My advice for dealing with wildshape is also the advice I give for dealing with most game issues. Do not let the player just say that the druid visited the royal menagerie and saw all sorts of unusal critters there. Further remember the druid must have actually seen the animal at least once. Chipmunks get eaten a lot, almost every predator in the woods will see a chipmunk as a tasty snack. Also they are the animal they have shifted into. They cannot speak or cast spells while shapeshifted. Also the wildshaped druid has the physical attributes, including hit points, of the animal, not the druid. No swimming till 4th level and no flying till 8th level are pretty big ones. Just be glad he didn't pick Circle of the Shepherd. Spell casting before wild shaping is balanced by the fact that they will probably be in melee and have multiple chances to be hit. Having wild shape require concentration would be very bad for the melee druid. So I just said my ranger would help the cleric with the exploration (giving him advantage on the rolls) by reminding him which way was north and making sure he wasn't accidentally leading us into danger like a pit of quick sand or T-rex rutting ground. But the *cleric* of all people wanted to make all the rolls for wilderness exploration. In our Tomb of Annihilation campaign I played a ranger. Why can't the wild shaped druid and rogue scout together, sort of a buddy system? The wild shape has keen senses that can provide advantage to the rogue while scouting and the rogue can do things that a wild shape can't, like open doors, relay information to the other party members, etc. It makes sense that it would, and it would keep druids from casting really strong buffs and then wild-shaping. And I'm interested in your own druid experiences, as a player or DM or whatever.Īt the very least, I think Wild Shape should require concentration. Maybe the class isn't really a problem and it doesn't need fixing, Wild Shape is just fine, I don't know. Maybe you guys can approach this particular issue in ways I haven't thought of so far. I'm interested in constructive feedback, of course. And I'm seeing one particular feature that sticks out of the problem, the one I've been griping about. I'm just saying, on paper, the druid commands a great deal of attention from the DM, because they do so many things so well. (However, the dominating druid player was a first-time tabletop gamer that didn't optimize his character.) So there's a lot of conditional stuff going on there - more experience DMing 5E would certainly benefit me, and players that know their classes well enough to play them effectively, and all that is well and good. I certainly could have done better, and it might have helped if the other players had been more engaged and experienced with the system. I tried to balance it out, and give other characters places to shine, but that took active effort on my part. We had a whole adventuring party in just one class, and as a result that character hogged up a lot of spotlight. He was good with the spells, which in itself isn't bad, except he did all the other things too. In combat, he did about as well as the ranger. The moon druid did all the scouting in the form of a bird or a chipmunk or whatever. In the game I ran where there was a druid PC, we had a rogue that barely got to rogue, and a ranger that didn't range very much. What I'm concerned about is what I've always seen from druids in play: they hedge in on everybody else's gimmicks. I don't mind strong and defining class features. Shapechanging has gone from a cool gimmick relegated to experienced druids to the entire point of the class. And everybody picks moon druid, which beefs up an already strong class feature. But in 5E, you get Wild Shape at second level. And I think that's a good benchmark for such an ability, being you don't have to blow a spell slot on it. So far, so good.īack in AD&D2, you had to wait until 7th level before you became Beast Boy, and your range of animals was pretty limited. Secret language and handshake they may never come up is a nice ribbon. So I don't see them as frontline fighters, but they ain't slouches either. Their weapon selection isn't great, but sheleighly. They don't wear heavy armor, but are reasonably beefy. It's strong, but not too strong and is thematic with the druid (at least as it's defined in D&D). I actually have no problem with their spell selection. Damage, battlefield control, healing, they got those bases pretty well covered. Their casting stat, Wisdom, give them good Perception and comes up frequently in saves. But I think the classes work well enough as they are, even casters if you enforce things like components and don't let them take frequent naps.ĭruids are primary casters with a good selection of spells. I have opinions on all the classes, how they can be better or how they could benefit from some toning down.
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