D&D 5E Circle of Spores: Revised

[ro]

I really like the new Unearthed Arcana: Three Subclasses, but I think they need a few changes. Here is my take on Circle of Spores. What do you think?

I changed Circle Spells,
clarified the Halo of Spores reaction to make it protective,
added plant Wild Shape,
expanded Fungal Infestation to not require you to deal the killing blow and to raise undead back to normal life,
added Powerful Poison to fix the problem of many enemies being poison-immune,
and added protection from disease and poison damage to Fungal Body.

Circle of Spores

Circle of Spores Features

Druid Level Feature
2nd Circle Spells, Halo of Spores, Symbiotic Entity
6th Fungal Infestation, Powerful Poison
10th Spreading Spores
14th Fungal Body

Circle Spells

Your symbiotic link to fungus and your ability to tap into the cycle of life and death grants you access to certain spells. At 2nd level, you learn the chill touch cantrip. At 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th level you gain access to the spells listed for that level in the Circle of Spores Spells table.
Once you gain access to one of these spells, you always have it prepared, and it doesn’t count against the number of spells you can prepare each day. If you gain access to a spell that doesn’t appear on the druid spell list, the spell is nonetheless a druid spell for you.

Circle of Spores Spells

Druid Level Spells
3rd continual flame, gentle repose
5th revivify, stinking cloud
7th sickening radiance, storm sphere
9th cloudkill, contagion

Halo of Spores

Starting at 2nd level, you can launch toxic spores at other creatures. When a creature within 10 feet of you tries to harm you or one of your allies, you may use your reaction to deal 3 poison damage to that creature. This damage increases to 6 at 6th level, 9 at 10th level, and 12 at 14th.

Symbiotic Entity

At 2nd level, you can use your Wild Shape to transform into a plant, and you gain the ability to channel magic into the spores that infuse you.
When you use your Wild Shape feature, you can awaken those spores, rather than transforming. When you do so, you gain 3 temporary hit points per level you have in this class, the damage of your Halo of Spores feature doubles, and your attacks deal an extra 1d6 poison damage to any target they hit. These benefits last for 10 minutes or until you use your Wild Shape again.

Fungal Infestation

At 6th level, your spores gain the ability to animate corpses. If you hit a living creature with your Halo of Spores damage, it is infected for 1 hour, and the creature rises as an undead on your next turn after it dies. It has the statistics of a zombie but only 1 hit point. In combat, its turn is immediately after yours, and it obeys your mental commands. It remains animate for 1 hour, after which time it collapses and dies.
If you hit an undead creature with your Halo of Spores damage, it rises as a living creature. After 1 hour it does not collapse and die, but it no longer follows your commands.

Powerful Poison

Starting at 6th level, your poison is potent. Poison damage you deal ignores immunity and resistance, and if you inflict the poisoned condition, immune creatures instead have advantage on saving throws against your poison.

Spreading Spores

At 10th level, you gain the ability to seed an area with deadly spores. As a bonus action, you hurl fungal spores up to 30 feet away, where they swirl around in a 10-foot cube for 1 minute. While the cube of spores persists, you can’t use your Halo of Spores feature, but any creature that starts its turn in the cube takes your Halo of Spores damage. The cube of spores vanishes early if you use this feature again.

Fungal Body

At 14th level, the fungal spores in your body alter you: you are immune to poison damage, and you can’t be blinded, deafened, diseased, frightened, or poisoned, and if an attack is a critical hit against you, it doesn’t deal its extra damage to you.

 

[Thurmas]

Biggest pet peeve about this subclass and others that do it too, I don't like exact numbers for damage unless they are something added to a roll, such as a +Int mod to spell damage. The level 2 ability should deal 1d6 damage, increasing by 1d6 at each stage. The Symbiotic Entity would just double the dice for each level. It is a tiny damage increase of .5 damage per number of dice rolled, but this is D&D, a game designed around rolling dice.

 

[ro]

Biggest pet peeve about this subclass and others that do it too, I don't like exact numbers for damage unless they are something added to a roll, such as a +Int mod to spell damage. The level 2 ability should deal 1d6 damage, increasing by 1d6 at each stage. The Symbiotic Entity would just double the dice for each level. It is a tiny damage increase of .5 damage per number of dice rolled, but this is D&D, a game designed around rolling dice.

Thank you for your feedback! I made a few changes:

Halo of Spores
Starting at 2nd level, you can launch toxic spores at other creatures. When a creature within 10 feet of you tries to harm you or one of your allies, you may use your reaction to deal 1d6 poison damage to that creature. This damage increases to 2d6 at 6th level, 3d6 at 10th level, and 4d6 at 14th.

Fungal Infestation
At 6th level, your spores gain the ability to animate corpses. If you hit a living creature with your Halo of Spores damage, it is infected for 1 hour. When an infected creature dies, it rises as an undead at the beginning of your next turn. It has the statistics of a zombie but only 1 hit point. In combat, its turn is immediately after yours, and it obeys your mental commands. It remains animate for 1 hour, after which time it collapses and dies.

If you hit an undead creature with your Halo of Spores damage, it instead rises as a similar living creature. While it is under your control, its combat statistics match a zombie as above. After 1 hour it leaves your control and becomes a full member of its species, also gaining the benefits of a long rest as it ventures out into its new life.