I love a creepy Druid.
Indeed, I think basically the only Druid concepts I've ever been drawn toward are those that lean into the "scary pagan in the dark forest" vibe. The Circle of Spores, more than any other (and yes, I'd include the "villainous" Titan Druid) leans into that idea, with a good deal of necromancy mixed in.
In my Ravnica campaign, two players who ultimately exited both went for Spores Druids (one was full Golgari Swarm while the other was a House Dimir spy embedded within the Swarm who likened the mycelial network to an intelligence network.
The Spores Druid is cool, but it's also one that has always been a little tricky to really make work - it's one of the few non-shapeshifting Druid subclasses that strongly encourages you to fight in melee.
I won't be comparing this with the Ravnica/Tasha's versions, though at first glance, it's relatively similar, with a few tweaks and changes.
Circle Spells:
Cantrip: Chill Touch
1st: Charm Person
2nd: Blindness/Deafness
3rd: Animate Dead
4th: Confusion
5th: Contagion
Note that Chill Touch is now a melee spell, so you might want to pack a Starry Wisp or other ranged spell with you. I do think, though, that overall you might be inclined to fight more in melee, and thus might choose to take the Warden Primal Order here for a better AC and potentially better weapons (though Shillelagh might be the best weapon option for you unless you can get True Strike through Magic Initiate Wizard). For other spells, Animate Dead got buffed with the buff to Skeletons' Dexterity. Confusion is also a spell that I believe works even against Charm-immune foes.
Level 3:
Halo of Spores:
You have a 10-foot emanation around you of invisible spores. You have telepathy within 10 feet of you, or if you already have telepathy, the range increases by 10 feet.
This is new, I believe, and a nice little perk.
When a creature you can see starts its turn within your emanation or enters it, you can use a reaction to infect them with your spores. They make a Con save. On a failure, they take 1d4 Necrotic damage. On a success, they have disadvantage on the next attack roll they make before the end of their turn.
The damage increases to 1d6 at 6th level, 1d8 at 10th level, and 1d10 at 14th level.
This is a little cleaner than the old version, which let you kind of take your reaction at any time (though maybe I'm thinking of how Emily Axford played Moonshine on NADDPOD, which was based on the original UA version of this subclass). The weirdness here is that, given how relatively light the damage is, you might actually prefer that the target succeeds on their saving throw. Maybe just make the disadvantage go through on a success or failure? That's really not much more powerful, as it's kind of the Protection fighting style plus some damage.
Symbiotic Entity:
As a bonus action, you can expend a Wild Shape usage to awaken your spores. You gain Temp Hp equal to 4 times your Druid level. This lasts for 10 minutes or ends early if you choose to do so or become incapacitated (or use the feature again). While your spores are awakened you gain the following two benefits:
You can roll two dice rather than one when you deal damage with Halo of Spores.
Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 Necrotic damage when you hit with a melee attack using a weapon or unarmed strike.
Ok, I said I wasn't going to compare it to the old version, but it's a big deal that this is a bonus action, making it easier to get into the fight. But how do we like it?
Well, it's a solid number of Temp HP. And the Halo of Spores bonus starts to make the damage feel at least a bit impactful. Also notable that this should persist even if we chew through our Temp HP now. But...
Is that extra d6 of Necrotic damage enough to get us to fight in melee? We sort of have to, actually, also to use Halo of Spores (technically we don't have to, but we need to be within 10 feet). This is certainly less than the damage bonus that, say, a Berserker or Zealot Barbarian would get.
Level 6:
Fungal Infestation:
When a beast or humanoid that is Small or Medium dies within 10 feet of us, we can use a reaction to reanimate it, causing it to stand immediately with 1 HP. If we have Symbiotic Entity active, we can transfer any number of Temp HP we have to the reanimated creature as part of the same reaction.
The creature uses the Zombie stat block, and remains animate for an hour. We can end it early with a bonus action, and the animation ends if the zombie drops to 0 HP.
The zombie is an ally that will act on our initiative immediately after our turn. It will obey our mental commands (no action required) and will dodge and move away from danger if you don't issue it commands.
You can do this Wis times per long rest.
The nice thing here is that this thing can actually become somewhat resilient, and in theory, especially with the changes to healing spells, we could theoretically heal it up to a Zombie's max HP. The problem, though, that this has always had, is that a Zombie is not a very powerful minion. Its attack bonus doesn't scale, and so will just be a +3, which is going to struggle to hit even low-CR targets. Its best use is probably just standing in the way of things.
Again, I love the flavor, but I'd love some scaling with the stat block to keep this relevant.
Level 10:
Explosive Blast:
When an undead creature you created dies, it explodes in a burst of spores. Each creature you choose within 10 feet of it makes a Con save, taking 2d8 Necrotic damage on a failure or half as much on a success.
Notably we don't need to use a reaction to trigger this explosion, and it avoids friendly fire. Thus, I would recommend getting a real army of undead via Animate Dead and then swarming a foe. A single minion dying is not going to do a whole lot of damage this way, but the bigger your army, the better this scales.
Level 14:
Fungal Body:
You are immune to being Blinded, Deafened, Frightened, or Poisoned. Any critical hit against you is a regular hit unless you're incapacitated.
Before we continue, this is pretty big. Note that being in Darkness or areas that are Heavily Obscured gives you the Blinded condition, so being immune to blindness is roughly like having blindsight, though invisible creatures will still benefit from that against you. But also: crit immunity? That's going to really help prevent any massive spikes of damage that could cause you to auto-fail concentration.
Also, if you are Unconscious, your spores take over your body's movement, so your speed while unconscious is no longer reduced to 0. Your spores will direct your movement to stay near allies and away from danger.
That is, frankly, really silly and fun. At level 14, we really want to avoid going unconscious, of course (we always want to avoid it, but it's easier to avoid at higher levels) but this... it's very fun.
Overall Thoughts:
I want to love the Spores Druid. On a conceptual level, I adore it. But I do think it has some flaws: minions that don't scale very well, an emphasis on close-quarters combat without really enough to compensate you for getting in close.
I actually think in some ways the older version might be better, as you could throw your spore cloud once you got to higher levels and play more as a "safe in the back" spellcaster.
Basically, I think the subclass could stand to focus a bit more on what it really wants to be: is this the weapon-using melee Druid? Let's maybe beef up that melee damage then? Is this the Druid Necromancer? Give us some better-scaling minions.
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