I'm enjoying playing my Circle of The Land (Forest) Druid and wanted to learn about practical applications for interesting spell combos, you might have achieved.
I'm always coming up with hair brained ideas and am hoping to keep my DM on his toes with new thoughts.
So far, my favorite idea I've read is :
Plant Growth + Spike Growth
Spike Growth + Thorn Whip is a close 2nd, but there seems to be a difference in opinion on what the DM will allow my character to do with Thorn Whip, in terms of the dragging after a successful strike part.
I'm eager to learn more and add to my bag of tricks.
On Thorn Whip: "Make a melee spell attack against the target"
So, unlike produce flame (or at low levels the humble sling of David v. Goliath pedigree), no disadvantage against opponents within 5' or against ranged opponents engaged by your allies.
Aiming a ranged attack is more difficult when a foe is next to you. When you make a ranged attack with a weapon, a spell, or some other means, you have disadvantage on the attack roll if you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see you and who isn't incapacitated.
A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend.
Edit: I guess the latter point is debatable - you are at range even if it's a melee attack, so the target could still have half cover.
Cast fog and wild shape into a giant spider. You can see everything, they can see nothing...
Two issues with that combo are that it can be quite group unfriendly unless they also have a way to see through fog, and a giant spider can only see part of that area (only 10' blindsight). Fog is even harder for players to overcome than even darkness. If you have characters in your group that took the blindfighting fighting style, then this could be more effective. I think the real value of fog is being able to cancel disadvantage.
Remember, there are a fair number of abilities that key off of sight that you simply cannot use in fog (or darkness, for that matter). Many spells and class features (like some battlemaster maneuvers) require seeing the target. So do opportunity attacks.
For wildfire druids, moonbeam can be really good since you get to move the beam into range of your melee fighters, then tell your wildfire spirit to teleport them away 15 ft. while their enemies will get hurt next round. Really makes for some good positioning abilities with any aoe spell, but moonbeam jumps out at me first.
Not exactly a spell combo. Just your usual let your concentration spell do the work approach. Neither new nor exciting at this point either.
But can you suggest something better than it? Or is the only add that it's different?
I think it's just being noted that there are several decent concentration options to do this with as you level. I believe the thread( even though there's not a lot of ideas so far) was looking for innovative or more subtle, unusual combinations than the tried and true "concentrate and dodge" one a few classes can manage. I don't have a lot of Druid experience, so I don't have anything outside that realm either lol. Call Lightning is a nice option to swap the conjured animals for, if you have a place to take cover, in trade for the dodging. Also frees up your BA for a Healing Word if someone drops.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Well, it was sort of a joke anyway, but really, conjure animals is probably the thing that you should be concentrating on, even if you spend your action on other things. It's just that much better than so many other control or damage options. Its so good, in fact, that dodge + animals might beat call lightning + 1st level spells or cantrips over a 3 or 4 round combat.
I’ve been looking at the Wildfire subclass. Has anyone tried Elemental bane? Like sneak attack, the extra damage can occur once on each turn (multiple times each round).
Which means you can proc the damage with your turn as expected. You can proc it on their turn if they hit you and you have a fire shield up, or perhaps the Flame of Phlegethos feat seeing as you would have cast a fire damage spell on your turn.
And lastly your wildfire spirit can also proc the damage as they have the same initiative as you, but take their own independent turn after yours. The spirit doesn’t attack when you use your bonus action, it’s only the instructions of what to do for it’s turn.
A potential 6d6 extra damage each round, more if your allies can also throw their own into the mix.
(Bonus marks for a summoned fire elemental that has been planar binded so you are no longer concentrating on it)
I think it is a cool sounding idea, and you've mentioned about as much as you can to get mileage out of it, other than having more fire focused casters in your group. The couple of problems I see are 1) It's 4th level, 2) a single con save causes the spell to fail, 3) the damage seems low when compared to other spells, considering it is single target.
I'll start us off: Mold Earth + Plant Growth to plant saplings in areas of a cavern or similar non-stone/metal lair. Then use Tree Stride to zip your way between the trees. Since Plant Growth has no expiration and no concentration, you can do this minutes, hours, or days in advance of whatever shenanigans you're up to. If one of the party is a high level Genie Warlock, then this combo is stupendous because now the Druid can transport the whole party in the Genie vessel.
spike growth, plant growth, sleet storm and transmute rock are generally great combo spells for locking enemies down in area of effect. They mostly all stack, use them together or with something like [Tooltip Not Found] . The druid is really the master of controlling movement
spike growth works well with any kind of forced movement so think your maelstrom , grasping vine ect... of course due to concentration limits you'll need the help of another casters for some of these but spike growth is also available to rangers and some warlocks so that's very possible.
pass without trace is one of the ultimate stealth spells and combos amazingly with invisibility you can get skyrim sneak level 100 tier stealth with this combo for the whole party.. Again due to concentration you'll need help of another caster but there are also magic items like dust of disappearance that will do the trick
wind wall can actually be very powerful when combined with some thing that controls movement like transmute rock. It can act as a selective wall with your party being able to walk through, make ranged attacks and then walk back while locked down enemies are unable to shoot back at you
antipathy/sympathy create a sympathy rock basically for free and throw it into dangerous places like the areas of spells or use it to repel enemies for things like wind wall. Yeah you need to know the creature type but it lasts 10 days and is cheap to cast
hold person and any summoning spell or spell that lets allies make extra attacks. All attacks that hit become crits
Druids don't get Prismatic Wall or any of the "Prismatic" spells.
If you're going to open this topic to include any and all spell combinations as long as one of them is a Druid spell, then the possible combinations increase at least threefold.
Druids don't get Prismatic Wall or any of the "Prismatic" spells.
If you're going to open this topic to include any and all spell combinations as long as one of them is a Druid spell, then the possible combinations increase at least threefold.
Yeah, I was doing it so that at least one of them is a druid because personally I consider it more likely to have a druid + 1 other caster than it is to have two druids. If you mean two spells a single druid can cast that's very limiting. Two druids is slightly less so.
More of a quest/story related combo and not so much useful in direct combat but if you wanna massacre an invading army or a nearby goblin village or an approaching boss monster, you can cast Symbol(optional spell for druids) on the ground, a tree or any other object which has a lots of space around it. Then set the trigger to something like "When 100 goblins come in the range of symbol" or "When an adult red dragon lands in front of it". Then cast Antipathy/Sympathy on the same object/area and set it to attract the type of creature you want to kill. For creatures with low hitpoints and high numbers choose the Death symbol(deals 10d10 necrotic damage to every creature in the area on a failed CON save and half of it on a successful save). For creatures with more hitpoints choose the Stunned symbol(stuns for 6 rounds giving enough time to finish it off) or cast multiple Death symbols which can be a bit costly.
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I'm enjoying playing my Circle of The Land (Forest) Druid and wanted to learn about practical applications for interesting spell combos, you might have achieved.
I'm always coming up with hair brained ideas and am hoping to keep my DM on his toes with new thoughts.
So far, my favorite idea I've read is :
Plant Growth + Spike Growth
Spike Growth + Thorn Whip is a close 2nd, but there seems to be a difference in opinion on what the DM will allow my character to do with Thorn Whip, in terms of the dragging after a successful strike part.
I'm eager to learn more and add to my bag of tricks.
On Thorn Whip: "Make a melee spell attack against the target"
So, unlike produce flame (or at low levels the humble sling of David v. Goliath pedigree), no disadvantage against opponents within 5' or against ranged opponents engaged by your allies.
Edit: I guess the latter point is debatable - you are at range even if it's a melee attack, so the target could still have half cover.
Cast fog and wild shape into a giant spider. You can see everything, they can see nothing...
This is a quite old thread, so hopefully the OP has figured out some good combos. With that being said:
Two issues with that combo are that it can be quite group unfriendly unless they also have a way to see through fog, and a giant spider can only see part of that area (only 10' blindsight). Fog is even harder for players to overcome than even darkness. If you have characters in your group that took the blindfighting fighting style, then this could be more effective. I think the real value of fog is being able to cancel disadvantage.
Remember, there are a fair number of abilities that key off of sight that you simply cannot use in fog (or darkness, for that matter). Many spells and class features (like some battlemaster maneuvers) require seeing the target. So do opportunity attacks.
Again old thread but Wall of Fire, Wildshape into Fire Elemental, Grapple in Wall of Fire is always great.
Moon Druid strategy:
1. Cast Bones of the Earth.
2. Turn into Giant Ape.
3. Grapple Medium/Small creature already injured by Bones of the Earth.
4. Climb to top of pillar creates by your spell while using pillar as 1/2 cover from most enemy fire.
5. Drop creature picked up in #3.
6. SPLAT!
Variation on this for non-Moon Druids:
After casting Bones of the Earth,
1. Hide behind pillar.
2. Use your familiar to scout.
3. Have familiar deliver Contagion spell on BBEG.
4. BBEG burns all Legendary Resistance to prevent disease.
5. Party Time!
For wildfire druids, moonbeam can be really good since you get to move the beam into range of your melee fighters, then tell your wildfire spirit to teleport them away 15 ft. while their enemies will get hurt next round. Really makes for some good positioning abilities with any aoe spell, but moonbeam jumps out at me first.
Plant growth + Malestrom
2 Druids: wall of thorns + Malestrom. Works like a blender.
heat metal + wildshape and escape
Conjure animals and dodge, anyone?
But can you suggest something better than it? Or is the only add that it's different?
I think it's just being noted that there are several decent concentration options to do this with as you level. I believe the thread( even though there's not a lot of ideas so far) was looking for innovative or more subtle, unusual combinations than the tried and true "concentrate and dodge" one a few classes can manage. I don't have a lot of Druid experience, so I don't have anything outside that realm either lol. Call Lightning is a nice option to swap the conjured animals for, if you have a place to take cover, in trade for the dodging. Also frees up your BA for a Healing Word if someone drops.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Well, it was sort of a joke anyway, but really, conjure animals is probably the thing that you should be concentrating on, even if you spend your action on other things. It's just that much better than so many other control or damage options. Its so good, in fact, that dodge + animals might beat call lightning + 1st level spells or cantrips over a 3 or 4 round combat.
I’ve been looking at the Wildfire subclass. Has anyone tried Elemental bane? Like sneak attack, the extra damage can occur once on each turn (multiple times each round).
Which means you can proc the damage with your turn as expected. You can proc it on their turn if they hit you and you have a fire shield up, or perhaps the Flame of Phlegethos feat seeing as you would have cast a fire damage spell on your turn.
And lastly your wildfire spirit can also proc the damage as they have the same initiative as you, but take their own independent turn after yours. The spirit doesn’t attack when you use your bonus action, it’s only the instructions of what to do for it’s turn.
A potential 6d6 extra damage each round, more if your allies can also throw their own into the mix.
(Bonus marks for a summoned fire elemental that has been planar binded so you are no longer concentrating on it)
I think it is a cool sounding idea, and you've mentioned about as much as you can to get mileage out of it, other than having more fire focused casters in your group. The couple of problems I see are 1) It's 4th level, 2) a single con save causes the spell to fail, 3) the damage seems low when compared to other spells, considering it is single target.
How about some Non-combat combos?
I'll start us off: Mold Earth + Plant Growth to plant saplings in areas of a cavern or similar non-stone/metal lair. Then use Tree Stride to zip your way between the trees. Since Plant Growth has no expiration and no concentration, you can do this minutes, hours, or days in advance of whatever shenanigans you're up to. If one of the party is a high level Genie Warlock, then this combo is stupendous because now the Druid can transport the whole party in the Genie vessel.
Druids don't get Prismatic Wall or any of the "Prismatic" spells.
If you're going to open this topic to include any and all spell combinations as long as one of them is a Druid spell, then the possible combinations increase at least threefold.
Yeah, I was doing it so that at least one of them is a druid because personally I consider it more likely to have a druid + 1 other caster than it is to have two druids. If you mean two spells a single druid can cast that's very limiting. Two druids is slightly less so.
More of a quest/story related combo and not so much useful in direct combat but if you wanna massacre an invading army or a nearby goblin village or an approaching boss monster, you can cast Symbol(optional spell for druids) on the ground, a tree or any other object which has a lots of space around it. Then set the trigger to something like "When 100 goblins come in the range of symbol" or "When an adult red dragon lands in front of it". Then cast Antipathy/Sympathy on the same object/area and set it to attract the type of creature you want to kill. For creatures with low hitpoints and high numbers choose the Death symbol(deals 10d10 necrotic damage to every creature in the area on a failed CON save and half of it on a successful save). For creatures with more hitpoints choose the Stunned symbol(stuns for 6 rounds giving enough time to finish it off) or cast multiple Death symbols which can be a bit costly.