Unearthed Arcana: Druid

[TenaciousJ]

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/druid-circles-and-wild-shape

Take the survey on last week's clerics at the above link.

https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_Druid11272016_CAWS.pdf

Circle of Dreams is a healer.  Purifying Light is a neat backdoor to dispelling as a bonus action since Healing Word is on the druid list, and Balm of the Summer Court helps out with the typical problem of heals not scaling well and demanding too many slots.  I hope future healing sticks to this idea of an enhancement pool so healing can potentially be worthwhile without demanding all of the caster's resources.

Circle of the Shepherd further makes druid the best summoner.

Circle of Twilight helps the druid out with damage.  Previously it was hard to say druids were really a damage dealer (outside summons) past level 8 or so when Moon druid's scaling falls off badly.  Again I like the Harvest's Scythe feature adding a pool of dice to draw from to enhance damage this time.  Watcher at the Threshhold is pretty neat for people who don't like rerolling characters.

[Wilb]

Damn, that's what I get for leaving the tab without posting the topic while doing something else...

The Circle of Twilight seem to mix really well with the Grave Domain from last week.

And maybe I'm seeing things but the alternate wild shape rules feel a bit strange.

[TenaciousJ]

It just occurred to me a level 20 Circle of Twilight druid could cast a cantrip that deals 4d6+10d10 damage twice in a day, which puts to shame the Fiend warlock's Hurl Through Hell that can only be used once a day.  Even at the level Hurl Through Hell is acquired, it's 10d10 added onto an attack once vs. the Twilight's 7d10 twice.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

 

Dreams
2 instead of the Life Cleric 1 dip
6 in the neighborhood of Rope Trick
10 ... is a free action yes?  Find Familiar to stretch the range
14 using 2 firsts is very cost beneficial, using 2 seconds is the ~same as normal, I figure a Warlock 2 dip is in the cards for this

Shepherd
2 well look the CPsi Divine Mind finally got it's upgrade  ... grapplers love Bear , Hawk for a Lockdown + kiters , Wolf gets better with levels and the Mass meta on healing can neutralize AoEs
6 well look the 3.5e Druid Summoner pokes it's head out
10 well look , 3.5e c.o. (woulda) loved this one
114  ... uhh ... this is too much ... uhh I mean ... this is too much FUN ... don't nerf this this is awesome, I knows y'all worked hard on it, KEEP it puh-lease pretty please
_{let's see, that's a Contingency and a 9 and a free action Ultra-Metamagic and it works with the 6 ability and does it have Concentration (?) I don't think so and you get to pick (!!) pity the poor Conj Wizard so outclassed now} Oh stop yer whining kitty avatar me-ouch

edit --- but notice my "revision" below

[Wilb]

My god, what is this...
According to the ruling by Jeremy Crawford on Magic missiles, you roll damage only once, and all missiles deal that same amount.

Enter Magic initiate (Wizard) or a 1 level Wizard dip onto a full twilight druid.

Spell level +2  1d4+1 force damage + 9(or10)d10 necrotic damage magic missiles!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At 9th level, it becomes 11d4+11 force damage + 99 (or 110) d10 necrotic damage....

My old 3.5 heart may beat once more!

[TenaciousJ]

I would be really shocked if the wording remains on Harvest's Scythe that would allow it to add damage to multiple instances of damage.  Don't get too excited over stuff you know won't make it to print that way.  Enough people will point it out on the survey next week.

[Wilb]

I know, people are already pointing it out everywhere. Its just that this shows they have the potential to screw balance completely once more, and are always just a step away from good old 3.5 crap.

I mean, they've put this druid thing out one week after the excellent forge domain.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Shepherd redux ...
so obviously it's party dependent, and might even be weak early on.
14 is powerful on the surface, but assumes that you are stupid in your tactics, get yourself melee-ed down to zero when that ain't you at all, and while 1 of the summons keeps you alive via Heal checks, the rest of the party still has to boogie around you being down.  I mean, if you were trying to do a Tactical plan on this, you're talking about : No Nova + No Spells + No Wildshape + Suicide, to trigger it's most usefulness.  If anything this collides with any other normal tactics.
I like it 


Twilight
2 better than Dream 2 or Bard up to level 4 (ignoring the oops part)
6 not quite the Warlock invoc
10 could someone run the numbers on Advantage but 3 failures happening before 3 successes?  I'm willing to bet it's low single digit % chance.  Essentially removes any worry about that.
14 mostly a plot spell

Twilight is the weakest at high levels.  Maybe they could partially fix the oops to still work near the top end, say like closer to the cantrips schedule.

[Wilb]

Well, Twilight is not that weak at high levels if you concentrate on area spells.

I mean, the 2nd level feature works with Storm of vengeance, and, as there are two separate instances where everything takes damage with no save, at 2nd and 4th round. I know it takes time, but staggered 20d10 Necrotic damage, with no save, in a 360ft radius, to creatures and objects...

At least you can Terraform even better!

[sambojin]

Dreams seems pretty good, though not super powered. Variable healing that includes a movement buff is quite nice. It actually becomes a fairly nice movement spell for things like sneaking/anything that halves your movement eventually. I like slotless healing, at good range, that can be used in WS too.

The on-call teleport seems to have plenty of uses as well. It comes in late, but it's slotless WS teleport, which is great as a utility skill. Allowing movement afterwards stacks nicely with Balm and Longstrider speed boosting too. This actually seems to be the power of the circle. Sort of like getting funky mage hand, but for people, and way later. Can be used defensively and proactively as needed.


It's certainly not the most powerful of the circles, but I can see it being fun to play at around lvl10+. Druids are probably good enough casters/buffers/summoners that they can get by with crappy circle stuff. I like teleports anyway. So for a mid-tier utility caster, it could be fun to have lots of them.