D&D 5E Can your Druids wear metal armor?

[carkl3000]

Heck, why not just have all classes proficient in all weapons and armor?

They can be if they want to spend a feat or two. Except I guess for druids...

 

[Vaalingrade]

What's Mother Nature's AC?

Not high enough to protect her if she's not wearing metal armor.

 

[Tonguez]

No and I think its more fun not to - there are real world examples of laminar plate armour made of reinfirced bands of leather, baleen, bone, silk and woven fibre, In a world of magic theres no reason why a druid cant wear these kinds of armour or come up with their own variations of barkskin, stone plate, giant spider silk, crystal mail or dragon scale.

 

[Charlaquin]

Right. So that's why I find it a bit weird that people are so willing to waive the restriction like it was not a big deal. It kinda is. Do you also give other classes +3 to AC because they want it?

3 AC is absolutely a big deal, we’re just working from different baseline assumptions. To you, druids don’t wear metal armor, and allowing them to get around the restriction is effectively giving them a free +3 AC. To me, druids are proficient in medium armor, and not allowing them to wear it (besides hide) is effectively giving them a -3 AC penalty. Given that the Sage Advice answer says that the restriction is intended to be for RP reasons and allowing druids to get around it won’t break anything, I’m inclined to believe my assumption is more closely aligned with RAI.

 

[tetrasodium]

Heck, why not just have all classes proficient in all weapons and armor?

People are talking about a class that is proficient.

Either they are a d8 hit die medium armor & shield class & have abilities balanced against that or they are a d8 hit die padded leather & hide class with abilities balanced against that fact

 

[cbwjm]

Thinking about this further, another reason why I allow druids to use metal armour is that they are the class I use for a WoW style shaman, who can wear up to chain (essentially medium armour) in the game. Giving druids access to metal armour really isn't going to change the balance of the game, or at least not my game.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Mage armor, a shield and +2 dex is better than any non metal medium armor and shield and same stats.

Barkskin is garbage.

Wildshape is only viable in melee combat for moon druids and it's not even that great in middle tiers of play.

A bladesinger with medium armor feat and +2 dex can have, what, 22AC?

Oof.

Mage armor is +1 hide or studded leather, my dude. It's a +1 difference. Wizards don't get shield proficiencies, either, so the Druid has better AC, not the Wizard. So then we can compare Shield vs easy access to healing magic. Comparable.

Barkskin is situation, and not meant to be anyone's primary means of protection. Combined with a high HP wildshape form, it works.

Wildshape is viable for all druids, Moon Druids just get enough out of it to focus on it as a primary tactic. Every single druid can get damage mitigation, increased movement and senses, etc, from it. You are the only person talking about druids as primary melee combatants, and only in the context of this weird "well actually" you're trying to throw at me.

Bladesingers can have high AC a few times a day, at most, and the rest of the time are still a wizard that can't use a shield. They still don't have any more HP than any other wizard, and have to split their spell prep and spells learned between melee and ranged spells.

The Druid doesn't sacrifice anything at all to be perfectly capable of surviving a normal adventuring scenario without panicking about their hit points. Speaking of hit points, Druids have more of them.

If you're going to act like the Bladesinger proves Wizards have better defenses than Druids, we get to talk Druid subclasses, as well. Moon Druids can cast an action spell in the same turn they Wildshape, and gain access to high CR forms. So they can Call Lightning, conjure allies of various kinds, give themselves an AC 16 regardless of form, cast Flaming Sphere, Use Dust Devil to push the enemy around in a fight where terrain matters, use Heat Metal to make the Bladesinger not be able to use their preferred weapon, use spike growth if they can set up the fight to where the enemy needs to come to them, and the concentration spells cast as an action get better and better as they level up, and then gain significant extra HP on top of comparable AC and more HP in their normal form, and the ability to self-heal even while in beast form. In a melee combat fight, the Mood Druid is going to eat the Bladesinger.

Then you get the Spores Druid. Temp HP, a damaging aura, and extra damage on melee attacks. Combine with Primal Savagery or Flameblade for better attack bonus than the Bladesinger, who has to split between Int and Dex, and the Bladesinger is gonna lose this one, too.

Meanwhile your Bladesinger took the Medium Armor feat for some reason, and has a 14-15 Dex? LOL okay.

 

[carkl3000]

Oof.

Mage armor is +1 hide or studded leather, my dude. It's a +1 difference. Wizards don't get shield proficiencies, either, so the Druid has better AC, not the Wizard. So then we can compare Shield vs easy access to healing magic. Comparable.

Barkskin is situation, and not meant to be anyone's primary means of protection. Combined with a high HP wildshape form, it works.

Wildshape is viable for all druids, Moon Druids just get enough out of it to focus on it as a primary tactic. Every single druid can get damage mitigation, increased movement and senses, etc, from it. You are the only person talking about druids as primary melee combatants, and only in the context of this weird "well actually" you're trying to throw at me.

Bladesingers can have high AC a few times a day, at most, and the rest of the time are still a wizard that can't use a shield. They still don't have any more HP than any other wizard, and have to split their spell prep and spells learned between melee and ranged spells.

The Druid doesn't sacrifice anything at all to be perfectly capable of surviving a normal adventuring scenario without panicking about their hit points. Speaking of hit points, Druids have more of them.

If you're going to act like the Bladesinger proves Wizards have better defenses than Druids, we get to talk Druid subclasses, as well. Moon Druids can cast an action spell in the same turn they Wildshape, and gain access to high CR forms. So they can Call Lightning, conjure allies of various kinds, give themselves an AC 16 regardless of form, cast Flaming Sphere, Use Dust Devil to push the enemy around in a fight where terrain matters, use Heat Metal to make the Bladesinger not be able to use their preferred weapon, use spike growth if they can set up the fight to where the enemy needs to come to them, and the concentration spells cast as an action get better and better as they level up, and then gain significant extra HP on top of comparable AC and more HP in their normal form, and the ability to self-heal even while in beast form. In a melee combat fight, the Mood Druid is going to eat the Bladesinger.

Then you get the Spores Druid. Temp HP, a damaging aura, and extra damage on melee attacks. Combine with Primal Savagery or Flameblade for better attack bonus than the Bladesinger, who has to split between Int and Dex, and the Bladesinger is gonna lose this one, too.

Meanwhile your Bladesinger took the Medium Armor feat for some reason, and has a 14-15 Dex? LOL okay.

I stand corrected about wizards and shields. But it's still the case that any wizard that wants to can have better AC than a druid. and they can use the shield spell.

Spores druid is exactly the case I'm considering. That's the subclass I'm playing currently. Yes they get some THP, but their best subclass features rely on staying in close range and not losing those THP. That's tough to do with 16 AC. It's really a problem with the way the subclass was designed. (The UA version wasn't perfect, but it was better for sure in that the buffs from symbiotic entity didn't go away after a few good hits.) 19 AC without magic items goes a long way towards fixing it. And there's nothing in the rules that says 19 AC can't happen.

 

[Maxperson]

I have found the metal armor restrictions to be rather disruptive, we have largely ignored this at my tables. To start with what defines "metal armor"? Is studded leather metal? Almost all middle age shields are primarily wooden IRL, maybe some bucklers were metal, but no other metal shields existed. In the far east IRL there was wooden armor that would most approximate half-plate, breast plate or splint mail.

Also in terms of story or theme, if a Paladin can go against his oath and become an oathbreaker or an asimar become fallen, why can't a druid wear metal?

Just a stupid rule IMO and it does not seem to add much flavor IMO since he can swing a metal scimitar and seems to have no problem adventuring with the guy wearing chainmail. Also as a tree-hugger I would find it somewhat silly to say - "sure you can cut down that tree and make me some armor, but no metal"

What do you think?

RAW doesn't prohibit it, so yes they can wear metal armor if they want to defy the class lore for whatever reason. The Druid class makes it clear that it's a personal choice made by the class not to wear metal armor and that there's nothing preventing a PC from opting to wear it, nor any kind of mechanical penalties if they do so.

 

[Maxperson]

No reason for them to use metal armor.

At least they can wear more than just leather (light) armor now!

I've allowed my Druids to wear wooden, chitin and scale, suffering any armor restrictions that apply . Heavy armor only if they are proficient (via feats or MCing).

It's also great side quest material, getting the ingredients for non-metallic armors ( Dragon Scale, Umber Hulk chitin, Bullette Hide, etc).

I can envision circumstantial reasons for them to wear metal armor, such as trying to sneak into a castle dressed as knights in full armor.