My DM said you have to have seen the beast, in the second session we basically met a santa skeleton that gave us anything we ask for, she ask for a book of all know animals. Lol

Actually seeing somebody on the internet who explores the game on the deepest mechanical level (I feel like most other channels overlook many small details) is really refreshing. Good stuff.

Hey Chris. Instead of casting goodberry at the beginning of the day, I always cast it at the end. This way any unused spell slots get converted to goodberries that I can use the next day (thanks to the 24 hr duration). If you're about to long rest, you might as well use any spell slots that you still have. That way you keep your options open for spell casting the next day. Also, I'd like to say that I've always enjoyed your guides ever since the god-wizard for 3rd edition. Keep up the good work.

Fog cloud + giant spider blindsight

Overall a great guide. I'd have to say that I really disagree with you on Elemental forms. Fire is my go to. I play my Moon Druid as the party tank. There is really nothing better than running over your opponent for 1d10 fire, which is DoT at start of his turn until he spends an action to put himself out, and dealing 1d10 fire each time he hits you. Even for creatures that resist fire, you are one of the very few characters that deals damage without attacking or granting a save...on THEIR turn....in addition to damaging with movement. I like the versatility of the Moon Druid. They may not have the damage output of a fighter but they are amazing damage sponges, have amazing mobility, and are full spell casters. They can Tank, dps, control, and heal. And I love unlimited alter self for out of combat scenarios where you want to look like someone else. Overall just an amazing sub class

I'm so glad you made this! Your Pathfinder druid guide is what got me to understand optimization in general. Also I don't know how you do it, but recently whenever I start to work on a new character you release a guide for it within two days or so

When it comes to cr 2 beasts, never underestimate the power of the giant constrictor snake. Especially when you can speak into someone’s head while constricting them.

A large thing that can boost wildshape is: work with your DM to create beasts, *especially* if you're trying to run a theme (like only turning into bears)

I adore Firbolg Moon Druids for an unusual "combo" with Wildshape: if you Hidden Step first, and because Combat Wildshape doesn't remove the option for you to Wildshape as a Standard Action, you can Surprise [insert animal form here] after getting into an advantageous position and jump a target

I just wanted to say i love you and i'm glad your content has progressed to 5e. I've read so much of your 3.5 stuff...maybe all of it.

Xanathar's gives a pretty good idea of what animals a Druid would see depending on where he comes from.

Thanks. I am currently running a moon Druid at 14th level. I missed some great spells. My game master will absolutely not appreciate your guidance :)

Ah yes, the guide I was dying to watch! Moon druid's variety on stat distribution and race choice when compared to other spellcasters is my favorite thing ever in character creation. So many cool exotic concepts and combinations. My current character is a 3rd level 15WIS Noble background Yuan-ti pureblood moon druid, with 14s on INT and CHA. The 15 WIS hurts, but it was a choice I've made for the particular setting, where halflings and dwarves weren't available and Darkvision is critically important. Still may not be the best since I took it over wood elf, but the poison immunity and resistance to magic that carry over to wild shape are just lovely. Your overview of the wild shape forms is on point. There's just so much to watch over and over. Thanks TM, this is incredible.

What are everyone's thoughts to getting a raven familiar and use its minimcry ability to repeat what you tell it to say telepathically as an alternative to being a ghostwise halfling? It addition to mimicry, you can also turn into a spider and ride the raven. This gives you flight at level 2.

A great, helpful, thoughtful guide - thanks!

Really nice video! I kind of miss the suggestion of the Dire Wolf, 37Hp 14CA, 50ft move, PackTactics and attack drop enemie prone.

I was wondering if you could comment on how improvements to wildshape might prolong their usefulness. Things like: A 1-3 level dip into barbarian for ac boost, advantage on attacks, damage resistance, small damage bonus, and advantage on dex saves. A 1 level dip into monk for ac boost and martial arts, using the attack option for a grapple and shove prone combo with creatures that have 20+ str. A 1 level dip into draconic sorcerer for ac boost and extra spells. A 1 level dip into wizard for mage armor, find familiar for help action advantage on your attacks, several utility rituals. Duel wielder feat for +1 to ac and bonus action attack for grapple + shove prone combos with creatures with 20+ str. Forest gnome or yuan-ti for adavantage on many savings throws My thought was using wildshape as another form of crowd control by using forms with high strength scores for prone grappling or forms with auto-grapple on attacks instead of comparing damage to other martial classes. You have mentioned in your damage calculation video that sometimes using the help action and giving an ally advantage on an attack is better than using a weak attack of your own. The previous strategies I mentioned offers advantage to multiple allies and disadvantage to the enemy. The auto-grapple/restrained attacks forces enemies to waste an entire action just trying escape so even with a low DC value is still gained. With this type of mindset or playstyle what level would you think wildshape would start to fall off in terms of effectiveness when compared to a normal druid build. Could something like this bridge the gap during those middle tiers?

Something I think is important about the elemental shape that he doesn't mention is that turning into an elemental requires both wild shape charges so its the only thing you can turn into until you take a short rest.

I’m playing a Moon Druid in one campaign and I’m playing a Wizard in another campaign that has a Moon Druid in it and I consider Mage Armor a must have spell for Moon Druids. My Wizard casts it on that party’s Moon Druid every day, and twice when it’s needed and I’m going to take Magic Initiate (Wizard) for my Moon Druid the next time he gets an ability score increase. Since Mage Armor replaces the Natural Armor of beasts it increases AC anywhere from +1 to +3 over the base AC which is a significant increase. It even works on all of the element forms other than an Earth Elemental.

Druid! Yeah! I hope the other subclasses will get a video too. Thanks for the bookmarks!

Thoughts on wild shapes: Giant elk is a nice CR 2 beat-stick that synergizes with dire wolf conjurations. Giant crocodile has two attacks capable of putting a foe in a state where attacks are made against it with advantage. This makes giant owl conjurations into goofy amounts of damage (not to mention ally minions like animated objects). And I think T-Monk downplays the power of elemental forms in the third tier of play. Their immunities and resistances badly disable a wide swath of monsters. It's not universal, but personally I found that my druid derailed many encounters by becoming immune to grapple, immune to poison, etc.

I got to pick a Circle of the Forged druid and I think I'm pretty much gonna follow this guide for it. I think it will actually be pretty amazing at 20th lvl as well due to being able to wild shape as a reaction to damage

Moon Druid, for that time you roll an 8 or 9 on all your stats

TCoE changes the game!!! Can’t wait to play any race and place my bonus where I want 🤟🏽

Most gamebreaking sub-class in my opinion. At least in early levels and level 20

One thing I see you did not do, that I love to do at 2nd level. Take Fog Cloud. You can cast it as an action, bonus action to Giant Spider, and terrorize your enemies who cannot see you, but you have blind sense!

One thing I did with my Moon Druid was buy a Tattoo of Protection in-game and that boosts your AC to 18 and all your wild shapes to 18 AC. Super effective!

My ghostwise halfling moon Druid is by far my fav char. I was started to feeling like the worst moon Druid ever, I have not shape shifted but once in like 3 levels and it was to carry stuff. I of course didn’t tell Party I could communicate, I just occasionally, let it be “like a voice of god”. “Save the halfling save the world”. Halfling nimbleness is nice when you stroll past a guy then shape shift into a bear. Also my halfling has eaten anything that died when shape shifted... but claims to be a vegetarian in halfling form... selective memory. They didn’t like me eating all those dragon scales. Plus it’s funny to ask where it all goes when I shift back.

21:50 druids actually don't have crossbow proficiency. Sling is their only ranged weapon.

Watching this I kept thinking . . . Ok Druids rock, but why did I choose Moon Druid if I was going to mostly be a spell caster? So many other circles buff your Magic. This one gives me the ability to use spell slots to heal myself, and lets me change into more powerful combat focused entities. Every time you go back to spells what I hear in my mind is "The Moon Druid is a good sub class because it is added onto the Druid Chassis but . . ." I'd really like to see an optimized build that focused on stacking up those wild shape abilities. We can still get ninth level spells so long as we reach level 17, and I'm not sure we need them for this sort of build. Do I need to heal 72 points of damage? Hopefully not. So I had some random ideas, might be good, might be bad . . . How about if we took the Dhampir instead of a normal race for the spider climb and vampiric bite in wild shape? A dip into monk also would get us the ability to add our wisdom to our Armor Class. Taking levels in Barbarian and going path of the beast would not only add our Con bonus to our AC but also give us even better bestial attacks. Technically I only need to go up to level ten to get Elemental forms so how about ten Druid, one monk, and nine barbarian? I think a beast can still rage! Since the path of the beast weapons count as simple weapons, aren't two handed, and aren't heavy weapons I THINK they should also count as monk weapons, but if not they should qualify for weapon master. I'm picturing a heavily armored, highly resistant, slavering monster who can heal via spell slots or via its vampiric bite. It doesn't breath and can run along the bottom of a river, or straight up a sheer cliff. Even if you manage to "win the fight" it just flickers to it's human form for a moment and starts over as a new creature! This thing is nearly unstoppable. I probably missed a ton but . . . it's a pretty epic image in my head and definitely not a poor fighter unable to compare to other melee classes, or a second rate caster trying to mimic the other druids and failing to stack up. That's the sort of thing I'd really like to see.

Oh wow! I've seen some your stuff on giant in the playground, but I didn't know you had a YT. Instasub dude

I know its not optimal but the forest gnome makes for an fun druid race

This was super helpful! 👍🏻

The way I use goodberry at the end of the day to get my spell slot back as I rest. Also I have a hedge wizard that used the magic item the pot of awakening you basicly groan an awakened shrub in it over 30 days. He about lost it when I planted a good berry. So we have named him berry and he is my familiar.

As a beginner, I really appreciate this video. I found it very hard to understand the Druid class. It kept me from wanting to play a Druid. The class seemed very difficult to build.

This is a marvelous video! Moon druids are just some of the most fun character builds out there, eh? 2 quick questions for you, if you don't mind... 1. Why give up Faerie Fire so early? I know a Dex save isn't fantastic, and there's the possibility of friendly (faerie) fire, but as buffs go, it seems like one that actually gets better the higher level your party is; your rogues don't need to keep hiding, and your fighters with their extra attacks get advantage after advantage. Seems especially useful if you're doing a real marathon of a day and wanna conserve those higher level spell slots. Maybe it's redundant after getting foresight, but it seems like it could be useful for a long time up until that point. 2. Why not take the ability score improvement at level 19 to bump up Dexterity and Con to 16? That just seems like a gimme. Lucky is fun and all, but three re-rolls a day isn't as good as it could be at the high level-and a 16 Con gives you a guaranteed success on most concentration saves. EDIT: I was confused at first why you didn't bring up Lizardfolk, but it's probably better for other kinds of druids than the moon druid.

Mobile feet seems strong. Seems nice to be able to dodge in and out of combat in wild shape, avoiding attacks of opportunity and protecting your concentration.

Hey, Treantmonk on KZfaq? That’s awesome! I loved your written content and I binge-watched all of your videos in 3 days XD I really miss a god wizard build video though! Come on, you are the wizard guy! You MUST have a wizard video on your channel! Ps: This has absolutely nothing to do with me starting OOTA tomorrow night with a gnome abjurator... :P

Hey Treantmonk, thanks for another great video! Off topic, but if I recall correctly you're a fan of wall spells. I recently came across a Cube of Force in an AL game which struck me as being able to offer similar abilities, but had never heard of it being used before. Any thoughts on it?

Giant hyena is pretty good form with the 45hp and 50ft move speed. Guardian of nature and Natures wrath are good spells from Xanathars and worth casting. War caster is great feat because most times your using the animals con score which will be better than your own. Quatizacotal dino from Volos or giant vulture from Princes of the Apocolypse are CR 2 flyers. The moon druid is agrueably one of the strongest classes in the game. The combination of increased survivability from wild shape plus there great spell list, it makes them the hardest to balance encounters. If there is a moon druid in the party whatever the encounter is double it. If there are minions just double them, if there is one mob just max its hp to make it a challenge.

For conjure animals, an option I don't hear often, but has some real benefits is the "Swarm of XXX". In any setting where space and line of sight is an issue, the fact that a swarm occupies the same space as the target is nice. It also means that you can pile all of your summoned attacks on a single target w/o blocking your teammates' attacks.

Call Lightning + Air Elemental shape is not to be trifled with.

A friend of mine in one of our first games played a white dragonborn druid. He was up high and asked if he could turn into a flying squirrel and glide. I said he could and he did an aerial cone straight down on the bad guys doing a decent amout of damage.

I love druid! Its my favorits class but i love it even more in 5e .. ive been using your "treantmonk druid guide" since pathfinder and have to say 5e is just soo much better for wildshape druids

for the ghostwise halfling isn't it possible to craft a item to allow other races to use silent speach? there are goggles that give darkvision so why not? 33:26 can't you scry on those monsters to then wildshape?

I changed wild shape in my game. You gain a wild shape point pool = druid level. To wild shape you spend (CR*2) points to a minimum of 1, to wild shape.

Why not take mobile? You get to be an effective striker, especially with beasts with charge where you can proc without provoking opportunity attacks, and the damage is going to be better than your cantrips and non concentration spells. And you can move out of melee range, so unless there's ranged attacks or a high enough movement rate, you're low ac isn't going to result in con saves.

My home brew group modified the limitation on form agility if you have a racial swim or fly you also gainb access to those forms because of your instutal understanding of how the form moves

If you have Mage Hand from MI feat or a level of Wizard, you can Wild Shape into a rat and "carry yourself", effectively having a form of flight at 2nd or 3rd level. :D

I think the best way to get around the requirement of having seen a beast is to just write your character as growing up travelling the world and studying beasts to the point that they've basically seen them all.

Can you use breath weapons while wildshaped?

I’m glad this old video mentions protector assimar as an option for moon druids A lot more interesting now after tasha

Actually, Ape is veeeery good to wild shape into in the early game and you can use it from the 4th level even with another druidic circle because it's only CR1/2. My DM let me choose 3 beasts I've seen outside of the ones I knew from my background, but you can get it if you come from a jungle or smth. And why is it so good? Because except for speaking and casting spells it can do anything that player races can. So since you retain your skills and proficiencies and can choose to wear your equipment instead of merging it while wild-shaped, you can use your weapons (with STR+3 and DEX+2 stats, which are probably better than your base ones), wear armor and shield, and even gain benefits from magic items you get later on. It doesn't have that good HP compared to the CR1 beasts, but since level 2 I had 18(!!!) AC. And it can throw rocks as well at short distance (25/50ft.) for decent damage, but also use your regular ranged weapons like sling. So it's pretty much the only Wild Shape form which can actually do ranged damage and give you better AC than Barkskin. And how did I get such good AC even as an Ape wearing armor? Because there's this obscure 'Spiked Armor' which has the same stats as 'Scale Armor', BUT the description says it's "covered with spikes that are usually made of metal". So I just told my DM that before the start of the campaign I got a custom made Spiked Armor (it pretty much has to be custom made anyway because it's an unusual type of armor to begin with) made from some ironwood. Which is as hard as metal, but not actually metal. So I can wear it as a druid and the Ape form serves me well up to 6th level for now ;)

Kalashtar is also a good race that wasn't mentioned. Especially if you want to multiclass to a totem warrior barbarian.

If you for some reason wanted to take 3 levels of warlock you could pick archfey for theme, and pact of chains and a sprite then take voice of the chain master. That way you can fully talk through the sprite rather than use a raven for mimicry. Plus since the sprite can be invisible all the time, as long as it stays near your head know one will know its not actually you talking. As your other evocation I would take Gift of the Ever-Living Ones so you gain max healing as long as the sprite is within 100ft of you. For another 3 levels into barbarian you could also add in bear totem to make you one hell of a tank but you will suck at everything beyond level 10.

What do you think about firbolg as a race for druid ?

How do you feel about the Shillelagh cantrip? I've noticed you never choose it? Also, in your interpretation, would the fact that it makes your weapon magical allow it to overcome resistances to bludgeoning resistant creatures?

At 45:30 there is the Quetzalcoatlus for second level CR flying creature, and it has fly by. However having seen it may be DM restrictive.

I like hexblood, you have telepathic speech to one creature and can cast hex to give people disadvantage on saves to escape your grapples And give you better damage

Instead of a flying bear with the protector Aasimar, you could go with a flying bore, for those times when somebody says "When pigs fly"!

Another great build, and for my second favourite class, to boot! Thank you. Are you going to do builds for Land and Shepherd druids?

Nice to see a different kind of view for the Moondruid. I still have some questions you have said. For example Outlander as a background with Stealth and Athletics as your skills. As Stealth is being replaced by your beast statistics, why bother with that? As is the same with Athletics. Why not backgrounds wich give proficiency in Int, Wis or Cha - skills? As you procede and several times repeat: Wildshape becomes less and less atractive. Why are you focusing on the spell list? Isn't that something for a Druid of the Land build? What kind of role could you get when wildshaped in combat? That is what I am curious about.

Bark armor is ok for moon druids because it beefs up your AC to 16 regardless of form which is much better then the 12-13 you would normally have but you are still going to make a fair bit of saves once the monsters start to get +5 or more which is sooner rather then later

What website are you using to map out this character. I’m sorry I’m new to playing D&D again after 30 years. My son has gotten me back into it playing a campaign with him. I played as a teenager back in the Stone Age lol.

I've got a lizardfolk level 3 beastmaster ranger/level 4 moon druid and he's a whole lot of fun to play. Thanks for the thoughts on the moon druid.

Would the Thri-Kreen be an even better option now? They also get telepathy.

How would I build a Moon Druid if I was trying to optimize my wild shapes? I realize focusing on magic is the better strategy but if I want to go all in on making my character the shapeshifter what would I do? I’m thinking I’d take Druid straight to level 6 before dipping into Barbarian. The defensive bonus you get from rage will keep you in your wild shape for a long time and you can occasionally ink out a few extra points of AC with unarmoured defense. I’d probably take Barb up to 3 for the Bear Totem, resistance to everything is pretty nice to have. after that I think swapping back to Druid is probably your best bet, If you can get to Druid 10 being able to shift into a raging elemental would be all kinds of fun. Elemental Form is basically the only wild shape I’d focus on at this point, rage when appropriate and stay alive. Finally I’d probably take 2 levels of Paladin, assuming I could meet the multiclassing requirement. Divine Smites are fun and they keep your low level slots valuable for something other than Goodberry. The problem is that now the character is level 15, they’ve gotten as good as their going to get and they’re probably not as good as the rest of the party. I definitely think there’s a better way to go about this, what would you try.

Entire party riding on the back of a divine winged war elephant using sunbeam to shoot lasers out of its trunk: glorious combination of protector aasimar and druid abilities or most glorious combination of protector aasimar and druid abilities ?

I still like the totem barb multiclass option too much haha. With the race Kalashtar, you’re neigh unkillable!

Wildshape is great with Monks (DM dependent), as they benefit from Martial Arts, Unarmoured Defense, and if you go that high, Extra Attack. (If someone says that natural weapons *aren't* unarmed strikes... Look at every other PC feature that gives access to natural weapons: they all alter your unarmed strike.)

if you wildshape after cast conjure animals you would'nt be able to give orders to your summoned animals would you?

@14:40 this is beautiful

Can you do a breakdown of Druid spells by level? Or a straight up Land Druid guide? I kind of want to play a Firbolg Land Druid next time I get a chance to play a new character - I feel I can relate to it lol.

Hi! Great vid. What would you consider multiclassing your Moon Druids to? I know most would not, but just asking.

Correction, wild shape does not stay limited to two at level 20. It becomes unlimited. That's why druids are just the best.

If you have seen it you could apply half-dragon template to the beasts

Did druid get changed? Beast Spells is 18th Unlimited Wild Shape is 20th

Did you skip a feat/ stat improvement at 16?

Is the Moon Druid really that far behind martial classes? Really you have to consider it with the creatures it can summon. At level 5 you can be a brown bear with 2 brown bear buddies. At level 10 air elemental with your air elemental buddy is 4 attacks at +8 attack each doing 2d8+5 damage.

Can you please do a Land Druid build and compare it with the moon druid?

I think in high levels there's no competition between spells and wild shapes, we can use both of then in a variety of ways together

the problem with doing this to level 20 is that most of the time a campaign is over by the time you reach these high levels. Carrying a character over to the next campaign is up to the DM, but even so you rarely get to spend much time as a high level character.

Like a level 20 druid casting a level 1 fireball, or ice bolt, or arcane missile. The bread and butter for battle control for the druid, is "wrath of the vine" in short it's the root spell on steroids. Chance to root multiple targets with chance to poison target, except bgg if the armor class exceeds the piercing thorn concept. Example: dragon rooted but thorns don't penetrate dragon scale. Concept limit by area, no trees, no vines, no spell...

- Does anyone know if the Church of the Silver flame have anything against druids over wild shape? We just basically got arrested by them after defeating Strahd and the mist clearing. It's gonna be homebrew content from now on but we had a priest who knew enough with religion check to know they are a militant church that while good has that ends justify the means attitude and full on hate against lyncanthropes. - As a Moon druid i'm worried i could be executed, we just finished a huge boss fight so we have very few spell slots or abilities, I do have a wild shape though. So it comes down to either going with them and hoping that they are okay with my existence, or bail and let the rest of the party (warlock might bail too, but he's the face character so it's a tough choice for him, he took a curse that has him at 22 charisma at lvl 9, but it did change his alignment to chaotic evil, and a flaw about not liking to take no for an answer) do the diplomacy while I lay low. - since the DM is my bro, and I know he's not a complete dick, it makes me consider that this is probably just a plot hook for whatever he has plan and i'm probably just being paranoid. unless of course the silver flame guys consider it lyncanthropy as that would mean they will go all ultra violence on me.

If a water genasi shifts can the beast still swim?

I can attest the multi classing problem, it's a total trap. You become incredibly level dependent and you never quite feel like you're where you thought you should be and once your at high level the battle wild shape is still lackluster, it's just extra hp. Additionally, if you were a high level character it would still be better to be exclusively a moon druid.

nice 👌

I don't think I'll ever have a druid or ranger without conjure animals. The thought of 8 CR1/4 Giant Owls doing 2d6+1 flyby attacks in open battle is beautiful. With my go-tos being Wolf, Black bear, Brown bear , Cave bear. I also like the Crag Cat (p. 240 SKT)for a CR1 beast if I'm fighting casters. Spell Turning and the potential for multiattack is nice in what is almost a Lion or Tiger Stat Block. If you have a group willing to deal with the cheese once throw a lvl 7 conjute animals and wildshape into a dire wolf or winter wolf and have fun with 25 wolves with pack tactics softening up the monsters before the party starts.

What do you think about using Primal Savagery over Shillelagh as an out of Wild Shape melee attack option? Seems to me that Primal Savagery is better for damage output plus you don't have to carry a weapon at all if you don't want to.

I'd rather do Circle of the Shepherd with variant human, Mage Ritual Caster feat, selecting Find Familiar, and I really don't care what other ritual spells accumulate (but I expect to eventually get them all)

With no feats is a 1 level dip into monk worth it for unarmored defense?

Does warcaster work in wildshape? The wildshape description states you can concentrate on spell but specifically stated you can't cast spells. The warcaster feat states you need the ability to cast at least one spell. So when you wildshape, don't you lose warcaster because the new form isn't capable of casting spells.

I myself personally don’t like using Moon Druid, it’s amazing early on, no mistake, but after about level 6, other characters have stronger attacks then Moon Druid, and Dan do it more often as well, I prefer Star and Wildfire Druids, they have much more flexibility and usage then Moon Druid imo, but I do see why the Moon Druids a popular choice

There is a flying CR 2 dinosaur in Volo's guide: the quetzelcouatlus

Interesting that every other guide rank the shapeshifting and elemental in the top 5. The Elementals have crazy abilities. You can insta kill enemies. Just lift an enemy and let him drop

Hey love the video , great one 👍 Could you do the land druid circle next ? I feel that the class doesn't get much love but in my opinion is a Very underrated sub class ( its a Wizard with wildshapes And stuff ! Very cool )

I didn't care for moon druid having played from level 3 to 20. Once forms fell off around 5/6(getting "good" forms can be very hard when your DM is using RAW), I played it as cc caster for a LONG time, and felt I had wasted my subclass because land, and others, are just better if you're casting. At 20 he was broken, because I could cast and had a 100 hp buffer.

No love for the water genasi?

When DMing for a druid, what do think it's better to limit the wild shapes available to them or let them pick anything with an appropriate CR? I think it would be fun to let players add the exotic animals to their repertoire as they see them over the adventure like Pokemon.

PHB says Tough feat is based on level, not hit dice.