MinMaxMunchking

Dragobearian - The Best Low-Level Damage Sponge?

Added 2022-07-19 11:02:43 +0000 UTC

Key Features & Spells

Rage
Combat Wild Shape & Circle Forms
Totem Spirit: Bear
Draconic Resistance
Reckless Attack
Unarmored Defense
FEATS – Sentinel, Gift of the Gem Dragon

Defining Characteristics

Unrivalled “damage sponge”, simple to play, superb survivability, balanced action economy, solid utility spells, slightly higher damage output

Emerald Dragonborn (Fizban)

This and Kalashtar are the only 2 races resistant to psychic damage. Both have their pros and cons, I think Emerald is better suited for lower levels, while Kalashtar works better in higher tiers where Wisdom saving throws are dime a dozen.

- STR +2, CON +1: The new design approach of flexible racial ability score bonuses makes it easier to max out STR & CON. You will be spending most of the combat rounds in animal forms, but just in case you run out of uses for whatever reason, it’s good to have your HP and Strength bonuses at +3
- Gem Ancestry: Emerald is the only mechanical choice here, the other ones are redundant
- Breath Weapon: Damage is rather low and the trait most likely doesn’t work when you turn yourself into a bear or a boar, but it does give you a minor AoE damage capability, which you will probably find useful during first 2-3 levels
- Draconic Resistance: the main reason to pick this specific race. Psychic damage is rare on lower levels, but if you’re gonna be a dedicated damage absorber, it’s best to be ready for everything.
- Psionic Mind: similar to 5e Kalashtar, you get minor telepathy trait. The only thing this race really lacks compared to Kalashtar is advantage on Wisdom saving throws, but that’s why this is specifically a low-level concept character anyway.
- Languages: Common + 1 extra of your choice

Point Buy (27/27 points spent, STR +2, CON +1)

Your level 1 AC will be -1 compared to the Kalashtar version of this character, but as soon as you hit level 2 and 3 for Wild Shape and Unarmored Defense features, it won’t really matter.

STR: 16
DEX: 12
CON: 16
INT: 10
WIS: 13
CHA: 8

Background

Outlander (PHB)

Backgrounds are always flexible, but of all the official backgrounds, to me, this one stands out.
- Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Survival
- Tool Proficiencies: 1 musical instrument
- Languages: +1 of your choice
- Feature: Wanderer: one of the most useful, if not THE most useful, background features in the game, especially in low-level campaigns/sessions where you spend a lot of time in the wilderness

Uthgard Tribe Member (SCAG)

This one leans more towards your barbaric side thematically and it is mechanically very similar to Outlander. Obviously, the tribe name can be anything really, it doesn’t have to be just Uthgard.
- Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Survival
- Tool Proficiencies: 1 musical instrument/artisan’s tools
- Languages: +1 of your choice
- Feature: Uthgard Heritage: twice as much food and water is ambiguous compared to the Wandererfeature, but any bonus is better than no bonus. Potential for NPCs giving you aid can be nice too.

Feats

- Sentinel: With so many hitpoints, you have to give the DM some reason to deal damage to you instead of the 30 HP Wizard. This feat serves that purpose, as it allows you to have a pretty consistent reaction attack, improving your damage and therefore making you a bigger threat, as well as locking enemies in place when they try to flee, so they don’t have a choice but to attack you. If the DM doesn’t attack you, at least you still have 1 more attack.
- Gift of the Gem Dragon (Wisdom): besides the awesome thematic fit for a Gem Dragonborn, this is another way to deal more damage, just in case the DM still decides to attack your dozens, hundreds of effective hitpoints. You could still opt to maximize your HP via…
…Tough: for the purpose of being an even bigger bag of hitpoints. Be mindful that this extra HP doesn’t carry into your Wild Shape forms, because your HP gets replaced by that of a beast you turn into. That’s why I like a more active feat like the Gift of the Gem Dragon

Circle of the Moon Druid 6 (PHB)

Even though this is a lower level character, I still think starting in Druid is a better overall choice for those mental save proficiencies.
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- 1d8 HP dice
- Core class proficiencies: medium armor, shields, some weapons, herbalism kit INT & WIS saves, 2 skills (Perception, Insight)
- Starting Equipment: a wooden shield, scimitar (sell if you need gold), leather armor (sell, you don’t need it), explorer’s pack, quarterstaff (druidic focus)
- Druidic: you are a druid after all, you know the language of the druids.
- Spellcasting: full caster, WIS, prepares spells, ritual casting, druidic focus
- Wild Shape:twice per short rest, you can use an action to give yourself a buffer of extra HP by turning into a beast. This feature gets insane on Druid level 2 when you get...
- Wild Companion: all post-Tasha druids have been given Find Familiarspell for free, a spell that should have really been on their spell list from the very beginning of 5e. I wouldn’t advise burning one use of Wild Shape on this, because that’s literally reducing 70-100 effective HP from yourself just to scout ahead or have a pet, but you do have that option, so manage it as best as you can
- Combat Wild Shape: you can use a bonus action instead of an action to turn yourself into a beast and you can continue using bonus actions to heal yourself with your Druid spellslots. Last, but not least, you get...
- Circle Forms: this is really the most important feature, allowing you to turn yourself into CR1 beasts on Druid level 2. This gives you insane amount of extra HP and makes you one of the best frontliners on low levels. This multiclass caps out at CR2 by level 10, but it’s more than enough when combined with Barbarian’s features.
- Wild Shape Improvements: all druids eventually learn how to turn into swimmers (druid level 4), why would you be any different?
- 1 ASI: you need feats to be more active and lethal in combat, so Ability Score Improvement can’t come soon enough
- Primal Strike: dealing damage isn’t really your job, but it’s nice knowing that you will always be doing some, even if the enemy is completely immune to nonmagic damage!

Totem of the Bear Barbarian 4 (PHB)

Something that’s hotly contested and debated everywhere when we talk about Moon Druid multiclasses is whether features of other classes work when the druid is Wild Shaped. Here’s a line from the Wild Shape feature:
“You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so.”
We can argue RAW vs RAI all day and night, but in my personal opinion, both as a player and a DM, there’s no reason why any of the Barbarian features wouldn’t work when you turn yourself into a beast. Here are some Sage Advice/Jeremy Crawford tweet links as well:
https://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/05/31/can-a-moon-druidtotem-barbarian-rage-while-in-wildshape/
https://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/08/08/druidbarbarian-can-you-still-use-the-animals-con-dex-for-unarmored-defense-feature/
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/chris-avellone-and-philip-daigle-planescape-torment-enhanced-edition- this one talks specifically about Wild Shape, I recommend both you and the DM listen to it to clear a lot of confusion that Wild Shape often causes at a table.

As always, your DM can say no to anything, but this is how the lead game designer sees the interactions of Wild Shape with Barbarian’s features, so I’ll leave the rest between the 2 of you.
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- 1d12 hit dice: even more HP
- Multiclass proficiencies: all weapons, but you mostly won’t care about this in combat as you will usually to be in your Wild Shape/animal form
- Rage: your already redonkulous HP is now basically doubled up, because when you take bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage, you take only half of it. A bit of extra damage on all your attacks is nice too. You need at least 3 levels in Barbarian to be able to Rage 3 times per day, which should be enough in most cases
- Unarmored Defense: this feature improves the AC of a lot of your beast forms, usually by +1 only. You will still be getting hit more often than not, because the beast ACs are very low in either case. However, every now and then, an attack roll that would hit an ordinary Moon Druid will not hit you because of that extra 5% you can squeeze out of this feature
- Danger Sense: advantage on DEX saves is always cool, especially on lower levels where DEX saves are more prevalent
- Reckless Attack: Advantage on all of your attacks in beast form improves your odds to hit and therefore improves your damage output consistency. You do need to contribute at least a little bit and this is the perfect feature to ensure you don’t miss too often.
- Spirit Seeker: mostly a ribbon feature, but sometimes squirrels, rabbits and stray dogs can actually be semi-reliable sources of simple info you might be searching for.
- Totem Spirit – Bear: The main reason to take the Totem Barbarian subclass. This feature will make you resistant to all damage types while Raging, except psychic. And since you’re an Emerald Dragonborn, you are resistant to psychic damage as well, so now you just have to get a bit angry and you take half damage from anything and everything.
- Primal Knowledge: one extra Barbarian skill proficiency, I’d most likely pick Animal Handling here
- 1 ASIs: that second feat further optimizes the damage output. It will still be limited, but it will stack on top of other party members’ damage while you fearlessly rage around the battlefield.

ITEMS

Items are tricky with Moon Druids because those beast forms are usually not capable of using them and therefore have to either drop them on the ground or merge them into their form, but there are a few exceptions:

- Blood Fury Tattoo: it’s a legendary item, so good luck getting it at lower levels, but if your DM is a benevolent being that transcends the limitations of flesh and thought, this is the thing to ask for. In my opinion, tattoos in general work even in your Wild Shape forms, because it’s just a surface skin magic item, but it’s up to the DM to make a ruling
- Amulet of Health: why choose between high CON or high WIS when you can have both? If you know in advance you’d be able to get this item, you can afford to put more points in WIS instead of CON with point buy.
- Insignia of Claws: magical +1 natural weapons increase your accuracy and remove the need to wait for Primal Strike feature
- Sentinel Shield: you need to enter Rage before the enemy gets a chance to deal damage to you, so advantage on Initiative makes total sense. Also, better Perception results are always relevant, so try and bribe your DM into giving you this.
- Ring of Protection: there’s no reason why this thing wouldn’t be able to fit the fingers and toes of your beast forms’ claws and paws, so if you get it, put it on!
- Animated Shield: your bonus action is already bottlenecked from Rage and Combat Wild Shape, but the idea of a massive bear trashing around while the magic shield is whizzing around it protecting it from swords and arrows sounds incredibly fun to me.

BEAST FORMS

The beast forms listed below are primary official options to consider when playing this character. You can do whatever like always, especially if the DM allows 3rd-party/homebrew monsters. This is just my own shortlist of beasts I’d want to go for when playing this character.

CR 1

- Brown Bear: the best compromise between high HP, decent AC and damage output. Also, how can you be a Bear Totem Barbarian and not turn into a bear every now and then?
- Giant Spider: Anecdotal evidence, yes, but I legit almost killed a flying Mind Flayer Arcanist (CR8!) on my own with this thing. Everybody else got stunned, but I capitalized on my Druidic INT save throw proficiency, passed it 2 times in a row and kept biting and poisoning it for 3-4 rounds before it ran away fearing for its life. Between darkvision, extra poison damage and a massively underrated restrained condition that the enemy has to spend an action to try and get rid of, the only downside is low HP, but of course, Rage and Combat Wild Shape self heal can help you stay in a fight enough to cause serious trouble.
- Giant Hyena: 45 HP is basically 90+ with Rage active, so if you need to soak damage, this is it
- Giant Octopus: even more HP (52, or 104 when Raging), but of course, it’s not a land animal
- Tiger: Pounce trait is solid in a melee party on lower levels, but the lack of multiattack makes it night-combat choice only due to darkvision
- Dire Wolf: Pack Tactics are cool and the prone potential is there similar to Tiger, but I’d just go with a Brown Bear if you ask me

CR 2

- Giant Constrictor Snake: as much as it saddens me to admit that the bear form isn’t the best, the Titanoboa is really superior. Ridiculous HP pool of 60 or basically 120 when Raging and the auto-restrained condition will make you the best frontline teamplayer by far. The downside is its huge size and lack of darkvision, so in tighter spaces, you can still go with the good ol’...
- Cave/Polar Bear: darkvision, swimming speed, better accuracy, and slightly more damage thanks to multiattack. Such mechanics, much theme!
- Giant Boar: the main reason to turn into this is the Relentless trait. If you get pummelled to low HP, but with Rage active, you basically need to take 22 damage in one go to get knocked out of this form, or you stay at 1 HP. A lot of monsters don’t deal that much damage in a single hit. So, it can happen that you effectively negate 15-20 damage that you would otherwise leak over to your humanoid form. This is situationally beneficial, but it’s an interesting mechanical interaction.

SPELLS

When it comes to combat, spells are not that important for this particular build, but you’re still a druid at the end of the day. The spells you prepare heavily depend upon your party composition! Below are some suggestions, but feel free to deviate from this list as much as needed.

Cantrips

- Guidance: the best way to increase odds of succeeding at any ability check at any level
- Magic Stone: just in case you have absolutely no other option but to chuck stones from a distance
- Mold Earth/ Shape Water: build barriers, dig holes, make bridges, conceal your party’s position, all with a single cantrip. Unless, of course, you want to manipulate water, which is cool too, though less consistently useful.

Level 1

- Healing Word/Goodberry: sometimes, even you will have to bring your fallen allies back up. Raging and casting spells don’t go together, but it’s still better to have a plan B option, than to rely on Clerics and Paladins to do all the healing.
- Absorb Elements: you might be thinking why even prepare this spell when you are resistant to all damage types. Well, sometimes you roll low Initiative and you get bombarded with elemental damage. This spell will prevent you from getting dropped to 0 HP in such extreme circumstances.
- Longstrider: giving yourself +10 movespeed for 1 hour doesn’t seem that good, but it will ensure nobody runs away from you and you’ll also be able to get in melee with distant enemies sooner.
- Detect Magic: you shouldn’t be the party’s magic detector, but in case there’s nobody else, you’ll probably have to

Level 2

- Pass Without Trace: +10 Stealth to everyone in your party, an absolute must have! Even though you can take a ton of abuse, sometimes it’s easier to just slip by undetected
- Darkvision: if you’re constantly exploring and fighting in dark tunnels and dungeons, giving yourself and your beast forms darkvision for 8 hours will make a massive difference. This spell is somewhat underrated in my opinion – yes, it burns a 2nd level spellslot, but at the same time, it allows you to sneak around much easier instead of announcing your presence with a torch in your hand to everybody within a mile. Also, once you turn into a beast, carrying a torch or other light source becomes a problem too, but this spell extends the benefit to all of your beast forms, so you won’t have visibility issues.
Now there might be an issue with this spell and Wild Shape though. Here’s the paragraph in Wild Shape feature description that could result in issues.
“You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so. However, you can't use any of your special senses, such as darkvision, unless your new form also has that sense.” By default, all spells cast on you prior to turning yourself into a beast remain active in your beast form as well. This spell would be no different, but the feature description does mention darkvision specifically. My understanding and my interpretation of this exception is that it only refers to racial darkvision, such as with elves or tieflings, but it doesn’t refer to the specific case of this spell. If you think about it, this spell gives darkvision to any creature that doesn’t have it, so why would a beast form be any different?
- Locate Object: one of the better low-level utility spells, you can find a lot of things and even people with it, because people usually have various objects on themselves, right?
- Enhance Ability: as the name suggests, you improve your chosen ability checks by giving yourself or another creature advantage on them. Useful during exploration or any non-combat scenario and, if absolutely necessary, you can basically give yourself advantage on Initiative via Cat’s Grace, so you can enter Rage and start cutting all damage coming your way in half as soon as possible.

Level 3

- Dispel Magic: I mean, sometimes you do have to deal with pesky spells, so no reason not to have this spell on you.
- Revivify: this spell was added to the druid list in Tasha, no reason not to have it in case disaster strucks.

PROGRESSION:

You get a bear (hehehe) minimum of features at level 3, though level 5 is when you truly become a legit damage sponge. That level is also kind of your peak power, because your damage mostly flatlines past that point. Obviously, you get more and more effective HP as you keep going up.

After playing a Bearbarian Moon Druid a few times, I think it’s best to start in Druid for that WIS save proficiency, something single-class Barbarians struggle with greatly, then grab Moon Druid subclass for immediate bump in HP and damage, grab at least 3 levels of Barbarian and then level up the Druid to the end.

In either case, you can play around with spells and feats a little bit if you want, but I do value Sentinel feat the most - I think maximizing your attacks per round works best to make you a legit threat, not just a passive damage sponge.

Druid 6/Barbarian 4

1) Druid 1: INT & WIS saves, Druidic, SPELLS – Guidance, Magic Stone, Healing Word/Goodberry, Absorb Elements, Detect Magic/Longstrider
2) Druid 2: Wild Shape, Combat Wild Shape, Circle Forms, Longstrider spell
3) Barbarian 1: Multiclass proficiencies (all weapons), Rage, Unarmored Defense
4) Barbarian 2: Danger Sense, Reckless Attack
5) Barbarian 3: Spirit Seeker, Totem Spirit: Bear
6) Barbarian 4: Sentinel feat
7) Druid 3: Pass without Trace spell
8) Druid 4: Gift of the Gem Dragon feat (WIS), Wild Shape Improvement (swimming beasts), Darkvision/Locate Object spell
9) Druid 5: Revivify spell
10) Druid 6: Primal Strike, Dispel Magic spell