Why are they "unpopular"? Nature magic is great and their aesthetics is fantastic.

>>96006597 (OP)
A lot of people seem to think they have to be hippy 'muh balance' types rather than 'nature red in tooth and claw'.

Make a new thread about clerics.

Druids are all faggots with a few exceptions

>>96006597 (OP)
Druids don't have a strong enough niche. Thematically they just feel like a regional/cultural variant of other types which have a stronger class identity. There's thematic crossover between the "barbarian" wizards/ priests/shamans, and whatever a druid is supposed to be.

>>96006597 (OP)
People consider them the hippie version of a wizard-cleric hybrid and don’t really care about them beyond the shapeshifter powers

>>96006597 (OP)
Think Warhammer Fantasy RPG had two different druid types if I recall.

One was the whole "Be one with nature" aspect and the other was "Humans are assholes. I am just gonna live with wolves and shit" type.

I distinctly remember the latter type being mentioned in a sourcebook where beastmen were killing villagers and he didn't give a shit, but when the same beastmen attacked the horses in the village he went absolutely berserk on said beastmen.

>>96006597 (OP)
What makes you claim they're unpopular? My current players have one in their party.

>>96006597 (OP)
They're weak
>ooOooOOooh I entangled you woooh you're so dead
I swear entanglement is basically their only class-defining technique.

I also just remembered shapeshifting which is cool as fuck so I don't know, people are gay.

>>96006807
What do you mean being the nature guardians who control plants and turn into beasts isn't thematically strong? You say druid you know immediately what it's about. You say shaman, it's different in every setting. Barbarians are just angry naked fighters, sorcerers/wizards are the same thing but one his proud of his illiteracy, clerics are paladins but slightly less fighter and slightly more religious.

>>96006597 (OP)
As of 5th edition, they are either "cleric but worse" or "guy that can turn into a not very strong animal."

>>96006881
>You say druid you know immediately what it's about
Pic related, I presume?

>>96006597 (OP)
There's few, or if any, druid related heroes.

>>96006759
dnd clerics are just less cool paladins, they're both armored mace wielding religious warriors but one is protaganist: the class and the other supporting npc: the class

>>96006759
I thought everybody played human male fighters with the default face/body.

>>96006597 (OP)
What aesthetics? Being a dirty bum who worship trees?

>>96007126
>protaganist: the class
That would be the bard. Pal is like your annoying school teacher who says that the cool stuff is bad and wrong. If paladins existed IRL, they would preach that DnD is satanic and sheet.

>>96006881
>They're weak
Nudnd was a mistake.

>>96007126
Since when the protagonist is supposed to be dumb as brick?

>>96007158
Skimpy outfits to be more "attuned" to nature.

>>96007149
Paladin is charisma based class. You want those sweat persuasion/deception/intimidation checks.

Second and third option is charisma based too.

>>96007126
>dnd clerics are just less cool paladins,
Nigga, they literally have god, anime, and the power of friendship on their side. They're cool.

>>96007221
A true nature worshiper should dance in the woods naked and frown at the very concept of clothing.

>>96007221
Elf girls fuck cats.

>>96007332
Who doesn't? Meow.

>>96007067
No

>>96006679
Hey, poisoning forest-killing faggots and dismantling their souls for spare parts when their lives can't pay for the damages feels great. You DON'T fuck with the spirit of an old forest, regardless of what coomertards would have you believe.

>>96006759
We're a decade into the Corruption, anon. Nobody likes clerics and with good reason.

>>96006759
That example is a bit skewed, since it follows the practice of creating exactly one self-insert character as a protagonist, so a lot of people gravitate towards charisma-based classes.

>>96006597 (OP)
I don't know about other people, but I don't like how wotc decided that they key feature of druids is shapeshifting. Shapeshifting is cool and all, but I don't think it fits every "nature magic man".

>>96006759
>Warlock in third
That's actually surprising to me. I'd have thought people would gravitate away from it because the roleplaying element compared so poorly to Wyll's deal with Mizora. And there's relatively little reactivity compared to most other classes in the game.

>>96006597 (OP)
>Why are they "unpopular"?
What is your sample size?

>>96006759
This is going to sound really stupid, but I don't like picking the same classes as my party members without a very specific reason. I like playing Clerics the most in TT but if they already give me one in the game as a party member I am always much less likely to pick it.

>>96006759
Forgotten Realms theology is boring, cleric forces you to play around it.

>>96008118
I think that's pretty normal

>>96008561
Its only boring if you don't want to play a politicking devotee like the setting expects from you.

>>96006597 (OP)
Because I want to play a nature wizard and what DnD gives me is furry animal transformations.

>>96007312
God I hated her

>>96006679
For the average D&D game everyone is already a murder-hobo. Even in OSR games your goal is to clear the dens of your enemies of their resources and eventually of their population to set up a foothold in the wilderness.

While the hippie human v nature dichotomy is false it's more easily understandable and applicable, more so when you include actual spirits and deities that are aligned with said nature (Though the alignment system does not play nice with this distinction due to them being neutral most of the time and thus seen as unaligned or less strongly motivated).
Meanwhile the brutal interpretation of druids as a force of nature is either overlapping with what everyone is doing already, killing easy prey and avoiding larger threats (until stronger) or too primitive and counter to playing in a party (see 7 Myths Everyone Believes About Druids as great flavor for antagonistic NPC druids).

>>96007253
>>96007253
And 5th. No guarantee the rogues are straight rogue either, my first character was Rogue 1, Bard 9, Paladin 2

>>96006597 (OP)
It's a shame "nature" magic is stuck behind a thematically weak class. It's a cleric in all but name with the only major difference being that high specific version of polymorph is built into their class.

>>96006597 (OP)
Too specific. Most classes are pretty broad concepts, but Druids will generally always be typecasted as "peace-loving forest hippies who talk to animals" and that's not a niche universally needed

>>96007312

>>96006597 (OP)
Was going to say this >>96009271
The more specific a class is on potential theming the less popular it is going to be on average. Fighter for example you can be almost anything so long as you are someone who is good at fighting, from a noble knight with years of training to a freak super strong peasant. With druid all themeing has to come back to being a magic nature man, it feels a lot narrower in what you can do.

>>96006597 (OP)
What exactly is nature magic?
>Control over flora and such
Good good, gives us spells like Entanglement, Plant Growth, Wall of Thorns, Control/Command/Animate Plants, Barkskin, Speak with Plants, Thorn Whip, Tree Stride. A mix of combat and utility options, but extremely limited if there are no plants around.

>Control over the weather
Usually ritualistic and slow. Having always favorable weather is useful but how many systems will track the weather and apply significant enough penalties for it? Meanwhile a dangerous storm full of hail and lightning has potential but in a fight it won't discriminate against friend or foe.
May be better as a way to 'curse' the enemy's land. Other way around isn't as useful as conjuring rain for more bountiful harvests is redundant with plant growth spells

>Natural disasters
Tornadoes, volcanoes, earthquakes. Has the issue of likewise of not caring about friend or foe and is extremely destructive. Very useful if you plan to be a force of change in your campaign.

>Elemental magic
This strays too far from the nature concept and runs into problems. Adding limitations like can only summon lightning from a thunderstorm hampers use anywhere underground or in non-ideal weather.
Each element is so flavorful you could have a distinct magic user of their own or one dedicated to just elemental magic, stapling it into the nature umbrella feels wrong.

>>96009352
This isn't even mentioning the other potential issues with the concept.
For example, it being a playable class changes how we view other nature-adjacent classes. If druids are nature, worship it, are given powers by it or are somehow linked to it's cycles, what does this mean for the barbarian hailing from a primitive society that lives much closer to nature? What about the ranger that thrives in nature but exists as a separate entity from it, more so using it rather than being it?
It muddies their flavor up, making their relationship with the natural world seem less interesting when you can just be an agent of it.

Similar issues come from the other end with the Cleric, Paladin and Warden classes. Hard to distinguish yourself flavor-wise when the other classes can easily adapt your concept into them. Worships a nature god or gods, chosen by the fey as their champion (or plaything) and granted powers, protector of said nature from evil, etc.

Finally their other mechanical widgets: Shapeshifting, pets and summoning.
Summoning is complicated to pull off in a tabletop medium since suddenly dropping multiple new combatants slows things down to a crawl, a lot of time and energy is now focused on your critters and away from the other players/encounter overall. The usual fixes are some form of having to spend your own actions on them, them being some sort of modifier attached to you or just an abstract spell flavored like a creature which all cut into the fantasy of summoning.

Pets and shapeshifting seem to be stapled onto the class which some people simply won't care for these aspects. Variants of the druid make these more opt in but it's still more unfocused baggage that comes with the concept.
I wish for a non-magical shapeshifter class since the concept has so much more potential than 1 or 2 viable combat forms for the level+exploration oriented form that best suits the terrain.

The problem with druids is that it's a very narrow yet abstract fantasy with a lot of tools that dulls their core identity. This leads to them having a lot of minute abilities. Unlike the paladin or bard, who have narrow identities, druids aren't as prominent in secondary media. So, you feel pigeon-holed into a specific concept with little room for subversion or personalization.
This is compounded with all the small abilities druids, especially in modern D&D. Wild shape gives druids a bunch of fucking tools that are a pain to keep track of for both DMs and players. Now you have to keep track whether or not you've seen an animal and then you have to have those stat blocks on hand. This will lead you to not being able to see as many animals as often, since your GM might not want you to see an animal early enough. Oh, and this wild shape is just a second health bar.
Ironically, I feel like tearing wild shape's power out from the base druid might make them more popular. Make shapeshifting its own class or druid archetype. Rename them to shamans as well, which gives a more broader concept than Celtic priests and soothsayers.

>>96006597 (OP)
They kind of just end up being "wood elf: the class" which is a bit of a shame.

I really like the Circle Orboros and their take on druids, more like forest illuminati with very powerful, primal magic and mastery of life itself than goodie two-shoes.

Warcraft 3 night elf druids are also fantastically well flavored. Vanilla WoW was okay too, but like everything else the fluff quality drops exponentially over time in that franchise

>>96009642
Yeah I think wildshape being the baseline for druids is an issue, as well as how broad it is as an ability.
I think if you had only X amount of animals you could transform into, increasing with levels or eventually a feat that takes the cap off, it would work way better. That way you know what you're getting from the get-go instead of having to worry about a griffon flying by in a random encounter.

>>96006597 (OP)
Have you ever played a tabletop game?

>>96007221
>Posts a character who's canonically a priestess, not a druid
>Posts a character who canonically fucks a druid

>>96007175
bards are comic relief: the class.

>their aesthetics is fantastic
Especially when they are cute half elves

>>96006759
Let's be honest anon, people didn't play Cleric in BG3 because Shadowheart is a companion, everyone wants to romance/keep her around in the party, and everybody keeps her as a Cleric for fluff reasons.

>>96006807
>Druids don't have a strong enough niche.
neither do fighters or rangers anyway
plus wizard/sorcerer/warlock being defined by the source of their power is silly

>>96008561
BG3 ignores FR theology apart from using names. It's the same "gods bad" message you see in their other games.

>>96006597 (OP)
Druids for most part don't have unique enough identity, mage but nature based isn't that good. Their main unique aspect is shapeshifting and I can understand why that doesn't appeal to a lot of people

>>96006597 (OP)
Personally I wish there were more evil or aggressive druids.

The whole nature worshipping hippie thing really damaged their image IMO. Nature has never been nice, I think Druids would be way more popular if they got to show off more of their predatory side. Turning into ravenous beasts & monsters to tear people apart, manipulating & corrupting animals and plants to their will, tearing down civilizations, murdering those they perceive as weak or outsiders just because it's convenient, etc.

>>96010957
Can't you just play one yourself?
I love evil/aggressive druids and I've played them a bunch of times, always fun.

>>96006597 (OP)
It's difficult for most players, to roleplay them beyond a one-dimensional, nature-obsessed class fantasy. Which makes them rather boring and predictable, hence less fun.

>>96006841
Sounds like a very spotty understanding of Life and Beast wizards, respectively.

>>96006597 (OP)
I blame the hippy vegans. Rather then being more of a "Barbarian" Priest. They are all treated like someone who acts like meat is murder than someone who could hunt a giant monster and field dressed and cook the animal all out in the wild without help.

>>96006597 (OP)
they're one of, if not the most popular class in world of warcraft.

i think it ultimately comes down to them just having bad, complicated rules in most tabletop games. DnD is what most people know them for and its one of the most clunky classes in the game in 3.5 and 5e, with shapeshifting that requires you to have completely different stat pages for each form, wonky and highly limited mechanics regarding the usage of that shapeshifting, then you've got a whole spellcaster stapled on there too but frankly most of the low to mid level druid spells apart from the healing ones are god damn terrible or ludicrously situational or rely on status effects that every monster and their grandmother are functionally immune to. they have some summoning but until it gets to very high levels the monsters you can summon are garbage. they really suffer from jack of all trades master of none syndrome in that they really arent good at anything, they can kinda just do a lot of things but the devs undertuned all of it.

then in 4e it was a bit different, the wild shaping and spells were actually decent and easy to use, but for some god forsaken reason they decided to make them a controller instead of a tank or dps, so they lacked punch and couldnt fulfill the panther/wolf shapeshifting fantasy very well, they lacked durability so they couldnt fulfill the bear tank fantasy very well, but because it tried to be a hybrid it was also strictly worse at controlling than most other controllers too, and a lot of its control revolved around very small repositions and roots, which half the mobs in the game didnt give a shit about or outright ignored.

and baldurs gate 3 is just based off the 5e druid so you get all the same problems there

i think druid is plenty popular as an idea, but just like the difference between diablo 2 where it was popular and diablo 4 where almost nobody played it, power makes all the difference.

>>96006597 (OP)
The wizard has studied arcane secrets for many years. he can now say abracadabra and make magic stuff happen. cool. makes sense.
The cleric is devoted to a god and is granted magical powers through them. makes sense.
The druid is... I dunno... "in-tune" with nature? whatever that means, so now he can, turn into a bear and... fuck I dunno... magically grow plants? which to my mind seems more like an ABUSE of nature than working with it. Also don't forget his magic is light green to make sure people know he's the nature guy.
what is "nature magic" anyway? what does that constitute? control over plants, weather, and animals? why? how? did nature give that to him? why not give it to an animal that can't be tempted by money or political power, like a bear? humans are inherently natural animals anyway, so why are they the bastard child that nature doesn't like? cause they can make tools? bitch you gave them the brains to do that.

I like druids, but the more I think about them the less they make sense.

>>96011902
>The druid is... I dunno... "in-tune" with nature?

druids have their own language and society, they study their magic the same as wizards but instead of arcane formulas in a book, they are ancient rituals and rites carved into runestones and passed down by their hermetic order. they use the magic of plant growth and shapeshifting to move amongst and heal the forest, but also enchant restorative herbs and poultices, call the rain to help the crops or bog down marching armies and industrialists that would terrorize the forests, and speak with animals who can act as a network of eyes and ears throughout the land.

it sounds like you havent thought about them at all. their powers have very real roots in historical practices of druidic rites but also more so with shamanism, skinwalking, and medicine from times and cultures where it was the realm of the tribes medicine man or some hermetic elder in the woods.

>>96010765
Amazing what AI can do.

>>96011902
>The druid is... I dunno... "in-tune" with nature?
>>96011953
>druids have their own language and society, they study their magic the same as wizards but instead of arcane formulas in a book, they are ancient rituals and rites carved into runestones and passed down by their hermetic order.
What part of spirits of nature do you both not understand?
Druids get their magic from the spirits of the world, from the spirits of rock, tree, hare, wolf, and other things. 4e made this explicit with its primal magic and the Primal Spirits. They are not wizards but innawoods, and being "in-tune" with nature is just being able to hear and interact with the spirits of nature.

But D&D, barring 4e, has always been very poor at communicating things. Also not helping is the various idiotic stereotypes people bring to the class.

I will say, >>96011953 is right about everything else though. They are the old magic that still clings to the world, magic older then the current gods, magic from when the races lacked civilization and litanies, canon and creed.

>>96006881
>>ooOooOOooh I entangled you woooh you're so dead
>I swear entanglement is basically their only class-defining technique.
But what about-
>I also just remembered shapeshifting which is cool as fuck so I don't know, people are gay.
Yeah I was gonna say. I don't know how Druids function in 5e, but I remember 3.5e Druids being busted, especially with their shapeshifting.

>>96007221
Warcraft Druids are all men, pic is of a cleric/ranger.

>>96007221
whoops all fighters

>>96012146
That was just the pic he was cooming that day to.

>>96012097
it's not AI, his coms are just inherently soulless.

>>96012499
If no soul is involved it was clearly created by a mindless automaton.

>>96012146
Picrel shifts into cat form in the OG WoW trailer

>>96013003
wow does not adhere to its own established lore for gameplay reasons

>>96013379
Like it or not, WoW is the biggest game in the franchise and there are female druids in it. "Established lore" doesn't mean much to Blizz.

>>96006597 (OP)
i love druids
if they are hot

>>96010765
>slop outside the slop thread

>>96012499
If you go through the artist's twitter you can see their older works and I'd confidently say they're touching up their current work with AI, very noticeable in the faces specially.

>>96017400
Not to mention the lack of signatures or nonsense ones (Like the one in the thread pic) that don't appear in other images.

>>96013710
I think that the male druids thing only really applies to night elves.

>>96011771
Yeah that's it.

Amber Order (Beasts) vs Jade Order (Life).

I'm going off memory here. It's also 3e WHFRPG stuff which may or may not gel with other editions. It's the only edition I'm familiar with in any kind of depth considering it's one of the few RPGs I got every single product released for. I liked it a lot but Genesys was much more refined take on the dice system they made.

>>96006759
This is one from d&d beyond. I think the BG3 stats are only like that because people want to play charisma face characters. Cleric is only so low because most players probably wanted to have Shadowheart in their party.

>>96010957
Native american skinwalkers are basically evil druids.

>>96011035
That's more or less what I'm playing right now.

My current character is a druid investigator who's main strategies so far are turning into dinosaurs to tear people apart, and convincing his enemies to lower their guard so he can attack them.

>>96023804
A Skinwalker character sounds like it could be badass now that you mention it.

People keep talking about “theme”, but I think a bigger issue is “call to adventure”. Obviously, a class without any preexisting ties can be called to adventure by anything, including simple lust for gold. A paladin can lean on “I must seek out wrongs to right”, a cleric or warlock can lean on “God/the Devil made me do it”, but druids don’t have much. “Nature made me do it” really only makes sense for issues of either truly massive or incredibly localized scope, without much middle ground. If druids aren’t following up on a matter of concern to natural forces, their motivation becomes disconnected from their underlying theme and the character becomes more of a muddle.

I do think this could be mitigated if the underlying cosmic mechanics of druids were a bit more fleshed out. If being a druid means something beyond just the cultural role, you can lean on unrelated calls to adventure without undermining the flavor of being a druid.

>>96012110
>They are the old magic that still clings to the world, magic older then the current gods, magic from when the races lacked civilization and litanies, canon and creed.

Too bad D&D could never do this with Druid. How is it functionally different from Divine? You could literally take the druid's gimmick and turn it into a domain.

Incarnum's Totemist, in my eyes, would make an idea druid

>>96006597 (OP)
Because nature magic is gay and their aesthetics are cringe.
Except for Warhammer Woodelfs who are inexplicably cool.

>>96019509
The official excuse is that the Cenarion Circle didn't permit women to join until after the third war, but female druids still existed.

>>96006597 (OP)
The problem with druid is that it's so stuck in its own thematic niche that it rarely, if ever, interacts with the other aspects of the D&D setting similarly to Monk.

In PHB2 there was a literal dragon shaman class which I think would be perfect as a subclass for Druid to worship dragons in their entirety even if the class itself was just a temu Draconic sorcerer in a lot of respects.

What about a Druid that channels negative energy? Or interacts with the plane of Shadows? There are a lot of thematic concepts left to rot on the floor because Druids are a shit class and concept that continues to live solely due to the sacred cow.

>>96006597 (OP)
Because there isnt much flavour to them in fantasy.
You can either go wise hermit in the forest or militant eco warrior.

>>96006759
The reason cleric is so low is because you get one right from the get go you stupid cunt.

>>96025268
>How is it functionally different from Divine?
Well its not divine power, it is not the magics of the gods handed down to some mortal. Additionally, many editions have druids wield a completely different spell list compared to clerics and priests. One that focuses on elemental power, natural creatures and plants, and spells that affect and deal with nature.

>You could literally take the druid's gimmick and turn it into a domain
Nope. In no edition is this something that a domain could cover. Maybe an entirely watered down, ultra simple version that's more gimmick than class feature.

And totemist is a poor shaman/medicine man, lacking much of what the druid embodies as old magic tied to nature. Its just a shapeshifter wielding monster souls. Its more like a specialized type of primitive warrior than one who communes with nature.


>>96027520
>There are a lot of thematic concepts left to rot on the floor because Druids are a shit class
Its not the classes fault the devs are shit at making neat stuff for the druid. And its not a sacred cow that it continues, it occupies a specific theme and niche not covered anywhere else in the rules.

Druids should be kinda spooky.

I'll play druid if I can be a sexy dryad

>>96030027

>>96027581
>The reason cleric is so low is because you get one right from the get go you stupid cunt.
Cleric of Selune is kino though, for the religious discussion and trolling (and potential for redemption/corruption).

Personally I feel the D&D flavor of druid is kind of played out - for me. It's overly niche and wasn't that good to begin with. Hippies, granola, and polymorphing into D - B tier monsters isn't THAT interesting.

Now something like a miyazaki nature force. That might be cool. Give an aesthetic that's more menacing, strange and unearthly, and competitive with arcane power. Then I'd understand dedicating your life to this.

>>96030027
You can't but you can have a harem of them. Deal?

>>96007149
Elves are the most popular Baldur's Gate 3 race.
The west has fallen.

>>96032851
They are the fastest. I like other races too, but dwarf, gnome, halfling, they are all short and slow. Dragonborn and Tieflings were ruined for me during 4th. Humans are basic, half-elves are half-basic. Gith was fun, lot of special dialogue choices and it was nice to play the old chill Gith teaching young Lae'zel the ways of our people, but I understand that it was too unusual race for fans of classic fantasy. What remains - only orcs and elves. And all the popular classes fit better the charismatic elves. Plus, Drow have a lot of special dialogue options, be it "I am ruthless bitch" Lolth, or the meek "I am not like other Drow" surface drows.

>>96030222
D&D druids would really benefit from feeling mechanically unique among casters like the warlock. currently druids are a powerful class with really amazing battlefield control and utility options but after the novelty of shapeshifting fades you feel like just another support caster.

druids just using spell slots and picking spells feels fucking boring and lame, they are in communion with the land itself and their abilities should reflect this with their spells all feeling physical like wind storms and rockslides, having unparalleled spellcasting endurance because they aren't accessing some divine or arcane other power but the land around them, but their options being more limited by the environment and taking time to come to fruition and maybe harder to control. might be putting too much work on the DM though.

>>96032851
Elves are the most aryan fantasy race, though.

>>96006759
Nah, that's not the same. Clerics are the lowest not only because of the impression of being just a support healslut, but also cause you get shart from the very early game. So waifufags have their dedicated healslut, so they don't feel the need to bring/make another cleric.

If anything, I'd like if my friend group would play less druids. There's been a druid in almost every game we've done over the last few years, and only one of them has been actually useful.

My friends have too many crafty nature hippies and not enough tinkerers or violence-enjoyers.

>>96006773
>with a few exceptions
Who are these exceptions and what makes them so much better than other druids?

>>96027520

Back in 3rd edition, I played a "Biome" druid, focusing on desert themed stuff. Sucking water out of stuff, summoning dust storms to abrade enemies, etc.

It was a lot of fun to be a neutral evil druid, pushing the inevitable brutality of a low-resource environment. He eventually became a dry lich, and spent his days keeping the other druids from encroaching on the beautiful desolation of his desert. Not really a big focus on transforming into stuff, mostly being the crustiest, gnarliest "Get off my metaphorical god-damned lawn" agent of the desert.

There's definitely good ideas out there, I just don't know if 5e's overall design and significant drought of splatbooks works for druids in this edition.

>>96006597 (OP)
Its their advancement requirement to go to a council of elder druids to move past level 6, so the rest of the party has to quest for you to level up, or your gm has to hand wave it.
The worst is high level, not that your gonna make it to level 15 but you can only have 1 per area wich is crazy.
Plus you cant go quest to keep Xy asleep anymore cause your supposed to stay and care for that specific area.

Tldr limitations on leveling

>>96006759
What retarded system is this?

>>96040876

>>96041232
Fine, i did..... burger grande 3? Is that like a mexican rpg?

>>96006759
>BG3
Skewed because it's vidya so people who've only played WoW/Final Fantasy think clerics are fragile healbots, and those who know DnD/this game know you get a cleric in your party in the beginning of the game and you're better off playing something with high Charisma since you'll be a face (Like Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock, all at the top of your list)

>>96006597 (OP)
what if I want a nature caster, but no Wild Shape?

>>96042235
Impossible. Every nature caster wants wildshape. That's what all our playtesters said.

>>96042235
nature cleric

>>96006759
I'm honestly more surprised at how popular paladins are.

>>96042235
I have been working on a weird system for a while, it's class/subclass-based but also very modular. If you have enough in the magic skill, you can specialize in the nature magic sphere, if you have enough points in the spirituality skill, you can specialize in one of the two nature gods. So, technically, you can play a druid without ever picking the subclass of the druid.
So, what does the actual druid do? Funnily enough, you don't need either of the above to count as a druid. It's a divine spellcasting class, but there is no requirement to pick either nature gods. They have their variant of the wild shape ability, which is somewhat jank and made me understand why it feels so bad in other games. They also replenish HP and MP automatically and quickly while in nature, and they can control weather.
Fun? Dumb? Enough to count as druid? It sure gives me a minor headache.

>>96010915
That's even worse!

>>96006597 (OP)
I don't like pets and I don't like wildshape

>>96009271
For similar enough reasons, rangers aren't too popular either. Both are often too hard to fit into more story driven campaigns because those tend to skip over the parts they excel at. Especially ones in urban settings.

>>96006597 (OP)
Wild shaping is just not a very appealing power to many. It kills the visual identity of your character to become a generic bear or, worse, a deviantart furry's wet dream with tie-dyed fur, and carries day-to-day restrictions to keep active at all times while also carrying action economy penalties to have to use your first round in every combat to whip it out unless you're super-specialized. It doesn't help that you really only have a small number of regularly useful animal forms that may not suit your concept.

when did druid stop being the most OP class around?

>>96041232
It's eternally fascinating to me that, after more than a decade and a half on this website, I still always read
>not this one you retard.jpg
first.

>>96006881
Druids are literally more defined and distinct as a concept than wizards. And I mean that in a very literally system-agnostic way, but ALSO in a D&D-specific way.

Druid is distinct in the way that "necromancer" is. It is a trope with a very specific and defined domain of interests, beliefs, methods and aesthetic stylization. Other examples of this level of specificity would be things like ninja, thief, conjuror, diviner or knight.

Priest is not distinct. Mage is not distinct. Wizard is not distinct. Cleric is not distinct. Just like how warrior and fighter are not distinct. They're generic categories, not species of a set.

Not to put too fine a point on it, you could not be more wrong. Like. In an absolute and complete way.

>>96027520
Draconic wild shapes have been a thing since at least 3rd edition, though possibly earlier than that, I just don't give a shit enough about D&D to find out.

But, since you're talking about D&D specifically, I'm just gonna go ahead and explain to you that Blight druids have been around since forever, too. And only Oghma knows how many prestige classes overlap with that and various flavors of planar shit in the dozens and dozens of splatbooks and setting guides published just for 3rd edition over the years.

And that's before we talk about WHY druid is a sacred cow in the first place. How did it get to be a sacred cow? Does just any old thing become a sacred cow? Why is the Fatespinner not a sacred cow? Why is the Alienist not a sacred cow?

>>96045204
It hasn't yet. And it's not likely to ever happen.

>>96045204
When ever, actually, was Druid that class?
Pretty sure it's always been a Wizard of some sort, except 3E where it was Cleric.

>>96045480
Okay but you answered to the wrong guy

>>96006759
Clerics are way cooler than Paladins, normgroids are just proving they have shit taste again.

>>96038613
Not fair, I want to be the healslut of the party.

>>96045496
>And that's before we talk about WHY druid is a sacred cow in the first place. How did it get to be a sacred cow? Does just any old thing become a sacred cow? Why is the Fatespinner not a sacred cow? Why is the Alienist not a sacred cow?

Every class introduced during the OD&D era has been a core class ever since (assuming we take the rogue to represent the thief and assassin combined), which includes the druid. The only core class to be dropped is the 4e warlord that hasn't (yet) made it to 5e.

>>96042235
Play a PF2e Druid, where thats your main gimmick as Druid. Then you can take any "subclass" besides Untamed Form, the "wildshape" shapeshifter subclass.

>>96007149
Paladin is just a better fighter

>>96049278
Paladins ARE clerics, in the same way that wizards and sorcerers are mages. The main problem is that for some fucking reason "clerics" were designed to behave like paladins instead of as theological scholars and pontifs. Paladins have decently solid origins in fantasy roots as chivalric knights, but clerics as D&D does them is an entirely stupid trope seen nowhere else in previous literature.

Why are clerics in D&D running around with breastplates and maces? Go to the Vatican and see what they're wearing and look at what they do. They're more like mages. Including flowing, impractical robes and arcane debates about mystical topics. To cut to the chase, it's a class long overdue for an overhaul. A complete remake. Ceremonial robes and staffs of liturgical office. They're full casters, there's absolutely NO fucking reason for them to be competent or durable in melee combat. None. Especially because, as healers and support casters, they should not even be in melee combat (and threatening them directly should be a major point of tactical management for the party).

Fortunately, since I don't use Shit & Shitters anymore, I don't have to worry about any of that nonsense and priests are correctly designed and satisfying to play in my games.

>>96045694
>Pretty sure it's always been a Wizard of some sort, except 3E where it was Cleric.
CoDzilla was a thing from 3.x and it meant Cleric or Druid as godzilla, aka overpowered bullshit.
Cleric and Druid could pull off exploits that overshadowed the wizard, but all three were vastly overpowered compared to every other class.

>>96053851
The problem is that clerics as a class came first and paladins were a fighter kit when first introduced. This set a stupid sacred cow in motion where the cleric represented knightly orders while the paladin doesnt. Its a cluster fuck of bad design and sacred cows.
WotC kept much of the sacred cows of cleric around while creating the paladin as class, and not adjusting the cleric to fit better into the dynamic of priest and knight. So we arrive at the modern clusterfuck of knightly clerics and atheist paladins.

Heck, it took Pathfinder an entire second edition to even do this. And honestly, it works so much better for the cleric to be a priest first and maybe a warrior far second. Clerics should absolutely not be what modern D&D does with them.

>>96053929
This isn't even approaching at how the tenets of paladins has changed several times over the years.
4e created the trifecta within a religious paradigm of Avenger = Sword, Paladin = Shield, Cleric = Crook, all in service to the church, and divinely inspired. It worked out fairly well, making each different and effective in their avenue.

>>96053989
God yes.
And then they did it for the nature classes too. And folding ki power into psionics because its just inner power put into physical action was brilliant. 4e had hundreds of brilliant ideas about every little part of the fantasy.

>>96053851
>Why are clerics in D&D running around with breastplates and maces? Go to the Vatican and see what they're wearing and look at what they do.
The last time churchmen fought it would be the occasional bishop, abbot, cardinal or pope who'd all wear plate because the only "Balance" that matters around plate armor is your bank balance.

What the fuck is this?

>>96063328
staff, held clenches between his cheeks

>>96063338
It wouldn't be at an angle if that were true.

>>96063366
Unless the staff were warped.

>>96054027
Full disclosure, I fucking hate D&D. I hate the settings of D&D. I hate the clunky, rigid paradigm of classes as D&D implements them in such a hyper-narrow and inflexible manner. And I fucking hate Hasbro and WotC with an unabiding passion.

But 4e was not poorly designed as a tactics game. It's a robust, tight and simple little tactics game, suited for implementation as a video game. Which it was intended to be, as we all know. It worked well to do what it was designed to do: small squad tactical combat encounters.

It was not a roleplaying game, obviously. But there are no editions of D&D which are roleplaying games. And that's the extremely loud truth, right there. D&D is not a roleplaying game, none of the editions of it were.

Once people finally acknowledge that WotC is fucking stupid or lying about what the product actually is, then they begin to understand that alllllllll of their problems with D&D - ALL of the problems with D&D - fundamentally stem from that misunderstanding. Then those people are freed to look elsewhere for systems and frameworks and toolkits that actually do what they want.

Some D&D editions are better wargames than others, but 4e was the best of the D&D wargames. Fucking awful RPG. Awful. But a tight, simple little wargame.

>>96063780
or his fruity cheeks are

>>96006597 (OP)
I think when making characters a lot of people are just following their own idea of what makes for a cool protagonist. Druids are rarely, if ever, that role in any stories. Druids are always the supporting character who stays present only so long as the story is taking place outside a city, the companion with a subplot about protecting the nearest nature reserve, the corrupted villain who was once noble and kind-hearted but now is angry and fatalistic.

You don't really see druids ever being the one to take a big stance against an overwhelming bbeg that threatens everyone. At most you'll see them in some environmentalist storyline facing some exploitative capitalist enterprise bbeg. But those are definitely rare for fantasy worlds and even when they appear players might be more inclined towards a ranger both for the more "badass" aesthetic/concept, and because the ranger won't be quite as out of their element once it's inevitably time to deal with the "civilized" elements of the story.

Also clerics get kind of the same deal but even more, because playing second fiddle to your deity of choice is a hard sell when looking for said protagonism. Obviously that's not usually what happens in practice but it's still the impression some players will get, that as a cleric you're entirely subservient. Warlocks on the flipside get the option for a story of resistance to an ill-defined pact to a monstruous entity, or the patron is just literally one more buddy that supports their life choices.

>>96006892
>or "guy that can turn into a not very strong animal."
they didn't even get that until level 7 in 1e

The real answer the thread refuses to look at:

No one wants to strangle their enemies to death with vines. That's the prototypical jobber villain ability. What they want to do is blow people to smithereens. With fireball.

>>96013710
The only 'lore' that WoW consistently follows is that Heroes are corrupted and that Villains were doing Evil because of Greater Villains also doing Evil.

>>96063328
What did Nintendo mean by this?!

>>96006597 (OP)
Just go full Uncle Ted

>>96065342
Honestly I don't even know where the whole "shapeshifter" thing even comes from. Why is it now associated with druids and nature magic? Why did Warcraft adopt it as a primary feature of their druids? Where did D&D even get the idea?

Historical druids were pagan philosopher priest oligarchs of barbarian cultures in western Europe. They weren't particularly concerned with protecting or cultivating "nature". They were the developers and arbiters of their culture's laws, and (like literally every other civilization on the planet) they preserved their knowledge of astronomy to keep time for agricultural reasons. They weren't particularly enlightened, but nor were they particularly brutal or bloodthirsty. They were just a fairly typical caste of priest-nobles.

>>96066580
What do he do?

>>96072942
He wrote a book, among other things.

>>96039569
Yes, yes, we've all read Sandstorm and the other splats. To bad Wizards couldn't remember these books exist to bring anything forward.

>>96074114
I heard it was a hit. Really blew up.

I play druid so that I can keep my retarded martial party alive while also casting funny spells like polymorph

rolled a wildifre druid to support cast and next level i will just turn into the main blaster since i found out what summon minor elementals does

>>96074609
DESU I didn't think that spell is all that good. How did you use it?

>>96074506
Indeed, I send you a packet with it.

>>96075946
paired with scorching ray

>>96006597 (OP)
How do you know?

>>96007175
No. The bard is the annoying kid who isn't as funny as he thinks he is.

>>96006759
dwarf cleric was my first choice when playing bg1, didn't realize it was the contrarian choice. What does that say about me.

>>96007582
this is why the insistence of niche isn't everything. animal companion for ranger and shapeshifting for druid may be the more unique features they have in relation to other classes, but a lot of dudes would want to play a druid as a shaman spellcaster with no transformations and probably most people want to play a a ranger without having an animal companion. Having the specialization features where you choose if you want to focus on one or the other, like they did with the new cleric with melee/spell is a good direction.

Shapeshifting in 5e is extremely lackluster though and just a meat shield, so it's not like it matters, since if you want to have fun with it you'll go polymorph giant ape or something similarly high cr. As it it is now, beyond scouting and crossing gaps, the shapeshift is just a panic heal button.

>>96086836
In 2nd edition D&D ability scores didn't really matter except for strength. So it wasn't contrarian, really, just not matchy-matchy.

>>96087561
Are you implying that people don't play clerics out of some lack of ability score optimization? I think barely anyone cares about that stuff.

>>96069900
Roman military propaganda demonised and exoticised them to excite the plebs, justify conquest and bring glory to the generals who subjugated them.
Victorian historians took this and warped it even further until we get the modern tree-humping dog-whispering feral hippies

>>96086876
Why can't anyone have an animal companion?

>>96089357
the extra d4 damage would obviously make martials unbalanced, pls understand.

>>96089832
I don't mean just martials.

>>96088265
Yes, thanks, I said that already. We got it. Thanks.

>>96007261
Paladins have that and proficiency with katanas.

>>96093985
Given how useless a weeb is with a katana, maybe having proficiency actually hurts his image.

>>96094009
You can also read it as an indictment of 4/5e's all or nothing proficiency system.

>>96094120
I mean... at that point you're dangerous close to requesting the meme: have you tried not using D&D?

>>96010935
>Their main unique aspect is shapeshifting and I can understand why that doesn't appeal to a lot of people
It's also a bit of a strange one since shapeshifting is commonly associated with magic. Odin, Dracula, Skafloc and so on can all shape shift and they're associated with more than just livin innawoods.

>>96095011
No, it really doesn't. AD&D2E and D&D3.5E are good games worth your time.

>>96053989
You forgot Invoker, who had a staff

>>96006759
Faggots who weren't there from the beginning will never remember that Life Domain Selune Cleric was the most popular class option choice, along with Chad Orlando Bloom Tav face.

The only reason why Cleric died down is because you don't need to play Cleric when you have Shadowheart in the party, and everyone wants to keep her around in the party to both romance and heal.

>>96096098
PF1 is better for 3.5-style mechanics. If you're gonna use 2nd edition, though, you really should just use GUPRS Dungeon Fantasy instead.

>>96006597 (OP)
When it comes to 5e I think spore Druid is underrated mostly because it’s not that obviously good but it’s a nice toolkit that lets you play out a very different archetype,
Ditch the animal transformation (tho you CAN still do it) and get more beefy instead, do Some ping damage and raise enemies as trash zombies and double as half a melee character
Sure you’re no paladin but you got access to the whole Druid toolbox with zombois on top.

>>96098182
>PF1 is
strictly inferior to just running 3.5.

>>96098699
Every faggot tryhard in BG3 plays Spore Druid on multiplayer that I developed a knee-jerk "eye roll" reaction when I see the class now.

>>96066580
Game?

>>96089357
Because those designing 3e and onward didn't realize that animal companions were supposed to be the hireling/henchman equivalent of Rangers and Druids. A Fighter with 10 Cha was supposed to have up to 4 Henchmen while a Ranger with 10 Cha could instead have up to 4 Animal Companions.

>>96053851
>Go to the Vatican and see what they're wearing and look at what they do
Nigga look at medieval clerics, they actually did ride into battle in full metal armor wielding weapons.

>>96069900
It's potentially somewhere in the Appendix N sources. It's quite incomplete by its own admission, though.

>>96069900
Short answer: Tolkien's Radagast the Brown.
Longer answer: A neopagan movement/cult got popular during the 60s and 70s called Neodruidism/Ancient Order of Druidism that focused heavily on nature worship got popular. This neopagan cult was very Freemason like. The designers then combined Radagast with these neopagans and you end up with the D&D druid.

>>96006597 (OP)
Despite being either top-tier or literally SSD-tier mega broken in every single edition of D&D they appear in, they have an aesthetic reputation as "tree huggers" or "hippies" and are historically unpopular as a result compared to "cool" classes like rogue/paladin/wizard/fighter. The lack of pop culture representations of Druids besides shit that is itself LITERALLY just based on D&D Druids themselves (like Warcraft) doesn't help with mass appeal; kiddies want to be Harry Potter or Aragorn or Conan or King Arthur or Goku, there's less popular demand for Asterisk meets Animorphs.

Druid is wayyyyyyyy better of a class than Ranger in every single edition besides 4E where they have different roles and Ranger is a premier Striker, yet way more people play Ranger and LARP as Aragorn or Drizzt wannabes than Druid as a result.


Personally as somebody whose favorite class is druid I'm fine with them being under the radar and even when people get mad and start nerfing other classes they basically never touch Druid. I can't count the number of times I saw people make anti-wizard house rules or world building penalizing arcane magic in 3.X or Pathfinder yet Druids always get away scott free despite individual class features (wild shape, animal companions) being stronger than entire classes

>>96107645
Well, you'll be pleased to hear that I went out of my way to nerf priests in general so that their BAB matches other full-casters, and I rearranged druid's class features so that they always pick a domain... but they have to choose between animal companion or wild shape. unless they pick a domain that gives them an animal companion, but most druid players are already familiar with their spell list enough to know that they can just call and charm animal companions with level 1 spells But to be fair, I added the beast shape spells back to their spell list where they always should have been. Primarily though the nerf was really just normalizing their BAB to where it should always have been. Which isn't much of a nerf, really since the difference is only one or two until end game.
You would not believe the fucking bitching and moaning I hear about it, but I use that as a filter when vetting applicants. Anyone upset about losing two points of bab on a full caster class needs to go kill themselves, for real.

So far, the effect has been extremely successful in reorienting players to use the class as a nature priest instead of a "do everything gish". It's also extremely successful at giving the Hunter and Ranger some breathing room. I still don't think the class is nerfed enough, so the next step is probably gonna be removing all weapon and armor proficiencies from druids, oracles and clerics. Nothing more than Simple for them. Druids will be forbidden to use ANYTHING crafted of ANY kind of metal or instantly fall (like clerics or paladins violating their faith).

And even then it might not be enough, but it would at least bring them in line with the established limitations of all the other classes.

>>96096772
Well, no, I kill Shart as soon as I can, and I reload to repeat it until the blood splatter pleases me. I fucking despise that ugly harem reject with every fiber of my being surpassed only by my loathing of those who feel any less than absolute hatred for her.

>>96098723
No. 3.5 is a broken, sloppy mess by comparison, in literally absolutely every detail. PF1e is just better. More polished, more balanced, more elegant character development mechanics, more expanded options without the wonky jank of shitty Forgotten Realms baggage, better everything. It even keeps Wayne Reynolds art. There just is no valid reason to keep using 3.5, none.

>>96006597 (OP)
They need sex appeal. Haslin was a good step in the right direction.

>>96109666
Uhmmm (>>96010765)?

>>96107958
This is a clear case of
>Class needs nerfing
>Concoct three things to balance it.
>Any one of the three would fix it
>Implement all three instead
in game design. Enjoy your ongoing tragedy. You'll just create a situation where people point to your blatant grudge as reason no other table should touch the issue at all. Try to reign in your hate a bit.

>>96110859
Yeah because we all know there's never, ever any balance issue that would ever require more than just one tiny change to fix. Ever. And if there's one bedrock principle of game design, it's that the players are always right and they never want things that are toxic for the game.
Maybe you're butthurt that it got a nerf because you only care about playing whatever class is too powerful / can break the game.
Oh well. I don't have to worry about your opinion. Druids got nerfed and they're probably gonna be nerfed again until they're brought into line. You can't do anything about it.

>>96105635
guild wars 2 innit

>>96111736
I don't even play druids. The tone of your post was simply pure malice. You have a grudge. Not a desire to make the game better for others.

>>96027705
>In no edition is this something that a domain could cover.
AD&D Spheres had a LOT of spells to work with.

>>96049428
Technically the Druid started as a side-step of the Cleric progression in the Companion set.

>>96053851
>The main problem is that for some fucking reason "clerics" were designed to behave like paladins instead of as theological scholars and pontifs.
Because OD&D needed a second-line and vampire-hunters and Teutonic knights came up. That is, what the "Paladin" is now is a clusterfuck of a half-measure of what the Cleric started as before Japanese white-mage bleedthrough took hold.

>>96063871
>But there are no editions of D&D which are roleplaying games.
It using the term "roleplaying" is literally why we call the medium "Roleplaying Games". The issue is that its rules support for role-playing was hyper-fixated on a handful of incredibly specific concepts almost nobody cared about like a bad WoD splat, and so was stripped away over time because even the writers couldn't be bothered to support shit like Domain play and Alignment properly. Pretty much the only thing left is class fantasy, but that lost its peg to actual narrative archetypes justifying the straightjacket during the 3e splatbook deluge.

>>96093985
*insert d20 katanas are underpowered*

>>96105863
Given how Animal Friendship operated it seems they did, but in baking that into a less-fiddly feature they kinda bricked it.

>>96107958
Instead of ripping out everything else until the Cleric and Druid are just alt-list Wizards, have you considered turning the spellcasting down by pruning spells from the list until they're the second-line combatants with support casting they were meant to be as far back as their design history goes?

>>96108136
Combat Maneuver Defense and the feat split say otherwise. And the messiness of 3.X character progression is the POINT to a lot of us still using it, dipstacks and PRCs offer far more chargen breadth than archetype-spam.

>>96116123
>Technically the Druid started as a side-step of the Cleric progression in the Companion set.

Druid was introduced first in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement for OD&D. I think it was classified as a cleric sub-class but in OD&D that didn't mean anything in mechanical terms.

>>96006597 (OP)
One of the reasons I don't like them is because they remind me that game developers have no idea what good and evil are, and think animals are entirely free of all blame.
Not knowing any better doesn't really excuse you from blame, inability does. The gun isn't responsible for its actions and is not evil, but if we put legs on the gun and made it fire whenever it saw a child, then holy shit, it's now evil. The guy who made it is more evil, but still.

>>96116237
What the fuck are you talking about?

>>96116245
I have a bone to pick with how druid alignment is handled in D&D descendant games.

>>96116237
You're making the classic mistake of thinking Alignment is a declaration on real-life ethics instead of an only tangentially related deontology of its own. The entire point of the Law/Chaos axis is ripping a lot of the points of debate away from Good/Evil, and the Nature=True Neutral paradigm is to highlight that they're an "other" to day-to-day life.

There's a pretty consistent "balance" factor associated with that last point, for all the endless seething of all the good(ethics)=Good(Alignment) people over the notion that there is in fact such a thing as "too Good". My own position is that this stems partly from "perfect is the enemy of" purity-spiraling issues and partly from the disjoint with Prime Material life causing "Pure Good" societies to have atrocious standards of living. Depending on edition, you'd not even be allowed a hard drink!

>>96116437
I just think it's retarded to claim that nature is neutral, or works on different principles than man.

It's a place of dire competition and wondrous cooperation, full of villains and heroes.

>>96116237
#notmypittie

>>96116559
everyone goes on about fatalities with pitbulls, but I can almost never find anything about the actual bite rate.
Everyone seems to only care which of these breeds has the most lethal bites, and don't seem to care at all about which of these breeds has the highest rate of successful (lethal) bites, when they choose to bite.

Perhaps border collies have a 100% lethality rate when they decide they want you dead, but it just happens very rarely. This lack of knowledge bothers me.

>>96108125
Based

>>96108125
>Well, no, I kill Shart as soon as I can, and I reload to repeat it until the blood splatter pleases me.
Yeah, Based Department? We found another one.

>>96116583
A border collie bit me when I was like 4 and nothing happened, so it's 0% lethality based on my own single anecdotal evidence (the best evidence you can get)

>>96117380
that's disappointing.
I was hoping that their agility made them sure to win.

>>96116556
>I just think it's retarded to claim that nature is neutral, or works on different principles than man.
I think that's his point?

It may help to mentally remove the good/evil dynamic and look at it as only the Law/Chaos axis. Which is probably what should be done to fix the system, but you get left with more or less
>Support typical civilization and all it's hangups
>Support HURR DURR WE'RE FREE backstabbing conga line morality
>Support the 'other'. The mindset alien to man. Retvrn to Natvre autists.

Makes sense to me, at least. As something like anarchy itself is just an alternate mindset for people who want civilization but different. It can only exist in juxtaposition to civilization anyway. Nature just being.. nature.

>>96107645
>Despite being either top-tier or literally SSD-tier mega broken in every single edition of D&D they appear in, they have an aesthetic reputation as "tree huggers" or "hippies" and are historically unpopular as a result compared to "cool" classes like rogue/paladin/wizard/fighter.
Personally, I don't care how overpowered druids are. I am NOT roleplaying the garbage mindset required of it.

>Uh, guys, stop making HOUSES and FARMING
>Uh, guys, animals are better than people
>EEEE STOP IGNORING ME EEEE
>METAL BAD STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT
>EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>STOP BEING PRODUCTIVE CIVILIZATION IS LE EVIL
>THAT'S IT. I'M TELLING ON YOU TO MY CIRCLE OF FURRY LAPERS- I MEAN OTHER DRUIDS

So I'm exaggerating, but there's a reason druid types end up cast as the villain in stories more often than not. The requirements of the archetype are not friendly to making a player character. Suited more to being NPCs or outright villains.

>>96118872
>but there's a reason druid types end up cast as the villain in stories more often than not
Like?

>>96118807
>I think that's his point?
Sort of? To be more specific, that it so often doesn't make sense according to real-life ethics looks to me to be good cause to consider it wholly separately from that.

>Which is probably what should be done to fix the system
Hewing closer to the Moorcock source material would definitely help with the problems Alignment causes, and there's already an official D&D setting to use as the default for such a revision in Mystara. Which as the homeland of BECMI also comes with a lot of viciously beating tiers of play being qualitatively different into the user-base, player and DM alike, thus solving another pile of issues.

Though outside the confines of D&D's legacy settings, I personally favor splitting up the Alignments according a mix of virtue ethics and moral foundation theory. Keep the objectively measurable character, but granular enough that how one ought to act returns to subjectivity. Would need to do a lot of research to settle on a specific set then even more to map to pastiches of a decent range of religions and my schizoposting on modern ideologies.

>>96118872
That's a terrible flandarization of the Chaotic or maybe Evil hardliner take. It tends to be more specific conservational ecology stuff in the way of expanding civilization at the expense of nature, which leaves things like managed forestry open. There's a big tension between running a productive-for-humanoids society and Druidic respect for nature, but they're not COMPLETELY incompatible the way you seem to see it.

Druids don't really make full sense outside of OD&D/AD&D's "alignment is picking cosmic sides" thing.

im just not interested in the druid class fantasy

>>96118942
Personally, I've wondered if a system of measuring how close or far someone is to their ||false idol's|| own prerogatives isn't better. DnD makes choosing one all but mandatory anyway. Particularly from your character's point of view. The so-called gods also really only push their own portfolios regardless. A hard measure of how much of a corporate boy you are versus casual worshiper or even nonworshiper would at least be appropriate to the metaphysics. Which is what those entities even care about anyway. Who gives a shit if you light up light a Christmas tree on the alignment radar. Were you towing your idol's line like a good simp? You get to go to that god's paradise afterward. Don't tow the line? Fates worse than death come to mind.

>Druids be all
As for them, we just have a lot of... very negative examples to go off and very few positive ones. Druids really aren't typically the reasonable types that just want to preserve nature enough so we can keep enjoying it safely. In worse examples of edition changes, you're even worshiping an entity with an utterly alien mindset for your primal powers.

>>96119065
Ah shit, discord brain kicked in. I'm tired.

>>96118945
I'm more a fan of it's parts when they are split in to more specific archetypes. Geomancy is a cool concept. Tapping into the elemental power of whatever terrain you are in is cool. As is the potential for those powers to change based on location. How FF Tactics handled it was always cool. Then you get shape shifters who's entire gimmick is selecting animal forms for both power and flexibility. While not being able to do everything at any one time. Then, yeah, you have the more lame of the split which are just wizards with wild flavoring.

For some reason, combining them all in one package is offputting to me. I'd rather just pick one set of abilities and be VERY GOOD AT THEM.

>>96119065
>Personally, I've wondered if a system of measuring how close or far someone is to their ||false idol's|| own prerogatives isn't better.
That's the point of this bit:
>then even more to map to pastiches of a decent range of religions
That is, on death your character's value-points get checked against the value-set of their faith and the local prevailing religion for the exact destination, with adherence to the former at expense of the latter improving odds for the former.

While not at all bound by the monolatry of D&D's half-assed polytheism, it could readily support "fuck the common virtue-set for Divine nepo-juice" as one of the carrots to Clerics by simply running monolaric cults of local deities under the same rules as foreign religions, thus explaining asshole gods as plausible granters of get-out-of-Hell cards for asshole mortals.

>>96119141
Agreed. I think?

The mad collection of random gods, which don't all mesh with the alignment system anyway, works better on this methodology. Particularly once we get in to the host of issues with clerics and paladins having to please contradictory systems.

Thinking on it, more cause for such beings to not really care about the details makes things more interesting too. Such standards could even be merely organizational for the sake of PR in a lot of cases. The Order of Whatever plays it straight so they don't get sodomized with rusty rakes by the local nobility, but independents can be a trickier proposition. Then rival orders technically on the same side but far more ruthless. Which then doses nicely with the typical citizen's confusion over how things really work. Great for unreliable POV moments among NPCs.

Also, the overgod of these affairs tends to not give a single shit what happens so long as the plane itself isn't being blown to bits, and might consider these jokers merely seat holders for the next round of mortals to uplift to their seats once they get themselves killed. Yeah. There's clearly no morality here. Just role functions.

>>96118945
But it's a good fantasy. You get to rule over animals and nature!

>>96096772
>>96108125
If she's an ugly harem reject then what does that make the gith bitch?

>>96049301
Nobody knows how to properly treat one except Laezel.

>>96125429
Don't worry, I kill her too. My main complaint the game is that I have to wait past the prologue to kill the "uwu-I'm-a-muscle-dommy-mommy-desu~" one. I think her name is Carla or some such shit. If she doesn't explode into chunks from the last hit I reload until she does.

>>96115427
It's not malice. They're the class I play the most. A grudge can be justified, but it's not a grudge. It's just that I know what I'm talking about.
If you perceive malice in a clear-eyed and blunt critique of the class's design and power balance, then that's coming from you. You're the source of the malice. Go deal with that quietly.

>>96116123
>It using the term "roleplaying" is literally why we call the medium "Roleplaying Games".
You are intentionally attempting to spread misinformation.

>>96116123
>Instead of ripping out everything else until the Cleric and Druid are just alt-list Wizards, have you considered turning the spellcasting down by pruning spells from the list until they're the second-line combatants with support casting they were meant to be as far back as their design history goes?
They are wizards with an alternative spell list.
As for the rest, if you want a warrior combatant... play a paladin, warpriest, ranger or hunter.

>>96116123
>Combat Maneuver Defense and the feat split say otherwise.
Those are the primary features which PF1e brought to reign in the most egregious bullshit balance problems.
>dipstacks and PRCs offer far more chargen breadth than archetype-spam.
No.

>>96116259
Alignment is a D&D-specific thing which only exists as a selection mask to determine which spells affect which creature. It's a creature type with a confusing name. And it's one of the worst mechanics of a collection of games famously plagued with dumb mechanics. Don't use D&D. Or if you're stupid and you're gonna use D&D anyway, then just ignore alignment. Entirely.

>>96128820
>tfw just respec the frog into a useless healbot and ignore her at camp literally just with whatever she had equipped in the tutorial

>>96130719
>They are wizards with an alternative spell list.
No, they are not. All the way back to the start of their design history, they are in fact second-line combatants with support casting. Again, that's why the Proficiencies are there, and why they were given medium BAB with d8 HD. The four you list are first-line combatants with minor magical support, sacrificing important scope and pacing to operate in the Fighter's role.

>>96130734
>Those are the primary features which PF1e brought to reign in the most egregious bullshit balance problems.
...What CMD bricks the scaling of was never the problem and that's a goddamn retarded way of fixing it, the feat-split has nothing to do with the absence of Power Attack optimization, and the actual bullshit balance problems were almost entirely spellcasting that is a complete wash because they decided to pile extra bullshit on every single full spellcaster and made their own fresh abominations like Sacred Geometry.

>>96130750
No, it's a tangled mess of half-assed Moorcock and classic Good v. Evil storytelling conventions without any of the meat needed to be USEFUL characterization crunch the way Exalted's Virtues are. It DESPERATELY needs a formalized scoring scheme to run smoothly.

>>96130876
Go play the 1970s game if you want to play the 1970s game. If you want to play something with modern design standards that doesn't suck, then you have to accept modern design standards because that's why the modern games don't suck as much as the 1970s ones do. This is not a complicated concept.
>All the way back to the start of their design history, they are in fact second-line combatants with support casting.
No. It's that simple.
>What CMD bricks the scaling
IDIOT.

I had to stop right there, because you don't even understand what you're talking about. At all. It's not possible to have a conversation with that. You're done. You're just done here. Shut the fuck up, you're shitting up the thread.

>>96131103
>If you want to play something with modern design standards that doesn't suck, then you have to accept modern design standards because that's why the modern games don't suck as much as the 1970s ones do
PF1e is not fucking "modern design standards", its structural choices are no later than 2007 and remain inside the d20 system boundaries of 2001. And the notion that support spellcasting is a lower-enough priority to afford a secondary competency remains in use in game design both /tg/ and vidya.

>No. It's that simple.
They literally had a worse casting progression. All the way through to AD&D 2e, the Cleric capped at 7th-level spells covering a narrower range of problems than the Wizard's. Even further along through 3e, 3.5, and Paizo's own choices in PF1e, the Cleric continued to have weapon and armor proficiencies with passable but sub-Fighter attack prowess and STILL narrower problem-solving via spells than Wizard.

>I had to stop right there, because you don't even understand what you're talking about.
Does it not hobble Fighters trying to use such things at high levels because their Strength and Size increases slower and less than monsters while they do not acquire secondary bonuses in magnitude with the second ability score CMD applies that CMB does not? What things CMD covers were actual problems in 3.X that this scaling problem fixes? Do you seriously think the trip builds or Psychic Warrior grapplers were some horrible atrocity to game design?

Again, have you considered turning the spellcasting down instead of ripping EVERYTHING else out? Just because a class gets 9th-level spells does not mean they have to be a pure caster, you are allowed to cut the horizontal scaling to make room for secondary competency.