PDA

View Full Version : Random thoughts on druids..



Monsterpoodle
2020-03-17, 05:14 PM
I love druids. IMVHO they are one of the best realised classes in the PHB. I think that people get them wrong though when playing them..

1. Druids don't have to be stoners or hippies! In fact if you look at them you can see that they have a capacity for violence, especially when buffed with a little magic. They are called "protectors of the wild" not "shroom taking glazed observers of the wild".

2. Druids CAN be all about the gold pieces. Druids have high wisdom. They know that the best way to protect their favourite part of nature is to buy it. They can havevcraft skills or professions. Also, that neutral alignment means they can potentially be pretty mercenary... Maybe even literally be mercenaries.

3. Druids don't have to be good guys. Nature is the lion disembowelling the wildebeest while still alive, or eating babies, parasitic wasps that lay eggs and eat their prey from the inside. Druids can be nasty, vicious and petty. {Scrubbed}

4. Druids seem to be humano-centric. Why? Humans chop down forests, dam rivers, convert wilderness into farmland and kill things they don't eat. The bestial races tend to be nomadic, and eat what they kill (including your party members).. Much more in tune with the environment.

5. Why do you never hear of druids maintaining the balance and taking out high level paladins and other powerful forces for good. If evil is more destructive I get that but for me personally I would be more concerned about the lumber camp than the raiding orcs. If orcs kill and eat some humans bon apetit, just leave my woods the hell alone.

6. Druids don't have to be ignorant of society or uncultured. They can read and study. You aren't born a druid. I am sure that some druids fled city life for a simpler existence. They can be aware of taxes, laws, trade deals, spies, how to use a coffee grinder or a flush toilet. Anyone with a high wisdom I think would be smart enough to have as many spies, saboteurs and informants as possible. Even a 3rd level druid with 'produce flame' , 'warp wood' and 'soften earth and stone' could mess with a cities infrastructure. They might even be smart enough to influence key officials.

I also understand that druids might be smart enough to spread the rumour that druids are a bunch of harmless nutters wandering about in the woods wearing bark underpants.

I think that druids have the potential to be major players but don't. Maybe I need to read more novels involving druids.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

Berenger
2020-03-17, 06:05 PM
{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

{Scrubbed}

LordCdrMilitant
2020-03-17, 06:14 PM
I like to present druid NPC's in my games as filling advisory roles like telling farmers when to plant their crops or designing the road so it doesn't turn into I405 or preparing the environmental damage mitigation procedure at a construction site. Being civil, agricultural, etc. engineers and urban planners are things that people who are in tune with and understand the harmony of the world could do that are good. They don't have to be fantasy-ELF villians.

Anonymouswizard
2020-03-17, 06:48 PM
{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

{Scrubbed} I've never liked the Druid class for that reason, I'd prefer a dedicated shapeshifter class.

Like, if I do have druidNPCs in D&D they won't use the class, and if I do in other games they tend to be built as priests who go around learning the secrets of nature (including science), if I'm using 'divine magic' they're allowed to learn spells based on the natural world, kinetic force, and energy flow (the opposite to necromancers who get spirit and divination magic).

Draconi Redfir
2020-03-17, 09:54 PM
Someday i'd like to make an "Urban Druid", a druid who lives in the back-alley dumpsters of a big city and communes with the rats, feral cats, and stray dogs, boasting about what a fragile ecosystem it all is.

i imagine they'd be pretty crazy. and look somewhat like the Dumpster Hag (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/59XOIqnqvVo/hqdefault.jpg) from Kinderguarden 2.

figure that ought to break some of the stereotypes right? :smallbiggrin: would probably be totally lost in any place that's not at least 90% man-made.

Kaptin Keen
2020-03-18, 03:02 AM
I've built an entire campaign setting around the premise that druids are taking no crap from anybody, and when 'civilisation' get's too full of itself and starts expanding - settling new cities, cutting down forests or the like - they masterfully manipulate 'the wild' into beating primarily the humans into submission.

As a result, the world has only three major cities.

And since the druids themselves are never visibly a part of all this, civilisation by and large have no clue.

Oh, and by 'the wild' I mean all manner of beasts - but perhaps more importantly, all the races that oppose civilisation, mainly by being uncivilised: Gnolls, ogres, centaur, wemics .. and so on.

I must admit, I love my personal take on druids. In their way they're remarkably dark, instigating wars with many thousands dead on both sides - goading tribes that get too strong to attack human cities, so that they, too, are kept in check.

And all the while, they dwell in their pristine, beautiful glades, happily basking in the sun, smoking their favourite weed, petting squirrels and singing with the birds.

Monsterpoodle
2020-03-18, 03:13 AM
Heh heh heh... Now we're talking.

Saint-Just
2020-03-18, 04:19 AM
Someday i'd like to make an "Urban Druid", a druid who lives in the back-alley dumpsters of a big city and communes with the rats, feral cats, and stray dogs, boasting about what a fragile ecosystem it all is.

i imagine they'd be pretty crazy. and look somewhat like the Dumpster Hag (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/59XOIqnqvVo/hqdefault.jpg) from Kinderguarden 2.

figure that ought to break some of the stereotypes right? :smallbiggrin: would probably be totally lost in any place that's not at least 90% man-made.

Surprisingly there is an official variant class called "Urban Druid". It's from Dragon Compendium

King of Nowhere
2020-03-18, 09:09 AM
I like to present druid NPC's in my games as filling advisory roles like telling farmers when to plant their crops or designing the road so it doesn't turn into I405 or preparing the environmental damage mitigation procedure at a construction site. Being civil, agricultural, etc. engineers and urban planners are things that people who are in tune with and understand the harmony of the world could do that are good. They don't have to be fantasy-ELF villians.

nice take, i may import that into my world


I've built an entire campaign setting around the premise that druids are taking no crap from anybody, and when 'civilisation' get's too full of itself and starts expanding - settling new cities, cutting down forests or the like - they masterfully manipulate 'the wild' into beating primarily the humans into submission.

As a result, the world has only three major cities.

And since the druids themselves are never visibly a part of all this, civilisation by and large have no clue.

Oh, and by 'the wild' I mean all manner of beasts - but perhaps more importantly, all the races that oppose civilisation, mainly by being uncivilised: Gnolls, ogres, centaur, wemics .. and so on.

I must admit, I love my personal take on druids. In their way they're remarkably dark, instigating wars with many thousands dead on both sides - goading tribes that get too strong to attack human cities, so that they, too, are kept in check.

And all the while, they dwell in their pristine, beautiful glades, happily basking in the sun, smoking their favourite weed, petting squirrels and singing with the birds.

those... look like some horrible sociopath villains. causing wars that kill millions just to preserve some trees.
is there none of the younger initiates who tried to defect once they learned what their elders were doing?

may i also suggest they spread epidemics? hystorically, disease has killed many more people than warfare, it would be a very efficient way to keep someone's population and power in check.

Malphegor
2020-03-18, 11:39 AM
Surprisingly there is an official variant class called "Urban Druid". It's from Dragon Compendium

They're rad. No other class gives you such easy access to the ability to full on bippedy boppedy boo yourself into a animated carriage at such a low level.

Kaptin Keen
2020-03-18, 11:49 AM
those... look like some horrible sociopath villains. causing wars that kill millions just to preserve some trees.
is there none of the younger initiates who tried to defect once they learned what their elders were doing?

may i also suggest they spread epidemics? hystorically, disease has killed many more people than warfare, it would be a very efficient way to keep someone's population and power in check.

Glad you like them :p

I didn't say millions - I said thousands. So the scale is 1/1000 of what you seem to suggest. Still, they're quite uncompromising. It's simple: They consider civilisation an Evil that's eroding the Good of untrammeled nature. Civilisation is a cancer that will spread unrestricted unless kept in check. Sort of what has happened here in the real world. I'm not a climate buff, but unless population growth and consumption stops, we will strangle the globe - eventually. It's exponential growth against finite ressources - there really isn't one outcome.

So yes, they can be considered evil - or they can be considered willing to defend what they love against a spreading danger. I just love them as an unknown force. No player has ever questioned what's behind Nature's ability to resist civilisation, that in itself is highly satisfying.

vasilidor
2020-03-18, 02:12 PM
I've built an entire campaign setting around the premise that druids are taking no crap from anybody, and when 'civilisation' get's too full of itself and starts expanding - settling new cities, cutting down forests or the like - they masterfully manipulate 'the wild' into beating primarily the humans into submission.

As a result, the world has only three major cities.

And since the druids themselves are never visibly a part of all this, civilisation by and large have no clue.

Oh, and by 'the wild' I mean all manner of beasts - but perhaps more importantly, all the races that oppose civilisation, mainly by being uncivilised: Gnolls, ogres, centaur, wemics .. and so on.

I must admit, I love my personal take on druids. In their way they're remarkably dark, instigating wars with many thousands dead on both sides - goading tribes that get too strong to attack human cities, so that they, too, are kept in check.

And all the while, they dwell in their pristine, beautiful glades, happily basking in the sun, smoking their favourite weed, petting squirrels and singing with the birds.
You realise that those uncivilised forces can be just as damaging as the civilised folk. It should be noted that building civilizations is part of natural human behavior.

Kaptin Keen
2020-03-18, 02:23 PM
You realise that those uncivilised forces can be just as damaging as the civilised folk. It should be noted that building civilizations is part of natural human behavior.

Yes of course. Can be. Also - can they really? Frankly, lacking civilisation, they rarely get numerous enough to cause the problems humans generally do.

But sure ... they can =)

Maat Mons
2020-03-18, 03:37 PM
I'll have to disagree with Druid being the "best-realized class." I'd actually call it out as a prime example of bad class design.

In a multiplayer, class-based game, choosing your class is supposed to be choosing your roll in the party. And if you pick "all of the rolls," you're not supposed to be as good at any of them as a dedicated specialist.

Druid is a Marry-Sue class.

2D8HP
2020-03-18, 10:40 PM
I love druids. IMVHO they are one of the best realised classes in the PHB[...]


Eh, I'd prefer it if Druids had remained "Monsters"
DRUIDS: These men are priests of a neutral-type religion, and as such they differ in armor class and hit dice, as well as in movement capability, and are combination clerics/magic-users. Magic-use ranges from 5th through 7th level, while clericism ranges from 7th through 9th level. Druids may change shape three times per day, once each to any reptile, bird and animal respectively, from size as small as a raven to as large as a small bear. They will generally (70%) be accompanied by numbers of barbaric followers (fighters), with a few higher-level leaders (2-5 fighters of 2nd-5th levels) and a body of normal men (20-50).


Maybe more like how @Anonymouswizard suggests
{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} I've never liked the Druid class for that reason, I'd prefer a dedicated shapeshifter class.

Like, if I do have druidNPCs in D&D they won't use the class, and if I do in other games they tend to be built as priests who go around learning the secrets of nature (including science), if I'm using 'divine magic' they're allowed to learn spells based on the natural world, kinetic force, and energy flow (the opposite to necromancers who get spirit and divination magic).

Seems more proper than standard modern D&D, though come to think of it, from the ground up I'd have no PC's with spell-casting abilities beyond The Grey Mouser's in Leiber's tales, certainly no Gandalf's, or Ged's, and most definitely no Doctor Strange's!

Much more Call of Cthulu and less Exalted if you get my drift.

Maat Mons
2020-03-18, 10:55 PM
I just realized this thread isn't in the 3.5 subforum. If you were talking about the 5e Druid, my earlier comments might not apply. (I haven't taken more than a passing glance at the 5e Druid.)

Anonymouswizard
2020-03-19, 03:35 AM
I just realized this thread isn't in the 3.5 subforum. If you were talking about the 5e Druid, my earlier comments might not apply. (I haven't taken more than a passing glance at the 5e Druid.)

It's the 3e Druid toned down, no longer CoDzilla (unless they turn into a giant fish), still as mishmashy.

Saint-Just
2020-03-19, 05:25 AM
It's the 3e Druid toned down, no longer CoDzilla (unless they turn into a giant fish), still as mishmashy.

I am getting the impression that outside of 4e subforum everyone pretends that 4e did not exist.

Logosloki
2020-03-19, 05:56 AM
I am getting the impression that outside of 4e subforum everyone pretends that 4e did not exist.

A little of column A and a little of column B. Column B being a disparate group of people who haven't ever played or heard of 4e and have no point of reference on it (but unlike column A don't pretend it doesn't exist nor disparage it). Like they know it exists but since nobody talks about it nor does column B play it they don't know anything about it other than it is old (for a given value of old).

For example I wasn't playing tabletops at the time 4e was coming out but was around for memes about it so I know a little about the mechanics (which I grabbed from reading between the lines of the ire). So aside from playing a mobile game that had a modified version of the rules for all of two days I don't really know much about the classes nor any 4e lore that could be added to this discussion. However if there are people who were invested in 4e then the perspective of a 4e druid would be handy.

Anonymouswizard
2020-03-19, 08:07 AM
I am getting the impression that outside of 4e subforum everyone pretends that 4e did not exist.

A) I was referring to somebody specifically mentioning the 3e and 5e druids
B) I never owned the Player's Handbook 2
C) The 4e Druid is a comparatively well designed class, with it having essentially had it's elements split to a greater or lesser extent among all the primal classes
D) All of the above

I very much like 4e in theory, I just don't like how it's designed to require more than your sheet or your mind. For complex fantasy gaming I'll play GURPS, Fantasy HERO, or The Dark Eye instead.

Kelb_Panthera
2020-03-19, 11:24 AM
I love druids. IMVHO they are one of the best realised classes in the PHB.

Coming at this from a 3e perspective, just to be clear.

Druids are pretty cool. I don't know about "best realized class" in any context but they're definitely much more distinctly what they are than anything in the PHB but paladins.


I think that people get them wrong though when playing them..

That's simply not possible. They may be played in a way you don't agree with but that's not "wrong." Judging by your complaints (getting to that), the thing you don't like is people clinging too hard to the cliches in some places and failing to do so in others. That's a pure taste thing.


1. Druids don't have to be stoners or hippies! In fact if you look at them you can see that they have a capacity for violence, especially when buffed with a little magic. They are called "protectors of the wild" not "shroom taking glazed observers of the wild".

The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. I've know some dudes IRL that are all about peace and love and "smoke that green" right up until the idea of the things they love being threatened comes up. Then they turn into mafiosos and street thugs like somebody flipped a switch. I don't see a problem with a druid being played like that at all.

As an alternative though, they could easily be played a militant, border-line ecoterrorists; organized, driven, and constantly on guard against what they see as the enemy, whatever it may be.


2. Druids CAN be all about the gold pieces. Druids have high wisdom. They know that the best way to protect their favourite part of nature is to buy it. They can havevcraft skills or professions. Also, that neutral alignment means they can potentially be pretty mercenary... Maybe even literally be mercenaries.

You're absolutely right. Being a guardian of nature doesn't have to take up your entire life, 24/7 either. The cliche of being detached from trade and commerce, those being major trappings of the civilization that is antithetical to nature*, is certainly a fitting one but there's nothing wrong with choosing to eschew it. As you say, having proper rights of ownership over a territory can make defending it much easier with civilization standing at your back rather than standing against you. Even something as simple as having an appreciation for finery in your small, woodland mansion with the moss coated dirt floors and live tree support timbers can easily justify a more mercenary attitude with how you use nature's might.


3. Druids don't have to be good guys. Nature is the lion disembowelling the wildebeest while still alive, or eating babies, parasitic wasps that lay eggs and eat their prey from the inside. Druids can be nasty, vicious and petty. {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I think this one is more of a gamism than anything to do with the druid in particular. A lot of groups have the PCs as the heroes and the druid doesn't exactly lend itelf to NPC use. As a consequence you see more heroic druids than villainous ones even though they should be roughly equal in number within the game world.

That said, nature itself can be quite cruel. There's no reason that shouldn't be represented amongst druids. Such druids would loudly espouse the idea of survival of the fittest and emphasize the importance of the role of death and destruction as the first step to renewal in the never ending cycle that moves nature forward. Such a druid would likely see himself as a predator with the rest of the world being potential prey.


4. Druids seem to be humano-centric. Why? Humans chop down forests, dam rivers, convert wilderness into farmland and kill things they don't eat. The bestial races tend to be nomadic, and eat what they kill (including your party members).. Much more in tune with the environment.

It's not druids. It's -humans- that are humanocentric. This can reasonably be extended to most sapient races in a fantasy setting. Everyone, druids included, have their family, their friends, and a whole host of other relationships that they grew up with and still value as a social creature. For a druid, that sometimes comes into conflict with their ideas for what nature is* and how it should be maintained and protected.


5. Why do you never hear of druids maintaining the balance and taking out high level paladins and other powerful forces for good. If evil is more destructive I get that but for me personally I would be more concerned about the lumber camp than the raiding orcs. If orcs kill and eat some humans bon apetit, just leave my woods the hell alone.

This was never a druid thing. It used to be a thing about neutral characters and druids were often or always neutral in earlier editions so there was significant overlap. Being a druid is all about being in tune with the primal magic of nature.

Nature doesn't give a damn about the balance of aligned forces except in that any one of them getting too powerful -may- threaten nature in a broad sense. Good characters, particluarly something like a paladin, rarely represent such a danger and the sapient, social aspect of any druid must certainly recognize that making enemies of the forces of good as well as evil, which is a threat to nature far more often, can very quickly lead to druids seeing enemies in every quarter of every situation. Pittiing all men against you is no way to win the war between man and nature. Let the good dogs lie so that they can help to guard against the evil when its necessary. If they strike out too far and start to threaten nature and all diplomatic avenues for stopping them fail then it is, of course, appropriate to go to war against even crusading Heironian paladins and clerics.


6. Druids don't have to be ignorant of society or uncultured. They can read and study. You aren't born a druid. I am sure that some druids fled city life for a simpler existence. They can be aware of taxes, laws, trade deals, spies, how to use a coffee grinder or a flush toilet. Anyone with a high wisdom I think would be smart enough to have as many spies, saboteurs and informants as possible. Even a 3rd level druid with 'produce flame' , 'warp wood' and 'soften earth and stone' could mess with a cities infrastructure. They might even be smart enough to influence key officials.

Not only do they not have to be ignorant of the ways of high society and civilization they can even be an involved part of it.

__________________________________________________ __

*The presumed dichotomy between civilization and nature doesn't necessarily exist. There are creatures in nature that build their own homes and bend their environment around them and there are myriad social and even hyper-social creatures as well. The humanoid races merely combine these traits in such a way as to make much larger impacts on the world around them than other creatures. The probelms don't necessarily arise from the mere existence of civiliation but from some of its worst excessses.

Wild fires occur in nature, completely absent of any human input, and it plays a major role in the cycle of death, destruction, and renewal that keeps the forest healthy. Elephants and beavers knock down trees regularly either for merely being in the way or to make dens and dams. The problem with the humanoids is that they will slash and burn in a way that simply -removes- the forest so that they can replace it with crops and domestic beasts that are fecund well beyond what they should be.

Species in nature have to compete with one another for survival, ensuring that only the strongest species flourish and allowing nature's power to grow. The species that man (and other humanoids in fantasy) have taken sway over and bred into something altogether different from what they started with usually become something altogether incapable of surviving on their own in nature and yet exist in numbers that are far more massive than they ever would have been able to reach on their own. This -can- be said to be unnatural, even though it's achieved through natural processes.

Finally, there are -many- processes that men use to create powerful and useful tools that allow them to flourish whose biproducts cause horrific, irreversible destruction to -any- life they come into contact with.

The problem is not that man causes death and destruction or that they expand into new territory but that they cause -massive amounts- of death and destruction, well beyond what is acceptable to the natural order and then fill the void they create with creatures that should not be.

King of Nowhere
2020-03-19, 06:25 PM
well, now i know what the druids will be doing if i ever put forth my plan for an industrial age campaign: giving away condoms!
in the end it's much better - both as morally acceptable, and less likely to make someone really mad at you, and less likely that someone will try to fix the problem - to keep natality low than to keep mortality high.

Kelb_Panthera
2020-03-20, 07:00 AM
well, now i know what the druids will be doing if i ever put forth my plan for an industrial age campaign: giving away condoms!
in the end it's much better - both as morally acceptable, and less likely to make someone really mad at you, and less likely that someone will try to fix the problem - to keep natality low than to keep mortality high.

I love it. I also instantly thought of the potential conflict with fertility goddesses. I'm stealing this and having a conflict between the druids and the church of Sune FIrehair.

FaerieGodfather
2020-03-20, 08:42 AM
I support the violent opposition between Druids and intelligent creatures of the Aberration type as a driving feature of a setting.

But I also support individual characters crossing those battle-lines... because there is nothing outside Nature. Aberrant life is still life and if its biology follows different rules than terrestrial life.. those rules are aspects of Nature that conventional Druids have yet to explore or understand.

Arcane Hierophant is an excellent entry to Fleshwarper.

Tanarii
2020-03-20, 08:44 AM
Also, that neutral alignment means they can potentially be pretty mercenary... Maybe even literally be mercenaries.
"that neutral alignment" hasn't been a thing ten years now.

Martin Greywolf
2020-03-26, 02:38 PM
{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

{Scrubbed}

TTRPG druids are much closer to {Scrubbed} hermits, living in caves away from civilization for religious reasons, only with some enviromentalism tacked on. This is not a bad idea by itself, but calling these folks druids is slightly confusing, {Scrubbed} a better name would perhaps be hermit.

Mechalich
2020-03-26, 07:14 PM
{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}


{Scrubbed}

D&D and similar games wants the 'druid' to be something considerably broader. In general the druid class has long been used to represent any sort of religious figure that doesn't belong to a well-established, formalized, and hierarchical religious practice, ranging from mystery cults to shamanism, {Scrubbed}. The result is a bizarre conglomeration of traits, abilities, and practices that eventually metamorphosed into its own hyper-specific thing - and codified in the 2e text the Complete Book of Druids - which is broadly unique to D&D and media inspired by D&D.

Anonymouswizard
2020-03-26, 08:14 PM
{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

{Scrubbed}


D&D and similar games wants the 'druid' to be something considerably broader. In general the druid class has long been used to represent any sort of religious figure that doesn't belong to a well-established, formalized, and hierarchical religious practice, ranging from mystery cults to shamanism, {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}. The result is a bizarre conglomeration of traits, abilities, and practices that eventually metamorphosed into its own hyper-specific thing - and codified in the 2e text the Complete Book of Druids - which is broadly unique to D&D and media inspired by D&D.

Plus being the shapeshifter class for some reason, the Druid class is just a mess.

Druids should really only appear in Celtic themed iron age games, and they shouldn't really be that different to other priests. Secret writing system, maybe more on the side of knowledge hoarders than normal, but something you'd look at and recognise as a priest.


Plus human sacrifices would have been rare, as they were in most cultures. They'd have been a big deal, although animal sacrifices would have been more common. In a game context they're either a thing to stop or a last option for truly die circumstances. Like, people like to focus on human sacrifices in early history and forget that it being common was very rare.

Perch
2020-03-26, 08:54 PM
I belied Druids should be called Shamans.

Shamans normally deal with nature, healing, animals and spirits.

So it's the correct term. IMO.

truemane
2020-03-26, 10:13 PM
Metamagic Mod: Closed for review.

truemane
2020-03-27, 09:42 AM
Metamagic Mod: Thread re-opened. Please restrict all discussions of Druids to their explicitly fictional versions.

S@tanicoaldo
2020-03-27, 06:06 PM
2. Druids CAN be all about the gold pieces. Druids have high wisdom. They know that the best way to protect their favourite part of nature is to buy it.

I take a lot of issue with this. Money is not a natural thing. It's not from the natural world and it has nothing to do with nature.

Druids should stay away from it as an object if possible and as a concept philosophical, it clearly clashes with their goals.

Nature belongs to the world, it belongs to everyone, Druids should be against private property.


3. Druids don't have to be good guys. Nature is the lion disembowelling the wildebeest while still alive, or eating babies, parasitic wasps that lay eggs and eat their prey from the inside. Druids can be nasty, vicious and petty. {Scrubbed}

These things are amoral, not imoral, animals kill to eat and keep themselves alive not for cruelty or pitty reasons. A cruel and petty Druid makes no sense.


4. Druids seem to be humano-centric. Why? Humans chop down forests, dam rivers, convert wilderness into farmland and kill things they don't eat. The bestial races tend to be nomadic, and eat what they kill (including your party members).. Much more in tune with the environment.

Again those concepts are not natural, many human civilizations live in harmony with nature. Not every human civilization chop down forests, dam rivers, convert wilderness into farmland and kill things they don't eat, nor should they. If the humans in your setting are all the same, I'm sorry but I think you are doing humans wrong.

Anonymouswizard
2020-03-27, 06:59 PM
Again those concepts are not natural, many human civilizations live in harmony with nature. Not every human civilization chop down forests, dam rivers, convert wilderness into farmland and kill things they don't eat, nor should they. If the humans in your setting are all the same, I'm sorry but I think you are doing humans wrong.

I've come to dislike other intelligent species in a setting, as most of the time I've seen it lead to racial monocultures with humans getting the most variety. As in the elves are A and the dwarves are B, but the humans are both C and D.

There's never an actual need to play a nonhuman to play a different character anyway, and I've found that when my nonhuman characters aren't bards they tend to forget their silly hats and just act like humans. I've started playing almost exclusively humans and half-humans, and leave elves and dwarves as low level supernatural creatures in most of my world-building. It really, really helps me get humans right, and the last time I liked what I did with elves they were humans (no pointed ears, just as much diversity, the only inherent differences were being slightly taller and a resistance to some toxins) and were for an attempted novel where the fact that there are organised expansionist elves was a plot point (abandoned because I never liked what I did with them).

S@tanicoaldo
2020-03-27, 08:08 PM
I've come to dislike other intelligent species in a setting, as most of the time I've seen it lead to racial monocultures with humans getting the most variety. As in the elves are A and the dwarves are B, but the humans are both C and D.

There's never an actual need to play a nonhuman to play a different character anyway, and I've found that when my nonhuman characters aren't bards they tend to forget their silly hats and just act like humans. I've started playing almost exclusively humans and half-humans, and leave elves and dwarves as low level supernatural creatures in most of my world-building. It really, really helps me get humans right, and the last time I liked what I did with elves they were humans (no pointed ears, just as much diversity, the only inherent differences were being slightly taller and a resistance to some toxins) and were for an attempted novel where the fact that there are organised expansionist elves was a plot point (abandoned because I never liked what I did with them).

Same. I know fantasy races are a big deal for many people but to me and my players? Nope.

Only humans are play characters. Nothing takes the magic of a setting for me than a half dragon or demon walking around nonchalant.

In my games when standard fantasy races appear they don't use generic tropes they often fall to.

Dwarves are highly magical troll like subterranean people who forge magicla artifacts and are alergic tot he sun.

The elves are more fey like or beings of pure ligth.

Gnomes are earth elemental that look like skinny and tall golems.

This sort of thing. my rule of thump is to get away from Tolkien and closer to their mythological roots with my own weird spin on it of course.

King of Nowhere
2020-03-28, 09:52 AM
Money is not a natural thing. It's not from the natural world and it has nothing to do with nature.


nature is not a natural thing. the concept of nature and the division between what is natural and what is artificial is a purely human construct. Nature is the fight for survival and breeding. If something gives you an edge, then you use it. having money increases your chances of surviving and breeding? then you should definitely have money.
In fact, it's quite contrary to nature that druids have so many restrictions on what they can do. animals would gladly use metal, if they knew how to. animals sleep in towns, and they definitely prefer to sleep under a roof in a heated room than out in the wilderness. animals make their own megaprojects to change the environment to their purposes. animals hunt their prey to extinction from time to time; the only reason most of them don't is that they are not good enough hunters, not certainly any kind of self-restraint stemming from some concept of equilibrium. we humans broke the system not because what we do is unnatural, but only because we are so much better at it than anyone else.
also nnotice that nature does not fight against civilization. nature adapts and survives.

unless you decide that druids worship not nature, but the human concept of nature. which seems to be the case, since they cannot use metal. in which case i agree that they should also not use currency. or writing. or have a central organization.

ultimately, if we go down to the basics of what it means to be a druid, we find a lot of contradictions and misconceptions and selctive blindness. ultimately, to make druids well we have to decide, clearly, what do those druids actually stand for, what is the relevant concept of nature that they serve.


I've come to dislike other intelligent species in a setting, as most of the time I've seen it lead to racial monocultures with humans getting the most variety. As in the elves are A and the dwarves are B, but the humans are both C and D.

There's never an actual need to play a nonhuman to play a different character anyway, and I've found that when my nonhuman characters aren't bards they tend to forget their silly hats and just act like humans.
hats are silly, yes. sapient species would probably all be very mentally flexible, like humans. the point is that being sapient means being able to adapt your tought process to new circumstances. being able to think over things and change your mind. if you have some instinct into your brain pushing you towards evil, and you cannot change that instinct, then you're probably not sapient in the first place.

but still there's no reason to NOT have many races with different physical traits. it's just that they would not have racial hats, but more like cultural hats. as in, humans and elves living in the same nation will have more in common with each other than they do with other people from different nations with different cultures.
Some races may have a greater innate propension towards aggressivity and violence, or to put the well-being of the group before that of the individual, but ultimately all those innate traits will have a minor influence over culture.

then again, fantasy races that are presented as hats tend to live in a single monolitic (and often isolationistic) political entity. it would make sense that there would be a lot of political omologation among them.

S@tanicoaldo
2020-03-28, 06:26 PM
I don't think this "XXXX is a social construct" argument can be used here, nature has so clear definitions just look around.

Trees are natural, parking lots are not.
Mountains are natural, skyscrapers are not.
Animals are natural, robots are not.

We can clearly see which of the points above a Druid would be in favor of and which ones he wouldn't be. Come on.

You can't do an anthropomorphization on animals and try to use it as justification without any evidence, there is no way to know what animals would think since they don't. Everything you did is just fantasy and speculation. we think our life style as humans is the best because we are humans and we know no or few alternatives. But an animal with intelligence could see it a self destructive or boring. So this whole argument of yours is kind of pointless.

Druids clearly stand for the natural world, things that were created by the forces of nature and not human interference, things that unbalance the structures of earth and respect the equilibrium of all living things.

Maat Mons
2020-03-28, 07:25 PM
The definition of "natural" is "not influenced by humans." Calling humans "unnatural" is pretty inane, really.

S@tanicoaldo
2020-03-28, 07:33 PM
The definition of "natural" is "not influenced by humans." Calling humans "unnatural" is pretty inane, really.

Did I do that? Sorry, that's not what I meant.

Maat Mons
2020-03-28, 07:39 PM
That wasn't entirely directed at you.

Edit: I bear that word a longstanding grudge.

King of Nowhere
2020-03-28, 10:46 PM
I don't think this "XXXX is a social construct" argument can be used here, nature has so clear definitions just look around.

Trees are natural, parking lots are not.
Mountains are natural, skyscrapers are not.
Animals are natural, robots are not.

We can clearly see which of the points above a Druid would be in favor of and which ones he wouldn't be. Come on.

how about dams? beavers dam rivers, is that natural? why is it ok for beavers to divert rivers, and for humans it is not?
how about anthills and other similar constructs? why are they less unnatural than skyscrapers?
how about toolmaking? monkeys, several birds, and even a few fishes and octopi use tools. some even manufacture their own tools, by snapping branches and peeling the bark out of them. I think there is even a bird chewing wood into some kind of paper. are human tools really all that different?
how about animal husbandry and agricolture? some ants practice it
some parasites take control of a host brain and force the host (mostly insects) to perform certain actions. that's not really a robot, but not even too far from it.
cats kill other animals without eating them. dolphins kill other animals without eating them. humans kill animals without eating them. two of those are natural, one is not. explain the distinction.
some pest can kill all the plants in an area and turn it into a desert. humans can kill all the plants into an area and turn it into a desert.

yes, of course we can see that druids would be in favor of trees and not of parking lots. but the question is why? why would druids be against humans cutting trees to make a parking lot, but they would allow a beaver to cut trees to make a dam and flood the area? what would they ultimately stand for?
- perhaps druids care for balance. humans grow too much and chop too much, they must be contained. if beavers grew too much, druids would also contain beavers.
but in this case, druids are pragmatic, end-justify-the-means guys. they would have no qualms using metal. they would have nothing, in principle, against civilization. they'd probably support sustainable development. also evolution stems from the equilibria being broken. those druids would stop evolution if they went too far.
- perhaps druids care for the human notion of nature, i.e. forest glades and wilderness and generally "not touched by humans". but there is a subtle hypocrisy in that, and druids (i.e. the DM) should sort it out. i mean, you're a human tromping in the forest and pursuing life choices that no animal would, and you are calling other people "unnatural"? if humans are so unnatural, why does nature need humans (and humanoid feys, or things with humanoid intelligence and organized societies) as its major defenders? if not all human activities are unnatural, where do you draw the line exactly?

druids make sense at first glance. but dig deeper, and they are riddled with contradictions. And I am the kind of guy who likes to ask questions.




Edit: I bear that word [natural] a longstanding grudge.
yep. me too.

S@tanicoaldo
2020-03-28, 11:26 PM
how about dams? beavers dam rivers, is that natural? why is it ok for beavers to divert rivers, and for humans it is not?

You can't compare the impact of a Beaver dam and a full scale industrial human made dam.



How about anthills and other similar constructs? why are they less unnatural than skyscrapers?
Because of the materials, processes and work involved. You can't be serious about this.

A druid would be okay with a small Village and huts. But not a big city or castles.



How about toolmaking? monkeys, several birds, and even a few fishes and octopi use tools. some even manufacture their own tools, by snapping branches and peeling the bark out of them. I think there is even a bird chewing wood into some kind of paper. are human tools really all that different?

Druids use tools, they use wooden tools, staffs and sickles. Tools are ok as long as they, again, don't upset the natural order and balance.


How about animal husbandry and agricolture? some ants practice it
some parasites take control of a host brain and force the host (mostly insects) to perform certain actions. that's not really a robot, but not even too far from it.
cats kill other animals without eating them. dolphins kill other animals without eating them. humans kill animals without eating them. two of those are natural, one is not. explain the distinction.
some pest can kill all the plants in an area and turn it into a desert. humans can kill all the plants into an area and turn it into a desert.

Again it all depends on scale. It's ok to kill animals and harvest plants just not in a industrial scale.

They want humans and nature to coexist in harmony. This harmony is almost impossible in industrial and/or urban settings. That's why Druids oppose those things.

Djem
2020-03-29, 06:59 AM
King of Nowhere hits some really good points. I guess for a druid the difference between natural and unnatural is really moreso about the "natural balance" of things minus when it comes to extinction. Extinction happens without human influence too, but if a druid was fine with such an extremity of lack/abundance of resources for certain living things; then they would not have to take any action about anything.

At least that seems to be the case for the classical druid; to maintain the life and death cycle for already existing species and stop any particular species from becoming too prominent. But one could always stray from the cliche and write about a druid who appreciates the natural role of extinction on the one hand and always wanting more (as humans do) on the other hand.

Clistenes
2020-04-05, 09:16 AM
I love druids. IMVHO they are one of the best realised classes in the PHB. I think that people get them wrong though when playing them..

*SNIP*

I dunno... I haven't seen many people playing druids as pacifist shroom-eater hippies, but I have seen many, many, many scary druids attacking settlements, driving away woodsmen and travelers and burning people inside wicker men...

However, I think you are wrong about this:



5. Why do you never hear of druids maintaining the balance and taking out high level paladins and other powerful forces for good.

Druids as a group are Neutral not because they try to maintain balance between Good, Evil, Law and Chaos... they are Neutral because they don't care about Good, Evil, Law, Chaos or about the balance between them. They only care about Nature being preserved.

They don't care if Good is way more powerful than Evil and there are ten Paladins for every Evil Necromancer. They don't care if Evil is way more powerful than Good, either... they just want them to leave their forests alone.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-04-05, 04:48 PM
Druids as a group are Neutral not because they try to maintain balance between Good, Evil, Law and Chaos... they are Neutral because they don't care about Good, Evil, Law, Chaos or about the balance between them. They only care about Nature being preserved.

They don't care if Good is way more powerful than Evil and there are ten Paladins for every Evil Necromancer. They don't care if Evil is way more powerful than Good, either... they just want them to leave their forests alone.

Well, not precisely true. They don't care about there being more good or evil in a societal sense, but they do care about cosmic Good or Evil exceeding certain levels of strength, because if the Lower Planes were ever to triumph over the Upper Planes there's a good chance they'd flood the Material Plane with fiends and render the Material worlds and the Nature on them unrecognizable...and if Good or Law or Chaos won, the same thing would happen because the whole point of one "side" winning is that they'd reshape the planes to match their philosophy. The same applies to balance among the Elemental Planes or any other cosmic forces or factions that might muck around with the Material Plane.

The Druidic hierarchy, preferring Nature to stay exactly as it is thankyouverymuch, is thus quite concerned with the overall balance of Good and Evil. They'd likely keep a close eye on the Paladin vs. Necromancer population ratios and intervene if things start tipping too far in either direction, possibly heading to the Outer Planes if necessary to deal with such an imbalance; this kind of planeshopping troubleshooting is the sort of thing Hierophant Druids largely spent their time on in previous editions.

Anonymouswizard
2020-04-06, 07:38 AM
The Druidic hierarchy, preferring Nature to stay exactly as it is thankyouverymuch, is thus quite concerned with the overall balance of Good and Evil. They'd likely keep a close eye on the Paladin vs. Necromancer population ratios and intervene if things start tipping too far in either direction, possibly heading to the Outer Planes if necessary to deal with such an imbalance; this kind of planeshopping troubleshooting is the sort of thing Hierophant Druids largely spent their time on in previous editions.

When you think about it Druids going after powerful evil mortals more than powerful good mortals make sense, which alignment has all the liches, mummies, vampires, death knights, and other powerful undead?

Druids might also spend more time keeping Paladins and other forces of great good at lower levels, and what better way to do that than by sneaking one into their party and taking their XP? :smalltongue:

Honestly Druids lost a lotwhen they lost the active neutrality in later editions, as problematic as they could be the strong heirachy and belief system did help separate them from being generic 'priests of nature'. I can't talk about 1e, I understand they were somewhat different there, but back in 2e part of the point of the druid was that they weren't generic nature priests, they were priests of a specific belief system and church which revered nature, was somewhat anti-urban (although not to the level people like to think), and engaged in active neutrality. They were clearly more organised and smaller in number than the religions standard Clerics followed, but they also might have been confined to a smaller geographical area.

2e Druids are far more interesting to me than later eidition because they're more strict, and included more as an example of what a nongeneric Priest class might look like (although the introduction of kits made the idea of Specialty Priests less important).

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-04-06, 01:43 PM
I can't talk about 1e, I understand they were somewhat different there, but back in 2e part of the point of the druid was that they weren't generic nature priests, they were priests of a specific belief system and church which revered nature, was somewhat anti-urban (although not to the level people like to think), and engaged in active neutrality. They were clearly more organised and smaller in number than the religions standard Clerics followed, but they also might have been confined to a smaller geographical area.

2e Druids are far more interesting to me than later eidition because they're more strict, and included more as an example of what a nongeneric Priest class might look like (although the introduction of kits made the idea of Specialty Priests less important).

There are a few notable differences between 1e and 2e druids (the 1e version had a more-different spell list than the cleric and an accelerated spell progression, where the 2e version standardized on the same spheres and progression as the cleric, and 2e added Grand Druids and Heirophants), but druids were the same in both editions as far as being part of a specific hierarchy that they had to advance through as they leveled.

I do miss that aspect of AD&D classes a bit. For the second 3e campaign I ran--shortly after 3e came out, when prestige classes were more organization-focused than they later became--I houseruled the druid into a "Shaman" class (basically a cleric with access to the druid list instead of the cleric list and Turn/Rebuke Natural Creatures instead of Turn/Rebuke Undead, with none of the druid fanciness) and made a "Druid" prestige class to bring back the old-school flavor and hierarchy. I kept using that setup until I switched to a group that wasn't a fan of all that hierarchical stuff, but while it lasted it was pretty great.

Anonymouswizard
2020-04-06, 08:27 PM
There are a few notable differences between 1e and 2e druids (the 1e version had a more-different spell list than the cleric and an accelerated spell progression, where the 2e version standardized on the same spheres and progression as the cleric, and 2e added Grand Druids and Heirophants), but druids were the same in both editions as far as being part of a specific hierarchy that they had to advance through as they leveled.

I do miss that aspect of AD&D classes a bit. For the second 3e campaign I ran--shortly after 3e came out, when prestige classes were more organization-focused than they later became--I houseruled the druid into a "Shaman" class (basically a cleric with access to the druid list instead of the cleric list and Turn/Rebuke Natural Creatures instead of Turn/Rebuke Undead, with none of the druid fanciness) and made a "Druid" prestige class to bring back the old-school flavor and hierarchy. I kept using that setup until I switched to a group that wasn't a fan of all that hierarchical stuff, but while it lasted it was pretty great.

I honestly find classes tied to settings really cool, and think that Druid being a Cleric-focused prestige class makes sense. I go from highly liking the 2e Druid (who has a clear identity) to disliking the 3.X and 5e versions because they don't differentiate themselves from the Cleric.

Actually, I think D&D would do well going back to 3/4 classes and using a kit/subclass system to flesh out settings. Druids become more than just another class, they're a Cleric variant for a specific religion in a specific setting with specific fluff and powers. Paladins are 'champions of a cause', they holy crusading knights sworn to uphold the ideals of Selflessness, Honour, and Law, in that order.

You can actually see this philosophy in 2e quite clearly, each class group has one class which is the basic generic version (Fighters, Clerics, Mages, and Thieves), while the other classes take up very specific niches and are potentially tied to organisations. Rangers aren't just warriors with wilderness skills, they're champions of good and protectors of men on the edges on civilisation. Kits varied between more and less generic, but generally served a similar purpose to the nonbasic classes, helping to fulfil a specific concept better.

I'm getting sidetracked, but it's been a while since I actually wanted a Druid class, or more than two dedicated spellcasters (and honestly, I'd be happy with one). Honestly I'd argue that D&D would work better if it changed to have the following base classes:

Fighter: focuses on combat situations, but outside of them contributes with athletic prowess.
Ranger: the wilderness class, some combat ability but mostly vastly increases group survivability. Tracking, herbalism, ability to get lost, can analyze enemies for weaknesses.
Bard: focused on social skills, picks up most of the rogue's 'thiefy' skills.
Magician: a highly cut back caster, can do a little bit of anything but not as well as a specialist and needs to prepare their more advanced spells.

Substitute Rogue for Bard if you want, but the point remains that you can represent most archetypes by altering those classes. The Barbarian Hero is a Ranger who sacrifices their foraging and herbalism skills for greater melee effectiveness, infernal pacts give access to Magician magic, Investigators turn their Bard skills to tracking people down, Paladins are Fighters blessed with the divine power to sense evil. Sure, you could probably add in a fifth or sixth archetype if you needed to, but is it really something that can't be the equivalent of a Prestige Class?

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-04-06, 10:05 PM
I'm getting sidetracked, but it's been a while since I actually wanted a Druid class, or more than two dedicated spellcasters (and honestly, I'd be happy with one). Honestly I'd argue that D&D would work better if it changed to have the following base classes:

Fighter: focuses on combat situations, but outside of them contributes with athletic prowess.
Ranger: the wilderness class, some combat ability but mostly vastly increases group survivability. Tracking, herbalism, ability to get lost, can analyze enemies for weaknesses.
Bard: focused on social skills, picks up most of the rogue's 'thiefy' skills.
Magician: a highly cut back caster, can do a little bit of anything but not as well as a specialist and needs to prepare their more advanced spells.

Substitute Rogue for Bard if you want, but the point remains that you can represent most archetypes by altering those classes. The Barbarian Hero is a Ranger who sacrifices their foraging and herbalism skills for greater melee effectiveness, infernal pacts give access to Magician magic, Investigators turn their Bard skills to tracking people down, Paladins are Fighters blessed with the divine power to sense evil. Sure, you could probably add in a fifth or sixth archetype if you needed to, but is it really something that can't be the equivalent of a Prestige Class?

I've seen several suggestions like that to tone the Wizard and Cleric down to "Hedge Mage" and "Village Priest" types at low levels to match the Fighter's and Rogue's thematic heft at those levels (and higher levels too, but that's whole 'nother topic) and subclass everything off the core four, and I do think that would be an interesting experiment. I've never seen a suggestion to use the Ranger in place of the Cleric, though, always Ranger in place of Fighter, so that's an interesting idea.


The Ranger swap reminds me: I read a blog post a few years ago--and haven't been able to find it since, so if someone knows what I'm talking about I'd love a link--which started off with the idea that the Ranger, despite its origins as a Fighter subclass, should really be a subclass of Rogue (sneaky, check; more Dex-based than Str-based, check; primary class feature about dealing extra damage to specific targets, check; etc.), which would help distinguish the Barbarian as the "nature Fighter" from the Ranger as the "nature Rogue," and ended with the idea of a D&D (retro-)clone that started with the core four classes and released further classes in thematic packages that created new (sub)classes out of the core four plus a specific theme and a core mechanic to go with it.

For instance, if you take Warrior/Magician/Expert/Priest and apply the "Nature Classes" package in PHB N (introducing a central magic-based-on-the-terrain-I'm-currently-in mechanic to be used in each new class plus some nature-themed spells and class features), you get Barbarian/Druid/Ranger/Spirit Shaman. The "Spooky Classes" package in PHB N+1 gets you Blackguard/Infernal Warlock/Assassin/Demon Cultist with fiend- and undead-themed powers, the "Arcane Classes" package in PHB N+2 gets you Duskblade/Wizard/Bard/Mystic Theurge, and so on and so forth. Basically, it's like what 4e was trying to do with its Power Source idea, but crossed with the core four classes instead of four roles and using subclasses that share mechanics instead of every class being a special snowflake.

(And, to tie that back to the old-school druid, in such a setup you can have a "Realm Management" package that gives the base classes all the 1e domain play stuff as the Warlord/Vizier/Spymaster/High Priest, an "Class Hierarchies" package that lays out rules for organization advancement like the 1e Druid or Assassin as the Soldier/Battlemage/Guild Thief/Druid, and so on.)

paddyfool
2020-04-07, 03:55 AM
I'm getting sidetracked, but it's been a while since I actually wanted a Druid class, or more than two dedicated spellcasters (and honestly, I'd be happy with one). Honestly I'd argue that D&D would work better if it changed to have the following base classes:

Fighter: focuses on combat situations, but outside of them contributes with athletic prowess.
Ranger: the wilderness class, some combat ability but mostly vastly increases group survivability. Tracking, herbalism, ability to get lost, can analyze enemies for weaknesses.
Bard: focused on social skills, picks up most of the rogue's 'thiefy' skills.
Magician: a highly cut back caster, can do a little bit of anything but not as well as a specialist and needs to prepare their more advanced spells.



My idea for cutting back the spellcaster-ness of D&D 3.5 if you wanted to use it in a lower magic setting was to basically reskin the casters, especially the tier 1 casters but probably also the tier 2s, as early entry prestige classes. The idea would be to give them fairly simple entry requirements, e.g. 5 or 6 ranks in one or two appropriate skills. Perhaps spellcraft +/- knowledge (arcane) for wizard, or knowledge (religion) +/- concentration for cleric, or knowledge (nature) +/- survival for druid; maybe requiring one rank and/or skill fewer for entry into a tier 2 class than a tier 1. They'd be a small step behind on the power curve for long enough to give other chances a better chance at still being significant in the midgame, and to better fit a lower magic setting where magic isn't quite so ubiquitous, but more the province of those who've invested significant study into it.

Possibly you could also have a homebrew feat designed around entry to each (e.g. granting the necessary skill or skills for the class you wanted to take later as class skills, plus one or two cantrips or orisons of choice from their list 1/day), so that you could build to whichever of the tier 1 classes you wanted from whichever base class you wanted.

Never did playtest it though.

Morty
2020-04-13, 09:12 AM
I'm not a big fan of few, broad classes - feels too much like a point-buy system with extra steps. But I can definitely agree that D&D druids, who have permeated popular fantasy gaming like far too many D&D things do, are two or three classes in a trench coat. A spellcaster drawing power from nature doesn't need their own class, while shape-shifting and beast-mastery can each hold a class on their own. Or between the two of them. Though at least 5E finally rids druids of animal companions, I think.

Berenger
2020-04-17, 05:39 AM
My idea for cutting back the spellcaster-ness of D&D 3.5 if you wanted to use it in a lower magic setting was to basically reskin the casters, especially the tier 1 casters but probably also the tier 2s, as early entry prestige classes.

That's what d20 Modern did with their versions of wizard (http://www.d20resources.com/modern.d20.srd/classes/advanced/mage.php) and cleric (http://www.d20resources.com/modern.d20.srd/classes/advanced/acolyte.php).

mindstalk
2020-04-25, 03:20 AM
"Foolish rogue! I have class features more powerful than your entire class!"

I forget the details, but I think Paksenarrion did something interesting with druids besides changing the name to someting with lots of k's (just as drow were renamed).

I never *learned* all the details, but I think Eberron had three or even five different druidic organizations, ranging from benevolent "let's all live in harmony" to "burn civilization and salt the ashes".

'natural' is a very odd concept as people already said, but here's another twist: which is more natural, a bunch of trees in a timber plantation or an abandoned city parking lot where weeds are breaking through the asphalt? The latter is less managed and at some point may even have greater biodiversity.

For a given population, high civilization and intensive agriculture can mean *less* impact on non-human nature, as less land is needed to support that population. In reality agriculture meant more humans, but Stone Age hunter-gatherers had already colonized almost all the land on Earth, there were just fewer of them due to less of the biomass being edible. "There are no demographic voids".


Yes of course. Can be. Also - can they really? Frankly, lacking civilisation, they rarely get numerous enough to cause the problems humans generally do.

But sure ... they can =)

Hunter-gatherer humans probably caused or contributed to multiple mass extinctions when they came to continents where the megafauna didn't know enough to run on sight.


well, now i know what the druids will be doing if i ever put forth my plan for an industrial age campaign: giving away condoms!
in the end it's much better - both as morally acceptable, and less likely to make someone really mad at you, and less likely that someone will try to fix the problem - to keep natality low than to keep mortality high.

Or the approach of the Aaschen on Stargate SG-1, spread a subtle infertility plague. By the time anyone notices it's too late. Also an option for elves who don't like being outbred, or elves who think they're doing people a favor by preventing souls from being born into short-lived bodies.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-04-25, 03:47 AM
I never *learned* all the details, but I think Eberron had three or even five different druidic organizations, ranging from benevolent "let's all live in harmony" to "burn civilization and salt the ashes".

There are nine of them, actually. The six that everyone remembers, in order from most to least friendly to civilization, are the Moonspeakers ("shifters are persecuted, let's teach and protect them"), the Wardens of the Wood ("farming is natural too, let's help people live in balance with nature"), the Greensingers ("fey are awesome, let's party in the forest"), the Gatekeepers ("everything not native to Eberron is a threat, let's keep them out"), the Ashbound ("non-druidic magic is unnatural, let's take out all the arcane infrastructure"), and the Children of Winter ("the apocalypse is nigh, let's help kill everything early").

There are also some more specialized sects, the Mask Weavers (halfling-focused, based in the Talenta Plains), Sela's Path (half-elf-focused, based in House Lyrandar), and Siyal Marrain (elf-focused, based in Valenar) that all promote coexistence and integration with nature to at least some extent (regarding funerary rites, agriculture, and horse breeding, respectively).

So on balance, 7 out of 9 Eberron druid sects are pretty chill about civilization and the last 2 sects are largely viewed crazy extremists even by the other sects' standards.

mindstalk
2020-04-25, 03:53 AM
Thanks! Yeah, I was remembering some mashup of the Wardens, Gatekeepers, Ashbound, and Winter. Though I think our druid PC was actually Greensinger, heh.