Tictoc's page

Another item to consider, and enforce, is what happens to material components and the meals of the more unusual creatures that literally eat metals, gems and rocks. If they are effectively disintegrated, then it might be possible to have certain metals and gems be a lot less common that would otherwise be expected as certain materials are hoarded and literally used up at rapid rates (for both divine and arcane magics). Those who are in a position to gather material components should also make higher wages from this demand (even if it is lots of locust legs, spiders and other items that still requires time and effort to gather, process, store and transport in a usable form), though how this would actually fit into an economy is uncertain. Might bog down things down a bit if it gets too detailed though.

Tictoc wrote:

Regarding the Urban Druid:

3) The undeath to death spell should have the Material component listing removed as the urban druid uses divine spells, there divine focus where applicable, and the urban druid really needs all the help possible given that undead is listed as one the major enemies.

The last one isn't an error. Undeath to death has a material component listing, not an arcane material component listing. You'll note on the cleric list a superscript M as well.

I suspect that material component superscript is an error, look at the actual detailed spell description and it shows "M/DF" listed as opposed to "M, DF". The slash normally indicates that DF can substitute for the M. As an example where both are needed, look at the detailed description of the "Hallow" spell.

As a further something to possible add to the Urban Druid notes, perhaps adding a note for the "Repair" spells that they can also target those classified as "objects" under the rules. Sort of gives them an incentive to engage in "dumpster diving".

There are ways to do it, but if the DM really wants to do it in a way that makes sense, it is necessary to start at least by the time the PCs are 4th level or even earlier.

One is to have a number of artifical conflict generators out there ranging from power groups, religions to activities. The last can include a number of arts and (blood)sports arenas ranging from the small time competition to inter-planar ones with all the logistic (like gathering competitors, gambling, etc.) and potential events that come with it. One should not overlook religions providing adventures by givng directions to handle anything from stopping planar invasions to dealing with conspiracies to rescuring souls from various nightmarish planes.

Second is to have a number of natural conflict generators out there ranging from mundane weather, supernatural weather and zones, to planar breaches and gateways. This can include such things as the Far Realms with its reality bending and aberration spewing effects.

Third, have the opponents and groups operate in mixed types and classes and have them act with coordination. If it works for adventurers, it will work for monsters as long as they can be made to work with each other.

Fourth, you may want to look at various game supplements for monsters (and their tactics). If you want to have opponents who have some degree of optimizing of the classes, take a look at the "Powergamer" books from Goodman Games (I think) (actually that would make a lot of players unhappy as they give pretty good advice and simple tables).

Fifth, have missions/adventurers that force the PCs to go without rest, retreat, re-supply. Sort of the variant of being "trapped in a haunted house" except perhaps in Raveloft or Hell equivalent.

Sixth, have opponents that are occasionally ruthless to the point of having "bomb" type effects. Having low-level minions with single use Disjunction effect devices, "suicide belts" (for the fanatics who really do know they get a reward in the afterlife), etc. PCs will be very upset against these kinds of opponents, though it could be argued that they are not unimaginable to various groups and beings out to crush adventurers.

More on the Urban Druid

Change my previous note to reflect the appropriate term of "favored cities".

1) Urban Companion. Note that as the Urban Druid advances the Hit Dice of the Companion advances according to its type, as opposed to normal druids that just uses d8.

2) Urban Shape, Animated Objects. How does Constitution ability score change? Note that one of the reasons for Wild Shape for normal druids and Urban Shape for Urban Druids is to get better hit points from changes to the Constitution score, which Animated Objects lack.

Further recommendations and thoughts:

Although the Urban Druid could probably research it, a variant of the Polymorph Any Object that grants Charisma score instead of Intelligence would allow the Urban Druid to self-buff just like how Wizards can use the Polymorph Any Object to buff their DCs.

Is there some author notes on this class?

In particular, I was wondering if there are any thoughts on how a player can optimizing/min-maxing it to make it a very effective adventurer?

I have been taking a look at it and have come up with one way of doing it, but I was curious if there are others in detail?

The way that I looked at it was to treat it as a mainly a "buffer"/support adventurer that relies more on indirect and cunning methods. A closer look at the urban companion and urban shape does seem to allow for some interesting possibilities though they require a bit of time and effort to pull off correctly, as is the rest of the class abilities.

Regarding the Urban Druid:

1) There are two listing of alignments. The second one includes "lawful evil" but that should be "neutral evil" to match the other descriptions.

2) A brief description of the divine focus used by urban druids may need to be included in general spells note as the urban druid uses divine spells. Presumably this would be something that represents one of the cities that the urban druid has declared to be one of the domains (I forget the term and I do not have the book in front of me).

3) The undeath to death spell should have the Material component listing removed as the urban druid uses divine spells, there divine focus where applicable, and the urban druid really needs all the help possible given that undead is listed as one the major enemies.

Recommended additions:

1) Ability to change declared affiliated cities by spending one week in the desired city and getting to know the flow of the society.

2) For the information network ability, the ability to change cities by spending one month in the desired city to set up the network. Might also require that the cities with information networks must be one of the affiliated cities.

Personal comment: The urban druid is an interesting class. It is not apparently as powerful as the regular druid in some ways as most of the urban companions (or urban shape) are not normally welcome in urban areas, where the urban druid is presumably supposed to be in his element. It would be something for the more dedicated experienced players to figure out how to optimize the abilities under different circumstances.