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

[Chaosmancer]

Yes. But interpreting the page 45 to have priority (i.e. druids lack proficiency in metal armours) actually solves your issue with the rule. The player has agency to decide that their character puts on metal armour, they just suffer non-proficiency penalties for it.

Then would you allow a druid who took a level of nature cleric to wear Platemail, since they would now have proficiency in Metal Armor?

 

[Chaosmancer]

The entire premise of the warlock is making a pact with a patron. Huge amounts of text are written on this. Every archetype is based around a different type of patron.

The thing with the druids and metal armor is one little badly-written sentence off to the side.

And to reiterate, I have no problem with patron-less warlocks. I think they are a cool concept.

 

[CleverNickName]

Relevant to the thread:
D&D 5E - Magical Metals and Alloys: We Need More

 

[mrpopstar]

I’ve explained it several times now, but I know the conversation can be hard to follow in a fast-moving thread like this. If a player playing a druid character declares that they don metal armor, the only ways for the DM to enforce the statement that druids “will not” wear metal armor is to tell the player “no, you don’t don that armor, because your character wouldn’t do that.” “Your character wouldn’t do that” is pretty much the ur-example of a DM stepping on player agency.

You could of course preserve player agency by creating a house-ruled consequence for donning metal armor, or by relying on the social contract, perhaps with a table rule. But in these cases you’re going outside of the rule itself. Hence my assertion that if you interpret it as a rule, rather than a statement about the lore of the game world, it is either an incomplete rule, or a rule that violates player agency (or if you like, it forces the DM to violate player agency to enforce it.)

Thank you for explaining it again.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Then would you allow a druid who took a level of nature cleric to wear Platemail, since they would now have proficiency in Metal Armor?

I won't allow multiclassing to begin with. (It's an optional rule and source of most of the edition's balance issues.) Now I might make an exception if there was a super strong story reason but 'I want better armour' doesn't sound like that.

 

[FrozenNorth]

The wizard's spellbook has an obvious mechanical effect. It allows the player character to swap the prepared spells the character has during a long rest with other spells that are listed in the spellbook.

Now, the form of the spellbook may or may not cause a narrative condition that has downstream mechanical penalties, but that doesn't mean the form of the spellbook is a specific mechanic.

By that token, the existence of a warlock patron also has a mechanical effect, since without a patron, a warlock doesn’t get spells at all.

Which goes back to my point: there isn’t a clear delineation between rules that have mechanical effects and rules that do not.

 

[FrozenNorth]

The entire premise of the warlock is making a pact with a patron. Huge amounts of text are written on this. Every archetype is based around a different type of patron.

The thing with the druids and metal armor is one little badly-written sentence off to the side.

Which goes to show that it is s difference of degree, not a difference of kind.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I think a new player that was coming to the game thinking about it as a story-telling game where they create a fantasy character, do their best to inhabit that character, and tell a story with other players in a fantasy world, would see that rule and might wonder "why no metal?", or "what the heck happens if they do use a metal shield?", or if there are medium armors not mentioned in the PHB that they could use that might be better than hide... etc etc.

And I mean this seriously. For a lot of people who have been introduced to the game by listening to a podcast or reading popular media or whatever, they might genuinely be more interested in the creative and improvisational and collaborative aspects of the game than they are in a strict adherence to rules that haven't been explained well.

I agree 100% with this. For that reason, I am absolutely not going to judge a DM who either suggest to the player to propose their own reason for it, or suggests one themself.

For the moment, I am partial to “like fey, certain types of materials have a negative effect on you. If you are ever surrounded by metal, you are unable to move”.

 

[TwoSix]

By that token, the existence of a warlock patron also has a mechanical effect, since without a patron, a warlock doesn’t get spells at all.

Which goes back to my point: there isn’t a clear delineation between rules that have mechanical effects and rules that do not.

To my mind, there's an obvious difference between "How many spell slots does a 5th level wizard have per long rest" and "How do warlock patrons work?" If you seem them as being just differences on a spectrum, then we're simply working with different mental models.

 

[lingual]

It's not a gotcha. It's just a question to see if there is even a single reasonable circumstance under which they would view that "rule" as breakable.

No. It's more like,

DM: You're PC is a member of a sect that won't cast regenerate.
Player: I'm 17th level now and can cast regenerate. If I do I break our rule and if I don't many tens of thousands will die as the King can't lead without his limbs.
DM: Sorry! You can't do that.

As a DM, I would allow this. But then again, I bend the rules alot depending on circumstance and on the PC behavior up to that point. The druid who casually discards lit Marlboro onto dead leaves in the forest would not get as much leeway as Beorn or someone.