Quote from: Man at Arms on January 31, 2025, 11:50:16 PMThanks for the feedback.  Druid is a class that I don't have personal experience with.  I'm trying to be more open minded about Druids.  Perhaps as an alternative to standard Clerics?

AD&D (the real one) is the gold standard for the druid, I think. It pretty much defined the class, which is to be expected. Everything that followed was some sort of variation that tried to be different from AD&D in some superficial way. AD&D druids get unique spells, shape shifting, can talk to animals, and at super high levels are basically elemental demi-gods. They are also pretty decent in combat and have a ton of interesting abilities. Plus, bards are closely affiliated, which is more "historical" than some of the stuff out there.

Depending on what game you are gonna play, I'd just take the AD&D druid and shoehorn it into whatever your system of choice is.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on February 02, 2025, 07:41:05 PMAm I thinking what you really wanted was an OSR game with a simple Druid? 

Just occurred to me you could make a BX druid using the build-your-own-race/class system from Dragon.

I'm working on a thing right now that has to do with "Druidy" type stuff.

In my setting I've drawn a line of distinction between "elemental magic" - weather, elemental forces etc. And "life magic" which has more to do with literal manipulation of "life" (with the latter making a HUGE but not inviolable assumption of 'natural life'* i.e. that which would appear naturally of its own accord in the setting).

So in my setting there are druids that can wield nature-magic or elemental magic. Elemental magic is powerful and dangerous *because* the forces (and spirits) of the elements don't give a flying fuck about "life" or "nature" for that matter. They're Elemental - they *are*. The mistake that Druids who go this path make, is they believe that Elemental forces are one and the same as Natural forces. Inversely, the Elemental forces channeling their power through Druids who take up their allegiance usually through ancient rites, as addicted to the vessel of the Druid as the Druid is to the power. And so most Elemental druids are dangerous because they're inhuman. In their own way they are representative of the forces that grinds things down without being fully entropic. They're the dynamic energy that paves the way for all things. They're not *meant* to be used willy-nilly by living things.

On the other side of that are Nature Druids. Who also make pacts with Nature spirits - be they plant, animal etc. They are representative of the (for lack of a better term) the forces of life itself. They recognize the cycles of world, as Elemental Druids do, but they are the shepherds of Life's adaptation to those cycles. Shapeshifting in this setting comes from ancients pacts with Animal spirits. I play around with some pseudo-scientific taxonomy - in that Druids in my setting do not shapeshift outside of their general "category" - at least not without having problems.

So for instance - Humans are mammals, and *generally* can shapeshift into other mammals. There *are* ways to go into other forms outside of that but it's considered taboo because of "issues".

There are old old spirits in the world - the Great Devourer Hhahrzz'uk - who is embodied as a Locust, which have insane human followers that have "dug too deep" into the Locust mindset. Likewise in the olden days there were Serpent  Men (ala Hyborea) and Fishpeople (Mythos). I have some tribal humans that have pledged themselves to certain mammalian spirits - so their tribal totems effectively allow some of their elite warriors to be "were-creatures". Each of these tribes has their own "thing" they are responsible for, they're not "Nature-hippies" doing cumbaya in the woods either. In fact it's curiously noted in the setting that all the totems are seen as predatory in some fashion (Bat, Wolf, Bear, Wolverine, and Rat).

The distinction between Druids and Priests in my game are simple - the setting is monotheistic. So they look at all Druids very askew (at best).

So I want distinction as to why druids exist in any game aside from other casters, especially those of faith. I always assume there is some kind of spiritual element to their existence.