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

[Chaosmancer]

I read it, it just didn't make much sense. More incentive to be frontlines than who? Rogues? Most characters who go into melee do not have AC of fighters and paladins. And of course as shapeshifting full casters druids have a lot of options to do stuff at range or move where they need to be.

No, most people who go into Melee do have the AC of Fighters and Paladins. Rogues and Monks are the exceptions (rogues also are variable, they have just as much incentive to be archers in the back line)

And, look at some of the Unique Druidic cantrips. Shillelagh is melee. Primal Savagery is melee. Produce Flame is ranged 30 ft. Thorn Whip is 30 ft and pulls an enemy towards you. Combine that with the shield prof, and it is very likely that a druid is tempted to go into short range and melee. Even looking at 1st and 2nd level spells, most of them are fairly close and very few are direct damage.

Also, you mention them being shapeshifters, but again, unless you are a Moon Druid, you are really never using Wildshape in combat. I've been playing a Dream Druid for a few years now, it only came up in combat once, where we were ambushed while I was tracking as a panther. Otherwise, I've never been wildshaped in combat. I'm simply far more effective as myself, and save Wildshape for utility. I also am constantly on the frontlines with the Barbarian.

Whose non-magical AC they need to match? Why they don't have any magic items?

Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, bladesinger wizard, hexblade warlock, cleric, ranger you know, other frontline characters. Didn't we just talk about that?

And sure, they could have magical items, but not only are those optional and kind of the Domain of the DM, but I shouldn't need to get a magical set of wyvern bone armor just to be equal to the cleric or the ranger or the hexblade or the barbarian who went to town and bought a set of half-plate from the local blacksmith shop. Especially since when that character (whomever they are) gets magical armor, it is going to spike them back up, or give them a bunch of cool abilities... while mine just brought me up to par.

No it's not! Homebrewing is making your own stuff, not assigning traits from an existing chart to existing items. Also what's wrong with dragonscale? I'd imagine there would be plenty of options to get materials for it in Dungeons & Dragons!

Dragonscale kind of sucks. To the point that I had a character get a set of Green Dragonscale mail, and I asked the DM if I could get it empowered when we ran across a magical forge, because my paladin would never wear it.

First off, it is scale mail that requires attunement. Now, it is +1, so it is essentially a set of half-plate in terms of AC. So, if you are just looking at the raw AC numbers you could have half-plate or attune to a set of Dragonscale, same difference. What effects does it have? Well, you can magically detect the presence of dragons as an action... which is fairly useless. If there is a dragon within 30 miles of you that you are trying to track down, the DM wants you to find that dragon eventually. You also get advantage on saving throws against dragon fear and dragon breath... which is okay... as long as you are fighting dragons. But if you aren't fighting a dragon, those abilities are pointless. IF the DM makes a single dragon encounter for you to be in, and that's where you get the scales, then this literally never comes up. The final ability is resistance to the elemental damage associated with the dragon. This is the only useful ability of this armor, that applies outside of fighting dragons.

You know what else has this ability?

Armor of Resistance, which also requires attunement, but can be any type of armor. Also, many types of armor include resistance to things like poison or fire anyways.

So, yeah, unless you are in a campaign where you plan on fighting a lot of dragons, Dragon Scale isn't a good choice, unless you are literally given no other options like Half plate or you are able to get a set that has the appropriate elemental resistance (and at that point, it is no different than half-plate of resistance)

Honestly, for how cool dragonscale should be, it is a constant disappointment.

It's not a nerf, it's what the rules say. What you want is a buff.

You were talking about making it so clerics can no longer wear medium or heavy armor. That is a nerf.

And what I want isn't a real buff, because if a druid begs and jumps through enough hoops, they can get that basic armor that everyone else bought in the shop, just with a different paint job.

The rule still doesn't represent the whole of the druidic beliefs, it merely deals with the mechanically pertinent part.

Which makes it better because they only forced us to comply with the part that has mechanics? Why not treat druids the same way they treat paladins, clerics, monks and everyone else. Let the player decide what religious beliefs they have.

Druids have barkskin, so they can get at least 16 if they need to. That being said, barkskin should be better. It is an iconic spell, so it disappointing that there usually is no reason to use it all as AC 16 is not super hard to get anyway. If druids truly need more defence, then buffing barkskin is where I would look. Not copying clerics, but doing things in uniquely druidic way.

I did buff barkskin, but requiring a 2nd level spell to be able to do something you are encouraged to do from level 1 seems like a poor strategy. Note all the wizard and sorcerer spells I've been talking about are level 1 spells, far cheaper.

Ultimately some things are central to the archetype. And keeping druid and cleric district is important, and yes, wearing different kind of armours is part of that. Making them even more similar to each other ultimately diminishes the reason fort having druid in the first place. Just make a cleric who can wildshape as a channel divinity.

I disagree. Firstly that this somehow closes the gap and secondly that making druids into clerics solves anything. I would advocate for the removal of the Nature cleric, because that overlaps in terms of making there be nature gods, which I also think are a bad idea.

But ultimately, I'm willing to give a people a choice in that matter. You are generally not willing to give druids a choice in the matter of their religious beliefs about armor. Unless we just make them non-proficient, which is a minor debuff on your end since they couldn't use that armor anyways.

 

[Yaarel]

Blade pact makes you proficient with your pact weapon. Just that one individual weapon, not all weapons of that type.

That is an excellent example of a class granting a special, partial, weapon proficiency.

The qualification relates to certain magic themes of the class.

The same is true for the Druid, with a special, partial, armor proficiency, relating to certain magic themes of the class.

druids have full medium armor proficiency, so if they are proficient with non-metal chain, that automatically makes them proficient with metal chain.

The text says "medium armor (nonmetal)", so it is only nonmetal medium armor.

The text doesnt say, "full" medium armor, because it isnt full, it is partial. It is qualified. It is a special proficiency, and only applies to nonmetal armor.

Nothing anywhere, even on page 45, indicates that they only have proficiency with hide armor.

I agree, the Druid is proficient with chain, scale, and plate, but only as long as, it lacks metal.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah, good point about moon druids.

So what do people think of this? Barkskin can be stacked with shield, otherwise unchanged? AC18 good enough for you @Chaosmancer? Is this worth the spell slot? Is it too good? Any alternate ideas for buffing the spell?

I can't see who you are responding to, but there are some concerns with Barkskin. When I made my version, I did this

1 hour, non-concentration
"You touch a willing creature. Until the spell ends or the caster uses an action to dismiss it, the target's skin takes on a rough, bark-like appearance. The target gains natural armor of 14 + dex modifier (max 3) or 16, whichever is higher.

At Higher Levels: When cast with spell slot of 4th level or higher, +1 AC for each two levels above 2nd. "

This wording still allows the use of a shield, meaning that it is at best a 19 AC, if you have a 16 dex. It costs a 2nd level spells slot though, so I'm not sure about the balance. A 2nd level slot for an hour of AC is a big commitment. I wondered if it would be okay to let it scale, at an 8th level slot this can give you an AC of 22 (with a 16 dex and a shield, no magical items) which is a big AC... but also an 8th level spell slot.

And, I'm not terrible concerned about Moon Druids. Yes, they can be very powerful with a higher AC and wildshape, but they are noted to fall of fairly hard around 5th level and up, so they might actually need the higher AC at high levels.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Forumers are turning a single awkward verb "will" into a mountain of unintended meanings and assumptions. Each assumption then provokes more questions, which in turn, adds soil to the mountain of meanings, that were never there in the first place.

Simply asking me, how can a Druid be non-proficient with metal, is itself, inviting me to answer, thus add to stories, that are all there because of one ambiguous word, "will".

The answer is, the Players Handbook doesnt explain why the Druid is nonproficient. It just states on three pages, that the Druid is only proficient with non-metal armor.

If you want me to invent an answer, that might be appropriate in some settings and not other settings, it might have to do with the fact that the Druid is spellcaster. Because the metal interferes with their magic, the class doesnt feel comfortable in it, and its tradition never learned how to use it.

The problem with the "interferes with magic" approach is, it is nonsense when considering the earth element loves metal.

An other explanation might be positive, rather than negative. The animals love Druids, want to protect Druids, and Druids gain protection from animal skins magically, and more easily, while focusing on druidic spellcasting mastery.

This "animals magically assist Druids" approach is probably more applicable. It explains how an earth Druid becomes proficient with animal armors while not even trying to become proficient with them. In other words, the animals have granted Druids proficiency with animal armors.

But again. The Players Handbook says nothing. Inventing mountain-loads of assumptions from a single verb seems misguided. The Sage Advice explanation, "because 1e Greyhawk", feels dislocated. And the Druid class mechanics and thematics seem incongruous generally.

That could be a fun approach, allowing Druids to "buff" hide armors as they level. That would be some cool thematics.

 

[Yaarel]

That could be a fun approach, allowing Druids to "buff" hide armors as they level. That would be some cool thematics.

That can be a fun theme for certain Druid concepts − and I want these to be more like berserkar, self-identifying with the ferocity of the beast.

Other Druid concepts focus more on other concepts. Each circle can help supply or swap proficiencies and features, to help develop different Druid concept.

 

[Maxperson]

The text says "medium armor (nonmetal)", so it is only nonmetal medium armor.

So why didn't they just say proficient with hide?

The text doesnt say, "full" medium armor, because it isnt full, it is partial. It is qualified. It is a special proficiency, and only applies to nonmetal armor.

It doesn't have to say it. Proficient with medium armor is all that is necessary for it to be full. Two pages give full proficiency. One shortened erroneous page doesn't.

I agree, the Druid is proficient with chain, scale, and plate, but only as long as, it lacks metal.

That's impossible. Chain is chain. Material doesn't affect usage, so proficiency with one is automatically proficiency with the other.

 

[Yaarel]

So why didn't they just say proficient with hide?

Because I dont think that is what the rules intend.

I think the rules intend for a Druid to wear scale armor made out of dragonskin, or plate armor made out of tortoise.

The rules clearly say the Druid is proficient with any type of medium armor, as long as it is nonmetal.

It doesn't have to say it. Proficient with medium armor is all that is necessary for it to be full. Two pages give full proficiency. One shortened erroneous page doesn't.

But this proficiency is qualified: only under special circumstances, does it apply.

That's impossible. Chain is chain. Material doesn't affect usage, so proficiency with one is automatically proficiency with the other.

For a Warlock, a pact-blade longsword isnt any other longsword. It is a special, partial, proficiency, and it relates to the magical themes of the class.

So, the Warlock demonstrates, "proficiency with one is automatically proficiency with the other", to be a false claim.

It can − and does happen − that a proficiency is special, and applies only to a specific circumstance, and fails to apply to anything else of the same type.

In the case of Druid, the nonmetal material explicitly affects usage.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No, most people who go into Melee do have the AC of Fighters and Paladins. Rogues and Monks are the exceptions (rogues also are variable, they have just as much incentive to be archers in the back line)

Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, bladesinger wizard, hexblade warlock, cleric, ranger you know, other frontline characters. Didn't we just talk about that?

So why not compare druids to monks and rogues? Why you have to compare it to those who are the best? Do druids need to be best at everything? That doesn't sound balanced...

And sure, they could have magical items, but not only are those optional and kind of the Domain of the DM, but I shouldn't need to get a magical set of wyvern bone armor just to be equal to the cleric or the ranger or the hexblade or the barbarian who went to town and bought a set of half-plate from the local blacksmith shop. Especially since when that character (whomever they are) gets magical armor, it is going to spike them back up, or give them a bunch of cool abilities... while mine just brought me up to par.

On par with what? That's the problem. Your think that you're entitled to have the same AC than the classes wit the best AC. This is not necessarily the case. Instead of thinking druids as default medium armour wearers that have unfairly been denied their medium armour AC think them as light armour wearers that have an awesome extra option to wear some magical medium armours. (And hide, but no one cares about that.)

Dragonscale kind of sucks. To the point that I had a character get a set of Green Dragonscale mail, and I asked the DM if I could get it empowered when we ran across a magical forge, because my paladin would never wear it.

First off, it is scale mail that requires attunement. Now, it is +1, so it is essentially a set of half-plate in terms of AC. So, if you are just looking at the raw AC numbers you could have half-plate or attune to a set of Dragonscale, same difference. What effects does it have? Well, you can magically detect the presence of dragons as an action... which is fairly useless. If there is a dragon within 30 miles of you that you are trying to track down, the DM wants you to find that dragon eventually. You also get advantage on saving throws against dragon fear and dragon breath... which is okay... as long as you are fighting dragons. But if you aren't fighting a dragon, those abilities are pointless. IF the DM makes a single dragon encounter for you to be in, and that's where you get the scales, then this literally never comes up. The final ability is resistance to the elemental damage associated with the dragon. This is the only useful ability of this armor, that applies outside of fighting dragons.

You know what else has this ability?

Armor of Resistance, which also requires attunement, but can be any type of armor. Also, many types of armor include resistance to things like poison or fire anyways.

So, yeah, unless you are in a campaign where you plan on fighting a lot of dragons, Dragon Scale isn't a good choice, unless you are literally given no other options like Half plate or you are able to get a set that has the appropriate elemental resistance (and at that point, it is no different than half-plate of resistance)

Honestly, for how cool dragonscale should be, it is a constant disappointment.

So only the best possible magic items are acceptable? Yeah, sorry I don't see things that way.

You were talking about making it so clerics can no longer wear medium or heavy armor. That is a nerf.

Oh right. But you seemed to have an issue with them having better AC than the druids. So that would fix that!

And what I want isn't a real buff, because if a druid begs and jumps through enough hoops, they can get that basic armor that everyone else bought in the shop, just with a different paint job.

Everyone didn't buy medium armour from the shop. Rogues didn't, wizards didn't!

Which makes it better because they only forced us to comply with the part that has mechanics?

Rules often deal with mechanics...

Why not treat druids the same way they treat paladins, clerics, monks and everyone else. Let the player decide what religious beliefs they have.

This is more like wanting to player decide whether monks can use their martial arts in armour or not.

I did buff barkskin, but requiring a 2nd level spell to be able to do something you are encouraged to do from level 1 seems like a poor strategy. Note all the wizard and sorcerer spells I've been talking about are level 1 spells, far cheaper.

So make it a level one spell.

I disagree. Firstly that this somehow closes the gap and secondly that making druids into clerics solves anything. I would advocate for the removal of the Nature cleric, because that overlaps in terms of making there be nature gods, which I also think are a bad idea.

But ultimately, I'm willing to give a people a choice in that matter. You are generally not willing to give druids a choice in the matter of their religious beliefs about armor. Unless we just make them non-proficient, which is a minor debuff on your end since they couldn't use that armor anyways.

Ultimately I don't think that a class based game has reason to exist if classes are homogenised and can just be anything. But yeah, dropping the medium armour proficiency would be a decentish compromise, as it would still keep druid as default non-metal wearer. It is a very boring option though, and I would definitely prefer if they instead had some sort of thematic limitation on metal wearing like monks have with all armour and certain weapons.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I can't see who you are responding to, but there are some concerns with Barkskin. When I made my version, I did this

1 hour, non-concentration
"You touch a willing creature. Until the spell ends or the caster uses an action to dismiss it, the target's skin takes on a rough, bark-like appearance. The target gains natural armor of 14 + dex modifier (max 3) or 16, whichever is higher.

At Higher Levels: When cast with spell slot of 4th level or higher, +1 AC for each two levels above 2nd. "

This wording still allows the use of a shield, meaning that it is at best a 19 AC, if you have a 16 dex. It costs a 2nd level spells slot though, so I'm not sure about the balance. A 2nd level slot for an hour of AC is a big commitment. I wondered if it would be okay to let it scale, at an 8th level slot this can give you an AC of 22 (with a 16 dex and a shield, no magical items) which is a big AC... but also an 8th level spell slot.

And, I'm not terrible concerned about Moon Druids. Yes, they can be very powerful with a higher AC and wildshape, but they are noted to fall of fairly hard around 5th level and up, so they might actually need the higher AC at high levels.

It is an interesting take, though I have to say that the AC scaling based on the spell slot level seems rather odd. Is there any other defensive or buff spells that work like that?

 

[Maxperson]

For a Warlock, a pact-blade longsword isnt any other longsword. It is a special, partial, proficiency, and it relates to the magical themes of the class.

So magic =/= unmagical. Show me a normal proficiency that works this way.

So, the Warlock demonstrates, "proficiency with one is automatically proficiency with the other", to be a false claim.

No it doesn't. It demonstrates that specific magic beats general proficiency and that's it. What's more, it doesn't grant actual proficiency. The magic just makes the warlock proficient while using the blade. The warlock is not proficient with the pact weapon when not using it.

Do you have an example that actually applies to the druid's case?