The goal of these changes is to make Woodie a better character and make the werebeaver an actual useful, and strong, form. Additionally to restore Woodie’s identity as the best lumberjack as he must compete with Maxwell in a multiplayer environment.

Woodie/Beaver log meter changes goal; to increase the time Woodie stays in human and beaver form while making it easier to manage transformation times and harder to access the vastly improved beaver form. Finally to ensure that Woodie is an exceptional lumberjack in all levels of play.

Tip: Woodie chops tree's faster with Lucy and slower with other axes. Using a flint or luxury axe drains his wood meter 3x faster!


This change is intended to increase the time Woodie spends as a human since the beaver form is much stronger. For newer player levels of play Woodie is seen as a “bad” lumberjack because he “needs to eat wood or turn into the beaver!” (To be fair the beaver in vanilla DST is absolutely terrible compared to his DS counterpart.) Newer players might not know how to effectively use the beaver form and be scared by it and this change is intended to restore his identity among newer players that Woodie is a good lumberjack. (Hopefully newer players play the game long enough to learn about how the beaver form is better than Woodie’s human form at cutting wood.)

A second reason is to allow Woodie more time to use his follower bonus. (Followers last twice as long.) Pigs will only aid in chopping while Woodie is in human form and cease helping while in beaver form. Staying in human form longer allows him to get more use out of his followers.

Thirdly this change makes it harder to access the vastly improved beaver form. This is primarily intended for pvp balance.

Finally this change also requires more planning from the player to manage the wood meter for transforming into the beaver during an opportune time. (Such as a raid boss fight.)


Since it will take Woodie much longer to get to beaver form I want to ensure that Woodie can stay in beaver form for longer sessions of chopping. If a player wants to quickly become a human again they must eat wood. Additionally this change makes Woodie far less likely to transform into a human during the Toadstool fight.


Since Woodie is less likely to transform back into a human by chopping logs/boards gives more to the log meter to accommodate said change. This is also useful for Woodie players to transform back into a human after fighting a raid boss as a bever. Additionally filling more wood meter ensure Woodie is a better lumberjack in lower levels of play to players who do not understand the Beavers mechanics and eat wood to stay in human form.


Woodie is unique in that his transformation is almost entirely controlled through actions regarding objects in the world. (Chopping tree's.) In vanilla Don't Starve it works but some mechanics that have later been implemented such as wildfire's (ROG) and forest petrification (ANR) that can destroy strategically placed tree's a Woodie player could use to transform. The Woodie player does not have much control over these mechanics making it difficult to transform into a beaver at an optimal time. Even worse some terrain cannot support tree's and must be moved with a pitchfork while ruins terrain cannot be moved at all. Secondly in a multiplayer environment other players can chop, burn and otherwise destroy tactically placed tree's a Woodie depends on to transform. Transformation based on interactions with the environment does not work as well in a multiplayer environment as interactions between players and tactically placed tree's are outside of the Woodie players control. To help solve these problems Woodie can now consume charcoal depleting 5 points from the wood meter. This also gives him greater freedom in managing his transformations while requiring more planning from the player. While players can eat charcoal to transform into a beaver they must plan on leaving wood on the ground to transform back into human form.


A change geared to making Woodie a better lumberjack. It seems odd that the “Magician” would chop wood faster than the “Lumberjack” in a multiplayer setting which is Woodie’s entire identity. This change is to help restore Woodie’s identity as he had no competition in single player.

Tip: Lucy loves Woodie so using an axe that is not Lucy drains the wood meter 3x as fast as it chops 3x slower! Use a flint or luxury axe when you want to transform.


Another change to make Woodie’s beaver form a better woodcutter as it is harder to access now.


Another change to make stump removal much faster. It takes a single gnaw now and is much faster than Maxwell’s digging shadow. Be very careful of mushrooms or other objects you do not want to dig!

Woodie/Beaver combat changes goal; to make the Beaver an exceptional fighter and give Woodie a slight edge in human form. Please note these are not entirely balanced for PVP but instead primarily balanced around cooperative play.


A change to make Lucy more useful as she is, in every other way, superior to an axe. Woodie is likely to carry Lucy around frequently and this gives him a reliable weapon to fall back on.


The sanity change from single player is by far the weirdest one. At -90/min it seems Klei wants the beaver form to be solely for wood cutting, however almost every character has a directly combat related bonus. (Willow, Wolfgang, Wendy, Wickerbottom, Wes, Maxwell, Wigfrid, Webber.) It doesn’t make sense to remove a characters special combat ability when almost every character has one. Don’t Starve’s beaver was usable in combat and doesn’t make sense his multiplayer version is not when other characters combat bonuses remain intact, or even improved! A simple treeguard has -100 sanity/min, and combined with the beavers -90/min, drains his entire sanity in a minute! The vanilla beaver form is useless in combat. Removing the sanity loss is intended to make the beaver form viable in combat, especially against the New Reign bosses with their giant health pools.


Another change to make the beaver useful in combat. 27.2 base damage in the vanilla game is pitiful and is bested by the lowly spear, and equal to the axe! It makes no sense for a characters signature combat ability to be so terrible so it is restored to its single player damage.

Please note the beaver still retains the bonus 17 damage to wood objects. Woodie in beaver form can easily best a treeguard by dealing 68 damage!


Woodie’s beaver form is notable in combat in that it is the only combat related bonus that prevents the player from healing entirely. Against the New Reign bosses with their giant health pools this bonus gives Woodie’s special combat ability a noticeable downside. Additionally Woodie's beaver form also loses out on other combat enhancing gear such as the Walking cane, Magiluminescence, Life Amulet, Chilled Amulet, Bee Queen Crown, Scalemail, Thulecite suit, Thulecite helm, Bone Armor, and even the nightmare amulet. (Fuel Weaver fight.) The beaver is simply at a huge disadvantage in combat and a pitiful 25% damage resistance does not help. At 95% damage resistance it should allow the beaver form to remain competitive with other powerful combat related gear that the beaver cannot access.


Singleplayer beaver did not have sanity and this change partially emulates that aspect. The lower stats on reversion is intended to make the greatly buffed Beaver form less spammable while restoring some of Woodie's single player identity.