Adventures: Druids adventure to gain knowledge, especially of animals and plants unfamiliar to them, and power. Sometimes, their superiors call on their services. Druids may also bring their power to bear against those who threaten what they love, which more often includes ancient stands of trees or trackless mountains than people. While druids accept that which is horrific or cruel in nature, they hate that which is unnatural, including aberrations (such as beholders and carrion crawlers) and undead (such as zombies and vampires). They sometimes lead raids against such creatures, especially when the creatures encroach on the druids' territory.

Characteristics: Druids cast divine spells much the same way clerics do, though they get their spells from the power of nature, not from gods. Their spells are oriented toward nature and animals. In addition to spells, druids gain an increasing array of magical powers as they gain experience, including the ability to take the shapes of animals.

The weapons and armor of a druid are restricted by traditional oaths, not simply training. A druid could learn to use a two-handed sword, but using it would violate the druid's oath and suppress her druidic powers.

Druids avoid carrying much worked metal with them because it interferes with the pure and primal nature that they attempt to embody.

Alignment: Druids, in keeping with nature's ultimate indifference, must maintain at least some measure of dispassion. As such, they must be neutral in some way, if not true neutral. Just as nature encompasses dichotomies of life and death, beauty and horror, peace and violence, so two druids can manifest different or even opposite alignments (neutral good and neutral evil, for instance) and still be part of the druidic tradition.

Religion: Druids revere nature and gain their magical power from the forces of nature itself or from a nature deity. They usually pursue a mystic spirituality of transcendent union with nature rather than devotion to a divine entity. Still, some of them revere or at least respect either Obad-Hai, god of nature, or Ehlonna, goddess of the woodlands.

Background: Though their organization is invisible to most outsiders, who consider druids to be loners, druids are part of a society that spans the land, ignoring political borders. A prospective druid is inducted into this society through secret rituals, including tests that not all survive. Only after achieving some level of competence is the druid allowed to strike out on her own.

All druids are nominally members of the druidic society, though some are so isolated that they have never seen high-ranking members or participated in druidic gatherings. Still, all druids recognize each other as brothers and sisters. Like true creatures of the wilderness, however, druids sometimes compete with or even prey on each other.

A druid may be expected to perform services for higher-ranking druids, though proper payment is expected for these assignments. Likewise, a lower-ranking druid may appeal for aid from her higher-ranking brethren, for a fair price in coin or service.

Druids may live in small towns but always spend a good portion of their time in wild areas. Even large cities otherwise surrounded by cultivated land as far as the eye can see often have druid groves nearby-small, wild refuges where druids live and which they protect fiercely. Near coastal cities, the refuge is often a nearby island, where the druids can find the isolation they need.

Races: Elves and gnomes have an affinity for natural lands and are commonly druids. Humans and half-elves are also frequently druids, and druids are particularly common among savage humans. Dwarves, halflings, and half-orcs are rarely druids.

Few from among the brutal humanoids are inducted into druidic society, except that gnolls have a fair contingent of evil druids among them. Gnoll druids are accepted by druids of other races, if not welcomed.

Other Classes: 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 others, even those very different from them.

GAME RULE INFORMATION

Druids have the following game statistics.

Abilities: Wisdom determines how powerful a spell a druid can cast, how many spells the druid can cast per day, and how hard those spells are to resist. To cast a spell, a druid must have a Wisdom score of 10 + the spell's level. A druid gets bonus spells based on Wisdom. The Difficulty Class of a saving throw against a druid's spell is 10 + the spell's level + the druid's Wisdom modifier.

Since a druid wears light or medium armor, a high Dexterity improves her defensive ability.

Alignment: Neutral good, lawful neutral, neutral, chaotic neutral, or neutral evil.

Hit Die: d8.

Class Skills

The druid's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Animal Empathy (Cha, exclusive skill), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Intuit Direction (Wis), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Profession (Wis), Scry (Int, exclusive skill), Spellcraft (Int), Swim (Str), and Wilderness Lore (Wis).

Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) x4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier.

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the druid.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Druids are proficient with the following weapons: club, dagger, dart, longspear, quarterstaff, scimitar, sickle, shortspear, and sling. Their spiritual oaths prohibit them from using weapons other than these. They are proficient with light and medium armors but are prohibited from wearing metal armor (thus, they may wear only padded, leather, or hide armor). They are skilled with shields but must use only wooden ones. Note that armor check penalties for armor heavier than leather apply to the skills Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Pick Pocket, and Tumble. Also, Swim checks suffer a -1 penalty for every 5 pounds of armor and equipment carried.

A druid who wears prohibited armor or wields a prohibited weapon is unable to use any of her magical powers while doing so and for 24 hours thereafter. (Note: A druid can use wooden items that have been altered by the ironwood spell so that they function as though they were steel.)

Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A druid can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own. For example, a neutral good druid cannot cast evil spells. Spells associated with Chaos, Evil, Good, and Law are identified as such on the "Level" line of the spell description.

Bonus Languages: A druid may substitute Sylvan for one of the bonus languages available to her because of her race. In addition, a druid knows the Druidic language. This secret language is known only to druids, and druids are forbidden from teaching it to nondruids. Druidic has its own alphabet.

Nature Sense: A druid can identify plants and animals (their species and special traits) with perfect accuracy. She can whether water is safe to drink or dangerous (polluted, poisoned, or otherwise unfit for consumption).

Animal Companion: A 1st-level druid may begin play with an animal companion. This animal is one that the druid has befriended with the spell animal friendship. As such, it can have no more than 2 Hit Dice. A 1st-level druid may have more than one animal companion, provided the animals' total Hit Dice don't exceed 2. The druid can also cast animal friendship on other animals during play.

Woodland Stride: Starting at 2nd level, a druid may move through natural thorns, briars, overgrown areas, and similar terrain at her normal speed and without suffering damage or other impairment. However, thorns, briars, and overgrown areas that are enchanted or magically manipulated to impede motion still affect the druid.

Trackless Step: Starting at 3rd level, a druid leaves no trail in natural surroundings and cannot be tracked.

Resist Nature's Lure: Starting at 4th level, a druid gains a +4 bonus to saving throws against the spell-like abilities of feys (such as dryads, nymphs, and sprites).

Wild Shape: At 5th level, a druid gains the spell-like ability to polymorph self into a Small or Medium-size animal (but not a dire animal) and back again once per day. Unlike the standard use of the spell, however, the druid may only adopt one form. As stated in the spell description, the druid regains hit points as if she has rested for a day. Note: The creatures available include some giant animals but not unnatural beasts. The druid may wild shape into a dog or a giant lizard, for example, but not into an owlbear. The druid does not risk the standard penalty for being disoriented while in her wild shape.

The druid can use this ability more times per day as she increases in level: twice at 6th, 3 times at 7th, 4 times at 10th, 5 times at 14th, and 6 times at 18th level. In addition, the druid gains the ability to take the shape of a Large animal at 8th level, a Tiny animal at 11th level, and a Huge animal at 15th level. At 12th level or higher, she can take the form of a dire animal.

At 16th level or higher, the druid may use wild shape to change into a Small, Medium-size, or Large air, earth, fire, or water elemental once per day. She gains all the elemental's special abilities when she does so. At 18th level, she can do this three times per day.

Venom Immunity: At 9th level, a druid gains immunity to all organic poisons, including monster poisons but not mineral poisons or poison gas.

A Thousand Faces: At 13th level, a druid gains the supernatural ability to change her appearance at will, as if using the spell alter self.

Timeless Body: After achieving 15th level, a druid no longer suffers ability penalties for aging and cannot be magically aged. Any penalties she may have already suffered, however, remain in place. Bonuses still accrue, and the druid still dies of old age when her time is up.

Ex-Druids

A druid who ceases to revere nature or who changes to a prohibited alignment loses all spells and druidic abilities and cannot gain levels as a druid until she atones (see the atonement spell description).

Base	Attack	Fort	Ref	Will
Level	Bonus	Save	Save	Save	Special
1	0	+2	+0	+2	Nature sense, animal companion
2	+1	+3	+0	+3	Woodland stride
3	+2	+3	+1	+3	Trackless step
4	+3	+4	+1	+4	Resist nature’s lure
5	+3	+4	+1	+4	Wild shape (1/day)
6	+4	+5	+2	+5	Wild shape (2/day)
7	+5	+5	+2	+5	Wild shape (3/day)
8	+6/+1	+6	+2	+6	Wild shape (Large)
9	+6/+1	+6	+3	+6	Venom immunity
10	+7/+2	+7	+3	+7	Wild shape (4/day)
11	+8/+3	+7	+3	+7	Wild shape (Tiny)
12	+9/+4	+8	+4	+8	Wild shape (dire)
13	+9/+4	+8	+4	+8	A thousand faces
14	+10/+5	+9	+4	+9	Wild shape (5/day)
15	+11/+6/+1	+9	+5	+9	Wild shape (Huge), timeless body
16	+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10	Wild shape(elemental 1/day)
17	+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10
18	+13/+8/+3	+11	+6	+11	Wild shape(6/day, elemental 3/day)
19	+14/+9/+4	+11	+6	+11
20	+15/+10/+5	+12	+6	+12

Mana: Mana is the "life force" of magic. Each spell takes a specific amount to complete its invocation. For a Druid, Mana is determined by his Wisdom modifier and level of his experience. Use the table below to find your character's base score, then add your character's level multiplied by their appropriate ability modifier [base + (ability modifier X level)].

For example: Shyla is a 5th level Druid with a Wisdom of 16. Her Wisdom modifier would be +3. Using the table below shows her base Mana at 25. 25 + (3x5) = 40. Shyla would have a Mana level of 40.

Spell Level refers to the level of spells that your character will be able to call upon.

Druid level	Starting Mana	Spell Level
1	4	1
2	6	1
3	8	2
4	16	2
5	25	3
6	35	3
7	50	4
8	65	4
9	80	5
10	100	5
11	125	6
12	155	6
13	185	7
14	225	7
15	265	8
16	310	8
17	355	9
18	400	9

Druids will gain 50 mana points plus their appropriate ability modifier per level there-after.