If you are thinking because of rage, I'd say Druid is particularly a tough choice because of concentration. So many of the druid's best spells are concentration, and a spore druid is no worse at casting than any of the other druid subclasses.
It might be a thought to do a spore dip into a barbarian, but I think the loss of the ability to cast and hold concentration should be a deal breaker on most full-caster builds, and the druid particularly.
For Barbarian Druid it's a pretty solid Multiclass specially if you are a Moon Druid / Totem Barbarian, but otherwise it's an okay choice to dip but you can't cast spells while raging. You will be tanking though because of the Spore Druids Symbiotic Entity. It's generally not enough to take a dip with the Barbarian class even if it will make you a tank. Use this with Shillelagh and for when you run out of spells for frontline combat or if you are low on hit points and want to escape. But there are a lot of ways to handle combat with Druid Barbarian dip but that is what can be done since you are a Spore Druid Multiclass. But here are the significant benefits from skull splitter dice:
Significant Barbarian Features
Rage. This class feature is 100% the reason the multiclass works at all, rage functions perfectly well while you’re in a wild shape giving your bear, wolf, and other assorted creatures resistance to all physical damage, advantage on Strength checks and saves, and a few points of additional damage. You can’t cast or concentrate on spells while raging, but wild shape is specifically not a spell, and you can’t cast spells in wild shape anyway so they mesh perfectly.
Unarmored Defense. This works but it works in a weird way. Normally as a barbarian you’d want to maximize your Constitution and Dexterity scores to get your unarmored defense score as high as possible. However, you lose all your physical scores when they’re replaced by the animal’s. But the unarmored defense feature can still be used in wild shape, it just uses the beast’s physical scoresinstead. This means that with some wild shapes you’ll be improving their AC by using unarmored defense, and with some you’re better off using their existing AC. The druid can't wear metal armor anyway so your unarmored defense even just in humanoid mode is still likely to be better than any medium armor or light armor.
Danger Sense. Advantage on Dex saving throws is a nice extra way to make sure your giant wolf doesn’t die to fireballs.
Reckless Attack. Some of the beast’s attack bonuses are a bit lackluster, reckless attacks can push those natural weapons through by giving us advantage on attack rolls.
Primal Path. There’re a few options, but I’d argue there is enough in their initial 3rd level feature to justify the 3-level dip. I’ll go into each one in more detail later, but for now know that getting up to 3 levels of barbarian for the primal path is worth doing.
Extra Attack. Before you start salivating at the idea of extra “multi-attacks” from beasts, know that mechanically a “multi-attack” does not use an “attack action” so they don’t mesh with your extra attack feature. However, you can totally use it to make another attack if you just use one “attack”. This means that there are some wild shapes where having extra attack is completely useless, and for others it basically doubles their damage output. An extra attack at level 5 is sketchy considering how many druid levels we have to forego, so while this can be a viable option that you should be aware of I don’t necessarily recommend it.
In other words the moment you take a dip in this, is that the features will start to kick in. If you are 2 spore druid and take a dip in 1 barbarian it will kick in and then even further at 3 druid and 3 barbarian or 2 druid and 3 barbarian because of their primal paths, since generally there are a lot to gain from multiclassing instead of only dipping.
My suggestion / optional your choice is to Multiclass into Monk instead and then your flurry of blows / unarmed strikes deal an additional 1d6 necrotic damage going 2 druid/ 2 monk. The ruling here is really weird for unarmed strikes since they are not considered melee weapons but can make melee weapon attacks. So it may apply depending on your DM.
Melee Attacks (p. 195). The rule on unarmed strikes should read as follows: “Instead of using a weapon to make a melee weapon attack, you can use an unarmed strike: a punch, kick, head-butt, or similar forceful blow (none of which count as weapons). On a hit, an unarmed strike deals bludgeoning damage equal to 1 + your Strength modifier. You are proficient with your unarmed strikes.”
The wording on this is a bit strange.
You could interpret it to be saying that instead of making a melee weapon attack, you can make an unarmed strike (inferring unarmed strikes are distinct from melee weapon attacks).
Or, you could interpret it to be that instead of making a melee weapon attack with a weapon, you can make one with an unarmed strike. This interpretation is a bit confusing, since it implies that your fists are not weapons, yet are capable of making weapon attacks.
You could make a case for either interpretation - the former plainly makes more sense as written, but the latter might be their attempt at enabling you to use your fists the way you would weapons for certain attack mechanics, while still not allowing you to do something silly like parry a hammer-blow with your skull, or enchant your feet to do +1 damage.
No, it's not. For early levels, the melee stuff is nice. But after level 5 just switch to chill touch and play like a caster. Always activate symbiotic entity preemptively for the temp HP.
Making investments by way of multiclass and/or feats to do melee as a spore druid is a waste. Instead, just play to your strengths. Animate dead is fantastic, but it really benefits from having 4th level spells for upcasting.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So we are starting a TOA game in a couple weeks. I'm thinking i'll be playing a Tortle Spore druid. Would it be a good idea to take a barbarian dip?
It really depends on what you're going for.
If you are thinking because of rage, I'd say Druid is particularly a tough choice because of concentration. So many of the druid's best spells are concentration, and a spore druid is no worse at casting than any of the other druid subclasses.
It might be a thought to do a spore dip into a barbarian, but I think the loss of the ability to cast and hold concentration should be a deal breaker on most full-caster builds, and the druid particularly.
For Barbarian Druid it's a pretty solid Multiclass specially if you are a Moon Druid / Totem Barbarian, but otherwise it's an okay choice to dip but you can't cast spells while raging. You will be tanking though because of the Spore Druids Symbiotic Entity. It's generally not enough to take a dip with the Barbarian class even if it will make you a tank. Use this with Shillelagh and for when you run out of spells for frontline combat or if you are low on hit points and want to escape. But there are a lot of ways to handle combat with Druid Barbarian dip but that is what can be done since you are a Spore Druid Multiclass. But here are the significant benefits from skull splitter dice:
Significant Barbarian Features
In other words the moment you take a dip in this, is that the features will start to kick in. If you are 2 spore druid and take a dip in 1 barbarian it will kick in and then even further at 3 druid and 3 barbarian or 2 druid and 3 barbarian because of their primal paths, since generally there are a lot to gain from multiclassing instead of only dipping.
My suggestion / optional your choice is to Multiclass into Monk instead and then your flurry of blows / unarmed strikes deal an additional 1d6 necrotic damage going 2 druid/ 2 monk. The ruling here is really weird for unarmed strikes since they are not considered melee weapons but can make melee weapon attacks. So it may apply depending on your DM.
The wording on this is a bit strange.
You could interpret it to be saying that instead of making a melee weapon attack, you can make an unarmed strike (inferring unarmed strikes are distinct from melee weapon attacks).
Or, you could interpret it to be that instead of making a melee weapon attack with a weapon, you can make one with an unarmed strike. This interpretation is a bit confusing, since it implies that your fists are not weapons, yet are capable of making weapon attacks.
You could make a case for either interpretation - the former plainly makes more sense as written, but the latter might be their attempt at enabling you to use your fists the way you would weapons for certain attack mechanics, while still not allowing you to do something silly like parry a hammer-blow with your skull, or enchant your feet to do +1 damage.
No, it's not. For early levels, the melee stuff is nice. But after level 5 just switch to chill touch and play like a caster. Always activate symbiotic entity preemptively for the temp HP.
Making investments by way of multiclass and/or feats to do melee as a spore druid is a waste. Instead, just play to your strengths. Animate dead is fantastic, but it really benefits from having 4th level spells for upcasting.