I'm not like a crazy druid superfan, but I can't help but notice that we haven't seen any playtest for new druid subclasses. Unless I'm missing something? I DM for my library and I have several kids that are foaming at the mouth waiting for a new druid subclass (especially wildfire).
Having more Druid options wouldn’t necessarily make more people want to play Druid.
Having fun to play Druid options would. I don't know if you have access to the Crooked moon Druids published on dndb, but that's how you make fun to play Druids.
Honestly I find it weird that druids aren't more popular. d8 health, solid armor, an awesome and versatile spell list, versatile shape shifting. One of the most versatile classes in the game to me. Maybe it is just people want more specialized or something?
2014 druid was a huge turnoff, and I think it likely that word about how much the 2024 druid has fixed may just not be out. The metal armor thing was problematic; you CAN, but you CHOOSE not to was both stupid and annoying. Also, shape shifting is not everyone's cup of tea, and 2014 was heavy into shape shifting. If you didn't like shapeshifting, 2014 druid was a hard sell. Those problems have all been fixed, but "druid sucks" is probably burned into people's heads now and they're not being given a reasonable chance.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Yes. There is a series of "Druids are Awesome" videos on YouTube by Enter the Dungeon. He, too, is a druid fan and he goes on a tear about all the great things about Druids. They are really versatile, healing, scouting, area damage, control, and support.
Likley as not, Druids that relied on Wildshape or that relied on conjurations have been less popular with the crowd that plays using smartphones exclusively to keep track of stuff. Druid in 2014 was hard to play well without a PHB and a lot of people who initially try D&D don't want to play money for the book or don't feel that its layout is intuitive enough in digital form. Druids have always been a fairly bookkeeping heavy class, so was at least partially a problem with the UI of DDB and the ways that book layout didn't necessarily translate well to looking at from a smartphone.
Re: Re-issues specifically for existing Xanathar's and other sub-classes. Wildfire Druid and Stars Druid should both be very playable with the 2024 ruleset. As far Shepherd Druid, they got hit hard by WotC deciding to nerf any and all conjuration spells, which was the Shepherd staple. The mess with the Wizard Necromancer , which is also a "pet"-heavy subclass should tell you why re-designing Shepherd without their main feature is a not going to go smoothly. IDK about Dreams Druid, but extra healing and extra teleport was their main thing, right? There are now so many ways to get Misty Step and extra healing and extra temp hp that they might just wind up scrapping Dreams Druid altogether or rebuild it from scratch.
Anyway, what do I do know? I just enjoy Druids because they are one of the most versatile classes, in some ways moreso than Wizards. YMMV
You're not wrong on versatility. Druid can be hammered into a lot of themes, like one feels completely different than another. A wizard? Their flexibility comes from changing their spell loadout, but fundamentally, they feel the same.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Honestly I find it weird that druids aren't more popular. d8 health, solid armor, an awesome and versatile spell list, versatile shape shifting. One of the most versatile classes in the game to me. Maybe it is just people want more specialized or something?
1) Many people hate the theme of druids, I've heard them derogatively called furries, and tree-huggers. In many places a whole half of people have negative views of anyone wanting to protect the environment. People also struggle to escape this stereotype so often have trouble coming up with cool backstories for them.
2) Druid is hard to play well, their versatility also means the most preparation needed. Busy people don't want to have to look at 6 statblocks, and 100 spells to prepare their character for each adventuring day. And unlike most other casters it isn't obvious what your go-to spell is as a druid.
3) Druid's specialty is utility and exploration an a lot of games that features very little in them. Plus those tools don't have "awesome synergies" which would make optimizers drool.
Druids carry IRL baggage attached to their very name that Dungeons & Dragons kinda didn't help.
Actual Druids weren't neutral-leaning spellcasting nature magicians. They were moreso record keepers & officiants. Pre-paper paper pushers, not Radaghast the Brown, Satanists, or (human/blood) sacrifice machines like what pop culture tends to pigeonhole them into.
So there's that in addition to in-game reasons.
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DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Well, there are also very few characters in popular culture that call themselves "druids". Modern life is too far removed from the ritualistic practices of ancient druids and technology-driven European-descended societies for the most part have little interest in reviving an archetype associated with paganism or anything pre-Christianity...which is interesting because "witches" have been making a comeback in popular culture, but the word and image of the typical "witch" is not closely associated with "druid" stuff despite their common pagan origins. This makes me think that if D&D had been redesigned for an East Asian or South Asian market instead of a US market, maybe a class associated with environment/natural areas/treehuggers/etc. would be more popular since polytheism never died in Japan or India.
The only druid I remember coming across outside of games is the one in Asterix (can't remember his name in English). And in terms of D&D, I guess he'd be more of an alchemist artificer.
Well, there are also very few characters in popular culture that call themselves "druids". Modern life is too far removed from the ritualistic practices of ancient druids and technology-driven European-descended societies for the most part have little interest in reviving an archetype associated with paganism or anything pre-Christianity...which is interesting because "witches" have been making a comeback in popular culture, but the word and image of the typical "witch" is not closely associated with "druid" stuff despite their common pagan origins. This makes me think that if D&D had been redesigned for an East Asian or South Asian market instead of a US market, maybe a class associated with environment/natural areas/treehuggers/etc. would be more popular since polytheism never died in Japan or India.
It's not the polytheistic origins that make it "uncool", norse mythology is also pagan / polytheistic but is very popular at the moment. It's a cultural backlash against the environmentalism movement of the 1980s/1990s, largely driven by corporate propaganda.
You're not wrong on versatility. Druid can be hammered into a lot of themes, like one feels completely different than another. A wizard? Their flexibility comes from changing their spell loadout, but fundamentally, they feel the same.
I think the problem with Wizard builds differentiating themselves is that when they are effective, they hog all the attention from the other Wizard builds. Early on, it was the Divination and the Abjuration Wizards, which are powerful almost from the beginning. Then for a while it was Bladesinger. Part of the problem being, perhaps, that Wizard specialists are hard to balance against each other.
This makes me think that if D&D had been redesigned for an East Asian or South Asian market instead of a US market, maybe a class associated with environment/natural areas/treehuggers/etc. would be more popular since polytheism never died in Japan or India.
It's not the polytheistic origins that make it "uncool", norse mythology is also pagan / polytheistic but is very popular at the moment. It's a cultural backlash against the environmentalism movement of the 1980s/1990s, largely driven by corporate propaganda.
Maybe. It's kind of hard to gauge what political/social messages most players are most influenced by. I mean, a person can love reneweable energy but hate laws that protect rare/endangered species. You can think that eagles and owls are cool as heck but also hate anything even vaguely associated with furries, which Druids have been tarnished by due to Wildshape and some people's ummm, "thirsty" imaginations. I do agree there is a lot of anti-environmentalist propaganda, but if this is a big influence on why Druid is the least popular, why did Rangers, which also use Druid spells and are arguably just as out of step with anti-environmentalists, not get dunked on the same way?
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Hey all,
I'm not like a crazy druid superfan, but I can't help but notice that we haven't seen any playtest for new druid subclasses. Unless I'm missing something? I DM for my library and I have several kids that are foaming at the mouth waiting for a new druid subclass (especially wildfire).
Does anyone know why this is???
No one knows, but I will assume it’s because Druids are the one of the least played classes
That should have made them a priority, to be honest.
Having more Druid options wouldn’t necessarily make more people want to play Druid.
Having fun to play Druid options would. I don't know if you have access to the Crooked moon Druids published on dndb, but that's how you make fun to play Druids.
What someone considers fun is extremely subjective. The people who already play Druids will tell y/ou they are fun.
I play Druids. My first Druid was in 2nd. What's wrong with wanting more people to enjoy the class?
Honestly I find it weird that druids aren't more popular. d8 health, solid armor, an awesome and versatile spell list, versatile shape shifting. One of the most versatile classes in the game to me. Maybe it is just people want more specialized or something?
2014 druid was a huge turnoff, and I think it likely that word about how much the 2024 druid has fixed may just not be out. The metal armor thing was problematic; you CAN, but you CHOOSE not to was both stupid and annoying. Also, shape shifting is not everyone's cup of tea, and 2014 was heavy into shape shifting. If you didn't like shapeshifting, 2014 druid was a hard sell. Those problems have all been fixed, but "druid sucks" is probably burned into people's heads now and they're not being given a reasonable chance.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
More subclasses doesn’t mean more people will like Druids.
Yes. There is a series of "Druids are Awesome" videos on YouTube by Enter the Dungeon. He, too, is a druid fan and he goes on a tear about all the great things about Druids. They are really versatile, healing, scouting, area damage, control, and support.
Likley as not, Druids that relied on Wildshape or that relied on conjurations have been less popular with the crowd that plays using smartphones exclusively to keep track of stuff. Druid in 2014 was hard to play well without a PHB and a lot of people who initially try D&D don't want to play money for the book or don't feel that its layout is intuitive enough in digital form. Druids have always been a fairly bookkeeping heavy class, so was at least partially a problem with the UI of DDB and the ways that book layout didn't necessarily translate well to looking at from a smartphone.
Re: Re-issues specifically for existing Xanathar's and other sub-classes. Wildfire Druid and Stars Druid should both be very playable with the 2024 ruleset. As far Shepherd Druid, they got hit hard by WotC deciding to nerf any and all conjuration spells, which was the Shepherd staple. The mess with the Wizard Necromancer , which is also a "pet"-heavy subclass should tell you why re-designing Shepherd without their main feature is a not going to go smoothly. IDK about Dreams Druid, but extra healing and extra teleport was their main thing, right? There are now so many ways to get Misty Step and extra healing and extra temp hp that they might just wind up scrapping Dreams Druid altogether or rebuild it from scratch.
Anyway, what do I do know? I just enjoy Druids because they are one of the most versatile classes, in some ways moreso than Wizards. YMMV
You're not wrong on versatility. Druid can be hammered into a lot of themes, like one feels completely different than another. A wizard? Their flexibility comes from changing their spell loadout, but fundamentally, they feel the same.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
1) Many people hate the theme of druids, I've heard them derogatively called furries, and tree-huggers. In many places a whole half of people have negative views of anyone wanting to protect the environment. People also struggle to escape this stereotype so often have trouble coming up with cool backstories for them.
2) Druid is hard to play well, their versatility also means the most preparation needed. Busy people don't want to have to look at 6 statblocks, and 100 spells to prepare their character for each adventuring day. And unlike most other casters it isn't obvious what your go-to spell is as a druid.
3) Druid's specialty is utility and exploration an a lot of games that features very little in them. Plus those tools don't have "awesome synergies" which would make optimizers drool.
Druids carry IRL baggage attached to their very name that Dungeons & Dragons kinda didn't help.
Actual Druids weren't neutral-leaning spellcasting nature magicians. They were moreso record keepers & officiants. Pre-paper paper pushers, not Radaghast the Brown, Satanists, or (human/blood) sacrifice machines like what pop culture tends to pigeonhole them into.
So there's that in addition to in-game reasons.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Well, there are also very few characters in popular culture that call themselves "druids". Modern life is too far removed from the ritualistic practices of ancient druids and technology-driven European-descended societies for the most part have little interest in reviving an archetype associated with paganism or anything pre-Christianity...which is interesting because "witches" have been making a comeback in popular culture, but the word and image of the typical "witch" is not closely associated with "druid" stuff despite their common pagan origins. This makes me think that if D&D had been redesigned for an East Asian or South Asian market instead of a US market, maybe a class associated with environment/natural areas/treehuggers/etc. would be more popular since polytheism never died in Japan or India.
The only druid I remember coming across outside of games is the one in Asterix (can't remember his name in English). And in terms of D&D, I guess he'd be more of an alchemist artificer.
It's not the polytheistic origins that make it "uncool", norse mythology is also pagan / polytheistic but is very popular at the moment. It's a cultural backlash against the environmentalism movement of the 1980s/1990s, largely driven by corporate propaganda.
I think the problem with Wizard builds differentiating themselves is that when they are effective, they hog all the attention from the other Wizard builds. Early on, it was the Divination and the Abjuration Wizards, which are powerful almost from the beginning. Then for a while it was Bladesinger. Part of the problem being, perhaps, that Wizard specialists are hard to balance against each other.
Maybe. It's kind of hard to gauge what political/social messages most players are most influenced by. I mean, a person can love reneweable energy but hate laws that protect rare/endangered species. You can think that eagles and owls are cool as heck but also hate anything even vaguely associated with furries, which Druids have been tarnished by due to Wildshape and some people's ummm, "thirsty" imaginations. I do agree there is a lot of anti-environmentalist propaganda, but if this is a big influence on why Druid is the least popular, why did Rangers, which also use Druid spells and are arguably just as out of step with anti-environmentalists, not get dunked on the same way?