Based on Joshua Faller’s thread,, I wanted to try making a Druid that had the limitation of only a few forms to begin with. I changed a few advanced moves and tweaked the trigger for Studied Essence to make it harder to get. Known forms should be much more precious for the Druid.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwbHes6iNuGrUm1sVkxaeEt3eUk/view?usp=sharing
“Known forms should be much more precious for the Druid”
Can you expand a little on why you think this? And why you wanted to limit the number of forms a Druid can assume? It’s not clear to me why.
(Edit to add: I think they’re well (re)written and capture the aim nicely as far as I can see. Just curious as to the reasoning behind doing it)
I never understood why druids didn’t eat or drink. I’d understand if they could get some rations from the wilds, but being “sustained” is weird. Everyone knows that hungry druids go hunting cattle in the shape of wolves
Depends on your concept of what a “Druid” is, I guess 🙂 (which is actually at the root of my curiosity on Peter J ‘s new rules… wonder what his concept is that prompts the changes)
My goal was to address the issue of Shapeshift being too powerful by limiting it to only a few forms at the start.
Peter J I understand where you’re coming from with wanting to limit the number of forms, and I like the re-write.
My suggesting to you, as someone who prints playbooks for usage, is to add something unique to the class label at the bottom. Something like “The Druid (Spirit Essence Alt by Peter J)”. The extra text could be in smaller text as well. This would make it easier to differentiate from the original when flipping through a stack of playbooks.
Peter J I don’t really agree it’s too powerful, but I understand why. This does introduce a nice ‘scaling up’ mechanic too and makes the druid have more iconic forms. (There tends to be a one-use mentality for druids because of how many different shapes a druid can use).
Jumping off of that idea I just now had a cool idea for an advanced move. Mostly just pulling this out of nowhere xD
Choose a preferred Form and one advantage for it. You can take this move up to three times.
*+1d6 damage(to be rolled when you shift into that form)
*+1 armor
*+1d6 health
*+1 modifier to a stat
*1 useful adaptation or custom move
ramonthe3rd If you’re sustained by mystical meditation, or by the spirits of the wild, or by absorbing the energy from the enemies you slay. Lot’s of different interpretations available.
Peter J The Embracing no Form seems unclear to me, as the trigger “When you commune…” doesn’t seem to have a matching reference. I assume it’s meant to modify the Shapeshifter move?
Matthew Everhart Whoops, yes. That should refer to Shapeshifter.
Harrison s Formcrafter/Formshaper is something like that.
Benjamin Kramer Good idea, thanks. Fixed.
Cool, thanks Peter J 🙂
I’ve never thought shapeshifter to be too powerful, tbh, but I don’t really care about balance in DW. I think your mods are well executed anyway. I like the fact that it makes you have to forge a connection with an animal before you can become it. Its a nice prompt for interesting scenes and suggestions of world building etc.
ramonthe3rd I totally agree. I’d prefer something that gains them rations when in wild areas. That seems more in touch with nature to me. No longer needing to eat seems like something you’d get as a high level druid (with other benefits to make it a worthy advancement selection)
Peter J Commune with nature on “Embrace No Form” seems like it is pretty vague for a fiction trigger. How much time does that take? Is it instantaneous, or does it take a while, like the Cleric’s commune?
Can you use Embrace No Form to store up tons of for your shapeshifter move? Shift to Bear when you wake up in the morning, get 1-3 Hold, then commune with “Embrace No Forms” to get an additional 1d4 hold?
Elemental Mastery seems too broad to me. It is basically do anything you can think of with Fire, Water, Earth or Air. Beyond that, the move mechanics could be tweaked. the choices are “The effect you want comes to pass” “You avoid paying nature’s price” and “You retain control” So this is a move that always has bad effects for the player, since we can assume that they will choose Option A every time.
Drew Harpunea the problem is that any creative druid can solve all their oroblens by rolling +wis. Limiting forms solves a lot of these problems.
Peter J It looks like your addition below the class name is getting cut off by document margins. I can barely see the tops of the letters both in the Drive viewer, and a Linux PDF viewer.