Druid: Friend of Beasts and Birds
 

I think a cool way to make Druid play very distinct is to give them a spell "Befriend Animal" (which really is "Banish Animal" but befriending it sounds so much nicer). Then make all their damage spells do half damage to animals, and all debuffs last half as long on animals. Could also have a higher level Mass Banish Animal (Mass Befriend doesn't sound right).

When I've played a Druid it feels a bit off that my character is especially good at killing animals. This way the Druid would be especially good at avoiding fights with animals. But when the Druid does want to fight an animal, it would be better to shape-shift into an animal and fight it out as nature intended, which I think would also be cool, thematic and fun.

The balance implications are hard to guess at without defining these befriend spells more fully, but it seems like it would be very beneficial on the whole. One interesting implication is that when Sauron shape-shifts he becomes an animal.

There are a lot of animals, in case you are wondering, but they seem to thin out the deeper you go:

Time hounds are just playing...

Hounds of Tindalos really should be Evil, and probably have dark aura, as smoke emerges from the walls... (Yikes!)

I didn't want to bring this up again during the finalization of 4.2.2, but I think it's a really good idea. Anyone else love/hate it?

It could be a timed effect. The player is ignored by animals and swap position with them.

If damage is halved the befriend spell should be in the first book.

Oh, I meant "after adding this banish spell, change all the druid spells to half effect vs animals." A lot of them are double effect right now.

Why change spells to half effect? There's nothing wrong with having a 'friend to animals' putting hostile animals to sleep or slowing/confusing them. Reducing the effect of damaging spells to animals might be appropriate though.

That said, I do like the idea of a timed effect to make animals ignore the player as a druid (and be able to swap places with them).

While the effect is active, animals should not be damaged by the player. To avoid exploits against the most powerful animals.

To me, the best way to eliminate exploiting animals is to give a very effective banish animal spell. It's a draw; you don't get XP or treasure from them, and they can no longer help or harm you.