Free Feat

[elyktsorb]

I'm starting a new campaign and the DM has seen fit to grant all of us players a feat at level one.

I'm playing a Druid, and I'm looking at Ritual Caster because I want a familiar.

But what are other feats that would be good for a Druid to take at level 1?

[hymer]

Animal Friendship and Speak with Animals can get you something pretty close to a familiar, depending on what exactly you're looking for.

As for suggestions, Warcaster is a useful feat to pick up off the bat. If you Con score is uneven, Resilient (Con) is very similarly useful. Both will become more useful later in your career. Other than that, it can depend quite a bit on the type of druid circle you intend to pick.

More amusing feats are also available, particularly for moon druids.

[elyktsorb]

Animal Friendship and Speak with Animals can get you something pretty close to a familiar, depending on what exactly you're looking for.

As for suggestions, Warcaster is a useful feat to pick up off the bat. If you Con score is uneven, Resilient (Con) is very similarly useful. Both will become more useful later in your career. Other than that, it can depend quite a bit on the type of druid circle you intend to pick.

More amusing feats are also available, particularly for moon druids.

Honestly I was planning on being a Shepard Druid, I don't feel like being completely broken at 2nd level.

[hymer]

Honestly I was planning on being a Shepard Druid, I don't feel like being completely broken at 2nd level.

That's okay, you'll be completely broken at level 6 instead. :smallwink:
But all the better, you'll have Speak with Animals automatically on from level 2, and just need to train a small pet to act very much like a familiar.

[elyktsorb]

That's okay, you'll be completely broken at level 6 instead. :smallwink:
But all the better, you'll have Speak with Animals automatically on from level 2, and just need to train a small pet to act very much like a familiar.

I'd rather have something that if it is going to get killed often, that I can bring it back without spending several in game sessions finding a new one.

[TheUser]

Without a doubt Resilient Constitution.
Not only is it the most common saving throw in the game, but it also governs your ability to keep concentration on your summons (that thing your subclass revolves around).

[hymer]

I'd rather have something that if it is going to get killed often, that I can bring it back without spending several in game sessions finding a new one.
Fair enough. Though you really shouldn't have trouble finding birds and mice and cats to magic into a minion. And if it's dangerous, send in the Conjured Animal. :smallsmile:
When I play my bladesinger, I keep my familiar out of fights, because it takes 70 minutes to get it back up (and at first the cost and the trouble of getting the material component were reasons as well).
By the way, your familiar should be slightly more durable from level 6, as it benefits from Mighty Summmoner. So that's in favour of Find Familiar.

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

In my CoS campaign, the DM gave us a free feat as well. I took Resilient: Con and Ritual Caster (variant humans got two feats).

Resilient: Con/Warcaster are the boring but effective options, so I picked Ritual Caster for flavor and I'm kind of regretting it. Some of it might just be the module, but rituals are hard to come by and money is scarce. I do have a familiar, but I'm starting to wish I'd taken Magic Initiate instead, since druids are somewhat cantrip starved. I'd still be able to grab Find Familiar

If you want Ritual Caster, have a talk with the DM about Ritual availability, 'cause you could just be stuck with the initial couple of rituals for a long time.

[elyktsorb]

Without a doubt Resilient Constitution.
Not only is it the most common saving throw in the game, but it also governs your ability to keep concentration on your summons (that thing your subclass revolves around).

To be fair I can't summon anything until I get 3rd level spells at 5th level, which gives me plenty of time to grab that before it becomes absolutely relevant to my class. Where picking up a familiar at 4th level is kind of silly if I want it to be a part of the character in a way.

[elyktsorb]

In my CoS campaign, the DM gave us a free feat as well. I took Resilient: Con and Ritual Caster (variant humans got two feats).

Resilient: Con/Warcaster are the boring but effective options, so I picked Ritual Caster for flavor and I'm kind of regretting it. Some of it might just be the module, but rituals are hard to come by and money is scarce. I do have a familiar, but I'm starting to wish I'd taken Magic Initiate instead, since druids are somewhat cantrip starved. I'd still be able to grab Find Familiar

If you want Ritual Caster, have a talk with the DM about Ritual availability, 'cause you could just be stuck with the initial couple of rituals for a long time.

Well honestly I'm just taking Ritual Caster because at least with that I can have the ability to cast Find Familiar as much as I want (Since the Magic Initiate 1st level spell you get is restricted to once per short or long rest.) That and the ability to pick up other wizard rituals could be beneficial.

[Vorpalchicken]

I think that's one of the best feats you can take. Find Familiar is terrific.

[CTurbo]

I'm gonna agree that Magic Initiate is probably the better pick here for you. I love the Ritual Caster feat and it's amazing for classes that aren't already Ritual Casters, but Druids already are. Yes it's still good for Druids because you can choose a 2nd class and have Ritual Casting for two classes which still opens up a lot of options. Of course ask your DM for ritual availability as mentioned above. When my Fighter took Ritual Casting, every town or city I went in I searched out people who could teach me more rituals(for gold) and ended up buying just about all wizard rituals available. So it was a great feat for me. I agree though if you're just stuck with 2 new rituals forever it's probably a bad pick.

Res(Con) is always great but yeah it's boring.

Polearm Master is interesting on Druids. Ask your DM how Shillelagh would work on a staff with the bonus action attack. I think officially it's still a d4 to damage, but I know some DMs allow it to be the d8.

Mobile, Alert, and Lucky are great on every character.

I would take Magic Initiate for Minor Illusion, Booming Blade, and Find Familiar.

[nickl_2000]

Ritual caster is a great choice although less so on a druid than a melee character.

Many of your spells are concentration, and summons are concentration that last awhile. So, look over the rituals you get and see if there are enough that are non concentration to be worth it. Also if there is a wizard in the party it isn't as useful.


As had been mentioned magic initiate is another great way to get a familiar, and you get the bonus of utility in mold earth, Prestidigitation, minor illusion, or other wizard cantrips.

[elyktsorb]

Ritual caster is a great choice although less so on a druid than a melee character.

Many of your spells are concentration, and summons are concentration that last awhile. So, look over the rituals you get and see if there are enough that are non concentration to be worth it. Also if there is a wizard in the party it isn't as useful.


As had been mentioned magic initiate is another great way to get a familiar, and you get the bonus of utility in mold earth, Prestidigitation, minor illusion, or other wizard cantrips.

Yes but Magic Initiate only lets me cast the lvl 1 spell once per short or long rest. Given a Familiar can just bite the dust at any moment, I'd rather be able to summon it at any time. This way I can summon it whenever I have an hour and ten minutes, instead of when I have a short/long rest and then an additional hour.

[nickl_2000]

Yes but Magic Initiate only lets me cast the lvl 1 spell once per short or long rest. Given a Familiar can just bite the dust at any moment, I'd rather be able to summon it at any time. This way I can summon it whenever I have an hour and ten minutes, instead of when I have a short/long rest and then an additional hour.

Fair enough. It sounds like you really want to take ritual caster :)

Then go for it, it's a wonderful utility feat and can be helpful in that you don't need to prepare did rituals if they overlap the wizard spell list.

Also make sure you have plenty of items and cash around to scribe pages into the book and summon fresh buddies.

[Xeko]

Yes but Magic Initiate only lets me cast the lvl 1 spell once per short or long rest. Given a Familiar can just bite the dust at any moment, I'd rather be able to summon it at any time. This way I can summon it whenever I have an hour and ten minutes, instead of when I have a short/long rest and then an additional hour.

Our Assassin Rogue has a familiar from Magic Initiate. A pet snake, that he milks for venom for his assassin stuff (mostly just flavor). George the Snake has assisted us in combat a few times. And to date, he has not died once. Perhaps that's to do with the rest of the party actively defending him, or perhaps its because familiars arent really threats, so in combat most enemies prioritize the rest of the party. You know, goblins are likely to be more worried about the guys with clanking steel and cackling fire, over the suspicious looking squirrel in the corner. The only time to really worry about them is when you send them out alone as scouts or whatever. Ultimately, in my personal experience, familiars dont die anywhere near as often as you seem to think they do. So I would definitely take magic initiate, as you'll get waaaaay more mileage out of the two bonus cantrips than you would the other rituals. Unless you happen to be in a very ritual-heavy campaign, anyway.

[CTurbo]

Unless you are a melee character literally spamming the help action every turn with your familiar, it really shouldn't die very often. Enemies aren't going to waste their action killing a familiar without good cause. Owls have flyby so they can get close without worrying about getting attacked.

You mentioned yourself that it has a casting time of 1 hour. How many hours a day are you going to devote to casting this? Also, it's not like your familiar disappears at the end of every day. You have your familiar forever until it dies or you create another. This also means that your familiar would have to die MORE than once in a day for this argument to even matter. 99% of the time, being able to cast the spell once per day will be more than enough.

So Ritual Caster has the potential to be the better option if you can learn a lot more rituals throughout your career, but Magic Initiate will make a much larger impact initially and probably be the more consistent option.

[OverLordOcelot]

Without a doubt Resilient Constitution.
Not only is it the most common saving throw in the game, but it also governs your ability to keep concentration on your summons (that thing your subclass revolves around).

Resilient CON for concentration is weaker than warcaster at low levels, though - it's just a +2, while war caster is advantage. If you're only planning to have one then resilient is better, but if you're planning to eventually get both then I would take warcaster low and resilient later on. Assuming you have a 15 con (planning to take resilient at some point) then at low levels your default chance to make a concentration check is 65%, which jumps to 80% with resilient or 87.7% with warcaster. Warcaster also lets you cast spells on opportunity attacks, which can be really good, and negates any problems involved with casting while using a shield, though most people aren't sticklers for that one. I don't think either feat is bad (though you do want an odd con score if you're planning to take resilient), but I would get warcaster for a low level feat.


I'm gonna agree that Magic Initiate is probably the better pick here for you. I love the Ritual Caster feat and it's amazing for classes that aren't already Ritual Casters, but Druids already are. Yes it's still good for Druids because you can choose a 2nd class and have Ritual Casting for two classes which still opens up a lot of options.

I think it's still great for druids for two reasons. For one, druids don't have much of a money sink - they won't be buying heavy armor or non-ritual spells, their low-level spells don't have expensive components, and a ritual book is a good thing to spend money on. In addition to getting wizard rituals that you can't cast otherwise (don't ever pick anything but wizard for ritual caster), you don't have to use your prepared slots for them. The druid spell list has a lot of good spells, but a lot of them are situational, and I find the limited number of prepared spells extremely restrictive. Being able to have something like detect magic or water breathing on tap at will without giving up things like heat metal and plant growth (which are game changers for fights where they work) is extremely good. Druids seem to have a lot more 'this is really good if it works, worthless otherwise' spells compared to other casters.

As far as the OP's problems finding rituals, for the first couple of levels you almost certainly will be money-short in any campaign. But by the time you are maybe level 3, certainly level 5+ you should have a lot more cash, and (unless the campaign is unusual compared to published mods) have run across some scrolls and wizard spell books. You also might be able to just buy scrolls depending on magic availability in the campaign world - and if the world is lower magic, the fact that druids (especially moon druids) are not as item-hungry as other classes will work in your favor.

[djreynolds]

In CoS, Barovia, the land and people have nothing. Really.

Now who else is in the party? Are you the only caster

The druid class has some good ritual spells already. Beast sense is a good spell

What exactly do you want a familiar for? Exploration, advantage.

[elyktsorb]

In CoS, Barovia, the land and people have nothing. Really.

Now who else is in the party? Are you the only caster

The druid class has some good ritual spells already. Beast sense is a good spell

What exactly do you want a familiar for? Exploration, advantage.

There's also a Cleric. I just want a familiar for character reasons.

[djreynolds]

There's also a Cleric. I just want a familiar for character reasons.

I firmly believe in concept over crunch. So then take ritual caster

Also, a crazy idea, this CoS is usually only til 10th level. With a 13 in intelligence you could take 1 level of wizard, and get also 6 more 1st level wizard spells and 2 cantrips. This could work for you

But it sounds like a cool concept and now your side mission is to fill this book up

[Fiskco]

I’ve run CoS twice now, and played a number of characters with the find familiar spell. I can say that you won’t regret picking up find familiar as ritual, it’s a really fun spell.

A running joke in one of my old groups was that my weasel familiar died so often, while everyone else kept track of how many enemies they killed, I kept track of how many times my weasel died (It died 21 times).

Keep in mind that you can change what form your familiar takes by recasting the ritual, a lot of people pick one animal and stick with it, but you don’t have to stick with one if you don’t want to.

As far as familiar options go, something like a bat or rat would fit the theme of curse of strahd, or you could go more exotic and ask your DM if you could have something like an Al’Miraj (unicorn rabbit!)

Seriously, I love the find familiar spell, it’s so versatile, both in and out of combat. Bonus points if you use it to scout ahead, or use it to cast touch spells (cure wounds is a great with this)

[elyktsorb]

I firmly believe in concept over crunch. So then take ritual caster

Also, a crazy idea, this CoS is usually only til 10th level. With a 13 in intelligence you could take 1 level of wizard, and get also 6 more 1st level wizard spells and 2 cantrips. This could work for you

But it sounds like a cool concept and now your side mission is to fill this book up

I'm not doing CoS someone else merely mentioned that earlier. Taking a level in Wizard wouldn't exactly line up with the character in that it's a sort of oceanic druid. As much as it's kind of terrible, I'm going to be using a Crab Familiar.