D&D 5E Druids and Bards Ain't No Different - Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle

[innerdude]

So on a whim I picked up the first Pendragon book, "Taliesin," on Kindle a while back, and thoroughly enjoyed it. But I was most interested how, if Lawhead's historical research is to be believed, that the concept of a "druid" and a "bard," at least in the 200-400 A.D. time period in Britain, were conceptually identical.

The notion that "druids" were wise, worldly naturalists and earth worshippers while "bards" on the other hand were a separate group of entertainers, poets, lyricists, and musicians was entirely false. They were the same people. The druids WERE the bards, and vice-versa.

And to be perfectly honest, this suddenly made the entire concept of BOTH CLASSES as presented in "traditional" D&D suddenly make sense to me. Don't get me wrong, I've always loved playing bards in D&D, but I've never been able to exactly pin down how their magic is supposed to work. How exactly is "bardic" magic supposed to work like a sorcerer, but be tied to their "performance" class attribute? Along those same lines, why was it a druid's "nature" magic somehow worked differently than "divine" magic even though mechanically it was identical?

To be more historically accurate, the current "druid" and "bard" concepts should basically be rolled up into a single "sage" class, where their focuses change based on character background, feats, and skill selection. If someone wants to keep the current druid concept of a "militant naturalist," it would be easy enough to fit it in as a ranger variant/background/sub-class.

It sounds crazy, but taking this approach suddenly makes a huge difference to the concepts behind them, with significant changes to "traditional" D&D world-building that just make a whole lot more sense.

 

[steeldragons]

I'm not sure how far back you're going with "traditional", but in AD&D 1e, this is undoubtedly why the first Bard took up druidic magic to finally become a bard. The two, for me/my campaign world have always been inexorably linked...but that's probably due to my own research into ancient religion/mythological studies and celtic/gaelic heritage and less so from how they were actually presented in the game.

But, yes, I can totally see them being branches of a common root philosophy/faith and magic system.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So on a whim I picked up the first Pendragon book, "Taliesin," on Kindle a while back, and thoroughly enjoyed it. But I was most interested how, if Lawhead's historical research is to be believed, that the concept of a "druid" and a "bard," at least in the 200-400 A.D. time period in Britain, were conceptually identical.

The notion that "druids" were wise, worldly naturalists and earth worshippers while "bards" on the other hand were a separate group of entertainers, poets, lyricists, and musicians was entirely false. They were the same people. The druids WERE the bards, and vice-versa.

Not exactly the same, IIRC (and it was a long time back I did that same sort of semi-historical research). You could think of Bards & Druids both being college graduates. The Bards have bachelor's degrees, while the Druids are PhDs. In the semi-mythical Celtic history Bards & Druids are drawn form, it was normal to send kids off to be fostered or apprenticed for 7 years, at age 7. Bards received training from Druids for another 7 or 14 years before becoming itinerant, and Druids another 14 or 7, then entering a hierarchy that included judges, healers, and seers (maybe even sorcerers in the regular language sense) as well as the actual pagan priests Roman contemporaries called 'Druids.'

And to be perfectly honest, this suddenly made the entire concept of BOTH CLASSES as presented in "traditional" D&D suddenly make sense to me.

It was pretty nearly spelled out in the 1e bard appendix, 'Druidical tutelage' or something like that, Bards casting actual Druid spells. Ever since 2e, though, bards have gone off on an arcane tangent.

To be more historically accurate, the current "druid" and "bard" concepts should basically be rolled up into a single "sage" class, where their focuses change based on character background, feats, and skill selection. If someone wants to keep the current druid concept of a "militant naturalist," it would be easy enough to fit it in as a ranger variant/background/sub-class.

Or they could be PrCs from the same privileged/educated elite in the same psuedo-Celtic culture. Maybe even calling back to 1e by having Fighter/Rogue MC being a good base to qualify.

 

[Hathorym]

I've been toying with a College of Nature for 5e Bard for a few days now. I loved the whole take on bard from 1st edition, that I felt it should be reflected in the class. Here's what I've come up with so far, and I'm definitely open to suggestions, thoughts, critiques, and mockeries.

Bonus Proficiency
At 3rd level, when you choose the College of Nature, you gain proficiency in Intelligence (Nature) skill.

Natural Secrets
Also at 3rd level, you learn two spells of your choice from the druid class spell list. A spell you choose must be of a level you can cast as shown on the Bard table, or a cantrip. The chosen spells count as bard spells for you but don't count against the number of bard spells you know. As you level, you may choose additional spells from the Druid class spell list as if they were Bard spells. These spells do count against the number of bard spells you know.

6th Level Ability
Something to do with Legend Lore

Second Form
At 14th level, Choose a form of a beast with a CR 1/4 or less. You may wild shape into this form twice per day. This ability in all other ways acts as the Wild Shape Druid ability.

As I said, inelegant at this point but still a work in progress.

 

[The M'hael]

Reminds me also of Bard from Nancy Farmer's Sea of Trolls trilogy. He was a bard, but could shape shift and did less singing. I would also like to see that type of shapeshifting put to use in end, as a spell. When you switch souls with an animal your body gets their soul.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

I'm afraid I can't remember my sources. But IIRC bards were actually a branch of druids during the time of the celtic tribes. This is why, for example, bards in 1e AD&D actually needed to be multiclassed (well...dual classed) druids.

 

[Morrus]

People in real life didn't have character classes.

 

[Connorsrpg]

I read those books some time ago. Loved them. Good observation, and yes it would have been interesting to see the bard and druid merged with these being subclasses, esp as there is also nature clerics. However, each 'class' has probably found its niche in D&D now.

If in a Celtic game, it would be good though. Basically, a lot of the druid stuff becomes ranger and nature cleric. Base class a merge of the rest of druid and bard.

But bard arcane colleges have a home in D&D now. And like Morrus said... (well see post above).

Interesting observations though.

 

[Li Shenron]

Druids and Bards are NOT the same thing!



Nice OP, although I wouldn't be interested in 'merging' the two classes into a new one.

As for Bard's spellcasting, I don't see why should it be that similar to a Sorcerer's. A Bard doesn't seem to have in-born magic by default, but more learned magic.

If anything, I think the Wizard is the closest spellcaster to the Bard in terms of why they have magic abilities. One can use Int and the other Cha, but it's just a modifier on your chance of success, nothing more.

Even the fact that Bards don't prepare spells is meaningless. It's not an advantage, just the result that they know less spells and so they are not too many to keep in mind at once.

 

[tuxgeo]

Personally, I wouldn't like to see the Bard and Druid D&D classes rolled up into one single class, because the game isn't entirely about being true to history; instead, the game is about having lots of different weirdnesses that contribute to the fun of playing it. Novelty rules this situation, as does compartmentalization. Also, especially for this reason: Bard multiclassed as Druid, or the other way around: you could have a Bard who MCs into Druid to get the "Produce Flame" cantrip, or you could get a Druid who MCs into Bard to get the "Vicious Mockery" cantrip. Those things would be impossible if those two classes were the same in D&D.

The first Stephen Lawhead novel I read was "The Paradise War," and I never went beyond that one. Perhaps I should give the Pendragon Cycle a try.