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<blockquote data-quote="VenerableBede" data-source="post: 9622656" data-attributes="member: 7032917">I was very surprised that there wasn't a level 1 Druid spell that did exactly that. True, not all sources for druid inspiration have them turning into animals, but it's still extremely iconic... At least there's a spell that turns you into a tree. And Polymorph. But those come kinda late, particularly given how easy and frequent death is in Shadowdark.Alternatively, I think there's design space in Shadowdark for an &quot;archetype&quot; (or &quot;paths&quot;?) system that takes existing classes and swaps out one or two features for another. As an example, I'm a huge fan of 5e's Echo Fighter, so I've been playing around replacing the Fighter favored weapon feature with one that lets you create an echo a limited number of times per day. Something like this could be used to swap out the Wizard feature of turning spell scrolls into known spells and replace it with turning into animals (but only if you are already a Druid), stuff like that.That all said, I really like how simple yet expressive the Shadowdark rules are, so I'd prefer such granularity to be introduced as a well-polished third-party expansion. Whether it were done by someone well-known in the community and given Kelsey's blessing or done by a total nobody and therefore got little attention, just having that layer of separation would feel... I dunno, best of both worlds. Keep what I think works great about Shadowdark while still having the option out there.There's a handful of classes with rage-like features. This isn't me saying there isn't space—I agree there is—but I think it would have a harder time not feeling like just another melee martial weapons guy.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="VenerableBede, post: 9622656, member: 7032917"] I was very surprised that there wasn't a level 1 Druid spell that did exactly that. True, not [I]all[/I] sources for druid inspiration have them turning into animals, but it's still extremely iconic... At least there's a spell that turns you into a tree. And Polymorph. But those come kinda late, particularly given how easy and frequent death is in Shadowdark. Alternatively, I think there's design space in Shadowdark for an "archetype" (or "paths"?) system that takes existing classes and swaps out one or two features for another. As an example, I'm a huge fan of 5e's Echo Fighter, so I've been playing around replacing the Fighter favored weapon feature with one that lets you create an echo a limited number of times per day. Something like this could be used to swap out the Wizard feature of turning spell scrolls into known spells and replace it with turning into animals (but only if you are already a Druid), stuff like that. That all said, I really like how simple yet expressive the Shadowdark rules are, so I'd prefer such granularity to be introduced as a well-polished third-party expansion. Whether it were done by someone well-known in the community and given Kelsey's blessing or done by a total nobody and therefore got little attention, just having that layer of separation would feel... I dunno, best of both worlds. Keep what I think works great about Shadowdark while still having the option out there. There's a handful of classes with rage-like features. This isn't me saying there isn't space—I agree there is—but I think it would have a harder time not feeling like just another melee martial weapons guy. [/QUOTE]

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