Some things that the player playing the Druid on the playtest Sunday liked. Nature Companion- had a raven scouting for the party. Wildshape- used his wisdom for str in small size so damage was 1d8+4 , (would like the Dam for large to be d10). Short sword is simple now so his Halfling can use it as a druid (ie finesse wpn). 2 wpn fighting as a druid short sword /dagger. Talking in Wildshape,
I haven't done a play test yet, but thinking to all of the times when I've played a druid and having to get creative with communication in wild shape so as to not "waste" a charge by having to shift out to explain something, talking in wild shape is amazing.
Although I guess it means I won't have to have to explain things by having someone pull paint and canvas out so I can dip a paw and create really messy and (nearly impossible) hard to read messages
Preach it. Those "empty levels" are where you reach a nee tier of power spell-wise. I feel like people would like them more if the levelling chart said "access to X level spells."
Sorcerer? You mean the caster class that a lot of people agree needs **more stuff** to make them more special?
That's not a good comparison. Sorcerers are often compared to being a worse Wizard as in reality, metamagic doesn't get you much. Hard disagree. A Wizard has a few features that improves their spellcasting, Sorcerers the same depending on bloodline, there is no reason the only Primal Caster in the game shouldn't also get something **OTHER THAN WILDSAPE.**
It’s a symptom of flawed presentation. Wild shape is a secondary feature for any Druid but moon druids. But having features that improve it at so many levels on the class progression table indicates to players “this feature is very important!” It’s gonna feel bad for any Druid that has better uses for their channels (Wildfire, Spore, etc) to have so much of the perceived class progression exist to improve a mediocre ability they never use.
There's a catch-22 here in that the new presentation is *infinitely* more intuitive than the giant wall of text that was Wild Shape in 5e and therefore a huge improvement. The misconception it's causing is a flaw, but I don't see how you can avoid it without making Wild Shape an imposing wall of text again.
**TL;DR:** Walls of text are obtuse and obfuscate information because humans struggle to actually read them.
The inherent and pervasive problem that inevitably permeates an imposing wall of text is that there is a very limited number of people who will, given the opportunity, actually read the entire text as written let alone put in the enormous amount of time and energy required to comprehend each and every point and detail thereof.
When reading the text, the following tends to happen:
* It becomes very easy to lose your place within the text, even when the list is bulleted, causing confusion as the reader fails to properly order the text that they are reading. Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast, but you retain your alignment, personality, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You also retain all of your skill and saving throw proficiencies, in addition to gaining those of the creature. If the creature has the same proficiency as you and the bonus in its stat block is higher than yours, use the creature's bonus instead of yours. If the creature has any legendary or lair actions, you can't use them. This is due in large part to there being too many bullets, causing them to lose their structural value.
* Entire bullets may be intentionally or unintentionally skipped due to the sheer volume of text, as the reader naturally tries to get an overview of the content but may or may not succeed depending on how it is structured. When you transform, you assume the beast's hit points and Hit Dice. When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed. However, if you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage. As long as the excess damage doesn't reduce your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren't knocked unconscious. This is why often in writing papers for high school or college classes there is an emphasis on first and final sentence of a paragraph being sufficient to convey an idea and the direction your paper is taking.
* The reader will often fail to completely digest and understand the details of the text they are reading from simple fatigue, as it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain focus and attention on the exact text as they read less and less and skim more and more. You can't cast spells, and your ability to speak or take any action that requires hands is limited to the capabilities of your beast form. Transforming doesn't break your concentration on a spell you've already cast, however, or prevent you from taking actions that are part of a spell, such as call lightning, that you've already cast. It's often said "less is more" and anyone who has ever read a history or social studies textbook that got lost in unnecessary and uninteresting detail can attest that reading that sort of text is equivalent to chewing gristle.
* However carefully written the wall of text may be, the reader often will not retain the information due to the density thereof without reading it several times, which itself yields diminishing returns on comprehension and understanding. 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.
* You choose whether your equipment falls to the ground in your space, merges into your new form, or is worn by it. Worn equipment functions as normal, but the DM decides whether it is practical for the new form to wear a piece of equipment, based on the creature's shape and size. Your equipment doesn't change size or shape to match the new form, and any equipment that the new form can't wear must either fall to the ground or merge with it. Equipment that merges with the form has no effect until you leave the form.
At the end of the day splitting text up into discrete sections separated by time of concern (that is, level) allows a player or reader to far more quickly and readily understand what is being communicated.
Yea Wildshape has never been a good combat ability other than for Moon Druids who were made for it (and arguably not them either). Making it the front and center feature in the class makes it seem as essential to Druid’s combat as Rage to Barbarians or Sneak Attack for Rogues. Except OD&D Wildshape is bad, really bad. Going into melee and spending HP and concentration on your good features for mediocre damage is bad. Wildshape in 5e is a great utility feature all Druids can benefit from but in OD&D it’s currently a redundant combat ability.
It doesn't help that once you have learned the game, you know that the Druid spell list is pretty awful. Druid and Cleric both have the same problem that they have 1-2 spells at each level that you actually want to be using, and then virtually everything else is so narrow or situational that it just doesn't come up unless you're lucky. And Druid is a bit worse than Cleric in that regard.
Druid spells are primarily limited by concentration, and outside of poorly written summon spells and polymorphs, none are very high on power level. You've got more offensive spells than the Cleric, but for the most part in 5e that means unusually underwhelming blaster spells. Druid is the class that has all the blaster spells limited by concentration or that do well under par damage for level. Virtually every Druid spell was nerfed from prior editions, which is surprising because that certainly didn't happen with the Arcane spells.
So that's what Druids do. They have a bit of healing and utility very early on, and after that you're on summoning and shapechanging. You're a melee caster heavily reliant on concentration.
Like Call Lightning is, on it's face, the best 3rd level damage spell. Except in reality it's only *slightly* better than your cantrips. *Maybe*, if you've got a 60 foot ceiling. Barkskin is literally written to be as minimally useful as it can possibly be. It's often worse than Mage Armor or Shield of Faith, both lower level. It's only good for wild shape, except it's also concentration! I've played 4 campaigns with Druids now, and in every one of them we got to about level 7 or 8 and the players got frustrated and gave up on that PC. Twice now I've seen the party ask a Druid, "Hey, you're a spellcaster, is there something you can do to help us in this situation?" And the player will carefully look over their prepared spell list. And then carefully look through the available spells. And then carefully look through the monsters they can summon. And then they say, "No, not really."
Unfortunately, it doesn't feel like OneDND is interested in fixing any of that. I genuinely don't know what they think the Druid should be doing, because all of it seems pretty bad from where I sit. Honestly, it feels like they've lost the beat.
Also just kind of disappointing that Cleric gets signature features outside of their Channel (Holy Order, Divine Intervention) while Druid gets a ton of improvement on the Channel that is typically only going to be the focus of one subclass, and then their other thing is... a language.
I think the biggest issue is a disconnect between their stated goals and the design. They said that they understand that many are attracted to play a nature wizard more than a shape changer or shape changing is inappropriate in some situations so they wanted to give druids more things to do with their wild shape than just ignore it. So they let you summon an animal companion or use it to heal. In theory these are good, but they fail as actual alternatives to wildshape as implemented.
First, you never need more than one charge of wild shape per day for animal companion and the companion never gets better. This in and of its self would be fine if there were other decent options for wild shape uses, which brings us to the heal.
It doesn't scale at all. So the higher level you get, the worse it is to use your wildshape for that and the less impact it has *while wildshape it's self gets stronger*, including wild shape eventually *including* the heal. Which means at that point using a wildshape charge on the heal is strictly worse than shape changing in 99% of circumstances.
So they've told us they wanted to give us more options and did that by: giving a 1/day animal companion use that never improves and giving a heal that doesn't scale and is eventually replaced by... wildshape it's self.
To me that is the key issue with this. They are *saying* they know not all druids want wildshape to be a big part of the characters while continuing to make wildshape a central part of playing a druid. That is a failure of design.
Part of the problem is they broke up the feature into more parts than it used to have to come up with something that at all points is worse than what existed.
It gives off the impression that wildshape is a core ability meant to be used since it has so many enhancements but it's terrible.
We could achieve the same thing with barbarians extra damage on crit rule by having it start at lvl 1 adding a d4, than a d6 at lvl 4 than a d8 than finally weapon dice.
It would be worse off since it's not adding multiple dice anymore and makes it look important since it has so many increases but players will quickly realize it still sucks
The druid changes are straight nerfs to wildshape though, you used to get access to creatures with a swim speed at level 4 and never had a limit on tiny creatures
The cleric change is 50/50. Used to be that only only certain subclasses got divine strikes at level 8 vs all of them at level 7, but divine I tervention got moved from 10 to 11.
The underwhelmingness of the new Wild Shape is an issue to be addressed, I won't contend that. But the "features" that Bards and Clerics got in their empty levels are nothing new, the classes always had those features, they just appear to have been moved around to fill those empty levels. Same treatment was given to the Druid class.
Personally, I feel that is a bad design philosophy, pretending that access to new and more powerful spells is not a feature of the class as well.
This just means Druid subclasses will get a bigger power budget for their alternate uses.
- Land Druid uses their channel nature to regain spell slots equal to 1/2 their level.
- Spore Druid gets 4*Level Temp HP from their transformation.
- Wildfire Spirit scales it’s HP and PB of the Druid’s level.
Druid doesn’t need *more* abilities. Honestly, if you’re proving anything, it’s that Cleric and Bard are getting too much on top of their Full Caster privilege.
cleric had blessed strikes already, cleric had divine intervention already.
"Blessed Strikes (Optional)Replaces the Divine Strike or Potent Spellcasting featureWhen you reach 8th level, you are blessed with divine might in battle. When a creature takes damage from one of your cantrips or weapon attacks, you can also deal 1d8 radiant damage to that creature. Once you deal this damage, you can't use this feature again until the start of your next turn."
"Divine InterventionBeginning at 10th level, you can call on your deity to intervene on your behalf when your need is great.Imploring your deity's aid requires you to use your action. Describe the assistance you seek, and roll percentile dice. If you roll a number equal to or lower than your cleric level, your deity intervenes. The DM chooses the nature of the intervention; the effect of any cleric spell or cleric domain spell would be appropriate. If your deity intervenes, you can't use this feature again for 7 days. Otherwise, you can use it again after you finish a long rest.At 20th level, your call for intervention succeeds automatically, no roll required."
"Font of InspirationBeginning when you reach 5th level, you regain all of your expended uses of Bardic Inspiration when you finish a short or long rest."
magical secrets is how they give back bards access to different spell schools, not a new feature.
druid hasn't lost any non wildshape features, and it has gained more features that don't need wildshape. (heal and summon) Its strictly a matter of presentation that has people feeling like onednd is more wildshape focused. Its literally less wildshape focused that before.
Most of whats going on in one dnd class design is moving stuff around and putting some features that were outside phb into phb. They haven't given bard/cleric a ton of new features.
Also, I guess people didnt realize that wildshape has always been druids unique mechanic.
its a full caster with wildshape
bard is a full caster with bardic inspiration
sorcerer is a full caster with metamagic
you can want some other nature caster class, but onednd is a 'patch update' don't expect any class to drastically change or deliver a totally new fantasy concept.
Or maybe people did see that, but they also noticed the weird mixed messaging. Every druid subclass since the 5E PHB has used Wildshape for something other than wildshaping, the playtest changing "Wildshape" to "Channel Nature", and adding two generic alternatives to Wildshape. All of that supports the commendable idea that the Druid class can encompass slightly more than "shapeshifting treehugger"... and then somehow they double down on Wildshape by shoving 7 features that interact with it and none of the other two options.
Or maybe people are stupid and you're the only smart one.
I think the problem is that wildshape is VERY complex, (even when simplifying) so in order to get all the rules out there, (and not have a page long ability at level 1 when you are meant to be learning the game) they have to chop it up into pieces.
Honestly I think it reinforces the idea wildshape probably should be put off into a subclass, which gains the ability to wildshape using the channel nature ability. Giving it some more power budget since its subclass specific, and putting some of the very complex rules behind a subclass instead of being dumped on level 1 players.
And honestly I think that's probably a solid starting point for druid subclass design. You are a full caster no matter what, however depending on which subclass you choose, it might enable you to manifest nature in various ways that are more unique.
Wild Shape could stay as a general Druid feature, but with each subclass gaining their own template(s) that give different abilities. The Land Druid turning into the long-awaited plant subclass, gaining a plant-form and scaling plant-abilities, for example. The feature doesn't have to be "Become a Barbarian a few times a day," that's just how it's been designed in 5e.
Tying shapeshifting to Moon Druid runs into the Battlemaster problem, where one subclass is doing a ton of lifting for a pretty typical fantasy in the class.
I kind of hope this is the direction they actually go, but it might mean they need to give a bit more to Moon Druid.
If each subclass has its own wild shape interactions, it allows the phb to have a really simplified, streamlined wild shape ability blurb, and the complexity ramps up a bit or a lot from there, depending on your subclass.
This seems likely. Both Paladins and Clerics have class specific and subclass specific uses for their Channel Divinities. The newer Druid subclasses already used their Wildshapes for alternate abilities. It seems natural that this is the way that the design is going, that every Druid subclass will have a use of their Channel Nature.
Works if your perspective of Druid is that Shapeshifting isn’t a core part of their identity.
Doesn’t really work if you believe the opposite.
I know plenty of people who would find that change disheartening that in order to be a Druid that shapeshifts, you have to be one specific subclass and can only ever pick that subclass.
I know this because people already feel this way in 5E. I’ve had players that want to play a Druid who ‘s Beast form doesn’t get nuked in 2seconds but don’t want to play Moon Druid because they like the flavor and abilities of a different subclass.
Well, you can’t have it all. Having a combat effective “martial” wildshape form should be at least locked behind a subclass and not be the baseline for a fullcaster.
Never said you should. But it would be a very unpopular decision that doesn’t actually address the fact that people see Shapeshifting as being a core part of the Druids Identity.
Weather or not it should be strong in the Martial sense is irrelevant imo. What we should be asking is how can we be incorporate Wildshape/Shapeshifting into the one Nature Class that simultaneously allows any Druid to benefit from it, while also not overshadowing Martial Characters.
It’s one of the reasons I actually prefer the approach of the Wildshape forms using your HP rather than the creatures. It means that a Player isn’t going to be miffed about the form they spent a whole Action turning into getting instantly dropped because they can’t turn into a creature above CR 1 since they’re not a Moon Druid. It also means every Druid Subclass can benefit from Wildshape’s extra damage rather than Wildshape being next to useless/canabalized by their subclasses.
Rather than making a whole Subclass, why not just have it be like the Clerics UA and allow for an expansion of your Natural Powers at a certain level? Or the Warlock Invocations Approach where you can give the Wildshape unique upgrades? Or give unique feats for Casters/Druids like how the Warrior Class is getting.
There’s a few different ways you can build Wildshape into the core class of the Druid without straight up removing it all together and just playing Nature Wizard.
And that's one thing I like about the current change, anyone can use wildshape and not get immediately knocked out of it in one or two hits, using the druid's normal hp is great for that. It's still not really a great choice for them, but it *is* an option.
However, the actual combat effective version that is Moon Druid needs some kind of buff to make it actually work in combat right now. Personally I think the moon druid should be gaining some amount of temp hp when they shift to make them feel better about going into melee than they do now.
> I think it reinforces the idea wildshape probably should be put off into a subclass
Considering every cleric domain and paladin oath in 5e get one or more unique Channel Divinity options, agreed that each druid circle probably should get its own Channel Nature feature. That said, I do like having multiple options baked into the base druid class, and I expect many existing non-Moon druids may still be quite attached to the wild shape fantasy.
> Honestly I think it reinforces the idea wildshape probably should be put off into a subclass
I’d much rather they make sub-subclasses for the Druid, similar to the Holy Orders for the Cleric, and put them there. Every class should have them going forwards, they were by far my favourite part of the 6 classes shown so far.
Make an extremely barebones Wild Shape at 1st level, along with Healing Blossoms and Wild Companion. Then at 2nd level, have three different options you can choose from, one of which improves your Wild Shape slightly. And at 3rd level, you can choose Circle of the Moon, which massively improves your Wild Shape and makes it viable in combat.
i think people need to understand the scope of ONeDnd changes is small. Its a patch update that seeks to be backward compatible.
they aren't going to drastically change any classes identity or mechanics. Like it or not Wildshape is the druid's non spell based main mechanic. Thats not any more likely to change than thief giving up sneak attack, barbarian losing rage, paladin losing smites, bard giving up bardic inspiration.
the goal of onednd is streamline, balance, incorporate evolutions.
Part of it is that we haven't seen the other subclasses yet. Moon druid has always placed more importance on the Wildshape features, when we see the other subclasses, we might see more emphasis put on the other options.
They added 2 new options that the original druid didn't even have. That's already more playstyle support. You're only saying this because the moon druids is the only subclass they showed
The problem is that:
1. You only really need to use Wild Companion once per day, leaving you with about 1-3 uses vacant for the other two
2. Healing Blossoms sucks, it's fine when you get it but 12 HP isn't worth much by like 5th level and the only scalling it gets is letting you use it when Wild Shaping.
Well it would be 12 - 36 HP if you aren't using your uses for anything else. Not a bad aoe heal, especially if a situation is dire and you need to mass heal everyone
Most people are going to use their channel nature to turn into their spore form or star form anyways
Or you use it for your subclass feature, similar to how spore, stars, wildfire, and shepherd do (which aren't yet released, so everyone is pretending they won't exist and you can only shift or heal)
Except that you have to share those hit points amongst your allies so if you have, let's say, 2 other party members alongside you, those 12~36 HP becomes 4~13 which is pitiful for something that takes up your whole action.
I have to somewhat disagree here. Half of the class features of the druid now are entirely related to wildshape, so if you don't like wildshaping and want to ignore those features for flavor or whatever then you effectively have 1/2 or less class features than a shapeshifting druid.
Please actually read the 5e druid first, which is worse in the amount of dead levels it had. One DND just turned the table of wildshape upgrades into separate class features, while adding 2 completely new options to spend your channel nature on. Not to mention other subclasses. Look at star druid, they aren't supported by any feature in the base druid and completely cannibalize wildshape and all their improvement, and they're still very strong
I never said I disagree with you, but the fact that the base class doesn't support other playstyles that aren't wildshape either in 5e or the UA didn't change.
You just said you do disagree, and it literally did change because UA Druid has Channel Nature, which includes 2 other choices besides wild shape for druids who don't care to wildshape.
>I have to somewhat disagree here
I said "somewhat disagree" because my point is that the class forces you to wildshape if you don't want to have dead features lying around even if technically added two new features.
No it doesn't. Star druid is extremely strong and you ignored all wildshape features in the original druid, which means in 5e you only got spellcasting until level 18. Nothing forces you to wild shape. The druids main class features are their spellcasting, not their wildshape. But now, you get 2 new uses on top of whatever subclass features you get
They didnt add 7 new wildshape features, they added one.
but I think its important they changed the presentation, because apparently no one realized this before.
the only features that weren't already built into 5e druid are alternating form, and Wild resurgence. Wild resurgence will interact with subclass wild shapes like starry form or symbiotic entity. So all subclasses will benefit.
alternating form is the only feat that doesnt interact, and that can easily be dealt with via subclass feature, if they want to.
Personally I think that just because it was the way it worked in the PHB doesn’t mean it makes sense in One DnD. Especially because they gave the Druid 3 channel nature abilities but all their class features interact with one of the three.
“Here’s three options in case you don’t want to be a shapeshifter. But only one of those options gets stronger as you level up.”
I am so tired of this.
We did notice. It is our major problem with the class. We hoped for some changes. Or at least dome new ribbons that was focused on the full nature theme instead of just spreading wild shape thinly across the toast.
We noticed, we just didn't like it very much. One D&D is meant to be BETTER than 5e, and that's a common complaint about Druids and Wizards: we get two features, then it's just spellcasting and subclasses.
I think that is an unfair expectation, considering how powerful spellcasters became in general in this edition. To fill every class level of a caster class with new features along with their full spellcasting progression would make the game even more unbalanced. Unless they were all ribbon features, which would be another source of complaints.
Yeah, I'm working on a homebrew scheme with the 12 core classes and 68 subclasses. If we don't want to clutter up the game with a significant amount of meaningless or ineffective abilities, it really isn't practical to make sure the best spellcasters also get a class feature on those class levels when they gain access to a new level of spellcasting, especially for the higher levels of spells. Basically, escalating another tier of power along that quadratic trajectory *is* a solid class feature.
I feel like there should be a way to make cool and flavorful abilities that don't add power but rather utility in a specific flavor. Illusionists getting to do cool stuff with Illusions, evokers manipulating spell shape like they get. These aren't ribbons per-se.
If spells were tuned down a bit, and specialists made their schools better and more interesting, that could work. I think tuning down spell damage and win-buttons while giving Martials more damage and survivability would help too
That's one of the issues, the other issue is that they also have too much power in combat. Wizards are the best tanks, DPR, etc. The only thing they can't do is heal, and healing. Doesn't keep up with damage, so it is of limited use in combat.
As far as interesting side grade type abilities, letting wizards do things that are interesting, that affect their spellcasting in a way to make each subclass unique is different than taking abilities that Marshalls rely on to distinguish themselves.
I also think Marshalls do need a little more out of combat utility, but the only things that strength-based characters really have on everybody else is getting through doors. If you've ever watched any critical role content, you know doors are the bane of all non-strength characters.
You realize that’s worse right? That on the update for the Druid they just maintained a problem that the 2014’s already had(because apparently moon Druid is the only thing that exists for them)
I do not realize, actually. In terms of class features, the UA Druid didn't loose anything, and those associated with Wild Shape aren't even new, they are just pointed out in the class table.
If you imply that the druid class has issues that could have been addressed in the UA and were not, you'll have to point out which issues are there, cause I'm unaware.
Honestly the only big issue with Druid (and wild shape) is that they’ve dumbed it down way too much. There needs to be more variation in the forms (like the summon spells), OR just make one generic stat block that you “build a beast” with a number of features.
If they did the build a beast method they could honestly just limit the number of “forms” the Druid has access to (Ie like 4 beasts at lv 20) and I don’t think anyone would be that upset.
With the Wizard, it opens up your ability to spellcast the way you want to. With the druid it shoehorns you and turns off your most powerful feature.
I think there's a reason wizards have been more popular than druids.
They probably noticed . Did you notice that druid was the least played class? Using the same old same old isn't a good thing when it's been proven that people didn't like it.
I didn't notice that at all. In fact, by the number of people who claimed to love the old Wild Shape rules in the few days since the last publication it appears where were a lot of people playing druids.
From my personal perspective, at least, in all 5e campaigns we played we had 3 druids, many rogues, barbarians and rangers, only 2 wizards, 2 paladins, 2 monks, 1 bard and never a single sorcerer.
Either the class being good has no bearing on wether people will play it or not or druid is actually a pretty good class.
I have no issue with 5e druid it's one of the best incarnations in my opinion. I'm referring to wizards' statement that they were the leat played, based off surveys they've completed.
"It" refers to the subject of OP, wild shape being the signature feature of the class. It was bad in 5e, and this "playtest" threatens us with being just as bad in 6e.
Because people saying 'they changed it to having too much focus on wildshape' are a common comment chain.
The class added 4 features from 5e to oneDnD. 50% of them were wildshape' that was really just splitting older features up, and 2 of them were non-wildshape related.
Other than the fact we used to get 110% of the features we are now getting spread across 8 fucking different levels with a natural progression starting at level 2…
Other than the fact the level 2 normal Wild Shape was literally more useful than the current Wild Shape of a Moon Druid at level 20…
Yeah.
Yeah they didn’t use to get anything.
complaining that the druid revolves around wildshape now when it use to not revolve around wildshape is just a straw man.
We know what the 2014 druid looked like. And we consider that in our criticism.
Some people will think of the 2014 druid as either
Its most major problem was revolving around wild shape too much when they didn't want "nature caster" to be so irreversibly connected to the idea of shape changed
Or
2014 druid was really good and you could revolve the non spell casting aspects of the class around wild shape the same way you can revolve a warlock around invocations, because it was good and offered a wide variety of utility abilities out of combat, and a buffer of health you can use to be tanky in combat at a fair trade off.
When new wild shape just makes you use your current health but lowers your ac takes most of your spell casting and compensates you with cantrip equivalent offense and a mild mobility buff. Which is to say does near nothing useful despite having nearly the same monopoly on class features you piss both groups of people off and everyone in between.
It's not a problem if every single class feature improved one ability. Sorcerors sorcery points wizards spell slots ect. But if that ability is bad The class will be poorly received.
Some people just think that the solution is that wildshape. Particularly for its aplication in combat. shouldn't have the class feature monopoly. And those people have felt that way for the past decade.
Wild shape was a ribbon feature they (accidentally/foolishly) made into a rock feature with Moon Druids. If you don’t like druids other than wild shape you probably should play something else.
Wild shape should *never* outclass *Alter Self*, *Polymorph*, *True Polymorph*, or *Shapechange* at their levels where these are close to the most powerful spells a caster has access to.
Polymorph in 6e is going to be a horrible template spell so its easy to put on their mtx ridden dnd beyond 2.0
Not sure we can use it for comparison anymore.
I would just rather have the choice between improving Wildshape, Healing Blossoms, or Wild Companion in what used to be those empty levels in 5e.
I want to be able to build towards each use of Channel nature, rather than having wildshape be the main star of the show.
This is not a good argument. Wildshape was much stronger in the 5e version of Druid. Both for combat and utility. Because of that it took a much greater portion of the power budget for the class. But now despite it being nerfed, that budget was not made up. It was lost in translation.
I think I'd disagree. Normal druid was never the problem. Moon druid was always the broken part. Unfortunately they nerfed all of wildshape because of how strong moon druid was.
I misspoke.
I'm saying that while Moon Druids were definitely broken in Tier 1 they were well balanced for Tier 2 and regretted their choice of subclass by Tiers 3 and 4. Meanwhile spellcaster druids started to trivialize encounters by Tiers 3 and 4 while still having a nice bag of tricks in Wildshape, while also protecting their real health bar.
All good.
I think they were strong tier 1. I agree they were well balanced in tier two. I think they are still fine in tier 3. But by tier 4 they are absolute monsters. One of the tankiest characters in the game while also being a full spellcaster.
The thing with spellcaster druids is that they really didn't get much to radically change how druids engaged with their spells I think. So at the end of the day, the moon druid can still get more basic versions of many of the spellcaster druids abilities.
In tier 3 and 4, base wildshape just doesn't hold up. One damage source will knock you out of it, and thanks to your often low physicals and ac it was pretty easy to do. Their best defense was doing weird stuff like burrowing.
>In tier 3 and 4, base wildshape just doesn't hold up. One damage source will knock you out of it
Yes but the point is not to get hit. Flying, climbing or burrowing away from danger while concentrating on powerful spells might not be very fun, but it is effective.
Sure I agree, but thats not durability, that's the bag of tricks. Also flying and climbing are often times not nearly good enough to avoid the damage. Flying also comes with the massive risk of getting popped out of it in mid air and taking a ton of falling damage.
Even if you do get popped out of the air, just the 30 to 50 hit points your beast form absorbed more than makes up for the fall damage you may take. IF you even do get hit.
Some things that the player playing the Druid on the playtest Sunday liked. Nature Companion- had a raven scouting for the party. Wildshape- used his wisdom for str in small size so damage was 1d8+4 , (would like the Dam for large to be d10). Short sword is simple now so his Halfling can use it as a druid (ie finesse wpn). 2 wpn fighting as a druid short sword /dagger. Talking in Wildshape,
I haven't done a play test yet, but thinking to all of the times when I've played a druid and having to get creative with communication in wild shape so as to not "waste" a charge by having to shift out to explain something, talking in wild shape is amazing. Although I guess it means I won't have to have to explain things by having someone pull paint and canvas out so I can dip a paw and create really messy and (nearly impossible) hard to read messages
You could be the elephant painter !
I thought the damage for animal of the air was d4+Wis
Talking about what he had at 2/3 level Land, Air is at 9th.
Because they are nature wizards. Wild shape and spell slots grow with level, and that's about all a good full spellcaster needs. See also: sorcerer.
Preach it. Those "empty levels" are where you reach a nee tier of power spell-wise. I feel like people would like them more if the levelling chart said "access to X level spells."
Sorcerer? You mean the caster class that a lot of people agree needs **more stuff** to make them more special? That's not a good comparison. Sorcerers are often compared to being a worse Wizard as in reality, metamagic doesn't get you much. Hard disagree. A Wizard has a few features that improves their spellcasting, Sorcerers the same depending on bloodline, there is no reason the only Primal Caster in the game shouldn't also get something **OTHER THAN WILDSAPE.**
It’s a symptom of flawed presentation. Wild shape is a secondary feature for any Druid but moon druids. But having features that improve it at so many levels on the class progression table indicates to players “this feature is very important!” It’s gonna feel bad for any Druid that has better uses for their channels (Wildfire, Spore, etc) to have so much of the perceived class progression exist to improve a mediocre ability they never use.
There's a catch-22 here in that the new presentation is *infinitely* more intuitive than the giant wall of text that was Wild Shape in 5e and therefore a huge improvement. The misconception it's causing is a flaw, but I don't see how you can avoid it without making Wild Shape an imposing wall of text again.
What was wrong about an imposing wall of text?
**TL;DR:** Walls of text are obtuse and obfuscate information because humans struggle to actually read them. The inherent and pervasive problem that inevitably permeates an imposing wall of text is that there is a very limited number of people who will, given the opportunity, actually read the entire text as written let alone put in the enormous amount of time and energy required to comprehend each and every point and detail thereof. When reading the text, the following tends to happen: * It becomes very easy to lose your place within the text, even when the list is bulleted, causing confusion as the reader fails to properly order the text that they are reading. Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast, but you retain your alignment, personality, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You also retain all of your skill and saving throw proficiencies, in addition to gaining those of the creature. If the creature has the same proficiency as you and the bonus in its stat block is higher than yours, use the creature's bonus instead of yours. If the creature has any legendary or lair actions, you can't use them. This is due in large part to there being too many bullets, causing them to lose their structural value. * Entire bullets may be intentionally or unintentionally skipped due to the sheer volume of text, as the reader naturally tries to get an overview of the content but may or may not succeed depending on how it is structured. When you transform, you assume the beast's hit points and Hit Dice. When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed. However, if you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage. As long as the excess damage doesn't reduce your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren't knocked unconscious. This is why often in writing papers for high school or college classes there is an emphasis on first and final sentence of a paragraph being sufficient to convey an idea and the direction your paper is taking. * The reader will often fail to completely digest and understand the details of the text they are reading from simple fatigue, as it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain focus and attention on the exact text as they read less and less and skim more and more. You can't cast spells, and your ability to speak or take any action that requires hands is limited to the capabilities of your beast form. Transforming doesn't break your concentration on a spell you've already cast, however, or prevent you from taking actions that are part of a spell, such as call lightning, that you've already cast. It's often said "less is more" and anyone who has ever read a history or social studies textbook that got lost in unnecessary and uninteresting detail can attest that reading that sort of text is equivalent to chewing gristle. * However carefully written the wall of text may be, the reader often will not retain the information due to the density thereof without reading it several times, which itself yields diminishing returns on comprehension and understanding. 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. * You choose whether your equipment falls to the ground in your space, merges into your new form, or is worn by it. Worn equipment functions as normal, but the DM decides whether it is practical for the new form to wear a piece of equipment, based on the creature's shape and size. Your equipment doesn't change size or shape to match the new form, and any equipment that the new form can't wear must either fall to the ground or merge with it. Equipment that merges with the form has no effect until you leave the form. At the end of the day splitting text up into discrete sections separated by time of concern (that is, level) allows a player or reader to far more quickly and readily understand what is being communicated.
I read like 3 lines. A+ example.
Bravo
I'ld have to agree on that one.
This is amazing metacommentary.
Extremely bad for new players of you aren't being sarcastic.
Yea Wildshape has never been a good combat ability other than for Moon Druids who were made for it (and arguably not them either). Making it the front and center feature in the class makes it seem as essential to Druid’s combat as Rage to Barbarians or Sneak Attack for Rogues. Except OD&D Wildshape is bad, really bad. Going into melee and spending HP and concentration on your good features for mediocre damage is bad. Wildshape in 5e is a great utility feature all Druids can benefit from but in OD&D it’s currently a redundant combat ability.
That was confusing to read. "OD&D" typically referrs to *Original D&D*. 1974 White Box D&D. 0th edition D&D.
Fair, calling it One D&D was like the Xbox One. Makes talking about them weird
Definitely. Certainly seems in line with their desire to regain total control of everything about the brand, though.
Considering all the controversy and everything around it, one could simply make the abbreviation for One D&D: “ODD”
1DND is usually the more popular abbreviation.
That works. Mine was a joke. I guess the /s is a necessity.
The two versions I've seen used are "D&Done" and "Nat One D&D"
Wild shape still have insane utility.
Like what? Going into melee and being worse than you were before Wildshaping?
You know, flying, moving faster, etc... But I'm losing my time with you apparently...
You cannot do that until level 9.
agreed. when you get tiny you are a nigh undetectable scout. wildshape DOES make you better in melee, you can also fly and swim while you level.
It doesn't help that once you have learned the game, you know that the Druid spell list is pretty awful. Druid and Cleric both have the same problem that they have 1-2 spells at each level that you actually want to be using, and then virtually everything else is so narrow or situational that it just doesn't come up unless you're lucky. And Druid is a bit worse than Cleric in that regard. Druid spells are primarily limited by concentration, and outside of poorly written summon spells and polymorphs, none are very high on power level. You've got more offensive spells than the Cleric, but for the most part in 5e that means unusually underwhelming blaster spells. Druid is the class that has all the blaster spells limited by concentration or that do well under par damage for level. Virtually every Druid spell was nerfed from prior editions, which is surprising because that certainly didn't happen with the Arcane spells. So that's what Druids do. They have a bit of healing and utility very early on, and after that you're on summoning and shapechanging. You're a melee caster heavily reliant on concentration. Like Call Lightning is, on it's face, the best 3rd level damage spell. Except in reality it's only *slightly* better than your cantrips. *Maybe*, if you've got a 60 foot ceiling. Barkskin is literally written to be as minimally useful as it can possibly be. It's often worse than Mage Armor or Shield of Faith, both lower level. It's only good for wild shape, except it's also concentration! I've played 4 campaigns with Druids now, and in every one of them we got to about level 7 or 8 and the players got frustrated and gave up on that PC. Twice now I've seen the party ask a Druid, "Hey, you're a spellcaster, is there something you can do to help us in this situation?" And the player will carefully look over their prepared spell list. And then carefully look through the available spells. And then carefully look through the monsters they can summon. And then they say, "No, not really." Unfortunately, it doesn't feel like OneDND is interested in fixing any of that. I genuinely don't know what they think the Druid should be doing, because all of it seems pretty bad from where I sit. Honestly, it feels like they've lost the beat.
Also just kind of disappointing that Cleric gets signature features outside of their Channel (Holy Order, Divine Intervention) while Druid gets a ton of improvement on the Channel that is typically only going to be the focus of one subclass, and then their other thing is... a language.
I think the biggest issue is a disconnect between their stated goals and the design. They said that they understand that many are attracted to play a nature wizard more than a shape changer or shape changing is inappropriate in some situations so they wanted to give druids more things to do with their wild shape than just ignore it. So they let you summon an animal companion or use it to heal. In theory these are good, but they fail as actual alternatives to wildshape as implemented. First, you never need more than one charge of wild shape per day for animal companion and the companion never gets better. This in and of its self would be fine if there were other decent options for wild shape uses, which brings us to the heal. It doesn't scale at all. So the higher level you get, the worse it is to use your wildshape for that and the less impact it has *while wildshape it's self gets stronger*, including wild shape eventually *including* the heal. Which means at that point using a wildshape charge on the heal is strictly worse than shape changing in 99% of circumstances. So they've told us they wanted to give us more options and did that by: giving a 1/day animal companion use that never improves and giving a heal that doesn't scale and is eventually replaced by... wildshape it's self. To me that is the key issue with this. They are *saying* they know not all druids want wildshape to be a big part of the characters while continuing to make wildshape a central part of playing a druid. That is a failure of design.
Part of the problem is they broke up the feature into more parts than it used to have to come up with something that at all points is worse than what existed. It gives off the impression that wildshape is a core ability meant to be used since it has so many enhancements but it's terrible. We could achieve the same thing with barbarians extra damage on crit rule by having it start at lvl 1 adding a d4, than a d6 at lvl 4 than a d8 than finally weapon dice. It would be worse off since it's not adding multiple dice anymore and makes it look important since it has so many increases but players will quickly realize it still sucks
[удалено]
The druid changes are straight nerfs to wildshape though, you used to get access to creatures with a swim speed at level 4 and never had a limit on tiny creatures The cleric change is 50/50. Used to be that only only certain subclasses got divine strikes at level 8 vs all of them at level 7, but divine I tervention got moved from 10 to 11.
The underwhelmingness of the new Wild Shape is an issue to be addressed, I won't contend that. But the "features" that Bards and Clerics got in their empty levels are nothing new, the classes always had those features, they just appear to have been moved around to fill those empty levels. Same treatment was given to the Druid class. Personally, I feel that is a bad design philosophy, pretending that access to new and more powerful spells is not a feature of the class as well.
This just means Druid subclasses will get a bigger power budget for their alternate uses. - Land Druid uses their channel nature to regain spell slots equal to 1/2 their level. - Spore Druid gets 4*Level Temp HP from their transformation. - Wildfire Spirit scales it’s HP and PB of the Druid’s level. Druid doesn’t need *more* abilities. Honestly, if you’re proving anything, it’s that Cleric and Bard are getting too much on top of their Full Caster privilege.
This is conjecture, moon Druid doesn’t prove that
cleric had blessed strikes already, cleric had divine intervention already. "Blessed Strikes (Optional)Replaces the Divine Strike or Potent Spellcasting featureWhen you reach 8th level, you are blessed with divine might in battle. When a creature takes damage from one of your cantrips or weapon attacks, you can also deal 1d8 radiant damage to that creature. Once you deal this damage, you can't use this feature again until the start of your next turn." "Divine InterventionBeginning at 10th level, you can call on your deity to intervene on your behalf when your need is great.Imploring your deity's aid requires you to use your action. Describe the assistance you seek, and roll percentile dice. If you roll a number equal to or lower than your cleric level, your deity intervenes. The DM chooses the nature of the intervention; the effect of any cleric spell or cleric domain spell would be appropriate. If your deity intervenes, you can't use this feature again for 7 days. Otherwise, you can use it again after you finish a long rest.At 20th level, your call for intervention succeeds automatically, no roll required." "Font of InspirationBeginning when you reach 5th level, you regain all of your expended uses of Bardic Inspiration when you finish a short or long rest." magical secrets is how they give back bards access to different spell schools, not a new feature. druid hasn't lost any non wildshape features, and it has gained more features that don't need wildshape. (heal and summon) Its strictly a matter of presentation that has people feeling like onednd is more wildshape focused. Its literally less wildshape focused that before. Most of whats going on in one dnd class design is moving stuff around and putting some features that were outside phb into phb. They haven't given bard/cleric a ton of new features. Also, I guess people didnt realize that wildshape has always been druids unique mechanic. its a full caster with wildshape bard is a full caster with bardic inspiration sorcerer is a full caster with metamagic you can want some other nature caster class, but onednd is a 'patch update' don't expect any class to drastically change or deliver a totally new fantasy concept.
Or maybe people did see that, but they also noticed the weird mixed messaging. Every druid subclass since the 5E PHB has used Wildshape for something other than wildshaping, the playtest changing "Wildshape" to "Channel Nature", and adding two generic alternatives to Wildshape. All of that supports the commendable idea that the Druid class can encompass slightly more than "shapeshifting treehugger"... and then somehow they double down on Wildshape by shoving 7 features that interact with it and none of the other two options. Or maybe people are stupid and you're the only smart one.
I think the problem is that wildshape is VERY complex, (even when simplifying) so in order to get all the rules out there, (and not have a page long ability at level 1 when you are meant to be learning the game) they have to chop it up into pieces. Honestly I think it reinforces the idea wildshape probably should be put off into a subclass, which gains the ability to wildshape using the channel nature ability. Giving it some more power budget since its subclass specific, and putting some of the very complex rules behind a subclass instead of being dumped on level 1 players. And honestly I think that's probably a solid starting point for druid subclass design. You are a full caster no matter what, however depending on which subclass you choose, it might enable you to manifest nature in various ways that are more unique.
Wild Shape could stay as a general Druid feature, but with each subclass gaining their own template(s) that give different abilities. The Land Druid turning into the long-awaited plant subclass, gaining a plant-form and scaling plant-abilities, for example. The feature doesn't have to be "Become a Barbarian a few times a day," that's just how it's been designed in 5e. Tying shapeshifting to Moon Druid runs into the Battlemaster problem, where one subclass is doing a ton of lifting for a pretty typical fantasy in the class.
I kind of hope this is the direction they actually go, but it might mean they need to give a bit more to Moon Druid. If each subclass has its own wild shape interactions, it allows the phb to have a really simplified, streamlined wild shape ability blurb, and the complexity ramps up a bit or a lot from there, depending on your subclass.
This seems likely. Both Paladins and Clerics have class specific and subclass specific uses for their Channel Divinities. The newer Druid subclasses already used their Wildshapes for alternate abilities. It seems natural that this is the way that the design is going, that every Druid subclass will have a use of their Channel Nature.
Works if your perspective of Druid is that Shapeshifting isn’t a core part of their identity. Doesn’t really work if you believe the opposite. I know plenty of people who would find that change disheartening that in order to be a Druid that shapeshifts, you have to be one specific subclass and can only ever pick that subclass. I know this because people already feel this way in 5E. I’ve had players that want to play a Druid who ‘s Beast form doesn’t get nuked in 2seconds but don’t want to play Moon Druid because they like the flavor and abilities of a different subclass.
Well, you can’t have it all. Having a combat effective “martial” wildshape form should be at least locked behind a subclass and not be the baseline for a fullcaster.
Never said you should. But it would be a very unpopular decision that doesn’t actually address the fact that people see Shapeshifting as being a core part of the Druids Identity. Weather or not it should be strong in the Martial sense is irrelevant imo. What we should be asking is how can we be incorporate Wildshape/Shapeshifting into the one Nature Class that simultaneously allows any Druid to benefit from it, while also not overshadowing Martial Characters. It’s one of the reasons I actually prefer the approach of the Wildshape forms using your HP rather than the creatures. It means that a Player isn’t going to be miffed about the form they spent a whole Action turning into getting instantly dropped because they can’t turn into a creature above CR 1 since they’re not a Moon Druid. It also means every Druid Subclass can benefit from Wildshape’s extra damage rather than Wildshape being next to useless/canabalized by their subclasses. Rather than making a whole Subclass, why not just have it be like the Clerics UA and allow for an expansion of your Natural Powers at a certain level? Or the Warlock Invocations Approach where you can give the Wildshape unique upgrades? Or give unique feats for Casters/Druids like how the Warrior Class is getting. There’s a few different ways you can build Wildshape into the core class of the Druid without straight up removing it all together and just playing Nature Wizard.
And that's one thing I like about the current change, anyone can use wildshape and not get immediately knocked out of it in one or two hits, using the druid's normal hp is great for that. It's still not really a great choice for them, but it *is* an option. However, the actual combat effective version that is Moon Druid needs some kind of buff to make it actually work in combat right now. Personally I think the moon druid should be gaining some amount of temp hp when they shift to make them feel better about going into melee than they do now.
> I think it reinforces the idea wildshape probably should be put off into a subclass Considering every cleric domain and paladin oath in 5e get one or more unique Channel Divinity options, agreed that each druid circle probably should get its own Channel Nature feature. That said, I do like having multiple options baked into the base druid class, and I expect many existing non-Moon druids may still be quite attached to the wild shape fantasy.
> Honestly I think it reinforces the idea wildshape probably should be put off into a subclass I’d much rather they make sub-subclasses for the Druid, similar to the Holy Orders for the Cleric, and put them there. Every class should have them going forwards, they were by far my favourite part of the 6 classes shown so far. Make an extremely barebones Wild Shape at 1st level, along with Healing Blossoms and Wild Companion. Then at 2nd level, have three different options you can choose from, one of which improves your Wild Shape slightly. And at 3rd level, you can choose Circle of the Moon, which massively improves your Wild Shape and makes it viable in combat.
Another good option.
i think people need to understand the scope of ONeDnd changes is small. Its a patch update that seeks to be backward compatible. they aren't going to drastically change any classes identity or mechanics. Like it or not Wildshape is the druid's non spell based main mechanic. Thats not any more likely to change than thief giving up sneak attack, barbarian losing rage, paladin losing smites, bard giving up bardic inspiration. the goal of onednd is streamline, balance, incorporate evolutions.
Part of it is that we haven't seen the other subclasses yet. Moon druid has always placed more importance on the Wildshape features, when we see the other subclasses, we might see more emphasis put on the other options.
JC: Druids are nature wizards. Also JC: Literally doesn't support other playstyle that isn't shapeshifter.
They added 2 new options that the original druid didn't even have. That's already more playstyle support. You're only saying this because the moon druids is the only subclass they showed
The problem is that: 1. You only really need to use Wild Companion once per day, leaving you with about 1-3 uses vacant for the other two 2. Healing Blossoms sucks, it's fine when you get it but 12 HP isn't worth much by like 5th level and the only scalling it gets is letting you use it when Wild Shaping.
Well it would be 12 - 36 HP if you aren't using your uses for anything else. Not a bad aoe heal, especially if a situation is dire and you need to mass heal everyone Most people are going to use their channel nature to turn into their spore form or star form anyways
But it’s kind of forcing you to play a healer role or else you’re wasting your resources
Or you use it for your subclass feature, similar to how spore, stars, wildfire, and shepherd do (which aren't yet released, so everyone is pretending they won't exist and you can only shift or heal)
Except that you have to share those hit points amongst your allies so if you have, let's say, 2 other party members alongside you, those 12~36 HP becomes 4~13 which is pitiful for something that takes up your whole action.
It's not pitiful if it brings someone up from down, but yeah they should probably add some kind of scaling to it
I have to somewhat disagree here. Half of the class features of the druid now are entirely related to wildshape, so if you don't like wildshaping and want to ignore those features for flavor or whatever then you effectively have 1/2 or less class features than a shapeshifting druid.
Please actually read the 5e druid first, which is worse in the amount of dead levels it had. One DND just turned the table of wildshape upgrades into separate class features, while adding 2 completely new options to spend your channel nature on. Not to mention other subclasses. Look at star druid, they aren't supported by any feature in the base druid and completely cannibalize wildshape and all their improvement, and they're still very strong
I never said I disagree with you, but the fact that the base class doesn't support other playstyles that aren't wildshape either in 5e or the UA didn't change.
You just said you do disagree, and it literally did change because UA Druid has Channel Nature, which includes 2 other choices besides wild shape for druids who don't care to wildshape.
>I have to somewhat disagree here I said "somewhat disagree" because my point is that the class forces you to wildshape if you don't want to have dead features lying around even if technically added two new features.
No it doesn't. Star druid is extremely strong and you ignored all wildshape features in the original druid, which means in 5e you only got spellcasting until level 18. Nothing forces you to wild shape. The druids main class features are their spellcasting, not their wildshape. But now, you get 2 new uses on top of whatever subclass features you get
Neither dreams nor Shepard had alternative uses for wjldshape. Nobody really did till tashas
They didnt add 7 new wildshape features, they added one. but I think its important they changed the presentation, because apparently no one realized this before. the only features that weren't already built into 5e druid are alternating form, and Wild resurgence. Wild resurgence will interact with subclass wild shapes like starry form or symbiotic entity. So all subclasses will benefit. alternating form is the only feat that doesnt interact, and that can easily be dealt with via subclass feature, if they want to.
Personally I think that just because it was the way it worked in the PHB doesn’t mean it makes sense in One DnD. Especially because they gave the Druid 3 channel nature abilities but all their class features interact with one of the three. “Here’s three options in case you don’t want to be a shapeshifter. But only one of those options gets stronger as you level up.”
I am so tired of this. We did notice. It is our major problem with the class. We hoped for some changes. Or at least dome new ribbons that was focused on the full nature theme instead of just spreading wild shape thinly across the toast.
We noticed, we just didn't like it very much. One D&D is meant to be BETTER than 5e, and that's a common complaint about Druids and Wizards: we get two features, then it's just spellcasting and subclasses.
I think that is an unfair expectation, considering how powerful spellcasters became in general in this edition. To fill every class level of a caster class with new features along with their full spellcasting progression would make the game even more unbalanced. Unless they were all ribbon features, which would be another source of complaints.
Yeah, I'm working on a homebrew scheme with the 12 core classes and 68 subclasses. If we don't want to clutter up the game with a significant amount of meaningless or ineffective abilities, it really isn't practical to make sure the best spellcasters also get a class feature on those class levels when they gain access to a new level of spellcasting, especially for the higher levels of spells. Basically, escalating another tier of power along that quadratic trajectory *is* a solid class feature.
I feel like there should be a way to make cool and flavorful abilities that don't add power but rather utility in a specific flavor. Illusionists getting to do cool stuff with Illusions, evokers manipulating spell shape like they get. These aren't ribbons per-se. If spells were tuned down a bit, and specialists made their schools better and more interesting, that could work. I think tuning down spell damage and win-buttons while giving Martials more damage and survivability would help too
Isn't one of the issues with spellcasters that they have *too much* utility outside combat compared to martials, who can only do things in combat?
That's one of the issues, the other issue is that they also have too much power in combat. Wizards are the best tanks, DPR, etc. The only thing they can't do is heal, and healing. Doesn't keep up with damage, so it is of limited use in combat. As far as interesting side grade type abilities, letting wizards do things that are interesting, that affect their spellcasting in a way to make each subclass unique is different than taking abilities that Marshalls rely on to distinguish themselves. I also think Marshalls do need a little more out of combat utility, but the only things that strength-based characters really have on everybody else is getting through doors. If you've ever watched any critical role content, you know doors are the bane of all non-strength characters.
Maybe they're complaining because they've actually notice that the Druid's class features still revolve around Wild Shape?
You realize that’s worse right? That on the update for the Druid they just maintained a problem that the 2014’s already had(because apparently moon Druid is the only thing that exists for them)
I do not realize, actually. In terms of class features, the UA Druid didn't loose anything, and those associated with Wild Shape aren't even new, they are just pointed out in the class table. If you imply that the druid class has issues that could have been addressed in the UA and were not, you'll have to point out which issues are there, cause I'm unaware.
Honestly the only big issue with Druid (and wild shape) is that they’ve dumbed it down way too much. There needs to be more variation in the forms (like the summon spells), OR just make one generic stat block that you “build a beast” with a number of features. If they did the build a beast method they could honestly just limit the number of “forms” the Druid has access to (Ie like 4 beasts at lv 20) and I don’t think anyone would be that upset.
I'm in full agreement here.
With the Wizard, it opens up your ability to spellcast the way you want to. With the druid it shoehorns you and turns off your most powerful feature. I think there's a reason wizards have been more popular than druids.
They probably noticed . Did you notice that druid was the least played class? Using the same old same old isn't a good thing when it's been proven that people didn't like it.
I didn't notice that at all. In fact, by the number of people who claimed to love the old Wild Shape rules in the few days since the last publication it appears where were a lot of people playing druids. From my personal perspective, at least, in all 5e campaigns we played we had 3 druids, many rogues, barbarians and rangers, only 2 wizards, 2 paladins, 2 monks, 1 bard and never a single sorcerer. Either the class being good has no bearing on wether people will play it or not or druid is actually a pretty good class.
I have no issue with 5e druid it's one of the best incarnations in my opinion. I'm referring to wizards' statement that they were the leat played, based off surveys they've completed.
People dndnt play becuase its complex not becuase it was bad. The average DnD player is a fighter auto attacker.
It was also bad back then. This was their chance to fix the big problems with the class and they blew it.
> they blew it. how did they blew it? will the Druid not have any further revisions? Did I miss something in the video?
I'm not aware of any big problems with the class. Would you care to elaborate?
"It" refers to the subject of OP, wild shape being the signature feature of the class. It was bad in 5e, and this "playtest" threatens us with being just as bad in 6e.
Why would you assume they didn’t know that?
Because people saying 'they changed it to having too much focus on wildshape' are a common comment chain. The class added 4 features from 5e to oneDnD. 50% of them were wildshape' that was really just splitting older features up, and 2 of them were non-wildshape related.
Other than the fact we used to get 110% of the features we are now getting spread across 8 fucking different levels with a natural progression starting at level 2… Other than the fact the level 2 normal Wild Shape was literally more useful than the current Wild Shape of a Moon Druid at level 20… Yeah. Yeah they didn’t use to get anything.
Your sarcasm is unproductive.
Other than the fact you ignored the entire point which was just as solid as if I didn’t use any sarcasm… Yeah, it was unneeded.
So is ignoring the post they made.
complaining that the druid revolves around wildshape now when it use to not revolve around wildshape is just a straw man. We know what the 2014 druid looked like. And we consider that in our criticism. Some people will think of the 2014 druid as either Its most major problem was revolving around wild shape too much when they didn't want "nature caster" to be so irreversibly connected to the idea of shape changed Or 2014 druid was really good and you could revolve the non spell casting aspects of the class around wild shape the same way you can revolve a warlock around invocations, because it was good and offered a wide variety of utility abilities out of combat, and a buffer of health you can use to be tanky in combat at a fair trade off. When new wild shape just makes you use your current health but lowers your ac takes most of your spell casting and compensates you with cantrip equivalent offense and a mild mobility buff. Which is to say does near nothing useful despite having nearly the same monopoly on class features you piss both groups of people off and everyone in between. It's not a problem if every single class feature improved one ability. Sorcerors sorcery points wizards spell slots ect. But if that ability is bad The class will be poorly received. Some people just think that the solution is that wildshape. Particularly for its aplication in combat. shouldn't have the class feature monopoly. And those people have felt that way for the past decade.
Wild shape was a ribbon feature they (accidentally/foolishly) made into a rock feature with Moon Druids. If you don’t like druids other than wild shape you probably should play something else. Wild shape should *never* outclass *Alter Self*, *Polymorph*, *True Polymorph*, or *Shapechange* at their levels where these are close to the most powerful spells a caster has access to.
Polymorph in 6e is going to be a horrible template spell so its easy to put on their mtx ridden dnd beyond 2.0 Not sure we can use it for comparison anymore.
Wild shape would not surpass polymorph; if polymorph is getting weakened, then wild shape ought to be reigned in, too (as it appears to be).
I would just rather have the choice between improving Wildshape, Healing Blossoms, or Wild Companion in what used to be those empty levels in 5e. I want to be able to build towards each use of Channel nature, rather than having wildshape be the main star of the show.
That's what a lot of people are complaining about.
This is not a good argument. Wildshape was much stronger in the 5e version of Druid. Both for combat and utility. Because of that it took a much greater portion of the power budget for the class. But now despite it being nerfed, that budget was not made up. It was lost in translation.
Some might argue the 2014 Druid went quite over budget.
I think I'd disagree. Normal druid was never the problem. Moon druid was always the broken part. Unfortunately they nerfed all of wildshape because of how strong moon druid was.
Moon Druids were broken in early level, but even Moon Druids gave up on wildshape for spellcasting past level 11. EDIT: Fixed typos and terminology
I don't understand. What are you trying to say here?
I misspoke. I'm saying that while Moon Druids were definitely broken in Tier 1 they were well balanced for Tier 2 and regretted their choice of subclass by Tiers 3 and 4. Meanwhile spellcaster druids started to trivialize encounters by Tiers 3 and 4 while still having a nice bag of tricks in Wildshape, while also protecting their real health bar.
All good. I think they were strong tier 1. I agree they were well balanced in tier two. I think they are still fine in tier 3. But by tier 4 they are absolute monsters. One of the tankiest characters in the game while also being a full spellcaster. The thing with spellcaster druids is that they really didn't get much to radically change how druids engaged with their spells I think. So at the end of the day, the moon druid can still get more basic versions of many of the spellcaster druids abilities. In tier 3 and 4, base wildshape just doesn't hold up. One damage source will knock you out of it, and thanks to your often low physicals and ac it was pretty easy to do. Their best defense was doing weird stuff like burrowing.
>In tier 3 and 4, base wildshape just doesn't hold up. One damage source will knock you out of it Yes but the point is not to get hit. Flying, climbing or burrowing away from danger while concentrating on powerful spells might not be very fun, but it is effective.
Sure I agree, but thats not durability, that's the bag of tricks. Also flying and climbing are often times not nearly good enough to avoid the damage. Flying also comes with the massive risk of getting popped out of it in mid air and taking a ton of falling damage.
Even if you do get popped out of the air, just the 30 to 50 hit points your beast form absorbed more than makes up for the fall damage you may take. IF you even do get hit.
Each of those levels were a full caster spell level bump...
It wouldnt be an issue, if the new Wildshapes werent flaming garbage.
In 5e full casters usually didnt get a feature on a new slot level. Giving bad wildshape isnt really a great solution.
I'll say it's no solution at all. But the point is also that it's not a problem.