Question: I played a D&D 3.5 campaign years ago, and one PC was a druid. The player did a pretty awesome job as a spy thanks to the multiple divination spells, Wild Shape and especially A Thousand Faces:

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> [**A Thousand Faces (Su)**](http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm#aThousandFaces)  
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>  At 13th level, a druid gains the ability to change her appearance at will, as if using the [*disguise self*](http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disguiseSelf.htm) spell, but only while in her normal form. This affects the druid’s body but not her possessions. It is not an illusory effect, but a minor physical alteration of the druid’s appearance, within the limits described for the spell.
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I'm now planning to run a Pathfinder campaign (albeit with a custom world) with a lot of druids and I just don't understand how Thousand Faces fits for a "protector of the wild, lover of Nature" kind of guy (and I've never seen this ability used since this spy-druid), so I'm considering dropping A Thousand Faces.

Did you ever read something justifying this ability, in D&D or Pathfinder material or anywhere else, even real stories on druids?

**EDIT :** What bugs me is that I can't see proper use of this ability besides deception, and deception doesn't feel too "natural".

Answer: 
I have not heard of a historical/fictional druid that had a particular ability to change their face.

However, this seems like a fairly straightforward extension of the 3.5 Druid's earlier abilities - namely Wild Shape. A 13th-level Druid is an accomplished shapeshifter, they are used to changing their form and flesh into those other than their own.

This could even be tied to a 13th-level Druid suddenly having the realization that humanoids are not so different from animals at all.

I can imagine that the idea for the ability surfaced when someone asked the question: "Wait, my high-level Druid can change their face to resemble that of any kind of animal, but not to look like the face of another human?"
I don't know much about real stories of historical druids, but I can clearly remember some figure a protector of nature that used to live among humans, conceiling his true aspect, to watch on them.  

I can't really remember which book or movie featured this story but the trope of a disguised watcher of events is familiar to me, to the point of instantly recognizing it every time I look at the *A Thousand Faces* feature.

I don't think this kind of character is any good as a PC unless it's a story about this sort of things, but it might be awesome for some higher-level NPC (for it's quite useless by the level it comes into play).