Perceptions of Druids and Their Playability

[broghammerj]

Let me start off by saying I've been playing DND for 15 years now. I've played almost every race/character combo in that time. The one character I can never bring myself to play for more than two hours before becoming frustrated and tearing up the character sheet, is the druid. Here's why:

1. True neutral- Never liked the idea of this alignment for anyone. Breeds apathy about any cause. It leads to the personal conundrum "Why am I fighting with the LG paladin and not the evil orcs?" This has been changed in 3.X by allowing one degree of freedom. A sleight improvement.

2. The character is tied to the land, ie a grove of trees. "Why am I'm out adventuring 100 leagues away from my stand of trees?"

3. Well my character ignores rule #2 and goes adventuring anyways. "What's my motivation? Gold- No, I avoid worked metal. Magic items- No, worked metal again. Fame- No, I'm a described as a loner. Why am I here again?"

4. "Why am I adventuring with these jokers?" The paladin, thief, sorcerer, wizard, etc don't fit into my circle of friends. This ranger and barbarian do.

5. "Why am I in this town, dungeon, or other manmade aberration of all that is natural?"

6. Weapon proficiencies are just plain bizarre. Scimitar????? Nuff said. Proficient in farm implements.....check. Oh wait, forgot the flail, scythe, and whip. Proficient in outdoor hunting weapons......check. Oh wait, forgot the hand ax, bola, net and bow. Now arguably some of these are exotic weapons so I'll maybe concede this point, but the bow is the most ridiculous. Consider how many elven druids and elven nature deities exist.

7. I am a fanatical member of Greenpeace. "You mamed a squirrel in my forest. Now you must die!"

It seems to me the druid is designed as a great NPC character. It could work as a PC in a very specific campaign framework based on the outdoors. The druid can easily become the DMs pawn with adventures where you are moved into action by the druidic coucil. I think there could be some changes to the character to make it more portable into typical campaigns.

1. Change the philosophy from guardian of nature to conservationist. Logging by the nearby townsman is permissible as long as they plant new forest, do not hunt game to extinction, etc. Nature and civilization can coexist in harmony.

2. Adopt a Native American mentality of living off the land and using it, but using it responsibly and not letting things go to waste.

3. Adventure to gain more knowledge about plants and ecosystems.

4. Adventure to destroy aberrations and undead.

5. I'm motivated for the love the outdoors and the assoicate travel.

6. No longer associate the druid to a specific local.

7. Fix weapon proficiencies. By adding the above weapons, you're not adding a whole lot of increased damage except for the increased range of a bow. You do add more sense to the weapon selections.

8. Drop the cliched loner attitude. Hiding in the forest not speaking to anyone will only get your forest bulldozed for a set of condominiums.

Just wondering what people have done to make druids a better fit to their campaign?

 

[Crothian]

I'd have to say ifg you are having this much trouble with the class it might not be fore you. But I can understand where you are coming from.

The only thing we did was design a prestige class that would fit with the character idea. Othern then that we did nothing.

To address some of your points though, I think every character needs motivation not just Druids. It might seem more difficult with them though. Also, the party group might just not fit together. Some groups just expect a group mof individuals to work becasue they are being played by the players. Again, even without druids I've seen this problem.

 

[Saeviomagy]

2. The character is tied to the land, ie a grove of trees. "Why am I'm out adventuring 100 leagues away from my stand of trees?"

3.5 says nothing of the sort. Just that they're a nature-loving divine caster. And 'nature' is everywhere.

3. Well my character ignores rule #2 and goes adventuring anyways. "What's my motivation? Gold- No, I avoid worked metal. Magic items- No, worked metal again. Fame- No, I'm a described as a loner. Why am I here again?"

Well, there are now only restrictions against metal armour, not against any of the rest of those. And any 'roleplaying' stereotypes in the books are to be ignored at will.

4. "Why am I adventuring with these jokers?" The paladin, thief, sorcerer, wizard, etc don't fit into my circle of friends. This ranger and barbarian do.

Work it out for yourself. What, are the rulebooks supposed to do everything for you?

5. "Why am I in this town, dungeon, or other manmade aberration of all that is natural?"

To destroy it? To stop it from spreading? To prove that natural is best?

6. Weapon proficiencies are just plain bizarre. Scimitar????? Nuff said. Proficient in farm implements.....check. Oh wait, forgot the flail, scythe, and whip. Proficient in outdoor hunting weapons......check. Oh wait, forgot the hand ax, bola, net and bow. Now arguably some of these are exotic weapons so I'll maybe concede this point, but the bow is the most ridiculous. Consider how many elven druids and elven nature deities exist.

And every single elven druid can use a bow. What's your problem?

7. I am a fanatical member of Greenpeace. "You mamed a squirrel in my forest. Now you must die!"

Sez who?

1. Change the philosophy from guardian of nature to conservationist. Logging by the nearby townsman is permissible as long as they plant new forest, do not hunt game to extinction, etc. Nature and civilization can coexist in harmony.

Change what? This is supported already.

2. Adopt a Native American mentality of living off the land and using it, but using it responsibly and not letting things go to waste.

Again, already supported

3. Adventure to gain more knowledge about plants and ecosystems.

See above

4. Adventure to destroy aberrations and undead.

5. I'm motivated for the love the outdoors and the assoicate travel.

6. No longer associate the druid to a specific local.

Etc etc etc. Already supported.

7. Fix weapon proficiencies. By adding the above weapons, you're not adding a whole lot of increased damage except for the increased range of a bow. You do add more sense to the weapon selections.

So why bother doing it? If you desperately want full access to all weapons, take a level of fighter.

8. Drop the cliched loner attitude. Hiding in the forest not speaking to anyone will only get your forest bulldozed for a set of condominiums.

Hint: Druids get diplomacy. I dunno where you get the loner attitude from.

 

[Telperion]

Hm...small wonder no one ever picks druid in my group. Anyway I'm running a short story in a couple of weeks that works as both a introductionary tool for new players and as a recruitment one for my campaign. There's one elven druid in the ready-to-play-by-anyone characters. I'm curious as to who will pick the druid or is it going to get left out?

As to the motivation ideas? No problem:

"Elethan

Background:
Elethan is significantly older than anyone else in the group, and while it doesn’t show it certainly matters. She was born a few decades after the Broadreach forest became the Hornsaw. She saw everything around her as venomous, warped by titan’s blood and twisted into a hideous realm of misery, suffering and futile struggle. She never quite got a grip on her life before losing her own parents in a titanspawn raid. It was then that she finally snapped and began to hunt on her own. Anything evil and unnatural was her target and she hunted with a conviction that bordered on madness. These days she is a bit better. She no longer walks the Hornsaw on her own, but has joined a group of adventurers. They are also people whose life hasn’t been all that kind because of various events they had no control over. She sympathizes with their pain, but cannot help but feel that she is surrounded by innocent children. She has lived a full hundred years with the fact that her home is destroyed beyond recovery, but she cannot let go of the Hornsaw. Without it she would be just another lost soul without a home. So, she hovers, waits for a change she knows isn’t coming and plays the part of a guide to the rest of the group.

Role-playing hints:
Elethan is a broken person who never had a chance in life. She cannot face the sadness that is slowly killing other elves in the Hornsaw, so she either seeks solitude or the company of the other divine races. She sees their bright, hopeful, eyes and drinks from them. She is like a leech that cannot help itself: she must nourish her starving soul with something. Maybe she can save just a little bit of her old home? Maybe she can guide the group to help the elves still living in the Hornsaw? Maybe she isn’t just an empty shell without purpose?"

You'll have to excuse the poor editing, but I had to stuff all that information into two paragraphs. Any longer and your average newbie would fall asleep trying to read the background materia. But I basically ran into the same problems that you did: why is this character with the party? Why is she alive in the first place? What is her purpose in life? I used the Hornsaw angle to tie her into the short story, but outside of that I have no idea why she would go anywhere else with the party.

 

[broghammerj]

Saeviomagy, I am the first to agree that one should not be pigeoned holed into roleplaying stereotypes. Maybe my problem is the druid is so poorly pegged into a particular sterotype in the PHB, that it alters perceptions and reactions by myself and other players. It doesn't seem to fit a playable archetype when compared to other classes

I appreciate the point by point response, but I think you may have taken me too literally. I guess I was trying to present my over all sense of what the druid represents as a collective. In this case I was hoping the whole was the some of its parts.

To reply specifically to some of your responses from the PHB:

Well, there are now only restrictions against metal armour, not against any of the rest of those. And any 'roleplaying' stereotypes in the books are to be ignored at will.

"Druids avoid carrying much worked metal with them because it interferes with the pure and primal nature that they attempt to embody"

And every single elven druid can use a bow. What's your problem? If you desperately want full access to all weapons, take a level of fighter.

Yes, I realize that all elven druids have bows. The premise that my human druid can't seems ridiculous in my mind. The druidic weapon choices just seems weird. No, I don't want my druid wielding a two handed great sword...so a level of fighter seems silly.

Hint: Druids get diplomacy. I dunno where you get the loner attitude from.

"Though their organization is invisible to most outsiders, who consider druids to be loners...."

Why am I adventuring with these jokers?" The paladin, thief, sorcerer, wizard, etc don't fit into my circle of friends. This ranger and barbarian do.

Work it out for yourself. What, are the rulebooks supposed to do everything for you?

"She doesn't understand the urban mannerisms of the rougue, she finds arcane magic disruptive, dislikes the paladin's devotion to abstract ideals....etc"

My point is that the PHB druid as written appears designed to be very incompatible with a party of other DND characters.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Saeviomagy, I am the first to agree that one should not be pigeoned holed into roleplaying stereotypes. Maybe my problem is the druid is so poorly pegged into a particular sterotype in the PHB, that it alters perceptions and reactions by myself and other players. It doesn't seem to fit a playable archetype when compared to other classes

I appreciate the point by point response, but I think you may have taken me too literally. I guess I was trying to present my over all sense of what the druid represents as a collective. In this case I was hoping the whole was the some of its parts.

"Druids avoid carrying much worked metal with them because it interferes with the pure and primal nature that they attempt to embody"

"too much worked metal" is represented within the rules as "metal armor". That's not a roleplaying thing - it's a hard limit. Wear metal armour, lose powers. Nothing else has an effect.

Yes, I realize that all elven druids have bows. The premise that my human druid can't seems ridiculous in my mind. The druidic weapon choices just seems weird.

I think the weapon choices of MOST of the classes are a bit wierd myself. But I work with them.

No, I don't want my druid wielding a two handed great sword...so a level of fighter seems silly.

So don't use one? Or just pick up the martial weapon prof? Or take a level of rogue instead? I mean really - you're just trying to be obtuse.

"Though their organization is invisible to most outsiders, who consider druids to be loners...."

Why am I adventuring with these jokers?" The paladin, thief, sorcerer, wizard, etc don't fit into my circle of friends. This ranger and barbarian do.

"She doesn't understand the urban mannerisms of the rougue, she finds arcane magic disruptive, dislikes the paladin's devotion to abstract ideals....etc"

My point is that the PHB druid as written appears designed to be very incompatible with a party of other DND characters.

Now read some of the others. They're all garbage. They all dislike each other. They're all horrible straightjackets.

They're all absent from my SRD...

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Most of the problems you have with the druid seem to stem from his 2e incarnation, IMO.

As for alternate druids, you might want to look into Eberron. The largest group of druids (and they're very much an organization) in that setting is focused on one of the exact things you suggested: destroying aberrations.

 

[Li Shenron]

1. Change the philosophy from guardian of nature to conservationist. Logging by the nearby townsman is permissible as long as they plant new forest, do not hunt game to extinction, etc. Nature and civilization can coexist in harmony.

2. Adopt a Native American mentality of living off the land and using it, but using it responsibly and not letting things go to waste.

3. Adventure to gain more knowledge about plants and ecosystems.

4. Adventure to destroy aberrations and undead.

5. I'm motivated for the love the outdoors and the assoicate travel.

6. No longer associate the druid to a specific local.

7. Fix weapon proficiencies. By adding the above weapons, you're not adding a whole lot of increased damage except for the increased range of a bow. You do add more sense to the weapon selections.

8. Drop the cliched loner attitude. Hiding in the forest not speaking to anyone will only get your forest bulldozed for a set of condominiums.

See that actually everything you are doing to "fix" the Druid - except the changes to weapon proficiencies - are perfectly possible with the Druid as it is!

The PHB may have given some guidelines, but I don't think it says you must be a guardian of nature rather than for example just a worshiper and keeper of the rites of nature. It doesn't say you must be a loner instead of part of a secret or otherwise public druidic group, it doesn't say you must sleep in the forest, and it doesn't mention being tied to a specific place.

Weapon proficiencies and armor restrictions are indeed instead part of the Druid core class. As such, they play a part in "balancing" the class, but doesn't mean you have no right to modify them, the DMG actually encourage DMs to slightly modify classes in order to create interesting characters ("slightly" just because the more you change, the harder it may become to keep the class balance).

Specific Weapon Proficiencies (as opposed to give a generic proficiency in all simple weapons or all martial weapons) can be seen as the result of the character's culture or habits. This means that they could be easy to modify, just try to end up with a list which has - more or less - the same number of weapons and not too many martial weapons.

Armor Restriction works pretty much like the Paladin's code, although it is much easier to adjudicate. You can simply get rid of it, but possibly try balance it back with some other kind of code of behaviour.

 

[Li Shenron]

The only thing we did was design a prestige class that would fit with the character idea. Othern then that we did nothing.

Oh please.... You don't really need to go that far!

 

[Kroax]

My druid

It seems to me the druid is designed as a great NPC character. It could work as a PC in a very specific campaign framework based on the outdoors. The druid can easily become the DMs pawn with adventures where you are moved into action by the druidic coucil. I think there could be some changes to the character to make it more portable into typical campaigns.

1. Change the philosophy from guardian of nature to conservationist. Logging by the nearby townsman is permissible as long as they plant new forest, do not hunt game to extinction, etc. Nature and civilization can coexist in harmony.

2. Adopt a Native American mentality of living off the land and using it, but using it responsibly and not letting things go to waste.

3. Adventure to gain more knowledge about plants and ecosystems.

4. Adventure to destroy aberrations and undead.

5. I'm motivated for the love the outdoors and the assoicate travel.

6. No longer associate the druid to a specific local.

7. Fix weapon proficiencies. By adding the above weapons, you're not adding a whole lot of increased damage except for the increased range of a bow. You do add more sense to the weapon selections.

8. Drop the cliched loner attitude. Hiding in the forest not speaking to anyone will only get your forest bulldozed for a set of condominiums.

Just wondering what people have done to make druids a better fit to their campaign?

Well, this is pretty much how I've always thought of the druid. At least after reading Complete Druids Handbook.