this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
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I'm pretty sure loads of other classes have alignment restrictions - notably clerics and paladins
Early d&d had the universe constructed as interlocking planes of law, chaos, good, and evil, with the world on the intersection of all those. That was the reason for heroes and monsters - they were touched by our created from one of the planes.
The world was a battleground between the planes, and alignment was your alignment to the planes, which side of each fight you were on. It has gotten weaker each version since
In 3.5 I usually play druids and usually neutral-good as I still have that old model in my head and if I'm not going to care about one axis, it's going to be law/chaos
I remember my D&D 3.x DM insisting we follow RAW, so if I wanted to take levels in assassin (who else remembers prestige classes?) then I had to be evil. 3 players went along, and the druid betrayed us to the "good" guys. Had a massive brawl where we (team evil) won, thanks in part to a hail mary "I run around the corner and hide. That's.. a natural 20 for 37" the betraying druid player couldn't beat.
Cleric alignment requesites go largely unnoticed by the player. staying within one step of diety is pretty easy, probably comes automatically to most people who would be interested in the class on the first place. Alignment gets complicated for them in considering if it's appropriate to cast magic circle or not or holy word or not. but usually it's safe to assume for those.
Paladin is responsible for I think almost all alignment hangups at the table. sure, there are others but not as often.
Druid probably would be because communicating the concept of neutrality is full of hangups but I think druids are pretty underplayed.
Indeed, the class has a few fans like me. I don't get why they're so unpopular, druids are powerful and probably more ~~broken~~ breakable than any of the basic classes (at least in 3.5)
Wild shape was hard to read as a new player. Full casters are intimidating too. I love them too but they're just hard to explain to newcommers.
There have been fan works online explaining how to be an effective druid, see also though the guide to being everything a how-to for the Master of Many Forms druid prestige class
5e druids are easier - as casters they are excellent for battlefield control, as wildshape users they are a front line thwackers almost on par with fighters
3.5e druids seem most optimised as summoners, with you controlling numerous summons, but also capable in utility, buff, and battlefield casting
In 3.5 I like to have a spreadsheet listing all the spells for each level and allowing selection of the correct number of spell slots, it's hard to manage on paper, especially when you're using several books
you probably have the same couple giantintheplayground pages saved that I do.
I used to follow that comic :) didn't save any though, not the sort of thing I do
there was a comic? I saved a bunch of summoning and wild shape cheatsheats. hold up maybe I'm thinking of something else and said the wrong place
edit: no wait it was Giantintheplayground. there was just a forum where people congregated guides for various ttrpgs. but I was being presumptuous
Hmm. Now I'm not sure, I'm probably confusing it with order of the stick
You're both right - Order of the Stick is the webcomic hosted at GitP. The site also hosts one of the more (possibly most?) active 3.5 discussion forums around these days, with lots of reference threads and class handbooks, rules discussions, and occasional people coming in for build or DM advice.
Entirely possible that's where I found How to be Everything
The class fantasy never appealed to me. They can be powerful, but I don't have any real interest in being a dirt wizard or turning into animals.
More of a rogue guy, or arcane caster if I can get over spells-per-day being my anathema.
You and everyone in my d&d group :) we're lucky enough to have one always wizard, one always rogue, one always cleric, over almost always druid, and two minmaxers