Wildshape and knocking out question

[Z3ro]

An interesting idea was brought up in one of the many druid/fighter threads going on right now and wanted to see what everyone thought about it:

Namely, the interaction between the knocking out rules, and the changes to HP involved in wildshaping. Knocking a creature out say that "When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit point with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out." How does this interact with a wildshaped druid?

My first thought would be obviously the druid simply reverts, then gets it's normal HP back and is not knocked out. But the rules seem like knocking a druid out side-steps this process, as the fighter A) is, in fact, reducing the druid to 0 HP, and B) is imposing a condition after meeting the requirements. The knocked out condition doesn't require the target to stay at 0 HP, only to be brought to 0 HP. It seems obviously not RAI, but maybe RAW

So what does everyone think; stupid rule oversight, or clever way to take down an onion druid?

[Giant2005]

"When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed. However, if you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage. As long as the excess damage doesn't reduce your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren't knocked unconscious."
No room for ambiguity.

[Jakinbandw]

Yeah, I saw that after I made the posts so I stopped bringing it up. From what I've seen Druids are so much stronger than every other class in the game it is unreal. Instant healing, able to do it an unlimited number of times at lvl20, Stronger fighter than any Martial class and better at self buffing than the other casters (can be an air elemental with all it's buffs, and still have move buffs on top.) Honestly I can't see myself letting any be played at a table I'm at.

Druids are broken. I don't want broken stuff in games I play.

[silveralen]

Yeah, I saw that after I made the posts so I stopped bringing it up. From what I've seen Druids are so much stronger than every other class in the game it is unreal. Instant healing, able to do it an unlimited number of times at lvl20, Stronger fighter than any Martial class and better at self buffing than the other casters (can be an air elemental with all it's buffs, and still have move buffs on top.) Honestly I can't see myself letting any be played at a table I'm at.

Druids are broken. I don't want broken stuff in games I play.

To be fair alot of that is due to very questionable rulings (wildshape while wildshaped, wildshape into the same form you already inhabit, boosting the pysical attribute sof the wild shape form via feats/ability bumps, etc) and even it is only particularly crazy at really low levels and at lvl 20.

[Perseus]

Druids are broken. I don't want broken stuff in games I play.

Hey don't give up on D&D just yet, there is a lot of potential in each edition...

The problem with the druid is that they over complicated it without really needing to overcomplicate it.

If you tweak the 4e wildshape just a bit then you could have had an easy wildshape that wasn't broken even if it was at will.

Part of me thinks someone on the Dev team really likes the idea of the Druid being broken and pushed for the current druid form to be made.

Wildshape: You may magically transform in a beast of your choosing. You can assume the form of any Small or Medium creature of the beast type. At level (whatever) you may assume large and tiny beast forms. You gain the creature's features and attacks while in that form along with land speed. You can't take a form that has a swim speeds until level X and you must be level Y to take forma with a fly speed.

The Druid table has the maximum CR you may wildshape into based on Druid level.

You may replace either your strength or dexterity score with that of the beast. (Moon druids may have both?).

This was done in like 3 minutes and needs some work but it could be easily workable. You keep your own AC (moon druids get option of taking the beast's AC) or perhaps make your AC in beast form be 13 + Con Modifier... You always have one pool of HP and don't have any wonky rules about dropping to 0.

You still assume the shape of a beast (or elemental) but this is at-will (not free temp HP) and less abusable (moon druid by raw is very abusable in a normal game...)

[MaxWilson]

Yeah, I saw that after I made the posts so I stopped bringing it up. From what I've seen Druids are so much stronger than every other class in the game it is unreal. Instant healing, able to do it an unlimited number of times at lvl20, Stronger fighter than any Martial class and better at self buffing than the other casters (can be an air elemental with all it's buffs, and still have move buffs on top.) Honestly I can't see myself letting any be played at a table I'm at.

Druids are broken. I don't want broken stuff in games I play.

1.) The level 20 capstone is the carrot on a stick to get you to play the class all the way to level 20. It doesn't actually have much impact on actual play, maybe one or two adventures at most.
2.) Moon druid damage is generally rather poor after low levels.
3.) Other classes can tank as well as the druid can, just in different ways. Warlock on a Phantom Steed, for example, will last as long as the druid will while putting out more damage--and he doesn't have the communication issues a druid does. Or a Shadow Monk with the Mobile feat.

I don't mind having druids in the game, but honestly I would rather play an Eldritch Knight or a Necromancer, because they are about as good and a lot cooler. One of my groups' DMs invented dual-classing rules, and I briefly considered becoming a Warlock/Druid with the life goal of eventually being able to be a mind-reading bear that shoots lasers out of its eyes, but then it turned out that the druid only gets to cast druid spells in druid form, so I dropped it. Onion druids simply aren't entertaining enough to be a dominant option, in spite of all their HP.

BTW, did you see the thread the other day on killing Tiamat? Did you notice how Onion Druids weren't part of any of parties which actually can manage it? Druids aren't broken, they're just very good against certain things, and Tiamat isn't one of those things.

[GiantOctopodes]

To be fair alot of that is due to very questionable rulings (wildshape while wildshaped, wildshape into the same form you already inhabit, boosting the pysical attribute sof the wild shape form via feats/ability bumps, etc) and even it is only particularly crazy at really low levels and at lvl 20.

To be even more fair, wildshaping while wildshaped is only an issue if you can do that an unlimited number of times. At all levels not 20 (99+% of the game) you do that and you're done, no muss no fuss. The other "questionable rulings" are imho just blatant and flagrant ignoring of the RAW because it would be better if it wasn't that way. As long as you follow the very simple, very clear rules laid out in the ability's description, they are not tremendously unbalanced at all.

Keep in mind that before level 18 (90+% of the game), they can't cast spells while in a Wild Shape form, and should they choose to revert and then transform again, they've once again exhausted their ability to take that form, so it's not like they can switch back and forth at will. Also keep in mind that the rules explicitly result in them losing the benefits of equipment which cannot be worn by the new form (and it expressly states the equipment does not change its size or shape to fit) while in that form, so the argument that they as a bear outperforms say a barbarian or a fighter in melee combat is an extremely dubious one.

Finally, if you *really* want to hit them with the balance hammer, just have them not take on the Beasts HP when they wildshape. Just one HP pool, their own, drawn from regardless of what form they are in when they take damage, which makes for way more resilient mice and birds, and way less broken of a class.

[MaxWilson]

To be even more fair, wildshaping while wildshaped is only an issue if you can do that an unlimited number of times. At all levels not 20 (99+% of the game) you do that and you're done, no muss no fuss. The other "questionable rulings" are imho just blatant and flagrant ignoring of the RAW because it would be better if it wasn't that way. As long as you follow the very simple, very clear rules laid out in the ability's description, they are not tremendously unbalanced at all.

Keep in mind that before level 18 (90+% of the game), they can't cast spells while in a Wild Shape form, and should they choose to revert and then transform again, they've once again exhausted their ability to take that form, so it's not like they can switch back and forth at will.

Even worse than not being able to cast spells is not being able to talk. In practice I've found this a really annoying limitation, and one of the reasons why Moon Druids aren't fun for me.

[Perseus]

Even worse than not being able to cast spells is not being able to talk. In practice I've found this a really annoying limitation, and one of the reasons why Moon Druids aren't fun for me.

Playing charades is a lot of fun though!

Also I wonder if Tongues interacts the way I want it to :p