wingsandsword
Legend
RPG_Tweaker said:I just hope they remove the horribly inane weapon and armor restrictions.
Stone and metal are just as much an "earth" component as a plant or animal.
In fact killing trees for wooded weapons and animals for leather and hides would seem to be a far greater source of violating nature.
Those restrictions exist because what you are describing: metal being as "earth" as plant or animal and killing animals for their hides being wrong is a very 20th/21st century attitude.
Historically, and in lower-technology civilizations like the ones D&D typically takes place in, metal is seen as unnatural. It very rarely exists in a pure form in nature, and steel takes what is to them advanced technology to smelt. We see metal as natural because nowadays compared to plastics and other modern-day materials, it is natural, but to someone in the middle ages, not so much. For example, the reason for the weakness of the fey to iron by many stories was because of iron was a symbol of advanced technology and something unnaturally advanced to the bronze (or flint) using peoples that fey lore came from.
The idea that it is inherently wrong to to chop down a tree to use is a pretty modern one, one that comes from the luxury of having synthetic materials. If you rule out plants as sources of building materials and fibers, and animals as sources of clothing, you're going to find surviving in a pre-industrial civilization very difficult.
If you're in a medieval-level civilization, you don't have the luxury of plastics and synthetic fibers and concrete, everything you have is going to come from nature to one degree or another. The idea of the D&D druid forsaking metal weapons and armor was representative that the Druid was a champion of the natural world, and metal weapons and armor was the peak of technology.