Druid - Circle of the Lycan [PEACH]

[Oramac]

Hello all! I'm trying to come up with a Lycanthrope focused Druid Circle. Mainly I need your help keeping it from becoming extremely MAD.

All other feedback is welcome as well.

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/ByZ2QrgqDb

[Morphic tide]

One question: Is there any particular reason why this cannot be replaces with a refluffed or variant Moon Druid? Because I do not see any thematic necessity for this Circle.

At any rate, I'll critique the abilities one by one:

Hybrid Transformation:
In a refluffed or variant Moon Druid, this would be just Wildshape into an appropriate critter (making Lycan that are valid forms would be one way to do this). The temp HP equal to five times Proficiency is unacceptable, as it is ten HP right at second level and scales without Druid levels. It's pure dip bonus, for that function.

The Natural Attacks are better than what Monk gets for Unarmed Strikes, in every way, as it's three attacks per action, again right at level 2, and it scales almost the same with a higher peak for the Bite damage. So it's a core class feature made better, with the "downside" being a limited duration on access.

Proficiency applied to AC is, again, a big no because it is far too able to break bounded accuracy pretty hard, casually letting you get over 22 AC at higher levels. And your Claw Attacks scale with Dexterity, so you're maxing that out anyways.

Vulnerability to Silvered Weapons requires the DM to sick Werewolf hunters on you to reasonably matter, while the save every time you take damage is unacceptably harsh because it forces a DC 14 save for every single instance of damage you take, with failure costing you control of your next turn and forcing you to attack the nearest creature, taking 2d6 extra damage for each time you fail the saved if you can't and doing nothing for the turn.

Wrath of the Moon:
So not only do you get Monk's Unarmed Strike, but better, you get Paladin's Smite with inferiority barely worth mentioning also at 2nd level. This means the subclass has the bulk of two different class's damage output methods at 2nd level, with direct stacking. And nothing stops you from using it on all three attacks, so your burst damage output is beyond literally anything else in the game short of a Sorcadin who's decided to duel wield.

Primal Strike:
Bypassing a common Resistence, but extremely problematically doubling the already huge attack output, sending burst potential beyond anything the game is supposed to ever have to deal with to the point you can probably one-round solo the goddamn Tarrasque.

*checks numbers* 4d10+2d12+30d6+30 is the obvious peak burst, which maxes out at 274 without crits. So not one-round killing it, but carving out over a third of the thing's health in the first round. This is deeply unacceptable because the Tarrasque is CR 30. Having a significant chance to solo it is not at all acceptable.

Even if I'm grossly misunderstanding how Extra Attack works (I probably am, but I can’t find a rule for inherently multi-attack things), that's still up to 137 damage in one round without crits or the extra attack.

Resilient Hide:
Screw you, you goddamn moronic short-sighted scum. You. Do. Not. Give. Resistance. To. All. Physical. Damage. Silvered weapons are not at all common in 5e, and this subclass basically forces the DM to set dedicated, well-funded, werewolf hunters after the party because of one character's bull**** supermode core combat feature halving all other physical damage, which is what the vast majority of enemies rely on.

Unnatural Fortitude:
Again with the normally-useless Silver weakness forcing the DM to rely on werewolf hunters for physical damage, this ability halves any large single instance of damage once per long rest unless it would knock them out through 25 to 30 extra HP, provided it can actually hit through a +5 or +6 AC the game was never ment to deal with.

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As for being MAD, there's no such issue with the way it's designed, as the Circle has only one thing needing Wisdom in it and provides all the character's damage needs for them. The character would build as a fairly standard Martial, though with sizable Wisdom investment, and use spells for utility roles exclusively.

[nickl_2000]

A few things I am struggling with

-I don't like the fact that you get advantage on either Dex or Strength saves/ability checks. I feel like this particular piece should be a choice like the Totem Barbarian. You either get a 1d6 bite attack and advantage on save if you choose the Curse of the Werewolf form or you get 1d6 Claws and advantage on Dex saves if you choose the curse of the Weretiger.

-Granting bonus to AC based on proficiency could be a problem with magical armor since you would get Armor Bonus + Dex + Prof which will end up being gigantic. On the other hand, if you give someone a new AC calculation option it will work. They get the new AC choice of 10 + Prof Bonus + Dex in Weretiger form or 10 + Prof Bonus + Con in Werewolf form. Also, with the new AC calculation, are they allowed to use shields? I would say yes since even at level 20 you can only get to 10+6+5+2=23 AC. Whereas at level 2 you will likely be at 10+2(stat)+2(prof)+2(shield) = 16 AC (although this could certainly be higher with better stats). This isn't perfect, but it is still decent all things considered.

If you don't like how the numbers come up with why not give a base AC when you go into the hybrid form? At level 2: you get AC 13+Stat+Shield, Level 6: 14+Stat+Shield, Level 14: 15+Stat+Shield


-The berserk is a rough one. I would actually limit it to "The first time you take damage each turn" because if you are up against a monk or something with a lot of attacks, you could get pounded pretty hard in a single turn.

[Oramac]

Screw you, you goddamn moronic short-sighted scum.

Well, I'm definitely going to ignore everything you say now.


A few things I am struggling with

-I don't like the fact that you get advantage on either Dex or Strength saves/ability checks. I feel like this particular piece should be a choice like the Totem Barbarian. You either get a 1d6 bite attack and advantage on save if you choose the Curse of the Werewolf form or you get 1d6 Claws and advantage on Dex saves if you choose the curse of the Weretiger.

-Granting bonus to AC based on proficiency could be a problem with magical armor since you would get Armor Bonus + Dex + Prof which will end up being gigantic. On the other hand, if you give someone a new AC calculation option it will work. They get the new AC choice of 10 + Prof Bonus + Dex in Weretiger form or 10 + Prof Bonus + Con in Werewolf form. Also, with the new AC calculation, are they allowed to use shields? I would say yes since even at level 20 you can only get to 10+6+5+2=23 AC. Whereas at level 2 you will likely be at 10+2(stat)+2(prof)+2(shield) = 16 AC (although this could certainly be higher with better stats). This isn't perfect, but it is still decent all things considered.

If you don't like how the numbers come up with why not give a base AC when you go into the hybrid form? At level 2: you get AC 13+Stat+Shield, Level 6: 14+Stat+Shield, Level 14: 15+Stat+Shield


-The berserk is a rough one. I would actually limit it to "The first time you take damage each turn" because if you are up against a monk or something with a lot of attacks, you could get pounded pretty hard in a single turn.

Thank you. All good ideas, and exactly what I was looking for.

[Morphic tide]

Well, I'm definitely going to ignore everything you say now.
Just because I'm being a **** out of frustration at horrible design choices, doesn't mean my criticism is invalid. Almost every single feature this has is massively overpowered.

To put the problem there in perspective, that ability effectively doubles HP and healing in every combat where damage is mostly physical outside of the specific case of silvered weapons, which have little reason for use in 5e due to the lack of DR/Silver being a highly needed thing for general anti-Fiend action. This is why Resistance to physical damage is so tightly restricted and basically always has a clause for magical bypass.

And the problem with Proficiency to AC is that you can fairly trivially have 24 AC (Breastplate with 14 Dex), while the Tarrasque, a good benchmark for the peak of opposition, has +19 to attack rolls. This means the Tarrasque has a 25% chance to miss an attack. And then it has the damage halved, so it deals over 60% less damage overall.

The issue with the Smite-alike and Martial Arts-alike is primarily that it gives an effective primary damage method that stacks on top of another effective primary damage method without loss, while simultaneously largely bypassing the restriction on spellcasting, as far as single-target damage is concerned.

The ultimate problem of Extra Attack while being a Werewolf is that you basically already have it, due to having three attacks baseline (said baseline three attacks also has rules confustion as to whether you repeat the attack routine or only repeat one attack), alongside a damage increase that would make the attack viable at their original number.

In general, you have three abilities that are constructed to make up for a lack of damage to a similar degree, resulting in being wildly above the power curve. Then you have two abilities made to make up for a lack of durability that go about it badly because of stacking and lacking mercy clauses like the magical damage bypass. The 14th level ability is actually not that bad (though a less-prone-to-weird-interactions setup would be universal resistance rather than healing half), I was angry about the flagrantly overpowered combination of features and didn't really go in depth at the end.

[Oramac]

Just because I'm being a **** out of frustration at horrible design choices, doesn't mean my criticism is invalid. Almost every single feature this has is massively overpowered.

Then just say that. There's no need to be a **** about it.

[Blackbando]

Oramac is correct, here. While I agree that this is massively overpowered, being overly rude and angry about it helps nobody.

This is all typed on a forum. This isn't like a heat of the moment thing where you can't easily take back what you said, you can easily delete the anger before posting.

[demonslayerelf]

Actually, this doesn't look too powerful. Wrath of the moon isn't actually all that great because of the cap of 5d6 necrotic damage, and even that's only obtainable at 9th level and beyond. Monk's damage dice are irrelevant when you can pick up a weapon(It really just frees up 1 cantrip until really high levels, because of Shillelagh). Your natural weapons are magical is a really basic thing to let you punch people to death, nothing powerful there.

There are a few glaring problems, like the Temp. Hit points not scaling with your Druid levels, just leveling in general...
Or the elephant of +6 to AC. But that can be fixed by saying your AC is now 10+proficiency+dexterity, doesn't stack with shields. It's a little better than your average monk at times, sure, but Bladesingers and Barbarians can each crush this score at relatively low levels anyway, and monks have plenty of other bonuses that this druid doesn't get.

Resilient Hide is a bit much, since BPS damage is more or less the only thing 99% of 5e creatures get. I would say a health bonus would be a good replacement here, since this is clearly supposed to be a more martial class.

And otherwise, it seems the big problem is founded on a misconception. You never get 3 attacks, people, you get 1. Quote under the first ability you get; "While in hybrid form, you gain the following benefits, which supercede the rules of Wild Shape and those of Lycanthropy in the Monster Manual. " There's nothing too powerful about this class.


If anything, I'd say it's just boring. Everything you get to do revolves around health/damage, with not a ribbon or neat power in sight.



(That all said, there's some really dangerous multiclass with paladin opportunities at higher levels, but who gives a **** about how much damage a 20th level character can put out :P )