What is a Druid?

[athornforyourheart]

*redacted

[bharring]

Please move to general instead of locking.

Some of the assertions in this thread would invalidate Ceirinohr, so I'm hoping to be enlightened if I'm off about things.

[Planehopper]

No one here speaks with any sort of authority, nor does anything discussed here negate your character or RP. Don't worry about that. You can RP however you want until a DM tells you specifically that its not working out. I dont see that happening.

[Ravial]

Yes, it's not a guide. I agree with Athorn- this needs to be moved.

As to answer your point(s), Bharring, no I've not been talking past you. I have given you a simple logical conclusion on why druids are part of priesthood, since facing the copy-pasta facts of druids being priests appears to be not enough.

And yes, dedication is required. Whenever you change your deity as a divine spellcaster, you lose the divine spells and abilities of your class. Do it often enough and all gods, as per Power of Faerun and even Forgotten Realms 3.5 core book, refuse to give you any more divine powers. Because you're unreliable.

Favoured Souls operate on special rules, as they are chosen by a deity to perform some sort of specific destiny stuff. Granted, go against the deity granting the spells and your powers are gonzo.

In regards to Rangers, I have never written they're all always priests. Only that they receive their spells through dedication and faith in their deity It's a fact that not every deity considers them part of the clergy, unlike Druids. It's only further supported by years of training that your PC has to receive in order to become a divine-spellcasting class before they are level 1.


Furthermore! Druids are held to the same standard as clerics:

A cleric or druid who commits a minor offence against her deity or ignores portions of the deity’s dogma is guilty of sin. He has to do some penance appropriate to the seriousness of the sin in order to remain in good standing with the church, other clerics or druids, and the deity. Paladins, rangers, and other divine spellcasters are held to this standard (to a less exacting degree) also.

This is one of the core FR rules. You're a druid, you sin, you eventually lose powers. Same with abandoning a deity. So yeah, while the 2nd edition Faiths & Avatars says "Almost all druids worship powers as opposed to disembodied construct that Nature might be", in 3.5 you get rules that directly invalidate that.

However, if we really want to be pedantic, there's also this:

I think it puts an end to this debate. Please, before someone says "BUT!" do consider that druids are considered to be a subcategory of priest class in 2e.

Now. After all that has been said and done, this is still BGTSCC server with DMs doing whatever homebrew they want. Which means that if they want druids to be as such or different, it's their ruling to make, but the reality of the official FR is as presented.

[bharring]

I haven't been arguing Druids are not *Priests*. I've been arguing not all Druids are members of a formal Clergy.

Further, there's no debate that druids will lose their power if they lose their favor or break their vows. The question is if it's the same exact standard for Druids as it is for Clerics. There's nothing in this thread, or that specific quote, that says the standards for druids and clerics are the exact same. In fact, there's proof that it is not; many Clerics of nature deities can wear metal armor where their Druid counterparts of the same god (except one) cannot.

This is not pedantic. I'm looking for any source for Druids *always* being members of the formal Clergy, and/or held to the same standard as a Cleric. The quote provided describe Druids as the most common non-Cleric priests. It does not go into if they're part of the formal Clergy (although the Druid quote under it suggest they are not).

Reason being, Ceirinohr is not particularly knowledgeable in religion. If Druids are Clerics, he'd have to be well-enough read in his religion to know he's wrong. And so he, as a character, simply doesn't work. If Druids are not Clerics, he serves Talos, whom he's learned about through his past. And practices his craft based on a mix of his training as a child from druids of other deities, and the instructions of Talassian Cleric brother, Fielinohr.

(Talos would be pleased by his devotion to Talos, destruction, and fury. And his works. He also partakes in The Fury regularly. But any Cleric of Talos would know, 100%, that Talos is not interested in Balance/The Cycle/serving Nature).

[Ravial]

So, before I say anything more, your deal is that you're not sure if Druids have an organised clergy hierarchy and structure?

[bharring]

So, before I say anything more, your deal is that you're not sure if Druids have an organised clergy hierarchy and structure?

Not exactly; The thread makes it clear they usually have an organized hierarchy and structure.

What I'm asking is whether Druids are *always* members of the formal clergy of their god. If they always must belong to their god's church.

How I read it is that:
While Druids *must* serve their god faithfully, much like a Cleric, Paladin, or Ranger. And are held to much stricter demands on their behavior than Rangers. Must keep their god happy with them. And all their magics come from their god's favor;

It looks like Druids don't require the same formal clerical training, academic dogmatic learnings, and direct church membership as Clerics.

What this means to me is that a Druid might not fully understand their deity (although that doesn't absolve them - they must still, clearly, please their deity). A Druid would not necessarily, in all cases, need the formal training or sponsorship of a formal order that some other forms of service/priesthoods (to the same god) would.

[Ravial]

Okay.

Druid, Cleric, Wizard and Monk have the longest "add x dice roll to age due to training" than any other characters. That symbolises their time spent on learning the ropes of being a druid, understanding the natural world, learning how to connect with it and how not to work against it but with it. In Forgotten Realms that means you're not exactly academically trained, but you're given an understanding of Talos' role in the natural world and his will with nature, druid theology you could say.

Otherwise, your Talassian would keep committing sins without even knowing of it. Worse, he'd not understand what to do in order to stay in Talos' favour- like weekly committing acts of great destruction and suffering.

The majority of any druid circles is described to be servants/followers of x y z deity.

Edit: So basically your character should know what Talos is about, what he wants and where your work falls in it.

[bharring]

Cool.

Sounds like we're on the same page.

(And his brother trained him sufficiently, although he does need to atone a lot.)

[Steve]

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition
The druid was one of the standard character classes available in the original Player's Handbook, and appeared as a sub-class of cleric.

Basic Dungeons & Dragons
Druids were clerics who adhered to a special code of conduct, maintaining a Neutral alignment; in exchange they gained some special powers and additional spells.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition
The second edition Player's Handbook changed druids somewhat, making them more similar to the cleric in terms of spellcasting...The Complete Druid's Handbook, published in 1994, provided more details on the druid class, including druidic society, magic groves, class kits and herbal lore.

Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition
...they are restricted to Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Neutral, Neutral Good, Neutral Evil, or True Neutral, to reflect belief in the balance and amoral, impartial character of the natural world.

Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition
The newest incarnation of the class has the Primal power source and the Controller role. They are proficient in simple weapons and light armor, use staves and totems as implements, generally use Wisdom for power attack and damage rolls and, like all primal classes, their powers are called evocations.

I picked and choose pertinent quotes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid_(Du ... 6_Dragons).

As has been mentioned before, on BGTSCC, we use 3.5e mechanics but we are in the 1st Edition Campaign/Timeline.

[Hoihe]

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition
The druid was one of the standard character classes available in the original Player's Handbook, and appeared as a sub-class of cleric.

Basic Dungeons & Dragons
Druids were clerics who adhered to a special code of conduct, maintaining a Neutral alignment; in exchange they gained some special powers and additional spells.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition
The second edition Player's Handbook changed druids somewhat, making them more similar to the cleric in terms of spellcasting...The Complete Druid's Handbook, published in 1994, provided more details on the druid class, including druidic society, magic groves, class kits and herbal lore.

Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition
...they are restricted to Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Neutral, Neutral Good, Neutral Evil, or True Neutral, to reflect belief in the balance and amoral, impartial character of the natural world.

Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition
The newest incarnation of the class has the Primal power source and the Controller role. They are proficient in simple weapons and light armor, use staves and totems as implements, generally use Wisdom for power attack and damage rolls and, like all primal classes, their powers are called evocations.

I picked and choose pertinent quotes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid_(Du ... 6_Dragons).

As has been mentioned before, on BGTSCC, we use 3.5e mechanics but we are in the 1st Edition Campaign/Timeline.

Do you care to list where it says we use a 1e timeline? Seems to make the most sense to be using the most up to date information as opposed to cherry picking bits and pieces from whatever edition suits what someone likes the most. I've noticed some folk only use whatever edition reinforces their idea of something, so it'd be nice to have, on hand, a concrete reason why we pick from X, Y, and Z books or X edition.

1st edition is pre-ToT

2nd edition is post tot

3/3.5 is 1372 DR

[Shadowspinner70]

Everyone,

After some deliberation, we may be moving this thread to general. Although the Moderator team believes that a source-referenced discussion in and of itself is a guide, some people have requested a move earlier on in this thread. However, we don't serve our personal opinions but instead the forum rules and those who participate here.

I'll be doing some IRL house cleaning while the team continues deliberating, thank you all very much for your patience and keeping this a discussion!

[matelener]

Gonna post some more juicy pieces from 2ed Faiths and Pantheons that answer the dilemma of priest/clergy taxonomy.

[Terankar]

So from reading this topic, a druid is in fact a type of priest that gets different spells than your normal cleric would.

They are using oaths to their deity to be built around as a character.

Is this a corrected understanding of this topic?

[Hydros]

So from reading this topic, a druid is in fact a type of priest that gets different spells than your normal cleric would.

They are using oaths to their deity to be built around as a character.

Is this a corrected understanding of this topic?

As a quick and dirty summary? Kind of, yeah.