It's not fair that Colby has a chiseled chin, a voice that could put a crying toddler to sleep, and can crunch numbers. Anyways, I appreciate further insight into druid tanking!
I actually had trouble listening to colby at first because of how soothing and calming his voice and cadence are. Also I appreciate he doesn't have those annoying volume jumps many creators have in their vids.
"If you enjoy creating characters in D&D as much as you enjoy playing the actual game itself or you're just looking for ideas or tips or tricks on a character you're thinking about building then welcome home..." Thank you Colby.
I also like the idea of not only ancestors showing up, but just the "Spirits of the Wild" or something to that effect. Like depending on what environment you're in, maybe the spirits take the form of animals local to that area, like snakes and scorpions for the desert or sharks and dolphins for the ocean, etc. Maybe your character's ancestors ARE animals, or druids that believe that when they die, they are reincarnated as animals. Very cool concept.
I have an idea for a video: While point buy is definitely the most reliable, it would be interesting to see your take on a character for a player who rolled AMAZING stats and another for a player who rolled ABYSMAL stats... Just curious how you might build around each of those. Love your videos, and hope you enjoyed California!
Really amazing stats? Paladin/sorcerer multiclass with maybe bladesinger if you can swing it. Really garbage stats? Cleric or wizard and focus exclusively on buffs for the party or things that deal damage regardless of the saving throw.
Amazing stats : Bladesinger+2-Paladin = Ultimate nova damage with Shadowblade + Smite! Twilight Cleric + Ancients Paladin (7) + Glamour Bard (5) = Ultimate party protector Necromancer+Oathbreaker Paladin = Ultimate villain with undead horde.. Divination Wizard + Glory Paladin = Ultimate hero.. Order Cleric + Dao Genie Warlock (3) = multiple ways for control while EBing away. Ancestral Guardian Barbarian (5-6) + Undead Warlock = terrifying tank! Terrible stats: Shepherd Druid -> your summons deal damage for you completely independent of your stats, and your best Totem (Unicorn) scaled by your level not your stats so you are still an awesome healer at the same time. Twilight Cleric -> can be played entirely as support as is amazing at it!
@@wesleykushner8028 similarly with the low stats, I did a melee-based divine sorcerer with a 13 CHA, and just chose mostly self-focused spells: enhanced ability, shield, mirror image, blink, see invisibility . . . things that didn’t rely on my spell DC being particularly high. Worked perfectly for the type of game we were playing.
That's true! Love a variant tiefling, and you don't always hear so much about them. I can't remember off the top of my head whether that's been officially updated to let you cast with spell slots or if RAW is still f'rex one second-level Armor of Agathys per day, but I'd argue either way that "cast 'em if you got 'em" for ancestry and/or feat spells has become functionally RAI in the post-Tasha's world. (Rules As You'd Probably Better Allow At Your Table Unless You Hella Love Fey/Shadow Touched Custom Lineage Builds? Doesn't really scan.)
I'd also recommend the "Emotional Support Vest" Shield. When a druid attuned to this shield uses wild shape, the shield automatically shifts with the druid into a vest that fits the animal form. The new Support Vest provides +2 AC to the animal form. The vest also allows passage in populated areas if applicable. "What are you doing bringing a dire wolf into town?" "It's ok, it's my emotional support dire wolf. See the vest?"
An interesting strategy my moon druid player pulled in my game last night, as an air elemental she occupied an NPCs area to give them cover from attacks. It doesn't come online until higher levels, but as a strategy to cover an ally it was really effective. Throw on a couple of barbarian levels and that could be a terrifyingly effective tank build.
I am a simple person, I see a D4 video and click like hahsahsa. I'm looking forward to the day that you put together a live character. That would be a lot of fun
R.A.W. “You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so.”; and the rules state that’s the only restriction. You can use the unarmed defense bonus to AC and gain 10+ movement speed to all wildshapes. Technically this would apply to extra attack on all wild shapes, (excluding use of multi attack, as that must be the full action) since extra attack is a class feature you unlock. You also retain your skill proficiencies! So when a raging Brown bear decides to grapple with Athletics, he will do so and taunt even further. Ps. Beg your DM for the item that gives wild shapes magical damage, playing at lvl 6-10 with normal claws feels bad in many encounters. -Enjoy, Druids are busted :)
Regarding druid not being able to wear metal armor, at my table we always come up with alternative materials for the armor so to not force players into having lower AC. Bone breastplate was my favorite so far.
I propose giving this build the title Ancestral Moon. It sounds...ominous, but not in a spine tingle creepy ominous, more like a beacon of light shining on some object ominous.
Just wanted to thank you for your channel Colby! I watched a lot of your awesome vids the past months and now that I’m busy training in oral surgery and hospital dentistry, getting to listen to you again makes the weekend the perfect respite. God bless!
Hey! Ancestral barbs! My favourite underrated subclass!! Really glad you took the Classic moon druid/totem barb and made made it way better by using an ancestral barb!!
I love the ancestral barbarian. I still like the idea of a fairy barbarian that uses ranged attacks and flying to prevent enemies from attacking you, but giving your party resistance to the damage and disadvantage to be hit.
I'm just getting into D&D and your videos have been a treasure trove of useful information for someone like me. Highly underrated channel, thanks so much for what you're doing sir!
Can confirm, Moon Druids very much stay interesting. Bored of a certain form? There's a hundred others to choose from! Bored of melee and the "I attack" format of turn-taking? Just drop your wild shape and become an entire full caster with a range of options including area denial, aoe damage, single-target damage, control spells, and even buffing and healing! I played one for most of a campaign and I switched my playstyle between battles quite a bit. I tended to do it between battles and between sessions depending on what was needed or available (Wild Shape was sometimes impeded by having spent them or not having the space for it), and sometimes based on just wanting to throw spells, but you could switch mid-combat pretty well too if you get super-suddenly bored of a specific playstyle. Or if you get knocked out of Wild Shape twice in one fight :p
I'd just like to say Colby, really love the videos and I'm a long time viewer first time commenter. You're a very charismatic guy, easy to listen to and extremely informative. Can really tell you know what you're talking about and the ideas are often quite creative. Keep posting great content. :)
Holy potatoes! This is so close to my current PC, who I designed before I started obsessively watching your videos! Biggest DND honor ever. Edit: Did you remember to apply the Unarmored defense to your wildshape options? The brown bear gets up to 13, which I think makes it by far the best overall wildshape with rage, the giant hyena gets to 14, making it ideal for survivability, and the crag cat, which most players probably haven't seen, gets to 16!
Couldn't you use the unarmored defense of the barbarian to calculate the AC of the wild shape forms from their stats instead of the natural armor? I know it might now always result in better AC but when it does it would be helpful.
Yes. And that increases the Giant Hyena's beefiness at CR 1 increasing AC by 2. The Brown Bear moves up to AC 13 making it slightly more viable, but mostly at this level it's Giant Hyena or Dire Wolf (Giant Hyena's AC goes up 2). The Giant Octopus and Giant Toad for swimmers both go up +1 in AC. Giant Eagle gets a +1 AC for flyers. CR 2 the Giant Constrictor goes up +1 making it even more viable. Making nearly everything else unnecessary. It swims and crawls, has AC 13 so it's still getting hit, but its beefier amd still gets the Restrain. No major changes to best beasts at CR 3. For elementals, Air, Fire, and Water all got a boost to AC 16 or above. Earth Elemental does not get a boost. That's a brief rundown.
Literaly just worked out the build to the weekend's session and then you launch this video for me to compare the ideas hahaha I looked in your channel yesterday and got sad that you didnt make this one yet. Love your videos man
Welcome back Colby!!! Really missed your content! Cool build! I've always been a big fan of tanking and this does so really well A couple suggestions I'd like to add: 1. Sentinel I'm surprised you never mentioned sentinel! If you have any ranged allies that an enemy wants to attack, you can effectively force them to attack you if they're melee or force disadvantage (from being close to you) if they're ranged This effectively doubles the enemies you taunt 2. Since you can choose where your equipment melds into your wild shape or your wild shape wears it... You can put 3 levels into Rune Knight fighter just to grab the stone and cloud rune to add CC to your kit and gives you a once per short rest attack redirect. Best of all, the DC is based on your constitution which means the chance of your CC landing is actually really good! This can save an ally from a nasty crit and redirect it to an enemy or yourself if it's a party v 1 scenario Yes you miss out on a couple of things but tbh you don't absolutely need a lot of the high level druid stuff and I think the fighting style, action surge to do some crazy things as a druid, and the extra CC and single use hard taunt are worth the 3 levels
For the fighting style, a cool thing you can do is get a maneuver You can either get an extra soft taunt so that in a case where you really need to soft taunt 3 enemies (one from ancestral barb, another from sentinel, and a third one from goading attack), you can Or menacing attack to add to your CC Frighten is, in many cases, the same as dropping an enemy's movement to 0
Talking about different tank subclasses and their differences, something important to note is that the Guardian Armorer can easily get into situations where their soft taunt doesn't work as hoped because of their super high AC. You can easily get into situations where it's still easier to hit the squishies than your Armorer even with disadvantage. You're still somewhat protecting them if you get lucky and the DM has one low roll per attack but you aren't really drawing attention to yourself like you're supposed to.
I missed you so much last week 😭 so glad your back with a Druid build even! My first character was a Druid so they’ll always have a special place in my heart
Colby: My favorite part of your videos is how to imagine characters and present them during gameplay. I strongly encourage you to emphasize that aspect. ❤️
Just discovered your content with the Moon Druid video and this is to enhance my Kalashtar Bear-barian Moon Druid. I really enjoy watching/listening, reminds me of listening to The Joy of Painting. Such a soothing presence. I look forward to checking out more builds.
I have to say there’s a lot of youtubers / content creators who come off as fake or that they are acting. You come off very authentic and genuine and it makes your episode soooo nice to watch and listen to. You’re doing great, love the build. Maybe sometime you could make a build based on what you would play as a more optimal build such as a caster like what spells would you take or what’s your favorite caster class / subclass.
I like the idea that when you transform into an elemental you take the form of a beast associated with it, earth bear, fire tiger, air eagle, water orca.
First: glad you had a good time in my neck of the woods! I grew up about half an hour fr Multnomah Falls. Second: I agree about the reckless attack soft taunt - as a DM I frequently try and crit fish on my barbarians, falling into the the barbarians "I have a full bucket of hp" trap.
One alternative build for this mixes moon Druid with astral self monk and hill dwarf. Monk abilities still apply during wild shape, so you max your wisdom and can use the astral self’s arms to make attacks and fury of blows if the beast’s stats are lacking. You also get the benefit of unarmored defense (Your wis + beast’s dex), faster movement, and other monk abilities. If your DM doesn’t like bears making unarmed strikes, then manifesting extra arms should remove doubt. The big play though comes at level 6 (4 AS monk, 2 moon Druid), when you can take Dwarven fortitude, which allows you to spend hit dice whenever you dodge. Each Wild Shape comes with its own pool of hit dice that you can now recover whenever you use patient defense to dodge as a bonus action, allowing you to recover wild shape hit points without using spell slots while reducing your damage taken. Add in the hill dwarves’ inherent tough feat and your wild shapes are up to twice the amount of hit points while maintaining the monks level of damage.
26:56 I would allow it at my table personally. Shifters are basically the entended family of lycanthropes, so my player would choose what kind of animal their shifter form represents, and whenever they shift they gain the physical features of that animal, and if they are wild shaped when they do that I would say the beast they turn into also takes on some of the physical features of their shifter animal. So if they turned into an Elephant and their shifter is a bear, I would say the elephant would grow short brown fur and have a mouth full of sharp teeth
Shillelagh won't really work for this build as Rage only applies to strength based attacks. I would love to see a monk moon druid although the rules are a little questionable (New wording for Tortles in MOM: "Claws. You have claws that you can use to make unarmed strikes." lends itself to bear martial arts.)
one thing that's really nice with this is that since so much of your health is coming from wildshape you can get almost a full heal from a short rest and you can get this heal multiple times every day (as opposed to hit dice where you only get half back and only on a long rest). obviously you dont get your spell slots back so you lose that healing but it's still very good.
@@yotuel9064 "Water Susceptibility: For every 5 ft. the elemental moves in water, or for every gallon of water splashed on it, it takes 1 cold damage." It damages you, but it's by no means lethal.
Very cool! It feels like your trip out to the Northwest inspired this character drawing on the power of nature. Hope it was refreshing and invigorating!
Colby is a dead look-alike from Homelander in the Boys! You should make a Colby build based off of that character. You just need flight and something to flavor as lasers shooting from the eyes!
It is SO beautiful up there, I was just in WA and Oregon for a couple weeks, I'm originally from MA and the difference was amazing. Definitely a great spot for a vacation.
I know you normally don’t use items, but I’d love to see your build to optimize the use of Mizzium Apparatus! My build for it is Knowledge Cleric 1/ Star Druid 2/ Divination Wizard X It is very fun to have access to almost all spells in the game! Haha
My favorite Moon Druid race (for flavor only) is Fairy. There's nothing quite like seeing an 18" tall Fairy flying straight at the Ogre, then turning into a 9' tall Brown Bear and mauling it! Cut to the bear shrinking back to Fairy form, now covered head-to-toe in Ogre gore and yelling, "are you not entertained!?"
I'm currently playing a 4/1 Bog Witch (moon druid/ great old one warlock) off-tank off-heals. It's a little MAD, but Armor of Agathys and being able to telepathically communicate are nice to have. I plan on going 6/2 so that I can get CR 2 wildshape, and agonizing/repelling blast with spike growth(fire wall etc). It's feeling pretty versatile. Loved the video, keep up the good work.
Cavalier is more backloaded, but if you go full cavalier, it basically answers all the qualms you mentioned. You get built in sentinel, you get an attack every turn if someone moves into range.
On the shifter/wild shape interplay, I’d probably take the “ehh, whatever” stance. The flavor text sounds a bit hinky together, but like you referenced, describe it as a particularly primordial version of your wild shape (like the pictures of dire animals in the 3.5 monster manual vs their mundane counterparts), it makes sense. The day I shut down someone’s power fantasy in the power fantasy game has yet to arrive.
yay! your back (: Hope you had a good break, iev been waiting for this build for a while! Thanks for making great content. Also: heres a build that ive been thinking about: Its an ansectral guardian/echo knight fighter build with the echo knights echos reflavoured as anscesters. I think this cuold be great with both of the protector abilities, throwing out ancestor echos to take the damage from one attack, then lessening the damage on another one, all while still having some pretty good survivability yourself with rage resistances and the massive amount of hit points that barbarians get. ALSO being able to do some pretty great nova and sustained damage with the fighter's action sureg and the amount of attacks they get.
I'd never multiclass away from druid in the early levels. If we are talking about a Moon Druid, I'd only consider picking a secondary class after level 10 or 11 (for the 6th level spells). Early on the Moon Druid is a strong presence simply by virtue of its Wild Shape and form versatility, they cannot be easily ignored. Only after 10, when you have most of your tools, that I see some benefit from multiclassing, and even then, you will be able to protect your party much better by controlling the battlefield, curing/healing and providing them supportive spells than simply by neat shielding and taking half damage from some damage types. This is why the Moon Druid is such a good tank, it doesn't have to pick and choose too much to be effective. The math here is a detriment, since it doesn't translate actual situations accurately. Thanks for the video =)
I love this build so much. I'm going to use it, but switch to a Fizban's Dragonborn for the race. I know it will cost my beast form some temp hp and ac, but there's just something epic about having a fire-breathing giant constrictor snake! Plus picking a Gold Metallic lineage means you get fire resistance as well.
You'll want Gem Dragonborn. They get free telepathy (practically indispensable for a Moon Druid, believe me, I've been playing a Loxodon Moon Druid for 3 years now and eventually broke down and took the Telepathic feat just so I could friggin' TALK); their breath weapon can be a much better damage type (Amethyst can be FORCE, or go Emerald if you want to be a Bearbarian with resistance to everything), and at level 5 you also get spectral wings that give any wildshape concentration-free flight (overcoming one of the biggest challenges to 99% of Moon Druid combat wildshapes: flying enemies!) I love my character but if I had a chance to do it over, I would 100% go with the Gem Dragonborn.
Re: stubble/beard growth - when it starts to get itchy, that’s when you start using a gentle shampoo instead of soap. Some people go the extra mile and start using beard oil at that point, but that’s too much commitment for me.
You made the right Barbarian Path choice for your protect the allies goal, but I so much wanted to see Shifter, Moon Druid, Path of the Beast Barbarian for total commitment to the theme.
For the race you could also go variant human, and pick up eldritch adept, taking armor of shadows which means you can cast mage armor at will which works with wildshape to get a pretty good AC if you use beasts with a high dex.
@@MeZimm you don't need to cast in wild shape because mage armor lasts 8 hours, and it does work in wild shape if you already have it up, just like any other spell.
@@Whiplash_MUSIC-hj7vp My bad! for some reason I thought Armor of Shadows was the one that gave you infinite castings of False Life. Never mind! Could also do Magic Initiate if you felt confident that 8 hours was all the time you needed...
Don't forget the unarmored defense! Sometimes you can get more armor than the natural armor of beasts (or elementals) Also for anyone interested in a more damage focused build rather than tanking, you can do virtually the same build but go 3 levels in zealot barb instead and 2 levels in paladin for smite damage.
So you know the story of the "Benandanti"? It's Italian folklore, they struggled with witches for the sake of good harvest. They were werewolves like creatures (in spiritual form) chosen by God at birth. This build its ideal to portrait one of them in one of my future campaign.
Crag cats are also quite good for challenge leve 1 beast. Very survivable against casters with higher dex and stealth to hide and pounce on targets. Worth a look at for those trying this build
On your comment of a 10 round fight against a dragon at level 9: I was in an AL game where the dragon fight took at least 9 rounds. And the breath weapon never recharged. We were level 5 (despite the module recommending level 4). The dragon knocked 2 of us unconscious 1st round of combat with his breath weapon, then kept hiding underwater (black dragon) only popping up to attack, then diving back under.
I opted for the Moon Druid / Astral Monk / Life Cleric route so I can wildshape into a Dire Wolf with Displacer Beast-like Astral Arms who can also hand out Lifeberries. Prioritizing Wisdom has allowed for me to have a pretty high AC on all the creatures I wildshape into using the Monk's unarmored defense.
Love this video cause I’m playing a variation of this build rn! But I’m actually a Kalashtar moon druid with 2 levels in druid and 2 in barb. Instead of path of the totem warrior that I initially planned, I’m going to lean more into this build to take ancestral guardian at 3rd barb level :)
It's worth mentioning another tanking option here; if you turn into a fire elemental instead of earth, you can reduce the damage of the infinite meteor swarm machine to a quarter, via immunity to fire plus resistance to bludgeoning damage, an eighth of the damage if you succeed the save, fully nullifying the fire ball instead, so...pretty good for that scenario xD
True but it can actually be better. Most wildshapes only make one attack per turn anyway, and very few exceed 2. (Extra Attack with Giant Scorpion also allows for 2 stinger attacks!) Also, unlike Multiattack, Extra Attack lets you grapple + shove prone in the same turn.
@@MeZimm So multiattack uses one attack action and allows for however many attacks within that multiattack includes (i.e. Claws + Bite). So you cant double the multiattack, nor can you use two claws instead of a bite and claw. If its a normal attack action, then Extra attack works as normal.
@@Kaas_ Yup. Actually, I don't think Multiattack even qualifies as an attack action, but as an alternative to the Attack action (or Dodge, Disengage, etc.) For most Moon Druids assuming the form of a Giant Scorpion, the SMART choice is to take the Multiattack action, which specifies making a particular set of attacks (two Claws and one Sting). But the Giant Scorpion's Claw and Sting are both listed as attacks, and therefore may also be employed individually by taking the Attack Action (similar to how a regular humanoid might be able to use Greataxe, Javelin, or Unarmed Strike as different attack options to use when taking the Attack action). The class feature Extra Attack says "you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn." Well, then, as a Giant Scorpion with the Extra Attack class feature: suppose I choose to take the Attack action. That lets me make an attack. Which attack do I choose to use for this action? Sting. And, look at that, my Extra Attack class feature allows me to attack twice, instead of once, by choosing the Attack action. Which attack will I choose for my second attack? Sting. Ergo, two Sting attacks with the Attack action :) I'm like... 90% sure that's how this works. And yes, it does imply that a Fighter 11/Druid 9 could make THREE Sting attacks every single turn as a Giant Scorpion, for whatever that's worth. I'm open to being shown I'm wrong but I think it's pretty solid. What do you think?
Had an idea for a build, I call it, "Stay Away." Essentially this creates an aura around thaem that primarily hinders the enemies around them, but secondary can benefit the allies near them. The first thing that comes to mind for me is Circle of Spores Druid and Maybe a Cleric or Bard or something to get aaccess to Spirit Guardians, COuld dip into Swarm Ranger, I dunno. Up to you and your creative build,. Hope you like the concept!
I recently tried making a build that works surprisingly well, and seems pretty fun. I call it *"Armorwatch"* and it's a Half-Elf Armorer Artificer + Watchers Paladin. (Artificer lvl.8 + Paladin lvl.12) Using point buy and Tasha's ASI rules. Str: 13 Dex: 8 Con: 14 Int: 17 Wis: 10 Cha: 14 Start with Artificer and take it to 5th level (bump Int and Str at 4th level, or just Int with a half feat). Then take 4 levels in Paladin and bump Int to 20. Back to Artificer 3 more levels (Artificer 8) and bump Con or Cha to 16. Finally back to Paladin for the rest of the way, bumping either Con or Cha with your remaining ASI's. Take the Enhanced Defense infusion and the Defense fighting style, and wear full plate armor. Works best if you get a free starting feat and take Tough, as I know many tables do free feats at 1st level, and with recent UA it seems like WoTC is headed in that direction. If your DM allows for your Paladin to have Two-Weapon Fighting as an option, then I recommend switching Defense out for TWF at Paladin's 4th level ASI using Martial Versatility, and then take the Dual Wielder feat instead of bumping Int.
Loved the video Colby! My only critique would be the fact that you didn’t mention the relic sloth as a CR 2 wildshape option. With a whopping 76 HP and grapple attacks, it makes a fantastic defender.
Depending on how your GM rules its application in wild shape, the loxodon also provides an interesting option for a moon druid. The Natural Armor feature gives you a flat 12+CON, allowing you to add shields to it. This lets you ignore dexterity and not worry about wearing metal armor, and most beasts would gain at least a small if not ridiculous boost to their AC with that calculation. A mammoth with 17 AC? A brown bear with 15? Only the heavily armored beasts like crabs and ankylosauruses would be better off using their own AC, but in those cases you can just do that.
I wanna put the idea out there for Ancestral Guardian Barbarian x Stars / Wildfire Druid. Archer Form allows for Ranger Attacks that trigger the AG amongst opening tons of non combat interactions. Wildfire Druid would allow for teleportation out of range and you’re likely to have more movement as a barbarian on top the 15 ft teleportation move. The Wildfire Guardian pairs really nicely with PAM too!
I think there was potentially room for the mobile feat here. The ancestral protectors feature allows for the rest of your party to be far more resilient from the damage caused by that single creature. Even the wizards/sorcerer would have more effective hitpoints that the barbarian at when crunching those numbers. The mobile feat would allow for the barbarians to run up, attack, and then move away slightly to safety. This may mitigate the negative effect reckless attack has on your defenses. It also allows for the party to make use of the entire party’s hitpoint pool rather than focusing on just the barbarians hitpoints. The spirit shield feature is wonderful since it can be used to reduce damage from any source. Falling, saving throws, or potentially even failed checks if that somehow happens. The resistance/disadvantage from attacks as well as the damage reduction from the reaction can go a long way toward ensuring a caster maintains concentration on a spell. Especially at higher levels when those concentration DC’s can become impossible to pass when taking massive damage.
For druid armor, I usually rule it that they just don't have proficiency in metal armor, but if you have another source giving yourself proficiency in medium armor, such as levels in barb, you can wear it. Also I usually have the shield flavored as wooden, unless it makes more sense from a story aspect for their shield to be metal. I also think using the shifter ability with Wild Shape is cool. I feel like it would be really lame for a player to not be able to do both. I probobly just usually flavor it as the animal having over-exaggerated features depending on what kind of shifter they are.
• Shadar-Kai for resistance to *all* damage after teleporting, which can be used while in Wild Shape • 3 levels of Undead Warlock for temporary hit points and imposing the frightened condition, both of which can eventually be used while Wild Shaped • Eldritch Invocations: Eldritch Mind (advantage on Concentration Checks for spells) & Gift of the Ever-Living Ones (regain maximum hit points from Combat Wild Shape) • Moon Druid 2 or 3 • Druid X or Warlock X • Cast a 1 Action or Bonus Action spell, but hold it until Wild Shaped • Wild Shape as Action or Bonus Action • Release spell Example: • Action = Cast Armor of Agathys, but hold it • Bonus Action = Wild Shape into Brown Bear • Action = Wild Shape into Giant Spider • Bonus Action = Form of Dread to be a more scary spider
@@alanschaub147 That is by far the most wildly appropriate resolution to the conundrum you could have possibly come up with, and it makes me actually want to play this character. Well done!
@@MeZimm Remember that Temporary hit points do not stack. For example, do not activate Form of Dread until the temporary hit points from Armor of Agathys run out. The hit points you regain from expending spell slots through Combat Wild Shape are real hit points, not temporary, so they will stack with temporary hit points. The animal’s hit points will not carry over to when you revert, but damage above that animal’s total remaining hit points does carry over. This is where Goodberry becomes vital. You also could probably find ways to deliver Goodberries to yourself and comrades during combat, depending on your Wild Shape. Spells like Pass Without Trace and Stealth Skills from Wild Shapes like Spider and Giant Spider make you sneakier than a Rogue. If you can pick something up, then you can bring it with you into Wild Shape. This could allow you to steal big things and then get them out without being noticed. If your DM allows you to use the optional rule for Wild Companion, then that gets super fun. Ask me how!
@@alanschaub147 Lol mine doesn't since our campaign predates Tasha's. But sure, I'll bite. Maybe I can convince him to allow it, perhaps as a reward of some kind (e.g. "you find a book that teaches you the art of converting wildshape uses into summoning familiars" or whatever.) (Do note that as a Moon Druid, my wildshape uses ARE unusually valuable for me to hold onto.)
It's not fair that Colby has a chiseled chin, a voice that could put a crying toddler to sleep, and can crunch numbers. Anyways, I appreciate further insight into druid tanking!
I actually had trouble listening to colby at first because of how soothing and calming his voice and cadence are.
Also I appreciate he doesn't have those annoying volume jumps many creators have in their vids.
Ha ha... awww. Thanks!
From the little I have communicated with him, he is just a stand-up decent and nice guy.
Scandinavian blood 😉
The giga chad of d&d
@@PalleRasmussen Scandinavian blood is ok but i prefer Canadian blood. its sweet from all that syrup.
"If you enjoy creating characters in D&D as much as you enjoy playing the actual game itself or you're just looking for ideas or tips or tricks on a character you're thinking about building then welcome home..." Thank you Colby.
I love that part.. mental relaxation
I also like the idea of not only ancestors showing up, but just the "Spirits of the Wild" or something to that effect. Like depending on what environment you're in, maybe the spirits take the form of animals local to that area, like snakes and scorpions for the desert or sharks and dolphins for the ocean, etc. Maybe your character's ancestors ARE animals, or druids that believe that when they die, they are reincarnated as animals. Very cool concept.
Level 1:(see above) [barbarian 1 & race]
Levels 2:(see above) [barbarian 2]
Levels 3:(@14:58) [barbarian 3 & sub-class]
Levels 4:(@18:35) [barbarian 4 & ASI]
Levels 5:(@19:16) [druid 1]
Levels 6:(@24:02) [druid 2 & sub-class]
Levels 7:(see above) [barbarian 5]
Levels 8:(@36:07) [barbarian 6]
Levels 9:(@37:31) [druid 3]
Levels 10:(see above) [druid 4 & ASI]
Levels 11:(@41:10) [druid 5]
Levels 12:(@41:34) [druid 6]
Levels 13:(@44:25) [druid 7]
Levels 14:(see above) [druid 8 & ASI]
Levels 15:(@48:36) [druid 9]
Levels 16:(@49:31) [druid 10]
Levels 17:(@50:26) [druid 11]
Thank you
@@Ian_Harrigan Colby does the work. I just assist when I can.
I have an idea for a video: While point buy is definitely the most reliable, it would be interesting to see your take on a character for a player who rolled AMAZING stats and another for a player who rolled ABYSMAL stats... Just curious how you might build around each of those. Love your videos, and hope you enjoyed California!
Really amazing stats? Paladin/sorcerer multiclass with maybe bladesinger if you can swing it.
Really garbage stats? Cleric or wizard and focus exclusively on buffs for the party or things that deal damage regardless of the saving throw.
Amazing stats :
Bladesinger+2-Paladin = Ultimate nova damage with Shadowblade + Smite!
Twilight Cleric + Ancients Paladin (7) + Glamour Bard (5) = Ultimate party protector
Necromancer+Oathbreaker Paladin = Ultimate villain with undead horde..
Divination Wizard + Glory Paladin = Ultimate hero..
Order Cleric + Dao Genie Warlock (3) = multiple ways for control while EBing away.
Ancestral Guardian Barbarian (5-6) + Undead Warlock = terrifying tank!
Terrible stats:
Shepherd Druid -> your summons deal damage for you completely independent of your stats, and your best Totem (Unicorn) scaled by your level not your stats so you are still an awesome healer at the same time.
Twilight Cleric -> can be played entirely as support as is amazing at it!
@@wesleykushner8028 Druid would also be great as most of their spells needs a higher con than wis
The default answer to really bad stats is just straight Moon Druid.
@@wesleykushner8028 similarly with the low stats, I did a melee-based divine sorcerer with a 13 CHA, and just chose mostly self-focused spells: enhanced ability, shield, mirror image, blink, see invisibility . . . things that didn’t rely on my spell DC being particularly high. Worked perfectly for the type of game we were playing.
For the race: Levistus Tieflings can cast Armor of Agathys and can take Infernal Constitution to get res to fire cold and poison dmg
Holy crap, I can't believe that I ever forgot this.
So many other tank casters that would be great at tieflings
Only problem is the 1/day at second level and you can’t use other spell slots for it
That's true! Love a variant tiefling, and you don't always hear so much about them. I can't remember off the top of my head whether that's been officially updated to let you cast with spell slots or if RAW is still f'rex one second-level Armor of Agathys per day, but I'd argue either way that "cast 'em if you got 'em" for ancestry and/or feat spells has become functionally RAI in the post-Tasha's world. (Rules As You'd Probably Better Allow At Your Table Unless You Hella Love Fey/Shadow Touched Custom Lineage Builds? Doesn't really scan.)
DM permitting - Mark of Warding Dwarf also have access to Armor of Agathys but requires spell slots in order to cast the spell
@@SarJulem Wow, I forgot about Variant Tieflings *and* Eberron marks XD
I'd also recommend the "Emotional Support Vest" Shield. When a druid attuned to this shield uses wild shape, the shield automatically shifts with the druid into a vest that fits the animal form. The new Support Vest provides +2 AC to the animal form. The vest also allows passage in populated areas if applicable. "What are you doing bringing a dire wolf into town?" "It's ok, it's my emotional support dire wolf. See the vest?"
lol
Is it a joke or an actual item because I can't find it
@@googloocraft12 Homebrew
Great homebrew
When you say “Hello There” I always think to myself “General Kenobi!”
That or whistle like a little lost droid.
An interesting strategy my moon druid player pulled in my game last night, as an air elemental she occupied an NPCs area to give them cover from attacks. It doesn't come online until higher levels, but as a strategy to cover an ally it was really effective. Throw on a couple of barbarian levels and that could be a terrifyingly effective tank build.
I am a simple person, I see a D4 video and click like hahsahsa. I'm looking forward to the day that you put together a live character. That would be a lot of fun
R.A.W. “You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so.”; and the rules state that’s the only restriction. You can use the unarmed defense bonus to AC and gain 10+ movement speed to all wildshapes. Technically this would apply to extra attack on all wild shapes, (excluding use of multi attack, as that must be the full action) since extra attack is a class feature you unlock. You also retain your skill proficiencies! So when a raging Brown bear decides to grapple with Athletics, he will do so and taunt even further.
Ps. Beg your DM for the item that gives wild shapes magical damage, playing at lvl 6-10 with normal claws feels bad in many encounters.
-Enjoy, Druids are busted :)
Elementals can speak, so when you hit Druid 10, you *can* taunt while in Wild Shape.
Regarding druid not being able to wear metal armor, at my table we always come up with alternative materials for the armor so to not force players into having lower AC. Bone breastplate was my favorite so far.
I propose giving this build the title Ancestral Moon. It sounds...ominous, but not in a spine tingle creepy ominous, more like a beacon of light shining on some object ominous.
Nice!
Just wanted to thank you for your channel Colby! I watched a lot of your awesome vids the past months and now that I’m busy training in oral surgery and hospital dentistry, getting to listen to you again makes the weekend the perfect respite. God bless!
Thanks! Glad you enjoy ☺️
I feel like this time we should be welcoming Colby home this time around.
Thanks for the content, happy to have you back!
Hey! Ancestral barbs! My favourite underrated subclass!! Really glad you took the Classic moon druid/totem barb and made made it way better by using an ancestral barb!!
This build is SUPREME. I would love to play it, even more than the bladesinger tank. Amazing. Thank you for this inspiration!
I love the ancestral barbarian. I still like the idea of a fairy barbarian that uses ranged attacks and flying to prevent enemies from attacking you, but giving your party resistance to the damage and disadvantage to be hit.
In my game universes, Druids have always been the most dangerous casters around -- glad to see you leveraging them more heheheh
I'm just getting into D&D and your videos have been a treasure trove of useful information for someone like me. Highly underrated channel, thanks so much for what you're doing sir!
Can confirm, Moon Druids very much stay interesting. Bored of a certain form? There's a hundred others to choose from! Bored of melee and the "I attack" format of turn-taking? Just drop your wild shape and become an entire full caster with a range of options including area denial, aoe damage, single-target damage, control spells, and even buffing and healing!
I played one for most of a campaign and I switched my playstyle between battles quite a bit. I tended to do it between battles and between sessions depending on what was needed or available (Wild Shape was sometimes impeded by having spent them or not having the space for it), and sometimes based on just wanting to throw spells, but you could switch mid-combat pretty well too if you get super-suddenly bored of a specific playstyle. Or if you get knocked out of Wild Shape twice in one fight :p
Loved this week’s build! Hope you had a relaxing vacation but it is fun to have you back!
I'd just like to say Colby, really love the videos and I'm a long time viewer first time commenter. You're a very charismatic guy, easy to listen to and extremely informative. Can really tell you know what you're talking about and the ideas are often quite creative. Keep posting great content. :)
The whole shifting with wildshape just sounds cool. Like imagining the beast being a weird kind of feral version of the beast.
Glad you were in my neighborhood for vacation! Multnomah Falls is a glorious hike.
Holy potatoes! This is so close to my current PC, who I designed before I started obsessively watching your videos! Biggest DND honor ever.
Edit: Did you remember to apply the Unarmored defense to your wildshape options? The brown bear gets up to 13, which I think makes it by far the best overall wildshape with rage, the giant hyena gets to 14, making it ideal for survivability, and the crag cat, which most players probably haven't seen, gets to 16!
Couldn't you use the unarmored defense of the barbarian to calculate the AC of the wild shape forms from their stats instead of the natural armor? I know it might now always result in better AC but when it does it would be helpful.
Possibly! Need to revisit the Beast table and see which ones have a good Con AND Dex...
@@DnDDeepDive I did this a few years ago, it results in a +1 for most of the beasts I used.
Absolutely you can. You get to choose which one based on which is better too
Yes. And that increases the Giant Hyena's beefiness at CR 1 increasing AC by 2.
The Brown Bear moves up to AC 13 making it slightly more viable, but mostly at this level it's Giant Hyena or Dire Wolf (Giant Hyena's AC goes up 2). The Giant Octopus and Giant Toad for swimmers both go up +1 in AC. Giant Eagle gets a +1 AC for flyers.
CR 2 the Giant Constrictor goes up +1 making it even more viable. Making nearly everything else unnecessary. It swims and crawls, has AC 13 so it's still getting hit, but its beefier amd still gets the Restrain.
No major changes to best beasts at CR 3.
For elementals, Air, Fire, and Water all got a boost to AC 16 or above. Earth Elemental does not get a boost.
That's a brief rundown.
Looking at the elementals here.
Literaly just worked out the build to the weekend's session and then you launch this video for me to compare the ideas hahaha I looked in your channel yesterday and got sad that you didnt make this one yet. Love your videos man
Oh nice! I live like 30min from the falls, gorgeous area! Colby you're my DnD spirit animal, love the channel!
*howls at the moon*
Welcome back Colby!!! Really missed your content!
Cool build! I've always been a big fan of tanking and this does so really well
A couple suggestions I'd like to add:
1. Sentinel
I'm surprised you never mentioned sentinel! If you have any ranged allies that an enemy wants to attack, you can effectively force them to attack you if they're melee or force disadvantage (from being close to you) if they're ranged
This effectively doubles the enemies you taunt
2. Since you can choose where your equipment melds into your wild shape or your wild shape wears it... You can put 3 levels into Rune Knight fighter just to grab the stone and cloud rune to add CC to your kit and gives you a once per short rest attack redirect. Best of all, the DC is based on your constitution which means the chance of your CC landing is actually really good!
This can save an ally from a nasty crit and redirect it to an enemy or yourself if it's a party v 1 scenario
Yes you miss out on a couple of things but tbh you don't absolutely need a lot of the high level druid stuff and I think the fighting style, action surge to do some crazy things as a druid, and the extra CC and single use hard taunt are worth the 3 levels
For the fighting style, a cool thing you can do is get a maneuver
You can either get an extra soft taunt so that in a case where you really need to soft taunt 3 enemies (one from ancestral barb, another from sentinel, and a third one from goading attack), you can
Or menacing attack to add to your CC
Frighten is, in many cases, the same as dropping an enemy's movement to 0
welcome back, hope the vacation was great. You give me quite a bit of inspiration when building characters. Thanks for all of your content.
Talking about different tank subclasses and their differences, something important to note is that the Guardian Armorer can easily get into situations where their soft taunt doesn't work as hoped because of their super high AC. You can easily get into situations where it's still easier to hit the squishies than your Armorer even with disadvantage. You're still somewhat protecting them if you get lucky and the DM has one low roll per attack but you aren't really drawing attention to yourself like you're supposed to.
Funny, I live in Portland and you came to my hometown whilst I was in Sweden! Glad you enjoyed my neck of the woods (quite literally)!!!
I missed you so much last week 😭 so glad your back with a Druid build even! My first character was a Druid so they’ll always have a special place in my heart
Colby: My favorite part of your videos is how to imagine characters and present them during gameplay.
I strongly encourage you to emphasize that aspect. ❤️
The beard. It’s here. It’s back. Yes. YEEEES. And one of my favorite concept.
(Druid tank is the favorite concep I mean. Sorry, the more you have beard the less I have brain)
Just discovered your content with the Moon Druid video and this is to enhance my Kalashtar Bear-barian Moon Druid. I really enjoy watching/listening, reminds me of listening to The Joy of Painting. Such a soothing presence. I look forward to checking out more builds.
I have to say there’s a lot of youtubers / content creators who come off as fake or that they are acting. You come off very authentic and genuine and it makes your episode soooo nice to watch and listen to. You’re doing great, love the build. Maybe sometime you could make a build based on what you would play as a more optimal build such as a caster like what spells would you take or what’s your favorite caster class / subclass.
Not to say this isn’t optimal, almost all of your builds are a really cool concept with a good amount of power.
I like the idea that when you transform into an elemental you take the form of a beast associated with it, earth bear, fire tiger, air eagle, water orca.
First: glad you had a good time in my neck of the woods! I grew up about half an hour fr Multnomah Falls.
Second: I agree about the reckless attack soft taunt - as a DM I frequently try and crit fish on my barbarians, falling into the the barbarians "I have a full bucket of hp" trap.
My dm ruled that unarmored defense works on wild shape so a lot of these beast get a bump to AC which is just *chefs kiss*.
One alternative build for this mixes moon Druid with astral self monk and hill dwarf. Monk abilities still apply during wild shape, so you max your wisdom and can use the astral self’s arms to make attacks and fury of blows if the beast’s stats are lacking. You also get the benefit of unarmored defense (Your wis + beast’s dex), faster movement, and other monk abilities. If your DM doesn’t like bears making unarmed strikes, then manifesting extra arms should remove doubt.
The big play though comes at level 6 (4 AS monk, 2 moon Druid), when you can take Dwarven fortitude, which allows you to spend hit dice whenever you dodge. Each Wild Shape comes with its own pool of hit dice that you can now recover whenever you use patient defense to dodge as a bonus action, allowing you to recover wild shape hit points without using spell slots while reducing your damage taken. Add in the hill dwarves’ inherent tough feat and your wild shapes are up to twice the amount of hit points while maintaining the monks level of damage.
Hope you enjoyed your week off! Glad to have you back
26:56 I would allow it at my table personally. Shifters are basically the entended family of lycanthropes, so my player would choose what kind of animal their shifter form represents, and whenever they shift they gain the physical features of that animal, and if they are wild shaped when they do that I would say the beast they turn into also takes on some of the physical features of their shifter animal. So if they turned into an Elephant and their shifter is a bear, I would say the elephant would grow short brown fur and have a mouth full of sharp teeth
Shillelagh won't really work for this build as Rage only applies to strength based attacks. I would love to see a monk moon druid although the rules are a little questionable (New wording for Tortles in MOM: "Claws. You have claws that you can use to make unarmed strikes." lends itself to bear martial arts.)
truth
Kung fu panda!
This is a great video to send to my sister. She is currently playing a level 6 ancestral barbarian and is considering multi classing druid
one thing that's really nice with this is that since so much of your health is coming from wildshape you can get almost a full heal from a short rest and you can get this heal multiple times every day (as opposed to hit dice where you only get half back and only on a long rest). obviously you dont get your spell slots back so you lose that healing but it's still very good.
My new favorite build. Third time in a row.
So excited for this, I clicked as soon as I saw the notification!
If you know you are likely to soak a Meteor Swarm you could always go for a Fire Elemental! You would straight up ignore all that fire damage
The problem with the fire elemental its that a little bit of water its lethal.
@@yotuel9064 "Water Susceptibility: For every 5 ft. the elemental moves in water, or for every gallon of water splashed on it, it takes 1 cold damage." It damages you, but it's by no means lethal.
@@thewordywarlock7159 All someone has to do is cast Tidal Wave and you're dead
The fighting octopus on land, or ship-deck, is super tough! I DMed a frequent sucker-monkey, and he was a real pain in the patootie!
Glad you're back and had a good vacation
I'm glad to see you again, I hope you enjoy a more than well deserved holidays. Always nice to see your wonderful job 🥰
Very cool! It feels like your trip out to the Northwest inspired this character drawing on the power of nature. Hope it was refreshing and invigorating!
Welcome back, Colby! Hope you all had a nice vacation.
Colby is a dead look-alike from Homelander in the Boys! You should make a Colby build based off of that character. You just need flight and something to flavor as lasers shooting from the eyes!
It is SO beautiful up there, I was just in WA and Oregon for a couple weeks, I'm originally from MA and the difference was amazing. Definitely a great spot for a vacation.
Where in MA?
@@ericmunnisjr4763 Essex County, about 30-40 minutes outside of Boston. You from the area?
@@Ravynsrage Lowell lol
I know you normally don’t use items, but I’d love to see your build to optimize the use of Mizzium Apparatus!
My build for it is Knowledge Cleric 1/ Star Druid 2/ Divination Wizard X
It is very fun to have access to almost all spells in the game! Haha
Welcome back and grats on the vacation!
My favorite Moon Druid race (for flavor only) is Fairy. There's nothing quite like seeing an 18" tall Fairy flying straight at the Ogre, then turning into a 9' tall Brown Bear and mauling it! Cut to the bear shrinking back to Fairy form, now covered head-to-toe in Ogre gore and yelling, "are you not entertained!?"
Always fun to see every different build, love this channel.
I'm currently playing a 4/1 Bog Witch (moon druid/ great old one warlock) off-tank off-heals. It's a little MAD, but Armor of Agathys and being able to telepathically communicate are nice to have. I plan on going 6/2 so that I can get CR 2 wildshape, and agonizing/repelling blast with spike growth(fire wall etc). It's feeling pretty versatile. Loved the video, keep up the good work.
Cavalier is more backloaded, but if you go full cavalier, it basically answers all the qualms you mentioned. You get built in sentinel, you get an attack every turn if someone moves into range.
On the shifter/wild shape interplay, I’d probably take the “ehh, whatever” stance. The flavor text sounds a bit hinky together, but like you referenced, describe it as a particularly primordial version of your wild shape (like the pictures of dire animals in the 3.5 monster manual vs their mundane counterparts), it makes sense. The day I shut down someone’s power fantasy in the power fantasy game has yet to arrive.
yay! your back (: Hope you had a good break, iev been waiting for this build for a while! Thanks for making great content. Also: heres a build that ive been thinking about: Its an ansectral guardian/echo knight fighter build with the echo knights echos reflavoured as anscesters. I think this cuold be great with both of the protector abilities, throwing out ancestor echos to take the damage from one attack, then lessening the damage on another one, all while still having some pretty good survivability yourself with rage resistances and the massive amount of hit points that barbarians get. ALSO being able to do some pretty great nova and sustained damage with the fighter's action sureg and the amount of attacks they get.
I'd never multiclass away from druid in the early levels. If we are talking about a Moon Druid, I'd only consider picking a secondary class after level 10 or 11 (for the 6th level spells). Early on the Moon Druid is a strong presence simply by virtue of its Wild Shape and form versatility, they cannot be easily ignored.
Only after 10, when you have most of your tools, that I see some benefit from multiclassing, and even then, you will be able to protect your party much better by controlling the battlefield, curing/healing and providing them supportive spells than simply by neat shielding and taking half damage from some damage types.
This is why the Moon Druid is such a good tank, it doesn't have to pick and choose too much to be effective. The math here is a detriment, since it doesn't translate actual situations accurately.
Thanks for the video =)
I love this build so much. I'm going to use it, but switch to a Fizban's Dragonborn for the race. I know it will cost my beast form some temp hp and ac, but there's just something epic about having a fire-breathing giant constrictor snake! Plus picking a Gold Metallic lineage means you get fire resistance as well.
You'll want Gem Dragonborn. They get free telepathy (practically indispensable for a Moon Druid, believe me, I've been playing a Loxodon Moon Druid for 3 years now and eventually broke down and took the Telepathic feat just so I could friggin' TALK); their breath weapon can be a much better damage type (Amethyst can be FORCE, or go Emerald if you want to be a Bearbarian with resistance to everything), and at level 5 you also get spectral wings that give any wildshape concentration-free flight (overcoming one of the biggest challenges to 99% of Moon Druid combat wildshapes: flying enemies!)
I love my character but if I had a chance to do it over, I would 100% go with the Gem Dragonborn.
Re: stubble/beard growth - when it starts to get itchy, that’s when you start using a gentle shampoo instead of soap. Some people go the extra mile and start using beard oil at that point, but that’s too much commitment for me.
You made the right Barbarian Path choice for your protect the allies goal, but I so much wanted to see Shifter, Moon Druid, Path of the Beast Barbarian for total commitment to the theme.
For the race you could also go variant human, and pick up eldritch adept, taking armor of shadows which means you can cast mage armor at will which works with wildshape to get a pretty good AC if you use beasts with a high dex.
Sadly you can't cast spells in wildshape, even "at will" casting of spells. Unless your DM likes the idea, of course, but I don't think it works RAW.
@@MeZimm you don't need to cast in wild shape because mage armor lasts 8 hours, and it does work in wild shape if you already have it up, just like any other spell.
@@Whiplash_MUSIC-hj7vp My bad! for some reason I thought Armor of Shadows was the one that gave you infinite castings of False Life. Never mind!
Could also do Magic Initiate if you felt confident that 8 hours was all the time you needed...
44:40
Giant constrictor snake with fire shield...
Have you ever heard of a Boitatá?
Don't forget the unarmored defense! Sometimes you can get more armor than the natural armor of beasts (or elementals)
Also for anyone interested in a more damage focused build rather than tanking, you can do virtually the same build but go 3 levels in zealot barb instead and 2 levels in paladin for smite damage.
Just watched your first video; your presentation skills have come a long way.
So good to hear your voice again 😄😄 I will see this one later tonight , sooo impatient !
Toad the wet sprocket is the best. I saw a cover band of them called Frog The Soggy Cog . Love all their music.
Love your builds, Colby
So you know the story of the "Benandanti"? It's Italian folklore, they struggled with witches for the sake of good harvest. They were werewolves like creatures (in spiritual form) chosen by God at birth. This build its ideal to portrait one of them in one of my future campaign.
Crag cats are also quite good for challenge leve 1 beast. Very survivable against casters with higher dex and stealth to hide and pounce on targets. Worth a look at for those trying this build
On your comment of a 10 round fight against a dragon at level 9: I was in an AL game where the dragon fight took at least 9 rounds. And the breath weapon never recharged. We were level 5 (despite the module recommending level 4). The dragon knocked 2 of us unconscious 1st round of combat with his breath weapon, then kept hiding underwater (black dragon) only popping up to attack, then diving back under.
Welcome home this is where you belong! Love you!
I opted for the Moon Druid / Astral Monk / Life Cleric route so I can wildshape into a Dire Wolf with Displacer Beast-like Astral Arms who can also hand out Lifeberries. Prioritizing Wisdom has allowed for me to have a pretty high AC on all the creatures I wildshape into using the Monk's unarmored defense.
Love this video cause I’m playing a variation of this build rn! But I’m actually a Kalashtar moon druid with 2 levels in druid and 2 in barb. Instead of path of the totem warrior that I initially planned, I’m going to lean more into this build to take ancestral guardian at 3rd barb level :)
It's worth mentioning another tanking option here; if you turn into a fire elemental instead of earth, you can reduce the damage of the infinite meteor swarm machine to a quarter, via immunity to fire plus resistance to bludgeoning damage, an eighth of the damage if you succeed the save, fully nullifying the fire ball instead, so...pretty good for that scenario xD
Thanks for pointing out the giant Crayfish, and the analysis of AC vs HP bags.
I think it should be made known that Extra attack will not work with the wild shapes 'Multiattack'
True but it can actually be better. Most wildshapes only make one attack per turn anyway, and very few exceed 2. (Extra Attack with Giant Scorpion also allows for 2 stinger attacks!) Also, unlike Multiattack, Extra Attack lets you grapple + shove prone in the same turn.
@@MeZimm So multiattack uses one attack action and allows for however many attacks within that multiattack includes (i.e. Claws + Bite). So you cant double the multiattack, nor can you use two claws instead of a bite and claw. If its a normal attack action, then Extra attack works as normal.
@@Kaas_ Yup. Actually, I don't think Multiattack even qualifies as an attack action, but as an alternative to the Attack action (or Dodge, Disengage, etc.)
For most Moon Druids assuming the form of a Giant Scorpion, the SMART choice is to take the Multiattack action, which specifies making a particular set of attacks (two Claws and one Sting).
But the Giant Scorpion's Claw and Sting are both listed as attacks, and therefore may also be employed individually by taking the Attack Action (similar to how a regular humanoid might be able to use Greataxe, Javelin, or Unarmed Strike as different attack options to use when taking the Attack action).
The class feature Extra Attack says "you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn."
Well, then, as a Giant Scorpion with the Extra Attack class feature: suppose I choose to take the Attack action. That lets me make an attack. Which attack do I choose to use for this action? Sting.
And, look at that, my Extra Attack class feature allows me to attack twice, instead of once, by choosing the Attack action. Which attack will I choose for my second attack? Sting.
Ergo, two Sting attacks with the Attack action :)
I'm like... 90% sure that's how this works. And yes, it does imply that a Fighter 11/Druid 9 could make THREE Sting attacks every single turn as a Giant Scorpion, for whatever that's worth. I'm open to being shown I'm wrong but I think it's pretty solid. What do you think?
Had an idea for a build, I call it, "Stay Away." Essentially this creates an aura around thaem that primarily hinders the enemies around them, but secondary can benefit the allies near them.
The first thing that comes to mind for me is Circle of Spores Druid and Maybe a Cleric or Bard or something to get aaccess to Spirit Guardians, COuld dip into Swarm Ranger, I dunno. Up to you and your creative build,. Hope you like the concept!
"I paid for 516 hit points, I'm gonna use 516 hit points"
I recently tried making a build that works surprisingly well, and seems pretty fun. I call it *"Armorwatch"* and it's a Half-Elf Armorer Artificer + Watchers Paladin. (Artificer lvl.8 + Paladin lvl.12)
Using point buy and Tasha's ASI rules.
Str: 13
Dex: 8
Con: 14
Int: 17
Wis: 10
Cha: 14
Start with Artificer and take it to 5th level (bump Int and Str at 4th level, or just Int with a half feat). Then take 4 levels in Paladin and bump Int to 20. Back to Artificer 3 more levels (Artificer 8) and bump Con or Cha to 16. Finally back to Paladin for the rest of the way, bumping either Con or Cha with your remaining ASI's.
Take the Enhanced Defense infusion and the Defense fighting style, and wear full plate armor. Works best if you get a free starting feat and take Tough, as I know many tables do free feats at 1st level, and with recent UA it seems like WoTC is headed in that direction.
If your DM allows for your Paladin to have Two-Weapon Fighting as an option, then I recommend switching Defense out for TWF at Paladin's 4th level ASI using Martial Versatility, and then take the Dual Wielder feat instead of bumping Int.
this man just makes a tank out of every class holy shit i love you so much colby
Loved the video Colby! My only critique would be the fact that you didn’t mention the relic sloth as a CR 2 wildshape option. With a whopping 76 HP and grapple attacks, it makes a fantastic defender.
Depending on how your GM rules its application in wild shape, the loxodon also provides an interesting option for a moon druid.
The Natural Armor feature gives you a flat 12+CON, allowing you to add shields to it. This lets you ignore dexterity and not worry about wearing metal armor, and most beasts would gain at least a small if not ridiculous boost to their AC with that calculation. A mammoth with 17 AC? A brown bear with 15? Only the heavily armored beasts like crabs and ankylosauruses would be better off using their own AC, but in those cases you can just do that.
I wanna put the idea out there for Ancestral Guardian Barbarian x Stars / Wildfire Druid. Archer Form allows for Ranger Attacks that trigger the AG amongst opening tons of non combat interactions. Wildfire Druid would allow for teleportation out of range and you’re likely to have more movement as a barbarian on top the 15 ft teleportation move. The Wildfire Guardian pairs really nicely with PAM too!
Scruffy-looking (as in Leia telling Han) actually looks good on you!
I think there was potentially room for the mobile feat here.
The ancestral protectors feature allows for the rest of your party to be far more resilient from the damage caused by that single creature. Even the wizards/sorcerer would have more effective hitpoints that the barbarian at when crunching those numbers.
The mobile feat would allow for the barbarians to run up, attack, and then move away slightly to safety. This may mitigate the negative effect reckless attack has on your defenses. It also allows for the party to make use of the entire party’s hitpoint pool rather than focusing on just the barbarians hitpoints.
The spirit shield feature is wonderful since it can be used to reduce damage from any source. Falling, saving throws, or potentially even failed checks if that somehow happens.
The resistance/disadvantage from attacks as well as the damage reduction from the reaction can go a long way toward ensuring a caster maintains concentration on a spell. Especially at higher levels when those concentration DC’s can become impossible to pass when taking massive damage.
good to see that you finished your initiation😉
For druid armor, I usually rule it that they just don't have proficiency in metal armor, but if you have another source giving yourself proficiency in medium armor, such as levels in barb, you can wear it. Also I usually have the shield flavored as wooden, unless it makes more sense from a story aspect for their shield to be metal.
I also think using the shifter ability with Wild Shape is cool. I feel like it would be really lame for a player to not be able to do both. I probobly just usually flavor it as the animal having over-exaggerated features depending on what kind of shifter they are.
• Shadar-Kai for resistance to *all* damage after teleporting, which can be used while in Wild Shape
• 3 levels of Undead Warlock for temporary hit points and imposing the frightened condition, both of which can eventually be used while Wild Shaped
• Eldritch Invocations: Eldritch Mind (advantage on Concentration Checks for spells) & Gift of the Ever-Living Ones (regain maximum hit points from Combat Wild Shape)
• Moon Druid 2 or 3
• Druid X or Warlock X
• Cast a 1 Action or Bonus Action spell, but hold it until Wild Shaped
• Wild Shape as Action or Bonus Action
• Release spell
Example:
• Action = Cast Armor of Agathys, but hold it
• Bonus Action = Wild Shape into Brown Bear
• Action = Wild Shape into Giant Spider
• Bonus Action = Form of Dread to be a more scary spider
That'd make for one hell of a story... a Moon Druid who makes a pact with a Lich... what could possibly result in such a bizarre conflict of interest?
@@alanschaub147 That is by far the most wildly appropriate resolution to the conundrum you could have possibly come up with, and it makes me actually want to play this character. Well done!
@@MeZimm Sweet! ☺️
@@MeZimm Remember that Temporary hit points do not stack. For example, do not activate Form of Dread until the temporary hit points from Armor of Agathys run out.
The hit points you regain from expending spell slots through Combat Wild Shape are real hit points, not temporary, so they will stack with temporary hit points.
The animal’s hit points will not carry over to when you revert, but damage above that animal’s total remaining hit points does carry over. This is where Goodberry becomes vital. You also could probably find ways to deliver Goodberries to yourself and comrades during combat, depending on your Wild Shape.
Spells like Pass Without Trace and Stealth Skills from Wild Shapes like Spider and Giant Spider make you sneakier than a Rogue.
If you can pick something up, then you can bring it with you into Wild Shape. This could allow you to steal big things and then get them out without being noticed.
If your DM allows you to use the optional rule for Wild Companion, then that gets super fun. Ask me how!
@@alanschaub147 Lol mine doesn't since our campaign predates Tasha's. But sure, I'll bite. Maybe I can convince him to allow it, perhaps as a reward of some kind (e.g. "you find a book that teaches you the art of converting wildshape uses into summoning familiars" or whatever.) (Do note that as a Moon Druid, my wildshape uses ARE unusually valuable for me to hold onto.)
all in all -- this was a total blast!
This build reminds me of my werebear shifter moon druid that picked three levels in monk and got draconic powers