circle of spores druid analysis

circle of spores druid is a playtest subclass from this unearthed arcana

i want to compare it to the circle of the moon druid over the levels 2-5 thereabouts, thats where the most game is

this is the circle of the moon guy. he has a good CON, WIS and CHA, he has no DEX and no STR, doesnt need them because he's gonna be a bear. so one bonus with this guy is he can have a charisma bonus (that i dropped, as the spores druid, to have a dex bonus.) for melee, as a guy, you can do thorn whip. but the point of being a moon druid is you want to turn into a bear.

circle of the moon druid gets combat wild shape, which lets you become a bigger creature than do other druids, challenge 1 or worse, usually the bear, and also makes challenge 1/2 or worse not really worth doing. the moon druid can waste spell slots to heal as a beast, thats ok but a pretty hefty opportunity cost. you cant cast spells as a beast, though, only heal, so if youre a beast focus guy you maybe want this. the other benefit is wild shape as a bonus action, which, if it wasnt a feature of the moon druid, i suspect it would be a feature of all druids, its good, you want this

the bear thing, the bear is the best option.... other options are situationally useful (climbing hunting stealth poison etc) but the bear is just, better damage, better hit points, stronger option generally


circle of spores though...

so as a not-moon druid, you have access to challenge 1/4 or worse.  usually have an attack like +3/d6 damage with an option to do more damage gated by a situation or a save or something. you have more options in your top tier and more varied options in general than does the moon druid, who wont even touch the guys on your tier, your options are strictly worse than the moon druid's guys.

i made a one-page of all the beasts you can do that are 1/4 or worse: BEASTS

so the question here is how to make all these dudes see play? you can have... you know... roleplaying where you just choose the worse option and play it straight, but we dont really want that. then, you can have the bear problem where one guy gets out an extra dice of good damage and so its hard to not choose it, it seems better to be a guy who sometimes turns into a spider, sometimes a swarm of rats, sometimes a horse, sometimes a giant centipede, than to be a guy who always turns into a bear. (if not for this druid wild shape feature that lets you turn into any beast youve seen, turning into a bear would be cool, but with wild shape its an opportunity cost to main bear, and we dont like those)

so in the first game i was run this guy as a moon druid, he did a panther for a stealth bit then switched to bear for more damage halfway through the boss fight. in the second game, changing him to be the spores druid, i used giant wolf spider and swarm of rats. so im average about 2 wild shapes a game, really the game is between two rests or with one rest in the middle, so get two or perhaps four uses of wild shape. i think thats a pretty normal use case

SO WHAT THE SPORE GUY GETS
HALO OF SPORES: 3 damage per round, as a reaction, to one guy in 10 feet whose not immune to poison, no save. this is sort of like a hex, adding about d6 damage per round. its one use, so not as good as hex in that respect, but you dont have to hit with an attack to get the benefit, you can do it on a turn where you take all weird actions and dont attack. and nothing says you cant do it in beast form. probably better to do this than hope for a opportunity attack, if the beast's oppy is like d6+3 but has to roll to hit, just dealing 3 every turn is comparable, or better for enemies with a high armor class.  though by spending your reaction this way all the time, youre gifting the enemy some maneuverability, they dont ever have to worry about your opportunity attack.

SYMBIOTIC ENTITY:
there are two reads on this, if you can do it in beast form or not. reading the class over and over im not sure whats intended, but i want to to be the beast one, and i'll tell you why.

if youre a humanoid and you use it, you can still cast spells, so its sort of a good option. the hit points you get are not as good as youd get from wild shape. the damage boost is like, if youre dual wielding,
[d20+att+proficiency] to hit for [weapon die +d6 +att] on the attack,
[d20+att] to hit for [weapon die +d6 +att] on the bonus.
6 damage on the reaction, because you double the halo of spores effect as a spore man.

my guy is a dwarf druid so i considered hammer and sickle style but i couldnt work the numbers on it, he needs to be a dex guy if anything, i resolved to two scimitars. two scimitars isnt on the list of dwarf proficiencies or the list of druid proficiencies, but hes a gardener so i figure its... not totally weird, depending on the amount of hacking and slashing you have to do to garden effectively in that particular setting, its a dnd world, so like, sometimes the gardens fight back. if you have a long list of proficiencies and none of them do the thing you want, just trade them in for the thing you want, dont take the weapon master feat ever, its garbage.

so thats 4d6 +6 +4 for my +2 dex guy, about 22 damage, every round, for 10 minutes.
then he drops back to 2d6+4+3 is about 13 damage

so youd compare that to the bear, hes d8+2d6+8 is about 18 damage, every round, for an hour, plus a bunch of extra hit points. so sadly its probably not better than the bear. also its another bear. if you can't do symbiotic entity as beast form -> fungus beast form, you're gonna want to be a fungus man all the time, because the fungus man can cast spells and it's your subclass, presumably you took the subclass because youre jazzed about being a fungus man. so it cuts back on the list of forms you can be, because it spends your wild shape, its another bear, not the thing we want.

BUT!

if youre a beast and you can use it. then it becomes, really actually good, and so it should be this interpretation and not that one. youre spending both your wild shapes. so you're really trying to boost the damage and hit points of your existing beast, youre commited to this beast for the short rest, no other transforms, but this is actually good, its like a boss monster thing. your attacks are melee weapons so we can apply the +d6 poison to all attacks. the main reason i like this is it extends the utility of every beast on your list! and we get the fungus man as an extra option for when you want to buff your guy and still cast spells. the disadvantages are spending two standard actions and two charges of wild shape to make yourself real big for one encounter. (note that you can still chuck out spores  as a reaction on those turns) and its a way to heal as a beast that uses your wild shape instead of the moon druid's style, using your spell slots. so when you turn back into a guy you still have stuff you can do. as a fungus beast, after 10 minutes you revert to normal beast form, then once your original hour is up, back to a guy.

the giant badger has a multiattack so, for comparison, the damage is
d6+2d4+2d6+2+6 is about 21 damage, for 10 minutes, then it drops back to d6+2d4+2+3 is about 12

so i think this is intended, i think this is the correct interpretation, if its not, it should be.