Druid (or Bard) - What to consider?

[Nibenay]

Hi all,

We have an upcoming campaign and as we don't really have a healer, i'm tempted to try out a Moon Druid for tanking/some healing. While having played rpg's for 25 years, I don't think I actually have played druid more than once (and I'm not really sure). So I'm here looking for suggestions. I might be persuaded to try bard also, which I've found to never be an interesting choice before.

The party will probably be:
Rouge, Ranger (somewhat uncertain) and Warlock(uncertain) - all lvl 1.

My stats rolled 4d6 drop lowest ended up: 16, 16, 16, 12, 12, 9

I have only these spesific race picks available:
* Standard human: +1 on all
* variant 1: cha+2, another +1
* variant 2: dex+2, wis+1
* variant 3: cha+2, 2x another+1
* variant 4: str+1, con+2 (race gets critical hits on 19 with crossbows against spesific monsters (which should be plentiful))

The main idea was to try Moon druid. The options above though seems to lend themselves more to a bard though.

So after reading a bit up and googling around there's a few details I'd like to ask:

1) Druids recover back to full "caster form" HP when they are knocked out in wild shape (and excess dmg carries over), or do you revert back with as many HP you had in your caster form when you entered wild shape?
2) As far as I can see, if you have barbarian or monk ability unarmored defence, you can chose to go with either AC = dex+con/wis, or chose animal's default AC while in wildshape
3) Above - if chosing AC = dex+con, you use the animals physical stats?
4) And is there any way to increase the animal's
5) Do you gain the benefits of increased dmg if you are barbarian/druid and rage + wildshape?
6) Are there any good ways to make the animal forms slightly more durable? The best option appears to cast barkskin and then wildshape.

As a note - looking above high level (lets say 10+) is probably not really relevant as I doubt we'll ever get there, and the most cheesy combinations will probably not be allowed anyways. Still I'm here for inspiration and discussion, so please go ahead.

[nickl_2000]

I'm playing a moon Druid who is the parties main healer. So far I've been perfectly fine as a VHuman with the healer feat. That vein said, there have been some times that I have had to make the decision of whether to heal or drop out of wildshape.

1) you have the HP you had when you went into wild form
2) correct
3) dex + con use the animal stats. You use the strength, con, and dex from the animal and keep he casters int, wis, and cha.
4) magic is effective (barkskin), depending on the DM magic items as well
5) yes
6) barkskin and feats are the best bet (mobile for example)

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Is the 9 (bumpable to 11) your Charisma score? If so I might not pick Bard as the spells are Cha based.

[Tetrasodium]

Hi all,

We have an upcoming campaign and as we don't really have a healer, i'm tempted to try out a Moon Druid for tanking/some healing. While having played rpg's for 25 years, I don't think I actually have played druid more than once (and I'm not really sure). So I'm here looking for suggestions. I might be persuaded to try bard also, which I've found to never be an interesting choice before.

The party will probably be:
Rouge, Ranger (somewhat uncertain) and Warlock(uncertain) - all lvl 1.

My stats rolled 4d6 drop lowest ended up: 16, 16, 16, 12, 12, 9

I have only these spesific race picks available:
* Standard human: +1 on all
* variant 1: cha+2, another +1
* variant 2: dex+2, wis+1
* variant 3: cha+2, 2x another+1
* variant 4: str+1, con+2 (race gets critical hits on 19 with crossbows against spesific monsters (which should be plentiful))

The main idea was to try Moon druid. The options above though seems to lend themselves more to a bard though.

So after reading a bit up and googling around there's a few details I'd like to ask:

1) Druids recover back to full "caster form" HP when they are knocked out in wild shape (and excess dmg carries over), or do you revert back with as many HP you had in your caster form when you entered wild shape?
2) As far as I can see, if you have barbarian or monk ability unarmored defence, you can chose to go with either AC = dex+con/wis, or chose animal's default AC while in wildshape
3) Above - if chosing AC = dex+con, you use the animals physical stats?
4) And is there any way to increase the animal's
5) Do you gain the benefits of increased dmg if you are barbarian/druid and rage + wildshape?
6) Are there any good ways to make the animal forms slightly more durable? The best option appears to cast barkskin and then wildshape.

As a note - looking above high level (lets say 10+) is probably not really relevant as I doubt we'll ever get there, and the most cheesy combinations will probably not be allowed anyways. Still I'm here for inspiration and discussion, so please go ahead.

base form hp is base form hp, if you have 10 hp in base form & wildshape to a form with 40 hp then take 41 hp you will be knocked back to base form with 9 hp remaining.

your int/cha/wis remain the same, other stats jump to the beast form's during wildshape

yes barbarian stuff can be carried over/used into wildshape, however unarmed defense from barbarian will be of minimal (if any) benefit for the vast majority of forms & the levels needed for barbearian 's damage reduction hurt your wildshape progression more than you gain in soak (which you are already sytupid good at as a moon druid)

Monk UAD us slightly better than barbarian if you manage to something like have 20 wis, but it's still going to be of minimal benefit as most of the forms you would have better ac in are not exactly tanky dps types.

There is a great way to make the beast forms more tanky & get a bunch of cool freebies out of it, take a level in life cleric for heavy armor, war/light/tempest will also grant you heavy armor with some slight variance on some of the freebies & one level of cleric won't hurt your wildshape rogrssion that badly.

If you go with moon druid, kobold is an amazing choice for pack tactics in any form

[Nibenay]

Is the 9 (bumpable to 11) your Charisma score? If so I might not pick Bard as the spells are Cha based.

Stats are listed by value, so I can easily put a 16 on Cha and end up with a start stat of 18.

[Nibenay]

There is a great way to make the beast forms more tanky & get a bunch of cool freebies out of it, take a level in life cleric for heavy armor, war/light/tempest will also grant you heavy armor with some slight variance on some of the freebies & one level of cleric won't hurt your wildshape rogrssion that badly.

If you go with moon druid, kobold is an amazing choice for pack tactics in any form

I don't have the book in front of me, so how will a level of life cleric make the bestforms more durable? Doesn't the armor melt into the beast form in any case?

I'll check up the kobold, I assume you're talking about "pack tactics" as the wolf also gets?

[nickl_2000]

I don't have the book in front of me, so how will a level of life cleric make the bestforms more durable? Doesn't the armor melt into the beast form in any case?

I'll check up the kobold, I assume you're talking about "pack tactics" as the wolf also gets?

I'm not sure on the answer to the life cleric. When you wildshape you have 3 options.
1) Gear falls off you to the ground
2) Gear melds into your body and effectively goes into a pocket dimension (see JC sage advice on Wildshaping from the D&D official podcast)
3) Gear stays on you.

The only way it would help your AC would be for #3. However, for that to work you need a form where the armor would still fit and a DM that is permissive enough to allow it. There is argument that magical armor would adjust to your new form, this is a DM only call. On the other hand Life Cleric makes your goodberries amazing, JC has confirmed that they would give +4 HP for each berry.

If you are allowed UA, a dip into Stone Sorcerer would give you a huge AC bonus, but would also make you more MAD.


Kobold - Yes. He is talking about pack tactics. There are some animals that get it, but if you are a kobald all your wild forms get it. This can be very powerful in the right hands.

[Nibenay]

I'm playing a moon Druid who is the parties main healer. So far I've been perfectly fine as a VHuman with the healer feat. That vein said, there have been some times that I have had to make the decision of whether to heal or drop out of wildshape.


As long as the wildshape+barkskin makes the druid a bit of a damage soak and can add in some healing on top, it should be good enough for me! My only worry is that the AC is so low that the beast forms will be slain too quickly to be useful.

[nickl_2000]

As long as the wildshape+barkskin makes the druid a bit of a damage soak and can add in some healing on top, it should be good enough for me! My only worry is that the AC is so low that the beast forms will be slain too quickly to be useful.

Wildshape + Barkskin work very well together as long as you keep concentration (this is where warcaster and resilient Con help you out). Remember also, even if you are knocked out of beast form in combat, Druid are still powerful casters. You can do a lot of damage to people in your caster forms. However, I understand the desire to stay in your wildshaped form, it's fun to play an animal!

As you play, if you find that the AC is to low and you are constantly knocked out of it, talk to the DM. Ask if there are any magical item you can quest for to help you out

[Specter]

I'd Valor Bard, if only because of the extra AC you can get out of it.

[Tetrasodium]

I don't have the book in front of me, so how will a level of life cleric make the bestforms more durable? Doesn't the armor melt into the beast form in any case?

I'll check up the kobold, I assume you're talking about "pack tactics" as the wolf also gets?




In most cases, a magic item that's meant to be worn can fit a creature regardless of size or build. Many magic garments are made to be easily adjustable, or they magically adjust themselves to the wearer. Rare exceptions exist. If the story suggests a good reason for an item to fit only creatures of a certain size or shape, you can rule that it doesn't adjust. For example, armor made by the drow might fit elves only.
magic items are different from mundane itens in that they are explicitly capable of adjusting to fit the wearer through various means



You choose whether your equipment falls to the ground in your space, merges into your new form, or is worn by it. Worn equipment functions as normal, but the DM decides whether it is practical for the new form to wear a piece of equipment, based on the creature’s shape and size. Your equipment doesn’t change size or shape to match the new form, and any equipment that the new form can’t wear must either fall to the ground or merge with it. Equipment that merges with the form has no effect until you leave the form.

Wildshape explicitly says that the gm decides if a wildshape form can wear a given bit of equipment, armor is included in that. If you are acting as the tank of the party, odds are good that any reasonable GM is not going to say no even if they want you to find some special armor.


Barding. Barding is arm or designed to protect an animal’s head, neck, chest, and body. Any type of arm or show n on the Arm or table in this chapter can be purchased as barding. The cost is four times the equivalent arm or made for humanoids, and it weighs twice as much.
even if the GM is going to say no, you can give them the finger & just buy barding & decide to merge your base form armor while wearing the barding you carry around when you wildshape.

Long story short, if a druid is proficient with a type of armor there are ways to get it in a form wearable in wildshape (dm says yes to a magic one, or barding made to fit)

While it is true that the difference between medium armor with 14 dex and plate is only one ac & there isn't much difference there... wildshape forms tend to come in two types when it comes to tankiness. Forms like the bears, have 10 dex, pretty decent hp, & multiattack, or forms like the cats have better dex, no multiattack, & less hp but great stealth Heavy armor proficiency lets you put 18 AC on any form & the difference between a 14AC+0 dex breastplate or15ac+0 dex half plate compared to an 18 AC full plate is pretty significant.

A level of Life, Nature, Tempest, or war domain cleric will give you heavy armor proficiency, 3 cleric cantrips, access to first level cleric spells (WAY better than it sounds) & some other goodies. but not all of those goodies are equal.

First up is the cantrips, there are some great cleric cantrips for utility (aid, mending, etc) &damage (sacred flame), you'd get to pick three as a bonus on top of the useful stuff
Second you'e got the domain spells that are prepared free without counting agasinst your prep slots. Nature: speak with animals/animal friendship, Life: bless/cure wounds, Tempest: Fog cloud/thunderwave, War: Divine favor/shield of faith.
Getting access to the cleric spell list is a lot better than it sounds & more than just being able to shift a prep slot to one of the nifty non-overlapping cleric spells druids don't get
Spells Known and Prepared. You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed m em ber of that class. If you are a ranger 4/w izard 3, for example, you know three 1st-level ranger spells based on your levels in the ranger class. As 3rd-level wizard, you know three w izard cantrips, and your spellbook contains ten wizard spells, two of which (the two you gained when you reached 3rd level as a wizard) can be 2nd-level spells. If your Intelligence is 16, you can prepare six wizard spells from your spellbook.
Each spell you know and prepare is associated with one o f your classes, and you use the spellcasting ability o f thatclass when you cast the spell. Similarly, a spellcasting focus, such as a holy symbol, can be used only for the spells from the class associated with that focus.
In short, it's 1+wis mod extra spells you can prepare from the first lerel cleric spell list on top of the free domain prep spells.
Finally you get a domain specific goodie. Life domain gives you disciple of life & lets you add 2+spell slot level to any healing spell you cast (including goodberry (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/sage-advice/rules-answers-august-2015))... Nature lets you add one more druid cantrip of your choice along with proficiency in either animal handling, nature, or survival. Tempest gives you martial weapons you don't need & wrath of the storm to deal dex save for half 2d8 lightning or thunder damage as a reaction to getting hit your wis mod/long rest. War again gives you martial weapons you don't really need plus the ability to make a second attack as a bonus action your wis mod/long rest


While war & tempest offer some interesting options, only taking one level so as not to disrupt your wildshape progression ropes off the higher level benefits they get to go with those & having their nifty thing only work wisdom mod per long rest severely limits their value. Nature cleric is fairly redundant & pointless with very little in the way of new stuff to compliment you. Life offers you free domain prep bless & cure wounds. bless lets three chosen targets add a d4 to an attack roll or saving throw, potentially useful in any group. Cure wounds is one of those better safe than sorry spells that almost always gets prepared in my experience. That leaves the fog cloud/thunderwave & divine favor/shield of faith domain prep spells for tempest & war cleric, while great spells you won't generally be able to cast them past the first round of combat resulting in a limiting of their usefulness.

If you almost always have cure wounds prepped, even with only 15 wis, that level of life cleric frees up a druid prep slot... posibly 2 if you often keep detect magic prepped plus gives you three cleric prep slots, some cantrips, heavy armor, & some boosting to your healing capability on those times when you need to. All combined it's a pretty sweat deal in exchange for keeping full spell slot progression (both druid & cleric progress in caster level at 1/1 on the PHB165 chart) but delaying access to new levels of druid spells & now much better armored wildshape beast forms by one level. Your GM can decide if disciple of life affects combat wildshape's ability to burn spell slots for hp recovery since it's not explicitly casting a spell but is using a spell slot.... Like many things druid, that one falls to the GM to decide.

[Tetrasodium]

I'd Valor Bard, if only because of the extra AC you can get out of it.

is your valor bard dfferent from mine? In my phb bard gives light armor, one skill of choice, a musical instrument, bard spellcasting, 2bard cantrips, & by 3 when you get valor bard you can also pickup jack of all trades, sone of rest, an expertise, medium armor, shields, martial weapons, & combat inspiration. at level 1 druids have light aromr, medium armor, & shields. what "extra" ac are they getting out of needing 13 charisma & giving up a full 3 levels/tier of druid spell & wildshape progression? o.0

As long as the wildshape+barkskin makes the druid a bit of a damage soak and can add in some healing on top, it should be good enough for me! My only worry is that the AC is so low that the beast forms will be slain too quickly to be useful.
Barkskin is sadly a pretty awful spell for protecting yourself with. The AC 16 it grants is ok, but not great. Needing concentration means that you can't concentrate on some other useful spell like wall of thorns/entangle/gust of wind/moonbeam/flaming sphere/etc. Needing concentradion means that you will be making concentration xhecks if your OK but not great ac 16 is hit. Given that so many wildshape forms have only 10 dex, it's only going to be 16 ith no dex mod or will be a point or two higher in exchange for weaker attacks & fewer hp.

[Theodoxus]

Couple thoughts - no heavy armor is sans metal, so I'm not sure what benefit that is to a druid, unless your DM is handwaving the flavor text... which is ok, I guess, but then you're cherry picking which is frowned upon in a lot of circles.

Second, wouldn't Disciple of Life work on a moon druids self-heal? That alone would make it worth taking a level of life cleric, if you're planning on tanking in wildshape rather than blasting.

[Tetrasodium]

Couple thoughts - no heavy armor is sans metal, so I'm not sure what benefit that is to a druid, unless your DM is handwaving the flavor text... which is ok, I guess, but then you're cherry picking which is frowned upon in a lot of circles.

Second, wouldn't Disciple of Life work on a moon druids self-heal? That alone would make it worth taking a level of life cleric, if you're planning on tanking in wildshape rather than blasting.



13 Strange Material. The item was created from a material that is bizarre given its purpose. Its durability is unaffected.

Nonmetal variants have existed since the very early days of d&d (hello ironwood, hello bone/monster giblet/stone/crystal/coral) and it still does. saying a druid cannot get it under the rules without waving rules or cherrypicking rules to follow is just wrong.
as to disciple of life & the moon druid's combat wildshape recovery. it falls into a GM decides limbo that many many druid features fall into. Given that wotc decided disciple of life should work with goodberry it stands to reason that it probably should work with the moon druid recovery, but that's still up to the GM to decide. Here's why:

Disciple of Life
A lso starting at 1st level, your healing spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell’s level.
Disciple of life needs a spell


Additionally, while you are transformed by Wild Shape, you can use a bonus action to expend one spell slot slot to regain 1d8 hit points per level of the spell slot expended.

The moon druid's hp recovery thing from combat wildshape is not explicitly "a spell" despite using a "spell slot". and as you proved by bringing up that the default form for the four different flavors of heavy armor is made of metal while ignoring the fact that nonmetal versions have existed for decades across multiple versions including 5e... people like to split hairs & mince words when it comes to druids. suggest someone try to find gauntlets of ogre power or a belt of giant strength (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22124783&postcount=39) & people shrug. Suggest a druid acting as the party tank gain heavy armor proficiency & lift three different ways they can justify wearing it & people flip out about metal.... I blame wotc for playing coy the last few decades whenever people asked if a druid should be able to do/find/get X & not bothering to include an approved way for druids to get nonmetal armors other than a handful of specific magic items in specific adventures/modules for giving people that erroneous impression. While almost an hour of this podcast (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/chris-avellone-and-philip-daigle-planescape-torment-enhanced-edition) starts trying to correct that, until new content and/or AL rules start to make clear paths other than things like "find a gm to run module XYZ" the damage done by all of those years still remains. Perhaps they will start with it in ToA (https://twitter.com/DnD_AdvLeague/status/855459070337310722) or some future update to the AL rules explicitly allowing druids to get nonmetal armor.

[Specter]

is your valor bard dfferent from mine? In my phb bard gives light armor, one skill of choice, a musical instrument, bard spellcasting, 2bard cantrips, & by 3 when you get valor bard you can also pickup jack of all trades, sone of rest, an expertise, medium armor, shields, martial weapons, & combat inspiration. at level 1 druids have light aromr, medium armor, & shields. what "extra" ac are they getting out of needing 13 charisma & giving up a full 3 levels/tier of druid spell & wildshape progression? o.0

A lore bard with 16 DEX and studded leather has 15AC. A valor one with the same DEX can have up to 19AC with a scale mail and a shield, bonus proficiencies only valor gives.

[Tetrasodium]

A lore bard with 16 DEX and studded leather has 15AC. A valor one with the same DEX can have up to 19AC with a scale mail and a shield, bonus proficiencies only valor gives.

oh, valor bard has higher ac than lore bard. I thought you were trying to say that valor bard would bump druid AC :D