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

[tetrasodium]

There was no fiat, it's following the rule with fluff description made for up for flavour. I get that you think it is a stupid rule. There are certainly many rules in D&D that I find stupid too. I still won't get angry at the GM is they expect me to follow them.

And yet this thread exploded while I was cooking/eating dinner but here we are on page 19 still lacking any rule citations but the one for gm fiat & "well no bob you can't decide that even though you are proficient and there is no penalty it's not allowed them's the rules, hey steve how's your lawful good drow hating drow coming along?" There is no penalty for wearing it, there is no skill or ability depending on not wearing it, there is nothing but a table by table "ok bob, I don't care... moving on" or things like the pseudo cursed item description if not some other fiat generated penalty. There was "no fiat forcing it" because a cursed item description was given twice & the player was pulled aside to fiat some work around.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And yet this thread exploded while I was cooking/eating dinner but here we are on page 19 still lacking any rule citations but the one for gm fiat & "well no bob you can't decide that even though you are proficient and there is no penalty it's not allowed them's the rules, hey steve how's your lawful good drow hating drow coming along?" There is no penalty for wearing it, there is no skill or ability depending on not wearing it, there is nothing but a table by table "ok bob, I don't care... moving on" or things like the pseudo cursed item description if not some other fiat generated penalty. There was "no fiat forcing it" because a cursed item description was given twice & the player was pulled aside to fiat some work around.

There is no penalty for wearing it as the situation cannot occur if you follow the rules. Simple as that.

Like seriously, this thread is several pages of some people arguing why they as player should be allowed to unilaterally declare which rules apply to their character. Frankly, truly bizarre!

 

[Yaarel]

Heh. It is funny how the moderate reading is opposed by both minimalists and the maximalists.

The moderate reading is. The Druid class lacks proficiency with metal armor − so get the wanted proficiency from elsewhere like D&D normally does.

But the minimalist reading is. They do have proficiency with metal armor, so they can flagrantly wear it without penalty.

The maximalist reading. The Druids "will not" wear metal armor under any circumstance − so that no exceptions of any kind whatsoever are possible! Ever! Heh, so that this one poorly worded isolated sentence somehow becomes more important than the rest of D&D 5e put together. No exceptions!!!!11!!1!!!!!11111!



Go back to the moderate reading. This is how D&D 5e works. Each class grants some proficiencies but not others. If a character concept needs a specific proficiency, then get it from an other silo. This is how normal 5e works.

The Druid class grants light and medium armors, except if they are made from metal. So get the metal proficiency from elsewhere.



The rules do say there is a penalty if a Druid wears metal armor. The Druid becomes unable to cast Druid spells because of wearing nonproficient armor. That is a heavy punishment. But, the lack of proficiency is easily obviated by picking the proficiency up from elsewhere, so as to become proficient with metal armor.

 

[tetrasodium]

There is no penalty for wearing it as the situation cannot occur if you follow the rules. Simple as that.

Like seriously, this thread is several pages of some people arguing why they as player should be allowed to unilaterally declare which rules apply to their character. Frankly, truly bizarre!

it can indeed happen as soon as the druid player says "actually yes my character will wear this armor they are proficient with". And then what? You houserule a penalty? You houserule that the druid player is not allowed to decide that because... because nothing. You houserule the existence of alternative substances the druid can wear instead and ask the druid player to pretty please wear that instead? Literally anything beyond "yes my character will & the ac is now xx" is the houserule

 

[Faolyn]

There is no flavor here. There is only a mechanic that lacks an explanation.

As many others have already said "will not" is not a mechanic. It's a flavor. "Cannot" is a mechanic. "Will not" isn't. As I pointed out before (and you ignored), other classes show their restrictions by indicating what they can use. Not what they can't use, but what they can use. Wizards aren't proficient in Simple Weapons, except for clubs, maces, javelins, and shortbows. Instead, they're only proficient in a handful of weapons.

It says, the Druid armor proficiencies grant light armor and medium armor. However, Druids "will not wear" metal armor, is added parenthetically because it is a special restriction. Other classes dont have parenthetical special restrictions. The Druid appears to have the only restriction that relates to the material that the armor is made out of.

Because the metal itself is the issue, it would disinclude leather armor that was "studded" with metal.

In order to become proficient with an item, one must learn how to use it. Refusing to use it, prevents training the proficiency.

There is not a single other instance of that being the case anywhere in D&D. Fighters are not not-proficient in a Simple or Martial weapon they don't use.

And here's a question: You start out as a fighter, with "proficiency in metal armor." You spend a few levels wearing a metal breastplate, a metal helmet, a metal shield. You multiclass to druid. What happens then? You clearly didn't refuse to use metal during this time.

A mountain dwarf is proficient in light and medium armor. Do you, an adult mountain dwarf druid, suddenly forget how to use metal armor, even though you were taught how to use it long before you became a druid?

"Refusing to use it" doesn't indicate a lack of training. A person can have a driver's license but refuse to drive. A person can make a great steak but refuse to eat it. A fighter can be proficient in Martial Weapons but refuse to use any of them.

The answer is very simple: Druids are fully proficient in Light and Medium armor. They make a choice to not wear armor made of metal because they view it as taboo. And just like with clerics and warlocks, there is no official ruling on what happens if they break the taboo.

The end.

In any case, the special restriction against metal is explicitly in the description of what the Druid class grants proficiency with.

No, it's a badly-placed note, because they know a lot of people weren't looking at the lore. Heck, it was probably a holdover from the playtests back when this was "D&D Next" and the playtest packets didn't have any lore, only the briefest of descriptions.

If you don't want druids to wear armor in your home game, that's fine.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The maximalist reading. The Druids "will not" wear metal armor under any circumstance − so that no exceptions of any kind whatsoever are possible! Ever!

Because that's what the rule actually says. Though I think your interpretation would be a better rule, and would gladly play it that way.

 

[ad_hoc]

Every time this question is brought up, it creates so much drama. This isn't like previous editions where the druid loses all of their druid powers if they wear metal armour, that hasn't been a thing since 3e, they're just trying to fit the flavour of past editions but really, nothing bad would happen and even if you bring it up with a player that a druid will not wear metal armour, they can just come back with "actually, my character's fine with it..." and then nothing will happen when put on that shiny new breastplate that they found. Any penalty that the DM decides to impart would be the real houserule, not the druid wearing metal armour.

The penalty at my table is not playing the game anymore.

 

[carkl3000]

True. They decided to explicitly state that they will not wear metal armor, even though they are proficient with shields and medium armor. Almost as if getting half plate that's not made of medal is a perfectly legitimate option.

It's not about proficiency, it's about religious taboos. There's no need to have penalties for wearing metal armor because they will not wear metal armor. And round and round it goes.

I think we're mostly on the same side of this argument. I give style points for druids who choose to not wear metal armor, but I think that's all it is, style. And style points don't really count for anything outside of good story telling, and if there's no good storytelling to go along with with metal armor prohibition then it feels pretty empty and pointless.

The poster in the thread with the mariner's armor that made the druid feel icky doesn't bother me much. But personally, I'd still allow the character to wear icky-feeling armor if that's what they wanted to do, and they'd suffer no mechanical penalties for it, but I'd hope that we could not just forget about it, but use it as a minor element in the story, for moving along a sideplot, or as comic relief or whatever.

If I want to start a game as a cleric with scale mail, and then take level two in druid, what happens? I mean, ideally, to take a level of druid I should be associated with a circle or somehow acquire a mentor or whatever, but in reality, it's a game with other players who all have their own storylines and character development that they want to realize and there's limited table time. I know there are probably many ways to go about it, but what do you do with, for instance, a cleric that wants to continue to be a frontline fighter, that has taken a druid level, and has not yet had time to go questing for special armor? I like all the individual pieces of the puzzle. You can tell the druid initiate that they have to strip and they get an armor penalty until the party can get around to going to kill an ankheg and then finding an armorer to make them a half-plate... You can drop an ankheg half-plate in the next pile of loot? I think it feels best to say that the character continues to do what they are doing. Maybe at some point they meet up with a group of druids that give the character the business for wearing gross stinky metal, or maybe they just feel increasingly uncomfortable in the metal armor. Maybe it actually gives them a rash.

I'm starting to ramble. I'll try to wrap it up. I would not drop everything to get the new druid new armor. That seems disrespectful to the other players. I would not give the new druid an armor penalty for taking a multiclass when I fully intend to get them whatever armor they want in the future, and I wouldn't just drop a chitin halfplate in the next loot pile because that's incredibly cheesy. I'd let the character keep wearing the scale mail and I'd work on the roleplay to get from druid wearing armor they don't prefer to armor that they really like, because that feels like the best story. But as always, it's all going to be different depending on the table.

 

[lingual]

I don't understand why we are all so passionate about this. I don't like druids in armor. I think the rule says they don't wear it. Good for me.

Others might be fine with druids in metal armor. Good for them.

If I was a player at a table and the DM ruled one way of the other, I wouldn't care. I would not rage quit.

The fact that there is so much argument over this means one thing to me. That the rule is poorly written. Some don't even think it's a rule. But rather fluff. I disagree but that's fine. There are enough of the other opinion that I would gladly admit there is ambiguity and just leave it at that.

I would leave this fluff/rule to roleplay if I was DMing and a player insisted on wearing metal armor. They maybe out of other resources and NEED that metal armor to survive. If the player has been pretty "druidic", then that would be okay. If the druid drives a gas guzzling SUV and has a Wand of Pesticides and Agent Orange and just wants to sport the full plate to impress a date, I would penalize them.

Those are extreme examples, but I hope they illustrate how I think this restriction should be applied.

 

[Northern Phoenix]

it can indeed happen as soon as the druid player says "actually yes my character will wear this armor they are proficient with". And then what? You houserule a penalty? You houserule that the druid player is not allowed to decide that because... because nothing. You houserule the existence of alternative substances the druid can wear instead and ask the druid player to pretty please wear that instead? Literally anything beyond "yes my character will & the ac is now xx" is the houserule

The fact that players exist that are so toxic to the "house rules" that are at the core of 5Es ruling design is the reason these arguments get so spicey. I'm not surprised that less confident DMs hide behind arguing "RAW" when a player tries to browbeat them, but really, the discussion should go like this and no further: "Can i use metal armor?" "No" "OK".