D&D 5E alternatives to Nature domain?

I don't really like the Nature domain, thematically or mechanically. It's the only core Domain that feels out of place and ill-designed. Some of the other Domains could possibly use mechanical tweaks here and there but they are all appropriate for a cleric. Nature doesn't do it for me.

It steps on the toes of the Druid thematically and mechanically, it's all over the place. It has spells and abilities that effect both animals and plants, grants elemental damage, and on top of all that, grants heavy armor proficiency. (In 3ed, there were both Animal and Plant domains, as well as domains for each of the elements.)

I wish there was a "nature" domain that was tighter thematically and felt more "cleric" than druid, something like domain of Agriculture, Community, or Hearth.

Has anyone revised or replaced the Nature domain in their game?

My temptation has always been just not to give Heavy armour proficiency to the Life and Nature domains, and call it good. That's the way I've played clerics (I just choose not to use heavy armour), but I've never enforced it on other players.

I haven't revised or replaced it, but I've been rebalancing the Druid against the Nature Cleric.

The distinction in D&D canon has been fuzzy, but the way I run it, clerics serve discrete deities and druids don't. Priestess of Artemis? Cleric. Shaman who just chats with tree spirits? Druid.

(N.b.: This distinction has zero resemblance to the function of historical druids. The Celts definitely had gods.)

I wonder if the Druid might get some rethinking similar to the Ranger?

It might be the Nature Cleric ends up the spellcaster Druid.

TheCosmicKid said:

The distinction in D&D canon has been fuzzy, but the way I run it, clerics serve discrete deities and druids don't. Priestess of Artemis? Cleric. Shaman who just chats with tree spirits? Druid.

(N.b.: This distinction has zero resemblance to the function of historical druids. The Celts definitely had gods.)

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Yes. Additionally, Nature clerics are non-shapechanging druids.

Yaarel said:

I wonder if the Druid might get some rethinking similar to the Ranger?

It might be the Nature Cleric ends up the spellcaster Druid.

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I reimagined druids as nature-serving monk/ninja-types in an old campaign.

TheCosmicKid said:

I reimagined druids as nature-serving monk/ninja-types in an old campaign.

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Heh, that is pretty much how I imagined Rangers.

I see three different kinds of Ranger

• Wood Elf Ranger: stealthy gish, nature-spellcaster ‘monk/ninja’; perceptive, animistic
• Military Ranger: army ranger, navy seal; strong tough and smart, for in-out mobility ops, ‘tip of the spear’, wilderness patrol
• Beast Master (panther, eagle, weasel, etcetera, but could also be rider of horse, dragon, etcetera)

GlassJaw said:

I don't really like the Nature domain, thematically or mechanically. It's the only core Domain that feels out of place and ill-designed. Some of the other Domains could possibly use mechanical tweaks here and there but they are all appropriate for a cleric. Nature doesn't do it for me.

It steps on the toes of the Druid thematically and mechanically, it's all over the place. It has spells and abilities that effect both animals and plants, grants elemental damage, and on top of all that, grants heavy armor proficiency. (In 3ed, there were both Animal and Plant domains, as well as domains for each of the elements.)

I wish there was a "nature" domain that was tighter thematically and felt more "cleric" than druid, something like domain of Agriculture, Community, or Hearth.

Has anyone revised or replaced the Nature domain in their game?

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This is difficult...

Thematically, I would say that the two other domains closest to Nature are Life and Tempest, which obviously take the character in quite opposite directions. Life is still a lot about nature, just focused on its healing and regenerating powers. Tempest is about the weather and raw natural forces. Unfortunately both of them still carry the heavy armor proficiency baggage, and Tempest is obviously slanted towards combat applications which might take you even farther from what you have in mind.

This is not probably the time to say "I told you so" but I can't resist pointing out how in the 5e playtest we repeatedly tried to lobby in favor of the early (later dropped) idea of clerics having a baseline no armor proficiency, which could have meant Knowledge, Life and Nature clerics more similar to wizards. But the community was clearly against it and we ended up with most domains granting even heavy armor.

If you don't want to design a new domain by yourself, I would suggest either of these:

- purely narrative fix: keep the domain as-is to ensure balance, but narrate the armor as nature-themed; perhaps her plate mail is made of petrified wood instead of metal, and her chain mail is of wicker of very special plants

- small mechanical fix: replace heavy armor proficiency with with a second choice from Acolyte of Nature (or even grant all three)

As for the overlapping between Nature Clerics and Druids, I am afraid this is just one of many typical narrative overlappings in fantasy settings... if it bothers you, just remember that you can work on both the Cleric and Druid side of the problem. For instance, with the advent of 5e and its elimination of the arcane/divine distinction, I have been shifting the concept of Druids away from "priests of nature" and towards "nature wizards".