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

[Maxperson]

Interesting, I would think Occam's Razor would favor page 45, it being the simplest and more consistent explanation rather than the weirdly worded two other copy-pasted pages. Go figure!

No. The simplest explanation is that the increased number of words and clearer explanation that occurs more often is the correct one.

 

[Oofta]

No he's not. Once again, D&D is all about exceptions and rulings over being a slave to rules. There's absolutely nothing wrong with such a scenario because and DM worth a grain of salt is going to allow the druid to don the armor and save all of nature.

Then the DM and the player have decided to disregard the rule. In any case, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

[Maxperson]

We have. Or at least I have. The campaign ends because the player is under no obligation to ignore the rules of the game. I would also look for a different DM.

No player that I've ever met would be like, "I'm just going to let the world end. A purely in game preference not to wear armor makes it impossible for me to use my own initiative and save nature."

 

[Maxperson]

Then the DM and the player have decided to disregard the rule.

Name one rule that no DM has ever disregarded or changed? It's a part of the game.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Ok what if instead of "I don the half plate" the player says - I pick up the suit of halfplate and I strap the buckle around my waist, I put the greaves on ..... Then the player says "I am nto wearing it I am just letting it hang on my body in a fashion identical to someone who is wearing it.

A player having a laugh? Sure - that's fine. A player being intentionally disruptive to try to prove some rules point? Thankfully, no one at our table behaves like that.

At some point you need to take player agency to enforce this rule or you have to invent a mechanic which is not in the game.

I quoted the rule I would choose to follow. The clear one on page 45 which does no such thing as imposing on player agency. If you and your table choose to ignore that rule, that's fine.

 

[abirdcall]

Im trying to say that if you interpret the metal armor restriction as a rule, it must be a rule that violates player agency. If you interpret it as a statement about the lore, which is enforced via the social contract, then it isn’t a game rule.

Sure.

I mean that the player has sole authority over what their own character “would” or “wouldn’t” do.

That's not how I use that term.

I use it (more or less) as the player's ability to make meaningful decisions.

For example, if the PC spares a villain's life but the DM then just has the villain die of a heart attack that violates player agency. The DM didn't tell the player what their character could or could not do though so under your definition is agency maintained?

In the case of a Druid not wearing metal armour the player already agreed to do that and is now breaking that agreement. When I play there are all sorts of things that I don't want people doing at the table. Many of them go unsaid and I am sure to talk about the ones that may be less clear so we're all on the same page. One of those is to not play evil characters and not have direct conflict with other PCs. The Druid one is one of the unsaid ones because it's right there in the rules.

It's also absurd to frame this as "interpret" it as a rule. It is a rule. One that you may not like, but it's there and it's clear.

 

[Oofta]

No player that I've ever met would be like, "I'm just going to let the world end. A purely in game preference not to wear armor makes it impossible for me to use my own initiative and save nature."

No DM I'd want to continue to play with would do this.

 

[Maxperson]

No DM I'd want to continue to play with would do this.

We like different sorts I suppose. I like DMs who understand that the rules serve the DM and not the other way around. I want them to toss out any rule that gets in the way of common sense.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Im trying to say that if you interpret the metal armor restriction as a rule, it must be a rule that violates player agency. If you interpret it as a statement about the lore, which is enforced via the social contract, then it isn’t a game rule.

Sure.

I mean that the player has sole authority over what their own character “would” or “wouldn’t” do.

In general, I'm very much with you on the point you are making here that 5e is very clear that the player alone decides what the PC thinks, says, and (tries to) do (with the edge case of Charm type spells - but even then I'm more comfortable letting the player describe how that manifests in their characters behavior while I, as DM, simply adjudicate any negative mechanical effects - but I digress). Specifically, I see how you feel the same in relation to the wording on pg 65.

How do you view the wording on pg 45 in the context of the debate?
i.e. the Druid Armor Proficiency of Light and medium armor (nonmetal), shields (nonmetal) bit.

 

[J.Quondam]

Not ones solution of which relies on druid wearing metal armour.


That's for those GMs to answer who would build such a bizarre gotcha.

Earlier, I presented three categories of such "gotchas," none of which seem especially outre. (At least not for a fantasy game where paladins and clerics and the like are routinely hit with "gotchas" of all sorts. )
To repeat:

1. deception of druid by bad guy
2. charm/suggestion of druid by bad guy
3. "crisis of faith" by the druid

And probably lots of others.
Yeah, like much of D&D, these fall outside strict RAW (and of course the GM could simply never put the PC in the first two situations). But are they really that "bizarre"? Are these possibilities really so ghastly to strict RAWist sensibilities that a GM would refuse even to make a "ruling" to flesh out some in-fiction rationales or consequences? That players would quit/be ejected over them?

"GM, I'm naked, unarmed, out of spells, and those ghouls just won't stop coming! I know it's a bad idea, dearest Gaia, I think in desperation, but I don't have any other choice, do I? And then I pick up a dropped metal shield and a sword and brace for the next attack."
"You sure?"
"I'm not happy about it, but... yes."
"Okay, then. You feel a bit nauseous, and then both the shield and sword corrode and fall from your hands! Then the hair on your neck prickles and a whisper comes into your mind, Never doubt me again, small one!

Making an on-the-spot ruling (that even preserves intent of bad RAW, in this case!) just doesn't seem all that terrible. At least it's marginally more interesting than "Nope, can't do that."