November Exclusive: King of Beasts

That's not a bad plan... although I was thinking that not using your other temporary hp gaining methods was sort of the trade-off for getting a nice chunk of temp hp with War Shape

Joel David Allport-Cohoon

I feel like just being another ability that gives the pugilist temp HP wouldn't be the way to go in regards to Joel's suggestion, unless doing so grants something else such as the Street Saint's giving them resistance to all damage while the Temp HP is available. Perhaps War Shape could give Temp HP equal to or half of the chosen beast's max, but also allow the Temp HP gained from your other pugilist features to stack upon these? Similar to how Moon Druids can expend spell slots to heal their wild shapes, the King of Beasts can expend Moxie to keep their war shape bolstered? Of course that may be more useful if war shape drops when its Temp HP is depleted.

Uh...hmm. I need to think about this.

Benjamin Huffman

Wild Shape doesn't give many hit points to druids on its own, it's really it when paired with Circle of the Moon that it's useful in that way. On King of Beasts your Wild Shape is meant to be largely utilitarian (sneaking, spying, swimming and flying at later levels). I'll think about whether or not War Shape can have a defensive bonus element to it anyway.

Benjamin Huffman

So could a moon druid use their wild shape for a higher tier war shape?

Joel David Allport-Cohoon

Basically treat them as two different pools of Wild Shape that operate slightly differently but both can be used to power War Shape.

Benjamin Huffman

How does the wild shape work when you multiclass into druid?

Joel David Allport-Cohoon

As an addendum, I want to say I really really like this archetype and plan on playing one in the near future.

Joel David Allport-Cohoon

I feel like the War Shape should maybe grant some temporary hp? One of wild shape's biggest boons is vastly expanding your hp pool, so giving that up for War Shape feels not so good, imo. Maybe just temp hp equal to half the animal's max hp?

Joel David Allport-Cohoon

Woo! Another great addition to, bar none, the greatest homebrew class ever. The sheer potential HP-Tankiness of this one is nuts with it's class-based bonus health. Hill Dwarf and Tough Feat are going to be top picks for this for me! Hope this, the Street Saint, and the Whiskey Fist end up in the primary supplement come next anniversary!