Druid

NWN Requirements

• Alignment Restrictions: Any Neutral

Arelith Changes

• Requires to have selected Deity with Presence to cast higher level spells (greater than level 6).
• Spell Changes
• Bonus Language: Animal Language

Roleplaying tips

Druids are charged with maintaining the balance of nature, making sure the determination of most intelligent races to conquer nature is never fully realized (especially since to accomplish this would be ultimately self-destructive). Druids make sure that forests are not over-logged, or that animals are not over-hunted. In many places local rural people confer with druids before clearing land for farming, or allow their regulations for hunting and fishing to be determined by druids.

Druids do not have traditional temples. Instead they gather in sacred groves, or sites of beauty in nature, or among collections of stone which mark places of significance on this plane. Druids typically avoid staying too long within the walls of a town or in any congested urban area. They revere and worship nature, but also understand that it is to be used, so they are not against hunting or logging or fishing, just the wanton depletion of those resources by civilization.

Druids tend to try to live simple lives uncomplicated by technology or involvement in the politics of men, except of course when it cannot be avoided. Since the vast majority of druids are neutral in alignment, the stereotype of the dispassionate and aloof druid is a common view among most people. However, a lawful druid may sent by his circle to serve as a game warden, or a good druid may live near a village to protect its citizens and give them firsthand guidance.

Typically, druids treat their animal companion as a friend with freewill to come and go as they please. They try not to send the creature to certain death, or make it stay in places where it would feel uncomfortable. Evil druids, however, sometimes see this companion as a tool sent by the god to do their will, as thus are less compassionate, seeing themselves as the alpha animal in the group.

Basic Rules

Druids access a set of divine powers that are granted by one or several gods of nature.

A druid disdains the use of large metal weapons that are heavily worked or cover their body. Metal is a naturally occurring substance as any other, in being reworked it is disrupting the natural function of metal and as a result of this they instead prefer only using small shards. Because of this, using metal will cause a penalty in their divine abilities in many settings (which is not mechanically enforced on Arelith). However, simply touching metal does not destroy a druids gift - it's the choice to wear and use it. Sickles, kamas, daggers, spears, and many other types of weapons are traditional to the druid way of life. Some extremists attempt to eschew them totally, using Ironwood, bone, and stone. However these tend to be tribal druids from less civilized areas and backgrounds. Leaning against a lamppost wouldn't lessen a druids power, nor would using a skillet or cook pot. Wearing an iron helmet would. *Note that some nature deities disregard this rule and allow their worshipers to wear metal, notably, Mielliki*

Any druid that acts against the cycle of nature will be either punished by a high council of druids, or be stripped of their title and druidic connections and abilities.

If a Druid multiclasses, they are still bound by oath to use the same weapons they had proficiency via their druid levels. (This is a very good RP option, but not enforced on Arelith.)

An evil druid has no respect for life in general, but will instead seek to uphold the natural balance ruthlessly. Evil druids are devout adherents to the ways of Nature; they are not "Anti-druids". Evil druids zealously follow the teachings of the oaths and the word of the higher druids to the point that they will even kill other druids they feel are soft on the fundamentals, and could be closely related to modern religious fundamentalists in their actions. They will use Nature to carry out their goals with little regard for the lives of the creatures they use, yet they are not wasteful of their resources.

Druids seek to put an end to the living dead as they see this as a being that has no place in the pattern of life, and serves no function there. It is an aberration to the cycle which can sometimes be produced by natural means, yet still has no place in nature and should be done away with. A druid looks at a bird and sees it's functions in the environment around it, how everything it does effects a chain of life. The undead have no ties to this cycle and are therefor the opposites of what druid strive to achieve.

Druids are tied to the planes in some ways and understand the elemental realms better than most others that dwell on the prime. The spells they use are drawn from the elemental planes, and they can summon elementals to their aid or even change into one as they progress in ability. They do this with care and caution, knowing that to bring an elemental being away from it's home plane is to inflict instant pain and anguish upon it and in many cases render it insane from the experience. They also know that the prime is composed of all of the elemental planes and aspire to maintain the balance of these. For this reason, they do not agree with non-natives resiging on the prime as they do not fit into that life cycle, and most will not actively seek to hunt out anything non-native.

Many Druids tend not to believe in "Good" and "Evil" but rather see things as "shades of grey"; with labels being irrelevant. The most important thing to them is the balance of Nature and maintaining it.

Gray Druid

The rare gray druids inhabit and tend the shadowy realms of the hidden life that exists without sunlight - fungi, molds, and slimes - and the nocturnal creatures that dwell in lightless, subterranean realms. Gray druids are more closely associated with the earth than with other elements of nature. While many live in underground caves or ruins, they are found any place fungal life grows abundantly, either above or below ground.

Gray druids tend to oppose dungeon delvers, especially dwarves who they belive defile and exploit the underground environment. They have very good relations with deep gnomes and passible relations with drow, who they feel show more appreciation of the beauty of the underdark more than most dwarves or men.

But the gray druid doesn't always oppose surface dwellers. Suppose a maze of caverns has developed a complex ecology; fungi, slimes, rust monsters, subterranean lizards, purple worms, and so on. Then an evil wizard and his ogres move in and begin 'clearing' the caverns, destroying the monsters in preparation to establish an underground stronghold. In this situation, the gray druid might recruit a party of adventurers or other aid in order to save the local ecology from destruction. - The Complete Druid's Handbook By David Pulver

Totemic Druid

The Totemic Druid closely identifies with a particular species of mammal, reptile, or bird. While a typical Totemic Druid, stops short of worshiping his totem animal, he believes that particular animal represents his spirit. Totemic Druids tend to adopt characteristics associated with their totem animal. They feel especially protective of their totem animal in the wild and want to befreind the creatures. A Totemic Druid acts to promote the interests of the totem species and it's individual members.

Even if his totem is traditional prey, a Totemic Druid never hunts the animal himself, nor does he eat it's meat. While he usually does not try to ban hunting of his totem (except in the case of endangered species), he opposes cruel or wasteful hunting practices. - The Complete Druid's handbook By David Pulver

Totem animal

On Arelith, druids can choose a totem animal.

Gaining a totem

Hidden somewhere in the module (on both the Underdark and Surface server) is an NPC who will offer druids the ability to make a bargain with a totem animal. The bargain is optional, can only be made once, and cannot be un-made.

Effects of a totem

On making a bargain, your PC permanently loses 4 points of Strength, Dexterity and Constitution. However, from that point on, their animal companion, all summoned non-undead creatures (bar Elemental Swarm, but including epic summons) and wildshape forms (but not elemental, shifter, or epic feat forms) all become the totem form.

It is perfectly OK to take a feat and later make a totem bargain that reduces characters abilities beneath the prerequisites for that feat. It will cause no problems to legality of the character.

The summoned animals will keep strengths and abilities of the original summoned creature. Only their shape and look will be that of totem animal. For example, Dragonshape turns totem druid into a dragon as intended, but DRAGON KNIGHT would summon an totem animal with the stats and abilities of a dragon!

In addition, their wildshape ability gets significantly stronger, and grows stronger the more druid levels the character has.

Finally, depending on the totem animal, the PC gains a boon that depends on the species of totem animal.

Wildshape stats for totem druids

NB: All uses of Wildshape (for any of the standard animals) will instead result in shifting into your totem form, with the following stats.

Totem druid wildshape abilities

Druid level	Str	Dex	Con	AC bonus	Temp HP
5-7	18	18	18	2	10
8-9	20	20	20	4	20
10-11	22	22	22	6	30
12-13	24	24	24	8	40
14-15	26	26	26	10	50
16-17	28	28	28	12	60
18-19	30	30	30	14	70
20-21	32	32	32	16	?
22-23	34	34	34	18	?
24-25	36	36	36	20	?
26+	38	38	38	22	?

Current bugs

Bonus stats characters get from taking the initial token are supposed to stack with what they have from the totem. Right now totem druids will not get additional +4 Dex in panther form.

"Yes, you should get +4 dex in panther form. I'm aware that there are some issues with properties copying across forms, which I haven't yet had a chance to investigate." Mithreas

Stats bonuses on items will override (not stack with) bonuses that totem druids get from their selection of totem. This issue is known and under investigation by developers. This occurs only in animal form; stats bonuses in original humanoid form work fine.

Wildshape merge of items for totem druids

Totem druids merge item and armour properties into their new form. All the items get merged onto one item, which means that properties of those items will not "stack". Only the highest bonuses will apply. For example:

• Armor +1 dex and a ring that has +1 dex will provide only +1 DEX in Wildshape.
• Armor +2 dex and a ring that has +1 dex will provide only +2 DEX in Wildshape.

Note that this is different than Wildshape merge for non-totem druids, which only merges armor. Also note that the hands slot (gloves or gauntlets) are not merged. Due to the current bug that merged abilities override the totem bonus, this would be a good place to put these abilities so they can affect your character in human form but not hurt them in totem form.

Unfortunately, all bonus spell slots gained from items are "emptied" by transformation of druid into wildshape.

Totem druids don't merge weapons by design, for balance reasons. Since a wildshaper has a high natural Strength they will do significant amounts of damage anyway, so allowing (say) masterly damask to stack would have been unbalancing, and would have encouraged druids to use metal weapons.

Available totem animals

NB: All boons correct at time of writing. Boons may be changed at any time at the discretion of the development team.

• Wolf (predator): +2 str, +2 dex, +2 spot, +2 hide, +2 move silently
• Panther (sneak): +4 dex, +4 hide, +4 move silently
• Spider (cunning): +2 int, immunity: poison, immunity: paralysis
• Parrot (beauty): +4 cha
• Eagle (nobility): +2 cha, +8 spot
• Bear (brawn): +4 str, +4 con
• Raven (wisdom): +4 wis, +10 lore
• Bat (mystery): True Seeing
• Rat (creativity): +4 int, immunity: disease
• Snake (grace): +2 dex, +2 cha, immunity: disease, immunity: poison

All stat bonuses are applied as 'soft' bonuses, which means

• they apply when wildshaped as well as in human/elf/etc form
• they count toward the +12 cap
• they do not count toward feat requirements.

Roleplay notes

In Forgotten Realms, Druids and Rangers receive spells and abilities only from Nature Deities. This requirement is NOT valid on Arelith, but selecting one of following Deities can greatly enhance your roleplay. Dogma of all these Deities is closely tied to nature.

Complete Nature Deity List

Aerdrie Faenya (Elven pantheon), Angharradh (Elven pantheon), Anhur (Mulhorandi pantheon), Auril, Baervan Wildwanderer (Gnome pantheon), Chauntea, Deep Sashelas (Elven pantheon), Eldath, Fenmarel Mestarine (Elven pantheon), Gwaeron Windstrom (patron of rangers of the North; serves to Mielikki), Hiatea (monster deity), Isis (Mulhorandi pantheon), Lurue, Malar, Mielikki, Nobanion, Osiris (Mulhorandi pantheon), Rillifane Rallathil (Elven pantheon), Sebek (Mulhorandi pantheon), Segojan Earthcaller (Gnome pantheon), Sekolah (monster deity), Sheela Peryroyl (Halfling pantheon), Shiallia (serves to Mielikki), Silvanus, Solonor Thelandira (Elven pantheon), Stronmaus (monster deity), Talona, Talos, Thard Harr (Dwarven pantheon; wild dwarves), Ubtao, Ulutiu, Umberlee

(Page 90 of FR Faiths and Pantheons)

Blighters

Roleplay of Blighters or "forest destroying" druids is not allowed on Arelith without the 5% roll. Blighters are basically the "anti-druid." Instead of getting their powers from nature (as a gift, so to speak), they steal them, causing a lot of negative effects for the forest.

Lythari

Lythari are good-aligned lycanthropic wolves with no hybrid form and who are companionable in animal form. A druid with a wolf totem is a druid with a wolf totem, not a Lythari. There is no mechanical support for Lythari, and thus this is not a valid character concept.

There are ways in game that one could become a werewolf (and ways to subsequently cure it), but werewolves are extremely vicious and cannot be played as though they were Lythari.

The only possible way to play a Lythari is, as with all other unsupported concepts, by taking a 5% roll and having the concept approved by the boss. In the past there was a Player that played a wolf. Not a druid shapeshifted, but a 5% rolled pure wolf.

External Links

Animal companions on NWNWiki

Information about default NWN class are available on NWNWiki.

Seekers of wisdom - article on CoA forum comparing roleplay of 3 classes: clerics, druids and monks.

The Gray Druid concept