Druid: the Treantmonk Variant

by Treantmonk

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The Druid: The Treantmonk Variant

Holding high a gnarled staff wreathed with holly, an elf summons the fury of the storm and calls down explosive bolts of lightning to smite the torch-carrying orcs who threaten her forest.

Crouching out of sight on a high tree branch in the form of a leopard, a human peers out of the jungle at the strange construction of a temple of Evil Elemental Air, keeping a close eye on the cultists’ activities.

Swinging a blade formed of pure fire, a half-elf charges into a mass of skeletal soldiers, sundering the unnatural magic that gives the foul creatures the mocking semblance of life.

Whether calling on the elemental forces of nature or emulating the creatures of the animal world, druids are an embodiment of nature’s resilience, cunning, and fury. They claim no mastery over nature. Instead, they see themselves as extensions of nature’s indomitable will.

The Druid
Level Proficiency Bonus Features Cantrips Known 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th
1st +2 Druidic, Spellcasting 2 2 - - - - - - - -
2nd +2 Wild Shape, Druid Circle 2 3 - - - - - - - -
3rd +2 - 2 4 2 - - - - - - -
4th +2 Ability Score Improvement 3 4 3 - - - - - - -
5th +3 Wild Shape Improvement 3 4 3 2 - - - - - -
6th +3 Druid Circle Feature 3 4 3 3 - - - - - -
7th +3 Wild Shape Improvement 3 4 3 3 1 - - - - -
8th +3 Ability Score Improvement 3 4 3 3 2 - - - - -
9th +4 Wild Shape Improvement 3 4 3 3 3 1 - - - -
10th +4 Druid Circle Feature 4 4 3 3 3 2 - - - -
11th +4 Wild Shape Improvement 4 4 3 3 3 2 1 - - -
12th +4 Ability Score Improvement 4 4 3 3 3 2 1 - - -
13th +5 Wild Shape Improvement 4 4 3 3 3 2 1 1 - -
14th +5 Druid Circle Feature 4 4 3 3 3 2 1 1 - -
15th +5 Wild Shape Improvement 4 4 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 -
16th +5 Ability Score Improvement 4 4 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 -
17th +6 Wild Shape Improvement 4 4 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1
18th +6 Timeless Body, Wild Shape Spells 4 4 3 3 3 3 1 1 1 1
19th +6 Ability Score Improvement, Wild Shape Improvement 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 1 1 1
20th +6 Archdruid 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1
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Class Features

As a druid, you gain the following class features.

Hit Points


  • Hit Dice: 1d8 per druid level
  • Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constitution modifier
  • Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per druid level after 1st

Proficiencies


  • Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields (druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal)
  • Weapons: Clubs, daggers, darts, javelins, maces, quarterstaffs, scimitars, sickles, slings, spears
  • Tools: Herbalism kit
  • Saving Throws: Intelligence, Wisdom
  • Skills: Choose two from Arcana, Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Religion, and Survival

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

  • (a) a wooden shield or (b) any simple weapon
  • (a) a scimitar or (b) any simple melee weapon
  • Leather armor, an explorer’s pack, and a druidic focus

Druidic

You know Druidic, the secret language of druids. You can speak the language and use it to leave hidden messages. You and others who know this language automatically spot such a message. Others spot the message’s presence with a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check but can’t decipher it without magic.

Spellcasting

Drawing on the divine essence of nature itself, you can cast spells to shape that essence to your will. See Spells Rules for the general rules of spellcasting and the Spells Listing for the druid spell list.

Cantrips

At 1st level, you know two cantrips of your choice from the druid spell list. You learn additional druid cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Druid table.

Preparing and Casting Spells

The Druid table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your druid spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these druid spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

You prepare the list of druid spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the druid spell list. When you do so, choose a number of druid spells equal to your Wisdom modifier + your druid level (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

For example, if you are a 3rd-level druid, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With a Wisdom of 16, your list of prepared spells can include six spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination. If you prepare the 1st-level spell cure wounds, you can cast it using a 1st-level or 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn’t remove it from your list of prepared spells.

You can also change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of druid spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

Spellcasting Ability

Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your druid spells, since your magic draws upon your devotion and attunement to nature. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a druid spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier

Ritual Casting

You can cast a druid spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell prepared.

Spellcasting Focus

You can use a druidic focus (see the Adventuring Gear section) as a spellcasting focus for your druid spells.

Wild Shape

Starting at 2nd level, you can use your action to magically assume the shape of a beast that you have seen before. You can use this feature twice. You regain expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.

Your druid level determines the beasts you can transform into, as shown in the Wild Shapes table. At 2nd level, for example, you can transform into any beast that has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower that doesn’t have a flying or swimming speed.

When you use your Wild Shape to take the form of a creature of CR 2 or higher, you must expend an available spell slot depending on the CR of the form taken, the spell slot expended must be of a level equal or greater than the CR of the form taken minus 1. For example, a 14th level druid uses Wild Shape to take the form of a Giant Scorpion. Since the Giant Scorpion has a CR of 3, the druid must expend a spell slot of 2 or greater to take the form.

You can stay in a Wild Shape for a number of hours equal to half your druid level (rounded down). You then revert to your normal form unless you expend another use of this feature. You can revert to your normal form earlier by using a bonus action on your turn. You automatically revert if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die.

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Wild Shapes
Level Max CR Limitations Example
2nd 1/4 No Flying or Swimming Speed Wolf
5th 1/2 No Flying Speed Crocodile
7th 1 No Flying Speed Lion
9th 2 Giant Elk
11th 3 Giant Scorpion
13th 4 Elephant
15th 5 Giant Crocodile
17th 6 Mammoth
19th 7 Giant Ape

While you are transformed, the following rules apply:

  • Your game statistics are replaced by the statistics of the beast or plant, but you retain your alignment, personality, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores.

  • You also retain all of your skill and saving throw proficiencies, in addition to gaining those of the creature. If the creature has the same proficiency as you and the bonus in its stat block is higher than yours, use the creature’s bonus instead of yours. If the creature has any legendary or lair actions, you can’t use them.

  • When you transform, you assume the creature's hit points and Hit Dice. When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed. However, if you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage. As long as the excess damage doesn’t reduce your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren’t knocked unconscious.

  • You can’t cast spells, and your ability to speak or take any action that requires hands is limited to the capabilities of your Wild Shape form. Transforming doesn’t break your concentration on a spell you’ve already cast, however, or prevent you from taking actions that are part of a spell, such as call lightning, that you’ve already cast.

  • You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so. However, you can’t use any of your special senses, such as darkvision, unless your new form also has that sense.

  • You choose whether your equipment falls to the ground in your space, merges into your new form, or is worn by it. Worn equipment functions as normal, but the DM decides whether it is practical for the new form to wear a piece of equipment, based on the creature’s shape and size. Your equipment doesn’t change size or shape to match the new form, and any equipment that the new form can’t wear must either fall to the ground or merge with it. Equipment that merges with the form has no effect until you leave the form.

Druid Circle

At 2nd level, you choose to identify with a circle of druids: the Circle of the Land and Circle of the Moon are detailed at the end of the class description or other sources. Your choice grants you features at 2nd level and again at 6th, 10th, and 14th level.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.

Timeless Body

Starting at 18th level, the primal magic that you wield causes you to age more slowly. For every 10 years that pass, your body ages only 1 year.

Wild Shape Spells

Beginning at 18th level, you can cast many of your druid spells in any shape you assume using Wild Shape. You can perform the somatic and verbal components of a druid spell while in a beast shape, but you aren’t able to provide material components.

Archdruid

At 20th level, you have unlimited uses of Wild Shape. A spell slot expenditure based on the CR of the beast still applies.

Additionally, you can ignore the verbal and somatic components of your druid spells, as well as any material components that lack a cost and aren’t consumed by a spell. You gain this benefit in both your normal shape and your beast shape from Wild Shape.

Circle of the Land

The Circle of the Land is made up of mystics and sages who safeguard ancient knowledge and rites through a vast oral tradition. These druids meet within sacred circles of trees or standing stones to whisper primal secrets in Druidic. The circle’s wisest members preside as the chief priests of communities that hold to the Old Faith and serve as advisors to the rulers of those folk. As a member of this circle, your magic is influenced by the land where you were initiated into the circle’s mysterious rites.

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Bonus Cantrip

When you choose this circle at 2nd level, you learn one additional druid cantrip of your choice.

Plant Wildshape

When you use your Wild Shape class feature, you may choose a creature of the plant subtype that you have seen before of the appropriate challenge rating.

Natural Recovery

Starting at 2nd level, you can regain some of your magical energy by sitting in meditation and communing with nature. During a short rest, you choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your druid level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

For example, when you are a 4th-level druid, you can recover up to two levels worth of spell slots. You can recover either a 2nd-level slot or two 1st-level slots.

Circle Spells

Your mystical connection to the land infuses you with the ability to cast certain spells. At 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th level you gain access to circle spells connected to the land where you became a druid. Choose that land — arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or Underdark — and consult the associated list of spells.

Once you gain access to a circle spell, you always have it prepared, and it doesn’t count against the number of spells you can prepare each day. If you gain access to a spell that doesn’t appear on the druid spell list, the spell is nonetheless a druid spell for you.

Arctic
Druid Level Spells
3rd hold person, spike growth
5th sleet storm, slow
7th freedom of movement, ice storm
9th commune with nature, cone of cold
Coast
Druid Level Spells
3rd mirror image, misty step
5th water breathing, water walk
7th control water, freedom of movement
9th conjure elemental, scrying
Desert
Druid Level Spells
3rd blur, silence
5th create food and water, protection from energy
7th blight, hallucinatory terrain
9th insect plague, wall of stone
Forest
Druid Level Spells
3rd barkskin, spider climb
5th call lightning, plant growth
7th divination, freedom of movement
9th commune with nature, tree stride
Grassland
Druid Level Spells
3rd invisibility, pass without trace
5th daylight, haste
7th divination, freedom of movement
9th dream, insect plague
Mountain
Druid Level Spells
3rd spider climb, spike growth
5th lightning bolt, meld into stone
7th stone shape, stoneskin
9th passwall, wall of stone
Swamp
Druid Level Spells
3rd darkness, acid arrow
5th water walk, stinking cloud
7th freedom of movement, locate creature
9th insect plague, scrying
Underdark
Druid Level Spells
3rd spider climb, web
5th gaseous form, stinking cloud
7th greater invisibility, stone shape
9th cloudkill, insect plague

Nature’s Stride

Starting at 6th level, you gain the ability to move as if you were a creature of the wild. You gain a climb and swim speed equal to your walking speed, you also gain a burrow speed of 5 feet.

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Nature's Bond

At level 6, you gain the ability to bond with a willing tiny beast that is CR 1 or lower, forming a magic, telepathic bond with that willing companion. While your bonded creature is within 100 feet of you, you can communicate with it telepathically.

Additionally, as an action, you can see through it's eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the bonded creature has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.

You may only share this bond with one beast at a time.

Nature’s Ward

Starting at 10th level, whenever you cast a druid spell that deals damage, you may add your Wisdom modifier to the damage once.

Nature’s Sanctuary

When you reach 14th level, creatures of the natural world sense your connection to nature and become hesitant to attack you. When a beast or plant creature attacks you, the attack is made with disadvantage, and that creature must make a Wisdom saving throw against your druid spell save DC. On a failed save, the attack automatically misses and the creature is charmed by you until a remove curse spell is cast on it, or one hour has passed. On a successful save, the creature is immune to this effect for 24 hours.

The creature is aware of this effect before it makes its attack against you.

Living Greenery

When you reach 14th level, your mastery of spells that create plants becomes unmatched. When you cast a spell that has a duration of 1 minute and longer that requires your concentration and creates plants, such as entangle and grasping vine, you can use your action to move plants created by the spell up to 30 feet along the ground in a direction of your choice to an area that you can see as long as you concentrate on the spell.

Additionally, you can cast spells as though you were in the space of a plant you created with a spell, but you must use your own senses.

Circle of the Moon

Druids of the Circle of the Moon are fierce guardians of the wilds. Their order gathers under the full moon to share news and trade warnings. They haunt the deepest parts of the wilderness, where they might go for weeks on end before crossing paths with another humanoid creature, let alone another druid.

Changeable as the moon, a druid of this circle might prowl as a great cat one night, soar over the treetops as an eagle the next day, and crash through the undergrowth in bear form to drive off a trespassing monster. The wild is in the druid’s blood.

Combat Wild Shape

When you choose this circle at 2nd level, you gain the ability to use Wild Shape on your turn as a bonus action, rather than as an action.

Additionally, while you are transformed by Wild Shape, you can use a bonus action to expend one spell slot to regain 1d10 hit points per level of the spell slot expended.

Circle Forms

The rites of your circle grant you the ability to transform into more dangerous animal forms. Starting at 2nd level, when you use your wildshape to transform into a beast, you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your druid level and your attacks made in this form gain your Wisdom modifier as a bonus to hit.

Primal Strike

Starting at 6th level, your attacks in beast form count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

Additionally, when you hit an enemy with an attack while in Wild Shape, you may expend a spell slot to enhance the attack with elemental damage (cold, fire, lightning or poison, your choice). The damage added is equal to 1d10 points per level of spell slot expended.

Elemental Wild Shape

At 10th level, you can expend two uses of Wild Shape at the same time to transform into an air elemental, an earth elemental, a fire elemental, or a water elemental. If you do so, you do not need to expend a spell slot to take this form.

Deadly Forms

By 14th level, you have learned to use magic to alter your wildshape forms to be even more deadly in combat. Add your Wisdom Modifier to the Armor class of your Wildshape forms.

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