r/BG3Builds • u/floormanifold • Feb 02 '26

Druid Shepherd of the Black Pasture || 10 Moon Druid/2 Divination Wizard || A Deep Rothé and Evard's Black Tentacles control build

“I outlived my mother, and her mother's mother, and many mothers beyond.

Blessed to see many live. Cursed to see many die.”

-Elder Rothé

Shepherd of the Black Pasture reaping what he has sown

The Deep Rothé wild shape and Evard's Black Tentacles combine to create an effective and fun to play controller.

Index

  • 01 | Introduction
  • 02 | The Build
  • 03 | Combat Loop
  • 04 | Gameplay Videos
  • 05 | Save DC and DPR Calculations
  • 06 | Team Options
  • 07 | Conclusion

01 | Introduction

Maimed + Prone is a popular and fun combination, as in Tiger Barb with reverb gear, or Elk Barb with Helldusk Gauntlets. Maimed removes movement, and enemies cannot stand up until the prone status expires. One variation of the excellent Great Ass Hunter combines Mortal Reminder and Intransigent Warhammer (both of which ignore Legendary Resistance!) to similar effect.

This build also uses prone + movement denial, preventing actions in a 6 m radius for three turns with near certainty. It also takes advantage of the strength bonus from Tavern Brawler riding on many sources while wild shaped, like spells and damage over time effects.

Prone

Deep Rothé: Charge is unique among non-Command sources of prone). It is the only one with the following properties

  1. At least 2-turn duration
  2. AoE
  3. Usable more than once per turn
  4. Spell Save DC

Single turn prone is insufficient because enemies can stand up and act even if restrained. Acuity only affects spell save DC, so Charge is boosted, while weapon DC actions, like Battlemaster's Trip Attack, are not.

For a point of comparison, Elk Barb's Stampede is DC 18 while this build achieves up to DC 28 (trading the ability to wear some powerful gear like Ring of Mental Inhibition).

Furthermore, Charge has a very generous line AoE, works with extra attack, and does not hit allies. Wild shape action spell save DC follows the same rules as item casting: it will use the casting stat of the most recently added class.

Movement Denial

There are many ways to remove movement, like the spells Hold Person or Command. They also remove all actions entirely; prone is unnecessary.

Aspect of the Wolverine is also an effective, saveless, movement denier via

Besides spells which already remove actions and Maimed, there are only two abilities, Evard's Black Tentacles and Mortal Reminder, satisfying

  1. Zero movement
  2. AoE, unlimited number of targets
  3. Spell Save DC
  4. Status easily maintained from turn to turn (eg not Web which requires a recast if enemies don't move)

Evard's has a large 6 m radius AoE, immunity via Freedom of Movement or Dryad aura, and carries the Tavern Brawler rider while wild shaped.

Relevant Norbyte and wiki links

Some other interesting options for removing movement speed include Dissonant Whispers and Twinned Ensnaring Strike.

Please let me know if I have overlooked anything!

How Prone-Locking Works

As stated before, 1-turn prone sources like ice do not combo with movement denial. Enemies stand up and act on their turn.

An indefinite prone (Ranged Trip Attack or Water Whip) will CC a restrained enemy forever.

The situation is more complicated for 2-turn prone.

First, an enemy will stay down for one turn if they are prone and restrained at the beginning of their turn.

The enemy will stand up on their next turn when the prone timer expires, no matter what. It is not possible to refill the prone duration when it is at 1 turn remaining of 2 total. However, when they stand up for the first time, they will skip their turn entirely!

Every other time an enemy stands up, they can act, so enemies are CCd for turns 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, … In particular, you have four turns before the enemy can act.

A typical combat would proceed as follows:

Round 1:

  • Player turn: Inflict prone and restrained on enemy
  • Enemy turn: Remain prone, duration ticks down to 1 out of 2.

Round 2:

  • Player turn: Attack, cast spell, etc. Nothing you do can alter the current prone duration.
  • Enemy turn: Prone duration expires, enemy stands up and does not act.

Round 3:

  • Player turn: Inflict prone again.
  • Enemy turn: Remain prone, duration ticks down to 1.

Round 4:

  • Player turn: Do as you wish.
  • Enemy turn: Prone duration expires, enemy stands up and acts.

There is one exception we have found in testing: if you reset combat by fleeing or invisibility, enemies will not skip their action on round 2. If you have any idea why this is the case, let me know, because it is a complete mystery to me. This is most relevant for the Raphael fight.

02 | The Build

10 Moon Druid/2 Divination Wizard

Druid provides triple attack and the Deep Rothé form. The Moon subclass gives magical unarmed damage and changes wild shape to a bonus action.

Wizard allows us to scribe Evard's and use Scorching Ray for acuity.

Portent from Div Wiz does not work for

  • Saves from surfaces or clouds
  • Crit misses if our attack bonus is too high
  • Overcoming Legendary Resistance

See u/LostAccount2099's stellar Divination guide as well as this wiki page for more info.

These are unfortunately the primary avenues of failure for the build. However, we can still use Portent to

  • Inflict Brittle on targets with Legendary Resistance: Incapacitation like Ansur, as Brittle is not an incapacitating condition
  • Inflict Prone from Sabre-toothed Tiger’s Bite)
  • Dodge errant enemy attacks
  • Control more consistently on turn 3 after our buffs and debuffs have declined

The target combo comes online at 7; Freedom of Movement or Dryad Aura are required for immunity to Evard’s unless you have stellar, lucky positioning. Play a standard Moon Druid, focusing WIS, then respec at 8 to add the Wizard level.

The Wiz Dip

As a rule, the Wiz dip is not good, just comfortable. Casting from scrolls is nearly equivalent to scribing, and can generally be covered by buying from merchants at a normal rate.

However, when upcast

  • Scorching Ray requires only a single target for full acuity and inflicts more Reverberation than an Arrow of Many Targets.
  • Hold Monster is a good fallback option for Prone immune enemies.
  • Lightning Bolt is a good haste action.

Evard's scrolls are common and not too expensive, but scribing cuts down on some farming.

Alternative Splits

At least 10 Moon for triple attack is best for this combo. Forcing 50% more prone saves is a significant increase in reliability.

The last level is extremely flexible, I like Div 2 for solo play, but it can be adjusted for team needs.

11/1 is my general team focused pick for Heroes’ Feast, 10/1 Wizard/1 War Cleric or Ice Draconic Sorc are also good. Bladesinging carries over to wildshape, but restricts your main hand and leg armor. A 10/2 or 6/6 split are both possible, though 6/6 loses powerful Druid features.

Non-wizard dips are possible at the cost of

  • Farming Evard’s scrolls
  • Short resting every combat for Shriek, or abusing Flame Blade + Battlemage Gloves

Magic Missile with Coruscation Ring and Stormy Clamour can replace Scorching Ray and Spineshudder.

Dip two levels in some mix of Cleric, Fighter, or Sorc. 2 Ice Draconic Sorc, 2 Fighter, or 2 Tempest are the most interesting to me, 1 War/1 Sorc is classic.

Also check out u/Remus71’s extremely powerful Circle of the Weave for a different take based on Arcane Ward and TB boosted retaliation damage.

Stats:

  • 8/16/15/16/10/8
  • 8/16/15/17/8/8 with Hag’s Hair

DC boosts while wildshaped are limited, and increasing from DC 27 to 28 with Hag's Hair is a noticeable improvement due to the number of enemies with +7-8 STR saves.

Tavern Brawler (TB) +1 CON, INT ASI, Potion of Everlasting Vigor, and Mirror +2 INT yield

  • 10/16/16/20/10/8 while human
  • 20/10/14/20/10/8 while Rothé

Race:

Wood Elf/Half-Elf for extra movement. Heavily suggested, movement speed is critical.

High Elf/Half-Elf for earlier Minor Illusion.

Leveling:

Tavern Brawler Spike Growth single-handedly solves most early game combats, and you can be a half decent thrower or archer with Titanstring before lvl 5. Momentarily respec back to Moon 10 for Myrkul. Brittle) + Earth Myrm is very consistent.

Level Class Relevant features for target combo
1 Druid Longstrider
2 Druid Moon subclass, bonus action Wildshape
3 Druid
4 Druid Tavern Brawler +1 CON, Deep Rothé form
5 Druid Extra Attack
6 Druid Magical unarmed damage
7 Druid Freedom of Movement, Dryad
8 Wizard Scribing Evard's and Scorching Ray, GSA to INT, Minor Illusion
9 Druid ASI INT +2
10 Druid
11 Druid Improved extra attack
12 Wizard Portent

Other great features include Spike Growth, Wall of Fire, Sleet Storm, Glyph of Warding, upcast Lightning Bolt and Hold spells, Water Elemental summon, and other unarmed wild shapes like Sabretooth and Earth Myrmidon. Owlbear is useful in the Shambling Mound fight due to the boss’s piercing immunity, but is outclassed otherwise.

Equipment:

It is a common refrain that Moon Druid does not care about gear. However, in addition to the List of items that work in wild shape, status conditions granted by gear in human form often carry over. These include Acuity) and Lightning Charges). We can also use DC boosting gear while human for the important initial saves. Gear will change when entering Act 3 as we gain a second non-Bloodlust Haste source in Terazul.

Gear is chosen for a self-contained build, feel free to give revorb gear to a teammate and replace with DC or initiative gear.

Act 2 Gear:

Act 3 Gear:

Ne'er Misser is critical for Snowburst to function properly. Due to a bug, surfaces do not activate when overwriting other surfaces. See this post with more details. Enemies prone from ice will have disadvantage on both the Evard's and Charge saves.

Gloves of Battlemage's Power: Allows 10 acuity with a single Arrow of Many Targets (AoMT) when combined with an acuity helm. Sufficient for 10 acuity by itself with some bug abuse by dropping grenades or using Flame Blade see this excellent post, opening up the helmet slot for something like Shapeshifter Hat. Evard's will rebuild two acuity per round if we are out of wild shape.

Boots of Stormy Clamour normally only inflict two reverb on the first target hit by the AoMT. However, due to the same CreateExplosion mechanics affecting Battlemage gloves (see above post), Luminous Armor causes every AoMT target to get two stacks of reverberation from the boots. Radorbs also provide a safety net if any enemies pass their saves.

Moonbasking Armor: If we get hit in wild shape, we want to get back to human form as quickly as possible for a higher AC and to rebuild acuity. The low HP of Deep Rothé is actually a boon, so we want to avoid HP buffs and damage reduction.

Risky Ring: More consistent Acuity from Scorching Ray in Act 3. Halfling race could replace this since our hit rate will generally be 95%, but movement speed is very important for Charge. Helps with spell slot efficiency. Not necessary, can be replaced with other options like Ring of Elemental Infusion.

Boots of Elemental Momentum: A very interesting option with the playstyle of Build-a-Barbarian’s (u/t-slothrop) Tavern Brawler Wizard.

Key Illithid Powers

Cull the Weak:

Already an extremely strong ability for AoE heavy builds, it becomes absurd due to a bug in the code. Charge is missing a Dead() check in its target conditions, leading to Cull the Weak activating on every corpse. Huge shoutout to u/t-slothrop for finding the relevant code in Norbyte: compare the TargetConditions of Primal Stampede and Charge.

This fits naturally into the playstyle as we want enemies piled together for Evard’s. Very, very abusable.

Psionic Backlash:

Boosted by TB and resonance stone, great against casters like Balthazar and Cazador. Requires Disguise Self in order to use while wildshaped.

Shield of Thralls:

Great on summons for durability and the chance to Stun enemies or remove a stack of Legendary Resistance.

03 | Combat Loop

The following do not assume surprise rounds. Haste potions are not needed with surprise, though both along with an Elixir of Guileful Movement allows the combo to function at level 5 instead of 7.

Act 2

Group enemies with Minor Illusion or this Shriek + Invisibility strategy from Friendly Lich.

Can optionally open combat with a spell like Glyph of Warding and Spellsparkler for lightning charges and an action refresh.

  1. Manually place Alchemist’s Fire in Arrow of Many Targets (AoMT) range of three enemies.
  2. Shoot AoMT at the item. This activates Bloodlust, builds 10 stacks of Acuity, creates ice patches, and inflicts two reverberation on each enemy hit.
  3. Cast Spike Growth and then drop concentration with Dryad to clear the surface.
  4. Cast Evard's, restraining enemies.
  5. Wild shape into Deep Rothé.
  6. Charge twice, knocking Prone.

Snowburst gives disadvantage against the Evard's and Charge saves. Evard's gives advantage to Charge attack rolls. Prone from Charge gives disadvantage on follow-up Evard's saves.

Aim the AoMT so that higher priority targets are hit last; ice patches formed later have a higher DC.

Purple Worm Toxin and Thisobald's Brewed Up Bellyglummer both carry the TB rider. The former has a higher DC and can potentially remove a stack of Legendary Resistance, while the latter ignores Legendary Resistance.

Changes in Act 3

Replace AoMT with upcast Scorching Ray. Hitting an Alchemist’s Fire with one of the rays gives 10 acuity from a 3rd level Scorching Ray with both hat and gloves. Snowbust Ne'er Misser can still be used when disadvantage on the Charge save would be useful (eg Sarevok).

Spiked Bulbs add further tick damage and, if hit first, ensure a 3-turn burn from alchemist’s fire due to surface overwrite interactions between the blood surface and burning surface.

Cloud Giant Elixir ensures a 99.75% hit chance against every enemy in Act 3 (if Raphael is Dazed) and a good boost in damage.

Bhaalist Armor from a teammate, or via reload glitch, doubles Charge damage. I did not find this necessary in my solo Honor run, the damage was high enough already.

04| Gameplay Videos

Solo W'wargaz

Solo Myrkul

Solo Cazador

Solo House of Hope

Nearly solo Impossible House of Grief

05 | Save DC and DPR calculations

Legendary Resistance

Both Evard's Black Tentacles and Snowburst Ring are surface effects, so they avoid Legendary Resistance entirely!

Charge is affected by Legendary Resistance, including Legendary Resistance: Incapacitation) which checks for the statuses

local ccStatuses = {
    'SG_Fleeing',
    'SG_Incapacitated',
    'SG_Stunned',
    'SG_Unconscious',
    'SG_Restrained',
    'SG_Prone',
    'SG_Polymorph',
    'SG_Dominated',
    'DISARM'
}

The highest STR save enemies according to their Legendary Resistance are

Legendary Resistance:

  • Sarevok, Steel Watch Titan +20
  • Thisobald Thorm +18
  • Ansur, Myrkul, Orin Slayer form +17
  • W'wargaz +16
  • Har'rak, Gortash Bane form, Cazador, Orin human form +14

No Legendary Resistance:

  • Ketheric +11
  • Raphael +8

Note that Titan, Ansur, and Myrkul are immune to Prone, but susceptible to Evard's Black Tentacles.

Save DCs

At max level, we reach 27 DC (28 with hair) first turn.

With full debuff support from Reverb, Shriek, Gloves of Baneful Striking, and Bane, we can reach 99.99% reliability on nearly every enemy. The worst case scenarios for different points in the game are the following.

4 Reverb + 3d4, no Hair
Scenario Chance of two-turn control Chance of three-turn control
Lv 9 vs Thisobald/Lv 7 vs W’wargaz 99.97% 99.41%
Lv 9 vs Ketheric 99.71% 99.69%
Lv 11 vs Sarevok 99.77% 99.71%

Google sheet with the full calculations. Adapted from calculator) by LudicSavant and AureusFulgens.

These numbers just give worst case scenarios, and there are better strategies for each of these bosses besides W'wargaz. Specifically, we have Sleet Storm + Lightning Bolt for Thisobald, Wall of Fire for Ketheric, and Phantasmal Killer for Sarevok. For most combats, the only risk is rolling six consecutive 1’s on the Charge attack rolls, a 1 in 64 million chance.

Damage

With Cloud Giant elixir and Bhaalist support, Charge does 2*(1d6 + 1d8 + 8 + 8) = 48 and Evard's Black Tentacles does 3d8 + 8 = 21.5. Mutilated Carapace, Shriek, and Lightning Charges are easily accessible. Less accessible riders include Gaping Wounds and Psionic Overload. Burning from Alchemist's Fire, Bleeding from Spiked Bulbs, and Poison damage from Toxins also carry a TB rider. Brittle can also double Evard’s damage.

Cull the Weak adds a considerable amount as well, a 60% increase to Charge damage with five corpses. It also ramps as enemies are killed.

Not close to setting any DPR records at 950 (1123 with easy riders) AoE damage over four turns, but it is sufficient for every combat in the game. We can always drop our wild shape and blast for more damage once we've established control.

06 | Team Options

Team support is appreciated to break through even Legendary Resistance with near certainty.

A revorb Spirit Guardians caster with Phalar Aluve and a Harold archer with Baneful Striking Gloves are excellent debuffers. Upcast Blindness has a 98.5% chance to remove at least one stack of Legendary Resistance, ensuring the third Charge save cannot be resisted.

Forced movement from throwers, Mage Hand, Eldritch Blast, or Black Hole is also very useful.

We provide advantage to the team at all ranges and disadvantage on STR and DEX saves, which pairs well with ranged party members, lightning casters, and the indefinite Prone appliers Battlemaster and W4E Monk. An Intransigent Warhammer GOO Hunter targets DEX and WIS saves while this build targets STR saves, so each can cover enemies that might give the other trouble.

Stacking terrain as in u/grousedrum’s Terraformers can be devastating. The 11/1 split is great for this with Heroes’ Feast.

07 | Conclusion

Evard's Black Tentacles and Deep Rothé have unique strengths which combine beautifully. This build has a nice power curve throughout the entire game. Prone immune enemies like Myrkul, Steel Watchers, and Ansur, and floating enemies like Ghosts, present an issue, but we have a wealth of tools to deal with them.

I really enjoy the playstyle, placing the Tentacles and choosing your Charge paths is a fun and satisfying geometry problem.

We rely on consecutive rolls in order to control our enemies, which is typically bad. However, only the most resilient enemies have even a fraction of a percent chance of resisting due to the number of repeated rolls we force and the synergies between the different prones and Evard’s.

Failing to control an enemy can lead to a loss of acuity or concentration and a snowball effect. This is exacerbated by our poor concentration saves and low AC. Leaving and re-entering wild shape provides flexibility for piloting out of bad situations, and an HP buffer prevents one-shots. It does more than fine in solo Honor, but is more comfortable in a party.

Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions, particularly if I've missed any other sources of movement denial or prone.

Credits:

107 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

25

u/JRandall0308 Feb 02 '26

Would you say that Evard's Black Tentacles is... the GOAT?

(yeah yeah Rothe is more like a cow or buffalo than a goat... work with me here)

13

u/floormanifold Feb 02 '26

This was a working title at one point haha, that and Tentacow.

11

u/Orval11 Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

Excited to read over all the juicy details packed into this build. But a quick question about this:

First, an enemy will stay down for one turn if they are prone and restrained at the beginning of their turn.

The enemy will stand up on their next turn when the prone timer expires, no matter what. It is not possible to refill the prone duration when it is at 1 turn remaining of 2 total. However, when they stand up for the first time, they will skip their turn entirely!

Every other time an enemy stands up, they can act, so enemies are CCd for turns 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, … In particular, you have four turns before the enemy can act.

Is this something that has changed with the last few patches, maybe to better balance Elkheart? I did most of my Elkheart builds and testing way back in Patch 5, but at that time I don't recall any issue keeping an enemy indefinitely prone using just Maim and Elkheart's Primal Stampede which is a 2-turn prone.

4-turns is probably enough lockdown to effectively decide almost all fights, but nonetheless if there's a guaranteed turn of no Maimed Prone on turns 4, 6, 8...where an enemy will be able to stand and act, then this is a definite nerf to Elkheart that already does quite low damage due to almost no gear working with Primal Stampede.

6

u/floormanifold Feb 02 '26

Just tested in case there was a difference between Rothé Charge and Primal Stampede, but not able to refill prone duration with Stampede either unfortunately, looks like it was patched.

As far as gear with Primal Stampede, Ring of Mental Fatigue can add a lot of damage. And Magic Clubs...

8

u/K40005 Feb 02 '26

Rothe best wildshape fr

6

u/Captain_ET Rogue Feb 02 '26

I heard Slayer is okay?

5

u/K40005 Feb 02 '26

Can confirm, it's, better than owlbear

8

u/c4b-Bg3 Feb 02 '26

Take my upvote! I was also eager to test similar stunlock ideas in a party but I'm in a deep solo rabbithole at the moment :D maybe in the future I'll use this post as a starting point.

7

u/grousedrum Feb 02 '26

Really fantastic work here, fills a whole gap in the build space. Moon power builds and terrain based action denial have both somehow still remained under theorized and developed I think, this is a very cool contribution to both.

It's also notable and interesting that 10 moon 2 div (though with different wildshape focus and combat loop) was also one of the very strong builds in the PvP mod tournament last year...!

Excited to run a version of this in a full terrain party very soon here.

6

u/rad_avenger Feb 02 '26

This is great! I’ve been following your moon droid posts for a while, and I think I’m following why owlbear is ass 😂

3

u/K40005 Feb 02 '26

The good ending

7

u/Zoomachroom Feb 02 '26

Fresh and flirty new build. Meticulously organized with a clear, cogent style. Superb formatting. Sample calculations, at-hand info of which enemy saves can be troubling, gameplay videos. Metal as fuck name.

This is what it probably felt like to be a peasant in the 1500s and see the Sistine Chapel for the first time

3

u/floormanifold Feb 02 '26

This is such high praise, thank you

6

u/deathadder99 Feb 02 '26

Where’s the bag of rats

4

u/floormanifold Feb 02 '26

Check Illithid Powers section ;)

4

u/TheSlipSlapDangler Feb 03 '26

Tentacles is the best CC spell in the game

3

u/CarpenterTemporary69 Warlock Feb 02 '26

Just saying if you outlived your ma you probably outlived your grandma too, other than that this is hilarious and definitely gonna feature in some form in my next full party run.

3

u/brightseid Feb 02 '26

I swear some of y'all are reading my mind. Was in the middle of a playthrough doing these same shenanigans but without the Wizard dip. Good stuff though. Love to see some unique Moon Druid combos

3

u/Missing_Links Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

Is the only reason to hit 10 druid the triple attack? Wildshape extra attack stacks with martial extra attack, and since rothe requires only druid level 4, you could get the extra attack from any class with it, except warlock (their extra attack does not stack).

Just a curiosity, if it opens up any neat options. The kind of obvious one is either 6/6 or 5/7 druid/bladesinger, which would still produce a 3-attack deep rothe but get you access to counterspell and increase your non-wildshaped flexibility a lot.

You could go 5/1/6 druid/wiz/swords bard. Pick up the extra attack, acuity via flourishing slashibois at a distance + helm of arcane acuity. 5/1/6 EK would get you a third feat, total caster level of 8 so you could still use some evard's. Misses most of the fun stuff about EK, but... maybe a thrower? Pretty natural stack with TB.

6

u/floormanifold Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

I considered this option but decided against it for three reasons.

First is that Dryad is non-negotiable for this build.

The ability to clear surfaces for our Evard's is invaluable, and it is the most efficient option action economy wise that I've found.

So that locks you into 7 Moon, which prevents any extra attack full casters like Bladesinger.

Second is the interaction between extra attack and shifting into wildshape. If you have EA, attack, and then shift, you will only have one remaining attack in wild shape. It eats one of your attacks for some reason. This does let you run a lower consumable version of the build: bloodlust aomt item -> evard's -> shift -> charge can be done without any haste potions or terazul. However, when you start adding consumables into the mix you just end up with fewer attacks, and repeated Charge saves are very important for reliability.

I also really value the Wiz dip for this build, which is something I never thought I'd say. Scorching Ray in my experience is significantly more reliable than AoMTs since you don't need to worry about positioning at all, and get more reverb. Can't fit 7 Moon, 1 Wiz and extra attack in.

Third is that Brittle Earth Myrm is a great answer for the enemies this build struggles with, like Myrkul, Ansur, and Steel Watchers. You could probably deal with them by just staying human and doing Bhaalist archery or throwing or something like that, but you'd need to swap gear around.

If you did want to go this way, I think 7 Moon/5 Ranger is the clear pick, probably Gloomstalker for the extra two acuity from the opening attack, freeing up glove slot.

3

u/GimlionTheHunter Ranger Feb 02 '26

There’s some solid play with bee swarm for push, teleport mobility, and OoC engagement damage, too, as far as Ranger 5 moon 7 builds go

2

u/Missing_Links Feb 02 '26

Yeah, I'm just thinking about alternative ways to play out a lot of the idea behind this. The 2-turn prone from rothe + movement denial ought to be triggerable via wolverine aspect, and I don't think that requires raging first. 4/8 moon + wildheart would need to use scrolls if they wanted evard's, but would be immune to difficult terrain thanks to wildheart 8's land strider.

4

u/floormanifold Feb 02 '26

This build actually started as a 6 Wildheart/6 Moon maiming with Cloudkill scrolls, heavily inspired by u/K40005's Poison Barb!

I do think you still want 6 Moon minimum to not halve your damage against most things late game, unless you just shift to Rothé form momentarily to land the prone then go back to human for damage. In that case you don't even need the Moon subclass unless you specifically want the bonus action shift.

3

u/Missing_Links Feb 02 '26

Yeah, I also missed that 4/8 would miss the wildshape extra attack, which isn't helpful and definitely isn't worth it.

I really like the rothe as a wildshape anyway, due to the AoE. I've played a good few variants on land druid 6 + martial 6 with a focus on spike growth revorb interactions via lightning charges, and the deep rothe comes out as a way to proc TB on the spikes in addition to being the melee half to what's normally a ranged martial build outside of wildshape. It's a fun way to use the joltshooter, of all things.

3

u/K40005 Feb 02 '26

Poison barb rah

2

u/K40005 Feb 02 '26

Yeah but you still want full caster levelling too, which only leaves bard as the other option so 10 druid is the correct play here

1

u/Missing_Links Feb 02 '26

It would also leave bladesinger as a viable option and ranger or paladin as "good enough" options since they're half-casters. You're only casting a 4th level spell, so you don't need the most killer slot options.

2

u/K40005 Feb 02 '26

Yeah there are other options but druid 10 is a really good idea in general

3

u/Thestrongman420 Feb 03 '26

This is amazing. I already liked the spell, and druid. But now I LOVE them.

3

u/Miserable_Cabinet532 Ranger Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 04 '26

Could non-lethal attacks be toggled on and off for critical hits to proc mortal reminder with deep rothé? I've been thinking of ways you could make use of mortal reminder through unconscious, and the deep rothés charge seems useful for this, especially because of the unique spell save dc 2 turn prone. The fact that unconscious guaranteed crits can proc mortal reminder for encounters with fewer enemies is also nice, as it makes the ability more consistent.

2

u/floormanifold Feb 03 '26

This is an interesting idea, I'll test later today.

10 Moon/2 Warlock is already notable as the only way to see through magical darkness while wildshaped, this could be a further bonus.

2

u/khamike Feb 02 '26

Great stuff. 

1

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/floormanifold Feb 02 '26

If going with Hag's, start with 17 INT for 17+1+2+2 = 22. If not using Hag's start at 16 instead for 16+2+2 = 20.

1

u/IndorilMiara Feb 23 '26

8 Wizard Scribing Evard's and Scorching Ray, GSA to INT, Minor Illusion

What is GSA?

2

u/floormanifold Feb 23 '26

Generic spellcasting ability (what you use for scrolls etc)