Druid Houserule

[DracoKnight]

So, my DM has houseruled that Moon Druids can turn into monstrosities as well as beasts (the rest of the wildshape abilities apply as normal), and my question is: why can't they do this by RAW?

Thematically it's incredibly awesome to have the wood-elf shift into an owlbear and fight alongside the owlbear that it's trained to be a companion.

[PoeticDwarf]

So, my DM has houseruled that Moon Druids can turn into monstrosities as well as beasts (the rest of the wildshape abilities apply as normal), and my question is: why can't they do this by RAW?

Thematically it's incredibly awesome to have the wood-elf shift into an owlbear and fight alongside the owlbear that it's trained to be a companion.

Because druids are nature people, and enough monstrosities aren't really natural.
Next to the fluff reason, there are enough strong monstosities, instead of a mammoth you can turn in another challange 6 monster having two or three attacks.

[SharkForce]

because beasts are already extremely versatile in a few ways, and monstrosities open up a vastly greater variety of abilities. when you add in monstrosities, it can get pretty crazy. you can do things like save up ankheg acid, petrify things with a basilisk/cockatrice/gorgon, you could arguably cast spells in centaur/minotaur form and as a result just gain a straight-up guaranteed minimum stat line including some free proficiencies and a multiattack routine, permanent mind reading from a doppleganger (and very probable ability to use their class abilities while wild shaped)), a displacer beast's displacement, make use of a lamia's free spells (and probable ability to use their class abilities while wild shaped), a medusa's petrifying gaze which is AoE plus poison all their weapons with their snake's venom (why yes, i would like +4d6 damage on every attack i make) (plus probable ability to use their class abilities while wild shaped), become immune to acid (mimic), a roper's multiattack pattern with a bunch of control (and extremely high AC), an umber hulk's generally good senses, ability to make tunnels, good AC, and confusing gaze, the yeti's multiattack and cold immunity, and yuan-ti innate spells and attack patterns plus poison immunity (and again, probable ability to use their class abilities while wild shaped).

in contrast... with beasts, you're pretty much getting some limited movement options, attacks with low DC single-target control effects or damage riders, and a bunch of hit points (but usually unimpressive AC), plus usually the loss of human form that might let you make full use of all class abilities while wildshaped (apes at least have hands, but most forms won't have even that). they're useful, it makes wild shape a good ability for either movement/environmental adaptations and combat, but doesn't open the door to a potentially unlimited number of supernatural abilities becoming available.

there is a *much* wider variety of effects you would gain from a general ability to assume the form of any monstrosity, and many of them are simply not appropriate. why would a typical moon druid be able to assume the form of a yuan-ti or medusa?

now, i could see extending to certain specific monstrosities not being a problem. gryphons or hipogriffs, for example, are both very similar to beasts in terms of what they let you do. they don't give you a bunch of supernatural spell resources. they don't give you the ability to pass for human while gaining decent physical attributes plus extra HP and defences. they don't give you powerful control abilities that CR doesn't properly account for the way it does for actual damage abilities. you could probably get away with that, no problem, without harming balance. might even be good at certain CRs to allow some non-beasts; CR 4 and 6 are kinda sparse (by which i mean you have one option), for example. if you had some specific non-beast creatures you'd like to be able to turn into that are very much like beasts, i'd consider allowing those specific forms. but no way would i give you all monstrosities in general. we only have 1 monster manual, and already it's a pretty big difference in capabilities to allow just those monstrosities.

[Sindeloke]

Because letting you play some laser chicken boomkin is copyright infringement!

[MeeposFire]

Oddly enough what is considered a beast or a monstrosity is mostly based around our world expectations but in other worlds many of these monstrosities could be as natural as any "normal" beast or even more normal.

Take the Avatar the Last Airbender world where womething like an Owlbear would fit more naturally than the standard bear (which made many people in that world uncomfortable in its strangeness to them).

[DracoKnight]

Oddly enough what is considered a beast or a monstrosity is mostly based around our world expectations but in other worlds many of these monstrosities could be as natural as any "normal" beast or even more normal.

Take the Avatar the Last Airbender world where womething like an Owlbear would fit more naturally than the standard bear (which made many people in that world uncomfortable in its strangeness to them).

This is the reason he's ruled it. While many things have the "A Wizard made it" origin, that was usually many centuries ago, and they've become their own species, and thus part of the natural world that druids strive to protect.

[Spacehamster]

Could houserule it like a feat since many of those forms are fairly powerful compared to the beasts. A feat that gives +1 wis and ability to pick 4 monstrosities(only from the ones that could pass as an animal) that he can shape change into.

[DracoKnight]

Could houserule it like a feat since many of those forms are fairly powerful compared to the beasts. A feat that gives +1 wis and ability to pick 4 monstrosities(only from the ones that could pass as an animal) that he can shape change into.

My DM's ruled it the way he did. He was initially going to make it a feat, but decided it would be too much for him to manage.

[UXLZ]

My personal opinion is that as it currently stands this makes the Druid WAY too powerful and versatile.

[FightStyles]

At the very least, shapeshifting into a monstrosity should require to expend 2 shapeshifting slots as an elemental does.

I would still pay attention to the rule that the druid must have seen the monstrosity first before being able to shapeshift into it.

However, with that being said, I would still control this additional ability and make the druid aware that this power can be taken away if the DM feels it is unbalanced. (which it has a high chance to be).

[Demonic Spoon]

I wish there was some mechanism by which a druid had a list of "known forms" which they get a limited number of. The current rules work well enough for the current MM, but it seems like they're going to fall apart when future MMs provide more Beasts or when people start houseruling broad new types of monsters - as mentioned above, there is a lot of useful versatility in being able to shift into every monstrosity.

[Sindeloke]

I wish there was some mechanism by which a druid had a list of "known forms" which they get a limited number of. The current rules work well enough for the current MM, but it seems like they're going to fall apart when future MMs provide more Beasts or when people start houseruling broad new types of monsters - as mentioned above, there is a lot of useful versatility in being able to shift into every monstrosity.

That's a solid idea. Still carries some of the issues of the default druid (notably, scaling), and I'd worry that people would just go for a couple strong combat forms and completely ignore the far more interesting infiltration and utility aspects that are so much more fun to DM for, but way better balanced than just "here's every beast in the world, whenever we think of them, have at it!" (I suggest giving divine casters a spellbook for the same reason; splat creep is an ugly thing.)

For me, I've preferred (and am currently updating for 5e) a slight adaptation of the old Unearthed Arcana wild shape; you get two different types of shape (moon druids would get three eventually), one is just "scout" form and one is "hunter" form, and the particular animal you choose is 100% cosmetic past that. Your scout could be a bat, an owl, a squirrel, a carp if you were doing a water mission. Your hunter could be a wolf, a panther, a giant spider, hell, a displacer beast. Doesn't matter. Each form has a small set list of properties (scout gets an enhanced sense and a movement, hunter gets a 1d8 attack and some temp hit points, whatever).

Then if you want to do stuff like "I'm a gryphon now!" or "being a giant spider is kind of dumb if I can't web", you can spend spell slots to add perks to your form. Burn a 3rd level when you transform and you can do a multiattack, burn a 1st level slot and get a wolf's trip ability or advantage on scent checks, a 4th level for flight, whatever.

Adding new monsters can't unbalance anything that way, because at worst, they'd have a unique new ability that the DM could go "well... I'm going to value that as a 2nd level spell slot for starters." You don't have to worry about whatever hit points or multiattack routines or strength scores or unexpected senses or automatic abilities or poisons or whatever they have, because none of that is available by default. Only the appearance is.

[SharkForce]

I wish there was some mechanism by which a druid had a list of "known forms" which they get a limited number of. The current rules work well enough for the current MM, but it seems like they're going to fall apart when future MMs provide more Beasts or when people start houseruling broad new types of monsters - as mentioned above, there is a lot of useful versatility in being able to shift into every monstrosity.

well, you can add a pretty much infinite number of beasts without breaking the druid. like i said, you have a pretty limited set of things beasts can do. there isn't going to be a beast that can shoot lightning, or has a petrifying gaze, or teleports at-will, etc.

it's just monstrosities that are a problem. like i said, if you allow only monstrosities that function very much like beasts (the gryphon is not much different from a giant owl with better defenses, for example), it won't really break anything. it's just when you let the creatures that have obviously supernatural powers in that you get problems.

[Sindeloke]

"Monstrosity" is a deeply stupid classification to begin with, so if you're worried about that you could just get rid of it and enforce a more rational categorization scheme. If gryphons are the beasts they should be to begin with you don't have that problem, at least.