No Druid in PHB?

[azarias]

Leaders: Cleric & Warlord
Defenders: Fighter & Paladin
Strikers: Ranger & Rogue
Controllers: Wizard & Warlock

**

Have these all been confirmed? I think it's been mentioned that there will be 8 classes, and I'm pretty sure the above have all been referenced repeatedly - so often that it would be curious if they were not all in the initial PHB offering.

So whither the Druid?

I must say I'd be a bit sad to see the Big D relegated. Druids, Psions and Wizards are my favourite classes to play. However, the 3.5 Druid design does bring together a lot of problematic game and play mechanics:

(1) Shapechange. Specifically, early-to-mid-game Wildshaping, which can be problematic for DMs. It introduces two potent abilities at relatively low levels:
[1a] Grappling, the rules for which are slow and cumbersome in 3.5, and
[1b] Flight, which negates a large array of threats to the Druid at the levels at which it becomes available. Especially when said Druid is built for...

(2) Summoning. The Complete Psionics nerf to Astral Construct flagged up an designer awareness of how multiple summons slow down the game. For almost any 3.5 Druid build, those multiple summons are bread and butter basics (even for riders or archers, I find). I remember very well how powerful 1d4+1 augmented Ashbound hippogriffs can be, and also how the fights bog down when they appear: which brings us to...

(3) Sidekicks. I always liked familiars, animal companions and psicrystals (never had a Paladin mount), but they too slow down fights: for a full caster, an animal companion also provides a fairly potent guardian whilst casting. Used as a meatshield, the Druid's familiar often allows him to operate at one remove from the fight at hand, which is cosy, but also perhaps less exciting - and again, we know excitement is one of the buzzwords of the new edition...

(4) Finally, there's the Druid's vaunted versatility. Many see this as the secret of the 3.5 Druid's power. Which of the four new roles would the 3.5 Druid tend towards? He could operate almost equally well in any of them, couldn't he? As a Controller, the 3.5 Druid has some of the best battlefield spells in the game - not to mention those pesky multiple summons. As a defender, the Druid can again flood the field with summons and companions, defending his companions by proxy as few others can even if he doesn't wade in himself. As a striker, he becomes a grappling dire what-have-you, and does pretty well. And as a Leader, he has social skills, a generally high Charisma (since he needs little Strength or Dexterity) and healing. From the new-role standpoint, he straddles too many bases.

It all makes a kind of sense to me, but even so...this is all redesignable. The Druid is a rich class concept. I'll be gutted to see him out of the top-tier mix.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I'd be OK with seeing the druid go away and get eaten by the cleric. It always seemed a little silly to me to have clerics who worship nature gods and draw power from them, and druids who worship nature gods and draw a different set of powers from them.

 

[Patlin]

Could Barbarian and Druid be talent trees for Fighter and Cleric?

Most of the Druid problems you list aren't concerns if you base the Druid on the shifter variant from PHB II.

 

[azarias]

"Most of the Druid problems you list aren't concerns if you base the Druid on the shifter variant from PHB II."

- Agreed: the class plays much more smoothly with both PHBII abilities. In other words, the redesign is already partway done, and works well already - so why not finish the job in the 4.0 PHB1?

As to Druid as Cleric subclass (or whatever they might call it now)...that sounds plausible, and it's not as if the Druid hasn't been there before. I can't say I'm fond of the idea though: the Nature Cleric seems the anachronism to me with the Druid around, not vice versa.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'd be OK with seeing the druid go away and get eaten by the cleric. It always seemed a little silly to me to have clerics who worship nature gods and draw power from them, and druids who worship nature gods and draw a different set of powers from them.

I wouldn't.

The flavour and ability differences are absolutely vast, and the Druid doesn't necessarily or typically worship some civilized "nature god", but a more primal diety or nature itself.

There's no possible way to encompass all of the Druid's ability and spell differences with talent trees, either, without damaging the flavour of the Cleric beneaths layers of "nature magic" and "animal companions" and so on.

Azarias - "Gameplay" in the sense how the game works mechanically cannot be 4E's sole rules consideration. Animal companions are loved by players, and enhance the game on a great number of levels. Shapeshifting, similarly, is something players love. Removing either of these things outright would seem like madness to me.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Could Barbarian and Druid be talent trees for Fighter and Cleric?

Most of the Druid problems you list aren't concerns if you base the Druid on the shifter variant from PHB II.

Possilbly. And if they are in fact doing such, it is quite possible to have both of these in the PHB1 and still be in the '8 class' restriction, since niether would be a class unto itself.

 

[azarias]

"Azarias - 'Gameplay' in the sense how the game works mechanically cannot be 4E's sole rules consideration. Animal companions are loved by players, and enhance the game on a great number of levels. Shapeshifting, similarly, is something players love. Removing either of these things outright would seem like madness to me."

Ruin - I am also very fond of both the companion and wildshaping...as a player. As a DM, the latter especially makes designing encounters spatially complex. A flying, summoning, fire-hurling, hovering, mid-level dire bat Druid is difficult to challenge (edit; on a regular basis, without pointed encounter-tailoring). And the game should be challenging to all members of the party. When I design adventures I keep this in mind, but many prepackaged adventures don't consider the spatial versatility of a hovering spellcaster at relatively low level, and many new DMs are easily wrongfooted by this level of PC potency and versatility.

How the game works mechanically...well, that's the very definition of 'rules consideration', isn't it? And 'Excitement' and 'Speed' seem to be the 4E catchphrases when it comes to that consideration. Animal companions and their ilk are not conducive to the latter, and the hovering summoner may be fun to play, but I do think it may be so because it is such a powerful and comfortable position to be in - not because it is more exciting than melee. In fact, my own experience is that getting up close and dirty is much more thrilling. Mid-level flight and animal guardians are both safety nets: I like them for that, but I feel they both lessen the impact of combat.

The PHBII alternate abilities replace the companion and reduce the extreme potency of shapeshifting, though. I like them less as a powergamer, but I think they work pretty well.

I agree wholeheartedly that the Druid should stay distinct, though. I'm not fond of the idea of the class being reabsorbed into the Cleric. That looks a possibility however.

 

[WayneLigon]

I really wouldn't see much of a reason to get rid of the Druid we have now with the salient class features listed. I see how you could easily do those with talent trees, but if I were WoTC what I'd do would be move Druid and Ranger to their own book. That way you could also present a decent Witch class for the first time (which at it's heart is going to be based off the Druid), a couple decent Ranger variants, further expand the woodland environment, etc.

 

[Li Shenron]

I wouldn't.

The flavour and ability differences are absolutely vast, and the Druid doesn't necessarily or typically worship some civilized "nature god", but a more primal diety or nature itself.

There's no possible way to encompass all of the Druid's ability and spell differences with talent trees, either, without damaging the flavour of the Cleric beneaths layers of "nature magic" and "animal companions" and so on.

Agree. Folding the Druid into Cleric is much more difficult than folding the Ranger and the Paladin into Fighter, even if that would make quite the same sense. Spell lists and spells type overlapping only partially, and are otherwise very different in flavor and in powers (Druids being much more controllers than Clerics).

I actually would like the Druid to be taken further away from the cleric, by cutting all the relationships with the deities, hence changing the Druid's flavor so that the power source is not divine but something else (or otherwise, sort-of divine but from something different than the gods). That way, a Druid would be very different from a Cleric of a nature God: the second would believe that there is a god overseeing nature, the first would negate the needs for gods of nature and advocate the supremacy of nature over the gods.

Also, I don't see the reason why they should include Warlocks with the purpose of matching Tieflings, and not include Druids which match the revised Elf perfectly (although it could mean that the Ranger is the new Elf favored class, whatever a favored class is in 4e).

 

[Jer]

I actually would like the Druid to be taken further away from the cleric, by cutting all the relationships with the deities, hence changing the Druid's flavor so that the power source is not divine but something else (or otherwise, sort-of divine but from something different than the gods). That way, a Druid would be very different from a Cleric of a nature God: the second would believe that there is a god overseeing nature, the first would negate the needs for gods of nature and advocate the supremacy of nature over the gods.

I'd also like to see the druid taken further away from the cleric, but I'd like to see the divine connection kept. There's always been too much "all priests are clerics", and I think that the druid helps to diffuse some of that. If anything, I'd like to see the druid taken as a base to form some kind of "priest-that-is-not-a-cleric" class.

Druids are a weird amalgam in 3e right now - they're both controllers and combat monsters (at least after they start getting their shapeshifting powers). They're a decent example of a class that crosses roles, as they can play both the "defender" and the "controller" depending on what the party needs. That makes them seem overpowered compared to other classes (especially at higher levels), but I'd like to see that cross-role framework kept myself.