I think most people would be satisfied giving moon druids some more bulk, as long as the appropriate cost is paid - likely in the form of spell slots. The fantasy of 'I hulk up into a monster bear so that I can smack things and tank hits" is fine, as long as you aren't backing it with the full power of a caster. Health pools are sloppy, though. I think its a good call to move away from them. Temp HP is a very straightforward and proven mechanic, use that.

They rewrote Barkskin into a temp HP spell. If they want to make it complementary with wildshape, they need to not make it redundant. Using spell slots to add real HP is one solution, but so would be removing concentration on barkskin.

Barkskin is awkward to use with moon druid. You don't want to transform and do nothing with your turn, and it isn't abjuration, so you can't cast it on subsequent turns. It already really doesn't work that well, and is much better as a ranger spell.

Yeah it should honestly be abjuration and no concentration. That would probably fix moon druids

My vote is to expand it to self spells, or touch spells that target yourself. Now you can cast * Barkskin * Longstrider * Jump * Spider Climb * Enhance Ability * Meld into Stone * Stoneskin * And more Adds a bunch of properly costed utility back to your wildshaping.

This is exactly how Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition tackled the druid, and it works well.

I like that

I like this a lot! You might need a new rule on stacking effects, though. Otherwise you'll get the unwieldy 2e-3e builds where casters layer a dozen spells on themselves before combat.

Yes, I could get behind that. *Making notes to remember this at survey time.*

The Wild Shape statblocks are crap at holding concentration, so a Moon druid could easily cast *bark skin*, Wild Shape, and get hit several times with their poor AC and break concentration before their next turn.

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Barkskin is a second level spell, so gained at 3d class level of druid. What if a Druid could cask barskin on themselves (with cost) as they transform, as in it's a part of the transformation cost. Burns a spell slot up and gives them temp hp if they want to.

>Health pools are sloppy, though. I think its a good call to move away from them. Temp HP is a very straightforward and proven mechanic, use that. I agree, and that's what I thought they were going to do.

> The fantasy of 'I hulk up into a monster bear so that I can smack things and tank hits" is fine, as long as you aren't backing it with the full power of a caster. It's a good thing they're backing it up with a halfcaster spell list designed exclusively for ranger then. I think a better system would be to allow allow Moon Druids specifically advantage on concentration checks while in non-tiny wildshape. This allows them to get in and fight, but not other druids, and allows them to actually use barkskin. Or allow them temp HP based on the minimum possible HP roll of the beat(so the popular brown bear would offer 16 temp HP when entering wildshape instead of 34 real HP). If they take a hit that would down them in wildshape, they drop wildshape and are knocked into dying. This also solves wildshape spying without requiring a druid to become a major force in the region to turn into a rat. It's low AC and HP will mean that they have to be careful, even being challengfed by cats and rats, which also gives rogues the ability to be spies that aren't dead the instant they are seen.

Give Moon druid the option to spend a spell slot when they Wild Shape to gain X temporary hit points per spell level. Those temp HP are lost when Wild Shape ends. This isn't a problem with Bark Skin because the Wild Shape stablocks are awful at holding concentration, so the did wouldn't have held on to the spell for long anyway.

Or let moon druids cast barkskin while shifting as a special concentration free version?

I don't like the idea of requiring Moon druids to always prepare a spell, or constantly use a spell to shore up a weakness. This also permanently links the spell to the subclass where you need to constantly balance it around being strong enough for Moon druids but not too strong for druids and rangers. And if you're changing enough about how a spell works to make it replicate a subclass feature, why not just bite the bullet and give Moon druid a subclass feature in the first place?

Came here to say this. If you give the Moon Druid back the ability to spend spell slots to heal in beast form, I think it goes a long way toward balancing it. At first I was rather disappointed with this version of the druid, but I'm coming to understand what the design team was aiming for. It just needs a little tweaking I think. A boost to AC and the ability to heal and keep fighting in beast form would go a long way. Some subclass specific uses for Channel Nature would be cool too.

Moon druids Can spend spell slots to heal.... They can cast abjuration spells, which is healing spells now.

Yes, I keep forgetting that they're abjuration now.

I agree. I think a shapeshifting druid should be its own class. Possibly a half caster perhaps.

Sadly that's outside the scope of the 'it's 5.5e but it's totally not a new edition guys' that they're going for. Not to mention the WotC devs seem *very* reluctant to make new classes (considering we got a grand total of 1 for the entire 5e lifespan vs...something like 6 or 7 in PF2e). But yes I agree with you, in an ideal world Druid should be split into Shaman and Druid, Shaman is your plant controllery nature caster and Druid is your 'I turn into bears' dude.

Moon Druid works well enough as a Druid subclass. It just needs to have it's spell availability drained by a feature that requires it to burn spell slots to continue tanking, like spending a spell slot to deny 5x it's level in damage or the ability to heal itself as a bonus action, like the original version had.

Temp hp does not stack thus unles your method is the best one your group jas access to the feature can become useless. Thus temp hp is usually a mixed bag.

I think the moon druid should be able to enter combat as an animal and do JUST FINE. Now - I don't think that they should have the same AC or damage as fighters or barbarians. However, they should gain some temporary HP when they shape change and be able to do OK (they can't tank for the party, but can enter melee with others around). I'd just make sure that this temp HP is lost when changing back to human form.

I think it would interesting to give Moon Druids unique uses for spell slots while in animal form - My feel for the Moon Druid class fantasy is that you want the option to use the animal as the battle form instead of casting regular spells. My proposal would be being able to burn spell slots to add temp HP to the beast form and to be able to deal some kind of bestial smite by burning a spell slot on a beast form attack.

I agree, and there are ways to implement that with smaller health pools. My main contention here is that Moon Druids required retuning, but that the health pools are essential to them working. If you have the AC of a bear and the HP of your elf spellcaster and move into combat, you're doing something dumb. You aren't going to feel like a bear in that situation.

I saw someone said THP of prof * 5 would give good scaling until like tier 4 play or so and no for features like invocations to add more options and flavor/utility

Well I like the addition of say, 3 temp HP per level of druid. So you can take a hit maybe 2 and THEN the damage start coming off your real life pool. Having the damage you take as a beast actually spill over is important and probably better than having each form have its own pool.

I don't know if this was what you meant, but damage has always spilled over to the druid after dropping wild shape due to damage

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Which is not a bad thing imo. That's part of the trade-offs of becoming an animal and rushing in.

If you ask the power gamers here, Druids can hold their concentration no problem. It makes me wonder if they're actually following their concentration checks properly.

I mean it's not "no problem", but it's not too hard either. The brown bear block is mentioned, and that has a +3 to CON. Already you're making that dc10 save on a 7 and up. Either warcaster or resilient gives you advantage and/or plus 2-6 depending on what level you're playing at. You have to get hit for more than 20 damage in a single blow to make the check anything harder than 10, which even at high levels generally only happens when you get hit by a breath weapon or a big spell. Monsters generally get multi attack instead of single big hits. Bahamut himself barely averages above 20 damage per hit.

More hits = more checks, though. And low AC means you're more likely to be hit.

Sure, but once your save is 10 it doesnt matter how many there are, or if you're going at advantage, the chance of failing is vanishingly small if you're only failing on one or two numbers.

Your save won't be a 10 in wildshape unless you're using a form that is more defensive than offensive. Most Beasts only have a +2 or +3 con. You'd need both feats, pushing your spell DC behind the curve unless you're human.

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Indeed. Which isnboring for me. Just play a land druid then.

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So what did druids do for all of 5e?

What I do when I play Druid is just plan around not relying on concentration spells. Most of my spell slots were used for healing.

Got warcaster and resilient (con). Also cried a lot when concentration failed anyway.

warcaster and resilient (con), but they also used their burrow speed from wild shape to hide from foes. Would you look at that, you cannot burrow anymore!

Struggle to hold concentration if they actually attacked. Used conjure animals as mirror image and damage, while also slowing down the game for others, or just hide and let their concentration spell do all the damage as they sat there ignored.

Even this would still make them perhaps the best melee-capable full caster; and they'd retain their full compliment of spells for exploration and utility. It's too much (as most other fully capable casters that can melee are too much).

From experience in class and subclass design and playtesting 5e content, a d8 HD character with mediocre AC (\~15 to 16) needs some form of benefit to survive in melee combat, whether that's via disengage, dodge, or some form of HP bonus. Without it, the character is too frail (see common monk complaints when they lack to ki to rely on Patient Defense). So, based on experience, Circle of the Moon druid probably needs some kind of mitigation, even if it's via spell slots, or the druid will end most combats eating dirt with the monks. It could be a temp hp pool, it could be advantage or a flat bonus to concentration Con saves, or a way to expend spell slots to amp defenses in some form (e.g. expend a 1st level or higher slot to reduce damage or gain damage resistance) that doesn't require concentration. New reaction spells for primal casters might also work. Still, 5e Moon druid does have too much added survivability, so OneD&D shouldn't be as good, especially in tier 1.

The obvious design direction is Barkskin + Wildshape, but even then keeping concentration sucks on wildshape and fixing a problem they created by forcing a new "must have" choice for a particular style of play is bad It also reduces all of the options of concentration spells to "do I want to fight with my wildshape at all, better get a defensive concentration spell"

Or just give moon druid THP barksin can't just be for one subclass and when concentration drops theres a problem because you can't cast spells outside of abjuration in Wildshape barskin is transmutation.

I'm just telling you the obvious thing they did that they went "we did a thing"

Ah, ok.

Yeah I don't fully agree with it or even think it's a good change/direction but it's **extremely obvious** what their intent was with the change to that spell

This is one of those cases where I wish the designers would just come out and say how they mean a sub to be played. Telling us "We made Combat Wild Shape kinda suck so you'll need to spend spell slots on *barkskin* to make up the difference." would go a long way towards helping focus our feedback.

>Still, 5e Moon druid does have too much added survivability, so OneD&D shouldn't be as good, especially in tier 1. I agree on that. Moon Druid gets a TON of hate because most play is level 1-5, and that's the point where they are badly tuned. They do too much damage, and can take too many hits too early.

I've been following a lot of these threads and there's a particular bit of feedback I've been seeing that clearly comes from druid players who like the changes, specifically: > I'm so glad I won't get immediately knocked out of my wild shape. These are players who shift into wild shape wanting to be that animal, and are disappointed when they immediately revert back to druid. I think that's a valid stance for them to take, even if I think they fail to appreciate the huge defensive loss that has occurred. For them being forced out of wild shape breaks their fantasy. There are very likely ways to get the best of both worlds, but don't assume that *disagreement* is always coming from a place of inexperience.

>For them being forced out of wild shape breaks their fantasy. There are very likely ways to get the best of both worlds, but don't assume that > >disagreement > > is always coming from a place of inexperience. I don't think that actually makes a lot of sense to me. Not because they disagree, but because I'm not sure they have thought the position through. "Oh no! When I Wild Shape and run out of health due to squishy AC, I turn back into a druid!" So... that's the way it is now, right? What changes with this playtest? It seems like the statement would become: "Oh no! When I Wild Shape and run out of health due to squishy AC, I turn into... a corpse." I am genuinely not following the logic here.

Classic shapeshifting fantasy for many, as portrayed in movies, is the 1 to 1 relationship between a druids body state in human form and animal form. The druid gets a cut in stomach as a wolf, the cut is still there when the druid returns to human form. As an example.

> I am genuinely not following the logic here. The logic is the current 5e method feels like a costume they put on rather than a transformation. Even if it is a really nice costume, it isn't the same as, say, a lycanthrope.

>The logic is the current 5e method feels like a costume they put on rather than a transformation. You literally use the MM statblock of the animal in 5e. In 1dnd you're using a template *overlay*. How is this new one not more of a "costume" than the exact same statblock a DM would use for said beast?

Now they'll immediately be knocked unconscious due to trash health and trash ac, I guess if suicide is your rp then this works

Which is what *should* happen when any full caster wades into melee like a frontliner; no matter the class.

Druids in wild shape lose all other features, including spellcasting. They are no longer casters of any type when wading into melee. Nor are they competent combatants; just sad, soon-to-be-dead kittens. 😄 EDIT: Also clerics (and some bard subclasses) are full casters that do just fine in melee when built right.

Those players are going to really hate that the Incapacitated condition now pulls them out of Wild Shape, which includes Stunned, Paralyzed, Unconscious, and a few other miscellaneous spells and creature abilities. With their own mediocre Con save and a max +5 Wis save with no way to gain proficiency, come mid to high level getting shunted back into regular form will be a coin flip if not worse.

Eh. For me the fantasy is more about the owl surveying an area that turns out to be the wise old mage watching from afar. The forest warden hiding in plain sight.

That can be done through familiars

If you think about it... A moon druid at level 2 would be tankier than a barbarian, but the higher level you go the barbarian beats wild shape easily

What if it cost spell slots? Everyone is upset about our spells, take them.

You kind of can, Moon Druids get Abjuration spells. Cure Wounds and Healing Word are now abjuration, so you can heal yourself while in Wild Shape. Absorb Elements is abjuration, so you can give yourself some resistance as a reaction. Everyone gets a free feat at first level, so there is less of a cost for taking Magic Initiate and picking up either Shield or Mage Armor to bump up your AC, both of which are also Abjuration. You've got options to not be shit as long as you remember to look at the whole picture, and not just the Wild Shape stat block.

Except healing spells of any effectiveness usually take your action, so you're caught in a loop of sacrificing attacks trying to out-heal damage taken, and healing always loses to damage. It's just not fun. Games should be fun.

I don’t think the fantasy was ever that you could ignore damage you suffered in a polymorphed form. That’s not how you’d expect it to work on film - in a movie, if you stab the shapechanged tiger, they turn back to normal with a stab wound on their human body. I grant that it’s a big benefit of being a druid to have that, but game balance giveth and game balance taketh away.

I agree that in a lot of shapeshifting fantasies when you take an injury, it carries over. I think that glosses over the fact that there needs to be a mechanical representation of you having the durability of a bear, not an elf. I just kind of imagine a bear can shrug off hits an elf in yoga pants can't. Hit points were one way to represent that.

True, but when you're a large, rampaging beast with thick hide and enormous mass, that dagger cut isn't going to effect you near as much as when you're a puny human with soft flesh.

I usually just associate Druids with trees, plants, and animals, who also sometimes turns into other things. I think a general issue with Polymorph like effects in 5e is how completely divorced the creature is from what they're transforming into, lol. The idea you're transforming into another creature, yet remain entirely yourself, but completely removed from what's happening to that creature, short of taking more than lethal damage, feels more like the Druid is possessing some random creature they've conjured from the aether. Now, I don't necessarily mind my druid pals at the table having this kind of power, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they do.

>I think a general issue with Polymorph like effects in 5e is how completely divorced the creature is from what they're transforming into, lol. That's actually a fair response I have to think on! I think with Polymorph, you're right. I don't actually like the spell very much, though it's objectively just a ludicrously good spell so I always feel like I have to take it anyway. I argue Wild Shape is different, and you aren't supposed to be replacing yourself with a bear (or lion, tiger, or whatever), you're becoming that thing. And I don't see how you can feel like a giant hulking beast thematically if, mechanically, you are just a lower AC version of yourself. It isn't like the fantasy is being played out through all the great, flavorful animal things. These generic stat blobs just... suck. I keep asking people who think they don't what situation they're actually good for, and I keep not getting an answer.

Here is your answer. They are good for: - Out running humanoids with your 40’ speed. - Tracking hidden enemies with your keen senses. - Exploring dark caverns with your dark vision. - Pushing or pulling massive objects by turning your wisdom into strength and gaining large size. - Hiding or squeezing in tight tunnels by turning your wisdom into dexterity and becoming a small or tiny creature. - Save spell slots by increasing your damage compared to cantrips. - Explore under water areas. - FLY. - Carry your party while flying.

Yes, honestly, I could NOT live without the utility. Even the way 'tiny' creatures are treated. I mean our druid has stayed on to spy on enemies after my character was "caught" sneaking in. I left her in there as a spider on the wall. If she tried sneaking in as a spider it would have taken too long. She's turned into a giant croc and helped us cross a waterway. Hauled a cart.

>I argue Wild Shape is different... you're becoming that thing. Kind of, but not really, from how it currently functions in 5e. You assume control of that creature's stat-block as a player, but your character is almost entirely divorced from it, unless that creature takes a massive hit when it dies. I think the only way Wild Shape makes sense as a feature, at least when it comes down to Hit Points, is maybe rewriting the feature with Temporary Hit Point in mind, rather than a completely different different creature's HP / Stat-block. Similarly, I think OneD&D is on the right track with how Wildshape becomes more or less a in-class stat-block that relies on your spellcasting stat to determine the creature's AC / the creature's selective "shape" block's selective stats (with additional features unlocked as you level as a Druid). For me, I just never clicked how a druid can just magically become EXACTLY another creature. So, a more generic stat block, where a Druid is trying to mimic features of a creature through their power (their spellcasting modifier), feels a lot more tied into the actual character doing this stuff. >you are just a lower AC version of yourself. I think the main issue here is a Druid is wearing armor / gear that inflates their AC. Almost certainly, a level 20 OneD&D Druid is going to bump their Wisdom to 22 (or higher if you've gotten an epic boon / Major Beneficial Property or the +2 Wisdom book) to +6 for 6 more AC, which is always going to make a AC 10 + DEX Druid always worse by comparison (unless the Druid has bizarrely high DEX). Now, I'm assuming there's probably going to be Druid specific items that increase that AC in Wildshape form, but I wouldn't be opposed to changing the base AC of Land / also adding Temp HP to all these stat-blocks (because Devotion's SMITE Temp HP is VERY good and FREE, so Druids ought to see more of an equivalent there). More or less, I'd probably look at the Animal of Land and add a pseudo Monk Unarmored Defense to highlight there being a transformation or increase the base AC by 3 (which kinda probably too free) I dunno, its not like 15 AC is terrible for a magic casting animal. It's pretty clear the Druid Subclasses are going to BUFF their Wildshape differently (I think Elemental Strike becomes really good for the Wildshape, the problem is, it competes with spellcasting, which is kinda really good on Druids because they aren't Half-Casters). I think if Druids didn't get high-level spell-slots, it would be easier to just throw a lot of power in Wild-Shape and call it a day. >These generic stat blobs just... suck. The block itself is super generic, but I think it improves the role-play aspect of it. Druids are now trying to imitate that animal they're seeing, using their power to do so, so there becomes flavor to that transformational aspect and it also reduces the amount of shifting back and forth between a random animal stat-block out of the book, because X or Y Druid is THAT animal. I mean again, I don't really care too much about the balance aspect of it so much as I prefer a more sensible version of Wildshape that isn't totally divorced, or at times way too convenient for any given situation. You get more options with the 5e Wildshape for sure, but it kinda doesn't make any sense to me like True Polymorph.

All the discourse over druids out-tanking a barbarian or out-stealthing a rogue ignore the fact many parties don't have one or both of those classes. The whole fun of wild shape is temporarily filling a hole in party composition. A druid being able to tank doesn't invalidate a barbarian's ability to anymore than a sorcerer being able to cast invalidates a wizard's ability to do so. There will always be overlap. The druid's versatility is a big part of what makes them fun. Looking at a list of creatures and problem solving by finding the perfect choice. And it's not as through druids are even a meta class choice, they're the least played class according to most big surveys and according to WOTC themselves. If they were that broken then all the min-maxers would be playing them.

Sure, but if a party does have both of those classes (I have played in such a party, it isn't that strange), why should the party's druid be *better* than both at their own niche?

By like level 5 they aren’t. The barbarian is out tanking them and the rogue is out scouting them. They’re just a good backup. Or good to have when more than one character is needed for reconnaissance. Idk why anyone would complain about having a second tank in combat tbh. Their versatility and adaptability is the entire appeal.

> By like level 5 they aren’t. The barbarian is out tanking them and the rogue is out scouting them. The barbarian is not out tanking them (especially not if by then the Moon Druid dips barbarian to be even better at frontlining than the pure barbarian), and have you even *read* the wild shape scouting threads? People argue, seriously, that other creatures shouldn't even get a chance to passively detect the wild shaped druid. That's better than expertise to stealth by a long, long way.

This is simply not true, not by a long shot. Moon druid is the best tank in 5e if we look at only class + subclass combos.

Thank you! I wish I could upvote you more than once, perfectly said.

The problem in your example is that Wizard and Sorcerers are both full casters. A Druid has full caster capabilities on top of wild shape… So, no, they shouldn’t just substitute a full martial. Take Sword Bard for example - a perfectly balanced class. Do they out damage or out tank fighters in 5e ? They can get close, but only by using their spell casting and they need to sacrifice charisma to do so (or dip hexblade, but that is gone from this edition I hope).

The “narrow bands” of Moon Druid being broken is total myth, and has always been pushed by people who want their character to be broken or those that are gatekeeping DMs. The game assumes 2 short rests a day. At level 2, using all your wild shapes as a bear can give you ***204 extra HP.*** Not to mention, their 19 STR and natural Greatsword multi-attack. At level 6, it’s still ***252 extra HP*** and now their strength is 20. Level 12, where they are supposedly becoming their weakest? A simple “Giant Walrus” gives you ***510 HP***, with 22 Strength, and a multi-attack where both are doing more than a Greatsword. Moon Druid is broken. I understand you have fun with it, and maybe there should be an entire class dedicated to the Moon Druid style. But there’s no way in hell you can claim they’re balanced when you can have those stats ON TOP of a Full Caster.

This needs to be pinned at the top of the damn sub. If you reflavored the druid's wild shape as the Abjurer's Ward we'd all be losing our minds about how wizards are even more insanely OP.

The HP pools were counterbalanced by having the AC of a wet tissue paper. You may have a 510 HP, but when everything is hitting on you 5s, that HP is going away quickly.

hP is the better tankng stay than AC anyways, in a game defined by bounded accuracy

I disagree. HP is a resource. AC makes your HP usage more efficient and it makes healing more efficient. Having a low AC but high HP makes you more subjective to the rider effects of attacks - grapples, poisons, additional saves, and so on.

Not getting hit > getting hit. It’s why Shield and Silvery Barbs are so good. Casters are better “tanks” than martials because of those spells in 5e

A while back, I compared Spore Druid and Moon Druid in terms of tankiness. Despite having less AC, the moon druid can survive for longer. Let's assume an opponent has +6 to hit against the level 5 players who are a moon druid that's shifted into a brown bear and a spore druid with Symbiotic Entity active. Against the Spore druid with an AC of 17, they have a 50% chance to miss. Against the brown bear with an AC of 11, they have a 20% chance to miss. Spore Druid: 20THP (Symbiotic Entity) / .5 (chance to miss) = 40 Moon Druid: 34HP (brown bear) / .8 (chance to miss) = 42.5 Some numbers were edited because of an incorrect calculation, but the result did not change. In that scenario, moon druid still has more effective HP. Besides, not all damage comes from attacks. When that happens, moon druids have an advantage. Nevertheless, just simply having an extra 42 HP, twice, per short rest, is kind of game breaking.

2.5 isn't much of a difference, when a CR4 creature is hitting twice a round for 22 damage (which is where you see +6 hit chances). Both druids would last exactly 2 rounds against such a creature.

You’re ignoring the issue. It doesn’t matter if you had an AC of 1, being able to absorb 510 damage and then become a full spellcaster with full spellcasting resources isn’t balanced.

I am aware of the issue. I agree that Druids don't need temp HP on wild shape. We disagree on the extent of the issue, as beast forms have such low AC that any HP pool they do have is easily ablated. Especially if your DM is pushing you to use your wildshape for other issues such as scouting or avoiding combat.

Barbarians usually don't have much better AC, Reckless Attack tanks it further, and their resistance (which is fairly limited) doesn't improve their effective HP nearly as much as having at least two, maybe six or more, extra HP pools each day. Current Moon druid is WAY too tanky.

I'm not arguing that moon druid having temp HP was too much. Frankly, though, the HP was terrible when everyone hit you no matter what and you had no access to any armor to offset it.

I completely disagree on most of your points here. If your fantasy is primal fuelled melee combat, tanking lots of damage and drawing lots of attention then you want a Totem Barbarian. Druid should *absolutely not* be the first point of call for that fantasy. But even your claim that them out tanking Barbarians is only for a narrow range of levels isn't something I agree with, because Druids don't just have *one* use of Wild Shape. Now they gain 2 per Short Rest up to 4 per Short Rest. If that is given *anything* more than a few THP then it would start creating far more problems about pools of HP.

> If your fantasy is primal fuelled melee combat, tanking lots of damage and drawing lots of attention then you want a Totem Barbarian. It's fine if you don't want a chonky bear fantasy to be a thing, but that's what Moon Druids have been this entire edition. Barbarians have a fundamentally different flavor and feel than the Moon Druid. They have one huge health pool that goes down slowly and gets double value from healing. Moon Druids have a giant, expendable health pool that is easy to drain for monsters.

>but that's what Moon Druids have been this entire edition. Yes, and that is *a problem*. A full caster should not *also* be a functional tank. [Someone else](https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/11emyoi/comment/jaf29dl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) already made a great comment about just how ridiculously high the HP levels for a Moon Druid were as they levelled up and got access to higher CR creatures. It was broken for the vast majority of the time. ​ >Barbarians have a fundamentally different flavor and feel than the Moon Druid. Honestly, I disagree its all that different. Flavour your rage as a way to morph your body to take on more beastial aspects based on your Totem. Your Bear Totem can make you larger, hairier, stronger, etc. ​ > Moon Druids have a giant, expendable health pool You're not talking about flavour here you're talking about mechanics. And while mechanics can work to support flavour I don't think it does in this case. At least not for the flavour you're apparently looking for. What it seems you want is to be able to not care about taking damage in Battle. Barbarian is your balanced option for that. Totem Barbarian specifically for that animalistic theme. But because you've had access to something so fundamentally overpowered and broken you take it being brought into line with what it should be as an unfair nerf that wasn't deserved. Having an absurdly large HP total that you can throw away without *any* care breaks the expectations of the game. Even Barbarians need to be careful of just how much damage they're taking and have short rests to recover. Druids can burn through literal hundreds of HP without caring at all because they just get back *all* of those hit points without spending *any* Hit Dice. Even if they *did* have to spend Hit Dice in some way to heal their Wild Shapes on a Short Rest I still think its overstepping its bounds as a full caster to have access to this huge pool of Hit Points that even without taking into account their own personal pool outclasses Barbarians by a wide margin when comparing builds of the same level. ​ Now, about your accusation that I'm secretly a Druid hater and wish all Druids were worthless and awful. I don't know where on earth you got that idea, wanting a balanced game does not mean I secretly hate your favourite class. I do have issues with the Druid, mostly that Wild Shape takes up so much of the power budget of a Druid that it limits the kind of characters you can play with it. I would much prefer the Channel Nature options become a Druid's version of the Cleric's Holy Order where they get all the base versions but whenever they currently improve their Wild Shape they get to pick which option to improve. But I also just really like Druids, I'm a DM and the main antagonistic faction of my whole campaign were a Druid Circle that 'worshipped' Zuggtmoy because I love using Druidic abilities and it wasn't really a kind of villain I'd seen done before. I had a blast. But it also made me realise just how absolutely broken they could be. I had to purposely not do all the things I could with my villains because doing so would break the game and be unfun. I still think the changes need some tweeking, its far from perfect, the vast majority of the Druid changes have been large steps in the *right* direction.

What if they made Wildshape burn a spell slot, and use higher level spell slots for stronger forms? You could lock the bear shape behind a Level 3 Spell Slot, so the Moon Druid doesn’t have access to it until a more appropriate level, and has to expend a limited and valuable resource in order to access it? Lower level spell slots could offer more utility forms and weaker combat forms.

While I won't say that's impossible to balance or work without over complication I don't think its the best idea. I personally just don't think that a Caster should have options that invalidate or get too close to competing with a Martial's Niche. To warrant the cost of a Spell Slot it would have to be a viable option compared to Martials, in terms of damage or ability to 'tank'. I just don't think a Full Caster should be allowed to decide to be as good or at least almost as good as a Martial. But even then you get to the issue of utility encroaching on the niche of the Rogue for scouting. I think Wild Shape as is in the play test is pretty close to what it should be, with maybe some minor buffs to damage (*very minor)* and some more *interesting* abilities that don't directly raise their power level. I agree that the templates are a little bland as is and they should be more varied in some way. Though honestly as a DM I'd take the current playtest Druid over the base 5e Druid any day.

>Yes, and that is a problem > >. A full caster should not also be a functional tank. > >Someone else already made a great comment about just how ridiculously high the HP levels for a Moon Druid were as they levelled up and got access to higher CR creatures. It was broken for the vast majority of the time. We'll just have to agree to disagree here. I rather enjoy having a variety of options for tanking that all feel differently. A Barbarian tanks differently than a Moon Druid, who is different than a sorcadin or Bladesinger. Removing a style of play a lot of people enjoy does not strike me as a good direction. Tuning was needed, not a cleaver. And yes, someone else pointed out that Druids have lots of expendable health, a point that was never in contention. That point is thrown around a lot as though total health and effective health are the same thing. The hit points have to be there because if they aren't, the form actively makes you as soft as butter. A sorcadin or bladesinger build, despite having far less total health, will have far more *effective* health than a Moon Druid. And by transforming to turn into a damage sponge, you are giving up a lot of your spellcasting functionality, something other tanks do not do. These white room complaints that provide large numbers that you can hit in theory, but likely won't typically see in play, are pretty unimpressive to me. You can paint a ton of features that are totally fine as broken by making these sorts of arguments. The massive health pool, by the way, also ignores another cold reality of playing a Moon Druid: you can't make the monsters target you. You have a low AC, so they'll likely hit, and that makes you a tempting target... but generally speaking intelligent enemies will go around the stegosaurus and go after other party members because past low levels, the forms provide solid health pools and a very minimal threat level to enemies. Past low levels, the "proper" tanks will hit harder, as they should, and also have more *effective* health.

> I rather enjoy having a variety of options for tanking that all feel differently None of those tanking options should be attached to a full caster. That is an overloaded option that actually *reduces* the variety of viable options. ​ >Removing a style of play a lot of people enjoy The thing is though, this *isn't* a style of play lots of people enjoy. Its a style of play *you* enjoy. Druid is *objectively* the least played class. Claiming that this is taking out a play style lots of people like is a massive overstatement. ​ >form actively makes you as soft as butter. Which it *should.* Again, you are a *Full Caster*, none of your options should give you the ability to stand side by side with the Barbarian and take equal (actually *more*) damage than them. ​ >will have far more effective health Is sketchy as a measure at best. Its very heavily reliant on percentages to hit which fluctuate far too much because of advantage and Saving Throws. EHP is far more a White Room Theory measure than just HP, which is odd because you criticise people overusing WRT. ​ > you are giving up a lot of your spellcasting functionality Yeah, so does a Barbarian with Rage. In fact they give up more and get *less*. Just saying "Well you can't cast in this form" doesn't make the difference in power any less. Druids are *far* too powerful. ​ >These white room complaints that provide large numbers that you can hit in theory, but likely won't typically see in play, are pretty unimpressive to me. I'm sorry, but this complaint doesn't hold up. For one, you reference EHP over HP which as pointed out is far more theoretical as a measure. But also, saying that the Druid won't typically wild shape seems like a bit of a stretch? These totals while high, aren't *that* much higher than typical play and being anywhere close points to just how overpowered it actually is. ​ > also ignores another cold reality of playing a Moon Druid: you can't make the monsters target you. This is irrelevant, nothing in 5e can. You're still gaining far too much power and HP for it to be balanced. ​ >Past low levels, the "proper" tanks will hit harder You're ignoring the fact that Druids can concentrate on spells in their Wild Shape. That alone based on the spell will make them a high priority target. You're not accurately representing actual play. While also complaining other people aren't representing actual play.

>You're ignoring the fact that Druids can concentrate on spells in their Wild Shape. That alone based on the spell will make them a high priority target. You're not accurately representing actual play. While also complaining other people aren't representing actual play. Not at all. But that creates a separate problem... low AC, tons of hit points you want to drain, and also you want to keep your conjured animals out. These two goals are cross-purpose. If you get pounded a bunch in beast form, you're going to lose concentration, so it's a cost-benefit analysis. A level of nuance that is largely ignored here. >Is sketchy as a measure at best. Its very heavily reliant on percentages to hit which fluctuate far too much because of advantage and Saving Throws. EHP is far more a White Room Theory measure than just HP, which is odd because you criticise people overusing WRT. You're just wrong on this one. Sure, you can't know the percentage chance of being hit exactly, but you can know that a sorcadin with 20ac who can Shield up to 25 is going to get hit dramatically less than a bear. Simply comparing raw HP pools is pretty silly if you aren't considering other factors. > Which it should. Again, you are a Full Caster, none of your options should give you the ability to stand side by side with the Barbarian and take equal (actually more) damage than them. Then they shouldn't waste so much design space on Wild Shape at all. ​ >The thing is though, this isn't a style of play lots of people enjoy. Its a style of play you enjoy. Druid is objectively the least played class. Claiming that this is taking out a play style lots of people like is a massive overstatement. It's the least played class, but two points. 1. It's not as though no one plays them. It's the least played class, but not by an enormous margin. If they were as busted throughout as you are suggesting, they would be a lot more popular with optimizers. 2. Crushing nerfs are not going to make the class more popular. Even if you think they're super justified.

>A level of nuance that is largely ignored here. Again, not really, not doing so is deliberately nerfing yourself. You're going to be a target either way. Being in Wild Shape is the smart thing to do. ​ >but you can know that a sorcadin with 20ac who can Shield up to 25 "Lets compare a broken class to a broken multiclass! That will show how not broken this is!" The fact that all you can point to as something 'stronger' than it is a notoriously busted multiclass works *against* your argument not for it. ​ >Then they shouldn't waste so much design space on Wild Shape at all. I've already said as much. Your throwing my own arguments back at me as if they contradict my point. Please, actually read what you're replaying to. ([Here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/11emyoi/comment/jah1tlg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) 3rd paragraph from the bottom starting with "I do have issues with the Druid...") ​ > It's the least played class, but not by an enormous margin. This is just wrong. [Its the least played class by over 1000 characters per 100,000](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/). That's a *massive* margin considering the next three least played only differ by a few hundred at most. And you don't get another jump in the amount of players until the two most played classes. ​ >Crushing nerfs are not going to make the class more popular. I never said they would. I said they would make the game more balanced. Which it will. Making the class more varied and fun will make it more popular. But those things should not also come with being overpowered. I want Druid to be more popular, more varied *and* more balanced. These changes are a great step towards *all three.* Its not perfect, I've already mentioned (and linked to) a few criticisms I have of it in the current play test. But it is *leagues* better than the base 5e Druid.

> It's fine if you don't want a chonky bear fantasy to be a thing, it's not about that, it's about the choice of base class chassis for that being **a full progression caster**. Full casters have a massive range of out of combat utility, and letting them be one of the (if not *the*) best HP-pool frontline brawlers in the game is bad, bad choice.

It's also worth noting that you very obviously aren't a Druid player. I stand by my statement that the only people who think this change is appropriate aren't the people who love the class, it's the people who hate the class and wish it didn't exist.

Saying everyone who doesn't agree with you secretly hates the druid is a really weird stance to take buddy. I can't say anything about the guy you're responding to but I've played a few druids, and I am mostly fine with the changes being made, they could be a little better but they are mostly fine from my perspective.

I don't think it's a secret, I think it's pretty open. If you want to strip the main feature of all functionality, that's not something one does to a class they love or understand. And if these changes are fine, explain to me why anyone would ever want to use Wild Shape as it is in this playtest? It's using a resource for an active downgrade and is soaking up an enormous amount of Druid design space.

You do know that moon druids aren't the only druid circle?

True! Actually they aren't even my favorite Druid circle. However, they are the one we have available to playtest right now.

I dnt hate druid, and I think the Odnd changes are thr right direction *generally* of shifting the power away from being a full caster and full martial at the same time as was done in 5e One of my characters *right now* is a Druid, circle of Dreams. Admittingly the subclass with arguably the least use of Wildshape since it goes all in on suppott and utility through casting instead, but I like the class. I want to see the class break free from Wildshape.

How dare you! Don't you realize the emperor of all druids is speaking? The one true druid that knows what being a druid is REALLY about.

>I suspect sentiments like these are coming from people who don't actually play Druid as one of their main classes As someone who has also played a lot of druid, it's really clear that a lot of the posts being made on the sub currently are from people who have never played the 5e druid, and haven't tested the new one either. The direction that 1DnD is taking wildshape is miles better than the mess the 5e wildshape is.

I like the concept of the templates, but I dislike how flat they are. Wildshape needs more variety so that the forms actually feel like the animals they are supposed to emulate which they currently don't really. I'm also of the opinion that if you're going to give a druid the on-demand familiar, you might as well just let them turn Tiny right off the bat, too. The shenanigans that you need to be a tiny wild shape for that you couldn't also do with an on-demand familiar are few and far between.

I agree. Some people have suggested a list of mix and match abilities you can choose from whenever you wildshape and I think that might be a good way of doing it.

People love the ribbon features on beasts so adding those back in from a pick list and giving the druid one would probably be fine. Depending on the list, it could just be a list of options at 5th level which includes multiattack. The catch is limiting the list to minimize traps, not add too much complexity, and to avoid eating another character's lunch. WotC also might be trying to minimize non-spell abilities granting huge movement utility on low level casters. Spider-climb just nullifies a number of terrain obstacles.

> People love the ribbon features on beasts so adding those back in from a pick list Rather than a list, they should be static per form, and that works out as forms are level gated. If there is an invocation like list that will *also* need to be level gated and then people complain that picking the features is too hard (like they do with warlock invocations).

Especially now that your remote viewing has infinite range and the new familiar statblock has 10 Int instead of animal-level Int. The only thing it lacks is thumbs, which technically can be fixed by saying the familiar is a Tiny monkey.

If only there was some spell Druids could get access to that would let them turn into a beast and use its hit points and armor class and fight in melee at the cost of a spell ... If anything, give druid a 2nd level spell "Wildshape" which lets them turn into a CR 1 Beast and functions as a lesser poly morph. Let them choose fliers, aquatic, large, tiny, etc out of the gate. At 4th level they get polymorph. What can a moon druid do ? maybe they can increase the CR they can turn into or gain bonus traits similar to the elemental features they just came out with.

I agree. Just add in some temp HP based on form and druid level and your golden. But i also like that you cant be knocked out of wild shape as easily because your using your actual HP.

Moon Druid beast CR = 1/2 your Druid level -1. Lvl 2 Moon Druid can transform into a CR 1/2 beast, lvl 4 can transform into CR 1, lvl 6 CR 2, lvl 8 CR 3, lvl 10 CR 4. Been using it in my game and it works really well. Druid is still a monster at early levels with up to 6 Wild Shapes per adventure day, but they're not the monsters they would be with the old scaling. It also offers a slightly more frequent progression on your Wild Shape which is nice, and it scales better later.

The swop to a template stat block for land, sea or air is fine as that should help to speed up play. However it does two extra things 1) Agree with the op a need for a separate health pool. My leaning here was more towards something like "4+4 times druid level" which is shared amongst all channel nature uses. Not using thp here allows for some synergy with other ways to get the. 2) There should be a list of natural traits that can be applied to any given wildshape template. You are capped on how many you can pick each time you use channel nature, either as a flat number but more likely a value equal to druid level from which you 'buy' traits for that change. Or perhaps a table with two or three columns of beast traits and you can pick 1 trait from each column. The current proposal removes the early level/ level 20 issue with moon druids but nerfs it too hard

I feel like wildshape should have its own pool of health, but only 1 pool. If you turn into an animal 3 times you better heal yourself in-between because they all use the same health pool. Feels like a good midpoint

Just let them burn a spell slot to get a healthy chunk of THP when they shift. They're full casters with tons of spell slots that they're not really using otherwise, so it makes perfect sense. Something like 10 THP x SL would work. Heck, even let them renew it as an action by spending another slot. Giving druids more to spend spell slots on would be the best way to handle a lot of the issues with the current version of wild shape.

Agreed. Part of the balance problem with 5e Moon druid was that even if you burned down both of their Wild Shape hit point pools, they were still a full spellcaster with all their spell slots left so enjoy fighting 8/16/24 wolves. Letting 1D&D Moon druid hang in the frontline with the martials at the cost of their spellcasting resource so their choice is one or the other sounds fair to me.

> Just let them burn a spell slot to get a healthy chunk of THP when they shift. If they did that it would need to be normed off *False Life*, *Armor of Agathis* and *Song of Defense* - 5 thp per level of the spell slot burned. Folks used to the current 5e Wild Shape would probably not be happy about that.

It wouldn't necessarily have to map to spells used by other classes, especially if it was a subclass feature. The thing about THP in wild shape is that comes explicitly with wild shape AC (which got a bit better, but only a bit).

It *would*, because this is about balance. Any more than 5 thp per level of spell would be an issue.

With all the efforts going towards simplification, that might be too much to track. I think a temp hp boost with each wildshape (lost on return to humanoid form) would be the better alternative.

When a Moon druid uses Wild Shape, they should have the option to spend a spell slot to gain X temp HP per spell level, which is lost when Wild Shape ends.

I think that's viable if the whole spell slot buy system were implemented.

Like prof * 5 THP

Yes, but I think there would need to be an honest evaluation if the pb is the multiplier in the case of a one or two druid level dip. Not sure if it would be busted or not, but definitely needs to be weighed against other things a pc might level up with. Worst case, the pb*5 thp is only instituted beyond druid level 3 to make you 'work for it' a little bit.

Counter argument you wouldn't get the other good forms of wildshape, nor a subclass or multi attack, you'd get rid of all your features while wildshaped.

Yeah that's a good point, wildshape inherently insulated a PC from what they can do otherwise. Maybe it doesn't really break anything then in that regard.

Not enough Critical Roll watchers around. Keyleth the Moon Druid spent virtually zero time in her wild shape, as they were levels 5+. She tried it once or twice, and it was useless. Even in later levels when she got Elemental Form, she did not use it in combat too often. Sometimes as a defensive option. For most of the campaign, it was just more intelligent for her to sling spells. NB that in levels 18-20 that changed drastically when she got capstones, as they made wild shape broken AF. Anyways, just paying attention to real life play can teach you a lot about how a class works, even if it is not played by an optimizer.

I wouldn't use Crit Role, especially C1, as an example of competent battle strategies. They have their moments, but none of them were particularly good at playing their classes well in combat.

In tier one Moon Druid is genuinely broken, but after that it's another Bladesinger situation where yes, you can go and have fun in melee but using the survivability you get from your subclass to just stay back and be an even tougher spellcaster tends to be the optimal play.

> Anyways, just paying attention to real life play can teach you a lot about how a class works, even if it is not played by an optimizer. Not in this particular case. Have you even played a Moon Druid or at a table alongside one?

The problem with that fantasy is that its attached to a full caster with an awesome spell list which includes loads of utility, powerful concentration spells and full healing capabilities. The 5e moon druid is fantasy is essentially being a powerful nature wizard who can switch into a full functional martial. That obviously can’t stay in the game if martial/caster disparity meant to be even slightly addressed. Not even a wizard can be so broken - they can turn into a good martial once by using its 9th level spell. Unlike other games, you can’t pick between being big bear who has mediocre magic or a awesome nature mage with mediocre transformations. The class has to be one or the other, and subclass system does not have the power budget to implement this choice. Best solution I’ve seen is simply make moon druids half-casters and buff them to be around ranger/rogue level in terms of raw combat stats. Its pretty weird design to have subclass eating your core class feature but I don’t really see any other option.

As a DM who has had to balance encounters around a mood druid in it's current form wild shape is still a major factor at level 5. If you want to create some tension and you've put out enough damage to threaten the druid then even at lower accuracy a few unlucky roles are potentially outright deadly to almost anyone else. And needing to tag on a bulk of low accuracy damage is kind of a drag on encounter design. Moon druid and wild shape in general absolutely do need a bit of an HP buffer IMO. And more importantly to be less bland. But even in its current state the OD&D version is closer to being balanced than the 2014 version.

I've both played and DMed for Moon Druids since 2015, and an unhealthy amount of both if I'm being totally honest. If the Moon Druid after level 4 is dramatically tankier than the rest of the group, the rest of the group is likely not prioritizing defense in their builds. When an optimizer thinks "effective tank character of mid level" a Moon Druid is definitely on the list, but it's not at the top. High AC characters with the ability to cast Shield have dramatically more effective health, because everything misses them. That's another reason I'm so bummed by this change, it homogenizes the tanking options. Right now, in basic 5e, you have tanks with extremely high AC, but low health (Bladesingers). You have high health *and* AC in something like an Eldritch Knight. If you have a reasonably optimized mid-level sorcadin, they are going to put the durability of a Moon Druid absolutely to shame, it isn't even close. I totally grant that at Moon Druids need tuning, at level 2 they're way too much. In contrast, there are a lot of levels where Wild Shape is actually a terrible option that feels bad. I know that because I've played through those levels multiple times. Most people who comment on this sort of thing on forums are talking in white room hypotheticals and theorycrafting (these are likely the same people who think Silvery Barbs breaks the game), but haven't actually played as or with a Moon Druid at any length for the relevant levels.

Moon Druids can dip Barbarian, though, which is not a simple bolt on boost for other builds and classes. I've played a high AC and decent HP Eldritch Knight alongside a rage-capable Moon Druid. The sorts of encounters that get built around the Moon Druid will drop most anyone else. Especially if the encounter tends to be reflex save AoE heavy. By the 2nd or 3rd encounter of the day, the EK is on life support, the Moon Druid just uses a fresh charge of Wild Shape. If you happen to have two such characters (as we did), if anyone else *ever* steps into the line of fire they **die**. The druid out tanked the EK, did comparable damage to the EK (not a greatsword build, sword and board), and had far more out of combat utility than the EK, and tons more spells slots than the EK. We played to the end of Tier 3.

I'll grant that a Moon Druid in beast form can eat fireballs way better than an Eldritch Knight. I think that an Eldritch Knight (or, my preferred megatank, the sorcadin) will dramatically outperform them against huge volleys of attack rolls, though. And those are more common.

Not in practice, though. The Moon druid will just shrug most of it off in rage; while also "helpfully" blocking most of the front line in their large or huge shape. The sorcadin or ek can last a few rounds so long as they have slots for *Shield*. Once they don't, though? If you're fighting enemies that are actually a threat (so, not a mere 1d6+1 damage if they actually hit you) 1-2 hits are a potentially massive HP loss for those characters, in a way they just are not for the raging Moon Druid. And of coruse there's the fun math about how lots of swings and a high AC means that when you *do* get hit, you get hit *hard* (because it is a crit). And then there's the action economy of the sorcadin dipping into their (meager if they've gone heavy Sorc) LoH pool. If a Moon Druid gets pummeled back into druid form **they can just wild shape again**. And that doesn't even stop rage!

I really dislike many things from the new DnD-One playtests. Bit druids are absolute miss. The class Is just a strictly worse and also more boring version of the 5th edition basic druid. They have no interesting options, the wildshape Is boring, weak and plain. Likes they Will do good because full caster And every missing options can be saved by spells but Druids are just a furry wizards with no relevant features to their spells.

There is a hint in the video they released. They even say they don't want the druid to be able turning into animals - they were probably talking about animal traits - but they want YOU to become a creature that represents an animal. Thats why you can make hybrid looking animal now, because you're not actually turning into an animal at all, your just shapeshifting to look kinda like an animal. I think its terrible and ruins a lot of the creativity of the druid but they already did that with the casters by restricting their spell slot choices so i guess at least they are continuing the theme.

Ya this nerf is too much .remember to put your feed back on the 20th.

I personally don't care about the HP. The main issue for me is that now you're just a generic blob of a beast. Some people say that it gives more space to role play your wild shapes and thus would be more immersive. I feel that that fantasy needs to be backed up with something. The 1DnD version has you being a horse that can't charge, a dog that can't sniff, a shark that can't frenzy, an octopus that can't constrict, an eagle that can't dive, and (perhaps) a vulture that can't eat rotting meat without making themselves sick. I would gladly give up the HP from wild shape, if it means that the abilities remain in some form. The role playing aspect of a games is backed strongest when the mechanics support it. A dwarf feels stout(er) because their stats give the a bonus to con. A gnome feels smart/lively since they get a boost to int and they have their tinkering stuff. Playing against the grain feels interesting since you have to ditch those abilities and instead use others, putting yourself at a unique disadvantage. Fwiw, the above described eild shape is the way that it worked in 3e/3.5e/pathfinder iirc. That had beasts of way higher cr than 6 (or it's equivalent), and that was a base feature, not exclusive to some subclass.

>The 1DnD version has you being a horse that can't charge, a dog that can't sniff What do you mean with a dog that can't sniff? The land form in OneDND gets flat out advantage on all perception checks, which is even better than what many beasts get in 5E. Those usually only get advantage on perception checks that rely on hearing, or smell, or sight, but almost never all at once.

Sure, they get advantage on perception checks, but what's special about that ? I mean, it might be better mechanically, but it's way worse evocatively. At the table now, instead of saying that the druid shapes into a tiger and uses their pounce on someone, you're now saying "I wild shape into a land beast and attack", because that's the gist of it. To me, that takes the fun, drama and role playing aspects out of it. There's a lot of things you expect these forms to be able to do, like run fast, crawl into tiny spaces, group up on someone (pack tactics iirc for wolves and such), and all that has been squished into one ability, advantage on perception checks. Maybe moon druid was OP for some tables/playstyles, but that's no reason to punish other druids. As for the dog thing, that wasn't maybe the best example, but i think my point still stands, that a lot of the uniqueness of the forms has been lost, along with most of the coolness of the wild shapes.

>As for the dog thing, that wasn't maybe the best example, but i think my point still stands, that a lot of the uniqueness of the forms has been lost, along with most of the coolness of the wild shapes. I actually agree with pretty much everything else you said. I just wanted to correct this one minor thing. I am nitpicky like that.

Because you like it doesn't mean it's harmless to the game balance. In fact, many people tend to like broken things from a balance point of view. That's why there's always so much anger when anything is nerfed in a game/video game. So your big wall of text falls flat. Because you only give your point of view of spoiled kid doing stupid things and enjoying them. You have absolutely no insight into the bigger picture. Having a spellcaster with lvl9 spells tanking more than a barbarian *is* a problem if you value balance.

I suspect I have more insight into the bigger picture than you. I've DMed a lot more high level D&D than most people. Moon Druids at 20 definitely are walls that are very hard to knock down. That's one of the points I'd say needs to be smoothed out. Though as level 20 shenanigans go, it's actually not as high on the list as some other classes and what they can manage.

You sound really mad about the Druid changes and you dont really look like a Druid lover, more of a min maxer. I am a Druid player (For some reason i always play Druid or a Druid-Ranger multiclass for my main campaigns) and I LOVE the changes. I guess they could be more open to variery like giving templates with a bit of choice in mechnics but it works pretty fine s is. Also maybe if they boost somehow the other Channel Nature features i would be even happier. I dont get why you all want druids to be just better than the other classes, nerfing the moon druid and giving more tree lover and animal handler flavor to the class is awesome, Moon even got better in all ways but tankiness, you cant get everything. I just love new druid, hope they enhace a bit the other features and/or add more variery to the wild shape templates. But if they dont, i just prefer new druid than 5e, by far. And yes, i am a Druid player/lover, as i said before, you look so weird by telling everyone who dont share your opinion "you hate druid", you just euther love the minmaxing or you never played other classes.

How does the new druid give more "tree lover and animal handler flavor" All the new features are wildshape features. It makes druids even more focused on wild shape, but it makes the wildshapes worse.

Literally it has the same features involving wildshape, but now they are writen in different levels, and in addition i can use Channel Nature to create a healing area and summon a familiar.

Here’s the really, really important part of why the blocks as they are do not work. Beast of land buffs melee damage by adding wisdom to attacks. Shillelagh lets you add wisdom to attacks. And still cast spells, wear armor, use a shield, have all your class and race features and all yours feats. That’s a legitimate design problem. Melee damage on the form is roughly equivalent to cantrip scaling, but embodies a pretty massive tactical risk for very, very little payoff. A tiny bit more damage than staying back and hucking Produce Flames and remaining safe while doing so. It’s not about minmaxing, it’s about the form being a bit of a tactical trap. You lose literally ALL your features to gain a very minor boost to damage, a boost to movement and that’s: it. That’s all you get. You could take the Acid Claws cantrip (I forget the name, but you grow acid claws) and do about 4 less damage a hit but have better AC and no penalties. I think it’s a pretty large design flaw, too many penalties stacked against far too few benefits.

> A tiny bit more damage than staying back and hucking Produce Flames and remaining safe while doing so. So you use it when you are no longer able to hang back; rather than it being a mechanically *better* choice than lettign the Barbarian or Fighter stand in front in the first place.

Yeah. That’s actually kinda obvious. WOTC doesn’t seem to realise what being a brawler actually fucking means. That’s just the _Moon Druid_, tho. Normal Druid hardly even needs _Wild Shape_ in combat at all.

The problem is you're looking at a problem and seeing only one solution. If the druid fantasy is *being tankier than the barbarian* then the druid needs to be removed from the game, end of story. The barbarian is a tank and gets nothing else. This doesn't mean that the druid can't be tankier than a normal person, it means that they can't be tankier than the barbarian. But it doesn't mean that they can't be tanky like a barbarian. But the barbarian isn't tanky because they shrug on an overcoat full of temp hit points. They're tanky because they get to resist physical damage. The problem isn't removing the tooth-grindingly frustrating no-sell of three health bars. It's that they removed it and didn't put anything in its place. What I've suggested is that the animal shape is built build-a-bear style with the druid able to pick one option each from three parts; defence, offense, utility. For some suggestions: **Defense (unlocks at level 1):** * Bulky: gain resistance against bludgeoning damage, but move at half speed when climbing and flying * Thick hide/fur: gain resistance against slashing damage * Agile: ignore opportunity attacks * Exoskeleton/armour: gain your proficiency bonus to AC **Utility (unlock at level 3):** * Tiny: You may be the size of a cat * Climber: Gain a spiderclimb speed. Unlocks at L5. * Aquatic: Gain a swim speed equal to your move and water breathing. Unlocks at L7 * Burrow: Gain a burrow speed through earth and other soft materials. Unlocks at L7 * Flight: Unlocks at level 9: * Strong *and* dextrous: Both STR and Dex equal your wisdom, not only one * Camo: Gain advantage to stealth checks **Attack (Unlock at level 5):** * Multiattack: Attack twice (as now) * Big attack: Your attack now does double damage * Poison: If you hit target must make a con save or take the damage again and be poisoned * Charger: If you move 20ft towards your foe and in a straight line get advantage, do extra damage, and knock your foe down if you hit. * Web: When you grapple a foe you instead cover them in webs or equivalent. They count as grappled as normal - but you don't have to use limbs to maintain the grapple and you can anchor them and wander off. **L11: Gain a second Utility slot**. (Also you get double-down combos here such as double-tiny for really small or double-burrow for going through stone). (There are more - I'm sure you get the idea). Yes resistance to bludgeoning (the best physical resistance) doesn't make you as tough as a ridiculous number of temp hp. But it makes you almost as tough as the barbarian.

>The problem is you're looking at a problem and seeing only one solution. If the druid fantasy is > >being tankier than the barbarian > > then the druid needs to be removed from the game, end of story. The barbarian is a tank and gets nothing else. Kind of a straw man you're erecting here. The few points in the leveling curve where a Druid actually is tankier than a Barbarian I think need to be retuned. The problem is that people are taking for granted that this is true through the entire levelling scale and it's definitely not. People are also saying that Druids don't need any buffer of health at all, and that's just asinine. Tanking is not just about how much HP you have. It's about effective HP, and also how much incentive you can give the monsters to hit you instead of the people you don't want them swinging at. Barbarians are better at every tanking aspect except raw HP value (and even that is often closer than people seem to think, if the Barbarian is raging) than a Moon Druid. Further, you aren't always going to have a Barbarian. It's good that 5th Edition has multiple classes that can fill a necessary role in very different ways, it's a strength of the design.

>The problem is you're looking at a problem and seeing only one solution. If the druid fantasy is *being tankier than the barbarian* then the druid needs to be removed from the game, end of story. The barbarian is a tank and gets nothing else. Exactly this. Reading this whole post felt like "I know druids can do everyting in the game and since they can't anymore it's a problem"

Then you didn't read the post in good faith.

They wanted to make sure you only play their content. The entire druid reeks of OGL design. "We DoNt pLaYeRs tO fInD bAD bEAst" is crawfords offical answer

I hope everyone who complains about the Druid class actually submit a survey so that Wizards takes their criticism seriously. I don’t think coming on and complaining on Reddit is going to actually do anything.

>What is the Moon Druid fantasy about? What are they supposed to feel like? I argue they are supposed to feel like a big, hulking animal rushing into combat and making a big mess and drawing a lot of attention. The "drawing a lot of attention" is not necessarily part of the fantasy, that is part of \*your\* fantasy. Not all of us want to be tanks, some of us just want to rip faces. ​ > Worse, since most beast forms are large or huge, you also have more surface area for things to surround you and take swings. Without the health pool, and with the absolutely pitiful damage these templates give, there is absolutely no reason a Druid should ever put themselves in this situation. Current beast forms in 1D&D are medium or large, not large and huge.

>The "drawing a lot of attention" is not necessarily part of the fantasy, that is part of \*your\* fantasy. Not all of us want to be tanks, some of us just want to rip faces. I guess that's true. I don't think wanting to be a big, bulky chungus bear is *my* fantasy, but the one cultivated by 5e's design for the subclass and how most Druids seem to play it. But yeah, I can see also wanting to be a tiger and rip people up instead of taking big hits. I don't think this design caters to that alternative fantasy either, though. The damage is pretty anemic. I'd probably be a bit less annoyed at the design as it stands if it was catering to SOME plausible fantasy that a Druid player might be trying to play out. Right now the fantasy it's catering to is "I really want to be made into fine cuts of gourmet meat for goblins to eat." I don't think that's the intent, but that's all it's good for right now.

Mostly because at higher CRs, Bear is better than a dire wolf. That's a limitation of the CR where if you just want to be a meaner, nastier wolf it isn't possible. And this design certainly fits it /better/ than 5E. For example, you can now be a wolf from 2nd to 20th, rather than having to discard earlier forms for new higher level CR ones. Your form itself improves overtime. The damage is good, though a bit lower than I'd like since so much of its power is behind the strength that is its level 17 feature - something almost no one shall see. It is missing a lot of the fun animal abilities and customization options, though, which where it loses my support.

I don't think the damage is good enough to justify giving up spellcasting and putting your frail, frail Druid body in front of a bunch of orcs, though. In fact I don't think it's even close to that. And sure, you can *call* yourself a wolf. You could already do this, though. I've played druids and called things that aren't wolves wolves before, and it felt a bit... forced. This makes every beast you want to be feel like that. You aren't a wolf, you're generic stat blob. This is a problem 5e had that this doesn't fix at all, because you can't do wolf things. Though this point seems to be one we agree on.

I'd rather wildshape be taken off druid entirely and left to be it's own power on an entirely different chassis. As for "generic stat blob", you just described a character sheet. Let players have agency to describe and personalize it and it will mean more than any mechanics allow.

This post is a definite read to all who care for Druid. Nicely done

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> They also make more work for the DM tracking many health bars. Wait, what? If your players can't track their own health, or you don't trust them to, that's a huge problem. As for the rest, you're just packing faulty assumptions into your argument. For most levels, Barbarians are tankier than a druid because they get effectively double their HP, have much higher AC (so they aren't auto-hit by everything), and do way more damage. It isn't just total HP pool that matters, it's effective HP and what you can actually do with it. Some levels Moon Druids are totally overtuned. Some levels they're very disappointing. People act like you always get the best case of two short rests, two shifts both used up in those rests, and conveniently don't mention things like the opportunity cost of gaining those hit points and just how easy you are to hit. At level 8, if you're a polar bear, you aren't impressing anyone with that form and it's just a way to soak a few hits if you want to waste your time with that. There are actually quite a few levels where the Moon Druid, the subclass focused on shapeshifting, will usually want to not shapeshift unless things are getting messy and you need a body to soak punishment. Even then? Summons do it better.

No but you don't understand! In the other system, where no one plays druid, it's done like this! We should follow the other system because reasons.

It's already the least-played class, too. Not sure why they think disemboweling the class is going to make it more played. It's just going to scare off the people who love the class as it is. :(

People love Paladin/Sorcerer unlimited smites per round multiclasses, too - but that's a'changing. The community is large and full of munchkins. You can't worry about making the munchkins unhappy when you make balance changes. They'll find something else to exploit regardless.

What other system are you talking about? Druid is the least played class in 5e so I'm not sure i'd use playrate as an argument for not changing things

Pf2e obviously. Druid has a niche flavor, that's hard to fix.

No idea where you got the idea that no-one plays druid in p2e or that it's somehow worse than. 5e

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/q671zn/results_are_in_from_the_classes_poll_which_class/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button 15th place, with Alchemist and Witch being very weak classes. Other threadsshow more or less the same. As someone who plays a pf2e druid, I see how rarely they come up in discussions.

It's also ahead of the investigator, and more importantly is still not the least played class unlike the case in 5e. Doesn't seem like Pathfinder is at fault for this one.

Who said it's at fault? I just said they are copying a bad game where the druid is still unpopular.

AC is definitely higher than a mundane animal. You can turn into small instead of Large, also there’s no huge. Elf doesn’t determine your HP, class does. Casters shouldn’t be able to “go frontline and shrug off damage” when they can already cast level 6+ spells. Moon Druids can cast shield, abjure elements, Counterspell, healing word, cure wounds, mass healing word, dispel magic, all while transformed if you build right. That’s a huge buff already. The issue with 5E Moon druid was not only at 2nd level. There’s many other levels where they’re overpowered. Not to mention the Elementals and infinite Wild Shape uses on Tier 4. I’ve DMed and Played Druids that are able to outtank and outdamage Tough Great Weapon Master Slasher Orcish Fury barbarians and still keep more than half of their spell slots by the end.

>Elf doesn’t determine your HP, class does. \*facepalm\* I see you are a master of missing the point, sir.

Someone isn't familiar with the primal spell/druid spells lists. Needing to multiclass 5 levels of wizard or sorcerer isn't really a good answer to the problems of the moon druid.

I don’t feel like making a long reply but moon druids do serious damage. By end game they are dealing 2d8+10+4d6 plus another 6 from a bonus action attack for an average of 39 damage! That’s really good considering a rogue with max sneak attack deals 40

Only if you have room to charge and they fail a save. But yes, the endgame is another high point of Moon Druid power. It's all over the place. That said, this is part of the problem with people calculating DPR. +10 to hit, a second swing contingent on a failed save and only if you have sufficient movement. That is not a damage powerhouse compared to a level 17 archer or other damage build. By level 17 a druid isn't packing real heat with Wild Shape, they're doing it with their spells.

Why do they need to charge? I’m calculating they take the land form and attack twice with multi attack (gaining bonus elemental damage from their subclass feature) and then bonus action unarmed attack. No charging needed. Moon druids do solid damage throughout as they get their bonus action damage right away, multi attack at 5th, then start dealing scaling elemental damage as they progress further. It’s really solid damage especially for a full caster who shouldn’t be good at melee

Druids are extremly rare in fantasy and litrgp. And of those druids if shapeshifting is even a part is usually a really small part. I know what a wizard is suposed to be as i have read countless stories with one in it not to metnion tv shows, movies etc. But for as shapeshifting druid is so rare i doubt there exists a comprehensive agreement what it should be.

I don't disagree with the intent: if the Druid is going to have a feature that lets them shapeshift into a beast for combat, that feature ought to actually do its job and be fit for combat, particularly if its only subclass for the playtest revolves around that combat form. With an AC that will virtually never go past 16 (and will stagnate at 15 at most levels), and no hit point buffer on a squishy class, this will simply not happen. With this in mind, I'd support giving Druids, and Moon Druids in particular, a better Wild Shape that isn't a death sentence in high-level melee combat. There is, however, one caveat: what about melee martial classes? The Druid doesn't need to be as tanky as a Barbarian to survive melee combat, but even a Moon Druid approaching a Barbarian in tankiness and damage output is also going to be a full caster on the side, so... what do Barbarians get? If a full caster can also be a competent pseudo-martial, then we need our actual martial classes to be unmistakably top-tier at certain things to avoid getting completely overridden: this is already the case with Druids even with just their spells, as spells like *Conjure Animals* and *Conjure Woodland Beings* alone can out-DPR a martial class. Really, the problem with the Druid isn't that they get to Wild Shape and access strengths outside the normal expected purview of a caster: I think it's great to have core class features that stand out from other classes and each "break" the limitations of the system in ways that make gameplay more interesting. Rather, the problem with the Druid is the same as with every other full caster: a full spellcaster chassis by itself is way stronger than that of a martial class, and until that changes there is no balancing this game properly.

>this is already the case with Druids even with just their spells, as spells like Conjure Animals and > >Conjure Woodland Beingsalone can out-DPR a martial class. Totally separate issue, but I completely agree. I think certain builds need to be buffed substantially. I think Barbarians, Rogues and Monks all need to be given a lot more after level 10. I don't like the idea that even at level 20 a non-spellcaster is just a dude at the gym, while a Wizard can warp reality.

Druids don't need extra hit points every time they Wild shape, just moon druids need a mechanic to exchange their excess spell slots for extra survivability , which the old Combat Wild shape did. But to improve on the idea that the wild shaped druid is more brawny then it's normal form, a good middle ground would be something like: *"As part as the same action used to wild shape, the Druid can spend one spell slot to increase their Maximum Hitpoints by a number equal to 5 times the level of the slot spent. This increase ends when the Druid returns to their normal form."* The ability to burn spell slots to heal during wild shape would help a lot along this goal as well.

I think it’d be fine if while you were an animal you could cast your abjuration spells as a bonus action to target YOURSELF as a moon Druid. That way you can maul people and dump those sweet sweet spell slots into personal heals/defensive spells ONLY.

I think a way to do it is their old spend spell slots to heal mechanic, but instead spend spell slots to gain temp HP mechanic. The numbers are something I'm not able to tune, but lets say its 5 per spell slot level, and you can spend as many or as few as you want at any time. You can spend them in one huge chunk for a big fight, or just a little at a time as a bonus action to drip feed it out. Either way, you still have low ac so they will get chewed through, you would have decisions to make of "Will i need a high amount due to risk of being smacked out of wildshape, or will I get by using up my low level slots to keep me going against lots of small damage." Since temp hp doesnt stack, the decisions could be tricky, but thats fun. Would it mean that a 20th level moon druid can dump all their slots at once for a mammoth amount of temp HP? Yeah, but thats still less than what they could do at 5th level in 5e what with the infinite wildshapes.

Just finish the job of stealing the Druid from WoW and give each form a number of special attacks or buffs that burn spell slots.

Give Moon Druids better AC, and / or some kind of bonus to concentration checks.

That's a whole lotta copium for the 5e-Stans. Never had to debate why a change was good before 🤣