Game: Unorthodox Druids
Publisher: The Le
Series: d20
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 21st, August 2004
Reviewer’s Rating: 6/10 [ On the ball ]
Total Score: 6
Average Score: 6.00
Unorthodox Druids might seem like something of an impulse buy – at US$2.00 it’s below the minimum checkout value at RPGNow (or, I imagine, any e-retailer who stocks RPG PDFs). These Unorthodox Druids will have to go into the electronic shopping cart along with something else. Electronic capitalism is required before these druids can help you – that’s unorthodox for you!
You get five druids for your $2. What’s that? A druid for 40c? Not bad. I’m not talking about NPCs though. You get a complete alternative druid class for 40c – and that’s amazing value.
Lots of people whine about the D&D druid. Druids aren’t really like that, they say. They’re right but I don’t think it matters. D&D (or d20, for that matter) isn’t about recreating historical figures – it’s about fun fantasy classes. My main grumble about the D&D druid is that the druid class, as defined by the game, seems to be an unlikely character to be hanging around with a group of adventures and travelling. Druids tend to get tied to geographical areas and defend their local patch of nature. The Le Games’ Unorthodox Druids doesn’t really change this and that’s a shame.
These classes are targeted at niches. The Caller, Enforcer, Shaman, Survivalist and Tree Warden each have very different class features. They have class features which suit their particular speciality. The Enforcer is tough and has Boneskin abilities, catlike grace and a weed tangle ability. The Tree Warden, on the other hand, has the speak to plants, trackless step and then some new tree abilities – tree fight, tree song and tree shape too.
There are value for money PDFs which do without illustrations. Unorthodox Druids is not one of them. There’s a full colour cover from Bradley K McDevitt and each unorthodox druid has an illustrated profile. I’m sure I’ve seen a picture very similar to the Tree Warden before – but that’s not a problem.
Unorthodox Druids suits GMs in a hurry, it suits busy GMs, GMs fishing around for new ideas or suffering writers block. There’s nothing amazing about Unorthodox Druids, it doesn’t have the wow factor. Unorthodox Druids is easily worth its meagre price tag and I think it represents a possible solution to the oft-tricky question, “What should I do with the Druid class?” There’s no reason why Unorthodox Druids should just be an impulse buy, it is worth heading out to the electronic shops to pick this PDF up in its own right.
