Druid - Circle of the Spirit Preview
Added 2019-05-02 02:42:09 +0000 UTCThere's a lot of ways to view the Circle of the Spirit... a Druidic Gish, a totem Barbarian taken to the logical extreme, a Circle of the Wild druid with transformation anxiety...
The goal here was to make a Druid that compellingly used both their nature as a full caster and their wildshape uses in a compelling way.
Some additional design notes:
* I have been working on a set of "Gish" spells; originally I was going to wait for for those to incorporate a few here, but I don't think that's necessary after spending some more time with the design. Those might be nice additions, but this should stand on it's own, which is good as I prefer my content to be stand alone when possible.
* At first glance, Aspect of the Tiger might seem too good, but I think it merits a second glance to confirm that assumption. While it gives you a bonus action attack, activating spirit shape takes a bonus action, and activating shillelagh is also a bonus action. While you don't need shillelagh to attack, either your spell attack or your melee attack will be underwhelming without it. Taking these into consideration, the choice between Bear and Tiger is much closer... and once you get the ability to take both, you'll be in many situations where you would really like Aspect of the Turtle, which means I think in general you have a compelling choice all the way through. Aspect of the Turtle goes a long way to preserving the spell slots of spells like Spirit Guardians.
* Any druid subclass I make is going to have an alternate use of Wild Shape at 3rd level - I think it's just too much of a core pillar of the class to leave as utility/flavor thing as Land, Dream and other druids do.
Let me know if you have any thoughts, or if you give it a spin, I'd love to hear your takes.
I will be formatting the monthly compendium (and adding this to it), but my idea going forward with that is to make that Compendium update when I update the subclasses (everything that's not Artificer, Warlord, and Psion). This means those updates will take a bit longer, though not every subclass will update every month.
Comments
Something defensive would be nice, I'd say. (Orbital stones? Patreon corporate synergy!)
Matthew Gesus
2019-05-05 17:11:46 +0000 UTCYeah, I'll move it down. I had healing spirit because it had the word "spirit" in it, so it seemed appropriate for a druid that controls spirits. I am currently debating slotting haste into the other 3rd level spell slot. You wouldn't be able to use it and spirit guardians, but it might provide an interesting option as sometimes it would be better than spirit guardians and sometimes it wouldn't be, and it's sort of a classic gish spell, and could easily be represented by the spirit of a quick animal infusing. My main concern is haste might overshadow spirit guardians, so I'm still considering. I want to avoid giving them a "nuke" light Lighting Bolt, but I'll review the list and see what they need if I don't go with just slapping on Haste and calling it a day.
KibblesTasty
2019-05-05 16:58:38 +0000 UTCSounds good. In my perfect world, Flame Blade is such a classic druid gish spell that I'd like to see it in the 3rd level slot (probably replace healing spirit, since it's close to an auto-pick anyway.) Swap in something non-concentration at the other 5th level slot and it's good to go.
Matthew Gesus
2019-05-05 16:48:48 +0000 UTC1) I actually thought that Wild Shape was written wildshape, so was imitating that, but it turns it's not, so I will probably change that. 2) Hmm, yeah. Will adjust. 3) I don't see why you couldn't, though wild shape without moon druid means that the shape you assume is probably not super combat useful. Maybe you could make a super strong squirrel or something, 4) This is intentional; glad to hear to hear! Always appreciate the feedback! :)
KibblesTasty
2019-05-05 15:49:23 +0000 UTCVery nice! A few thoughts and notes: 1) I kind of like "Spirit Shape" over "Spiritshape" for the the 2nd level ability, but that's purely pedantic. 2) Flame Blade is a 2nd level spell, so giving it out at 5th level break the normal spell granting paradigm. 3) Since Spirit Shape is an alternate use, can you be both Wild Shaped and Spirit Shaped at the same time? I was imagining turning into something small and then using Bear Aspect (mostly for the lulz, of course). 4) Since Aspect of the Tiger is melee spell attack, that seems to prevent using it with a melee cantrip like Booming Blade and comboing that with Great Weapon Master. I like that! Overall, very interesting! I like that it gives you reasons to buff up a normal melee stat, but it's a possible build option, not a requirement.
Matthew Gesus
2019-05-05 14:38:04 +0000 UTC
