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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8951229" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Because of your choice of the phrase "as long as they are in a biome with an appropriate animal type. " Which reads to me as though you were trying to limit it further. You have to be in the right place and have turned into the right animal, to get the bonus. If your intent was instead to talk about it as "as long as they are in a place with Beasts" that is a slightly different discussion and I wouldn't have brought up the Ranger.And you've immediately given the same impression again with this, like you need to be a dog to talk to dogs. So if a druid is flying around in bird form and they find a horse, you would say this niche ability wouldn't be useful? But then I'm not sure if that is what you are saying, because you finish it by saying you can turn into the animal without having to go to the actual animal, which implies you aren't asking them for anything? Which means there is no point to social checks.Yes, finding any animal in an area is something druids can do. Then they can cast Speak With Animals. They don't need to use wild shape at all. They don't need advantage on social rolls at all. I would also say a DM who is requiring difficult persuasion checks or deception checks, where getting advantage is actually useful, from the Druid is pushing the bounds. Offering a raven some shiny bauble to get it to poop on a noble shouldn't even be a roll. The Raven wants the shiny bauble, it will do the thing to get the shiny bauble. Complex social interactions that require rolls and well-planned execution that can benefit from advantage need something more complex than an animal.Sure, you might not often be able to lead a herd of elephants through an enemy camp with just Speak with Animals.  You also have Animal Friendship, Beast Bond, and the Animal Handling skill. Just off the top of my head.And sure, you have described a cool scene, it would be really fun to have a Druid do that. But the type of situation where that can occur, where the player would want it to occur, and where it would be useful to occur are very limited. Limited enough that I don't see it being a fix to Wildshape. Remember, Wildshape as the UA is presenting it is the Druid's primary feature, and their primary combat feature, which I think is a mistake because it doesn't work as a primary combat feature for all druids. Giving them a highly niche ability, which doesn't give them more options than they already have, doesn't fix the problems with wildshape.How many people have reported that Dragon Sorcerers have led fleets of Dragons into combat? Dragon sorcerers have a rule that they have advantage on interactions with dragons. Do you know how many dragons I've seen encountered by dragon Sorcerers? None. Now, yes, Dragons are rarer than just normal animals. But, again, talking to animals and convincing them to do things is something the druid can already do. It is something the Gnome can already do. And they do it. And they rarely fail at it, so why give them advantage? Especially advantage that seems as potentially limited as they currently have it. Heck, if you gave druids just a flat "you have advantage on all rolls relating to animals" people would consider it a nice ribbon, but they wouldn't suddenly be talking about all the new options and routes open to druid play. This seems like a situation where you have a legitimately cool image of what could happen, but then you are enforcing this idea that it would only be possible if you advantage on a roll to make it happen. The cool thing is already possible. I don't understand the need for advantage on the roll. Especially since advantage changes nothing if the argument is that the DM won't allow the roll because the animals won't do X. Advantage does not change that.</blockquote>

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