My only critique off hand would be making Keen Senses 2 points. Maybe I just estimate blindsense a lot higher, but that seems like a really good ability out of the box.Here's an attempt at a rewritten Wild Shape. It certainly needs more refinement, but I think it's in decent shape to experiment with.
Spoilered for length.
Wild Shape: You may shift into a beastial creature — a beast, or a monstrosity at least partially based on a beast, or more exotic forms for certain templates — as an action. You may end the use of Wild Shape as a bonus action. This form uses characteristics based on one of the templates provided.
Templates
Your basic attributes while in Wild Shape form as the same as your character's attributes, except where noted.
Each template's hit points are Template Hit Points (TpHP), which are effectively temporary hit points that only refresh after a long rest. Losing all TpHP drops you out of that template form, and excess damage carries over to your base HP. You can change into a form using a template with exhausted TpHP, but you will be using your base form's HP from that point on. Falling to 0 HP also drops you out of a template form.
(Alternatively: Rather than a separate pool per template, there is a single TpHP pool for all templates aside from Tiny, which has its own pool.)
Tiny
You may transform into a tiny creature, such as a cat, mouse, or raven.
Your Dexterity score is equal to your Wisdom score.
Your Strength score is equal to half your Wisdom score.
Your Hit Points are equal to your Druid level.
Your base damage rating is 1. This is not modified by either your Strength or your Dexterity.
Note that you cannot fly without taking the Flight augment. The cost for the Flight augment is reduced by 1 for creatures that can normally fly, such as birds.
Mount
You may transform into a medium or large creature that is capable of carrying other creatures safely, such as a pony, horse, or ox.
Your Strength score is equal to your Wisdom score.
Your Hit Points are equal to 10x your Proficiency Bonus.
Your walking speed is 50.
Your base damage rating is 1d6
Circle of the Moon unlocks huge mounts.
Predator
You may transform into a medium creature that's built for hunting, such as a panther, snake, or spider.
Your Strength score is equal to your Wisdom score.
Your Hit Points are equal to 10x your Proficiency Bonus.
Your walking speed is 40.
Your base damage rating is 2d4
Circle of the Moon unlocks large predators. Large predators have a base damage of 1d10 for their first attack each turn, and automatically gain multiattack at level 5.
Elemental
You may transform into a large elemental — either fire, earth, water, or air. Unlocked with Circle of ???.
Your Strength score is equal to your Wisdom score.
Your Hit Points are equal to 10x your Proficiency Bonus.
You are resistant to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
Your attacks do damage appropriate to your elemental form.
Your base damage rating is 2d4
Plant
You may transform into a plant form. Unlocked with Circle of the Spore.
Your Strength score is equal to your Wisdom score.
Your Hit Points are equal to 10x your Proficiency Bonus.
Your walking speed is 10.
You are resistant to non-magical bludgeoning damage.
Your base damage rating is 2d4
(Needs more specialty features.)
Augments
Primal Pool: You have a pool of inner strength (primal points) that can be used to empower and augment your Wild Shape. Your pool starts with a number of primal points equal to your proficiency bonus. You may also drain power from your spell slots into your primal pool, gaining 1 primal point for every spell slot level consumed. Your Primal Pool points are restored after a long rest.
Primal Augments: Your primal points may be spent as part of your use of Wild Shape to add traits to the form you are shifting into (aside from your original form). You may not spend more points for a given Wild Shape than your current Proficiency Bonus.
1 point augments:
2 point augments:
- Armored: You add your Proficiency Bonus to your AC.
- Keen Senses: You have advantage on perception checks against one sense (your choice), or gain either blindsense or tremorsense. Gain darkvision to 60'.
- Swift: Your movement speed increases by +10, and your jump distance increases by 20. You have advantage on initiative checks.
- Trample/Pounce/Charge: If you move 20 feet in a straight line before attacking a target, the target must save or be knocked prone. If it is knocked prone, you may use a bonus action to make an additional attack.
- Multiattack: You may attack twice per round. Must be at least level 5, and use a template other than Tiny or Mount.
- Pack Tactics: You have advantage on attack rolls if at least one active ally is within 5' of the target creature.
- Stealth: You have advantage on stealth checks, and gain a climb speed equal to your walking speed.
- Aquatic: You can breathe underwater. Gain a swim speed of 40. You must be at least level 4.
- Flight: You gain a fly speed of 50. You must be at least level 5 for a tiny creature. You must be at least level 7 for a small, medium, or large creature. You must be at least level 9 for a huge or larger creature.
- Fear: Requires an attack (magic?) action. Cause fear in all creatures within 30' of you until the end of your next turn. Wis save vs your spell save DC.
- Grapple/Constrict: Requires an attack action. If you hit a creature with this attack, do your standard damage, and the creature is grappled and restrained until it succeeds on an escape check. You may not grapple more than one creature at a time.
- Spider Climb: Gain a climb speed equal to your walking speed. Can move on difficult surfaces, including upside down or through webs.
- Venomous: When you hit a creature with an attack, it must make a Con save or take an additional 1d8 damage and be poisoned until the end of your next turn.
- Web: Requires an attack action. Make a ranged weapon attack (range: 30'/60'). On a hit, the target is restrained. The target may use an action to escape via a Str check.
D&D (2024) New Wild Shape
My only critique off hand would be making Keen Senses 2 points. Maybe I just estimate blindsense a lot higher, but that seems like a really good ability out of the box.
mellored
Legend
I'm fine if they simply don't stack.
And I'm more leaning towards THP each turn, as it fixes these issues.
Healing current wild shape is a trap option, given your low AC.
If it was THP per turn, you still end up getting bruises, and healing works as normal.
THP per round works fine for unlimited wild shape. Assuming you lose it when you transform back.
This probably works better.
But there should probably be something about a mouse with wings being noticed easily.
Might want to base it on druid level, for multiclassing.
Also, it might be better to do something like.
When you prepare your spells, select a number of wild shape augments according to the Druid level chart, and decided on a form that you can take with those augments. Until you take a long rest, you can wild shape into that creature or revert to human form as a bonus action.
Additional Form: As an action, you can expend spell slots to creating and addional form. Your addional form has a number of augment points equal to the spell level expended. You can transform into this new form, the old one, or your regular form as a bonus action.
Moon druid
You do not need to expend a spell slot when using addional form.
And mount should probably be an augment too.
Kinematics
Hero
Had a couple ideas for the plant template.
Reach: Your reach is 10'. This increases by 5' at druid levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. (Will end up with a 30' reach at level 20. This balances against their low move speed.)
Augments:
I suppose it could just be spelled out: 2 primal points, plus 1 point after every 4 additional druid levels (so level 5, 9, 13, and 17). Or +1 at every 4 levels: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, giving a total of 7 at level 20.
The Mount augment would grant additional move speed, the ability to act as a combat mount, increased carry capacity... Anything else? Probably places restrictions on certain other augments.
I'll need to give it some thought.
Reach: Your reach is 10'. This increases by 5' at druid levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. (Will end up with a 30' reach at level 20. This balances against their low move speed.)
Augments:
- Overgrowth: You may use an action to designate the area within your reach as difficult terrain, as long as you do not move.
- Spores: You may use an action to release spores within your reach. Creatures within your reach must make a Con save or be [poisoned or slept; possibly other conditions] until the end of your next turn.
The perception advantage seemed pretty basic, but yeah, blindsense is a bit more advanced. Maybe require a minimum level to take the blindsense option?
Interesting idea.
Yeah.
Ah, true. That's annoying. I also used Proficiency Bonus as the basis for HP (though that might change anyway, if it's temp HP per turn). It seems like the perfect scaling mechanism, until multiclassing comes into the picture.
I suppose it could just be spelled out: 2 primal points, plus 1 point after every 4 additional druid levels (so level 5, 9, 13, and 17). Or +1 at every 4 levels: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, giving a total of 7 at level 20.
Hmm. So get rid of the Mount template, and just change "Predator" to "Beast"? It fits well with Elemental and Plant as alternate options. Keep Tiny because of more specialized mechanics for it.
The Mount augment would grant additional move speed, the ability to act as a combat mount, increased carry capacity... Anything else? Probably places restrictions on certain other augments.
Hm. This would be more restrictive on the number of forms you could choose, but you could use the augmented form as often as you like each day, rather than having to rebuild it each time.
I'll need to give it some thought.
Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
Well, I sort of agree.
Totally changing a class can, in fact, be perfectly backwards compatible. You could have a party with a new, spell-less Druid along with a full spellcaster 2014 Druid, and with that party run either a 2014 adventure or a new adventure. (There may be a power imbalance, but that's not a backwards compatibility issue.)
But at the same time I agree that my off-the-cuff suggestion has no chance of ever being adopted. This forum, which is supposed to be a discussion about One D&D, is about 80% wild-eyed, blue-sky ideas that ain't never gonna happen, and many of which really are not backwards compatible. (i.e., changing the basic 6 attributes). The forum seems to have become a general free-for-all discussion of people's wish lists, however realistic. Or not.
mellored
Legend
I agree tiny is different enough to warrant it's own template.
But predator and mount are nearly the same.
Maybe have claws be a augment?
There have been valid complaints about how versatile a druid can be, and how it can fill so many roles instantly.
So limiting it to 1 free form per day, that you need to prepare in advance. Otherwise you need to pay.
And I do like the subclass as moon, elemental, plants, and land.
DavyGreenwind
Just some guy
Here's how I would do wildshape:
Keep the statblock model but make the AC equal to 12 + Wis instead of 10 + wis. Additionally, each time you wildshape, you can choose a Beast Attribute for your form from the following list: Climber (climb speed), racer (60 ft speed instead of 40), charger (charge attack), or tiny (tiny size, and you cannot make attacks).
At 5th level, when you transform, you get multiattack, the climber attribute gets upgraded to spiderclimb, and you can choose two attributes when you wildshape instead of one.
At 7th level, you get the Aquatic attribute.
At 9th, you get Flying attribute, and you can choose 3 attributes when you wildshape.
For Moon Druids, I would keep it the same, except I would give wildshape attacks two damage dice instead of one.
I think this would be the best way to keep animal versatility while reducing complexity.
Keep the statblock model but make the AC equal to 12 + Wis instead of 10 + wis. Additionally, each time you wildshape, you can choose a Beast Attribute for your form from the following list: Climber (climb speed), racer (60 ft speed instead of 40), charger (charge attack), or tiny (tiny size, and you cannot make attacks).
At 5th level, when you transform, you get multiattack, the climber attribute gets upgraded to spiderclimb, and you can choose two attributes when you wildshape instead of one.
At 7th level, you get the Aquatic attribute.
At 9th, you get Flying attribute, and you can choose 3 attributes when you wildshape.
For Moon Druids, I would keep it the same, except I would give wildshape attacks two damage dice instead of one.
I think this would be the best way to keep animal versatility while reducing complexity.
Clint_L
Hero
Moon druids would no longer be able to tank, which would be a profound change in their identity and play style. Non-starter for me.
Chaosmancer
Legend
7th is far too late for the swim speed.
9th is far far too late for the fly speed.
I'm not a fan of the multi-attack in the base druid, because it incentivizes the base druid to use the shape in combat, which is bad because the shape takes an action, and that is a bad trade-off.
hmmm, would it be too broke to give a free attack when they wildshape if they INSIST that the 5th level multi-attack has to stay?
mellored
Legend
Wild shape:
When you prepare your spells, select a number of wild shape augments according to the Druid level chart (2 to 6, like proficiency). You can use a bonus action to transform at will.
1 point Augments:
Thick skin: 2 * level Temporary hit points at the start of your turn.
Claws: deal 1d8+wis. (1 damage otherwise)
Critter: you are a tiny creature like a mouse. You can use Nature in place of a deception check to avoid notice.
Mount: you can be ridden
Pounce:
2 points
Climb speed
Amphibious
Venomous: on a hit, the target makes a fortitude save or gains the poisoned condition
Bite: 1d6+wis as a bonus action
Grappler
Beast might: gain advantage on str, dex, or con checks.
3 points
Elemental resistance
Elemental damage
Huge size
Web
Multi-attack
Substitute: you can use Wis in place of Str, Con, or Dex
Flying
4 points
Colossal size
Moon Druid
3: Combat form: you always know the thick skin and claws augment. You can use 1 additional augment
6: you learn the bite augment. You can use 1 additional augment.
When you prepare your spells, select a number of wild shape augments according to the Druid level chart (2 to 6, like proficiency). You can use a bonus action to transform at will.
1 point Augments:
Thick skin: 2 * level Temporary hit points at the start of your turn.
Claws: deal 1d8+wis. (1 damage otherwise)
Critter: you are a tiny creature like a mouse. You can use Nature in place of a deception check to avoid notice.
Mount: you can be ridden
Pounce:
2 points
Climb speed
Amphibious
Venomous: on a hit, the target makes a fortitude save or gains the poisoned condition
Bite: 1d6+wis as a bonus action
Grappler
Beast might: gain advantage on str, dex, or con checks.
3 points
Elemental resistance
Elemental damage
Huge size
Web
Multi-attack
Substitute: you can use Wis in place of Str, Con, or Dex
Flying
4 points
Colossal size
Moon Druid
3: Combat form: you always know the thick skin and claws augment. You can use 1 additional augment
6: you learn the bite augment. You can use 1 additional augment.
Clint_L
Hero
These are good ideas, yet my reservation remains that all we are doing is shifting complexity from picking an animal to picking a combination of features and trying to find a corresponding animal (I don't like the idea of normal druids just becoming weird hybrid creatures when they wild shape; I think they should still be assuming the appropriate animal form).
I actually don't think wild shape right now is particularly complicated or unbalanced, except for moon druids. For everyone else, it works pretty seamlessly because they are generally using it for problem solving, exploration, and/or movement. Usually in game it looks something like, "I wild shape into a spider and scuttle through the bars and into the next room," or "I wild shape into a dolphin so I can keep up with the ship," etc.
I actually don't think wild shape right now is particularly complicated or unbalanced, except for moon druids. For everyone else, it works pretty seamlessly because they are generally using it for problem solving, exploration, and/or movement. Usually in game it looks something like, "I wild shape into a spider and scuttle through the bars and into the next room," or "I wild shape into a dolphin so I can keep up with the ship," etc.
