i just wanted to get a quick video out discussing the new changes to OneD&D. Big fan of the new Epic Boons from this round of UA, and paladins can smite with an unarmed strike now!
I'll probably do quick update videos like this to discuss oneD&D, rather than clogging up the full length video schedule every time. We'll be seeing updates for the next 18 months, I'll save full video discussions and breakdowns for big news and changes!
How is that a difference? RAW, paladins have _always_ been able to holy fist. The only change is that now it is explicitly on purpose. I know that this is not what JCrawford *_believed_* to have written, but I'm talking about RAW here, not RAI.
Weird how they phrased Divine Smite to finally include Unarmed Strikes, but the Improved Divine Smite equivalent and the smite-like Channel Divinity from the subclass still exclude them.
Oh, don't you worry about that! Most players won't even be able to wild shape into a mouse because you can't become a Tiny creature until *11th LEVEL.* 🤮
@@0Fyrebrand0 you can become whatever land creature you want. It’s just gonna be Small, Medium, or Large (your choice). I can’t wait to play a Small T. Rex, or a Large Squirrel 😂
"You get one stackblock for all the land creatures, etc., etc." I recognize the council has made a decision, but given it's a stupid ass decision, I've elected to ignore it.
To be fair Hasbro/WOTC have been pretty stupid of late
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@@jerekheadrick3379 sadly I agree - Instead of streamlining they just make the version more boring... Even without the OGL situation and potential microtransaction hell that will be the vtt I am not that interested.
@@jerekheadrick3379 Not the entirety, when it came to things like character creation they went the right way of a lot more freedom of choice and I personally like the magic changes, but other than that... This bit about the druids is the last nail in the coffin for me. I'll use the new character creation stuff and versions of things like magic initiate that One D&D for my 5e games, but that's it.
That is also the reason i love the 3rd edition Master of Many Forms Prestige Class. Took the druids wildshape to the next level. I had so much fun playing that character.
literally. so sure, strip it of everything that makes it unique... turn it into just a nature flavored spell caster... Watch, I bet they won’t even give us much in the way of “Destruction” Or elements, Despite the fact that plants and animals aren’t all that druids encompass at all.
I just wish there were more competition among options to choose from, too often there is an animal that is just, far superior than any other option regardless of the situation, my change would have been to decrease the amount you can turn into, like having 5 land options, and 3 flying, and 3 swimming, with each increasing in stats along side you, thus they could focus more on balancing between the options and giving each one its own flavorful abilities while still keeping them unique
@@joshdimaggio5764 what I would do is bonuses and penalties. As an example, turning into a bear would increase your strength and constitution, but decrease your dexterity and intelligence. There would be more changes, but I think mine would make it more interesting and the decisions more balanced and impactful
Iron Druid Chronicles. Get beyond the first cringy book and you will love the series once it starts rolling. Just power through that first book and trust me.
Right. Also stacking abilities. You can't be a Changeling druid & wildshape into a dog then changeshape into the evil kings exact dog to infiltrate now.
While I do not like being at a table where a Druid is thumbing through a list of creatures to figure out which one is best, I do love the fun once that decision is made. As a DM I had a druid player who actually used a photocopier and a 3 ring binder to organize the creatures she had seen in order to speed up the process. I feel this may be a "good thing" once it is expanded and refined. (at least we do not have to turn in our previous editions)
@@youtubewatchin4326 I have notes and a wildshape app to help with that, but if it becomes my turn or i get asked directly by DM what im doing, i try to RP it and decide in real time. Leads to some funny results like becoming a bear in a boat i forgot was tiny and made by goblins and almost capsizing the thing 😆
I'm becoming a bear if I need brawl, I become a wolf if I need to track things. It's what makes wildshape so cool, having all these abilities and stuff, this is too simple imo
@@ledichang9708 I was more talking about the keen hearing and smell (advantage on perception checks that rely on hearing or smell) . My Druid has a +10 on survival so maybe that was a bad example :/
I agree. When my Moon Druid got to level 6 and could transform into a Polar Bear instead of a Brown Bear, I liked being able to still transform into a Brown Bear as needed for the Keen Senses ability. This allowed me to sniff out drugs that a ship captain we were going to hire had on them, which then led us to pick a different captain who wasn't under the influence.
Druids don’t literally turn into animals based on this system. Wild Shape changes the Druid’s form, but the strength of that form is based on strength of their magic. Make sense tbh
@@Doost311 You cannot have rules without limits and you cannot have a game without rules. If you want limitless creative options, then what you're looking for is called Make Believe, and it doesn't require you to buy a bunch of books telling you how to play it. If Wizards of the Coast aren't supplying you with balanced rules, then what are they supplying you with? They didn't invent elves. They didn't invent paladins. Most of their books are campaign neutral and people like it that way. What are you giving them money for?
I mean I kind of like that specific part about it. I hate the fact that there are just objectively superior options for wild shape, like how the bear is so much better than anything else. If my Druid is based around sloths, I want to be able to wild shape into a giant sloth without neutering myself. It also just gives options for players who want to wild shape into things that simply don't have statblocks in 5e
@@nyxislost553 Does your table not allow homebrew? Using other beast stats for a druid themed around a certain beast(s) is pretty common It is also objectively worse to severely limit and hinder a whole feature cause some people aren't allowed the creative grounds in their table to flavor the beasts the way they want, that's definitely more of a house problem than an universal one... It'd be like if they made all spells non specific cause some people are afraid to flavor them to other damage types or visuals without a feature attached to go
@@nyxislost553 Honestly just work it with your DM, they shouldn't care. All the best campaigns don't play by strict rules. They are more... Guidelines really
I think the problem is that there are too few wild shape stat blocks, all they really have to do is just add more specialized stat blocks like "Giant Insect", or "Stalking Predator" or something the like
Great point. I like the intent for speed of the game, but I use wildshape more out of combat than in, so I'll looking for situational advantages in my creature selection.
Or instead of more stat blocks have options that can be added to a stat block. Have those be something druids can learn and at higher levels they can add more than one option. Or have a subclass focused on wild shape that allows different or more options to be added.
You could have the stat blocks act like the warlock invocation where you can pick as you go so 1 druid may choose scout focused forms like small mammal or insect while another may choose predator forms. Or just make em spells.
add a small tacked on Familia feature so: Arachne: Spider climb Felinae: Pounce the frog one: Tongue grapple with this its a quick look up for them with a simple ability and makes sense because you get your flavor and your features.
I hate it so much. the rogue main in my group tried to justify it as "oh, druids turning into rats are better at scouting than rogues, let the rogues be good at what they're supposed to do" and like....I shouldn't have to wait til mid to late game just to be a fucking mouse!
True... Like shouldn't it be more logical to be able to turn into these types of animals along with the regular animals since that's what would probably be available when a druid is just training???? This is like being able to cast fireball but you didn't master controlling your magic to produce a fcking spark...
@@TheKawaiifan must be a pretty salty rogue... Like sorry but your stats would be probably higher than a fcking mouse/rat... We can just sneak into places with more ease because we are smoll...
Devil's advocate; transforming yourself into a creature vastly smaller than yourself should be a difficult thing to do. Not level 11 difficult, maybe, but it makes sense.
This is actually a big problem I have with 5e in general. 3.5/P was insane with all the weird feats and stuff out there, but it also meant that there was rules for various crazy things. As a DM, I don't want to be balancing all the stuff because my players want to do something weird. Cause they should be able to do something weird, cause a monk platypus is something my table would love...
This reminds me of 4th edition and how it played like World of Warcraft on tabletop! 3.5 may have had a lot of things to learn, but it also meant that it had a metric shite tonne of ways to customize your character! One DnD will NOT be played at our gaming table NOW or EVER !
Part of me wants to instantly blame Chris Cao and his video game background for this because it feels like Skyrim vs Morrowind but actually terrible. There are good things they did in Skyrim vs Oblivion and Oblivion vs Morrowind but things were also lost. This feels like they are trying to jump a few steps and losing too much nuance in the process without actually adding anything.
I just want to say that I like how calm and measured you are in this short. So many people are raging at the change. You stated your opinions and reasoning in a straightforward manner and it was way more effective. This is playtest material, they are looking for feedback. There is no need to shout and insult the design team.
Sure, it's playtest. But come on. If they made the Paladin Smite a bonus action precast, or heavily limited the fighter's action surge to only be 1 attack extra per dawn or something, wouldn't it then be fair to be a *little* outraged? Removing Wildshape would be a better option than what they've made.
@@bradreed2001 We know that's what One DnD is being designed for, or was when WotC shit the bed with their open gaming licence stupidity. Given that they're a corporation, there's basically no chance they've learned their lesson, so ditch them sooner than later.
A possible middle ground could be group stat blocks for things like HP AC or Ability checks, but make different creatures have abilities similar to feats. Say, a bear gives +2 AC, Spiders give wall climbing and stealth bonuses if small, wolves giving bonus attacks, those sort of things.
Or do summoning like the summon spells where you have a Summon Fiend Spell, but you choose if they’re a Demon, Devil, or Yugoloth, and depending on what they are they have different abilities.
As a DM, I wouldn't accept this. You want to wild shape into a bear? You're gonna get that bear shape and all the goods that goes with it. Now, if you will excuse me, it's snowing outside and I must hibernate
Exactly, some of the balance of Wildshape is how a lot of creatures like the Brown Bear have a pitiful AC, you get the weaknesses and the benefits and the mechanics of the creature you turn into. This is just pushing all things into this mushy middle ground where you have no weaknesses but no strengths.
I think this would be great for Land Druids as their whole gimmick is meant to be wild shape. Also, while simplifying the ability I think is a side effect, the main goal seems to be to stop Druid multiclassing a nightmare for dm's to balance
The problem with this argument is that it is just a lesser version of "make your own." Which doesnt do anything to address if the changes they are making are actually good or bad.
I don’t think the reason Druid is the least popular class is because Wild Shape was complex. I think it has more to do with popular media not having many examples of Druid characters. With the Critical Roll animated show and the upcoming movie, that is changing and I expect to see Druids becoming more popular.
Druids kinda get boxed in with their "nature and balance" typing, if you don't want a tree hugger, you either go ranger or something else. Druids need spiced up, they have cool powers and spell lists but they aren't utilized to their fullest.
@@MithrilRoshi druids have some of the most devastating spells in the game! Druids also vet access to healing spells on top of it. Area control, summons, healing, damage, debuffs, they can do it all.
I made a similar thing where I made Wild Shape stat blocks, except I made about 7 different blocks that cover a variety of beast types. Plus each block offers you a choice to pick a trait so you can make the beast feel more like a specific kind. So you can be an insect beast with either the Web ability or a Pincer for grappling.
Half the fun of Wildshape is the creativity and wide range of applicability in different situations. Sure it has a learning curve and high skill ceiling but that's part of it.
@@nahlies2382 oh no :( I mean, I can really only think of skeletons and some plants necessitating specific weapon damages but still, I feel ya. Lemme have my 1d12 slashing* greataxe please!
@@nahlies2382 oh certainly! But eliminating them is simpler and more approachable to new players right? Oh, give me a break Wotc! Intricacies and meticulous game play is a fair aspect in your game. Don't be yet another franchise that wipes away their uniqueness for ease of new cash-toting players!
@@TheAncientAmbassador you're expecting a major Multi-Billion Dollar company to NOT be a money-grubbing band of Greedy knobslobberer? Good luck with that
There needs to be a beast features table that you can select from when you wild shape that gives u specific abilities like pounce, poison, or carapace. Then u can use this table for beast master ranger for ur primal companion.
That sucks so much. One of my favourite parts of being a Druid was being able to come up with wacky plans because of the creatures I could transform into.
They really should just make wildshape like Warlock invocations where there are a bunch of different options for in and out of combat uses and you get 2 or 3.
I just ran a druid in a recent campaign. I agree 100%. I chose Direwolf(moon druid) for the pack tactics. But I also considered the spider for the special stuff there. Also looks like they don't get their own HP? So if you go down, you go down. Totally changes things
Pros: I can now eventually turn into a giant bat, which I don’t believe that there’s a stat block for in the MM. And all flying things get flyby. And you can turn into any land animal at the beginning but weaker. Automatically get darkvision Cons: No creature specific abilities, can’t absorb damage, Str and Dex could be worse than the normal animal. Can’t get a really good speed, Tiny creatures are now limited for some reason
I have an idea. Treat wildshape as something you'd can either " overcast" , add druid stat bonus to, make a concentration roll, if you want to go beyond RAW. Make sure your ability to buff your wildshape is chancy, ablative, or costs extra uses of wildshape. Just spitballing here.. hope this helps.
Definitely understand why they'd remove class features during a wild shape, but as a DM, I'd always allow a PC druid to use an exact statblock, because in the same spirit that it was said here, it just KILLS the feel and creativity of the class
This would be one of those moments to say “Fuck you WOTC” and do your own thing, heck I’ve given my Druid a pet owlbear early because she charmed it and named it Walter. She’s yet to summon him yet
I like the flavor of a druid’s “bear form” getting stronger as they level up. With the current system the iconic animal forms start getting outclassed as you advance
The issue is, they don't get stronger. As written, you can only max your ac at 15, and you either have to roll well, or sink a few ASI's into your wisdom.
It's alright as an OPTION to give usually unavailable creatures a way to be playable, but the only thing druids need is more uses of wild shape. Number of uses of wild shape should be equal to proficiency bonus
Not really. With 5E as it is you only have to reskin a suitably similar creature. This is the same design philosophy but taken so far to the extreme that your just being given abstractions. What you get is next to nothing and your expected to do their work for them.
This would put low level druids having access to enormous amounts of health and abilities imagine fighting something with 87 health spider climb pounce keen smell webs poison etc you get all that just from going gaint spider tiger bear and then after all that your still a full health Druid with spell slots all at 5th level that’s insane your barb is going to have on average 54 health 😂 you’re almost doubling that without even counting the actual hp of your character
My group has already written up 4 lists of "animal features" you can choose from to customise your wildshape- land animals, aquatic animals, aerial animals, and all animals. These features cost from 1 to 3 points (still being worked on), and when a druid wildshapes they gain a pool of points they can spend on features from the appropriate list or lists. It's still a WIP but it worked well in the 2 games we ran with it so far.
This should be included with an 'optional rule' for picking a monsters statblock. Give both options. Or a list of features that you pick X of, where X changes as you level up. Common beast things like Pounce, spider climb, web, adding poison damage to your attacks or changing normal damage to poison, just to give some uniqueness and utility to the basic (Beast of Y)
All they needed is an extra step of stat-block smoothing. Give a tiered system for all categories (land, sea, air); "Basic", "superior", and "premier". Basic covers common animals with no particular merit: common birds, vermin, and fish. Superior covers animals with a passive but unique ability; Owls'/eagle's sight, alligator's jaws, etc. Premier is truely powerful creatures that are the top of their class; Bears with their claws+fangs, condors or other huge birds, sharks/whales, etc. You might throw spiders into this category because of how good spiderclimb is. Then all you do is limit the tiers in different ways, maybe you can only turn into higher tiers for less time, or they have less HP to compensate for their abilities (as the change is magical and no longer inherits the monsters' stat block). This way it gives more options for strategies like spiderclimbing, or using a different unique animal's strengths. All the while still keeping them all mechanically balanced. Alternatively, maybe something as simple as giving subsections out for popular animals could remedy this problem. As the root cause is every animal feeling the exact same.
I want Druid to stay precisely how it is in 5th edition. It’s the sleeper god class that you can only use if you know what you’re doing. It’s the low floor high ceiling class. One of my favorites, and I am sad to see how far it has fallen, alongside bard.
I preferred how it was in 3.5e myself. Yeah it can be insanely powerful in 5e, but it just doesn't feel right with how much it boxes you into just being the Wildshape class.
They just need to add one more table where you can choose a feature like "Stealthy" or "Climbing" or "Sturdy" that gives you a buff to that specific thing, so you can at least kinda get that flavour and utility back. Moon druids could have a bigger table or maybe just get to pick more features as they level up or get bigger bonuses. I see where they want to go, but they are still a few steps away from the finish.
I've mixed feelings about it. I do think there's a best of both situation though- something on the lines of: Choose one of these stat blocks OR a beast of CR 1/4 or lower. That way you still have your scaling option and your utility beast, but a low power one.
Totally wrote this down as a concept last night as I was trying to come up with how to respond. The 3 templates are awesome, but we still need access to the other low-cr critters.
Well, hopefully if a few people put it in the feedback it could get noticed. I do think having the simplicity option is great for new players, then you can broaden it out for those who want to get more granular. They just need to provide some clear restrictions.
@@sr4tch the oath is pretty insane too. Can't lie is literally one of them. Add that to only being able to smite once per turn, and you got yourself a very very odd class
@@sr4tch sorry, yeah, oath of devotions. I misread the part that said "all oaths are virtually the same" and thought it meant between all subclasses. Nah, it meant that all types of devotion paladins have a similar oath even if they are from different places or practices.
The Greatest thing with wildshape is being able to choose the best creature for the job. I once was infiltrating a restricted zone while the rest of the party was resting up to raid it in the morning, and I got captured by guards. They were really strong and I expect the dm thought I would either go quietly or go unconscious. Instead, when they had me bound and were going to handcuff me, I shifted into a cheetah to loosen the bindings around me, and sprinted into the night, they never found me and I successfully completed my mission because of it. I chose a creature able to run quickly enough to escape arrow range and small and nimble enough to escape the bindings easily. Having one statblock suddenly turns that into.. “I wildshape into a cheetah” “You aren’t actually as fast as a cheetah so you get shot by arrows, they bind you again and lock you up”
Idea I had for shapeshifting in general was something along the lines of you keep your AC, ability scores and hitpoints, but gain the natural weapons and abilities of the monster you turn into.
While I agree that essentially one stat block for all land, sea, and flying animals takes all the fun flavor out of Wildshape, I also can’t help but grin stupidly at: “A monk platypus?” “Perry the monk platypus?” “PERRY THE PLATYPUS??!!”
My favorite part is this silly things you can do as a goldfish. You can: - Run on land - Breathe both air and water - Attack 3 times in a turn (Circle of Moon) - Be resistant to electric damage (Circle of Moon) - Have sparks (Circle of Moon) (or be on fire, or be living sound) - Deal 9d6 damage a round (1d6 on attack, 2d6 Circle of Moon Elemental Strike, 3 hits per turn) Other fun things not limited to goldfish: - A flying fish is an Animal of the Sky because it does have wings, and can therefore not swim. - A duck is an Animal of the Sky and can therefore not swim. - The majestic Dodo is not only alive, but can also fly. - Penguins can fly, but not swim (They are classified as birds). - Sloths are no longer slow with their 40ft speed. - Beyond 5th level, dogs now highlight as rock climbers. So do elephants. - Sharks can now breathe air and run on land. You are no longer safe.
Cutting out elemental forms was BRUTAL. Getting access to stone glide or becoming a fire elemental while fighting enemies in a wooden shack, or hiding in a river in plain sight as a water elemental, that was so much fun. And now we get some unnatural elemental animals like it's some MMORPG that's too lazy to add new assets and just recolors the existing ones, naming them "dark", "elemental", or whatever.
@gystes_ Was it really? They're very good at low level, but at mid to high level, they drop off a lot. I recently played in a high level campaign where one of my party members was a circle of the moon druid. They were great at scouting, but not so much in a fight. Enemies could usually pop their wildshapes within a couple hits. I've also played in a lower level campaign with one. They were great for the first few levels, but once we hit level 5, enemies started chewing through their wildshapes pretty easily, and the rest of the party caught up to them on damage output.
@@hiygamer getting a massive pool of effectively temp HP, but that can be healed, is the powerful part… especially at low levels. A moon druid can tank more damage than a barbarian can per SHORT rest.
Oh God I was worried they’d ruin druids and didn’t even know they dropped the new version. That is actually the worst thing I’ve heard in a while. Druids are my favorite class, both to play and to dm for, and to see something like that happen to them is like watching Taco Bell give someone else your order only for them to drop it on the floor
@@WolfWarriorLive In 3.5e they had a lot of features that got moved over to subclasses and some were made only for Ranger. They used to be much stronger down the nature priest theme, with stronger nature magic and exploration, much better support spells, and animal companions were a core feature of their class they started with at level 1 and it levelled with them as they did. Basically if you chose a Druid you were choosing to play a support-role nature priest with an animal companion with you at all times, and said animal companion wasn't an utter joke like the Beast Master Ranger's. You could even choose a dire wolf or a bear and had spells to buff them in a fight. Most modules out there were designed to give Druids and Rangers some special roleplay opportunities, like in the 3.5e-based video game Neverwinter Nights its official modules constantly has animals that have seen things humans haven't, so you can get additional information out of them. Overall, it was a much more fleshed out class, and Wildshape was a *utility* they had in their tool belt, not the entire defining feature of the class.
What would work really well, in my opinion, is if it functioned similarly to PF2's familiars and pets features, which is a kind of "build a creature" feature. They all have one stat, but with familiars you can select special abilities it has (such as hands, or tremorsense, or climbing) and you can only select so many of those abilities. For pets its a similar system, but they also become more powerful and specialized over time with branching selections.
@@spikem5950I still laugh at them constantly selling terribly written and plot hole and consistency error filled adventure modules for $45 a piece. I wouldn't even pay $10 for a module i have to spend more effort fixing and rewriting than if I'd just home brewed something from scratch.
@@Noobie2k7 I fucking winged everything on a homebrew campaign I only had the basic ideas for and it was more coherent than WotC's shit. I still can't believe it takes a third person prelude module to make Decent Into Avernus make any sense.
Hot take: Druids should have a subclass-free alternative for wild shape. While wild shape gives all druids crasy utility, it also makes most druids look alike. There is a lot of nature based characters that aren`t shapeshifters, but can have much more interesting abilities (summoning or prescience for example). And yeah, there are circles of spores and stars, but they don`t change wildshape, they strictly improve it, giving you additional abilities, which is really cool. I just wish that there would be more options similar to the familiar that they get in Tasha`s, but actually viable as an alternative to this crasy ability.
This. Druids shouldn't be defined by wildshape. It was a nice utility before 5e, not the entire point of the class. Shifter was its own prestige class you could take after acquiring wildshape and it was a much better shapeshifter class than 5e'd druid ever will be. In 3.5e I played a druid who fought in his normal humanoid form with a dire wolf animal companion. I hardly ever felt a need to use wild shape. That was taken from me.
Yes, this is also my opinion. Either introduce a Shifter class and remove shapeshifting from Druid, or make it strictly a Circle of the Moon thing. Druid is going to be impossible to balance in a satisfying way as both a full spellcaster AND a shapeshifter.
@@Darkprosper I've actually seen people in this comment section say if they're not the wildshape class there's no distinction between them and nature Cleric. Just goes to show how much they dumbed down the class that all those unique characteristics the class had in 3.5 are gone and there's apparently no meaningful difference between it and a Cleric subclass to people.
I remember a time when we suggested new players play classes like Fighter to have a simple introduction to the game... Not all classes have to be simplified.
True, but remembering the amount of times you can hit an opponent per turn..... Unless it's a bbeg a DM's biggest fear is a high level fighter inspired and twin caste hast yelling I ACTION SURGE!!
I wild shape into a cute little white rabbit! *Proceeds to maul multiple skilled and armored knights with the ferocity of a bear, the speed of a cheetah, and the adorableness of a bunny.*
Wild shape is such a hard thing to design for a general audience I feel. You can go the “you can be any beast in the game” approach, but that can be super overwhelming for new or casual players. You can go the “pick a ton of skulls to perfectly craft your beast” but that can be really time-intensive. You can go the “here are a bunch of templates of stat blocks to use” but that can feel unsatisfying for the more invested players. In the TTRPG I’m making there will already be a ton of optional “genre rules”, like ammo for ranger weapons being a thing and the power of them is increased. Ammo doesn’t fit for all games but where it does fit, it should exist and feel more rewarding. The Druid’s shape shifting ability will probably have a similar thing with several different variants to either choose player to player, or table to table. Either that or there will just be animal-shape spells
My favorite class in d&d doesn't need to change. If anything, they could give it more non concentration spells. And if you want a simple spellcaster, just play a Cleric.
I think the bigger motivation is to not require players to have monster manual stat blocks to dig through for options. That said, I'm sad that of all the things to nerf from casters, they chose the ones that were barely even notable for the most optimized builds and instead opened up other ways to play the class. So the boring, optimal casters stay untouched while the janky and wild playstyles get hammered into the dirt.
I think a really cool idea would be that wildshape allows you to use a non-attack spell without cost as if its an ability of the creature you're wildshaping into - or just make a build-a-wildshape that you can customise to make several configurations you want to wildshape into that you can flavor however you want - I quite like the second one, as it could allow a subclass that delves into it more, with monsterous consequences
I played some games where shape shifters had specific shapes for specific roles. For example a bear shape for tanking or a big cat shape for damage. I'd find several beast typ creatures that fit close to the stat block, and that's what you get
It doesn't make sense until you think about it from the perspective of how Wildshape works now. If you become something that's Tiny now, you don't get the stat block of something that's Tiny, you're still just as strong as you are as a bear but now you can fit in extremely small spaces. It just highlights how idiotic the premise of these dumbed down stat blocks are.
@@ChaosMind10531 Worse. A rat mauling a dragon. A squirrel mauling an archdevil. I'm not joking, as the rules are, this is possible. Silver lining: Playing the killer bunny from Monty Python is possible without it having to be homebrew.
Look... when you first play DnD, you start as a level 1 fighter. That lets you learn the basic game play mechanics and still have a lot of fun. After that, you can take a level in something else to learn more. Simple, easy, straightforward.
I know right? Most players don’t play casters on their first time playing. They should have a difficulty rating for new players. Fighters, rogues, barbs and monks are 1 star while druids are 3 star difficulty.
@@speeddevil4040 Unless the whole group are new to the game, incliding the DM:) We have fun learning, and have screwed up since the getgo, but we are correcting stuff as we learn. We dont want it easier, we want to have fun learning.
Wild shape also doesn't count as a separate health bar anymore, so even becoming a t-rex, you'll still have your comparatively piddly druid health, with an AC of 10+wisdom, so you'll be super easy to hit.
Btw taking the chance to mention a VERY op combo I accidentally (literally accidentally) came up with, and that's surprisingly easy to get: war magic wizard+armorer artificer. You get shield, +2 to dex, a shield, and use the infusion that gives +1 to ac on your armor and shield. If by lvl 7 you manage to get Plate armor (shouldn't be that hard if you dont spend on anything) you can have 24 AC at lvl 7, with a reaction for 29 AC or (if you dont want to spend slots) 26 instead, plus a reaction for +4 on any saving throws. You also get a nice melee weapon that uses int for your rolls, and that gives the target disadvantage on attacks against anyone except you. To top this, at lvl 13, as long as you're concentrating you get a +2 to ac and all saving throws for a total of 26 base ac and 31 in a reaction, AS A CASTER. So, by only spending 1.5k gold and losing a total of 2 lvls in the spellcasting table (go wiz 16/art 4) by lvl 13 you get an AC so high that ANY OFFICIAL CREATURE can hit you if and only if they roll a nat 20. You also get a +6 to saving throws, and can spellcast almost as good as a pure wizard. Your armor also cannot be forced out of you easily at all. You can also use the other wizard features, that are pretty good too. Enjoy.
That’s the biggest problem with D&D now. Wizards has been actively striving to kill flavor since Mordenkainen presents and they’re not stopping any time soon.
I honestly feel that that's what they were doing with the Artificer. Since the rules for crafting are extremely lacking at best, the way they get around this is by ignoring it all together by reflavoring spells as invensions and just giving you magic items as class features. Which, by the way, the preparation of infusions is just so fucking mind numbing to me, like let's say you have a bag of holding and you decide to prepare a different infusion, what happens to the stuff inside the bag? Does it disappear? Is it all shot out at once? And while we're on the subject, what the fuck are you as an Artificer doing to make that burlap sack into a bag of holding, or those rocks into sending stones, and why are you limited to just 4, and what's stopping you from making more of those same 4 things? And why do you have to prepare them, why can't you just have them instead of just having 2 and having the others in an empty void somewhere? I had a player character in one of my games who was an Artificer and these were just a few of the issues both me and the player were having, and WotC's response to all of these issues is just "Idk, you fix these issues, it's your game" and it's just so infuriating. I also got Valda's Spire of Secrets not too long ago, and in that book is a class called the Craftsman, and it fixes pretty much all of these issues, and I think the Craftsman will replace the Artificer in my games going forward.
I think the changes do have improvements (all forms have darkvision, attack is pretty good, you can speak) but it needs refining to bring back the flavor. Like if they want to go with the static block, then have a few options to toss in there. "You can choose 1 of the following features when you transform: pack tactics, pounce, charge." With perhaps more as you level for the different blocks.
Right, so here's my "make this make sense" idea. You get a certain number of perks related to the animal you shapeshift into. Since you can mix and match, the perks must be specific to the body part of said animal (no four-legged bears spider climbing, but maybe spider bears on the ceiling.) As you level up, the number of perks increases.
Yeah, I'll take my variety stats! It's kind of fun researching different creatures and seeing what they're capable of! Which creature is faster, which creature is stronger, do I need to stealth in the water or am I going in fighting? Removing that completely ruins the fun in Wildshape!
This sounds like something to help with AI DM's more than new players. Easier to railroad a session when there's nothing for a player to use to think outside the box with.
The entire functional purpose of Wild Shape was variety. The idea that no matter what situation you found yourself in, there's an animal that can help get you out of it. They have stripped literally every nuance from the ability. It's useless out of combat now, and considering the stat blocks have lower AC, lower damage output (assuming the use of Shillelagh, which also ignores physical resistance as a bonus), shared HP, and zero spellcasting abilities, they're even worse than the basic Druid in combat too. Absolutely baffling decision.
It's an insane decision. I have no idea what kind of drugs WotC were smoking when they made it. My favorite classes were ranger and druid, 5e was a massive slap in the face on the ranger standpoint and to a lesser extent so was druid, but One looks to give druid the ranger treatment.
The part of the wild shape of the all posibilities is wonderfull, give the beginners a small list of the "best" four and tell them that they can get all the other ones
Compromise: keep stat blocks generalized per movement method, then have a few tables of additional traits and action options that can be dropped in for flavor, but not used simultaneously. That way, you get the generalized stat blocks that are beginner-friendly, and the tables showcase equivalences in action (i.e. you can have spiderclimb and web together, but something like spiderclimb and tremorsense would be on the same table, so you have to pick one or the other).
Druid also doesnt get extra HP while wildshaped anymore, which.... why? Aside from changing the size, wildshape feels more like a beast barbarian than becoming an animal. I'd be fine with these new simple stats as long as it feels like theres a cohesive difference between wildshape and your character
