My group are under taking an expedition into a cold desert, and are relying on the druid's create water and good berry spells pretty heavily.
I've been thinking about this, and wonder if Druid magic should still work at full effectiveness in a place so devoid of life (and thus, nature spirits).
Is this a good and interesting twist to throwthe players, or am I just induling my killer DM side?
Last edited by Old_school_overlord; 20th November 2008 at 07:27 PM..
Reason: spelling
I don't see any reason to cut off the Druid's magic on the basis of "deserts are devoid of life."
I can see why people think deserts are devoid of life, but it's really a joke. Deserts have lots of life, it's just that you don't see them that much. A lot of the animals don't go around in the day because it is too hot for them to survive. Most desert animals are nocturnal because of this. Then there are the lizards, and they are active during the day, to at least receive the heat they need to stay alive.
On top of this, there is the plant life. There are many plants that only survive in deserts, the many species of cactus being the most famous.
There are also examples of the lovely "desert oasis," the small above-ground body of water in the middle of the desert. These are used by animals and people alike to survive, getting their necessary liquid and allowing them to survive.
Even a cold desert has examples of these things. Check out tundras. They are the literal "cold desert" (even saying so in the DMG). The arctic fox and wolf only live on the tundra. There are plenty of plants that live within the permafrost. Here's a Wikipedia article on the tundra that may be helpful: Tundra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So, really, a Druid should be perfectly useful in any natural environment. Even one as seemingly hostile as a desert or tundra.
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Dragonwriter already addressed the desert life issue. You can also look at Sandstorm for more thoughts on the matter.
Instead, I'm focusing on this small part:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Old_school_overlord
Is this a good and interesting twist to throwthe players, or am I just induling my killer DM side?
No. It is a terrible idea. Boning your players relatively arbitrarily and without warning, especially in the case where it deals with their basic assumptions of how the rules work is wrongbad. Mind you had you told your druid player this when he initially picked the class, and that was how druid magic was house ruled in your game, then this wouldn't be an issue. But the way you presented it would be a great way to piss off a player.
Were I starting with a new group and someone sprung this on me with no warning, I wouldn't go back.
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I wouldn't penalize a Druid in the desert because I think Druids are more closely connected to nature than to life alone. So while a desert has less abundance of plants and animals than a jungle, Mother Nature shows up in the desert through its blazing sun, shifting dunes and fierce sandstorms. No matter now harsh those elements are, they're always natural. So I think a desert can be right up a Druid's alley.
Is this a good and interesting twist to throw the players, or am I just indulging my killer DM side?
It is a good and interesting twist. Create water should definitely be hindered in Desert environments. But, characters also should have been previously informed about this if this is a normal result of the spell in the desert. Now a smaller area where Fire element is emboldened and water element is diminished would need no warning.
It is a good and interesting twist. Create water should definitely be hindered in Desert environments. But, characters also should have been previously informed about this if this is a normal result of the spell in the desert. Now a smaller area where Fire element is emboldened and water element is diminished would need no warning.
While it would be an interesting twist, don't surprise the players with it. Any halfway intelligent and competent druid should be aware of this effect (say, knowledge: nature dc 12 or so).
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So you want to take the class most in tune with nature, and penalize it for being in a natural environment rather than say a dungeon?
When you feature a natural environment in your game, especially as a challenge I would think it would be the druid's time to shine, not be made less effective.
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Create Water is a conjuration spell which even works in planes without water at all. So I don't see any reason to restrict it in desert.
Goodberry, on the other hand, can be another issue. By RAW this spell does not have material component. But the spell description says
Quote:
Casting goodberry upon a handful of freshly picked berries makes 2d4 of them magical.
It can be hard to find freshly picked berries in the middle of cold desert. But I agree with other posters that you should warn it to your players beforehand if you want to apply such restrictions.
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Finding prickly pear type fruit to use with the Goodberry spell might be an issue, but nothing that a Survival check wouldn't be able to handle.
Arbitrarily making create water / food spells not work in any environment where you might actually *use them* seems to be counter-intuitive. Obviously, create water isn't going to be that important if the party is sailing down a great river. Why would it only not work the one time it's actually useful? Easier to just get rid of the spells if they bother you. Similarly, if the logic is that create water doesn't work real well in a desert, then it should work like superplusmondo when you're druid is on a sailing ship or standing hip-deep in a lake or something, which seems like a whole lot of strangeness to add to the magic system. (Do fire spells work less well in arctic areas? Is control weather harder to use in some places? Is light harder to create in the underdark, which has no natural light? Where is the line drawn? None of these examples make any more or less sense than being restricted from creating water in a desert.)
If the idea is to make a blasted desert that can't be magically survived, *all* magic could be weakened in the area, for some reason, and, indeed, this might be part of the reason why it's a desert in the first place, having once been a fertile magical kingdom, perhaps...
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