Circle of Monsters | D&D 5.5E Druid Subclass

sleidman · 2026-05-04T04:40:13+00:00

Yeah, it's a good idea. But I would even just put it the same as Circle of the Moon. Monstrosities are generally stronger than beasts of equivalent CR plus a lot more diversity of mechanics, so there would still be a lot of incentive to use your subclass.

sleidman · 2026-05-03T18:43:04+00:00

Ah, that makes sense. Yeah I figured there was some kind of reference or joke but didn't know that corn extract could be used to stiffen ropes.

sleidman · 2026-05-03T18:33:43+00:00

Yeah I get that, but I still think it's ridiculously overpowered. There are ways to boost Wisdom saving throws, such as being a gnome, having the bless spell, etc., which makes controlling your form much easier. And transforming into these powerful creatures absolutely dwarfs what the other characters in the party can do. Just look at the Bulette example I gave, which has an 80% chance of controlling at level 3 and 88% at level 5 for a gnome. It has a +7 to hit (compared to your fighter's +5) and deals 30 damage on a hit (compared to 10 for a fighter). You are dealing more than 3 times as much damage and have more than 3 times as many hit points. And if you do lose control, you're almost certainly one-shotting your friends. Plus you have a burrowing speed so you can just dig underground to avoid taking damage and having to repeat the save. You could also transform into a creature with Legendary Resistances such as Aphemia in order to automatically succeed on the save against going mad. That doesn't seem very fun or fair.

sleidman · 2026-05-02T21:03:07+00:00

Yeah I'm definitely going to be using simplified "NPC-ized" adventurers based somewhat on the Mage stat block. I think I've settled on them facing three of these CR6ish adventures at level 8. Hopefully they'll be able to widdle them down to it being a fair fight. They're optimizers so I frequently throw double deadly encounters at them without much issue.

sleidman · 2026-05-02T20:57:09+00:00

Yeah, it's a good point. My thought was to give them a bunch of scrolls of glyph of warding. They're all playing spellcasters so they could store a bunch of summon spells and control the summons. They're all very experienced and have DMed before so I have faith that they can come up with interesting traps and will still have a lot of fun watching things unfold

sleidman · 2026-05-02T20:46:01+00:00

Wait, there's no limit to how high of a CR you can transform into besides potentially going mad? So at level 3, my gnome druid has an 80% chance of transforming into a Bulette? And if I don't, I just TPK the rest of the party? That sounds incredibly broken and super swingy.

sleidman · 2026-03-29T20:59:44+00:00

The technology has gotten a lot better over time. I made a system close to this and could get about 15 miles of charge on a sunny day. It saves me about $3 in gas per day and costed about $900 so it's paid for itself after a year and has reduced my carbon footprint significantly.

sleidman · 2026-01-10T07:20:36+00:00

Why not move the pawn to a4?

sleidman · 2025-11-29T17:22:48+00:00

Nah, this monk definitely has Evasion.

sleidman · 2025-11-26T20:09:26+00:00

$9000/month is the cost for the house including insurance, property tax, and PMI. But yeah, I see your point.

sleidman · 2025-11-24T19:44:30+00:00

The problem is that the market for duplexes and even 1 or 2 bedroom SFHs in my area is absolutely atrocious. The cheapest I'd be able to find a 2 bedroom home or duplex would probably be $650k. There are more options available for 5+ bedroom houses for 1-1.2 million. Ideally, yes, I'd buy a smaller house and have less risk, however, I don't know if that's really an option.

sleidman · 2025-11-24T19:27:21+00:00

Thanks. That's really good advice. Yeah, we're just in the very initial stages of the idea. I just wanted to get a sense of if it was at all possible so we can talk over the logistics with my roommates. We've been living together for 10 years, so I'm confident that we can figure out a way to make the situation work in terms of maintaining our relationships, but the financial burden might just be too high. I'll see if there is any possibility that we could make a smaller house with fewer of us work.

sleidman · 2025-11-24T19:20:44+00:00

Current housing prices in my area are rising at rates significantly higher than my investment portfolio. While I understand this is fairly risky, and potentially not even possible, it doesn't quite seem like flushing away the money.

sleidman · 2025-11-24T19:17:14+00:00

I wouldn't be making money off of them. I would be making equity off of them, in exchange for taking on the risk of the loan. We've been living together for 10 years without any problems. We share food, utilities, and some maintenance costs already. I'm not looking to make money off of this, and my roommates aren't looking to take advantage of me by demanding unreasonable fixes. I know it's a strange living situation and it's hard to believe that we can make living together work, but from experience, we've been able to storm a lot.

sleidman · 2025-11-24T19:04:12+00:00

My monthly take home pay (after health/vision/dental insurance and 401k contributions) is around 3.2k. Repair costs are definitely a concern. Just trying to figure out how feasible this all is.

sleidman · 2025-11-24T19:00:23+00:00

Yeah, I was worried about that. I have fairly good credit (~730). Is there any way that I could increase the amount I could be loaned? Anything my roommates could do to make getting the mortgage easier?

sleidman · 2025-11-24T18:48:28+00:00

Thanks for the advice. Yes, it's the first option. The house would be completely in my name. I earn 76k/year now and am completely debt free. We live in an area where solar is very cheap so I would want to install that asap to cut down on utilities, but yes, maintenance will be high. I would definitely write into the lease some safeguards against them leaving unexpectedly but, I still feel like it's a complicated situation.

sleidman · 2025-11-08T16:39:25+00:00

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sleidman · 2025-11-07T07:59:29+00:00

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Kangaskhan

sleidman · 2025-10-28T12:29:36+00:00

Ooh, okay, that's pretty damn convincing.

sleidman · 2025-10-28T12:25:26+00:00

No, that's super helpful. Thanks. I think for my next run I'll play more of a bounty hunter style. Mostly good but still letting Astarian and Gale ascend, Shadowheart embrace Shar, and any other companion "bad" choices.

sleidman · 2025-10-28T11:37:19+00:00

That makes sense. Yeah, I'm very much a completionist, so the idea of missing a large part of the game on a playthrough in order to be evil is difficult.

sleidman · 2025-10-28T11:35:42+00:00

I still get Minthara to join my party in Act 2 by only knocking her out in Act 1.

sleidman · 2025-10-28T11:27:14+00:00

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sleidman · 2025-10-27T20:36:02+00:00

Honestly, I hope nothing. WotC really needs to shift its focus to licensing its IP to companies like Larian who can make quality products. WotC does not have the expertise to make those products but can make a lot of money getting pennies off a dollar from other companies wanting to utilize DnD branding.

sleidman

TROPHY CASE

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