Understanding the "Druid" archetype

[CountAile]

First thing of all: THIS IS A FLUFF QUESTION. I don't have any problems with the crunch of the game, and can optimize pretty heavily by myself, if needed. I've got some troubles with the Druid as a concept.

You know, I've been playing DnD for 10 years, or so, and by this time, I've been able to play almost any class and/or race, including some really bizarre or outright alien options... That is, besides the "almighty Druid".

Mechanically, I understand what he is (that is, a cleric-type class with a nature bond, a badass animal companion and an ability to turn into a bear), and I can understand his naturey tree-hugging ways, to a certain extent - but I still don't get what makes this type of characters "tick".

"Well, you know, he loves nature and stuff" KINDA answers that, but it doesn't help much. "Well, if someone burns his trove, he'll travel to the other side of the world and bite that guy's head off" is a bit better, but I'm not really sure that this default druidy background should apply to every druid adventurer ever. And unlike many other classes (including the most problematic ones, like classic paladins), it looks like the class basically defines who the character is.

So, I'm curious - what makes the Druid archetype tick? How can I make an interesting (both for me AND for everyone else) character who, by definition, would like to shut himself in a forest and put a magic desintegrating fence around to keep people away? (and no, "You can turn into a bear, you can cast "Summon Bear" and you have a bear companion mount, how awesome is that?!" is not an answer - I'm looking into how to UNDERSTAND this type of character, and how to make him playable AND interesting). After doing that, I can understand, how to make an awesome/badass character.

[John Longarrow]

The class doesn't. Just like the class 'Fighter' or 'Wizard' doesn't.

The question is what kind of character you WANT to play, and does the mechanics/back story for druid work?

I'll give you an example that may help explain what I mean. As a child, Avard was the classic outcast. Never accepted in his village because he didn't seem to 'fit'. As a hunter, he was respected for his basic knowledge but his enjoyment of causing pain and his thrill of the kill exceeded what most would consider normal. As he grew, Avard devoted himself to the idea of the predator. Not just the hunter, but the top tier predator.

Avard left his village to seek out challenges he considered more appropriate. He gets along with those he considers alpha-predators, but he views most life he meets as prey.

Game mechanics, human druid, alignment NE. Bonus feat was track (goes with survival and high wisdom) to help fill the wilderness skills for the party.
RPing, Avard is casually cruel to those he views as weaker. He adventures not just for loot but for challenges. He will help his party, seeing them as his 'pack'. He relishes wild form and loves tearing into easy to hit enemies. He isn't stupid though. He will retreat from something too strong with the goal of coming back later.

Does this help?

[erok0809]

The druid's bond with nature is just where he gets his magic and animal companion from, the same way a wizard gets his powers from intense study of the arcane, or a cleric gets his from worship of his deity/ideal. It doesn't have to define his motivations for adventuring, just like the other classes' don't. The nature worship could play a part in motivation for actions during certain events, like if someone is burning down forests the druid is more likely to stop adventuring to go take care of that, but for overall motivation for adventuring, it doesn't have to come in at all. The nature magic could just be a tool he uses to be better at doing awesome adventuring stuff.

[CountAile]

2 John Longarrow

I'm... Not sure. I mean, I know that every class is just an "I can do THIS and THIS, but not THAT" with implied background suggestions, but to my understanding, in order to successfully break any rules, you need to learn them first. Like, you know "A classical paladin should act like O'Chul, and SHOULDN'T act like Miko Miyazaki from Order of the Stick". As long as we understand the classical fluff limitations of a particular class, we CAN break them. And when we break them, our fellow players shouldn't say "So wait, your character is a Druid? I thought he was a [some other class]", they should say "Wait, so your character is a Druid? Snap, I should've noticed it sooner!".

In case of a Paladin, in order to make an interesting and playable classical one, we make a calm, rational, not-too-preachy, "show-not-tell" fellow who'll tolerate you as long as your evil deed don't cross the line from "subjective" to "outright" or "comical"
In case of a Druid... I'm not sure. I mean, I have saw only one Druid at the table, and it was an underaged elven girl that happened to still be under training

[Florian]

RP and motivation for a druid can actually be quite simple: They care about the Status Quo and want to preserve it. Nature is always the first thing that suffers when evil happens on a larger scale, so a druid will work on seeking out evil where he can and stop it, along with curbing the excesses of civilization. Chuck in a liberal doses of "Might makes Right" and "Predator or Prey" mentality and you´re good to go.

[John Longarrow]

Ahh, your looking for some fluff actions a druid could be taking. That mostly depends on the druids alignment.

For the 'Classic' good druid, think of a guy who likes to take lots of walks in the woods, does the whole meditates in the glen thing, and who often approaches an injured animal and uses a cure minor or cure light to heal it back up. Same guy will protest clear cutting as being bad for the forest but is alright with responsible logging. No problem with hunting for food but really gets pissed at those who kill for sport.

Think Teddy Roosevelt. Friendly, out going, and very into nature. Just change the big game hunting to monster hunting. Doesn't HATE civilization, just prefers the out doors. Tries to get folks to live in harmony with nature and with each other. Basic good guy.

[(Un)Inspired]

Look at he section titled Ex-Druids on the SRD's druid page.

Druids lose their powers if they 1) stop revering nature 2) stop having a neutral component to their alignment 3) teach the druidic language to a non-druid

Those are pretty lax rules. The language thing is pretty easy. Its just like igning a non-disclosure agreement that certain jobs require in the real world. You get this corner office and the ability to spontaneously can SNA in exchange for not revealing our secret language to anyone.

The alignment thing isn't that big of a deal either.

I think the point that everyone thinks of when trying to create a druid character is the "revering nature" thing. Fortunately that phase has no set definition by RAW. We get to interpret it however we want to.

Although a DM could come up with some weird, restrictive houserules if he wants; you're essentially free to make your druid character whoever you want them to be person-wise.

How does one define the word revere? How does one define the word nature? "To protect" and "the forest" are remarkable small-minded ways to thing of those two words.

Maybe you're druid is someone that feels like the planet is sick and a mercy killing is the only respectful thing they can offer nature.

Maybe they're the magical version of a biologist/chemist/physicist, studying the phenomenon of the natural world and their "reverence" for nature stems from a disinterest in compromising the result of their experiments.

Maybe they're just desperate for power and they know that if they are reverent of nature in any way and keep themselves at least partially neutral they have access to some of the most powerful magic imaginable.


What I'm trying to say is that your druid can really be whatever you want. There are a very, very small list of mostly ignorable rules that your druid must follow but none of them dictate you druid's background, interests or mode of operation.

[Nifft]

Mechanically, I understand what he is (that is, a cleric-type class with a nature bond, a badass animal companion and an ability to turn into a bear), and I can understand his naturey tree-hugging ways, to a certain extent - but I still don't get what makes this type of characters "tick".

"Well, you know, he loves nature and stuff" KINDA answers that, but it doesn't help much.

You may want to go back to an older version of the priest.

NOT a person who submits to the will of an almighty and benevolent creator, but rather someone who knows how to talk to and appease a bunch of petulant jerks with super-powers.

NOT an evangelical apostle seeking converts, but rather a supernatural trouble-shooter.

Nature is not currently thought to be a conscious, benevolent force, so this is a pretty easy transition -- but it works well for Clerics, too, if you want a more sword & sorcery style game.

Anyway, under this reading, the Druid is not a person who "loves nature and stuff". Rather, he's a person who knows nature, and as he levels up he learns how to ask nature for more and more complicated favors.

All that stuff people did to appease spirits and ghosts and faeries and gods -- he does that stuff. He gets Resist Nature's Lure because Fey are often not benevolent, but they're a part of nature, and dealing with nature is his gig.

He's not required to idealize nature. He's not required to see himself as a part of nature. (Nature can be very pretty, though, and he's very comfortable in nature because it's the source of his power, so he might like it quite a bit for ordinary human reasons which aren't particularly religious.)

[CountAile]

Huuuh...
Yeah, I guess (Un)Inspired and Nifft did find the core of the problem. Since the Nature is not a sentient being, but rather a network of connected, living and breathing (and also not really sentient) ecosystems, the problem of nature-worshiping was never really there in the first place. We're basically talking about a bunch of guys who KNOW how to deal with spirits and animals, and show due respect while doing so, which nets them supernatural abilities to both continue their servitude AND pursue their own means if the latter doesn't contradict the former. I guess I was too stuck up with the big picture to see it on an individual level.

Through, to be fair, the rest of replies also helped - like that "Teodor Roosevelt" one 8)

[Seto]

So, I'm curious - what makes the Druid archetype tick? How can I make an interesting (both for me AND for everyone else) character who, by definition, would like to shut himself in a forest and put a magic desintegrating fence around to keep people away?

He doesn't have to. Enjoy the archetype, but fight the stereotype.
A Druid can be, like they were historically, a shepherd of the people and a guardian of their traditional sacred ways. ("Savage" societies have Barbarians instead of Fighters, they could have Druids instead of Clerics.) That's a way to have a Druid with a very important social role.
They can also be a wandering Druid, basically a drifter and adventurer particularly in tune with the natural world they're so eager to explore, and dedicated to protecting its health and beauty.

Also, people always seem to think that a Druid, contrary to most other classes, is defined entirely by their Druidness. But, just as a Fighter can also be educated and politically committed besides being a Fighter, a Druid can have a personal agenda or hobbies on the side.

Finally, an advice that I've given in my TN manual is : do the things another character would do, have the interests they could have (except things obviously contradictory to Druidness), and then put a "nature" spin on it. "Nature" doesn't have to mean "forests". By a broad definition of it, nature is a spontaneous order of the world (unburdened by human constructs). Therefore, slavery is unnatural, so is organized warfare, so is necromancy, etc. Choose causes for your character and tie them to the "nature" theme in that way : it gives them an agenda which makes them functional in an ordinary campaign, even without ever seeing a tree.

[Troacctid]

Think of a green mage in Magic: The Gathering. Nissa Revane and Garruk Wildspeaker are both archetypal druids.

[LTwerewolf]

People make the mistake in thinking that they need to think of druid like they do paladin or cleric. With a paladin, there's a trope as to how they are, how they act, what they do, etc. With clerics, depending on the deity they worship, it gives you an idea of what they stand for and their values and goals. These things however are more based on the god they worship than the class itself. Not so for the druid. The druid is much more like the fighter, where it's a very open slate as to how you go about doing your thing. Let me give some examples. These are examples, not how each of these druids must act.

The first druid is a neutral good druid, that likes to spend his time tending to the wounded, and curing the sick. This druid is akin to a safe haven in the harsh reality of the wild. This is the druid that saves you from a pack of wolves, gives you a place to recover, and sends you on your way, healthy and ready to face the challenges ahead.

The second druid is the lawful neutral druid. Nature works in an orderly chaos, and only this druid truly understands that. They are the wardens of nature, making sure nature always takes its course. They are the watcher, that chronicles life as it goes by, and defends against all that is unnatural, such as undead, fiends, or even celestials that want to interfere with the natural course of things. This is the druid that watches you get run down by a pack of wolves, and watches the wolves feast upon you, for it is not his place to interfere with the course of natural selection. These wolves were the mightier, and they deserve their prey.

The third druid is the neutral evil druid. Nature has its predators and its prey, and this druid is a predator. Just as the lion uses its claws and the shark uses its teeth, this druid uses nature itself as a tool and weapon to catch its prey. They are the mighty apex predators of their land. They are the druid that sent a wolf pack after you for daring to cross into his territory without permission.


All three of these druids are wholly different, and I would argue none of the three would be allies even though they all believe wholeheartedly in the power of nature. There are a lot of archetypes within the druid, and it itself is not an archetype.

[John Longarrow]

Glad you liked Teddy!

Another character from literature that would be perfect as a druid is Gandalf the Grey. Likewise Merlin. Both are good guys but work through the natural world to achieve their ends. Neither is the flashy spell caster but both are willing to mix it up when they must.