I understand why you discarded Healing Word but one thing to consider, is that when you combine it with Unicorn spirit totem, it heals a ton of damage across the Party... it’s a small mass cure wounds. It’s battle specific for sure, but if the party is facing a lot of damage dealing melee opponents, especially waves of battles, it’s a fantastic combo.
Just a note for anyone reading this, if you play a 14 Wiz Conjurer, and take 6 in Druid Circle of the Shepard you can’t lose your summons due to concentration and have access to two more ability score improvements as they’re no longer tied up. Your summons are also super bugged with HP, an additional 30 HP per unit per Summon, which means your 3rd level 1/4th summons is 8x30=240 HP increase on a 3rd level Spell. If you Summon 32 using a 9th level spell, 32x30=960 That’s essentially the same as a full team of 20th level characters. And for those of you who argue that it’s too much HP or that the DM will struggle with it, the DM also has access to AOE spells which destroy these creatures fairly easily. A 9th level fireball will almost guaranteed kill all of those creatures assuming they’re in the radius. But it’s a lot of fun and I highly recommend trying it.
Another good video - appreciate the time given to the “why” of your choices and indication of alternatives, it makes me consider various characters and playstyles/flavours while watching. Thank you for all the work - I so enjoy them, great that you have the inclination (and presumably an understanding family ☺️)
@@havasimark that is a very good point. Intentionally jumping, even. Suffice it to say, drugs are bad. Even if you are a very talented voice actor (or married to a very talented voice actor)
Another race I think would be very strong for this build, if it is available, is the Tortle. Strength Bonus isn't great, but you get Wisdom, and more importantly you get the best AC available to any druid.
I was wondering the same thing. Like the goblin build seems cool, but Tortle not even being mentioned in the possible races seemed weird. 19 AC without any special equipment or metal armor, a Wisdom boost... even Shell Defense seems situationally useful for the +4 AC and advantage on Con saves.
I play Lore Bard, a Life Cleric and a Shepherd Druid. I chose Shepherd because they make the Best Summoners. This Vid is must watch!!! The Concentration Duration discussion is interesting. How i would DM it would be Thematic. To bind something to this plane would require conc.
I'm surprised at how you address the upper level slots. While it is true that there aren't a lot of really desirable high level spells for Druids, there is also nothing FORCING you to choose spells of those levels. The spells you prepare can be any level which you can cast. Combine this with the fact that many lower and mid level Druids are very effective when upcast means that those upper level slots will NEVER be wasted, even if you never use a spell of that particular level. Also surprised that you didn't go over Awaken as a significant Druid spell. Yes, the cost is high. But if you treat it well during its "charmed" period, you can end up with a permanent companion of rather significant presence.
@@lukecarroll4052 not at all. Rather, he refers to the upper levels as the weakening of the Druid, specifically because of the lack of impressive higher level spells. But, for instance, casting Conjure Woodland Beings at 8th level gives you 3 Sea Hags. On their own, each is a solid summons. But by getting 3, their coven features come into play, making them function as a 12th level caster with a decent array of wizard spells. Or even simply upcasting Conjure Animals to create a massive wall of fur and fangs can be an encounter ending spell. Since this entire video was focusing on the Druid as a conjurer, I would have thought that there would be a greater emphasis on the power of upcasting the conjure spells, and that the Shepherd's conjuring enhancements are multiplied by upcasting these spells. It really is a 1+1=3 scenario.
@@ChristnThms yes but I mean the option to take lower level spells to upcast is always there, I mean if you already got everything you need from a spell level, you're probably gonna flick back, tbh utility spells are sometimes just as good as an upcast able spell, because some of them will always be useful which is built in scaling.
@@lukecarroll4052 of course. But most spells become less and less efficient when upcast, especially when you have more lower level slots than higher level slots. Not only do conjure spells upcast very effectively, but they're not casting stat dependant, which makes them more reliable in effect against many types of higher level opponents. From this perspective, the lack of highly desirable high level spells in the Druid list is largely irrelevant. In many cases, especially for the Shepherd Druid, even a 9th level slot used for a conjuring spell is well spent.
Just to be clear this was said by him in early days of the edition, Crawford is the main rules guy, but even at the time both of them seemed unsure about this. They both claimed weird things I.E if a spell requires somatic and material a cleric and paladin could cast it while wielding a weapon and shield(as a focus), but that a somatic only spell wouldn't be able to be cast because the shield only provides material components... Which doesn't make sense at all, Mike also advised at this time to just hold both weapon and shield in the same hand while you cast somaticly. I guess at the end of the day it's as restrictive as you want to make it, if you think it adds interesting elements or if it is just frustrating
If you use an inverted magic circle you don't need to concentrate on both conjure elemental and planar binding at the same time. You drop concentration and it can't escape while you bind it. The whole point is to have more than one, all concentration free, giving you the option of forming an army of elementals, celestials, feys, and fiends if you want. You can also do the same with beasts by casting awaken multiple times. Think of binding as the wizard equivalency to the druids awaken. The main limiting factor is the component costs
The main limiting factor is your DM. Here is what I wrote before on this. smbakeresq 1 week ago Maybe it’s just me but Planar Binding works both ways. Let’s say you summon an Glabrezu and bind them for a year. The creature of course would resent the service. It seems to me in a year of doing your bidding and being in your presence a creature with 19 Int and 17 Wis would know: Your race, alignment, ability scores, level, every spell it has seen you cast, every person it has seen interact with, favored tactics, your most treasured magic items and possessions, approximate wealth and location of some of that wealth, the places you frequent, your allies (and most details about them as appropriate), your motivations, what you have been doing for the year and some of your future plans, all magic items that have ever been in its presence (detect magic at will) and their location, the locations it has been for you and an idea of why they are important to you, any security measures it has seen. That’s as a start, the player might say things more specific in its presence. Of course it would highly motivated to remember such things to use against you in the future as you forced its servitude. Bound creatures also know they cant permanently die if not on their native plane, so if it needs to it can always through itself into combat in furtherance of whatever mission you gave it hoping to die, this breaking your control as it returns to its native plane. Be careful is my advice as a player. As a DM I would also say be careful and thanks for all the plot and adventure hooks you just gave me.
4 giant wasp in melee with someone who is not resistant to poison is an easy kill. While the bard thanked the yeti (a big one, was commanding other yeti), the druid summoned them behind it. A Tasha's laughter after, he lost half of his hit points.
Currently playing a 6th lvl Circle of the Shepard Druid/1st lvl Life Cleric. I took Magic Initiate to get an Fey Owl Familiar to deliver my cure wounds while I stay back from combat. I’m enjoying be a support caster with summons so far.
So I know that the Annis Hag is not in the monster manual, but I’m surprised you didn’t mention her at all for conjure fey. She’s the only Cr 6 fey, so you’re pretty much guaranteed to get her when you cast the spell, and she has some brutal attack options. Especially that crushing hug, which can really lock a creature down while doing lots of damage. She also has resistance to cold damage and damage from nonmagical weapons. Interestingly, cold damage is the only damage type that none of the 4 cr5 elementals are resistant to, so if you want to summon a big creature while fighting something like an ice dragon, you pretty much need an Annis Hag. I definitely appreciate conjure fey more than I used since the Annis hag, (and to a lesser extent the Bheur hag) should be available in most campaigns.
Ik this isnt a wizard video, but just because you talked about planar binding, and in my opinion the intent is that the longer durations dont require concentration. Imo of course. But just imagine a wizard with a few days of extra downtime: Cast conjure elemental at higher level to get invisible stalker, make sure you can see invisibility, and then use wish to cast planar binding at 8th lvl. Over the course of however many days you could have invisible stalkers floating above you for 180 days minus a few days. This combo works for any summons wanted.
Chris, love you SO MUCH!! You've done some lovely videos focused on Druids lately. I WISH this one had been JUST on Shepherd Druids. I feel like Moon & Shepherd are the MAIN classes. I've listened to THIS video several times, but I didn't build my Shepherd Druid exactly like this, and I'm a new player trying to learn.💙
A Chrome Add-in (UA-cam Playback Speed Control) now lets me run the speed even faster most videos I run at 2.75 speed. If I can't follow that speeed I bring it down to 2.25. I only use 1x speed for music now.
I think your underestimating Fire Storm, like sure, the damage isn't super amazing, but it has long range and affects a huge area, and more important, you have pretty good control in how you shape that area, which usually allows you to hit all enemies without hitting allies, and of course it doesn't require concentration either.
... Unicorn heals yourself as well as the party, and at level 5 that's 20 pts of healing (if a party of 4) every round. Every party member, except you, feels invincible because they ALL can be downed and then revived on the druid's turn effortlessly without having a the heal spell on them directly and get back up and take their actions on their turn. That's ten rounds of healing, reviving, jack in box invincible friends that can't die inside your aura (IF they don't die from massive damage or enemy attacking a downed creature etc, disintegrated). It's also handy to power level NPC's w/o losing them. but sure. I"ll pick the Bear totem for sure at the start of the game, without question it's the stronger option to start. I think the way it works is like this: Bear totem is better till about level 4 or 5, then Unicorn does more HP in 3 rounds of combat etc. and thereafter the Unicorn is OP for its aura of heal. Even though my summons don't benefit, my teammates were begging me to "use that Elk thingy, yea yea". (b/c i reskinned the spirit to be an elk) They could not do without it. *Looking back on this post. I think i fail to mention the action economy of choosing Bear Spirit, as well as the benefit to summon's toughness. I think i will use it in the near future for a change of pace.
I'm playing a Firbolg Shepherd Druid, currently of 9th level. I disagree with the totem choice. If you don't have the luxury of resting just before a battle, Unicorn Totem is way better, and I'll explain why. As of level 5, when I cast at least two healing spells in a fight or more the Unicorn Totem provides more healing than the Bear Totem's temp HP, plus if several ally characters has fallen to 0 HP I can heal them all up in one casting of my healing word while still keeping a relatively safe distance from the melee threat. Bear Totem is great to cast just before the party takes a short or a long rest. I did not find any particular use for the Hawk Totem in battle because the bonus I get from the Unicorn Totem is FAR superior, nor do I want to "waste" my one use of Spirit Totem on an off-battle scenario.
That's the rub, isn't it? When you cast healing spells. If they're curing as an Action, they don't have a lot of things to do with their bonus action unless they're doing something like Wrath of Nature and their cantrips (if they cast Healing Word) by and large chew, especially at higher levels. So basically, a round where you use Unicorn Totem is usually a round where you contribute no meaningful offense. Bear Totem gives you the temporary hp plus frees up your action for offense.
@@maltheopia Temp HPs stay up until you finish a short rest, so you cast it on your whole party, then short rest, and use the Unicorn Totem during battle.
I'm currently running a Wildhunt Shifter Shepherd druid with a one level dip into Life Cleric. The group healing you can get out of the unicorn spirit, paired with having your casted heals being more potent really amps up party survivability. And if you can craft scrolls or have someone who can craft healing word scrolls, you can reliably keep the party topped off in combat, saving your spell slots for big heals, summons, or area control. Not to mention you have your Wildhunt shift to prevent enemies from getting advantage when attacking you, and it gives you a good temp HP chunk. I also didn't start with any weapon, as I took Primal Savagery for my melee needs, and I took Resilient Constitution as my lv 4 feat. And once I hit druid level 8, I will take Fey Touched to round up my Wisdom from 17 to 18, getting me the all important Misty Step, and I am debating on either Dissonant whispers or Identify as my lv 1 pick-up. Also with that one level dip into life cleric, I have access to Sanctuary, so that is going to be huge for helping deter enemies from attacking me while I'm concentrating if they ever do manage to get up to me.
Beast Spells can actually pretty sneaky with this build. Sneak into a room as a little spider, climb up onto the ceiling and surprise your foes when suddenly a faint squeaking noise occurs above them, and a small spider begins to glow with magical energy. In an instant, 8 snarling wolves pounce upon the Orcs that were previously dining in this room. Caught by surprise, they are annihilated in a matter of seconds. Point being you can basically summon creatures into other areas while hiding in plain sight as an Insect.
@@TreantmonksTemple Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was specifically referring to the Beast Spells ability you get at 18th level, which you noted is not all that great for a druid that hardly uses its wildshape.
Having had another look, I think the most optimal build for this would be to play a Warforged Envoy and multiclass Cleric for heavy armor proficiency. Druids won't wear metal armor, but that doesn't exclude the heavy plating (not being worn), and heavy plating + a shield gives you an AC of 18+proficiency, plus a free skill, tool, language, and the various perks of not being alive. You also get the perfect stats for this with +1 Con, Wis, and Dex. If you wanted to, you could even pump Dex and use the light armor variation, which outclasses studded leather. I would take one level of cleric around level 6, after we get our level 3 slot for conjure animals, and the other two levels at 19 and 20.
Not sure if mentioned before or if it makes much difference, but your Circle of the Shepherd abilities only affects Beasts and Fey. This wasn't explicitly stated when talking about Conjure Elemental or during the comparison to Conjure Fey. This means that the Elementals don't get the magical attacks, bonus hit points, or regeneration meanwhile the Mammoth would. You also can't speak with the Elementals unless you picked up Primordial language somewhere while you get Sylvan inherently. Not sure if it makes up for the resistances or mobility bonuses, but something to keep in mind. Love your videos, by the way!
> In an entire campaign, you're probably going to be able to count the number of times you lose your concentration on one hand. You'll remember those few times, tho, because those were the times your party members had their bones cracked open and the marrow sucked out by various horrific abominations, but looking at it "glass half-full," those times were few and far between!
btw, slightly off topic. A magical Staff of Striking is quite strong in a druid's hands. Doesn't have to be for a monk. It allows a druid to melee alongside summons
37:20; You cannot. Casting a spell with a casting time of more than one action (including a ritual) breaks concentration, so you can't give your conjured animals water breathing.
Just a thought about the planar binding discussion. The way my group runs Planar Binding (mostly only me because I'm the only one crazy enough to do it) is that once you start casting Planar Binding, you drop concentration on Conjure Elemental. When that happens the Elemental will want to escape. I use an inverted magic circle to trap the elemental. Because of the 1 action casting time for a number of these moving pieces, what happens is that there is a 7 second window between Magic Circle (1 hour duration) dropping and the effect of Planar binding (1 hour + 1 action casting time) causing the Elemental to make its save. With that one round instance, the elemental is no longer under the effect of Magic Circle and has a single chance to kill my concentration before making it's save (which fails like 85% of the time). I love playing my Elven Bladesinging Wizard with Warcaster and Resilience CON because what happens is that I do this little trick right before a 4 hour rest (upcasting Planar Binding when possible so I repeat this trick for many buddies) and even if I'm using a 9th level spell slot to summon a frost salamander, my concentration can't be broken when putting up my Bladesong right at the end of the casting time. I did this little trick using CR 9 Elementals and 8th level binding spells to give myself 6 Frost Salamanders to back me up in the final siege (a brutal 23 hour combat run split over multiple sessions) and you bet your sweet bippy I help the line. Used everything I had to do it but our rebel forces made sure that stronghold wouldn't overrun our siege weapons. So yeah, tldr: use planar binding with a magic circle to only have to be hit once by an angry elemental.
Since you mentioned the Multiclass options at the end, I have to put my vote down for the Life Domain Cleric. I know you aren't the biggest fan of healing magic, but Disciple of life has silly interactions with the low level druid healing spells, making them useful for the life of the character. More than double the effectiveness of healing spirit, an already great healing spell. QUADROUPLE the effects of goodberry. At high levels when you aren't often using first level spell slots anymore, that's 160 point of healing per long rest out of combat. Add on top of that things like spiritual weapon, aid, revivify, full spell progression and more low level preparations for rituals, and you're good to go. Dip out as early as character level 12 to dodge the dead zone of high level spells, at the cost of just not getting Foresight and a few highly situational abilities for this build.
@@Mr911superstar Honestly the bear totem may be even better. Like Treantmonk said in the video, if you plan on using multiple healing spells in one combat unicorn spirit can outpace the bear depending on the druid level, but the bear does more on a single activation by a good margin, and can be done before anyone actually loses life. Plus none of the Life Cleric's features actually increase the healing of the unicorn spirit or make it trigger more often, only the healing of your spells themselves.
@@shanebernier2483 yes, a lot of the time you'll use your bear totem before a SR though and unicorn tends to be better once combat has actually started because not everyone needs to be in the totem range on cast
A character with Wish (like a wizard) could use that to cast Planar Binding at 8th level to keep an elemental around for half a year. Mostly pie in the sky due to the high level, but still fun to think about.
@@youtubeseagull It's applicability is too poor to be considered broken. It's a great spell in arboreal and grasslands and jungles, but there are a number of common adventuring environments (cities, caves, deserts, tundras, at sea, beaches, roads, mountains) that will make this spell dead weight.
@@maltheopia cool, but a druid can choose to prepare it whenever they think they might need it. The ability to choose between niche spells from their entire spell list every long rest is part of divine casters. They have weaker spellists, but can make the better of it.
Unicorn Spirit+Healing word is one of the best heals ever. It does more healing for the party with a first level spell than mass healing word. If your party is in a real bind using cure wounds+healing word will recover 2*Druid Level to whole party, its great.
I think your initial reading of planar binding was correct. The spell says it extends duration not replaces; otherwise the extend spell metamagic could also remove concentration. That being said, with some summoning spells the creature persists after you lose concentration so you can still force them to follow you after you've dropped concentration.
Hi I'm playing a level 3 Half-Orc Shepherd Druid and want to share a few thoughts. Unicorn spirit does not really come up until level 5 due to the numbers already covered in the comments here. I have a great time going wildshape into a draft horse, putting out bear spirit and grappling my opponent. Even in half-orc form with a 0 modifier i successfully grappled barbarians and 2-headed-wolves. Unicorn spirit (or even hawk) synergizes nicely with the fog cloud spell. Treantmonk put out another video covering that specific spell, but it is up to your DM how they handle the spell. The video does not cover the case of an outside attacker, lets say an archer trying to discern the location of his target inside the cloud. He can not see the target and has to "aim by hearing". However, it is very likely that your DM will ask for some kind of perception-check, giving you a nice edge with your spirit. Bear spirit temporary hit points vanish after 1 minute. Page 198 in the phb covers temporary hitpoints. In the last passage it states: "Unless a feature that grants you temporary hit points has a duration, they last until they're depleted or you finish a long rest". "Unless" is the key word. Bear spirit is a feature that does have a duration of one minute. Therefore the second sentence does not apply. Sorry munchkins. What happens to the temporary hp when you are incapacitated and the spirit vanishes is up to your DM i guess. Other non-number things to keep in mind when chosing between bear and unicorn are: - Spell slot economy. you get the unicorn benefits only if you cast healing spells. do you have another healer in the party? same goes for other sources of temporary hp like hexblade or way of the long death monk which will not stack with your temporary hp. - Action economy. If you are the healing word kind of druid you will have your bonus action occupied for at least 2 rounds. In these rounds you will not be able to move the spirit, which costs a bonus action aswell. Other spells like Magic Stone, Healing Spirit and the ongoing effect of Flaming Sphere and Heat Metal also occupy your bonus action. - A lot of people snuff at the wildshapes as a combat option as long as you are not a Moon Druid. But if you foresee a commencing combat and turn into a beast in time it is a valid option and the bear spirit which you can also summon in beastform (it is not a spell!) will make you tanky enough to outshine the grappliest barbarian or the most ferocious moon druid.
As was noted above, you can use faithful summons by dropping to 0 hit points in wild shape, combine with totem for a once per day nova. Also, a note for all summoners: make friends with a bard, war cleric, or paladin who can cast Crusader's Mantle. Add 1d4 radiant to all your critters' attacks. Played as a war cleric with a bard (with animate objects) and a moon druid who would cast a summon before wild shaping into something with loads of attacks. It was so gnarly I barely used spirit guardians.
I'm playing a Shepard Druid in Curse of Strahd. Went with the class because I wanted something that would keep the rest of the party alive. Unicorn totem turns low level heals into juicy group heals. Bear totem you pop before each short rest for free temp hp. The summoning aspect of the class was just a cherry on top giving my party meatshields.
Probably late with this, but I always reasoned that the entire point of Planar Binding requiring an hour to cast is to sync up with the summon spells. So you summon the critter, work with it for an hour, and now you have two adventuring "days" and a long rest between with a big elemental bodyguard. As a DM it opens doors for me, because my players can secure specialized assistance for more than just 'right now.'
What do people think of multiclassing Shepherd Druid with Warlock and going Pact of the Chain. The new Wild Companion option from Tasha’s allows Druids to summon a familiar as an action. This is crazy good! You can summon a Fey Imp as a ritual. Arm it with a Net and 3 Magic Stones. If you cast Darkness on one of the stones, the Imp can keep it in a pouch to prevent it from blocking sight. The Imp can turn invisible and get within range. Even if it does not hit with the first Magic Stone, the target will be in Darkness. Then the Imp can throw the Net, which will be at Advantage because the target cannot see the attacker. The Imp then follows up with two more Magic Stone attacks. Meanwhile, the Goblin Shepherd Druid is hiding in a safe place. ☺️
@@brynwtsn I love the Genie Warlock! 👍🏻 A Chainlock Familiar could become invisible and carry the Warlock around in their Genie Vessel during rests. If this was an Elf Genie Chainlock, they could take their Long Rests this way. 😊 I forgot that I even came up with the strategy above. LOL! It would be funny to combine Magic Stone with the Crusher feat. Of course, your familiar could not move opponents by hitting them.
Awesome vid Chris! You need a wizard, cleric, or bard to help you out for the conjure elemental planer binding combo. Cast Magic circle then conjure tbe elemental in the circle then start cast planar binding while the elemental is trapped in the circle. Also conjure fey you missed the upcasting of this spell is pretty good. If you cast it at 7th level you can get a Beurr Hag (which has Cone of Cold on its spell list) and the Korrid (which has stone shape at will) Those guys boosted are ctazy and what I would be using my higher level spells slots.
Also works even better with a glamour bard using mantle of inspiration to move creatures without attacks of opportunity through your healing spirit. Heals many creatures and provides temporary hit points pretty quickly while allowing for crazy mobility.
If I had to multiclass, I might go 3 levels of sorcerer. You would need more charisma, but you get metamagic (eg, quickening a summon and pulling off a wildshape in the first round of combat) and get 4 sorcery points. And while you may disagree, you can consume a plentiful first level slot during downtime to regain the sorcery points spent. It's also still granting you more spell slots as you take it, so if you are content with druid spells it is as if nothing happened.
Depending on ability scores I would rather go with Fighter Battle Master. Defense fighting style, Action surge, Second Wind and Parry Manouver + maybe two other manouvers helping your allies or summoned cretures with their attacks.
Stench Kow from Volo's would be a good choice for the wildshape. Though honestly it probably should have a creature type of fiend, RAW it is a variation of the cow without a change to creature type mentioned.
@@absalomvane7776 I was mostly pointing out that by Raw it wouldn't work. I honestly think the restriction is a bit unnecessary, especially since it should be up to the player and DM as to the preference of the PC and the Gods/society. PLUS, mechanically, options for armor are heavily restricted until you get to magic armor.
@@Meroc1993 RAW it does work: All armor and equipment has metal fastenings, so small bits of metal are obviously fine, RAW. Studded leather is primarily animal-based, which fulfills the spirit of the rule.
On further thought, what about a ranger? You get an archetype, 3-4 spells (some for free depending on background) that can take pressure away from your druid spell list, and the spell slots of a 19th level caster. Defensive can boost your AC by 1. And, you already have all the requirements you need for it. I think just a +1 to AC is better than not growing old and casting in wildshape.
Much appreciated. I like a game with drive and focus more than “just” beer and brezeln (fun in their own right, but to each table their own), but it was great to hear my favorite optimancer pick a less obvious choice. I am sketching out a shepherd druid and she insists on being a forest gnome, so be it 😀 thank you for the video
Chris, I started a Shep/goblin after I saw your example in the one shot with the Dungeon Dudes. Very strong summoner. The main issue I have is the fact that i can heal better in combat than most clerics, when a party member drops.... most times other pc's are hurt too, and I tend to get roped into being the party healer .... and that is really not what i am trying to do. But with a healing word as a lvl 7 im tossing down a d4 plus wiz to a dropped character, and 7 to everyone including my animals out there.....hard to not heal your party when they act stupidly even in role play.
You can change your prepared spells at the end of a long rest. I'm playing a circle of the shepherd druid, and I think that one of the druid's main strengths is the ability to preempt what spells are necessary based on your intuitions about the adventure. You seem to imply in the video that the spells you prepare are immutable.
Another great video! When you get to warlock builds unless others ask for it please don’t do the standard Eldritch Blaster or the Glavelock at this point I feel everyone knows that these are 2 “strongest” builds. I’m currently trying to optimize an Incidental damage battle field control warlock.
Just a quick word of encouragement -- love these videos! The build guides are fantastic! Keep up the good work. PS - would love a full (lvl 20) guide to arcane trickster and another for eldritch knight.
I've actually considered that somewhere around 7th level, You take 2 levels cleric Nature Domain. Doesnt affect your overallspell chart, 3 more cleric cantrips, some extra spell choices L1: Druid cantrip and a skill, heavy armor? Great if youve gotten natural material to make plate (chittin, wood, stone, darkleaf, bulette plates?) L2: Channel Divinty: charm animal/plant within 30 ft for a minute. very in theme and there are potential RP and combat situations this might be awesome.
I feel like if you're going to keep your Wisdom at 16, I'd probably just start with a 14 and never raise it. Maybe buy that 15 in Dex to start with a 17 and go +1 Dex/+1 Con at 4th and Resilient Con at 8th for 18 Dex/18 Con.Medium Armor Master could be a good choice too at some point. Once you're high enough level it's not out of the question for you to get a +3 set of Half-Plate made from Dragon scales or Ironbark or something and that'd give you a great armor class. And I would definitely multi-class after 17th level, as the final couple of Druid features feel like they were meant for Circle of the Moon rather than the class itself. I'd probably grab 2 levels of Fighter purely for Action Surge, allowing you to throw out 2 spells in a single round when you really need it. And probably a single level of Cleric, probably Life Domain just to make your heals a little more potent.
Lizardfolk also good for druids because of Hungry Jaws. More a moon thing of course. But having a bonus action attack if the animal has a bite attack is very handy. Plus the Natural armor especially if your DM is a stickler about the whole no metal armor thing and no non metal replacements is really good.
I'm playing a kobold shep druid 14 / life cleric 1 / mastermind rogue 3 Grovel advantage, bonus action help advantage, reaction hawk spirit advantage, fairy fire adv... Unicorn with disciple of life heals, bonus action help advantage, grovel advantage... Bear with earth tremor prone for adv., bonus action help advantage, etc... Plus I have sneak atk & pact tactics. Love this build.
I’m not too worried about seventh and eighth level spell slots. I would use my seventh level slots to conjure a Kord. I would also use my eighth level slots to summon three C hags and make a coven.
At the really high levels where you can cast from wild shape, why wouldn't you want to be a tiny little mouse on someone's shoulder or a bird in the trees?
Racial flight is not bad as some DMs make it out to be, I have found it's quite the double edged sword... It's your job as dm to simply throw flying monsters into the battle if you want to interact. limit ceiling heights in dungeons to make them fight on the ground with their allies. how about a forest with a canopy so thick flight is virtually impossible? no shortage of monsters with ranged attacks and spells either... heck falling can mean the end of the character. I DM a ton and I have never banned/restricted anything. this game has more than enough options to challenge those that want to choose things like races with a flight speed. the real trick is letting them benefit from it just enough to make them feel like they are powerful, or made a good choice. I don't understand the mentality of dms that want to restrict anything. it's your job to make sure players have fun, not tell them no.
Reading your reply again not sure if you saw this. The Disciple of Life feature would make each berry restore 4 hit points, instead of 1, assuming you cast goodberry with a 1st-level slot. (Sage Advice Compendium for fifth edition.) . So if you get 10 berries that is 40 hp of healing.
Except that the goodberry spell doesn't provide direct healing, it creates objects, and those objects have multiple properties that include a healing property. If I cast Fabricate to make an Alchemical lab which I brew healing potions, I wouldn't have them benefit from Disciple of Life either, for the same reason. Although the Fabricate spell would result in the healing indirectly, it would provide objects that have a healing property. I would argue the same of Disciple of Life and the Goodberry spell.
@@TreantmonksTemple Well its from higher ups at wizards of the coast that goodberrys if you a life cleric go from just 1 hp to 4hp so you can argue with them. So is like 10 free potions if you average out the potion rolls. My point to all this is that if you multiclass to get 1 level of life cleric its well worth the effort and nearly doubles your healing abilities.
Level 14 Conjurer / Level 6 Circle of the Shepherd Druid: I can conjure a wall of meat with Conjure Animals/Woodland Creatures! LOOK AT THE NINE HUNDRED HIT POINTS! (CotS summon abilities only works on Fey and Beasts) Regular 20th level Wizard: That's cute. Say, did I show you what I was doing with True Polymorph and Create Undead? I first True Polymorphed a bunch of rocks into Giant Mutated Drow and had them locked up. Then I cast Create Undead at 8th and 9th level to get me five wights. The resting Shenanigans were brutal, but I True Polymorphed the wights into Yakfolk and ordered them to possess the Giant Mutated Drow. Multiclass Wizard: ... Actual Wizard: Of course, Wishing for a Planar Binding spell, backed up by some Feeblemind action, probably would've been better. But I like to diversify, you know? Multiclass Wizard: **sobs** Actual Wizard: You do you, though.
- Thanks for this. Im playing a custom race from TCE that is basically a Koala person shepherd druid. I love summoning just loads of wolves but apparently its annoying for the party and DM so i figured i should look into other summon options. since I'm small I also like summoning a Gargoyle or other flying type to ride around on while i munch on Eucalyptus leaves.
Love the Druid class almost as much as I live the Wizard. Speaking of which, Circle of the Land gets sometimes called a "Nature Wizard". Could you do a video on a Circle of the Land Druid build? Personally, I view such Druids as God Wizards with healing.
Oh wow I had this precise race/class and theme in mind for a new campaign I’m invited to play in. My DM allows us to use the ability point bonus changes rules though. So what are the stat priorities if you can give your goblin racial bonuses in any ability you wish?
I'm really late to commenting on this video, but I just watched it, so there. Regarding Glyph of Warding, the spell states: "If the spell summons hostile creatures or creates harmful objects or traps, they appear as close as possible to the intruder and attack it." Doesn't this imply that it can be used for summoning spells? And if that is the case then you could use planar binding as soon as the glyph summons the creature. If you are concerned about the 6 second difference, you could take Metamagic Adept and get Extend Spell to double the duration to 2 hours while casting into the glyph.
@@TreantmonksTemple Man I LOVE your videos! If I could though, they are all so dang long. 1.5 hours is a big commitment of time for something. I do like how you broke up some builds into T1, T2 and up to level 20. If you could limit each section to say, 15 minutes max, that'd be great. A great example of this is a user by the name of Jorphdan ("the PH is silent). Nice, easily digestible chunks that are interesting to watch. 1.5 hours of a talking head is just....don't get me wrong, you're a handsome fellow, but it's just so bland. Not meaning to bring negativity. I love your videos. :)
@@CraftedVision I'm a subscriber to Jorphdan, and like his channel, though his videos are shorter than mine because he really doesn't touch on mechanics or builds, he's just summarizing lore - which is great for developing character concepts, but I'm more focused on character building. I understand that shorter vids get more views and subs, but I haven't found a way to deliver an actual mechanical build with explanations in short videos at this time, and haven't seen another channel that does either.
i like to go shepherd + melee hybrid. either goblin or mobile. have your summon pack as an impassable obstacle to melee enemies and only difficult terrain for yourself, and also a half cover meatshield against ranged. position strategically around wall and obstacles, grab magic initiate for booming blade, and you can get 1 powerful melee attack + disengage and hide back behind the meatshield every turn. Only vulnerable to AoE, in which case you spread your summons and fall back to hiding/ranged cantrip
i adore unicorn! Shepherd is so fun to play ty ty I'm enjoying my Lizardfolk Druid. I picked CON over DEX but it's working out well with the Dodge action.
So the only reason I didn't take wood elf for my shepherd is that I saw shifter as an option, which is mainly part of my characters lore, but gameplay wise for combat it's really good. "Shifting. As a bonus action, you can assume a more bestial appearance. This transformation lasts for 1 minute, until you die, or until you revert to your normal appearance as a bonus action. When you shift, you gain temporary hit points equal to your level + your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 temporary hit point). You also gain additional benefits that depend on your shifter subrace, described below." Now, my DM and party talked about this and we agreed that you can shift while unconscious as it doesn't mention that you need to be conscious during the transformation, especially since its lycanthropy, meaning those 6 temp hp could save your life. Again, this is just how my DM and party ruled so make sure to talk to your dm if you do consider this.
Time have passed and things have changed. Now with tasha you can be a human and start with (Mist Step and Dissonant Whisper) and the second one give AoO to all you summons... That is SICK!
Tsunami is great ... *IF* you're besieging a castle or engaging a small army of low-CR critters from a great distance and want to bludgeon/drown all of them to death without actually having to engage with them ... because its range is "Sight." Otherwise? Not so much. But you know, if you TRULY dislike all the 8th-level spell choices (and I can understand why that might happen), you can always choose lower-level spells to prepare. A druid at this level might choose Dispel Magic, for example, or Polymorph (STILL a wonderful source of bonus hit points), or even some of the newer spells from Xanathar's or Tasha's.
Hey, couldn't you deliberately provoke or cause damage to your low health "utility" wildshape dropping you to zero hit points, reverting to your caster form and triggering your faithful summons. Potentially if you were already wildshaped from scouting your opening turn in combat could be to run in provoke an opportunity attack drop to zero hit points, trigger your faithful summons, revert to a near full health druid and cast conjure animals and complete clog the battlefield. Great vid, really like the shepherd druid
This build is fine as long as your dm allows Conjure Woodland Beings to work as it reads. My character was completely nerfed by not being allowed to conjure fey creatures due to the pixie exploit.
My moon druid reached his background story goal and I thought I should retire him. My DM allow me to make a new character but I start on level 1 while the rest of the party are level 5. So I made a variant human Shepard druid, got the feat "fey touched" so that I can escape from fights and for the free spell silvery barbs. Now even though I am level 1 (2 now), I saved my wizard from 2 attacks and my rogue from 0 hit points! Can't wait for level 5! I feel the fey touched feat is perfect for Shepard druids!
I usually shy away from the conjure animals and conjure woodland beings and veer towards giant insect. Giant insect, i can control and select what i want (I just carry jars of insects with me that i drop and break then transform). I don't have to deal with the DM being a dick and picking an animal or fey i don't want or what's worse picking a challenge 0 rating even if I pick the CR 2 option since it does say in the spell description it can be a CR 2 or LOWER. I don't mind not getting the level 6 feature if it means I get to select what I need.
Combine unicorn totem, and healing spirit to heal yourself and all people in the totem every turn for a 2nd level slot and concentration slot. Then you can toss out damage and let the passive healing roll in.
Also, Chris thanks for another great video. One thing I wanted to mention that you didn’t bring up, is that if you use your wildshapes, you could be a bird flying above the range of the enemy or be a mouse in your allies pocket, casting spells and avoiding concentration checks because the enemies either can’t hit you or won’t be able to see/tell it’s you casting versus someone else.
How do you work with the choice of summons? That seems to be a make or break for some of the summons spells, mainly woodland creatures. Getting 8 or more Pixies seems way broken.
@@TreantmonksTemple - I thought it was your best one yet. Couple of thoughts - I think you should have referenced your video about being a good player, around the table (with eight Summoned creatures) and added some guides about how to logistically manage them. Although at 90 minutes already, probably should be in a separate video.
Great video, but I honestly think that the Wood Elf would have been the much better choice for a Shepherd Druid in particular. Having that Longbow, especially when you aim for a 16+ DEX score, makes a world of difference and allows you to increase your WIS score more slowly because you won't rely too much on the (fairly bad) Druid cantrips.
What he's saying about Unicorn spirit is that if I heal a creature, "all other creatures get the same healing like the one I've cast healing one", I don't think that's what the description of the spell is though. It seems to me that if you heal creature A, all other creatures in the aura get a heal equal to my druid level (which is NOT the same as the healing that creature A receives). Can anyone let me know if I'm reading it wrong?
Wouldn't casting the water breathing ritual require you to drop your concentration on the conjure animals? Great video though, really like the idea of using the goblin for this.
@@Duranous1 Well I guess it depends on what you count as martial class, as almost every class gets at least some spells. But yes, it's kind of sad really how much better battle master is than any other fighter subclass, like I really WANT to like arcane archer, but them only getting 2 uses of their special shots per rest just really kills it for me. They really could have got similar numbers of uses to them as the Battle Master gets for their manuevers.
I second this sentiment. We've seen plenty of gishes, but it would be interesting to see a build with no spells at all. That said, I'm not sure how much you could really optimize or customize such a build, most of them are pretty linear in their design. Maybe some crazy multiclass?
I love the Shepard Druid. If you get just 1 level of life cleric and you add Healing Spirit (level 3 druid spell) you can heal up after most any fight to 100%.
@@johnl340 I would argue that healing through goodberries is not amplified by life cleric for the same reason that healing through a healing kit created by a fabricate spell would not be amplified by life cleric
@@TreantmonksTempleYeah but that blows a feat. At level 4 (cleric 1 / druid 3) if you cast goodberry at end of the day before a rest you can recast goodberry and have 80 hp of healing (makes goodberry 4 hp each not 1). So you go into combat with 80 hp of healing, you have your normal spells you can use to heal, and once its all over you can pop healing spirit (out of combat) for 10d6 + 40 for each player.
I wouldn't say that warcaster + 10ish con save is enough to guarantee making concentration saves. By that stage of the game, you are going to be running into things like dragons and such, where taking 60+ damage is something that can happen. If you take 60 damage, your DC is 30 and even a nat 20 won't save you (with a +9 save), and even ~40 damage has a fair chance of failure.
Absorb elements is key there. With absorb elements, u can use a reaction to drop that damage to 30, and make ur save a DC 15, which is doable. But yeah eventually the damage is too much and u need better ways than just absorb elements to keep con
Why does a spell with a 1hr casting require your concentration during the casting? I didn't read that in the DMG or PHB. If I am concentrating on a spell and cast a spell with a 1 action casting time, does that also require my concentration during the casting time? If so then I've been playing wrong, and so have you based on your spell selections
‘’Oh shit, a red dragon! Quick, everyone stab the druid!’’
I understand why you discarded Healing Word but one thing to consider, is that when you combine it with Unicorn spirit totem, it heals a ton of damage across the Party... it’s a small mass cure wounds. It’s battle specific for sure, but if the party is facing a lot of damage dealing melee opponents, especially waves of battles, it’s a fantastic combo.
Just a note for anyone reading this, if you play a 14 Wiz Conjurer, and take 6 in Druid Circle of the Shepard you can’t lose your summons due to concentration and have access to two more ability score improvements as they’re no longer tied up. Your summons are also super bugged with HP, an additional 30 HP per unit per Summon, which means your 3rd level 1/4th summons is 8x30=240 HP increase on a 3rd level Spell.
If you Summon 32 using a 9th level spell, 32x30=960
That’s essentially the same as a full team of 20th level characters.
And for those of you who argue that it’s too much HP or that the DM will struggle with it, the DM also has access to AOE spells which destroy these creatures fairly easily. A 9th level fireball will almost guaranteed kill all of those creatures assuming they’re in the radius.
But it’s a lot of fun and I highly recommend trying it.
Do you have a full build on this one? Would like to see how to progress it
Not many people get the opportunity to play a lvl 20 chqracter. While in theory your logic is solid, in practice no one will ever build that.
@@pencilbender it’s much better for a lvl 20 one shot.
Another good video - appreciate the time given to the “why” of your choices and indication of alternatives, it makes me consider various characters and playstyles/flavours while watching. Thank you for all the work - I so enjoy them, great that you have the inclination (and presumably an understanding family ☺️)
Very supportive family!
Tier 1 and 2 Moon druid: I am practically a god.
Tier 3 druid falling off a huge cliff as a goldfish: I am practically a god. *splats* *dies*
Jumping, not falling.
@@havasimark that is a very good point. Intentionally jumping, even.
Suffice it to say, drugs are bad. Even if you are a very talented voice actor (or married to a very talented voice actor)
GameNinjaD All hail the square-cube law.
F's in the chat for Kelith lol
I love her character though.
Another race I think would be very strong for this build, if it is available, is the Tortle. Strength Bonus isn't great, but you get Wisdom, and more importantly you get the best AC available to any druid.
I was wondering the same thing. Like the goblin build seems cool, but Tortle not even being mentioned in the possible races seemed weird. 19 AC without any special equipment or metal armor, a Wisdom boost... even Shell Defense seems situationally useful for the +4 AC and advantage on Con saves.
Tortle would be a good choice. I forgot about it because I don't have the Tortle package on beyond.
@@TreantmonksTemple Lizardfolk is great too. Starting a Lizardfolk Shepherd in Tomb of Annihilation on Sunday!
I play Lore Bard, a Life Cleric and a Shepherd Druid. I chose Shepherd because they make the Best Summoners. This Vid is must watch!!! The Concentration Duration discussion is interesting. How i would DM it would be Thematic. To bind something to this plane would require conc.
Treantmonk...I'd love to see your recommendations for a Summoning multiclass build
I'm surprised at how you address the upper level slots. While it is true that there aren't a lot of really desirable high level spells for Druids, there is also nothing FORCING you to choose spells of those levels. The spells you prepare can be any level which you can cast. Combine this with the fact that many lower and mid level Druids are very effective when upcast means that those upper level slots will NEVER be wasted, even if you never use a spell of that particular level.
Also surprised that you didn't go over Awaken as a significant Druid spell. Yes, the cost is high. But if you treat it well during its "charmed" period, you can end up with a permanent companion of rather significant presence.
Think all of that went without saying
@@lukecarroll4052 not at all. Rather, he refers to the upper levels as the weakening of the Druid, specifically because of the lack of impressive higher level spells. But, for instance, casting Conjure Woodland Beings at 8th level gives you 3 Sea Hags. On their own, each is a solid summons. But by getting 3, their coven features come into play, making them function as a 12th level caster with a decent array of wizard spells.
Or even simply upcasting Conjure Animals to create a massive wall of fur and fangs can be an encounter ending spell.
Since this entire video was focusing on the Druid as a conjurer, I would have thought that there would be a greater emphasis on the power of upcasting the conjure spells, and that the Shepherd's conjuring enhancements are multiplied by upcasting these spells. It really is a 1+1=3 scenario.
@@ChristnThms yes but I mean the option to take lower level spells to upcast is always there, I mean if you already got everything you need from a spell level, you're probably gonna flick back, tbh utility spells are sometimes just as good as an upcast able spell, because some of them will always be useful which is built in scaling.
@@lukecarroll4052 of course. But most spells become less and less efficient when upcast, especially when you have more lower level slots than higher level slots. Not only do conjure spells upcast very effectively, but they're not casting stat dependant, which makes them more reliable in effect against many types of higher level opponents.
From this perspective, the lack of highly desirable high level spells in the Druid list is largely irrelevant. In many cases, especially for the Shepherd Druid, even a 9th level slot used for a conjuring spell is well spent.
@@ChristnThms Well you get more creatures when up cast, but they don't get more powerful.
Mike Mearls has said you can move a weapon to the shield hand during the casting of the spell
Just to be clear this was said by him in early days of the edition, Crawford is the main rules guy, but even at the time both of them seemed unsure about this.
They both claimed weird things I.E if a spell requires somatic and material a cleric and paladin could cast it while wielding a weapon and shield(as a focus), but that a somatic only spell wouldn't be able to be cast because the shield only provides material components... Which doesn't make sense at all, Mike also advised at this time to just hold both weapon and shield in the same hand while you cast somaticly. I guess at the end of the day it's as restrictive as you want to make it, if you think it adds interesting elements or if it is just frustrating
If you use an inverted magic circle you don't need to concentrate on both conjure elemental and planar binding at the same time. You drop concentration and it can't escape while you bind it. The whole point is to have more than one, all concentration free, giving you the option of forming an army of elementals, celestials, feys, and fiends if you want. You can also do the same with beasts by casting awaken multiple times. Think of binding as the wizard equivalency to the druids awaken. The main limiting factor is the component costs
The main limiting factor is your DM. Here is what I wrote before on this.
smbakeresq
1 week ago
Maybe it’s just me but Planar Binding works both ways. Let’s say you summon an Glabrezu and bind them for a year. The creature of course would resent the service. It seems to me in a year of doing your bidding and being in your presence a creature with 19 Int and 17 Wis would know:
Your race, alignment, ability scores, level, every spell it has seen you cast, every person it has seen interact with, favored tactics, your most treasured magic items and possessions, approximate wealth and location of some of that wealth, the places you frequent, your allies (and most details about them as appropriate), your motivations, what you have been doing for the year and some of your future plans, all magic items that have ever been in its presence (detect magic at will) and their location, the locations it has been for you and an idea of why they are important to you, any security measures it has seen. That’s as a start, the player might say things more specific in its presence.
Of course it would highly motivated to remember such things to use against you in the future as you forced its servitude.
Bound creatures also know they cant permanently die if not on their native plane, so if it needs to it can always through itself into combat in furtherance of whatever mission you gave it hoping to die, this breaking your control as it returns to its native plane.
Be careful is my advice as a player. As a DM I would also say be careful and thanks for all the plot and adventure hooks you just gave me.
4 giant wasp in melee with someone who is not resistant to poison is an easy kill.
While the bard thanked the yeti (a big one, was commanding other yeti), the druid summoned them behind it. A Tasha's laughter after, he lost half of his hit points.
Currently playing a 6th lvl Circle of the Shepard Druid/1st lvl Life Cleric. I took Magic Initiate to get an Fey Owl Familiar to deliver my cure wounds while I stay back from combat. I’m enjoying be a support caster with summons so far.
So I know that the Annis Hag is not in the monster manual, but I’m surprised you didn’t mention her at all for conjure fey. She’s the only Cr 6 fey, so you’re pretty much guaranteed to get her when you cast the spell, and she has some brutal attack options. Especially that crushing hug, which can really lock a creature down while doing lots of damage. She also has resistance to cold damage and damage from nonmagical weapons. Interestingly, cold damage is the only damage type that none of the 4 cr5 elementals are resistant to, so if you want to summon a big creature while fighting something like an ice dragon, you pretty much need an Annis Hag. I definitely appreciate conjure fey more than I used since the Annis hag, (and to a lesser extent the Bheur hag) should be available in most campaigns.
Summoned creatures are generally up to the DM so you aren't nearly guaranteed anything.
Ik this isnt a wizard video, but just because you talked about planar binding, and in my opinion the intent is that the longer durations dont require concentration. Imo of course.
But just imagine a wizard with a few days of extra downtime: Cast conjure elemental at higher level to get invisible stalker, make sure you can see invisibility, and then use wish to cast planar binding at 8th lvl. Over the course of however many days you could have invisible stalkers floating above you for 180 days minus a few days. This combo works for any summons wanted.
Chris, love you SO MUCH!! You've done some lovely videos focused on Druids lately. I WISH this one had been JUST on Shepherd Druids. I feel like Moon & Shepherd are the MAIN classes. I've listened to THIS video several times, but I didn't build my Shepherd Druid exactly like this, and I'm a new player trying to learn.💙
An hour and a half! Holy shit I better get provisions.
You only need to prepare Goodberries
You mean you don't change the speed to 2X? I guess for a long time I went with 1.75X but with practice I am up to max now.
A Chrome Add-in (UA-cam Playback Speed Control) now lets me run the speed even faster most videos I run at 2.75 speed. If I can't follow that speeed I bring it down to 2.25. I only use 1x speed for music now.
Take a short rest halfway through
I think your underestimating Fire Storm, like sure, the damage isn't super amazing, but it has long range and affects a huge area, and more important, you have pretty good control in how you shape that area, which usually allows you to hit all enemies without hitting allies, and of course it doesn't require concentration either.
Perfect! I'm making a Shepherd Druid for my next game so this is perfect.
Kobold all the way. You get pack-tactics AND you can beg and get whole party/summoned animals advantage
Pack-tactics is pretty mediocre for Shepherd after level 5.
... Unicorn heals yourself as well as the party, and at level 5 that's 20 pts of healing (if a party of 4) every round. Every party member, except you, feels invincible because they ALL can be downed and then revived on the druid's turn effortlessly without having a the heal spell on them directly and get back up and take their actions on their turn. That's ten rounds of healing, reviving, jack in box invincible friends that can't die inside your aura (IF they don't die from massive damage or enemy attacking a downed creature etc, disintegrated). It's also handy to power level NPC's w/o losing them.
but sure. I"ll pick the Bear totem for sure at the start of the game, without question it's the stronger option to start.
I think the way it works is like this: Bear totem is better till about level 4 or 5, then Unicorn does more HP in 3 rounds of combat etc. and thereafter the Unicorn is OP for its aura of heal. Even though my summons don't benefit, my teammates were begging me to "use that Elk thingy, yea yea". (b/c i reskinned the spirit to be an elk) They could not do without it.
*Looking back on this post. I think i fail to mention the action economy of choosing Bear Spirit, as well as the benefit to summon's toughness. I think i will use it in the near future for a change of pace.
I'm playing a Firbolg Shepherd Druid, currently of 9th level.
I disagree with the totem choice. If you don't have the luxury of resting just before a battle, Unicorn Totem is way better, and I'll explain why.
As of level 5, when I cast at least two healing spells in a fight or more the Unicorn Totem provides more healing than the Bear Totem's temp HP, plus if several ally characters has fallen to 0 HP I can heal them all up in one casting of my healing word while still keeping a relatively safe distance from the melee threat.
Bear Totem is great to cast just before the party takes a short or a long rest.
I did not find any particular use for the Hawk Totem in battle because the bonus I get from the Unicorn Totem is FAR superior, nor do I want to "waste" my one use of Spirit Totem on an off-battle scenario.
That's the rub, isn't it? When you cast healing spells. If they're curing as an Action, they don't have a lot of things to do with their bonus action unless they're doing something like Wrath of Nature and their cantrips (if they cast Healing Word) by and large chew, especially at higher levels. So basically, a round where you use Unicorn Totem is usually a round where you contribute no meaningful offense. Bear Totem gives you the temporary hp plus frees up your action for offense.
@@maltheopia Temp HPs stay up until you finish a short rest, so you cast it on your whole party, then short rest, and use the Unicorn Totem during battle.
I'm currently running a Wildhunt Shifter Shepherd druid with a one level dip into Life Cleric. The group healing you can get out of the unicorn spirit, paired with having your casted heals being more potent really amps up party survivability. And if you can craft scrolls or have someone who can craft healing word scrolls, you can reliably keep the party topped off in combat, saving your spell slots for big heals, summons, or area control. Not to mention you have your Wildhunt shift to prevent enemies from getting advantage when attacking you, and it gives you a good temp HP chunk. I also didn't start with any weapon, as I took Primal Savagery for my melee needs, and I took Resilient Constitution as my lv 4 feat. And once I hit druid level 8, I will take Fey Touched to round up my Wisdom from 17 to 18, getting me the all important Misty Step, and I am debating on either Dissonant whispers or Identify as my lv 1 pick-up. Also with that one level dip into life cleric, I have access to Sanctuary, so that is going to be huge for helping deter enemies from attacking me while I'm concentrating if they ever do manage to get up to me.
Beast Spells can actually pretty sneaky with this build. Sneak into a room as a little spider, climb up onto the ceiling and surprise your foes when suddenly a faint squeaking noise occurs above them, and a small spider begins to glow with magical energy. In an instant, 8 snarling wolves pounce upon the Orcs that were previously dining in this room. Caught by surprise, they are annihilated in a matter of seconds.
Point being you can basically summon creatures into other areas while hiding in plain sight as an Insect.
Although you can concentrate in wildshape, until you are 18th level, you can't cast spells.
@@TreantmonksTemple Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was specifically referring to the Beast Spells ability you get at 18th level, which you noted is not all that great for a druid that hardly uses its wildshape.
Having had another look, I think the most optimal build for this would be to play a Warforged Envoy and multiclass Cleric for heavy armor proficiency. Druids won't wear metal armor, but that doesn't exclude the heavy plating (not being worn), and heavy plating + a shield gives you an AC of 18+proficiency, plus a free skill, tool, language, and the various perks of not being alive. You also get the perfect stats for this with +1 Con, Wis, and Dex. If you wanted to, you could even pump Dex and use the light armor variation, which outclasses studded leather. I would take one level of cleric around level 6, after we get our level 3 slot for conjure animals, and the other two levels at 19 and 20.
I literally cheered at the racial choice! Love them gobbies. One day I’ll get to play my goblin Illusion wizard, Trigera.
Not sure if mentioned before or if it makes much difference, but your Circle of the Shepherd abilities only affects Beasts and Fey. This wasn't explicitly stated when talking about Conjure Elemental or during the comparison to Conjure Fey.
This means that the Elementals don't get the magical attacks, bonus hit points, or regeneration meanwhile the Mammoth would. You also can't speak with the Elementals unless you picked up Primordial language somewhere while you get Sylvan inherently. Not sure if it makes up for the resistances or mobility bonuses, but something to keep in mind.
Love your videos, by the way!
That is a good point about the Mighty Summons! As for the language, I kind of get the impression from the spell it can understand you.
> In an entire campaign, you're probably going to be able to count the number of times you lose your concentration on one hand.
You'll remember those few times, tho, because those were the times your party members had their bones cracked open and the marrow sucked out by various horrific abominations, but looking at it "glass half-full," those times were few and far between!
If you cast Conjure Fey with a 7th level slot you could get a Bheur Hag or the Korred.
btw, slightly off topic. A magical Staff of Striking is quite strong in a druid's hands. Doesn't have to be for a monk. It allows a druid to melee alongside summons
37:20; You cannot. Casting a spell with a casting time of more than one action (including a ritual) breaks concentration, so you can't give your conjured animals water breathing.
Though you could with a spell slot I guess.
Just a thought about the planar binding discussion. The way my group runs Planar Binding (mostly only me because I'm the only one crazy enough to do it) is that once you start casting Planar Binding, you drop concentration on Conjure Elemental. When that happens the Elemental will want to escape. I use an inverted magic circle to trap the elemental. Because of the 1 action casting time for a number of these moving pieces, what happens is that there is a 7 second window between Magic Circle (1 hour duration) dropping and the effect of Planar binding (1 hour + 1 action casting time) causing the Elemental to make its save. With that one round instance, the elemental is no longer under the effect of Magic Circle and has a single chance to kill my concentration before making it's save (which fails like 85% of the time). I love playing my Elven Bladesinging Wizard with Warcaster and Resilience CON because what happens is that I do this little trick right before a 4 hour rest (upcasting Planar Binding when possible so I repeat this trick for many buddies) and even if I'm using a 9th level spell slot to summon a frost salamander, my concentration can't be broken when putting up my Bladesong right at the end of the casting time. I did this little trick using CR 9 Elementals and 8th level binding spells to give myself 6 Frost Salamanders to back me up in the final siege (a brutal 23 hour combat run split over multiple sessions) and you bet your sweet bippy I help the line. Used everything I had to do it but our rebel forces made sure that stronghold wouldn't overrun our siege weapons. So yeah, tldr: use planar binding with a magic circle to only have to be hit once by an angry elemental.
Since you mentioned the Multiclass options at the end, I have to put my vote down for the Life Domain Cleric. I know you aren't the biggest fan of healing magic, but Disciple of life has silly interactions with the low level druid healing spells, making them useful for the life of the character. More than double the effectiveness of healing spirit, an already great healing spell. QUADROUPLE the effects of goodberry. At high levels when you aren't often using first level spell slots anymore, that's 160 point of healing per long rest out of combat. Add on top of that things like spiritual weapon, aid, revivify, full spell progression and more low level preparations for rituals, and you're good to go. Dip out as early as character level 12 to dodge the dead zone of high level spells, at the cost of just not getting Foresight and a few highly situational abilities for this build.
Not to mention how good healing word+ life domain+ unicorn totem is
@@Mr911superstar Honestly the bear totem may be even better. Like Treantmonk said in the video, if you plan on using multiple healing spells in one combat unicorn spirit can outpace the bear depending on the druid level, but the bear does more on a single activation by a good margin, and can be done before anyone actually loses life. Plus none of the Life Cleric's features actually increase the healing of the unicorn spirit or make it trigger more often, only the healing of your spells themselves.
@@shanebernier2483 yes, a lot of the time you'll use your bear totem before a SR though and unicorn tends to be better once combat has actually started because not everyone needs to be in the totem range on cast
A character with Wish (like a wizard) could use that to cast Planar Binding at 8th level to keep an elemental around for half a year. Mostly pie in the sky due to the high level, but still fun to think about.
Hey Chris, what about Plant Growth? (level 3 spell). No concentration and it is fantastic battlefield control.
ditto. It's actually broken
@@youtubeseagull It's applicability is too poor to be considered broken. It's a great spell in arboreal and grasslands and jungles, but there are a number of common adventuring environments (cities, caves, deserts, tundras, at sea, beaches, roads, mountains) that will make this spell dead weight.
@@maltheopia true! I wonder if a friendly DM would let it apply to fungi and give it a minimized effect.
Always carry a bag of seeds, plant growth even in desert.
@@maltheopia cool, but a druid can choose to prepare it whenever they think they might need it. The ability to choose between niche spells from their entire spell list every long rest is part of divine casters. They have weaker spellists, but can make the better of it.
Unicorn Spirit+Healing word is one of the best heals ever. It does more healing for the party with a first level spell than mass healing word. If your party is in a real bind using cure wounds+healing word will recover 2*Druid Level to whole party, its great.
You just can't use both spells in the same round, if you use healing word you can only cast a cantrip as the second spell
Sorry, I forgot since my table doesn’t use the one spell a turn rule.
Personally, I'd use aura of vitality over healing word
I think your initial reading of planar binding was correct. The spell says it extends duration not replaces; otherwise the extend spell metamagic could also remove concentration.
That being said, with some summoning spells the creature persists after you lose concentration so you can still force them to follow you after you've dropped concentration.
Hi I'm playing a level 3 Half-Orc Shepherd Druid and want to share a few thoughts.
Unicorn spirit does not really come up until level 5 due to the numbers already covered in the comments here. I have a great time going wildshape into a draft horse, putting out bear spirit and grappling my opponent. Even in half-orc form with a 0 modifier i successfully grappled barbarians and 2-headed-wolves.
Unicorn spirit (or even hawk) synergizes nicely with the fog cloud spell. Treantmonk put out another video covering that specific spell, but it is up to your DM how they handle the spell. The video does not cover the case of an outside attacker, lets say an archer trying to discern the location of his target inside the cloud. He can not see the target and has to "aim by hearing". However, it is very likely that your DM will ask for some kind of perception-check, giving you a nice edge with your spirit.
Bear spirit temporary hit points vanish after 1 minute. Page 198 in the phb covers temporary hitpoints. In the last passage it states: "Unless a feature that grants you temporary hit points has a duration, they last until they're depleted or you finish a long rest". "Unless" is the key word. Bear spirit is a feature that does have a duration of one minute. Therefore the second sentence does not apply. Sorry munchkins. What happens to the temporary hp when you are incapacitated and the spirit vanishes is up to your DM i guess.
Other non-number things to keep in mind when chosing between bear and unicorn are:
- Spell slot economy. you get the unicorn benefits only if you cast healing spells. do you have another healer in the party? same goes for other sources of temporary hp like hexblade or way of the long death monk which will not stack with your temporary hp.
- Action economy. If you are the healing word kind of druid you will have your bonus action occupied for at least 2 rounds. In these rounds you will not be able to move the spirit, which costs a bonus action aswell. Other spells like Magic Stone, Healing Spirit and the ongoing effect of Flaming Sphere and Heat Metal also occupy your bonus action.
- A lot of people snuff at the wildshapes as a combat option as long as you are not a Moon Druid. But if you foresee a commencing combat and turn into a beast in time it is a valid option and the bear spirit which you can also summon in beastform (it is not a spell!) will make you tanky enough to outshine the grappliest barbarian or the most ferocious moon druid.
As was noted above, you can use faithful summons by dropping to 0 hit points in wild shape, combine with totem for a once per day nova.
Also, a note for all summoners: make friends with a bard, war cleric, or paladin who can cast Crusader's Mantle. Add 1d4 radiant to all your critters' attacks. Played as a war cleric with a bard (with animate objects) and a moon druid who would cast a summon before wild shaping into something with loads of attacks. It was so gnarly I barely used spirit guardians.
I'm playing a Shepard Druid in Curse of Strahd.
Went with the class because I wanted something that would keep the rest of the party alive.
Unicorn totem turns low level heals into juicy group heals.
Bear totem you pop before each short rest for free temp hp.
The summoning aspect of the class was just a cherry on top giving my party meatshields.
Probably late with this, but I always reasoned that the entire point of Planar Binding requiring an hour to cast is to sync up with the summon spells. So you summon the critter, work with it for an hour, and now you have two adventuring "days" and a long rest between with a big elemental bodyguard.
As a DM it opens doors for me, because my players can secure specialized assistance for more than just 'right now.'
Unicorn spirit seems very good if you're summoning grappling creatures or have grappling teammates.
What do people think of multiclassing Shepherd Druid with Warlock and going Pact of the Chain. The new Wild Companion option from Tasha’s allows Druids to summon a familiar as an action. This is crazy good!
You can summon a Fey Imp as a ritual. Arm it with a Net and 3 Magic Stones. If you cast Darkness on one of the stones, the Imp can keep it in a pouch to prevent it from blocking sight. The Imp can turn invisible and get within range. Even if it does not hit with the first Magic Stone, the target will be in Darkness. Then the Imp can throw the Net, which will be at Advantage because the target cannot see the attacker. The Imp then follows up with two more Magic Stone attacks.
Meanwhile, the Goblin Shepherd Druid is hiding in a safe place. ☺️
A real safe place if you chose the genie option.
@@brynwtsn I love the Genie Warlock! 👍🏻
A Chainlock Familiar could become invisible and carry the Warlock around in their Genie Vessel during rests.
If this was an Elf Genie Chainlock, they could take their Long Rests this way. 😊
I forgot that I even came up with the strategy above. LOL!
It would be funny to combine Magic Stone with the Crusher feat.
Of course, your familiar could not move opponents by hitting them.
Perfect video for building a one shot at any level on this subclass
Awesome vid Chris! You need a wizard, cleric, or bard to help you out for the conjure elemental planer binding combo. Cast Magic circle then conjure tbe elemental in the circle then start cast planar binding while the elemental is trapped in the circle.
Also conjure fey you missed the upcasting of this spell is pretty good. If you cast it at 7th level you can get a Beurr Hag (which has Cone of Cold on its spell list) and the Korrid (which has stone shape at will) Those guys boosted are ctazy and what I would be using my higher level spells slots.
Life cleric dip, disciple feature requires only use, not casting of a healing spell.
Disciple of Life
Also starting at 1st level, your healing spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell’s level.
Goodberry
1st lvl slot= 1+3, x10
2nd lvl slot= 1+4, x10
3rd lvl slot= 1+5, x10
4th lvl slot= 1+6, x10
5th lvl slot= 1+7, x10
6th lvl slot= 1+8, x10
7th lvl slot= 1+9, x10
8th lvl slot= 1+10, x10
9th lvl slot= 1+11, x10
Healing spirit, 1 minute
2nd lvl slot= 1d6+4
3rd lvl slot= 2d6+5
4th lvl slot= 3d6+6
5th lvl slot= 4d6+7
6th lvl slot= 5d6+8
7th lvl slot= 6d6+9
8th lvl slot= 7d6+10
9th lvl slot= 8d6+11
Healing word
1st lvl slot= 1d4+wis+3
2nd lvl slot= 2d4+wis+4
3rd lvl slot= 3d4+wis+5
4th lvl slot= 4d4+wis+6
5th lvl slot= 5d4+wis+7
6th lvl slot= 6d4+wis+8
7th lvl slot= 7d4+wis+9
8th lvl slot= 8d4+wis+10
9th lvl slot= 9d4+wis+11
Cure wounds
1st lvl slot= 1d8+wis+3
2nd lvl slot= 2d8+wis+4
3rd lvl slot= 3d8+wis+5
4th lvl slot= 4d8+wis+6
5th lvl slot= 5d8+wis+7
6th lvl slot= 6d8+wis+8
7th lvl slot= 7d8+wis+9
8th lvl slot= 8d8+wis+10
9th lvl slot= 9d8+wis+11
Mass cure wounds
5th lvl slot= 3d8+wis+7
6th lvl slot= 4d8+wis+8
7th lvl slot= 5d8+wis+9
8th lvl slot= 6d8+wis+10
9th lvl slot= 7d8+wis+11
Heal
6th lvl slot= 70+8
7th lvl slot= 80+9
8th lvl slot= 90+10
9th lvl slot= 100+11
Regenerate 1 hour
7th lvl slot= 4d8+15+9, +1 every turn+9
8th lvl slot= 4d8+15+10 , +1 every turn+10
9th lvl slot= 4d8+15+11 , +1 every turn+11
The majority of those spells can make use of unicorn spirit as well.
Toll the dead, word of radiance, and thaumaturgy cantrips.
If your DM doesn’t use the errata, sanctuary will do wonders to beef up your defense while your summons do their job.
I like using the warforged to bypass the armor restriction of Druids. Also don’t need strength to utilize the integrated armor feature
Also works even better with a glamour bard using mantle of inspiration to move creatures without attacks of opportunity through your healing spirit. Heals many creatures and provides temporary hit points pretty quickly while allowing for crazy mobility.
If I had to multiclass, I might go 3 levels of sorcerer. You would need more charisma, but you get metamagic (eg, quickening a summon and pulling off a wildshape in the first round of combat) and get 4 sorcery points. And while you may disagree, you can consume a plentiful first level slot during downtime to regain the sorcery points spent. It's also still granting you more spell slots as you take it, so if you are content with druid spells it is as if nothing happened.
Depending on ability scores I would rather go with Fighter Battle Master. Defense fighting style, Action surge, Second Wind and Parry Manouver + maybe two other manouvers helping your allies or summoned cretures with their attacks.
Stench Kow from Volo's would be a good choice for the wildshape. Though honestly it probably should have a creature type of fiend, RAW it is a variation of the cow without a change to creature type mentioned.
Or an Arctic Stink Squirrel! 🦨
I know it's a bit late to the party, but you mentioned studded leather as an option for the druid. Studded Leather, by definition, has metal studs.
And belts have metal buckles, that doesn't mean druids walk around naked. An DM who's THAT pedantic would be a misery to play with.
@@absalomvane7776 I was mostly pointing out that by Raw it wouldn't work. I honestly think the restriction is a bit unnecessary, especially since it should be up to the player and DM as to the preference of the PC and the Gods/society. PLUS, mechanically, options for armor are heavily restricted until you get to magic armor.
@@Meroc1993 RAW it does work: All armor and equipment has metal fastenings, so small bits of metal are obviously fine, RAW. Studded leather is primarily animal-based, which fulfills the spirit of the rule.
On further thought, what about a ranger? You get an archetype, 3-4 spells (some for free depending on background) that can take pressure away from your druid spell list, and the spell slots of a 19th level caster. Defensive can boost your AC by 1. And, you already have all the requirements you need for it. I think just a +1 to AC is better than not growing old and casting in wildshape.
Much appreciated. I like a game with drive and focus more than “just” beer and brezeln (fun in their own right, but to each table their own), but it was great to hear my favorite optimancer pick a less obvious choice. I am sketching out a shepherd druid and she insists on being a forest gnome, so be it 😀 thank you for the video
Chris, I started a Shep/goblin after I saw your example in the one shot with the Dungeon Dudes. Very strong summoner. The main issue I have is the fact that i can heal better in combat than most clerics, when a party member drops.... most times other pc's are hurt too, and I tend to get roped into being the party healer .... and that is really not what i am trying to do. But with a healing word as a lvl 7 im tossing down a d4 plus wiz to a dropped character, and 7 to everyone including my animals out there.....hard to not heal your party when they act stupidly even in role play.
You can change your prepared spells at the end of a long rest. I'm playing a circle of the shepherd druid, and I think that one of the druid's main strengths is the ability to preempt what spells are necessary based on your intuitions about the adventure. You seem to imply in the video that the spells you prepare are immutable.
the new meta magic feat let's you use extended spell to increase your summons duration x2. seems a good option for a feat.
Another great video! When you get to warlock builds unless others ask for it please don’t do the standard Eldritch Blaster or the Glavelock at this point I feel everyone knows that these are 2 “strongest” builds. I’m currently trying to optimize an Incidental damage battle field control warlock.
Just a quick word of encouragement -- love these videos! The build guides are fantastic! Keep up the good work. PS - would love a full (lvl 20) guide to arcane trickster and another for eldritch knight.
I've actually considered that somewhere around 7th level, You take 2 levels cleric Nature Domain. Doesnt affect your overallspell chart, 3 more cleric cantrips, some extra spell choices
L1: Druid cantrip and a skill, heavy armor? Great if youve gotten natural material to make plate
(chittin, wood, stone, darkleaf, bulette plates?)
L2: Channel Divinty: charm animal/plant within 30 ft for a minute.
very in theme and there are potential RP and combat situations this might
be awesome.
I feel like if you're going to keep your Wisdom at 16, I'd probably just start with a 14 and never raise it. Maybe buy that 15 in Dex to start with a 17 and go +1 Dex/+1 Con at 4th and Resilient Con at 8th for 18 Dex/18 Con.Medium Armor Master could be a good choice too at some point. Once you're high enough level it's not out of the question for you to get a +3 set of Half-Plate made from Dragon scales or Ironbark or something and that'd give you a great armor class. And I would definitely multi-class after 17th level, as the final couple of Druid features feel like they were meant for Circle of the Moon rather than the class itself. I'd probably grab 2 levels of Fighter purely for Action Surge, allowing you to throw out 2 spells in a single round when you really need it. And probably a single level of Cleric, probably Life Domain just to make your heals a little more potent.
Lizardfolk also good for druids because of Hungry Jaws. More a moon thing of course. But having a bonus action attack if the animal has a bite attack is very handy. Plus the Natural armor especially if your DM is a stickler about the whole no metal armor thing and no non metal replacements is really good.
What about the stench cow? best wildshape for non moon druids
I didn't see your comment before I commented, sorry I repeated you.
I'm playing a kobold shep druid 14 / life cleric 1 / mastermind rogue 3
Grovel advantage, bonus action help advantage, reaction hawk spirit advantage, fairy fire adv...
Unicorn with disciple of life heals, bonus action help advantage, grovel advantage...
Bear with earth tremor prone for adv., bonus action help advantage, etc...
Plus I have sneak atk & pact tactics. Love this build.
I’m not too worried about seventh and eighth level spell slots. I would use my seventh level slots to conjure a Kord. I would also use my eighth level slots to summon three C hags and make a coven.
At the really high levels where you can cast from wild shape, why wouldn't you want to be a tiny little mouse on someone's shoulder or a bird in the trees?
With reference to unicorn spirit detection of enemies, spells like disguise self might require intelligence/ investigation to see through illusions
Racial flight is not bad as some DMs make it out to be, I have found it's quite the double edged sword... It's your job as dm to simply throw flying monsters into the battle if you want to interact. limit ceiling heights in dungeons to make them fight on the ground with their allies. how about a forest with a canopy so thick flight is virtually impossible? no shortage of monsters with ranged attacks and spells either... heck falling can mean the end of the character. I DM a ton and I have never banned/restricted anything. this game has more than enough options to challenge those that want to choose things like races with a flight speed. the real trick is letting them benefit from it just enough to make them feel like they are powerful, or made a good choice. I don't understand the mentality of dms that want to restrict anything. it's your job to make sure players have fun, not tell them no.
Reading your reply again not sure if you saw this. The Disciple of Life feature would make each berry restore 4 hit points, instead of 1, assuming you cast goodberry with a 1st-level slot. (Sage Advice Compendium for fifth edition.)
. So if you get 10 berries that is 40 hp of healing.
Except that the goodberry spell doesn't provide direct healing, it creates objects, and those objects have multiple properties that include a healing property. If I cast Fabricate to make an Alchemical lab which I brew healing potions, I wouldn't have them benefit from Disciple of Life either, for the same reason. Although the Fabricate spell would result in the healing indirectly, it would provide objects that have a healing property. I would argue the same of Disciple of Life and the Goodberry spell.
@@TreantmonksTemple Well its from higher ups at wizards of the coast that goodberrys if you a life cleric go from just 1 hp to 4hp so you can argue with them. So is like 10 free potions if you average out the potion rolls. My point to all this is that if you multiclass to get 1 level of life cleric its well worth the effort and nearly doubles your healing abilities.
Level 14 Conjurer / Level 6 Circle of the Shepherd Druid: I can conjure a wall of meat with Conjure Animals/Woodland Creatures! LOOK AT THE NINE HUNDRED HIT POINTS! (CotS summon abilities only works on Fey and Beasts)
Regular 20th level Wizard: That's cute. Say, did I show you what I was doing with True Polymorph and Create Undead? I first True Polymorphed a bunch of rocks into Giant Mutated Drow and had them locked up. Then I cast Create Undead
at 8th and 9th level to get me five wights. The resting Shenanigans were brutal, but I True Polymorphed the wights into Yakfolk and ordered them to possess the Giant Mutated Drow.
Multiclass Wizard: ...
Actual Wizard: Of course, Wishing for a Planar Binding spell, backed up by some Feeblemind action, probably would've been better. But I like to diversify, you know?
Multiclass Wizard: **sobs**
Actual Wizard: You do you, though.
- Thanks for this. Im playing a custom race from TCE that is basically a Koala person shepherd druid. I love summoning just loads of wolves but apparently its annoying for the party and DM so i figured i should look into other summon options. since I'm small I also like summoning a Gargoyle or other flying type to ride around on while i munch on Eucalyptus leaves.
Love the Druid class almost as much as I live the Wizard. Speaking of which, Circle of the Land gets sometimes called a "Nature Wizard". Could you do a video on a Circle of the Land Druid build?
Personally, I view such Druids as God Wizards with healing.
I may at some point, though it's not on my short list right now.
@@TreantmonksTemple oh, sure. The Wizard builds series is top priority.
Oh wow I had this precise race/class and theme in mind for a new campaign I’m invited to play in. My DM allows us to use the ability point bonus changes rules though. So what are the stat priorities if you can give your goblin racial bonuses in any ability you wish?
Probably the same
I'm really late to commenting on this video, but I just watched it, so there. Regarding Glyph of Warding, the spell states: "If the spell summons hostile creatures or creates harmful objects or traps, they appear as close as possible to the intruder and attack it."
Doesn't this imply that it can be used for summoning spells? And if that is the case then you could use planar binding as soon as the glyph summons the creature. If you are concerned about the 6 second difference, you could take Metamagic Adept and get Extend Spell to double the duration to 2 hours while casting into the glyph.
This is a great video. Could we also get a GOD tear Conjuration wizard?
Yes. I'm doing a wizard build for every subclass
Conjurer! Conjurer!
@@TreantmonksTemple Man I LOVE your videos! If I could though, they are all so dang long. 1.5 hours is a big commitment of time for something. I do like how you broke up some builds into T1, T2 and up to level 20. If you could limit each section to say, 15 minutes max, that'd be great.
A great example of this is a user by the name of Jorphdan ("the PH is silent). Nice, easily digestible chunks that are interesting to watch. 1.5 hours of a talking head is just....don't get me wrong, you're a handsome fellow, but it's just so bland. Not meaning to bring negativity. I love your videos. :)
@@CraftedVision I'm a subscriber to Jorphdan, and like his channel, though his videos are shorter than mine because he really doesn't touch on mechanics or builds, he's just summarizing lore - which is great for developing character concepts, but I'm more focused on character building. I understand that shorter vids get more views and subs, but I haven't found a way to deliver an actual mechanical build with explanations in short videos at this time, and haven't seen another channel that does either.
@@CraftedVision as someone who's job is driving for hours at a time, I really appreciate the longer and more in depth videos.
i like to go shepherd + melee hybrid. either goblin or mobile. have your summon pack as an impassable obstacle to melee enemies and only difficult terrain for yourself, and also a half cover meatshield against ranged. position strategically around wall and obstacles, grab magic initiate for booming blade, and you can get 1 powerful melee attack + disengage and hide back behind the meatshield every turn. Only vulnerable to AoE, in which case you spread your summons and fall back to hiding/ranged cantrip
i adore unicorn!
Shepherd is so fun to play ty ty
I'm enjoying my Lizardfolk Druid. I picked CON over DEX but it's working out well with the Dodge action.
So the only reason I didn't take wood elf for my shepherd is that I saw shifter as an option, which is mainly part of my characters lore, but gameplay wise for combat it's really good.
"Shifting.
As a bonus action, you can assume a more bestial appearance. This transformation lasts for 1 minute, until you die, or until you revert to your normal appearance as a bonus action. When you shift, you gain temporary hit points equal to your level + your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 temporary hit point). You also gain additional benefits that depend on your shifter subrace, described below."
Now, my DM and party talked about this and we agreed that you can shift while unconscious as it doesn't mention that you need to be conscious during the transformation, especially since its lycanthropy, meaning those 6 temp hp could save your life. Again, this is just how my DM and party ruled so make sure to talk to your dm if you do consider this.
Time have passed and things have changed. Now with tasha you can be a human and start with (Mist Step and Dissonant Whisper) and the second one give AoO to all you summons... That is SICK!
Tsunami is great ... *IF* you're besieging a castle or engaging a small army of low-CR critters from a great distance and want to bludgeon/drown all of them to death without actually having to engage with them ... because its range is "Sight." Otherwise? Not so much.
But you know, if you TRULY dislike all the 8th-level spell choices (and I can understand why that might happen), you can always choose lower-level spells to prepare. A druid at this level might choose Dispel Magic, for example, or Polymorph (STILL a wonderful source of bonus hit points), or even some of the newer spells from Xanathar's or Tasha's.
Hey, couldn't you deliberately provoke or cause damage to your low health "utility" wildshape dropping you to zero hit points, reverting to your caster form and triggering your faithful summons.
Potentially if you were already wildshaped from scouting your opening turn in combat could be to run in provoke an opportunity attack drop to zero hit points, trigger your faithful summons, revert to a near full health druid and cast conjure animals and complete clog the battlefield.
Great vid, really like the shepherd druid
This build is fine as long as your dm allows Conjure Woodland Beings to work as it reads. My character was completely nerfed by not being allowed to conjure fey creatures due to the pixie exploit.
My moon druid reached his background story goal and I thought I should retire him. My DM allow me to make a new character but I start on level 1 while the rest of the party are level 5.
So I made a variant human Shepard druid, got the feat "fey touched" so that I can escape from fights and for the free spell silvery barbs.
Now even though I am level 1 (2 now), I saved my wizard from 2 attacks and my rogue from 0 hit points!
Can't wait for level 5!
I feel the fey touched feat is perfect for Shepard druids!
I usually shy away from the conjure animals and conjure woodland beings and veer towards giant insect. Giant insect, i can control and select what i want (I just carry jars of insects with me that i drop and break then transform). I don't have to deal with the DM being a dick and picking an animal or fey i don't want or what's worse picking a challenge 0 rating even if I pick the CR 2 option since it does say in the spell description it can be a CR 2 or LOWER.
I don't mind not getting the level 6 feature if it means I get to select what I need.
@@skymanta1222 yeah apparently WOTC recognized this and gave us more control with the new summons in tashas.
Combine unicorn totem, and healing spirit to heal yourself and all people in the totem every turn for a 2nd level slot and concentration slot. Then you can toss out damage and let the passive healing roll in.
U can planar bind + summon whatever,at least w/2lvls fighter on action surge(maybe even sorcerers shenanigans)...
How would your advice change with the addition of Tasha's?
I second this request!
Also, Chris thanks for another great video.
One thing I wanted to mention that you didn’t bring up, is that if you use your wildshapes, you could be a bird flying above the range of the enemy or be a mouse in your allies pocket, casting spells and avoiding concentration checks because the enemies either can’t hit you or won’t be able to see/tell it’s you casting versus someone else.
How do you work with the choice of summons? That seems to be a make or break for some of the summons spells, mainly woodland creatures. Getting 8 or more Pixies seems way broken.
Shepherd
Fair. It was really late when I finished
@@TreantmonksTemple - I thought it was your best one yet. Couple of thoughts - I think you should have referenced your video about being a good player, around the table (with eight Summoned creatures) and added some guides about how to logistically manage them. Although at 90 minutes already, probably should be in a separate video.
Was at an AL epic in tier two, dropped a cure wounds that healed 182hp total over the party because shepard is truly broken.
Great video, but I honestly think that the Wood Elf would have been the much better choice for a Shepherd Druid in particular. Having that Longbow, especially when you aim for a 16+ DEX score, makes a world of difference and allows you to increase your WIS score more slowly because you won't rely too much on the (fairly bad) Druid cantrips.
In defense of Chris' choice, he was wanting to preserve concentration with the bonus action to hide provided by the goblin.
What he's saying about Unicorn spirit is that if I heal a creature, "all other creatures get the same healing like the one I've cast healing one", I don't think that's what the description of the spell is though. It seems to me that if you heal creature A, all other creatures in the aura get a heal equal to my druid level (which is NOT the same as the healing that creature A receives). Can anyone let me know if I'm reading it wrong?
Could you keep a summoned creature from disappearing whilw you cast planar binding by having someone else cast magic circle?
Wouldn't casting the water breathing ritual require you to drop your concentration on the conjure animals? Great video though, really like the idea of using the goblin for this.
Good point.
I would like to see a martial class from you. This is only because, looking at 5e martial options, they seem limited or boring.
Unborn Heretic he did a bunch of Gish builds back in January, is that what you’re after? Sorcadin, Eldritch Knight, etc...
I did a fighter build earlier this year
@@Duranous1 Well I guess it depends on what you count as martial class, as almost every class gets at least some spells. But yes, it's kind of sad really how much better battle master is than any other fighter subclass, like I really WANT to like arcane archer, but them only getting 2 uses of their special shots per rest just really kills it for me. They really could have got similar numbers of uses to them as the Battle Master gets for their manuevers.
I second this sentiment. We've seen plenty of gishes, but it would be interesting to see a build with no spells at all. That said, I'm not sure how much you could really optimize or customize such a build, most of them are pretty linear in their design. Maybe some crazy multiclass?
@@Klaital1 I think it's an attempt to balance out the fact you get it from ranged where the battle master has to be in melee
I love the Shepard Druid. If you get just 1 level of life cleric and you add Healing Spirit (level 3 druid spell) you can heal up after most any fight to 100%.
That is true. Of course Healing Spirit can usually do that anyways...
@@TreantmonksTemple yes one level of Life cleric adds a ton more healing
Life cleric also amplifies goodberry
@@johnl340 I would argue that healing through goodberries is not amplified by life cleric for the same reason that healing through a healing kit created by a fabricate spell would not be amplified by life cleric
@@TreantmonksTempleYeah but that blows a feat. At level 4 (cleric 1 / druid 3) if you cast goodberry at end of the day before a rest you can recast goodberry and have 80 hp of healing (makes goodberry 4 hp each not 1). So you go into combat with 80 hp of healing, you have your normal spells you can use to heal, and once its all over you can pop healing spirit (out of combat) for 10d6 + 40 for each player.
I'm intrested in your take on the circle of the land swamp build.
Not a big fan of the spells gained through circle of the land (swamp), but I'll always take more spells known. Spell recovery is very nice though.
Can you use water breathing on your summons? Doesn't it requires concentration to cast a ritual therefore breaking concentration on summons?
Summoning an allosaurus at level 5 is so satisfying early game
Such a helpful, detailed video. Thanks!
Great video. Looking forward to more druid guides!
I wouldn't say that warcaster + 10ish con save is enough to guarantee making concentration saves. By that stage of the game, you are going to be running into things like dragons and such, where taking 60+ damage is something that can happen. If you take 60 damage, your DC is 30 and even a nat 20 won't save you (with a +9 save), and even ~40 damage has a fair chance of failure.
Absorb elements is key there. With absorb elements, u can use a reaction to drop that damage to 30, and make ur save a DC 15, which is doable. But yeah eventually the damage is too much and u need better ways than just absorb elements to keep con
Why does a spell with a 1hr casting require your concentration during the casting? I didn't read that in the DMG or PHB. If I am concentrating on a spell and cast a spell with a 1 action casting time, does that also require my concentration during the casting time? If so then I've been playing wrong, and so have you based on your spell selections