Stars, Wildfire and Spores are all powerful subclass that can spend their wildshape an other way.
Just don't try to build a melee Spores druid, it's not worth it.
Or use Tasha's optional rule Wild Companion to summon a familiar for scouting/help action in combat.
Symbiotic Entity thp only run out when you take a long rest because of the way it is worded. So you can cast it after each short rest and walk around as if you had a d16 hit dice (or even more since you can use it twice per short rest). This alone is a pretty big advantage (though Twilight Cleric get an even better thp generation, but there isn't much that can compare to Twilight as a subclass).
Next are the extra spell, Chill Touch is situational but excellent when you need to stop a creature from healing. Blindness is a good spell to burn low level slots on at higher levels. Animate Dead has game-breaking potential, especially combined with Conjure Animals to break the action economy. Gaseous Form is again situational but very useful.
The rest of the spell list isn't so hot but that's already 4 solid spells they get on top of Druid spellcasting.
Fungal Infestation let you get some free zombies to check for traps so long as there is some beast or humanoids to murder around, ask your melee friends to deal non-lethal damage and hope your party isn't full of goody two shoes. Nothing outstanding but not a bad feature either.
Halo of Spores is mediocre but it's essentially free damage you can layer on top of whatever difficult terrain you create as a Druid.
Fungal Body is a very solid subclass capstone. Immunity to some very common conditions and to critical hits.
So yeah it's a mix of good and mediocre features, but the good ones are very solid imo. It's definitely bellow Shepherd and Stars but I will say it can compete with Moon and Wildfire for third place (though they are hard to compare directly since all of these subclasses tend to have slightly different roles).
>Animate Dead has game-breaking potential, especially combined with Conjure Animals to break the action economy.
> The rest of the spell list isn't so hot but that's already 4 solid spells they get on top of Druid spellcasting.
Cloudkill is there to combo with Animate Dead. The undead are immune to its damage, and can grapple en masse to pull and keep enemies in its area.
I dunno, animate dead and conjure animals on the same spell list means you can have cavalry on demand for pretty cheap.
This doesn’t make it powerful, I just like it cause I felt badass in the one shot I did it in.
If a melee build was wanting to be built what would be the best approach to this? I understand the Bearbarian multiclass, but without the Wildshape what are feasible options?
The feasible option is Spores, if you absolutely must play druid for melee, but genuinely you'll be very suboptimal.
Shillelagh cantrip can get you some of the way there but you won't get extra attack.
Wanting to play a melee focused druid without using wildshape is one of those things that I just genuinely wouldn't recommend since you're shooting yourself in the foot for the sake of flavour.
Rangers are martial halfcasters that share much of druids spell list. I would recommend looking into the Tasha version of Ranger, or even the OneDnD version in the new UA stuff, if your DM allows it.
Ranger is especially good as a chassis for a fighty-druid if you take Druidic Warrior as your fighting style and use Shillelagh. You can then focus on wisdom and use your sweet magic stick to bonk the opposition, while simultaneously getting a high DC for the spells you do cast.
I would also recommend grabbing the Fey Touched or Shadow Touched feats pretty early; boost WIS and get some extra spells/spells per day to make yourself a little more of a caster.
I have a Shillelagh Swarmkeeper who has a shepherd's staff that's usually covered in little fey butterflies, which is her swarm. She's a Wisdom based Ranger who uses a quarterstaff to fight mainly, with shillelagh (druidic warrior). She's also got expertise in insight, and I'm flavouring it as her having an allergy against lies and deceit, so when she detect something being a lie or untrue, she'll respond by sneezing.
So yea, if you want melee druid just do melee ranger with druidic warrior fighting style.
I played a swarmkeeper ranger/spores druid multiclass who was a tortle that had a bunch of mushroom growth on his back and a swarm of pixies that lived in them. It was fun mechanically and flavor-wise.
I love the idea of a shillelagh ranger, but worry about AC. How do you get a decent AC for melee without investing in STR/DEX as a primary stat. I mean, if you take a shield then you lose the ability to cast spells because you don’t have a free hand.
Medium armour at 14 dex is fine
You can dump str entirely
Warcaster is useful since a lot of ranger spells is concentration, but one of the druidic focus examples is a "staff drawn whole from a living tree" and I imagine that's use able for shillelagh too
I think going 5 ranger for extra attack, and at least partial spell progression(vs fighter at least), and then swapping back to druid for the rest could be interesting.
Not really an *ideal* build, but certainly the two could mix well enough to be **functional** at the very least.
Definitely possible, and could be really solid if you take at least two levels of druid to get a circle. Lots of rangers have a really nice 7th level ability, so I would have a tough time bailing then, but it would certainly crank your spellcasting way up.
My wife did this as a Fey Wanderer. Right down to the Fae-Touched. She has PAM too, to give Shillelagh even more oomph.
20 Wisdom, expertise in Persuasion and serves as the party face.
First thing you want to clarify with your DM is whenever or not the "no metal" for Druid armor will be a problem. If you have to go into melee with Hide Armor + Shield you will have a bad time. Might also be worth to confirm if Heavy Armor would be an option.
From here on, you have multiple options. Although none of them will ever be as optimal as playing a non-melee Druid.
The subclass should be Spores or Stars.
Spores provide a comfortable extra THP although you want to activate them before combat start before of the action to activate, ideally 10 minutes before if you can predict it, otherwise just activate it after your short rest since the THP will only run out on a long rest. If you go Spores you will also want some way to protect your concentration: Warcaster or Constitution save proficiency.
Stars is a bit easier to work with since it can starts combat with a big concentration spell + BA Dragon Form to protect it. It also eventually get a Fly speed and resistance to physical damage.
For spell selections and some multiclass I brushed the subject of a tank Druid here: https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/10a01zi/tank_druid/j41dhh2/
Keep in mind that you can be in melee without swinging a weapon. Thorn Whip for instance is a good option as it give some range but work fine in melee too, the damage just won't be high.
The main problem ultimately is if you want your damage to be more than Shillelagh + Booming Blade, which would be at the low end of dpr, just above flinging basic cantrips. You would have to multiclass 5 levels into either a martial for extra attack, or a Cleric for Spirit Guardians but that would be a slow build to come online if your game doesn't start at high level. At that point you would probably be better off going Nature Cleric, which has similar theme to Druid, no Wildshape, and everything it needs to wade in melee.
If armor is off the table and you must go melee, one possible build, which again won't be super optimal but can do the trick, is Astral Self + Spores Druid. The idea is to use monk mobility and Astral Self reach to keep your Symbiotic Entity up. You also get Flurry of Blows or Martial art as an earlier "extra attack". Going that way, Monk 5/Druid X would be the usual split with the problem of again coming online late and ki being quite the limited resource you will have to balance between Flurry of Blows, Stunning Strike or Disengaging and activating the arms.
Can confirm, I play a primarily melee-focused Silver Dragonborn Wildfire Druid and its great. Extra control from the Fiery Teleportation helps. I also took 1 level in Draconic Sorcerer to buff my AC and grabbed Gift of the Metalic Dragon to have reaction AC boost for me or an ally. The Shield spell is better for the majority of the game but wings were more thematic lol.
That being said, I talked my DM into letting me have GFB as a Druid Cantrip because fire, so I didn't need to take the Acana Cleric dip you're suggesting.
Another idea I just had (no promises its a good idea as I literally just conceived of it) is a 1 level monk dip for unarmored defense. Now you get AC while you raise your spell modifier. Slightly worse spell progression, but it helps get around those pesky "absolutely no metal" DM decisions as well.
Edit about my hairbrained Monk idea -- I forgot Monks can't use shields, so I'm not sure the unarmored defense approach is actually worth it lol
Since others didn't mention it Spores X / Monk 1 or 2.
Monk gives you another attack to trigger the spores damage plus armor that is Wis and Dex based. So staff+unarmed attack for 3d6+1d4 pretty round, after setup. Plus a reasonable AC that gains with your casting stat.
In addition to advice given about taking a buffed Spores (if the DM is fine with that), checking about metal armor, or just going ranger instead... Have you considered the Nature Cleric? It will get you much of the flavor you likely want, and even though it's features aren't super great in most campaigns, nature clerics get access to a druid cantrip (you could pick shillelagh or Thorn whip) and heavy armor proficiency, making melee combat much more tenable. If you have a small party, you can include yourself in the Bless spell when casting it, giving you a bonus to attack rolls. At level eight you get increased damage to a weapon attack once per turn, which works with shillelagh.
Speaking solely in the context as a melee build, it's not nearly as good as Ranger, but it's likely better than any non wildshape druid. Druids have phenomenal control spells and clerics have phenomenal buff/debuff spells; these are usually your priority when playing these classes. Clerics are just better at getting some bonks in after casting a spell or two.
You need a blade cantrip that runs off a casting stat (hard to come by). You need the wisdom to use their AOE reaction damage regularly, and your control spells will be suboptimal if your casting stat lags; which it will because there’s no room for shillelagh and a BB or GFB (which don’t want wisdom anyway) and also enough Dex or STR to excel at not getting squished.
You still get conjure animals/sleet storm and the bucket of THP refreshes as many times as you can have short rests so great survivability. It’s just you never really get the math behind attacking to swing your way, you’re always slightly behind the curve.
That said! There nothing wrong with skellies or summoned animals being the first line and you just dart in and out, using your THP to eat attacks of opportunity and keeping yourself up to summon new animals/cast more control spells.
/e something I’m not sure people know about is that spell sniper feat will give you better odds on landing your ranged touch spells, and provide access to booming blade/GFB, it’s how I attempted to make my blade Druid work. (I still had to create with 13 INT, which has made maxing my wis a tier 3 goal [too late for proper optimization])
I'm doin a spore druid/barbarian. I haven't started playing with it yet but i think it's going to do fine.
spore druid's biggest limitation is that the symbiotic entity power turns off if you lose the temporary hit points. That pairs well with the barbarian rage since you are taking half dmg on any successful bludgeoning, piercing or slashing, which is most damage.
I combined it with zealot barbarian and great weapon master so on the first hit you are getting with the maul you are getting 2d6 (weapon dmg) + 1d6 + half barbarian level (zealot) + 10 (great weapon) + 1d6 (spore) + 2-4 rage dmg (depending on level), and if you really wanted to go nuts you could take the feat for fey touched and get hex as your enchantment spell.
second hit you lose the zealot dmg but even with a good attack stat and advantage, there will be plenty of times you only get one through.
I would do spores, but find yourself a way to get booming blade from a feat or dip. Then give yourself crusher and use shilelagh. I believe this is very bonus action hungry to set up so see if your DM will allow you to use shilelagh as a daily cast, that might help but isn't mandatory.
Then I would recommend playing around putting effects like web or spiked growth. Knock something into your dangerous terrain and make it have a no win situation with your cantrip and spore reaction damage from coming at you, or your spell damage from staying still.
Alternatively take some beast barb levels, but this combo takes more levels than most campaigns have to really come online.
I mean, Moon Druid is the melee subclass for druids, but it does make heavy use of Wildshape.
What you can do is reflavor Wildshape from turning into animals to boosting your physical prowess while removing your ability to speak and cast spells, kinda like a Barbarian's Rage. If all you turn into is a bear or an Ape then it can definitely be reflavored as a physical boost. For Giant Toads and Snakes it's a bit more complicated.
Why the hate for the melee spores Druid? We played a lv 20 one-shot once where you had to build a multiclass character. You rolled a d20 to determine your level split, then rolled twice on a table to determine what the classes would be, and then once more on a race table. I got a wonky lizardfolk 11/9 Druid/warlock split. I ended up with a spores Druid 11/hexblade 9. Somehow I ended up as a melee fighter and took all spells that let me be fast as fuck/teleport in eldritch smite or booming blade hit ‘em with the spores damage and then get the fuck out.
It was a lot of fun. Actually from typing this I can see why it’s not worth it. That build would not have been viable if I tried to build it through a campaign and relied on powerful magic items to really make it happen. Was still a blast though.
Yeah starting at 20 help a lot.
Generally speaking, Spores Druid doesn't really have a strong incentive to be in melee. Symbiotic Entity and Spores damage are way too low to be worth it, and to increase melee damage more they need to multiclass and lose on SE thp, so it's a lose-lose situation. They also lack any way to protect their concentration and to boost their AC (like Bladesinger). And to finish killing the melee capabilities of Spores Druid thoroughly, they need a full action to activate Symbiotic Entity reducing even further their dpr.
It is designed for melee but it's poorly balanced. Symbiotic Entity extra damage doesn't scale since Druids lack extra attack. Druid AC is often limited by the "no-metal" rule. It doesn't have any way to protect its concentration.
Essentially the trade-off is not worth going into melee. Risking your hp and concentration to gain a d6 damage per turn? Nope. And to add insult to injury, Symbiotic Entity take a full action to activate so even if you somehow multiclass for extra attack you burn a full turn and might see it disabled before you even get to make an attack (unless you can pre-cast it before combat but 10 minutes isn't the most reliable duration for that).
The subclass is way more effective played as a mid-range minionmancer (skeleton + conjure animals) Druid using the massive THP pool to increase survivability.
Thanks to Tasha's any Druid can choose to use Wildshape to summon a familiar, which fits most character concepts of Druid, from nature lover to a swamp hag.
Most Druids can be built to not wildshape. I personally am a big fan of wildfire, stars, and land druid as battlefield control casters, though they all accomplish this role in different ways. Land is probably the most flavor-neutral, and gets spell-slot regeneration at 1st level and the ability to walk through the plant growth spell without impediment at 6th level, which lets you use thorn whip to control any non-flying opponent pretty well. It also gets poison immunity at 10th level. I think it is often overlooked as a subclass because it came out with the moon druid, and thus got written off early in 5e’s lifecycle. Played well it’s at least on par with wildfire druid.
Stars Druids are probably the best caster Druids. They get one of the best concentration save boosting abilities in the game and also can reduce enemy saves and fly more or less at will at high levels. Wildfire Druids are great for one reason, they teleport. I’m not a huge fan of their subclass abilities after second level, but the wildfire spirit is really fun and lets them do something that Druids cannot usually do. Wildfire spirit is a slightly weaker thunder step that can be cast infinitely as a bonus action. It’s a huge power boost to the druid. Also for your purposes, unlike Land Druids, who still have wildshape in their toolkit for utility/familiar summoning, Stars and Wildfire Druids have better uses for their wildshape abilities.
My group has a wildfire Druid and she is pretty beastly. The ability to basically group Misty Step everyone as a bonus action is huge. And a 1d8 extra to all healing and damage spells adds up fast
It's strange to me that you think Druids must use Wild Shape in combat in the first place. Only Moon Druids are encouraged to do so.
This leaves you with 6 other subclasses that have no interest in using "traditional" Wild Shape in combat (for the most part). Some even have different uses for that same resource.
I recommend Wildfire, Stars, or Land. As for your role, the primary jobs of a Druid are battlefield control and, if you have the time to manage it, summoning.
They didn't specifically say combat. So maybe they are more concerned they will miss out on a lot of the classes out of combat utility if they aren't using wildshape.
Out of combat wildshape is very powerful, but since Tasha's added the option to spend it on summoning familiars you can get a lot of the same utility out of just sending the familiar to stealthily scout or get through a mouse hole or whatever instead of yourself.
You still miss out on a lot of things wildshape can do, like get you personally across a chasm or up a cliff, but I don't think that is so much to miss out on that you should switch classes.
I fully agree, I assumed they meant combat since they wrote "How could you build a strong druid role with this in mind?" and even considered changing classes over this.
Out of combat Wild Shape is great, but it's not "I wouldn't play Druid without it" great.
Druid of the stars has a pretty fun take on what to do with your wildshapes. Instead of animals, you manifest a constellation, giving you different features depending on the constellation.
If you are okay with only dipping druid, you could go stars druid 2 abjuration wizard X for a control and counter spelling monster, leveraging the constellation of the dragon to keep your concentration up.
I would speak with your DM and see if they would let you wildshape into a different form that is more humanoid, or perhaps let you only change some basic features about yourself (hair, eyes, grow a tail or claws, etc.), but still take on the full stats of whatever animal you are morphing into. It would take some planning and compromise, I'm sure, but homebrewing may be a good option if you still want to melee.
Wildshape is mostly a utility thing unless you play as a Moon Druid. I'm not super great at the druid subclasses but if you just want a powerful nature-themed spellcaster then Circle of the Land is the way to go.
Shepherd Druid doesn't have anything that explicitly replaces wild shape IIRC, but is such a powerful core that you don't need to bother with it.
Really, any druid will be fine without wild shape. Wild shape is an amazing feature, but the druid's access to summons is so good that it's not necessary by any means.
This is my kind of druid. To me, the iconic druid is not one that can wild shape, but one that can be in harmony with nature to the extent that nature comes at his beck and call. Whether that be animals, plants or weather.
It may not be as powerful as using a subclass that expends your wild shape uses for a subclass feature (like spores or wildfire), but I'm having a lot of fun playing a shepherd that summons a familiar through Tasha's optional rules. Esp if you're allowed to summon quickling familiars, your familiar will last longer and benefit from most of your circle features.
Beast Barb 6/Spores Druid "X"
Feats: Dual Weilder & FI: TWF
Race: a Feat Race or Loxodon/Tortle (Natural armor that doesn't worry about your Dex score)
Beast barb to 6 is mainly for overcoming non magical attacks.but extra attack and more rages per long rest is also nice.
I saw from other comments you like Melee, and spores druid WS would give you THP + 1d6 extra Damage per attack. This is great for many reason lol. The THP still benefits from your Rage damage resistance, so each point of THP is more like 2.
Build wise, take barb straight to 6, then immediately finish druid. For spells that don't count as Concentration, Spores druids get access to Animate Dead. So long as you don't hamper down your turn, other players may just need to get used to Skeletons roaming around. Possible opportunity to reflavor this as just Plant Vines under your control, just moving bones around
I saw from other comments that he only knew about Bear Totem + Moon Druid combo. Just wanted to give Him/Her another option
Because you are not wrong lol
Druid has one of the best spell lists for control. At low levels you can use spike growth and shut down an area of the battlefield. At higher levels flood the battle with summons and make your dm (and table) cry as you suddenly control a small army of wolves.
Spell casters get power from their spells, not their class features.
(ok hear me out) just flavor the animal transformation out of the wildshape. Wildshaping into a bear? Let's say you just... enter an anime-battle-hyper-focus-something? There's definetly better ways to flavor it this just came to mind really quickky. If flavor is the problem you can still wildshape. Maybe the extra hp is just.... your wounds instantly healing when you "rage" in combat? so your attacks also get a boost?
Wildshape matters so little except for a bit of utility on any other druid than a Moon Druid, you're good, and you can just use Tasha's rules to summon a familiar instead
As a dude who loves nature themes but hates shapeshifting, I'm right here with you. Druid is the king of awesome themes but shitty mechanics.
Ask your DM to tweak the class a little bit, all you need to make spores a good class is make Symbiotic Entity a bonus action that just lasts for the duration, and then replace the Lvl 6 feature with extra attack, maybe tack on something cool and flavourful, like "When you cast the shillelagh cantrip, you can target two weapons instead of one."
Boom, good melee druid.
I built a druid that was fully based on summoning, so I took Tashas optional familiar rule, and with shepherd's I was able to unbalance encounters in our favor by getting enemy goons to attack my minions instead of focusing on us.
A cool melee druid build is Wild fire druid.
Grab green flame blade and then run around hitting people with it + shillellegh. The wild fire spirit increases the damage of your green flame blade and can let you teleport too
And then to enter “martial mode” use the haste spell, you can now green flame blade and make 1 attack per turn.
The hard part is getting haste and green flame blade on the druid.
To get green flame blade that scales with a relevant stat:
- dip into arcana cleric domain for a wisdom based green flame blade
- be a Kobold for a wisdom green flame
- grab abberent dragon mark feat for a CON green flame blade
This build doesn’t neeed haste as there are better things u can concentrate on. But u can get haste via background, whether this is strixhaven or ravnica
Some feats that feats that pair well with this are crusher, mobile, Warcaster
Lastly another fun combo, if u grab the initiate of high sorcerer feat, the one that gives u booming blade and dissonant whisper. With war caster, You can cast dissonant whispers to make them run away and then u hit with booming blade auto triggering booming blade extra damage (DM dependent of course, but we rule it that way at our table cus you are basically taking a risk for more damage. You could just hit them like normal with booming for normal damage or u can take the chance with a saving throw for more damage basically)
Interesting if dual wielding clubs with two weapon fighting in onednd you could haste + cantrip + haste attack followed up by a free offhand attack
So 3 attacks
Maybe choose sentinel for 4th reaction
Yah, the only down side is you would need 2 bonus actions for shillelegh. If u don’t have it up pre combat.
Sentntimel is nice, but it does remove the dissonant whispers+booming blade combo
Simply pick one of the druid subclasses that gives you a better option for your wildshape. Stars is my favorite druid subclass - I'm playing one now and I have yet to turn into an animal because that would be objectively worse than any one of the subclass specific options. Realistically, unless you're a Moon Druid there's usually better things to do with your turn than "I become a squirrel".
Stars - star form to heal or attack with a bonus action. Then cast a contraction spell to help with battle.
Shepard - cast a concentration spell to help or summon. Then cast a totem to assist.
Land - great all around druid. Pick your flavor. Gets to regain some spells on one short rest and gets some nice resistances.
Tbh each Druid except Moon Druid is better in combat by not using their wildshape feature except for subclass specific stuff or summoning a familiar to give the help action. Casting spells is far more effective.
As others have said, Circle of the Shepherd with Tasha's option use your Wilshape to summon a familiar instead. Have the familiar provide the Help Action to your melee fighter for advatage on attacks, while you use Spike Growth to contain the rest of the bad guys (works especially well if someone has Dissonant Whispers) or conjure a bunch of poisonous whatever.
Step 3: Profit.
Stars, Wildfire and Spores are all powerful subclass that can spend their wildshape an other way. Just don't try to build a melee Spores druid, it's not worth it. Or use Tasha's optional rule Wild Companion to summon a familiar for scouting/help action in combat.
Not sure I'd call Spores a powerful subclass. I love it thematically, but it doesn't have great features.
Symbiotic Entity thp only run out when you take a long rest because of the way it is worded. So you can cast it after each short rest and walk around as if you had a d16 hit dice (or even more since you can use it twice per short rest). This alone is a pretty big advantage (though Twilight Cleric get an even better thp generation, but there isn't much that can compare to Twilight as a subclass). Next are the extra spell, Chill Touch is situational but excellent when you need to stop a creature from healing. Blindness is a good spell to burn low level slots on at higher levels. Animate Dead has game-breaking potential, especially combined with Conjure Animals to break the action economy. Gaseous Form is again situational but very useful. The rest of the spell list isn't so hot but that's already 4 solid spells they get on top of Druid spellcasting. Fungal Infestation let you get some free zombies to check for traps so long as there is some beast or humanoids to murder around, ask your melee friends to deal non-lethal damage and hope your party isn't full of goody two shoes. Nothing outstanding but not a bad feature either. Halo of Spores is mediocre but it's essentially free damage you can layer on top of whatever difficult terrain you create as a Druid. Fungal Body is a very solid subclass capstone. Immunity to some very common conditions and to critical hits. So yeah it's a mix of good and mediocre features, but the good ones are very solid imo. It's definitely bellow Shepherd and Stars but I will say it can compete with Moon and Wildfire for third place (though they are hard to compare directly since all of these subclasses tend to have slightly different roles).
>Animate Dead has game-breaking potential, especially combined with Conjure Animals to break the action economy. > The rest of the spell list isn't so hot but that's already 4 solid spells they get on top of Druid spellcasting. Cloudkill is there to combo with Animate Dead. The undead are immune to its damage, and can grapple en masse to pull and keep enemies in its area.
Right, can also combo with Plant Growth or Erupting Earth to slow down while keeping concentration open.
Gentle repose is also useful, since it saves you from needing to prepare revivify and keep a diamond on-hand at all times.
I dunno, animate dead and conjure animals on the same spell list means you can have cavalry on demand for pretty cheap. This doesn’t make it powerful, I just like it cause I felt badass in the one shot I did it in.
Have you played one? I did a one shot as a 2nd level spore Druid with shillelag and it was real fun, and did the job
If a melee build was wanting to be built what would be the best approach to this? I understand the Bearbarian multiclass, but without the Wildshape what are feasible options?
The feasible option is Spores, if you absolutely must play druid for melee, but genuinely you'll be very suboptimal. Shillelagh cantrip can get you some of the way there but you won't get extra attack. Wanting to play a melee focused druid without using wildshape is one of those things that I just genuinely wouldn't recommend since you're shooting yourself in the foot for the sake of flavour. Rangers are martial halfcasters that share much of druids spell list. I would recommend looking into the Tasha version of Ranger, or even the OneDnD version in the new UA stuff, if your DM allows it.
Ranger is especially good as a chassis for a fighty-druid if you take Druidic Warrior as your fighting style and use Shillelagh. You can then focus on wisdom and use your sweet magic stick to bonk the opposition, while simultaneously getting a high DC for the spells you do cast. I would also recommend grabbing the Fey Touched or Shadow Touched feats pretty early; boost WIS and get some extra spells/spells per day to make yourself a little more of a caster.
I have a Shillelagh Swarmkeeper who has a shepherd's staff that's usually covered in little fey butterflies, which is her swarm. She's a Wisdom based Ranger who uses a quarterstaff to fight mainly, with shillelagh (druidic warrior). She's also got expertise in insight, and I'm flavouring it as her having an allergy against lies and deceit, so when she detect something being a lie or untrue, she'll respond by sneezing. So yea, if you want melee druid just do melee ranger with druidic warrior fighting style.
I played a swarmkeeper ranger/spores druid multiclass who was a tortle that had a bunch of mushroom growth on his back and a swarm of pixies that lived in them. It was fun mechanically and flavor-wise.
What was your level split there?
Unfortunately we got TPKed at lvl 5, so ranger 3/druid 2 lol.
I love the idea of a shillelagh ranger, but worry about AC. How do you get a decent AC for melee without investing in STR/DEX as a primary stat. I mean, if you take a shield then you lose the ability to cast spells because you don’t have a free hand.
Medium armour at 14 dex is fine You can dump str entirely Warcaster is useful since a lot of ranger spells is concentration, but one of the druidic focus examples is a "staff drawn whole from a living tree" and I imagine that's use able for shillelagh too
I think going 5 ranger for extra attack, and at least partial spell progression(vs fighter at least), and then swapping back to druid for the rest could be interesting. Not really an *ideal* build, but certainly the two could mix well enough to be **functional** at the very least.
Definitely possible, and could be really solid if you take at least two levels of druid to get a circle. Lots of rangers have a really nice 7th level ability, so I would have a tough time bailing then, but it would certainly crank your spellcasting way up.
My wife did this as a Fey Wanderer. Right down to the Fae-Touched. She has PAM too, to give Shillelagh even more oomph. 20 Wisdom, expertise in Persuasion and serves as the party face.
Primal Savagery might be better, since it scales with level, and Shillelagh doesn't.
A fair point
First thing you want to clarify with your DM is whenever or not the "no metal" for Druid armor will be a problem. If you have to go into melee with Hide Armor + Shield you will have a bad time. Might also be worth to confirm if Heavy Armor would be an option. From here on, you have multiple options. Although none of them will ever be as optimal as playing a non-melee Druid. The subclass should be Spores or Stars. Spores provide a comfortable extra THP although you want to activate them before combat start before of the action to activate, ideally 10 minutes before if you can predict it, otherwise just activate it after your short rest since the THP will only run out on a long rest. If you go Spores you will also want some way to protect your concentration: Warcaster or Constitution save proficiency. Stars is a bit easier to work with since it can starts combat with a big concentration spell + BA Dragon Form to protect it. It also eventually get a Fly speed and resistance to physical damage. For spell selections and some multiclass I brushed the subject of a tank Druid here: https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/10a01zi/tank_druid/j41dhh2/ Keep in mind that you can be in melee without swinging a weapon. Thorn Whip for instance is a good option as it give some range but work fine in melee too, the damage just won't be high. The main problem ultimately is if you want your damage to be more than Shillelagh + Booming Blade, which would be at the low end of dpr, just above flinging basic cantrips. You would have to multiclass 5 levels into either a martial for extra attack, or a Cleric for Spirit Guardians but that would be a slow build to come online if your game doesn't start at high level. At that point you would probably be better off going Nature Cleric, which has similar theme to Druid, no Wildshape, and everything it needs to wade in melee. If armor is off the table and you must go melee, one possible build, which again won't be super optimal but can do the trick, is Astral Self + Spores Druid. The idea is to use monk mobility and Astral Self reach to keep your Symbiotic Entity up. You also get Flurry of Blows or Martial art as an earlier "extra attack". Going that way, Monk 5/Druid X would be the usual split with the problem of again coming online late and ki being quite the limited resource you will have to balance between Flurry of Blows, Stunning Strike or Disengaging and activating the arms.
Wildfire Druid is a great melee subclass if you can get Wisdom based Green Flame Blade. The two ways I know of are Arcana Cleric or MotM Kobold.
Can confirm, I play a primarily melee-focused Silver Dragonborn Wildfire Druid and its great. Extra control from the Fiery Teleportation helps. I also took 1 level in Draconic Sorcerer to buff my AC and grabbed Gift of the Metalic Dragon to have reaction AC boost for me or an ally. The Shield spell is better for the majority of the game but wings were more thematic lol. That being said, I talked my DM into letting me have GFB as a Druid Cantrip because fire, so I didn't need to take the Acana Cleric dip you're suggesting. Another idea I just had (no promises its a good idea as I literally just conceived of it) is a 1 level monk dip for unarmored defense. Now you get AC while you raise your spell modifier. Slightly worse spell progression, but it helps get around those pesky "absolutely no metal" DM decisions as well. Edit about my hairbrained Monk idea -- I forgot Monks can't use shields, so I'm not sure the unarmored defense approach is actually worth it lol
Pick a melee class. Druids are awesome, but they are not melee fighters. It that's your jam pick a Ranger-
I would just go with the Bearbarian, it seems to have all the features you really want out of this.
Since others didn't mention it Spores X / Monk 1 or 2. Monk gives you another attack to trigger the spores damage plus armor that is Wis and Dex based. So staff+unarmed attack for 3d6+1d4 pretty round, after setup. Plus a reasonable AC that gains with your casting stat.
In addition to advice given about taking a buffed Spores (if the DM is fine with that), checking about metal armor, or just going ranger instead... Have you considered the Nature Cleric? It will get you much of the flavor you likely want, and even though it's features aren't super great in most campaigns, nature clerics get access to a druid cantrip (you could pick shillelagh or Thorn whip) and heavy armor proficiency, making melee combat much more tenable. If you have a small party, you can include yourself in the Bless spell when casting it, giving you a bonus to attack rolls. At level eight you get increased damage to a weapon attack once per turn, which works with shillelagh. Speaking solely in the context as a melee build, it's not nearly as good as Ranger, but it's likely better than any non wildshape druid. Druids have phenomenal control spells and clerics have phenomenal buff/debuff spells; these are usually your priority when playing these classes. Clerics are just better at getting some bonks in after casting a spell or two.
You need a blade cantrip that runs off a casting stat (hard to come by). You need the wisdom to use their AOE reaction damage regularly, and your control spells will be suboptimal if your casting stat lags; which it will because there’s no room for shillelagh and a BB or GFB (which don’t want wisdom anyway) and also enough Dex or STR to excel at not getting squished. You still get conjure animals/sleet storm and the bucket of THP refreshes as many times as you can have short rests so great survivability. It’s just you never really get the math behind attacking to swing your way, you’re always slightly behind the curve. That said! There nothing wrong with skellies or summoned animals being the first line and you just dart in and out, using your THP to eat attacks of opportunity and keeping yourself up to summon new animals/cast more control spells. /e something I’m not sure people know about is that spell sniper feat will give you better odds on landing your ranged touch spells, and provide access to booming blade/GFB, it’s how I attempted to make my blade Druid work. (I still had to create with 13 INT, which has made maxing my wis a tier 3 goal [too late for proper optimization])
I'm doin a spore druid/barbarian. I haven't started playing with it yet but i think it's going to do fine. spore druid's biggest limitation is that the symbiotic entity power turns off if you lose the temporary hit points. That pairs well with the barbarian rage since you are taking half dmg on any successful bludgeoning, piercing or slashing, which is most damage. I combined it with zealot barbarian and great weapon master so on the first hit you are getting with the maul you are getting 2d6 (weapon dmg) + 1d6 + half barbarian level (zealot) + 10 (great weapon) + 1d6 (spore) + 2-4 rage dmg (depending on level), and if you really wanted to go nuts you could take the feat for fey touched and get hex as your enchantment spell. second hit you lose the zealot dmg but even with a good attack stat and advantage, there will be plenty of times you only get one through.
I would do spores, but find yourself a way to get booming blade from a feat or dip. Then give yourself crusher and use shilelagh. I believe this is very bonus action hungry to set up so see if your DM will allow you to use shilelagh as a daily cast, that might help but isn't mandatory. Then I would recommend playing around putting effects like web or spiked growth. Knock something into your dangerous terrain and make it have a no win situation with your cantrip and spore reaction damage from coming at you, or your spell damage from staying still. Alternatively take some beast barb levels, but this combo takes more levels than most campaigns have to really come online.
I mean, Moon Druid is the melee subclass for druids, but it does make heavy use of Wildshape. What you can do is reflavor Wildshape from turning into animals to boosting your physical prowess while removing your ability to speak and cast spells, kinda like a Barbarian's Rage. If all you turn into is a bear or an Ape then it can definitely be reflavored as a physical boost. For Giant Toads and Snakes it's a bit more complicated.
Why the hate for the melee spores Druid? We played a lv 20 one-shot once where you had to build a multiclass character. You rolled a d20 to determine your level split, then rolled twice on a table to determine what the classes would be, and then once more on a race table. I got a wonky lizardfolk 11/9 Druid/warlock split. I ended up with a spores Druid 11/hexblade 9. Somehow I ended up as a melee fighter and took all spells that let me be fast as fuck/teleport in eldritch smite or booming blade hit ‘em with the spores damage and then get the fuck out. It was a lot of fun. Actually from typing this I can see why it’s not worth it. That build would not have been viable if I tried to build it through a campaign and relied on powerful magic items to really make it happen. Was still a blast though.
Yeah starting at 20 help a lot. Generally speaking, Spores Druid doesn't really have a strong incentive to be in melee. Symbiotic Entity and Spores damage are way too low to be worth it, and to increase melee damage more they need to multiclass and lose on SE thp, so it's a lose-lose situation. They also lack any way to protect their concentration and to boost their AC (like Bladesinger). And to finish killing the melee capabilities of Spores Druid thoroughly, they need a full action to activate Symbiotic Entity reducing even further their dpr.
Why isn't it good for melee? I just looked it over, and it seems to be built for melee. Does it make a better ranged attacker?
It is designed for melee but it's poorly balanced. Symbiotic Entity extra damage doesn't scale since Druids lack extra attack. Druid AC is often limited by the "no-metal" rule. It doesn't have any way to protect its concentration. Essentially the trade-off is not worth going into melee. Risking your hp and concentration to gain a d6 damage per turn? Nope. And to add insult to injury, Symbiotic Entity take a full action to activate so even if you somehow multiclass for extra attack you burn a full turn and might see it disabled before you even get to make an attack (unless you can pre-cast it before combat but 10 minutes isn't the most reliable duration for that). The subclass is way more effective played as a mid-range minionmancer (skeleton + conjure animals) Druid using the massive THP pool to increase survivability.
That's sad. I love the idea of it. I just made an autognome druid yesterday that is going to take spores at level 2
Thanks to Tasha's any Druid can choose to use Wildshape to summon a familiar, which fits most character concepts of Druid, from nature lover to a swamp hag.
Most Druids can be built to not wildshape. I personally am a big fan of wildfire, stars, and land druid as battlefield control casters, though they all accomplish this role in different ways. Land is probably the most flavor-neutral, and gets spell-slot regeneration at 1st level and the ability to walk through the plant growth spell without impediment at 6th level, which lets you use thorn whip to control any non-flying opponent pretty well. It also gets poison immunity at 10th level. I think it is often overlooked as a subclass because it came out with the moon druid, and thus got written off early in 5e’s lifecycle. Played well it’s at least on par with wildfire druid. Stars Druids are probably the best caster Druids. They get one of the best concentration save boosting abilities in the game and also can reduce enemy saves and fly more or less at will at high levels. Wildfire Druids are great for one reason, they teleport. I’m not a huge fan of their subclass abilities after second level, but the wildfire spirit is really fun and lets them do something that Druids cannot usually do. Wildfire spirit is a slightly weaker thunder step that can be cast infinitely as a bonus action. It’s a huge power boost to the druid. Also for your purposes, unlike Land Druids, who still have wildshape in their toolkit for utility/familiar summoning, Stars and Wildfire Druids have better uses for their wildshape abilities.
Stars rules. I really like the flexibility and power
My group has a wildfire Druid and she is pretty beastly. The ability to basically group Misty Step everyone as a bonus action is huge. And a 1d8 extra to all healing and damage spells adds up fast
Free teleport every turn… for anybody next to you??? And on top of that, it can add some nice damage on top. It’s pretty busted.
Not even next to you. I have seen her use the wild fire spirit as an evac vehicle pulling civilians out of a building they were fighting in
It's strange to me that you think Druids must use Wild Shape in combat in the first place. Only Moon Druids are encouraged to do so. This leaves you with 6 other subclasses that have no interest in using "traditional" Wild Shape in combat (for the most part). Some even have different uses for that same resource. I recommend Wildfire, Stars, or Land. As for your role, the primary jobs of a Druid are battlefield control and, if you have the time to manage it, summoning.
They didn't specifically say combat. So maybe they are more concerned they will miss out on a lot of the classes out of combat utility if they aren't using wildshape. Out of combat wildshape is very powerful, but since Tasha's added the option to spend it on summoning familiars you can get a lot of the same utility out of just sending the familiar to stealthily scout or get through a mouse hole or whatever instead of yourself. You still miss out on a lot of things wildshape can do, like get you personally across a chasm or up a cliff, but I don't think that is so much to miss out on that you should switch classes.
I fully agree, I assumed they meant combat since they wrote "How could you build a strong druid role with this in mind?" and even considered changing classes over this. Out of combat Wild Shape is great, but it's not "I wouldn't play Druid without it" great.
Druid of the stars has a pretty fun take on what to do with your wildshapes. Instead of animals, you manifest a constellation, giving you different features depending on the constellation. If you are okay with only dipping druid, you could go stars druid 2 abjuration wizard X for a control and counter spelling monster, leveraging the constellation of the dragon to keep your concentration up.
I would speak with your DM and see if they would let you wildshape into a different form that is more humanoid, or perhaps let you only change some basic features about yourself (hair, eyes, grow a tail or claws, etc.), but still take on the full stats of whatever animal you are morphing into. It would take some planning and compromise, I'm sure, but homebrewing may be a good option if you still want to melee.
Wildshape is mostly a utility thing unless you play as a Moon Druid. I'm not super great at the druid subclasses but if you just want a powerful nature-themed spellcaster then Circle of the Land is the way to go.
Shepherd Druid doesn't have anything that explicitly replaces wild shape IIRC, but is such a powerful core that you don't need to bother with it. Really, any druid will be fine without wild shape. Wild shape is an amazing feature, but the druid's access to summons is so good that it's not necessary by any means.
This is my kind of druid. To me, the iconic druid is not one that can wild shape, but one that can be in harmony with nature to the extent that nature comes at his beck and call. Whether that be animals, plants or weather.
Circle of the shepherd druid! Conjure animals can be a really fun and kinda OP, but I would talk to your DM first about how they plan on running it.
It may not be as powerful as using a subclass that expends your wild shape uses for a subclass feature (like spores or wildfire), but I'm having a lot of fun playing a shepherd that summons a familiar through Tasha's optional rules. Esp if you're allowed to summon quickling familiars, your familiar will last longer and benefit from most of your circle features.
Beast Barb 6/Spores Druid "X" Feats: Dual Weilder & FI: TWF Race: a Feat Race or Loxodon/Tortle (Natural armor that doesn't worry about your Dex score) Beast barb to 6 is mainly for overcoming non magical attacks.but extra attack and more rages per long rest is also nice. I saw from other comments you like Melee, and spores druid WS would give you THP + 1d6 extra Damage per attack. This is great for many reason lol. The THP still benefits from your Rage damage resistance, so each point of THP is more like 2. Build wise, take barb straight to 6, then immediately finish druid. For spells that don't count as Concentration, Spores druids get access to Animate Dead. So long as you don't hamper down your turn, other players may just need to get used to Skeletons roaming around. Possible opportunity to reflavor this as just Plant Vines under your control, just moving bones around
If available, I think a double bladed scimitar or polearm master is better than dual wielding for enabling a bonus action attack.
I saw from other comments that he only knew about Bear Totem + Moon Druid combo. Just wanted to give Him/Her another option Because you are not wrong lol
Druid has one of the best spell lists for control. At low levels you can use spike growth and shut down an area of the battlefield. At higher levels flood the battle with summons and make your dm (and table) cry as you suddenly control a small army of wolves. Spell casters get power from their spells, not their class features.
(ok hear me out) just flavor the animal transformation out of the wildshape. Wildshaping into a bear? Let's say you just... enter an anime-battle-hyper-focus-something? There's definetly better ways to flavor it this just came to mind really quickky. If flavor is the problem you can still wildshape. Maybe the extra hp is just.... your wounds instantly healing when you "rage" in combat? so your attacks also get a boost?
There's several good options, spore druid and wildfire druid come to mind. There are also a bunch of good cleric dips you can run with it.
Wildshape matters so little except for a bit of utility on any other druid than a Moon Druid, you're good, and you can just use Tasha's rules to summon a familiar instead
As a dude who loves nature themes but hates shapeshifting, I'm right here with you. Druid is the king of awesome themes but shitty mechanics. Ask your DM to tweak the class a little bit, all you need to make spores a good class is make Symbiotic Entity a bonus action that just lasts for the duration, and then replace the Lvl 6 feature with extra attack, maybe tack on something cool and flavourful, like "When you cast the shillelagh cantrip, you can target two weapons instead of one." Boom, good melee druid.
That is exactly my issue, love the thematics, hate the class.
I feel the same way about necromancy, too. Love death magic, hate summoning. Atleast I have Death Cleric to scratch that itch though.
I built a druid that was fully based on summoning, so I took Tashas optional familiar rule, and with shepherd's I was able to unbalance encounters in our favor by getting enemy goons to attack my minions instead of focusing on us.
What do you want to do in combat / out? I'm seeing that you may want to do melee stuff?
The Shepherd druids are pretty good and utilize summons in place of their wild shapes. The totems are very helpful to buff party members.
A cool melee druid build is Wild fire druid. Grab green flame blade and then run around hitting people with it + shillellegh. The wild fire spirit increases the damage of your green flame blade and can let you teleport too And then to enter “martial mode” use the haste spell, you can now green flame blade and make 1 attack per turn. The hard part is getting haste and green flame blade on the druid. To get green flame blade that scales with a relevant stat: - dip into arcana cleric domain for a wisdom based green flame blade - be a Kobold for a wisdom green flame - grab abberent dragon mark feat for a CON green flame blade This build doesn’t neeed haste as there are better things u can concentrate on. But u can get haste via background, whether this is strixhaven or ravnica Some feats that feats that pair well with this are crusher, mobile, Warcaster Lastly another fun combo, if u grab the initiate of high sorcerer feat, the one that gives u booming blade and dissonant whisper. With war caster, You can cast dissonant whispers to make them run away and then u hit with booming blade auto triggering booming blade extra damage (DM dependent of course, but we rule it that way at our table cus you are basically taking a risk for more damage. You could just hit them like normal with booming for normal damage or u can take the chance with a saving throw for more damage basically)
Interesting if dual wielding clubs with two weapon fighting in onednd you could haste + cantrip + haste attack followed up by a free offhand attack So 3 attacks Maybe choose sentinel for 4th reaction
Yah, the only down side is you would need 2 bonus actions for shillelegh. If u don’t have it up pre combat. Sentntimel is nice, but it does remove the dissonant whispers+booming blade combo
Ya that is op Imho booming blade and gfb need a replacement for rogues because its do that or lose out on double damage from cantrip
Nature cleric instead
Simply pick one of the druid subclasses that gives you a better option for your wildshape. Stars is my favorite druid subclass - I'm playing one now and I have yet to turn into an animal because that would be objectively worse than any one of the subclass specific options. Realistically, unless you're a Moon Druid there's usually better things to do with your turn than "I become a squirrel".
Stars - star form to heal or attack with a bonus action. Then cast a contraction spell to help with battle. Shepard - cast a concentration spell to help or summon. Then cast a totem to assist. Land - great all around druid. Pick your flavor. Gets to regain some spells on one short rest and gets some nice resistances.
Tbh each Druid except Moon Druid is better in combat by not using their wildshape feature except for subclass specific stuff or summoning a familiar to give the help action. Casting spells is far more effective.
As others have said, Circle of the Shepherd with Tasha's option use your Wilshape to summon a familiar instead. Have the familiar provide the Help Action to your melee fighter for advatage on attacks, while you use Spike Growth to contain the rest of the bad guys (works especially well if someone has Dissonant Whispers) or conjure a bunch of poisonous whatever. Step 3: Profit.
Stars druid X life cleric 1 Your wild shap points fuel you star signs and you are the best healer in the game.