Druidic Spellcasting Revised

Druidic Spellcasting Revised

It's time to solve the druid question. I have a problem with druids in GURPS - I love druids conceptually, but mechanically... let's say that they are subpar in most situations. For the most part, this is due to their power modifier. In this post, I'd like to talk about the power modifiers, about druids in general, and try to rework my druidic spellcasting framework into something more functional.

The Nature, -20% power modifier (p. P28) consists of two parts. The first part is mundane insulator - civilization interferes with your powers. You’re at -1 to use your abilities in a despoiled wild place such as a clear-cut forest, -3 in a city, -5 amidst ordinary pollution, and -10 in a poisoned wasteland.

The second part is mundane countermeasure - you're at a penalty equal to half the TL (round up) of the most advanced manufactured item you're carrying, wearing, or riding in or on.

What does this mean in the context of a druid in a D&D-like setting? First, if you want to avoid penalties, you have to limit yourself to TL0 equipment. This may seem super harsh, but it actually isn't that bad. Open GURPS Low-Tech, take a look at what TL0 offers you and you'll be surprised by how many options you've got. This part of the power modifier is something I'm fine with - I think it is reasonable, flavorful, and playable. On the other hand, is it that limiting? You're very unlikely to get more than -2 in TL penalties from this even if you do not limit yourself to primitive gear.

Second, adventures usually take place in dungeons or cities, with wilderness typically being a transitive medium. Sure, it is possible to have an adventure that for the most part takes place in the wilderness, but that's more of an exception to the rule. Anyway, it is likely that the druid will be penalized most of the time (about -2 or -3, usually). This sucks. What also sucks is that these are gradual and vague penalties. While it's usually easy to limit a wizard's magical ability for low mana, as it will have halved effectiveness, it's much harder to make abilities 20-30% less effective. This is actually one of the reasons why I like casting rolls - when casting rolls are a thing, gradual penalties are easier to apply. Just slap a penalty on the casting roll and forget about tweaking the effect. Druids built on the GURPS Magic framework definitely benefit from this. The environmental penalties also are a bit too vague - there are too few examples.

Also, I have some other thematic complaints. Druids sometimes are depicted as opponents of civilization, and to destroy civilization they have to work near or inside civilized places, but they are heavily penalized for that. The same goes for despoiled places. You'd assume that druids would be the best people to deal with pollution and all that sort of stuff, but their druidic powers barely even work there, so they aren't much better than mundane people in that regard. Even though I find the nature's strength part of the power modifier logically sound, this thing bothers me.

Pyramid #3-68 is devoted to nature magic in its entirety. One of the highlights is the Nature's Strength Revisited sidebar on page 31 that talks about the despoilment penalties in more detail and suggest a different approach that would result in a mean modifier of 0, as druids now would also get occasional bonuses. However, now you need to keep track of more things, such as distance to the nearest significant despoilment, years of nature worship in a grove, TL of a road you're walking on, etc. This requires a lot of additional effort on part of the GM for relatively minor benefits. For example, it's easy to find the TL of an item, and the player himself usually is aware of it because it's on his character sheet (unless he's the kind of player who gets lost in his own sheet), but the TL of a road, mill, mine, etc. requires GM input and extra knowledge obtained by reading Low-Tech Companions (which is something you should do - they are excellent books). In addition, the GM should make his world much more detailed because now you cannot estimate the penalty/bonus only from your immediate surroundings, as even distance to the nearest despoilment plays a quite important part, and even the aforementioned length of worship in a grove does as well, adding a new dimension. And you really have to use these modifiers as without them the only possible bonuses can be derived from high sanctity for high druids (a new variant introduced in the same article) and high/very high Animal- or Plant-aspected mana (what about Weather?). Thus, you have to track even more things or the druid will be penalized 95% of the time.

In short, while I do like this sidebar, I find it less playable. If you've been following my blog, you probably know that I focus on playability less than on flavor, but if you don't make things playable for your players, you will only encounter NPCs with these mechanics, but the druid is one of the core D&D classes! (Or a subclass of a core class, depending on the edition). Druid is one of my favorite classes, and I do want to see them played, but even my flavorbrain tells me that this just isn't worth it.

The same Pyramid issue has the Green Power article that has abilities for powers-based druids. These abilities have a slightly different power modifier. This is a -20% Pact limitation that forces the druid to abide by a Code of Honor (Forest Guardian's) [-10] and Vow (Only use outdated technology) [-10]. The former is a traditional "protect nature" code and the latter forces you to use gear one TL behind the baseline (up to TL4, at least). The latter is hardly limiting. The former is very similar to Sense of Duty (Whole of nature) [-15] that is mentioned several lines above.

Then, we have the Designer's Notes: Wilderness Adventures article with the aforementioned Nature's Strength Revisited sidebar. As I already mentioned before, it introduces three new druid variants.

The first one is the elemental druid that taps into elementally-aspected mana instead of nature. Basically, this is an elementalist wizard with some minor differences.

The second one is the high druid that worships nature deities to gain powers. This one depends not on nature strength or mana, but on sanctity.

The third one is the life-force wizard - a regular wizard that uses nature's strength instead of mana. In other words, this is a reverse elemental druid. That's actually an interesting concept, if only the point of this entire post weren't that I don't like nature's strength.

I guess I should also mention tree magic from GURPS Thaumatology as it is closely related to druidic arts, even though it has nothing to do with nature's strength or power modifiers. Of course, there's also GURPS Celtic Myth for 3e if you want to see what real druids would look like.

All right, with that out of the way, perhaps I was too hasty when I just slapped the Nature, -20% power modifier on druidic abilities and called it a day when I was adapting D&D druids to GURPS? Let's see how druids actually work in terms of flavor in D&D.

AD&D 1e: To modern players this may be a surprise, but the druid initially was merely a sub-class of the cleric class. They could not turn undead or fiends, had a more limited and specialized array of spells, and had some extra restrictions. However, they gained extra abilities that clerics did not possess.

The book tells you to visualize druids as medieval cousins of what the ancient Celtic sect of Druids would have become had it survived the Roman conquest. Trees, sun, and moon are venerated as deities, and mistletoe is the holy symbol of druids that gives power to their spells. Druids are obliged to protect wild plants, crops, and to a lesser extent, their human followers and animals. Slaying animals for self-preservation or sustenance, if necessary, is okay. That's actually quite similar to Code of Honor (Forest Guardian's) [-10].

    All the other druidic abilities are there, but in somewhat different form than in the modern editions. Druids can identify plants, animals, pure water, pass through overgrowth traceless, resist fey charms, and shapeshift into animals. However, the shapeshifting ability can only be used up to three times per day, and you can only shapeshift into a reptile, a bird, and a mammal. Thus, if you already shifted into a snake that day, you cannot do it again, but you still can shapeshift into a rat and an owl. A strange limitation.

    The secret Druidic language makes an appearance here, but the druid also gains optional access to other sylvan languages from the following list: centaur, dryad, elvish, faun, gnome, green dragon, hill giant, lizardman, manticore, nixie, pixie, sprite, treantish. Wait a second, what are the hill giant, lizardman, and manticore languages doing there? I can give the green dragon language a pass, because green dragons live in forests, but the other three are a bit odd.

    Druids cannot wear metal armor.

    Finally, we have something that also may seem weird to modern players - the social structure of druids. Druids may seem reclusive, but they actually are very social characters that more often than not are tied to a druidic circle. The structure makes it so there can only be a limited number of high-level druids. There can only be nine 12th-level druids, three 13th-level druids (archdruids), and one 14th-level druid (the Great Druid). If you want to level up and there's no vacancy - tough shit, it's time to d-d-d-d-duel with your superior. If you win, you may take his place, and he levels down. That's super cool.

AD&D 2e: The druid subclass got a significant expansion here. First, we have a box that talks about the real world druids and how the AD&D druid is only loosely patterned after these historical figures. More importantly, the book clearly states that the druid is a priest of nature and guardian of the wilderness.

    The druid now is limited to the following weapons: club, sickle, dart, spear, dagger, scimitar, sling, and staff.

    In terms of spells, they get major access to the following spheres: all, animal, elemental, healing, plant, and weather; and minor access to the divination sphere.

    The list of optional sylvan languages now includes all giants and all dragons.

    The druidic ethos got expanded both in terms of detail and word count. Mistletoe still is the holy symbol.

    The druidic social structure got expanded as well. Remember the proper druids, archdruids, and the great druid from 1e? Now, these are limited not per-world, but per-area. Thus, a druidic circle of area A can have three archdruids, but that doesn't stop a druidic circle of area B to have a trio of archdruids of their own. We also got new positions. Above the great druids stands the Grand Druid (15th level). There can be only one of them in the world, not in a given area. This position is won not through combat, but via the current Grand Druid selecting a successor from among the Great Druids. The Grand Druid is also attended by nine druids outside the entire hierarchy. When the Grand Druid steps down, he loses some Grand Druid abilities but becomes a hierophant druid that can advance further in levels and gain abilities that are unique to this position, such as changing his appearance, hibernating, becoming immune to poisons, ignoring ability penalties for ageing, and being able to shift to the Elemental Planes are survive there. That's... convoluted but also fascinating.

D&D 3.0: This is when the druid became a separate class. However, the religion paragraph says that the druids still revere nature and gain their magical powers from a spiritual unity with nature or from worshiping a nature deity. The "deity" part is new here. The druidic organization is mentioned several times, but is not described in much detail, and it gives off the feel of "yeah, yeah, druidic circles exist bla-bla-bla, who cares anyway." This is also where you can first see that druids oppose undead and aberrations, which becomes their running theme from now on.

    Druids are still prohibited from wearing metal armor, and are limited to a specific set of weapons.

    The druidic code of conduct is almost entirely absent now. The only mentions are the prohibition to wear metal armor and use inappropriate weapons, and the Ex-Druids paragraph that has "A druid who ceases to revere nature, changes to a prohibited alignment, or teaches the Druidic language to a nondruid loses all spells and druid abilities." In this case, we only have a vague "revere nature and don't teach Druidic." Using wrong armor or weapons disabled your powers only temporarily.

    The entire mistletoe thing is not mentioned in the druid's class description, but the Magic chapter has the following: "The default divine focus for a druid or a ranger is a sprig of mistletoe or holly." Holly has been added to the list!

    Surprisingly, Masters of the Wild doesn't really add much.

D&D 3.5: Same as before, but now the druid can wield any weapon he wants.

D&D 4e: The druid class was introduced in Player's Handbook 2. Now, they are less about worshipping nature or nature deities, but more about having a bond with nature spirits, which seems closer to the 3.0 shaman class. As for the other flavor differences... what flavor? This is 4e! Even though I like some parts of 4e, I feel dirty after opening the books.

D&D 5e: Now, I feel even dirtier. Wait a second - entire paragraphs have been copied straight from the D&D 3.5 PHB! However, we do have something new. First, the book says that the druidic traditions are sometimes called "the Old Faith" (this is more of a Greyhawk thing). Second, now the druids are not concerned with the balance of good and evil, law and chaos, but are concerned with balance of the four elements and oppose Elemental Evil cults that favor one element above others. Druidic powers are said to originate from the divine essence of nature itself. Also, I have to commend 5e, which is something I rarely do - the sacred plants and wood are talked about in more detail here and tackle a problem of druids having no access to their holy plants in environments where the plant in question doesn't grow. Druidic circles also are given more character - now they are different circles with different goals, which is something I like. However, the organization structure is yet again absent.

What'll happen to this class in the future? Last year, Hasbro said that they are considering phasing out the Druid and Witch creature types from MtG because of the connections to real world religions. Then, they made underhanded edits to the 5e Player's Handbook by removing all mentions of "civilization" and "savage" for reasons that still are unclear to me. Thus, I expect the druid and barbarian classes to disappear, possibly with some others as well (bards?), and the lore get retconned to make it seem that druids never existed, and barbarians probably will get axed too. It's the current year! This is why I am an advocate for PDF and book hoarding.

Speaking of PDF hoarding, there is a couple of books that I strongly recommend you take a look at if you're making a druid - The Quintessential Druid and The Quintessential Druid II. These are 3rd-party supplements by Mongoose Publishing that take all the good 2e druid stuff, port it to 3e and expand it greatly. It's probably awful in terms of mechanics, but it's an amazing resource for GURPS games.

But anyway, doesn't the description of the D&D druid match more with the GURPS high druid instead of the regular druid? It really does seem that this should be a cleric variant instead of a separate class. Back in the day, I thought "druids being divine spellcasters is stupid, why not make them nature spellcasters in GURPS if there's even a power modifier for that?" But I have a secret. You see, I'm actually retarded. So, let's rework the druid spellcasting. It's going to be 90% identical to how I do clerics.

First, I have to specify that druids must follow their code of conduct, and that all druidic abilities have the Divine, -10% power modifier with Code of Honor (Druidic) taken as part of the Pact limitation. Druids may venerate the forces of nature in general, or devote themselves to the deities of nature. Nature-worshipping druids use the domains of their circle. Syncretic druids that worship nature gods use the domain lists of that deity (excluding moral domains - Chaos, Evil, Good, Law) or domains of their circle. Sacred plants that serve as holy symbols to druids differ depending on the circle, but mistletoe can serve as a holy symbol for any druid. Regardless of the patron deity, a druid does not emanate an alignment aura - they count as neutral.

    Code of Honor (Druidic) [-15]

    Druids, as nature's protectors, prioritize the natural cycles of birth, growth, death, and rebirth and remain aloof from worldly issues. They see the struggles of good and evil as part of time's cycles, involving themselves only when this balance is disrupted.

    Druids are charged with protecting wildemess-in particular trees, wild plants, wild animals, and crops. By association, they are also responsible for their followers and their animals. Druids recognize that all creatures (including humans) need food, shelter, and protection from harm. Hunting, farming, and cutting lumber for homes are logical and necessary parts of the natural cycle. However, druids do not tolerate unnecessary destruction or exploitation of nature for profit. Druids often prefer subtle and devious methods of revenge against those who defile nature. It is well known that druids are both very unforgiving and very patient.

    A druid must not teach the Druidic language to those who are not becoming initiates of the druidic circle.

    Druids must avoid wearing or using metal items.

This Code of Honor applies more limitations than Code of Honor (Forest Guardian's) [-10] and hence costs more. However, to keep the Divine limitation at -10%, druids have more relaxed Pact requirements. While breaking the nature protection part of the code does make you immediately lose your druidic powers until you complete a minor quest to atone, wearing or using metal items disable your powers temporarily - this lasts until you remove forbidden items and for 1d hours after that.

As for the domains, it works like this. For example, Ehlonna is a nature deity and she grants major access to Animal, Good, and Plant domains, and minor access to Celerity and Sun domains. Druids worshipping her get all these sans the Good domain.

A generic druidic circle, let's call it Circle of the Forest, would grant major access to Air, Animal, Fungus, Earth, Plant, Water, and Weather domains. I would also give it minor access to Fire, Healing, and Knowledge. Other druidic circles may have different lists.

- Access to druidic abilities is represented with a power subdivided into domains. Domains are collections of thematically linked divine spells that use the same skill in place of the casting roll – Domain of [Name]. Each Domain is a Hard IQ-based skill that defaults to Theology (Druidic)-5. Domain access can be major or minor. Minor domains allow casting spells up to 20 points; they are marked with “(m)” on the circle's list of domains. Unlike clerics, druids do not get access to the Domain of Divinity, i.e. spells that have "All" as their domain.

- For the purpose of Talent cost, if a deity/circle provides access to more than four major domains, the Talent costs 10 points/level. Anything less makes the Talent cost 5 points/level. For this purpose, every minor domain is considered a half of a major domain.

- A defaulted Domain Skill cannot be higher than 12. In addition, no Domain Skill can ever exceed Theology (Druidic) + Druidic Talent level. If a spell belongs to multiple domains, then the caster rolls against the higher of those Domain Skills. Improving individual spells as techniques is not allowed.

    o If a spell has no casting roll, the Requires IQ Roll, -10% is applied to it; if a spell has a non-IQ-based casting roll, then Based on IQ, Own Roll, +20% is applied to it; if a spell has an IQ-based roll, then no changes are necessary.

- Aside from the casting roll, druidic spells should cost at least 1 FP, require prayer, and optionally require gestures and/or a holy symbol (as such, Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%, Divine, -10% and Requires Magic Words, -10% are required limitations). Spells may have any casting time.

- Advantages granted by divine Buff spells should have the Divine, +0% modifier, because they do not require the subject to act according to the deity/circle’s code of conduct, but still depend on sanctity.

- Weak Latency (Druidic) perk exists, and druids are able to combine their powers as per Combining Powers (GURPS Powers, pp. 170-172). Unlike arcane spellcasters, druids require a full minute of ritual movements and concentration to link up, but they get to roll against the higher of IQ and Religious Ritual (Druidic) to do so.

- When rolling a critical failure on a casting roll, use the “Celtic” Table (GURPS Thaumatology, p. 256).

- Even if the character hasn't purchased a particular divine spell or ability with character points, he may be able to improvise it by praying to his patron deity or nature itself. The following requirements must be met:

    o The spell or ability to be improvised must exist in the setting. The character cannot improvise a spell that doesn't exist. However, he may invent a new spell using the Invention rules (p. B472), if the GM allows that.

    o The spell or ability to be improvised must belong to one of the deity's/circle's domains, and if it belongs to the minor domain, it should have a full cost of no more than 20 points.

    o The spell or ability to be improvised must not be more expensive than the most expensive divine spell possessed by the character granted by the same deity.

If the requirements are met, the character may attempt to cast the improvised spell. The spell's properties are modified as follows without changing the spell's point cost:

    o Fatigue Point cost is increased by 3.

    o Casting time is multiplied by 10.

    The casting roll takes the following modifiers:

    o Cost Modifiers: -4 for any spell whose full cost is no more than 25% of the character's most expensive divine spell granted by the same deity; -6 for any spell whose full cost is no more than 50% of it; -8 for any spell whose full cost is no more than 75% of it; or -10 for any spell with a cost up to 100% of the most expensive spell.

    o Fatigue Modifiers: The character can spend extra FP to offset the cost modifiers listed above. Each FP eliminates a -1 penalty, but cannot provide a net bonus.

    o Sanctity Modifiers: -5 in a place of low sanctity to your patron deity/circle; +1 in a place of high sanctity to your deity/circle; or +2 in a place of very high sanctity to your deity/circle. In an area with no sanctity to your deity/circle, you cannot cast spells at all.

    o Repeated Attempts: -1 for every failed improvisation performed by you in the last 24 hours.

    o Talent: the caster's Talent applies here as a bonus.

Success means that the spell works once. If the spell is maintainable, then it can be maintained without recasting. Critical success means that there is no FP cost for this spell, including all the extra FP the caster was supposed to spend. Maintaining the spell is not free. Failure means that the spell fails and FP and time spent are wasted. On a critical failure, make a reaction roll for the deity/nature, at -1 per similar failure since the caster last paid penance, sacrificed, etc. A Poor or worse reaction results in the same outcome as violating the power's Pact limitation.

The best part about it is that you don't have to recalculate the costs of clerical spells - you just use them as is.