D&D 5E (2014) Can your Druids wear metal armor?

[Charlaquin]

Another semantic distinction, but I do understand what your perfectly valid gripe is.

“A rule” and “not a rule” is not a semantic distinction.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Right, so here I think we get to the heart of the issue. The druid player isn’t allowed to say their character wants to wear metal armor, because the way the restriction is constructed prevents that. Druids “won’t” wear metal armor. It’s a choice. You can’t want to wear metal armor if you’re a druid! That’s something your character wouldn’t do! That’s an agency problem.

I fully agree that the rule would be better if it was consequence based, but I still won't quite agree wit this, because the player chose this restriction in the first place. A character who doesn't do X due religious belief, phobia, supernatural curse or whatever is a valid character concept and if the player willingly chooses it in the character creation it is not invalidating their agency. Now it perhaps is not great idea to attach such explicit behavioural restriction to a character class as it narrows what sort of people the class can represent, but that's another matter.

 

[mrpopstar]

The vegan discussion got a little heated earlier, but I'll chime in with an unsolicited contribution to the conversation.

Vegan is not a diet, it's a philosophical worldview concerned with the ethics of using animals as commodities.

Many vegans are activists whose activism takes place on their dinner plate in the form of conscientious objection to the consumption of animals and animal byproducts.

Many more vegans are not activists, or cannot participate in the activism that takes place on dinner plates for cultural, religious, economical, personal health, or various other reasons.

Choosing not to let your activism disrupt Thanksgiving at grandma's does not mean you're not a vegan.

Food is about sharing, love, culture, family, etc. You miss out when you draw a hard line across your dinner plate and that sucks, so many vegans are activists when making their own food choices, but thrive just as well "when in Rome."

Food is also very personal and should not be policed.

 

[Charlaquin]

I fully agree that the rule would be better if it was consequence based, but I still won't quite agree wit this, because the player chose this restriction in the first place. A character who doesn't do X due religious belief, phobia, supernatural curse or whatever is a valid character concept and if the player willingly chooses it in the character creation it is not invalidating their agency. Now it perhaps is not great idea to attach such explicit behavioural restriction to a character class as it narrows what sort of people the class can represent, but that's another matter.

But if you choose to play a character with something like a religious belief, a phobia, a curse, or even a dietary restriction, you can change your mind at any time. If you choose to play a druid, you “won’t” wear metal armor, period. The rule, if you interpret it as such, doesn’t provide for the possibility of a druid breaking this restriction. It doesn’t even say you lose your class abilities; a DM can rule that way, but it would be a house rule.

 

[abirdcall]

Yes, and I think pretty much everyone agrees that this would be a better way to do it.

I don't.

I think 'won't' is the simplest and most direct way to do it.

Writing a whole lot of rules about what happens if you do is quibbling and something individual tables can do if they really want to.

I like that the rules are direct and written narrative first.

I think it was Mearls who said he felt like the Fighter was the worst designed class because it has the least amount of narrative focus. It's basically just a bundle of mechanics.

Why have a class based game if the classes are not going to represent and enforce strong narrative concepts and tropes?

I get that a lot of people would prefer if it was classless but then they can fiddle with it or play a different game. When the game is designed half way everyone loses. I'm glad multiclassing was optional but wish it was just not in the game at all. At least classes seem to mostly be designed without it in mind.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But if you choose to play a character with something like a religious belief, a phobia, a curse, or even a dietary restriction, you can change your mind at any time. If you choose to play a druid, you “won’t” wear metal armor, period. The rule, if you interpret it as such, doesn’t provide for the possibility of a druid breaking this restriction. It doesn’t even say you lose your class abilities; a DM can rule that way, but it would be a house rule.

Well, usually you cant just choose to get rid of fobia and you certainly can't just choose to be rid of supernatural compulsion. A religious belief you can choose to certain extent, but if that is integral part of the character concept, then the character stops being that concept. Like sure, a wizard can in theory choose to throw away all their books, refuse to ever read any more and become a farmer. But are they still a wizard? I don't think so. Or if Batman chose to stop fighting crime whilst wearing spandex and just became a normal businessman they would no longer be Batman, and probably not a protagonist of a superhero comic. D&D simply is built with the assumption that the players stick to the character concept informed by their class(es), and there really are no rules for them not doing so.

 

[abirdcall]

The vegan discussion got a little heated earlier, but I'll chime in with an unsolicited contribution to the conversation.

Vegan is not a diet, it's a philosophical worldview concerned with the ethics of using animals as commodities.

Many vegans are activists whose activism takes place on their dinner plate in the form of conscientious objection to the consumption of animals and animal byproducts.

Many more vegans are not activists, or cannot participate in the activism that takes place on dinner plates for cultural, religious, economical, personal health, or various other reasons.

Choosing not to let your activism disrupt Thanksgiving at grandma's does not mean you're not a vegan.

Food is about sharing, love, culture, family, etc. You miss out when you draw a hard line across your dinner plate and that sucks, so many vegans are activists when making their own food choices, but thrive just as well "when in Rome."

Food is also very personal and should not be policed.

If you eat meat sometimes then you have a plant based diet.

You are not a vegan.

You're not a worse person, you're just not a vegan.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If you eat meat sometimes then you have a plant based diet.

You are not a vegan.

You're not a worse person, you're just not a vegan.

Right. I eat meat rarely. Like once or twice a month. Which means that I'm not a vegetarian.

 

[mrpopstar]

If you eat meat sometimes then you have a plant based diet.

You are not a vegan.

You're not a worse person, you're just not a vegan.

Again, policing food is inappropriate (also very harmful), so let's not.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And AC 16 is fine. Also, 'strange material' is a minor property that any magic item can have, so it is not just dragonscale.

It is fine for a first level character, but even a low level wizard as the ability to break up beyond that. And Druids have many incentives to be a frontliner. No fighter or Paladin is sitting at 16 AC by levels 5 thru 8 and thinking that they are in a good place with their AC.

And yes, like I said, it can be homebrewed into magical items. Just like any item could give you +2 Initiative or advantage on swimming checks. But obviously not all magical items give you those properties out of the gate, and you need to homebrew the item to do so.

Are clerics generally considered stronger? I don't think so. And even if they were, why are we comparing to them instead to, say ranger or monk which are definitely considered weaker than the druid? If we start to buff things then it certainly makes sense to start wit the weakest classes and not wit the one which already is strong.

They are generally considered a bit stronger. And we are comparing druids to clerics because they are the most similiar. And while I have done extensive homebrewing on rangers and monks, this is an issue that not only annoys me on a conceptual level, but it is also incredibly easy to fix. Unlike the extensive reworkings needed for the other classes.

As a GM you're feel to change any rule you want. But in D&D 'it makes no sense' is a strange hill to die on. And yeah, it would make sense for druids to have all sort of more extensive restrictions and taboos, but there cannot be (or at least it is difficult to make) rules that cover any and every eventuality. What armour is worn is a situation that comes across in every game straight at the character creation, so it is important to have a rule for that.

It isn't that strange of a hill. I'm not arguing physics or the existence of magic, I'm arguing internal logic of a belief system. I don't need physics for that.

That it has mainly to due other things doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to do with the balance. But the balance effect is not a big one. Basically druids have slightly harder time getting good armours than some other classes. They effectively have nerfed medium armour proficiency. And that's dine. Many classes don't get medium armour proficiency at all.

And we've covered those... four classes? Five. And in all of those five cases except one, if the player takes a race or feat that grants medium armor proficiency, they can wear it. And the one that "can't" is the monk, who has abilities specifically designed for being unarmored.

I'm not a fan of nature clerics either, so I'm with you there. But I still don't want druids routinely running around metal half plate. If you want a divine caster that does that, there already is a class for that and its not the druid.

Why do your aesthetics trump everyone elses?

Crocodile skin armour sounds like hide armour to me.

If you give it the stats of Hide Armor (12+dex [max 2]) then you would be nerfing it. Since a Giant Croc has an AC of 14 and a dex of -1, its caluculation is likely that of Half-Plate (15+Dex [max 2])

Sure. It would be mechanically easier. It would lessen the thematic importance of not wearing metal. You don't care about that, some others do at least somewhat. But then again, under this arrangement most druids still wouldn't wear metal so it would be tolerable compromise.

Then I would fine with that compromise

Right. So that arbitrary restriction based on D&D sacred cows is fine by you. Other feel same way about the druids and metal armour.

Again, I don't find that arbitrary. Also, as I noted later, I had forgotten about the healing spells that wizards do have. Life Transference, dispel magic, remove curse, wish. Some wizards can raise the dead, and if they take a feat like Artificer Initiate (a few others if the DM allows the superior phrasing from the Tasha Feats to allow upcasting) they can get cure wounds.

So, actually, this "sacred cow" doesn't even exist in the game.

It would be like letting all monks use their martial arts with plate and two handed swords. If there was one specific monk class that did so, it wouldn't destroy the themes of the class as whole, but making it the default would.

So, we should just ignore that Dream Druids, Land Druids, Star Druids, and Wildfire druids all make sense to include metal armor? Just because you personally think that only one druid subclass should be allowed to, to maintain your preferred aesthetic?

Should we remove armor and shield proficiencies from Barbarians just because some people prefer using two-handed weapons and going without armor? It is an aesthetic choice, not something that we need to enforce with the rules.

Which mechanically rewards players going against the theme of the class. That's bad design. Like I said earlier, it would be like giving monks all weapon and armour proficiencies, and letting them to work with their martial arts, and then just letting players to intentionally nerf themselves if they want to stick to the theme of unarmoured warrior using bare hands and monk weapons.

A theme that makes no sense, strains credibility and appears entirely kept just because people think that those who worship nature should be wild men dressed in animals skins with horns on their heads. Yeah, I'm perfectly fine with that being removed.

That would work and would be a decent if boring compromise option.

So, solution #2 works for you, great.

The issue with this is that if these non-metal armours have the same stats than their metal equivalents, then they're simply better. Do you want armour that is susceptible to heat metal or otherwise identical one which is not? Also from world building perspective it is weird. How did these people even develop metal working if dead animal bits are just as good, why anyone is bothering to make metal armour? Now I have nothing against primal setting where paladins run around in umberhulk carapace, that sounds hella cool, but that is not a typical D&D world.

Which is like I said earlier, you are against it because you see it as powergaming. Everyone will abandon metal armor and choose to wear non-metal armor. You seem to think that no one is capable of doing anything except picking the mechanically superior choice, and therefore if you want themes, you need to enforce them mechanically. Which, is a problem, because that necessitates that you must enforce a single vision for themes, even if those themes are not what the players want or care about.

Which is part of what led to 3.5's class bloat. You wanted a wizard who specialized in summoning a stronger familiar? You had to make an entirely new class. What a ranger who used a two-handed axe? Entirely new class. And on and on.


As for why people bother making metal armors? Maybe they last longer and are easier to repair. Maybe it is because you don't have to go kill a dangerous monster to make them. We can easily figure that out.

However, to be constructive (for a change) I agree that it would make sense if rules for chitin and bone armour would exist outside the magic items. My solution here would be to give non-magical, non-metal versions of typically metal armours one point less AC. This would solve the issues I outlined above and would let druids to get decentish armour before they can obtain magical one. It would also be an alternative for other characters who are worried of heat metal.

That could be decent, but I just don't understand why you are so hyper-focused on trying to enforce a specific status-quo through mechanical power. It just seems so utterly pointless. Let people decide if they care about your themes or not. Stop trying to force people to submit to your vision of the proper theme for their class.