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Easy_Lee
2015-02-02, 06:08 PM
As many have noted, Raw wildshape is not exactly balanced by any means.

Combined HP totals for all forms is often huge
Multiattack at 2 via moon druid bear is too powerful
Infinite HP at 20
No penalty for dying while wildshaped
Skills, HP, and Attack Bonus on low level forms never scale; a level 20 druid's panther is no stronger than a level 1's. This means druids constantly have to find new forms and are heavily dependent on the DM. In addition, some CR levels have no good beast forms.
As above, DCs for beast abilities are unpredictable and never scale
Sudden jump from 2 shifts pre-20 to infinite
Have to wait until you absolutely need it to choose your shape-shifting; frequently it goes wasted
With 5e, it's important to keep things simple. As much as I would prefer chimera-style shape-shifting, such a system would be more complex than anything in the PHB.

As such, I propose the following updates to the RAW:

At the end of a long-rest, choose one land form (clear choice with DM). You gain additional aquatic and flight forms at the appropriate levels (moon druids eventually get a fourth form: choose an elemental). Note: explicitly enables DM to reject forms which he/she feels are too strong at a given level, such as brown bear at level 2. Number of forms scales with level, instead of having 2/short rest all the way until 20.
You may shift in and out of your forms at will as an action (or bonus action if moon). Each time you do so, any conditions or HP loss the form has sustained are retained until the next time you finish a short rest. Note: no more double bear or double mammoth, no cheese-healing, but forms can be used in more situations.
Death in a form reverts you to your humanoid form and stuns you for one round. You may not use the dead form again until you finish a short rest.
If a form's HP is lower than 4*(druid level), you may use 4*(druid level) instead. Note: same as BM Ranger pet
May optionally recalculate skill bonuses in forms using your native proficiency bonus and the form's relevant statistic.
Moon druids: if your spell attack is higher than a form's attack bonus, you may use your spell attack in that form instead of its native melee attack bonus. Note: same attack progression as cantrips. Computing this off of proficiency plus beast state would yield mammoths with an attack DC of +13 due to the mammoth's 24 strength. Many other forms have strength and dexterity that are too low at later levels, so using spell bonus is the best option here.
Moon druids: if your spell DC is higher than a form's special ability DCs (such as pounce for panthers), you may use your spell DC in that form instead of its native DC. Note: Scales with spells so fewer numbers to track
New capstone: once per long-rest, refresh the HP and conditions on all forms, as though you finished a short rest.

I've tested some of these changes in my game and find it fixes many of the problems with moon druids. Prior to the changes, the moon druid in the game I DM was a mess shield but not much else, unable to contribute to the same degree as other members. After the changes, the moon druid is able to keep up without overshadowing anyone.

I feel this keeps the best elements of wildshape while taking away the bad points. In particular, it allows weaker forms to scale up, so DMs aren't forced to constantly introduce stronger beast forms so the druid can keep up. This also enables druids to have favored forms.

Please post feedback; I'll update this post as needed.

silveralen
2015-02-02, 09:30 PM
Free shapeshifting means free mixing spells with animal forms. This means mood druids can always have a flame sphere or summoned animals alongside their normal attack. That's actually a huge boost in power.

Are you saying mammoth actually has a +13 attack bonus, or does it simply get a +11?

Easy_Lee
2015-02-02, 09:51 PM
Free shapeshifting means free mixing spells with animal forms. This means mood druids can always have a flame sphere or summoned animals alongside their normal attack. That's actually a huge boost in power.

Are you saying mammoth actually has a +13 attack bonus, or does it simply get a +11?

Goes from +10 to +11 if the druid is maxed. Otherwise adding prof to the beast's natural ability, something many consider as RAW or intended, yields a +13 mammoth.

I agree shifting in and out of forms yields more casting options, but since druids are full casters first and foremost, I think this is fair. It makes the cast in beast-form boon go from a "holy crap this is OP" to "oh, that's convenient". I also felt it was balanced considering I'm proposing a pretty hard limit to the druid's natural shapeshifting abilities. Having only a few forms to pick from, rather than as many as you've ever seen, makes it harder to have the one available that you need.

Giant2005
2015-02-02, 10:17 PM
Looks pretty decent imo.
The only change I'd recommend is putting the two Moon Druid specific powers in the level up progression. At low levels those abilities probably won't be functional anyway and it discourages the 2 level Druid dip which could be quite OP as it stands.

silveralen
2015-02-02, 10:39 PM
Goes from +10 to +11 if the druid is maxed. Otherwise adding prof to the beast's natural ability, something many consider as RAW or intended, yields a +13 mammoth.

I agree shifting in and out of forms yields more casting options, but since druids are full casters first and foremost, I think this is fair. It makes the cast in beast-form boon go from a "holy crap this is OP" to "oh, that's convenient". I also felt it was balanced considering I'm proposing a pretty hard limit to the druid's natural shapeshifting abilities. Having only a few forms to pick from, rather than as many as you've ever seen, makes it harder to have the one available that you need.

Sounds more or less reasonable. I like the fact it at least forces some stat investment, even if druids are unlikely to have a low wisdom regardless.

I'd agree, I simply meant it was arguably the most powerful buff to the form and you didn't explicitly mention it, which might cause it to look underwhelming at a glance.

ocel
2015-02-03, 05:31 AM
I really like what you've done to the fifth edition wildshape rules, Easy_Lee. Do you happen to have any idea how to fix the polymorph spell too?

Person_Man
2015-02-03, 09:35 AM
I think you're definitely in the right ballpark, though I wonder if there a way that we could simplify it further. Maybe:

When you Wildshape, you take on the Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, Skill Check modifiers, and Saving Throw modifiers, movement speed, and to-hit rolls of your new form if they are higher then your normal modifiers of your base form. For any value that is lower, you may use your base modifier instead. Your Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, and hit points remain unchanged. You also gain any special abilities that your new form may possess, such as Darkvision, Pack Tactics, etc.

If the lack of additional hit points bothers you, then I would just have Wildshape heal a greater percentage when you change into your Beast form (but not when you change back into your base form). Maybe just let the Druid spend as many hit dice as they want, which places a hard limit on the amount of healing.

This way, the player doesn't have any special book keeping to do. They just pick a form to Wildshape into, they use that's form's statistics if they're better, and they use their normal statistics when they're not (which removes the issue of non-scaling at higher levels and removes the metagame issue of Druids dumping physical ability scores).

silveralen
2015-02-03, 09:38 AM
I will say, this is still way too much temporary HP for the increased combat power. My original mistake was reading that the druid had to use 4*druid level. You've actually increased the amount of temp HP per short rest however, which is problematic.

Personally, I'd balanced around a single pool of wildshape HP, based on druid level, that refreshes on short rest.

DiBastet
2015-02-03, 09:52 AM
Just throwing in my ideas. I did something along these lines too; I really don't like the original wild shape for the very same reasons you don't. My idea was based more on pathfinder Beast Shape spells than anything else, forcing the druid to rely on their own stats instead of the ones from the animal, basically emulating the animal special abilities instead of the animal stats.

That's what I use right now, and I believe I'll mix what I'm using with some of yours.

-As an action you can change into an animal form.
Setting dependent: In one of my settings you choose what form after a long rest exactly like you, a land form, and later a water and a flying form (druids emmulate nature and disguise themselves as it); in the other setting the forms are fixed, but you have up to proficiency forms (their wild shapes speaks to their soul and discovering what form he turns into is part of the character advancement).

-Your unnarmed strikes cause 1d6 S/P/B depending on the animal.
-You receive the animal skill proficiencies, movement modes (limited by level as normal), senses and special abilities.
-You receive an amor value of 3 (like a draconic sorcerer).

That's basically it, you change in an out at will; land druids (and other caster subclasses) aren't combat-worthy just because of their forms if their stats weren't already good. Their damage and armor is basic, but the wild shape grants them aditional abilities. These druis mostly use wild shape out of combat or as movement options, and I'm fine with that.

The land druid gets this:
-Your unnarmed damage while in wild shape cause damage equal to a monk of your level.
-May use WIS instead of STR or DEX on unnarmed strikes while in wild shape.
-Your armor bonus in wild shape is 3 or your CON modifier, whatever is higher.

At 6th level Primal Strike gets reworded: "Beggining at 6th level you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn while in Wild Shape. Your unnarmed attacks while in Wild Shape count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage."

With these changes the Moon druid gets his own damage progression based on level instead of cherry-picking best animals; can have armor similar to a barbarian or monk; and gets a second attack like a valor bard instead of whatever crazy ammount of attacks his animal form had. The whole point is, like PF Beast Shape spells, getting better at combat, instead of becoming something else.

I really like what you did with this fix and would use it if I didn't have my own that works fine for my games. I'll even add the "use your own spell save cd in place of the animal's" part!

silveralen
2015-02-03, 10:04 AM
Just throwing in my ideas. I did something along these lines too; I really don't like the original wild shape for the very same reasons you don't. My idea was based more on pathfinder Beast Shape spells than anything else, forcing the druid to rely on their own stats instead of the ones from the animal, basically emulating the animal special abilities instead of the animal stats.

That's what I use right now, and I believe I'll mix what I'm using with some of yours.

-As an action you can change into an animal form.
Setting dependent: In one of my settings you choose what form after a long rest exactly like you, a land form, and later a water and a flying form (druids emmulate nature and disguise themselves as it); in the other setting the forms are fixed, but you have up to proficiency forms (their wild shapes speaks to their soul and discovering what form he turns into is part of the character advancement).

-Your unnarmed strikes cause 1d6 S/P/B depending on the animal.
-You receive the animal skill proficiencies, movement modes (limited by level as normal), senses and special abilities.
-You receive an amor value of 3 (like a draconic sorcerer).

That's basically it, you change in an out at will; land druids (and other caster subclasses) aren't combat-worthy just because of their forms if their stats weren't already good. Their damage and armor is basic, but the wild shape grants them aditional abilities. These druis mostly use wild shape out of combat or as movement options, and I'm fine with that.

The land druid gets this:
-Your unnarmed damage while in wild shape cause damage equal to a monk of your level.
-May use WIS instead of STR or DEX on unnarmed strikes while in wild shape.
-Your armor bonus in wild shape is 3 or your CON modifier, whatever is higher.

At 6th level Primal Strike gets reworded: "Beggining at 6th level you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn while in Wild Shape. Your unnarmed attacks while in Wild Shape count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage."

With these changes the Moon druid gets his own damage progression based on level instead of cherry-picking best animals; can have armor similar to a barbarian or monk; and gets a second attack like a valor bard instead of whatever crazy ammount of attacks his animal form had. The whole point is, like PF Beast Shape spells, getting better at combat, instead of becoming something else.

I really like what you did with this fix and would use it if I didn't have my own that works fine for my games. I'll even add the "use your own spell save cd in place of the animal's" part!

I think this is my preffered fix so far. It is simple and stacks up well against valor bard.

Easy_Lee
2015-02-03, 02:25 PM
I really like what you've done to the fifth edition wildshape rules, Easy_Lee. Do you happen to have any idea how to fix the polymorph spell too?

Do you mean in regards to transforming into a creature to attack your enemies? With wildshape, the designers seem to think that CR6 is a reasonable limit when compared against an 18+ fighter, and that the maximum level of the form should be caster level / 3, rounded down. I would probably just use that. It's more versatile than wildshape since it doesn't have to be a beast, and there are plenty of very strong CR6 creatures in the MM.

Amnoriath
2015-02-03, 02:36 PM
Do you mean in regards to transforming into a creature to attack your enemies? With wildshape, the designers seem to think that CR6 is a reasonable limit when compared against an 18+ fighter, and that the maximum level of the form should be caster level / 3, rounded down. I would probably just use that. It's more versatile than wildshape since it doesn't have to be a beast, and there are plenty of very strong CR6 creatures in the MM.

1. Honestly, if Polymorph actually abided by the spell slot rule at a little higher CR than you could summon it would be just fine.
2. Actually it is only Beast forms. This is why a few defenders says it doesn't scale as much as people think because Beasts don't really have that high of a CR. Though it does make too much of a jump at where it is. If they would use a higher slot I wouldn't be adverse giving access to Giants and Monstrosities.

Easy_Lee
2015-02-03, 02:42 PM
1. Honestly, if Polymorph actually abided by the spell slot rule at a little higher CR than you could summon it would be just fine.
2. Actually it is only Beast forms. This is why a few defenders says it doesn't scale as much as people think because Beasts don't really have that high of a CR. Though it does make too much of a jump at where it is. If they would use a higher slot I wouldn't be adverse giving access to Giants and Monstrosities.

That's interesting. I'm AFB at the moment, so I'll have to look over it later. Which specific spell(s) are you concerned about, besides just polymorph?

Amnoriath
2015-02-03, 02:51 PM
Aside from its cousins the most ridiculous spells I can think of is Foresight and Forcecage. Both are non-concentration based and last an insane amount of time. The former just spams advantage and disadvantage with no interesting tidbits and the latter doesn't even allow a save to avoid it. It only allows a Charisma save if you have extraplanar travel capability. I would also throw in Heat Metal simply because the save is only contingent on you dropping it.

Easy_Lee
2015-02-03, 09:36 PM
Aside from its cousins the most ridiculous spells I can think of is Foresight and Forcecage. Both are non-concentration based and last an insane amount of time. The former just spams advantage and disadvantage with no interesting tidbits and the latter doesn't even allow a save to avoid it. It only allows a Charisma save if you have extraplanar travel capability. I would also throw in Heat Metal simply because the save is only contingent on you dropping it.

If you feel they're being abused in your game, and only then, you might consider the following:

Add an initial save to forcecage and heat metal
Limit foresight to providing advantage to one roll per round. After all, you can't be focused on the whole future at once, only parts of it.

ocel
2015-02-03, 10:35 PM
Do you mean in regards to transforming into a creature to attack your enemies? Yeah.


With wildshape, the designers seem to think that CR6 is a reasonable limit when compared against an 18+ fighter, and that the maximum level of the form should be caster level / 3, rounded down. I would probably just use that. I will. Thank you.


Which specific spell(s) are you concerned about, besides just polymorph? Forcecage, Foresight, True Polymorph, and Shapechange.

Malifice
2015-02-03, 11:04 PM
What I'm doing:


A Druid in Wild shape retains the mental ability scores (Cha, Wis and Int), proficiencies, class features, Hit Dice and hit points of his normal form. The Druid gains the physical ability scores (Str, Dex, Con), size, AC, proficiencies, attacks, movement modes, speed, senses and special abilities of the wild shaped form.
Druids gain a pool of temporary HP equal to (Druid level x 2) whenever they assume a Wild shape from their natural form.
At 2nd level, a Moon Druid in Wild shape may calculate his AC by adding his proficiency bonus to the base forms AC.
A Druid in Wild shape cannot use Multi attack if the form has the ability to do so. When a Druid in such a form takes the attack action, he may only use one of the listed attacks under Multi attack unless he also has the extra attack class feature. A character with at least 5 levels in Druid ignores this restriction, and can freely use multi attack if the beast he wild shapes into has the multi attack ability.
A Druid may use either his own proficiency bonus or the beasts proficiency bonus (whichever is higher) for any melee or ranged attack, skill or save that either the Druid or the beast are proficient in. The Druid retains his own proficiencies (however some may be unusable in his new form) and gains the creatures proficiencies in its listed skills, saves and with its natural attacks. If the new form has abilities that require a saving throw to resist, the Druid may substitute his own Spell attack DC for the DC of the special attack.


Running the numbers, this balances the Moon Druids (particularly) against Martials.

Easy_Lee
2015-02-03, 11:26 PM
Forcecage, Foresight, True Polymorph, and Shapechange.

I replied to forcecage and foresight above. True polymorph and shapechange, I'd probably just apply the caster level / 3 = max CR rule from wildshape. From flipping through the MM, it seems fairly reasonable.


I think you're definitely in the right ballpark, though I wonder if there a way that we could simplify it further. Maybe:

When you Wildshape, you take on the Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, Skill Check modifiers, and Saving Throw modifiers, movement speed, and to-hit rolls of your new form if they are higher then your normal modifiers of your base form. For any value that is lower, you may use your base modifier instead. Your Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, and hit points remain unchanged. You also gain any special abilities that your new form may possess, such as Darkvision, Pack Tactics, etc.

If the lack of additional hit points bothers you, then I would just have Wildshape heal a greater percentage when you change into your Beast form (but not when you change back into your base form). Maybe just let the Druid spend as many hit dice as they want, which places a hard limit on the amount of healing.

This way, the player doesn't have any special book keeping to do. They just pick a form to Wildshape into, they use that's form's statistics if they're better, and they use their normal statistics when they're not (which removes the issue of non-scaling at higher levels and removes the metagame issue of Druids dumping physical ability scores).

Trouble here is that druids are very much designed with the additional hit points from wildshape in mind. Their inability to use metal makes it extraordinarily difficult to upgrade gear, in practice. They require a level 2 spell with concentration (barkskin) to even hit AC 16, and explicitly can't add any modifiers or bonuses to barkskin's AC addition. They otherwise have D8 HP and none of the myriad of tricks that other casters have for dealing with their squishiness. No mirror image, no misty step (oddly), no Shield spell, no pushing people away with eldritch blast, etc. Druids can't even benefit from the armored fighting style, dual wielder, shield master, or defensive duelist in their shapeshifted forms if they picked any of those up.

Further, carrying over the base form's AC shoehorns moon druids into using a shield; no other offhand will do, which limits the potential for player creativity. Forms with high HP, such as bear, mammoth, and earth elemental are suddenly much less appealing, and are effectively weaker than they should be.

Even with the base rules, the druid's "infinite" hp is not as infinite as it seems. CR-appropriate monsters can either force a save or tear through the druid's HP in short work at most levels. Consider just how quickly Tiamat would kill a druid, mammoth form and "infinite hp" or not. Even Langdedrosa from HotDQ can kill a level 2 moon druid pretty quick, just by timing his breath attack for when the form is close to death. And druids still have to actually encounter the forms they shift into, which is very difficult to go off and do when you're trying to have a campaign in a dungeon.

For all of these reasons and more, form HP is central to the druid, particularly the moon archetype. I've personally never had my players complain about how difficult the druid is to kill; the life cleric is far more difficult to threaten. My warlock does tend to die a lot though, which makes sense with his high damage output. That's how druids would be without form HP, except without the high damage output (**** damage, actually).

Sindeloke
2015-02-04, 06:14 PM
My initial reaction was to just import my 3.path wildshape fix, which is basically:

You get three basic shapes: skirmisher, brute, and scout.
Skirmishers have a minor bonus to dex, a boost to speed and to stealth/mobility skills, and a 1d6 attack.
Brutes have a size increase, a bonus to armor, strength, constitution, and grappling/tripping/bull rush/overrun, and 1d4+1d8 or two 1d6 or one 1d12 attack.
Scouts have a size decrease, a huge movement and hide boost, and no attack at all.

You can then pick a certain number of traits off a menu, including swim/burrow/climb speed, poison on hit, flight, improved trip/grab, web, rake, etc etc. You get more points to spend on traits as you level.

You can't cast spells or speak intelligibly.
Your equipment is unaffected; armor can become barding or just tough hide, a necklace can be a collar or just a stripe of differently colored ruff, either way it's all still there and still functional. Magic enhancements on your readied weapon transfer to your natural attacks.
You are otherwise unchanged.
You can do this as a swift action whenever you can take conscious actions and hold it as long as you stay conscious.

The animal you pick is 100% cosmetic within these restrictions, provided the menu options are consistent with it and you could reasonably be considered familiar with the animal. You like wolves? Your skirmisher is a wolf, your brute is a dire wolf, your scout is a fox bat. Into the sandstorm theme? Pick a hyena skirmisher, a giant scorpion brute with poison and grab, and a desert plover scout. Sudden water adventure? Dolphin or crocodile or shark with a swim speed and water breathing. And no need to ever open a monster manual. It eliminates almost all balance issues by making it as simple as a barbarian's rage rather than a complex transformation, and really incentivizes interesting, creative utility use over "I'm a multiattacking dire bear who summons elementals."

In 5e the stat boosts would go to bonus HP or damage, I suppose, and I'd have to decide whether advantage or double proficiency or what was most appropriate for skill boosts, but for the most part it seems to transfer over pretty well, although no one in my group has wanted to play a druid yet so I haven't done any playtesting.

Easy_Lee
2015-02-04, 06:25 PM
@Sindeloke, my first though was to do something like that. I would have a list of forms, the attack would be a d4 (though moon druids would scale), HP and AC progression would be predetermined, extra attack a la valid bards or blade warlocks would come online at 5, and there would be a feral action for moon druids where they could pick from certain actions (such as pounce or Web shot) in the same way as rogues have cunning action and Rangers have their companion attacks.

However, it's much too complicated for 5e to do something like that. I tried to keep the changes as simple as possible, so it looks like something that might have come out of the book. Thus, I kept it to just updates to the original.

Sindeloke
2015-02-05, 03:19 AM
I don't think there's any way to prevent wildshape being fairly complicated. It's just a matter of where you put the complexity. Right now, the description in the class itself is simple, but the actual options take up dozens of pages, distributed at near random through two books, one of which is not by default possessed by the player. The number of available beasts and their permutations is comparable to a paladin trying to pick spells, but even as badly organized as the spell section of the PHB is, it's still easier to figure out what you can do and how it will interact with your other abilities and traits than to pick an ideal beast based on how many temp hit points you get, and decide what all your skills are now, and how does your new armor compare to your base AC, and maybe recalculate your attack bonus because it's not really clear. That's incredibly complex.

Put a limited amount of complexity up front, though, and you're much better off in the long run. With my system all you do is pick a few buffs and apply them to yourself. That's it. No adjustments to your character sheet at all; it's as easy as if somebody had cast longstrider and bless on you and off you go. Sure, there's a degree of complexity in the menu (do I pick an extra attack, a climb speed, or a web spell?), but it's no more complex than a caster preparing daily spells (haste, spider climb or web?), and substantially less complex than digging through two books, checking CRs, finding individual hit point values, re-calculating skills based on new attribute scores, tracking duration and daily uses, going through every single character trait to figure out what changes and what doesn't, etc. And it scales automatically without any further math required.

Easy_Lee
2015-02-05, 10:15 AM
I don't think there's any way to prevent wildshape being fairly complicated. It's just a matter of where you put the complexity. Right now, the description in the class itself is simple, but the actual options take up dozens of pages, distributed at near random through two books, one of which is not by default possessed by the player. The number of available beasts and their permutations is comparable to a paladin trying to pick spells, but even as badly organized as the spell section of the PHB is, it's still easier to figure out what you can do and how it will interact with your other abilities and traits than to pick an ideal beast based on how many temp hit points you get, and decide what all your skills are now, and how does your new armor compare to your base AC, and maybe recalculate your attack bonus because it's not really clear. That's incredibly complex.

You're talking about buying all of the books so that the enterprising druid can analyze every beast and cherry-pick the ones they want. That's not how wildshape works. A druid has to encounter a beast to use it, meaning the DM decides what he/she can do.

Here's how it goes in my game, and I don't think this is any different from the norm:

Me: you just got attacked by an X / look in the water and see it swimming by / had a dream where your goddess showed you that creature you've been asking about
Me: (hands player a card with the beast's stats) congratulations, you andalite-looking chuckle fairy
Player: sweet. Will I ever be able to turn into a phoenix?
Me: Who knows? (thinking I'd have to be really careful how I homebrewed the stats on that)

Skylivedk
2016-03-20, 05:50 AM
What I'm doing:


A Druid in Wild shape retains the mental ability scores (Cha, Wis and Int), proficiencies, class features, Hit Dice and hit points of his normal form. The Druid gains the physical ability scores (Str, Dex, Con), size, AC, proficiencies, attacks, movement modes, speed, senses and special abilities of the wild shaped form.
Druids gain a pool of temporary HP equal to (Druid level x 2) whenever they assume a Wild shape from their natural form.
At 2nd level, a Moon Druid in Wild shape may calculate his AC by adding his proficiency bonus to the base forms AC.
A Druid in Wild shape cannot use Multi attack if the form has the ability to do so. When a Druid in such a form takes the attack action, he may only use one of the listed attacks under Multi attack unless he also has the extra attack class feature. A character with at least 5 levels in Druid ignores this restriction, and can freely use multi attack if the beast he wild shapes into has the multi attack ability.
A Druid may use either his own proficiency bonus or the beasts proficiency bonus (whichever is higher) for any melee or ranged attack, skill or save that either the Druid or the beast are proficient in. The Druid retains his own proficiencies (however some may be unusable in his new form) and gains the creatures proficiencies in its listed skills, saves and with its natural attacks. If the new form has abilities that require a saving throw to resist, the Druid may substitute his own Spell attack DC for the DC of the special attack.


Running the numbers, this balances the Moon Druids (particularly) against Martials.

Has anyone tested Easy_lee's proposal against the one by Malifice? If yes, which did you prefer?

Ryuujin
2016-03-24, 12:52 AM
What I'm doing:


A Druid in Wild shape retains the mental ability scores (Cha, Wis and Int), proficiencies, class features, Hit Dice and hit points of his normal form. The Druid gains the physical ability scores (Str, Dex, Con), size, AC, proficiencies, attacks, movement modes, speed, senses and special abilities of the wild shaped form.
Druids gain a pool of temporary HP equal to (Druid level x 2) whenever they assume a Wild shape from their natural form.
At 2nd level, a Moon Druid in Wild shape may calculate his AC by adding his proficiency bonus to the base forms AC.
A Druid in Wild shape cannot use Multi attack if the form has the ability to do so. When a Druid in such a form takes the attack action, he may only use one of the listed attacks under Multi attack unless he also has the extra attack class feature. A character with at least 5 levels in Druid ignores this restriction, and can freely use multi attack if the beast he wild shapes into has the multi attack ability.
A Druid may use either his own proficiency bonus or the beasts proficiency bonus (whichever is higher) for any melee or ranged attack, skill or save that either the Druid or the beast are proficient in. The Druid retains his own proficiencies (however some may be unusable in his new form) and gains the creatures proficiencies in its listed skills, saves and with its natural attacks. If the new form has abilities that require a saving throw to resist, the Druid may substitute his own Spell attack DC for the DC of the special attack.


Running the numbers, this balances the Moon Druids (particularly) against Martials.

Of all the suggestions in this thread this is the one I like the best. The only major thing I personally would change would be to make the wild shape at will, but keep the temporary hit points only twice per short rest like wild shape uses is right now. This lets them change forms freely for things like scouting or adapting to the current situation without gaining insane amounts of temp hit points.

I would possibly also remove spell casting for the Moon Druid, or some better shapeshifting Druid option. Maybe in exchange for something else that makes up for the TOTAL lack of spellcasting.

But when I play a Druid I want to focus more on Wild Shape and less on the overpowered spellcasting.

rb666
2017-03-27, 10:07 PM
This thread has been the best resource so far on Wild shape house rules. I have been thinking of a way to improve this feature, mostly with the same goals as already mentioned in the OP. My additional goals are that the rules should work well with roll20 "Kryx 5e Shaped sheet" and HD-rolling for tokens.

I propose this set of rules:


A Druid in Wild shape retains the mental ability scores (Cha, Wis and Int), proficiencies, level (and thus proficiency bonus), class features of his normal form. The Druid gains the physical ability scores (Str, Dex, Con), size, AC, proficiencies, attacks, movement modes, speed, senses and special abilities of the wild shaped form.

I'm on the fence regarding physical ability scores. On the one hand the RAW turns them into dump stats, on the other hand I find it silly from an RP perspective to basically ignore the actual stats of the Beast you are shaping into. At some point it's no longer Wild shaping...
By setting the level on the Beast to the character's level the relevant bonuses will be calculated automatically, a very easy way to have the form scale with the player.


Moon Druid at level 2 have their maximum Wildshape CR set to ½. At 4 it is CR 1, 6 is CR 2, and 6+ scales as normal.

Common method to tune the power curve for Moon druids. I also like it because it widens the scope of Beasts in the pool, more fun that way .


Learning new Wildshapes follows UA rules in section "Gaining Extra Beast Shapes".

The part on gaining Shapes through adventuring is good.


You can shapeshift a number of times equal to (your proficiency bonus + Wisdom modifier)/2 rounded down (minimum 1). This is reset after a Short or Long rest.

There needs to be a limit to shifting, otherwise it will be too strong for non-combat related purposes. The number is a bit clunky, a fixed value is also an option, there could be enough scaling already due to CR, level and AC (see below). A fixed value is also easier to tune, and makes it so even at high level there is an actual decision to be made.


Each Wildshape has its own HP, retained throughout shapeshifting. After a Long rest, Wildshapes re-roll fresh HD upon shapeshifting.

You can Shape into the same cheesy form multiple times, but as it retains HP, you likely will not want to. This makes many more forms viable for use.


At 2nd level, a Moon Druid in Wildshape may calculate his AC by adding his proficiency bonus to the base forms AC.

Needed to scale to late game. Could possible be scrapped, low AC sets the Moon druid apart from other high-AC classes. If buffs are needed, simply allow more Shapes per Short rest.


A Druid in Wild shape cannot use Multi attack if the form has the ability to do so. When a Druid in such a form takes the attack action, he may only use one of the listed attacks under Multi attack unless he also has the extra attack class feature. A character with at least 5 levels in Druid ignores this restriction, and can freely use multi attack if the beast he Wildshapes into has the multi attack ability.

Standard.


The rules are compatible with the Moon druid lvl 2/6/10/14 abilities. Even the lvl 20 capstone could remain as is, it means your resources becomes limited by the number of Shapes you know. This could be many, but DM can manage this.

Let me know what you think!