Bending the essence of nature to the will and defending it with magic, Druids are the true guardians and warriors of nature. They have access to supportive and offensive spells and subclasses, leaving room for players to choose if they want to be a strong and fast warrior or a healer/supporter.
The druids also hold one of the most versatile features, Wild Shape. Wild Shape lets the druid transform into any creature that they have seen before that is under a certain challenge rating (which increases with levels) and take on all of their abilities. Most druids focus their whole playstyle around this feature; at higher levels and certain subclasses, you even get much stronger forms, like elementals.
Druids benefit from being in nature, but they can definitely benefit from magic items. Here are some great magic items that work for most druids.
8. Bag of Holding
A very well-known item, the Bag of Holding is an item every party should have at least one of. It finds most of its use in parties which hoard or collect items and most often is carried by the physically stronger characters, but the druid can use it to a greater extent.
Much like rangers, druids know the ins and outs of nature and can, with a few easy checks, identify useful plants, herbs, and other gifts of nature. Collecting these useful natural items is only the first step; they also need to be stored somewhere.
The bag of holding is meant exactly for that; it can store a large volume of items in a normal backpack. Even if the weight of the bag ends up being too much for the druid themselves, the usefulness remains.
7. Moon Sickle
This magical weapon from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything comes in many rarities; the higher the rarity, the better its feature gets. A silver sickle glowing with the shining glimmer of the moon, when attuned and held, it grants a bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it, and you gain a bonus to spell attack rolls and the saving throw DCs of your druid and ranger spells.
The Moon Sickle also improves the healing effect of spells you cast. When you cast a spell that recovers hit points to you or your allies, you can add an additional 1d4 to the hit points regained. Considering that the druid has a variety of spells both healing and damaging ones and a decent amount of them involving saving throws, this weapon can be utilized to its fullest extent on a druid.
One thing that makes the weapon even more useful is that it can be used as a spellcasting focus. It might seem like a minor benefit, but consider that switching between weapons in one turn requires you to burn your action. Having this small bonus allows you to switch between melee combat oThe Moon Sickle is a solid choice for druids who focus less on wild shaping and more on their general abilities.
6. Staff of Healing
The druid is one of the few classes that can act as a healer/support without needing to choose a certain subclass to even stand a chance but only to improve their healing capabilities. While the druid can be a great healer, it still stays behind a cleric of the life domain.
The Staff of Healing can be the magical item to change that. The staff is basically like a pocket healer, and it comes with 10 charges which recharge at dawn. The charges can be expended to cast the Cure Wounds, Lesser Restoration, and Mass Cure Wounds spells. Casting Cure Wounds costs one charge for each spell level and can be cast up to the 4th level.
Just with this one spell, the staff has the potential to heal 10d8 + your spell attack modifier per day, aside from the healing a druid can do by themselves. This amount of healing is useful at any level and can be dispersed amongst allies and over time to be used efficiently. Being able to cast Lesser Restoration and Mass Cure Wounds is also very useful for multiple reasons.
The spells on their own are useful since they can remove diseases and conditions or heal multiple targets at once, but being able to cast them through the staff means you no longer need to save that spell and can learn two new spells and keep your arsenal heavy with variety. A staff for any druid who cares more for the party than terrorizing villages as a drunk bear.
5. Staff of Swarming
Nature’s most annoying creatures are its insects, and as the guardian of nature, you have to be able to use even those to your benefit. The Staff of Swarming comes with 10 charges which can be used to either cast the Giant Insect or Insect Plague spells or to summon a large swarm of insects to obscure the area around you.
The staff offers a lot of utility just by being able to summon swarms of harmless insects, but it also allows for great offensive capabilities with the spells. Each spell being able to be used for combat in different ways and for different opponents. The staff is best used on a circle of spores druid, but it’s good on any sort of druid.
4. Nature’s Mantle
This cloak made to fit rangers and druids mimics the abilities of a chameleon. The cloak will change colors and textures to match the terrain around you, and it will do this automatically. Additionally, it can be used as a spellcasting focus by rangers and druids. The last feature it grants is the ability to hide as a bonus action if the area around you is lightly obscured.
No matter what sort of druid you are playing, you will eventually need to blend with the environment and hide to avoid danger or stalk a target. This cloak is the perfect tool to help complete those goals. Due to it being able to be used as a spellcasting focus, it means that you can take it anywhere without having weapons at hand and still feel safe as your clothes, the cloak can act as a weapon.
3. Animated Shield
The Animated Shield is a very rare item, so it can be hard to obtain, but it is one of the few weapons that can be used while in wild shape. The shield acts as a normal shield until its command word is spoken, using a bonus action, where it will animate and begin to hover around the user. While the shield is animated, it still provides the +2 bonus to AC while leaving both hands free.
While in wild shape, you usually cannot speak the command word, but since it only takes one bonus action to activate, the shield and wild shape can be activated in the same turn, first the shield with a bonus action and then the wild shape with an action.
Using this combination can provide additional protection to your weaker forms or further improve the defenses of the tankier ones. The shield only remains active for 1 minute, but it can be reactivated with the same condition. Having this shield works great on a druid since they wield shields outside of wild shape and it provides shielding in wild shape.
2. Insignia of Claws
The Insignia of Claws from the Hoard of the Dragon Queen is a magical item that improves your unarmed and natural attacks. Whenever you make an unarmed or natural weapon attack, you can add +1 to the attack and damage rolls. Attacks with unarmed strikes while using the insignia also count as magical.
The bonus is also applied to wild shapes since their attacks count as natural attacks/weapons. The bonus is good to have early on and allows you to bypass non-magical immunities of creatures such as werewolves by making your attacks magical. Later on, at higher levels, the bonus becomes less impactful, but since the item does not require attunement, there is no reason to drop it at any point.
1. Staff of Woodlands
Playing a druid and using the Staff of Woodlands should go hand in hand. The staff has multiple useful features handcrafted specifically for the druid. Firstly, the staff is a +2 weapon, meaning you gain a +2 bonus to attack, damage, and spell attacks with this weapon.
Similarly to the Staff of Healing, the Staff of Woodlands has 10 charges, which can be used to cast staple druid spells: Animal Friendship, Awaken, Barkskin, Locate Animals or Plants, Speak with Animals, Speak with Plants, and Wall of Thorns. The spells have different charge costs. The last feature the staff possesses is the ability to turn into a tree using only an action, effectively creating a tree in around 6 seconds.
The tree can be used for cover in combat, to gain the high ground or a higher viewpoint, or to use as cover so you can rest during the night. The spells are all useful, and most druids have at least 2 of those in their spell arsenal. Having them ready on command can save spell slots and allow you to learn other spells or further utility.