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

[Crimson Longinus]

makes it pretty clear it’s not a rule. It’s a story element that is part of the class design (as opposed to a game feature that is part of the class design), and the DM determines if and how to enforce that story elements.

No. Just no. It is a rule that exists to evoke a story element. Like wizards studying spells from books, like some barbarians having totem spirits, like countless other things in the game. It in no way or form makes it not a rule. Also what @Swarmkeeper said.

 

[Charlaquin]

As it is, the Sage Advice on this topic is longer than necessary and includes the following sentence:

If you feel strongly about your druid breaking the taboo and donning metal, talk to your DM

and this one:

If you want to depart from your class’s story, your DM has the final say on how far you can go and still be considered a member of the class.

Which implies you need DM permission to forego the "druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal" rule/guideline/recommendation/fluff/whatchawanttocallit in the class description. And, needing DM permission signals... that it's a rule (EDIT: or at least something that the Player is expected to abide by... what's a good name for that?)

I disagree. If it was a rule, you wouldn’t need to rely on the DM’s judgment to determine what happens if you break the taboo. The rules would say what happen. The DM could of course houserule otherwise if they so chose.

 

[Charlaquin]

No. Just no. It is a rule that exists to evoke a story element. Like wizards studying spells from books, like some barbarians having totem spirits, like countless other things in the game.

Wizards studying spells from books and Barbarians having totem spirits aren’t rules though. They’re story elements. Lore. Fluff.

 

[Faolyn]

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

Not as much, because the warlock text keeps getting supported. Every time a warlock archetype is produced--by anyone, not just WotC--it supports the warlock's purpose.

The druid armor prohibition isn't supported by anything except "tradition." There's not a single rule or even guideline anywhere in the books that deals with druids and metal armor.

They could have written "druids are proficient in Light armor and hide armor." Or "druids are proficient in Light and Medium armor, but while wearing metal armor, a druid can't cast spells or use wildshape, even if the druid is proficient in that armor." Or "druids are proficient in Light and Medium armor. While they will not wear armor made of metal due to a class-wide taboo, they will wear chain shirts, half-plate, and other such metal armor if it's made of a non-metal substance such as Stoneshroom Leather* or Ironwood" and then included a sidebar in the equipment section on other materials that can be used--and this would have also be handy for making interesting cultures. Maybe wood elves or firbolg prefer these non-metal substances; maybe dwarfs look down on anyone who uses ironwood because it's cheating but are major rockshroom growers.

But they didn't. Unlike the warlock, there is zero support for any interpretation of druids wearing metal armor.

* IMO, stoneshroom sounds better than petrified mushrooms.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Wizards studying spells from books and Barbarians having totem spirits aren’t rules though. They’re story elements. Lore. Fluff.

So I guess in your games wizards have no spells and totem barbarians do not function? I don't know what's going on here...

 

[guachi]

If it was a rule Sage Advice answer would have been a lot simpler.

Was this the first Sage Advice you've ever read? Because "simple" is rarely how I'd ever describe Crawford's Sage Advice either on the WOTC website or Twitter.

 

[Faolyn]

And yet, if a player told me that their warlock has no patron, and instead, in keeping wit the Fey lore I've established in the world and adding to it, has bound fey magic to their will by enacting ancient pacts in ancient places, drawing directly upon the power of The Glade of Twilight's Yearning, and the Bridge of Whispers, and the Halls of Obsidian Night, and is slowing becoming Fey as they use this power and grow in it, I would have clarifying questions and ideas to build on it, but I wouldn't consider it a normal thing to tell them they can't decide what their class mechanics mean in the fiction.

Personally, I'd consider those things to be perfectly viable patrons. Not necessarily sentient patrons (at least not sentience as we humans understand it), but patrons nonetheless. In the Compendium of Forgotten Secrets 3pp, one warlock patron is a library; another is a briar grove.

 

[Charlaquin]

So I guess in your games wizards have no spells and totem barbarians do not function? I don't know what's going on here...

Wizards do have spells. Acquiring those spells by study is not a rule, but a story detail. The Path of the Totem Warrior subclass functions, but the idea that those class features are granted by a totem spirit is not a rule, but a story element. These story elements present an implicit default setting, but those assumptions may not hold true in the setting the DM decides to run. Changing those assumptions is changing the story, but the rules may remain the same.

 

[Charlaquin]

Was this the first Sage Advice you've ever read? Because "simple" is rarely how I'd ever describe Crawford's Sage Advice either on the WOTC website or Twitter.

Simple is how I would describe his answers these days. Note that simple doesn’t necessarily mean clear.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I disagree. If it was a rule, you wouldn’t need to rely on the DM’s judgment to determine what happens if you break the taboo. The rules would say what happen. The DM could of course houserule otherwise if they so chose.

My point is that if one adheres to the rule presented on page 45 (nonmetal armor), then the rules actually do say what happens. Sage Advice implies that you can get around those consequences by talking to your DM about allowing metal armor for a Druid.

Frankly, I think the Sage Advice just serves to maintain the murkiness of the water on this whole issue.