What decides whether a worshipper of Gozreh, fer instance, is a cleric or a druid? Does the follower make some sort of distinction in the way he views the god?
Can someone tell the difference between a cleric of Gozreh and a druid of Gozreh? Do they focus on different aspects of the god or interpret his aspects differently?
What decides whether a worshipper of Gozreh, fer instance, is a cleric or a druid? Does the follower make some sort of distinction in the way he views the god?
Can someone tell the difference between a cleric of Gozreh and a druid of Gozreh? Do they focus on different aspects of the god or interpret his aspects differently?
A druid is a sort of cleric IMHO, but his focus is on nature, instead of trying to spread or impact his faith in some way.
Clerics hate/love undead more than Druids.
Druids either don't care, or are happy to leave eradicating undead to the pro's.
A druid is a sort of cleric IMHO, but his focus is on nature, instead of trying to spread or impact his faith in some way.What decides whether a worshipper of Gozreh, fer instance, is a cleric or a druid? Does the follower make some sort of distinction in the way he views the god?
Can someone tell the difference between a cleric of Gozreh and a druid of Gozreh? Do they focus on different aspects of the god or interpret his aspects differently?
Clerics are more community oriented for the most case, while druids don´t care much about their fellow humans (or whatever creature they are), but focus on nature. Druids fit more easily to the hermit archetype, IMO.
Stefan
Druids are left wing liberal tree hugging hippy eco-nuts and clerics are right wing faschist who preach eternal damnation to sinners. Pretty scary either way.
Druids are left wing liberal tree hugging hippy eco-nuts and clerics are right wing faschist who preach eternal damnation to sinners. Pretty scary either way.
This sounds about right also. :)
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For the most part, clerics worship one specific god. Druids, however, worship the concept of Nature. If there is only one god of Nature in a given cosmology, then druids will pretty much just be a specialized variant cleric of that god. However, most cosmologies have more than one god that has interests in Nature. Druids, while probably feeling kinship to all of these gods, don't specifically serve any one of them in particular.
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The way I see it that while a cleric and druid of Gozreh might both be comfortable conversing their god's theology and perhaps even teach his/her(heh) dogma, a druid foregoes behaving like a divine conduit to her god and instead attempts to channel magical power from nature, with earthly essence and natural forces being the foci, instead of a straight divine rapport.
Gozreh's presence in, say a forest glade, might be unquestionable, but while his/her cleric might tap into that power through prayer, a druid meditates and connects herself to the primal powers of the glade without having consorted with a divine personification of those powers.
In a way, a druid might serve both Nature(Green Faith, etc) and a god of natural things(Gozreh), he acknowledges the latters hold over some aspects of the glade, but meditates and prays to the former for magic.
This doesn't mean that a druids's connection is somehow "purer", especially since a cleric can channel freaking positive energy straight from a godly electric coil from the sky, but that the two character dedicate themselves to different things.
On the other hand, a druid might be a worshipper of Sarenrae, a "sun druid" if you will, but said goddess might have nothing at all to do with the druid's spells, with all power coming from Nature. In this case the druid might as well be a follower of any god with a neutral alignment(War Druid of Gorum!). If it works like this then all my points were moot. :P
Heres my take on the question as relates to the main diffrences.
Druids were originally NOT part of the cleric class until 2nd ed made them a type of specilty preist. They were there own when first introduced. This has carried over into the later editions for good or ill.
I would suggest looking at the Forgotten realms deities of nature because they have both clerics to serve in urban areas and druids to protect the wilderness from being lost .
The main two diffrences everybody harps on is clerics can turn/rebuke or destroy/command the undead. The druid is a master of shapechange and his chosen enviroment. I sum the diffrences up by saying the cleric focuses on the afterlife and the higher planes while the druid is more comcerned with the here and now and the future of the planet as a whole. A cleric can say let a bunch of heritics in the neighboring kingdom suffer and die because they whorshipp a god opposed to mine. A druid will think of the long term benifits and consequenses before decideing to act or not.
The forgotten realms deity Silvanus is famous for takeing the long term outlook in his dogma while the young goddess of nature Melieky takes a more direct approach by fighting against evil.
I have played both classes for decades and enjoy both very much. I highly recommend the Darkwalker on the Moonshea series by Douglas Niles if anyone really wants to read a wounderful forgotten realms series, no elminster or 7 sisters or drizzit for all you FR haters out there.
What decides whether a worshipper of Gozreh, fer instance, is a cleric or a druid? Does the follower make some sort of distinction in the way he views the god?
Can someone tell the difference between a cleric of Gozreh and a druid of Gozreh? Do they focus on different aspects of the god or interpret his aspects differently?
I'd say it's like the difference between a Jewish rabbi and a Jewish psychologist. One has a job that revolves around religion and one doesn't, even if there is some overlap in their roles.
Granola, bark underwear, and the perverse enjoyment of poison ivy.
Some interesting ideas.
My first thoughts were that maybe a cleric of Gozreh is a follower of Gozreh first and a defender of nature second only because that's what Gozreh says to do. A druid of Gozreh, meanwhile, is a defender of nature first and only follows Gozreh because dude represents that which the druid cares most about.
But what began my confusion was seeing a note in the ol' Savage Tide which described what's-her-name's mother as being a druid of Fharlanghn, the Greyhawk god of Travel. So maybe Desna has druids? I dunno.
To expand on my semi-snark commment re: undead,
Clerics seem tuned into their god/dess in a COSMIC context, i.e. connecting specifically to positive/negative energy planes, as well as generally being concerned with what happens to souls after death and that whole cosmic drama. (chaotic neutral gods of course not having as much 'agenda' as such, but still playing amongst their god and goddess peers)
Druids are content to focus on the material plane, or at least INNER planes (+ elemental, 1st world?), and don't deal with 'pure' souls directly, but thru the natural world's inherent connection to the outer planes and souls, e.g. reincarnation vs. resurrection. Of course, Druids CAN now venerate specific Gods, in that case the difference between a Nature portfolio Cleric and a Druid worshipping the same God would be pretty much the same, that the Druid is worshipping the God's INTEREST in the inner planes, while the Cleric, while having similar outlook within the confines of the material plane, also sees things within their full context of the outer planes and souls, which the Druid worshipper doesn't care about or choose to focus on.
I say the most important distinction is their focus:
Clerics focus on a divine aspect - a god, an ideal (which can be nature), something like that.
Druids focus on nature.
A nature cleric has a more "professional" relationship with nature, his divine patron. He advocates, leads by example, converts, proselytises.
A druid tries to become one with nature, or at least live on perfect harmony with it and either teach others to do the same or at least make sure they don't harm nature.
The lines can blur a bit.
I think for some nature priests, the decision involves comparing the options and their merits. Both the nature cleric and the druid are all about nature, but one likes to transform into critters and call on them for help and blast around with elemental magic while the other wants to get the power to make himself a stronger warrior and to heal and protect others with pure positive energy.
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The OP is asking what is the difference between a cleric and a druid?
If we go back to the original archetypes the classes are based on, that might help to illuminate some of the differences
The druid is based on the Celtic druids, and the cleric is based on the knights Hospitaller or knights templar.
From my limited understanding, the druids might represent a simpler indigenous faith, while the cleric might represent a faith brought with the encroachment of civilization.
Now to highlight the differences between the classes, the op asked about clerics and druids of the same Deity, and what would the differences be? I am guessing he is asking a Fluff question rather then a crunch question. In terms of Fluff, I would say not much. It might come down to character concept. Try and figure out what your character concept is, and then see which character class better expresses it.
A cleric of Gorzeth might be a “retired” soldier who has found faith in Gorzeth, and now looks after a small community.
A druid of Gorzeth might be the village hermit. I guess it all depends on what you want.
Differentiating the classes by crunch is easy; one only needs to compare the descriptions in the Pathfinder Rule book.
In terms of expressing character concept through character class, there was one character I liked in the Brother Cadfaeld Book series. This was Brother Cadfaeld's friend the under sheriff of Shropshire, Hugh Berenger.
I wanted to use the character as an inspiration to make my own character.
I settled on making an inquisitor of Iomadae. The inquisitor has the use of a long sword, and long bow, wears light armor, he can track, and also has the use of diplomacy (for gathering information) intimidate, sense motive, and other skills just like the character in the book. The Inquisitor has some magic, and the novel is a murder mystery set in medieval England so no magic. So there we are.
Is it a perfect fit? Probably not, but I am happy with it.
I hope this helps.
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Heres my take on the question as relates to the main differences.
Druids were originally NOT part of the cleric class until 2nd ed made them a type of specialty priest. They were there own when first introduced. This has carried over into the later editions for good or ill.
I have played both classes for decades and enjoy both very much. I highly recommend the Darkwalker on the Moonshea series by Douglas Niles if anyone really wants to read a wonderful forgotten realms series, no elminster or 7 sisters or drizzit for all you FR haters out there.
Having played Druids since 1st Edition AD&D, the Druids were explicitly a sub-class of Cleric. 1st edition trumps 2nd edition :)
In fact my Druid from those ancient days was a major evangelical type. I was always bringing new converts into the flock.
Oh, those bygone days.
Granola, bark underwear, and the perverse enjoyment of poison ivy.
amazing that's why Druid's don't exist in my game.
I don't know about Golarion enough to comment on Gozreh specifically, but I think it comes down to flavor, as many have said, and the character's mission.
In my homebrew world, anyone with Divine spellcasting are all considered blessed by and mouthpieces for the gods--but the gods have different duties for each of these people.
Druids in my world, indeed most often empowered by the Nature Goddess (who is the chief god in the world, mother to the rest and capable of giving any of the others a royal smackdown at any time), are designated protectors of a given area. They usually aren't expected to leave their designated area, unless called to protect somewhere else (a hook for an adventurer druid would be: thus and such place is becoming corrupted. Go check it out).
Clerics are usually travellers (though older/more powerful ones sometimes "retire" to become leaders of their orders, but the people who usually hang out in the temples every day and heal people are in fact usually Adepts)--they are meant to wander the world to spread a message from their god or to achieve a specific mission.
This is a guideline and not a forced rule; my god of travel might choose a druid to travel--but specifically to keep safe the pathways she wanders down. A cleric of the goddess of justice may stay in a city to advise the king (but this is still a specific mission).
It's obviously easier to hook a cleric than a druid into a story, but I think that's generally true of most settings I've played in (and I see more players of clerics than druids to have to worry about it too much).
For the record, there are both clerics and druids of my Nature Goddess; her druids protect both hidden sacred places and maintain shrines near civilized areas, and offer blessings over births and funereal services should they live in such a civilized area. Her clerics usually travel about routing out undead, which are anathema to the goddess.