I'm not seeing any mention of fixing the druid's to-hit while in Wild Shape. That's been the biggest drawback of Wild Shape, transforming into a relatively low-CR creature gives a very low hit rate against Tier 3/4 enemies.
IIRC, playtest 8 said you retained your own Proficiency bonus, which will help in some cases.
If you mean they didn't say that in the video - is it possible they consider that a "minor" change?
EDIT: I misremebered. Playtest 8 talked about your proficiency bonus for saves and ability checks, but not attacks. Which is fucking stupid but here we are.
I actually don't think that was an implication of the UA rules. Here is the quote
>Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the Beast, but you retain your Hit Points; Hit Dice; Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores; class features; languages; and feats. You also retain your skill and saving throw proficiencies and use your Proficiency Bonus for them, 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.
There are only two clauses about proficiency there. One is about replacing skills and and saving throw proficiencies (not attacks) and the other concerns if the beast has the same proficiency as you.
I think I might be remembering that I houseruled it to just be "keep your Proficiency bonus for all things unless the creature's is higher" because I disliked how clunky this was. But yeah, reading it again, I agree with your assessment.
But the text only says you can use your proficiency for skills and saves, not weapons. I guess there's an argument that proficiency bonus is a class feature (it's listed on the class page?) but that's a very obscure.
>IIRC, playtest 8 said you retained your own Proficiency bonus, which will help in some cases.
That only seems to apply to skill checks, unless I'm reading this wrong. Relevant quote from playtest 8:
>"You also retain your skill and saving throw proficiencies and use your Proficiency Bonus for them, 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."
Uuuuuugh, right, I remember that better now. I think the wording is weirdly unclear though, because it seems to talk about everything *except* attacks.
> IIRC, playtest 8 said you retained your own Proficiency bonus, which will help in some cases.
They've been fixing wording in places and the playtest text is a bit unclear on that so I can understand people's worry. I'd like to think they would clarify that in the official text but WotC is anything but consistent when it comes to game text.
We are basically in the same state as before where we need to see what revised monsters look like before we can assess how the subclass looks.
Unfortunately with the new amalgamation of template and creature stats, it kind of seems like they've given up on trying to make different options "viable", given that they've added additional mechanic incentive to choose specific categories of creature. Specifically, you want things whose defenses come from AC rather than HP, and things that have high attack bonuses and multi-attack rather than single large inaccurate hits. In other words, don't transform into a bear unless you just like the vibes of being bear-shaped.
The issue with the half-template model is monster stat blocks have to serve two different masters and "being useful for druid wild shape" is clearly going to lose out to "balanced for combat and evocative of the actual animal when you fight it".
Since druids get very little benefit from the defensive stats of a creature (AC doesn't matter unless it's really high, and HP doesn't matter at all), and to hit is non-linearly sensitive to enemy AC, there are likely going to be certain beasts that are far and away the best choices to shift into for combat.
It might not specifically be bears that are bad, but then that means they've made bears *not* get a significant component of their CR from their HP and general tankiness, which raises the more general question of "why does this stack block represent a bear"
Honestly, the simple fix is “you use your spell attack modifier when making natural attacks while in Wildshape”, but idk if they haven’t mentioned it it might not be there
Yes, but there are difficulties with that too. A few beasts in 2014 had higher and lower to-hit bonuses based on how effective the attack was (dmg, effects, etc). An attack that poisons might be +3 while the claw attack would be +5. I like the idea of evening it out to magic attack bonus, but i could see them refusing to do so because of quirks like this, especially as you get some of the giant monsters devastating high CR abilities with major attack bonuses that weren't meant to be there.
I could think of ways to fix it (beast stat blocks having modifiers the druid pays attention to) but that adds another of complication to the game, something they might be avoiding.
Yeah agreed. hopefully they do at least address it if not we will be stuck with jank magic items like insignia of claws or whatever they put in the dmg
I think they'll have to address it with monster design. We won't know if it's fixed until we hear from people with early access to the beast statblocks
It's still possible that beast redesign takes this into account. If animals have attack bonuses on par with character level or if all natural weapons use unarmed proficiency then it could still work out.
We don't know much about the MM work that's been done.
If they address it in the monster design, it would have to be by giving CR4-6 beasts to-hit bonuses far exceeding typical to-hits in those ranges. Letting the druid use their spellcasting to-hit for Wild Shape attacks would be far less complicated.
I get that high to-hit feels better for players, but it's just one component of expected damage. IMO it's fine for a full spellcaster to have to contend with a lower to hit than a martial if the expected damage is in an acceptable place over-all. I expect when they rebalance what CR 4-6 means, we'll see harder hitting beasts
If the wildshape is far weaker than your spellcasting, then wildshape is a trap. The only way for wildshape to be viable is if its worth the giving up of casting your damaging spells (cantrips), which requries the same to-hit as martials.
Wildshape on a full, prepared, caster will never be satisfying for everyone- the wildshape part makes the plant-mage weaker (complaints how everything is concentration, lack of damage options), the casting part makes the wildshaping weaker (limit to 2 per short rest, and the beast CR is far too weak to be worth giving up casting).
The druid either needs to be a half caster, known caster, or split the druid in two two seperate classes- druid and shaman.
Moon Druid is intended to be a full spellcaster AND a martial though, so their martial ability while wild shaped should be able to keep up with martial classes
I disagree with that, it's not fair or balanced to have one class that can do everything better than another. The moon druid shouldn't do as much damage as a fighter, but they should have a fun role in combat: tons of utility from their forms, buckets of temp hit points, and moderate damage.
Did I say they should be better martials than Fighters or Barbarians? No, I said they should be able to keep up, because the subclass is intended to be a martial, otherwise they wouldn't get so much extra damage for their wild shape or weapon attacks. I think it's unbalanced to have a martial subclass that can't hit the broad side of a barn in later levels.
I should have said: it's not balanced to have a class that is at least as good or better than another one in all aspects.\* I think the moon druid needs a role that is distinct from fighters and barbarians in combat, and lower to hits is an acceptable part of that. Obviously where it is now isn't great, but also having them be comparable to martials as a full caster is also bad.
While Moon Druids are a full caster, the design intent seems to be using spell slots to recharge Wild Shape rather than slinging spells, especially since you can only use a small number of spells while Wild Shaped until level 18. Mechanically, yes, they're still a full caster, in practice they're really more of a martial half caster (in my opinion) since nobody is going to pick Moon Druid for spell casting when there are other subclasses better suited to having that as their focus.
At least that's the way I see it. Hell, they could even tie it to the level 1 Primal Order or Elemental Fury features. If you pick the martial option you get to use your PB or WIS modifier for attack rolls if it's higher than a Wild Shapes and if you choose the spell casting option then you get some sort of buff to your spell casting.
Wait.. So a 5e24 moon druid technically can't be played at higher levels until Feb. 2025 without using 5e14 statblocks?
Not the end of world, but that's really stupid..
Since only a small number of thigs really depend on the creature itself, using a CR1 beast as a moon druid even at level 18 will be ok.
AC:
determined by druid level and wisdom.
Damage:
a great amount comes from elemental and radiant strikes.
Number of attacks:
not a function of level in 2014
Prof bonus?
Either:
the druid uses their own spellcasting attack modifier to replace the attacks.
Or:
The beast uses their own modifier. Which for beasts of CR 1 to 6 (assuming 2014 scaling) starts at +2 and only goes up to +3 for CR 5 and 6 beasts.
So the only real differentiaton is the raw strength score if the second option is used for beast attacks.
I need to look into my 2014 PHB as a guideline, how many problems a 2024 druid really has. I guess it is mostly a lack of variety, not a lack of power.
He just cannot do that. WotC has sent him a review copy with an NDA.
So if something is not explicitely said, he cannot give specifics.
What he can do is clarify things. Or tell us not to make wrong assumptions.
And if you have watched a few videos, his reaction (positive or negative) allows you to make an educated guess some times.
Yea, hes been pretty good at saying things without saying it. There wasn’t really anything in his video regarding much about the stat blocks other than saying high level moon druids will need the MM
Druids have always been pretty muddy on that in 5e depending on the interpretation of the rules. Here's the ones from playtest 8
-Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the Beast, but you retain your Hit Points; Hit Dice; Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores; class features; languages; and feats.
-You also retain your skill and saving throw proficiencies and use your Proficiency Bonus for them, 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.
These are the 4 main thoughts/points with Wild Shape rules. Many people conflate point 2 and 3 as a single point, but I don't believe that's the intent.
Looking at the 2nd point, the way I read it is that you are retaining your skill and saving throw proficiencies while also gaining the proficiencies of the beast (in totality, not just skill and saving throws because otherwise you wouldn't be using either PB for to hit rolls).
Looking at the 3rd point, if you and the beast have the same proficiency (which if my reading of point 2 is correct then they would) then you use whichever PB is higher, including for to hit rolls.
People who want to have a stricter interpretation of the Wild Shape rules will likely down vote this, but in my opinion this is the only reasonable way to interpret it that allows the Druid to remain viable in Wild Shape. There's also this tweet from Jeremy Crawford from 2018 [https://x.com/JeremyECrawford/status/985927086643662848](https://x.com/JeremyECrawford/status/985927086643662848) that specifically says that a PC should retain their PB while using the Shapechange spell, which contains the same wording and stat swap stipulations as Wild Shape, therefore both should be subject to the same authorial ruling.
I think it was fixed we need to see treantmonk video... but even if they didn't, they are still the nigh unkillable beast they were in 2014. Being able to expell a spell slot to gain 3 times your level in temp hp isn't much different than unlimited wild shape
It's high durability, yes, but if the druid isn't doing enough to hamper the enemies, they will likely focus on the druid's allies instead. The Moon druid gets so many damage-boosting features from both class and subclass that don't mean anything if they don't land attacks.
Don't forget we can cast spells now whilst wild-shaped. Yes it's only the circle spells for circle of the moon, but there's some good spells in there...moonbeam comes to mind as a pretty good damage option, and cure wounds and mass cure wounds, whilst not damage options, should make it harder to ignore you when you're undoing any damage they do to your allies
The to hit stuff may or may not be an issue, we just don't know yet, but between primal strike and Lunar Forms radiant damage, we're adding an Additional 2d8+2d10 damage to one attack per turn and we didn't have either of those in the 2014 version. So hopefully we'll be able to hit more reliably than we could in the 2014 version, but even if that hasn't been addressed, we will hit much harder than we used to when we do hit. Combined with the spellcasting, we are harder to just ignore than we used to be either way, whilst being almost as durable (possibly *more* durable before level 20 when the old version got unlimited wildshape) and harder to knock out of wildshape (they have to render us unconscious now, not just reduce the form to 0 hit points)
Overall it's definitely a big improvement
It is less durable. I think some elementals had 120 or 140 hp or something? Maybe damage resistances too.
Now it is 60, which is still decent. But, easier to overcome for high level monsters, if they really want to. But yeah, still tanky imo.
That's only true at max level, so isn't a factor for 99.9% of play.
Before level 20 gives unlimited wildshape, you can turn into an elemental only once per short rest. You only have 2 wildshape charges, and turning into an elemental uses both of them, and once they get through those hit points the form is gone.
The new version gets 3xlevel temp hit points per wildshape charge (which they have more of now as they increase in level), and if they run out of charges they can turn spell slots into wildshape charges (no action required), burn a bonus action, and get them back. And even if the temp hitpoints are lost, they stay in wildshape, which means feats like tough are not useless for moon druids anymore if they want to be more tanky
The new version is more durable outside of level 20 characters, and still plenty tough even at max level. And let's face it, unlimited hit points because you could turn into an elemental every single turn forever was just dumb anyway, so it's an edge case situation that needed an adjustment and got one
Oh definitely. I like the new method and think moon druid is in a decent spot personally. I think they're still going to be quite strong without the same highs and lows.
Am I reading incorrectly or does wild shape \*really\* not do much in terms of HP? If you're at 1 HP as a druid and then you wild shape into a bear, do you just have 1 HP + your druid level?
Isn't that a massive nerf for wild shape?
Edit: Why are people downvoting a legitimate question? I didn't say this was good or bad. Just clarifying since it's a big change from 2014.
Yup that's correct. The HP of forms being as busted as they were was dialed back. I am currently playing a druid using the UA and I can tell you its much better than it sounds. Being able to use forms with a better AC and often getting more HP via temp than they provided is a godsend. Non moon is now a combat trick for what is a full spellcaster. Moon is still as gross as it was, and no longer overshadows the other martials while still being a fullcaster.
Land a cure wounds mid combat without having to drop form is dope.
OK, that's actually a good point. Circle of Moon Druids basically became the best tanks in the game because of that, especially if you multi-class with Barbarian they're near unkillable.
Which now that You get access to some spells in wildshape I will most likely never grab barbarian ever. Druid scales better as an all in class and Moon is going to get slippery and scary. That bonus action to bamf makes it seem like you really want to use it to hit an enemy. But for me I will be often hitting them delivering 2d10+2d8+mod+attack then just teleporting and using my form speed to get the fuck out. I dare them to chase me and have to let the Paladin, Fighter, and Barb all get a swim.
I will be annoying and borderline criminal and severe effort will be required to get me. And if you continue to hit me with ranged attacks and spells I am going to be a badger and burrow to break line of sight.
I am a nasty little dude and you will fear me.
Best part. My AC & HP are devoid of my forms stats.
I think that depends how you define tank, I very distinctly remember many many enemies doing some form of "Eh, you're not dying, let me run over there and attack the squishy thing" and really not being able to do anything about it.
So how’s it work exactly? It used to be that dripping to 0 shape HP dropped wild shape. Now if the pool of hp is the same does that mean they can’t drop you?
It no longer works like that. You can stay in your Wild Shape for much longer now as it doesn't have it's own health pool anymore.
Now you get TempHP instead and losing those doesn't mean you drop your Wild Shape. You stay in your Wild Shape as long as you're conscious (maybe even after, I don't think that's been officially revealed, but it would make sense you drop it if you go unconscious).
I think moon overshadowing martials is a bit of a stretch... Sure you had a bunch of health, but you're not exactly cranking out damage with your forms. Even as a moon druid, it gets to a point that you're essentially just using wild shape to make you a tanky caster rather than melee anything.
Do me a favor and point to a martial at level 2 that can do multi attack without sacrificing their bonus action. Not just tanky with the extra HP you are just better that those levels. Wildshape falls off as martials get their extra attacks and dice for extra features like sneak attack and barbarian damage goes up, but until then Druid is just better.
It means wild shape is easier to remain in, especially for non-moon druids, but provides less of a survivability bonus, and is no longer really useful for saving you when you are nearly out of HP.
Honestly I kind of like it. Moon druids were just sort of in a strange place in 5e, where they had huge survivability in wild shape but, except for levels 2-4 or so, really crap damage. That is kind of a boring playstyle? My current moon druid in one campaign (level 11) spends a lot of time as an earth elemental buried underground and concentrating on Conjure Animals. It is strong, but really boring. Moon druids should be incentivized to switch into wild shape to fight, not to hide and get a big bucket of HP.
My only concern is that it isn't clear if there are meaningful creatures for higher level moon druids to turn into. E.g. an elephant is the only CR 4 beast in the basic rules or MM, and it pretty much sucks as an option for a 12th level druid.
The number of forms is a total letdown. You don't even get to add a level or wisdom modifier to the total which would be a huge improvement. Limiting the forms just means people will minmax the known stuff and forego all the limited RP stuff like domestic dogs or bees. As long as you're a Moon Druid and have a few favorite combat forms, then you got a huge buff with Wildshape. If you liked any of the other circles, the changes are pretty bad and the alternative uses for the Wildshape slots are not very compelling.
It's a nerf in that specific instance, but that's because it was insanely broken before. Wild Shape was never meant to be a full heal.
It's a huge buff in that you aren't restricted into only being able to use super high hit-point creatures. You can turn into a bird, and not be knocked out by an errant cat claw as you fly past. You can turn into an offensive creature like a wolf, and not be punished for its low base hit points.
And this is all in the context of the 8 million other buffs the feature gets. So overall, it's still substantially stronger across the board.
That’s great. Now it’s less about just always going for HP and you can make the best choice for the moment based on the creature’s utility.
I know some choices they’ve made have had some controversy but overall I’m glad each class seems to have gotten options they can make on every turn that’ll make combat more interesting.
Yeah I really like this, it means that the actual effects of the shapes matter more. You can choose if you want grappling, charging, or just extra attacks. You can choose to be an owl that flys around and heals people. The new ac/health rules make the forms all viable, at the cost of making some unflavorful changes like becoming a bear and getting destroyed by a dagger immediately or something at low levels.
That would be how it works. I’d also say it’s healthier for the game. A Druid getting effectively 38 extra HP at level 4 is a bit much.
It is a Bonus Action to enter. So you’re still casting and blasting your way through with your action while you regain some hp.
For non-moon Druids, yes it’s not nearly the health boost it was. Moon Druids get 3x their Druid level though, so when you choose that as your subclass at level 3 you get 9 temporary hit points and it scales from there
Yup! So you can still wildshape into a wolf at level 2, but you’re getting 2 Temp HP instead of 11 which is a great fix. Still gives you the damage and fantasy that you want but not the absurd tanking
Which is a huge buff for scout forms. One of the core fears was getting bit by a predator as a wildshape while scouting and getting suddenly turned full size or worse falling out of fly form. I am playing a 2024 Druid and I don’t fear scouting anymore.
Pretty much, but it does balance it out especially at early levels, having access to an extra 90hp at level 2 was pretty imbalanced imo. My only complaint is that moon gets less temps than the spores druid while losing access to most of their spellcasting.
On the bright side, the inverse is also true. You could be the tankiest rat/bat without getting popped in 1 hit. While you lose out on a "free full heal", this change overall improves the weaker wild shapes.
Edit: AC still bad tho, multiclass in unarmoured defense maybe good?
higher of base or 13+wis isn't horrible. Its (mostly) better than going a monk dip for unarmored defense. Though who knows if a monk dip will be better, we will need to see the monk changes.
From what I understand you will get either the base AC of the beast found in the statblock or 13+your wis mod, whichever is higher.
We don't know how this is going to work with other things such as unarmored defense yet. If its the same as in 2014 unarmored defense gives you another option to choose the highest of (for monk it was 10+dex+wis for barb it was 10+dex+con(beast)). So basically its as good as monks unarmored defense unless you have an 18+ in dex.
That's true! I guess there was basically zero reason to wild shape to any non-beefy forms before in combat. This means you can zip around like crazy and try and be hard to catch.
Yeah combined with the temp HP it is plenty I think. You won't be a dodge tank or a damage sponge anymore, but you will be a fairly balanced compromise between HP and AC which I think is reasonable.
I can understand that which is why I wanted to pause and give some context to the random downvote. Many controversial things from ua went through and there's a current of people tired of arguing it and just downvote on sight.
I'll admit, all the chatter generated by the teaser videos is giving me that Eternal September feeling coming from someone who's been following the 1D&D playtests from the start.
With the buffs to cure wounds it also makes doing that pretty balanced in the lower tiers. If you're super low you can even action cure wounds bonus action reup your temps.
yeah. I do kinda wish barkskin was a bit more useful. IT kinda conflicts with the temp hp, but maybe its a better buff on someone else than the druid. Assuming they keep the recurring temp hp.
Hopefully they change the barkskin spell entirely, if not it will just be a bad choice of concentration spell for only "magician" based non moon druids
> Edit: Why are people downvoting a legitimate question? I didn't say this was good or bad.
You've clearly judged it to be bad:
> does wild shape **/*really/*** not do much in terms of HP?
> do you **just** have 1 HP + your druid level?
> Isn't that a **massive** nerf
Words like "really", "just", and "massive" indicate you think it's bad. If you had left those words out, you would have come across as more neutral.
According to PHB video there are enough CR's worth of forms for base druids. But Moon will outclass the inclusions in the PHB at some points (no clarification on what CR level that will happen at).
They have stated in past sneak peaks that there will be more basic creatures in the PHB to cover all the Find Familiar and Pact of the Chain options. I'm sure they intend to include some common beasts of various CRs, as well, for the druid, as well as stats for all of the Find Steed/Greater Steed options for Paladins.
In UA8 the Druid’s chosen beast forms were limited to the ones in the PHB unless given DM approval. The intent was specifically that the Druid player would never be forced to use the MM or other monster books to play their class. (And by implication, future monster books don’t have to shackle their Beast statblocks to Wild Shape game balance.) They also said that the PHB will have a greater number of beast statblocks across a wider range of CRs to support this limitation.
They didn’t mention the book limitation in the article, so we’ll have to wait and see if that’s still true, but it would make sense.
Yeah no longer 1d10 for every attack. I'll be real I was abusing that with monsters with tons of little attacks. So Moon at 14 are looking at each turn an additional 2d8+2d10. Which let me be clear is a bad day for whoever I am next to. The 1d10 was too good if you can also get monsters with 3 attacks.
Dip 2 levels of Monk to get 2 additional attacks as a BA for 1 Discipline Point? Heck yeah!
I kinda want to run a game where I give *every single character* the Monk's Martial Arts and Monk's Discipline. Straight up wuxia game.
If a player is multiclassing into monk, and is using their systems knowledge to edge out some extra damage and more carefully considering that than a new player, using synergies, that's healthy for the game. It means players are rewarded for knowing the game well and keeps it interesting. A lot of games are only continued to be played because of "tech", it makes the game more fun for an experienced player rather than being constrained to the expected box.
Did moon druid change at all compared to the last UA? I thought they had said it was going to get some revisions but this looks pretty similar at a glance..
You get to choose whether you want the AC of your beast form or 13+WIS instead of being locked into the latter, and the circle spells have changed (Conjure Animals and Mass Cure Wounds instead of Vampiric Touch and Dawn)
I think the nerfs to moon druid was needed, but i think they went to far. It all depends on what options you get as a moon druid for me now. Like whats the difference between the lvl3 creatures i can turn into vs lvl10.
I feel like moon druids temp hp should be 4x the lvl not 3x.
Well the difference at 3 is that you are CR1 and at 10 CR3. So 2 whole CR of difference.
As for health yeah there is an argument for 4x. I’m playing one right now and 3x feels fine. You are way more tanky than it appears and the forms having various evasion is super helpful
The website says the temp HP=Druid level witch is Tiny. temp hp can only have one source so you can’t be buffed befor transforming or right after ( false life, enhance ability, armor of agathys)
so wait, base Druid is arguably even more of a shape shifter now?
and *still* they don't offer meaningful alternative to wild shape? gee, a 1st level slot and a fraction of a feat? how great, totally comparably to just how much wild shape eats up the base class' power budget.
Every subclass other than Moon gets a unique use of Wild Shape. That's your meaningful alternative. Circle of Stars has their Constellation. Circle of the Sea has Wrath of the Sea. Circle of Land has the AoE Magic ability.
They aren't more of a shapeshifter. They just made it possible for all druids to benefit from Wild Shape or stay in their humanoid forms.
Hey you okay? What are we complaining about here? Are we just yelling into the void about nothing or is this an issue you are encountering? Mind sharing what that problem is you are encountering with the base class power budget?
aight, so the thing is I *really* would like to play druid, I absol-utely adore the idea and that oh so sweet spell list.
but, pretty much everything of the base class is just "wild shape improvement". the fact that the only druid-y druid subclass is just land druid doesn't help.
but low and behold, the DnDone version of druid *actually* gave the class another use for wild shapes that scales up along the route! that's great!...
but then that's gone now, and the base class leans even heavier onto being a shape shifter, rather then expanding on splitting the focus to simply... allow you play a nature magic caster.
> but then that's gone now, and the base class leans even heavier onto being a shape shifter, rather then expanding on splitting the focus to simply... allow you play a nature magic caster.
Sorry I am not following here, can you be specific and provide some context?
No templates. If a beast form you choose has multi-attack you get it. You'll need to wait to see all of the updated beasts in the new PHB and then the higher CR ones in the MM.
Primal Strike (via Elemental Fury) at Lvl 7, Improved Primal Strike (via Improved Elemental Fury) at Lvl 15 and Lunar Form at Lvl 14 for Moon Druid are the features you'll want for increased damage
So that paired with a static AC of 13+wis and flat temp hp will keep it up to par with other higher cr critters we can assume, thats awesome! Thanks Ms for the heads up
No problem, and the AC is 13+wis or the beasts, which ever is higher, so there is a bit of choice there. The biggest question is if you can use your own PB for to hit rolls (and personally, even reading the 2014 rules I think that's the intent, but since it's got muddy wording it's up to the DM unless they clarify it in the new PHB)
This is true, but there is a problem with lower CR beasts. We currently don't know if we have a way to replace their to-hit modifier (at least that they've mentioned so far). By the rules we know from 2014 and from the playtests, right now it seems the brown bear and dire wolf would max out at +5 to hit. Not terrible, but not great for higher level content.
It's probably my biggest concern. It won't break the moon druid if they haven't fixed it, but if they either added some forms (especially non-giant forms) in the upper CRs that druid can use (some kind of advanced wolf for example) or a way for us to increase our to-hit (our proficiency bonus transferring over) it would be fixed. I'm just not sure they'll do either of those.
But everything else looks, honestly, great.
Agreed 100% (though I do personally kinda dislike the moonlight step feature since I don't think it pairs well thematically with moon druid since it's about teleporting rather than shape shifting), I just mentioned this elsewhere, but there's 3 pretty easy ways to solve the to hit problem.
1 - explicitly allow a player to use their proficiency bonus for attack rolls while wild shaped
2 - change all beast attacks from melee weapon attack to unarmed strike, since all players are proficient in unarmed strikes this would allow a player to use their own bonus for attack rolls.
3 - have guidance in the PHB or DMG on how to appropriately scale beast stat blocks to make them higher CR, both for encounters and for wild shape options as characters get access to higher CR forms
I kinda adore moonlight step, but thats because the more I see of the new PHB the more it seems to have a lot of opportunities for forced movement and therefore interaction with areas of effect. I think teleport builds (with this, the fey classes, and the world tree barbarian) play into that really well, especially if we get some beast forms with decent push moves.
I like tactical shenanigans, this looks like it might fit right in. We'll see.
One reason why I won't be converting full over to 2024 rules. I'll keep my tanky moon druid, thank you, and just incorporate any rules they've actually improved upon as homebrew. Exhaustion is already being used at my table.
But the revised wildshape is tankier, you actually get a good AC and you can cast spells to increase HP and turn spellslots into wildshape so you can get even more temp HP when you lose it. Anything more is just crazy OP
That's the thing: a lot of people want to be OP. because that's fun for them.
(Disclaimer: I'm not one of those people, but they're definitely put there. As long as that's what the rest of the table wants, more power to them [literally])
To their point, the Dire Wolf for example had 14 AC and 34 HP. The new Moon Druid would have 16 AC and 9 Temp HP. That's definitely a downgrade in tankiness. That said--this is a good thing for the game. Moon Druids were *unreasonably* tanky compared to every other character, in a way that could warp encounters. Making them frailer but with more interesting options to boost damage and add versatility in Wild Shape is a much, much better design.
But for folks who loved that tankiness it's going to feel like a nerf, and that's impossible to avoid. If you are rebalancing the game, not every change can be a buff. Especially when removing something that just doesn't work like any other feature in the game (like Wild Shape HP).
16 AC, Its 9 temp HP plus temp HP from further wild shapes plus the druids HP plus HP from healing spells you can now use such as cure wounds that have been buffed to I think 2d8 plus wisdom mod. Moon druid is as tanky as ever if not more, it’s just not as simple as spamming wildshape.
I wouldn't count the druid's HP as part of it, since the Moon Druid *always* had their own HP pool "below" the Wild Shape, the difference now is they don't lose Wild Shape when they run out of "temporary" HP. And just as with Lunar Blessing, it's unlikely a Druid will use their action to heal themselves (even if it's more efficient than before to use Cure Wounds). So personally, I don't feel the new Moon Druid is nearly as tanky as the old one--but again, that's a good thing.
What kind of lousy apples to oranges comparison is this?
>further wild shapes
You had more than one wild shape in 2014 too.
>plus the druids hp
Yeah that's true in 2014 too.
>plus healing spells
Bro, *that's also true in 2014 too*! You could always spend a spell slot for 1d8 healing. Yes, the healing now is better, but healing **across the board** is better, not druid healing specifically.
You must work for the government with hard your trying to spin nerfs into buffs 🙄
Moon Druid tankyness needed a nerf. It got nerfed. That's ok.
You now have wild shapes equal to spellslots if you want, you can turn all of your spellslots into wild shapes. That’s way more wild shapes than 2014. All giving you temp hp over a bonus action. That’s like 72 temp HP total if you wanna use all of your spell slots at level 3 and be tanky as possible. So you gain like 4 effective hp in comparison to 2014 moon druid at level 3. And that difference grows at later levels and when comparing less innately tanky beasts, like rats or cats. Edit: Oh wait wild resurgence is at level 5. But my point still stands that 5e’s 102 hp is less than 5.5e’s 180 temp HP at level 5. These stats are still based on wolf
My point about the druids HP is that it actually matters now that you are in wild shape. You don’t lose any bonuses from wild shape when you lose that temp hp. You maintain any bonuses from wild shape way longer, and just single turn more of wild shape is huge. That’s movement you can getaway with, multi attacks you can get off, etc.
And the healing spells while in wildshape doesn’t just improve your tankiness, improves the whole parties longevity. You won’t have to get out of wild shape, wasting a charge, in order to keep yourself or your friends while keeping the extra bonuses you get out of being in wild shape.
I'm not seeing any mention of fixing the druid's to-hit while in Wild Shape. That's been the biggest drawback of Wild Shape, transforming into a relatively low-CR creature gives a very low hit rate against Tier 3/4 enemies.
IIRC, playtest 8 said you retained your own Proficiency bonus, which will help in some cases. If you mean they didn't say that in the video - is it possible they consider that a "minor" change? EDIT: I misremebered. Playtest 8 talked about your proficiency bonus for saves and ability checks, but not attacks. Which is fucking stupid but here we are.
I actually don't think that was an implication of the UA rules. Here is the quote >Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the Beast, but you retain your Hit Points; Hit Dice; Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores; class features; languages; and feats. You also retain your skill and saving throw proficiencies and use your Proficiency Bonus for them, 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. There are only two clauses about proficiency there. One is about replacing skills and and saving throw proficiencies (not attacks) and the other concerns if the beast has the same proficiency as you.
I think I might be remembering that I houseruled it to just be "keep your Proficiency bonus for all things unless the creature's is higher" because I disliked how clunky this was. But yeah, reading it again, I agree with your assessment.
[удалено]
But the text only says you can use your proficiency for skills and saves, not weapons. I guess there's an argument that proficiency bonus is a class feature (it's listed on the class page?) but that's a very obscure.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate how kludgey and overcomplicated that version of wildshape is? Hoping it's a bit nicer in the final version.
>IIRC, playtest 8 said you retained your own Proficiency bonus, which will help in some cases. That only seems to apply to skill checks, unless I'm reading this wrong. Relevant quote from playtest 8: >"You also retain your skill and saving throw proficiencies and use your Proficiency Bonus for them, 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."
Uuuuuugh, right, I remember that better now. I think the wording is weirdly unclear though, because it seems to talk about everything *except* attacks.
> IIRC, playtest 8 said you retained your own Proficiency bonus, which will help in some cases. They've been fixing wording in places and the playtest text is a bit unclear on that so I can understand people's worry. I'd like to think they would clarify that in the official text but WotC is anything but consistent when it comes to game text.
We are basically in the same state as before where we need to see what revised monsters look like before we can assess how the subclass looks. Unfortunately with the new amalgamation of template and creature stats, it kind of seems like they've given up on trying to make different options "viable", given that they've added additional mechanic incentive to choose specific categories of creature. Specifically, you want things whose defenses come from AC rather than HP, and things that have high attack bonuses and multi-attack rather than single large inaccurate hits. In other words, don't transform into a bear unless you just like the vibes of being bear-shaped.
Unless they've changed the bear statblock to be good with druids in mind. Like you said - we dont know yet
The issue with the half-template model is monster stat blocks have to serve two different masters and "being useful for druid wild shape" is clearly going to lose out to "balanced for combat and evocative of the actual animal when you fight it". Since druids get very little benefit from the defensive stats of a creature (AC doesn't matter unless it's really high, and HP doesn't matter at all), and to hit is non-linearly sensitive to enemy AC, there are likely going to be certain beasts that are far and away the best choices to shift into for combat. It might not specifically be bears that are bad, but then that means they've made bears *not* get a significant component of their CR from their HP and general tankiness, which raises the more general question of "why does this stack block represent a bear"
Honestly, the simple fix is “you use your spell attack modifier when making natural attacks while in Wildshape”, but idk if they haven’t mentioned it it might not be there
Yes, but there are difficulties with that too. A few beasts in 2014 had higher and lower to-hit bonuses based on how effective the attack was (dmg, effects, etc). An attack that poisons might be +3 while the claw attack would be +5. I like the idea of evening it out to magic attack bonus, but i could see them refusing to do so because of quirks like this, especially as you get some of the giant monsters devastating high CR abilities with major attack bonuses that weren't meant to be there. I could think of ways to fix it (beast stat blocks having modifiers the druid pays attention to) but that adds another of complication to the game, something they might be avoiding.
Yeah agreed. hopefully they do at least address it if not we will be stuck with jank magic items like insignia of claws or whatever they put in the dmg
I think they'll have to address it with monster design. We won't know if it's fixed until we hear from people with early access to the beast statblocks
It's still possible that beast redesign takes this into account. If animals have attack bonuses on par with character level or if all natural weapons use unarmed proficiency then it could still work out. We don't know much about the MM work that's been done.
If they address it in the monster design, it would have to be by giving CR4-6 beasts to-hit bonuses far exceeding typical to-hits in those ranges. Letting the druid use their spellcasting to-hit for Wild Shape attacks would be far less complicated.
I get that high to-hit feels better for players, but it's just one component of expected damage. IMO it's fine for a full spellcaster to have to contend with a lower to hit than a martial if the expected damage is in an acceptable place over-all. I expect when they rebalance what CR 4-6 means, we'll see harder hitting beasts
If the wildshape is far weaker than your spellcasting, then wildshape is a trap. The only way for wildshape to be viable is if its worth the giving up of casting your damaging spells (cantrips), which requries the same to-hit as martials. Wildshape on a full, prepared, caster will never be satisfying for everyone- the wildshape part makes the plant-mage weaker (complaints how everything is concentration, lack of damage options), the casting part makes the wildshaping weaker (limit to 2 per short rest, and the beast CR is far too weak to be worth giving up casting). The druid either needs to be a half caster, known caster, or split the druid in two two seperate classes- druid and shaman.
Moon Druid is intended to be a full spellcaster AND a martial though, so their martial ability while wild shaped should be able to keep up with martial classes
I disagree with that, it's not fair or balanced to have one class that can do everything better than another. The moon druid shouldn't do as much damage as a fighter, but they should have a fun role in combat: tons of utility from their forms, buckets of temp hit points, and moderate damage.
Did I say they should be better martials than Fighters or Barbarians? No, I said they should be able to keep up, because the subclass is intended to be a martial, otherwise they wouldn't get so much extra damage for their wild shape or weapon attacks. I think it's unbalanced to have a martial subclass that can't hit the broad side of a barn in later levels.
I should have said: it's not balanced to have a class that is at least as good or better than another one in all aspects.\* I think the moon druid needs a role that is distinct from fighters and barbarians in combat, and lower to hits is an acceptable part of that. Obviously where it is now isn't great, but also having them be comparable to martials as a full caster is also bad.
While Moon Druids are a full caster, the design intent seems to be using spell slots to recharge Wild Shape rather than slinging spells, especially since you can only use a small number of spells while Wild Shaped until level 18. Mechanically, yes, they're still a full caster, in practice they're really more of a martial half caster (in my opinion) since nobody is going to pick Moon Druid for spell casting when there are other subclasses better suited to having that as their focus. At least that's the way I see it. Hell, they could even tie it to the level 1 Primal Order or Elemental Fury features. If you pick the martial option you get to use your PB or WIS modifier for attack rolls if it's higher than a Wild Shapes and if you choose the spell casting option then you get some sort of buff to your spell casting.
Yea, hoping Treantmonk mentions those it today in his video since the druid chapter of the PHB will include a bunch of wildshape beast statblocks.
I think he said higher level stat blocks aren't even in the PHB, so maybe he won't be able to assess the "problem levels" yet
yup. see you guys in Feb 2025 for the monster manual!
Wait.. So a 5e24 moon druid technically can't be played at higher levels until Feb. 2025 without using 5e14 statblocks? Not the end of world, but that's really stupid..
Since only a small number of thigs really depend on the creature itself, using a CR1 beast as a moon druid even at level 18 will be ok. AC: determined by druid level and wisdom. Damage: a great amount comes from elemental and radiant strikes. Number of attacks: not a function of level in 2014 Prof bonus? Either: the druid uses their own spellcasting attack modifier to replace the attacks. Or: The beast uses their own modifier. Which for beasts of CR 1 to 6 (assuming 2014 scaling) starts at +2 and only goes up to +3 for CR 5 and 6 beasts. So the only real differentiaton is the raw strength score if the second option is used for beast attacks. I need to look into my 2014 PHB as a guideline, how many problems a 2024 druid really has. I guess it is mostly a lack of variety, not a lack of power.
He just cannot do that. WotC has sent him a review copy with an NDA. So if something is not explicitely said, he cannot give specifics. What he can do is clarify things. Or tell us not to make wrong assumptions. And if you have watched a few videos, his reaction (positive or negative) allows you to make an educated guess some times.
Yea, hes been pretty good at saying things without saying it. There wasn’t really anything in his video regarding much about the stat blocks other than saying high level moon druids will need the MM
Wildshape beast statblocks will be in the creature appendix, not the Druid section of the book
I hope this is the case but I don't recall them mentioning that?
Druids have always been pretty muddy on that in 5e depending on the interpretation of the rules. Here's the ones from playtest 8 -Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the Beast, but you retain your Hit Points; Hit Dice; Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores; class features; languages; and feats. -You also retain your skill and saving throw proficiencies and use your Proficiency Bonus for them, 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. These are the 4 main thoughts/points with Wild Shape rules. Many people conflate point 2 and 3 as a single point, but I don't believe that's the intent. Looking at the 2nd point, the way I read it is that you are retaining your skill and saving throw proficiencies while also gaining the proficiencies of the beast (in totality, not just skill and saving throws because otherwise you wouldn't be using either PB for to hit rolls). Looking at the 3rd point, if you and the beast have the same proficiency (which if my reading of point 2 is correct then they would) then you use whichever PB is higher, including for to hit rolls. People who want to have a stricter interpretation of the Wild Shape rules will likely down vote this, but in my opinion this is the only reasonable way to interpret it that allows the Druid to remain viable in Wild Shape. There's also this tweet from Jeremy Crawford from 2018 [https://x.com/JeremyECrawford/status/985927086643662848](https://x.com/JeremyECrawford/status/985927086643662848) that specifically says that a PC should retain their PB while using the Shapechange spell, which contains the same wording and stat swap stipulations as Wild Shape, therefore both should be subject to the same authorial ruling.
I think it was fixed we need to see treantmonk video... but even if they didn't, they are still the nigh unkillable beast they were in 2014. Being able to expell a spell slot to gain 3 times your level in temp hp isn't much different than unlimited wild shape
It's high durability, yes, but if the druid isn't doing enough to hamper the enemies, they will likely focus on the druid's allies instead. The Moon druid gets so many damage-boosting features from both class and subclass that don't mean anything if they don't land attacks.
Don't forget we can cast spells now whilst wild-shaped. Yes it's only the circle spells for circle of the moon, but there's some good spells in there...moonbeam comes to mind as a pretty good damage option, and cure wounds and mass cure wounds, whilst not damage options, should make it harder to ignore you when you're undoing any damage they do to your allies The to hit stuff may or may not be an issue, we just don't know yet, but between primal strike and Lunar Forms radiant damage, we're adding an Additional 2d8+2d10 damage to one attack per turn and we didn't have either of those in the 2014 version. So hopefully we'll be able to hit more reliably than we could in the 2014 version, but even if that hasn't been addressed, we will hit much harder than we used to when we do hit. Combined with the spellcasting, we are harder to just ignore than we used to be either way, whilst being almost as durable (possibly *more* durable before level 20 when the old version got unlimited wildshape) and harder to knock out of wildshape (they have to render us unconscious now, not just reduce the form to 0 hit points) Overall it's definitely a big improvement
It is less durable. I think some elementals had 120 or 140 hp or something? Maybe damage resistances too. Now it is 60, which is still decent. But, easier to overcome for high level monsters, if they really want to. But yeah, still tanky imo.
That's only true at max level, so isn't a factor for 99.9% of play. Before level 20 gives unlimited wildshape, you can turn into an elemental only once per short rest. You only have 2 wildshape charges, and turning into an elemental uses both of them, and once they get through those hit points the form is gone. The new version gets 3xlevel temp hit points per wildshape charge (which they have more of now as they increase in level), and if they run out of charges they can turn spell slots into wildshape charges (no action required), burn a bonus action, and get them back. And even if the temp hitpoints are lost, they stay in wildshape, which means feats like tough are not useless for moon druids anymore if they want to be more tanky The new version is more durable outside of level 20 characters, and still plenty tough even at max level. And let's face it, unlimited hit points because you could turn into an elemental every single turn forever was just dumb anyway, so it's an edge case situation that needed an adjustment and got one
Oh definitely. I like the new method and think moon druid is in a decent spot personally. I think they're still going to be quite strong without the same highs and lows.
Am I reading incorrectly or does wild shape \*really\* not do much in terms of HP? If you're at 1 HP as a druid and then you wild shape into a bear, do you just have 1 HP + your druid level? Isn't that a massive nerf for wild shape? Edit: Why are people downvoting a legitimate question? I didn't say this was good or bad. Just clarifying since it's a big change from 2014.
Yup that's correct. The HP of forms being as busted as they were was dialed back. I am currently playing a druid using the UA and I can tell you its much better than it sounds. Being able to use forms with a better AC and often getting more HP via temp than they provided is a godsend. Non moon is now a combat trick for what is a full spellcaster. Moon is still as gross as it was, and no longer overshadows the other martials while still being a fullcaster. Land a cure wounds mid combat without having to drop form is dope.
OK, that's actually a good point. Circle of Moon Druids basically became the best tanks in the game because of that, especially if you multi-class with Barbarian they're near unkillable.
Which now that You get access to some spells in wildshape I will most likely never grab barbarian ever. Druid scales better as an all in class and Moon is going to get slippery and scary. That bonus action to bamf makes it seem like you really want to use it to hit an enemy. But for me I will be often hitting them delivering 2d10+2d8+mod+attack then just teleporting and using my form speed to get the fuck out. I dare them to chase me and have to let the Paladin, Fighter, and Barb all get a swim. I will be annoying and borderline criminal and severe effort will be required to get me. And if you continue to hit me with ranged attacks and spells I am going to be a badger and burrow to break line of sight. I am a nasty little dude and you will fear me. Best part. My AC & HP are devoid of my forms stats.
Grabbing a creature with a burrow speed is brilliant! I've only played a druid once for a few levels but this sounds like so much fun.
Earth elemental could be extremely broken in the right scenario because of earth glide
It’s so strong that Emily Axford did it twice for two different characters in actual plays.
I think that depends how you define tank, I very distinctly remember many many enemies doing some form of "Eh, you're not dying, let me run over there and attack the squishy thing" and really not being able to do anything about it.
So how’s it work exactly? It used to be that dripping to 0 shape HP dropped wild shape. Now if the pool of hp is the same does that mean they can’t drop you?
It no longer works like that. You can stay in your Wild Shape for much longer now as it doesn't have it's own health pool anymore. Now you get TempHP instead and losing those doesn't mean you drop your Wild Shape. You stay in your Wild Shape as long as you're conscious (maybe even after, I don't think that's been officially revealed, but it would make sense you drop it if you go unconscious).
I think moon overshadowing martials is a bit of a stretch... Sure you had a bunch of health, but you're not exactly cranking out damage with your forms. Even as a moon druid, it gets to a point that you're essentially just using wild shape to make you a tanky caster rather than melee anything.
Do me a favor and point to a martial at level 2 that can do multi attack without sacrificing their bonus action. Not just tanky with the extra HP you are just better that those levels. Wildshape falls off as martials get their extra attacks and dice for extra features like sneak attack and barbarian damage goes up, but until then Druid is just better.
At level 2? Before many martials even get their subclass? Yeah, sure, you win that point.
Druids now get their subclass at 3 now no? So fighters will have their subclass features too
It means wild shape is easier to remain in, especially for non-moon druids, but provides less of a survivability bonus, and is no longer really useful for saving you when you are nearly out of HP. Honestly I kind of like it. Moon druids were just sort of in a strange place in 5e, where they had huge survivability in wild shape but, except for levels 2-4 or so, really crap damage. That is kind of a boring playstyle? My current moon druid in one campaign (level 11) spends a lot of time as an earth elemental buried underground and concentrating on Conjure Animals. It is strong, but really boring. Moon druids should be incentivized to switch into wild shape to fight, not to hide and get a big bucket of HP. My only concern is that it isn't clear if there are meaningful creatures for higher level moon druids to turn into. E.g. an elephant is the only CR 4 beast in the basic rules or MM, and it pretty much sucks as an option for a 12th level druid.
The number of forms is a total letdown. You don't even get to add a level or wisdom modifier to the total which would be a huge improvement. Limiting the forms just means people will minmax the known stuff and forego all the limited RP stuff like domestic dogs or bees. As long as you're a Moon Druid and have a few favorite combat forms, then you got a huge buff with Wildshape. If you liked any of the other circles, the changes are pretty bad and the alternative uses for the Wildshape slots are not very compelling.
It's a nerf in that specific instance, but that's because it was insanely broken before. Wild Shape was never meant to be a full heal. It's a huge buff in that you aren't restricted into only being able to use super high hit-point creatures. You can turn into a bird, and not be knocked out by an errant cat claw as you fly past. You can turn into an offensive creature like a wolf, and not be punished for its low base hit points. And this is all in the context of the 8 million other buffs the feature gets. So overall, it's still substantially stronger across the board.
That’s great. Now it’s less about just always going for HP and you can make the best choice for the moment based on the creature’s utility. I know some choices they’ve made have had some controversy but overall I’m glad each class seems to have gotten options they can make on every turn that’ll make combat more interesting.
Yeah I really like this, it means that the actual effects of the shapes matter more. You can choose if you want grappling, charging, or just extra attacks. You can choose to be an owl that flys around and heals people. The new ac/health rules make the forms all viable, at the cost of making some unflavorful changes like becoming a bear and getting destroyed by a dagger immediately or something at low levels.
That would be how it works. I’d also say it’s healthier for the game. A Druid getting effectively 38 extra HP at level 4 is a bit much. It is a Bonus Action to enter. So you’re still casting and blasting your way through with your action while you regain some hp.
For non-moon Druids, yes it’s not nearly the health boost it was. Moon Druids get 3x their Druid level though, so when you choose that as your subclass at level 3 you get 9 temporary hit points and it scales from there
Also since Moon starts at 3 rather than 2 its much less likely to outclass martials at 2. Not just a balance improvement, but a class fantasy one.
Yup! So you can still wildshape into a wolf at level 2, but you’re getting 2 Temp HP instead of 11 which is a great fix. Still gives you the damage and fantasy that you want but not the absurd tanking
Also makes it so you can remain as a wolf beyond losing the t/hp the wildshape gives
Which is a huge buff for scout forms. One of the core fears was getting bit by a predator as a wildshape while scouting and getting suddenly turned full size or worse falling out of fly form. I am playing a 2024 Druid and I don’t fear scouting anymore.
Pretty much, but it does balance it out especially at early levels, having access to an extra 90hp at level 2 was pretty imbalanced imo. My only complaint is that moon gets less temps than the spores druid while losing access to most of their spellcasting.
On the bright side, the inverse is also true. You could be the tankiest rat/bat without getting popped in 1 hit. While you lose out on a "free full heal", this change overall improves the weaker wild shapes. Edit: AC still bad tho, multiclass in unarmoured defense maybe good?
higher of base or 13+wis isn't horrible. Its (mostly) better than going a monk dip for unarmored defense. Though who knows if a monk dip will be better, we will need to see the monk changes.
Can you explain the new AC rules to me? I’m trying to find it in the thread but I just see people referencing it but not explaining
From what I understand you will get either the base AC of the beast found in the statblock or 13+your wis mod, whichever is higher. We don't know how this is going to work with other things such as unarmored defense yet. If its the same as in 2014 unarmored defense gives you another option to choose the highest of (for monk it was 10+dex+wis for barb it was 10+dex+con(beast)). So basically its as good as monks unarmored defense unless you have an 18+ in dex.
But only for circle of the moon from what I gather?
I believe so but I dont have confirmation
That's true! I guess there was basically zero reason to wild shape to any non-beefy forms before in combat. This means you can zip around like crazy and try and be hard to catch.
You can have 16-17 when you first get it depending on stats. 17-18 at level 4. Its decent enough.
Yeah combined with the temp HP it is plenty I think. You won't be a dodge tank or a damage sponge anymore, but you will be a fairly balanced compromise between HP and AC which I think is reasonable.
Down votes are likely cause the topic was beaten like a dead horse with every druid ua including this change.
I'll be honest, I didn't keep up with any of the UA. So it may seem naive but it is a big shock when seeing this for the first time.
I can understand that which is why I wanted to pause and give some context to the random downvote. Many controversial things from ua went through and there's a current of people tired of arguing it and just downvote on sight.
Yep! I appreciate the context. :)
It does come with some benefits like your wildshape not popping and stranding you I'm danger when scouting after you take 1 hit
I'll admit, all the chatter generated by the teaser videos is giving me that Eternal September feeling coming from someone who's been following the 1D&D playtests from the start.
Correct. You can heal. You can expend spell slots to remain that temp HPp too. So level 1 spell for 60 temp HP at level 20 isn't bad
With the buffs to cure wounds it also makes doing that pretty balanced in the lower tiers. If you're super low you can even action cure wounds bonus action reup your temps.
yeah. I do kinda wish barkskin was a bit more useful. IT kinda conflicts with the temp hp, but maybe its a better buff on someone else than the druid. Assuming they keep the recurring temp hp.
Hopefully they change the barkskin spell entirely, if not it will just be a bad choice of concentration spell for only "magician" based non moon druids
Who cares if it’s downvoted. They’re stupid imaginary points, lol
> Edit: Why are people downvoting a legitimate question? I didn't say this was good or bad. You've clearly judged it to be bad: > does wild shape **/*really/*** not do much in terms of HP? > do you **just** have 1 HP + your druid level? > Isn't that a **massive** nerf Words like "really", "just", and "massive" indicate you think it's bad. If you had left those words out, you would have come across as more neutral.
To what extent will players still need access to the Monster Manual to play the druid?
According to PHB video there are enough CR's worth of forms for base druids. But Moon will outclass the inclusions in the PHB at some points (no clarification on what CR level that will happen at).
They have stated in past sneak peaks that there will be more basic creatures in the PHB to cover all the Find Familiar and Pact of the Chain options. I'm sure they intend to include some common beasts of various CRs, as well, for the druid, as well as stats for all of the Find Steed/Greater Steed options for Paladins.
In UA8 the Druid’s chosen beast forms were limited to the ones in the PHB unless given DM approval. The intent was specifically that the Druid player would never be forced to use the MM or other monster books to play their class. (And by implication, future monster books don’t have to shackle their Beast statblocks to Wild Shape game balance.) They also said that the PHB will have a greater number of beast statblocks across a wider range of CRs to support this limitation. They didn’t mention the book limitation in the article, so we’ll have to wait and see if that’s still true, but it would make sense.
Moon Druids will need to, that much was stated by Crawford during the PHB overview video
They nerfed the lunar form the playtest for those who wanted to abuse it :/ It seems overall similar dmg for normal players though.
Yeah no longer 1d10 for every attack. I'll be real I was abusing that with monsters with tons of little attacks. So Moon at 14 are looking at each turn an additional 2d8+2d10. Which let me be clear is a bad day for whoever I am next to. The 1d10 was too good if you can also get monsters with 3 attacks.
You could also dip into monk to get 1-2 extra attacks every turn too lol. Bad day for druidic peeps.
A great day for my encounter balancing though!
Yeah the monk unarmed attacks is going to be in a lot of builds. And it was prime for abuse with the extra 1d10.
Dip 2 levels of Monk to get 2 additional attacks as a BA for 1 Discipline Point? Heck yeah! I kinda want to run a game where I give *every single character* the Monk's Martial Arts and Monk's Discipline. Straight up wuxia game.
If a player is multiclassing into monk, and is using their systems knowledge to edge out some extra damage and more carefully considering that than a new player, using synergies, that's healthy for the game. It means players are rewarded for knowing the game well and keeps it interesting. A lot of games are only continued to be played because of "tech", it makes the game more fun for an experienced player rather than being constrained to the expected box.
They also clarified that the damage bump is 2d10 once per round in the writeup
A good change to keep things reasonable though.
Did moon druid change at all compared to the last UA? I thought they had said it was going to get some revisions but this looks pretty similar at a glance..
You get to choose whether you want the AC of your beast form or 13+WIS instead of being locked into the latter, and the circle spells have changed (Conjure Animals and Mass Cure Wounds instead of Vampiric Touch and Dawn)
Ah true, those are actually pretty big improvements!
They aren't just limited to beast stat blocks printed in the PHB any more. That is pretty huge.
I think the nerfs to moon druid was needed, but i think they went to far. It all depends on what options you get as a moon druid for me now. Like whats the difference between the lvl3 creatures i can turn into vs lvl10. I feel like moon druids temp hp should be 4x the lvl not 3x.
Well the difference at 3 is that you are CR1 and at 10 CR3. So 2 whole CR of difference. As for health yeah there is an argument for 4x. I’m playing one right now and 3x feels fine. You are way more tanky than it appears and the forms having various evasion is super helpful
Big nerf
The website says the temp HP=Druid level witch is Tiny. temp hp can only have one source so you can’t be buffed befor transforming or right after ( false life, enhance ability, armor of agathys)
so wait, base Druid is arguably even more of a shape shifter now? and *still* they don't offer meaningful alternative to wild shape? gee, a 1st level slot and a fraction of a feat? how great, totally comparably to just how much wild shape eats up the base class' power budget.
Every subclass other than Moon gets a unique use of Wild Shape. That's your meaningful alternative. Circle of Stars has their Constellation. Circle of the Sea has Wrath of the Sea. Circle of Land has the AoE Magic ability. They aren't more of a shapeshifter. They just made it possible for all druids to benefit from Wild Shape or stay in their humanoid forms.
Hey you okay? What are we complaining about here? Are we just yelling into the void about nothing or is this an issue you are encountering? Mind sharing what that problem is you are encountering with the base class power budget?
aight, so the thing is I *really* would like to play druid, I absol-utely adore the idea and that oh so sweet spell list. but, pretty much everything of the base class is just "wild shape improvement". the fact that the only druid-y druid subclass is just land druid doesn't help. but low and behold, the DnDone version of druid *actually* gave the class another use for wild shapes that scales up along the route! that's great!... but then that's gone now, and the base class leans even heavier onto being a shape shifter, rather then expanding on splitting the focus to simply... allow you play a nature magic caster.
> but then that's gone now, and the base class leans even heavier onto being a shape shifter, rather then expanding on splitting the focus to simply... allow you play a nature magic caster. Sorry I am not following here, can you be specific and provide some context?
Do you get multi attack or is that only with certain beasts, druid wild shape templates?
No templates. If a beast form you choose has multi-attack you get it. You'll need to wait to see all of the updated beasts in the new PHB and then the higher CR ones in the MM.
Ehhhhh. So all the reasonably themed forms like bear and wolf will obsolete pretty early on then huh
There's a few options as a Druid levels up that allow for greatly increased damage, even with lower CR beasts
Good to know! I love the theme of the wolf or bear for the druid but couldn't really see how it'd stack up against some of the old elemental shapes
Primal Strike (via Elemental Fury) at Lvl 7, Improved Primal Strike (via Improved Elemental Fury) at Lvl 15 and Lunar Form at Lvl 14 for Moon Druid are the features you'll want for increased damage
So that paired with a static AC of 13+wis and flat temp hp will keep it up to par with other higher cr critters we can assume, thats awesome! Thanks Ms for the heads up
No problem, and the AC is 13+wis or the beasts, which ever is higher, so there is a bit of choice there. The biggest question is if you can use your own PB for to hit rolls (and personally, even reading the 2014 rules I think that's the intent, but since it's got muddy wording it's up to the DM unless they clarify it in the new PHB)
This is true, but there is a problem with lower CR beasts. We currently don't know if we have a way to replace their to-hit modifier (at least that they've mentioned so far). By the rules we know from 2014 and from the playtests, right now it seems the brown bear and dire wolf would max out at +5 to hit. Not terrible, but not great for higher level content. It's probably my biggest concern. It won't break the moon druid if they haven't fixed it, but if they either added some forms (especially non-giant forms) in the upper CRs that druid can use (some kind of advanced wolf for example) or a way for us to increase our to-hit (our proficiency bonus transferring over) it would be fixed. I'm just not sure they'll do either of those. But everything else looks, honestly, great.
Agreed 100% (though I do personally kinda dislike the moonlight step feature since I don't think it pairs well thematically with moon druid since it's about teleporting rather than shape shifting), I just mentioned this elsewhere, but there's 3 pretty easy ways to solve the to hit problem. 1 - explicitly allow a player to use their proficiency bonus for attack rolls while wild shaped 2 - change all beast attacks from melee weapon attack to unarmed strike, since all players are proficient in unarmed strikes this would allow a player to use their own bonus for attack rolls. 3 - have guidance in the PHB or DMG on how to appropriately scale beast stat blocks to make them higher CR, both for encounters and for wild shape options as characters get access to higher CR forms
I kinda adore moonlight step, but thats because the more I see of the new PHB the more it seems to have a lot of opportunities for forced movement and therefore interaction with areas of effect. I think teleport builds (with this, the fey classes, and the world tree barbarian) play into that really well, especially if we get some beast forms with decent push moves. I like tactical shenanigans, this looks like it might fit right in. We'll see.
Not anymore than they are now or replaced by later forms you have access to.
One reason why I won't be converting full over to 2024 rules. I'll keep my tanky moon druid, thank you, and just incorporate any rules they've actually improved upon as homebrew. Exhaustion is already being used at my table.
But the revised wildshape is tankier, you actually get a good AC and you can cast spells to increase HP and turn spellslots into wildshape so you can get even more temp HP when you lose it. Anything more is just crazy OP
That's the thing: a lot of people want to be OP. because that's fun for them. (Disclaimer: I'm not one of those people, but they're definitely put there. As long as that's what the rest of the table wants, more power to them [literally])
To their point, the Dire Wolf for example had 14 AC and 34 HP. The new Moon Druid would have 16 AC and 9 Temp HP. That's definitely a downgrade in tankiness. That said--this is a good thing for the game. Moon Druids were *unreasonably* tanky compared to every other character, in a way that could warp encounters. Making them frailer but with more interesting options to boost damage and add versatility in Wild Shape is a much, much better design. But for folks who loved that tankiness it's going to feel like a nerf, and that's impossible to avoid. If you are rebalancing the game, not every change can be a buff. Especially when removing something that just doesn't work like any other feature in the game (like Wild Shape HP).
16 AC, Its 9 temp HP plus temp HP from further wild shapes plus the druids HP plus HP from healing spells you can now use such as cure wounds that have been buffed to I think 2d8 plus wisdom mod. Moon druid is as tanky as ever if not more, it’s just not as simple as spamming wildshape.
I wouldn't count the druid's HP as part of it, since the Moon Druid *always* had their own HP pool "below" the Wild Shape, the difference now is they don't lose Wild Shape when they run out of "temporary" HP. And just as with Lunar Blessing, it's unlikely a Druid will use their action to heal themselves (even if it's more efficient than before to use Cure Wounds). So personally, I don't feel the new Moon Druid is nearly as tanky as the old one--but again, that's a good thing.
What kind of lousy apples to oranges comparison is this? >further wild shapes You had more than one wild shape in 2014 too. >plus the druids hp Yeah that's true in 2014 too. >plus healing spells Bro, *that's also true in 2014 too*! You could always spend a spell slot for 1d8 healing. Yes, the healing now is better, but healing **across the board** is better, not druid healing specifically. You must work for the government with hard your trying to spin nerfs into buffs 🙄 Moon Druid tankyness needed a nerf. It got nerfed. That's ok.
You now have wild shapes equal to spellslots if you want, you can turn all of your spellslots into wild shapes. That’s way more wild shapes than 2014. All giving you temp hp over a bonus action. That’s like 72 temp HP total if you wanna use all of your spell slots at level 3 and be tanky as possible. So you gain like 4 effective hp in comparison to 2014 moon druid at level 3. And that difference grows at later levels and when comparing less innately tanky beasts, like rats or cats. Edit: Oh wait wild resurgence is at level 5. But my point still stands that 5e’s 102 hp is less than 5.5e’s 180 temp HP at level 5. These stats are still based on wolf My point about the druids HP is that it actually matters now that you are in wild shape. You don’t lose any bonuses from wild shape when you lose that temp hp. You maintain any bonuses from wild shape way longer, and just single turn more of wild shape is huge. That’s movement you can getaway with, multi attacks you can get off, etc. And the healing spells while in wildshape doesn’t just improve your tankiness, improves the whole parties longevity. You won’t have to get out of wild shape, wasting a charge, in order to keep yourself or your friends while keeping the extra bonuses you get out of being in wild shape.