Yeah having a cow but no lion seems weird.
I wish they had gone with a more size/power = level ratio approach for each type of animal. So in early tiers maybe you get a regular cat, and it goes up at each tier with bigger cats of different types the further you go in the game. This is an area where they could stage it based on an internal logic rather than just source book CR tables or whatever. I'll go by calling it tiers instead of levels just for more flexibility and clarity, but for example something like this...
1. Wild Cat basically your standard issue house cat or tom size, but with more feral flare. Does all the stuff the current regular cat does, but more wildly lol.
2. Bobcat and Lynx types, bigger than wild cats and more viscous with crazier fur stripes or spots or whatever.
3. Panther Jaguar Cheetah types, bigger still with all the badass we'd expect from that.
4. Lion and Tiger types, the biggest of big cats
5. Ancient or Spirit Types of the same for the Epic stuff
At each tier of progression the Cat has the same core abilities, to sneak and climb and do what cats do, but progressively larger and more impressive options as you advance through the game. There's room for a little overlap and extended nuance sure, like is a Puma really all that different than a Mountain Lion or whatever, but tiered like that I think it would be pretty cool.
They should do the same with every animal type. The canines and the birds and the hogs and the bears and the rodents.
For rodents I think start with rat, then squirrel, then graduate to like ferrits, and finally end with the War Bunny! The Dire Rabbit should be hella badass, like on the level of a Lion. Hare supreme, like Holy Grail status in the rodent category. Giving up the rabbit right out the gate seems too much. It should be Agatha style, like an endgame Magic rabbit.
But yeah, like that, each Animal tier with their own badass progression within the same scheme. Badgers, I still don't really know what to do with lol, I guess maybe ends with like a Wolverine, but you get the idea. Snakes. Get em all doing a similar type progression. Athropods are a bit weirder the way they are handled with the giant monster variety. But I guess everyone likes a giant spider hehe.
A Ram would also have been a cool type, since they can hop up mountains and ram and whatnot. I feel like goats and sheep and rams you could also group up. Like that would be pretty useful given how they set up their envirnments.
Anyway, that would be my idea for an approach.
Just pick the animal groups that seem most entertaining and do it like that for each of them. I'd be fun for shifting and summoning if done like that.
For the Rothe, you could do something similar with the Aurochs and stage it in to progressively more crazy types. Maybe ending with like Rhinos and Mastodons? That seems to me like a really high tier type thing though. Like wild shaping into that weighs a couple tons is pretty crazy. Bears I guess have always been in here though, so whatever works.
I'd put in a shout for the deer and elk and moose, like meeses to pieces, but I figured that would probably get perfunctorily ditched as usual lol.
Also one last aside, but if Drow Druids are a thing, then I think the game should really kind of explore what that looks like. I don't know what the underdark is eventually meant to end up being in this game, but Druids in the Dark is just an area of lore that hasn't been much explored. Rangers sure, that archetype is dialed and most of the other classes, but Druids need like a story in, to help us see what it's like for Drow Druids. I feel like they could do a lot with the insects and worms and especially ants or other burrowing type insects. All their druidic lore should be about the roots and veins going way deep. I want to hear that stuff. Like worshipping the Stalagmites, and the forces of underworld nature. I would be disappointed if the Drow were just down there still talking about the Trees if you catch what I mean. It should be way darker and more underworldly, with fixations on natural forces of decay and transformation beneath the ground.
Drow Druids should for sure have reverence and fear for the power of the Earthquake. That should be on same kind of mystical footing as like Storms or Thunder for surface druids.
The Earth Shaker could work like an Oak Father analog for the Underdark maybe? I don't know, but they need to flesh it out some. We need something that works within existing Drow lore that we know of, or that maybe fits in with Lolth and such, but which doesn't displace or totally overshadow it.
Most of the Druid features that used to be exclusive to humans you can adapt up to Elves or the other surface races, but for the outliers like Dwarves or Drow feel like they need a bit of love. To get a picture of what say Dwarven druids might look like, or Drow examples. Like maybe they make an appearance at some kind of conclave to rep the Underdark Circle that nobody had ever heard of until now. Stuff like that. I hope they lean into it
I wasn't really looking for a reason to roll a new Elf type toon, but I guess it's happening now hehe. Going to trash my High Elf for a Drow and go at it again
Last edited by Black_Elk; 05/03/21 09:06 AM.
