We know, thanks to the Moon Druid's Primal Strike, that most wild shapes do not count as a 'magical source' of damage, because if they did, their attacks would count as magical. 'Particular creatures are even resistant or immune to damage from nonmagical attacks (a magical attack is an attack delivered by a spell, a magic item, or another magical source). You can use your action to assume the magical shape of a beastįurther evidence of the non-magical nature of the shape is provided by the undisputed answer to your question a wild-shaped druid's natural attacks do not count as magical for the purpose of magic resistance. But it does not say the shape itself is magical.

That is, the transformation, or assumption of the shape, is magical. Rather, it uses 'magically', an adverb that modifies the verb 'assume'. Note that it does not use 'magical', an adjective that could modify 'shape'. So, does the description of the Druid's magical class ability Wild Shape say that the shape assumed is magical? It does not. It is clear that a Druid's Wild Shape is not a magic item, not a spell or recreation of a spell, not a spell attack, and is not fueled by the use of spell slots. You correctly cite the Sage Advice Compendium as providing the litmus test for whether something is magical. I have been asked by NautArch to elaborate on this: Transformation vs. I would say not, but I don't think there is strong evidence either way. It is a more open question as to whether there is an ongoing magical effect which sustains them in the non-magical form of the beast. The druid is using magic to transform into a beast, but the beast they become is not magical. In this case, the process is what is magical, although the result is not. So if Primal Strike says its beast form attacks are magical, we can safely assume that they are not magical in other druid wild shapes. It is a basic assumption that if a specific feature explicitly grants an ability, other similar features do not grant it unless they explicitly say so as well. Starting at 6th level, your attacks in beast form count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. The transformation is magical, the shape itself is notĪs NautArch first answered, the relevant source is the Circle of the Moon Druid's ability:

I understand this question is similar to this question about whether the attacks of creatures summoned by conjure animals are magical, but as the druid is magically transformed by this class feature, the answers may differ. If your answer to any of those questions is yes, the feature isįor the purposes of overcoming resistances to non-magical damage, are the natural weapon attacks of a druid in Wild Shape considered to be magical?

Is it fueled by the use of spell slots?.

Is it a spell? Or does it let you create the effects of a spell.

Yourself these questions about the feature: Starting at 2nd level, you can use your action to magically assume the shape of a beast that you have seen before.Īdditionally, the Sage Advice Compendium states (emphasis mine):ĭetermining whether a game feature is magical is straightforward. The description for the druid's Wild Shape feature declares that the transformation is magical:

Dnd 5e druid wild shape magic items