Circle of the Land Druid 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@Crier Kobold

The bread and butter spell-casting focused druid printed in the PHB is Circle of the Land. It predominately is a list of “domain” spells, a mirror feature to Wizard's Arcane Recovery, and some largely flavorful features with little to no impact on the game beyond that.

When you pick this subclass, you pick a sub-subclass in your chosen land: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or Underdark. Each of these points you in a different direction with a mix of spells from the druid list and other classes. Bonus spells auto-prepared aren’t the most exciting things in the world, but alongside Natural Recovery Land’s Stride, there is a bit of fun to be had with Circle of the Land.

2nd Level: Bonus Cantrip, Natural Recovery

Bonus Cantrips aren’t ever particularly exciting, especially when they’re from a spell list you’ve already picked your favorites from. Druid’s cantrip list is one of the better lists, though. Guidance is an all-star cantrip, and I’m a big fan of the “cosmetic” cantrips with Druidcraft, Gust, Mold Earth, Shape Water, and Control Flames. Any of those can sell the fantasy of your chosen land in some fun ways. Mold Earth on a Desert or Underdark druid, Shape Water on Arctic or Coast, etc. You only start with two; getting your third early is a decent bump in early utility that lessens the value of your next few learned cantrips, though.

Natural Recovery is an underrated feature, especially in the low tiers. With an expanded list of spells unlocked at 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th levels, having more spell slots to spend on those expanded spells is great.

Some tables run nearly no short rests, though, making this a feature whose power is directly tied to your average adventuring day’s rests. If you know you’re at a table with one big encounter after the next with little to no short rests to be seen, this subclass does get notably worse when compared to all of the other options that don’t lean on short rests.

2nd Level: Circle Spells

Circle Spells gets its own section because of how critical they are to the subclasses performance. Each group isn’t made equal and will have tables they can shine brightest in.

I’ll denote spells not on the druid spell list with italics and bold to highlight where these subclasses are getting unique effects other druids aren’t able to easily get.

Arctic gets Hold Person, Spike Growth, Sleet Storm, Slow, Freedom of Movement, Ice Storm, Commune with Nature, and Cone of Cold. Standouts on this list to me are Hold Person and Spike Growth (two spells I see regularly prepared on most druids anyway) and Cone of Cold, unique to this subclass. Druids don’t typically get giant damage area of effect spells, and Cone of Cold is on par with an up-cast Fireball. That’s excellent in classes without Fireball.
Arctic Druids 4th level circle spells are pretty abysmal; fortunately, Druids have one of the best selections of 4th-level spells in the game, including bangers like Conjure Minor Elementals, Conjure Woodland Beings, Fire Shield, Giant Insect, and Polymorph, so of all the spell levels to fail at, 4th is one of the least impactful.
Coast comes with Mirror Image, Misty Step, Water Breathing, Water Walk, Control Water, Freedom of Movement, Conjure Elemental, and Scrying. Both of their 2nd level spells being unique to the subclass definitely encourages this route, especially for characters that want to play with Misty Step in the upper tiers. Its other spell selections, namely Water Breathing and Control Water, require aquatic play to function, so if you aren’t going to be sailing the high seas, I’d probably stick to other options unless you really need Misty Step.
Desert have Blur, Silence, Create Food and Water, Protection from Energy, Blight, Hallucinatory Terrain, Insect Plague, and Wall of Stone. I’m a major proponent of Silence, and Wall of Stone is a pretty interesting effect to get access to. Beyond that, Insect Plague is a mediocre damaging area effect that eats your concentration, Blur isn’t a spell I’m all that eager to play with on most characters. It can be cute on Wild Shaped druids aiming to dodge any damage to stay in their 1 HP tiny forms, though, so that’s kind of neat! Most tables probably don’t need, nor want enough of these spells to consider taking it.
Forest get Barkskin, Spider Climb, Call Lightning, Plant Growth, Divination, Freedom of Movement, Commune with Nature, and Tree Stride. The only unique spell here is Spider Climb, which is a neat little trick to have in your back pocket. Call Lightning feels like a major flavor miss for me, but has a cute play pattern with druids where you cast it, transform into a squirrel, ferret, or another small evasive critter, and then spend you’re subsequent actions from a safe distance away frying any creatures in a 5 ft. radius area each turn.
Grassland offers you Invisibility, Pass without Trace, Daylight, Haste, Divination, Freedom of Movement, Dream, and Insect Plague. Invisibility and Haste are two exceptional spells that will mesh well with a variety of parties, and Pass Without Trace is another 2nd-level druid spell that is regularly prepared anyway.
Mountain comes with Spider Climb, Spike Growth, Lightning Bolt, Meld into Stone, Stone Shape, Stoneskin, Passwall, and Wall of Stone. Lightning Bolt ties Fireball for the highest damaging area 3rd level spell. The rest of the list range in usefulness, but all offer you some level of utility at basically every table you’ll be eager to have access to. This list is robust. If you want raw power, Mountain is easily going to be one of, if not the most, generally applicable lists you can take.
Swamp’s list is Darkness, Acid Arrow, Water Walk, Stinking Cloud, Freedom of Movement, Locate Creature, and Scrying. Darkness is a particularly neat effect and works with some blindsight-based builds looking to get advantage on their attacks and impose disadvantage on enemy rolls, but with only Stinking Cloud being an effect I’d consider solid, this list is lacking at nearly every table that could consider it. If you really like Stinking Cloud and Darkness, this is a way to get them both in druid. Unfortunately, Underdark also gets Stinking Cloud, and has a way better list comparably, making it so if you want this fantasy, you probably should just reflavor Underdark.
Underdark closes things out with Spider Climb, Web, Gaseous Form, Stinking Cloud, Greater Invisibility, Stone Shape, Cloudkill, and Insect Plague. It's just banger after banger here; I’m a big fan early of Spider Climb, and Web is a great spell during most of the game for control casters like druids. Gaseous Form is a fun exploration tool, Stinking Cloud, as mentioned above, is great, Greater Invisibility is excellent in and out of combat, especially considering druids otherwise can’t get Invisibility effects. Cloudkill, while not the highest damage spell in a single round, can offer 10d8 over two rounds, making it potentially a potent toy to play around with from a damage perspective. All of these are spells I’d regularly prepare on my druids. Getting them prepared for free? Yes, please!

Circle Recommendations

The overall best two for any table are Mountain and Underdark. You will consistently want to cast spells they’re giving you at every level you’re getting them. If you don’t know what kind of adventure you’re going on or want a suite of tools suitable for a wide variety of environments, both of these lists are stellar.

Grassland and Arctic come in as a tier lower, each offering unique, powerful effects to druid, but also come with some real duds in the upper levels. Their lower-level effects are powerful enough to consider taking on that alone, and they can do a great job delivering on their fantasy if you don’t mind getting one or two spells you’ll probably cast two or fewer times a campaign.

Desert, Coast, and Forest all require a more specific campaign to get the most out of their lists. They offer one or two solid spells each with otherwise niche effects that you’ll want to know you’re going into before considering. Create Food and Water isn’t great at most tables; at a table playing in a desert without readily available resources, it's a lot better. Tree Stride requires literal trees to function.

Of these three, Forest likely fits fine in enough games you can play it with some level of success, specifically in the lower tiers. Coast is probably the worst after 3rd level, as Conjure Elemental is the only spell I can get excited to cast in the upper tiers with the rest being incredibly dependent on the environment.

Swamp comes in last place, by a fair margin. Acid Arrow is atrocious and Darkness isn’t an effect most tables want. Stinking Cloud is the only redeeming spell on the list, and with Underdark getting it alongside seven other great options, there’s no compelling reason to consider this unless you have an incredibly specific Darkness based plan in mind.

6th Level: Land’s Stride

Land’s Stride lets you ignore nonmagical difficult terrain and through nonmagical plants. Neat! Advantage on saves against effects that impede movement is almost a non-feature with very few effects in the game forcing you to save against it. This is largely a fluff feature, as even the most tactical, put together battlemaps aren’t leveraging a huge amount of difficult terrain you couldn’t navigate around relatively easily.

10th Level: Nature’s Ward

Nature’s Ward gives you creature-type specific immunities to charms and fears alongside poison and disease immunity. As far as features that just give you passive boons, this one is as unremarkable as the rest tend to be. In one or two encounters you’ll get to go “Ooh, ooh! Actually, it deals no damage, cause I have Nature’s Ward!” The majority of encounters aren’t leaning on these conditions or damage types, though, making it another feature that’s offering you little actual power.

14th Level: Nature’s Sanctuary

Nature’s Sanctuary gives you Sanctuary, but specific beasts and plants. Beasts and plants make great low-tier enemies. At 14th level, you’re not going against tree blights or bears anymore. You’ve passed the tier where this could be relevant, and even in that tier, isn’t affecting the bulk of your encounters. This is, once again, a non-feature at the majority of tables.

All Together

This subclass is kind of just two features bundled together, as Land’s Stride, Nature’s Ward, and Nature’s Sanctuary are all, generously put, mediocre, niche features you’re going to collectively get minimal use out of session-to-session. Natural Recovery being bonus spell slots per long rest paired with Circle Spells is where the bulk of the power can be had here. Mountain and Underdark are going to be the safest bets, and getting bonus casts of Lightning Bolt or Greater Invisibility in the mid-tiers is pretty excellent.

Circle of the Land is probably at its best at 9th level; you get you’re final bonus prepared spells, are getting back four spell levels worth of spells once a long rest over a short rest, and have the most applicable niche feature in Land’s Stride. Going for a full 20 levels here does mean getting 9th-level druid spells, which is fine, but won’t compete well with the majority of other better scaling subclasses. Still, of all the druid options, this is kind of the most streamlined “caster” experience. You get more options, with some more spell slots. That can be enough.

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