D&D General The Resurrection of Mike Mearls Games.

[Zaukrie]

Yes! That approach makes it easier to zero in on what each character has at stake.

This likely isn't what you meant.....but tying damage to things other than hit points, like smite uses or spell slots or other things would be cool, but likely a death spiral type situation. I think there might be times to make the players really desperate to end things quickly, or to run......and taking away "what" they are might be "fun" once in awhile.

 

[mearls]

Also @mearls more Psyker when?!

Post new PHB - it'll likely need to adjust a bit to account for the new classes and how they're designed.

 

[mearls]

This likely isn't what you meant.....but tying damage to things other than hit points, like smite uses or spell slots or other things would be cool, but likely a death spiral type situation. I think there might be times to make the players really desperate to end things quickly, or to run......and taking away "what" they are might be "fun" once in awhile.

I am thinking of a system that works along those lines. A die roll determines how much damage each PC takes, but the characters can cancel out damage by burning resources to represent their efforts.

In play, the DM narrates how tough the fight is and reveals how much damage each character could take. Each character then has the chance to burn resources and reduce the damage. The DM can also use penalties other than damage, depending on the situation. For instance, when fighting a guard patrol as part of a chase scene the die roll might show how much time the PCs risk wasting.

 

[Neonchameleon]

A real quick summary:

• Wild shape is, IME, what makes many people want to play a druid.
• In practice, it creates a huge pool of extra hit points that makes druids weirdly durable.
• Wild shape damage also lags at high levels.
• Because the druid is a full caster, we don't have a big power budget for subclasses.
• All of that together means that circle of the moon packs a ton of core functionality that anyone who likes wild shape wants. It makes designing alternatives difficult.

I'm really looking forward to the 2024 refresh of the druid. I know the ranger and monk get a lot of attention, but my experience working on subclasses showed me that the druid is the most difficult class to work with.

I'd agree with almost all of this with a couple of caveats.

I've seen actual excitement round two other existing druid subclasses, one OneD&D Druid subclass and one non-druid subclass that alas doesn't work. The two subclasses are Wildfire and Spores, the OneD&D subclass is Sea, and the one that doesn't work is the Storm Sorcerer - and part of the reason it doesn't work is that sorcerers are two squishy to play like that (and the other part being that sorcerers need to know more spells).

My suggestion: Take druids off the cleric chassis and put them on the warlock chassis. Then give them a range of subclasses (Shapeshifter, Wildfire, Spores, Sea/Storm, and Poison Ivy/plant).

Also make a shifter class in its own right.

 

[Zaukrie]

Or make nature clerics, aka current druids that don't shape change much, clerics, and druids are all about shape changing....