Druid - Circle of the Sands
Nissa’s Encouragement, by Tommy Arnold (© Wizards of the Coast)
The Circle of the Sands is for desert druids, wandering the desolate places of the world and bringing them to life!
Sands druids are brutal battlefield controllers, summoning up sandstorms to impede their enemies. Their storms supply cheap soft control and a little bit of damage, while their desert fruit give their allies a wide range of beneficial effects.
Design-wise: Whirling Sands is their core feature. Summoning sandstorms was an obvious hook for a desert druid, but it felt weird to give it a defined statblock; I played with a couple "Sandstorm Spirits" before settling on something that's more like an environmental effect. It's excellent control; not hard lockdown, but able to deal some chip damage, slow key enemies down, and block lines of sight for ranged attackers or spellcasters. Desert's Kin and Primal Scouring are table-stakes features, the sort of stuff this druid inevitably needs. Desert Blooms is my favorite; I'm really pleased with the structure of the ability, and the decision-making involved in parceling out a bunch of very different buffs to whichever allies can use them best. Raging Storm is a major escalation on Whirling Sands, giving you a way to amp up its control effects and deal significant damage at the same time.
As always, you're invited to come discuss and offer feedback on Discord! This subclass was originally written for Elysium, Vol. 3, which you should also check out - it's got a bunch of great stuff with contributions from 9 different homebrewers. Today's release has a few updates over that version, though, mostly quality-of-life improvements.
