What Kind of Druids Do You Like?

[Fallen Seraph]

Powerful ritualistic spells that are very potent, but are tied to a specific place / nexus of power. In his grove or a sacred stone circle, he's a solo foe on par with a dragon, in a town, he's a low level minion.

Ehh, I like that to a point. I don't think a Druid player would like feeling that weak and defenceless while off adventuring.

I like the idea of having their grove or stone circle be a place of power for them. But I see that coming less from per-say Druid powers, or abilities but instead from Druidic-centred rituals (if skills are involved in casting rituals it would be Nature based not Arcane) that aren't just for the Druid, like all rituals, but are more appealing to him.

This then the Druid could cast a series of rituals around his grove to make him more powerful/protect the grove from outside threats. While he still retains his normal level of combat effectiveness outside of it.

 

[Li Shenron]

Plants, weather, animals are a must, in that order.

Elements and feys second.

Shapeshifting is cool, but has become a bit overused. I'd like it restricted to higher level and not every druid.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

Historical druids, or none at all, please.

I've always viewed the modern fantasy 'druid' archetype as having stolen the name from the pages of history, and then proceeding to make it into something it never was. None of the 'nature priest' BS--that's just misty-eyed modern transcendentalism superimposed on a pseudo-primitive template.

You can have nature priests, but please call them something other than druids.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Right, in terms of flavor I prefer the summoning style druid, but I voted for shaper for the simple fact that there are any number of other classes that do summoning.

Druids have traditionally been the only shapes in the game. It's an interesting mechanic and I think if the class needs focus then it should focus on the thing that makes it unique.

The 3X druid is one of my favorite classes in the game, but it is absolutely overpowered. Since a lot of the more traditional classes are becoming more interesting I'm comfortable with the druid taking a hit in general awesomeness to make a more balanced class list.

That and if I had to choose between a Druid-Summoner and a Sha'ir-Summoner or even just Summoner. I wouldn't pick the druid.

Specialization is cool. As long as we get someone who does nature magic, even if it's just a paragon path open to Rangers and Druids, I'm perfectly all right with the Druid as wild shaper.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

The Cheesy Kind

What I'd like to see is something like the Ultimate classes of 3.5e where it could focus on say either shapeshifting or nature magic. It would have both but would be better at whichever area it specialized in with a secondary ability to fill another role.

 

[phloog]

The problem is that that's where druidzilla started. Either you have someone who has no role and sucks at all of them or he has no role and is overpowered in all of them.

I guess I'm not seeing how it has to be one or the other - seems to be a continuation of the flawed logic that says that the fix for a balance problem is a complete redesign rather than addressing the root cause of the balance issue.

I think with actual game design thought, instead of just shunting each off to roles to eliminate the need to balance the concepts used in the earlier versions, they could have any number of JOAT classes that -yes- might not be excellent at anything, but would be good enough at enough things to make playing them interesting.

And I guess I've never heard a great number of complaints about the vastly overpowered druid...or the vastly underpowered druid...frankly in my games I've never worried that any character was more/less powerful than another - we play the concept we want to play.

 

[Greg K]

I want the druid as diplomat, judge, priest, and scholar. I want them to have spells dealing with divination, charming, illusions, weather, plants and animals. I also want them to have some ability to bless and curse and the ability to shift into birds, fish, frogs, snakes, and mammals (No plant shapes, elemental shapes, dinosaurs, etc.)

 

[Greg K]

You can have nature priests, but please call them something other than druids.

I like the term animist.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Historical druids, or none at all, please.

If he hasn't spent 20 years studying at Ynys Mon and performed ritual human sacrifice he's not a druid!

I agree with you that modern ideas about nature and environmentalism have little to do with the historical druids, what little we know about them. But you gotta expect a little concept drift over 2000 years. As a previous poster pointed out the word druid now means a magic tree hugging hippy who can turn into a bear.

 

[Jhaelen]

Right, in terms of flavor I prefer the summoning style druid, but I voted for shaper for the simple fact that there are any number of other classes that do summoning.

Druids have traditionally been the only shapes in the game. It's an interesting mechanic and I think if the class needs focus then it should focus on the thing that makes it unique.

I agree that there should be a class which focuses on shapechanging - but it shouldn't be called druid.

I am unsure if a druid class is really necessary, especially one which is closer to the real, celtic druids. What ARE the distinguishing features of a (celtic) druid, anyway? What would be the best role for them? I think part of the reason why the druid became a 'hybrid' is because it doesn't represent an archetype at all.

Just pick a class that most represents your personal vision of a druid most closely and utilize multi-classing to get the right mix of abilities and powers. Done.