Possible "rewards"/treasure for Moon druid (PEACH)

[Groggen]

Hi

As many others I have trouble finding loot to suit a PC that likes his wild shaping. I might have two "items" that I can reward him with, but I am really unsure of the power level and when (if at all) I could give them to him:

1. Magic ink - "You paint an arcane symbol somewhere on your body. Once you go below 15 HP the symbol becomes active. The next melee attack that hits you triggers the mark and it casts the Thunderclap cantrip. The mark can only be triggered once per Long rest. The mark evolves to cast Thunderwave instead at char level 10."

I've also considered just giving it the ability to trigger the spell when he wants it to. Also unsure about the HP limit and at what level it would upgrade.

2. Extra wild shape - "You get one additional wild shape per day, but the max CR rating of this beast is CR 0."

Wild shaping is the bread and butter for (some) Moon druids, but the PC keeps "saving" his shapes for that one particular moment of need - which more often than not doesn't come. This would just be to allow him to roleplay his character the way (I think) he wants to more often.

3. Wands - I was thinking of making a wand, uncommon/rare?, with 3/5 charges and 2/3 different spells; would this be more staff territory? I was thinking of the "not necessarily used in combat" ones, along the lines of the Jump, Longstrider and maybe Tenser's Floating Disk spells. Would the versatility in itself bump up the rarity?

Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated :smallsmile :smallsmile:

[Sindeloke]

It's hard to say when magic is too much or not enough in 5e, since there aren't any WBL guidelines like in 3.p or hard-coded math like in 4e. In 5e every game has different access to magic based on what the DM feels like giving. The question isn't necessarily "what rarity would these items be, on an absolute scale", but more "compared to my other players, how is the druid performing"? Is he able to do the things he wants to do as often as the other players can do what they want to, and does he contribute about as much as the other players during a combat or when trying to bypass an obstacle? If he's keeping up with or exceeding the other party members, you're probably going to want to stick to magic that's more fluff than crunch (magic ink that stays when he wild shapes and lets him cast Light on himself at-will, or the like).

On the other hand, if he's falling behind in combat and getting knocked out of wild shape a lot, give him something that can auto-cast barkskin on him. Or if he's not using his wild shape to help out with exploration, scouting and navigation challenges because he's saving it for combat, go with the extra CR 0 wild shape, possibly also with something that lets him extend his time in wild shape. If he's surviving fine but just not doing enough damage or crowd control to keep up with the Flametongue-weilding battlemaster fighter and magic caltrop-dropping rogue, toss something at him that enhances his wild shape damage and lets him use thorn whip while transformed.

Tl;dr don't worry about some abstract concept of balance, worry about balance within your particular party and game.