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Darkantra
2007-10-15, 12:34 AM
For an upcomming campaign I'm designing I've eliminated druids for plot reasons (and codzilla). Ah, misguided paladins, what won't you do? Story wise, the people of this world have begun to regain their connection to nature, but along a different path.

In that light I though up a variant of the Favored Soul base class that would have heavy druidic elements to it and would fit nicely with the world.

If there already is such a variant somewhere then I'd love to have it pointed out to me, but if not some critique would be perfect.

I don't think that a table is needed for this, so here are the changes.

Skills:
Lose- Knowledge (arcana), Sense Motive, Spellcraft
Gain- Handle Animal, Listen, Spot, Survival

Armor and Weapon Proficiences:
Their proficiencies are the same as a druids.

Languages:
Gain Sylvan as one of their possible bonus languages.

Spells:
Same mechanics as a Favored Soul, but the spells are drawn from the druid spell list

Abilities:
Lose- Deity's weapon focus, deity's weapon specialization, wings and damage reduction.
Gain- Wild Empathy as 1st level, Shapeshift (PH II druid variant class feature) at 1st level, Woodland Stride at 3rd level and Trackless Step at 8th level.

I'm not too sure how much the Shapeshift ability will weigh in on balancing this variant, but if it's too much then one of the energy immunities could be dropped.

JackMage666
2007-10-15, 01:06 AM
I've allowed this, only I did it much simpler - If you picked a nature god (Yndalla, Obad-Hai), you just took Druid Spells insead of Cleric Spells. Not much, but it was simple and made sense.

Darkantra
2007-10-15, 03:19 AM
While I could go for a really simple version, it doesn't really fit with the world I'm designing. To get an idea of what I mean read the bit below (very compressed from main body of text).

In the continent I've designed the now decimated druids turned away from the gods of nature in centuries past. A few still worshipped Obad-Hai and Ehlonna but the majority turned away from organized religion and drew their power straight from nature itself. Without the gods to temper them towards the rest of the world the druidic circles felt nature's pain too keenly whenever a forest was cut down and whenever another species was eliminated.

A coven of druids calling themselves the Shadow Maw insinuated themselves into positions of leadership amongst the many circles and pushed for the untamed world to strike back at civilization. In time they succeeded and the fury of the circles was felt across all of the continent. Clerics of Ehlonna and Obad-Hai quickly fought against the Shadow Maw, helped by the few circles that had ecaped their influence.

But as the war passed every druid, regardless of their alliances or views, was targeted. Once the last of the Shadow Maw was wiped from the innermost circle the surviving druids were put to death or banished out to sea, over the protests of the nature clerics.

Over time memories of the war faded and nature's power began to creep back into a select few people, but in a very different way than before.



I've gone over the idea of the class with my players and they liked it, one of them is thinking of playing this variant class. All comments and critiques are welcome but mainly I want to know it this works, or if I've codzilla'd it.

Nu
2007-10-15, 03:35 AM
I think it should work fine, but personally I'd never play a druid without an animal companion. I love that aspect of the class. Damn shapeshifter variant is too common, I know wild shape is broken, but don't take away the animal companion too!

At any rate, there is a variant spontaneously casting druid on the online SRD, and it gets a free Summon Nature's Ally of the appropriate spell level each day(like a domain spell), so maybe that'd be something to give it?