Looking for Anecdotes on the OD&D Druid

[tombowings]

Anyone have any good anecdotes or opinions (for good or ill) on the OD&D druid as presented in Eldritch Wizardry. I'm trying to decide whether to use it in a upcoming game.

Thoughts on Thieves, Monks, and Paladins also welcome.

[inkmeister]

I'm against the endless splitting and specialization of classes. I truly favor the bare-bones minimal approach. In fact, my preference is to drop even the cleric, keeping only magic users and fighting men. I think it is easier to conceptualize a given magic user or fighter as a druid than to make a specialized class; you don't need specialized spell lists and the like, which to me always raise the question of "why can the magic user cast this spell, and not that spell which the cleric has?" etc. The more simple the structure, the more open to interpretation, and the more flexible.

REgarding magic using types having a unique flavor: if you port in a Moldvay-esque interpretation of how magic users work (you only get known spells equal to what you can cast in a day), spell casters automatically take on a unique flavor based on what spells they know. One magic user might specialize in offensive magic, an other might focus on charms and illusions, and so on (all without extra classes structuring these choices). A player could go a long way towards defining his magic using character by the kinds of powers he or she chose.

Thus, in my two class scheme, you could have fighting men acting as rangers and paladins and thieves, and magic users could act as priests of dark gods, witches, warlocks, druids, sorcerers, whatever. You could treat the two classes as templates and let the players put whatever title they like - "ranger," "paladin," "priest of Set," etc.

Just my 2 cents - I'd love to hear people's anecdotes about some of the expansion classes too. Do others use them and prefer having them in?

[Alex]

I'm not a fan of any of the additional classes provided in the Supplements. The very idea of only having N (where N-->1 in the worst case) characters of a given level and mano-a-mano duels resulting in level loss (and associated class skill, hit point, to-hit, and saving throw loss) stands in the face of my belief that with more experience comes more capability. The abilities of these classes also don't sit well with my idea of their purpose. Paladins cure disease? Druids become natural shape-shifters? Monks can speak with any living thing? WTF?!? I'm used to the thief from growing up with later editions that already had it in the core. I don't think it's necessary but I don't mind its presence that much...I simply never chose it as a player. At worst, one needs only to drop some of the abilities and keep in mind that non-thieves should be able to do what they've always done and thief abilities are beyond-the-norm versions.

[waysoftheearth]

I have no problem with sub-classes.

It is often argued that the sub-classes are merely a crutch for players who lack imagination. However, this has not been my own experience. In most of the games I've been involved in sub-classes have been a mechanism to engage and inspire players. That's a good thing IMHO.

Regarding Eldritch Wizardry's druid; here are my thoughts...

"Druids are a sub-class of Clerics. They are neutral in nature

Fits very nicely with Clerics being only lawful or chaotic. Also means that druids do not, in actuality, impinge on "cleric territory" at all.

"Druids have spells which are in general peculiar to them"

I really like class specific spell repertoires. It enables a ref or player to completely change the flavour of a sub-class, (or class!), or culture or world without touching game mechanics.

"once a druid becomes an 'Initiate' he has the following innate powers: Identify pure water, identify plants, identify animals, and pass through overgrowth (briars, tangles, etc.)."

These add great "flavour" and require zero mechanics. Love it.

"Upon reaching the 5th Circle druids then gain the power to shape change"

I'm not so keen on this one. Personally, I would give druids a limited form of the Polymorph Self spell instead.

"Druids speak their own special language."

This could work well in parallel with the notion that clerics of law speak a Lawful tongue, and clerics of chaos speak a Chaotic tongue.

"With each level gained, above the 3rd circle, a druid can learn one of the additional languages"

I would probably forget this seeing that a druid would already have numerous languages due to high intelligence and/or wisdom, and would have access to various Speak With... spells.

The weapon and armour restrictions are a curious mix. For me, druids are much closer to magic-users of the ancient World than they are to Holy crusaders or vanquishing templars of the medieval period. Hence, I would model them with no armour -- possibly allowing their extended weapon selection at the cost of sacrificing all armor. A helm and/or shield constructed from natural materials might be permissible.

"Druids have an obligation to protect woodland animals and plants"

Great for PC purpose and adventure hooks. Used well, this could be a pivotal theme for the whole campaign. I'd go further with it and give the druid wood craft and wood lore powers much like those of a ranger or barbarian.

Of course, it all comes at the cost of being an outsider in society. (In my view) druids are always at odds with civilisation because they are opposed to logging, clearing land, systematic farming, and domestication and of animals, and so on. They would never accumulate vast wealth or be celebrated in society. They might even be persecuted by lawful and chaotic clerics alike!

"Clerics with a wisdom of 12 or greater and a charisma of 14 or greater may elect to become druids."

I don't grok this. A proper cleric could no more "become" a druid than he could "become" a magic-user. Neither do I believe the ability score requirements add any value; I'd drop those immediately.

"above the level of Initiate the number of persons is strictly limited."

I'd forget this as it intermixes the concept of "experience" with the completely separate concept of "office". I prefer the possibility that a 1st level druid could (amazingly) rise to the ultimate office, despite his inexperience. Just like a boy of 11 years could become King in the event that all his predecessors were slain in battle and politics.


Something to think about in all that, I hope

[talysman]

I don't think I've ever seen anyone play a druid in any game I was in, so I have no anecdotes. I kind of don't like the idea of druids as neutral (only) and clerics as any non-neutral; the original cleric included a neutral option, which I prefer. I also don't like the idea of all the special powers as being intrinsic to the class, although I'm fine with the shapeshift as being a learnable power for druids (must go on an adventure to gain each form.) Like waysoftheearth, I prefer druids with no armor, plus I limit their weapons to staff and dagger.

I kind of like the Greyhawk druid-as-monster approach, which is why, when I rewrote the druid for my campaign, I had this setting detail about "chaos druids" as a sort of ecoterrorist organization.

On the subject of subclasses in general, I don't mind them as long as they feel more like one of the basic four with substitutions instead of extra powers. I do like alternate spell lists a bit, but I'm OK with ad hoc custom spell lists; for example, if I didn't have a druid spell list, I would say that druids use the existing spell lists, but all spells must have something to do with plants, animals, or nature, perhaps limiting an existing spell to create a new custom spell.

[kesher]

Personally, I've always loved Druids; I think I was heavily influenced by the Erol Otus illo in the Rogue's Gallery, with an imperious Druid slinging an Insect Swarm on a freaked-out mindflayer. I mean, they're probably the last class that would "logically" go dungeon-crawling, but then the game choices in D&D have never been about logic, but about interesting options for facing a particular milieu's challenges. I guess I like monks, paladins, illusionists, etc. for the same reason.

Sorry---I've been re-reading Gary's old Sorcerer's Scroll articles...

[Finarvyn]

I agree with Simon (ways...) about the niche that druids can fill as the Neutral in between Law and Chaos. Unlike the later version of the cleric (starting with 5th printing, I think), I've always forced my clerics to choose Law or Chaos from the onset so my campaigns lacked any Neutral clerics until the introduction of the druid.

What bothers me a little is the spell list. I like the list from Eldritch Wizardry, except that for some reason I was thinking that those spells are in addition to the regular cleric spell list rather than instead of the regular cleric spell list (although I'll be darned if I can find that reference in EW so maybe my brain is misfiring).

Basically, the druid does two key things:
1) Give a Neutral option for the cleric
2) Has enough differences from other classes to be worthwhile

Bottom line ... I like the concept of the druid.

[Finarvyn]

Nov 6, 2012 3:41:11 GMT -6 tombowings said:

Thoughts on Thieves, Monks, and Paladins also welcome.

My personal belief is that if you introduce a class it should have a role within the group that is sufficiently different from the roles that other classes play.

I like the thief because his skill set is different enough from the fighter, cleric, and magic-user to be useful. The thief can sneak around and climb and pick pockets and do lots of things not specifically allowed by the other classes. The downside is that without the thief those other classes might try to pick pockets or whatever, but with the thief they can't.

Paladin is a nice class as well. It's sort of a fighter-cleric blend, but played well the paladin can have a very different role in the team as a holy fanatic. This can disrupt many adventures, however, and you can argue that since the paladin duplicates abilities of the fighter and the cleric he shouldn't be allowed. It's tough for me because I like to play them, but they are a weaker choice.

The monk is sort of a fighter-thief hybrid, and the argument for this class is similar to that of the paladin. The monk duplicates some of the same roles that other characters may play, with the added disadvantage that his presence changes the feel of the adventure because of the fact that his background is less "Western European." Some folks love to play the class, so I sometimes allow them, but in general I don't put the monk on my list of choices.

You didn't ask about some of the other class options from the supplements or Strategic Review that eventually worked their way into AD&D as standard options, but I'll throw in my two coppers anyway.

In the hands of experienced players the other classes can be great, but inexperienced players tend to overlap these classes a lot with the main choices. The assassin is similar to the thief but can be effective if the player is good enough to actually act like an assassin and not just a fighter-thief. The illusionist is hard to run (to me) because illusions are just hard to pull off, but in general the spell list is different enough from a traditional magic-user to make the class worthwhile in some cases. The ranger tends to make the fighter feel inferior, but in the hands of a good player can be a lot of fun. The bard feels like a figher-wizard-thief blend and is often too much the jack-of-all-trades who can do the same things as everyone but not as well.

Bottom line is this:
1) I'm a big fan of the "big four" class system (F, MU, C, T)
2) If you have more than four players, however, I prefer to add in extra options so that you don't have to have two of any particular class. This gives a role and a purpose to each player.

[talysman]

Nov 10, 2012 5:12:08 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I agree with Simon (ways...) about the niche that druids can fill as the Neutral in between Law and Chaos.

For the record, I'm not saying Simon's wrong. I'm saying I don't like that Gygax made the druid into the neutral cleric. I like them better as pagan philosophers vs. the civilized monotheist clerics. It fits better with my vision of "neutral" as "unaligned" and Law/Chaos being a battle over civilization and cosmic order. So, I have neutral clerics (which can't become patriarchs, because they just support the status quo,) and either neutral or chaotic druids.

[tombowings]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.