Best Feats for Shepherd Druid 5e
by Prince Phantom
The Shepherd Druid could accurately be called a one trick pony, but dang it’s good at that trick. Summoning magic is already completely busted in half in this game, and the Circle of Shepherds only serves to make it even more busted. The standout ability is our 6th level feature, making all of our summons more durable and have magical attacks, but our other abilities are also great too. Note that none of our Spirit Totems from our 3rd level ability have a maximum number of targets for their buffs, and our 10th level ability makes the auras from those spirit totems even better by passively healing all of your summons that end their turn inside the area.
The 14th level ability is probably our worst, as while it is flavorfully wonderful, it fails to do the thing we really need when we drop to 0 HP, that being to regain hit points. It’s still really cool though. This makes the Shepherd Druid a front runner for the “best summoner in the game” race. Basically, if you aren’t both willing and prepared to take command of 8 or more extra creatures every combat past 5th level, this is not the subclass for you. If, however, that is exactly what you are looking for, then here are some feats to boost that strategy, because let me tell you, it is a very good strategy.
Best Feats for Shepherd Druid 5e
War Caster (Lv 4): Hey, do you know what basically every summoning spell has in common? That’s right, they’re all at least decent if not great. Oh yeah and they require concentration too. We should probably make sure we don’t drop that. Advantage on that check will do nicely until our proficiency bonus is high enough to warrant taking Resilient Constitution, and the other benefits are pretty cool as well.
Alert (Lv 8): Summoning spells are generally better the earlier you cast them, and mass summon spells like Conjure Animals can be used to set up what I like to call a “wall of flesh” that the enemies must break through before they can reach your party. Going first in initiative makes this exceptionally easy to set up in many combats, especially if you find your DM likes to start fights with you on one side of the battlefield, and the enemies on the other.
Fey Touched (Lv 8): Just about the only weakness of this subclass is its lack of an expanded spell list. We’re sticking with the main Druid options for the Circle of Shepherds, meaning adding anything we can onto that will feel like a very welcome addition. Misty Step also fills quite the hole in the Druid list, as teleportation options are high level and also not very good on the Druid’s list. We aren’t nearly as reliant on enemies failing their saves when we are focusing so much on summoning, but Silvery Barbs is still probably the correct pick so we can help our allies with the saves they are inflicting on our enemies.
Resilient Constitution (Lv 12): With this plus War Caster, our concentration will be nearly unbreakable, leaving the only options for getting rid of our summons being to kill them. Enemies targeting our summons instead of our party members is exactly what we want, as it eats enemy actions while protecting the HP that matters most. An underrated part of this feat is also that constitution saving throws are also very common, so having proficiency in them is nice on multiple fronts.
Inspiring Leader (Lv 16): Perhaps you love the temporary HP of the bear totem spirit, but the situations you find yourself in sorta call for one of the other two spirits. If you’ve noticed that as a pattern in your game, Inspiring Leader can do a pretty good bear totem spirit impression. We also get to actually make use out of our level 3 ribbon feature, as our targets need to be able to understand us for Inspiring Leader, and that feature very specifically says that beasts do understand us. It’s not every day that I find solid, mechanical use for a ribbon feature, so that has to count for something!
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