I'm only going to wild shape for scouting, so the spiders and the cat will be most useful to me. I'm also a water genasi, octopus might be useful if I really need it
TRUUUE, the only time I wildshaped with my brand new druid before he got consumed by druidic energy (long story) was into a spider to unlock the inside of a chamber 😂
My new dnd player transformed into a spider and saved the group from having a rickety bridge cut down while they walked across. Two enemies on the other end tried to cut it down, she pulled up behind em and disarmed one, then when giant hyena and killed 5 more later. Now she loves playing and puts more effort then the rest of my party. Such a win for me too.
Alright, here’s some circle of the moon high level Druid Tec skill: If you can wild shape into an elephant or a mammoth, you float yourself in the air via reverse gravity and then land on top of your opponent and crush them. Then your DM tells you no.
My moon circle druid once wildshaped into a rat, then was thrown 30ft into the air by the paladin while shouting "Pikachu I choose you" an then changing to a brown bear mid air effectively oneshoting one acolyte and making the other one run away in fear because a bear fell from the sky
@@jabincourson6750 Huh? Jackalweres aren't available for wildshape as they're not beasts? Unless you literally mean being turned into one as a moon druid
Or pull a Maui and first transform into a tiny flier like a sparrow or bug to get your height, then as a bonus action drop [literally] into a mammoth right onto the enemy.
Brown Bears are larger, more aggressive, and all around significantly more dangerous than black bears, so it makes perfect sense that the brown bear is stronger in DnD.
I think you're wrong about the Deinonychus getting worse damage by using Pounce. Pounce is listed as a trait, not an action, and only requires you to hit with a claw attack which is part of its Multiattack action, so as long as you can move far enough you just get to try for the prone for free, and if you get it then you get to bonus action Bite attack for a total of 4 in one round, which is huge for that CR.
@@Fistminer incorrect. The ability says it has to hit with a claw attack on the same turn it moved twenty feet, not that it has to hit it's next claw attack after moving twenty feet
And since you can choose the order of attacks, that's a potential 2 bite attacks and one class attack with advantage of the first claw attack leads to a knockdown. That thing just rate your face
I think you misunderstood the deinonychus’ pounce feature. The pounce can be a part of it’s regular multi attack, so it can actually have up to four attacks on a single turn, and 3 of them with advantage if it successfully knocks the target prone with its first claw attack.
I'm actually a fan of the Giant Spider, which definitely should have gotten a spot here. Its sheer stats and damage are a bit lower than the other CR 1 creatures listed here, but it has excellent combat utility in certain environments. Spider Climb to get into spots where enemies can't reach you, Darkvision AND Blindsight so you never have to bother getting disadvantage by not seeing an enemy, and most importantly, the Web attack, a useful ranged crowd control (which is extremely rare for beasts to have). The web can be broken, but that takes an action for the target.
5:03 Yeah pack tactics can get scary. I combined conjure animals and my druid wildshape to make 9 wolves. Not only did this basically make my druid difficult to target cause he was indistinguishable from the conjured wolves, but the 9 of them were averaging about 40-50 damage a round.
As someone who almost exclusively uses wildshape to disguise myself as the wizard’s familiar to hide from the cops, this is actually really helpful to keep track of what I could be using it for instead 😆
> be me, lvl 4 Kobold Druid of the Stars > we see a guard blocking a door > I tell the Tiefling Primeval Guardian Ranger that I have a plan > he's trusting so he agrees > that poor, foolish boy > Ranger grapples guard > I transform into Lizard > I crawl up guard's asshole > Tiefling Ranger let’s the bandit go > I transform into a crocodile and perform a death roll inside the guard > guard explodes > most of the party is horrified > Lizardman Necromancer and I are happy to have the extra food > Ranger vomits > I am no longer allowed to do that EVER again > worth it
I think you misunderstood the Deinonychus' pounce ability. I don't know that there's an official ruling, but the most common interpretation I've seen is that Pounce will knock the target prone even if your claw attack is part of the Multiattack. As a result, it gets Claw, another Claw with advantage, and two bites with advantage for ~24 damage. Even if the first claw attack misses you would still knock the target prone if the second one hits and get two bites with advantage again. It's still a glass cannon, but the "cannon" part is a bit stronger than you presented.
I always surprised when Panther doesn't make these lists. It's my favorite to use due to the pounce mechanic. I guess I just play my druid differently. Glad to learn
they made new versions of the winter wolf and bulette that are "young, or juvenile" and they count as beasts...for some reason, but they didnt errata the old versions to count too so, idk.. also, like, come on, why not owl bears, they arent strong in any way theyre just flavor bears. Side note, the young bulette cant burrow..like? the hell? and the young frost wolf is just a reskinned wolf, it has nothing special
Giant poisonous snake, cast fog cloud then turn into it. It has blindsight so you can see, you have advantage on all attacks and everyone has disadvantage on attacks against you. With the really high damage and still doing half of the poison damage on a successful saving throw it’s one of the best ones in my opinion. Not to mention it’s 10 foot reach which can come in handy. Don’t forget while people can’t see you you can take opportunity attacks against them running away but they can’t against you.
Some other great options. 1. Giant Owl. It has Flyby: The owl doesn't provoke opportunity attacks when it flies out of an enemy's reach. With it's high movement speed this transformation has saved my character's life multiple times. Once I was level 8 I rarely had to worry about getting cornered. Plus it has darkvision for scouting dark places. 2. Warhorse- In addition to it's high speed party members can jump on you to help them escape or help your fighter chase down a fleeing opponent. It's damage is pretty decent too.
The Crag Cat from Storm King's Thunder might be on the rare side but when it comes to the ability to scout it is pretty good with a +7 stealth and darkvision, but the biggest bonus is its nondetection skill making it great in magic heavy dungeons, prisons, and such. Its speed (40), damage (7 or 15 with pounce), AC (13), and HP (34) are all nothing to write home about, but aren't a terrible disadvantage. Its other interesting ability is spell turning which is extremely rare and quite powerful. Back when I first used this, my DM didn't know the creature had this since he only glance over the creature. After knocking over his spell casting bad guy, he tried to disintegrate me. Ended up disintegrating himself. Sadly IC and OoC knowledge can greatly reduce the fun against magic users. I still think this creature deserves high marks for it incredible unique abilities that make it useful in higher level magic situations.
Best druid I ever played was one that had a lion companion, could shape-shifting into a lion, and could summon more lions. With rend-rake-bite, and pack tactics, fast land speed, it was brutal....
Not really? I mean, yes, technically the druid has "circles" instead of "archtypes," but I've heard a lot of D&D players refer to subclasses for all classes as archetypes. (For the fighter, this is actually the correct terminology.)
The information about the Giant Poisonous Snake 🐍 is VERY interesting. Because I’m playing a Triton Druid in our current campaign, and my DM told me that since I’m already aquatic, it doesn’t make sense to restrict my swimming speed wild shapes. Which means that the Giant Poisonous Snake is VERY viable for me despite not being level 4 yet.
One trick to get around the limitation of having to see a beast before wildshaping into it is to first use Polymorph to transform someone or something else into it. Polymorph doesn’t have any restrictions on what kind of beast you can turn the target into other than the target’s CR/level, and you don’t have to have seen the new form before. And now, you *have* seen it, so you can wildshape into it.
I'd actually say there is 2 wildshapes that're overlooked: bat and eagle. Both make excellent scouting forms, even when cr1 shapes are on the table. The bat, much like the spider, has good reason to be most places that aren't indoors in an actual building (where spider is better). While the eagle gets keen sight which is far more useful usually than smell and hearing. With the eagle you can fly hundreds of feet above and scout nearly completely free of risk. Oh! And you can use it to navigate your party as well.
It definitely didnt take me a solid two minutes of being really confused before realizing that yes. This is indeed the duel logs and yes that's why I love this video
I've never played D&D but REALLY want to and have an Idea for a "homebrew" campaign based on Monster hunter. I even found a full PHB someone made online. First I gotta play a few games and Druid is #1 on my want to play list
Obviously there is no requirement, but, I'd suggest playing a few times under an established DM to familiarize yourself with the rules before you run your own game (especially if your Homebrew game has Homebrew monsters/items). The DM role has a bunch of extra requirements than your player roles, and if the DM is often checking books for rules, or making up rule fixes for things you don't know on hand, you can find you'll loose players due to inconsistencies mucking up the suspension of disbelief
@@oxtailpuncake1211 I have a compendium that includes all the monsters printed in books [called Fight Club if interested] but I could not find rathalos or rathien. What books are they from?
I'm currently playing a Circle of the Sheperd druid with 1 lvl of Barbarian. Once i was surrounded by enemies and turned into a Boar and raged, since the damage is halved i was able to use the "relentless" feature of the boar, so i basically made one of the attacks of one of the enemies be waisted since it just dropped my health to 1 instead of turning me back to my normal form. Its a tatic that only work against groups of weak enemies, but it was a fun experience to be surrounded by 8 blights and they all attacking you and you losing only 1 HP from your normal form because of the rage combined with Relentless and the Bear Spirit from the Druid givin temporary hit points.
Nice list, I'm running a Druid for the first time, so I'm trying to figure some of this stuff out ... but as a DM, there's probably little chance I'd let a player use the velociraptor form, as it's probably unlikely they've ever seen one.
One thing you forgot to mention about the Giant Octopus is that it has FIFTEEN foot range, so you can sit behind your front line fighters and grapple the beasties BEHIND the guys that they are toe to toe with. Or anyone closer that you prefer. There were a few times that my level 20 Moon Druid still preferred to shift into the Giant Octopus even with higher level stuff available.
16:52 the multi attack is all just a standard action and bite from the pounce is a bonus action so it's in addition, not separate. Also nice wow icons on the abilities.
My go-to 1/4 creature is a Panther. A 50ft movement so it’s slightly faster than most other creatures. As well as a 40 ft climb speed. As well as of it charges 20 ft and makes a claw attack, it can cause the target to go prone if they fail a strength, and against prone targets it can also use its bite as a bonus action, giving it a situational multi attack. It doesn’t have pack tactics and has to charge to land its knock down pounce, but being able to make 2 attacks if it lands and the extra speed + climbing ability is nice.
As for more suggestions... I like the Tressym. Flying cat with detect invisibility, poison since and immunity, and dark vision (wich I still don't know why they didn't give a normal cat). Giant fire beetle: shine light for those that are blind in the dark. 10ft bright 10ft dim but still... and have 30ft of blindsight yourself... The Giant Toad: Bite to Grapple and restrain... Before swallowing a medium creature. Just makes me smile. Not the best Damage dealer but can take 2 baddies off the bord and let your team beat on them. I'll let you and your DM figure out what happens when you change back...
Snow owls make good familiars for a few reasons but they also have immunity to opportunity attacks (and darkvision). Far from the best damage but if you can get another means of damage like the dragon breath spell (does not break invisibility too) or to just harass enemies as they either have to ignore it or go chase it down it can be a real nuisance.
Ooh that threw me for a bit of a loop, hearing hiru's voice in a video I randomly stumbled upon was not something I was expecting. Are you gonna manage to squeeze Gunther Arcanus into any of your DnD videos? :P
You forgot one major thing with the ape. Because it is the same basic size and shape as a humanoid and druids can wear medium armor you can keep the armor you normally wear on during wildshape. Its also not too much of a stretch to get to keep magic items in that form. Also draft horse has to be a good early game contender with 19 hp, 40 speed, and decent damage ontop of letting your fellow players gain full advantage of mounted combat.
Another notable mention for a non moon, non combat based wildshape is the Giant spider at cr 1. All the good stuff from wolf spider (just 10 feet slower), an AC of 14, 26 average health an improved bite damage (1d8+3, with 2d8 poison) and an added attack, its main stand out feature: Web. If it hits (+5 to hit is decent) it restrains a creature with no save. To escape it has to waste its action on a dc 12 str check.
For the Deinonychus: the pounce is an ability. It combos with the multi attack, so you can make 4 attacks per turn with potentially 3 of them at advantage
Pack tactics is an extra roll to make sure its single attack hits. Multi attack get same 2 dice, but if both hit they both do damage (something that makes them superior to wolf).
Worth mentioning, if your DM isn't a stickler for RAW, the "Ape Shape" should be allowed to throw a lot more than just 'rocks'. Especially since you retain your Intelligence. There's a LOT of things that can be thrown out to 25 ft that can benefit using this action. Imagination is key. :)
Aw man I'm gonna be playing a kobold druid and I really like the idea of using a wolf when we have to fight in the sun (she would otherwise not wildshape in combat, but in the sun she has sunlight sensitivity) but as made very clear, the strongest thing about the wolf is its pack tactics which kobolds already have
Fun thing to do, and you touched on it, Look at the Black bear, brown bear, polar bear, and Owl Bear, each increases slowly in CR and their build look almost identical except for the slight adjustments to their stats with each advancement, it was discovering this that had me several YEARS ago at this point start allowing Beast master Rangers to have bigger pets as they leveled with a reduction to the amount of their Proficiency they grant to the beast. I come from 3.5 where a ranger could eventually have a trex pet, so don't shoot me but the boxing in they did to the beast master in a way that it is impossible to not fix them BECAUSE THEY ARE TECHNICALLY BALANCED, hurt me a little.
Top 5/10 Class-Exclusive spells, or at least spells that can only be used naturally by one class (since feats and Class Features can let you steal spells from other classes).
Great video! I want to mention though that you used the monstrosity version of the sea lion for the picture when you should have used a picture for a normal real world sea lion. There are two types of sea lion in dnd.
Correction about pounces and charges. If a pounce trample or charge trait says you move 20 feet and hit a claw or hoof or gore attack, you don’t HAVE to take the claw or hoof action. A claw attack in the multi attack action works fine. So deinonychus can run forward claw knock prone claw bite bonus action bite. Even better! Just because you just made an attack doesn’t mean you didn’t move 20 feet toward a target and hit with a claw attack on the same turn so if multi attack has 2 claws or if you’re hasted you get multiple opportunities to pounce, trample, or charge if you hit multiple times! Which is actually quite good damage
Elk only does 1hp less than stench Kow and gets the chance to knock prone like the wolf. Not as many hp as the stench kow (2 less) but more likely to have been seen by a druid.
Become a Totem Warrior Barbarian with the Totem of the Bear, and multiclass to be a Moon Druid a couple of levels. Totem of the Bear gives you resistance to all damage except psychic when you are raging, and the 2 levels in Moon Druid lets you wild shape into an actual bear and that gives you like around 40 extra hit points with decent damage and you have resistance to almost all damage so you never fuckin die loll
Another situation where the cat is more useful than the spider: If you need charm/persuade/trick someone. For example, you need to get an NPC to follow you. As a cat, that would be more easily achievable than as a spider.
My favorite tactic on my moon druid is to cast summon bestial spirit as my action to summon a wolf spirit (which also gets pack tactics), then wild shape into a dire wolf. So much fun.
I would've liked a shout-out to the Ice Spider, which has pretty decent stats at 26HP and 14AC, while also getting a +7 on stealth, Spider Climb, an Icy Web that does the same as the Giant Spider's Web but also deals a tiny amount of Cold damage, _and_ its main attack, while not particularly damaging, can paralyze on a failed DC11 Con save.
I wonder if there would be a trade system in the druids where they could find rare creatures and then return to the circle and let others see them in that shape to let them learn it in turn? Could be a good little earner if you had some of the interesting ones to share! 🤔
I wish dnd did tier zoo like ratings for dnd creatures or maybe certain druid shapes have realistic advantages like for example to pounce as leopard or jaguar could be a critical move due to them being ambush predators that kill in one bite to the back of the spine. I personally would be an alligator and just death roll people all day they are stunned can't move are moved so they can't react with striking while being grappled and if in water they can be drowned.
Was playing a short campaign with the Barbarian/Moon druid combo where we played only from lvl 3-5 where I totally wrecked shit using Dire Wolf/Brown Bear XD
I would say that the Dire wolf is actually the best because even though the bear has a higher damage per hit average, if you can gain the advantage on pack tactics the average hits per round will be much higher thus equating to a higher overall damage potential in the duration of a battle
Mmm it's great when you use conjure animal and wildshape together. I learned to do this in a campaign. Before me and my party went into a cave I used conjure animal to summon 8 constrictor snakes+ my characters pet constrictor snake Albert, my dm allowed me to use him in battle, then used wildshape to transform into a giant constrictor snake. Needless to say my party and dm were surprised and the fight went by much faster then my dm expected and regretted putting more enemies in the cave like he was planning to do.
I actually use Deinonychus a lot (Character from Chult, I picked 6 creatures from there and can only become prehistoric creatures) as my damage instead of magic because I'm the gimmick druid, using little effects to cause odd reactions to take advantage of. The pounce can be handy for single target damaging with bolt type spells or direct attacks. Nothing like tackling strahd as my entire team pounds his ass with various holy spells and attacks while I repeatedly slam him to the ground lol.
Tbh, I don't plan on attacking in my wild shape much. I'll most likely just primarily use it for scouting, so the spiders, cat, and octopus will be most useful for me. I'm also a water genasi, so under water use is taken care of
You Didn't Mention the Moorbounder From "Explorers guide to everything" CR 1 with Good HP and a movement speed of 70 along with its standing leap which lets it jump 40 feet without a running start and High Jump 20 Feet without a running start. But the real Kicker is that it's Claw which does 4D4+4 Damage on a hit. (Averages to about 14)
One problem with a lot of these beasts is the druid has to have encountered them to wildshape into one. Not every campaign includes exposure to velociraptors, giant octopi or apes.
You can pounce and multiattack. In fact you pounce by multiattacking. You get two claw attacks from it so move 20 feet then multiatra k if either claw attack hits you're prone.
Warring long A dumb combo with the spider is a rule that when you climb on a creature bigger than you and you attack it you have advantage on all attack rolls and we can abuse the crap out this little ruling at a minimum of level 7 The Race is Dhampir for it's vampiric bite 5 levels in monk with the subclass way of the astral self for wisdom based climbs and using wisdom for strength check to hold on and there's other cool things such unarmored movement and unarmored defense applying to the wild shape but that's not important but movement is slightly more important And of course two levels into druid After long rest you have to use dedicated weapon on our teeth so that it can be a monk weapon and we can also use Ki-Fueled Attack as well and we don't lose Deflect missile and unarmored movement because there text doesn't explicitly state that it replace x class feature instead it worded that you have the option to include it into your build. For example let's take the optional class feature favored for from ranger Favored Foe (Optional) This 1st-level feature replaces the Favored Enemy feature and works with the Foe Slayer feature. You gain no benefit from the replaced feature and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it. Now take a look at the monk's dedicated weapon Also at 2nd level, you train yourself to use a variety of weapons as monk weapons, not just simple melee weapons and shortswords. Whenever you finish a short or long rest, you can touch one weapon, focus your ki on it, and then count that weapon as a monk weapon until you use this feature again. The chosen weapon must meet these criteria: The weapon must be a simple or martial weapon. You must be proficient with it. It must lack the heavy and special properties. So we use dedicated weapon to change our natural bite into a monk weapon and Ki-Fueled Attack gives us an extra attack with monk weapon Skipping the whole changing and climbing we attack Using vampiric bite because this is a race trait the is unaffected by wild shape meaning we can use it A non-crit damage roll for 1 attack without feats or spell effects looks like this 1d6+ con mod+ proficiency bonus Average dice is 3 Con mod lets say it's at 3 And proficiency at level 7 is 3 Which is 9 Now we have advantage since are climbing on a bigger creature all 3 attacks have advantage Now when all 3 attacks hit it an average of 27 prieceing damage a turn Now vampiric bite has a on demand effect when you successful attack where you gain hp equal to the prieceing delt and you gain bonus equal to the prieceing delt to the next ability check or attack roll and you can use this on demand equal to your proficiency bonus pre day So a translation on the third attack you deal 11 piercing damage and you use this effect not only do you heal 11 hp you get a +11 to your next ability check or attack roll. Now just imagine adding piercer and fey touch picking hunter's mark if you don't know if you cast a concentration spell before wild shaping you can keep concentration up TL:DR when you attack an enemy shadow of colossus you get advantage on attacks and abusing class features and race traits like a Yu-Gi-Oh player you can turn a merger spider into the grim reaper.
Cast a concentration spell, duck out of sight, turn Spider and hide in a cracked in the wall. No enemy suspects it so wouldn't go looking for a spider. Sit back and enjoy that Call Lightning.
I appreciate the Spider getting some recognition
Insect types in Yu-G.... ehm D&D are underrated
I'm only going to wild shape for scouting, so the spiders and the cat will be most useful to me. I'm also a water genasi, octopus might be useful if I really need it
TRUUUE, the only time I wildshaped with my brand new druid before he got consumed by druidic energy (long story) was into a spider to unlock the inside of a chamber 😂
My new dnd player transformed into a spider and saved the group from having a rickety bridge cut down while they walked across. Two enemies on the other end tried to cut it down, she pulled up behind em and disarmed one, then when giant hyena and killed 5 more later. Now she loves playing and puts more effort then the rest of my party. Such a win for me too.
Alright, here’s some circle of the moon high level Druid Tec skill: If you can wild shape into an elephant or a mammoth, you float yourself in the air via reverse gravity and then land on top of your opponent and crush them. Then your DM tells you no.
My moon circle druid once wildshaped into a rat, then was thrown 30ft into the air by the paladin while shouting "Pikachu I choose you" an then changing to a brown bear mid air effectively oneshoting one acolyte and making the other one run away in fear because a bear fell from the sky
Tactical druid incoming
wouldn't a fly be better for scouting? it can fly and has super high dex.
@@jabincourson6750 Huh? Jackalweres aren't available for wildshape as they're not beasts? Unless you literally mean being turned into one as a moon druid
Or pull a Maui and first transform into a tiny flier like a sparrow or bug to get your height, then as a bonus action drop [literally] into a mammoth right onto the enemy.
Brown Bears are larger, more aggressive, and all around significantly more dangerous than black bears, so it makes perfect sense that the brown bear is stronger in DnD.
Polar bears are even bigger and more agressive than brown bears
@@smite4032 which is why the polar bear is a CR2 creature
@@smallolive I imagine also being able to swim well helps the polar bears transformation utility
@@yourdadsotherfamily3530 Sure yeah, but my point was this is a list of >CR 1< and lower creatures, as that's the cap for everyone except Moon druids.
yeah but they werent talking about it just being stronger but also being stronger *relative to its challenge rating*.
I like how the Spider's bite attack has to explicitly specify that they calculated the 1 piercing damage by rolling 1d1
Thank you D&D, very helpful
A D1 is a marble. You roll a marble, and if it’s a marble, the result is a 1
@@enlongjones2394Flip a coin. If it lands: it’s a 1
I think you're wrong about the Deinonychus getting worse damage by using Pounce. Pounce is listed as a trait, not an action, and only requires you to hit with a claw attack which is part of its Multiattack action, so as long as you can move far enough you just get to try for the prone for free, and if you get it then you get to bonus action Bite attack for a total of 4 in one round, which is huge for that CR.
as well since the multiattack is two claw attacks you get TWO chances to knock them prone
And once the target is prone, you get advantage on the bite attack.
@@dallasmeeker5577 only if you move 20ft again which is technically possible
@@Fistminer incorrect. The ability says it has to hit with a claw attack on the same turn it moved twenty feet, not that it has to hit it's next claw attack after moving twenty feet
And since you can choose the order of attacks, that's a potential 2 bite attacks and one class attack with advantage of the first claw attack leads to a knockdown. That thing just rate your face
I think you misunderstood the deinonychus’ pounce feature. The pounce can be a part of it’s regular multi attack, so it can actually have up to four attacks on a single turn, and 3 of them with advantage if it successfully knocks the target prone with its first claw attack.
I would still argue that it would still make number 2 just because you'd be less likely to actually have it as an option.
I'm actually a fan of the Giant Spider, which definitely should have gotten a spot here. Its sheer stats and damage are a bit lower than the other CR 1 creatures listed here, but it has excellent combat utility in certain environments. Spider Climb to get into spots where enemies can't reach you, Darkvision AND Blindsight so you never have to bother getting disadvantage by not seeing an enemy, and most importantly, the Web attack, a useful ranged crowd control (which is extremely rare for beasts to have). The web can be broken, but that takes an action for the target.
5:03 Yeah pack tactics can get scary. I combined conjure animals and my druid wildshape to make 9 wolves. Not only did this basically make my druid difficult to target cause he was indistinguishable from the conjured wolves, but the 9 of them were averaging about 40-50 damage a round.
you technically dont get to pick what you summon with conjure animals, just their CR and the number summoned, what you get is up to the dm
We homerule that you do get to pick. But also I was the DM at the time so I technically was the one picking lol (had a DMPC doing that).
@@Bizcaz Yeah we never play it like that
You are part of the problem
Would LOVE the moon druid video man! Looking forward to it
As someone who almost exclusively uses wildshape to disguise myself as the wizard’s familiar to hide from the cops, this is actually really helpful to keep track of what I could be using it for instead 😆
> be me, lvl 4 Kobold Druid of the Stars
> we see a guard blocking a door
> I tell the Tiefling Primeval Guardian Ranger that I have a plan
> he's trusting so he agrees
> that poor, foolish boy
> Ranger grapples guard
> I transform into Lizard
> I crawl up guard's asshole
> Tiefling Ranger let’s the bandit go
> I transform into a crocodile and perform a death roll inside the guard
> guard explodes
> most of the party is horrified
> Lizardman Necromancer and I are happy to have the extra food
> Ranger vomits
> I am no longer allowed to do that EVER again
> worth it
I think you misunderstood the Deinonychus' pounce ability. I don't know that there's an official ruling, but the most common interpretation I've seen is that Pounce will knock the target prone even if your claw attack is part of the Multiattack. As a result, it gets Claw, another Claw with advantage, and two bites with advantage for ~24 damage. Even if the first claw attack misses you would still knock the target prone if the second one hits and get two bites with advantage again. It's still a glass cannon, but the "cannon" part is a bit stronger than you presented.
I always surprised when Panther doesn't make these lists. It's my favorite to use due to the pounce mechanic. I guess I just play my druid differently. Glad to learn
As a druid player I would love to see more videos like this!
I cannot believe it took me this long to realize you had this channel too...!
they made new versions of the winter wolf and bulette that are "young, or juvenile" and they count as beasts...for some reason, but they didnt errata the old versions to count too so, idk.. also, like, come on, why not owl bears, they arent strong in any way theyre just flavor bears.
Side note, the young bulette cant burrow..like? the hell? and the young frost wolf is just a reskinned wolf, it has nothing special
Giant poisonous snake, cast fog cloud then turn into it. It has blindsight so you can see, you have advantage on all attacks and everyone has disadvantage on attacks against you. With the really high damage and still doing half of the poison damage on a successful saving throw it’s one of the best ones in my opinion. Not to mention it’s 10 foot reach which can come in handy. Don’t forget while people can’t see you you can take opportunity attacks against them running away but they can’t against you.
Some other great options.
1. Giant Owl. It has Flyby: The owl doesn't provoke opportunity attacks when it flies out of an enemy's reach. With it's high movement speed this transformation has saved my character's life multiple times. Once I was level 8 I rarely had to worry about getting cornered. Plus it has darkvision for scouting dark places.
2. Warhorse- In addition to it's high speed party members can jump on you to help them escape or help your fighter chase down a fleeing opponent. It's damage is pretty decent too.
I've never played D&D but these videos are still really entertaining!
The Crag Cat from Storm King's Thunder might be on the rare side but when it comes to the ability to scout it is pretty good with a +7 stealth and darkvision, but the biggest bonus is its nondetection skill making it great in magic heavy dungeons, prisons, and such.
Its speed (40), damage (7 or 15 with pounce), AC (13), and HP (34) are all nothing to write home about, but aren't a terrible disadvantage.
Its other interesting ability is spell turning which is extremely rare and quite powerful. Back when I first used this, my DM didn't know the creature had this since he only glance over the creature. After knocking over his spell casting bad guy, he tried to disintegrate me. Ended up disintegrating himself. Sadly IC and OoC knowledge can greatly reduce the fun against magic users.
I still think this creature deserves high marks for it incredible unique abilities that make it useful in higher level magic situations.
Best druid I ever played was one that had a lion companion, could shape-shifting into a lion, and could summon more lions. With rend-rake-bite, and pack tactics, fast land speed, it was brutal....
Excellent video. The graphics and showing the stat blocks really made it.
"archetypes of druid" I see the streams are crossing
Not really?
I mean, yes, technically the druid has "circles" instead of "archtypes," but I've heard a lot of D&D players refer to subclasses for all classes as archetypes. (For the fighter, this is actually the correct terminology.)
@@MoonMoverGaming I know, it was a joke lol
I love the wildshape mechanic and this helps a lot in what to shapeshift for effective use.
The information about the Giant Poisonous Snake 🐍 is VERY interesting. Because I’m playing a Triton Druid in our current campaign, and my DM told me that since I’m already aquatic, it doesn’t make sense to restrict my swimming speed wild shapes. Which means that the Giant Poisonous Snake is VERY viable for me despite not being level 4 yet.
One trick to get around the limitation of having to see a beast before wildshaping into it is to first use Polymorph to transform someone or something else into it. Polymorph doesn’t have any restrictions on what kind of beast you can turn the target into other than the target’s CR/level, and you don’t have to have seen the new form before. And now, you *have* seen it, so you can wildshape into it.
Conjure animals works too for an earlier gacha version of this btw
I'd actually say there is 2 wildshapes that're overlooked: bat and eagle. Both make excellent scouting forms, even when cr1 shapes are on the table. The bat, much like the spider, has good reason to be most places that aren't indoors in an actual building (where spider is better). While the eagle gets keen sight which is far more useful usually than smell and hearing. With the eagle you can fly hundreds of feet above and scout nearly completely free of risk. Oh! And you can use it to navigate your party as well.
I just found out this channel existed after watching his WoW channel for years and recognized his voice. Hype!
I have had 2 great spying moments by becoming a spider and it's 100% thanks to this video. I never would've considered them
It definitely didnt take me a solid two minutes of being really confused before realizing that yes. This is indeed the duel logs and yes that's why I love this video
I've never played D&D but REALLY want to and have an Idea for a "homebrew" campaign based on Monster hunter. I even found a full PHB someone made online. First I gotta play a few games and Druid is #1 on my want to play list
Obviously there is no requirement, but, I'd suggest playing a few times under an established DM to familiarize yourself with the rules before you run your own game (especially if your Homebrew game has Homebrew monsters/items). The DM role has a bunch of extra requirements than your player roles, and if the DM is often checking books for rules, or making up rule fixes for things you don't know on hand, you can find you'll loose players due to inconsistencies mucking up the suspension of disbelief
dude imagine wild shaping into an rathalos or a rathien, i wanna join the campaign
@@oxtailpuncake1211 I am finding neither of those on my compendium, what are those?
@@dracoargentum9783 compendium?
@@oxtailpuncake1211 I have a compendium that includes all the monsters printed in books [called Fight Club if interested] but I could not find rathalos or rathien. What books are they from?
I'm currently playing a Circle of the Sheperd druid with 1 lvl of Barbarian. Once i was surrounded by enemies and turned into a Boar and raged, since the damage is halved i was able to use the "relentless" feature of the boar, so i basically made one of the attacks of one of the enemies be waisted since it just dropped my health to 1 instead of turning me back to my normal form. Its a tatic that only work against groups of weak enemies, but it was a fun experience to be surrounded by 8 blights and they all attacking you and you losing only 1 HP from your normal form because of the rage combined with Relentless and the Bear Spirit from the Druid givin temporary hit points.
Nice list, I'm running a Druid for the first time, so I'm trying to figure some of this stuff out ... but as a DM, there's probably little chance I'd let a player use the velociraptor form, as it's probably unlikely they've ever seen one.
Better skip that ' to the museum ' sidequest
One thing you forgot to mention about the Giant Octopus is that it has FIFTEEN foot range, so you can sit behind your front line fighters and grapple the beasties BEHIND the guys that they are toe to toe with. Or anyone closer that you prefer.
There were a few times that my level 20 Moon Druid still preferred to shift into the Giant Octopus even with higher level stuff available.
16:52 the multi attack is all just a standard action and bite from the pounce is a bonus action so it's in addition, not separate.
Also nice wow icons on the abilities.
My go-to 1/4 creature is a Panther. A 50ft movement so it’s slightly faster than most other creatures. As well as a 40 ft climb speed. As well as of it charges 20 ft and makes a claw attack, it can cause the target to go prone if they fail a strength, and against prone targets it can also use its bite as a bonus action, giving it a situational multi attack. It doesn’t have pack tactics and has to charge to land its knock down pounce, but being able to make 2 attacks if it lands and the extra speed + climbing ability is nice.
THIS. Moon Druids are getting all the love but the rest of us needed some too.
I play a moon Druid, but not being able to cast the same spells is a bit of a downside
As for more suggestions...
I like the Tressym. Flying cat with detect invisibility, poison since and immunity, and dark vision (wich I still don't know why they didn't give a normal cat).
Giant fire beetle: shine light for those that are blind in the dark. 10ft bright 10ft dim but still... and have 30ft of blindsight yourself...
The Giant Toad: Bite to Grapple and restrain... Before swallowing a medium creature.
Just makes me smile. Not the best Damage dealer but can take 2 baddies off the bord and let your team beat on them. I'll let you and your DM figure out what happens when you change back...
Snow owls make good familiars for a few reasons but they also have immunity to opportunity attacks (and darkvision). Far from the best damage but if you can get another means of damage like the dragon breath spell (does not break invisibility too) or to just harass enemies as they either have to ignore it or go chase it down it can be a real nuisance.
Ooh that threw me for a bit of a loop, hearing hiru's voice in a video I randomly stumbled upon was not something I was expecting. Are you gonna manage to squeeze Gunther Arcanus into any of your DnD videos? :P
You forgot one major thing with the ape. Because it is the same basic size and shape as a humanoid and druids can wear medium armor you can keep the armor you normally wear on during wildshape. Its also not too much of a stretch to get to keep magic items in that form.
Also draft horse has to be a good early game contender with 19 hp, 40 speed, and decent damage ontop of letting your fellow players gain full advantage of mounted combat.
Another notable mention for a non moon, non combat based wildshape is the Giant spider at cr 1. All the good stuff from wolf spider (just 10 feet slower), an AC of 14, 26 average health an improved bite damage (1d8+3, with 2d8 poison) and an added attack, its main stand out feature: Web. If it hits (+5 to hit is decent) it restrains a creature with no save. To escape it has to waste its action on a dc 12 str check.
Great video keep it up. My dnd group loves these.
For the Deinonychus: the pounce is an ability. It combos with the multi attack, so you can make 4 attacks per turn with potentially 3 of them at advantage
Pack tactics is an extra roll to make sure its single attack hits. Multi attack get same 2 dice, but if both hit they both do damage (something that makes them superior to wolf).
This was nice, and this video can be applied to the Conjure Animals spell (hopefully he does a video on CR 2 and higher for beasts)
Worth mentioning, if your DM isn't a stickler for RAW, the "Ape Shape" should be allowed to throw a lot more than just 'rocks'. Especially since you retain your Intelligence. There's a LOT of things that can be thrown out to 25 ft that can benefit using this action. Imagination is key. :)
13:26 bonus of this form is you can play out all your favourite tentacle hentai fantasies... with your friends!
Aw man I'm gonna be playing a kobold druid and I really like the idea of using a wolf when we have to fight in the sun (she would otherwise not wildshape in combat, but in the sun she has sunlight sensitivity) but as made very clear, the strongest thing about the wolf is its pack tactics which kobolds already have
Fun thing to do, and you touched on it, Look at the Black bear, brown bear, polar bear, and Owl Bear, each increases slowly in CR and their build look almost identical except for the slight adjustments to their stats with each advancement, it was discovering this that had me several YEARS ago at this point start allowing Beast master Rangers to have bigger pets as they leveled with a reduction to the amount of their Proficiency they grant to the beast. I come from 3.5 where a ranger could eventually have a trex pet, so don't shoot me but the boxing in they did to the beast master in a way that it is impossible to not fix them BECAUSE THEY ARE TECHNICALLY BALANCED, hurt me a little.
Love the video! What about the Giant Hyena and Giant Toad? I thought they were fun, especially for moon druids.
So the Sea Lion can hold its breath for 15 minutes? That's impressive, Mighty Pirates can only hold their breath for 10 minutes.
This is not wow I didn’t even know you had this channel hellll yeah
You should do 1 for moon druids. And you should do character builds or review subscriber builds
this could also be a good guide for Conjure Animals. apes are great. in 2 rounds they took down a troll. i was impressed with there use.
Now I've got an image of an ape smoking a cigar to provide the fire to keep the troll down stuck in my head.
@@dracoargentum9783 there were campfires around
Top 5/10 Class-Exclusive spells, or at least spells that can only be used naturally by one class (since feats and Class Features can let you steal spells from other classes).
Great video! I want to mention though that you used the monstrosity version of the sea lion for the picture when you should have used a picture for a normal real world sea lion. There are two types of sea lion in dnd.
Correction about pounces and charges.
If a pounce trample or charge trait says you move 20 feet and hit a claw or hoof or gore attack, you don’t HAVE to take the claw or hoof action. A claw attack in the multi attack action works fine. So deinonychus can run forward claw knock prone claw bite bonus action bite.
Even better! Just because you just made an attack doesn’t mean you didn’t move 20 feet toward a target and hit with a claw attack on the same turn so if multi attack has 2 claws or if you’re hasted you get multiple opportunities to pounce, trample, or charge if you hit multiple times! Which is actually quite good damage
Omg I've watched your yugioh videos for years. How am I just finding out you have a dnd channel??!
Crag Cat. Stealth and magic resistance. It also has a pounce ability.
Unfortunately the Crag Cat is a monstrosity not a beast so you can't turn into it
@@agr0nianTV no, it is a large beast
Elk only does 1hp less than stench Kow and gets the chance to knock prone like the wolf. Not as many hp as the stench kow (2 less) but more likely to have been seen by a druid.
Become a Totem Warrior Barbarian with the Totem of the Bear, and multiclass to be a Moon Druid a couple of levels. Totem of the Bear gives you resistance to all damage except psychic when you are raging, and the 2 levels in Moon Druid lets you wild shape into an actual bear and that gives you like around 40 extra hit points with decent damage and you have resistance to almost all damage so you never fuckin die loll
Imagine an emerald dragonborn.
Randomly sprout wings at level 5 on a wild shape and replace an attack with breath weapon of psychic
Another situation where the cat is more useful than the spider: If you need charm/persuade/trick someone. For example, you need to get an NPC to follow you. As a cat, that would be more easily achievable than as a spider.
Good Necromancer spells would be fantastic, as I am currently trying to play one and I want to be flavorful but also useful and a bit OP
My favorite tactic on my moon druid is to cast summon bestial spirit as my action to summon a wolf spirit (which also gets pack tactics), then wild shape into a dire wolf. So much fun.
I would've liked a shout-out to the Ice Spider, which has pretty decent stats at 26HP and 14AC, while also getting a +7 on stealth, Spider Climb, an Icy Web that does the same as the Giant Spider's Web but also deals a tiny amount of Cold damage, _and_ its main attack, while not particularly damaging, can paralyze on a failed DC11 Con save.
I wonder if there would be a trade system in the druids where they could find rare creatures and then return to the circle and let others see them in that shape to let them learn it in turn? Could be a good little earner if you had some of the interesting ones to share! 🤔
holy shit, the duel logs guy is doing d&d videos now
I just want the Blue Ring Octopus. A Tiny Beast that would probably only have 1 HP, probably 5 AC, but would cause a TON of poison damage
At level 3 you can cast pass without trace that gives you and anyone else +10 to stealth, combine this with giant wolf spider and +17 stealth at lvl 3
I wish dnd did tier zoo like ratings for dnd creatures or maybe certain druid shapes have realistic advantages like for example to pounce as leopard or jaguar could be a critical move due to them being ambush predators that kill in one bite to the back of the spine. I personally would be an alligator and just death roll people all day they are stunned can't move are moved so they can't react with striking while being grappled and if in water they can be drowned.
Was playing a short campaign with the Barbarian/Moon druid combo where we played only from lvl 3-5 where I totally wrecked shit using Dire Wolf/Brown Bear XD
I would say that the Dire wolf is actually the best because even though the bear has a higher damage per hit average, if you can gain the advantage on pack tactics the average hits per round will be much higher thus equating to a higher overall damage potential in the duration of a battle
Damn didn't expect to hear you here mr logs.
Web + spider is nice. Its one of my fav for mage + druid combos.
Mmm it's great when you use conjure animal and wildshape together. I learned to do this in a campaign. Before me and my party went into a cave I used conjure animal to summon 8 constrictor snakes+ my characters pet constrictor snake Albert, my dm allowed me to use him in battle, then used wildshape to transform into a giant constrictor snake. Needless to say my party and dm were surprised and the fight went by much faster then my dm expected and regretted putting more enemies in the cave like he was planning to do.
The female's steeder is my favorite for circle of the Moon. It has grapple and a 90 ft jump.
I actually use Deinonychus a lot (Character from Chult, I picked 6 creatures from there and can only become prehistoric creatures) as my damage instead of magic because I'm the gimmick druid, using little effects to cause odd reactions to take advantage of. The pounce can be handy for single target damaging with bolt type spells or direct attacks. Nothing like tackling strahd as my entire team pounds his ass with various holy spells and attacks while I repeatedly slam him to the ground lol.
Did you do a video for moon druids?
You know what they say about bears in the wild:
“If it’s black fight back. If it’s brown get down, and if it’s white… go into the light”
Tbh, I don't plan on attacking in my wild shape much. I'll most likely just primarily use it for scouting, so the spiders, cat, and octopus will be most useful for me. I'm also a water genasi, so under water use is taken care of
Do you know who else has a passive stench ability
Is there a wild shape video coming up for moon druids?
The spider also has the bonus of being so incredibly inconspicuous that most people won't even react to seeing one in most settings.
I think that 5 months later it's finally time to make a moon druid version of this list
What happens to the fire damage if youre getting hit for more than your hp as a stench cow. Does the resistance linger for the "rest" dmg?
What are the best wild shapes for a mounted combatant fight and a moon druid combo
Is this TheDuelLogs? I thought I recognized this mesmerizing voice
In 3.5 boar and badger were surprisingly effective low level morphs. Wonder how they fare in 5e.
With a run speed of 50, Axe Beaks are a solid choice at 1st-2nd level.
You Didn't Mention the Moorbounder From "Explorers guide to everything" CR 1 with Good HP and a movement speed of 70 along with its standing leap which lets it jump 40 feet without a running start and High Jump 20 Feet without a running start.
But the real Kicker is that it's Claw which does 4D4+4 Damage on a hit. (Averages to about 14)
One problem with a lot of these beasts is the druid has to have encountered them to wildshape into one. Not every campaign includes exposure to velociraptors, giant octopi or apes.
You can pounce and multiattack. In fact you pounce by multiattacking. You get two claw attacks from it so move 20 feet then multiatra k if either claw attack hits you're prone.
Warring long
A dumb combo with the spider is a rule that when you climb on a creature bigger than you and you attack it you have advantage on all attack rolls and we can abuse the crap out this little ruling at a minimum of level 7
The Race is Dhampir for it's vampiric bite
5 levels in monk with the subclass way of the astral self for wisdom based climbs and using wisdom for strength check to hold on and there's other cool things such unarmored movement and unarmored defense applying to the wild shape but that's not important but movement is slightly more important
And of course two levels into druid
After long rest you have to use dedicated weapon on our teeth so that it can be a monk weapon and we can also use Ki-Fueled Attack as well and we don't lose Deflect missile and unarmored movement because there text doesn't explicitly state that it replace x class feature instead it worded that you have the option to include it into your build.
For example let's take the optional class feature favored for from ranger
Favored Foe (Optional)
This 1st-level feature replaces the Favored Enemy feature and works with the Foe Slayer feature. You gain no benefit from the replaced feature and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it.
Now take a look at the monk's dedicated weapon
Also at 2nd level, you train yourself to use a variety of weapons as monk weapons, not just simple melee weapons and shortswords. Whenever you finish a short or long rest, you can touch one weapon, focus your ki on it, and then count that weapon as a monk weapon until you use this feature again.
The chosen weapon must meet these criteria:
The weapon must be a simple or martial weapon.
You must be proficient with it.
It must lack the heavy and special properties.
So we use dedicated weapon to change our natural bite into a monk weapon and Ki-Fueled Attack gives us an extra attack with monk weapon
Skipping the whole changing and climbing we attack
Using vampiric bite because this is a race trait the is unaffected by wild shape meaning we can use it
A non-crit damage roll for 1 attack without feats or spell effects looks like this
1d6+ con mod+ proficiency bonus
Average dice is 3
Con mod lets say it's at 3
And proficiency at level 7 is 3
Which is 9
Now we have advantage since are climbing on a bigger creature all 3 attacks have advantage
Now when all 3 attacks hit it an average of 27 prieceing damage a turn
Now vampiric bite has a on demand effect when you successful attack where you gain hp equal to the prieceing delt and you gain bonus equal to the prieceing delt to the next ability check or attack roll and you can use this on demand equal to your proficiency bonus pre day
So a translation on the third attack you deal 11 piercing damage and you use this effect not only do you heal 11 hp you get a +11 to your next ability check or attack roll.
Now just imagine adding piercer and fey touch picking hunter's mark if you don't know if you cast a concentration spell before wild shaping you can keep concentration up
TL:DR when you attack an enemy shadow of colossus you get advantage on attacks and abusing class features and race traits like a Yu-Gi-Oh player you can turn a merger spider into the grim reaper.
*Neat list .*
Cast a concentration spell, duck out of sight, turn Spider and hide in a cracked in the wall. No enemy suspects it so wouldn't go looking for a spider. Sit back and enjoy that Call Lightning.
Dont you guys think circle of the moon is a tad bit OP, like you can turn into giant hyenas, dire wolfs and brown bears
Cant wait to use this at my next campaign!! Alsp, Idk if you want to, but you spelled droid instead of druid in your description. Not a real big deal
As a moon druid, this really feels like playing with kids gloves.
I agree lol. I normally use a dire wolf anyways, but still
Oh my god yes YES YEEEEEEEEEEEES
Added Bonus from being a spider: taking 2 damage you just die from the massive damage mechanic