Druids and rangers that protect animals!? How novel!
Yes, you read that right, the animal rights organisation, PETA, have decided to create a supplement for D&D 5e (the 2014 version). Normally, PETA tend to be somewhat hostile towards games that don’t fully embrace their views. However, this time, they’ve at least managed to find a more playful way to channel their activism, even if the subclass explanations are pretty on the nose.
You can download the 3 subclasses for free from PETA’s website. It includes a druid, paladin and ranger subclass. They are the circle of empathy druid, path of animal liberation paladin and the warden of the wild ranger.
Since one of the main things I do is optimisation guides for character builds, I thought it’d be fun to evaluate PETA’s attempts and see how they fare at D&D game design.
Circle of empathy druid
The circle of empathy is dedicated to educating others about the natural world and helping to foster empathy for all sentient beings. With this in mind, their abilities are focused on peaceful methods rather than being combat focused.
Circle spells
Like some other druid subclasses, you get some prepared spells as you gain levels.
Hold person, conjure animals, conjure woodland beings and mass cure wounds are all decent spells. Other available spells are less exciting, but they can’t all be great!
Features
Empathy connection: Unusually, this doesn’t come with a saving throw, duration, casting time, number of targets or a range so this could be easily abused. The main problem for PETA is the way to abuse it would be to bring a weak animal around in a cage with you, make it frightened before combat and then wade into combat and apply this connection to as many enemies as you like, making them frightened too.
I have an inkling that this wasn’t really PETA’s intention… And don’t ask me how you roleplay an empathy druid that engages in this kind of behaviour!
Persuasive resonance: Charm 3-5 creatures simultaneously is pretty good and similar to hypnotic pattern which you can grab at 5th level. The big difference here is there’s no limit on uses and no need for concentration. So not only can you basically cast a 3rd level spell as often as you like, you can affect 3-5 creatures each time you perform this action, and the wording technically means the numbers of affected creatures could stack each time! Pretty powerful!
Enchanting address: There’s no limit on uses again for this feature, or number of simultaneous targets. So I’d suggest using this on your whole party for advantage on wisdom saving throws each day.
Yes, you will have to go help animals, but is that really such a big price to pay!?
Nature’s mirror: +2 to intelligence and wisdom skill checks is OK, but where that can occur is fairly limited and will aid enemies in the vicinity too. Locating lumberjacks and poachers is a very niche need. Despite being a 14th level feature, this one is probably the weakest of the lot!
Verdict – 5/5
Completely by accident, this subclass has some incredibly powerful and easily abused features. The ability to just pump conditions like charmed and frightened on enemies with reckless abandon is hugely powerful.
From a power point of view, I’d have to give this subclass a 5/5. But from a technical build point of view, there’s clear abuse cases that are unintentional and highly imbalanced, so from that perspective, this subclass gets a 1/5!
Oath of animal liberation paladin
The animal liberation paladin is one that sees the injustices caused to animals and seeks to liberate them from captivity and cruelty. These paladins make themselves oathbound to not only protect all sentient creatures, but to bring justice upon those that abuse such creatures; becoming judge, jury and executioner.
Channel divinity
Beast’s fury is probably the best channel divinity option for any paladin available. It grants an extra d6 damage to every attack for a minute and every strike you make requires a wisdom saving throw or causes frightened for a turn. It doesn’t even require an action or bonus action to activate.
You can apply this to yourself which is already a lot with 2 attacks at level 5, but the best thing you can do is hand it to a fighter or monk who have more attacks.
Have your fighter dual wield for even more extra damage with this. Every time you impose frightened on a creature, you can shift your attacks to another creature to try and impose frightened on them.
Sadly, sanctuary of the innocent will get used very little as it’s rare you need to stop someone attacking a non-threatening creature when you’re there dishing out terrifying fury.
Oath spells
Unlike other subclasses, you don’t get granted prepared spells, just the option to choose from additional spells when levelling up.
Healing word is good if you need to do some backup healing, though lay on hands is pretty good for that so may feel a little redundant. Spirit guardians is outstanding and could really ramp up your damage output each turn. Death ward is good for a tank to keep you fighting a bit longer. Scrying is a great option out of combat while greater restoration is an excellent insurance policy against conditions and similar issues. I imagine you’ll get less use out of some of the other spells though.
Features
Guardian’s refuge: It’s unclear whether this protects from creatures a size smaller than you. But I think mechanically it’s trying to say you’re protected against monstrosities and beasts of CR 3 or lower. That’s a lot of damage resistance against such creatures, but the chances of this coming up in many campaigns may be slim. As you gain levels, you’ll likely not face many creatures like this either, or if you do, they’ll be nearly inconsequential compared to your own prowess.
Unburden the beasts: This is technically more of a debuff for yourself and allies. No mounted combat allowed for your party. It’s a good job Sam wasn’t a paladin of animal liberation in Lord of the Rings or him and Frodo would have been killed by the lava of Mount Doom!
Technically you do get a buff, you can double your carrying weight and that of your party, but this rarely comes up in real adventures as a need.
Whispers of the wild: Speak with animals is a decent spell and doing it telepathically can be cool. But Spellcasters can get this at 1st level and it can be cast as a ritual anyway so wouldn’t require a spell slot, which makes this feel quite weak for 10th level.
Humanoid handling: It’s rare in combat for an enemy to attack an animal unless you’re riding mounts (which your party won’t be able to do). This means this is a largely redundant ability.
The number of uses also rely on your wisdom modifier, but as charisma, strength and constitution (and maybe dexterity) likely come ahead of wisdom in a paladin’s ability score needs, your wisdom is likely 10 or less. So chances are, you only get one use of this. Personally, I’d let a character use charisma for this as that makes a load more sense, not that it matters as you won’t be getting to use this feature anyway.
Verdict – 1/5
The animal liberation paladin has really poor features that will rarely be used or are under powered for their level. It makes up for this somewhat for a best in class channel divinity option and some decent spells, though you don’t automatically get these as prepared spells like other paladin subclasses. Unfortunately, it’s hard to really recommend this subclass for the practicalities of adventuring. Just take oath of vengeance pact against poachers instead.
Warden of the wild ranger
Wardens of the wild are expert trackers and protectors of animal life. They live with nature to keep it safe from those that would abuse it.
Spells
The warden of the wild gets some decent spells. Unfortunately, these aren’t prepared spells, they just expand on the spells list you can learn from.
There are some good options in here though, like entangle, hold person, dispel magic and polymorph. Most of these are great for controlling the battlefield, though the concentration spells will compete with the likes of hunter’s mark, essentially meaning you can choose between damage and control.
Features
Sabotaged hunt: This is basically reverse Hunter’s mark. You reduce the damage of an enemy rather than add to your own. As it’s not a spell though, it doesn’t require concentration so you can apply both. This does require an action though (as opposed to a bonus action).
I would avoid applying this and Hunter’s mark to the same enemy as you can only shift one of these to a different enemy per turn. Problematic when your target dies.
Disadvantage on perception and survival checks is largely redundant once in combat and not a big deal out of combat.
Echoes of the wild: The true use of this feature is mostly redundant (how often is magic affecting an animal in a real campaign)? But you automatically know where traps are within a 90ft radius. There’s no limits or need to activate this so you just know innately. This basically means you can never be surprised by traps which feels very useful and abusable!
Sanctuary: The best way to use this is to ensure an enemy does have hostile intents towards an animal. You can do this by having a combat-focused animal companion around that attacks enemies, then use this feature to force the saving throw.
A familiar could count, so might a druid in wild shape or a polymorphed creature, or just an animal buddy. If you can swing this, then it becomes hugely powerful, nullifying many enemies!
Purifying light: a free use of dispel magic or greater restoration is decent. The problem is, it’s limited to being used on animals. Animal allies tend not to have a lot of HP meaning that causing conditions and magical effects on them is rarely worthwhile as enemies could probably just kill them quite quickly. Essentially, this feature is too situational to be of much use.
Verdict – 3/5
While not always in the intended ways, the warden of the wild is actually a decent ranger with some good spell options, a great debuff in sabotaged hunt and a very powerful feature (if accidentally so) in sanctuary. It’s offset by some very situational features too as well as not having their extra spells available as prepared spells.
Sadly, sanctuary is open to abuse and a feature I would consider broken as it can almost completely nullify combat encounters without too much effort.
Additional spells and items
As with everything we’ve seen with the subclasses so far, these items and spells are far too situational to be of much use on an average campaign. However, if you plan on living your personal PETA fantasies as animal liberators and an anti-poaching adventuring party, then these could see some use.
How have PETA done?
I’ll ignore the double standards of mind controlling humanoids in the name of liberating animals (or just whatever else these characters might decide to do with their powers) and focus on the mechanics for this.
While some of the subclasses fare well mechanically, this is mostly in very broken ways. The circle of empathy is particularly easy to abuse, but so is the warden of the wild. As for the path of animal liberation, it really doesn’t do well at all and has mostly pointless features!
The other side of this is actually whether the subclasses even manage to be compassionate to animals considering the best ways to use them is to actually abuse animals.
I’ll applaud anyone for trying to get into D&D and giving it a shot, but should you be using these subclasses at your table? Only if you don’t mind features that are both broken and pointless!
If your goal is to play a protector and liberator of animals, this is easy to accomplish by simply playing any ranger or druid subclass as similar ideals are baked into these core classes anyway. I think it’s safe to say that Wizards of the Coast won’t be commissioning PETA for D&D character concepts any time soon!