The defenders of nature and shape-shifters that stalk the land, Druids keep a balance of elements and bring unique abilities to the table in Baldur’s Gate 3. They harness natural magic and bring powerful abilities that can aid your party and destroy your enemies.
Druids can do many incredible things, such as conjuring elementals, spreading diseases, and calling down lightning from the heavens. Their primary ability score is Wisdom, which is crucial for their casting powers alongside several other mechanics. They can also turn into different kinds of animals which can make up for any weaknesses in durability.
Druid Hit Points
Druids have a Hit die of 1d8. Their initial Hit Points will be 8 plus the bonus from their Constitution modifier. Afterward, they gain 5 hit points per level and add their Constitution bonus on top.
Druid Class Actions
The Druids have one special class action called the Wild Shape. All Druid subclasses automatically inherit this upon their selection in Baldur’s Gate 3. This feature allows Druids to turn themselves into a wide range of animals. There is a limit on the strength of a creature you could actually transform into, which starts at level 2. At the 4th and 8th levels, the strength of what you can turn into increases.
Turning into different Wild animals has its perks in combat, for obvious reasons. One of them is that you gain the power to self-heal in this form. Additionally, individual animals possess unique abilities according to their innate natures.
Spider: is able to trap enemies in its cobweb
Bear: is able to tank and get higher melee damage. (Read our BG3 Tank Build to learn more!)
Badger: is able to burrow into the ground.
Wolf: is able to inspire your party to move a little further on their turn, or distract enemies.
Cat: allows us to stealth into places we likely couldn’t reach.
Fighting Style
Unlike Fighters and Rangers, Druids have no fighting style in their arsenal. It is one of the classes that simply provide support and utility to the party. However, if you push your limits and go further into the Multiclass Druids route, it is quite possible to gain a certain fighting style.
Proficiencies
Proficiency is simply the area in which a character from a specific class has expertise. Without having proficiency in a certain equipment or skill, you won’t be able to reap the benefits and may instead get disadvantages.
The weapon, armor, saving throws, and skill proficiencies for Bards are given below:
Weapon: The weapons in which Druids are proficient include Clubs, Daggers, Javelins, Maces, Quarterstaves, Scimitars, Sickles, and Spears.
Armor: Druids like to wear Light Armor, Medium Armor, and Shields for going into battles. However, they share a strong connection with nature, so they prefer not to wear metal shields.
Saving Throws: Druids have proficiencies in Intelligence and Wisdom.
Skill Proficiency: Druids will have proficiency in a couple of the following list of skills at the time of character creation.
- Insight
- Nature
- Arcana
- Religion
- Handling
- Perception
- Survival
Druid Subclasses
Outside of just wild shaping and spell casting in general, every other class mechanic we will get as a Druid comes directly from our subclass. The classes for the Druid class are known as Druidic Circles.
Unlike most of the other classes, Druids get to choose their subclass at level 2. There are three of these circles/ subclasses for Druids in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Circle of the Land
The circle of the land subclass is geared far more toward casting spells. You will be selecting a certain land or biome before going into this subclass and then getting specific spells from that land.
Land Druids get access to Natural Recovery, a feature that recovers some of your spell slots and helps you cast spells much longer. Note that you will only be able to do so once per day. Land Druids also gain access to something called Circle Spells. These are added to their spell list and are based on the character’s connection to the land. This can be a desert, a forest, or even a grassland.
Additionally, the Land Druid gets Land’s Stride at level 6. This makes him immune to difficult terrain and provides resistance to thorny or poisonous plants, etc.
Circle of the Moon
Circle of Moon focuses more on the Wild Shaping aspect of the Druid class. So, if you want to be a Druid that engages in close-quarters combat as an animal, this is the way to go.
Right upon picking the Circle of the Moon, Druids pick up Combat Wild Shape. This allows them to use their Wild Shape as a bonus action rather than a full action. So, we can potentially turn into some animal and then also attack in the same turn.
Another part of Circle of the Moon is that it lets you transform into stronger versions of various creatures. You also get additional Circle Forms, which include a Polar Bear, Deep Rothe (at level 4), Owlbear (at level 6), etc.
Circle of the Spores
The Circle of Spores subclass kind of turns you into a necromancer Druid. Being a Spore Druid is all about finding beauty in decay as all things ultimately end and return to the Earth.
Some of the chief abilities of Spore Druids is the Halo of Spores, obtained at level 2nd. This ability surrounds you in necrotic spores that are harmless until you make use of them. When a creature that you can see moves within 10 feet of you, you can use your reaction to do a small amount of necrotic damage to them.
This will actually increase as you level up, so you can expect to get a decent extra damage in combat. Also, at level 2, you will gain Symbiotic Entity, which enables you to expend uses of your character’s wild shape to awaken the spores around you.
It will give you 1d8 temporary Hit Points and also increase the necrotic damage from your melee weapon. Lastly, at the sixth level, you get Fungal Infestation, which gives you the ability to reanimate corpses.
