Li Shenron
Legend
It's been 3 years after the release of 5e, but only yesterday I've finally seen a Druid use wildshape in combat, and so I want to check that I've been doing everything right.
Here's a summary of my understanding on what happens when a Druid uses wildshape:
- use the animal's Str/Dex/Con scores and their modifiers in bare ability checks
- use the druid's Int/Wis/Cha scores and their modifiers in bare ability checks
- use the animal's attacks, AC, HP and any special ability listed in its stat block
- use the druid's special abilities from class, race, feats etc.
- use the best of the two's skills and saving throws full modifiers
With the latter I mean, just look at the final skill or ST score resulting from both ability modifier and proficiency, and use the better one between the druid's and the animal's. Do not recalculate anything, e.g. do not combine a higher ability of the animal with a higher proficiency of the druid, just look at the final numbers and use the highest.
Then of course the main rule about HP is that when the animal form drops to 0 or below, the Druid reverts to the original form and continues using whatever HP had in that form at the time of wildshaping, minus a possible excess damage from the attack that brought the animal form down below 0.
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One of my children is playing a Moon Druid, and yesterday they had a tough fight with 2 ogres. His Druid was generally very unlucky with the monsters' rolls against him, and went down to 0 HP before his first turn, then got healed by the Fighter with a potion, got hurt again down to 1 HP, and at this point he wildshaped into a Tiger (37 HP!). Two critical hits later and almost died: the tiger had 9 HP left and got hit for 26 damage... lost all 9 tiger's HP, lost the remaining 1 druid's HP, the 16 leftover damage was just one point smaller than his 17 maximum HP, one more point of damage would have triggered the death from massive damage rule. So he was simply down to 0 instead. However, before his next turn he was healed by the Cleric and went back a few HP, enough to use wildshape his second time before a short rest and turn into a Dire Wolf (again 37 HP!). From there rolls got better and the rest of the fight went smoothly, but we all thought that those total 74 "temporary" HP were huge compared to his normal 17, even tho while in animal form he could only do melee attacks and no spells (but his attacks were even slightly better than the Fighter's).
So I was left wondering, did I do something wrong?
By the way, my children all loved the "pokemon" effect of a Druid dropping unconscious, back to conscious, popping into a tiger, popping back to druid + dropping unconscious again, back to conscious again, and finally popping into a dire wolf, all in basically 2 turns
Here's a summary of my understanding on what happens when a Druid uses wildshape:
- use the animal's Str/Dex/Con scores and their modifiers in bare ability checks
- use the druid's Int/Wis/Cha scores and their modifiers in bare ability checks
- use the animal's attacks, AC, HP and any special ability listed in its stat block
- use the druid's special abilities from class, race, feats etc.
- use the best of the two's skills and saving throws full modifiers
With the latter I mean, just look at the final skill or ST score resulting from both ability modifier and proficiency, and use the better one between the druid's and the animal's. Do not recalculate anything, e.g. do not combine a higher ability of the animal with a higher proficiency of the druid, just look at the final numbers and use the highest.
Then of course the main rule about HP is that when the animal form drops to 0 or below, the Druid reverts to the original form and continues using whatever HP had in that form at the time of wildshaping, minus a possible excess damage from the attack that brought the animal form down below 0.
---
One of my children is playing a Moon Druid, and yesterday they had a tough fight with 2 ogres. His Druid was generally very unlucky with the monsters' rolls against him, and went down to 0 HP before his first turn, then got healed by the Fighter with a potion, got hurt again down to 1 HP, and at this point he wildshaped into a Tiger (37 HP!). Two critical hits later and almost died: the tiger had 9 HP left and got hit for 26 damage... lost all 9 tiger's HP, lost the remaining 1 druid's HP, the 16 leftover damage was just one point smaller than his 17 maximum HP, one more point of damage would have triggered the death from massive damage rule. So he was simply down to 0 instead. However, before his next turn he was healed by the Cleric and went back a few HP, enough to use wildshape his second time before a short rest and turn into a Dire Wolf (again 37 HP!). From there rolls got better and the rest of the fight went smoothly, but we all thought that those total 74 "temporary" HP were huge compared to his normal 17, even tho while in animal form he could only do melee attacks and no spells (but his attacks were even slightly better than the Fighter's).
So I was left wondering, did I do something wrong?
By the way, my children all loved the "pokemon" effect of a Druid dropping unconscious, back to conscious, popping into a tiger, popping back to druid + dropping unconscious again, back to conscious again, and finally popping into a dire wolf, all in basically 2 turns
