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

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Wow, I am not sure how I did not see this thread for an entire week and it now has 1900 posts that I am not going to read, sorry about that. So my thoughts will probably match others and will probably piss others off. lol

No to normal metal armor, if it is mined from the earth, defiling the planet in the process. A vein of raw materials that is at the surface, such as those exposed by a landslide or earthquake, that can be collected without digging into the earth? Yes, those are presents from the land, but be worked with proper Druidic rituals and worked in a way that does not poison the earth. Meteorite/Asteroid metal? Oh yeah! That is used to make awesome magical armor or weapons for druids.

And most mages can still not wear metal armor either because it interferes with their flow of magic and their ability to cast anything other than low level spells.

 

[Maxperson]

If you choose to play in my campaign you choose to not play evil PCs. Same as deciding to play a druid means they will not wear metal armor. I don't see a difference. The player is in total control of their PC which includes consequences.

The fact that you will not accept a clear rule is not something I'm going to discuss further.

The "rule" not a fact. And I wouldn't play in the game of a DM who felt the need to control things that tightly.

 

[mrpopstar]

If you're not going to, then stop billing the game as one of imagination, creativity and expression and instead as The Game of Doing What We Tell You To.

If I’m not going to what?

It was a simple question. LOL I’m just asking as I hear a lot of “the game should this” and “the game should that.” I’m curious to know why.

is that wrong?

 

[tetrasodium]

Very true; most taboos probably have sensible origins. One can assume that the no metal armor thing had one too at one point in history. It may simply be held as a defining tradition now.

as for my Catholic/Muslim/Jew/Hindu friends, they would have a choice to make if confronted with starvation. Like the Mandalorean had to do when he allowed his face to be seen in order to preserve the integrity of the mission.

What is missing in the whole druid and metal armor thing is a consequences for breaking the taboo that would allow players to make important choice about their character. What would they sacrifice to dress as a (metal clad ) soldier in order to preserve the integrity of the mission? Or as you said, wearing a ceremonial shield during a coronation.

that’s the most (IMHO) disappointing part of this whole druid-and-metal-armor mess.

Yes, we know for a fact what that point in history was, tat is the problem. That sensible origin was the system was very different mechanically including druid class itself and barkskin was better in ways that would be unbalanced if a druid could stack it with metal armor before getting the 6th level ironwood spell or a set of ironwood armor from the gm. None of those things are still the case because it went from a justification for why a mechanical restriction was needed to an errant bit of cruft that somehow escaped an editor's red pen.

 

[Yaarel]

Slight issue: dragonscale is a magical armor. A very rare magical armor that requires attunement, in fact.

Which means that for a druid to obtain this sort of armor, they have to either spend a boatload of gold (assuming that can find someone who sells it), find a suit of armor, or kill a dragon, skin it, and get someone to make the armor. Which could take months, if the DM insists that NPC magic item crafters take as long as PC crafters do.

4e distinguished between special materials versus magic items. I suppose, in 5e terms, these materials would be ambient magic, but not focused magic items that go void within antimagic.

The 5e Dragonscale armor is a magic item that in addition to being armor grants dragonlike magical effects, such as sensing the presence of any dragon.

Perhaps "wyrmling scale" from a younger dragonskin is mainly a special material without the focused magical effects. The wyrmling scale armor is equivalent to metal.

Judging by the Monster Manual wyrmling natural armor, it seems to always be 17 regardless of Dexterity (or 16 or 18 for certain dragons). Thus the full coverage seems more like heavy armor, usually equivalent to splint, but chain and plate also possible. Thus as medium armor, it would mainly be torso protection equivalent to scale AC 14 + Dex (max 2). But depending on the dragon type, an equivalent to chain shirt or half plate is also possible. Thus the armor entries would look something like the following.

Medium Armor
Wyrmling scale AC 14 + Dex (max 2) (no Str req) (no stealth disadvantage) 20 lb.

Heavy Armor
Full wyrmling scale AC 17 (no Str req!) (no stealth disadvantage!) 40 lb.



At least in my settings, the dragons would take offense if their dragonskins were bought and sold as a commodity. So it is only part of a gift economy without gp values. Criminal organizations might traffic in dragonskins, but prices would vary accordingly.

 

[Yaarel]

If you choose to play in my campaign you choose to not play evil PCs. Same as deciding to play a druid means they will not wear metal armor. I don't see a difference. The player is in total control of their PC which includes consequences.

The fact that you will not accept a clear rule is not something I'm going to discuss further.

I view these kinds of parameters as decisions about choosing the mood and themes for a setting. These expectations tend to become clear during session zero while the DM and players decide on which setting to use, and while creating the characters for it. The players too will be suggesting ideas for what a specific Druid institution is like, if they feel inspired while choosing their background, bonds, and ideals.

 

[MiraMels]

In my ongoing campaign, none of the druids (player and NPC alike) wear metal armor.

Because we're using the 2nd edition rules where druids have to earn their levels past 11th by defeating higher ranked druids in single combat.

And all druids can prepare heat metal.

 

[Yaarel]

A "taboo" is something like an Ideal or Flaw in the personality section.

 

[loverdrive]

Most taboos are weird reasons when you think of it. Most probably had a sensible origin, then became part of (typically religious) traditions that are dear or important to many people.

some of my friends live in my country, in modern times where food hygiene is strict and fridges are plentiful, live, learn, work, and play with me, and yet refuse to eat pork/cow/alcohol or sometimes fast for religious reasons while I don’t, and nobody is raising an eyebrow.

What I'm saying is, not wearing metal armour isn't anything more than a little quirk, and I don't think that little quirks should be codified by a system.

I'm all for the rules placing restrictions on characters and pushing some narrative on them — like, say, in Avatar, there's an Icon class playbook that is all about struggling with the burden of expectations everyone places on you — as long as these restrictions and the pushed narrative is actually important to the theme of the class.

Druids absolutely won't wear metal armour under no circumstances, that's what the rules say and there's nothing the player can do about it, but they can help "civilized" folks raping their land is a very weird line to draw.

If there was Mullah class and the only thing they weren't allowed by hard cold rules was eating pork, it would be just as weird (and would piss me off even more, but that's not that important).

 

[Maxperson]

A "taboo" is something like an Ideal or Flaw in the personality section.

Yep. A strong RP tool that can be broken if the PC thinks it's necessary.