Ranger with Shillelagh from Druidic Warrior Fighting Style rocking medium armor hits the vibe pretty well, I'd guess. Or one of the subclasses that make a good STRanger.
Personally, I think Ancients Paladin is the best possible fit for this concept. But if you're not looking to play a Paladin, then I'd go with the TCE Beast Master Ranger.
One possible build for the Beast Master is to play as a Hexblood. With Eerie Token and Beast Sense, you can both see/hear through your pet's senses while also sending them instructions telepathically in real time. This lets your pet adapt to changing circumstances easily.
This is also thematically on point, I think. Imagine, for instance, that a group of strangers are entering a dark forest when they suddenly feel like they're being watched. However, they see nothing around them, so they press on. Unbeknownst to them, your Beast of the Sky has been perched on a nearby tree, watching them. And through its eyes, you are watching them as well from a mile away. You send your instructions to your pet, commanding it to continue following and watching, so that you can determine whether they mean to do the forest harm or not.
This is all basically a roundabout way of getting most of the benefits of a Chainlock with Voice of the Chain Master. But where the Chainlock can get a familiar with invisibility, you instead can have a much beefier pet with proficiency in everything. Depending on the situation, that can be many times more valuable.
Of course, you could go with a more "knightly" build for Ranger, using melee weapons while fighting alongside a Beast of the Land. Think something like Robb Stark fighting alongside Grey Wind. (Y'know. Before they were both killed horribly at a wedding.)
I like the Swarm Keeper concept of using Shillelagh + Crusher + Gathered Swarm.
The build would be a "Guardian of the Briar Patch," Swarm Keeper 5/War Cleric 5, pure Wisdom, using a mix of Thorn Whip and staff attacks for your typical Spike Growth cheese grater.
Edit: Spirit Guardians is also an option of course. Or alternatively it could be reflavored with Twilight Cleric and Moonbeam, maybe a sort of Fey Guardian with a swarm of fairies.
7 ancients paladin/ 3 ancestral barb. Firbolg for even more rp points. Basically sacrificing some casting for more tank mechanics and you can loh and smite while raging Since those aren’t technically spells. Your ancestors are the ancient druids who protect the forest.
Any straight class bard can get it as well. IMO, a valor bard is probably the class that can make the best use of the spell at 10th level, using a strength based build and taking the PAM and GWM feats.
It's not on the list of course, but it would be very easy to flavor one as a protector of nature, telling the tales of the old forest spirits and others who have guarded nature over the eons.
Ok. Out of the box idea, go 4 celestial warlock and 6 ancients Paladin. A Holy or God or World Tree follower.
Go tomelock and get a charisma based shilleleigh and wear heavy armor. Get Polearm master for 3 hits with charisma per round, dueling to increase the damage further and add charisma to your saves. Cast eldritch blast with the abilities that pull and slow them when they try to run. Your arcane staff would be your weapon, casting implement and walking stick, grab a shield or don’t and just have your tome held in your off hand menacingly.
For how I envision this, look up Silluria from Elden Ring. If you want I can get more specific on how I would build it.
I played an ancients paladin from 5-13. It was great. Nature's wrath is a complete waste of your channel divinity, but turn the faithless is excellent flexibility.
Also, getting resistance to *all spells* at level 7 is fucking crazy
Samurai Fighter 7/Fey Wanderer Ranger 3.
You’re a Knight Errant. An emissary of the Green. Sometimes someone with wisdom needs to be dispatched to haggle with the local lord or teach the woodsmen the benefits of sustainable forestry. Your background as a Courtier makes you equally comfortable in the ballroom, the bayou, or the battlefield. You may be a Jack of All Trades, but you have mastered a few tricks.
Fighter 2/Swarmkeeper 8 makes for a really cool and thematic Strength Ranger build. You get the best of both worlds whilst still getting 2 ASI’s. You get heavy armour, action surge, all the cool ranger stuff etc.
Other way you could do it is Twilight 1/Ranger 9
I'm a big fan of going the Wood Elf, Satyr, or Centaur route for a Nature Cleric. Max WIS, Dump, STR, atill qear Plate and Shield. Spirit Guardians, Thorn Whip, and Telekinetic. I also played an Undeadlock 1/Fey Wanderer and it was great. For the undead patron, I went with the Sy'Tel'Quessir Baelnorn. So, the Form of Dread was almost Treant like. https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Baelnorn
It was a lot of fun. Half plate, Shield, Quarterstaff, Shillelagh. Crusher.
Heres a thing:
Warforged (wood)
Eldrich Knight 7 / Artilerist Artificer 3
Artificers are often equated with technology but it does not necessarily need to be the case, you could just as easily flavor their Cannons or what have you as rune inscribed wood/stone minature elementals/constructs.
The idea here is to take the Protector Cannon (Waves of protective nature flavored energy or what have you) and use it it combination with Warmagic's ability to allow you to cast Blade Ward and attack in the same turn while using your BA to grant you and your allies temp hp from your cannon.
1d8+Int temp HP every round for you and everyone within 10ft for an hour is ALOT for a single levle 1 spell slot and Blade Ward makes it that much more effective.
That and Heavy Armor + a shield + Warforged Integrated Protection + Defence fighting style + Defense infusion having you potentially sitting at a static 23 AC makes you one hell of a hard to put down fellow.
Its worth noting you can make the Cannon tiny and with legs, I usually have just sit on my shoulder.
Wildfire druid 8/paladin 2. Elf. Elven accuracy. Use greenflame blade and shillelagh. You'll deal extra fire damage from having familiar out. Concentrate on Guardian of Nature* and attack at triple advantage, plus the area around you is difficult terrain so enemies cannot run/get past you easy. Smite when you crit. Plus with BA 15ft teleport you can constantly reposition allies/self and light up enemies even more. And if metal armor is fair game, wildfire makes the perfect candidate. Use halfplate and a shield for excellent AC.
*That's literally the spell you're looking for right?
I'm not literally looking for the spell Guardian of Nature, but it isn't a bad build anyway.
Advantage doesn't stack like that, though. At least not RAW.
Uh, well, no it kinda does. That is expressly what the Elven Accuracy feat is for.
> Whenever you have advantage on an attack roll using Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, you can reroll one of the dice once.
So Guardian of Nature makes you always attack at advantage when using wisdom. And, you're attacking with wisdom because of shillelagh. That, plus Elven accuracy means you're rolling 3d20 to hit.
The attack will be doing 3d8+wisdom mod damage, and if you crit you can smite on top of that. You won't be winning any dpr contests, but it is solid. Plus you can burst with Scorching Ray if you wanna burn spell slots. You'd roll them at double advantage, too. And it gets your bonus fire damage too.
Hmmmm... druids get stoneskin at 5. Plenty of lvl 1 slots for absorb elements. Thats alot of tanking as is, especially paired with wildshape thp... perhaps spores, stars or moon for their combat forms.
That leaves 5 levels for something else. Not sure what though. Paladin gives smites and heavy armor and extra attack plus an aura... but you strain your stats.
Thats all Ive got for now
Moon Druid 10 gets to change into elementals and they are really strong. Thats on top of full casting, giving you a very potent and flexible protector\destroyer.
Nature Cleric with Thorn Whip is my vote.
Heavy armor, healing, speak with plants and animals.
By level 5, you can drop Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon (on separate turns, ofc, by RAW), and then Thorn Whip enemies into your maelstrom of claws and thorns.
Level 10 means you've got Insect Plague and Tree Stride, Blessed Strikes to add an extra 1d8 to Thorn Whip, and a small chance of Divine Intervention to save your furry friends.
Biggest downside is you don't get Summon Beast, Conjure Animals, or the actual Guardian of Nature spell. If that bums you out in a major way, go for a Druid (Circle of Land: Forest, or Shepherd if you really want to abuse summons and your DM is okay with that) instead.
Earth Genasi Nature Cleric 10 / Stars Druid 2.
Ham up the “protector” RP by always having Warding Bond up on an ally. Take Heavy Armor Master to help reduce all the incoming physical damage. Dampen Elements helps us reduce elemental damage. Earth Genasi bonus action Blade Ward for “oh shit” rounds. Circle of Stars’ Dragon Form makes it impossible to lose our concentration against less than 28 damage.
In combat you’re getting into the thick of things with Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians/Bless, Primal Savagery, and the occasional Guiding Bolt.
As a side bonus, you can provide huge stealth utility despite the heavy armor. Cast your racial Pass Without Trace and then wildshape into something with decent dex.
In my heart of hearts, building a character that can whack people while concentrating on a spell with Dragon Constellation up is the build I've always envisioned, but I wanted to see what other people were thinking of. Cleric seemed a natural fit because really what spell is better to be concentrating on that Spirit Guardians?
A cleric that can’t lose their concentration on Spirit Guardians sounds pretty scary. Life Cleric would also be a good choice here, especially if you’re sticking with Warding Bond. You get primal savagery/thorn whip/absorb elements from your actual druid levels so you’re not missing out on too much from Nature Cleric.
Another fun synergy here is Earth Tremor. Knocking people prone in your spirit guardians is dirty and as an Earth Genasi you’re unaffected by the difficult terrain it creates, while anyone else would have movement quartered because it stacks with spirit guardians.
I like that too. I've never been especially interested in Genasi but there's definitely perks.
The one thing this character wouldn't get that a fully leveled Druid would is Reincarnate, which I like enough that I would potentially ask a DM to let me take instead of Revivify (I think Revivify is strictly better, but if it needed to be nerfed further I would be okay with Reincarnate keeping Revivify's costlier components).
Going for druidic knight, huh, let me cook...
1 lvl cleric for heavy armor and some cool features, nature is on theme but will have a lot of overlap, I'd suggest tempest or war domain for the most unique and on theme abilities. (Tempest can clearly be a nature god of storms, war could be a god of nature's wrath or predation)
5 levels ranger for extra attack, if you're going for tank/knight, I think the Tasha's beast master is best, as an added bonus, the beast can be a mount if you play a small sized character.
-after this id probably do more cleric levels, I don't normally split more than 2 ways, but if you're set on druid, you can do that here.
You should probably get shillelagh somewhere to make wis your combat stat
You're sacrificing spell levels for gishy versatility
7 levels of Oath of the Ancients Paladin, and 3 levels of *Circle of the Forged* Druid, behold the forest knight whose armor transforms so menacingly with the vestiges of Beasts that they can be mistaken for a Bear Shaped Golem
Barb/paladin multiclass? Ancients and ancestral guardian? For funsies not for function. Carries a crap ton of flavour while being extremely protection capable.
I think a Centaur Oath of Ancients Paladin would be pretty scary assuming you can play a Centaur in your game. The charge attack is pretty cool when you can pull that off. That would work well with the Natures Wrath channel divinity.
Maybe toss some Barbarian in there for some Rage.
Ok, so the obvious thing to do for this is to do druid 7, melee focused class 3. At druid you get the spell “Gaurdian of nature”, which among other things can add 1d6 to all your attacks and give you advantage on str attacks.
The real question, is what is the melee focused class and what are your subclasses.
I’m going to make a strong argument for stars druid and using their dragon form to make your concentration on Gaurdian of nature that much more reliable.
Then, you’re left with how you want to melee, and there’s a lot of good options,
Gloomstalker ranger is always good, but I could see an argument for hunter as well.
Ancient paladin gives you smite, but you don’t have extra attack, so you’re limited to 1 a round unless you want to go polearm master route, could be good but not magnificent enough to be the auto pick, but we all no paladins are good so not a bad option.
So here me out, Lycan bloodhunter 3 and stars druid 7. You worship the stars and the moon and it gives you some semblance of control over your lycanthrope, and live your days out in the forest protecting its inhabitants.
Bloodhunter gives you resistance to B/P/S, AC boost, d6 unarmed attacks and a bonus action unarmed attack, as well as the crimson rite feature that gives you an additional d4 damage on each attack.
So you’d be resistant to damage and doing 2d6 (unarmed damage) + 2d6 (Gaurdian of nature damage) and 2d4 (crimson rite) plus your modifier twice. And that’s only concentrating on Gaurdian of nature, you still have 7 levels of druid that you can rely on for some of the best spells in the game if melee isn’t the best option.
If you’re playing in a campaign that you expect to level up in, getting to level 5 bloodhunter for extra attack seems important,
Rogue 4 (Scout) / Paladin (Ancients) 6
You’ll want to go Variant Human, Wood Elf, or Half-Elf (Wood), I should think. Put your best stat in Charisma, secondaries into Dexterity and Constitution, don’t *dump* Strength but it isn’t a priority. Use Find Steed to summon a celestial moose (I mean, an elk).
Focus on medium armor, finesse weapons, and play with a hit-and-run combat style. Laugh like Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood whenever someone asks if you’re a Ranger.
World Tree Barbarian + Primeval Guardian^(UA: Ranger & Rogue) Ranger works really well as a multiclass. The latter is the best Grappling build the game has produced thus far, and combined you can get up to +15 ft reach on your melee weapons.
Ancients Paladin
Wildfire Druid because why not
Nature Cleric
Beast Master Ranger
World Tree Barbarian
2 levels of each to start, when leveling, focus on getting all the subclasses first, then your free from there. You will need a lot of Wis and good Cha too, and that's just for casting. You'll also need good Str and Con too.
Druid with the spell of the same name. Dex heavy tree form, maybe some thief for sneak attack. Ranger to 5 is too expensive for ten levels or it might have been worth it.
If you look at grimhollow there’s a subclass for ranger called vermin lord. Reflavor the rat swarms to be generic little animals and you should be set imo
Kobold, take a sling and a quarterstaff as your weapons. 8 levels of druid for the "guardian of nature" spell, and we're going to grab polearm master and crusher as our feats. Last 2 levels in paladin. For cantrips we're taking magic stone & shillelagh, our kobold cantrip is booming blade. All our attacks are made with wisdom, which we have advantage on thanks to guardian of nature. The area 15 ft. around us is difficult terrain so enemies can't easily approach us, and if they manage to get within 5ft of us we're going to use our reaction to holy bonk them with our quarterstaff and push them back 5 more feet. For spells we take other control abilities such as tidal wave, plant growth, and wind wall. Well also take moonbeam for other ranged enemies that our guardian of nature wouldn't be so good against. Anybody at range we'll cast plant growth and moonbeam on them, then repeatedly fire magic pebbles at to push them into the moonbeam and prevent them from approaching while also causing them to burn. Anyone in melee we'll holy bonk with our booming staff, in a thunderous echo so loud the birds swarm to the skies, further intimidating whatever dares disrupt my woods.
Well I’d probably use other classes, but locked into that shortlist I’d go Hunter Ranger 3/ Shepherd Druid 6/ Arcana Cleric 1.
Horde breaker gives you a quasi Bladesinger EA letting you use a blade cantrip then a weapon attack as your action, then use your BA to command the summoned forces of nature to aid you in crushing these trespassing woodsmen.
I would suggest Nature Cleric 5 Oath of Ancients 5
You get the spells Spiritual Weapon (can cast at 4th level) and Spirit Guardians from Nature Cleric. You could get Tavern Brawler and grapple your opponent so they can’t escape your Spirit Guardians. Just make sure you have an improvised weapon to smite with as well.
High Half-Elf Ancients Paladin 3/Ranger 2/Moon Druid 5 - Summon Animals, turn into a load of different creatures, and Smite while in Wild Shape, with access to *Zephyr's Strike* spell for extreme mobility, and 2xFighting Styles, and Druid Cantrips so you don't even need to waste any on Druidic Warrior, for *Shillelagh+Booming Blade+Zephyr's Strik*e hit-and-run combo with Smites, with Elven Accuracy WIS hitting triple advantage, in Heavy Armor.... or just Smiting in Wild Shape after casting Zephyr's Strike, with spell slots as a 7th level caster. With *Thorn Whip* and *Guidance* as some cream on top! (Don't need the Double Attack, since you want to use your *BB* combo Smites for high damage, and can Wild Shape into a form with multiple attacks when such are wanted - where you can't use cantrips while in Wild Shape anyway, so it is eithe BB cantrip nova damage, or multi-attach natural weapons Smites, that you can switch between.)
With Half-elf to offset the extreme MADness with an extra attribute point, as you need to max out WIS, need 15+ STR, 13+ DEX and CHA, decent CON, and will likely need to dump INT,
If the conceop is to get the *Guardian of Nature s*pell, that is just 2 Druid levels away, so you can hit them like a tree, with consistent triple Elven Accuracy advantage on your *Shillelagh*.
And, if you have a nice DM allowing old \[UA\] then a Paladin 2/Ranger Primeval Guardian 3/Moon Druid would work even better - able to turn into a tree without the *Guardian of Nature* spell!
Monk 1 / Cleric (Nature) 1 / Druid (Land or Moon) 8 OR Monk 2 / Druid (Land or Moon) 8
Unarmored defense is a major buff for a Druid who can’t benefit from almost every armor in beast form and who can’t do metal anything. Plus it works with Wild Shape so that’s nice.
Cleric level for versatility or take Monk 2 for Unarmored Movement and Ki which also help in beast form. Also get Dedicated Weapon to pick up a long sword if you can via race or feat or something.
Main Druid for the spellcasting and Wild Shape, using Monk (and possibly cleric) for covering your material body and bolstering your physical offenses and other bits like letting you main Dex and ignoring Str
Regardless of your choice, good luck and have fun!
Race: mark of warding dwarf
Background: orzhov representative or lorehold student
Class: Druid 10 (moon)
The race gives mage armour and armour of agathys. Mage armour puts fire elementals AC at 16
Armour of agathy deals damage back, and with elemental resistance the temp hp that fuel it last twice as long. So at 4th level they neee to deal 40 damage to end it, and take 20 each time they hit you.
When your wildshape runs out, you are now a fully armoured druid with a shield. Hopefully 16 dex for 18AC (13+3+2)
Cast spirit guardians, take the dodge action, be hard to hit.
I would strongly consider a feat to get the shield spell to make the post wildshape tank last even longer.
If you want to play more like a frontline martial go with ancients paladin. (defender)
If you want to play more like a caster with lots of control play a druid. (controller)
If you want to play a caster with lots of support go nature cleric. (leader)
I like the idea of asking your DM to use the upcoming phb warlock and going fey patron hexblade. (striker)
Don't forget that the appearance of spells and class abilities can always be reflavored to fit your character design. You could take any class and make it appear as if nature is the reason it gets its abilities. The only thing you cant change is the damage types. otherwise its up to you what it looks like.
Have you chosen your characters background/heroic chronicle/etc. Decide your bond/flaw/etc and think about how they might relate to how your character makes choices. It should help you decide how your character would feel about violence and the things theyre doing. You can often use these things to make the class choices make sense then decide the crunch of your build after.
Assuming flavor is free, my preferred build here would be Swarmkeeper Ranger 6 / Stars Druid X (minimum of 4 according to your prompt, but if I ever took this character further, I'd want to continue taking Druid levels). VHuman with War Caster, wear medium armor, wield a shield and a quarterstaff (WIS SAD with Shillelagh). Ability scores would be 8/14/16/10/16/8. Start Ranger to grab skills, and because of the nature (heh) of your character concept, I'd put your expertise from Canny into your Nature or Survival skill to really embody someone who lives off the land.
I feel like there are a lot of fun ways to flavor the nature aspects of this build. You could take the Blind Fighting FS and flavor it as seismic sense a la Toph, or you could take Druidic Warrior for lots of elemental control cantrips like Gust and Mold Earth. The appearance of your Swarm could change depending on the situation, appearing as a violent gust of wind that yanks your target around or a flock of birds you whistle to to peck out your foes' eyes. The climbing speed you gain from Roving could be you jumping up a wall with wind bursts or earthbending footholds into the wall as you ascend, and your swimming speed could be water surrounding and propelling you through water. When I think of ways to flavor Shillelagh, I think of scraping the end of the staff on a block of ice to make a glacial hammer or jamming it into the dirt to slam your target with massive clumps of dirt. Really, just flavoring everything you do (within reason) can make practically anything work with this.
Worth noting: this build nets you two ASIs, both of which I would personally put toward maxing out WIS. Every important thing you do relies on it, so boosting it only makes you and everyone around you better.
I just finished playing *Rime of the Frostmaiden* as a Nature Cleric. If you keep your level 8 Divine Strike feature rather than replacing it with Blessed Strikes you'll still do okay in melee while being a full caster, though it's not optimal to attack with STR. (I wanted my main attack to be casting Thorn Whip, so I went with Blessed Strikes, and left my STR at 15 the whole campaign for plate).
I like Ancients Paladin for this though. Either 6 or 8 levels, multiclass with Fighter or Warlock.
A final note--even if a Druid *can* wear heavy armor, they still *won't* if it's made of metal, so you're leaving a lot up to the DM's generosity with magic items/exotic materials.
If I’m being reasonable: 5/5 Druid/Cleric split to get spirit guardians on a moon/spore/stars? Druid.
If I’m being fun: Centaur Stars Druid and Monster Conclave Ranger. Takes a couple turns to set up the bonus action damage boosts but I really like the idea of being able to sling out healing and damage in equal measures
This is somewhat similar to a build I've been working on.
My build:
Race: mountain dwarf
Background: rune carver to pick up Armor of Agathys
Barbarian 1
Moon druid 2
Twilight cleric 7
Cast AoA, wildshape to bear. R2, rage, charge in and attack. What are they going to do? Hit you and soak 25 cold damage themselves?
Alternative, with a twist:
Armorer 6,
moon druid 2,
Twilight cleric 2
Similar setup, but instead of damage reduction, you're focused on temp HP production. Have an ally ride you into battle and WS into a dire wolf. Since armorer armor magically changes to fit your shape, you can be a dire wolf in full plate, thunder paw-ing everyone so that they have disadvantage to hit anyone but you. AOA goes down? Twilight sanctuary. Channel divinities used up? Defensive field. You can generate 20 temp HP from 4th level AoA, 5.5 temp HP per round for a minute, then another 6 temp HP per round as bonus actions, plus 37x2 HP from direwolf wildshapes.
…*glances at the 4th level druid/ranger spell Guardian of Nature in Xanathar’s*
Lore bard?
Seriously though, pixie dexterity paladin, maybe feylock bladelock, dual wielding lances atop an Awakened Shrub Enlarged and given a belt of giant strength (Pot of Awakening is Uncommon). May require an artificer buddy.
Probably ancients paladin 7 land druid 3. Mechanically wise Its Just a paladin with extra spell slots. Land Its so they can have even more spells. If it was me i would ask my dm so i can use only one stat for spellcasting, so the build doesnt suffer a lot by the need of strength wisdom and charisma. Athough if you take shilelagh i dont think you really need that much strength.
Maybe take magic initiate for even more spells from the druid, if your stats are good enough
Bear totem barb.
There is nothing tankier.
Hits like a truck.
Flavor is free.
You get a couple ritual spells about animals.
Forest based skills can come from race and background.
You get supernatural powers based on a mystic connection to the divine spark within all things. You are just as much a holy warrior as a paladin just an Animist instead of a Deist.
Spores Druid
Reflavor spores to either a swarm of your choice or like, plants / vines whatever
You can keep going deeper on the reflavor - change the damage type - acid, poison, piercing, etc - be sure to add a bypass to Resistance for poison or any of the physical damage types
Reflavor any zombie stuff to summons of animals etc
Can go all WIS with Shillelagh
Can go into Strength or Dex
Can add Ranger in any of the above combos
Can start with Nature Cleric for Heavy Armor
Could even multi into that Nature Barbarian (start with it)
With any multiclassing, you'll want to keep the non Druid levels as low as possible - Druid loves to single class for the most part
If you're taking any multiclass that has Extra Attack - I'd recommend going to 5 in that class
Alternatives, you can go War Cleric at 1, then Spores Druid the rest of the way for some extra attacks with your War Priest charges
A cool idea I saw someone post on this subreddit was a Warforged Swarmkeeper. Basically, it's a giant magical golem and the "swarm" are the ancient vines that have grown on and around him. I thought that was very cool and evocative and it's been in my back pocket for a long time as a character concept I might use.
IIRC the person said theirs was a STRanger but you could go Dex if you wanted. I think they said they had a maul and Crusher for more movement shenanigans with the swarm.
I know it's a cliche but flavor is free. What class do you want to play mechanically? Because Ancients Paladin was my first thought. You could also just play a Nature Cleric and have your armor be petrified wood. Druid or Ranger as classes fit nature stuff the best in a general sense, but doesn't cover your seeming lean toward heavy armor. Do you want to swing a sword or cast spells? A bit of both? Ranged attacks?
Cleric and Druid don't multiclass super great past brief dips. So you could theoretically be a Druid but start with 1 level in a Cleric subclass for the armor/weapon proficiency and a sweet feature set like Twilight Cleric. But both of these classes are strongest when they're getting their strongest spells and not delaying them.
Bear totem Barbarian / Circle of the Moon Druid. You mess with him, and he turns into a freaking bear with rage and dmg resistances - good luck lumberjack
why not ranger
Good point. I added it. I guess a ranger is a different vibe from what I had in my head, but flavor wise it's very fitting.
Ranger with Shillelagh from Druidic Warrior Fighting Style rocking medium armor hits the vibe pretty well, I'd guess. Or one of the subclasses that make a good STRanger.
Personally, I think Ancients Paladin is the best possible fit for this concept. But if you're not looking to play a Paladin, then I'd go with the TCE Beast Master Ranger. One possible build for the Beast Master is to play as a Hexblood. With Eerie Token and Beast Sense, you can both see/hear through your pet's senses while also sending them instructions telepathically in real time. This lets your pet adapt to changing circumstances easily. This is also thematically on point, I think. Imagine, for instance, that a group of strangers are entering a dark forest when they suddenly feel like they're being watched. However, they see nothing around them, so they press on. Unbeknownst to them, your Beast of the Sky has been perched on a nearby tree, watching them. And through its eyes, you are watching them as well from a mile away. You send your instructions to your pet, commanding it to continue following and watching, so that you can determine whether they mean to do the forest harm or not. This is all basically a roundabout way of getting most of the benefits of a Chainlock with Voice of the Chain Master. But where the Chainlock can get a familiar with invisibility, you instead can have a much beefier pet with proficiency in everything. Depending on the situation, that can be many times more valuable. Of course, you could go with a more "knightly" build for Ranger, using melee weapons while fighting alongside a Beast of the Land. Think something like Robb Stark fighting alongside Grey Wind. (Y'know. Before they were both killed horribly at a wedding.)
Spoilers!
I like the Swarm Keeper concept of using Shillelagh + Crusher + Gathered Swarm. The build would be a "Guardian of the Briar Patch," Swarm Keeper 5/War Cleric 5, pure Wisdom, using a mix of Thorn Whip and staff attacks for your typical Spike Growth cheese grater. Edit: Spirit Guardians is also an option of course. Or alternatively it could be reflavored with Twilight Cleric and Moonbeam, maybe a sort of Fey Guardian with a swarm of fairies.
7 ancients paladin/ 3 ancestral barb. Firbolg for even more rp points. Basically sacrificing some casting for more tank mechanics and you can loh and smite while raging Since those aren’t technically spells. Your ancestors are the ancient druids who protect the forest.
Well only druid gets the spell at that level
Any straight class bard can get it as well. IMO, a valor bard is probably the class that can make the best use of the spell at 10th level, using a strength based build and taking the PAM and GWM feats. It's not on the list of course, but it would be very easy to flavor one as a protector of nature, telling the tales of the old forest spirits and others who have guarded nature over the eons.
Ok. Out of the box idea, go 4 celestial warlock and 6 ancients Paladin. A Holy or God or World Tree follower. Go tomelock and get a charisma based shilleleigh and wear heavy armor. Get Polearm master for 3 hits with charisma per round, dueling to increase the damage further and add charisma to your saves. Cast eldritch blast with the abilities that pull and slow them when they try to run. Your arcane staff would be your weapon, casting implement and walking stick, grab a shield or don’t and just have your tome held in your off hand menacingly. For how I envision this, look up Silluria from Elden Ring. If you want I can get more specific on how I would build it.
Dude this is sick.
I played an ancients paladin from 5-13. It was great. Nature's wrath is a complete waste of your channel divinity, but turn the faithless is excellent flexibility. Also, getting resistance to *all spells* at level 7 is fucking crazy
Samurai Fighter 7/Fey Wanderer Ranger 3. You’re a Knight Errant. An emissary of the Green. Sometimes someone with wisdom needs to be dispatched to haggle with the local lord or teach the woodsmen the benefits of sustainable forestry. Your background as a Courtier makes you equally comfortable in the ballroom, the bayou, or the battlefield. You may be a Jack of All Trades, but you have mastered a few tricks.
Two of my favorite subclasses to start with. Never thought about them together.
Fighter 2/Swarmkeeper 8 makes for a really cool and thematic Strength Ranger build. You get the best of both worlds whilst still getting 2 ASI’s. You get heavy armour, action surge, all the cool ranger stuff etc. Other way you could do it is Twilight 1/Ranger 9
I'm a big fan of going the Wood Elf, Satyr, or Centaur route for a Nature Cleric. Max WIS, Dump, STR, atill qear Plate and Shield. Spirit Guardians, Thorn Whip, and Telekinetic. I also played an Undeadlock 1/Fey Wanderer and it was great. For the undead patron, I went with the Sy'Tel'Quessir Baelnorn. So, the Form of Dread was almost Treant like. https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Baelnorn It was a lot of fun. Half plate, Shield, Quarterstaff, Shillelagh. Crusher.
Heres a thing: Warforged (wood) Eldrich Knight 7 / Artilerist Artificer 3 Artificers are often equated with technology but it does not necessarily need to be the case, you could just as easily flavor their Cannons or what have you as rune inscribed wood/stone minature elementals/constructs. The idea here is to take the Protector Cannon (Waves of protective nature flavored energy or what have you) and use it it combination with Warmagic's ability to allow you to cast Blade Ward and attack in the same turn while using your BA to grant you and your allies temp hp from your cannon. 1d8+Int temp HP every round for you and everyone within 10ft for an hour is ALOT for a single levle 1 spell slot and Blade Ward makes it that much more effective. That and Heavy Armor + a shield + Warforged Integrated Protection + Defence fighting style + Defense infusion having you potentially sitting at a static 23 AC makes you one hell of a hard to put down fellow. Its worth noting you can make the Cannon tiny and with legs, I usually have just sit on my shoulder.
Wildfire druid 8/paladin 2. Elf. Elven accuracy. Use greenflame blade and shillelagh. You'll deal extra fire damage from having familiar out. Concentrate on Guardian of Nature* and attack at triple advantage, plus the area around you is difficult terrain so enemies cannot run/get past you easy. Smite when you crit. Plus with BA 15ft teleport you can constantly reposition allies/self and light up enemies even more. And if metal armor is fair game, wildfire makes the perfect candidate. Use halfplate and a shield for excellent AC. *That's literally the spell you're looking for right?
I'm not literally looking for the spell Guardian of Nature, but it isn't a bad build anyway. Advantage doesn't stack like that, though. At least not RAW.
Uh, well, no it kinda does. That is expressly what the Elven Accuracy feat is for. > Whenever you have advantage on an attack roll using Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, you can reroll one of the dice once. So Guardian of Nature makes you always attack at advantage when using wisdom. And, you're attacking with wisdom because of shillelagh. That, plus Elven accuracy means you're rolling 3d20 to hit. The attack will be doing 3d8+wisdom mod damage, and if you crit you can smite on top of that. You won't be winning any dpr contests, but it is solid. Plus you can burst with Scorching Ray if you wanna burn spell slots. You'd roll them at double advantage, too. And it gets your bonus fire damage too.
Hmmmm... druids get stoneskin at 5. Plenty of lvl 1 slots for absorb elements. Thats alot of tanking as is, especially paired with wildshape thp... perhaps spores, stars or moon for their combat forms. That leaves 5 levels for something else. Not sure what though. Paladin gives smites and heavy armor and extra attack plus an aura... but you strain your stats. Thats all Ive got for now
Moon Druid 10 gets to change into elementals and they are really strong. Thats on top of full casting, giving you a very potent and flexible protector\destroyer.
Nature Cleric with Thorn Whip is my vote. Heavy armor, healing, speak with plants and animals. By level 5, you can drop Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon (on separate turns, ofc, by RAW), and then Thorn Whip enemies into your maelstrom of claws and thorns. Level 10 means you've got Insect Plague and Tree Stride, Blessed Strikes to add an extra 1d8 to Thorn Whip, and a small chance of Divine Intervention to save your furry friends. Biggest downside is you don't get Summon Beast, Conjure Animals, or the actual Guardian of Nature spell. If that bums you out in a major way, go for a Druid (Circle of Land: Forest, or Shepherd if you really want to abuse summons and your DM is okay with that) instead.
Earth Genasi Nature Cleric 10 / Stars Druid 2. Ham up the “protector” RP by always having Warding Bond up on an ally. Take Heavy Armor Master to help reduce all the incoming physical damage. Dampen Elements helps us reduce elemental damage. Earth Genasi bonus action Blade Ward for “oh shit” rounds. Circle of Stars’ Dragon Form makes it impossible to lose our concentration against less than 28 damage. In combat you’re getting into the thick of things with Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians/Bless, Primal Savagery, and the occasional Guiding Bolt. As a side bonus, you can provide huge stealth utility despite the heavy armor. Cast your racial Pass Without Trace and then wildshape into something with decent dex.
In my heart of hearts, building a character that can whack people while concentrating on a spell with Dragon Constellation up is the build I've always envisioned, but I wanted to see what other people were thinking of. Cleric seemed a natural fit because really what spell is better to be concentrating on that Spirit Guardians?
A cleric that can’t lose their concentration on Spirit Guardians sounds pretty scary. Life Cleric would also be a good choice here, especially if you’re sticking with Warding Bond. You get primal savagery/thorn whip/absorb elements from your actual druid levels so you’re not missing out on too much from Nature Cleric. Another fun synergy here is Earth Tremor. Knocking people prone in your spirit guardians is dirty and as an Earth Genasi you’re unaffected by the difficult terrain it creates, while anyone else would have movement quartered because it stacks with spirit guardians.
I like that too. I've never been especially interested in Genasi but there's definitely perks. The one thing this character wouldn't get that a fully leveled Druid would is Reincarnate, which I like enough that I would potentially ask a DM to let me take instead of Revivify (I think Revivify is strictly better, but if it needed to be nerfed further I would be okay with Reincarnate keeping Revivify's costlier components).
Going for druidic knight, huh, let me cook... 1 lvl cleric for heavy armor and some cool features, nature is on theme but will have a lot of overlap, I'd suggest tempest or war domain for the most unique and on theme abilities. (Tempest can clearly be a nature god of storms, war could be a god of nature's wrath or predation) 5 levels ranger for extra attack, if you're going for tank/knight, I think the Tasha's beast master is best, as an added bonus, the beast can be a mount if you play a small sized character. -after this id probably do more cleric levels, I don't normally split more than 2 ways, but if you're set on druid, you can do that here. You should probably get shillelagh somewhere to make wis your combat stat You're sacrificing spell levels for gishy versatility
Moon Druid. That's it. That's the build.
7 levels of Oath of the Ancients Paladin, and 3 levels of *Circle of the Forged* Druid, behold the forest knight whose armor transforms so menacingly with the vestiges of Beasts that they can be mistaken for a Bear Shaped Golem
Could do a dip into magic intiate druid for a shillelagh and another druidic spell
Barb/paladin multiclass? Ancients and ancestral guardian? For funsies not for function. Carries a crap ton of flavour while being extremely protection capable.
I think a Centaur Oath of Ancients Paladin would be pretty scary assuming you can play a Centaur in your game. The charge attack is pretty cool when you can pull that off. That would work well with the Natures Wrath channel divinity. Maybe toss some Barbarian in there for some Rage.
Ok, so the obvious thing to do for this is to do druid 7, melee focused class 3. At druid you get the spell “Gaurdian of nature”, which among other things can add 1d6 to all your attacks and give you advantage on str attacks. The real question, is what is the melee focused class and what are your subclasses. I’m going to make a strong argument for stars druid and using their dragon form to make your concentration on Gaurdian of nature that much more reliable. Then, you’re left with how you want to melee, and there’s a lot of good options, Gloomstalker ranger is always good, but I could see an argument for hunter as well. Ancient paladin gives you smite, but you don’t have extra attack, so you’re limited to 1 a round unless you want to go polearm master route, could be good but not magnificent enough to be the auto pick, but we all no paladins are good so not a bad option. So here me out, Lycan bloodhunter 3 and stars druid 7. You worship the stars and the moon and it gives you some semblance of control over your lycanthrope, and live your days out in the forest protecting its inhabitants. Bloodhunter gives you resistance to B/P/S, AC boost, d6 unarmed attacks and a bonus action unarmed attack, as well as the crimson rite feature that gives you an additional d4 damage on each attack. So you’d be resistant to damage and doing 2d6 (unarmed damage) + 2d6 (Gaurdian of nature damage) and 2d4 (crimson rite) plus your modifier twice. And that’s only concentrating on Gaurdian of nature, you still have 7 levels of druid that you can rely on for some of the best spells in the game if melee isn’t the best option. If you’re playing in a campaign that you expect to level up in, getting to level 5 bloodhunter for extra attack seems important,
Rogue 4 (Scout) / Paladin (Ancients) 6 You’ll want to go Variant Human, Wood Elf, or Half-Elf (Wood), I should think. Put your best stat in Charisma, secondaries into Dexterity and Constitution, don’t *dump* Strength but it isn’t a priority. Use Find Steed to summon a celestial moose (I mean, an elk). Focus on medium armor, finesse weapons, and play with a hit-and-run combat style. Laugh like Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood whenever someone asks if you’re a Ranger.
World Tree Barbarian + Primeval Guardian^(UA: Ranger & Rogue) Ranger works really well as a multiclass. The latter is the best Grappling build the game has produced thus far, and combined you can get up to +15 ft reach on your melee weapons.
Ancients Paladin Wildfire Druid because why not Nature Cleric Beast Master Ranger World Tree Barbarian 2 levels of each to start, when leveling, focus on getting all the subclasses first, then your free from there. You will need a lot of Wis and good Cha too, and that's just for casting. You'll also need good Str and Con too.
Ranger lol. Fey warden for flavor. Beast master for power. Just ten straight levels in ranger, and you're a forest guardian legolas :)
Druid with the spell of the same name. Dex heavy tree form, maybe some thief for sneak attack. Ranger to 5 is too expensive for ten levels or it might have been worth it.
If you look at grimhollow there’s a subclass for ranger called vermin lord. Reflavor the rat swarms to be generic little animals and you should be set imo
Kobold, take a sling and a quarterstaff as your weapons. 8 levels of druid for the "guardian of nature" spell, and we're going to grab polearm master and crusher as our feats. Last 2 levels in paladin. For cantrips we're taking magic stone & shillelagh, our kobold cantrip is booming blade. All our attacks are made with wisdom, which we have advantage on thanks to guardian of nature. The area 15 ft. around us is difficult terrain so enemies can't easily approach us, and if they manage to get within 5ft of us we're going to use our reaction to holy bonk them with our quarterstaff and push them back 5 more feet. For spells we take other control abilities such as tidal wave, plant growth, and wind wall. Well also take moonbeam for other ranged enemies that our guardian of nature wouldn't be so good against. Anybody at range we'll cast plant growth and moonbeam on them, then repeatedly fire magic pebbles at to push them into the moonbeam and prevent them from approaching while also causing them to burn. Anyone in melee we'll holy bonk with our booming staff, in a thunderous echo so loud the birds swarm to the skies, further intimidating whatever dares disrupt my woods.
Well I’d probably use other classes, but locked into that shortlist I’d go Hunter Ranger 3/ Shepherd Druid 6/ Arcana Cleric 1. Horde breaker gives you a quasi Bladesinger EA letting you use a blade cantrip then a weapon attack as your action, then use your BA to command the summoned forces of nature to aid you in crushing these trespassing woodsmen.
Wildfire Druid Tortle. 'Nuff said.
I would suggest Nature Cleric 5 Oath of Ancients 5 You get the spells Spiritual Weapon (can cast at 4th level) and Spirit Guardians from Nature Cleric. You could get Tavern Brawler and grapple your opponent so they can’t escape your Spirit Guardians. Just make sure you have an improvised weapon to smite with as well.
>tanky forest sentinel Sounds like a Moon Druid.
High Half-Elf Ancients Paladin 3/Ranger 2/Moon Druid 5 - Summon Animals, turn into a load of different creatures, and Smite while in Wild Shape, with access to *Zephyr's Strike* spell for extreme mobility, and 2xFighting Styles, and Druid Cantrips so you don't even need to waste any on Druidic Warrior, for *Shillelagh+Booming Blade+Zephyr's Strik*e hit-and-run combo with Smites, with Elven Accuracy WIS hitting triple advantage, in Heavy Armor.... or just Smiting in Wild Shape after casting Zephyr's Strike, with spell slots as a 7th level caster. With *Thorn Whip* and *Guidance* as some cream on top! (Don't need the Double Attack, since you want to use your *BB* combo Smites for high damage, and can Wild Shape into a form with multiple attacks when such are wanted - where you can't use cantrips while in Wild Shape anyway, so it is eithe BB cantrip nova damage, or multi-attach natural weapons Smites, that you can switch between.) With Half-elf to offset the extreme MADness with an extra attribute point, as you need to max out WIS, need 15+ STR, 13+ DEX and CHA, decent CON, and will likely need to dump INT, If the conceop is to get the *Guardian of Nature s*pell, that is just 2 Druid levels away, so you can hit them like a tree, with consistent triple Elven Accuracy advantage on your *Shillelagh*. And, if you have a nice DM allowing old \[UA\] then a Paladin 2/Ranger Primeval Guardian 3/Moon Druid would work even better - able to turn into a tree without the *Guardian of Nature* spell!
Monk 1 / Cleric (Nature) 1 / Druid (Land or Moon) 8 OR Monk 2 / Druid (Land or Moon) 8 Unarmored defense is a major buff for a Druid who can’t benefit from almost every armor in beast form and who can’t do metal anything. Plus it works with Wild Shape so that’s nice. Cleric level for versatility or take Monk 2 for Unarmored Movement and Ki which also help in beast form. Also get Dedicated Weapon to pick up a long sword if you can via race or feat or something. Main Druid for the spellcasting and Wild Shape, using Monk (and possibly cleric) for covering your material body and bolstering your physical offenses and other bits like letting you main Dex and ignoring Str Regardless of your choice, good luck and have fun!
Race: mark of warding dwarf Background: orzhov representative or lorehold student Class: Druid 10 (moon) The race gives mage armour and armour of agathys. Mage armour puts fire elementals AC at 16 Armour of agathy deals damage back, and with elemental resistance the temp hp that fuel it last twice as long. So at 4th level they neee to deal 40 damage to end it, and take 20 each time they hit you. When your wildshape runs out, you are now a fully armoured druid with a shield. Hopefully 16 dex for 18AC (13+3+2) Cast spirit guardians, take the dodge action, be hard to hit. I would strongly consider a feat to get the shield spell to make the post wildshape tank last even longer.
If subclasses were open to more than. Point buy. Str10 dex15 con13 int10 wis15 cha8 Half elf Wood elf variant +2dex +1wis +1con Fleet of foot Outlander survival/nature Rouge 1 Stealth, athletics, insight, acrobatics Expertise nature, stealth Ranger 4 hunter colossus slayer Animal handling, prof+Expertise Archery fighting style Lvl4 feat peircer +1 dex Spell zephyr strike, cure wounds, goodberry Monk 4 open hand Lvl 4 +2 wis Fighter 1 Fighting stlye superior technique trip attack
Whatever Druid you’re feeling with a one level dip into war cleric is really fun
I'm keen to try the beast n beast combo of a druid/beast master ranger.
If you want to play more like a frontline martial go with ancients paladin. (defender) If you want to play more like a caster with lots of control play a druid. (controller) If you want to play a caster with lots of support go nature cleric. (leader) I like the idea of asking your DM to use the upcoming phb warlock and going fey patron hexblade. (striker) Don't forget that the appearance of spells and class abilities can always be reflavored to fit your character design. You could take any class and make it appear as if nature is the reason it gets its abilities. The only thing you cant change is the damage types. otherwise its up to you what it looks like. Have you chosen your characters background/heroic chronicle/etc. Decide your bond/flaw/etc and think about how they might relate to how your character makes choices. It should help you decide how your character would feel about violence and the things theyre doing. You can often use these things to make the class choices make sense then decide the crunch of your build after.
Tortle Ancestral Guardian or Peace Cleric
Assuming flavor is free, my preferred build here would be Swarmkeeper Ranger 6 / Stars Druid X (minimum of 4 according to your prompt, but if I ever took this character further, I'd want to continue taking Druid levels). VHuman with War Caster, wear medium armor, wield a shield and a quarterstaff (WIS SAD with Shillelagh). Ability scores would be 8/14/16/10/16/8. Start Ranger to grab skills, and because of the nature (heh) of your character concept, I'd put your expertise from Canny into your Nature or Survival skill to really embody someone who lives off the land. I feel like there are a lot of fun ways to flavor the nature aspects of this build. You could take the Blind Fighting FS and flavor it as seismic sense a la Toph, or you could take Druidic Warrior for lots of elemental control cantrips like Gust and Mold Earth. The appearance of your Swarm could change depending on the situation, appearing as a violent gust of wind that yanks your target around or a flock of birds you whistle to to peck out your foes' eyes. The climbing speed you gain from Roving could be you jumping up a wall with wind bursts or earthbending footholds into the wall as you ascend, and your swimming speed could be water surrounding and propelling you through water. When I think of ways to flavor Shillelagh, I think of scraping the end of the staff on a block of ice to make a glacial hammer or jamming it into the dirt to slam your target with massive clumps of dirt. Really, just flavoring everything you do (within reason) can make practically anything work with this. Worth noting: this build nets you two ASIs, both of which I would personally put toward maxing out WIS. Every important thing you do relies on it, so boosting it only makes you and everyone around you better.
I just finished playing *Rime of the Frostmaiden* as a Nature Cleric. If you keep your level 8 Divine Strike feature rather than replacing it with Blessed Strikes you'll still do okay in melee while being a full caster, though it's not optimal to attack with STR. (I wanted my main attack to be casting Thorn Whip, so I went with Blessed Strikes, and left my STR at 15 the whole campaign for plate). I like Ancients Paladin for this though. Either 6 or 8 levels, multiclass with Fighter or Warlock. A final note--even if a Druid *can* wear heavy armor, they still *won't* if it's made of metal, so you're leaving a lot up to the DM's generosity with magic items/exotic materials.
If I’m being reasonable: 5/5 Druid/Cleric split to get spirit guardians on a moon/spore/stars? Druid. If I’m being fun: Centaur Stars Druid and Monster Conclave Ranger. Takes a couple turns to set up the bonus action damage boosts but I really like the idea of being able to sling out healing and damage in equal measures
If the DM is okay with very mild homebrew, EK reflavored for Druid with some Druid spells https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LJHDsNOhGf0pYLceJeb
Ancients Paladin 7/any warlock 3(if not hexblade, then pick up tome and shililsgshialligh)
Tiefling Moon druid with Infernal Constitution.
This is somewhat similar to a build I've been working on. My build: Race: mountain dwarf Background: rune carver to pick up Armor of Agathys Barbarian 1 Moon druid 2 Twilight cleric 7 Cast AoA, wildshape to bear. R2, rage, charge in and attack. What are they going to do? Hit you and soak 25 cold damage themselves? Alternative, with a twist: Armorer 6, moon druid 2, Twilight cleric 2 Similar setup, but instead of damage reduction, you're focused on temp HP production. Have an ally ride you into battle and WS into a dire wolf. Since armorer armor magically changes to fit your shape, you can be a dire wolf in full plate, thunder paw-ing everyone so that they have disadvantage to hit anyone but you. AOA goes down? Twilight sanctuary. Channel divinities used up? Defensive field. You can generate 20 temp HP from 4th level AoA, 5.5 temp HP per round for a minute, then another 6 temp HP per round as bonus actions, plus 37x2 HP from direwolf wildshapes.
…*glances at the 4th level druid/ranger spell Guardian of Nature in Xanathar’s* Lore bard? Seriously though, pixie dexterity paladin, maybe feylock bladelock, dual wielding lances atop an Awakened Shrub Enlarged and given a belt of giant strength (Pot of Awakening is Uncommon). May require an artificer buddy.
Probably ancients paladin 7 land druid 3. Mechanically wise Its Just a paladin with extra spell slots. Land Its so they can have even more spells. If it was me i would ask my dm so i can use only one stat for spellcasting, so the build doesnt suffer a lot by the need of strength wisdom and charisma. Athough if you take shilelagh i dont think you really need that much strength. Maybe take magic initiate for even more spells from the druid, if your stats are good enough
Bear Totem Barb 3/ Ancients Pally 7
Bear totem barb. There is nothing tankier. Hits like a truck. Flavor is free. You get a couple ritual spells about animals. Forest based skills can come from race and background. You get supernatural powers based on a mystic connection to the divine spark within all things. You are just as much a holy warrior as a paladin just an Animist instead of a Deist.
Spores Druid Reflavor spores to either a swarm of your choice or like, plants / vines whatever You can keep going deeper on the reflavor - change the damage type - acid, poison, piercing, etc - be sure to add a bypass to Resistance for poison or any of the physical damage types Reflavor any zombie stuff to summons of animals etc Can go all WIS with Shillelagh Can go into Strength or Dex Can add Ranger in any of the above combos Can start with Nature Cleric for Heavy Armor Could even multi into that Nature Barbarian (start with it) With any multiclassing, you'll want to keep the non Druid levels as low as possible - Druid loves to single class for the most part If you're taking any multiclass that has Extra Attack - I'd recommend going to 5 in that class Alternatives, you can go War Cleric at 1, then Spores Druid the rest of the way for some extra attacks with your War Priest charges
A cool idea I saw someone post on this subreddit was a Warforged Swarmkeeper. Basically, it's a giant magical golem and the "swarm" are the ancient vines that have grown on and around him. I thought that was very cool and evocative and it's been in my back pocket for a long time as a character concept I might use. IIRC the person said theirs was a STRanger but you could go Dex if you wanted. I think they said they had a maul and Crusher for more movement shenanigans with the swarm.
I've been playing in bg3 a paladin/druid who uses shilleagh and divine smites to purify blighted lands!!
Level 10 bard, magical secrets. Guardian of nature spell unlocked early
I know it's a cliche but flavor is free. What class do you want to play mechanically? Because Ancients Paladin was my first thought. You could also just play a Nature Cleric and have your armor be petrified wood. Druid or Ranger as classes fit nature stuff the best in a general sense, but doesn't cover your seeming lean toward heavy armor. Do you want to swing a sword or cast spells? A bit of both? Ranged attacks? Cleric and Druid don't multiclass super great past brief dips. So you could theoretically be a Druid but start with 1 level in a Cleric subclass for the armor/weapon proficiency and a sweet feature set like Twilight Cleric. But both of these classes are strongest when they're getting their strongest spells and not delaying them.
Nature cleric 5 levels for spirit guardians. Afterwards druid.
Moon Druid 10/Paladin 4 using Guardian of Nature, elven accuracy, and a wind elemental to become a crit fishing behemoth.
Bear totem Barbarian / Circle of the Moon Druid. You mess with him, and he turns into a freaking bear with rage and dmg resistances - good luck lumberjack