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

[Shadowdweller00]

Really?

Feel free to look it up yourself. I provided the reference. I'll presume you know or are capable of looking up how square brackets are used in quotations in the English language if that's a point of confusion.

 

[carkl3000]

Feel free to look it up yourself. I provided the reference. I'll presume you know or are capable of looking up how square brackets are used in quotations in the English language if that's a point of confusion.

Deific: Resembling a god in qualities such as power or beauty; divine.

Re: Use of square brackets, you seem to just be using them as an attempt to preemptively head off a valid criticism of your point of view by applying your own interpretation of the meaning of "the force of nature."

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Deific: Resembling a god in qualities such as power or beauty; divine.

Yes. In my particular parlance a "deific force" being a diffuse primal, mystical, spiritual, symbolic and/or elemental concept that has deific or god-equivalent powers. Consider: A cleric devoted to something like "Love", the Jedi and "The Force", a religion revolving around spirits existing in every rock, puddle, tree; a paladin being empowered by "Goodness" rather than a specific deity. As previously mentioned, Dark Sun priests are empowered by elemental and paramental concepts rather than specific, conscious, deities.

"Nature" has this relationship to Druids.

 

[tetrasodium]

The undying are explicitly powered by positive energy (aka Irian) OR "the devotion of mortal beings". Which sounds exactly like divine or spiritual magic to me. Do note that undying can be found in places that are NOT aligned with Irian...although rarely.

You can think that it's divine, but the reason they don't like to leave the manifest zone & send still living descendants is because they use even more of the positive energy powering them.

Elemental priests in Dark Sun WERE clerics in 2e; and per the 3e adaptation supplement released by Athas.org; there appears to be some debate on whether the cleric or the warlock is the preferred chassis for 5e.

There were a lot of differences between a mere cleric & an elemental priest, that was deliberate.

You all might (as in I presume probably are) be right about the Dark Powers. I've never tried DMing a Ravenloft campaign and I'll admit I'm a bit rusty on the lore. Though as Faolyn mentioned, one of the listed theories behind clerical spells in Ravenloft, to my knowledge, is that the Dark Powers grant them somehow.

that somehow is not presented in a cuddles and joy manner, it's more of a creepy mwahahaha way, that's why I included the unspoken pact thing earlier.

As far as I'm aware, the prohibition against metal armor is the same in all major settings. Some seem to consider "nature" a spiritual force rather than a "divine" one, but the distinction is meaningless with respect to that prohibition. Druids derive their power from their spiritual/religious beliefs and rituals - regardless of whether "Nature" is technically a god or not.

That's because it was mechanically important for balance reasons that no longer exist so the non FR-style settings didn't look too hard at it & just ignored the clash entirely. in 5e those balance reasons are no longer present and the clash is more of an issue.

The same consequence a Paladin suffers for breaking their oath, a Warlock does for failing to live up to the terms of their pact, a Cleric for making a serious blasphemy or even turning away entirely from their deity or deific force - whatever the DM decides it is. The default presumption is not "there are no consequences". Pretty sure this has come up at least 80 times in this thread.

no, no it does not. All of that is absent from the druid entry.

The magic of the oldest druidic sect in Eberron, the Gatekeepers (as taught by VVaraak), stemmed from bonds between the three progenitor dragons. Which, sorry to burst your bubble, are divine beings. It's implied that some other sects might derive their abilities from things like fey (e.g Greensingers), which would be something like animism, but never directly stated to my knowledge. There's most definitely no implication that the Metal Armor prohibition doesn't exist there. I have no access to Ravnica-related campaign materials and thus no way to verify whether your claim is true. The official MTG website (MTG being the progenitor of Ravnica) has some things to say on the matter, however. Per the "Druids, Trees, and Truth" publication: "The druid's power—like all true power—comes from the land. He recognizes that, to gain access the fundamental forces of the world, the first step is the subordination of the self to the will of nature." That describes worship / spiritual veneration. Making "Nature" a deific force if not technically a god. You're free to write or rewrite WHATEVER you choose in your homebrew setting, of course.

There's just so much wrong in this statement that it hurts. The progenitor wyrms were not gods, the closest might be the overdiety AO . Your stretching to fit the way FR works to eberron.

So much nothing that the prohibition against metal armor he instituted in 1e persisted almost unchanged through all the succeeding editions he wasn't involved with until 4e at least (about which I don't know because I couldn't stand 4e); with the slight evolution from "can't wear metal armor" to "loses all magical abilities for 24 hours if they put on metal armor". And even in 5e the prohibition remains - but again, as with all conduct violations in 5e, the consequences are left up to the DM.

Yes because there used to be mechanical reasons like the way casters & the barkskin spell worked, those reasons are no longer present to support this obnoxious bit of fluff.

You got me, I used "worship" as shorthand for "practicing spiritual activities revolving around". I should have known someone would inevitably try to split hairs on the subject. A fair number of real world religions that DO involve gods don't exactly worship those beings either. Buddhism involves a number of potentially divine beings (buddhas, devas); but much of the activities involved with the practice revolve around meditation, learning and adhering to moral precepts rather than offering prayer or rituals in devotion to a divine being. Animistic religions are or historically were HIGHLY variable...and a number do actually involve worship or even gods. Greek gods are well known, but Greek mythology also had an animistic backdrop behind it all; filled with river, mountain, forest spirits. Aztec mythology as well. Shintoism has the kami, many of whom are given small shrines and offerings; and some of whom, like Amaterasu Omikami have full deific-level powers and prestige. An animist religion still necessitates 1) a belief in a particular set of beings, 2) prescribed methods of interacting with those beings, and/or 3) methods to (hopefully) avoid problems, offense, or to request favors from those beings.

You do realize religions with similarities exist in eberron such as the path of light blood of vol & the thing practiced by the deathless that are not tied to gods right?...

The specific nature of religious practice doesn't actually matter. A taboo or prohibition exists within a religious context because it is presumed according to that tradition to offend some spirit or deific figure; or to demonstrate some symbolic loyalty; or because violating the taboo is presumed to have some deleterious effect on one's own spiritual nature (be it a soul or karma). In a world where there are direct, tangible, magical benefits received from specific religious practice (i.e. druidic empowerment) - then one is going to have direct, tangible, magical consequences for violating the tenets of that practice. Even if just the (temporary) loss of the aforementioned benefits.

It matters quite a bit because your trying to claim that it's divine

 

[carkl3000]

Yes. In my particular parlance a "deific force" being a diffuse primal, mystical, spiritual, symbolic and/or elemental concept that has deific or god-equivalent powers. Consider: A cleric devoted to something like "Love", the Jedi and "The Force", a religion revolving around spirits existing in every rock, puddle, tree; a paladin being empowered by "Goodness" rather than a specific deity. As previously mentioned, Dark Sun priests are empowered by elemental and paramental concepts rather than specific, conscious, deities.

"Nature" has this relationship to Druids.

You haven't explained yet why "forces of nature" must be akin to a god to which one gives devotion and prays for intercesssion and not a "force" that can be understood, revered, and channeled. In other words, I think that just saying that druidic power requires religious devotion is begging the question.

 

[FrozenNorth]

No, but you do go well beyond the Sage Advice which says that this taboo is only like being a vegetarian, and will in a very draconian manner banhammer the druid from being a druid any longer over a single violation.

Even in the best of circumstances, Sage Advice should be taken with a grain of salt, so the fact that SA says something different isn’t really a point against @Oofta (and may be a point in favour of @Oofta).

But then, I don’t treat RAW as RAW.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

 

[Oofta]

Even in the best of circumstances, Sage Advice should be taken with a grain of salt, so the fact that SA says something different isn’t really a point against @Oofta (and may be a point in favour of @Oofta).

But then, I don’t treat RAW as RAW.

First, I agree. I don't always follow sage advice. But second, a vegetarian eating meat is just one example. As Crawford explains: "your DM has the final say on how far you can go and still be considered a member of the class"

I can't imagine a scenario where a druid would be forced to wear metal armor in my campaign, it's never happened and I doubt it ever will. So we can discuss extreme "but if the druid was starving and the only way to get food was to put on metal armor" or some such, I don't care. That, and people throughout history have died because of deeply held beliefs including refusing to break a taboo.

It's up to the DM and the group how much they care, which is true of most of the rules in the book.

 

[Maxperson]

Because there is actual rule that binds them. This is the giant issue here. You get hung up on trivial difference between 'can't' and 'won't.' In practice it doesn't matter most of the time. Mechanically they don't do that. You're unable to parse the actual outcome of mechanics, which is weird, because it is pretty simple.

The "rule" is irrelevant. They are balanced around the entirety of medium armor(metal and non-metal), because there is no medium armor class(metal and non-metal) that cannot also be achieved with light armor.

I don't think this is likely at all. It would be very stupid to do this. They should be balanced around what is actually allowed, and as Crawford in his explanation lists what it is that they actually use, so he certainly understands it.

Yes. He clearly understood that 12+5+2(studded, dex and shield) = 15+2+2(half plate, dex and shield). 19=19. They are balanced around the entirety of medium armor, metal and non-metal alike.

 

[Maxperson]

It literally says straight out in the PHB that that's exactly how they get their powers, kid. As I mentioned in the post you quoted.

Look, son. I'm probably much older than you are.

"Druids revere nature above all, gaining their spells and other magical powers either from the force of nature itself or from a nature deity."

You don't get to tell us that our powers come from a god. There is no god involved. Only nature. Nature isn't going to give a rats behind about a violation. And I love how you tried to insert your house rule that nature is a deific power. It's not. Nature is nature. See the sentence below which you deliberately avoided.

"Many druids pursue a mystic spirituality of transcendent union with nature rather than devotion to a divine entity."

1) I wasn't asking you and you've already established that you have zero credibility on the subject.

I have more credibility here than you, son. At least I can read and understand what they print.

2) The designers most definitely said no such thing. Vegetarianism was brought up as an example of "will not" as distinct from "cannot". The consequences given for doing so were "ask the DM"; like they are for all conduct violations in 5e. As I'm sure has been brought up multiple times in this thread in response to this drivel.

Yes. It was an example of an equivalent "will not" in the real world. An exception made by a vegetarian doesn't stop him from being a vegetarian. Nor does the taboo mean he can't make the exception.