D&D General And the Druid Explodes: Understanding the AD&D Design Space's Legacy

[Mannahnin]

No. They were monsters before they were a pc class (0e D&D Greyhawk) and they were trying to make fantasy magical Celtic cultists with sickles and sacrifices at Stonehenge. Chain mail just did not fit the image.

Plausible, but remember that Greyhawk doesn't tell us they can't wear metal armor.

DRUIDS: These men are priests of a neutral-type religion, and as such they differ in armor class and hit dice, as well as in movement capability, and are combination clerics/magic-users. Magic-use ranges from 5th through 7th level, while clericism ranges from 7th through 9th level. Druids may change shape three times per day, once each to any reptile, bird and animal respectively, from size as small as a raven to as large as a small bear. They will generally (70%) be accompanied by numbers of barbaric followers(fighters), with a few higher-level leaders (2-5 fighters of 2nd-5th levels) and a body of normal men (20-50).

The prohibition on metal armor doesn't show up until they appear as a class in Eldritch Wizardry. I can see it being inspired by fiction/dubious pop-history, too, but it's at least equally likely to be a pure gamist prohibition, to distinguish them from Clerics and give them different strengths.

 

[CreamCloud0]

okay but i think we're missing the real questions here: how damaging is and how big is the explosion that the druid creates when they put on the metal armour? does it scale with the druid's level or the type of armour worn? and how can we exploit this kamikaze druid to defeat a dragon or demon? i mean we have revivify prepared and the needed diamonds.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Saying class X can't do action Y because it's not part of their narrative role is perfectly sufficient, until someone says "But y tho?".

 

[Tony Vargas]

Plausible, but remember that Greyhawk doesn't tell us they can't wear metal armor.

DRUIDS: These men are priests of a neutral-type religion, and as such they differ in armor class and hit dice, as well as in movement capability, and are combination clerics/magic-users.

Weren't cleric/magic-users held to the MU restriction against wearing any armor?

 

[Ondath]

A few brief words are necessary to insure that the reader has actually obtained a game form which he or she desires. Of the two approaches to hobby games today, one is best defined as the realism-simulation school and the other as the game school. AD&D is assuredly an adherent of the latter school. It does not stress any realism (in the author’s opinion an absurd effort at best considering the topic!). It does little to attempt to simulate anything either. ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity. This is not to say that where it does not interfere with the flow of the game that the highest degree of realism hasn‘t been attempted, but neither is a serious approach to play discouraged. In all cases, however, the reader should understand that AD&D is designed to be an amusing and diverting pastime, something which can fill a few hours or consume endless days, as the participants desire, but in no case something to be taken too seriously. For fun, excitement, and captivating fantasy, AD&D is unsurpassed. As a realistic simulation of things from the realm of make-believe, or even as a reflection of medieval or ancient warfare or culture or society, it can be deemed only a dismal failure. Readers who seek the latter must search elsewhere. Those who desire to create and populate imaginary worlds with larger-than-life heroes and villains, who seek relaxation with a fascinating game, and who generally believe games should be fun, not work, will hopefully find this system to their taste.
Gary Gygax, AD&D (1e) DMG p. 9

What I find ironic with this passage is the fact that Gygaxian Naturalism (as many OSR folk understand and defend) seems quite antithetical to it. Perhaps Gygax himself was not a Gygaxian...

 

[Mannahnin]

Weren't cleric/magic-users held to the MU restriction against wearing any armor?

No. Those restrictions weren't introduced until 2nd edition AD&D in 1989.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Saying class X can't do action Y because it's not part of their narrative role is perfectly sufficient, until someone says "But y tho?".

Alternatively, "but what if they do?"
I certainly know these aren't new questions. I started with a BX/BE rather than AD&D, but we definitely ran into 'the Magic User is out of spells, their henchman just dropped, and the only weapon in front of them is a crossbow, what now?' questions. I think (as alluded to above) were just more accustomed to the system not having all the answers and made something up (IIRC, gave them the to-hit of a 0-th level character and halved damage).

Weren't cleric/magic-users held to the MU restriction against wearing any armor?

Humans adding a second class (what would become dual-classing) followed the rules Snarf indicated in the OP, demihuman multi-classing each followed individual rules which amounted to every possible ____/MU combination being able to cast in armor. 2e changed it, and as such opened up a huge gap between fighter-mage characters who could find elfin chain/bracers at a reasonably low level and those that couldn't.

 

[Mannahnin]

What I find ironic with this passage is the fact that Gygaxian Naturalism (as many OSR folk understand and defend) seems quite antithetical to it. Perhaps Gygax himself was not a Gygaxian...

What do you understand Gygaxian Naturalism to mean?

My understanding is that it means he tried to have the game world embody a certain self-consistent logic. For example, the trolls in one room of the dungeon having a food source of giant cave crickets in a nearby area. Or the extensive description of an ogre treasure horde in the 1E DMG, containing trade goods, furniture, furs and other items which would plausibly be the booty of their raiding and pillaging local villages and merchant caravans (rather than simply x amount of coins and gems). Or the layouts of the various lairs in the Caves of Chaos having functional rooms, like guard rooms, lookout points, sleeping chambers, there being children and women present in the lairs, etc. Or Frank Mentzer's classic example of having reviewed the manuscript for the Keep on the Borderlands and noticing that there was a ranking priest but the map was missing a chapel. So he added one. Allegedly other folks at TSR thought this was a bold thing for the new guy to do, correcting an oversight by The Illustrious Founder, and expected him to get slapped down, but so the story goes Gary agreed that this was an oversight and approved the addition.

In that passage I think Gary was using "realism" to mean strict adherence to fact or history (and mocking the idea that such is possible with a fantasy world) such as would often be expected by historical wargamers, and which some competitors (e.g. the makers of Chivalry & Sorcery) claimed to be attempting, with extremely detailed, "more realistic" rules.

 

[Mannahnin]

Humans adding a second class (what would become dual-classing) followed the rules Snarf indicated in the OP, demihuman multi-classing each followed individual rules which amounted to every possible ____/MU combination being able to cast in armor. 2e changed it, and as such opened up a huge gap between fighter-mage characters who could find elfin chain/bracers at a reasonably low level and those that couldn't.

Well, remember also that most of those rules didn't appear until three years later, in the AD&D PH. The "combination clerics/magic users" description of the monster Druid from 1975's Greyhawk predated any of that. The only MU-Clerics at the time were Half-Elven Fighter/Cleric/M-Us, and they had no such restrictions on armor or weapon use listed.

Though we did get the first hint of such restrictions in the description of dwarven and elven multi-class Thieves, whom Greyhawk tells us "when acting as thieves" can only wear leather armor.

 

[clearstream]

Err… If it were to work like Paladins, no, you would not get to keep any levels of druid, including 1st level. Not that I think that would be a good design choice in the first place, of course.

My point was that WotC seems to be perfectly ok with X having a price, for pretty much any value of X that isn’t “Druids wearing metal armor.” So it’s understandable that players accustomed to WotC’s D&D to find it surprising and frustrating that, for this one very specific value of X, they’re just outright prohibited instead of having a price they can pay to do it.

Well, technically almost every spell has thoroughly arbitrary restrictions on in-world consequence.