Indeed, 5e druid.
The adventure is a story that one of my friends is making himself, so I'm not too sure what to expect. It started with a dwarf sending us to fetch a elven healer to cure his king, which might be troublseome cuz the elves and dwarves hate each other. So we've fought commoners in a small alley in town, went and bought some armor, traveled to an old forest, killed some satyrs and fought a black dragon wyrmling.
Learn the Beasts you can turn into and what situations they might be useful in.Originally Posted by Zurvan
Out of combat:
Animals forms often make for very good and inconspicuous scouts - find some forms with good Stealth and Perception.
For solving issues with terrain, have a look for stuff that can swim or fly (as you gain access to the ability to Wildshape into things with those features).
In combat:
Think about something very tanky, since all the damage dealt to you just disappears when you voluntarily shift away, so you're great at soaking hits.
Think about something with good damage - you won't match up well with the martial classes, but sometimes raw DPS just is the answer even if you're not a specialist.
Think about something which is good at battlefield control - pouncing pops up on a few Beasts, and more have some good synergy with other Athletics manoeuvres like charging, shoving, and grappling.
There are guides out there to help with your creature choices here. I very seriously suggest you make yourself some notes because this is so important yet so mechanical that it's not necessarily easy to remember on the fly. The guides may very well recommend dinosaurs as having excellent stats. RAW, your character needs to have seen the animals before shifting into them, so if your DM cares in the slightest about that, they are not going to pass muster in most campaign worlds. I don't know what work you've already done with your DM on your known wildshapes, but it's at least worth highlighting to them that you'd kind of like to see a few new, strong Beasts now and again, to help your progress along. If they're susceptible to that sort of thing, pose it as a challenge to vary up their encounter composition.
Think about buffs with your particular roles in mind. Beast forms tend to have arse for AC but good HP, so Barkskin is a good use of your Concentration early on in combat. Guidance is always solid during exploration. As a Moon Druid, you probably do want buffs more than damage or control.
Speaking of Concentration and being a frontliner, having a boost to it from Resilient (Constitution) or Warcaster is probably helpful.
Beast's Lair: Useful Notes
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Thanks Seika, I'll check on the web, see if I can find some of those guides. For combat I asked the DM if he was okay with me having seen dire wolves, brown bears and giant hyena. Though I can also transform into a cat, spider, bat or eagle. As for spells and cantrips I currently have shillelagh and guidance, 1st spells thunderwave, shape or destroy water, fog cloud and cure wounds. 2nd spells are moonbeam and gust of wind.
Currently level 3 btw. We did some pre-made story before this, so we started the campaign somewhat higher than level 1.
What I'm not sure of where to go with spells from here. Is summoning other animals a smart idea. Or am I better off buffing myself/my allies or healing them. No cleric but there is a ranger with cure wounds as well.
Also barkskin is a good spell, should probably swap that with gust of wind.
Frankly unless your DM is really tough you wont need to hyper optimize your combat strat, just do what you think is fun.
Wildshape definitely stays powerful for Moon Druids, however note that under the "seen" rule, it can be very difficult to find higher CR beasts to keep up with your max Wildshape CR unless your DM deliberately throws some in or allows it in your backstory.
apropos 5e druids
Wild Shape is practically a superpower. Conjure Animals and Conjure Woodland Beings are broken. The first one gets you eight wolves, the second gets you eight pixies. Who can polymorph themselves into wolves.
don't quote me on this
DM picks your summons, not you.
Ahahahaha, mAc's tweet is the one in the SageAdvice.eu entry.
Beast's Lair: Useful Notes
(Lightweight | PDF)
Updated 01/01/15
If posts are off-topic, trolling, terrible or offensive, please allow me to do my job. Reporting keeps your forum healthy.
Seika moderates: modly clarifications, explanations, Q&A, and the British conspiracy to de-codify BL's constitution.
Democracy on Beast's Lair
Any DM who wouldn't choose wolves is no DM of mine
Just read up on that evil campaign, looked like tons of fun. It's great when things work out like that.
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One DM I played with picked a bear, only for it to ignore everyone and eat honey out of a tree. He eventually became the rangers animal companion and was known as 'Lord Bearington'. The dude was useless in combat but that just made us love him even more.
Quest of Fate
Apocrypha Universe Fate Quest Project
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Beast's Lair Discord Server For Fate Quests
Hermes Servant Collection Master Post
I was going to write a post about the thing more important than optimizing your druid, and that's player etiquette and expectations.
But now it's 4 AM so I'll do it tomorrow!
@Seika: I have the surreal experience of googling for that answer every so often and finding my old question and suddenly experiencing deja vu.
He never sleeps. He never dies.
Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight.
don't listen to him it's all optimization
Why optimise when you can get completely mismatched things that are fun?
But seriously, I would help but I don't know much about Druids. I'll look around to see if I can find something.
Quest of Fate
Apocrypha Universe Fate Quest Project
---
Beast's Lair Discord Server For Fate Quests
Hermes Servant Collection Master Post
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unea...nger-and-rogue
I like the Scout, it's reminiscent of the 3.5e class; at the same time, though, sometimes these ideas are better off as individual classes rather than archetypes.
<NEW FIC!> Revolution #9: Somewhere out there, there's a universe in which your mistakes and failures never happened, and all you wished for is true. How hard would you fight to make that real?
[11:20:46 AM] GlowStiks: lucina is supes attractive
[12:40] Lace: lucina is amazing
[12:40] Neir: lucina is pretty much flawless
Let the etiquette BEGIN.
Some of these apply only in person, but the general sentiment is valid:
* This is so basic you'd think it goes without saying, but show up actually presentable. Clean, showered, SOBER. Nothing's worse than someone showing up blanketed in a cloud of nerd fog like some sort of NEET wraith and stripping the paint off the walls with their rancid stench.
* Be prepared. Bring your own dice, have your character sheet filled out and ready ahead of time, etc. If you play a spellcaster, print out descriptions of your spells so you don't grind the game to a halt while you flip through all of the books to find what you want to cast. Though, if you need help to do that the Dungeon Master should be happy to help. But generally speaking, you should have what you need to actually play when you want to play.
* Be on time. If you say you can make it, and the game starts at 8 PM, then show up at 8 PM. Otherwise you leave everybody else waiting on you. If you can't make it, make sure to notify the Dungeon Master ahead of time so they can prepare. Don't just, not show up, or mention it like five seconds before the game starts.
* Pay attention. Don't break out into side conversations, or bust out your phone, or wander off somewhere. It hurts the immersion of everyone else at the table and is another way of saying that what's going on isn't worth your effort, which is disrespectful. If you're on roll20, then the equivalent is tabbing out constantly or being distracted in a chat in Discord, things that would split your attention.
* Don't try to control other players. Experienced players have a habit of trying to tell everyone else what to do. This is bad. The other player should get to play their own character the way they want, not just follow everyone else's direction.
* Don't complain. It interrupts the game flow and irritates everyone else.
* Don't rules lawyer. Rules lawyering being, obsessing over the rules to the point that it becomes a problem, or only selectively using them to benefit yourself. If you run into a situation where the Dungeon Master makes a call you disagree with, just roll with it and talk about it AFTER the game. Don't make everyone wait while you page through 300 pages of the Player's Handbook and get into a twenty minute argument over whether you can move 20 feet when encumbered or 30. The rules are ultimately only a suggestion to the Dungeon Master, not a straitjacket.
* Read the mood. If you're in a realistic horror game, don't try to shoehorn in your Ninja Turtle character. Play in a way that enhances immersion rather than disrupts it. Go along with the setting.
* Take action. Don't just sit on your butt and wait for the Dungeon Master to drop a game into your lap. Whether or not your character gets involved is in your hands. That means making a character that actually WANTS to go on adventures, instead of just staying at home and reading books all day.
* Don't take it personally. You're playing a roleplaying game, which means stuff happening between characters is part of the story. If your character gets killed, it's not the DM trying to spite you. Same with exchanges with other players' characters. In fact, the best playing is when you embrace the fact that you have a character in a story and play them the way their personality ought to be played.
* Be mindful of other players. Even though I just said not to take it personally, that isn't a free hand to be a dick for no reason. You're still playing a game with actual real people, and choosing to do what you do.
* Don't metagame. That means using out of character knowledge to influence in-game decision. Suppose for instance, that you happened to accidentally see the Dungeon Master's map of the dungeon for tonight. That's unfortunate, but YOU, the player, saw it, not the character. You should play as if the character knows nothing about it. The same for rolls; if you flub a roll to search for traps and turn up nothing, your character doesn't know you flubbed the roll. As far as they know, everything looks clear... The same goes for encountering monsters and such that you know of as a player, but the character might not. Don't suddenly announce, "Aha, this monster's on page 340 of the Monster Manual and their weakness is...!"
* Give feedback. After you play, let everyone know about the stuff you liked. It's encouraging.
* Pay attention. A second time, since everything basically is a subset of this.
D&D is a social game, so a lot of it comes down to the same issues you'd have in any other social setting.
He never sleeps. He never dies.
Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight.
It's kind of sad, most of those points seem obvious enough that they should go without saying, and yet I've ecperienced most of those in our group (hygiene probably being the only one that wasn't an issue), both from myself or the other players.
Actually, I feel that maybe these are ALL still issues except metagaming.
ahhh I MISS D&D
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It's been so long since I've last played a session ashfjd
Ooooooh, thanks mAc! Most of this makes a lot of sense, but it's still a good thing you mentioned them. Metagaming is somewhat of an issue with one of the group, but he toned it down to a large extent.
Rule lawyering too, but we're still new to this. Surely we'll get better as we continue along.
Also thanks to the other good people that shared some tips or advice. You guys are great
Rule 187: don't try to bang the DM's gf, it makes everything awkward for the rest of us.
still salty bc that campaign was actually super fun and going somewhere
<NEW FIC!> Revolution #9: Somewhere out there, there's a universe in which your mistakes and failures never happened, and all you wished for is true. How hard would you fight to make that real?
[11:20:46 AM] GlowStiks: lucina is supes attractive
[12:40] Lace: lucina is amazing
[12:40] Neir: lucina is pretty much flawless
sounds like an interesting story
Though abandoned, forgotten, and scorned as out-of-date dolls, they continue to carry out their mission, unchanged from the time they were designed.
Machines do not lose their worth when a newer model appears.
Their worth (life) ends when humans can no longer bear that purity.
it does indeed, tell us more Five
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