Guardians of the Underhalls
Druids I think are a good concept class but since they have a strong historical basis they are also the class I think failed the most. Slaine in fact has what I would consider a true druid. But the wilderness divine caster that can change shapes is a class and people have taken to it. Its wildshape give people loads of trouble as it has few limitations and really needs better definition. The basic druid disappointed me on a concept level, a rules level and while it is a perfectly functional class just needs a nice complete overhaul in my opinion. Someone needs to make it an actual druid or change the name to something that fits the concept. Guardians of the Underhalls does some of this. There are many options and small changes to the class that make this books version superior to that in the Players Handbook.
Guardians of the Underhalls is a PDF by Eric Price and Mathew Smith. The book is published by Dragon Scale Counters. The PDF is a bit over eighties pages long. The book comes in two different formats, a landscape version with the art and book marks for use on the computer as well a portrait version that has no art or borders making it great for printing. The Layout on the print version is a bit loose with white space and block areas. The layout on the other is pretty good a few places of white space but for the most part it looks good.
The book starts off with a new core class, the Deep Druid. A lot of thought went into playing the class. There are seven sample concepts for a character of this class like the Dark Druid, Exile, and Explorer. The concepts are nice ways to give the class a different focus without actually changing anything in the class. In addition to the general concepts there are also racial concepts provided for the races that live underground. Again it is a nice addition that really adds a lot to the class and is simple to include. However, few books have these types of details. Then there is a page on playing the Deep Druid. It mentions life before shape change as that is easily the most powerful ability they have. It also goes into using spells and healing abilities the class has. It is pretty much the same as a normal Druid has but a normal druid does not mention these things.
The Deep Druid is very much like the Druid. The base attack bonus, saves, spells, hit points, and skills are all about the same. An interesting thing the book does it it has 3.0 stuff and 3.5. For instance it has Intuit Direction as skill which exists in 3.0 but not in 3.5. The book mentions this clearly so it will be easy to use what which ever rules set the group is playing with. This is one of the few books I have seen that does it and its does that well. As they gain levels they do get some different abilities then the normal druid. They get cavern stride which works like spider climb and slowly gain some natural armor bonuses. These do not stack with other natural armor nor are they carried over when wild shaping.
Wildshaping is the same but oh so different. They have a nice sidebar on limiting the number of creatures a druid can shape change into. In fact they have a feat that allows one to choose more options assuming the side bar rules is used. It is very rare to see an alternate rule like that have feat support. The writers also have DCs for knowing about different animals. The DCs are a little low for my tastes only 20 for a rare animal. It would have been nice for some examples for instance take the creatures in the monster manual and the ones presented later in this book and have DC lists for them. Still, they made the attempt to use skills for this ability and I applaud them for that. The book also has epic rules for the Deep Druid.
The book has twenty five feats in it. Some have been seen other places like wild shaping ones that allow new types of creatures to be changed into. There are epic feats and like I mentioned above feats that help with alternate rules. Deep Druids animal companions can also include vermin. The book lists what options are available at what levels. And who does not want an ant lion as an animal companion?
The book also has a nice all be it a little short section on caverns. There are some good descriptions of common caverns types like the water caverns, honeycomb caverns, mushroom cavers, etc. These are just nice descriptions to give a variety of cavern types as the players explore then underground. There are also seven new poison listed. Each of them is something that grows in caverns. Each is also very nicely described and all of them have reasons listed on why a Deep Druid would use that specific poison. There is a great yet simply written side bar that discusses poison and it being evil. This is another strong section with great detail in this book.
The book lists five prestige classes fro the Deep Druid. The first one is the Dark Walker. This class is for evil Deep Druids of a race that lives in the underhalls. The class is good for spell casting druids but not for one that wants to use wild shape. They do gain sneak attack and powers involving darkness. The Deep River Tracker is actually a good class for Rangers as well as Deep Druids. The class gives powers that help with swimming and operating underwater. It has limited spell casting abilities and no wild shape. Shifting Guardian is a wild shaping oriented class. It is more adaptable then the Master of Many Forms, another class with the same theme. Shifting Guardian gains bonus wild shaping feats so the character can pick and choose what he will be able to shift into. The Master of Many Forms though might be the more powerful one as it gains lot and lots of options. Shifting Guardian though does not fully give up on gaining spells. The Spore Master takes a Deep Druids love for fungi to a new and eerie level. He gains many fungi oriented abilities while keeping his casting ability. The Underearth Stalker is another class that works well for a Ranger as well as the Deep Druid. The class does gain some spell casting ability but also a bit of sneak attack, and other tracking assistant abilities.
There are about fifteen pages of new magical spells. One thing that I would have liked them to have done is say which spells could be on a Druids spell list. They have spells for Ranger, sorceries, and other classes. But the Deep Druid is just shown as the same abbreviations as the Druid, so wither all these can be added to the Druids list or none. It is a little unclear on which is right. There are some fungus and spore themed spells as well as many other underground themed one. The spells here are really nice and give a great focus for the class. The spells are probably the one thing that will separate the Deep Druid from the regular Druid. Some of them are spells that exist elsewhere and are renamed or slightly modified to really fit the theme of the class. Magical items are also presented here and many of them are very nicely themed. Each item has an appearance, history, abilities, what its magical aura looks like, and how to craft it. Nice are and great detail make this section excellent.
There are thirty two creatures presented here though some of them like the Dire Badger are reprinted from elsewhere. It would have been nice to see the creatures organized by Challenge Rating. I do like the Tunnel Worm, a huge burrowing vermin. Many of the creatures are animals and vermin that do live underground, but old classics like the Piecer. The book finishes up with a table for NPC Deep Druids as well as giving a sample 10th level NPC Deep Druid.
At the beginning it should be really simple to see I am not happy with the Druid. With that disappointment front and for most I was not looking forward to reviewing this book. But as I read on and saw what the writers have done, it became apparent that this is a really good book. The writers covered a lot of area and more importantly covered everything and more that I would have wanted from a such a book. This is really a good buy for anyone wanting a druid that is a little different. Sure, it is best when underground (so all you Underdark fans might want to get this pronto) but it is not useless above ground. Not even close. This is a book I am very happy to have gotten and would get it again without second thought.
