Homebrewing a hedge druid
I keep trying to play a hedgewitch druid in DnD but it keeps trying to turn me into a god.
All I really want is a blanket, some books in a satchel, pouches full of herbs, botanical drawings, a good cloak. Trying to talk to squirrels, doing some healing with dock leaves, eating brambles, falling in streams, helping with the apple harvest for free cider, getting chased out of villages. Not very good at magic, not really caring I'm not.
I do like the idea of a hermitage, a lot, and maybe I would settle there in the end. That would be my reward: a hovel.
I'm thinking no Circle, no learning. Just wandering. My druid builds tend towards the more pacifist and I know there are people doing only environment, utility, animal spells, and so on. I play her as vegan - using treated leaf armour rather than leather.
For stats druids always ditch the charisma and strength, usually intelligence but I do like a smart sage background. I have eight charisma. It's not that she's not kind and polite but that she's incapable of lying, is so chaotic as to be completely unpersuasive, and no one takes her seriously. She didn't even mean to become an adventurer, she just thought she met some new friends at the inn and tagged along to heal them while they went off killing goblins.
I've only really used Wild Shape for sneaking as a rat or a sparrow. I'd be up for some really uncomfortable downsides. Perhaps a bit Wild Magic. You can choose to drop or merge equipment but maybe everything drops. I'd think a little more carefully about what I was doing if I knew I was coming back just in my birthday suit. I like the new rules where it can also be used for a familiar.
The main point is that she only uses cantrips. No levelled spells from the spell list. Just the same cantrips getting more powerful. She would still have levelled spell slots gained as she levels up - for stronger cantrips.
Guidance, for example, could have a scaling dice pool. The cantrip is 1d4. If I use a first level spell slot it's 2d4, which can be given to one person or two, and so on. Maybe Shillelagh gets a plus one damage each extra level. So in a first level slot it's 1d8+1. Second level slot, 1d8+2. The point isn't to be donking people on the head though. Perhaps there are other levelling-up bonuses. Some cantrips move to be cast as a bonus action, no longer require concentration, or don't need touch.
The biggest problem is there are no healing cantrips. To give my hedge druid the crucial healing I'm thinking some potions, poultices, and tinctures. And actually using the healing kit. The supplies get made in the morning and lose their potency after 24 hours so no stockpiling. They take a spell slot to be used. So it's mechanically analogous to actual healing spells a druid would get. It's just flavour. None ranged though. She's not throwing poultices at people.
I do not expect anyone else to be interested in this nonsense, only me. I don't imagine many DMs being interested. I certainly would never try to inflict it on the DM at the board game cafe who is juggling action economy and balancing encounters with strangers. It's underpowered and unbalanced. Apparently, my fantasy is to be homeless, unskilled, and socially incompetent. And I'm so close! That's not the point. The point is nettle tea and sleeping in a hedge.
Part of my games notes I guess.