I'm looking to create a custom druid circle – one of fire, as I'm making a solo campaign and they wanted to be able to be a fire druid essentially.
These are the spells I've chosen;
Druid Circle – Fire
- 3rd – Flame Blade, Scorching Ray
- 5th – Call Lightning, Fireball
- 7th – Conjure Minor Elementals, Elemental Weapon
- 9th – Conjure Elemental, Wall of Fire
Do these seem unbalanced or unfair? She's the only player character, so I was thinking about giving a Cure Wounds in there, but she could just as easily learn that from levelling up anyway and I'd say it's a fairly essential spell.
Best Answer
As long as the spells are of the correct level it should be balanced
Let's talk about what we mean by balance.
Option 1: "Will these bonus spells cause the character to be significantly more or less powerful then a character is expected to be at a given level?"
As long as the bonus spells are all of a level the character would be able to cast normally (that is no 3rd level spells before level 5, no 4th level spells before level 7, and so on) then any set of spells will be balanced. We know this because a different standard character would be able to cast these spells at the same level and we assume that character is balanced.
Option 2: "Will these bonus spells cause a druid to be significantly more or less powerful than is expected for a druid to be at this level."
To address that concern we would need to look at the spells that other druid circles get, how those spells work in play, and workup some sort of ranking system to determine equivalency. Circles that provide more spells from outside of the druid's spell list would be expected to lead to stronger druids as they provide more options.
An easier way of approaching this would be to play test the new circle and see if, in the fullness of time, the new circle felt unjustly more powerful than standard circles.
Which type of balance should you care about? With a solo campaign there is no risk of this player overshadowing other players; they are the only player! So your only concern needs to be if your new circle is going to break the expected power level as the player progresses and some different bonus spells won't do that.