how is the shepherd druid as a healer/support? About the only way I would play a healer out of the options I have so any advice since I love animals more than life lol.
The bear totem and placing your summons effectively to tank damage can prevent a lot of HP damage in the first place. It takes a lot of resources to heal with unicorn spirit, and I'm not a huge fan of in combat healing anyway -- your whole action generally won't even undo a single attack from the baddies. There are some other great support spells that are non-concentration on the druid list such as goodberry (<- best use of a 1st level slot on healing), protection from poison, freedom of movement, and the like.
Remember that the unicorn totem only triggers its healing on the casting of a spell that regains HP. I'm not exactly sure if this means that the feature triggers when you cast goodberry or healing spirit (the best 1st and 2nd level healing spells), but it definitely means that it doesn't trigger when they heal you or your party.
Check out the new UA Circle of Stars druid for a bit of a healing bump if your DM allows it.
Shepherd is either the strongest or weakest druid circle depending on the DM's interpretation of Conjure Animals. If the DM chooses for you, avoid this circle like the plague. "DM has the creatures statistics means.."
"Choose an option doesn't mean .."
Blah blah blah. In essence, the entire subclass hinges on where your DM stands on the controversial spell (lots of summoning haters out there and the bandwagon keeps growing).
thankfully my group is all cool with it and the fact that in divinity i play summoner with mods a lot and my turns get finished 3 times as fast as theirs when they play a ranger or a fighter type lol so I should be good with handling extra mobs without bogging down combat at all.
As for picking summons he said yeah one because he doesn't care and two because it's less work for him as the DM as long as I can present stat blocks for him so he doesn't have to look them up all the time.
thankfully my group is all cool with it and the fact that in divinity i play summoner with mods a lot and my turns get finished 3 times as fast as theirs when they play a ranger or a fighter type lol so I should be good with handling extra mobs without bogging down combat at all.
As for picking summons he said yeah one because he doesn't care and two because it's less work for him as the DM as long as I can present stat blocks for him so he doesn't have to look them up all the time.
Wow summoning in DOS2 was what drew me to my cleric/shepherd as well! Divinity has the best summoning system I've encountered in games which makes me crazy excited to see what Larian does for BG3. Personally I found DOS's single powerful follower dynamic more appealing than eight elks or wolves or a couple brown bears. If you are interested in that kind of summoning the Unearthed Arcana "Spells and Magic Tattoos" that WotC released in March is fantastic and IMO quite well balanced. I suspect they'll end up in the next non Theros sourcebook.
The Summon X Spirit spells from the UA gives you control over your summons appearance, they share your initiative (really helps speed things up) and the stat block is uniform which makes for fewer frantic mid combat stat searches. Summon Beastial Spirit allows you to use your Shepherd totem abilities without fear of bogging down combat or pissing off the DM by summoning eight wolves. And you get to start your summoning career at level three rather than five which was the other problem with the subclass (who wants to wait five levels to benefit from their core class theme?)
I have played with the UA spells, and while I think they've got some niceties, they're not perfect for a sheperd. They have far fewer HP than their counterparts summoned with the high level spells and even at low level spells, a 3rd level summon beast spirit is about as good as a CR 1 creature, which you could get two of with the conjure spells.
And the most important thing they're missing for the Shepherd is hit die. Not only do they not have as many HP as other conjurations, they don't even gain that benefit that is supposed to help keep the relatively squishy things around a tiny bit longer in the first place.
That makes a lot of sense. Disappointing though. It seemed like a happy middle ground that avoids all the normal gripes about summoning but I can see how the totem spirit abilities are relatively weaker without a mob to apply them to. I will make a case for Summon Beastial Spirit though. A summon that shares your initiative with +6 1d8+6 for a 2nd level slot is amazing. Not broken but really good. A couple brown bears will make it look pathetic but that's two levels away. It always bothered me that it takes five levels for a shepherd druid to, you know, shepherd.
I actually still used them, they just died a lot faster than my CR 1 creatures.
The UA didn't come out until after i had hit 5th level anyway, so I wasn't missing out. I do find it odd that a shepherd doesn't get any always prepared summoning spells.
Is it too late to guide the little shepherds? Is this thing on? Advice For Shepherds :
As a healer i think it's OP. i don't know how people are saying other classes heal more.
For example, a 10th level Runty, the gnome shepherd druid that looks like Al Capone : Attacks with his shilelagh (staff with shilelagh cantrip on it), and does... 8 damage, his summoned creatures: 2 brown bears attack... 18 damage (2 hits 2 misses), then with a bonus action Runty casts Healing Word on Wicky Bobby the Ranger who's fighting Thumbless Marv. The spirit totem animal thingy "Unicorn" is up, though it's been reskinned as an Elk, uhh that thing does an area of effect heal equal to Runty's druid level upon the casting of Heal Word at no extra charge. Therefore, Wicky Bobby gets a paltry 6 hit points from Heal Word, but then a second wave of 10 hit points of healing from the "Unicorn". The spirit lasts 10 rounds so you have to keep in mind healing sucks when the "Unicorn" expires. Any creature you want, including yourself, can benefit from the heal wave. - then add all that up. 8 from Runty, 18 from the Bears = 26 effective hit points . And 6, and everybody, not just Wicky Bobby, got that 10 points of area healing... 4 party members that's 40 hp affected = 46 total. Plus the amount of damage Runty and entourage did means Runty's turn affected 46+26 = 72 effective hit points were altered by damage and healing on his 10th level turn. And you're trying to tell me you wanted to be a Cleric or some crying tears lactose intolerant healing elf of the dream jitters? I don't think so, bub. And then at 10th level the shepherd also has an ability that causes the bears to heal another 5 each just for ending their turn inside the "Unicorn" aura. Not every one will need healing (lower total), but most of the time 2 or 3 allies and summons will benefit (VERY efficient). ALMOST Every round for 10 rounds this happens till the "Unicorn" runs out. Short rest and get another one asap. Theoretically if there were 20 allies in the aura, your healing simply goes off the chart into the hundreds, maybe a thousand is possible if you're surrounded by a cloud of a thousand friendly faeries, or the noses of 100 floating injured giraffes.
you're telling me this isn't OP? How did Treantmonk miss it i don't know. Druids get weaker comparitively to other classes after level approx. 13 or so, but then just y'know... load up on magic items and play the game for fun. At level 18 and 20 the druid capstone abilities promise more power, as well as 9th level spell Foresight being for you to cast selfishly on yourself.
Druid advice for players, low level prep;
LVL 0 : A druid only needs a strong wisdom score, if even that, (and con). Things to beg your DM for, shamelessly though optional:
allow your own picking of summoned creatures (non douchy request, basic fun ingredient, the raw version isn't good or fun, experienced DM's/players will know this)
and a world where you'll get animals and plants and druids so you can use your stuff. Make sure to pick a god or purpose. Have a personal goal.
There is never a reason to be slow with your turn b/c of summoned creatures. Be decisive, roll all rolls at the same time, do the math after rolling, don't waste time, already know what you can do with your creatures. Every roll is not dramatic. Bring a calculator and be quick about it. Use paper, pencil. If you're still slow, stab said pencil into one of your eyes, uninstall, quit game, leave town for smaller town, marry sheep. If you have no right brain, only left brain function (artists), get DM to use average damage and NEVER roll damage for your summons, ever, you won't even care. Ask for help, etc. Easiest way is just roll quickly all dice right away, get used to the repetition, don't be a snowflake about it, this is not the hill to die on.
LVL 1 :
Try not to regret your cantrip picks and pick for your character, personality, RP. Druidcraft will light a room when you realize its dark (light a torch or small campfire), predict the weather for weather spells. Since it lights a small campfire i don't see why it doesn't light anything or any wood on fire (conjecture). Mold Earth can create earthen defenses if you have a few rounds of preparation. Guidance is always a good choice. Thorn Whip is the only? druid cantrip that moves a creature, pulling "it" away from a door or into a trap.
Remember your cover bonuses so the DM doesn't have to. A tree or low wall or summoned creature is +2 (half cover to sling from). A summoned creature might be blocking you as well (enemy AC +2) but when you're summoning, that's still a bonus for the caster. A big tree you're hiding behind is +5 AC and you're still attacking from it when you sling, this should be brought up in game more often for everybody. You can move from full cover, shoot, and move back to cover as well, however my current game ignores creature cover for expediency.
Caltrops and ball bearings might work.
Try to make potions with Herbalism if you DM is cooperative, keep a steady supply of cheap healing potions, stay thirsty.
use a staff with shilelagh
A bag of flour might help detect an invisible creature. Bring extra rope. Animal Friend a burrower to make pit traps.
Animal Friendship on a wolf, horse, eagle, etc to get a companion that will defend you if you can't ask it to attack for you as well, curry favor
i recommend going with hide armor and a shield instead of using Barkskin later at 2nd level, but maybe you have plans, i dunno. Barkskin is concentration so... anything you can do with an item that doesn't use up a finite resource like attunement slots, or spell slots, is what you want as a player, especially druid, to be efficient and be the jack of all trades.
LVL 2 :
If your DM allows more than one short rest per day, use the Bear totem at the start of the day to provide temp hp (lasts all day). Then rest 1 hr and continue on the journey. The Unicorn (which should be reskinned to an Elk or wooly crocodilian mongoose) is your mainstay for the Shepherd. Always save it for the dangerous fight. You'll never ever need to use the third (hawk or something) spirit animal and forget it exists altogether, and no one will care about its absence.
This is a time for fun and remembering the basics allows you to contribute while forgetting about maxing. As long as you did some temp hp for the party (Aid scrolls, Inspiring Leader, or Bear Totem) and still have some healing, you've already done half of what you ever need to as a party healer and support. Getting temp HP can't be understated. Inspiring Leader is a decent feat if you have at least a +2 charisma bonus, you don't have to be a leader or talk or anything, you just tell your DM you're doing it, make up the rest, say you're painting every one's nails pretty colours. You can have a temp hp feat, and Aid scroll active simultaneously, then use the Bear Spirit before your next short rest during your adventure (i'm smartz). Do i regularly do that every day in our campaign? No not really. Just remembering one or two of those things is enough to make me very strong.
LVL 3 :
LVL 3 is LVL 2 spells, that's healing spirit the spell. That's another d6 heals for more than a few rounds whether in or out of combat, though flame sphere might be the better 2nd level spell to have. Summon Beast spell did not look like it has good math, i don't recommend it. Heat Metal is a strong spell but circumstantial (is big bad wearing armor).
Go find yourself a Jug of Alchemy ... just for fun.
Get another animal friend if you can bring them in town. Don't keep animals if you can't bring them in town too much. It's a waste at low levels. You want to be with your party. It sucks missing out on what was said and done in town.
LVL 4 :
Pick up war caster as a feat to pass your concentration checks, which are paramount (Or Resilience), but also War Caster for the use of that shield, shilelagh, and cast spells while maintaining the staff and shield in your hands at all times, get a casting of an action spell as a reaction for the purpose of Opportunity Attacks. Use booming blade cantrip or Polearm Master feat as well to be more reliable in melee, it does not say you need 2 hands to make a second strike, only your bonus action (i.e. keep shield) (Polearm Master with a Staff of Striking (and a shield) is very strong). If you have a good con and can heal yourself you can risk melee most of the campaign.
Absorb Elements 1st level spell is a must for reacting to elemental damage. A level dip in Wizard for Shield spell, Green Flame Blade cantrip and other perks is acceptable (using magic items for wizards (staff of power+headband of intellect). Wand of Magic Missles is cheap and efffective for low level damage.
i mean that's the foundation. The rest is gravy. You're going to use Conjure Animals a lot untill you encounter a boss that has too high AC, and then you'll use upcast Summon Fey.
Last Words
Conjure Animals becomes obsolete no good for big boss at later levels b/c beasts fail to hit high AC's over 20, their chance to hit sinking to 5 percent. Therefore you absolutely need Summon Fey at 3rd level, to be upcast (its intention, i think) into an 8th level spell. That will deliver good single target damage and satisfy the missing ingredient in the Shepherd soup. I don't think Summon Beast would be all that good. Conjure Fey (6th) is ok but the animals are too big for the indoor adventures, and frankly, most maps in general. I usually save that 8th level spell slot until i'm sure i need it. Meld with Stone, Foresight, Ice Storm is still ok, Insect Plague, Giant Insect (scorpion), upcast Flaming Sphere (maybe 4th level) are some of my handy tools . And Conjure conjure conjure anywhere you know the brown bears will hit sometimes, no more than AC 18, 19, 20, as a rule of thumb. Over AC 20 you need Summon X spells that are upcast to 6th and above. Conjure Woodland Creatures is also handy (4 satyrs to stand at range or just for applying extra lotion and cleaning the pool). I casted Conjure Elemental a few times, and you could cast it behind your enemy and drop concentration and see what happens, however most of the time i don't risk the chance of being bogged down by it if i lost concentration. It could be a time killer by mistake. Real time being the most precious of all druid resources.
I hope i didn't waste YOUR time. I played 18 levels of Shepherd so far and had a good chunk of reading D&D the last 2 years, and just felt like talking about it. Highly recommended.
omg P.S. The 14th ability, conjure animals when you die kinda thing, is the worst ability perk you'll receive in any class. It's hilariously bad. No matter what level you're on, you have to die (that's bad), then there's 4 huge creatures or umpteen medium ones i guess, so there's no room for them (bad again), and they all can't hit nothing of value whether cr 1/8 or cr 2 creatures. Low level garbage is what it is and you get it at level 14 and it never scales. It's just for tragic comedy value. I'd rather it said "you summon a few clowns that give the party a genuine chuckle" for all the good it does me. It's filthy garbage i wouldn't mind just striking from the character sheet altogether. Would be nice to ask the DM to switch it with another Druid ability, first one that would be OP would be the Spore Druid's 14th, but there's atleast one other one that would be ok. Anything else would be great.
As a DM for a Shepard Druid, I gotta say that conjure animals followed up by the bear totem as been pretty difficult to counter, and has made me want to limit short rests more than any other class feature. It's generally dropping at least 120 temp hp on the party at level 8, and the aura is so big that it might as well just be unlimited. This plus Mighty Summoner makes the summoned creatures extremely durable and radically increases the amount of punishment the party can take.
It's to the point where if I design an encounter to be challenging with summons+totem in play and the druid doesn't do that, the party will probably die. The amount of damage they can take is on a whole other level.
No matter what level you're on, you have to die (that's bad), then there's 4 huge creatures or umpteen medium ones i guess, so there's no room for them
Not that this makes the ability any less terrible, but it's hard capped at 4 creatures regardless of CR. My player was so excited about summoning 32 elk when he dies that I haven't had the heart to break the news to him yet.
At level 8 a shepherd summoning the Bear spirit is only due 5+ their druid level in temp hp.... = 13. So 5 party members plus 4 summons and then bear = about 120. ah i see. I still say that an encounter that's longer than a few rounds is better supported with Unicorn. After a druid has healed 8 extra hp per recipient twice, it has provided more healing than the number of temporary hit points. Therefore the Bear is sub-optimal after 5th level or so . The Shepherd could also use a more numerous summon to expand on the Bear, however i usually only wanted to play with 2 brown bears, whom are well rounded, efficient beasts.
I would suggest (against an 8th level party) dropping an extra fireball on them, or any area of effect damage, because that's what takes down softer, numerous enemies. Also dispel will dispel a summon but it's a waste if it only dispels one of the summoned. Also always test the caster's concentration. Intelligent enemies know to test the caster's concentration and/or focus down casters before they get away with murder. Also, summoned beasts are (usually) not intelligent, can be charmed, are often too large to fit through doorways and pass obstacles. Once the summons disappear the caster will use another slot and summon again, however the slots will dwindle and the fighters will shine again.
Conjure Woodland Creatures is also good for at least 8 blink dogs (if i recall correctly, i did cast it once). Blink Dogs are really good at surrounding an enemy and blinking in or out of combat to get more melee attacks off than might be usual . Offer that to your newb caster as well, they will enjoy.
however it's always good to reward the players for having figured things out and giving them the ease of combat they are sometimes trying to achieve. What's the game for if every effort is thwarted by ad hoc DM'ing, as an aside, not that you need that advice.
LVL 3 is LVL 2 spells, that's healing spirit the spell. That's another d6 heals for more than a few rounds whether in or out of combat, though flame sphere might be the better 2nd level spell to have. Summon Beast spell did not look like it has good math, i don't recommend it. Heat Metal is a strong spell but circumstantial (is big bad wearing armor).
It's not going to see a lot of use after level 5 but for levels 3 and 4 summon beast is a great spell. You'll do more damage with something like moonbeam or flaming sphere but summon beast gives you added damage that doesn't take any of your actions on subsequent rounds, "healing" through taking attacks that would otherwise have targeted PCs, and battlefield control options that are perfect for a support class. Putting another body with its own actions on the field shifts the action economy in your favor and the 18 strength stat means summoned beasts can effectively grapple, shove, etc so you can do more than just use them as damage bots. Put a bear totem on the field and a bestial spirit should be favored to grapple most things you'll run into at level 3/4. The 1 hour duration is the icing on the cake as it means in dungeons/combat dense environments you can summon a beast buddy before combat and have him help out with several encounters (including finding traps, etc between fights) whereas with traditional damage spells round 1 is taken up casting a concentration spell and you are normally using a new spell slot for every encounter.
Healing spirit was great prior to the nerf when you were healing everyone in the party for up to 10d6 out of combat but currently it's hard to justify spending concentration on something that will only do a single d6 of healing per turn when you can put down a unicorn totem and heal everyone in 60 ft with a cure wounds/healing word while your summoned bestial spirit does damage and draws aggro to provide even more "healing".
I understand the benefits of summoning, my advice column insinuates that conjure animal is the bread and butter of course. But at 4th level, i suppose summon beast fey, whatever its called is an early summons, but flame sphere also takes up an impassable square, mold earth even. And then at 3rd Conjure is so many hit points of creatures, but i suppose summon beast could be a good early spell, but theh intention was to have good scaling and its not there, so i don't see the point. That's pretty niche to say it's a "good" spell. Oh well. And about healing spirit, it's not great, but it does do more healing for the spell slot than a cure wounds, so it doesn't hurt to have back up healing like that. I noticed i was running low on different types of heal options. Anyway.... nit picky stuff. i'm glad to hear summon beast is more useful than i thought.
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how is the shepherd druid as a healer/support? About the only way I would play a healer out of the options I have so any advice since I love animals more than life lol.
They are very good. Use unicorn totem.
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The bear totem and placing your summons effectively to tank damage can prevent a lot of HP damage in the first place. It takes a lot of resources to heal with unicorn spirit, and I'm not a huge fan of in combat healing anyway -- your whole action generally won't even undo a single attack from the baddies. There are some other great support spells that are non-concentration on the druid list such as goodberry (<- best use of a 1st level slot on healing), protection from poison, freedom of movement, and the like.
Remember that the unicorn totem only triggers its healing on the casting of a spell that regains HP. I'm not exactly sure if this means that the feature triggers when you cast goodberry or healing spirit (the best 1st and 2nd level healing spells), but it definitely means that it doesn't trigger when they heal you or your party.
Check out the new UA Circle of Stars druid for a bit of a healing bump if your DM allows it.
Shepherd is either the strongest or weakest druid circle depending on the DM's interpretation of Conjure Animals. If the DM chooses for you, avoid this circle like the plague. "DM has the creatures statistics means.."
"Choose an option doesn't mean .."
Blah blah blah. In essence, the entire subclass hinges on where your DM stands on the controversial spell (lots of summoning haters out there and the bandwagon keeps growing).
thankfully my group is all cool with it and the fact that in divinity i play summoner with mods a lot and my turns get finished 3 times as fast as theirs when they play a ranger or a fighter type lol so I should be good with handling extra mobs without bogging down combat at all.
As for picking summons he said yeah one because he doesn't care and two because it's less work for him as the DM as long as I can present stat blocks for him so he doesn't have to look them up all the time.
Wow summoning in DOS2 was what drew me to my cleric/shepherd as well! Divinity has the best summoning system I've encountered in games which makes me crazy excited to see what Larian does for BG3. Personally I found DOS's single powerful follower dynamic more appealing than eight elks or wolves or a couple brown bears. If you are interested in that kind of summoning the Unearthed Arcana "Spells and Magic Tattoos" that WotC released in March is fantastic and IMO quite well balanced. I suspect they'll end up in the next non Theros sourcebook.
The Summon X Spirit spells from the UA gives you control over your summons appearance, they share your initiative (really helps speed things up) and the stat block is uniform which makes for fewer frantic mid combat stat searches. Summon Beastial Spirit allows you to use your Shepherd totem abilities without fear of bogging down combat or pissing off the DM by summoning eight wolves. And you get to start your summoning career at level three rather than five which was the other problem with the subclass (who wants to wait five levels to benefit from their core class theme?)
I have played with the UA spells, and while I think they've got some niceties, they're not perfect for a sheperd. They have far fewer HP than their counterparts summoned with the high level spells and even at low level spells, a 3rd level summon beast spirit is about as good as a CR 1 creature, which you could get two of with the conjure spells.
And the most important thing they're missing for the Shepherd is hit die. Not only do they not have as many HP as other conjurations, they don't even gain that benefit that is supposed to help keep the relatively squishy things around a tiny bit longer in the first place.
That makes a lot of sense. Disappointing though. It seemed like a happy middle ground that avoids all the normal gripes about summoning but I can see how the totem spirit abilities are relatively weaker without a mob to apply them to. I will make a case for Summon Beastial Spirit though. A summon that shares your initiative with +6 1d8+6 for a 2nd level slot is amazing. Not broken but really good. A couple brown bears will make it look pathetic but that's two levels away. It always bothered me that it takes five levels for a shepherd druid to, you know, shepherd.
I actually still used them, they just died a lot faster than my CR 1 creatures.
The UA didn't come out until after i had hit 5th level anyway, so I wasn't missing out. I do find it odd that a shepherd doesn't get any always prepared summoning spells.
Is it too late to guide the little shepherds? Is this thing on? Advice For Shepherds :
As a healer i think it's OP. i don't know how people are saying other classes heal more.
- then add all that up. 8 from Runty, 18 from the Bears = 26 effective hit points . And 6, and everybody, not just Wicky Bobby, got that 10 points of area healing... 4 party members that's 40 hp affected = 46 total. Plus the amount of damage Runty and entourage did means Runty's turn affected 46+26 = 72 effective hit points were altered by damage and healing on his 10th level turn. And you're trying to tell me you wanted to be a Cleric or some crying tears lactose intolerant healing elf of the dream jitters? I don't think so, bub. And then at 10th level the shepherd also has an ability that causes the bears to heal another 5 each just for ending their turn inside the "Unicorn" aura. Not every one will need healing (lower total), but most of the time 2 or 3 allies and summons will benefit (VERY efficient). ALMOST Every round for 10 rounds this happens till the "Unicorn" runs out. Short rest and get another one asap. Theoretically if there were 20 allies in the aura, your healing simply goes off the chart into the hundreds, maybe a thousand is possible if you're surrounded by a cloud of a thousand friendly faeries, or the noses of 100 floating injured giraffes.
you're telling me this isn't OP? How did Treantmonk miss it i don't know. Druids get weaker comparitively to other classes after level approx. 13 or so, but then just y'know... load up on magic items and play the game for fun. At level 18 and 20 the druid capstone abilities promise more power, as well as 9th level spell Foresight being for you to cast selfishly on yourself.
Druid advice for players, low level prep;
LVL 0 : A druid only needs a strong wisdom score, if even that, (and con). Things to beg your DM for, shamelessly though optional:
LVL 1 :
LVL 2 :
LVL 3 :
LVL 4 :
i mean that's the foundation. The rest is gravy. You're going to use Conjure Animals a lot untill you encounter a boss that has too high AC, and then you'll use upcast Summon Fey.
Last Words
obsoleteno good for big boss at later levels b/c beasts fail to hit high AC's over 20, their chance to hit sinking to 5 percent. Therefore you absolutely need Summon Fey at 3rd level, to be upcast (its intention, i think) into an 8th level spell. That will deliver good single target damage and satisfy the missing ingredient in the Shepherd soup. I don't think Summon Beast would be all that good. Conjure Fey (6th) is ok but the animals are too big for the indoor adventures, and frankly, most maps in general. I usually save that 8th level spell slot until i'm sure i need it. Meld with Stone, Foresight, Ice Storm is still ok, Insect Plague, Giant Insect (scorpion), upcast Flaming Sphere (maybe 4th level) are some of my handy tools . And Conjure conjure conjure anywhere you know the brown bears will hit sometimes, no more than AC 18, 19, 20, as a rule of thumb. Over AC 20 you need Summon X spells that are upcast to 6th and above. Conjure Woodland Creatures is also handy (4 satyrs to stand at range or just for applying extra lotion and cleaning the pool). I casted Conjure Elemental a few times, and you could cast it behind your enemy and drop concentration and see what happens, however most of the time i don't risk the chance of being bogged down by it if i lost concentration. It could be a time killer by mistake. Real time being the most precious of all druid resources.I hope i didn't waste YOUR time. I played 18 levels of Shepherd so far and had a good chunk of reading D&D the last 2 years, and just felt like talking about it. Highly recommended.
omg P.S. The 14th ability, conjure animals when you die kinda thing, is the worst ability perk you'll receive in any class. It's hilariously bad. No matter what level you're on, you have to die (that's bad), then there's 4 huge creatures or umpteen medium ones i guess, so there's no room for them (bad again), and they all can't hit nothing of value whether cr 1/8 or cr 2 creatures. Low level garbage is what it is and you get it at level 14 and it never scales. It's just for tragic comedy value. I'd rather it said "you summon a few clowns that give the party a genuine chuckle" for all the good it does me. It's filthy garbage i wouldn't mind just striking from the character sheet altogether. Would be nice to ask the DM to switch it with another Druid ability, first one that would be OP would be the Spore Druid's 14th, but there's atleast one other one that would be ok. Anything else would be great.
As a DM for a Shepard Druid, I gotta say that conjure animals followed up by the bear totem as been pretty difficult to counter, and has made me want to limit short rests more than any other class feature. It's generally dropping at least 120 temp hp on the party at level 8, and the aura is so big that it might as well just be unlimited. This plus Mighty Summoner makes the summoned creatures extremely durable and radically increases the amount of punishment the party can take.
It's to the point where if I design an encounter to be challenging with summons+totem in play and the druid doesn't do that, the party will probably die. The amount of damage they can take is on a whole other level.
Not that this makes the ability any less terrible, but it's hard capped at 4 creatures regardless of CR. My player was so excited about summoning 32 elk when he dies that I haven't had the heart to break the news to him yet.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
At level 8 a shepherd summoning the Bear spirit is only due 5+ their druid level in temp hp.... = 13. So 5 party members plus 4 summons and then bear = about 120. ah i see. I still say that an encounter that's longer than a few rounds is better supported with Unicorn. After a druid has healed 8 extra hp per recipient twice, it has provided more healing than the number of temporary hit points. Therefore the Bear is sub-optimal after 5th level or so . The Shepherd could also use a more numerous summon to expand on the Bear, however i usually only wanted to play with 2 brown bears, whom are well rounded, efficient beasts.
I would suggest (against an 8th level party) dropping an extra fireball on them, or any area of effect damage, because that's what takes down softer, numerous enemies. Also dispel will dispel a summon but it's a waste if it only dispels one of the summoned. Also always test the caster's concentration. Intelligent enemies know to test the caster's concentration and/or focus down casters before they get away with murder. Also, summoned beasts are (usually) not intelligent, can be charmed, are often too large to fit through doorways and pass obstacles. Once the summons disappear the caster will use another slot and summon again, however the slots will dwindle and the fighters will shine again.
Conjure Woodland Creatures is also good for at least 8 blink dogs (if i recall correctly, i did cast it once). Blink Dogs are really good at surrounding an enemy and blinking in or out of combat to get more melee attacks off than might be usual . Offer that to your newb caster as well, they will enjoy.
however it's always good to reward the players for having figured things out and giving them the ease of combat they are sometimes trying to achieve. What's the game for if every effort is thwarted by ad hoc DM'ing, as an aside, not that you need that advice.
It's not going to see a lot of use after level 5 but for levels 3 and 4 summon beast is a great spell. You'll do more damage with something like moonbeam or flaming sphere but summon beast gives you added damage that doesn't take any of your actions on subsequent rounds, "healing" through taking attacks that would otherwise have targeted PCs, and battlefield control options that are perfect for a support class. Putting another body with its own actions on the field shifts the action economy in your favor and the 18 strength stat means summoned beasts can effectively grapple, shove, etc so you can do more than just use them as damage bots. Put a bear totem on the field and a bestial spirit should be favored to grapple most things you'll run into at level 3/4. The 1 hour duration is the icing on the cake as it means in dungeons/combat dense environments you can summon a beast buddy before combat and have him help out with several encounters (including finding traps, etc between fights) whereas with traditional damage spells round 1 is taken up casting a concentration spell and you are normally using a new spell slot for every encounter.
Healing spirit was great prior to the nerf when you were healing everyone in the party for up to 10d6 out of combat but currently it's hard to justify spending concentration on something that will only do a single d6 of healing per turn when you can put down a unicorn totem and heal everyone in 60 ft with a cure wounds/healing word while your summoned bestial spirit does damage and draws aggro to provide even more "healing".
I understand the benefits of summoning, my advice column insinuates that conjure animal is the bread and butter of course. But at 4th level, i suppose summon beast fey, whatever its called is an early summons, but flame sphere also takes up an impassable square, mold earth even. And then at 3rd Conjure is so many hit points of creatures, but i suppose summon beast could be a good early spell, but theh intention was to have good scaling and its not there, so i don't see the point. That's pretty niche to say it's a "good" spell. Oh well. And about healing spirit, it's not great, but it does do more healing for the spell slot than a cure wounds, so it doesn't hurt to have back up healing like that. I noticed i was running low on different types of heal options. Anyway.... nit picky stuff. i'm glad to hear summon beast is more useful than i thought.