Quote from: Baron Opal;915357That said, I'm not familiar enough with 5e to quite understand how hit points are an issue. Do they get a bonus when they change?

In 5e a Druid resumes their current HP when they change back. So if they had 4 of 12 HP left, changed into a constrictor. Took 12 of their 13 points of damage and changed back, then would have 4 HP again rather than 1. Also if they are taken to zero or negative they just revert back too and the excess carries over. So same snake gets hit for 15 damage and goes down. The Druid reverts and is conscious with 2 HP left.

So its effectively two buffers of temp HP. More if the Druid can get a short rest in. Compare that to a Fighter who can regain 1d10 + level in HP once before needing a short rest, or the Warlock who can potentially pick up False Life as an at will (1d4+4).

Quote from: Christopher Brady;915453I meant it has the same casting system as the Warlock and Sorcerer which are now completely neutered.  They can cast whatever spell they want whenever they want as long as A) They have slots.  B) Have the spell 'prepared'.

B used to be the purview of the Sorcerer.  Which gave it an 'edge' for playing an 'easy' Caster class.  But not anymore.  The Wizard can do it and better, with more versatility.

Very much so. The 5e Sorcerer is very different from the playtest one which was using willpower points to fuel spellcasting. The 5e Sorcerer might as well have been an alternate Wizard path as its just a wizard with some casting format tricks.

Quote from: Omega;9154901: um... How is playing by the rules "Mother may I"? The PHB specifically says "animals the druid has seen." Is the DM supposed to just cater to the druid player and poof there's a Mastadon! Gotta catch em all!

I have trouble believing this ability was deliberately balanced around what the druid has seen. That just seems like flavor, not a deliberate restriction. Consider the following:
- You can safely assume the druid has seen a lot of critters because of his training. Depending on the setting, elder druids can show younger druids all the forms they've picked up. Players could also state they came from exotic lands and then reasonably argue they've seen a bunch of useful forms that way. Now the GM trying to use this rule for balance find themselves in the odd position of trying to restrict the druid's personal history in weird ways.
- The GM could decide to head this off at the pass by not using the most 'unbalanced' animal forms in his campaign world... but then a player's choice of class has prevented the GM from using lots of cool animals. "Well I really wanted to have a bitchin' king kong style encounter in this campaign, but shucks, there's a druid in the game and I don't want him to make a mockery of the other players in the group so I better change the setting so they don't exist."
- And remember, this is a binary on/off switch that, once flipped, is irrelevant for balance. Imagine I tried to balance a fighter ability to reliably cause instant death by saying "it's ok though, you can only use this ability once you have seen a mass grave on an ancient battlefield." Would that seem fair to the other players?

It all really just looks like a desperate GM pathetically trying to wriggle around bad design and clamp down on the player's core-book choices. The druid should not have been printed as such.

Quote from: Omega;915490And why did the zoo have every critter the druid wanted? Last check many zoos have a rather limited roster that may or may not be very exotic. The fact you have a druid in a big city where the usual checks and balances are being lessened or removed should have been a tip off here.

Eberron has a magic corporation house that specializes in gathering, distributing, and selling beasts. It's their thing. But again, what you are advocating is NOT using cool animals or cool settings just because of one class.

Quote from: Omega;915490What you have is a clusterfuck of an ideal location/setting that very savvy players are gaming for max advantage. Like someone else noted. If it wasnt the Druid then it would be one of the other classes. Ive seen some really insane gaming of the Polymorph spell if the DM doesn't reign that in. The fact that you have them in a city with an extensive zoo means you just laid out a buffet of power.

You're not exactly singing 5e's praises here.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;915507I have trouble believing this ability was deliberately balanced around what the druid has seen. That just seems like flavor, not a deliberate restriction. Consider the following:

You're not exactly singing 5e's praises here.

1: So you ignored the rules then complain when something breaks?

2: Since you seem to be gunning for 5e. Guess you would see it like that. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Doom;915451One of the big ways to tone it down is to do it as AD&D did, at least with summons and such: make the outcome random. There's a huge difference between "summon a random but appropriate to the area creature, and player has to figure out how to get the best use out of it" (the old D&D way) and "let the player pore through hundreds of pages of monsters stats and figure out the absolute best thing to summon while the non-spellcasters feel stupid." (the 5e way).

With regard to summoning spells, the player gets to specify the number & CR of summoned creatures but the DM decides what exactly shows up. Each of the spell descriptions states that the DM has the statistics for what is summoned. So player says that he wants four beasts of challenge rating 1/2 and the DM decides what creatures within those parameters are actually summoned.

If you let the player flip through the MM and cherry pick the most advantageous creature every time then you might conclude that the spell is "broken". This is not the case. It is the DM without the balls to enforce the rules who is broken.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;915296Closed out one of my two 5e games for various scheduling reasons. The players did reach level 12, and I remembered how much I hated D&D's ultra-versatile magic system that makes a mockery of non-caster classes and skills.

One especially sore point: the druid wildshape ability, especially on the moon druid archetype.

I resisted a desire to depower it because I wanted to see 5e in an unadulterated form. People also said that it wasn't so bad as levels went on, that the unbelievable number of hit points the druid player could field would matter less because of its typically low AC. This did not happen.

I wouldn't say he was indestructible, just close enough that he might as well have been for monster tactic purposes. He certainly made the rogues and monks look like chumps, and that's what matters to me.

ON TOP OF THAT, the versatility was a show stealer time and time again. Need to spy and infiltrate? Turn into a tiny critter. Need to overcome obstacles or escape? turn into a flying critter. Need to escape by water? Turn into a swimming critter. Need to tank? Turn into a bear. Need to track or detect things? Turn into a scent or tremorsense critter. etc.

And once you hit level 10? Turn into elementals to walk through walls, fly 100 feet a round, resist non-magical weapons, flow through tiny gaps, and still contribute to combat.

All of that... and you still have SPELLS (more versatility that you can turn into hit points in a pinch) and your own pool of hit points!

So from my personal perspective the case is demonstrably closed: druid wildshape is unfair and poorly designed. I will definitely depower it next time once I can figure out what the fix is. If there is a next time. The caster supremacy is definitely grinding my gears enough that it's starting to overshadow the things I like about the edition.

Yep, agree, its broken....

Quote from: Omega;915491In 5e a Druid resumes their current HP when they change back.

I see. A druid with 20 hp takes an animal form. These animals usually have 10 hp. After they lose 10 hp they are forced back into human form with their untouched 20 hp. There's a certain elegance in that.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;915360By the way, would you apply the same restrictions to summon spells, polymorph spells, and gating spells? They don't have any such limit as written.

One thing that I have done is that the Summon Monster spells are tied to specific critters. If you summon the Eidolon of the Third Pale, that's the only thing you can summon. If you want another critter, you need to research another instance of the spell. For polymorph, you can turn into anything you can see or from a number of forms equal to 3 + INT bonus. Your own racial form is a gimme. Learning a form you haven't seen, or swapping out an old one, is like researching a 1st level spell.

It might be worthwhile to limit the number of known forms somehow. 1/2 level, 3 + WIS bonus, something.

Quote from: Omega;915491In 5e a Druid resumes their current HP when they change back. So if they had 4 of 12 HP left, changed into a constrictor. Took 12 of their 13 points of damage and changed back, then would have 4 HP again rather than 1. Also if they are taken to zero or negative they just revert back too and the excess carries over. So same snake gets hit for 15 damage and goes down. The Druid reverts and is conscious with 2 HP left.

So its effectively two buffers of temp HP. More if the Druid can get a short rest in. Compare that to a Fighter who can regain 1d10 + level in HP once before needing a short rest, or the Warlock who can potentially pick up False Life as an at will (1d4+4).

So the tabby wouldn't kill the rat, but would make the druid revert to human form--possibly in an awkward location.

Quote from: Omega;9155081: So you ignored the rules then complain when something breaks?

Did you just ignore all the nuances of what I wrote? We can't really have a conversation if you do that.

Quote from: Omega;9155082: Since you seem to be gunning for 5e. Guess you would see it like that. :rolleyes:

Nope, 5e has many elements of a good game, and I've had good sessions with it. I'm just pointing out the druid is busted in particular, while touching on the fact that caster supremacy is still a problem and the short/long rest mechanic doesn't make for a strong balancing element in any reasonably diverse campaign.

It's a symptom that has been present in every WotC edition of D&D.  A lot of the controls on classes got removed with no replacements.  IIRC 2e the druids didn't get shapechange until several levels later, had higher stat requirements than basic classes, and had the hierarchy to deal with.  A lot of that was disappointing to players who wanted to pull the stunts that they now pull with Druids because the character often died or the campaign ended before they got all their cool toys.  Now it is all front loaded with some partial gating in the form of movement restrictions on wild shape, a bogus restriction on uses per short rest, and a requirement to have "seen the animal before."

People seem to also be forgetting that SL stated that the group was 12th level.  That's a plenty experienced bunch.  Since it is Eberron and urban from the sounds of it that reduces a lot of the power of Druids but they were still strong.  By 12th level if a party has been travelling the wilderness they will have seen a lot of wild animals.  We don't put them on our encounter sheets because they aren't encounters.  A pack of wolves generally won't attack a party of healthy humans but you sure as hell will see them.  Back when my mother in law still lived in Dawson Creek we used to see Moose eating leafs off the trees of people on the block, deer and wolves in the park across the street.  Here in Vancouver and in nearby Squamish I have seen Killer Whales, dolphins and grey whales (all from my offfice building) and Bald Eagles and Brown Bears.  That is just the "exotic" stuff.  Add in the usual urban vermin we have here -- coyotes, skunks, black bears, cougars, moles, mice, rats, pigeons, sea gulls.  Oh and I almost forgot Salmon and Sturgeon.  That is just a small list of the stuff you can see around here.

I've also traveled to Egypt, Australia (Queensland only but including snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef), Maui, and different parts of Canada, the US, and Europe and that suddenly expands greatly.  Scorpions, desert fox, puffer fish, turtles, cassowary (in the wild!), kangaroos, koalas, humpback whales, road runners, prairie dogs.  Holy shit I've seen a lot of wildlife.

About limiting the power of the Druid by limiting the forms they have seen.  Don't do that it's just bad DMing.  I can't even describe how bad that is.  
You wouldn't let someone roll up a cavalier and then kill his horse.  That's a dick move.  If you don't want people shape shifting don't let them play a Druid.  

As has already been pointed out in combat the Druid is balanced.  It can tank but not DPS.

If your problem is the versatility and power if magic d&d might not be the game for you.  It's a high magic system.  Like ridiculously high.  If that's not what you want this isn't the system you want.

Related to the high magic in D&D.  It seems to me if it was a real place there would be simple and cheep counter measures.

For instance.  Every merchant has a iron plate they tap coins on to remove enchantment, or the scales might be better.  All the gates to the city have a permanent detect magic spell on them.  The wall sconces in the castle are enchanted with fairy fire that automatically surrounds anything invisible.  The Wizard's apprentices take turns monitoring the scrying pool any spell over 3rd level and they raise the alarm.  
 
This is again a different game, in d&d the players have magic and some of the things they are fighting.  That's fun but it doesn't make sense to me.  

This might be a different thread.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;915509With regard to summoning spells, the player gets to specify the number & CR of summoned creatures but the DM decides what exactly shows up. Each of the spell descriptions states that the DM has the statistics for what is summoned. So player says that he wants four beasts of challenge rating 1/2 and the DM decides what creatures within those parameters are actually summoned.

If you let the player flip through the MM and cherry pick the most advantageous creature every time then you might conclude that the spell is "broken". This is not the case. It is the DM without the balls to enforce the rules who is broken.

That's a very interesting way to look at the rules on page 225 of the 5e PHB. Are we talking about the same game?

"You summon fey spirits that take the form of beasts..." is what the spell says. They're not even animals they're...whatever they want to be. Why would they choose something that isn't appropriate? Where does it say the DM decides exactly what form the fey spirits take? You mean the DM can just say "Okeedoke, you get some cows which I'll call whatever CR you ask for. Again." every time, even when the player really just wants an otter to swim around and check for underwater exits? That's...supremely dickish, no?

I suspect my players might riot if I try that, but "the DM can just be a dick" seems to be a poor way to interpret how that spell works. I really think rolling randomly would be better than just pure DM dickishness.

in my opinion, of course.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;915328How would you balance the Druid?

Well, I still haven't gotten to test 5e in play, but assuming the OP is accurate and it is overpowered, I can certainly imagine up a more constrained ability. Why not just make wildshape 'you become the animal in question.' As in: you have the exact same stat block as the animal (excepting that you can turn back into a druid if you want). If you die as the animal, you're dead. Thus a druid who becomes a sparrow or rat for infiltration is gambling since they now have 1 or 2 hp. turn into a bear to fight? That's good for the few levels where a bear is actually challenging, but your proficiency bonus as a bear doesn't go up. I think that's similar to how it worked in AD&D.

The whole druidy shapeshifting thing, in any game I've ever played, is tough to deal with because fly. Fly, fly, fly.

"Okay, you're looking out across a huge chasm, where-"
"I turn into a bird and fly over!"
"...okay..."

"As you approach the town, you notice_"
"Wait! I'm gonna turn into a bird and scout ahead."
"...okay..."

"When you enter the tavern, you see--"
"Wait! Can I fly through the window instead?"
"Why"
"I dunno..."
"...whatever..."

(I hate Druids)