Quote Originally Posted by Mercurias View Post
I was looking at the new Tashas stuff and wondered if there might be some way to combine a Swarmkeeper Ranger with a Druid or Cleric. 3 levels in Ranger will give you some nice added proficiencies on top of your Swarm, plus either a fighting style or two additional Druid Cantrips.
I'd go with Swarmkeeper Ranger and Circle of Spores Druid, personally. The extra damage inflicted by your Swarm stacks with that inflicted by your Spores, which in turn stacks with the Shillelagh spell. At level Druid 2/Ranger 3 you're dealing 1d8+STR+2d6 which inflicts Magical Bludgeoning, Piercing and Necrotic damage for overcoming resistances, which is reasonably decent even before you add the damage from you Spore-aura.

Pick up a dip or feat for Booming Blade as well for another d8, plus Hunter's Mark or Searing Smite for more d6's and more damage types, and things start to look interesting.

Alucard89 suggested something similar with a Spore Druid/Gloom Stalker build.

The problem with Nature Cleric is that it is, by itself, just really good because it's a Cleric. If you want armour and melee then pure cleric is probably better than a Druid dip, and for spellcasting then arguably pure either is better than splitting your spell progression. I guess Nature Cleric/Spores Druid might work for the same reason above - whatever else you do it consistently adds to your melee DPS, which might be something you'd need.