Beast of Burden
So there you are, diploma in hand, freshly graduated from Local Forest U. You minored in conversational Druidic (always a smart career move), and you’ve picked up all the best spells—the sort that high-powered adventuring firms want from an entry-level employee. You even interned with a flock of geese, so your resume is full of buzz words like “teamwork,” “synergy,” and “delta formation.” You get snapped up by a recruiter within a month.
Everything is great at first. Your supervisor writes glowing reports about your healing magic, and your first mission goes off without a hitch. Goblin infestation wasn’t your concentration, but it’s solid experience for a young up-and-comer. Then it comes time to loot the place.
“Did no one buy rope?” says Throgmar in Purchasing. “Typical. Hey Druid! Can you do us a favor and wildshape a snake? We’ve got to haul a Table 3-13 type treasure chest out of a pit.”
And of course you say yes. You’re a team player after all. More to the point, you haven’t earned the clout to say no. So you tie yourself in knots to please the Management. It’s murder on your spine, but the treasure is out and you’re the hero of the hour.
“Hey Druid! Wolves killed our pack mule. Random encounters are murder in the third quarter, you know? Be a pal and slip into this harness.”
It’s just the once, you think to yourself. Anything to help the company!
Then when you’re halfway back to town, the senior rogue in Accounting hops onto your back. He shouts “ya mule!” and talks about “breaking in this jackass.” The rest of the team laughs and you hee-haw to fit in, but the shame begins to creep in. You’ve let them make you one of those druids, and now you’ve got a choice to make. Do you report the incident to HR, or do you hope it gets better?
Well to all the druids out there, know this: It doesn’t just get better. You’ve got to stand up for yourself. You’ve got to put your hoof down and say, “I may look like a small or medium sized Beast when I wild shape, but my feelings are humanoid. I am an equal member of this team, and I will not be treated like an animal.” You may have to endure eye rolls and jokes around the water cooler once you’re back at HQ. “Geeze, can’t Druid take a joke?” But your self-respect is more important than any job. Hold your head high, and remember that you were hired for skills other than your physical form.
…
Question of the day. What wild shape hijinks have you encountered in your games? Have you ever suffered indignity due to a temporary physical form? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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I’ve uh…. I’ve actually never played a druid before. I think that it’s because I’m a fan of good vs evil, not so much nature vs civilisation. I plan to eventually get around to playing a druid one of these days, though.
I’ve played with a few druids before, and I’ve never seen, nor made, any jokes. We are quite a humours group, with several recurring potato jokes, but we’ve never made fun of spider-druid before
Yeah… I share the feeling on druids. I don’t know if you saw, but I did a little write-up on the subject on this one:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/wild-child
There were some good ideas in the comments about ways to make nature-themed characters interesting.
As for spider-druid, I suggest buying him 4 pairs of magic boots for his birthday.
I’ve only played 3.5/Pathfinder so far, and in my experience, that problem doesn’t come up, because not only do you have to wait a couple levels to get your wild shape, you only have a very limited number of uses. So there’s no way in hell you’re using your precious wildshape to turn into a mule or something like that.
In the words of my Shadworun Cajun combat troll, Beauregard Saucier Dupris: “The hell you you say!”
Level 4 is exactly when you need treasure-hauling utility. You’ve got limited spells and bags of holding at that level. Getting the expensive art objects out of the dungeon is exactly the time when pack mule druid comes into play! Of course, that may change if you’re running a combat-centric game, but I think wild shape can solve a lot of logistics problems if you let it. That’s doubly true of caster druids that don’t want to be in melee anyway.
Is it just me, or does druid look even better as a horse?
Her other game is Ponyfinder:
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/125583/Ponyfinder–Campaign-Setting
Definitely tell Laurel that she did a good job with that design. It’s simple, but still nice-looking and recognizable at the same time.
Cheers clcman! I’ll let the artist know that she done arted good. 🙂
That was a wonderful read, Colin.
Now I want to create a campaign where PC’s have to present their backstories in the form of a résumé to be hired by the potential plot device factory,
Time to roll up a barbarian, grab a box of crayons, and draw my heroic deeds!
Did you ever watch the PAX celebrity games? Acquisitions Incorporated messes with this conceit a little bit. I think you’d dig it:
PAX East 2016 Animated Intro
Just wait until the next time your party is neck-deep in combat, and then announce your plan for round-by-round action-optimization, which doesn’t include any healing. See if people’s attitudes don’t change.
Now see, that’s a sure way to get a lousy score on your annual review. If you want that coveted 4 out of 5 on Teamwork (No one gets 5 out of 5. HR says it breeds complacency.) then you’ve got to solve this mess diplomatically (or persuasively if you’re playing 5e).
It sounds like HR wasn’t ever on your side to begin with.. But don’t worry, for an enthusiastic young go-getter there are are always new opportunities opening up in the PvP division. Its has a very high attrition rate but if you can tough it out, the rewards are phenomenal- you could very well end up with as much gear as an entire party!
lol. +15 XP to you!
I don’t know I gotten plenty 5/5 teamwork. None of it was in healing. But a lot of the rough patch came before natural spell. A lot of your shine comes from when someone calls in sick either as a tank or dd. A lot of times you’ll outright replace them. This goes well for other positions, but I recommend staying away from healing too much and you can replace your arcanist if s/he decides to specialize in evocations. However, if your arcanist is a non summonist conjuration, or illusionist or some other major designed to control the workfield surroundings it’ll be a difficult replacement.
Elsewhere in the thread, we were talking about the difficulty of casters being better at the traditional job of rogues or front-line fighters than their mundane counterparts. Did you ever get any backlash for making other party members feel redundant?
Not really, tend to take their spots when they’re around or if a group need a specific slot to takeover. If HR calls for tank you use beefy Wildshape or animal companion to tank for you. Need a Scout a wild shape into specific creatures that live in the area is great. Need damage dealer there are wild shape for that. If need a caster there is natural spell and different and unique spells.
Well, in Pathfinder you won’t see those requests because the Druid’s stats don’t change when he uses Wildshape, so if the Druid isn’t a Con 18 naturally, he won’t be capable of that. One of the worst things in Pathfinder in my opinion.
Trolled my party once in Mutants and Masterminds by using “The Cat” as my BBEG. “The Cat” is a canon villian that is an intelligent, telepathic, mind controlling cat. So they walked in on the cliche “Rich guy in a big chair stroking his cat” and listened to the entire monologue while the cat calmly hopped out of his hands and wandered out of the room. Then they felt very bad when the guy went down to one energy blast. XD
Quadrupeds can carry heavier loads than bipeds can. Multiply the values corresponding to the creature’s Strength score from Table: Carrying Capacity by the appropriate modifier, as follows: Fine ×1/4, Diminutive ×1/2, Tiny ×3/4, Small ×1, Medium ×1-1/2, Large ×3, Huge ×6, Gargantuan ×12, Colossal ×24.
Horses can carry 3 x the load of a biped. That and the +2 Str you get from wildshaping a pony means that your Str 10 druid can haul more than a Str 18 barbarian. The cart harness also tends to fit better.
As for the Cat, I love it forever. It’s like the Purple Man, but adorable. Props on that one.
I had a hard time communicating with the rest of the players.
So I was a nice, bright 3.5 ed 7th level Wizard (Okay, it’s Polymorph, not Wild Shape) and I thought I could take on anything. And I wasn’t -entirely- wrong! I beat a boss’s entire first form by using my second form, a hydra. Then I found out that that wasn’t his final form, and had to retreat with not more than two handfuls of hit points to my name.
So the other players see a hydra charging out of this temple, and it’s all I can do to make myself a non-threat so they don’t start lopping my heads off. I can’t turn back into a human because I’ll immediately go unconscious and I don’t remember if any of them like me enough to stuff a potion in my face.
But a whole lot of me trying to claw the ground to write words in common and them debating on ‘what the hell this thing is doing’ happens, and I finally give up and release the spell and they go take on the rest of the boss without me. I didn’t die, but…I did learn to save the true displays of power for a finishing move rather than the opener.
Well that’s hilarious. Sounds like a weirdly dire version of, “What’s that girl? What is it, Lassie?” Lucky break that didn’t kill you as soon as your burst out of the temple.
Damn, mouse-over text beat me to the Sleipnir joke.
Archer and Norse Mythology together, as they were always meant to be.
Injuring a wildshape form doesn’t injure the druid (unless there is enough to carry over). Taking a big chunk out of a bear doesn’t leave the druid missing any bits. In a pinch, the druid can be used as a self-replenishing food source.
If your druid is resorting to weird shape-shifting “Cannibalism” when GoodBerry is a 1st level spell, something has gone horribly wrong.
“Torgor no like goodberry! Not filling. No umami flavor.”
“Eat me.”
“Dawwwwww OK.”
Do you know what an all-GoodBerry diet does to a man?
Well, that hopped right into someone’s fetish. I guess if the wilderness folk like each other -that- much…
Consume responsibly.
D:
What edition makes it so that druid taking doesn’t result in damage to druid. Back in my day you sometimes forced to remain in wildshape until I get healing because if didn’t I would’ve died due past workplace hazards, and good luck getting your next kin claim from HR.
In 5e you get the full HP of the animal whose stat block you assume. As soon as that HP is gone you revert back to your full-HP humanoid self, with any additional damage bleeding over to your native form.
My party had a Moon Druid who had to leave because he got a job that had schedule conflicts.
Being a Drow (No Spider-themed S&M gear, so he was good) his favored forms were spiders.
Some social encounters would be hampered by having a Drow present. In those cases he hid in my beard in spider form.
Whenever he couldn’t make it we hand-waived it as him going off to have weird spider sex.
We had fun conversations aboot how since in wild shape you have different taste buds, foods taste completely different.
When he was a Giant Spider he’d communicate through Charlotte’s web. “Some pig”.
A male spider regularly having weird spider sex? Dude’s a daredevil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_cannibalism
Worst thing that happens if he gets eaten is he un-forms inside the spider that ate him. Kind of messy.
Ive only been a druid once, and didnt actually wild shape as much as i probably should have though. My favorite time doing so was when i changed into a falcon to scout out some evil nature destroying wizards, then just stood on a ledge looking into their room in an inn and summoned a panther, and watched as 2 died and the pthers fled. It was wonderful.
I always liked the idea of “tree assassin druid.”
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/tree-shape/
Still spell / silent spell / tree shape is the concept. Roll up to the heroes’ camp, cast whatever offensive spells you need, then watch them search fruitlessly for the invisible wizard like the clever tree you are.
No one ever suspects the tree, except dwarves, that’s why they will be the only civilization to survive after the arbor consortium attacks.
Did something similar with a falcon shaped Druid back in 3.5, save it was Flame Strike. Complete with “Pilot to bombardier, target spotted. Unleash the payload, over.” This resulted in the GM going “how do you gesture?”, an argument from other players that talons are closer to hands for birds than wings, and then my reveal of “Stilled Flame Strike”. Followed by mad cackling and the GM’s narrow eyed glare and “you planned this.”
LJE’s remarks are both out of character for a Unicorn, and out of character for someone who obeys the law and doesn’t schtupp Dwarfoids.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/secret-identity
Horse Power would never sink to such an indecent act! LJE on the other hoof is a horse of a different color.
So, I wrote a whole thing about how I was right back in Secret Identity ( https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/secret-identity ) that Druid could use Wild Shape to get around their horse/person romantic problem, and that now they’re in weird Clark Kent situation where the kind, brave and romantic Horsepower pretends to be brash and rude as Lumberjack Explosion to keep his girlfriend from realizing his true identity as a superhero. Then I looked closer at Secret Identity and realized that the girl in question wasn’t actually Druid, like I thought it was at the time.
Whoops.
The basic point still stands, though – Lumberjack acts like a jerk so no one will suspect his true identity (and also to keep him engrained in Fighter’s murderhobo circle, to better sabotage him). That said, Lumberjack needs to be careful how far he goes into that role around Druid – she has a co-worker/loyal friend who doesn’t take kindly to such things, and who Lumberjack already knows well…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/major-class-feature
Dammit, lol! I spent entirely too long going back to that Horsepower comic, waiting for Laurel to respond to IM, and peering closely at eye color to double check. Then I actually read the rest of your comment and realized that we were in agreement. Druid and Elven Princess are definitely different people.
Also, I should do more with that allosaurus. I’d thought of him as a one-off gag, but I bet he could get into other shenanigans.
Also also, I’d like your opinion. As we all know, “Despite being a single person, a vigilante’s dual nature allows him to have two alignments, one for each of his identities.” But bearing in mind that “a vigilante’s two alignments cannot be more than one step from each other on a single alignment axis,” my question is this: What do you think Horsepower and LJE’s alignments are?
Maybe Druid and Elven Princess are sisters?
As for alignment, I see two ways it could go: Horsepower as Lawful Good and Lumberjack as Neutral Good, or Horsepower as Neutral Good and Lumberjack as Chaotic Good. Lumberjack and Fighter seem to be good friends, but we haven’t seen Lumberjack take part in any significant murderhoboing, so NG/CG seems likely. As for Horsepower, Lawful Good is the archetypical superhero alignment and he was unwilling to break local bestiality laws, even when he disagreed with them and breaking them wouldn’t hurt anyone, which suggests Lawfulness. LG is also the polar opposite of his archenemy – Fighter’s Chaotic Stupid. However, when he confronted Fighter at the bank vault, he was shouting about justice, not the law, which might fit more with Neutral Good. In the end, though, I think the case for Horsepower being Lawful Good is stronger than the case for Lumberjack being Chaotic Good. So, HP is LG and LJE is NG.
As for the dinosaur: Skitters vs. Allosaurus (team-up or otherwise). Maybe Ranger or Barbarian vs. Allosaurus (“Eat it, Mammoth Lords!”). Summoner vs. Allosaurus (what do eidolons taste like, anyways? Fruit?) Oh, and Monk vs. Barbarian (as those two classes that work so well together, but alignment forever keeps them apart.)
+675 XP for analyzing alignment. I tend to agree with you decision on that count.
As for Allosaurus, I’m thinking teleportation math. It is a giant pain in the ass to transport large creatures, and those logistical headaches could make for a good discussion.
The best I’ve got is a summoner who thought he’d be better being a second dragon (He failed the combat design part but it still looked cool) and a dwarf who hid in the stone by becoming one with the walls. He literally staged his own personal ambushes with that about once every two sessions.
I gather that you and your eidolon were playing Double Dragon…?
Your dwarf presumably had access to this button:
https://imgur.com/CwNSoN2
See this is why i don’t play druids or Lunar exalted, which by the way have the same problem but not even a word of it here. Wildshape is a cool power, but never get my attention and as it is one if not the main druid feature i never played that class. That and also i am more in to the death and darkness classes, that is why between a druid and a sorcerer or wizard i choose one of the real magic users classes, or an abyssal exalted if the choice is between that and a lunar. I don’t usually choose natural classes, i love shapeshifters, they have a special place in my dark and iced heart, but still neither druids or lunars i want to play. Sorry for that rant, uumm, i am ranting but not about evil and the few choices
available to it in rpg that is strange, nad this other little rant.
Hey now i think about it have anyone read Keychain of Creation?
It is one of the great sorrows of my life that Keychain never got a proper conclusion.
More like a proper continuation, if i recall correctly they only have found like three of the keyblad… the obviously not copyrighting infringement swords. When i read today comic i instantly remembered the useful that lunar exalted are. Don’t happened the same with you? The exact same situation of druids can happen to lunars, that say, neither D&D nor Pathfinder say anything about sex in wildshape form, still monopoly of exalted it appears.
Hey, you’ve got to get beastmen from somewhere. The Realm isn’t going to invade itself!
But that is why abyssal exalted exist, to invade the realm, and the rest of Creation, and Yu-Shan, and the wild, and Malfeas, and… well kinda exalted need more planes so the abyssal can lead a eternal war of genocide, death and massacre, all of that powered by your friendly neverborn. Also IIRC any exalted can breed beastmen, but if it is already bad hen lunars do it i don’t wanna think about abyssal or sideral-born beastmen. Surely that kind of acts will be too much for the Glorious solar ego of some ones, well when they are sane at least.
I’ve seen both sides of wild shape where it was ridiculed and envied. I remembered this short lived campaign where we had some douche canoe of a wizard who always talked shit about the druid (this was supposedly”IC” but as the previous comment touched upon, that was more likely a cover than a reason) since she liked using wild shape to have strong forms while still casting druid magics. Compared to the wizard her spellcasting wasn’t quite as impactful, but she did enough to serve as our main tank since our only melee was a rogue type (Me). The Wizard would often make a lot of bestiality jokes and mention that if we get tired of walking we could always just “ride her”. Suitable for a Druid, she had a much stronger willpower to not succumb to his insults and the wizard got his just deserts when she had used up all her spell slots right after the wizard took a lethal blow, and none of us had any healing abilities left to save him.
And much to my own shame, after the wizard left the party since he died (Good riddance), I ended up inheriting some of the distaste for the druid. See being the party rogue I tend to take it upon myself to handle stealth and scouting duties. The party was typically cool with this, I’m cautious enough to know when I shouldn’t overextend so I just check for traps or ambushes and report back to the group. But the druid was worried that after a few close calls that I shouldn’t scout alone. I agreed with her; while it’s a scout’s duty to find danger before the party does having someone watch my back while I’m out and about would be good. So what she does is transforms into small animals or creatures like frogs, spiders, bats, whatever is appropriate for the area, and frankly does scouting waaaaay better than I do. She had a naturally higher perception score, her stealth was basically moot since while a human rogue needs to actively hide, no one is going to think much of a spider on a roof, heck she could even disarm traps both mundane and magical since she had magic and the ability to use it in wild shape. Kinda made me jealous at her for pretty much taking my job, but the same could be said of any caster type.
And frankly the only issues I ever ran across as a druid was more “Nature vs civilization” stuff and people wondering about my thoughts on expansionism and why I seem to not really care for nature or animals. The answers were because first off I was neutral evil and represented the more bestial “only the strongest survive” mentality, which meant using anything necessary to survive. Whether that means reverting to primal savagery to utilizing advance/dishonorable technology, the only thing that matters was that you lived long enough to pass it on. And secondly I was more of a druid concerned about stones and stuff over forest and animals, so I really couldn’t give to rats asses about a colony deforesting an area to open up a mine. All I cared about was getting a cut of the money to both fund my own enterprise and ensure that we don’t waste stoneworks.
Every time I hear the phrase “douche canoe,” I get the inexplicable urge to make it into a wondrous item. This is what the French call “l’appel du vide.”
Stepping on one another’s roles is so hard in a party. In a recent Pathfinder game, my arcanist pal was getting frustrated with his summons taking a full round to hit the battlefield. He saw my occultist’s necromancy minions and thought they were more efficient, so he decided to pick up “animate dead” for his spellbook. Meanwhile I was getting tired of minion-mancy, so asked the GM if we could introduce a Pharasma storyline (the goddess hates undeath) and have my dude convert. Now I’ve been instructed by my newfound deity to give my animate dead-loving arcanist the stink eye at every opportunity, quashing his fun in turn. You can’t win for losing with this mess!
Hahaha. I loved the text for this one.
Hmmm. I’ve only experienced wildshaping being super useful like in sneaking situations or awesome. Never super mockery.
To answer the mouseover text… yes please!
I always wanted to play a female druid who gave birth while in wild shape. Be a mama bear with a bear companion who is actually your bear baby. The RP would be dope.
That does beg several questions, especially if you wildshape back. The wildshape duration is X hours where X is your Druid level, so no way you can stick out the whole thing if you’re not an egg-laying species.
Well you see once you’re level 8 in theory you can ready action to wildshape as soon as your current one ends as it last hours and you have 3/day. You get more leeway at level 9 or higher you have more and more leeway.
On the subject of equines, does Paladin have a Steed? How do HorseShaped Druid and LJE feel aboot them?
My steed is named Diamond. He loves apples, and hates puns. Unfortunately, my Paladin loves puns. He also loves to dressage. (Is it still dressage if you don’t have a rider?) He actually managed to win a dance-off in the Fey court through dressage.
Heh. It would be amusing if Paladin’s first casting of “find steed” gave him LJE. Fighter would pitch a fit.
Currently my character is Tiny-sized due to a bad first roll on the Rod of Wonder chart. He’s been carried everywhere on shoulders and occasionally in a bag.
The idea of someone yelling “Pocket Rogue!” and throwing me, rapier drawn and ready, at someone unsuspecting is neat though.
You have become pocket rogue, destroyer of faces. Look upon my crit range and despair.
Sounds like a classic Feegle tactic. Basically tiny, angry Scotsmen from Discworld who have stats that would be heroic for a full-sized person. Strength, dexterity and constitution, anyway. They definitely dumped intelligence and wisdom, and given the descriptions I’m sure they’re meant to have no charisma either.
“Crivens! I’ll shew ye intelligence, ye daftie!”
I’ve never suffered any wild shape induced indignity, mostly because I have exclusively transformed into dinosaurs. I did have a rather embarrassing moment when I turned into a deinonychus and then missed every slash, bite, and tackle for the entire fight.
At least you didn’t turn into a velociraptor. Realizing that you’ve accidentally become a fancy chicken is mortifying: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Vraptor_Scale.svg/2000px-Vraptor_Scale.svg.png
In a 5e game, I played a druid. No one made fun of me due to a Paladin with mounted combat feats riding in allosaurus into battle being badass.
I will admit, it is difficult to make fun of an allosaurus: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/major-class-feature
Honestly, I love being the party pack mule when I can, figuratively (playing a barbarian or fighter with high Strength) or literally (as a druid). It’s a fun way to show off something about my build that doesn’t actually steal the spotlight from anyone else.
Also, in a desert campaign, wild shaping into a camel is just fun.
Related fun note: If you’re a 4-5 level druid who wants to use wild shape to increase their Stealth bonus and go scouting, one of the best options is to turn into a goat. They’re Small and totally innocuous in most settings.
I dunno, man. Let another PC ride you one time and you’ll never hear the end of it.
That said, there are occasional moments of awesome to be had. Remember the story of ROCKET POWERED JELLYFISH SUPER PUNCH GO! –> https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/crazy-enough-to-work
Remember, the druid is the one who decides where to go. The rider is just a passenger. If he’s a caster or archer riding a caster druid he gets to do his own thing, but if he’s a melee character all he gets to do is delay his initiative until the druid happens to bring him within range of an enemy.
Sleipnir’s fine. It’s his half-brothers Fenrir and Jormungandr you have to watch out for.
That Angrboda chick really should have been honest with Loki about her genetic risk factors.
Her risk factors? From what I can tell, only 3 of Loki’s kids are anything close to normal.
We had one instance where the party was getting ready to face down a drow mastermind. They’d managed to grievously injure one of his minions who then ran off to alert his boss, so they decided to set up an ambush in the corridors leading up to where the boss was hanging out. Our Circle of the Moon druid was still in giant toad form from the previous fight, so he figured he’d help block one corridor with his giant toad self with our rogue for backup while the rest of the party took the other corridor.
Then, our ranger had an idea. The party had found these magical mushrooms that basically act as potions of growth, and it was suggested that they feed one of them to the druid. Then, the barbarian’s player asked if giant toads could do that thing that other toads can where they evert their stomachs out of their mouths. My response: “Sure, why not.”
So the drow mastermind, flanked by giant spiders and a couple of minions, comes around a corner to investigate and is immediately faced with a corridor-filling giant giant toad with its stomach hanging out of its mouth and a halfling perched jauntily atop it with a loaded crossbow pointed in his direction and calling for his surrender. Including circumstantial bonuses, that was like a 20-something on Intimidate. Needless to say, the drow decided to reconsider his initial plan of attack and attempted to parley… at least until his minions were able to reposition themselves more to his advantage.
I think I’ve eaten those mushrooms. Out of the Abyss?
Super Mario, actually, though I guess they might be in OotA, too. They’re present in my campaign world because dimensional shenanigans.
Huh. Now I’m wondering if Alice in Wonderland is what inspired Miyamoto in the first place. I think that’s where they were coming from in OotA anyway.
Never actually ended up happening, but when the Druid suggested wild shaping into a spider as a method of getting up and down a set of cliffs, I (DM) suggested full on small-scale encounters with little lizards, pebbles, and rival spiders on the way up.
If my players tried that thing with the snake, I would immediately pause to look up the tensile strength of a snake’s spine and then, almost inevitably, relish in describing the crippling injury they’ve just dealt their druid…
Last time I played a druid, we were playing with a limited number of available wild shapes. My druid was fey-aligned, and his favoured form was as a cait sith, either regular or panther-sized. No beast of burden he, but a useful scout. He did get into trouble when he started using the tiny cat form to perve on an unsuspecting NPC he fancied though.
The last game I DM’d, the druid was much more committed to druidic utility, and she served as steed for other characters on more than a few occasions!
ok my favouyrite part about the sleipnir joke is the implication that druid is actually a dude
When you’ve got shapeshifting powers, what’s the difference?