Druid Class by Eero Tuovinen

 "Coup de Main in Greyhawk" is an in-progress campaign and an in-progress rule system by Eero Tuovinen, author of Muster. He is publishing the design notes for his system in a series of pamphlet-sized PDFs called Coup Workbook Partials, CWPs for short. They are not intended to be immediately playable; they really are design notes, useful for spurring further thought in the reader. Two of Coup's design goals are relevant for this review: first, that all character optimization be a matter of fictional positioning, and second, that different magic-using classes play differently.

This is a review of one of his most recent CWPS, #18, Druid Class. A disclaimer: I got the PDF for free in exchange for agreeing to review it.

First, the art

 

I think it's gorgeous, quite evocative. AI-generated, if you care about that, using Stable Diffusion trained on 2e-era TSR art by the writer's brother. The druid's toes are maybe a little too long, but maybe we could read that generously as an effect of his physical cultivation?

The pdf is 28 pages long, of which 4 pages are boilerplate. The remainder are, at a guess, a5, 12 point font, written in Eero's typical breezy style. You could skim through it easily and arrive at a solid grasp of the class, or slow down and really mull things over.

We begin with a three-page summary of the history and organization of the druids and their beliefs. It's not very detailed, just a picture of things. While it's Greyhawk-specific, you shouldn't have trouble understanding how Eero's vision of the druid would or wouldn't fit into your campaign world, and what changes would have to be made. I'm no Greyhawk scholar, but I found the material forceful and game-ready. Though this section, and the later discussion of necromancy and the death force, open a modeling question for the referee: Druids believe this, and others believe that, but what should the referee believe, and use to model the world? -- Maybe this question can be deferred indefinitely in some cases, but the referee will certainly have to decide if, for instance, there really is a death force, and how the druids have missed it if there is one, and how the necromancers are able to make magic if there isn't one.

The entire next page is devoted to the druid's progression chart. Nothing much sticks out here. There's some Coup-specific idioms, but these can be ignored or pursued further as the reader pleases. I have a quibble with the druid's spell slots, though; as written, they only go up to spell level 4! A druid does have ways to cast spells without slots, so they're not exactly hamstrung by the change. Still, I wonder why Eero chose this spell progression.

Then we spend 5 pages explaining the unique class features of the druid. The organization here is a bit wonky, though it makes sense after the whole document has been read. Each class feature gets a tiny brief, and then, to be expanded upon in the next section, on druidic magic. Until you've read the next section, you won't be able to make heads nor tails of most of this.

A few little comments: I would have liked more information on what having an elemental affinity for life would do for somebody on its own. A druid develops this affinity by becoming a more powerful druid, casting spells, transforming stuff, whatever, but what does a non-druid do with it? Or just a level 1 druid? Is it just a constant "detect life aura"?

Some of the features are really interesting and cool, and make sense in the (implied and explicit) model. For instance, when a higher-level druid is connected to the stream of life force, they're immune to charm (and falling in love) because their soul is suppressed. Also, such a druid has control over the fate of their spirit after death. They can become a ghost or reincarnate themselves. 

Then we get the meat of the document, the explanation of druidic magic. Basically, druids have control over life, just like a fire elementalist has control over fire, but they intentionally restrict themselves to a slow and "natural" flow of power. Druids can take a lot of time meditating to transform the living world around them. They can do practically anything that makes sense as an application of "transforming the flow of the life force", but if a player wants suggestions for the different maneuvers possible, they can check out the druid's AD&D 1e spell list. Druids can also store these transformations in their spell slots, which they can unleash rapidly, as a normal Vancian caster, though each slot takes one day per spell level to fill. Finally, druids can transform themselves into animals, and there's a quick and easy formula for the difficulty of the procedure.

When druids transform the life stream, they sit in mediation for a while and make a number of concentration checks based on their level and the difficulty of the transformation (and the suggested difficulty is the spell level of the transformation, again, presumably in AD&D 1e). We are not told exactly what a concentration check is; presumably roll d20 under Wisdom? If this is so, druidic magic is extremely dangerous! Any single failure ruins the spell and deals 1d8 damage per spell level, spread between the caster, target, and environment. I want to know what the intended difficulty is here. Should we give bonus dice for a quiet environment or something?

There's a cool discussion of druid politics and "black druidry", which is any kind of druidry that doesn't totally align with the normal druidic standards. Basically, treating the life force like a fire elementalist treats fire is bad, as is conspiring with demons and stuff.

We end on a discussion of the druidic social structure, accompanied by a very obscure diagram and some really actionable, game-y material. If a player wants to be a druid and stay on the right side of the white druids, they're going to have to toe the line and dig deep into druidic politics. If not, well, they can always be a black druid, but they'll miss the deep mechanical benefits of druid society and they'll be hunted on sight by white druids.

### Conclusion

I found this CWP easy to read, evocative, and stimulating. I fully intend to offer it to my play group as the default druid class. There's plenty of blank space in the class design -- my work as the referee will not be "done" just because I have read this, and I expect to have to create some understanding of the life stream and elemental magic in my game if I'm going to use it. But I have strong confidence that the rewards will be worth it.

I recommend this to anyone interested in getting their hands dirty with a more in-depth treatment of magic in their game, and anyone who wants an innovative take on a familiar class.