D&D 5E [5E] Optimizing Circle of the Shepherd with a bonus feature from another class

[Lenaen]

Hi all,

I'm currently playing in a homebrew campaign that's (mostly) using 5E rules. We've reached a point in the story where due to various circumstances we have the option of rerolling from scratch our 8th level characters. When rebuilding we have to follow the books (so no UA, but no +1 limitation) and I've been thinking of playing a Circle of the Shepherd druid from XGtE. Additionally, we get an extra class feature of 8th level or lower (that scales if the feature scales, e.g. Fighter's Extra Attack or Rogue's Sneak Attack) or a three free castings per day of a 3rd level spell or lower. The campaign is not particularly combat heavy, but when we get into fights they tend to be pretty intense, and RP sections are solved more with talking than dice rolling. Here's some possibilities come up with so far, what would you choose for the extra ability?

Fighter's Extra Attack - wade in there with my summons and hit things around with Shillelagh
Circle of the Moon Circle Forms - increased durability while meleeing with summons, but I wouldn't have magical attacks
Cleric's Potent Spellcasting - increase damage without getting on the front lines (DM would likely not limit this to cleric cantrips RAW)
Conjure Animals - plenty of opportunities to summon, although we tend to do relatively few battles per day, I don't think I'd be too worried about running out of slots
College of Lore's Magical Secrets - Summon Lesser Demons to add to the stable
Oath of the Ancients Aura of Warding - campaign is pretty magic-heavy, could mitigate a significant amount of damage

 

[mellored]

I've got too many questions.

How about sorcerer's metamagic? (with scaling SP?)
clerics spell casting? (double spell slots?)
warlocks invocations? (would the number scale?)
Do sub-classes count as a feature? (scaling with their features).

 

[Lenaen]

Yeah, our DM sprung this "world reset" at the end of our session and we're still kind of parsing what's kosher and what's not. Here's my interpretation:

-Metamagic - I'd have to clear this with the DM, who I think would be OK with it, but on its face no good. Font of Magic (which provides SP) and Metamagic (which spends SP) are two different features. I could take Font for the spending of spell points to create spell slots, but this seems underwhelming without Metamagic also
-"Spell casting" is a class feature, but I'm already getting it from being a druid and we can't double up. The Divine Magic feature from the Division Soul Sorcerer is a legit way to gain access to cleric spells, and I believe one of the other casters is taking that
-Invocations - legit and would scale, but I likely wouldn't get access to the ones locked by Pact. Would require some clarification from the DM about the ones that say you have to spend a warlock spell slot, as those are balanced with the warlock's limited number of spell slots in mind
-Taking a whole subclass would not be considered a feature, but any of the headings under a subclass are. Since I have warlocks open, I could take the Expanded Spell List, Fey Presence, or Misty Escape features from the Archfey pact, but not the entire subclass (nice try)

 

[mellored]

-"Spell casting" is a class feature, but I'm already getting it from being a druid and we can't double up. The Divine Magic feature from the Division Soul Sorcerer is a legit way to gain access to cleric spells, and I believe one of the other casters is taking that

Pact Magic? That would give you a lot of slots.

-Invocations - legit and would scale, but I likely wouldn't get access to the ones locked by Pact. Would require some clarification from the DM about the ones that say you have to spend a warlock spell slot, as those are balanced with the warlock's limited number of spell slots in mind

Don't get the 1/day ones either way. Their crap no matter what.
You want devils sight, at-will disguise self, at-will levitate, etc...

Also, Ki (which comes with 3 abilites) might be a nice one for a melee class (but probably not the druid). They could spend it all on dodging.

 

[bid]

Single features that would love to scale with character level:
- rage
- fighter's extra attack (3rd attack at level 11)
- BM combat superiority (always 1d8, but hey)
- martial arts
- unarmored movement
- ranger's companion
- sneak attacks
- pact magic (a second set of slots)
- eldritch invocations
- bladesong


Rogue should take extra attack, other martials should take SA or BM. Caster with pact magic is almost cheating. Eldritch invocations has the best out-of-combat potential.

 

[Lenaen]

Thanks for the suggestions, agreed the choice is much easier for the martial classes. I think pact magic would be pushing it, I'll take a closer look at some of the newer invocations as well and see if they'd fit. Unfortunately the need to concentrate on summons would mean raging likely wouldn't be a good fit. Ranger companion would be thematically appropriate, although I'm unsure if it would be as mechanically powerful as some other options.

 

[FrogReaver]

Does sneak attack scale?

A druid that summons things and then attacks with sneak attack the things near them could be cool.

 

[FrogReaver]

Take the circle of land druid feature that lets you regain spell slots?