So I'm trying my hand at a "FIFY" redux of the Circle of the Shepherd subclass for the Druid, focusing on the cool and thematic Spirit Totem ability rather than focusing on crapass summoning spells nobody likes. Got a first pass written; class features are listed in screengrabs below. The class does retain the Speech of the Woods ribbon feature at level 2, but otherwise Spirit Totem got updated and all three other abilities were changed. If I can arrive at something solid, will be able to find this later in the FIFY WotC Series archived by Sposta.
The Pixie spirit is both flavorful and mechanically useful.
Battle Summoner is a great way to allow usage of the Totem even if your Druid is regularly using its Wildshape for other things.
Guardian Spirit is great, although I think the language could use slight tweaking to be more like the Twinned Spell metamagic, requiring that the spell only be capable of targeting one creature in the first place. I think with how it is written right now, if you cast something like Mass Cure Wounds, you could potentially target every friendly creature inside of your aura twice.
For Spirit Beacon, I love the use of Daylight as a thematic upgrade and a low-key mechanical upgrade to the aura's radius, that being said, this upgrade doesn't feel like it meshes very well with the stealth aspect of the Pixie spirit.
My only other gripe is that casting Heal when a creature drops to 0 HP as part of Spirit Beacon feels too powerful. I like the intended effect, but once you reach level 20 you can use your Wildshape (and by extension your totem) an unlimited number of times. Because your version of the Totem is no longer a 1/rest type ability, at level 20 you can potentially cast Heal once per round for free so long as you have a bonus action available to summon your totem each turn.
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Hm, those are good catches. I'll admit I was struggling to figure out the "capstone" ability; I was trying to stick primarily to the "Heal/Buff/Strengthen My Allies" ethos of the original Circle of the Shepherd without the crippling over-reliance on summons. I did not remember to take Archdruid into account, that's on me. Hm, I'll ruminate on it some. Thanks for the check-in, Kaboom.
More options for the initial totem would be awesome. Maybe add a limited number of choices, 2 at level 2, +1 at 6th, 10th, 14th to add some focus for a given character / keep all Yureipards from feeling the same or stepping on other character's toes.
For Battle Summoner, check out the language used for some Paladin' subclasses' capstone ability, as far as "once per rest unless you use a X" (5th level slot of pally, WS for druid).
I 2nd using Twinned Spell as the base for Guardian Spirit, but like the recent Twinned/Reaper thread, as long as it states "2nd target" not "additional target", you're in the clear. And a free Twinned Spell every turn could be very easily be brokenly powerful, I definitely suggest having the local min/max power gamers go crazy with it. And with a Druid/Sorcerer, since you can now effectively double-dip on metamagic. You will certainly blow past anything a same level Sorc could dream of in short order if you use your higher spell slots. At 10th level, using your 5th level slot each turn would use everything a Sorc could Twin in two turns, and you have 8 more turns to go, for free. And six more uses for the day if you are so inclined, while the Sorc is already on empty. Twinageddon 2023.
I'm less worried about the Heal every turn potential because it's only crazy at level 20, and still takes your bonus & re action every turn. You'll probably cast Totem first turn of the fight, so you'll burn a few turns of free Heals because (hopefully) no one will get down to 0 for a bit.
Lastly, since you change 75% of the subclass abilities, this feels a lot more like a new subclass than a fixed summoner druid. It is still a shepardy subclass, but from a different angle.
The entire idea was to focus on the cool "Keeper of Spirits" Spirit Totem ability rather than focus on lame augments to the tiny handful of summoning spells out there, especially since the summoning spells that're actually semi-useful - i.e. the Tasha's Cauldron stuff - aren't compatible with most of the original Circle of the Shepherd's benefits. I was sorta actively rewiring the subclass to not be "The Summoner Druid" and instead be "The Spirit Druid", which I think is an underrepresented niche in the overall class. For a class all about drawing on the Power of Nature, druids have almost nothing going for them as spiritualists and animists.
I'm stil debating on what to replace my original Spirit Beacon with, or if limiting the Heal spell reaction to 1/LR would be sufficient. The point about Spirit Beacon clashing with Pixie is also well taken though. Hmm. Been brainstorming as I can, but workweek's started now so progress will be slowed. Either way, thank you both for your input. I've already changed the wording on Guardian Spirit to account for multi-target and required the spell to be a single target only, just gotta figure out what to do at 14th level.
I think the beacon clashing with Pixie is not a major issue, so I think if you limited the Heal reaction or replaced it with a slightly weaker effect youd be golden. Maybe you could add some language that each creature can only benefit from the reaction Heal once per long rest (similar to the way the Healer feat works). That way its more than 1/LR and everyone in the party can potentially benefit, but its still less than an "always available" effect
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I think that your homebrew version is well made and cool, but I have been playing a shepherd druid and I don't see a need to get rid of its summoning features. I think that having a Spirit Druid would be cool, but it should be separate from the circle of the shepherd, though I do realize that it is similar to a Spirit Druid, but not fully one. I don't think that the Summoner Druid part of the Shepherd Druid needs to be gotten rid of. It can be difficult to play sometimes, but I like the ability to summon monsters to fight for me and so I plan ahead before sessions looking at what monsters I can use and figuring out good ways to use them. One complaint I do have about them is that they are built around the summoning spells, but don't get a great summoning spell until level five, but now that I am past level five I am having a lot of fun with this subclass.
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The issue is that the Shepherd druid straight up doesn't work with the new Tasha-style summon spells. Mighty Summoner requires the summons to have Hit Dice, which the Tasha summons that don't make DMs cry do not have. Guardian Spirit barely matters RAW because you only ever get one Spirit Totem per long rest. Sure, Faithful Summons is thematic and cool, but by 14th level a bunch of CR 2 beasts aren't even goingf to be speedbumps to whatever managed to drop you in the first place.
I could rework it and retain its summoning, but even as a summoner the Shepherd is underperforming. And its Spirit Totem means I can't make a spiritualist subclass because the Circle of the Shepherd already summons/invokes spirits.
I'm glad the RAW version's working for you, but I'm figuring it still needs some fixing.
Druids can't even use most of the Tasha's summon spells. I also agree that the subclass has several abilities that are not really useful, so I think that a homebrew version of this subclass would be good, but I would want it to revolve more around summoning and not spirits. I do realize that a spirit subclass would be difficult to make because the Spirit Totem already summons spirits.
I do think your version is cool, I would play it, but I wish there was a way to separate it from the circle of the shepherds. I would also like a way to improve the circle of the shepherds because I do agree that it is lacking. Sorry, I realize that is a problem that may not be able to be fixed right now.
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The problems with Tasha's summon spells is easily fixed simply add: "The creature has hit dice equal to the level at which this spell is cast" to the description of the each monster summoned with Tasha's summon spells.
The main issue with Shepherd druid is the doubling down on very specific playstyles. It is an incredibly powerful subclass, but only if you play it as: Round 1: Action: summon something, Bonus Action: Activate Unicorn Totem Round 2+: if the summon is still alive, then cast a cantrip + Healing Word, otherwise recast summon.
(Bonus after level 6 take 1 level dip into Order Cleric to further buff your Healing Word)
Unicorn Totem's good, AoE healing feature is pretty much the only ability powerful enough in the game to make pre-emptive healing viable. At level 5, a 1st level Healing word on a party of 5, nets you 1d4+4+5*5 = 30-33 points of healing in total (assuming the whole party is in a 30ft radius), which means unless the DM uses focused-fire, you can keep everyone up as long as you have spellslots.
The main change I'd like to see to Shepherd Druid is simply giving them Summon Shadowspawn from Tasha's, the flavour IMO really fits with what Shepherd is all about and it would be nice if D&D's premier conjurer got a bit more diversity of options. Faithful Summons is a bit of a booby capstone, which could be improved so there is less incentive for the Shepherd druid to MC into Cleric at level 13.
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to converse with beasts and many fey.
You learn to speak, read, and write Sylvan. In addition, beasts can understand your speech, and you gain the ability to decipher their noises and motions. Most beasts lack the intelligence to convey or understand sophisticated concepts, but a friendly beast could relay what it has seen or heard in the recent past. This ability doesn’t grant you friendship with beasts, though you can combine this ability with gifts to curry favor with them as you would with any nonplayer character.
Spirit Totem
Starting at 2nd level, you can call forth nature spirits to influence the world around you. As a bonus action, you can expend one use of your Wild Shape feature to magically summon an incorporeal spirit to a point you can see within 60 feet of you. The spirit creates an aura in a 30-foot radius around that point. It counts as neither a creature nor an object, though it has the spectral appearance of the creature it represents.
As a bonus action, you can move the spirit up to 60 feet to a point you can see. The spirit persists for 1 minute or until you’re incapacitated.
The effect of the spirit’s aura depends on the type of spirit you summon from the options below.
Bear Spirit.The bear spirit grants you and your allies its might and endurance. Each creature of your choice in the aura when the spirit appears gains temporary hit points equal to 5 + your druid level. In addition, you and your allies gain advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws while in the aura. Starting at 10th level creatures of your choice in the area also gain +2 bonus to AC.
Hawk Spirit. The hawk spirit is a fleet and agile hunter, aiding you and your allies with speed and maneuverability. Each creature of your choice in the aura gains +10 ft to their walking speed, and all attacks of opportunity made against them are rolled at disadvantage. Starting at 10th level, when you summon the Hawk Spirit you can choose one creature in the aura that gains a flying speed of 60 ft as long as the totem remains active.
Unicorn Spirit. The unicorn spirit lends its protection to those nearby. You and your allies gain advantage on all ability checks made to detect or track creatures in the spirit’s aura. In addition, if you cast a spell using a spell slot that restores hit points to any creature inside or outside the aura, each creature of your choice in the aura also regains hit points equal to your druid level. Starting at 10th level, when you cast a spell that ends a condition affecting a creature within the spirit's aura you can choose one additional creature within the aura and end the same condition if it is affecting them.
Pixie Spirit. The pixie spirit imbues you and your allies with sneakiness and mischief. You and your allies have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks while in the totem's aura. In addition, when a creature in the aura makes a saving throw against the charmed condition, you can use your reaction to grant them advantage or disadvantage on the save. Starting at 10th level, when you summon this spirit creatures in the aura become invisible this invisibility ends on a creature if they make an attack or cast a spell.
Mighty Summoner
Starting at 6th level, beasts and fey that you conjure are more resilient than normal. Any creature summoned or created by a spell that you cast gains the following benefits:
The creature appears with more hit points than normal: 2 extra hit points per Hit Die it has. If the creature does not have Hit Dice, it has extra hit points equal to twice the level of the spell used to summon / create it.
The damage from its natural weapons is considered magical for the purpose of overcoming immunity and resistance to nonmagical attacks and damage.
These benefits can be applied to up to a number of creatures equal to your proficiency bonus that are created or summoned by a single casting of a spell.
Spirit Summoning
At 6th level, you learn the summon shadowspawn spell. It counts as a druid spell to you, it is always prepared and doesn't count against the number of spells you can prepare. When you cast the spell the summon creature is a Fey rather than a Monstrosity.
Guardian Spirit
Beginning at 10th level, your Spirit Totem safeguards the beasts and fey that you call forth with your magic. When a creature that you summoned or created with a spell ends its turn in your Spirit Totem aura, that creature regains a number of hit points equal to half your druid level. When a creature that you summoned is reduced to 0 hp while in your Spirit Totem aura, you can use your reaction to cause it to remain at 1 hp instead.
Spirit Beacon
Starting at 14th level, your Spirit Totem can act as a luminous to bolster the resolve of you and your allies. When you summon your spirit Totem, you can choose to have it emit bright light as per the Daylight. The radius of your spirit increases to 60ft to match the bright light emitted by it. While in this light, creatures of your choice gain the following benefits:
Does the Spirit Totem occupy its space, or not? You never specified.
Does the Bear totem only grant its temporary hit points once, or every round? If it only grants them once, is it when the spirit totem manifests? You never specified that.
For the Hawk totem, the first mechanic makes it more useful if the totem is surrounded by enemies, and the second mechanic makes it better to have it surrounded by friendlies. Was that intentional? If you instead made the second mechanic benefit perception checks against targets in the area it would always make sense for it to be in the middle of a bunch of enemies so PCs can benefit from both mechanics at the same time.
The Unicorn totem’s first mechanic is essentially the same as the hawk’s second mechanic since it would be a perception check to detect creatures anyway. And again, one of the mechanics is better when it’s surrounded by hostiles, and the other by friendlies.
The Pixie totem also has that same split focus as the hawk and the unicorn.
Those totems that have some benefits when surrounded by friendlies and different bonuses when surrounded by hostiles seem to most benefit the frontline melee fighters, but anyone in the back line can only benefit from one of the mechanics at a time. I would instead suggest making one of the totems purely offensive so it makes the most sense to plop it in the middle of enemies, one that’s purely defensive/utility so it can be plopped in the middle of your back line allies, and for the two others, make those split, but make sure they’re written in such a way that they benefit both frontliners and backliners. Make sense?
The only changes I made to the Spirit Totem feature were changing the use limit to use your Wild Shapes rather than being once a day, and adding the Pixie spirit. Bear, Hawk, and Unicorn are all completely unchanged. I presume that since the totem is neither a creature nor an object but is instead an incorporeal Thing, it doesn't occupy its space. The effects on the totem happen when the totem is summoned and only then, unless the ability specifies otherwise itself.
One of the things that attracted me to the idea of riffing on Circle of the Shepherd was that the different totems had usefulness outside of combat as well as in Initiative. There would be times where it'd make sense for the druid to invoke a totem to aid the party in noncombat situations, and each totem had such an ability. When searching a tomb or casing a potential enemy, you could invoke Hawk to gain advantage on your surveillance Perception checks. You could invoke Bear when the party is trying to make it across a difficult piece of terrain and needs to Athletics their way through it, or invoke Unicorn after a battle to help administer healing to your badly wounded allies. That out-of-init utility was something I wanted to try and preserve and emphasize, even if I didn't fully realize it at the time. Definitely going to have to go back to the drawing board with Spirit Beacon, methinks.
I could switch Battle Summoner back to Mighty Summoner for the summoning adherents, but then it goes back to being the "I CAST CONJURE WOODLAND BEINGS AND PISS OFF MY DM HAHAHAHAHA" class instead of the cool shamanistic spirit invoker class. Bleh. I will nevertheless ponder on it, since summoning seems to be important to a number of the folks offering feedback. Thanks, all. I do really appreciate the divergent views on the subclass.
There’s technically no such thing as a “free action” in 5e. Instead it should read as “no action required.”
Guardian Spirit
Technically, the way it’s written you could cast a spell that targets multiple creatures (like mass healing word) and still use this feature. You should specify that the spell must target “only one creature” like how Twinned Spell Metamagic is worded.
Spirit Beacon
Is there any restriction on how often you can have the spirit totem manifest as daylight, or is it just any time you manifest it? If there is no restriction then that equates to 6 free castings of a 3rd-level spell with the recommended 2 short rests, and you may as well just permanently increase the totem’s aura to 60 ft. and permanently grant those additional benefits.
In General
Replace every instance of the word “may” with “can” to make it more in line with the official language. They only use “may” when giving the Player permission to do something, they use “can” when stating what a PC is capable of doing. (I don’t usually quibble that point in these FIFYs, but for you my friend, I’ll put in the extra effort. 😉)
Thanks for the language and style check, Sposta. I'll make sure to address that when work relents for fifteen seconds and I have time to sit in front of homebrew again.
I admit, I'm about ready to go back to the drawing board on Spirit Beacon. I am not keeping Faithful Summons, that ability is thoroughly awful even if it's highly cinematic. "The beasts of nature rush to my aid when I need it most!" is a really cool idea, but the execution sucks donkey rocks. But Spirit Beacon feels less right the longer I muse on it, and it seems to be the focal point for disapproval of the rebake as well. No idea what to replace Spirit Beacon with, but I'll figure something out.
Just a thought, now that the Totem is tied to a use of your Wildshape feature rather than being a 1/LR feature, is there anything preventing the player from having two active totems at once (since you can Wildshape twice per short rest)? Is this intentional? Perhaps there should be some language added that a totem vanishes early if you use the feature again.
On that note, perhaps summoning multiple totems could be a worthwhile 14th level feature. For example, at 14th level every time the player summons a Spirit Totem they can instead summon two totems at different points within 60 feet OR maybe they can choose two different spirits for the same totem. This would, by extension, also improve your Battle Summoner ability. Not sure how powerful this might be
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Yeah, some combination of more uses and/or more area of effect of the Spirit Totems seems like a good idea for the 14th level feature. Or it could even be a new more powerful totem. The conflict is that the identity of the Shepherd Druid is summoning, originally the spirit totems were mainly there so they have something to summon before they get actual summoning spells. Whereas the proposed rewrite turns them into a Spirit Druid focused on the totems.
I'm willing to let someone have two totems up if they want to burn both their Wild Shapes on totems in a tough battle. The effects generally aren't strong enough to warrant being super strict about that, and I'm generally down with a spiritual animist invoking multiple spirits to aid their allies if that's what they want to do.
The whole OGL mess has been mucking with my creative juices, but I got a weekend coming up here. Will take some of it to get back to the drawing board on Spirit Beacon and start tuning and tightening up the other abilities. Thanks again, guys. I appreciate everybody coming in and helping me on this, that ain't normal for the Homebrew forum and I don't take it for granted.
As the DM of a level 12 shepherd druid, what I'd like to see work differently is the combo of summoning 8+ things and then dropping the bear for something like 200 temp hp across the whole party. The wording of the bear totem is always going to encourage the whole party to crowd the field with as many allies as possible to get maximal use of the 'per creature' buff. I'd love to see the bonus limited to something around 6 creatures, or a scaling value with level.
I should say that I made some changes to make the subclass features work better with Tasha's summons. I got a 'neat' before it was promptly forgotten. It just couldn't compare with the bear totem buff and the sheer power of a lopsided action economy.
And yeah, a big group is vulnerable to fireball or whatever, but a savvy druid knows you're not going to have a fireball wizard in every fight. It's kind of annoying to craft a counter in to any battle that I want to be a challenge. 8 creatures with ~40hp and 8 attacks are not inconsequential even at higher levels.
So I guess my TLDR is I'd be a bit more aggressive in neutering the synergy with conjure spells.
Yeah, that was one of the reasons I wanted to reorient the subclass. The thing is specifically designed to spam weenie summons, and I have yet to meet the DM who truly likes their players spamming weenie summons every fight. It's obnoxious, even if you make them use the Mob Attacks rules from the DMG like a DM bloody well should. Having an entire subclass devoted to ONLY Conjure Animals and Conjure Woodland Beings just sucks.
I can see your point on the Bear spirit too. I could easily edit that to limit it to "A number of friendly creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1 creature) gain temporary hit points equal to 5 + your druid level." That'd still let Bear be plenty powerful for most druids playing to the spirit of the game whilst putting an upper limit on the nonsense one can get up to with the eight-critter summons. Might actually incline the druid to use the option to summon a smaller number of larger beasts if they still want to use those spells, prioritizing quality over quantity. Might consider doing the same to the Unicorn spirit, honestly. That's almost as bad, if not potentially worse since it's HP to everything in the aura every round while the druid's got spells to burn.
Thanks, Scatter! Actual playtest advice from someone using the current build is super valuable, I never would've thought to address creature limits with the spirit effects. My brain was stuck on the Shepherd using the spirits to help the party, I'd forgotten that even without summoning-specific abilities the totems can do unpleasant things to mob summons.
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So I'm trying my hand at a "FIFY" redux of the Circle of the Shepherd subclass for the Druid, focusing on the cool and thematic Spirit Totem ability rather than focusing on crapass summoning spells nobody likes. Got a first pass written; class features are listed in screengrabs below. The class does retain the Speech of the Woods ribbon feature at level 2, but otherwise Spirit Totem got updated and all three other abilities were changed. If I can arrive at something solid, will be able to find this later in the FIFY WotC Series archived by Sposta.
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I like the changes overall.
The Pixie spirit is both flavorful and mechanically useful.
Battle Summoner is a great way to allow usage of the Totem even if your Druid is regularly using its Wildshape for other things.
Guardian Spirit is great, although I think the language could use slight tweaking to be more like the Twinned Spell metamagic, requiring that the spell only be capable of targeting one creature in the first place. I think with how it is written right now, if you cast something like Mass Cure Wounds, you could potentially target every friendly creature inside of your aura twice.
For Spirit Beacon, I love the use of Daylight as a thematic upgrade and a low-key mechanical upgrade to the aura's radius, that being said, this upgrade doesn't feel like it meshes very well with the stealth aspect of the Pixie spirit.
My only other gripe is that casting Heal when a creature drops to 0 HP as part of Spirit Beacon feels too powerful. I like the intended effect, but once you reach level 20 you can use your Wildshape (and by extension your totem) an unlimited number of times. Because your version of the Totem is no longer a 1/rest type ability, at level 20 you can potentially cast Heal once per round for free so long as you have a bonus action available to summon your totem each turn.
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Hm, those are good catches. I'll admit I was struggling to figure out the "capstone" ability; I was trying to stick primarily to the "Heal/Buff/Strengthen My Allies" ethos of the original Circle of the Shepherd without the crippling over-reliance on summons. I did not remember to take Archdruid into account, that's on me. Hm, I'll ruminate on it some. Thanks for the check-in, Kaboom.
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More options for the initial totem would be awesome. Maybe add a limited number of choices, 2 at level 2, +1 at 6th, 10th, 14th to add some focus for a given character / keep all Yureipards from feeling the same or stepping on other character's toes.
For Battle Summoner, check out the language used for some Paladin' subclasses' capstone ability, as far as "once per rest unless you use a X" (5th level slot of pally, WS for druid).
I 2nd using Twinned Spell as the base for Guardian Spirit, but like the recent Twinned/Reaper thread, as long as it states "2nd target" not "additional target", you're in the clear. And a free Twinned Spell every turn could be very easily be brokenly powerful, I definitely suggest having the local min/max power gamers go crazy with it. And with a Druid/Sorcerer, since you can now effectively double-dip on metamagic. You will certainly blow past anything a same level Sorc could dream of in short order if you use your higher spell slots. At 10th level, using your 5th level slot each turn would use everything a Sorc could Twin in two turns, and you have 8 more turns to go, for free. And six more uses for the day if you are so inclined, while the Sorc is already on empty. Twinageddon 2023.
I'm less worried about the Heal every turn potential because it's only crazy at level 20, and still takes your bonus & re action every turn. You'll probably cast Totem first turn of the fight, so you'll burn a few turns of free Heals because (hopefully) no one will get down to 0 for a bit.
Lastly, since you change 75% of the subclass abilities, this feels a lot more like a new subclass than a fixed summoner druid. It is still a shepardy subclass, but from a different angle.
The entire idea was to focus on the cool "Keeper of Spirits" Spirit Totem ability rather than focus on lame augments to the tiny handful of summoning spells out there, especially since the summoning spells that're actually semi-useful - i.e. the Tasha's Cauldron stuff - aren't compatible with most of the original Circle of the Shepherd's benefits. I was sorta actively rewiring the subclass to not be "The Summoner Druid" and instead be "The Spirit Druid", which I think is an underrepresented niche in the overall class. For a class all about drawing on the Power of Nature, druids have almost nothing going for them as spiritualists and animists.
I'm stil debating on what to replace my original Spirit Beacon with, or if limiting the Heal spell reaction to 1/LR would be sufficient. The point about Spirit Beacon clashing with Pixie is also well taken though. Hmm. Been brainstorming as I can, but workweek's started now so progress will be slowed. Either way, thank you both for your input. I've already changed the wording on Guardian Spirit to account for multi-target and required the spell to be a single target only, just gotta figure out what to do at 14th level.
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I think the beacon clashing with Pixie is not a major issue, so I think if you limited the Heal reaction or replaced it with a slightly weaker effect youd be golden. Maybe you could add some language that each creature can only benefit from the reaction Heal once per long rest (similar to the way the Healer feat works). That way its more than 1/LR and everyone in the party can potentially benefit, but its still less than an "always available" effect
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I think that your homebrew version is well made and cool, but I have been playing a shepherd druid and I don't see a need to get rid of its summoning features. I think that having a Spirit Druid would be cool, but it should be separate from the circle of the shepherd, though I do realize that it is similar to a Spirit Druid, but not fully one. I don't think that the Summoner Druid part of the Shepherd Druid needs to be gotten rid of. It can be difficult to play sometimes, but I like the ability to summon monsters to fight for me and so I plan ahead before sessions looking at what monsters I can use and figuring out good ways to use them. One complaint I do have about them is that they are built around the summoning spells, but don't get a great summoning spell until level five, but now that I am past level five I am having a lot of fun with this subclass.
The issue is that the Shepherd druid straight up doesn't work with the new Tasha-style summon spells. Mighty Summoner requires the summons to have Hit Dice, which the Tasha summons that don't make DMs cry do not have. Guardian Spirit barely matters RAW because you only ever get one Spirit Totem per long rest. Sure, Faithful Summons is thematic and cool, but by 14th level a bunch of CR 2 beasts aren't even goingf to be speedbumps to whatever managed to drop you in the first place.
I could rework it and retain its summoning, but even as a summoner the Shepherd is underperforming. And its Spirit Totem means I can't make a spiritualist subclass because the Circle of the Shepherd already summons/invokes spirits.
I'm glad the RAW version's working for you, but I'm figuring it still needs some fixing.
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Druids can't even use most of the Tasha's summon spells. I also agree that the subclass has several abilities that are not really useful, so I think that a homebrew version of this subclass would be good, but I would want it to revolve more around summoning and not spirits. I do realize that a spirit subclass would be difficult to make because the Spirit Totem already summons spirits.
I do think your version is cool, I would play it, but I wish there was a way to separate it from the circle of the shepherds. I would also like a way to improve the circle of the shepherds because I do agree that it is lacking. Sorry, I realize that is a problem that may not be able to be fixed right now.
The problems with Tasha's summon spells is easily fixed simply add: "The creature has hit dice equal to the level at which this spell is cast" to the description of the each monster summoned with Tasha's summon spells.
The main issue with Shepherd druid is the doubling down on very specific playstyles. It is an incredibly powerful subclass, but only if you play it as:
Round 1: Action: summon something, Bonus Action: Activate Unicorn Totem
Round 2+: if the summon is still alive, then cast a cantrip + Healing Word, otherwise recast summon.
(Bonus after level 6 take 1 level dip into Order Cleric to further buff your Healing Word)
Unicorn Totem's good, AoE healing feature is pretty much the only ability powerful enough in the game to make pre-emptive healing viable. At level 5, a 1st level Healing word on a party of 5, nets you 1d4+4+5*5 = 30-33 points of healing in total (assuming the whole party is in a 30ft radius), which means unless the DM uses focused-fire, you can keep everyone up as long as you have spellslots.
The main change I'd like to see to Shepherd Druid is simply giving them Summon Shadowspawn from Tasha's, the flavour IMO really fits with what Shepherd is all about and it would be nice if D&D's premier conjurer got a bit more diversity of options. Faithful Summons is a bit of a booby capstone, which could be improved so there is less incentive for the Shepherd druid to MC into Cleric at level 13.
Speech of the Woods
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to converse with beasts and many fey.
You learn to speak, read, and write Sylvan. In addition, beasts can understand your speech, and you gain the ability to decipher their noises and motions. Most beasts lack the intelligence to convey or understand sophisticated concepts, but a friendly beast could relay what it has seen or heard in the recent past. This ability doesn’t grant you friendship with beasts, though you can combine this ability with gifts to curry favor with them as you would with any nonplayer character.
Spirit Totem
Starting at 2nd level, you can call forth nature spirits to influence the world around you. As a bonus action, you can expend one use of your Wild Shape feature to magically summon an incorporeal spirit to a point you can see within 60 feet of you. The spirit creates an aura in a 30-foot radius around that point. It counts as neither a creature nor an object, though it has the spectral appearance of the creature it represents.
As a bonus action, you can move the spirit up to 60 feet to a point you can see. The spirit persists for 1 minute or until you’re incapacitated.
The effect of the spirit’s aura depends on the type of spirit you summon from the options below.
Bear Spirit. The bear spirit grants you and your allies its might and endurance. Each creature of your choice in the aura when the spirit appears gains temporary hit points equal to 5 + your druid level. In addition, you and your allies gain advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws while in the aura. Starting at 10th level creatures of your choice in the area also gain +2 bonus to AC.
Hawk Spirit. The hawk spirit is a fleet and agile hunter, aiding you and your allies with speed and maneuverability. Each creature of your choice in the aura gains +10 ft to their walking speed, and all attacks of opportunity made against them are rolled at disadvantage. Starting at 10th level, when you summon the Hawk Spirit you can choose one creature in the aura that gains a flying speed of 60 ft as long as the totem remains active.
Unicorn Spirit. The unicorn spirit lends its protection to those nearby. You and your allies gain advantage on all ability checks made to detect or track creatures in the spirit’s aura. In addition, if you cast a spell using a spell slot that restores hit points to any creature inside or outside the aura, each creature of your choice in the aura also regains hit points equal to your druid level. Starting at 10th level, when you cast a spell that ends a condition affecting a creature within the spirit's aura you can choose one additional creature within the aura and end the same condition if it is affecting them.
Pixie Spirit. The pixie spirit imbues you and your allies with sneakiness and mischief. You and your allies have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks while in the totem's aura. In addition, when a creature in the aura makes a saving throw against the charmed condition, you can use your reaction to grant them advantage or disadvantage on the save. Starting at 10th level, when you summon this spirit creatures in the aura become invisible this invisibility ends on a creature if they make an attack or cast a spell.
Mighty Summoner
Starting at 6th level, beasts and fey that you conjure are more resilient than normal. Any creature summoned or created by a spell that you cast gains the following benefits:
These benefits can be applied to up to a number of creatures equal to your proficiency bonus that are created or summoned by a single casting of a spell.
Spirit Summoning
At 6th level, you learn the summon shadowspawn spell. It counts as a druid spell to you, it is always prepared and doesn't count against the number of spells you can prepare. When you cast the spell the summon creature is a Fey rather than a Monstrosity.
Guardian Spirit
Beginning at 10th level, your Spirit Totem safeguards the beasts and fey that you call forth with your magic. When a creature that you summoned or created with a spell ends its turn in your Spirit Totem aura, that creature regains a number of hit points equal to
halfyour druid level. When a creature that you summoned is reduced to 0 hp while in your Spirit Totem aura, you can use your reaction to cause it to remain at 1 hp instead.Spirit Beacon
Starting at 14th level, your Spirit Totem can act as a luminous to bolster the resolve of you and your allies. When you summon your spirit Totem, you can choose to have it emit bright light as per the Daylight. The radius of your spirit increases to 60ft to match the bright light emitted by it. While in this light, creatures of your choice gain the following benefits:
Does the Spirit Totem occupy its space, or not? You never specified.
If it only grants them once, is it when the spirit totem manifests? You never specified that.
Those totems that have some benefits when surrounded by friendlies and different bonuses when surrounded by hostiles seem to most benefit the frontline melee fighters, but anyone in the back line can only benefit from one of the mechanics at a time. I would instead suggest making one of the totems purely offensive so it makes the most sense to plop it in the middle of enemies, one that’s purely defensive/utility so it can be plopped in the middle of your back line allies, and for the two others, make those split, but make sure they’re written in such a way that they benefit both frontliners and backliners. Make sense?
The only changes I made to the Spirit Totem feature were changing the use limit to use your Wild Shapes rather than being once a day, and adding the Pixie spirit. Bear, Hawk, and Unicorn are all completely unchanged. I presume that since the totem is neither a creature nor an object but is instead an incorporeal Thing, it doesn't occupy its space. The effects on the totem happen when the totem is summoned and only then, unless the ability specifies otherwise itself.
One of the things that attracted me to the idea of riffing on Circle of the Shepherd was that the different totems had usefulness outside of combat as well as in Initiative. There would be times where it'd make sense for the druid to invoke a totem to aid the party in noncombat situations, and each totem had such an ability. When searching a tomb or casing a potential enemy, you could invoke Hawk to gain advantage on your surveillance Perception checks. You could invoke Bear when the party is trying to make it across a difficult piece of terrain and needs to Athletics their way through it, or invoke Unicorn after a battle to help administer healing to your badly wounded allies. That out-of-init utility was something I wanted to try and preserve and emphasize, even if I didn't fully realize it at the time. Definitely going to have to go back to the drawing board with Spirit Beacon, methinks.
I could switch Battle Summoner back to Mighty Summoner for the summoning adherents, but then it goes back to being the "I CAST CONJURE WOODLAND BEINGS AND PISS OFF MY DM HAHAHAHAHA" class instead of the cool shamanistic spirit invoker class. Bleh. I will nevertheless ponder on it, since summoning seems to be important to a number of the folks offering feedback. Thanks, all. I do really appreciate the divergent views on the subclass.
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I may not be a qualified to comment on its efficacy as a Druid subclass, but here’s what I can do for you:
Pixie Totem
It should be a “Dexterity (Stealth) checks”
Battle Summoner
There’s technically no such thing as a “free action” in 5e. Instead it should read as “no action required.”
Guardian Spirit
Technically, the way it’s written you could cast a spell that targets multiple creatures (like mass healing word) and still use this feature. You should specify that the spell must target “only one creature” like how Twinned Spell Metamagic is worded.
Spirit Beacon
Is there any restriction on how often you can have the spirit totem manifest as daylight, or is it just any time you manifest it? If there is no restriction then that equates to 6 free castings of a 3rd-level spell with the recommended 2 short rests, and you may as well just permanently increase the totem’s aura to 60 ft. and permanently grant those additional benefits.
In General
Replace every instance of the word “may” with “can” to make it more in line with the official language. They only use “may” when giving the Player permission to do something, they use “can” when stating what a PC is capable of doing. (I don’t usually quibble that point in these FIFYs, but for you my friend, I’ll put in the extra effort. 😉)
As usual, I hope that helps.
PS- Screw the summoning, stick with your initial ideas about the totem spirit.
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Thanks for the language and style check, Sposta. I'll make sure to address that when work relents for fifteen seconds and I have time to sit in front of homebrew again.
I admit, I'm about ready to go back to the drawing board on Spirit Beacon. I am not keeping Faithful Summons, that ability is thoroughly awful even if it's highly cinematic. "The beasts of nature rush to my aid when I need it most!" is a really cool idea, but the execution sucks donkey rocks. But Spirit Beacon feels less right the longer I muse on it, and it seems to be the focal point for disapproval of the rebake as well. No idea what to replace Spirit Beacon with, but I'll figure something out.
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Just a thought, now that the Totem is tied to a use of your Wildshape feature rather than being a 1/LR feature, is there anything preventing the player from having two active totems at once (since you can Wildshape twice per short rest)? Is this intentional? Perhaps there should be some language added that a totem vanishes early if you use the feature again.
On that note, perhaps summoning multiple totems could be a worthwhile 14th level feature. For example, at 14th level every time the player summons a Spirit Totem they can instead summon two totems at different points within 60 feet OR maybe they can choose two different spirits for the same totem. This would, by extension, also improve your Battle Summoner ability. Not sure how powerful this might be
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Yeah, some combination of more uses and/or more area of effect of the Spirit Totems seems like a good idea for the 14th level feature. Or it could even be a new more powerful totem. The conflict is that the identity of the Shepherd Druid is summoning, originally the spirit totems were mainly there so they have something to summon before they get actual summoning spells. Whereas the proposed rewrite turns them into a Spirit Druid focused on the totems.
I'm willing to let someone have two totems up if they want to burn both their Wild Shapes on totems in a tough battle. The effects generally aren't strong enough to warrant being super strict about that, and I'm generally down with a spiritual animist invoking multiple spirits to aid their allies if that's what they want to do.
The whole OGL mess has been mucking with my creative juices, but I got a weekend coming up here. Will take some of it to get back to the drawing board on Spirit Beacon and start tuning and tightening up the other abilities. Thanks again, guys. I appreciate everybody coming in and helping me on this, that ain't normal for the Homebrew forum and I don't take it for granted.
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As the DM of a level 12 shepherd druid, what I'd like to see work differently is the combo of summoning 8+ things and then dropping the bear for something like 200 temp hp across the whole party. The wording of the bear totem is always going to encourage the whole party to crowd the field with as many allies as possible to get maximal use of the 'per creature' buff. I'd love to see the bonus limited to something around 6 creatures, or a scaling value with level.
I should say that I made some changes to make the subclass features work better with Tasha's summons. I got a 'neat' before it was promptly forgotten. It just couldn't compare with the bear totem buff and the sheer power of a lopsided action economy.
And yeah, a big group is vulnerable to fireball or whatever, but a savvy druid knows you're not going to have a fireball wizard in every fight. It's kind of annoying to craft a counter in to any battle that I want to be a challenge. 8 creatures with ~40hp and 8 attacks are not inconsequential even at higher levels.
So I guess my TLDR is I'd be a bit more aggressive in neutering the synergy with conjure spells.
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(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
Yeah, that was one of the reasons I wanted to reorient the subclass. The thing is specifically designed to spam weenie summons, and I have yet to meet the DM who truly likes their players spamming weenie summons every fight. It's obnoxious, even if you make them use the Mob Attacks rules from the DMG like a DM bloody well should. Having an entire subclass devoted to ONLY Conjure Animals and Conjure Woodland Beings just sucks.
I can see your point on the Bear spirit too. I could easily edit that to limit it to "A number of friendly creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1 creature) gain temporary hit points equal to 5 + your druid level." That'd still let Bear be plenty powerful for most druids playing to the spirit of the game whilst putting an upper limit on the nonsense one can get up to with the eight-critter summons. Might actually incline the druid to use the option to summon a smaller number of larger beasts if they still want to use those spells, prioritizing quality over quantity. Might consider doing the same to the Unicorn spirit, honestly. That's almost as bad, if not potentially worse since it's HP to everything in the aura every round while the druid's got spells to burn.
Thanks, Scatter! Actual playtest advice from someone using the current build is super valuable, I never would've thought to address creature limits with the spirit effects. My brain was stuck on the Shepherd using the spirits to help the party, I'd forgotten that even without summoning-specific abilities the totems can do unpleasant things to mob summons.
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