Circle of the Falcon

Druids of the Circle of the Falcon are incredibly rare to find. They typically live far from civilization, deep in a jungle, in a hidden bog, or high up a mountain. These druids are most known for having an inseparable bond with an avian companion.

This type of druid has a winged companion that wraps itself around the druid's body while resting. Particular druids far from the civilized world might even wear their bird-friend as their only clothes, though that is certainly not the case for all.

They may be found with a hawk, a bat, an owl, or even a small draconic companion, but regardless of the particular species, the one thing they all will have in common is a firm bond between the two that sometimes not even death can separate.

Avian Partnership

At 2nd level, you gain a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you. Choose a beast companion that has a flying speed and a challenge rating of 1 or lower. Whatever creature you choose will be a special variation that is of a medium size (a loose scale of 4' tall standing with an 9' wingspan). Your beast companion gains proficiency in two skills of your choice. It also becomes proficient with all saving throws. Add your proficiency bonus to the beast’s AC, as well as to saving throws and skills it is proficient in.

All ability scores on the creature lower than 10 are increased up to 10. Hit dice lower than d10s are upgraded into d10s and health is adjusted accordingly. Make sure to also adjust the Constitution modifier bonus health per hit die if the old Constitution value was below 10. Like any creature, the beast can spend Hit Dice during a short rest to heal.

Your bond is deeper than commands and language, the creature and you are in tune. You control your companion as a limited second player character. It rolls for its own initiative with its Dexterity bonus applying to that roll, and you determine its actions, decisions, attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or absent, you can still control your companion.

When you first unlock this feature, your beast will be unable to attack, but it can perform any other actions available to it on its turns. On your turns you may also cast touch spells through your Avian Partner's touch if it is within 5ft of a target.

If your animal companion is ever slain, the magical bond you share allows you to return it to life. During a long rest, you can call forth your companion’s spirit and use your magic to create a new body for it. You can return an animal companion to life in this manner even if you do not possess any part of its body. If you are slain, the beast will mindlessly attack the enemies who killed you in a fury, but after the combat encounter is over, it will no longer stick with the party unless you are revived.

Feathery Protection

Starting at 2nd level, while you are not wearing any armour and not using Wild Shape or otherwise shapeshifted, you can use your bonus action to withdraw your Avian Partner, as long as it is within 40ft of you, to make it fill the same space as you by wrapping itself around you. While in this state, the beast is functionally combined with you into living armour. The beast is untargetable and invulnerable to enemies in this state, and you are granted a bonus to your AC equal to your Wisdom modifier. While attached to you, the beast foregoes it's turns, but is still present for the sake of passive perception and its other senses if applicable.

You may use a bonus action on your turn to separate it from you, at which point it will roll its initiative if it is in the middle of a combat encounter and hasn't already had a chance to roll initiative for this encounter.

(No Circle Spells)

(The Homebrew editor expects Circle spells at level 3 despite not all Druid Circles having Circle spells, so this needed to be added to bypass the check)

Talons Raised

At the 6th level, your Avian Partner is now combat-ready.

From now on, your partner's health scales with your level. Its number of health dice are increased up to your character level, and if it has a Constitution modifier, then that applies for each hit die as it would for a player character (For example, a Giant Owl by default has 3d10+3 [19 average] hp due to its +1 Constitution modifier per hit die; if your character level is 6, that same owl's health becomes 6d10+6 [39 average], and at level 12 it becomes 12d10+12 [78 average] and so on. If you use the average value hp and don't know the math, the average value of a d10 is 5.5, so there is a 5.5 hp increase per d10, and a 6.5 hp increase per d12).

Your Avian Partner can now take the attack action on its turns. Instead of its normal attacks, it has only a new attack called Aerial Strike, described below:

Aerial Strike. Melee Weapon Attack: [STR or DEX modifier + Proficiency bonus] to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: (1d6 + [STR or DEX modifier]) slashing damage.

As with the its other proficiencies, it benefits from your proficiency scores for this attack.

Heart to Heart

At 10th level, your Feathery Protection is enhanced.

You gain resistances to all ranged attacks while Feathery Protection is active.

In addition, for all spells involving dice rolls which you cast while under this protection, you may roll one of the damage or healing dice an additional time. You may use this effect only once per spell.

Symbiosis

At the 14th level, your Avian Partner's abilities are further enhanced. When unattached, your companion can now take the Attack action a second time on its turns.

Also, you can now use and benefit from Feathery Protection while in your Wild Shape or while using Shapechange.

While attached to you in any form, your Avian Partner can now take its turns each round, though it still is unable to attack in that form; instead, it has a new action called Piercing Cry, described below:

Piercing Cry. Choose one creature within 60ft. Target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (with your druid's spell save DC), on a failed save the target has disadvantage on its next attack roll.