are druids actually good for noobs?

[King of Nowhere]

i've seen that idea often on this forum. if you are not an optimizer and need to power up, play a druid. if you don't know how to make a good build, you can't go wrong with druid. no matter how bad you play, you can't screw up a druid. new player in a veteran party? play a druid to be on par with everyone else.

and i want to counter this widely held belief, because it completely contradicts my experience: druid is actually the most difficult core class to play effectively (except maybe the monk).
let me be clear, i'm not saying druids are not strong. of course they are. i'm saying that druids are very hard to play; that if you don't know very well what you are doing, all of your different powers and class abilities will just amount to different ways to be utterly ineffective. i've seen 4 druids played at my tables, with players ranging from complete noobs to several years of experience, and yet i've never seen one coming close to its potential. most of them were outright weaker than most martial characters.
let's start with the various reasons why that is

- animal companion
"this is so broken! from level 1 you get a companion that is already stronger than a fighter, plus action economy"
not so much. ok, if you know to take a fleshraker and buff it with venomfire, you get a pretty effective companion. this is high op, though - and that specific combo is banned in many tables anyway.
most noob players won't know any better than to take a wolf as companion, and will not know to buff it - at most they will only get very limited buffs. so, unless you know very well what you are doing, your super-powerful animal companion will deal 1d6+3 damage per round. maybe.

- wild shape
"you can tank your str and dex, you won't need them. you can beat people up in melee even if you're not prepared"
well, no. first of all, let's clear the hurdle of the lowest optimization levels: most noobs never realize they should stay wildshaped all the time. it's just not something most people think about. so, while you are in humanoid form, using wild shape is only a perfectly good way to waste one round and losing all your equipment. unless you use wild clasping and similar stuff, which is not core and most new players would have no way of knowing. Second, most d&d players do not know/understand how metamorphosis work. most players think that "you take on the shape of a bear" means "open the monster manual, look for the bear, those are now your stats". they don't know that they keep all their class benefits. the way the ability is written is not helpful in the slightest:
"This ability functions like the alternate form special ability, except as noted here." great, go look at alternate form. the alternate form special ability is a bulklet list of 11 points, referencing all manners of technical stuff, especially the fine distinction between extraordinary/supernatural abilities and attacks, class levels and hit dice. a lot of those concepts require going to read yet more references. are you really suggesting a beginner should read that stuff? I couldn't make sense of it at first, and i've been playing for 5 years when i first read it.
for most beginners, this is a trap option, or good at most for scouting in eagle form.
but let's assume a player knows how the wild shape work and knows to stay wild shaped. in this case, wild shape provides some nice boost to AC due to natural armor... that is lost because all those wild clasping and wild armor and stuff is expensive and you just can't afford protective items as good as anyone else's. and you get some decent physical boost to beat people up in melee. that's still subpar compared to what a fighter of equal optimization can do. and you also have to know the different animal stats and which are most convenient; again, something that is not beginner-friendly

- spells
"ye may haf tha upper hand in magic"
is druid magic stronger than cleric magic?
let's look a few spell levels.
at level 3, you get call lightning, so you can deal 3d6 damage, provided you do nothing else. contagion, which can be described as "save or be mildly inconvenienced". diminish plants, that only work on normal plants. great, you can cast it on a bonsai and turn it into a real tree! is there anyone who ever used that spell? dominate animal, how many times do you actually fight animals you want to dominate? quench, extinguish nonmagical fire, very useful if you wanted to be a firefighter instead of an adventurer.
clerics heal better and buff better (i don't see anything in that list that compares to prayer). they have specialized spells to fight undead, which are mostly useless but still, undeads are a threat more often than common animals.
at level 6, druids can replicate a lot of enhancement buffs to stats that you should already have from items by now. some offensive spells that are mostly bad (fire seeds? you spend one round to make an acorn that will need another round to be used as a weapon, to deal 1d6 per level to a single target. there are much better ways to deal 1d6 per level). transport via plants is actually good, and something clerics don't get. but still, no heal (you get that at higher level) and no harm.
at level 9, druids have shapechange, which is very strong, but only if properly used. aaand... what else? summon elementals? summon shambling mounds? are those things even remotely useful by the time you get 9th level spells? at best, i've seen those summoned creatures used as walls. clerics get mass heal, implosion, miracle...
druids have some good crowd control, like all the walls, fogs, thorns... but beginners tend to not use those, as they make for very complicated effects to keep track.
the cleric spell list, on the other hand, is pretty straightforward. when you cast heal or harm, you know what you're getting.

so, if you are a noob and you try to play a druid, you will get
- an animal companion that will never manage to hit anything, will deal negligible damage when it does
- you'll be a mediocre fighter in wild shape
- your offensive magic is weaker than the wizard's, your supporting magic is weaker than the cleric's.

even if you are decently experienced, you can expect to be a jack of all trades; versatile, but not particularly powerful in any specific field. i've been playing for years, i hang around this forum, yet even i cannot squeeze more than this out of a druid.
only heavy min-maxing can get a really powerful druid. at least, i assume. i've never seen one that would be any better than other equally minmaxed characters. most of those comparison are between a high-op druid and a low-op fighter with no support from the rest of the party and no magic items.
but regardless, that's not relevant, because i'm specifically discussing ease of use. and it seems to me, all druid abilities are powerful only if they are used correctly, often in combo with other abilities.
as a comparison, a fighter type is easy: get as many plusses to your hit and damage, and you're fine. you will need some advice on feats, but that's easy to get; even if you don't optimize well, you're likely to be at least passable at dealing damage. a cleric is easier. buff and heal, you're not being tier 1, but you're certainly carrying your weight. a wizard is easy; you can do nothing but throwing around fireballs, you're certainly not using your wizard very effectively, but still, you are doing significant damage. a rogue is easy; as long as you flank you get sneak attack, just do that.
with a druid, if you follow the general ur-model of "a bear riding a bear throwing bears" you'll make a lot of attack rolls, most of those will miss, those who hit will deal maybe 1d8+4.
(EDIT: also a druid requires the most bookkeeping, for your stats, your animal companion, your buffs, the animal's buffs, the various forms in which you can wildshape, the various stuff that you can summon.../EDIT)

so, why so many people advertise druid as a class easy to use and good for a beginner?

[Mike Miller]

I think you have solid points. I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner, because I don't recommend casters to beginners. I think learning the system first is more important than learning how to power up. However, this is the forum. Collectively we have a lot of experience and knowledge. A lot of the time that collective capability is assumed when giving advice and opinion.

That's how I see it, anyway.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

So, while I don't disagree with most of your points, I do have some issues.

Call lightning is at least 15d6 damage over 5 rounds, not just 3d6. And it uses your action for 1 round.

Second, most of your other arguments assume a noob player, playing a druid, who has Zero guidance from the rest of the table.

[Khedrac]

On a low op table a wolf is an effective animal companion - it's just not as good as a riding dog (there are plenty of core companions worse at level 1 than the wolf).
I agree that the cleric spell list is better, but the druid list is generally hard to go wrong with, unless you run into a DM who says there are no berries for you to cast goodberry on and no plants to entangle. Going up the levels it becomes easier to choose the wrong spells, but I still don't think it's as bad as you picture.

As for wildshape - staying in wildshape all day works well if someone can cast a telepathic bond otherwise you can quickly run into problems with being unable to communicate with the party. (It is not obvious that you need to get a pearl of speech and equip it after wildshaping, and again, it relies on the DM allowing access.)

All classes can be messed up by a new player, but the druid is significantly harder to mess up than most!

In my experience one of the classes that people do mess up the most is the fighter! People who are not fast with their maths will avoid power attacking, or limit it to whatever bonuses they have up to keep the maths simple. This can really limit the flexibility when compared with someone who makes themselves a power attack chart so they know what their options are.

Druid is a solid core option for a new player - not the best (probably sorcerer or rogue) but far better than wizard, monk, fighter, paladin, barbarian and probably bard and rogue too (as they can be very boring to play until you learn how to do more).

[Tvtyrant]

i've seen that idea often on this forum. if you are not an optimizer and need to power up, play a druid. if you don't know how to make a good build, you can't go wrong with druid. no matter how bad you play, you can't screw up a druid. new player in a veteran party? play a druid to be on par with everyone else.

and i want to counter this widely held belief, because it completely contradicts my experience: druid is actually the most difficult core class to play effectively (except maybe the monk).
let me be clear, i'm not saying druids are not strong. of course they are. i'm saying that druids are very hard to play; that if you don't know very well what you are doing, all of your different powers and class abilities will just amount to different ways to be utterly ineffective. i've seen 4 druids played at my tables, with players ranging from complete noobs to several years of experience, and yet i've never seen one coming close to its potential. most of them were outright weaker than most martial characters.
let's start with the various reasons why that is

- animal companion
"this is so broken! from level 1 you get a companion that is already stronger than a fighter, plus action economy"
not so much. ok, if you know to take a fleshraker and buff it with venomfire, you get a pretty effective companion. this is high op, though - and that specific combo is banned in many tables anyway.
most noob players won't know any better than to take a wolf as companion, and will not know to buff it - at most they will only get very limited buffs. so, unless you know very well what you are doing, your super-powerful animal companion will deal 1d6+3 damage per round. maybe.

- wild shape
"you can tank your str and dex, you won't need them. you can beat people up in melee even if you're not prepared"
well, no. first of all, let's clear the hurdle of the lowest optimization levels: most noobs never realize they should stay wildshaped all the time. it's just not something most people think about. so, while you are in humanoid form, using wild shape is only a perfectly good way to waste one round and losing all your equipment. unless you use wild clasping and similar stuff, which is not core and most new players would have no way of knowing. Second, most d&d players do not know/understand how metamorphosis work. most players think that "you take on the shape of a bear" means "open the monster manual, look for the bear, those are now your stats". they don't know that they keep all their class benefits. the way the ability is written is not helpful in the slightest:
"This ability functions like the alternate form special ability, except as noted here." great, go look at alternate form. the alternate form special ability is a bulklet list of 11 points, referencing all manners of technical stuff, especially the fine distinction between extraordinary/supernatural abilities and attacks, class levels and hit dice. a lot of those concepts require going to read yet more references. are you really suggesting a beginner should read that stuff? I couldn't make sense of it at first, and i've been playing for 5 years when i first read it.
for most beginners, this is a trap option, or good at most for scouting in eagle form.
but let's assume a player knows how the wild shape work and knows to stay wild shaped. in this case, wild shape provides some nice boost to AC due to natural armor... that is lost because all those wild clasping and wild armor and stuff is expensive and you just can't afford protective items as good as anyone else's. and you get some decent physical boost to beat people up in melee. that's still subpar compared to what a fighter of equal optimization can do. and you also have to know the different animal stats and which are most convenient; again, something that is not beginner-friendly

- spells
"ye may haf tha upper hand in magic"
is druid magic stronger than cleric magic?
let's look a few spell levels.
at level 3, you get call lightning, so you can deal 3d6 damage, provided you do nothing else. contagion, which can be described as "save or be mildly inconvenienced". diminish plants, that only work on normal plants. great, you can cast it on a bonsai and turn it into a real tree! is there anyone who ever used that spell? dominate animal, how many times do you actually fight animals you want to dominate? quench, extinguish nonmagical fire, very useful if you wanted to be a firefighter instead of an adventurer.
clerics heal better and buff better (i don't see anything in that list that compares to prayer). they have specialized spells to fight undead, which are mostly useless but still, undeads are a threat more often than common animals.
at level 6, druids can replicate a lot of enhancement buffs to stats that you should already have from items by now. some offensive spells that are mostly bad (fire seeds? you spend one round to make an acorn that will need another round to be used as a weapon, to deal 1d6 per level to a single target. there are much better ways to deal 1d6 per level). transport via plants is actually good, and something clerics don't get. but still, no heal (you get that at higher level) and no harm.
at level 9, druids have shapechange, which is very strong, but only if properly used. aaand... what else? summon elementals? summon shambling mounds? are those things even remotely useful by the time you get 9th level spells? at best, i've seen those summoned creatures used as walls. clerics get mass heal, implosion, miracle...
druids have some good crowd control, like all the walls, fogs, thorns... but beginners tend to not use those, as they make for very complicated effects to keep track.
the cleric spell list, on the other hand, is pretty straightforward. when you cast heal or harm, you know what you're getting.

so, if you are a noob and you try to play a druid, you will get
- an animal companion that will never manage to hit anything, will deal negligible damage when it does
- you'll be a mediocre fighter in wild shape
- your offensive magic is weaker than the wizard's, your supporting magic is weaker than the cleric's.

even if you are decently experienced, you can expect to be a jack of all trades; versatile, but not particularly powerful in any specific field. i've been playing for years, i hang around this forum, yet even i cannot squeeze more than this out of a druid.
only heavy min-maxing can get a really powerful druid. at least, i assume. i've never seen one that would be any better than other equally minmaxed characters. most of those comparison are between a high-op druid and a low-op fighter with no support from the rest of the party and no magic items.
but regardless, that's not relevant, because i'm specifically discussing ease of use. and it seems to me, all druid abilities are powerful only if they are used correctly, often in combo with other abilities.
as a comparison, a fighter type is easy: get as many plusses to your hit and damage, and you're fine. you will need some advice on feats, but that's easy to get; even if you don't optimize well, you're likely to be at least passable at dealing damage. a cleric is easier. buff and heal, you're not being tier 1, but you're certainly carrying your weight. a wizard is easy; you can do nothing but throwing around fireballs, you're certainly not using your wizard very effectively, but still, you are doing significant damage. a rogue is easy; as long as you flank you get sneak attack, just do that.
with a druid, if you follow the general ur-model of "a bear riding a bear throwing bears" you'll make a lot of attack rolls, most of those will miss, those who hit will deal maybe 1d8+4.
(EDIT: also a druid requires the most bookkeeping, for your stats, your animal companion, your buffs, the animal's buffs, the various forms in which you can wildshape, the various stuff that you can summon.../EDIT)

so, why so many people advertise druid as a class easy to use and good for a beginner?

There was a thread about this a few years ago, I believe it was Ur-Priest or Thurbane who started it. The breakdown was: Playing a Druid in a culturally iconic way makes them decent but not amazing, low levels you cast entangle as a person then natural shape you become a bird and be king of not dying as a caster. The Druid's Wildshape becomes much better out of core.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
so, why so many people advertise druid as a class easy to use and good for a beginner?

Originally Posted by DwarvenWarCorgi
Second, most of your other arguments assume a noob player, playing a druid, who has Zero guidance from the rest of the table.

This pretty much describes my entry into 3.5 gaming. I hadn’t played D&D for many years and 3.5 was entirely new to me, to the point that I was overwhelmed just looking at the feats in the PHB. The concept of a feat itself was a new and different thing.

My DM, who was also new to 3.5, suggested the party could use either a monk or a druid, so I went with druid. This was in August 2003, when 3.5 had just come out, and none of us were aware of the WotC forums.

I took to the druid like an eel to water, had a blast from the start and enjoyed it ever after. For all practical purposes I was a beginner, since 3.5 was a completely new system to me—and yet the druid made sense to me, and helped me learn the system along with the rest of our group.

Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
your offensive magic is weaker than the wizard's, your supporting magic is weaker than the cleric's.

I had an earful of this from the player who was running the evil drow wizard in the group—the sort of player who liked to run evil characters in otherwise good groups, “because it makes it interesting.” Yeah.

So this player spent a lot of time telling me how the druid was a weak combatant compared with the fighter, and a subpar healer compared with the cleric, and that I would never be good at either role. He did everything he could to put down the druid as a class, and by extension my character's supposedly useless role in the party.

That wasn’t helpful, but it also wasn’t completely accurate, since I did well enough as a backup healer, and between spells and summons I managed to hold my own. The guy running the drow wizard spent much of the campaign taunting and baiting me, both in and out of character, and in one session very smugly ran through a long list of ways that his drow wizard could defeat my elven druid.

That wasn’t pleasant for a new player, but the guy running the drow wizard was constantly trashing 3.5 overall, loudly complaining how much they’d “nerfed everything” compared with 3.0. This was in the first couple years of 3.5, when there weren’t as many supplements, and our group’s overall system knowledge was fairly modest.

So in that context, at the dawn of 3.5 with a DM and group who were all learning the system together, playing a druid as a novice to the system worked out just fine. Obviously this would vary tremendously between groups, and I can’t speak to how it might have been if I’d come in later in 3.5’s run.

But for me, starting 3.5 with a druid made for an excellent gaming experience. Give or take the drow wizard who spent most combats invisible anyway.

[Kayblis]

Druids are not good for beginners. If you have a complete newbie that never played the game, you don't give him a caster, it's simple. If you're learning the system, you play a simple character. I completely agree with you that Druid is a nightmare for a new player to sit with and figure out. Discussions around Druid don't assume you're talking about someone that never saw D&D before, they assume someone that's not familiar with optimizing, which is a completely different situation.

The deal with druid is that it has the highest skill floor in core. What does that mean? That means you can pick pretty much any feat and still be effective in a party of better optimized characters. You could have Toughness x5 and still be effective. You can pick Wolf as an animal companion and change it later. You can pick any spell and change it the next day. Need something today? Trade that useless spell for a summon, which is always good. No choice cripples you forever or kicks you below the curve. Sure, a Druid with a Fleshraker companion that uses Venomfire and chucks buffed summons at everything is harder to play and to make, but you don't have to do it to be effective. That's the whole deal. This is the inverse of, say, the Fighter or the Monk, that require you to know everything beforehand because all choices are set in stone and you can't change your playstyle later, so if you picked Toughness, you're set back one feat, and your base abilities are not enough to get you up to speed.

The whole argument revolves around someone that knows the system well enough to play a character. As you've probably seen time and time again, it's not a case of someone asking "this is my first game, what should I do?". It's a case of "My Swashbuckler can't keep up with the Warblade and the Sorcerer in my party, what should I play to change it?". It's the same thing with people saying "Wizard is the best class", it assumes a level of competence in the player because it's the norm within the forums it's discussed. Wizard is the worst class to play if you're a first-timer, you're a commoner with randomly selected spells that probably don't work the way you want. That doesn't mean people will stop recommending Wizard, because if you know how to play it, it's the gateway to most of the borked stuff in the system.

All in all, your assessment isn't wrong. It just assumes something that most people don't when talking about the class. Your conclusion relies heavily on the premise that we're talking about a complete noob to the whole game, while other people's arguments just mean someone new to optimization. This is, after all, a non-WotC game forum for a TTRPG, the usual userbase is not "people that never played D&D".

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kayblis
Druids are not good for beginners. If you have a complete newbie that never played the game, you don't give him a caster, it's simple. If you're learning the system, you play a simple character. I completely agree with you that Druid is a nightmare for a new player to sit with and figure out.

Well, see my comments immediately above.

I was a complete newcomer to 3.5, and for me the druid wasn't a nightmare--it was a world of possibilities that I enjoyed exploring.

[Menzath]

And I think you have a very biased impression of fire seeds, though if you were 100% new to 3.5 and had never read any of the books I do agree on most other points, simply because too many options definitely makes it easier to make mistakes when choosing something.

But as soon as 3.5 was 10yrs old I think the forum started to assume that anyone looking to play would at least read some of the books or the srd to get an idea of the game mechanics before actually playing.

But the second option of fire seeds, the holly berry bombs. It. Wrecks.
Eight berries that do 1d8+ 1/cl(min cl 11) no cap, command word to set them all off. You literally have your party diviner/monster expert make sure the enemy doesn't have immunity to fire.
Move up in animal form and attack, next turn drop the satchel, and walk away from the explosion while putting on shades. More casts = bigger explosion.

And yes the area isn't that large, but I think that is a good point, you can make pinpoint drops in the middle of combat easier and not have collateral damage. Same if no one has shatter and you need to break through something.

[Rebel7284]

This 100% depends on the new player in question. You can't just paint everyone with the same brush...

There are some for whom mechanics are overwhelming and they want to learn it in small bits. Don't give this person a caster.
There are some who are excited about the new system and want to learn EVERYTHING.

For the latter player who want to learn about fighting AND magic AND monsters AND etc. Druids are pretty great.

Also, after reading about all the possible poor choices an uninformed druid player can make... it sounds like you still end up with a solid tier 3 support character, about on par with a well-played mid-op bard. That's pretty far from the druid's full tier 1 potential, but considering how easy it is to build a tier 4 sorcerer or wizard, not to mention a sword and board fighter, a solid tier 3 as the worst case scenario is not bad.

[gijoemike]

I wish to counter these 3 points. You are approaching this issue from an expert level viewing how a new player isn't doing things 100 effective. You are NOT approaching the druid from a beginners point of view. Druid is an EXCELLENT class for a new player to learn the game. LEARN is the keyword. The goal is not to be a top class optimizer.

- animal companion

Yes an optimizer has gone through every monster manual and knows the best ways to buff their companion. Who cares? The druid wants to play Mogli (Jungle Book) raised by wolfs. That wolf at lvl 1 as 13 hp, can free action trip, and cannot be trip countered. That is more hp than a 14 con fighter, has something akin to improved trip. Track and scent*.

As they play this animal companion they are forced to learn tactical movement on the battle map. They experience an attack type that isn't just swing my sword. This opens them up to the world of tactical maneuvers of bull rush, disarm grapple. Other animal companions get other maneuvers. Large cats get both pounce and grapple. Very quickly a noob will see that pounce is AMAZING for martial toons. This single class feature gives the player insight into game mechanics that would take no less than 3 full fighter character builds. They may gain access to experience multi-attack sooner than a non druid PC can.

Oh no, it got killed. I will summon another member of the pack next week and carry on.

- wild shape

Oh no, the noob made a bad tactical decision, or a bad character decision, or realizes as a druid he cannot aid the situation. At lvl 4 the player can choose to "ditch" Mogli and become Baloo the bear or Bagheera the panther. He is a bear now. Bit o' healing, they have more AC. S/he can experience the game as something completely different. They now see how important stats play into different aspects. Dex for AC and Ref. How size can ruin AC and to hit unless countered by Str/Nat armor increases. Multiple tweeks to game mechanics during actual play. They learn the numbers game and get to see just a bit of the monster side of the table.

They don't pick the best creature. They don't even know the best creature exists or have an idea of what that is, yet.

- spells

Cleric's have domains. That domain slot, is limited to just the spells from those domains. Or you can ditch the domain for domain feats. This cannot be changed after character creation. They also have additional powers. And is dedicated to a deity which has in game meaning and forces working against them as a religion.

Mogli the Druid has none of this nonsense. It is one spell less per day. One major headache a brand new player doesn't have to go read ENTIRE CHAPTERS about. There are entire sections of the books dedicated to religion, deities, and domains. As a new player, skip it. We have a simpler magic system than cleric. As a cleric you should know the setting and your religions role. Far less so for a druid.

We don't have a spell book and the minigame of recording spells scrolls into it. I can choose from X ( subset of the list sorc/wizard list). Every morning a open the players hand book and choose a new spell from the druid list. There is no buyers remorse with this system.

Lets talk about bards and sorcs. Choose a spell forever! Until 4 levels later you can switch out just 1 spell. Unless you add in retraining mechanics. This requires PC magic mastery and is not forgiving. Neither of things a new player has.

We have just established a druid has the simplest and most forgiving spell rules. Most of the time they will choose speak with animals, goodberry, or entangle. They can fix a mistake tomorrow once they realize as a player X isn't that helpful. Allow the player to poke and prod the magic system at a pace they choose and have it be forgiving. Soon they will find summon natures ally and "HOWL" for the wolf pack to come assist in battle. Action economy win, anyone?


Conclusion:
We see the druid experiences multi facets of the game mechanics starting at level one via the role of the animal companion. At lvl 4 they can switch to a completely different aspect when they change forms, giving them insight to the monster manual and NPC side of the game (and more tactical combat). And they have the simplest magic system in the entire game.

This eases the player into tactical combat, stat manipulation, and magic all at once. Would you prefer they play a fighter or barbarian and next campaign introduce them into a new game mechanic based on watching other players from the current campaign? I have seen several replies that say never a caster or any caster for a noob is a bad idea. I disagree, how else will they learn unless they try it out? Druid isn't the healer, blaster, or face they can screw up their spells a bit and fix it tomorrow.

[Unavenger]

Two mediocre combatants, one of whom casts decent spells, is going to be better than a bad combatant who casts decent spells, a mediocre combatant who doesn't cast decent spells, or even a mediocre combatant who casts decent spells (clerics are decent, who knew?). Obviously if you compare a low-op druid to a high-op anything else, the druid is going to have a bad day. But at low-OP the druid's key feature is the fact that it can get two bodies on the field right out of the gate, and then its spellcasting picks up in power just as the player is learning how to use it properly.

[Gnaeus]

Also a lot of Druid powers are pretty Self explanatory to anyone who is vaguely familiar with popular media. Maybe you don’t have the most optimized form. But I turn into a bird or bat or rat is AT LEAST a T3 power. If all you care to figure out is: you are Beast Boy but you can heal and summon small animals, take all toughness for feats, wolf pet and memorize only heal spells, you are STILL A better combatant than an unoptimized monk, and a reasonable contributor to party utility

[Menzath]

Though i say I agree 100%, that's in the instance i said were it is a completely new player who knows nothing about the system. And that it is a random poster who I have no idea of their predilections for complexity at that.

I can't say I would recommend playing a
1)caster
2) form changer (Wildshape or poly centric builds)
3) pet handler

Although having a pet by itself is actually easier than the first two.
Maybe if they have played the ice wind Dale series, never winter nights 1/2, or pillars of eternity/deadfire I would feel more comfortable recommending a caster since how they function in those games is similar or the same.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
most noob players won't know any better than to take a wolf as companion, and…your super-powerful animal companion will deal 1d6+3 damage per round. maybe.

Yup, I took a wolf when I first started. It's a first-level option, which you seem to be overlooking.

But even if the wolf isn’t dealing much damage, it’s engaging with one of your opponents and soaking up damage that would otherwise be directed at party members. This may not be “optimized” in some theoretical sense, but in actual gameplay it’s got practical value.

Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
most noobs never realize they should stay wildshaped all the time.

No idea what you’re talking about here. “Wildshaped all the time” doesn’t become feasible until mid-levels, so not really relevant to people just starting out—unless they’re starting the class in mid-levels, which says more about the DM than the class.

Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
are you really suggesting a beginner should read that stuff?

Are you suggesting that beginners shouldn’t read their class descriptions?

I did, and I didn't have trouble playing my druid. One suspects a correlation.

Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
but beginners tend to not use those, as they make for very complicated effects to keep track.

I’m not sure what you’re basing these claims on, but I certainly leaned into Obscuring Mist from the beginning. It's a simple effect with a simple duration, so not what I would call "very complicated."

Really, are you basing any of these claims on direct observations?

[Thunder999]

A big part of the argument with druid spells is that you'll quickly notice how crap your contagion, dominate animal etc. are and thanks to being prepared you can try something new, so in a few ingame days you'll find what works, there's not a single caster in the game who only has good spells on their list so this is about as good as it gets, and once the player gives summoning a shot and realises that having disposable bodies on the battlefield is great they'll not even have to wait a day.

Wildshape is only hard if you don't just ask someone who's played before, because all you really need to know is that you get their size, movement speeds, physical scores, natural attacks and most stuff that improves said natural attacks, yes that's not complete, but its more than enough to use almost any normal animal, considering the only special abilities most have are things wild shape does grant, it's when you start with feats that expand wildshape or reach plants that the details matter, and by then the player should be a fair bit more experienced.

As for the companion, that wolf may not be optimal and either this group is all new players and the martials will be just as bad, or there's some more experienced players who'll give our druid some basic advice.

[Kyutaru]

So, while I don't disagree with most of your points, I do have some issues.

Call lightning is at least 15d6 damage over 5 rounds, not just 3d6. And it uses your action for 1 round.

Not so, he's correct with that complaint. One of the commonly overlooked facts about Call Lightning is that it requires a standard action to call down the remaining bolts each round. Call Lightning is not a 5-round storm spell that zaps things with lightning. It's more like you're equipping your Druid with a storm cloud and can attack using it for five rounds.

[AvatarVecna]

Saying "wolf only deals 1d6+3" is a weird way of saying "Druid 1 has DPR of 2d6+4", which is surprisingly comparable to a good Fighter without even having to touch on buff spells. Because the druid gets to attack too.

Long story short, this is why druid is generally considered good for newbs. A player who has absolutely no experience with the edition might prepare only crap spells, might never buff their companion, and might spend the whole of each fight just attacking. But a druid and their AC attacking will still contribute decently to fights even without buffs. A druid who's prepared crap spells today can always prepare non-crap tomorrow...heck, a druid who's prepared crap spells today can always spontaneously cast a Summon, which is widely considered one of the stronger tactics anyway. Druid is "minionmancy: the class" because right from level one, a druid has 2-3 pools of HP at any given, only one of which isn't easily replaceable.

[Efrate]

On animal companions. Wolf is fine at level 1. Not the best but fine. Then at 4 you get a bear. More attacks and damage but lose trip. Then at 7 you get a big cat for a lot of damage, a bigger bear that grapples, or a very big wolf that trips. All these come with pretty commiserate damage bonuses and will out damage most non TOB or not shock trooper fighter types. At 10 you get a bigger bear which is just better. At 13 you get the biggest bear, and you end with a massive cat for damage or a T rex for gobbling down things.

That's a pretty basic core only progression that is put damaging your fighter types, and that before spells. A cursory look through the druid list gets you things like animal growth, magic fang, and the like all of which pretty easily say hey this is good to cast of your pet.

And once they summon.things past level 1 you have that as an always option, and wild shape does lend itself to being in the mix if you want. With next to no work other than just reading what is in the druid description and reading a few druid spells.

If a player is not willing to read a class description or what their abilities do DnD is probably not the game for them and that is more a player problem. Any DM should be able to point them to a few hey you can do this or might want to try this if something is weird. If they willingly ignore most their class features and play like the playtest druid then yeah it's too much, but again that's not the class being complex, thats a player being lazy or out of sync with expectations.

[Telonius]

I generally steer first-time players away from the classes that involve more paperwork to play (that includes Wizards, Artificers, and Druids); and classes that tend to overwhelm you with options (like Cleric).

When you're absolutely first starting out, it's hard enough to manage a single character sheet, let alone one for your animal companion too. When they get more comfortable with finding where their Will Save is written on their sheet, and knowing where to look when I call for an opposed Grapple, or a Search check, then we can talk about switching back and forth between an Animal Companion and the main PC sheet, dealing with multiple sets of stats for your Wild Shape, and picking Summon Nature's Allies.

I'm not opposed to noobs picking spellcasters generally, but I'd steer them more towards the "point and shoot" sorts of casters. Things like Sorcerer, Warlock, or Beguiler, where you have a small number of options to choose from. Helping them out once in a while at level-up does take a bit of time, but stopping the session whenever you rest, so they can spend 10 minutes picking out spells, can be seriously obnoxious.

[King of Nowhere]

So, while I don't disagree with most of your points, I do have some issues.

Call lightning is at least 15d6 damage over 5 rounds, not just 3d6. And it uses your action for 1 round.

it does?
doesn't it require an action every round to use it?
"each round after the first you may use a standard action (concentrating on the spell) to call a bolt."
looks to me, every round you need to use your standard action to get the 3d6. and every other person at my table read the same spell and came to the same conclusion.

Second, most of your other arguments assume a noob player, playing a druid, who has Zero guidance from the rest of the table.

As you've probably seen time and time again, it's not a case of someone asking "this is my first game, what should I do?". It's a case of "My Swashbuckler can't keep up with the Warblade and the Sorcerer in my party, what should I play to change it?".

Are you suggesting that beginners shouldn’t read their class descriptions?

I did, and I didn't have trouble playing my druid. One suspects a correlation.

Really, are you basing any of these claims on direct observations?

i assume a player who has a couple years of experience and who can't be helped much because others at the table aren't that much better.

it was the actual case at my tables. first time, i had already a few years of experience, and i tried to help this player to build a druid. but i failed, the druid was one of the least effective characters at the table. then as DM i made a druid opponent, and this guy was totally ineffective. a few levels later, i made another druid opponent, and it managed to kill a party member because finger of death and tanked saving throw, but none of his druid mojo ended up being of much use. then at a new table, with more experienced players, a guy picked a druid, and he is decently effective, but nothing special. the dm made a druid opponent, and despite a lot of custom top boss benefits, the guy engaged us with a bunch of other high level druids, and all those druids managed to do very little of use.

this is not "one total noob without help from the table". this is "people with a few campaigns under their belts, helping each other". perhaps it's something specific to my table. perhaps we learned to optimize other characters much better than we ever learned druids, and this skews our perspective. but by all our experiences, every time someone tried to make a druid, we had to optimize as best as we could to get to tier 3. anything less than our best effort resulted in a joke character. which goes against the whole "can't do bad" concept.

The deal with druid is that it has the highest skill floor in core. What does that mean? That means you can pick pretty much any feat and still be effective in a party of better optimized characters. You could have Toughness x5 and still be effective. You can pick Wolf as an animal companion and change it later. You can pick any spell and change it the next day. Need something today? Trade that useless spell for a summon, which is always good. No choice cripples you forever or kicks you below the curve.

oh, that actually explains what people mean. thanks.

Also a lot of Druid powers are pretty Self explanatory to anyone who is vaguely familiar with popular media. Maybe you don’t have the most optimized form. But I turn into a bird or bat or rat

yes, it's surprising how many times a druid player at my table in the middle of combat tried to turn into something else in the middle of combat. with the result of losing an action, losing AC, losing a lot of item boosts.
furthermore, for years i've been utterly convinced that turning into an animal would basically turn you into that animal, period. and nobody ever disabused me, until i made some questions on alternate form on this forum.

in fact, i'd go farther in rebuking your claim to say that druid powers are not self-explanatory, and in fact they confuse players. "oh, this power turns you into a bear, i got it, it's clear how it works! so, i turn into a bear" "ok, you turn into a bear, so we go look at the bear, because this power is easy and self-explanatory. [opens the monster manual] ok, now you have 19 hit points and a +6 to hit. congratulations!"
and let's reiterate: i've been playing years with this misconception. because me, and everyone else at my table, assumed the power was self-explanatory.

Multiple tweeks to game mechanics during actual play. They learn the numbers game and get to see just a bit of the monster side of the table.

if that's your table experience, good for you.
my table experience is more like "gets overwhelmed by all the option, sticks to the two or three that are familiar to him for the rest of the campaign". or "gets overwhelmed by reading all that stuff, get most of them wrong, keeps going on with the misconceptions for the rest of the campaign".

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
"oh, this power turns you into a bear, i got it, it's clear how it works! so, i turn into a bear" "ok, you turn into a bear, so we go look at the bear, because this power is easy and self-explanatory. [opens the monster manual] ok, now you have 19 hit points and a +6 to hit. congratulations!"

and let's reiterate: i've been playing years with this misconception. because me, and everyone else at my table, assumed the power was self-explanatory.

Sounds like no one at your table read the polymorph spell to find out how it actually works.

The third sentence of the Wild Shape class feature states that “This ability functions like the polymorph spell, except as noted here.” That would suggest, at a bare minimum, that it might be prudent to reference the spell before using the class ability.

[Quertus]

Druids are, IME, great characters for new players, up there with Clerics. Druids have…

d8 HP, some armor - they have some staying power, and don't do trivially to poor tactical decisions when facing chumps (unlike, say, Wizards, Sorcerers, Psions, and even Bards and Rogues).

3/4 BAB, animal companion, summons - the player can find if they enjoy contributing in combat, because they've got that option.

Spells - the player can find if they enjoy contributing as a spell slinger, because they've got that option.

Healing - same (also, self-sufficiency in that regard can feel nice)

Wild Shape - the player can find if they enjoy book diving, because they've got that option.

The player can ignore half the character, and still have options, so have the ability to contribute.

And I say this having taught 3e to numerous 7-year-olds.

I recommend - or, at least, do in no way discourage - players new to role-playing to cut their teeth on the 3e Druid. Then, when they talk about wanting to do more of X, possibly with their new character, you can discuss with them the idea of optimizing for X.

EDIT: still, I agree, putting a Druid in the hands of a noob won't magically make them understand optimization, or balance their contribution to a stereotypical Playgrounder (or their table).

[Psyren]

So, while I don't disagree with most of your points, I do have some issues.

Call lightning is at least 15d6 damage over 5 rounds, not just 3d6. And it uses your action for 1 round.

Second, most of your other arguments assume a noob player, playing a druid, who has Zero guidance from the rest of the table.

This.

If you're assuming no help at all from the rest of the table, then NONE of the casters are good for new players. All contain traps and low floors that are harmed by suboptimal play.

But expecting that kind of scenario for 3.5 or PF, games that the vast majority of "noobs" will only pick up (especially nowadays) because they are being introduced by more experienced players, is extremely unrealistic.

[Edea]

Regarding the topic: no, they're not. Which seems odd, considering how ridiculous the class is at low levels without any real work put into optimizing it.

Druids are all about bending the action economy over and taking it to pound town. They get an additional set of actions from the animal buddy right off the bat, they're able to spontaneously plunk down more buddies with their spell slots, and it doesn't take them long to become capable of the same mayhem as all of their buddies, while still being a full caster, once wild shape and Natural Spell are in play.

But that's the thing: you're never just playing one character as a druid. You're playing a BUNCH of characters. A newbie is going to have trouble keeping track of all the sheets and their fiddly little modifiers and where they are on the map, on top of the stress of running a full caster in the first place, etc. etc.. In fact, I wouldn't recommend -any- of the prepared casters for a new player.

Spoiler: Ramblings

Show

My recommendation for a newbie is a rogue. There's reasons for this: on the combat side, the rogue's still fairly simple (get in and stab/shoot something), but it's not just that; they need to position themselves properly, take advantage of how the battlefield's shaping up. They still need to pay attention and be engaged. They also get rewarded big-time for this in the form of sneak attack damage, and this doesn't require a lot of optimizing to be effective the way other pure martials would; in fact, the other players at the table will really want to help them ("Hey, that guy's prone, you'll get SA if you stab him now", etc.).

Then the other, even more important reason: out-of-combat. Rogues are the newbie's gateway into handling non-combat scenarios without looking through libraries of spells; since they have so many skills at their disposal, it's easy for the DM to gently push the newbie into doing something with their rogue during these situations that's likely to succeed, again rewarding them for engaging. Traps, social situations, scouting...the new player will have a really good chance of immersing themselves in what's going on and actually roleplay, and you won't have to have them bookkeeping their spell repertoire all the time.

And then, once everyone's higher-level in the campaign and the now-not-so-new player's starting to get a bit like "hmm, I could do with some of that spell goodness, after all"? Well, look at that, rogues have the UMD skill. They can try it out from anybody's list to see what works and what doesn't, and then if they move to playing a full-caster character in another game they'll take that knowledge with them.

[Zanos]

Gonna throw my hat in the 'no' pile has well. The Druid interacts with pretty much every 3.5 mechanic, and some of the more confusing ones for new players, like vancian casting and polymorph effects. You're controlling multiple creatures from level 1, and potentially 3+ if you're summoning.

I would recommend simple classes for first time players, like Fighter and Barbarian. I know they're not considered good but you shouldn't be forcing people who just picked up the game to optimize.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

There are two main claims being made here. One is that druids aren't a great starter class, and the other is that they're ineffective. The first claim is arguable, since the Druid does have more paperwork, interaction with the monster manual, complicated actions (spells), and consistently controlling multiple actors in combat. The counter argument is that you want the player to be learning these things anyway, and learning by doing is the best way to go. I've seen noobs take to druids just fine, even if they tended to be one-note in their spell selection.

The second claim is clearly false. I should say, any class can be bad if you're not following the rules or not even trying to use your class features (see: 3.0 play testing). But if you're following the rules and the druid is using his class features and doing druid-y things, it should be fine. Before wild shape even comes online, things like Entangle and Summon Nature's Ally should be more than enough to be the MVP of many low-level low-op encounters.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm one more for the "nope" crowd for largely the same reasons outlined by King of Nowhere in the OP.

I've always gone for ranger as the newb friendly class. It interacts with all of the core mechanics; basic combat mechanics with attack rolls and armor class, skill checks with a decent list and plenty of points, and just enough situational modifiers to get used to that element of the system. Then, after a few levels, you get a pet and vancian casting in limited amounts so it's easy to make selections and avoid being overwhelmed both before and during combat. The pet's weakness actually forces you to think about how to use it instead of it just throwing it at the enemy as a meat wall.

The thing this has over the druid is that while it interacts with most parts of the system, it doesn't dump it all on your head at once. You get the more complex elements after playing with the basics for a few levels and you don't have to deal with shapechanging at all unless you seek it out. With fairly minimal competence, you should be perfectly viable up to level 7 or 8 unless you've stumbled into a high-op group that doesn't know how to slow down for the new guy.

The default of "hit it with the pointed stick" is a lot easier to grok than the default of "summon teeth and claws to fight for me."

Now I'll happily admit that playing any kind of martial character into the mid levels, never mind high level, requires a bit more system mastery but by then you should've been playing with all the parts of the system long enough to decide which you like and which you don't for a more deep dive.

Oh, and no CoC to worry about, evern if the druid's is the most lenient in the game.

[Quertus]

So, I'm biased, as I've trained multiple 7-year-olds to play 3e with mechanical (if not always tactical) competence. Even playing multiple characters hasn't been an issue for kids, so I struggle to see why adults should have problems with it, or with most any component of playing a Druid (Polymorph effects, I'll grant, are nontrivial).

However, this bothers me:

The Druid interacts with pretty much every 3.5 mechanic, and some of the more confusing ones for new players, like vancian casting and polymorph effects.

vancian casting? Really? I've trained 7-year-olds to play 3e, I've gamed with college-educated adults who couldn't remember how THAC0 worked / whether they needed to roll high or low or high without going over for a particular roll in 2e… yet none of them have ever had trouble understanding vancian casting. Make list, check off when used.

I may not *like* Vancian casting, but it's super easy - easier than HP, even.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So, I'm biased, as I've trained multiple 7-year-olds to play 3e with mechanical (if not always tactical) competence. Even playing multiple characters hasn't been an issue for kids, so I struggle to see why adults should have problems with it, or with most any component of playing a Druid (Polymorph effects, I'll grant, are nontrivial).

However, this bothers me:



vancian casting? Really? I've trained 7-year-olds to play 3e, I've gamed with college-educated adults who couldn't remember how THAC0 worked / whether they needed to roll high or low or high without going over for a particular roll in 2e… yet none of them have ever had trouble understanding vancian casting. Make list, check off when used.

I may not *like* Vancian casting, but it's super easy - easier than HP, even.

There's something to be said for changes in neuroplasticity as peole age but I do agree on vancian casting. It's pretty straight-forward.