Druid is a class that I have continued to suggest to my animal and magic loving wife to play. With the option to change spells every day(or every long rest) I told her you don't have to worry about getting stuck with spells you don't really like. I've heard the flip side to this as well being that you have to somewhat memorize a lot of spells and what they do so you can prep them each day, and it can be tedious. Now here's my question: does this make the druid(and really the cleric as well) easier or harder to play? I've heard it both ways and I can see where it's really subjective so I'm just kind of looking for thoughts and opinions on it.
I think the Druid and cleric are harder to play than the wizard, sorcerer, bard, and warlock. With the cleric and Druid you have to pick your spells at least once between sessions and sometimes once or twice during sessions. Yes, you have to do that with the wizard too, but from a much smaller list of spells.
I think that the prepared spells is a lot more user friendly for new players. Especially if you are there to help coach her on which spells might be beneficial for a day. Then, if she finds she doesn't like that spell, she can take others the next day.
I personally think that any class with spell slots involves some level of thought and planning. Use them too flippantly, and you are burned out when you need it in a pinch, but don't use them enough, and you end up feeling you left part of your class on the table at the end of the day.
If she is relatively new, I would steer her away from a Moon Druid, as this combines spell casting AND melee combat with additional hit points to track.
I thought she may be more interested in Shepherd druid, commanding animals rather than turning into them. It'll help too because I'm actually going to be playing alongside her as a rogue so putting a bunch of allies next to enemies is going to help me get sneak attack more often.
I find them easier to play, because I only have to figure out what spells I might need for tomorrow, not what spells I might need until I level up again. And it's still easy to have a 'default' set of spells, and only swap out one or two if you need something specific -- like you know you're going to deal with a poisonous creature so you can swap out darkvision for protection from poison. Or tomorrow is a travel day, so you pick your travel spells, and not your negotiating-with-aristocracy spells. But it can be down to the individual, and how they organize/memorize things best, or just what works for their brain.
Prepared spells I think are much easier than known spells. Druid might not be the easiest class (their core class feature -- Wildshape -- is pretty bookkeeping heavy what with needing to remember and/or find all kinds of additional statblocks) but I would say prepared versus known ALWAYS is better for the prepared casters.
Worried about having too many options? Most of the prepared casters I know tend to have a core set of spells that they always want anyways, so that's probably about half your spells right there. With the other spells, I pick out about 5-8 of each level that I think sound fun, and pick daily what I think will work from those.
I find that helps with RP too -- would my Druid be the type to cast Moonbeam? Nah, probably not. But he *loves* Enlarge/Reduce, or Animal Messenger.
I think that druids are the class you play if you don't know what role you want to play. They can be support players, blasters, healers, or even melee if you really want.
I think that druids are the class you play if you don't know what role you want to play. They can be support players, blasters, healers, or even melee if you really want.
Or you want to be support or control or healer (or summoner), and Druid is the best at all of them :)
I think that the prepared spells is a lot more user friendly for new players. Especially if you are there to help coach her on which spells might be beneficial for a day. Then, if she finds she doesn't like that spell, she can take others the next day.
I personally think that any class with spell slots involves some level of thought and planning. Use them too flippantly, and you are burned out when you need it in a pinch, but don't use them enough, and you end up feeling you left part of your class on the table at the end of the day.
If she is relatively new, I would steer her away from a Moon Druid, as this combines spell casting AND melee combat with additional hit points to track.
I thought she may be more interested in Shepherd druid, commanding animals rather than turning into them. It'll help too because I'm actually going to be playing alongside her as a rogue so putting a bunch of allies next to enemies is going to help me get sneak attack more often.
That sounds like fun but playing a shepherd would make the complexity problem worse, both in terms of the scope of the information the player would need to know and the amount of decisions the player would be making in a short period of time during a game. Putting a new player in charge of making decisions for up to 9 creatures (or more at high levels) every turn is something I would recommend against. The character I play the most is a shepherd and I love the circle but it is not an easy thing to manage all the decisions you need to make. If you're on a VTT it takes familiarity with the system to move/operate that many things without taking a chunk of time and if you're not then then it will probably take even longer to make physical rolls for everything. When it comes to the scope of information to be managed, with shepherds you not only want to be on top of the entire druid spell list and the beasts you personally know to wild shape into, but you also want to be aware of how all the beasts and fey operate in combat so that you have some idea of what you want to summon (even if you're going RAW they will need to at least pick a CR). Theoretically all druids have this issue but most don't lean into using conjure animals/woodland beings as their primary tool so it's not nearly as big of a concern.
Of course if the person digs complex stuff and wouldn't mind the challenge of coming to grips with the options then druid is a super fun class. If the party is patient with the person managing lots of stuff then shepherd can be a very fun circle. If it's going to happen starting at level 1 and moving slow helps things in that you break up what they need to learn into chunks. It also helps that they'll only have access to summon beast until level 5. That will mean they'll have time to learn the mechanics of running other creatures with just 1 pet before it gets really crazy. There are also resources out there like this and this that can help manage all the info druids need to know.
Bottom line, my personal opinion is that moon druid is a more forgiving circle (relative to shepherd-it's still more complex than most other classes) and it's what I'd recommend for newer players going druid. There are definitely lots of hp to track but the basic loop of that they will be doing in combat (cast concentration spell, bonus action wild shape, move into melee and then attack/tank until enemies are dead) is simpler than with a pure caster who is hanging back and picking new spells to cast every round of combat. The process of managing spell slots is often easier for moon druids as well since they will frequently be casting only 1 spell per combat whereas more casting focused circles will frequently be casting multiple spells per turn. It's also easier for moon druid's to find utility with their wild shape resources given the massive amounts of hp and good damage they have access to even from early levels.
Druid is a class that I have continued to suggest to my animal and magic loving wife to play. With the option to change spells every day(or every long rest) I told her you don't have to worry about getting stuck with spells you don't really like. I've heard the flip side to this as well being that you have to somewhat memorize a lot of spells and what they do so you can prep them each day, and it can be tedious. Now here's my question: does this make the druid(and really the cleric as well) easier or harder to play? I've heard it both ways and I can see where it's really subjective so I'm just kind of looking for thoughts and opinions on it.
I think the Druid and cleric are harder to play than the wizard, sorcerer, bard, and warlock. With the cleric and Druid you have to pick your spells at least once between sessions and sometimes once or twice during sessions. Yes, you have to do that with the wizard too, but from a much smaller list of spells.
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I thought she may be more interested in Shepherd druid, commanding animals rather than turning into them. It'll help too because I'm actually going to be playing alongside her as a rogue so putting a bunch of allies next to enemies is going to help me get sneak attack more often.
I find them easier to play, because I only have to figure out what spells I might need for tomorrow, not what spells I might need until I level up again. And it's still easy to have a 'default' set of spells, and only swap out one or two if you need something specific -- like you know you're going to deal with a poisonous creature so you can swap out darkvision for protection from poison. Or tomorrow is a travel day, so you pick your travel spells, and not your negotiating-with-aristocracy spells. But it can be down to the individual, and how they organize/memorize things best, or just what works for their brain.
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Prepared spells I think are much easier than known spells. Druid might not be the easiest class (their core class feature -- Wildshape -- is pretty bookkeeping heavy what with needing to remember and/or find all kinds of additional statblocks) but I would say prepared versus known ALWAYS is better for the prepared casters.
Worried about having too many options? Most of the prepared casters I know tend to have a core set of spells that they always want anyways, so that's probably about half your spells right there. With the other spells, I pick out about 5-8 of each level that I think sound fun, and pick daily what I think will work from those.
I find that helps with RP too -- would my Druid be the type to cast Moonbeam? Nah, probably not. But he *loves* Enlarge/Reduce, or Animal Messenger.
I think that druids are the class you play if you don't know what role you want to play. They can be support players, blasters, healers, or even melee if you really want.
Or you want to be support or control or healer (or summoner), and Druid is the best at all of them :)
That sounds like fun but playing a shepherd would make the complexity problem worse, both in terms of the scope of the information the player would need to know and the amount of decisions the player would be making in a short period of time during a game. Putting a new player in charge of making decisions for up to 9 creatures (or more at high levels) every turn is something I would recommend against. The character I play the most is a shepherd and I love the circle but it is not an easy thing to manage all the decisions you need to make. If you're on a VTT it takes familiarity with the system to move/operate that many things without taking a chunk of time and if you're not then then it will probably take even longer to make physical rolls for everything. When it comes to the scope of information to be managed, with shepherds you not only want to be on top of the entire druid spell list and the beasts you personally know to wild shape into, but you also want to be aware of how all the beasts and fey operate in combat so that you have some idea of what you want to summon (even if you're going RAW they will need to at least pick a CR). Theoretically all druids have this issue but most don't lean into using conjure animals/woodland beings as their primary tool so it's not nearly as big of a concern.
Of course if the person digs complex stuff and wouldn't mind the challenge of coming to grips with the options then druid is a super fun class. If the party is patient with the person managing lots of stuff then shepherd can be a very fun circle. If it's going to happen starting at level 1 and moving slow helps things in that you break up what they need to learn into chunks. It also helps that they'll only have access to summon beast until level 5. That will mean they'll have time to learn the mechanics of running other creatures with just 1 pet before it gets really crazy. There are also resources out there like this and this that can help manage all the info druids need to know.
Bottom line, my personal opinion is that moon druid is a more forgiving circle (relative to shepherd-it's still more complex than most other classes) and it's what I'd recommend for newer players going druid. There are definitely lots of hp to track but the basic loop of that they will be doing in combat (cast concentration spell, bonus action wild shape, move into melee and then attack/tank until enemies are dead) is simpler than with a pure caster who is hanging back and picking new spells to cast every round of combat. The process of managing spell slots is often easier for moon druids as well since they will frequently be casting only 1 spell per combat whereas more casting focused circles will frequently be casting multiple spells per turn. It's also easier for moon druid's to find utility with their wild shape resources given the massive amounts of hp and good damage they have access to even from early levels.