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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Circle of the World Tree Druid (PEACH)



JimseTran
2020-05-22, 11:27 AM
I have made a druid subclass for my homebrew campaign, and i would like some feedback and/or constructive criticism on the balance of its features :smallsmile: It is a plant-oriented circle with a focus on summoning plant creatures.

PLANT SHAPING
The rites of your circle grant you the ability to channel your Wild Shape capabilities into summoning sentient plants instead of transforming yourself into beasts. Starting at 2nd level, you can as an action consume a use of your Wild Shape feature to summon a plant at an unoccupied square within 5 feet of you. You must still abide by the CR limit and other limitations of Wild Shape.
The plant is friendly to you and your companions and obeys your commands.
In combat, the plant shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. The only action it takes on its turn is the Dodge action, unless you take a bonus action on your turn to command it to take one of the actions in its stat block or to take the Dash, Disengage, Help, or Hide action.
The plant manifests for one hour, until it is reduced to 0 hit points, or until you use your Wild Shape again.

ONE WITH THE TREES
At 2nd level, you know how to live like the trees around you. If you haven’t moved yet this turn and you are not knocked prone, you can as a bonus action become solidly planted into the ground as if you grew roots and became a tree. Your AC increases by 1, and you gain advantage on Strength saving throws. This effect lasts until the start of your next turn, you move, you are knocked prone, or you are forcibly pushed away from your space.

FLORAL BONDING
At 6th level, you know how to move efficiently and swiftly in nature’s arena. You and your plants ignore the lingering effects, such as damage and difficult terrain, from your own spells.

IMPROVED PLANT SHAPING
At 10th level, you can cast Speak with Plants at-will without spending a spell slot.
In addition, when you consume one use of your Wild Shape to summon a plant with the Plant Shaping feature, you can choose to also consume a spell slot of your choice.
If you do, your summoned plant’s attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. In addition, the maximum CR of the plant summoned is increased based on the level of the spell slot consumed:



Spell Slot
1st, 2nd
3rd, 4th
5th, 6th
7th, 8th
9th


Max. CR
2
3
4
5
6




BLESSING OF THE WORLD TREE
At 14th level, you can as a bonus action transform yourself into an avatar of the World Tree for 1 minute. You gain the following benefits:
- Your AC increases by 3 instead of 1 when you activate the One with the Trees feature.
- The area within 15 feet of you becomes difficult terrain.
- When a friendly plant creature ends its turn while within 15 feet of you, they regain hit points equal to half your Druid level, rounded down.
After using this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish your next long rest.

Composer99
2020-05-22, 09:09 PM
I have made a druid subclass for my homebrew campaign, and i would like some feedback and/or constructive criticism on the balance of its features :smallsmile: It is a plant-oriented circle with a focus on summoning plant creatures.

I like the concept. Balance-wise, it's looking overpowered to some extent, as we shall see when we get to the appropriate features. That may not be a problem, depending on what other homebrew your campaign has for character options, though.



PLANT SHAPING
The rites of your circle grant you the ability to channel your Wild Shape capabilities into summoning sentient plants instead of transforming yourself into beasts. Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Wild Shape to summon a plant at an unoccupied square within 5 feet of you. You must still abide by the CR limit and other limitations of Wild Shape.
The plant is friendly to you and your companions and obeys your commands.
In combat, the plant shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. The only action it takes on its turn is the Dodge action, unless you take a bonus action on your turn to command it to take one of the actions in its stat block or to take the Dash, Disengage, Help, or Hide action.
The plant manifests for one hour, until it is reduced to 0 hit points, or until you use your Wild Shape again.

So, I think this is really cool and thematic for this druidic circle. I do worry, however, about being able to use your bonus action to allow your summoned plant to take any action in its stat block.

By way of comparison, PHB beast master rangers have to use their action to command their beasts to do anything other than move (that's free) until 5th level, when they can forego one of their attacks to have the beast make one instead (but dashing, disengaging, dodging, or helping will still eat the ranger's action).

The other thing is that, being primarily spellcasters, druids don't have a lot of competition for their bonus action. So unless you have a bonus action spell you really need to cast, you're generally going to be able to use your action to cast a spell and your bonus action to get your plant to do something. (Incidentally, now I read it again, you can't command your plant to move except by means of taking the Dash action. Is that intentional?) At higher levels, when you can burn a slot for a stronger plant that sticks around for more or less the entire adventuring day, that's going to add up.

You can't get to the point where you can use this feature to summon treants, so it probably can't get too out of hand, but it's something to think about. (On the other hand, maybe treants are a better endgame for summoning than a lot of other plants, as we shall soon see.)



ONE WITH THE TREES
At 2nd level, you know how to live like the trees around you. When you end your turn without moving and you are not knocked prone, you become solidly planted into the ground as if you grew roots and became a tree. Your AC becomes 16 if it is lower than 16, and you gain advantage on Strength saving throws. This effect lasts until you move, you are knocked prone, or you are forcibly pushed away from your space.


At-will barkskin that you don't spend a spell slot to get is significantly better than the spell, even if the spell lasts an hour. This is a feature where your mileage may vary, but it's going to incentivise finding ways to stand still in combat. It only becomes less interesting once your AC finally gets over 16.



FLORAL BONDING
At 6th level, you know how to move efficiently and swiftly in nature’s arena. You ignore the lingering effects, such as damage and difficult terrain, from your own spells.
Also starting at 6th level, your summoned plant’s attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.


The moving-through-plants portion of this feature is more niche than the land druid's land's stride, but within that niche is more powerful. Then the magical plant attack portion gets layered on top of that. I think this feature miiight be a bit overtuned? It would probably be fine if the circle as a whole weren't as strong, though.



GRASS WHISTLER
At 10th level, you can cast Speak with Plants on yourself at-will without spending a spell slot.
In addition, when you consume one use of your Wild Shape to summon a plant with the Plant Shaping feature, you can choose to also consume a spell slot of your choice. If you do, the plant manifests for a number of hours equal to half your druid level, rounded down, and in addition, the maximum CR of the plant summoned is increased based on the level of the spell slot consumed:



Spell Slot
1st, 2nd
3rd, 4th
5th, 6th
7th, 8th
9th


Max. CR
2
3
4
5
6




Getting speak with plants at will at some point is a pretty reasonable given for this circle, and it being a 3rd-level spell, 10th level seems like a decent time to get it. As a nitpick, speak with plants' range is Self, so you needn't specify that you cast it on yourself - that is its default.

Being able to enhance your plant summons is a good idea. I do think you might want to revisit the implementation. It's simply the case that the three monster books (Monster Manual, Volo's, and Mordenkainen's Tome) don't have very many plants - 19 by my count - and there are some odd CR gaps to boot. (For example, no plants in CR 3-4, and again in CR 6-7.) Some of the campaigns pad out the plant numbers, though, and some of those plants might even be suitable for your purposes.

As I noted before, the elongation of the plant summoning can spell trouble for balance, especially since it's linked to your druid level. In addition to the balance issue I noted previously, the potential duration is itself an issue. Most spells that conjure creatures have a time limit of 1 hour and require concentration. The two major exceptions I can think of are animate dead and awaken. Awaken has a material cost of 1,000 gp a pop, and the creature awakened is charmed by you but doesn't automatically obey your commands. Animate dead is definitely better, as far as duration goes, but you're getting a better creature, CR-wise. Planar ally and gate are high-level spells, and you don't get the obedient reliability of the plant summons this feature grants. Dunno if I've missed any spells to compare to.

(As a minor nitpick... I'm not so sure about the name grass whistler?)



BLESSING OF THE WORLD TREE
At 14th level, you can as a bonus action transform yourself into an avatar of the World Tree for 1 minute. You gain the following benefits:
- Your AC becomes 16 if it is lower than 16, and you gain advantage on Strength saving throws.
- The area within 15 feet of you becomes difficult terrain.
- When a friendly plant creature ends its turn while within 15 feet of you, they regain hit points equal to half your Druid level, rounded down.
After using this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish your next long rest.

This is fine, although I wonder about the AC benefit. Admittedly I'm not very familiar with druids, but are they really still running around with ACs of 16 or below at 14th level?

JimseTran
2020-05-24, 04:38 AM
First of all, thank you for giving your opinion about this subclass.



So, I think this is really cool and thematic for this druidic circle. I do worry, however, about being able to use your bonus action to allow your summoned plant to take any action in its stat block.


(Incidentally, now I read it again, you can't command your plant to move except by means of taking the Dash action. Is that intentional?)

I have based controlling of the summoned creature directly from the Wildfire Druid UA (that's why there are no mention of moving, it just moves "on its own" during its turn):

"In combat, the wildfire spirit shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. The only action it takes on its turn is the Dodge action, unless you take a bonus action on your turn to command it to take one of the actions in its stat block or to take the Dash, Disengage, Help, or Hide action."

The whole subclass feature is more or less like the Wildfire Druid's ability to summon a wildfire spirit. As it is right now, i would say the Wildfire Spirit is actually a bit stronger, since it deals damage in an area upon summoning and its ability to teleport itself and other creatures once per summoning.



At-will barkskin that you don't spend a spell slot to get is significantly better than the spell, even if the spell lasts an hour. This is a feature where your mileage may vary, but it's going to incentivise finding ways to stand still in combat. It only becomes less interesting once your AC finally gets over 16.

I have changed the AC to a simple +1 bonus, and it now requires a bonus action to activate it for only a single turn. This should hopefully balance it in the earlygame before you can (easily) get an AC of 16 along with making it still useful in the late-game (when you easily can get an AC of 16). In addition, making it spend your bonus action should hopefully make it compete with controlling the plant (i hope).


The moving-through-plants portion of this feature is more niche than the land druid's land's stride, but within that niche is more powerful. Then the magical plant attack portion gets layered on top of that. I think this feature miiight be a bit overtuned? It would probably be fine if the circle as a whole weren't as strong, though.

Yeah, i thought so too. Originally, there was only the magical plant attack portion, but it was kinda weak on its own, since compared to Moon Druid, the CR of the plant does not scale naturally with level. But it is kinda needed for higher levels, since a lot of monsters begin to have non-magical resistance. I have moved the magical attack part to 10th level, but made it so that only attacks are only magical if you use a spell slot to boost the plant.


Getting speak with plants at will at some point is a pretty reasonable given for this circle, and it being a 3rd-level spell, 10th level seems like a decent time to get it. As a nitpick, speak with plants' range is Self, so you needn't specify that you cast it on yourself - that is its default.

Cool. I will change it.



Being able to enhance your plant summons is a good idea. I do think you might want to revisit the implementation. It's simply the case that the three monster books (Monster Manual, Volo's, and Mordenkainen's Tome) don't have very many plants - 19 by my count - and there are some odd CR gaps to boot. (For example, no plants in CR 3-4, and again in CR 6-7.) Some of the campaigns pad out the plant numbers, though, and some of those plants might even be suitable for your purposes.

As I noted before, the elongation of the plant summoning can spell trouble for balance, especially since it's linked to your druid level. In addition to the balance issue I noted previously, the potential duration is itself an issue. Most spells that conjure creatures have a time limit of 1 hour and require concentration. The two major exceptions I can think of are animate dead and awaken. Awaken has a material cost of 1,000 gp a pop, and the creature awakened is charmed by you but doesn't automatically obey your commands. Animate dead is definitely better, as far as duration goes, but you're getting a better creature, CR-wise. Planar ally and gate are high-level spells, and you don't get the obedient reliability of the plant summons this feature grants. Dunno if I've missed any spells to compare to.

(As a minor nitpick... I'm not so sure about the name grass whistler?)

Originally i just made it scale like Moon Druid (CR by level) and then changed it to two uses of Wild Shape for a CR 5 plant summon, but i felt both were too strong, since compared to Moon Druid, summoning a creature is superior for action economy. (since i'm still standing behind controlling the plant summon with a bonus action). That's why i made the CR scale with spell slot consumed, since you have to consume a spell slot AND a Wild Shape use to make it a superior summoning spell compared to its closest spell equivalents (since there is no concentration). Of course, there are a lack of plants in the official books, but i am building some additional plant creatures to bundle with this subclass. I will likely post them soon, when i finish them :smalltongue:.

I will remove the extended duration and replace it with making the plant's attacks magical.

I could find a better name - i will just change it to Improved Plant Shaping, since most of its features are related to Plant Shaping.


This is fine, although I wonder about the AC benefit. Admittedly I'm not very familiar with druids, but are they really still running around with ACs of 16 or below at 14th level?

This was just because the One with the Trees feature gave those benefits. Essentially, my reasoning is since you become an avatar of a tree, you are always "one with the trees" :smallbiggrin:. Now that it is different, i have changed that part to increasing the AC increase to 3 instead.

Once again, thank you for the feedback :smallsmile: