Animorphs was really popular with a specific age range though; for those who missed it or came too early, they wouldn't know about it. So the Dudes might be in the wrong age bracket to know them
@@konas937 There was a cold open on Odd Squad where Chris had lightning hands and Martin had thunder feet so that avatar comment is closer than you think
Two things to note about ways for druids to overcome their weakness in social encounters. 1. There are many racial options that can assist druids with social encounters, such as changelings with both shapeshifting and proficiency in two social skills of choice. As well as yuan-ti who have access to the suggestion spell. Druids also have 'charm person' and theres no reason why one player cant dump INT to go heavier into CHA. Combining this with enhance ability and guidance, as well as potentially cosmic omen from the omen from a stars druid, you can actually stack quite a few bonuses to any check. 2. Like clerics and paladins, Druids being known as healers can occassionally give them a social standing apart from what a skill check can achieve. If your player has come into town and healed the injured/infirm, ir if theyve spent a day casting plant growth to increase harvest yields for the next year, the locals are probably going to be more willing to offer aid/information without having to be persuaded.
#2 is so key here. Druids don't get through social encounters by making CHA checks, they do it by : using Medicine & Insight to figure out what someone needs, then using their magic to get that for them - healing, providing food/water or shelter or helping people get out. And if that doesn't work you use wildshape to follow & spy on them rather than interact directly.
@@agilemind6241 Yeah, preparing for social encounters by being a literal fly on the wall to figure out what leverage you need was my first thought for how to solve that.
Just make the Moon Druid your party face. They don't need physical stats and even Wisdom isn't super important since they aren't going to be casting spells on enemies so saving throws aren't needed. Just take a good charisma race for the Moon Druid, I'd personally go with Changeling for the free proficiencies and the ability to shapechange into a super attractive person of whatever race would be the most advantageous in the current situation. Also a Changeling Moon Druid is super flavorful, they are the ultimate shapechanger!
An all Druid party could handle social interactions fairly well. For example, the Moon Druid doesn’t need as much Dex or Con as the others as those would be overwritten in Wild Shape. So they wouldn’t need to dump Charisma. Then add a background that gives social skills. Couple that with Enhance Ability and you’re in a decent position.
I agreed. You probably have at least two druids which don't have to focus on combat. Between backgrounds, races, and feats, it isn't hard to get someone up there even before spells. A half-elf druid with a noble background and taking the actor feat, or magic initiate: warlock for charm person, friends and eldritch blast, etc. As the weakness if caught in melee (assuming they don't setup the combat, can't crowd control, and can't escape)... by the time they are past that sweet spot, they have polymorph and can easily win a war of attrition. Those in the back just take turns casting polymorph and the BEBG has to fighter through hundreds of hit points while the rest of the party repositions themselves and then starts with crowd control or blasting or summoning.
I agree guys. Below is my List. 1. Circle of the Moon = Tank Melee, Social (Guidance, High Charisma) 2. Circle of the Land (Grassland) = Utility Spells like Invisibility, Haste, Divination 3. Circle of the Shepard = Summoning Meat Shields, Exploring, Spirit Totem Support 4. Circle of the Stars = Archer Ranged Offense, Chalice Healing
@@chrismeandyouWhile I understand why you might want to put social on your moon druid as he doesn't need physical stats, I think that's a mistake in actual play. The moon druid relies on wildshape and you really don't want to be forcing them out of it to talk to people or to cast guidance. His spell slots should be for internal healing, long lasting end-of-day or specific utility spells -- say good berry, etc. The last thing you want is to run into a group of people being attacked by some ogres... wild shape to fight the ogres, then revert back so you can talk to villagers, only to be attacked by another wave. Wild shape can last hours so keep it up. Personally, I'd just put it on someone else. Your land could easily be an 8, 14, 14, 10, 16, 14. Half-elf with diplomacy and intuition from half-elf/skills. +4 with the odd guidance, enhance ability, should be enough. You could also do a full charisma human build and take something like magic initiate warlock (charm person, eldritch blast, and minor illusion) and attack with your charisma -- noting that buff and utility druid spells (say on land) often don't require wisdom attacks or saves. However, you have options.
@@BW022 Meant any of them cast Guidance to one with High Charisma. I can see if there are too frequent important social interactions per day then moon druid is bad for doing that and would instead up Charisma and social skills to another like Circle of Land one.
I think the all druid party basically shreds any campain that isnt based on social interactions, either their spells get them through it or wildshape which notably refereshes on short rests as well. They are super surivable medium armor + shield is massive for a caster and on top of that wildshape hp. Spellwise they're slight less versitile wizards or maybe much more situationally versitile but they can heal. Scouting and Exploration is a place where they are unmatched.
That's definitely an S tier party. I'm not a huge fan of druids, but man, an all druid party can do everything. The "problems" pointed wouldn't be problems at all. In a "fighting against really high save enemy" situation they could all use a summon something spell and have excellent attack roll dependent damage, based in their wis modifier to be even better. The moon druid could easily dump dex and have a great charisma for social interactions and grab telepathic feat to communicate while im wild shape and use detect thoughts. They would be awesome in every encounter.
Here is my idea for an all Druid party, Circles of: Moon, Stars, Wildfire (reflavored to Sun), and Land (Earth). Now you can have a party of DnD Magical Girls who go around saving the planet. “Circle of stars can literally do a Sailor Moon transformation with the slightest reflavoring.” And if you wanted a 5th member do Spores Druid, another one with a transformation to magical-girl-ify. They could also symbolize either antimatter, the nothingness which is 99% of space, or a black hole and be like the kinda edgy anti hero of the group I feel.
@@acehole131even then druid is hardly bad at social. Guidance and enhance ability benefit charisma rolls, wisdom is a secondary social stat, being able to talk to animals and plants can help you work with an information advantage, and someone biting the proverbial bullet to get +1 or +2 in charisma with a couple relevant proficiencies is hardly the end of the world.
Its the only party they suggested nerfing. All the crazy bullshit the wizards could pull didn't tip the scales, but '4 conjure woodland beings at the same time' was enough for them to say some spells might need to be banned. Also, the druids don't require any planning. Bards need to manipulate the social situation, wizards need to stack spells, clerics rely on using specific subclasses to fill gaps. Throw 4 druids with no subclass features and no equipment into any level appropriate combat encounter and they'll still win.
I think all druids party is S tier. If you work together you have amazing potencial. Some of my favourite combos - plant growth and spike growth together - in order to move enemy has to spend like 40ft of movement to really move only 5ft while taking damage - 1ft per 4ft of movement from plant growth and its difficult terain thanks to spike growth so 8ft per 1ft.... and plant growth is not even concentration. - Transmute rock to mud and maelstrom - again 40ft per 5ft walking and potencialy restrain or pull towards the center of maelstrom - transmute rock to mud and fire wall with moon druid turning into fire elemental and just rushing there and keeping enemy in wall of fire. All of these can be pulled off by 1 or 2 druids while the rest can focus on other spells - like wall of fire, moonbeam, confusion or summons. If your enemy has great saving throws well... you can always summon 4 dragons - that is 200 hit points on the battlefield and you get to choose their damage type and resistances. The only combat weakness for me is that they dont have counterspell so enemy casters can be problematic... but then again you can summon bunch of creatures at top of enemy caster and he will have problems while he is getting biten by army of direwolfs with pact tactics. Also the fact that enemy cant get away easily from you - most of the animals you summon are faster then average hubgoblin, necromancer or even a vampire and you can summon bunch of flyiers as well..... and if you can gather some intel before going in... oh boy you can get so much done before. You have heroes feast to boost up your team, you can gain immunities or resistances to most elemental damage types - Investiture of flame or ice etc, primordial ward, antilife shell etc. With enough time you can create army of trees with awaken or you can use planar binding to bind some strong elementals or fey to your will.... you could get your own hag covenant if you wanted :D . Dont forget you have commune with nature, scrying and even something like contagion to help you with lots of enemies. AND if one member of your group gets fey touched you can get silvery barbs which is HUGE for all druid party. Overall I would say all druid group can perform better than most because they are so flexible and even when I played druid as only full caster in my group I never felt like I didnt have a spell or animal that would help in any situation.
A party of druids who need to save the world from a warforged uprising SKYNET Or a party of disney princesses; Pocahontas: Moon Snow white: shepherd Elsa: wildfire reflavored with ice Rapunzel: dream
I like the Disney Princesses angle. It hits the right themes without automatically putting society or people in general as antagonistic towards nature.
Druid has become my favorite class over the last few years so I might be a bit biased, but they're absolutely A+ tier. I know they have a few weaknesses, but they are adaptable enough to tackle anything.
Pop up Zoo party, you could also let your party summon a bunch of fae creatures but have half a Fae village just suddenly disappear and they send out warriors to find who keeps summoning their people
Nice! With the zoo theme, you could bring in the cast of Madagascar. If they could have a non-Druid follower who is a bard, they can bring along King Louie. At some point, the party could all turn into penguins. 🤣
The thing about an All Druid Party is some of the main weaknesses can be solved based on racial options. Eberron was mentioned and a lot of the Dragon Mark House can sure up the defensive weakness or help brute force social challenges. Getting Shield and Counterspell added to a list or getting a base d4 to a skill that stacks with Guiance and advantage. It can also make the exploration even stronger since they can get the arcane spells that bolster exploration as well.
For druid defenses, i feel like a DM willing to run an all druid party is probably willing to allow the druids to gather materials or resources to craft non-metal armor. Specifically scale mail, (or half-plate later on or in certain emvironments) could be crafted from scavenged monster parts. Giant snake scales, drake/basilisk scales, chitin or carapace from insectoid or underground monsters are all fairly reasonable substitutes to metal armor that both imcrease the strength of your characters and can provide great roleplay or quests. Also there are some official iptions for druids such as dragonscale mail, serpent scale armor, living armor, as well as any +1/2/3 armor/shields, or even barrier tattoos. Most of these are DM dependant, but theyre still potential options to ask your DM about. My druid in our current campaign was able to carve scales of a giant snake and have our artificer craft him some scale mail , which along with a shield, has given him a very respectable 18 AC.
Yeah, having the druid wear non-metal heavy armor is mostly a matter of re-flavoring. If the DM wants to make it more difficult or more expensive to obtain, for instance, because of the material's rarity, then that sounds like a fun small-scale quest for a tangible short-term goal.
Transmute Rock, Wall of Fire as a Ring around enemies, 3 Call Lightning to the ones trapped within (fly on top of the moon druid to see into the ring, or float as a Stars Druid). Brutal.
Also remember Druids get access to Magic Stone and Shillelagh. Good backup attack based cantrips that will use their WIS mod after they've cast their concentration spells and just need to do some reliable damage without burning through spell slots.
I just want to complement how good everyone’s RP was in your actual play game. It was so good! Just the whole Is Sebation just throwing us into situations where we are going to die. And you had Kelly thinking that his friends were abandoning him and turning against him. It was great! Also Montie was great as the Queen of Thieves, and old man Midnight. So good!
I like wildfire just cuz for hitpoints ur summon spells already give u the most hitpoints out of any party and Druids miss out on teleportation but wildfire can infinite teleport.
@@muditjohar5323 Also taking fire ball off the spell list is dumb and its fine to ignore that and have a fun bit of blaster fun to round out the party.
@@muditjohar5323 I would take Telepathic, Telekinetic and Shadow Touched (Disguise Self)! Infiltration gods! Don't trust the squirrels! 😉 I love druids! I would want to play the wildfire druid in this party!
in Quebec, it was called Touftoufs et polluards...I used to watch that show! Ah! the 80' cartoons! th-cam.com/video/89PM6ahY3jc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=FUk6SxJ_LwlcJwOz
We played this campaign! The D Team! Spores, Moon, Dreams, Stars. Such a great game. I played the Circle of Dreams, which is supposed to be lame, but really loved the subclass. Sometimes you just make a character with loads of flavour - they spring out of your brain fully formed. :) She was a Kalashtar, so telepathy was built in!
Regarding managing tons of summons: agree that after a certain amount of summons you just treat them as a swarm. Vastly simplify the management of that stampede of elk by making it an Elk Swarm.
One of the most fun to play characters I had was when I needed to be the party healer, and also no one was a rogue. So, I made a city dwelling Druid with the criminal background. They picked locks and were sneaky and played like a rogue … but also they were the healer with a lot of ability to use wild shape to help out of combat. It was very effective. And it was tons of fun to play completely against the cliches.
You had a point about when the summons stop being as potent. However with the addition of the high level summons, especially summon draconic spirit. That is a great evolution to the summon playstyle when getting to the high levels. Upcasting to 8th level is pretty worth it
Hope you guys still plan on doing your "How to build an Apothecary" videos. I've been interested in the class for a while now but haven't had the chance to play one yet, so it'd be nice to hear a bit more about how you inteded on it being made/played.
I'd also like to see that how to Apothecary video, maybe they could even do a 4 Apothecary party for this series after. I'd be interested to see how they'd build each subclass to cover all the bases.
speaking only based on the games I've played, combat is _always_ important whereas social encounters can be failed without the game ending, so in relation to that the all-druid party ranks 1 because their weakness is social interaction but failing that is not game ending (usually) whereas an all-bard party can get TPKed in a combat encounter
So here's an interesting story that highlights the versatility of druids: independently of each other, myself and another member of the party I'm currently playing with decided to create front line druids, and neither of us are Moon druids! My friend is playing a Spore druid who multiclassed into Monk to get a bit more melee combat power and uses her temporary hitpoints from the Spore druid's abilities to boost her survivability. I am playing a Land druid who got a +2 magic shield and scale mail armor to boost my AC to 19, and I used a unique feat combo of Polearm Master combined with War Caster and Shillelagh to blast people with spells as a reaction whenever they come into my melee range. Neither of our characters are as tanky as a Moon druid, but my character's feat combo was more for offensive purposes than defensive purposes, and my friend's damage output and survivability are no joke either. We are the front line for the rest of our party (a bard and a ranger), and we do a great job at it! There's more to druids than Moon druid ;)
I wanted to make a series of NPC characters that are a circle of Druids based on the four cardinal beasts. I feel like that would be fun to mess around with lore wise
I've been waiting for the Druids since the start of this series, and I'm stoked that it came out the week of my birthday! :D I'm in a very small minority that loves land druids, but I know it depends on DM mercy with the expanded spell lists. I agree with Monty that the all-druid party holds up better than the all-wizard party. You've still got some solid divination, and great investigation to avoid situations you're not ready for, but you add infiltration, healing, and toughness to the mix. I think you might be underestimating the abilities of druids outside of wisdom skills, though. Because druids have a spell list with a bunch of con-save-or-half-damage spells, I wouldn't expect enemies to fail saves anyway, so hitting 20Wis isn't as high a priority, giving you more points to spread around. The moon druid might even keep their dex at 10-12, only take a 13 con and invest in cha and int since their physical stats will rarely matter in combat. If they survive 1st level, they might become the tank and the face.
The best way to build them as a party is play them ass exactly how they are made. lol Armorer Tank / Ranged DPS depending on the encounter Artillerist Blaster / Temp Hitpoint Machine depending on the encounter Battle Smith DPS / Tank Pet Alchemist Shitty healer and buffer There’s not a ton to say on how to best build the party. They have flexibility depending on the encounter and there’s no point in shoehorning them into a specific role.
Depending on the social encounter, there may be more than one way through. If you want to befriend a guard and schedule the secrets of the Garrison's layout and staffing out of them. You could try charm person. Or you could wild shape into an adorable bunny and get adopted for a couple days.
When infiltrating an area in animal form be sure to turn into a type of animal that naturally occurs in that area. In the Barbara Hambly novel The Walls of Air a wizard tries this by covering his image with the illusion of a beetle... but it's a type of beetle not native to the region, so a sharp-eyed guard spots him.
The challenge is rating druids is how they look on paper vs how they are played at the table. What I mean is that you can easily see their strength when reading about them but at the table they are easy to play poorly. As a heavily team based class with power tied to proper setup, heavy tactics and creativity they can be challenging for new players to get the most out of or even skilled players to find success with unless the rest of the party looks to take advantage of the situations the druid sets up. I love druids and I wish I saw them played more often.
Don’t sleep on the teleportation aspect of the wildfire spirit. Druids otherwise don’t have any inherent teleportation ability until they get some high-level spells. Also, Land (mountain) gets lightning bolt, which is as close as you’ll get to a druid with fireball.
30:07 Yes, but even if it resists all the elemental damage, the moon druid can just start beating down on the big bad and because at level 6, they get magical natural weapons and can heal themselves with spell slots and the other druids can keep the moon druid alive.
I'm clicking Like on this one only one minute in, because I've been waiting for this one. I played a Moon Druid a few years ago, and I loved it. In real life, I'm not a nature person at all. But, for fictional stuff, I love shape shifting, in this case, Wild Shape. I also love that a Druid is still a full caster, is possibly the 2nd-best healer in the roster, and has proficiency with Herbalism Kit. Because D&D 5e doesn't have super clear instructions for potion crafting, I used a combination of homebrew methods online. Between it being a convoluted mash-up of methods and my DM being too busy between sessions to ever scrutinize my method, he let me get away with creating a bunch of different types of potions probably a "bit" too quickly and/or easily. I also used speaking with animals a time or two also. To me, Druids are the ultimate utility class, so much so that it made me wonder why anyone would play anything other than a Druid.
I was just about to mention Moonbeam as an issue when I got to the part where you mentioned Moonbeam and Ice Knife. Moonbeam is a go-to spell but almost too much so. Having the damage dealt on the target's turn and having to use a full action just to move it makes the Moonbeam sometimes effective -- but very boring. I say sometimes because it's also possible to roll too low for damage and then using a turn to just keep a Moonbeam going is both boring and ineffective. I found myself using too often anyway, due to lack of a better alternative. I wish the spell had more "flair" somehow. Speaking of flair, I love Ice Knife on paper. It's basically an ice grenade. So, I always try to have it. But, for some reason, it seems I've rarely had opportunity to use the area of effect aspect on it.
...And, now you just mentioned the other issue...summon/conjure spells. They're nice, in theory. One time, I conjured, I think, 8 black bears, and it doubled the battlefield. But, it also doubled the dice rolls and numbers to keep up with, and our group was already too slow at combat. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad it were already faster. If multiple players were to conjure, every turn would take forever. The boringness of Moonbeam and the bogged-down-edness of conjuring are two of the only bad parts. I really did love being a Druid otherwise. Ooh, you just mentioned Giant Eagle. I think I turned into one of those one time too, to escape from a castle where someone was firing a crossbow at me. Very cool.
I think one of the clutch abilities you highlighted is that druids are phenomenal at choosing the terms of combat, and entering/exiting it as they choose
Roaring good video, my Dudes of the Dungeon! Pre video idea: Group is a traveling merchant guild that is focusing on food production and transportation. Moon Druid as Caribou that pulls wagon, Stars Druid Chef for inventory Appraisal and management, Shepard Druid for dedicated Medic and Coachman, Twilight for Security Officer.
The best way to handle social interaction is probably good ol' summoning something that actually has a CHA score. Summon Fey (mirthful) has Cha 16 and unlimited charming ability. But really how often are the 4 rats going to have to talk their way into anywhere?
I was really looking forward to this installment, and it did not disappoint. I think druids are the best at a few things and second best at almost everything else. Letting four of them cook together has a lot of synergy. Tasha’s summoning spells also cover the biggest weaknesses of the conjure spells: the attack bonuses scale, and everything beyond summon beast has a way to get around resistance to non-magical weapons (especially if you can give your summoned fey magical short swords).
Druids have become my favorite class over the years, such a special place in my heart- S tier for sure. And dudes I gotta say, I’m loving your pride shirts!! I need that pan button up haha
Ice Knife was mentioned more than in passing! Omg! Stupendously underrated spell. No verbal components, don't need to see the target. If you actually use material components, or your Focus gets confiscated, it has the *incredibly rare and expensive* drop of water material component.
I'd like to see this for Races! Specifically exotic ones? Like Harengon, Warforged, Owlin, Fairy, Drow, etc! It would be a spotlight on what those races do, how they affect gameplay, which classes they mesh with, and the stories they could tell would be great!
I’d love to see a version of this series concept that’s based on character race (Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Etc.) and how well they’d handle certain situations. Bonus points if you manage to wrangle D&D Shorts into it.
Something I did to balance conjure animals, and to not take away time from my fellow players was to roll for the summons while everyone else did their turn. It was typically a pack of 8 wolves. So I rolled 2d20 at a time and picked the highest (pack tactics always worked as I grouped them together for their attacks) then noted it down and rolled the potential damage for if it hits. Did this 8 times. While listening to everyone else’s turns. Picked the targets for my creatures and checked which of my to hit’s actually hit, then added together the relevant damage. The conjured animals was done with their turn faster than my actual character, or the Wizard🤣🤣 despite me having already planned what to do with my actual character based on what had happened since my last turn.
So, creativity is the mother of chaos. I love the versatility of the druid and the wizard. One of my favorite entries in any book had to do with a gazillion things to do with Illusions. This demonstrates the power of wizards, we all know the downside, low hp, no healing. But there is a creativity to being able to summon what you need. I wound up in a game with a group of pirates for reasons. We were riding around on a frigate I had awakened, there were some members of the crew that wanted a more powerful intimidating vessel so I went into the ocean and found a big four masted galleon that went down in a recent battle. I summoned a bunch of steam mephits, we put the sails under the wholes and I had them blow steam into the ship to get it to rise, I spent a good amount of time getting it to float on it's own, then summoned a pod of whales to pull it to them and I traded it to them for the full ownership of the first vessel. I became captain of the awakened ship and we worked together for a while. Eventually we split off and just did adventuring things, but it was fun to be creative :)
If you would take the 4 subclasses (circle of the moon, circle of the shepherd, circle of stars and circle of wildfire) you basically already have the 4 elements theme you can build your campaign in. The circle of the moon connects to water (it is a circle where you can wildshape the most easy of all the current druidic circles in 5e, shapeshifting could be seen as water since you easily flow into forms. Also another connection is that the moon pulls and pushes the tides so that it actually has quite the influence on water) The circle of the shepherd connects to earth (the classical idea of a shepherd leading sheep or cows through mountain terrain to give them a place to graze, meanwhile through the trip the job of a shepherd is all about protecting the flock which gives a powerful and strict stone like energy) The circle of the stars connects to air (it is all about the nightsky and the power that comes from it, also the archer form could be seen as close to the wind since it is a weapon that is long range yet traditional) The circle of wildfire (very obvious reasons) This perfectly sets up a 4 element druid campaign where you have to restore the balance of the four elements.
Druids can also use summoning to aid themselves in social encounters. Language barriers are still going to be an issue but once you have access to Conjure Woodland Beings you can just have a dryad do your talking for you. They start at a +4 bonus to charisma and with the party providing enhance ability and guidance they’ll be a great face for the team.
Wildfire spirit’s firery teleportation is a must have in my opinion. Free repositioning is key to keeping all the concentration spells the team will have up and going.
I’ve wanted to play an “oops all druids” game for a while, for many of the reasons you listed. Druids are incredibly fun to play, and there are a lot of subclasses in official and unofficial source books that lend to so much creativity and freedom that I think they’ve earned that high ranking.
Also, in regards to the gatekeepers discussion, it's wild to me that there's no druid subclass for that. You'd think with oath of the ancients paladin (it even mentions druids in its flavor text) and horizon walker ranger being right there, someone would've gone "you know what? This makes a lot of sense for a druid circle!"
My pick between Spores and Wildfire is definitely Wildfire for the teleport alone. There is so much utility in being able to pop anyone around at will for an hour with a single use of wild shape.
Honestly I lean toward S tier with this class. There's so much they can do and they could cover their weakness pretty easily with a couple of feats spread out across the party of four. If Bards get S then so do Druids.
I feel like the stock of the spore Druid is rising with the 2024 rule changes. With Polearm Master for a second bonus action attack, perhaps taking the place of the circle of moon as your melee Druid. Consider that at level 5 when you can start swapping spell slots for wild shape uses, that means a spore Druid can use a bonus action to get 20 temp hp as often as needed, and that continues to scale very well. And that in their Symbiotic form they still have access to all their spells, unlike the circle of moon. I might say, situationally better than the circle of moon. Particularly if you could grab booming blade or green flame blade from an elf lineage or feat. Just food for thought, appreciate your videos dudes.
I think an all-druid party would be spectacular. Even given the weaknesses, I'm sure that a viable solution would be available with a little effort and imagination. I think the challenge here lies with the DM coming up with a challenging adventure to keep all of the druids entertained.
The Stars Druid would be fine concentrating on spells with it's Dragon Starry Form. Never "Rolling" less than a 10. Then at later levels being able to switch between Starry Forms in battle would be great.
I love the Druid only party and I would rate it s tier. I personally think you slightly underrated just how powerful the stars Druid can be a support role, they won’t be the best in tier 1 or 2 but in high tier play they become much better than any other Druid. Also spores can fill the frontline roll surprisingly well with their extra damage features. Either way I think this whole series is great.
I would add a question for when you both discuss rating all of them after you complete the classes videos. "Which of these parties would be most fun to play?" That would be a different rating altogether - and I suspect this one, an all Druid party may come out on top for that, unless a traveling Troupe of Troubadour Bards would be that (seriously - that could be a really cool setting to play in!).
I would rank this higher than the bard, simply because it’s better than bard at combat and exploration. Obviously nothing beats bard at social, but nothing beats Druid at exploration or infiltration.
You dudes put out a lot of informative content and have awesome technical and practical insight into different builds and strategies. I'd like to offer you guys a minor challenge to do a video where you get a little more personal and less theory crafty. Something like a brief discription of your top 5 most enjoyable characters you've ever played or partied with. I know you've played a lot of DND and I'm sure you have some great memories of past characters. I'd just ask to ban any of the current main series drakenhiem characters from contention because I think they would all likely dominate the list if allowed. Thanks for the great video as always!
I had the same first three, same order too. I had Land (Grassland) as my fourth for haste on Moon. Dire wolf at +2 AC and two attacks is strong at level 5. Level 6 brings Giant Elk for Charge > Ram > Hooves as a very potent combo if the target fails the DC 14, but Charge also does not limit the additional damage to once per turn or once per condition met, so it will still be able to 2x Charge empowered Ram Attacks; though I wouldn't fault a DM for ruling otherwise. A lot of Moon's forms make you choose between a multiattack or some other strength, and Haste just makes that latter choice so much juicier. Sure Conjure spells are more potent, but with the other druids being able to cover this, a haste may be more powerful if the enemy has large AOE to wipe out your minion farm.
Blight and tidal wave are excellent blast spells and taking magic initiate to get a DPS cantrip and something like shield or misty step is amazing. S tier for sure. Is my pick for second place overall behind Warlock
I can't believe the animorphs weren't brought up, everyone being wildshaped with the telepathy feat is them exactly.
Animorphs was really popular with a specific age range though; for those who missed it or came too early, they wouldn't know about it. So the Dudes might be in the wrong age bracket to know them
This is just the cast of Wild Krats.
Or perhaps Wonder Pets or the Backyardigans. 😂
@@rcschmidt668play the entire campaign as the Backyeardigans?
Yes.
If the Wild Kratts had the powers of the avatar
@@konas937
There was a cold open on Odd Squad where Chris had lightning hands and Martin had thunder feet so that avatar comment is closer than you think
This is so funny because my 5 year old is OBSESSED with Wild Krats
I love the "What if everyone plays a ..." Series by Dungeon Dudes!
There is another of these?
@@jasco.gaming Shockingly
I can't wait to see which 4 artificer subclasses they pick
@@georgeolund7572 There's so many to pick from, who can decide? haha 😄
Same
Two things to note about ways for druids to overcome their weakness in social encounters.
1. There are many racial options that can assist druids with social encounters, such as changelings with both shapeshifting and proficiency in two social skills of choice. As well as yuan-ti who have access to the suggestion spell. Druids also have 'charm person' and theres no reason why one player cant dump INT to go heavier into CHA. Combining this with enhance ability and guidance, as well as potentially cosmic omen from the omen from a stars druid, you can actually stack quite a few bonuses to any check.
2. Like clerics and paladins, Druids being known as healers can occassionally give them a social standing apart from what a skill check can achieve. If your player has come into town and healed the injured/infirm, ir if theyve spent a day casting plant growth to increase harvest yields for the next year, the locals are probably going to be more willing to offer aid/information without having to be persuaded.
#2 is so key here. Druids don't get through social encounters by making CHA checks, they do it by : using Medicine & Insight to figure out what someone needs, then using their magic to get that for them - healing, providing food/water or shelter or helping people get out. And if that doesn't work you use wildshape to follow & spy on them rather than interact directly.
@@agilemind6241 Yeah, preparing for social encounters by being a literal fly on the wall to figure out what leverage you need was my first thought for how to solve that.
Just make the Moon Druid your party face. They don't need physical stats and even Wisdom isn't super important since they aren't going to be casting spells on enemies so saving throws aren't needed. Just take a good charisma race for the Moon Druid, I'd personally go with Changeling for the free proficiencies and the ability to shapechange into a super attractive person of whatever race would be the most advantageous in the current situation. Also a Changeling Moon Druid is super flavorful, they are the ultimate shapechanger!
#3 spell list. Enhance ability is clutch
@@deathbagel even with just an average Charisma, Skill expert or Prodigy can grab you expertise on a social skill
I actually DMed for an all druid party (3 lvl 8s, stars, moon, and spores). They were not invincible, but DANG were they strong!
I bet!
An all Druid party could handle social interactions fairly well. For example, the Moon Druid doesn’t need as much Dex or Con as the others as those would be overwritten in Wild Shape. So they wouldn’t need to dump Charisma. Then add a background that gives social skills. Couple that with Enhance Ability and you’re in a decent position.
I agreed. You probably have at least two druids which don't have to focus on combat. Between backgrounds, races, and feats, it isn't hard to get someone up there even before spells. A half-elf druid with a noble background and taking the actor feat, or magic initiate: warlock for charm person, friends and eldritch blast, etc.
As the weakness if caught in melee (assuming they don't setup the combat, can't crowd control, and can't escape)... by the time they are past that sweet spot, they have polymorph and can easily win a war of attrition. Those in the back just take turns casting polymorph and the BEBG has to fighter through hundreds of hit points while the rest of the party repositions themselves and then starts with crowd control or blasting or summoning.
I agree guys. Below is my List.
1. Circle of the Moon = Tank Melee, Social (Guidance, High Charisma)
2. Circle of the Land (Grassland) = Utility Spells like Invisibility, Haste, Divination
3. Circle of the Shepard = Summoning Meat Shields, Exploring, Spirit Totem Support
4. Circle of the Stars = Archer Ranged Offense, Chalice Healing
@@chrismeandyouWhile I understand why you might want to put social on your moon druid as he doesn't need physical stats, I think that's a mistake in actual play. The moon druid relies on wildshape and you really don't want to be forcing them out of it to talk to people or to cast guidance. His spell slots should be for internal healing, long lasting end-of-day or specific utility spells -- say good berry, etc. The last thing you want is to run into a group of people being attacked by some ogres... wild shape to fight the ogres, then revert back so you can talk to villagers, only to be attacked by another wave. Wild shape can last hours so keep it up.
Personally, I'd just put it on someone else. Your land could easily be an 8, 14, 14, 10, 16, 14. Half-elf with diplomacy and intuition from half-elf/skills. +4 with the odd guidance, enhance ability, should be enough. You could also do a full charisma human build and take something like magic initiate warlock (charm person, eldritch blast, and minor illusion) and attack with your charisma -- noting that buff and utility druid spells (say on land) often don't require wisdom attacks or saves. However, you have options.
plus a Guidance on top! Since different players could have those
@@BW022 Meant any of them cast Guidance to one with High Charisma. I can see if there are too frequent important social interactions per day then moon druid is bad for doing that and would instead up Charisma and social skills to another like Circle of Land one.
I think the all druid party basically shreds any campain that isnt based on social interactions, either their spells get them through it or wildshape which notably refereshes on short rests as well. They are super surivable medium armor + shield is massive for a caster and on top of that wildshape hp. Spellwise they're slight less versitile wizards or maybe much more situationally versitile but they can heal. Scouting and Exploration is a place where they are unmatched.
That's definitely an S tier party. I'm not a huge fan of druids, but man, an all druid party can do everything.
The "problems" pointed wouldn't be problems at all. In a "fighting against really high save enemy" situation they could all use a summon something spell and have excellent attack roll dependent damage, based in their wis modifier to be even better.
The moon druid could easily dump dex and have a great charisma for social interactions and grab telepathic feat to communicate while im wild shape and use detect thoughts.
They would be awesome in every encounter.
Moon druids can safely drop Str, though I'd probably retain at least a little Dex for when you aren't in Wild Shape.
Couldn't you argue that the wizard party can all cast Polymorph to mimic many of those druid tricks?
@@Wintermute909 The all wiz party is an easy S too. They only fall short in the healing aspect. But that can also be solved with races and feats.
Here is my idea for an all Druid party, Circles of: Moon, Stars, Wildfire (reflavored to Sun), and Land (Earth). Now you can have a party of DnD Magical Girls who go around saving the planet. “Circle of stars can literally do a Sailor Moon transformation with the slightest reflavoring.” And if you wanted a 5th member do Spores Druid, another one with a transformation to magical-girl-ify. They could also symbolize either antimatter, the nothingness which is 99% of space, or a black hole and be like the kinda edgy anti hero of the group I feel.
This is definitely going to be at least an A tier party, if not S tier.
Social is the only thing that keeps it from S tier.
@@acehole131even then druid is hardly bad at social. Guidance and enhance ability benefit charisma rolls, wisdom is a secondary social stat, being able to talk to animals and plants can help you work with an information advantage, and someone biting the proverbial bullet to get +1 or +2 in charisma with a couple relevant proficiencies is hardly the end of the world.
not a lot of problems that can't be solved by summoning 32 velociraptors
Its the only party they suggested nerfing. All the crazy bullshit the wizards could pull didn't tip the scales, but '4 conjure woodland beings at the same time' was enough for them to say some spells might need to be banned.
Also, the druids don't require any planning. Bards need to manipulate the social situation, wizards need to stack spells, clerics rely on using specific subclasses to fill gaps. Throw 4 druids with no subclass features and no equipment into any level appropriate combat encounter and they'll still win.
@@WolfbloodJakeWilliamsthey said in the video why they were recommending banning it: having to manage like 24 summons can bog down combat
I think all druids party is S tier. If you work together you have amazing potencial. Some of my favourite combos
- plant growth and spike growth together - in order to move enemy has to spend like 40ft of movement to really move only 5ft while taking damage - 1ft per 4ft of movement from plant growth and its difficult terain thanks to spike growth so 8ft per 1ft.... and plant growth is not even concentration.
- Transmute rock to mud and maelstrom - again 40ft per 5ft walking and potencialy restrain or pull towards the center of maelstrom
- transmute rock to mud and fire wall with moon druid turning into fire elemental and just rushing there and keeping enemy in wall of fire.
All of these can be pulled off by 1 or 2 druids while the rest can focus on other spells - like wall of fire, moonbeam, confusion or summons. If your enemy has great saving throws well... you can always summon 4 dragons - that is 200 hit points on the battlefield and you get to choose their damage type and resistances. The only combat weakness for me is that they dont have counterspell so enemy casters can be problematic... but then again you can summon bunch of creatures at top of enemy caster and he will have problems while he is getting biten by army of direwolfs with pact tactics. Also the fact that enemy cant get away easily from you - most of the animals you summon are faster then average hubgoblin, necromancer or even a vampire and you can summon bunch of flyiers as well..... and if you can gather some intel before going in... oh boy you can get so much done before.
You have heroes feast to boost up your team, you can gain immunities or resistances to most elemental damage types - Investiture of flame or ice etc, primordial ward, antilife shell etc. With enough time you can create army of trees with awaken or you can use planar binding to bind some strong elementals or fey to your will.... you could get your own hag covenant if you wanted :D . Dont forget you have commune with nature, scrying and even something like contagion to help you with lots of enemies. AND if one member of your group gets fey touched you can get silvery barbs which is HUGE for all druid party.
Overall I would say all druid group can perform better than most because they are so flexible and even when I played druid as only full caster in my group I never felt like I didnt have a spell or animal that would help in any situation.
I think it's going to be important for these guys to get the telepathic feat.
Yeah, the telepathic feat, despite it's flaws, is a really important feat for both social encounters and communication in general.
A party of druids who need to save the world from a warforged uprising
SKYNET
Or a party of disney princesses;
Pocahontas: Moon
Snow white: shepherd
Elsa: wildfire reflavored with ice
Rapunzel: dream
Rdited within an hour of coment
@@terrestrialfilms pardon?
I like the Disney Princesses angle. It hits the right themes without automatically putting society or people in general as antagonistic towards nature.
@@troperhghar9898the coment was edited within an hour of being posted
@@terrestrialfilms yes I edited it, I had the disney princess idea after first posting
Druid has become my favorite class over the last few years so I might be a bit biased, but they're absolutely A+ tier. I know they have a few weaknesses, but they are adaptable enough to tackle anything.
you could House rule that all conjured animals act as a single swarm and use average damage instead of rolling. Drastically simplifies things.
Pop up Zoo party, you could also let your party summon a bunch of fae creatures but have half a Fae village just suddenly disappear and they send out warriors to find who keeps summoning their people
Nice! With the zoo theme, you could bring in the cast of Madagascar. If they could have a non-Druid follower who is a bard, they can bring along King Louie. At some point, the party could all turn into penguins. 🤣
Druid/Monk changed into a house cat, saddle for the Wizard’s Tiny Servant. Snuck into a house to scout. Best session ever!
I scouted a castle as a cat one time too. Druid is so versatile.
The thing about an All Druid Party is some of the main weaknesses can be solved based on racial options. Eberron was mentioned and a lot of the Dragon Mark House can sure up the defensive weakness or help brute force social challenges. Getting Shield and Counterspell added to a list or getting a base d4 to a skill that stacks with Guiance and advantage. It can also make the exploration even stronger since they can get the arcane spells that bolster exploration as well.
Also there are a few subclasses that give you tleportation options, which is another big weakness of the druid spell list.
For druid defenses, i feel like a DM willing to run an all druid party is probably willing to allow the druids to gather materials or resources to craft non-metal armor. Specifically scale mail, (or half-plate later on or in certain emvironments) could be crafted from scavenged monster parts. Giant snake scales, drake/basilisk scales, chitin or carapace from insectoid or underground monsters are all fairly reasonable substitutes to metal armor that both imcrease the strength of your characters and can provide great roleplay or quests. Also there are some official iptions for druids such as dragonscale mail, serpent scale armor, living armor, as well as any +1/2/3 armor/shields, or even barrier tattoos. Most of these are DM dependant, but theyre still potential options to ask your DM about.
My druid in our current campaign was able to carve scales of a giant snake and have our artificer craft him some scale mail , which along with a shield, has given him a very respectable 18 AC.
Yeah, having the druid wear non-metal heavy armor is mostly a matter of re-flavoring. If the DM wants to make it more difficult or more expensive to obtain, for instance, because of the material's rarity, then that sounds like a fun small-scale quest for a tangible short-term goal.
Transmute Rock, Wall of Fire as a Ring around enemies, 3 Call Lightning to the ones trapped within (fly on top of the moon druid to see into the ring, or float as a Stars Druid). Brutal.
Also remember Druids get access to Magic Stone and Shillelagh. Good backup attack based cantrips that will use their WIS mod after they've cast their concentration spells and just need to do some reliable damage without burning through spell slots.
I just want to complement how good everyone’s RP was in your actual play game. It was so good! Just the whole Is Sebation just throwing us into situations where we are going to die. And you had Kelly thinking that his friends were abandoning him and turning against him. It was great! Also Montie was great as the Queen of Thieves, and old man Midnight. So good!
1. Moon
2. Stars
3. Shephard
4. Spores
I like wildfire just cuz for hitpoints ur summon spells already give u the most hitpoints out of any party and Druids miss out on teleportation but wildfire can infinite teleport.
@@muditjohar5323 Also taking fire ball off the spell list is dumb and its fine to ignore that and have a fun bit of blaster fun to round out the party.
@@muditjohar5323
I would take Telepathic, Telekinetic and Shadow Touched (Disguise Self)! Infiltration gods!
Don't trust the squirrels! 😉
I love druids! I would want to play the wildfire druid in this party!
I would have gone with Wildfire instead of Spores.
1 Shepard
2 Stars
3 Wildfire
4 Spores
Moon is highly overrated and very bland
Smoggies represent!
I think it was a French production but Global TV aired it endlessly
in Quebec, it was called Touftoufs et polluards...I used to watch that show! Ah! the 80' cartoons! th-cam.com/video/89PM6ahY3jc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=FUk6SxJ_LwlcJwOz
We played this campaign! The D Team! Spores, Moon, Dreams, Stars. Such a great game. I played the Circle of Dreams, which is supposed to be lame, but really loved the subclass. Sometimes you just make a character with loads of flavour - they spring out of your brain fully formed. :) She was a Kalashtar, so telepathy was built in!
Regarding managing tons of summons: agree that after a certain amount of summons you just treat them as a swarm. Vastly simplify the management of that stampede of elk by making it an Elk Swarm.
I love how positive the dudes are! So fun to listen to! I also love druids!
YYYEEEEEESSSSS!! Been waiting FOREVER for another one of these videos! Thank you Dudes!
One of the most fun to play characters I had was when I needed to be the party healer, and also no one was a rogue. So, I made a city dwelling Druid with the criminal background. They picked locks and were sneaky and played like a rogue … but also they were the healer with a lot of ability to use wild shape to help out of combat.
It was very effective. And it was tons of fun to play completely against the cliches.
You had a point about when the summons stop being as potent. However with the addition of the high level summons, especially summon draconic spirit. That is a great evolution to the summon playstyle when getting to the high levels. Upcasting to 8th level is pretty worth it
YES they're finally doing my favorite class!!!
THIS is what I've been waiting for. Thanks Monty and Kelly.
Four 20th level druids using Shapechange to become four Pit Fiends
Hope you guys still plan on doing your "How to build an Apothecary" videos. I've been interested in the class for a while now but haven't had the chance to play one yet, so it'd be nice to hear a bit more about how you inteded on it being made/played.
I'd also like to see that how to Apothecary video, maybe they could even do a 4 Apothecary party for this series after. I'd be interested to see how they'd build each subclass to cover all the bases.
I LOVE MONTY'S SHIRT
Looks like someone from "Saved by the bell" was into DnD
speaking only based on the games I've played, combat is _always_ important whereas social encounters can be failed without the game ending, so in relation to that the all-druid party ranks 1 because their weakness is social interaction but failing that is not game ending (usually) whereas an all-bard party can get TPKed in a combat encounter
I have been waiting for ever for this. These are one of my favorite kind of videos you guys make
So here's an interesting story that highlights the versatility of druids: independently of each other, myself and another member of the party I'm currently playing with decided to create front line druids, and neither of us are Moon druids! My friend is playing a Spore druid who multiclassed into Monk to get a bit more melee combat power and uses her temporary hitpoints from the Spore druid's abilities to boost her survivability. I am playing a Land druid who got a +2 magic shield and scale mail armor to boost my AC to 19, and I used a unique feat combo of Polearm Master combined with War Caster and Shillelagh to blast people with spells as a reaction whenever they come into my melee range. Neither of our characters are as tanky as a Moon druid, but my character's feat combo was more for offensive purposes than defensive purposes, and my friend's damage output and survivability are no joke either. We are the front line for the rest of our party (a bard and a ranger), and we do a great job at it!
There's more to druids than Moon druid ;)
I like how the dropped “What if everyone played” from the title and are now simply declaring that everyone in the game is in fact a Druid.
Earth (land), Sun (wildfire), star and moon work for a nice captain planet in space campaign
I wanted to make a series of NPC characters that are a circle of Druids based on the four cardinal beasts. I feel like that would be fun to mess around with lore wise
You guys are a bright spot on the internet, thank you!!
I once used Tidal Wave to catch an enemy flying off our ship on a giant vulture. The wave rose from the sea and consumed them both ❤
Four Summon spells cast in a single round of combat would create absolute chaos in the funniest way possible.
I've been waiting for the Druids since the start of this series, and I'm stoked that it came out the week of my birthday! :D I'm in a very small minority that loves land druids, but I know it depends on DM mercy with the expanded spell lists. I agree with Monty that the all-druid party holds up better than the all-wizard party. You've still got some solid divination, and great investigation to avoid situations you're not ready for, but you add infiltration, healing, and toughness to the mix.
I think you might be underestimating the abilities of druids outside of wisdom skills, though. Because druids have a spell list with a bunch of con-save-or-half-damage spells, I wouldn't expect enemies to fail saves anyway, so hitting 20Wis isn't as high a priority, giving you more points to spread around. The moon druid might even keep their dex at 10-12, only take a 13 con and invest in cha and int since their physical stats will rarely matter in combat. If they survive 1st level, they might become the tank and the face.
Do Artificer. Obviously we know the 4 , but how would you build them to make the best party.
The best way to build them as a party is play them ass exactly how they are made. lol
Armorer Tank / Ranged DPS depending on the encounter
Artillerist Blaster / Temp Hitpoint Machine depending on the encounter
Battle Smith DPS / Tank Pet
Alchemist Shitty healer and buffer
There’s not a ton to say on how to best build the party. They have flexibility depending on the encounter and there’s no point in shoehorning them into a specific role.
I am having so much fun with my artificer. It is a joy to play in combat and RP.
Smörgåsbord 🇸🇪🇸🇪! Great video guys! Have a nice weekend!
Depending on the social encounter, there may be more than one way through. If you want to befriend a guard and schedule the secrets of the Garrison's layout and staffing out of them. You could try charm person. Or you could wild shape into an adorable bunny and get adopted for a couple days.
Or become a travelling donkey show
When infiltrating an area in animal form be sure to turn into a type of animal that naturally occurs in that area. In the Barbara Hambly novel The Walls of Air a wizard tries this by covering his image with the illusion of a beetle... but it's a type of beetle not native to the region, so a sharp-eyed guard spots him.
Let's go! Druids are my top 2 class.
I'd go:
Spores (Tank)
Wildfire (unlimited teleports)
Shepherd (meat shields/dpr)
Stars (social interactions)
(Moon doesn't scale consistently)
Yup that seems good to me, I don't think you need much of a frontline if everyone is summoning, so I don't think moon druid needs to be in there
The challenge is rating druids is how they look on paper vs how they are played at the table. What I mean is that you can easily see their strength when reading about them but at the table they are easy to play poorly. As a heavily team based class with power tied to proper setup, heavy tactics and creativity they can be challenging for new players to get the most out of or even skilled players to find success with unless the rest of the party looks to take advantage of the situations the druid sets up. I love druids and I wish I saw them played more often.
Don’t sleep on the teleportation aspect of the wildfire spirit. Druids otherwise don’t have any inherent teleportation ability until they get some high-level spells. Also, Land (mountain) gets lightning bolt, which is as close as you’ll get to a druid with fireball.
30:07 Yes, but even if it resists all the elemental damage, the moon druid can just start beating down on the big bad and because at level 6, they get magical natural weapons and can heal themselves with spell slots and the other druids can keep the moon druid alive.
I'm clicking Like on this one only one minute in, because I've been waiting for this one. I played a Moon Druid a few years ago, and I loved it. In real life, I'm not a nature person at all. But, for fictional stuff, I love shape shifting, in this case, Wild Shape. I also love that a Druid is still a full caster, is possibly the 2nd-best healer in the roster, and has proficiency with Herbalism Kit. Because D&D 5e doesn't have super clear instructions for potion crafting, I used a combination of homebrew methods online. Between it being a convoluted mash-up of methods and my DM being too busy between sessions to ever scrutinize my method, he let me get away with creating a bunch of different types of potions probably a "bit" too quickly and/or easily. I also used speaking with animals a time or two also. To me, Druids are the ultimate utility class, so much so that it made me wonder why anyone would play anything other than a Druid.
I was just about to mention Moonbeam as an issue when I got to the part where you mentioned Moonbeam and Ice Knife. Moonbeam is a go-to spell but almost too much so. Having the damage dealt on the target's turn and having to use a full action just to move it makes the Moonbeam sometimes effective -- but very boring. I say sometimes because it's also possible to roll too low for damage and then using a turn to just keep a Moonbeam going is both boring and ineffective. I found myself using too often anyway, due to lack of a better alternative. I wish the spell had more "flair" somehow. Speaking of flair, I love Ice Knife on paper. It's basically an ice grenade. So, I always try to have it. But, for some reason, it seems I've rarely had opportunity to use the area of effect aspect on it.
...And, now you just mentioned the other issue...summon/conjure spells. They're nice, in theory. One time, I conjured, I think, 8 black bears, and it doubled the battlefield. But, it also doubled the dice rolls and numbers to keep up with, and our group was already too slow at combat. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad it were already faster. If multiple players were to conjure, every turn would take forever. The boringness of Moonbeam and the bogged-down-edness of conjuring are two of the only bad parts. I really did love being a Druid otherwise. Ooh, you just mentioned Giant Eagle. I think I turned into one of those one time too, to escape from a castle where someone was firing a crossbow at me. Very cool.
I think one of the clutch abilities you highlighted is that druids are phenomenal at choosing the terms of combat, and entering/exiting it as they choose
Can't wait to see which four subclasses they pick for the all artificer party!
Another great Ghibli: Mary and the Witch Flower, is about balancing arcane might and natural laws.
I was a warlock with both the pulling and pushing eldritch blast invocations druid had spike growth
We called it the cheese grater
I am so excited about this one. I have to wait to watch it, but I have been looking forward to it sine this series began.
Roaring good video, my Dudes of the Dungeon! Pre video idea: Group is a traveling merchant guild that is focusing on food production and transportation. Moon Druid as Caribou that pulls wagon, Stars Druid Chef for inventory Appraisal and management, Shepard Druid for dedicated Medic and Coachman, Twilight for Security Officer.
The best way to handle social interaction is probably good ol' summoning something that actually has a CHA score. Summon Fey (mirthful) has Cha 16 and unlimited charming ability. But really how often are the 4 rats going to have to talk their way into anywhere?
I was really looking forward to this installment, and it did not disappoint. I think druids are the best at a few things and second best at almost everything else. Letting four of them cook together has a lot of synergy. Tasha’s summoning spells also cover the biggest weaknesses of the conjure spells: the attack bonuses scale, and everything beyond summon beast has a way to get around resistance to non-magical weapons (especially if you can give your summoned fey magical short swords).
The adaptability and versatility of an all druid party is off the charts
Druids have become my favorite class over the years, such a special place in my heart- S tier for sure. And dudes I gotta say, I’m loving your pride shirts!! I need that pan button up haha
I love this series! Hate that I was doing chores and missed it dropping, but love this series!
My 4th pick would have been Land druid for that extended spell list. Having your tanky Moon druid with haste on is pretty sweet.
Top of my head picks before watching- Wildfire, Shepherd, Stars, Moon.
Ice Knife was mentioned more than in passing! Omg! Stupendously underrated spell. No verbal components, don't need to see the target. If you actually use material components, or your Focus gets confiscated, it has the *incredibly rare and expensive* drop of water material component.
I'd like to see this for Races! Specifically exotic ones? Like Harengon, Warforged, Owlin, Fairy, Drow, etc! It would be a spotlight on what those races do, how they affect gameplay, which classes they mesh with, and the stories they could tell would be great!
I’d love to see a version of this series concept that’s based on character race (Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Etc.) and how well they’d handle certain situations.
Bonus points if you manage to wrangle D&D Shorts into it.
One thing to note about the guiding bolt from stars. You do get a number of free uses equal to prof bonus. So a bit of bump in decent power there
Something I did to balance conjure animals, and to not take away time from my fellow players was to roll for the summons while everyone else did their turn.
It was typically a pack of 8 wolves. So I rolled 2d20 at a time and picked the highest (pack tactics always worked as I grouped them together for their attacks) then noted it down and rolled the potential damage for if it hits. Did this 8 times. While listening to everyone else’s turns. Picked the targets for my creatures and checked which of my to hit’s actually hit, then added together the relevant damage.
The conjured animals was done with their turn faster than my actual character, or the Wizard🤣🤣 despite me having already planned what to do with my actual character based on what had happened since my last turn.
So, creativity is the mother of chaos. I love the versatility of the druid and the wizard. One of my favorite entries in any book had to do with a gazillion things to do with Illusions. This demonstrates the power of wizards, we all know the downside, low hp, no healing. But there is a creativity to being able to summon what you need. I wound up in a game with a group of pirates for reasons. We were riding around on a frigate I had awakened, there were some members of the crew that wanted a more powerful intimidating vessel so I went into the ocean and found a big four masted galleon that went down in a recent battle. I summoned a bunch of steam mephits, we put the sails under the wholes and I had them blow steam into the ship to get it to rise, I spent a good amount of time getting it to float on it's own, then summoned a pod of whales to pull it to them and I traded it to them for the full ownership of the first vessel. I became captain of the awakened ship and we worked together for a while. Eventually we split off and just did adventuring things, but it was fun to be creative :)
If you would take the 4 subclasses (circle of the moon, circle of the shepherd, circle of stars and circle of wildfire) you basically already have the 4 elements theme you can build your campaign in.
The circle of the moon connects to water (it is a circle where you can wildshape the most easy of all the current druidic circles in 5e, shapeshifting could be seen as water since you easily flow into forms. Also another connection is that the moon pulls and pushes the tides so that it actually has quite the influence on water)
The circle of the shepherd connects to earth (the classical idea of a shepherd leading sheep or cows through mountain terrain to give them a place to graze, meanwhile through the trip the job of a shepherd is all about protecting the flock which gives a powerful and strict stone like energy)
The circle of the stars connects to air (it is all about the nightsky and the power that comes from it, also the archer form could be seen as close to the wind since it is a weapon that is long range yet traditional)
The circle of wildfire (very obvious reasons)
This perfectly sets up a 4 element druid campaign where you have to restore the balance of the four elements.
Druids can also use summoning to aid themselves in social encounters. Language barriers are still going to be an issue but once you have access to Conjure Woodland Beings you can just have a dryad do your talking for you. They start at a +4 bonus to charisma and with the party providing enhance ability and guidance they’ll be a great face for the team.
Wildfire spirit’s firery teleportation is a must have in my opinion. Free repositioning is key to keeping all the concentration spells the team will have up and going.
"Now you're cooking" - nice! Cool discussion guys - great work as always.
That title is one of the hottest takes ive seen, but im willing to hear you out
I’ve wanted to play an “oops all druids” game for a while, for many of the reasons you listed. Druids are incredibly fun to play, and there are a lot of subclasses in official and unofficial source books that lend to so much creativity and freedom that I think they’ve earned that high ranking.
Also, in regards to the gatekeepers discussion, it's wild to me that there's no druid subclass for that. You'd think with oath of the ancients paladin (it even mentions druids in its flavor text) and horizon walker ranger being right there, someone would've gone "you know what? This makes a lot of sense for a druid circle!"
My pick between Spores and Wildfire is definitely Wildfire for the teleport alone. There is so much utility in being able to pop anyone around at will for an hour with a single use of wild shape.
I feel like I've been waiting for this one for MONTHS. Best class
I saw your space shirt Kelly at the beginning of the video and thought "Stars Druid", haha.
Honestly I lean toward S tier with this class. There's so much they can do and they could cover their weakness pretty easily with a couple of feats spread out across the party of four. If Bards get S then so do Druids.
Maybe a minus S or very high A, but yes they are very, very good.
I feel like the stock of the spore Druid is rising with the 2024 rule changes. With Polearm Master for a second bonus action attack, perhaps taking the place of the circle of moon as your melee Druid. Consider that at level 5 when you can start swapping spell slots for wild shape uses, that means a spore Druid can use a bonus action to get 20 temp hp as often as needed, and that continues to scale very well. And that in their Symbiotic form they still have access to all their spells, unlike the circle of moon. I might say, situationally better than the circle of moon. Particularly if you could grab booming blade or green flame blade from an elf lineage or feat. Just food for thought, appreciate your videos dudes.
The “smoggies-type” inspiration idea is literally a campaign that Im running. 😂 I love the idea of the “Defenders against the extra-planar threats”.
I think an all-druid party would be spectacular. Even given the weaknesses, I'm sure that a viable solution would be available with a little effort and imagination. I think the challenge here lies with the DM coming up with a challenging adventure to keep all of the druids entertained.
Been waiting for this one. I have 2 druids at my table of 6 players, and they usually do as much as the other 4 players combined
Love druids! Working my way through the subclass list to try each at least once 😁
The Stars Druid would be fine concentrating on spells with it's Dragon Starry Form. Never "Rolling" less than a 10.
Then at later levels being able to switch between Starry Forms in battle would be great.
I love the Druid only party and I would rate it s tier. I personally think you slightly underrated just how powerful the stars Druid can be a support role, they won’t be the best in tier 1 or 2 but in high tier play they become much better than any other Druid. Also spores can fill the frontline roll surprisingly well with their extra damage features. Either way I think this whole series is great.
I would add a question for when you both discuss rating all of them after you complete the classes videos.
"Which of these parties would be most fun to play?" That would be a different rating altogether - and I suspect this one, an all Druid party may come out on top for that, unless a traveling Troupe of Troubadour Bards would be that (seriously - that could be a really cool setting to play in!).
Having an aasimar circle of stars helps buff your blasting and the small ch bonus would make them your default social encounter leader
I would rank this higher than the bard, simply because it’s better than bard at combat and exploration. Obviously nothing beats bard at social, but nothing beats Druid at exploration or infiltration.
Endless fields of spikes and flocks of geese, pretty sure thats a song
You dudes put out a lot of informative content and have awesome technical and practical insight into different builds and strategies. I'd like to offer you guys a minor challenge to do a video where you get a little more personal and less theory crafty. Something like a brief discription of your top 5 most enjoyable characters you've ever played or partied with. I know you've played a lot of DND and I'm sure you have some great memories of past characters. I'd just ask to ban any of the current main series drakenhiem characters from contention because I think they would all likely dominate the list if allowed. Thanks for the great video as always!
I have not attended in a while. Thank's for your work!
I have been waiting for this one since the series started.
I had the same first three, same order too. I had Land (Grassland) as my fourth for haste on Moon. Dire wolf at +2 AC and two attacks is strong at level 5. Level 6 brings Giant Elk for Charge > Ram > Hooves as a very potent combo if the target fails the DC 14, but Charge also does not limit the additional damage to once per turn or once per condition met, so it will still be able to 2x Charge empowered Ram Attacks; though I wouldn't fault a DM for ruling otherwise. A lot of Moon's forms make you choose between a multiattack or some other strength, and Haste just makes that latter choice so much juicier. Sure Conjure spells are more potent, but with the other druids being able to cover this, a haste may be more powerful if the enemy has large AOE to wipe out your minion farm.
Blight and tidal wave are excellent blast spells and taking magic initiate to get a DPS cantrip and something like shield or misty step is amazing. S tier for sure. Is my pick for second place overall behind Warlock