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

[abirdcall]

Just quoting you as one of the many, but note I don't have anything against you specifically.

What do you do if a Druid player in your campaign, at some random point during an adventure, finds and dons a metal armor?
a) Do you punish your player's PC "mechanically", coming up with some penalty that isn't in the rules?
b) Do you punish them "socially", altering the story to make it harder for them?
c) Do you flat-out tell them "you are NOT doing that, because I tell you so"?

At my table that wouldn't happen because we follow the rules.

If a player didn't know I'd show them in the book and then we'd move on.

 

[abirdcall]

It is a badly written and confusing "rule". I hope we can all agree on that.

I don't. It's clear to me and everyone I have played with.

The only ambiguity I see is with studded leather armour.

I don't really understand what people don't understand about the rule in general. I get that people don't like the rule, but I don't understand how it is hard to understand.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

As an aside, my monk wants to know when he's going to be allowed to karate-chop someone while wearing leather armor; the same armor that rogues can do backflips in.

Your monk isn't proficient in armor, but they CAN karate chop someone while wearing leather armor. If the druid entry said druids cannot cast spells while wearing metal armor, I personally would think the rule was less stupid. It's the fact that it prescribes an element of the character that is seemingly more important than the paladin's code (or even respecting nature!) that makes this bit of flavor disguised as a rule absurd. "Nope, I won't put on this chain shirt to save all of creation!"

 

[tetrasodium]

Your monk isn't proficient in armor, but they CAN karate chop someone while wearing leather armor. If the druid entry said druids cannot cast spells while wearing metal armor, I personally would think the rule was less stupid. It's the fact that it prescribes an element of the character that is seemingly more important than the paladin's code (or even respecting nature!) that makes this bit of flavor disguised as a rule absurd. "Nope, I won't put on this chain shirt to save all of creation!"

It would also have made the abhorrently bad barkskin spell a complete nonstarter critical fix before publication or one of the first erratas.

 

[Li Shenron]

At my table that wouldn't happen because we follow the rules.

If a player didn't know I'd show them in the book and then we'd move on.

That's exactly what I do, in fact I have a Druid PC right now in one of my games who has chosen to wear a chain shirt, and as per the RAW he does so without penalty (also as clarified by Sage Advice, although we all know that we take from Sage Advice only what we like, so that doesn't mean much).

 

[Undrave]

The rule is 'X will not do Y.' X doing Y is breaking the rule. There is zero ambiguity here. You're free to supply your own reasoning why X will not do Y, but the rule is clear.

Maybe if this was a video game I was programming, or a unit in a board game.

This is the only rule in the game that says a player character "will not" do something without so much as a justification. It is the only rule that dictate to players what their character thinks or feel about something. It's not even part of some kind of oath. It is a bizarre artefact of an earlier version of 5e that never got caught in editing, if you ask me.

 

[abirdcall]

I just really wish that fluff would stay out of the rules section.

I kind of want to try a social experiment and write that rogues grow magnificent moustaches but never beards or goatees in the game I'm developing.

This is almost non-sensical in a TTRPG. All rules are rules.

In a board game calling the yellow cubes wheat and the grey cubes stone doesn't have an effect on the outcome of the game. That is fluff.

In an RPG the 'fluff' is the entire game.

4e is the closest one I know of to trying to split itself into a strategy game and also an RPG.

5e is enthusiastically written narrative first. All rules are rules. I submit that if you are looking to divorce theme from strategy game then a board game is the better medium.

 

[Oofta]

Maybe if this was a video game I was programming, or a unit in a board game.

This is the only rule in the game that says a player character "will not" do something without so much as a justification. It is a bizarre artefact of an earlier version of 5e that never got caught in editing, if you ask me.

So? I mean seriously - what difference does it make? Druids will not wear metal armor. Perfectly clear. There's no need for a mechanical penalty because they will not wear it.

There are plenty of ways for druids to wear heavier armor with or without house rules.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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?

Agreed, and then I see a lot of people defending it because of "all the temp hp of wildshape"

Are you (such posters) referring to the amazing 5 hp that I get scouting as a lizard? Because unless I'm a moon druid or a Spore Druid, I'm not using Wildshape in combat to get temp hp. So, what was the Land Druid supposed to be doing when these things were printed if the class was balanced around assuming you played a Moon Druid?

Doesn't make any sense. And then you get into all of the other full casters who can get temp hp and wear medium armor (maybe not as much as a moon druid, but as much as a land or wildfire druid?). There is no mechanical reason for this. Only "lore" and it is a weak reasoning.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Maybe if this was a video game I was programming, or a unit in a board game.

This is the only rule in the game that says a player character "will not" do something without so much as a justification. It is a bizarre artefact of an earlier version of 5e that never got caught in editing, if you ask me.

That the rule lacks justification is valid criticism, it would be better if it did. This however doesn't make the rule ambiguous at all. What the rule does is crystal clear, why is does that is less clear.