People keep comparing this to Terrain, which is only somewhat accurate.

Now, the saplings prevent someone else from tainting you out, and require Chopping to take down. So far, not so different from Terrain, if a slightly different flavour.

But there's two main differences.
1) Terrain is a secondary skill for Mages, and reasonably far up. Around Expert. On the other hand, this sapling ability is in the Druid's primary skill (At least, that was what I was told - I did look into this before posting blindly). Meaning the Druid can defend their Demesne for -zero- extra lessons, whereas a Mage needs to invest several hundred extra lessons to defend their Demesne in such a fashion.
2) Realitycheck is instant, doesn't require you to fiddle around with an axe, and only ever needs to be done once.

Also, unless Mulch is based on relative skill (That is, a person who only -just- has Mulch is -never ever- going to get down a tree put up by a Transendant Druid), -any- Druid with a handful of lessons can down such a Sapling. Whereas with Illusions, you need a decent Illusionist still, to take down a Terrain.

Furthermore, you get commodities for doing this. You can just sit there, make a tree, mulch it, repeat until you've got all the wood you want. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm happy that the wood shortage is being dealt with, but if you want "balance," where's -my- spiffy skill to produce a commodity? Why can't I cause cave-ins in natural or constructed underground, which damages people, and has a chance for iron, or marble to be created on the ground?

Discernment is a skillset that people learn -anyways-, because it's good. Environment, almost nobody learns unless they've run out of other things to sink lessons into (Though, I suppose this -is- a good way to make the skillset more worthwhile).

The arguement that "any axelord can cut down the trees" is moot, because Realitycheck can be gotten by anyone, as well.

Now, the arguement about summoning....that's complete and utter bullsh*t. "But you can just toss a monolith sigil before you, to avoid Wisp!" You're right, I can. And you can just have a novice running around, who's only job is to pick up monolith sigils. So, unless I'm carrying 50 flamed monolith sigils to keep me safe, I'm just as much at risk of being summoned as you. In fact, more so. Because you can have 50 people summoning me. You can only -ever- have one Geomancer summoning you....and it costs more to do it. Sure, they can go through Monolith sigils and Shield, but again, how difficult is it to steal my monolith sigils? Sure, the Shield is still a problem, but it costs me 3 Power to your one, -and- only one person can do it.


So let's see, I need to invest a few hundred lessons into defending my Demesne against being forested out. And another few hundred lessons so I can taint your Demesne out.
You need to invest zero lessons to keep me from tainting you out. And need to invest a few hundred lessons to taint me out. Oh, and your skill gives ou wood, a much needed commodity.

Yep, sounds balanced to me.

You have to wait 2 IG years before you can mulch a tree to get wood from it, there's no tree/mulch/wood method that can be done. Sure, -eventually- you'll get wood from it, but you can't just sit there for a day and be full of wood.

Flame your monoliths. As to this crap I bolded.

READ THE BLOODY THREAD ON THE TOPIC. I POSTED A VERY CLEAR AND CONCISE POST. SAPLINGS DO NOT GIVE WOOD. NONE. ZERO. NADDA WHATSOEVER. ZIP. CERO.

I can't say 'zero' in any other ways, other than comparing it to some people's IQ - Perhaps Bush's would be best, but I'd rather not degrade Terri Schaivo like that. Hah.

Mulching trees ONLY gives wood after TWO IC YEARS. TWO. Unless I NATURE GROWTH whenever possible, which MAYBE doubles growth - maybe. No one seems quite sure. TWO IC YEARS. And then it's such a paltry amount. The older it is (after 10 years it dies), and the heavier it is, the more wood it gives. Got it? So, in theory, if it is Nature Growthed 100% of the time and mulched seconds before it's 10th birthday, we can get maximum wood.

Sorry. Cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it. Our demesnes SUCK. Give me your demesne, and I'll trade you defense skills. Wouldn't that be fun? I'd ssoo be up for starvation/vomiting/stun/prone/limb breakage/rubble/telepathy/chasm. Alright? No bitching allowed. None. Zero. Nada whatsoever. Zip. Cero. Got it?

And, repeated for repitition's sake.


FLAME YOUR DAMN MONOS.

Oh, yes, because we can all afford to buy 50 monoliths and flame sigils every few weeks.

We have to since we only have one enchanter in our entire commune. The cities got 2 guilds that can enchant, I don't see why getting sigils for you guys is a big deal.

The ONLY imbalance I can see with this is having Saplings in Druidry instead of Stag or Crow.

And look, here's how sapling > terrain. I'll make a little chart for ways you can get rid of them.



As you can see, a mage getting rid of a druid sapling would have to use chop, which can take more than one try and is slower than realitycheck.

A druid getting rid of a druid sapling would just have to mulch, which gets rid of it one hit every time.

A mage getting rid of illusory terrain would have to dispell (unless they hae realitycheck), which works only if your illusions skill is better than the caster's.

A druid getting rid of illusory terrain would have to realitycheck, which always works in one hit.

Except it wouldn't make sense in Stag or crow.

I'm talking about the cost, not the difficulty of getting them. As generous as some enchanters are, I doubt they'd be willing to give a massive order of sigils like that for free.

First, I already mentioned flamed monolith sigils. And yes, I -happen- to have 50k gold I want to spend on monolith sigils, an average of once a year.

And...Oh my god, no! I made a minor mistake on how mulching for wood works, oh the humanity! The point still stands, you -can- create commodities, we -cannot-. Party A) Possible, but time consuming. Party B) Impossible.


Now, aside from pointing out what I already had (Three times), and attempting to flame me because I got a minor point on a skill I don't have wrong....what have you done to invalidate my arguement?

What's that? "Nothing," you say? Because I'm right, and the only thing you have to work with is CapsLock, in the vain hope that it'll distract everyone from what was said?

I thought so.

So, we were talking about forest fires.

As someone pointed out, you guys have demesne summon, meaning you can instantly summon anyone that enters your demesne before s/he can reality check/break demesne. Can a druid do the same from afar..no. So I don't really see the major problem here. And if you're breaking in group, one person RC the other break compared to one person chopping twice, the other chop once and break.

Forest fires, anyone?

Outside of a real forest (Faethorn, Seren, Glom), it takes one chop.

Didn't you realize the point of this whole thread was to get ignite to instantly burn down sapling?

one person chopping twice, the other chopping once and breaking? While in that 8 seconds we're wisped into locked, monod rooms with axes in our hands and killed? Druids may not be able to do it, but this is a team effort. If reality check can be done by anyone, have it take effect immediately so a mage can force, then the opposite scenario needs to be effectively, if not actually equal. 8 seconds of time where a theoretically infinite number of moondancers can wisp you != .5 seconds of realitycheck/force where one geomancer can summon you.

Let's make this easy. Having a melded Druid demesne =! Wisp. Because Druids don't have Wisp, so don't clump those two together. We are just comparing Druids and Mages now, Mages can instantly summon anyone who enters their demesne to attempt to break, Druids cannot.

It ended up being more like yelling at people than anything else. That was my meager attempt to steer us back on the right track. Ignore me if you must, everyone else does.

You guys can flow to the sucker instead of summon, because flow is alot more effecting. Hell, I'd shit my pants if I spent 5 minutes chopping and then BAM! Here's an army of treehuggers.