Knights & Knaves Alehouse

File this under the Never Really Noticed This Before category.

1e PHB wrote:The druid is a sub-class of clerics. They are the only absolute neutrals ...

Do you take this literally?

Yep.

I took it to mean they are the only absolute neutral clerics.

Agree. People (their "nature connection"/magic "I'm going to entangle the fuck out of you/mojo depends on it). The source of the druids magic is "absolute neutral" (ie. nature and trees, plants, animals) not so with a run of the mill neutral cleric who likely gets his religious connection by some combination of things including alignment (ie. a bit more leeway).

I once played a paladin who put a band of low-level Druids to the sword for admitting they'd deliberately seeded a forest with hemlock plants. When I pointed out to the druids the danger it posed to travelers who might not know better and accidentally ingest the plants their response was "eh, so what? The world is balanced, if they die they die if they don't they don't."

One brief trial and a few lengths of rope later...

I take it to mean that only druids can be absolutely neutral; other characters can be neutral with tendencies in various directions, but only druids have what it takes to be douchebags about their neutrality.

I take it as an early idea that may have worked in the early, generic cleric era, but was quickly disregarded once a little depth was added to the class.

thedungeondelver wrote:I once played a paladin who put a band of low-level Druids to the sword for admitting they'd deliberately seeded a forest with hemlock plants. When I pointed out to the druids the danger it posed to travelers who might not know better and accidentally ingest the plants their response was "eh, so what? The world is balanced, if they die they die if they don't they don't."

One brief trial and a few lengths of rope later...

Hahahaha


Dungeon Delver's Paladin Red Legs "there aint no end to doing good"! Thats the way we deal with tree huggers."

thedungeondelver wrote:I once played a paladin who put a band of low-level Druids to the sword for admitting they'd deliberately seeded a forest with hemlock plants. When I pointed out to the druids the danger it posed to travelers who might not know better and accidentally ingest the plants their response was "eh, so what? The world is balanced, if they die they die if they don't they don't."

One brief trial and a few lengths of rope later...

That's really funny. Who were the PCs - the paladin, the druids, or both?

outlander78 wrote:

thedungeondelver wrote:I once played a paladin who put a band of low-level Druids to the sword for admitting they'd deliberately seeded a forest with hemlock plants. When I pointed out to the druids the danger it posed to travelers who might not know better and accidentally ingest the plants their response was "eh, so what? The world is balanced, if they die they die if they don't they don't."

One brief trial and a few lengths of rope later...

That's really funny. Who were the PCs - the paladin, the druids, or both?

I was the Paladin. There was some kind of pilgrimage, I don't recall what it was (we only got to play one session of this guy's game sadly - it was an off week for everyone else save myself and my wife and one other player so he decided to run some AD&D and had an adventure planned but it never made it to session 2 as everyone else was there at the next game), but it required different religious orders to come to some big conclave. While we were on our journey I espied the aforementioned Druids doing their thing.

AxeMental wrote: Dungeon Delver's Paladin Red Legs "there aint no end to doing good"! Thats the way we deal with tree huggers."

"They were decently fed, they were decently tried and then they were decently hanged!"

thedungeondelver wrote:

AxeMental wrote: Dungeon Delver's Paladin Red Legs "there aint no end to doing good"! Thats the way we deal with tree huggers."

"They were decently fed, they were decently tried and then they were decently hanged!"

Hang 'em High?

TRP wrote:

thedungeondelver wrote:

AxeMental wrote: Dungeon Delver's Paladin Red Legs "there aint no end to doing good"! Thats the way we deal with tree huggers."

"They were decently fed, they were decently tried and then they were decently hanged!"

Hang 'em High?

Not this particular lot, no.

You denied them their pre-hanging ganga toke?

BlackBat242 wrote:You denied them their pre-hanging ganga toke?

Nope, they were babbling their protests right up to the end. Told 'em "If you didn't want to wind up like Chaotic Evils, you shouldn't have acted like Chaotic Evils."