See, that's the inconsistency: you don't mind a Celtic Nature Cleric (which, in its origins, is essentially what the Druid class was) but at the same time don't want a Norse Bard.
Well, no. I don’t buy that the current Druid has any tie but name to the Celts (or more, the Celtic neo-pagans) beyond brief ancient mention of Druids Shapeshifting and the very small tie the D&D Druid has to tree groves.
They’re more closely tied to World of Warcraft than to Celtic religious practice or the original D&D nature priest.
And I don’t want a Norse Bard base class. Just like I’d be happy to see a Circle of The Nemeton for the Druid that draws on Celtic magical practice (what little we know) and folklore/myth, I’d be happy to have a Skald subclass for Bards.
As an aside, I would tie Druids to nature itself and the spirits of nature, and fully remove the concept of them being “divine” spellcasters. If they revere Silvanus, it’s because Silvanus is a greater primal spirit who bridges the worlds of the world and the gods, and who, along with other nature “deities”, are spirits of the place of humans and other mortal folk within the natural world, rather than of landmarks, plants, animals, the hunt, etc.
Possibly these deities would have titles they are known by amongst the primal spirits and Druids and rangers and Barbarians (they I would rename, possibly to Warden, possibly to Wilden or soemthing like that. Maybe the Fury) like The Green Man, The Moon Huntress, etc.
The only reason it now seems that Druid isn't tied to the Celts in D&D is familiarity. The tie is still there every bit as much as it has been since day one, and IMO it's unnecessary.
Nah, as I’ve said, they just don’t have any kind of priest role, don’t keep lore or perform community rituals, don’t really have anything to do with special trees or other plants, like…they could be written up as being tied to a different culture without changing mechanics.
Well, IMO building any class around being a jack-of-all-trades isn't a good idea right from the start.
I disagree, but certainly it shouldn’t be the primary identity.
Or almost stop there, as you've already got a nicely defined niche. The one thing I'd add would be a basic ability to sneak and-or hide, particularly in a crowd.
Why hiding?
Bards should have their own unique subsystem, I think, for their equivalent-to-spells. Entirely based on sound and what sound might be able to do, and how the Bard uses voice and-or instrument to manipulate that sound. Their casting wouldn't be restricted by slots but by exertion limits per x-amount of time, with said limits rising as the Bard levels up; and their potential effects would fill a rather narrow band: sonic damage, sonic mind manipulation (charm, panic, etc.), sonic detection (e.g. getting magic items to resonate sound), and long-range sonic communication (e.g. Bard as radio transmitter!); along with legend lore and item knowledge.
This is certainly a way to go, and if it combines with “songs” a la 3.5, curses and blessings of target’s fortunes, doomspeaking or insulting someone to the point they have to save against fear or even being incapacitated at higher levels, and also at high levels changing the nature of things with their words, I’m not super opposed.
But IMO going hard on the sonic manipulation angle strikes enough people as silly comic book stuff that it’s easy to lose the intended flavor.
The Bard should be a master of words, stories, songs/poetry/other recitations, of knowledge of nearly all kinds (at least have the option to delve deep into several avenues of knowledge), with mechanical features tied to that, and to speaking new truths into the world (aka bless, curse, change a thing’s nature, change how others see a creature, etc).
