Circle of the Old Ways Druid: Crooked Moon D&D 5e Optimisation Guide

Command ancient magic of the Elderwood to become a gnarly warden of the forest.

At a glance

Circle of the old ways features

Circle of the old ways spells (Lv3) – 3/5

You start with some decent spell options. Normally shillelagh isn’t a great option on a druid, but as you get an extra attack at level 6, and are really built for melee attacks, especially from level 6 onwards, this becomes a good option.

Shield of faith will help boost your durability and won’t interfere with your attacks as it’s a bonus action. The only issue here is it won’t be a first round spell as you’ll want to be activating wood wose first. Ancestral communion is good but hard to justify over shield of faith as the source of your concentration. Spike growth and plant growth are both pretty great control spell.

Barkskin isn’t great for you unless you’ve run out of wild shape uses (which ought to be rare). It makes your AC 17, but as you should have a shield and looking at getting wisdom and dexterity quickly to +3 (and more), you should already be beating this AC from your first turn onwards. Private sanctum can be handy, but the other spells tend to be situational or just poor options.

Bough and branch (Lv3) – 2/5

This is probably more flavourful and slightly practical than anything else. A shield is not hard to come by and relying on shillelagh for this means you may spend an initial round of combat not protected by a shield.

The other side of this feature is that you no longer need a separate druidic focus or somatic components for spells. This is a practical element of spellcasting with a shield. Weapons are easy to equip and unequip but shields take an action. If you’re wielding a shield and want to cast spells that require an arcane focus and material components, you’ll have a problem. This erases that particular issue. You still need to equip and unequip weapons, but can do that with a free action and as part of each attack in the attack action. It’s enough to make it easy to weave spellcasting in with weapon attacks, but might leave you limited for opportunity attacks.

Either way, it’s hard to rate this as more than just a practical effect to enable shield wielding and spellcasting which is kind of good and is basically 1/3 of the war caster feat.

Wood wose (Lv3) – 3/5

You shouldn’t have a problem activating this for most major encounters, especially from level 5 when you can use spell slots to do this too. Unarmored defense is pretty good eventually when you can exceed what armor would have achieved (17/19 depending on whether you have a shield). But that means hitting 18 dexterity and wisdom, but that may not be until at least level 8 if using standard array, for instance.

My other issue here is that you again must wander around unarmored until you get your first turn in combat. That means a round of being a bit vulnerable (presumably about 13-15AC). I’d have personally just granted this as a blanket AC. Dance bards and draconic sorcerers both get this benefit without an activation so doesn’t seem a problem here (though the circle of the old ways also gets to use a shield).

Elderwood sap is a good way of keeping enemy attacks focused on you. From level 5, you’ll be able to affect 2 creatures per round with this (as long as you hit). My problem here is that druids are only tough because of wild shape, but the circle of the old ways isn’t really built for in combat wild shape. So do you really want creatures focusing attacks on you? Maybe sometimes, but perhaps only once your AC gets really high and you gain a few more resilience features at later levels. Unfortunately, elderwood sap isn’t optional so if you’re attacking, then you’re drawing attacks to yourself.

You could use hit and run tactics here if you have tankier characters in your party and place them between yourself and your targets.

Oaken resolve is strong, especially for maintaining concentration. All of this together is strong, eventually. At lower levels though, you’re just not primed to take full advantage of what it offers. It’s a much stronger feature at mid to high levels, but only OK at lower levels. My best advice would be to get good with initiative. Up your dexterity and take the alert origin feat so you’re not left vulnerable and get your wisdom high too for increases AC.

Oak and thorn (Lv6) – 5/5

This is important for maintaining power levels as a melee build. You shouldn’t have problems using wood wose regularly, just don’t waste wild shape slots on actually wild shaping too much.

The extra attack comes in a level later than most leaving you a bit weak in melee for a level, but you do have spellcasting to fall back on. It makes shillelagh worthwhile still too, especially now you’re getting two handed weapon damage from shillelagh.

The boosted damage, even once per turn is welcome. Just be aware that it’s once on each of your turns so can’t be used for opportunity attacks.

Deepwood elder (Lv10) – 5/5

Here is where it gets more worthwhile drawing attacks from enemies as you’ll damage them as they damage you. It’s not loads, but will work against every enemy that makes a melee attack against you.

The extra temporary hit points each turn will go a long way to maintaining your resilience while you take a beating and you may even want to switch from a hit and run specialist into an all out tank at this point and genuinely drawing attacks, especially as your AC should be quite high at this point. Building for resilience will also be important for this. Consider the tough feat, being a dwarf or upping your constitution. The only problem with constitution is you’re very reliant on getting your dexterity and wisdom high for the AC boost (among other benefits).

Knocking prone once per turn is decent for the advantage it’ll grant on melee attacks, including for allies.

Ancient protector (Lv14) – 5/5

At this point, you ironically get better at hit and run tactics with an increased reach, but this is at a stage when tanking is much more viable. You can mix and match tactics, perhaps once you’ve taken a beating, you can switch to more hit and run tactics.

The resistance to bludgeoning and piercing damage will help your durability a fair bit. Just be aware that this doesn’t including slashing damage.

You also get some easier reaction attacks which will up your damage output a decent amount as getting creatures in your elderwood sap won’t be hard and they will likely favour you as a target.

How good is the circle of the old ways subclass?

I think the scores on individual features are a little deceptive on the circle of the old ways. The problem they have is that it doesn’t really accomplish the role of tank that it’s building for until you hit about levels 8-10. So although the features are good, you sort of need to use different tactics before you hit these levels which makes it less than ideal.

Once level 10 kicks in though, the old ways druid starts to become quite strong. Able to mix spellcasting with some decent damage, small debuffs and a fair bit of resilience making it a solid defender subclass.

Lower levels is where most players will find themselves playing this subclass though so I’ll be weighing those levels more highly. This is why it ends up with a score of 3, but if you’re playing at higher tiers, you can consider this a stronger option. In reality, the circle of the moon accomplishes a tankier druid more elegantly, but the details are very different between the subclasses.

3/5

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Building a circle of the old ways druid

Largely, an old ways druid can be optimised in the same ways as other druids but with a stronger emphasis on resilience and melee combat. If you want a full breakdown on how to do this using D&D 2024 character options, you can check out my druid optimisation guide.

As this is a Crooked Moon subclass, I’ve just looked at character options in the Crooked Moon book and given advice on which work well for this druid subclass.

Species/race

I’d consider the following species from Crooked Moon for the circle of the old ways:

• Azureborn: Gain flight without having to wild shape and you can be a decent scout with high wisdom and high dexterity. Mainly you want the enhanced initiative though so you can use wood wose earlier in combat and get your protection in place. A couple of spells is decent too.
• Gnarlborn: You’re mainly here for the bonus action restraining. This will largely nullify an enemy and give you advantage on attack rolls against them. With a high constitution, you should be pretty good at this too. A free skill, being better at resisting being moved or knocked prone, tremorsense and advantage at ending the grappled condition are all pretty decent too.
• Harvestborn: A bit of extra healing through a bonus action is nice and will preserve your spell slots a bit (especially if you need them for wood wose). Unlike other species, this bonus action likely won’t be needed until you’re a couple of rounds into combat anyway so won’t get in the way of early combat setup like wood wose/shillelagh and shield of faith. The damage boost is also nice for a fairly high attack build.

Backgrounds

Unlike the Player’s Handbook, Crooked Moon backgrounds give you a choice of any ability scores to increase. Based primarily on the origin feats and proficiencies, I’d recommend the following backgrounds for an old ways druid:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Crimson aspirant	Any	Crimson ritualist	Arcana, medicine	Herbalism kit
Druskenvald dweller	Any	Any	Survival and one other	Choose one

As a general rule, the origin feats and skills don’t often both combine into something ideal for an old ways druid. On that basis, I’d probably say the Druskenvald dweller is probably your best bet here but as mentioned below, I think you’re better off with origin feats/backgrounds from the Player’s Handbook.

Feats

As mentioned, a lot of the Crooked Moon feats don’t synergise really well with an old ways druid. I’d be more inclined to grab tough or alert as an origin feat and you’re quite reliant on high ability scores from dexterity, wisdom and constitution making general feats a tricky option to fit in. Below are a couple of the better options available in Crooked Moon though:

• Crimson ritualist: The healing boost in combat may be quite useful for a tank. 2-6d8 healing as a bonus action is decent and enough to keep you on your feet for another hit or 2. Blood bolt is decent as a ranged option, especially as it’ll grant you some temporary hit points too which will be useful at lower levels, if a little redundant from level 10 when deepwood elders grants regular temporary hit points.
• Death defier: You’re a martial build, so more resilience is only going to be beneficial, especially when you’re harder to keep down or kill.

More from Crooked Moon

Interested in what else is available from The Crooked Moon? Why not check out some of our other guides?