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

[loverdrive]

Having them stick to what rules currently allow is not a nerf. Giving them more than they currently get like you want however is a buff. And as I've said many times, mechanically incentivising things that go against the theme of the class is terrible game design. It is the literal opposite of what class design should do.

I would agree with that... If druids weren't allowed to use metal weapons, metal messkits, metal grapling hooks, metal caltrops and so on and so forth.

A druid that hangs out with a paladin in plate, sleeps in taverns and saves cities, but for some weird reason refuses to wear metal armour, raises my eyebrow.

 

[Faolyn]

Ah, yes, my library contracts with one of these services.

And you like engaging with the material digitally? I'm struggling with my decision to make the jump and go full digital. I love the pen & paper/analog nature of the hobby, both because it's nostalgic and because it gets me away from a screen for 4hrs every other week. LOL

Butting in here. For me, I like both equally. Books because... books, really. Digital because it's easy to copy-and-paste and to Find things I want with a control-F.

 

[tetrasodium]

It doesn't need to be gamae breaking to be blatantly unbalanced. It is clearly far more powerful than most other options. In any case, pointless to continue this here, there is a whole separate thread for the twilight cleric issue.

By extension "it doesn't need to be [character crippling]" to be blatantly unbalanced. Druids were designed with the assumption that full medium armor proficiency was baked in when it came to deciding how much power their other abilities give. Taking away that medium armor proficiency is a significant reduction in power & like the core books themselves along with so many other SA rulings crawford's ruling on the matter provides little if any clear understanding into the mechanics that one must grasp in order to reasonably rule on the matter. At one point he admits

Ah, yes, my library contracts with one of these services.

And you like engaging with the material digitally? I'm struggling with my decision to make the jump and go full digital. I love the pen & paper/analog nature of the hobby, both because it's nostalgic and because it gets me away from a screen for 4hrs every other week. LOL

Edit: *my library​

yea

Spoiler: here is a precovid pic someone took of the group during a potluck food break

I run arkenforge with the layer screen pushed out to the tvbox & limit players to either paper sheets or editable pdf sheets (dndbeyond is disallowed for being too much of a distraction & being unable to handle much of anything like custom items without lots of overhead involved in creating them among other stuff). Not needing to show up to game wit a bunch of books & minis is great since I just need my laptop bag & the tvbox. The tv in the box there was like a 48 inch tv iirc but it was almost 200 pounds which was causing me physical pain to bring back & forth, I've since replaced it with the cheapest 99$ tv I could find on sale (it's like 16-20inch iirc) & have not had any regrets since.

In a way going digital allowed me to wrench the players away from d&d beyond to make thing more analog while shedding some of the awkward parts of drawing maps/moving tokens I can't reach/managing combat when the party is split.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Druids were designed with the assumption that full medium armor proficiency was baked in when it came to deciding how much power their other abilities give.

Citation needed.

 

[tetrasodium]

Citation needed.

Spoiler: here are two

Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields

Even if for the purposes of discussion we presume that druids were not designed with full medium armor usage in mind it creates the inverse where GM's like me & @Chaosmancer encourage or just allow metal armor without seeing ay balance problems the druid is unjustly buffed beyond what is allotted to them. Mearls went into how class abilities are weighed with/against the other class abilities for balance purposes in one of the happy fun hour episodes too.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Spoiler: here are two

Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields
View attachment 141885

Even if for the purposes of discussion we presume that druids were not designed with full medium armor usage in mind it creates the inverse where GM's like me & @Chaosmancer encourage or just allow metal armor without seeing ay balance problems the druid is unjustly buffed beyond what is allotted to them. Mearls went into how class abilities are weighed with/against the other class abilities for balance purposes in one of the happy fun hour episodes too.

The text you quoted literally says "A druid typically wears leather, studded leather, or hide armor, and if a druid comes across scale mail made of a material other than metal, the druid might wear it." So certainly that is the design assumption?

And sure, letting them wear metal is not gonna break the game, it is not such a big buff that it could and D&D is not that finely balanced to begin with.

 

[tetrasodium]

The text you quoted literally says "A druid typically wears leather, studded leather, or hide armor, and if a druid comes across scale mail made of a material other than metal, the druid might wear it." So certainly that is the design assumption?

And sure, letting them wear metal is not gonna break the game, it is not such a big buff that it could and D&D is not that finely balanced to begin with.

You are seeing the problem. Wotc designed for one or the other and the safe advice entry on it literally makes things less clear by hindering that there might be reasons to disallow it while making it clear that it's just fluff and can be ignored without issue from the system. It's the equivalent of useless exchanges like "should I turn right or left">"yes right will get you there but so will left"

 

[The Green Hermit]

Also, if the Druid isn't able to spend the gold they are getting on upgrades to their own equipment... is it even a reward for them? I tell a paladin "here is 500 gold" they can look at it and say "Hey, this can help me pay for that armor I want." The Druid? "Hey, here is 500 gold... wonder if I can find an animal to kill to get that armor I want."

If they have a home base (or just a town that they'll be swinging by at a known time) the druid could possibly hire a hunter to get the materials they need.

 

[lingual]

If they have a home base (or just a town that they'll be swinging by at a known time) the druid could possibly hire a hunter to get the materials they need.

It's also silly to assume that a druid would have to personally hunt, skin, and create any thing that is not in the PHB.

There would feasibly be Druid Circles who would be able to provide some of the materials or even have some non metal armor available. Druids do go to war too - especially in DnD land.

 

[Maxperson]

Because it's against the rules for druids to wear metal armor. And the restriction has been part of Druid lore and flavor since 1e. And because introducing a plot element sacred to one of your players' character but not letting them make use of it is about as dickish as....

It's only against an in-fiction rule, though. It's nothing more than a taboo, which the designers have confirmed multiple times in their Sage Advice. A strong, class oriented taboo, but a taboo none the less. In-fiction rules can be broken and if they are, will have in-fiction consequences. In 5e the DM gets to decide what those are.