Become the ultimate beastmaster by turning your friends into ferocious fuzzy comrades with Animal Shapes. Ripe for DnD shenanigans and with loosely written spell verbiage, Druids have the ability to break the game.
Today we’re looking at a shapechanging spell in DnD 5e, Animal Shapes. It’s an 8th level transmutation spell that lasts for 24 hours as long as the caster is able to concentrate. This is a high-level Druid Spell that costs 1 action and only affects willing creatures, but does so in a 30 foot radius, meaning you could technically transmute over 100 creatures if you had the attention span for it.
Incredibly fun and incredibly powerful, let’s take a look at what Animal Shapes can do for you by going through the rules as written. Before we do, drop your questions in the comments below and we’ll be sure to get them answered.
Who Can Cast Animal Shapes in DnD 5e?
Animal Shapes is a late-game spell that is only available to Druids.
Rules As Written Explained for Animal Shapes in DnD 5e
Your magic turns others into beasts. Choose any number of willing creatures that you can see within range. You transform each target into the form of a Large or smaller beast with a challenge rating of 4 or lower. On subsequent turns, you can use your action to transform affected creatures into new forms.
The transformation lasts for the duration for each target, or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies. You can choose a different form for each target. A target’s game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the chosen beast, though the target retains its alignment and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. The target assumes the hit points of its new form, and when it reverts to its normal form, it returns to the number of hit points it had before it transformed. If it reverts as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to its normal form. As long as the excess damage doesn’t reduce the creature’s normal form to 0 hit points, it isn’t knocked unconscious. The creature is limited in the actions it can perform by the nature of its new form, and it can’t speak or cast spells.
The target’s gear melds into the new form. The target can’t activate, wield, or otherwise benefit from any of its equipment.
Player’s Handbook
Your magic turns others into beasts. I know this is flavor text, but also calling out it says “others” so no casting it on yourself. The Druid has wild Shape anyway, so don’t at me in the comments.
Choose any number of willing creatures that you can see within range. ANY NUMBER. Not 1, not 2, any number within range. You just need line of sight and the creatures must be within 30 feet. The creature must also be willing, meaning most likely your allies. If you’re leading a small battalion of soldiers, you could transmute them all into Giant Snapping Turtles and wreak some major havoc.
You transform each target into the form of a Large or smaller beast with a challenge rating of 4 or lower. If we’re burning that 8th level spell it better be up to Large sized beast. Important too it is specific to a creature type of beast and CR 4 or less. By our count that’s over 100 beasts from official books, though Giant Coral Snake from ghosts of saltmarsh is the only CR4 beast at the time of this recording. Many people point to Elephants, but those are Huge beasts. Need beasts, and beasts that are Large or smaller.
On subsequent turns, you can use your action to transform affected creatures into new forms. If you advanced far enough with turtle squadron, you could turn them all into Giant Eagles with one action. Rules as written it gives no range for this portion, just “affected creatures.” Rules As intended, they should probably still be within 30 feet.
The transformation lasts for the duration for each target, or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies. Turtle Squadron is good to go for 24 hours or until you, the Druid, drop concentration with the spell. More on hit points in a moment.
You can choose a different form for each target. They don’t all have to be Giant Snapping Turtles, you could get an insane mashup of animals going, though it would start to become a nightmare to run at the table.
A target’s game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the chosen beast, though the target retains its alignment and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. So STR, DEX, and CON become those of the beasties, while the targets still get to be the same levels of smart. That’s a good thing since most beasts are lower intelligence.
The target assumes the hit points of its new form, and when it reverts to its normal form, it returns to the number of hit points it had before it transformed. Wild Shape for everyone! The affected creature is essentially given a second hit point bar when transforming and if we keep the Giant Snapping Turtle example, that means they now have 75 HP on top of whatever they were at. When the turtle gets toppled, the creature goes back to whatever HP they were at prior. That second health bar is amazing.
If it reverts as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to its normal form. Standard carry over rules here. Turtle has 10, takes 15, turtle form goes away and regular form takes 5 damage.
As long as the excess damage doesn’t reduce the creature’s normal form to 0 hit points, it isn’t knocked unconscious. Thumbs up. Straightforward and understandable.
The creature is limited in the actions it can perform by the nature of its new form, and it can’t speak or cast spells. Wild Shape continues here with the traditional rulings. The creatures themselves cannot communicate through words, but if you’ve planned this out beforehand they should know what they’re doing.
The target’s gear melds into the new form. Love this for you because it means you don’t have to worry about where your stuff goes. Like a built in fur fanny pack. It just becomes a part of your beast body.
The target can’t activate, wield, or otherwise benefit from any of its equipment. Makes sense since it is now a part of your beast body. And there you go! RAW in a turtleshell.
From the initial review, RAW seems pretty clear overall in this spell. It’s wild shape for all of your friends.
Not so fast though, what happens to that extra health bar if you go from Turtle to Eagle mid-fight? There doesn’t seem to be any direct rule around this, but there are likely a few directions to take your ruling. We see three rulings you could go with.
First is percentage ruling. If you’re at 50 out of 75 HP as a Giant Snapping Turtle and change to a Giant Eagle, DMs could rule your percentage health of 66% carries over to the new form, so 18 out of 26. Otherwise for 24 hours you could sit back and become the master of all buffs and none of your party members can die. To really spam it, you could keep going back and forth between Giant Snapping Turtle, Giant Coral Snake, and a Plesiosaurus. If you get full health for those animals, you’re essentially getting endless minions for a full day.
Second, and in most cases the correct answer, is a new health bar. An argument I like for new health bars for each shift is that a Druid will already need to be Level 15 or higher to cast this spell. At that point, most baddies are going to be able to drop a less than CR4 creature pretty quickly, so it might be fair for a new health bar. I mean, this IS demigod level magic at this point. Jeremy Crawford says this is the way it should be, so best to side with the all-knowing.
A third, and least likely option is, current HP transfers to the new creature on the change, but that turns into an administrative nightmare and would be the least fun.
RPG Bot makes a good point in their overview of Animal Shapes as well that when a creature is knocked out of their animal form, you could shift them back in the very next turn, going as far to say because there’s no rule to restrict this to non-dying creatures, if a character is dying you could also transform them, resetting their death saves. Probably against rules as intended, but the DM reigns supreme. All things to think about.
What are the Best Uses of Animal Shapes in DnD 5e?
In RAW I talked a lot about using Animal Shapes in a military setting, where you can get the most bang for your buck by having every space in the radius filled, 131 depending on how your DM plays it and minus one for the space you take up. Double that if creatures stand on each others shoulders and now you’ve got 262 wild shaped individuals. Congrats on winning the war.
Outside of high volume Animale Shape, leverage animal shapes to hinder your foes.
A stealth mission or heist that requires everyone be a rat for a little bit, Animal Shapes will cover you for 24 hours, but no one could talk or defend themselves initially. Maybe you need to all be sheep to get put on a truck and secretly enter a city. You might be able to get away with some Illusion magic, but Animal shapes gives you the physical presence and pomp of a real sheep.
You could also turn your friends into Stench Kows to help ward off foes by smell alone, or a raucous group of rhinos capable of laying down and damming a river.
Animal Shape is not only a combat tool, but could be a great problem solving tool for puzzles and environmental hazards.
As a few folks have pointed out over the years, the best cheese of this spell is to be a Spore Druid with access to Animate Dead. After unaliving some of your foes, reanimate them and then cast Animal Shapes to have a whole new group of cannon fodder, or maybe have, as someone (Zoltar99) put it, “a huge stampede of rampaging Awakened White Moose at your command”
A similar use I saw that I appreciate, but would likely rule against, was to use staff of swarming insects to cast Insect Cloud, then with the massive cloud of insects, which technically are tiny beasts, cast Animal shapes and turn them all into something massive. Hundreds to thousands of beasts unleash chaos for 10 minutes, the length of the Insect Cloud. Debatable whether a swarm of insects are considered allies because they are
Conjuring or summoning also make this spell a bit crazy, so the Druid could wreck your entire game if you let them.
The last cheese comes from RPG Bot where they note you could always carry a bag of rats with you. Technically Animal Friendship could be cast 18 times in a day and lasts for 24 hours, so you could convince 18 rats to get into a bag, take them into battle, and unleash 18 rats that you transmute into Giant Scorpions or giant poisonous snakes.
History of Animal Shapes Across DnD Editions
Animal Shapes first appears In 3rd edition, where the spell allowed for you to change one willing creature per caster level, so a bit limiting there, and 3rd edition was clear that all creatures must take the same kind of animal form. BORING.
5th edition decided the spell level is so high that they don’t care what you do and opened up a chaos portal for you to run all the shenanigans you want.
Final Thoughts on Animal Shapes Spell in DnD 5e
Animal Shapes is a spell that offers a lot of opportunities for fun and creativity. As it is limited to the Druid only, we see this as a higher tier spell because it is chaotic, powerful, and specific. Happy shaping.
Some of the best beasts you could pull for battle are, CR 4 large beasts including the Giant Corral Snake from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. CR 3 Large beasts include the Giant Snapping Turtles from Tomb of Annihilation, the Bristled Moorbounder from Wildemount, the Awakened White Moose from Rime of the Frostmaiden, and of course the Giant Scorpion.
We’ve added a link to a spreadsheet of all beasts you could leverage with Animal Shapes, but let us know below if we’re missing any.
The officially approved Beasts available to you with Animal Shapes (Google Sheet Link).
CR 4 large beasts includes the Giant Corral Snake from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. CR 3 Large beasts include the Giant Snapping Turtles from Tomb of Annihilation, the Bristled Moorbounder from Wildemount, the Awakened White Moose from Rime of the Frostmaiden, and of course the Giant Scorpion.
If you don’t want the stats, you can review the full list below. Pick a beast, any beast (probably not the best way to strategize, but hey, we won’t judge):
| Almiraj |
| Assorted Beast, Aurochs |
| Assorted Beast, Cattle |
| Assorted Beast, Dolphin |
| Assorted Beast, Swarm of Rot Grubs |
| Crag Cat |
| Cranium Rat |
| Dinosaur, Allosaurus |
| Dinosaur, Deinonychus |
| Dinosaur, Dimetrodon |
| Dinosaur, Hadrosaurus |
| Dinosaur, Plesiosaurus |
| Dinosaur, Pteranodon |
| Dinosaur, Velociraptor |
| Flying Monkey |
| Giant Crayfish |
| Giant Fly |
| Giant Lightning Eel |
| Giant Snapping Turtle |
| Jaculi |
| Misc. Creature, Ape |
| Misc. Creature, Axe Beak |
| Misc. Creature, Baboon |
| Misc. Creature, Badger |
| Misc. Creature, Bat |
| Misc. Creature, Black Bear |
| Misc. Creature, Blood Hawk |
| Misc. Creature, Boar |
| Misc. Creature, Brown Bear |
| Misc. Creature, Camel |
| Misc. Creature, Cat |
| Misc. Creature, Constrictor Snake |
| Misc. Creature, Crab |
| Misc. Creature, Crocodile |
| Misc. Creature, Deer |
| Misc. Creature, Dire Wolf |
| Misc. Creature, Draft Horse |
| Misc. Creature, Eagle |
| Misc. Creature, Elk |
| Misc. Creature, Flying Snake |
| Misc. Creature, Frog |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Badger |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Bat |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Boar |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Centipede |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Crab |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Eagle |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Fire Beetle |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Frog |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Goat |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Hyena |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Lizard |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Octopus |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Owl |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Poisonous Snake |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Rat |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Scorpion |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Sea Horse |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Spider |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Toad |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Vulture |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Wasp |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Weasel |
| Misc. Creature, Giant Wolf Spider |
| Misc. Creature, Goat |
| Misc. Creature, Hawk |
| Misc. Creature, Hunter Shark |
| Misc. Creature, Hyena |
| Misc. Creature, Jackal |
| Misc. Creature, Lion |
| Misc. Creature, Lizard |
| Misc. Creature, Mastiff |
| Misc. Creature, Mule |
| Misc. Creature, Octopus |
| Misc. Creature, Owl |
| Misc. Creature, Panther |
| Misc. Creature, Poisonous Snake |
| Misc. Creature, Polar Bear |
| Misc. Creature, Pony |
| Misc. Creature, Quipper |
| Misc. Creature, Rat |
| Misc. Creature, Raven |
| Misc. Creature, Reef Shark |
| Misc. Creature, Rhinoceros |
| Misc. Creature, Riding Horse |
| Misc. Creature, Saber-Toothed Tiger |
| Misc. Creature, Scorpion |
| Misc. Creature, Sea Horse |
| Misc. Creature, Spider |
| Misc. Creature, Swarm of Bats |
| Misc. Creature, Swarm of Insects |
| Misc. Creature, Swarm of Poisonous Snakes |
| Misc. Creature, Swarm of Quippers |
| Misc. Creature, Swarm of Rats |
| Misc. Creature, Swarm of Ravens |
| Misc. Creature, Tiger |
| Misc. Creature, Vulture |
| Misc. Creature, Warhorse |
| Misc. Creature, Weasel |
| Misc. Creature, Wolf |
| Stirge |
| Tressym |
