One D&D Playtest Review: Paladin & Druid

I feel like the solutions presented in this vido boil down to "give every class eldritch invocations" and I love it

Honestly, I want more classes to get tons of options, like Warlock getting Eldritch Invocations, or battlemaster fighters getting maneuvers. Paladins getting to choose between a handful of flavors of smites without using the smite spells would be super cool, and provides a nice degree of flexibility in flavoring your character. Edit: Can't believe y'all missed Smites getting opened up for ranged and unarmed attacks, which is huge and I love it.

Monty’s idea of multiple wild shape forms and ones you have prepared is EXCELLENT

Honestly the idea of roughly 12 templates to cover the bases seems really solid.

Expanding on Monty's idea of a limited number of wild shapes know, I propose a flora form. You could have vines that could suck out nutrients if you're grappling an enemy, healing you for 1d4 damage, you'd get an innate speak with plants while transformed and you could get a bonus to stealth if you don't move.

Really wish they would get The true essence of The moon druid without The Wonky scaling.

I agree with what u said. I understand balancing the Druid health bar but the fun part for Druid was the adaptability of nature and losing that would hurt greatly

I'm so glad you addressed this. I have been a druid main for a long long time and it pains me to say: With the wildshape changes as they are *at this moment*, I daresay there is little to no reason for a druid player to ever use the wildshape feature.

I was surprised you didn't speak to the other Wildshape nerfing they did. You don't carry over anything from your classes, race, feats, or skills. That's great for preventing weird interactions, except that everything you turn into is worse than the Druid you just were unless you need to flee via climbing, swimming, or flying. Wildshape has been reduced to Flee Speed.

I would love to see druid environments be incorporated into wild shape abilities like Eldritch Invocations modify Eldritch Blast. You’re a tundra or desert druid, so you can modify your wild shapes to have cold or fire resistance. You’re an Underdark druid, so all of your wild shapes have tremorsense or blindsight. You’re a savannah druid, your wild shapes get extra movement. I think it would be a great way to incorporate backstory into a druid’s powers, which often just feel nebulous in how they relate to nature as a whole.

I like the idea of the smite spells being tied to your Paladin Oath, with new ones for your Oath being unlocked at higher levels. That way you'd be adding another feature to make each Oath stand out, and would give options of different smites to use. It'd also solve the problem of the Cleric being better at smite spells than the Paladin, by tying it to a class feature.

What you’re saying is exactly how I feel about bard and their special spells like viscous mockery. The fact it’s just a spell on the arcane list means you’ll get wizard, sorcerer, etc. getting those spells too. Makes the Bard feel less special because the wizard already does literally everything

The idea for selecting different wild shape forms to master is really cool. There are so many possibilities with just that feature that it should honestly be its own class. Picture it: a shapeshifter class that masters different forms as they progress and maybe can modify them in different ways based on what subclass was chosen.

I love your druid idea - Current one D&D druid does not look fun, but your idea looks so much better!

The idea for Druid makes perfect sense!! I hope they listen to this and use it

With the Paladin the wording allows for a ranged smite. "Immediately after you hit a target with an attack roll using a weapon or an Unarmed Strike." They give up the Nova but now you can really Dex your pally and give them a bow, also giving you a chance to be a holy puncher.

I'd just like to say that Kelly has really found his stride in the last few months, and seems more confident, happy, and comfortable showing his silly side and I love that!!!

When I first got into DnD, I actually expected Smite to be a 1/turn thing. Like, it's not something that... sounds like, something you would be doing on every attack, you know? In any case, I have allways felt that Paladin spells were overlooked in favor of Smite, so I'm happy that this might make people consider spellcasting more. As for druids, I pretty much agree with everything you said. I could imagine fewer stat blocks though, but each one has some customization options like the Tasha summon spells have.

I could definitely see Smites becoming something like Eldritch Invocations. Personally tho, I think class spell lists is a better fix.

I was hoping to also hear you talk about the healing flower thing you can do with channel nature...I love the concept but it seems insanely weak after you get past the first couple levels.