Druid Subclass Design

The druid’s reliance on Wild Shape as its signature ability makes designing subclasses for it tricky. In my experience, players opt for this class because they want to transform into a variety of wild animals. The druid character from the D&D movie (not the first one, or the second one, or the third one, but the good one) does a great job of selling the concept. Turning into a mouse to sneak into a prison cell, then shifting into an owlbear to tear apart the guards is a fun player fantasy.

The design of Wild Shape, and the Circle of the Moon subclass, makes it difficult to build subclasses that do interesting new things with Wild Shape. Some subclasses try to give new ways to use Wild Shape that aren’t turning into animals. That approach works mechanically, but it undercuts what the character class seeks to do.

On top of this challenge, the druid is a full spellcaster. The subclass levels carry much less power than they do for other classes, leaving designers with a narrow space to fit something fun and interesting.

Figuring out how to work with Wild Shape with a low power budget is the key to making fun subclasses for the druid. Let’s look at its design challenges in depth.

Wild About Shapes

Wild Shape comes online at 2nd level for good reason. It’s a complex mechanic, perhaps the single most complicated class feature in the entire game. Asking a new player to learn it while also handling spells is too much, but I think this move highlights how the design places Wild Shape too far from the center of the class. For many players it’s what makes a druid a druid, but you need to wait a level before you can use it.

Wild Shape is too broad of a design to make supporting it with subclasses easy. It uses CR and the beast creature type as its key limiting factors. In theory CR controls the damage output of a wildshape, but character output doesn’t map to CR in any meaningful way. The beast limitation should also prevent the druid from gaining access to powerful spells or magical effects, but there is no mechanical restriction on what spells or attacks a beast might have.

More importantly, Wild Shape treats the Monster Manual as a giant bag of player options. None of the monsters are balanced for this use. It seems like an obvious design path for a druid subclass to allow you to Wild Shape into a dragon, a demon, or some other cool creature, but there is no practical way to allow that and keep things balanced.

Moreover, the Circle of the Moon provides the basic powerups that any player (read, most druid players) wants. Competing with it is tricky.

I expect the revised rules will tone down the obviously broken hit point buff druids gain from using Wild Shape while also finding ways to buff its damage output in a controlled manner.

I think that a designer needs to get creative in finding a way to let a druid player use Wild Shape in new ways. Consider building custom forms that unlock features that beasts can’t access, perhaps backed up with specific stat blocks or modifiers to beasts.

Features and Structure

Here is how the druid subclass structure breaks down by level and typical features. Compared to other classes, I don’t think the druid’s structure functions well. The commentary here highlights the current state of the druid, but also gives tips on how to work around its flaws.

2nd Level: Specialization

In theory, a druid circle allows a character to specialize in one of the druid’s mechanics. The Circle of the Land grants an extra cantrip and allows you to regain spell slots on a short rest. It also beefs up the druid spell list with a cleric domain-style extension. Those benefits make you a better caster. The Circle of the Moon provides dramatic benefits to Wild Shape, making the druid’s signature class feature strictly better.

If you follow this design pattern, your design should similarly find a specialization for the druid and fill out the class’s kit to pursue it. However, Circle of the Moon casts a long shadow here. Its benefits are so generally useful for Wild Shape that it’s hard to pass them by.

To draw an analogy, imagine a paladin subclass that gave a flat bonus to smite damage, or improved your chances of critical hits. Those power ups would be difficult to bypass, as they make the paladin better at its core function. Who wants to play a paladin who doesn’t smite?

I’d recommend starting a subclass with the Circle of the Moon’s 2nd level benefits, then finding a way to specialize the druid’s Wild Shape at this level, such as a benefit that improves a specific ability that beasts can grant.

Subsequent Levels: Improved Specialization

At 6th level, Circle of the Moon allows access to higher CR beasts and gives the druid a way to overcome resistance to nonmagical attacks. Circle of the Land grants the ability to move through difficult terrain without penalty and better saving throws against plants that slow you down.

One subclass makes the druid noticeably more powerful. Hint: It’s not the Circle of the Land feature.

Once more, I’d suggest building new subclasses by adding some extra benefits on top of what the Circle of the Moon grants. There is precious little power to play with here.

10th and 14th level offer a similar story. At 10th level, the Circle of the Moon allows access to specific Wild Shape options. For new subclasses, I’d recommend designing custom monster stat blocks for the druid to use with Wild Shape or hunting through the Monster Manual to find flavorful options that hit a similar power level. Even the Circle of the Moon turns in a dud at 14th level, with at-will alter self sound great but falling far short when you compare it to Wild Shape. Meanwhile, the Circle of the Land gets the equivalent of a constant sanctuary (a 1st level spell) against beasts and plants (two creatures that rarely, if ever, show up in high level play).

In essence, these levels offer only marginally useful abilities outside of the Circle of the Moon.

My Path Forward: Double Down on Wild Shape

From my point of view, I’d design new druid subclasses that want to use Wild Shape in new ways as variants of the Circle of the Moon. Use that subclass’s features as the foundation, then layer on some specializations at each level.

At 2nd level, consider a feature that rewards a druid for using specific beasts. You might give a boost to beasts with a climb speed, encourage the use of beasts with multiattack, or provide an extra feature that applies to a beast.

For druids that don’t focus on Wild shape, I’d look at ways to turn uses of Wild Shape into a tool that can augment spellcasting. Perhaps give a caster access to forms that still allow casting and buff specific types of spells, such as healing. A single use of Wild Shape is worth about a 2nd-level spell.

Treat the 6th level Circle of the Moon features as core class features for any subclass that works with Wild Shape. Any druid that wants to use Wild Shape needs these benefits. For other druids, consider

For other druids, look to mechanics that allow them to get more mileage from their specialization. Since they are not using Wild Shape, consider mechanics that allow them to regain spell slots, heal themselves or others outside of spells, and so on.

At 10th level, use the elementals as a baseline for choosing or designing specific creatures that a druid can transform into. The options you choose here should reflect your subclass’s flavor. Be sure to capture the elemental form’s ability to deal typed damage

For non-Wild Shape druids, this level is a good place to add a static benefit that helps their focus scale up as they level. A druid focused on using weapons might get a second attack with them, while a healing druid might maximize the output of their healing spells.

14th level needs to provide further scaling benefits to any druid. Typically speaking, at-will features need to keep pace with or exceed cantrip damage. An at-will ability should compete well with a fighter’s full suite of attacks at this level and up to 20th level. Take a look at everything you expect the subclass to use as core, signature abilities and give them ways to keep pace.

If your design lacks such features, this level is a good place to grant a benefit that feels broken at low levels but is a natural part of high-level play. Fly speeds, encounter-frequency teleports, and similar features are all good options.

Bonus Topic: Fixing Wild Shape

Wild Shape’s use as a deep well of extra hit points veers far from its intended design goal, so shifting it to use the druid’s hit points is both a simple, obvious solution and an easy way to keep it balanced. Druid forms also need a damage buff at higher levels. Otherwise, their damage output lags badly.

However, that’s only half the battle. The real design challenge lies in finding a way to make the forms a druid can shift into interesting, fun, and varied. Since the druid has access to beasts, the obvious answer is to design beasts that are fun to Wild Shape into. As a creature category, beasts are pretty lame. Nobody buys a book of monsters because they want stats for a random bear or a fish. Dragons, weird dungeon predators, and demons sell books of critters.

Designing beasts as both mundane creatures and Wild Shape options provides an elegant fix to the druid. As a designer, you can plant mechanics in each beast that are useful to druids. Higher CR beasts can be balanced as player options. While functional as monsters, they can serve foremost as a player tool.

The right design could also thread the needle by providing pets, companions, and summonable creatures for a variety of characters. In this design approach, the beast creature type becomes a player resource that operates under a different design paradigm compared to other monsters.

That approach may sound weird, but the system design already imposes that restriction. Embracing it, rather than pretending it doesn’t exist, makes for a better game.