Druid Class

[TRX850]

A recent question was raised on the Water Effects thread about druids parting water.

 

Now if only Obsidian could implement this scenario, it'd be brownie points all round.

[AGX-17]

Good idea, but sounds more like a shaman than a druid to me. I'd prefer the Celtic variety meself.

 

Celtic druids were a priestly class that functioned essentially the same as a priestly class in Roman society or Greek society or Babylonian society, albeit with less people, less prosperity and less urbanization. Is that what you mean? I know you posted that picture from Asterix as an example, but I can't shake the feeling that when people say "Celtic druid" they're thinking "D&D druid."

 

More importantly for gameplay implications, how would a druid differ from a priest as a class if they're just two names for what is essentially the same thing? The only realistic thing to me would be to have a different variation of the Priest class for every deity and pantheon available and just ditch Druids altogether. It's not like they give you a Pontifex (as in the original pre-christian meaning,) class, a Vestal Virgin class or a Delphic Oracle class, so why bother with a Druid class?

Edited January 10, 2013 by AGX-17

[rjshae]

Why have three different flavors of the Wizard class? Why have barbarians, paladins, and fighters? Because they provide a sufficiently distinct gaming experience that they are worth forming separate classes. Yes, druids are a type of priest, but they can certainly be quite different during play.

[TRX850]

Couple more Druid ideas.

 

 

Camouflage while Resting

 

Depending on how they implement the "Resting" function in P:E, if you have a druid or ranger in your party while resting in wilderness areas, what if being interrupted by wandering monsters has a reduced chance? Possibly by an amount that scales with character level? Could make a Wilderness Lore skill check, or apply a scaling luck modifier to the die roll (even though it's not strictly luck, but a natural talent for remaining unseen in natural surroundings).

 

 

Infuse Herbal Remedy

 

- Class ability (or feat requiring min value in Alchemy)

- Not the same as Brew Potion

- Concoct vials of Neutralize Poison (different strengths), Cure Disease (specific diseases?), or other remedies that remove certain "states" like fatigue, intoxication, enfeeblement etc.

- Requires ingredients (found in residential homes, forests, looted from other druids/clerics/fey creatures etc).

 

If traditional potions were made just that little bit scarce, and you had no current spells to counter certain effects, then a druid could be your best friend.

 

EDIT:

 

Of course, you could also imbibe them preemptively to protect against said effects.

Edited January 11, 2013 by TRX850

[Malevolent]

I'd like to see a sort of tribal/shamanistic approach to druids, with maybe a touch of something akin to the Shapeshifter Prestige Class in Baldur's Gate 2... only maybe not as overpowered. Towards the beginning of your druidic awakening, you can be visited by a spirit. Maybe a totemic animal spirit, or some spirit of nature. You bond with this spirit and it becomes something akin to your mentor, and a symbiotic relationship is formed. Perhaps the spirit gives you "gifts"? If an animal totem approaches you, you take on traits and benefits of the animal, maybe with forms of it. A "hybrid" form, sort of like the classic werewolf image, and the true animal form. If a nature spirit chooses you, perhaps you can have a form similar to an elemental? Shapeshifting into something like a fire elemental would be pretty cool, methinks.

[TRX850]

Or if you wanted to shapeshift into something totally badass, how about a Grave Elemental?

 

 

IIRC, alignment won't be a factor in P:E, so this whole thing of neutral druids needs to be rethought. The Grave Elemental (or Skullbriar) seems to fall into the evil camp, but it could also represent the cycle of nature, so not totally out of bounds. Or maybe you could summon one at higher levels?

[Malevolent]

IIRC, alignment won't be a factor in P:E, so this whole thing of neutral druids needs to be rethought.

 

All I ever think of the true neutral alignment restriction is Jaheira. True Neutral my butt.

[WotanAnubis]

So... Druids are going to be shapeshifters after all. And they'll also get "natural -- and some supernatural -- abilities associated with [the creatures they shapeshift into]."

 

I wonder how those supernatural abilities are going to work and if those associations are from Earth.

 

I suppose shapeshifting into a bear would give you some hefty berserking powers, but other than that I don't know. Wolves can do something related to the moon, perhaps? Foxes are often portrayed as tricksters of some kind, so maybe shapeshifting into a fox will give you some kind of illusion magic or something?

[Lephys]

Well, I take it that when you shapeshift, you're not actually becoming an animal, but rather magically making your form LIKE that of a bear's. So, I can your weapons and equipment somehow mimicking/"comprising" the bear-form's claws and toughness and whatnot. I could hardly bring myself to say "Pssh! InconCEIVable! A magic bear-form would have claws like the druid's sword and skin like the druid's armor? That's not how magical transformation works at all!" Haha.

 

Also, I don't think it's so much that the class-design process in a given RPG goes as follows:

 

"What actual, historical group should we try to make a class out of? Actual druids? Splendid... now how can we FORCIBLY make them fill a class role complete with mechanics distinct from other classes'?"

 

I think it's more like "Hey, an extreme attunement to nature and animal attributes is a facet of mechanics/abilities we haven't built a class around yet. Okay, what could we possibly use as a basis from real life, since no one really turned into animals and made plants attack/heal people via magic?"

 

Then, they let artistic license take it from there, and attend the needs of the fiction. *shrug*

[Scottfree6000]

It would to see any least treant-like shapeshift with plant abilities, Because If the druid can't control plant life, then I can't called it druid. 

[Sensuki]

I think out of all the classes we have no information about the Druid except they can shapeshift

[Scottfree6000]

I think out of all the classes we have no information about the Druid except they can shapeshift

I guest i'll just have to settle for shapeshift until a new update comes out 

[WotanAnubis]

 

I think out of all the classes we have no information about the Druid except they can shapeshift

I guest i'll just have to settle for shapeshift until a new update comes out 

 

 

I know, right?

 

Is it just me or do druids always get the short end of the stick? Sometimes they're quasi-fighters who aren't actually good at fighting and sometimes they're sort of like mages who don't really have many (or any) useful spells.

 

On top of that, shapeshifting spells tend to rely on Strength for dealing damage and since Mages don't really rely on Strength, shapeshifting is often quite useless.

[forgottenlor]

I think Pathfinder handles shape change spells well. For example elemental body gives you some stat bonuses instead of radically changing your stats. I feel that a couple of forms with different bonuses could be interesting. (I. e., a strong slow form, a fast form, a special form (like bonus fire or poison damage) might be interesting. 

[WotanAnubis]

 

I feel that a couple of forms with different bonuses could be interesting. (I. e., a strong slow form, a fast form, a special form (like bonus fire or poison damage) might be interesting. 

 

 

Bear, wolf, venomous spider. The classics.

 

Anyway, we do know that the Druid's animal forms will have supernatural powers commonly associated with those animals. If that is the case, I wouldn't be surprised if the wolf form (if there's going to be one) will come with some kind of lunar magic. And bears, of course, would go berserk.

[Ulquiorra]

 

 

I feel that a couple of forms with different bonuses could be interesting. (I. e., a strong slow form, a fast form, a special form (like bonus fire or poison damage) might be interesting. 

 

 

Bear, wolf, venomous spider. The classics.

 

 

Wild cat also sound good. Also Wolferine and snake/lizard souds interesting.

[Tsuga C]

I've always preferred my druids to function as casters first and melee aggressors second.  Melee is better left to the rangers whose magical abilities are more modest and martial prowess more developed.  Wildshaping into wolves, falcons, bears, etc. is a much more effective and flexible tactic in a tabletop gaming session than it can ever be in a cRPG because of the ability of the DM to integrate the heightened animal senses and additional mobility such forms offer smoothly into gameplay.  Selecting an elemental form typically affords the druid certain melee combat advantages in both tabletop and cRPG applications and, unless significant effort is made to boost the usefulness of animal forms, I anticipate that the elemental ones will be selected most often by players in P:E.

 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the druid to be more than a somewhat inferior, woodsy cleric for players who wear tie-dye t-shirts and smell of cannabis and/or patchouli oil.    (note my avatar)

[Tamerlane]

Given that clerics in PE are more similar to D&D paladins, I wouldn't really rely on that old comparison.

 

We don't even know if rangers are spellcasters in this game, do we?

[Failion]

DnD druid builds were basically all the same with how shapeshifting worked. There was always one optimal form to be. And shapeshifting altered your physical stats making any investment there meaningless. What I like to see is more customization.  If I want to make a burly constitution based druid when he transforms into a bear his human form stats will benefit the bears inborn toughness.  This druid is lacking intelligence and spellpower because of the physical specialization. Or instead of over complicated things with rpg mechanics simply make druid animal/plant forms more tactical then it was in dnd in combat. Company of heroes the best real time strategy game I played and game reviewers say possibly best made. That game brilliantly mixed the combat choices the player made with numbers running behind the scenes.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Failion

[Tsuga C]

We don't even know if rangers are spellcasters in this game, do we?

As noted by J. Sawyer, soul-based magic is commonplace, if not universal. Whether they're called "talents" or "spells" or a "supernatural abilities", I'm sure that every class will have access to magical abilities.

[Tamerlane]

True, I should have been more specific about the rangers: we don't know if their magic stuff will be derivative of the druid's or more unique to their class. As far as I know.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Tamerlane

[Woldan]

I've always preferred my druids to function as casters first and melee aggressors second.  Melee is better left to the rangers whose magical abilities are more modest and martial prowess more developed.  Wildshaping into wolves, falcons, bears, etc. is a much more effective and flexible tactic in a tabletop gaming session 

 

I remember in Icewind Dale there was this main character named Arundel in Kuldahar, he was pretty much the kind of druid you described, and I too want druids to be more like him instead of them being little else than a nature-clerics. 

[forgottenlor]

 

I've always preferred my druids to function as casters first and melee aggressors second.  Melee is better left to the rangers whose magical abilities are more modest and martial prowess more developed.  Wildshaping into wolves, falcons, bears, etc. is a much more effective and flexible tactic in a tabletop gaming session 

 

I remember in Icewind Dale there was this main character named Arundel in Kuldahar, he was pretty much the kind of druid you described, and I too want druids to be more like him instead of them being little else than a nature-clerics. 

 

I always thought druids functioned in D&D well as meleers at early levels and better as spell casters at higher levels, which made them more flexable than single class mages, which struggled mightily until they reached level 4 or so.

[Kjaamor]

In my experience of rpgs, Druids have always felt like one of the weakest classes, due to the nature of their abilities. Every game seems to run with the mechanic of druids being slightly less effective healers/party buffers than Clerics, and with shapeshifting powers that were never quite strong enough to make them front-line fighters.

 

Personally, in terms of druid mechanics, I would like to see either:

 

a) Greater offensive magic powers (though not so much as a mage) combined with healing powers (but not so much as a cleric) - pushing druids and clerics into healer/mage and healer/fighter roles respectively.

 

OR

 

b) Make the shapeshift powers genuinely powerful AT SOME LEVELS. Say, the shapeshift power of a level 8 druid makes him a better fighter than most level 8 fighters, but by the time both reach level 10 the fighter's superiority has resumed.

 

Realistically, apart from one very brief example in one game, I can't recall druids being anywhere near as useful as the other classes. It feels to me like the class is in dire need of both a boost and a need for its own specific role.

 

Ymmv.

[WotanAnubis]

b) Make the shapeshift powers genuinely powerful AT SOME LEVELS. Say, the shapeshift power of a level 8 druid makes him a better fighter than most level 8 fighters, but by the time both reach level 10 the fighter's superiority has resumed.

 

That sounds like a bad idea. A class that becomes totally or even mostly useless comes the endgame is not good a class. It's a newbie trap made all the worse because you couldn't even see it coming.

 

It's one of the reasons VtM: Bloodlines' endgame gets so much flack. Invested a lot into dialogue skills because they were so useful early on? Too bad! Should've rolled a gunslinger.

 

Rolled a druid because shapeshifting sounded fun? Sucks to be you! Should've rolled a fighter if you actually wanted to finish the game.