4 Druids Party

[Falcon X]

I’m theorizing on how potent a party of 4 Druids would be, and I really like what I’m picturing.

*We are being chased by local cult members.
“Hey, where did they go? All I see are these four lizards chilling out here.”

Mother Nature just wrecks the enemy.
- we all use mold earth to burrow at 20’ per round
- we chain thunder waves and thorn whips to place the enemies right where we want them.
- Ever had 4 Call Lightnings active at one time? You just rain 12d10 damage on whatever you want for 10 minutes.
- How about our smallest guy casts tidal wave and the others cast water walk? Now we surf through the jungle!
- everyone has healing, food every day, disease healing, etc.
- I’m pretty sure casting 4 Control Weather’s at one time will take down a fleet of ships.
- 4 heat metals can disable the leadership of a large group.
- Conjure 8+ velociraptors to go all Jurassic Park on the enemy.
I could go on...

So, I’m looking for shortcomings, strengths, abuses, and practicalities of this arrangement. I am particularly looking at its use in Tomb of Annihilation, but might also be looking at it for other circumstances.

[tieren]

I had an idea to do something like this once, where the team of 4 druids all pretend to be one guy and his animal companions (think Dar from Beastmaster).

So the world sees one humanoid walking with a tiger companion, a hawk familiar and a ferret pet, but in reality they are 4 druids. the humanoid can wear a hood and a mask and they can all take turns being the different members of the team (might help if they had a hat of disguise to pass around too).

[A Fat Dragon]

I mean, Moon, Dream, Shepherd, and Land Druid Team would be pretty formidable:

Moon Druid plays front-line and Tank, while Shepherd helps Dreams Druid heal and supply a fresh army of canon-fodder. Land Druid in the back with Shepherd, dealing damage to make up for the Shepherd Druid’s lack-of non-summoning damage.

I wouldn’t want to fight that, if I’m being honest.

[hymer]

It could be a lot of fun. Some thoughts:

Getting past level 1 can be rather bumpy. Druids get very little to advance through that first level. At level 2 the circles kick in, and the moon druid should be able to carry things to level 3 at least, when second level spells should make advancement to level 5 (and the beginning of the minion extravaganza) smooth enough.

One of the most potent options is the sheer amount of fangs and meat this party can conjure and keep active at one time. The Shepherd's spirit can buff any minions within range, which effectively acts as a force multiplier. Some coordination is definitely in order. Apes have ranged attacks, velociraptors are Tiny and can move through Medium or larger enemies, and blink dogs can blink past enemy lines and encircle a line or attack the rearliners.

More coordination is in order with regards to spells prepared. You mention a lot of quadrupling of effects, but too many identical spell prepared cuts down on your versatility. Druids are incredibly versatile, but if they are all doing the same thing, they need to show the tactical versatility of four characters of different classes just to cut it even.

The shepherd can communicate with allies in wild shape freely, which makes things easier.

[DarkKnightJin]

All I can think of: "If you have problems. If you can afford them. If you can find them.. Maybe you could hire.. The A-Team."
With the A standing for Animal, in this case.

..Would they fire wildly at foes and somehow never deal any lethal blows? And craft ingenious plans and constructions to make the bad guy surrender to the proper authorities?

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

Assuming competent players who are intentionally synergizing with each other. You would want at least one of them to have the urchin or a similar background the provides Thieves tools proficiency. Also land's spell choice will be an interesting decision. Personally I would go with either underdark or grassland. Haste vs. Greater invisibility.

You have 8 Spells and 4 concentrations that can be held.
Faerie Fire+Fog cloud then the druids walk in with shillelagh/primal savagery cantrips and rip people apart, or they can sit outside and hit things with produce flame.
Backup spells Thunderwave, Ice Knife, Healing word, Entangle, Earth Tremor.
Post Combat: Goodberry.

Look at that we now have a Tank/Striker: Moon, Controller: Land, Healer: Dreams, Buffer: Shepard.
Beyond that the strategies will be similar to the ones you would apply at level One just more effectively done and with more room for mistakes/unlucky rolls


And we get access to second level spells
Barkskin, earthbind, Flaming Sphere, Healing Spirit, Heat Metal, Hold person, Pass without trace, Spike growth

Spike Growth+thornwhip/thunderwave is a cheese grater
Unicorn Spirit+Healing spirit
Brown Bear+Barkskin

Land: Wisdom+
Moon: Mobile
Shepard: War Caster or Resilient: Con
Dreams: Wisdom+


Third level Spells
Conjure Animals: these are now your "tanks/meatshields" Cast by the shepard
2/3xCall Lightning+plant growth means that they really can't move and will just be hit repeatedly by tons of lightning Add in a few well placed earth tremors to knock enemies prone or thorn whips to keep them from fleeing. throw in a bunch of summoned flying snakes and you have a death trap fit for nearly any grounded creature.
Flaming Sphere+plant growth


I might go further with this as it's a fun thought exercise .

[JellyPooga]

The Druid Class, in general, is an extremely versatile chassis for a wide variety of character concepts. The weakness of the Druid is that in its versatility it loses out on specialisation; it's got blasting, but it isn't the best, it's got healing, but again not the best and so on and so forth. Four Druids in one party would be extremely versatile, but still doesn't seem like it would be particularly focused...or would it? I think it's possible that it's in a party of like types, the "5th-wheel"/generalist character type is strongest; four characters all able to contribute to any given situation has got to be better than one specialist and three that can't participate. If blasting (for example) is what's call for, 4x"less than optimal" blasting has got to be better than 1x"optimal" plus 3x"not even blasting".

In such a party, I'd be tempted to hombrew a "Circle of the Planet" with sub-subclasses of Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and Heart and give everyone a magic ring; By their powers combined...

[Citan]

I’m theorizing on how potent a party of 4 Druids would be, and I really like what I’m picturing.

*We are being chased by local cult members.
“Hey, where did they go? All I see are these four lizards chilling out here.”

Mother Nature just wrecks the enemy.
- we all use mold earth to burrow at 20’ per round
- we chain thunder waves and thorn whips to place the enemies right where we want them.
- Ever had 4 Call Lightnings active at one time? You just rain 12d10 damage on whatever you want for 10 minutes.
- How about our smallest guy casts tidal wave and the others cast water walk? Now we surf through the jungle!
- everyone has healing, food every day, disease healing, etc.
- I’m pretty sure casting 4 Control Weather’s at one time will take down a fleet of ships.
- 4 heat metals can disable the leadership of a large group.
- Conjure 8+ velociraptors to go all Jurassic Park on the enemy.
I could go on...

So, I’m looking for shortcomings, strengths, abuses, and practicalities of this arrangement. I am particularly looking at its use in Tomb of Annihilation, but might also be looking at it for other circumstances.
I'll make it short for you: from level 1 to somewhere about level 13, the worst party ever one could "face", either as a DM or as PVP opponents players.

Above that, although I don't have any time to think about theorycraft comparison, I'd suspect 95% of opposing parties would find at least a way to avoid TPK and, provided particular setup, a way to counter the party... And before even that, as a DM, I would have gradually increased the general "magical awareness" of factions so it would be much more difficult for them to go unnoticed and unhindered...

But yeah, in the right hands, it's probably even deadlier than a full-Wizard/Bard/Sorcerer party. Wild Shape is just that good.

Side note, as others, I had the idea of a party that had only one "official" human. This followed my game in which a player had to be an escort for "a simple merchant and his horse". Turned out that horse was a Druid. ;)

[Nidgit]

Ah Druids, the Bards of nature. It makes perfect sense that they could also form a very competent party, though they'll lag a bit in skills and social situations.

I'd be interested in seeing a similar single-class party of Warlocks or Clerics.

[hymer]

The weakness of the Druid is that in its versatility it loses out on specialisation; it's got blasting, but it isn't the best, it's got healing, but again not the best and so on and so forth.
I get that sentiment, but I'm not so sure I agree. It may have been the intention to balance things that way at one point, but now?

Druids have the best out-of-combat healing currently available (even without long rest tricks with goodberries), and Healing Word is all the combat healing you'll need if your table is okay with yo-yo healing. I've only seen Life Clerics as someone close to competing (and they're not that close, because Healing Spirit is just that good), and Dreams druids give them a run for their money in combat healing. The only way you could say that druid healing is second rate is in that the slots are probably better spent on something preventing the damage in the first place. But that goes for clerics and bards as well. Only the paladin doesn't have much of that problem, and their sheer bulk healing just doesn't cut it.

Likewise, druids are excellent minionmancers in viable ways (no need to lug skeleton armies around and upset everyone, e.g.), and minionmancy is an extremely powerful combat tool. And when it comes to battlefield control and debuff, wizards who specialize in that sort of thing may just be able to squeeze in ahead of a druid on that score. But only just, and maybe not. Even if they do, it means they've spent character resources there, whereas the druid is just that good out of the box.

Much the same with stealth. Using wild shapes, and spells like Pass Without Trace, the druid can stealth with the best of them, and again, doesn't give up any character building resources to do that. If they do spend their resources on this, the druid becomes the best scout bar none.

[Naanomi]

Making a party of four of the same class is pretty viable for any class now I think; though a few (Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian... Wizard a little also) is going to take some very unique tactics

[DarkKnightJin]

Ah Druids, the Bards of nature. It makes perfect sense that they could also form a very competent party, though they'll lag a bit in skills and social situations.

I'd be interested in seeing a similar single-class party of Warlocks or Clerics.

I once mocked up some characters using Cleric as the base, using at most 6 levels of another class, to fill out a standard adventuring party. Trickery Cleric for the Rogue stuff, Arcana Cleric for the Wizard stuff, I think I used Death Cleric with some Fighter levels to get a 'tank' going.

It was kinda fun as a thought experiment.

[Naanomi]

Warlocks,
-Hexblade polearm master up front
-Celestial tomelock playing support
-Fiendlock blasting away
-Goo or Feylock with the right background doing the scouting (with the help of 1-2 invisible familiars, and later arcane eyes)/trap duty

[Dudewithknives]

I played in a 4 Bard party. We called our selves "The Band of Adventurers"

Valor Bard Front liner, but carries a bow
Blades Bard Front liner, but carries a bow
Lore Bard super caster
Glamour Bard face

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Do Druid's have an answer for picking locks?

I'm running a campaign were the party does not have a Rogue. I've never seen soo many doors beat down or destroyed.

Mechanically it only hurts because the enemies on the other side are VERY VERY aware the party is coming but still. I'm memorizing hit points for all kinds of doors and describing where hinges are, when did knobs get invented? After a goofy attempt/roll, I had them destroy a knob last time and see the bad guys through a hole?

[Naanomi]

Do Druid's have an answer for picking locks?
At least one is an Urchin or Criminal?

[JellyPooga]

At least one is an Urchin or Criminal?

Rogue isn't just a Class, it's a state of mind.

Who needs lockpicks if you can turn i to mist and unlatch the door from the other side?

Why disarm a trap if you can fly or jump over the trigger?

As previously mentioned, the Druid Class is extremely versatile. Picking up Thieved Tools proficiency from Background increases that versatilty, but isn't neccesary to operate stealthily or in a roguish fashion when you have the likes of Wild Shape, Enhance Ability and PWT. Depending on how lenient your GM is with Conjure Animals, that alone can be incredibly versatile; summon a flyer to carry you, a swimmer to retrieve sunken treasure, a monkey to trigger traps and so on.

[samcifer]

"Funny... She doesn't look Druish." - John Candy as Barf - Spaceballs

[KorvinStarmast]

For Dat and the three beasts, from the Beastmaster movie, I'd suggest a Barbarian and three druids.