D&D 5E (+) Circle of Spores, a Better Execution

[doctorbadwolf]

Fungal infestation is what needs work. It's the ability that, thematically suggests all sorts of creative play, but totally kills it through an overly narrow and mechanically rigid implementation, that just makes it into a mildly interesting combat tactic of limited use.

When I saw that there was a fungal necromancy druid, I was envisioning swinging through the jungle treetops on the back of a fungus powered giant gorilla corpse, my loyal undead pet ferret Lazarus ever by my side. Spore themed buffs are cool and all, but it's not what makes the subclass thematically interesting to me.

To me what would make this subclass awesome is if I could use the power of fungus to both A) have one semi-permanent undead pet and B) also temporarily reanimate beasts (including larger beasts) and make some limited use of their unique natures. I don't really care if these critters are useful in combat, druids can always summon creatures to help them in combat. I'm more interested in being able to make general utility use out of corpses of exploration and roleplay.

5e Necromancy in general would benefit from having a simple template to create the undead version of a creature, and the idea that zombified beasts come back using standard humanoid zombie stats is where the lack of such a thing really gets felt.

My solution to this is to just change all a spore Druid’s conjured allies to undead, and decribe those “allies” as undead you’ve created.

 

[beancounter]

So, how many of you wanted to choose the spore subclass but didn't because of the issues? That's the one I was going for, but I settled on Moon, as so many do.

 

[Stormonu]

On the 6th level Fungal Infection, seems like it would be best to let it be a once per short rest ability, and just treat the risen corpse as a zombie. Or, PB bonus per day. Not great for combat, but I think its use was more meant for the other pillars.

 

[Ancalagon]

A commentary on the zombie being not great for combat: don't forget that zombies have Undead Fortitude, which makes them having only 1 hp not as "bad" as it seems.

Has anyone used the spore druid as a necromancer, given that it knows the animate dead spell? how did that work out?