Re: Druids and Fire: Forestry - responsibly caring for the woods - is not simply about preventing forest fires. You sometimes have to do controlled burns. Lighting small fires frequently prevents the raging wildfires that destroy forests.
I'd agree that summoning anything sentient should be at least potentially dangerous. There's an old story where the disciple of a wizard (Albert the Great or Cornelius Agrippa - I can't remember which) flips through his master's books and decides to play sorcerer's apprentice. He finds a spell for summoning the devil and decides to give it a try. Halfway through his incantations, there's a knock at the door. The student steps out of his circle to answer it and finds the devil there, asking him what he wants. When he can't give a decent answer, the devil throws him out the tower window, where he takes 4d6 falling damage and d4+1 from the broken glass, and dies. To me, that's summoning with a natural 1. Granted, the fae aren't major demons, but if players they're just cute little tricksters, they need to watch Labyrinth.
Forest management goes against the idea of the natural order/circle of life in my opinion. It wouldn't be called nature if it was periodically burned because someone feels like it, it would be deforestation.
@@EmeraldVideosNL There's a lot that civilization can do to "unnaturally" make woodlands more prone to fire, (like people overhunting beavers who help clear wood and put it to use where it's not a continuously piling fire hazard, just as one example), so controlled fires wouldn't be "just because someone feels like it" it would be to tip the balance back in favor of woodland wildlife against what fantasy often holds is "unnatural" So I personally think if you go with the usual idea of nature being something humans and civilized races only encroach upon, it makes perfect sense. But that's always been weird to me.
In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history. Lived a strange race of people, the Druids . No one knows who they were... or what they were doing.
Conjure Fey should be renamed "Fey Bargain." The Fey Lord lends you their minions to help for now, but every bargain with the Fey has it's price and the wise druid knows well not to indebt themselves too much to the Sidhe... Makes some interesting options when they roll a 1 on that spell as well!
This is a far superior framework than the “fey slavery” nonsense. If a spell sucked so much that you really don’t want to cast it, then it’s utterly useless. But the way you have structured it (as a bargain) there are many awesome role play and story-building components, and it doesn’t impact the quality of the spell as written. Well done sir.
The problem I have with 5E designers is that they seem to have this combination of incompetency and generational bias against the TSR/Gygax era that makes them overlook or outright ignore the original aspects of BECMI D&D, 1st Edition, and 2nd Edition D&D in regards to beings from other planes and if they just did a little bit of homework and added these aspects back into 5E they could clear up the mess they made with with the way they describe spells like Summon Creatures, Summon Beast, Summon Elemental, Conjure Animals, Conjure Woodland beings, and Conjure Fey. The spells as described in 5E appear horrid in design to summon sentient beings meant to die as combat fodder at the hands of the caster that summons them, but they don't actually die. See, in the original iterations (BECMI, 1E and 2E) beings that were not from the Prime Material Plane could only be killed on their home plane. An elemental, the avatar of a deity, or some other extra-planar being "killed" on the Prime Material Plane does actually die it just disappears and returns to its home plane. Slaying a fire elemental sends in back to the Elemental Plane of Fire, slaying the Avatar of Zeus sends him back to the Olympus in the Outer Planes, and slaying a fey that was magically conjured by a spellcaster sends that fey back to the Feywild which is actually its own plane separate from the Prime Material Plane. So, druids aren't exactly being heartless monsters sending fey beings to their deaths when they cast these spells, 🤔 ...but an argument could be made that druids are cruel assholes for using magic to pluck a bunch of frolicking pixies from a glade in the Feywild, pull them into the Prime Material Plane and can only get back home after they've been commanded to get swatted, crushed, barbequed, or eaten by a dragon just to by some time for the idiots that got in over their heads.
The 2000 AD comic strip Sláine was a heavy influence on my D&D games with regard to how druids shaped the societies through which they moved and their relationship with kings and heroes. As a result, my druids aren't the tree-hugging hobo types you see portrayed in most campaigns and lean harder into the more bloody aspects of sacrifice and ritual. I highly recommend it to anyone going for a darker themed Celtic-style campaign.
For quite some time now, my in-game solution to the issue of shapeshifters trying to change into various creatures has been this: As a meta-spell component, the shapeshifter must have consumed the still-warm heart of the creature (or the creature in its entirety for things like bugs) that they wish to take the form of. This is a one-time condition; thereafter they have access to that shape at will. Obviously, some bookkeeping is required to record every creature a character can change into, but it has served to keep my players' shapechanging requests in check. So if asked the question "Can I shapeshift into a T-Rex?" my answer would be "By all means, track one down, kill it, and devour its heart."
As far as fire spells for druids go, remember that druids are a part of the natural cycle. And sometimes that cycle means forest fires so the trees can grow back stronger than before!
my husband has been playing dnd since he was 5 and he got me into it when we got together 6 years ago. we have both been following your channel and have made a lot of your builds. thank you for the hours of love and entertainment that you've provided
Fey slavery, I like it! I remember a couple years back trying to explain to a couple of new players why the town guards were so mad after the Charm Person spell wore off. They lost their free will and had their mind invaded by alien magic. It is terrifying and, in my opinion, evil.
We REALLY appreciate you and other DnD videographers putting out all this extra material and videos. I believe it helps you to do it, but it helps us too get through it. So, I wanted to say :"Thank you P D/M!!!" Now roll initiative.
I always saw druids in 5e as more of aspects of nature, rather than defends of forest, meaning they both represent the trees and animals, as well as the lightning strikes that naturally control the flames and sizes of druids.
Always good content..I just sent my teen daughter your video..she just created a druid for our quarantine home game Thanks, and I hope you and yours are happy and healthy
Great video. Of note - I think of the druids use of fire in a controlled situation. Where they do controlled burns to maintain the natural cycle of forest health.
Re: Wildfyre Druids, fire is a part of nature, it's a KEY part of certain ecosystems (Australia for example) where it clears old growth, and can even be required for certain seeds to germinate.
I absolutely love the summoning hack. Thank you, PDM! I'm going to use that. That sounds much faster than rolling to hit for 8 big bull elk. One of those will kill you, as an ordinary person rather than say a level 10 heavily armored fighter, if it decides to ram you. Your method sounds faster as well as much more dangerous than what's implied in the original wording of the spell.
Of course, you could also see Druidic tradition being modified by urbanization. I'm thinking of the late 19th, early 20th century fixation on conservation and urban planning. Landscape architecture, as pioneered by figures like Frederick Law Olmsted, to integrate the natural and man-made worlds. Parks, gardens, hedge-mazes, and the like. A major example in fiction is the Selesnya Conclave from Magic: The Gathering's world of Ravnica, who try to marry the needs of the world-city with the needs of nature (as opposed to the Gruul Clans, who smash the former to promote the latter). We could have Druids who work within the urban system.
The conjure fey can also be interpreted as a favor towards the Mother's Gaia release, when fighting. Like in: "I call upon your aid once more elder spirits of the forest, in this great hour of need, to decompose our aggressors back into our beloved Earth! For Gaia!" Great video as always Professor!
Great video as always, professor. Druids have always been a hard class for me to integrate into my campaigns, to the point where I was considering banning them at my table. The hooks you gave were especially helpful. I hope we can expect more videos covering specific classes.
Fire tends to be a renewal and/or purifying aspect for this kind of thing. While fire burns things away, it renews the land beneath it with ash... It's also something that would work well for a more volcanic druid.
Fun and informative- I enjoy how you mix fact and fantasy- while trying to add a touch of game master common sense - just because it’s in the game books doesn’t mean the dungeon master has to have it in their world!
Insightful advice as always, professor. I agree that an entire subclass of fire druid is silly, but some fire makes sense in consideration of wildfires promoting new growth in a forest.
Don't think I heard it on the vid and I'm not reading nearly 200 comments. :P One of my favorite things about AD&D Druids was at 12th lvl you had to fight the next in line to lvl up. Kind of a 'survival of the fittest' type thing. I never see/hear ppl talk about that. It's an awesome mechanic (?...not the word I want). Harsh, but awesome.
The aboriginal cultures of Australia were very tied to the land and have a deep respect for it, however they used fire to strategically burn areas because a lot of the plants grow after a fire has burned through the area. Using this as a base I think it would be interesting to create a circle of wildfire off of.
I always saw Druids controlling fire as them harnessing the power of fire in order to defend the forest should an uncontrolled fire break out, but also there are many types of plants that are meant to burn off after so many years. A Druid wouldn't start a forest fire just to be cruel, but if part of the forest is old and/or sick then burning it off for the overall health of the forest would be the responsible thing to do. Also, a forest can become too thick and cause itself to die off due to the number of plants fighting for resources, and so burning it off could be their only opinion. Ash is an incredible nutrient for plant life, which is why you often see healthy forests growing around volcanos.
In my game, Druids ARE the Clerics of the various Nature Gods. They must follow all of the rules of other Clerics with respect to worshipping a God of Nature.
@@theguests9654 Same with my campaign, well sort of, Druids have the option of either worshiping a nature deity or they can worship nature itself, the force (of nature) if you will.
Playing a dryad druid hopefully soon, this will be very useful, thank you! Also, Forest firest are not all bad. They happen naturally and are an important part of some plant's regrowth cycles. It's also probably one of the earliest ways human creatures learned about fire, and cooked food, so it's been an important part of earth's history.
Ah, the +1 vest appears. It promises to be a great video. I think this is our second second Jethro Tull reference, as well. The last time you made one I had to explain it was a band and not a man to my delightful bride. The vest, again, was not needed. You are constructive. and really not being awful. I think you answer your own objection about fire with a Druid when you talk about the fire type druids. Fire is an element, and the Druids wield the elements as they are the components of nature. The stuff about Druids having issues with spells sounds harsh in a vacuum, but given the mutated messes wizards end up in your games, it feels fair. :)
Wow! Love me some Druids! Played ‘em back in the eighties in a “wilderness” campaign. Good stuff! As a DM I use them as cool NPC’s to encounter/ role play. Also, diggin’ that curvy druidess mini!
Excellent video! Having seen how you manage druids and clerics, I'd love to see how you manage paladins and monks; those two classes also have some interesting roleplay challenges that can be difficult to work with, particularly for new players and DMs!
I like the approach you have with magic whereby spells are carefully parceled out. I now use that and would do the same with the Druid's shapeshifting and spells. The T rex would be a boon for only the most powerful Druids. Players would really have to earn their spirit connection with various totems! DCC has that bit about having to quest in order to have/perform a great power. The game hack you suggest for mobs is perfect for keeping things moving, engrossing and fun! Good things come to those who wait; thanks for the video.
I also don't like spellcasting being "free" but when it comes to summoning spells especially for druids conjuring animals I like my Druid players to embark on a small quest to befriend a pack of wolves or herd of Elk so they are recognized as a friend or ally by those animals so when the summoning is attempted they have a bonus on the attempt, whereas if they try to summon creatures at random they may be in for a bad time. Haven't had a druid high enough level to attempt a fey summoning yet but I'm going to suggest they try to stick to summoning Fey they have met.
There are only Moon Druids; I've never met any others in any of the 5E games I've played. Grim Dark druids should be like those presented in the show Britannia. Crazy wicked good. And I am a Dungeon Master, so I say so.
The remark about Nature clerics and druids being mutually exclusive is spot on. I have never understood why there would be a nature cleric. They would be druids instead. 👍
Just a point of interest, while theres evidence to say the Druids didnt record their practices in the written word, they werent illiterate and theres excellent work by Peter Beresford-Ellis that discuses this. The Ogham alphabet is one instance where some druids were known to use the written word in some situations, then theres evidence of them using Greek alphabet and ideas among their own. Its also seen that some Druids were absorbed or absorbed themselves into the Christian faith where they saught to influence it and change it from within. If I remember correctly and its been a while since I read about him , Pelagius was a known example and influenced the ideas within the Church. This idea really lends itself to a tension in your setting where the different religions are uncomfortable or in a power struggle with each other The Bards also were closely tied to the Druids and taught in very similar fashion and there was a great deal of purpose and mysticism connected with them. Again this lends itself to there being a propaganda war ongoing with secret bodies working against each other to win/save the hearts of the people.
I have both nature deities (a few, but popular) and Druids in my worlds(s), but years ago I created a special group of Divine spells, and a special nature magik section that allows each 'Forester' class (Druid, Witch, Bard, Rangers) to have spells that the other classes don't.
In the South, controlled burns are a major part of land management. Forest fires are also part of the life of every natural ecosystem, and so I would think suit the Neutral alignment quite well.
This gives me ideas for a campaign I am preparing, although not D&D. It is a one on one game until we all get vaccinated. What an interesting time to be playing a druid.
I saw Manimal when I was kid, he turned into a panther a bunch and a dolphin once. It’s been a long time... Anything William Conrad narrated the opening too was awesome
In my world, druids are in tune and can communicate with elemental and fey primordial spirits that inhabit features in the world like storms, trees (dryads), mountains, forests, etc. This differentiates them from a "Nature Domain" or Tempest Domain cleric who will still worship a god of nature/storms. It also places druids in a position where locals may seek them out to intervene in regions where floods, storms, earthquakes, etc. are a problem or where fey creatures are wreaking havoc or mischief since the druids can interact with the beings causing the problems (even if those beings, especially elemental ones, often have goals and drives that are incomprehensibly alien to mortal races).
Personally from a Game Mechanics stand point I have always seen the Druid as the class that sit's between the Wizard and the Cleric in the same way the Cleric sits between the Wizard and the Fighter. It's a Cleric with more of a casting focus intended to give them utility that allows them to both support the group and hinder foes, with some damage spells sprinkled in. With it having to make a trade off when taking on a figther style role by turning into an animal.
Nature cleric vs Druid You outlined druids. So I'll cover the nature cleric. Priests and clerics seek to control, organize and shape what's around them. They are going to be more militaristic, organized and industrial in their approach to handling nature. Though they enjoy nature, a druid is happy with the chaos and balance of force the wild will have. Where as a nature cleric will maximize the goal of nature with farms, parks and fenced working the land. A very loose example is a native American compared to a farmer. Both care greatly for nature. One will say we have too many people for the land to feed, the other will try to squeeze even more food out of the land than ever before. Both would be against destroying the land for oil.
I didn't get into dnd until last year, and my first character is a Druid. Felt the party balance was off, no tank, no healer, and all our casters were Charisma based. Moon Druid built around support spells and getting into primal melees was my angle. Yes there's a lot to keep track of, but I essentially have a hotkey of shapes depending on my need. Also have a stat blocks for summons so the DM doesn't have to look them up. Just need cards to hand out to teammates I decided should go King Kong for a battle.
I run a game based on Celtic Myth so Druids are far more common than Clerics in my games. It makes for a nice change and offers a lot of flavor to the world, a lot of differences in faith are solved with debate rather than the usual screaming of "HERESY" and bashing of heads
I can give an explanation as to why a Druid would want fire spells; to prevent forest fires. By burning away any overgrowth, a wildfire has less fuel to burn this prevent mitigating the severity while providing nutrients for new plants and trees. There’s another reason, I think, but the details as to why escapes me.
For Duty & Deity, only instead of a druid it was Halanna Jashire, a priestess of Waukeen (Coinmaiden) in Athkatla... when Waukeen was being held captive by Graz'zt in the Abyss.
Druids may not have kept a written record in the traditional sense, or at least non have been found, but they were literate, in multiple languages and highly educated. They had there own alphabet, that corresponds with species of tree. In this way it would be possible to communicate complex ideas with a pile of leafs. Only the initiated would be able to "read" it.
At some point - I don't remember when - I was thinking about druids, and it occurred to me that these are a neutral organization with it's own secret language of rugged, wilderness ready individuals who can traverse any natural terrain without leaving tracks - and many of them can take the form of natural animals, and I concluded that these people are perfect couriers. They would be the most reliable messaging service money could by, and they would be practically impossible to intercept.
I could try and make a lore based argument for the fire druid. Think of the Sequoia trees and their relationship to fire. The trees actually thive off of the occasional fire to eliminate any competition and it is a necessarily mechanic to releasing seeds from their (not pine)cones.
6:10 - If park rangers were actually given flame throwers, one thing's fer sure, I'd want to be one. Park management meeting: "Accidental fires are up, way up, actually, but so is recruitment!"
Five Torches Deep requires a To Hit roll because the magic users can cast their spell(s) all day long without a concern for spell slots or spell points. That's also why they have the failure backlash table. In 5e (which Prof DC doesn't play as such), the spell casting is limited by limited spell slots or spell points.
I think Druids would make an interesting foe. A circle has determined that mankind has despoiled too much and their cities must burn to restore balance.
You and Hankerin have the most antithetical DM advice to games I enjoy playing and runnning but I respect both of your content creation. That being said I love your crafting content and hope you pump out some more of that as the quarentine in NY is a month longer.
I always loved Druids as a class in D&D. But I looked at them as the servants of the "natural world" as opposed to the "spiritual world" served by Clerics/Paladins. So Druid would work with the natural elements...earth, fire, water, air...the land the ocean the air...but also specific to regions...arctic druid, desert druid, river druid, lake, sky, stone, fire...etc, not just forest. As to the alignment, I kinda looked at it like they strive to balance the axis of order and chaos, both being critical to the "natural order"...which they ignore the moral axis of Good-Evil (stone, fire, trees do not have a moral outlook).
Honestly, every character has some power or ability that might be like summon monster. I always review characters ahead of time and "pre-manufacture" tables before game begins so I am not flipping through books when a spell gets cast. Of course some effects may vary depending on location. It can be challenging to think ahead for all circumstances. Wing it.
in my game druids don't have parents but are born from nature, their spell list is adjusted depending on their alignment and of course the moon phases will increase their memorized spells limit.
Statements like, “...I’d make d100 acres of the forest burn down” and “...the pixies get mad and try to gouge out her eyes” are yet more proof that you run a top notch table of unlimited dark humor. Your players are most fortunate and you, good Sir, are brilliant.
As an ecologist who has always felt drawn to druids, it easy for me to embrace the circle of fire druid. Fires are both destructive and regenerative. Some forest species are fire adapted. The have traits that enable persistence on a landscape because fires prevent non-adapted species from out-competing them. Modern ecologists use fires as a tool to promote biodiversity and recognize that suppression of fire over periods of decades to centuries has actually resulted in increases in the destruction of fires when they cannot be suppresed. The fire druid is really just another take on the circle of life mentality that I think most druids would embrace.
Fire is a part of nature. Druids get fire spells for the same reason they get call lightning. Now, druid spells tend to be concentration, which is why they don't get Fireball, but I think Flaming Sphere makes perfect sense. Furthermore, I think the wildfire subclass makes perfect sense, when you burn things away they regrow.
Fire is an aspect of nature and rebirth. A dried up and dead forest will easily catch fire, clearing space for new plant growth and a fertile ash to fuel new growth from death. That's how I would justify a druid using fire magics.
Druids may want to do controlled burns. When Europeans first arrived in Australia, they thought they had arrived in a park, as the area was maintained by controlled burns. Also, in Florida, where lightening storms are very common, a whole ecosystem has evolved around the frequent fires; in example the turtles burrow during the storms, a lot of plants will not germinate if they have not be heated.
Great video, I enjoy hearing your perspectives on the different classes. Looking forward to your video on handling romantic relationships within the campaign ;)
I think another thing that plays into circle of the moon being more popular is the fact that a lot of people pick up druid specifically because they want to be a shapeshifter and the other circles, while not necessarily weaker, are not geared towards that.
about druids and taking new shapes: I would go so far to say that the druid needs to spend at least one Downtime Activity learning the lucal fauna to be able to shapeshift into the local animals if they are new.
![ละลาย (LALALYE) - DAOU PITTAYA ต้าห์อู๋ พิทยา [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wo6r9TgausI/mqdefault.jpg)
![[ ออกกอง ] วัยหนุ่ม 2544 โลกหลังลูกกรง..ทัวร์กองถ่ายหนังใน "คุกของจริง" | JUSTดูIT.](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vB--aOkZCpw/mqdefault.jpg)
Re: Druids and Fire:
Forestry - responsibly caring for the woods - is not simply about preventing forest fires. You sometimes have to do controlled burns.
Lighting small fires frequently prevents the raging wildfires that destroy forests.
Plus, there are some trees that actually require a fire to spread their seeds.
I commented similarly. You're right
To say nothing of Caesar's good ol' wicker man. Those druids were pretty comfy with fire.
Hah, so Australia
Responsibly caring for the woods creates the optimal biome for mycelium.
Druids, now with a +50% modifier to bust size!
Classy...
As it should be, forevermore.
@@hahmann i would shorten body parts
I would have been satisfied with +40%
@@TulkOrkan My favorite was a corrupted treat mini from 3.5(?) Edition.
I'd agree that summoning anything sentient should be at least potentially dangerous. There's an old story where the disciple of a wizard (Albert the Great or Cornelius Agrippa - I can't remember which) flips through his master's books and decides to play sorcerer's apprentice. He finds a spell for summoning the devil and decides to give it a try. Halfway through his incantations, there's a knock at the door. The student steps out of his circle to answer it and finds the devil there, asking him what he wants. When he can't give a decent answer, the devil throws him out the tower window, where he takes 4d6 falling damage and d4+1 from the broken glass, and dies.
To me, that's summoning with a natural 1. Granted, the fae aren't major demons, but if players they're just cute little tricksters, they need to watch Labyrinth.
You need that flaming sphere to do controlled burns for forest management.
Forest management goes against the idea of the natural order/circle of life in my opinion. It wouldn't be called nature if it was periodically burned because someone feels like it, it would be deforestation.
@@EmeraldVideosNL There's a lot that civilization can do to "unnaturally" make woodlands more prone to fire, (like people overhunting beavers who help clear wood and put it to use where it's not a continuously piling fire hazard, just as one example), so controlled fires wouldn't be "just because someone feels like it" it would be to tip the balance back in favor of woodland wildlife against what fantasy often holds is "unnatural"
So I personally think if you go with the usual idea of nature being something humans and civilized races only encroach upon, it makes perfect sense. But that's always been weird to me.
Extra thumbs-up for Sleestak reference!
In ancient times,
hundreds of years before the dawn of history.
Lived a strange race of people, the Druids
.
No one knows who they were... or what they were doing.
That's exactly what was going through my mind for most of this video
Nigel, you wrote inches instead of feet!
Conjure Fey should be renamed "Fey Bargain." The Fey Lord lends you their minions to help for now, but every bargain with the Fey has it's price and the wise druid knows well not to indebt themselves too much to the Sidhe... Makes some interesting options when they roll a 1 on that spell as well!
This is a far superior framework than the “fey slavery” nonsense. If a spell sucked so much that you really don’t want to cast it, then it’s utterly useless.
But the way you have structured it (as a bargain) there are many awesome role play and story-building components, and it doesn’t impact the quality of the spell as written. Well done sir.
Hmmm. I like it!
You could flavor it that the spell is the plus side of an ancient bargain.
The problem I have with 5E designers is that they seem to have this combination of incompetency and generational bias against the TSR/Gygax era that makes them overlook or outright ignore the original aspects of BECMI D&D, 1st Edition, and 2nd Edition D&D in regards to beings from other planes and if they just did a little bit of homework and added these aspects back into 5E they could clear up the mess they made with with the way they describe spells like Summon Creatures, Summon Beast, Summon Elemental, Conjure Animals, Conjure Woodland beings, and Conjure Fey. The spells as described in 5E appear horrid in design to summon sentient beings meant to die as combat fodder at the hands of the caster that summons them, but they don't actually die.
See, in the original iterations (BECMI, 1E and 2E) beings that were not from the Prime Material Plane could only be killed on their home plane. An elemental, the avatar of a deity, or some other extra-planar being "killed" on the Prime Material Plane does actually die it just disappears and returns to its home plane. Slaying a fire elemental sends in back to the Elemental Plane of Fire, slaying the Avatar of Zeus sends him back to the Olympus in the Outer Planes, and slaying a fey that was magically conjured by a spellcaster sends that fey back to the Feywild which is actually its own plane separate from the Prime Material Plane. So, druids aren't exactly being heartless monsters sending fey beings to their deaths when they cast these spells, 🤔 ...but an argument could be made that druids are cruel assholes for using magic to pluck a bunch of frolicking pixies from a glade in the Feywild, pull them into the Prime Material Plane and can only get back home after they've been commanded to get swatted, crushed, barbequed, or eaten by a dragon just to by some time for the idiots that got in over their heads.
The 2000 AD comic strip Sláine was a heavy influence on my D&D games with regard to how druids shaped the societies through which they moved and their relationship with kings and heroes. As a result, my druids aren't the tree-hugging hobo types you see portrayed in most campaigns and lean harder into the more bloody aspects of sacrifice and ritual. I highly recommend it to anyone going for a darker themed Celtic-style campaign.
Sláine rocks!
There are druids in Asterix too.
Brainbiter! What a name for a weapon!
For quite some time now, my in-game solution to the issue of shapeshifters trying to change into various creatures has been this: As a meta-spell component, the shapeshifter must have consumed the still-warm heart of the creature (or the creature in its entirety for things like bugs) that they wish to take the form of. This is a one-time condition; thereafter they have access to that shape at will. Obviously, some bookkeeping is required to record every creature a character can change into, but it has served to keep my players' shapechanging requests in check. So if asked the question "Can I shapeshift into a T-Rex?" my answer would be "By all means, track one down, kill it, and devour its heart."
Worth the wait! but locks are 4000 years old. Single pin tumbler lock was found in Nineveh...
As far as fire spells for druids go, remember that druids are a part of the natural cycle. And sometimes that cycle means forest fires so the trees can grow back stronger than before!
Also, Fire is one of those four natural elements they want to keep in balance.
A Manimal reference - nice... Rolled my 80s pop culture skill for that one!
my husband has been playing dnd since he was 5 and he got me into it when we got together 6 years ago. we have both been following your channel and have made a lot of your builds. thank you for the hours of love and entertainment that you've provided
Fey slavery, I like it! I remember a couple years back trying to explain to a couple of new players why the town guards were so mad after the Charm Person spell wore off. They lost their free will and had their mind invaded by alien magic. It is terrifying and, in my opinion, evil.
Yep.
Thank you for the extra videos throughout the current situation. I've looked forward to, and enjoyed all the discussions. One of my favorite channels!
Thanks. Share it. The more videos I put out, the less people are viewing them.
We REALLY appreciate you and other DnD videographers putting out all this extra material and videos. I believe it helps you to do it, but it helps us too get through it.
So, I wanted to say :"Thank you P D/M!!!"
Now roll initiative.
I always saw druids in 5e as more of aspects of nature, rather than defends of forest, meaning they both represent the trees and animals, as well as the lightning strikes that naturally control the flames and sizes of druids.
Thanks for the fun video. I especially liked the shout-out credit to Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull!
Ramble On!
Always good content..I just sent my teen daughter your video..she just created a druid for our quarantine home game
Thanks, and I hope you and yours are happy and healthy
Awesome! Just played a quarantine game with my daughter and wife last night. Stay safe!
Great video. Of note - I think of the druids use of fire in a controlled situation. Where they do controlled burns to maintain the natural cycle of forest health.
True, true.
Re: Wildfyre Druids, fire is a part of nature, it's a KEY part of certain ecosystems (Australia for example) where it clears old growth, and can even be required for certain seeds to germinate.
I absolutely love the summoning hack. Thank you, PDM! I'm going to use that. That sounds much faster than rolling to hit for 8 big bull elk. One of those will kill you, as an ordinary person rather than say a level 10 heavily armored fighter, if it decides to ram you. Your method sounds faster as well as much more dangerous than what's implied in the original wording of the spell.
Yes, druids being superseded as towns and cities grow sounds good. The wise man who serves villages where clerics don't often go.
Of course, you could also see Druidic tradition being modified by urbanization. I'm thinking of the late 19th, early 20th century fixation on conservation and urban planning. Landscape architecture, as pioneered by figures like Frederick Law Olmsted, to integrate the natural and man-made worlds. Parks, gardens, hedge-mazes, and the like. A major example in fiction is the Selesnya Conclave from Magic: The Gathering's world of Ravnica, who try to marry the needs of the world-city with the needs of nature (as opposed to the Gruul Clans, who smash the former to promote the latter). We could have Druids who work within the urban system.
Dude. I seriously love your style. Your channel is just awesome. Keep up the good work, man!
Oh man, thank you so much for finally covering Druids! It’s my favorite class so I really appreciate it. Your videos are a bright spot in my day!
The conjure fey can also be interpreted as a favor towards the Mother's Gaia release, when fighting. Like in: "I call upon your aid once more elder spirits of the forest, in this great hour of need, to decompose our aggressors back into our beloved Earth! For Gaia!"
Great video as always Professor!
that or the fey owe the druid some money... ;)
Yeah I see it as summoning allies not commanding slaves
Great video as always, professor. Druids have always been a hard class for me to integrate into my campaigns, to the point where I was considering banning them at my table. The hooks you gave were especially helpful. I hope we can expect more videos covering specific classes.
Fire tends to be a renewal and/or purifying aspect for this kind of thing. While fire burns things away, it renews the land beneath it with ash...
It's also something that would work well for a more volcanic druid.
Fun and informative- I enjoy how you mix fact and fantasy- while trying to add a touch of game master common sense - just because it’s in the game books doesn’t mean the dungeon master has to have it in their world!
Thanks for the comment and for watching the channel.
Insightful advice as always, professor. I agree that an entire subclass of fire druid is silly, but some fire makes sense in consideration of wildfires promoting new growth in a forest.
Or as a reclusive sect of Volcanic mountains dwellers, shedding nature's wrath of the ever growing human filth metropolis.
Don't think I heard it on the vid and I'm not reading nearly 200 comments. :P One of my favorite things about AD&D Druids was at 12th lvl you had to fight the next in line to lvl up. Kind of a 'survival of the fittest' type thing. I never see/hear ppl talk about that. It's an awesome mechanic (?...not the word I want). Harsh, but awesome.
The aboriginal cultures of Australia were very tied to the land and have a deep respect for it, however they used fire to strategically burn areas because a lot of the plants grow after a fire has burned through the area. Using this as a base I think it would be interesting to create a circle of wildfire off of.
I always saw Druids controlling fire as them harnessing the power of fire in order to defend the forest should an uncontrolled fire break out, but also there are many types of plants that are meant to burn off after so many years. A Druid wouldn't start a forest fire just to be cruel, but if part of the forest is old and/or sick then burning it off for the overall health of the forest would be the responsible thing to do. Also, a forest can become too thick and cause itself to die off due to the number of plants fighting for resources, and so burning it off could be their only opinion. Ash is an incredible nutrient for plant life, which is why you often see healthy forests growing around volcanos.
In my game, Druids ARE the Clerics of the various Nature Gods. They must follow all of the rules of other Clerics with respect to worshipping a God of Nature.
This is how I play it too
In mine clerics worship gods who portfolio over certain aspects of nature, whereas druids cut out the middleman and worship nature itself
@@theguests9654 Same with my campaign, well sort of, Druids have the option of either worshiping a nature deity or they can worship nature itself, the force (of nature) if you will.
Playing a dryad druid hopefully soon, this will be very useful, thank you!
Also, Forest firest are not all bad. They happen naturally and are an important part of some plant's regrowth cycles. It's also probably one of the earliest ways human creatures learned about fire, and cooked food, so it's been an important part of earth's history.
My players never seem interested in druids at all....but when the Prof holds a class, you go to it, because the knowledge is well worth it!
Once again a great video Prof. I like the hook ideas.
Glad you like them!
The wizard flinging cutlery reminds me of the Ben Stiller movie Mystery Men: “May the forks be with you, Professor Dungeon Master!” :)
Ah, the +1 vest appears. It promises to be a great video. I think this is our second second Jethro Tull reference, as well. The last time you made one I had to explain it was a band and not a man to my delightful bride. The vest, again, was not needed. You are constructive. and really not being awful.
I think you answer your own objection about fire with a Druid when you talk about the fire type druids. Fire is an element, and the Druids wield the elements as they are the components of nature. The stuff about Druids having issues with spells sounds harsh in a vacuum, but given the mutated messes wizards end up in your games, it feels fair. :)
Wow! Love me some Druids! Played ‘em back in the eighties in a “wilderness” campaign. Good stuff! As a DM I use them as cool NPC’s to encounter/ role play. Also, diggin’ that curvy druidess mini!
Prof DM makes the save against boredom!
Thanks. Pass it on!
Excellent video! Having seen how you manage druids and clerics, I'd love to see how you manage paladins and monks; those two classes also have some interesting roleplay challenges that can be difficult to work with, particularly for new players and DMs!
I like the approach you have with magic whereby spells are carefully parceled out. I now use that and would do the same with the Druid's shapeshifting and spells. The T rex would be a boon for only the most powerful Druids. Players would really have to earn their spirit connection with various totems! DCC has that bit about having to quest in order to have/perform a great power. The game hack you suggest for mobs is perfect for keeping things moving, engrossing and fun! Good things come to those who wait; thanks for the video.
I’m running a campaign with a Druid. Timely and thoughtful video. thx!!
Love the improsined mother earth plot hook
That can work for any cleric diety / warlock patron as well
I also don't like spellcasting being "free" but when it comes to summoning spells especially for druids conjuring animals I like my Druid players to embark on a small quest to befriend a pack of wolves or herd of Elk so they are recognized as a friend or ally by those animals so when the summoning is attempted they have a bonus on the attempt, whereas if they try to summon creatures at random they may be in for a bad time.
Haven't had a druid high enough level to attempt a fey summoning yet but I'm going to suggest they try to stick to summoning Fey they have met.
There are only Moon Druids; I've never met any others in any of the 5E games I've played. Grim Dark druids should be like those presented in the show Britannia. Crazy wicked good.
And I am a Dungeon Master, so I say so.
Love the multiple minions idea. I have a necromancer in my party and have been testing ways to speed up his rounds.
The remark about Nature clerics and druids being mutually exclusive is spot on. I have never understood why there would be a nature cleric. They would be druids instead. 👍
Just a point of interest, while theres evidence to say the Druids didnt record their practices in the written word, they werent illiterate and theres excellent work by Peter Beresford-Ellis that discuses this. The Ogham alphabet is one instance where some druids were known to use the written word in some situations, then theres evidence of them using Greek alphabet and ideas among their own. Its also seen that some Druids were absorbed or absorbed themselves into the Christian faith where they saught to influence it and change it from within. If I remember correctly and its been a while since I read about him , Pelagius was a known example and influenced the ideas within the Church. This idea really lends itself to a tension in your setting where the different religions are uncomfortable or in a power struggle with each other The Bards also were closely tied to the Druids and taught in very similar fashion and there was a great deal of purpose and mysticism connected with them. Again this lends itself to there being a propaganda war ongoing with secret bodies working against each other to win/save the hearts of the people.
I have both nature deities (a few, but popular) and Druids in my worlds(s), but years ago I created a special group of Divine spells, and a special nature magik section that allows each 'Forester' class (Druid, Witch, Bard, Rangers) to have spells that the other classes don't.
In the South, controlled burns are a major part of land management. Forest fires are also part of the life of every natural ecosystem, and so I would think suit the Neutral alignment quite well.
A great book series on Druids is the "Iron Druid Chronicles".
The audio version has a fantastic narrator!
Although I found the first book of the Iron Druid super cliche, the audio version was still pretty fun. Haven't been motivated for the next book...
Are you forgetting Sword of Shanara.
Dang! There goes my “only you can prevent forest fires” joke...
Oh well PDM, “In the name of Mother Gaia and the Eternal Green! Flame On!!!
Controlled burns are part of taking care of the forest.
This gives me ideas for a campaign I am preparing, although not D&D. It is a one on one game until we all get vaccinated. What an interesting time to be playing a druid.
I saw Manimal when I was kid, he turned into a panther a bunch and a dolphin once. It’s been a long time...
Anything William Conrad narrated the opening too was awesome
In my world, druids are in tune and can communicate with elemental and fey primordial spirits that inhabit features in the world like storms, trees (dryads), mountains, forests, etc. This differentiates them from a "Nature Domain" or Tempest Domain cleric who will still worship a god of nature/storms. It also places druids in a position where locals may seek them out to intervene in regions where floods, storms, earthquakes, etc. are a problem or where fey creatures are wreaking havoc or mischief since the druids can interact with the beings causing the problems (even if those beings, especially elemental ones, often have goals and drives that are incomprehensibly alien to mortal races).
Personally from a Game Mechanics stand point I have always seen the Druid as the class that sit's between the Wizard and the Cleric in the same way the Cleric sits between the Wizard and the Fighter. It's a Cleric with more of a casting focus intended to give them utility that allows them to both support the group and hinder foes, with some damage spells sprinkled in. With it having to make a trade off when taking on a figther style role by turning into an animal.
Love the content! I'm using this video to help build my Shaman class in my Tabletop game!
Nature cleric vs Druid
You outlined druids. So I'll cover the nature cleric.
Priests and clerics seek to control, organize and shape what's around them. They are going to be more militaristic, organized and industrial in their approach to handling nature.
Though they enjoy nature, a druid is happy with the chaos and balance of force the wild will have. Where as a nature cleric will maximize the goal of nature with farms, parks and fenced working the land.
A very loose example is a native American compared to a farmer. Both care greatly for nature. One will say we have too many people for the land to feed, the other will try to squeeze even more food out of the land than ever before. Both would be against destroying the land for oil.
It depends on a god dude. For Gozreh, for instance, spoiling untouched nature with farms is anathema.
Thank you for the concise description, and excellent suggestions 👍🤘
I will be playing a Lizardfolk Moon Druid in Tomb of Annihilation, and now I will be thinking of myself as a sleestak!
Lol. Good one.
This may be the first time the Professor did the home-work for me. Thanks, PDM
Thanks for making great videos, helps a lot these days.
10:38 : I'd dish out that research responsibility to the player to make those lists.
Thanks Dan! You're always a wealth of inspiration.
Crossbows became popular in Europe before plate. Locks were around since at least Roman times.
I didn't get into dnd until last year, and my first character is a Druid. Felt the party balance was off, no tank, no healer, and all our casters were Charisma based.
Moon Druid built around support spells and getting into primal melees was my angle.
Yes there's a lot to keep track of, but I essentially have a hotkey of shapes depending on my need. Also have a stat blocks for summons so the DM doesn't have to look them up. Just need cards to hand out to teammates I decided should go King Kong for a battle.
I love the druid with the sickle at 2:30, he looks like the druid from Talisman!
Rowan Badhwar Good eye. He IS the Druid from Talisman!
Wen i saw this i was like holy shit he did it
I run a game based on Celtic Myth so Druids are far more common than Clerics in my games. It makes for a nice change and offers a lot of flavor to the world, a lot of differences in faith are solved with debate rather than the usual screaming of "HERESY" and bashing of heads
Cool!
I can give an explanation as to why a Druid would want fire spells; to prevent forest fires. By burning away any overgrowth, a wildfire has less fuel to burn this prevent mitigating the severity while providing nutrients for new plants and trees. There’s another reason, I think, but the details as to why escapes me.
For Duty & Deity, only instead of a druid it was Halanna Jashire, a priestess of Waukeen (Coinmaiden) in Athkatla... when Waukeen was being held captive by Graz'zt in the Abyss.
Druids may not have kept a written record in the traditional sense, or at least non have been found, but they were literate, in multiple languages and highly educated. They had there own alphabet, that corresponds with species of tree. In this way it would be possible to communicate complex ideas with a pile of leafs. Only the initiated would be able to "read" it.
Anyone else get distracted by Monty Python memories when he said "an elk"?
A moose bit my sister.
Or 99 Ecuadoran llamas?
At some point - I don't remember when - I was thinking about druids, and it occurred to me that these are a neutral organization with it's own secret language of rugged, wilderness ready individuals who can traverse any natural terrain without leaving tracks - and many of them can take the form of natural animals, and I concluded that these people are perfect couriers. They would be the most reliable messaging service money could by, and they would be practically impossible to intercept.
I could try and make a lore based argument for the fire druid. Think of the Sequoia trees and their relationship to fire. The trees actually thive off of the occasional fire to eliminate any competition and it is a necessarily mechanic to releasing seeds from their (not pine)cones.
Furthermore fire can enrich the soil because of the carbonization process.
6:10 - If park rangers were actually given flame throwers, one thing's fer sure, I'd want to be one. Park management meeting: "Accidental fires are up, way up, actually, but so is recruitment!"
Five Torches Deep requires a To Hit roll because the magic users can cast their spell(s) all day long without a concern for spell slots or spell points. That's also why they have the failure backlash table. In 5e (which Prof DC doesn't play as such), the spell casting is limited by limited spell slots or spell points.
With unlimited cantrips, including damaging cantrips, making the Game superheroic as written.
I needed this !!
Also Keyleth from Legend of Vox Machina kicks ass !!
I think Druids would make an interesting foe. A circle has determined that mankind has despoiled too much and their cities must burn to restore balance.
You and Hankerin have the most antithetical DM advice to games I enjoy playing and runnning but I respect both of your content creation. That being said I love your crafting content and hope you pump out some more of that as the quarentine in NY is a month longer.
I always loved Druids as a class in D&D. But I looked at them as the servants of the "natural world" as opposed to the "spiritual world" served by Clerics/Paladins. So Druid would work with the natural elements...earth, fire, water, air...the land the ocean the air...but also specific to regions...arctic druid, desert druid, river druid, lake, sky, stone, fire...etc, not just forest. As to the alignment, I kinda looked at it like they strive to balance the axis of order and chaos, both being critical to the "natural order"...which they ignore the moral axis of Good-Evil (stone, fire, trees do not have a moral outlook).
Cool viewpoint.
Honestly, every character has some power or ability that might be like summon monster.
I always review characters ahead of time and "pre-manufacture" tables before game begins
so I am not flipping through books when a spell gets cast. Of course some effects may vary
depending on location. It can be challenging to think ahead for all circumstances. Wing it.
Just note that they did provide list for all the beasts of each CR in the druid options in Xanathars.
Good point.
in my game druids don't have parents but are born from nature, their spell list is adjusted depending on their alignment and of course the moon phases will increase their memorized spells limit.
Statements like, “...I’d make d100 acres of the forest burn down” and “...the pixies get mad and try to gouge out her eyes” are yet more proof that you run a top notch table of unlimited dark humor. Your players are most fortunate and you, good Sir, are brilliant.
At the 11 minute mark, I totally agree. It's frustrating when I get a player who's class requires that I'm the other half of his mechanics.
As an ecologist who has always felt drawn to druids, it easy for me to embrace the circle of fire druid. Fires are both destructive and regenerative. Some forest species are fire adapted. The have traits that enable persistence on a landscape because fires prevent non-adapted species from out-competing them. Modern ecologists use fires as a tool to promote biodiversity and recognize that suppression of fire over periods of decades to centuries has actually resulted in increases in the destruction of fires when they cannot be suppresed. The fire druid is really just another take on the circle of life mentality that I think most druids would embrace.
The first edition Druid is pretty amazing actually
Fire is a part of nature. Druids get fire spells for the same reason they get call lightning. Now, druid spells tend to be concentration, which is why they don't get Fireball, but I think Flaming Sphere makes perfect sense. Furthermore, I think the wildfire subclass makes perfect sense, when you burn things away they regrow.
High Charisma was originally required of the Druid... maybe linked to their historic origin as peacemakers between tribes?
Fire is an aspect of nature and rebirth. A dried up and dead forest will easily catch fire, clearing space for new plant growth and a fertile ash to fuel new growth from death. That's how I would justify a druid using fire magics.
I was all ready to disagree with you about something. Instead I'm wondering where I can get one of those plus one vests of protection.
Ireland. A friend of mine is from Ireland and buys them when she's there.
They really work.
Druids may want to do controlled burns. When Europeans first arrived in Australia, they thought they had arrived in a park, as the area was maintained by controlled burns.
Also, in Florida, where lightening storms are very common, a whole ecosystem has evolved around the frequent fires; in example the turtles burrow during the storms, a lot of plants will not germinate if they have not be heated.
Great video, I enjoy hearing your perspectives on the different classes. Looking forward to your video on handling romantic relationships within the campaign ;)
Like, just the music alone is great!
Your miniatures are legendary!!!
I think another thing that plays into circle of the moon being more popular is the fact that a lot of people pick up druid specifically because they want to be a shapeshifter and the other circles, while not necessarily weaker, are not geared towards that.
about druids and taking new shapes: I would go so far to say that the druid needs to spend at least one Downtime Activity learning the lucal fauna to be able to shapeshift into the local animals if they are new.