Druid Spellcasting for noobs?

[Jarmen4u]

Hello AD&D side of gitp, I'm a 3.5 d&D player who recently joined a campaign running a weird homebrew setup in that all spells/spellcasting will be using 2nd ed AD&D rules (presumably because both DMs are older and more familiar/partial towards this system). Can someone point me to some resources/give some explanations as to what I should expect? Also, as far as I can tell, it's core only, so no complete druid handbook. That might be incorrect though.

Anyway, thanks in advance! Before it's inevitably mentioned, there are a lot of players and the DMs seem busy with work so they're not very responsive to questions, and the session is tonight so I was just looking for some quick answers!

[Segrain]

In AD&D 2, Druid is a class of Priest group and follow the same spellcasting rules as any other priest of specific mythos. Some of them stay the same in 3.5: Druid receives spell slots just like generic Cleric or any other priest per table 24 in PHB plus bonus spells for high Wisdom per table 5.
The key difference is, there is no specifically stated "Druid spell list". Instead, in Second Edition there is one big list of Priest spells, and they are divided into so called "spheres of influence". Each spell belongs to at least one sphere, possibly more; priests can cast particular spell if their class grants sufficient access to at least one of its spheres, effectively forming their specific spelllist as a subset of all divine spells. Druids in particular have major access to the spheres of all, animal, elemental, healing, plant, and weather, and minor access to divination sphere. Having major access means that they can cast any spell belonging to those spheres; having minor access means that they can cast spells of third level or lower.
Those rules are explained in PHB; Complete Priest's Handbook provides additional rules for creating custom priest classes and gives premade examples, and Complete Druid's Handbook includes several new spells for Druids, but the main system is core.

[LibraryOgre]

One big part that they may or may not include: Spell recovery.

3.x has all spell recovery be a matter of an hour sometime in the day (depending on your clerical order). Spell recovery in 2e was a LOT slower, meaning you had to be a lot more conservative with your spells. While it might be worth it to drop all your spells in a given fight, a higher-level druid could take days of prayer to recover all of those spells.

[Lord Torath]

Each spell also has a casting time which is added to your initiative to determine when your spell goes off. In general, if you get hit before you cast your spell, the spell fizzles. Material components also may be used.

Good luck, and have fun!

[SiuiS]

Spells are basically "domain only". You get full access to some domains and partial access to others. There is no general Druid list (or cleric list for that matter). All divine spells are divied up into spheres.

Oh hahaha. My reading comp is terrible, someone covered it.
Sorry. ^^•

[LibraryOgre]

Spells are basically "domain only". You get full access to some domains and partial access to others. There is no general Druid list (or cleric list for that matter). All divine spells are divied up into spheres.


That said, it is not a bad idea at all to make your own, personalized, spell list. "Ok, I can cast 1st and 2nd level spells. Here's a list of all the spells that are on the priest list that I can cast as 1st and 2nd level spells." You might even borrow from the 3.x style, and make a one-line description of every spell... or a quick spreadsheet with useful columns (like casting time, duration, and a brief effect description).

It lets you quick-reference your spells for memorization.

You might also ask what version they're using; Spells and Magic made some pretty big changes to the Druid spheres, and what was included in them (IIRC, Reincarnation became an Animal sphere spell, one spell was moved from Divination to Elemental Water, and druids were generally brought more in line with their 1e spell lists).

[Lord Torath]

That said, it is not a bad idea at all to make your own, personalized, spell list. "Ok, I can cast 1st and 2nd level spells. Here's a list of all the spells that are on the priest list that I can cast as 1st and 2nd level spells." You might even borrow from the 3.x style, and make a one-line description of every spell... or a quick spreadsheet with useful columns (like casting time, duration, and a brief effect description).

It lets you quick-reference your spells for memorization.

You might also ask what version they're using; Spells and Magic made some pretty big changes to the Druid spheres, and what was included in them (IIRC, Reincarnation became an Animal sphere spell, one spell was moved from Divination to Elemental Water, and druids were generally brought more in line with their 1e spell lists).I've done this for clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers. And again for the Dark Sun classes. It's a bit of work at first, but it pays off very quickly.

[hamlet]

That is excellent advice indeed.

Speeds up play by reducing look up time.

Keep in mind, though, that if the game is heavily house ruled, then much of this advice should be taken with a sizeable grain of salt.

[Digitalelf]

You might even borrow from the 3.x style, and make a one-line description of every spell... or a quick spreadsheet with useful columns (like casting time, duration, and a brief effect description).

It lets you quick-reference your spells for memorization.

The Core Rules CD-ROM does this for the most part. The only thing it does not provide, is a brief description of each spell, but it does list all of the spells available to the character, along with casting times, ranges, Areas of effect, and components; prints that information right on the character sheet.

It's a 2nd edition AD&D tool, well worth having IMO.

[SiuiS]

Remember also this is 3.x game. It only uses the spheres and such, as far as we know. The spells themselves may still be the PHB standard.

[Iannick]

This is more for all casters than just Druids.
I have read much ado regarding spell casting and recovery, and as with most posts regarding the "rules" people fail to take into consideration the one rule that rules them all. Rule 0!
All rules for AD&D from 1st ed to 5th are "guidelines" on how to play. It is the DMs responsibility to adjust to his/her own gaming style as well as to their players style.
If a rule doesn't work then change it.

By the older rules, it can take a druid forever to recover spent spells and MUs require a full nights rest as well as the time it takes to re-memorize the spells. A lot of my players and myself have always thought that spell casters were under powered. Just how useful is a mage that can memorize 1 spell and only cast it once? We came up with a solution back in the late 70s and early 80s. Simply take the # of languages for Int score and divide by 2(rounding up) and that's how many times a spell caster can use each memorized spell before needing to re-memorize it. This makes your spell caster a decent force in the party. There are no restrictions for how many times a Fighter can swing his sword or a thief to use his pick pockets. Makes no sense to limit spell casters, especially when most spells have a saving throw against them.

Fortran a 4th lvl 1/2 Elf Thief/Mage has an Int of 16.
This gives him 5 extra languages he can learn.
Divide 5 by 2 and round up, Fortran can cast his Magic Missile spell 3 times before he must memorize it again.

It can be argued that this makes high level spell casters OPed. IMHO high lvl spell casters should be nasty powerful.

As for recovery of spells, we use the Wis bonus to adjust recovery time.
We take the MDA from Wis and multiply by spell lvl then subtract from time to memorize.
MUs recover spells at 10mins per lvl.

Fortran has a 15 Wis, MDA +1/lvl, so a 3rd lvl spell would take 30 mins to memorize, -3 from adjusted MDA makes that 27 mins.
This adjustment is more powerful for Clerics and Druids who have high Wis.

And finally repetitive use of spells.

How many times does it take for the average person doing a repetitive task to be able to do so without thinking about it?
Personally, I worked in a sawmill on a twin resaw for 5 years. after a few weeks I didn't need to look at the buttons to know which were which, and after a year or so I could send my brain on an epic adventure while working and still do my job very effectively.
So why can't a spell caster be able to use a spell without needing to memorize it?
We took the "Chance to learn spell" Int Adjustment, divide by 3 and add 5% for every level above when PC was able to get spell.
ie.
1st lvl spell +5% starting at 2nd lvl.
9th lvl spell +5% starting at 19th lvl.

When a spell user gains a new spell level he can roll on lesser spells to determine if he can retain spell permanently.

Again we use Fortran with an Int of 16.
His Chance to learn a spell is 70% divide by 3 = 23.3 or 23%
@ 3rd lvl he can now cast 2nd lvl spells and he now has a 33% chance to permanently memorize 1st lvl spells.
He rolls for each spell he has used 10 or more times.
He also gains an extra 5% chance for every full 10 times he has used that spell above the initial 10 times.
ie.
Fortran has used his Magic Mouth spell 7 times, it does not qualify for a roll; however, he has used Magic missile 23 times. The first 10 uses qualifies for a roll and the next 10 times adds +5%, but the next 3 uses does not qualify for another +5%.
Fortran now has a 38% chance to learn Magic missile permanently. He rolls a 43%, better luck next time.
Fortran also gets a roll for using Sleep 12 times. He needs 33%, he rolls a 11% success! He no longer needs to study his sleep spell.

Too bad this rule won't work for U'latec, the parties Cleric. He needs to pray to the whim of his god to gain spells.
Or as DM(god) you could determine that your priest has been a good little toddy and give him a Gods whim roll.

Just remember as DM, you are God. If you want to make a change that makes sense then do so.
Rules are made to be bent and broken if need be.

Stop tearing yourself apart trying to find a specific rule that may not exist, creation and imagination are the bread and butter to a great DM.

Lets have fun out there.