What do you think of a Lore Bard with a 2 level dip to get moondruid shapechange

[Kaimal]

It's right in the title mostly but I'll expand a bit. This is pretty much for flavour because it would fit the character.


( For anyone interested my character is a green hag who basically full on body snatched an elf to go into hiding and is able to mimic sounds, like a kenku, and full on shapeshift into beasts as well as disguise, which is wear lore comes in for spells like alter self and other cool ones I like for emulating that.)



DM set it as a homebrew rule shapechange just scales off level not exclusively druid. But
Elemental are out currently. They'll probably lock it behind a quests of some sort.

But I was wondering what people thought about the idea?
Mechanically, for flavour etc.

Just leave your thoughts.

[nickl_2000]

With that house rule, it would almost be silly not to take 2 levels in moon druid. Both the utility and the pure amount of HP could get a squishy lore bard out of many bad situations (plus shield prof will be nice). The other nice thing is that you don't really have to worry about the Druid armor nonsense since a lore bard only gets light armor anyways.

Does the house rule also apply to swimming and flying forms?

Pick up guidance and mold earth for the cantrips since your wis is likely not that great and run with it.

[Aaron Underhand]

I'm a great fan of a one level dip with Lore bard into a free format caster (Druid/Cleric/Wiz). It frees up the spell choices for higher levels and gives you loads of utility including ritual casting. It also maintains spell slots

Two level dips are more painful in terms of slowed progression, but with this houserule Moon Druid 2 looks great.

Guidance is a no brainer, if you go for Wis 16 then I would also pick shillelagh as a low level magical weapon - most times though you'll want an empty hand and shield. For druid spells I'd pick Healing word (you only need 1 point so the stat bonus is minor issue here), Fog Cloud and Goodberry - Possibly Faerie Fire if you have good Wis.

Now all your fist level spells are in place - Bard spell picks can be restricted to 2nd level plus spells

[Fire Tarrasque]

YES.
Just take two levels in Moon Druid, ignore the any stats. You'll be fine.

[MrStabby]

With those house rules it is a great boost for a lore bard. If you are fixed on bard that is.

Maybe barbarian druid would be better still - no need to scale the druid side beyond two levels and still get to pull the raging bear. Or monk, or paladins...Or all three. A smiting angry kung-fu bear.

You will benefit from this but be aware other concepts may benefit a lot more.

[Asmotherion]

Well, you should have put the parenthesis before the build XD

Before the Character trope I was like "Ok, I guess it's a character... a singer Druid maybe? Or a Bard who got really interested in Moon Druid Rituals and decided to devote more time studying them, because that's what Lore Bards do, right?"

After the trope, makes much more sence.

Cool character.

Mechanics Wise, as your DM will soon discover, it's Chaos. He's basically creating a soft version of a Gestalt. If that's cool with your D&D, don't sweat it, but at the very least, be passivelly awear of it.

[Kaimal]

With that house rule, it would almost be silly not to take 2 levels in moon druid. Both the utility and the pure amount of HP could get a squishy lore bard out of many bad situations (plus shield prof will be nice). The other nice thing is that you don't really have to worry about the Druid armor nonsense since a lore bard only gets light armor anyways.

Does the house rule also apply to swimming and flying forms?

Pick up guidance and mold earth for the cantrips since your wis is likely not that great and run with it.

Wis is actually pretty good about 15 ish if I remember right. We roll stats and then come up with class then characters. Without charisma being a bit higher probably would have been a ranger minotaur.

The restrictions rn are just beasts I've interacted with/studied. And no elementals. So starting out i can pretty much be any woodland/swamp creature that fits the original CR and movement type restrictions. We always run sort of OP PCs so the balancing act is perfected by now.


Until we figure out knew ways to break the game.

[Kaimal]

I'm a great fan of a one level dip with Lore bard into a free format caster (Druid/Cleric/Wiz). It frees up the spell choices for higher levels and gives you loads of utility including ritual casting. It also maintains spell slots

Two level dips are more painful in terms of slowed progression, but with this houserule Moon Druid 2 looks great.

Guidance is a no brainer, if you go for Wis 16 then I would also pick shillelagh as a low level magical weapon - most times though you'll want an empty hand and shield. For druid spells I'd pick Healing word (you only need 1 point so the stat bonus is minor issue here), Fog Cloud and Goodberry - Possibly Faerie Fire if you have good Wis.

Now all your fist level spells are in place - Bard spell picks can be restricted to 2nd level plus spells

My current list O' spells is

Cantrips:

Prestidigitation

Mage Hand/or/Primal Savagery(This is depending on what the other party members come up with)

Poison Spray
Guidance


Spells:

Feather Fall
Silent Image
Thunderwave
Speak With Animals
Faerie Fire
Entangle
Fog Cloud
Disguise Self

We're starting lvl 3 and I'm gonna be supporting mostly at first and being quite possibly the face of the group. So this is what I went with. I know we have damage and tanking covered rn and healing i believe is taken care of but we don't have much utility just yet so I'm prepping to fill those roles somewhat rn.

Prestidigitation and disguise self for some interrogation/intimidation techniques.

Silent Image with my mimicry could set up a nice little ambush for a lone guard.

Fog Cloud over enemies with fairie fire I think could work well.

Thunderwave and possibly primal savagery for when I get caught out of wildshape in close quarters.

And poison spray so I can stay out of reach for most melee but close enough to charge in if necessary.

Speak With Animals for fun and some info gathering possibly.

Entangle and featherfall are just good imo.