Barbarians and their wild form druid friends...

[hyena]

For fairness sake I thought I'd check with the FG hivemind before making this ruling... ;-)

The party I'm DMing has two none too bright barbarians, and their druid friend just made it to lvl 2, chose circle of the moon and is planning to go bananas with turning into a bear next session. I sincerly hope he demonstrates this ability to the barabarians before using it... Otherwise I suspect that the raging barbarians may have some problems realising that the nasty bear standing next to them is their druid friend

What I plan on ruling is that first time this happens the barbarians have to make Intelligence saving throws DC 13 (or possibly wisdom) not to attack the druidbear...

Am I being too cruel? (bear in mind that these are experienced players with 20+ years of tabletop gaming, not some poor rookies, and I've given them permission too min/max as much as they want, so I don't have to pull my punches as the DM)

[LordEntrails]

I'd go with Wisdom myself. I consider Intelligence more like book knowledge or the ability to solve analytically. Wisdom, imo, is more like common sense, and to me would be a better gage.

Also, rather than telling them what to do when they fail their check, let them decide, They will probably be more creative than either of us if we try to plan ahead.

Note, you could also throw in a perception or passive check to indicate if they actually saw their friend transform or not, which might mean they react differently.

[hyena]

Thanks, and of course I'll let them decide themselves how they will respond, they're more than good enough roleplayers to act accordingly. And excellent point about the perception check. Let's just hope the druid has enough sense to demonstrate his ability next time they camp (and hopefully not spook their horses into running away...)

[Nulk]

Haha - I expect an update on how this plays out....

[hyena]

Of course, and as background I may add the tale of how this group managed to get a full party wipe in the first dungeon in the Lost Mine of Phandelver (6 gobbos and a few traps taking out a whole party...) :-)

[TMO]

(bear in mind that these are experienced players with 20+ years of tabletop gaming, not some poor rookies, and I've given them permission too min/max as much as they want, so I don't have to pull my punches as the DM)

Really? Bear in mind...?? :)

Actually, unless your barbarians have extremely low intelligence (i.e., below what the point system would guarantee them), I would not think this would cause any problems. Adventurers are adventures for a reason. They aren't the run-of-the-mill dumb denizen. Even low intelligence and wisdom scores are generally considered reasonable compared to normal folk.

[hyena]

Hehehe, well both of the barbarians have 8 in int, and according to their backstory they were kicked out of a mercenary unit due to being too dumb to be usefull... and recruited to the current party out of sheer desperation from the party leader (a high elf that is already starting to regret his decision), one of the barbarians is a half-orc and the other is a dwarf and they're already not very fond of the woodelf druid, so knowing my players right they'll attack the bear on sight, without any saving throws... ;-)

[TMO]

Hehehe, well both of the barbarians have 8 in int, and according to their backstory they were kicked out of a mercenary unit due to being too dumb to be usefull... and recruited to the current party out of sheer desperation from the party leader (a high elf that is already starting to regret his decision), one of the barbarians is a half-orc and the other is a dwarf and they're already not very fond of the woodelf druid, so knowing my players right they'll attack the bear on sight, without any saving throws... ;-)

Then it certainly seems as if their lack of intelligence is part of the flavor and cause for these barbarians to be out engaging in their own adventures. In this case, I say have fun with it. Your original idea of them freaking out over the druid's wild shape is clever.

[hyena]

Thanks, I'll post an update of how it goes :-)