A lot of people call druids “nature priests”, and their mechanics sorta resemble the cleric’s, but they’re something else entirely. Druids don’t usually deal with gods - they worship Nature directly, and the gifts it grants spring from the Earth itself. DFRPG can’t use these terms, apparently, but I can: clerics are Divine, druids are Primal.

Druids cast druidic spells and have access to a power set named Druidic Arts. Their powers are less effective inside most dungeons, but they make the trek to the dungeon a lot easier and more survivable.

Personally, I never played druids in this game, as I tend to favor urban or dungeon-based campaigns. I don’t have too many personal impressions to share about them other than what I got from reading the entry as I wrote this post.

Basic Stats

Druids start out with ST 11, DX 12, IQ 14, HT 13, and Speed 6. A little less ST and a bit more HT than the cleric, but otherwise pretty similar.

Advantages

All druids have Green Thumb 1 and Power Investiture (Druidic) 3. The first one is a Talent boosting skills that involve dealing with plants. It’s also a prerequisite for their version of Power Investiture.

The discretionary list has the usual stat boosts, some of the same wilderness survival boosts the Barbarian gets, and advantages that can enhance your interactions with animals, plants, or spirits.

You can also spend these points on Druidic Arts powers (see below).

Disadvantages

Two separate discretionary lists here, one dealing with your mystical vows as a defender of the wilderness, and the other dealing with being looked upon by “urbanites” as an unwashed hippy with an unreasonable fear of fire and machinery. Mix and match as desired.

These vows notably don’t include avoiding equipment made out of metal, which would be a very bad idea in this game. But you can choose to have a vow to follow a vegetarian diet (which raises your cost of living) or never sleep indoors.

Skills

Your melee skill choices are Spear, Staff, or a weapon-and-shield setup similar to the cleric’s. Ranged choices are throwing your melee weapon, or using something quirkier like a blowpipe or a set of bolas. The druid chooses to leave archery to the Scout. Your skill will end up being 15 or 14 like the Cleric’s and the other professions for whom combat is secondary.

Druids also get a lot of skills for handling animals and plants and surviving in the wilderness, knowing the hidden lore of spirits, fairies or elementals. They also know the two druid-only skills (see below) and can also choose to brush up on their diplomacy, first aid… or poisons.

Spells

Druids start with 20 druidic spells. Druidic spellcasting works similarly to the clerical version. There’s a druid-specific spell list where the only prerequisites are a minimum level of Power Investiture (Druidic). Spells cost FP, and druids get exclusive access to a lot of animal-, plant- and weather-affecting spells. When a spell also exists in other power sources, druids might get earlier access to it as well. Spells are dependent on Nature’s Strength (see below).

Special Druidic Traits

Druids can improve FP by 1/2 of their HT instead of 1/3. So a Druid with HT 14 can have up to 7 extra FP. They also get exclusive access to two skills:

  • Esoteric Medicine (Druidic) is a lot like the Holy version, but doesn’t depend on environmental factors. As long as you have access to its special healer’s kit, you can use this in place of First Aid or Surgery.

  • Herb Lore lets you make magical concoctions using using herbs found in nature. You normally need to pay for raw materials, but between adventures you can make a subset of the available options (including healing potions) for free by finding the herbs yourself. You can also use this instead of Alchemy to identify and deal with herbal concoctions.

In addition to the esoteric skills and druidic spellcasting (see above), Power Investiture (Druidic) also lets you learn the Druidic Arts. These are intrinsinc powers that don’t cost FP. PI (Druidic) gives a bonus to any rolls associated with them.

However, both these powers and druidic spells draw their power from Nature. Nature is stronger in areas of unspoiled wilderness, and gets weaker the more “built-up” or polluted the surrounding environment is. And the weaker it gets, the harder it is to use these powers.

Zones like a rural area or a road through light woods aren’t “bad” enough to give a penalty, but any dungeon that isn’t a natural cave will give you a -3. If you’re spending a lot of time in those and glossing over the trek, you won’t be happy playing a druid. If, on the other hand, the journey is the point or your dungeon is the Underdark, the reverse applies!

Druidic Arts

Despite being influenced by Nature’s Strength and your level of Power Investiture, Druidic Arts cost no FP and are not considered magic. This means stuff like Dispel Magic and Magic Resistance doesn’t affect them.

  • Beast Flight (14 points): turn into a small bird or bat to fly at twice your Move. It takes 10 seconds of concentration to switch between forms, and your beast form is both tiny and weak, with Size Modifier -7, ST 1, and 1 HP. Injury is proportional, so taking 1 HP of damage in beast form means you’ll be at 0 HP when you return to your natural form!

  • Control Animal (33 points): Roll a Quick Contest of your IQ vs. the target animal’s Will. Victory means you can order them around like they were a trained animal.

  • Nature’s Shield (7 or 14 points): gives 1 or 2 DR against “elemental” damage, whether it’s from the environment or from spells.

  • Plant Empathy (5 points): You can intuit the general state of plants. If they’re sentient enough to communicate, they will react well to you and you can use your social skills on them as if they were people.

  • Speak with Animals (23 points) and Speak With Plants (14 points): Like it says on the tin. Unlike the bard version, you don’t need to sing.

Customization Notes

This section is mainly about spell choices, with sample “beastmaster”, “elementalist” and “green druid” sets. Druids rarely spend their quirk points on extra gear, and instead go for more spells or abilities.

Next up

Holy Warriors!