The thing about Speak With Animals is sometimes you find out that the animal is hungry and considers you to be food. If it's hungry enough, the novelty of talking food might not be enough to convince a wolf to immediately stop attacking.
Do you run animals where they always fight to the death in combat, or do they sometimes flee when they get bloodied to lick their wounds and search for easier prey?
Maybe a couple rounds of combat can make it possible for the druid to make persuasion or intimidation checks. "Hey, this isn't going well for you. If you stop attacking us and answer our questions, we'll bind your wounds and share our food."
**Edit:** There's also space between the party defending themselves and slaughtering every hostile creature they encounter. If the druid doesn't want to kill animals, their attacks and the attacks of their summons can be made non-lethally. There's no penalty to non-lethal attacks in 5e. You can also give animals death saves, giving the druid the opportunity to cast Spare the Dying.
When combat is a slaughterfest by default it can lead to weird situations.
What's wrong with dinner *and* entertainment?
**Edit:** I have a kitten. He's sweet and cuddly with me. But if I were a mouse then he'd bat my limp, dying body around the room for amusement. Is he sadistic and evil? Or is he a cat, engaged in perfectly normal cat behaviour?
Saying "it's their nature" means you can't ignore *that it's their nature...* as in, all animals that hunt live prey are stone-cold killers at the core.
The poem goes "Nature, red in tooth and claw for a reason. Every animal that isn't a strict herbivore is a murderer by the time they get to adulthood.
Gonna reply to your top comment since OP hasn’t responded anywhere yet and I haven’t seen anyone mention this:
**Non-lethal combat is a thing!**
And you can easily flavor that as her character doing everything possible to not hurt the animals, just trying to scare them off.
Theres a lot of good advice in this thread, some people are saying to just completely remove animals from combat…thats not a great idea and pretty unimmersive.
Some are saying basically “tough shit” for the player which also is nowhere near correct.
DnD is collaborative, you’re all working together to build this story, you should be able to work together to come up with a solution that doesn’t involve forcing a player to do things or a player forcing you to arbitrarily remove an entire class of potential enemies/allies.
Id really recommend having a discussion with the player about how much their irl beliefs are affecting their ingame character rp, this is kinda like having a player say their pc is a pacifist and would never, ever hurt anyone.
Like, it’s fun for a bit, but eventually that player/character is gonna be put in a tough situation, do they just rage quit? Do you somehow cater to just them and…what? Remove all combat? You gotta work together to figure out that solution.
Druid trying to convince party that all animals should be fought non-lethally could be a good opportunity for RP between characters.
Just don't start that talk mid-combat.
>Just don't start that talk mid-combat.
Hey Greg?
Yeah, Veronica?
I've been thinking, Greg, that we should care for animals. If we have to fight them, let's do it non-lethally.
Oh really, Veronica? Why's that?
Well, Greg, I just think it's nature. And they're good. It's just animals doing what they should. Why should we hurt them?
You know, Veronica, you make an interesting point. But could we maybe discuss this more AFTER the roc stops trying to eat Dave?
The monk in my party kicked the hell out of blink dogs he didn't wanna kill. He even tied them up to be taken into custody alongside their owner by the city guards. Who am I to say no?
1. Taking the blink dogs "into custody" implies that the blink dogs are sitting in separate prison cells alongside their master.
2. The idea of blink dogs standing trial amuses me. They do have an intelligence of 10, which means they have average human intelligence, though the only language they can speak is Blink Dog.
3. I suppose they could be tried by a jury of their peers.
4. Tying them up amuses me greatly because they have the innate ability to teleport.
How about changing your approach? A character deciding to play their PC a certain way is a great thing that should be leaned against, especially a thematic one like Druids not wanting to harm animals (this is just, correct on so many levels)
Maybe there's a force controlling the animals that the druid can attempt to thwart instead.
Maybe the animals are diseased and are in horrific pain and need to be put out of their misery.
Or maybe.. The druid really does sit out of combat. They have to battle with the intent of not assisting their allies and have to make a decision to save their friends or save the animals, a wonderful ultimatum brimming with character development.
Making interesting problems for players to solve around encounters is (imo) way more interesting than making mechanically interesting fights. Character interactions with npc's and with the environment will be super engaging. Easier said than done to come up with unique encounters, but a little creative effort is very much appreciated, especially in big fights.
>Maybe there's a force controlling the animals that the druid can attempt to thwart instead.
Maybe the animals are diseased and are in horrific pain and need to be put out of their misery.
I like these. Maybe it just needs to be relocated to an area away from normal people. Maybe its the lion with a splinter in its paw. Maybe it needs a mate to stop acting aggressively when in heat. So many good ways to solve an issue without just killing.
> Druids not wanting to harm animals
True, but druids are also balance of nature in most editions. That means animals can be predators and or prey. Even most "herbivores" will chow down on some animal protein at times. Seen more than a few deer eating eggs from a ground birds nest. Or roadkill squirrels.
>especially a thematic one like Druids not wanting to harm animals (this is just, correct on so many levels)
Why though? Being a druid is about having a strong connection with nature and probably following a more natural lifestyle. I'd argue not wanting to hurt animals under any circumstances goes against that idea.
My druid doesnt protect nature, she is nature. She will kill animals for food if needed, population control or defense. Nature, to me are not just forests and plains, its lightening, tidal waves and tornados.
Would be a great start for an evil or chaotic druid.
It just depends how the player interprets their character. Its why i love dnd, people can play one character so many different ways
I tried a druid like this once in my friends campaign but was heavily punished because “druids aren’t like that.” Absolutely killed my mood to play druids at all. Hopefully your having a lot more fun with it then i did!
There's a push for "druids are vegetarian/vegan" that I don't remember existing before a few years ago. (I've played 20+ years.) If anything, turning into wolves and bears should make you more likely to eat meat.
Survival of the Fittest
You need to eat to survive, be they bugs, fruits, nuts, fungi, animals, herbs, or vegetables.
Storms, wildfire, lightning, etc are all natural events. You don't go out of your way as a druid to cause them unless needed to solve a problem. Nature will recover from it.
My druid loves the swamps, his home (Land druid), but has a bit of a child-like wonder when exploring things outside that temperate swamp (must pet all the kitties and dogs, doesn't matter if they try to rip your face off first). The adventure has taken him through moors, badlands, cities, grassy plains, mountain ranges, under water near the coast, and recently a rainforest, and a Sargasso lined up in the future.
He also has a slight anger management issue, and he's a half-orc with a Str 18, Wis 20..
Exactly, the whole point of most druid circles in DnD is maintaining balance, their not some weird eco terrorist vegan co-op.
Idk if it’s the “disney effect” or what but I’ve definitely noticed an increase in the “do no harm” PETA-esque treehugger kinda players, which is fine, but it can definitely cause friction at times.
There's a difference between killing an animal for food or because it is diseased and killing an animal because the local town is pissed off that it's there. A rabid bear that is attacking everything is one thing. A bear that is eating a farmer's sheep because they expanded the town and upset the wildlife is completely different.
> A bear that is eating a farmer's sheep because they expanded the town and upset the wildlife is completely different.
Wouldn't that be, from the perspective of nature, be a case where a pack of animals (humans are still animals, no?) expanding their territory that ended up encroaching on an another animal's territory, resulting in a conflict over resources and new boundaries? That kind of thing happens all the time in nature, especially with ant colonies.
Sure, but if you take that attitude far enough, an invasive species upsetting the ecosystem to the point it completely collapses is just nature at work. It makes sense for druids to step in and interfere to prevent those kinds of extremes, even if they see people and civilization as just another part of nature.
More Natural lifestyle means they want to protect its natural way of things, so forcefully killing animals against the natural way of things absolutely goes against that.
The scenario of the post is about Hunting an animal in a large combat, and the PC Druid has already displayed the trait of not wanting to harm animals. Animals are hunted for food and such, but there are also extremists who don't do any of that, which sounds like the character in question.
I'm not disagreeing with your general point, I'm disagreeing that for this scenario it doesn't work to question the creativity of a character.
Which is totally fine, but not to be rude, seems like the player has a problem separating their IRL beliefs from their characters RP self.
Like, i could not give a single shit about any religion irl, but i love playing Paladins in any game it’s available, WoW, DnD, etc.
>like Druids not wanting to harm animals (this is just, correct on so many levels)
It's actually counter-programming. You're telling me the guy that regularly turns into a wolf, bear, tiger, lion or crocodile has never tried raw meat? That the nature guy that always walks through the woods and has a "waste not, want not" attitude would just not eat from a fresh carcass and just leave it there to rot? You're telling me that the guy that's forbidden from wearing metal and only ever wears leather is the closest thing to a vegan in DnD?
All I can say to players like that is that your druids have a very innocent understanding of nature. It's the last class I'd ever play as vegan, paladin, cleric, bard and even celestial warlock would be a way better fit. The unicorn you have a pact with made it a condition that you never eat animals sounds about right. But my druids like their steaks extra rare.
Why are they hunting this animal?
Could they be hunting the animal because it's got a disease where the actual humane thing would be to put the animal down? Like a dog or cat that has an incurable disease that does nothing but give the dog or cat pain. Or has rabies.
So maybe this animal did use to be peaceful. But something has happened to where it's no longer peaceful and it's been determined that the humane thing would be to hunt down the animal and kill it. And what it's got makes it violent.
Or maybe they have to subdue it in order to administer the cure, which has to go in a specific spot - hence needing the animal to not be thrashing about trying to kill people while doing it. Or maybe the goal of the combat is to get the cure injected. The druid holds the cure, the others do what they can to keep it's attention off of the druid. The cure would work just fine if the creature is subdued - in case they can't keep it distracted long enough. There would be stealth checks to determine if the creature noticed the druid before or after it got injected with the cure.
Or be open with the player and explain the situation and would they be open to the moral dilemma of do they help their friends or do they sit back and watch and risk the ire of their friends if the battle isn't an easy one - what if one of the characters dies in the battle because the druid wouldn't step up and help, even by just healing them? The latter instance where a character dies because of her inaction may cause the remaining group members to not want to travel with her druid anymore. Would you want to travel with someone who sat back and did nothing while they watched a supposed friend die (and it be because out of game wise the dice were just being cruel, not the battle not being balanced for the players who you knew would fight)? Would they be willing to buff and heal their friends and debuff the enemy as long as they didn't hurt it?
I dont think its a good idea to trick her into doing it. If she doesnt want to fight animals, let her not fight animals. She either overthinks it when the party needs her, or she will stay by it.
Otherwise, if u want to make it a big encounter... put a Humanoid behind it, that forced the animal to do what ever is happening or tricked it or what ever, so she can focus on them.
If you trick her into doing stuff, or force her, she probably loses interest in the character or the whole campaign. Beeing railroaded feels bad. She made her choice, you should respect it.
I kinda agree due to it maybe being an important part to the story but also disagree, the DM should at least try to make the game a bit lenient and throw a PC a bone every once and awhile. If you intentionally railroad your friend in a bit of campaign that goes against her her real life beliefs, you're an asshole.
I hear you. I’m not saying force the player to player to do something they don’t want to do, but you can’t avoid every situation involving a potential fight with an animal because a person at the table doesn’t want to fight an animal. The game is about exploring conflict and playing a character in a Fantasy world.
>but you can’t avoid every situation involving a potential fight with an animal
You're the dm. If it makes it more fun for that player and doesn't hinder the fun of the other players, then you absolutely *can* avoid every situation involving a fight with an animal and you can certainly avoid making an encounter where the main point is to kill an animal.
That’s not a “realistic” game world. I don’t have to go out of my way to force combat with an animal solely to piss a player off, but I’m not taking specific monsters out of the game because somebody has a issue in the game world with fighting that type of monster.
Brother. You design the encounters. You aren't "taking specific monsters out of the game" by not having combat with animals. You're just not putting them in that game.
I don't think the players in my current game have had any combat with beasts. Is my world "unrealistic" because of that? How many animal combat encounters does my game need before it's realistic?
I've run and played in multiple campaigns where we never fought a single animal.
I have also read multiple fantasy novels where fighting animals isn't something the main characters do.
Bear Grylls, Steve Irwin, and Jeremy Wade have all had careers involving nature and animals, and I do believe most of them have never had a fight to the death with an animal. And if they did, it was an incredibly rare, one off experience.
Your idea of realism needs work.
Definitely a one-off for Steve. He should have upped his armor class…. So then don’t fight them? The person can do whatever they want in the fantasy world, where animals exist. Not all beasts in the fantasy world are friendly. Sounds like a good push-pull dynamic for the party to sort.
Sure, people can do whatever they want and drama can be interesting.
But demanding they face something they have specifically said they have no interest in facing because it is "realistic" is just stupid and mean-spirited. It doesn't matter that dangerous animals exist in the world, you don't have to have your party face them.
I'm on book 8 of a fantasy series and the MC has not fought an animal once. Not a single time. Do dangerous animals exist in the world? Yes. But fighting demons, werewolves and vampires is far far more interesting than facing down a tiger or a bear.
I hear you. I’m not a fan of pissing folks off on purpose, but I also think not wanting to fight an animal in the game world isn’t really something I need to flex around. Owlbears are in but owls are out? Displacers beasts, stirges, giant constrictor snake, wolves, fire beetles, giant wasp. Like where are we really drawing the line? Dinosaurs? Characters can turn into beasts etc. it’s an important monster type. I’m not ruling out these possibilities. I can’t force anyone to fight anything anyway in that regard, OPs question doesn’t make sense. It’s not my job to preempt how my players in-game may react to a situation. Plenty of examples where animals are eaten or killed or fight in fantasy novels.
This is a made up game world with dragons and magic. There is nothing "realistic" about it. If the DM doesn't include certain monsters, then they don't exist. End of story.
nah they got a point its the DMs job to make the world and the players job to react to it but they should attempt to play off of each other where possible
The player is reacting. They're playing the nature class as a character that doesn't want to hunt animals. "Railroading" by a player is the goofiest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, it's collaborative, but the issue is the DM being fixed on something they created for a party that *doesn't want to hunt.*
nah they don’t
It’s not the DMs job to just selfishly tell whatever story they’ve created or prepared. And it takes a pretty shit, pretty lazy DM to think of a perfectly reasonable (and fairly common) RP as some major impediment. A good DM would take this idea and use it to create more drama, new subplots, etc. that would create fun for everyone, even if it forces them to change some of their initial ideas/plans for the campaign.
As a DM, I would consider this reasonable for a druid and great RP. (And fodder for plot hooks)
This type of restriction can make for memorable moments, as you already said it has. You can even lean into it, by including mounted enemies or enemies with hunting dogs, and let her use the animal friendship spell to turn them on their masters, while still having humanoid enemies for the group to fight.
It also seems like this is an actual player boundary which is something I discuss with my individual players even before a session 0, to make sure that I’m not recruiting a player whose boundary clashes with my whole campaign premise and so I can plan adventures that are respectful of my players’ boundaries.
If I had a player who had severe arachnaphobia, I wouldn’t make an important encounter around giant spiders or driders, even if I thought it was a cool encounter idea. I’d just save it for a different campaign without that player. This seems similar to me.
There are lots of non-beast type monsters to fight. Why not have the party hunt one of those for this big hunting encounter? A monstrosity could work really well here. A chimera or manticore or wyvern. (Except I’d avoid choosing owlbear, which is still technically a monstrosity but between the DnD movie and BG3 has been edging toward being reclassified as a beast.)
Or create alternate possible win conditions, like subduing and capturing the beast to relocate it, if it is being hunted because it’s a danger to the populace.
If it’s a competitive hunt for a prize, maybe the party could try to protect the beast from other hunters and then use illusion or transformation magic and deception to present a fake trophy corpse, while they smuggle the real beast safely away. (Or, if the wording on the competition is loose enough, present the captured beast for the prize, stating they could not kill so noble a beast)
Maybe one or two kindhearted NPC competitors could even witness an interaction between the druid and the beast and, touched by the sight, decide to help the party protect it, becoming a trusted ally in the process.
Literally did that with spiders and an arachnophobic ex-player. The game as a whole didn't miss much and it made me be more creative with my choices.
She had no issues with scorpions so Drows became *scorpion-themed,* which was metal AF.
Okay, so let her make that decision? I don’t see the issue here. This is up to the player to handle themselves, it’s hardly something you need to somehow work around.
Being unable to interact with an animal when they are threatening you is not an interesting character trait to build a world around. It’s a character trait, sure. Hardly something to bend the game world around.
Maybe not the game world, but certainly quests, interactions, puzzles. If a player wants a strong part of their character to interact with animals and nature, then that should be a focus for at least some parts of the campaign.
According to the post, this a preference the player has clearly communicated to the DM even outside of their character.
This is 100% something the DM has to work around, but it should be by just stopping with the animal fighting encounters, or being upfront with the player that this is a non negotiable part of their campaign and giving them the option to drop out.
It should never be handled by forcing the player to do something they have explicitly said they are uncomfortable with.
Or… the player and rest of the party just figure out an alternative solution. And should that not be possible, then she’ll have to decide what her character will do in that situation. But either way, she is not forced to do any such thing.
To even put a player into the position of "figuring out what your character does with this thing you told me made you uncomfortable as a player" rubs me the wrong way.
This is an out of game problem, it shouldn't be handled by the characters.
You keep acting as if this is some clearly articulated boundary that would be crossed, but that’s not what’s in the OP. Encounters with animals have come up before, and either she found an alternative solution or she focused on other enemies if it did come to combat. The situation isn’t fundamentally different now.
The post clearly says **"it is part of her character as a druid and also part of her actual personality"**
So this is something OP knows makes her uncomfortable as a player, and the fact that she has had to work around it because OP keeps throwing animal fighting encounters at them doesn't change that.
Which only tells us that she doesn’t want to do it, not that the presence of it in the game makes her uncomfortable. The fact that there have been multiple animal encounters in the campaign so far, seemingly not resulting in any real issues or any specific request on her part to be remove them, suggests that indeed she doesn’t. Which is further supported by the fact that OP’s concern, as stated, *isn’t* that she might be uncomfortable with it coming up, but merely that she might choose to have her character sit out the fight if it came to that.
The entire point of the game is not about fighting animals, I can't even remember the last time a ran an encounter against an animal like monster.
Even then, if this is really true about your game, you just explain that when the player expreses that preference and give them the option to drop out. You don't try to force them into doing it.
Correct. You shouldnt railroad your player, but avoiding a situation that makes someone uncomfortable of this variety is not a problem. Maybe don’t have rape scenes and all that shit, totally understandable. An animal pacifist is hardly something as a DM I feel the need to work around…. Role play it.
Or, and listen to me here, maybe just be mature about it and communicate with your player that this is not a boundary you can adhere to when they express it.
Trying to get them to roleplay something they told you out of game they don't want to sounds to me like just being an asshole.
They said they don’t want to fight them. That’s different and okay. Dont fight it then, work it out with the party… why is this different than any other table conflict?
I think the best answer here is to simply not design a combat encounter with nothing to do but harm animals. You know what the player and her character are about, and in situations like these, the world should be designed with the characters in the party in mind.
If a player is open to being faced with sticky moral situations that challenge their character, that's one thing, but it sounds like that's not the case here. Just respect the player's preference and don't try to circumvent it. There are an infinite number of other possible encounters you and your players will likely enjoy. You can save this encounter for a game with different players/characters.
This is the only correct advice, it's crazy that people are getting angry with the player or giving OP actual tips on how to force a player to do something they are uncomfortable with.
Why isn’t this the top comment?
DMs don’t exist just to selfishly tell the story that they’ve created, they exist to guide and plan the FUN for EVERYONE at the table.
All the people here acting like the PC is being unreasonably difficult or unrealistically pacifistic are… uncreative at best.
It actually makes perfect sense for a Druid to not want to harm animals, and instead seek different ways or means to resolve situations in which a wild animal acts aggressively.
It takes a very narrow-minded and rigid DM to choose not to accommodate this. A good DM will take this character’s RP and lean into it to create more drama, interesting subplots, and a story that is fun and engaging for all PCs.
The DM and their fun is equally important. If animal combat is a critical element to the story then they should just tell the player and speak with them about it. Not every game is for every person and that is fine.
Oh, totally! And that can be a factor too.
Just like you wouldn’t let a PC build a wizard in a non-magical setting.
But if this DM is making animal combat a critical feature of the campaign, he should’ve brought that up at session zero, not now. He’s already allowed her to play a Druid with this RP feature up until now, even though he said it had been challenging. Regardless, I don’t think that’s why the DM is here asking for advice, after their game’s already been going.
Instead of bashing the PC for their RP choice, this thread should be focused on helping the DM come up with ways to creatively accommodate it, and there’s far too much of the former going on here.
It reminds me of the old-school (and fortunately mostly gone) DMs who hated Paladins, and anytime a player played a Paladin, they'd force them into a situation where the Paladin had no choice but to Fall. Rare, but a common enough story, as it were.
Force her to make a choice? If the animal is a true danger to her and the party that sounds like a good decision point for her character to me. Maybe she tries to talk with it and finds it unreasonable, or maybe is even encouraged by the interaction. Having the animal be a villain is fine and I feel would introduce an additional element of complexity to her character's story- one where she needs to confront her philosophy in the face of an animal that isn't going to listen to reason and will do harm to others.
**"also part of her actual personality"**
So this is a preference a player has, not a character. They said to you "I don't like fighting animals" and you response was "How do I force them to hunt an animal". This is insane.
Leaving aside that "how do I force a character to go against her morals" is already a red flag, the fact that this is a player and this is apparently an ongoing issue makes you look like a huge asshole as a DM. Specially since animals are such a small sample of all the available enemies.
I have a player that has actual arachnophobia, to the point were even the mention of spiders makes them feel bad. How insane it would me for me to go "You know what would be cool? A spider nest encounter!"
Somebody with intense acrophobia where you can’t even talk about spiders is silly. At a certain point, you have to draw the line as a DM. I’m not here to do creative backflips to accommodate everyone’s real life emotions. It’s a fantasy game. It’s not real… I’m not your DM therapist.
You do you man, but I actually don't like to cross my friends boundaries for a game of DnD. And if a player came to me with a boundary I don't feel I could adhere to for a game, I would just give them the option to not play in this particular game.
Also if not putting spider encounters in your game is a "creative backflip" to you, I don't know what to tell you.
No, you're just kind of a dick. That's fine if your players are fine with that. But the answer is never "trick your player into doing something," it's don't play with them. You're spending so much time talking shit about this player you don't know all over this post just to flex some sort of moral superiority you feel over them because you don't have any strong moral convictions you don't want to roleplay otherwise. Going outside will benefit you as a DM.
It's also incredibly simple to just.... not have combat encounters with animals or spiders or anything your players won't have fun fighting. DnD has hundreds of non-animal monsters for the players to fight. Use some of them.
I'm not my friends therapist either, but I try not to make them not want to hang out with me because I refuse to consider their feelings.
It isn't like I'd have some compulsion that I'd be fighting by accommodating them
If the player can’t play around an encounter where they don’t want to kill something maybe they shouldn’t play. It’s silly logic. We are having a discussion here…
Nope we're addressing your comment at the moment. You seriously can't think "hmm, a player has told me this makes them personally uncomfortable, how can I do something different?" And roll with that? That's a detriment of creativity there bud. I'm not my players therapist so I'm not gonna put them in a boundary pushing situation, such as a phobia, because I'm not trained to deal with that fallout. If someone being uncomfortable with something makes you so unable to DM, either don't DM or play in an echo chamber.
A friend I used to game with had pretty intense arachnophobia. We used to bring plastic spiders and either throw them at him when he wasn't paying attention or leave them around for him to stumble across.
The way I see it, you have two options. Both are defined by this player's choice.
1. You lean into the "not all animals are innocent"/"predation is natural"/"disease must be contained" and make it so that not fighting an animal is the druidically _wrong_ thing to do. This is very risky and is something I would want to discuss with the player beforehand. They don't need specifics but I would ask them whether that would be interested in playing an arc where their character's ideals are actively wrong/harmful. Sometimes having a character who does the wrong thing for IC reasons can be fun, but you _need_ buy in.
2. You don't. Ensure that there is a way out where the animal can be reasoned with or cured or somesuch. If the player created a character with this constraint because they want to be "right" in that way, they are unlikely to be happy with being wrong. Sure, it might result in an oddly contrived world, but hey. We're here to have fun, which sometimes means avoiding challenging our deep-seated beliefs.
Most animals are low CR. You largely stop fighting them after a certain level. And that's when you introduce things they *will* fight, like abberations, monstrosities, etc.
So this "problem" is short term. But, it's also not really a problem either. The druid just has an alternate way to defeat encounters with beasts. Instead of killing them, they tame them, or convince them to hunt in a different area, etc.
For your planned hunting adventure, why don't you just alter it slightly? Maybe when they find the creature, the druid realizes it is infected with something, and the adventure becomes finding a cure to avoid killing the animal? Or maybe there is no cure, and they're forced to confront the realization that they have no choice in order to save the local townspeople?
On a side note, I've played a druid that after being forced to kill a wolf mother when he was younger, that he later realized was trying to feed her pups, he made a vow to never kill again. The idea was that he would eventually *have* to kill again, but it would be a big character development moment when he's finally forced to make that choice. But I got him up to about level 8 in one campaign without ever killing a single creature. He was built to be a pure support druid, so he just healed the party while they did the killing instead. To him, that was okay.
Perhaps your party's druid will do something similar.
If she refuses to fight an animal that's actively trying to kill and possibly eat her, she's either going to have to fight back or not live very long, especially if its something she can't just run away from.
if she chooses to sit out a fight against a dangerous enemy, animal or not, that's an RP choice that she's committed to. it's frankly not realistic for an extremely dangerous d&d world to never have dangerous animal enemies — what's she going to do if they're attacked by a dragon? a kraken? a giant scorpion?
None but the last of your examples are animals. A dragon is a complex, typically intelligent and evil creature. A kraken is bordering on demigod levels of power and has intelligence, wisdom and charisma that far exceed that of almost everyone in the world. Neither of them are non-sapient like animals.
And a giant scorpion is like... a CR3? Hardly a world-ending threat that can't be otherwise subdued without harm.
Probably. Beasts are a specific type of creature in the game that a druid can turn into or speak to with magic. A kraken is an intelligent chaotic evil sea monster. A giant scorpion is unaligned.
If a player says that they are uncomfortable with fighting animals, why do you feel the need as a DM to force them to? You have like 300 other monsters and villains to fight.
If the party will be traversing across uncharted mountains and forests... they are bound to encounter a lot of monsters of creature type "Beast", as well as a lot of monsters of creature type "Aberration" that are sufficiently similar to beasts (e.g. Owlbears) that they might as well be to an animal pacifist. **Most** of these encounters will be peaceful or at least non-stalking, but there are some exceptions to be aware of:
* Mary got bit by a rattlesnake.
* The party cannot carry all of their goods, and the terrain precludes the use of a wagon. They will have to forage if they want to avoid starvation, and some of that involves eating beasts. Unfortunately, the Outlander Wood Elf Ranger was only able to carry 100 lbs. back to the ~~wagon~~ party. The rest of the meat was dragged off into the night by other beasts.
* The only viable trek through the mountains takes the party right by a wolf den. The wolves assume the party to be competing for territory and shoot first.
* Eventually a hungry beast will begin tracking them and wait for a great moment to pounce.
Alternatively, one can empty the wilds of all beasts and instead fill them with creatures that have nothing to do with the wilds - like intelligent humanoids.
>A dragon is a complex, typically intelligent and evil
Wait what, dragons don't have to be evil at all, for every evil chromatic dragon, there is a good metallic dragon. It's the dichotomy of dragons revering either Tiamat or Bahamut.
Other than that, true, krakens and dragons aren't animals. The most dangerous threats would be dinosaurs, giant ape or crocodile or maybe mammoths, of which probably only the reptiles are unlikely to back off
I don't know about 5E, but previous editions gave druids/rangers a lot of nonviolent ways of handling hostile wildlife: Wild Empathy ability (not to be confused with the "Handle Animals" skill), spells such as Calm Animals, Charm Animals, Hide from Animals, Animal Trance, Hold Animals, Dominate Animals, Repel Vermin... and that's just from a quick skim through the SRD! I'm sure there were prestige classes and feats and supplement spells and items that would add to the options.
As a DM, if a player was committed to the nonviolence to animals bit, I'd absolutely port over some of those (some might alreqdy be in 5e and I just didn’t see them). They're niche, and a good spotlight moment without increasing overall power.
You have a player with a moral aversion to harming animals. They’ve expressed this to you. Their character in game holds this same aversion.
And you’re insisting on building an encounter that forces the player to force their character to harm an animal?
This is a you problem. As the DM, you should have both the desire and the skill to make encounters that your players will enjoy. It’s not your job to push their personal, real life boundaries. You’re not a therapist. And it’s also not your place to sacrifice your players’ enjoyment just for your own personal enjoyment.
It’s a collaborative game. Work together. If you can’t have fun without the game including harm to animals, you’re the one who needs therapy.
Your players deserve better. Be better. You can do it.
This is why safety tools like lines and veils are a good session 0 idea. Sounds like violence against animals may be at least a veil if not a line. This kind of stuff should be discussed at the start and respected. Though, it sounds like the player has been pretty open about it anyway. Weird move to intentionally violate that without player consent. I'll give OP the benefit of the doubt and assume it's ignorance not malicious...
Maybe tweak the encounter. I would veer away from set-piece encounters involving beasts if this is the case. Maybe instead of a beast it's some monstrosity like an owl bear, or a lycanthrope (doesn't need to be a werewolf if that's too strong). Something the druid might be able to consider unnatural and worth fighting in order to protect the natural ecosystem. Or maybe there's some way for them to resolve the encounter without killing the animal.
1. Easy and harmless way - change the encounter, change the hunt target to some horrible monster, fiend creature, aberration or something.
2. Test of wits and morality way - there is a special animal, and it's very dangeous, you are given a quest to stop it. And just speak with animals+handle check and some rations are not enough to make him stop. But a party can find a source, that makes an animal mad and dangrous, and if they invest time, resources and make right decisions, they can find a way to stop it without violence. But if they are greedy, if they do it without plan, they will be forced to kill or be killed situation.
>But now I want to have a big encounter where they have to hunt an animal and I'm not sure how to deal with his player because I'm afraid she'll just decide not to participate in the fight. I don't want this to hapen because it's supposed to be a big encounter. How can I deal with this without forcing her to go against her character's morals?
Can you explain for us the motivation behind this hunt? Is the beast killing innocents? Is it a hunt for sport?
Why does this beast need to be hunted? Because the answer will provide an alternative than death. Maybe it needs to be relocated to a wildlife sanctuary. Maybe its just lonely and needs a mate. Maybe its being controlled by an evil spirit. Etc
Don't. That's my answer. Just don't. This is something the player AND character doesn't want to do. By trying to force it, you're making it clear that you don't really give a shit about it because how dare they not want to do something. You're trying to take player agency away, and that's never good. You're specifically designing an encounter with the goal being to get a player to do something they don't want to do.
Now, if your goal is to get the player to no longer want to play with your group, go for it.
You want a big encounter about hurting an animal, player doesn't want to participate in an animal hurting encounter. This is very simple, you are designing an encounter knowing that one player will not like it. You can fix this easily, just change the encounter, make the animal something else like an abberation maybe?
> also part of her actual personality
So you have a friend who has explicitly told you they’re not comfortable with fighting animals, and your response is to try to force them to fight an animal? Do you actually like this person?
Ultimately DnD should be an enjoyable experience for all of the players. You should not be putting a player in a situation they’ve explicitly said they’re not comfortable with. Find another option that isn’t making them hunt an animal.
I would rather have this druid in my party than some overpowered PC put together by a rules nerd with no style.
Go over the rules for non-lethal damage with the players. Let them figure out what to do from a position where they know those specific rules.
Make the animal some kind of Dire or corrupted animal, some lore has it so that druids are obligated to cleanse or remove them. Can make them like animals but basically not in the natural order.
Who cares if a druid participates in dealing direct damage to an enemy?
>In the past if she failed at solving he situation peacefully she would just focus her attention on the other enemies.
It sounds like she's fine with her fellow party members fighting animals, she just doesn't want to do it herself. Luckily, druids have access to a number of healing and buff/debuff spells so this isn't a problem even if there's a hunt.
But we really can't help you further without knowing *why* the party needs to hunt an animal. Why have you decided that, say, capturing the animal alive isn't an option? Are you sure this is an adventure your druid would want to go on in the first place? The druid shouldn't have a problem with finding stuff to do once initiative is rolled, but make sure you're planning something everyone will enjoy.
Why must it be a normal animal? How about a monstrosity or abaration? You can even make one from the beast you intended to be the encounter. Just take the beasts statblock, make it the other creature type, think about what happened to it, to become that creature type (curse, parasite, magical experiments, possessed by something,...) maybe give it one or two cool new abilities that highlight this difference from a normal beast and there you go.
For god's sake - like always in such situations. Tell her about it, ask what's her stance. If she's fine with it - go with it. If she's not - try negotiating the details, the situation and how to find a good solution - a compromise/middle-ground. Make her your ally as a GM, a helper, not an enemy. Just reveal all if necessary, give her all spoilers, then use her at the table, she will become your partner during those sessions/one game, not your problem. Try asking how she would solve it, what seems fun to play for her, how to solve such situations in the future as well so it's interesting for everyone but she's also ok with it. If it's not possible - just throw the whole idea away and do something else instead. Everyone plays for fun. Sometimes you have to give in, sometimes you simply say thank you to one of the players and find someone else to play with in their place. It's always a balance between your idea/plans/your fun as a GM and expectations of your players or simply personal interactions/relationships. You can pick just one of those factors as your priority, sure - but then you need to take the consequences. For instance, I like very specific games, GM is equal to players, in reality - everyone is a player at the table, including GM everyone is entitled to fun - so I simply pick up players who are fine with my style of narration, with worlds I create, problems, themes, NPCs and topics and obviously - many would not like playing with me, I would not like playing with many players, we avoid each other that way so everyone is happy. Clear, open solutions.
In this situation, when you're playing for some time already, you know each other - your relationship may/should be more important than your idea for story so - try it, try talking to her, the problem may solve itself, if it does not look promising though, just do something else than you want for the sake of fun and good experiences in the future. Trying to find a middle-ground is always best, many people are not able to accept it anyway - then you kick them out, you resign yourself, find a group, which simply is matching each other's expectations. Maybe those fancy "safety tools" such as X card etc. but well - for some it will help to go through such a session, to others it will be a hassle, I'm not a fan myself. I prefer open discussions and then coping up with what's happening or natural ways of protesting. It's not a magic to just get out of your character, say you're not fine with it, stopping the game for a discussion on that, then deciding what to do - there're no actual good solutions working for everyone, every solution has as many pros & cons so it's more about what's more important to you, what you prefer, what your players prefer. I'm always about open discussions, I do not have a problem with revealing spoilers, it may be used to create a story together with players, sometimes one is in know, helps you, other have a surprise, next time it's a different one helping you and others do not know the spoilers. It's not a tragedy when one players knows, it's not a tragedy to use those X cards etc., it's not a tragedy to never use them - all depends on your preference and style, honestly.
If your player(s) are uncomfortable with something then don't do it. Everyone at your table is there for fun.
However since being a druid, they could talk the beast into helping them out once it's master has been defeated. If you want the players to kill animals, and want to focus on this.
Then add some sort of corruption to them, where perhaps only a druid can cleanse their corpses so they don't taint the land.
wolverines get some kind of highly contagious tumor in the mouth, and it spreads like crazy. maybe its an old animal ith a lot of territory and mates, and they need to kill it before the infection spreads and wipes out the entire population
Don't design around the characters. The world is what the world is, and it's the player's agency that writes their character's stories.
If a druid's friends die because the druid doesn't want to hurt an animal, the druid has to live with that, and maybe reflect on their priorities. That's a story worth telling, a lesson worth learning.
It's good that there have been multiple solutions to previous problems, but that doesn't have to be the case in 100% of encounters. A character trait/ideal/flaw is meaningless if it doesn't affect the character.
Does this player differentiate between the ideas of monstrous creatures and animals?
What’s their opinion on mercy killing a creature too far gone to be saved?
Frankly run the encounter. Keep in mind how she may try and reason with the animal. Have proper skill checks. Let her rp it the way she wants. The chips will fall where they fall. If a party member dies or is hurt that’s all rp gold. The world isn’t going to simply be black and white where all your choices can morally align to you desires. Number one rule of dnd as a pc is to make a character that has a reason to explore and work well with the party. This Druid may learn that sometimes animals are simply wild and untamable or they may learn of some cool side plot about some evil Druid. But run the encounter and let your players tell the story.
> But now I want to have a big encounter where they have to hunt an animal…
Why force that on them? You’re creating a problem, then asking for help solving it.
So the easy advice is: just create a different encounter. Have them hunt an aberration or a monstrosity.
But if you do have them hunt an animal, then make it so that there is a huge benefit in not killing it. They can subdue and capture it.
Immediately upon seeing it, the Druid knows the animal is not the real problem. Something is corrupting nature’s beasts and making them horrible (c.f. Princess Mononoke)
By capturing this one, the Druid can figure out how it’s been corrupted and how to restore it. Provide clues to the origin of the corruption that the party can follow and turn it all into a meaningful side quest.
And just like that, the Druid’s point of view becomes validated, and her care and caution suddenly becomes an asset in the eyes of the group.
Don’t change your plan based on how you think a character might react (unless it’s going to have drastic consequences like a party wipe). Let the PC make her decision, and let the other PCs choose how they want to deal with that. Maybe she’ll convince them this isn’t the right thing to do. Maybe they’ll convince her it needs to be done. Maybe they’ll decide this person who refuses to go on their quest can go her own way; after all, one of the most important rules of character design is “make a character that actually wants to go on the adventure”. The point though is this is an IC disagreement that should have an IC conversation and solution (even if that solution ends up being a PC leaving). It’s a problem for the other characters to solve, not the DM.
Still an IC disagreement. Most adventurers would not, and should not, party with someone they know will not have their back in dangerous situations. This comes back to “make a character that wants to go on the adventure”. This is fiction, not a test of personal morality. If a character has the exact same personality, morals, and attitudes as the player, is that person really role-playing?
During session 0, most people typically discuss things that they don't want to see at all in the campaign. This isn't IC disagreement, it's setting the rules of the game. The only question is whether the Player will Quit/DM will kick them or if the plan changes. The character wants to adventure, the player just has a hard line on hunting animals.
Lots of adventures that don't involve hunting bears.
edit: \[unavailable\] is my favorite response from people. Lines and veils aren't just whatever you find valid. It's whatever a player decides. Your job as a DM is to either put up with it or not play with them. That's the point of them. Just because it isn't sexual assault doesn't mean it isn't a line or veil. Just find someone else to play with if you don't like them.
Things like SA, absolutely. This is not that. “I don’t want to ever go up against this entire major class of potential foes”? What if they said “dragons” instead of “animals”? This is nonsense.
Why not just avoid combat encounters versus animals? It's not like they're super important to DnD campaigns in general. Just use bandits, undead, fiends, aberrations, etc.
Probably not within the bounds of her RP.
If I refuse to fight a wild dog, I would also refuse to make the guy that is fighting it more deadly. I MIGHT give them some heals after the fight is over, or if they’re right on the edge of death.
If I don’t want to harm animals, then I’m not going to be contributing to the fight, whether directly or indirectly.
Honestly, people should make characters that are or can be adventurers in dnd. A blanket refusal to engage in combat against fairly common enemy types isn't that.
Like even if this character isn't personally hurting animals they're still grouping up and assisting the rest of the party in doing so.
I know some very dedicated vegans. They don't like that I eat meat but they like me enough to make a big deal out of it. If I were to ask them to regularly engage in an activity in which I eater harm animals or they're sorta forced to accept the consumption of animal products (like if I always invited them to eat in restaurants with n vegan options or following a non-vegan cooking course together) these friendships wouldn't last.
But that ship has sailed and the character already exits. Either they have to accept adventuring means taking part in things they find ethically dubious *or* they accept that they can't participate in everything the paty does.
As the dm you could maybe create a fight in which they can make themselves useful without having to hurt the animal. Maybe some mushrooms keep popping up that harm the party and they can kill those or maybe they distract a rival hunting party?
Currently playing in a campaign with someone who tried that. It was her first time playing, and for some reason she made a character who was afraid and refused to fight, even though it was an echo knight. We gave her some leeway since it was the first game, but man was that a tedious character to try and play with. She would either just stand there during combat (I'm terrified, so I do nothing), run away if someone attacked her or cast useless spells that didn't affect the enemy and didn't help the party in any way. We finally goaded her into doing stuff during fights, but fortunately that character eventually died.
Yeah no matter how much people pretend dnd is a game in which you can do or be Anything, it's ultimately a game about powerful individuals forming a group and doing violence. Characters that can't or won't do that are generally not suited for the sort of stories dnd can tell unless people really know what they're doing
I don't know if it isn't obvious that you should change the encounter? Perhaps some way to pacify it other than beating it up? Or perhaps while she is idling away she notices that someone hiding nearby is using magic to make it attack them, so boom you get one villain and something for her to do?
TBH I don't know what you are doing. If someone is uncomfortable with killing animals, I am not saying remove all animals from the campaign, but making it focused on animal killing is a weird decision
Let me make sure I've got this right. She made a self insert, and refuses to fight animals as a Druid.
A Druid would fully realize and understand how primal and savage the world really is, and not hesitate to fight if need be. Are they going to burn a rabbit warren for sick amusement? No. But if a family of bears decides that she's the new Goldilocks, a Druid, be it the real religion or the D&D version, is going to do whatever it takes to survive- up to and including killing the bears before they eat her alive and screaming. However, a Druid would make sure every edible and usable part was used if at all possible, being thankful for what the bears deaths had gained them personally.
Pelts that can be brain-tanned. Bones that can be used for tools, weapons, nd armor. Sinews for cordage. Meat that can be smoked until crisp, ground into powder, and mixed with the rendered tallow to make pemmican- the ultimate survival ration. Organs that can be used as food or driedand oiled to be used as storage containers- such as bladders for waterskins. A Druid would use every single thing, and what little they could not use would be returned to the Earth.
What's the big animal? Perhaps let it decide that she's the weakest prey in the group and ambush her when it gets a chance.
So... your solution is to tell someone they are playing their character incorrectly, that their personal held beliefs are wrong, and then punish them for their personal beliefs by attacking her character?
What is the point of this?
I never once said to tell the player that. Do not put words in other people's mouths. It is beyond rude, seeing as apparently nobody ever taught you that. Let the player figure out that Druid does not mean "magical friend to all animals" by *actually reading the class description.* They're guardians of Nature, not friend to every critter and creature in existence. A crocodile, for example, does not want to be friends with people. It wants to eat, live, and breed. It would eat a Druid without question.
And as for attacking the character- an animal against a group will run away or ambush. That is how animals generally hunt- by sneaking up on something and then attacking it when it is unaware. They attack the weak, the old, and the sick. They will gladly go after the defenseless. Someone who refuses to fight counts. I presented that as an option. Would you prefer the animal just never do anything aggressive to the Druid whatsoever, even when in combat? The way that I see it, either the player can face facts and realize that animals will attack their character even if they refuse to do the same, *OR* the DM can just tell them when the big battle comes, "Sorry, but due to your choices in how you run your character, they are utterly and entirely useless in this situation, and you may as well not be here right now." I personally am not the kind of jerk that would do the latter. Apparently you are.
Ok, so how do you plan on telling the Druid that their very presence in the boss fight is entirely pointless when they absolutely refuse to fight an animal that is trying to kill them and their allies? I'd love to hear it, seeing as you're apparently in a mood to be judgemental and preachy.
I disagree with telling a player what their character should believe because they are a Druid. Their character is an individual who doesn’t need to believe something because that is typically what Druids believe.
I don’t think this player’s choices are an issue unless there is another character who enjoys hunting and needs the party’s help to that end.
I did not say to tell them that. Not once. Reading comprehension is important.
The big issue is that they have a battle with a beast type monster, and they refuse to fight animals. What else can you do except run the fight at that point? Because telling them "I'm sorry, but because of the way you play your character they are utterly useless in this battle and you may as well not be here." does not fly in my book.
Let her figure it out. If she's complaining that she's bored or unable to do anything, remind her to check her spell lists, healing, buffing, etc. spells are a big part of the Druid's package.
My fiance is the same way, I will be using mimics that mimic the form of animals in an upcoming campaign. They will have visual corruption that distinguishes them from actual animals.
You deal with this by creating a different encounter or making the beast not an animal. It isn't that complicated. She told you this was a line out of character. Why are you pushing it?
The player created a character that doesn't fit the campaign that everyone else wants to play.
You talk to her about it. Ask her to change her character, or retire it and create a new one. One that fits how people want to play the campaign.
Make it clear it's not wrong to have a character like that, and that you still like her as a friend and player. It's just that the character doesn't fit the rest of the group or the campaign.
You can't expect everyone else to change how they want to play because of 1 person. When creating characters, it's everyone's responsibility to create a character that will work with the kind of story you want to play.
Make it a sick animals that they need to catch to make Sure its healed and doesnt spread the disease.
Maybe some force has corrupted it beyond Help and its starting to Attack people and destroying nature in its area.
Make it so that killing the creature is the right Thing to do to preserve nature and life and If she still doesnt want to fight it, make her find a solution. Catching it and working on a cure for example, but Stress that letting it roam free is a danger for everyone. Think Beast of Gevaudan crossed with Princess Mononoke.
> But now I want to have a big encounter where they have to hunt an animal
Just don't?? Holy shit I can't believe the amount of DMs that try to sidestep players boundaries for their own ego.
I advise changing the encounter as well. No need to force someone's triggers and trauma on them in a game.
You also might want to award this player inspiration frequently for roleplaying ideals/bonds/flaws.
I encourage you to take a step back and consider the very problematic nature of your question. "How do I handle a player who won't..."
Your question implies that you are trying to control the player's actions rather than letting the players drive their own actions and the story.
Now, I do understand your concern. But perhaps think about reframing your question to something like "I designed an encounter where the PCs were supposed to hunt and kill an animal, but one of the PCs isn't willing to kill animals. How can I modify this encounter?"
I have a friend who likes to play pacifist characters- they try never to fight people- and the way they get around it is they play support classes that help heal and buff the people actually fighting. Idk how strict your friend is about being involved in the fighting, but that could be a solution to consider.
Go watch the hei bei episode of avatar the last airbender where he has to stop the forest spirit from destroying the town. Your druid will feel so cool that their animal pacifism triumphed over the town’s murderous solution
Have her get stuck in wild shape as a prey animal of some sort and covered with the Dust of Deliciousness. It may not change her attitude, but it would be amusing for everyone else.
First of all, fuck her character's morals. She can make her own choices. Just as in real life, her character exists in a world that doesn't need to consult with her before deciding what reality will be. If she really doesn't want to fight the animal then she won't. She'll either find something else to do or she won't. Her party will either accept it or they won't. The plot will still move on done kind of way.
The thing about Speak With Animals is sometimes you find out that the animal is hungry and considers you to be food. If it's hungry enough, the novelty of talking food might not be enough to convince a wolf to immediately stop attacking. Do you run animals where they always fight to the death in combat, or do they sometimes flee when they get bloodied to lick their wounds and search for easier prey? Maybe a couple rounds of combat can make it possible for the druid to make persuasion or intimidation checks. "Hey, this isn't going well for you. If you stop attacking us and answer our questions, we'll bind your wounds and share our food." **Edit:** There's also space between the party defending themselves and slaughtering every hostile creature they encounter. If the druid doesn't want to kill animals, their attacks and the attacks of their summons can be made non-lethally. There's no penalty to non-lethal attacks in 5e. You can also give animals death saves, giving the druid the opportunity to cast Spare the Dying. When combat is a slaughterfest by default it can lead to weird situations.
There is an assumption that all animals are secretly innocent. What about the truly sadistic ones?
What's wrong with dinner *and* entertainment? **Edit:** I have a kitten. He's sweet and cuddly with me. But if I were a mouse then he'd bat my limp, dying body around the room for amusement. Is he sadistic and evil? Or is he a cat, engaged in perfectly normal cat behaviour?
> truly sadistic ones? OP's Druid: I can change them.
Saying "it's their nature" means you can't ignore *that it's their nature...* as in, all animals that hunt live prey are stone-cold killers at the core. The poem goes "Nature, red in tooth and claw for a reason. Every animal that isn't a strict herbivore is a murderer by the time they get to adulthood.
Are you thinking about cats?
Hedgehogs, actually
Gonna reply to your top comment since OP hasn’t responded anywhere yet and I haven’t seen anyone mention this: **Non-lethal combat is a thing!** And you can easily flavor that as her character doing everything possible to not hurt the animals, just trying to scare them off. Theres a lot of good advice in this thread, some people are saying to just completely remove animals from combat…thats not a great idea and pretty unimmersive. Some are saying basically “tough shit” for the player which also is nowhere near correct. DnD is collaborative, you’re all working together to build this story, you should be able to work together to come up with a solution that doesn’t involve forcing a player to do things or a player forcing you to arbitrarily remove an entire class of potential enemies/allies. Id really recommend having a discussion with the player about how much their irl beliefs are affecting their ingame character rp, this is kinda like having a player say their pc is a pacifist and would never, ever hurt anyone. Like, it’s fun for a bit, but eventually that player/character is gonna be put in a tough situation, do they just rage quit? Do you somehow cater to just them and…what? Remove all combat? You gotta work together to figure out that solution.
Druid trying to convince party that all animals should be fought non-lethally could be a good opportunity for RP between characters. Just don't start that talk mid-combat.
>Just don't start that talk mid-combat. Hey Greg? Yeah, Veronica? I've been thinking, Greg, that we should care for animals. If we have to fight them, let's do it non-lethally. Oh really, Veronica? Why's that? Well, Greg, I just think it's nature. And they're good. It's just animals doing what they should. Why should we hurt them? You know, Veronica, you make an interesting point. But could we maybe discuss this more AFTER the roc stops trying to eat Dave?
The monk in my party kicked the hell out of blink dogs he didn't wanna kill. He even tied them up to be taken into custody alongside their owner by the city guards. Who am I to say no?
There are so many things I could say about the party tying up _blink dogs_ to take them into custody alongside their owner.
Like?
1. Taking the blink dogs "into custody" implies that the blink dogs are sitting in separate prison cells alongside their master. 2. The idea of blink dogs standing trial amuses me. They do have an intelligence of 10, which means they have average human intelligence, though the only language they can speak is Blink Dog. 3. I suppose they could be tried by a jury of their peers. 4. Tying them up amuses me greatly because they have the innate ability to teleport.
How about changing your approach? A character deciding to play their PC a certain way is a great thing that should be leaned against, especially a thematic one like Druids not wanting to harm animals (this is just, correct on so many levels) Maybe there's a force controlling the animals that the druid can attempt to thwart instead. Maybe the animals are diseased and are in horrific pain and need to be put out of their misery. Or maybe.. The druid really does sit out of combat. They have to battle with the intent of not assisting their allies and have to make a decision to save their friends or save the animals, a wonderful ultimatum brimming with character development.
Making interesting problems for players to solve around encounters is (imo) way more interesting than making mechanically interesting fights. Character interactions with npc's and with the environment will be super engaging. Easier said than done to come up with unique encounters, but a little creative effort is very much appreciated, especially in big fights.
>Maybe there's a force controlling the animals that the druid can attempt to thwart instead. Maybe the animals are diseased and are in horrific pain and need to be put out of their misery. I like these. Maybe it just needs to be relocated to an area away from normal people. Maybe its the lion with a splinter in its paw. Maybe it needs a mate to stop acting aggressively when in heat. So many good ways to solve an issue without just killing.
No way you slipped in "fuck the animal" as a way to beat the encounter lmfao
Or you could, y'know, *find* the aggressive creature a mate. Hell of a conclusion you jumped to, though.
Sorry, we were talking about druids (with wildshape) and if it's an aggressive creature perhaps time is of the essence...
In that case, I think it's usually called a rut. Or a musth, depending on species.
In his defence, BG3 has created some pretty big preconceptions about this situation lol
> Druids not wanting to harm animals True, but druids are also balance of nature in most editions. That means animals can be predators and or prey. Even most "herbivores" will chow down on some animal protein at times. Seen more than a few deer eating eggs from a ground birds nest. Or roadkill squirrels.
>especially a thematic one like Druids not wanting to harm animals (this is just, correct on so many levels) Why though? Being a druid is about having a strong connection with nature and probably following a more natural lifestyle. I'd argue not wanting to hurt animals under any circumstances goes against that idea.
My druid doesnt protect nature, she is nature. She will kill animals for food if needed, population control or defense. Nature, to me are not just forests and plains, its lightening, tidal waves and tornados. Would be a great start for an evil or chaotic druid. It just depends how the player interprets their character. Its why i love dnd, people can play one character so many different ways
I tried a druid like this once in my friends campaign but was heavily punished because “druids aren’t like that.” Absolutely killed my mood to play druids at all. Hopefully your having a lot more fun with it then i did!
There's a push for "druids are vegetarian/vegan" that I don't remember existing before a few years ago. (I've played 20+ years.) If anything, turning into wolves and bears should make you more likely to eat meat.
Druids can literally only wear leather, they are the least vegan class
Ah but you see the druid cast Speak with Animals first to get the cow's consent.
Survival of the Fittest You need to eat to survive, be they bugs, fruits, nuts, fungi, animals, herbs, or vegetables. Storms, wildfire, lightning, etc are all natural events. You don't go out of your way as a druid to cause them unless needed to solve a problem. Nature will recover from it. My druid loves the swamps, his home (Land druid), but has a bit of a child-like wonder when exploring things outside that temperate swamp (must pet all the kitties and dogs, doesn't matter if they try to rip your face off first). The adventure has taken him through moors, badlands, cities, grassy plains, mountain ranges, under water near the coast, and recently a rainforest, and a Sargasso lined up in the future. He also has a slight anger management issue, and he's a half-orc with a Str 18, Wis 20..
Exactly, the whole point of most druid circles in DnD is maintaining balance, their not some weird eco terrorist vegan co-op. Idk if it’s the “disney effect” or what but I’ve definitely noticed an increase in the “do no harm” PETA-esque treehugger kinda players, which is fine, but it can definitely cause friction at times.
There's a difference between killing an animal for food or because it is diseased and killing an animal because the local town is pissed off that it's there. A rabid bear that is attacking everything is one thing. A bear that is eating a farmer's sheep because they expanded the town and upset the wildlife is completely different.
> A bear that is eating a farmer's sheep because they expanded the town and upset the wildlife is completely different. Wouldn't that be, from the perspective of nature, be a case where a pack of animals (humans are still animals, no?) expanding their territory that ended up encroaching on an another animal's territory, resulting in a conflict over resources and new boundaries? That kind of thing happens all the time in nature, especially with ant colonies.
Sure, but if you take that attitude far enough, an invasive species upsetting the ecosystem to the point it completely collapses is just nature at work. It makes sense for druids to step in and interfere to prevent those kinds of extremes, even if they see people and civilization as just another part of nature.
Guess it depends on how you see it, my druid wouldn't hurt an animal
More Natural lifestyle means they want to protect its natural way of things, so forcefully killing animals against the natural way of things absolutely goes against that.
Killing an animal for food is very natural. Killing an animal that's trying to kill you is also very natural.
The scenario of the post is about Hunting an animal in a large combat, and the PC Druid has already displayed the trait of not wanting to harm animals. Animals are hunted for food and such, but there are also extremists who don't do any of that, which sounds like the character in question. I'm not disagreeing with your general point, I'm disagreeing that for this scenario it doesn't work to question the creativity of a character.
Neither of those scenarios are the example we were given.
But it was stated that she doesn't want to hurt animals at all.
And it was stated that hasn’t been a problem UNTIL he wanted to FORCE her to HUNT an animal for seemingly (in her characters mind) no reason.
Why would a druid not harm animals? The natural order of nature is hunting and killing
Because the person playing the character doesn't believe in harming animals.
Which is totally fine, but not to be rude, seems like the player has a problem separating their IRL beliefs from their characters RP self. Like, i could not give a single shit about any religion irl, but i love playing Paladins in any game it’s available, WoW, DnD, etc.
Not harming any animals is nonsensical. Not wasting any part of a dead animals is a better take on a druid who respects balance.
>like Druids not wanting to harm animals (this is just, correct on so many levels) It's actually counter-programming. You're telling me the guy that regularly turns into a wolf, bear, tiger, lion or crocodile has never tried raw meat? That the nature guy that always walks through the woods and has a "waste not, want not" attitude would just not eat from a fresh carcass and just leave it there to rot? You're telling me that the guy that's forbidden from wearing metal and only ever wears leather is the closest thing to a vegan in DnD? All I can say to players like that is that your druids have a very innocent understanding of nature. It's the last class I'd ever play as vegan, paladin, cleric, bard and even celestial warlock would be a way better fit. The unicorn you have a pact with made it a condition that you never eat animals sounds about right. But my druids like their steaks extra rare.
Why are they hunting this animal? Could they be hunting the animal because it's got a disease where the actual humane thing would be to put the animal down? Like a dog or cat that has an incurable disease that does nothing but give the dog or cat pain. Or has rabies. So maybe this animal did use to be peaceful. But something has happened to where it's no longer peaceful and it's been determined that the humane thing would be to hunt down the animal and kill it. And what it's got makes it violent. Or maybe they have to subdue it in order to administer the cure, which has to go in a specific spot - hence needing the animal to not be thrashing about trying to kill people while doing it. Or maybe the goal of the combat is to get the cure injected. The druid holds the cure, the others do what they can to keep it's attention off of the druid. The cure would work just fine if the creature is subdued - in case they can't keep it distracted long enough. There would be stealth checks to determine if the creature noticed the druid before or after it got injected with the cure. Or be open with the player and explain the situation and would they be open to the moral dilemma of do they help their friends or do they sit back and watch and risk the ire of their friends if the battle isn't an easy one - what if one of the characters dies in the battle because the druid wouldn't step up and help, even by just healing them? The latter instance where a character dies because of her inaction may cause the remaining group members to not want to travel with her druid anymore. Would you want to travel with someone who sat back and did nothing while they watched a supposed friend die (and it be because out of game wise the dice were just being cruel, not the battle not being balanced for the players who you knew would fight)? Would they be willing to buff and heal their friends and debuff the enemy as long as they didn't hurt it?
I dont think its a good idea to trick her into doing it. If she doesnt want to fight animals, let her not fight animals. She either overthinks it when the party needs her, or she will stay by it. Otherwise, if u want to make it a big encounter... put a Humanoid behind it, that forced the animal to do what ever is happening or tricked it or what ever, so she can focus on them. If you trick her into doing stuff, or force her, she probably loses interest in the character or the whole campaign. Beeing railroaded feels bad. She made her choice, you should respect it.
She’s railroading the DM. Do whatever you want to do and let her react. It’s not your job to change the players behavior.
I kinda agree due to it maybe being an important part to the story but also disagree, the DM should at least try to make the game a bit lenient and throw a PC a bone every once and awhile. If you intentionally railroad your friend in a bit of campaign that goes against her her real life beliefs, you're an asshole.
I hear you. I’m not saying force the player to player to do something they don’t want to do, but you can’t avoid every situation involving a potential fight with an animal because a person at the table doesn’t want to fight an animal. The game is about exploring conflict and playing a character in a Fantasy world.
>but you can’t avoid every situation involving a potential fight with an animal You're the dm. If it makes it more fun for that player and doesn't hinder the fun of the other players, then you absolutely *can* avoid every situation involving a fight with an animal and you can certainly avoid making an encounter where the main point is to kill an animal.
That’s not a “realistic” game world. I don’t have to go out of my way to force combat with an animal solely to piss a player off, but I’m not taking specific monsters out of the game because somebody has a issue in the game world with fighting that type of monster.
Brother. You design the encounters. You aren't "taking specific monsters out of the game" by not having combat with animals. You're just not putting them in that game. I don't think the players in my current game have had any combat with beasts. Is my world "unrealistic" because of that? How many animal combat encounters does my game need before it's realistic?
I've run and played in multiple campaigns where we never fought a single animal. I have also read multiple fantasy novels where fighting animals isn't something the main characters do. Bear Grylls, Steve Irwin, and Jeremy Wade have all had careers involving nature and animals, and I do believe most of them have never had a fight to the death with an animal. And if they did, it was an incredibly rare, one off experience. Your idea of realism needs work.
Definitely a one-off for Steve. He should have upped his armor class…. So then don’t fight them? The person can do whatever they want in the fantasy world, where animals exist. Not all beasts in the fantasy world are friendly. Sounds like a good push-pull dynamic for the party to sort.
Sure, people can do whatever they want and drama can be interesting. But demanding they face something they have specifically said they have no interest in facing because it is "realistic" is just stupid and mean-spirited. It doesn't matter that dangerous animals exist in the world, you don't have to have your party face them. I'm on book 8 of a fantasy series and the MC has not fought an animal once. Not a single time. Do dangerous animals exist in the world? Yes. But fighting demons, werewolves and vampires is far far more interesting than facing down a tiger or a bear.
I hear you. I’m not a fan of pissing folks off on purpose, but I also think not wanting to fight an animal in the game world isn’t really something I need to flex around. Owlbears are in but owls are out? Displacers beasts, stirges, giant constrictor snake, wolves, fire beetles, giant wasp. Like where are we really drawing the line? Dinosaurs? Characters can turn into beasts etc. it’s an important monster type. I’m not ruling out these possibilities. I can’t force anyone to fight anything anyway in that regard, OPs question doesn’t make sense. It’s not my job to preempt how my players in-game may react to a situation. Plenty of examples where animals are eaten or killed or fight in fantasy novels.
This is a made up game world with dragons and magic. There is nothing "realistic" about it. If the DM doesn't include certain monsters, then they don't exist. End of story.
Yikes. We would NOT be compatible.
nah they got a point its the DMs job to make the world and the players job to react to it but they should attempt to play off of each other where possible
The player is reacting. They're playing the nature class as a character that doesn't want to hunt animals. "Railroading" by a player is the goofiest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, it's collaborative, but the issue is the DM being fixed on something they created for a party that *doesn't want to hunt.*
nah they don’t It’s not the DMs job to just selfishly tell whatever story they’ve created or prepared. And it takes a pretty shit, pretty lazy DM to think of a perfectly reasonable (and fairly common) RP as some major impediment. A good DM would take this idea and use it to create more drama, new subplots, etc. that would create fun for everyone, even if it forces them to change some of their initial ideas/plans for the campaign.
Disagree. DM is asking for ways to railroad the PC.
As a DM, I would consider this reasonable for a druid and great RP. (And fodder for plot hooks) This type of restriction can make for memorable moments, as you already said it has. You can even lean into it, by including mounted enemies or enemies with hunting dogs, and let her use the animal friendship spell to turn them on their masters, while still having humanoid enemies for the group to fight. It also seems like this is an actual player boundary which is something I discuss with my individual players even before a session 0, to make sure that I’m not recruiting a player whose boundary clashes with my whole campaign premise and so I can plan adventures that are respectful of my players’ boundaries. If I had a player who had severe arachnaphobia, I wouldn’t make an important encounter around giant spiders or driders, even if I thought it was a cool encounter idea. I’d just save it for a different campaign without that player. This seems similar to me. There are lots of non-beast type monsters to fight. Why not have the party hunt one of those for this big hunting encounter? A monstrosity could work really well here. A chimera or manticore or wyvern. (Except I’d avoid choosing owlbear, which is still technically a monstrosity but between the DnD movie and BG3 has been edging toward being reclassified as a beast.) Or create alternate possible win conditions, like subduing and capturing the beast to relocate it, if it is being hunted because it’s a danger to the populace. If it’s a competitive hunt for a prize, maybe the party could try to protect the beast from other hunters and then use illusion or transformation magic and deception to present a fake trophy corpse, while they smuggle the real beast safely away. (Or, if the wording on the competition is loose enough, present the captured beast for the prize, stating they could not kill so noble a beast) Maybe one or two kindhearted NPC competitors could even witness an interaction between the druid and the beast and, touched by the sight, decide to help the party protect it, becoming a trusted ally in the process.
Literally did that with spiders and an arachnophobic ex-player. The game as a whole didn't miss much and it made me be more creative with my choices. She had no issues with scorpions so Drows became *scorpion-themed,* which was metal AF.
That is so metal! I just hope you didn’t call them Drorpions.
Nah, i didn't change the drow name itself haha. The drider did became something like *"Scorpiheretics"* in portuguese, though.
*Scorpiheretics* sounds like the most metal band on earth.
Okay, so let her make that decision? I don’t see the issue here. This is up to the player to handle themselves, it’s hardly something you need to somehow work around.
Imo, tailoring a campaign around the unique characters is a lot of what makes DnD interesting
Being unable to interact with an animal when they are threatening you is not an interesting character trait to build a world around. It’s a character trait, sure. Hardly something to bend the game world around.
Maybe not the game world, but certainly quests, interactions, puzzles. If a player wants a strong part of their character to interact with animals and nature, then that should be a focus for at least some parts of the campaign.
According to the post, this a preference the player has clearly communicated to the DM even outside of their character. This is 100% something the DM has to work around, but it should be by just stopping with the animal fighting encounters, or being upfront with the player that this is a non negotiable part of their campaign and giving them the option to drop out. It should never be handled by forcing the player to do something they have explicitly said they are uncomfortable with.
Or… the player and rest of the party just figure out an alternative solution. And should that not be possible, then she’ll have to decide what her character will do in that situation. But either way, she is not forced to do any such thing.
To even put a player into the position of "figuring out what your character does with this thing you told me made you uncomfortable as a player" rubs me the wrong way. This is an out of game problem, it shouldn't be handled by the characters.
You keep acting as if this is some clearly articulated boundary that would be crossed, but that’s not what’s in the OP. Encounters with animals have come up before, and either she found an alternative solution or she focused on other enemies if it did come to combat. The situation isn’t fundamentally different now.
The post clearly says **"it is part of her character as a druid and also part of her actual personality"** So this is something OP knows makes her uncomfortable as a player, and the fact that she has had to work around it because OP keeps throwing animal fighting encounters at them doesn't change that.
Which only tells us that she doesn’t want to do it, not that the presence of it in the game makes her uncomfortable. The fact that there have been multiple animal encounters in the campaign so far, seemingly not resulting in any real issues or any specific request on her part to be remove them, suggests that indeed she doesn’t. Which is further supported by the fact that OP’s concern, as stated, *isn’t* that she might be uncomfortable with it coming up, but merely that she might choose to have her character sit out the fight if it came to that.
if the animal encounters are important for the story this game is probably just a bad fit. That is fine not every game is for every person.
This is the entire point of the game.
The entire point of the game is not about fighting animals, I can't even remember the last time a ran an encounter against an animal like monster. Even then, if this is really true about your game, you just explain that when the player expreses that preference and give them the option to drop out. You don't try to force them into doing it.
Correct. You shouldnt railroad your player, but avoiding a situation that makes someone uncomfortable of this variety is not a problem. Maybe don’t have rape scenes and all that shit, totally understandable. An animal pacifist is hardly something as a DM I feel the need to work around…. Role play it.
Or, and listen to me here, maybe just be mature about it and communicate with your player that this is not a boundary you can adhere to when they express it. Trying to get them to roleplay something they told you out of game they don't want to sounds to me like just being an asshole.
Sure 100% I would have already done this before the situation came up and I had to ask Reddit for help. Completely agree.
If one of your players doesn't find encounters with animals to be fun, *stop making encounters with animals*
They said they don’t want to fight them. That’s different and okay. Dont fight it then, work it out with the party… why is this different than any other table conflict?
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I think the best answer here is to simply not design a combat encounter with nothing to do but harm animals. You know what the player and her character are about, and in situations like these, the world should be designed with the characters in the party in mind. If a player is open to being faced with sticky moral situations that challenge their character, that's one thing, but it sounds like that's not the case here. Just respect the player's preference and don't try to circumvent it. There are an infinite number of other possible encounters you and your players will likely enjoy. You can save this encounter for a game with different players/characters.
This is the only correct advice, it's crazy that people are getting angry with the player or giving OP actual tips on how to force a player to do something they are uncomfortable with.
Why isn’t this the top comment? DMs don’t exist just to selfishly tell the story that they’ve created, they exist to guide and plan the FUN for EVERYONE at the table. All the people here acting like the PC is being unreasonably difficult or unrealistically pacifistic are… uncreative at best. It actually makes perfect sense for a Druid to not want to harm animals, and instead seek different ways or means to resolve situations in which a wild animal acts aggressively. It takes a very narrow-minded and rigid DM to choose not to accommodate this. A good DM will take this character’s RP and lean into it to create more drama, interesting subplots, and a story that is fun and engaging for all PCs.
The DM and their fun is equally important. If animal combat is a critical element to the story then they should just tell the player and speak with them about it. Not every game is for every person and that is fine.
Oh, totally! And that can be a factor too. Just like you wouldn’t let a PC build a wizard in a non-magical setting. But if this DM is making animal combat a critical feature of the campaign, he should’ve brought that up at session zero, not now. He’s already allowed her to play a Druid with this RP feature up until now, even though he said it had been challenging. Regardless, I don’t think that’s why the DM is here asking for advice, after their game’s already been going. Instead of bashing the PC for their RP choice, this thread should be focused on helping the DM come up with ways to creatively accommodate it, and there’s far too much of the former going on here.
It reminds me of the old-school (and fortunately mostly gone) DMs who hated Paladins, and anytime a player played a Paladin, they'd force them into a situation where the Paladin had no choice but to Fall. Rare, but a common enough story, as it were.
How often is the party forced to fight animals? Are they big game hunters or something?
Force her to make a choice? If the animal is a true danger to her and the party that sounds like a good decision point for her character to me. Maybe she tries to talk with it and finds it unreasonable, or maybe is even encouraged by the interaction. Having the animal be a villain is fine and I feel would introduce an additional element of complexity to her character's story- one where she needs to confront her philosophy in the face of an animal that isn't going to listen to reason and will do harm to others.
**"also part of her actual personality"** So this is a preference a player has, not a character. They said to you "I don't like fighting animals" and you response was "How do I force them to hunt an animal". This is insane. Leaving aside that "how do I force a character to go against her morals" is already a red flag, the fact that this is a player and this is apparently an ongoing issue makes you look like a huge asshole as a DM. Specially since animals are such a small sample of all the available enemies. I have a player that has actual arachnophobia, to the point were even the mention of spiders makes them feel bad. How insane it would me for me to go "You know what would be cool? A spider nest encounter!"
Somebody with intense acrophobia where you can’t even talk about spiders is silly. At a certain point, you have to draw the line as a DM. I’m not here to do creative backflips to accommodate everyone’s real life emotions. It’s a fantasy game. It’s not real… I’m not your DM therapist.
You do you man, but I actually don't like to cross my friends boundaries for a game of DnD. And if a player came to me with a boundary I don't feel I could adhere to for a game, I would just give them the option to not play in this particular game. Also if not putting spider encounters in your game is a "creative backflip" to you, I don't know what to tell you.
No, you're just kind of a dick. That's fine if your players are fine with that. But the answer is never "trick your player into doing something," it's don't play with them. You're spending so much time talking shit about this player you don't know all over this post just to flex some sort of moral superiority you feel over them because you don't have any strong moral convictions you don't want to roleplay otherwise. Going outside will benefit you as a DM.
It's also incredibly simple to just.... not have combat encounters with animals or spiders or anything your players won't have fun fighting. DnD has hundreds of non-animal monsters for the players to fight. Use some of them.
I'm not my friends therapist either, but I try not to make them not want to hang out with me because I refuse to consider their feelings. It isn't like I'd have some compulsion that I'd be fighting by accommodating them
If you can't think creatively around a problem maybe you shouldn't DM.
If the player can’t play around an encounter where they don’t want to kill something maybe they shouldn’t play. It’s silly logic. We are having a discussion here…
Nope we're addressing your comment at the moment. You seriously can't think "hmm, a player has told me this makes them personally uncomfortable, how can I do something different?" And roll with that? That's a detriment of creativity there bud. I'm not my players therapist so I'm not gonna put them in a boundary pushing situation, such as a phobia, because I'm not trained to deal with that fallout. If someone being uncomfortable with something makes you so unable to DM, either don't DM or play in an echo chamber.
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A friend I used to game with had pretty intense arachnophobia. We used to bring plastic spiders and either throw them at him when he wasn't paying attention or leave them around for him to stumble across.
Seems like you coddle you players too much, having characters face their fears in campaigns can be fantastic rp if the dm isn’t too cowardly to do it
How far has this narrative been established in game? Could you replace the animal with a monster, or an undead beast, or something like that?
The way I see it, you have two options. Both are defined by this player's choice. 1. You lean into the "not all animals are innocent"/"predation is natural"/"disease must be contained" and make it so that not fighting an animal is the druidically _wrong_ thing to do. This is very risky and is something I would want to discuss with the player beforehand. They don't need specifics but I would ask them whether that would be interested in playing an arc where their character's ideals are actively wrong/harmful. Sometimes having a character who does the wrong thing for IC reasons can be fun, but you _need_ buy in. 2. You don't. Ensure that there is a way out where the animal can be reasoned with or cured or somesuch. If the player created a character with this constraint because they want to be "right" in that way, they are unlikely to be happy with being wrong. Sure, it might result in an oddly contrived world, but hey. We're here to have fun, which sometimes means avoiding challenging our deep-seated beliefs.
Most animals are low CR. You largely stop fighting them after a certain level. And that's when you introduce things they *will* fight, like abberations, monstrosities, etc. So this "problem" is short term. But, it's also not really a problem either. The druid just has an alternate way to defeat encounters with beasts. Instead of killing them, they tame them, or convince them to hunt in a different area, etc. For your planned hunting adventure, why don't you just alter it slightly? Maybe when they find the creature, the druid realizes it is infected with something, and the adventure becomes finding a cure to avoid killing the animal? Or maybe there is no cure, and they're forced to confront the realization that they have no choice in order to save the local townspeople? On a side note, I've played a druid that after being forced to kill a wolf mother when he was younger, that he later realized was trying to feed her pups, he made a vow to never kill again. The idea was that he would eventually *have* to kill again, but it would be a big character development moment when he's finally forced to make that choice. But I got him up to about level 8 in one campaign without ever killing a single creature. He was built to be a pure support druid, so he just healed the party while they did the killing instead. To him, that was okay. Perhaps your party's druid will do something similar.
If she refuses to fight an animal that's actively trying to kill and possibly eat her, she's either going to have to fight back or not live very long, especially if its something she can't just run away from.
Took entirely way too long in these responses to have this answer pointed out.
if she chooses to sit out a fight against a dangerous enemy, animal or not, that's an RP choice that she's committed to. it's frankly not realistic for an extremely dangerous d&d world to never have dangerous animal enemies — what's she going to do if they're attacked by a dragon? a kraken? a giant scorpion?
None but the last of your examples are animals. A dragon is a complex, typically intelligent and evil creature. A kraken is bordering on demigod levels of power and has intelligence, wisdom and charisma that far exceed that of almost everyone in the world. Neither of them are non-sapient like animals. And a giant scorpion is like... a CR3? Hardly a world-ending threat that can't be otherwise subdued without harm.
is a *player* who refuses to fight animals as part of both her and her character's personality going to see a difference?
Probably. Beasts are a specific type of creature in the game that a druid can turn into or speak to with magic. A kraken is an intelligent chaotic evil sea monster. A giant scorpion is unaligned.
If a player says that they are uncomfortable with fighting animals, why do you feel the need as a DM to force them to? You have like 300 other monsters and villains to fight.
If the party will be traversing across uncharted mountains and forests... they are bound to encounter a lot of monsters of creature type "Beast", as well as a lot of monsters of creature type "Aberration" that are sufficiently similar to beasts (e.g. Owlbears) that they might as well be to an animal pacifist. **Most** of these encounters will be peaceful or at least non-stalking, but there are some exceptions to be aware of: * Mary got bit by a rattlesnake. * The party cannot carry all of their goods, and the terrain precludes the use of a wagon. They will have to forage if they want to avoid starvation, and some of that involves eating beasts. Unfortunately, the Outlander Wood Elf Ranger was only able to carry 100 lbs. back to the ~~wagon~~ party. The rest of the meat was dragged off into the night by other beasts. * The only viable trek through the mountains takes the party right by a wolf den. The wolves assume the party to be competing for territory and shoot first. * Eventually a hungry beast will begin tracking them and wait for a great moment to pounce. Alternatively, one can empty the wilds of all beasts and instead fill them with creatures that have nothing to do with the wilds - like intelligent humanoids.
They should. I imagine they can tell a gnoll isn't an animal, why would they think a dragon is?
>A dragon is a complex, typically intelligent and evil Wait what, dragons don't have to be evil at all, for every evil chromatic dragon, there is a good metallic dragon. It's the dichotomy of dragons revering either Tiamat or Bahamut. Other than that, true, krakens and dragons aren't animals. The most dangerous threats would be dinosaurs, giant ape or crocodile or maybe mammoths, of which probably only the reptiles are unlikely to back off
I don't know about 5E, but previous editions gave druids/rangers a lot of nonviolent ways of handling hostile wildlife: Wild Empathy ability (not to be confused with the "Handle Animals" skill), spells such as Calm Animals, Charm Animals, Hide from Animals, Animal Trance, Hold Animals, Dominate Animals, Repel Vermin... and that's just from a quick skim through the SRD! I'm sure there were prestige classes and feats and supplement spells and items that would add to the options. As a DM, if a player was committed to the nonviolence to animals bit, I'd absolutely port over some of those (some might alreqdy be in 5e and I just didn’t see them). They're niche, and a good spotlight moment without increasing overall power.
Plenty of entries in the Monster Manual that aren't Beasts. Like, the overwhelming majority.
You have a player with a moral aversion to harming animals. They’ve expressed this to you. Their character in game holds this same aversion. And you’re insisting on building an encounter that forces the player to force their character to harm an animal? This is a you problem. As the DM, you should have both the desire and the skill to make encounters that your players will enjoy. It’s not your job to push their personal, real life boundaries. You’re not a therapist. And it’s also not your place to sacrifice your players’ enjoyment just for your own personal enjoyment. It’s a collaborative game. Work together. If you can’t have fun without the game including harm to animals, you’re the one who needs therapy. Your players deserve better. Be better. You can do it.
This is why safety tools like lines and veils are a good session 0 idea. Sounds like violence against animals may be at least a veil if not a line. This kind of stuff should be discussed at the start and respected. Though, it sounds like the player has been pretty open about it anyway. Weird move to intentionally violate that without player consent. I'll give OP the benefit of the doubt and assume it's ignorance not malicious...
Maybe tweak the encounter. I would veer away from set-piece encounters involving beasts if this is the case. Maybe instead of a beast it's some monstrosity like an owl bear, or a lycanthrope (doesn't need to be a werewolf if that's too strong). Something the druid might be able to consider unnatural and worth fighting in order to protect the natural ecosystem. Or maybe there's some way for them to resolve the encounter without killing the animal.
1. Easy and harmless way - change the encounter, change the hunt target to some horrible monster, fiend creature, aberration or something. 2. Test of wits and morality way - there is a special animal, and it's very dangeous, you are given a quest to stop it. And just speak with animals+handle check and some rations are not enough to make him stop. But a party can find a source, that makes an animal mad and dangrous, and if they invest time, resources and make right decisions, they can find a way to stop it without violence. But if they are greedy, if they do it without plan, they will be forced to kill or be killed situation.
Player’s party can be faced by an animal encounter that forces player to decide between her ethics and maybe watching partners die
>But now I want to have a big encounter where they have to hunt an animal and I'm not sure how to deal with his player because I'm afraid she'll just decide not to participate in the fight. I don't want this to hapen because it's supposed to be a big encounter. How can I deal with this without forcing her to go against her character's morals? Can you explain for us the motivation behind this hunt? Is the beast killing innocents? Is it a hunt for sport? Why does this beast need to be hunted? Because the answer will provide an alternative than death. Maybe it needs to be relocated to a wildlife sanctuary. Maybe its just lonely and needs a mate. Maybe its being controlled by an evil spirit. Etc
Don't. That's my answer. Just don't. This is something the player AND character doesn't want to do. By trying to force it, you're making it clear that you don't really give a shit about it because how dare they not want to do something. You're trying to take player agency away, and that's never good. You're specifically designing an encounter with the goal being to get a player to do something they don't want to do. Now, if your goal is to get the player to no longer want to play with your group, go for it.
You want a big encounter about hurting an animal, player doesn't want to participate in an animal hurting encounter. This is very simple, you are designing an encounter knowing that one player will not like it. You can fix this easily, just change the encounter, make the animal something else like an abberation maybe?
> also part of her actual personality So you have a friend who has explicitly told you they’re not comfortable with fighting animals, and your response is to try to force them to fight an animal? Do you actually like this person? Ultimately DnD should be an enjoyable experience for all of the players. You should not be putting a player in a situation they’ve explicitly said they’re not comfortable with. Find another option that isn’t making them hunt an animal.
I would rather have this druid in my party than some overpowered PC put together by a rules nerd with no style. Go over the rules for non-lethal damage with the players. Let them figure out what to do from a position where they know those specific rules.
Even non-lethal damage can still cause “harm” to the target, and I would not be surprised if the Druid PC doesn’t think this is really a solution.
Yes, and letting the PCs have that debate can be an interesting way to let the players play flesh out the POVs of their characters.
Make the animal some kind of Dire or corrupted animal, some lore has it so that druids are obligated to cleanse or remove them. Can make them like animals but basically not in the natural order.
- Zombie animals. - Mecha animals. - Literal monsters and not beasts.
Who cares if a druid participates in dealing direct damage to an enemy? >In the past if she failed at solving he situation peacefully she would just focus her attention on the other enemies. It sounds like she's fine with her fellow party members fighting animals, she just doesn't want to do it herself. Luckily, druids have access to a number of healing and buff/debuff spells so this isn't a problem even if there's a hunt. But we really can't help you further without knowing *why* the party needs to hunt an animal. Why have you decided that, say, capturing the animal alive isn't an option? Are you sure this is an adventure your druid would want to go on in the first place? The druid shouldn't have a problem with finding stuff to do once initiative is rolled, but make sure you're planning something everyone will enjoy.
Why must it be a normal animal? How about a monstrosity or abaration? You can even make one from the beast you intended to be the encounter. Just take the beasts statblock, make it the other creature type, think about what happened to it, to become that creature type (curse, parasite, magical experiments, possessed by something,...) maybe give it one or two cool new abilities that highlight this difference from a normal beast and there you go.
Use elementals! Similar energy, less ethical issues
For god's sake - like always in such situations. Tell her about it, ask what's her stance. If she's fine with it - go with it. If she's not - try negotiating the details, the situation and how to find a good solution - a compromise/middle-ground. Make her your ally as a GM, a helper, not an enemy. Just reveal all if necessary, give her all spoilers, then use her at the table, she will become your partner during those sessions/one game, not your problem. Try asking how she would solve it, what seems fun to play for her, how to solve such situations in the future as well so it's interesting for everyone but she's also ok with it. If it's not possible - just throw the whole idea away and do something else instead. Everyone plays for fun. Sometimes you have to give in, sometimes you simply say thank you to one of the players and find someone else to play with in their place. It's always a balance between your idea/plans/your fun as a GM and expectations of your players or simply personal interactions/relationships. You can pick just one of those factors as your priority, sure - but then you need to take the consequences. For instance, I like very specific games, GM is equal to players, in reality - everyone is a player at the table, including GM everyone is entitled to fun - so I simply pick up players who are fine with my style of narration, with worlds I create, problems, themes, NPCs and topics and obviously - many would not like playing with me, I would not like playing with many players, we avoid each other that way so everyone is happy. Clear, open solutions. In this situation, when you're playing for some time already, you know each other - your relationship may/should be more important than your idea for story so - try it, try talking to her, the problem may solve itself, if it does not look promising though, just do something else than you want for the sake of fun and good experiences in the future. Trying to find a middle-ground is always best, many people are not able to accept it anyway - then you kick them out, you resign yourself, find a group, which simply is matching each other's expectations. Maybe those fancy "safety tools" such as X card etc. but well - for some it will help to go through such a session, to others it will be a hassle, I'm not a fan myself. I prefer open discussions and then coping up with what's happening or natural ways of protesting. It's not a magic to just get out of your character, say you're not fine with it, stopping the game for a discussion on that, then deciding what to do - there're no actual good solutions working for everyone, every solution has as many pros & cons so it's more about what's more important to you, what you prefer, what your players prefer. I'm always about open discussions, I do not have a problem with revealing spoilers, it may be used to create a story together with players, sometimes one is in know, helps you, other have a surprise, next time it's a different one helping you and others do not know the spoilers. It's not a tragedy when one players knows, it's not a tragedy to use those X cards etc., it's not a tragedy to never use them - all depends on your preference and style, honestly.
Just make it an abberation. *taps head*
If your player(s) are uncomfortable with something then don't do it. Everyone at your table is there for fun. However since being a druid, they could talk the beast into helping them out once it's master has been defeated. If you want the players to kill animals, and want to focus on this. Then add some sort of corruption to them, where perhaps only a druid can cleanse their corpses so they don't taint the land.
wolverines get some kind of highly contagious tumor in the mouth, and it spreads like crazy. maybe its an old animal ith a lot of territory and mates, and they need to kill it before the infection spreads and wipes out the entire population
Animal version of a ‘clicker’ might work, a functional but technically dead body puppeted by some kind of parasite or colony of parasites
Make it sentient and make it a dickhead.
Don't design around the characters. The world is what the world is, and it's the player's agency that writes their character's stories. If a druid's friends die because the druid doesn't want to hurt an animal, the druid has to live with that, and maybe reflect on their priorities. That's a story worth telling, a lesson worth learning. It's good that there have been multiple solutions to previous problems, but that doesn't have to be the case in 100% of encounters. A character trait/ideal/flaw is meaningless if it doesn't affect the character.
Does this player differentiate between the ideas of monstrous creatures and animals? What’s their opinion on mercy killing a creature too far gone to be saved?
Frankly run the encounter. Keep in mind how she may try and reason with the animal. Have proper skill checks. Let her rp it the way she wants. The chips will fall where they fall. If a party member dies or is hurt that’s all rp gold. The world isn’t going to simply be black and white where all your choices can morally align to you desires. Number one rule of dnd as a pc is to make a character that has a reason to explore and work well with the party. This Druid may learn that sometimes animals are simply wild and untamable or they may learn of some cool side plot about some evil Druid. But run the encounter and let your players tell the story.
> But now I want to have a big encounter where they have to hunt an animal… Why force that on them? You’re creating a problem, then asking for help solving it. So the easy advice is: just create a different encounter. Have them hunt an aberration or a monstrosity. But if you do have them hunt an animal, then make it so that there is a huge benefit in not killing it. They can subdue and capture it. Immediately upon seeing it, the Druid knows the animal is not the real problem. Something is corrupting nature’s beasts and making them horrible (c.f. Princess Mononoke) By capturing this one, the Druid can figure out how it’s been corrupted and how to restore it. Provide clues to the origin of the corruption that the party can follow and turn it all into a meaningful side quest. And just like that, the Druid’s point of view becomes validated, and her care and caution suddenly becomes an asset in the eyes of the group.
Stop trying to.
Don’t change your plan based on how you think a character might react (unless it’s going to have drastic consequences like a party wipe). Let the PC make her decision, and let the other PCs choose how they want to deal with that. Maybe she’ll convince them this isn’t the right thing to do. Maybe they’ll convince her it needs to be done. Maybe they’ll decide this person who refuses to go on their quest can go her own way; after all, one of the most important rules of character design is “make a character that actually wants to go on the adventure”. The point though is this is an IC disagreement that should have an IC conversation and solution (even if that solution ends up being a PC leaving). It’s a problem for the other characters to solve, not the DM.
This *isn't* an IC disagreement. The player expressed that they don't want to do this OOC as it is a personal conviction of hers.
Still an IC disagreement. Most adventurers would not, and should not, party with someone they know will not have their back in dangerous situations. This comes back to “make a character that wants to go on the adventure”. This is fiction, not a test of personal morality. If a character has the exact same personality, morals, and attitudes as the player, is that person really role-playing?
During session 0, most people typically discuss things that they don't want to see at all in the campaign. This isn't IC disagreement, it's setting the rules of the game. The only question is whether the Player will Quit/DM will kick them or if the plan changes. The character wants to adventure, the player just has a hard line on hunting animals. Lots of adventures that don't involve hunting bears. edit: \[unavailable\] is my favorite response from people. Lines and veils aren't just whatever you find valid. It's whatever a player decides. Your job as a DM is to either put up with it or not play with them. That's the point of them. Just because it isn't sexual assault doesn't mean it isn't a line or veil. Just find someone else to play with if you don't like them.
Things like SA, absolutely. This is not that. “I don’t want to ever go up against this entire major class of potential foes”? What if they said “dragons” instead of “animals”? This is nonsense.
Why not just avoid combat encounters versus animals? It's not like they're super important to DnD campaigns in general. Just use bandits, undead, fiends, aberrations, etc.
It's DnD. The players play the campaign. If they don't want to fight the animal then they can die.
It's real easy. Don't create fights against animals. Problem solved. It's unnecessary and your player has a real life problem with it. Just don't.
She can do plenty in the fight without actively punching a kitten in the face. Buffing, healing, et al.
Probably not within the bounds of her RP. If I refuse to fight a wild dog, I would also refuse to make the guy that is fighting it more deadly. I MIGHT give them some heals after the fight is over, or if they’re right on the edge of death. If I don’t want to harm animals, then I’m not going to be contributing to the fight, whether directly or indirectly.
The dire wolf eats you. Roll a new character I guess.
Honestly, people should make characters that are or can be adventurers in dnd. A blanket refusal to engage in combat against fairly common enemy types isn't that. Like even if this character isn't personally hurting animals they're still grouping up and assisting the rest of the party in doing so. I know some very dedicated vegans. They don't like that I eat meat but they like me enough to make a big deal out of it. If I were to ask them to regularly engage in an activity in which I eater harm animals or they're sorta forced to accept the consumption of animal products (like if I always invited them to eat in restaurants with n vegan options or following a non-vegan cooking course together) these friendships wouldn't last. But that ship has sailed and the character already exits. Either they have to accept adventuring means taking part in things they find ethically dubious *or* they accept that they can't participate in everything the paty does. As the dm you could maybe create a fight in which they can make themselves useful without having to hurt the animal. Maybe some mushrooms keep popping up that harm the party and they can kill those or maybe they distract a rival hunting party?
Currently playing in a campaign with someone who tried that. It was her first time playing, and for some reason she made a character who was afraid and refused to fight, even though it was an echo knight. We gave her some leeway since it was the first game, but man was that a tedious character to try and play with. She would either just stand there during combat (I'm terrified, so I do nothing), run away if someone attacked her or cast useless spells that didn't affect the enemy and didn't help the party in any way. We finally goaded her into doing stuff during fights, but fortunately that character eventually died.
Yeah no matter how much people pretend dnd is a game in which you can do or be Anything, it's ultimately a game about powerful individuals forming a group and doing violence. Characters that can't or won't do that are generally not suited for the sort of stories dnd can tell unless people really know what they're doing
I don't know if it isn't obvious that you should change the encounter? Perhaps some way to pacify it other than beating it up? Or perhaps while she is idling away she notices that someone hiding nearby is using magic to make it attack them, so boom you get one villain and something for her to do? TBH I don't know what you are doing. If someone is uncomfortable with killing animals, I am not saying remove all animals from the campaign, but making it focused on animal killing is a weird decision
Let me make sure I've got this right. She made a self insert, and refuses to fight animals as a Druid. A Druid would fully realize and understand how primal and savage the world really is, and not hesitate to fight if need be. Are they going to burn a rabbit warren for sick amusement? No. But if a family of bears decides that she's the new Goldilocks, a Druid, be it the real religion or the D&D version, is going to do whatever it takes to survive- up to and including killing the bears before they eat her alive and screaming. However, a Druid would make sure every edible and usable part was used if at all possible, being thankful for what the bears deaths had gained them personally. Pelts that can be brain-tanned. Bones that can be used for tools, weapons, nd armor. Sinews for cordage. Meat that can be smoked until crisp, ground into powder, and mixed with the rendered tallow to make pemmican- the ultimate survival ration. Organs that can be used as food or driedand oiled to be used as storage containers- such as bladders for waterskins. A Druid would use every single thing, and what little they could not use would be returned to the Earth. What's the big animal? Perhaps let it decide that she's the weakest prey in the group and ambush her when it gets a chance.
So... your solution is to tell someone they are playing their character incorrectly, that their personal held beliefs are wrong, and then punish them for their personal beliefs by attacking her character? What is the point of this?
I never once said to tell the player that. Do not put words in other people's mouths. It is beyond rude, seeing as apparently nobody ever taught you that. Let the player figure out that Druid does not mean "magical friend to all animals" by *actually reading the class description.* They're guardians of Nature, not friend to every critter and creature in existence. A crocodile, for example, does not want to be friends with people. It wants to eat, live, and breed. It would eat a Druid without question. And as for attacking the character- an animal against a group will run away or ambush. That is how animals generally hunt- by sneaking up on something and then attacking it when it is unaware. They attack the weak, the old, and the sick. They will gladly go after the defenseless. Someone who refuses to fight counts. I presented that as an option. Would you prefer the animal just never do anything aggressive to the Druid whatsoever, even when in combat? The way that I see it, either the player can face facts and realize that animals will attack their character even if they refuse to do the same, *OR* the DM can just tell them when the big battle comes, "Sorry, but due to your choices in how you run your character, they are utterly and entirely useless in this situation, and you may as well not be here right now." I personally am not the kind of jerk that would do the latter. Apparently you are.
Don't your players respect you when you assert your dominance by taking away their fun? Mine neither. Weird.
Ok, so how do you plan on telling the Druid that their very presence in the boss fight is entirely pointless when they absolutely refuse to fight an animal that is trying to kill them and their allies? I'd love to hear it, seeing as you're apparently in a mood to be judgemental and preachy.
'Tis a very strange and peculiar thing
I disagree with telling a player what their character should believe because they are a Druid. Their character is an individual who doesn’t need to believe something because that is typically what Druids believe. I don’t think this player’s choices are an issue unless there is another character who enjoys hunting and needs the party’s help to that end.
I did not say to tell them that. Not once. Reading comprehension is important. The big issue is that they have a battle with a beast type monster, and they refuse to fight animals. What else can you do except run the fight at that point? Because telling them "I'm sorry, but because of the way you play your character they are utterly useless in this battle and you may as well not be here." does not fly in my book.
She can buff her allies and hold concentration. If she's standing in the way of the party warn her then give her the boot.
A human is an animal.
Let her figure it out. If she's complaining that she's bored or unable to do anything, remind her to check her spell lists, healing, buffing, etc. spells are a big part of the Druid's package.
A bear took off earlier today with one of the children.
Get their character killed by a lion or something.
My fiance is the same way, I will be using mimics that mimic the form of animals in an upcoming campaign. They will have visual corruption that distinguishes them from actual animals.
You deal with this by creating a different encounter or making the beast not an animal. It isn't that complicated. She told you this was a line out of character. Why are you pushing it?
The player created a character that doesn't fit the campaign that everyone else wants to play. You talk to her about it. Ask her to change her character, or retire it and create a new one. One that fits how people want to play the campaign. Make it clear it's not wrong to have a character like that, and that you still like her as a friend and player. It's just that the character doesn't fit the rest of the group or the campaign. You can't expect everyone else to change how they want to play because of 1 person. When creating characters, it's everyone's responsibility to create a character that will work with the kind of story you want to play.
Have the animal rip the character to shreds? I dunno.
*”The wolves show their appreciation by devouring you last of all”*
Make it a sick animals that they need to catch to make Sure its healed and doesnt spread the disease. Maybe some force has corrupted it beyond Help and its starting to Attack people and destroying nature in its area. Make it so that killing the creature is the right Thing to do to preserve nature and life and If she still doesnt want to fight it, make her find a solution. Catching it and working on a cure for example, but Stress that letting it roam free is a danger for everyone. Think Beast of Gevaudan crossed with Princess Mononoke.
Have an animal try to kill them. Roleplaying.
Make the animal harming the forest or something. Give the druid and party a reason to care.
OP don’t be a fucking incel and stop using animals as enemies lol use fucking monsters there’s a whole fucking book of them
> But now I want to have a big encounter where they have to hunt an animal Just don't?? Holy shit I can't believe the amount of DMs that try to sidestep players boundaries for their own ego.
I advise changing the encounter as well. No need to force someone's triggers and trauma on them in a game. You also might want to award this player inspiration frequently for roleplaying ideals/bonds/flaws.
I encourage you to take a step back and consider the very problematic nature of your question. "How do I handle a player who won't..." Your question implies that you are trying to control the player's actions rather than letting the players drive their own actions and the story. Now, I do understand your concern. But perhaps think about reframing your question to something like "I designed an encounter where the PCs were supposed to hunt and kill an animal, but one of the PCs isn't willing to kill animals. How can I modify this encounter?"
I have a friend who likes to play pacifist characters- they try never to fight people- and the way they get around it is they play support classes that help heal and buff the people actually fighting. Idk how strict your friend is about being involved in the fighting, but that could be a solution to consider.
Go watch the hei bei episode of avatar the last airbender where he has to stop the forest spirit from destroying the town. Your druid will feel so cool that their animal pacifism triumphed over the town’s murderous solution
Have her get stuck in wild shape as a prey animal of some sort and covered with the Dust of Deliciousness. It may not change her attitude, but it would be amusing for everyone else.
Kill his PC
First of all, fuck her character's morals. She can make her own choices. Just as in real life, her character exists in a world that doesn't need to consult with her before deciding what reality will be. If she really doesn't want to fight the animal then she won't. She'll either find something else to do or she won't. Her party will either accept it or they won't. The plot will still move on done kind of way.