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Dungeons & Dragons’Spore Druid offers an interesting take on nature-themed spellcasters. Instead of focusing on verdant blooms of green, or transforming into majestic beasts, a Spore Druid looks at the decomposers that form a vital part of the ecosystem. While mushrooms may normally lurk in the darkness, a Spore Druid thrives on the frontline.
Related:Dungeons & Dragons: 10 Class Stereotypes That You Need To Forget
Just as mushrooms are closer to animals than plants, a spore druid can play closer to a martial class than a ranged spellcaster. Focusing on melee damage, survivability, and poison damage the spore druid has very different build and roleplaying considerations to the more traditional tree huggers.
Best Ability Scores For A Spore Druid
Spore Druids play differently to most other subclasses; not using your wildshape to take animal form means thatyou can’t make use of a beast’s large pool of hitpoints to protect yourself, and not focusing on long range attack and support spells means that you can’t position yourself away from melee combat as easily.This raises the importance of ability scores that aid your survivability.
Constitution
First
Spore druids spend more time in close range than any other, in order to make use of their subclass features.A high constitution gives you the hitpoints to survivein these situations. It is also rather flavourful for aFungal Druid to be hard to kill, like a persistent mould.
Wisdom
Second
Your spellcasting improves with your wisdom.As a caster class you want this to be as high as possible.
With the shillelagh cantrip this will also be used foryour melee attack accuracy and damage.
Dexterity
Third
Druids are able to wearmedium armor but cannot use metal equipment. This means most of the time you’ll be usingleather and hide armours that require a high dexterity to defend yourself with.
Charisma
Fourth
Other members of the party are more liable to handle diplomacy, such as paladins and sorcerers. Despite this,you may need to step forward in discussions with other druids or when translating for nature and animals.
Intelligence
Fifth
Intelligence impacts some skills that druids may be interested in, such asnature lore. Otherwise the ability score has very little to offer you.
Strength
Sixth
Strength doesn’t improve any of your class features, and you can easily augment it by wildshaping into a creature with a higher strength. Your mental stats (wisdom, intelligence and charisma) are carried forward when you shapeshift but you adopt the strength of a new form.
Best Ancestry For A Spore Druid
Many of the ancestries have ties to nature, expanding your ability to cast druidic magic or giving you some ability to communicate with plants and animals.
Description
Fairy
Flying speed, fairy magic (one daily cast of faerie fire and enlarge/reduce)
Fairy is a flavourful choice for a Spore Druid, with the common association between fae and mushrooms. You gain access to some spells not typical of a druid.Enlarge/Reduce can be used both to make yourself tinier (and sneakier) or to make give a strong character advantage on all strength checks for a minute.
Duergar Dwarf
Poison Resistance, Duergar Magic (One daily cast of Enlarge/Reduce and Invisibility)
Dwarf may seem like an atypical choice for a druid, living underground or within mountains. For a spore druid, however, this is the perfect place.Dwarven Resilience against poison is well suited to a caster that will frequently be throwing about the damage type.A Duergar’s magic gives you the Enlarge/Reduce spell as well as invisibility.The sensitivity to sunlight can be a major weakness but is also well suited to a druid who prefers dimly lit and damp environments.
Firbolg
Firbolg Magic (daily cast of detect magic and disguise self). Hidden step (turn invisible for one turn as a bonus action). Speech Of Beast and Leaf (Advantage on all charisma checks to speak with animals and plants)
Firbolg have one of the strongest connections to nature of any heritage.Your Hidden Step ability is also perfectly suited to a spore druid, letting you turn invisible while staying in close range to enemies to activate your abilities.
you’re able to borrow a trick from Alice in Wonderland and have theEnlarge/Reduce spell work by eating a magic mushroom. If you’re a mischievous fairy you can toss a coin to determine whether you’re casting enlarge or reduce each time.
Best Spells For A Spore Druid
Spore Druids sacrifice some spellcasting potential for their survivability and melee focus. Your choice of spells should make the most of this; providing utility outside of combat, fallback options against enemies you can’t bonk and giving you ‘fire and forget’ spells that you open a fight with and then leave running in the background.
Cantrips
Druidcraft offers a range of utility features that Druids may enjoy, butlacks the versatility of prestidigitation and the intimidation power of thaumaturgy. Foretelling the weather and making flowers bloom are nice roleplaying tools for a traditional Druid but make less sense for one focused on Fungi or situated in the Underdark.
Related:Dungeons & Dragons: Best Support Spells
Best Background For A Spore Druid
Your background gives you two skills, two tools or languages, and a minor feature. Druids receive only two skills from their class, so your background will make up a large part of what skill checks you will be able to contribute to.
A folk hero backstory doesn’t need to be a dramatic tale of conquest that strains the credulity of a first level character’s backstory. One listed option that fits well to a druid is"A lord rescinded an unpopular decree after I led a symbolic act of protest against it."
Best Multiclass For A Spore Druid
Spore druids work close to the front lines due to their melee-focused play style. Multiclassing with one is a balancing act between getting the most survivability and damage out of your Symbiotic Entity feature while not sacrificing too much in the way of druid abilities and spellcasting power.
Drawbacks
Bear Totem Barbarian
Resistance to all damage while raging extends the durability provided by Symbiotic Entity. Unarmoured Defence gives you an additional use of your already high constitution.
Barbarians need a minimum of 13 strength, which you may have neglected if relying on Shillelagh. Additionally you won’t be able to cast shillelagh while raging but can cast it beforehand as it is not a concentration spell.
Monk
Similar to barbarian, this gives you additional defence by using your wisdom and dexterity. Not requiring strength is a large bonus. Symbiotic entity boosts the strength of all your melee attacks, benefiting from a Monk’s many attacks.
Your Druid abilities, including the temporary hitpoints from symbiotic entity will only scale to your Druid level and not your total level. A three level dip to gain access to a monk subclass means giving up a lot of your spellcasting potential.
Life or Nature Cleric
Life and Nature domains both give you additional versatility while not splitting your loyalty away from nature. You still gain levels in spellcasting through cleric and gain access to their channel divinity powers to either heal multiple allies or charm groups of beasts.
Each gives you access to heavy armour, although as druids will not wear metal you may need to negotiate getting a suit made from Ironwood or ceramic plates.
