Non-standard druid concepts

[Sam K]

So, inspired by another thread: except for paladins (“must be lawful annoying”), druids may be the most stereotyped class in the game. It's quite common to hear people argue that a druid wouldn't be interested in something because it “doesn't serve the greater balance of nature”. Druid stereotypes seem to fall into one of two: either they are tree-hugging hippies, or they are “Blah blah balance blah balance of nature blah blah balance blah oh did I mention balance blah”. Paladins may be stereotyped as having a stick shoved up somewhere, but druids can become their own stick!

With that said, what are your favorite non-standard druid concepts, and how do you work them into the druid faith in general?

I really like the idea of a “dark alpha” druid: a neutral evil druid who embraces the competitiveness and battle for dominance that many animals show. He uses his powers to establish himself as a dominant force and expects those weaker to acknowledge this, but he's not really interested in any overreaching evil goal. Rather, he tries to live the right/natural way for an alpha: claiming the best food and quarters, always getting a good share of the loot, making sure he stays strong, and enjoying his existence. This character doesn't as much revere nature as try to embody an aspect of it. I could actually see this concept working in a neutral party, as long as the other party members aren't terribly inefficient; the dark alpha can acknowledge that other people can also be powerful, and that fighting with them could leave him too weak to retain his position of power. It may be better to cooperate with them in order to bring down even greater prey. However, disagreements can quickly turn nasty, and more sensitive party members may be upset about how he treats weaker people.

Another idea I have is an Indiana Jones style druid. An explorer who seeks out lost sacred places and forgotten druid lore, perhaps even animals thought to be extinct. Obviously, these travels take him to places that druids may not normally go, and is a perfect reason for adventuring. After all, adventuring parties have an amazing ability to stumble over lost and forgotten things and places. This character would work well in a world where there's a strong druid organization. Every government need their special agents.

So, lets hear your best non-standard druid concepts!

[Urpriest]

Aberration Druid: your view of nature is perverted, and now you pervert nature.

[Honest Tiefling]

I like the idea of a druid not being a part of nature, but its lord and master. After all, in nature, the strong survive and the weak perish, if nature is weak, it too will succumb to the strong. I can also see primal forces being easily exploitable with the right type of magic, through perhaps, not without a price.

[eggynack]

Aberration Druid: your view of nature is perverted, and now you pervert nature.
I'm a big fan of the aberration style druid. You can pull it off in the fashion you noted, going entirely pro-aberration, or you can add in gatekeeper druid, thus giving it more of a using aberrations against aberrations feel.

[Urpriest]

Oh also, winter Druid, using the huge supply of awesome Frostburn spells (and maybe a Major Iceheart) to spread winter across the land. No-one but your allies sees you travel, instead they just see a massive cloud of snow (Obscuring Snow, Snowsight).

[Zaq]

I like the idea of a druid not being a part of nature, but its lord and master. After all, in nature, the strong survive and the weak perish, if nature is weak, it too will succumb to the strong. I can also see primal forces being easily exploitable with the right type of magic, through perhaps, not without a price.

Yeah. A somewhat less extreme version of this is the gardener Druid, who likes to put things (plants/animals/etc.) where they might not normally exist, because they can.

[Jeff the Green]

Oh also, winter Druid, using the huge supply of awesome Frostburn spells (and maybe a Major Iceheart) to spread winter across the land. No-one but your allies sees you travel, instead they just see a massive cloud of snow (Obscuring Snow, Snowsight).

Or the opposite. The example Walker in the Waste is a Druid.

[Honest Tiefling]

Or Beast Druid! Because rending apart your foes with your teeth and claws is always fun. Protein is a vital part of any druid's diet!

[avr]

A trickster druid - fey are usually big on nature and druid powers are surprisingly well suited to pranks.

The concept isn't so different but the execution might take people aback - in PF a spellslinger wizard 1/druid X could easily be a wild man who shoots the strangest things out of his gun. Probably a city trained wizard who went native on some frontier.

[Gwendol]

Fochlucan lyrist. "I like to recite poetry and long walks in the woods"

[DMVerdandi]

Academic priest+Druid = Biologist. Someone who studies nature in an academic fashion, and happens to because of that study be able to change their biology, and due to the magical nature of DND cast magical spells based on the application of those laws and knowledge of the natural spirit mechanism. All beings are connected to nature, but only those who can understand that through a scientific bent and pursue it can progress in this fashion.

Also summon nature's ally + wild shape + asian weapons = Ninja.
If you want to go all naruto use the summoning variant in the DMG which essentially limits your list to one creature. The Druid ACFs also bring a different flavor that can make the druid more combat effective (Yet far less overall). Dress in black, commune with nature and use elemental powers, summon animals, and transform into them. This is a better ninja than the class.

[ekarney]

Cowboy, wandering through the wild, nothing but his animal companion for company using the forces of the wild your bounties have escaped into against them.

[Ettina]

Another idea I have is an Indiana Jones style druid. An explorer who seeks out lost sacred places and forgotten druid lore, perhaps even animals thought to be extinct. Obviously, these travels take him to places that druids may not normally go, and is a perfect reason for adventuring. After all, adventuring parties have an amazing ability to stumble over lost and forgotten things and places. This character would work well in a world where there's a strong druid organization. Every government need their special agents.

I'm imagining this guy as David Attenborough. "This remarkable creature is what we're looking for."

[ben-zayb]

You could probably champion an element of your choice, a la Druid of the Flame / Wave / Storm / Earth. Use thematic spells and feats to taste.

Heck, just be a power-mad druid conqueror, or an avatar of calamities. After all, what will those who wield swords and spears gonna do against the one who wields EVERYTHING ELSE AROUND instead.

[Alent]

In an evil party campaign, I actually played a NE Gnomish Tinkerer Druid who was hell bent on helping both nature and undeath domesticate man.

We were working on creating the stealth necropolis as a party goal, and our cover ended up being my Druid's vision of an ideal society of nature living in harmony with man where everyone lived in something that looked like the shire or a dwarven mountain hall, tending to and protecting their shadetree overlords. The whole thing ended up being a better front than anyone could have guessed. At one point we even made the "floating forest", a navy of trees we needed to thin out for living space that we had woodshaped into large trimaran ships and awakened as treants, to both serve as a fishing fleet in peacetime and naval vessels in wartime.

The whole thing ended up being this strange twisted utopia, where people lived in beautiful rural landscapes, enjoying their lives to the fullest, kept healthy by druid healers, leaving behind lots of heirs thanks to our actual party leader insisting on implementing blue magic dispensaries, then once dying their final death and sending their souls off to enjoy Arborea, they joined the rank and file of the necropolis army in one of the mountain halls. Eventually we slowly started integrating the undead in as crop workers, acclimating people to the idea that death was just another part of life... only not in the way they were used to thinking of it.

Basically, he ended up a NE Necropolitan Druid hell bent on creating utopia for living and dead, without being a snob about making sure the living died to join the dead- nature did that well enough on its own. His motto ended up being "Make the most of life, make the most of death."

Positively the most unusual druid my table's ever seen.

[Deadline]

I'm fond of the pirate druid. He and his crew prey upon the weak, and the sea is their cruel mistress.

Just because it follows a theme present in nature doesn't mean they can't be "civilized". :smalltongue:

[The Hanged Man]

One of my favorite old characters was a Dwarven Underdark Druid who focused his summoning spells on giant terrifying bugs and worms, and had all kinds of exotic cave fungi growing from his armor and beard. When he found out that the Apocalyptic Cult we were fighting was trying to halt the rotation of the planet, so one side would be scorched to ruin by the sun and the other side would freeze in darkness, his response was "Good. Whole surface is gross anyway. Where do I sign up?" It took some fast talking on the part of the other PCs to convince him that the eradication of all surface life would also profoundly impact his chosen environment. Intelligence was kind of a dump stat.

[daremetoidareyo]

Chaotic neutral druid as and anti-society anarchist: friend of barbarians/enemy of agriculture. A strict believer that nature has been subjugated by the sentient species who then works to undermine the fabric of societies. Maybe dipping into undead usage.

[weckar]

Problem with the Druid is that their core fluff very much reads like a prestige class. Member of an ancient order, secret language and meetings... Not much room for finagling there.
That said, you can do a lot with the flavor of the Druid by picking a non-standard race. Especially an Outsider Druid could make for an interesting story, as they will be confronted with a 'nature' that is not the nature they know. Will they adapt, or bend the world to the image they expect?

[Phelix-Mu]

Problem with the Druid is that their core fluff very much reads like a prestige class. Member of an ancient order, secret language and meetings... Not much room for finagling there.
That said, you can do a lot with the flavor of the Druid by picking a non-standard race. Especially an Outsider Druid could make for an interesting story, as they will be confronted with a 'nature' that is not the nature they know. Will they adapt, or bend the world to the image they expect?

The great thing about druid fluff, however, is that, aside from the specific bit about the language, there isn't much default stuff backing up the whole order. If you go into specific settings or orders of druids, then there are some ramifications, but the bit in the PHB is extraordinarily vague. On par with "you're not the only druid; others have come before." Which is hardly a huge restriction.

The main mechanic is to be neutral in some respect, and aside from massive issues of interpretation of alignment differing from table to table, there is a great deal of territory there. Five out of the nine alignments are neutral in some respect, and true neutral is a big intersection of space. A TN druid needs to undergo two alignment shifts on different axes to lose their powers. Usually, a druid would figure it out before drifting that far, and have time to seek an atonement.

A few archetypes:

- Fertility Druid (potentially NG): Works as a midwife, harvest priest, overseer of marriages, and so forth, encouraging responsible reproduction in sustainable communities and good animal husbandry and crop-rotation/sustainability practices.

- Horde Culler (NE): Member of a race based on conquest and plunder, this druid maintains the natural order by ensuring that the strong survive and the weak perish. The race is seen as a manifestation of nature, and it's destruction emblematic of nature's fury. Orcs would be good (allowing a possible CN version), with the Culler both supporting the destruction of the orc horde, but also moving through the orc ranks and finishing off orcs that are unworthy/injured/cowardly. Also leads hunts, teaches predatory practices, endorses brutality as a show of strength by which the strong make their power known (like the roar of the lion).

- Stone Speaker: The land is an ancient and powerful entity, and the earth itself is the best embodiment of its nigh-timeless and enduring nature. This druid seeks to embody the sturdy and static nature of the land, changing only with glacial speed, a slow and inexorable force hiding great force that can shake the land itself, bringing ruin to the unwary. Probably LN or TN, a good archetype for dwarven druids.

- Plant Advocate: Many races plunder the vegetation with abandon, and treat the voiceless trees and vines as no more alive than the rocks and dirt, exploiting them wastefully or needlessly. The Advocate stands against those forces, and helps the vegetation defend itself. Plant druids (woodlings, that one FR race) make obvious sense, but also killoren, thorns, and dryads.

[eggynack]

- Stone Speaker: The land is an ancient and powerful entity, and the earth itself is the best embodiment of its nigh-timeless and enduring nature. This druid seeks to embody the sturdy and static nature of the land, changing only with glacial speed, a slow and inexorable force hiding great force that can shake the land itself, bringing ruin to the unwary. Probably LN or TN, a good archetype for dwarven druids.

Goliath might be even better if you want to go full on into the archetype, heedless of power concerns. Tons of earth based stuff available to a goliath druid. Dwarfs do get the semi-obscure spell commune with the earth, but it doesn't look like there's anything stopping you from using some form adder, likely either fangshields or a dragon wild shape based alternate form ability.

[Riculf]

I currently play 2 druids, neither of which I view as core:

1 - Hunam Viking Shamanic Warrior using druid as a clerical concept for the Asguardian Pantheon. Likes viking things e.g. to fight/drink/etc

2 - Killoran Druidic Avenger going down the "nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw" path with rage and wildshape.

Neither talk about balance or blah :smallsmile: