Okay, I'll confess, despite my love of druids, they've been to me the most reactive elements in efu. Whenever a necromancer comes up. DRUID GANK SQUAD
Mechanist? DRUID GANK SQUAD
Worshippers of the unnatural? DRUID GANK SQUAD
The question I pose here is this: how does one maintain and promote the balance without theoretically killing other players?
(I guess you could as fertilizer, but still...)
Druids are like paladins.. They can redeem evil (or in this case, convince people to stop disrupting the balance) or they can smite evil (or in this case, DRUID GANK SQUAD).
My suggestion is to offer alternatives to whatever the 'disruptor' is doing.
Guided nature hikes FTW.
Uh...helping small time farmers?
Bringing surplus food and hides after you have to put down an entire herd of buffalo/mistlocke deer because of a grass blight that has put a heavy tax on the food chain.
Ummm...driving off road bandits, because you are tired of angry mobs coming trampling through the forest in search for them.
Brewing AWESOME nature-magic infused malt-liquors that, while you are smart enough not to drink them, make excellent bartering chips with the local village's brewery.
IMO, and it can vary greatly depending on the druid in question of course, generally druids -should- do whatever it takes to restore Balance, even if that involves killing those that threaten it. Of course, while a NE militant druid of Talos may just slaughter a group who has threatened his grove or Circle of brothers, a NG druid of (I don't really know any good nature deities, but whatever suits <_<) would probably attempt to persuade them to discontinue, then if they didn't subdue them violently, and only resort to killing if they -still- kept threatening the Balance.
You could also go with the LN druid, a sort of feral bureaucrat who concerns himself not only with the Balance, but with the specific way in which the Balance is respected. This would be the type of druid who brokers agreements with the villagers, sees that hunters do not exceed their quotas, etc. There are all kinds of opportunities there for conflict that are not necessarily violent.
Well, druids are supposed to maintain the balance between good & evil, as well as law & chaos.
So, technically, being "neutral" in some sense, they shouldn't interfere with everything going on in villages.
If there's a big villain in the city, and isn't terrorizing the forests or nature itself, they would likely let the good-aligned people of the city handle it first, and only intervene when one force gets too big or they start terrorizing nature.
Well, druids don't all have to agree. You could decide that deer are overpopulated so hunting should be encouraged for a time to cull their numbers, rather than the usual 'HUNTER ARE BAD' response. For example, come up with some arbitrary definition of when animals or plants are "in season" so you can punish the hunters that go out of the way to provoke conflict, not chase everyone trying to get meat. That could even win you allies in the form of PCs who want to see alchemy plants or deer for meat and skins still around tomorrow. Remember even druids skin animals to make clothes. Or you could protect predators or spread disease to see more deer die that way. Contagion on animals, anyone?
You could try and minimise the impact of Mistlocke or Sis Liman on the wilderness, and put yourself in conflict with the more sabotaging sort of druids because you know that the city will simply push back harder and encourage each other to do more damage. You could aid farmers in order to stop people trampling about foraging, while punishing PCs who raze crops as a form of warfare. Hell, you could make herbal drugs and try and get the town too high to bother the wilderness! :D
You could mug people doing unnatural stuff and take away all their tools rather than kill them, force them to learn to live without it. You could even hand them into civilisation to deal with as a token of friendship/subtle threat "Hey look, we caught your crook, we hate that stuff too you know, but don't mess with us". You could try and divert ganksquad formation by forming a group that distances itself from the crush druids and uses diplomacy and teaching herbalism etc to convince townsfolk to do things your way (you do get Persuade on a Druid). "If you respect the wilds, you'll benefit from them". Again, that can get towns PCs sticking up for you rather than "Bah, savages!/Bah, defilers!" Try and splinter the wilds a bit so that the response to conflict isn't "everyone and their wolf hunts down the offender", only the group that has the rivalry. Try and think up your own Aberdenn/Caermyn rivalry using totems/tribes with different agendas.
As for reactive, druids are more free to go and kill a clear enemy of their faction than other PCs. They don't care about the law or city politics, so that's not in the way. The sort of PCs taken out by a druid ganksquad are often well on the way to someone else flattening them, but the druids get there first because they're creeping all over the place buffed up, and have that opportunity. If you're playing a necromancer or an aberration cultist, you pretty much sign on the dotted line "I am right in the sights for PCs that oppose this" as a condition of going for the potential cool power.
Quote from: Egon the Monkey;249716Well, druids don't all have to agree. You could decide that deer are overpopulated so hunting should be encouraged to cull their numbers, rather than the usual 'HUNTER ARE BAD' response.
The problem is that there is nothing within the gameworld that can indicate/simulate the nuances of the eco-system in a clear, concise, dynamic, and streamlined way short of a dedicated "nature DM" who'll post daily updates and continuously change the creature spawning patterns.
Druid 1: we should hunt the deer! There's too many of them!
Druid 2: what're you talking about a bunch of adventurer's just slaughtered 20+ deer yesterday
Druid 2: yeah, well, the deer came back real quick.
You can make it up! Enough druids arbitrarily decide that things are being over-hunted even when you're waist-deep in spawns of them. Without a DM changing the spawns, PC can't do any damage to the 'ecosystem' either. Use your Incredible Druidic Knowledge to decide what's 'being invasive' or is 'open season' once a fortnight, and woe betide any hunter who targets the wrong stuff. If anyone calls you on it there's no IC mechanism for them to know any better, so all they're doing is raining on your parade for not doing things their way. You can always handwave stuff as "mist-fueled migrations" of creatures into areas where they've no natural predators, or whatever.
I forgot to point out that "making it up" was the conclusion I was going for xD
I agree with you, making it up is pretty much the only thing you can do.
But, to me, that just sort of feels... dishonest(?) to change the "state" or "rules" of the game. It's like suddenly deciding that handballs aren't penalized anymore because a player's just making things up.
If you really can't come up with any good or creative and justified excuse to not kill somebody, that is the only time you should ever proceed to kill.
It's more like deciding that penalty shootouts are a good idea because they make for more exciting TV than hours of extra time doing the same thing, if we're going to stretch this football analogy until it snaps. PCs make up visions and portents all the time to drive plots, this is the same sort of idea.
Myself being a druid and seeing the other druids around, we all have different ways to protecting the balance. Some might be politically, some might be threatening death, and others just want peace. Either way, the hunted/disruptor of balance should take the wilders into prospective. And for those who say:
"Druids just kill people who threaten balance bla bla bla" Are very wrong.
The Wilders give soooo many extra chances to characters, if they actually listen to our threats or take them into consideration they would not end up dead.
We full death most of the time because people are arrogant and do not listen to us. In the past there have been situations where its KoS on certain people like Qadima/Kreil, Mannichus, Stygians, Order, etc for their continuance against the natural world.
I think Egon nailed it with having hunting "seasons". Any druid worth his salt would know that some animals need harvested. Leave it up to the player as when harvesting should stop.
One druid might walk past and not blink and the next one would beat you down for over harvesting
To be honest, if you want to play a more militant druid you should consider stating the rules in some manner, so that characters who are also concerned with the same sorts of things can either choose to adhere, or not as they wish. I think a problem sometimes occurs when characters who are actually also nature oriented to an extent get beat up for something they don't see as wrong, but the druid does.
Making it up is fine, but setting the rules will likely help avoid situations where characters aren't on the same page as to what's acceptable ways to hunt in general, and what's not.
A lot of characters do this, you see their warnings posted on the forums all the time.
I can wager a guess as to why this druid ganking subject keeps occurring, druids and guardians are all like minded in the sense that they will band together to fight threats like necromancers and so on. If you are a druidic enemy be smart about the fact that there is a druidic faction AND wildlings out there that hate you just for being what you are and find liked minded people so you don't get ganked. However I'm not sure sure where you're getting the idea that druids are ganking people or that this is some kind of problem or even a larger problem then say people from Mistlocke ganking Drow.
Whenever an enemy of the natural world shows up of course they're going to combat it and want to destroy it. If they didn't that would be unrealistic and immersion breaking. There are other classes such as Paladins who are at constant conflict with ANY evil aligned character this isn't a problem for them and it's not a problem for druids.
In most cases there is a build up of conflict before the resulting death, exchanges of threats and demands, battles that don't result in death and so on. But in the end conflict can easily boil down to someone being beaten and killed especially if they do something deserving of it like attack a druids grove. But there is an up side to being an enemy of a druid, druids are almost exclusively in the wilderness and you can avoid conflict with them fairly easily should you wish it.
Druids aren't necessarily 'helpers' either, druids are caretakers of the land who are one with it. They live a completely different lifestyle and have a different culture to city life. Some revel in savagery and others are more gentle protectors.
As for 'writing laws' I find the idea of chaotic wild people setting down a list of rules they want people to adhere to a bit odd. If you use common sense you can generally determine what will and won't provoke a druid and keeping it somewhat ambiguous is good. Not everything in nature is fair and structured and should be kept that way.
Conflict isn't something to be discouraged for any class/group and if anything should be encouraged and performed more. Otherwise the server just isn't interesting.
Actually, I think the "druid ganking" thing comes up more because a lot of times only a couple of the nature PCs are known and measured by the non-nature PCs. So often, when it comes to a fight, there's the "who the hell was that?" factor catching people by surprise. This is just my theory.
It is expected that a druid would be part of the druid circle, its also expected that such mundane things as over harvesting and hunting be addressed in these circle meetings. Its not unconcievable for a druid of the circle to make it known that there is a ban on hunting and harvesting of "endangered" species via a signposting near any settlements.
While druids do have an aversion to large settlements of people as it is un-natural, its not unheard of for druids to be inside them for short amounts of time to trade or to convene with prominant figures about issues they deem important, or as a request from some one that is on good tearms with the druids.
this setting is an adult setting, not everything is black and white and just like life there are a near infinate number of alternatives.
for many other types of characters the class is not the character, the class is how the character functions and part of history. druids are no different, playing a druid has just as many nuances as any other character, and exploring your character's history before it is made and not developing it on the fly makes for better RP and immersion
Why bother finding non ganksquad ways to handle problems? Thats all anyone loves to do and thats the only way to get props.
Ganking is a derogatory term for Winning. So long as it doesn't end at "You're dead, story's over", I don't think losing a fight is such a bad thing. Yes, attack your enemies. If you have a reason to let them go, consider it. Work towards what is the most interesting choice, that is also in character.
Quote from: Wafflecone;249838Why bother finding non ganksquad ways to handle problems? Thats all anyone loves to do and thats the only way to get props.
That's a very shallow perspective of things and I hope it's a joke because it's very untrue.
Quote from: Juzza;249843That's a very shallow perspective of things and I hope it's a joke because it's very untrue.
I'll respond to this in it's own thread since wherever this tired old debate comes up it's destined to get trolled down, and this should be a place to discuss druids.
Pretty sure everyone here is just trying to help you, Wafflecone.
I think you will see over the next couple weeks/months that not all druids are the same. For example the Stewards had a meeting not too long ago and there were as many opinions as there were people meeting. I think the non-druid members of the Stewards have started to place themselves as the mediators and "PR" squad of the Stewards. Some druids (especially those with groves) get characterally offended when people come into their home and kill their "pets" (or animals they see as protecting as always individual druids will vary even on this.)
And yes sometimes druids do get beat down.
Druids should be EXTREMELY intolerant and xenophobic, and VERY loathe to trust any kind of outsider.
Druids who chill in Mistlocke and hang out with the manifest destiny crowd aren't really druids.
Every time I see a happy-go-lucky druid eager to include his new friends from Mistlocke, my stomach churns with the bile of hatred!
Druids share with rangers and many barbarians a reverence for nature and a familiarity with natural lands. Druids dislike the paladin's devotion to abstract ideals instead of “the real world, “ they don't much understand the urban ways typical of a rogue, and they find arcane magic to be disruptive and slightly distasteful. Druids, however, are nothing if not accepting of diversity, and they take little offense at other, even those very different from them. (//%22http://www.escapefromundeath.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256%22)
A druid's home is the wild. You don't live in your neighbor's house (Mistlocke), you live in your house. If you like your neighbor (more tolerant or non-evil druids) you might help them with some things. If you don't like your neighbor (the sorts of druids BOM described, as well evil druids like Malarites and Talontar), you are likely the cause of their problems. But if your neighbor comes over to your house and makes a mess... well, there will be hell to pay.
No problem with visiting Mistlocke if you're a druid. Just make sure you have a purpose for your visit, in my opinion.
Lovethesuit - I'm sure druids may be very welcoming of ragtag misfits who wander the wilderness in peace.
But that's very different from aligning with militaristic city forces, and guilds whose sole purpose is to harvest nature!
It's also very different from setting up a lawn chair by Muskroot's tower.
We're all friends here in the status quo
This is a text written about classes' interaction with other classes out of the player handbook (The beginner section). It's not the class expectation nor roleplaying tips on how to play druids on EFU. Nice attempt at being a jerk.
BOM is absolutely right that druids are slow to trust others. They dont mind talking, but they are hermits for the most part; The Xenophobia isn't really xenophobia but more fear/mistrust of the cityfolks, and this goes for all wilderness subrace / PCs. If you want to socialize and hang out in Mistlocke, dont play druids and avoid wilderness-based subraces like Stargazers. These classes/races will have to be loners for a majority of their play time, and it isn't for everyone!
I think that druids and their methods are always going to cause some contention within the playerbase. While some expect them to be cheery old hermits, others expect them to be brutal and bloodthirsty killers. I am of the opinion that there should always be both, that without one there is no real Balance in the viewpoint of Nature factions. The alignment spectrum and the differentiating opinions and methods of the deities they follow allow for a real variety of character, there's really no need for all druids to follow the status quo and end up generic in their approach to the character.
The best nature groups I've been a part of have always comprised of a variety of character types. Inner conflict is one of the most fun aspects of playing a Nature character, where your allies are not always your closest friends. Where one might actively promote new life, another might wish nothing more than to see it wither. That really is the nature of Balance, balancing out everyone's opinions and moving toward your constant main goal. A majority of these characters have high wisdom, and as such there is a springboard in place for them to really get together and moot. Having played several nature PC's, I can say with honesty that this is something that really does go on in the wilds and is something that people often miss out on.
What seems like a random gank squad encounter can be something that has been pulled apart, discussed and fought over for a number of months. Decisions are rarely made on the spur of the moment, relationships between nature characters often go through as many changes and are rarely fluid through each threat and changing situation. It isn't always the only end to a conflict, but in our setting there are sometimes few options other than FD. Thankfully, I've noticed this change over recent times, but I think that players should really consider that a majority of Druids and their guardians are not going to take the time to have tea with your necromancer or pass many words with your infernalist. It should also be a point that when a nature group bashes you down and sends you away, that coming back with your army of fire wielding city dwellers is going to give you fewer options than FD - the attitudes some players have for RPing with some respect for each conflict is something that I have often found frustrating while playing a nature character.
So long as players remember that there are rules in playing a Druid, that they aren't a Mistlocke resident that hangs out with everyone under the sun, that they take a certain amount of consideration to play and are never going to be a part of this weeks quest train - then you can get some wonderful characters and roleplay through this class.
Quote from: Big Orc Man;250929Druids should be EXTREMELY intolerant and xenophobic, and VERY loathe to trust any kind of outsider.
To be honest I think this sentence is far too strongly worded, and LTS' response is appropriately antagonistic to that.
Druids are diverse. Some are extremely isolationist, some see no problem in trusting city-folk who show respect for the wilds, some see the city as an abomination to be destroyed always, some see cities as being part of the Balance (depending on how the city interacts with the wilds and that particular druid's personality etc).
What I can agree on is that no druid should be living in Mistlocke or other towns, none should be automatically trusting of outsiders unless the outsider has made some effort to earn that trust, and certainly none should be tolerant of outsiders who are clearly disrespectful to nature and the Balance.
I think the character expectations post (//%22http://www.escapefromundeath.com/documentation/character-development/druid-expectations%22) covers it pretty well.
Beyond that, let players roleplay their character how they wish.
I'd like to add something legit to this conversation and I feel that it also applies to a lot of Cleric discussions in part, so here it goes. Hopefully this is not completely false, as it's a class I basically refuse to play myself.
Druids are typically -very- wise and even intelligent (I'd guess that most are above "average" with a 12 or even 14 score) and are thus quite capable of seeing reason and understanding logic that may not be of their own "belief".
While some Druids may pursue more fanatical and dangerous ways of preserving their belief and territory, others may pursue more peaceful paths and seek to educate rather than destroy, enlighten those who do not understand the importance of the balance, and more. The same reasoning could be applied to some of your evil and fanatical Clerics in game who are exceptionally wise and able to foresee the result of their actions pretty easily. You might know your bad and evil, and you might want to spill your enemies blood on the battlefield and never run away, or you might want to animate undead in your free time, but wisdom would allow them to understand the penalties and advantages of doing those things at certain times, or even possibly triggering smaller events to bring those upon them more easily.
In my opinion a Druid SHOULD enter Mistlocke every now and then, assuming they aren't the more fanatical type and are wanted or whatever, and look to bring knowledge of the local threats, warning, and -lead- expeditions to oppose the many things they should be fighting against. If they are not natural leaders due to their charisma, they should seek out some contacts that can do that sort of work for them, but all in all they should be using Mistlocke as a tool and not a haven to rest and hang out.
A proactive Druid of any alignment and "faith" should at all times be opposing those things that are unnatural, whether it's undead, Abberants, outsiders, or whatever else that litters the module. Opposing a small village that has technically been around for a long time without encroaching on the land to a large extent is a secondary concern to any Druid on Ymph I think, yet they should certainly be kept in check while you take up a powerful role opposing the previously mentioned things (namely H'Bala)
Also consider how the module has changed. In EfU:A the main PC settlement was a large city / town with a faction (the Dominion) that was often actively trying to expand into the wilds and civilize them. As such it was completely IC for a lot of the druidic / natural characters to join up and work against the Dominion. Now the main PC settlement is a small village that seems to have little to no interest in expanding into the area around it. It will take a bit of time for people to adjust to the new setting.