No, I am not under the impression that Polymorph can transform me into a dragon. It's still the 9th lvl spell that allows a druid to do this.
My bad, I didn't know you were referring to Shapechange.
@crzyhawk: I get that, wildshaping can create some problems players might find annoying like casting spells and beast size in smaller areas. If druids aren't your thing maybe Oath of Ancients Paladin or Nature Cleric might scratch that itch for you.
For me, I loathe shape change. A class pretty much built around it? That's never going to work out for me. I'm not a huge fan of the spell selection either. Sadly, it's just not the class for me. I /want/ to like druids. Everytime I build one though, I look at it and say "meh"
I always hated the idea of druids and never had any interest in making one... until an article mentioned that they were the most powerful base class in 5e. So I took the generic druid pre-gen from WotC and played for awhile. Wow! Many of the base spells (Pass without trace, Goodberry) turned out to be pretty darn useful, but Wildshape was obscene.
I started making stat cards for each of the most powerful Wildshape forms and put my extensive miniature collection to use.
Then I got Summon Nature's ally, I brought even more miniatures, and created ways to handle eight creatures at lightning speeds (since I was effectively handling more in combat than the DM).
I never even bothered 'building' a druid, as the pre-gen was fine (his stats didn't really matter much... it was my animal choices that really mattered).
No druids are just a thinking mans / women's class so not for everyone.
They don't do as much direct damage as many others but they have a great ability to addapt to any of those "oh shit" moments that would typically wipe the party, they are like the D&D equivilent of Mcguiver able to think out amazing solutions to problems and shaping the battlefield terrain better than anyone not called the GM.
Beyond that their versital nature means that you get to try you hand or paw at many forms of play, everything from close combat to healing and support sometimes all in the same fight so it's very hard for combat to grow as stale as it does for other more popular classes.
That and at higher lvls these guys are terrifyingly strong, in the end of our last campain at the final fight with the elemental demigod the boss one shoted our entire party short of the lvl18 druid who soloed him countering every effect he threw at her with the clever use of wild shape and propperly thought out spells, and eventualy won by the skin off her teeth.
No, I am not under the impression that Polymorph can transform me into a dragon. It's still the 9th lvl spell that allows a druid to do this.
My bad, I didn't know you were referring to Shapechange.
@crzyhawk: I get that, wildshaping can create some problems players might find annoying like casting spells and beast size in smaller areas. If druids aren't your thing maybe Oath of Ancients Paladin or Nature Cleric might scratch that itch for you.
Divine Sorcerer is a good match. I really enjoyed the Arcana domain cleric that I had. If I were going to play a nature priest, it would likely be a Nature domain cleric. Clerics are pretty amazing in this edition.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
You haven't played DnD until you have grabbed an orc as a giant eagle and dropped him into his own pit trap. While I'm rarely the top damage dealer in the group, my druid has proven to be a great utility character, and most importantly - a lot of fun to play.
I've summoned animals to act as tanks, damage, or quick getaway vehicles. In one of our more recent fights, I avoided an ancient dragon's breath with a high level spell that let me turn into an adult of the same color. Once we were spread out, I switched colors and used some breath of my own. There are so many ways to play this class.
Druids are pretty damn good against vampires as you have spells to cover every one of their weaknesses including a sunlight based laser minigun and an elemental water shape to count as running water, pluss your druid can practicly summon an endless supply of wooden stakes so yeah druids are probably the single best class against them so sit back summon a sunlight spell fixed to strahds forhead and watch him burn.
As some others have touched on and even liked. It boils down heavily to two things.
1. The spell selection isn't as direct damage. This is a problem thanks to corruption from certain older editions. To many think in terms of max damage output. Older players from playing in systems that practically demanded it. Newer players because in trying to learn run into whole trashy guides and players they sit down with focusing on it. We are slowly moving from this but its a struggle. But until then this hits Land Druids the hardest because they are the closest in focus to arcane casters.
2. The versatility. Druids can do so much that it can be daunting to grasp and work with. From listening to a lot of people, Moon Druid is least affected here and quite popular in part because its actually a rather narrow focus when it comes to Druids. Its almost a Druid microcosm focused almost purely on animal forms and for most of its career you slowly build off that to do more caster stuff. Where Moon Druids fall down most is people not wanting that focus. Every other druid does the Moon Druid focus somewhat and then a bunch more most of the time. And the worst hit by their own versatility are circle of the Shepard because on top of the druid itself which players are trying to grasp and utilize you now throw in a versatile pile of potential minions to wrap ones head around as well that need to be managed effectively which is a level of effort some DM's struggle with.
Other classes usually only really deal with one issue or the other to any sizable degree.
This is the class I always come back to it's such a versitile tool set that you always have something to offer the party not covered by the other players I have tried most the subclasses and even enjoyed the miserable looking (on paper) Spores druid.
@Fateless hit the nail on the head. Druids are a complex class to play well. I'm playing with a group of newbies to the game right now and a few are druids in a party that already focuses mostly on spellcasters. I can tell that they don't know what they're doing because they made it to level 4 without using Wildshape even once. I tried to gently nudge them a little to try it out, but I think the book-keeping of wildshapes is intimidating them. (They don't have any of the books.)
And control spells lend themselves to heavily tactical play, which a lot of people whose main intro to RPGs is World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy (not FF Tactics b/c that is Very clutch) aren't going to understand how to do well.
I wish Druids were a little more popular, too, but I guess we can't all RP as gods. Prior to 9th level spells, Druids are definitely the most god-like class out there.
A lot of people posting in this thread have no CLUE at the power druid holds LOL.
I'm currently playing a Spores Druid in a 2-man campaign, and their versatility really helps out. Getting temp hp right from level 2 and increased damage on reaction and weapon attacks with symbiotic entity is amazing.
With shillelagh all you have to do is focus on Wisdom to be a capable melee fighter. Get polearm mastery and you can do an extra attack with bonus action if you want, using staff and shield. For AC I play a tortle, so I already start with AC 19 with a shield. Warforged would be even better, if DM allows it, or a number of other races, lizardman, loxodon get natural AC as well. By the time other characters start doing extra attacks (level 5+) you can eventually swap shillelagh for other ranged cantrips (spores druids do get chill touch at level 2 too). Oh yeah, guidance is a must pick.
Ok, I haven't even talked about spells yet. Besides healing word, which can often save your unconscious friends, at level 3 you already get amazing control spells. I mean, MOONBEAM. 5ft radius means it covers 4 squares. 2d10 radiant dmg on as many as 4 enemies, with save for half. You can move it 60 feet as an action too. While my friend was one-attacking enemies in front of him, I was picking off groups of enemies in the backline. Oh and it lasts 10 rounds too. All you gotta do in these cases is avoid getting hit to lose concentration, but then you can just cast, run to cover...or get resilient Con or war caster as feats.
So yeah, I only mentioned a few perks, but I already feel OP.
For me, I loathe shape change. A class pretty much built around it? That's never going to work out for me. I'm not a huge fan of the spell selection either. Sadly, it's just not the class for me. I /want/ to like druids. Everytime I build one though, I look at it and say "meh"
Can I ask why you loathe Shapechange? You're certainly entitled to your opinion, I'm just curious.
I love druids, FYI, but then again I love playing 'Hero Support' 🙂
"Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable." - Carl Jung
For me, I loathe shape change. A class pretty much built around it? That's never going to work out for me. I'm not a huge fan of the spell selection either. Sadly, it's just not the class for me. I /want/ to like druids. Everytime I build one though, I look at it and say "meh"
Can I ask why you loathe Shapechange? You're certainly entitled to your opinion, I'm just curious.
I love druids, FYI, but then again I love playing 'Hero Support' 🙂
For me, I loathe shape change. A class pretty much built around it? That's never going to work out for me. I'm not a huge fan of the spell selection either. Sadly, it's just not the class for me. I /want/ to like druids. Everytime I build one though, I look at it and say "meh"
Can I ask why you loathe Shapechange? You're certainly entitled to your opinion, I'm just curious.
I love druids, FYI, but then again I love playing 'Hero Support' 🙂
Is that a Sky High reference?
Yes! 👍
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"Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable." - Carl Jung
I'll just throw my support out there for the Druid. It was the first class I ever played and the class I've played the most throughout my D&D experience.
I love support characters in all things. That said, I'm not a BIG fan of being the dedicated healer. That's boring. The Druid can do so much more. Being able to control the battlefield and turn the tide of a fight is thrilling. As JUST a melee character, I enjoy rolling higher damage, sure. But as a Druid, I can turn the ground under a group of enemies into deadly spikes, entangle a fleeing character in vines, use powerful winds to blow enemies around as I laugh maniacally. The possibilities with Druids just seem endless. Honestly, I can't think of a LESS boring class to play, but that's largely because it suits my playstyle.
> Pick Druid > Circle of Spores > Use Halo of Spores to assert your dominance over life. > Fungal Infest dead bodies and create horrendous meat puppets of the natural order. > Level up until you get Blight and Cloudkill > Become living plague-bearer and once you get Fungal Body, show anything you come across you literally have no problem turning them into compost and using their fluids to enrich Mother Earth.
Honestly though, Druids can be fun especially if you don't play them in the super traditional way. Any of the circles can be fun, but some are better as far as the roleplay aspect of your character if you want to get creative.
It's one of the oddities of Druids that they're a very unpopular class in part because there aren't a lot of Druid icons in popular culture to inspire people to play them, the way that there are iconic wizards (Gandalf), rangers (Aragorn), barbarians (Conan), etc. But then when you ask people why they don't like Druids one of the reasons they give is that they don't want to play some sort of unwashed, bearded, tree-hugger. But there is no unwashed, bearded, tree-hugger Druid out there in legend or literature that anyone has heard of who is forcing you to play a Druid that way. Play it however you like, I say. Part of what makes them so strong, IMO, is their extreme adaptability. Playing a Druid means, no matter the circumstances, you've always got options for solving the problem in front of you.
I used to be annoyed that clerics got Protection from Evil & Good while druids don't, because the spell is so effective at protecting you from charm and other mental effects from vampires and other powerful undead. Eventually though, I realized that, as a druid, I wasn't going to fail a lot of WIS saves anyway because my base WIS save is so strong, and I'd rather spend my concentration on Sunbeam, which cuts through undead like a lightsaber.
It's one of the oddities of Druids that they're a very unpopular class in part because there aren't a lot of Druid icons in popular culture to inspire people to play them, the way that there are iconic wizards (Gandalf), rangers (Aragorn), barbarians (Conan), etc. But then when you ask people why they don't like Druids one of the reasons they give is that they don't want to play some sort of unwashed, bearded, tree-hugger. But there is no unwashed, bearded, tree-hugger Druid out there in legend or literature that anyone has heard of who is forcing you to play a Druid that way. Play it however you like, I say. Part of what makes them so strong, IMO, is their extreme adaptability. Playing a Druid means, no matter the circumstances, you've always got options for solving the problem in front of you.
In some stories, Merlin is portrayed as a shapeshifter and could conceivably be a druid but I would say most people think of him as a divination wizard.
Merlin is just one of several "elemental/shapeshifter" magicians that could count as well for Druids but are often portrayed more as Elemental wizards at the very least if not just Wizards of a general sort.
For me, I loathe shape change. A class pretty much built around it? That's never going to work out for me. I'm not a huge fan of the spell selection either. Sadly, it's just not the class for me. I /want/ to like druids. Everytime I build one though, I look at it and say "meh"
Can I ask why you loathe Shapechange? You're certainly entitled to your opinion, I'm just curious.
I love druids, FYI, but then again I love playing 'Hero Support' 🙂
Right? Throw a moonbeam or faerie fire, then turn into a dire wolf. Attack with advantage due to pack tactics, and knock your enemies prone. They try to run away? Opportunity attack, BAM, prone again. Fighting an enemy that likes to cast darkness? Turn into a giant spider with blindsight. Need to scout a location? Turn into a regular spider and sneak in. Or turn into a warhorse and get a buddy with the mounted combatant feat...
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My bad, I didn't know you were referring to Shapechange.
@crzyhawk: I get that, wildshaping can create some problems players might find annoying like casting spells and beast size in smaller areas. If druids aren't your thing maybe Oath of Ancients Paladin or Nature Cleric might scratch that itch for you.
I always hated the idea of druids and never had any interest in making one... until an article mentioned that they were the most powerful base class in 5e. So I took the generic druid pre-gen from WotC and played for awhile. Wow! Many of the base spells (Pass without trace, Goodberry) turned out to be pretty darn useful, but Wildshape was obscene.
No druids are just a thinking mans / women's class so not for everyone.
They don't do as much direct damage as many others but they have a great ability to addapt to any of those "oh shit" moments that would typically wipe the party, they are like the D&D equivilent of Mcguiver able to think out amazing solutions to problems and shaping the battlefield terrain better than anyone not called the GM.
Beyond that their versital nature means that you get to try you hand or paw at many forms of play, everything from close combat to healing and support sometimes all in the same fight so it's very hard for combat to grow as stale as it does for other more popular classes.
That and at higher lvls these guys are terrifyingly strong, in the end of our last campain at the final fight with the elemental demigod the boss one shoted our entire party short of the lvl18 druid who soloed him countering every effect he threw at her with the clever use of wild shape and propperly thought out spells, and eventualy won by the skin off her teeth.
Divine Sorcerer is a good match. I really enjoyed the Arcana domain cleric that I had. If I were going to play a nature priest, it would likely be a Nature domain cleric. Clerics are pretty amazing in this edition.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
You haven't played DnD until you have grabbed an orc as a giant eagle and dropped him into his own pit trap. While I'm rarely the top damage dealer in the group, my druid has proven to be a great utility character, and most importantly - a lot of fun to play.
I've summoned animals to act as tanks, damage, or quick getaway vehicles. In one of our more recent fights, I avoided an ancient dragon's breath with a high level spell that let me turn into an adult of the same color. Once we were spread out, I switched colors and used some breath of my own. There are so many ways to play this class.
Druids are pretty damn good against vampires as you have spells to cover every one of their weaknesses including a sunlight based laser minigun and an elemental water shape to count as running water, pluss your druid can practicly summon an endless supply of wooden stakes so yeah druids are probably the single best class against them so sit back summon a sunlight spell fixed to strahds forhead and watch him burn.
As some others have touched on and even liked. It boils down heavily to two things.
1. The spell selection isn't as direct damage. This is a problem thanks to corruption from certain older editions. To many think in terms of max damage output. Older players from playing in systems that practically demanded it. Newer players because in trying to learn run into whole trashy guides and players they sit down with focusing on it. We are slowly moving from this but its a struggle. But until then this hits Land Druids the hardest because they are the closest in focus to arcane casters.
2. The versatility. Druids can do so much that it can be daunting to grasp and work with. From listening to a lot of people, Moon Druid is least affected here and quite popular in part because its actually a rather narrow focus when it comes to Druids. Its almost a Druid microcosm focused almost purely on animal forms and for most of its career you slowly build off that to do more caster stuff. Where Moon Druids fall down most is people not wanting that focus. Every other druid does the Moon Druid focus somewhat and then a bunch more most of the time. And the worst hit by their own versatility are circle of the Shepard because on top of the druid itself which players are trying to grasp and utilize you now throw in a versatile pile of potential minions to wrap ones head around as well that need to be managed effectively which is a level of effort some DM's struggle with.
Other classes usually only really deal with one issue or the other to any sizable degree.
This is the class I always come back to it's such a versitile tool set that you always have something to offer the party not covered by the other players I have tried most the subclasses and even enjoyed the miserable looking (on paper) Spores druid.
@Fateless hit the nail on the head. Druids are a complex class to play well. I'm playing with a group of newbies to the game right now and a few are druids in a party that already focuses mostly on spellcasters. I can tell that they don't know what they're doing because they made it to level 4 without using Wildshape even once. I tried to gently nudge them a little to try it out, but I think the book-keeping of wildshapes is intimidating them. (They don't have any of the books.)
And control spells lend themselves to heavily tactical play, which a lot of people whose main intro to RPGs is World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy (not FF Tactics b/c that is Very clutch) aren't going to understand how to do well.
I wish Druids were a little more popular, too, but I guess we can't all RP as gods. Prior to 9th level spells, Druids are definitely the most god-like class out there.
A lot of people posting in this thread have no CLUE at the power druid holds LOL.
I'm currently playing a Spores Druid in a 2-man campaign, and their versatility really helps out. Getting temp hp right from level 2 and increased damage on reaction and weapon attacks with symbiotic entity is amazing.
With shillelagh all you have to do is focus on Wisdom to be a capable melee fighter. Get polearm mastery and you can do an extra attack with bonus action if you want, using staff and shield. For AC I play a tortle, so I already start with AC 19 with a shield. Warforged would be even better, if DM allows it, or a number of other races, lizardman, loxodon get natural AC as well. By the time other characters start doing extra attacks (level 5+) you can eventually swap shillelagh for other ranged cantrips (spores druids do get chill touch at level 2 too). Oh yeah, guidance is a must pick.
Ok, I haven't even talked about spells yet. Besides healing word, which can often save your unconscious friends, at level 3 you already get amazing control spells. I mean, MOONBEAM. 5ft radius means it covers 4 squares. 2d10 radiant dmg on as many as 4 enemies, with save for half. You can move it 60 feet as an action too. While my friend was one-attacking enemies in front of him, I was picking off groups of enemies in the backline. Oh and it lasts 10 rounds too. All you gotta do in these cases is avoid getting hit to lose concentration, but then you can just cast, run to cover...or get resilient Con or war caster as feats.
So yeah, I only mentioned a few perks, but I already feel OP.
Can I ask why you loathe Shapechange? You're certainly entitled to your opinion, I'm just curious.
I love druids, FYI, but then again I love playing 'Hero Support' 🙂
"Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable." - Carl Jung
Is that a Sky High reference?
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
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Yes! 👍
"Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable." - Carl Jung
I'll just throw my support out there for the Druid. It was the first class I ever played and the class I've played the most throughout my D&D experience.
I love support characters in all things. That said, I'm not a BIG fan of being the dedicated healer. That's boring. The Druid can do so much more. Being able to control the battlefield and turn the tide of a fight is thrilling. As JUST a melee character, I enjoy rolling higher damage, sure. But as a Druid, I can turn the ground under a group of enemies into deadly spikes, entangle a fleeing character in vines, use powerful winds to blow enemies around as I laugh maniacally. The possibilities with Druids just seem endless. Honestly, I can't think of a LESS boring class to play, but that's largely because it suits my playstyle.
> Pick Druid
> Circle of Spores
> Use Halo of Spores to assert your dominance over life.
> Fungal Infest dead bodies and create horrendous meat puppets of the natural order.
> Level up until you get Blight and Cloudkill
> Become living plague-bearer and once you get Fungal Body, show anything you come across you literally have no problem turning them into compost and using their fluids to enrich Mother Earth.
Honestly though, Druids can be fun especially if you don't play them in the super traditional way. Any of the circles can be fun, but some are better as far as the roleplay aspect of your character if you want to get creative.
It's one of the oddities of Druids that they're a very unpopular class in part because there aren't a lot of Druid icons in popular culture to inspire people to play them, the way that there are iconic wizards (Gandalf), rangers (Aragorn), barbarians (Conan), etc. But then when you ask people why they don't like Druids one of the reasons they give is that they don't want to play some sort of unwashed, bearded, tree-hugger. But there is no unwashed, bearded, tree-hugger Druid out there in legend or literature that anyone has heard of who is forcing you to play a Druid that way. Play it however you like, I say. Part of what makes them so strong, IMO, is their extreme adaptability. Playing a Druid means, no matter the circumstances, you've always got options for solving the problem in front of you.
I used to be annoyed that clerics got Protection from Evil & Good while druids don't, because the spell is so effective at protecting you from charm and other mental effects from vampires and other powerful undead. Eventually though, I realized that, as a druid, I wasn't going to fail a lot of WIS saves anyway because my base WIS save is so strong, and I'd rather spend my concentration on Sunbeam, which cuts through undead like a lightsaber.
In some stories, Merlin is portrayed as a shapeshifter and could conceivably be a druid but I would say most people think of him as a divination wizard.
Merlin is just one of several "elemental/shapeshifter" magicians that could count as well for Druids but are often portrayed more as Elemental wizards at the very least if not just Wizards of a general sort.
Right? Throw a moonbeam or faerie fire, then turn into a dire wolf. Attack with advantage due to pack tactics, and knock your enemies prone. They try to run away? Opportunity attack, BAM, prone again. Fighting an enemy that likes to cast darkness? Turn into a giant spider with blindsight. Need to scout a location? Turn into a regular spider and sneak in. Or turn into a warhorse and get a buddy with the mounted combatant feat...