D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 Druids - what to do about them?

Alrighty, I must speak in defense of what is probably my favorite class.... I even play one in Workd of Warcraft! The druid is not overpowered. The only classes that are truly overpowered are PrC's.

Several points that I would like to make.

1) Wildshape is a Supernatural ability. It is magical in nature and does not function in Antimagic areas. Any DM who allows Animal Growth to be cast on a Wildshaped druid deserves to have a rampaging broken druid in his game. Regardless of what min/maxer might read into the spell, it should not be allowed.... In my humble opinion.

2) The druid's spell list is MASSIVELY inferior to every other caster... including the bard. Just have a gander down each list respectively and you should see what I am talking about.

3) Someone mentioned the whole "magic twin" issue. Here is a fantastic (In my experience) solution. Force the druid player to denote one animal that she is familiar with for each Rank of Knowledge: Animal (NOT NAture, that would be too easy, although you could use it if you wished.) that she has. This has really done well in my games and my players really enjoy the hard and fast rule. It also limits the good skill selection a little, though not detrimentally.I did the same with other knowledge skills, such as allowing clerics to designate an undead enemy for each rank in Knowledge: Undead. The player is allowed to reference the Monstrous manual concerning his particular selections, although that is not to say that they are always standard ..... And yes, I "unrolled" various knowledge skills into their own little category for this purpose. Any player may put ranks into Knowledge: "creature type" and gain the same benefit. As I said, the players really enjoy this, as it cuts down on dice rolling a little, but still leaves the roll to determine something about an unknown foe. It really is cool, try it.

It has been my experience that the druid is not a very good fighter. His Spontaneous Summon spells take a full round, something that should be relatively difficult to pull off more than once in a combat. He has poor armor proficiency, limited weapon selection, and mediocre spells. He makes up for this in versatility.

I am not denying the claims of over-powered druids. This is a very real possibility. In my experiences it is the DM who creates unbalanced PC's.
- Allowing magic shops rates at the very top of my pet-peeve list. 3.5;s biggest flaw is the "grocery cart" theory, as I call it. Just erasing gold and writing a magical item onto your sheet in its place is awful. I much perferred the less rulesy 2nd edition method, where creating an item was a huge adventure in itself, and players who were told to trade or give up magical items would sooner be relieved of their own extremeties.

"WHAT? Give you my Ring of Deflection? What have you been smoking??!! I had to bandy words with a white wyrm, travel to the elmental plane of air to retrieve the essence of wind, and find a mastersmith Frost giant willing to craft it for me. There is no way in the nine hells that I will give you this ring..."


Less rules intensive and more random, but much cooler for PC development and such.

- Do NOT allow players to read "into" anything too much. Animal Growth is an example.

- Allowing all of the equipment to be available for the right price is also asking for trouble. A druid would love to get ahold of dragoncraft platemail. You as DM know this, but you allow it anyway. That would be the DM's fault, not the players who ony seek to gain the biggest advantage over their enemies, which is a natural function.


I don't mean to preach, but I feel that a lot of "unbalanced" issues really are the DM and what he decides to allow into his game. At any rate, I have not found any overpowered base classes yet, so long as the DM keeps the reins a little snug. After all, if you let a bull loose in china shop, things are bound to get broken!

PS: "Broken"... get it??? HAH! "Tee, hee... I KILL me...."


LOL!

Infiniti2000 said:

You can't ignore the first paragraph.

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I'm not ingoring the first paragraph, I am serious that this is a "Huh, they changed this in the revision, I wonder if they meant to" issue, and this is not the thread to discuss it.

Infiniti2000 said:

Well, you certainly can't ignore the rest of the rules on charge, which is what you're doing. And, I'll point out that the corner square and the one just above it are equal distance. The one above, however, is directly toward the designated opponent. Since the one above it qualifies for the whole charge rule, not just half of it, then that must be the correct, and only, spot to charge.

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I generally agree with you, that the whole thing needs to be considered, but I really think the latter part (which I quoted above) *is* what they mean with the "directly towards".

It's not taking turns or anything, but rather taking the most closest route (or one of them, if there are two or more with equally short distance).

Bye
Thanee

beaver1024 said:

In other words, their power level starts high and explodes exponentially upwards relative to other classes. That's definately balanced.

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No, it starts out pretty high and remains pretty high. No explosions involved.

The advantage of both the cleric and the druid, which is IMHO why they are consistently named among the most powerful classes, is, that they are powerful throughout all levels.

This indicates to me, that they are the best balanced classes in a way, actually.

Bye
Thanee

Mirivor, if you want to discuss how broken or not broken druids are using YOUR HOUSERULES, that's fine; I have no doubt that they're quite balanced under those circumstances, although restricting magic items should make druids relatively stronger.

Animal growth affecting a wild shaped druid is neither a houserule nor a specious interpretation. I can see the argument that a druid who wild shapes into a larger creature cannot then be animal growthed (although I don't subscribe to it), but saying that a medium druid who wild shapes into a medium animal can't be animal growthed is 100% a HOUSE RULE. I have no problem with house rules; this thread appears to have been started with the intent of putting forth those house rules various GMs used to cope with druids, and yours are as valid a set as any.

As for the "obviously inferior spell list..." You mean like flame strike, the best 4th level damage spell on any core spell list (5th level for clerics)? Entangle, one of the best 1st level spells in the game (competing with grease)? Faerie fire, one of the best defensive spell-negating spells? Commune with nature, a hugely powerful divination? Find the path, another in the same vein? Scrying? The entire line of +4 ability score spells, some of the most useful in 3.x D&D - and the mass versions of all of these? A complete set of the first five Cures? Summon nature's ally, a spell that demands that any sane opponent do everything in his power to disrupt or counteract the spell the first time or be all but guaranteed to lose? Fire storm, an absolutely dominant damage spell? Most of the good save or dies, including baleful polymorph at the same level as a wizard? Conditional but super discounted dominates to control many powerful creatures? The nigh-almighty shapechange? Shambler, and with it as always, call lightning storm?

That's just core, of course; other classes get more spells from non-core sources... but then, other classes don't get quill blast.

MoogleEmpMog said:

As for the "obviously inferior spell list..." You mean like flame strike, the best 4th level damage spell on any core spell list (5th level for clerics)?

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It's not really better than Fireball, which is only 3rd. The divine damage is nice, but so is the bigger area and higher range. The damage cap is no issue until 11th level. By then you can use metamagic to improve it, or use higher level spells, altho the 4th-6th level arcane blast spells are somewhat lacking in the core rules admittedly, but there are plenty reasonable options in other books.

Entangle, one of the best 1st level spells in the game (competing with grease)?

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Grease is fun, but surely no match for Entangle. Though, Ray of Enfeeblement certainly is.

Faerie fire, one of the best defensive spell-negating spells?

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Uhm...

The entire line of +4 ability score spells, some of the most useful in 3.x D&D - and the mass versions of all of these?

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Really? I consider them among the weaker spells, actually. Close to pathetic with the short duration.

A complete set of the first five Cures?

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Yup, those are good, as is Restoration.

Summon nature's ally, a spell that demands that any sane opponent do everything in his power to disrupt or counteract the spell the first time or be all but guaranteed to lose?

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Ok, they are good, but they are not that good.

Fire storm, an absolutely dominant damage spell? Most of the good save or dies, including baleful polymorph at the same level as a wizard? Conditional but super discounted dominates to control many powerful creatures? The nigh-almighty shapechange? Shambler, and with it as always, call lightning storm?

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...but then, other classes don't get quill blast.

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Quill Blast is a pretty silly spell.

There are other even more broken spells in other lists, too, though.


Inferior list does not mean, they get no decent spells, they surely do, but overall, the list simply cannot compete with the arcane spell lists ultimate versatility.

Bye
Thanee

I´d swear I´ve seen somewhere that when you have your spellcasting stat reduced you immediately lose the extra spells you got, but now I can´t find it. Since equipment (most of the time) becomes non-functional when polymorphing or wildshaping, that would limit the druid that has a Wisdom enhancer item.

MoogleEmpMog said:

A complete set of the first five Cures?

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Though, after Cure Light, the druidic Cures are one level higher than they are for Clerics. That, coupled with the inability to spontaneously cast Cures, and the lack of some of the other "cure-like" spells (Remove Blindness / Deafness, any resurrection magic other than Reincarnate) makes a druid a considerably weaker healer than his clerical counterpart.

IME, when they're on favorable "turf", indeed, druids can absolutely rock. in our campaign, it was the "mine field" spells (Entangle, Spike Growth, Stone Spikes) that made the druid feel broken...but, it's pretty easy to make those spells worthless (a nice, dry, worked-stone dungeon, anyone?)

Someone said:

I´d swear I´ve seen somewhere that when you have your spellcasting stat reduced you immediately lose the extra spells you got, but now I can´t find it. Since equipment (most of the time) becomes non-functional when polymorphing or wildshaping, that would limit the druid that has a Wisdom enhancer item.

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I would say that the majority of your equipment actually remains in place and working when in wildshape - assuming the new form has the limbs to wear it

Brother MacLaren said:

Whether you have or not, I apologize for insulting you.

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Re-reading your previous post, I apologize as well. On my first read, you seemed to be intimating that I foolishly interpret the rules only in a literal sense. Re-reading your post, and reading your next one, I now see that I overreacted after a misinterpretation. Sorry I was so quick to get snippy in response.

I do think, and I have said, that the rules forum is a valid forum for more than just a strict literalist interpretation of what is actually written. It is also for discussing how the rules are the way they are, and why, and what rulings seem most in keeping with the overall game design. WOTC's writing is not perfect, nor was TSR's. For that reason, among others, the spirit of the rules is definitely part of the rules.

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I agree. But you have to start with what's written. Only after you've established what the rules say can the discussion move on to what the designers might have meant to say, and further, to what they should have said.

The general effort that d20/3.5 has made for symmetry among all of the alignment axes seems to suggest that the proper interpretation of their poor writing is that "Protection from Good is like Protection from Evil except that Evil creatures can make physical contact with the subject and Good creatures cannot." To do otherwise would seem to, in my opinion, violate one of their design principles. The wording I have is verbose and clumsy, but accurate with what I think is the intent, whereas the wording in the PHB is shorter and more elegant but astoundingly counter-intuitive with no logical explanation.

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I agree.

The emphasis on following what is written as literally as possible without any judgment calls can produce some amazingly absurd results and that is what I call foolish...

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True, but to be honest I've never seen that position defended here on ENWorld. Every DM here (that I am aware of) supports the principle of interpretation. We just all happen to support different interpretations.

I can dig through the books to come up with the most insane literal rulings, or I can ask Hypersmurf to do it for me.

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I love it when Hyp responds to a rules posting, because in a single stroke he often shows me what the literal baseline rule is, as well as the ways in which a powergamer might use that rule to break my game. From there, it's a simple matter to decide whether I am using or will need a House Rule.

In any case....druids....I think they're fine.