D&D 5E Optimizing a Circle of Shepherd Druid

[FrogReaver]

First let's look at the important features.

Spirit Totem (once per short rest) - Large temp hp boost for the party and your summons!
Mighty Summoner - Allows summons natural weapons to ignore magic resistance. Also grants a bit of extra hp to summons.

Putting this together, you can summon wolves with 15hp, 11 temp hp = 26 effective hp that ignore magic resistance.

Wolves are CR 1/4 so at level 6 you can summon 8 of them.

8 wolves attacking a target will do as much or more DPR than a Battlemaster SS CE with precision attack all the way up to level 11. Of course at level 9 you can upcast your conjure animals to a 5th level slots and summon 16 wolves.

One of the coolest things about this Druid is that he doesn't rely on ASI's - which leaves alot of room open for feats (although Con is nice).

 

[Leatherhead]

If you can just pick whatever summoned animal you want, I recommend Velociraptors.

 

[FrogReaver]

If you can just pick whatever summoned animal you want, I recommend Velociraptors.

They are CR 1/2 so you get half as many of them as you could CR 1/4 wolves

 

[Leatherhead]

They are CR 1/2 so you get half as many of them as you could CR 1/4 wolves

You seem to have gotten the raptors mixed up, there are at least three different ones:

CR1 Clawfoot, from E:RftLW
CR 1/2 Clawfoot Raptor, from WGtE.
CR 1/4 Velociraptor from VGtM

That last one is the one I was talking about.

 

[Undrave]

Yeah... there’s not a lot of situation that can’t be solved by summoning eight wolves

Don’t forget that you can talk to your summons so you can give them better instruction. I found the most efficient method was to sic two wolves per target so they can attack with advantage. Even if the enemy has good AC, you’ll get them on volume.

If you can just pick whatever summoned animal you want, I recommend Velociraptors.

Do they have pack tactics and can they knock targets prone?

 

[BacchusNL]

Yeah... there’s not a lot of situation that can’t be solved by summoning eight wolves

Don’t forget that you can talk to your summons so you can give them better instruction. I found the most efficient method was to sic two wolves per target so they can attack with advantage. Even if the enemy has good AC, you’ll get them on volume.



Do they have pack tactics and can they knock targets prone?

5etools

5e.tools

They can't knock enemies down but they do have Pack Tactics and attack twice per round.
I like throwing in 1 level of Life Cleric with my Shepard Druid, to make him an excelent healer that can still bring down a serious beating. Arguebly the most well-rounded healer setup in the game, I think

 

[tommybahama]

Don’t forget that you can talk to your summons so you can give them better instruction. I found the most efficient method was to sic two wolves per target so they can attack with advantage. Even if the enemy has good AC, you’ll get them on volume.

Maybe have one (if your DM uses flanking rules) or two wolves (using the help action without flanking if each help will assist on separate attacks; I don't know if that's RAW) assist your GWM barbarian so he doesn't have to reckless attack the enemy?

I like throwing in 1 level of Life Cleric with my Shepard Druid, to make him an excelent healer that can still bring down a serious beating. Arguebly the most well-rounded healer setup in the game, I think

My druid is at level 7 and our party is not doing great with healing. Part of it is our GWM barbarian didn't optimize for CON and insists on attacking recklessly all the time. Other than the 2+1 HP/spell level bonus to healing, is there anything else that makes them great healers? Like is it +3 HP for each of the ten goodberrys?

 

[Undrave]

My druid is at level 7 and our party is not doing great with healing. Part of it is our GWM barbarian didn't optimize for CON and insists on attacking recklessly all the time. Other than the 2+1 HP/spell level bonus to healing, is there anything else that makes them great healers? Like is it +3 HP for each of the ten goodberrys?

According to Sage Advice? Yes! You can interpret the effect that way. Also you get Bless and Cure Wounds as domain spells so you don't need to prepare them.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Yeah... there’s not a lot of situation that can’t be solved by summoning eight wolves

Don’t forget that you can talk to your summons so you can give them better instruction. I found the most efficient method was to sic two wolves per target so they can attack with advantage. Even if the enemy has good AC, you’ll get them on volume.



Do they have pack tactics and can they knock targets prone?

I am imagining the Shepherd Druid solving the classic "how do we cross this canyon?" problem by having eight wolves form a bridge, each wolf biting the tail of the wolf in front of it.