So a lot of people here complain druids and specifically their beast forms are overpowered or broken. How has it actually played at people's tables?
Edit: What I actually did in the comments!
If you are a member of the Rat Lords and remember Sheli, the warforged who killed her evil creator and retired peacefully, stop reading.
We are in late-game (level 12). The party previously recovered the academy tower, but has now decided to fully break with the academy and work with Ryan Greymere. Because they failed to deliver a particular McGuffin to Greymere, she has offered them another quest to gain her alliance: take back the academy tower.
My main query is what the Academy tower looks like after it has been retaken on behalf of the academy--because that's what happened, and now they need to go there and get the academy out.
The core part of the quest is going to be that there are ~3 built-in defenses that are keyed to rogue mages and prevent them from entering. The party will therefore need to disable them so that Greymere can enter. One thing I need to figure out is where these might be and what they might look like.
They will also need to deal with the academy mages currently inhabiting the tower. That's where I could use ideas. They've been dealing with a lot of grimdark relative to their preferences, and I have canonically established that academy mages are cowards who will avoid combat, so I am avoiding a lot of morally challenging decisions. I'm trying to think of some NPCs to put in there who are going to be interesting and potentially challenging to convince to leave, but also maybe a few will be open to joining the party. Who might have taken up residence / what might daily life look like there?