One of my players recently told me that they never really understood why Druids in fiction need to have the ability to turn into beasts. He elaborated that his view of a druid is more lonesome hermit in the woods, a powerful magic user but friend to every aspect of mother nature, and less sickle-wielding badass that transforms into bears and octopuses.
We looked at the various other druid-looking options, to see if we could recreate his view of these forest-dwellers. Oath of the Ancients Paladin & the Ranger came close, but with their reduced spell list & spell slots they too left something to be desired. My player asked me if I would let allow them to play a Wizard with the spell list of a Druid, and using Wisdom instead of Intelligence as their spellcasting ability. I am a DM who mostly rolls in the open and who doesn’t care if combat is a little unbalanced in favor of the monsters, so I said yes and asked them which subclass they would like to have with that (we start our campaigns at level 3 so everyone has a class and a subclass).
‘Well’ my player began, ‘there is not really a Wizard subclass that fits with this Druid character that I’m going for, care if I take a Druid subclass?’
I have to say I was taken aback a bit, but after some thinking his plead made more and more sense. Why be restricted by the non-existent but furiously defended ‘balance’ of D&D, if that means you have to wait for at least 4th level before you can play your Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer/Oath of Vengeance Paladin or whatever you want to play. And don’t forget that multiclassing as it is right now in D&D is already a minefield of wrongly interpreted rules and a source of straight up broken builds. But what if you could play a Draconic Bloodline Paladin?
My eyes lit up. ‘Yes, this is it, the possibilities, they’re endless!’
But because I’m also someone that finds solace in rules and guidelines, I knew I couldn’t simply give my player this ability without knowing exactly what that would entail; thus, my quest began. Below you find the rules I came up with.
How it works
Instead of picking one of the subclasses that is made for your class, you can choose one from any of the other classes. Just like with multiclassing, you need to have at least a 13 in the class’ ability score. (For example, a Rogue that takes the Path of the Zealot subclass of the Barbarian, needs a minimum Strength and a Dexterity of 13)
When you gain the subclass features is based on the class you chose, not the subclass. You can use the table on this page to see which level of your class corresponds to which level of the subclass. (When our Zealot Rogue became Level 13, they got the Level 14 Path of the Zealot feature)
If a subclass feature expects you to have a prerequisite feature from the main class, you can still activate this feature the same number of times as you would be able to if you were that class. You do not gain that base feature, though, only the subclass’ features. Additionally, you are still restricted by the feature’s negative and time-related abilities. (So, our Level 13 Zealot Rogue from the previous example is able to stay in a rage-like state for 1 minute, as long as they keep to the rules for raging. The rage-like state grants the abilities that come with the Zealot subclass, but this does not grant them the abilities from the base Rage feature, like resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage for example. Additionally, it is not possible for this character to cast spells whilst in this state)
If the subclass you chose gives you access to a list of spells, but your class has no spell slots to cast them with, you can cast each of those spells once per long rest for as long as your character has no spell slots.
| Artificer | 3 | 5 | 9 | 15 | 17 |
| Barbarbian | 3 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 17 |
| Bard | 3 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 17 |
| Blood Hunter | 3 | 7 | 11 | 15 | 18 |
| Cleric | 1/2 | 6 | 8 | 15 | 17 |
| Druid | 2 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 17 |
| Fighter | 3 | 7 | 10 | 15 | 17 |
| Monk | 3 | 6 | 11 | 15 | 17 |
| Paladin | 3 | 7 | 10 | 15 | 20 |
| Ranger | 3 | 7 | 11 | 15 | 17 |
| Rogue | 3 | 6 | 9 | 13 | 17 |
| Sorcerer | 1 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 18 |
| Warlock | 1 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 17 |
| Wizard | 2 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 17 |
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