Can a druid still talk to the rest of the party while in wild shape? Or can he/she only make animal sounds?
If the latter, how does it interact with Speak With Animals?
dnd-5ewild-shape
Can a druid still talk to the rest of the party while in wild shape? Or can he/she only make animal sounds?
If the latter, how does it interact with Speak With Animals?
Best Answer
According to the description of Wild Shape in the PHB,
A DM may rule that a high-level druid has some capacity for speech in beast form based on being able to perform verbal spell components with the 18th level class feature Beast Spells.
But, this would be a houserule and likely not intended by RAW since Beast Spells specifically limits the verbal aspect to druid spells (not all spells).
The inability to form words (i.e., communicate in a language) in beast form would not prevent you from "gain[ing] the ability to comprehend and verbally communicate with beasts for the duration" pursuant to Speak With Animals (PHB, p. 277).