Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Druid Carrying Capacity While Shapeshifted

I think it would be best if the druid's carrying capacity was fixed to the caster's strength stat, for both practical and fantasy reasons.

First and foremost, it's pretty annoying when you are carrying gear with no problems, and then shift into a low strength animal form, such as dire raven or cat, and all of a sudden can't move because you are now considered encumbered. It's almost like an added requirement to shift into those forms, not just to have the shapeshift ability available, but you also can't be carrying much on the character. It's needlessly tedious to require sending gear to another character just to use the functionality of the animal form, and then transferring the gear back when the usage is done.

And even from a fantasy perspective, I at least have never considered it as the cat actually physically carrying a backpack and all that gear, but rather that the druid's possessions meld into their form when they shift. So it can be justified that the new strength score no longer effects carrying capacity while shifted, because the gear is only being materially carried while in caster form.

I think it can be justified for gameplay sake that the Druid's carry capacity is determined by their caster form, but if you prefer to increase their carrying capacity while in higher strength forms (like "we made the bear actually carry the gear!"), I wouldn't be opposed to that.

This is not just something you've considered in your fantasy or that must be "justified for gameplay's sake." It's a written rule of D&D 5e.
In all the games I've played in, I don't think anyone has ever chosen anything other than the middle option.

That's good to know, I don't have a lot of experience actually playing D&D 5e, do people normally keep their caster carrying capacity when shape-shifted in tabletop, or is BG3 more accurate in that regard? I don't think this idea should be too controversial, more just a question of whether Larian will notice how the current implementation creates a problem.

The issue is that with Wild Shape, your physical stats are replaced by the wild shape's stats, unless your own would be higher. It's designed for druids to be able to take advantage of increased stats via wild shape.

I personally don't know any druids who have used wild shape to get around carrying capacity specifically, but I have seen them use wild shape to get a high strength to let them do more than they would normally. (eg high level druid using earth elemental to shift a very heavy item, that kind of thing)

I'm pretty sure the druid takes the 3 physical attributes of the animal form (stre, dex, con) regardless of whether the caster has higher stats in that category.

My problem here isn't with druid's taking advantage of stat increases to stre from polar bear form (for example), its that the forms with a stat decrease (cat form has a stre of around 4 I believe) are ineffective/tedious to use because you become encumbered as soon as you shift.

So like I said, if you want to keep the increase in carrying capacity from those higher stre forms, I'm not opposed, but the auto encumbrance that occurs while shapshifting into a low stre form doesn't really add anything to the game, it just makes you go through tedious steps of transferring gear back and forth between uses of the form.

I agree with OP.

The weight/Inventory management using wildshape is tedious. QoL improvement needed here according to me.

Maybe they could "fix/freeze" the inventory ?
(You can move but you can't take anything more, drop something or give something)

It should indeed be the same carrying capacity as the druid herself/himself.
It's just silly otherwise, I've realised that I never shapeshift anymore even though I'm a moon druid...

Well, it doesn't help animal forms are underpowered garbage past lv2 without inheriting your higher AC and you even do more damage in humanoid with Shilellagh while having access to healing and ranged utility on top.

The sheer annoyance of being encumbered when you swap to anything but bear/wolf/deep rothe is just the cherry on top of the awful shapeshift design balancing.

I actualy kinda enjoy that in Ox or a Bear shape im able to carry almost tripple amount of stuff back to vendor, especialy after some big fights ... since i dumped Strength ...

But i would totally agree that Cat (and possibly raven, didnt try that so far) need some adjustments. :-/

The point of animal form is not that they can fight better than humans.
- The bear gives you 60HP extra and you can taunt enemies so your companions can attack them without fear of damage.
- You can reach some places that are hard to reach otherwise.
- You can concentrate on a spell while you (as bird) watch this from miles away.

If animal form had the AC and damage of humans plus the extra health pool, special abilities and mobility they already have, druids would be totally OP and it makes no sense to play another class.

In that case, the choice of Druid of the Moon seems a bit weak..

60 HP while sacrificing 2+ turns of being useless. You don't seem to realize that while you're a bear, which lasts maybe one turn of a Redcap or Githyanki patrol attack due to its abysmal AC as opposed to having 19-21 AC and not getting hit at all in humanoid, you hit for about 70% of your humanoid form's Shillelagh attack, or 0 damage in the case you attempt to goad, which barely passes the saving throws of the lv4 enemies. Brilliant idea to Goad, by the way, so you can absorb the fire of 3 Githyanki/Redcaps like an idiot after they 1-2 shot your bear in the next turn.

Won't even mention the damage you're also losing out in terms of Moonbeam readjustment or the access to healing allies and applying blade ward or removing poison with a Healing Word in the same turn you attack, which animal forms don't let you do. I'll take Land druid with 19-21 AC over your useless stalling form and play around Moonbeam and Shillelagh on top of having more spell slots, spell slot restoration, and Misty Step form Coast alignment.

-Reach some places that are "hard to reach". It's called Lazael Jump, with the Jump action tripling her jumping distance she can almost reach any location you want to reach, and for any other you use Wyll's Misty Step. Not to mention said "access hard places" forms are natively available to Land druids without wasting their level up perk on a garbage polar bear form and gaining an extra spell slot and two learned spells, one of them Misty Step to boot which is the superior version of a Badger or equivalent of a Raven, is also restored on short rest, and doesn't require the shifting of forms.


But keep talking about being a useless sponge of a subclass, as if fighters are rushing to play sword and shield with defense specialization instead of 2H greatweapon master because the best defense is killing an opponent off in one turns so you don't have to deal with him the next.

dude
Dude, nobody's forcing you to play a circle of the moon druid. I for one quite enjoyed the flexibility the quick-action transformations give you. The fall-off curve for the polar bear form is a bit wonky (too strong early, not quite as good later), but overall the subclass definately can stand its ground. Most of the issues I have with the druid class in general seem more like bugs, tbh (not being able to dismiss spells, broken darkness/fog-cloud/stealth, not being able to interact with allready cast spells in animal form). To each their own.

Again, I want to stress that this change could be made without reducing the benefits to these higher strength forms. As said above, Shapeshifting either melds your gear into your new form OR "is worn by it." Therefore, it would be reasonable to assume that when shapeshifting into a low Stre form, you would choose the meld option (so your new Stre would not change your carrying capacity), and when shifting into a high Stre form, you choose for your gear to be worn by it, and therefore your carry capacity is still increased in that form. The only question is whether Larian could effectively implement it that way.

Just check how busted push spells are from fighting Kagha. Spams them like a madwoman. Doesn't even care if you're allied against the Shadow Druids, she still uses "Street Sweeper" spam to wipe everyone including your party.

By RAW (not that it would need to follow this, necessarily), your gear doesn't change shape to fit you if you choose to wear it instead of having it absorbed and the DM can rule that it just falls to the ground. It's a little difficult to argue that armor that fits a humanoid would also work for a cat or a polar bear. I could potentially see some magic items work through a transformation (e.g. if you had a magic earring or something, then the piercing could stay consistent through the transformation - it doesn't rely on the size of the creature).

In my mind, the most realistic (and simple/consistent) thing is to have all equipment be absorbed (making inventory inaccessible and not contribute to carried weight, so low STR wouldn't be a problem) and provide no benefits while transformed. Shifted druids would use their own mental ability scores and everything else would come from the shape they've assumed. And then adjust the creatures that you can wild shape into to be balanced and satisfying to use.

I see what you are saying, but I was actually thinking more about equipment, rather than worn gear. The exact quote from PHB was:

"Wild Shape: You choose whether your Equipment falls to the ground in your space, merges into your new form, or is worn by it"

So maybe this would not apply to worn gear and such, that would be required to merge, but I figured the "worn by it" option would be the equivalent of placing a backpack on the larger animal (even if that would look kinda ridiculous in practice, it's technically doable lol).

I really just see this as the easiest way to build consensus for allowing lower Stre forms to keep their caster carrying capacity (because otherwise these forms can't really be used due to auto-encumbrance), without having all the people worried about losing their polar bear perks oppose the idea.