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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6836196" data-attributes="member: 996">That's a tautology all right.  Even within that tautology, 'compensating' could including adding optional classes from outside the PH or optional rules or DMG modules.  Now, outside that tautology:  What about the DM who wants to run a low-/no- magic game that restricts PC choices with magic, but still wants to put the range of challenges before them that are common tropes in heroic action or 'low' (by D&D standards) magic fantasy sub-genres?  What about a group of players who want mostly (or all) martial concepts for their characters?  'Historically' is a little dicey, since the written history is all from the Roman PoV, but in Celtic tradition, bards were, indeed, trained by Druids, who were a distinct class of priests and judges.  So, no, Bard and Druid are not synonymous, though they are related in having roots in the same culture.  The D&D Bard, also draws inspiration from myths like Orpheus, and, a bit, from the Nordic Skald.IIRC, the 1e PH actually came right out and said that it was based on what the Druids might have become.The same is true of D&D Wizards and D&D Clerics and... well, D&D doesn't do a great job of closely matching genre.Neatly summed up.  If we're talking stuff in print, the game predated the settings.  But Gygax & Arneson were running Greyhawk & Blackmoor long before they saw print.Hmm... In 1e neither got spells until around name level, so you could play one w/o spells for quite a long while, retiring when they got to that point if spells were really an issue - but, the Paladin had other magical abilities kick in much sooner.  In 1e UA, the Paladin was moved to a sub-class of the Cavalier, so the Cavalier was, in a sense, a non-casting Paladin.  In 3e, Paladin & Ranger were spell-free for only the first 3 levels, but, while the Paladin got other magical abilities at 1st level, the Ranger just got some feats, so you could incorporate a few levels of ranger into a non-caster/magical build.  3.5 also added a Knight class, which could, I suppose, be taken as a non-magical Paladin-alternative, and the Scout class, a more rogue-like take on the Ranger that lacked casting/magic entirely.  In 4e the Paladin was a split-primary class with the STR version ostensibly slightly less magical than the CHA version, but the Ranger was 100% martial.  In Essentials, the Ranger got two sub-classes (one ironically called the Scout) that gained Primal utility powers, making it a little more magical, and the Paladin got a Cavalier sub-class that was still plenty magical.While that's different mechanically, it's not that different conceptually.  To complicate things from a sources-of-inspiration perspective, Merlin, for instance, among the most iconic wizards, was arguably a figure based on a Druid.  The further complicate things the 19th century English made up all kinds of stuff for their 'Druid revival,' some of it taken from Masonic traditions.  To further, further, complicate things, the Druid revival informed Crowley's er, works, which (along with Hermes Trimagest, John Deep, Paracelsus, &c - and of course, fantasy fiction, and let's not forget Theosophy, for good measure) helped form our hazy modern vision of the Wizard as bearded old Hermetic scholar.  So the line between Druid and Wizard is actually pretty blurry.  So at-will magic is OK for them?  In 3.5, that was the Warlock's thing, as spontaneous casting was the Sorcerer's.  But, being the short-rest-recharge caster also seems to differentiate them pretty nicely.I actually kinda like the 5e take on the Druid, having very much enjoyed the 1e version back in the day.And, yes, I do think the D&D Druid has been a more wizardy caster than, say, the Cleric, since the early days.  He's always had some fire spells, summoning spells, and offensive spells, more so than the early cleric did, and a bit less of the healing/restoring schtick, early on.  And he couldn't wear metal armor.Melf's is a particularly odd choice.  Invisibility and creating illusions were things Celts attributed to sorcerers, which didn't have a really clear dividing line from druids, either.  Druids were credited with prophecy and shape-changing, most notably.  One of the few things that is recorded about the Druids was that they'd whip their tribesmen into a frenzy before battle.  That's not too wildly far off of Haste.  Druids were Seers known for prophetic dreams, including evoking them intentionally with a potion or ritual (OK, so they were probably just getting high).  No, not very close.The Druid has been casting Produce Flame, and thus chucking little bitty balls of fire, since the get-go, FWIW.</blockquote>

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