Duid 20 = Infinite Hit Points

[Vowtz]

........................

[Eslin]

It's known as the onion druid, and other classes also get really strong stuff.

Bard gets everyone's spells (find mount, contagion, swift quiver etc)

Wizards can animate armies

Warlocks can get absurd sustained damage

All the druid gets is extra hit points, which is good but not gamebreaking

[Twelvetrees]

Only limitation I can see right now.

To transform into an animal, you have to have seen that animal before.

Largely depends on the DM enforcing that, so it's not much of a restriction.

[Yorrin]

Here's the limitation I'm seeing- he's trading offense for defense. Yes, he's theoretically immortal and pretty much nothing will get through the hp of a 20th level moon druid. BUT even the biggest baddest animal forms don't stack up with the druid's spells in terms of accuracy, damage, utility, etc. Plus... it's a capstone for a reason. By 20th level I'm fine with an unkillable druid given that I know his other limitations.

That being said, your interpretation seems to be correct. 20th level Moon Druids can chain infinite Earth Elementals or Mammoths or what have you to effectively have infinite hp.

[Twelvetrees]

Here's the limitation I'm seeing- he's trading offense for defense. Yes, he's theoretically immortal and pretty much nothing will get through the hp of a 20th level moon druid. BUT even the biggest baddest animal forms don't stack up with the druid's spells in terms of accuracy, damage, utility, etc. Plus... it's a capstone for a reason. By 20th level I'm fine with an unkillable druid given that I know his other limitations.

That being said, your interpretation seems to be correct. 20th level Moon Druids can chain infinite Earth Elementals or Mammoths or what have you to effectively have infinite hp.
Part of what could make this potentially too powerful is that Druids can cast spells in beast form after level 18. It seems kinda odd to me, but it appears that Circle of the Moon Druids have that as well.

[Yorrin]

Part of what could make this potentially too powerful is that Druids can cast spells in beast form after level 18. It seems kinda odd to me, but it appears that Circle of the Moon Druids have that as well.

Ah, fair point. This does make this extremely powerful then. But again... it's a capstone ability.

[Twelvetrees]

Ah, fair point. This does make this extremely powerful then. But again... it's a capstone ability.
True. This really only becomes viable at high levels, at which point most characters have powerful abilities as well. This is just one of the more powerful of a bunch of powerful options.

[ambartanen]

Can the druid transform from one animal form into another? It was my impression that he only has the wild shape ability when in human form and when an animal he can only revert back to human. If that is the case, wouldn't transforming back to human be some kind of action?

[hymer]

Can the druid transform from one animal form into another?

"You retain the benefit of any features from your class [...] and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so."

Could be said that animals aren't physically capable of turning into other animals. I doubt that's the intended interpretation, given that spells are singled out as not useable in the previous paragraph.

[Yorrin]

I would say that animals are just as physically capable of turning into other animals as a human is capable of turning into an animal.

It is a class feature, I think you can use it while Wild Shaped.

Yeah, that's the same logic I'm seeing here. It might not be RAI, but it's pretty clearly RAW, imo.

[Caelic]

Keep in mind, though, that there are a lot of ways to kill someone at twentieth level that don't involve depleting their hit points. The druid's still going to be vulnerable to save-or-die spells and similar effects.

[k10forgotten]

Yes, I'm aware, you have a good point.


But it came to my impression that a barbarian 20 has zero chance of defeating a druid 20 in melee, even without spells, and that is just sad.

D&D never was a fighter's game, after all. I don't know anything about magic items, but my guess is that they will try to throw the balance in the fighters' favor...

[ambartanen]

I haven't really paid too much attention to higher level abilities since I don't anticipate ever using them but it seems a 20th level fighter can use nine attacks in one turn to actually burn through the druid's animal form and deal quite a bit of damage to the character. I have no idea how much hp CR 6 beasts will have but damage in the low hundreds will surely be enough, right? I assume a barbarian would somehow have damage output comparable to a fighter. Is that actually the case?

Ok, so the druid can transform from one animal shape to a different one but at least they can't build up "stacks" of animal shapes.

[hymer]

I assume a barbarian would somehow have damage output comparable to a fighter. Is that actually the case?

From the simple and incomplete studies I've made, the barbarian, willing to attack recklessly, beats the fighter in damage the first ten levels. Things narrow when the third attack kicks in at level 11. At level 20, though, I don't see how the barbarian can compare, particularly in nova situations.

[golentan]

You know, you could houserule this to balance it a bit. Shifting provokes Attacks of Opportunity, if you get hit you need to make a concentration check or revert to your natural form. Makes it something you can do to buff yourself, but also makes it risky to do constantly in melee for the HP.

[Yorrin]

Casters being better is not a new thing, but this druid will not need to use any spell to own the barbarian.

But only at level 20. Right up until level 19 that Barbarian can cut through a Wildshape in a round or two, at which point if the Barbarian isn't dead the Druid will be needing those spell slots. Really I don't see the point of complaining over something that only shows up at the last level of play. ESPECIALLY since DnD is not a PvP game...

[Surrealistik]

It's broken, and needs a nerf badly, even as capstones go this is Brokesville.

The damage you take when polymorphed needs to apply to your original form.

[ambartanen]

The damage you take when polymorphed needs to apply to your original form.

You are trying to fix a somewhat overpowered capstone ability by completely breaking the most basic ability that defines the druid class?

[Surrealistik]

You still get the versatility of other forms and their visions/movements.

And it's not 'somewhat overpowered' it's straight up _broken_.

Druid could not have wildshape at all and it'd still be one of the most powerful classes in the PHB.

[Surrealistik]

Having a figurative swiss army knife of shapes to assume at-will complete with their physical stats, movement modes, abilities and vision types is already an extremely powerful ability; I just don't see the need for a ton of arbitrary HP buffering on top of that.

[hymer]

Before I got out the nerf bat, I'd want to see exactly how many hp the druid's pool would mean. 20th level assassin rogue with a shortbow or a shortsword attacks with advantage for 22d6+5 multiplied by two in the surprise round. That's 164 average damage, and that's if you survived the DC 19 Con save (if you didn't survive, you didn't survive - even with Resilient (con) and 20 con, that's +11 to the roll, or 35% chance of just dying). A fighter attacks 8 times with action surge, each attack at 2d6+5 and some rerolls or 2d6+15 if he's feeling lucky - the damage there is a lot harder to put an average on, and much more affected by whether the weapon is magical. The beast forms generally have poor AC. The druid's own hp pool is probably 203 at this point. I doubt the beast shape is going to have much more.
Against either the rogue or the fighter, the druid has the advantage. If two of them gang up on him, he's going down if he can't get away.

[pwykersotz]

It's not an issue for me at this point, but I do love theorycrafting. Why not cause the Druid to suffer a level of exhaustion for each wild shape form beyond the first that he get's damaged out of? Reset the counter for forms slain on a short rest.

[Turalisj]

Ah, fair point. This does make this extremely powerful then. But again... it's a capstone ability.

No one else gets such a versatile capstone ability. I mean, look at monks, once per short rest they regain 4 ki when they have no ki and roll initiative.

[Z3ro]

Yes, like Caelic pointed out earlier, save or die and auto win (diviner?) can best a druid, but i'm still convinced that one person's damage cannot.

Even so it is unlikely that he will be surprised by a rogue, since druids have access to foresight.

But as you are saying, two characters have a good chance to win if this druid refrains from casting spells.

Yeah, but how likely is the druid to spend his one 9th level spell on foresight? Possible, sure, but not likely.


No one else gets such a versatile capstone ability. I mean, look at monks, once per short rest they regain 4 ki when they have no ki and roll initiative.

Actually it's every fight they enter with no ki; still terrible, but slightly less terrible.

[captpike]

But only at level 20. Right up until level 19 that Barbarian can cut through a Wildshape in a round or two, at which point if the Barbarian isn't dead the Druid will be needing those spell slots. Really I don't see the point of complaining over something that only shows up at the last level of play. ESPECIALLY since DnD is not a PvP game...

it a problem because its literally impossible to use HP damage to kill a druid at level 20. you can take on things by yourself that your entire party could not because of that.

you could take on a god, so long as he could not kill you in one turn.

[Arzanyos]

It ain't literally impossible. Encounters can take you down in one round. The feeling of invincibility can lead to reckless overconfidence, and then situations where you get taken out round one.

[captpike]

It ain't literally impossible. Encounters can take you down in one round. The feeling of invincibility can lead to reckless overconfidence, and then situations where you get taken out round one.

sure if something can deal enough damage in one round, otherwise they might as well be pissing in the wind.

how many things does that you take on? how many fights can you now solo that your entire party could not take on at 19? and more importantly why is the druid's capstone so good and some others (monk) so bad?

[Aquillion]

I think people are seriously overestimating how much extra HP are worth. Ultimately, encounters aren't won like that -- if everyone else in the party dies, it's not as though the druid is going to be victorious on their own, even with this incredible toughness.

[Xetheral]

Power Word: Kill can still kill a Wildshaped Druid automatically, yes? I realize it's not much of a balancing factor, but it does mean a high-level Druid is vulnerable when they choose to Wildshape.

[captpike]

I think people are seriously overestimating how much extra HP are worth. Ultimately, encounters aren't won like that -- if everyone else in the party dies, it's not as though the druid is going to be victorious on their own, even with this incredible toughness.

if you do not die all you have to do is be able to deal any amount of damage to the target on a regular basis and he will die.

it may take an hour, but you would still win and that is what matters.

[Vowtz]

Power Word: Kill can still kill a Wildshaped Druid automatically, yes? I realize it's not much of a balancing factor, but it does mean a high-level Druid is vulnerable when they choose to Wildshape.

Power word alone is not enough, you have to damage him first.


I think people are seriously overestimating how much extra HP are worth. Ultimately, encounters aren't won like that -- if everyone else in the party dies, it's not as though the druid is going to be victorious on their own, even with this incredible toughness.

He will ressurrect his friends when convenience allows.



Druid 20 is not absolutely invincible, a capable spellcaster can defeat him easily, but aside from that, other things that should pose real danger can be ignored, like any monster that depends on damage to kill.


DM: you will now face the great barbarian king who conquered countries, Ghengis Can't, his experience in battle and deeds of valor are equal or greater than yours!

Druid: ok, if you get two of those to fight me at the same time I will maybe have to use my real powers.

[TripleD]

I haven't been following the monster manual reveals, but what exactly will you be fighting at 20th level in 5e? Do any of the creatures have abilities that could mess with wild shape?

[Arzanyos]

He doesn't heal, he gains temporary hp. You'll have to attack through a couple hundred hp a round, but the damage you'll stick after that will stay around.

[Prophes0r]

Unless you are playing a campaign with characters that ever HAS a level 20 moon druid in it, AND they decide to use this twist of the rules to their advantage, it is a moot point.

How about instead of doing something heavy handed to 'fix' the exploit, you get a bit more surgical. Any of these would fix it with varying degrees of success.


disallow shifting from one form, to the same form.
Shifting from one wild shape to another only heals X hp. Or only heals x% hp. Take your pick.
When shifting from one wild shape to another, the destination form has the same percentage of HP as the source form does.


None of these options break the obvious and intended class feature for the overwhelmingly vast majority of players who will never play a level 20 druid.

Some of the reactions presented in the above posts are EXACTLY the reason that any game with a competitive multiplayer element gets ruined. Someone figures out a way to get an advantage under very specific conditions. Then people complain about it in some forums. Then the game gets changed to 'fix it' and everyone else gets to suffer.

[Warskull]

if you do not die all you have to do is be able to deal any amount of damage to the target on a regular basis and he will die.

it may take an hour, but you would still win and that is what matters.

Proceed to stomp all the party members for the kills, then go away and leave the tank druid to his own devices. Take the player's bodies with you if you want to be a jerk.

The Druid technically wins, but not really.

[Surrealistik]

Some of the reactions presented in the above posts are EXACTLY the reason that any game with a competitive multiplayer element gets ruined. Someone figures out a way to get an advantage under very specific conditions. Then people complain about it in some forums. Then the game gets changed to 'fix it' and everyone else gets to suffer.

Problematic and broken competitive multiplayer elements are changed precisely because they cause the preponderance to suffer; the fix isn't what causes the suffering unless it's truly overboard, and even then said suffering tends to be localized (also short of requiring Druid 20, unlimited HP is not an advantage that applies under very specific conditions).

Granted, for a cooperative multiplayer game like DnD, it's not as big an issue, but significant power disparities are still problematic for a DM that wants to challenge every party member without killing weaker ones in the process.


Further I don't think my proposal to have damage taken while in wild shape apply to your actual HP pool is in any way an overnerf or overreaction; Wild Shape's other merits are seriously underestimated given the utility it grants. The Druid is already extremely powerful without having effectively unlimited buffers of HP that don't really make sense in the first place.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I think this is being somewhat overestimated here folks, so long as the DM doesn't allow you to Wild Shape directly from form to form.

Which nothing explicitly says you can or can't you have to argue it under the "retains benefit of class" line in the Wild Shape rule. And well since asking to do so exposes the loop and you don't have explicit permission then the DM is free to conclude "you ARE benefiting from Wildshape right now and can only blow extra uses to extend the duration like it say in the rules" which they may very well do when you start refreshing your HP every turn on a bonus action.

Since reverting and shifting both cost a bonus action you otherwise can't refresh your HP on the same turn. So when your beast form dies and before your next turn is when everyone is going to pound you as hard as they can. The fly in the ointment is that you can cast a healing spell and then take your bonus action to shift so at a cost of 1 lost turn of offense Archdruid + Moon Circle remains very powerful.

Though for 90-126 average HP the Elemental forms could still be dropping every couple of rounds it still seems like rather too much even for crazy level 20 stuff.

Probably the simplest fix would be some kind of penalty for getting your Wild Shape killed like being stunned for a round from the shock of your death. Something that would force Druids to be more tactical because and waste rounds in base form.

[Giant2005]

it a problem because its literally impossible to use HP damage to kill a druid at level 20. you can take on things by yourself that your entire party could not because of that.

you could take on a god, so long as he could not kill you in one turn.

That isn't at all true. The Wild Shape with the most HP is the Mammoth and it has 126. Almost all of the classes have the potential to do more damage than that in a single round - if you are up against more than one critter, those HP aren't really going to count for much.
Keep in mind that none of the possible Wild Shapes have a good AC for a pure Druid and almost every attack is going to be hitting you. Killing a level 20 Wild Shaping Druid would be far, far easier than killing a Fighter (Champion) that has survivor.

[Vowtz]

That isn't at all true. The Wild Shape with the most HP is the Mammoth and it has 126. Almost all of the classes have the potential to do more damage than that in a single round - if you are up against more than one critter, those HP aren't really going to count for much.
Keep in mind that none of the possible Wild Shapes have a good AC for a pure Druid and almost every attack is going to be hitting you. Killing a level 20 Wild Shaping Druid would be far, far easier than killing a Fighter (Champion) that has survivor.

Survivor heals 10, up to half, on each turn

Druid adds 126 over full on bonus action


A fighter with a greatsword and action surge will deal 96 damage if he can hit 8 times, if you add critical + magic then he will scratch the Druid's skin, but his action surges are spent before he can do significant damage.

You say other classes can do more than that in melee, then I will ask you to please enlighten me on how?

[Giant2005]

Survivor heals 10, up to half, on each turn

Druid adds 126 over full on bonus action


A fighter with a greatsword and action surge will deal 96 damage if he can hit 8 times, if you add critical + magic then he will scratch the Druid's skin, but his action surges are spent before he can do significant damage.

You say other classes can do more than that in melee, then I will ask you to please enlighten me on how?

Firstly, I didn't say that other classes can do more than that in melee, I said other classes can do more damage than that. All of the caster classes can do it easily, in melee it is a bit more troublesome but with the right multiclass options it isn't difficult. Assassin 3 gives you auto-crit with extra sneak damage, Paladins have Smites, Rangers have pets, monk dips give an easy two extra attacks, Barbarians add crit damage, Fighters add more attackjs and even racial bonuses such as from the Half-Orc can make a massive difference. Although unless you are just calculating the absolute highest damage possibilities which even against things with an AC as low as a Wild Shaped Druid is unlikely, Assassin 3 is pretty much mandatory.

[Surrealistik]

Survivor heals 10, up to half, on each turn

Druid adds 126 over full on bonus action


A fighter with a greatsword and action surge will deal 96 damage if he can hit 8 times, if you add critical + magic then he will scratch the Druid's skin, but his action surges are spent before he can do significant damage.

You say other classes can do more than that in melee, then I will ask you to please enlighten me on how?

Not to mention he can nearly tank in its entirety, on average, the typical damage of a level 9 spell (Meteor Swarm) assuming he fails his Reflex save against it using Wild Shape HP alone; again something he can get at-will as a bonus action.

Very silly.

[MeeposFire]

Power word alone is not enough, you have to damage him first.



He will ressurrect his friends when convenience allows.



Druid 20 is not absolutely invincible, a capable spellcaster can defeat him easily, but aside from that, other things that should pose real danger can be ignored, like any monster that depends on damage to kill.


DM: you will now face the great barbarian king who conquered countries, Ghengis Can't, his experience in battle and deeds of valor are equal or greater than yours!

Druid: ok, if you get two of those to fight me at the same time I will maybe have to use my real powers.

Actually how does powerword spells interact with druid wild shape HP? Since it sets your HP at a certain amount does that mean that your wild shape HP is actually your HP for the purposes of that spell? If so depending on what form you were in that might make you vulnerable to that spell.

[pwykersotz]

Actually how does powerword spells interact with druid wild shape HP? Since it sets your HP at a certain amount does that mean that your wild shape HP is actually your HP for the purposes of that spell? If so depending on what form you were in that might make you vulnerable to that spell.

The wild shape text clarifies this. If you die, you revert. If you revert, you have the same hp that you did when you initially shifted. Thus PWK auto-kills the form you're in, but you are still alive.

[Aquillion]

Problematic and broken competitive multiplayer elements are changed precisely because they cause the preponderance to suffer; the fix isn't what causes the suffering unless it's truly overboard, and even then said suffering tends to be localized (also short of requiring Druid 20, unlimited HP is not an advantage that applies under very specific conditions).

Granted, for a cooperative multiplayer game like DnD, it's not as big an issue, but significant power disparities are still problematic for a DM that wants to challenge every party member without killing weaker ones in the process.


Further I don't think my proposal to have damage taken while in wild shape apply to your actual HP pool is in any way an overnerf or overreaction; Wild Shape's other merits are seriously underestimated given the utility it grants. The Druid is already extremely powerful without having effectively unlimited buffers of HP that don't really make sense in the first place.
...the proposed issue, at best, matters only exactly at level 20, when the druid get to change shape whenever they want for free. Obviously any change that takes effect before level 20 is far too heavy-handed.

[Surrealistik]

...the proposed issue, at best, matters only exactly at level 20, when the druid get to change shape whenever they want for free. Obviously any change that takes effect before level 20 is far too heavy-handed.

I don't find it far too heavy-handed. Again, even without the buffer HP, Wild Shape is still a very potent and flexible ability.

[Sartharina]

Yes, I'm aware, you have a good point.


But it came to my impression that a barbarian 20 has zero chance of defeating a druid 20 in melee, even without spells, and that is just sad.

Can a Barbarian not deal enough damage at max level to drop a druid out of its wildshape with extra to spare?

[Soras Teva Gee]

I was not aware of that, thanks for the input, I was considering power word one of the "kill druid" options, but it's not the case after all.

And remember that PWK has a limitation of 100hp, his creature will have more than that.

Not after a round of attacks softening it up it won't.

[pwykersotz]

Can a Barbarian not deal enough damage at max level to drop a druid out of its wildshape with extra to spare?

Well, 1d12 (Greataxe) + 7 (Str cap for barbarians) + 4 (Rage boost) is an average of 17.5 damage. Throw in Extra Attack and Frenzy and you have 51.5 average damage.

Then you throw in reckless attack. Each first attack is rolled at advantage. This greatly increases crit chance, and with brutal critical you add 3d12 to your attack.

So assuming you crit with one blow of your three (a modest chance, somewhere close to 20% I think) You roll 5d12 (average 29.5) for that one, giving you [(5d12 + 7 + 4)+(1d12 + 7 + 4)+(1d12 + 7 + 4)] for 75.5 average damage.

Then add another 17.5 damage because you get another attack as a reaction if the Druid can hit you. New average, 93 damage.

Now throw in Great Weapon Master. Yes it's optional, but we're going for broke. Take a Druid to 0hp in their form and you get an extra attack. And we now get 10 extra damage on each swing. That (assuming the AC is trivial) is 30 extra damage for the turn, 40 if the Druid made an attack. You are now averaging 105.5 damage with a single barbarian path and a feat selected, and if the Druid hits you that pumps to 133 average damage. That's finally enough to kill a Mammoth on average, and then you get another attack, also dealing an average of 27.5 damage to their core HP.

So it's possible...but according to my thoughts, not terribly likely in one round. And my math doesn't account for AC, assuming the Barbarian can trivially hit the Mammoth...which is 14, so not entirely.

[hawklost]

The wild shape text clarifies this. If you die, you revert. If you revert, you have the same hp that you did when you initially shifted. Thus PWK auto-kills the form you're in, but you are still alive.

I just read through the Wildshape text, it never says anything about if you die. Its only reference to you reverting is if the creatures HP goes to 0, note that since Death is different than 0 hp, you die in beast form, you Die in real form. Now, if you go to 0 hp in beast for, then you revert to human form with all the hp you had before.

PWK would therefore kill you dead, so would anything that is insta-death effects

[da_chicken]

The wild shape text clarifies this. If you die, you revert. If you revert, you have the same hp that you did when you initially shifted. Thus PWK auto-kills the form you're in, but you are still alive.

No, I disagree. When you drop below 0 hp, you revert and overkill affects your base hp. However, if you outright die, you revert, but you don't stop being dead. The effect of Wild Shape just ends. It's the same line all shapechangers (e.g., lycanthropes and vampires) and polymorph spells get: they revert to their normal form upon death.

Yes, the rules state "When you transform, you assume the beast’s hit points and Hit Dice. When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed." but that's only establishing what happens when you transform into a new shape and what happens when you transform back. The context of that rule is just telling you how wild shape works absent of any other effects. It's just answering the question, "OK, so I'm a bear. What happens to my hp when I change back after a few hours?" The subsequent lines detail the special case of being reduced to 0 hp. Nothing, however, says that you stop being dead just because you revert back. Dead doesn't mean you don't have positive hp; otherwise, Cure Wounds would bring you back to life as would your corpse resting for 8 hours. Being dead means hp no longer make sense. I suppose your max hp total does revert to your druid's normal max hp total, but you're still dead. Similarly, if you're sitting on a the ground as a squirrel and get hit with a Sleep spell, you lose consciousness, revert to your normal humanoid form, and continue sleeping. The fact that you reverted doesn't really end any effects or conditions present on you.

[pwykersotz]

I just read through the Wildshape text, it never says anything about if you die. Its only reference to you reverting is if the creatures HP goes to 0, note that since Death is different than 0 hp, you die in beast form, you Die in real form. Now, if you go to 0 hp in beast for, then you revert to human form with all the hp you had before.

PWK would therefore kill you dead, so would anything that is insta-death effects

Per the PHB:


You automatically revert if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die.

While you are transformed, the following rules apply:

When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed.

Those are the exact words. It seems pretty clear.

Edit: I concede there is some ambiguity, but I think it's decently straightforward. I would not accuse anyone ruling that the death status stays through the reversion as houseruling, but I think that's using a less straightforward interpretation.

[hawklost]

Well, 1d12 (Greataxe) + 7 (Str cap for barbarians) + 4 (Rage boost) is an average of 17.5 damage. Throw in Extra Attack and Frenzy and you have 51.5 average damage.

Then you throw in reckless attack. Each first attack is rolled at advantage. This greatly increases crit chance, and with brutal critical you add 3d12 to your attack.

So assuming you crit with one blow of your three (a modest chance, somewhere close to 20% I think) You roll 5d12 (average 29.5) for that one, giving you [(5d12 + 7 + 4)+(1d12 + 7 + 4)+(1d12 + 7 + 4)] for 75.5 average damage.

Then add another 17.5 damage because you get another attack as a reaction if the Druid can hit you. New average, 93 damage.

Now throw in Great Weapon Master. Yes it's optional, but we're going for broke. Take a Druid to 0hp in their form and you get an extra attack. And we now get 10 extra damage on each swing. That (assuming the AC is trivial) is 30 extra damage for the turn, 40 if the Druid made an attack. You are now averaging 105.5 damage with a single barbarian path and a feat selected, and if the Druid hits you that pumps to 133 average damage. That's finally enough to kill a Mammoth on average, and then you get another attack, also dealing an average of 27.5 damage to their core HP.

So it's possible...but according to my thoughts, not terribly likely in one round. And my math doesn't account for AC, assuming the Barbarian can trivially hit the Mammoth...which is 14, so not entirely.

We can go a little bit better than that if we really want to max it.
If we take a 17th lvl barbarian (Beserker), give him 3 lvl as a Figher (Champion) and have his race being Half-Orc we can get more for Crit
Attack = 1d12(reroll 1 or 2 GWF)+7 (for Str) + 4 (for Rage) = 18.33
Crit (19-20) = 18.33 + 1d12(Normal Crit bonus) + 3d12 (Brutal) + 1d12(Half-orc Savage Attack) = 54.98 (remember GWF works on all Dice)

A Crit will occur about 19% of the time with Advantage

Damage assuming same 1 in 3 chance to crit is 54.98 + 18.33 + 18.33 = 91.64 damage in the round

Add more damage if the Druid hit you for 18.33 damage totaling = 109.97

We will assume you needed 2 ability score improvements to get your max str, so you have 2 feats. Give Great Weapon Master and Lucky. We have increased the chance of a crit to 27% and again assuming that AC is not challenging (especially with Lucky AND Advantage giving you extremely low chance of missing (less than 3% if you need an 8 or better to hit)) you can add 10 extra damage per hit, giving you a +30 to damage
Total = 121.64

But Wait!, we have not finished our crazy damage. If you knock the Druid out of wild shape by getting him to 0, you get another attack with your bonus action for 18.33 (+10 if you want) damage.

Now we feel the need to really blow the whole damage out. We shall use our Action Surge given to us by our Fighter levels for an Additional 2 attacks!
We will assume after all these that a second attack is a Crit for 54.98 and the other is normal for 18.33 for a total additional damage of 73.31 (of 93.31 if GWM is used for this)

We have not pushed out total damage up to 243.28 damage to the Druid.
We have given the Barbarian 6 attacks with a 27% chance to Crit for a single round of combat, after that he is back down to only ~133 damage.

I am not sure if this is a testimat to the Druids wild shape or a showing of how messed up Babarians can be but it is possible to severely damage a Druid in a round before they get a chance to wild shape again.

Notes: We will use all of the Lucky rolls but we will only use them if the Barbarian fails to hit with his Advantage attacks (before we 'know') OR when the number of possible attacks left is equal to the number of Luckies we have left.

[hawklost]

Per the PHB:



Those are the exact words. It seems pretty clear.

Edit: I concede there is some ambiguity, but I think it's decently straightforward. I would not accuse anyone ruling that the death status stays through the reversion as houseruling, but I think that's using a less straightforward interpretation.

The part that I got was the Special transformation rules, which state that if you revert from 0 HP you get damage overflow and use your Druid HP but nothing saying that Death is still not Death if your Animal Form somehow dies.

Death is a State that transcends HP. You are either Alive or Dead and if Alive, you have some number of HP.

[pwykersotz]

The part that I got was the Special transformation rules, which state that if you revert from 0 HP you get damage overflow and use your Druid HP but nothing saying that Death is still not Death if your Animal Form somehow dies.

Death is a State that transcends HP. You are either Alive or Dead and if Alive, you have some number of HP.

Which I concede is fair, but I feel goes too much by RAW and less by the spirit of the RAW.

I'm open to discussion on it though, so let's look at it this way. Say you're right and that you stay dead. Ignore the power of the capstone for a moment. Is it reasonable from a game perspective that a Wizard uses Power Word Kill on a level 19 Druid shifted into a squirrel and insta-kills him? After all, isn't preventing that kind of instant death the goal of keeping the HP totals explicitly seperate anyway?

[Surrealistik]

I don't understand what purpose is served in dreaming up niche, theoretical examples about how an ultra-specialized PC could possibly (and barely) penetrate the Druid's at-will obscene wall of HP (without buffs) save for exploring PvP oriented char op. It certainly doesn't ameliorate the fact that this feature is obviously broken.

Unless WotC has changed their max CR mobs substantially from the closed alpha, I can assure you that the Druid is more or less impervious to HP damage short of being basically dogpiled by several of them which is a real problem that is in no way diminished by corner cases. If you need multiple Tarrasques and L9 spells to injure a PC without him having utilized any potent, limited resources, that is a serious issue.

[Envyus]

Ok Lets test it with a Pit Fiend a Cr 20 Monster.

A Druids Wild shape has super sucky AC. So with +14 to hit the Pit Fiend is pretty much going to be always hitting.

Lets say the Druid has taken the form of a Giant Crocodile which has 14 ac and 85 hp.

The Pit Fiend deals 99 damage with average damage values and the Druid has to make a DC 21 Con save or he will take (average value) 21 poison damage each round until he saves and while poisoned he can't regain hit points.

The Pit Fiend can also use Hold monster on him to mash him into paste with him really not being able to do anything.

The Terrasque will be able to rip it apart even easier.

[Surrealistik]

As I recall there's a Giant Ape with 157 HP and a Mammoth with 126 HP.

Beyond that, a Druid has proficiency with Wisdom saves and undoubtedly a +5 Wisdom modifier vs Hold Monster to say nothing of Freedom of Movement which it has, and which is not a Concentration effect.

So no, neither will be able to rip it apart with casual ease when it's refreshing well over 100 HP every single turn.

[Envyus]

As I recall there's a Giant Ape with 157 HP and a Mammoth with 126 HP.

Beyond that, a Druid has proficiency with Wisdom saves and undoubtedly a +5 Wisdom modifier vs Hold Monster to say nothing of Freedom of Movement which it has, and which is not a Concentration effect.

So no, neither will be able to rip it apart with casual ease when it's refreshing well over 100 HP every single turn.

It doubtful it would have cast Freedom of Movement before it got in the fight with the Pit Fiend and The Pit Fiend can bring in wall of fire to increase the damage more combined with the fear aura it has.

Giant Ape is too High of a CR to turn into. Also Higher HP like that is worse in this case. The Pit Fiend won't be able to deplete all of the Hp in a single turn. However Druid won't be able to heal it's self so in the next turn the Pit Fiend would do way more damage to the Druid.

[hymer]

Yes, like Caelic pointed out earlier, save or die and auto win (diviner?) can best a druid, but i'm still convinced that one person's damage cannot.

Even so it is unlikely that he will be surprised by a rogue, since druids have access to foresight.

But as you are saying, two characters have a good chance to win if this druid refrains from casting spells.

What I was saying was mostly the first sentence: We don't know how much hp this is going to be. CR 6, it could be something like 70, and if that's from an elephant, it's probably not the most practical body to be prancing around in.
The rest is mostly to point out that the barbarian deals low-end, steady damage for a level 20 single-target melee. 2d6+7(str)+10(HWM)+4(rage) two or three times per round depending on specialization. He's gotten only slightly better since level 5 (2d6+3+10+2 two or three times), unless he crits (about 26.5% chance of that with three attacks per round and advantage). He's the rock to the moon druid's paper.

Edit: From a cursory look at the basic MM, it looks like an earth elemental would be the best defensive choice, if a moon druid wants to soak up a barbarian. It has 126 hp, but it attacks twice per round at +8, 2d8+5 damage. A 20th level barbarian should have an AC of 20 or so, resistance to damage and 285 hp. It'd be the right tool to safely dispose of a barbarian, if you have the 50+ rounds to spare it would take to do the job.

[Surrealistik]

It doubtful it would have cast Freedom of Movement before it got in the fight with the Pit Fiend and The Pit Fiend can bring in wall of fire to increase the damage more combined with the fear aura it has.

Why? FoM has an hour long duration and has no concentration component. Wall of Fire is not something that can readily and consistently comboed with attacks either unless the terrain is unusually conducive to this, dispel magic, protection from energy and other mitigating elements aside.


Also Higher HP like that is worse in this case. The Pit Fiend won't be able to deplete all of the Hp in a single turn. However Druid won't be able to heal it's self so in the next turn the Pit Fiend would do way more damage to the Druid.

?

The druid just transforms while in her injured beast form and gets a new massive pool of HP.

[Soras Teva Gee]

The druid just transforms while in her injured beast form and gets a new massive pool of HP.

Nope.

They spend a bonus action to revert. Wait a round. Change and get another (so far) no more the 126 average HP if they use Earth Elemental or the DM was nice enough to put a Mammoth somewhere.

Nothing in Wild Shape allows you to explicitly change while changed, indeed you are already benefiting from the class feature and it only allows you to revert on a bonus action and allows you to expend more to extend Wild Shape. That line about benefits of class can stuff itself and you can't turn off the benefit without reverting.

Compare and contrast Shapechange which allows it explicitly and plainly. (You can't regain HP with Shapechange though)

[Surrealistik]

Nope.

They spend a bonus action to revert. Wait a round. Change and get another (so far) no more the 126 average HP if they use Earth Elemental or the DM was nice enough to put a Mammoth somewhere.

Nothing in Wild Shape allows you to explicitly change while changed, indeed you are already benefiting from the class feature and it only allows you to revert on a bonus action and allows you to expend more to extend Wild Shape. That line about benefits of class can stuff itself and you can't turn off the benefit without reverting.

Compare and contrast Shapechange which allows it explicitly and plainly. (You can't regain HP with Shapechange though)

Where does it say you have to be in normal form to use Wild Shape to transform into a beast, or that you cannot use Wild Shape to transform into a beast form while in a beast form?

[Giant2005]

The thing is, against a single, strong target they are very capable (up to a limit). Against a bunch of weaker mobs, they are extremely fragile to the point that a Commoner with a shield in plate armor could be superior. If you are running around with virtually no protection other than a bucketload of renewable hitpoints, there is a threshold where a lot of weak monsters will overwhelm that regeneration and kill you. If you are something with a high enough AC that those monsters won't be doing any damage to you, you will outlast the Druid.

[zephirum]

Almost all of the classes have the potential to do more damage than that in a single round - if you are up against more than one critter, those HP aren't really going to count for much.

They can't do that much damage every round though. druid can bonus action for up to +126 hp every turn. The average damage of the strongest monsters in the manual isn't enough to do anything. due to damage resistance the average damage of a tarrasque against a druid in elemental form is 88. yep I'd say that if the strongest monster in the game can't kill you then its pretty broken.

at level 19 its a trick you can do one time if you don't spend your uses on the elemental shape. the problem is less that you can do it so much as you can do it forever.

I'd probably make it uses restore on initative roll and 1 min rest to regain uses. so the druid always has fresh shift in a combat and has effectively infinite use out of combat.
then set the base uses to 4 or 6 or whatever is the appropriate amount of times to do it in a single combat.

More elegant solution since I believe after having done some math that the whole thing is an exploit and not intended. I'd just say that all shapeshift forms share the same HP pool so if you shift from a 26 hp form to a 36 hp form you just gain 10 hp so if you took 10 damage and were at 16 of 26 hp you could shift to 26 of 36
if you only have 5 hp while in beast form left then you can't shift into a form with 5 less hp max than the current form. all the flexibility without any of the broken.

Druid then still has meaty hp and a large pool of personal spell healing and damage reduction/immunities of elemental form to keep him on par with other tanky builds just has AC as a concern but who knows how magic items might affect that. druid has incentive to maintain hp of shifted form also. could say that shape shift hp restores on a short rest when you would have got new uses of wild shape, or have the HD of the form is used to recover HP of the wild shape during rests. I'd go with that it restores on a short rest just cause I hate book keeping, and makes the pre-20 ability power more consistent with the at 20 power levels. Allow healing to be applied to the wild shape to get back into it.
with liberal use of self healing it takes 6ish turns for the Tarrasque to shred a druid with this which is consistent with the 285 hp damage resistance all of a 24 con bear barbarian. so in the ballpark of right.

compared to other class capstones RAW is pretty ludicrous
the ranger one is especially crap in comparison its at best +5 damage/turn. half the time its nothing due to favored enemy only, or the wizard... 1 free fireball wooo so epic.
barb illustrates how broken it is. at +40 hp max vs +126/round
yeah there is no way a 126 hp restore as a bonus action is intended.

only one that comes close to the power of archdruid is divine intervention from the cleric and that is totally role-play fodder and still super limited in how much you can use it.

[Surrealistik]

On top of their massive and refreshing HP buffer (which will probably be non-trivial for hordes of weaker mobs to hit, and will require a lot of hits to take down) they still have their medium armour and shield proficiencies for respectable AC, besides whatever defensive buffs they might have, a 1d8 hit dice, and plenty of crowd control.

Why are hordes of trash mobs a druid killer?

EDIT: Ninjaed.

And yeah, totally forgot about Earth Elementals; 126 HP, 17 AC (there goes AC triviality), resist physical vs non-magical weaponry, immunity to paralysis, poison(ing), and unconsciousness.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Where does it say you have to be in normal form to use Wild Shape to transform into a beast, or that you cannot use Wild Shape to transform into a beast form while in a beast form?

The initial rules part provides for transforming as an action, only allows reverting via a bonus action, and allows you to extend Wild Shape past duration for another use. Nothing in there about Wild Shaping while you are Wild Shaped.

You have to sneak it in via the line about retaining the class benefits... but here the benefit is already in play because you are Wild Shaping and what you can do with that benefit has already been described.

So its a purely unsupported made up capability from munchkin interpreting the rules as written.

[hymer]

due to damage resistance the average damage of a tarrasque against a druid in elemental form is 88.

Wow, where did you find stats on the tarrasque?

[Sartharina]

Anything that can shred Moon Druid can shred a full non-druid party even easier. A 100HP/Round Buffer is not something to be scoffed at.
Wow, where did you find stats on the tarrasque?They've been released. Look back a few pages in this forum.

Found the thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?366432-The-Tarrasque)

[Surrealistik]

The initial rules part provides for transforming as an action, only allows reverting via a bonus action, and allows you to extend Wild Shape past duration for another use. Nothing in there about Wild Shaping while you are Wild Shaped.

You have to sneak it in via the line about retaining the class benefits... but here the benefit is already in play because you are Wild Shaping and what you can do with that benefit has already been described.

So its a purely unsupported made up capability from munchkin interpreting the rules as written.

Yes, you can transform as an action (and as a bonus action with Circle of the Moon), and revert as a bonus action... but there are absolutely no prerequisites or specific conditions beyond that action cost which must be satisfied to use Wild Shape to transform aside from having the feature (and of course the CR/'having seen' restrictions which are immaterial to this argument).

The RAW in no way opposes or prevents using Wild Shape to transform while already transformed via Wild Shape.



Anything that can shred Moon Druid can shred a full non-druid party even easier. A 100HP/Round Buffer is not something to be scoffed at.They've been released. Look back a few pages in this forum.

126 HP/17 AC/phys resist and poison/paralysis immune buffer.

[Giant2005]

Why are hordes of trash mobs a druid killer?
My bad, I thought I explained it better than I obviously did.
Because the Druid's Wild Shaped AC is so ridiculously low, those minions that wouldn't normally scratch a well-armored opponent would have a field day. Even if each one only averages 6 damage a hit, it would take 21 of them to take out that HP buffer.
If someone else is armored enough that those minions can only hit on a natural 20 and they have disadvantage on attacks, then there is only a 0.35% of each one hitting - even with 21 of them making an attack, it is likely that the well-armored person will be walking away without a scratch.
Those 21 minions are only enough to kill the Wildshape and essentially do nothing to the Druid too but as you add more of them, the Druid will be taking real damage while the other guy is still comfortable.

[Surrealistik]

My bad, I thought I explained it better than I obviously did.
Because the Druid's Wild Shaped AC is so ridiculously low, those minions that wouldn't normally scratch a well-armored opponent would have a field day. Even if each one only averages 6 damage a hit, it would take 21 of them to take out that HP buffer.
If someone else is armored enough that those minions can only hit on a natural 20 and they have disadvantage on attacks, then there is only a 0.35% of each one hitting - even with 21 of them making an attack, it is likely that the well-armored person will be walking away without a scratch.
Those 21 minions are only enough to kill the Wildshape and essentially do nothing to the Druid too but as you add more of them, the Druid will be taking real damage while the other guy is still comfortable.

Did you read the rest of my post?

And that's not even getting into the Earth Elemental's 17 AC and phys resistance.

[zephirum]

Ok Lets test it with a Pit Fiend a Cr 20 Monster.

A Druids Wild shape has super sucky AC. So with +14 to hit the Pit Fiend is pretty much going to be always hitting.

Lets say the Druid has taken the form of a Giant Crocodile which has 14 ac and 85 hp.

The Pit Fiend deals 99 damage with average damage values and the Druid has to make a DC 21 Con save or he will take (average value) 21 poison damage each round until he saves and while poisoned he can't regain hit points.

The Pit Fiend can also use Hold monster on him to mash him into paste with him really not being able to do anything.

The Terrasque will be able to rip it apart even easier.

except errr wrong elemental shape means shift tons of damage reductions and immunities so cut it in half and there isn't any poison damage. the full 5 attacks of a terrasque only come out to 88 average after damage reduction. as in not enough for infinite wild shape druid to even feel.

[Surrealistik]

except errr wrong elemental shape means shift tons of damage reductions and immunities so cut it in half and there isn't any poison damage. the full 5 attacks of a terrasque only come out to 88 average after damage reduction. as in not enough for infinite wild shape druid to even feel.

Yeah, Fire and Earth Elementals pretty well scoff at the Pit Fiend.

[hymer]

Anything that can shred Moon Druid can shred a full non-druid party even easier. A 100HP/Round Buffer is not something to be scoffed at.They've been released. Look back a few pages in this forum.

Found the thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?366432-The-Tarrasque)

Thanks! Looks like the tarrasque is flying creature fodder as usual. :smallfrown: But yeah, it'd be in trouble taking down a 20th level moon druid.

[Giant2005]

Where are you guys getting the stats of all of these monsters like the Terrasque and the Pit Fiend?

[Soras Teva Gee]

Yes, you can transform as an action (and as a bonus action with Circle of the Moon), and revert as a bonus action... but there are absolutely no prerequisites or specific conditions beyond that action cost which must be satisfied to use Wild Shape to transform aside from having the feature (and of course the CR/'having seen' restrictions which are immaterial to this argument).

The RAW in no way opposes or prevents using Wild Shape to transform while already transformed via Wild Shape.


Moon only modifies the action to transform but is not actually relevant to the question

RAW would in contrast be Shapechange which allows it explicitly and describes how that works

This is RAI by yourself.

Your DM allows it nobody can really complain since they went off the reservation on their own ticket.

[zephirum]

Wow, where did you find stats on the tarrasque?

early previews of monsters, sphinx, umber hulk, and the entire red dragon family are out also.... I havn't seen the pit fiend but there are monster manuals in the wild from gen con. Bone Devil is around though.

I originally did all my analysis against ancient red dragon since tarrasque isn't really meant to be fought legitimatly. Ancient red in its lair worked out to average real damage of 2 over the HP of a mammoth shift meaning the druid could sit and shift in and out every turn and it would take 242 rounds to for ancient red to kill it. given the druid can still use mass heal 1 time as a complete heal. Then I noticed elementals and damage reduction ancient red dragon's average damage droped from 128 to 37. as in the druid only needs to reshift hp every 4 rounds. as in without the HP refresh the ability is still pretty crazy powerful. So I think doing reshifts for HP is an unintended exploit since it makes an ancient red dragon trivial otherwise.

[Surrealistik]

Moon only modifies the action to transform but is not actually relevant to the question

RAW would in contrast be Shapechange which allows it explicitly and describes how that works


Shapechange is separate and distinct from Wild Shape; they are different game elements and thus work in separate and distinct ways despite overlap and common themes/aspects. The RAW of one does not in any way restrict or otherwise impose upon the RAW of the other; Shapechange doesn't set any kind of binding precedent on how Wild Shape functions, or how it must be worded in order to allow transforming using Wild Shape while already transformed with that feature.

By the actual RAW reading of Wild Shape as it stands you are perfectly able to transform using it while already transformed.

Even if we assumed you were right though, it's still clearly far too strong.


Finally, and most importantly, I think it's pretty well a given at this point that the Druid capstone is blatantly and massively overpowered given the way it is able to trivialize high CR monsters at will and thus warrants nerfing.

[hymer]

Finally, and most importantly, I think it's pretty well a given at this point that the Druid capstone is blatantly and massively overpowered given the way it is able to trivialize high CR monsters at will and thus warrants nerfing.

I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't bigger things at stake. Looking at the red dragon, for instance, it should expect to do something like 30 hp of damage against a 17th level barbarian (it's CR 17, +14 to-hit, 66 physical damage which is halved (before accounting for hitting), 7 fire damage which may be halved, against an AC around 20). It'd take something like seven rounds to kill him focusing entirely on him (about 209 hp; 16d12+80 and 12+5 for level 1). It seems it should be fairly trivial for a 17th level party to bring the dragon down before this could happen, and they could of course heal the barbarian during the fight.

This should be about right, of course, the red dragon should be a fair encounter against a level 17 party. But there could be 3 of those dragons pouncing on the barbarian, and he might well survive the first round.

[zephirum]

Nothing in Wild Shape allows you to explicitly change while changed, indeed you are already benefiting from the class feature and it only allows you to revert on a bonus action and allows you to expend more to extend Wild Shape. That line about benefits of class can stuff itself and you can't turn off the benefit without reverting.

Compare and contrast Shapechange which allows it explicitly and plainly. (You can't regain HP with Shapechange though)

nothing says you can't and nothing says you can. RAW don't have anything to say on the matter. The rules for shapechange have nothing to tell us about the rules for Wild Shape.

its also irrelevent since even with the second strongest monster I have stats on an ancient red dragon the process takes a single bonus action every 4 rounds to maintain full health.

[Mandrake]

IMO +1 for Surrealistik's arguments (and other dudes too); -1 for game balance.
(Not to start edition wars, I like them all, but this is exactly why I prefer 4e.)

If we could some it up it is like this:

1) There is no reason for PC damage calculus, because DnD isn't PvP and an NPC or MON isn't a PC. Also, it seems that even PCs would have trouble dropping the guy flat, and that's just while he's standing around, unlease they specialize in some sorts.
2) There are no monsters that can threaten him, unless you take out your biggest guns and even then, just maybe. Specifically, what level 20 DMing becomes is well-fishing for situational and specific ways to harm the druid, which kind of ruins the fun (speaking as a DM).
3) It is, still, a level 20 ability. It only works for that one last adventure, if you consider campaign play. But not everyone is always campaign playing and starting at 1, ending at full 20 xp.

I don't like it and it's a broken bicycle.

[zephirum]

I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't bigger things at stake. Looking at the red dragon, for instance, it should expect to do something like 30 hp of damage against a 17th level barbarian (it's CR 17, +14 to-hit, 66 physical damage which is halved (before accounting for hitting), 7 fire damage which may be halved, against an AC around 20). It'd take something like seven rounds to kill him focusing entirely on him (about 209 hp; 16d12+80 and 12+5 for level 1). It seems it should be fairly trivial for a 17th level party to bring the dragon down before this could happen, and they could of course heal the barbarian during the fight.

This should be about right, of course, the red dragon should be a fair encounter against a level 17 party. But there could be 3 of those dragon pouncing on the barbarian, and he might well survive the first round.

true the monsters feel a little undertuned here, might just be a problem with damage reduction abilities. since they scale so well as half damage. with lair and ledgendary actions its down to 3 turns to kill the barbarian. Bear totem barbarian is particularly troublesome as its vs all but psychic. Barbarian also probably only has a 15% chance to save out of frightful presence so there's that. You can take the berserker path and get rage breaks fear but then you don't have DR against fire. I wouldn't want to go against one without a druid/cleric/bard/paladin to help the rest of the party make the saves. but your party probably has one. I'd have to actually play it but yar it seems that 17th level party would have and easier time than expected against CR 17 boss monster. meh thats for another thread.

I assumed the druid could realiable make a wise save with some magic use - you only have to save it once an your immune

[hymer]

true the monsters feel a little undertuned here, might just be a problem with damage reduction abilities. since they scale so well as half damage. with lair and ledgendary actions its down to 3 turns to kill the barbarian.

I wasn't counting lair. The only damaging effect there can be used once every other turn, 6d6 fire damage, half damage on a save, and half again if we're talking bear totem. So I just took the fight outside, I didn't think it'd matter too much.
For legendary, I was going for one on one, so the dragon was just tail slapping the barbarian. But then I dropped that for further discussion, so my bad there.

[ambartanen]

Finally, and most importantly, I think it's pretty well a given at this point that the Druid capstone is blatantly and massively overpowered given the way it is able to trivialize high CR monsters at will and thus warrants nerfing.

Well, the cleric gets to ask any favor of their god and have it granted immediately so the druid capstone is only the second best capstone ability. It is better than the others though which seem to vary between useful and very situational.

Someone in the forum posted that cartoon... let me find it. So, yes, whoever wrote this capstone was probably inspired by this cartoon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKpS4A2SkII) but didn't consider the consequences.

I would be happy changing this to resemble the monk capstone: When you roll initiative and you have no uses of the wild shape ability remaining, you regain one use. The problem is that the capstone is vastly more useful to moon druids than Land druids which is just bad design.

[Ursus the Grim]

This is RAI by yourself.


Just to beat this horse a bit longer:

You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so.
Emphasis mine. Wild Shape is a feature of your class. The only way this could be more RAW is if it said "yes, even Wild Shape" there.


The problem is that the capstone is vastly more useful to moon druids than Land druids which is just bad design.

Its definitely not terrible for Land druids, though, because of the synergy of the other features.


Land Druids have weaker shapes, so being able to reset their hp constantly is arguably of more use.
They have better spells to utilize while taking advantage of Beast Spells, and more of them.
Land's Stride and Nature's Ward carry over while Wild Shaped, so they are unhampered and immune to poison and disease in any of their Wild Shapes.


Not saying its a balanced capstone, I just don't think people should be counting out the Circle of the Land.

[hymer]

Just to beat this horse a bit longer:


You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so.

Emphasis mine. I wouldn't rule that against the druid, but I doubt all DMs will agree that whatever it is that is Wild Shape is is something your beast form is capable of. Wolves are generally physically incapable of turning into bears.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Not even really needed, your in Wild Shape every turn your using it so you are indeed getting the benefits of the ability, its already "on" as it were.

[Mandrake]

Maybe we should write a mail to WotC and ask them.

[Ursus the Grim]

Emphasis mine. I wouldn't rule that against the druid, but I doubt all DMs will agree that whatever it is that is Wild Shape is is something your beast form is capable of. Wolves are generally physically incapable of turning into bears.

1. Generally, yes. Likewise, though, humans are generally physically incapable of turning into wolves. By RAW, however, they can. It says 'physically'. Not 'naturally.' That's not just semantics, that's a clear and distinct difference. I think you mentioned that you wouldn't rule against the druid because you agree with me, but still wanted to keep this open for discussion. I appreciate that.

2. To dance back into RAI, if your interpretation were true, the A) spellcasting clause would be redundant. Bears can't physically cast spells, so pointing it out specifically would be a waste of ink and B) Nearly all features would be unusable. Bears can't physically pass through thorn bushes without a scratch, after all. One could argue that Beast Spells also wouldn't apply, as the clause in question is a subclause of a feature, and beast spells is 'merely' a feature. Specific and general rules and all. Stupid interpretation, but thats the slippery slope the RAI argument is on at the moment.

Regarding Wild Shape being 'On': That would be a fair interpretation. However, if we operate under the assumption that you're right on Rules as Interpreted, it would be stupid to say 'revert', as opposed to 'end'. End implies duration, which would be what they wanted, as you see it, no? Revert suggests a toggle. Action to switch one way, bonus action to switch back.

Again, we're going down a direction that would result in some idiot (probably me) arguing that nothing says you can't activate something again while under the first duration. You would be 'overlapping' abilities, replacing the first with. . . .

Bad Ursus! Bad Ursus!

[Sartharina]

Well, the cleric gets to ask any favor of their god and have it granted immediately.At the whim of a DM.
"Oh most beneficent lord, save us from this dragon!"

Here, ye mighty cleric! Strike the dragon down with This Herring!

[TripleD]

I haven't read through the Druid section yet, but are Druids in wildshape vulnerable to "Dominate Beast"?

With an advantage on a wisdom-throw it's probably a moot point, but since DB is several levels lower than the other dominates, an enemy spellcaster could use it multiple times, which ups the chance of the Druid's luck running out.

[Sartharina]

My fix to the druid capstone would be to put it in line with the Battlemaster and Monk capstones - When you roll initiative and have no uses of Wild Shape left, regain a use of Wild Shape.

[Gnomes2169]

My fix to the druid capstone would be to put it in line with the Battlemaster and Monk capstones - When you roll initiative and have no uses of Wild Shape left, regain a use of Wild Shape.

I would then buff the battle master to "Regains 4 of his superiority dice" and monk to "Regains 8 points of ki"... But that's just me, maybe. :P

[hymer]

I haven't read through the Druid section yet, but are Druids in wildshape vulnerable to "Dominate Beast"?

With an advantage on a wisdom-throw it's probably a moot point, but since DB is several levels lower than the other dominates, an enemy spellcaster could use it multiple times, which ups the chance of the Druid's luck running out.

This is not exactly crystal clear. Does 'beast' in the spell description refer to the game term? Do 'statistics' from wild shape language include type? So this will in the end be up to the DM.
Even so, once battle is joined, there's that advantage to the saving throw, so there's probably better things to do with those spell slots than trying to get past a proficient high-stat save, even if it is save or lose in a fourth level slot.

[Envyus]

On top of their massive and refreshing HP buffer (which will probably be non-trivial for hordes of weaker mobs to hit, and will require a lot of hits to take down) they still have their medium armour and shield proficiencies for respectable AC, besides whatever defensive buffs they might have, a 1d8 hit dice, and plenty of crowd control.

Why are hordes of trash mobs a druid killer?

EDIT: Ninjaed.

And yeah, totally forgot about Earth Elementals; 126 HP, 17 AC (there goes AC triviality), resist physical vs non-magical weaponry, immunity to paralysis, poison(ing), and unconsciousness.

Pit Fiend still crushes it. Thats not enough AC to to assure misses and it's attacks all count as magic.

[Surrealistik]

Pit Fiend still crushes it. Thats not enough AC to to assure misses and it's attacks all count as magic.

No it doesn't:

Mace: (15 + 21)*.8 (hit chance) = 28.8
+ Claw: 12 * .8 = 9.6
+ Bite 15 *.8 = 12
+ Tail: 12 * .8 = 10.4
= 60.8 damage.

Hell, let's also add a tick from Wall of Fire for good measure: +36

Total damage: 96.8 of 126 HP.

Earth Elemental just big trucks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJgdHvKz2_Q&feature=player_detailpage#t=5) right on through all of the Pit Fiend's attacks and fire wall support like it's nothing.

And then there's the Fire Elemental which is immune to pretty well all of its fire spells and its bonus fire damage; it only loses 44 of its 102 HP .

Both are totally immune to Hold Monster and poison.

Either form makes an absolute chump out of the Pit Fiend.

[TripleD]

This is not exactly crystal clear. Does 'beast' in the spell description refer to the game term? Do 'statistics' from wild shape language include type? So this will in the end be up to the DM.
Even so, once battle is joined, there's that advantage to the saving throw, so there's probably better things to do with those spell slots than trying to get past a proficient high-stat save, even if it is save or lose in a fourth level slot.

I figured it would be DM Fiat. Just thought it would be interesting and flavorful if the disadvantage (if any) of the capstone was tied into the mental disadvantage of being an animal.

[Envyus]

No it doesn't:

Mace: (15 + 21)*.8 (hit chance) = 28.8
+ Claw: 12 * .8 = 9.6
+ Bite 15 *.8 = 12
+ Tail: 12 * .8 = 10.4
= 60.8 damage.

Hell, let's also add a tick from Wall of Fire for good measure: +36

Total damage: 96.8 of 126 HP.

Earth Elemental just big trucks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJgdHvKz2_Q&feature=player_detailpage#t=5) right on through all of the Pit Fiend's attacks and fire wall support like it's nothing.

And then there's the Fire Elemental which is immune to pretty well all of its fire spells and its bonus fire damage; it only loses 44 of its 102 HP .

Both are totally immune to Hold Monster and poison.

Either form makes an absolute chump out of the Pit Fiend.

Including the the .8 is super pointless. It's going to miss once or twice the entire fight. The math does not work there. When the Pit Fiend does its round of damage the creature druid will be weakened to the point he won't be able to withstand a 2nd round of attacks from the Pit Fiend. The Fiend will then start pounding him into mush the fallowing round and he will start taking poison damage when his form is reverted.

[Surrealistik]

Including the the .8 is super pointless. It's going to miss once or twice the entire fight. The math does not work there. When the Pit Fiend does its round of damage the creature druid will be weakened to the point he won't be able to withstand a 2nd round of attacks from the Pit Fiend. The Fiend will then start pounding him into mush the fallowing round and he will start taking poison damage when his form is reverted.

No.

Even if you ignore the miss chance (which is silly), it's still 111 of 126 HP for the Earth Elemental, and 54 of 102 HP for the Fire Elemental.

The Pit Fiend does its damage and fails to power through the elemental form HP.

On his turn the Druid just uses another Bonus Action to fully replenish his HP buffer via shifting; the Pit Fiend is back to square one.

[zephirum]

Well, the cleric gets to ask any favor of their god and have it granted immediately so the druid capstone is only the second best capstone ability. It is better than the others though which seem to vary between useful and very situational.

Someone in the forum posted that cartoon... let me find it. So, yes, whoever wrote this capstone was probably inspired by this cartoon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKpS4A2SkII) but didn't consider the consequences.

I would be happy changing this to resemble the monk capstone: When you roll initiative and you have no uses of the wild shape ability remaining, you regain one use. The problem is that the capstone is vastly more useful to moon druids than Land druids which is just bad design.

restore on initiative was my first instinct but the type of gameplay and utility illustrated by that cartoon is something I'd like players to be able to do. the problem is just that it functions as an hp reset everytime you shift. I'd just make the damage carry over from one form to the next
so if you get firebreathed for 70 damage as an earth elemental the player can go ok better shift to fire ele, but your still at 70 less hp than than normal. run out of HP then you can't wild shape again without directing healing at the form,

hp reset button just feels like a exploit in every way the ability is plenty powerful without it. even a single time feels to big. without the reset for a moon druid its oh I always have elemental form and always of the right type, and for a land it's a huge mobility increase to stay out of danger. big perks but not game breakers.

you could try to leave it in for a land druid if you want, the best CR 1 beast could probably be shreded right through and the form will be used the same way mostly as utility and mobility. its a lot of HP padding for a caster character though and still feels unintended to me.

brown bear, dire wolf, giant eagle, giant hyena, giant octopus, giant spider,giant toad, giant vulture, lion, tiger are the CR 1 beasts I got from a once through for the land druid, giant hyena and dire wolf looked the most durable offhand, 45hp AC 12 or 37 hp AC 14, small enough hp that the AC still matters,

thats the equivalent of infinite lvl 7 cure wounds. pfff calling that to powerful. nope no hp reset for the land druid either.

[Prophes0r]

@Surrealistik - I just don't understand how you cannot see how single minded you are being. You keep restating this 'problem' as if it is one that applies to every single druid, in every single game. Then you use that as a justification to propose a change that would effect all characters who choose to play this class.

As to the PWK debate. Remember that having HP is not what makes you alive. Being alive is what makes you alive. Even if you do rule that reverting to your natural form restores you to the HP you had before, you would still be dead if you were killed by a death effect. You would just be a pristine corpse.

[Sartharina]

Actually, Surrealistick's right. As it is, Wildshape is a broken HP buffer. Having it be uncapped the way it is makes it go from "Useful" to "WTF?!"

[Envyus]

No.

Even if you ignore the miss chance (which is silly), it's still 111 of 126 HP for the Earth Elemental, and 54 of 102 HP for the Fire Elemental.

The Pit Fiend does its damage and fails to power through the elemental form HP.

On his turn the Druid just uses another Bonus Action to fully replenish his HP buffer via shifting; the Pit Fiend is back to square one.

However I am on the side of the person that interprets the rule that you can't wild shape while in beast form. I agree the power is still too good, but under this interpretation it can still be beaten.

[Ehcks]

If your character is regaining all of their hit points on every turn, what you've done is made yourself a punching bag. Any DM seeing that will send a monster that doesn't care about your HP and simply disables you.

Yes, RAW often lets you make an infinitely overpowered whatever you want, but that doesn't actually work because D&D isn't designed to be played as-written. Mostly because it can't be, which is the point.

[Malifice]

I haven't really paid too much attention to higher level abilities since I don't anticipate ever using them but it seems a 20th level fighter can use nine attacks in one turn to actually burn through the druid's animal form and deal quite a bit of damage to the character.

Yeah, pretty much this.

Its actually reasonably easy for a similar level (20) character to simply batter down the druid (chewing into his 'real' HP). A Mastodon has 125 odd HP and its one of the stronger forms to morph into at high level. It only gets the one attack, and an equal level fighter could soak up quite a lot of hits from it while double action surging around 200 DPR for a few rounds. Damage overflow going to the Druids real HP.

Its a protracted fight though.

Also there are weaknesses to wildshaping. Increased vulnerability Sleep and the Power word spells for one.

[Caelic]

I'd argue that the mere existence of the "sacrifice a spell slot to heal as a bonus action while in beast form" at least strongly implies that you can't shift from beast form to the same beast form while in combat--if you could, why would you ever need or use the ability to burn spell slots to heal? You'd just reassume the same beast form and replenish your hit points to full.

[Malifice]

I'd argue that the mere existence of the "sacrifice a spell slot to heal as a bonus action while in beast form" at least strongly implies that you can't shift from beast form to the same beast form while in combat--if you could, why would you ever need or use the ability to burn spell slots to heal? You'd just reassume the same beast form and replenish your hit points to full.

Even the Druid 20 has a problem with damage overflow - it goes onto his 'real' hit points. And he needs to use a bonus action to either heal himself or to shift forms again.

So batter the druid (in wildshape form) down to negative HP. He shifts hack to human form on 0 HP and takes the overflow to his real HP. He continues to take any damage on his 'real' HP until he can use a bonus action to shift again.

And if he shifts on his turn, he cant heal himself (as he has used his bonus action).

Batter the crap out of him again.

Seeing as the wildshape forms have around 125 HP max (which isnt that much at 20th level), the ability doesnt make the Druid unkillable, it just makes him a massive HP sink. You literally have to wail on him for a minute or two (unless you get lucky).

In play, i dont think its as OP as people suggest.

[Sartharina]

I'd argue that the mere existence of the "sacrifice a spell slot to heal as a bonus action while in beast form" at least strongly implies that you can't shift from beast form to the same beast form while in combat--if you could, why would you ever need or use the ability to burn spell slots to heal? You'd just reassume the same beast form and replenish your hit points to full.Because your level's <20? Only level 20 druids have this problem, and it's a doozy.

[Surrealistik]

However I am on the side of the person that interprets the rule that you can't wild shape while in beast form. I agree the power is still too good, but under this interpretation it can still be beaten.

The RAW is pretty well unambiguous on this, and his interpretation is incorrect. Swapping from form to form as a Bonus Action is absolutely legal; Shapechange's RAW does not dictate or determine Wild Shape's RAW, which is effectively the body of his argument.



Even the Druid 20 has a problem with damage overflow - it goes onto his 'real' hit points. And he needs to use a bonus action to either heal himself or to shift forms again.

So batter the druid (in wildshape form) down to negative HP. He shifts hack to human form on 0 HP and takes the overflow to his real HP. He continues to take any damage on his 'real' HP until he can use a bonus action to shift again.

And if he shifts on his turn, he cant heal himself (as he has used his bonus action).

Batter the crap out of him again.

Seeing as the wildshape forms have around 125 HP max (which isnt that much at 20th level), the ability doesnt make the Druid unkillable, it just makes him a massive HP sink. You literally have to wail on him for a minute or two (unless you get lucky).

In play, i dont think its as OP as people suggest.

Fighters can't really penetrate 126 HP with 17 AC (the Earth Elemental form) without:

A: Being specialized for damage dealing. That means a 2d6 magical weapon + 5 Strength mod + Great Weapon Fighting Style + Great Weapon Master

B: Blowing all of its action surges to attack on the same turn.

C: The Druid having no defensive buffs like Foresight or Stoneskin active.

Even then it only barely overcomes that 126 HP buffer, and after that, with all action surges spent, there's no way for even this fighter to hew through the recurring mountains of HP the Druid will field.

But even if it could, damage optimized level 20 Fighters engaging in PvP is not and should be the metric by how we judge the balance of an element. The fact that a Pit Fiend and Tarrasque are both powerless to penetrate the Druid's recurring wall of HP clearly indicates a balance issue. In PvE this ability is flat out broken, and there's no way to deal with it short of constantly throwing monsters with save or suck/save or dies that the Druid can't protect himself against (in which case you better hope the rest of the party can unless you'd like to chance a TPK; unlikely given the Druid has access to several potent defensive spells including Foresight).

[Malifice]

Fighters can't really penetrate 126 HP with 17 AC (the Earth Elemental form) without:

A: Being specialized for damage dealing. That means a 2d6 magical weapon + 5 Strength mod + Great Weapon Fighting Style + Great Weapon Master

B: Blowing all of its action surges to attack on the same turn.

C: The Druid having no defensive buffs like Foresight or Stoneskin active.

A magic weapon overcomes Stoneskin and Elemental reisistances (and we can safely assume our 20th level Fighter has a +1 sword at the very least).

Assuming a Strength of 20, +1 sword, and GWM switched on, our fighter is hitting AC 17 with a 55 percent accuracy.

A battlemaster Fighter with Action surge is spamming 2d6+1d12 (superiority) + 5 strength +1 (Sword) +10 GWM damage a hit - rerolling 1's and 2's.

Around an average of 31 damage per hit with an average of 5 hits (action surging). Criticals (or slightly above average rolling or advanatage) throws these numbers up a bit.

He can whittle the Druid down. Remember, the Druids melee attacks arent going to worry the Fighter too much.

You get comparable numbers with Champion Fighter, however you are relying on Crit Fishing a lot more - but you also get Champion Regeneratation at half HP. Mastodons and Earth Elementals do like 25 damage per attack, once a round, so its going to take a lot of beating down in return from the Druid to kill the Fighter also.


Even then it only barely overcomes that 126 HP buffer, and after that, with all action surges spent, there's no way for even this fighter to hew through the recurring mountains of HP the Druid will field.

The Druid cant jump from beast form to beast form as a bonus action. The text of wild shape reads that he has to change to human form (as a bonus action) first (or be knocked back into human form by having his beast HP reduced to zero).

[Surrealistik]

A magic weapon overcomes Stoneskin and Elemental reisistances (and we can safely assume our 20th level Fighter has a +1 sword at the very least).

Assuming a Strength of 20, +1 sword, and GWM switched on, our fighter is hitting AC 17 with a 55 percent accuracy.

A battlemaster Fighter with Action surge is spamming 2d6+1d12 (superiority) + 5 strength +1 (Sword) +10 GWM damage a hit - rerolling 1's and 2's.

Around an average of 31 damage per hit with an average of 5 hits (action surging). Criticals (or slightly above average rolling or advanatage) throws these numbers up a bit.

He can whittle the Druid down. Remember, the Druids melee attacks arent going to worry the Fighter too much.

You get comparable numbers with Champion Fighter, however you are relying on Crit Fishing a lot more - but you also get Champion Regeneratation at half HP. Mastodons and Earth Elementals do like 25 damage per attack, once a round, so its going to take a lot of beating down in return from the Druid to kill the Fighter also.

First of all, Stoneskin is unconditional resistance to physical damage; it's halved, period. There's no penetrating it.

EDIT: Changed from the closed alpha; a change I'm glad for.

Further, here's the rough math for the fighter I mentioned using all of his surges in a nova vs AC 17

(4.5*2+15) (2d6 weapon with GMW and GWF rerolls) *.5 (accuracy mod) *12 (number of attacks) = 144

Let's assume he's a battlemaster and also drops all of his dice, adding another 6d12 damage to that for a total of 183 damage.

This Druid has 126 buffer HP and a Con mod of 3 for 163 HP, dealing 57 damage through the buffer and leaving him with 106 HP.

With a +1 weapon you're dealing 204 damage ((4.5*2+16)*.55*12+6.5*6)

Even if it's a +3 weapon, you're still only dealing 249.6 damage ((4.5*2+18)*.65*12+6.5*6)

Neither is enough to drop the Druid in a single turn with its 289 effective total HP.

After that your per round damage output ranges from approximately 48 (+0 magical weapon) to 70.2 (+3 magical weapon); not nearly enough to hew through the Earth Elemental's recurring 126 HP buffer.

Underscoring all of this of course is the complete inanity of trying (and failing) to downplay how powerful and broken this ability is by bringing relatively optimized PvP circumstances into play when this is predominantly a PvE game, and no monster can hope to consistently penetrate the EE HP buffer.



The Druid cant jump from beast form to beast form as a bonus action. The text of wild shape reads that he has to change to human form (as a bonus action) first (or be knocked back into human form by having his beast HP reduced to zero).

Yes he can. There is absolutely nothing by the RAW saying he cannot change from beast form to beast form; literally nothing. If you disagree, I would appreciate a quotation.

[Giant2005]

In PvE this ability is flat out broken, and there's no way to deal with it short of constantly throwing monsters with save or suck/save or dies that the Druid can't protect himself against (in which case you better hope the rest of the party can unless you'd like to chance a TPK; unlikely given the Druid has access to several potent defensive spells including Foresight).

Or as already mentioned in the thread, a horde of weaker monsters.

People always talk about balance as if it is a massive issue and it is an issue - it is something successful game designers must strive to avoid. True balance is un-achievable without everyone being exact clones of each other and even getting close to that metric is an extreme failure.
Every successful game strives for what is known as "perfect imbalance". Perfect Imbalance is the effect where everyone is equally strong but at different things much like a more advanced system of rock, paper, scissors. When it comes to damage dealing, caster types have a massive advantage against groups of multiple enemies and non-casters have the advantage against a single but powerful enemy. That is how the game was designed to meet the needs of perfect imbalance on that facet.
This thread has highlighted how the game designers have attempted to achieve perfect imbalance on the defensive facet and they have taken the opposite route. The Druid is exceptional at tanking against a single, powerful enemy but weak to a horde or lesser enemies. The more heavily armored non-caster is the opposite - defensively, they are very vulnerable to a single powerful enemy but can face off against a horde with barely a scratch (if harmed at all).

[Surrealistik]

Or as already mentioned in the thread, a horde of weaker monsters.

I've already refuted that; you didn't actually respond to my counterpoints on the matter.

[Mr.Moron]

If you find it problematic, I think the least invasive patch would be something like


"~ You can use wild shape without expending a normal use of your wild shape ability, you can even use wild shape if you have no uses of wild shape left. When you use wild shape without expending a use you do not gain the hit point value of your new form ~ If your current hit points exceed your new forms maximum your hit points are reduced to your new maximum. If you revert to your original form you retain your current hit point value. When you are reduced to zero hp, you revert to your original form with 1 hit point remaining ~ these restrictions only apply when using wild shape without expending a normal use ~"

With some editing, and better formatting of course.

[Giant2005]

First of all, Stoneskin is unconditional resistance to physical damage; it's halved, period. There's no penetrating it.

Further, here's the rough math for the fighter I mentioned using all of his surges in a nova vs AC 17

(4.5*2+15) (2d6 weapon with GMW and GWF rerolls) *.5 (accuracy mod) *12 (number of attacks) = 144

Let's assume he's a battlemaster and also drops all of his dice, adding another 6d12 damage to that for a total of 183 damage.

This Druid has 126 buffer HP and a Con mod of 3 for 163 HP, dealing 57 damage through the buffer and leaving him with 106 HP.

With a +1 weapon you're dealing 204 damage ((4.5*2+16)*.55*12+6.5*6)

Even if it's a +3 weapon, you're still only dealing 249.6 damage ((4.5*2+18)*.65*12+6.5*6)

Neither is enough to drop the Druid in a single turn with its 289 effective total HP.

After that your per round damage output ranges from approximately 48 (+0 magical weapon) to 70.2 (+3 magical weapon); not nearly enough to hew through the Earth Elemental's recurring 126 HP buffer.

With Stoneskin of course, even in the best case scenario with a +3 weapon and all of the Fighter's Superiority Dice spent, he won't be able to deal enough damage to even destroy the buffer HP!

Underscoring all of this of course is the complete inanity of trying (and failing) to downplay how powerful and broken this ability is by bringing relatively optimized PvP circumstances into play when this is predominantly a PvE game, and no monster can hope to consistently penetrate the EE HP buffer.




Yes he can. There is absolutely nothing by the RAW saying he cannot change from beast form to beast form; literally nothing. If you disagree, I would appreciate a quotation.

Your math is wrong - you have the fighter missing a whole lot more than he should be without a loaded die. Force instance with a +5 ability modifier, +6 proficiency bonus and +1 enchantment bonus, he only misses on a roll of a 4 or less. He will hit 80% of the time, not 55% like you claim. If he has advantage which is as easily accomplished as sitting on a horse with the right feat, he will hit 96% of the time.
The real math is: ((4.5*2+16)*.80*12+(6.5*6) = 279 or with advantage: ((4.5*2+16)*.96*12+(6.5*6) = 327
I also think you are boosting the Druid's stats far more than what is reasonable by giving him a +3 con modifier - I have never seen a Wild-Shape designed character that has focused so significantly on physical attributes (Which are replaced by the Wild Shape) with their stat allocation. A Druid has 8 HP at first level +5 per following level with an extra 20 for every con mod. That is a total of 103 +20*conmod. With their buffer HP of 126 and their base of 103, there is 98 hp left unaccounted for after the Fighter's attack. That would require a Wild Shaping Druid to have a highly unlikely Constitution of 20 for them to survive.

[Surrealistik]

Your math is wrong - you have the fighter missing a whole lot more than he should be without a loaded die. Force instance with a +5 ability modifier, +6 proficiency bonus and +1 enchantment bonus, he only misses on a roll of a 4 or less. He will hit 80% of the time, not 55% like you claim. If he has advantage which is as easily accomplished as sitting on a horse with the right feat, he will hit 96% of the time.
The real math is: ((4.5*2+16)*.80*12+(6.5*6) = 279 or with advantage: ((4.5*2+16)*.96*12+(6.5*6) = 327
I also think you are boosting the Druid's stats far more than what is reasonable by giving him a +3 con modifier - I have never seen a Wild-Shape designed character that has focused so significantly on physical attributes (Which are replaced by the Wild Shape) with their stat allocation. A Druid has 8 HP at first level +5 per following level with an extra 20 for every con mod. That is a total of 103 +20*conmod. With their buffer HP of 126 and their base of 103, there is 98 hp left unaccounted for after the Fighter's attack. That would require a Wild Shaping Druid to have a highly unlikely Constitution of 20 for them to survive.

Incorrect.

-25% from activating Great Weapon Master; if you want the +10 to damage, you have to take a 25% hit to accuracy.

With a +1 enhancement bonus, +6 from proficiency and +5 from Strength, and -5 from GWM, you have +7 net to hit which is a 55% hit chance.

And why is a +3 Con mod so unusual for a caster, _especially_ with Concentration mechanics in place?

Beyond Wisdom and _maybe_ Dex, Con is easily the most important stat for a Druid.

[Giant2005]

I've already refuted that; you didn't actually respond to my counterpoints on the matter.

Sorry my bad, I assumed you were joking.
Wild Shapers don't have massive Dexterity bonuses due to focusing on Wild Shape which replaces their stats and Druids are limited to armor not containing metal. With an extremely generous +2 Dex modifier, the best armor they can wear is hide + a shield with a toal AC value of 16. That is even less than the Earth Elemental so no, Druids don't suddenly gain incredible amounts of AC once they are knocked out of Wildshape. The horde will still cut them up with virtual impunity.

[Malifice]

First of all, Stoneskin is unconditional resistance to physical damage; it's halved, period. There's no penetrating it.

We must have different PHB's then. Mine tells me that its only resistance to non magic B, P and S weapons.


It is by no means 'unconditional' resistance. A +1 sword smashes straight through.

With a +1 weapon you're dealing 204 damage ((4.5*2+16)*.55*12+6.5*6)

Even if it's a +3 weapon, you're still only dealing 249.6 damage ((4.5*2+18)*.65*12+6.5*6)

Neither is enough to drop the Druid in a single turn with its 289 effective total HP.

Ill be action surging again the following round. Remember; as soon as his 'Beast HP buffer' drops, every single follow up attack goes stright into the Druids 'real' HP.

Even without action surge and superiority dice, we are forcing the druid to change forms every second round (using his bonus action to do so) and inflicting some 'carry over' damage in the process.


Yes he can. There is absolutely nothing by the RAW saying he cannot change from beast form to beast form; literally nothing. If you disagree, I would appreciate a quotation.

To be fair, Im reading a fair bit into the Wildshape ability. PHB page 66.

Wildshape grants the ability to assume a 'beast' form from your 'normal' form. It doesnt expressly say anywhere that you can go from beast form to beast form, and the text of the ability on page 66 states: 'you can revert to your normal form earlier by using a bonus action on your turn'.

My (admittedly tight) inference there is that a druid needs to morph back into human form before morphing into another shape.

It certainly makes the capstone (and the Moon Druid HP sink) a lot less broken.

[Malifice]

Your math is wrong.

You left out the -5 for GWF.

I.e, our Fighter needed a 9 to hit and not a 4.

[Giant2005]

Incorrect.

-25% from activating Great Weapon Master; if you want the +10 to damage, you have to take a 25% hit to accuracy.
That makes sense.
Although with the easily obtainable (getting on a horse) advantage, the hit rate increases to 79.75% which would equate to: ((4.5*2+16)*.7975*12+(6.5*6) = 278 which is still way more than required to do the job.


And why is a +3 Con mod so unusual for a caster, _especially_ with Concentration mechanics in place?

Beyond Wisdom and _maybe_ Dex, Con is easily the most important stat for a Druid.

That is very true. Unless you are a Wild Shaping Druid that renders all of its physical stats obsolete.

[Surrealistik]

Sorry my bad, I assumed you were joking.
Wild Shapers don't have massive Dexterity bonuses due to focusing on Wild Shape which replaces their stats and Druids are limited to armor not containing metal. With an extremely generous +2 Dex modifier, the best armor they can wear is hide + a shield with a toal AC value of 16. That is even less than the Earth Elemental so no, Druids don't suddenly gain incredible amounts of AC once they are knocked out of Wildshape. The horde will still cut them up with virtual impunity.

No, I'm not joking.

17 AC is not terrible, which is what the EE form has, coupled with 126 HP and resistance to non-magical physical weapon damage (and if we're talking trash mobs, how likely is it that all of them will have magical weapons), and poison immunity.

Further, 16 AC is not anemic, even if you accept the idea that you can never make heavier armour with metal substitutes.

And this isn't even factoring in defensive buffs which a Druid aiming to tank is sure to have.

Between these factors, it's probably going to be more durable than anyone else in the party, even vs a horde, to say nothing of the Druid's exemplary crowd control spells.


That makes sense.
Although with the easily obtainable (getting on a horse) advantage, the hit rate increases to 79.75% which would equate to: ((4.5*2+16)*.7975*12+(6.5*6) = 278 which is still way more than required to do the job.

Unfortunately this is untrue; you're still falling short of the amount needed to kill the druid outright.


That is very true. Unless you are a Wild Shaping Druid that renders all of its physical stats obsolete.

This is not a very convincing argument; Concentration checks and Constitution saves still matter a lot.

Hell, with Druid 20, I have 5 ability bumps. I will probably start out with 16 Wisdom and 15 Con. 2 ability bumps will definitely go to Wisdom. I will take Durable (Constitution) for Constitution saves and Concentration checks, and will likely park another bump into Con. A Con mod of 3 is down right conservative for an optimized Druid.


@ Malifice: Your entire argument at this point is predicated on an incorrect interpretation of the rules which though possibly RAI is certainly not RAW.

[Malifice]

No, I'm not joking.

17 AC is not terrible, which is what the EE form has, coupled with 126 HP and resistance to non-magical physical weapon damage (and if we're talking trash mobs, how likely is it that all of them will have magical weapons), and poison immunity

I think we can safely assume magical weapons and magical attacks (spells and breath weapons) wont exactly be rare at 20th level!

Even then, lets allow our 20th level Druid to demolish a bunch of mooks armed with non magic weapons with relative impunity.

The game doesnt suffer because of it.


@ Malifice: Your entire argument at this point is predicated on an incorrect interpretation of the rules which though possibly RAI is certainly not RAW.

Not at all. My assumptions above factored in the Druid wildshaping from beast to beast form (without having to pop into human form first). I just prefer an interpretation that requires the Druid to go human first.

All I need to do is pop more than 120 damage a round to a Druid (beast to beast as a bonus action) and its whittling into his 'real' HP. And 2 rounds of action surge will certainly make a massive dent in those 'real' HP's.

Seeing as your Druid is only doing 25 damage a round to my Fighter in return (and Im regenerating it at half or less, and gaining a second wind), how long will it take the Druid to beat me down in return?

[Surrealistik]

I think we can safely assume magical weapons and magical attacks (spells and breath weapons) wont exactly be rare at 20th level!

Even then, lets allow our 20th level Druid to demolish a bunch of mooks armed with non magic weapons with relative impunity.

The game doesnt suffer because of it.

That's an aside really; even if we assume they're all equipped with magical weapons, the fact is that such a Druid is probably going to be one of the least vulnerable party members to a horde, and has more than adequate counters to them.


Not at all. My assumptions above factored in the Druid wildshaping from beast to beast form (without having to pop into human form first). I just prefer an interpretation that requires the Druid to go human first.

All I need to do is pop more than 120 damage a round to a Druid (beast to beast as a bonus action) and its whittling into his 'real' HP. And 2 rounds of action surge will certainly make a massive dent in those 'real' HP's.

Seeing as your Druid is only doing 25 damage a round to my Fighter in return (and Im regenerating it at half or less, and gaining a second wind), how long will it take the Druid to beat me down in return?

Of course they do; there is no way for the Fighter to, by himself, penetrate the Druid's HP buffer after blowing his load on the initial damage nova per the RAW. Only by pulling out every stop and exhausting all of your limited resources with a damage optimized build using a magical weapon are you able to penetrate his buffer. Every single turn he gets a fresh buffer of 126 HP again by the RAW. The Druid could pretty well take until the end of time to kill you with melee attacks assuming he didn't feel like just throwing spells your way.

[Giant2005]

No, I'm not joking.

17 AC is not terrible, which is what the EE form has, coupled with 126 HP and resistance to non-magical physical weapon damage (and if we're talking trash mobs, how likely is it that all of them will have magical weapons), and poison immunity

Further, 16 AC is not anemic, even if you accept the idea that you can never make heavier armour with metal substitutes.

And this isn't even factoring in defensive buffs which a Druid aiming to tank is sure to have.

Between these factors, it's probably going to be more durable than anyone else in the party, even vs a horde, to say nothing of the Druid's exemplary crowd control spells.



Unfortunately this is untrue; you're still falling short of the amount needed to kill the druid outright.



This is not a very convincing argument; Concentration checks and Constitution saves still matter a lot.


@ Malifice: Your entire argument at this point is predicated on an incorrect interpretation of the rules which though possibly RAI is certainly not RAW.

What is considered terrible is a very subjective thing so I won't comment on whether or not 17 AC is "terrible".
What I will comment on is the math.
Against something like a bunch of Harpies which have a +3 to attack.
A Wildshaped Druid has an AC of 17, if the attacker has disadvantage he would be hit 12.25% of the time.
A Fighter with his defensive Fighter bonus (+1 AC), a +1 Shield (+3 AC) +1 Plate (19 AC) has 23 AC, if the attacker has disadvantage he would be hit 0.25% of the time.
The Druid is getting hit 49x as often as the Fighter and even if he is taking half the damage and the Fighter isn't, the Druid is still taking 24.5x the incoming damage that the Fighter is taking. If there are enough Harpies to inflict 250 damage in a turn to the Druid, then he is dead while the Fighter only took 10 damage from the same attack.

Beyond giving the attacker disadvantage via the 9th level spell Foresight, Druids don't have any defensive buffs that would even do anything.

[Malifice]

Of course they do; there is no way for the Fighter to, by himself, penetrate the Druid's HP buffer after blowing his load on the initial damage nova per the RAW. Only by pulling out every stop and exhausting all of your limited resources with a damage optimized build using a magical weapon are you able to penetrate his buffer. Every single turn he gets a fresh buffer of 126 HP again by the RAW. The Druid could pretty well take until the end of time to kill you with melee attacks assuming he didn't feel like just throwing spells your way.

Still reckon we are selling our fighter short.

A Champion Fighter 20 is getting 4 (possibly 5) attacks a round with GWM and is spamming a lot of damage on an 18-20 Crit.

He may need some lucky rolls, but he's got a lot of time to get them with the Druids crappy DPR and the Fighter HP plus regeneration at half HP or less.

[Giant2005]

This is not a very convincing argument; Concentration checks and Constitution saves still matter a lot.

Hell, with Druid 20, I have 5 ability bumps. I will probably start out with 16 Wisdom and 15 Con. 2 ability bumps will definitely go to Wisdom. I will take Durable (Constitution) for Constitution saves and Concentration checks, and will likely park another bump into Con. A Con mod of 3 is down right conservative for an optimized Druid.


@ Malifice: Your entire argument at this point is predicated on an incorrect interpretation of the rules which though possibly RAI is certainly not RAW.

I don't get it. either Wildshape is infinite HP or it isn't.
If it is infinite HP, then why place any points into Constitution? The Druid's own HP would never be relevant and any ability checks or saves are made using the Wild Shape's constitution.
If the Wild Shape truly is impregnable, then you have no reason at all to put a single point into Constitution ever. Are you now changing your perspective and saying that Wild Shape isn't quite as amazing as you claimed and a Druid does need to pump up his own physical stats to compensate?

[Surrealistik]

What is considered terrible is a very subjective thing so I won't comment on whether or not 17 AC is "terrible".
What I will comment on is the math.
Against something like a bunch of Harpies which have a +3 to attack.
A Wildshaped Druid has an AC of 17, if the attacker has disadvantage he would be hit 12.25% of the time.
A Fighter with his defensive Fighter bonus (+1 AC), a +1 Shield (+3 AC) +1 Plate (19 AC) has 23 AC, if the attacker has disadvantage he would be hit 0.25% of the time.
The Druid is getting hit 49x as often as the Fighter and even if he is taking half the damage and the Fighter isn't, the Druid is still taking 24.5x the incoming damage that the Fighter is taking. If there are enough Harpies to inflict 250 damage in a turn to the Druid, then he is dead while the Fighter only took 10 damage from the same attack.

Beyond giving the attacker disadvantage via the 9th level spell Foresight, Druids don't have any defensive buffs that would even do anything.

So how many of these Harpies get a chance to attack the Wild Shaped Druid before he and gets to eliminate them en masse with an AoE spell, and I presume the party likewise assists?

Off the top of my head, where is Antilife Shell in all of this? Harpies are also subject to Stoneskin. Beyond that 250 is not enough to kill the Druid. Wall of Stone and Wall of Fire are also effective at controlling hordes.

With a +1 magic Shield and armour the Druid is at 18 AC, and if he has half-plate with metal substitutes (dragon scales, what have you), 21 AC.

Meanwhile, I doubt whether the party Sorcerer, or for that matter, anyone who hasn't optimized AC is doing as well. The Druid has their AC and HP or better, _and_ a massive HP buffer.


I don't get it. either Wildshape is infinite HP or it isn't.
If it is infinite HP, then why place any points into Constitution? The Druid's own HP would never be relevant and any ability checks or saves are made using the Wild Shape's constitution.
If the Wild Shape truly is impregnable, then you have no reason at all to put a single point into Constitution ever. Are you now changing your perspective and saying that Wild Shape isn't quite as amazing as you claimed and a Druid does need to pump up his own physical stats to compensate?

It's infinite only when you hit 20.

What Druid in his right mind is going to neglect Con for the L20 payoff he may not live to see in the first place if he doesn't bump the most important save in the game and his second most important stat up until that point? At an absolute minimum Durable (Constitution) is clearly worth it for the proficiency bonus to Con saving throws.





Still reckon we are selling our fighter short.

A Champion Fighter 20 is getting 4 (possibly 5) attacks a round with GWM and is spamming a lot of damage on an 18-20 Crit.

He may need some lucky rolls, but he's got a lot of time to get them with the Druids crappy DPR and the Fighter HP plus regeneration at half HP or less.

Let's investigate that claim. Assuming the Champion Fighter has advantage (mounted) with a +1 magical weapon vs AC 17 and a Druid with a +3 Con mod:

((4.5*2+16)*0.42 + (4.5*4+16)*0.2775)*4 = 79.74 damage on average DPR
((4.5*2+16)*0.42 + (4.5*4+16)*0.2775)*4*3 = 239.22 damage of 286 total HP with 2 Action Surge nova.

Hell, let's even go tazy crazy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlUVGf8B2yc&feature=player_detailpage#t=20) and assume all of his attacks are criticals! It's freeee!

(4.5*4+16)*(0.2775+.42)*4 = 94.86 DPR
(4.5*4+16)*(0.2775+.42)*4*3 = 284.58 damage of 286 total HP with 2 Action Surge nova. Close but not quite.

Damage is inadequate to penetrate, and he doesn't have the nova capability to threaten the Druid with death.

[Giant2005]

So how many of these Harpies get a chance to attack the Wild Shaped Druid before he and gets to eliminate them en masse with an AoE spell, and I presume the party likewise assists?
That is part of the point I am making and also part of the point of the game's design. Offensively casters are amazing against hordes but defensively weak. Non-casters are offensively crappy against hordes but defensively superior. Everyone has their strengths.


Beyond that 250 is not enough to kill the Druid.
250 is a number I plucked out of nowhere for the sake of the example. Although in the average case 250 would do the job, if it makes you feel better that number can be 350 or 650 or whatever you feel most comfortable with. Hell your Druid can have an implausible constitution of 20 or an unobtainable constitution of 10,000 and it doesn't change the point I made. A horde sizable enough to easily punch through the Wild Shape HP will do comparatively negligable damage to a properly armored combatant. You haven't refuted that and cannot refute that - the math has already proven it to be true.
Wild Shape has strengths and it has weaknesses and those strengths and weaknesses are the polar opposite of a non-casting combatant. That is exactly what the (or any) game designers were hoping for.

[Malifice]

((4.5*2+16)*0.42 + (4.5*4+16)*0.2775)*4 = 79.74 damage on average DPR
((4.5*2+16)*0.42 + (4.5*4+16)*0.2775)*4*3 = 239.22 damage of 286 total HP with 2 Action Surge nova.
.

One critical hit (with an 18-20 crit range) triggers an additional attack as a bonus action thanks to GWM.

So the average DPR for our fighter is looking more like @100.

Seeing as he only needs to break 125 to start attriting the Druids actual HP, I would say this is eminently possible (with some lucky rolls).

Our fighter could reasonably easily do more than 125 points of damage in a round even without action surge.

A half orc Champion Fighter with a Strength of 20, a +2 Greataxe and 4 hits plus a Crit does 7d12 (rerolling 1's and 2's)+85 damage. He would need to be lucky, but he could get through it.

Two Action surge Novas in a row, and our Druid is in some strife with only slightly above average rolling.

[Surrealistik]

That is part of the point I am making and also part of the point of the game's design. Offensively casters are amazing against hordes but defensively weak. Non-casters are offensively crappy against hordes but defensively superior. Everyone has their strengths.

The problem is that those strengths and weaknesses aren't even remotely balanced in this case.

Even defensively a Wild Shape Druid is better off than the majority of non-casters, particularly when spells come into play.



250 is a number I plucked out of nowhere for the sake of the example. Although in the average case 250 would do the job, if it makes you feel better that number can be 350 or 650 or whatever you feel most comfortable with. Hell your Druid can have an implausible constitution of 20 or an unobtainable constitution of 10,000 and it doesn't change the point I made. A horde sizable enough to easily punch through the Wild Shape HP will do comparatively negligable damage to a properly armored combatant. You haven't refuted that and cannot refute that - the math has already proven it to be true.
Wild Shape has strengths and it has weaknesses and those strengths and weaknesses are the polar opposite of a non-casting combatant. That is exactly what the (or any) game designers were hoping for.

Except you can't really menace a 16+ Con, infinite Wild Shape druid with 18-21 unmorphed AC and stuff like Wall of Fire, Antipathy, Antilife Shell, Foresight, etc... without basically killing off anyone who hasn't optimized their AC and survivability to main party tank levels of durability. See, that's one of the most recurrent problems with trying to customize encounters to kill off or otherwise challenge blatantly overpowered characters unless they have a very specific, non-generalizable vulnerability; there's a tenuous parallel to chemo here in that you kill most everyone else off first.

Further, with his warding and wall spells, it's entirely conceivable that such a Druid is in practice more durable vs many kinds of hordes than even a specialized fighter.

In summary, this argument is not convincing or applicable in the slightest, and is pure sophistry, particularly in so far as it tries in vain to justify infinite Wild Shape's clearly overpowered nature.



One critical hit (with an 18-20 crit range) triggers an additional attack as a bonus action thanks to GWM.

So the average DPR for our fighter is looking more like @100.

Seeing as he only needs to break 125 to start attriting the Druids actual HP, I would say this is eminently possible (with some lucky rolls).

Our fighter could reasonably easily do more than 125 points of damage in a round even without action surge.

A half orc Champion Fighter with a Strength of 20, a +2 Greataxe and 4 hits plus a Crit does 7d12 (rerolling 1's and 2's)+85 damage. He would need to be lucky, but he could get through it.

Two Action surge Novas in a row, and our Druid is in some strife with only slightly above average rolling.

Okay, my bad. Let's assume you get those extra attacks outright. I won't even modify their output by the less than 100% probability they happen.

((4.5*2+16)*0.42 + (4.5*4+16)*0.2775)*4 + (4.5*2+16)*0.42 + (4.5*4+16)*0.2775) = 99.675 DPR
((4.5*2+16)*0.42 + (4.5*4+16)*0.2775)* 4 * 3 + (4.5*2+16)*0.42 + (4.5*4+16)*0.2775 = 259.155 Nova.

It's still not enough, and once your Nova is blown, you have pretty much no hope of killing the Druid before he kills you.

[Giant2005]

Except you can't really menace a 16+ Con, infinite Wild Shape druid with 18-21 unmorphed AC and stuff like Wall of Fire, Antipathy, Antilife Shell, Foresight, etc... without basically killing off anyone who hasn't optimized their AC and survivability to main party tank levels of durability. See, that's one of the most recurrent problems with trying to customize encounters to kill off or otherwise challenge blatantly overpowered characters unless they have a very specific, non-generalizable vulnerability; there's a tenuous parallel to chemo here in that you kill most everyone else off first.

Further, with his warding and wall spells, it's entirely conceivable that such a Druid is in practice more durable vs many kinds of hordes than even a specialized fighter.

In summary, this argument is not convincing or applicable in the slightest, and is pure sophistry, particularly in so far as it tries in vain to justify infinite Wild Shape's clearly overpowered nature.
You made the bold statement of Wild Shape being impenetrable and I showed math to prove otherwise - the argument doesn't have to be convincing because it is demonstrably true via math. There isn't actually any room to deny it as unlike wild Shape, math is infallible. Whether the rest of the group lives or dies is irrelevant when discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the Wild Shaped Druid, although due to them not having their AC limited, they are in a better position to defend themselves.
And sure if a Druid has several actions to prepare before the fight he can overcome pretty much anything. That trait is hardly unique to the Druid, so unless you want to amend your argument to "Characters that are given too much time to prepare are undefeatable" then you can't really argue with the math and must submit to the superiority over the Wild Shaped Druid that a more reasonably armored combatant has against the horde.

[Surrealistik]

You made the bold statement of Wild Shape being impenetrable and I showed math to prove otherwise - the argument doesn't have to be convincing because it is demonstrably true via math. There isn't actually any room to deny it as unlike wild Shape, math is infallible. Whether the rest of the group lives or dies is irrelevant when discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the Wild Shaped Druid, although due to them not having their AC limited, they are in a better position to defend themselves.
And sure if a Druid has several actions to prepare before the fight he can overcome pretty much anything. That trait is hardly unique to the Druid, so unless you want to amend your argument to "Characters that are given too much time to prepare are undefeatable" then you can't really argue with the math and must submit to the superiority over the Wild Shaped Druid that a more reasonably armored combatant has against the horde.

Who said the infinite Wild Shape is 'impenetrable'? That's never been my argument. If I did say it was 'impenetrable', it was clearly meant in specific contexts such as the Tarrasque vs Earth Elemental form. Obviously 126 HP is not literally impenetrable, and I have made both explicit and implicit acknowledgements of this throughout our entire exchange.

My argument is and has always been that infinite Wild Shape is nakedly broken and overpowered, which I have also clearly demonstrated using math in that it is effectively impervious to several max CR threats and damage optimized level 20 martial builds at-will in perpetuity in a way that no other class in the game can even come close to emulating.


Further, even your argument about comparative vulnerability to hordes necessarily ignores non-metal variants of half-plate (which I don't think you have a very strong case for), and defensive spells cast by the Druid, and ridiculously uses an AC optimizing build as a baseline of comparison.

Lastly, the Druid needs all of one action to cast even his most powerful defensive spells; unless you would assert that one action (6 seconds or less) which could conceivably be used pre-combat is "too much time to prepare", perhaps you should amend that strawman.

[Giant2005]

Further, even your argument about comparative vulnerability to hordes necessarily ignores non-metal variants of half-plate (which I don't think you have a very strong case for)
Currently in the game, there are no Druid-friendly armors other than Leather, Hide and Padded. Not even in the adventure books or the online supplements has anything even remotely similar to what you have described been suggested as a possibility.
Although it is also kind of irrelevant. If you are basing the Druid's survivability vs a horde on his abilities while not Wild Shaped, how exactly does that support the argument of Wild Shape being some incredible defense vs a horde?


and ridiculously uses an AC optimizing build as a baseline of comparison.
Um no?
I didn't use any exceptional ability scores in the calculation, I didn't multiclass to take benefits from an array of other avenues, I didn't include outside buffs, I didn't even consider feats that a fighter would have the greatest amount of access to. I just took a standard fighter with unmentioned abilities and let him fight without the burden of nakedness. That is one step away from being the polar opposite of optimized and it isn't even something that is exclusive to the Fighter, nor is it something that the fighter excels at - Arcane casters are the kings of AC.



Lastly, the Druid needs all of one action to cast even his most powerful defensive spells; unless you would assert that one action (6 seconds or less) which could conceivably be used pre-combat is "too much time to prepare", perhaps you should amend that strawman.

You listed a whole bunch of spells, much of which would need to be cast multiple times to be of any defensive benefit against flying critters like Harpies. Either way, the more important aspect is how entirely irrelevant those spells are to the discussion - a Druid's utility with magic has no bearing on whether or not Wild Shape is OP or even competent when facing a horde.

[Surrealistik]

Um no?
I didn't use any exceptional ability scores in the calculation, I didn't multiclass to take benefits from an array of other avenues, I didn't include outside buffs, I didn't even consider feats that a fighter would have the greatest amount of access to. I just took a standard fighter with unmentioned abilities and let him fight without the burden of nakedness. That is one step away from being the polar opposite of optimized and it isn't even something that is exclusive to the Fighter, nor is it something that the fighter excels at - Arcane casters are the kings of AC.

Outside of a pure class Dex Barbarian and multiclassing Wizard abusing Spell Mastery, yes, that is pretty well optimized AC; it is definitely at the high end of AC and is not a particularly meaningful baseline.

Further, your argument even here boils down to 5 AC of difference vs 126 HP per turn and spell support the latter of which can make the Druid effectively impervious to being attacked in many cases.

Beyond that, I thought it might be amusing to look at how many Harpies it would take just to destroy the Druid's HP buffer.

Each Harpy deals 2.25 damage on average vs the Earth Elemental, 4 vs the Druid, and 1.5 damage vs the 23 AC Fighter on average. It's notable that Foresight alone reduces the per Harpie damage dealt to the EE form to a mere 0.6375.

(((2.5*2)+(2.5*2))*.35+((2.5*2*2)+(2.5*2*2))*.05)/2 = 2.25 vs AC 17, resist phys EE
(((2.5*2)+(2.5*2))*.35^2+((2.5*2*2)+(2.5*2*2))*.05 ^2)/2 = 0.6375 vs EE with Foresight

((2.5*2)+(2.5*2))*.3+((2.5*2*2)+(2.5*2*2))*.05 = 4 vs AC 18 Druid
((2.5*2)+(2.5*2))*.3^2+((2.5*2*2)+(2.5*2*2))*.05^2 = 0.95 vs AC 18 Druid with Foresight

((2.5*2)+(2.5*2))*.05+((2.5*2*2)+(2.5*2*2))*.05 = 1.5 vs AC 23 Fighter.

To even drop the EE's buffer alone, you need on average, 56 harpies all simultaneously attacking the druid each and every turn just to get rid of its HP buffer on average! With Foresight you need 197.64 to do this; which deals 296 to the Fighter, more than enough to not only down him, but cause him to autofail 3 death saving throws.

To kill the druid on average in a single turn via a nova dogpile, you'd need 96.75, or 363.64 with Foresight!

Antilife Shell straight up prevents the Druid from being attacked at all as it then slaughters the harpies en masse.

Beyond magic making the Druid massively more durable than the Fighter even in the face of an arbitrarily large swarm, who wants to run a combat like that? It's not practical at all, and it perfectly illustrates how niche and absurd a 'swaming' encounter has to be to threaten an infinite Wild Shape Druid more than a Fighter of the same level, and that's without factoring in spells.



Currently in the game, there are no Druid-friendly armors other than Leather, Hide and Padded. Not even in the adventure books or the online supplements has anything even remotely similar to what you have described been suggested as a possibility.
Although it is also kind of irrelevant. If you are basing the Druid's survivability vs a horde on his abilities while not Wild Shaped, how exactly does that support the argument of Wild Shape being some incredible defense vs a horde?


You listed a whole bunch of spells, much of which would need to be cast multiple times to be of any defensive benefit against flying critters like Harpies. Either way, the more important aspect is how entirely irrelevant those spells are to the discussion - a Druid's utility with magic has no bearing on whether or not Wild Shape is OP or even competent when facing a horde.

Foresight, Stoneskin (for when you lose your buffer) and Antilife Shell all only need to be cast once to deal with a mass of harpies.

Further, I have absolutely no doubt that there will be non-metal magic armour and variants of metal armour from the DMG given past precedent in prior DnD versions. That said even non-metal armour isn't necessary for me to make my point/counterargument.

Overall you were trying to show, so far as I can gather, how a Druid abusing infinite Wild Shape can be countered, not how infinite Wild Shape specifically and by itself in a vacuum can be countered. No matter which of these you were trying to prove though "arbitrary amounts of low accuracy damage" to accurately summarize your proposal is not a practical or meaningful remedy/counter, and its very nature, even if it worked which is definitely wrong in the former case, itself implies the truth of my argument: that infinite Moon Circle Wild Shape is substantially overpowered, which is all I ever set out to show/prove.

Again, my goal was to show that this feature is clearly overpowered, effectively requires DMs go to extremes to deal with it which almost invariably will jeopardize the rest of the party in the process, and it deserves a nerf because all of this is true.

[Gnomes2169]

I would just like to point out that this class feature (when used in the EE form), is worth about 42 SSU's. (126 hp/~3.125 damage... (And yes, that is the average damage of a necromancer's skeletons using short bows against an EE without crits. But we'll round down to 3 to make druid lovers happy, and keep the same for the druid himself under the assumption that the druid has Stone Skin up and similar AC...)) To kill the druid himself in the same round after that, it requires 53.333333333333 SSU's (160/3). In other words, the druid is one-shot by 96 of the Necromancer's skelly bros. The other 48 can dance a merry jigg in the meanwhile, and PRAISE THE SUN (praise it!)*

*Disclaimer: skelly bros should not praise the sun, it is unhealthy for their complexion, and you may annoy Lathander/ Anumator. :P

[Surrealistik]

I would just like to point out that this class feature (when used in the EE form), is worth about 42 SSU's. (126 hp/~3.125 damage... (And yes, that is the average damage of a necromancer's skeletons using short bows against an EE without crits. But we'll round down to 3 to make druid lovers happy, and keep the same for the druid himself under the assumption that the druid has Stone Skin up and similar AC...)) To kill the druid himself in the same round after that, it requires 53.333333333333 SSU's (160/3). In other words, the druid is one-shot by 96 of the Necromancer's skelly bros. The other 48 can dance a merry jigg in the meanwhile, and PRAISE THE SUN (praise it!)*

*Disclaimer: skelly bros should not praise the sun, it is unhealthy for their complexion, and you may annoy Lathander/ Anumator. :P

Incorrect. Even with crits considered, unless those skeles are using magical shortbows (and even if they are it's only 2.2 average damage):


((3.5+2)*.35+(3.5+2)*.05)/2 = 1.1 average damage vs EE
((3.5+2)*.35^2+(3.5+2)*.05^2)/2 = 0.34375 average damage vs EE with Foresight

((3.5+2)*.3+(3.5+2)*.05) = 1.925 average damage vs Druid
((3.5+2)*.3^2+(3.5+2)*.05^2) = 0.50875 average damage vs Druid with Foresight

126 / 1.1 = 114.54 skeletons required to penetrate EE buffer.
126 / 0.34375 = 366.54 skeletons required to penetrate the EE buffer with Foresight.

126 / 1.1 + 163 / 1.925 = 199.22 skeletons required to kill outright.
126 / 0.34375 + 163 / 0.50875 = 686.93(!!) skeletons required to kill outright with Foresight.


In either case that Druid is easily going to live long enough to refresh his EE buffer, then counter and kill a huge swathe of them, which will put their numbers under the threshold required to destroy it.

Can the Wizard get involved? Sure. But that would then be a case of fighting fire with fire; broke against broke. I'm also of the opinion that animate dead needs a nerf for exactly the reason you can field more than a hundred minions.

[Giant2005]

he is still a capable 9th circle caster, or 8th circle if he takes my advice and cast foresight.
This part inspired me to investigate a little bit, so I went and listed all of the Druid spells they are capable of casting while Wildshaped. They aren't bad - there are still a lot of good spells in there. Here is the list if anyone cares:

Cantrips: Druidcraft, Guidance, Poison Spray, Produce Flame
1st: Charm Person, Cure Wounds, Detect Magic, Entangle, Faerie Fire, Fog Cloud, Healing Word, Purify Food and Drink, Speak with Animals, Thunderwave
2nd: Beast Sense, Find Traps, Lesser Restoration, Protection from Poison
3rd: Call Lightning, Conjure Animals, Daylight, Dispel Magic, Meld into Stone, Plant Growth, Protection from Energy, Speak with Plants
4th: Blight, Conjure Minor Elementals, Dominate Beast, Giant Insect, Grasping Vine
5th: Antilife Shell, Commune with Nature, Contagion, Geas, Mass Cure Wounds, Tree Stride
6th: Conjure Fey, Heal, Transport via Plants
7th: Fire Storm, Mirage Arcane
8th: Animal Shapes, Tsunami
9th: Storm of Vengeance

[Doug Lampert]

That is very true. Unless you are a Wild Shaping Druid that renders all of its physical stats obsolete.
Since the physical stats are irrelevant and obsolete the Druid gains no substantial advantage from a value of 20 in any of them; hence, were your claim true, it would be irrelevant and you wouldn't be bothering to make it.

But your claim is untrue, and blatantly so, his personal HP were highly important from levels 1-19 and are still relevant at 20, his concentration is relevant at all levels, his Con is his second most important ability. Claims otherwise can only weaken the argument that depends on them.

[Giant2005]

Since the physical stats are irrelevant and obsolete the Druid gains no substantial advantage from a value of 20 in any of them; hence, were your claim true, it would be irrelevant and you wouldn't be bothering to make it.

But your claim is untrue, and blatantly so, his personal HP were highly important from levels 1-19 and are still relevant at 20, his concentration is relevant at all levels, his Con is his second most important ability. Claims otherwise can only weaken the argument that depends on them.

You make it sound like a Druid doesn't get the ability to Wildshape until level 20...
He gets it at level 2. If I were making a Druid that was built around Wild shape, I sure wouldn't be focusing on his physical stats and if I wasn't building around Wild shape, I'd be a Druid of the Land.

[Surrealistik]

Since the physical stats are irrelevant and obsolete the Druid gains no substantial advantage from a value of 20 in any of them; hence, were your claim true, it would be irrelevant and you wouldn't be bothering to make it.

But your claim is untrue, and blatantly so, his personal HP were highly important from levels 1-19 and are still relevant at 20, his concentration is relevant at all levels, his Con is his second most important ability. Claims otherwise can only weaken the argument that depends on them.

Precisely, this is a case I've made repeatedly throughout this thread in response to that argument.

Constitution is way too important to neglect in the long interim before that capstone. And then of course there's the Durable (Constitution) feat which you absolutely want to snag on the way up that's useful no matter what form you're in.

[Giant2005]

Precisely, this is a case I've made repeatedly throughout this thread in response to that argument.

Constitution is way too important to neglect in the long interim before that capstone. And then of course there's the Durable (Constitution) feat which you absolutely want to snag on the way up that's useful no matter what form you're in.

Fair enough.
I guess people really do have wildly different playstyles. I tend to stick to my strengths but I guess a case could be made for a Druid that is focusing on his Wild Shaping to not use his Wild shape before he gets Beast Spells and even after considering the reduced spell list.

[Surrealistik]

Well you're not always going to be able to use your Wild Shape prior to 20; 2 times per short rest just isn't enough of a motive to neglect Constitution.

I could understand your position if you literally started out at 20 (in which case you'd still want Durable), but aside from that, I can't imagine not investing in Con for the sake of Int or Cha.

[Gnomes2169]

Incorrect. Even with crits considered, unless those skeles are using magical shortbows (and even if they are it's only 2.2 average damage):


((3.5+2)*.35+(3.5+2)*.05)/2 = 1.1 average damage vs EE
((3.5+2)*.35^2+(3.5+2)*.05^2)/2 = 0.34375 average damage vs EE with Foresight

((3.5+2)*.3+(3.5+2)*.05) = 1.925 average damage vs Druid
((3.5+2)*.35^2+(3.5+2)*.05^2) = 0.6875 average damage vs Druid with Foresight

126 / 1.1 = 114.54 skeletons required to penetrate EE buffer.
126 / 0.34375 = 366.54 skeletons required to penetrate the EE buffer with Foresight.

126 / 1.1 + 163 / 1.925 = 199.22 skeletons required to kill outright.
126 / 0.34375 + 163 / 0.6875 = 603.636(!!) skeletons required to kill outright with Foresight.


In either case that Druid is easily going to live long enough to refresh his EE buffer, then counter and kill a huge swathe of them, which will put their numbers under the threshold required to destroy it.

Can the Wizard get involved? Sure. But that would then be a case of fighting fire with fire; broke against broke. I'm also of the opinion that animate dead needs a nerf for exactly the reason you can field more than a hundred minions.

I didn't want to deal with Foresight calculations for tge druid, and I'm pretty sure the druid actually has better spells to use in his 9th level slot every day.

That being said, you are wrong about the damage from a skeleton with a +1 bow. With the +1 bow, the skelebro animated by the necromancer will be dealing 12.5 damage average on a hit (3.5+2 (dex)+1 (weapon)+6 (Necromancer's prof bonus). And all of that damage will get through the EE/ Stone Skin resistance, since it is from a magic weapon.

Additionally, the skeleton's attack bonus would increase to +5 instead of +4, because again, magic bow. This gives the skeleton a 45% chance of hitting the druid in elemental form (assuming no foresight, because in the vast majority of situations foresight will not be the 100% most optimal choice)... And in what world is 45% of 12.5 suddenly equal to 2?

I will admit that I got the math on the original damage wrong (I started with 12.5 as my base instead of the 11.5 that it actually is... Which does come out to around 2.2 without crits and 2.34 with them), so have an internet cookie for that. :P

[Surrealistik]

I didn't want to deal with Foresight calculations for tge druid, and I'm pretty sure the druid actually has better spells to use in his 9th level slot every day.

That being said, you are wrong about the damage from a skeleton with a +1 bow. With the +1 bow, the skelebro animated by the necromancer will be dealing 12.5 damage average on a hit (3.5+2 (dex)+1 (weapon)+6 (Necromancer's prof bonus). And all of that damage will get through the EE/ Stone Skin resistance, since it is from a magic weapon.

Additionally, the skeleton's attack bonus would increase to +5 instead of +4, because again, magic bow. This gives the skeleton a 45% chance of hitting the druid in elemental form (assuming no foresight, because in the vast majority of situations foresight will not be the 100% most optimal choice)... And in what world is 45% of 12.5 suddenly equal to 2?

I will admit that I got the math on the original damage wrong (I started with 12.5 as my base instead of the 11.5 that it actually is... Which does come out to around 2.2 without crits and 2.34 with them), so have an internet cookie for that. :P

I actually didn't factor in a +1 bow but a _magical_ bow; a bow that counts as magical but receives no enhancement bonus.

Also given how abusive Foresight is with unlimited Wildshape, I'd say it's not unreasonable to expect a Druid to use it, but it could always use say... Wall of Wind.

The revised math with +1 shortbows for all of the skeletons (btw, I _very_ much doubt even at level 20 this is a reasonable assumption given how comparatively rare magic weapons seem to be in 5e) is this:

((3.5+3)*.4+(3.5+3)*.05) = 2.925 average damage vs EE;
((3.5+3)*.4^2+(3.5+3)*.05^2) = 1.05625 average damage vs EE with Foresight

((3.5+3)*.35+(3.5+3)*.05) = 2.6 average damage vs Druid
((3.5+3)*.35^2+(3.5+3)*.05^2) = 0.8125 average damage vs Druid with Foresight

126 / 2.95 = 43.07 skeletons required to penetrate EE buffer without Foresight
126 / 1.05625 = 119.28 skeletons required to penetrate the EE buffer with Foresight.

126 / 2.95 + 163 / 2.6 = 105.4 skeletons required to kill outright without Foresight.
126 / 1.05625 + 163 / 0.8125 = 319.90 skeletons required to kill outright with Foresight.

It seems extremely unlikely to me that enough skeletons win initiative to kill the Druid, even without Foresight in place before the Druid gets to refresh his HP and destroy a huge amount of them.

[Gnomes2169]

Stop factoring the damage resistance. The magic weapons would penetrate it, and it is throwing your math off. (And yes, neither weapon resistance blocks damage from magic weapons). This sort of doubles the incoming damage you know... :P

Edit: However, I do agree that giving every single skeleton a +1 bow is somewhat rodicarous and is in pure theory land.

[Surrealistik]

Stop factoring the damage resistance. The magic weapons would penetrate it, and it is throwing your math off. (And yes, neither weapon resistance blocks damage from magic weapons). This sort of doubles the incoming damage you know... :P

Edit: However, I do agree that giving every single skeleton a +1 bow is somewhat rodicarous and is in pure theory land.

Incorrect; the math is perfect. There is no damage resistance applied; these are the numbers without any damage resistance whatsoever.

[Shining Wrath]

A cantrip takes care of this problem: Chill Touch.

On a hit, the target takes damage, and can't regain hit points until the start of your next turn.

That's pretty definitive. Hit the Druid with this cantrip (available to Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards), and nothing they do for the next round can possibly add a single point to their HP store. Including Wild Shape or resuming normal form, either way, they have at most the HP they had after you assessed the damage from the cantrip (and less if your friend the barbarian landed a nice smack).

[archaeo]

I'm sorry, I haven't looked through this whole thread, but I have a question that hasn't been addressed, as far as I can tell: does wild shape require that the monster be described in the stat block as a "beast"? I mean, "magically assume the shape of a beast" seems to imply that, certainly. Does anyone have any evidence that dragons or other creatures are eligible for wild shape?

Given that, the only CR 6 beast candidate available is Mammoth. They have 126 HP, but only 13 AC (prepare to get hit by everything). They can do an average of 29 damage per turn or charge-and-stomp for an average of 25. You can, of course, opt for an elemental form instead. Earth Elementals have the same HP as a Mammoth, but all of them have comparable HP. They also do kind of poor damage.

126 damage seems not entirely unreasonable to expect to get from a CR 20+ enemy. Let's take an Ancient Red Dragon in its Lair, and for the purposes of the argument, the Druid won't use Fire Elemental (to simulate an actually dangerous enemy that can't be trivially bypassed by simply saying "now I'm immune to all fire"). That dragon will do an average of 108 damage on its own (a legendary tail attack plus a breath attack the mammoth won't dodge with a -1 dex mod), and can take a lair action to add another 21 damage, knocking the Druid out of Wild Shape. It will, of course, have to recharge its breath attack, but it will probably have time, given that the Druid is doing just about no damage as long as she's Wild Shaping. It will also alternate its lair actions, and eventually the Druid will fail that DC 13 Con save (mammoths get +5, a roll of 7 or above saves) and will be poisoned and incapacitated. And I will remind you, "An incapacitated creature can’t take actions or reactions."

(edited to add: that is, of course, just average damage. Assume the dragon gets some good attacks off, and that damage goes much higher. Max damage for that round would be 218 damage.)

A level 20 character has no business fighting off things that are just going to bounce off their infinite HP; they're going to be fighting the biggest, baddest things in the entire multiverse at that point. Given legendary actions and lair actions, I get the distinct impression that the onion druid will still find challenging encounters.

(obviously, a party of 4 level 20 characters will obliterate that ancient red dragon, especially because a real Druid will just go fire elemental and use her spells to attack)

[Surrealistik]

A cantrip takes care of this problem: Chill Touch.


That's pretty definitive. Hit the Druid with this cantrip (available to Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards), and nothing they do for the next round can possibly add a single point to their HP store. Including Wild Shape or resuming normal form, either way, they have at most the HP they had after you assessed the damage from the cantrip (and less if your friend the barbarian landed a nice smack).

He's not actually regaining HP so much as he's taking on the hit point pool of another creature.


@ archaeo:

Though I understand why you're not using the FE for the sake of a thought experiment, why is the Druid in Mammoth rather than EE form?

At any rate, doing the actual math:

Red Dragon:

Bite: ((5.5*4+10)*.8+(5.5*8+10)*.05)/2 = 14.15 (resisted due to EE phys resistance)
+ 2x Claws: ((3.5*4+10)*.8+(3.5*8+10)*.05*2)/2 = 11.5 (resisted due to EE phys resistance)

OR (Multiattack is mutually exclusive with Fire Breath)

Fire Breath: 3.5*25*.95+3.5*25*.05*.5 = 85.3125

+ Wing Buffer Legendary Action: ((3.5*4+10)*.8+(3.5*8+10)*.05*2)/2 = 11.5 (resisted due to EE phys resistance)
+ Magma Jet Lair Action: (3.5*5)*.75+(3.5*5)*.25*.5 = 15.3125

EE is immune to poison; volcanic gas has no effect. Even if the Druid was a Mammoth though, with Durable (Constitution) which it should _definitely_ take, it would only fail on a natural 1.

Total: 52.4625 to 112.125 damage.


Further, it should be noted that in most cases these max CR monsters can't penetrate the Druid's HP. Indeed, looking at another max CR monster like the Hecatoncheirs from the closed Alpha (from what I've seen, the officially released stat blocks of the high/max CR monsters are essentially identical to their stat blocks in the closed Alpha):

((17*.6)+(3.5*4+10)*.05)*10 = 114 damage vs 126 HP


So a list of high/max CR mobs thus far that are hopelessly powerless to penetrate the Druid's buffer HP when it's not using Foresight:

Ancient Red Dragon (with Lair and Legendary Actions!)
The Tarrasque
Pit Fiend
Hecatoncheirs


Can we please all agree that this ability is broke as all hell? No other class comes close to having this kind of power. Without Foresight the Druid is close to immune to HP damage. With Foresight, the Druid _is_ effectively immune to HP damage. 'Onion' Druids are blatantly broken and need to be nerfed; the power of this capstone is simply indefensible.

[Gnomes2169]

Incorrect; the math is perfect. There is no damage resistance applied; these are the numbers without any damage resistance whatsoever.

... Wait a second, where is the necromancer's prof bonus to the damage? If we are talking about skeletons from a necro, and the necro is level 20, then they do add that class feature in there.

And that being said, the druid feature is still completely overpowered and needs a good nerf bat to the knees. The fact that an insanely broken subclass can beat it down notwithstanding.

[Surrealistik]

... Wait a second, where is the necromancer's prof bonus to the damage? If we are talking about skeletons from a necro, and the necro is level 20, then they do add that class feature in there.

Fair enough.

Now _that_ I missed:

((3.5+9)*.4+(3.5+9)*.05) = 5.625 average damage vs EE;
((3.5+9)*.4^2+(3.5+9)*.05^2) = 2.03125 average damage vs EE with Foresight

((3.5+9)*.35+(3.5+9)*.05) = 5 average damage vs Druid
((3.5+9)*.35^2+(3.5+9)*.05^2) = 1.5625 average damage vs Druid with Foresight

126 / 5.625 = 22.4 skeletons required to penetrate EE buffer without Foresight
126 / 1.05625 = 62.03 skeletons required to penetrate the EE buffer with Foresight.

126 / 5.625 + 163 / 2.03125 = 102.64 skeletons required to kill outright without Foresight.
126 / 2.03125 + 163 / 1.5625 = 166.35 skeletons required to kill outright with Foresight.


Even with the prof bonus and +1 magic weapons, it's unlikely enough skeletons win Initiative to drop the Druid before he gets to retaliate (impossible with Foresight). Without +1 magic weapons, they're definitely not able to do this.

[archaeo]

Though I understand why you're not using the FE for the sake of a thought experiment, why is the Druid in Mammoth rather than EE form?

I figured I'd give the dragon a fair shot, frankly. We only have a very few CR 20+ monsters floating about in the wild, and I suspect that some of them will be likely to have the ability to inflict HP damage that the Druid can't trivially bypass via a tailor-made Wild Shape.


Can we please all agree that this ability is broke as all hell? No other class comes close to having this kind of power. Without Foresight the Druid is nigh immune to HP damage. With Foresight, the Druid is pretty much immune to HP damage. 'Onion' Druids are blatantly broken and need to be nerfed; the power of this capstone is simply indefensible.

Well, no, sorry. Even if I accept that "the Druid is pretty much immune to HP damage," I find it difficult to believe that the kind of encounters one faces at level 20 will be primarily dangerous due to HP damage, and I find it difficult to believe that every Druid will be able to pick the perfect Wild Shape for every such encounter. Furthermore, it seems pretty clear that maintaing a shape every turn for infinite HP will require seriously gimping the druid's combat capabilities, since the number of meaningful slots at that level will quickly go away over the course of an adventuring day.

All this assuming, of course, that Mearls & Co. intended us to read the Wild Shape rules as allowing chained Wild Shapes. It is ambiguously worded.

But even if I don't find it particularly broken, I'm not sure I'm right. Just changing it to be explicit about requiring normal form to Wild Shape (thus taking a bonus action, thus eating up all the Druid's actions to do the onion routine) would be enough. I think we'll definitely see an FAQ or rules clarification on this, anyway.

[Surrealistik]

I figured I'd give the dragon a fair shot, frankly. We only have a very few CR 20+ monsters floating about in the wild, and I suspect that some of them will be likely to have the ability to inflict HP damage that the Druid can't trivially bypass via a tailor-made Wild Shape.

The dragon is unable to reliably penetrate the HP buffer of the Mammoth either (multiply the claw/bite/buffer damage by 2x).




Well, no, sorry. Even if I accept that "the Druid is pretty much immune to HP damage," I find it difficult to believe that the kind of encounters one faces at level 20 will be primarily dangerous due to HP damage, and I find it difficult to believe that every Druid will be able to pick the perfect Wild Shape for every such encounter. Furthermore, it seems pretty clear that maintaing a shape every turn for infinite HP will require seriously gimping the druid's combat capabilities, since the number of meaningful slots at that level will quickly go away over the course of an adventuring day.

All this assuming, of course, that Mearls & Co. intended us to read the Wild Shape rules as allowing chained Wild Shapes. It is ambiguously worded.

But even if I don't find it particularly broken, I'm not sure I'm right. Just changing it to be explicit about requiring normal form to Wild Shape (thus taking a bonus action, thus eating up all the Druid's actions to do the onion routine) would be enough. I think we'll definitely see an FAQ or rules clarification on this, anyway.

There is no ambiguity to the RAW of Wild Shape unfortunately; believe me, I wish it could be at least disputed with intellectual honesty because I hate how ridiculous this capstone is, but it can't be.

As for the loss of offensive capability, it doesn't matter how much your DPR is reduced if you're effectively immune to harm; save your spells for the relatively uncommon threats that can save or suck you, grind away at the things you can't.

Furthermore, as indicated thus far by the CR examples we've looked over, and as indicated by most of the high CR monsters I've seen in the closed Alpha, HP damage is still the primary threat at high CRs. Coupled with the Onion Druid's effective HP immunity, that's a problem for sure. Save or suck is less common than you might think, and save or dies are practically non-existent.

[archaeo]

There is no ambiguity to the RAW of Wild Shape unfortunately; believe me, I wish it could be at least disputed with intellectual honesty because I hate how ridiculous this capstone is, but it can't be.

Sorry, I know we disagree about this and probably aren't going to come to an agreement, but how is it totally unambiguous? I see two distinct ambiguities:

1) Wild Shape reads "You can stay in a beast shape for a number of hours...You then revert to your normal form unless you expend another use of this feature." Clearly, a level 20 Druid can stay in a form indefinitely. But, the only wording that supports shifting from form to form (thus resetting the HP) is "You retain the benefit of any features from your class." I think it's fair to say that this is ambiguous; at the very least, it sounds like you can only change forms, which means switching, since the rules say that you expend a use of Wild Shape to continue being in a single form. Given that the HP reset is triggered "when you transform," staying in a single shape doesn't seem like it would work.

2) Elemental Wild Shape reads "you can expend two uses of Wild Shape at the same time to transform into an...elemental." It is unclear to me whether this stacks with Archdruid, which only says "You can use your Wild Shape an unlimited number of times."

Even if we can't agree on "ambiguous," I think we should probably agree on "unclear." It's possible this is one of Mearls' "intentional ambiguities," designed purposefully to allow DMs to pick how they want the power to work, but it's a very muddy job. I'll be interested to see the FAQ. Anybody got a Mearls tweet about this?

[archaeo]

It says expend again, not continue being in a single form.

This means that, if you do not expend another wild shape, you revert back.

If you do expend wild shape, you use the wild shape abilitie's rules, there's nothing about continuing in a form, there are rules about preventing you to revert back to human.

I'm sorry, but I don't think it says this. "You then revert to your normal form unless you expend another use of this feature." So, if you expend a use of the feature, you do not revert to your normal form, implying that you remain in your current form. It then says "You can revert to your normal form earlier by using a bonus action on your turn." To me, this definitely suggests that a valid interpretation is 1) be in a wild shape, 2) end the wild shape with your bonus action, and 3) wild shape with your action, OR 1) expend a wild shape use and remain in your current form.

This interpretation jives with the idea that you need to be in your normal form to wild shape, which would be a rather effective manner of keeping Archdruid in check, since you will have to take both your bonus action and your action to be an onion.

I don't think I'm twisting the language here, but maybe I'm wrong. I definitely think Mearls needs to weigh in on this.

[Surrealistik]

Sorry, I know we disagree about this and probably aren't going to come to an agreement, but how is it totally unambiguous? I see two distinct ambiguities:

1) Wild Shape reads "You can stay in a beast shape for a number of hours...You then revert to your normal form unless you expend another use of this feature." Clearly, a level 20 Druid can stay in a form indefinitely. But, the only wording that supports shifting from form to form (thus resetting the HP) is "You retain the benefit of any features from your class." I think it's fair to say that this is ambiguous; at the very least, it sounds like you can only change forms, which means switching, since the rules say that you expend a use of Wild Shape to continue being in a single form. Given that the HP reset is triggered "when you transform," staying in a single shape doesn't seem like it would work.

This is the one thing about Wild Shape that I can agree on as being ambiguous, namely whether you can shift to the same form in the sense that it can be argued as not transforming, but if true, it wouldn't meaningfully limit the power of this capstone; just swap between say Fire Elemental and Earth Elemental for example.


2) Elemental Wild Shape reads "you can expend two uses of Wild Shape at the same time to transform into an...elemental." It is unclear to me whether this stacks with Archdruid, which only says "You can use your Wild Shape an unlimited number of times."

Now this is not ambiguous.

It costs two uses.

You have unlimited uses; what's the issue here? You expend two of your unlimited uses.

[Shining Wrath]

He's not actually regaining HP so much as he's taking on the hit point pool of another creature.

... SNIP ...

Does the druid have more HP at the end of their turn than they did at the start? Then the druid has regained HP, and Chill Touch specifically disallows that. If you say it's due to taking on the HP of the different form, but that different form is still the PC (and it is), then the shift of form occurs, but the HP are the lower of the druid's HP prior to the wild shape and the HP of the new form. If the druid shifts back, the HP are what the druid had prior to the wild shape (which makes the wild shape function like a huge stack of temporary HP - still a good thing). You don't get to use the "regain HP as a result of shifting form" trick.

[Surrealistik]

Does the druid have more HP at the end of their turn than they did at the start? Then the druid has regained HP, and Chill Touch specifically disallows that. If you say it's due to taking on the HP of the different form, but that different form is still the PC (and it is), then the shift of form occurs, but the HP are the lower of the druid's HP prior to the wild shape and the HP of the new form. If the druid shifts back, the HP are what the druid had prior to the wild shape (which makes the wild shape function like a huge stack of temporary HP - still a good thing). You don't get to use the "regain HP as a result of shifting form" trick.

To regain means to get back something you've lost; it's not about simply having more HP than you started with. Even if I agree with this interpretation, what happens is that any damage you've taken simply carries from form to form. You could, in fact, change from a Fire Elemental to a creature with more hit points like the Earth Elemental after having taken 10 damage and still end up with more HP than you started with; that damage would just carry over; you'd be at 116 of 126 HP, up from 92 of 102 HP. You didn't actually regain any HP and the damage you took is still there.

Let's say best case scenario and this interpretation (with the above caveat) works. What about the vast preponderance of enemies and encounters that do not feature the Chill Touch spell? The niche/rarefied nature of this spell would mean that this feature is still OP and still a balance issue.

[archaeo]

This is the one thing about Wild Shape that I can agree on as being ambiguous, namely whether you can shift to the same form in the sense that it can be argued as not transforming, but if true, it wouldn't meaningfully limit the power of this capstone; just swap between say Fire Elemental and Earth Elemental for example.

I still think I'd like to see clarification on swapping, as you say. Clearly, simply disallowing transforming while already in a form would go a long way toward making the onion druid less of an issue, and it would require only the smallest stub of errata.


Now this is not ambiguous.

It costs two uses.

You have unlimited uses; what's the issue here? You expend two of your unlimited uses.

Archdruid says "you can use your Wild Shape an unlimited number of times." It does not say "your Elemental Wild Shape." I just want this to be clarified, as I think you could interpret it as a single use of elemental form per rest, but you can stay in said form indefinitely since you can sustain with your infinite shapes from Archdruid.

Either way, I don't think my alternate readings are outright unreasonable, nor do I think your interpretation goes beyond the pale. I would basically agree that if they had meant for the interpretations I suggested, they probably would've written it that way, though, especially given that Wild Shape is an relatively overwritten and rules-heavy class feature. I think the rules currently have room enough for the "must be normal form to change forms" reading, however, and as DM, it's probably what I'd say in the unlikely event that I have a level 20 druid in the party.

[Shining Wrath]

To regain means to get back something you've lost; it's not about simply having more HP than you started with. Even if I agree with this interpretation, what happens is that any damage you've taken simply carries from form to form. You could, in fact, change from a Fire Elemental to a creature with more hit points like the Earth Elemental after having taken 10 damage and still end up with more HP than you started with; that damage would just carry over; you'd be at 116 of 126 HP, up from 92 of 102 HP. You didn't actually regain any HP and the damage you took is still there.

Let's say best case scenario and this interpretation (with the above caveat) works. What about the vast preponderance of enemies and encounters that do not feature the Chill Touch spell? The niche/rarefied nature of this spell would mean that this feature is still OP and still a balance issue.

If Chill Touch said that you cannot be healed that would be one thing, but "cannot regain HP" suggests that your sum of HP cannot be increased. I will admit that your reading is a valid interpretation, though.

But even by your reading, the running total amount of damage taken cannot be reduced, and each Chill Touch is doing ~18 HP of damage at this level, plus whatever the rest of the Sorcerer / Warlock / Wizard's party is doing. If the druid Wild Shapes into something with 100 HP, then 110, then 120, and so on, and the enemy party keeps doing 50 or 60 HP per round (which ought to be doable), it won't be too many rounds until the druid Wild Shapes and the new form is at zero HP, and then they are forced back to base druid, which likely also has zero HP.

EDIT: At level 20, spell using enemies ought to be pretty common, and 3 of the 9 full caster classes can use this cantrip. It's hardly niche. And if you're the DM going up against a L20 druid, and the BBEG is intelligent, the BBEG has an entire squadr of L1 Warlocks whose assignment is "Chill Touch the druid until she drops". Half a dozen L1 Warlocks is barely noticeable at L20 in terms of the total XP of the encounter, but they'd shut down the druid's infinite HP trick for at least a few rounds. In the meantime the BBEG is using his legendary / lair tricks, and his other, higher level minions are doing their minion best, et cetera.

[Surrealistik]

Archdruid says "you can use your Wild Shape an unlimited number of times." It does not say "your Elemental Wild Shape." I just want this to be clarified, as I think you could interpret it as a single use of elemental form per rest, but you can stay in said form indefinitely since you can sustain with your infinite shapes from Archdruid.

There is no 'Elemental Wild Shape', there is just Wild Shape with the ability to take on elemental forms.


Either way, I don't think my alternate readings are outright unreasonable, nor do I think your interpretation goes beyond the pale. I would basically agree that if they had meant for the interpretations I suggested, they probably would've written it that way, though, especially given that Wild Shape is an relatively overwritten and rules-heavy class feature. I think the rules currently have room enough for the "must be normal form to change forms" reading, however, and as DM, it's probably what I'd say in the unlikely event that I have a level 20 druid in the party.

I completely disagree with having to be in human form before you can morph as being a reasonable interpretation of the RAW, but I wouldn't object to it as a house rule though I personally don't think it goes quite far enough to curtail this capstone's overwhelming power. The best fix in my view is to apply damage taken while polymorphed to your regular hit point pool when the polymorph effect ends.


If Chill Touch said that you cannot be healed that would be one thing, but "cannot regain HP" suggests that your sum of HP cannot be increased. I will admit that your reading is a valid interpretation, though.

But even by your reading, the running total amount of damage taken cannot be reduced, and each Chill Touch is doing ~18 HP of damage at this level, plus whatever the rest of the Sorcerer / Warlock / Wizard's party is doing. If the druid Wild Shapes into something with 100 HP, then 110, then 120, and so on, and the enemy party keeps doing 50 or 60 HP per round (which ought to be doable), it won't be too many rounds until the druid Wild Shapes and the new form is at zero HP, and then they are forced back to base druid, which likely also has zero HP.

Yes, if you can keep hitting the Druid with Chill Touch, assuming these interpretations are accurate, you can indeed kill him easily enough through HP damage.

However, the core issue is that Chill Touch (and equivalents) are extremely rare among monsters, and isn't likely to actually be in the vast majority of encounters unless you fiat it in.

[Jakinbandw]

Could a monk do it? Stun lock the duos and then use quivering palm to kill it twice in the stun lock?

[Shining Wrath]

There is no 'Elemental Wild Shape', there is just Wild Shape with the ability to take on elemental forms.



I completely disagree with having to be in human form before you can morph as being a reasonable interpretation of the RAW, but I wouldn't object to it as a house rule though I personally don't think it goes quite far enough to curtail this capstone's overwhelming power. The best fix in my view is to apply damage taken while polymorphed to your regular hit point pool when the polymorph effect ends.



Yes, if you can keep hitting the Druid with Chill Touch, assuming these interpretations are accurate, you can indeed kill him easily enough through HP damage.

However, the core issue is that Chill Touch (and equivalents) are extremely rare among monsters, and isn't likely to actually be in the vast majority of encounters unless you fiat it in.

We don't know what CR 20 monsters look like yet, and this is a capstone ability. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that CR 20 monsters are going to be more likely than CR 1/8 monsters to have spells and spell-like abilities. At level 20 you aren't fighting orcs, you're fighting Asmodeus or Tiamat, and their hordes of minions.

I think that the "you can't regain HP" trick may show up elsewhere. It seems like the sort of thing an undead might be able to do, or a poison might do it. Time will tell.

[Surrealistik]

We don't know what CR 20 monsters look like yet, and this is a capstone ability. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that CR 20 monsters are going to be more likely than CR 1/8 monsters to have spells and spell-like abilities. At level 20 you aren't fighting orcs, you're fighting Asmodeus or Tiamat, and their hordes of minions.

I think that the "you can't regain HP" trick may show up elsewhere. It seems like the sort of thing an undead might be able to do, or a poison might do it. Time will tell.

It's a capstone ability that is head and shoulders more powerful than any other capstone ability in the game. It's broke, even if Chill Touch _were_ able to very situationally nerf it.

Poison doesn't work vs the Druid's elemental forms.

Further, I've got a preview of lots of high CR monsters from the closed Alpha, and I can tell you, Chill Touch and abilities specifically worded to prevent you from regaining HP are not common at all. In fact, in the alpha monster manual, I cannot find a single high CR monster that features this capability; not even the Atropal can do this.

Of the three with official releases thus far, the Pit Fiend, Ancient Red Dragon, and Tarrasque, none have this capability.

[SirisC]

If Chill Touch said that you cannot be healed that would be one thing, but "cannot regain HP" suggests that your sum of HP cannot be increased. I will admit that your reading is a valid interpretation, though.

...

But you don't "regain" lost hit points when wildshaping, you gain new hit points.

[busterswd]

Chill Touch debate and Skeleton shenanigans aside, the fact that one aspect of an already versatile class yields that much disproportionate defensive power does seem problematic. It's not so much that druids can't have nice things, it's that anyone else who doesn't have equivalent power level nice things is probably going to get obliterated by a properly challenging encounter.

[Shining Wrath]

But you don't "regain" lost hit points when wildshaping, you gain new hit points.

I'm calling that a semantic distinction; the Wild Shaped Druid is still the same person regardless of shape. Even granting it, though, the Druid loses HP if the Wild Shape is over-killed by enough that there's carry-over to the Druid (AFB, but believe it's 10+Con modifier limit and after that the damage extends to the Druid), and nothing they can do regains those HP.

So the Wild Shape is a big pile of temporary hit points, with the down side that not all the Druid's abilities are usable in that form.

I'm not saying this isn't a great capstone, just that it can be coped with.

[Surrealistik]

I'm calling that a semantic distinction; the Wild Shaped Druid is still the same person regardless of shape. Even granting it, though, the Druid loses HP if the Wild Shape is over-killed by enough that there's carry-over to the Druid (AFB, but believe it's 10+Con modifier limit and after that the damage extends to the Druid), and nothing they can do regains those HP.

So the Wild Shape is a big pile of temporary hit points, with the down side that not all the Druid's abilities are usable in that form.

I'm not saying this isn't a great capstone, just that it can be coped with.

It can be coped with but that's not meaningful when you have to go to extremes to do so.

Even in a best case scenario if we assume Chill Touch works to stop HP refreshing, that sort of capability is, at this point, extremely rare if the alpha monster manual is any indication.

[Speaker]

@Surrealistik - I just don't understand how you cannot see how single minded you are being. You keep restating this 'problem' as if it is one that applies to every single druid, in every single game. Then you use that as a justification to propose a change that would effect all characters who choose to play this class.

As to the PWK debate. Remember that having HP is not what makes you alive. Being alive is what makes you alive. Even if you do rule that reverting to your natural form restores you to the HP you had before, you would still be dead if you were killed by a death effect. You would just be a pristine corpse.

Does this mean if a level 20 fighter hits a druid within 20 hp in any form they just die?