So I have been sort of creating my own homebrew world for a while now, researching many different parts of D&D lore as well as getting inspiration from outside the game itself. One of the concepts I came up with was creating a continent where natural beasts and magical constructs lived together as if they were one in the same, living in a sort of symbiotic harmony. So naturally I wanted to create a Druid circle that reflected this.

This is still a early draft of the Subclass and its one of my first homebrew subclasses too, so I'm sure it's really rough around the edges and I will need to fill out more of the lore fluff for it but I felt I had enough of a rough idea to try and get a bit of constructive feedback for it. So, here it is. 

Circle of the Living Machines

The Circle of Constructs is a rare and controversial circle of druids that accept the various inorganic creatures that seem to naturally inhabit places like the vast Forge Lands on the plane of Salvera, where mechanical trees grow and mechanical beasts both small and massive roam. Despite their unnatural origins, these creatures seem to live symbiotically with the natural world and primarily behave similarly to the organic creatures they are based on and this circle of druids aims to understand and protect these mechanical beasts.

These Druids have unlocked some of the secrets of these strange machines that seem to thrive in a manner not too different from their natural counterparts and have learned to harness the power to transform into them and experience life through their sensors.

Mechanical Wild Shape

At 2nd level, you have unlocked the ability to transform into mechanical versions of various beasts, from simple stone constructs to beasts of iron, steel, and even other more precious inorganic materials. When you wild shape into a beast, you count as a construct instead of a beast and you gain the following features. 

• You don't need to eat, drink, or breathe and you are immune to diseases.
• You don't need to sleep and don't suffer the effects of exhaustion due to lack of rest, and magic can't put you to sleep.
• Your wildshape form's AC increases by 2.

Circle Forms

The rites of your circle grant you the ability to transform into more dangerous mechanical animal forms. Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Wild Shape to transform into a beast (Construct) with a challenge rating as high as 1 (you ignore the Max. CR column of the Beast Shapes table, but must abide by the other limitations there).

Starting at 6th level, you can transform into a beast with a challenge rating as high as your druid level divided by 3, rounded down.

Primal Upgrade

Starting at 6th level, your attacks in beast form count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

You also gain immunity to poison damage and to the poisoned condition.

Built of Tougher Stuff

At 10th level, you gain immunity to the charmed, frightened and exhaustion conditions and your AC increase goes up to a +4 when you are wildshaped.  

You also gain certain properties associated with different inorganic materials when you transform. When you use your wildshape feature, you can choose one of the following material shapes and gain the benefits associated with it. 

Adamantine Shape. Acid resistance and your attacks deal double damage to objects and structures.

Gem Shape. Force resistance and once every short or long rest you can cause light to bounce off your crystalized body. As an action you can force creatures within 10 feet of you and can see you to make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or be blinded until the start of the creature's next turn. This only works in normal lighting conditions or if a light source is near you.

Gold Shape. Fire resistance and once every short or long rest, you can exhale fire in a 15-foot cone as an action. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC, taking 6d8 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Iron Shape. Lightning and thunder resistance and you are immune to the paralyzed condition.

Mithral Shape. Radiant and necrotic resistance and any movement you possess increases by 15ft

Platinum Shape. Advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Silver Shape. Cold resistance and your attacks are treated as silvered and deal extra damage to lycanthropes and undead equal to half your druid level.

Stone Shape. Resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

Steel Shape. Psychic resistance and once every short or long rest, when you attack a target that’s your size or smaller they must make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC or be knocked prone.

Forged Sentinel

At level 14, your AC increase goes up to a +6 in your wildshape form. 

You also can choose from two of the material shape options for your beast form whenever you transform. 

I can understand the confusion and I have been toying with the idea of changing up the name to something like “The Circle of Living Machines” or something along those lines. 

Constructs are the closest creature type to what these machines are and I’m still coming up with exactly what their origins are so for now Constructs are what they are.

Edit: But yeah, I know this will be a weird class that doesn’t fit with a majority of campaign settings but I still figured I’d see what others thing and get their input.

Did anybody forget about the metal gorgon this seems like a good fit, because perhaps there are more like that mechanical bull creature.

Unless I'm wrong and that the gorgon isn't a mechanical bull...

Yes, but it should be a construct because it is basically an iron golem bull creature

I feel like the Gorgon is more of a magical bull with iron armor plating like Lyxen says.

The machines of my world (which is where the flavor of this subclass comes from) are more like normal construct in that they are fully inorganic and run on magic with some sort of primal soul energy but they can basically reproduce by "ingesting" metals, magical energies and other materials to essentially build new versions of the same base creature within themselves that then grow by "ingesting" the same materials to build themselves up to their adult forms. 

This is still just concept stuff that I am creating and I'm hoping to add more lore info to this subclass to help give people better context. 

Maybe give some backstory to how the beasts were first created? I'm thinking dwarves and magicians.

It's an Iron Bull monster, otherwise my life was a lie.

Quote from Nikoli_Goodfellow_King_Of_Random >>

It's an Iron Bull monster, otherwise my life was a lie.

 im reading the book it's says natural armor

Natural armor indicates it was born with the metal plates

i would say it was somehow

Ok I put the question in general discussion... But I still think, contrary to everything else, Gorgons are constructs

Well, I changed up the title and am in the works of writing a brief synopsis on the Forge Lands to give a bit of context. I just wish it was easier to put what's in my head onto paper. -_-'

pretty cool

Quote from badbovine >>

Love the idea! Question: why does the Mithral form provide resistance to radiant and necrotic, when it could (more aptly) provide resistance to physical damage types?

 i mean as it is this is already an really strong subclass, being mostly an better form of the moon druid, giving it resistance to bludgeoning piercing and slashing damage, the ones most commonly encountered in the game would make this subclass waaaay too strong.

also fun fact, according to the dungeon master's guide increasing a creature's armor class by 2 increases its defensive challenge rating by one step, this means that by the time you reach 10th level your beast form's challenge rating will already be one point higher than the beast form of the moon druid.

Also just like in general this just feels like a stronger version of the moon druid, and like other people on the internet will tell you the moon druid was already very strong, so strong in fact that people think it is very overpowered. Yes your robo version does still need an action to turn into beast shape and will thus sacrofice one attack/ multiattack action per turn compared to an moon druid, and yes the moon druid gets a small handful of things it can do that this thing cannot, but the things this thing can do seem to outperform the moon druid defensively if not also offensively

Also typically speaking adamantine armor turns all critical hits into normal hits, that could be more appropriate than resistance to acid damage for adamantine shape

also please make the different forms more limited, like you can only turn into a special material form twice per long rest or it uses up two wild shape uses, it is very strong

also keep in mind wild shape only lasts for a number of hours equal to your druid level, a lot of your features seem to assume you will be perpetually transformed

Quote from Nikoli_Goodfellow >>

Did anybody forget about the metal gorgon this seems like a good fit, because perhaps there are more like that mechanical bull creature.

Unless I'm wrong and that the gorgon isn't a mechanical bull...

 you are wrong gorgons are not mechanical bulls they aren't even constructs they are bull like monstrosities that are coated in metal plates