Level Up (A5E) Wild shaped Druid: do you lose all Heritage benefits, or only physical ones?

[Tessarael]

On page 172 of LUA5E, it states "You can’t utilize any features gained from your heritage or heritage gift while in a wild shape."

• Does this mean, for example, that a Dwarf's Tough train of +1 HP/level does not apply while wild shaped? I assume that your HP should not change.
• Does a Gnome still get an expertise die bonus to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saves vs. magic? I would assume so.
• Likewise, if you take Magic Adept as an Orc getting a cantrip + 1st or 2nd level spell at 3rd level, if those are range self/touch can they be used when wild shaped? It would seem strange if your spells known changed in this manner. However, Heavy Lifter is presumably not usable in wild shape form.
• Similarly, Elves should keep their skill proficiencies and their immunity to sleep and expertise die on saves vs. being charmed.
• Does it mean that you lose Darkvision if you had that? The wording in the first paragraph of page 172 is that you gain the wild shape's senses, not that you lose your existing senses. So not clear.
• On the other hand, it is pretty clear that a Dragonborn when wild-shaped couldn't use their Dragon Breath power.
• For Halfling, I assume that they are still Fearless and Lucky, but that Nimbleness, Burrowing Claws, and Tuft Feet cannot be used; whereas Twilight-Touched powers probably should be usable.

So my interpretation is the following: If the Heritage trait is a feature that is specific to your physical form, then you do not gain the benefit of that while wild shaped. Heritage traits related to senses (e.g., Darkvision), saving throws, and skills, generally should still be usable while wild shaped. In general, it is best to try and keep it simple, and avoid changes to rolls that you would still use from your base form.

On a related note, if you Wild Shape into say a lion, and have the Athletics proficiency, your rolls in that form are presumably Athletics + lion's Strength, not your base form's Strength. This seems like it would complicate things without say virtual table top support or a spreadsheet for swapping in abilities as you change form.

Thoughts?

 

[lichmaster]

I'd say that the verb "to utilize" implies some kind of action, not something that happens passively. If that's correct, one cannot utilize features like Dragon's Breath, but stuff known, bonuses to rolls etc are ok. Happy to be corrected.

 

[Tessarael]

Yes. That is a good way to interpret it.

I do think that they missed the rule of cool on this one. I like the idea of a Dragonborn Druid wild-shaping into a Giant Toad and breathing fire on their opponents.

 

[noodohs]

I think the idea behind this is that you are essentially temporarily swapping out your heritage for another, thus you can't benefit from having stone skin while in a shape that doesn't have stone skin (and things like that). However, I do think it could use some errata as I don't really see any reason why you shouldn't still be allowed to be lucky and what not. Especially since some heritage features granted by a heritage have equivalents in class features or feats generally that you would retain RAW.

 

[someguy42]

I think the intent is you are supose to completely lose anything you get from your heritage. You can work with your DM on improving it. It didn't come up in my campaign but my thing was do you lose the humanoid type in wild shape?

Honestly most beast have Dark vision anyway, also a few class feature give dark vision, in my case i always had dark vision anyway due to class feature.

The only time it really came up as weird for me is as a constructed i didnt need to breath so it seemed weird to change into a giant frog and suddenly need air.

Id say instead of trying to split hairs on what it should be anyone planning on being a druid should just discuss with the DM what actually seems fair.

 

[Tessarael]

If could be reworded with errata as: Heritage traits that are specific to your physical form are not usable while wild-shaped, if the form you are in is not physically capable of doing so. For example, a Dragonborn's Draconic Wings gift with flight speed of 30' cannot be used in a beast or plant shape that doesn't have wings. On the other hand, Heritage gifts like not needing to breathe, darkvision (providing the wild shape has eyes and is not blind), or a range self or touch cantrip or spell could still be used when wild shaped.

And yes, I brought it up with my DM. As this is the sort of thing that is important to clarify before playing a Druid who relies on wild-shaping.

You do lose the humanoid type while in wild shape, and instead are a beast or plant depending on the form selected. There's a 5E D&D Sage Advice question and answer on it here, and a Reddit thread here.