I built a “Water Sage” coastal Druid with healer feat. My goal was to limit myself to only water, ice and healing spells but I made a couple non-elemental exceptions like magic stone, guidance, and faerie fire, since it’s not technically fire. I once doused a burning village in a nine goblin raid at lv2, with create/destroy water, causing it to rain on the house fires to put them out. Still one of my favorite moments so far.
Loved to see the call out here of conjure animals dropping. This is why conjure animals (or any other spell that summons 8+ creatures) are the best blast spells in the game. This of course is best in the hands of a sorcerer who can distant spell to double the falling dmg. The earliest to pull this off is at L7 (druid 5, sorc 2 with metamagic adept). This would be the best nuker in the game.
2 “____ Class is Broken” videos in a month! You are spoiling us at this point! I always love these kinds of videos! Even though I already know what the class does, your fun way of talking about it makes me watch the video all the way through anyway! Keep up the great work!
I’m new to DnD and your videos have helped me so much! Informative and enjoyable, literally the perfect video. Each class guide covers EVERYTHING you would need in any guide. Thank you so much, keep it up :D
7:10 This tripped me up initially too but special senses like darkvision specifically do NOT carry over from your race to wildshape unless the beast itself has it. Few beasts actually have darkvision - in the PHB it's just the frog, owl, spider, rat, and tiger. So your bear or wolf might need someone in the party to cast light or have a torch.
Currently playing as a Circle of Dreams druid, having a lot of fun though I know many people don't like it but I think it's a very good option if you want to be the primary healer of your party but not necessarily want to spend your entire turn healing people! Anyway love your vids! I still haven't watched this one but anyway I wanted to say a few words in favour of my favourite druid subclass 😅
Nice! I love the flavor of the Circle of Dreams and I do think it lends itself well to that type of Druid! Thanks for watching and I'm glad you're enjoying them!
@@alessandrosalomoni3213 I've been running one for half a year now, that bonus pickup healing pool is fantastic as we use team initiative and i can revive 2 downed characters quickly.
I frequently create my Druids to be just absurdly powerful. Three of them are powerful elemental Druids (Multiclassers) in D&D terms. They can tear apart a battlefield with elements. Hyrdo Mage Knight, Aero Dancing Healer, Geo Paleolithic Samurai. Also, they're beautiful.
@@bobbyandimages Half-Orc Samurai Fighter/Primeval Druid with a massive ancient boar as a BFF, two katanas, a shield she can pass to friends, Tough, Dual Wielder, Shield Master, and Orcish Fury feats. Powerful earth spells and relentless fighting spirit for this badass, lady. Personality: imagine a Japanese Rosa Diaz with short person complex.
@@paraschauhan1603 one of my favorite things is when a character concept people are passionate about meet the mechanics of the game, to better express that original concept
My druid is a dnd Poison Ivy. She's a summer eladrin and Circle of Spores who's all about plants, poison,charm, dominating her enemies, battlefield control and,if all else fails, putting the smackdown on said enemies! Having been captured and experimented upon she's a bit unstable mentally,..
I play a kobold wild fire druid and I found what works best me is battle field control, use terrain to your advantage and know your party members. Battle field control can limit enemies movement, sight or abilities forcing them to only have a very limited set of options to move or attack. Terrain such as buildings could be brought down or set ablaze. While I was casting and using cover, I had my wild fire spirit attacking safely from a burning building. Lastly, know your party members! I was able to control the battle field through spiked growth along with magical darkness in an adjacent spot from another party member. This allowed the wizard with devil sight to pepper slowed groups of enemies with acid and have his familiar attack all from the safety of magical darkness. I used either thunder wave or burning hands to damage and keep enemies in the spike growth all while yeeting out of danger through fiery teleport by my wild fire spirit if they got close. The spell "Heat Metal" is also very underrated. First no attack roll is required and can be cast from 60' away which is huge. Second this can disarm enemies by targeting their weapon or cause major damage each turn by targeting heavy armor worn. It takes a good bit of time to remove heavy armor outside of battle by itself. I have eliminated or disabled enemy champions with this spell alone before our melee party members even engaged. The biggest take away is you are limited to your imagination on what you can do.
I don't know if this is mentioned but Githzerai make a good case for being Druids. Githzerai Psionics - gives you a suped up Mage Hand, Shield, and Detect Thoughts. The latter two free once per day and can be wisdom based. Mental Discipline grants you advantage to charmed and frightened condition. Finally Psychic Resilience gives you psychic resistance.
Oh that is a pretty good one!! I’d listed githzerai as a good race option in my recent cleric video so I think I was just looking elsewhere so it wasn’t exactly the same but you’re absolutely right!
The reason for the non-metal armors is theoretically because the metal lost it's natural properties when it was forged. With weapons there are options for keeping the metal as close as possible to it's natural "form" - for instance cold iron forging. The weapons also are much less mass, compared to say 50lbs of smelted and forged steel.
@@ConstructedChaos The treatment of wood and leather for use isn't as severe as for large amounts of metal where you have to find iron ore; completely melt it to remove the slag stone, and then cool the remaining iron while forging it to shape (hot forging). Spiritually the iron is no longer considered "pure" where wood and leather treatment mostly simply requires the use of natural chemicals. It's not the shaping, it's how the material is made usable. In Chinese and Japanese Elemental theory metal is it's own element; and might not be considered a pure element in itself for eastern natural religions like for instance Japanese Shinto; which believes the world is filled with spirit-beings, some friendly (often called Kami) and others not. I consider Shinto to be a Druid-related religion because of it's focus on spirits of nature and I believe there are older Chinese "philosophic" religions that are similar. They might not feel some metals are natural (I haven't done in-depth study on this, just mentioning it). In many Western cultures Iron in itself is considered unnatural; it's the bane of all spirit-beings - or Fae as we'd usually call them. Part of Druidism involves asking the fey for help and you wouldn't do that encased in material that would terrorize them. I'd also mention that in basic IRL druidism it's Hot Forged Iron that's anathema; not all metals. So a druid would be able to wear a bronze breastplate perhaps. The last several editions of D&D have had varieties of wood that are nearly as strong as forged iron and wouldn't inhibit a druid in-game; so there are/were work-arounds and many editions had a spell called Ironwood (I haven't checked to see if this spell made it into 5E) that made a piece of wood as strong as iron; so you could permanently enchant a wooden breastplate. The metal armor limitation is usually only a limitation early on. When a PC can afford enhanced materials it stops being a hindrance. Sorry if this feels like it meandered or got long.
I have heard many DM are ok with armor with alternative materials such as carapace or beast scale as seen on Dragon Scale and Serpent Armor. Good thing about wildshapr into tiny creature is, you can concentrate on spells such as Pass without Trace to be more sneaky.
Yeah I think most DMs are willing to ignore the rule altogether. But there are some people out there that are completely set on strictly using RAW. And that's okay too!
As a player Druid, and a DM who is running for druids, I like this rule. I think it’s kinda weird seeing a Druid, link to nature with a full metal armor on. And it’s forcing players to be creative about their protection such as dragon scales or turtle carapace. It gives flavor to the class in my opinion
@@gregoiredessoles2093 And that's totally fine! I just don't want to force a player to adhere to it if they want to do something different. If they like the restriction as a way to force creative and flavorful options into being, then I'm all for it!
I'm playing a tortle Circle of Stars druid right now for my friend's campaign. We're all new to the game, so we're playing a little loose with the rules, but I'm having a lot of fun playing a druid who is our party's tank/healer
@ConstructedChaos The forest drake is basically a giant iguana who doesn't really like me, but I wrestled him into submission and feed him, so he's chilling with us. I named him Antonio. The pseudo dragon looks like a red dragon who is the size of a cat, but isn't actually a dragon. I earned his respect tho so now we have a telepathic bond, and it comes in handy during stealth missions. His name is Hoshi!
I'm playing a Wildfire druid/Life cleric 8/1 that's a chef. His spells are flavored as healing people through food or blasting through spice/chemical components. I love him so much.
Counter to dumping strength: you can Dump DEX because you can always wildshape itno a more dextrous beast. I had a Haalf Drow elf druid of spores druid who was strength base because the Quaterstaff wats its weapon. My Circle of the Land druid was dex based because he used an "obsidian" scimitar. So, take that into consideration. will you use Finese weapons? or Strength weapons? (or will you most likely use a staff/totem/druidic focus and mostly cast of wild shape all the time?). My Spores druid had STR 13+1, 14 DEX (mostly for AC & some initiative, and with Medium Armor, +2 DEX is okay). CON 13+1, INT 8, WIS 15+2 (and got a feat that increased wisdom like Shadow Touched), and CHA 8 (i imagime his as wise, but not academically intelligent. He understand how nature works, but not the mechanics and science of it, and he has low CHA because he is likely covered in fungus :) the Land druid had STR 10 DEX 14 CON 15+1 INT 8 WIS 15+2 CHA 8 because he was a bit of a wilderness deweler who didn't spend a lot of time around people besides other druid sages whom he met on ocassional druidic gatherings of sages (he wasn't quite a sage, but was in training). Spores druid is mechanically weak, but it is a FUN class, and since druid in general are one of the strogest classes, its okay, but thematically, the RP aspec is So much fun! Land druid is a true caster, though. I plan to play a Star druid who can be a very versitile, powerfull class, and a wildfire druid which may not be as strong mechanically, but fiery teleport is fun, and thematically the idea of the cicle of life with fire and regrowth is so amazing!
Played a Reborn Tortle Spore Druid in a one-shot. 12/8/16/8/16/14. I intentionally gave him a negative in Intelligence for RP purposes. His name is Kellit Whi'Fyre because the crowd saw a solid black, moldy Tortle with sharp claws & chased him into the woods shouting "Kill it! Kill it! Kill it with fire!" & due to both his stupidity & amnesia, he thought that was his name. He acts perpetually high as a kite with a steryotypical Canadian accent & the DM lets me use plants instead of beasts for his summoning spells because his "friends" are Myconids (amazing race--look them up). Whenever he casts Animate Dead their entire body fills with the same black mold that his body is made of & looks Mychonid-ish while under his control. He refers to them as his "friends" Darren, Dylan, Davin, Daton, Dayle & Frank (the latter being his familiar Mychonid Sprout). As far as role-play he is my FAVORITE character ever made. If I had made him berfore Tasha's he would have been a Land: Underdark Druid. Druids are powerful, but whenever I build a Druid I try to be optimal but they are the one class where I care so much more about thematics & roleplay than I do mechanics & powerful builds. That what gives them a special place in my heart.
At the moment I'm into a wood elf druid first ever time playing Dnd I'm all about nature and have a backstroy of meeting elfs who were archeologists digging up the past of dinosaurs and seeing what they use to look like im all about dinos but mixing with wildlife gonna be a blast!! i was rasied by Wolfs!
Paladin is the next one I'm doing but I would say we're probably a couple weeks from that being done! I have a couple of other videos slotted first and I need to get my hands on some more wardrobe pieces to represent the paladin in my shorts!
I think druids are crazy good but can be very complicated. if you’re new the game I recommend you take circle of moon turn into a bear get up front and hit stuff. Plus you can use your spell slots to heal. Eventually you’ll learn to use spells over time and find out all the cool stuff later. If you are a more advanced, um, can we have some more flavor?
You’re absolutely right about that one. Spellcasting can already be a lot to manage for a new player and wild shape is just that much more. I think druids are pretty flavorful as they are but I’m curious to know what you feel is missing! I do with we had a few more subclasses for them!
My first character was a moon druid but I would recommend that class it is to broken in every way l, within 2 sessions I changed to an arguably more powerful and cool wildfire druid.
@@ConstructedChaos I humbly disagree druids have really good subclasses mainly astral and wildfire but also spores and others they have too many broken subclasses like shepherd whose abilities just don't work and moon which are busted in tier one and kinda trash after
@@theodorheidhues2566 No worries about disagreeing here! These videos contain my own opinion influenced by my own experiences. And that means your experiences may have been different than mine! So long as you're having fun, I'm cool with whatever you play!
I think Land is a great way to get used to spellcasting without having to worry about a spell book or picking bad spells with limited spells known. You get some spells always prepared and can change any spells you prepare that you don't like after a long rest, plus getting some slots back on a short rest is amazing when you're not used to saving slots
I have a Dragonborn Emerald, Druid Moon - 10 lvls., Paladin Conquest- 2 lvls., Barbarian Totem Warrior(Bear) - 5 lvls.. He uses wildshape to turn into an elemental with a Spellguard Shield, Dragon’s Wrath Weapon (Rapier, Wakened - Amethyst), and a Belt of Cloud Giant Strength. He can heal as a bonus action and smite on your slam since it's considered a melee weapon attack.
It was inspired by Elemental Myrmidon. I wanted to be able to summon them. I wasn't able to summon them. Decided if I can't summon one, how do I become one.
I wonder though, as druids are said to get power from nature itself or a nature deity, but if you have a druid that has a nature deity grant you powers, how does that work? Do they just form a bond with the deity? If they worship it, they'd be more of a cleric. If they form a pact with it, they are a warlock and if they swear an oath to it, they are a paladin, and if they are blessed/cursed with magic, they'd be a sorcerer and wizards just study the stuff.
Have a custom lineage circle of spores druid that I essentially based off of swamp thing n he is OP af Also working on a swarmkeeper ranger/ circle of spores druid dhampir with the swarm & spores flavored as bats
My favourite druid actually has more levels in monk, but uses the power to druid to not be as weak as a monk normally is. She is a way of mercy monk, and the DM allows me to have the unicorn totems healing trigger using the hand of healing ki ability This means I can use 4 healing "spells" in one turn, as a sort of Nova healing round. Healing the entire 6 man party for more than a mass healing word, and 4 martial arts die + proficiency to whenever was lowest
I'm building my first 5e character and am definitely wanting a druid. So far I picked Circle of Stars, but you're making me thing Corcle of the Moon might be better. Were playing in faerun, so the story I've built is this jungle village with a heavy Aztec flavor, and their invaded one day because of needed resources. This character, still a child, escapes. The rest of her family does not. I want a focus on reptiles and I'm loving the idea of reading constellations, navigating by stars, etc.
Welcome to 5e, then! I honestly LOVE the flavor of the Stars Druid! I have one playing in our game currently so I totally get what you're aiming for. If that's what you want to do, don't go for circle of the moon just because of how strong it is! That'd be my advice, at least. My favorite characters to play have always been the ones that jived thematically--not the ones that were super strong!
@2:45, it was a balance issue to limit the armor. We all know it. Stop asking your DM for something you don't need! WE ALL KNOW this is the most versatile and (in tier 1at least) the strongest character without metal armor. Oh, and flaming sphere, concentration, hide as a spider on the ceiling. Good try, but what's with that red glowing spider on the wall? They already said casting is obvious. Concentration is obvious, too! DMs were not enforcing this, and that is how we got tiny creatures at 9th level in ONE D&D. @17:00, why are the land spell options all less good than the underdark version?
I just don't get why they'd do that and still give you the armor proficiency. Oh well, doesn't bother me now since I ignore that ruling in my games! And, as for the land spells, underdark is definitely my favorite list as well but most of the others are pretty good too!
Thanks so much for the compliment! I'm glad you're enjoying the videos! Rolling with a fathomless warlock could be a good way to get some of that flavor into DND!
@@joelgonzalez3081 i love Magic the Gathering card game. Great idea good in camping with a lot water or costal or seaside. Or swamp. For Kiora sea creature as charakter and druid with shespard circle focus on calling underwater creature.
I've been playing a Moon Druid for nearly a year now and still feel as if I don't know what I'm doing or how to best utilize my character. What do you mean by "Druid is Broken?" There is so much information out there I'm just confused by it all and it's taking the fun out of the game.
Hey friend! I'm sorry to hear that all the info is taking the fun out for you! I mention in the video several different druid mechanics that can feel broken at times. Most of it revolves around wild shape. Wild shape is great for tanking, infiltration, etc. and you can even wildshape items you're carrying into yourself--making it exceptionally easy to steal a large sack of gold or to sneak the party's weapons into an area. There are lots of possibilities here! Happy adventuring!
One of my friends played a moon druid, and man that started to sucks preatty hard really fast. First levels he was a good tanky mass of fur, but something around level 7-9 any form he could take last for 1 or 2 round at max, poor AC and no damage reduction were the biggest flaws and by the time we hitted level 10 the elemental version last a little more but still not game changing. He also uses the special healing from Combat Wild Shape, but a lot of the times seems just like a waste, and before level 20th(which is something achieved not that often and not in this campaign) he could only shapeshift 2 times per rest. Adding to this that the few spells exclusive to druids are not that much better than any other spellcaster, we didn't see why choose a druid instead of a cleric or bard, and in fact in our group no one ever played one again.
I think it's important to note here that the wild shape isn't replacing your hit points as a druid. If a class was given a feature that granted them like 45 temporary hit points and some other useful features for outside of combat, we'd see it differently. But, in fact, that's what this is.
As a Druid you can't use the same tactics for combat your entire career. Barbarian rage recklessly attack repeat. One trick pony. It's a good trick. But that's pretty much it. You are a battle field controller as well. Don't forget to use plant growth no concentration. With summon animals. Lots of birds wasps etc. You become a Giant Badger go undergroun ♾️ AC. Use team tactics. Spike growth plant growth Thorn Whip. Magic Stone with Crusher Feat and allies abilities to help push pull across cheese grater. Druids are an amazing Swiss Army Knife. They can be AMONG THE BEST at whatever you want them to do. But you HAVE TO LEAN INTO IT. And you are still going to be quite good at anything else you need to do when you need to do it. You just have to be creative.
Point one: Druids are linked to nature and their powers linked to nature. While metal is part of nature, they are also sturdy. The contact that the druid "being" has with nature around them is dampened by wearing heavy armor, and therefore they cant perform as well wearing it. That is my explanation to players. A cleric can use heavy armor if they can, because their power does not come from out there, but from within. Someone may ask "mages and so on", and there is the same, power of mages come from outside, same for sorcerers or warlocks, so they face somewhat the same problem as druids, but clerics do not.
My druid was my favorite character in 5e. I'll say, for raw battlefield power and control, they're outclassed at first by other casters, but then a high level druid truly becomes a walking natural disaster.
I have a idea about biulding a D&D steakhouse and grilll and tavern.and it would be a private club for d&d gamers and new comers..So what would you all think about that?
Hella late here, but the 'druids can't wear metal armor' bit is...kinda right, kinda wrong. They **can** wear metal armor, it's just incredibly rare since it's seen as taboo for a lot of druids that are in Circles and Groves to not wear metal armor, due to it's affiliation with civilization instead of nature. That being said, Druids that live in cities can still be seen wearing metal armor, or metal pieces of armor on their leather. After all, Druidic magic is much like Wizards in where much of it is taught, it's not something you're just born with like Sorcerers. It wouldn't be unheard of for druids that live outside of Groves or Circles to be healers in cities or courts, or garden tenders, hell even farmers.
If anything, based on the recent statements from WOTC, we should actually see many stat blocks get a boost so that they match their challenge rating. Of course, they also kinda nerfed the druid with the current playtest even though they're planning to change it now.
@@ConstructedChaos I would like to see Polymorph, Shapechange and Wild Shape, and any similar spells and abilities that depend on Challenge Rating, to be handled the same way. I don't think templates are the answer, but then at least make them as good and interesting as Pathfinder did. The ones in the play test were a joke. What really shows here, is that Wildshape, Polymorph and Shapechange were never tested in the D&D Next play test back in 2013. It still is puzzling to me to this day why this was not a core part of the play test back then, given how much they struggled with it in 3/3.5e.
@@ConstructedChaos In my view, the rules in the DMG are woefully incomplete. AC, hit points, attack bonus and damage per round, or the DC of an effect are not enough to determine how challenging a monster is. A long ranged attack is much more dangerous than melee only, mobility options can make a huge difference, and what effects a failed save can have make a HUGE difference. And all of that leaves out that CR is a measure of challenge to players, not how dangerous a monster is when handled by players. *It should have a different rating for that.*
@@rogerwilco2 I mostly agree with you here. But, the good news is that WOTC appears to be listening to feedback appropriately now and I'm hopeful that we'll land on a druid and a CR system that is much better than is was for this run of 5e.
I can definitely see your argument there but the scaling the moon druid gets at least carries it through tier 2 as the best subclass IMO. Either way, they're both very viable options!
@@ConstructedChaos The Druid is the best class in the game at crowd control, why trade in that potential for the ability to become a worse martial character? If your party is in need of a frontline, Conjure Animals will do the trick just fine, and the Shepherd's Conjured Animals are incredibly durable (at level 6, your Wolves have 25 HP, more than double their original health pool) once you combine Bear Spirit and Mighty Summoner. Not to mention many of the Druid's best spells are concentration, and staying as far away as possible from the frontline is your best bet to maintain focus on spells like Spike Growth, Pass Without Trace and Sleet Storm
My favorite subclass is the Wildfire Druid. To start, I've just always loved fire and fire powers, but I especially love that your features boost both your blasting and healing abilities. I actually think its one or the best healers in the game, since you always have cure wounds, revivify, and mass cure wounds, and get an extra d8 of healing almost for free. All the other healing spells i need are on the druids spell list already, but having some great staple healing and damage options always prepared means i can prepare more flexible spells daily to be ready for anything. Plus, I can have my wildfire spirit AND a Draconic Spirit running at the same time
I do certainly love the flavor of it! Ever since I travelled cross-country to a beautiful national park during a *naturally occuring* massive wildfire and learned that they actually just let those burn out because it's good for the soil, I've been amazed by the concept.
I've got a berserk Druid. 3 Lv Moon Druid, 3 Level Totem Berserk to get hilarious defence, 3 Level Battlemaster Fighter, than 2 Level Barbarian for the Extra attack and the Rest till Level 20 as a Druid (Druid Lv 12). Try to kill me
I find it silly that the druid type closest to the classic druid (circle of land, forest themed) is the worst version. And there are so few woodland-themed spells, i.e., if you use the best spells available to druid, you'll end up using only one or two plant based spells tops.
Shepard druids are dumb.... there thee worse summoner in the game. It works mainly with conjure animals where the subclass rewards u to summon 8-16 wolf's to attack. That is way to many dice rolls. No one wants 16 wolf's on the field.
I can see where you're coming from but I definitely feel there's a lot more use to be made of the subclass features than just summoning a bunch of wolves!
I play a Shepherd Druid, and those concerns are valid to a certain extent. But, they aren’t something that hurts the game if you’re prepared. I have an auto dice roller that rolls all attacks and damage for all summons at once, so my turns are usually shorter than any of the other players. Also, saying they’re the worst summoners when their summons have magical attacks and constant healing is something I don’t see. Also, Shepherd Druids compete with Twilight Clerics for best combat healers without multiclassing. Plus summons don’t have to just be attacks monsters. They are excellent for battlefield control.
How so? What would you change about their wild shape feature? I for sure am not a fan of the initial direction WOTC took it with the OneDND playtest material.
@@ConstructedChaos twice per rest isn't enough for a shape-shifting focused druid like Circle of the Moon I'd go with uses = prof bonus, but also tone it down a bit. The new hit point pool every time you wold shape is a bit much. On the other hand, it's fun to have a druid who can shape shift a bunch for travel/spy/utility purposes
@@jameswhite3043 that’s a fair assessment honestly. Although, I think mileage will vary on your wild shapes if your DM adheres to the typical 2-3 combat encounters per day. They come back on a short rest so, presumably, you’d almost always have wild shape available.
If the DM doesn't budge on the "rule" that Druids "can't" wear metal armor, violence is a justified course of action. This "rule" is a violation of the fundamental primary law of all roleplay: You must never, EVER take control of another person's character without their explicit consent. WotC violated this law by trying to dictate what your character is willing to do. A DM that does not budge on this "rule" is violating your fundamentaö player agency. Bishslap them in their stupid face if the session is in-person, kick them out of your house if the session is happening at your home, and never talk to them again, ever. Excise the tumor from your life. This holds true even if another player is the Druid. Talk to the player, explain how their rights as a player are being violated. Try to get them out of the abusive situation.
Hahaha I think this might be a bit of an overreaction but I do agree with you. It doesn’t hurt game balance or anything. I don’t know why the rule even exists in the first place.
@@ConstructedChaos Well, it does assume that you've already talked to them like an adult beforehand. Diplomacy is always the preferred method. And I'm aware that I'm very... _extreme_ on this topic. But I view this as a severe violation, as previously explained.
Boring?! I respect your opinion but I'll respectfully disagree on this one! It's a spellcaster with the inherent ability to turn into all kinds of crazy animals. I don't know what's boring about that!
@@ConstructedChaos TL;DR this isn't an opinion, it's objective; 5e is an OLD game at this point. Nine years old. If you're new to the game you're going to have fun with whatever you make because it's new to you, but don't think just because you had fun something was made well. You're going to feel how small the box is if you decide to pay attention or play the game long enough. ------ Mundane everyday animals that are in real life that are in a world where the fighter or barbarian is as strong as bears. Yeah, boring. Max CR 1 unless moon druid. The best you can do is a young winter wolf in combat. You get the ability to shape shift and spellcast at level 18, too late to be anything other than boring. Druid if it decides to focus on wildshape at all is just fighter early on and it falls off dramatically later. (We all know what champion fighter is, lets not lie to ourselves) CR 1 creatures when you're level 8, it's not the most useful except for (Insert x story about infiltrating as a mouse). Which I hate to break it to you, doesn't require that many druid levels. Small unnoticeable creatures don't take CR 1. How much use is it having a CR 1 cast spells from wildshape when you're getting sniped instantly, having a more than likely lower con save for the spell, and/or being shot out of the sky, taking fall dmg, and going prone? Yes, I'd like the ability for that to happen infinitely please. Yes, I'm taking two rounds to do this while the party dies since wild shaping takes an action unless I'm a moon druid. You're level 18 or 20. It's actually useless past the first round to absorb dmg. Polymorph does your job better as a class feature and it's still limited to beasts. Which 4 classes and 2 subclasses can do and potentially EVERY spellcasting class can do if they take Simic Guild Spells. Why yes, I'm going to wildshape and get power word killed or be divine worded. Or the much more likely event of being instantly killed by a disintegrate. Much fun, good idea. What my spell list is just water downed wizard thanks to wizard getting 352/516 spells and I get 170/516?! 92 of which are in the wizards spell selection leaving me with just 78 spells with 8 of which are cantrips leaving me with 70. 21 or so that be considered outright useless or bad options and more that can basically be considered only DM only spells. Leaving you with around with 49 spells worth of selection out of the 24-25 you get divided among 9 levels of spells. Why yes, you're stuck with conjure animals being your best spell nearly forever and giving DMs headaches with it. Start casting. Yeah, much options much wow. I stand by what I said. **Boring.** Druid suffers the same problems that Monk and Ranger (Big surprise when they practically have the same spell list, but that isn't even why) suffer from and to some degree thematically barbarians. It's trying to be many things and failing at it. This is a fullcaster that is bottom of the rung of the fullcasters. They're better off with a DM controlling them than an adventurer. They were not well thought out if you actually think about what they do and compare to others, because guess what IF you don't take a significant selection out of those 49 spells, you're going to suffer. You're going to be the level 1-4 fighter (Which everyone is by default at the very least) that wildshapes and attacks, feel useless, feel boring, and wonder why you're here. That's the druid experience unless your subclass just makes you a better fighter like stars druid with the wildshape, but you're still a level five fighter or one with a feat at best. The flavor for druid has been around longer than 5e, lets not pretend it does a good job of it just because of the flavor. If you aren't wildshaping you're just a worse wizard, but wild shaping is bad therefor just play wizard with a druid like nature background you'll have more fun. Dip like two levels druid if you want. Or multiclass druid and rogue with a dip in druid if you want to pretend the mouse is extra sneaky. (But multiclassing is an optional rule! So are feats buddy. I can tell you right now, the fighters and barbs aren't going to do that well without them.) This line is the most interesting thing about druid. "You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so." Not much else, the choices were illusions. Druids have the lowest playrate of all the classes, and it isn't because they're complicated. They're not, they're clunky and a mess, that's why and this is before I mention the current DND ONE changes that make them an even worse choice. So instead of being a mess with little reward they are now a simple fullcasting class with little reward in DND ONE, showing even more of the hand of what they actually are under the mess, a shitty wizard with a bit of healing. The only casting class I wouldn't recommend over Druids is Eldritch knight and that's because multiclass literally makes it pointless or if you're going to be a swarm build that is basically just shepard druid. "Say the line Druid!" "I Conjure Animals..." If a game is good you can play it multiple times and not get bored of it as well as playing it in new ways. That's not druid and certainly isn't a 5e thing. Tell me how differently these druids actually play when you play each subclass from levels 1-4 in a game where the content practically all stops at level 11. 4e does it better. 3.5 does it better. 4e turns out to be simpler due to actually using keywords instead of just standard English as a rule as while ALSO allowing large build variance and actual class choices. 3.5 has far more options and backwards compatibility with pathfinder and 3.0 as well as actual class choices. My suggestion is to not play DND ONE (Which is basically patched together 5e but worse it looks like) if you've gotten bored of 5e and actually move to play these two older systems.
I built a “Water Sage” coastal Druid with healer feat. My goal was to limit myself to only water, ice and healing spells but I made a couple non-elemental exceptions like magic stone, guidance, and faerie fire, since it’s not technically fire. I once doused a burning village in a nine goblin raid at lv2, with create/destroy water, causing it to rain on the house fires to put them out. Still one of my favorite moments so far.
Hell yeah! This is an excellent example of how flavor can take something that lives well within the rules of the game and make it absolutely epic!
Sleet Storm is gonna be awesome for your Druid
Druids aren't broken, it's just their...nature.
Oh I like this one hahahaha. Missed opportunity to use this joke in my video 😂
I'm glad you liked it :)
Loved to see the call out here of conjure animals dropping. This is why conjure animals (or any other spell that summons 8+ creatures) are the best blast spells in the game. This of course is best in the hands of a sorcerer who can distant spell to double the falling dmg. The earliest to pull this off is at L7 (druid 5, sorc 2 with metamagic adept). This would be the best nuker in the game.
2 “____ Class is Broken” videos in a month! You are spoiling us at this point! I always love these kinds of videos! Even though I already know what the class does, your fun way of talking about it makes me watch the video all the way through anyway! Keep up the great work!
Haha thank you!! I’m trying to get them all done as fast as I can so expect this pace to continue! I’m glad you’re enjoying them so much! 😊
I’m new to DnD and your videos have helped me so much! Informative and enjoyable, literally the perfect video. Each class guide covers EVERYTHING you would need in any guide. Thank you so much, keep it up :D
You're very welcome and I'm glad to help! Thanks so much for watching and happy adventuring!
7:10 This tripped me up initially too but special senses like darkvision specifically do NOT carry over from your race to wildshape unless the beast itself has it. Few beasts actually have darkvision - in the PHB it's just the frog, owl, spider, rat, and tiger. So your bear or wolf might need someone in the party to cast light or have a torch.
Yep! I've already edited that part out via RUclips's editor so the change should reflect shortly!
Currently playing as a Circle of Dreams druid, having a lot of fun though I know many people don't like it but I think it's a very good option if you want to be the primary healer of your party but not necessarily want to spend your entire turn healing people!
Anyway love your vids! I still haven't watched this one but anyway I wanted to say a few words in favour of my favourite druid subclass 😅
Nice! I love the flavor of the Circle of Dreams and I do think it lends itself well to that type of Druid! Thanks for watching and I'm glad you're enjoying them!
@@alessandrosalomoni3213 I've been running one for half a year now, that bonus pickup healing pool is fantastic as we use team initiative and i can revive 2 downed characters quickly.
What an intro! Nicely done. I'll watch this tomorrow but had to say how great you did with that intro
Thank you!! I have so much fun with them even though most people skip them haha!
@@ConstructedChaos I hear ya! I use green screen a lot on my main channel, it's still like magic.
What did you use to make your backgrounds?
I frequently create my Druids to be just absurdly powerful. Three of them are powerful elemental Druids (Multiclassers) in D&D terms. They can tear apart a battlefield with elements. Hyrdo Mage Knight, Aero Dancing Healer, Geo Paleolithic Samurai. Also, they're beautiful.
Hell yeah!! These sound absolutely badass!
Please tell me more about the paleolithic samurai
@@bobbyandimages Half-Orc Samurai Fighter/Primeval Druid with a massive ancient boar as a BFF, two katanas, a shield she can pass to friends, Tough, Dual Wielder, Shield Master, and Orcish Fury feats. Powerful earth spells and relentless fighting spirit for this badass, lady. Personality: imagine a Japanese Rosa Diaz with short person complex.
@@paraschauhan1603 one of my favorite things is when a character concept people are passionate about meet the mechanics of the game, to better express that original concept
The production value of your videos is stunning! You're a great content creator and I always enjoy watching your videos! I hope you make it big time!
Thank you so much, Daniel!! Comments like these really make my day and I’m so glad you’re enjoying the videos!
Just yesterday I was checking if you have a Druid guid in this series. All hail elementals as my wish came true!
Haha wow! And Druids don’t usually get the wish spell! Seriously though, I’m glad you’re enjoying these! Thanks for watching!
My druid is a dnd Poison Ivy. She's a summer eladrin and Circle of Spores who's all about plants, poison,charm, dominating her enemies, battlefield control and,if all else fails, putting the smackdown on said enemies! Having been captured and experimented upon she's a bit unstable mentally,..
Nice use of the circle of spores there! I can see this really shining thematically!
edgy.
I play a kobold wild fire druid and I found what works best me is battle field control, use terrain to your advantage and know your party members. Battle field control can limit enemies movement, sight or abilities forcing them to only have a very limited set of options to move or attack. Terrain such as buildings could be brought down or set ablaze. While I was casting and using cover, I had my wild fire spirit attacking safely from a burning building. Lastly, know your party members! I was able to control the battle field through spiked growth along with magical darkness in an adjacent spot from another party member. This allowed the wizard with devil sight to pepper slowed groups of enemies with acid and have his familiar attack all from the safety of magical darkness. I used either thunder wave or burning hands to damage and keep enemies in the spike growth all while yeeting out of danger through fiery teleport by my wild fire spirit if they got close.
The spell "Heat Metal" is also very underrated. First no attack roll is required and can be cast from 60' away which is huge. Second this can disarm enemies by targeting their weapon or cause major damage each turn by targeting heavy armor worn. It takes a good bit of time to remove heavy armor outside of battle by itself. I have eliminated or disabled enemy champions with this spell alone before our melee party members even engaged.
The biggest take away is you are limited to your imagination on what you can do.
This sounds like a great case for the wildfire Druid and the Druid at large!
Alright I have never seen one of your videos before and I haven't watched more than 10 seconds but that clip at the beginning was fire
Haha thank you!! Welcome to the channel!
I don't know if this is mentioned but Githzerai make a good case for being Druids.
Githzerai Psionics - gives you a suped up Mage Hand, Shield, and Detect Thoughts. The latter two free once per day and can be wisdom based.
Mental Discipline grants you advantage to charmed and frightened condition.
Finally Psychic Resilience gives you psychic resistance.
Oh that is a pretty good one!! I’d listed githzerai as a good race option in my recent cleric video so I think I was just looking elsewhere so it wasn’t exactly the same but you’re absolutely right!
The reason for the non-metal armors is theoretically because the metal lost it's natural properties when it was forged. With weapons there are options for keeping the metal as close as possible to it's natural "form" - for instance cold iron forging. The weapons also are much less mass, compared to say 50lbs of smelted and forged steel.
I see! That does make some sense, I guess. But does wood and leather not also go through similar processes?
@@ConstructedChaos The treatment of wood and leather for use isn't as severe as for large amounts of metal where you have to find iron ore; completely melt it to remove the slag stone, and then cool the remaining iron while forging it to shape (hot forging). Spiritually the iron is no longer considered "pure" where wood and leather treatment mostly simply requires the use of natural chemicals. It's not the shaping, it's how the material is made usable. In Chinese and Japanese Elemental theory metal is it's own element; and might not be considered a pure element in itself for eastern natural religions like for instance Japanese Shinto; which believes the world is filled with spirit-beings, some friendly (often called Kami) and others not. I consider Shinto to be a Druid-related religion because of it's focus on spirits of nature and I believe there are older Chinese "philosophic" religions that are similar. They might not feel some metals are natural (I haven't done in-depth study on this, just mentioning it). In many Western cultures Iron in itself is considered unnatural; it's the bane of all spirit-beings - or Fae as we'd usually call them. Part of Druidism involves asking the fey for help and you wouldn't do that encased in material that would terrorize them. I'd also mention that in basic IRL druidism it's Hot Forged Iron that's anathema; not all metals. So a druid would be able to wear a bronze breastplate perhaps. The last several editions of D&D have had varieties of wood that are nearly as strong as forged iron and wouldn't inhibit a druid in-game; so there are/were work-arounds and many editions had a spell called Ironwood (I haven't checked to see if this spell made it into 5E) that made a piece of wood as strong as iron; so you could permanently enchant a wooden breastplate. The metal armor limitation is usually only a limitation early on. When a PC can afford enhanced materials it stops being a hindrance. Sorry if this feels like it meandered or got long.
I have heard many DM are ok with armor with alternative materials such as carapace or beast scale as seen on Dragon Scale and Serpent Armor.
Good thing about wildshapr into tiny creature is, you can concentrate on spells such as Pass without Trace to be more sneaky.
Yeah I think most DMs are willing to ignore the rule altogether. But there are some people out there that are completely set on strictly using RAW. And that's okay too!
As a player Druid, and a DM who is running for druids, I like this rule. I think it’s kinda weird seeing a Druid, link to nature with a full metal armor on. And it’s forcing players to be creative about their protection such as dragon scales or turtle carapace. It gives flavor to the class in my opinion
@@gregoiredessoles2093 And that's totally fine! I just don't want to force a player to adhere to it if they want to do something different. If they like the restriction as a way to force creative and flavorful options into being, then I'm all for it!
@@gregoiredessoles2093 To be honest, Heat Metal spell sounds like great excuse for Druids to not wear metal armor.
I'm playing a tortle Circle of Stars druid right now for my friend's campaign. We're all new to the game, so we're playing a little loose with the rules, but I'm having a lot of fun playing a druid who is our party's tank/healer
Very cool! I love Tortles and Circle of the Stars so I'm a big fan of the flavor here!
@ConstructedChaos Thank you! I also have a pseudo dragon and a forest drake as companions
@@n.m.fergus ooohh we don’t do animal companions often in my groups! That sounds really interesting. What do they look like?
@ConstructedChaos The forest drake is basically a giant iguana who doesn't really like me, but I wrestled him into submission and feed him, so he's chilling with us. I named him Antonio. The pseudo dragon looks like a red dragon who is the size of a cat, but isn't actually a dragon. I earned his respect tho so now we have a telepathic bond, and it comes in handy during stealth missions. His name is Hoshi!
Antonio has 22 hp and decent AC at 13, so he is helpful in combat too
I'm playing a Wildfire druid/Life cleric 8/1 that's a chef. His spells are flavored as healing people through food or blasting through spice/chemical components. I love him so much.
That's some nice flavor!! (pun only a little bit intended)
Counter to dumping strength: you can Dump DEX because you can always wildshape itno a more dextrous beast. I had a Haalf Drow elf druid of spores druid who was strength base because the Quaterstaff wats its weapon. My Circle of the Land druid was dex based because he used an "obsidian" scimitar. So, take that into consideration. will you use Finese weapons? or Strength weapons? (or will you most likely use a staff/totem/druidic focus and mostly cast of wild shape all the time?). My Spores druid had STR 13+1, 14 DEX (mostly for AC & some initiative, and with Medium Armor, +2 DEX is okay). CON 13+1, INT 8, WIS 15+2 (and got a feat that increased wisdom like Shadow Touched), and CHA 8 (i imagime his as wise, but not academically intelligent. He understand how nature works, but not the mechanics and science of it, and he has low CHA because he is likely covered in fungus :) the Land druid had STR 10 DEX 14 CON 15+1 INT 8 WIS 15+2 CHA 8 because he was a bit of a wilderness deweler who didn't spend a lot of time around people besides other druid sages whom he met on ocassional druidic gatherings of sages (he wasn't quite a sage, but was in training). Spores druid is mechanically weak, but it is a FUN class, and since druid in general are one of the strogest classes, its okay, but thematically, the RP aspec is So much fun! Land druid is a true caster, though. I plan to play a Star druid who can be a very versitile, powerfull class, and a wildfire druid which may not be as strong mechanically, but fiery teleport is fun, and thematically the idea of the cicle of life with fire and regrowth is so amazing!
Played a Reborn Tortle Spore Druid in a one-shot. 12/8/16/8/16/14. I intentionally gave him a negative in Intelligence for RP purposes. His name is Kellit Whi'Fyre because the crowd saw a solid black, moldy Tortle with sharp claws & chased him into the woods shouting "Kill it! Kill it! Kill it with fire!" & due to both his stupidity & amnesia, he thought that was his name.
He acts perpetually high as a kite with a steryotypical Canadian accent & the DM lets me use plants instead of beasts for his summoning spells because his "friends" are Myconids (amazing race--look them up). Whenever he casts Animate Dead their entire body fills with the same black mold that his body is made of & looks Mychonid-ish while under his control. He refers to them as his "friends" Darren, Dylan, Davin, Daton, Dayle & Frank (the latter being his familiar Mychonid Sprout). As far as role-play he is my FAVORITE character ever made. If I had made him berfore Tasha's he would have been a Land: Underdark Druid.
Druids are powerful, but whenever I build a Druid I try to be optimal but they are the one class where I care so much more about thematics & roleplay than I do mechanics & powerful builds. That what gives them a special place in my heart.
I'm loving these detailed builds! And I absolutely agree that flavor often trumps mechanical viability--at least for me anyway!
At the moment I'm into a wood elf druid first ever time playing Dnd
I'm all about nature and have a backstroy of meeting elfs who were archeologists digging up the past of dinosaurs and seeing what they use to look like
im all about dinos but mixing with wildlife gonna be a blast!!
i was rasied by Wolfs!
Dino druid is going to be so much fun!!! Happy adventuring!
When's Pallies coming?
I have to make one in a week and really really want your breakdown, particularly on multiclassing options!
Paladin is the next one I'm doing but I would say we're probably a couple weeks from that being done! I have a couple of other videos slotted first and I need to get my hands on some more wardrobe pieces to represent the paladin in my shorts!
So many neat options, I don't really know what I want to build.
It's really hard to know and there aren't really any bad options!
I think druids are crazy good but can be very complicated. if you’re new the game I recommend you take circle of moon turn into a bear get up front and hit stuff. Plus you can use your spell slots to heal. Eventually you’ll learn to use spells over time and find out all the cool stuff later. If you are a more advanced, um, can we have some more flavor?
You’re absolutely right about that one. Spellcasting can already be a lot to manage for a new player and wild shape is just that much more. I think druids are pretty flavorful as they are but I’m curious to know what you feel is missing! I do with we had a few more subclasses for them!
My first character was a moon druid but I would recommend that class it is to broken in every way l, within 2 sessions I changed to an arguably more powerful and cool wildfire druid.
@@ConstructedChaos I humbly disagree druids have really good subclasses mainly astral and wildfire but also spores and others they have too many broken subclasses like shepherd whose abilities just don't work and moon which are busted in tier one and kinda trash after
@@theodorheidhues2566 No worries about disagreeing here! These videos contain my own opinion influenced by my own experiences. And that means your experiences may have been different than mine! So long as you're having fun, I'm cool with whatever you play!
I think Land is a great way to get used to spellcasting without having to worry about a spell book or picking bad spells with limited spells known. You get some spells always prepared and can change any spells you prepare that you don't like after a long rest, plus getting some slots back on a short rest is amazing when you're not used to saving slots
I have a Dragonborn Emerald, Druid Moon - 10 lvls., Paladin Conquest- 2 lvls., Barbarian Totem Warrior(Bear) - 5 lvls.. He uses wildshape to turn into an elemental with a Spellguard Shield, Dragon’s Wrath Weapon (Rapier, Wakened - Amethyst), and a Belt of Cloud Giant Strength. He can heal as a bonus action and smite on your slam since it's considered a melee weapon attack.
Oh HELL YEAH! That's so cool!!
It was inspired by Elemental Myrmidon. I wanted to be able to summon them. I wasn't able to summon them. Decided if I can't summon one, how do I become one.
@@StevenLunar-ry5nd Haha I like the way you think!
great series!!! thanks again!
Of course! I'm happy you're enjoying the videos!
I wonder though, as druids are said to get power from nature itself or a nature deity, but if you have a druid that has a nature deity grant you powers, how does that work? Do they just form a bond with the deity? If they worship it, they'd be more of a cleric. If they form a pact with it, they are a warlock and if they swear an oath to it, they are a paladin, and if they are blessed/cursed with magic, they'd be a sorcerer and wizards just study the stuff.
I think you just discovered a really easy way to motivate a multiclass build :)
@@ConstructedChaos Thank you ^^. I was wondering though, what is your take on it, when it comes to druid's getting power from a nature deity? ^^
@@Yabuturtle my take is that it’s all flavor so I would be fine with a player worshiping a nature deity as a Druid!
Have a custom lineage circle of spores druid that I essentially based off of swamp thing n he is OP af
Also working on a swarmkeeper ranger/ circle of spores druid dhampir with the swarm & spores flavored as bats
Ohhh super cool idea to blend the swarmkeeper and spores druid there!
Alleluia I've been waiting for this one
Haha tada!! I’ll have to put up a poll tomorrow to see what’s next!
@@ConstructedChaos cool I'll be looking for it
You should do fighter! Love your videos!
I've got a poll up currently on what's coming next! I only have 4 classes left to cover but it looks like Paladin will be coming next!
Druid and cleric are tied as the “most op” class in 5e. So many options while always being a support caster. It’s wild
Both are fantastic options indeed!
My favourite druid actually has more levels in monk, but uses the power to druid to not be as weak as a monk normally is.
She is a way of mercy monk, and the DM allows me to have the unicorn totems healing trigger using the hand of healing ki ability
This means I can use 4 healing "spells" in one turn, as a sort of Nova healing round. Healing the entire 6 man party for more than a mass healing word, and 4 martial arts die + proficiency to whenever was lowest
Wow that's a pretty cool combo and a very cool DM for letting you do that!
Great videos I use these than the PHB
Happy to help!! I’m glad you’re enjoying them!
I'm building my first 5e character and am definitely wanting a druid. So far I picked Circle of Stars, but you're making me thing Corcle of the Moon might be better.
Were playing in faerun, so the story I've built is this jungle village with a heavy Aztec flavor, and their invaded one day because of needed resources. This character, still a child, escapes. The rest of her family does not.
I want a focus on reptiles and I'm loving the idea of reading constellations, navigating by stars, etc.
Welcome to 5e, then! I honestly LOVE the flavor of the Stars Druid! I have one playing in our game currently so I totally get what you're aiming for. If that's what you want to do, don't go for circle of the moon just because of how strong it is! That'd be my advice, at least. My favorite characters to play have always been the ones that jived thematically--not the ones that were super strong!
invaded for "resources" and orphaned child...very clever.
@2:45, it was a balance issue to limit the armor. We all know it. Stop asking your DM for something you don't need! WE ALL KNOW this is the most versatile and (in tier 1at least) the strongest character without metal armor.
Oh, and flaming sphere, concentration, hide as a spider on the ceiling. Good try, but what's with that red glowing spider on the wall? They already said casting is obvious. Concentration is obvious, too! DMs were not enforcing this, and that is how we got tiny creatures at 9th level in ONE D&D.
@17:00, why are the land spell options all less good than the underdark version?
I just don't get why they'd do that and still give you the armor proficiency. Oh well, doesn't bother me now since I ignore that ruling in my games! And, as for the land spells, underdark is definitely my favorite list as well but most of the others are pretty good too!
Can't wait for fighters :D
Only a few classes left so it has to be soon!
Hello, good videos, how can I make a D&D character like Kiora from MTGface-blue-smiling🐳🐬🐋🐙
Thanks so much for the compliment! I'm glad you're enjoying the videos! Rolling with a fathomless warlock could be a good way to get some of that flavor into DND!
@@joelgonzalez3081 i love Magic the Gathering card game. Great idea good in camping with a lot water or costal or seaside. Or swamp.
For Kiora sea creature as charakter and druid with shespard circle focus on calling underwater creature.
Where are 3 dnd rulebooks from Magic Universe.
Ravnica, Theros, Strixheaven plane.
I've been playing a Moon Druid for nearly a year now and still feel as if I don't know what I'm doing or how to best utilize my character. What do you mean by "Druid is Broken?" There is so much information out there I'm just confused by it all and it's taking the fun out of the game.
Hey friend! I'm sorry to hear that all the info is taking the fun out for you! I mention in the video several different druid mechanics that can feel broken at times. Most of it revolves around wild shape. Wild shape is great for tanking, infiltration, etc. and you can even wildshape items you're carrying into yourself--making it exceptionally easy to steal a large sack of gold or to sneak the party's weapons into an area. There are lots of possibilities here! Happy adventuring!
I got an idea and want to see what you think about it?
Hit me!
Oi! It's been 11 months. What's the idea?
One of my friends played a moon druid, and man that started to sucks preatty hard really fast. First levels he was a good tanky mass of fur, but something around level 7-9 any form he could take last for 1 or 2 round at max, poor AC and no damage reduction were the biggest flaws and by the time we hitted level 10 the elemental version last a little more but still not game changing. He also uses the special healing from Combat Wild Shape, but a lot of the times seems just like a waste, and before level 20th(which is something achieved not that often and not in this campaign) he could only shapeshift 2 times per rest.
Adding to this that the few spells exclusive to druids are not that much better than any other spellcaster, we didn't see why choose a druid instead of a cleric or bard, and in fact in our group no one ever played one again.
I think it's important to note here that the wild shape isn't replacing your hit points as a druid. If a class was given a feature that granted them like 45 temporary hit points and some other useful features for outside of combat, we'd see it differently. But, in fact, that's what this is.
As a Druid you can't use the same tactics for combat your entire career. Barbarian rage recklessly attack repeat. One trick pony. It's a good trick. But that's pretty much it. You are a battle field controller as well. Don't forget to use plant growth no concentration. With summon animals. Lots of birds wasps etc. You become a Giant Badger go undergroun ♾️ AC. Use team tactics. Spike growth plant growth Thorn Whip. Magic Stone with Crusher Feat and allies abilities to help push pull across cheese grater. Druids are an amazing Swiss Army Knife. They can be AMONG THE BEST at whatever you want them to do. But you HAVE TO LEAN INTO IT. And you are still going to be quite good at anything else you need to do when you need to do it. You just have to be creative.
My Kobold druid uses a turtle shell as a shield! :D
Haha nice!! I love kobolds and I love turtles so that's a great combo!
I was wondering which subclass is better for a Lizardfolk Druid. Moon seems to be it.
Moon is almost always going to be the most powerful, yeah. But the other options can work just as well depending on the concept you have!
Hello, good videos, how can I make a D&D character like Kiora from MTG 🐳🐬🐋🐙
YOU ARE AWESOME! ❤❤❤
You too!!
Point one: Druids are linked to nature and their powers linked to nature. While metal is part of nature, they are also sturdy. The contact that the druid "being" has with nature around them is dampened by wearing heavy armor, and therefore they cant perform as well wearing it. That is my explanation to players. A cleric can use heavy armor if they can, because their power does not come from out there, but from within. Someone may ask "mages and so on", and there is the same, power of mages come from outside, same for sorcerers or warlocks, so they face somewhat the same problem as druids, but clerics do not.
That’s a fair enough explanation. I still think it’s a silly rule haha.
My druid was my favorite character in 5e. I'll say, for raw battlefield power and control, they're outclassed at first by other casters, but then a high level druid truly becomes a walking natural disaster.
I would love to know what people would think about it..
Sound is totally off?
It must be something on your end. Everyone else is having no issue and I can't see what you're talking about.
@@ConstructedChaos okay. Very weird!
@@gregorynelson5397 Still acting up for ya?
Thank you so much I have to make a new character (bard got taken out by a harpy) this is amazing for help building my satyr Druid 😅
Oh no! Sorry to hear about your bard but good luck with your future druidic adventures!
Scout, battlefield control, damage, healing, tank, druids are literally the multi tools of D&D.
Absolutely!
everything can do anything in 5e, the power creep has reached zenith levels more of a power skyscraper nowadays
that serious face with crown of flowers :)))
Haha well, the wig looked terrible so I had to dress it up a bit 😂
@@ConstructedChaos you did a fantastic job :)
@@DiceDragondnd Haha thank you! It was nice to have hair again!
Wish circle of the land had more flavor depending on their terrain, such as forms or other uses of wild shape to better fit your chosen land.
Well, it is built into the base class a bit. Theoretically, you'd just have seen different animals as part of your backstory!
need more themed spells though.@@ConstructedChaos
I have a idea about biulding a D&D steakhouse and grilll and tavern.and it would be a private club for d&d gamers and new comers..So what would you all think about that?
I mean, I know where I'd spend most of my weekends!
Circle of Spores druid + Totem Barbarian = Necrococaine bear
Oh my! And I thought the regular cocaine bear was scary enough!
druids are able to speak now in wild shape yeah?
@@rockyalliston1122 now they are, yes! When this video was made, that was not the case. I’ll be making an updated guide for Druids soon!
Hella late here, but the 'druids can't wear metal armor' bit is...kinda right, kinda wrong. They **can** wear metal armor, it's just incredibly rare since it's seen as taboo for a lot of druids that are in Circles and Groves to not wear metal armor, due to it's affiliation with civilization instead of nature.
That being said, Druids that live in cities can still be seen wearing metal armor, or metal pieces of armor on their leather. After all, Druidic magic is much like Wizards in where much of it is taught, it's not something you're just born with like Sorcerers. It wouldn't be unheard of for druids that live outside of Groves or Circles to be healers in cities or courts, or garden tenders, hell even farmers.
The biggest problem with Druid is its dependency on the broken Challenge Rating mechanic. WotC should really fix CR and monster stat blocks.
If anything, based on the recent statements from WOTC, we should actually see many stat blocks get a boost so that they match their challenge rating. Of course, they also kinda nerfed the druid with the current playtest even though they're planning to change it now.
@@ConstructedChaos I would like to see Polymorph, Shapechange and Wild Shape, and any similar spells and abilities that depend on Challenge Rating, to be handled the same way. I don't think templates are the answer, but then at least make them as good and interesting as Pathfinder did. The ones in the play test were a joke.
What really shows here, is that Wildshape, Polymorph and Shapechange were never tested in the D&D Next play test back in 2013.
It still is puzzling to me to this day why this was not a core part of the play test back then, given how much they struggled with it in 3/3.5e.
@@ConstructedChaos In my view, the rules in the DMG are woefully incomplete.
AC, hit points, attack bonus and damage per round, or the DC of an effect are not enough to determine how challenging a monster is. A long ranged attack is much more dangerous than melee only, mobility options can make a huge difference, and what effects a failed save can have make a HUGE difference.
And all of that leaves out that CR is a measure of challenge to players, not how dangerous a monster is when handled by players. *It should have a different rating for that.*
@@rogerwilco2 I mostly agree with you here. But, the good news is that WOTC appears to be listening to feedback appropriately now and I'm hopeful that we'll land on a druid and a CR system that is much better than is was for this run of 5e.
If I had to play Druid: Go into Bear and just brawl
The moon druid is the best at tier 1, but at level 5 the Shepherd becomes arguably better
I can definitely see your argument there but the scaling the moon druid gets at least carries it through tier 2 as the best subclass IMO. Either way, they're both very viable options!
@@ConstructedChaos The Druid is the best class in the game at crowd control, why trade in that potential for the ability to become a worse martial character? If your party is in need of a frontline, Conjure Animals will do the trick just fine, and the Shepherd's Conjured Animals are incredibly durable (at level 6, your Wolves have 25 HP, more than double their original health pool) once you combine Bear Spirit and Mighty Summoner. Not to mention many of the Druid's best spells are concentration, and staying as far away as possible from the frontline is your best bet to maintain focus on spells like Spike Growth, Pass Without Trace and Sleet Storm
I did a shaman build by using a Druid and barbarian multiclass
Ooooo I bet those wild shapes are extra tanky now eh?
So is druid just your race? So i could be a moon druid rogue?
Negative. Druid is a class!
My favorite subclass is the Wildfire Druid. To start, I've just always loved fire and fire powers, but I especially love that your features boost both your blasting and healing abilities. I actually think its one or the best healers in the game, since you always have cure wounds, revivify, and mass cure wounds, and get an extra d8 of healing almost for free. All the other healing spells i need are on the druids spell list already, but having some great staple healing and damage options always prepared means i can prepare more flexible spells daily to be ready for anything. Plus, I can have my wildfire spirit AND a Draconic Spirit running at the same time
I do certainly love the flavor of it! Ever since I travelled cross-country to a beautiful national park during a *naturally occuring* massive wildfire and learned that they actually just let those burn out because it's good for the soil, I've been amazed by the concept.
I've got a berserk Druid. 3 Lv Moon Druid, 3 Level Totem Berserk to get hilarious defence, 3 Level Battlemaster Fighter, than 2 Level Barbarian for the Extra attack and the Rest till Level 20 as a Druid (Druid Lv 12). Try to kill me
The meat shieldiest meat shield that ever meat shielded!
You were wrong about the darkvision in wild shape. The PHB specifically calls that out.
Ahhh thank you!! I’ll fix this!
giant Toad great for shutting down spell casters by swallowing them.
That is a fun one!! Nice suggestion!
Its all for the better of D&D..
Difficult not to take magic stone. Basically infinite decent damage magic ranged weapon. So good early.
Wolf spider doesn't have web
I never said it did. I said that the Giant Spider did and it does. www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16895-giant-spider
Oh my bad I thought you said wolf lol
Ohh I see what happened 😅lol
@@GrimGrOg94 haha no worries! Had to double check myself when I saw this!
@Constructed Chaos promise I was trying to help I love to watch your content for my theory crafting
I never dump str on druid, I dump dex. Druids are strong and healthy.
That's a fair idea! Dex is just kindof the god stat in 5e.
I find it silly that the druid type closest to the classic druid (circle of land, forest themed) is the worst version. And there are so few woodland-themed spells, i.e., if you use the best spells available to druid, you'll end up using only one or two plant based spells tops.
Druids and bards have always been broken.
Bard is coming next so there should be no surprise what "secrets" I'll be revealing!
Shepard druids are dumb.... there thee worse summoner in the game. It works mainly with conjure animals where the subclass rewards u to summon 8-16 wolf's to attack. That is way to many dice rolls. No one wants 16 wolf's on the field.
I can see where you're coming from but I definitely feel there's a lot more use to be made of the subclass features than just summoning a bunch of wolves!
I play a Shepherd Druid, and those concerns are valid to a certain extent. But, they aren’t something that hurts the game if you’re prepared. I have an auto dice roller that rolls all attacks and damage for all summons at once, so my turns are usually shorter than any of the other players. Also, saying they’re the worst summoners when their summons have magical attacks and constant healing is something I don’t see. Also, Shepherd Druids compete with Twilight Clerics for best combat healers without multiclassing. Plus summons don’t have to just be attacks monsters. They are excellent for battlefield control.
I only have ever played druids for the moon in d and d 😂
I can’t say I blame you, honestly! They’re really just that much better than every other option!
Druids are op, but somehow, if you like shape-shifting, not good enough
How so? What would you change about their wild shape feature? I for sure am not a fan of the initial direction WOTC took it with the OneDND playtest material.
@@ConstructedChaos twice per rest isn't enough for a shape-shifting focused druid like Circle of the Moon
I'd go with uses = prof bonus, but also tone it down a bit.
The new hit point pool every time you wold shape is a bit much.
On the other hand, it's fun to have a druid who can shape shift a bunch for travel/spy/utility purposes
@@jameswhite3043 that’s a fair assessment honestly. Although, I think mileage will vary on your wild shapes if your DM adheres to the typical 2-3 combat encounters per day. They come back on a short rest so, presumably, you’d almost always have wild shape available.
@@ConstructedChaos ah, well. I'm typically the DM. Short rests are often a bit too easy in many 5e games I've been in.
But that's a separate issue.
Ha you all whats up?
Not much! What's up with you?
_16
If the DM doesn't budge on the "rule" that Druids "can't" wear metal armor, violence is a justified course of action. This "rule" is a violation of the fundamental primary law of all roleplay: You must never, EVER take control of another person's character without their explicit consent. WotC violated this law by trying to dictate what your character is willing to do. A DM that does not budge on this "rule" is violating your fundamentaö player agency. Bishslap them in their stupid face if the session is in-person, kick them out of your house if the session is happening at your home, and never talk to them again, ever. Excise the tumor from your life.
This holds true even if another player is the Druid. Talk to the player, explain how their rights as a player are being violated. Try to get them out of the abusive situation.
Hahaha I think this might be a bit of an overreaction but I do agree with you. It doesn’t hurt game balance or anything. I don’t know why the rule even exists in the first place.
@@ConstructedChaos
Well, it does assume that you've already talked to them like an adult beforehand. Diplomacy is always the preferred method.
And I'm aware that I'm very... _extreme_ on this topic. But I view this as a severe violation, as previously explained.
@@theuncalledfor haha it’s no worries! Even if I didn’t agree with you (and I do) your opinions would be welcome here! 😊
@theuncalledfor diplomacy? More like aggressive negotiations b4 declaring order 66 lol
Sure, but is it anything besides boring?
in your opinion. lol
Boring?! I respect your opinion but I'll respectfully disagree on this one! It's a spellcaster with the inherent ability to turn into all kinds of crazy animals. I don't know what's boring about that!
@@ConstructedChaos
TL;DR this isn't an opinion, it's objective; 5e is an OLD game at this point. Nine years old. If you're new to the game you're going to have fun with whatever you make because it's new to you, but don't think just because you had fun something was made well. You're going to feel how small the box is if you decide to pay attention or play the game long enough.
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Mundane everyday animals that are in real life that are in a world where the fighter or barbarian is as strong as bears. Yeah, boring. Max CR 1 unless moon druid. The best you can do is a young winter wolf in combat. You get the ability to shape shift and spellcast at level 18, too late to be anything other than boring.
Druid if it decides to focus on wildshape at all is just fighter early on and it falls off dramatically later. (We all know what champion fighter is, lets not lie to ourselves) CR 1 creatures when you're level 8, it's not the most useful except for (Insert x story about infiltrating as a mouse). Which I hate to break it to you, doesn't require that many druid levels. Small unnoticeable creatures don't take CR 1.
How much use is it having a CR 1 cast spells from wildshape when you're getting sniped instantly, having a more than likely lower con save for the spell, and/or being shot out of the sky, taking fall dmg, and going prone? Yes, I'd like the ability for that to happen infinitely please. Yes, I'm taking two rounds to do this while the party dies since wild shaping takes an action unless I'm a moon druid.
You're level 18 or 20. It's actually useless past the first round to absorb dmg. Polymorph does your job better as a class feature and it's still limited to beasts. Which 4 classes and 2 subclasses can do and potentially EVERY spellcasting class can do if they take Simic Guild Spells. Why yes, I'm going to wildshape and get power word killed or be divine worded. Or the much more likely event of being instantly killed by a disintegrate. Much fun, good idea.
What my spell list is just water downed wizard thanks to wizard getting 352/516 spells and I get 170/516?! 92 of which are in the wizards spell selection leaving me with just 78 spells with 8 of which are cantrips leaving me with 70. 21 or so that be considered outright useless or bad options and more that can basically be considered only DM only spells. Leaving you with around with 49 spells worth of selection out of the 24-25 you get divided among 9 levels of spells. Why yes, you're stuck with conjure animals being your best spell nearly forever and giving DMs headaches with it. Start casting.
Yeah, much options much wow. I stand by what I said. **Boring.** Druid suffers the same problems that Monk and Ranger (Big surprise when they practically have the same spell list, but that isn't even why) suffer from and to some degree thematically barbarians. It's trying to be many things and failing at it. This is a fullcaster that is bottom of the rung of the fullcasters. They're better off with a DM controlling them than an adventurer. They were not well thought out if you actually think about what they do and compare to others, because guess what IF you don't take a significant selection out of those 49 spells, you're going to suffer.
You're going to be the level 1-4 fighter (Which everyone is by default at the very least) that wildshapes and attacks, feel useless, feel boring, and wonder why you're here. That's the druid experience unless your subclass just makes you a better fighter like stars druid with the wildshape, but you're still a level five fighter or one with a feat at best.
The flavor for druid has been around longer than 5e, lets not pretend it does a good job of it just because of the flavor. If you aren't wildshaping you're just a worse wizard, but wild shaping is bad therefor just play wizard with a druid like nature background you'll have more fun. Dip like two levels druid if you want. Or multiclass druid and rogue with a dip in druid if you want to pretend the mouse is extra sneaky. (But multiclassing is an optional rule! So are feats buddy. I can tell you right now, the fighters and barbs aren't going to do that well without them.)
This line is the most interesting thing about druid. "You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so." Not much else, the choices were illusions. Druids have the lowest playrate of all the classes, and it isn't because they're complicated. They're not, they're clunky and a mess, that's why and this is before I mention the current DND ONE changes that make them an even worse choice.
So instead of being a mess with little reward they are now a simple fullcasting class with little reward in DND ONE, showing even more of the hand of what they actually are under the mess, a shitty wizard with a bit of healing. The only casting class I wouldn't recommend over Druids is Eldritch knight and that's because multiclass literally makes it pointless or if you're going to be a swarm build that is basically just shepard druid.
"Say the line Druid!"
"I Conjure Animals..."
If a game is good you can play it multiple times and not get bored of it as well as playing it in new ways. That's not druid and certainly isn't a 5e thing. Tell me how differently these druids actually play when you play each subclass from levels 1-4 in a game where the content practically all stops at level 11.
4e does it better. 3.5 does it better. 4e turns out to be simpler due to actually using keywords instead of just standard English as a rule as while ALSO allowing large build variance and actual class choices. 3.5 has far more options and backwards compatibility with pathfinder and 3.0 as well as actual class choices.
My suggestion is to not play DND ONE (Which is basically patched together 5e but worse it looks like) if you've gotten bored of 5e and actually move to play these two older systems.
@@GrimHeaperThe sorry, friend. That’s called an opinion haha. I’ve been playing 5e since release and my opinion is that they’re hype AF.
@@ConstructedChaos haha...