Is the circle of the moon druid any good in the game?

[Magenta]

I am interested in trying the class out, because the shapeshifting looks really fun, but I have my doubts because according to some people on reddit it´s very weak and has low AC, so i don´t want a bad experience.

If it´s playable what stats and feats should I aim for? I want to roleplay as a human(evil if possible) and without multi-classing. Thank you.

[♂Warrior of Gachi♂]

It's clunky and weaker than other builds, but it is not weak. Once you get to lvl 6, it's joever for your enemies. The biggest problem is that Owlbear is your best form by far and the other forms are either complete garbage or not worth using (like the small animal shapes), though the myrmidon forms are quite strong too.

The AC doesn't matter. You have 2 huge additional healthbars (6 in total per long rest, 8 with a bard), if enemies take you out of wildshape - just start casting or go back to wildshape if you have another charge. And dead enemies make no attacks, so offence is better than defence.

Tavern brawler works (I think?) and it's the only useful feat for druids afaik. Maybe they disabled it for Honor mode, idk. There were so many patchnotes going back and forth with this feat and druids.

Also, pretty much all druid specific gear is in Act 3 and half of it doesn't work, as of the last time I played a month or two ago.

[Chaosolous]

It was my first playthrough class. Had a blast.

[Kappa]

It's wonderful imo.
Especially with a dedicated healer for warding bond ( if the cleric is healer, even less powercreep and more epic fights ).

It's only downside is imo not having enough AC, ending up soaking too much damage and not making a good use of their form. A healer with warding bond solves this issue.

Owlbear is pretty strong and can easily carry the whole party up to the end of the game.

[Magenta]

Originally posted by ♂PUDGUS♂:

It's clunky and weaker than other builds, but it is not weak. Once you get to lvl 6, it's joever for your enemies. The biggest problem is that Owlbear is your best form by far and the other forms are either complete garbage or not worth using (like the small animal shapes), though the myrmidon forms are quite strong too.

I was hoping I could use the animal forms like i.e. wolf, pather and the sabre-toothed tiger through the whole game for thematic and roleplaying reasons. I don´t like the the owlbear and myrmidon forms lol.

[Maj. Grumpy]

My first playthru was druid and it's just as good as any other class.

[GrandMajora]

Because your Wildshape has fixed physical attributes, this means you're pretty much forced to take 'Half Feats' if you want to get any mileage out of those 4 levels. Compensate for your lack of ability score improvements with other perks instead.

I would also suggest you kill The Strange Ox in the druid grove as quickly as possible, since he has a magic ring that gives you +1d4 on ALL CHECKS while you're in disguise or Wildshape.

[Panzerbjorne39]

Originally posted by Magenta:

Originally posted by ♂PUDGUS♂:

It's clunky and weaker than other builds, but it is not weak. Once you get to lvl 6, it's joever for your enemies. The biggest problem is that Owlbear is your best form by far and the other forms are either complete garbage or not worth using (like the small animal shapes), though the myrmidon forms are quite strong too.

I was hoping I could use the animal forms like i.e. wolf, pather and the sabre-toothed tiger through the whole game for thematic and roleplaying reasons. I don´t like the the owlbear and myrmidon forms lol.

Don’t listen to this guy. He doesn’t know what he’s taking about. Probably never played the class. It’s not clunky at all and the Sabretooth Tiger is very strong and a viable option throughout the whole game. I swapped between Owlbear, sabretooth, and myrmidon. All good. The moon Druid is a ton of fun and strong to boot.

[♂Warrior of Gachi♂]

Originally posted by Panzerbjorne39:

Originally posted by Magenta:

I was hoping I could use the animal forms like i.e. wolf, pather and the sabre-toothed tiger through the whole game for thematic and roleplaying reasons. I don´t like the the owlbear and myrmidon forms lol.

Don’t listen to this guy. He doesn’t know what he’s taking about. Probably never played the class. It’s not clunky at all and the Sabretooth Tiger is very strong and a viable option throughout the whole game. I swapped between Owlbear, sabretooth, and myrmidon. All good. The moon Druid is a ton of fun and strong to boot.

It is absolutely clunky. You need to spend a wildshape charge to be a worse fighter (with no access to magical weapons) for 5 levels out of 12. You need to spend a wildshape charge if you want to use one of those millions of useless holes in the game.
Your gear doesn't work. Your special class gear appears only in Act 3. Most feats don't do anything.

It is absolutely a clunky mess of a class. It's fun to play, it's not weak, but it's a clunky mess nonetheless.

[Cat]

One upside (if you want to call it that) due to the lack of druid items in the game is that a druid (especially moon who focuses on wildshape) will never compete for gear as most bonuses won't be relevant for your wildshapes anyway, and while some people only think about combat for wildshaping, the various forms do have utility, cat can walk around most areas without drawing aggro, even distract enemies, the raven gets fly which has uses outside of combat too, but if your only metric for if moon is good or not is based on combat then it's not as good as other druid options. (This isn't helped by the fact your only real claim to fame is bonus action wildshape, as all druids can wildshape)

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by ♂PUDGUS♂:

Originally posted by Panzerbjorne39:

Don’t listen to this guy. He doesn’t know what he’s taking about. Probably never played the class. It’s not clunky at all and the Sabretooth Tiger is very strong and a viable option throughout the whole game. I swapped between Owlbear, sabretooth, and myrmidon. All good. The moon Druid is a ton of fun and strong to boot.

It is absolutely clunky. You need to spend a wildshape charge to be a worse fighter (with no access to magical weapons) for 5 levels out of 12. You need to spend a wildshape charge if you want to use one of those millions of useless holes in the game.
Your gear doesn't work. Your special class gear appears only in Act 3. Most feats don't do anything.

It is absolutely a clunky mess of a class. It's fun to play, it's not weak, but it's a clunky mess nonetheless.

This ^ is honestly the main problem with druid.

Very few things from your gear works on you as a druid in wild shape.
None of the other innate abilities from multi classing work with druid (in game, they work fine in table top), (correction the only thing that does is monk's wis to ac)
And your stats other then health never increase meaning a lot of feats & stat increases just are worthless for the class.


Its one of the many reasons I wish 5e would handle things more like pathfinder 2e does for their druids (they actually use spell slots to transform but transformations scale based on your level and the spell slot's level).

Some of the problem should at least be manageable by mods though (namely multi classing interaction) since larian doesn't seem to care.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

There are two great things about the Moonies -

• Shapeshift as a bonus action. So you can lay down a concentration spell (Spike Growth for example), and then shift into something defensive.

• Elemental forms at level 10.

[Detective Costeau]

It also depends on what difficulty you plan to play on.
On Balanced, you'll be fine unless you do something really silly with your build. It's not going to dominate the game like an optimized Swords Bard, but it's going to be plenty good enough to finish the game with, so if you find the idea of a shapeshifting nature priest cool, you'll have plenty of fun with it.

The one thing I do find annoying with MC druids is you can't talk with people in wildshape, so you sometimes have to waste charges to be able to have a conversation, but with wildshape charges recovering after a short rest, you can still be pretty sure of being able to shapeshift in any given fight.

[Morion]

Main issue with Moon Druid is fixed by mod Wild Shape Overhaul. That mod allow to use wildshape without charges when outside of battle.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Morion:

Main issue with Moon Druid is fixed by mod Wild Shape Overhaul. That mod allow to use wildshape without charges when outside of battle.

You also need to be able to use 'spell actions' while Wildshaped.

[Panzerbjorne39]

Originally posted by ♂PUDGUS♂:

Originally posted by Panzerbjorne39:

Don’t listen to this guy. He doesn’t know what he’s taking about. Probably never played the class. It’s not clunky at all and the Sabretooth Tiger is very strong and a viable option throughout the whole game. I swapped between Owlbear, sabretooth, and myrmidon. All good. The moon Druid is a ton of fun and strong to boot.

It is absolutely clunky. You need to spend a wildshape charge to be a worse fighter (with no access to magical weapons) for 5 levels out of 12. You need to spend a wildshape charge if you want to use one of those millions of useless holes in the game.
Your gear doesn't work. Your special class gear appears only in Act 3. Most feats don't do anything.

It is absolutely a clunky mess of a class. It's fun to play, it's not weak, but it's a clunky mess nonetheless.

It’s funny because I never had a single issue. Only min-max nerds who are hyper fixated on every little detail would notice this stuff and say it’s clunky.