Druid
In EvilHack, the Druid is one of the roles that is available to the hero, and was made from scratch specifically for the variant.
Druids can be humans, elves, hobbits, centaurs, giants, or tortles, and always start as neutral.
Starting equipment
Each Druid starts with the following equipment:
- either of two weapons (with equal probability):
- a +1 quarterstaff
- a +1 scimitar
- a +1 pair of bracers
- a +0 leather cloak
- 1-2 uncursed eucalyptus leaves
- 1-2 uncursed mistletoes
- two random potions that cannot be hallucination or acid
- a blessed spellbook of entangle
- a blessed spellbook of create grass
- one of the following spellbooks (with equal probability):
- an empty uncursed sack
- a 1⁄25 chance (4%) of an uncursed oil lamp
The following racial conditions also apply:
- Elven Druids will be given an elven cloak in place of their leather plain cloak, and any starting scimitar they receive will be made of copper. They are additionally given a random non-magical instrument.
- Giant Druids will be given an elven cloak in place of their leather plain cloak, and may also start with some valuable gems.
- Hobbit Druids will be given an elven cloak in place of their leather plain cloak. They also start with a tinning kit and two additional stacks of 1-2 random comestibles.
- Tortle Druids will be given a toque in place of their leather plain cloak, and will be given an oilskin sack in place of their normal sack.
Druids start with knowledge of the sack and any applicable racial equipment.
The Druid's default starting pet is a hawk.
Intrinsics
Druids gain the following intrinsic properties upon reaching the given experience levels:
- XL 1: stealth (if not a giant)
- XL 14: converse with animals
- XL 7: sleep resistance
- XL 10: automatic searching
- XL 14: walking through trees
- XL 14: nymph charm-proofing
Attributes
The Druid's starting attributes are distributed as follows:
| Attributes | Strength | Dexterity | Constitution | Intelligence | Wisdom | Charisma | Remaining |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum attributes | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 10 | 15 | 22 |
| Distribution percentages | 15% | 15% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 5% |
Skills
Druids have the following skills available to them before racial adjustments:
| Druid skills | |
|---|---|
| Max | Skills |
| Basic |
|
| Skilled |
|
| Expert | |
| Master |
|
Druids start with Basic skill in evocation spells, pet handling and either quarterstaves or sabers. They use the wisdom stat to cast spells, and their special spell is entangle.
Special rules
The Druid's default crowning gift is the spellbook of finger of death, which is changed to an evocation spell—they will receive the spellbook if they are not already carrying it or else wielding Vorpal Blade when they are crowned.
Druids only take 1⁄2 damage from explosions caused by destroyed wands.
Druids have a +2 bonus to casting emergency spells.
Druids have several abilities and special rules that are tied to the power and welfare of nature.
Wood over metal
A Druid wearing any metallic armor will be rendered unable to cast spells, with their failure rate set to always be 100% until they remove the armor. Druids wearing wooden armor gain a 2-point bonus to AC for each worn piece of armor, and gain a +2 to-hit bonus for using a wooden weapon in melee while on a grass square or next to a live tree.
Bonds with nature
Mistletoe is a very important item for Druids, and has a direct impact on their energy regeneration: a Druid not carrying mistletoe in their open inventory will have their energy regeneration halved, and carrying up to 4 pieces of mistletoe will keep their energy regeneration normalized; having 5-8 pieces of mistletoe raises their energy regeneration by roughly 30%; and having 9 or more piece of mistletoe will double power regeneration.
Druids can pass diagonally between tight passages that have a live tree or dead tree at either corner regardless of their current shape or size, and at experience level 14 or higher they can also walk through trees themselves in a manner similar to phasing (which also obeys similar rules). Druids that "kick" live trees will "gently nudge" them instead to avoid hurting the tree, and will not suffer wounded legs when determining the outcome of that action. Druids that stand on grass squares or next to a live tree gain a slight boost to HP regeneration.
A Druid that kills a live tree by any means will take a major hit of -15 to their alignment record and -7 luck, and their deity becomes very angry (with anger increased by 5)—for elven Druids, these penalties take priority over racial penalties for killing trees that apply to all elven heroes and will not stack. Druids that revitalize dead trees into live ones using the create trees spell have a 1⁄3 chance of gaining a +1 alignment record bonus.
Woodland creatures
Druids can tame hawks and their growth stages as domestic animals.
Druids that attack peaceful woodland beings and creatures will suffer penalties to their alignment record, including alignment abuse.
Starting at experience level 3, Druids can chat to various woodland animals in an attempt to either pacify or tame them, with the outcome based on the hero's luck. At experience level 14, Druids also become completely immune to charming from nymphs with the exception of satyrs (who are the only nymph monsters to not use charming attacks).
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Wildshape
Starting at experience level 3, Druids can also start using their unique wildshape abilities to polymorph into woodland creatures and other similar monsters—this is accessed through the #wildshape extended command. A Druid cannot wildshape while stunned, confused, afflicted with lycanthropy, weak from hunger (or worse), or wearing metallic armor.
There are four tiers of monsters a Druid can wildshape into, with the 1st tier beginning at XL 3, the 2nd tier at XL 8, the 3rd tier at XL 14, and the 4th tier at experience level 20:
- Tier 1 - wolf, giant beetle, woodchuck, stag, giant hawk, rock mole, piranha, and lizard
- Tier 2 - grizzly bear, winter wolf, tiger, gray unicorn, scorpion, ancient pseudodragon, electric eel, and cave lizard
- Tier 3 - saber-toothed tiger, cave bear, giant crocodile, wolverine, giant anaconda, and ent
- Tier 4 - dire wolverine, giant centipede, pegasus, elder ent, and mastodon
Once in wildshape form, a timer begins that determines when a Druid can use this ability again—this timer is normally 3600-4000 turns between uses, and alignment abuse has a direct bearing on how long this timer will last, with a significantly reduced timer for a hero that has no alignment abuse and a significantly extended timer for one that has gravely abused their alignment. Unlike regular polymorph, wildshaped Druids have several conditions, bonuses and rules applied:
- Their HP will be the higher between either their current HP or the resulting HP of their chosen form.
- Their carrying capacity will always be set to 1000.
- A wildshaped Druid can manually revert back to their original form by using the #wildshape command, which leaves them at half of their original form's HP (minimum 1) and sets the wildshape timer to the lower between its current value and 200 turns.
- Being killed while wildshaped will revert a Druid back to their base form and add 1000 rounds to the wildshape use timer.
- Druids can stay wildshaped (or otherwise polymorphed) for longer than average, with a timer of 2500-3000 turns versus the normal 500-999 turns for other heroes—prayer while wildshaped will not revert a Druid back to their original form.
- Unlike normal polymorphs, wildshaping will merge the Druid's worn armor into their chosen form, with the exception of shields other than bracers—bracers may also be left out if the form lacks any limbs to wear them on. "Dropped" shields and wielded weapons will be removed/unwielded and left in the open inventory rather than placed on the hero's square. Merged armor cannot be removed or stolen while wildshaped, and additional armor cannot be worn.
- Wildshaped Druids in forms that are not slithy can utilize their forelimbs as normal hands for purposes, such as handling doors and using containers and other tools. They are also capable of spellcasting if their form is capable of vocalizing, i.e. it is not a monster that is silent or lacking a mouth.
- Wildshaped Druids gain significant to-hit bonuses and small damage bonuses that scale with their experience level. They will also avoid using bite attacks and sting attacks in melee against a target such as a cockatrice where doing so would be fatal.
- Hostile monsters that are not intelligent will ignore a wildshaped Druid if they are outside of melee range, considering them to just be another monster—intelligent hostile monsters have a 1⁄6 of being similarly fooled into ignoring a wildshaped Druid.
- Druids that attempt to sit and lay an egg while wildshaped have only a 1⁄1000 chance of succeeding compared to other heroes, and failure will use up a turn as normal.
Rank titles
The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels:
- XL 1-2: Aspirant
- XL 3-5: Ovate
- XL 6-9: Initiate
- XL 10-13: Adept
- XL 14-17: Mystic
- XL 18-21: Hierophant
- XL 22-25: Druid
- XL 26-29: Archdruid
- XL 30: Great Druid
Gods
The Druid pantheon is based on a trio of forest-related deities from the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons & Dragons, two of which are derived from deities of real-world cultures: the Finnish Mielikki and the Roman Silvanus. Their first sacrifice gift artifact is Werebane.
Quest
The Druid's quest sees them fighting Baba Yaga for the Bracers of the First Circle, an artifact pair of runed bracers. The Bracers of the First Circle grant telepathy while carried, and while worn they grant stoning resistance and do not interfere with spellcasting—a Druid also gains a 6-point bonus to AC (versus 3 for other roles, and not counting any AC bonuses from their material). Invoking the Bracers of the First Circle subjects adjacent monsters to taming, similar to a blessed scroll of taming.
Strategy
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Encyclopedia entry
Druids are primal spellcasters of considerable power and versatility, who gain their power through being at one with nature or through a connection to a powerful deity or nature spirit. Guardians of the wilderness, druids see themselves less as masters of the natural order and more as an extension of its will.
"Some dismiss them with a sneer as 'flower lovers', but I warn such scoffers that few herbs or plant medicines would aid us today were it not for the lore and work of the druid circles of Faerun." - Beldrith Tarlelntar, Sage of the Old Ways
