The archdruid is a powerful spellcaster who magically polymorphs into a beast or elemental with a challenge rating of 6 or less, remaining in this form for up to 9 hours. They can choose whether their equipment falls to the ground, melds with its new form, or is worn by the new form. As an 18th-level spellcaster, they use Wisdom as their spellcasting ability and have prepared spells such as Cantrips, druidcraft, mending, poison spray, and produce flame.
A 5th-level druid with a Wisdom of 18 can prepare Wisdom mod (+3) + level per “instance”. This allows a level 20 druid of the moon to use their bonus action each turn to turn into another creature. Archdruids are awash with spells that require concentration and have quite a few spells that do not directly deal damage.
The archdruid’s most unique feature is Change Shape, which allows it to turn into any beast or elemental of CR 6 or lower. At higher levels, druids can skip most material components and no longer need Verbal and Somatic components. Their most unique feature is Change Shape, which allows them to turn into any beast or elemental of CR 6 or lower.
The archdruid feature allows for the skipping of components under a specific condition: being in either their normal shape or Wild Shape. To cast one of these druid spells, one must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. They can also cast spells or use the very spirits to help them in and out of combat.
The archdruid blends the interchangeable abilities of being a powerful spellcaster with control over nature and the elements, making them a powerful and versatile spellcaster. However, only a few low-level and non-flexible spells can be used, bringing the capstone down to more like what it should be.
📹 The Problem with Druids in D&D
Druids are DnD’s nature casters, but they have a reputation for being a troubled D&D class, so what’s up with Druids? Check out …
How do spells work for druids?
The druid class uses their wisdom modifier to cast spells, determining their spellcasting ability based on their wisdom stat. The spell description indicates whether the character is rolling a spell attack against an AC and if the target needs to make a saving throw. The spell attack must exceed an enemy AC for it to hit, with the spellcasting ability providing a modifier. Spell attack modifiers are calculated by adding the overall proficiency bonus to the wisdom modifier. The spellcasting save DC is the target enemies must roll against when making a saving throw against the spell.
What is the difference between a druid and an archdruid?
Archdruids are unique creatures with a unique feature called Change Shape, which allows them to transform into any beast or elemental of CR 6 or lower. They can cast spells without material components and have 132 hitpoints. However, the archdruid’s three CR 6 forms each have unique features that they will want to use in combat. The Mammoth can deal massive damage with its stomp and trampling charge attacks, while the Invisible Stalker grants invisibility, flying, and resistance to non-magical physical attacks. The Galeb Duhr can summon additional Galeb Duhr to fight alongside it.
The Galeb Duhr is the least useful form for an archdruid, dealing significantly less damage and lacking the invisibility or flying of the Invisible Stalker. Its Animate Boulders feature is potent but requires concentration, and a Conjure Animals spell at 5th level is almost as good.
In general, it is better for the archdruid to gain trampling charge or invisibility and use its concentration on something else.
What is the archdruid feature?
The Archdruid feature, which is bestowed upon Druids at level 20, permits the unlimited utilization of Wild Shape and the casting of all spells without the necessity of components, with the exception of those that have a cost or are consumed by the spell, both in normal form and Wild Shape.
Do druids just know all spells?
Druids are constrained in the number of spells they can prepare on a daily basis. Furthermore, their capacity for spellcasting is contingent upon the number of spells on their spell list, which may be rendered inoperable or obstructed by extensions.
Can druids change their spells every day?
Druids are capable of modifying their pre-prepared spells following a period of extended rest.
Is archdruid good?
Rock Archdruid is a bland Earth and Light Denier with limited abilities. He can only use Stun to deny and Sunburn and Daze to lower Accuracy. He is destroyed by META monsters like Dark VoltaiK and has only one control effect as a Denier. His Relics include Masher’s Staff, Cane of the Atlantis, Alarorc’s Banner, and Mr. Beast’s Banner.
Sirocco’s Stun x2 bypasses Umbrella Traits like Hardened, Access to Sunburn and Daze, and Good Life. He has only one Control in Stun, which is a Common Immunity. He is outclassed by better Deniers and has a bysmal speed for a Blossom denier.
A recommended moveset for Rock Archdruid is Simoom (AoE 30 Earth dmg + Stun, 48s, 3 CD), Sirocco (40 Earth dmg + Stun x2, 42s, 2 CD), Omega Draconis (AoE 35 Light dmg + Sunburn, 42s, 2 CD), and Gamma Tucanae (Self NER + 20 Heal, 42s, 2 CD).
How do you calculate druid known spells?
To cast druid spells, choose from the druid spell list and choose a number equal to your Wisdom modifier and druid level. The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. For example, a 3rd-level druid with a Wisdom of 16 can include six spells of 1st or 2nd level in any combination. Casting a spell doesn’t remove it from your list.
You can change your list of prepared spells after a long rest, but it requires time spent in prayer and meditation. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability, as your magic draws upon your devotion and attunement to nature. You use your Wisdom modifier when referring to a spell and when setting the saving throw DC for a druid spell and making an attack roll with one.
What is the most powerful druid spell?
Druid 201 provides a plethora of spells for druids, encompassing a diverse range of abilities such as lightning, druidcraft, animal conjuration, primal savagery, shapechange, sunbeam, plant transport, and nature’s wrath.
How powerful is an archdruid?
Archdruids were powerful shapeshifters who could transform into powerful beasts or elementals multiple times daily. They held the title of Archdruid and took on additional responsibilities within their circle. Archdruids aimed to maintain the Great Balance, protecting and educating nature, but sometimes had to rise against danger and eradicate it. They focused on maintaining the balance of nature by understanding the moral and ethical perspectives of others. They traveled across their lands to understand creatures, people, and magical power, and rarely socialized or worked with residents of towns and cities unless their domain was under threat.
How do druids get their powers?
Druids were powerful primal spellcasters who gained their power through connection with nature or a powerful deity. They were guardians of the wilderness and saw themselves as an extension of the natural order. Druids were known for their mysterious nature and believed that nature’s health depended on a precarious balance. They believed that the four elements of the natural world – air, earth, fire, and water – must be prevented from gaining advantage over one another to prevent the world from becoming dominated by the forces of the elemental planes.
Druids believed that nature exists outside of civilized conceptions of good, evil, order, or chaos, seeking to maintain a natural state of being that most of the civilized world cannot or will not understand. They also violently opposed the existence of aberrations and undead, both of which were affronts to the natural order.
What are the powers of the arch druid?
The archdruid is an 18th-level spellcaster with a Wisdom ability. This ability allows them to magically polymorph into a beast or elemental with a challenge rating of 6 or less. The archdruid is capable of maintaining this form for up to nine hours and has prepared a variety of druid spells, including druidcraft, mending, poison spray, and flame. In addition, the archdruid is capable of healing wounds, entanglements, and the use of faerie fire, as well as the ability to communicate with animals.
📹 A Crap Guide to D&D (5th Edition) – Druid
Joseph makes a dumb Dungeons and Dragons guide for dumb people intro/outro music is original piece by JoCat MAN animation …
The adherence to raw nature is what sticks with me. Druids accept the cruelty of nature, and that opens it up to a lot of dark themes. Would love to see a druid that recognizes their place is the top of the food chain. Could be a manifest destiny/humanity first/”everything is a closed system anyway and no matter what I do, it’s still natural” theme
I once created and played an Urban Druid, taking the whole street rat thing too literally, in essence he was a military spy that learned to hide in plain sight like the animals of a city do. It’s amazing how many animals call a city home, but we don’t realize it because hiding from humans is top priority for survival. It was a fun twist for sure.
Druids also have like a million different summoning spells and more summoning through some of their subclasses, so you have to learn even more statblocks. Also, the sheer variety in everything is what made Druid so appealing when I was new to D&D, so for some people I’d actually recommend it. Druid has been my favorite class since I started.
I can’t help but mention I think Autognome really fits that story for Gracie, especially considering they are 100% a Construct and are made with pure servitude in mind as they are created and suddenly gain sentience (and maybe sapience). Also just to get it out the way; Natural Recovery and Arcane Recovery are identical, the only difference is Natural Recovery comes back on a Long Rest while Arcane Recovery is 1/Day. **Edit.** I absolutely love the Solarpunk Druid/Circle of The City idea you discussed here a ton. I wish I could think of a way to reflavor something without having to homebrew a subclass in (Some groups just don’t want any homebrew subclasses/classes at all), but its really rad and inspiring! Amazing job on that one.
that solar punk druid idea is absolutely lovely ! It has so much potential, since usual druids often alienates the party. It’s quite difficult to roleplay when your own character doesnt recognize their teammates identity, values and goals. The solarpunk druid idea is so smart, instead of bringing people to nature its much more interesting as a roleplay perspective to bring nature to them.
As a perma druid I do agree that they tend to get hard to make very unique. However I never thought it was hard lol. I tend to pick my animals when I need them instead of looking through everything first. For example I took the spell locate object and thought it would be cool to stick something light to someone as a tracker. I then added giant spider to my list of homies for the webbing. I find this makes it considerably easy.
As a brazilian fan of DnD and RPG in general, i just have to say THANK YOU for all your work on these articles and all the free little presents you give to us and to the rest of the community. I know im going to use some of these, and i just NEEDED to make this commentary on the article about one of my top 3 favorite classes~ love ya lots
As an avid fan of druids and the crazy spells and shapeshifting they get I would like to see your opinions on them. Edit: So I might’ve been playing druid wrong this entire time and did not know that they couldn’t wear metal. I never assumed that a metal spoon made you hate nature so I just went with it
Solar Punk Urban Druid is similar to a character I tried to play in a short lived campaign. “Cutter” as she was called was a Tinker Gnome Druid who wanted to bring some of the nature she experienced in some of her travels to the City. Her family were responsible for a number of inventions and innovations that fuelled progress in the city so she was somewhat of the black sheep
…I actually teared up a bit at your description of the Urban Circle Druid. It sounds like a blast to play, and I love the philosophy behind it. As a Forever DM™️ with players MUCH smarter than me, I often find it difficult to get excited about a homebrew player option because I already have a hard enough time challenging my players mechanically. But this just sounds like so much fun that I don’t really care. Whether the subclass is mechanically strong or just okay, it sounds like a character I would love to play when I next get the chance.
Idk why, but I wish that there was a more plant focused druid. Yeah, you have circle of the land druids, but I’d really love a class, where you can shape into plants instead of animals, it makes you make potions from plants maybe, you know more about plants, ect. Ran into that issue with a character I wanted to turn into a dnd Character from amother rp setting, and realizing that I couldn’t really put her as a druid, eventho she is the living embodiment of cottagecore
My druid boy, Smirk the Tiefling (circle of dreams), is treated sort of similarly to the Solorpunk concept despite having been raised in isolation in the forest — he see’s humanoids as social animals that live in a sort of hive like structure and whenever he arrives in a city he looks to find ways to make the green parts to work with the people (turn parks into lush gardens with food, herbs, and medicine) with spaces still available for play. Set up planters on their balcony for carrots and potatoes and herbs. Got a barrier tattoo and dresses more like a Bard in bright flowy fabrics. Humanity IS part of nature, and Civilization is part of humanity — He’s a warden of nature, but also, being a Circle of Dreams druid, a druid of the liminal spaces of the mind between sleep and awake, he’s of the place of creation, art, imagination. His magic theming, because dreams is one of the Fey classes (along with Shepherd) started out mostly fey and surreal dreamlike wonder (like healing word was a small spectral pixie appearing before him to fly into the chest of the injured party once, and a circle of mushrooms popping up and bursting into sparkles another time around the target), but as the campaign went on and we’re being stalked by his Aunts (… Turns out his mom was a Night Hag turned to the side of good and his dad was an Eladrin, and Smirk was born in the feywild and sent to the Material plane as a baby for his own protection as the rest of his mom’s coven hunted them down cause for some reason Smirk is a key involved in the release of/prevention of the release of Tiamat, whom his aunts work for), and he encounters more and more demons and devils, his magic is slowly shifting to have a more nightmarish quality — Sharp thorns and plants made out of twisted rusty metal, his staff of the woodlands shifted to look like a twisted gnarled ent hand as soon as he attuned to it.
I am in the middle of homebrewing a campaign for my two nieces (10 and 11) and my husband (yeah the age difference is SUPER fun to DM), and I was struggling with what world to create for them for a new arc….oh you’ve given me SO many ideas with solarpunk!! You should totally stream so newbie DMs like me can ask you a hundred questions 🙂 Thank you again for being awesome!
Unpopular opinion: I LOVE the Circle of the Land Druid subclass. The druid spell list lets you create just the right flavor of abilities you’re looking for- it’s easy to make a druid themed around big cats, venomous snakes, caverns of bioluminescent worms, or thousands of other ideas just based on spell selection. I don’t love the “ignoring natural difficult terrain” bit, but I think some critics underestimate how great bumping up the quality and quantity of spellcasting is! I’m excited to check out the Solar Druid and solarpunk more generally 🙂
I tend to ignore the metallic armour restriction since it says will not and not can not, instead making a refusal to obey the rule part of my backstory with me being banished or just unpopular with my druid circle. This helps remove a lot of the problems with having a druid in the group, giving me a reason to join the party beyond the dm having to make the enemy someone who threatens nature, by making me a lone druid who is bored and lonely and joins the group because they belong better amongst adventurers than anyone else, also as part of the backstory they have been part of a similar group before, making them even more likely to want to join because they have experience at it, also they are a nice person and want to help.
I like the idea of a Circle of Rebirth, which sounds nice enough. It’s about the continuation of life after death, but specifically through the process of consumption, circle of life and all. I like the idea of them being aloud to sacrifice a creature, or eat its heart, and then gain special bonuses while wildshaping in that form, or to heal their party members by sacrificing some of their own hp.
For a different druid based on core subclasses I once created a sailor druid. She was originally part of a druid ship, their whole ship having been drawn living from an ancient coastal tree. They were primarily Circle of the land (Coast) but probably had a few beasts in there. However they weren’t your usually hippy protect nature druids. Their view was the Ocean didn’t need protecting, it was a dangerous place full capable of killing any who did not respect it. Therefore her circle of druids were actually an ocean search and rescue team. My particular druid was the helmswoman before their ship went down. She was a brash, potty-mouthed brawler who enjoyed getting into bar fights with her shillelaghed belaying pin.
I always love every article you make. This is one of the best of the bunch though. I have an NPC Dwarven Wizard/Cleric who regretfully became a necromancer years ago, and Gracie would fit perfectly into this dwarf’s forest cottage hideout. The dwarf decided to live alone far from civilization to prevent himself and his undead plants harming innocent people, but the zombie flowers and vampire vines get along great with Gracie! The two now spend their days gardening together, sharing stories, and making plans to help Gracie find her origins. Its not much yet, but I literally thought of this right after the article ended so I have only been working out this pairing for a couple minutes. Anyway, I just wanted to comment for analytics. Thanks for all your articles
Warforged druid is honestly such a fun concept! I play a warforged circle of Spores druid in my weekly campaign. Its basically like being a Transformer. Its also fun to throw in the existential crisis of dealing with being an inorganic metal creature who always feels so close to nature but has such a disconnect from yourself, being full of emotion but being incapable of expressing it outwardly due to having static facial features, and struggling with being sentient while others may view you as a mindless automaton in passing. Its a weird dichotomy between nature and construct and its honestly one of the more relatable characters that I’ve gotten to play as someone who irl struggles with self-esteem, anxiety, and being extremely introverted.
I once played a Circle of the Land Druid for an Underdark one shot. He was a Goliath, albeit reflavored as a golem created by dwarves to protect them from the horrors of the Underdark. He fell in battle and remained derelict for many years, until suddenly he woke up with fresh eyes. The Underdark may be terrifying for a lot of people, but he fell in love with the vast and varied ecosystem and wanted to explore it all. A simple man, he named himself Jagg (on account of his sharp edges) and had a fiery chwinga companion whom he named Chip (you can guess why). Chip came in super handy when Jagg was incapacitated in the big fight of the session and was rolling poorly to shake it off, meaning he couldn’t move or take actions… BUT he could take BONUS actions. So he cast Magical Stone, gave them to Chip, who proceeded to roll max damage with every pebble thrown. Since then, my circle of friends has never slept on Magical Stone.
I remember when I played a Circle of Stars Druid in a Ravnica campaign and I just wanna gush Character was a genetically-modified Simic Dryad whose spells were all flavored as either utilizing her modifications or spawning clones of different engineered abominations. (Big time “Pokémon trainer” vibes) vibes Her “Starry Form” was her flipping epigenetic triggers to alter her own biology in combat, while causing her to become bioluminescent as a side-effect. Her “Star chart” was a seashell engraved with genomic information of both herself and her little freaks. Also, using the “Dragon” Starry Form was great for making sure I kept concentration up when I learned firsthand how brutal Conjure Animals can be when you summon raptors. Was able to basically turn the main encounter into a strategy game and made mincemeat out of a Gruul encampment that had like two dozen enemies. And being able to sling out Guiding Bolts with wild abandon was a blast. 10/10 would recommend Circle of Stars
(Note that Cosmic Omen has a clear limit, proficiency bonus times per day.) I hear you about Samey-Druids, to be honest. When I took on a Druid build I decided to go in a weird direction, making a cursed former dragon who is now stuck as a kobold who can’t cast arcane spells, and druid magic is just a sneaky way to get some magic and try to undo his curse, working towards making a little dragon wildfire spirit, the Conjure Draconic Spirit spell, and Shapechange to turn back into a dragon. Check it out if you’re curious. 🙂 youtu.be/WhN9Zg_CIoo
I ADORE this idea for druids! I’ve had a city in my D&D world that largely revolves around solarpunk ideologies, and serves as a university town, and a Circle of the City druid would be a perfect addition to it! I also love that you defined the difference between different ‘punks’, as I feel that a lot of time solarpunk is used just for the aesthetic and less for the themes of fighting for the planet. Thank you for another awesome article!!
Honestly, after the solar punk section, this actually did remind me of the meditation episode for avatar, the last Airbender, where the monk states “all things are connected, even metal is just earth that has been purified” as Toph begins to metal bend, to be honest, if I were to make a druid subclass, it would definitely just be the Druid version of an artificer, potions, & poisons, & enchantments on weapons galore hang on let me write that down
Wow, the solarpunk theme is amazing. Never heard of it, but it feels nice. A druid connected to cities and technology, not only nature it’s fun to play. I understand the grape on New Year’s Eve reference. Some people on Latin America use to eat grapes (or pomegranate) on New Years Eve to bring good luck. You have to eat 12 grapes, on for each month.
About 2 years ago, I made a warforged stars druid on a pbp server that was pretty fun and made a ton of sense! My bot was sent out by a sort of council of primordial beings (elder god druids?) to bodies of mass akin to planets to study and survey them for the prospect of life. If they were, he/it would follow his/its programming to introduce the catalysts of life (heat/fire and cold/water) for centuries until it naturally bore microorganisms, then flora/fungi, and eventually fauna. After that, he/it would basically jump or fly away to the next planet to do the same thing over and over but had no emotional connection to it all, occasionally doing ‘scorched earth’ nuking tactics when he/it would detect the potential for failure. Not needing food, water, or air to operate made him/it the perfect probe and propagator of life. That was one of my best experiences in DND and led to some funny ‘fish out of water’ times! Solar punk ftw!
Just wanted to stop by and say that this article was, again, fantastic. I feel your issues with druids are completely valid and the new subclass looks so sick. I also wanted to gush about using your previous Barbarian subclass, the Way of the Spirit for my newest character in my most recent campaign. I went with a Harengon Barbarian and I love him. Thank you for all you do, pointy
YAS! New year, new article. Tis a good start ✨ Edit: I wish my tiefling Circle of the Moon druid lasted a little more in my campaign. Would have loved to go a little more into the Druids. Now I can’t WAIT to use this into another campaign :3 Also wish to let you know I’m currently playing a Path of the Spirits Barbarian in my Pirates Homebrew <3
I have a fun Moon Druid who started out as pure healer in a small village. When the village was burned down and attacked they used Wild Shape for the first time involuntarily to defend their loved ones. After becoming the only survivor they begin questioning nature and seek power by learing how to control those around them, using summon and Dominate Spells, then using Wild Shape to tear apart any remaining enemies.
Love the solar-punk idea for druid. Funnily enough, my current character is a warforged moon druid, though his story is that he used to be a fighter who through some magical/divine meddling got wrecked pretty badly while also having the wooden structures inside his body magically reanimated. Dude now has a small oak tree sprouting from his head and his mangled limbs are being held to his body by vines. He’s pretty sure that the thing that’s keeping him alive will also eventually kill him if it keeps growing, and his druidic powers manifest in ways that involve plants sprouting from his body and doing stuff. So it’s got an Eldritch horror vibe going on. He’s also trying to survive a zombie apocalypse, so fun times!
Mechanically, NEVER underestimate the pure power spike you’d get for Druid from a 1-2lv dip into Monk. Since wild shape says class abilities can carry over, it means a LOT of the monk features apply to wild shape. Most notably a movement speed and AC boost from unarmored movement and defense respectively. How the martial arts intersect with WS is a bit questionable, but if a DM allows it, you’re getting a chunky dps boost from that too
I played a druid recently that did something similar to your solar punk druid. It took place in a world with these absolutely massive trees that people had begun living in. Most people lived in the canopies or underground in the roots. The main farming product and light sources were mushrooms. I played a circle of spores druid who loves the mushrooms and was focused on making them thrive and live alongside the people. Her main focus was trying to find out why the mushrooms didn’t naturally grow to the same sizes as the trees (and animals) in the area and figuring out how to change that. She was a lot of fun and rarely felt or played like a standard druid.
Im a newbie DnD player and my first character is a Plasmoid Druid under the Spores subclass. He was originally the son of hermit researchers who opened a forbidden evil tome that basically melted his body and unalived his parents, but the fey of the forest took pity and saved him. Now he’s a gooey mute boy who’s searching for the tome to seal it.
6:38 can confirm. Druid was my first class and I didn’t really like it because nobody was willing to teach me how to make a character so I figured “wis is my spells so I can dump int” and proceeded to succeed nature checks exactly zero times. Only played with that group for a few sessions before making my second character a druid in a different group and loving it because I learned from my mistakes. Played that campaign for 6 years and I’ve tried every class since then and it’s by far my favorite class
Its so nice to see the circle of stars get some love! Its easily been my favorite class to play so far, but I wanted to point out that RAW Cosmic Omen is in fact limited by your proficiency bonus. That’s still several uses a day that come in very handy, but I don’t think any DM would let you use it without limit.
Youtube seems to have been listening in on my searches. I just recently started a new DnD group, and decided to once again try doing something interesting, so I rolled together a Rogue/Druid multiclass. He’s focusing on using tools and traps as preparation, with wild shape for recon, spells for utility, and using long range from odd angles in combat. Then my GM said I could use sneak attack in animal form if the animal uses dex as their primary damage type.
Great article!!! Do you believe you could do a article about aasimar in the future? Making them a bit more interesting. They are basically angels and they look like humans…they are blunt af. I know they have cool abilities and everything but they really deserve the “firbolg treatment” critical role inspired for their themes and aesthetics.
Another Druid subtype: Circle of the Stone. They get stone/earth/metal based spells like move earth, heat metal and stoneskin. They ability to use shillelagh on their arms that, in addition to the improved damage dice, give the ability to spend an action to slam the ground to make enemies in a small cone roll a dex save or get off balance
I play something kind of similar to Gratcie I play a Warforged Circle of spores named Moxy the short story is they were a bodyguard to a war general but shut down in battle and abandon later reawakening in the woods and hanging out there for a long time they have high wisdom and are kind of learning the ways of human emotion very wise but a bit sarcastic
I love the druid, they are in my top 3 classes to play along with bards and clerics. I really love puzzling and optimizing decent and under appreciated spells. I always wanna find nee combo’s or tactics and improve on the ones i know. I like the swiss army knive of bringing the hurt or the hope. Playing with and around your team mates and letting them see the potential of often disregarded spells like fearie fire, sleet storm, plant growth and so much more. Also as a DM i love druids. They together with wizards can solve all the worlds problems. Every village has their own resident wizard and resident druid for calming tea (druid craft) or repair (mending) as a bare minimum.
I could also envision a druid of the deep, of sorts. – With abilities centered around fire and earth, their duties being to preserve the caverns below the grounds, and the very earth and stone that is the foundation of the world. They’d be at odds with anyone or anything trying to mine or excavate, they’d wear armor fashioned only of metals and ores that have fallen off of mineral nodes and veins in natural occurrences such as quakes, or weapons forged of obsidian chunks. – Or flame scimitars. – They could go for that wild shaping into elementals of earth or fire, otherwise. As for what they would do, perhaps they go at odds with duergar who try to excavate the depths, or seek out buried temples and dungeons and ruins with the purpose of burying them back into the earth. Have them join a party of adventurers to find out these dungeons, remove the magical relics that draw people to them, only to then collapse their roofs and bury them forever, that the earth may once more churn them down to bedrock. Or picture a kobold druid who communes with the earth to guide their community to only mine what the earth is willing to let go of, acting as agents of nature’s will to reshape itself, you could flavor it in all manner of ways that have nothing to do with forests and trees and animals and life. Nature is more than just the living beings that grow atop the earth.
I always thought that a problem with the Druid was that it seems entirely built around Wild Shape. Like, what about if I want to play as a Druid who focuses of nature spells, and don’t get around to using Wild Shape that often? Circle of the Land gives a bit of a solution, but Circle of the Shepherd also focuses more on SUMMONING beasts, rather than BECOMING one. SO, it’s my opinion that Wild Shape should be a website Divinity option for the Druid, and unlock different options for each subclass Edit: To aid my point, here’s a complete list of subclasses that don’t include Wild Shape as an ability: Circle of Dreams Circle of the Land Circle of the Shepherd There’s already a few Druid subclasses that work just fine without Wild Shape, and I think it would be a more well-rounded class overall if it did something like the Cleric class, which defines your character more through its subclass than a larger, wide category
A quick nitpick on the armor limitation: to quote the PHB “druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal” This is a purely flavor restriction, as it says will not and not cannot. For the players, no mechanical restriction. For the DM, potential roleplay of other druids looking down at a druid that wears/uses metal
My all time favorite character (Which I sadly have yet to play that much) was my Circle of Spores druid. He was once a simple lizardman, born from a fairly primitive tribe that rarely interacted with the outside world, till he was infected by a mysterious fungus after interacting with it’s old host, splitting his mind in two. One was the same simple lizardman, who viewed its infection like a gift thanks to the innately magical abilities and new life path it granted. The other being the fungus itself, acting like a cordycep to infect and control his body when it choose to, but was intelligent enough to the point it was sentient, and choose to act more as a symbiote rather than a parasite, working with it’s host in hopes of one day discovering how it gained its sentience and where it belongs in a world that labels it a parasite by nature.
I played DND for the first time with my family when I was arguably too young to reasonably understand the rules. I was given a Druid to play. My only saving grace was my need to read through the entirety of all the rules that were important to me. I figured it out but whew boy it was hard but now druids are the most comfortable for me to play
Hi Pointy Hat! I just wanted to drop a comment to say thank you so much for the articles and the free content you provide. You gave me, a budding DM, so much inspiration and also hope that there are awesome people out there who just want to help others to have fun. I totally support what you’re doing and looking forward to your coming articles!
Druid is my favorite class. It’s extremely flexible, but if you try to do too much, you’ll fail miserably. The nice part about Druids is how much damage and healing you can put out per spell slot, though their best spells are all concentration spells and it takes several turns to churn out the huge damage per spell slot.
Haven’t read much from 5e, but under 3.5e Urban Rangers were an interesting idea. You became something of a private investigator. But, of course, being urban instead of rural, you had the opposite problems from their standard counterparts, which was a huge issue when in a campaign that took you great distances between towns and cities, hamstringing you for in game days at a time, and making your abilities moot when faced with roaming bandits and monsters.
Druid is the class I started with in 3.5, and it will always be my favorite. Its definitely a challenge, and oh lord its a lot of googling and bookmarking. In 3.5, you get a feat called Natural Spell that you take at level 6. It does the same thing that getting to level 18 in 5e does. Its even better, since it is so much earlier.
I’ll admit the concept of Gracie I’ve seen in Role with me’s T-wig, aka a warforged druid, but the idea of an urban druid would be interesting, granted the two types I’ve seen people tackle either involved a fuck ton of pigeons or turning the trash creatures of the city like cockroaches, raccoons and once again pigeons into totems for Shepard druid. It’s still a fun class and honestly I’d be down to playing it in a campaign that I’d get the chance for.
I personally love seeing these kinds of clashes of opposites: nature and technology, magic and science. Spellcasting robots, or cyborg fae just appeal so much to me. Things like a forest ranger whose home is a concrete jungle, surrounded by ruined abandoned skyscrapers older than the trees growing around them but seen by those living there as just as much a part of the local ecosystem as anything else. Gracie is in good company with various other nature loving robots like Bastion from Overwatch and Robo from Chrono Trigger. Another, like Gracie, admits to envy towards mortals due to being a synthetic lifeform detached from the nature he yearns to protect. A druid to strives not for nature’s dominance, but rather balance is right up my ally. (Though I’m more likely to play Circle of Stars because oh my goodness that was so pretty!)
In Pathfinder 1e (my preferred system), druids are spontaneous casters, so hearing that they are prepared casters in 5e is something new that I did not know was completely different. Honestly I think them being spontaneous casters makes more sense given their connections to nature and propensity to be found in the wild, but that’s just me I think.
My GF has two Berkeys. She never quite manages to set them up, though. I DMed in a game with a Fungus Druid. He was cool and could really dish it out. Ended up having his story more or less complete when he met a Myconid master alchemist at level 4 so the character retired to study with Master Gus. I’d really love to play a Star Druid… one day.
I think it’s fine to play a druid at first as long as you like prep a tiny bit. A druid was my first character (though to be fair I started off as a barbarian because magic scared me), and before I played I thought of a few things I wanted to be that were strong or useful (a cat for stealth and avoiding entrance fees, a dire wolf for speed and pack tactics, a giant spider for climbing and webbing, and a bear because I was already a bear totem Barbarian so I really wanted to be a bear). When I could level up more and choose stronger beasts or water and flying beats, I either went back to the book and looked for a few I liked, or I looked at my notes to recall an interesting beast the DM had us battle. Yes, there were times that I turned into things outside of those initial animals, but it was easier at the beginning of a battle knowing my options
Regarding difficulty: My first 5e character ever was a druid and I didn’t really have any difficulty with it. The only thing I didn’t understand was subclasses but that was more a thing in general (my DM didn’t explain it that well etiehr xD) but in general, I was thriving with my wild shapes and spoke growths etc.😊
lol my first character is a Druid – yeah I did not understand that I had access to ALL Druid spells for a while hahaha. The way I played it was basically prepping the same spells every day + having some go-to animals. But I am actually so glad I picked a Druid – it’s so fun to get creative with so many options and abilities! And my cluelessness on how to play probably stopped me from being too OP anyway lol.. Also lovee the robot character idea and the Solarpunk ideas at the end of the article!!
… idk it was called solarpunk but my druid i am playing rn is basically the urban druid you made XD I used the shepherd circle though, and the druid desires to make nature and humanity compatible. I’ll have to rethink it though after I heard what you said, thanks for making such a cool druidic circle
Interesting, I’m playing both right now. A circle of stars druid and a chronurgy wizard. I actually find wizard to be harder for some reason? Maybe because circle of stars focuses a little more on the class features rather than wildshaping, so I don’t delve too deep into the spellcasting as a druid. I have my signature spells prepared, change them up when necessary. With wizard, all the spells I’ve ever learned I need to keep track of. Yes as a druid I have access to the entire class spell list, but I only ever have a handful at a time. With wizard, I could have every I’ve learned right there. All the time. At 4th level my gm gave me access to the entire phb lvl1 spells for free. Not only was the gold intimidating to copy into my spellbook, that’s also a lot more spells than I knew what to do with.
What if a Druid could have a Circle of the Mountain, where the Druid gains powers from minerals (and is allowed to wear metallic armor since metal is a mineral of some kind), then different gemstones can allow you to cast or enhance spells like elemental spells. If gemstones are inlaid into your armor, then they can give you certain passive buffs depending on what type they are. And then they basically become an Earthbender from Avatar.
My DM only used druidic once, and it was a word of warning on a rock in the forest. I just glazed over it and didn’t tell my party, and we slept in the area that night. One guy lost an arm and the other almost died if it weren’t for our wizard polymorphing him. My character proceded with not telling the party of important things.
I like druid, I personally find druid the most fun to play. My first 5e character was a druid they were simic hybrid moon Druid, that leaned to water and aquatic vipe a lot, they were also basically a survival of the fittest Australian who didn’t like civilization, who joined the party after loosing in gator wrestling to the barbarian(as the gator). My most recent character is a mossy bug bear primal druid, who kidnapped travelers and fed them to their primal companion and ate gnomes who went though their forest, they joined the party by convincing the parties idiot Claric to walk in to a portal in a tree after luring them away from the party to feed them to their primal companion they then rolled a nat 20 to make friends with the primal companion and the druid.
Ok, one way to make the druid easier to handle: Pick just a handful (maybe 3-5) of different wildshapes you plan on using, pick your “default” spells beforehand and let the DM know that unless you say otherwise, those are the spells you’ll prep each time. The difficulty comes from “choice paralysis” more than anything else, Druids have a laundry list of options and have to pick from them on a regular basis. The class becomes a lot easier to handle if you “stick to your guns” rather than “ordering a la carte” each time.
Never played DnD but love the concepts! I’d love to make a druid thay can actually wear metal. When mentioned that they can’t, my immediate thought was that some animals actually incorporate it into their physiology; we all have trace iron in our blood (or copper for crustaceans), but besides that many small mammals and spiders actually deposit iron in their teeth and fangs. This is why the teeth of shrews, molea and rodents have a red tint. So why can’t a druid wear metal, at least if it’s pure iron, copper or maybe bronze at a push (which is an alloy of those two metals), seeing as it’s already a biological component and therefore natural?
I BELIEVE IN TASHA SUPREMACY. Honestly the Druid Subclasses in this book are so good, I hope that all future subclasses follow the template of “Use your Wildshape Charges for X instead.” Perfect way to handle the ability and lend a ton of identity to these subclasses. Edit: I would like to say that I think Wildfire Druid is also a really interesting take on the whole “connection to nature” thing, but I see how it definitely doesn’t stand out as much as Stars or Spores.
I couldnt pick between playing a circle of spores druid or a swarmkeeper ranger so i reflavored the spores druid to be a living beehive ala jane prentiss. Theyre a harengon so the body horror is hidden by fur (for now) but he’s covered in wax and honey and distributes cursed caramels as a gimmick. THE BEES
My friend actually played a Warforged Star Druid and it was a super cool concept 😀 Made me happy to see Gracie. Likewise a big fan of Solarpunk, makes me appreciate that they made the Ravnica dnd book that includes Golgari, Selesnya, and Simic for 3 interesting twists on druids. And as always, love your vids and enthusiasm!
Oof lol 😂 my very first dnd character was a druid half wood elf & drow child that ran away from home. Still pretty new to the game and understanding the druid class. I hd no idea I ended up choosing one of the harder classes to play. But regardless, she ended up becoming a very interesting character that went through some hardships after she temporarily got separated from the party. She ended up becoming a reaper for an underworld god much to the party’s worry who all viewed her as a daughter/little sister.
ok so you seem to have a pretty awesome grasp on these punk themes which something I’m tryina do in my campaign as well… i’m just having trouble tying it into the usual medieval fantasy of dnd as well. can you do a article on how to incorporate solarpunk, steampunk, cyberpunk, and other types of punk ideas into medieval fantasy (or, i believe, magicpunk?) settings?
I been playing a One Piece homebrew so much of the magic and spellcasting is none-existent when it’s limited to haki and devil fruit powers. However we reflavored Druid to Chemist, so basicly a mad scientist that uses experiments and research of the natural world to replicate a lot of spellcasting. I like it cause it bridges science with magic or fantasy to sci-fi.
That’s a really cool idea for a subclass. I’m soon going to start playing a Druid with Anthropologist background, that sees people and culture as not separate from nature (similar to the ideas of Murray Bookchin and Social Ecology), and this subclass might be perfect for them! If my DM would prefer me stick to the normal options, I’ll probably choose Circle of the Land, as that seems to fit their character best.
This reminds me of my spore Druid! We were going to play as a party in a land where necromancy is outlawed, so we came up with a way for the spore Druid to not make undead zombies strictly. We decided that I worked for the ‘Living Grove’. I ran the cemeteries and used plants to animate corpses to serve as hard tireless grave diggers and grove tenders. Over time the spore zombies(counted as plant zombies like in MTG ) would be more plant or fungus than corpse at which point the bodies would become living, growing memorials. They would become trees in the shape of those that passed away. It was a vital service to the kingdom and lived in perfect harmony with the rest of the civilization by rooting out undeath and returning it to the natural order.
Here’s an alt druid for you: I once made a druid (in Pathfinder, so instead of having a circle, he was just summoning centric) who was a classic, 19th century British explorer. In his youth, he served in a colonial army, rapidly climbing the ranks and earning fortune and status for himself. When peace broke out, he turned to exploring foreign nations and hunting exotic beasts. He was possessed with an insatiable sense of curiosity, and hunted not just for sport, but also to learn more about the animals in these new lands. Over the years, he met many native tribes from many different nations, learning as much wisdom from them as he could with the time he had. While he never stayed in one place long enough to become truly integrated with any of them, he started to see a pattern when interacting with their elders. Being an intelligent person, he quickly unraveled the secrets of the Druidic Arts himself, becoming a Druid in his own merit. Since then, he has used his druidic powers to catalogue and study all the creatures, both flora and fauna, that he encounters in his neverending quest to explore the world.
No lie, my first character was a druid. It was incredibly fun, but I had no idea what I was doing until like level 10. And we went all the way into level 20 LOL half the game I just went into bear form and attacked like a hack n slash player. So i fully agree with your take. It is definitely tough for new players
I would just like to say that I’ve found your website this past week and have been perusal your articles everyday! It is my new favorite DnD website on YouTube! Seriously, your content has given me so much inspiration to really think outside the box when creating a character! I love your creativity and imagination! Keep doing what you’re doing! It’s awesome!
I have watched 2 of your articles and you have quickly become my fav dndtuber. Youi talk about the class and make sure we understand all of it before working out the problems you have with it by making a RAW working character showing how we can be original without changing anything and then giving us a homebrew subclass so we can choice between vanilla and homebrew. Thank you for making such great articles
I love druids, I like the challenge. I like the environmental hazard and arsonist energy. My first character was a druid, in fact my 3 first characters were druids. But tbf I am very ambitious and the type to get really set on something and just deciding that I will master it no matter what. Determined to the extent of being stubborn.
My Rock Gnome named Badger is a circle of the Shephard druid. He hangs out as a hermit outside of town and dispenses advice on when and where to plant crops, predicts the weather, helps people to lumber, hunt, and fish sustainably, and etc. But if people don’t heed his advice he uses nature to make their lives hell.
My druid is a circle of the moon tiefling multiclassed with sorcerer, I simply broke the rules and wear a breastplate and use a steel shield, this got me effectively banished from my circle, I was sent between various circles to help them and at some point while travelling between these I met the party. The full backstory involves tragedy and is kind of like the classic rogue one and has the names of the circles I went to and why etc etc etc. It is more than 4000 words long and I add to it when I am bored. She is not the classic druid in any way, she favours melee over spellcasting, she views civilisation not as an aberration but more like how city dwellers view camping, its a nice place to visit with interesting enjoyable experiences but you wouldn’t want to live there and she is a generally nice person and will help people unless it is dangerous, as a tiefling she has a strong sense of justice and equality, since she herself has been the victim of racial descrimination, she also has the air of someone whose patience could snap at any moment resulting in a blood bath and the death of everyone nearby. The basic idea is that she would have been a fighter or even barbarian or rogue under different circumstances but due to certain events ended up being taken in by the druids as a baby and was raised as one. She nontheless is loyal to the druids however but is a bit of an outsider, making her relationship with them complicated. The character was originally based on Doric from the DnD honour among thieves movie.
Love this! When I made my druid, I followed a similar thought thread about wanting one who wasn’t just a tree hugger. So I decided to write a druid that actively dislikes any magic from the Outer Planes. Gods, Devils, doesn’t matter. They didn’t like any of them, since they felt those forces were what harmed nature far more than civilisation ever did. The druid’s goal was basically akin to Atheism. A firm belief that the civilised and natural worlds could coexist, but only if the extraplanar influences were removed from the equation. Was one of my favourite characters.
You might like this. I was originally going to make a circle of the mushrooms druid but thought shape shifting was more fun so I went moon. I went ghostwise halfing because my character is not about brawls. He can fight because it is fun, but that’s the extent of it, and ghostwise get a racial feature, telepathy towards a creature I can see, AND my favorite thing about haflings, nat 1’s are non existent. My character is just a guy who like getting high off Nature and speaking with animals to convince them to trip with him. His dad is a shadow druid. Everything is a means to an end for him, so although Bud (my character) is a druid all about balance, He cares more about his own and animals’ happiness above all else. This honestly made certain scenarios hit so much harder. During one dungeon, the party had to tell a truth no one knew to get across a chasm, and it had to be loud enough for everyone to hear. My character wears his personality on his sleeve. There are no secrets with him. So his secret was that he liked humanity more after traveling with his group, or at the very most the people in his party. His quirk though is that he does a crap ton of altering drugs, mostly mushrooms. As a mechanic I asked my DM to give me a bit more constitution because he “experiments” so much, for less int and strength. It makes sense for someone of his… appetite. So I got 20 con making it super hard to break spells. But I have also like 8 int 8 strength and 7 charisma… this character took a minute to make as I didn’t just want him to be a drug fiend.
I’ve actually come up with my own Idea for a Druid that actually refuses to use his Wildshape unless absolutely necessary And will actually be ok with Eating meat as long as the animal bodies are used for every part Making Tools and Weapons with Bone as well as Bone Armor making a Good armor but still follows the No Metal rule
First of all, love the circle of the city. I just noticed a few unexplained things and unbalanced aspects. Terrain Tactician: It seems a bit unbalanced. Heal vs. Dexterity saving throw every round. Additionally, my DM mentioned that the healing would be OP without cost. Suggestion: the druid takes d4 additional damage on constructed land. This symbolizes the healing aspect of nature and the destructive aspect of civilization. So you are Tank in nature and DD in the city. You have to activate this with a reaction. The healing always overwrites the old temporary hit points. But so that this d4 is not a drop in the ocean at higher levels, it becomes a d6 at level 6, a d8 at level 10 and a d10 at level 14. On constructed ground you get a d6 on Dexterity saving throws and on natural ground you get a d6 on Strength saving throws. This reflects the raw power of nature and the deft adaptability of civilization. Wild Shaper: In addition to the benefits, the healing and damage dice from Terrain Tactician are doubled. This is how we come to Teeming Terrain: Reaction is no longer needed to invoke the healing power of nature and the destructive power of civilization. In addition, the d6 becomes the d8 for saving throws. I hope you don’t take offense at my ideas and that you might like them 🙂
I once played a Gnome druid that when it wild shaped it’s cloak turned into a robotic like mech that it rode in with their head popping out. Rules wise it functioned exactly the same, no OP gimmick, just fun. This came to be for two things: 1 the DM’s custom setting was magic was through objects (no ones self or such) and 2 this is how I imagine Gnome/Goblin druids would be in Warcraft. It was meant to be a master of many shapes (dnd 3.5) but only got a couple levels into the prestige class (side note sub classes make me sad :p )
That kind of solarpunk druid variant is actually how my main druid Garai’nguatu (Gringat for short eh) operates. Heavily homebrewed campaign but in a nutshell he’s a cyborg druid pushing a sort of technogaian philosophy where technology has its place in allowing his circle to regulate the balance of the elements. You end up with a druid that has his pacts and rituals with nature spirits and the ability to shapeshift but also ends up becoming a major political campaigner, not hiding away from the world but working within the system to steer it towards balance.
As a long time Druid player, definitely agree that Wild Shape alone makes the class A LOT to manage. Maybe it’s just me though, but whenever I play Druid I prefer to be more of a naturalist or a Disney Princess spoof instead of the organic granola hippie. Personally, I feel like Land Druid could be partially or fully rewritten since it always felt like a half baked version of Cleric domains with a weak emphasis on connecting to the terrain. Which is a shame since having a very geomancer-flavored Druid would be awesome. Idk, my own little homebrew tries to at least better differentiate the land spell lists to have far less overlap and tie into things like Forest also giving enchantment spells because many Fey live in that environment or Coast having more emphasis on healing since the ocean is the source of all life. Atm the only way I could justify being able to switch your land attunement is at MINIMUM a long rest but probably longer, so it’s a feature I’m keeping off the table since finding a happy medium is very hard.
5:47-5:55 To be fair, the total spell list can be a bit intimidating. While this is admittedly a problem with Spellcasters in general (as compared to martial classes like Fighter and Barbarian), there is the issue of figuring out which spells are good and which spells are a waste of time. Also, I don’t know about 5e, but in the past, Wizards also have to prepare their spells (of the ones available in their spellbooks) as opposed to being a spontaneous caster that could cast any known spell provided they have spellslots of the appropriate level. As for the rp side of things (which is more or less relevant depending on the DM, the players, and the campaign), I would imagine it is hard to rp a character well that is supposed to be more intelligent than you could ever hope to be.
I feel like if there’s a Necro theme druid, an urban theme druid isn’t too far fetched. One could argue we’ve adapted ourselves to urban life, much like the “natural” habitat of a pigeon is now cities. If the fungus druid can be okay with dead things being part of the natural order, I feel like domesticated animals and their proliferation, the relative safety of cities/civilization allowing humans to be “fruitful and multiply” can definitely have some form of domain associated with it that’s worth keeping some semblance of balance. Like, humans live in giant colonies now, it’s what they do, but you also don’t want that degenerating too much farther away from a “positive” habitat.
Ok, I have a druid character that did a 1 v 1 with another campaign member that was covered in armor. So, in this 1 v 1, I had them turn into a Blue-Ringed Octopus and try to bite him to poison him. I failed the first time, but then, I remembered octopuses don’t have bones and can squeeze into any spaces. I then procceded to have my character squeeze under his armor to get to his flesh. When it was his turned, he tried to punch me, but because I was under the armor, he had to take his ac into account, and therefore, failed to punch me. I just had to share it, because the reaction on his face was hilarious! XD
I played a strength/ charisma druid named Evres, Evres Sterwin. Loved animals, but was a shit druid. Would grapple any new critter he came across. Uttering “You’re alright mate, you’re alright.” Charming and cautionless. Made some friends (friendos), and would summon his “good boys” every time he got in over his head. You can play a low wis druid, it’s just a matter of not minmaxing
I eat grapes every new year. I used to be with a girl and her family did it for (to put it brutally simply) good luck and prosperity. Though that relationship has ended, it’s a find reminder that most things to make your life better can be done all by yourself. Or with your now wife who questions why we HAVE to have grapes new year’s eve😂
Eh, I don’t like the whole “what if this class whose entire appeal is this particular trope didn’t have that trope for the sake of not being samey” thing you did near the end, even though the story you came up with was good in a vacuum. If you’re playing druid to play something other than a shapeshifting nature caster, it’s you being weird and not respecting the theme. Cringe homebrewers really need to understand why archetypes and limitations exist. “Oh I play but ” isn’t subversive. It’s self-indulgent. Some rigidity in worldbuilding is good actually. When everyone can be everything, nothing is anything. Druids should stay as the wild hermit in furs who entangles the band of orcs chopping down their forest before turning into a bear and ripping out their throats. If we reduce it to “whatever man as long as it’s vaguely nature related” just to allow wattpad-tier “I’m so unique and quirky” homebrew, the result is just cringe.