The following are some of my thoughts based on playing a moon druid from level 10-14. Enjoy!
Moon druids are usually thought of for tanking and battlefield control. But what i liked most about playing moon druid is the Versatility and variety of tactics that keep this class one of the most interesting at all levels of play. Fighting, tanking, blasting, healing, controlling. You can do it all. Level 10-14 is no exception to this. You don't have to do the same thing over and over again like some other classes. However even at these levels the one issue I still had was lack of spell preparations. With no domain spells I still found I was quite restricted in spell selection and often did not have the spell I wanted for a given situation. While wizards certainly move to the top of the power curve at these levels i think that moon druids can hold their own. If you want to still be a beast and do all the damage yourself (like the good old brown bear days) you will need to build that through magic items as the options of doing it through moon druid class features and spells won't cut it at these levels.
Go To Spells
Your go to 6th and 7th level spells are sunbeam, heal, wall of thorns, draconic transformation and whirlwind (Whirlwind is hilarious when someone breaks free of it!)
Situational Spells
There are some 6th and 7th level spells like wind walk, transport via plants, plane shift, regenerate and mirage arcane that are good but very situational so you may never use them.
Crappy Spells
Investiture of flame, ice, stone and wind, flesh to stone, find the path, bones of the eartth and primordial ward. All of these stink and are not worth a 6th level spell slot. Elemental wild shape makes investiture spells useless.
Most disappointing spell to upcast
Moonbeam. I thought this would be a great upcast. Nope. At this level you cannot afford to wait until the beginning of the targets turn to deal damage. Some monsters may have legendary moves or teleports so they can avoid moonbeam damage altogether. Don't waste your time with this spell at these levels unless you have other party members focused on lockdown tactics like grappling or sentinel feat.
Most disappointing spell to upcast honorable mentions.
1)Conjure animals. This spell goes from amazing and overpowered to barely used at these levels. Conjure animals becomes less reliable as you increase in levels due to higher enemy AC, resistances to non magical damage and greater enemy area of effect damage. It turns more into a utility spell for things like Summoning owls to fly your party around. I still prepared it, but barely used it.
2)Call lightning - this spell is a reasonable upcast. Not great. Just reasonable, unless you are in an extended battle. It targets dex save instead of constitution which is good, but it has the same issue as moonbeam. A small AOE means you are usually hitting one target since creatures are bigger at this level. I was expecting more from this spell at these levels. A solid meh.
Most pleasantly surprising spells to upcast:
Summon Fey. Forget about making tricksy/fuming/mirthful work. Just give the fey a magic shortsword and it will do the highest damage of any "summon spell". Never teleport to a creature. Always teleport away. Great for single target damage. I highly underrated this spell.
Conjure woodland beings. Conjure QUICKLINGS for the highest sustained single target damage combo at these levels for the moon druid. Give them all magic daggers and watch them stab away! You tank and take the reaction attack so these guys can move away without being hit. (they are quite fragile!) Conjure four dryads for 120 good berries for amazing out of combat healing. That is almost 2x better healing than a heal spell. One final tactic for this spell is to upcast it to Conjure four Alseids for combat medics to give you 12d8+48 (about 114hp) of IN COMBAT healing from their cure wounds. Their radiant damage can come in very handy.
Summon Draconic Spirit
Getting resistance to necrotic or force damage in wild shape is invaluable against the right enemy. These damage types become more popular for dm's at higher levels. This spell essentially gives you flight since you can use the dragon spirit as a mount. Ride the dragon around and blast cone of colds from above. Very fun!
Best Spell Combo to Upcast
Conjure Fey/Planar Binding - Planar binding is a great upcast. Maybe the best in the game. You can use these two spells together to summon some very cool fey creatures.
1.Korred (CR7) - having one of these guys around for 10 days or longer is amazing. They can dish out good ranged/melee damage (+9 to hit, 3d8+6, two attacks per round) and 120 foot tremorsense in a dungeon crawl is irreplaceable. Plus they can conjure an earth elemental once per day and bonus action restrain a large or smaller creature. That is incredible.
**note. the updated version of korreds in mordenkainen's cannot conjure elemental.
2.Bheur hag (CR7) - updated in mordenkainens, it has a great ranged attack (6d8+3 cold damage, two attacks per round), cone of cold, wall of ice and ice storm each once per day. Their horrific feast is just devastating. Particularly to spellcasters.
3.Hobgoblin devastator (CR4) - In mordenkainen's, hobgoblin devastators were updated to be a fey creature type so it does qualify for this spell. With the devastator you get each of 2 fireballs, 2 lightning bolts and fly twice per day. It can effectively "sculpt spell" like an evoker and has a devastating bolt (4d8 +3 force damage, two attacks per round) that auto prones a creature with no save.
4.Night hags (CR5) are great for tanking and infiltration (if you happen to have a heartstone) and Annis Hag (CR6) has a damaging (9d6+5) crushing hug but I prefer the summons that have ranged options.
5.Fey from "Summon Fey" spell.
Most powerful combo.
Once you have two of any of the above bound all you really need to do is cast faerie fire and go beast mode while your summoned creatures use their ranged attacks. It' a very powerful combo. Please note: Do your DM a favor and only have two planar bound creatures at a time otherwise you will go way above the group power curve and things can get ridiculous pretty quickly.
Wildshape
Elemental forms are fantastic and very fun. They will be useful until level 20 if your campaign goes that high. Their damage is not that good but as discussed there are plenty of other ways to do damage at this level. I never really used any CR 4 beasts for wildshape. The elementals are just too strong and versatile to consider using any of your beasts for wild shape at this level.
Wild Shape + Spell Combos
Air Elemental + Sunbeam - Sunbeam is a good spell if you can hit two targets per round. If you can hit 3 or more targets per round it becomes a great spell. The 90 feet movement on the air elemental allows you to position yourself best to make that happen.
Earth Elemental + Call Lightning - go underground and use tremorsense to locate your enemies. Then rain down destruction from above. Staying underground can make you untargetable against any spell/effect which requires a creature to see you. It's an incredibly effective tactic but also a bit of a pain for your dm. Your party might need you in other ways so use this tactic with some caution. If you are the party tank and hiding underground it means your party might be getting hammered.
Fire Elemental + Wall of Fire - if your dm lets you grapple with the fire elemental (does fire have enough solidity to grapple?...hmmmm) then use this with wall of fire and watch your enemies burn. Wall of fire is a decent upcast if you can use it this way. Otherwise cast fire shield, morph into a fire elemental and creatures will take 1d10 + 2d8 every time they hit you. This works best when facing creatures with multiple attacks.
Wall of Thorns + Earth Elemental - cast wall of thorns on a monster but stay 10 feet away from the wall. Then bonus action wildshape into an earth elemental. This gives the creature a five foot space to come out and attack you. If so, it has fallen into your trap. On your turn, grapple it (hopefully with expertise in athletics) and move it back into the wall. On successive turns drag the creature in and out of the thorns while you give it punch face. Very fun and devastating.
Draconic Transformation + Elemental Wildshape - Draconic transformation + any elemental wildshape is amazing. You can melee attack and bonus action breath weapon in the same round. And it gives your earth elemental flight. Finally a great option for your bonus action in wild shape. This is winning.
Draconic Transformation + Cone of Cold
Druids dont have alot of blasting spells but draconic transformation will make you feel like an evoker! After the first round of casting this spell, your bonus action breath weapon CAN be combined with 1 action spellcasting so if you feel like blasting then you can combine this with cone of cold or erupting earth in the same round! This is also winning.
Earth Elemental + Cloudkill - if your wizard is on board, this is a great combo. You will have immunity to poison and heavily obscured (thanks to tremorsense) while you grapple and hold a creature in the cloudkill. Then slam attack with advantage until the enemy dies. What's not to like here?
Stoneskin + giant eagle + elephant - cast stoneskin on yourself, turn into an eagle and fly 200 feet high up in the sky. Then turn into an elephant and drop onto unsuspecting creatures for 20d6 damage. Splat!
Water Elemental - probably the one you will use the least unless your campaign is in water world. The Whelm ability was very underWhelming….(pun intended). The one thing that should be noted is creatures grappled by the Whelm feature cannot breath so this would presumably be very effective against spellcasters.
Increasing Wildshape Damage with Magic Items -
If you still want to deal more melee damage in wild shape at these levels you will need to build that around magic items spells and feats. You can use things like Helm Of Brilliance
Potion of speed, Guardian of Nature spell and Sentinel Feat, but the damage output is hardly worth the investment.
Magic items for druids level 10-14
If you can, look for magic items that give you access to blasting spells. This really rounds out the druids repertoire nicely. They work amazing with draconic transformation and fill a bit of a weak spot in the druids abilities. Staff of frost, staff of fire, wand of fireballs and wand of lightning are great options.
Multi Class - no need to multi class unless you are doing it for character arc or just want to dabble and know for sure your campaign is not going to level 20. Here are some suggestions.
Feats/ASI - resilient constitution, warcaster, and expertise in athletics are all great. If you have gone this far without taking telepathic feat for communicating in wild shape you may not need it anymore as your wizard probably has rary's telepathic bond. Metamagic adept - transmute spell can be useful to negotiate around monster resistances. Extend spell can be useful as well. Otherwise max your wisdom if you have not already. Fey Touched feat for bonus action Misty Step and adding the Bless spell to your spell list.
Earth Elemental + Call Lightning - go underground and use tremorsense to locate your enemies. Then rain down destruction from above. Staying underground can make you untargetable against any spell/effect which requires a creature to see you. It's an incredibly effective tactic but also a bit of a pain for your dm. Your party might need you in other ways so use this tactic with some caution. If you are the party tank and hiding underground it means your party might be getting hammered.
This one is especially interesting. Tremorsense probably does count as "seeing" the target for purposes of spellcasting (see this Sage Advice if nothing else) but what exactly does your character see? I can certainly imagine a DM ruling that you just see the points at which your enemies are touching the ground, not "them" per-se, and not letting you target them with some spells. That's why use of a spell like Call Lightning which targets "a point you can see under the cloud" makes sense. Aiming for the point where an enemy's feet are touching the ground seems very well supported by the rules.
With that in mind, I also wanted to mention that after the initial casting, neither Whirlwind nor Flaming Sphere require you to see anything. You just move them X feet in a direction of your choice. Knowing where your enemies are via Tremorsense should be enough let you target them with those spells. And in the case of Whirlwind, I think it's funny that a tornado touches down and then you run for the basement. That's not a bad idea in real life either. :)
Investiture of flame, ice, stone and wind, flesh to stone, find the path, bones of the eartth and primordial ward. All of these stink and are not worth a 6th level spell slot. Elemental wild shape makes investiture spells useless.
Hey, definitely some solid advice on your post. Thanks.
I would add, though, that Bones of the Earth is a stronger spell than you make it out to be. Sure, the damage generally isn't on par for 6th level, but the beauty of this spell is when you combine it with your ability to Wildshape into Giant Ape. The stone pillars both provide cover and let you maximize your superior mobility vs. non-flying, non-climb-speed opponents. As a Giant Ape, you can grapple enemies, climb up, and drop them for falling damage. If you have minions or weak NPC allies, keep them relatively safe at the top of a stone pillar and have them fling Magic Stones (bonus points if you can craft a scroll to score additional uses of this cantrip) at enemies below. Also, Bones of the Earth does not require concentration, so you can still make good use of Wall-type spells and other concentration goodness.
These all need to be clarified, as you were so specific about their utility is it pertains to specific summoned entities; such as equipping specific summons with weapons and such.
Per RAW/RAI, you don't get to pick. The DM picks the summoned entity. Unless DM has either homebrewed summon spells to let you pick (then it is definitely OP) or is overly generous in granting you favorable summons, then you can never depend on summoning exactly what you want or need any time you cast it - especially for lower CR summons since there are so many potential options.
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Hey all.
The following are some of my thoughts based on playing a moon druid from level 10-14. Enjoy!
Moon druids are usually thought of for tanking and battlefield control. But what i liked most about playing moon druid is the Versatility and variety of tactics that keep this class one of the most interesting at all levels of play. Fighting, tanking, blasting, healing, controlling. You can do it all. Level 10-14 is no exception to this. You don't have to do the same thing over and over again like some other classes. However even at these levels the one issue I still had was lack of spell preparations. With no domain spells I still found I was quite restricted in spell selection and often did not have the spell I wanted for a given situation. While wizards certainly move to the top of the power curve at these levels i think that moon druids can hold their own. If you want to still be a beast and do all the damage yourself (like the good old brown bear days) you will need to build that through magic items as the options of doing it through moon druid class features and spells won't cut it at these levels.
Go To Spells
Your go to 6th and 7th level spells are sunbeam, heal, wall of thorns, draconic transformation and whirlwind (Whirlwind is hilarious when someone breaks free of it!)
Situational Spells
There are some 6th and 7th level spells like wind walk, transport via plants, plane shift, regenerate and mirage arcane that are good but very situational so you may never use them.
Crappy Spells
Investiture of flame, ice, stone and wind, flesh to stone, find the path, bones of the eartth and primordial ward. All of these stink and are not worth a 6th level spell slot. Elemental wild shape makes investiture spells useless.
Most disappointing spell to upcast
Moonbeam. I thought this would be a great upcast. Nope. At this level you cannot afford to wait until the beginning of the targets turn to deal damage. Some monsters may have legendary moves or teleports so they can avoid moonbeam damage altogether. Don't waste your time with this spell at these levels unless you have other party members focused on lockdown tactics like grappling or sentinel feat.
Most disappointing spell to upcast honorable mentions.
1)Conjure animals. This spell goes from amazing and overpowered to barely used at these levels. Conjure animals becomes less reliable as you increase in levels due to higher enemy AC, resistances to non magical damage and greater enemy area of effect damage. It turns more into a utility spell for things like Summoning owls to fly your party around. I still prepared it, but barely used it.
2)Call lightning - this spell is a reasonable upcast. Not great. Just reasonable, unless you are in an extended battle. It targets dex save instead of constitution which is good, but it has the same issue as moonbeam. A small AOE means you are usually hitting one target since creatures are bigger at this level. I was expecting more from this spell at these levels. A solid meh.
Most pleasantly surprising spells to upcast:
Summon Fey. Forget about making tricksy/fuming/mirthful work. Just give the fey a magic shortsword and it will do the highest damage of any "summon spell". Never teleport to a creature. Always teleport away. Great for single target damage. I highly underrated this spell.
Conjure woodland beings. Conjure QUICKLINGS for the highest sustained single target damage combo at these levels for the moon druid. Give them all magic daggers and watch them stab away! You tank and take the reaction attack so these guys can move away without being hit. (they are quite fragile!) Conjure four dryads for 120 good berries for amazing out of combat healing. That is almost 2x better healing than a heal spell. One final tactic for this spell is to upcast it to Conjure four Alseids for combat medics to give you 12d8+48 (about 114hp) of IN COMBAT healing from their cure wounds. Their radiant damage can come in very handy.
Summon Draconic Spirit
Getting resistance to necrotic or force damage in wild shape is invaluable against the right enemy. These damage types become more popular for dm's at higher levels. This spell essentially gives you flight since you can use the dragon spirit as a mount. Ride the dragon around and blast cone of colds from above. Very fun!
Best Spell Combo to Upcast
Conjure Fey/Planar Binding - Planar binding is a great upcast. Maybe the best in the game. You can use these two spells together to summon some very cool fey creatures.
1.Korred (CR7) - having one of these guys around for 10 days or longer is amazing. They can dish out good ranged/melee damage (+9 to hit, 3d8+6, two attacks per round) and 120 foot tremorsense in a dungeon crawl is irreplaceable. Plus they can conjure an earth elemental once per day and bonus action restrain a large or smaller creature. That is incredible.
**note. the updated version of korreds in mordenkainen's cannot conjure elemental.
2.Bheur hag (CR7) - updated in mordenkainens, it has a great ranged attack (6d8+3 cold damage, two attacks per round), cone of cold, wall of ice and ice storm each once per day. Their horrific feast is just devastating. Particularly to spellcasters.
3.Hobgoblin devastator (CR4) - In mordenkainen's, hobgoblin devastators were updated to be a fey creature type so it does qualify for this spell. With the devastator you get each of 2 fireballs, 2 lightning bolts and fly twice per day. It can effectively "sculpt spell" like an evoker and has a devastating bolt (4d8 +3 force damage, two attacks per round) that auto prones a creature with no save.
4.Night hags (CR5) are great for tanking and infiltration (if you happen to have a heartstone) and Annis Hag (CR6) has a damaging (9d6+5) crushing hug but I prefer the summons that have ranged options.
5.Fey from "Summon Fey" spell.
Most powerful combo.
Once you have two of any of the above bound all you really need to do is cast faerie fire and go beast mode while your summoned creatures use their ranged attacks. It' a very powerful combo. Please note: Do your DM a favor and only have two planar bound creatures at a time otherwise you will go way above the group power curve and things can get ridiculous pretty quickly.
Wildshape
Elemental forms are fantastic and very fun. They will be useful until level 20 if your campaign goes that high. Their damage is not that good but as discussed there are plenty of other ways to do damage at this level. I never really used any CR 4 beasts for wildshape. The elementals are just too strong and versatile to consider using any of your beasts for wild shape at this level.
Wild Shape + Spell Combos
Air Elemental + Sunbeam - Sunbeam is a good spell if you can hit two targets per round. If you can hit 3 or more targets per round it becomes a great spell. The 90 feet movement on the air elemental allows you to position yourself best to make that happen.
Earth Elemental + Call Lightning - go underground and use tremorsense to locate your enemies. Then rain down destruction from above. Staying underground can make you untargetable against any spell/effect which requires a creature to see you. It's an incredibly effective tactic but also a bit of a pain for your dm. Your party might need you in other ways so use this tactic with some caution. If you are the party tank and hiding underground it means your party might be getting hammered.
Fire Elemental + Wall of Fire - if your dm lets you grapple with the fire elemental (does fire have enough solidity to grapple?...hmmmm) then use this with wall of fire and watch your enemies burn. Wall of fire is a decent upcast if you can use it this way. Otherwise cast fire shield, morph into a fire elemental and creatures will take 1d10 + 2d8 every time they hit you. This works best when facing creatures with multiple attacks.
Wall of Thorns + Earth Elemental - cast wall of thorns on a monster but stay 10 feet away from the wall. Then bonus action wildshape into an earth elemental. This gives the creature a five foot space to come out and attack you. If so, it has fallen into your trap. On your turn, grapple it (hopefully with expertise in athletics) and move it back into the wall. On successive turns drag the creature in and out of the thorns while you give it punch face. Very fun and devastating.
Draconic Transformation + Elemental Wildshape - Draconic transformation + any elemental wildshape is amazing. You can melee attack and bonus action breath weapon in the same round. And it gives your earth elemental flight. Finally a great option for your bonus action in wild shape. This is winning.
Draconic Transformation + Cone of Cold
Druids dont have alot of blasting spells but draconic transformation will make you feel like an evoker! After the first round of casting this spell, your bonus action breath weapon CAN be combined with 1 action spellcasting so if you feel like blasting then you can combine this with cone of cold or erupting earth in the same round! This is also winning.
Earth Elemental + Cloudkill - if your wizard is on board, this is a great combo. You will have immunity to poison and heavily obscured (thanks to tremorsense) while you grapple and hold a creature in the cloudkill. Then slam attack with advantage until the enemy dies. What's not to like here?
Stoneskin + giant eagle + elephant - cast stoneskin on yourself, turn into an eagle and fly 200 feet high up in the sky. Then turn into an elephant and drop onto unsuspecting creatures for 20d6 damage. Splat!
Water Elemental - probably the one you will use the least unless your campaign is in water world. The Whelm ability was very underWhelming….(pun intended). The one thing that should be noted is creatures grappled by the Whelm feature cannot breath so this would presumably be very effective against spellcasters.
Increasing Wildshape Damage with Magic Items -
If you still want to deal more melee damage in wild shape at these levels you will need to build that around magic items spells and feats. You can use things like Helm Of Brilliance
Potion of speed, Guardian of Nature spell and Sentinel Feat, but the damage output is hardly worth the investment.
Magic items for druids level 10-14
If you can, look for magic items that give you access to blasting spells. This really rounds out the druids repertoire nicely. They work amazing with draconic transformation and fill a bit of a weak spot in the druids abilities. Staff of frost, staff of fire, wand of fireballs and wand of lightning are great options.
Multi Class - no need to multi class unless you are doing it for character arc or just want to dabble and know for sure your campaign is not going to level 20. Here are some suggestions.
Feats/ASI - resilient constitution, warcaster, and expertise in athletics are all great. If you have gone this far without taking telepathic feat for communicating in wild shape you may not need it anymore as your wizard probably has rary's telepathic bond. Metamagic adept - transmute spell can be useful to negotiate around monster resistances. Extend spell can be useful as well. Otherwise max your wisdom if you have not already. Fey Touched feat for bonus action Misty Step and adding the Bless spell to your spell list.
I'm currently playing a level 8 moon druid, so this is definitely food for thought. I'm looking forward to elemental wild shape.
Elemental Wildshape is absoulutley mental for a little while, then it dies down. 10/10 ability though
"Anyone can smith at the cosmic anvil, yet only I can forge a weapon as good as thee."
My Homebrew Please click it, they have my family.
This one is especially interesting. Tremorsense probably does count as "seeing" the target for purposes of spellcasting (see this Sage Advice if nothing else) but what exactly does your character see? I can certainly imagine a DM ruling that you just see the points at which your enemies are touching the ground, not "them" per-se, and not letting you target them with some spells. That's why use of a spell like Call Lightning which targets "a point you can see under the cloud" makes sense. Aiming for the point where an enemy's feet are touching the ground seems very well supported by the rules.
With that in mind, I also wanted to mention that after the initial casting, neither Whirlwind nor Flaming Sphere require you to see anything. You just move them X feet in a direction of your choice. Knowing where your enemies are via Tremorsense should be enough let you target them with those spells. And in the case of Whirlwind, I think it's funny that a tornado touches down and then you run for the basement. That's not a bad idea in real life either. :)
Hey, definitely some solid advice on your post. Thanks.
I would add, though, that Bones of the Earth is a stronger spell than you make it out to be. Sure, the damage generally isn't on par for 6th level, but the beauty of this spell is when you combine it with your ability to Wildshape into Giant Ape. The stone pillars both provide cover and let you maximize your superior mobility vs. non-flying, non-climb-speed opponents. As a Giant Ape, you can grapple enemies, climb up, and drop them for falling damage. If you have minions or weak NPC allies, keep them relatively safe at the top of a stone pillar and have them fling Magic Stones (bonus points if you can craft a scroll to score additional uses of this cantrip) at enemies below. Also, Bones of the Earth does not require concentration, so you can still make good use of Wall-type spells and other concentration goodness.
These all need to be clarified, as you were so specific about their utility is it pertains to specific summoned entities; such as equipping specific summons with weapons and such.
Per RAW/RAI, you don't get to pick. The DM picks the summoned entity. Unless DM has either homebrewed summon spells to let you pick (then it is definitely OP) or is overly generous in granting you favorable summons, then you can never depend on summoning exactly what you want or need any time you cast it - especially for lower CR summons since there are so many potential options.