Perceptions of Druids and Their Playability

[ecliptic]

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.

As all you have to be is neutral, whats the problem? Alignment is not a restriction it is the character's outlook of the world. If he sees that balance is necessary, that does not mean he wont have his own morals, a structure or code. He can decide he likes to fight on the good, chaotic, lawful, or evil side. Neutrality does not mean apathy about any cause.

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?"

Um no, nowhere does it say he is tied to any kinda grove.

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?"

Thats not a rule for one. No where does it say he doesn't strive for gold, nor magical items. Matter of fact if it helps him keep nature at its best then he will use it. No where does it say they are loners either.

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.

Everyone has an agenda no matter who it is. These agendas do not have to match to adventure together. Nor is there any rule that a druid cannot be friends with someone that does not see it their way.

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

Because your friends went in there? For the best of nature itself?

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.

Scimitar is a shape of the moon, hence they prefer it. Flail? Whip? What in the world do those weapons have to do with farming? Scythe is mistake as every DM I know lets druid take a scythe.
Who says they want to hunt anything? When did druids become hunters?

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

Wtf are you babbling on about? Most druids wont do anything if you hunt for food. They will if the animal population is dropping dramatically because a human village is over hunting the area. I doubt it would be kill the humans either.

Then again thats asuming a Neutral Good druid, a Neutral Evil druid may very well kill anyone that tries to hunt.

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.

A guardian of nature WOULD be a conservationist. Then again that would depend on the druid's outlook, hence alignment.

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.

That is a druid.

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

They don't do that already?

4. Adventure to destroy aberrations and undead.

Alot of druids do that.

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

There you go describing the druid again.

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

Um they aren't. No more then any other class is associated to their home.

. 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.

See above.

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.

Don't even know where you are picking that up from.

 

[green slime]

Like Saeviomagy and ecliptic, I think you are really putting too much weight on what is basically flavour text.

For instance, just because the majority of non-Druids see Druids as "loners" does not mean:

a) that they are loners at all (but someone has to tend to the forest, Baker Bob ain't gonna)
b) that all druids MUST be loners.

In fact, Gandalf from Tolkien's novels could be described as a loner; he travels the length and bredth of the land by himself, spends time muttering in his beard... Yet no one suggests he is anti-social.

If I wrote "Mothers like a clean and tidy house, doing dishes and vaccuum cleaning are typical daily rituals."

Does this mean that all mothers like a clean and tidy house? That all mothers like vaccuum cleaning and doing dishes? That all mothers vaccuum clean their houses daily? The answer, if you are wondering, is "No".

 

[s/LaSH]

Well, as the druid-player of our current group (when I can make it to the game), I don't seem to have a problem. Admittedly, I inherited the character from another player who had to drop out. But Autumn Sky (as she is called) is a fairly vital part of the group - although most of her role seems to be standing in the back muttering 'you're all mad'. (Then combat rolls around, and she Brings The Noise. 4'11" of pure elven death. Finest moment: the electric bear versus the minotaur king.)

Autumn started out as a mushroom-sniffing weirdo, making notes in a journal regarding the mating habits of the civilised people in the party (they get weird). But, discovering that she's actually really, really good at blowing stuff up, she decided to tag along rather than hang out in the woods all day searching for... questionable mushrooms. Character growth! See? Starts off as a crazy loner living in the woods, turns into your standard psycho adventurix!

Of course, something else happened to make her more party-friendly. I don't think anyone in the game reads these boards, but if you do, don't highlight the following:

Spoiler

She got eaten by some kind of tentacley shapeshifter who replaced her. But because the people in the party are just so interesting, the mumblegrym or whatever it's called has decided to tag along and see just what they can get up to. If it gets bored it'll eat someone else. It's not bored yet. It can mimic most of a druid's powers with some healing wands in its sleeves and its natural shapeshifting power. I haven't yet had to pull out the lightning.

So maybe that accounts for some of the character growth...

 

[Will]

Looks like the initiator has some strange ideas about what's in the book.

I'll offer just this bit: Being seen as loners doesn't mean they ARE loners. Only, you know, that people _think_ they are.

People probably think barbarians are crazy psychos that kill anything that moves. Doesn't mean your barbarian has to be like that.

 

[Raven Crowking]

In the game I am running, there are currently two druid PCs. These are the human (Lakashi tribesman -- sort of a cross between Celts and Native Americans) druid Desu Atram and the elvish druid Manveru. Of course, there is a lot of wilderness IMC, and there is a fair bit of travelling. If you are interested in how these characters are being played, and how they stack up against the "standard model" druid, read my story hour.

RC

Quick Edit Postscript: In my story hour, there is also a neutral evil awakened serpent druid that the PCs encountered. Now, there was a character essentially guarding a wilderness site rather than adventuring abroad for you. Didn't wear metal armor, or have any treasure either. No hands, you see.

 

[Dark Dragon]

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:

Consider the options. The AD&D Complete Druid handbook has a lot of them. Some are usable in 3.x...

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.

Yep, and where is now the problem? You have four alignments at your choice, not counting the evil ones: N, LN, CN, NG. That's an improvement of three more options than just one in AD&D times.

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?"

"Because nature is diverse. I may know something about my homeland, but the world is large and my knowledge is poor about the rest of the world. And there may be some places completely unknown. And perhaps there are some places that must be restored to life."

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?"

"The power of nature needs no gold and no fame but knowledge on how and when to use it. Sometimes I may need items with the power of nature inside which are beyond my own powers to fight my enemies and those who threaten life."

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.

"Maybe I can teach other people something about the way of life in the wilderness and respect for the wild, for in return they may understand my goals."

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

"In towns, I may get some information about what is wrong in nature, perhaps the town itself or its inhabitants. A dungeon is likely to be the home of unnatural creatures who threaten life. To destroy or at least clean those dungeons restores nature there."

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.

Multiclass as a druid/ranger or barbarian/druid. Use the weapons that fit to the background of your druid. Or take martial/exotic weapon proficiency feats. Play a druid of Mielikki and forget any sort of weapon/armor related druidic oath...

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

..said the NEUTRAL EVIL druid to the little child who threw a stone at the squirrel.
Such behavior depends on the situation and the guy who offended the druid. My druid once summoned a cyclone to teach a corrupt city a lesson when he saw that the inhabitants polluted the river, cut down the trees and tried to kill the druid just to get richer....

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.

What is a typical campaign?

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.

Yep, that is a druid.

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.

Looks like a druid to me.

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

Yeah, see above.

4. Adventure to destroy aberrations and undead.

Good!

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

Right.

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

That was never done in 3.xxx, AFAIK.

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.

Or multiclass as a ranger or barbarian...

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.

The loner attitude depends on your character build-up. The rules don't say that a druid must be a loner per se.

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

Um, nothing. I'm now a D&D player for 13 years. I've played a paladin, a cleric/wizard/fighter, a rogue/assassin/wizard and play now a druid, a druid/shifter/barbarian/fighter and a cleric/sorcerer in different groups. So far, I had most fun with the druid characters.

The "pure" druid comes from a stone age jungle tribe and had some difficulties to get along in civilized lands. But he has the goal to protect nature and all good people who respect nature. He fights undead on sight as well as fallen druids like blighters. He accepts the way of living of others but tries to teach them some respect of the natural way. He is good friends with a cleric of Kelemvor (because death is part of life) and a wood elf wizard (because he tries to avoid unecessary deaths and protects the wood). He avoids armor of any type because it would cover his tattoos and mostly uses a club (enchanted with Spikes) as a weapon. He makes heavy use of spells but tries to avoid fire-based spells.

The shifter druid is a young, friendly and very curious guy frome a remote kingdom and wants to see the world and its creatures. But also he likes it to come home to his wife and his doughter. As a druid of Mielikki, he is allowed to wear metal armor (he wears a chainshirt with the "called" enchantment). His favorite weapons are a great axe and a longsword, but most times, he fights with natural weapons when he morphs into a dragon, troll or dire bear. When he is hunting for food, he never wears armor and his only weapons are a longbow, a tomahawk and a dagger. He would never use spells or his shifter powers to hunt. He tries to negotiate or spy before starting a fight, but even if pressed, he avoids to kill in combat, only sometimes he gets in rage and fights like a wounded beast... He relies more on his shifter abilities than on spells. He is not a loner, but after an adventure, he leaves the group for a while to stay with his family.

 

[two]

Just to clear up "Native American" myths

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.

Just to be perfectly clear about this, this sort of watered down eco-conservation was most distinctly not a part of 99% of "Native American" indian culture pre white man. It is a tired artifact of Western civilization. Much has been written about it. It's no more "real" than the claim that blacks are less intelligent than white due to head circumference, or etc.

North America featured a vast number of NA (Native American) cultures, including NA Indian slavery (a West Coast speciality), and seasonal near starvation among many tribes in the East (particularly the SouthEast, surprisingly).

Not many things were let go to waste because, well, if you are hungry you will eat anything and everything. But make no mistake about it, if a hungry tribe of NA's came across the "last" 10 purple-footed deer in North America, the deer would be killed and eaten in a heartbeat. Most happily, in fact.

Obviously, those people most able to think globally are those who are not under environmental stress from heat, cold, predators, disease, and hunger. Don't ask a tribe that depends on whale meat not to kill a whale. YOU can afford to "save the whales," they can't.

Yes, it's murky.

But at base it's absurd to claim there is a "Native American" anything (unless you are talking in generalities sufficiently vague as to be meaningless, for example, "Native Americans" did not use rockets, which is true but trivial).

If you want to bring up a touchy-feely theory, like you did, just be honest about it and say "European-Americans were very interested in reclaiming what they saw as the Eden-like pre-colonized life of Native American Indians (since shifted to reservations), and cooked up various myths about them, exploited significantly in the 1960's and 1970's by middle-class Americans seeking something real (and turning instead, amusignly, to a fiction)." Or something like that. Just leave the Native Americans out of it. Yes, I have significant NA blood myself, if that matters to you.

 

[Henry]

OK, now that that discussion is left behind and done with (see WHOPPING HUGE HINTS, page 14), let's talk about the druid.

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Druids have been one of my favorite classes since first edition. There are two reasons: Since someone in an old Dragon Magazine pointed out how powerful 1st edition Druids were, and since they pointed out how compatible druids were in every circumstance that a fighter or wizard was.

Druids even back then were not tied to a copse or grove; Dark Sun Druids were tied to a specific patch of land, but AD&D druids never were. They fought evil and sided with good because evil traditionally were the ones burning down forests and killing indiscriminately. Would a druid have sided with the Fellowship of the Ring over Saruman's Orc Army? Darned Straight!

Furthermore, they were just as effective in a Dungeon (carved or natural) as anyone else was, especially their spells used. Druids could and can have animal companions at first level, and can use those to maximum effect. Even back then, can you imagine a Druid with an Animal-growthed companion tiger or bear doing scores of points of damage??? Hit point values and combat bonuses being overall lower, this was a frightening combo. 1st edition Druids even got 2nd level spells at 2ND CHARACTER LEVEL, and 3rd levels spells at 3RD CHARACTER LEVEL!

Skip forward to the 3rd edition, where druids have even fewer restrictions, and are almost as powerful as they were in the 1st edition days. The animal companion is once again powerful, the spells are devastating, and the alignment allows both good AND evil circles of druids working their will.

It's good to be a Druid again.

 

[Henry]

Oh, one more thing that's deliciously ironic about Eberron Gatekeeper Druids:

Has anyone noticed that the Horrid Animal was originally created by the Gatekeepers, to Fight Aberrations? They might be animals, but they are just as nasty and abhorrent as anything the Daelkyr could have created!

No natural animal drips ACID from its claws!!! (Poison maybe, but acid?) The thing looks like it's half Giger-Xenomorph!

Beautiful example of the conflicted noir-nature that is in Eberron.

 

[billd91]

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. <snip>

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

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

I think your problem is you've fixated on a particular set of druid stereotypes and never got beyond that. A druid is a fun class to play and always has been, without making any modifications to fit the campaign. So let's look point by point:

1. True Neutral from 1st/2nd edition Druids. This isn't a weird alignment at all nor is it necessarily apathetic. It may very well be highly pragmatic and non-prejudicial. Neutral characters aren't necessarily predisposed to favor one extreme over another and can side with which ever one makes the best case. It may also mean that the character thinks extreme philosophies are irrelevant to his own personal life (just as they are to animals living in the wild). It's an alignment with a great deal of freedom because the character wouldn't feel bound by any constraint beyond doing what is pragmatic, even if some other people would be squeemish about it. So why join the paladin's group? Because that is the best means, pragmatically, of accomplishing the druid's goals... whatever they are. Joining orcs to accomplish anything contructive? Not too pragmatic.

2. Tied to the land? Never have been tied to any particular location that I can think of outside of Dark Sun. At least not until they establish a base of some sort but that's no different from any other class that establishes a stronghold. There may be practical reason to visit a home base periodically, but that's true of anyone who needs to resupply or story their junk.

3. Motivation. Anything as long as it isn't antithetical to the druid's main responsibility: defending/conserving nature and serving as an interface between society and the natural world. Can more money help accomplish that? Sure. Or go out and spread the good word about the divine that can be found in nature. Really, finding a motivation for a druid to adventure is no harder than finding a motivation for a cleric to do the same thing.

4. Why these jokers? Any number of reasons. Maybe you actually like them on a personal level even if you don't hold to all of the same goals. Ever been friends and hang out with someone you don't see eye to eye with on a number of important topics but you still liked to do things with them? Same thing. Or maybe it's more of a purely practical thing and you know you can get more accomplished by working with people who are good at what they do even if you don't mesh with them that well.

5. Why am I in a town, etc? Because that's where things happen, where you can get things you might need, and so on. Just because they aren't "natural" (and by this reasoning, is an ant hill natural, or the nest of a bird?) doesn't mean they aren't useful or worthwhile places to go. In the Village of Hommett, there's a druid who ministers to the townsfolk who follow the "old" religion. Perfectly good reason for a druid to live in a town. This model looks at druids as if they were like priests of an older pagan-style religion and as such they tend a flock of worshippers and not just the wilderness. Perfectly good way to look at a druid if you so choose.

6. Proficiencies bizarre. Hey, at least they can use spears, a primary hunting weapon if there ever was one (same with the sling). The weapon list is a bit odd but much of it is hold-over from earlier editions that tried to make the druid a bit more distinct from the cleric with a set of more exotic (and bloodletting) weapons. I don't think adding a bow to every druid would break the game by any stretch of the imagination.

7. Fanatical member of Greenpeace. Some people play druids this way (I played one a bit more like an Earth Firster, quite frankly, as an alternative and it was fun) but it's not a requirement. Druids probably should defend the wilderness from base exploitation because doing so is good for the natural order of things and the resilience of nature. But that doesn't mean that they have to be fanatical about it or that they can't see it as their duty to help people use nature's resources responsibly rather than wastefully running roughshod over it.