D&D (2024) New Wild Shape

[Stalker0]

You don't need to manually preserve the flavor, and that is the only difference between your version and the route they are taking.

I would argue that for some people you do.

I mean you could have all spellcasters have access to all spells, and then a "wizard" just picks the spells that wizardry, etc. And some people would prefer that model. But we do have to respect that some people like the idea of a "container" that flavorfully puts certain abilities together in a package, I mean this is why classes exist in the first place.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Traveler - Activated when hurt early in combat as a way to try and keep a concentration buff up while not taking additional damage

Is that solely by running away and not provoking opportunity attacks? Because otherwise I don't see how this lets you keep up a concentration spell. And a form whose main use is "I got hurt, but I kept my spell up, so I need to run away, so I'm going to use my action to transform" seems like it has to hit a lot of gates to get used.

Predator - Activated before combat in dangerous areas, likely will leave the form early in combat (bonus action)

How is this better before a combat than casting a battlefield control spell? And if you are planning on leaving it during combat, why go into it in the first place? Is the sole plan here for stealth and ambush tactics? Because... firstly, Pass without Trace, and secondly, you would rarely want to initiate combat from stealth unless the rest of the party was near.

Sure, for a stealth situation, this can be good, but I'm not sure this will see much use. I mean, attacking from stealth with a d8 isn't great, and 1d4 + poison condition could be good, but I'm not sure how it is better than hitting a group of enemies with a 1st turn entangle.

Scout - Out of Combat only

This is the main thing I want the druid to do, but I don't think 1 hp and no ability to attack is quite fun. I don't want them to have a lot of damage, but being able to do some damage means they can pull some tricks.

Sentinel - Activate in combat when trying to preserve spell slots or out of combat for group travel (horse, giant eagle, etc)

See, this is where my experience just runs counter to your design. As a druid, I never wanted to conserve spell slots. I had too many spell slots as it was. I can't imagine the scenario. Also, again, this takes your full action. You are spending an entire turn doing nothing but assuming this form. Mid-combat? The design of many classes and many abilities over 5e have shown us that using an action for a self-buff is undesirable by many many players. You need to be able to take an action that affects the battle now, not next turn.

Also, one of the things I honestly do love about the current One DnD Druid is that they can go large from 1st level. This allows them to do things like turn in an ox and pull a cart out of the mud, or other utility options that are just fun or travel related. I don't want to wait for level 5 for that, if I don't have to,

Goliath - Activate in combat when a large amount of control is desired, or to tank other huge monsters.

If you want control... you are a druid. Battlefield control is the only thing you are really good at as a caster. And sure, grabbing a huge monster in a grapple is fun, but... is that worth spending an entire action to set up? I don't think it is.

And this is the thing I keep butting up against with the idea of using wildshape effectively in combat. Either you give up casting your spells before the fight, you skip your first turn, or you skip your second turn. And nothing that would be balanced to take the form of as a bonus action, is worth skipping your turn to accomplish.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I would argue that for some people you do.

I mean you could have all spellcasters have access to all spells, and then a "wizard" just picks the spells that wizardry, etc. And some people would prefer that model. But we do have to respect that some people like the idea of a "container" that flavorfully puts certain abilities together in a package, I mean this is why classes exist in the first place.

This isn't about class design though. This isn't about types of spells.

You laid out three of your six options.

• a big four-legged creature, presumably for combat.
• a tiny creature like a spider or a mouse
• a horse or a deer for a fast animal.

I can guess since none of these fly, you want a flying form and since none swim, you want an aquatic form. That gives us 5 of your 6.


What if I want to turn into a large snake instead of a bear? What if I want to turn into an Ostrich instead of a horse? Are those fine? What if I want to be a giant centipede that can climb on walls and attack from above like a horror monster? The 4-legged creature likely doesn't have a climb speed, even though bears can climb, so what do I use? What if I want to have a tiny creature but it flies like a hummingbird, does it use the same statblock as a large flying eagle? You have a large bruiser, a large runner, tiny, flying and swimming, is your 6th a grappling creature? A poisonous creature? None of these have a burrowing speed, do we get a burrowing creature? What about a creature with a hard shell like a tortoise or a giant crab?

And I could keep asking, and we could end with 10 statblocks, and we still wouldn't have things divided quite right. And the entire thing, the entire thing that is causing this, is this idea that the generic blocks aren't accurate in depicting things. Bears are as fast as horses and that bothers people, but at the table, it isn't going to matter for a lot of people. And these templates are (mostly) fine. They are hitting the notes well enough. But once we open the door to "but we could get more specific" we are going to end up right back at the idea of just using the monster statblocks and limiting it by CR, because there are too many things people might want to do, that would deserve separate concepts.

 

[Enrahim2]

Also, one of the things I honestly do love about the current One DnD Druid is that they can go large from 1st level. This allows them to do things like turn in an ox and pull a cart out of the mud, or other utility options that are just fun or travel related. I don't want to wait for level 5 for that, if I don't have to,

This is however the kind of statements that do not sound well to non druid players. For one thing, how fun is it for the rest of the group, like that barbarian that could have gotten a moment to shine, rage draging the cart up instead - prooving they are good for other stuff than smashing things? Or the rogue devicing a rope contraption allowing the entire team to contribute with the dragging?

You gave a great example of a way shapechange can be used to solo an otherwise challenging situation. This is one of the main problems with druids that I think would be good to get addressed. Such trivialization is usually not fun at all for any but one at the table.

And not having the major cool feature becoming available before 5th level is par for the course. Imagine the fighter that think the most fun is to be able to dominate a round with a ridicolous number of attacks, or the arcane caster living and breathing for haste and fireballs. Why should the druid insist on getting their fun from the get go when those have to wait?

That being said, I think the rest of your points are really well made, which is why this particular paragraph stood out as problematic.

 

[Captain Panda]

I have been reading through this thread and get the funny feeling most of the people who think this is a great direction to go in are not the people who play Druids. People who play Druids, and it's my favorite class (perhaps tied with Wizard), do not like this change at all.

The fantasy of turning into a bear and rolling into the fray is what a Moon Druids do. In order to have that fantasy actually happen in play, that temporary health pool was necessary. A bulky bear is much more durable than a fragile elf druid, that's the point of transforming from a little elf into a big bear. Without the surge of extra health, you don't feel like a bear, you feel like a moron rushing into combat and getting a spanking.

Moon Druids are overtuned... at level 2. By the time you get to level 6, wild shape has already fallen off and the feature is pretty well balanced. You had a ton of disposable health, sure. You're also an animal, so your armor is paper and you're likely large or huge sized - so you're not only very easy to hit, you're easy to surround. You aren't exactly pumping out big numbers compared to anyone else after that initial spike of power. I don't think you'd find anyone who enjoys playing a Druid espousing the idea that it's totally fine stripping away that health buffer. If you don't think the Moon Druid, brawling bear fantasy should be a thing? Hey, that's your opinion, but it's about eight years too late for that. Right now they want to have some hollow ghost of the Moon Druid taking the place of what used to be an awesome, if poorly paced, subclass.

So the fantasy of rolling in as a bear is totally dead, but that isn't all. They also removed unique forms in the name of generic simplicity. I'm playing a Druid, I don't want generic simplicity. It's okay for some classes to be more complex than others, and I want to be able to choose between forms that actually feel different. Sure, a bear is the most optimal form, but I've really loved playing wolf themed Druids in the past, and Druids who lean into turning into creepy crawly things. As it stands, you just get the same largely useless block. Want to be a spider? No web, no poison. Want to be a giant snake? No consticting, no poison, no blindsight. Absolute garbage.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how anyone can think this change is good. Druids are the least played class, so the solution is to take away everything that makes them enjoyable to the people who play them? And I'm not just talking about the gutting of Wild Shape, they also stripped some important spells from the primal list and are very likely, given the direction they seem to be going, to also shank the best spells on the Druid list.

 

[Enrahim2]

I have been reading through this thread and get the funny feeling most of the people who think this is a great direction to go in are not the people who play Druids.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how anyone can think this change is good. Druids are the least played class, so the solution is to take away everything that makes them enjoyable to the people who play them?

Combine these two. The current Druid appear to be a narrow taste. As such any change from the exact formula is likely to disapoint those already playing it. If the goal is to give the druid broader appeal, it is exactly the reaction of players currently not playing druid you might want to look at..

That being said:

Noone I have seen appear to think the exact version of wildshape suggested is good. But it actually seem to be quite broad agreement that the general gist of getting away from exact animal statistics requiering MM to a more template based system make very much sense, despite the obvious issues of sacrificing thematic binding, and likely at least some reduction in versatility.

They definitely went too far in the name of simplicity, the question is where the golden middle road lies.

 

[Captain Panda]

Combine these two. The current Druid appear to be a narrow taste. As such any change from the exact formula is likely to disapoint those already playing it. If the goal is to give the druid broader appeal, it is exactly the reaction of players currently not playing druid you might want to look at..

So you think by annoying people who are enthusiastic about the class as it is they will capture broad appeal? I kind of doubt it, for a couple reasons.
1. Druids are still going to be more complicated than most classes. They're a full caster with a lot of complex features. They currently appeal to a specific subset of people. They're the least played class, sure, but in my experience the people who enjoy the class really love the class as it is. It's the least played class, sure, but some class is always going to be least played.
2. Generally speaking, taking a chainsaw to a key feature of a class does not strike me as something that is going to increase its popularity. They seem to be moving in the direction of carving large chunks off of the druid.
3. The flavor just isn't for everyone, and that's not changing. Not everyone wants to turn into a bear.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This is however the kind of statements that do not sound well to non druid players. For one thing, how fun is it for the rest of the group, like that barbarian that could have gotten a moment to shine, rage draging the cart up instead - prooving they are good for other stuff than smashing things? Or the rogue devicing a rope contraption allowing the entire team to contribute with the dragging?

You gave a great example of a way shapechange can be used to solo an otherwise challenging situation. This is one of the main problems with druids that I think would be good to get addressed. Such trivialization is usually not fun at all for any but one at the table.

Can you give me a single barbarian ability that actually improves their ability to do this better than the fighter or the paladin? Oh, Rage? Their only good combat ability that they get twice per day at low levels, used for the mere act of pulling a cart out of the mud?

I've played a barbarian, am playing one right now actually, and the bigger problem isn't that someone might step up and do the strong man stuff, it is that I can't effective due the strong man stuff better than just having athletics proficiency. Because if I do so, then I am making myself useless for combat.

But sure, the rogue might have a block and tackle, but so might an artificer, a bard, or a wizard. And they would ALSO be stepping on the barbarian's strong man toes, wouldn't they? What if the Cleric is a Goliath? What if the druid had taken mold earth as a cantrip and used that instead?

And this circles back to the thing I've said before. I want different classes to contribute to the same problem with different solutions. The Barbarian should be able to just lift the cart out of the mud with raw muscle. The Druid should be able to turn into an animal and drag it out. The intelligent characters should have options to use tools to do it. Magc characters should have magic solutions. We don't need niche protection, we need different solutions to look different. Especially because not every class is in every party. A 4-man band is only going to have one-third of all possible classes, which means there should be at least three or four classes able to fill each niche.

And not having the major cool feature becoming available before 5th level is par for the course. Imagine the fighter that think the most fun is to be able to dominate a round with a ridicolous number of attacks, or the arcane caster living and breathing for haste and fireballs. Why should the druid insist on getting their fun from the get go when those have to wait?

That being said, I think the rest of your points are really well made, which is why this particular paragraph stood out as problematic.

Is turning into a draft horse to pull a cart out of the mud really the major core defining feature of the druid? Is this what every Druid player dreams of, the day they can help a farmer with a stuck cart? No. It is a fun little utility ability that can be amusing.

And don't fighters get their iconic abilities at levels 1 and 2? Action surge and Second Wind? Sure, they get more attacks when it is balanced to do so, but it is actually monks who get the most attacks, and they get them by 2nd level. Sure, Wizards can fireball by level five, but they can shape combat with spells at level 1 with things like sleep, magic missiles, burning hands, Find Familiar.

No one else is waiting until level 5 for their core identity, and the Druid's core identity isn't even caught up in this idea of becoming a large beast. It is just an amusing option.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Okay, here is a thought to chew on.

Everyone keeps comparing the druid to the barbarian, but lets take that a step further, lets say that wildshape is like rage, in that it is a form you take to improve your abilities in combat.

So what if you kept your same HP, you lost AC, you could use your wisdom for a 1d8 attack... and you kept spellcasting. You turn into a bear who roars and grows plants around your foes, you turn into a spider who spits out a flaming orb that chases your foes.

Right now, with things as written in the playtest, what would be overpowered about letting the druid turn into an animal to get a 1d8 + wis weapon, and then also keeping their spellcasting?

 

[Enrahim2]

Okay, here is a thought to chew on.

Everyone keeps comparing the druid to the barbarian, but lets take that a step further, lets say that wildshape is like rage, in that it is a form you take to improve your abilities in combat.

So what if you kept your same HP, you lost AC, you could use your wisdom for a 1d8 attack... and you kept spellcasting. You turn into a bear who roars and grows plants around your foes, you turn into a spider who spits out a flaming orb that chases your foes.

Right now, with things as written in the playtest, what would be overpowered about letting the druid turn into an animal to get a 1d8 + wis weapon, and then also keeping their spellcasting?

I for one don't think it is overpowered. Let the shape act as a focus with respect to material components as well. I think it is consistent with flavor.

I think it is a bit sad to resort to this though. It would likely involve fully giving up on trying to replicate the playstyle of 5ed, and going into shape wouldn't signify a similarly fundamental change of state. But if that is what is needed to avoid a full blown new subsystem to replace the full access to all beast content created for DM purposes, then I guess it might be the lesser of two evils?