5 Levels of Astral Monk: Spore Druid But Still Has Temp HP

[Omni-Centrist]

I was thinking, as a sort of ",fix", or moreso complement to a spore druid would be Astral Monk? It's a monk that specs hard into wisdom for its attacks, so your melee attacks would be both powerful and have 1d6 on each of them. Since it's a support caster you would stay behind your big beefy boys and hit for 1d8+Dex+1d6 twice per turn. Respectable AC with 14 Dex and 20 Wis. Thoughts? It feels like the only way to make use of the Spore Druids melee capabilities.

[Galithar]

I like it. It definitely gives some use to the melee capabilities. I think you'll still be losing power in comparison to a single class caster as far as spells go. Being 5 levels behind in spell slots and level is HUGE.

Then again using your spores and Astral arms in conjuction to deal 2d6+Wisdom damage for 3 hits (potentially 4 on a flurry though you won't have many) is pretty good.

I think I might like it better as an Astral Monk that dips Druid for some low level casting and extra heft to their punches 2 times per short rest.

I think only the level 2 and 14 abilities of a Circle of Spores Druid are actually any good though, so I may be biased against them.

[ff7hero]

I'm currently playing a Spore Druid who started with a Life Cleric dip. I went Custom Lineage to snag Polearm Master and Shillelagh has been my main source of damage output.

It's quite good, especially with a bit of a warning. Symbiotic Entity lasts 10 minutes, so it's nice to get going pre-fight. Halo of Spores is honestly kind of a pain. The damage is low and the trigger is annoying to be watching for. In my case it also somewhat conflicts with reaction Shillelagh smacks.

I'm only level 3, so PAM is disproportionately powerful, but I'm planning to just be a generic (optimized) Druid and Spores let me access Animate Dead, so it won my pick based solely on that.

[ScoutTrooper]

I had piloted a Spore Druid as a Centaur. Primal Saveragry out performed my Shillelagh. Also if the party comp didn't have me designated as a tank, I was a caster for battlefield status change. I agree with being 5 levels behind hurts that. Being able to upscale some spells for mulitple targets. My big get out of TPK free card was to spam summons. My PC found a horn where I could summon a CR3, so that plus my zombie, plus 8 random low CR creatures. Almost always trampled whoever was giving us a tough battle.

[elyktsorb]

I was thinking, as a sort of ",fix", or moreso complement to a spore druid would be Astral Monk? It's a monk that specs hard into wisdom for its attacks, so your melee attacks would be both powerful and have 1d6 on each of them. Since it's a support caster you would stay behind your big beefy boys and hit for 1d8+Dex+1d6 twice per turn. Respectable AC with 14 Dex and 20 Wis. Thoughts? It feels like the only way to make use of the Spore Druids melee capabilities.

Before Astral Monk became official, I ran it with Drunken Master because Flurry of Blows = Free Disengage. Though the main issue, with any Monk Subclass and Spore Druid, is that only 2 levels of Spore Druid gives you 8 temp hp, and if you ever get hit, even at lvl 2 when the damage would be low, you have a high chance of losing your temp hp, and it's a whole action to use. Sure Monk mitigates single targeted ranged attacks with Deflect Missles, but that won't stop spells. And the moment you have to waste an action putting your spores back up, that's a whole round of attacks you miss out on. And then there's not much stopping anyone from hitting you again immediately for small damage and removing your new temp hp.

So I often wonder if it would be better to do a more even split so that you can afford to take a few hits, or to do 18 Monk/2 Spore Druid, and just avoid getting hit as much as humanly possible.

I ran the drunken master at 3rd level and spore druid 2 and being able to do 3 attacks at 1d4+dex+1d6 poison is pretty great. Very fun to do.

For a more even split to 20 12 Monk/8 Spore Druid seems like the best option for melee damage.

But 6 Monk/14 Spore Druid is technically when you cap out on Attacks from Monk barring subclasses. And your additional d6 of poison will make up for the damage you miss out from Monk Progression.

It's interesting that just 2 levels of Spore Druid would technically double a monks damage output from levels 1-8 because at that point you're not losing out on Damage from your unarmed dice getting better, and your only missing out on 2 flurries of blows.

[Omni-Centrist]

I am absolutely convinced that doing the 3 level Druid dip would actually work better