Druids are some of the most flexible characters in Baldur’s Gate 3 as they mix damage and tanking with Wild Shapes and crowd control and healing with spells. You can build them in various ways depending on your needs. Here’s my best Druid build guide in Baldur’s Gate 3.
The Best Druid Build Guide You’ll Ever Need for Baldur’s Gate 3
Since Druids are BG3‘s jack-of-all-trades, the fun part is that there isn’t one singular way to build them. They can indeed be decent ranged characters with Circle of the Land that outputs damage and healing from a safe distance. However, today, I’ll be focusing on two melee Druid builds that are tanky and offer unique elements, such as being unkillable or having a melee undead army:
- Bestial Brawler: A virtually unkillable Circle of the Moon Druid that drops down concentration spells and switches Wild Shapes regularly in combat to suit the situation.
- Spore Rager: A Spore Druid/Barbarian multiclass that is tanky with Symbiotic Entity and Rage Damage Resistance while outputting great damage.
Both of them offer defense, damage, and utility in various ways. I’ll discuss the strategies, feats, spells, and various elements of these builds below. That said, whatever build you choose, make sure to prioritize your Wisdom and Constitution scores almost equally in character creation (16-16). Dexterity should be your third-best stat for some AC and Initiative.
Furthermore, make sure to follow Auntie Ethel’s questline for a +1 to Wisdom. No spoilers if you haven’t played through that yet. Lastly, pair the first build with some ranged damage support companions like Wyll or Gale and the second one with melee companions like Lae’Zel, Karlach, or even Halsin for some double Druid trouble. Though the Spore Rager is tanky, they’ll benefit greatly from a melee buddy who shares some aggro with them.
Lastly, as for your race, I recommend defensive options like Half-Orcs for their “refuse to die” ability or the Gold Dwarf’s increased HP pool, which are both incredible. Alternatively, Wood Elves are also useful due to their increased movement speed and Perception skill proficiency to avoid ambushes.
Bestial Brawler: Best Moon Druid Build
The core of this build is to pick Circle of the Moon Druid for their ability to Wild Shape with a bonus action throughout combat and suit any situation with their various forms.
- Feats: Ability Improvements (Wisdom), Tavern Brawler (Only boosts attack rolls of your Wild Shape).
- Spells: Focus on concentration spells you can drop down and then Wild Shape since you cannot cast in animal form. Excellent examples include Faerie Fire, Heat Metal, Hold Person, Mirror Image, Spike/Plant Growth, Conjure Minor Elemental/Woodland Being, and Wall of Fire.
- Multiclassing: If you want some optional benefits, you can take one level of Draconic Blood Sorcerer for a permanent AC boost. Alternatively, you can take one level of Barbarian for Rage. If you Rage, then Wild Shape, you’ll benefit from damage resistance only, but you can’t concentrate on spells.
- Items: Armor Of Moonbasking, Shapeshifter Hat, and Shifting Corpus Ring.
The neat part is that each Wild Shape form provides you with a large HP pool and when that form is defeated, you simply go back to your Humanoid one with full HP. I highly recommend sticking to the Bear form in the early game for its taunt-like howl. However, once you get the Raven don’t be afraid to switch forms up in combat to suit the situation. The Wolf can be used for critical strikes and the Raven for repositioning.
Circle of the Moon Druid Tips
I found great success by dropping Entangle or other area-of-effect concentration spells, flying above affected enemies with Raven form, and attacking without suffering the harmful effects of the spell. The flexibility goes even further since you can start combat in the Raven Wild Shape, fly up to enemies, switch to humanoid form, and then switch again to another beast like the Bear while still having your Action for attacks or Thunderwave to knock enemies off ledges. That’s a mouthful.
I recommend starting a short rest in Wild Shape since you’ll regain your two uses for the next combat while retaining your animal form. This build makes you virtually unkillable as you’re constantly switching animal forms for that extra HP pool and healing with Lunar Mend. Not to mention that later on you’ll be able to turn into multi-attacking Elementals that have incredible damage potential.
Spore Rager: Best Spore Druid Build Guide in Baldur’s Gate 3
Now, this is an interesting melee build that stems from the fact that the Barbarian’s Rage and Reckless Attack don’t require Strength-based attacks like in D&D 5e. You simply need to do melee attacks, which our Shillelagh spell takes care of since it makes our staff attacks (look for magical ones) scale with Wisdom.
Rage synergizes beautifully with Spore Druid because the Damage Resistance makes the temporary HP from Symbiotic Entity count as double. Furthermore, while both are active, our melee damage bonus from Symbiotic Entity and Rage coupled with the high-damage Reaction from Halo of Spores make us a formidable melee combatant.
- Feats: Ability Improvement (Wisdom) first since everything is fueled by it and then I found Sentinel quite powerful for reaction attacks.
- Spells: You’re looking for out-of-combat utility and non-concentration options since you can’t concentrate while Raging. I found the following spells to be great due to their utility and damage potential: Lesser Restoration, Pass Without Trace, Plant Growth, Freedom of Movement, Conjure Woodland Being, and Animate Dead. Cast spells before Raging and ignore Flame Blade since it doesn’t work with our bonuses properly (Hopefully, Larian fixes it).
- Multiclassing: Start by going Druid 2 for Spores, then reach Barbarian 5 to get the Subclass and Multiattack, and finally continue with Druid for the rest of the game. I recommend either the Berserker or Wild Heart (Tiger-Cleave) for more offense or Wild Heart (Bear) for defense.
- Items: Armor Of The Sporekeeper, Amulet Of Greater Health, Staff of the Ram/Markoheshkir.
Prioritize finding magic quarterstaves to use with your Shillelagh for those weapon enhancement bonuses to hit and damage. That said, for the really early game, I recommend a simple Shillelagh-boosted Torch for its 1d8+1d4 fire damage combo.
Circle of Spores Druid Tips
If you’re worried about not being able to cast a healing spell on an ally due to Rage, just throw a Health Potion near them. That said, don’t be afraid to drop Rage to cast an important spell to save an ally or crowd-control a group of enemies.
Furthermore, this build allows you to create a mini army with Animate Dead, spreading contagion with Fungal Infestation to raise more undead and the Conjure Woodland Being spell. In fact, at some points in the game, I found that I could solo the encounters due to being too tanky and surrounded by my army of critters. The Dryad from the Conjure Woodland Being spell even has her own spells for extra utility.
That’s it for my best Druid build guide in Baldur’s Gate 3. The reason I didn’t focus on the Circle of the Land Druid is because their core spells like Conjure Animals and Giant Insect aren’t in BG3 yet. Furthermore, Lightning Bolt got removed from the Mountain spell list which drastically impacted their burst damage and Polymorph got nerfed. Find more of our BG3 guides right here, like our best class and race rankings.
