Land's Stride seems awful! ... Would this be broken?

[Schwann145]

Would a simple change to ignore the "non-magical" limitation on Land's Stride be too good? As is, it has almost zero real usefulness and nearly zero synergy with your own Druid spells.

tl;dr - Change the wording to:

Starting at 6th level, moving through difficult terrain costs you no extra movement. You can also pass through plants without being slowed by them and without taking damage from them if they have thorns, spines, or a similar hazard. (Last paragraph removed as it would become redundant.)

Too much? Just about right? Thoughts? :smallsmile:

[ShikomeKidoMi]

This is going to be campaign specific, much like anti-trap abilities. If your DM likes to throw up areas of non-magic difficult terrain, it's a very useful feature as is.

[Tiadoppler]

TL;DR: *shrug*



How useful it is all depends on your DM. If your DM throws a lot of shrubberies and rockslides at you, especially in larger scale battles, it's much better. Saying that you're immune to all magical difficult terrain: I'd go through the spell directory and MM and see how many spells/monsters use difficult terrain for an idea of how powerful this edit would be.

For myself, I recognize that Circle of the Land is in need of some loving attention, especially with how it's eclipsed by Circle of the Moon so regularly, but I do love the fluff of Land's Stride as written.

[Snivlem]

I don't think the above posters are taking the full picture into account. This is druids we are talking about, a class who lots of spells who can create magical terrain themselves, so it's no DM-dependent at all, as this will make the druid immune to the negative effects of some of his own spells. To answer the OP: No I don't think it would be broken, I think it would be fair and interesting.

[Talamare]

Not only would it not be broken, it would probably still be a little lame thematically for the concept of Druids.

Land Druids have representation for Arctic, Desert, and Coast for example.

None of which are really examples of locations where one might find excess foliage that one might need specific advantage against it.

Let's expand it!
"As well as has advantage on checks based on moving in terrain."

This is pretty vague, but should cover more or less anything.
Fell into Quick Sand, and need a check to get out? Advantage
Moving against a Blizzard? Advantage
-shrugs-

[Citan]

Would a simple change to ignore the "non-magical" limitation on Land's Stride be too good? As is, it has almost zero real usefulness and nearly zero synergy with your own Druid spells.

tl;dr - Change the wording to:
(Last paragraph removed as it would become redundant.)

Too much? Just about right? Thoughts? :smallsmile:


I don't think the above posters are taking the full picture into account. This is druids we are talking about, a class who lots of spells who can create magical terrain themselves, so it's no DM-dependent at all, as this will make the druid immune to the negative effects of some of his own spells. To answer the OP: No I don't think it would be broken, I think it would be fair and interesting.
Guys, I'm sorry but you are mistaken, in that Druid do have many spells that work with Land's Strike. A good part of Druid spells do *not* create magical difficult terrain, it just uses magical force to reshape natural terrain or accelerate natural plant growth to create natural obstacles.
So Entangle, Plant Growth, Move Earth, Earthquake, Earth Tremor, Erupting Earth are definitely ok.

Interpretation could go both ways from what I understand for Spike Growth, Sleet Storm and Ice Storm so I'll let others quote RAW clarification if they have it (my comprehension on this but I don't pretend to have the good answer ;)):
- Spike Growth no-go because you can make spikes whatever ground you are on, so clearly -imo- the essence of spikes is magical.
- Sleet Storm I'd say is a go because difficult terrain is a "natural consequence" of cold rain, to be said otherwise you magically provoke the fall of a natural element.
- Ice Storm is... Really no clear cut opinion here. I'll follow what others say. ^^

Finally, clearly for a spell like Hallucinatory Terrain difficult terrain would be magical by essence so no-go. I don't have any doubt either regarding Wall of Thorns, as sad as may be, considering the wording ("you create", "appears on a solid surface for the duration").
Even in the worst case, that still leaves you with half a dozen spells to play with, most of them you get at low level to boot. ;)

With that said, I don't think at first glance that the change you propose would break anything, but I lack hindsight on how much magical difficult terrain can be used in official campaign and how annoying it can be. :) So my only answer would be "if you're the DM, no problem, you can adapt on the fly through encounter design".

[Talamare]

Guys, I'm sorry but you are mistaken, in that Druid do have many spells that work with Land's Strike. A good part of Druid spells do *not* create magical difficult terrain, it just uses magical force to reshape natural terrain or accelerate natural plant growth to create natural obstacles.
So Entangle, Plant Growth, Move Earth, Earthquake, Earth Tremor, Erupting Earth are definitely ok.

Interpretation could go both ways from what I understand for Spike Growth, Sleet Storm and Ice Storm so I'll let others quote RAW clarification if they have it (my comprehension on this but I don't pretend to have the good answer ;)):
- Spike Growth no-go because you can make spikes whatever ground you are on, so clearly -imo- the essence of spikes is magical.
- Sleet Storm I'd say is a go because difficult terrain is a "natural consequence" of cold rain, to be said otherwise you magically provoke the fall of a natural element.
- Ice Storm is... Really no clear cut opinion here. I'll follow what others say. ^^

Finally, clearly for a spell like Hallucinatory Terrain difficult terrain would be magical by essence so no-go. I don't have any doubt either regarding Wall of Thorns, as sad as may be, considering the wording ("you create", "appears on a solid surface for the duration").
Even in the worst case, that still leaves you with half a dozen spells to play with, most of them you get at low level to boot. ;)

With that said, I don't think at first glance that the change you propose would break anything, but I lack hindsight on how much magical difficult terrain can be used in official campaign and how annoying it can be. :) So my only answer would be "if you're the DM, no problem, you can adapt on the fly through encounter design".

Do we have a Crawford on any of this?

[Citan]

Do we have a Crawford on any of this?
Citan *shuffles deck, makes his hand*
"Sorry, I don't have any Crawford Conjuration in here". :smallwink:

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Guys, I'm sorry but you are mistaken, in that Druid do have many spells that work with Land's Strike. A good part of Druid spells do *not* create magical difficult terrain, it just uses magical force to reshape natural terrain or accelerate natural plant growth to create natural obstacles.
So Entangle, Plant Growth, Move Earth, Earthquake, Earth Tremor, Erupting Earth are definitely ok.

I'm not sure about every one of those effects, but that is definitely an incorrect interpretation of Entangle, at the very least.

[ad_hoc]

Would a simple change to ignore the "non-magical" limitation on Land's Stride be too good? As is, it has almost zero real usefulness and nearly zero synergy with your own Druid spells.


It is awful compared to what?

Just putting that out there is like saying Thieves' Cant is awful and needs to get buffed.

So what if we compare it to the 6th level feature of the Moon? That one makes natural attacks in wildshape form count as magical for overcoming damage reduction. While it is needed, I certainly wouldn't say it is better than ignoring difficult terrain (and the other benefits).

I also think keeping the non-magical clause is important for interacting with enemy plant creatures.

[Citan]

I'm not sure about every one of those effects, but that is definitely an incorrect interpretation of Entangle, at the very least.
You are right, said from memory, after rereading it's definitely vines of magical nature. My bad, thanks for correction. ;)

[Schwann145]

Just putting that out there is like saying Thieves' Cant is awful and needs to get buffed.
I would wholeheartedly disagree with the comparison. You're comparing a ribbon ability to a crunch, supposedly-nutritional ability (non-ribbon? idk, lol).
We're not talking about Druidic vs Thieves' Cant, we're comparing it to (as you mention below) a Moon Druid's Primal Strike, or a WoS Monk's Shadow Step, or a Draconic Sorcerer's Elemental Affinity or any number of other comparable-by-the-level abilities. (I limited examples to 6th level abilities gained from Paths, but honestly every class gets something crunchy at 6th level, so it's wide open.)


So what if we compare it to the 6th level feature of the Moon? That one makes natural attacks in wildshape form count as magical for overcoming damage reduction. While it is needed, I certainly wouldn't say it is better than ignoring difficult terrain (and the other benefits).
Non-magical difficult terrain, which really only ever comes up at rare GM fiat.
Magical difficult terrain is plenty common. Non-magical terrain? I've never seen it in any of my years of gaming. Maybe that's just the groups I've been in, but it's rather telling to me.

[clash]

Revised ranger gains immunity to all difficult terrain I believe at level 1. While this wad never made official (So far) it seems they recognize their mistake on having it only affect non - magical difficult terrain. I would almost certainly have it at least affect difficult terrain created by the druid in any game I dm.

[Schwann145]

Revised ranger gains immunity to all difficult terrain I believe at level 1.
Not only are you correct but that ability, Natural Explorer, is chocked full of other, even better stuff.
Level 1 Rangers are better Druids than level 6 Druids. :smalltongue:

[ad_hoc]

I would wholeheartedly disagree with the comparison. You're comparing a ribbon ability to a crunch, supposedly-nutritional ability

It's just to show why it's important to have a comparison. Something can't be good or bad on its own, it needs a reference point. This is why I followed up with comparing it to the Moon Druid's ability. This is going to be about as good as it gets for comparing them. It's hard to argue that Land's Stride is worse than the Moon's ability.



Non-magical difficult terrain, which really only ever comes up at rare GM fiat.
Magical difficult terrain is plenty common. Non-magical terrain? I've never seen it in any of my years of gaming. Maybe that's just the groups I've been in, but it's rather telling to me.

That astounds me.

Difficult terrain is everywhere. It is very common in the 5e adventure books. It is rare that there isn't at least some difficult terrain in any sort of combat encounter. It is not uncommon for the whole area to be difficult terrain.

Rubble, furniture, undergrowth, stairs, snow, etc.

The most common difficult terrain is when the PC moves through another creature's space. That will come up in many fights regardless of what is on the ground.

In contrast it has been a long time since I've seen magical difficult terrain in combat used against the PCs. I think there were some druids almost a year ago that created some.