A little background: I am currently working on a new pantheon, presented in compendium form. The compendium will include the new deities, as well as new planes, subclasses, races, items, monsters, et al. This Druid subclass is for the deity of life, whose symbol is the willow tree. Hope you enjoy!
(Edit: See later post for new version)
Circle of the Willow v.1.0
Druids of the Circle of the Willow are caretakers and devout worshipers of the life magic inherent in the sturdy tree. Devoting themselves to preserving life, they use the powers granted by the tree's grace in order to stave off death and cleanse the world of its otherworldly touch.
Many of these Druids live in, or near settlements, caring for willow groves where the honourable dead are buried to feed the roots and contribute to the circles of life. Some in these circles are more fate-touched than others, however, and hear a deeper calling whistling through the willow fronds. Those that listen find themselves encouraged to travel, and are granted immense power from the protective trees in return for everlasting devotion.
Warding Willow
At 2nd level you form your connection to the willow. You know that its roots run deep, and are with you always. When you would be reduced to 0 hit points you may use your reaction to expend one use of your Wild Shape ability and pull energy from the willow roots. If you don't, the willow attempts to stave off your death. Any attack against you that would be considered a critical hit is treated as a normal hit instead, reducing the number of failed death saving throws. If you do, you drop to 1 hit point, gain temporary hit points equal to your Druid level plus your Wisdom modifier, and gain resistance to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage as long as you have at least 1 temporary hit point from this feature.
As you gain levels in this class, this feature grants additional resistances while its effects are active. At 6th level you gain resistance to magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. At 10th level, you gain resistance to Poison, Fire and Cold damage. At 14th level you gain resistance to Necrotic damage.
Weeping Heart
When you reach 6th level you have embraced the heart of the willow, granting you the ability to impress emotions upon others. As an action you may target a creature within 30 feet of you that you can see, that has an Intelligence score of 4 or higher, and choose one emotion from the Weeping Heart Emotions table. That creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your Druid spell save DC or else become driven by that emotion. A creature may choose to fail this saving throw. The creature may attempt this saving throw again at the end of each of its turns, ending this effect on a success. You may use this feature a number of times per long rest equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum one).
Weeping Heart Emotions
Positive
Negative
Peace
Anger
Happiness
Sadness
Bravery
Fear
Curiosity
Disgust
Merciful Repose
At 10th level the willow whispers to you words against death, and implores you to enshrine life. Whenever you kill a creature, you may instead call forth the fronds of the willow to protect it. If you do, the creature is stabilized and restrained.
Avatar of Life
At 14th level you have harnessed the true power of the willow. Once as an action you may choose one of the following options, the effects for which last for 1 minute.
Thorned Halo.A lilac aura surrounds you and empowers your attacks. You have advantage on attacks made with Natural Weapons. Whenever you hit a creature with an attack you deal additional damage equal to ½ your Druid level.
Celestial Fronds.A white aura surrounds you and wards away death. Allies that are within 15 feet of you are considered to be in your range of Touch. Whenever a creature regains hit points from a spell or feature you use, it regains additional hit points equal to ½ your Druid level.
Radiant Roots.A green aura surrounds you and eases the road ahead. Your speed is increased by 5 feet, and you gain a Burrowing speed equal to your Walking speed. In addition, you ignore difficult terrain caused by plants.
You regain use of this feature when you complete a long rest.
Really interesting concept but some of the language needs adjusting.
Warding Willow feels a little jumbled up. Is the critical hit negating a permanent effect? If so, we want to put it before the reaction. Also, consider using the language from adamantine armor.
For Weeping Heart, we enter the weeds of design. What does a creature acting under the effects of any emotion do? Is a creature acting under fear frightened? Is a Peaceful creature nonhostile? I worry there's too much room for DM discretion.
I don't know how often a druid kills creatures, despite this being a relatively offensive druid. Perhaps this should be extended to allies who drop to 0 hit points as well?
For Celestial Fronds, I have an alternative sentence to "Allies that are within 15 feet of you are considered to be in your range of Touch": "When you can cast a spell with a range of touch, you may target creatures within 15 feet of you."
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
RE: Warding Willow. It is not, I'll clear up the language a bit. It would only be in effect if you choose not to use a reaction, so basically if you go unconscious you get X effect. Re-reading it and your comment, I see how unclear it is. I'll probably better separate it, making "When you are unconscious (effect) and remove it entirely from the section on the reaction, costly effect.
RE: Weeping Heart. Agreed. I'll work more on this mechanically.
RE: Merciful Repose. Meanwhile the Druid in the campaign I play in and the campaign I DM do a fair bit of killing! (The former uses Heat Metal and Call Lightning to great effect, and its always #Amazing) -- so I might have to run some 10th+ level one-shots with some different core Druid builds and this subclass. See how much mileage they get out of the feature! I definitely like the idea of using it on allies as well, though restraining your stabilized ally can be as much a penalty as a boon, so it sounds like a good trade-off. Hmm indeed!
RE: Celestial Fronds. Right on. Much better!
Thanks a ton Astromancer! I'll work on Weeping Heart more and once I have something I like I'll reshare with all the updates. :)
New version time! It took me a while to get back to this one, but I finally sat down last week and began to break down the Weeping Heart feature into stricter mechanics. I'd love your thoughts @Astromancer, and anyone else who's viewing this. :)
Change Notes - Warding Willow: Adjusted the wording to improve clarity of what happens with the reaction, and what happens without. - Weeping Heart: Replaced esoteric emotions with mechanical emotions giving a range of benefits/penalties. - Avatar of Life; Celestial Fronds: Improved wording of the touch effect.
Circle of the Willow v.1.1
Druids of the Circle of the Willow are caretakers and devout worshipers of the life magic inherent in the sturdy tree. Devoting themselves to preserving life, they use the powers granted by the tree's grace in order to stave off death and cleanse the world of its otherworldly touch.
Many of these Druids live in, or near settlements, caring for willow groves where the honourable dead are buried to feed the roots and contribute to the circles of life. Some in these circles are more fate-touched than others, however, and hear a deeper calling whistling through the willow fronds. Those that listen find themselves encouraged to travel, and are granted immense power from the protective trees in return for everlasting devotion.
Warding Willow
At 2nd level you form your connection to the willow. You know that its roots run deep, and are with you always. When you would be reduced to 0 hit points you may use your reaction to expend one use of your Wild Shape ability and pull energy from the willow roots. If you do, you drop to 1 hit point, gain temporary hit points equal to your Druid level plus your Wisdom modifier, and gain resistance to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage as long as you have at least 1 temporary hit point from this feature.
If you choose not to use, or cannot use your reaction or expend a wild shape, the willow attempts to prevent your death. While unconscious, any attack against you that would be considered a critical hit is treated as a normal hit instead, reducing the number of failed death saving throws.
As you gain levels in this class, you gain additional resistances while you have temporary hit points from this feature. At 6th level you gain resistance to magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. At 10th level, you gain resistance to Poison, Fire and Cold damage. At 14th level you gain resistance to Necrotic damage.
Weeping Heart
When you reach 6th level you have embraced the heart of the willow, granting you the ability to impress emotions upon others. As an action you may target a creature within 30 feet of you that you can see that has an Intelligence score of 4 or higher, and choose one emotion from the list below. That creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your Druid spell save DC or else become affected by that emotional state for one minute. A creature may choose to fail this saving throw. The creature may attempt this saving throw again at the end of each of its turns, ending this effect on a success. You may use this feature a number of times per long rest equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum one).
Anger. The target becomes violently hostile to all other creatures it is aware of, and unable to differentiate between allies and enemies.
Bravery. Any frightened condition on the target ends, and it becomes immune to the frightened condition until this effect ends.
Curiosity. The target becomes extremely aware of minute details around it. It gains advantage on all Wisdom (Perception) and Intelligence (Investigation) ability checks.
Depression. The target is overcome with immense sadness and falls prone.
Disgust. The target finds everything around it revolting, and is overcome with sickness if it continues to observe them. The creature has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks that rely on sight.
Fear. The target becomes frightened of all other creatures it is aware of.
Mirth. The target is overcome with joy, and begins to laugh uncontrollably. Before casting a spell with a Verbal component the target must make a Constitution saving throw against your Spell save DC. On a failure the target cannot cast the spell, but does not lose the spell slot.
Peace. The target becomes non-hostile to all other creatures it is aware of, and unable to differentiate between allies and enemies.
Merciful Repose
At 10th level the willow whispers to you words against death, and implores you to enshrine life. Whenever you would kill a creature, you may instead call forth the fronds of the willow to protect it. If you do, the creature is stabilized and restrained.
Avatar of Life
At 14th level you have harnessed the true power of the willow. Once as an action you may choose one of the following options, the effects of which last for 1 minute.
Thorned Halo.A lilac aura surrounds you and empowers your attacks. You have advantage on attacks made with Natural Weapons. Whenever you hit a creature with an attack roll you deal additional damage equal to ½ your Druid level.
Celestial Fronds.A white aura surrounds you and wards away death. When you can cast a spell with a range of touch, you may target an ally within 15 feet of you. Whenever a creature regains hit points from a spell or feature you use, it regains additional hit points equal to ½ your Druid level.
Radiant Roots.A green aura surrounds you and eases the road ahead. Your speed is increased by 5 feet, and you gain a Burrowing speed equal to your walking speed. In addition, you ignore difficult terrain caused by plants.
You regain use of this feature when you complete a long rest.
One thing that I noticed: For the Weeping Heart mechanic, Curiosity gives advantage to perception OR investigation. I was just wondering who decides that - the Druid or the player/character it is used on?
Or, does it grant advantage with both abilities? ;)
I really like this version! (It has already been added to my collection!) I enjoy the different emotions and their effects. I am curious why Mirth uses a constitution saving throw instead of a wisdom saving throw. I would also include speaking in the saving throw. The hobgoblin captain's Leadership ability comes to mind as an ability I would think this feature would be able to stop.
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
I picked Constitution with the thought of trying to physically restrain oneself from laughing once you've already started, as the creature has already failed the save to resist Mirth entirely, they just have the opportunity to save each time they try to cast a V spell.
However, I'll throw the speech bit in there. New version is up -- link in my signature!
I'm curious, how does Weeping Heart interact with races/creatures such as Elf who are immune/resistant to charm like effects? I get a Calm Emotions vibe from the ability and I'm just curious as to how you saw it interacting in comparison.
And you got me: Definitely inspired by Calm Emotions! I basically wanted to do Calm Emotions, but the opposite.
The elf racial feature specifically refers to the charmed condition / advantage against them as opposed to charm-like effects, so I haven't built this with the intent that those play together. I would be interested in hearing a differing opinion though, if you have it.
The only real interaction I can see, is with the Gnome racial feature Gnome Cunning with it's advantage vs INT, WIS, CHA saving throws. There is a potential for Magic Resistance to work with it, but that's a fine line, it would depend on if this ability is considered magical.
The Elf, Barbarian Mindless Rage, and other creatures/abilities that make them resistant/immune to Charm/Fear do skirt the edge of this ability. Edit: Due to a recent find, it seems that there is no ambiguity, unless it's Charm, there's no interaction.
Overall, I don't think it's something to get very finicky about, just something that rolled through my mind. I'd end up tossing this one into the "DM's call" category.
Interesting find:
The following "charm" spells are unaffected by both charm immunity and fey ancestry:
A little background: I am currently working on a new pantheon, presented in compendium form. The compendium will include the new deities, as well as new planes, subclasses, races, items, monsters, et al. This Druid subclass is for the deity of life, whose symbol is the willow tree. Hope you enjoy!
(Edit: See later post for new version)
Circle of the Willow v.1.0
Druids of the Circle of the Willow are caretakers and devout worshipers of the life magic inherent in the sturdy tree. Devoting themselves to preserving life, they use the powers granted by the tree's grace in order to stave off death and cleanse the world of its otherworldly touch.
Many of these Druids live in, or near settlements, caring for willow groves where the honourable dead are buried to feed the roots and contribute to the circles of life. Some in these circles are more fate-touched than others, however, and hear a deeper calling whistling through the willow fronds. Those that listen find themselves encouraged to travel, and are granted immense power from the protective trees in return for everlasting devotion.
Warding Willow
At 2nd level you form your connection to the willow. You know that its roots run deep, and are with you always. When you would be reduced to 0 hit points you may use your reaction to expend one use of your Wild Shape ability and pull energy from the willow roots. If you don't, the willow attempts to stave off your death. Any attack against you that would be considered a critical hit is treated as a normal hit instead, reducing the number of failed death saving throws. If you do, you drop to 1 hit point, gain temporary hit points equal to your Druid level plus your Wisdom modifier, and gain resistance to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage as long as you have at least 1 temporary hit point from this feature.
As you gain levels in this class, this feature grants additional resistances while its effects are active. At 6th level you gain resistance to magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. At 10th level, you gain resistance to Poison, Fire and Cold damage. At 14th level you gain resistance to Necrotic damage.
Weeping Heart
When you reach 6th level you have embraced the heart of the willow, granting you the ability to impress emotions upon others. As an action you may target a creature within 30 feet of you that you can see, that has an Intelligence score of 4 or higher, and choose one emotion from the Weeping Heart Emotions table. That creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your Druid spell save DC or else become driven by that emotion. A creature may choose to fail this saving throw. The creature may attempt this saving throw again at the end of each of its turns, ending this effect on a success. You may use this feature a number of times per long rest equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum one).
Weeping Heart Emotions
Positive
Negative
Peace
Anger
Happiness
Sadness
Bravery
Fear
Curiosity
Disgust
Merciful Repose
At 10th level the willow whispers to you words against death, and implores you to enshrine life. Whenever you kill a creature, you may instead call forth the fronds of the willow to protect it. If you do, the creature is stabilized and restrained.
Avatar of Life
At 14th level you have harnessed the true power of the willow. Once as an action you may choose one of the following options, the effects for which last for 1 minute.
Thorned Halo. A lilac aura surrounds you and empowers your attacks. You have advantage on attacks made with Natural Weapons. Whenever you hit a creature with an attack you deal additional damage equal to ½ your Druid level.
Celestial Fronds. A white aura surrounds you and wards away death. Allies that are within 15 feet of you are considered to be in your range of Touch. Whenever a creature regains hit points from a spell or feature you use, it regains additional hit points equal to ½ your Druid level.
Radiant Roots. A green aura surrounds you and eases the road ahead. Your speed is increased by 5 feet, and you gain a Burrowing speed equal to your Walking speed. In addition, you ignore difficult terrain caused by plants.
You regain use of this feature when you complete a long rest.
Really interesting concept but some of the language needs adjusting.
Warding Willow feels a little jumbled up. Is the critical hit negating a permanent effect? If so, we want to put it before the reaction. Also, consider using the language from adamantine armor.
For Weeping Heart, we enter the weeds of design. What does a creature acting under the effects of any emotion do? Is a creature acting under fear frightened? Is a Peaceful creature nonhostile? I worry there's too much room for DM discretion.
I don't know how often a druid kills creatures, despite this being a relatively offensive druid. Perhaps this should be extended to allies who drop to 0 hit points as well?
For Celestial Fronds, I have an alternative sentence to "Allies that are within 15 feet of you are considered to be in your range of Touch": "When you can cast a spell with a range of touch, you may target creatures within 15 feet of you."
Tooltips | Snippet Code | How to Homebrew on D&D Beyond | Subclass Guide | Feature Roadmap
Astromancer's Homebrew Assembly
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
Thanks Astromancer!
RE: Warding Willow. It is not, I'll clear up the language a bit. It would only be in effect if you choose not to use a reaction, so basically if you go unconscious you get X effect. Re-reading it and your comment, I see how unclear it is. I'll probably better separate it, making "When you are unconscious (effect) and remove it entirely from the section on the reaction, costly effect.
RE: Weeping Heart. Agreed. I'll work more on this mechanically.
RE: Merciful Repose. Meanwhile the Druid in the campaign I play in and the campaign I DM do a fair bit of killing! (The former uses Heat Metal and Call Lightning to great effect, and its always #Amazing) -- so I might have to run some 10th+ level one-shots with some different core Druid builds and this subclass. See how much mileage they get out of the feature! I definitely like the idea of using it on allies as well, though restraining your stabilized ally can be as much a penalty as a boon, so it sounds like a good trade-off. Hmm indeed!
RE: Celestial Fronds. Right on. Much better!
Thanks a ton Astromancer! I'll work on Weeping Heart more and once I have something I like I'll reshare with all the updates. :)
I love it !!
New version time! It took me a while to get back to this one, but I finally sat down last week and began to break down the Weeping Heart feature into stricter mechanics. I'd love your thoughts @Astromancer, and anyone else who's viewing this. :)
Change Notes
- Warding Willow: Adjusted the wording to improve clarity of what happens with the reaction, and what happens without.
- Weeping Heart: Replaced esoteric emotions with mechanical emotions giving a range of benefits/penalties.
- Avatar of Life; Celestial Fronds: Improved wording of the touch effect.
Circle of the Willow v.1.1
Druids of the Circle of the Willow are caretakers and devout worshipers of the life magic inherent in the sturdy tree. Devoting themselves to preserving life, they use the powers granted by the tree's grace in order to stave off death and cleanse the world of its otherworldly touch.
Many of these Druids live in, or near settlements, caring for willow groves where the honourable dead are buried to feed the roots and contribute to the circles of life. Some in these circles are more fate-touched than others, however, and hear a deeper calling whistling through the willow fronds. Those that listen find themselves encouraged to travel, and are granted immense power from the protective trees in return for everlasting devotion.
Warding Willow
At 2nd level you form your connection to the willow. You know that its roots run deep, and are with you always. When you would be reduced to 0 hit points you may use your reaction to expend one use of your Wild Shape ability and pull energy from the willow roots. If you do, you drop to 1 hit point, gain temporary hit points equal to your Druid level plus your Wisdom modifier, and gain resistance to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage as long as you have at least 1 temporary hit point from this feature.
If you choose not to use, or cannot use your reaction or expend a wild shape, the willow attempts to prevent your death. While unconscious, any attack against you that would be considered a critical hit is treated as a normal hit instead, reducing the number of failed death saving throws.
As you gain levels in this class, you gain additional resistances while you have temporary hit points from this feature. At 6th level you gain resistance to magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. At 10th level, you gain resistance to Poison, Fire and Cold damage. At 14th level you gain resistance to Necrotic damage.
Weeping Heart
When you reach 6th level you have embraced the heart of the willow, granting you the ability to impress emotions upon others. As an action you may target a creature within 30 feet of you that you can see that has an Intelligence score of 4 or higher, and choose one emotion from the list below. That creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your Druid spell save DC or else become affected by that emotional state for one minute. A creature may choose to fail this saving throw. The creature may attempt this saving throw again at the end of each of its turns, ending this effect on a success. You may use this feature a number of times per long rest equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum one).
Merciful Repose
At 10th level the willow whispers to you words against death, and implores you to enshrine life. Whenever you would kill a creature, you may instead call forth the fronds of the willow to protect it. If you do, the creature is stabilized and restrained.
Avatar of Life
At 14th level you have harnessed the true power of the willow. Once as an action you may choose one of the following options, the effects of which last for 1 minute.
Thorned Halo. A lilac aura surrounds you and empowers your attacks. You have advantage on attacks made with Natural Weapons. Whenever you hit a creature with an attack roll you deal additional damage equal to ½ your Druid level.
Celestial Fronds. A white aura surrounds you and wards away death. When you can cast a spell with a range of touch, you may target an ally within 15 feet of you. Whenever a creature regains hit points from a spell or feature you use, it regains additional hit points equal to ½ your Druid level.
Radiant Roots. A green aura surrounds you and eases the road ahead. Your speed is increased by 5 feet, and you gain a Burrowing speed equal to your walking speed. In addition, you ignore difficult terrain caused by plants.
You regain use of this feature when you complete a long rest.
Ah, you're quite right! Oversight of oversights. Should be a minute (still with repeating saves). I'll revise the post. Thanks Ssjcb1186! :)
This is pretty cool!
One thing that I noticed:
For the Weeping Heart mechanic, Curiosity gives advantage to perception OR investigation. I was just wondering who decides that - the Druid or the player/character it is used on?
Or, does it grant advantage with both abilities? ;)
Whoops, nope! Should be both-- That's an artifact from my first pass at the the "Curiosity" mechanic. Thank you for catching that!
Edit: Post has been edited now to reflect the correction. :)
This version is also now published on D&D Beyond. Future updates will be pushed directly to here.
I really like this version! (It has already been added to my collection!) I enjoy the different emotions and their effects. I am curious why Mirth uses a constitution saving throw instead of a wisdom saving throw. I would also include speaking in the saving throw. The hobgoblin captain's Leadership ability comes to mind as an ability I would think this feature would be able to stop.
Tooltips | Snippet Code | How to Homebrew on D&D Beyond | Subclass Guide | Feature Roadmap
Astromancer's Homebrew Assembly
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
Thanks Astromancer!
I picked Constitution with the thought of trying to physically restrain oneself from laughing once you've already started, as the creature has already failed the save to resist Mirth entirely, they just have the opportunity to save each time they try to cast a V spell.
However, I'll throw the speech bit in there. New version is up -- link in my signature!
I'm curious, how does Weeping Heart interact with races/creatures such as Elf who are immune/resistant to charm like effects? I get a Calm Emotions vibe from the ability and I'm just curious as to how you saw it interacting in comparison.
Interesting question!
And you got me: Definitely inspired by Calm Emotions! I basically wanted to do Calm Emotions, but the opposite.
The elf racial feature specifically refers to the charmed condition / advantage against them as opposed to charm-like effects, so I haven't built this with the intent that those play together. I would be interested in hearing a differing opinion though, if you have it.
The only real interaction I can see, is with the Gnome racial feature Gnome Cunning with it's advantage vs INT, WIS, CHA saving throws. There is a potential for Magic Resistance to work with it, but that's a fine line, it would depend on if this ability is considered magical.
The Elf, Barbarian Mindless Rage, and other creatures/abilities that make them resistant/immune to Charm/Fear do skirt the edge of this ability. Edit: Due to a recent find, it seems that there is no ambiguity, unless it's Charm, there's no interaction.
Overall, I don't think it's something to get very finicky about, just something that rolled through my mind. I'd end up tossing this one into the "DM's call" category.
Interesting find:
The following "charm" spells are unaffected by both charm immunity and fey ancestry: