One of the things I do in my spare time is designing rulesystems for fun, so I have a problem I'd like peoples input on.
D&D was my entry into fantasy gaming, really. In D&D there have been no Shamans, only Druids. Druids have been full featured healers, just like Clerics. They just had a different tone, but at the end of the day you wanted a Cleric and a Druid in your party, for their diverse features.
One of the MMOs I've played has been Lineage 2. Lineage 2 had many classes, and many racial variants of classes, but it had no Druids. It did however have Orc Shamans, and no less but two variants of them. One was the regular Warcryer who would buff your group, the other was the Overseer who could buff a whole raid force. Warcryers havent really been healers as such, its primarily a class that buffs you. While they could offer some small health regeneration, they didnt get actual healing spells.
Other games have both Druids and Shamans. For example WoW. WoW has this concept that all classes come in three tastes, and Druids could be tank, healer, and damage dealer, while Shamans, as best as I can tell, are more focused on healing. I never played WoW myself and so all I can gather is from Wikis online.
In Vanguard Druids have been primarily Mages. They had some healing, but it was really just spike healing for emergencies. Other than that, Druids have been a classic damage dealer, competing for the best damage output, and they often ended up being the top dps of the raid force. Which was, considering their wide range of utility, pretty unbalanced. Shamans on the other hand had three variants, or totems (Bear, Wolf, and Phoenix), but have always been primarily healers with meager damage output, though Bear at least got pretty impressive defenses.
So - what do you think ? Should a game have Druids ? Should it have Shamans ? Should they have both ? And if a game has both - what should be their difference ?
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For Shaman I see them as spiritual based. Their power comes from the spirit world. While their manifestation may be similar... the source is different. They commune with ancestors and other spirits
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I always thought their melee spec was kind of weird for my idea of a shaman but ironically it was usually their best spec according to class rankings.
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This stuff is all made up remember. In real life we barely even know the real role of a Druid in Celtic societies, and most of the neo-modern interpretations have almost no reflection of their true history. Hell, even all that Celtic imagery and symbols are made up. The circular art is in fact influenced by Roman/Anglo-Saxon/Viking stone and artwork that was later adopted in the region and made popular by Irish Christian monks. The art became trendy in the middle ages and was incorrectly called "Celtic". There is no evidence of this stonework and artwork in Celtic cultures prior to Roman/Anglo-Saxon/Viking influence.
That's right ... all of those Celtic art tattoos on people are complete BS. Worse still, the artwork is basically stolen from Anglo-Saxon history, and statues today in places like Scotland have been mislabeled as "Celtic". It was largely Anglo Christian culture and monks, with a dash of Roman/Viking influence in both medium and design, that originally created it, so it isn't even "pagan" (minus direct Viking influence).
Modern tropes in games merely use these cultural positions as religious leaders, and how their mechanics fit the game is entirely up to the designers.
One of the more interesting interpretation of Druid in a video game is Camelot Unchained (not that the game may ever release). It's more of a cosmic, void priest, using astronomy/astrology as it's roots and not so much nature.
Whereas a shaman usually deals with all spiritual / elemental / higher beings.
To me, Druids seem more attuned to the ancient Irish "Otherworld", a dimension of magic that includes Elves, Sprites, Trolls, Leprechauns, etc., and deals the most with forest magic, groves and glens, and natural water pools.
Druids fit very well in the D&D style.
Shamans fit with the animal spirits and their influences on the world. Think Totems here. They have some nature powers, but mostly connected to their own Totem Spirit. They also deal more with Cauldrons and Brews, so more of a Ritual sort in this sense. But they should have very strong powers connected to their Totem Spirit. They should be able to shapeshift to a powerful version of their Totem.
Clerics are well defined, I think, through the D&D style. Warrior-priests.
Priests, themselves, if also included, would be the non-warrior version of Clerics. With more powers associated with healing and Temple stuff. Rituals, blessings, etc.
Magic Users should be included here because they are part of the spell casting classes.
Non-aligned to deities, but associated with other-planes of magic where they draw their powers from. Perhaps as a sort of knowledgeable sage who knows how the world and otherworld connections work. As such, they should be the most diverse in magic of them all.
If I were designing a game, I would drop the Priest Class because it's not as playable as the others, and robs from the Cleric Class.
I think Shamans could be a very cool class, equal in uniqueness to all the others. Mainly through their Totem Powers, Shapeshifting, control, and communication.
They should be far less diverse, but more powerful, than Druids in Shapeshifting and Communication, and the same in relevance to Tamers and Control.
Once upon a time....
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Once upon a time....
As I tell my monotheistic religious friends, the only difference between them and me is that I reject just one more god than they do. I also never try to convince anyone else that they should also be atheists and very rarely bring it up in conversations unless provoked by someone who is just too full of whatever their belief is. I also think of atheism as a belief and I don;t lord my belief over others.
Fantasy deities in games, even when they're almost identical to real world gods don't turn me off at all. I play priests, paladins, druids, shaman or any other worshiper of pixel make believe deities. I treat them like any other class and play them or not based solely on how they play.
Works for me.
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My view, is thus.
Shaman are more Totemic Warriors or Inspirational Warriors, depending on the mythos, one would view them as either something like Spiritual Paladins or War Chanter style Bards, but in both cases, they are adept combatants first, warriors in their own right, and medicine/healers second.
Where a Druid is more like a Naturalistic Cleric, using their magic to heal and defend, as opposed to attack.
- talking to trees for info (as trees talk to themselves all the time), operating like Tracking, recent battle areas, location of flora type resources, trees, pools and waterfalls.
- Naming and Enchanting trees, pools, and waterfalls.
- Turning a named tree into an extra-planar home that they can enter, which grows inside and out as they Skill up their enchanting Skill.
- Shapeshifting (woodland creatures) and gaining new powers while doing so.
Once upon a time....
Druids, according to the few records we have (most are Roman and most of that is from Julius Caesar himself), were polytheistic. There was likely not a singular "nature" or "Gaia" focus. It was their core religious power structure, and rebelled against nothing. It was the standard.
I can't stress how modern interpretations of real Druids are completely wrong. We made most of this shit up over a thousands years, with recent "neo" iterations being the most wildly inaccurate representations of any.
Anything we see in games, reflects modern tropes that have little or nothing to do with real, ancient druidic practice. That last time I checked, no druid in video games sacrificed their own kind, which is what real druids did, although the specifics are unknown to us and records are filtered through the Roman perspective.
My point being, everything is video games are based on invented tropes. The game makes can literally make anything new up, and still likely be no less accurate of real world history. They only need make it work within their fictional world, and player expectations derived from modern tropes can literally be discarded in the same fashion.
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That's a cool approach.
But there's more to it than that. Having to do with the ancient Irish lore of the Otherworld. That was a magical kingdom in another dimension, where access was only through and Irish island (unknown which one).
The Otherworld was the home of Elves and "the little people" such as Leprechauns and Brownies, as well as spirits such as Sprites and Nymphs.
I mention Nymphs for a reason. They were part of ancient lore also in Greece (as well as many other places).
Achilles was the son of a nereid, which was a "sea nymph."
I only mention this stuff because it's very hard to pinpojnt RL meanings to this subject.
But I do believe that in gaming, Druids fit into the "Otherworld" connection better than elsewhere.
As "priests", perhaps, or wizards, to the powers of the Otherworld.
Once upon a time....
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The reason MMOs/RPGs/DnD have Animal Shape Shifting is related to the rituals that real life Druids did in wearing the skin of animals and pretending to be that animal.
Shaman also deal with Nature, but also they deal more with Spirits.
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Your final questions are good ones, and I think pretty open to choice. Maybe moreso than Druids/Clerics.
I'd say that Monks are to Priests as what Paladins are to Clerics. Just as a loose take on it.
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Once upon a time....
Paladins were based on the Knight Templars of the Third and Last Crusades, Presenting themselves as the Militant Arm of the Church as it were, Brutal, Effective, Remorseless, and above all Loyal to the Cause, where their combat abilities were bolstered by their faith and devotion.
The living embodiment of, "If God is with us, none can stand against Us!" Kind of Warrior.
These kinds of warriors have seen many renditions, not normally called Paladins however, the most well known, would be Jedi of the Star Wars franchise.
Monks on the other hand, were put into D&D in 1975 due to the popularity of shows like Kung Fu, and thus they were based on the Shaolin Monk, as opposed to the European Franciscan Monk, which no doubt caused a lot of confusion about their placement into the fantasy world, if you were not following popular culture. If you knew of Shows like Kung Fu, it made perfect sense that a shaolin monk was wondering the European Countryside.
However, they really did not fully integrate into the D&D world system till the launch of Oriental Adventures, in 1985, and of course, only Monk seemed to maintain being popular, as even tho 5e has them, hardly anyone still plays or even cares to know about Wu Jens or Ronin, even with the current rise of popularity of anime.
Now, the largest confusion surrounding Monk, is the ambiguity of the Term due to cultural difference in the use of the term.