edit: I should note that the perk system is what I'm most focused on getting right at this time. More/less perk points, changing the perks themselves, etc.

 

[Crioni]

Just going to bump this once. I'd really love to hear some thoughtful feedback on this homebrew. I'm leaning towards removing the second Extra Attack feature, and moving Beast Spellcasting to level 20 (replacing it at level 18 with the doubled Temp HP pool). I also decided to make Wild Shape a full action, to offset the more potent Wild Shape features. Thoughts?

 

[Xeviat]

I will take a look at it tonight. It sounds like you're doing a bit of what I did in my own games. I haven't looked at it yet.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I kinda like it. It makes the druid's wildshape ability much easier to manage both as a player and DM. It doesn't require you to reference all the possible animals. Makes for less book-keeping, while keeping the wildshape ability versatile. But I do have a few critiques.

1) I think this should be a new way of doing wildshape, not just how the Circle Druid wildshapes. How might the "base" wildshape ability work and what would the Circle Druid get to mirror their enhanced ability over wildshape? I'm thinking perhaps Circle Druids would gain an extra couple of perk points, early access to perks, or both.

2) While the perks encompass a lot, there are some things missing that I might like to see. For example, the web attack from wildshaping into a giant spider, pack tactics of the wolf, the grappling ability of an octopus. It would be nice to see some of these abilities reflected in the perks. In addition, I don't see any perks that affect the senses as keen sight, keen hearing, or keen smell would.

3) I might start off all wildshapes with 2 points, and have access to perks related to proficiency and senses. All animals available for wildshaping seem to at least offer that.

4) I kinda like the Circle Druid's ability to turn into an elemental. Perhaps the Circle Druid could get access to their own unique perks related to the elemental abilities, and make them cost more than the normal abilities.

5) Rather than have Extra Attack, make multiattack a perk, and for each time it's taken it allows an additional attack, max 3. Something like that.

I really love this idea. I'm stealing it and modifying it for my own use.

 

[Xeviat]

Finally coming in and looking at it. I'm really fond of it. My own changes were similar to this, but your perk system is better than my "pick the creature, gain X" set up. Yours allows flexibility and creativity.

The only thing that I did differently than you, and I'm not sure which is better, was this: you gave a Bonus Action attack and then an Extra Attack; I gave Paladin's Smite at 6th level added to the Magic Weapon deal. This was to allow the druid to still use their spells offensively instead of just turning them into more and more HP.

I like that you're keeping the druid's own HP. I think the HP the moon druid gains is just too much.

 

[Kryx]

[MENTION=59848]Hawk Diesel[/MENTION] did you create your own version? I love the base.

I like the idea of multiattack being a perk as well as other minor things like scent being a choice between sight, smell, or hear.

To tie on to what Xeviat wrote you could allow the Bonus action to heal or smite (would be limited to once per turn).

 

[Crioni]

I like the ideas about multiattack as a perk and the senses. Very helpful!

In regards to the elemental wild shapes, I honestly hate that . . . Animals only for my druids. But that's personal preference. If you like my basic shell, knock yourself modifying it to your tastes as you see fit!

Also, I posted a new Sniper Rogue archetype that I'd love to get feedback on, if any of you are interested. Thanks guys!!

 

[Xeviat]

I'm glad to see this get bumped. I'm going to look at it some more and do some comparisons with the Land druid. The Land Druid gets those extra spell slots, so you'll want it to compare to that. Also, one will want it to be able to recreate some classic animals at reasonable levels.

One thing I'm going to look into are "wildshape disadvantages", basically a negative ability certain forms pick up to get an extra perk. It might make certain beasts easier to create.

I'm not sure multiattack needs to be a perk. I think it should be more automatic, based on the attack type you're getting when you wildshape (big single attack or two smaller attacks). It all depends on if you end up going with the bonus action smite (which I think is very important to allow the druid to still use their spellslots offensively) that I and Kryx support.

 

[Kryx]

After thinking it though the ability to use spells offensively directly steps on the toes of the Paladin and doesn't make much RP sense.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10oMeRVNt26eoC_i1ueWAN3lxDXZe2YkRzq7XxUWfZw4/edit was the direction I was heading a while ago. The key part being: "Additionally, when transforming you can choose to expend one spell slot to increase the challenge rating by half that spell level, rounded down."

I had some other rules about this being a combat wild shape that can be used once per short rest and not being able to transform for 1 round after being knocked out of wild shape, but I seem to have misplaced them.

I think a perk system would be rather difficult to balance. My problem with the default Moon Druid is it is just a bag of HP with no damage.