ACF: Crowd-Walker
Certain individuals are comfortable among the throngs of citizens in even the most densely packed city. They know how to maneuver deftly through such environs without impediment.
Class: Druid or ranger.
Level: 2nd (druid) or 7th (ranger).
Replaces: If you select this class feature, you do not gain woodland stride.
Benefit: When moving through a crowd, the crowd-walker moves at her normal rate, rather than requiring two squares of movement for every square as is normal. In addition, light debris does not impede her movement, and she treats heavy debris as light debris. Any other sort of rough terrain impedes her normally, however.
ACF: Go to Ground
Just as most druids and scouts have an almost supernatural ability to avoid being tracked in the wild, so too have others learned to blend in so fully with the urban throng that nobody remembers their passage.
Class: Druid or scout.
Level: 3rd.
Replaces: If you select this class feature, you do not gain trackless step.
Benefit: When you choose to "lay low," you become all but impossible to find without magical means. All attempts to find you with Urban Tracking simply fail outright.
ACF: Iron Constitution
Natives to the worst and filthiest areas of the city have to contend with stenches and illnesses of a sort rarely found in the wild, yet some have become so inured that they are all but immune.
Class: Druid.
Level: 4th.
Replaces: If you select this class feature, you do not gain resist nature's lure.
Benefit: The druid gains Strong Stomach as a bonus feat, even if she does not meet the prerequisites. If she already has this feat, she may instead choose any feat for which she does meet the prerequisites.
In addition, the druid gains a +2 bonus on saves against disease.
NEW FEAT: Strong Stomach [General] (Cityscape 64)
You have greater Resilience to illness and foul odors than most people.
Prerequisites: Con 13, Endurance.
Benefit: You reduce the effects of sickening and nausea by one step. You cannot become nauseated. If you are exposed to an effect or condition that would normally make you nauseated, you become sickened instead. If an effect or condition would normally sicken you, that effect is negated.
ACF: Skilled City-Dweller
The various wilderness-oriented skills are valuable indeed, but make less sense — and may prove less useful — for an urban character.
Class: Any class that has one or more of the "skills replaced," as listed below, on its list of class skills.
Level: 1st.
Replaces: If you select this class feature, you do not gain the "skills replaced" as listed below.
Benefit: The skilled city-dweller gains one or more skills as class skills, at the expense of other skills. If she does not have the proper skill to lose, she cannot gain the skill it grants as an urban benefit.
Note that she need not swap out all these skills. A skilled city-dweller may pick and choose, but she cannot later change her mind.
| Skilled City-Dweller | |
|---|---|
| Skill Gained | Skill Replaced |
| Gather Information | Handle Animal |
| Knowledge (local) | Knowledge (nature) |
| Sense Motive | Survival |
| Tumble | Ride |
- note- skill trade for Knowledge (Nature) to Knowledge (Local) is unnecessary given how the knowledge skill functions in Therafim.
ACF: Urban Sense
Druids native to the sprawling city master a widely differing range of skills than their wilderness-based counterparts.
Class: Druid.
Level: 1st.
Replaces: If you select this class feature, you do not gain nature sense.
Benefit: She gains a +2 bonus on Knowledge (local) checks and Sense Motive checks.
The Purpose
The purpose of these alternate class features is for the benefit of creating a more city oriented druid. A lot of these class features can also be applied for Rangers/Scouts/ and even some other classes that are nature based skills wise for more urban skill sets. One of which requires the allowance of a feat from cityscape (pg 64) as it is granted as a bonus feat in exchange for another class ability. I think this would add to not only the options for druid for both background but also for role in the party, allowing them to become more of a spokesperson in addition to their other abilities as a spell-caster. And, if flushed out properly in background and personality, can make for some very interesting "watch-dog" type druids as well.
There were More:
There are and were more urban related druid Alternate Class Features I was interested, but none that I could personally guarantee that I would use until I approach the levels that the replaced abilities come up at… as well I am unsure I want to play a "fully urban" druid at this point and myself am aiming for a more half and half style druid… a meeting ground between urban residents and naturalist classed characters/npcs.
"One should make his decisions within the space of seven breaths…With an intense, fresh and undelaying spirit, one will make his judgments within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break right through to the other side." — Hagakure
