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

[Charlaquin]

Or for PCs trying to equip an army on a budget. You can armor twice as many peons with padded as you can with leather for the same budget, it's the same AC, and an army isn't going to be Stealthing anywhere anyway.

That’s not a situation I would expect to see come up at my table, but hypothetically, sure.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Or for PCs trying to equip an army on a budget. You can armor twice as many peons with padded as you can with leather for the same budget, it's the same AC, and an army isn't going to be Stealthing anywhere anyway.

It's also for world-building. One would assume the NPC rulers would also favor padded army for the levies and ring mail for their standard infantry.

 

[rgoodbb]

Dish out some magical padded or ring just to make the party want to wear them

My Water Genasi Coastal Druid had Whalebone and Shark tooth studs on Leopard Seal Leather because I wasn't sure about studs being metal.

 

[turnip_farmer]

I think that's why I had to look it up to see if it's real, classes start with leather which made me think that was the worst armour, but no, padded is there for everyone who wants worse armour than leather.

It's two lbs lighter. It's there for the edge case of a low strength character who needs to shave off just one more pound to get under the encumbrance limit.

 

[Shiroiken]

In my Greyhawk, druids can't shapeshift, cast spells, or use most class abilities while wearing metal armor, permitted to only the leather armors and hide from the PHB. Rarely a non-metal armor might be found of the medium variety, in which case the druid can wear it instead. This is because of the way the nature spirits choose to give out their power.

I think whatever you decide to do in your game is fine... just like I think any bits of flavor WotC wants to add to all their material to make them distinct is also fine. Cause if I don't like it, I don't have to use it.

Worrying about RAW is a waste of time.

More people need to realize this. 5E is meant to be adjusted to fit the needs of each group.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I definitely agree that the rule is terribly worded. I think it would be clear and balanced if druids just had light armour proficiency.

Now personally I wouldn't want druids to wear metal armour flavour-wise, and if they could, they would be strongly encouraged to. It basically would become the default that they do wear breast plate or half plate and this just doesn't really fit how I see the druids. Furthermore, druids are already one of the most powerful classes, so they don't really need an AC buff.

As for padded and ring mail etc, the whole armour table is terrible. It has useless trap choice armours that have no mechanical purpose as well as weird historical misconception armours. There is mechanical need for just five different armours:

Light Armour
Leather/Padded	12+ Dex mod
Medium Armour
Chainmail	14+ dex mod (max2)
Scale/Brigandine	15+ dex mod (max2)		Disadvantage
Heavy Armour
Half Plate	17	Str 13	Disadvantage
Full Plate	18	Str 15	Disadvantage

 

[Blue Orange]

Amusingly, the entry for 'banded mail' in Wikipedia specifically states "It has become entrenched in the popular consciousness as a result of its inclusion in the armor list for Dungeons & Dragons."

 

[carkl3000]

No, they don’t even try. Plus, I don’t think they care since they can turn into bears and apes and all sorts of tankiness and stealthiness and extra-hitpointness.

That's fine for moon druids, or casters that want to put up a concentration spell and retreat to safety, but a druid with scale mail or half plate can make a pretty good melee tank. I think that option should be available. I like the idea of alternative materials.

 

[Oofta]

The whole armor list is pretty dumb TBH. Padded armor was quite effective and widely used, there was no such thing as "studded" leather*, leather armor was boiled leather and not particularly flexible (probably more akin to "scale" armor).

But D&D is not a historical simulation. Oh, and druids refuse to wear leather armor just like I refuse to eat lutefisk. I mean, I could eat lutefisk but I won't.

*There was brigandine which had metal plates riveted between layers of leather.

 

[carkl3000]

I think it's pretty tough for role-playing purposes to just forbid it without adding any homebrew mechanical effect, or at least coming up with a reason in the story that it should be taboo.