I have been thinking about making wildshape more fun, this is partly the fault of the “Honor Among Thieves” movie.
Wildshape should be more like a resource pool that grows with your character, similar to sorcery points or ki points.
Here are the mechanics of the change: You get a number of hours based on your druid level (moon druid Lvl+1). Using wildshape costs time based on the CR of the transform (min 1/4hr). You can transform as many times as you have time left. The time you can stay wildshaped is based on how much time you have left. The pool still resets on a short rest.
e.g. 1 - Non-moon druid. Could transform into CR0,1/8 or 1/4 for 1/4 hr each at level 2, a total of 4 times. Or for 3/4 hr twice.
e.g. 2 - Moon druid. CR1 transform for 1/2 hr, twice. At level 2.
e.g. 3 - Moon druid. CR0 (mouse) for 1/4hr, CR1(bear) for 1/4 hr, CR1 for 1/4 hr.
e.g. 4 - Level 5 Moon druid. CR1 for 1/4hr, twice, CR0 for 3/4hr, CR1/2 for 1/2hr, CR1/4 for 1/4 hr.
e.g. 5 - Level 6 Moon druid. CR2 for 1hr twice.
I’m still debating weather or not to give the +1 hr to moon druids.
The main thing I’m trying to do is avoid the “wasted” wildshape feeling, I don’t want to hesitate to use this awesome feature to keep the resource for a potential later battle.
So what do you guys think? Will this break the game? I am testing this with my DM, but if it turns out to be too OP then we will dial it back. Or potential go back to standard.
Agreed, the charges idea was a great suggestion by Toaster. It should help prevent the "but I was only wildshaped for 20 seconds" type of complaints.
Either way time is weird in D&D.
Assume that you are involved in a "long" combat at 10 rounds. Wildshape lasts hours, so yes I wildshape into a dire wolf and finish the battle in 1 minute of in game time; but being a wolf is not that useful out of combat....so I "waste" 59 minutes of wildshape time at Lvl 2 and 119 minutes at Lvl 4 etc...you could use some of the time saying that I was scouting the area around the battle for a few minutes....but still, the point stands.