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

[Oofta]

No it does not. This is getting frankly absurd.

This whole thread has been about rules not being rules unless they're rules because ruling that rules are rules makes you a ruler. Personally I rule that rules are rules unless the DM rules that they are not rules, which is that the Sage Advice says.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So is it your opinion that a player should be able to play what they want regardless of the setting the DM has chosen? Gnome paladin in Dark Sun?

Yes. Make it work. You're not there just to serve your fun. We as DMs chose to be the arbiter of the whole group's fun and in order to do that sometimes to do that, we need to kill our egos. And in exchange we get to tell the internet that every group we've ever played with has agreed with us. Them's the rules.

And I say this as someone who hates both gnomes and paladins. I'd ask if a replacement would be okay, but if the player needs a gnome or a paladin, whatever.
Edit: D&D culture has an almost sarcastically toxic view of the DM as the most important person at the table and I'm not going to be part of it.

 

[Faolyn]

They're not patrons. A well of magical power without Will that you bind to your Will is not your patron. This is exactly what I'm talking about, why redefine the word patron to include just...literally any source of power regardless of the relationship, when we could instead just recognize that the patron relationship is only what is normal for warlocks, not the entire scope of what is possible?

My first Warlock character was a "magical hacker" who was just as smart as any wizard, but who refused to spend the next decade memorizing the dogma of arcane academia, and instead hacked the underlying code, created a ritual to form a bypass valve in the flow of magic leading into items that he bound to his will with other rituals, and then learnt to do things that mortals can't do via experiment and study of inherently magical creatures.

I disagree. If I were your DM, I'd likely say "sure, OK," and then imagine that you accidentally tapped into a patron with your hacking (when you hack into the Abyss, the Abyss hacks into you back), or that you even inadvertently created your patron when you were first experimenting with your coding. You might not realize either of those things until much, much later. And anyway, I could also say "no, the fundamental rule of being a warlock is making a pact with a patron; go with sorcerer instead--the Clockwork Soul fits your idea nicely."

But "no metal armor" isn't a fundamental rule of being a druid. It's just a vague note that doesn't even make a lot of sense when you realize that metal is as much a part of nature as anything else (seriously, what if the DM decided that their campaign revolved around the classical Chinese elements of fire, water, wood, metal, and earth instead of the classical Western elements?).

 

[abirdcall]

If that were the case, there wouldn't be 53 pages on this thread--and dozens or even scores of other threads on this and other boards--discussing the rule.

At the moment, I'm reading some essays written by The Alexandrian on disassociated rules and why're they're bad, and I think that this is one of them. "no metal armor" is a rule--which may be a rule or it may be a taboo--but no in-game reason for it*, no in-game penalties for breaking it (whether it's a rule or a taboo), and no mechanical penalties for breaking it (ditto).** Everything associated with it is purely homebrew.

*You may say it's because druids are associated with nature, but there are Mountain and Underdark Land Druids, and both of those terrains are well-known for containing natural metal. And while there is currently no official Circle of Ore, I did a quick search and there's several homebrew versions which means people do think about it.

**Again, if you're charmed or dominated--or even just tricked--into wearing metal armor, what happens? Seems like a good way for an evil person to get rid of a meddling druid: offer them a present of magical non-metal Medium armor ("we offer this to you in a token of peace and friendship, made by our greatest smiths and tailored specifically for your needs") but it's actually metal armor with an illusion hiding that fact. Voila!

People would still make threads arguing about it of they spent more space on it.

People want that +2 or whatever. Heck, people in this thread have argued that vegetarians eat meat.

The sage advice made it clear that nothing would happen if they were tricked. Same thing with a vegetarian.

I don't think we needed sage advice to know that but we have sage advice for just about everything (again, people will always argue endlessly about things).

 

[CleverNickName]

But "no metal armor" isn't a fundamental rule of being a druid. It's just a vague note that doesn't even make a lot of sense when you realize that metal is as much a part of nature as anything else (seriously, what if the DM decided that their campaign revolved around the classical Chinese elements of fire, water, wood, metal, and earth instead of the classical Western elements?).

I agree with your post except for this last part. "Druids don't wear metal" is a very old, well-established rule in D&D that goes back a few decades and several editions of the game. (And so does this debate! ) It makes about as much sense as any other rule does.

Which is to say, a highly-debatable amount.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I agree with your post except for this last part. "Druids don't wear metal" is a very old, well-established rule in D&D that goes back several decades and several editions of the game. (And so does this debate! ) It makes about as much sense as any other rule does.

Which is to say, a highly-debatable amount.

But are we resigned to commit the same mistakes as past generations on until the heat death of the universe because tradition?

And not even the 'tradition' of misunderstanding druids in D&D, but misunderstanding them as has been tradition since the first old dude put some stones in a configuration to create a big calendar. "You invented a technology, they must mean you're some kind of luddite who rejects modernity!"

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't really agree that those things are not rules. For example the spellbook is explicitly a book, or at least a collection of notes. This has certain implications that matter. Having it to be an immaterial mind palace for example would be a significant change and would be a clear buff.

Fair, I didn’t consider the fact that the spellbook needs to be a physical object so it can hypothetically be lost or destroyed. My point still stands though as long as that information is stored in something physical. Encoded in a crystal or something, doesn’t change the mechanics.

It's like saying that fighters great sword being an actual sword instead of their fist is just fluff. No it's not.

I mean it kind of is. Again, a sword is an object that can be separated from you, so that makes it meaningfully different than a fist. But there’s no reason it has to be a sword instead of some other sharp thing you hold in two hands

Because the distinction you're trying to make is bizarre and ultimately confusing. It simply is not how this game works.

I think you’ll find this is far from a universally held position. The view that lore and mechanics are categorically different is quite widespread, and not confusing for most people.

I mean it is literally a piece of text that refers to game mechanics that is located in area of the book that explicitly deals wit rules and repeated in a rule summary box. It is pretty absurd claim that it would not be rule.

It doesn’t refer to game mechanics though. It’s a statement of an action certain characters “won’t” take.

 

[CleverNickName]

But are we resigned to commit the same mistakes as past generations on until the heat death of the universe because tradition?

Of course not! But first, you have to convince everyone that it is a mistake not worth repeating, and...well, good luck with that. The past 30-something years of debates and discussions (and the pages and pages of comments in this thread) haven't gained much ground in that direction. Some folks--I'd argue most folks--don't mind the rule, or don't care one way or the other. They won't mind or care tomorrow, either.

Thus, the rule persists even into the 5th Edition of the game, and will likely see its way into the next edition.

 

[Faolyn]

People would still make threads arguing about it of they spent more space on it.

People want that +2 or whatever. Heck, people in this thread have argued that vegetarians eat meat.

I think what people are saying is that if a vegetarian ate meat by mistake, or had to eat meat for some reason--such as politeness or to avoid starvation--they would still be vegetarians.

I don't think anyone is actually saying that a person who decides that "chicken doesn't count" or eats only vegetables, grains, nuts, and all-beef hot dogs are actually real vegetarians.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think what people are saying is that if a vegetarian ate meat by mistake, or had to eat meat for some reason--such as politeness or to avoid starvation--they would still be vegetarians.

I don't think anyone is actually saying that a person who decides that "chicken doesn't count" or eats only vegetables, grains, nuts, and all-beef hot dogs are actually real vegetarians.

You have accurately summarized my position. Maybe you could pass that on to ad_hoc for me.