Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ohmyn" data-source="post: 7629618" data-attributes="member: 6999115">First off, I don't see how saying that the rule is poorly implemented means I need to provide a fix. If they wanted it to be impossible, there's a million and one ways that the rules developer could have changed it, and they shouldn't need my help to do this. For example, saying "Druids can never be proficient in metal armor" would have worked, but the SA points out that they still have the proficiency, so that doesn't seem to have been the intent.Secondly, I can point out tons of places where AL tables use RAI instead of RAW, or consider SA to be official when they want it to be, but then say it's not when they don't want it to be. AL also hasn't updated its FAQ since early 2017, which the game has had more printings of the physical books in that time, and WotC has changed their ruling on how official Sage Advice is as of the latest published documents in 2019. For these reasons, pointing to AL is not a great argument for whether or not people are enforcing the RAW properly, especially since most people have a bias towards Druids (I'm not saying against Druids). In fact, I'd like to point out that it wouldn't be considered a house rule at an AL table to allow the Druid to wear metal because nothing in the game system inhibits the player's decision to have their character do so. People simply aren't familiar with how the lore of Druids has changed over the years, just as the lore of every other class has, so much so that they find certain Druid concepts to be outrageous, not knowing these concepts actually exist in the canon lore of the D&D worlds (murderous Druids that want to destroy most of nature and the creatures within it are a canon thing).And let's not ignore what most of the Sage Advice said. First, the part you quoted seems to yet again be intentionally cutting out the sentence after that clarifies what they're saying. You know, this part: "As long as you abide by your character’s proficiencies, you’re not going to break anything in the game system, but you might undermine the story and the world being created in your campaign." The part you are quoting is a reminder to ask your DM so that you don't undermine their story, which is a reminder of what you should always do with every decision. If the Wizard class undermines their story, then no Wizard class for anyone. Whether or not you might undermine their story has nothing to do with RAW. The parts that are RAW are the other 80% of the Sage Advice response, which is that they are proficient in metal armor, they do not lack the ability to wear metal armor, that there is no penalty for wearing metal armor (so long as within their proficiency), and that nothing in the game system prevents them from doing so.What it means to say "you're not going to break anything in the game system," is that there's nothing in the game system that prevents the Druid from performing the action. A Wizard without any form of multi attack doing two melee weapon attacks in a single attack action is breaking something in the game system. When a Paladin of Devotion lies or cheats, despite the fact that their tenets say they don't lie or cheat, they're not breaking anything in the game system by doing so, they just may face penalties. When a Monk plays as a murder hobo, even though their class description says that as a rule they are not murder hobos, nothing is broken in the game system if they behave like murder hobos, and in this case there are no penalties for doing so. Monks don't need permission to be murder hobos, and Paladins don't need permission to break their tenets, because the game system grants the player the ability to have their character do so.Point is I'm not saying it's not a rule, but D&D has hard rules, and soft rules. "Do not" and "will not" are soft rules, and appear in a lot of explanations of the rules where implications are not specified, because they are not enforced in RAW unless there's some extra game system mechanic implemented that makes the action impossible or have consequences. The Paladin, yet again, is a perfect example of this. In no edition is the Paladin explicitly granted permission to go against any of their oaths or codes of conduct, nor to go against their class's alignment restriction. Their tenets and alignment restrictions are always presented in such terms, and then penalties are offered for what happens when a character chooses to ignore those restrictions. The rule saying Paladins of Devotion "Don't lie or cheat." does not prevent a Paladin of Devotion from lying or cheating, because this wording does not add anything to the game system that hinders the player's ability to have their Paladin character lie or cheat.Now if the rules said, "Paladins of Devotion don't lie or cheat. If they attempt to, their commitment overtakes them, forcing them to speak the truth, or to openly declare any efforts to cheat.", that would be a hard rule, because now there's a mechanical implication being provided that removes the character's ability to perform the action. This is why it's important to acknowledge the distinction made in Sage Advice when it's says, "Druids don't lack the ability to wear metal armor." By just saying they "will not perform X action", that's a soft rule that does not prevent the character from having the ability to perform the action in the core game system.If we're going to rule that "will not" is a hard mechanical limitation that prevents them from having the ability to do so, then does that mean any mind control automatically fails if it orders them to do so? If so, does this also mean that when it's said Paladins of Devotion "Don't lie or cheat", that they can never do it, and thus rules about them breaking their tenets are pointless, because the tenats dictate their behavior? Also, it doesn't say anything about doing so of their own free will, merely that they "will not". I guess the game system needs to grant mind controllers explicit authority to enable them to order a Druid to put on metal, otherwise the controlled Druid does nothing.</blockquote>

Verification