[1DnD] Treantmonk's Moon Druid Solution (w/ some math)

[Psyren]

Earlier this week, Treantmonk put out a lengthy video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BKigQlJiCI) about the latest playtest druid, paying particular attention to the new wild shape and new moon subclass. Overall he agreed it was a step in the right direction, but that its issues with scaling and dwindling choice at high levels haven't been solved yet:

To illustrate the scaling problems, he did a few calculations to show how even with the most recent buffs, the new moon druid still starts falling behind other martials at about level 7 or so (due to the higher forms' poor attack bonuses):

Damage Level 3 (Brown Bear):
65%x19=12.35
5%x11.5=0.58
DPR 12.93 (Baseline 7.65, 69% above baseline; identical to 2014 moon druid)

Damage Level 7 (Cave Bear): (assumes Charger feat and +d8 from primal strikes)
65%x30.5=19.82
5%x20.5=1.03
88%x4.5=3.96
DPR 24.81 (Baseline 16.50, 50% above baseline. At this point, Champion Fighter w/ PAM/GWM/Glaive is at ~31 and Berserker Barb is at ~39.)

Damage Level 13 (Stegosaurus):
45%x30.5=13.72
5%x25.5=1.28
45%x4.5=2.03
DPR 17.03 (Baseline 26.50, 36% below baseline. At this point, Champion Fighter w/ PAM/GWM/Glaive is at ~43 and Berserker Barb is at ~54.)

Now to be totally fair, I believe this is just the druid's attacks and doesn't include Moonbeam-dragging, so there's some potential upside being overlooked here.

The other issue that the scaling causes is the reduction in variety. As you level, you need to upgrade your forms to have a prayer of keeping up (which, as noted above, you fail to do anyway) - and as you do so, the variety of animals drops considerably. For example, the highest (beast) Spider is CR 2, so if you want to be a Spider Druid you get to eat a nice hot fudge sundae except it's not fudge.

He had an idea to fix this that I thought might satisfy both template and statblock fans, and whose simplicity really appealed to me, so I thought I'd share it here to get people's thoughts. The short version goes like this:


- Moon Druid keeps its proposed level 3 features (forms up to CR 1, AC, THP, abjuration spells, Moonbeam.)

- Moon forms never scale higher than CR 1. Instead, there's an ability at level 6 that enables the attacks and abilities of these forms to continue scaling independently instead - e.g. you get to add your proficiency bonus to the beast's attacks and opposed ability checks, or your Wis mod to their damage, or maybe even both. It could also be based on your druid levels if you really want to keep moon druids straight-classed. This ability being at 6 will also help curtail dips.

- If the beast has an ability in its statblock with a save DC, e.g. a giant spider's web or snake's venom, the DC of that ability scales too, e.g. with your original form's spell DC.

- If needed, the offensive scaling can be reduced or even disabled entirely for Tiny forms, to avoid Killer Rabbit Rat problems.

- Revert to them needing to have seen the beast before if it's not present in Basic/core, or forbid turning into specific individuals etc. This one isn't a huge deal, but I'm guessing it will save DMs some unique headaches down the road. (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/360961-onyx)


This would provide the variety and utility of statblocks, with the scaling and power of templates. This would also help to future-proof design, as the devs would only need to worry about any new beasts they create being available to PCs if they're CR 1 and lower.

TL;DR: Keep Moon Druids at CR 1 or less, which offers the greatest possible animal variety, and let their attacks (to-hit and damage) scale up from there - either keying off PB, Wis, a progression based on druid level, or some combination.

Thoughts?

[Melil12]

I think it’s a good idea.

Give us the shapes with their abilities/attacks. But let the DCs/Attack rolls be based off the druid.

And they could easily add it in to the current incarnation of druid.

I like the moon druid to be better at this than other Druids so maybe let them have scaling CR or something.

[JNAProductions]

Two things:

1) What about durability?
2) Should a side feature of a full-casting class be as good as full-on martial class, especially at higher levels?

[Psyren]

I like the moon druid to be better at this than other Druids so maybe let them have scaling CR or something.

The proposal would only be for Moon: all the other druids are already capped at CR 1 beasts with no scaling at all, and that's totally fine.


Two things:

1) What about durability?
2) Should a side feature of a full-casting class be as good as full-on martial class, especially at higher levels?

1) Just change the THP to be the higher of the CR1 creature's HP or 3x Druid level instead of lower. The AC part is fine and they already made it so you keep your saves.

2) No, but it shouldn't be this much worse either. A 45% chance to hit at 13 is too low. I'm not proposing that they equal fighters and barbarians, I was using their DPR numbers purely illustratively.

[Kane0]

Works for me i guess, but i'm not the target audience.

[Melil12]

Also I would be more worried about the giant scorpion … it’s attacks are meh till you get to the 4d10 poison.

[Psyren]

Also I would be more worried about the giant scorpion … it’s attacks are meh till you get to the 4d10 poison.

It's CR3 so you'd have nothing to worry about - it would be entirely off limits under this plan.

Right now it's one of the only viable beasts at level 9, and still underpowered (+4 to hit, DC 12 Con save) at that level.

[Aimeryan]

It is literally the solution many of us proposed in the old thread about 5e vs old UA Wild Shape. I don't think there was any real pushback, it just got swiftly sidestepped into shapeless blob vs curated lists once more.

So, yeah, I think many of us are aware of the idea of having CR1 mechanical forms that scale via the Moon Druid itself. You can even allow the Druid to take on the skin of a higher CR form of the appropriate type at some defined point (so Polar Bear if you are using the Brown Bear block at level 6+, etc.).

The issue with the current UA Moon Druid are the exact same as the 5e ones, with an amazing addition to the list:
- Book diving into DM material
- Scale poorly in damage/DCs
- Subclass offers little since the tankiness part (which was the only good scaling feature) has been largely removed

The CR1 scaling up potentially solves all of these if done right.

As an aside, the damage supplemented by spells is not a Moon Druid feature - if the base class can Concentrate on a spell and then throw out levelled non-Concentration spells and/or cantrips, the Moon Druid needs to offer MORE than that since other subclasses exist and do add to that. The damage being a bit better than cantrips while being FORCED to head into melee with a bit of THP as compensation is not enough to even offset the subclass' own negatives (melee, cannot cast spells as a full caster), never mind ADD to the base class. In compariosn the Land Druid, for example, has a single part of one single early level feature that lets them cast one of their highest level spells (or lower, if desired) for free once per Long Rest (the whole feature also adds extra spell slots on top of that) - this adds more to the base class than the entirety of the Moon Druid does.

[KorvinStarmast]

It's CR3 so you'd have nothing to worry about - it would be entirely off limits under this plan. Which is part of what's wrong with this plan.

Right now it's one of the only viable beasts at level 9, and still underpowered (+4 to hit, DC 12 Con save) at that level. The claws allow you to grapple on a hit, though. (For the CR 3 beast, I mean).

[Psyren]

Which is part of what's wrong with this plan.

No solution to this is going to be perfect. Assuming the designers want to keep wild shape at all, they have a seemingly impossible task:

1) Balance monster/Beast statblocks across 6-8 CR 'layers' so that they are both reasonable monster challenges and balanced/varied player options at the appropriate levels. They've attempted this one for 10 years - longer if you count 3e - and I'll be blunt, I just don't see it ever working.

2) Throw monster statblocks out entirely and use some kind of mutable construct or modification calibrated to the player's own stats. Judging by Playtest 4 they're bad at this too (perhaps purposefully?), so bad that they've effectively locked themselves out of trying to iterate on it due to the backlash.

3) Something in between - which in this case, the proposal is to balance 1-3 layers instead of 6-8, much more manageable, but will result in casualties among the giant scorpion or stegosaurus crowd. I consider such casualties acceptable in the grand scheme.


The claws allow you to grapple on a hit, though. (For the CR 3 beast, I mean).

Yeah, there's potentially huge upside if you manage to hit, which is what makes it one of the better options at that level currently. But see #1 above.

[Beelzebub1111]

My Perspective: Any speculation of how this version of wildshape works is meaningless until we know how monsters are changing and being rebalanced for the new edition.