It has only been a few days since the first trailer dropped to announce an upcoming Dungeons & Dragons movie. When it was first released, the initial response from many (including myself) was that druids can’t wild shape into an Owl Bear because they are considered monstrosities. While I have had a few discussions with the GameTyrant readers and friends alike which have led me to accept that the directors are like the dungeon masters (DM) and as the DM they can simply allow it at their table.
However, it seems that wouldn’t be good enough for the overwhelming community. Instead, a Reddit post from 9 months ago by the user OhWyn is finding itself to be popularized and initialized. In this post, we are introduced to a brand new druid circle; The Circle of Monstrosities. In fact, this circle isn’t just a consideration of the player community. The official Dungeons & Dragons resource website, DMSGuild, has put up a PDF of the circle for $0.99.
I went ahead to check it out myself and it is a bit more fleshed out than the original Reddit post. Without providing full details, following this circle gives an initial physical feature added to your character's permanent appearance (which rolling a d8 can be selected if you don’t have a choice for yourself). Starting at 2nd level you gain Beastly Senses and Circle Spells that don’t count against your prepared spell list and you will learn more spells at 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th levels. Then at 6th level, you get Born Free. It’s not until the 10th level that you will finally get Monstrous Shape, which lets you choose a monstrous creature with a CR rating of your proficiency bonus or lower and you can only morph into that one chosen monstrous creature once per long rest - all other wild shape rules then apply. And finally, at the 14th level, you get Transfer Spirit.
To summarize the main essence druid players will be looking for here:
At level 2, you will be able to Wild Shape as normal with the standard rules stated in the Player Handbook.
At level 10, followers of the Circle of Monstrosities will be able to Wild Shape into a single monstrosity of choice (which can not be changed afterwards) of which the monstrosity must be a CR rating of your Proficiency Bonus or lower. (At level 10, your Proficiency Bonus is +4).
While you maintain the right to 2 Wild Shapes per short or long rest, you may only use 1 Wild Shape per long rest to form into the chosen monstrosity.
As stated, I don’t want to go into too much detail on each aspect as you can get the PDF yourself pretty cheap and I’m not sure what restrictions are laid upon this new circle. In my opinion, it is not a circle I would choose to follow as waiting until your 10th level to use the wild shape form you would pick this circle for is pretty rough. But it is interesting to see how a single trailer has rallied together the community to make this happen.
I’ll share the initial image from the Reddit post on what the initial concept of the Circle of Monstrosities was set up to be. Based on this set up though, it would have been a bit overpowered of a choice. But let me know in the comments below how you feel about this new druid circle! Is the official version too restrictive? Which version of the Circle of Monstrosities would you like to see at your table?
