D&D General The Owlbear Druid: How Would You Do It? (A Poll)

Minigiant · Jul 23, 2022

Composite animls are beasts unless their nature is held together by magic.

Owlbears and pegasi are beasts.

Chimera and catdogs re monstrosities.

Vaalingrade · Jul 23, 2022

Leatherhead said:
The downside to changing Owlbears into beast is that it takes something special away from the Owlbear.

Accessing possible replies:

1) "Not the good kind of 'special'."

2) "The special thing is how goofy it is, which has nothing to do with its type."

Maxperson · Jul 23, 2022

DND_Reborn said:
What the heck are you talking about???

I think he's confusing "something cool" with "the rule of cool." It's cool to kill something on a huge crit. The rule of cool is allowing something cool to happen even if it goes against the rules, because it's cool. Different things.

Vaalingrade · Jul 23, 2022

There was no confusion. Cool has no meaning if you're not willing to mock whatever rules there are for it.

EzekielRaiden · Jul 23, 2022

I would allow Moon Druids to do it (frankly, I'm a bit surprised they can't.) If the character isn't Moon, but wants to become an owlbear anyway,* I would work with them to figure out something special to their character. Because the existing owlbear is probably a bit too powerful for non-Moon Druids, but I could see a specialized owlbear variant working that enhances the stuff the character does do. (E.g. I could see a fiery "embear" version as an alternative to summoning your fire spirit for Wildfire, or an "astral owlbear" as an augmentation of or alternative choice within the Starry Form option for Stars.) This would, naturally (heh), be something the character must build up toward, or else pay for by giving up something else in its stead.

*As noted by at least one and probably several prior posters, that's a thing WoW Druids could do, "moonkin" form is the caster specialty for their Druids. "Moonkin" is the Blizzard-proprietary name for owlbears in their universe. So there's literally millions of people out there who are used to associating owlbears with druid transformations.

DND_Reborn · Jul 23, 2022

Minigiant said:
Composite animls are beasts unless their nature is held together by magic.

Owlbears and pegasi are beasts.

Chimera and catdogs re monstrosities.

I suppose if WotC retooled the ideas to be along these lines, but for me an easy way to judge it is if the creatures reproduce or not? To they have to all be created by magic or do they carry on their own species?

I could easily see owlbears and pegasi carrying on their own, but chimera I would have to imagine are somehow "born" of magic. The others might have been once upon a time but turned out that they could mate and reproduce, no longer needing magic to continue the line.

Anyway, bottom line for me is they aren't beasts, so normally druids can't wild shape into them. Although I think a Circle of Monsters might be cool, to me it would have to be carefully balanced versus Moon Druids, otherwise Moon Druids would likely no longer be used by players.

But hey, that is the trend with new things according to WotC, they don't seem to care if it makes prior things obsolete.

Paul Farquhar · Jul 23, 2022

DND_Reborn said:
Functionally, the hippogriff is just a giant eagle, but weaker in many ways, despite the same CR.

That's an interesting point. The Giant Eagle (clearly based on Tolkien) is far more intelligent than "a normal animal". If anything should be not-a-beast it's that.

DND_Reborn · Jul 23, 2022

Paul Farquhar said:
That's an interesting point. The Giant Eagle (clearly based on Tolkien) is far more intelligent than "a normal animal". If anything should be not-a-beast it's that.

Yeah, but it is a viable option for Wild Shape. The only reason it made it in is because it is a "giant animal" according to the beast type.

Perhaps when the next revision/version comes around, they will examine each creature along a more rigid system, and define the lore more clearer in cases like owlbears. Like I wrote above, maybe once owlbears were created by magic, but then were able to breed and continue their species without magic? If that was the established lore, fine.

Also, an owlbear is not just a reskinned bear. Owlbears are much more powerful in many ways than even the strongest bears:

While the differences might not seem huge, they are there (and understandable going from CR 2 to CR 3)

Better AC (+1) due to Better DEX (+2)
More HP (+17 or 40% more!)
Keen Sight as well as Keen Smell
Better damage dice (d8s instead of d6s for claws and d10 instead of d8 for bite)

RAW, only Moon Druids can reach CR 3 (at 9th level), and while I understand a CR 3 in an encounter for 9th level PCs wouldn't break anything at all, for me it just goes against the current lore for owlbears and my concept of Druids and "nature" vs. "natural".