D&D General Wild Shape: Inefficient or Useless?

[TigerDude]

I think everyone has covered it, but in summary it's neither inefficient nor useless. Yes, a rat or spider is a great scout. And yes, scouting means splitting the party. Sorry cleric, keep your heavy plate mail where you are, I'll go see what the enemy camp is like. Note that your spider or rat now has your hitpoints, plus temp hp, so you might be a rat, but you're a very hard-to-kill rat. Other than this, throwing a concentration spell and then turning into something that can easily hide or otherwise not be targeted is a great option. Dont forget burrowing beasts.

 

[Clint_L]

Yeah, wildshape was not great with the 2014 rules and is now substantially worse. Thanks to other properties, notably World of Warcraft and other RPGs, not to mention (checks notes) the official D&D move, Honour Among Thieves, the expectation of most younger players is that druids will be these awesome, kickass shapeshifters. It is inexplicable to me that WotC has been unable to deliver a compelling druid class.

For comparison, last time we saw numbers, druids were, by a substantial margin, the least popular of the core classes in D&D. Meanwhile, they are the most popular class in WoW. So it's not like folks don't want to play druids. They just don't want to play the D&D version of druids.

 

[Mannahnin]

I think everyone has covered it, but in summary it's neither inefficient nor useless. Yes, a rat or spider is a great scout. And yes, scouting means splitting the party. Sorry cleric, keep your heavy plate mail where you are, I'll go see what the enemy camp is like. Note that your spider or rat now has your hitpoints, plus temp hp, so you might be a rat, but you're a very hard-to-kill rat. Other than this, throwing a concentration spell and then turning into something that can easily hide or otherwise not be targeted is a great option. Dont forget burrowing beasts.

Druid was my favourite class when I was playing 2014. I found many uses for wildshape from scouting, sneaking, tracking, eavesdropping, moving, carrying, slipping through small spaces, climbing, etc. As you gain levels, swimming, flying. If you have a rogue in the party that's sneaking ahead, it's great to send the shapeshifted driud with them as backup.

100%! Pocket druid is absolutely a thing, riding along on the rogue as they sneak about, or hiding in the pocket of the bard when they meet someone important, etc. Also works for the NPCs! You hear a hushed conversation in the next room; you kick in the door and storm in, only to see a lumbering orc with a tiny mouse on his shoulder.

I dig the double scout idea. That's pretty sweet.

 

[Minigiant]

Laser Llama and PF1 (Paizo and Legendary Games) both have the Shifter class, a more martial wildshaping class. Laser Llama's take on the Shifter class just allows the character to assume an avian, a brute, a carnivore or a reptile with their Bloodline feature

LaserLlama's is close to what I'd like..

Wildshape as an exploration ability, Combat power or Social power via subclasses. I just wouldn't do it by beast type but via creature type.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

I really appreciate everyone responding, even if it makes me feel like I shouldn't have taken the class to start with since I clearly don't understand how to utilize it.

Of course, it doesn't help that we're currently in a magical maze that does not like anyone trying to climb/fly over it and warps people to random places where you have to defeat monsters to get back to where you started.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you don’t feel wildshape is for you you could ask your DM if you can respec your subclass and use your wildshape charges for something else.

 

[mellored]

I really appreciate everyone responding, even if it makes me feel like I shouldn't have taken the class to start with since I clearly don't understand how to utilize it.

Of course, it doesn't help that we're currently in a magical maze that does not like anyone trying to climb/fly over it and warps people to random places where you have to defeat monsters to get back to where you started.

Assuming 2024, i would use the familiar option. Send it ahead to find any warp points.

Or just be a horse to run faster.
Or a wolf, and then pee on stuff so you can smell it later.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

If you don’t feel wildshape is for you you could ask your DM if you can respec your subclass and use your wildshape charges for something else.

To be honest, one of the main reasons I wanted to play the Druid was because I love the idea of shapeshifting. It's just that the way it's written (or the campaign we're in) seems to make it where my doing it is basically the worst option to choose in most of the situations. I can only think of once that I was able to use it in a way that actively helped the group.

We have a couple of skilled scouters, but 99% of the time they find some sort of trouble that would require my caster abilities rather than my sneak ones.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

Assuming 2024, i would use the familiar option. Send it ahead to find any warp points.

Or just be a horse to run faster.
Or a wolf, and then pee on stuff so you can smell it later.

It's 2014 and the maze is basically a death trap. There's some way to figure it out but we've already discovered that

1) the monsters (so far two gorgans, a dao, and four chuul) must be defeated in order to get gems that let us go back to the sundial that seems to control the maze.

2) trying to climb/fly over gets you attacked by both the maze and a roc

3) the maze removes all attempts to mark any part of it

4) telepathic communication and teleportation are impossible within it

 

[Stormonu]

Yeah, actually having a non-dungeon setting vastly helps the Druid character (and the Ranger).

Sounds like the DM has put you into an area that punishes creative play and specifically the Wildshape's strength - is this maze for the entire campaign or just one portion?