I have a love-hate relationship with D&D‘s Circle of Spores Druid. As a full-time spooky gal, I adore the idea of a Druid powered by necrotic mushrooms. As Guy Fieri would say, we’re in flavortown. The problem is that, in 5e, the subclass could be a total pain to play. A new Unearthed Arcana brings the Spores Druid to 5e, but can it save my sweet troubled son?
Let’s look at each subclass feature in detail:
Circle Spells
Now a level three feature, Circle Spells takes an instant nerf by offering fewer spells than in 5e. Many useful options remain: Blindness/Deafness, Chill Touch, Animate Dead, Confusion, and Contagion. We lose Gentle Repose, Gaseous Form, Blight, and Cloudkill, and in their place we get Charm Person.
Blight and Cloudkill were some of our most explosive prepared spells, so it hurts to see them go. Charm Person is an okay swap for a utility spell like Gaseous Form, but it’s not enough to elevate the spell list.
Halo of Spores
Halo of Spores used to be a consistent source of extra damage. Yes, the damage was minute at higher levels, and it competed with your melee Druid’s opportunity attacks, but it remained one of the subclass’ better offerings. The feature has moved from level two to three, and D&D has given it an upgrade for its troubles.
This is still a 10-foot emanation that lets you spend a reaction when a creature moves inside or starts its turn there. It still deals 1d4 necrotic damage on a failed Constitution save, scaling to 1d6 at level six, 1d8 at level 10, and 1d10 at level 14.
Now, however, you get telepathy within your emanation’s range. Neat! Even neater is the fact Halo of Spores now gives your target disadvantage on their next attack roll if they fail the save. That’s a big deal for a squishy spellcaster in melee.
Symbiotic Entity
A bonus action Wild Shape that gives you loads of temporary HP? That’s one of the main draws of this subclass, and Wizards hasn’t messed with the formula too much.
You still get 4 x your Druid level in temp HP, but the effects always last for the full 10 minutes, even if you lose all those temporary hit points. That’s nice, but it’s followed by a small nerf. You still get to reroll your Halo of Spores damage die, but that extra 1d6 necrotic damage on your melee attacks? That’s now limited to once per turn.
Honestly, I can live with this. If you only take levels in Druid, you’re not benefitting from abilities like Extra Attack. Things suck a little more if you get Haste cast on you, but the party caster is probably saving that for a more effective martial. This also sucks for martial multiclassing, but D&D 5.5e’s ‘all subclasses at level three’ rule did a lot to discourage that playstyle anyhow.
Fungal Infestation
Here is where my primary beef with the Spores Druid lies. My fantasy for this subclass is ‘Necromancer, but actually effective’. Therefore, I should be all over an ability that lets you animate weird spore zombies.
Unfortunately, your only viable targets are Small to Medium Beasts and Humanoids. They also have to die within 10 feet of you, and you need to instantly spend a reaction to animate the corpse. In a fantasy game about fighting fantasy monsters, opportunities for resurrection are exhaustingly few. I recently played a 5e campaign as a Spores Druid, and I never got to use this feature.
The playtest version keeps all those finicky conditions. That means it’s just as impossible to use this feature. But hey, at least you can now transfer some of your temporary HP to your zombie, rather than seeing how long they can last on 1 HP. The zombie is allowed to take actions other than melee attacks now, too. That’d be great, if I could actually resurrect one.
D&D either needs to seriously overhaul this feature or replace it completely. I’d be sad to lose my one chance at being a necromancer Druid, but at least it’d make space for something more consistently useful.
Explosive Burst
This is a new level-10 feature that replaces our former Spreading Spores. The former allowed you to create a 10-foot cube that dealt Halo of Spores damage from a distance. This new one triggers when an undead creature you created dies. Oh. Oh no.
Let’s say you somehow manage to raise a zombie and get it killed. When it does, it blows up. Each creature within 10 feet takes 2d8 necrotic damage on a failed Constitution save, or half damage on a success. The setup for this is so ridiculous, it’s a little bit insulting.
Fungal Body
Finally, at 14th level, Fungal Body returns. You’re still immune to blindness, deafness, frighten, and poison. Plus, critical hits against you are still normal hits as long as you aren’t incapacitated.
What’s new is the second paragraph in the playtest document. If you’re unconscious, your spores take control and steer you to safety. That means you retain your speed while unconscious, and your spores move you out of danger on your turns while knocked out. It’s weird, and it’s kind of cool. Is it the perfect Spores Druid capstone? I’m not so sure.
Want to form your own opinion on the playtest? Check out the full document here. Or, if you’d like to share your own hot takes on the DnD classes, join the conversation in the Wargamer Discord.
Source: Wargamer
