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

[Maxperson]

Sage Advice: "Druids dont lack the ability to wear metal armor."

But, Druids do lack proficiency with metal armor.

Every character can wear full plate armor. But non-proficient spellcasters cannot cast spells while wearing it.

It's more than just a lack of proficiency, though. It's also a druid taboo. That's why I wouldn't run a druid that wore metal armor all the time, but would, if my PC thought it was necessary, don metal armor for a short time to accomplish something that needed accomplishing.

 

[Umbran]

But, Druids do lack proficiency with metal armor.

Looking at the 5e class description:

"Armor: Light⁠ armor, Medium Armor, Shields (druids will not wear armor or use Shields made of metal)"

(Folks have referred to other places where that prohibition is worded differently, but this is apparently the only place the word "metal" occurs in the 5e class description.)

I'd think that the most natural reading is that proficiency is about the form of the armor, rather than its material. But that's just me. You read it as you will.

 

[tetrasodium]

Fun twist: Talk to your DM about wearing metal armor while you are wildshaped, and having it merge into your body when you return to normal.

That's what I've ruled happens since before sage advice complicated the issue. The only restriction I place is humanoids need armor & beasts need barding so it gives me as a GM a little more freedom & more chances to make magic items.

 

[Umbran]

With regard to Druid proficiencies, exactly what "studded leather" is or isnt matters. It has ingame mechanical consequences. The fact that it is unimaginable nonsense becomes problematic here.

Unimaginable? Really?
If you are being colorful or hyperbolic, please stop. It isn't helpful.
Because if the issue is really that you honestly cannot imagine it... that's really not an issue we will address with rules discussion.

 

[Yaarel]

It's more than just a lack of proficiency, though. It's also a druid taboo. That's why I wouldn't run a druid that wore metal armor all the time, but would, if my PC thought it was necessary, don metal armor for a short time to accomplish something that needed accomplishing.

The socalled taboo only explains the lack proficiency.

Recall that nowhere does any D&D 5e book ever mention this alleged "taboo".

The only thing that is mentioned is the Druid only has proficiency with "(non-metal) armor".

Because of this nonproficiency, the typical Druid cannot (!) spellcast in metal armor.

However, if a character gains metal armor proficiency from some other source, then they can spellcast normally.

In my eyes, there is officially no metal taboo. There is only a lack of proficiency with metal armor. Other sources can grant the missing proficiency.

If a person chooses to interpolate a taboo, then there are two ways to look at it.

Flavor. The special effort to become proficient, means overcoming ones own traditional aversion to this taboo.

Mechanics. Specific beats general. A special rule, such as a feat, overrides the general rule that Druids generally wont wear metal armor.

 

[Faolyn]

"The rules don’t account for every possible situation that might arise during a typical D&D session."

When the game admits, in its introduction to the GM, that there's not a rule for everything, saying, "That's a house rule," does not give your argument much weight.

In case you didn't catch that part of the thread, I brought up, and linked, the exact Sage Advice you did. Oofta dismissed the idea that metal armor could be allowed by DM fiat as a house rule, nothing official, even though the SA outright said that it was a taboo, not a mechanical prohibition. So...?

Yes, I know "they started it" is not a good argument, either, but I feel rather singled out here when others have done the exact same thing but they're ignored.

If you really wanna keep beating your heads against each other in the face of what is, for once, some pretty solid advice about running and playing the game... well, there's 70 pages here of that already, isn't there? You think more will be better?

There's lots of great space to talk about cool reasons for why Druids might stick to this. And things they can do instead of metal armor. Maybe that's better then this IS RULE/IS NOT RULE thing.

There actually has been discussion reasons why druids stick to not wearing metal armor, and those reasons seem to mostly amount to "tradition" and "it doesn't look right for druids to be wearing metal." Which is also one of the reasons why I've asked "what happens to a druid who wears armor," because there's neither lore nor mechanics about it in this edition.

Likewise, it's been brought up by several people, including myself, things that can be used in place of metal, like ironwood, chitin, I think petrified mushrooms... I even mentioned shellacked paper, as per Chinese armor. Sadly, none of those materials are in the actual rules, and most of the time when they're brought in to the game, they're assumed to be some sort of magical armor, like dragonscale, which makes it difficult to actually obtain in game and prohibitively expensive for a druid to buy.

And when those materials have been brought up, those posts have mostly been ignored. Since some people are trying to claim that the only reason for people to want druids to wear some of the metal armors is for badwrongfun powergaming purposes, I feel that they are also ignoring these materials for the exact same reason. As if they've decided that all druids should only wear dead animals and be played in very traditional ways, even though many of the archetypes go very much against that tradition.

 

[Maxperson]

In a game with fire breathing flying dragons, referring to anything as "impossible nonsense" is... a questionable approach.

There is in-fiction realism for why dragons exist as they do. I'm not aware of any such in-fiction explanation for studded leather. That's why saying that this here thing is unrealistic isn't a good reason for that unrealistic thing over there to be okay.

 

[Faolyn]

For example, if a mountain dwarf with metal armor proficiencies becomes a Druid, this dwarven Druid can cast Druid spells while wearing a metal breastplate. No problem. This Dwarf didnt learn the use of metal armor from the Druid training, but did learn it from the dwarven upbringing.

OK. So what, exactly, is the difference between a breastplate made of ironwood or chitin and a breastplate made of metal, that makes the knowledge of how to put on a wooden breastplate not translate into knowing how to put on a metal one?

 

[Undrave]

Druids have wildshape, elves see in the dark, wizards don't know healing spells, fireball does fire damage and like half the rules in the book.

None of these are worded as 'will not' anything.

Druids CAN wildshape, Elves CAN see in the Dark, Fireball DOES fire damage, you need condition X to do Sneak Attack damage.

The Wizard lists what they CAN cast, it doesn't list what they CAN'T cast. There's no rule that says a Wizard CAN'T cast healing magic, there just simply isn't a rule that gives them healing magic in the first place.

All of these are actual mechanical rules, written competently and consistently, that are worded as a 'can'. None of them are 'will not'.

Even proficienciesL It's not listed that the Rogue is "not proficient in medium and heavy armor', no! It says 'the Rogue is proficient in light armor'.

Any other 'do not' are in-universe restrictions. Things that happen in the fiction (like the Oath of the Paladin). And all of them are subject to a character's in-universe free will.

 

[Maxperson]

The socalled taboo only explains the lack proficiency.

No. It's more than that. Wizards also lack proficiency, but there's no taboo. It has also been likened to being a vegetarian with the taboo not to eat meat. The Sage Advice isn't a rule, but it is more than just a simple lack of proficiency.

Recall that nowhere does any D&D 5e book ever mention this alleged "taboo".

The only thing that is mentioned is the Druid only has proficiency with "(non-metal) armor".

Because of this nonproficiency, the typical Druid cannot (!) spellcast in metal armor.

No. It does not say, "Proficient with light and medium armor except for metal armors." It says, "Won't wear metal armor." That's says very strongly that they just don't like wearing it(taboo). While not a rule, it's still more than a simple lack of proficiency, even if you go by the PHB alone. The Sage Advice just clarifies it more.