Context - build and partyFor this run I went all in to force myself to really play as the BG3 vision of a moon druid. I picked a human, so she had no fancy racial weapon proficiencies or inbuilt feats or resistances, but could get any stat up to 16 at level 1. I then neglected the physical stats (who needs those when you're in animal form?!) and gave her STR 9, DEX 12, CON 10, INT 16, WIS 16, CHA 14. She struggled if she ran out of wild shapes and spells (well, duh!) but this worked far better than I feared in combat, meant she was handy with pretty much all skills except four which is satisfying in the BG3 single player game given I like using my PC as a face, and also felt quite authentic from an RP perspective.
I played the whole EA campaign with Astarion, Gale and Wyll, so my druid was the only possible tank and divine caster. I'm pretty sure it would have been easier with Lae'zel to help soak up some heat on the front line and free me occasionally from tank duty. And we'd not have relied so heavily on potions for healing had Shadowheart in the party, whose Bless would also have probably been a useful buff to my druid's animal forms' attack rolls and concentration saving throws. But as I said, I wanted to go all in and test the capabilities of the class, so the boys it was!
And just because it doesn't fit neatly into any of the other categories I'm planning to cover, I'll say that I found the RP for the class reasonably satisfying. There didn't seem to be as many class-specific lines as other classes, but I couldn't point to an occasion when I thought there should be one and there wasn't. And things like wildshaping and talking to animals (which I don't do with most classes), along with the totally different combat experience, made her feel different and interesting.
Druid ProgressionLots of people have mentioned the moon druid progression is jumpy, and I can see why.
- Level 1 was embarrassingly poor given my druid's terrible physical stats, not many spells and no access to Wild Shape, but fortunately didn't last long.
- Level 2 she got her initial wildshapes and was a power house with her stronger animal forms able to soak up damage and deal it in return.
- Level 3 saw harder enemies that gave her beasts more trouble but was balanced by getting access to useful level 2 spells like Barkskin and the amazing Flaming Sphere.
- Level 4 was the hardest level for me, as with harder enemies her beasts were struggling more to survive or do useful damage, and while the new Deep Rothe and Dire Raven shapes are useful in their own ways they didn't address this problem. Plus the level 1 and 2 spells suitable for a moon druid were no longer cutting it.
- Level 5 felt like it balanced out again with improved cantrips, new level 3 spells, and upcast level 2 spells (ie the even *more* amazing Flaming Sphere).
In summary, progression wasn't too bad except Level 4, but I definitely found this playthrough harder than my previous paladin one. This was not just because I had to learn new and different ways of using spells and equipment for the class, but because I kept finding things that I thought should work but didn't. Personally, I think the biggest problem is in the spells and if they were fixed then progression up to level 5 would be okay, as long as we get some decent new forms at level 6 and ideally some tweaks to existing ones to keep them relevant in addition to their attacks becoming magical (which latter I think is what we'd expect per RAW). Not that I'd object to some earlier improvements to my animals like those the ranger companions got with patch 9 at level 5, but I don't think it's strictly necessary.
