Considering that no one in this thread has advocated torturing animals is consistent with the base druidic codeBeg pardon? You're the only one who's said torturing animals makes you lose your powers. You even made up a whole "druidic code" based on two words of flavor text in a completely separate part of the class description!I'll just point out that Druids had the exact same restrictions in 3.5 that they do in Pathfinder. I'll also mention that my copy of the Forgotten Realms Faiths and Pantheons book (which contains the writeup of Malar and mentions his druids and how they work) lists Sean K. Reynolds as the lead developer on it.
Granted, not sure what any of that has to do with my point about how I envision evil druids by bringing up a reasonably well-known example of them from a previous iteration of the game.
You've brought up a specific subset of the druid class and then tried to paint them as the nominal evil druid. Surely you can see flaw in your logic?
Malarite druids are an archetype of druids that are evil. That does not meant they are the prototypical evil druid. It's like claiming all evil elves are just like Drow.
Now you're just trying to put words in my mouth, then jumping to insane conclusions on the basis of your own made-up words.
Oh, here's another example of evil druids that wouldn't fit under N N's concept: the Shades of the Uskwood is a druidic cult of Zon-Kuthon based in Nidal. There's a feat such Druids can take to gain new Druid spells based on the properties of the forest/Darklands entrance they revere. You'll notice that animate dead is on that list. Due to the specifics of the Uskwood drawing power from it creates a very different sort of Druid than one devoted to a place where necromancy isn't "natural".
Turning animals into evil zombies or skeletons bent entirely to your will isn't torture?
Turning animals into evil zombies or skeletons bent entirely to your will isn't torture?Are these animals already dead?
I think you can be pretty sure that a Druid of Zon-Kuthon kills his own undead minions.
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So... you can kill animals with the intent of turning them into undead minions that you will then throw haphazardly at your enemies, but skipping the necromancy part is a crime against nature and will cause you to lose your powers?
Okay.
My usual baseline for evil Druids is the Malarite Druids from D&Ds Forgotten Realms setting, since they were the first real example I saw.No, I'm not putting words in your mouth. You're trying to insist this fringe druid from 3.5 is the base line for an evil druid in Pathfinder ..it's not. Nor was it the baseline evil druid in 3.5.
No.
100% No.
I don't know how you could possibly come to that conclusion from reading what I wrote. Because I didn't say anything remotely like what you're claiming I said, and what you directly quoted me as saying is nothing remotely like what you go on to claim I said. You are constructing some mad strawman within your brain, and are so busy raging against it that you don't even bother to read what other people say.
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A player (playing a druid) just tried to use a dominated animal to detect traps... like a monk (with his saving throws) and I wasn't sure if it's against a druid's code since technically all it says is
"A druid who ceases to revere nature, changes to a prohibited alignment, or teaches the Druidic language to a nondruid..."
So what I also want to know is, what does it mean to "revere nature"?
Was the player character trying to torture the animal? Or did it just appear as torture in your eyes?
Morality is highly based on how one sees what they do, and their intentions behind what they do. The ends do not equal the means.
Nature, itself, is neutral.
A Neutral Evil druid could reasonably argue that if the the creature is weak enough to be dominated, then purging it's weakness from the forest is actually of benefit to the forest.
A Neutral Good druid would be horrified at such behavior.
And Nature, itself, remains neutral.
It really depends on the circumstances. Acts itself are very hard to define as a specific morality out of context. For instance, killing an innocent person is normally considered an evil act. However, if killing one innocent person saved the lives of hundreds of others, is it still evil? Even though more lives were saved, it is hard to say if the act itself is defined one way or the other.
Codes of conduct are similar. Druids must "revere nature". So the context of the torture is what's in question. If the druid is torturing an animal because they find a sick pleasure in it, shame on them and should be stripped of their powers. If the druid is torturing an animal in the process of a ritual which will overall benefit the wilderness, it's more of a gray area.
So the answer to "Is it against a druid's code to torture animals" is: Most of the time, probably, but it depends.
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BTW, if people keep using "Survival of the fittest" as if it meant "Survival of the strongest", I will rage and join the conversation just to point out how inaccurate that is biologically :P
This is a fantasy game. Leave the science at home <wink>
Anyway, I don't thinking intentionally torturing animals is okay for a druid of any alignment.
I do think a druid could do things that would appear as torturing animals to the outside observer.
If you weren't told that cancer treatment was about curing a cancer, it would likely appear as doctors torturing people. It's not exactly a pleasant process, but the intentions are good.
Granted, not sure what any of that has to do with my point about how I envision evil druids by bringing up a reasonably well-known example of them from a previous iteration of the game.You can keep backpedaling all you want, but there is no rage on my part. You black and white state the Malarite Druid from 3.5 is your baseline for the evil druid. Then you go on to point out that these druids torture animals as if to suggest this is what evil druids do. I've quoted your exact words and your intent was clear. But keep backpedaling.
Having been in NN 959's position more times than I like to think about I will attempt to build a bridge.
NN 959 has one interpretation of "revere nature" and as such believes that's how Druids act. However, codes of conduct and how strictly they are interpreted are a matter for the group to decide. As is so often the case, the answer is to speak to your DM. In this case it seems like original poster did didn't like the response from his DM and has come to the forum to get an alternative take and hopefully a consensus that he has been treated fairly. There clearly isn't one.
There is no specific rule to back up either side of the argument but you can take as much or little as you like from that simple phrase "revere nature".
I agree with NN 959 in ethos. Personally in my games I wouldn't let a Druid minesweep using bunny rabbits. For me that is not reverence. But that is purely my interpretation, based on reading, rpg experiences of earlier editions and my own ideas of the class. The problem is that trying to shut down other players interpretations is ultimately futile. It then ends up posters talking across each other - where one person is talking about what is allowed in their campaign and another about their own.
As an aside I don't like players minesweeping with living things anyway - it undermines the verisimilitude of the game and the purpose of traps, but that is for a different time.
In be worth turning this into a discussion about what reverence of nature means. What is definitely in, what is definitely out and what lies in the grey area between.
Granted, not sure what any of that has to do with my point about how I envision evil druids by bringing up a reasonably well-known example of them from a previous iteration of the game.You can keep backpedaling all you want, but there is no rage on my part. You black and white state the Malarite Druid from 3.5 is your baseline for the evil druid. Then you go on to point out that these druids torture animals as if to suggest this is what evil druids do. I've quoted your exact words and your intent was clear. But keep backpedaling.
You have no connection to reality. 100%
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Are you 100% sure????You have no connection to reality. 100%Granted, not sure what any of that has to do with my point about how I envision evil druids by bringing up a reasonably well-known example of them from a previous iteration of the game.You can keep backpedaling all you want, but there is no rage on my part. You black and white state the Malarite Druid from 3.5 is your baseline for the evil druid. Then you go on to point out that these druids torture animals as if to suggest this is what evil druids do. I've quoted your exact words and your intent was clear. But keep backpedaling.
100% of 100%
So, what happens if a paladin uses dominate person or something similar to force a peasant to run into a dungeon springing traps?
Humans are evil. Humans are good.
What if said peasant that was mind controlled had a superior sense for traps?
In this situation, I think the best course of action would be to summon an animal and use that spring traps. Summon animals arent "technically" the real animal, so that would be more humane.
Taking the free will our of a living animal or person, for the reason of putting them in peril in my book is pretty "immoral"
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Taking the free will our of a living animal or person, for the reason of putting them in peril in my book is pretty "immoral"
I'd say that's an understandable position. But unlike the Paladin, Druids aren't required to be moral; they're even allowed to be outright evil.
Ok, I'll throw in. I played a N druid devoted to the elements and their expression. I can and did set forests on file to watch them burn. I broke a damn and flooded a valley. I even worked on causing a massive landslide that took off half a mountain (it had been heavily mined and I exploited the existing shafts). I also helped keep a city from sinking by raising a stone plateau underneath it and reclaimed a desert into grassland.
Did I fail to revere nature? Cause I killed a whole bunch of animals and trees basically for funsies. I'd say no. I revered a particular aspect of the natural world that was ultimately indifferent to life and I acted the same. I granted its blessings and brought its wrath as I saw fit. Druids don't have to live in forests and befriend fuzzy animals.
Yeah, that's the thing about nature: it's an incredibly broad, open-ended concept. "The Harmonious Circle of Life," "The Vast Uncaring Forces of the World," "The Blood-Soaked Struggle for Supremacy," and dozens of other concepts are all aspects of nature. It covers a lot of territory
Personally, I'd say it's fine to run a Druid's reverence for nature with any semi-reasonable and semi-coherent take on the concept, so long as the player is consistent about it. A Druid who's all about "Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw" probably shouldn't be showing mercy, going out of their way to aid the weak and helpless, and so on. Just like a "Hippie Tree-Hugger" Druid shouldn't be murdering cute fluffy bunnies and drinking their blood or eating non-organic food.
Just like a "Hippie Tree-Hugger" Druid shouldn't be murdering cute fluffy bunnies and drinking their blood or eating non-organic food.Are you implying the bunny wasn't organic?
Does it still count as organic is you cast Enhance Tastiness on it first?
100% of 100%Are you 100% sure????You have no connection to reality. 100%Granted, not sure what any of that has to do with my point about how I envision evil druids by bringing up a reasonably well-known example of them from a previous iteration of the game.You can keep backpedaling all you want, but there is no rage on my part. You black and white state the Malarite Druid from 3.5 is your baseline for the evil druid. Then you go on to point out that these druids torture animals as if to suggest this is what evil druids do. I've quoted your exact words and your intent was clear. But keep backpedaling.
But 100% doesn't even mean 100%. 100% Parmesan cheese, for instance, can include 0% Parmesan cheese the newspaper tested and found out. Kraft 100% Parmesan Cheese includes only 90% Parmesan Cheese as another example.
The other ingredient is cellulose, Non-Parmesan Cheese is plants!
I have seen much of the world. It is brutal, and cruel, and Dark. This would be a druid who uses animals to detect traps, but I really do feel like sending animals to their death would be a very Zapp Branigan level of Druid type.
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Let's juxtapose this to obeying laws. If the rule is that you go to jail if you break the law, it doesn't matter if you follow 90% of the laws, if you break 10% of them you go to jail. You aren't a law abiding citizen if you break any law. The druidic code should work the same way. Just because you revere nature most of the time isn't sufficient. Naturally there's a subset of players want to get around this rather than embrace it as the challenge of playing a druid. But that's not surprising since it's been going on ever since these behaviorally restricted classes were introduced.
Technically, the way the USA's legal system works (or is supposed to work), it's about getting caught and being prosecuted. That's the whole idea being being innocent until proven guilty. The actual following of the laws doesn't really matter in regards to being a lawbreaker, as person framed can be just as much a "lawbreaker" as a person genuinely guilty. This is because the legal system determines guilt based on prosecution. Back to pathfinder, a lawful character will still feel wrong when they break laws, whether or not they are prosecuted for them.
The Druid Code isn't the same thing. You can certainly be an evil druid, but even the evil druid is evil with nature's best interests in mind. A character that isn't doing things with nature's best interest in mind, isn't a druid. Mind you, this doesn't halt stupidity. A druid could totally misunderstand a key point of logic and perform a horrific feat with full intentions of nature's best interest in mind, even if they were actually harming nature left and right. It's a matter of intentions.
Anyway, I agree with your other points, I just think this one is a bad example.
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I have seen much of the world. It is brutal, and cruel, and Dark. This would be a druid who uses animals to detect traps, but I really do feel like sending animals to their death would be a very Zapp Branigan level of Druid type.
Zapp Branigan isn't evil. He's just selfish and an idiot. And I do think he thinks all is actions are for the greater good. He's probably Neutral Good, despite the lacking results of his intentions.
On a side note, is the idea that animals are detecting traps with their senses, or that they are using the animals to trigger the traps? The first one seems reasonable for a druid of any alignment.
As for using animals to trigger the traps, Seems like that would be up to GM. Most non-magical traps should be design to not go off if they are trigger by a lesser creature, like with weights or tension. You'd need a small or medium animal, at the least. A magical trap could be reasonably designed to not trigger on animals or vermin, as animals and vermin are a reasonable parts of a dungeon.
My point is that I don't think using random animals to trigger traps is a very reliable method of detecting trap. I think if the GM runs the traps in this manner, the druid will stop using animals in such a way. And then you don't need to debate the morality of doing so.
Obviously, this is an issue with lots of table variation. People are going to draw a lot of different lines depending on how they interpret a druid revering nature and how that plays with putting an animal companion in danger - or a summoned animal, charmed animal, dominated animal, or any other variations on the theme.
Personally, I view animal companions less as a pet than an aspect of nature providing its servant with a defender. So I'm not particularly squeamish about animal companion death, and the same with summon nature's ally. That said, neither is necessarily sending one deliberately into a trap. To analogize, I'm not opposed to sending soldiers (even conscripts) into a war zone where they may be wounded or die, but forcing people to shuffle across a minefield to find the mines by happenstance crosses a major line. I feel much the same away about doing the same thing with a dominated animal - there's a line between reverent use and abuse and this crosses it.
I am sincerely shocked
this hasn't been locked.
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Internet nature is cruel and harsh. One can respect the Internet as a whole without respecting the stupid morality arguments that ensue.
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Druids, the next frontier of Paladin arguments.
Has anyone noted that dominating an animal to do something suicidal negates the spell? Even if a Rat doesn't know that running down a hall MAY be suicidal, the Druid does, and it's the Druid's intelligence that is guiding it. His exact thought process is "I don't want to go down this hall because there may be a trap that will harm or kill me".
So end result is, Rats say piss off and spell is negated.
On the morality issue, I wonder if the animal companion may be a good indicator of if this action would be against the druid code. Would the druid be willing to sacrifice his companion (or whatever benefit he gains from not having one) to accomplish this? I doubt it, and that tells me that using animals like this would probably offend whatever aspect of nature the Druid reveres. Instead of looking at it as "naughty" which is a concern for goodish druids, look at it as wasting or disrespecting the gifts they gain by revering nature.
So, while I believe an Evilish druid would send his animal companion into battle, I doubt they would use it as a mine sweeper, and I don't feel that Nature in whatever form would approve.
Wintersfury, that's pretty debatable. Here's the rule you're referencing:
Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out.
It depends entirely on how you interpret "obviously" (most would probably say "something the subject can identify as such"). Subject for another thread, of course.
Druids, the next frontier of Paladin arguments.
It's untamed wilderness!