(Why) Are Druids unpopular? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Tetrasodium

2019-03-29, 11:58 AM

Which is a shame, as an eco-terrorist Druid seems like a badly underused Chaotic Itswhatmycharacterwoulddo option.

Ashbound & children of winter (http://keith-baker.com/druids-in-eberron/) both fit that mold to varying degrees In a way, so can the gatekeepers if your civilization relies on doing something that spreads extraplanar influences in bad ways. The wardens of the wood were so good at being ecoterrorists that they kicked out the bandits preying on their neighbors & proceeded to maintain order to such a degeree that they managed to secede from their mother nation & formed a nation of their own. All of that is eberron stuff, but it says nothing about the badasses of Athas (http://thedarksun.wikidot.com/druid) who stood against the sorcerer kings at great cost continue working to undo the damage.

Getting back to the OP's point though, I blame sacred cows. Druids are the only class that didn't slaughter their sacred cow, but they halfassed it & left said cow comatose with severe brain damage in the process of fixing past wtfisms (compare 3.5 barkskin to 5e barkskin). It's made worse because that sacred cow represents something that is setting specific lore trying to embody something that hasn't really existed for a long time (flower power hippy stereotypes) into a class. People "hate" druids because the no metal armor & some of the tree hugger fluff was a very much needed checks on one of the most powerful classes in the game back in the past (by orders of magnitude in some cases). So as a result they push hard to reinforce those hindrances & limitations so deeply ingrained in their memory. They do that to themselves & others so anyone who takes even a single a level of druid is very much expected to fit a rather constrictive mold that works poorly with the party in who are all lacking their original sacred cows in 5e.

I blame WotC for continuing it... WotC could have represented some interesting druidic sects in 5e stuff... instead they chose to reinforce the seemingly sacred cow worshiping stereotype emerald enclave if a band of druids were needed. In fact the one time a potentially interesting & mold breaking druidic sect is represented in 5e, it turns out to be a bunch of insane demon(?) worshipping cultists surrounded by a bunch of hoodwinked & helpless druids.

Callin

2019-03-29, 12:00 PM

In my 20 years of playing I have never seen a single druid played. I always wanted to play one but I cant stand the Wild Shape aspect of the class. So Im better off playing a Nature Cleric.

Man_Over_Game

2019-03-29, 12:03 PM

Ashbound & children of winter (http://keith-baker.com/druids-in-eberron/) both fit that mold to varying degrees In a way, so can the gatekeepers if your civilization relies on doing something that spreads extraplanar influences in bad ways. The wardens of the wood were so good at being ecoterrorists that they kicked out the bandits preying on their neighbors & proceeded to maintain order to such a degeree that they managed to secede from their mother nation & formed a nation of their own. All of that is eberron stuff, but it says nothing about the badasses of Athas (http://thedarksun.wikidot.com/druid) who stood against the sorcerer kings at great cost continue working to undo the damage.

Getting back to the OP's point though, I blame sacred cows. Druids are the only class that didn't slaughter their sacred cow, but they halfassed it & left said cow comatose with severe brain damage in the process of fixing past wtfisms (compare 3.5 barkskin to 5e barkskin). It's made worse because that sacred cow represents something that is setting specific lore trying to embody something that hasn't really existed for a long time (flower power hippy stereotypes) into a class. People "hate" druids because the no metal armor & some of the tree hugger fluff was a very much needed checks on one of the most powerful classes in the game back in the past (by orders of magnitude in some cases). So as a result they push hard to reinforce those hindrances & limitations so deeply ingrained in their memory. They do that to themselves & others so anyone who takes even a single a level of druid is very much expected to fit a rather constrictive mold that works poorly with the party in who are all lacking their original sacred cows in 5e.

I blame WotC for continuing it... WotC could have represented some interesting druidic sects in 5e stuff... instead they chose to reinforce the seemingly sacred cow worshiping stereotype emerald enclave if a band of druids were needed. In fact the one time a potentially interesting & mold breaking druidic sect is represented in 5e, it turns out to be a bunch of insane demon(?) worshipping cultists surrounded by a bunch of hoodwinked & helpless druids.

I don't blame WotC too much. They tried breaking the mold with 4e, and look how that turned out. I don't think that it's nearly as bad as people who never played it think it is (and there's a lot of people who have strong opinions of it for no real reason), it didn't have much popularity because it was just so drastically different from everything that came before.

People don't want "Different". They want "The Same, but Better". I think 5e captures that very well, even though some of us would prefer "Different".

samcifer

2019-03-29, 12:09 PM

The thing I have about the class is that they don't do much damage per round unless you rely on summoned creatures. If they at least had access to Fireball I'd like the class more.

nickl_2000

2019-03-29, 12:17 PM

The thing I have about the class is that they don't do much damage per round unless you rely on summoned creatures. If they at least had access to Fireball I'd like the class more.

This may be it exactly. Many people want to be able to bring the pain on the bad guys (stabbing them 4 times in a round, dropping a fireball, smite nuking them, sneak attacking, etc). Druids just don't get that. They do damage over time and battlefield control, which just isn't as sexy for a lot of people.

Hail Tempus

2019-03-29, 12:21 PM

For a lot of players, especially new ones, the Druid seems intimidating. There's a lot going on with the class. Plus, some DM's can be ass-hats about what they allow players to wildshape into (as a general rule, DMs should not require that a Druid player have seen a particular animal during play time. If a Druid comes from, say, a coastal, northern area, he should be assumed to have seen the type of animals that live in that environment).

And I don't think the hippy or eco-terrorist concepts are really baked into the fluff of the character class anymore. People who've historically lived outside of the borders of civilization haven't typically fit into those stereotypes, they're more of a modern creation.

The druid concepts I've seen in games:

1) A steppe nomad with a case of wanderlust
2) A shepherd from a rural community
3 An wood elf who grew up in the Feywild

None of these fit the stereotypes, and all were effective members of their respective parties.

stoutstien

2019-03-29, 12:24 PM

The thing I have about the class is that they don't do much damage per round unless you rely on summoned creatures. If they at least had access to Fireball I'd like the class more.
erupting earth is solid damage spell. tho i wish it was druid only.
*note- i think it is stronger than fireball in regard of better scaling and less resisted damage type.

Sigreid

2019-03-29, 12:25 PM

Druid, more than any other class, always has an option to save at least their own rear end. Spells that summon. Spells that restrict movement. Spells that make movement hurt. Spells that heal. The ability to shift to a highly mobile and difficult to follow form. Trying to pin down a druid that has made surviving his priority is nearly impossible unless he's an idiot.

samcifer

2019-03-29, 12:43 PM

This may be it exactly. Many people want to be able to bring the pain on the bad guys (stabbing them 4 times in a round, dropping a fireball, smite nuking them, sneak attacking, etc). Druids just don't get that. They do damage over time and battlefield control, which just isn't as sexy for a lot of people.

Also, they only get multi-attack through wild-shaping, which can result in lower defenses and attack bonuses (to hit and damage), giving up the ability to cast spells at all for the trade-off, or through multi-classing for 5 levels, which is a big investment in a second class that hinders access to better animal forms.

Yora

2019-03-29, 12:52 PM

I think it's quite likely that druids are a class that doesn't fit well into every campaign. When you have a campaign that primarily revolves around cities, castles, and dungeons, a druid just doesn't seem like an interesting addition to the group.
I would guess that in a wilderness centered campaign, druids would look much more interesting to a lot of players.

Frozenstep

2019-03-29, 12:52 PM

In my experience (and I'll go ahead and project onto others), the first characters I thought up were somewhat inspired by other media. In other media, you can find plenty of master swordsmen, incredible archers, and epic wizard/sorcerer types. Finding shaman/druid characters isn't as common, or at least in the stuff I read/watch, and even the few examples I could name are secondary characters at best and don't really get much time to show off much. Not having cool examples means I'm less inspired to play as one.

BloodOgre

2019-03-29, 12:55 PM

The mechanical answer may be the no metal armor aspect, but I suspect that the bias goes all the way back to 1st edition. They were almost always NPCs ranging from the Hippie Naturalist to the Frothing Mad Eco-zealot. When they were utilized as PCs, they ruled supreme in the wilderness, but required outside the box thinking to apply to dungeon settings. Tim Lasko had a couple of excellent articles on Druids back in Dragon Magazine #48 (https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg048.pdf) discussing this mindset. (Side note: They also statted up Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Popeye as a gag in that issue.)

In the last campaign at my table, our best RP player ran an entertaining Dragonborn Druid as a cross between Bob Marley and Jar Jar Binks. So, you may have a point about players not wanting to play the nature oriented class. The 3.5 boards once had a thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?375403-Non-standard-druid-concepts) spitballing some alternative concepts.

As someone who played in the late '70s and early '80s, Druid seemed to be just a neutered cleric in a dungeon or city environment back then, and the lack of metal armor made them quite vulnerable (not as bad as a magic-user, though).

Today I see plenty of people playing druids. And I've seen different published WoTC 3.5e and 4e material that says scale and plate are not limited to metal. It could be bone or hardwood scales or plates, or some toughed monster hide or carapace, umber hulk chitin, and the like. You should apply your imagination to ALL aspects of the game, not just how to solve a puzzle or kill a monster. While 5e does limit medium and heavy armor to metal in the equipment section, that is a general rule. And specific rules take precedent over general rules. In the Druid section it just says that the armor a Druid wears can't be metal, even though the Druid is proficient in medium armor (most of which is metal). Nothing prevents a Druid from taking a feat to gain proficiency in heavy armor and start using a full plate armor made from dragon-turtle shell (although finding that armor may be a bit of a trick). And a Druid could wear a suit of lacquered leather scale mail, or a tortoise-shell breastplate. If it is good enough for NPCs, it should be good enough for PCs, right?

nickl_2000

2019-03-29, 12:59 PM

As someone who played in the late '70s and early '80s, Druid seemed to be just a neutered cleric in a dungeon or city environment back then, and the lack of metal armor made them quite vulnerable (not as bad as a magic-user, though).

Today I see plenty of people playing druids. And I've seen different published WoTC 3.5e and 4e material that says scale and plate are not limited to metal. It could be bone or hardwood scales or plates, or some toughed monster hide or carapace, umber hulk chitin, and the like. You should apply your imagination to ALL aspects of the game, not just how to solve a puzzle or kill a monster. And 5e does limit medium and heavy armor to metal in the equipment section, that is a general rule. In the Druid section it just says that the armor a Druid wears can't be metal, even though the Druid is proficient in medium armor (most of which is metal). Nothing prevents a Druid from taking a feat to gain proficiency in heavy armor and start using a full plate armor made from dragon-turtle shell (although finding that armor may be a bit of a trick). And a Druid could wear a suit of lacquered leather scale mail, or a tortoise-shell breastplate. If it is good enough for NPCs, it should be good enough for PCs, right?

That's the issue though. If I'm playing a fighter or cleric, there is a guarentee that if I have the gold I can get the armor I want.

Since there is no RAW raw non metal materials for medium and heavy armor available, then it depends on the DM allowing it. It is hard to choose a character with that hanging over your.

LudicSavant

2019-03-29, 01:03 PM

Druids are very powerful, but in a way that isn't as fun as it could be for many players.

For example, Conjure Animals. There's no question that summoning a swarm of mooks is powerful, but the implementation makes it a pain. You don't choose your Pokemon, the DM chooses. And you probably would have preferred to manage one interesting pokemon, rather than manage a swarm of generic ones (which might even threaten to bog down the table).

Let's take Conjure Woodland Beings, too. When you cast it, it's basically "how powerful does the DM feel like making you, the spell." They could give you pixies, in which case you basically win the fight. Or they could give you something that's not nearly as useful. Winning by obvious DM fiat can feel just as unsatisfying as losing by it. I think that lack of feeling of control over one's fate makes it unpopular.

For another example, Wildshape. Again, no question that it's powerful. But what makes transforming into animals so good in combat (as opposed to when they're used for scouting/etc)? Buckets and buckets of hit points. The devs themselves have said that Beasts are basically just boring bags of hit points. Remember how people used to complain about "padded sumo" design in 4e? Well Moon Druids can kind of feel like that; throwing your mathematically superior bag of stats at something and waiting for the foregone conclusion to come into effect. I've seen it described as an unsatisfying way to win. It probably doesn't help that they can't speak.

Another thing is that Moon Druids are rewarded for staying in their forms for extended periods of time. They can literally stay in them all day once they get some levels under their belt, and even benefit from short resting in them (since as Sage Advice has even confirmed, you can spend the beast's hit dice).

Sigreid

2019-03-29, 01:08 PM

To me, the value of wildshape is mostly the mobility, escape and disguise options.

In the end though, I'm ok if druids are there for me and others dont play them the same way I dont play warlocks but others love them.

Grod_The_Giant

2019-03-29, 01:09 PM

First, it's that Druids in 5e are one of the weakest full-caster with regards to combat; their spell list is primarily AoE control, Divination spells, and utility spells that rarely see use (r.e. Speak to Plants, Augry, etc.). So, if you want to play a blaster-caster, you're better off as a Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard, and if you want a supportive caster, you're better off as a Cleric, Bard, or Wizard.
I think this is a big reason, yeah, and why so many of the Druids you do see are Moon. Outside of that one subclass, they're not intuitively obvious. Clerics heal or shoot holy lasers, Wizards throw around fireballs and have a ton of iconic spells on their list, Warlocks are pushed pretty hard towards Eldritch Blast, but Druids... you need to have to have some tactical chops to recognize the potential of their control spells, you need to have some RPG experience (and a cooperative DM) to see the utility of their information gathering spells and abilities, and you need to do some book-diving to see the real power of things like Wild Shape and Conjure Animal.

The other point worth bringing up, I think, is that low-level Druids (apart from Moon Druids) aren't that exciting. You can't start summoning until 6th, can't turn into a bird until 8th... their first two levels of spells are distinctly uninspiring, and they don't get any really fun combat toys from their cantrips or class features. I'd much rather play a level 3 Bard or Wizard, and have control options and lots more besides.

Garfunion

2019-03-29, 01:12 PM

For me it is the bookkeeping. Having to “print” all the animals you can transform into. If you decide to have a favorite form you’d have to talk with your DM to see if you can “level” it up but, even then you still don’t get anything new for it just extra hit points and attack modifier.

In 4th edition you can change in an out of beast form at-will and look like whatever beast you want, that is a medium size. It also allowed you to choose what unique powers and attacks you could perform while in your beast form. You didn’t having to worry about re-calculating your stats because you use your own stats.

I have been tinkering with the idea of changing wild shape to be more like fourth edition incorporating a concept from the Battle Master(fighter).

I do plan on playing a Spore Druid eventually.

Torpin

2019-03-29, 01:17 PM

cause for druids charisma is a dump stat

Constructman

2019-03-29, 01:25 PM

A heretic Druid that, among other things, chooses to wear metal armour (since RAI it's a matter of won't, not can't) could be turned into an interesting concept. Maybe a Druid disguising themselves as a Cleric?

Man_Over_Game

2019-03-29, 01:29 PM

cause for druids charisma is a dump stat

After doing a lot of research into my Prestige Options, I found that allowing Shephards Druids to use Charisma breaks absolutely nothing. There's almost nothing that anyone could abuse, except maybe someone going Shephards Druid and dipping a single level into Divine Soul Sorcerer for better Concentration saving throws. But that ends up delaying your primary features (your level 5 spells and level 6 features) by another level. You don't start becoming a better summoner until level 7 with that strategy, which is when a lot of campaigns end.

Sigreid

2019-03-29, 01:31 PM

After doing a lot of research into my Prestige Options, I found that allowing Shephards Druids to use Charisma breaks absolutely nothing. There's almost nothing that anyone could abuse, except maybe someone going Shephards Druid and dipping a single level into Divine Soul Sorcerer for better Concentration saving throws.

People would immediately head for druidlock. Ancients Shepard could be neat.

nickl_2000

2019-03-29, 01:34 PM

People would immediately head for druidlock. Ancients Shepard could be neat.

I could see a lot of moonadins as well.

Summons critters, then wildshape. Round two+ smite in wildshape, while summons make a mess of things

Grod_The_Giant

2019-03-29, 01:35 PM

People would immediately head for druidlock. Ancients Shepard could be neat.
Though again at the cost of delaying your Druid stuff by 2 levels. It would be analogous to a bardlock, and I don't see complaints about those-- it's the fact that the paladin and sorcerer have highly synergistic class features that make the multiclass nasty, more than the shared casting stat.

Sigreid

2019-03-29, 01:40 PM

Though again at the cost of delaying your Druid stuff by 2 levels. It would be analogous to a bardlock, and I don't see complaints about those-- it's the fact that the paladin and sorcerer have highly synergistic class features that make the multiclass nasty, more than the shared casting stat.

The usual complaint I see around here is warlock just being to easy a dip for any charisma class so I could see gripes about "oh great, another class that's going to dip warlock for a quick hit."

hymer

2019-03-29, 01:41 PM

The only hard data I've seen on whether druids are unpopular is this (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/), from D&D Beyond. And the conlusion is pretty clear: Druids are the least played class. Though there is the caveat that druids are generally poor for multiclass purposes, and those stats show every instance of a class used, whether singleclass or part of a multiclass build.

It's not that bad, though. For every two fighters, there's a druid. And fighter dips are quite common, unlike druid dips. So less popular seems right, but actually unpopular seems to be going a bit far. They are not kender.

As for the reasons, smart things have already been said.

NaughtyTiger

2019-03-29, 01:44 PM

Druids are extremely common in AL; although, usually Moon druid cuz immediate power is too tempting.

I have played 3 druids (land, moon, shep). land is my favorite by far, elemental walls are fun: water/fire/thorn/wind

Once I figured out I should stop hoarding spell slots it became much more enjoyable.
Yes most spells have concentration, but it isn't really a big deal to drop/lose concentration and cast something different.

Sigreid

2019-03-29, 01:46 PM

Garfunion

2019-03-29, 01:48 PM

@Man Over Games
For some reason when I click on your signature links they don’t go anywhere.

Jophiel

2019-03-29, 01:55 PM

For me, it's because the main functions I see from druids is either wildshape or summoning and I don't want to make a character just to instead play a bear or offload to a bunch of minions. I never much liked pet classes in MMORPGs either.

I once tried a Circle of Dreams druid instead but found it painfully boring. I did like the class fine back in 1e days but the modern incarnation doesn't speak to me. That said, I see it often enough in AL games that it doesn't seem "unpopular".

Max_Killjoy

2019-03-29, 01:56 PM

It might be unpopular in some circles because it's a conceptual mess.

It's a mashup of Roman propaganda, bits of Arthurian romance, bad Victorian "scholarship" and upper-class dilettante "safely rebellious" messing about, some pop-scholarship study of shamanism, and a certain flavor of hippy "stuff" that would have been familiar to the early authors of D&D in the 1970s.

In a lot of D&D settings, it's really shoe-horned in a bit.

stoutstien

2019-03-29, 02:07 PM

cause for druids charisma is a dump stat
Moon druids are probably the least stat dependent subclass in the game. I had one that had a 14+ in all mental stats just because I hate dim characters

Scripten

2019-03-29, 02:09 PM

Rerem115

2019-03-29, 02:11 PM

If this were exclusively the case, it seems like Monks would be absurdly unpopular. :smalltongue:

Except that at least Monks get significantly more pop-culture exposure through kung-fu movies and anime, so even if the concept is a mess, the base of people who are aware and potentially interested is bigger, resulting in a higher play rate.

Bjarkmundur

2019-03-29, 02:52 PM

I would personally love to play a druid, if I had a DM willing to hand me just a couple of spells and features each session.

Start with just a bare skeleton, and each session I'd get two options added to my "druid scrapbook". That would be my preferred way of playing the class.

Right now, playing a druid is pretty frontloaded with features. Divide it between a couple of levels and I'd love to play one.

stoutstien

2019-03-29, 02:56 PM

Vogie

2019-03-29, 02:57 PM

It's largely a game-mechanics issue, not fluff, in my opinion.
1) The druid spell list is a bit all over the place, with a strong emphasis on concentration spells, which you can't intermix or overlap. It makes sense if you dig deep enough, as concentration is contained through wild shape, and hopefully with a higher Con modifier, but without that realization it seems counterintuitive.
2) Their defining mechanic is also all over the place. Wild Shape

Stop them from casting spells
Gives them a secondary spell list that is formatted poorly. The wild shapes can provide as much damage and utility as a spell list, but in obscure hard to conceive ways.
I've watched plenty of Druid players skip low-CR creatures because they could do more damage with their quarterstaff... because they don't see a "Darkvision and burrow speed" ability, they just see "Badger, CR 0, 3 hp" and move along. Even Moon druid players won't immediately see their Brown Bear form as "the extra attack feature and +3 perception", they see "Brown Bear, CR 1, 34 hp". Seeing the power of things like Rampage and Pack Tactics requires a deep reading of creature lists that a new player just won't do. No other class cares about the CR level of the things they're up against and/or see.

3) The formatting of the subclasses is squirrely. Every other classes' subclasses follows a very defined progression, with the occasional screwball - Druid, however, is all over the map.

Shepherd is solid in both flavor and mechanics
Moon druids choose their subclass at the same level they get the wild shape feature with it's wall of text and CR form table, but then the subclass says "yeah, ignore that, use this"
The Land Druid seems too broad, and wizard-wannabe, and the "land circles" simply aren't as resonant as cleric domains
Spores is fairly weak damage-wise while flavorfully great, Dreams is mechanically interesting but a flavor fail until high level
Only Spores domain has an expanded or pre-prepared spell list alongside features, while Land only gets spells (and not-arcane recovery), and the rest of the subclasses get only features.

Dr. Cliché

2019-03-29, 03:32 PM

If you decide to have a favorite form you’d have to talk with your DM to see if you can “level” it up but, even then you still don’t get anything new for it just extra hit points and attack modifier.

I think this is the big one for me. And it's a shame because I love the idea of Wild Shape and I really like the idea of Moon Druids.

However, in practise you have to either constantly swap out forms (which completely ruins any themes you were going for) or else try to use forms that are increasingly behind on the power curve.

In 4th edition you can change in an out of beast form at-will and look like whatever beast you want, that is a medium size. It also allowed you to choose what unique powers and attacks you could perform while in your beast form. You didn’t having to worry about re-calculating your stats because you use your own stats.

Whilst I'm not generally a fan of 4e, I'll freely admit that this sounds like a much better way of doing Wild Shape.

OverLordOcelot

2019-03-29, 11:01 PM

I love druids in 5e, my moon druid is definitely my favorite character that I've played since I first got the red box set three and a half decades ago. But the class has some major flaws, and I think they're a big part of why the class is least played. I don't really think the 'hippy' thing plays into it, there's nothing in the game that pushes for 'oh, they're a bunch of peaceful hippies', and players that I've seen have no problem embracing primal savagery.

One problem is that you can't tell the capabilities of a druid by simply reading the rules, and there are a lot of major abilities that are heave DM discretion. If you have a hostile DM (which a lot of players put up with), then they can screw with a druid without having to admit it in ways that other classes aren't subject to. This right off the bat discourages people playing the class.

For example, With any other class, I can look at their armor proficiencies and the equipment list, and easily tell what kind of armor I can use and is good for me. If I read the druid though... they 'won't' use 'metal armor', which is an undefined term. Does that mean no metal pieces on armor, no armor made of all metal, can I buy non metal armor, is it just a preference, or what? Even something as basic as 'what armor can I wear' comes down to DM discretion, and it's probably not something most DMs who haven't played a druid have even thought about. (Adventuerer's league takes the stance that leather, studded leather, hide, spiked, and ring mail armors are all usable by druids by default, and that no others can be bought on the market).

Conjure Animals and conjure woodland beings are unique to the druid and very flavorful and powerful - and also have the DM decide what animals you get, which is just weird. Imagine if a core spell like fireball had the DM decide where it's placed, or spirit guardians had 'who do you exclude from the effect' left up to the Dm instead of the player. (And 'helpfully', they included the 'pixies turn your party into invisible T-rexes' thing just to make it more of a mess). Wild shapes have the weird 'you must have seen the creature to shift into it' rule, which encourages bad DMs to trash what is a major class ability and the entire focus of one subclass. (And weirdly, the restriction is lifted by RAW at level 7). Imagine if a fighter was limited to battlemaster maneuvers that he had seen before instead of the game just assuming they learned about all of them as part of their training.

Another issue is that while the druid spell list has some really great spells in it, but isn't very obviously good. There's very little ability to nuke - there's no eldritch blast, fireball, spirit guardians, or smites for blowing stuff up, so the class isn't good for anyone who wants to just destroy enemies. Lots of spells have very non-obvious uses - fog cloud can completely break a lot of encounters (especially combined with a moon druid using forms with blindsight), but it isn't obvious that it does that much. Heat metal looks like a boring damage spell if you don't catch the disadvantage bit. And lots of spells are generally situational (heat metal only works on metal-using opponents, hold person only works on humanoids) or only work in a specific environment (call lightning and nature's wrath are cool spells but worthless in most dungeons). Spell and form interactions are often really good (fog cloud plus a form with blind sense, for example) but require putting things together. This isn't a bad thing, but does contribute to people avoiding the class.

Another issue is that the class takes a lot of bookeeping. If you're using summons, you have to act more like a DM than player, keeping your monster manual handy while tracking a bunch of hit points and abilities. For wild shape, you need to stats for all of your shapes and be ready to break them out at a moment's notice. Other classes can generally work fine with a basic character sheet, but druids really need a lot more.

A final problem is that the class is a mess design wise. I'll use Moon druid as an example, because I love playing it but can see it's flaws. At first level druid is bleh. At second level, moon druid suddenly jumps in power to 'I can soak as much damage as the entire rest of the party, maybe twice as much', then wild shape stays the same until level six. But the fact that you use wild shape for that power means that the subclass specialized in wild shape uses it the least for non-combat functions like scouting. As you go up in levels , you get new forms for levels 6-8, which seems reasonable. Then at level 9 you get CR3 forms, which seems to follow a pattern, but at level 10, you get elemental forms, which you're usually going to use over the CR3 forms (especially if you can shift-rest to get one 'free'). At 12-14 you get CR4 forms, which compete a bit with elementals, but not in a really straightforward way. Then you move on to CR5 and CR6 forms, which there are very few of. At 18 you get a large jump in form usefulness with wild casting, then at 20 you get what's arguably the best capstone, which also changes around the balance of your forms. All along each set of forms has a bewildering array of different abilities and combinations, and they don't progress in any sensible way, and you can't really stick to a theme because you'll have huge capability gaps if you do that.

sithlordnergal

2019-03-30, 12:09 AM

As a person who loves Druids, and loves playing Druids, here's what I have found:

1) The book keeping...oh god the book keeping. ESPECIALLY if you play in AL. You need to write down every Beast you see, where you saw them, and have the stats for said beasts. And that's just for Wildshape. If you think you'll reach level 20, you'll need to do that same book keeping for Shapechange, your strongest and most versatile spell. Plus the DM gets more book keeping because they have to decide what items you can continue to wear and use

2) Their spell list is a bit lacking when it comes to damaging spells. Most of their spells are control, utility, or AoE that deals damage over time. They don't have many spells that can deal direct damage outside of Ice Knife.

3) They tend to be a major pain to deal with, and their deadliest tricks make things even more annoying. For example, the deadliest spell a Druid has is Conjure Animal...but most players and DMs do not want to deal with having 8 cr 1/4th beasts added to combat and tend to nerf it.

4) Depending on the DM, your Druid could be forced into wearing non-metal armor. Teeechnically by RAW the Druid is allowed to wear metal armor. But the DM has the final say for it.

Seclora

2019-03-30, 12:29 AM

At least in the groups I've played in, it has generally been the hippie Earth Child image they associate with Druids. It's just not an archetype they want to be associated with. Personally, I don't advise the class for new players either, too much book keeping.

I played one in two separate campaigns, at low levels, for 2-4 sessions while I could make it. Hill Dwarf Druid as a Community Leader/surveyor. The sort of Dwarf who learned magic as a way of assisting others, more so than for his own good. After all, someone has to have the skills to locate all those Iron Deposits, and ensure that their meager farming abilities yield enough food to feed a whole city.
I consistently had the best spell slot throughput in the party, competitive damage, and out of combat utility. We ended up in a city and I used Wild Shape to track people as a rat. Urban is a valid environment, even if it isn't a natural one. You just have to roll with the stones.

Rukelnikov

2019-03-30, 01:04 AM

I have only seen a handful of druids played in my 20 something years of DnD, and if the stats from DnDBeyond are representative (I don't really know), Druids are in fact the least played class in the game:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=104618&d=1549534843

I think this has a lot to do with that:

In my experience (and I'll go ahead and project onto others), the first characters I thought up were somewhat inspired by other media. In other media, you can find plenty of master swordsmen, incredible archers, and epic wizard/sorcerer types. Finding shaman/druid characters isn't as common, or at least in the stuff I read/watch, and even the few examples I could name are secondary characters at best and don't really get much time to show off much. Not having cool examples means I'm less inspired to play as one.

That coupled with the amount of rules knowledge required means most new players will either not be very interested or shy away from it, and people probably never recommend Druid to someone that is just starting to play and wants something simple.

EDIT: Found a much more interesting table about race class distribution

It's not an image so I can't share it, here's the link, scroll down a bit:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/

Zevox

2019-03-30, 01:18 AM

Druids have actually been the most popular class in my group. We've had four different parties since we started so far, and every one of them had a Druid - though it was only three Druids total, since one of them carried over between two otherwise-different parties. All played by different people, and each with a completely different subclass, too. Only a few other classes have even been used twice so far (Barbarian, Paladin, Wizard, and technically Fighter, though one of those dropped out after just a few sessions).

Least popular class so far has been Monk, we only had one of those briefly, played by our first DM for a short adventure another player ran in between campaigns.

ProsecutorGodot

2019-03-30, 01:21 AM

My dislike of Druid's is heavily biased. Not wanting to play one is based on two aspects of the class:
-I'm not heavily aversed to bookkeeping (Wizards are one of my favorite classes) but Druid takes it to a new level with the sheer bloat of things to keep track of. A pretty large spell list, monster stats, per rest resources and your HP pool is changing constantly. It's a substantial amount of work to play a Druid. Just enough to make me not want to mess with it.
-The theme is not my taste. Nature is cool and all, shapeshifting is neat too, but Druids have never been high on my fantasy radar. The subclasses don't do a lot to make playing a druid feel particularly unique (until very late levels) which is another turn off.

I also had a bad experience with a Druid player in a one shot I ran. The player had heard about "The almighty Moon Druid" and had slapped one together with little thought entering into White Plume Mountain.

Their first encounter happened to be with one of the "bosses" holding the legendary weapon and wouldn't you know it, the player had already burned one of their wildshapes flying the party over a dangerous pit that none of them could get past normally and forgot that they could heal in their beast form and ended up dropping it in just a few rounds. Despite having brought Shillelagh and some very useful spells, the player wasn't having it at that point and flat out quit the session.

So even though I wasn't planning on building a Druid any time soon, that one shot solidified it in my mind that the class was just not for me.

Dr. Cliché

2019-03-30, 04:30 AM

A final problem is that the class is a mess design wise. I'll use Moon druid as an example, because I love playing it but can see it's flaws. At first level druid is bleh. At second level, moon druid suddenly jumps in power to 'I can soak as much damage as the entire rest of the party, maybe twice as much', then wild shape stays the same until level six. But the fact that you use wild shape for that power means that the subclass specialized in wild shape uses it the least for non-combat functions like scouting. As you go up in levels , you get new forms for levels 6-8, which seems reasonable. Then at level 9 you get CR3 forms, which seems to follow a pattern, but at level 10, you get elemental forms, which you're usually going to use over the CR3 forms (especially if you can shift-rest to get one 'free'). At 12-14 you get CR4 forms, which compete a bit with elementals, but not in a really straightforward way. Then you move on to CR5 and CR6 forms, which there are very few of. At 18 you get a large jump in form usefulness with wild casting, then at 20 you get what's arguably the best capstone, which also changes around the balance of your forms. All along each set of forms has a bewildering array of different abilities and combinations, and they don't progress in any sensible way, and you can't really stick to a theme because you'll have huge capability gaps if you do that.

Yeah, the progression of Wild Shape is a real mess.

To me at least, suddenly turning into elementals at Lv10 seems really out of place - especially on the Moon Druid (which has, up until now, been entirely animal-themed). I get that Druids have ties to the elements, but the issue is that it comes out of nowhere.

It seems like it would make much more sense on a more elemental-themed subclass. Perhaps one that Wild Shapes into elementals (instead of animals) from the start, and gets stronger elemental forms as it levels up.

In contrast, Moon Druid seems like it should get Monstrocities or something. To me at least, Wolf ---> Dire Wolf ---> Winter Wolf seems like a much more natural progression than Wolf ---> Dire Wolf ---> Earth Elemental.

But then, in either case, I think it would be better to have a single form that gets stronger as you level up. Maybe you can add more traits to it as you gain levels (these could be Wings, allowing you to turn into flying creatures, or stuff like Pounce/Trip, or being a Larger beast). The idea is that a player could pick a form and have it grow gradually stronger, rather than wanting a Bear theme but running our of Bears past about CR2.

hymer

2019-03-30, 05:22 AM

Yeah, the progression of Wild Shape is a real mess.
The only part about this that I don't agree on is that the wide variety of shapes fits the druid theme of versatility and change. All the same, being able to 'build' a recurring form which gradually advances in power would indeed be nice. It could also help smooth over some of the many rough patches of wild shape progression for moon druids.

Dr. Cliché

2019-03-30, 05:36 AM

The only part about this that I don't agree on is that the wide variety of shapes fits the druid theme of versatility and change. All the same, being able to 'build' a recurring form which gradually advances in power would indeed be nice. It could also help smooth over some of the many rough patches of wild shape progression for moon druids.

Don't get me wrong - I like Druids having access to a wide variety of animal forms.

My issue is that having every form be mechanically different creates a lot of issues for (IMO) relatively little gain. For example, I don't think it's necessary to differentiate between a Giant Owl and a Giant Eagle. I think 'Large animal with a flying speed' would suffice for both, with the precise species and appearance being at the discretion of the Druid.

Appleheart

2019-03-30, 05:59 AM

I wouldn't say that druids are unpopular, at least not in the tables I've been playing at.

Personally I have struggled to get onboard with druids, as I just never feel that they have a key strength. They are great at a lot of things, but no one thing really stands out as this is the thing that druids do best. This, to me, has left it hard to find a mechanical identity for druid characters, and made them tricky to get interested in. Summoning is, I guess, one of their big things, and I really dislike all of the hassle involved with controlling a full wolf pack in combat. It tends to slow down combat, and make things clunky. I played with a Shepard Druid in a game on Roll20 very recently though, and he had a great macro that made attack and damage rolls for all of his summons with a single button though which was really handy, so I might need to rethink that.

With all of that said though, I am playing a goblin druid in Waterdeep Heist at the moment, and I am having a blast with it. It is probably the most fun I have had with D&D in recent years, and the character is quickly becoming a favorite of mine as well.

Captain Panda

2019-03-30, 06:12 AM

I have noticed that druids are unpopular in my long running West Marches game. We've had perhaps a hundred people shuffle in and out of the campaign over the last four years, many of whom played several characters, and I can think of five or six druids (not counting the ones I played). If I were to venture a few guesses as to why, I think a few people have already gotten some of them.

1. The bookkeeping is more challenging for a druid. You need to have stats ready for your wild shapes, your summons, and you need to know your spell list. Basically, druids are like wizards in that they both require a great deal of system mastery to get proper value out of. Marisha is a great roleplayer and a cool lady, but watching her playing a druid always made me die a little inside, because she could have hard carried that party and that is.. not what happened.

2. There is a perception, I believe a false one, that druids have a weak spell list. That has been asserted above, but I think it's false. Conjure Animals is just the best all-around general combat spell of third level in my opinion. Some of the druid's spells that control the environment require a bit of coordination to get proper use out of. Fireball does more damage than Erupting Earth, but Erupting Earth has a rider effect that leaves a patch of difficult terrain. That can be very useful. Spike growth is one I've seen rarely used by people who weren't me, but that is a low level fight-ender against enemies without ranged attacks or a fly speed. They have to slowly move through a thicket of death if you center it on them.

3. Speaking of Conjure Animals, that brings up a separate "problem." The druid's mightiest features are sometimes viewed as attention stealing, too strong, and generally tedious to deal with if the player has not adequately prepared. If you've never seen what 8-16 wolves or giant poisonous snakes can do to a giant in very little time, it's worth taking a look. The spell is so strong and involves rolling so many dice that people often forget about it because it's seen as attention-hogging to win so hard on your own, but I don't view that as a weakness of the spell, but an indication people need to be prepared with their huge fistfuls of dice ready to go in a timely fashion. Or just use a dice rolling program to expedite the process for summons. This is much more a problem when dealing with physical dice than dealing with an online program like Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds.

4. Theme. Druids have a nature theme. I can't fault people for this one. I hate the 'servant of the Gods' vibe clerics have, and some people don't like the 'conduit of nature's power' vibe. To each his or her own. Though most DMs are open to retexturing mechanical toolkits in my experience. If it bugs you that much but you want to try the kit out, ask if you can play a nature wizard with identical class features to a druid but a more arcane flavor. Unless your DM is lame, they shouldn't have a huge issue with that.

That all said, I don't mind if druid remains an unpopular class. It's still my favorite, and if I'm one of the few who know how to properly unlock the druid's secret power, that makes it feel even more awesome. :cool:

Great Dragon

2019-03-30, 07:20 AM

@Man Over Games
For some reason when I click on your signature links they don’t go anywhere.

This happens a lot on my phone, but the tablet gets them just fine.

Tetrasodium

2019-03-30, 07:20 AM

Book Keeping

When I played a moon druid, I made this (https://www.dropbox.com/s/ghunr30bmips184/druid%20tome%20full%20122%20Size-A5pg.pdf?dl=0). It's a list of all the beast forms up until volos that can be taken somewhere like staples to print & spiral bind for about 15-20$. When I first made it, I included some/most summonable fey/elementals plus a bit at the end with the druid spells. Looking back I'd probably not do those if I were to do it again. Having the beast forms all in a simple spiralbound notebook meant I could keep 1 character sheet & just keep track of wildshape hp by writing on the beast's entry on whatever page it was without needing to track a lot of stuff whilew still maintaining the whole "oh bleep I need a form that has $feature".

The dropbox preview might look screwy, if so downloading it & opening it in a normal pdf viewer like pdfxchange, adobe acrobat, or whatever will look normal. If you like this, feel free to share it

edit: another strike against druids is that for some reason a lot of people think it will be an easy class for newbies who are really looking for a big stupid fighter or maybe an "I cast eldritch blast, again" warlock. Oviously that's far from the case. All the defender of nature in tune with the wilds fluff probably reinforces that though since it brings to mind the flower power hippy stoned out of their gourd & tripping so hard they couldn't be e expected to order mcdonalds for two without screwing it up. If they spend more pagespace talking about groups like the wardens/gatekeepers/ashbound/children of winter it could be made more obvious just how not easy it is as a class.

MrStabby

2019-03-30, 07:24 AM

I love the theme of druids but have never played one for a couple of reasons.

One is I don't like the mechanics. Wild shape is cool if that's part of your vision of a druid. If not it is a jarring class feature and not using it is leaving too much of the classes power unused. Most other classes put features like this on the subclasses, here it is just the enhanced version that goes there. It really feels like you are not building a theme. If you had one wildshape that levelled up with you then it would feel more thematically consistent than hopping between different creature types.

You get too few extra things to get exited by. Spell list has some gems but levelling up just looks less exciting as it is all about improving what you have rather than new abilities. Compare with a cleric where you get a lot of new features as you level up.

The spell list doesn't have enough depth. If you have had one at your table before, your druid is likely to be throwing down identical spells. Once you take out fairy fire, spike growth, heat metal and conjure animals that the other guy played with loads... are you really happy with the space that's left? At least bards get magical secrets and clerics get domain spells to be different (land druids do get some, to be fair but only a small number seem attractive).

Some of the theme doesn't work for me. I am not saying it doesn't make sense for druids to have an elemental theme - it works, but it isn't the druid I want to play. Wall of fire is a great spell but I would love to be able to play a more fey themed druid (dreams sucks at this) or a more plant themed. These thematic spells really seem to disappear at higher levels.

Finally, if I want to play a character that does something well, then it is always up against a wizard as an option. I want to excell at summons and control? I can go for druid, which is good, or I can take wizard with wall of force, hold person, animate dead and animate objects. Even in the druids own niche there is quite a lot of competition.

The druid isn't really badly designed but it has a lot of fixed and quite specific elements that you really need to appreciate to enjoy the class. It is harder to bend to your concept than a lot of other classes.

Great Dragon

2019-03-30, 08:11 AM

It seems like it would make much more sense on a more elemental-themed subclass. Perhaps one that Wild Shapes into elementals (instead of animals) from the start, and gets stronger elemental forms as it levels up.

In contrast, Moon Druid seems like it should get Monstrocities or something. To me at least, Wolf ---> Dire Wolf ---> Winter Wolf seems like a much more natural progression than Wolf ---> Dire Wolf ---> Earth Elemental.

But then, in either case, I think it would be better to have a single form that gets stronger as you level up. Maybe you can add more traits to it as you gain levels (these could be Wings, allowing you to turn into flying creatures, or stuff like Pounce/Trip, or being a Larger beast). The idea is that a player could pick a form and have it grow gradually stronger, rather than wanting a Bear theme but running our of Bears past about CR2.
I like this idea, and tie-ing it more into the various subclasses. I would need some help with some of these, though.

I have a player that has a 5th level Mt Dwarf Mountain Druid that shut down the Bandit Mage in three rounds. I still laugh when I picture the Mage constantly falling down because of Sleet Storm, and the 8 Summoned Wolves took out his Mirror Images lickity split!

For my tables, the least played class is Paladin.

strangebloke

2019-03-30, 08:51 AM

There are very few druids in media. Like, what, there's WoW, there's DND, there's... Sword of Shannara? Sorta? Culturally, Druids seem to be a by-product of the 70s that have steadily been losing faovr over time. I can't think of anything that came out in the last decade that featured them strongly, other than the Hobbit movies. Sure, there's of mystical wild-land dwelling magic-users in media, but by and large they aren't druids. They're faeries or mystical elves or whatever. Galadriel isn't a druid.

They don't call cities home. Like, okay. Your party is probably meeting in a settlement of some kind. A tavern or fair, or whatever else. From there you'll go out into the woods and fight some monsters and then come back. That's the key part. The return. The there and the back again. The assumption of DND is that you'll always be headed back to civilization. Sometimes, you don't go into the woods to fight monsters. Sometimes the danger you hunt after is in a different part of the city. But the party druid probably doesn't want to go back. Maybe the rest of the party can pull them there, but how many times haven't we seen that tired old argument where the druid wants to sleep in the street outside the tavern?

They're support characters. People like being the center of attention. The druid.... isn't. It's got a lot of low-power, high-efficiency abilities. Its best spells are based around letting the party be sneaky, healing the party to full between combat, and slowing reducing the enemy movement. Remember TreantMonk's whole rant about 'god' wizards and how people tend to undervalue them? Yup, that's fully in play here.

They're Complicated. Not complicated to build of course, but at a minimum you have spells, wild shape forms, and quite possibly a third resource pool to keep track of. That's a lot of work! Now, a cleric or wizard or paladin might be nearly as complicated, but those are much better represented. Once again, if we go back to the list that started this whole thing (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/) we see that 3 out of 4 non-casting classes are in the top five most popular. I'd argue that this survey shows a strong bias towards the sort of characters that new players tend to make.

Tetrasodium

2019-03-30, 09:13 AM

There are very few druids in media. Like, what, there's WoW, there's DND, there's... Sword of Shannara? Sorta? Culturally, Druids seem to be a by-product of the 70s that have steadily been losing faovr over time. I can't think of anything that came out in the last decade that featured them strongly, other than the Hobbit movies. Sure, there's of mystical wild-land dwelling magic-users in media, but by and large they aren't druids. They're faeries or mystical elves or whatever. Galadriel isn't a druid.

The Iron Druid Chronicles (https://www.goodreads.com/series/52837-the-iron-druid-chronicles), Walker Papers Series (https://www.goodreads.com/series/40588-walker-papers), Connor Grey Series (https://www.goodreads.com/series/42290-connor-grey). That's a combined 40 plus books with a druid or half druid as the main character. Across those books, not one of them meshes very well with a "won't wear metal armor" protector of nature. All of them spend time dealing with seriously bad things that rarely have much (if anything) to do with the stereotypical d&d druid. Every last one of them is a complete badass with various supernatural allies ranging from vampires, a pack of werewolves, celtic, norse, ukranian, Cherokee(?) gods, a bleeping banshee, cops, etc. One of them drives a classic muscle car (mustang?) she treats like her baby & is a mechanic for her day job. The smallest city they call home is Phoenix with others calling cities like LA & boston (or something like those) home.

I never read the \Shannara books, but the episodes I caught on netflix a while back had the druids as pretty freaking far from the stereotype too. It's a shame that 5e didn't just let the stereotype die

Grod_The_Giant

2019-03-30, 09:27 AM

If I'm remembering right, Shannara "Druids" were more like d&d wizards. Hell, I'd probably build Allanon as a Warlock; the only magic I really remember him using was basically Eldritch Blast.

KorvinStarmast

2019-03-30, 09:31 AM

In my 20 years of playing I have never seen a single druid played. I always wanted to play one but I cant stand the Wild Shape aspect of the class. So Im better off playing a Nature Cleric. My first druid was played in 1977/1978 campaign, OD&D (Eldritch Wizardry). As it was more dungeon crawl than else, I had to use my imagination to come up with druidy things that helped ... and I did.

One of the best druids I ever saw played was in AD&D 1e, friend of mine, who really got into it and always seemed to have a few dogs or wolves around to help him/us. Very effective. We were in dungeons and in wilderness both, and he really shone outdoors though he was no slouch indoors.

I've got a friend who has multi-classed barbarian druid in 5e. He's quite effective. My only 5e druid, a ghostwise halfling, didn't get to play much since the campaign went dormant rather soon after it started. I got to play a 10th level druid for a while but that adventure is over now. That was crazy fun. Turning into an elemental is much cool.

elyktsorb

2019-03-30, 12:16 PM

I love playing Druid. I love it so much that in my two current games I'm playing a Druid in each of them!

One game, I'm a Druid(moon)/Rogue(Assassin) Which has honestly been sort of terrible in terms of combat all things considered, but the Herbalism Kit and Poisoners Kit Proficiency go well together for healing and hurting. I'm basically nigh undetectable with Expertise Stealth and Pass Without Trace, and being able to be common critters like spiders or rats means I don't even need to be that good at stealth.

In another game I'm a Druid(Shepard) and I took variant human to get Find Familiar from Ritual Casting and the entire party loves Shelly the crab Familiar.

I tend to play my Druids as a long balance type. Not the ones that're strictly Nature vs Society. But ones that look at the big picture, at the elemental balance of everything. So yeah, maybe humans are encroaching on a forest and using it for their needs, I mean, humans are creatures right? And if they mess up the land to the point of it being dead they won't be able to benefit from it and after ages past the land will regrow once they've passed on.

In fact, my Druid/Rogue sees the inherent benefits that come with knowing how society works, that money is valuable. He enjoys the finer comforts society can offer him while still being perfectly happy with just the stars over his head and the ground beneath his back.

(Also yes, I think the Druid's don't wear metal armor thing is absolutely stupid, especially since they can still use metal tools, metal weapons, and further more, there are armors that exist for the soul purpose of getting around them not being able to wear metal armor so it's clearly not a balance thing.)

Admittedly there are a lot of things that are meh about being a Druid. Namely that Land, Spores and Dreams are underpowered (Mediocre class abilities!) and kind of boring (If you want a Land Druid either be a Naturey Wizard or a Nature Cleric), Moon is overpowered (for the most part, being able to turn into a Dire Wolf TWICE at lvl 2 is broken af) Shepard takes some time investment to get the most out of since you'll be summoning and managing more combat that most anyone else.

KorvinStarmast

2019-03-30, 01:08 PM

If I'm remembering right, Shannara "Druids" were more like d&d wizards. Hell, I'd probably build Allanon as a Warlock; the only magic I really remember him using was basically Eldritch Blast. Woot, Allanon as a Warlock. I like that idea. (PS: Grats on finishing STaRS!)

mephnick

2019-03-30, 04:41 PM

I'd agree that the Druid suffers a media archetype problem. The only "Druid" I can think of in any media is Radagast..and he's considered a Wizard. Really the only exposure to fantasy druid I've ever had is...uh..the DnD Druid.

nickl_2000

2019-03-30, 05:03 PM

TyGuy

2019-03-30, 05:39 PM

Dr. Cliché

2019-03-30, 06:09 PM

I don't like that shape shifting is a central focus. It's not what every nature-caster wants to do. It's amazing for out of combat, but most people emphasize combat for effectiveness. So for non-moon, you're relying on the spell list and archetype features. The spell list is ok. Not amazing, not terrible.

In fairness, I'd argue that shapeshifting isn't a central focus for any Druid except for Moon Druid.

However, that also makes it an issue as with non-Moon Druids the ability to Wild Shape is just kinda there. It doesn't seem to relate to anything else. You might think that a Land Druid would get a more plant- or environment-related power, but apparently not.

My fix would be to give Druids something similar to Channel Divinity. Basically, each Druid gets a 2/Short Rest power, which varies based on their subclass.

TyGuy

2019-03-30, 08:14 PM

In fairness, I'd argue that shapeshifting isn't a central focus for any Druid except for Moon Druid.

However, that also makes it an issue as with non-Moon Druids the ability to Wild Shape is just kinda there. It doesn't seem to relate to anything else. You might think that a Land Druid would get a more plant- or environment-related power, but apparently not.

My fix would be to give Druids something similar to Channel Divinity. Basically, each Druid gets a 2/Short Rest power, which varies based on their subclass.

Poor choice of words. By central focus I meant wildshape and its improvements occupy the lion's share of the class's core chassis

Sigreid

2019-03-30, 09:22 PM

In fairness, I'd argue that shapeshifting isn't a central focus for any Druid except for Moon Druid.

However, that also makes it an issue as with non-Moon Druids the ability to Wild Shape is just kinda there. It doesn't seem to relate to anything else. You might think that a Land Druid would get a more plant- or environment-related power, but apparently not.

My fix would be to give Druids something similar to Channel Divinity. Basically, each Druid gets a 2/Short Rest power, which varies based on their subclass.

It relates to Celtic mythology where druids and Fey could change to animal forms.

Max_Killjoy

2019-03-30, 09:27 PM

It relates to Celtic mythology where druids and Fey could change to animal forms.

One of the few bits of actual Celtic myth or reality that in any way makes it into the "druid", despite the origin of the name used for the class.

Sigreid

2019-03-30, 09:39 PM

One of the few bits of actual Celtic myth or reality that in any way makes it into the "druid", despite the origin of the name used for the class.

Well, there's also the secret language though if the Romans are to be believed it was written and sign language. Stories of them controlling the weather and predicting the future. That sort of thing. But yes, it's D&D is it's own thing with only the slightest contact with any actual history or mythology.

strangebloke

2019-03-30, 11:31 PM

The Iron Druid Chronicles (https://www.goodreads.com/series/52837-the-iron-druid-chronicles), Walker Papers Series (https://www.goodreads.com/series/40588-walker-papers), Connor Grey Series (https://www.goodreads.com/series/42290-connor-grey). That's a combined 40 plus books with a druid or half druid as the main character. Across those books, not one of them meshes very well with a "won't wear metal armor" protector of nature. All of them spend time dealing with seriously bad things that rarely have much (if anything) to do with the stereotypical d&d druid. Every last one of them is a complete badass with various supernatural allies ranging from vampires, a pack of werewolves, celtic, norse, ukranian, Cherokee(?) gods, a bleeping banshee, cops, etc. One of them drives a classic muscle car (mustang?) she treats like her baby & is a mechanic for her day job. The smallest city they call home is Phoenix with others calling cities like LA & boston (or something like those) home.

I never read the \Shannara books, but the episodes I caught on netflix a while back had the druids as pretty freaking far from the stereotype too. It's a shame that 5e didn't just let the stereotype die
I'm not going to say that 5e should have killed the class, just that it's understandable that people don't wanna play it as it stands.

Get rid of the "can't wear metal" nonsense, add some creativity to the subclasses, and we can talk.

Seriously, these things are as generic as "shapeshift druid" and "summon druid." Blegh. Give me a proper shaman, a werewolf Hunter (who also is a werewolf, sorta), Shepherd of vermin, etc etc.

The spore druid had the right idea, it just was a tosser mechanically.

I would call Joseph Listens-to-Wind (Injun Joe) from the dresden files a Druid
Ah ah ah.

Wizard.

And yeah, he's sort of a druid. But not in a typical sense. Druids are tall, flaky white elf girls, doncha know.

I'd agree that the Druid suffers a media archetype problem. The only "Druid" I can think of in any media is Radagast..and he's considered a Wizard. Really the only exposure to fantasy druid I've ever had is...uh..the DnD Druid.
There's also WoW.

Which is...

You know...

A riff on dnd.

GreyBlack

2019-03-31, 12:21 AM

Lack of strong, familiar archetypes.

In Western cultures we have baggage with regards to heroic tropes, normally "strong knight" or "smart wizards" or even "Knight Templar" for the cleric (I'll leave my reservations aside on this one). Our preconceived notions of "shapeshifter" tends to be not so heroic, and especially not for "nature hippie." These are often forces of portrayed more as destabilizing societal forces and villains in our collective imaginations than heroes. Which makes a certain degree of sense; why would a person so connected to the land be fighting to save the very people destroying it?

Rukelnikov

2019-03-31, 01:52 AM

To all those complaining about the armor restriction, do you also complain that Barbarian's should be able to Rage in Plate?

GreyBlack

2019-03-31, 01:58 AM

There's also WoW.

Which is...

You know...

A riff on dnd.

Technically speaking, WoW is a riff on Warhammer, which is a riff on D&D. Completely semantic argument.

sithlordnergal

2019-03-31, 03:20 AM

To all those complaining about the armor restriction, do you also complain that Barbarian's should be able to Rage in Plate?

No, and I doubt anyone would complain about a Monk's armor restriction. But here's the thing, Monk and Barbarians get something in exchange for losing that ability. A Monk can get 20 AC by maxing out Dex and Wisdom, and why wouldn't they max those two out? They are key abilities. Meanwhile a Barbarian can, theoretically, max out their AC at 24 at level without any magical armor, can get 27 with a +3 shield, and potentially up to 29 if they have a +3 shield and the books that raise their Dex and Con by 2.

A druid gets Barkskin, which states "You touch a willing creature. Until the spell ends, the target's skin has a rough, bark-like appearance, and the target's AC can't be less than 16, regardless of what kind of armor it is wearing." It doesn't say 16+Dex mod, it just says 16. At best, if your DM is willing to allow you to use Studded Leather, you can get 19 with a 20 dex and a shield without magical armor, and a 24 with +1 studded leather, +3 shield, and the Dex book.

And why do you have this restriction? No reason. Its because the fluff says "Druids find it to be taboo". I'd be fine with it if there was some mechanical give and take. Maybe an Unarmored Defense based off Dex and Wisdom like the Monk that allows you to use a shield in exchange for no metal armor. But instead character backstory and creation is taken away from the player because fluff. Your Mountain Dwarf who grew up in the forges and dwarven army, but realized he had a calling as a Mountain Land Druid? Sorry, all that dwarf backstory doesn't matter, even if you grew up using and knowing how to use metal armor you won't use it without DM say-so.

Thankfully, this is a boon in some ways. Since its purely fluff, you can present your DM with a potential backstory, and your DM can allow you to ignore that fluff. It can also open up interesting RP things where other Druids shun the PC Druid because they broke the taboo.

Dr. Cliché

2019-03-31, 04:14 AM

It relates to Celtic mythology where druids and Fey could change to animal forms.

But why does *every* Druid have to be the "Celtic" archetype when it comes to Wild Shape?

Why not limit it to a couple of subclasses? That way other subclasses can have more relevant/themed abilities.

Especially since this is about the only aspect of the druid that bears any resemblance to the Celtic myths?

Lack of strong, familiar archetypes.

In Western cultures we have baggage with regards to heroic tropes, normally "strong knight" or "smart wizards" or even "Knight Templar" for the cleric (I'll leave my reservations aside on this one). Our preconceived notions of "shapeshifter" tends to be not so heroic, and especially not for "nature hippie." These are often forces of portrayed more as destabilizing societal forces and villains in our collective imaginations than heroes. Which makes a certain degree of sense; why would a person so connected to the land be fighting to save the very people destroying it?

I'd argue that, especially in recent years, the 'heroic shapeshifter' archetype has actually become quite popular.

The issue is that few (if any) of these are actually represented by the Druid.

Many would seem to be werewolves (or creatures along similar lines), and so they have a single, powerful animal/hybrid form, rather than a multitude of weaker ones.

More than that, though, shapeshifting is usually their main power. They're otherwise far closer to martial characters than casters. You could maybe make a case for Warlock but rarely ever for Druid. Even the nature-ish ones I've seen would be Rangers rather than Druids.

OmSwaOperations

2019-03-31, 08:32 AM

Would agree with some people on here that Druids really aren't unpopular! In most tables I've played at for the past few years, there's been at least one druid. Wildshape + Circle of the Moon is super powerful at low levels (a CR 1 creature is supposed to be a challenge for 4 1st level adventurers, so being able to become one and then turn back to a druid and keep on doing druid stuff too is incredible at 2nd level).

Wuzza

2019-03-31, 08:35 AM

I love my Druid so far. Faerie Fire is an amazing 1st lvl spell, and allowed us to kill the young green dragon

I've always been more of a utility/healy player in online mmo's/group games etc.

As people are saying the bookkeeping with Druid is a negative, I thought I might share the following.

It's an Open Office doc each for spells and beast shapes that I made. Still only low level, so I find I only use a few so far. But with a modicum of knowledge, it should be fairly easily editable to add more.

Hopefully this works, as I'm a bit noob with google drive, and if it's helpful for at least one person, then it's worth the post. :smallsmile:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mouMXFck0WEsTUP4iJbh1Y14v1XSnhqN

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_K_yhzBBd4Rh-90rCfSZS1H2Bb-YZ5Js

nickl_2000

2019-03-31, 08:38 AM

I love my Druid so far. Faerie Fire is an amazing 1st lvl spell, and

As people are saying the bookkeeping with Druid is a negative, I thought I might share the following.

It's an Open Office doc each for spells and beast shapes. Still only low level, so I find I only use a few so far. But with a modicum of knowledge, it should be fairly easily editable to add more.

Hopefully this works, as I'm a bit noob with google drive, and if it's helpful for at least one person, then it's worth the post. :smallsmile:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mouMXFck0WEsTUP4iJbh1Y14v1XSnhqN

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_K_yhzBBd4Rh-90rCfSZS1H2Bb-YZ5Js

I've found a couple of those. Although I use the squire pro app for Android (level 10 moon druid/level 4 ranger/ level 1 light cleric).

Its a tool I wouldn't live without at my level. Also I have print outs to give to allies when I polymorph them, so they know their stats.

Wuzza

2019-03-31, 08:45 AM

I've found a couple of those. Although I use the squire pro app for Android (level 10 moon druid/level 4 ranger/ level 1 light cleric).

Its a tool I wouldn't live without at my level. Also I have print outs to give to allies when I polymorph them, so they know their stats.

Edited my original post as I made them specifically for my character, so have no shame in sharing. :)

napoleon_in_rag

2019-03-31, 09:01 AM

Why did the druid drown in the ocean?

He was tooooo faaaaar ouuuuut maaaan.

How do you hide gold from a druid?

Hide it under the soap.

What do you call a morbidly obese druid?

Tie Dye-abetes

What kind of cigarettes does a druid smoke?

Yours.

How do druids get on the internet?

They log in.

Why did the druid bury a dog?

Because you can't grow a tree without bark.

Why are druids so bad at playing cards?

They like to avoid to flush.

Why do druids burn incense?

So blind people will hate them too.

Pex

2019-03-31, 09:14 AM

To all those complaining about the armor restriction, do you also complain that Barbarian's should be able to Rage in Plate?

No, because when playing a barbarian we want to be Arnold Schwarzeneggar in a loin cloth.

I don't mind the metal armor restriction though.

nickl_2000

2019-03-31, 09:15 AM

No, because when playing a barbarian we want to be Arnold Schwarzeneggar in a loin cloth.

I don't mind the metal armor restriction though.

I don't mind the restriction, but there needs to be a RAW phb material that you can use instead to use medium armor

Dr. Cliché

2019-03-31, 09:30 AM

No, because when playing a barbarian we want to be Arnold Schwarzeneggar in a loin cloth.

I don't mind the metal armor restriction though.

I wouldn't mind the restriction if it affected your ability to Druid. Like if you couldn't Wild Shape while wearing armour or something.

I just hate the 'your character refuses to wear metal armour regardless of upbringing, culture, personality etc.'.

mephnick

2019-03-31, 09:39 AM

I'd argue that, especially in recent years, the 'heroic shapeshifter' archetype has actually become quite popular.

The issue is that few (if any) of these are actually represented by the Druid.
.

I'd agree and I think if they wanted a "new edition" druid they should have leaned even harder into it as purely a shaman/shapeshifter/summoner. A Druid with ONE form that leveled up with you and thematic summon spells tied to subclass.

A Wolf Shaman that became a huge wolf and summoned wolves. A fey Shaman with a Treant form with more control of plant life. An elemental Druid with elemental forms and abilities. Make them very defined and thematic subclasses instead of this hodge-podge of "everything nature" that Druid is now.

Tanarii

2019-03-31, 09:41 AM

No, because when playing a barbarian we want to be Arnold Schwarzeneggar in a loin cloth.And when playing a Druid, we want to play Allanon or Injun Joe in Scalemail!

Honestly, I've never seen a good argument for "my Druid wants to wear metal armor" that didn't boil down to "I want a unintended by RAW +2-3 pt armor boost." It's a purely power gaming mechanical consideration, not a thematic one. Dressing it up in "don't tell me how to Roleplaying!" is just the latest (5e) excuse for it.

Dr. Cliché

2019-03-31, 09:43 AM

And when playing a Druid, we want to play Allanon or Injun Joe in Scalemail!

Honestly, I've never seen a good argument for "my Druid wants to wear metal armor" that didn't boil down to "I want a unintended by RAW +2-3 pt armor boost." It's a purely power gaming mechanical consideration, not a thematic one. Dressing it up in "don't tell me how to Roleplaying!" is just the latest (5e) excuse for it.

Personally, I've no objection to Druids not being able to wear metal armour.

It's just the reason that bugs me.

Tanarii

2019-03-31, 09:50 AM

Personally, I've no objection to Druids not being able to wear metal armour.

It's just the reason that bugs me.
Paladin oaths and warlock pacts and necromancer that frequently create undead being evil must get your goat too.

Dr. Cliché

2019-03-31, 09:53 AM

Paladin oaths and warlock pacts and necromancer that frequently create undead being evil must get your goat too.

No to the first two, yes to the third.

I'd have thought you'd have remembered my position on the Necromancy one, given that a while ago we spent several pages arguing about it. :smallwink:

Shuruke

2019-03-31, 10:11 AM

Tbh my only issue with no metal armor is that the phb should also have bone armor and etc

If I wanna be a half plate wearing medium armor master druid whom has bug carapace armor let me do it XD

On side note if u wanna b a armor wearing druid play nature cleric

When I have the druid itch I just play cleric and reflavor it choosing a god of a domain of nature , life. Or etc. Like my light cleric who literally just brought sunlight to plants in areas where weather had been tampered with by magic.

Tbh my main throw off of druid is wild shape. They should have made that a moon druid only feature and put something else in its stead

Truthfully I would've preferred something like
When becoming a druid you choose what types of nature ypur most in tune with

Beasts
Weather
Plants

Once per short rest you can invoke the nature your in tune with

Beasts- you gain natural weapons and can make a bonus action attack on each of your turns using those weapons. They use your spell casting modifier to hit and damage and deal 1d4+proficiency

Weather- you call down intense weather in a 20 foot radius of your choice. Causing rough terrain and making enemies do a Str save against your spell save dc or go prone. As a bonus action on your turns you can move the storm. Once before the storm ends you can deal your druid level plus proficiency bonus in damage

Plants- when you invoke plants you become immune to the prone condition and any displacement effects. On the first turn and each turn as a bonus action you can choose a creature within 20 feet of you. They make a str save against your save dc or are restrained. Them or an ally can use an action to get them out.

Or something like this

He'll tbh I would've been happy with expertise in nature and survival instead of wildshape

TyGuy

2019-03-31, 10:39 AM

Would agree with some people on here that Druids really aren't unpopular!

Well statistically they are the least played. And when opinions are polled they often end up in the bottom. So yes, it is the most unpopular class.

Tetrasodium

2019-03-31, 11:21 AM

To all those complaining about the armor restriction, do you also complain that Barbarian's should be able to Rage in Plate?

In addition to reasons already explained (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23813186&postcount=85) by sithlordnergal, the no metal armor thing is a trowback to earlier versions where the bad flower child lore many have skewered already was supported mechanically. Back in 3.5 barbarians had damage reduction when raging, monks had various things including add wis to ac & a level based AC bump. druids had a barkskin spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/barkskin.htm) that was duration based +2-+5 ac on top of armor, shield, and practically every other type of AC boost because of how type of boost mattered along with a spell to [urkl="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/ironwood.htm"]make ionwood amor[/url] if I'm not mistaken. In 5e, monks still have ac from wis, barbarians have still have damage resistance, the ironwood spell is not a thing & ironwood is not really even player accessable given A: changes to crafting & B: the fact that it does not appear to be mentioned in the PHB, DMG, XgE, Volos, MToF, or GGtR.

In the past the no metal armor was because a druid with +3 shield, +3 plate, & freaking barkskin would be effectively invulnerable to weapon damage & maybe certain types of spells. Character concepts based around "I want a druid with a high AC" were "ok.. That is any druid" and concepts based on "I want a druid that wears metal armor" were met with the obvious "lol no.. it can't cast spells & loses certain druid features how about a T-1000 liquid metal terminator as a pet too?" for the obvious balance reasons. By getting rid of the reasons for the no metal armor limitation alongside both the clear drawbacks & clear benefits, WotC opened the door for people to see just how ridiculous the lore limitation is & start seeing just how badly druids align with the overly obnoxious stereotype in media.

So no, people don't think up armor wearing barbarian/monk concepts or complain about those limitations because both of those classes get something easily arguable as being as good or better than armor or at least very close to being on par. A monk who maxes dex & wis will have 20 ac naked in the bathtub. A barbarian who maxes dex & con will have absurd HP and the same 20 ac while naked in bed at a brothel. A druid who casts barkskin will have 16 ac while concentrating on barkskin instead of one of their useful spells. The fact that multiple classes start with chainmail(16 ac) and the option of a shield to bring that up to 18 at level one with zero experience shows just how bad the third level spell barkskin is in 5e. That bad gets even worse when you consider that mage armor is an 8 hour duration no concentration 13+dex for a first level spell slot.

Wuzza

2019-03-31, 11:29 AM

A monk who maxes dex & wis will have 20 ac naked in the bathtub.

Does he have to carry the bathtub with him at all times. :smallbiggrin: (couldn't resist, that conjures up so many images.:smallsmile:)

Max_Killjoy

2019-03-31, 11:33 AM

stoutstien

2019-03-31, 12:08 PM

Perhaps they could have ditched the druid as such, and done a more direct shaman-like class, focusing on an animism sort of magic instead.

Channeling animal, nature, and ancestor spirits to borrow their powers.I would have liked a Wis half caster for this roll. Could have a animal shift, element focus, pet class, curse based, and a voodoo type

Rukelnikov

2019-03-31, 02:40 PM

No, and I doubt anyone would complain about a Monk's armor restriction. But here's the thing, Monk and Barbarians get something in exchange for losing that ability. A Monk can get 20 AC by maxing out Dex and Wisdom, and why wouldn't they max those two out? They are key abilities. Meanwhile a Barbarian can, theoretically, max out their AC at 24 at level without any magical armor, can get 27 with a +3 shield, and potentially up to 29 if they have a +3 shield and the books that raise their Dex and Con by 2.

This is a balance complain, do you think druids are too squishy and need the access to better AC to be effective? I only had one druid player and she wasn't specially squishy.

A druid gets Barkskin, which states "You touch a willing creature. Until the spell ends, the target's skin has a rough, bark-like appearance, and the target's AC can't be less than 16, regardless of what kind of armor it is wearing." It doesn't say 16+Dex mod, it just says 16. At best, if your DM is willing to allow you to use Studded Leather, you can get 19 with a 20 dex and a shield without magical armor, and a 24 with +1 studded leather, +3 shield, and the Dex book.

So, don't use Barkskin, since its not a spell for getting ludicrously high AC? That spell is to have decent AC while you wildshape.

And why do you have this restriction? No reason. Its because the fluff says "Druids find it to be taboo". I'd be fine with it if there was some mechanical give and take. Maybe an Unarmored Defense based off Dex and Wisdom like the Monk that allows you to use a shield in exchange for no metal armor.

This is again a balance complain.

But instead character backstory and creation is taken away from the player because fluff. Your Mountain Dwarf who grew up in the forges and dwarven army, but realized he had a calling as a Mountain Land Druid? Sorry, all that dwarf backstory doesn't matter, even if you grew up using and knowing how to use metal armor you won't use it without DM say-so.

This is a good argument though. For that dwarf wearing armor is almost like wearing clothes, but he choose to become a druid, knowing its tenets require you to not wear metal, why did he do this? Its good for RP.

Thankfully, this is a boon in some ways. Since its purely fluff, you can present your DM with a potential backstory, and your DM can allow you to ignore that fluff. It can also open up interesting RP things where other Druids shun the PC Druid because they broke the taboo.

I'll never understand why RP requirements are looked down upon, DnD is a roleplaying game. If a Paladin breaks his oaths he falls, if a Druid wears metal armor he explodes.

In addition to reasons already explained (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23813186&postcount=85) by sithlordnergal, the no metal armor thing is a trowback to earlier versions where the bad flower child lore many have skewered already was supported mechanically. Back in 3.5 barbarians had damage reduction when raging

In 3.5 Barbarians have a damage reduction whether they rage or not, the raging DR came in 5e.

, monks had various things including add wis to ac & a level based AC bump. druids had a barkskin spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/barkskin.htm) that was duration based +2-+5 ac on top of armor, shield, and practically every other type of AC boost because of how type of boost mattered along with a spell to [urkl="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/ironwood.htm"]make ionwood amor[/url] if I'm not mistaken. In 5e, monks still have ac from wis, barbarians have still have damage resistance, the ironwood spell is not a thing & ironwood is not really even player accessable given A: changes to crafting & B: the fact that it does not appear to be mentioned in the PHB, DMG, XgE, Volos, MToF, or GGtR.

There's dragon scale armor in the DMG.

In the past the no metal armor was because a druid with +3 shield, +3 plate, & freaking barkskin would be effectively invulnerable to weapon damage & maybe certain types of spells.

Having great AC in 3.5 (60+) almost requires you to go unarmored. No one wanting to be "invulnerable to weapon damage" wears armor heavier than light. Plate effectively gives 1 more AC than most other armors (8+1, were most others summed 8, padded gave 9 too) and denies the possibilty of a myriad features that require going unarmored/only light, and its the same in 5e (Light 12+5 = 17, Medium 15+2 = 17, Heavy = 18)

Character concepts based around "I want a druid with a high AC" were "ok.. That is any druid"

No, druids don't have particularly high AC in 3.5, not even close to it.

and concepts based on "I want a druid that wears metal armor" were met with the obvious "lol no.. it can't cast spells & loses certain druid features how about a T-1000 liquid metal terminator as a pet too?" for the obvious balance reasons. By getting rid of the reasons for the no metal armor limitation alongside both the clear drawbacks & clear benefits, WotC opened the door for people to see just how ridiculous the lore limitation is & start seeing just how badly druids align with the overly obnoxious stereotype in media.

They never got rid of the reason then, since in 3.5 it is definitely not balance.

So no, people don't think up armor wearing barbarian/monk concepts or complain about those limitations because both of those classes get something easily arguable as being as good or better than armor or at least very close to being on par. A monk who maxes dex & wis will have 20 ac naked in the bathtub. A barbarian who maxes dex & con will have absurd HP and the same 20 ac while naked in bed at a brothel. A druid who casts barkskin will have 16 ac while concentrating on barkskin instead of one of their useful spells. The fact that multiple classes start with chainmail(16 ac) and the option of a shield to bring that up to 18 at level one with zero experience shows just how bad the third level spell barkskin is in 5e. That bad gets even worse when you consider that mage armor is an 8 hour duration no concentration 13+dex for a first level spell slot.

So then your complain is 100% from a power gaming stand point, and mainly because you don't like Barkskin. Well, lemme explain you that spell, the idea is that since you are a druid and can wild shape, you can have AC 16 while in other forms, for your regular form you have medium armor proficiency, so getting a 16 means Hides+Shield+Dex 14.

Tetrasodium

2019-03-31, 03:35 PM

So, don't use Barkskin, since its not a spell for getting ludicrously high AC? That spell is to have decent AC while you wildshape.

it's a concentration spell , no it's a poorly thought out spell that gives you the the same or less starting AC of a fighter, paladin,14+ dex ranger. or cleric in their starting gear & possibly monk or barbarian in their starting gear at level one depending on if some of them are using a shield or not to have more than 16ac. Yes, aAt level one, sixteen ac is indeed "decent". burning one of your two-three third spell slots & trying to maintain concentration on a spell to get 16 AC at level 5+ is ridiculously far from "decent".

As to the rest of your quibbles over 3.5 focused on AC alone, the 3,5 CoDzilla had a lot going for it & AC was only part of the pie, but barkskin certainly did a nice job of helping to throw druids with all their other toys into "lol, you guys go get the pizza, I'll take care of this". It's borderline dishonest to suggest that AC alone is why a druid could be considered invulnerable.

Dr.Samurai

2019-03-31, 03:43 PM

I don't ever play druids because I don't want the power to transform into animals. I'd play a nature-oriented caster with some decent melee capabilities, but I don't want wildhshape tacked onto it.

Great Dragon

2019-03-31, 03:46 PM

I agree with Rukelnikov.

A 3rd level Druid (any circle) being a Rat with an AC 16 for hour is awesome!!

And even the Moon Druid pretty much maxing out with Mammoth with over 100 Hp and AC 16 for that hour rocks!!

Concentration only really comes into play if they get discovered and hit.

MeeposFire

2019-03-31, 03:55 PM

In addition to reasons already explained (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23813186&postcount=85) by sithlordnergal, the no metal armor thing is a trowback to earlier versions where the bad flower child lore many have skewered already was supported mechanically. Back in 3.5 barbarians had damage reduction when raging, monks had various things including add wis to ac & a level based AC bump. druids had a barkskin spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/barkskin.htm) that was duration based +2-+5 ac on top of armor, shield, and practically every other type of AC boost because of how type of boost mattered along with a spell to [urkl="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/ironwood.htm"]make ionwood amor[/url] if I'm not mistaken. In 5e, monks still have ac from wis, barbarians have still have damage resistance, the ironwood spell is not a thing & ironwood is not really even player accessable given A: changes to crafting & B: the fact that it does not appear to be mentioned in the PHB, DMG, XgE, Volos, MToF, or GGtR.

In the past the no metal armor was because a druid with +3 shield, +3 plate, & freaking barkskin would be effectively invulnerable to weapon damage & maybe certain types of spells. Character concepts based around "I want a druid with a high AC" were "ok.. That is any druid" and concepts based on "I want a druid that wears metal armor" were met with the obvious "lol no.. it can't cast spells & loses certain druid features how about a T-1000 liquid metal terminator as a pet too?" for the obvious balance reasons. By getting rid of the reasons for the no metal armor limitation alongside both the clear drawbacks & clear benefits, WotC opened the door for people to see just how ridiculous the lore limitation is & start seeing just how badly druids align with the overly obnoxious stereotype in media.

So no, people don't think up armor wearing barbarian/monk concepts or complain about those limitations because both of those classes get something easily arguable as being as good or better than armor or at least very close to being on par. A monk who maxes dex & wis will have 20 ac naked in the bathtub. A barbarian who maxes dex & con will have absurd HP and the same 20 ac while naked in bed at a brothel. A druid who casts barkskin will have 16 ac while concentrating on barkskin instead of one of their useful spells. The fact that multiple classes start with chainmail(16 ac) and the option of a shield to bring that up to 18 at level one with zero experience shows just how bad the third level spell barkskin is in 5e. That bad gets even worse when you consider that mage armor is an 8 hour duration no concentration 13+dex for a first level spell slot.

I think you are misremembering some things. For instance barbarians did not get DR from raging (well I should say the default barbarian package did not I am not going to go through every last alternate class feature for the class because that would be nuts though the not often used ACF from PHB did operate somewhat like this) they got always on DR in small amounts and their rage gave a boost to str and con and some other things (the boost to con did make you tougher but I would not call that DR boost personally).

Further the non-metal armor thing was not new to 3e nor was the lack of metal armor a balance concern in 3e. Firstly there were numerous non-metal versions of the same armor that a druid could use to get the same level of AC and one of the most well known is in Eberron so I know you must know of it. It was not even expensive to get. Also AC is not even considered that vital in most 3e discussions since you either have a lot of it and it is somewhat useful or you do not even bother and you rely on miss chance for most of your needs (granted I typically disagree with that assertion at least to some extent since that moderate AC may make you more resilient to power attack or iterative attacks from weapon users but even still I have to say AC in 3e is worth less than it is in previous or later versions of the game). Heck high level druids should be wild shaped, using a wild clasped armor of their choice, and wild clasped shield to get the most of their AC if they want it and none of that is restricted. The lack of metal was hardly a balance concern if it was then non-metallic heavy armor would be worth a whole lot more than it was. Just like in 5e the metallic armor restriction is far more a thematic one than a balance concern.

Prior to 3e barkskin was no help to a druid that had good magical armor since like in 5e it gave a base AC that did not stack with your armor (though it could stack with things that gave a bonus to AC unlike the 5e version and it improved with levels also unlike the 5e version).

A couple points of AC does not change the balance of the druid. You can give him that mushroom armor from that one adventure or allow for the creation of bone armor or whatever and all it does it make it more like a non-melee cleric which is not all that special in terms of AC. It is a thematic choice.

As for why the druid has NEVER been one of the top choices on the whole for players there is a simple reason that some people ignore which is that it is a fairly specialized concept class and those tend to not get as many people playing them. For instance what are among the most popular classes in every edition? Fighters, wizards, and rogues tend to top the lists even in 3e and PF which is significant because if you are on a site like this people talk like nobody ever plays the fighter in 3e or PF but yet when the statistics came out it was in the top tier of numbers of classes being played. The reason for that is that those classes are the most broad in archetype and in use. A fighter or rogue can be all sorts of characters by default and those types of characters are the most common in literature, games, and movies which makes them very desirable for a lot of people even in editions (such as 3e) where some of those classes are not even that good. It is also funny that you will see once in a while on a site like this people complaining that these 3 classes (especially the fighter and wizard) are too broad and should be made into more specialized concepts for a number of reasons but I would say doing that would actually reduce their popularity at large.

The druid "suffers" (in quotes because frankly it still gets plenty of play on the whole) because its concept is much more specialized and narrow, its concept is not as common in other media as some other classes, and its role mechanically in the game is not the one that gets the most play by default (healing, utility, versatility, control, and a bit of damage is very useful but not as broadly appealing as dealing lots of flashy effects or damage people love that stuff). It should not be surprising that it is not as popular as the fighter, which conceptually has a very broad appeal, and I do not think it should be judged negatively because it is less popular than a fighter it really should not be (unless there is a big push outside of D&D to make the concept more popular).

As for me I love many aspects of the druid but I am kind of waiting for one that fits my style. I want more of a warrior druid that uses weapons. Strange I know but if they came out with a subclass that used wild shape as something like lycnathrope (not how it is in the monster manual but something useful for sure) and gave out weapon related boosts such as something like extra attack so I could be a druid warrior in or out of wild shape (wild shape would just make it better) I would be really into that and play that right away. The shapeshifter druid in Baldur's Gate 2 was much like that (though it had many flaws that needed to be fixed) and could have been a cool concept to ahve in the game.

Rukelnikov

2019-03-31, 04:00 PM

it's a concentration spell , no it's a poorly thought out spell that gives you the the same or less starting AC of a fighter, paladin,14+ dex ranger. or cleric in their starting gear & possibly monk or barbarian in their starting gear at level one depending on if some of them are using a shield or not to have more than 16ac. Yes, aAt level one, sixteen ac is indeed "decent". burning one of your two-three third spell slots & trying to maintain concentration on a spell to get 16 AC at level 5+ is ridiculously far from "decent".

Well, then I guess Brown Bear must be a pretty terrible shape then, since it has AC 11.

As to the rest of your quibbles over 3.5 focused on AC alone, the 3,5 CoDzilla had a lot going for it & AC was only part of the pie, but barkskin certainly did a nice job of helping to throw druids with all their other toys into "lol, you guys go get the pizza, I'll take care of this". It's borderline dishonest to suggest that AC alone is why a druid could be considered invulnerable.

Barkskin grants the same as a 50k gold item (Amulet of Nat Armor +5), in 3.5 a druid can use Tortoise Shell, which grants a Nat armor bonus non-epic items don't grant.

KyleG

2019-03-31, 04:00 PM

As for me I love many aspects of the druid but I am kind of waiting for one that fits my style. I want more of a warrior druid that uses weapons. Strange I know but if they came out with a subclass that used wild shape as something like lycnathrope (not how it is in the monster manual but something useful for sure) and gave out weapon related boosts such as something like extra attack so I could be a druid warrior in or out of wild shape (wild shape would just make it better) I would be really into that and play that right away. The shapeshifter druid in Baldur's Gate 2 was much like that (though it had many flaws that needed to be fixed) and could have been a cool concept to ahve in the game.

This. So very into this.

Rukelnikov

2019-03-31, 04:08 PM

Tetrasodium

2019-03-31, 04:08 PM

Well, then I guess Brown Bear must be a pretty terrible shape then, since it has AC 11.

Barkskin grants the same as a 50k gold item (Amulet of Nat Armor +5), in 3.5 a druid can use Tortoise Shell, which grants a Nat armor bonus non-epic items don't grant.

Brown bear gets used by moon druids from 2-6 & is very much showing its age at 5th when it's about to be replaced. But since you ask a stupid question that ignores everything else the brown bear has going for it at 2-5... Yes, brown bear is complete trash at level eight when every druid archtype other than moon because there are better ways of getting a climb speed & 34hp at level 8 is not even a speedbump. I'm glad that I could clear that up for you. As to you comparing barkskin of 3.5 to the functionally rather identical amulet of natural armor +5, thank you for proving my point about why it was great back then... It's not now

Rukelnikov

2019-03-31, 04:13 PM

Brown bear gets used by moon druids from 2-6 & is very much showing its age at 5th when it's about to be replaced. But since you ask a stupid question that ignores everything else the brown bear has going for it at 2-5...

So, by your own words Barkskin grants +5 AC for 4 levels? Thats a pretty good buff

Yes, brown bear is complete trash at level eight when every druid archtype other than moon because there are better ways of getting a climb speed & 34hp at level 8 is not even a speedbump. I'm glad that I could clear that up for you. As to you comparing barkskin of 3.5 to the functionally rather identical amulet of natural armor +5, thank you for proving my point about why it was great back then... It's not now

You must be a hell of an optimizer lol

nickl_2000

2019-03-31, 04:20 PM

If you don't mind Homebrew, there are many martial druids in that section, don't remember one that is like 2e's shapeshifter, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is.

I have one that I wrote myself https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G4F3iu64LiQE_gd8Xp3ls3bDfXluR8ZDgypKtZDDZoU
Circle of the elemental warrior.

I also wrote a Natures warden class which is basicially a melee character that can shapeshift
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16YhAZX1LutyiS3WeQ_uJht2Lc-qLEAG7/view?usp=drivesdk

Dr. Cliché

2019-03-31, 04:41 PM

Tetrasodium

2019-03-31, 04:42 PM

So, by your own words Barkskin grants +5 AC for 4 levels? Thats a pretty good buff

You must be a hell of an optimizer lol

Don't be a troll, a land/shepherd/dreams/spore/etc druid would need to be daft or have some very contrived & extremely unusual situation to feel that wildshaping into a brown bear at level eight is going to be a meaningful contribution as a member of the party & it's silly to pretend that is a mere powergaming optimization thing. It has nothing to do with optimization. Barkskin in 5e does not simply "grants +5 AC for 4 levels". It's a concentration spell with a duration of one hour that sets your ac to 16 provided you maintain concentration. The amulet of natural armor +5/3.5 barkskin was great because that stacked with your armor, shield, & armor's enhancement bonus. pretending that 5e barkskin is even on the same level of usefulness as 3.5 barkskin or3.5 amulet of natural armor is daft. You also ignore the fact that concentration is a 5e thing & a huge chunk of the druid's best spells in 5e are also concentration based, concentration was not a thing in 3.5. It would be dishonest to pretend that barkskin being concentration instead of duration is irrelevant on a class with as many good/go to concentration spells. Because it is extremely relevant due to only being able to concentrate on one spell at a time, the fact that barkskin only grants 16 ac is forced into being extremely relevant. If barkskin was simply an 8hr duration like mage armor, then its 16 ac would be pretty decent

it seems that by your logic of looking only at what you gain without considering what you lose or opportunity costs, the armor of vulnerability (dmg152) is a great item because it gives resistance to bludgeon pierce or slash damage, the fact that it also grants vulnerability to the other two damage types turns armor of vulnerability as written into a very bad cursed item that almost always needs to be removed asap.

Great Dragon

2019-03-31, 04:48 PM

The best Beast in the 5e MM is the Scorpion at non-magical AC 15.

But, since it's a CR 3 only the level 9 Moon Druid gets it.

Giant Spider is a close second - 8th level (non-moon) Druid = CR 1 with AC 14.
---
None of the flying Beasts in the MM get much for AC and the Druid using Barkskin to have AC 16 for an hour works just fine, since most Druids I know would rather fight in another form, or just be Humanoid and cast spells when in combat.

But then having a flying form in a Dungeon - other than Bat for scouting/escape, maybe - is not really useful.
---
IDK, the Shifting Warrior (one improving form) sounds more like a Ranger varient than a Druid, to me.

I could totally get behind a One Improving Creature "Pokemon" Summoner Druid.

But then, I don't have a problem with the Druid retaining their HP when shifted....

Tiwanoz

2019-03-31, 06:22 PM

At some point while playing 5e I wrote up a revised Druid which was more of an ¨original caster¨ vibe. Making wildshape an archetypal choice and adding in a bunch of mechanics to make it different yet familiar.

My group didnt take kindly to the removal of Wildshape.

Dr. Cliché

2019-03-31, 06:27 PM

Rukelnikov

2019-03-31, 06:31 PM

Don't be a troll, a land/shepherd/dreams/spore/etc druid would need to be daft or have some very contrived & extremely unusual situation to feel that wildshaping into a brown bear at level eight is going to be a meaningful contribution as a member of the party & it's silly to pretend that is a mere powergaming optimization thing. It has nothing to do with optimization. Barkskin in 5e does not simply "grants +5 AC for 4 levels". It's a concentration spell with a duration of one hour that sets your ac to 16 provided you maintain concentration. The amulet of natural armor +5/3.5 barkskin was great because that stacked with your armor, shield, & armor's enhancement bonus. pretending that 5e barkskin is even on the same level of usefulness as 3.5 barkskin or3.5 amulet of natural armor is daft. You also ignore the fact that concentration is a 5e thing & a huge chunk of the druid's best spells in 5e are also concentration based, concentration was not a thing in 3.5. It would be dishonest to pretend that barkskin being concentration instead of duration is irrelevant on a class with as many good/go to concentration spells. Because it is extremely relevant due to only being able to concentrate on one spell at a time, the fact that barkskin only grants 16 ac is forced into being extremely relevant. If barkskin was simply an 8hr duration like mage armor, then its 16 ac would be pretty decent

Comparing 3.5 to 5e is pointless, they are different games with very important differences, you can expect spells (staples in particular) to keep their fluff and general working, but not more than that.

Barkskin is a weak spell for most characters, for a moon druid specifically, its rather good. It stays up for a full hour, grants a good bonus to AC, and doesn't require your action like Moonbeam, so you can actually become a bear and rend stuff.

Tiwanoz

2019-03-31, 06:42 PM

Do you have a link to your version of the Druid?

You've made me rather curious.

Sure, here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TVzPzIvMjm-mvv1-NUWbf4_ic5CKYhCFJVvocEk7Ayo/edit?usp=sharing) it is.

Aquillion

2019-03-31, 06:43 PM

Which is a shame, as an eco-terrorist Druid seems like a badly underused Chaotic Itswhatmycharacterwoulddo option.Now I'm picturing a Druid who wears this symbol on his shirt:

https://i.imgur.com/51xEzAE.png

...and who goes around trying to crush monarchism and mercantilism.

Great Dragon

2019-03-31, 07:22 PM

Comparing 3.5 to 5e is pointless, they are different games with very important differences.

This is very true, though I do sometimes still remember the 3.5 over 5e.
I'm working on it.

Yeah, the Barkskin is really a Druid only spell, since most PCs can get an AC 16+ without magic - except Sorcerer and Wizard, who has to sacrifice a 1st level Spell Slot to get that base 13 AC for 8 hours - plus another 1st level Slot for +5 that round. (Plus Dex).

I suppose a friendly DM could allow a Barkskin and Shield combo....

Tetrasodium

2019-03-31, 07:50 PM

Comparing 3.5 to 5e is pointless, they are different games with very important differences, you can expect spells (staples in particular) to keep their fluff and general working, but not more than that.

Barkskin is a weak spell for most characters, for a moon druid specifically, its rather good. It stays up for a full hour, grants a good bonus to AC, and doesn't require your action like Moonbeam, so you can actually become a bear and rend stuff.

16 ac is not a "good bonus to AC". Yes it might be nice on a brown or possibly even cave/polar bear, but it never gets better & will always need concentration checks.

An owlbear is cr3 +7 to hit, it needs to roll a 9 or better to hit barkskin & does multiattack 1d10+5, 2d8+5 giving concentration checks somewhere between dc6-7 and dc 16-21.

A hill giant is cr5 +8 to hit so needs to roll an 8 or better to hit barkskin with either a rock(3d10+5) or two club attacks(3d8+5 each). The con save would be between dc8 & 29-35 depending on what & how hard it hits with

A CR5 vampire spawn has +6 to hit & not too hard to concentration save damage

A CR 13 vampire has +9 to hit so needs to roll a seven or better to ht barkskin. those attacks deal 1d8+4 unarmed strike or 3d6 for the bite. the 5-12 concentration save might not be too bad, but you could be making 2 of them/turn or one of those plus the 3-18 damage bite that it can make every round plus one unarmed strike.

things get even worse as you go up because Barkskin in 5e does not scale in any way regardless of druid level or spell slot level. would you tell a fighter, ranger, paladin, cleric, monk, or barbarian at level 1 that their AC is "rather good" and will never be scaling higher because it lasts more than an hour & doesn't require concentration? Yes comparing classes is often futile, but in this case we are comparing starting gear to a spell that will never improve that burns a spell slot to get that same starting gear AC provided concentration is maintained.

I'm not the one saying that barkskin in 5e is good or even "rather good", you and others are. I'm saying that barkskin is awful & the comparisons to 3.5 are relevant because the no metal armor is a throwback check to spells & abilities that no longer hold a candle to their old version. The result makes for the situation where ASF, strict paladin oaths, & a bunch of other sacred cows other than the no metal armor were slaughtered & ground into hamburger. Yes barkskin can be pretty decent at level 3 when druids get their first level2 spells, but don't pretend that there are not seventeen more levels after tlevel 3with that 26 ac fading away into kinda pointless long before those 17 levels play out fully.

Great Dragon

2019-03-31, 08:09 PM

Aquillion

2019-03-31, 08:44 PM

By the way, what does ASF stand for?Arcane Spell Failure, the rule that used to cause arcane spells to fail randomly based on the armor you were wearing regardless of proficiency.

Tetrasodium

2019-03-31, 08:54 PM

@Tetrasodium
Ok. I can see your point here.
Especially against higher CRs.
It's great for low level Beasts

At the very least it should allow the Dex mod to be added, if not the +2 Shield bonus as well.

I wonder: would allowing up casting to increase AC to 18 (plus Dex and +2 Shield in Humanoid form) be a possible fix? Maybe in a 5th level Spell Slot?

Or would making the duration 6 hours with no concentration be better? Still + Dex and shield.

By the way, what does ASF stand for?

ASF is from older versions (second & third) where armor imposed an arcane spell failure chance based on the armor type. The reason why casters didn't often wear armor or wore light (at most) was not because they weren't proficient so much as spells with somatic components became a crap shoot. the ASF was (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Armor)
padded: 5%
Leather: 10%
Studded Leather: 15%
Chain shirt: 20%
hide: 20%
scale: 25%
chainmail: 30%
breastplate 25%
Splint: 40%
Banded: 35%
Half Plate: 40%
Full Plate: 35%
buckler: 5%
light shield: 5%
Heavy shield: 15%
Tower shield: 50%

You needed to add up everything you had worn with an asf chance & roll... over(?) on percentile dice any time you cast an arcane spell. Druids being a vine caster got to ignore it just as clerics & rangers got to do. In 5e, everyone who used to be checked by ASF (arcane caster) now ignores it along with all those other sacred cows I noted earlier but druids still have the stupid metal armor limitation check & people fight to bizarre lengths to enforce it rather than just admitting that it too should have been ground into glue with the other sacred cows. There was plenty of talk about how the no metal armor thing links to a stereotype not embodied in media, your "solution(s)" are all making attempts to preserve that limitation rather than just accepting "no penalty or limitation kicks in if druids wear metal armor, gaining heavy armor proficiency& using heavy armor/barding fixes the problems with the halfbaked barkskin spell & allows for more interesting les abrasive to the party druid character concepts"

Pex

2019-03-31, 08:58 PM

Great Dragon

2019-03-31, 09:12 PM

Finback

2019-03-31, 09:18 PM

Which is a shame, as an eco-terrorist Druid seems like a badly underused Chaotic Itswhatmycharacterwoulddo option.

I remember reading a page where someone discussed this idea, and their take was the sort of person who wants to tear civilisation down, to the extent of killing dogs, because they were seen as traitors to the wild - willingly subjecting themselves to subjugation.

Rukelnikov

2019-03-31, 09:56 PM

I'm not the one saying that barkskin in 5e is good or even "rather good", you and others are. I'm saying that barkskin is awful & the comparisons to 3.5 are relevant because the no metal armor is a throwback check to spells & abilities that no longer hold a candle to their old version. The result makes for the situation where ASF, strict paladin oaths, & a bunch of other sacred cows other than the no metal armor were slaughtered & ground into hamburger. Yes barkskin can be pretty decent at level 3 when druids get their first level2 spells, but don't pretend that there are not seventeen more levels after tlevel 3with that 26 ac fading away into kinda pointless long before those 17 levels play out fully.

Paladins Oaths are still there, if you don't enforce them, that's your choosing. ASF got even worse, you don't even get a chance to cast in armor now, you strictly CANT cast in armor, MCing or taking feats to do so were available in 3.x too. Druids can't wear metal in 3e nor in 5e.

Fortunately fluff is still there, why fluff bothers you so much though? Idk

But a Moon Druid wants to be a beast attacking in melee, where he'll get hit and have to make Concentration checks and can lose the Barkskin. AC 16 is itself not a good AC beyond low level play for someone who wants to be in melee. It's the Concentration that kills the spell. Not that a Moon Druid would be casting any spells while in wild shape of course, but it's more a wasted spell slot use when it goes away in the first two rounds of combat because you lose concentration.

Yeah, it will eventually lose it, but what can a Moon Druid get from a 2nd lvl slot in melee? 2d8 hp which averages to 9 hp, so, if Barkskin managed to deflect 1 or 2 hits before falling, it was already a better use for the slot.

Tetrasodium

2019-03-31, 10:41 PM

Aquillion: Ah, I had just forgetten that particular shorthand.

Tetrasodium: thanks for the details, though.
And yes a 3x (earlier?) Mage (even multiclassed) wearing Half Plate and Tower Shield had to roll over 90% to cast a spell.
Yes, it was extremely difficult to wear armor as an arcane caster (bards could wear light iirc but everyone else was borked). there were some ways to reduce it a bit (ie mithral armor & maybe some PrCs), but other than using the still spell metamagic on anything with a somatic component or restricting yourself to the very limited list of VM only spells it was very tough for an armored arcane caster.

Paladins Oaths are still there, if you don't enforce them, that's your choosing. ASF got even worse, you don't even get a chance to cast in armor now, you strictly CANT cast in armor, MCing or taking feats to do so were available in 3.x too. Druids can't wear metal in 3e nor in 5e.

Fortunately fluff is still there, why fluff bothers you so much though? Idk

Yeah, it will eventually lose it, but what can a Moon Druid get from a 2nd lvl slot in melee? 2d8 hp which averages to 9 hp, so, if Barkskin managed to deflect 1 or 2 hits before falling, it was already a better use for the slot.

no, I said "atrict paladin oaths", it's different entirely.

Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act. Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimateauthority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not usethe help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.
Associates: While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

Ex-Paladins
A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits anevil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin’s mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any farther in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description, page 201), as appropriate. Like a member of any other class, a paladin may be a multiclass character, but multiclass paladins face a special restriction. A paladin who gains a level in any class other than paladin may never again raise her paladin level, though she retains all her paladin abilities. The path of the paladin requires a constant heart. If a character adopts this class, she must pursue it to the exclusion of all other careers. Once she has turned off the path, she may never return.

Yes you read that last bit right, a different PC in the party simply being evil could cause a paladin to lose all of theoir paladin abilities. Don't forget that 3.5 had absolute morality and a bunch of ways your alignment could be changed. If you think that the wishy washy feel good oaths in 5e that are anywhere near as strict as the 3,5 ones... do they make a version of the PHB in your first/primary language?

Before you say "but that's not so bad".. this is 3.5 LG

Lawful Good, “Crusader”: A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see he guilty go unpunished. Alhandra, a paladin who fights evil without mercy and protects the innocent without hesitation, is
lawful good.
Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion

Just doing the best you can or letting your conscience direct you in an unclear situation could result in shifting to NG or CG. That says nothing about falling out of good by accident or bad luck either

GreyBlack

2019-03-31, 11:16 PM

Yes, it was extremely difficult to wear armor as an arcane caster (bards could wear light iirc but everyone else was borked). there were some ways to reduce it a bit (ie mithral armor & maybe some PrCs), but other than using the still spell metamagic on anything with a somatic component or restricting yourself to the very limited list of VM only spells it was very tough for an armored arcane caster.

no, I said "atrict paladin oaths", it's different entirely.

Yes you read that last bit right, a different PC in the party simply being evil could cause a paladin to lose all of theoir paladin abilities. Don't forget that 3.5 had absolute morality and a bunch of ways your alignment could be changed. If you think that the wishy washy feel good oaths in 5e that are anywhere near as strict as the 3,5 ones... do they make a version of the PHB in your first/primary language?

Before you say "but that's not so bad".. this is 3.5 LG

Just doing the best you can or letting your conscience direct you in an unclear situation could result in shifting to NG or CG. That says nothing about falling out of good by accident or bad luck either

3.x also had the Blackguard, though, which is still one of my favorite character archetypes ever. That PrC was literally built for characters who couldn't maintain the Paladin alignment and fell to evil. There were also PrC's such as the Holy Liberator, Grey Guard, and Shadowbane Inquisitor which helped relax the alignment requirements of the paladin.

Great Dragon

2019-04-01, 12:22 AM

There were also Alternative Alignment Paladins made for 3x.

Freedom (CG), Slaughter (CE) and Tyranny (LE). I don't know if there was NG or NE (I suppose Blackguard) versions.

It was mostly the "unyealding" enforced 'progamming' (even the smallest mistake or divergent deed caused the Paladin to fall) interpretation of LG by DMs (and mean Alignment Rule Lawyers) that caused people (including me) to not play Paladins in 3x and before.

Which is most likely the reason they went with Oaths for 5e.

Underdark Knight for those that didn't want a mount and constantly Dungeon Delved.

Pex

2019-04-01, 12:32 AM

Yeah, it will eventually lose it, but what can a Moon Druid get from a 2nd lvl slot in melee? 2d8 hp which averages to 9 hp, so, if Barkskin managed to deflect 1 or 2 hits before falling, it was already a better use for the slot.

The fact that the druid has to make a concentration check means he got hit, i.e. the opponent hit AC 16 so the spell did nothing. It certainly is possible for an opponent to miss AC 16, but it's not reliable. The comparison for the healing is valid since the idea is the Moon druid will be wild shaped in melee, but at least the healing is a guaranteed benefit. In terms of efficiency the spell slot could see better use when the Moon druid is not wild shaped in melee. I admit I brought it up the Moon druid wants to be in melee wild shaped, so I don't fault you the comparison to the healing but I have to acknowledge the Moon druid sometimes won't be wild shaped in melee and would be casting spells as any druid. At those times the character is a lot better off casting other 2nd level spells than Barkskin.

There were also Alternative Alignment Paladins made for 3x.

Freedom (CG), Slaughter (CE) and Tyranny (LE). I don't know if there was NG or NE (I suppose Blackguard) versions.

It was mostly the "unyealding" enforced 'progamming' (even the smallest mistake or divergent deed caused the Paladin to fall) interpretation of LG by DMs (and mean Alignment Rule Lawyers) that caused people (including me) to not play Paladins in 3x and before.

Which is most likely the reason they went with Oaths for 5e.

Underdark Knight for those that didn't want a mount and constantly Dungeon Delved.

Personal pet peeve I hated those alternate paladins. To me it read as players whining they wanted the cool paladin abilities but didn't want to bother playing nice guys. They won out in 5E now anyone can be a paladin and have the cool smiting without being upright citizens, but it still annoys me.

Great Dragon

2019-04-01, 12:47 AM

mephnick

2019-04-01, 06:31 AM

had to be 'perfect' at being both Lawful and Good. In a Fantasy RPG.

A fantasy RPG set up for players to play traditional literary archetypes, not just whatever they wanted.

But hey, at least the whiners won and now people get to be whatever the **** a Vengeance Paladin is supposed to be.

Great Dragon

2019-04-01, 07:26 AM

A fantasy RPG set up for players to play traditional literary archetypes, not just whatever they wanted.

But hey, at least the whiners won and now people get to be whatever the **** a Vengeance Paladin is supposed to be.
"I'm....... Batman!"

Heh. Everyone I knew always changed how the Archetype behaved.

Pex

2019-04-01, 08:08 AM

I started a new thread if you're interested in discussing this paladin issue so as not to derail this thread.

Dr. Cliché

2019-04-01, 08:24 AM

Sure, here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TVzPzIvMjm-mvv1-NUWbf4_ic5CKYhCFJVvocEk7Ayo/edit?usp=sharing) it is.

Thanks. Was an interesting read.

Yeah, it will eventually lose it, but what can a Moon Druid get from a 2nd lvl slot in melee? 2d8 hp which averages to 9 hp, so, if Barkskin managed to deflect 1 or 2 hits before falling, it was already a better use for the slot.

But you're comparing it to an ability that is itself an abysmal use of a spell slot. :smalltongue:

stoutstien

2019-04-01, 09:06 AM

I think barkskin needs a buff but I don't think Moon druids do so I've mostly just left it be

*A barkskin fix I've tried is it's an action casting to provide AC= 12+Prof bonus for one minute no concentration but also gives you fire vulnerability for duration.

KorvinStarmast

2019-04-01, 09:15 AM

Technically speaking, WoW is a riff on Warhammer, which is a riff on D&D. Completely semantic argument. Uh, what? WoW is an outgrowth of Warcraft I -> Ii -> into III -> into MMORPG to show the everquest gang how it was done. And boy, did they ever.
Is your basic point that Warcraft I was a riff on Warhammer?

Tetrasodium

2019-04-01, 09:22 AM

@Pex - maybe, and maybe people got tired of being told that both they and their PCs had to be 'perfect' at being both Lawful and Good. In a Fantasy RPG.

No other Alignment had as much trouble.

Looks like my Barkskin Fix Idea was ignored.

No, you just didn't like what was said about it (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23814605&postcount=129). There are a lot of ways that barkskin could be improved from its terrible state in 5e, but the biggest problem with it is the fact that it's a concentration spell. With that said, barkskin being a terrible spell in 5e is fine because it exposes theglaring problems with the no metal armor shackles. Just like people agree that the loosening of the past paladin strict oaths was needed for various reasons including allowing characters that don't quite fit the mold of a particular stereotype at all/all the time, so too was the fact that the pointless no metal armor bit of fluff was something that had similar pointless shackles on character design. wearing armor makes for a very different character (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTjs5eo4BfI) beyond just optimization

dejarnjc

2019-04-01, 09:32 AM

I'm a little late to the party but from my own experience (been playing the same moon druid for the past 3 years, levels 1-20):

Barkskin sucks. It's not as bad as stoneskin and MIGHT actually be useful once or twice between levels 3-5 but otherwise just straight up sucks.

The book keeping required to play an effective druid, moon druid in particular, is unreal (I've played a level 20 wizard before so I have something to compare it to) and it only gets worse as you level up. Here's a non-exhaustive list of things I have to keep track of routinely during a session:

Wildshape forms...what are my options?
What spells do I want to prepare after a long rest?
What spells do I currently have prepared?
What are my summon options what are their stat blocks? (My DM lets me choose the type of animal because it's more fun and less work for him). I routinely have Conjure Animals and Conjure woodland beings prepared and frequently enough one of the other summoning spells too.
How many Hit Points am I providing out of combat with Healing Spirit? I basically roll, write the numbers down in a column and then dole out each line of HP quickly because anything else just takes up to much table time from everyone else.
What are my Shapechange options (my #1 9th level spell choice)? This is just a #highlevelDnDproblem so I won't gripe about this too much.
What magic items do I have that I can use and what's in my inventory that i can use?

I DM also so I'm used to keeping track of lots of things at once and I actually enjoy book keeping in general (weird I know) but it's definitely a lot to keep track of.

I like the druid spell list in general but having a spell list full of so, so, so many concentration spells is frustrating at times. Honestly, it almost feels like a minor design flaw but maybe it was intentional.

The range on their non-concentration single-target damage spells is awful and there's so few of them. I've routinely used thorn whip, produce flame, and blight but a 30ft range makes them mediocre as consistent ranged damage options.

Speak with animals, beast bond, beast sense, animal friendship, locate animals or plants, dominate beast... None of these work with monstrosities that are basically just fictional animals (owlbear, Roc, Ankheg, Basilisk, Bulette, Cockatrice, Gorgon, Griffon, Death dog etc.). This is campaign dependent, but we almost never encountered, allied with, befriended, or went into combat against animals past level 5 or so. All of these spells were basically useless for the entirety of the campaign. (Caveat: Speak with animals did let me information gather a few times)

That all being said, I love playing a druid but it's definitely not for everyone.

Tetrasodium

2019-04-01, 09:58 AM

Speak with animals, beast bond, beast sense, animal friendship, locate animals or plants, dominate beast... None of these work with monstrosities that are basically just fictional animals (owlbear, Roc, Ankheg, Basilisk, Bulette, Cockatrice, Gorgon, Griffon, Death dog etc.). This is campaign dependent, but we almost never encountered, allied with, befriended, or went into combat against animals past level 5 or so. All of these spells were basically useless for the entirety of the campaign. (Caveat: Speak with animals did let me information gather a few times)

I played a ,moon druid to mid teens & agree with all of your points but never had a problem with the "bookkeeping", the spiral bound pdf I liked earlier helped considerably with that :D. The lack of beasts can be blamed entirely on WotC choosing to make pretty much every beast beyond about cr2-3 with ~1-2 exceptions each cr (usually dinosaurs). It is more infuriating because of how many monstrosities should be a beast

Beasts are nonhumanoid creatures that are a natural
part of the fantasy ecology. Some of them have magical powers, but most are unintelligent and lack any society or language. Beasts include all varieties of ordinary animals, dinosaurs, and giant versions of animals.

-Monstrosities are monsters in the strictest sense frightening creatures that are not ordinary, not truly natural, and almost never benign. Some are the results of magical experimentation gone awry (such as owl bears), and others ,are the product-of terrible curses (including minotaurs and yuan-ti). They defy categorization, and in some sense serve as a catch-all category for creatures that don't fit into any other type.
the owl bear being a monstrosity is fine since it's basically nina tucker (https://fma.fandom.com/wiki/Nina_Tucker), but there is no reason for blink dogs, displacer beast, hellhound, winter wolf, basilisk, bulette , giant ice toad, hook horror, hydra, & a host of others to be monstrosities instead of beast.

dejarnjc

2019-04-01, 10:07 AM

I played a ,moon druid to mid teens & agree with all of your points but never had a problem with the "bookkeeping", the spiral bound pdf I liked earlier helped considerably with that :D.

You're obviously pretty organized and so am I. It's never really become a *problem* to me but I can see why it would turn people off the class.

On a related note I should probably give a shout out the numerous apps I use to help manage everything.
I have a spell book app, the companions app (wildshape and conjured creatures stats), monsters for D&D5e app (for shapechange creature stats), a quick dice roller app to manage my many conjurations, and a pythagorean theorem app because combat is crazy 3d at higher levels.

Man_Over_Game

2019-04-01, 12:35 PM

You're obviously pretty organized and so am I. It's never really become a *problem* to me but I can see why it would turn people off the class.

On a related note I should probably give a shout out the numerous apps I use to help manage everything.
I have a spell book app, the companions app (wildshape and conjured creatures stats), monsters for D&D5e app (for shapechange creature stats), a quick dice roller app to manage my many conjurations, and a pythagorean theorem app because combat is crazy 3d at higher levels.

I'd like to see a homebrew that uses something akin to the 4e rules for Wildshape in 5e. Which is the fact that you can choose what creature you are when you Wild Shape, but you instead pick certain features to use across all of them when you shift.

For example, when you gain access to Medium forms, you can pick from these Medium Form benefits:

Movement: 40 speed, 30 speed + 15 Climbing, 20 speed + 20 swimming.
Skills (Pick 2): Stealth, Athletics, Acrobatics, Perception, Survival
Senses: Blindsense 10 feet, Sense of Smell, Darkvision 60 feet.
Attacks: Multiattack x2, 1d6 each; Attack x1, 1d10 damage, DC 11 to Prone; Attack x1, 1d8, Advantage to hit after moving 15 feet.

Rukelnikov

2019-04-01, 12:42 PM

I'd like to see a homebrew that uses something akin to the 4e rules for Wildshape in 5e. Which is the fact that you can choose what creature you are when you Wild Shape, but you instead pick certain features to use across all of them when you shift.

For example, when you gain access to Medium forms, you can pick from these Medium Form benefits:

Movement: 40 speed, 30 speed + 15 Climbing, 20 speed + 20 swimming.
Skills (Pick 2): Stealth, Athletics, Acrobatics, Perception, Survival
Senses: Blindsense 10 feet, Sense of Smell, Darkvision 60 feet.
Attacks: Multiattack x2, 1d6 each; Attack x1, 1d10 damage, DC 11 to Prone; Attack x1, 1d8, Advantage to hit after moving 15 feet.

"Damn I thought a rhinoceros would be strong enough to move this cart", "well I don't really become a rhino, I just look like one, don't tell anyone though"

Changing that would require to change all the polymorphing features, which as far as I can remember have ALWAYS been a problem. Each edition tackled them differently and they all have showed problems.

Tetrasodium

2019-04-01, 12:46 PM

"Damn I thought a rhinoceros would be strong enough to move this cart", "well I don't really become a rhino, I just look like one, don't tell anyone though"

Changing that would require to change all the polymorphing features, which as far as I can remember have ALWAYS been a problem. Each edition tackled them differently and they all have showed problems.

Agreed, it would cause a lot of problems & rob moon druids of their flexibility from the cr1-3 forms. The fact that that flexibility is eaten by "we don't have these on earth so it's a monstrosity" from cr3+ is a different problem

MountainTiger

2019-04-01, 01:03 PM

I could see a subclass with a "partial wild shape" or something that revolves around picking up modular enhancements instead of full transformations.

Man_Over_Game

2019-04-01, 01:05 PM

I could see a subclass with a "partial wild shape" or something that revolves around picking up modular enhancements instead of full transformations.

I made a Monk subclass that was kinda like that. Was a lot like the Totem Barbarian, but instead focused around improving a special attack that changed based on the animal form you take rather than the Totem's emphasis on passive buffs. It also granted Alter Self with Advantage on the Concentration Saves, so that also kinda describes what you're looking for.

hymer

2019-04-01, 01:05 PM

Max_Killjoy

2019-04-01, 01:11 PM

A more "fantasy shaman" sort of Class, channeling the qualities and abilities of various animals and creatures... makes me think of this character.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vixen_(comics)

Dr. Cliché

2019-04-01, 01:17 PM

I could see a subclass with a "partial wild shape" or something that revolves around picking up modular enhancements instead of full transformations.

I suspect that's the idea behind giving the Druid unlimited Alter Self.

Unfortunately, the spell is very limited and mostly just functions as Disguise Self, rather than giving animal aspects.

Would be an interesting idea to expand on.

stoutstien

2019-04-01, 01:25 PM

Whoever decided that a brown bear should be CR 1 has obviously never been eaten by a bear.
To be fair if we compare that brown bear vs a commoners it's has a pretty good chance of outright killing 2 of them in one round.

nickl_2000

2019-04-01, 01:25 PM

Whoever decided that a brown bear should be CR 1 has obviously never been eaten by a bear.

Have you? Because if you haven't I feel you aren't qualified to judge either way.

MeeposFire

2019-04-01, 01:31 PM

Might a Ranger with some sort of Wild Shape or pseudo-Lycanthrope be a better fit for that then a Druid?

It would work to an extent though my ideal would have been using druid for the base since I was thinking more along the lines of being a main caster with some weapon use on the side more like the valor bard or bladesinger rather than a warrior with some casting and a wild shape like ability such as paladin, randger, or EK.

Still if the mechanics are done well and the concept is made to be fun I could potentially live with it.

I will say though that I do need this to play a druid this is just the sort of thing I would like to have for a druid character I could play. It is a want not a need.

KorvinStarmast

2019-04-01, 02:12 PM

For a different take on the druid, here's version 1.5: 01 April 2019. Thanks to all who helped me with this over on the Homebrewery and while it was in 5e.
-------------------------------
Circle of Flame

Fire burns the forest, and out of the ash rises new growth. Just like the fire that burns the weak and dead trees, Druids of the Circle of Flame reap the weakness from those who have lost their way, leaving the next generation a fertile soil to grow upon. Wind spreads forest fires, cleansing a greater area. Lightning starts forest fires when it strikes a dead tree; fiery death brings a new beginning. Even evil, consumed by flame, can provide fertile ground for Nature reborn. Circle of Flame druids believe that everything will burn one day, to be re-born for a new beginning.

Circle of Flame spells (always prepared)

at level 3 Flaming Sphere, Gust of Wind
at level 5 Plant Growth, Lightning Bolt
at level 7 Guardian of Nature, Wall of Fire {Grasping Vine for PHB Only Games}
at level 9 Control Winds, Immolation {Flame Strike for PHB Only games}

Only You
When you choose the Circle of Flame at level 2, you gain the fire bolt cantrip.

Heart of the Flame
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to awaken the primal spirits of flame. As an action, you can expend a use of your Wild Shape feature to awaken your inner flame, rather than transforming into a beast form. While this feature is active, you gain the following benefits:

Add your Proficiency Bonus to your AC
Add Fire damage equal to your Wisdom modifier to your melee attacks (Maybe move this to level 6).
You can use your reaction to heal yourself, or an allied creature within 10 feet of you, for 1d4 hit points, when one or the other of you takes damage. This healing increases to 1d6 at 5th level, 1d8 at 11th level, and 1d10 at 15th level.

These effects last for 1 minute or until you are reduced to 0 hit points.

Heat of Battle
Starting at level 6, the druid gets an Extra Attack when taking the Attack action.

Flaming Soul
At level 10 you gain resistance to fire damage. While concentrating on a spell that does fire damage, you gain +2 to your armor class.

From the Ashes
Starting level 14, as a reaction, you can absorb fire or lightning damage dealt to yourself or a single friendly creature within 30' of you. The friendly creature, or you instead heals for the amount of damage taken. You must take a short or long rest before using this feature again.

=================

My original idea on using wisdom mod for AC was too front loaded.
Using prof bonus scales as the game's opponents have an easier time hitting you.
As it is, the level 2 feature is a bit front loaded, so perhaps the damage increase needs to be moved to level 6.

=================

About Medium Armor.

There is an item in the game (DragonScale) that is medium armor than any druid can wear. The trick is getting it, or defeating a dragon so you can have someone make it.

What I'd like to see a bit more of is applying the idea of barding (harder to make than standard armor) such that if one wanted to make a breast late out of a bulette or giant turtle's armor, to make non metal medium armor, that it would be 2 or 3 times as expensive but achievable. Granted, in any campaign a DM can do this, but I'd have liked to see an AL legal way to do this.

Barkskin as concentration item: don't like it.

Great Dragon

2019-04-01, 02:30 PM

I'm on my phone, so this is a bit harder.

No, you just didn't like what was said about it (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23814605&postcount=129).
Did you mean this?

In 5e, everyone who used to be checked by ASF (arcane caster) now ignores it along with all those other sacred cows I noted earlier but druids still have the stupid metal armor limitation check & people fight to bizarre lengths to enforce it rather than just admitting that it too should have been ground into glue with the other sacred cows. There was plenty of talk about how the no metal armor thing links to a stereotype not embodied in media, your "solution(s)" are all making attempts to preserve that limitation rather than just accepting "no penalty or limitation kicks in if druids wear metal armor, gaining heavy armor proficiency& using heavy armor/barding fixes the problems with the halfbaked barkskin spell & allows for more interesting les abrasive to the party druid character concepts"
All I can see is your wanting a Druid to be more like a Nature Cleric because you want Plate and Shield. But then I don't have any problem with Druids getting Non-metal Medium and Heavy Armor (with feat) types.

There are a lot of ways that barkskin could be improved from its terrible state in 5e, but the biggest problem with it is the fact that it's a concentration spell.
There was a no concentration option....

Now I wonder what should replace Wildshape for non-moon Druids.

Because being a CR 1 (flying) beast, even at AC 16, is not really helpful at 20th level.

Land has Spells.

Yakmala

2019-04-01, 07:06 PM

1: Some players don't like them because of the bookkeeping involved. Tracking your own stats as well as the stat blocks for all of your potential wild shapes and summons.... Some players think it feels too much like work instead of a game.

2: Druids, depending on how they are played, can take a lot more time for each combat turn as players look over their wild shape stat blocks, control their swarms of minions, roll damage for their concentration spells, etc. This can sometimes irritate DM's and other players at the table, leading Druid players, who are just trying to play their class to the best of their abilities, to feel pressured to hurry up their turns.

3: Different DM's treat Wild Shape differently. Some just go with the flow and let the Druid transform into anything CR appropriate, while other DM's will interrogate the Druid on what environments they have visited and use that to gate which types of creatures they can become. If you are an AL player that does not have a regular DM, this can get frustrating.

4: As amazing as Wild Shape feels early on, its power level diminishes at higher levels, especially compared to players using high CR True Polymorph to become some truly fearsome types of creatures.

rlc

2019-04-01, 07:17 PM

One combo that I liked doing with my twilight druid was to cast ensnare and add my harvest scythe damage.

OverLordOcelot

2019-04-02, 10:11 AM

3: Different DM's treat Wild Shape differently. Some just go with the flow and let the Druid transform into anything CR appropriate, while other DM's will interrogate the Druid on what environments they have visited and use that to gate which types of creatures they can become. If you are an AL player that does not have a regular DM, this can get frustrating.

Also, to highlight the design issues of the class, it's not clear what the limitation on Wild Shape is meant to accomplish. If it's meant to be thematic, then it should be entirely up to the player what shapes to use. If it's meant to be a power limitation, it should be more mechanical based, and it doesn't make a lot of sense that "forest, plus saw an octopus in a tank once" gives you the good CR1 shapes anyway. And if it's intended to be a real limit of some sort, why does the limit disappear entirely at either level 5 (conjure animals to see any beast up to CR2, though it's DM's choice what animal by the book) or level 7 (polymorph to see any beast you want)?

The limitation just doesn't make any sense from a theme or balance perspective, and ceases to even be functional if you recognize the trick at level 7. It's not just that it's frustrating depending on DM, it's frustrating to even try to figure out what the restriction is intended to accomplish.

Sigreid

2019-04-02, 10:13 AM

Also, to highlight the design issues of the class, it's not clear what the limitation on Wild Shape is meant to accomplish. If it's meant to be thematic, then it should be entirely up to the player what shapes to use. If it's meant to be a power limitation, it should be more mechanical based, and it doesn't make a lot of sense that "forest, plus saw an octopus in a tank once" gives you the good CR1 shapes anyway. And if it's intended to be a real limit of some sort, why does the limit disappear entirely at either level 5 (conjure animals to see any beast up to CR2, though it's DM's choice what animal by the book) or level 7 (polymorph to see any beast you want)?

The limitation just doesn't make any sense from a theme or balance perspective, and ceases to even be functional if you recognize the trick at level 7. It's not just that it's frustrating depending on DM, it's frustrating to even try to figure out what the restriction is intended to accomplish.

IMO it's wiggle room for a DM to not include animal shapes he's not comfortable with. Nothing more.

Dr. Cliché

2019-04-02, 10:17 AM

Also, to highlight the design issues of the class, it's not clear what the limitation on Wild Shape is meant to accomplish. If it's meant to be thematic, then it should be entirely up to the player what shapes to use. If it's meant to be a power limitation, it should be more mechanical based, and it doesn't make a lot of sense that "forest, plus saw an octopus in a tank once" gives you the good CR1 shapes anyway. And if it's intended to be a real limit of some sort, why does the limit disappear entirely at either level 5 (conjure animals to see any beast up to CR2, though it's DM's choice what animal by the book) or level 7 (polymorph to see any beast you want)?

The limitation just doesn't make any sense from a theme or balance perspective, and ceases to even be functional if you recognize the trick at level 7. It's not just that it's frustrating depending on DM, it's frustrating to even try to figure out what the restriction is intended to accomplish.

To be honest, this is just another reason why I think (Moon) Druids should focus on a handful of forms that gradually increase in strength, rather than trying to be Animorphs.

OverLordOcelot

2019-04-02, 10:24 AM

IMO it's wiggle room for a DM to not include animal shapes he's not comfortable with. Nothing more.

If that's really the intention of the restriction, then why would they only have that restriction for levels 2-6 and not all of the time, or at least until a tier breakpoint? Does the DM's comfort only matter at those levels, but not after? And what happens to the DM's comfort in a multi DM environment like AL, where another DM can easily allow the druid to see any legal animal? And why is druid the only class with a "DM comfort" restriction?

It just doesn't make any sense. Whatever the rule is intended to do, it either fails to do it or is trying to achieve a bizarre goal.

Sigreid

2019-04-02, 10:25 AM

To be honest, this is just another reason why I think (Moon) Druids should focus on a handful of forms that gradually increase in strength, rather than trying to be Animorphs.

Where as I much prefer the forms without number approach. But on 3.x the prestige class that I liked best was the master of many forms.

KorvinStarmast

2019-04-02, 10:27 AM

Druids: My experience in AD&D (1 and 2) is that a heck of a lot of the ladies I gamed with chose druids.
I can't pretend that I know why, but that's what I observed.

I am itching to play a druid at some point in the future, but I already have two games that look to be imploding.

nickl_2000

2019-04-02, 10:29 AM

If that's really the intention of the restriction, then why would they only have that restriction for levels 2-6 and not all of the time, or at least until a tier breakpoint? Does the DM's comfort only matter at those levels, but not after? And what happens to the DM's comfort in a multi DM environment like AL, where another DM can easily allow the druid to see any legal animal? And why is druid the only class with a "DM comfort" restriction?

It just doesn't make any sense. Whatever the rule is intended to do, it either fails to do it or is trying to achieve a bizarre goal.

This is exactly why I say that wildshaping is the worst thought out and planned feature of D&D 5e. There are some many, many rulings that are "well ask your DM" compared to any other class. I've never, ever heard a DM say "No, I'm sorry, you can't buy a long sword on your starting character. Only short swords are available here" or "No, I don't like that spell. You can't use it" (okay, so they do say that about healing word, which may I mention is ALSO a druid thing!)

KorvinStarmast

2019-04-02, 10:35 AM

I find this assumption of adversarial relationships between players and DM's destructive.
Whatever happened to "work with your DM" (ahead of time, as needed) to iron out areas of concern?

*exasperated face*

nickl, wild shape is certainly a fiddly bit if the player wants every beast to be available.

As a DM, here's something I do: off load that burden on the player.
Player has to make the quick ref card with the key stats/info for a given wild shape.
Play the card as your druid transforms so that the info is present in situ.

Mitigate the fiddly bit problem by working together.

yeah, I know, it's a weird concept. :smallcool:

nickl_2000

2019-04-02, 10:42 AM

I find this assumption of adversarial relationships between players and DM's destructive.
Whatever happened to "work with your DM" (ahead of time, as needed) to iron out areas of concern?

*exasperated face*

Was this based on my comment? I didn't say it was an adversarial relationship, it's just so open to interpretation for each table. And, yes I did discuss thing before choosing the character, but many things have come up with my current Moon Druid that I didn't even think about until it happened. We have found a happy medium at my table where it works out fine. Still, I've had a lot more discussions with the DM through facebook messenger or in person about my abilities than anyone else at the table. I would LOVE a full sage advice on wildshaping that explains everything. It would be super, super helpful.

Also, as a side note, my DM was pretty frustrated by my Moon Druid wiping out encounters at level 2-4, enough so that he wasn't having as much fun as he would have otherwise. When I sensed that happening, I talked to him about it and offered to change characters to a different character completely to keep it fun for him. It resolved itself after level 4 where the overall power of my Moon Druid dropped in comparison to the other PCs.

NOTE: I use a tablet based app, squire pro that has all the animals on there. I don't make the DM look up anything about them for wildshaping or summoning. I also have full sheet print off for polymorph that I hand to a player if I cast polymorph on them.

OverLordOcelot

2019-04-02, 10:46 AM

This is exactly why I say that wildshaping is the worst thought out and planned feature of D&D 5e. There are some many, many rulings that are "well ask your DM" compared to any other class. I've never, ever heard a DM say "No, I'm sorry, you can't buy a long sword on your starting character. Only short swords are available here" or "No, I don't like that spell. You can't use it" (okay, so they do say that about healing word, which may I mention is ALSO a druid thing!)

I've seen restricted equipment lists, but it's specifically 'my setting is different from the standard', not part of the standard, core published rules for a specific character class. "You're on a primitive island so they only have spears, daggers, clubs, and shortbows available" or "This is a bronze age game so there is no plate or half plate armor" is not that rare to do for a game, but it's not really the same thing. A better analogy would be if the fighter had a rule "you have and can wear the types of armor that you've seen. Ask your DM what types of armor you've seen, and be prepared for them to say that your training didn't include a higher level fighter showing you armor. Also although we won't mention it clearly in the armor rules, at level 7 you get the polyarmor ability which lets you put any of your friends into any type of armor even if you haven't seen it before, which lets you see any type of armor you want, and therefore have and can wear any type of armor."

I definitely agree that while wild shape is a really cool ability, it's also really poorly designed and pretty clearly was not planned out well, if at all.

Spellbreaker26

2019-04-02, 11:01 AM

Druids are on the whole unsexy, speaking as a person who is specifically going to be playing one having never done it before specifically because it is a class I never played before. Part of it is the overemphasis on wild-shape, which is really only a hugely important ability for Moon Druids and is just a weaker polymorph for the rest of them. Part of it is a slightly odd spell list.

I would argue that that doesn't mean they're hated per se. Reception has been broadly superior to rangers, which I would argue are more popular purely because they sound attractive to newcomers (I think they may be one of the most popular newbie classes). Druids, like monks, are just kind of in a weird place archetype wise.

There's also the three other issues: one, there is no specific consequence for not wearing metal armour (I'd argue Druids shouldn't be able to cast spells wearing it and leave it at that). Two, wild-shape options have to be agreed with the DM (XGE is an absolute salvation in this regard, since it provides various lists). Three, summoning spells can work oddly and druids have a lot of those. Again, familiarise yourself with the options. DMs are usually going to prefer you summon a few stronger monsters since that's much less book keeping.

Overall though, if a DM is going to be a massive issue with some of the little eccentricities of the Druid class then you're probably going to have problems with him no matter what your character is. Most of these problems can be solved by thinking ahead and with common sense.

Tetrasodium

2019-04-02, 03:48 PM

Was this based on my comment? I didn't say it was an adversarial relationship, it's just so open to interpretation for each table. And, yes I did discuss thing before choosing the character, but many things have come up with my current Moon Druid that I didn't even think about until it happened. We have found a happy medium at my table where it works out fine. Still, I've had a lot more discussions with the DM through facebook messenger or in person about my abilities than anyone else at the table. I would LOVE a full sage advice on wildshaping that explains everything. It would be super, super helpful.

Also, as a side note, my DM was pretty frustrated by my Moon Druid wiping out encounters at level 2-4, enough so that he wasn't having as much fun as he would have otherwise. When I sensed that happening, I talked to him about it and offered to change characters to a different character completely to keep it fun for him. It resolved itself after level 4 where the overall power of my Moon Druid dropped in comparison to the other PCs.

NOTE: I use a tablet based app, squire pro that has all the animals on there. I don't make the DM look up anything about them for wildshaping or summoning. I also have full sheet print off for polymorph that I hand to a player if I cast polymorph on them.
Yes the work with your gm is great advice & all, but just saying that ignores the fact that WotC has poisoned the well. There is literally no mechanical reason for a druid not to wear metal armor, but they will tell you druids can't. The druid podcast (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/chris-avellone-and-philip-daigle-planescape-torment-enhanced-edition) goes on & on about how the wildshape rules are written in the spirit of perm8issiveness, but druids are still tainted by the sins of the past & Wotc is quick to ignore their own advice... The druid podcast talks about how a form wouldn't even need lungs & would probably just need a mouth for dragoborn druids to use their dragonborn breath weapon in wildshape but a lizardfolk/warforged druid who wildshapes suddenly does not get to keep their racial AC while in beast form. Someone asks WotC a question along the lines of can I while in wildshape & they otend to ignore that spirit of permissiveness advice in favor of the most strict & narrow "it isn't explicitly allowed do not allowed". WotC makes it adversarial by poisoning the water.

All I can see is your wanting a Druid to be more like a Nature Cleric because you want Plate and Shield. But then I don't have any problem with Druids getting Non-metal Medium and Heavy Armor (with feat) types.

I was not aware of many wildshape forms (maybe ape aside) that could use a shield with their plate barding. Perhaps your problem is that you are still clinging to the 3,5 fluff justifying power checking mechanics & assuming that anything outside the 3.5 hippy tree hugger mold must be a nature cleric wannabe? There was quite a bit of discussion about how the FR/GH specific druid tropes don't really map to any representations of druids & similar, guessing you skipped all that on account of figuring that the oroblem us media portraying nature clerics or something as druids?

Man_Over_Game

2019-04-02, 04:23 PM

Agreed, it would cause a lot of problems & rob moon druids of their flexibility from the cr1-3 forms. The fact that that flexibility is eaten by "we don't have these on earth so it's a monstrosity" from cr3+ is a different problem

It doesn't have to be the way I described, though. In the end, there's really only a few things people *actually* care about when picking their Wild Shape forms.

Does it have special movement?
Does it have special senses?
How much damage does it do?
How much HP does it have?

Everything else is all pretty irrelevant for the most part.

You could just break it down into various different chassis, having them broken down into subtypes of beasts.

Something like:

Hunter:
Stealth/Perception Proficiency, Darkvision, 40 Movement speed, 1d10 damage, can Disengage or Prone on a hit.

Behemoth:
Athletics Proficiency, x2 Wild Shape HP, 20 speed, 2d6 damage, Can Grapple or Prone on a hit.

Flying:
Modifies a Beast Chassis. 1/2 HP, gains Flying speed equal to normal speed.

Swimming:
Modifies a Beast Chassis. 1/2 HP, gains Swimming Speed equal to normal speed +10.

So if you want a Swimming Behemoth (like a Shark of some kind), you'd have 2x HP from Behomoth, x1/2 HP from Swimming, resulting in x1 HP for your Swimming Behemoth.

GreyBlack

2019-04-02, 04:31 PM

Uh, what? WoW is an outgrowth of Warcraft I -> Ii -> into III -> into MMORPG to show the everquest gang how it was done. And boy, did they ever.
Is your basic point that Warcraft I was a riff on Warhammer?

Pretty much. It's a well documented fact that Blizzard at the time wanted to make a Warhammer game and got 90% through the process before deciding to try and get the rights. When they couldn't, they made Warcraft I, which then lead to II, III, and WoW.

So yes. My basic point is that it's removed an extra step from D&D. It's as much based on D&D as it's based on, for example, Chainmail. It's somewhere in the ancestry, just really far back.

stoutstien

2019-04-02, 04:34 PM

I'm still hoping for a druid that can wild shape into swarms of insects/rats. Maybe a decay focused circle.

Dr. Cliché

2019-04-02, 04:44 PM

It doesn't have to be the way I described, though. In the end, there's really only a few things people *actually* care about when picking their Wild Shape forms.

Does it have special movement?
Does it have special senses?
How much damage does it do?
How much HP does it have?

Everything else is all pretty irrelevant for the most part.

You could just break it down into various different chassis, having them broken down into subtypes of beasts.

Something like:

Hunter:
Stealth/Perception Proficiency, Darkvision, 40 Movement speed, 1d10 damage, can Disengage or Prone on a hit.

Behemoth:
Athletics Proficiency, x2 Wild Shape HP, 20 speed, 2d6 damage, Can Grapple or Prone on a hit.

Flying:
Modifies a Beast Chassis. 1/2 HP, gains Flying speed equal to normal speed.

Swimming:
Modifies a Beast Chassis. 1/2 HP, gains Swimming Speed equal to normal speed +10.

So if you want a Swimming Behemoth (like a Shark of some kind), you'd have 2x HP from Behomoth, x1/2 HP from Swimming, resulting in x1 HP for your Swimming Behemoth.

This actually looks like the basis for a really good system.

I'm presuming that hp will increase as the Druid levels up?

KorvinStarmast

2019-04-02, 05:08 PM

Pretty much. It's a well documented fact that Blizzard at the time wanted to make a Warhammer game and got 90% through the process before deciding to try and get the rights. When they couldn't, they made Warcraft I, which then lead to II, III, and WoW.

So yes. My basic point is that it's removed an extra step from D&D. It's as much based on D&D as it's based on, for example, Chainmail. It's somewhere in the ancestry, just really far back. Oh cool, I didn't realize that's what they wanted to do with their RTS back in the olden days. Thanks for the history lesson! :smallsmile: This also adds extra funny to the snide "Orcs in Space!" jokes when Starcraft came out ...

Was this based on my comment? I didn't say it was an adversarial relationship, it's just so open to interpretation for each table. It came off that way, but maybe I read something into that.
And, yes I did discuss thing before choosing the character, but many things have come up with my current Moon Druid that I didn't even think about until it happened. We have found a happy medium at my table where it works out fine. Still, I've had a lot more discussions with the DM through facebook messenger or in person about my abilities than anyone else at the table. Which is fine. Some chars are higher maintenance than others. (I have two old friends who are playing a Barbarian and a Wizard. Guess who is higher maintenance for the DM? Wizard.

I would LOVE a full sage advice on wildshaping that explains everything. It would be super, super helpful. I'd rather they didn't, personally. I even disagreed with what I saw as limitations in XGtE in re circles and wild shapes and favored terrain ... I thought it was too restrictive. But some folks really liked it.

Also, as a side note, my DM was pretty frustrated by my Moon Druid wiping out encounters at level 2-4, enough so that he wasn't having as much fun as he would have otherwise. *sigh* IMO, DM's need to stop taking that attitude ... but I'll stop there. Once the other chars come on line with their power spikes at level 5, things start to even out a bit (though I will say that turning into an elemental at level 10 is really fun).

I use a tablet based app, squire pro that has all the animals on there. I don't make the DM look up anything about them for wildshaping or summoning. I also have full sheet print off for polymorph that I hand to a player if I cast polymorph on them. Now that's being a great player for your table. Three Tumbs Up! :smallsmile: I'd PM you a beer if that were possible.

Man_Over_Game

2019-04-02, 05:14 PM

This actually looks like the basis for a really good system.

I'm presuming that hp will increase as the Druid levels up?

I'd like to, but I think my original calculations (with Behomoth having x2 HP) is a bit extreme.

It'd probably be something like 6x Druid level in HP, with Behomoth having +10 HP, and Swimming/Flying creatures having -10 HP. That fits fairly well with how the scaling works with the normal beasts. A CR 1 Brown Bear (the most common CR 1 Wild Shape form) has 34 HP, and these rules would have a level 2 Behemoth have 22 HP at level 2 and 34 HP at level 4, so the changes are a lot more gradual.

Long-Term Behemoth scaling still holds true with this formula, with something like the Ankylosaurus (CR3) having 68 HP, and this formula (Druid level 9) resorting in a creature with 64 HP.

Hunter scaling also holds true, with a Dire Wolf (CR 1) having 17 HP and this system having 12 HP at level 2. A high level "hunter", like the Giant Scorpion (CR 3), has 52 HP, and this system would have it with 54 HP.

Then just make it so that beast forms gain Multiattack with the same progression as a Fighter, with Hunter forms gaining +1 to their number of attacks (so they start with 2 attacks) and I'd see it work out pretty darn well.

Mitsu

2019-04-02, 05:39 PM

I dunno, I feel like at my table Druid players have a lot of fun.

But that is also because I am not a **** to them and I don't restrict what they can summon as I am more of fun > balance type of DM so the only restriction I give them to what they can summon or wildshape again is CR. That's all. Hence why my player Moon Druid at level 5 had like 40 known forms because I let him read books about wild animals with pictures of them. Because why should I restrict core class mechanic?

Also Druids are imo very strong.

Conjuring 20+ CR 1/4 mobs is like upgraded version of Animate Objects. They seems like squishy targets and the don't deal a lot of damage but when all of them attack same target is can deliver tons of damage.

For example my Moon Druid players invested heavy in Conc feats (Warcaster + RES (CON)) and in first turn he turns into strongest form and summon upcasted from 7th slot Conjure Animals- wolfs.

So he summons 24 wolfs. That is 48d4 dmg, 48 d20 rolls (Pact tactics) and 24 DC 11 strength saves or be prone. And with so many wolfs- someone will fail DC11 test. Those are also extra bodies. And when they surround targets - enemies eat tons of opportunity attacks - all with advantage and chane to prone them.

And he has some strong form that has a lot of HP and doesn't care of being dropped down as he can just change again. And since he focus on summoning his "children"- he uses slot mostly to upcast conjure or to heal himself.

He was so strong that I had to tailor two bosses per fight instead of one. One for him and one for party Sorcadin as they were both great at shredding single enemies and Druid was best battlefield controller.

Half of battlefield was controlled by Druid and his animals, whole half by rest of the party. Imagine enemy caster surronded by wolfs and each turn having to constantly fall prone or just be shredded.

Enemies killing wolfs? Pfffff, great, they don't target party who dispatch them. Ignore wolfs? Pffff, even better.

There is also summoning other beasts, or Druid changing to Giant Constrictor Snake and summon 3 other Giant Constrictor Snakes, grappling everything around and restraining them.

Or my part Moon Druid was changing to some flying form and using Call Lighting and just dive bomb battlefield, lighting enemies and fly away. Worked great when enemies didn't have range attacks or rangers were already taken care by party.

Not to even mention all espionage, spying, roleplaying, escaping, stealth and other aspects of Druid thanks to his animal forms.

Ever spying in the middle of drow temple hearing clearly every word that High Priest of Lolth says and not only not being in danger but also being treated with respect?

That's what you get when you are Giant Spider on celling in drow temple and you have 18 smaller spiders around you.

EDIT:

Also on AL I had a player that was Shepherd Druid with 1 level dip of Life Cleric.

Not only this guy would controll battlefield like a boss with all his summons but also provided team with hundreds of healing points between fights thanks to Goodberries that heal 4+ hp per berry (more from upcasted slots).

I honestly think druid is very very strong class, but people either underestimate his abilities or they play with bad DMs that restrict them on everything, which is probably frustraiting.

Great Dragon

2019-04-02, 06:07 PM

@KorvinStarmast +1 Thumbs up.

Tetrasodium

2019-04-02, 11:35 PM

It doesn't have to be the way I described, though. In the end, there's really only a few things people *actually* care about when picking their Wild Shape forms.

Does it have special movement?
Does it have special senses?
How much damage does it do?
How much HP does it have?

Everything else is all pretty irrelevant for the most part.

You could just break it down into various different chassis, having them broken down into subtypes of beasts.

Something like:

Hunter:
Stealth/Perception Proficiency, Darkvision, 40 Movement speed, 1d10 damage, can Disengage or Prone on a hit.

Behemoth:
Athletics Proficiency, x2 Wild Shape HP, 20 speed, 2d6 damage, Can Grapple or Prone on a hit.

Flying:
Modifies a Beast Chassis. 1/2 HP, gains Flying speed equal to normal speed.

Swimming:
Modifies a Beast Chassis. 1/2 HP, gains Swimming Speed equal to normal speed +10.

So if you want a Swimming Behemoth (like a Shark of some kind), you'd have 2x HP from Behomoth, x1/2 HP from Swimming, resulting in x1 HP for your Swimming Behemoth.

Also... Can it breathe in the water/amphibious, does it have a special movement, do its attacks have a useful secondary effect like grapple/knock prone/have reach/etc, does it have immune/resistant to something of situational importance like spiders & web, does it have advantage on something?. With monstrosities eating just about everything cr3+ it robs moon druids of all the magical/semimagical effects just as they should be starting to get some of those things.

Rukelnikov

2019-04-03, 12:17 AM

Dr. Cliché

2019-04-03, 03:19 AM

Monstrosities contain many creatures I don't think druids should be able to turn into, but Plants should definitely be available.

Plants seem like they should be on a separate Druid chassis.

TheUser

2019-04-03, 05:56 AM

Can't say I share the initial sentiment of this thread. In AL I've seen a druid at roughly 50% of my tables and the women I've known IRL seem to choose the class when first trying D&D (I think it's the love of animals). None of these people, not the AL players or RL friends complained about the class' mechanics or thematics. They are anything but unpopular, moon druids in particular hold a special place in my heart for being so rad, and heaps of fun to play.

dejarnjc

2019-04-03, 06:25 AM

snip

I agree that conjure animals is a beastly spell (pun intended) but in my experience enemies with AoE damage, any sort of aura-area effect, a super high AC (20+), and any kind of flight usually nullifies the spell fairly well and between levels 15-20 these kind of enemies seem common. Admittedly this is campaign/DM dependent.

Sigreid

2019-04-03, 06:30 AM

I agree that conjure animals is a beastly spell (pun intended) but in my experience enemies with AoE damage, any sort of aura-area effect, a super high AC (20+), and any kind of flight usually nullifies the spell fairly well and between levels 15-20 these kind of enemies seem common. Admittedly this is campaign/DM dependent.

I didn't have time to say this. The DM used mass summons on the party a few times. They lasted to my evoker's turn and that was the end of that.

Same could apply if the DM/player rules were reversed.

Dr. Cliché

2019-04-03, 06:34 AM

I'd like to, but I think my original calculations (with Behomoth having x2 HP) is a bit extreme.

It'd probably be something like 6x Druid level in HP, with Behomoth having +10 HP, and Swimming/Flying creatures having -10 HP. That fits fairly well with how the scaling works with the normal beasts. A CR 1 Brown Bear (the most common CR 1 Wild Shape form) has 34 HP, and these rules would have a level 2 Behemoth have 22 HP at level 2 and 34 HP at level 4, so the changes are a lot more gradual.

Long-Term Behemoth scaling still holds true with this formula, with something like the Ankylosaurus (CR3) having 68 HP, and this formula (Druid level 9) resorting in a creature with 64 HP.

Hunter scaling also holds true, with a Dire Wolf (CR 1) having 17 HP and this system having 12 HP at level 2. A high level "hunter", like the Giant Scorpion (CR 3), has 52 HP, and this system would have it with 54 HP.

Then just make it so that beast forms gain Multiattack with the same progression as a Fighter, with Hunter forms gaining +1 to their number of attacks (so they start with 2 attacks) and I'd see it work out pretty darn well.

That seems reasonable.

I agree that conjure animals is a beastly spell (pun intended) but in my experience enemies with AoE damage, any sort of aura-area effect, a super high AC (20+), and any kind of flight usually nullifies the spell fairly well and between levels 15-20 these kind of enemies seem common. Admittedly this is campaign/DM dependent.

Another aspect is that Druids might not want to rely on Conjure Animals.

I mean, I can understand Moon Druids being animal-focused, but it seems like Land Druids should really be commanding plants or such.

dejarnjc

2019-04-03, 06:46 AM

Another aspect is that Druids might not want to rely on Conjure Animals.

I mean, I can understand Moon Druids being animal-focused, but it seems like Land Druids should really be commanding plants or such.

Absolutely, although there is always conjure woodland beings. I never understood why PC druids couldn't conjure/animate/fashion tree//vine/twig blights and or animated trees, though the low movement speed and vulnerability to fire would make them meh.

Sigreid

2019-04-03, 07:39 AM

I just really hope some WoTC dev doesn't stumble in here, see this thread, and try to "fix" my much loved druid class.

OverLordOcelot

2019-04-03, 09:51 AM

Monstrosities contain many creatures I don't think druids should be able to turn into, but Plants should definitely be available.

Monstrosities is a catch all category for monsters that didn't fit anywhere else. You have things like Owlbears and Griffins, which fit druid wild shape fine and have reasonable abilities. But you also have a bunch of intelligent spellcasting creatures which doesn't really fit the theme and are often highly abuseable.

Rukelnikov

2019-04-03, 10:03 AM

Dr. Cliché

2019-04-03, 10:08 AM

Aquillion

2019-04-03, 10:16 AM

I think the game would benefit from a "Demi-Beast" or "Magical Beast" category to represent magical crossbreeds of beasts, or beasts with otherwise small modifications, like Owlbears, Griffons, Worgs and Winter Wolves. This would be available to Druids and maybe Polymorph.

Stuff that actually uses significant magic, which doesn't map to a beast at all, or which is just too powerful would be Monstrosities instead.

Absolutely, although there is always conjure woodland beings. I never understood why PC druids couldn't conjure/animate/fashion tree//vine/twig blights and or animated trees, though the low movement speed and vulnerability to fire would make them meh.They do get Awaken, which works on trees.

Dr. Cliché

2019-04-03, 10:18 AM

As a question, which Monstrosities do you guys think Druids should be unable to Wild Shape into?

Man_Over_Game

2019-04-03, 10:27 AM

Also... Can it breathe in the water/amphibious, does it have a special movement, do its attacks have a useful secondary effect like grapple/knock prone/have reach/etc, does it have immune/resistant to something of situational importance like spiders & web, does it have advantage on something?. With monstrosities eating just about everything cr3+ it robs moon druids of all the magical/semimagical effects just as they should be starting to get some of those things.

Do keep in mind:
It doesn't have to be the way I described, though. [...]

Those things could be implemented though, using the same system.

For example, who's to say that you just can't have a list of special riders that you can choose from when you make a beast attack?

Something like "Your form can pick from one of these attack benefits. DCs are based off of your Spell Save DC.

Pounce: When you move 15 feet and attack a creature, you can first force the creature to make a Strength saving throw or be knocked Prone.
Wrap: When you attack a creature adjacent to you, you may make a Grapple check against that creature as a Bonus Action.
Sting: When a creature moves within your reach, you can use your Reaction to attack them. If the attack hits, they must make a Constitution saving throw or take Poison damage equal to your proficiency and be Poisoned until the end of your next turn.
Charge: Opportunity Attacks against you have Disadvantage, and attacking after moving 15 feet has Advantage.

You can also pick from one of these combat benefits:
Reach, Pack Tactics, Attacks are critical against Surprised creatures, Advantage to attack Small creatures or smaller, Resistance to Poison."

Maybe put it behind some kind of level wall (so you can't get certain features until later), or maybe tack on other restrictions (like how Charge can only be used by Behemoths), and I could see something like that work.

stoutstien

2019-04-03, 10:30 AM

Do keep in mind:

I get that it's not enough, but keep in mind that I am literally one guy on the internet, spitballing ideas with about 5 minute's thought, converting something that people liked and actually works from prior editions into the current one. It took me 5 minutes to come up with this, so I doubt that someone with experience, resources and time couldn't come up with something that fits what you're looking for. It's not impossible, and I don't think it's even implausible.

For example, who's to say that you just can't have a list of special riders that you can choose from when you make a beast attack?

Something like "Your form can pick from one of these attack benefits. DCs are based off of your Spell Save DC.

Pounce: When you move 15 feet and attack a creature, you can first force the creature to make a Strength saving throw or be knocked Prone.
Wrap: When you attack a creature adjacent to you, you may make a Grapple check against that creature as a Bonus Action.
Sting: When a creature moves within your reach, you can use your Reaction to attack them. If the attack hits, they must make a Constitution saving throw or take Poison damage equal to your proficiency and be Poisoned until the end of your next turn.
Charge: Opportunity Attacks against you have Disadvantage, and attacking after moving 15 feet has Advantage.

You can also pick from one of these combat benefits:
Reach, Pack Tactics, Attacks are critical against Surprised creatures, Advantage to attack Small creatures or smaller, Resistance to Poison."

Maybe put it behind some kind of level wall (so you can't get certain features until later), or maybe tack on other restrictions (like how Charge can only be used by Behemoths), and I could see something like that work.
This is kinda how I redid beast master. I turned it into a build a bear so they can have the companion they want. I been meaning to type it up

Dr. Cliché

2019-04-03, 10:41 AM

Do keep in mind:

Those things could be implemented though, using the same system.

For example, who's to say that you just can't have a list of special riders that you can choose from when you make a beast attack?

Something like "Your form can pick from one of these attack benefits. DCs are based off of your Spell Save DC.

Pounce: When you move 15 feet and attack a creature, you can first force the creature to make a Strength saving throw or be knocked Prone.
Wrap: When you attack a creature adjacent to you, you may make a Grapple check against that creature as a Bonus Action.
Sting: When a creature moves within your reach, you can use your Reaction to attack them. If the attack hits, they must make a Constitution saving throw or take Poison damage equal to your proficiency and be Poisoned until the end of your next turn.
Charge: Opportunity Attacks against you have Disadvantage, and attacking after moving 15 feet has Advantage.

You can also pick from one of these combat benefits:
Reach, Pack Tactics, Attacks are critical against Surprised creatures, Advantage to attack Small creatures or smaller, Resistance to Poison."

Maybe put it behind some kind of level wall (so you can't get certain features until later), or maybe tack on other restrictions (like how Charge can only be used by Behemoths), and I could see something like that work.

I think this could be a good thing for Moon Druids.

Maybe every X levels, they can add an additional ability to their Wild Shape form, chosen from a list. Possibly with some extra restrictions, like abilities that can't be used with Flying forms or such.

Aquillion

2019-04-03, 10:44 AM

As a question, which Monstrosities do you guys think Druids should be unable to Wild Shape into?Let's see, there's several categories.

The largest and most obvious category is simple - monstrosities that are partially-human or humanoid; or stuff that's too intelligent. These don't make sense if Druids can't turn into humans. Eg. harpy, centaur, doppelganger, chitine, minotaur, manticore, yeti, yakfolk, yuan-ti, lamia, medusa...

Another category is stuff that seems too bizarre or unnatural to be on-theme for druids, eg. darkmantle, rust monster, mimic.

Finally, related to that, there's highly magical stuff with weird powers, eg. cockatrice, gorgon, catoblepas.

nickl_2000

2019-04-03, 11:16 AM

Let's see, there's several categories.

The largest and most obvious category is simple - monstrosities that are partially-human or humanoid; or stuff that's too intelligent. These don't make sense if Druids can't turn into humans. Eg. harpy, centaur, doppelganger, chitine, minotaur, manticore, yeti, yakfolk, yuan-ti, lamia, medusa...

Another category is stuff that seems too bizarre or unnatural to be on-theme for druids, eg. darkmantle, rust monster, mimic.

Finally, related to that, there's highly magical stuff with weird powers, eg. cockatrice, gorgon, catoblepas.

Honestly, you would be better off skipping monstrosities and allowing shifting in Plants, Beast, and Dragons only (dragons with a special feat).

Tetrasodium

2019-04-03, 11:21 AM

Monstrosities contain many creatures I don't think druids should be able to turn into, but Plants should definitely be available.

Indeed, but you seem to be missing the problem I've pointed at more Specifically a few times in the thread... It's not that druid can't wildshape into monstrosities, it's that from cr3+ monstrosities wrongly include the vast mojrity of the non-jurasic park beasts like winter wolf and such. Yes there are lower cr beasts wrongly tagged as monstrosities as well, but too large of a percentage of them from the cr 3+ are simply "oh it has a magical ability, it's a monstrosity"

Tetrasodium

2019-04-03, 12:26 PM

Monstrosities is a catch all category for monsters that didn't fit anywhere else. You have things like Owlbears and Griffins, which fit druid wild shape fine and have reasonable abilities. But you also have a bunch of intelligent spellcasting creatures which doesn't really fit the theme and are often highly abuseable.

Weirdly, there are a lot of monstrosities that are tagged as such simply because someone didn't follow what it says in the monster manual.

Beasts are nonhumanoid creatures that are a natural
part of the fantasy ecology. Some of them have magical powers, but most are unintelligent and lack any society or language. Beasts include all varieties of ordinary animals, dinosaurs, and giant versions of animals.

-Monstrosities are monsters in the strictest sense frightening creatures that are not ordinary, not truly natural, and almost never benign. Some are the results of magical experimentation gone awry (such as owl bears), and others ,are the product-of terrible curses (including minotaurs and yuan-ti). They defy categorization, and in some sense serve as a catch-all category for creatures that don't fit into any other type.

As a question, which Monstrosities do you guys think Druids should be unable to Wild Shape into?

I got into this earlier (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23815653&postcount=147). Here (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-type=0&filter-type=13&filter-search=&filter-cr-min=1&filter-cr-max=10&filter-armor-class-min=&filter-armor-class-max=&filter-average-hp-min=&filter-average-hp-max=&filter-is-legendary=&filter-has-lair=) is a list of monstrosities between cr0 & cr6 (the range a moon druid could cover).

Kruthik family, MToF 211-212
Ankheg: MM21
Basilisk: MM24
Behir: MM25
Bulette: 34
Carrion Crawler: MM 37
Catoblepas: VGtM 129
Cave Fisher: VGtM 130
Death Dog: MM321
Displacer Beast: MM81
Ettercap: MM 131
Girallon: VgTM 132
Gorgon: MM171
Grick: mm 173
Griffon: MM 174
Hippogriff: MM184
Hook Horror: Mm189
Phase spider: MM333
Peryton: MM251
Roper: MM261
Rust Monster: MM262
Shadow Mastiffs: VGtM191
Trapper: VGtM194
Umber Hulk: MM292
Winter wolf: MM340
Worg: MM341
Yeti: MM305
Remorhaz: MM258

I skipped anything in an adventure or GGtR, but this list is a good start & shows just how badly monstrosity devours things that should be beasts simply because they are beasts with some magical ability, plannar ties, or simply are a beast that lives in the underdark. Also don;t forget the fact that there is. While faerun might classify some of those as extraplanar creatures, there are settings like eberron, Ravenloft, & Darksun that have various forms of planar energies bleeding through into the local prime. In eberron they are called manifest zones. In Ravenloft, they tend to be pretty nasty similar things generated by the demiplane of dread itself. In darksun, it's the result of past apocalyptic events running a bit rampant/lingering n places.

Rukelnikov

2019-04-03, 05:17 PM

Indeed, but you seem to be missing the problem I've pointed at more Specifically a few times in the thread... It's not that druid can't wildshape into monstrosities, it's that from cr3+ monstrosities wrongly include the vast mojrity of the non-jurasic park beasts like winter wolf and such. Yes there are lower cr beasts wrongly tagged as monstrosities as well, but too large of a percentage of them from the cr 3+ are simply "oh it has a magical ability, it's a monstrosity"

Yeah, but retyping every monstrosity into beast or no beast would be a pretty tedious, and definitely one for table use, trying to reach concensus in that meany creatures in the forum will be pretty hard to say the least. And allowing every monstrosity to be open to the Druid generates more problems than it fixes.

Tetrasodium

2019-04-03, 08:46 PM

Yeah, but retyping every monstrosity into beast or no beast would be a pretty tedious, and definitely one for table use, trying to reach concensus in that meany creatures in the forum will be pretty hard to say the least. And allowing every monstrosity to be open to the Druid generates more problems than it fixes.

Indeed, it is a byproduct of WotC choosing to make the core rules for faerun & settings with faerun compatible baselines like the "not faerun default setting". This is just one of the more glaring problems caused by that choice. WotC has released volos, mtof, & GGtR without making any serious attempt to rectify the problem. After the MM, WotC has released VgtM (couple dinosaurs, not much else really), MtoF (zero beasts in cr0-cr6), GGtR (again zero beasts in cr0-cr6). The "it would be hard to retroactively retype things" esxcuse might have held for mm & some of the modules/HCs... but VGtM, MToF, & GGtR choosing to continue the trend is well past oversight into "willful ignorance"...

Deepbluediver

2019-04-03, 09:24 PM

I'm currently playing a Druid in my first 5E game, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. In fact, the Playground helped me get a handle on 5E and figure out what I wanted to do with my Druid, so thanks for that y'all!

It also helps that I've got a really accommodating GM who let me play a Druid of the Twilight, so that helps with some of the blaster-feeling that several people mentioned in earlier posts. Beyond that, yes the fact that most of my damaging spells are concentration-based is a little frustrating at times, but it also means I can "use" a spell every round in an encounter but only expend 1 or 2 spells slots, which helps with the fact that I'm the only character in our group who doesn't regain all their abilities every time we short rest.

As for why they are unpopular in general...I think it's because they are just kinda weird. With both roleplay and rollplay, their characterization and mechanics were never quite as easy to understand as a lot of other classes. As a comparison, the melee-monk doesn't really fit a medieval-European theme and the Paladin has tons of roleplaying restrictions, but people can understand what "fisty-punch-man" and "divine-knight" are supposed to be. As for the Druid, what IS their role/roll? Are they a healer? A tank? A CC-caster? A DPR-caster? A scout/initiator? Etc etc etc. A Druid COULD be any of the above (though usually not all at once) but if you don't have a flexible group, it's easy to fall into the "you're doing it wrong!" trap, despite not having a clear idea of what is "doing it right".
It doesn't help that (and this has been pointed out before) the Druid as a table-top gaming class doesn't have a lot in common with the druidic/pagan religion as a historical socio-political class. There's a lot of conflicting information about druids (lowercase-D) because they either didn't have a written language or were prohibited from writing down druidic tenant, so most of what we know comes from what other people wrote about them. This is especially difficult to parse when the sources are a historical enemy, like the Romans.

So to sum everything up in as few words as possible...Druids are complicated.

Also also, as one final point of contention (this is a debate I got into with some people in my discord channel), why CAN'T Druids wear metal armor? In 3.5 there were mechanical penalties for doing so, but along a lot of the other various class-restrictions they got rid of those in 5E. In the description of your class & proficiencies it just says that Druids DON'T wear metal armor, but it never explains why or gives you a good reason not to. It strikes me as trying to tell players how to roleplay, which 5E otherwise gets away from for the most part, and it's a weird thing to stick around with. Are you telling me that, in all the infinite realms, no Druid ever bucked tradition and put on a suit of full-plate, especially when there is absolutely no drawback to doing so?
I kinda want to homebrew a "Druid of Steel" archetype that improves your melee abilities with items, maybe by having your armor and/or weapons morph with your Wildshape or something like that.

Great Dragon

2019-04-04, 01:49 AM

Are you telling me that, in all the infinite realms, no Druid ever bucked tradition and put on a suit of full-plate, especially when there is absolutely no drawback to doing so?
I kinda want to homebrew a "Druid of Steel" archetype that improves your melee abilities with items, maybe by having your armor and/or weapons morph with your Wildshape or something like that.
Ok. I could see a "can't Wildshape while in metal Armor" ruling for 'normal' Druids. This is about the only thing that makes sense to change, since 5e got rid of Armor Spell Failure, and only requires a Focus to cast non-consumed materials without a price tag. And the War Caster feat allows the caster to have a "weapon and shield" style and still cast.

For Steel Druids - My questions would be:

1) What is really different about this Druid (other then access to Druid Spells and Wildshape) from a Nature Cleric?
What is their place in the World?
What are their beliefs and goals?

2) "How would other Druids respond to this Circle?" And "How would other people (both PC Classes as well as NPCs) tell that they were a type of Druid? (Yes, I know that some people like to make others guess their Class, but a successful Insight vs Deception and/or Perception vs Disguise check should still reveal the basic Class. A History check might be required to know what Subclass a given Class is.)

3) Would you make it where this Steel Druid sacrificed a Spell Slot to have their Armor 'meld' into their Beast Form and count as 'natural armor'?

If so, is there a time limit based on the level of the Spell Slot? Or any riders that can be added?

My Ideas:
At 2nd level, The Steel Druid can wear light or medium metal Armor, but does not get the benefits from it in any other Form. Shields can be used in Humanoid form only.

At 4th level, the Steel Druid must take the Heavy Armor feat to gain access to that category.

At 6th level, can sacrifice spell slots to get Armor worn as Natural Armor replacing the AC of Wildshape forms. Magical Armor still adds it's benefits. (10 minutes per spell slot?)

At 10th level, can sacrifice spell slots to 'meld' weapon replacing Natural weapon damage. (This may require Playtesting)

Can also give unarmored allies (up to half their Druid level) within 30 feet Natural Armor. (10 + Target's Dex + 1 per spell slot?) (1 round per spell slot?)

At 14th level, can sacrifice spell slots to give Summoned Creatures Natural Armor.
(+1 to base AC per slot?)

Aquillion

2019-04-04, 02:54 AM

Honestly, you would be better off skipping monstrosities and allowing shifting in Plants, Beast, and Dragons only (dragons with a special feat).
Oh, there's definitely a lot of stuff in monstrosities that it would be totally fine and thematic for a Druid to shapeshift into. I was just highlighting the stuff that doesn't fit.

Personally I feel that one solution would be to create a new "Magical Beast" type and move the druid-OK things into it. Of course, this would hose rangers by making Monstrosities less useful as a favored enemy, but you could fix this by causing Beast and Magical Beast to be chosen together as a favored enemy (making Beasts less of a terrible choice in the long term.)

Magical Beasts would cover beasts that are dramatically infused with magic, or creatures that are hybrids of two or more different beasts.

I don't think you'd want to just dump the Magical Beasts into Beasts, since that would make Polymorph ridiculously good (it would access higher-level magical beasts much faster than druids do), and possibly Awaken and a few other Beast-focused spells as well. Druids turning into a Chimera at level 18 by using the iconic class feature that you focused your entire subclass on is one thing; turning into one at level 7 or being able to semi-trivially acquire a Chimera as a pet who can fight alongside you at level 9 is quite another.

(Actually, it occurs to me that a Chimera wouldn't qualify as a magical beast under my definition, since one of the creatures it hybridizes is a dragon and therefore not a beast. But you get the idea - a Bulette is less iconic but leads to the same problems.)

Deepbluediver

2019-04-04, 07:08 AM

@Great Dragon

I honestly hadn't thought that far into it, especially when it comes to homebrewing for 5th edition. I really just had two thoughts- first that the "no metal armor" rule as it stood was stupid, and second that for everyone except Moon Druids the Wildshape class feature got a lot less impressive past 3rd level or so (for combat anyway) and I wanted to fix that.

I'll try to give your comments a more thorough read-through and response by tonight.

Sigreid

2019-04-04, 07:13 AM

Tetrasodium

2019-04-04, 08:22 AM

On the metal armor thing, in early editions it was spelled out that metal armor broke their taboos and a druid that wore it would not have access to their druid powers until 24 hours after they took it off.

Yes that's true, and nobody is arguing against it in the past. The problem with the no metal armor thing is not that it's completely unjustifiedby fluff in 5e. Back in past editions, paladins, clerics, arcane casters, and possibly someone Ii'm forgetting all had things like asf/strict oaths/domain alignment restrictions (or something)/ASF/etc. All of those things were checks & balances against mechanical stuff the classes got in prior editions. The 5e problem comes with the fact that all of those checks and their mechanical reasons for existing were slaughtered in 5e... but the no metal armor fluff is still there & some people (wotc included (https://twitter.com/JM13136849/status/845267070921134080), ffs (https://twitter.com/JM13136849/status/852583767994707970)) act like it. Wotc seriously is very bad (https://twitter.com/TabooDruid/status/851489282711851008) on this particular bit of fluff right down to making up mechanics pulled from prior editions like that.

Great Dragon

2019-04-04, 08:48 AM

Sigreid

2019-04-04, 08:57 AM

Yes that's true, and nobody is arguing against it in the past. The problem with the no metal armor thing is not that it's completely unjustifiedby fluff in 5e. Back in past editions, paladins, clerics, arcane casters, and possibly someone Ii'm forgetting all had things like asf/strict oaths/domain alignment restrictions (or something)/ASF/etc. All of those things were checks & balances against mechanical stuff the classes got in prior editions. The 5e problem comes with the fact that all of those checks and their mechanical reasons for existing were slaughtered in 5e... but the no metal armor fluff is still there & some people (wotc included (https://twitter.com/JM13136849/status/845267070921134080), ffs (https://twitter.com/JM13136849/status/852583767994707970)) act like it. Wotc seriously is very bad (https://twitter.com/TabooDruid/status/851489282711851008) on this particular bit of fluff right down to making up mechanics pulled from prior editions like that.

Yeah, I'm not really a just because guy myself.

Tvtyrant

2019-04-04, 09:51 AM

Personally I either play a Cleric or Druid in every none-4E D&D game, but I also tend to fluff my Druids as tribal priests so the difference between them is mechanical.

The 5E Druid is so much less book keeping than 3.5, where I had several small books with just summon nature ally and wildshape stats next to me.

Rukelnikov

2019-04-04, 10:52 AM

Great Dragon

2019-04-04, 11:08 AM

ASF is still there, as I already pointed out, and in a way, stricter than before.

I'm confused. I saw the old ASF list posted.

But I can't find anything similar for 5e.
Sure, some Classes are restricted for what types of Armor they have access to; but there is not anything about "can't use Armor even if multiclassed" (like 3x mages) - or a list of percentage failure for wearing Armor.

Which is why Soradins are a thing.

Just a requirement for consumed or priced material components, all other material components can be bypassed with a Focus.
And the War Caster Feat allows both hands to be occupied and still cast spells.

Willie the Duck

2019-04-04, 01:13 PM

I'm confused. I saw the old ASF list posted.

But I can't find anything similar for 5e.

You cannot cast spells in armor you are not proficient in. That is likely what is being referred to. Obviously given your search, you know that the specific ruleset known as Arcane Spell Failure, as implemented in 3e, is no longer a thing. So it becomes a case of whether similar things are relevant.

Sure, some Classes are restricted for what types of Armor they have access to; but there is not anything about "can't use Armor even if multiclassed" (like 3x mages) - or a list of percentage failure for wearing Armor.

Okay, you are correct, those very specific things are not present. In 3e you either ate the ASF %, or got special armors or prestige classes to ameliorate the constraint. In 5e you multiclass or spend ASIs.

Rukelnikov

2019-04-04, 01:19 PM

I'm confused. I saw the old ASF list posted.

But I can't find anything similar for 5e.
Sure, some Classes are restricted for what types of Armor they have access to; but there is not anything about "can't use Armor even if multiclassed" (like 3x mages) - or a list of percentage failure for wearing Armor.

Which is why Soradins are a thing.

Just a requirement for consumed or priced material components, all other material components can be bypassed with a Focus.
And the War Caster Feat allows both hands to be occupied and still cast spells.

You cannot cast spells in armor you are not proficient in. That is likely what is being referred to. Obviously given your search, you know that the specific ruleset known as Arcane Spell Failure, as implemented in 3e, is no longer a thing. So it becomes a case of whether similar things are relevant.

Okay, you are correct, those very specific things are not present. In 3e you either ate the ASF %, or got special armors or prestige classes to ameliorate the constraint. In 5e you multiclass or spend ASIs.

Yesm this is what I mean, both editions have ways to reduce/bypass it. However if you are not bypassing it, 5e is much harsher since it doesn't allow you to cast a all, while in 3.x you were more likely to get a casting than miss it. (Full Plate was 35% ASF IIRC)

Great Dragon

2019-04-04, 01:37 PM

Rukelnikov

2019-04-04, 01:39 PM

@Rukelnikov: ok, I think I get it, now.
So, in a game where no Multi-classing or Feats are allowed, the Druid can't cast spells in, say, Heavy Armor - even if made of Dragon Scales (etc) - because they aren't normally proficient in it.

Yeah, in 3.x they could, even if they never took Heavy Armor prof., and without ASF, since druids are not arcane.

Tetrasodium

2019-04-04, 06:20 PM

You cannot cast spells in armor you are not proficient in. That is likely what is being referred to. Obviously given your search, you know that the specific ruleset known as Arcane Spell Failure, as implemented in 3e, is no longer a thing. So it becomes a case of whether similar things are relevant.

Okay, you are correct, those very specific things are not present. In 3e you either ate the ASF %, or got special armors or prestige classes to ameliorate the constraint. In 5e you multiclass or spend ASIs.

That is not even close to ASF. You are refering to something so far from ASF that it had its own section. The section you are missing is armor check penalty:

Armor Check Penalty: Any armor heavier than leather hurts character’s ability to use some skills. An armor check penalty
number is the penalty that applies to Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand, and Tumble checks by a character wearing a certain kind of armor. Double the normal armor check penalty is applied to Swim checks. Some characters don’t much care about the armor check penalty, but others do. The barbarian, in particular, faces a trade-off between heavier armor and better skill check results. A character’s encumbrance (the amount of gear carried, including armor) may also apply an armor check penalty; see Encumbrance by Armor, page161, for details.
Shields: If a character is wearing armor and using a shield, both
armor check penalties apply.
Nonproficient with Armor Worn: A character who wears armor and/or uses a shield with which he or she is not proficient takes
the armor’s (and/or shield’s) armor check penalty on attack rolls and on all Strength-based or Dexterity-based ability and skill checks. The penalty for nonproficiency with armor stacks with the penalty for nonproficiency with shields.
Sleeping in Armor: A character who sleeps in medium or heavy armor is automatically fatigued the next day. He or she takes a -2 penalty on Strength and Dexterity and can’t charge or run. Sleeping in light armor does not cause fatigue.

Arcane Spell Failure: Armor interferes with the gestures that a spellcaster must make to cast an arcane spell that has a somatic component. Arcane spellcasters face the possibility of arcane spell failure if they’re wearing armor, so wizards and sorcerers usually don’t do so. Bards can wear light armor without incurring any arcane spell failure chance for their bard spells.
Casting an Arcane Spell in Armor: A character who casts an arcane
spell while wearing armor must usually make an arcane spell failure roll. The number in the Arcane Spell Failure Chance column on Table 7–6 is the chance that the spell fails and is ruined. If the spell lacks a somatic component, however, it can be cast with no chance of arcane spell failure.
Shields: If a character is wearing armor and using a shield, add the two numbers together to get a single arcane spell failure chance.

ACP & ASF are two different things entirely

padded: 0
Leather: 0
Studded Leather: 1
Chain shirt: 2
hide: 3
scale: 4
chainmail: 5
breastplate 4
Splint: 7
Banded: 6
Half Plate: 7
Full Plate: 6
buckler: 110
light shield:1
Heavy shield: 2
Tower shield: 50%

So again... ASF was thrown out the window, ACP is still a thing, but is such an absurd edge case that I can say with confidence how unusual it is for someone to try wearing armor they are not proficient in because....

If you wear armor that you lack proficiency with, you have disadvantage on any ability check, saving throw, or attack roll that involves Strength or Dexterity, and you can’t cast spells.

Rukelnikov

2019-04-04, 06:29 PM

That is not even close to ASF. You are refering to something so far from ASF that it had its own section. The section you are missing is armor check penalty:

ACP & ASF are two different things entirely

So again... ASF was thrown out the window, ACP is still a thing, but is such an absurd edge case that I can say with confidence how unusual it is for someone to try wearing armor they are not proficient in because....

In 5e if you wear armor for which you don't have proficiency you can't cast spells. In 3.x you can.

Deepbluediver

2019-04-04, 06:36 PM

ASF is still there, as I already pointed out, and in a way, stricter than before.
You're not wrong, but I don't really get how that's relevant here. By RAW, the 5E Druid is simply proficient with medium armor (http://5e.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm), full stop (i.e. without caveat). Then it goes on to say that they WON'T wear armor (or use shields) made of metal, but gives no penalty for doing so or explanation as to why. Furthermore, Druid's apparently don't have any issue with metal weapons since a scimitar is one of the things you can get as your starting equipment.
With WotC scrapping virtually every other class-based roleplaying restriction and greatly expanding the built-in flavor for each class with archetypes, it strikes me as really odd that this is the one bit of fluffy-crunch that sticks around.

Rukelnikov

2019-04-04, 06:43 PM

You're not wrong, but I don't really get how that's relevant here. By RAW, the 5E Druid is simply proficient with medium armor (http://5e.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm), full stop (i.e. without caveat). Then it goes on to say that they WON'T wear armor (or use shields) made of metal, but gives no penalty for doing so or explanation as to why. Furthermore, Druid's apparently don't have any issue with metal weapons since a scimitar is one of the things you can get as your starting equipment.
With WotC scrapping virtually every other class-based roleplaying restriction and greatly expanding the built-in flavor for each class with archetypes, it strikes me as really odd that this is the one bit of fluffy-crunch that sticks around.

Tetra insists ASF is not a thing anymore. It's not very relevant tbh.

Tetrasodium

2019-04-04, 08:02 PM

Tetra insists ASF is not a thing anymore. It's not very relevant tbh.

Because the not proficient with armor thing is not relevant. ASF applied to spells with a somatic component & was affected by encumbrance, stacked if it came from different sources, and certain magic items were very good simply because they were not armor but had an ac bonus with no ASF. Getting rid of ASF and strict paladin oaths is different from not being able to cast spells while wearing armor you are not proficient in. The only reason you are choosing this ridiculous battle is because A: you don't want to acknowledge those other changes & have tried to claim that strict paladin oaths are still a thing at one point (""), and B: A level one druid with zero experience is proficient in light/medium armor+shields.. that includes three types of metal armor (shield, breastplate, and halfplate). Cut the nonsense about something basically no sane player/character ever really does and get back to the topic of metal armor. ASF, strict paladin oaths, etc being removed are relevant because the druid no metal armor thing was in the same class of class specific power checks but somehow still exists and things like the ironwood spell (3.5 phb 246) or nonmetal special materials in a player accessible manner were removed as well. Don't act like a very rare attunement required magic item is somehow equivalent to a spell or the ability to craft/buy something.

Aquillion

2019-04-04, 09:59 PM

Max_Killjoy

2019-04-04, 10:10 PM

nickl_2000

2019-04-04, 10:25 PM

And it's one of those "implicit setting" fence-sitting trying-to-have-it-both-ways elements that irks me.

They could have just said that metal armor won't shift with the druid the way animal or plant based armors will, at least that would have been something -- which then lets the druid choose to wear it but have to stop to take it off and worry about losing it when they wild shape.

And maybe there's even a way around it eventually, some enchantment on the metal armor or some subclass feature, who knows.

Just offer other armor materials in the phb for a slightly higher cost. Bone, animal scale, chiton, etc. It's no longer an issue at all.

Tetrasodium

2019-04-05, 01:10 AM

Someone probably mentioned this, but there's a Sage Advice specifically stating that the druid armor restriction is pure fluff, is not needed for balance, and is simply because Druids choose to not to wear metal armor. Here (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-march-2016).

I dislike it because it puts the DM in a position of telling the PC what their character thinks, ie...

PC: After that life-threatening experience, my druid has a revelation and decides to wear metal armor.

DM: No. No he doesn't. He hates metal armor.

...it's just not a good way for the game to encourage PCs to relate to their characters.

except that they poison that well every chance they get. Sure wotc will occasionally admit that nothing mechanicaly stops druids from wearing metal armor but...

insert player tired of AL GM's arbitrarily declaring that their magic armor can or can't be worn (https://twitter.com/DnD_AdvLeague/status/845332247603482624) -> go get this mushroom plate from one adventure it's magic & can be worn-> so per dmg magic items section it resizes to fit wildshape forms right? -> oh wait no barding is not armor are different so no.
well since you just said barding is not armor & the phb druid section says nothing about druids wont wear metal barding, that's fine by raw right? wait no (https://twitter.com/JM13136849/status/852583767994707970), Wotc only says when druids can't do something or that GMs can choose to let them if they feel like it
I'm certain that I've seen another back & forth asking if magical barding has ever been included in an adventure & a no I don't think it has answer.
I like this crowning level of asshattery (https://twitter.com/TabooDruid/status/851489282711851008) "What happens in AL when my druid decides he is willing to eat pork, skip fish on friday, wear blended fabric & metal armor" -> "They feel shame for breaking their vows and the spirits do not answer their calls." -> "Which spirits & calls would those be given the number of offended faiths? Since the phb doesn't mention anything like that; I'm guessing yahweh, Allah, & The holy trinity. What powers & classes do those3involve?" -> "It's up to the DM"

The whole point of AL is that you don't have houserules for each table & the AL rules devote a decent chunk to making sure gm's don't make changes outside a very narrow path of allowances, yet they suddenly switch from no metal armor is not allowed on druids to "the gm can decide to allow a druid to wear metal armor". There is no justification for saying no not allowed on one side of the metal armor coin then up to the gm on the other side. Sure the gm can allow it, but wotc is going to go out of their way to guide them away from allowing that at every turn. WotC doesn't get credit fpr simply saying that the no metal armor thing is not needed when they turn around to say that it must not happen every chance they get They don't get credit for saying that the wildshape rules are written with the spirit of permissiveness & that they would go even further than saying anything with lungs could use the dragonborn breath weapon while wildshaped if they turn around and say that the AC from lizardfolk scales/warforged plating does not carry into wildshape. If it's supposed to be permissive, they need to be permissive instead of jumping to no if the wildshape rules don't explicitly define it as allowed it by strict raw instead of saying that it's not allowed any time it would fall under that deliberately open ended spirit of permissiveness wildshape rules by strict RAW.

Aquillion

2019-04-05, 02:15 AM

Deepbluediver

2019-04-05, 06:56 AM

By my reading they've always said "ask your DM?"
*snip*
Yeah it kinda feels like they wrote themselves into a corner here with their weird adherance to formula. 5E isn't supposed to tell players how to rollplay, but they REALLY want to tell Druids how to rollplay their armor choices. They could have just given Druids light-armor proficiency only and left it at that, or (as someone else pointed out) said that metal armor can't be wildshaped, but they didn't.

I get the same impression with the number of concentration-based spells the Druid has. In an effort to cut down on scenarios where full casters had 14 fire-and-forget effects running at the same time, they made huge numbers of spells with ongoing effects concentration only. But since you can only concentrate on one spell at time, Druids have to make a lot of choices like "is this really the best thing I can be doing with my concentration" each round? And so in practice there's a lot of buffs and some CC that I tend to not use in favor of just spamming Moonbeam or Flaming Sphere again.

Edit: I'm playing a baster-style druid archetype, so I admit that affects my spell choice. If I were playing a Spores or Moon druid maybe I've have more actions to expend on CC and buffs since I could deal effective damage with melee attacks. Can any other Druids weigh-in with their experience?

Willie the Duck

2019-04-05, 07:32 AM

Yeah it kinda feels like they wrote themselves into a corner here with their weird adherance to formula. 5E isn't supposed to tell players how to rollplay, but they REALLY want to tell Druids how to rollplay their armor choices. They could have just given Druids light-armor proficiency only and left it at that, or (as someone else pointed out) said that metal armor can't be wildshaped, but they didn't.

I don't feel that that is what they wanted to do. I think they wanted the baseline druid to still wear non-metal armor (arbitrary, but fine*), simple as that, but for some unclear reason decided that they could only do that through this 'a druid just wouldn't do that' idea that actually violates their otherwise extant formulas (in that all the other classes with similar restrictions have mechanical/training reasons, not RP restrictions).
*Clerics have been doing fine without bludgeoning-only restrictions for editions now.

If I were making the edition, and wanted padded/leather/hide + wooden shield-wearing druids to stay iconic (in the same way that armorless wizards are still iconic, but frequently subverted), I'd have simply made starting druids only proficient in those armors. There. Done. Can't cast spells in armor you are not proficient in. Simple as that. Non-MC, featless games will still have metal-armor-less druids running around, and regardless of how frequent such games are, they still shape the iconic image. Does it make perfect sense to be proficient in wooden shields but not metal ones? Not 100%, but it's hardly the first time an arbitrary cutoff existed in-game.

Tetrasodium

2019-04-05, 08:04 AM

By my reading they've always said "ask your DM?"

And I can understand why. The official Sage Advice answer (and the clarity of the RAW) sort of ties their hands. On one hand there's simply no valid basis to say that Druids absolutely cannot wear metal armor - they have the proficiency, and any penalties for it would have to patiently be invented whole-cloth by either them or the DM.

On the other hand, they really, really, really do not want to say "yes, you can wear metal armor, and it's entirely your choice, and in the AL your DM has no say", because the practical result of that would be to completely erase the prohibition against metal armor for druids, since any druid who cares about optimizing would immediately wear metal armor in every AL game for the rest of eternity. And since many non-AL DMs look to the AL for guidance, this would practically speaking remove it everywhere. They obviously don't want to do that when it's right there in the book.

@Aquillion I linked some tweets immediately before your post where they A: made up a rule for 5e that imports 3.5 penalties for wearing metal armor, B: bent over backwards to exclude wildshape forms from the magic armor resizes to fit bit on magic armor, and C: ignored that bending over in order to preserve the no metal armor fluff.

The lack of comparably accessible versions of the armor on phb145 in nonmetal form cements the "the dm can allow it -winkwink-" bleephattery into the very strongly discouraged form they have been pushing since 3.5.

I don't feel that that is what they wanted to do. I think they wanted the baseline druid to still wear non-metal armor (arbitrary, but fine*), simple as that, but for some unclear reason decided that they could only do that through this 'a druid just wouldn't do that' idea that actually violates their otherwise extant formulas (in that all the other classes with similar restrictions have mechanical/training reasons, not RP restrictions).
*Clerics have been doing fine without bludgeoning-only restrictions for editions now.

@Willie the Duck No, if "they" wanted that, it would be available at a comparable level of availability as the metal versions unless two people or teams were involved & one sabotaged the plan making sure alternative versions did not exist. It left such a bad taste in my mouth that I tell druids "no you don't care outside of certain ceremonial events" and players who try to force it the same. We have similar where certain things are worn/not worn at certain events catholics (https://www.dummies.com/religion/christianity/catholicism/the-use-of-color-in-the-catholic-liturgical-year/), black for funerals & white/bright colors for weddings, etc.

Willie the Duck

2019-04-05, 08:11 AM

@Willie the Duck No, if "they" wanted that, it would be available at a comparable level of availability as the metal versions unless two people or teams were involved & one sabotaged the plan making sure alternative versions did not exist. It left such a bad taste in my mouth that I tell druids "no you don't care outside of certain ceremonial events" and players who try to force it the same. We have similar where certain things are worn/not worn at certain events catholics (https://www.dummies.com/religion/christianity/catholicism/the-use-of-color-in-the-catholic-liturgical-year/), black for funerals & white/bright colors for weddings, etc.

I am not following your thought process, nor what you are trying to imply with the quotes around "they." My point was I don't think the designers wanted to tell players of Druids how to roleplay their character's armor choices, but merely wanted to preserve the iconic druidic appearance, and chose a really weird implementation for how to do so. I don't know how or if your statement intersects with that, not what it is in the phrase "it would be available at a comparable level of availability" (non-metal armor? That's available on the standard equipment list and in starting packages). Can you clarify?

Tetrasodium

2019-04-05, 08:21 AM

I am not following your thought process, nor what you are trying to imply with the quotes around "they." My point was I don't think the designers wanted to tell players of Druids how to roleplay their character's armor choices, but merely wanted to preserve the iconic druidic appearance, and chose a really weird implementation for how to do so. I don't know how or if your statement intersects with that, not what it is in the phrase "it would be available at a comparable level of availability" (non-metal armor? That's available on the standard equipment list and in starting packages). Can you clarify?

Non-metal versions of breastplate, half plate, chain mail, bearded, scale mail, and plate do not exist at comparable levels of availability as their metal counterparts. Saying that they wanted to preserve the flavor of some setting specific lore tied to a mechanical balance check from past editions while they failed to provide any accessible way of doing that is a flawed argument. I think we can all agree that if the armor table in the phb had a footnote about how druids were able to purchase ironwood versions of metal armor for an extra 5% that we wouldn't even be having this dualism

dejarnjc

2019-04-05, 11:00 AM

I get the same impression with the number of concentration-based spells the Druid has. In an effort to cut down on scenarios where full casters had 14 fire-and-forget effects running at the same time, they made huge numbers of spells with ongoing effects concentration only. But since you can only concentrate on one spell at time, Druids have to make a lot of choices like "is this really the best thing I can be doing with my concentration" each round? And so in practice there's a lot of buffs and some CC that I tend to not use in favor of just spamming Moonbeam or Flaming Sphere again.

Edit: I'm playing a baster-style druid archetype, so I admit that affects my spell choice. If I were playing a Spores or Moon druid maybe I've have more actions to expend on CC and buffs since I could deal effective damage with melee attacks. Can any other Druids weigh-in with their experience?

I'm in the same boat as you with the druid spell list. On paper, spells like entangle, fairy fire, confusion, elemental bane, stoneskin, primordial ward, the investiture spells etc. are all useful and could make or break fights.
In practice I find they all kind of suck. Entangle and faerie fire are OK early on. Confusion is great if you get a bunch of enemies but that's almost impossible to do in my experience, especially as enemies get bigger. The others are awful and almost always so.

Buffing in 5e just seems so weak unless it's bless, a bonus action spell, or you're a sorcerer twinning spells.

CC is strong but the good spells (hypnotic pattern, polymorph, banish, most of the wall spells, plant growth in the right conditions) just blow all the others out of the water.

Dr. Cliché

2019-04-05, 11:22 AM

I'm in the same boat as you with the druid spell list. On paper, spells like entangle, fairy fire, confusion, elemental bane, stoneskin, primordial ward, the investiture spells etc. are all useful and could make or break fights.
In practice I find they all kind of suck. Entangle and faerie fire are OK early on. Confusion is great if you get a bunch of enemies but that's almost impossible to do in my experience, especially as enemies get bigger. The others are awful and almost always so.

Buffing in 5e just seems so weak unless it's bless, a bonus action spell, or you're a sorcerer twinning spells.

CC is strong but the good spells (hypnotic pattern, polymorph, banish, most of the wall spells, plant growth in the right conditions) just blow all the others out of the water.

I think the thing that gets me is that Druids have so little to do when they've cast Concentration spells. Especially if they don't want to get into the thick of things with Shillelagh or Primal Savagery. Their other Cantrips are all pretty naff. So once you've cast Entangle or whatever, you're often left just throwing a ball of mediocrity at an enemy each turn.

Willie the Duck

2019-04-05, 11:50 AM

Non-metal versions of breastplate, half plate, chain mail, bearded, scale mail, and plate do not exist at comparable levels of availability as their metal counterparts. Saying that they wanted to preserve the flavor of some setting specific lore tied to a mechanical balance check from past editions while they failed to provide any accessible way of doing that is a flawed argument.

Okay, I think I see. You addressed me, yet I never mentioned any of this, so I hope you understand my confusion.

It is not clear to me that the designers wanted non-metal breastplate or plate mail equivalents in default 5e at all. I suspect that they thought the people who cared one whit what they (the designers) said would have druids with padded, leather, and hide, and wooden shields, and that most people looking for things outside that zone would be okay with either houseruling druids into metal or houseruling nonmetal other-armors.

I think we can all agree that if the armor table in the phb had a footnote about how druids were able to purchase ironwood versions of metal armor for an extra 5% that we wouldn't even be having this dualism[/QUOTE]

I think that is certainly one specific option they could have followed. I get why they didn't do that, since I think that would have very quickly become the norm (at least for online discussions and the like), and they were (again, my appraisal of the situation) trying to preserve padded/leather/hide as the norm.

What I think would have been a really good option (that I believe existed in 2e, so there is precedence, although I am AFB so I cannot verify) is having optional rules sidebars, such as exist in the DMG, in the PHB. If the druid class had a nice thorough sidebar, discussing what how the designers envisioned the druid*, what the default was, and list a couple of alternate options with the tag, "at the DM's discretion, ...," then they could put out all the options -- druids with metal armor, druids with ironwood armor, druids who can wear armor but not shapechange, etc. Throw in a short synopsis of how to do it (with any specific level of rules depth they so chose), and let each DM make up their own mind. Okay, AL would need a specific ruling, but it would have anyways.

*And that's another thing I wish they would do (both in the books and online) -- spend more time discussing the whys. I would be a lot more accepting of a bunch of the rules kerfuffles if they just told us why this was done or what it was done to prevent (ex: I would love to hear, 'look, we saw wish+simulacrum, but left it in because we just wanted to get the near-inifinite-wish-loop, which we're sure would pop up eventually, out of the way').

Tetrasodium

2019-04-05, 12:08 PM

I think we can all agree that if the armor table in the phb had a footnote about how druids were able to purchase ironwood versions of metal armor for an extra 5% that we wouldn't even be having this dualism

I think that is certainly one specific option they could have followed. I get why they didn't do that, since I think that would have very quickly become the norm (at least for online discussions and the like), and they were (again, my appraisal of the situation) trying to preserve padded/leather/hide as the norm.

What I think would have been a really good option (that I believe existed in 2e, so there is precedence, although I am AFB so I cannot verify) is having optional rules sidebars, such as exist in the DMG, in the PHB. If the druid class had a nice thorough sidebar, discussing what how the designers envisioned the druid*, what the default was, and list a couple of alternate options with the tag, "at the DM's discretion, ...," then they could put out all the options -- druids with metal armor, druids with ironwood armor, druids who can wear armor but not shapechange, etc. Throw in a short synopsis of how to do it (with any specific level of rules depth they so chose), and let each DM make up their own mind. Okay, AL would need a specific ruling, but it would have anyways.

*And that's another thing I wish they would do (both in the books and online) -- spend more time discussing the whys. I would be a lot more accepting of a bunch of the rules kerfuffles if they just told us why this was done or what it was done to prevent (ex: I would love to hear, 'look, we saw wish+simulacrum, but left it in because we just wanted to get the near-inifinite-wish-loop, which we're sure would pop up eventually, out of the way').

The sidebars is great and all, I agree that there are a bunch that should exit, but on the topic of druids having access to armor they are proficient in, WotC has thoroughly poisoned that well with how hard it is to obtain & how quick they are to say no while only saying "you can ask your GM". The end result winds up effectively being "You can ask your GM, but lets be honest... you are only wondering & oing to ask your GM because we at WotC have convinced him or her that it is a VeryBadIdea™ athat should be on par with obtaining things like a sun sword, robe of the magi, holy avenger, & the like."

Willie the Duck

2019-04-05, 12:53 PM

The end result winds up effectively being "You can ask your GM, but lets be honest... you are only wondering & oing to ask your GM because we at WotC have convinced him or her that it is a VeryBadIdea™ athat should be on par with obtaining things like a sun sword, robe of the magi, holy avenger, & the like."

That has not been my experience out in the greater world of gaming. Once I get outside the internet over-analysis self-reinforce-o-sphere, people just friggin' play the game, like they have been doings since the 70s/80s/90s/whenever. DMs make houserules. People say, "I'd really like to play a _____, but with _____, which doesn't work within the standard rules, and DMs work with them on it. People borrow from other editions and other games. Real gaming groups do not, again in my anecdotal experience, either cowtow to, or get drug around like obedient lapdogs by, the hyper-specific wording in the rulebooks.

I thoroughly understand that others may have had a different experience, but in general, while I consider the way WotC has gone about the druid to be downright bizarre and pointless, I have not honestly seen any real harm.

xroads

2019-04-05, 01:11 PM

I wonder if WotC would have been better served incentivizing druids not to wear metal armor, instead of outright denying? Much like how most races don't have negative stat penalties, but instead have bonuses that tend to encourage certain classes over others.

What if they had incentivized the use of non-metal armor? Maybe something like...

One With Nature
Druids magic comes from nature, not the machinations of man. The more in touch with nature they are, the easier it is to access their power. As such, starting at 1st, level druids that don't wear metal armor gain their proficiency bonus on concentration checks.

With this feature, druids can free up an ASI slot that they might have used on an edge like war caster. And it scales with level. At low levels, a young and not so confident druid might opt to use metal armor instead. But as the druid becomes stronger, and AC arguably doesn't matter as much, they might be tempted to drop the metal armor.

Personally, I like my druids not using metal armor. It adds flavor to a caster class, which typically don't have much in the way of armor. Frankly they could of banned armor altogether and I would of been fine with it (albeit, as long as they made barkskin more on par with mage armor). But I can see how why many other don't agree.

Deepbluediver

2019-04-05, 09:36 PM

One With Nature
Druids magic comes from nature, not the machinations of man. The more in touch with nature they are, the easier it is to access their power. As such, starting at 1st, level druids that don't wear metal armor gain their proficiency bonus on concentration checks.
On the other side of the mirror, though, that's effectively the same thing as penalizing the druid for metal armor, which WotC apparently didn't want to do...sort of.
I've got no specific objection to your rule, but if you're going to go this route I'd prefer it was designed to be more like the Barbarian's Unarmored Defense class feature- there is a way to compensate for not wearing armor, but there's no particular benefit to playing your class that way. In other words, a Barbarian can wear armor or not as it suits them (or suits their build).

zinycor

2019-04-05, 09:56 PM

Are they unpopular? is there info about it?

Deepbluediver

2019-04-05, 10:12 PM

Are they unpopular? is there info about it?
Sort of. The science is a little soft but yeah, Druids definitely aren't winning any popularity contests:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/

Vorpalchicken

2019-04-05, 10:26 PM

While I feel that it is very undruidlike to wear metal armor, and my reading of the rules (they don't put fluff in tables) prohibits the act, I've decided that being a lame metal wearing druid is punishment enough for the goofy PC that does so.

Zeikin

2019-04-05, 10:39 PM

I've always felt that they have key points wrong with the Druid. The age old ban on metal armor never made sense - metal is natural and comes from the earth, you're a Shepard of the earth, but we're going to ban you from wearing metal armor? (at least in earlier editions) Then there are the magical beasts; not the aberrations, but creatures like gryphons and wyverns that are part of the natural ecology of the world, but druids can't wildshape into them ever- never made sense to me. Mechanically and thematically, I've never felt like they have access to good spells, not enough to make them the masters of nature.

Also, they got rid of Fire Seeds and I really wanted to play a druid that wildshaped into a squirrel and used fire seeds to set them up the bomb.

Great Dragon

2019-04-05, 11:27 PM

Mechanically and thematically, I've never felt like they have access to good spells, not enough to make them the masters of nature.
I didn't play Druids in older editions to remember everything they had, including spells. But, I have looked over the 5e spells from level 1-5 and I tend to agree.

Goodberry seems ok, but Druids weren't really meant to be primary Healers.

Conjure X is alright, so long as your not going up against any AoE spells.

Also, they got rid of Fire Seeds and I really wanted to play a druid that wildshaped into a squirrel and used fire seeds to set them up the bomb.
That is hilarious!!!
I'm really thinking on allowing this in my game.

Tetrasodium

2019-04-06, 12:39 AM

That has not been my experience out in the greater world of gaming. Once I get outside the internet over-analysis self-reinforce-o-sphere, people just friggin' play the game, like they have been doings since the 70s/80s/90s/whenever. DMs make houserules. People say, "I'd really like to play a _____, but with _____, which doesn't work within the standard rules, and DMs work with them on it. People borrow from other editions and other games. Real gaming groups do not, again in my anecdotal experience, either cowtow to, or get drug around like obedient lapdogs by, the hyper-specific wording in the rulebooks.

I thoroughly understand that others may have had a different experience, but in general, while I consider the way WotC has gone about the druid to be downright bizarre and pointless, I have not honestly seen any real harm.

The anecdotes are not data thing applies as you admit, but it's not as limited to tge hyper concerned about what wotc says crowd as you suggest because anyone gming has probably played! Run at least a few modules /adventures written by wotc and saw regular/magic armor is fairly common with easy availability while ironwood/bone/stone armor can pretty much have their sources counted on one hand. Sources to buy non-metal mundane base armor types are pretty much nil if not actually nill.
Someone doesn't need to track wotc updates to notice the fact that it's pretty much not available and decide there must be good reasons for that

MeeposFire

2019-04-06, 02:10 AM

Sort of. The science is a little soft but yeah, Druids definitely aren't winning any popularity contests:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/

To be fair even when it was at its most powerful I don't think the druid has ever been one of the most popular classes. Heck somebody will be at the bottom and having one of the most narrow and complicated concepts being down near the bottom should not be a surprise or even be a bad thing.

Fighters and rogues have always been popular even back when they were not optimal in any way (that gave many people a surprise on the 3e board when stats came out that in 3e and in PF fighters were still very popular considering how down they are looked up on on the board, some started trying to assert that the stats were a lie) and I think it is due to their broad and general appeal. It is no surprise to me that the classes twoards the bottom are more limited in scope while the more broad concepts are more popular. In the broad category you have fighter, rogue, wizard (think specialty wizards and how they can represent a lot of more specific fantasy archetypes like the necromancer or diviner) and cleric (which can have a subtype for so many aspects of fantasy life).

What are at the bottom? Classes like monks, bards, sorcerers, and druids. Those classes have much more narrow concepts which means you have to really want to play that concept to use that class whereas the fighter class is very easy to slip into a bunch of concepts without even trying. Even the sorc has this problem because even though it has different versions really they come as a way to mechanically differentiate what would be seen as a detail (where your power comes from) rather than being a true separate character archetype each time.

To make it more popular I think you would need to broaden its scope but I do think it would lose much of what makes it unique in the process and unless you wanted to make it a cleric build I think it is better keeping it where it is but with the understanding that it will never be a top tier winner of popularity contests.