Character concept help: making a druid

[Tales and Chronicles]

As the title says. I'm a big fan of the druid class; the spell list is very evocative, the features fits the narrative. Its the first class I played when I was 8, some 20 years ago and I remember fondly the feel of a class with so much fluff in its core. I think the archetypes are too few and rather unimaginative, but that wont stop me from choosing one fitting the character's concept.

That's where the hurt is: I probably brain dead from having Dmed for a long time, but I have a hard time finding an interesting twist on a druid as a playable character. I dont want to play a druid as a Rhadagast or any cliché like the Three Hugger. Even when I spent the weekend looking over the net to find new and original character concept, those for druids are always the same, even the one presented as highly original have been done to death: the blight druid, the city druid, the mad hermit, the wild child etc. Even worst, the campaign I'm about to join will take place in Critical Role's Taldorei, where druidism is pretty generic and all the original parts are occupied by ''canonical'' lore made by Vox Machina's adventure .

I'd like to ask this good community for help with suggesting character concepts that would use the druid class as is basis. The only ones I have in mind for now is:

- A spy/detective from a group of nature protector trying to thwart a group of poachers who take eggs from rare creatures to make Fabergé.
- The son of a Nymph and an human, blessed with immortality, acting as a fey warlord for a group of adventurers (Achilles)
- A young wanderer making its own pilgrimage (called Aramente) to create a new druid tribe to protect a region from both an abyssal and infernal breach into the world. (Druids in Taldorei are divided in elemental sects protecting elemental breaches, one tribe per elements. This one would have the desire to create a fifth tribe called the Spirit Tribe to protect a region against non-elemental breaches left unattended because of no good reasons)

Any other ideas? I'm a taker for anything, really. Thanks in advance.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I dont want to play a druid as a Rhadagast or any cliché like the Three Hugger. Even when I spent the weekend looking over the net to find new and original character concept, those for druids are always the same, even the one presented as highly original have been done to death: the blight druid, the city druid, the mad hermit, the wild child etc. Even worst, the campaign I'm about to join will take place in Critical Role's Taldorei, where druidism is pretty generic and all the original parts are occupied by ''canonical'' lore made by Vox Machina's adventure (Druids in Taldorei are divided in elemental sects protecting elemental breaches, one tribe per elements. )
Any other ideas? I'm a taker for anything, really. Thanks in advance.

Do the Taldoreian druid tribes get powers associated with the element they protect, or with protection from that element? D&D seems to like fire, and druids still have a fair number of fire spells, for instance.

Anyway, random ideas:

• A moon druid could be under a curse that causes the transformations, and has studied with the druids in an attempt to learn to control it.
• A moon druid could be an animal (maybe like a kami spirit) able to assume human (or elven or whatever race you settle on) form, among other animal forms.
• A land druid could be a more traditionally Celtic take, with a custom background like Brehon (Judge), similar to noble in that you go around dispensing low justice.
• A land druid could be a re-incarnation (the Celts supposedly believed in that, too) of a druid of old, perhaps the latest of many, and have immortal enemies still holding grudges against him.

 

[iserith]

Have you considered doing a "druid," but with some other class? I had great fun playing a tanky archfey tome pact warlock. With the right spell and invocation selection, you can make it smell like a druid while playing a warlock. In fact, because my warlock had a staff of the woodlands, it took several sessions for anyone to realize that I was actually a warlock. His shtick was to have armor of agathys up as much as possible, then opening round cast shillelagh and blade ward and stand next to enemy and ally. With the Sentinel and War Caster feats, if the enemy attacked my ally, I could reaction attack it with green flame blade. If it attacked and hit me instead, it would take damage from armor of agathys. Super fun to play. The build is better with infernal pact, but I was filling the shoes of a previous player who had a druid. I just don't like druids, so I went with something close enough.

The concept was that the character was actually the spirit of a frozen swamp manifested in the world by the Archfey in order to influence events on the Prime material plane.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Do the Taldoreian druid tribes get powers associated with the element they protect, or with protection from that element? D&D seems to like fire, and druids still have a fair number of fire spells, for instance.

Anyway, random ideas:

• A moon druid could be under a curse that causes the transformations, and has studied with the druids in an attempt to learn to control it.
• A moon druid could be an animal (maybe like a kami spirit) able to assume human (or elven or whatever race you settle on) form, among other animal forms.
• A land druid could be a more traditionally Celtic take, with a custom background like Brehon (Judge), similar to noble in that you go around dispensing low justice.
• A land druid could be a re-incarnation (the Celts supposedly believed in that, too) of a druid of old, perhaps the latest of many, and have immortal enemies still holding grudges against him.

From what I understand (not a big fan of Critical Role myself), Druids seems to be divided a little like in Avatar: the last air bender. They protect the land from elemental planes incursions, but I dont know if they are empowered by that element or use another to fight creatures from the plane they watch (I personally would prefer to have water-druid watch over the fire breach). A major problem I have with this set up is that 2 of the 4 tribes are on other non-described continent, and the remaining 2 are the Wind tribe heavily influenced by the Mercer's campaign (and I dont like to play in someone else's canon) and the Earth tribe, which I find to be the most boring. That's why I had an idea of creating a 5th tribe to give me a little creative space.

As for you other ideas, first I'd like to thank you.
Sadly I already played a Brehon (did it by mixing bard and druid in another system) with the same DM, so I wont force it oh him.
I love idea of the animal spirit and the re-incarnation one. Maybe mixing'em could give a good result:

The character was an old ''divine beast'', slain by hunters some time ago. Its spirit as awaken once again because of reasons but, unable to find an animal form strong enough to support the spirit, it took the form of a young human until its original form is able to sustain the spirit.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Have you considered doing a "druid," but with some other class? I had great fun playing a tanky archfey tome pact warlock. With the right spell and invocation selection, you can make it smell like a druid while playing a warlock. In fact, because my warlock had a staff of the woodlands, it took several sessions for anyone to realize that I was actually a warlock. His shtick was to have armor of agathys up as much as possible, then opening round cast shillelagh and blade ward and stand next to enemy and ally. With the Sentinel and War Caster feats, if the enemy attacked my ally, I could reaction attack it with green flame blade. If it attacked and hit me instead, it would take damage from armor of agathys. Super fun to play. The build is better with infernal pact, but I was filling the shoes of a previous player who had a druid. I just don't like druids, so I went with something close enough.

The concept was that the character was actually the spirit of a frozen swamp manifested in the world by the Archfey in order to influence events on the Prime material plane.

Thanks for your comment. I'm joining a new group this time and one player is desperate to play a warlock (probably Hexblade). It probably makes of me the greatest of special snowflakes, but I dont like having the same class as someone else, even more when I'm a new player to the group. I also love the druid list, but I'm not fond of the shapeshifting.

Maybe the feylock with tome, cloak of flies, ice armor, moon aspect etc can hit the right theme. I'll check it out.

 

[iserith]

Thanks for your comment. I'm joining a new group this time and one player is desperate to play a warlock (probably Hexblade). It probably makes of me the greatest of special snowflakes, but I dont like having the same class as someone else, even more when I'm a new player to the group. I also love the druid list, but I'm not fond of the shapeshifting.

Maybe the feylock with tome, cloak of flies, ice armor, moon aspect etc can hit the right theme. I'll check it out.

Another druid character I did was a multiclass transmuter wizard and land druid with the Alchemist feat. The concept was that he was an old-timey medicine peddler, so all of his spells and features were reflavored to be potions, ointments, and suppositories with grandiose sounding names (check out some old medicine bottles and adverts). Everything I had him choose stuck to a theme of changing one thing into another thing or altering its properties in some fashion. On the whole, the character was probably way under-powered and upkeep on spells was annoying, but he was incredibly useful in a wide range of situations as a support character. For his wild shapes, I always chose ridiculous creatures that had some kind of side benefit like improved senses or carrying capacity or special movement like burrowing which would come in handy from time to time.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Spitballing - but thinking of the classic film Ladyhawke - could your Druid be an Awakened Beast whose ability to Shape Change to human form is limited daily? If dm allows, grant Message Cantrip so he can communicate and let him walk upright? Limits his spellcasting but cool character development and if your DM is super gracious he could cast non-V spells plus Shillelagh as a gimme?

 

[jgsugden]

Fun druids I've run:

1.) The Academic. Percival was a druid with an 18 (rolled) intelligence. He approached nature as if it were a complex series of logic puzzles. Mechanically speaking, he was pretty basic, but the personality was quite fun. He was constantly writing scholarly writings...

2.) The Underdark Druid. 20 years ago I ran a Dwarven Druid from the Underdark. He spent a lot of time talking about how unnatural trees, oceans, etc... were. The DM and I worked out a bunch of Underdark inspired shapes for him to take.

3.) Elemental Druid. This was another Dwarven Druid, but he was a surface dweller. He was fascinated by the four elements. All of his magic focused on the four elements. He often translated things into elemental terms. He also considered it blasphemy to interfere with the natural working of the elements - which causes some frustrations. A dwarf that doesn't want the natural form of the earth disrupted by mining does not make dwarven friends easily...

4.) Awakened animal. I had a pet wolf in a prior edition had been awakened by the Awaken spell. When the PC died, I decided to continue the game (we were supposedly near the end) by just playing the wolf. The DM allowed me to start to advance the wolf in a class and we ended up continuing on for a while longer than expected. It was a monk/druid wolf. It was a lot of fun, although certainly underpowered.

5.) Locathah spy. The druid was a locathah sent to the surface world to spy on humanity. He used animal forms to scout and then reported back to an Eye of the Deep. It was a very Cthulhu-esque game with each PC secretly having an affiliation with some dark power. We were supposed to figure out the various secrets and unite our causes to battle an even greater evil, but most of us just sold out to the even greater evil (who then betrayed us and ate us).

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Spitballing - but thinking of the classic film Ladyhawke - could your Druid be an Awakened Beast whose ability to Shape Change to human form is limited daily? If dm allows, grant Message Cantrip so he can communicate and let him walk upright? Limits his spellcasting but cool character development and if your DM is super gracious he could cast non-V spells plus Shillelagh as a gimme?

Cool concept, maybe a little too complicated for a ''first time'' D&D druid, but I'll keep it in mind. Thanks a lot.

 

[TwoSix]

Thanks for your comment. I'm joining a new group this time and one player is desperate to play a warlock (probably Hexblade). It probably makes of me the greatest of special snowflakes, but I dont like having the same class as someone else, even more when I'm a new player to the group. I also love the druid list, but I'm not fond of the shapeshifting.

Considering how much power is bound up in shapeshifting, maybe your DM would let you use the druid spell list on another class? A glamour bard with the druid spell list would feel very fey, for example. Or a "Nature Soul" sorcerer, that used the druid spell list instead of the cleric's.