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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Simon Collins" data-source="post: 2009810" data-attributes="member: 9860">This is not a playtest review.The Quintessential Druid is the tenth in the Collector series from Mongoose Publishing covering various classes in more detail.The Quintessential Druid is a 128-page mono softcover product costing $19.95. Font size and margins are average, and there are occasional patches of white space here and there. Interior artwork ranges from poor to superb, with most being average to good. Writing style is good whilst there are occasional but regular editing errors.Character Concepts:As with other books in the series, The Quintessential Druid begins with character concepts, personality and behavioural hooks that come with a minor rule-related bonus and penalty:* Child Of The Wild - feral orphan with bonuses to wilderness skills and penalties when dealing with civilised races.* City Dweller - bringing life back into the city, this druid gains Gather Information as a class skill but has difficulties dealing with wilderness animals.* Oak Brother - quarterstaff specialists with unique fighting style and armour restrictions.* Ollave - cleric/druid cross who tends a congregation, with its responsibilities and benefits.* Rescued Soul - outcast ex-criminal who has repented and become a druid* Nature's Philosopher - academic druid gaiing Knowledge as a class skill but restricted in weapon choice* Unrebuked - unorthodox druid rejecting druidic order with expanded weapon selection but restricted feats* Wandering Druid - standard adventuring druid with no real benefits or penaltiesThe Prestige Druid:Nine 5-level prestige classes are offered:* Archdruid - ruling druid with advanced connection to nature, druidic grove, and a spellstoring archdruid's staff* Beast Whisperer - strong connection with animals and expanded animal companion capacity* Dreamer - druid who spends much time in the dream-like Otherworld, interacting with fey and spirits* Grove Defender - NPC druid anchored to a druidic grove with spellcasting benefits* Master Of The Hunt - consummate huntsman, providing necessary food and clothing only from hunting and gathering* Nature's Avenger - vigilante druid who fights back against the destruction of nature* Noble Druid - leader and diplomat, where druids have become the aristocracy* Tree Dancer - evokes wooden items from trees by dancing a wood shape spell* Vitiate Maiden - poison-using feminist druidsTricks Of The Trade:This section covers druid lifestyles, the problems of tracking druids who can use the Woodland Stride ability, hunting and foraging for ingredients for potion creation and crafts (reducing the gp cost). There is also a sub-section discussing the use of 'wild clothing' - clothing made from one type of animal after the dead animals' spirits have been ritually mollified. There is also a brief secton on ogham, which to my mind does not make the most of the possibilities of the historical truth of this ancient language. Druid Feats:14 new feats tending to focus in on enhancement of the wild shape ability.Tools Of The Trade:Various druidic equipment including clothing, armour and shields, tools and kits, attuned foci (equipment attuned to a living creature to enhance druidic spellcasting), and herbal recipes.Living Magic:Discusses a druid's potion garden, designed to provide herbs and plants to enhance the Brew Potion item creation feat. Scroll Flowers are plants invested in spells whose sap can be used to write magical scrolls at no extra cost once the flower has bloomed. Spell-like Investitures allow a druid to bestow a spell-like ability on a creature. Invested Trees are given the qualities of a wand or staff by the druid tending the tree. Living Items are creatures that have been imbued with magic from an early age - when they reach maturity their essence is then transformed into a magic item, which becomes semi-intelligent, ages, and is resistant to dispel magic. Various magical items are described based on the living item concept, including a unicorn sword and a cobra whip.The Life Of A Druid:This section looks at the druidic order and contains information on initiation, progression through druidic circles, the elders of the druidic order, druidic traditions, archdruids, the grand druid, druidic ceremonies, and the archanix - otherworldly energies that provide druids with their spells.The Otherworld:Looks at a new plane - The Otherworld, a realm filled with positive energy, magically morphic, with enhanced druidic and fey magic, and mirroring all known planes. There is discussion of travelling to the Otherworld at certain times of the year and at certain places connected by ley lines, seeing into the Otherworld, and spirit guides to the Otherworld realm. There is a short discussion of inhabitants of the Otherworld, different Otherworldly realms, a link to Mongoose's Fey Magic product, and time and travel in the Otherworld. There is a new Template - Touched, giving a variety of creature types some Otherworldly powers such as confusion, ventriloquism, fire resistance, and damage reduction. The section ends with a discussion of death and the Otherworld, with druids and fey entering the Otherworld and thus being able to reincarnate.Druid Magic:There is further discussion of the provision of druidic spells by the Arcanix first introduced in the section on the Life of a Druid. 35 new spells are offered including spells such as five levels of Summon Nature's Horde (5th-9th level spells), Protection from Elemental Creatures, Otherworld Passage, and Beast Friendship.Paths Of The Shapeshifter:Splits the wild shape ability down into various crature type options such as dragon wild shape, fey wild shape, plant wild shape, and undead wild shape. Also has advanced wild shape powers, such as different sizes of wild shape from diminutive to colossal, and these can be mixed with the creature type wild shape powers to produce combinations such as diminutive dragons and colossal oozes. One power, the True Form power, is discussed in more detail - the True Form is a type of living spirit of the druid's totem animal, which the druid can transform into - the creature is more powerful than its standard cousins and the druid can transform into a True Form more often than normal. There is also a discussion on partial and combination transformation, and prolonged metamorphosis.     Sacred Groves:A site of powerful energy leaking from the Otherworld, causing trees to grow strong and gates to open to the Otherworld. The sacred grove also becomes a means of enhanced spellcasting for druids. These Otherworldly energies normally drift away from a sacred grove after a few years but some druids know how to anchor the energy to a grove. Civilisation in the vicinity can diminish the effects of the sacred grove. Different sacred groves have different powers and some of these powers are listed, along with the powers and responsibilities of the Grove Seneschal, a druid who has used his own spirit to anchor the Otherworldly energy to a specific grove. A template for Seneschal Spirits is also given. There is also a sub-section on Circle Magic - enhanced magic available to druids spellcasting in co-operation. Eleven circle magic spells and their variants  (such as 9 levels of Nature's Avatar) are given next, followed by a discussion of True Groves, vortices of powerful energy where several ley lines cross in the Otherworld - these are the groves of the Archanix. There is also an outline of the ritual required to anchor a true grove and some guidelines for how others are effectively 'locked out' on a planar level from these True Groves.The book ends with an index, tables of rule summaries, and a 4-page character sheet.Conclusion:The Quintessential Druid is a bit of a mixed bag. The main disappointment for me is that much of the material is suited to NPC druids rather than PC druids - some interesting stuff with detailed rules on aspects such as sacred groves and potion gardens, and various feats and spells surrounding these fixed locations, for which adventuring PC druids are unlikely to need the depth of information given. Then there are some interesting ideas such as spirit guides, ogham, otherworld inhabitants, ley lines, and druid ceremonies, which do not give enough depth and would have been more relevant to PCs. The balance here is definitely off.There are also some ideas which seem rather poorly described, or seem unbalanced (shapeshifting), and there are some great ideas - the character concepts and prestige classes are nearly all pretty interesting and relevant to PCs. The author seems to hit many of the right notes as far as druids go but the melody formed is by no means perfect. I thought the concepts introduced in Shaman, Fey Magic and The Quintessential Witch covered some of the most interesting ideas in the Quintessential Druid more cohesively.</blockquote>

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