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

[Shadowdweller00]

Nice Red Herring. Real life(or pretend) deities or not are not relevant to my argument.

Wrong. You tried to bring up some people's willingness to violate taboos when in distress IRL as somehow being significant. In a fictional, magical world where we have powerful magical forces and individuals who derive magical powers from their religious practices, it is idiotic to presume that the consequences for violating the rules of those religious practices (or ability to "just make up for it later") would be even remotely comparable to RL.

 

[Faolyn]

Since fantasy Druids are as much based on Native American peoples as they are on Celtic Druids, how did they make all their leather goods without poisoning the land? Or did they?

From this site:

The three historical methods of making leather are vegetable, oil, and mineral tanning. Oil tanning is considered to be the oldest process, probably employed in combination with smoke curing. Neolithic excavations have revealed elk and deerskins dressed with oil and smoked. Traditional oil tannage methods employ fish oils (of which cod oil is the most important) or animal fats worked ("stuffed") into the hides to bring about oxidation, transforming skin into leather. Variations of oil tannage include the milk and butter used by nomads of Central Asia (Kyrgyz) and egg yolk tannage by peoples of northern China. Native Americans of North America are known to have tanned leather with a mixture of brains and oil. Smoke curing in pits has a long tradition in China.

Vegetable tanning, a 4,000-year-old process, was developed widely across the world by ancient peoples utilizing their own local flora. Plants containing tannins (compounds of gallic acid) infused in water were discovered as early as the Paleolithic period to affix to skins forming an impenetrable substance. Egyptians preferred using the mimosa plant for tanning purposes, while peoples of the ancient Mediterranean employed sumach leaves. Oak (and pine) bark, nuts, and galls have been the most important sources for tanning compounds in Europe, practically until the advent of chemical processes in the nineteenth century.

Of course, the Native Americans did mine copper. Which left pollution behind.

Maybe the druids are more destructive than we think, although they're still probably less pollutive than other people.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Let's try it this way: "Druids don’t lack the ability to wear metal armor. They choose not to wear it."
Then the armours they actually wear are specifically listed. So it is rather sensible to conclude that that's what they're balanced around.

Seriously. Constantly ignoring printed rules is getting super tiresome. It is pointless to try to have discussion about rules with people who keep ignoring what the rules actually say.

Why would they be balanced around what they choose to do instead of what they can actually do?

Do you think fighters are balanced around them being able to use daggers, or being able to use greatswords? They can choose to just use daggers... does that mean that allowing them to use Greatswords is a buff?

Or do you just not accept that the designers balanced around the ability, then enforced an old traditional limitation after balancing?

 

[Maxperson]

Wrong. You tried to bring up some people's willingness to violate taboos when in distress IRL as somehow being significant. In a fictional, magical world where we have powerful magical forces and individuals who derive magical powers from their religious practices, it is idiotic to presume that the consequences for violating the rules of those religious practices (or ability to "just make up for it later") would be even remotely comparable to RL.

Dude. Stress is stress. Taboos are taboos. You can pretend that pretend taboos are not anything like real life taboos, but you will be wrong. Regardless, there is no "religious" taboo being discussed here. The druid taboo isn't based in religion. Even if it was, though. THERE IS NO GOD INVOLVED. NONE. They get their powers from nature, not any nature god they might also follow. Here's the kicker, though. Even if they did get their powers from a god, that god isn't going to do jack about a breaking the taboo under exceptional circumstances. They have more important things to do and aren't omniscient in any case. The god isn't even going to know.

You're harping on something that isn't relevant. You know what it's called when you attempt to counter an argument with something that isn't relevant and is only an attempt to distract from the issue?

 

[J.Quondam]

Maybe the druids are more destructive than we think, although they're still probably less pollutive than other people.

Interesting idea for a campaign:
The Druidic Circles have been blissfully polluting Mechanus (or something) for thousands of years. Was it an honest mistake? A covert attack? A set up? Or a conspiracy???
Who knows!
But whatever the reason, now it's time for payback!

 

[Tinker-TDC]

Happy 100, I see no consensus has been reached!

 

[Maxperson]

Happy 100, I see no consensus has been reached!

Lots of Con-sensus has been reached.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

The druid taboo isn't based in religion. Even if it was, though. THERE IS NO GOD INVOLVED. NONE. They get their powers from nature, not any nature god they might also follow. Here's the kicker, though. Even if they did get their powers from a god, that god isn't going to do jack about a breaking the taboo under exceptional circumstances. They have more important things to do and aren't omniscient in any case. The god isn't even going to know.

That's hilarious. You really should try reading about the Druid class before writing anything about their beliefs, empowerment, or how inconsequential it must be for them to violate taboos.

Druidic powers have ALWAYS been based on religious beliefs. In 1e, druids were a cleric subclass. Even in 5e, this is explicitly spelled out in the class description in the PHB. Including notably that they receive spells "either from the force of nature itself or from a nature deity". Considering that "the force of nature itself" is also the D&D equivalent / alternative of a god, such as an animist religion might venerate...yeah, there's a god involved.

The fact that you seem to imagine that you can tell how and what deities or deific forces react to in other people's games and game worlds is...sad, honestly. But even that is actually inconsequential. Because magic in D&D is depicted as being manipulated by symbols, particular incantations, gestures, prayers. Meaning that a particular religious practice may have magical effects or consequences even if the deity or force it is associated with is not consciously aware of when it is invoked; or in the case of a taboo, violated.

Mearls, Crawford, et al chose not to spell out specifics in 5e; preferring to give the DM more latitude in how to deal with conduct violations. But Gygax had no such compunction.

 

[tetrasodium]

Wrong. You tried to bring up some people's willingness to violate taboos when in distress IRL as somehow being significant. In a fictional, magical world where we have powerful magical forces and individuals who derive magical powers from their religious practices, it is idiotic to presume that the consequences for violating the rules of those religious practices (or ability to "just make up for it later") would be even remotely comparable to RL.

not every setting shares the same baselines as FR.

• Eberron: The setting deliberately and explicitly had gods & deities an unprovable thing to the point that the creator Keith Baker has even said things like how that mybe they do maybe the don't unprovable state even extends to high powered celestials & such
• Dark Sun: ROFL... I'm not even sure where to begin. On top of going from a (maybe) multi-sphere spanning magically advanced civilization that engaged in things like geo/stellar-engineering(pristine tower powered by the sun & caused it to change color) they also created many of the different races present before a genocidal cleansing war resulted in the current post apocalyptic state of things. The gods are either dead banished or in hiding with good reasons to stay there.
• Ravenloft: The Dark Powers will cherish your innocence & delight in providing juuuuust enough reinforcement of that belief to savor the inevitable spiral into despair & resulting crisis of faith.

 

[Maxperson]

That's hilarious. You really should try reading about the Druid class before writing anything about their beliefs, empowerment, or how inconsequential it must be for them to violate taboos.

I have.

Druidic powers have ALWAYS been based on religious beliefs. In 1e, druids were a cleric subclass. Even in 5e, this is explicitly spelled out in the class description in the PHB. Including notably that they receive spells "either from the force of nature itself or from a nature deity". Considering that "the force of nature itself" is also the D&D equivalent / alternative of a god, such as an animist religion might venerate...yeah, there's a god involved.

But no god gives them their powers. They are "clerics" of nature, and nature isn't going to do anything to them if they violate their taboo for a reason.

The fact that you seem to imagine that you can tell how and what deities or deific forces react to in other people's games and game worlds is...sad, honestly. But even that is actually inconsequential. Because magic in D&D is depicted as being manipulated by symbols, particular incantations, gestures, prayers. Meaning that a particular religious practice may have magical effects or consequences even if the deity or force it is associated with is not consciously aware of when it is invoked; or in the case of a taboo, violated.

Hey. If your gods sit around waiting for a priest to step out of line so that they can punish them, instead of doing their jobs, have at it. Druids don't have gods to grant them powers, though.