DnD 5e Circle of Spores Druid Handbook

Introduction

The Circle of Spores Druid is a complex, challenging subclass. It offers a number of interesting features which will ensure that no part of your turn goes unused, and that you always have something interesting to do. However, it is complicated to build and play, and players will need to make complex risk-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

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 which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to 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

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

    You lose the ability to use Halo of Spores as a Reaction, unfortunately, and the ability curiously doesn’t exclude you from the damage, so be careful not top drop Spreading Spores on yourself. Cast something like Entangle to keep enemies from moving away quickly, then throw your spores on top of them.

    This can also monopolize your Bonus Action, which conflicts with common tactics like Polearm Master. That may be perfectly fine depending on your build and your situation. Not every turn needs to involve swinging a shillelagh, and alternating attack turns with turns where you move Spreading Spores and cast a spell could be a great way to bring all of your options into play consistently.

  6. Fungal Body: A nice list of condition immunitites. You can still take poison damage, which seems odd, but I’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 with their physical ability scores. Because you’re not relying on turning into an animal but you still need to function in melee or near-melee range, you need to be able to survive melee combat on your own. Unfortunately, this means that the Circle of Spores Druid is more MAD than other druids. Strangely, this also means that your ability score requirements match those of the Monk.

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

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

Con: The Circle of Spores Druid needs Constitution more than other druids. Yes, Symbiotic Entity gives you a huge pile of temporary hit points, but you will inevitably take damage which goes beyond your temporary hit points, and you don’t want to die because you have 10 Constitution.

Int: Dump.

Wis: The Druid’s spells are powered by Wisdom.

Cha: Dump.

Point BuyStandard Array
Str810
Dex1514
Con1513
Int812
Wis1515
Cha88

Circle of Spores Druid Races

Ability scores are absolutely critical for the Circle of Spores Druid. Look for some combination of Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom in most cases. But beyond that, look for ways to make yourself more durable. Natural armor and condition resistances are offered by several races. Innate spellcasting and additional skills may look tempting, but you generally don’t have room to fit them 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.

AarakocraEEPC: Dexterity and Wisdom increases and flight. You need to be in melee or near-melee range for much of the Circle of Spores to function, so flight doesn’t do much except get you into melee faster. You could take the Mobile feat to enable you to employ flying hit-and-run tactics, which is a significant improvement, but Circle of Spores is very MAD so it’s often difficult to sacrifice an Ability Score Increase for a feat.

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

  • HillPHB: Constitution, Wisdom, and a big pile of extra hit points. Numerically mostly sound, but races which provide a way to address the Druid’s terrible AC will still be more effective..

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

GithMToF: Githzerai is a decent option, but the Intelligence option is wasted.

  • GithzeraiMToF: A wisdom increase, shield as an inate spell, and Mental Discipline. Shield looks very tempting, but it can be difficult to provide the somatic component when you have a shield in one hand and a shillelagh in the other.

GoblinVGtM: Dexterity and Constitution are good, but falling behind on Wisdom is a serious handicap for a long time. Nimble Escape is a great addition for when Symbiotic Entity runs out, and Fury of the Small can be a helpful damage boost since most enemies are medium or larger.

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

  • High/Moon/SunSCAG: A single cantrip from the Wizard spell list means that you can get Booming 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 taking Magic Initiate.
  • VanillaPHB: Two skills are nice on nearly any character, but they do nothing to help the Circle of Spores and you really need your race to complement the subclass for any of it to work.

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

  • GhostwiseSCAG: A small wisdom bump is good, but that’s the only thing we really care about.

HumanPHB: 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 make this a great option, but it’s something.
  • Variant: Put the bonuses into Dexterity and Wisdom, and grab a feat. Magic Initiate and Polearm Master are both great choices.

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

TortleTP: 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 enough to keep you on the Attack vs. AC progression, and 17 AC means you can totally ignore Dexterity. Grab a shield, and your AC is 19 at 1st level, which will match most other druids until very high levels.

Thri-KreenSAiS: 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-specific races are address below. Not every setting allows every race, and while most races presented in the core rules and in content for the Forgotten Realms can be used in other settings, races specific to settings like Ravnica aren’t typically allowed in other settings. Talk to your DM about what races are allowed in your game. 

Races of Eberron

KalashtarERLW: The Wisdom increase is great, but it doesn’t address the Druid’s poor durability. The Kalasthar’s defense are mostly mental, and the Druid’s problems are mostly with physical defenses.

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

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

WarforgedERLW: The Druid’s biggest problem is durability, and the Warforged is all about durability. The resistance to poison is admittedly redundant, but that’s fine considering 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-OrcERLW: Dragonmark traits replace ALL of your racial traits.

  • Mark of Finding: Constitution and Wisdom increases are great, and Hunter’s Mark provides a small but pleasant increase to your damage output. However, many of the dragonmark spells are already on the Druid’s spell list.

Dragonmarked HalflingERLW: Dragonmark traits replace your subrace.

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

Dragonmarked HumanERLW: Dragonmark traits replace ALL of your racial traits.

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

Races of Ravnica

LoxodonGGTR: Excellent ability scores for the Druid, and a handful of useful passive benefits. The Loxodon’s Natural Armor is Constitution-based, so you can safely dump Dexterity and be incredibly durable, allowing you to build your druid much more easily and potentially even make room for feats. Loxodon Serenity also provides helpful defenses against common status conditions.

Simic HybridGGTR: Put the flexible increase into Wisdom. Take any of the 1st-level enhancements, and take Carapace at 5th level. Grappling Appendages is tempting, 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, the Simic Hybrid will lag behind other options at low levels.

VedalkenGGTR: 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

ElfEGtW: Wildemount elves share the core traits of core elves, but Wildemount adds two new elf subraces. See above for information on core elf traits.

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

HalflingEGtW: Wildemount halflings share the core traits of core halflings, but Wildemount adds a new halflings subrace. See above for information on core halflings traits.

  • Lotusden: Dexterity, Wisdom, and some free druid spells. Definitely works for the druid in general, but nothing to solve your durability proble.

Circle of Spores Druid Feats

This section does not address every published feat, as doing so would result in an ever-growing list of options which don’t cater to the class. Instead, this section will cover feats which I think work especially well for the class or which might be tempting but poor choices.

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

  • Elemental AdeptPHB: Tragically, Elemental Adept doesn’t allow you to select Necrotic.
  • Magic InitiatePHB: Magic Initiate is a great option for Circle of Spores. Melee cantrips like Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade allow you to exceed your normal cantrip damage by combining Shillelagh, an attack cantrip, and the extra 1d6 damage 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, raising your maximum possible AC to 20 (13 base, 20 Dex, +2 shield) without multiclassing or magic items.

    For more advice on Magic Initiate, see our Spellcasting Feats Breakdown.

  • MobilePHB: Not essential, but helpful when Symbiotic Entity runs out of temporary hit points, and not standing directly in melee will help mitigate damage.
  • Polearm MasterPHB: Works with quarterstaffs, which means that it works with Shillelagh and all 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. You still get to apply the extra 1d6 damage from Symbiotic Entity on the bonus action attack.
  • ResilientPHB: Proficiency in Constitution saves is really helpful for a class with a lot of really great spells which require Concentration, especially since you’re planning to spend a lot of time in melee.
  • SentinelPHB: Great if you want to be a Defender, but I think you’ll see better results from other feats.
  • Shield MasterPHB: Druids don’t typically have enough Strength to make the Shove option useful.
  • ToughPHB: More hit points never hurt, but you almost certainly don’t have enough feats to make room for this.
  • War CasterPHB: You’ll be spending a lot of time in melee range, and you may have a weapon and a shield in your hands when you do so. Juggling a weapon to cast spells can be a problem in many cases, so War Caster can save you quite a bit of trouble. Even if you’re using a Staff (Druids can use a wooden staff as a focus, and staff foci use the same weapon stats as a quarterstaff), you normally can’t perform somatic components with a weapon in hand unless the spell also has material components.
  • Weapon MasterPHB: You already have proficiency in everything which can be the subject of Shillelagh, but if you have exeptionally high Dexterity you might choose to use a rapier instead of a quarterstaff, but if you want a better Finesse weapon you can play a Wood Elf and use a short sword. The damage difference between a rapier and a short sword isn’t big enough to waste a feat.

Circle of Spores Druid Weapons

  • Club: Works with shillelagh, but a quarterstaff works with Polearm Master, and it’s a longer stick for poking traps and other strange objects.
  • Dagger: Doesn’t work with Shillelagh, but your Dexterity should be decent so it’s a fine backup weapon, and every character should carry a dagger for utility purposes and to cut their way out of creatures’ stomachs.
  • Quarterstaff: Perfectly fine, and you can use it with both Polearm Master and Shillelagh.

Circle of Spores Druid Armor

  • Hide: Your starting armor unless you have 16 Dexterity at 1st level.
  • Leather: Your starting armor if you have 16 or more Dexterity at 1st level.
  • Studded Leather: The best armor you can get, but wait to get it until your Dexterity is at least 16.
  • Shield: You need a shield like a fish needs water. You’re going to be in melee a lot. Given the choice between a weapon and a shield, always pick a shield. Druids have horrible AC, and Symbiotic 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’s nothing that directly helps up with Circle of Spores.
  • Monk: Circle of Spores spends most of their time, especially at low levels, in melee or near-melee range, but on their own Circle of Spores is very frail despite the durability added by Symbiotic Entity. The Druid’s AC is terrible, and they never get the ability to make additional weapon attacks so the 1d6 extra damage from Symbiotic Entity often isn’t meaningful beyond low levels. A single level of Monk solve all of those problems. Unarmored Defense lets you reach an AC of 20 with the ability scores that you were already going to increase and you no longer need to use a shield. You could use unarmed strikes instead of a weapon, but you can also use a quarterstaff two-handed with or without Shillelagh depending on whether you prefer to focus on Dexterity or on Wisdom. However, your bonus action unarmed strike will still be Dexterity-based unarmed strikes, so I recommend focusing on Dexterity first instead of Wisdom and allow your spellcasting to lag until you can get both Dexterity 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 TouchPHB: Free at 2nd level thanks to Circle Spells. Chill Touch does as much damage as Produce Flame with 4 times as much range, and it’s Necrotic damage which is rare for the Druid. It also debuffs undead, which is fantastic because undead are typically resistant or immune to necrotic damage which dominates Circle of Spore’s damage output.
  • Primal SavageryXGtE: Because this is a spell attack it won’t benefit from the extra damage from Symbiotic Entity. The damage scaling will eventually outdo Shillelagh, but not until 17th level. Unfortunately, the Druid gets their last new Cantrip at 4th level, unless you’re using the optional rules in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything there’s no way to retrain them. I simply can’t recommend carrying around a cantrip that you’ll probably never use for 14 levels. It does have the advantage of not requiring you to use a weapon, but if magic weapons are a possibility or if you don’t plan to take War Caster, Shillelagh still seems like a better option.
  • ShillelaghPHB: If you plan to do any melee combat of any kind, you almost certainly need Shillelagh. You can’t afford to invest in Strength, and you’ll need to focus on Wisdom over Dexterity until you hit 20 Wisdom to keep your spellcasting up to par since that’s still your class’s primary function.
  • Thorn WhipPHB: The damage is fine, but the real appeal is the pull effect. 10 feet may not seem like much, but its enough to pull enemies off of ledges, to pull low-flying enemies into melee, to pull enemies into an area control effect like Create Bonfire or Wall of Fire, to pull enemies out of a grapple, or in a pinch you can pull an ally out of a dangerous location (albeit at the price of some friendly fire).
  • ThunderclapEEPC / XGtE: Damaging every creature within 5 feet of you is great if you’re in melee facing numerous enemies. Even with Extra Attack you will deal more damage with this against three or more foes than you could with a weapon. See our article on Melee Cantrips vs. Extra Attack for a breakdown of the math comparing melee cantrip spells to normal martial attacks.

Example Circle of Spores Druid Build – Tortle Druid

When you think about it, the cap of a mushroom is sort of like a turtle’s shell. 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 most other Circle of Spores Druids. It’s basically only for saving throws, and since we don’t need to max out Dexterity as much as possible we can split those points across other ability scores so that our saving throw and skill bonuses aren’t dumped in favor of essential combat effectiveness.

Abilities

We will assume the point buy abilities suggested above.

BaseIncreased
Str810
Dex1212
Con1515
Int1212
Wis1516
Cha99

Race

Tortle. As discussed above, Tortle dramatically simplifies both your ability scores and your AC, which are two of the Circle of Spores Druid’s biggest challenges.

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

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 important to 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

LevelFeat(s) and FeaturesNotes and Tactics
1Druidic
Spellcasting
Cantrips Known:
– Shillelagh
– Thorn whip
For your starting equipment, take a wooden shield, a quarterstaff, leather armor, an explorer’s pack, and a druidic focus.

With a shield in hand, your AC is 19. That’s as high as most fighters with shields at 1st level, so despite a few less hit points you’re still very durable. In combat your primary role is similar to the Fighter: Get into melee and club people with a stick.

Shillelagh is immediately useful, and at this level you have very few options for using your Bonus Action, but try to get into the habit of repeatedly casting Shillelagh whenever you might be attacked. As you gain levels, your action economy will be used heavily, and having Shillelagh running at the beginning of a fight can open up your Bonus Action for other things.

At range, your primary option is Thorn Whip. You generally want to get into melee with enemies, especially if they don’t want to be in melee, and pulling them 10 ft. closer can make that happen.
2Wild Shape
Druidic Circle: Circle of Spores
Circle Spells
Circle Spell: Chill Touch
Halo of Spores
Symbiotic Entity
2nd level is big for the Druid. You gain the ability to Wild Shape into animals, but you’ll likely only use that for utility and exploration. More importantly, you get your subclass features.

Circle of Spores notably gets Chill Touch as an extra cantrip at this level. It’s easy to miss because it’s listed in the text of Circle Spells rather than in the Circle Spells table. This offers

Halo of Spores and Symbiotic Entities are the most important things that we get at this level, and they’re two of our most important options in combat. You’ll still do fine in combat without Symbiotic Entity and you’ll employ the same tactics, but Symbiotic Entity is like a Caps Lock button for kicking ass. It takes an action to activate and lasts ten minutes, so ideally you want to start it before combat breaks out, but that’s not always an option.
32nd-level spells. As you gain access to more spells, look for spells that help you in melee. Warding Wind is a great way to make it even more difficult for enemies to get away from you, and area control spells like Spike Growth can help you control the battlefield. If you’re low on hit points, cast Healing Spirit and stand your ground while it heals you.
4Ability Score Improvement (Wisdom 16 -> 18)
Wild Shape Improvement
New Cantrip Known:
– Thunderclap
More Wisdom improves your spellcasting and your attacks at the same time.

At this level we’ll learn Thunderclap. We don’t have a good way to deal with crowds yet, and with only a single weapon attack per turn at any level it can be difficult to deal with numerous enemies engaging you in melee.
53rd-level spells. There aren’t a lot of good 3rd-level Druid spells, and even fewer cater to the Circle of Spores.
6Fungal InfestationFungal Infestation isn’t especially powerful, but it gives you a pet zombie for up to an hour that you can use to block enemy movement, or you can throw a backpack on it and make it carry treasure or something.
74th-level spells. We get some great options at this level. Giant Insect is really good, and if anyone is gross enough to carry a bunch of bugs in their pockets it’s a Circle of Spores Druid. Guardian of Nature is a fantastic fit, too.

This level also gives us access to Polymorph. You’re already level 7, so nearly every polymorph option is already available to you. As far as I can tell, you can use Symbiotic Entity then cast Polymorph and retain all of Symbiotic Entity’s benefits. Of course, you can’t activate any of your class features once you’re polymorphed, so you only benefit from the temporary hit points and the bonus 1d6 necrotic damage on weapon attacks.
8Ability Score Improvement (Wisdom 18 -> 20)
Wild Shape Improvement
I generally recommend to people that they get their primary ability score to 18 before they consider feats, so this is the first time where I would consider introducing feats to the build.
95th-level spells. Some good options, but nothing that changes our tactics.
10Spreading Spores
New Cantrip Known:
– Any
By this level you have a bunch of great area control spells like Spike Growth and Wall of Stone. Throw something down to keep enemies
from running away, then drop your spores on them and wait. If they get out of the spores, spend another Bonus Action to move Spreading Spores on top of them again.

We already have the cantrips we care about, so take whatever you want at this level. I’m always partial to Shape Water because it’s amazing and Druidcraft is a steaming pile of worthless garbage.
116th-level spells. Investiture of Flame and Investiture of Ice both work great in melee.
12Feat: Resilient (Constitution 15 -> 16)Resilient bumps our Constitution increase, giving us a big pile of hit points plus proficiency in Constitution saves.
137th-level spells. Nothing exciting at this level, but you can use Plane Shift to get rid of enemies which you’re having trouble with.
14Fungal BodyFungal body adds a bunch of nice condition immunities. It doesn’t change our tactics, but it makes you a bit more durable.
158th-level spells. Again, nothing that changes our tactics.
16Ability Score Improvement (Constitution 16 -> 18)Another opportunity for a feat, but by this level you’re probably conmfortable enough with your tactics that you don’t need another feat.
179th-level spells. Cast Foresight on yourself. All targets suffer Disadvantage on attacks against you, making you dramatically more durable and easily compensating for any AC issues which you haven’t managed to address yet. You also gain Advantage on all of your attacks, ability checks, and saving throws for a full 8 hours.
18Timeless Body
Beast Spells
Tragically, we’ll probably never use Beast Spells. For other druids it’s a powerful option allowing them to use Wild Shape to improve their mobility and stay out of reach while still casting spells offensively.
19Ability Score Improvement (Constitution 18 -> 20)Another big pile of hit points or another feat.
20ArchdruidArchdruid gets us two really great things. First, you can use Wild Shape as often as you want, which means that you can use Symbiotic Entity as often as you want. You should basically always have it running, and you might even refresh it mid-combat if the temporary hit points run low.

Second, you can ignore all somatic and verbal components, and most material components for your druid spells. You no longer need a free hand to perform somatic components, which has been a headache for most of your career unless you took War Caster.