What's going to happen to druids?

[Primitive Screwhead]

Maybe... Druids are simply Clerics with a 'Nature talent tree' ?



Woudn't that be nice

 

[frankthedm]

Maybe... Druids are simply Clerics with a 'Nature talent tree' ?



Woudn't that be nice

I think so too. One reason I expect them to be rolled into one class is so Mearls can beat them both with the nerf-bat at the same time.

You don't need scent to smell a nerfing a'comin for CoDzilla.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

theirs alot more at stake weather the druid is in phb 1 4e or in phb 2 4e or published on d&d insider. For me druids are integral for a setting i'm working on, and if they don't show up in the srd but do show up in a later source, it would be a shame to have to make that split. It would be so much easier to to use the same druid so everyone is on the same page. So I really hope that the druid makes it into the srd in some shape or form.

I really don't understand why some people think clerics and druids are similar. One worships gods, the other worships nature. Its very different in my view. Thematically they are very different, and even in abilities, they differ greatly.

I think the difference between clerics and druids are about as far apart as clerics and paladins or clerics and rangers. They are all divine casters, but their skill sets are very different from each other and server very different peruses.

in 4e things could change though, and clerics have a major divergence based on choices. That would be nice. in 3.5 though, nature clerics with the animal and plant domains are not druids, not even close.

 

[KingCrab]

I could care less if Paladins were permanently removed from the game, but let's keep druids. They're less annoying and need to wear metal if they're gonna lose their powers.

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

I really don't understand why some people think clerics and druids are similar. One worships gods, the other worships nature. Its very different in my view. Thematically they are very different, and even in abilities, they differ greatly.

Yes, but why do Druids get to have special treatment? Why don't Flamines have a class for themselves, as well? Inasmuch as Druids worship nature, Flamines are guardians of civic order in Roman society (not really, but close enough).

Truth is, EGG or someone else at TSR thought Druids were cool, and the Specialist Priest mechanic wasn't yet in place. It's the same thing with the 1e Illusionist, who wasn't simply a specialist Wizard but had different powers.

I think Crazy Jerome's idea is more on the money. Someone commented before the Druid is split between Controller (with Entangle, Summon NA, Wall of Thorns, etc) and Defender (Shapeshifting into a bear or somesuch). Splitting the class would allow us to split the roles along those lines and give us a way to model characters like Beorn, from The Hobbit.

 

[an_idol_mind]

Perhaps the druid is headed back to its role in the Rules Cyclopedia, where it was essentially a prestige class. I'd rather it not happen, but who knows? Personally, I'd rather have the warlord or whatever other new classes they're going to add in pushed back into the PHB 2 and let us have the core classes we know and love. But the times, they are a' changing.

 

[Felon]

Martial: Fighter, Rogue, Warlord [?]
Arcane: Wizard
Divine: Cleric, Ranger, Paladin

with the assumption that the Warlord would be a "martial" class.

There is a quote somewhere, maybe in ENW main page, that says a breakdown based on roles rather than power sources:

"Defender": Fighter & Paladin
"Striker": Rogue & Ranger
"Leader": Cleric & Warlord
"Controller": Wizard & ?

Yeah, I've seen that. I'm not sure how "official" it is, though. I'm still holding out hope that "Paladin" is a prestige class and we get some other class in there instead (but I'm not holding my breath or anything).

This quote about the PHB's four PC roles and their corresponding classes is something that seems to be transitioning from rumor to accepted fact, and I don't think that's really warranted. That came from an informal YouTube interview with James Wyatt, not some carefully-composed blog post. His remark about the Warlord class was pretty odd in that he said that he read about it on a messageboard, something his interviewer gave him a bit of ribbing about. Kind of bugged me since that was the class I was really interested in hearing solid confirmation about.

 

[psionotic]

I'm a fan of the druid. Just started one in a good friend's Pirates of Eberron campaign, and I'm excited to play him up.

But I'm not sure why people think that the cleric couldn't necessarily eat the class (and take its stuff). They're really pretty similar in 3.x already. Both have the same BAB, Saves, HD, and spell progression, and there is a fair amount of overlap in their divine spell lists. While druids generally worship nature and clerics usually worship gods, the current ruleset allows druids to worship a nature deity, and clerics to worship an abstract concept (such as, er, nature).

Until we know how the designers are handling talent trees, we can't be sure how customizable each class is. We also don't know how the clerical spell lists, domains/spheres, etc., are being handled. It might be that a perfectly archetypal (in the D&D sense) druid can be created from within the cleric class. If so, I'd be fine with that, especially if the core class contains enough flexibility for a variety of 'specialty priest' style treatments. If not, I hope that the druid is core (or, at worst case, is added in the first major ruleset expansion/phb2/whatever).

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I think the druid should show up in the PHB to fill the "divine controller" role ... but I don't think we actually know anything specific on the subject.

 

[alaric]

This quote about the PHB's four PC roles and their corresponding classes is something that seems to be transitioning from rumor to accepted fact, and I don't think that's really warranted. That came from an informal YouTube interview with James Wyatt, not some carefully-composed blog post. His remark about the Warlord class was pretty odd in that he said that he read about it on a messageboard, something his interviewer gave him a bit of ribbing about. Kind of bugged me since that was the class I was really interested in hearing solid confirmation about.

Rumor? This was never a rumor, it was a long interview about a specific topic. It's not like it was an off the cuff comment. It also has alot more specific information than any of the blog postings I've seen.

The weirdness around the Warlord class sounded like "Well we weren't planning on announcing this yet, but since it's leaked, here's another tidbit", than anything else.