Circle of Land, Wasted Potential:

[Jon talks a lot]

The Circle of Land is one of the best Druid subclasses before level 6. After that, it sucks.
Bonus Cantrip, Nature Recovery, and an expanded spell list! Awesome.
Land’s Stride, Nature’s Ward, and Nature’s Sanctuary…not so much.

This document will serve as a complete revamp of the subclass.

This Stays the Same:

Bonus Cantrip
When you choose this circle at 2nd level, you learn one additional druid cantrip of your choice.

Natural Recovery
Starting at 2nd level, you can regain some of your magical energy by sitting in meditation and communing with nature. During a short rest, you choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your druid level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

For example, when you are a 4th-level druid, you can recover up to two levels worth of spell slots. You can recover either a 2nd-level slot or two 1st-level slots.

Circle Spells
Your mystical connection to the land infuses you with the ability to cast certain spells. At 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th level you gain access to circle spells connected to the land where you became a druid. Choose that land – arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or Underdark – and consult the associated list of spells.

Once you gain access to a circle spell, you always have it prepared, and it doesn't count against the number of spells you can prepare each day. If you gain access to a spell that doesn't appear on the druid spell list, the spell is nonetheless a druid spell for you.

These are the new changes:

Nature’s Strength
At 6th level, you add your Wisdom modifier to the damage you deal with any Druid cantrip.
Nature’s Gift
Starting at 10th level, when you cast a spell of 5th level or less that targets only one creature, you can have it target a second creature.
Nature’s Dominion
When you reach 14th level, your mastery of nature grants you additional spellcasting ability: you can cast a 1st or 2nd level spell without expending a spell slot. You can do so a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Any advice? I don't want to make overpowered homebrew, just make a weak subclass that I love the flavor of into something I would actually want to play.

[Amechra]

{Scrubbed}

[Jon talks a lot]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

How so? I understand that it is homebrew, but it deals specifically with 5th edition and its mechanics.

[JNAProductions]

How so? I understand that it is homebrew, but it deals specifically with 5th edition and its mechanics.

{Scrubbed}

[PhoenixPhyre]

How so? I understand that it is homebrew, but it deals specifically with 5th edition and its mechanics.

{Scrubbed}

[Lord Vukodlak]

Doesn't matter. Homebrew belongs there. Theoretical discussions or play or lore or other such discussions belong here.

I disagree homebrew is more for entirely new material. I’ve seen plenty of topics here for adjusting existing class rules.

[MaxWilson]

The Circle of Land is one of the best Druid subclasses before level 6. After that, it sucks.
Bonus Cantrip, Nature Recovery, and an expanded spell list! Awesome.
Land’s Stride, Nature’s Ward, and Nature’s Sanctuary…not so much.

Put me down in the camp that thinks it's bad for levels 2-6 as well. It's just incremental bonuses to stuff you can already do, nothing comparable to Moon Druid's expansion into a completely new role (melee bruiser) or Shepherd's summoning. I agree that the later stuff on land is even worse though.

This doesn't mean you can't enjoy it of course. Sometimes, playing objectively bad classes is a form of challenging yourself by turning up the difficulty mode. That's legitimate.

[quindraco]

I think the most problematic part of Land's Stride is how it's fundamentally not written to respect the chosen Land of the Druid, which may not have any plants (Underdark has literally 0, Desert and Arctic are the same sort of place and have very few, Mountain is fine until you get high up the mountain...). I mean, come on.

Land's Stride is just not a plant-based subclass, outside of the level 6 ability suddenly being, "surprise! plant-based rules for no reason!".

Damage resistance appropriate to terrain type would be way cooler:

• Arctic: Cold Resistance
• Coast: Cold Resistance
• Desert: Crepuscular Resistance: Fire Resistance from dawn to dusk, Cold Resistance from dusk to dawn; as a corollary, you always know when it is dawn or dusk.
• Forest: Fire Resistance
• Grassland: Fire Resistance
• Mountain: Cold Resistance
• Swamp: Poison Resistance and advantage on saves vs poisons and diseases.
• Underdark: Poison Resistance and advantage on saves vs poisons and diseases.

[Captain Panda]

The Circle of Land is one of the best Druid subclasses before level 6. After that, it sucks.

I play a lot of druids, they're my jam. I'd go so far as to say that if I had a "main" class in D&D that I love best, it's druid (though wizards and bards also come close). I like winning fights, and boy howdy are druids good at winning the fights, far more than other sad, pitiful classes at low levels.

So when I say this, I'm saying this as someone who loves the druid class and has a ton of experience playing them: land druids are not one of the best druid subclasses at any point. Moon druids win, hands down, no contest from levels 1-5, and from 6-10 shepherd druid reigns supreme as best druid. Really at no point does the land druid get to be the best*, and that's a shame.

Bonus Cantrip, Nature Recovery, and an expanded spell list! Awesome

My problem with all that is that... it's not every good, and I'm including the first items on the list. Bonus cantrip? It might be better if it enhanced the cantrips in some way, but it doesn't, and druid cantrips are literally the worst choices in the game. That's not my misusing literally, that's actually true. Take any other class and look at their at-will option. The only one with lower damage output is the bard using vicious mockery, but that also tacks on some nice utility. Druid attack cantrips are short range turds that do very little damage and typically are just inferior versions of cantrips other classes get. Produce flame is a weaker, shorter ranged firebolt. Frostbite is vicious mockery that does slightly more damage... but targets a save that all the monsters are good at. Shillelagh?! You're a full caster wearing bunny-fur armor, don't stand up front and whack things with a stick! That's not your job! That's the big, dumb barbarian's job!

Natural recovery is nice, but not nice enough to carry a subclass. The expanded spell lists are hit and miss, and frankly I think in order to make land druids even competitive with the moon, shepherd, and new Tasha's druids you'd need to give them multiple of the land spell expansions, not just one.

*With one exception that isn't really part of the game, and that's the Baldur's Gate 3 version. In that they give land druids moon druid abilities and nerf moon druids into the ground. It's a real shame.

[PattThe]

Access to more land spells? Sure! I'll steal that and give it as a surprise leading up to level 10 for my player's druid. They're hitting 8 now.