Druids

In many fantasy/rpg games, a druid is a person connected to earth and environments, someone who is in touch with the elements. Through the beautiful landscapes I've seen in this game, it seems like a world people would cherish. This being said; I enjoy stretching the limits and taking on the form of another being, like a wolf, and tearing into my target like a wild animal; and appearing as just that, a wild animal. I've seen no talk of druids in this game; though I've seen talk of weaponry, bows, and magic, but none of transformations and earth magic. I feel like it would add a lot to the game if I could turn into a savage beast at will (possibly into something suiting the environment, with proper training, of course.)and turn back into a humanoid form without a second thought or hesitation.

If you're too lazy to read all that, I basically said there should be druids. Opinions?

 

I expect to see druids. They existed in Ultima games. It's always been a good way to introduce healing without dealing with gods and religion.

 

@PrimeRib In a way I meant for different combat styles. Hate to relate to it but kindve the way World of Warcraft did it. You could choose to transform into a quick dps, a magic dps, a tank, or a healer, but were utterly useless unless you trained in them.

 

In most games i've played druids don't transform, but they have animal companions. This is a classless system and they could do a self transformation skill tree. (there was polymorph in UO, you could take on the shape of animals).

To me this is what classic Druid spells look like:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists/druidSpells.htm

Now if you wanted to RP as a druid i'd say it should be very easy considering the taming and pet system.

and they do get shapechange as a 9th level spell.. you can turn into anything(non-unique) you want and gain all of that creatures abilities.

 

Yes. Druids!

If they can't shapeshift, they aren't really druids. They're just tamers.

Real druids turn into panthers and stalk through the forest, destroying all the non-nature-lovers.

\o/


It might be neat to have druids in this focus on a specific class of animal with drawbacks and advantages.

You could be a master of bird-creatures and gain the ability to fly in various bird forms (but often have the disability of being the most obvious target ever for enemies with ranged attacks).

Or you could be a water creature master...

or your standard bear/wolf forest creatures...

I'd like to be Lord of the Birds, myself.

 

I would disagree that shape shifting is a common or normal druid ability.. that is a Blizzard thing.. (Diablo 2 and WoW) I can't think of any other campaign or lore setting where druids spend much of their time in animal form... most are more like Radagast from LOTR.

That's how I prefer my druids.. D&D and LOTR style.. more about nature, and animal companions..

Actually, that is more of the Ultima style as well... unless im missing something, but aren't they referred to living in Yew in the middle of the woods and being proponents of nature?

 

D&D druids can shape shift though - It's called Wild Shape. In fact, given it's versatility, DnD is usually my go-to example of shape shifting druids.

 

Yeah, I am with Sir Mishri on this one. In D&D Druids could only shapeshift at high levels, but were mostly in-tune with nature with the goal of protecting it: not necessarily joining in on it. I think 3 or 3.5 added a class called Shifters that were more pure to this ability. Personally, I have always found shapeshifting had balance issues in Multiplayer games. In NWN, most of the Shifting classes were disabled or nerfed because of these types of problems, and bugs related to the giving of monster skills to players.

Although this will be a class-less game, I hope the Devs allow enough flexibility that these class "personalities" can be RPed and have play mechanics to support them. However, if there is shapeshifting I hope it is limited and comes with a great cost. Otherwise everyone will end up shifting into dragons all the time.

Edit:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20020202

Druids gain Wild Shape at level 5. It works for 1 hour, once a day and you can only become an animal (badger, brown bear, boar, panther and wolf). At level 12, you gain the ability to become "Dire" animal shapes.

 

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists/druidSpells.htm

that is more like the d&D druids i'm talking about.. yeah you can take on a basic animal form, but it's brief until you get high level, and once per day and then at high level it unlocks some other forms. but you lose the ability to cast in any good forms so you lose cool stuff like Finger of Death... so most druids use it for situational things only, not really combat.

I heard about this d&d story... Guy is a druid and he chooses a bear for his animal companion. He loves this bear and is drawing pictures of it and has a huge backstory written about the bear and how he met the druid etc. One of his party members (I can't remember the class) says he doesn't want treasure or anything, all he wants is women, so he has this harem of women following him around on their adventures. So the druid is getting jealous of all these women his friend has and decides to charm one of them into sleeping with him one night. well the guy finds out and shrinks the druid companion bear down and punts him into a lake, killing it. Druid guy starts crying and quits playing d&d.

This story is probably posted online somewhere, I just heard about it from one of my friends in our d&d group.

 

Druids definitely shapeshift in D&D, as has been mentioned. Goes all the way back to 1st edition AD&D and doesn't require a very high level to do so either. 7th level in AD&D 1st edition.

And, you can change into various things (birds, reptiles, etc.) once a day. The forms have to be within reason to your character's body size, so you can't go turning into a dinosaur.

There isn't much unbalanced about that. I've had druids in my D&D campaigns for years and they never do anything over the top.


If the forms in SOTA had time limits, use restrictions, and sets of advantages and disadvantages, I don't think it would be very broken.

I mean if you turn into a bear in town, you'll probably alert the guards and have them come running after you to take out the wild bear in the middle of the town.


UO's polymorphing and Ninja animal forms weren't very busted either. Nor were the tree form, the current gargoyle stone form, and some of the other stuff.

It'd be a bit of a letdown to pass up on being able to have a shape shifting ability of some type.


EDIT: That story is depressing, and the DM should have probably intervened a bit, lol. Luckily, something like that won't be happening in a game like SOTA, I'd guess.

As far as "D&D" druids go, you don't get much more D&D than going with the original druids from 1st or 2nd edition. They could shape shift, no problem, on top of having animal companions.

Our current (now high level) druid has a bear, a wyvern, and the lion figurines of power. She's also the most resourceful druid I've ever seen playing AD&D, and has earned her things very well. The animal companions are more of a concern than the shapeshifting as far as balance goes....

but luckily, you can't just strut into town with your Wyvern and go "hey guys its cool, hes friendly now".

 

I feel like a tamer and a Druid should be different. I like the thought of shape shifting; but I see it as a key ability of the druids; where you could turn into an animal that wasn't exactly "rare" like a dragon and inherit there traits and ability's; and eventually master the form. Of course turning into a dragon is a little overkill; but maybe certain forms have a certain duration you can remain in them; and a cooldown associated with them. So a wolf could be an auxiliary form; one you can always use with no cooldown, but a dragon would be on the complete other end of the spectrum; where you could only transform once a day for like 2 minutes; and would only be used in dire situations. All characters may have a special once-a-day ability, we don't know yet.

 

I'd vote the tamer/druid should be the same. It wouldn't make sense to not have creatures befriend someone who is in tune with nature.

and something like a ranger could also have animal companions too.

There is a balance that will need to be achieved with classes that can have animal companions and other perks (like shapeshifting), but hey, its 2013.

We can figure it out.

 

@Arkhan Remember this is a classless system; so both could be possible. Taming could be its own skill and transformations could be there own. That being said; that would mean everyone could tame; but I think it would require a fairly high taming skill to be able to train combat pets.

 

Right, duh, I keep forgetting you'll get to form things how you want. We went off on an archetype side quest!



It should definitely be done in such a way that the truly advantageous companions are hard to earn.


Both skill wise, and "getting it" wise.



You should get that pet dragon by the skin of your teeth!

 

@Arkhan That really closes off customization for some people; as some may not want to tame a dragon, and instead have just a lion; but that shouldn't make it a weaker animal. I was hoping that animals/monsters could have customized textures so each pet could be somewhat unique; but that's a topic for taming...

 

I like where you're going with that Bayien. Dragons of course are powerful, but I think it would create uniqueness if you could level up a tiger or a raven as a pet. Not that a raven could ever be the attack beast that a dragon would be but it would be cool that master taimers have different pets that can become powerful instead of only having that coveted dragon.

 

A raven could be used to spot things farther off, maybe resources players up ahead or Pkers coming, a dragon could also do what a raven does but would also be able to help in a fight more than a raven that could simply swoop down to distract enemy.

 

My hope is that the class system gives everyone a way to do the following:

Do damage
-> Spells
-> Weapons
-> Pets / Summons

Provide support
-> Heals
-> Buffs
-> Debuffs

Defense
-> Mitigation (Armor / Shields)
-> Avoidance (Dodging and mobility)
-> Crowd Control / Interrupts

There might be predetermined templates for a number of "classes", including druids. But you're given a lot of leeway on what you actually build.

If we take a dragon as an example. Let's face it, a dragon is no one's "pet". I imagine someone is locked into a trace holding a powerful artifact (dragon orb, etc.) trying to will the dragon under control, but something could go wrong and the dragon turns on it's "master". Controlling a puppy, would be a whole lot easier. I'm not too sure about cats though...they can be pretty independent.

 

Thats what I'm trying to avoid. To be honest I'd hate the thought of having a dragon as a pet; and would love a Raven or some other mystical bird. But that puts it at an off balance saying "If you dont like it, too bad, you cant have power." and that's why it needs to be drawn back. Perhaps you could tame a raven; then undergo some sort of magic (the same sort of magic that would be used to tame a dragon and form it to a appropriate size) to grow the raven/harness it's skills. Similar to pokemon evolution but without all the pokemon.

 

@PrimeRib: you do know that LB says the games going to be a classless, you just play as you like so you might be a mixture of what two or more class types by other games.