Wild Shape is the prominent feature of the Druid class, but it allows only two uses until level 20, when Archdruid makes it limitless. This scaling feels quite odd to me and it appears to impact Moon Druids the most, since they rely on it for their combat prowess, while Land Druids have their superior spellcasting abilities.
I'm aware that it can be maintained for an amount of hours equal to half the druid's level and that the two uses are regained after a short or long rest, but the scaling of 2 uses between levels 1-19, then infinite at 20 feels weird and underwhelming, especially between levels 8 (when the feature gets the last power-up) and 20.
Is my concern sound? As a DM, I thought about increasing the uses by 1 at level 12 and 16 (total of 4). Would this make the Druid overpowered, outshining his party members (a Bard, a Barbarian and a Paladin) too much, either in fight or in utility contexts?
Note: the environment is pure core books.
Best Answer
It makes the druid a lot tankier, per combat
Giving the druid additional uses of Wild Shape effectively gives them extra hit points between each short rest, especially if they're Circle of the Moon and can use these extra Wild Shape activations as a bonus action.
Whether this makes them "overpowered" depends a lot on your campaign and encounter design (for example, it doesn't help with encounters where the party must achieve an objective in X rounds much, wherease it will help a lot in slugfest to-the-death combats). It will also let the druid take more risks.
What's the effect size?
At level 12, it gives them an extra Elephant (CR 4, which is 1/3 of their druid level) worth of health, or 76 HP (at AC 12, sure, but still 76 HP) at the cost of a bonus action.
For comparison, a cleric at 12th level has a single 6th level spell slot they could use to cast Heal (as an action, not a bonus action) for 70HP to a single creature.
This is a significant increase in how much damage they can take.
How about utility?
It also makes out-of-combat use of Wild Shape easier, since they can pop in and out of animal shapes (e.g. a spider to get through a keyhole, etc.) without running out of wild shape usages for combat as quickly.
Conclusion
It's probably too strong to just give them; however, if you really want to give the character something like this, an extra Wild Shape would be a reasonable Rare or Very Rare item enchantment; maybe something like a mask of the moon or +1 hide armor of the beast. You could also put restrictions on the extra wild shape slots, such as that it only lasts a round or two, or only lets them take CR 1 and less forms.