Why aren't more druids seafarers? A druid would be an incredible resource for a sailing ship

that's the tightest shit I've ever heard

Play WFRP 2e.

More specifically, the party's been working as a trade ship's hired muscle for quite a while. One of the major NPCs on the ship is a somewhat low-level druid.
Their job includes:
>reading omens hey party that creepy girl who killed her father is bad news, don't bring her on the boat
>speaking to local wildlife (or seagulls while in port) about monster lairs, cursed places, etc
>makes sure that wizards don't sell the captain illusory gold again

That's not quite how it stacks. Each transformation gives you a new health pool, but you can't stack them. You get knocked out of bear form, take any overflow damage, and then turn right back into a bear again when your turn rolls around for a new health pool.

>>makes sure that wizards don't sell the captain illusory gold again
kek

Friendly reminder of pic related.

East Asia dn Oceania had waterproof armors made of rattan, leather and fish glue.

Although one could have metallic living equipment. Once you research enough oceanic life, you realize magic isn't necessary.

Most voyagers have a divine caster of some sort who's in good with the sea gods. They can be druids or acolytes or whatever.
It's just common sense.

In a setting i'm preparing, I have a crew of Druid Pirates protecting a sacred cove from anyone who enters the surrounding waters. They have a huge-ass Galleon that contains a specially bred symbiotic Kraken, that basically wears the Galleon like a shell. They also use primal magic to constantly produce a churning storm, using it protect and drive the ship forward. I'm not sure how I'm going to incorporate them into the Campaign I'm going to be running, but I really want to use them somewhere. I might have them shipwreck the party as an introduction.

ok that's great but
what about endless free supplies of perfectly pure water and nutritious food? or the ability to alter your course according to your will?

The druids would want to in the water as it would closer to nature and see boats as unnatural.

motherofgod.jpg

drag him behind the boat

Or he could ride fishes or something.

Because being on a boat means being mostly in touch with other humans and not animals.
It's not like druids care how useful they might be.

a typical european ship true

but for more polynesian styles of sailing I could see a druid being completely appropriate
especially if he's the tribe's resident mystic

This.

Also, boats are artificial environments, to a degree that even a city is more hospitable to life.

Pathfinder realized this a while ago during its run of Skull and Shackles AP.

Here are just the ship based druids from the NPC Codex book.

Sail Master (Human Druid 2) - Mastery of the wind and weather is a boon on any ship, and many northern druids thus serve as captains, navigators, and battle support.
Sea Captain (Halfling Druid 8) - With their ability to control and harness the powers of winds and storms, a number of druids become sea captains, using their abilities sometimes for trade and other times for piracy.

There are other sea druids, but they are such things as the Castaway, or the Island Defender.

Golarion features at least one prominent sea druid known as the Master of Gales (human druid 15), a pirate ship captain, council member of the Shackles Pirate Council, and mayor of Drenchport.

Other detailed NPCs include Captain Mase Darimar (CN male half-elf druid of Gozreh 8/fighter 4) aboard the vessel Wavecrest

On the Player's side there are several archetypes that a druid player can take specifically for ship based druiding: Tempest, storm, Shark shaman, and Aquatic.

In addition, besides druids making excellent ship based characters, clerics of the Pirate goddess Besmara are also good things to have.

are you aware of just how much sea life purposely attaches itself to ship hulls?

even today its a major issue

One of my first characters was a whale-riding sea druid, so I agree, definitely an underused and rad archetype.

This reminds me of Earthsea. One of the main jobs of wizards in that was to be a weatherworker. I say wizard, but they really are more Druids with how much they are into balance and nature spells.

>endless free supplies of perfectly pure water
That depends on which magic we're talking about. Such 'magic solves this' claims usually dismiss spell limitations and how much fresh water you need to sustain an entire crew. Until someone does some crunching I'll be skeptical.

For example, the 3.5 spell creates two gallons of water, that's enough for five crewmen a day, without any alcohol. (A 1710 spanish galleon issued three pints of water for each man). That alone means galleys won't bother with such spells.

The druid's knowledge might be much more useful than his magic: how to fish better, raising oranges on the ship, judge course through silt, birds and sea life etc. Enough understanding about nature might get you way to filter piss into drinkable water.

The problem is that basically necessitates a campaign set at sea, which doesn't happen often because of the additional considerations for the DM

Depends on edition.
5E's "Create or Destroy Water" generates 10 gallons and a level 1 Druid has two castings per day.
However, they can also cast Purify Food and Drink which purifies a 10 foot diameter sphere, rendering anything (digestible) within it edible/potable. So you can stack up as many barrels of rancid seawater as you can fit in that area and Purify them with the snap of your fingers. Easily several hundred gallons.

I was looking at the pathfinder spells when I made this thread. In PF Create Water is a cantrip. so, literally endless. and the 1st level Goodberry says it sustains you for an entire day.

>5E's "Create or Destroy Water" generates 10 gallons and a level 1 Druid has two castings per day.
Now we're talking, that sustains more than fifty people, so you can have a caravel expedition without worrying about water.

>However, they can also cast Purify Food and Drink which purifies a 10 foot diameter sphere, rendering anything (digestible) within it edible/potable. So you can stack up as many barrels of rancid seawater as you can fit in that area and Purify them with the snap of your fingers. Easily several hundred gallons.
Okay, the surgeon/doctor/biologist of crews just got fed to the sharks, druids are sought instead.

>PF Create Water is a cantrip. so, literally endless.
How much does it takes to cast it? We now need to know how much water a public druid produces within a 8 hour workday. Chances are it is cheaper than aqueducts.

Have them maintain a ship made of living wood.

We're largely talking about land animals though. Sea is teaming with life, but for humans, it's a rough existence without ample support.

>How much does it takes to cast it? We now need to know how much water a public druid produces within a 8 hour workday. Chances are it is cheaper than aqueducts.
2 gallons times caster level per 6 seconds, averaging to a third of a gallon per second for a level 1 druid.

According to the SRD, it only needs verbal and somatic components, so it costs nothing. and casting it is a standard action, which I think is ~5 seconds, so if a druid is doing nothing but casting Create Water for 8 hours a day, that's...

5,760 castings, producing 11,520 gallons of water a day.

Only one standard action per round, unless supplemented by Haste or some other effect (which is far greater magic than what we're working with), and a round is precisely 6 seconds.

9600 gallons for a level 1 druid working 8 hours straight never missing a beat.

btw that's close to 50 tons of water.

6 seconds? Oh, my bad. well that's still a shitload.

>tfw Create Water is the most overpowered druid spell ever

People in medieval conditions only need about 10 gallons of water a day, so a single cleric or druid can support the water needs of 959 other people.
A basic water cult could support even gigantic towns.

Because most DM's don't run water-based, water-adjacent or Pirate adventures.
Also, don't fall into the white room trap. Why would a druid willingly be a resource for a ship? Especially outside of a group of PC's?

Was it Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series that had a water mage be the only defense against kracken that fucked up shipping?
Because I always liked that idea.

>Why would a druid willingly be a resource for a ship? Especially outside of a group of PC's?
1. Druids are living people with their own desires. They can have jobs that they are paid for. Though they hold the traditional Old Faith, they are still allowed to have personal wants. Druids are not ascetics.
2. The ocean is as part of nature as anywhere else. It is acknowledged, however, that druids prefer to defend lands from despoilers, and the ocean is rather hard to despoil. There are still the rare water-aligned clerics, though, who love the pristine beauty of the sea.
3. This task is equally handled by clerics, who could be religiously motivated to aid travelers, voyagers, or just worship the sea gods and want to live on a boat.

(me)
Meant to say water-aligned druids in #2 and didn't notice. Whatever.

>sailing trees

i can dig it.

Yep.

>ships can range in size from roughly boat-shaped dirt clods with a single tree to juggernauts holding literal forests
>The boats are in all senses alive and can manifest ent-like avatars to communicate their status, desires, and will with the captain
>There are even rumors of a ghost vessel "the Old Man" composed of bone white, dead birches that haunts the misty sea