Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 eyrieking Sep 02, 2015 10:14:53	Hi everyone, someone pointed out to me an interesting combination, and I'm wondering whether it would work. Basically, does the toughness feat increase the hp of the animals you wild shape into?   Here is the relevant text from the phb (p67). I did not include the third and 5th bullets. The third talks about spellcasting, which is not relevant to this discussion, and the fifth talks about equipment.  I have bolded the most relevant pieces of text.  Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast, but you retain your alignment, personality, and intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores. You also retain all of your skill and saving throw proficiencies, in addition to gaining those of the creature. If the creature has the same proficiency as you and the bonus in its stat block is higher than yours, use the creatures bonus instead of yours. If the creature has any legendary or lair actions, you can't use them.  "When you transform, you assume the beast's hit points and hit dice. When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed. However, if you reert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you reert and take 9 damage. As long as the excess damage doesn't reduce your normal form to 0 hit ponts, you aren't knocked unconsious.  "You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so. However, you can't uses any of your special senses, such as darkvision, unless your new form also has that sense.  Clearly, certain feats work when you are in wild shape. If you had the charger feat and transformed into an elephant, it seems pretty clear to me that you could use the feat in the elephant form (elephants can obviously "charge". )   Certain feats do not work in your form. I would say its pretty clear that you can not change into a cat and provide the benefits of the Inspiring leader feat, because it requires that they can understand you. Since a cat is not physically capable of talking, then I would rule that a cat cannot be an inspiring leader.    This thread is questioning the toughness feat, which says the following: Your hit point maximum increases by an amount equal to twice your level when you gain this feat. Whenever you gain a leel thereafter, your hit point maximum increases by an additional 2 hit points.  If it does work, there is a question as to what exactly your hit point maximum in the form is increased by. It says "Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast." This means, for example, that an enemy could not cast hold person on you in beast form, because you are not human. However, non player characters do not have a "level". I see a few ways of interpretating this The feat doesn't work with beasts because they do not have levels: while I could understand this argument, it seems arbitrary. Imagine a lvl 20 character with the toughness feat and the shapechange spell (a 9th level spell that lets you change into anything. The spell has almost identical text describing how it interacts with class and other features.) If they shapechanged into a dragon (which doesn't have levels) then the feat wouldn't work, but if they shapechanged into an arcanaloth(p313 mm) then the description specifically says that the arcanaloth is a 16th level spellcaster. This seems like the feat should work. Only spellcasters have this explanation, but that doesn't mean that other monsters do not have levels. "Level" is an abstract concept, and it doens't make sense to me that only player characters have this.  Use the challenge rating of the beast as the "level": A few spells use this (such as polymorph and the aformentioned shapechange) meaning that there is a precedant of using challenge rating to approximate level. Besides the fact that those spells are consider to be overpowered, look at the "archmage" from the mm(p342). It is a 18th level spellcaster with a challenge rating of only 12!  Use hit dice of the beast as the "level": Since characters gain hit dice as they level, it seems natural to use hit dice to approximate the level of the beast. The problem is that the dmg has an explanation as to how they decide on hit dice for the creatures, and it seems to be that it is mostly decided based on the hit point maximum they want, not based on how difficult the monster is or especially how "leveled" the monster is. However, I view this as the best option. Also, it works with some of the spellcasters. The arcanaloth i mentioned is a 16th level spellcaster with 16 hit dice, and the archmage is an 18th with 18 (this is not true in every instance, but its not clear in every instance how many "levels in spellcasting" they have.) Just use the character level: this is the easiest, but it does specifically say that you gain the statistics of the creature.    Of course, the above discussion was about what happens if you can. As for whether or not you can use toughness in wildshape form, the only clarification on what features you do not have access to is whether or not the form is physically capable of doing so. Its not hard to imagine a particularly tough brown bear that has more hp; indead, some dms roll (or make you roll) for the hp of your beast from hit dice, instead of taking the average.    One possible ruling (and my personal favorite) is that you can increase the hp of your creature but only up to the maximum hp that a creature could have. Take a druid who rolled for the hp of the brown bear and rolled 50hp. Using this interpretatioin, the maximum amount of hp that the brown bear would have would be the maximum of 4d10 + 12 or 52hp. This makes sense in a couple ways, because the maximum hp is the maximum amount of hp that the creature is physical capable of having.    TL;DR: I think that toughness should work with the wildshape form. I think it should use the hit dice of the beast as an approximation of its level. I also think that the beast should not be allowed to gain more hit points than the maximum hp that it could get from its hit dice.   Thoughts? Any relevant links to official charifications on this question?
#2 jaelis Sep 02, 2015 10:52:25	Wildshape is complicated enough. Just use the beast's HP.
#3 Omnilicious Sep 02, 2015 11:48:05	Pretty sure Wotc would say that Tough is a state of the character's body and not the new form you took. I've seen this ruling on similar things before. You still benefit from the feat because any damage exceeding the forms hit points then go the the character ... which would have more hitpoints from this feat. To include it in wild shape because of this would be double dipping.
#4 cowleymen Sep 10, 2015 12:21:40	second bullet point man.. You use the beast' hp and hitdice. A change to your base forms hp does not change that beast  hp characteristics
#5 Noctaem Sep 10, 2015 12:29:24	cowleymen wrote:
#6 RCanine Sep 11, 2015 18:56:02	eyrieking wrote:
#7 Captainpandabear Sep 11, 2015 22:05:37	"The intent is no. The Tough feat affects a druid's hp, which are replaced by the beast's hp while using Wild Shape. " From Jeremy Crawford's twitter after I asked.