Thoughts on the Circle of Spores

[Zanthy1]

As many of you know, the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica comes out soon, and with it there have been some leaks. One of which is the Circle of Spores Druid. The link below is to said leak via Sage Advice. What are your thoughts on this and what cool ideas have you been able to come up with for it?

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2018/10/05/revealed-circle-of-spores-druid-from-guildmasters-guide-to-ravnica/

[Wildarm]

As many of you know, the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica comes out soon, and with it there have been some leaks. One of which is the Circle of Spores Druid. The link below is to said leak via Sage Advice. What are your thoughts on this and what cool ideas have you been able to come up with for it?

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2018/10/05/revealed-circle-of-spores-druid-from-guildmasters-guide-to-ravnica/

Warforged Envoy
Spore Druid X
STR8/Dex16/Con16/Wis16/Int8/Cha8

Quarterstaff and Shield with warforged Medium Integrated Armor gives great starting AC. Tons of temp HP from Spore features. Can use Shillelagh and bump WIS for more casting power. Alternately, can also bump Dex and use a finesse weapon. You end up with top tier AC with Darkwood core + 20Dex. Full caster progression. Integrated tool could be anything but you can function as a party rogue in a pinch with that dex if you take expertise in thief tools and proficiency in stealth from Envoy.

You could also do something like this if you don't mind sacrificing caster progression:
Fighter 6/Spore Druid X
STR14/Dex12/Con16/Wis16/Int8/Cha8

Benefits: Pick up heavy armor prof, extra attack, PAM, Action Surge, GWM

Go to town on everyone with your big poison beat stick 3x per round and let the spores soak up the damage.

3rd Concept for a Spore Druid would be Bear Totem Barbarian 3+/Spore Druid X. Bear Totem gives resistance all when raging and works fine with wildshape. Work those temp HP hard. Can pick up extra attack if you take Barb5. Otherwise you can go Barb3 and get more caster levels.

[Mr.Spastic]

I find it a bit underwhelming. I also couldn't find the spells that they learn. Those could change it for me. I like the change to necrotic from poison. I think it can be fun if you also get booming blade or green flame blade. This works well with summoning and bonus action spells.

Overall, I just find that most druid subclasses can't compare to Moon and Land. Shepard is good once you hit level 6 but overall they seem to be more fluff than anything. I love the new use of wild shape though.

[Damon_Tor]

As many of you know, the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica comes out soon, and with it there have been some leaks. One of which is the Circle of Spores Druid. The link below is to said leak via Sage Advice. What are your thoughts on this and what cool ideas have you been able to come up with for it?

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2018/10/05/revealed-circle-of-spores-druid-from-guildmasters-guide-to-ravnica/

The coolest part of this subclass is Fungal Infestation, and it's good they decoupled it from the spore damage, because the spoor damage is stupid. The ability to create a minion you control 1/round no concentration, no spell slots is freaking great. You need a reliable source of beasts/humanoids to die near you every round.

Consider the synergy with Animal Shapes.

1. Buy a herd of goats.
2. Begin the process of killing 1 goat every 6 seconds, turning into a zombie goat in the process. Once you have some zombie goats, they can help you kill the others.

You can create 10 zombie goats per minute in this way. So you can make 600 of them before they start to time out and die for good. But let's leave ourselves some wiggle room and say we'll do this for 50 minutes and give ourselves 10 minutes of buffer time, so we just made 540 zombie goats. Now we cast Animal Shapes targeting all 540 zombie goats. They are all rhinoceroses now. For the next ten minutes, you have an obedient army of 540 rhinoceroses.
3. Meanwhile, somewhere else, anywhere else on the planet, a sneaky party member is sneaking up on the target with a small potted plant of some kind. Maybe a small cactus because you know he'll forget to water it. When he gives you the signal (some kind of telepathy? Doesn't matter, tons of ways to do this) he throws his little cactus at the enemy, while on your zombie goat farm you cast Transport via Plants, linking a tree on your farm to that cactus.
4. Order your rhinoceros army through the portal and tell them to kill anything on the other side. You don't even have to go with them if you just want indiscriminate slaughter.

[Wildarm]

The coolest part of this subclass is Fungal Infestation, and it's good they decoupled it from the spore damage, because the spoor damage is stupid. The ability to create a minion you control 1/round no concentration, no spell slots is freaking great. You need a reliable source of beasts/humanoids to die near you every round.
[/INDENT]

Well outside of creating nerf inducing spasms from your DM, the ability is kinda neat. I'm surprised they didn't put a limit on how many zombies you could control with this ability. I guess 1 hour is enough to limit it? Sack of (Giant) Rats is always abusable I guess.

I wonder if you could do some fun things with a Spore Druid 2/Sentinel Rogue X. On your turn do sneak attack damage due to having zom zom buddies around. You love your zom zoms, punish those who dare strike at them and get sneak damage off turn too! Could be a straight VHuman /w Sentinel and bump Dex/Con.

Extra 1d6 poison damage compensates for the loss of 1d6 sneak damage as long as you're in melee. I think your DPS wouldn't suffer and you get a slew of useful stuff for a rogue from Spore Druid 2. 10 Temp HP, Shield Prof, Medium Armor, Several useful cantrips and spells, Wildshape for extra stealth. The more I think of it, the more I like this concept. Could be a nature's avenger type character.

Edit: NVM You need 6 levels of Spore Druid to get your zom zoms

[xyianth]

I wonder if you could do some fun things with a Spore Druid 2/Sentinel Rogue X. On your turn do sneak attack damage due to having zom zom buddies around. You love your zom zoms, punish those who dare strike at them and get sneak damage off turn too! Could be a straight VHuman /w Sentinel and bump Dex/Con.

Pretty sure you need 6 levels as a spore druid for fungal infestation.

As to my thoughts on this leak, I'm pretty disappointed. The UA version was not very strong on its own, and this appears to be a significantly nerfed version.

Halo of spores has had its damage dropped significantly on average (2d10 con save negates is a far cry from 24 damage on an auto-hit) and the doubling effect only lasts until the temp hp is gone. Changing from poison to necrotic damage is a benefit I guess, but not by much since most everything that was immune to poison also has better than average con scores.

Symbiotic Entity had its temp hp increased from 3 to 5 per druid level, but once it is gone the effect ends. I had planned on using this ability as a magical version of a barbarian's rage, and while this is still possible at mid/late levels; at early levels this ability wont last 2 rounds per use. Forget 10 minutes. Plus, poison damage is still practically useless.

Fungal Infestation is cool, but since it is now a reaction and you only get one of those per round, you can't use this on any round that you use Halo of Spores. I hate it when a subclass has abilities that compete with themselves.

Spreading Spores is mostly the same, but preventing its use when you don't have Symbiotic Entity up seems unnecessary.

Fungal Body is still just as great as it was, the crit canceling effect working while incapacitated wasn't necessary for this ability to remain effective and flavorful.

Honestly, they should have just changed the Halo of Spores ability to be a bonus action on your turn and then changed Fungal Infestation to this new version. Leave everything else as it was in the UA, and the subclass would have been great.

[Wildarm]

Pretty sure you need 6 levels as a spore druid for fungal infestation.

:( Ruining all the fun. 6 Levels nixes the rogue idea I think. Sentinel on its own without a decent number of sneak attack dice is a waste of your reaction I think. You could either generate another zombie or do extra spore damage.

From a DPS point of view, this subclass doesn't get the extra attack feat, instead it can use it's reaction to do extra damage in a turn. Damage is CON save which isn't great but 2d4 -> 2d10 damage as a reaction isn't too bad if you have nothing else to save that reaction for.

Really seems like you do want to take 5+ levels in a melee class to get extra attack. Perhaps Pact of Blade Warlock 5/Spore Druid 15. An odd combo but you can get 3rd level short rest spell slots, 8th level druid spells, 75 THP, +2d6 to all attacks from Hex/Spores and Reaction 2d10 spore damage, Thirsting Blade for extra attack. Dunno... I don't think the DPS is stellar but would be competitive with the average Melee build while giving you a lot of casting options.

[tieren]

Seems a little grim, which I am sure is intentional.

However, I'd like to work it into a happy forest gnome creature with a heavy mushroom kind of theme. Treat the spore abilities less like the avatar of decay and more like bulbasaur.

I believe myconids have some similar abilities and don't have to be RP'd so gloomy.

I'd be real interested in comboing this with the guardian conclave ranger to be a large spore shedding tree thing (maybe a giant mushroom).

[Zanthy1]

Warforged Envoy
Spore Druid X
STR8/Dex16/Con16/Wis16/Int8/Cha8

Quarterstaff and Shield with warforged Medium Integrated Armor gives great starting AC. Tons of temp HP from Spore features. Can use Shillelagh and bump WIS for more casting power. Alternately, can also bump Dex and use a finesse weapon. You end up with top tier AC with Darkwood core + 20Dex. Full caster progression. Integrated tool could be anything but you can function as a party rogue in a pinch with that dex if you take expertise in thief tools and proficiency in stealth from Envoy.

I love this, never though about a warforged spore druid. High AC and Temp HP with a shield, the beefiest caster out there lol

[Damon_Tor]

Could be a nice addition to an Oathbreaker. The paladin save aura is great on zombies, makes them really tanky even at 1 HP, and this would give you lots of extra zombies, plus spell slots. You could largely ignore wis past the 13 required for the multiclass. Crusader's Mantle on all these zombies... mmm... Of course the no-metal-armor rule is a pain to work around.

[Mana Opal]

Seems a little grim, which I am sure is intentional.

However, I'd like to work it into a happy forest gnome creature with a heavy mushroom kind of theme. Treat the spore abilities less like the avatar of decay and more like bulbasaur.

I believe myconids have some similar abilities and don't have to be RP'd so gloomy.

I'd be real interested in comboing this with the guardian conclave ranger to be a large spore shedding tree thing (maybe a giant mushroom).

It's certainly intentional- the Golgari aren't especially happy with the fact that they're kinda stuck underground surrounded by rot, corpses, and everyone else's biological waste, after all. You are on point about the myconids, though- they are one of the few benign species in the Underdark, and in 3.x their Sovereigns even had a reanimation-type ability like the Spore Druid's Fungal Infestation (albeit with a longer duration). Besides, some mushrooms are capable of bioluminescense, which means that your character could very easily pass as the light in the dark- or simply be fey-themed without taking the Circle of Dreams instead!

On the other hand, I've been taking things in in the opposite direction with a build I've been contemplating- the abilities work quite well as a representation of Phyresis, a horribly virulent disease Phyrexia weaponized to either take out the locals of the plane of Mirrodin, or twist them into their side of the war. Notably, one of the ways the disease spread was through oil, meaning that it was just as effective against the many sapient machines of the plane as it was against the humans, elves, and leonin (tabaxi would be the nearest DnD approximation)- as such, the extra melee damage changing Poison in the original UA to Necrotic really helps this idea out tremendously. Was that done on purpose, I wonder?

Anyway, this led to try making something akin to the Blightsteel Colossus (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=221563):

Warforged Juggernaut Giant Soul Sorcerer 14/ Circle of Spores Druid 6
>I'd say go with Stone for your Mark of Ordening, both to simulate Indestructible somewhat and because Hill unfortunately has two of its free spells wasted completely here. It's a shame, since that one's Soul of Lost Ostoria affect worked so well as a thematic Trample standin...
>Between I can't believe it's not Large Powerful Build, Enlarge/Reduce, and Rage of Fallen Ostoria, you are more than capable of achieving the massive scale necessary to match this beast thematically. Notably, the HP increase from RoFO is direct change to your maximum, so it stacks with the THP from Symbiotic Entity! Note, however, that all of your MoO spells require Concentration to maintain, providing some conflict with Enlarge/Reduce.
>Now that you have an absurd number of squares to yourself and reach, you can whack pretty much anyone with your 2d4+STR+CON Bludgeoning damage+1d6 Necrotic damage. But you've got Sorcerer levels, which means you can do better than that! Booming Blade's Thunder damage makes logical sense, given the sheer amount of distance your might fists have to travel to hit your average Medium target, though the lock down effect seems a little funny. Green-Flame Blade has a bit of funny business with it's damage type, but matches Trample's mechanical effect (pushing through a blocking creature to hit the original target anyway). Regardless of which one you use, that's another batch of d8s to your main attack with an extra rider attached, which goes a long way towards making your one attack worthwhile.
>For some reason, darksteel items seem to have this weird sparkle effect in their art, and the Blightsteel Colossus is no exception. Thankfully, the Crown of Stars is here to not only supply that particular aesthetic, but also give you something to actually use your Bonus Action on (Quicken Spell notwithstanding)! Add in Halo of Spores and that weird Opportunity Attack thing everyone gets access to (and enemies are likely to threaten, thanks to the above size shenanigans), and you've got some pretty solid action economy!
>AC might be a bit of a sticking point, however- judging from Keith Baker's own commentary, the Integrated Protection meant to be usable by all classes, but some DMs might declare anything better than the Ironwood Core to be too metallic for you. Of course, if you're using this in Mirrodin/New Phyrexia proper, that won't be an issue (even the plants are made of metal there), but it's worth thinking about otherwise.
>Unfortunately, Contingency is on another spell list, so we can't quite pull off that fancy 'I'm not really dead!' ability the card's got natively. But hey, that's not something a couple scrolls can't fix, right? There's probably a better Magic Item answer for this, but I don't have quite such an encyclopedic knowledge of those at the moment...
>If you're really hung up with the suboptimalness of this particular take, feel free to swap the subrace to Envoy with the +1s in CHA and WIS. If you go this route, swap your Mark of Ordening to Hill to save you limited spell and Cantrip slots on Shillelagh and Enlarge/Reduce. Heroism still goes to waste, but it's like the bigger guy was using his Resistance either!

Of course, there are other directions we can take this Phyresis concept. A Warforged Envoy with built in "Chef's Tools" and levels in Knowledge Cleric works as a Gitaxian Vivisector, a Simic Hybrid (they work well here as well, you see) with the Carapace trait and Light Cleric levels can be a Priest of Norn, a Warforged Skirmisher with 'dagger' Armblades (flavored as claws) and Rogue levels (either Assassin or Scout) works as something long the lines of an Ichorclaw Myr...

Interestingly, I can't seem to find anything that suggests that you can't use Symbiotic Entity and standard Wildshape simultaneously, which opens up unique forms like a corpse cur or gore vassal... or, bringing it back to the Subclass' original plane and flavor, a Golgari mossdog! The fungus theme will probably have the effect of making your beast forms look kinda undead (you're practically rotting, after all), so have fun freaking out the market about this weird zombie rat!

Oh, and I'm pretty happy that the Fungal Infestation zombies can actually move now (and aren't limited to just Humanoids)! That one was a bit weird in the original draft. Granted, 1 HP still isn't spectacular (beware of AoEs), but at least they actually have the potential to do something- especially since creating them isn't fully Halo-reliant now anyway.

[Sindal]

Well at the very least it's nice to have another Druid subclass. They really needed one.

Spores is interesting, a nice 'hey if you want to be a kinda darkish flavored druid you totally can' sorta tool without making them directly evil (though they could be). The same way the grave cleric is all about respecting the death instead of tolerating undeath.

I like that it gives druids a damage cantrip will actual range and it's nice that they're the only druid who have a 'magic mode' wildshape. Though the range of halo and the range of longer blast spells and cantrip don't speak to each other.

I suppoise druids are still best casting all their aoe and concentration spells anyway.

All in all, I think it's a nice addition. Would like to try it but in no hurry.

[Kane0]

Not ideal, but usable and interesting. I'd consider it a worthy addition.

[Zanthy1]

Oh, and I'm pretty happy that the Fungal Infestation zombies can actually move now (and aren't limited to just Humanoids)! That one was a bit weird in the original draft. Granted, 1 HP still isn't spectacular (beware of AoEs), but at least they actually have the potential to do something- especially since creating them isn't fully Halo-reliant now anyway.

Normally I would be bummed by 1 hp, but they take their turn immediately after you so you get at least one use from them in combat, and if they stay alive then obviously its better. I wonder what spells or abilities you could use o give them more HP or temporary HP that'd keep em standing longer

[Spiritchaser]

The main attraction for me is that this meshes well with a darker themed party/campaign.

Oh sure, you could always make a Druid antihero, but this just seems very well suited.

[Trustypeaches]

Normally I would be bummed by 1 hp, but they take their turn immediately after you so you get at least one use from them in combat, and if they stay alive then obviously its better. I wonder what spells or abilities you could use o give them more HP or temporary HP that'd keep em standing longer
You have to use your reaction to animate them when they die, so the zombie can get killed before your turn comes up.

[tieren]

You have to use your reaction to animate them when they die, so the zombie can get killed before your turn comes up.

Not if you are the one to kill them on your turn.

I'm still working on bringing some more lightness to the character. I like the accepting death and decomposition are just as natural as life and growth. No reason a druid can't reflect the whole cycle. Some decomposers in the forest are beautiful, get some colorful mushroom shelves on your gear, a couple toadstools, etc... Might end up looking more like Radagast the Brown from LOTR.

[Mr.Spastic]

Does anybody else want to make a druid who is just high on shrooms all the time and says thing like "duuude", "bro", and "bodacious" a lot.

[tieren]

Does anybody else want to make a druid who is just high on shrooms all the time and says thing like "duuude", "bro", and "bodacious" a lot.

Yes, just to wildshape into a giant caterpillar and smoke from a Hookah.