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DRUIDS

So, the preview of the first three levels of the Druid has been released. Welcome back, Druid. I see you’ll be filling the role of controller for the new Primal power source, so I expect you to use lots of ranged-area spells that manipulate the battlefield and– What’s that, you say? You can fight in melee combat not unlike a fighter, you say? Well now let’s dive into this preview and see what exactly your deal is.

Let’s start by examining the Primary Attributes… WIS, DEX and CON – listed in that order. If this is to be read like the fighter, it means all attacks will be made using the first listed attribute, and occaisonally modified by the second and third. This is highly unlikely, as the fighter is always a melee combatant, and the druid alternates between melee and ranged combat. Perhaps like the wizard, then? No, the wizard is always a ranged combatant. Hmm… The cleric, perhaps? The cleric can attack using either WIS or STR (ranged or melee), and his powers are sometimes modified by CHA. Well, the druid’s not exactly like that, either.

See, the druid is a controller, so he’s like the wizard in that his primary stat (WIS) determines his success with his attacks and damage. He’s also like the wizard in that his secondary stat sometimes comes into play for the additional effects of his powers. Now this is all with his ranged attacks — the druid can shape-shift into a beast at-will. Unlike in previous editions, where you had to track and replace your physical attributes for whichever beast you transformed into, the animal form which you take is left entirely up to you. It has no mechanical impact on anything at all. A bear is a lion is a wolf is a fighter-with-a-d8-weapon (sometimes higher, judging by the encounter and daily powers in the preview). Oh, but this fighter uses his WIS instead of his STR for attack rolls and damage rolls. I’m not kidding.

This guy can make melee or ranged attacks like a cleric, but he does it all with one attribute. Granted, the druid has no Healing Word-like power, so there’s still a reason to keep your cleric around (well, unless your party has a Warlord instead). This is versatility on crack. The druid is capable of controlling the battlefield from the front lines like a melee fighter, AND from behind the meat-shields as though he were a wizard. He’s a full-blown all-natural fightizard, lacking only the ability to take OAs against shifting opponents and make a combat challenge.

This shit is bananas, and all this is only mentioning the wild shape class feature. Druids also have a feature called primal aspect. They get to choose whether or not to be a primal guardian or a primal predator. Now, what are these two options? The primal guardian allows you to use your CON modifier in place of your DEX or INT modifier for determining your AC while in beast form. The primal predator option gives you +1 speed while in beast form, provided you’re wearing light armor. This is where the druid’s secondary attributes first come into focus, but let’s get a better picture by examining some of the powers that play off of these secondary attributes.

None of the at-will or level one daily powers are modified by the primal aspect option, but two of the level one encounter powers are. One is a melee WIS vs. Reflex attack that deals 1d10+WIS on a hit, and you can either shift 2 squares or a number of squares equal to your DEX modifier if you chose the primal predator option. The other is a ranged WIS vs. Fortitude attack that deals 1d6+WIS on a hit, +CON if you chose the primal guardian option. None of the level two utility powers are modified by either option, sadly, but they are plenty good on their own.

Now, can you tell me why any player would ever want to play a Wizard when he/she could just be a druid instead? Seriously, the druid’s selection of powers in this preview indicate that druids will be able to control battlefields full of inconsequential opponents like a wizard can, but on the very next round he’ll be able to go toe-to-toe with a big bad brute and control a one-on-one fight with him as well as a fighter can. This is Natural Spell all over again.

This is you as the 4th Ed. Druid

Remember everyone’s chief complaint about druids in 3.5, that they could potentially be the best melee combatant in the party, yet with the Natural Spell feat they were simultaneously a divine spellcaster with full progression? We’re back to the same place in 4th Edition, where one round you cast a spell and then use a minor action to change into an animal, and the next round you maul the crap out of some dude and push him around until you’re ready to turn back into your normal self as a minor action and start casting spells again.

Now you may say “but you can’t cast spells WHILE in beast form! It’s different now!” Is it? Shifting in and out of beast form is a minor action that may be performed once per round, with no limit on the number of times-per-day or -encounter you may transform. In 3.5, you couldn’t attack AND cast during the same round, unless the spell you were casting required an amout of time less than a standard action. Meet the new retardedly good druid, same as the old retardedly good druid.

Not exactly druidic...

So, that’s the new druid in a nutshell. Let’s contemplate the powergamer’s choice of race for a new druid character, shall we? Let’s see… everything uses WIS now, so characters that get a bonus to WIS are a must… this leaves us with Dwarves, Elves and Humans as our primary options from the PHB along with Githzerai and both varieties of Shifters from the MM. The forthcoming Manual of the Planes also features player character stats for Bladelings (+2 DEX, +2 WIS). Githzerai, Dwarves and Bladelings as optimal druids… D&D just gets stranger and stranger. It gets even stranger when you consider that gnolls, the demon-dog-spawn of Yheenogu, would make very versatile druids with their bonuses to DEX and CON. But the dwarves… man, dwarven druids just takes the cake. I mean, can you imagine a druidic get-together, where humans, elves, dwarves and gnolls are all talking about being “green” and playing hacky sack? Neither can I.

So that’s a lot of complaining about a three-level preview of a class that’s not yet finished. How would I have done things differently? For starters, I’d let the player’s chosen beast form mean more than becoming a fighter with a d8 weapon. We just saw in Martial Power how rangers now have a wide variety of animal companions to choose from (including raptors, bears, cats, large spiders and boars). Couldn’t druids have been given a similar list of options which would differentiate bears and boars from cats and raptors? Secondly, I’d probably change the primary attributes. WIS is already a good choice for attacks and damage rolls with spells, but perhaps it would be better if some beast form powers relied on DEX and others relied on STR. That’s right, STR and not CON. I’m nuts about dwarves, don’t get me wrong, but the only appropriate use of the CON modifier that I saw in the preview was the Barkskin utility power (give yourself or an ally a power bonus to AC equal to your CON modifier). I mean, allowing a dwarf to use his CON modifier for AC instead of DEX or INT, while allowing all of his attack and damage rolls to be WIS based? That’s freakin’ ridiculous.

Back to raging… We’re not even two years into 4th edition, and already we’re back to getting poorly thought-out and overpowered character classes. Who’s responsible for this trainwreck of a class design?