Only a good choice where you need to look inconspicuous in the environment. Wildshape into an Eagle can also Wildshape into a Giant Owl, which isĬonsiderably better. Eagle MM: Fantastic fly speed, the best attack at this CR, but any Druid who can.Deer MM: Great speed, but if you just want to be fast you’re probably better.Unfortunately, with no Stealth bonus it may not work as a scout form. Cranium Rat VGtM: Darkvision, Illumination, Telepathy, and Telepathic shroud.Not good enough for combat, butĪ great underwater scout form. Crab MM: Amphibious, a swim speed, and blindsight.Cat MM: Tiny size, a decent Stealth bonus, Keen Smell, and a climb speed.Of screeching, so you’re likely to give away your presence. However, echolocation typically requires a lot Bat MM: Tiny size, flight, blindsight, and Keen Hearing make this an absolutelyįantastic form for scouting.Badger MM: Keen Smell and a burrow speed can be ocasionally useful.Baboon MM: Climb speed and pack tactics.If you need to get around unnoticed in a city, Cat or Rat are both good options in case you’re spotted. If you need to climb instead of fly for some reason, Spider is a good choice. Underwater, the Octopus is your best bet. Instead, look here for forms you want to use for scouting and infiltration.įlight is typically your best bet for scouting, which makes the Owl the best option. CR 0 includes creatures which aren’t dangerous, or are only dangerous in great numbers (I.E. CR 0Īt CR 0 you’re not looking for a combat form. Note: Remember that Druids (including Moon Druids) can’t take forms with a swim speed until level 4, and can’t take forms with a fly speed until level 8, so many forms which are fantastic for their CR will be rated poorly because by the time you get them they need to compete with considerably more powerful forms. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows. The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew.

Blue: Fantastic options, often essential.

Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichĪre extremely situational.

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

I strongly recommend listening to this episode of the Dragon Talk podcast, in which Jeremy Crawford spends 45 minutes discussing the minutiae of Wild Shape and its interaction with other stuff. There is a lot of confusion around the rules of Wild Shape and its interaction with your racial traits and class features. You can heal yourself as a bonus action by burning spell slots, which helps, but it’s very expensive compared to what you can get from casting a spell with that slot. Remember that you can only Wild Shape twice per short rest, and the DMG’s expectation of a normal adventuring day is 6-8 encounters per day with 2 short rests (See DMG : “The Adventuring Day”), so a single use of Wild Shape often needs to be able to last at least an entire fight on average. Understanding Wild Shape mostly boils down to understanding what form to take which forms work, which forms work in specific situations, and which forms just never work. Wild Shape is an exciting and versatile Druid class feature which a lot of people want to use, but which is easy to use badly.

Giant octopus submarine drawing