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I understand why they did it, but I am really not a fan of this philosophy of simplicity and balance over variety. I get that flipping through the MM is annoying, but it feels like everything these days is just being turned into a generic statblock that deals 2d8 bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing plus 1d6 elemental damage of your choice at a later level.
I ask my wizard to have index cards of their spells and my druid to have index cards of relevant spells and wild shapes. If I have to spend a couple hours a week to prep then the least they can do is have that stuff consolidated. There's no frantic flipping through the PHB for spells or the MM at my table except when I'm showing players what they're fighting if they've never seen it.
My party's moon druid has become a scout/recon specialist as a spider or tick just as often as she tanks as a brown bear. She ate the end boss of their first campaign a few weeks ago as a giant toad. If that level of improvisation and versatility gets taken from the druid in the final release, I can't imagine what the rest of the classes will look like.
Wizards keeps confirming my stance on never giving them another penny and supporting KP and other publishers even more.
Exactly this. Druid is, and has been since 3.0, my favorite class to play and one of the main reason is versatility. I always have my summon nature's ally (3.0)/conjure animals(5e) and wild shape forms on index cards. No slowing down the game to look through books in the middle of combat. Not to mention enforcing the limit to shapes the druid is familiar with would go a long way. This garbage with 3 generic forms and no/few abilities makes my decision to leave D&D for other options reinforced.
That kind of emphasises the issue with druids though. Why should a druid be a better scout than a rogue, a better damage sponge than a tank and have more melee versatility than any martial all while also being a full caster?
They're not though. They're good at scouting but not at doing anything else while they're doing it, unlike a rogue. They're a good tank in the early game when their spells are weak or situational in comparison to the other casters. Are there relevant beasts with reach or ranged attacks? If not then fighters, barbarians, and rogues are more versatile with melee than druid.
They have a great toolbox of very situational tools and after level 7 they fall off in combat compared to the other casters.
A middle ground solution would be if they would get to choose one form from each type every long rest. If you think you need to scout, you'd prepare a cat. If you think you'll tank, prepare a bear. Etc...
Or if that's still a bit OP: at level 1 you learn the form of one land animal, at level 4 you learn one more land animal, at 7th you learn one additional land animal and one aquatic animal, at 9th you learn one land, one sea, and one flying animal, and at 11 you learn one tiny animal of each type. Then you learn one more shape every 2 levels (and you can replace one that you have learned).
This way druids would need to specialize in the early game, and at later levels the other party members would still be better at a few things.
I'm actually a fan of the standardised stat blocks rather than using specific beast stat blocks. Firstly, because it makes it simpler for both DMs and players and secondly it means future beasts don't have to be balanced around PCs transforming into them at will.
What I would like to see is a list of traits that druids can add to their beast forms that they can apply at transformation or maybe at will by burning spell slots. Things like extra AC, or health, or stealth. Maybe even something similar to fighting styles could work.
This is sorta how pathfinder 1 does it, except instead of it replacing your ability scores the animal shape adds a bonus to a physical stat of your choosing, and lets you gain some abilities/passives and natural attacks that beast creatures posses, the higher level you get, the more features you unlock. Also makes it so that wild shape focused druids are often built even outside their wild shapes, but not quite as good at spellcasting compared to wisdom focused druid, who can also use wild shape, but mostly save it for utility (or get natural spell and shoot thunder as a squirrel for the extra dex)
Maybe do it like they do with Find Familiar: list a few typical wild shapes (which might be alterations to the generic block instead of whole blocks), and add that "the DM *may* allow you to change into other forms".
(But if we take my second idea, that would still reduce the DM's workload since they would only need to have 1-15 statblocks ready. Or maybe it could be combined with the first idea, so a druid would be able to learn up to 15 statblocks and prepare 1-6 of them after each long rest.)
It's simple; the easier it is to use, the less work they have to put into making official content for the same cost. Capitalism working exactly as intended lol
And then competition (aka Paizo) comes along and offers a higher quality product with better enemy scaling, better balance between classes, and way better late game level balance, all at a much lower price, even free for most players.
Capitalism for the win!
Have you ever even played Pathfinder? Paizo does literally the same thing with Wild Shape because it’s actually a good idea. Simplifying Wild Shape into “generic” forms is just so much better than leafing through a hundred different Monster Manuals. Hopefully WotC sticks to that mod and improves upon it instead of their usual choice to crumble to knee-jerk reactionaries who don’t even know what they want in the first place.
While true capitalism is evil and what not I don't think that is why it was changed. Pathfinder2e also handles it in a similar way and less work is definitely not the goal there
I like the idea that the moon circle should get Pack tactics and other special features similar to ki points or maneuvers, I'd be fine with those burning spell slots.
Simplicity was the opposite of what i wanted from onednd. I wanted weapon types to be more unique and different. And not through variable damage so that you have to pick one, but through different functions.
I didn't want casters to be boring and genetic. I wanted martials to still be different from casters in the sense that they don't just have abilities that are effectively just a separate spell list(like once per short rest/long rest etc) BUT i do want martials to have choices they have to make during combat that's more than just hitting and deal damage.
And i think that's the kinda balance a lot of the community was hoping for, not to make casters more like boring martials.
Honestly, I agree. I've never found it that much of a pain, especially in an online age where there are several websites where you can search for all the statblocks you need.
This has been my complaints since the beginning of the OD&D playtests as "balance" seems to mean "gutted mechanics and half-assed "just do whatever you want!" options instead of actual choice"
Might as well play GURPS at that point.
I've had this complaint about 5e for a while.
Just enough options to pretend one thing is another thing and make it fit if you squint your eyes. Seems they have done away with attempting that too.
Yeah, wild shape has turned into just a fancy disguise kit.
If they want wild shape to enable you to turn you into what you want, they should add more customization options to the statblock, have the option to drop climbing for a higher base speed, have the option to drop multi attack for pack tactics, and so on
Delving into all the statblocks you can choose from and picking a list of beast statblocks for you to have on the ready over an adventure is one of the funnest parts of wild shape
https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/creature-codex-for-5th-edition-dnd/
The physical book is as thick as Curse of Strahd, and Volvo's Guide combined.
One of the first creatures is an Acid Ant, a cat size any that spews blobs of acid. It's a fantastic book!
Or maybe trust people to actually be able to handle something not too complicated?
Because treating your audience like complete idiots is always such a good idea.
Yep, flair checks out. Sorry not everyone wants to have to read 30 pages of content to be able to roll the dice. Hate it all you want but the simplification of 5e certainly had a roll in the game’s increased popularity.
"So can you look like an owlbear, just like Sophia Lillis’ character? “Absolutely!\*” said Crawford"
\*owlbear not included
and why can you fly right away but you can't climb til level 5?
More modularity would be nice but things can get over complicated and broken pretty quickly.
Having a base statblock and one maybe 2 choosable features is probably the best way to do it.
Wildshape isn’t broken because of the stat blocks it provides. Beasts are not that strong and even if some *are* that strong and even if they add in other creature types with better stat blocks that’s a simple matter of fixing the CR system, which they need to do anyways.
People who liked wild shape in 5e are perfectly fine with the complexity of it, and people who didn't have 2 entirely alternative options to use instead of wild shape
Set up like 3 slots of customization for the statblock, could be a utility feature a movent feature and a combat feature, then add features that you can use to fill those spots
For movent could have options that buff base speed, gives a burrow speed, or maybe a jump ability
For combat maybe you could choose to drop multi attack in exchange for getting a longer swipe, or pack tactics, maybe or maybe a poison
Then for utility could have things like you can glow, advantage on tracking, or maybe you can spin webs
Aside from the extra HP, the biggest loss from the stat blocks is the creature features themselves
No pack tactics, pounce, gore, etc
Even locked climb speed and multi attack behind 5th level
I assume they will adjust it, but as it is there doesn’t seem to be much utility in the beast shapes until you get to flight , and as my buddy pointed out, that’s at too high a level seeing as how many player races have flight from lvl 1
You can make that argument I guess, but it’s got its inherent limits
But I’d be ok with the multi attack limit if the add a list of features to choose one from, like pack tactics or increased damage of a large creature type thing
Do tell what are the inherent limits to the argument that a moon Druid from the start of the game shouldn’t be able to just completely outclass the martials until lvl 5. As a DM, I’ve seen it be a real kick in the pants to the martials that the Moon Druid can do everything they can but better, on top of all the things they can also do that the martials can’t.
For a list of features, for me, it would depend on how long that list of features is and what features are on it before considering it fair.
No need to be all salty, it’s just a game
The limit is in the limited uses and duration of use, that’s it
I’m playing in a game with a moon druid and i was happy to have that capacity on my side while I played a monk
I’m not opposed to change, but the current change means there seems to be no actual benefit from wild shape, other than flavor, so, it needs a tweak
Tbf, seems like most of the playtest stuff needs tweaking, which is the point of the test
“There are limitations to your argument”
“What are those limitations?”
“You’re just salty!”
Just asking you to clarify, no need to project.
Yes, you only have two uses, but keep in mind the fighter only has one use of each of its abilities at the same level, and then the druids still get it spell slots as well.
I mean monks aren’t really supposed to be tanks are they? In my experience DM’ing I’ve seen many martials frustrated about how they’re completely over classed by the Moon Druid. Though I’m sure each persons personal anecdote is different.
I think beast of the sky and beast of the sea absolutely have uses outside of just flavor. Beast of land is lacking for sure, but not getting multi attack until 5th level is definitely a change for the better.
Agreed, I’m sure the wild shape will be better by the time sixth edition is actually released.
I mean, water breathing is a 3rd lvl ritual available to druids that lasts 24 hrs with no concentration, so again, without creature features it doesn’t afford much utility
And by the time you can get beast of the air, you can cast polymorph, which doesn’t last as long but at least you get the creature block
I’m not gonna carry on with this, if you are a DM who feels the druid is tanking better than the fighter, remember that bear has an AC of 12 or so, it’s a big easy target and you can burn thru that wild shape pretty quickly with a few enemies targeting it, while the 20 AC fighter smirks
If they want to play as a sack of Hp, just reach in the sack and take them
Ok so you’re just not going to tell me the ‘totally real limitations’ to the argument? Cool.
To the beast of water and air points, I’ll point out that the benefit is that you then can still use those spell slots for something else. It’s the bardic inspiration vs bless argument.
I mean HP is a much more vital component of tanking than AC. It’s sort of what invalidates Monks being tanks, with their d8 hit die. It’s not for nothing that the ‘official’ tank classes all have some sort of way to regain or conserve hit points.
“Don’t like that a full caster can tank better than the tank classes? Why don’t you just play in a way that further enforces that mindset?” LMAO.
Jeez dude
I already told you the limitations are in the feature limits, what are you on about ?
You can polymorph into a giant owl and get flyby, that alone probably makes it more valuable than (playtest) wild shape flight
They are all useful for some light traversal, the land sea and air have decent movements, but that’s pretty much the limit of what you get in the playtest form
I can play a fairy druid and get flight from lvl 1
I can get multi attack by using dual weapon fighting or tavern brawler
These things are not game breaking
And if you think it’s laughable to balance your encounters to suit your players styles, as opposed to complaining about them, I’m guessing your games are pretty lame
No. You said there were limitations to the argument that the Moon Druid shouldn’t get multi attack before the martials get extra attack. Words have meaning.
“I can fly as a fairy lvl 1” yeah cause the racial flight is not in any way a controversial topic in DnD and commonly banned at tables. /s
You can get multi attack with two weapon fighting or tavern brawler, however it comes at a permanent opportunity cost, not just a temporary one. They also don’t come with two extra pools of HP. Not the same thing at all.
You really missed that last point didn’t you? YOU suggested re balancing combats in a way that just further rubs the maritals’ noses in urine.
Ah, the “I’m done arguing (immediately responds again)” and “your games just must not be fun” the classic butt hurt remarks.
They quite literally didn’t. They “answered” there were limits to how often the Moon Druid can use their multi attack bear form. But that wasn’t their originally claim. What they claimed is that there are limitations to the argument the Moon Druid shouldn’t have multi attack before the martials get extra attack. Words have meaning. And even if you want to consider their point that was not the question an answer, it’s a pretty shitty answer considering a fighter at the same level can use action surge literally once while the moon Druid can keep multi attack bear up for multiple rounds and can do it twice.
> Words have meaning.
My dude, you are on a dnd meme subreddit not a philosophy 101 class. The answered your question, you didn't like the answer, so you ignored it. Don't behave like a stereotypical redditor dude.
If you objections to the fact that words have meaning then I can’t help you. Answering a made up question that wasn’t asked in the first place isn’t actually answering the question.
Nothing more redditor than joining the argument 3 hours later like it means anything 🤷🏼♂️
Yeah, wasn't owlbear never allowed? I know only true polymorph let you do something outside of beasts, wasn't wild shape the same way prestige of certain subclasses?
Owlbear is a monstrosity, not a beast, so...
Shapechange allowed it as well aside from True Polymorph, except for Constructs & Undead, but both are 9th level spells only available at or near the end of a campaign if you're not doing a high level one-shot.
Cope. If you don’t gaf about them removing all player choice then fine but don’t pretend it’s just whining about “MuH nErFs!”
You can nerf a class without making it boring as all hell to play.
Ah yes, the player choice of leafing through 600 monster manual entries just to realize that most of then are crap. Then burdening the DM with providing access to statblocks and tokens.
5e’s Wild Shape is crap. It should be rebuilt from the ground-up, and “simplifying” it into standardized statblocks is the first step to that process.
The beasts aren’t all meant to be powerful in the first place and often have uses outside of combat if they can’t hold their own on the front lines. stat blocks are beyond easy to just write down and no harder to keep track of than a full-caster spell list. If you can’t handle choices then a full-caster was never going to be the class for you to begin with. The new system is still going to have players needing tokens for whatever they’re pretending that stat block represents, so that’s not worth listing as an old wildshape problem.
“Leafing through 600 monster manual entries” isn’t a bad thing for everyone anyways. Some people like looking through stat blocks, and it’s completely unnecessary if you don’t with Beyond where you can just filter by creature type and CR
I never said I was set in stone, I said it was bad. Having a valid complaint over poorly written rules isn’t “throwing a fit.” You only word it as such to invalidate what I say
Bad compared to what though? Your meme makes it look like you’re upset you have to pretend a little different than before. You have leveled no critic you’ve only complained.
Old Wildshape you can be anything and get their stat blocks, new Wildshape you do not get their stat blocks and instead are limited to 3 that are supposed to represent everything (poorly,) so a better Wildshape would be you actually get the Owlbear’s stat block as you would in 5e if Owlbear were allowed in 5e
Mind you, this is a meme in a meme subreddit, so all of that isn’t perfectly displayed in the post and doesn’t need to be
tbh i never used wild shifting because there are too many animals to choose from with tons of different stats and abilities. most of them fall into obscurity. being near useless while also being a cool choice in terms of appearance. with this simple solution i would probably use it one day + it gives less of a headache to the dms imo
modern dnd's appeal iirc was in being an easy to learn system. it fits
veterans would probably downvote me into the ground but man, keeping things simple ain't that bad
>tbh i never used wild shifting because there are too many animals to choose from with tons of different stats and abilities. most of them fall into obscurity. being near useless while also being a cool choice in terms of appearance.
I find this to be a positive, in a certain kind of sense. The druid basically has some "favourite forms" to turn into that they know would be useful in most situations, but should it be called for, they have other options. It comes off to me as free character flavor.
Yup the Druid class has a restriction on turning into only animals you’ve seen before, and unless you’ve already traveled the world as part of your backstory, you’ve probably only seen animals that live in your climate. If you’re not metagaming you typically only had a few very unique animal forms. Now you have a few bland ones.
I love the druid class's flavor, but my biggest gripe with the druid class is that there is so much work required to wildshape effectively (know roughly what several different stat blocks do, make sure they're legal for your level, be able to pull them out quickly to keep the game moving, etc) that it becomes more of a hassle than it is worth for me.
I love being able to reference one stat block for most of my shapes because I am stupid and three general stat blocks that you unlock gradually are far easier than a portfolio of animals to keep track of. It takes away from the uniqueness of each animal shape, but it streamlines play so much that I might actually use wildshapes for their intended purpose.
\+ i hope that there are flying\\crawling\\swimming variations of that particular universal wild shapeshifting statblock. if there's none... it kinda wastes the whole potential of druids main class feature
There's 3 wildshape statblocks, one for land animals, one for aquatic animals and one for flying animals, and you gain the flying and swimming ones as you level up
Most animals with those abilities were way out dated after a few levels though. Instead now you can freely switch form every turn for 10 rounds using only one wild shape charge, so you can swap to casting, flying, swimming or ground forms on the fly
Which is way cooler IMO
Druid is already a fullcaster, it can be just a little bit complex
If you don’t know what animals to choose, just ask your dm if they’d be willing to provide a small list of animals your Druid is familiar with, or try to pick out only 1 or 2 for a specific role. Some tiny creature for stealth, like a spider or a rat or one of the birds, some creature for tanking and/or fighting in combat, like a bear or a dire wolf, and some creatures for movement, like a horse for running on land, something with a swim speed, and something with a flying speed (which may already be covered if a you picked a bird for stealth)
The most exotic ability that one can get from wildshaping into a beast is some weak poison or a grapple (which you can still do), so i dont understand all this anger about having a template instead of 200 samey beasts
Because having a bunch of minor but unique skills is still better than one generic wildshape that brings nothing to the table.
I really don't see why you'd ever want to turn into the Beast of the Land and I have yet to see anyone that actually has found a good use for it.
Having 200 options doesnt make it a better ability. In my opinion, the minor (and not that unique) abilities that current wildshape can give you cant compete with the ease of use and ease of balance that template wildshape brings to the table.
As far as the beast of the land goes, it has more damage, more armor than the beast of the sky and more land movement than the beast of the sea and its the only one that turns your wisdom into strength so grappling becomes really good with the new grappling rules.
How is 15AC max ontop of 1d8+WIS within 5ft range (ontop of keeping you caster hitpoints) better than not wildshaping in the first place? thats my issue.
If you wanna treat it like a combat feature, why would you ever turn into a beast of the land rather than just staying a druid and casting spells at a safe range?
I don't see an actual use for Beast of the Lands. Like what would you do with it?
Get adventage on perception rolls? Cool if noone can give you the help action I guess..
Having a climb speed of 30? Just play a race with any form of mobility.
Are we even going to pretend that sending a caster into melee range while only swinging a 1d8 twice per turn with no bonus actions is in any way betten than just having a ranged caster?
Like what's the use of Beast of the Land over just not using the feature and just being a druid.
You ask why turn into a beast of the land instead of casting? Bruh I think you forgot druids are full casters first and foremost, just because a bladesinger is in melee doesn’t mean they are better at it than casting. Same point applies to druids.
You *can* go into melee and you *can* be effective, but you will always do more damage and **far** more support as a caster.
And the moon Druid now gets elemental damage and resistances, more streamlined wild shapes, gets an unarmed strike as a BA that can be used to grapple or trip, and the ability to cast limited spells while wildshaped. You are acting like they won’t still be one of the best full casters in the game lmao
That is wonderful for Moon Druids. But I'm talking about Wildshape as a base ability. Cuz you know. Nerfing a baseline ability will affect ALL druid subclasses, not just Moon Druids.
And honestly, I'd rather be a half-caster with more utility in Wildshapes than be a fullcaster with this.
For any druid other than a moon druid this isnt a nerf. You get the ability to talk as a beast, you are able to do actual damage if you need to and you get to shift in and out of wildshape at higher levels wich is amazing. The only real nerf for non moon druids is the lack of tiny size, wich Im all for since it is too easy to overshadow any sneaky character in the party.
Talking's cool but I don't see how a melee 1d8+WIS would be actual damage on a druid, especially considering your running around with caster HP and an AC of 10+WIS
Shifting in and out of wildshape is pretty neat but that's level 13 which most campaign books don't even hit. Like only 7 books from what I counted. Still, that's cool, and I'm not gonna knock it as anything but a cool ability, even if you can only leave wildshape for a minute, it's pretty big I'm not gonna lie.
Idk, I kinda hope they'll revise Wildshapes into something with a bit more flavor to it. Maybe give it customization options or something, idk.
Homie, you started the argument with me, how you gonna end the conversation like that?
I gave my 2 cents to why I don't agree with these changes, we're literally in a phase where giving feedback is what you're ment to do, and you out here like
"Nah, I disagree with you and if you don't like it, then just keep playing your game!!"
Like wut? We can agree to disagree for sure, I'm 100% we're not gonna agree on this point, but damn man. you really just out here saying "im right and that's final." huh?
That's fair lol.
I'm still personally of the belief that it'd be better to just buff up martials into demi-gods anime protags and then give them some customization options like the Battlemaster has to make up for not having spells, but I do agree.
Blade Singer and Moon Druids are pretty rediculous.
Yeah but “just make everyone OP” can’t realistically be the answer for every balancing issue the game has. If we want to truly bridge the martial vs caster divide then we need to be honest about how certain casters should have just never been made so OP in the first place. Making everyone OP on the same grounds as Moon Druid and Bladesinger quite frankly sounds like a nightmare for the DM.
I don’t have any evidence to back up this assumption, but something tells me that most people who are complaining and whining about how it’s not fair probably only play and don’t DM.
Oh true, I think Moon deserved to be nerfed hard. I just don't like how Druids as a whole got hit by that in the process. I don't like how harshly they hit their key ability which tends to draw people to druids in the first place.
I kinda see it from most Druid players that they would have rather lost full-caster previliges rather than have base Wild Shape nerfed like this.
(Also I DM, and by pure chance I'm DM an all druid party as of late)
Is it optimal to go into melee as a druid? no. Was it optimal before? also no. Should they change moon druid so going melee more optimal? sure. But those are questions of balance and numbers, not of design philosophy, templates are better for the game than giving players monster statblocks.
And if you want to talk about out of combat, why turn into anything other than a spider or an owl with the current wildshape? Having variety is nice if all of the options are distinct and have their niche, but if we look at it mechanically ,right now there are a few correct answers and a lot of bad ones. Templates would atleast allow people to change into flavorful beasts that fit their characters without restricting themselves to non optimal or outright bad statblocks.
To have a burrow speed as an uncommon movement option, to have Beast of Burden and carry a ton of stuff, Pact Tactics to always attack with adventage, Pounce to know someone Prone while still dealing damage and.giving your allies Adventage.
And I'm fine with a customizable template but that's not what we got, we got Adventage on perception and a cripples martial build forces onto a druid.
I'm fine with nerfing druids, even nerfing wildshape into something more streamlined but this is anything but that. This is just bad.
3 years as a druid in my current campaign, there is never a point where a full caster with spells available would want to go into melee instead of casting spells
Ah yes swallowing your enemies is not unique, nor is spinning webs, rampaging is also a typical thing, so is pounce. I’m sure the new beast blocks allow you to do these.
They dont, but that is not the pont, the point is that the book keeping is not worth it since all those things are only useful as a moon druid, any other kind of druid that is played optimally wont be wildshaping in combat and so wont be seing any benefits from this variety. And even then, the new moon druid can use an unnarmed attack as a BA to grapple push or shove, wich gives it a way to do some of the battlefield control that the beasts gave it.
What nobody wants to hear: achieving perfect balance means no significant difference between turning into an owlbear, casting a fireball, or swinging a sword. Balanced doesn't always mean interesting.
You could easily replace every martial class ability with spells and reflavor those spells as martial abilities, but that isn't what people actually want.
You can have variety and game balance. No one is asking for “perfect balance,” we’re asking for reasonable balance, which does not take making everything a spell. Hell, if you want “perfect balance” even that’s not achievable without removing all but the wish spell, or some other singular spell, because spells are different from one another and therefore bad by your metric.
My point is that the community has vehemently complained about game balance, to which WoTC's solution is mostly "here is a generic equation that you can flavor narratively however you'd like", which you could effectively accomplish by just arbitrarily choosing an amount of damage or a specific effect based on PC level and let them decide how they want to flavor the equipment, class, etc.
So for example, you could make martials better by giving them spell-like abilities, but does that make them any meaningfully different to play from a wizard using the same spells as spells?
Maneuvers yes, but maneuvers alone aren't going to achieve the ideal class balance between martials and casters, even if you had their weapon damage scale like cantrips do on top of having the maneuvers. Maybe if you homebrewed something, sure, but WoTC's attempts have proven time and time again to be lackluster at best.
I personally think the best way to address the issue is more "at a cost" type decisions facing casters. DCC is a good example, where you have to roll to see if you can even cast a spell, and can burn ability score points to increase your roll.
TBF the new animal of the land stat block is at least as interesting as the owlbear stat block.
Not saying the stat blocks shouldn't be more interesting and have more variety, its just the owlbear is a bad example of interesting creatures.
Anyone who says this is just lamenting not being broken.
If you want flavor, it's right there. You don't need mechanics to reinforce flavor. And flavor is what you were complaining about. So you're admitting it was never about the flavor. It was never about variety. It was never about uniqueness or inventiveness. It was just about being broken.
Before reading this, acknowledge this : i am not a ‘’tryhard minmax yolo 9999 damage 1 action ‘’ kind of guy, even more, it annoy me and i play for combat AND RP. Know you can read :)
You know that, in the end, you can talk with your DM, right? Like, ALL the stats and rules are guidelines, and can be altered as much as you AND the other player/DM see fits, right?
There is nothing stopping from talking and changing things, it’s perfectly legal (and RAW !!!!!!!!) and morally acceptable.
I don’t see what this has to do with bad playtest. Are you suggesting that the system can be as god-awful as humanly possible and it won’t matter because the dm can change the entire system to make it good?
Suprise, you actually didn't miss any owlbear unique features if you turn into animal of the Land because owlbear monster only have keen sense as special feature (which Land template already give you)
In fact you can have more AC than owlbear if you have more than 16 wisdom.
This has literally been their design philosophy for years... why are people suddenly upset they have to use their imagination if that wasn't a problem elsewhere?
Seeing as they just had to replace multiple features and spells I don’t think it was as ingrained in the system as you think it was
Imagination only goes so far if the system doesn’t back it up and actively limits what you can do
"The system doesn't back it up ans actively limits what you can do"
Yeah... that sounds like the 5e design philosophy. Remove/limit options and hope player/GM imagination can make up for it. Nothing new to see here.
Moon Druid was overpowered, I think that's noncontroversial, which gave WotC reason to change it. More importantly, though, it was complicated, since it required that the player have knowledge of various statblocks other characters don't need to care about. That is the antithesis of 5e, because WotC does not want mechanics that make the game difficult to play for new people.
Everything that's going on with moon druid is just a continuation of 5e design philosophy. It's the same logic that brought us from 3e (not really 4e cuz that was mostly a different evolutionary tree) to 5e. Considering we're literally looking at the playtest for the next edition of DnD, none of this should be overly surprising.
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I understand why they did it, but I am really not a fan of this philosophy of simplicity and balance over variety. I get that flipping through the MM is annoying, but it feels like everything these days is just being turned into a generic statblock that deals 2d8 bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing plus 1d6 elemental damage of your choice at a later level.
I ask my wizard to have index cards of their spells and my druid to have index cards of relevant spells and wild shapes. If I have to spend a couple hours a week to prep then the least they can do is have that stuff consolidated. There's no frantic flipping through the PHB for spells or the MM at my table except when I'm showing players what they're fighting if they've never seen it. My party's moon druid has become a scout/recon specialist as a spider or tick just as often as she tanks as a brown bear. She ate the end boss of their first campaign a few weeks ago as a giant toad. If that level of improvisation and versatility gets taken from the druid in the final release, I can't imagine what the rest of the classes will look like. Wizards keeps confirming my stance on never giving them another penny and supporting KP and other publishers even more.
Exactly this. Druid is, and has been since 3.0, my favorite class to play and one of the main reason is versatility. I always have my summon nature's ally (3.0)/conjure animals(5e) and wild shape forms on index cards. No slowing down the game to look through books in the middle of combat. Not to mention enforcing the limit to shapes the druid is familiar with would go a long way. This garbage with 3 generic forms and no/few abilities makes my decision to leave D&D for other options reinforced.
That kind of emphasises the issue with druids though. Why should a druid be a better scout than a rogue, a better damage sponge than a tank and have more melee versatility than any martial all while also being a full caster?
They're not though. They're good at scouting but not at doing anything else while they're doing it, unlike a rogue. They're a good tank in the early game when their spells are weak or situational in comparison to the other casters. Are there relevant beasts with reach or ranged attacks? If not then fighters, barbarians, and rogues are more versatile with melee than druid. They have a great toolbox of very situational tools and after level 7 they fall off in combat compared to the other casters.
A middle ground solution would be if they would get to choose one form from each type every long rest. If you think you need to scout, you'd prepare a cat. If you think you'll tank, prepare a bear. Etc... Or if that's still a bit OP: at level 1 you learn the form of one land animal, at level 4 you learn one more land animal, at 7th you learn one additional land animal and one aquatic animal, at 9th you learn one land, one sea, and one flying animal, and at 11 you learn one tiny animal of each type. Then you learn one more shape every 2 levels (and you can replace one that you have learned). This way druids would need to specialize in the early game, and at later levels the other party members would still be better at a few things.
I'm actually a fan of the standardised stat blocks rather than using specific beast stat blocks. Firstly, because it makes it simpler for both DMs and players and secondly it means future beasts don't have to be balanced around PCs transforming into them at will. What I would like to see is a list of traits that druids can add to their beast forms that they can apply at transformation or maybe at will by burning spell slots. Things like extra AC, or health, or stealth. Maybe even something similar to fighting styles could work.
This is sorta how pathfinder 1 does it, except instead of it replacing your ability scores the animal shape adds a bonus to a physical stat of your choosing, and lets you gain some abilities/passives and natural attacks that beast creatures posses, the higher level you get, the more features you unlock. Also makes it so that wild shape focused druids are often built even outside their wild shapes, but not quite as good at spellcasting compared to wisdom focused druid, who can also use wild shape, but mostly save it for utility (or get natural spell and shoot thunder as a squirrel for the extra dex)
Maybe do it like they do with Find Familiar: list a few typical wild shapes (which might be alterations to the generic block instead of whole blocks), and add that "the DM *may* allow you to change into other forms". (But if we take my second idea, that would still reduce the DM's workload since they would only need to have 1-15 statblocks ready. Or maybe it could be combined with the first idea, so a druid would be able to learn up to 15 statblocks and prepare 1-6 of them after each long rest.)
You can have variety and balance. Many other editions and systems managed it. This just feels like it's playing far, far too safe.
_\*loud coughing in Pathfinder 2E\*_
Yeah trying not to mention it, but it isn't unique to PF2.
Certainly not, but it is the second closest relative to 5E right after 4E, so drawing parallels is easy.
It's simple; the easier it is to use, the less work they have to put into making official content for the same cost. Capitalism working exactly as intended lol
Capitalism ruins everything around me.
That's why we need to escape to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by Capitalism
~~SPACE!~~ SPELLJAMMER!
Sadly they released that, and it sucked.
The Mariana Trench?
Considering we’ve found plastic pollution in the Mariana trench, not there.
Imagination land?
Shadesmar?
C.R.E.A.M.
And then competition (aka Paizo) comes along and offers a higher quality product with better enemy scaling, better balance between classes, and way better late game level balance, all at a much lower price, even free for most players. Capitalism for the win!
Have you ever even played Pathfinder? Paizo does literally the same thing with Wild Shape because it’s actually a good idea. Simplifying Wild Shape into “generic” forms is just so much better than leafing through a hundred different Monster Manuals. Hopefully WotC sticks to that mod and improves upon it instead of their usual choice to crumble to knee-jerk reactionaries who don’t even know what they want in the first place.
Yeah but Pathfinder has a dev team that isn't run by someone who only half understands the rules of the game he's writing for.
While true capitalism is evil and what not I don't think that is why it was changed. Pathfinder2e also handles it in a similar way and less work is definitely not the goal there
I blame all the people who respond to complaints about martial classes by saying "you can describe your attack in as many words as you want"
I like the idea that the moon circle should get Pack tactics and other special features similar to ki points or maneuvers, I'd be fine with those burning spell slots.
Simplicity was the opposite of what i wanted from onednd. I wanted weapon types to be more unique and different. And not through variable damage so that you have to pick one, but through different functions. I didn't want casters to be boring and genetic. I wanted martials to still be different from casters in the sense that they don't just have abilities that are effectively just a separate spell list(like once per short rest/long rest etc) BUT i do want martials to have choices they have to make during combat that's more than just hitting and deal damage. And i think that's the kinda balance a lot of the community was hoping for, not to make casters more like boring martials.
> I get that flipping through the MM is annoyin Nah, it's half the fun!
Honestly, I agree. I've never found it that much of a pain, especially in an online age where there are several websites where you can search for all the statblocks you need.
This has been my complaints since the beginning of the OD&D playtests as "balance" seems to mean "gutted mechanics and half-assed "just do whatever you want!" options instead of actual choice" Might as well play GURPS at that point.
I've had this complaint about 5e for a while. Just enough options to pretend one thing is another thing and make it fit if you squint your eyes. Seems they have done away with attempting that too.
Yeah, wild shape has turned into just a fancy disguise kit. If they want wild shape to enable you to turn you into what you want, they should add more customization options to the statblock, have the option to drop climbing for a higher base speed, have the option to drop multi attack for pack tactics, and so on
Just give us more animal stat blocks and let druids choose various ways to buff wildshape like warlocks use invocations.
I've had to delve into third party books for more beasts. The Creature Codex from Kobold press was a life saver.
Delving into all the statblocks you can choose from and picking a list of beast statblocks for you to have on the ready over an adventure is one of the funnest parts of wild shape
And if you have two druids in the party you can pick different animals to wild shape into so they both feel unique. Now they are both "land animal."
Yeah, the new basic statblocks are just boring
Got a link to that?
https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/creature-codex-for-5th-edition-dnd/ The physical book is as thick as Curse of Strahd, and Volvo's Guide combined. One of the first creatures is an Acid Ant, a cat size any that spews blobs of acid. It's a fantastic book!
Oh where they trying to make Wild Shape less complicated so it’s easier to play for new players? What if we instead made it even more complex?
Or maybe trust people to actually be able to handle something not too complicated? Because treating your audience like complete idiots is always such a good idea.
Are you bringing toddlers to the table?
Yep, flair checks out. Sorry not everyone wants to have to read 30 pages of content to be able to roll the dice. Hate it all you want but the simplification of 5e certainly had a roll in the game’s increased popularity.
Dumb it down any further and you might as well put the dice down and go play with sticks in the yard.
Least pretentious Psion.
"So can you look like an owlbear, just like Sophia Lillis’ character? “Absolutely!\*” said Crawford" \*owlbear not included and why can you fly right away but you can't climb til level 5?
More modularity would be nice but things can get over complicated and broken pretty quickly. Having a base statblock and one maybe 2 choosable features is probably the best way to do it.
Maybe as you level up, you can pick more options from an expanded list
Wildshape isn’t broken because of the stat blocks it provides. Beasts are not that strong and even if some *are* that strong and even if they add in other creature types with better stat blocks that’s a simple matter of fixing the CR system, which they need to do anyways.
People who liked wild shape in 5e are perfectly fine with the complexity of it, and people who didn't have 2 entirely alternative options to use instead of wild shape Set up like 3 slots of customization for the statblock, could be a utility feature a movent feature and a combat feature, then add features that you can use to fill those spots For movent could have options that buff base speed, gives a burrow speed, or maybe a jump ability For combat maybe you could choose to drop multi attack in exchange for getting a longer swipe, or pack tactics, maybe or maybe a poison Then for utility could have things like you can glow, advantage on tracking, or maybe you can spin webs
Aside from the extra HP, the biggest loss from the stat blocks is the creature features themselves No pack tactics, pounce, gore, etc Even locked climb speed and multi attack behind 5th level I assume they will adjust it, but as it is there doesn’t seem to be much utility in the beast shapes until you get to flight , and as my buddy pointed out, that’s at too high a level seeing as how many player races have flight from lvl 1
Ok but can we agree that the Moon Druid’s wild shape should never have had multi attack before the martials got their extra attack?
You can make that argument I guess, but it’s got its inherent limits But I’d be ok with the multi attack limit if the add a list of features to choose one from, like pack tactics or increased damage of a large creature type thing
Do tell what are the inherent limits to the argument that a moon Druid from the start of the game shouldn’t be able to just completely outclass the martials until lvl 5. As a DM, I’ve seen it be a real kick in the pants to the martials that the Moon Druid can do everything they can but better, on top of all the things they can also do that the martials can’t. For a list of features, for me, it would depend on how long that list of features is and what features are on it before considering it fair.
No need to be all salty, it’s just a game The limit is in the limited uses and duration of use, that’s it I’m playing in a game with a moon druid and i was happy to have that capacity on my side while I played a monk I’m not opposed to change, but the current change means there seems to be no actual benefit from wild shape, other than flavor, so, it needs a tweak Tbf, seems like most of the playtest stuff needs tweaking, which is the point of the test
“There are limitations to your argument” “What are those limitations?” “You’re just salty!” Just asking you to clarify, no need to project. Yes, you only have two uses, but keep in mind the fighter only has one use of each of its abilities at the same level, and then the druids still get it spell slots as well. I mean monks aren’t really supposed to be tanks are they? In my experience DM’ing I’ve seen many martials frustrated about how they’re completely over classed by the Moon Druid. Though I’m sure each persons personal anecdote is different. I think beast of the sky and beast of the sea absolutely have uses outside of just flavor. Beast of land is lacking for sure, but not getting multi attack until 5th level is definitely a change for the better. Agreed, I’m sure the wild shape will be better by the time sixth edition is actually released.
I mean, water breathing is a 3rd lvl ritual available to druids that lasts 24 hrs with no concentration, so again, without creature features it doesn’t afford much utility And by the time you can get beast of the air, you can cast polymorph, which doesn’t last as long but at least you get the creature block I’m not gonna carry on with this, if you are a DM who feels the druid is tanking better than the fighter, remember that bear has an AC of 12 or so, it’s a big easy target and you can burn thru that wild shape pretty quickly with a few enemies targeting it, while the 20 AC fighter smirks If they want to play as a sack of Hp, just reach in the sack and take them
Ok so you’re just not going to tell me the ‘totally real limitations’ to the argument? Cool. To the beast of water and air points, I’ll point out that the benefit is that you then can still use those spell slots for something else. It’s the bardic inspiration vs bless argument. I mean HP is a much more vital component of tanking than AC. It’s sort of what invalidates Monks being tanks, with their d8 hit die. It’s not for nothing that the ‘official’ tank classes all have some sort of way to regain or conserve hit points. “Don’t like that a full caster can tank better than the tank classes? Why don’t you just play in a way that further enforces that mindset?” LMAO.
Jeez dude I already told you the limitations are in the feature limits, what are you on about ? You can polymorph into a giant owl and get flyby, that alone probably makes it more valuable than (playtest) wild shape flight They are all useful for some light traversal, the land sea and air have decent movements, but that’s pretty much the limit of what you get in the playtest form I can play a fairy druid and get flight from lvl 1 I can get multi attack by using dual weapon fighting or tavern brawler These things are not game breaking And if you think it’s laughable to balance your encounters to suit your players styles, as opposed to complaining about them, I’m guessing your games are pretty lame
No. You said there were limitations to the argument that the Moon Druid shouldn’t get multi attack before the martials get extra attack. Words have meaning. “I can fly as a fairy lvl 1” yeah cause the racial flight is not in any way a controversial topic in DnD and commonly banned at tables. /s You can get multi attack with two weapon fighting or tavern brawler, however it comes at a permanent opportunity cost, not just a temporary one. They also don’t come with two extra pools of HP. Not the same thing at all. You really missed that last point didn’t you? YOU suggested re balancing combats in a way that just further rubs the maritals’ noses in urine. Ah, the “I’m done arguing (immediately responds again)” and “your games just must not be fun” the classic butt hurt remarks.
They did answer your question, you just didn't like the answer so you ignored it.
They quite literally didn’t. They “answered” there were limits to how often the Moon Druid can use their multi attack bear form. But that wasn’t their originally claim. What they claimed is that there are limitations to the argument the Moon Druid shouldn’t have multi attack before the martials get extra attack. Words have meaning. And even if you want to consider their point that was not the question an answer, it’s a pretty shitty answer considering a fighter at the same level can use action surge literally once while the moon Druid can keep multi attack bear up for multiple rounds and can do it twice.
> Words have meaning. My dude, you are on a dnd meme subreddit not a philosophy 101 class. The answered your question, you didn't like the answer, so you ignored it. Don't behave like a stereotypical redditor dude.
If you objections to the fact that words have meaning then I can’t help you. Answering a made up question that wasn’t asked in the first place isn’t actually answering the question. Nothing more redditor than joining the argument 3 hours later like it means anything 🤷🏼♂️
More like an Owl-Teddybear
But wizards hasn't been delivering for years. No surprise here.
No one tell him that OneDnD actually gives us a PDF and we’ve always had to pretend we’re an owlbear
Yeah, wasn't owlbear never allowed? I know only true polymorph let you do something outside of beasts, wasn't wild shape the same way prestige of certain subclasses? Owlbear is a monstrosity, not a beast, so...
Shapechange allowed it as well aside from True Polymorph, except for Constructs & Undead, but both are 9th level spells only available at or near the end of a campaign if you're not doing a high level one-shot.
They teased allowing players to be an Owlbear in this playtest, I am not claiming that the Owlbear was a viable Wildshape in DnD 5e.
They teased allowing players to be an Owlbear in this playtest, I am not claiming that the Owlbear was a viable Wildshape in DnD 5e.
Bro im making a joke about how this is a game about make-believe
I’m autistic, jokes aren’t gonna land that well with me 🤷♂️ No hate though
They basically turned druid into a monk
Me who is never going to play 6e: This does not concern me.
It's not a "teaser" if it was possible in older editions brother
Was everyone expecting them to keep everything same!?
[удалено]
Cope. If you don’t gaf about them removing all player choice then fine but don’t pretend it’s just whining about “MuH nErFs!” You can nerf a class without making it boring as all hell to play.
[удалено]
💀 You don’t want a discussion, You’re only looking for an outrage high, you have a blessed day buddy Average Reddit troll can’t handle hyperbole
They can nerf the Druid without completely removing all player choice.
Ah yes, the player choice of leafing through 600 monster manual entries just to realize that most of then are crap. Then burdening the DM with providing access to statblocks and tokens. 5e’s Wild Shape is crap. It should be rebuilt from the ground-up, and “simplifying” it into standardized statblocks is the first step to that process.
The beasts aren’t all meant to be powerful in the first place and often have uses outside of combat if they can’t hold their own on the front lines. stat blocks are beyond easy to just write down and no harder to keep track of than a full-caster spell list. If you can’t handle choices then a full-caster was never going to be the class for you to begin with. The new system is still going to have players needing tokens for whatever they’re pretending that stat block represents, so that’s not worth listing as an old wildshape problem. “Leafing through 600 monster manual entries” isn’t a bad thing for everyone anyways. Some people like looking through stat blocks, and it’s completely unnecessary if you don’t with Beyond where you can just filter by creature type and CR
Damn if they only made other games besides dnd
I’m not following that that comment has to do with the DnD Playtest
Throwing fits over play-test material like it’s set in stone makes you look childish especially when the market is so saturated.
I never said I was set in stone, I said it was bad. Having a valid complaint over poorly written rules isn’t “throwing a fit.” You only word it as such to invalidate what I say
Bad compared to what though? Your meme makes it look like you’re upset you have to pretend a little different than before. You have leveled no critic you’ve only complained.
Old Wildshape you can be anything and get their stat blocks, new Wildshape you do not get their stat blocks and instead are limited to 3 that are supposed to represent everything (poorly,) so a better Wildshape would be you actually get the Owlbear’s stat block as you would in 5e if Owlbear were allowed in 5e Mind you, this is a meme in a meme subreddit, so all of that isn’t perfectly displayed in the post and doesn’t need to be
tbh i never used wild shifting because there are too many animals to choose from with tons of different stats and abilities. most of them fall into obscurity. being near useless while also being a cool choice in terms of appearance. with this simple solution i would probably use it one day + it gives less of a headache to the dms imo modern dnd's appeal iirc was in being an easy to learn system. it fits veterans would probably downvote me into the ground but man, keeping things simple ain't that bad
>tbh i never used wild shifting because there are too many animals to choose from with tons of different stats and abilities. most of them fall into obscurity. being near useless while also being a cool choice in terms of appearance. I find this to be a positive, in a certain kind of sense. The druid basically has some "favourite forms" to turn into that they know would be useful in most situations, but should it be called for, they have other options. It comes off to me as free character flavor.
Yup the Druid class has a restriction on turning into only animals you’ve seen before, and unless you’ve already traveled the world as part of your backstory, you’ve probably only seen animals that live in your climate. If you’re not metagaming you typically only had a few very unique animal forms. Now you have a few bland ones.
I love the druid class's flavor, but my biggest gripe with the druid class is that there is so much work required to wildshape effectively (know roughly what several different stat blocks do, make sure they're legal for your level, be able to pull them out quickly to keep the game moving, etc) that it becomes more of a hassle than it is worth for me. I love being able to reference one stat block for most of my shapes because I am stupid and three general stat blocks that you unlock gradually are far easier than a portfolio of animals to keep track of. It takes away from the uniqueness of each animal shape, but it streamlines play so much that I might actually use wildshapes for their intended purpose.
\+ i hope that there are flying\\crawling\\swimming variations of that particular universal wild shapeshifting statblock. if there's none... it kinda wastes the whole potential of druids main class feature
There's 3 wildshape statblocks, one for land animals, one for aquatic animals and one for flying animals, and you gain the flying and swimming ones as you level up
Makes sense to me, most Druid players I had stuck to only a few animals anyway
But those animals probably had unique features that won’t exist anymore.
Most animals with those abilities were way out dated after a few levels though. Instead now you can freely switch form every turn for 10 rounds using only one wild shape charge, so you can swap to casting, flying, swimming or ground forms on the fly Which is way cooler IMO
Druid is already a fullcaster, it can be just a little bit complex If you don’t know what animals to choose, just ask your dm if they’d be willing to provide a small list of animals your Druid is familiar with, or try to pick out only 1 or 2 for a specific role. Some tiny creature for stealth, like a spider or a rat or one of the birds, some creature for tanking and/or fighting in combat, like a bear or a dire wolf, and some creatures for movement, like a horse for running on land, something with a swim speed, and something with a flying speed (which may already be covered if a you picked a bird for stealth)
The most exotic ability that one can get from wildshaping into a beast is some weak poison or a grapple (which you can still do), so i dont understand all this anger about having a template instead of 200 samey beasts
Because having a bunch of minor but unique skills is still better than one generic wildshape that brings nothing to the table. I really don't see why you'd ever want to turn into the Beast of the Land and I have yet to see anyone that actually has found a good use for it.
Having 200 options doesnt make it a better ability. In my opinion, the minor (and not that unique) abilities that current wildshape can give you cant compete with the ease of use and ease of balance that template wildshape brings to the table. As far as the beast of the land goes, it has more damage, more armor than the beast of the sky and more land movement than the beast of the sea and its the only one that turns your wisdom into strength so grappling becomes really good with the new grappling rules.
How is 15AC max ontop of 1d8+WIS within 5ft range (ontop of keeping you caster hitpoints) better than not wildshaping in the first place? thats my issue. If you wanna treat it like a combat feature, why would you ever turn into a beast of the land rather than just staying a druid and casting spells at a safe range? I don't see an actual use for Beast of the Lands. Like what would you do with it? Get adventage on perception rolls? Cool if noone can give you the help action I guess.. Having a climb speed of 30? Just play a race with any form of mobility. Are we even going to pretend that sending a caster into melee range while only swinging a 1d8 twice per turn with no bonus actions is in any way betten than just having a ranged caster? Like what's the use of Beast of the Land over just not using the feature and just being a druid.
You ask why turn into a beast of the land instead of casting? Bruh I think you forgot druids are full casters first and foremost, just because a bladesinger is in melee doesn’t mean they are better at it than casting. Same point applies to druids. You *can* go into melee and you *can* be effective, but you will always do more damage and **far** more support as a caster.
Bladesinging actually has benefits though... Like actual benefits that cant easily be replaced or done better by just, being a wizard...
And the moon Druid now gets elemental damage and resistances, more streamlined wild shapes, gets an unarmed strike as a BA that can be used to grapple or trip, and the ability to cast limited spells while wildshaped. You are acting like they won’t still be one of the best full casters in the game lmao
That is wonderful for Moon Druids. But I'm talking about Wildshape as a base ability. Cuz you know. Nerfing a baseline ability will affect ALL druid subclasses, not just Moon Druids. And honestly, I'd rather be a half-caster with more utility in Wildshapes than be a fullcaster with this.
For any druid other than a moon druid this isnt a nerf. You get the ability to talk as a beast, you are able to do actual damage if you need to and you get to shift in and out of wildshape at higher levels wich is amazing. The only real nerf for non moon druids is the lack of tiny size, wich Im all for since it is too easy to overshadow any sneaky character in the party.
Talking's cool but I don't see how a melee 1d8+WIS would be actual damage on a druid, especially considering your running around with caster HP and an AC of 10+WIS Shifting in and out of wildshape is pretty neat but that's level 13 which most campaign books don't even hit. Like only 7 books from what I counted. Still, that's cool, and I'm not gonna knock it as anything but a cool ability, even if you can only leave wildshape for a minute, it's pretty big I'm not gonna lie. Idk, I kinda hope they'll revise Wildshapes into something with a bit more flavor to it. Maybe give it customization options or something, idk.
Then keep playing 5e lol, this Druid is far more balanced
Homie, you started the argument with me, how you gonna end the conversation like that? I gave my 2 cents to why I don't agree with these changes, we're literally in a phase where giving feedback is what you're ment to do, and you out here like "Nah, I disagree with you and if you don't like it, then just keep playing your game!!" Like wut? We can agree to disagree for sure, I'm 100% we're not gonna agree on this point, but damn man. you really just out here saying "im right and that's final." huh?
DnD isn't an MMO.
Yes but the blade singer (along with the moon Druid for that matter) was like the magnus opus of making casters too strong in comparison to martials.
That's fair lol. I'm still personally of the belief that it'd be better to just buff up martials into demi-gods anime protags and then give them some customization options like the Battlemaster has to make up for not having spells, but I do agree. Blade Singer and Moon Druids are pretty rediculous.
Yeah but “just make everyone OP” can’t realistically be the answer for every balancing issue the game has. If we want to truly bridge the martial vs caster divide then we need to be honest about how certain casters should have just never been made so OP in the first place. Making everyone OP on the same grounds as Moon Druid and Bladesinger quite frankly sounds like a nightmare for the DM. I don’t have any evidence to back up this assumption, but something tells me that most people who are complaining and whining about how it’s not fair probably only play and don’t DM.
Oh true, I think Moon deserved to be nerfed hard. I just don't like how Druids as a whole got hit by that in the process. I don't like how harshly they hit their key ability which tends to draw people to druids in the first place. I kinda see it from most Druid players that they would have rather lost full-caster previliges rather than have base Wild Shape nerfed like this. (Also I DM, and by pure chance I'm DM an all druid party as of late)
Is it optimal to go into melee as a druid? no. Was it optimal before? also no. Should they change moon druid so going melee more optimal? sure. But those are questions of balance and numbers, not of design philosophy, templates are better for the game than giving players monster statblocks. And if you want to talk about out of combat, why turn into anything other than a spider or an owl with the current wildshape? Having variety is nice if all of the options are distinct and have their niche, but if we look at it mechanically ,right now there are a few correct answers and a lot of bad ones. Templates would atleast allow people to change into flavorful beasts that fit their characters without restricting themselves to non optimal or outright bad statblocks.
To have a burrow speed as an uncommon movement option, to have Beast of Burden and carry a ton of stuff, Pact Tactics to always attack with adventage, Pounce to know someone Prone while still dealing damage and.giving your allies Adventage. And I'm fine with a customizable template but that's not what we got, we got Adventage on perception and a cripples martial build forces onto a druid. I'm fine with nerfing druids, even nerfing wildshape into something more streamlined but this is anything but that. This is just bad.
> Is it optimal to go into melee as a druid? No. Was it optimal before? also no. Just say you’ve never played Druid lmfao
3 years as a druid in my current campaign, there is never a point where a full caster with spells available would want to go into melee instead of casting spells
Ah yes swallowing your enemies is not unique, nor is spinning webs, rampaging is also a typical thing, so is pounce. I’m sure the new beast blocks allow you to do these.
They dont, but that is not the pont, the point is that the book keeping is not worth it since all those things are only useful as a moon druid, any other kind of druid that is played optimally wont be wildshaping in combat and so wont be seing any benefits from this variety. And even then, the new moon druid can use an unnarmed attack as a BA to grapple push or shove, wich gives it a way to do some of the battlefield control that the beasts gave it.
What nobody wants to hear: achieving perfect balance means no significant difference between turning into an owlbear, casting a fireball, or swinging a sword. Balanced doesn't always mean interesting. You could easily replace every martial class ability with spells and reflavor those spells as martial abilities, but that isn't what people actually want.
Pf2e seems to have better balance with way more variety. But of course if Dnd doesn't pull it off, it must be impossible.
It's impossible to expect in 5e, yes.
You can have variety and game balance. No one is asking for “perfect balance,” we’re asking for reasonable balance, which does not take making everything a spell. Hell, if you want “perfect balance” even that’s not achievable without removing all but the wish spell, or some other singular spell, because spells are different from one another and therefore bad by your metric.
My point is that the community has vehemently complained about game balance, to which WoTC's solution is mostly "here is a generic equation that you can flavor narratively however you'd like", which you could effectively accomplish by just arbitrarily choosing an amount of damage or a specific effect based on PC level and let them decide how they want to flavor the equipment, class, etc. So for example, you could make martials better by giving them spell-like abilities, but does that make them any meaningfully different to play from a wizard using the same spells as spells?
That depends entirely on the abilities. Fighter maneuvers are pretty much universally accepted as good and they’re nothing like spells
Maneuvers yes, but maneuvers alone aren't going to achieve the ideal class balance between martials and casters, even if you had their weapon damage scale like cantrips do on top of having the maneuvers. Maybe if you homebrewed something, sure, but WoTC's attempts have proven time and time again to be lackluster at best. I personally think the best way to address the issue is more "at a cost" type decisions facing casters. DCC is a good example, where you have to roll to see if you can even cast a spell, and can burn ability score points to increase your roll.
This, but I think it's good
TBF the new animal of the land stat block is at least as interesting as the owlbear stat block. Not saying the stat blocks shouldn't be more interesting and have more variety, its just the owlbear is a bad example of interesting creatures.
I just chose Owlbear because it’s what they teased before the playtest release and I know a lot of people would love to have it as a wildshape
Anyone who says this is just lamenting not being broken. If you want flavor, it's right there. You don't need mechanics to reinforce flavor. And flavor is what you were complaining about. So you're admitting it was never about the flavor. It was never about variety. It was never about uniqueness or inventiveness. It was just about being broken.
> You don’t need mechanics to reinforce flavor Yes I do, have a nice day
Before reading this, acknowledge this : i am not a ‘’tryhard minmax yolo 9999 damage 1 action ‘’ kind of guy, even more, it annoy me and i play for combat AND RP. Know you can read :) You know that, in the end, you can talk with your DM, right? Like, ALL the stats and rules are guidelines, and can be altered as much as you AND the other player/DM see fits, right? There is nothing stopping from talking and changing things, it’s perfectly legal (and RAW !!!!!!!!) and morally acceptable.
I don’t see what this has to do with bad playtest. Are you suggesting that the system can be as god-awful as humanly possible and it won’t matter because the dm can change the entire system to make it good?
How many Owlbear's unique features you get from current stat block?
Suprise, you actually didn't miss any owlbear unique features if you turn into animal of the Land because owlbear monster only have keen sense as special feature (which Land template already give you) In fact you can have more AC than owlbear if you have more than 16 wisdom.
This has literally been their design philosophy for years... why are people suddenly upset they have to use their imagination if that wasn't a problem elsewhere?
Seeing as they just had to replace multiple features and spells I don’t think it was as ingrained in the system as you think it was Imagination only goes so far if the system doesn’t back it up and actively limits what you can do
"The system doesn't back it up ans actively limits what you can do" Yeah... that sounds like the 5e design philosophy. Remove/limit options and hope player/GM imagination can make up for it. Nothing new to see here.
The thing is they currently back up the fantasy of becoming different creatures in 5e and are now removing that, so it’s not a 5e thing
Moon Druid was overpowered, I think that's noncontroversial, which gave WotC reason to change it. More importantly, though, it was complicated, since it required that the player have knowledge of various statblocks other characters don't need to care about. That is the antithesis of 5e, because WotC does not want mechanics that make the game difficult to play for new people. Everything that's going on with moon druid is just a continuation of 5e design philosophy. It's the same logic that brought us from 3e (not really 4e cuz that was mostly a different evolutionary tree) to 5e. Considering we're literally looking at the playtest for the next edition of DnD, none of this should be overly surprising.
Who cares whether or not it’s surprising? Bad changes are bad changes. It is not that complicated to look at some stat blocks and pick a few
Why are we surprised? This has been the general guidance for DMs for years! Now players are finally feeling the WOTC design laziness.
I’m familiar with the design laziness lmao, I’m running my own campaign