For my next campaign I'm leaning heavily toward playing a Druid. Likely either Moon or Sheppard. If I'm the main healer I think I'd go Sheppard, if not then I'm not sure which I'd choose. I love the idea of having an elemental as a pet while myself being an elemental, but who knows. I also really like the totem mechanic so I could see myself going that direction too. How do you like those Subclasses?
It seems that variant human is by far the best choice early to grab resilient con or war caster. With so many spells being concentration, I think it's odd that they weren't given con saves by default and it almost seems required. In your experience, how necessary is war caster or resilient con? Or both? If I went dwarf, would I miss the talent a lot?
I think I'm going to RP my druid to be very concerned with balance. I haven't quite fleshed out what that means yet. I see him planting seeds and using druid craft to grow flowers or other plants to balance out killing a bunch of stuff when combat breaks out. I also think it's likely that things like undead would be attacked with prejudice due to seeing them as an abomination to nature. What about you? What are some good RP devices you've used with your Druids?
Any fun mechanics, spells, or combinations you could mention for a new druid? What's your favorite race to play? Subclass?
I once played a moon druid that in one encounter practically solo'd a CR4 monster at level 2. I hit him with an entangle before turning into a bear and mauling him.
Regarding War Caster, I think it depends upon your play style. I play a Spore Druid who gets up close and is hit with regularity. He also wields a staff and shield and fights with Shillelagh a lot. War Caster was my first feat. It was absolutely crucial. Combined with Magic Initiate and Booming Blade, he's a lot of fun in close quarters. If you're going to be hanging back, it's probably not as crucial unless you're getting shot at, which you can mitigate with positioning most of the time from my experience. As for War Caster v Resilient, if you're just taking one for the concentration advantage, I'd stay with War Caster as you get other benefits. If you have an odd CON score, you might consider Resilient. I personally wouldn't take both as I think that much focus on CON is better spent on something like Observant.
There are a lot of great combos with druids, but I think my favorite is Spike Growth and any other character who can push people around. Cleric front liner with Thunderwave? Nothing like knocking them back into your Spike Growth. You have a lot of potential creativity as a druid, but because so much of it is concentration, you might want to play off other character's abilities or consider multi-classing Sorcerer for metamagic feats like Quickening if you're kind of crazy.
Playing a druid for the first time in a new campaign, level 2.
I chose to theme him around insects. Infestation is one of his cantrips so I pretty much picture him just reaching into a pouch and throwing a handful of pocket bugs at any enemies. Chose circle of the land (underdark) so that I always have Web and Spider Climb prepared after next level. Wild Shape into giant centipedes and spiders. Eventually pick up Giant Insect so I can turn all my pets into monsters and then insect plague. Also gave him stealth proficiency so he's a sneaky druid. He carries around jars and little cages of insects hooked onto his belt and backpack.
I've been playing him true neutral, which is the traditional, old school alignment for druids. It's fun playing to his own personal code, which is basically that every creature is gifted a home by the earth, and to disturb or displace that home is the greatest crime. On the flip side, finding one's home is the most important journey to go on.
I also picked Variant Human for warcaster which is nice, but hasn't been crucial yet since I'm a caster-focus and tend to stay out of the front lines. The druid is so versatile that I feel like when you pick a cool, specific theme to build around and go deep into it instead of making just a general nature person it's super rewarding.
I'm about to start playing my first Druid this week. I rolled up an 8th-level version of him a little while back for a one-shot, liked him enough that I found a new group to play a full campaign with him. He's a Hill Dwarf, and I'll be going Circle Of The Shepherd. Decided to make him an older Dwarf, much older than your typical Level 1 adventurer. I got the sense that this is sort of the second phase of his life, that he'd had a solid career doing something else(in his case, working as a stonemason), but grew tired of the complications of city life not to mention the ugliness of society in general(all the lying, backstabbing, corruption etc). So he took the modest inheritance his parents had left him and set himself up with a nice little place at the edge of a forest out away from the hustle & bustle of civilization. He lives off the land for the most part, occasionally heading to the nearest town to sell herbs & plants to the local apothecaries, plus hides & furs from the game that he hunts, that sort of thing.
I've always found it kind of annoying when someone summons a horde of weaker creatures during a fight, it really bogs things down. I'm hoping to stick more to summoning 1 or 2 creatures like a couple of Dire Wolves or a Giant Constrictor Snake, then rely on the buffing powers of my Circle to keep them around longer.
I'm about to start playing my first Druid this week. I rolled up an 8th-level version of him a little while back for a one-shot, liked him enough that I found a new group to play a full campaign with him. He's a Hill Dwarf, and I'll be going Circle Of The Shepherd. Decided to make him an older Dwarf, much older than your typical Level 1 adventurer. I got the sense that this is sort of the second phase of his life, that he'd had a solid career doing something else(in his case, working as a stonemason), but grew tired of the complications of city life not to mention the ugliness of society in general(all the lying, backstabbing, corruption etc). So he took the modest inheritance his parents had left him and set himself up with a nice little place at the edge of a forest out away from the hustle & bustle of civilization. He lives off the land for the most part, occasionally heading to the nearest town to sell herbs & plants to the local apothecaries, plus hides & furs from the game that he hunts, that sort of thing.
I've always found it kind of annoying when someone summons a horde of weaker creatures during a fight, it really bogs things down. I'm hoping to stick more to summoning 1 or 2 creatures like a couple of Dire Wolves or a Giant Constrictor Snake, then rely on the buffing powers of my Circle to keep them around longer.
Happy D&D Beyond Anniversary!
I totally agree with summoning larger creatures as opposed to smaller creatures. However, a lot of the shepherd abilities work better with larger numbers of creatures. Shepherd bear totem adds temporary hit points to all allies in range, unicorn totem heals everything in range when you cast a heal spell, and Guardian Spirit heals all beasts or fey summoned in the totem range if it ends its turn within range. The more minions in range, the more total temporary hit points or healing. I'll still typically summon smaller numbers as opposed to larger though. Or maybe roll as a group for all of them to speed it up.
I just started playing with this druid, but their name is Elexis. My campaign is set in a very dark, shady, crime filled city and they run a flower shop (painted some pastel color, probably green). They're a fire genasi who got kicked out of botany school, true neutral, and I would probably die for them if given the chance. They only wear pastel colors with a black cloak.
They're real sweet and cuddly, but they've got a real dark backstory (dad died, mom sick, social outcast mostly).
I think I'm going to RP my druid to be very concerned with balance. I haven't quite fleshed out what that means yet. I see him planting seeds and using druid craft to grow flowers or other plants to balance out killing a bunch of stuff when combat breaks out. I also think it's likely that things like undead would be attacked with prejudice due to seeing them as an abomination to nature. What about you? What are some good RP devices you've used with your Druids?
Not sure if I have any good advice, but I was told I could talk about my druid here?
I actually just finished a campaign where I played a druid concerned about balance. She was a tiefling Circle of Twilight druid, so she was very concerned about the balance of life and death. In her story, she was supposed to be Circle of the Land, but due to certain events (her mom died) she ended up on a different path. For me, balance meant something similar to what you're talking about with planting and growing after a lot of bloodshed. Because of my subclass, a lot of that was performed as honoring the dead for those who might not have deserved to die. Like, for a city that had been nearly wiped out, I would stone shape and druidcraft a sort of memorial to the fallen with a lot of nature involved to bring life where there was once death. I didn't do it for everything that was killed though, as my druid was a bit more judgmental with her balance, making the decision as to what deaths deserved to be honored.
And, yes, undead were heavily attacked with prejudice. Maintaining the balance between life and death meant that nothing should be brought back to life, especially unwilling and especially like that.
My Druid is called Wave, a water genasi coastal land Druid. The setting is a fantasy Venice, plus a few other things like Egypt being ruled by the ancient gods and a powerful archmage who commands an army of war forged etc.
The druidic Tidal Enclave Wave belongs to has been safeguarding the city and mostly its waters for centuries. I initially had him as a shepherd but our group has grown and I liked the coastal land circle much more thematically.
DM was generous with gold for starting equipment and allowed me to have a shell style Spiked armour. With a shield I sit at 18 AC. Tend to use Primal savagery, healing word, ice knife, and faerie fire a lot in combat. Our group has hit level 5, so pretty keen to try out erupting earth and call lightning.
Gordann Lightfoot is a dwarven Shepherd Druid bedecked in flannel and sporting a thick Canadian accent. He summons bears, spirit geese, and dire beavers.
Garrick is a human druid of the moon and cleric of nature domain. He is primarily a druid who dipped into cleric for 1 level. He was raised in the forest by Dryads and Treants after being lured in by a pixie and a sprite. The two wanted to bring Garrick before Obad-hai to see if he was worthy of becoming the forest's Druid protector. He was trained as a Druid by the Dryads (spellcasting), Treants (wild shaping and philosophy), pixie (general education i.e. math, languages, etc) and the sprite (weapon fighting). Garrick considers each of his preferred wild shapes (wolf, hawk, elk, spider) as friends that come along on his adventures and when one "dies" in combat he mourns for a time. He was sent out of the forest at the age of 19 to prove himself as a true druid. Once he does Obad-hai will allow him to return to the forest to be its caretaker.
Garrick is heavily influenced by Native American and Celtic folklore, more so the former. He is chaotic neutral at first (due to his lack of socialization) but will end up more in the neutral/lawful good area after a time. He is very focused on finding a way to prove himself as a true druid so that he can return home to the forests.
For an AL game I had a Moon druid named Sergei Maximoff, who's backstory was that he was an ex circus strongman/animal trainer who went on a spiritual quest to become a druid. He had a big mustache and a really bad Russian accent. My boyfriend's hexblade was from the same circus troupe, which apparently got killed by undead after Sergei left.
My main memory of him was that he was so good at Animal Handling that he managed to keep the party from being killed by Giant Badgers.
My Druid is a "crop whisperer". He is nomadic and travels to towns that have been devastated by invaders or dragons, etc. His mission is to heal the land and get the crops growing again. Logic being that it decreases starvation and helps towns quickly get back on their feet through bartering and selling the crops. He is also friendly towards brewers and eager to tend gardens to ge the freshest ingredients for more tasty ale.
So Druid is my favorite class and I have been playing druids for 15+ years.
My first druid character, who was my very first D&D character back in 3.5, was a half-orc who has a name that is no longer capable of being said. He was from a valley that had an orcish mountain city and a human river city. The orcs and humans were enemies until a horde of Thri-kreen attacked them both, forcing them into an alliance. After having pushed back the thri-kreen they stayed somewhat-friendly and eventually half-orcs appeared as a result. But being too orcish for the humans and too human for the orcs, they started their own village between the two groups in a grassland with nutrient-poor soil. Combining orcish shamanism and human wizardry a half-orc druidic tradition was formed to help plants grows in the grassland and work as rural-police-like peacekeepers. My character spent most of his life helping crops grow and defending the village from the occasional bandit, until at the age of 53 he decided to go on an adventure to roam the world to find plants and/or magic to help his village prosper. Now half-orcs typically live to be around 60 years old, so being elderly he wasn't exactly expected to return (Also being elderly gave me bonuses to my mental stats which helped offset their racial debuff to mental stats). I played this character for over 10 years. We played through a lot of stuff, seeing the rise and fall of nations, the genocide of a few races, the destruction of the underdark, etc. But the event that had the most lasting effect on my character and the universe was the inter-planar war.
The group were all around level 19-20 and had been playing these characters for over a decade so most of the players would commonly do things without fearing the consequences. It started when our wizard decided to steal a magical clockwork piece from the plane Mechanus. This single missing part in the plane of literal clockwork caused such unthinkable chaos that the Primus of the Modrons launched an invasion on the entire material plane, as although they didn't know it was our wizard who stole the part they knew it was someone from the material plane. With billions of modrons invading out of a planar-rift and trying to enforce clockwork-like lawfulness on all living beings under pain of death, the forces of chaos known as the Fey were morally offended by this shift into lawfulness and decided to do something about it. The entirety of intelligent creatures of the Feywild teamed up to invade the material plane and remove ALL bastions of lawfulness and things that are not amusing or fun, also under pain of death. The players fought both sides and with some amazing charisma rolls and classing outsmarting of the GM, convinced a bunch of celestials to get involved to protect their worshipers. With the influx of millions of warrior angels in the material plane, the devils took notice and were not happy. Needless to say a devil invasion also took place. Groups from the elemental planes and a bunch of outer planes were also brought into the conflict through one way or another. And feeling left out the demons eventually also invaded.
The inter-planar war lasted a while and spilled over into most of the various beings home planes, such as the elemental plane of fire burning the feywild down, the cleansing of three of the nine levels of hell by celestials, demons overrunning both the elemental plane of earth and plane of water, the former inhabitants of the elemental planes of earth and water conquering mechanus, the devils sundering of Elysium, the fall of Arcadia, the splitting of Bytopia, the decimation of Arborea and Ysgard, and the death of most of the deities and various ruling/powerful beings of most of the planes. At one point most of the players became avatars for their respective deities, with my Druid becoming the avatar of Obad-Hai. That is until the players decided that the deities were weakened enough that we could take more of their power, as in, all of their power. My druid killed Obad-Hai and ascended to become Obad-Hai. With his previous name being removed from reality forever (What can I say, Oblivion was big at the time and I convinced the GM it worked similar to the Grey Fox). Our wizard used a horn of Orcus, the hand and eye of Vecna, the hand and eye of Oghma, the heart of Tyr, and the prime calculation orb of the Primus to simply become his own neutral magic deity. Our paladin slayed both Tiamat and Bahamut and absorbed their souls and powers to become a neutral draconic deity. Our rogue tricked a bunch of fey, elementals and genies and became a trickster deity. Our Barbarian made a contract with almost all of the major devils, right before the others of our group then killed said devils, and because the player was a law student she out negotiated them and ended up owning their souls and powers. Our Cleric became empowered by the dying words of several celestials and become an angelic deity. And our bard got killed when he lost a double or nothing battle of the bands against milil, due to consistently rolling under 5 for the entire event.
It's a work in progress, but when Firbolgs became a thing, I wanted to use one to create a druid...
I call him Hides-in-Fog, or "Foggy", as others refer to him. He's a city-dweller, and uses his Wild Shape and racial ability to hide amongst the citizens, usually in the form of a small, harmless animal like a dog...or an elf, since he can speak their language.
Long ago, his tribe had been laid to waste by a mysterious incursion of soldiers by some tyrant he honestly knew nothing about...firbolgs have no sense of human reputations or ambitions.
He wandered alone, but was given guidance and support through stargazing, communing with the goddess of magic Mystra in his darkest times. She told him that he would be of critical importance in some coming conflict, and so she directed him to the city he now calls home.
Though he hides his firbolg form most of the time, he has a few confidants he allows to view him in his true form.
To a party of adventurers, he is a steadfast and able friend, and very difficult to upset or anger.
True to his tribal name, every time his uses Hidden Step or Wild Shape, a fog of mist obscures him temporarily before he vanishes or shapechanges.
Skylla, A Water genasi druid of the coast who have lived most of her life along side her twin sister Charybdis and their Water genie father who somewhat loved them dearly just loved his praised collections of artworks made by his slaves. Both the twin sisters lived a lavish life and served by slaves that the twin's father "Hired" to serve in his palace in the water elemental plane. Despite this life, the the father wasn't happy. He'd always buy or kidnap famous artists to draw his wife who escaped after giving birth to the twins. He searched far and wide to find her since she was his favorite slave but after many years of search nothing was found as if she vanished from existence. Despite their father's attempt to make their mother look like a villain they both knew it wasn't true, after all, he always hid his tears whenever she was mentioned but was it love? or simply a lost piece of his collection? skylla never knew.
One day, Skylla's father brought a bard that told stories of the material plane, of the sky, of the trees, of many things that the twins never heard off. After a long struggle the twins finally managed to get their father to allow them to venture into the material plane but only after they learn how to defend themselves by finding a mean to do it. Charybdis wasn't a fast learner, using blades was getting her hurt a lot to the point her father forbade her from training in them and she wasn't gifted with any form of magic. However, Skylla seem to have innate magic from the plane of water, she was capable of feeling the nature and so her father got her a proper teacher which was a druid. After some time she learned and learned but her recklessness got her into something that'll haunt her for the rest of her life. As she was training she got too close to a violent sea creature which got her teacher killed and she hid in a trench until the creature lost interest but to her surprise she was stuck in the trench and was unable to leave for so long... she wasn't sure of the time passed before her sister found her called her father for help. Once she was out she slowly realized she had developed a strong fear of tight places but she kept it a secret to avoid her family's worry.
Skylla's father had forbidden her from leaving the palace ever again but she couldn't endure it anymore and had to see the material plane. She fled through the night and to her surprise her sister knew and helped her sneak out but upon leaving her father did catch her but instead of stopping her, he wished her luck and safety and reminded her that her home is always in this palace once she had enough traveling....
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Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
Adora is a level 5 moon druid (formerly land, I have a nice DM) who is very chaotic and sort of weird. I've shown her elsewhere.
She has been chased by something that haunts her dreams (as an elf, she doesn't need to sleep but sometimes has nightmares anyway). She will occasionally get a short but crippling bout of anxiety). She just found out via killing her backstory monster that she was her own problem the whole time, and is a bit shaken up. Because of her tumultuous life, she is extremely slow to trust and always has her guard up. Incidentally whenever she lets it down, something bad happens to her.
She has quite the lack of social skills. Sometimes she says things that weren't meant to be rude, but definitely come across that way (like comparing a bronze dragon to a blue one--she apologized profusely and fortunately was not forced to fight a bronze dragon). This also means that our manipulative BBEG, the fabulous Darwin Flubbucket, can't get to her because she isn't even picking up on what he's trying to manipulate her WITH. This lack of social skills has led to some hairy, scary, and hilarious moments.
The lack of social skills is probably because (as I figured out over the course of our campaign) her behavior seems more animal than human. She has occasionally savagely murdered someone. This is contrasted by guilt at killing anyone. She also tends to have bad feelings in her gut about many people (which are, weirdly enough, often right.) She has the loyalty of a wolf, though, towards those she learns to trust.
The other main thing is that in a tricky situation, she will always do something. Rush the enemy wizard who's about to cast a fireball, accidentally strike herself with a lightning bolt, straight-up sprint after this one NPC when I just said "I follow him."
Adora is reckless. She's a fierce combatant. She has a lot of regrets and a pinch of anxiety. But no matter what the situation, she has her friends' backs and she is guaranteed to do SOMETHING.
Sirius (named after a star) is a level 7 Autognome Circle of Stars Druid in a spelljammer campaign. He functions as the healer and but also uses Starry form/archer and guiding bolt every battle. He likes fixing things (healing the ship and party members). Low on social skills. So far had made all but one saving throw (see below) but routinely fails investigation checks (even with build for success, cosmic omen, and guidance). He has a staff of the adder (works at a distance; only used it once so far), cloak of protection, and gloves of missile snaring. Got blasted by a young adult red dragon last week (actually missed that saving throw because it is DEX but absorb elements saved him).
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Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E/RPG geek.
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For my next campaign I'm leaning heavily toward playing a Druid. Likely either Moon or Sheppard. If I'm the main healer I think I'd go Sheppard, if not then I'm not sure which I'd choose. I love the idea of having an elemental as a pet while myself being an elemental, but who knows. I also really like the totem mechanic so I could see myself going that direction too. How do you like those Subclasses?
It seems that variant human is by far the best choice early to grab resilient con or war caster. With so many spells being concentration, I think it's odd that they weren't given con saves by default and it almost seems required. In your experience, how necessary is war caster or resilient con? Or both? If I went dwarf, would I miss the talent a lot?
I think I'm going to RP my druid to be very concerned with balance. I haven't quite fleshed out what that means yet. I see him planting seeds and using druid craft to grow flowers or other plants to balance out killing a bunch of stuff when combat breaks out. I also think it's likely that things like undead would be attacked with prejudice due to seeing them as an abomination to nature. What about you? What are some good RP devices you've used with your Druids?
Any fun mechanics, spells, or combinations you could mention for a new druid? What's your favorite race to play? Subclass?
Thanks for your time!
I once played a moon druid that in one encounter practically solo'd a CR4 monster at level 2. I hit him with an entangle before turning into a bear and mauling him.
Regarding War Caster, I think it depends upon your play style. I play a Spore Druid who gets up close and is hit with regularity. He also wields a staff and shield and fights with Shillelagh a lot. War Caster was my first feat. It was absolutely crucial. Combined with Magic Initiate and Booming Blade, he's a lot of fun in close quarters. If you're going to be hanging back, it's probably not as crucial unless you're getting shot at, which you can mitigate with positioning most of the time from my experience. As for War Caster v Resilient, if you're just taking one for the concentration advantage, I'd stay with War Caster as you get other benefits. If you have an odd CON score, you might consider Resilient. I personally wouldn't take both as I think that much focus on CON is better spent on something like Observant.
There are a lot of great combos with druids, but I think my favorite is Spike Growth and any other character who can push people around. Cleric front liner with Thunderwave? Nothing like knocking them back into your Spike Growth. You have a lot of potential creativity as a druid, but because so much of it is concentration, you might want to play off other character's abilities or consider multi-classing Sorcerer for metamagic feats like Quickening if you're kind of crazy.
Playing a druid for the first time in a new campaign, level 2.
I chose to theme him around insects. Infestation is one of his cantrips so I pretty much picture him just reaching into a pouch and throwing a handful of pocket bugs at any enemies. Chose circle of the land (underdark) so that I always have Web and Spider Climb prepared after next level. Wild Shape into giant centipedes and spiders. Eventually pick up Giant Insect so I can turn all my pets into monsters and then insect plague. Also gave him stealth proficiency so he's a sneaky druid. He carries around jars and little cages of insects hooked onto his belt and backpack.
I've been playing him true neutral, which is the traditional, old school alignment for druids. It's fun playing to his own personal code, which is basically that every creature is gifted a home by the earth, and to disturb or displace that home is the greatest crime. On the flip side, finding one's home is the most important journey to go on.
I also picked Variant Human for warcaster which is nice, but hasn't been crucial yet since I'm a caster-focus and tend to stay out of the front lines. The druid is so versatile that I feel like when you pick a cool, specific theme to build around and go deep into it instead of making just a general nature person it's super rewarding.
I'm about to start playing my first Druid this week. I rolled up an 8th-level version of him a little while back for a one-shot, liked him enough that I found a new group to play a full campaign with him. He's a Hill Dwarf, and I'll be going Circle Of The Shepherd. Decided to make him an older Dwarf, much older than your typical Level 1 adventurer. I got the sense that this is sort of the second phase of his life, that he'd had a solid career doing something else(in his case, working as a stonemason), but grew tired of the complications of city life not to mention the ugliness of society in general(all the lying, backstabbing, corruption etc). So he took the modest inheritance his parents had left him and set himself up with a nice little place at the edge of a forest out away from the hustle & bustle of civilization. He lives off the land for the most part, occasionally heading to the nearest town to sell herbs & plants to the local apothecaries, plus hides & furs from the game that he hunts, that sort of thing.
I've always found it kind of annoying when someone summons a horde of weaker creatures during a fight, it really bogs things down. I'm hoping to stick more to summoning 1 or 2 creatures like a couple of Dire Wolves or a Giant Constrictor Snake, then rely on the buffing powers of my Circle to keep them around longer.
Happy D&D Beyond Anniversary!
I totally agree with summoning larger creatures as opposed to smaller creatures. However, a lot of the shepherd abilities work better with larger numbers of creatures. Shepherd bear totem adds temporary hit points to all allies in range, unicorn totem heals everything in range when you cast a heal spell, and Guardian Spirit heals all beasts or fey summoned in the totem range if it ends its turn within range. The more minions in range, the more total temporary hit points or healing. I'll still typically summon smaller numbers as opposed to larger though. Or maybe roll as a group for all of them to speed it up.
Love your backstory!
I just started playing with this druid, but their name is Elexis. My campaign is set in a very dark, shady, crime filled city and they run a flower shop (painted some pastel color, probably green). They're a fire genasi who got kicked out of botany school, true neutral, and I would probably die for them if given the chance. They only wear pastel colors with a black cloak.
They're real sweet and cuddly, but they've got a real dark backstory (dad died, mom sick, social outcast mostly).
Not sure if I have any good advice, but I was told I could talk about my druid here?I actually just finished a campaign where I played a druid concerned about balance. She was a tiefling Circle of Twilight druid, so she was very concerned about the balance of life and death. In her story, she was supposed to be Circle of the Land, but due to certain events
(her mom died)she ended up on a different path. For me, balance meant something similar to what you're talking about with planting and growing after a lot of bloodshed. Because of my subclass, a lot of that was performed as honoring the dead for those who might not have deserved to die. Like, for a city that had been nearly wiped out, I would stone shape and druidcraft a sort of memorial to the fallen with a lot of nature involved to bring life where there was once death. I didn't do it for everything that was killed though, as my druid was a bit more judgmental with her balance, making the decision as to what deaths deserved to be honored.And, yes, undead were heavily attacked with prejudice. Maintaining the balance between life and death meant that nothing should be brought back to life, especially unwilling and especially like that.
My Druid is called Wave, a water genasi coastal land Druid. The setting is a fantasy Venice, plus a few other things like Egypt being ruled by the ancient gods and a powerful archmage who commands an army of war forged etc.
The druidic Tidal Enclave Wave belongs to has been safeguarding the city and mostly its waters for centuries. I initially had him as a shepherd but our group has grown and I liked the coastal land circle much more thematically.
DM was generous with gold for starting equipment and allowed me to have a shell style Spiked armour. With a shield I sit at 18 AC. Tend to use Primal savagery, healing word, ice knife, and faerie fire a lot in combat. Our group has hit level 5, so pretty keen to try out erupting earth and call lightning.
Gordann Lightfoot is a dwarven Shepherd Druid bedecked in flannel and sporting a thick Canadian accent. He summons bears, spirit geese, and dire beavers.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
Garrick is a human druid of the moon and cleric of nature domain. He is primarily a druid who dipped into cleric for 1 level. He was raised in the forest by Dryads and Treants after being lured in by a pixie and a sprite. The two wanted to bring Garrick before Obad-hai to see if he was worthy of becoming the forest's Druid protector. He was trained as a Druid by the Dryads (spellcasting), Treants (wild shaping and philosophy), pixie (general education i.e. math, languages, etc) and the sprite (weapon fighting). Garrick considers each of his preferred wild shapes (wolf, hawk, elk, spider) as friends that come along on his adventures and when one "dies" in combat he mourns for a time. He was sent out of the forest at the age of 19 to prove himself as a true druid. Once he does Obad-hai will allow him to return to the forest to be its caretaker.
Garrick is heavily influenced by Native American and Celtic folklore, more so the former. He is chaotic neutral at first (due to his lack of socialization) but will end up more in the neutral/lawful good area after a time. He is very focused on finding a way to prove himself as a true druid so that he can return home to the forests.
For an AL game I had a Moon druid named Sergei Maximoff, who's backstory was that he was an ex circus strongman/animal trainer who went on a spiritual quest to become a druid. He had a big mustache and a really bad Russian accent. My boyfriend's hexblade was from the same circus troupe, which apparently got killed by undead after Sergei left.
My main memory of him was that he was so good at Animal Handling that he managed to keep the party from being killed by Giant Badgers.
Hombrew: Way of Wresting, Circle of Sacrifice
My Druid is a "crop whisperer". He is nomadic and travels to towns that have been devastated by invaders or dragons, etc. His mission is to heal the land and get the crops growing again. Logic being that it decreases starvation and helps towns quickly get back on their feet through bartering and selling the crops. He is also friendly towards brewers and eager to tend gardens to ge the freshest ingredients for more tasty ale.
So Druid is my favorite class and I have been playing druids for 15+ years.
My first druid character, who was my very first D&D character back in 3.5, was a half-orc who has a name that is no longer capable of being said. He was from a valley that had an orcish mountain city and a human river city. The orcs and humans were enemies until a horde of Thri-kreen attacked them both, forcing them into an alliance. After having pushed back the thri-kreen they stayed somewhat-friendly and eventually half-orcs appeared as a result. But being too orcish for the humans and too human for the orcs, they started their own village between the two groups in a grassland with nutrient-poor soil. Combining orcish shamanism and human wizardry a half-orc druidic tradition was formed to help plants grows in the grassland and work as rural-police-like peacekeepers. My character spent most of his life helping crops grow and defending the village from the occasional bandit, until at the age of 53 he decided to go on an adventure to roam the world to find plants and/or magic to help his village prosper. Now half-orcs typically live to be around 60 years old, so being elderly he wasn't exactly expected to return (Also being elderly gave me bonuses to my mental stats which helped offset their racial debuff to mental stats). I played this character for over 10 years. We played through a lot of stuff, seeing the rise and fall of nations, the genocide of a few races, the destruction of the underdark, etc. But the event that had the most lasting effect on my character and the universe was the inter-planar war.
The group were all around level 19-20 and had been playing these characters for over a decade so most of the players would commonly do things without fearing the consequences. It started when our wizard decided to steal a magical clockwork piece from the plane Mechanus. This single missing part in the plane of literal clockwork caused such unthinkable chaos that the Primus of the Modrons launched an invasion on the entire material plane, as although they didn't know it was our wizard who stole the part they knew it was someone from the material plane. With billions of modrons invading out of a planar-rift and trying to enforce clockwork-like lawfulness on all living beings under pain of death, the forces of chaos known as the Fey were morally offended by this shift into lawfulness and decided to do something about it. The entirety of intelligent creatures of the Feywild teamed up to invade the material plane and remove ALL bastions of lawfulness and things that are not amusing or fun, also under pain of death. The players fought both sides and with some amazing charisma rolls and classing outsmarting of the GM, convinced a bunch of celestials to get involved to protect their worshipers. With the influx of millions of warrior angels in the material plane, the devils took notice and were not happy. Needless to say a devil invasion also took place. Groups from the elemental planes and a bunch of outer planes were also brought into the conflict through one way or another. And feeling left out the demons eventually also invaded.
The inter-planar war lasted a while and spilled over into most of the various beings home planes, such as the elemental plane of fire burning the feywild down, the cleansing of three of the nine levels of hell by celestials, demons overrunning both the elemental plane of earth and plane of water, the former inhabitants of the elemental planes of earth and water conquering mechanus, the devils sundering of Elysium, the fall of Arcadia, the splitting of Bytopia, the decimation of Arborea and Ysgard, and the death of most of the deities and various ruling/powerful beings of most of the planes. At one point most of the players became avatars for their respective deities, with my Druid becoming the avatar of Obad-Hai. That is until the players decided that the deities were weakened enough that we could take more of their power, as in, all of their power. My druid killed Obad-Hai and ascended to become Obad-Hai. With his previous name being removed from reality forever (What can I say, Oblivion was big at the time and I convinced the GM it worked similar to the Grey Fox). Our wizard used a horn of Orcus, the hand and eye of Vecna, the hand and eye of Oghma, the heart of Tyr, and the prime calculation orb of the Primus to simply become his own neutral magic deity. Our paladin slayed both Tiamat and Bahamut and absorbed their souls and powers to become a neutral draconic deity. Our rogue tricked a bunch of fey, elementals and genies and became a trickster deity. Our Barbarian made a contract with almost all of the major devils, right before the others of our group then killed said devils, and because the player was a law student she out negotiated them and ended up owning their souls and powers. Our Cleric became empowered by the dying words of several celestials and become an angelic deity. And our bard got killed when he lost a double or nothing battle of the bands against milil, due to consistently rolling under 5 for the entire event.
It's a work in progress, but when Firbolgs became a thing, I wanted to use one to create a druid...
I call him Hides-in-Fog, or "Foggy", as others refer to him. He's a city-dweller, and uses his Wild Shape and racial ability to hide amongst the citizens, usually in the form of a small, harmless animal like a dog...or an elf, since he can speak their language.
Long ago, his tribe had been laid to waste by a mysterious incursion of soldiers by some tyrant he honestly knew nothing about...firbolgs have no sense of human reputations or ambitions.
He wandered alone, but was given guidance and support through stargazing, communing with the goddess of magic Mystra in his darkest times. She told him that he would be of critical importance in some coming conflict, and so she directed him to the city he now calls home.
Though he hides his firbolg form most of the time, he has a few confidants he allows to view him in his true form.
To a party of adventurers, he is a steadfast and able friend, and very difficult to upset or anger.
True to his tribal name, every time his uses Hidden Step or Wild Shape, a fog of mist obscures him temporarily before he vanishes or shapechanges.
Skylla, A Water genasi druid of the coast who have lived most of her life along side her twin sister Charybdis and their Water genie father who somewhat loved them dearly just loved his praised collections of artworks made by his slaves. Both the twin sisters lived a lavish life and served by slaves that the twin's father "Hired" to serve in his palace in the water elemental plane. Despite this life, the the father wasn't happy. He'd always buy or kidnap famous artists to draw his wife who escaped after giving birth to the twins. He searched far and wide to find her since she was his favorite slave but after many years of search nothing was found as if she vanished from existence. Despite their father's attempt to make their mother look like a villain they both knew it wasn't true, after all, he always hid his tears whenever she was mentioned but was it love? or simply a lost piece of his collection? skylla never knew.
One day, Skylla's father brought a bard that told stories of the material plane, of the sky, of the trees, of many things that the twins never heard off. After a long struggle the twins finally managed to get their father to allow them to venture into the material plane but only after they learn how to defend themselves by finding a mean to do it. Charybdis wasn't a fast learner, using blades was getting her hurt a lot to the point her father forbade her from training in them and she wasn't gifted with any form of magic. However, Skylla seem to have innate magic from the plane of water, she was capable of feeling the nature and so her father got her a proper teacher which was a druid. After some time she learned and learned but her recklessness got her into something that'll haunt her for the rest of her life. As she was training she got too close to a violent sea creature which got her teacher killed and she hid in a trench until the creature lost interest but to her surprise she was stuck in the trench and was unable to leave for so long... she wasn't sure of the time passed before her sister found her called her father for help. Once she was out she slowly realized she had developed a strong fear of tight places but she kept it a secret to avoid her family's worry.
Skylla's father had forbidden her from leaving the palace ever again but she couldn't endure it anymore and had to see the material plane. She fled through the night and to her surprise her sister knew and helped her sneak out but upon leaving her father did catch her but instead of stopping her, he wished her luck and safety and reminded her that her home is always in this palace once she had enough traveling....
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
Adora is a level 5 moon druid (formerly land, I have a nice DM) who is very chaotic and sort of weird. I've shown her elsewhere.
She has been chased by something that haunts her dreams (as an elf, she doesn't need to sleep but sometimes has nightmares anyway). She will occasionally get a short but crippling bout of anxiety). She just found out via killing her backstory monster that she was her own problem the whole time, and is a bit shaken up. Because of her tumultuous life, she is extremely slow to trust and always has her guard up. Incidentally whenever she lets it down, something bad happens to her.
She has quite the lack of social skills. Sometimes she says things that weren't meant to be rude, but definitely come across that way (like comparing a bronze dragon to a blue one--she apologized profusely and fortunately was not forced to fight a bronze dragon). This also means that our manipulative BBEG, the fabulous Darwin Flubbucket, can't get to her because she isn't even picking up on what he's trying to manipulate her WITH. This lack of social skills has led to some hairy, scary, and hilarious moments.
The lack of social skills is probably because (as I figured out over the course of our campaign) her behavior seems more animal than human. She has occasionally savagely murdered someone. This is contrasted by guilt at killing anyone. She also tends to have bad feelings in her gut about many people (which are, weirdly enough, often right.) She has the loyalty of a wolf, though, towards those she learns to trust.
The other main thing is that in a tricky situation, she will always do something. Rush the enemy wizard who's about to cast a fireball, accidentally strike herself with a lightning bolt, straight-up sprint after this one NPC when I just said "I follow him."
Adora is reckless. She's a fierce combatant. She has a lot of regrets and a pinch of anxiety. But no matter what the situation, she has her friends' backs and she is guaranteed to do SOMETHING.
Hopefully it works.
Sirius (named after a star) is a level 7 Autognome Circle of Stars Druid in a spelljammer campaign. He functions as the healer and but also uses Starry form/archer and guiding bolt every battle. He likes fixing things (healing the ship and party members). Low on social skills. So far had made all but one saving throw (see below) but routinely fails investigation checks (even with build for success, cosmic omen, and guidance). He has a staff of the adder (works at a distance; only used it once so far), cloak of protection, and gloves of missile snaring. Got blasted by a young adult red dragon last week (actually missed that saving throw because it is DEX but absorb elements saved him).
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E/RPG geek.