Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Wild Shape Bear Sucks

Excuse me if this has been said 1,000 times before. Just bought the game yesterday in anticipation of full release, and there is no doubt what class I want to play: a shapeshifting Druid!

Well, until I saw the only unique form we get is a POLAR bear. First off, polar bear? Is this game set in the Tundra and I’m unaware of it?

And much worse, the STAT NERF on the bear vs the PHB. Less hit points, no multi attack, and is this a god forsaken bug but it says the bear’s damage is 2d4 vs the wolf’s 2d6?!? Uhhh, what??

It’s not bad enough that we have to break immersion with a polar bear instead of a grizzly, but we do less damage than the wolf? We lose our most important ability? We get GOAD to replace it?? Yuck, yuck, and yuck.

I’m sure it’s been said before but the wolf right now is a straight better combat option with its pack tactics, making choosing Circle of the Moon pointless. Wow. Class fantasy = Murder Death Killed.

What is so bad about just sticking to the PHB? No one has ever had any sort of issue with the Druid power curve on table top, just Leave It Alone.

I just can’t understand why some game makers get it in their head that they need to BALANCE everything, esp something that needed no balancing what-so-ever.

5e, and a few other games these days (at least the good ones) understand this simple point: balance sucks. This isn’t a competitive FPS or a MOBA. It’s an RPG power fantasy. And when you strip a class of a defining feature and nerf the crap out of it, people don’t want to play. Please see: recent Diablo IV patch.

Simple fix: use the PHB stats for Brown Bear. Done. You can still call it a polar bear I guess, but, honestly, as a wannabe Druid, wouldn’t mind getting rid of the wonky Polar Bear stuff.

Druids make some noise if you agree.

I don't think sucking is what Helsin did when he was wildshaped, but the video was censored so I am not 100% sure.

Not sure who Helsin is, again, forgive my noob status to these forums. But that sounds like a Balance argument to me.

I don’t care if my class is the least or most powerful in the game. I care about class fantasy. They’ve taken the Circle of the Moon subclass and made it indisputably weaker than Circle of the Land.

I want to be a shapeshifter Druid. If both subclasses get wolf and spider, which outperform Polar Bear, my subclass lacks its Class Fantasy.

Again, the easy solution is simple: Stick To The PHB. Isn’t that what every table top turned BG3 player wants anyway? Give me the PHB in video game form.

If they can’t do that then feel free to nerf wolf and spider form, just to show you how little I care about power or min maxing. What I want is a form that makes Circle of the Moon COOL.

And PS - my noob status should actually be a warning… there’s going to be a lot of other players playing for the first time being like wth, they are playing fast and loose with the PHB??

Larian has a homebrew set of forms form moon druid. They'll scale up at higher levels.

I have only ever played DnD in a CRPG setting. That said, shape shifting has always been wildly underwhelming to me. Sounds cool but then the combat results are shitty.

the bear class is designed as a tank not as a dps... it trades damage output for hit points and no its not a bug

OP, if coolness is what you're after, forget the polar bear....OWLBEAR is the new in. Confirmed to be accessible from lvl 6. And THAT, is not from the PHB.

Yep it does suck I agree. The fact you can't cast spells is weird but ok I can tolerate it. Scaling animals does not make any sense. Only use I found for animal shapes is to go in solo, eat all the enemies fire power while my allies are hiding in stealth, then join in. Fairly sure this is not how Larian intended it, but it is a use for animal forms.... albeit terrible one.

Now if THAT is true all is forgiven. Circle of the Moon only I hope? Or at least earlier than the other subclass.

That I do not know. Sadly.

That is just so beat. Not to repeat myself, but it still kills the power fantasy. And more than that, besides goad (not fun or cool) it’s not even tankier than the wolf. Bear has 12 more hit points, but wolf has 2 more armor class, which makes their effective hit points basically equal against similarly levels mobs.

Against a mob with +3 attack a bear will get hit 60% of the time, a wolf only 50% of the time. Which means a bear takes 20% more hits, effectively negating the, again, nerfed 30 hit point total. Throw in the status effects the wolf avoids more often… what we are left with is Goad. Goad is not why I want to play a master shaper shifter.

Again, I could care less about power differentials. I just want a subclass devoted to shapeshifting to have a form that is actually valuable. Otherwise just give me the extra spells per day from CoL.

With that said, if the owl bear things is true… hell yes.

Okay, so I need to explain this joke for you Time4Pizza as it relies on some Larian-specific humor.

Halsin is a druid and future companion in Baldur's Gate 3. He has the ability to wildshape into a bear.
During the last Panel from Hell, a series of community engagement shows the developers put on, they showcased a few romance scenes. One of these romance scenes involved Astarion, a vampire companion and potential Origin, and Halsin. During this romance scene, they initiate a sexual encounter; however, Halsin accidentally turns into a bear, saying sometimes he cannot control his wildshape. The audience then has the ability to shout out what dialogue option Astarion should choose, and he says "Don't worry, I like it." The romance scene cuts away after Halsin turns back into a bear, cutting to a squirrel dropping its acorn in shock at what it is seeing. This spawned a MASSIVE controversy that sold over 1M more copies of BG3, and spawned the "Bear Sex" meme.

I think you can understand the joke from there.

Let’s make it simple: is 30 hit points and goad worth the trade off between having 18 hit points, +2 armor class, and granting your allies advantage on all their melee attacks?

Personally, doesn’t seem worth it. And even if it is, it’s damn close. Hardly worth giving up the clear cut spell casting advantages of Land Circle.

Shapeshifting specialist! Give me a form that gets a little excited! Like PHB: Brown Bear

lol ok that’s pretty good. If we can have romance scenes in bear form, full frontal, Mr Hands style, that would make it worth it

We need to see how things have been changed in full game

I’m hoping the same thing. Reading through the forums tonight it does feel like there are enough complaints on here for Larian to get the message. Circle of the Moon forms need to use the PHB stat block or get some serious love. As is, they aren’t fun and feel janky.

There was zero need to nerf our animal forms into the ground considering the way 5e power curves work, and it kills the subclass.

I honestly didn’t play at all today, my second day of owning it, trying to figure out which class I actually want to play now. Maybe I’ll roll a Ranger… oh, sh!t, wait a sec…

But at least Rangers already came screwed by WotC, Larian didn’t needlessly crush them. Nerfs just never feel right, or good, especially when you have source material as strong as 5e. And nerfs that seem nearly pointless and no one was complaining about… even worse.

Wink wink go play shape-shifter in Wotr and have fun.... no point in starting a ea run with one week left. Ruin it for yourself. Best of luck and see you in a week

Not just that ...
We have confirmation from Wolfheart that druids will get Panter and Displacer beast shapes aswell ... so something was clearly done.

The problem with missing multiattack and bear collor ... was both mentioned earlier, but since no change was made, it seems like Lariain is satisfyed with this version.

Larian actually gave Rangers a huge buff compared to TT, Beastmaster especially has great animal companions that scale in power while leveling, they are arguably better than Moon Druid forms (at least at lvl 5).

I'm ok with Larian nerfing Moon Druid's early game power, but only if it is to equalize the power curve when it comes to shifting at higher levels. Moon Druids are the most overpowered class between levels 1-4 in TT because they get extra attack animal forms before the martial classes can do the same, and a boat load more HP. Later on the Moon Druid forms fall off in power quite a bit, and aren't very effective in combat compared to martial characters. Hopefully the future animal forms that Druids get like Owlbear, Panther, Displacer Beast (from what we've seen in trailers), help druid shifting be more effective at later levels compared to PHB. If so, not being totally overpowered from lvls 1-4 is a worthy trade imo.

It just adds more to the list we need mods to fix... I certainly hope there will be a mod that gives wildshape according to the PHB rules.