Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Owl bear shape for Druid

Nice

Eh ...
I have little mixed feelings about this.

On one side it seems like Lariain is trying really hard to make allready strong feature, for allready strong class, that have allready strong version (i mean, Owlbears allready are, and will be even more superpopular after the movie, so many people would probably use it even if it would be slightly weaker than regular bear imho) ... even stronger ... while completely forgetting about everyone else. O_o
I mean ... what buffs other classes get to ballance this out? Or what buffs other wildhsapes get to ballance this out? If any? :-/
I really start to feel that "classes loose any meaning" argument that floats around here for last two years.

On the other side tho ... or in other words "ballance be damned" side ...
I wonder if Owlbear we will fight in that cave will have and will use such abilities, bcs that would make that combat little more interesting.

From the various game design analysis videos I've watched, the recurring point that gets made is that as far as balance goes, it's less important to have everything be equally powerful as it is to have everything be equally interesting. So where games go wrong is either having everything be levelled off to the point where there's nothing really interesting about any class or have things bee so wildly imbalanced that there's one obviouslly superior choice that makes all or most other choices less interesting as a result. A situation where players end up going, "sure I could go with this choice, but I could be going with the other, obviously optimal choice and have more options and do cooler stuff."

Potayto, potahto ...

Ähm, did you really try to play a druid in BG3? Useful spells: concentration only; shape change options which are ok but not outstanding. Dying as soon as the animal form hits 0HP opposite to the rules of 5th edition.
And you call that strong? *Cough*. So they get a stronger shape change option and you tell us:
"...make allready strong feature, for allready strong class, that have allready strong version (i mean, Owlbears allready are, and will be even more superpopular after the movie, so many people would probably use it even if it would be slightly weaker than regular bear imho) ... even stronger..."
Well, try a paladin and you know whats what.
Is the owlbear stronger than the other forms up to that point. Yes, but this is lvl 6 and until now we can only compare with lvl 5 of other classes.
And, as it stands now, it is rather hard to fit a druid in a 4 character roster. It is not useful enough or not strong enough, choose one of the aforementioned options.
Fighter Type: Paladin, Barbarian, Fighter (choose one)
Healer Type: Cleric Subclass (choose one)
Rogue Type: Rogue Subclass (choose one), [maybe multiclass into Monk if MC is in the game and good and you are feeling bold.]
Wizard Type: Wizard, Sorcerer, ((choose one) [maybe warlock, but rather not.]

Sorry for my subpar English but I am not a native.

I agree moon druid currently struggles (haven’t played land yet), and for me that’s mainly because concentration breaks too easily and key spells that a moon druid should be able to reactivate even in wildshape are disabled in animal form (heat metal, moonbeam, chain lightning). Sure the animal forms aren’t great up to level 5, but I’m happy to wait for the owlbear at level 6 and better forms later if the magic is there to supplement weaker beast forms early on. There’s plenty of chat about the class on these forums if you’re interested.

But your quote above implies your character died when their wildshape HP was exhausted, which shouldn’t happen and my druid always just reverted to human. Might you have come across this bug: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=848126?

Yup, aproximately 4 times.
12, if you count not full playthroughs.

Well, thats Druids thing ... its very simmilar in tabletop.
I believe this was done to ballance things out a little, since Druid can hold concentration even within the form (wich can easily have much better statistics to do so).

Im not quite sure if you are supposed to move your moonbeam (for example) when you are bear or not tho.

Depends ... what would you concider to be outstanding?

Cat have superiour sneaking, spider jump distance is crazy (true, its a shame you cant crawl across walls ... but you can crawl across webs, for example in spider pit inside goblin camp), and if you are moondruid and get raven ... you can travel across whole battlefield almost for free ...
All that without investing single point to ability or feat ... i would say that alone is quite awesome.

Well, this is pure bug, as stated abowe.

Yes.
I would say this much should be obvious.

You have to see beyond dmg numbers ...
Paladin cant sneak, like at all basicaly ... his movement is a joke compared to raven ... and he only have single HP pool, comparing to Druid who can have up to 5 per single combat (Entering combat in form, then his own HP, then 3 more wild shapes).

You are comparing strong side of one class with weak side of another class ...
Druid thing is versatility, they can do almost anything ... sure, not as good as specialized classes (like Rogue, Cleric or Barbarian) ... but still well enough.

And that is problem ...
Bcs once you have single form that is superior in every way, there is basicaly no reason to have any other.

How many moon druids that had acess to Polar Bear used Deep Rothé?
My guess? 0 ... less hp, less AC, less dmg ... so why bother?

Same apply to Owlbear ...
I dont know what statistics will be used, all im saying is that if they would be exactly the same as regular Bear, many people would pick Owlbear jut bcs they are cooler ... add some extra special abilities on top of that ... and interest for Bear form is history.

Maybe that would be one of reasons why nobody is comparing statistics? O_o

This is very common misstake.

As stated abowe, you are comparing specialist with versatile class ...
Druid was never supposed to be as tanky as Barbarian, as skilled as Rogue, as supportive as Bard, or as destructive as Sorcerer ... Druid thing is that he can do all those things, to some degree.
His place is in the middle, along with Wizard, Ranger or Fighter.

The 5e rules say you can, or at least I don’t see why moving moonbeam should be different from calling down lightning which is the specific example given:



As you say, as a player it’s about picking the right form for the job, and as a developer making sure there’s a use case for each form, ideally throughout the game but at least at certain levels and that we can get good use from each form before getting something better. Level 6 feels the right time for a new fighting form as I find the existing beast forms are starting to struggle in combat by level 5, and a form with some decent CC like the planned owlbear feels a useful step. Though as you say hopefully it won’t make all the other forms obsolete. I’m cautiously hopeful, as I don’t think Larian have made that mistake yet.

Currently, as a moon druid Polar Bear is useful for tanking when the Druid’s AC and HP are at their lowest at levels 2/3, but I found wolf better at levels 4/5 for DPS once its Pack Tactics (eg with Flaming Sphere) were used. Dire Raven as you say is great for mobility, even without proper flying (which would be great), and cat is useful for sneaking, and both will be more convenient once the encumbrance issue is fixed (Larian support did confirm to me that it would be). Deep Rothé is good for breaking down walls, and also in fights with lots of verticality where it can charge around knocking enemies over (ie it’s handy in Grymforge). I didn’t use spider or badger as much in my run, but they both have situational uses, and I can imagine using them more as a land druid.

That is, so far, so good, and as long as Larian continue to consider ways to keep at least some other forms relevant, out of combat if not in, playing shapeshifting Druids should be as fun and versatile as it should be. As long as those concentration spells and other issues with spells (eg Sleet Storm not working properly on different levels and too-easy-escape from Druid’s AoE CC spells by jumping) are fixed, that is.

every character can win the game played well... you never need a tank or a thief, just work around each problem but there is not 5e rule that says Druid needs to be balanced against any other class

Well, i for one hope that regular forms will get stronger as we level up aswell ...

I really like my Bear, or Giant Badger ... and it would make me quite sad if their stats would be fix, so they would become useless in end game.

Make it polar bear > brown bear > black bear > whatever bear ... if you need to ...
Just keep in mind that there are people out there whos druids really dont want to turn into monstrosities.