Do caster out of combat options matter?

[sambojin]

I tend to look at it from the other side. Does it matter that as a lvl2 Firbolg Moon Druid, that I get *all* the low-end out of combat options? At lvl2?

Movement? Yep, got spiderclimb, fast movement, jumping, familiars. Ride-able forms too, so it's a party thing if needed.

Survival? Yep, got goodberry and can have create water. Also have pretty good Wis and scouting/ senses and familiars.

Stealth? Yep, got stealth forms, super-disguise self, a touch of invis, and can go tiny. Later on get pass without trace.

Strength? Yep, got double carry capacity and wildshape. And probably Athletics. Get an 18Str summon soon too.

Communication? A bit, got auto speak to animals, can have proper speak with animals, and there's nothing saying I can't have decent Charisma and a talky skill. Or just take Insight for anti-liar, which still helps heaps.

Skills? Yep, got guidance, for me or the party, and later on Enhance Ability. Plus all the other stuff and stat independence.


And none of this really effects my combat performance at all. Later on I get boat loads of fly/ swim/ summons, and can know planar travel on any given day. Even get commune with nature, that has a pretty amazing range for trying to find portals, and is an 11min ritual.

How often does this come up in any given adventure? Well, all the time. Could we have found different ways of doing things, or simply done something else entirely, without a druid in the party? Yes, definitely. But boy did I feel good being able to do all these things whenever I wanted. Probably saved a few party resources or time by doing it my way, even if it used a small amount of my own resources to do so.

So, do out of combat things matter? Yes. Especially to the person doing them, or allowing the party to try different approaches to various situations. Are they strictly necessary? Yes. DnD is a pretty crappy combat sim, so without all the other cool stuff and shenanigans we get up to in between combat encounters, I doubt I'd bother playing at all. Half the reason why I like playing Druids is because you get more/ different things to do in combat with wildshape/ constellations/ spells, than even a high level martial ever could, even if my dpr isn't fantastic. It would be boring otherwise. But most of it is because of the out of combat stuff.

((A lot of it comes down to "Does the campaign have fail states?". More than simply a TPK. What happens if you don't stop the BBEG? Because you're meant to succeed, and there's meant to be plenty of ways of doing so, but you have to be able to fail and that to have consequences as well. That's the mark of a good campaign. If you can't win, why bother playing? But if you can't lose, why bother either? And there can be varying degrees of either one. Saved the princess, but the king died and the portal to the hells got opened? Well, you won, kinda in a heroic'y sorta way, but there's still going to be large consequences, even if it's not a fail state persay))