D&D 5E Tortle Druid

[Richards]

Or a snail, or an armadillo, or a pangolin....

Johnathan

 

[BookTenTiger]

Or a snail, or an armadillo, or a pangolin....

Johnathan

Or a peanut, or a pistachio, or an oyster, or a certain brand of gas station, or a fake company...

 

[tetrasodium]

Wildshape says:

• You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so. However, you can’t use any of your special senses, such as darkvision unless your new form also has that sense.

Tortle Says:

• Due to your shell and the shape of your body, you are ill-suited to wearing armor. Your shell provides ample protection, however; it gives you a base AC of 17 (your Dexterity modifier doesn’t affect this number). You gain no benefit from wearing armor, but if you are using a shield, you can apply the shield’s bonus as normal.

I think RAW, it is pretty clear that a wildshaped tortle druid will not have a minimum AC of 17 for their wildshaped forms.

However, I'm trying to think about how 'broken' it would be to "tortle" the wildshapes of a PC druid and allow them the claws (damage adjusted for size), natural armor and shell defense when wildshaping. I'd accomplish this by given the PC a magic item that allows them to retain these benefits when wildshaped if they elected to do so at the time of wildshaping, rather than making it a rule change - an item that their parents left to them when the orphaning happens (see the tortle description).

I was thinking that the wildshaped form would have some adjustments (can't fly, speed reduced by 5 for every 10 above 30, disadvantage on stealth).

Anyone see a way that this causes unexpected troubles?

I've had moon druid players take a level of war/life/forge/etc cleric for heavy armor & the result of a moon druid in plate barding was not an issue. Compare that to:
Alice: "wow that hit takes me to 2hp.. I better be careful"
...
GM: "Alice that storm giant uses his lightning strike to hit you for 54 which is more than your 2 hp
Bob: "I cast healing word on alice"
Alice: "I stand up & attack the stormgiant"
GM: "Alice that storm giant uses hits you for 30 with his greatsword
Bob: "I cast healing word on alice"
repeat until victory.

the plate or ac17 tortakmoon druid is more balanced that a plate or tortlefighter because the moon druid uses it's high slots to stay in wildshape instead of exploiting the absorb shield built into the death saves

 

[jgsugden]

Whether you consider the shell power of a tortle druid to be too strong or not, I'm not hearing any unintended consequences. Thanks.

(By the way - I played in a game with a fighter/moon druid. At level 4, it was in platemail barding while wildshaped. AC 18. The DM allowed the player to climb into the barding while in halfling form and then wildshape into a bear to "fill out" the barding. The straps still had to be tightened, but it cut down the don time dramatically. So ... lots of ways to get great AC as a bear.)

 

[Ancalagon]

You are taking a very narrow view of druids. Basically you mean MOON druids - druids who fight whilst wildshaped. Druids are quite common in our campaigns, but wildshaping in combat is rare. Our players simply don't play druids that way. If you are wading into combat with a magic stick or casting spells a tortle shell is a vast improvement on hide armour.

Precisely.

Want to tank as a tortle druid? Play a spore druid. You'll have fun.

 

[Iry]

I allow the tortle shell to work in any wildshape that has some kind of shell. But not wildshapes with no shell.
Essentially I am happy to transfer racial abilities if it's somewhat possible for that creature to have it.
Powerful Build is one that I allow to transfer onto almost all wildshapes.

 

[jgsugden]

I am speaking of the moon druid specifically for this situaton - that is what the player is looking to play. However, if they went to level 2 decided to select a different circle, I'd treat it the same and allot their wolf form to be shelled.

Again, I was asking for unintended consequences. Not the obvious intended ones.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Would you consider: it's ridiculous, unnecessary and totally against RAW and RAI an intended or unintended consequence?

 

[tetrasodium]

Would you consider: it's ridiculous, unnecessary and totally against RAW and RAI an intended or unintended consequence?

I think its pretty clear that the OP is looking for mechanical imbalances by now. I dont find it ridiculous, Wotc choosing to put setting specific sacred cow lore fluff into armor proficiencies while neutering the mechanical reason it was once justified (bsrkskin's former natural armor bonus became a bad concentrationspell) makes it necessary for many. and raw is pretty clear "You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so. However, you can't use any of your Special Senses, such as Darkvision, unless your new form also has that sense." Most any form could be physically capable ofbenefitting from the bony plates of a shell... in a world with owlbears, blink dogs hellhound winter wolves bulette, giant egatever's and so forth... a wolf or whatever with the plates of a shell is hardly all that out of place.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Would you consider: it's ridiculous, unnecessary and totally against RAW and RAI an intended or unintended consequence?

The OP knows it's ridiculous and against RAW / RAI. So... no?

Sometimes you can change a rule just because you want to change a rule, and that's okay.