Circle of Spores Druid Handbook: DnD 5e Subclass Guide – RPGBOT (2024)

Introduction

The Circle of Spores Druid is a complex, challenging subclass. It offers anumber of interesting features which will ensure that no part of your turngoes unused, and that you always have something interesting to do. However, itis complicated to build and play, and players will need to make complexrisk-reward decisions almost constantly.

This guide is specifically for the Circle of Spores Druid, and omits sections of my typical class handbooks when those sections aren’t meaningfully different from other members of the subclass. For more information on the Druid, see our Druid Handbook.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Circle of Spores Subclass Features
• Circle of Spores Druid Ability Scores
• Circle of Spores Druid Races
  • Races of Eberron
    • Dragonmarks
  • Races of Ravnica
  • Races of Wildemount
• Circle of Spores Druid Feats
• Circle of Spores Druid Weapons
• Circle of Spores Druid Armor
• Multiclassing
• Circle of Spores Druid Spells
  • Cantrips
• Example Circle of Spores Druid Build – Tortle Druid
  • Abilities
  • Race
  • Skills and Tools
  • Background
  • Feats
  • Levels

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

Circle of Spores Subclass Features

2. Circle Spells: Almost everything on thespell is useful frequently, and you get a handful of options whicharen’t on the Druid’s spell list.
   • Cantrip: You get Chill Touch for freeat 2nd level. It’s buried in the text of Circle Spells rather than inthe Circle Spells table alongside everything else, so it’s easy to miss.
   • 3: A fantastic debuff and avery situational utility option.
   • 5: The logic behind why Circleof Spores druids can raise undead is a huge stretch,but Animate Dead is great regardless. Having four human skeletonsis useful at any level because they’re expendable and easy touse as bait without feeling sad about killing an innocent person.Gaseous Form is great too for a variety of sneaking and exploratorypurposes.
   • 7: A decent single-target damagespell that works really well on plants, and a mediocre, unreliabledebuff.
   • 9: Two excellent offensive options.
2. Circle of Spores: When you first getthis, a free 1d4 damage is a really nice boost to your damage output.The damage scales very slowly, so it won’t be especially threateningat high levels, but consider how infrequently most druids get to dosomething with their Reaction this is a fantastic improvement to youraction economy. Find allies who make numerous attacks (fighters, etc.)to stun-lock enemies for extended periods of time. The range isshort, unfortunately, so make sure you have a tanky ally between youand whatever is trying to kill you.
2. Symbiotic Entity: Someone finally wrotea way for druids to thrive in melee without turning into an animal!Cast Shillelagh on a club or a quarterstaff, grab your shield, and goclubbing. The 10 minute duration may be enough to get you throughseveral fights if you move quickly, and even if you’re not walkingaround swinging a weapon, 4 temporary hit points per class level is amassive pile of hit points.
6. Fungal Infestation: You’re limited tosmall or medium beasts and humanoids, which means your best hope isfor a wolf or something to die right next to you. It’s cool that youcan activate this as a Reaction, but 1 to 5 CR 1/4 zombies aren’tgoing to do a whole lot. Best case scenario: whatever you’re fightingspends an attack on the zombie instead of you and yourallies (remember that your zombies only get 1 hp).
10. Spreading Spores: This creates an additionalarea in which enemies can take the damage from your Halo of Spores.You activate this as a Bonus Action, but after that creatures take thedamage without you spending your Reaction, so if you can keep enemiesinside the area it’s a better use of actions and you may even dealmore damage if you can affect multiple targets.

    You lose the ability to useHalo of Spores as a Reaction, unfortunately, and the ability curiouslydoesn’t exclude you from the damage, so be careful not top dropSpreading Spores on yourself. Cast something likeEntangle to keep enemies from moving away quickly, then throw yourspores on top of them.

    This can also monopolize your Bonus Action, which conflicts withcommon tactics like Polearm Master. That may be perfectly finedepending on your build and your situation. Not every turn needsto involve swinging a shillelagh, and alternating attack turnswith turns whereyou move Spreading Spores and cast a spell could be a greatway to bring all of your options into play consistently.

14. Fungal Body: A nice list of conditionimmunitites. You can still take poison damage, which seems odd, butI’m never going to complain about condition immunities.

Circle of Spores Druid Ability Scores

Unlike other druids, the Circle of Spores Druid needs to be concerned withtheir physical ability scores. Because you’re not relying on turning into ananimal but you still need to function in melee or near-melee range, you needto be able to survive melee combat on your own. Unfortunately, this means thatthe Circle of Spores Druid is more MAD than other druids. Strangely, this alsomeans that your ability score requirements match those of the Monk.

Str: You can’t afford to have high abilityscores in four abilities, and Strength simply isn’t useful enough. The onlything you would need from Strength is melee attacks, and you can solve that byusing finesse weapons or by casting Shillelagh.

Dex: Druids have notoriously poor AC, andanything you can do to address that will still require high Dexterity.

Con: The Circle of Spores Druid needsConstitution more than other druids. Yes, Symbiotic Entity gives you a hugepile of temporary hit points, but you will inevitably take damage which goesbeyond your temporary hit points, and you don’t want to die because you have10 Constitution.

Int: Dump.

Wis: The Druid’s spells are powered byWisdom.

Cha: Dump.

Circle of Spores Druid Races

Ability scores are absolutely critical for the Circle of Spores Druid. Lookfor some combination of Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom in most cases. Butbeyond that, look for ways to make yourself more durable. Natural armor andcondition resistances are offered by several races. Innate spellcasting andadditional skills may look tempting, but you generally don’t have room to fitthem into your build with Circle of Spores.

The list of races and subraces below is intentionally reduced to those options which I think make an effective Circle of Spores Druid or which offer traits which are illustrative of what you should look for in other races, and it does not address the Customizing Your Origin optional rules. These are by no means the only viable options (especially with the optional rules in place), and I encourage you to explore other options not listed below. For full race coverage (including discussion of options which work well for Circle of Spores), please see our Druid Races Breakdown, which includes the full range of available races.

Aarakocra^EEPC: Dexterity and Wisdom increases and flight. You need to be in melee ornear-melee range for much of the Circle of Spores to function, so flightdoesn’t do much except get you into melee faster. You could take the Mobilefeat to enable you to employ flying hit-and-run tactics, which is asignificant improvement, but Circle of Spores is very MAD so it’s oftendifficult to sacrifice an Ability Score Increase for a feat.

Dwarf^PHB: +2 constitution, Darkvision, and Dwarven resilience are all great.Unfortunately, we won’t be able to make use of Dwarven Combat Training becausewere dumping Strength and relying on shillelagh.

• Hill^PHB: Constitution, Wisdom, and a big pile of extra hit points. Numericallymostly sound, but races which provide a way to address the Druid’s terribleAC will still be more effective..

Firbolg^VGTM: Hidden Step is great when Symbiotic Entity runs out while you’re stuck inmelee, and since the Firbolg is already a good option for the Druid.

Gith^MToF: Githzerai is a decent option, but the Intelligence option is wasted.

• Githzerai^MToF: A wisdom increase, shield as an inate spell, and Mental Discipline.Shield looks very tempting, but it can be difficult to provide the somaticcomponent when you have a shield in one hand and a shillelagh in theother.

Goblin^VGtM: Dexterity andConstitution are good, but falling behind on Wisdom is a serious handicap fora long time. Nimble Escape is a great addition for when Symbiotic Entity runsout, and Fury of the Small can be a helpful damage boost since most enemiesare medium or larger.

Half-Elf: The abilities work great, andbonus skills are always nice, but Variant Human is strictly better.

• High/Moon/Sun^SCAG: A single cantrip from the Wizard spell list means that you can getBooming Blade or Green-Flame Blade without taking Magic Initiate. However,at that point you’ll get a lot more from playing a Variant Human and takingMagic Initiate.
• Vanilla^PHB: Two skills are nice on nearly any character, but they do nothing to helpthe Circle of Spores and you really need your race to complement thesubclass for any of it to work.

Halfling^PHB: The Dexterity increase provides a helpful AC boost, and Ghostwise providesa Wisdom increase. Lucky and Brave can help a bit, but may not be as useful assomething that provides more condition resistances.

• Ghostwise^SCAG: A small wisdom bump is good, but that’s the only thing we really careabout.

Human^PHB: Versatile and fantastic at everything.

• Vanilla: +1 to every ability score means+1 to each of the three that we care about. That’s still not enough to makethis a great option, but it’s something.
• Variant: Put the bonuses into Dexterityand Wisdom, and grab a feat. Magic Initiate and Polearm Master are bothgreat choices.

Lizardfolk^VGTM: The Lizardfolk’s natural armor isn’t as good as the Loxodon’s becauseyou’ll still need both Dexterity and Constitution, but everything else aboutthe Lizardfolk is better. Unfortunately, Bite and Hungry Jaws are bothStrength-based, so don’t expect to get much out of them.

Tortle^TP: Despite only providing an increase to one ability score that we care about,the Tortle’s natural armor makes it a serious contender. +1 Wisdom is enoughto keep you on the Attack vs. AC progression, and 17 AC means you can totallyignore Dexterity. Grab a shield, and your AC is 19 at 1st level, which willmatch most other druids until very high levels.

Thri-Kreen^SAiS: Four arms means that you can use a shield and two-weapon fighting, allowing you to capitalize more on Circle of Spores’ capabilities in melee without Polearm Master. Chameleon Carapace will beat every non-magical armor option available to the Druid.

Setting-specificracesareaddressbelow.Noteverysettingallowseveryrace,andwhilemostracespresentedinthecorerulesandincontentfortheForgottenRealmscanbeusedinothersettings,racesspecifictosettingslikeRavnicaaren’ttypicallyallowedinothersettings.TalktoyourDMaboutwhatracesareallowedinyourgame.

Races of Eberron

Kalashtar^ERLW: The Wisdom increase is great, but it doesn’t address the Druid’s poordurability. The Kalasthar’s defense are mostly mental, and the Druid’sproblems are mostly with physical defenses.

Shifter^ERLW: Since using Symbiotic Entity doesn’t change your base form (much), you canstill Shift while using it and combine the two effects. However, the temporaryhit points from the two effects won’t stack and if you lose the temporary hitpoints from Symbiotic Entity (such as choosing to replace them with thetemporary hit points from Shifting), Symbiotic Entity ends immediately.

• Beasthide: Extra constitution is great,but since the temporary hit points from Shifting conflict with SymbioticEntity, much of the Beasthide Shifter’s appeal is lost. If you just wantConsitution and AC, play a warforged.
• Wildhunt: The ability scores line upwell, and Advantage on Wisdom checks is nice, but neither of those thingssolve the Druid’s durability problem.

Warforged^ERLW: The Druid’s biggest problem is durability, and the Warforged is all aboutdurability. The resistance to poison is admittedly redundant, but that’s fineconsidering how helpful everything else is.

Dragonmarks

While the design intent for Dragonmarks was that they would offer some innate spellcasting for everyone, every dragonmark includes an expanded spell list which is arguably a more significant benefit than most of the provided racial traits. Because the expanded spell options are such an important part of the dragonmarks, if you’re not playing a spellcaster you’re giving up a huge part of your racial traits, which makes it exceptionally difficult to justify playing a dragonmark character who can’t cast spells.

Dragonmarked Half-Orc^ERLW: Dragonmark traits replace ALL of your racial traits.

• Mark of Finding: Constitution and Wisdomincreases are great, and Hunter’s Mark provides a small but pleasantincrease to your damage output. However, many of the dragonmark spells arealready on the Druid’s spell list.

Dragonmarked Halfling^ERLW: Dragonmark traits replace your subrace.

• Mark of Healing: Dexterity, Wisdom, and afew new spells like Mass healing Word.

Dragonmarked Human^ERLW: Dragonmark traits replace ALL of your racial traits.

• Mark of Finding: See Mark of Finding underDragonmarked Half-Orc, above. Mechanically, the final racial traits areidentical.
• Mark of Handling: The ability scoreswork great, but nearly all of the spells are on the Druid’s spell listalready.
• Mark of Passage: The ability scores aregreat, and the dragonmark spells add numerous new spells to the Druid’sspell list including powerful options like Misty Step to help you get in andout of melee in a hurry.
• Mark of Sentinel: The abiltiy scores aregreat, you get Shield once per day for free, and most of the dragonmarkspells are new to the Druid, including powerful low-level options likeShield of Faith which can help to compensate for the Druid’s poor AC.

Races of Ravnica

Loxodon^GGTR: Excellent ability scores for the Druid, and a handful of useful passivebenefits. The Loxodon’s Natural Armor is Constitution-based, so you can safelydump Dexterity and be incredibly durable, allowing you to build your druidmuch more easily and potentially even make room for feats. Loxodon Serenityalso provides helpful defenses against common status conditions.

Simic Hybrid^GGTR: Put the flexible increase into Wisdom. Take any of the 1st-levelenhancements, and take Carapace at 5th level. Grappling Appendages istempting, but it’s Strength-based so it’s not a good option. Unfortunately,without a Dexterity increase or somee other means of boosting your AC, theSimic Hybrid will lag behind other options at low levels.

Vedalken^GGTR: A fine fit for many druids, but the Vedalken’s defenses are only mental,and the Druid’s problem is mostly with physical durability.

Races of Wildemount

Elf^EGtW: Wildemount elves share the core traits of core elves, but Wildemount addstwo new elf subraces. See above for information on core elf traits.

• Pallid Elf: The same ability increases asthe Wood Elf, but with more emphasis on thinking and magic than on runningaround in nature.
• Sea Elf: See above.

Halfling^EGtW: Wildemount halflings share the core traits of core halflings, butWildemount adds a new halflings subrace. See above for information on corehalflings traits.

• Lotusden: Dexterity, Wisdom, and somefree druid spells. Definitely works for the druid in general, but nothing tosolve your durability proble.

Circle of Spores Druid Feats

Thissectiondoesnotaddresseverypublishedfeat,asdoingsowouldresultinanever-growinglistofoptionswhichdon’tcatertotheclass.Instead,thissectionwillcoverfeatswhichIthinkworkespeciallywellfortheclassorwhichmightbetemptingbutpoorchoices.

For more general advice on feats, see our Druid Handbook.

• Elemental Adept^PHB: Tragically, Elemental Adept doesn’t allow you to select Necrotic.
• Magic Initiate^PHB: Magic Initiate is a great option for Circle of Spores. Melee cantripslike Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade allow you to exceed your normalcantrip damage by combining Shillelagh, an attack cantrip, and the extra 1d6damage from Symbotic Entity. On top of that, you can get either Mage Armor.Mage Armor’s 13+Dex AC will exceed the 12+Dex of Studded Leather, raisingyour maximum possible AC to 20 (13 base, 20 Dex, +2 shield) withoutmulticlassing or magic items.

  For more advice on Magic Initiate, see ourSpellcasting Feats Breakdown.

• Mobile^PHB: Not essential, but helpful when Symbiotic Entity runs out of temporaryhit points, and not standing directly in melee will help mitigatedamage.
• Polearm Master^PHB: Works with quarterstaffs, which means that it works with Shillelagh andall of our other shenanigans. If you don’t want to rely on melee cantrips,using Polarm Master to make an additional attack is a great option. Youstill get to apply the extra 1d6 damage from Symbiotic Entity on the bonusaction attack.
• Resilient^PHB: Proficiency in Constitution saves is really helpful for a class with alot of really great spells which require Concentration, especially sinceyou’re planning to spend a lot of time in melee.
• Sentinel^PHB: Great if you want to be a Defender, but I think you’ll see better resultsfrom other feats.
• Shield Master^PHB: Druids don’t typically have enough Strength to make the Shove optionuseful.
• Tough^PHB: More hit points never hurt, but you almost certainly don’t have enoughfeats to make room for this.
• War Caster^PHB: You’ll be spending a lot of time in melee range, and you may have aweapon and a shield in your hands when you do so. Juggling a weapon to castspells can be a problem in many cases, so War Caster can save you quite abit of trouble. Even if you’re using a Staff (Druids can use a wooden staffas a focus, and staff foci use the same weapon stats as a quarterstaff), younormally can’t perform somatic components with a weapon in hand unless thespell also has material components.
• Weapon Master^PHB: You already have proficiency in everything which can be the subject ofShillelagh, but if you have exeptionally high Dexterity you might choose touse a rapier instead of a quarterstaff, but if you want a better Finesseweapon you can play a Wood Elf and use a short sword. The damage differencebetween a rapier and a short sword isn’t big enough to waste a feat.

Circle of Spores Druid Weapons

• Club: Works with shillelagh, but aquarterstaff works with Polearm Master, and it’s a longer stick for pokingtraps and other strange objects.
• Dagger: Doesn’t work with Shillelagh,but your Dexterity should be decent so it’s a fine backup weapon, and everycharacter should carry a dagger for utility purposes and to cut their wayout of creatures’ stomachs.
• Quarterstaff: Perfectly fine, and you canuse it with both Polearm Master and Shillelagh.

Circle of Spores Druid Armor

• Hide: Your starting armor unless you have16 Dexterity at 1st level.
• Leather: Your starting armor if you have16 or more Dexterity at 1st level.
• Studded Leather: The best armor you canget, but wait to get it until your Dexterity is at least 16.
• Shield: You need a shield like a fishneeds water. You’re going to be in melee a lot. Given the choice between aweapon and a shield, always pick a shield. Druids have horrible AC, andSymbiotic Entity’s temporary hit points aren’t enough to make up for it.

Multiclassing

This section briefly details some obvious and enticing multiclass options, but doesn’t fully explore the broad range of multiclassing combinations. For more on multiclassing, see our Practical Guide to Multiclassing.

• Barbarian: Unarmored Defense is helpful,but that’s all we care about and the Monk’s version works better.
• Cleric: More Wisdom-based spellcasting,and some of the domains’ 1st-level abilities are tempting, but there’snothing that directly helps up with Circle of Spores.
• Monk: Circle of Spores spends most oftheir time, especially at low levels, in melee or near-melee range, but ontheir own Circle of Spores is very frail despite the durability added bySymbiotic Entity. The Druid’s AC is terrible, and they never get the abilityto make additional weapon attacks so the 1d6 extra damage from SymbioticEntity often isn’t meaningful beyond low levels. A single level of Monksolve all of those problems. Unarmored Defense lets you reach an AC of 20with the ability scores that you were already going to increase and you nolonger need to use a shield. You could use unarmed strikes instead of aweapon, but you can also use a quarterstaff two-handed with or withoutShillelagh depending on whether you prefer to focus on Dexterity or onWisdom. However, your bonus action unarmed strike will still beDexterity-based unarmed strikes, so I recommend focusing on Dexterity firstinstead of Wisdom and allow your spellcasting to lag until you can get bothDexterity and Wisdom to 20.

Circle of Spores Druid Spells

The Circle of Spores Druid likely needs keep a melee weapon in-hand both for attacking on their own turn and for making opportunity attacks. They also need a shield to help deal with the Druid’s notoriously bad AC. Unfortunately, that means that you’ll need to constantly draw/store your weapon to get a free hand with which to cast spells.

If you need to draw a Spellcasting Focus or Material Components, it could require you to spend your item interaction on two successive turns to switch from a weapon to a focus or from a weapon to a focus. Because this can be a problem and will often leave you empty-handed between turns, try to use spells that lack Material and Somatic components whenever possible unless you intend to take War Caster.

The section below only covers Cantrips. Most of the Circle of Spores Druid’s spellcasting is essentially the same as every other druids’. Your Cantrips will be slightly different to emphasize fighting in melee or near-melee range, but for the most part you’re still a regular druid. For more guidance on spells, see our Druid Spells Breakdown

Cantrips

• Chill Touch^PHB: Free at 2nd level thanks to Circle Spells. Chill Touch does as muchdamage as Produce Flame with 4 times as much range, and it’s Necrotic damagewhich is rare for the Druid. It also debuffs undead, which is fantasticbecause undead are typically resistant or immune to necrotic damage whichdominates Circle of Spore’s damage output.
• Primal Savagery^XGtE: Because this is a spell attack it won’t benefit from the extra damagefrom Symbiotic Entity. The damage scaling will eventually outdo Shillelagh,but not until 17th level. Unfortunately, the Druid gets their last newCantrip at 4th level, unless you’re using the optional rules in Tasha’sCauldron of Everything there’s no way to retrain them. I simply can’trecommend carrying around a cantrip that you’ll probably never use for 14levels. It does have the advantage of not requiring you to use a weapon, butif magic weapons are a possibility or if you don’t plan to take War Caster,Shillelagh still seems like a better option.
• Shillelagh^PHB: If you plan to do any melee combat of any kind, you almost certainly needShillelagh. You can’t afford to invest in Strength, and you’ll need to focuson Wisdom over Dexterity until you hit 20 Wisdom to keep your spellcastingup to par since that’s still your class’s primary function.
• Thorn Whip^PHB: The damage is fine, but the real appeal is the pull effect. 10 feet maynot seem like much, but its enough to pull enemies off of ledges, to pulllow-flying enemies into melee, to pull enemies into an area control effectlike Create Bonfire or Wall of Fire, to pull enemies out of a grapple, or ina pinch you can pull an ally out of a dangerous location (albeit at theprice of some friendly fire).
• Thunderclap^{EEPC / XGtE}: Damaging every creature within 5 feet of you is great if you’re in meleefacing numerous enemies. Even with Extra Attack you will deal more damagewith this against three or more foes than you could with a weapon. See ourarticle onMelee Cantrips vs. Extra Attackfor a breakdown of the math comparing melee cantrip spells to normal martialattacks.

Example Circle of Spores Druid Build – Tortle Druid

When you think about it, the cap of a mushroom is sort of like a turtle’sshell. Except a mushroom can’t hide inside the shell. Okay, terrible simile.Move on.

Tortle simplifies a lot of things for the Circle of Spores. An AC of 17 will exceed the AC of every other Druid at low levels, and AC is a massive problem for druids, especially if you’re going to be in melee. Even the Loxodon will only have and AC of 16 at first level, and you probably don’t want to spend an ability increase on anything except Wisdom until your Wisdom hits 20, so the Tortle will have the highest Druid AC until 12th level.

At high levels other druids may eventually exceed your AC, but that will take a Monk class dip and still won’t happen until at least 9th level, so the Tortle is kind for nearly half of the level span.

With a fixed base AC, you don’t need to worry about Dexterity as much as mostother Circle of Spores Druids. It’s basically only for saving throws, andsince we don’t need to max out Dexterity as much as possible we can splitthose points across other ability scores so that our saving throw and skillbonuses aren’t dumped in favor of essential combat effectiveness.

Abilities

We will assume the point buy abilities suggested above.

Race

Tortle. As discussed above, Tortle dramatically simplifies both your abilityscores and your AC, which are two of the Circle of Spores Druid’s biggestchallenges.

You could switch out the Tortle for the Loxodon without too much trouble.You’ll start with higher Constitution, but slightly less AC. You probablywon’t be able to make room to boost your Constitution until you’ve alreadymaxed out your Wisdom, but 12th and 16th level will be very satisfying abilityincreases.

Skills and Tools

Start with Nature and Perception, which are great skills for the Druid.You’ll get two more from your background, but that’s not especialy importantto making Circle of Spores work.

Background

Your choice of background doesn’t matter much beyond normal Druid stuff.

Feats

We’ll start at 16 Wisdom, so two ability score increases will go into Wisdom, but we’ll have three more to spend. Starting at 15 Constitution means that we can take Resilient to bring it to 16 and also gain proficiency in Constitution saving throws. We can also look at other feats like War Caster, but there’s nothing that we strictly need.

Levels