D&D 5E WOTC Possibly Removing "Druids" for Religious/Cultural Sensitivity Reasons

[LuisCarlos17f]

I can't understand their sensivity criteria. Who says what is offensive or not? What if I say the vampires from Ixalan wearing morrions are offensive and Hispanophobic?

And why not after the cleric and the monk? Being replaced with the "devout" and (martial) "adept". At least to be clearer for children who are starting to play. Is "Druid" to be replaced with "seer"?

Only four classes would be really boring. It would be like your favorite franchise with only four characters, or always wearing the same clothing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

D&D has not only created it's own self-referent sub-genre of fantasy, it's 50 years of common usage has added alternate definitions to the English language.

 

[Umbran]

I said it was very narrow (which it is).

Point being, listing one dictionary definition does not establish that, any more than showing an image of one white horse indicates all horses are white.

By all means, go look at the Wikipedia page for "priest": "Priests exist in many religions today, such as all or some branches of Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Shinto and Hinduism."

Which doesn't mean you have to like the word to be used. Just that this seems a weak point against it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Only four classes would be really boring.

Nah, even 3 classes can't have been that boring back in the day.
And, really, Four 5e-style classes with a dozen sub-classes each, mix-and-match via 3.x-style Multi-classing, and further define and customize with Background and Feats.... hardly backs off the complexity, at all.

It would be like your favorite franchise with only four characters, or always wearing the same clothing.

So, like the Fantastic Four? Or, oddly, the Three Musketeers...

 

[Lanefan]

If we want to delineate more strongly, we should get rid of Nature Clerics (and Nature gods, really) rather than Druids.

Other way around: rename Druids as Nature Clerics and fold the current nature-sphere Clerics into the class.

 

[Staffan]

They're not removing it, just because 'it is such a classic class' (meaning 3e had it).

But I do really wish Druids weren't a thing, when we can already have Nature Clerics. It's just conceptually muddy.

I think it would be a cool thing if druids were dealing with Nature itself as a primal force, with a focus on more-or-less local spirits, while the Nature Cleric would be the cleric of a nature-themed god. The druid may or may not worship a nature god, but that's definitely not where they get their oomph.

In some settings, this could also be a source of tension between "The Old Faith" and "The New Gods" or something like that.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think it would be a cool thing if druids were dealing with Nature itself as a primal force, with a focus on more-or-less local spirits, while the Nature Cleric would be the cleric of a nature-themed god.
In some settings, this could also be a source of tension between "The Old Faith" and "The New Gods" or something like that.

Ironically, just as Priest would be a more generic class name than Cleric, Shaman would be a more generic class name for that sort of Druid.

And we're right back to the original click-bait issue.

 

[MGibster]

So I vote "channeler."

WotC has been working to separate the Cleric from religion for a while now. I don't see any problem with Channeler. But then, why bother? Just fold the Divine spells in with Arcane and call it good.

 

[TwoSix]

Other way around: rename Druids as Nature Clerics and fold the current nature-sphere Clerics into the class.

Not using a strongly identifiable trope like "Druid" seems a weakness to me.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

And what about the name "ardent"? But this was used for a psionic class with some "pious" traits.