An especially gorgeous book became available on D&D Beyond last week. The Field Guide to Floral Dragons, designed and illustrated by Kin Wald, is a luscious bestiary of flower-inspired dragons. It also offers some new options for DnD classes and species. On first impression, these new character options are thematic - and every bit as beautifully illustrated as the book's dragons - but they're not the strongest.
Circle of Flowers Druid
First, we have the Circle of Flowers Druid. Druids have been sorely neglected by official 5.5e books, so I was stoked to see something new! This subclass is defined by its Floral Form. You'll choose a flower, and it offers you specific benefits at levels three and 14. That first boon is an always-prepared spell, and the selection isn't too bad: Detect Poison and Disease, Goodberry, Cure Wounds, Sleep, Create or Destroy Water, or Bane.
Also at level three comes Draconic Wild Shape. This works like standard Wild Shape, but you get a selection of Dragon Forms to add to your repertoire. Crucially, these forms ignore any usual restrictions on CR or speeds, making this an easy way to get a flying form from the get-go.
Some of these dragons are pretty potent, too. The Clematis Dragon can paralyze melee attackers, while the Dandelion Dragon gets advantage on initiative rolls and a chance to reroll its initiative - and both of these are available from level two!
Things get less exciting from here on out. Level six lets you cast Barkskin once a day for free without concentration, which is…okay? Level 10 allows you to create an hour-long circle of flowers that, while you're inside it, restores additional hit points, prevents surprise, and gives resistance to poison damage. This seems fine, but fine isn't quite good enough at level 10.
The level-14 capstone is perhaps most disappointing. Depending on your chosen Floral Form, you'll gain a new benefit. The problem is that none of these feel like suitably powerful capstones. An extra 1d8 poison damage for weapon attacks? Casting Heroes Feast without material components once every 10 days? 1d8+5 healing when you cast a spell? Flying speed? It feels underwhelming.
This Druid starts strong, but it doesn't give you enough reasons to stick with the subclass.
Field Researcher Ranger
Ah, our troubled friend the Ranger. 5.5e has fixed many of its problems, but people are still hung up on that 'Hunter's Mark requires concentration' thing. Can the Field Researcher Ranger dodge the class' inherent challenges? Not really.
Level three gives us a bouquet of abilities. We have a thoroughly meh list of spells always prepared: Detect Magic, Locate Animals Or Plants, Plant Growth, Control Water, and Awaken.
We can also make a weapon attack as a bonus action, but only if we hit a creature with a main action attack and we use the same weapon. That's a level of hoop-jumping even the Monk doesn't have to do these days. Plus, it's one less bonus action to dedicate to our resource-hungry Hunter's Mark.
Lastly at level three, we can add our Wisdom modifier to Intelligence checks, and we pick up a free proficiency in History, Investigation, or Nature. This is fine.
Level seven's Research Team is disappointing as well. When you're adjacent to an ally, you can spend a Reaction to give them advantage on one attack roll or skill check. That's incredibly expensive, given how many other ways there are to gain advantage.
Level 11 modifies all your basic animal communication spells to apply to plants and dragons. Plus, when you restore HP to a plant or dragon using a spell slot, it regains extra HP equal to your proficiency bonus. This seems far too situational for a level-11 feature, and unless you're using low-level spells like Animal Friendship all the time, I struggle to see its value.
Level 15 feels slightly better, at least. You can cast Summon Dragon without a material component or spell slot once a day. You can also replace the spell's Dragon spirit with a low-CR floral dragon or plant, if you like. That's not too bad an option given the wealth of new bestiary entries, but this doesn't save the subclass for me overall.
Fungus Warlock
I love the concept of a Warlock that pledges itself to the alien interests of a giant fungus. However, this subclass still has its wobbly points - though it's one of my favorites.
Firstly, let's look at the expanded spell list you gain at level there. We get Entangle, False Life, Calm Emotions, Detect Thoughts, Create Food and Water, Plant Growth, Black Tentacles, Compulsion, Commune with Nature, and Contagion. We can see here a touch of mental manipulation and necromancy alongside this book's tendency to favor plant-based spells. It's a mixed bag in both theme and quality.
You also get Spread the Network at level three. When you damage a creature with a spell, it gets added to a network (max targets equals your proficiency bonus) that remains as long as you concentrate on it. Any time you damage a creature in your network with a spell, all network creatures take 1d4 necrotic damage if you spend a bonus action. The damage becomes 2d4 at 10th level and 3d4 at 17th level.
Spread the Network isn't explosive damage, but it's a nice extra for a subclass that's so lacking in spell slots. The level-six feature is nice too: you gain Mushroom Scouts that allow you to telepathically hear anything within its range when you leave the mushroom behind. You just need to be on the same plane of existence.
Once again, it's high levels where things start to unravel. Level 10 offers resistance to necrotic damage and 15 feet of blindsight. Level 14 just gives you 2d6 temporary HP whenever you deal necrotic damage to a creature. These aren't bad things to have, they just feel underwhelming for their level - particularly when this Warlock's only way of dealing necrotic damage is Spread the Network or spending a precious spell slot.
Floral Dragonborn
The last character option isn't a subclass; it's a new addition to the list of DnD races. It's also the most overpowered of the bunch.
These flowery Dragonborn are defined by their Floral Legacy, a list of options that provide an extra skill proficiency, resistance against a condition, and a special Breath Weapon effect. Your basic Breath Weapon is slightly worse than a regular Dragonborn's, but the potential effects are worth it.
If a creature fails their save against your Breath Weapon, you can (depending on your legacy) charm, poison, or knock them prone. Alternatively, you can move without provoking opportunity attacks for a turn, give a creature HP equal to the damage you dealt, or give creatures disadvantage on attacks against other creatures. That's pretty neat! I personally am most compelled by the Guardian, who gives us that consistent source of disadvantage.
Floral Dragonborn also gain a new bonus action at level five that lets them regain 1d4 HP at the start of every turn for one minute. During that time, any creature that attacks you must pass a Charisma save or be forced to target someone else. That's frankly ridiculous (complimentary).
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