D&D (2024) New Wild Shape

[Chaosmancer]

Sorry, but it needed nerfing it to the ground...

But some THP are totally warranted. You can easily get them by barkskin though.
Maybe moon druid should allow casting self transmutations in beast form. And give some bonus to keep concentrating.

Did it? Was anyone anywhere talking about how Land Druids were the most OP class? Or Spore Druids were top tier? Even when Treantmonk did his big "rank all the classes against each other and all Casters get super high ratings" most druids were ranked B or C, with the only two exceptions being Moon and Shepherd. Shepherd, who focused on summonig spells which are generally problematic with the action economy and Moon which every agrees was VERY strong early game, meh mid game, and very strong to unkillable late game.

And most of the problematic parts for me on the Druid Wildshaping? They apply to all Druids. They nerfed ALL druids, not just Moon. And I'm not sure all druids needed a nerf like this.

 

[mellored]

And for reference.

A druid or cleric with shield and Shillelagh, no shape shifting.
17 AC, 15 HP.

9*0.4 = 3.6
15 / 3.6 = 4.1

So wild shape (-4 AC, double HP) gives you 2 more rounds of tanking, or 50% more than a baseline.

 

[Enrahim2]

OB1 has the best ideas I've seen on how to make it work re: Wild Shape.

I love his ideas, but I don't think they would work as official rules. The problem is that there are no straight forward way to rule it so that it has to make sense. Hence the flying stealthy poison biting pig is going to be a thing at too many tables that isnt really into that sort of nonsense.

The Druid design is remarkable because every single other design change they've made has been conservative and highly compatible with previous editions, including the Paladin right here in the same packet.

Whereas the Druid is overall a massive nerf to a class that was only "about as good" overall as other Full casters (all things considered, assuming equally good subclasses), esp. given they'd already nerfed the dodgiest thing about it (Goodberry), and a huge change to how the class plays in a very real way. Given the Bard and Cleric weren't nerfed in any meaningful ways (just a couple of dodgy spells), and even arguably buffed (Clerics at least), I don't think we can see this as any kind of trend, which otherwise would have been interesting.

The weird thing is that it isn't actually a huge rework. They absolutely need to remove the MM dependency. They tried with D&D Next to limit the forms, but that got down voted from my understanding. Then they are instead now trying to limit the stats. This approach already seem to be somewhat accepted with familiars.

This single change ties strongly into the two other primary changes. For one thing instead of a problematical scaling weird temporary hit points they move the durability to healing and abdurations. This also give the druid something to use their spell slots on. I think this is the idea that allow them to still be considered tanky. However it significantly nerf their damage output - but this might be a good thing considering the barbarian overlap.

And if they are going with single stat block, restricting tiny sort of falls out as a natural thing to do. After all a first level rat doing same damage as the lion form seem too ridiculous. At 11th level the crazy power levels at play make it more sensible. It also kills two birds with one stone, in that it gets the druid off rogue turf. (Also added familiar to balance this?)

I other words there are in one way only one core change to the class: change to template statblock rather than MM. You still have almost all rp forms available, you still are full spellcaster, you still have a way to be tanky. It is a massive nerf to certain ways to play the druid, but it is not quite as obviously a nerf to the "best"/intended way to play the druid.

And in one way the change is about as conservative as it can get if you accept the premise that the MM need to go. The argument might rather be then that it is too conservative, that there need to be something fully new concept added to the class beyond abduration/healing casting while in beast shape to balance out the effects of that change.

It's been pointed out online that the biggest beneficiary of the Druid changes would be the 3D VTT. I know there's supposedly no direct influence between the teams, but the designers aren't idiots, so they'll have some understanding of what will work for it. Doing Wild Shape the 5E way would be something of a nightmare for the 3D VTT (even BG3 has it limited a ton, albeit in slightly confused ways).

I don't think VTT is a strong argument here. Draging out the right statblock from a compendium would be the easy part in vtt, and also potentially fuel monster mkcrotransactions to players. Aproperiate minis for the chosen form is the main pain point for a vtt, and that just got worse now that the form is not even limited to what there are monster stats for..

I will say I think being mad is a valid reaction to something in a playtest - as long as you tell them! They're not reading our detailed solutions/suggestions (there's literally no way, given the number of surveys), just our numbers - and I know a bunch of people are just mindlessly positive about virtually everything, so the clarity of "I hate this" is helpful. There was a game designer on Twitter actually pointing this out - saying "Don't just quit the playtest when you hate something, tell them! It helps!".

Yes, definitely write feedback! I'll abstain from sharing my thoughts regarding the virtues and flaws of anger under various circumstances.

 

[Chaosmancer]

How do we make that more reasonable at levels 3-4 without totally breaking the class fantasy that a lot of players have developed over a decade? Can we come up with a generic wild shape that still lets them tank, but a little less effectively than barbarian/fighter/paladin rather than more? And can we give them access to some of the flexibility that allows so much fun, imaginative play without removing almost all of it?

Edit: the bark skin suggestion, assuming the druid is using the new version of bark skin, allows him to live just 3-4 rounds or so against that orc, with a good chance of being one shotted if it crits. It's gonna take a lot more than that to make the druid a viable, if slightly inferior tank!

I think it would be entirely fair to make the Moon Druid an effective shapeshifting tank, and the other druids have other focuses.

And actually... would that be that difficult? Consider.

1) Let Druids shapeshift to be tiny, at level 1 this is great stealth, but druids can turn into everything from spiders to squirrels to draft horses at level 1.

2) Remove the level 5 ability and give multi-attack to the Moon Druid at level 6 alongside the Elemental resistance.

3) Allow Druids to Gain Temp Hp when shifting, equal to wisdom mod. Moon Druid gains equal to mod+level x2

4) Shift the Aquatic form to level 3, and allow land form to climb, flying form to level 5.

5) Have the Damage dice increase with level. Land tops at 1d12+wis, Sea at 1d10+wis, and Air at 1d8+wis

6) Give new abilities to fill in old spots, and give the Druids more versatility in concept.


So, with this, Wildshape is a utility feature for most Druids. Land Druids and such can turn into animals, get a little hp, but it isn't their combat move. They can use it in combat, but it isn't terribly effective (action to activate, only as good as a cantrip in terms of damage, little bit of temp hp). Moon druids at level 3 get a big boost to temp hp, can shift as a bonus action, and quickly get a multi-attack like melee characters. Keep the minor casting of abjuration spells, and you have a Druid who is a melee combatant as their subclass focus.

This... isn't terrible to my eyes. I'd still take Blossoms and improve it, and I guess the Familiar is fine but this would solve a lot of issues for me.

 

[mellored]

Eh, I'm not convinced. Yes, it isn't the final version, but they thought this was what people wanted. And I don't get why.

Honestly, i think they may have just made a mistake.

Using a generic stat block was the basic idea. And I haven't heard anyone say they like digging though the monster manual.

But the mistake I think they made was changing the HP rules. I could see if one revision still used the old HP rules, where you got extra HP, then someone else said "let's not track 2 things" and then they forget to rebalance it.

Given the recent events, I'm sure this isn't their best work. Just make sure to leave feedback so they can fix it.

 

[Clint_L]

There are numbers between +81 HP of the previous versions, and the -5 AC that the playtest gets.

Lets do the math
using your +5 to hit, 9 damage orc.
And considering the others last 8 to 10 rounds.
Then let's say the target for the druid is 6 rounds of being orc bait.

I'll leave the low AC of 13 (10 + Wis), cause I like the flavor. So 60% hit rate. I think you ignored crits so I will too.

9*.6 = 5.4 DPR
* 6 rounds = 32.4

L2 Druid comes with 15 HP.
= 17 more. Or roughly double.

So... gain THP equal to your max HP?

Need go check other levels to confirm that if that scales appropriately, but trading AC for THP seems good to me.


Also, concentration will fail.

I like where you are going, though I would suggest 5HP/level, which is less, but the druid could drop wild shape and then use it again if needed, bringing them back up to the target survivability. Also, this tracks nicely against the paladin's lay on hands.

Again, my goal here is to make wild shape tanking viable but not as good as main tanks, since the druid get a lot more options.

So I would add basically a generic tank form for druids that adds 5 hp/level when they wild shape.

I would also add a tiny form at level 3, with the limitation that they are immediately knocked out of wild shape if they take any damage, and they can only attack for 1 hp, and they have an effective strength of 3.

Plus, I love the idea of them being able to give up a spell slot to add extra powers to wild shape.

 

[mellored]

I like where you are going, though I would suggest 5HP/level, which is less, but the druid could drop wild shape and then use it again if needed, bringing back up to the target survivability. Also, this track nicely against the paladin's lay on hands.

5HP on a Paladin with 18 AC is worth a lot more than 5THP on a 13 AC wild shape.

But fair point about this being a short rest thing. If I used it 3x per day, that's 15 THP.

So yea, that tracks nicely.

I would also add a tiny form at level 3, with the limitation that they are immediately knocked out of wild shape if they take any damage, and they can only attack for 1 hp, and they have an effective strength of 3.

Plus, I love the idea of them being able to give up a spell slot to add extra powers to wild shape.

Definitely. Wild Shape need to keep some versatility. I don't want to lose giant frog, even if I have to spend a slot on it.

Also, spending a level 9 slot to become Godzilla sounds really fun.

 

[Enrahim2]

But the mistake I think they made was changing the HP rules. I could see if one revision still used the old HP rules, where you got extra HP, then someone else said "let's not track 2 things" and then they forget to rebalance it.

I think they also struggled with how to handle the fact that in 5ed hp gain scales heavily with available CR, so what hp to put on the statblock was a hard choice. One thing I found weird was that the statblock do not scale at all (beyond some added abilities by level). This make me think this was a deliberate design goal to have a simple single stat block. But that wouldn't be backwards compatible for HP. Not having to track your own and shape hp separately as you mention is also neat, and is also an argument against temporary hp.

The question is how the added abduration/healing during wild shape balances with the past hp gain, as that appear to have been their replacement strategy. Have anyone here done any serious calculation on that? Anyway such a replacement clearly weakens the offensive power of the shape change, so the question is if this is intentional, or was did they actually do the mistake of not thinking about that?

 

[mellored]

Have anyone here done any serious calculation on that?

Yes.

5/THP per level, with the 10+Wis AC, is good enough to be an off-tank. Better than a cleric, but worse than a fighter/barbarian/paladin.

 

[Clint_L]

Okay having solved that problem...can we discuss how underwhelming the new elemental forms are?

I'm just gonna put this out there: I think they should keep the elemental transformation as is. Unlike regular wild shape, it doesn't add a ton of complexity: there are four options, and they are all next to each other in the MM. It's pretty powerful, but not if you move it back to level 9. And it's fun.

Or, it needs a bit of a nerf, make it similar to wild shape, so that you add temp hit points, but also give this one some extra damage of the appropriate element, resistance, and a related minor effect for flavour:

Example: elemental air - your beast takes on aspects of a whirlwind. Add 3 THP/level and resistance to thunder, plus your attacks each deal an extra 1d6 thunder damage and your target must make a str saving throw or be knocked back 10'.

Something like that.