[RPG] In D&D Adventurers League, what can Druids Wild Shape into

dnd-5ednd-adventurers-leaguewild-shape

The Druid's Wild Shape ability states that the Druid can only Wild Shape into a beast type that it has seen before. In D&D Adventurers League play:

  • At character creation, can the Druid count as having already seen certain beast types, or can it not use its Wild Shape ability at all until it sees a beast on an adventure?
  • Do you have to record which beasts you have seen, for instance on your adventure logsheet?
  • Are there beasts that appear in adventures whose statistics are not in the Player's Handbook? If so, how are PC players supposed to get access to those statistics so that they can use Wild Shape later on?

Best Answer

There are no official answers from the adventurer's league at this time. However, I think we can apply some rational thought and come up with a good answer in the meantime.

  • All Adventurer's league PCs start out at L1s, Wild Shape is a L2 ability, so I would track what you've seen while adventuring. You might be able to make a case from your background of what you've seen prior to your adventuring career, but it might be a hard sell to an organized play DM.

  • I would definitely do this. At the very least for the ones that don't show up in the PHB that you'll encounter. I doubt you'd be called on it, but it wouldn't hurt to have a menu.

  • For beasts that are not in the PHB (I'm not sure there are any right now, but just in case), you've got some options. Between the BD&D DM book, and the HotDQ online supplement, you can easily find any beasts that might show up in the current season of organized play that are not in the PHB (and going forward, they plan to release similar supplements for future adventures to keep BD&D the only required materials). Everything in those two online supplements will also be in the Monster Manual that is coming out at the end of September.

Ultimately, I don't think this is something to get too hung up on. I find it improbable that you wouldn't be able to make the case to even an Org Play GM that you hadn't encountered a certain beast before. I'll note that even org play GMs are given this kind of latitude in the instructions to them. However, I also wouldn't make a big stink about it if the DM said "no, you can't be a Stirge, you haven't seen one of those yet" if you don't have it written down that you'd encountered one.

I reached out the D&D adventurer's league on twitter to get something slightly more definitive and here's the response:

wax eagle: quick question. For Org play, does a druid get a starting list of beasts encountered? How do they track them as they go?

D&D adv league: No, the Druid class states what CR the animal can be.

Sorry, I was unclear. Wild Shape specifies "that you've seen before" is that in your adventuring career or can it be before?

That's left up to the players as to what their char has seen.

So the official response is "whatever you think makes sense for your character", that's pretty much in keeping with the spirit of 5e's rulings so far and makes sense. Again they've given 5e org play GMs (and players tbh) wide latitude on stuff like this, so decide something that makes sense with your characters background and story.