Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Wild Shape: Cow

I know i am being a bit on the sarcastic site here but i just cannot help it with this.

So i created my Druid, took the Moon route since i like the transformations, especially since i read something about elementals...

So when i got my second set of Wild shapes i get a Raven, nice and....a Cave Cow :O

whoever got the idea that i want to transform into a cow? Even if it's the underdark version, it's still mostly a farm animal there. That's for my personal opinion, i am sure there are others.

My main issue is, that Drow would be the only druid who would even think about that transformation. Maybe Duergar or Svirfneblin.

For Druids living in the sunlit world that is a bit far fetched. IF someone would consider a shape out of the underdark i guess it would be a more useful one (well, can female druids give milk?)

Maybe a displacer beast or hook horror. A Deep rothe is imo not really fitting.

Neither a displacer beast nor a hook horror are considered beasts in 5e. Wild shapes have to be beasts.

Larian probably included Underdark creatures because of Drow. It's unique, to say the least. I'm not saying I agree with their choices, but I figure that's the reasoning. You might make a Drow Druid, so gotta give some Underdark Druid choices. Right?

I'm starting to think more and more from an options standpoint. It is just an option. If it doesn't make sense for your character, don't use it. Pretend it isn't there. I think that's what Larian is doing. Provide the option and let the player decide what they want to use based on what fits their character.

I think they're awesome <3

Maybe instead big just unlocking through level, they should do unlock through level AND encountering the creature? So you need to encounter it to know it, with a few being auto added?

I have litteraly no idea what is reason to have Underdark Cow ...
But i certainly have found some uses for it ... have you checked your carry weight, when you take form of that thing? Its madness.

I think they are amazing. I'm playing a druid of the land circle: underdark, so it's nice to have something that is actually from there.

As said...the cow in itself is not bad. I still do not think it fits. Especially when only ONE race we can choose from atm comes from the underdark.

My way of tackling this would be a race specific shape or the ability to choose a new one from a list when reaching the appropriate level. So the base transformations are the same for everyone but the higher lvl shapes are an individual choice. That can also represent the type of druid you want to play.

They give me an underdark cow, which is not even in the core monster manual, but deny me dinosaurs? (which are actually in the core MM)

Unacceptable.

I'm not opposed to a bovine option, though I think something rather more generic like "wild bull" or maybe "bison" might have been more compelling. Nothing against cows, or roleplaying Pasiphaë all we like, but it feels pretty niche. I like the race specific idea for flavor, even if its just a reskin on the fur or something. Underdark races should just have a special insect type or something, or at least animals that burrow or make dens or something. Or I don't maybe just call it a Rothe instead of a Deep Rothe so we could have a couple types. Maybe the Deep Rothes have a particular color scheme whereas the northern surface variety Rothe has something else? I'm certain they just put it in for the Salvatore books and the old 2nd ed Drow supplement, but I can't recall seeing any in Urst Natha in BG2, but maybe just because they were forgettable. I thought they were supposed to be more Ram than Cow?

Sounds about right.

After reading through the Drizzt books and the War of the spider series, Rothé are just the underdark version of the standard farm cow for me. That and that there should be relativly few underdark druids (lore-wise) make the choice a pretty strange one. A Ram or dire Ram would have fitted better and have the same mechanics.
For a hommage to Drizzt a black panther would have been better :P.

Also the Idea of basic shapes + choices on hitting the appropriate level sounnd really awesome to me. Individuality is a big part of RPGs for me.

Cows Rock !

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

The spider, though. That's like 93% of the animals of the Underdark right there.

Yea, Spiders are pretty common and abundant in the underdark. But also on surface. The deep rothé does not really exist on top. Just a normal one i guess but that would really be like taking cowshape

Why is a cow from the underdark any more unusual or exotic than a bear from the north pole?

I'd say the distance in terms relative to communication rather than geography is bigger between the Undardark and surface than between the Sword Coast and the Frozen North.

I'd totally rather be able to turn into a brown bear than a polar bear though. And an oxen rather than a rothe too for that matter.

In Badur's Gate games, the Underdark is always like 1 small dungeon away from the surface. The Zhents have literally built an elevator to smuggle stuff like captive beholders in and out. My point is, it's not too far-fetched for a druid (who's supposed to be an expert in all things nature) to know what a deep rothé is.

Not sure if polar bears on faerun only exist at the north pole. It's not earth. But i get what you want to say, it's also a region specific animal. I guess it more common than a rothé from the underdark.
Let's hope we get a little more variety in the end product.

Question, because I've not tested it yet... but can the druid's Deep Rothe cast dancing lights?

That's sincerely the only worthwhile reason for using that beast form.


Edit: Though it is an interesting question that I've not seen a sage advice on yet. We know that specific beats general, but between these two conflicting rules, it's had to tell exactly which one is the specific and which one is the general.

Someone should tweet Jeremy Crawford... in terms of ruling, which is the specific and which is the general: “You can’t cast spells,” (point three in Wildshape), or “Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast,” (point one in Wildshape (this is why you gain things like their multi attack and trample abilities))?

As disappointing as it sounds, I think the "General" is you inheriting all of the beasts abilities, and the "Specific" is the debarral against casting spells... but it *could* be interpreted the other way around (that the general is that you can't cast spells, but the specific is that you inherit all of the individual beat's abilities, which may include innate spellcasting), since they both appear in the same rule block.