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

[J.Quondam]

Why would you? Did you as player agree to play the game by the rules? Why would you intentionally break a rule?

This is a total dodge. The question pretty clear, and the situation isn't especially fringe: the player has simply decided that their druid puts on ordinary metal armor.
So what does the GM do in that case?
The answer to that must be either (1) say "no," which is completely RAW but also obviously bars player agency on this issue; or (2) say "yes" and then follow up with a non-RAW ruling as a ramification (which might be nothing, or exploding the druid, or ejecting the player, or whatever).

Given the RAW as is, the GM has only those two options.

 

[Oofta]

There's no rule preventing a druid from wearing metal armor. At best it's a "rule" strongly suggesting the player choose not to have his druid wear it. It's like the 1e, 3e and 4e rules where the druid can ignore the rule if he wants and wear it anyway. "Won't" = choice. The only difference is a lack of mechanical penalty which I would suggest you put back in if you want the players to have a reason not to break the "rule."

We disagree.

 

[J.Quondam]

If you don't want to play the games by the rules you will need to find a different DM.

Okay... but the situation has come up after the player is already sitting at your table*. So what does GM do?
"Kick the player out" is a perfectly legitimate answer, of course.


* Unless one of the pre-game vetting questions is "When playing a druid, do you promise never to try to have your chacter wear metal armor?"

 

[abirdcall]

People are throwing around "player agency" a lot here when we're actually just talking about making decisions and having consequences to those decisions.

Player agency isn't about being able to do anything at any time.

If I create a Druid I'm not creating a Fighter. I didn't lose my agency to be a Fighter, I just chose to make a Druid instead. Similarly not using the multiclassing rules is also not stripping players of their agency.

If a player chooses to stop adventuring and open a bakery their agency is being violated if the group tells the player that the character is no longer appropriate for the game and they should make a new one.

If the DM declares that a character has been reduced to 0 HP their agency hasn't been removed even though something happened to their character that they didn't 'choose'.

That's not what 'player agency' means.

 

[abirdcall]

Okay... but the situation has come up after the player is already sitting at your table*. So what does GM do?
"Kick the player out" is a perfectly legitimate answer, of course.


* Unless one of the pre-game vetting questions is "When playing a druid, do you promise never to try to have your chacter wear metal armor?"

It is an unsaid assumption with my group that all players will follow the rules in good faith.

I've never actually asked everyone to agree to following the rules before. That agreement is implied by agreeing to play a game.

 

[Maxperson]

We disagree.

Yep. I choose to play druids like they have always been played and how the 5e wording is used.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It's cute the insinuate that people who are reading one another's posts on an internet forum can't read and all, but maybe just maybe they're interpreting what they read differently than you?

Kind of like what's actually happening. You read it as a rule, we read it as weird flavor text in the wrong place due to it being written like the dying dream of a British dowager on Downton Abbey.

"I say, Fabrisham, these druids simply will not wear metal armor. It is most uncouth."

The implication related more to the understanding part. However, at this point I have hard time believing that that is actually the issue either, as it seems highly unlikely me that anyone would seriously think that a flavour text would have been accidentally placed in midst of pure rules content, and same mistake would have been repeated for the summary chary. So I really have no idea what's even going on here anymore.

 

[J.Quondam]

It is an unsaid assumption with my group that all players will follow the rules in good faith.

I've never actually asked everyone to agree to following the rules before. That agreement is implied by agreeing to play a game.

Alrighty.
So say a player tries it anyway, and says their druid decides to put on metal armor. (Just assume, for example, the player is one of those like some in this thread who interpret the rule differently than you.)
What does the GM do?

 

[Zubatcarteira]

On the bright side, you throw a Suggestion or Dominate Person on a druid NPC and tell them to wear chainmail, and they might actually explode.

 

[Laurefindel]

the « no metal armor » thing sounds a bit like a geas (geis?), not unlike Beorn in LotR who had to live a recluse life and not eat meat. While the D&D spell of the same name has little do to with it, Gaelic geis often came with some power granted as long as the geis was kept. Former editions made spellcasting that «granted power» but in 5e it could be anything. Personally I’d go for wild shape.

between the metal armor taboo and the secret Druidic language, the druid is probably the class that comes with the most baggage (before subclass).

in 2e, it was an example of a priest of a specific faith. Basically, the druid was a cleric subclass reserved to a specific race (races if you count half elf). Now it’s a full fledged class available to any and all cultures.

honestly the druid could have been a subclass of some sort of animist class.