D&D 4E Druids in 4E

[wingsandsword]

I just hope they remove the horribly inane weapon and armor restrictions.

Stone and metal are just as much an "earth" component as a plant or animal.

In fact killing trees for wooded weapons and animals for leather and hides would seem to be a far greater source of violating nature.

Those restrictions exist because what you are describing: metal being as "earth" as plant or animal and killing animals for their hides being wrong is a very 20th/21st century attitude.

Historically, and in lower-technology civilizations like the ones D&D typically takes place in, metal is seen as unnatural. It very rarely exists in a pure form in nature, and steel takes what is to them advanced technology to smelt. We see metal as natural because nowadays compared to plastics and other modern-day materials, it is natural, but to someone in the middle ages, not so much. For example, the reason for the weakness of the fey to iron by many stories was because of iron was a symbol of advanced technology and something unnaturally advanced to the bronze (or flint) using peoples that fey lore came from.

The idea that it is inherently wrong to to chop down a tree to use is a pretty modern one, one that comes from the luxury of having synthetic materials. If you rule out plants as sources of building materials and fibers, and animals as sources of clothing, you're going to find surviving in a pre-industrial civilization very difficult.

If you're in a medieval-level civilization, you don't have the luxury of plastics and synthetic fibers and concrete, everything you have is going to come from nature to one degree or another. The idea of the D&D druid forsaking metal weapons and armor was representative that the Druid was a champion of the natural world, and metal weapons and armor was the peak of technology.

 

[Commonblade]

'Nature' power source or 'Feywild' power source.

Feywild, as described, appears to be 'Nature unbound' - more primal and wild than ... the Prime?

What is the name of the 'normal world' that doesn't sound like 'the real world'

I figure Druid = Divine Controller

I mean if the Ranger is a Divine Striker then the Druid is a Divine Controller right?

 

[FadedC]

Last I heard it's still possible that the druid will be in the PHB. They have said that it's possible that there will be more then 8 classes there, and if that' does turn out to be the case, I would expect druid to be the 9th. Currently the known classes only feature a single controller, they are in need of a divine one to round them out.

As for the druid itself, prior to 3E I would have said that you could feel free to dump druids completely and I would never miss them. Earlier editions always did a poor job at making this a viable class. But druids are one thing that I felt 3.x did really well, and I'd consider them to now be an iconic part of the game.

 

[Commonblade]

Whats funny is that when I started playing 3rd, my wife was playing a druid. The game didn't go so well for her and since then there has been this bad vibe in the group about playing a druid. No one ever played a druid after the end of that run.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

No druids in the PHB makes baby Olgar cry.

After all, they've been in every variation of D&D thus far, and didn't make the initial book only in OD&D and BD&D.

Though it wouldn't surprise me if the logic is: "Wildshape/polymorph is broken! Good, let's put off fixing it for a year by leaving the druid out of the PHB." Doesn't mean I have to like it, though.

 

[an_idol_mind]

Though it wouldn't surprise me if the logic is: "Wildshape/polymorph is broken! Good, let's put off fixing it for a year by leaving the druid out of the PHB." Doesn't mean I have to like it, though.

One could argue that wildshape isn't essential to the druid class, though. I don't think the BECMI druid had that ability.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I do think it's a little unfortunate we're not getting a wildshaping class from the get-go, when the icon of the shape-shifting tribal shaman, or the shape-shifting wild animal-person is so utterly ridiculously prevalent in myths around the world.

But maybe the Polymorph spell's 4e version(s) will remedy that enough for me.

And a "priest of the old ways" archetype is pretty sweet, though I've never seen Druids as that so much. They should be, though!

 

[TwinBahamut]

I still believe that Druids would work well enough as a sub-category of Cleric, so I don't agree that a 3E style Druid class is needed in 4E.

I think a class that can change shape into the forms of animals would be cool, and is important to have, but I would like that to be a class that uses such a thing as its core concept, rather than having it be merely one of many abilities. Maybe a better version of the Totemist, or something similar.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

Those restrictions exist because what you are describing: metal being as "earth" as plant or animal and killing animals for their hides being wrong is a very 20th/21st century attitude.

Real druids revered elements of nature, but they were sages and priests that primarily presided over religious festivals and preserved their culture/lore sans writing; like organic libraries... like bardic knowledge.

Historical druids weren't anywhere the champions of nature like their D&D incarnation. Their traditional mnemonic abilities, and priestly skills are nowhere to be seen, replaced by an over-emphasis on nature-related skills/spells and, for 3E, shapeshifting into animals. It seems pretty clear to me that both the fluff & crunch indicate D&D druids are indeed ecophiles, obsessed with worldbeat style extreme wilderness.

But that shift doesn't really explain their anti-metal ludditeness. With dwarves, gnomes and numerous other metal-master species running around in full plate, it's hard to justify metal as an oddity. That philosophy is especially hard to understand considering the wierd dichotomy of the spiritual oath that makes sickles and scimitars okay but shortwords and falchions verboten.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But that shift doesn't really explain their anti-metal ludditeness. With dwarves, gnomes and numerous other metal-master species running around in full plate, it's hard to justify metal as an oddity. That philosophy is especially hard to understand considering the wierd dichotomy of the spiritual oath that makes sickles and scimitars okay but shortwords and falchions verboten.

It's weird, but I've been able to come up with a pretty cool justification IMG.

The way I've always seen it is that druids specifically became anti-metal BECAUSE of things like the dwarves and gnomes and metal-masters that run around in full plate. Metal, in my games, is extensively mined by these races, and the mining is very much strip-mining, making use of alchemical explosives (gnomes) and engineering wizardry (dwarves) to blow up mountains and take their stuff.

No one who respects icons of nature like mountains, or even ecosystems like a mountain's, would ever willingly take part in that. It's clearly unnatural, clearly destructive, and clearly goes to make weapons and armor for the Adventuring War Machine.

Druids "opt out" of the metals mass market. Instead, they are only allowed to wield metal that has been specifically acquired by other druids and worked by other druids in sacred ceremonies (kind of "kosher metal"). The fact that druids are a religious sect in D&D means that this relatively functional task - making something out of metal - becomes imbued with all sorts of ritual requirements. The only things that druids make out of metal are scimitars and sickles, specifically because they have a ritual significance. Nothing on a druid is accidental or incidental: they respect nature too much to take something without it MEANING something, so even the metal they take has significance. It is worked into sacred shapes, ritually.

It matches a lot of faith's diet requirements. Muslims and Jews don't eat pork, but they're fine with beef. Hindus can't eat beef, but they're fine with anything else. Christians can't eat meat at all, but only during special periods of fasting, and they can still eat fish.

Religions have weird taboos, and I've learned to embrace the druid's unique weird taboos in the same way that the real world has coped with real-world taboos: any city of a good size has a decent "druid community" that manufactures things that adventuring druids need in a way that doesn't compromise their religious dogma. That means making only sacred weapons out of metal, nothing else.

It's still weird, but it very much matches the weirdness you actually see in the world, so it's okay in my book (and we'd actually loose something if it wasn't in there).