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

[Chaosmancer]

If it's powerful enough to grant people spells, I don't think it matters much how those people "regard" it.

Nature clerics worshipping dieties of nature who control all nature (In forgotten realms) can wear metal armor, emblazoning the god's symbol on a metal shield.

Druids worshiping those same gods cannot because nature doesn't want them wearing metal armor. But they can still use metal swords, oh, but they can't hold metal shields. Metal pots would be okay though, as long as they don't strap the lid to their arm to make a shield, then it isn't allowed.

Seems like there might be some fuzzy signals going on.

 

[Ancalagon]

No and I think its more fun not to - there are real world examples of laminar plate armour made of reinfirced bands of leather, baleen, bone, silk and woven fibre, In a world of magic theres no reason why a druid cant wear these kinds of armour or come up with their own variations of barkskin, stone plate, giant spider silk, crystal mail or dragon scale.

and pangodin scale armor, etc etc. But people don't want to hear it

 

[Chaosmancer]

and pangodin scale armor, etc etc. But people don't want to hear it

I have no issue with cool armors made out of crazy materials. That stuff is awesome.

Here is the issue.

No other class in the game has a "rule" that forces them to go on an adventure to gather unique materials to make unique armors for them to use. None of them.

If you local city has breastplate in a variety of flavors, including but not limited to, giant turtle, giant skull, and giant beetle, that's amazing and I'd love to be a part of it. But, instead, every shop sells metal armors, nearly exclusively, and druids have to go and make their own equipment, because of a poorly thought out legacy item that makes no coherent sense.

If you want to say "druids can't wear metal armor, but I'll just let them buy armor and reflavor it" fine. I'm not convinced the flavor is their, but at least it is just a petty point of flavor at that point. But if druids have to go on a quest to get their armor, then why doesn't anyone else?

 

[ad_hoc]

And yes, barskin is garbage in 5e.

It's a decent choice for a Moon Druid.

Going from AC 11 to AC 16 in bear form is worthwhile.

It's not great, but it's not terrible for that use.

 

[DammitVictor]

Yes and no so I'll give a quick nutell summary that may or may not have some technical errors in phrasing.

Yes, and the nerfing of natural armor (and thus barkskin) from 3e to 5e was the intentional correction of an error-- 3.X was the only version of D&D that ever allowed them to stack this way, and it had to be fixed. Druids are allowed to wear non-metal Medium Armor, or take the Heavy Armor Proficiency Feat, and wear non-metal than Heavy Armor-- at a little bit of additional effort and expense than other classes. Those means exist, even in the core rules.

Balance isn't really what's at stake here. This argument is about two only mostly-related factors: 1) people trying to treat D&D and D&D's class system as a setting-agnostic point-building exercise-- a lot of other fantasy RPGs allow-- and 2) people wanting to be able to take the mechanical benefits of the Druid "package" without taking the mechanical limitations, and without "buying off" those mechanical limitations in any way.

D&D's class system is built around the idea that classes are cultural archetypes; it always has been, even if WotC's multiclassing mechanics obfuscated it. It's not "bad design" for not being the completely different kind of game that people in this thread want it to be-- the fact that it's never been that kind of game is why so many different varieties of that kind of game are available on the market.

 

[cbwjm]

Again, here is the entire text in the Players Handbook.

"Druid: Proficiencies: Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields (druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal)"

In the only context that there is: Druids will wear medium armor etcetera and will have proficiency with these, but Druids will not wear medium armor etcetera if made of metal and will not have proficiency with those.

The proficiency with the armor categories wont include the proficiency with the metal versions of these armor categories.

I'm pretty sure that in the history of 5e, you are the only person who has ever interpreted the druid armour proficiencies in this way.

 

[carkl3000]

What about non-metal scale mail? It does exist in the real world, it's not a made up thing. So in a fantasy setting... better than mage armor (well in the AC meaning, it still is noisier and heavier)

And yes, barskin is garbage in 5e.

There are non-metal medium and heavy armor sets that exist in published material, but they are not items that one would come across often. All the non-metal medium armors that I'm aware of are special items with enchantments that may or may not come up in a typical adventure. I think if you want to have a non-metal restriction, you have to have a mechanism to give your druid a mundane armor set (exotic material, but non-magical) within one or two adventuring days or it's BS. but that's just me.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I have no issue with cool armors made out of crazy materials. That stuff is awesome.

Here is the issue.

No other class in the game has a "rule" that forces them to go on an adventure to gather unique materials to make unique armors for them to use. None of them.

So what you’re saying is … we need more awesome “rules” like this!

I’ll work on the lawful stupid paladin. You can have the “no-edged weapons” clerics. We need to deputize someone to write up a rule to keep the Monks out of the flaming oil! Oh, and no bards.

Brilliant!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

...but symbiotic entity specifies:

These benefits last for 10 minutes, until you lose
all these temporary hit points.

Which temporary hit points? Do you interpret it to mean that if a Shepherd Druid uses their Unicorn Totem to give the Spores Druid THP, the Spores Druid loses Symbiotic Entity? Because either one or the other of the following is true;

• THP is THP, and as long as you have THP continuously an effect based on THP lasts.
• You lose Symbiotic Entity the moment a second source gives you THP.

...totally. I've picked out the feats I want most. Gonna get Misty Step and gift of alacrity with Fey Touched, take a skill and an expertise and max my wis with skill expert, war caster for OA spells and advantage on concentration checks, res con to make sure I can always keep my concentration spells up, and one more +con feat to round everything out.

That should work, sure.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Which temporary hit points? Do you interpret it to mean that if a Shepherd Druid uses their Unicorn Totem to give the Spores Druid THP, the Spores Druid loses Symbiotic Entity? Because either one or the other of the following is true;

• THP is THP, and as long as you have THP continuously an effect based on THP lasts.
• You lose Symbiotic Entity the moment a second source gives you THP.

The inclusion of the the word "these" in the phrase "until you lose all these temporary hit points" suggests to me that Symbiotic Entity only stays up if you still have the temp HP you got from activating it. So under that ruling if you choose to accept temp HP from another source, Symbiotic Entity drops.

Are there any other subclasses that are tied to gaining and keeping temp HP that we could use as a comparison?