Mechanics for Druid Groves?

[Palanan]

Are there any mechanics for druids and their groves? In particular, are there any benefits for a druid keeping a grove?

I vaguely recall something involving spells cast into trees, which could then be recalled later, but it seemed very clunky and unimaginative. Are there other benefits to a druid’s grove? I’m open to suggestions from any official 3.5 and Pathfinder sources.

[ATHATH]

Maybe adapt node/nodal magic to be Druid-themed?

[Palanan]

I'm mainly wondering if there are any published mechanics for a druid maintaining a grove. I could've sworn I saw something, somewhere, but can't work out where.

I'd think that somewhere in all of 3.0, 3.5, Dragon mag and Pathfinder there'd be something on this.

.

[Divayth Fyr]

I don't think there was an official mechanic for druid groves, though there were some 3rd party books that dealt with the matter (Quintessential Druid IIRC being one of them).

[Psyren]

DMG2 has rules for Magical Locations. I would make a druid grove be one of them.

[Thurbane]

Not that it really adds much mechanically, but the 3.0 web enhancement for Masters of the Wild (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20020203a) contains a sample Druid's Grove...

The web enhancement for Magic of Faerun (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20010810a) also has a sample grove.

[ATHATH]

According to eggynack's Druid handbook, there's a spell called Druid Grove in Masters of the Wild that lets you cast spells into trees for later use.

Was that the spell that you had vaguely recalled?

[Coidzor]

Pathfinder has Blinds as things that can be built to obscure things on one side of them and the Arboreal Add-On to rooms so that they can be built in or on trees as part of the Downtime subsystem.

There's a few rooms that add benefits to casting certain spells, like scrying chambers and summoning rooms.

[haplot]

In DMG2 (I think) there are mechanics for a grove and pathfinder magic books theres rules for stone circles. They can I think be used together.

I think the druid has to use a specific ritual called create grove or create stone circle. You can only have one active for every ten levels.

Creating a grove grants a +2 bonus to any action or +2 spell level cast within the grove. Magic circles grant a free spell per day dependent on the size of the magic circle, but the side effect of both of these you have to be the same religion as the person who made them.

Druids when they use their knowledge nature ability may double the range while in a grove or a circle.

Away from the books at the moment so cannot give page references sorry.

[JyP]

in one campaign, I used Rune Circles from Races of Stone - using menhir and stone circles for druids instead. You could also use this mechanism for druid groves.

[Darrin]

Also in Masters of the Wild, there are Standing Stones, which are magic items similar to metamagic rods. When touching the stone, you can Maximize, Enlarge, and Extend a chosen spell. I think there was a thread where we looked at the pricing on these things, and there are some corner-cases where the stones are cheaper than metamagic rods, but there are... portability issues.

Presumably there are existing stone circles set up with the appropriate standing stone already linked to a particular spell, so a druid missing the metamagic mojo for a particular spell could make a Knowledge: Arcana roll to see if a particular stone was within walking distance.

[Bullet06320]

dragon 297 you can build Stonehenge, its epic tho, but does refer to the masters of the wild material

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
DMG2 has rules for Magical Locations. I would make a druid grove be one of them.

Okay, thanks. Do you know if Pathfinder has anything similar? And if Ultimate Wilderness will be including anything along these lines?


Originally Posted by Thurbane
Not that it really adds much mechanically, but the 3.0 web enhancement for Masters of the Wild contains a sample Druid's Grove...

The web enhancement for Magic of Faerun also has a sample grove.

Very helpful, thanks. I don’t think I’d seen those before.


Originally Posted by ATHATH
According to eggynack's Druid handbook, there's a spell called Druid Grove in Masters of the Wild that lets you cast spells into trees for later use.

Was that the spell that you had vaguely recalled?

It is indeed, and it’s even worse than I’d remembered.

It essentially makes trees into scrolls—except you can’t carry them with you, and the trees only hold their spells for one day per caster level, which is ridiculous. I can’t think of a practical use for tree-spells given those limitations, apart from a couple extremely niche applications—which could just be done with scrolls.


Originally Posted by Darrin
Also in Masters of the Wild, there are Standing Stones, which are magic items similar to metamagic rods. When touching the stone, you can Maximize, Enlarge, and Extend a chosen spell. I think there was a thread where we looked at the pricing on these things, and there are some corner-cases where the stones are cheaper than metamagic rods, but there are... portability issues.

Yeah, same as the trees.

One thing I’m wondering is if there’s a way to combine the standing stones with the Master of the Yuirwood from Unapproachable East. That’s an extremely setting-specific PrC, and it requires a network of stone circles to activate as portals, but there’s got to be some clever synergy that’s possible.

[Psyren]

Okay, thanks. Do you know if Pathfinder has anything similar? And if Ultimate Wilderness will be including anything along these lines?

Unfortunately, I'm unaware of anything first-party and don't know what UW will contain. But you should be able to port the rules in easily.