Class is back in session. This week, we delve into the forest primeval and howl at the moon, issuing a prayer to Selûne in the tongue of beasts. Like all druids, those who gather in the Circle of the Moon protect the wilderness from those who would do it harm, or use it to harm others. They do so in their own unique way. They use the art of Wild Shape, which all druids possess in some form, has been made into a weapon by these druids, who use the ferocity of beasts rather than the power of magic to defend the natural world. Sharpen your claws and practice your roar; it’s time to learn about the druidic Circle of the Moon.
We’ve completed our first full rotation of the twelve classes, and exhausted all the content that the Basic Rules have to offer—as far as classes go, that is. This next wave of the Class 101 series will appraise every subclass within the Player’s Handbook and break down each subclass’s strengths, weaknesses, thematic elements, and everything else a player would want to know before playing that subclass. Because of this, you will need to own the Player’s Handbook (or purchase the subclass a la carte on the Marketplace) in order to make full use of this series.
Check out the other guides in the Class 101 series, like the broad overview of the druid class in Druid 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Channeling Nature’s Might, and Druid 101: Circle of the Land. If you’re interested in playing other classes, check out the entire Class 101 series.
Story of the Circle of the Moon
The moon shone overhead, bathing the druid in its silvery light. She strode across the salt flats, tasting the frigid air as it scoured the cracked ground beneath her feet. She stopped and slowly looked all around, seeing nothing but flat earth around her, and the tiny silhouettes of mountains encircling the plains in all directions. She knew, somewhere on this endless plain, the blue dragon Azulaskai had made his lair. She scowled and tugged on her braid in annoyance, vexed by the endless expanse before her.
“I had hoped to save this for the battle,” she mused. “But…” Without finishing her thought, the druid took off running. Her strides grew wider, first two, then four, then six, even ten feet apart as she bounded across the desert. She extended her arms and struck the ground with both feet, and sprung into the air. A shimmering cloud of silver mist shrouded her as she soared upward—then burst into faint wisps as a massive winged pterosaur, a quetzalcoatlus, emerged from within.
The druid—now in a beast form with a wingspan over thirty feet wide and a beak longer than her humanoid form was tall—soared over the salt flats. The moon reflected off of the shimmering feathers on the back of her wings, and her beady eyes scanned the plains. She opened her enormous beak and released a shrill, shuddering cry into the evening air. The cry rang like a bell, and then faded. Silence reigned.
And then, a flash of light. A tiny crackle of lightning on the surface of the ground. A tiny peal of thunder. The druid smiled to herself—not that her prehistoric beak allowed her to actually smile—and dove downward. Her quarry was close.
Circle of the Moon Features
The Circle of the Moon draws upon the magical and transformative powers of the moon itself to allow druids to take on powerful forms. Even when the moon hides from the sky, its power can always be felt. The druid gains access to four subclass features at 2nd, 6th, 10th, and 14th level. You can read all of the Circle of the Moon features in the Player’s Handbook. In summary, your subclass features allow you to:
- Adopt a combat wild shape, allowing you to use the Wild Shape feature more quickly and adopt stronger forms, and even magically heal yourself while in this form.
- Overcome your foes’ resistance to nonmagical damage while in Wild Shape.
- Transform into an elemental.
- Use your mastery of transformation to change your humanoid form’s features.
Benefits of the Circle of the Moon
At low levels, the Circle of the Moon allows druids to absorb incredible amounts of damage using their Wild Shape feature. A 2nd-level druid can transform into beasts with a challenge rating of 1 or lower, such as a brown bear or a dire wolf. Not only does this give them incredible offensive power, but this transformation also comes with (essentially) 34 to 37 free hit points. At 2nd level, a druid with 14 (+2) Constitution has about 16 hit points. A single use of Wild Shape (and don’t forget, a druid can use Wild Shape twice between short rests) essentially triples the druid’s maximum hit points.
Since your Wild Shape lasts for a minimum of 1 hour (a number of hours equal to half your druid level, that is), you can likely stay in Wild Shape for multiple combats, unless your form runs out of hit points. Since you can use this feature twice per short rest, most druids will be able to stay in beast form at almost all times during combat. And even if you do come close to running out of Wild Shape uses, you can you can burn spell slots to heal 1d8 damage per spell slot, so damage doesn’t knock you out of beast form. Even then, if you’re forced to rely on your humanoid form, you still have the spellcasting power of a druid to help you and your party.
Abilities like Primal Strike and Elemental Wild Shape help ensure that your transformations remain relevant, even as your enemies grow more challenging. Finally, though your Thousand Forms feature is a strange and surprising one, oddly disconnected from the other features of this largely combat-focused subclass, it’s a welcome boon in social situations.
Drawbacks of the Circle of the Moon
Unfortunately, the incredible staying power that Circle of the Moon druids possess at low levels drops off as they grow in level. Even though they remain incredibly durable, they’re no longer tripling their hit point maximum twice per short rest. Features that were incredibly useful, like being able to spend spell slots for hit points, dissolve into only having niche application—especially as high-level spells tend to be far more useful than simply dealing and taking damage. Likewise, despite the additional power of your Elemental Wild Shape, the number of interesting creatures to transform into begins to thin at higher levels, especially if you’re limited to beasts in the Monster Manual.
Remember; you can only transform into beasts that you’ve seen. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything contains a page of useful suggestions to help DMs adjudicate what beasts a druid may have seen at the start of a campaign, and you can keep track of the additional beasts you’ve seen over the course of play. You may have to ask your DM to include interesting beasts in their campaign so that you can transform into them.
Suggested Build
If you’re playing a Circle of the Moon druid, you should choose a race that grants you a bonus to Wisdom, like a wood elf or hill dwarf. Both of these races already have a natural connection to the land itself, and thematically match the class, making them a perfect fit! Likewise, races with bonuses you can assign to any trait, such as a variant human or a half-elf, also allow you to allocate your ability score bonuses as you see fit, while also letting you get some other useful traits, too, like extra skill proficiencies.
While in Wild Shape, you adopt the Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores of the creature you transform into. This can make it tempting to focus entirely on your mental ability scores, and let Wild Shape pick up the slack for your physical scores. This is usually a sound idea, especially if your campaigns often only have one or two large encounters, rather than several small ones, in between rests. Nevertheless, choosing a race that improves your Dexterity and Constitution isn’t a bad thing—there will be times in your adventuring career that you find yourself in combat with all your Wild Shape uses exhausted, so you can only rely on your own Armor Class and hit points to survive.
As usual, your character’s background is up to you. Many druids come from a hermit or outlander background, and live in relative isolation in the wild places of the world. But not all druids are the same. Perhaps you were a street urchin who fled from the streets of Waterdeep and were saved by a druidic master and taken to the heart of the High Forest where you were trained in the druidic arts—or so on. A character with a background studying animals, such as an entertainer that performed in the circus, could have an interesting reason to be familiar with many different types of animals.
Selecting EQUIPMENT when building a 1st-level druid will make your life easier, as most druids don’t have to worry too much about what equipment they carry. Fortunately, your spell selection is more important to your continued survival than your equipment selection, so just choose whatever tools you think would be useful.
Optional: Environment
If your gaming group owns a copy of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, what kind of biome your druid grew up in could play a role in what Wild Shape forms you know from the beginning of the game. If you don’t own this book, you and your DM can simply discuss what Wild Shape options you have access to starting at 2nd level. Your druid’s environment is described in chapter 1 of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and you can choose from any of the options listed.
Spells
You don’t choose your subclass until 2nd level, but you can still carve out your role in the party through your spell selection before you officially join the Circle of the Moon. Like a cleric, you have your entire class spell list available to you whenever you prepare spells at the start of the day. Nevertheless, when playing a druid, I like to have a typical spell list that my druid always has prepared—unless I specifically choose otherwise. This saves me the trouble of having to re-select all my spells at the start of each day. Since you will be doing most of your fighting in beast form, at least for the first several levels of your adventuring career, you’re safe to focus on learning spells that are useful outside of combat.
As a 1st-level druid, you know two cantrips and can prepare a number of 1st-level spells equal to 1 + your Wisdom modifier. Odds are, your Wisdom modifier will be either +2 or +3 right now, so you’ll be able to choose either three or four 1st-level spells whenever you complete a long rest. Even though your Wild Shape forms give you a lot of offensive power, you won’t be able to attack from range in those shapes, so you’ll want at least one offensive ranged cantrip, to use outside of beast form. Produce flame is a good choice, since it can serve as both offense and utility. Beyond this, your cantrips are simply a matter of preference, and almost any will serve you well. Druidcraft is another good first choice, since it lets you perform all manner of minor, “druid-y” tricks.
You can prepare any 1st-level spells from the druid spell list, but you can use this list of suggested spells to prepare an all-purpose spell loadout that will serve you in most circumstances. As you go on adventures and learn what dangers your character tends to face, you can personalize your spell loadout. Try to choose one spell labeled SUPPORT and two labeled UTILITY. If you have a high Wisdom score and can prepare additional spells, choose others of your choice. Note that this list only includes some spells from the Player's Handbook, so if you want to choose more unusual spells, or have other sources like Xanathar's Guide to Everything, you'll have to do a little self-directed research. This list is just here to get you started if this is your first time playing a Circle of the Moon druid.
Be warned that many druid spells require concentration, and you can only concentrate on one spell at once. Try to limit the number of concentration spells you prepare to no more than 1/3 of your spell loadout on any given adventuring day. To aid in this, all concentration spells on this list are listed as such.
- Animal friendship (DEFENSE/UTILITY)
- Charm person (SOCIAL)
- Cure wounds (SUPPORT)
- Detect magic (UTILITY)
- Entangle (DEFENSE; CONCENTRATION)
- Faerie fire (SUPPORT; CONCENTRATION)
- Fog cloud (DEFENSE; CONCENTRATION)
- Speak with animals (UTILITY)
Feats
At 4th level, you get to gain either an Ability Score Increase or a feat. Choosing an Ability Score Increase lets you increase one ability score by +2 (such as increasing your Wisdom score from 16 to 18) or increase two ability scores by +1 (like increasing your Wisdom from 15 to 16 and your Constitution score from 13 to 14). Increasing your ability scores makes you better at a wide variety of things; for instance, increasing your Wisdom score makes it harder for enemies to resist your spells, makes it easier for you to hit with your spells, and also makes you better at making Wisdom checks.
Feats, on the other hand, give you a special ability that could be more helpful in a specific circumstance, as opposed to the broad improvement that an Ability Score Increase could give you. Wisdom is your most important ability score, since it governs your spellcasting abilities. Once you’ve increased your Wisdom score to 20 (its maximum value), or even just to 18 (a pretty good value), you may want to choose a feat. You can choose any feat you want to support your character concept, but there are some feats that may be more useful to your character than others.
Note that all of these feats still apply to you while you’re using your Wild Shape. These feats include:
Dungeon Delver. If you find yourself going into dungeons a lot, this feat can save your life. Druids don’t typically get any class features that help them out against traps, so this can help you out when you’re wandering through dungeons in your humanoid form.
Grappler. Some beast forms make great use of grappling, especially at low levels. Beasts that can constrict, like the giant constrictor snake or swallow, like the giant toad, want to be able to grapple creatures in order to make full use of their powerful abilities.
Mobile. Being mobile while in Wild Shape is paramount, since you don’t have the ability to cast spells that will get you in and out of difficult situations. This feat goes a long way.
Observant. This feat is essentially half a feat, since its effects are minor, and you also gain a +1 bonus to Wisdom when you choose it. Since Wisdom is your key ability score, this +1 can help. Perception is also a crucial skill for just about anyone.
Sentinel. Since you’re a melee fighter while in Wild Shape, you can take this feat to become a powerful defender.
If you want more advice for building a druid, check out Druid 101. Have you ever played a Circle of the Moon druid? What advice would you give to players that want to make a character like this?
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, a member of the Guild Adepts, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and other RPG companies. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his fiancée Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
Longbow or heavy crossbow are only worth +1 damage over a shortbow or light crossbow. And you can play an elf and get longbow prof for free. The reach on a whip is nice, but worth burning an ASI for? I don't think so. Worth spending 300 hours downtime to learn? Maybe.
Hobgoblin race can choose a couple of martial weapon profs for free.
I brought up weapon master because someone else brought up grappler. And just like grappler, weapon master is a much-maligned feat. I also disagree with your assessment of feats and wild shape.
"You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so."
Assuming feats count as features, then all of mobile applies. The same goes for athlete, charger, dungeon delver, keen mind, lucky, mage slayer, martial adept, observant, savage attacker, skulker, tough, and probably more from the other sources. Grappler occupies a weird spot with multiattack and, arguably, not having the "arms" needed to properly grapple. But that's something worth talking over with your DM.
Sorry to hear you've had bad experiences with your shifty DM. But neither of those feats are bad, and that's a hill I've been willing to die on for years. Especially with how forgiving 5e can be. The trap options of yore simply don't exist like they used to.
Yes, all of that is true. That still doesn't mean it's a bad option.
This is really helpful, thank you. But even though hill dwarves are great mechanically its weird to consider then as a druid for roleplaying purposes.
Given the choice between +1 damage and +1 attack AND +1 damage, how can it NOT be a bad option?
Or indeed using a very scarce resource (ASIs) to acquire something that you can get with an unlimited resource (300 hours downtime).
Wild shape is explicitly not temporary hit points. You ARE the beast until are forced to deshape.
From wildshape:
You can stay in a beast shape for a number of hours equal to half your druid level (rounded down). You then revert to your normal form unless you expend another use of this feature. You can revert to your normal form earlier by using a Bonus Action on Your Turn. You automatically revert if you fall Unconscious, drop to 0 Hit Points, or die.
Your game Statistics are replaced by the Statistics of the beast, but you retain your Alignment, personality, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You also retain all of your skill and saving throw proficiencies, in addition to gaining those of the creature. If the creature has the same proficiency as you and the bonus in its stat block is higher than yours, use the creature's bonus instead of yours. If the creature has any legendary or Lair Actions, you can't use them.
From disintegrate:
A creature targeted by this spell must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the target takes 10d6+40 force damage. If this damage reduces the target to 0 Hit Points, it is disintegrated.
A disintegrated creature and everything it is wearing and carrying, except Magic Items, are reduced to a pile of fine gray dust. The creature can be restored to life only by means of a True Resurrection or a wish spell.
Zero hit points would turn you back to normal form, except that the spell specifically calls out 0 hp as a trigger for the spell's namesake effect. It doesn't say "kills the target " 0hp is a specific condition.
A barb with 150hp and 15 thp who was 0'd would also be dusted. Your example is irrelevant.
Read the entry for temporary hp, and then read all of wild shape. I'll help. Wild shape and temp hit points are entirely unrelated effects
Temporary Hit Points
Some spells and special abilities confer temporary hit points to a creature. Temporary hit points aren't actual hit points; they are a buffer against damage, a pool of hit points that protect you from injury.
When you have temporary hit points and take damage, the temporary hit points are lost first, and any leftover damage carries over to your normal hit points. For example, if you have 5 temporary hit points and take 7 damage, you lose the temporary hit points and then take 2 damage.
Because temporary hit points are separate from your actual hit points, they can exceed your hit point maximum. A character can, therefore, be at full hit points and receive temporary hit points.
Healing can't restore temporary hit points, and they can't be added together. If you have temporary hit points and receive more of them, you decide whether to keep the ones you have or to gain the new ones. For example, if a spell grants you 12 temporary hit points when you already have 10, you can have 12 or 10, not 22.
If you have 0 hit points, receiving temporary hit points doesn't restore you to consciousness or stabilize you. They can still absorb damage directed at you while you're in that state, but only true healing can save you.
Unless a feature that grants you temporary hit points has a duration, they last until they're depleted or you finish a long rest.
Wild shape:
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your action to magically assume the shape of a beast that you have seen before. You can use this feature twice. You regain expended uses when you finish a short or Long Rest.
Your druid level determines the Beasts you can transform into, as shown in the Beast Shapes table. At 2nd level, for example, you can transform into any beast that has a Challenge rating of 1/4 or lower that doesn't have a flying or swimming speed.
You can stay in a beast shape for a number of hours equal to half your druid level (rounded down). You then revert to your normal form unless you expend another use of this feature. You can revert to your normal form earlier by using a Bonus Action on Your Turn. You automatically revert if you fall Unconscious, drop to 0 Hit Points, or die.
While you are transformed, the following rules apply:
Find for me where it explicitly says "you gain temporary hit points" in wild shape. It doesn't.
The net function is similar to, but should absolutely not be confused with THP. You can still gain temp hp in wild shape form.
I prefer mobile and constitution resilient as feats. (Mobile at 4th level and res at lvl8). Reason is simple: never get to close to your opponent.
Another thing: the role of a moondruid changes during lieveling. Until lvl 4 you are the tank. After that you become a beast warrior who can be supportive in the battlefield. From level 5 on your dmg In beast form becomes less, but your supportive spells become better. Doing three or four time a little damage becomes very nice. At level 10 you create chaos on the battlefield with the elementals.a dip is considered from 13-16, but then the real shit happens.
As of multiclassing : a rogue is also very cool. It deepens your class in skills it is truly amazing.
A dire wolf moon druid proficient in perception is an amazing enemy-detecter. Big + perception, with advantage via keen smell/hearing is awesome, and you can sniff of listen for enemies in darkness, or if they’re invisible. Im the designated spotter in my group in its really fun, and quite useful
Look into 2 lvls of monk. Then you'll have higher AC in animal form, plus a higher movement speed. Perfect tracker. Plus you can hit twice outside of animal form if you need it. Or if you polymorph into a primate.
Whether the druid has a higher AC or not while in a wild shape depends both on their mental statistics and the Dexterity of the chosen beast. Under your proposed build, the druid/monk would need a 16 or better Wisdom in order to have just 15 AC as a Dire Wolf. But then you're delaying spellcasting and learning more powerful wild shapes for an arguably negligible build.
Yes, you could multiclass as a Monk for (maybe) 15 AC as a Dire Wolf or 13 AC as a Brown Bear. Or you could just stay a Druid and spend a 2nd level spell slot to cast Barkskin and have 16 AC in either form.
Please add Circle of the Moon to the Character builder
Circle of the Moon is a part of the D&D Beyond Character Builder. However, it is not a part of the Basic Rules. Just like all of the subclasses found in sources beyond the Basic Rules, you need to own that subclass in order to use it.
For example, the Circle of the Moon is found only in the Player's Handbook. If you've purchased the Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond, you can use the Character Builder to create a Circle of the Moon druid. Also, if you just want the Circle of the Moon druid subclass without purchasing the entire Player's Handbook, you can purchase that subclass a la carte on the Marketplace.
Finally, if you're in a campaign of someone with a Master Tier subscription, all players in that campaign can pool their resources to create characters. So, if your DM (or one of your fellow players) owns the Player's Handbook, you can create a Circle of the Moon druid in a campaign together with those players. I hope this explanation helps!
I have the players handbook in hardcopy, so I have to buy it again?
Yes, since currently there is no way to verify that you do actually own the print book. They have experimented with issuing online codes with print products (Essentials) and that may eventually become standard, but it's not rolled out to books yet, and is unlikely to be retroactive for technical reasons.
true its overpowered especially changing into elementals
It's not that overpowered. Heck, calling anything "overpowered" seems like an odd complaint at that point. Just reaching that high a level is an accomplishment. Let the players revel in it.
So many people choose Moon for the seemingly overpowered abilities that they forget about circle of the land.
What spell do I get if I were to choose "Circle of the moon?"