The reverse Druid

[CTurbo]

There was a thread about this a few months ago on here and it sparked my interest. I wonder how it worked out for that guy.

Has anybody ever played on been in a campaign with a reverse druid?

I'm talking about a character that's normal form is an animal and can only wildshape into a humanoid race.

The way I see it working, the player picks a common beast. We'll use the Wolf as example.

You are a wolf Druid and you'll stat yourself out using point buy or the standard array. Then you'll pick a race like human, elf, dwarf, etc... that you'd wildshape into. This is where it gets tricky. I guess you'd stat your humanoid form using standard array or point buy too? You can only cast spells in your humanoid form until level 18.

At levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19, you'd give your wolf form an ASI or feat(a feat that makes sense for a wolf like Mobile, Alert, Lucky, Res, etc... but not something like PAM, GWM, SS, Defensive Duelist, etc...)

As you level up and can wildshape into higher CR creatures, your humanoid form would be stronger. You wouldn't level it up normally, more like power jumps to match the needed CR rating. Guess some calculations would have to be done.

Would it make sense to be able to wildshape into different humanoids? That would be fun.

Am I missing anything? Do you think this would work in an actual campaign?

[Misterwhisper]

There was a thread about this a few months ago on here and it sparked my interest. I wonder how it worked out for that guy.

Has anybody ever played on been in a campaign with a reverse druid?

I'm talking about a character that's normal form is an animal and can only wildshape into a humanoid race.

The way I see it working, the player picks a common beast. We'll use the Wolf as example.

You are a wolf Druid and you'll stat yourself out using point buy or the standard array. Then you'll pick a race like human, elf, dwarf, etc... that you'd wildshape into. This is where it gets tricky. I guess you'd stat your humanoid form using standard array or point buy too? You can only cast spells in your humanoid form until level 18.

At levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19, you'd give your wolf form an ASI or feat(a feat that makes sense for a wolf like Mobile, Alert, Lucky, Res, etc... but not something like PAM, GWM, SS, Defensive Duelist, etc...)

As you level up and can wildshape into higher CR creatures, your humanoid form would be stronger. You wouldn't level it up normally, more like power jumps to match the needed CR rating. Guess some calculations would have to be done.

Would it make sense to be able to wildshape into different humanoids? That would be fun.

Am I missing anything? Do you think this would work in an actual campaign?

Wouldn’t it be more simple just to keep wild shape as is, just change into other animals.

To start with you are a talking animal so being odd is already taken care of.

[CTurbo]

You wouldn't be a talking animal. You'd be a regular animal for the most part. The only difference would be you would likely be much smarter, more wise, and more charismatic(depending on how you stat yourself) than normal, as well as having the the ability to wildshape.

[jaappleton]

Hi there.

Im fairly positive you’ve been inspired by my character, actually!

I play Ruxpin, the Bear that accidentally activated magic in an ancient Druid grove and became a Gold Dragonborn. The Dragonborn’s scales are a stark contrast to his normal Bear fur, and it’s quite an adjustment for him.

And Wild Shape is how he reverts to his true form. However, due to the Druid magic, he’s able to augment it.

Giant Spider? Bear with a bunch of arms and legs that can shoot webs.

Giant Eagle? Bear with wings.

It’s been a blast so far. You have mentioned modifying things quite a bit, but I went with a straight normal Moon Druid build. Just RPing it inverted.

Though with the latest Unearthed Arcana on Sidekicks, I considered playing a straight up Bear with the “Warrior” Sidekick Class. It’s kinda an archetype-less blend of Fighter and Barbarian? Seem like it’d work to play an animal, but I wanted some magic with it, so... Druid.

[Ganymede]

It’s been a blast so far. You have mentioned modifying things quite a bit, but I went with a straight normal Moon Druid build. Just RPing it inverted.

This sounds like the best way to do it. You get what you want without resorting to crazy-rando homebrew.

[HappyDaze]

You wouldn't be a talking animal. You'd be a regular animal for the most part. The only difference would be you would likely be much smarter, more wise, and more charismatic(depending on how you stat yourself) than normal, as well as having the the ability to wildshape.

Considering the way point-buy and arrays work for PCs, it's a virtual guarantee that you'll be much smarter, wiser, and more charismatic than a typical wolf. OTOH, you'll also probably be the scrawny runt of the litter with the way druids dump Str.

[Azgeroth]

aside from the massive head-ache of figuring out how levels affect either form, particularly ASIs, here are the concerns i have..

1. wild shape, even on a moon druid, at higher levels is a CR 1/3 of your druid level, so your 'caster' form would always be 1/3 of your actual level. how would you derive the stats for your caster form?

2. limiting your ASIs to thematically fitting a creature, greatly limits character developement and options, for example does combat casting make sense??

3. again with your primary form being a beast, and the character you level, does this also mean you cannot turn into other beasts? or does shape change operate normally in that respect?

i'm all for the idea, and thematically there is presedence. your an awakened beast, who decided to learn the art of druidic magic, but then if you can't cast spells in your animal form, how the hell did you become a druid??

honestly i think the best way to run this is as jaappleton has, and run a 'normal' druid, with a background of. i was once a <creature> but X turned me into <humanoid> form. much much simpler...

[CTurbo]

Considering the way point-buy and arrays work for PCs, it's a virtual guarantee that you'll be much smarter, wiser, and more charismatic than a typical wolf. OTOH, you'll also probably be the scrawny runt of the litter with the way druids dump Str.

Nah the regular Wolf's stat array is 12 Str, 15 Dex, 12 Con, 3 Int, 12 Wis, 6 Cha. Even with no racial modifiers, point buy gets us 12, 15, 12, 8, 15, 8. I figure the physical stats would be more important than your typical Druid considering how much time you'd spend in your "regular" beast form. Would we really need an Int or Cha higher than 8?


aside from the massive head-ache of figuring out how levels affect either form, particularly ASIs, here are the concerns i have..

1. wild shape, even on a moon druid, at higher levels is a CR 1/3 of your druid level, so your 'caster' form would always be 1/3 of your actual level. how would you derive the stats for your caster form?

2. limiting your ASIs to thematically fitting a creature, greatly limits character developement and options, for example does combat casting make sense??

3. again with your primary form being a beast, and the character you level, does this also mean you cannot turn into other beasts? or does shape change operate normally in that respect?

i'm all for the idea, and thematically there is presedence. your an awakened beast, who decided to learn the art of druidic magic, but then if you can't cast spells in your animal form, how the hell did you become a druid??

honestly i think the best way to run this is as jaappleton has, and run a 'normal' druid, with a background of. i was once a <creature> but X turned me into <humanoid> form. much much simpler...

1. This is a good point I hadn't considered. I figured the spellcasting level would match character level always. Humanoid form stats would be derived via point buy(or rolling) during character creation. Maybe the CR rating increase in humanoid form would come from more hit dice and therefor more hp as well as higher stats like Dex which would mean higher AC.

2. I agree it limits character development, but anybody willing to play this character would be aware of this type of sacrifice before hand. Even still, if a player wanted to take a feat that they only got to use while in caster form, I don't see why I wouldn't allow it.

3. Yes you would not be able to turn into other beasts. Originally I was thinking about just the original beast form, and then the one humanoid wildshape form, but I think it would be fun to be able to wildshape into multiple humanoid forms. Each with varying physical stats and racial abilities of course.