Call Lightning: Not as Good as You Think

Druids. They're an odd choice for a player character. Made to stay Neutral while everyone else worries about the battles between Good and Evil, Law and Chaos. Druid are worshippers of Nature who revere trees above all else; people who would rather remain in their groves and mete out subtle justice in a karmic fashion to those who sin against Nature. It just seems an odd class to choose for a game that focuses on dungeon delving and looting treasure. These are not the goals of druids. They are wilderness clerics, who excel in the wilds, but have little or no influence over those things found in the typical dungeon adventure.

The spell selections of the druid are great....so long as you are in a forest or natural setting. Their armor and weapon selections really don't make them a martial choice. What they excel at is elemental manipulation and interactions between Nature and the party. That being said, they really lack many of the typical attack spells that a spell caster needs to feel "useful" to a typical party.

One of their "attack" spells is the 3rd level spell Call Lightning. While Magic-Users are slinging fireballs and lightning bolts, and Clerics are animating dead and praying for their party's success, the druid can only cast his one direct attack spell if there's a storm raging nearby...

Let's face it, the spell is practically useless UNLESS the DM arbitrarily decides that the conditions are "just right" every time the druid wants to cast this spell. Then there's the casting time...1 TURN. Most combats are over in one turn, unless there are a ton of combatants. The druid could be attacked before the spell is completed, thus disrupting the spell - by ANY attack that succeeds in the 10 rounds he or she spends casting. Then, he can release ONE bolt of lightning each TURN of continued combat with a saving throw allowed for each bolt! If he's lucky, he'll get off one bolt, maybe two, during a combat.

The worst part of the spell is that the druid has to be the epicenter of the effect (range: 0), so he can't just hang back in the woods and attack his opponents in a clearing or something. This MUST be a strange carryover from original D&D where the spellcasters were on the battlefield and exposed to attack. The area of effect is only a 360-foot radius (remember, areas of effect are always in feet; only ranges translate to yards outdoors) and this is not nearly distant enough to prevent opponents from attacking you before you are done casting. Let's face it, the instant a spellcaster begins casting ANY spell, they become a target to intelligent opponents. I've seen multiple PCs drop EVERYTHING they are currently doing to attack a spellcaster who declared a spell for that round. It's just the way players have been conditioned. So any spell that takes 10 ROUNDS to complete, is pretty much utterly useless unless the druid can first entangle his opponents or otherwise immobilize them.

Now, I'm a bit of a prick for making our party druid suffer through the Desert of Desolation trilogy, then head into the mountains to fight giants, but he's still been in the natural world, and I've taught him that nature means more than trees and forests. Still, it would be nice if just ONCE he could cast the Call Lightning spell; after all, he's been waiting to do so for nearly 20 years! Of course, now that he might be entering the Underworld to chase drow, he will likely never get a chance to cast this spell...ever!