One of my players is creating a new 6th-level character to join the ongoing campaign, and asked if they could make a Circle of Spores Druid from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
I took a quick look at the description and read:
These druids believe that life and death are parts of a grand cycle, with one leading to the other and then back again. Death isn’t the end of life, but instead a change of state that sees life shift into a new form.
Druid Circle of Spores, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
I also saw the heading of the 6th-level ability “Fungal Infestation”.
When I read this, I immediately thought of the scene at the end of The Eye of the World where The Green Man attacks Balthamel:
Suddenly Balthamel jerked in the Green Man’s grasp. The Forsaken’s hands tried to push him away instead of clitching him. One gloved hand flung wide … and a tiny creeper burst through the black leather. A fungus, such as rungs trees in the deep shadows of the forest, ringed his arm, sprang from nowhere to full-grown, swelling to cover the length of it. Balthamel thrashed, and a shoot of stinkweed ripped open the leather of his face, nettles broke the eyes of his mask, deathshead mushrooms tore open the mouth.
The Green Man threw the Forsaken down. Balthamel twisted and herked as all the things that grew in the dark places, all the things with spores, all the things that loved the dank, swelled and grew, tore cloth and leather and flesh – Was it flesh, seen in that brief moment of verdant rage? – to tattered shreds and covered him nutil only a mound remained, indistinguishable from many in the shaded depths of the green forest, and the mound moved no more than they.
The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
That nicely fits some ideas I’ve got for my campaign, and it was late at night. I didn’t look closer but just sent back an “okay” to the player.
Next day I looked at it in more detail, in particular that Fungal Infestation which had inspired these thoughts and realised I had misunderstood it.
Fungal Infestation
6th-level Circle of Spores feature
Your spores gain the ability to infest a corpse and animate it. If a beast or a humanoid that is Small or Medium dies within 10 feet of you, you can use your reaction to animate it, causing it to stand up immediately with 1 hit point. The creature uses the Zombie stat block in the Monster Manual. It remains animate for 1 hour, after which time it collapses and dies.
Druid Circle of Spores, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
Oops. That’s not what I had thought at all.
Variant Fungal Infestation
So with the permission of the player, I have started exploring tweaks to make it more like my expectations.
I focused on the Fungal Infestation first. Here’s what I proposed:
You can introduce fungus and rot to stuff which was once alive but is no longer. For example, you could use it against a wooden fence to make it easier to break through, but not a stone wall.
As part of this, you can infect undead with fungus and mould which causes them damage in some way.
So rather than animating recent corpses, it’s more about encouraging things to return to the soil, ready to nourish the next cycle of life. It has interesting applications for both combat and exploration/raids.
Next session coming up. Time to flesh out the mechanics.
Fungal Infestation – Combat
Concentrating on the combat usage first. First thoughts – something along the lines of:
As an action, you can infect an undead creature within your Halo of Spores (i.e. within 10 feet of you) with fungus and mould. This inflicts <TBD> necrotic damage, plus you can use a bonus action to deal <TBD> additional necrotic damage per round thereafter while within range. ?Saving throw? ?Limits?
Fill in the blanks for balance. Let’s look at the mechanics of what it’s replacing. Here’s the rest of the stat:
In combat, the zombie’s turn comes immediately after yours. It obeys your mental commands, and the only action it can take is the Attack action, making one melee attack.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.
Analysing this:
- it effectively grants an additional slam melee attack on your turn, bludgeoning, +3 to hit, 1d6+1 damage
- this lasts for an hour or until the zombie is hit (remember it has only 1hp)
- it depends on a creature dying within 10 feet of you (which could be quite a severe limitation)
- it has a limit based on your Wisdom modifier
I need to make sure the replacement isn’t too unbalanced in comparison to that, although I think the mechanics will be a bit different.
What about the other Druid Circle 6th-level benefits?
- Circle of Dreams: Hearth of Moonlight and Shadow – an invisible shelter which provides total cover, grants +5 Stealth and Perception checks to you and your allies within it.
- Circle of Stars: Cosmic Omen – you get one or more d6 rolls which you can apply to an attack, save or ability check of a nearby creature. 50% chance of the rolls adding or subtracting. Number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier per long rest.
- Circle of the Land: Land’s Stride – you can move through non-magical difficult terrain, including non-magical plants, with no impediment and without taking damage. Advantage on saving throws against plants magically created to impede, such as the entangle spell.
- Circle of the Moon: your beast form attacks count as magical.
- Circle of the Shepherd: beasts you summon gain an extra 2hp per HD and their attacks count as magical.
Hmm. These all seem less powerful than I expected. It would be easy to make this too powerful…
On the other hand, we already have the Halo of Spores from 2nd level. These allow you to cause 1d4 damage on reaction, increasing with level. So we’ve already got 1d6 necrotic damage (remember this starts at 6th level). Maybe we can build on this.
As an action, you can make a melee attack on a creature within your Halo of Spores to infect them with fungus and mould and creeping plants. The target takes 2d6 necrotic damage and must make a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC. On subsequent turns, until the effect ends, you can use your reaction to deal an additional 2d6 necrotic damage to the target. The effect ends when you lose concentration, when the target succeeds on their saving throw, if you use your reaction for anything else, or when the target moves outside your Halo of Spores. The necrotic damage increases in line with your Halo of Spores damage dice.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.
So apart from the initial melee attack, it is effectively doubling your Halo of Spores damage. Hmm. Neat, but not sure it captures the effect I want. Maybe it would be better to make it more of an active effect which requires use of your action. Somewhat inspired by Enervation:
As an action, you can make a melee attack on a creature within your Halo of Spores to infect them with fungus and mould and creeping plants. On a successful save, the target takes 2d6 necrotic damage, and the effect ends. On a failed save, the target takes 2d6 necrotic damage, and until the effect ends, you can use your action on each of your turns to automatically deal 2d6 necrotic damage to the target. The effect ends if you lose concentration, if you use your action for anything else, or if the target is ever outside your Halo of Spores. The target can make an additional saving throw after each turn, ending the effect on a successful save. The damage increases in line with your Halo of Spores damage dice.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.
Or maybe a bonus action? Dialing down the repeated damage given there is also the reaction damage from the Halo of Spores.
As an action, you can make a melee attack on a creature within your Halo of Spores to infect them with fungus and mould and creeping plants. On a successful save, the target takes 2d6 necrotic damage, and the effect ends. On a failed save, the target takes 2d6 necrotic damage, and until the effect ends, you can use a bonus action on each of your turns to automatically deal 1d6 necrotic damage to the target. The effect ends if you lose concentration, if you use your bonus action for anything else, or if the target is ever outside your Halo of Spores. The target can make an additional saving throw after each turn, ending the effect on a successful save. The damage increases in line with your Halo of Spores damage dice.
Hmm. I can’t decide. The action version does more damage than the other 6th level effects, but it costs your action and requires concentration. The reaction version does less damage, leaves the action available for something else, but using the reaction doesn’t fit the concept so well. The bonus action is somewhere in the middle.
I’ve also lost the link to undead. Does this matter, or is this appropriate? Should I add an extra damage dice to undead, or give them disadvantage on the saving throw, since they’re already not alive?
I think I’ll put the options to my players and let them decide.
What do you prefer? Thoughts welcomed in the comments. I will definitely be revisiting this as we see how it plays.
Update 9-Feb-2021
After discussing with the group, we’ve decided to try the bonus action version as our starting point, and give undead disadvantage on their CON saving throw against it:
As an action, you can make a melee attack on a creature within your Halo of Spores to infect them with fungus and mould and creeping plants. The target must make a Constitution saving throw against your Spell Save DC. Undead have disadvantage on their saving throw.
On a successful save, the target takes 2d6 necrotic damage, and the effect ends.
On a failed save, the target takes 2d6 necrotic damage, and until the effect ends, you can use a bonus action on each of your turns to automatically deal 1d6 necrotic damage to the target. The effect ends if you lose concentration, if you use your bonus action for anything else, or if the target is ever outside your Halo of Spores. The target can make an additional saving throw after each turn, ending the effect on a successful save. The damage increases in line with your Halo of Spores damage dice.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.
Fungal Infestation – Inanimate Objects
I also promised the Fungal Infestation could give a way to break through fences, etc.
I can see two options here. Either a bald “so much per minute” or damage-based, which requires the GM to work out hit points for the item being attacked but does reflect the different challenge of different types of material.
First requirement: it must be organic – something which might support mould and fungus growing on it and attacking it. Wood, paper, leather, but not rock, stone, metal.
I think I’ll make the timescale minutes rather than rounds.
You can infect an organic inanimate object with fungus and mould. You must touch the object and concentrate on the effect. The effect does 1d6 damage to the object per minute, expanding out in a circle centred on the point being touched. The infection can be continued for a maximum of 10 minutes before dying out.
No idea how well that works…we’re just going to have to try it and see. The DMG gives the following guidance for object hit points:
An object’s hit points measure how much damage it can take before losing its structural integrity. Resilient objects have more hit points than fragile ones. Large objects also tend to have more hit points than small ones, unless breaking a small part of the object is just as effective as breaking the whole thing. The Object Hit Points table provides suggested hit points for fragile and resilient objects that are Large or smaller.
| Size | Fragile | Resilient |
|---|---|---|
| Tiny (bottle, lock) | 2 (1d4) | 5 (2d4) |
| Small (chest, lute) | 3 (1d6) | 10 (3d6) |
| Medium (barrel, chandelier) | 4 (1d8) | 18 (4d8) |
| Large (Cart, 10-ft.-by-10-ft. window) | 5 (1d10) | 27 (5d10) |
So a scroll might have 2hp, leather armour 10hp, an oak barrel 20hp, a sturdy door or a section of fence 30hp.
Variant spell selection
Each circle gains a set of additional spells which are always prepared, and the circle of spores is no different. Looking over them, I’m okay with most of them, but the one which really doesn’t fit my image of the class I want in my campaign is Animate Dead.
This is a 3rd level spell, gained at 5th level. Two options jump out at me from the standard options: Plant Growth or Stinking Cloud. Stinking Cloud seems to fit better with the “spores” theme, so let’s go with that. It’s also a spell which a Druid wouldn’t get naturally (like Animate Dead) so matches in that sense.
Conclusion
I don’t really have a conclusion yet. I’ll need to put it to the players and let them respond, and then we’ll need to play it and see how it goes.
This addresses my specific concern around the necromantic “raise dead” effect. It still doesn’t capture my vision of a class which encourages the continual cycle and life and death and rebirth – it’s still all about infection and decay with nothing on the side of encouraging growth and new life. But it’s a starting point. I’ll follow up in future posts with our findings and tweaks as we play with it.
