Druid Class Changes in D&D 2024

We look at the Druids core class as well as their spells, feats, and subclasses to see what big changes impact them for the 2024 rules.

TIME STAMPS

00:00 - Intro
01:44 - Wildshape
07:54 - Primal Order
09:54 - Elemental Fury
11:47 - Feats
12:36 - Spells
15:52 - Subclasses
22:28 - Final Thoughts

____________________________
Purchase our adventures and player options for D&D 5e here:

Join our Patreon community:

Get our custom t-shirts:

[daanopdebeeck]

You forgot to mention that Druids can speak in Wild Shape now, that's great for social encounters! Also they don't benefit from any features from their species while Wildshaped which makes sense. They turn into another creature physically but not mentally.

[joshhobson]

Regarding how the druid now retains their own HP when they wild shape, that reall helps when taking an infiltrating beast shape, such as a cat, rat, etc. Those forms would have less tham 4hp, and then the druid is a person again.

Now enemies will be confused. "That is one strong rat"

[Phiro]

one concern i have with moon druids is their accuracy on their animal attacks. yeah sure, they can add lots of damage, but i have not heard anything from anyone about their to hit bonus increasing at all. which is quite important because even the higher CR Beasts can soemtimes have something like a +2 to hit. all those damage dice wont matter if you can never even scratch a 20 AC.

[Zixor_]

I’m super excited for bonus action wild shape on all Druids now as it opens up so many movement and utility options in combat. You can cast a spell as an action, BA wild shape into a horse, mouse, bird, or fish (to name just a few) to move into an advantageous position, then next turn drop wild shape as a BA and cast another action spell.

[bukharagunboat]

I like that they put Unarmored Defense on the Moon Druid. The King Fu Panda Druid/Monk build was a bit silly, and the Moon Druid now gets its main benefit by default.

[samflory]

I love the Land Druid changes. It makes it so you really can play a nature magician and not feel like you made a bad choice of subclass.

[ronaldmulsoff]

I do love that you can turn spell slots into more wildshapes at level 5. Makes that scene in the D&D movie actually possible.

[acephas]

The Spores Druid got a BIG buff with this update.

I won’t get knocked out of SE, because we no longer get knocked out of our shapes when Temp HP gets lost.

That’s good.

[gyarados]

I must say I love the commitment to the class specific puns in these videos

[duanebradway]

I'm excited to find a Selune themed multiclass. Maybe Moon Druid and Life Domain Cleric. With these new changes, I am looking to shake some things up and have some fun.

[sansprobus]

Positively Herculean effort on getting all this info out to us, guys! You remind me of a newspaper room after some world altering news break!

[saurianwatcher]

Honestly, with the wild shape change (particularly taking away the extra health pool), I think this would have been the perfect time to do something like the UA follower system, but with bonuses for shapes.

Give a table with beast form damage die, give wild shape multiattack at a reasonable level, and give a few different animal abilities to augment your shape-shifting. Stuff like Pounce for a cat-like form, a pushback effect like you get with repelling blast for bear, extra movement for bird forms. Stuff like that.

[TsujiCross]

Also good to note that Barkskin got massively buffed: it now sets your AC to 17 minimum rather than 16, takes a bonus action to cast, and most importantly, no longer requires concentration (duration is still 1hr too)!

That makes it a great defensive buff for Druids who picked the caster option at Primal Order (and don’t have other AC boosting features like Moon Druid), for those whose armor isn’t up to par yet, or for those who still want to stick to the “druid shall not wear metal” trope for rp reasons

[alexsavchovsky]

Changing the role of the Moon druid from a tank to a damage dealer is pretty radical. I mean, that was kind of the point of playing one. If you want a damage dealer, everyone can do it. Having those extra pools of HP was the unique feature, and it kind of balanced out with the low AC of the animal shapes. I can't see temp HP doing a similar job despite of the AC increase, as 18 isn't really all that much - you could easily build a character with 20 and above on low levels with other classes.

It's also sad to see the summons go. Yeah, they were bananas. That's kind of the point of playing D&D. Immersing in the fantasy of doing epic stuff. I'd rather see other aspects of the game ramped up as means to balance it rather than everything getting brought down to reason. If I want reasonable, I have my daily life for that.

[cyrilmartin]

I’m the druid at the table and mostly the support of the group. As the rest of the group is really combat focus I mostly use wild shape for roleplay situation. My favorite moment as a player was when I transformed into a random camel, cat or seal.
My MJ decide to ignore the limitation because the old wildshape didn’t caused us any problem

[Gorvak]

Although the Sun is a star, it would be nice to actualyl have a solar druid

[winterslastrose]

I'm also fairly certain this is the first ever intro slip out of all your videos and it was actually so cute love it ❤

[Tiaopigui]

Biggest issue for moon druid is proficiency bonus for attack, which is taken from the beast form. All the damage buffs in the world don't matter if you can't hit. Also need to see if there are beasts with >2 attacks/turn to synergize with the melee attack damage buff spells. CME will be likely nerfed (to 1/turn) or banned by any rational DM. Font of moonlight is a reasonable alternative.

[Toaster_Weevil]

I was bummed that Tempest Cleric didn’t return in 2024, but now seeing the Circle of the Seas, it makes sense. Definitely want to give it a shot!

[I_am_Gaith]

RAW in the current 5E states they can change into any animal they’ve seen before. I run this as at level 1 any animal that makes sense for their background is fair game as long as they meet the CR requirements. I also tell the pc that they need to let me know if they want to “look” for any specific animals going forward, and to keep track of all new animals they see. When I have a Druid pc I will make mention of animals when I give descriptions of the players environments with animals that would reasonably inhabit that environment.