Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mirrorrorrim" data-source="post: 9057527" data-attributes="member: 7040132">It's harder because new player druids (and experienced players) have to use other non-PHB books to research beast forms, and use those books as player sourcebooks. That is terrible design. A Core class should not require accessing a second book to be able to play it.Yes, the last playtest version was specifically designed to be reskinnable. The rules were simple, your combat templates were in one place (rather than scattered across the entire bibliography of the game), and reskinning your form was a flavor choice. That was the penultimate juxtaposition of choice and ease of design. Sure, it was basic and deserved another design pass to enhance the verisimilitude people were seeking.Now for those people who were against the template-wildshape of the last playtest version, what was their main complaint? That the form didn't have the beast abilities that made the form feel like the beast in question. They pointed at abilities like pack tactics and swallow whole and all kinds of different bestial abilities that the template didn't cover. As mentioned previoiusly, a good solution in a second design pass would be to include an array of bestial abilities as options to choose from, to add to the template, to better represent your form. But that looks like it got overruled by dissenters.Now, if my higher-level moon druid preferred to wildshape into wolves, and wants to be useful in a higher-level fight, I can't be a wolf and be helpful (just like I couldn't with the 2014 druid). If as a solution, a template-hater told me to reskin a 2014 mammoth as a giant wolf, that would be a disengenuous suggestion because that is exactly the thing they were against. A mammoth doesn't give me the abilities of a giant wolf. It has way different stats (9 Dex) and gives me Trampling Charge, Gore, and Stomp. Am I supposed to ignore those abilities? Replace them using which rules? Ask the DM to create new stat blocks? Or just say those abilities are something else a lumbering giant wolf would do? Were hit points the real difference? Well, now HP doesn't matter even in the new design.The better solution was to include optional bestial abilities to add to a template. But now we don't get that as an option. We have to go back to scraping through a bunch of monster books or DDB. Hard pass. There is a lot I love about the non-wildshape aspects of the new druid, but I will rate the new wildshape very low.And limiting number of available prepared forms to 3-5 absolutely nerfs the flexibility and adaptability to new surprise challenges in adventures. Oh, we see a herd of cattle being herded into the enemy city, but now you can't turn into a cow to infiltrate because you didn't "prepare" the cow form that morning? Bleh.If the intent was for the wildshape form to scale into being competitive at higher levels, then The rules need to allow it. The template allowed the previous playtest druid to do just that, in the class description itself. While the new wildshape is a little better than 2014 druid (nerfing the HP), it is a non-starter for me because it still needs the entire bibliography of the game to work and I still can't be a form I want and be useful at every level.</blockquote>

Verification