Welcome back, Dungeon Crawlers! Today I will be continuing the Unearthed Arcana series, in which I give you the inside scoop on the new updates to Dungeons and Dragons. This week we will examine one of my favorite classes: the druid.
If you love animals and magic, this is the class for you. druids have a special connection with the earth. Through that connection, they harness magical powers to use the earth and animals if needed.
I currently play a druid in one of my campaigns, and I love it. You can turn into any animal and can use your powers to have the earth protect you and your party. For example, I used Entangle once to pin a sorcerer so they couldn’t produce any magic.
I will now go into depth on the changes to the druid class for the new handbook. The first change is they provided the players with the class group and their primary ability. For a druid, the primary class is priest, and the primary ability is Wisdom. The new updated class feature table can be found below:
The first new change to the class is Channel Nature. This feature is another name for Wild Shape, and typically druids get this feature at level 2 in the 2014 Player’s Handbook. Now you will get to use this feature at the first level.
Wild Shape has a few changes to the feature as well. The way it works is still the same, but there are some differences with the animals you can use. Now, characters can gain different Wild Shape classes in later levels. There are three classes you can gain: Animal of the Land, Animal of the Sea, and Animal of the Sky. You can pick one of these classes and use animal stat blocks when you Wild Shape. I’ll post the stat blocks below:
The next change is at level two, where you gain Nature’s Aid. This feature adds Healing Blossoms and Wild Companions due to the druid’s ability to connect with nature. Healing Blossoms is a magic action in which you channel your healing energy, and it appears as a blooming flower. You chose a point 30ft away and a 10-foot radius where a flower blooms. You roll as many d4s equal to your wisdom modifier, and you can contribute hit points to you and your party with that roll.
Wild Companions allow you to summon a nature spirit that assumes an animal form to aid you. Again this is a magic action in which you can cast a familiar spell without material components. When you cast this spell this way, your familiar is a fey and will disappear when you finish a long rest.
Overall these are the most changes I have seen to the druid class, other than features getting moved up to the level before, such as Wild Shape getting moved to level one. I am very excited about these changes, they seem super fun, and I can’t wait to use them when the new player’s handbook comes out. For now, I will continue with the current features and keep you updated on the possible changes in the future of D&D.
Happy Rolling!
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