Player Guidance for Melee-Focused Druid

Hi, all! 🙋‍♂️

Just started a Strixhaven campaign using 5.5e, and one of my players wanted to play against type, so I wanna empower the heck out of that! They're a bit on the inexperienced side, so I wanna shy them away a bit from multiclassing, just to make things easier on them.

Are there any really good subclasses for a melee-focused druid? TIA! 

If you are sticking to official content, the Moon Druid is about the only melee-oriented subclass (by Wildshaping into stronger beasts to attack). The rest primarily focus on spellcasting. If you are allowing third-party content, you could take a look at Circle of the Old Ways from the Crooked Moon part 1 book. Its features are based around buffing a Druid who is using Shillelagh and a Shield, giving them a nice array of buffs for a melee character in the form of things like extra AC, Extra Attack, extra damage to your attacks, and damage dealt back to melee attackers. It's a very nature-based melee attacker with a really cool bramble-and-thorn theme.

Perfect! Thank you! 

I just started playing a druid who took the Unbroken Circle subclass...It is made for a battle druid. You gain 2024 Shillelagh but can use any weapon you choose. Want a great weapon, go for it. I chose a Whip and use a shield. Great for me AC. I have 10 foot reach and stand behind my tanks which can help me concentrate on spells like spike growth or entangle. I get two attacks at 6th level and a +1 two damage and to hit which late scales to plus 2 and plus 3. at 10th level I can use one of my attacks as a cantrip and one as my weapon. Some of my Circle splls are excellent like Haste.

You can find it in The Griffins Saddlebag Book one. Its a simple class to play. Almost like a fighter with druid spells and wildshape.

Amazing. Thank you! Looks like my player has plenty of choices (and who knows how many more they'll have by the time they hit level 3?)!

I liked the circle of the sea cos I found it enjoyable to smash folks with the sea aura as a BA ... not the best melee option but it was fun

Spores Druid (which is WotC official) is very melee focused. Very.

way late, but the Circle of the Symbiote in the Cthulhu book is even more viable in melee than the Spores druid.

Spores gets a great bonus to weapon damage and bunch of other cool stuff, but, as written, it's hard to keep that form up and running due to being, well, in melee, lol.

The symbiote druids get a bump to their AC and some temp hp every round. Both are very cool thematically, though.

Circle of the Moon, Spores, Symbiote, Forged as good for melee. I like the way Circle of the forged (Exploring Eberron (2024)) looks for melee, but have not tried it. Moon is a safe choice. 

Ua Circle of the titans and the new bear form from the wow book are good templates

Any character of any class can pick up an allowed weapon and swing it in melee. Some will be better at it than others. If you want a melee focused druid, you can do this with any subclass, just choose spells to aid you in the effort. 5.5e no longer requires magic weapons to be used vs any creature. Those that will do best in melee are those with higher AC (a relative term - just means higher than needed otherwise), higher HP (again, a relative term - only need more than whatever monster you're fighting can do in one round of combat), ability to gain temp hp is always helpful (wildshape as one example), and those with a means of escaping when overwhelmed. Druids are perfectly capable of all of those.

There isn't a single class or subclass in the game that can't enter melee - just that some are better at it than others.

Quote from HarmAssassin >>

Any character of any class can pick up an allowed weapon and swing it in melee. Some will be better at it than others. If you want a melee focused druid, you can do this with any subclass, just choose spells to aid you in the effort. 5.5e no longer requires magic weapons to be used vs any creature. Those that will do best in melee are those with higher AC (a relative term - just means higher than needed otherwise), higher HP (again, a relative term - only need more than whatever monster you're fighting can do in one round of combat), ability to gain temp hp is always helpful (wildshape as one example), and those with a means of escaping when overwhelmed. Druids are perfectly capable of all of those.

There isn't a single class or subclass in the game that can't enter melee - just that some are better at it than others.

 True, but survivability in melee isn't the whole story. You won't have a very good time taking the Attack action to make one attack with a relatively low attack bonus and damage.

So, here's my thing. Strixhaven is 2014. Assuming your using hat version, Moondruid and summoning spells like summon animals have not been nerfed yet. Maybe just go moon druid, summon a couple fo dire wolves, turn into one too and use pack tactics for advantage. Note...I didn't look up levels and CRs. Just going off the top of my head.

Personally, I like Stars druid (healer, controller, blaster, summoner) and am playing one in a currently level 10 cyberpunk campaign.

We're using 2024 stuff instead of 2014. I'm just power-creeping everything to compensate. :)

Oh, 2024 is fine, I'm level 10 stars druid in 2024. I just miss conjure animals the 2014 version. :) There are some good new 2024 druid spells like Evil eye, phantom panther, feline chaos, etc... I do use evil eye. No roll to hit and no save...not much damage but i get a bonus on damage on druid cantrips.