a druid based around regrowth and adaptability

[King of Nowhere]

the druid is supposed to incarnate the power of nature, and is often described as a bear riding a bear and throwing bears.

this concept does not age very well, and fails at grasping the real power of nature.

bears and other large, scary animals have been at our mercy ever since we developed stone weaponry. as i am planning a campaign on a world with an industrial tech level, i realized that nobody would take bears-dude as a serious threat.
on the other hand, viruses and bacteria have exterminated humans for millennia; it took modern science to be able to fight them, and they are still dangerous (regardless of specific events of the last year). i say those exemplify the real power of nature much better than a dire tiger. heck, we strapped them to a rocket and sent them to space, and some spores managed to survive. even when directly exposed to unfiltered sunlight that would give us skin cancer within hours. and then we have pests; if you have an infestation of cockroaches, you can keep killing them all you want, there will always be more. pests are eating our crops, and we keep developing new deadly chemicals to kill them off, and we need to keep develop new ones because no matter how effective that new substance is, after a few years those pests have become immune. one quality of plastic is that it does not rot or grow mold, but it looks like some bacteria are learning to eat plastic too.

that's the power of nature. and i'm wondering what resources, spells, alternate class features are available to shift the druid away from the "tooth and nails" paradigm and closer to this concept.

[Delta_tea]

Alaska it is still a valid model. Also a Druid while master of Wildshape also has control weather spells which are timeless. The hydrogen blimb won't get far when it gets hit by lightning. Also you under estimate the "nature" we live with. Couple of years ago a pack of dogs excaped in the area and ended up killing a woman. So there is a fair argument for the hounds going back to being wild. We still have rattlesnakes, black widow spiders, sharks, ravens, etc. If you wanted to get really crafty you could merge pigeons with explosives like they did in WW2 with Japan. Then there is always Godzilla!

[Psyren]

Pathfinder has a lot of druid archetypes that move it away from the more traditional/baseline animal focus. I compiled a number of these for another poster (newguydude1) in a previous thread that asked a similar question, see below.


...I think your ultimate goal is to be a druid without the "animal bits" as others stated above. In my mind this means replacing the animal companion and wild shape with something more thematically fitting.

Pathfinder has druid archetypes that do exactly this - you could even get these ported back to 3.5 to allow you to play your non-animal druid from level 1.These include archetypes like Elemental Ally, Fungal Pilgrim, Halcyon Druid, Tempest Tamer, Death Druid and Skinshaper.

One I didn't list above that is closer to your desired concept is Swarm Monger, which lets you have a vermin companion and transform both it and yourself into a swarm - that would fit your "cockroaches" idea.

To elaborate on the other options a bit: Elemental Ally gives you a series of scaling elemental companions (using unchained summoner eidolons as the base) in exchange for your animal companion and wild shape. Tempest Tamer meanwhile lets you transform into a (water or air) elemental yourself.

Fungal Pilgrim gains a fungus companion (Fungi are plants in D&D) as well as the ability to summon fungi with SNA.

Halcyon Druid gains more of a magical focus, trading their companion and ability to wild shape for a fetish mask which grants spells from the wizard list.

Skinshaper has an interesting focus - following the principle of "man is the real monster," they can wild shape into other humanoids, and in doing so, enhance their bodies and minds.

Lastly, Death Druid trades the animal companion for a Phantom, so you could fit that into a more modern campaign pretty easily.

[Darg]

Even in industrial societies they didn't pave every road; they didn't remove every tree; they didn't stop grass from growing in the cracks; they didn't stop gardens from being grown. Heck, rats and pigeons still flourished in even the most industrialized cities.

A druid based on regrowth and adaptability should be about balancing the health of nature with its adaptability to be part of humanity's expansionism. The reason animals are generally killed off is that both sides can't communicate and humanity steals the resources needed to survive. Druids can bridge that gap. It's also important because humanity is actually demonstrably healthier when around natural elements.

Heck, there is a major benefit of surrounding a rich estate with trees and a smattering of treants. It would be pretty difficult to infiltrate when all the trees can simply take whacks at you. Druids can set up the symbiotic relationships.

[King of Nowhere]

Even in industrial societies they didn't pave every road; they didn't remove every tree; they didn't stop grass from growing in the cracks; they didn't stop gardens from being grown. Heck, rats and pigeons still flourished in even the most industrialized cities.

A druid based on regrowth and adaptability should be about balancing the health of nature with its adaptability to be part of humanity's expansionism. The reason animals are generally killed off is that both sides can't communicate and humanity steals the resources needed to survive. Druids can bridge that gap. It's also important because humanity is actually demonstrably healthier when around natural elements.



yes, that's the role i envision for druids in my world. i'm looking for spells and stuff more suited to it

[Darg]

yes, that's the role i envision for druids in my world. i'm looking for spells and stuff more suited to it

Well, a lot can be really useful. The speak with spells would help with what I mentioned earlier, but items of that nature might be more common. Control vermin is nice for pest control, and the giant vermin spell would freak anyone out. Wiping out population centers? You have Pestilence and plague, Creeping Doom with multiple castings can wipe out a lot of people or ruin large swaths of farm land bringing industrial centers to their knees, as was mentioned Control weather can be absolutely devastating as houses in industrial eras still massively unprotected/easily caught on fire, Fimbulwinter is probably my favorite with how massive it is. Find a way to maximize that baby, and you basically leave the town or city die under a maximum of 588 feet of snow in the winter. Any structure within a minimum of 15 miles will be crushed. It even gives you 10 minutes to evade detection while also being extremely hard to map the point of origin for a dispel.

[Psyren]

Well, a lot can be really useful. The speak with spells would help with what I mentioned earlier, but items of that nature might be more common. Control vermin is nice for pest control, and the giant vermin spell would freak anyone out. Wiping out population centers? You have Pestilence and plague, Creeping Doom with multiple castings can wipe out a lot of people or ruin large swaths of farm land bringing industrial centers to their knees, as was mentioned Control weather can be absolutely devastating as houses in industrial eras still massively unprotected/easily caught on fire, Fimbulwinter is probably my favorite with how massive it is. Find a way to maximize that baby, and you basically leave the town or city die under a maximum of 588 feet of snow in the winter. Any structure within a minimum of 15 miles will be crushed. It even gives you 10 minutes to evade detection while also being extremely hard to map the point of origin for a dispel.

That escalated quickly :smalleek:
I don't think flattening cities or burying them in snow is going to do much to cultivate green spaces within them.

[Darg]

It was hard reading the OP. I can't really tell if he wanted a way to express the raw power of nature or its adaptibility in being the host to a parasite symbiosis or having a mutual symbiosis instead.

[King of Nowhere]

It was hard reading the OP. I can't really tell if he wanted a way to express the raw power of nature or its adaptibility

adaptability IS the major power of nature. I wanted a way to express that.
but in general, i wanted ways to express the power of nature that steer away from the classic "summon big animals"