Circle of Tranquility

Notes

When I think of druids I think of people who love nature, which naturally makes me think of hippies and peace. The problem is that this isn't really a niche that's been utilized, even though I think it could be a fun area to play with, so I've created it with the hopes that this subclass can fill in a few holes for the people who are interested in role playing this aspect of druids. This subclass was heavily influenced by the Way of Tranquility subclass for Monks from the Unearthed Arcana, but I wanted to make it more Druidic and give it more of a focus on Wild Shape to increase its utility both in and out of combat.

As far as I know, it's not too often that a druid actually makes full use of the duration for their Wild Shape ability, anytime they do is usually either because they're travelling or for flavour, most uses are saved for combat, which they either never use because it's not very effective in combat, or they only transform for a small part of the combat. The Wild Shape ability is simply not very useful in combat, it's more for utility purposes which is what the Enhanced Wild shape Feature tries to focus on. This feature will let you transform for twice as long and give you an extra use, so it's much more effective for travelling and flavor, giving it much greater utility, and acts as the crux for the features of this subclass. I also wanted to try and make the Wild Shape a little more useful in combat by giving it access to cantrips, Druids only get a few cantrips, and a lot of them are utility based so I don't think it's too much, but it does give them access to some different attacks and utility for support while changed, both in and out of combat so it is a nice edition, however, I only really added it because I needed something to tie in with the final ability otherwise it would have just came out of nowhere.

The next ability, Path of Serenity, focuses on the peace loving side of druids that acted as the inspiration for the subclass. It's base form was inspired by the ability Path of Tranquility from the Monk class Way of Tranquility, though I manipulated it to work as an ability rather than a spell allowing it to be activated in Wild Shape.  Then I realised I wanted to tie it in with the ability some more and encourage players to turn into animals more often, so I made it a little more powerful while Wild Shape is active.  This also helps to make being a beast more viable in combat as now you're harder to hit, enemies need to roll through your spell save DC and your AC just to hit, which only seems natural, after all, who would want to actively beat up a cute little harmless animal.

Emissary of Peace gives a greater focus on the Peace loving aspect and was stolen directly from the Way of Tranquility Monk subclass.  It allows you to more easily talk your way out of combat and make peace.  It's pretty straight forward and ties in with the overall class pretty well, and depending on whether you pick Persuasion or Performance, it could work in either Human or Beast form.

Tranquil Aura Is primarily a healing ability, something that will help towards making everybody feel better.  I thought it was necessary to give this class a healing ability because it seemed to fit the theme, originally I was going to give the Healing Hands ability from the Way of Tranquility Monk class, but that seemed a little too powerful.  Instead I gave them a healing ability that was useless in combat (1hp/minute) but still makes everyone within 30 ft feel better, friend or foe, so long as they aren't hostile.  I thought this was a little more fitting than a pool of healing energy and along with it, while they are within 30 ft its much harder for them to become scared or sick, they just feel healthier and more comfortable.  At this point you could stay in Wild Shape for a maximum of 30 hours, which is more than enough to stay in a form indefinitely if you wanted, so while in this form at max you can heal everyone 1, 440 hp every day, it lets everyone passively heal while they are travelling, and they can heal an additional 30 hp during short rests if they need it, so it's still a little powerful but it's more situational.

Magical Beasts is a lesser version of the Beast Spells ability you get as a Druid at level 18.  This whole class has been focused on giving the Wild Shape ability greater utility so there's no hesitation to use it and doing so in a manner that embraces a more peaceful based play style, and there's no greater utility it could have than the ability to cast spells, sure this ability will be completely overshadowed in 4 levels, but waiting till level 18 is a bit late game for such a useful ability that practically transforms the Wild Shape ability, so I wanted to give them a small taste of the power a little earlier on.

Summary

Level 2

• get 1 additional use of wild shape
• use wild shape for twice as long
• Use cantrips as an animal
• have enemies make a wisdom save before attacking you

Level 6

• Advantage on charisma checks to employ peace
• proficiency in either persuasion or performance

Level 10

• Healing Aura 30 ft (1hp/minute) gives advantage against being frightened or poisoned, works on all non-hostile creatures while an animal

Level 14

• can cast 3rd level spells as an animal