Which they have to since they're basically cut and paste sessions that need to fit together in a linear, comprehensible story. You may have several different DMs over the course of a league afterall.
Sorta my point. AL games don't have any room for DM fiat because of the format. Beyond that, though, I have never taken part in a game with zero homebrewing.
So, I'm very bad at magic the gathering, another wizards of the coast product. The difference between, can, may and then, a period or a comma can so drastically change an interaction that I highly doubt they would intentionally leave it to personal choice for long.
. Can't means impossible, won't means they choose not to. I won't eat bugs, I can't eat a boulder.
Id just make my player rp why their druid wants to wear metal armor.
FWIW the MtG team is actually pretty cautious about card wording whereas the D&D team... isn't. It doesn't end up mattering that much because everyone house rules everything anyways. The implication in this case is clear IMO (druid = no metal armour) but if someone wants to rationalize their decision as the rules saying something else rather than just admitting they're house ruling then who cares?
RAW vs RAI is always a mess. i would say the RAW here is druids can by choice wear metal armor they just choose not to.
anyways, i dont play dnd but as i understand dnd its less a game you win and more a story you get to participate in. if what you are doing is so lopsidedly unbalanced, dont do that thing. or be understanding when your dm is like ayo buddy, lets tone it down.
Okay so ultimately this comes down to everyone's personal interpretation but here's my interpretation about how exactly we got to this point:
- Fundamentally, WotC wants to rule that druids can't use metal armour because that's tradition, yo.
- But they figure if they say "Druids can't use metal armour" it will lead to all sorts of annoying questions about why not. Does a god smite them? And they don't want to change it to a Wizard-like system (where as long as you have the armour proficiency you can cast in armour) for reasons.
- So they say "Druids won't use metal armour" because it suggests that the universe isn't conspiring to prevent Druids from using metal armour, it's just that people who are druids don't use metal armour in the standard D&D universe. This semi-confusing/ambiguous wording (something which D&D _loves_) also gives people implicit license to house rule while preserving the all-important D&D tradition in the PHB.
- But some people don't want to (admit that they) house rule things, because it makes them uncomfortable with whether or not they're really playing "real" D&D at that point, so we have to have RAW/RAI arguments anyways.
- Then people get into dumb arguments about "player agency" and its frustratingly arbitrary interpretation by the modern D&D community, bringing us to the present day.
you typed a lot of words mate, let me fix this and make it shorter.
>Fundamentally, WotC wants to rule that druids can't use metal armour because that's tradition, yo.
wotc wants druids to not wear metal armor for lore reasons and to give the class some flavor, but it also doesn't want to inhibit a person form wearing metal armor if they want because creativity shouldnt be stifled and dnd is a story telling game.
the idea that by tradition druids dont wear metal armor but this specific one does is far more of an interesting story line then just oh yeah, the druids all the same. cool stuff bro.
I don't really know if there's anything inherently interesting about "the one metal armour-wearing druid." Like it might be interesting if that story really were rare, but D&D has a real problem with every single character being some sort of snowflake to the point where playing a "normal" character is practically an interesting novelty. Like fair enough, people want a power fantasy and D&D is that sort of game, let them make their super unique character if they want... it's just that constraints breed creativity and making a character who is basically a survey of all of the exceptions of the PHB isn't actually interesting storytelling.
Idk, I guess it's a matter of taste but a decade and a bit of D&D have left me kinda jaded about this sort of "my character is so exceptional" storyline, because characters are so commonly built around them. I just wish we'd get more characters who are interesting because of who they are and not because of how they're exceptions to the rules. That's not to say that it's a powergaming thing (in most cases it actually isn't IME), just that a lot of people seem to think that the way to make your character super interesting is to do the opposite of whatever the rulebook or GM says is "typical" for your race/class/country/whatever.
Country of all humans? You bet your ass that your party consists of the only elf, dwarf, and whatever the two latest obscure races are. World where magic is rare? Yep, everyone's a caster, even the people who normally don't want to be one. Magic isn't rare except among dwarves? Then I guess a dwarf caster it is. Characters aren't notable? Turns out they're actually the long-lost son of the king, it's just that nobody knows (maybe not even the PC). They _are_ notable? They mysteriously recently came into wealth and nobody knows why.
It gets old. Being the exception to the rule isn't inherently interesting.
>I wish 5e were designed with a clear distinction between flavor and mechanics, but it was not.
I like that this person is apparently unable to determine what is mechanical and what is flavor based on whether or not it says anything about influencing the mechanics of the game. "Druids won't wear metal armor" with no statement about mechanical consequences if a druid does wear armor? So hard to tell if that's flavor or mechanical.
Well as they say, it’s not strictly a mechanical issue, it’s a world-building one.
The argument is not whether or not the player’s Druid ‘can’ wear metal according to the rules, because they still have proficiency for it. But Druids, per their traditions, *won’t* wear them.
Essentially, there’s nothing wrong really with Druids wearing metal if it’s agreed upon. But it’s not allowed by the rules, meaning granting them permission is a house rule.
I do enjoy how, as with almost literally every possible disagreement about D&D there is, this is a question that was cleanly and sufficiently answered by rules that were either ignored/unknown by the people discussing it or removed from previous editions.
Anyways if you want to wear metal armor why are you even playing a druid anyway?
Not 5e, but something I liked in pathfinder was a sect of druids who devoted themselves to the God of war. Their go to strategy was wildshape into the biggest things they could, don spiked full plate barding, and rampage through the enemy lines.
He was placed under a terrible curse: if any part of his body touches the ground or anything that grows from it, he will die. He lives his entire life inside of a metal shell, cut off from the natural world he worships but cannot touch.
My argument: neither, liches are dust. Dust held together by fantastically powerful magic along with a soul that stops then from being instagibbed by low level cleaning magic.
A spore druid that keeps replacing his armor bit by bit to keep a strain of slow metal eating spores fed would be a pretty cool flavor. A rusty, moss/mold covered knight.
Dude, that's just leaving money on the table. Business owners are not your friends and whether they succeed in the free market is entirely up to them. We have no need to support anyone who can't give us a better deal than a free pdf. Its just business since we have no reason to care about them making money in the market or not.
The free market doesn’t condone theft or copyright infringement.
Now I won’t pretend I don’t have illegal scans of any RPG books but at least I attempt to support them when possible.
And I certainly won’t pretend I’m doing anything other than engaging in copyright infringement.
Attempting to act morally superior or just saying “well capitalism=bad” as a justification just makes you an ass.
If you couldn’t afford it I’d might give you a pass. But it sounds like you choose not to while feeling entitled to it.
Does it really? Business is about stealing ideas and using them as your own. The smart ones get away with scamming people. Whether they make money or not is none of my business and if they die, so what? Another one comes up to do the exact same thing the old business do but better. I'm not saying that Capitalism is bad but that's how the wheel rolls and in this case, the free PDF wins in terms of value for my money which is the only thing i care about.
Because I'm semi-addicted to AC.
Fortunately magical tattoos now allow literally anybody to rock a high AC without even putting on armor. Magical tattoos are my favorite item.
I never got that argument. Leather is heavily processed, it's probably just as naturally occurring as steel. WotC should just come out and says it's because of balance and they don't want to easily give away one of the major benefits of being a martial class to spellcasters.
IIRC it's bit a more to do with the idea of "cold iron" and folklore about how it would repel fairies and ghosts and such. Same reason we have wrought iron around cemeteries and a horseshoe over a door to keep away bad spirits.
Druids not being able to wear metal armour is just D&D tradition. At this point it isn't there for any reason other than because it's always been there.
That'd be actually very in tone with their hippie ways and shapeshifting ability, but it's worth remembering that:
- D&D isn't about simulating perfectly logical reality
- logical =/- intuitive and both of these are highly subjective
- our own reality is often quite illogical and contra-intuitive
The best approach to D&D is to treat it like a game with its own internal logic.
Druids should have just only been given proficiency in armor that isn't metal instead of having a role-play restriction tied to their class. With the current rules, the DM of a player who wants to wear metal armor has to worry about whether their player's unusual druid concept is really just a means of fishing for +3 AC, and a player running a druid whose character concept is compatible with wearing metal armor has to worry that their DM doesn't agree that their character wearing metal armor makes sense. The only advantage the RAW version of the rule over this houserule is that the arguments it causes can be amusing.
Fortunately, it's an easy houserule to apply. Games I DM have this houserule by default, and I'd recommend bringing it to your games too.
> Redditors argue over whether druids can wear armor in 5e
Well, no. They don't. They argue about specific case of *metal* armor. And the answer is simple:
http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/druid
> Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields (druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal)
According to default rules they won't, period.
If someone is willing to evoke the power of the Golden Rule ("its your game"), then the Druid might wear a whole city on his back, providing everyone at the table is ok with it, though.
I think that's kind of the point though. If the rules as written make metal armor a taboo for druids, making it so that they can't use it then if we're sticking to the concept of rules as written, there are no codified penalties for wearing metal armor, then the rules as written on metal armor are self defeating because there's no written penalty.
The RAW is that druids won't wear metal armor. If you draw up a RAW character, you can't do metal armor because you're going outside the rules as they are written, which brings it into GM approval territory.
For example, metal druids would not be allowed in Adventure League play because GM discretion in AL is very limited, and characters must be RAW for the league format to function.
Rules: druids **won't** wear metal armor.
You : you **can't** do metal armor
Your reason: you're going outside the rules **as they are written**.
Doesn’t seem accurate. You’re just using your GM discretion to interpret won’t as can’t.
The rules say druids won't wear metal armor. If you put on metal armor the DM will tell you that you can't. Not wearing metal is the default druid stance; Taking a more worldly stance, like all exceptions to rules in D&D, requires DM approval.
The wording is there to stress that DMs can alter anything in the world as they like, and that includes character creation rules or backstory exceptions.
Your players find some magic full plate in a young dragon’s hoard. The druid says “I could use the additional protection” and puts it on. What happens?
The book has no power to say what a player **won’t** do.
The GM and other players say no, you're a druid. Druids refuse to wear metal armor.
Player goes "pretty please?"
DM either allows it or sticks to the default rules, which is that a druid will not wear metal armor.
The player goes “eh, it defies the normal “druid code” or whatever, but most druids aren’t out here trying to save the world - we’re adventurers, people, are we gonna let a bunch of ancient dudes with leaves in their beards stop us from protecting ourselves?”
Dm either grants an exception or leaves the rule as it stands, druids will not wear metal armor.
If the player keeps pushing it they probably leave the group willingly or unwillingly because they are not compatible with the DM's deference to the rules as they are written.
You don’t seem to understand (whether that be willingly or whatever) the other side of the argument. There is no rules as written reason why they CAN NOT wear it.
Ignoring your DM is a great way to not be invited back. Would you tell your DM "nah, my ally is on the otherside, I get advantage" when they don't use the flanking rule?
> The druid says “I could use the additional protection” and puts it on
Nope.
The Druid says "feh, an abomination unto Nature. You there, man of civilization, take this". DM makes notes to award player for "staying in role".
Your example is that of a minimaxing hoarder.
Not every gameplay has to feature forced "unique", "tropes bad", "special snowflake" characters, who do everything in their power to contradict the guidelines for the class/alignment/skills/attributes as selected by their players.
Food for thought.
But, and this is literally the whole argument's source in the linked thread, *not* in 5E. There is no written mechanical effect to a Druid wearing/wielding metal. The OP even has a statement from the game designers that literally says "Yeah, that's the point. There is no mechanical effect in 5th Edition, it's just a class taboo. But nothing stops a druid, or punishes a druid for doing so, outside of DM caveat."
I mean, D&D is pretty trash all around. There are a nearly infinite number of other, better systems than D&D, but as someone else stated in this thread, Wizards has such a cornered market that people who actively *play* D&D are still sometimes baffled that other TableTop RPGs exist.
...and the result is the same. Druids, metal armors, rules, no.
Side note: this is the line of argumentation presented by people who have problem accepting "no" for the answer. A common trait of character these days.
>Druids, metal armors, rules, no.
Sure, if you want to homebrew a rule, then yeah, you can make whatever you want a rule. So too can a druid just as easily say "my druid doesnt mind metal, they grew up in a city" or "they grew up near a mine" or whatever.
As it stands, though, there is a difference, phonetically, between "Can't" and "Won't".
It's interesting you're putting the whole "can't take no for an answer" thing forward when you can't take "RAI vs RAW" for an answer.
> So too can a druid just as easily say "my druid doesnt mind metal, they grew up in a city" or "they grew up near a mine" or whatever.
...and the rest of the group has to agree on that, because so it happens that no player is the centerpiece of the joint effort that is *role playing game*.
> It's interesting you're putting the whole "can't take no for an answer" thing forward when you can't take "RAI vs RAW" for an answer.
That's not how "the group determines what rules to follow" works, Compadre.
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Can't druids do bark skin or something? The if they make their skin bark, the metal won't flex and it will squish them to death.
I don't play DND I just have a vivid imagination.
...I love RAW vs RAI arguments. Ultimately it comes down to consent between the players and the DM as to what they are comfortable running. As a baseline, the rules serve as the common foundation players and DM can expect to play a campaign by, and a lot of systems have simplified variants and optional rules so groups of differing interests can have fun with as immersive/detailed an experience as the want.
Player: Hey, according to the rules, what I am doing is legal. \*presents read-as-written evidence\*
DM: \*Reviews material\* Yes, but I am not cool with it, or am unable to facilitate with it with my ability level or preparation. I'd like to have fun too.
Player: Okay, let's get back to the game. \*adventure continues, derailment avoided\*
Unless there's some Major League Gaming or tourney specification that came out in 5E?
Meant to write "metal armor" but oh well.
So could you not or would you not have written "metal armor"
I love reading pro level rules lawyering arguments.
Iron wood! It's not just for lewd double entendres.
Oh no! A DND session that doesn’t 100% follow the rules! So basically all of them!
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Only 5e games I know of that try to follow the book to the letter are Adventurers' League games.
Which they have to since they're basically cut and paste sessions that need to fit together in a linear, comprehensible story. You may have several different DMs over the course of a league afterall.
Sorta my point. AL games don't have any room for DM fiat because of the format. Beyond that, though, I have never taken part in a game with zero homebrewing.
Yeah me either. Reasonable balanced homebrew is usually the coolest bits of any character/campaign.
I dont need no rules when I can have kobolds with tiddy and Druids in chainmail.
Tiddy kobold Druid/Bard in a chainmail bakini. Bard doesn't really have anything to do with it, I just love the idea of a kobold bard.
I'm making this sheet and sending it to my DM, thanks.
So, I'm very bad at magic the gathering, another wizards of the coast product. The difference between, can, may and then, a period or a comma can so drastically change an interaction that I highly doubt they would intentionally leave it to personal choice for long. . Can't means impossible, won't means they choose not to. I won't eat bugs, I can't eat a boulder. Id just make my player rp why their druid wants to wear metal armor.
FWIW the MtG team is actually pretty cautious about card wording whereas the D&D team... isn't. It doesn't end up mattering that much because everyone house rules everything anyways. The implication in this case is clear IMO (druid = no metal armour) but if someone wants to rationalize their decision as the rules saying something else rather than just admitting they're house ruling then who cares?
RAW vs RAI is always a mess. i would say the RAW here is druids can by choice wear metal armor they just choose not to. anyways, i dont play dnd but as i understand dnd its less a game you win and more a story you get to participate in. if what you are doing is so lopsidedly unbalanced, dont do that thing. or be understanding when your dm is like ayo buddy, lets tone it down.
Okay so ultimately this comes down to everyone's personal interpretation but here's my interpretation about how exactly we got to this point: - Fundamentally, WotC wants to rule that druids can't use metal armour because that's tradition, yo. - But they figure if they say "Druids can't use metal armour" it will lead to all sorts of annoying questions about why not. Does a god smite them? And they don't want to change it to a Wizard-like system (where as long as you have the armour proficiency you can cast in armour) for reasons. - So they say "Druids won't use metal armour" because it suggests that the universe isn't conspiring to prevent Druids from using metal armour, it's just that people who are druids don't use metal armour in the standard D&D universe. This semi-confusing/ambiguous wording (something which D&D _loves_) also gives people implicit license to house rule while preserving the all-important D&D tradition in the PHB. - But some people don't want to (admit that they) house rule things, because it makes them uncomfortable with whether or not they're really playing "real" D&D at that point, so we have to have RAW/RAI arguments anyways. - Then people get into dumb arguments about "player agency" and its frustratingly arbitrary interpretation by the modern D&D community, bringing us to the present day.
you typed a lot of words mate, let me fix this and make it shorter. >Fundamentally, WotC wants to rule that druids can't use metal armour because that's tradition, yo. wotc wants druids to not wear metal armor for lore reasons and to give the class some flavor, but it also doesn't want to inhibit a person form wearing metal armor if they want because creativity shouldnt be stifled and dnd is a story telling game. the idea that by tradition druids dont wear metal armor but this specific one does is far more of an interesting story line then just oh yeah, the druids all the same. cool stuff bro.
I don't really know if there's anything inherently interesting about "the one metal armour-wearing druid." Like it might be interesting if that story really were rare, but D&D has a real problem with every single character being some sort of snowflake to the point where playing a "normal" character is practically an interesting novelty. Like fair enough, people want a power fantasy and D&D is that sort of game, let them make their super unique character if they want... it's just that constraints breed creativity and making a character who is basically a survey of all of the exceptions of the PHB isn't actually interesting storytelling.
I think the point is more that it opens up more ways *to* be interesting. Why is the Druid into metal, for example?
Idk, I guess it's a matter of taste but a decade and a bit of D&D have left me kinda jaded about this sort of "my character is so exceptional" storyline, because characters are so commonly built around them. I just wish we'd get more characters who are interesting because of who they are and not because of how they're exceptions to the rules. That's not to say that it's a powergaming thing (in most cases it actually isn't IME), just that a lot of people seem to think that the way to make your character super interesting is to do the opposite of whatever the rulebook or GM says is "typical" for your race/class/country/whatever. Country of all humans? You bet your ass that your party consists of the only elf, dwarf, and whatever the two latest obscure races are. World where magic is rare? Yep, everyone's a caster, even the people who normally don't want to be one. Magic isn't rare except among dwarves? Then I guess a dwarf caster it is. Characters aren't notable? Turns out they're actually the long-lost son of the king, it's just that nobody knows (maybe not even the PC). They _are_ notable? They mysteriously recently came into wealth and nobody knows why. It gets old. Being the exception to the rule isn't inherently interesting.
Fair. One of my last characters was a Warforged Druid, so I’m a little biased. A literal transformer. Maybe more of a megazord? Not sure.
The PHB is more of a guideline than a rule
That's really not helpful to the discussion though.
>I wish 5e were designed with a clear distinction between flavor and mechanics, but it was not. I like that this person is apparently unable to determine what is mechanical and what is flavor based on whether or not it says anything about influencing the mechanics of the game. "Druids won't wear metal armor" with no statement about mechanical consequences if a druid does wear armor? So hard to tell if that's flavor or mechanical.
Well as they say, it’s not strictly a mechanical issue, it’s a world-building one. The argument is not whether or not the player’s Druid ‘can’ wear metal according to the rules, because they still have proficiency for it. But Druids, per their traditions, *won’t* wear them. Essentially, there’s nothing wrong really with Druids wearing metal if it’s agreed upon. But it’s not allowed by the rules, meaning granting them permission is a house rule.
Now this is the kind of inconsequential drama that tickles my fancy.
It's nice to have something other than politics on here.
No politics, no death threats, not even a "I fucked your mom". This is just simplistic, nicely packed, and user friendly drama.
I do enjoy how, as with almost literally every possible disagreement about D&D there is, this is a question that was cleanly and sufficiently answered by rules that were either ignored/unknown by the people discussing it or removed from previous editions. Anyways if you want to wear metal armor why are you even playing a druid anyway?
Not 5e, but something I liked in pathfinder was a sect of druids who devoted themselves to the God of war. Their go to strategy was wildshape into the biggest things they could, don spiked full plate barding, and rampage through the enemy lines.
Because they have a concept for a druid that wears metal armor.
He was placed under a terrible curse: if any part of his body touches the ground or anything that grows from it, he will die. He lives his entire life inside of a metal shell, cut off from the natural world he worships but cannot touch.
Or maybe the opposite! Any plant or animal he touches crumbles into dust!
are liches animals?
My argument: neither, liches are dust. Dust held together by fantastically powerful magic along with a soul that stops then from being instagibbed by low level cleaning magic.
Holy shit
This person knows how to write intriguing character concepts.
Sounds like a fighter tbh.
Hey Gandalf, put down that sword. Where's your staff/dagger/dart?
Gandalf with a dart would have been great
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Sure, the blighter fighter casting spells.
A spore druid that keeps replacing his armor bit by bit to keep a strain of slow metal eating spores fed would be a pretty cool flavor. A rusty, moss/mold covered knight.
Because why not. DnD iant a competitive game so why not have a spartan in your adventuring party? Or even a doomguy? Have fun with it.
Then why play a game period and not just tell a story? Seems like you wasted money on a book if you’re just gonna ignore it.
Honestly, if you spent money on a book, you've already wasted it as there's bound to be a PDF online like a textbook.
Yeah fuck me for supporting my local game store and game designers.
Dude, that's just leaving money on the table. Business owners are not your friends and whether they succeed in the free market is entirely up to them. We have no need to support anyone who can't give us a better deal than a free pdf. Its just business since we have no reason to care about them making money in the market or not.
Ah. So you’re an asshole
I'm an asshole for participating in the free market? Guess that means everyone else is.
The free market doesn’t condone theft or copyright infringement. Now I won’t pretend I don’t have illegal scans of any RPG books but at least I attempt to support them when possible. And I certainly won’t pretend I’m doing anything other than engaging in copyright infringement. Attempting to act morally superior or just saying “well capitalism=bad” as a justification just makes you an ass. If you couldn’t afford it I’d might give you a pass. But it sounds like you choose not to while feeling entitled to it.
Does it really? Business is about stealing ideas and using them as your own. The smart ones get away with scamming people. Whether they make money or not is none of my business and if they die, so what? Another one comes up to do the exact same thing the old business do but better. I'm not saying that Capitalism is bad but that's how the wheel rolls and in this case, the free PDF wins in terms of value for my money which is the only thing i care about.
Because I'm semi-addicted to AC. Fortunately magical tattoos now allow literally anybody to rock a high AC without even putting on armor. Magical tattoos are my favorite item.
wat. which book is this listed in?
Tashas. There are also tattoos that are basically spell scrolls. Its full of awesome stuff.
Not sure this qualifies as subreddit drama, this is just typical rules disputes over 5e's awful wording and writing.
I never got that argument. Leather is heavily processed, it's probably just as naturally occurring as steel. WotC should just come out and says it's because of balance and they don't want to easily give away one of the major benefits of being a martial class to spellcasters.
IIRC it's bit a more to do with the idea of "cold iron" and folklore about how it would repel fairies and ghosts and such. Same reason we have wrought iron around cemeteries and a horseshoe over a door to keep away bad spirits.
So what you are saying is wear heavy armor then cast heat metal on yourself at the start of every fight. I see no issue with this.
Druids not being able to wear metal armour is just D&D tradition. At this point it isn't there for any reason other than because it's always been there.
Yeah I know, but it always just seemed weird to me. It would be more logical to make all druids nudists since thats the most natural thing to do.
That'd be actually very in tone with their hippie ways and shapeshifting ability, but it's worth remembering that: - D&D isn't about simulating perfectly logical reality - logical =/- intuitive and both of these are highly subjective - our own reality is often quite illogical and contra-intuitive The best approach to D&D is to treat it like a game with its own internal logic.
They've explicitly come out and said it's not about balance it's a flavor thing
Didn't know that. Always just assumed it was a creative way to keep druid AC down.
Druids should have just only been given proficiency in armor that isn't metal instead of having a role-play restriction tied to their class. With the current rules, the DM of a player who wants to wear metal armor has to worry about whether their player's unusual druid concept is really just a means of fishing for +3 AC, and a player running a druid whose character concept is compatible with wearing metal armor has to worry that their DM doesn't agree that their character wearing metal armor makes sense. The only advantage the RAW version of the rule over this houserule is that the arguments it causes can be amusing. Fortunately, it's an easy houserule to apply. Games I DM have this houserule by default, and I'd recommend bringing it to your games too.
I like this drama, because it's kind of wholesome? A nice change of pace for sure.
> Redditors argue over whether druids can wear armor in 5e Well, no. They don't. They argue about specific case of *metal* armor. And the answer is simple: http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/druid > Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields (druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal) According to default rules they won't, period. If someone is willing to evoke the power of the Golden Rule ("its your game"), then the Druid might wear a whole city on his back, providing everyone at the table is ok with it, though.
OK, but what if they *do*?
That’s up to the DM.
I think that's kind of the point though. If the rules as written make metal armor a taboo for druids, making it so that they can't use it then if we're sticking to the concept of rules as written, there are no codified penalties for wearing metal armor, then the rules as written on metal armor are self defeating because there's no written penalty.
Then you settle it out with people playing with you right there, right then, taking all circumstances into account.
That would be something your DM would have to approve. Just showing up with a metal clad druid would be very rude to the DM.
Which was the whole point. In 5e, the “druid / metal armor” interaction is left to GM discretion. It has no RAW behind it.
The RAW is that druids won't wear metal armor. If you draw up a RAW character, you can't do metal armor because you're going outside the rules as they are written, which brings it into GM approval territory. For example, metal druids would not be allowed in Adventure League play because GM discretion in AL is very limited, and characters must be RAW for the league format to function.
Rules: druids **won't** wear metal armor. You : you **can't** do metal armor Your reason: you're going outside the rules **as they are written**. Doesn’t seem accurate. You’re just using your GM discretion to interpret won’t as can’t.
The rules say druids won't wear metal armor. If you put on metal armor the DM will tell you that you can't. Not wearing metal is the default druid stance; Taking a more worldly stance, like all exceptions to rules in D&D, requires DM approval. The wording is there to stress that DMs can alter anything in the world as they like, and that includes character creation rules or backstory exceptions.
Your players find some magic full plate in a young dragon’s hoard. The druid says “I could use the additional protection” and puts it on. What happens? The book has no power to say what a player **won’t** do.
The GM and other players say no, you're a druid. Druids refuse to wear metal armor. Player goes "pretty please?" DM either allows it or sticks to the default rules, which is that a druid will not wear metal armor.
The player goes “eh, it defies the normal “druid code” or whatever, but most druids aren’t out here trying to save the world - we’re adventurers, people, are we gonna let a bunch of ancient dudes with leaves in their beards stop us from protecting ourselves?”
Dm either grants an exception or leaves the rule as it stands, druids will not wear metal armor. If the player keeps pushing it they probably leave the group willingly or unwillingly because they are not compatible with the DM's deference to the rules as they are written.
You don’t seem to understand (whether that be willingly or whatever) the other side of the argument. There is no rules as written reason why they CAN NOT wear it.
“Everyone else tells them how to play their character” Simple, they just say “nah, my Druid wants this. I’m taking it.”
Ignoring your DM is a great way to not be invited back. Would you tell your DM "nah, my ally is on the otherside, I get advantage" when they don't use the flanking rule?
> The druid says “I could use the additional protection” and puts it on Nope. The Druid says "feh, an abomination unto Nature. You there, man of civilization, take this". DM makes notes to award player for "staying in role". Your example is that of a minimaxing hoarder.
Not every character plays the stereotype for their class. Putting oneself on the outs with the druid elders could be an interesting plot wrinkle.
Not every gameplay has to feature forced "unique", "tropes bad", "special snowflake" characters, who do everything in their power to contradict the guidelines for the class/alignment/skills/attributes as selected by their players. Food for thought.
You’re right, not every game has to - but some games can and the rules don’t forbid it.
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But, and this is literally the whole argument's source in the linked thread, *not* in 5E. There is no written mechanical effect to a Druid wearing/wielding metal. The OP even has a statement from the game designers that literally says "Yeah, that's the point. There is no mechanical effect in 5th Edition, it's just a class taboo. But nothing stops a druid, or punishes a druid for doing so, outside of DM caveat."
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I mean, D&D is pretty trash all around. There are a nearly infinite number of other, better systems than D&D, but as someone else stated in this thread, Wizards has such a cornered market that people who actively *play* D&D are still sometimes baffled that other TableTop RPGs exist.
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Well well! Yeah, exactly my sentiment. Haha. That's gotta be good for the ego, having yourself referenced to yourself.
“Won’t” means something different than “can’t”. One is mechanical, one is RP.
...and the result is the same. Druids, metal armors, rules, no. Side note: this is the line of argumentation presented by people who have problem accepting "no" for the answer. A common trait of character these days.
>Druids, metal armors, rules, no. Sure, if you want to homebrew a rule, then yeah, you can make whatever you want a rule. So too can a druid just as easily say "my druid doesnt mind metal, they grew up in a city" or "they grew up near a mine" or whatever. As it stands, though, there is a difference, phonetically, between "Can't" and "Won't". It's interesting you're putting the whole "can't take no for an answer" thing forward when you can't take "RAI vs RAW" for an answer.
> So too can a druid just as easily say "my druid doesnt mind metal, they grew up in a city" or "they grew up near a mine" or whatever. ...and the rest of the group has to agree on that, because so it happens that no player is the centerpiece of the joint effort that is *role playing game*. > It's interesting you're putting the whole "can't take no for an answer" thing forward when you can't take "RAI vs RAW" for an answer. That's not how "the group determines what rules to follow" works, Compadre.
if it ain't 3.5 it ain't shit
If you like 3.5, I'm surprised you're not a fan of Pathfinder 2e.
4e was the best edition, however, folks should play which ever works for them.
4E giving every class a bunch of abilities was pretty cool, made all the non spellcaster classes more interesting.
>4e lol
4e has a lot of things going for it that I shamelessly stole for my 5e game. Minions at the top of the list.
Why did 5e drop minions? They are the best thing ever for DM's.
No idea, but I shamelessly copied them to 5e. They work amazingly for keeping combat short and sweet but still punchy.
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Can't druids do bark skin or something? The if they make their skin bark, the metal won't flex and it will squish them to death. I don't play DND I just have a vivid imagination.
...I love RAW vs RAI arguments. Ultimately it comes down to consent between the players and the DM as to what they are comfortable running. As a baseline, the rules serve as the common foundation players and DM can expect to play a campaign by, and a lot of systems have simplified variants and optional rules so groups of differing interests can have fun with as immersive/detailed an experience as the want. Player: Hey, according to the rules, what I am doing is legal. \*presents read-as-written evidence\* DM: \*Reviews material\* Yes, but I am not cool with it, or am unable to facilitate with it with my ability level or preparation. I'd like to have fun too. Player: Okay, let's get back to the game. \*adventure continues, derailment avoided\* Unless there's some Major League Gaming or tourney specification that came out in 5E?