What HD are your Druids?

[captaincrumbcake]

We are setting aside Eldritch Wizardry for the sake of this discussion; going on the assumption that (1) most folks don't have it, use it, or like it. And (2) that you're the kind of do-it-yourself person, that delights in creating your own solution to the situation. In this case, the Greyhawk Druid.

These men are priests of a neutral-type religion, and as such they differ in armor class and hit dice, as well as in movement ability, and are  combination clerics/magic-users. Magic-use ranges from 5th through 7th level, while clericism ranges from 7th through 9th level. Druids may change shape three times per day, once each to any reptile, bird and animal respectively, from size as small as a raven to as large as a small bear.

First thing to notice, they are exclusively--men. 
Second, they are neutral.
Thirdly, they differ in armor class and hit dice, as well as in movement ability...

Examining only #3 leads us to ponder, how does their armor class differ? Their hit dice differ?
If one is building this NPC from the provided information, could we not define that druids wear animal skins, ornaments of bone, horn, shell, providing an AC unique only to them? Could these AC ratings not also range in protection from light (AC8) to heavy (AC3)?
Do they use a different hit die from the original rules (that uses a D6)? or from Greyhawk supplement (that uses a D6/cleric; D4/magic-user)? 

Lastly, since these NPC types only appear with power levels of 5th through 9th, how do they come up through the ranks? Or, does becoming a druid require the seeker to gain the lower levels as independent adventurer-explorers, who then seek to join the special order upon qualifying?

Since my own (detailed) thoughts on all this will be handled in an expanded adventure I am connecting to the B2, I shall gladly step back and peruse all comments to follow.

[robkuntz]

How I handled druids as a variant class is detailed in my adventure, Dark Druids. It's a way of looking at them from a different angle:

Review of DD: gonzohistorygaming.blogspot.fr/2015/03/dark-druids-by-robert-j-kuntz-part-one.html

[captaincrumbcake]

I started to read it and stopped. There's so much adventure material discussed, I didn't want anything to sneak into my brain while I'm developing my B2 expanded adventure.
Do you have a shorthand document detailing only the class?
Or let me put it this way--do the mechanics of your druid differ from that found in EW?

[robkuntz]

Mar 19, 2018 10:14:39 GMT -5 captaincrumbcake said:

I started to read it and stopped. There's so much adventure material discussed, I didn't want anything to sneak into my brain while I'm developing my B2 expanded adventure.
Do you have a shorthand document detailing only the class?
Or let me put it this way--do the mechanics of your druid differ from that found in EW?

Well they are after the 1E versioning and are 2 evil sects, so yeah.  42 new spells, new ideology, attire, etc.  very detailed.  They are at the end result of the Druid class ideology which has had enough of the encroachment of civilization of nature and have vowed to destroy those destroying the natural order.  Of course this creates loonies in the end who then turn on themselves, thus the two sects who are battling each other when the PCs arrive.

[scrape]

I'm surprised that you set aside the druid in "Eldritch Wizardry." We liked it back in 1976 very well. Have they fallen out of a favor, or was our group an outlier?

[captaincrumbcake]

Apr 4, 2018 14:52:01 GMT -5 scrape said:

I'm surprised that you set aside the druid in "Eldritch Wizardry." We liked it back in 1976 very well. Have they fallen out of a favor, or was our group an outlier?

EW, through its authors, established a reconfigured class--druid; I assume the one presented in GH did not satisfy someone.

The point is to take the GH "druid" and figure out how to make it work; not incorporate the EW material.

At least, I think that was the point. 

[Admin Pete]

Apr 4, 2018 14:52:01 GMT -5 scrape said:

I'm surprised that you set aside the druid in "Eldritch Wizardry." We liked it back in 1976 very well. Have they fallen out of a favor, or was our group an outlier?

Our group used it bitd, we had one player who was a druid fanatic and after EW came out that is mostly all he played, preferring it to magic-users and thieves which were his other go to characters.

[scrape]

I get it Captaincrumcake. I misunderstood your topic. You're interpreting the"Greyhawk" druids as NPCs. Here's a go at your question. I like the idea of differ in armor class to mean that among themselves they wear diverse regalia of the cool sort you describe. So each druid might be assigned a random AC based on what regalia he (or she) donned for the occasion where the party meets them. Maybe like monsters in "Greyhawk" of which they are one, they might use a d8. You could introduce sub-druid aspirants of lower hit dice who have not attained the rank of full druid and give them less magical power than the "Greyhawk" description affords full druids.