Herbalist

Stats
As a Herbalist, you gain the following class features.

Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d8 per Herbalist level

Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + Constitution Modifier

Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + Constitution modifier per Herbalist level after 1st.

Proficiencies
Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields (Herbalists will not wear armor or use shields made of metal)

Weapons: Clubs, daggers, darts, javelins, maces, quarterstaffs, scimitars, sickles, slings, spears

Tools: Herbalism kit

Saving Throws: Intelligence, Wisdom

Skills: Arcana, Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Religion, and Survival

Class Skills: (4 + Int modifier per level, x4 at 1st level)

Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:
 * (a) a wooden shield or (b) any simple weapon
 * (a) a scimitar or (b) any simple melee weapon
 * Leather armor, an explorer's pack, and a Herbalistic focus

Herbalistic
You know Herbalistic, the secret language of Herbalists. You can speak the language and use it to leave hidden messages. You and others who know this language automatically spot such a message. Others spot the message's presence with a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check but can't decipher it without magic.

Spellcasting
Drawing on the divine essence of nature itself, you can cast spells to shape that essence to your will.

Cantrips

At 1st level, you know two cantrips of your choice from the Herbalist spell list. You learn additional Herbalist cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Herbalist table.

Preparing and Casting Spells

The Herbalist table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these Herbalist spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

You prepare the list of Herbalist spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the Herbalist spell list. When you do so, choose a number of Herbalist spells equal to your Wisdom modifier + your Herbalist level (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

For example, if you are a 3rd-level Herbalist, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With a Wisdom of 16, your list of prepared spells can include six spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination. If you prepare the 1st-level spell cure wounds, you can cast it using a 1st-level or 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn't remove it from your list of prepared spells.

You can also change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of Herbalist spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

Spellcasting Ability

Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your Herbalist spells, since your magic draws upon your devotion and attunement to nature. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a Herbalist spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Ritual Casting

You can cast a Herbalist spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell prepared. You can use a Herbalistic focus (see “Equipment”) as a spellcasting focus for your Herbalist spells.
 * Spellcasting Focus

Herbalist Circle
At 2nd level, you choose to identify with a circle of Herbalists, such as the Circle of the Land. Your choice grants you features at 2nd level and again at 6th, 10th, and 14th level.

Herbalist Circle features

Ability Score Increase
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Timeless Body
Starting at 18th level, the primal magic that you wield causes you to age more slowly. For every 10 years that pass, your body ages only 1 year.

Beast Spells
Beginning at 18th level, you can cast many of your Herbalist spells in any shape you assume using Wild Shape. You can perform the somatic and verbal components of a Herbalist spell while in a beast shape, but you aren't able to provide material components.

ArchHerbalist
At 20th level, you can use your Wild Shape an unlimited number of times.

Additionally, you can ignore the verbal and somatic components of your Herbalist spells, as well as any material components that lack a cost and aren't consumed by a spell. You gain this benefit in both your normal shape and your beast shape from Wild Shape.

Circle of the Land
The Circle of the Land is made up of mystics and sages who safeguard ancient knowledge and rites through a vast oral tradition. These Herbalists meet within sacred circles of trees or standing stones to whisper primal secrets in Herbalistic. The circle's wisest members preside as the chief priests of communities that hold to the Old Faith and serve as advisors to the rulers of those folk. As a member of this circle, your magic is influenced by the land where you were initiated into the circle's mysterious rites. When you choose this circle at 2nd level, you learn one additional Herbalist cantrip of your choice. Starting at 2nd level, you can regain some of your magical energy by sitting in meditation and communing with nature. During a short rest, you choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your Herbalist level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.
 * Bonus Cantrip
 * Natural Recovery

For example, when you are a 4th-level Herbalist, you can recover up to two levels worth of spell slots. You can recover either a 2nd-level slot or two 1st-level slots. Your mystical connection to the land infuses you with the ability to cast certain spells. At 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th level you gain access to circle spells connected to the land where you became a Herbalist. Choose that land–arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, or swamp–and consult the associated list of spells. Once you gain access to a circle spell, you always have it prepared, and it doesn't count against the number of spells you can prepare each day. If you gain access to a spell that doesn't appear on the Herbalist spell list, the spell is nonetheless a Herbalist spell for you.
 * Circle Spells

Arctic Coast Desert Forest Grassland Mountain Swamp Land's Stride

Starting at 6th level, moving through nonmagical difficult terrain costs you no extra movement. You can also pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them and without taking damage from them if they have thorns, spines, or a similar hazard.

In addition, you have advantage on saving throws against plants that are magically created or manipulated to impede movement, such those created by the entangle spell. When you reach 10th level, you can't be charmed or frightened by elementals or fey, and you are immune to poison and disease. When you reach 14th level, creatures of the natural world sense your connection to nature and become hesitant to attack you. When a beast or plant creature attacks you, that creature must make a Wisdom saving throw against your Herbalist spell save DC. On a failed save, the creature must choose a different target, or the attack automatically misses. On a successful save, the creature is immune to this effect for 24 hours.
 * Nature's Ward
 * Nature's Sanctuary

The creature is aware of this effect before it makes its attack against you.

Sacred Plants and Wood
A Herbalist holds certain plants to be sacred, particularly alder, ash, birch, elder, hazel, holly, juniper, mistletoe, oak, rowan, willow, and yew. Herbalists often use such plants as part of a spellcasting focus, incorporating lengths of oak or yew or sprigs of mistletoe.

Similarly, a Herbalist uses such woods to make other objects, such as weapons and shields. Yew is associated with death and rebirth, so weapon handles for scimitars or sickles might be fashioned from it. Ash is associated with life and oak with strength. These woods make excellent hafts or whole weapons, such as clubs or quarterstaffs, as well as shields. Alder is associated with air, and it might be used for thrown weapons, such as darts or javelins.

Herbalists from regions that lack the plants described here have chosen other plants to take on similar uses. For instance, a Herbalist of a desert region might value the yucca tree and cactus plants.

Herbalists and the Gods
Some Herbalists venerate the forces of nature themselves, but most Herbalists are devoted to one of the many nature deities worshiped in the multiverse (the lists of gods in appendix PH-B include many such deities). The worship of these deities is often considered a more ancient tradition than the faiths of clerics and urbanized peoples.