Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Druid class: fun, versatile, underpowered

Before I start, let me say I am a big fan of Larian's realisation of the class. Top marks for flavour, and it's making for a very different play-through.

Druids have some unique abilities that make them unparalleled for scouting, sneaking, manoeuvring and talking to and otherwise handling animals - I love that you can saunter almost anywhere as a cat; my kitty robbed the goblins and Zhent traders in Selune's Temple blind. Their powers enable some cool tactical plays (burrow, thorn whip, flaming sphere, etc). Wild shape allows them to soak up lots of damage (but the poor armour class of the animal forms means they take lots of it), and you can jack their armour class in human form right up, so they can survive on the front line.

But when it comes to combat, they're mediocre. Possibly the worst class, as clerics can at least pop off the odd Guiding Bolt. Their animal attacks miss a lot and the damage output of both their wild shapes and their spells is low. Which is fine, that's the price you pay for versatility - it just means you have to consider the makeup of the rest of your party very carefully. Don't rely on a druid as your tank, unless you want some very long fights and lots and lots of long rests.

In short, druid is not the class for the power gamer, or, I would argue, for a beginner. It's more something to try if you’ve already completed the game with one of the simpler, less tricksy classes and are looking for a new challenge (and some brilliant flashes of humour from the conversations with animals. And a discount from Arron the trader). Maybe this will change when the level cap is raised. I look forward to finding out.

On a related topic: which companions do you take on as a druid? You need a proper fighter and a thief and a spellcaster, so I feel compelled to leave out Shadowheart. And druids are poor cleric substitutes.

Did you try moonbeam? It is great. For companions for my druid playthrough I took Gale, Wyll, and Astarion, which worked fine. I am not a power gamer, though, and just take the companions I want to take.

Moonbeam is great. And the flaming sword does a lot of damage - and since it is based on you spellcasting ability, it should have a decent role.

As for companions: I don't even have a fighter, since I somehow managed to forget to collect Lae'Zel and now she is not in the cage anymore (I know, I can get her at the bridge with the gith patrol), so my normal party is Shadowheart, Gale and Astarion. At the moment I switched out SH for Wyll for the story in the goblin camp. Makes sense to have Wyll there.
It works well. I really don't use Lae'zel that often, even when playing a mage, since I like to use magic and arrows more.

Moonbeam, flaming sword and ... the flaming sphere ! That thing is indestructible and you can cast it from far away while you hide, then you control it to burn everyone.

In my view the druids are "overpower"

I wrote this thread before patch 4: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=758758#Post758758

I'm still thinking the same today

Moonbeam is probably THE spell when you face multiple opponents while flame blade is very powerfull against a few numbers of ennemies.
You can also dualwield it with shillelagh to have 2 powerfull weapons. And you can also coat them with poison, but it become a bit cheesy (especially with the 7D6 poison).

Their AC can reach 19 with a shield and in combats moon druids have 60 free bonus HP.
Their animals attack don't miss that much of you backstab but I have to admit that I'm only playing with the bear.

They have spells to play with verticality (thunderwave), they have powerfull AoE (moonbeam), they have powerfull cantrips (shillelagh + thorn whip).
With the buggy flaming sphere you can kill anyone on the map without being attacked, but obviously it's not fun at all.

Druids are really powerfull.
Playing solo with a druid is challenging but that's not really hard even if you stick to the basics of BG3's combats (jump, highground, backstab), don't abuse the other cheats (dip, poison, food, shove) and never use the tons of scrolls, potions, grenades, barrels...

If you want to custom your difficulty level you should try this :
- (Very) Hard : use the rules of D&D
- Normal : use jump, highground, backstab
- Easy : use jump, highground, backstab dip, poison, food
- Very easy :use jump, highground, backstab dip, poison, food, shove, scrolls, potions, grenades, barrels
=> Heh that's probably another thread.

Anyway according to me the druid has strong PROs in a solo playtrough or in a party and a very limited numbers of CONs.

Moonbeam is pretty decent value for a single 2nd level spell slot.

A single cast on a sole target will normally net you 4d10 (save for half) damage - remember, the beam does the first 2d10 the moment it is applied on the enemy, and another 2d10 the moment the enemy starts its turn. If you can line up 2 targets or more, then you're looking at 8d10 damage (save for half) damage in just the first round. It's has fantastic range (horizontal and vertical) and it's undodgeable - you're always guaranteed some damage and it's perfect against annoying high AC enemies.

Add to the fact that this is a concentration spell you can apply over multiple rounds (for just the 1 slot), the value is quite insane as long as you can keep the concentration up.

If you want to be very cheap, Moon Druids can take advantage of wildshape to guarantee concentration for at least a few rounds. Moonbeam -> Bonus action Bird form -> and fly out of range of any danger for the turn (maybe even into some very advantageous position). From there, you have tons of choices. If the position is sufficiently safe, you can just moonbeam away from the safety of high ground and superior line of sight. Alternatively, you can move the moonbeam, and repeat the bird form maneuver to guarantee another round of damage.

I don't think Druids have the explosive power of some of the other classes, but its versatility and sustainability is a perfect complement for your nova classes.

My druid isn't underpowered at all. He does decent to good damage, has a lot of control options, can re-locate enemies with thorn whip, and can tank very well with all the HP from his animal forms even as a Land druid.

This is all on top of being a great scout with solid party support spells like goodberry and having easy access to animal speech.

It would be a lot better if they implemented it how it should work in 5e. Namely, you need to be able to activate spells you already cast in beast form. That not being included is very troubling. The other thing is bear is underpowered. It's supposed to be CR1, but it only has a single attack. Druid, the second you hit level 5, will be actual trash compared to the other classes in its current implementation.

Wildshape needs to inherit your character's AC. and the concentration mechanic needs to be reworked as it heavily cripples spell combo potential.

Really not sure about this one.
You can have 19 AC with your druid (Lae'zel's armor + shield. You can also cast spells to increase it even more)

2 pools of 30 HP wirh 19+ AC would be very very powerfull.

Just for "fun... " The firsts combats/kill of a solo druid playtrough..'
(Including he matriarch spider from my previous playtrough close to the end...)



The druid is definitely powerfull even if you don't cheese that much or exploit bug. But of course the game is poorly balanced.

I do agree concentration needs fixing right now but not complete reworking. Notably it should not ever dismiss your familiar if you concentrate on mage hand (which I don't think is a concentration spell in 5e anyways?), and surfaces are gimping concentration. However, concentration is the big balancer of 5e Casters. Remove surfaces breaking it and remove weird spell interaction and concentration will be fine and balanced, and will give incentive to things like Warcaster feat or Conjuration Wizard Subclass.

To the whole AC thing, I stated before that Druid having low AC as an animal is part of the trade to having increased health as an animal. I don't think it needs to inherit AC at all, just things like moonbeam control. And probably give back traits to animals they lack like their multiattack. Druids are meant to be big in health but get hit more when wildshaping. And as it's now, it's working as intended and even is allowing druid to shine as it's supposed to.

It is a feature not bug

Spellcasters would be tooo good if you have reworked the concentration mechanic

I can confirm that you can fly down the hole to the underdark in bird form, no feather fall required (for the druid).

I went down alone and then immediately flew off the cliff to get far from the minotaurs or Bullete before those combats triggered. Given how high you are when you start it seemed like I was able to fly obscene distances.

Favorite druid use so far is I went into the goblin leader fort as a cat walking right through the front doors and no one caring. I then proceeded to claw every alarm drum so when I came back with my band of murder-hobos none of the goblins could alert the rest of their forces and the goblins outside were not hostile after clearing out the place.

Also, moonbeaming from the rafters was amazing, if a bit cheesy. I also used spike growth to stop those goblin children from running for help in the animal pens encounter, one actually shred himself to death trying to run through it.

From all the classes that are currently in the game I like druids most.
- They are full spellcasters with many great spells with healing, buffs and damage.
- With medium armor, shield and flame sword they have AC and damage like a fighter.
- Animal form can give you extra 60HP, the ability to scout the area or the ability to reach places that may be hard to reach otherwise.

Only the warlock feels a bit underpowered compared to the wizard.
This is mostly because unlimited resting, so you can fire your most powerful spells every combat.

I'm not saying I don't like the class - far from it. Offers some real alternatives in gameplay and forces you to evaluate combats differently. I imagine the same will be true (perhaps more so) for the bard.

I just don't think it's the ideal class for a beginner, as there are too many options with all the spells and abilities and wild-shaping, and it makes party balance a lot harder. Who do you drop - fighter, cleric, rogue or spellcaster? (I'm trying my first run without Shadowheart and Gale, but am missing Shadow's bless and mid-combat heals a lot; stocking up on meat helps, but takes up a lot of inventory space). Next time for my Circle of the Land run I'll dispense with Wyll and Gale and see how a spell-light party fares.

Quite the opposite I think.
Having a main char who can do many things well means you have more freedom with party management.
Take whatever companions you like most and specialize your main char on what is missing.
If you miss a melee char, focus on animal form or combat buffs like fire sword.
If you miss a healer, select the best spells and attack in human form from the distance.

Thats why I want to have a bard as main char.

60 HP doesn't mean much when even the slightly closer to level 5 enemies we run into chew through your lack of AC and more than 40 damage a turn. It's better than nothing, but moon druid is extremely underpowered at the moment and it's not clear how they'll scale it to be better. One obvious thing, as I've mentioned many times, is overcome their programming limitation and allow the transformed druid to maintain control over its concentration spells. That would help a bit, since you could use the old druid classic of casting a spell, transforming, and hiding or flying to safety and then maintaining control without getting hit and losing concentration. That's the moon druid special, as far as magic is concerned, and as it is now you have really no reason to go moon instead of land. Polar bear just isn't close to good enough, not without 2 attacks like 1 CR transformation bear is supposed to have.

There are youtube video where you can see a player going solo as a moon Druid going after the matriarch spider.

And there is a step by step youtube guide to solo the whole act 1 as a land Druid.

it's easy to search.

So let's stop saying that Druid is underpower.

So I went and watched that matriarch solo, and it basically proves my point. He didn't use garbage animal form at all in combat, he was dual wielding and abusing the dip mechanic, which a fighter could do better ESPECIALLY at level 5 when they can hit twice, and leave this druid in the dust. The only spell he used was thunderwave when he blasted enemies into the pit abusing that mechanic, but nothing about that is "druid is great" it's dip and elevation is godlike when abused, which is precisely what happened there. What I'm seeing is druid is fine at lower levels, but the way it's been implemented will see this not be true as the game gets higher level and it will snowball. If they don't fix these implementations, druid will be left behind.

Just quickly imagine with me the world of level 5.

Druid's best new spell will be call lightning. They won't be able to control it in animal form, though they should be able to, so it's a nerfed version already. Druid is still doing one swipe at a time with bear, a nerfed version of the bear since in TT it swipes twice.

Now, at level 5 wizard will be blasting people with fireballs, with unlimited rests apparently, and just smoking everything. Fighter will be attacking twice and starting to become a major DPS threat with high AC (which druid animal form doesn't have so it's doubly outclassed). Warlock is sending out two eldritch blasts per hit, doubling its damage WITH hex (each blast is getting your agonizing blast boost and count as separate hits for hex, so you're doing 2*(5+4+3)=24 on average per hit from range, which is an excellent combo. Etc. etc. Druid in bear form will be doing a single hit on dudes with 40+ health doing less than half what the Warlock does with an infinite resource, eating 40 damage a turn at least, and you'll be totally discouraged from using animal form, hence why moon druid is pointless.