D&D 5E 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part V: Druids)

[CleverNickName]

Spoiler: Druid Discussion

The best druid I ever played was actually a sorcerer. I'll explain.

In my wife's homebrew campaign setting, there was an evil witch in the woods who was stealing children and turning them into trees. The heroes fought the witch and were victorious, and many of the children were rescued...but they weren't fast enough to save them all. Some children were warped by the magic the witch was using...and some were fully transformed into trees.

Then several months after that quest ended, there was a TPK. Alas, these things happen.

So our DM, my wife, advanced the campaign timeline 15 years, and told us to roll up new characters. I asked if I could play as one of "the green kids," one of the kids who had been warped by the witch's magic. They said sure, that sounded awesome, and recommended that I play an Eladrin since it was the best fit for the campaign. Well, I took the idea and ran with it.

I rolled up a sorcerer, and asked if I could pull my spells off of the Druid spell list instead of the Sorcerer list. My wife said "Sure, a metamagic druid sounds awesome" and allowed it. Then I asked if I could use the Fey-Touched origin (from DM's Guild), and again they said "Sure, that sounds awesome."

It was one of the best not-druid Druids I've ever played. The moral of the story: marry an awesome DM.

 

[ezo]

As long as your most recent vote in the thread has "Yesterday" in the timestamp, you're good.

Yep. Yesterday 5:32 AM and Today 12:00 AM!

 

[JEB]

Circle of the Land 18
Circle of the Shepherd 12 + 1 = 13
Circle of Stars 15 - 2 = 13
Circle of Wildfire 12

 

[Aurel Guthrie]

It is past midnight \o/

Circle of the Land 16
Circle of the Shepherd 13
Circle of Stars 14
Circle of Wildfire 12

 

[Argyle King]

I'm surprised that there isn't an official Sun Druid.

The sun is a pretty big part of nature and life.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm surprised that there isn't an official Sun Druid.

The sun is a pretty big part of nature and life.

One could argue that's what the Wildfire druid is. The sun provides light and warmth, food, health, wellbeing. It's also a deadly laser, or so I hear. It is, in and of itself, both life-giving and life-destroying.

 

[niklinna]

Spoiler

I mean that isn't really better? You'd still be blanderizing it down to "elemental caster," which is just what the druid already is by default. Much better to make actually distinct elemental subclasses, no? That way they can actually have different features, rather than being palette swaps.

Well then where are my wildriver druids, my wildstorm druids, and my wildmountain druids?

 

[Argyle King]

Circle of the Land 16
Circle of the Shepherd 13 + 1 = 14
Circle of Stars 14 - 2 = 12
Circle of Wildfire 12

 

[niklinna]

Circle of the Land 16 - 2 = 14
Circle of the Shepherd 14
Circle of Stars 12
Circle of Wildfire 12 + 1 = 13

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Spoiler

Well then where are my wildriver druids, my wildstorm druids, and my wildmountain druids?

Spoiler

I have no problem with there being other subclasses that address this. For example, the Circle of the Tides for an aquatic-focused version, perhaps one that has some kind of mechanic to represent the push-and-pull effects thereof. I don't think I would go for a companion creature for that sort of Druid--rather, I'd give it some ability to tinker with its wildshape forms, reflecting the enormous variety of ocean-going life. Jellyfish regeneration and crustacean armor and mollusk intelligence, etc. Although it pains me to say it, technically the Circle of the Land is probably meant to be the "mountain"/earth druid, in the sense that it's linked to terrain and physical structure. I'd personally prefer to make a subclass that gets superior defenses and such, perhaps even the ability to give yourself "earthen armor" as a substitute for metal armor. Wind is trickier; back in 4e you had the Eagle or "Watcher" Shaman who was good at supporting ranged abilities and physical movement around the battlefield, so perhaps features that hook into that would be functional--not sure, would want to dwell on it more.

This, incidentally, is part of why I balked at someone else's suggestion of "improving" the flavor of Wildfire by making it "choose your element": that actually makes the subclass even blander. If you actually make them different, e.g. "well you have the Earth package, which gives its set of features at level 2, 6, 10, and 14, and the Water package, which gives genuinely different features at those levels," then you've already made four different subclasses and you're just pretending they're one subclass. If you don't do that, then all you're doing is making it "Insert Element Here," which must inherently be more bland than element-specific stuff.