DMG Druid wish list

[Invader]

What's on your wish list for anything druid related that might be included in the DMG? Could be feats, spells, extra paths, specific magic items, etc.

Personally anything that lets me specialize even more into wildshape would make me happy, especially at mid levels on up where animal forms start to slack off. Maybe feats that allow you take other forms and/or special abilities.

[Perseus]

What's on your wish list for anything druid related that might be included in the DMG? Could be feats, spells, extra paths, specific magic items, etc.

Personally anything that lets me specialize even more into wildshape would make me happy, especially at mid levels on up where animal forms start to slack off. Maybe feats that allow you take other forms and/or special abilities.

I think you want more Monster Manual not more DMG...

Beasts and Elementals in MM2 should be fun.

[Invader]

I think you want more Monster Manual not more DMG...

Beasts and Elementals in MM2 should be fun.

I'm not really looking for more mundane animals to turn into and we already have elementals. I think other creature types are far more promising.

[Invader]

Although feats benefitting animals or elementals would be welcome.

[MaxWilson]

What's on your wish list for anything druid related that might be included in the DMG? Could be feats, spells, extra paths, specific magic items, etc.

Personally anything that lets me specialize even more into wildshape would make me happy, especially at mid levels on up where animal forms start to slack off. Maybe feats that allow you take other forms and/or special abilities.

Clarification on how Reincarnate interacts with racial stat boosts, bonus feats, skills, etc.

[Invader]

Clarification on how Reincarnate interacts with racial stat boosts, bonus feats, skills, etc.

You lose everything associated racially with your original race and gain the abilities of the new race.

[MaxWilson]

You lose everything associated racially with your original race and gain the abilities of the new race.

So if I Reincarnate a mountain dwarf as a human, he loses 2 STR and 2 CON and heavy armor proficiency, and gains, what? One skill of his choice, and a feat of his choice, and two ability boosts of his choice? If I Reincarnate a human as a mountain dwarf, does he lose any one feat of his choice, or just the hypothetical Heavy Armor Master that he took at first level? If he loses Heavy Armor Master, and I re-Reincarnate him back into a human, does he have to take Heavy Armor Master again or can he now select any feat he wants? It's all very unclear to me. Same goes for skills.

Also, what happens if I reincarnate a human with 20 STR as a half-orc? Does specific trump general here, so he has STR 22?

[Kaeso]

If anything, the mundane classes should have a DMG wish list. There's a fragile balance, but I fear that the splatbooks will greatly favor the casters until any semblance of balance is ruined. In 3.5e clerics weren't too bad in core, but they became CoDzilla due to Divine Metamagic.

[Invader]

So if I Reincarnate a mountain dwarf as a human, he loses 2 STR and 2 CON and heavy armor proficiency, and gains, what? One skill of his choice, and a feat of his choice, and two ability boosts of his choice? If I Reincarnate a human as a mountain dwarf, does he lose any one feat of his choice, or just the hypothetical Heavy Armor Master that he took at first level? If he loses Heavy Armor Master, and I re-Reincarnate him back into a human, does he have to take Heavy Armor Master again or can he now select any feat he wants? It's all very unclear to me. Same goes for skills.

Also, what happens if I reincarnate a human with 20 STR as a half-orc? Does specific trump general here, so he has STR 22?

It's like the first race never existed and you lose everything associated with including ability scores, feats, skills, etc. you would then start fresh with new race and get to pick any new skills, feats, etc. that new race would give you.

you are correct in your example of going from a dwarf to a human if you use the variant human rules.

If you reincarnated from a human to a human you would lose the first human feat and you would be free to pick the same one again or a new one.

Yes as long as you don't get a bonus to the ability score from the first race you'd keep your ability scores so in your example your Orc would have a 22 str. Now if the Orc was reincarnated into a human his str would drop to 20 from 22.

[MaxWilson]

It's like the first race never existed and you lose everything associated with including ability scores, feats, skills, etc. you would then start fresh with new race and get to pick any new skills, feats, etc. that new race would give you.

you are correct in your example of going from a dwarf to a human if you use the variant human rules.

If you reincarnated from a human to a human you would lose the first human feat and you would be free to pick the same one again or a new one.

Yes as long as you don't get a bonus to the ability score from the first race you'd keep your ability scores so in your example your Orc would have a 22 str. Now if the Orc was reincarnated into a human his str would drop to 20 from 22.

All of this is one possible interpretation, but it makes me uneasy because I'm not sure if that is RAI or even RAW. It also leads to having to keep track of things (original ability scores, sources for skills/feats) which runs contrary to the general 5E simplification model. It also leads to exploits like taking Heavy Armor Master for low levels, only to swap it out for something better at high levels when it starts losing its luster. And what happens to a multi-classed character who no longer qualifies for multi-classing after losing his racial ability boosts?

I therefore wish that the DMG/druid manual would clarify how the designers intended Reincarnate to work in these cases. An example would help. Obviously I can Rule 0 it any way I like, but surely they must have done some design work here (right?) before writing Reincarnate.

[Invader]

All of this is one possible interpretation, but it makes me uneasy because I'm not sure if that is RAI or even RAW. It also leads to having to keep track of things (original ability scores, sources for skills/feats) which runs contrary to the general 5E simplification model. It also leads to exploits like taking Heavy Armor Master for low levels, only to swap it out for something better at high levels when it starts losing its luster. And what happens to a multi-classed character who no longer qualifies for multi-classing after losing his racial ability boosts?

I therefore wish that the DMG/druid manual would clarify how the designers intended Reincarnate to work in these cases. An example would help. Obviously I can Rule 0 it any way I like, but surely they must have done some design work here (right?) before writing Reincarnate.

It's RAW. It says right in the spell description "it exchanges its original race for the new one, and changes racial traits accordingly"

I'll grant the multiclassing question needs answered though.

[MaxWilson]

It's RAW. It says right in the spell description "it exchanges its original race for the new one, and changes racial traits accordingly"

Right, "racial traits." It's ambiguous (in my eyes) whether this refers only to actual racial traits like not needing to sleep or darkvision, or to PC traits like the Perception skill which are more a function of your background-which-is-tied-to-your-race. Does it really make sense to think of skills as "racial traits" in this context? Doing so leads to some weird places such as being able to freely swap out skills and feats over downtime. I'm very doubtful that this is RAI. It might be RAW (based on the passage you quoted) but I'm not even sure about that.

Note that I'm AFB.

[Daishain]

Right, "racial traits." It's ambiguous (in my eyes) whether this refers only to actual racial traits like not needing to sleep or darkvision, or to PC traits like the Perception skill which are more a function of your background-which-is-tied-to-your-race. Does it really make sense to think of skills as "racial traits" in this context? Doing so leads to some weird places such as being able to freely swap out skills and feats over downtime. I'm very doubtful that this is RAI. It might be RAW (based on the passage you quoted) but I'm not even sure about that.

Note that I'm AFB.
Only your physical body changes, your mind remains the same, which means that learned skills are unaffected. Honestly, they should randomize your ability scores, but that's likely to screw over more than a few people.

As for the thread topic. The druid, especially the moon druid, is doing fine. Let some other classes get some goodies before you start turning wildshape into an even crazier ability.

EDIT: ACFs, like the one suggested below to swap spellcasting for more wildshape ability would (in theory) be fine. Other classes could still use some love along these lines though.

[silveralen]

I'd enjoy a version of druid that loses some (or all) spell casting for more wild shape features. I really want a spellcasting light shapeshifter.

[Rallicus]

Nothing.

Druid is the most tedious class to deal with as a DM; in addition to all the spells and special abilities, you have to pay attention to the potential wildshapes. It's bloated enough as is...

Honestly my druid player could cheat with his wildshape be because I don't keep track of the stats of all the forms he takes. It's such a freaking hassle. Adding even more would just add to the annoyance.

How about the DMG give some love to the subpar classes, like the Beastmaster? Druids have more going for them than most classes as it is.