The five offerings are quite interesting: the Caller takes the animal companion feature of the normal druid to whole new levels; the Enforcer really makes the druid a full guardian of nature; the Shaman presents a spirit-oriented druid variation; the Survivalist is the ultimate druid of the wilderness (and incredibly useful for parties exploring the truly unknown); and the Tree Warden makes the druid an uber-guardian of the forest, transforming him into a pseudo-treant.

While the concepts seem more like AD&D 2nd Edition kits, the fact that they are built from 1st to 20th level like a full-fledged core class means that they get a chance to truly become unique and develop abilities specifically suited for their focus, as opposed to simply substituting standard druid ability A for B.

The writing is good and tight, the mechanics are well-balanced, and no class variation is more powerful than the other or than the standard druid; in specific cases one variation may be more useful (see above about the Survivalist), but it is more a matter of excelling in one's area of expertise.

The artwork is nice, with little snapshots of a member of each class that fit quite well considering they come from a generic art collection. A bonus is that the PDF comes with a landscape screen version, a portrait print version, and an RTF cut-n-paste version; excellent thinking here. The product text is 100% OGC.

For $2 it is hard to beat U. Druids' usefulness. Whether you are a DM or player, U. Druids offers five neat alternatives to the core class that can really refresh an NPC or a PC and shake up all expectations. Of course, if you like druids, this item is a must-own.

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