Circle of the Shepherd, the Houndmaster (2nd Level)
Speech of the Woods
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to converse with beasts and many fey.
You learn to speak, read, and write Sylvan. In addition, beasts can understand your speech, and you gain the ability to decipher their noises and motions. Most beasts lack the intelligence to convey or understand sophisticated concepts, but a friendly beast could relay what it has seen or heard in the recent past. This ability doesn't grant you friendship with beasts, though you can combine this ability with gifts to curry favor with them as you would with any nonplayer character.
Summon Hound
As a bonus action, you summon a fey spirit that takes the form of a hound within 5 ft. of you, ready to fight at your command. This hound has 1 hit point, can move up to 40 ft. in a turn, and lasts for 1 minute. As part of the bonus action used to summon it, or as a bonus action on subsequent rounds, you can order any of your hounds to move their full movement. Whenever an enemy creature takes damage, all hounds within 5 ft. of the creature attack, dealing piercing damage equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of 1). A hound can only attack once per round.
Whenever a hound is within 5 ft. of an allied creature that is hit by an attack that you can see, you may use your reaction to roll a Wisdom saving throw, contested against the triggering attack roll. If your saving throw meets or exceeds the attack roll, you may allow your hound to take the attack instead.
You may summon a total amount of hounds equal to your Druid level. You regain all expended summons when you finish a long rest.
Empowered Pack (6th Level, 10th Level)
Starting at 6th level, the hounds you summon have refined pack tactics, and are magically empowered. Their damage is considered magical for the purpose of overcoming immunity and resistance to nonmagical attacks and damage. Additionally, if there are 3 hounds within 5 ft. of an enemy creature, the first attack against that creature within the round has advantage.
At 10th level, this feature now grants your hounds the Evasion feature, effectively allowing them to survive damage dealing Dexterity-based saving throws on a successful save, and gives their attacks a slowing effect, reducing a creature's speed by 5 ft. until the end of their next turn for each hound that attacks it. This slow only affect creatures that are of a Large or smaller size.
Houndmaster (10th Level, 14th Level)
Starting at 10th level, you may summon up to 2 hounds on your turn as a bonus action. At 14th level, the number goes up to 3 hounds.
Faithful Hounds (14th Level)
Starting at 14th level, the fey spirits you summon protect you when you are most defenseless. If you are reduced to 0 hit points, and have at least 1 hound that hasn't been summoned yet, up to 3 hounds appear by your side. These hounds function as normal, but do not move from beside you, and give you advantage on death saving throws during your turn if there are 3 of them are alive. If a creature attempts to attack you while you're down, roll a Wisdom saving throw, contested against the creature's attack roll. If your saving throw meets or surpasses the attack roll, one of your hounds intercepts the attack, taking the damage instead.
Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.
