D&D: The 5 Best Races for Druids
I wasn’t originally going to write this article, as I don’t believe in choosing one’s race for stat reasons. Your character’s race is one of the most important parts of their characterization. Don’t go fishing for the right ability modifiers, pick something that calls to you for what it is.
However, it’s likely that not everyone is so sentimental about choosing their character’s race. So, without further ado, here are some excellent choices for a druid character. Remember, Wisdom is your primary stat, with Dexterity and Constitution as distant seconds. Also, most of these are from tie-in sourcebooks, so I unfortunately can’t link directly to them. You’ll have to find their exact stats on your own.
1. Variant Human
Variant human is a stellar racial choice no matter what class you’re playing. Not only do you get to boost two different ability scores of your choice, you get a free feat. Feats are rare and expensive, requiring you to lose one of your few ability score improvements, so this is a massive boon. I’d recommmend picking this if you have a solid feat in mind for your build, as you are sacrificing a lot of interesting racial options elsewhere on this list.
2. Kalashtar
Kalashtar (humans with a spirit-parasite in their brain) are another winning choice for any class, but druids especially. +2 Wisdom, advantage on Wisdom saving throws, and resistance to psychic damage are all very nice. But the real bounty is the free telepathy, which will let you communicate with your team even when shapeshifted. If you plan on turning into animals often (and this is a druid we’re talking about), that ability will be worth its weight in gold.
3. Wildhunt Shifter
Shifters are the D&D version of werewolves, which is perfect thematically. You’re already turning into animals, might as well have a werewolf form on top of that! Plus you get +2 Wisdom, +1 Dexterity, darkvision, and advantage on Wisdom saving throws. The werewolf shift is doable even in Wildshape, letting you regenerate HP and prevent your opponents from getting advantage on attacks against you. All in all it’s a great bundle of abilities that combo well with druid mechanically and conceptually.
4. Firbolg
Firbolg are half-giants, and practically every racial trait on their list is good for druids. Right off the bat, we have the usual +2 Wisdom and three very useful languages (Common, Elvish, and Giant. I always pick ‘villainous’ languages like Orc, Goblin or Giant so I can eavesdrop on my foes.) Then we get detect magic and disguise self as free spells, which are both super useful and (just for you) scale off Wisdom to boot. Then you get to turn invisible as a bonus action. Then you also can communicate with plants and animals… Quite frankly, Firbolg get a disgusting amount of racial traits that synergize perfectly with druid. It’s insane.
5. Custom Lineage
But in the end, my favorite race (for any class) is the Custom Lineage mechanic from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. You don’t need to sacrifice my favorite part (your own personal sentiment) because you get to build the race from the ground up! Then you get the all-important +2 to Wisdom, optional darkvision, and a free feat of your choice! What’s not to love?
Bonus #6. Ghostwise Halfling
Lastly, halfling’s edgelord subclass deserves mention as well. +2 Dex and +1 Wis is still a good stat spread, Lucky is an eternally-useful ability, and you get the same telepathic ability as Kalashtar. I’ve personally never been a huge fan of small races, but plenty of players like ’em and ghostwise synergizes really well with druid.
But again, I want to reiterate, I don’t think this is the right way to go about choosing a race. I didn’t end up going with any of these, for example; I picked Warforged because I liked the character concept of a robot who Wildshapes so they can experience being organically alive. There are no wrong answers in this category, it’s more important you create a character you find interesting and that clicks with you!