... Worship Mielikki, who IS a Goddess of NATURE. Her druids are encouraged to wear metal armor by their Goddess,
At least as far as the forgotten realms third edition is concerned, the fandom article on Mielikki says "Generally, druids of Mielikki took on the abilities of rangers, including the ability to wear all kinds of armor usable by rangers, including metal armor (unlike other druids who were not allowed to wear metal armor).
On the somewhat limited basis of this text, decisions may still be left with a DM as to what's "generally" covered and how the abilities might get taken.
Can't wear metal cause faith stuff and taboos... Druids aren't required to follow a deity or have any margin of faith. Taboos are also entirely based on your characters preferences. So that is all context adding to the game that isn't there by RAW. The proficiency specifically states medium armor without any exceptions tied to that medium armor. There is also no reason to wear medium armor if you can't wear metal as all the light armor is better, hide is completely worthless and has 0 reason to ever take it. Druids won't wear metal, yea but they wear metal as long as it isn't armor or shields? That doesn't make any sense, making it clearly a lore bit, and lore can be completely ignored. Mechanics on the other can't. There is not a mechanic stopping druids from wearing metal armor. The material of your armor is also lore based. The armor can be whatever you want it to be, as that is a cosmetic change, not a mechanical one. Before you even bother, certain materials do have mechanical differences, and those mechanical differences are listed, thus using those materials is a mechanical change, and the rules for doing so are in their relevant places. As long as you are observing the mechanical aspects, the cosmetic ones don't matter. There are no mechanics for a druid telling the taboos to shove it. This goes doubly for AL, in which cosmetic aspects of your character are completely flexible and the material your armor is made out of is cosmetic.
Can't wear metal cause faith stuff and taboos... Druids aren't required to follow a deity or have any margin of faith. Taboos are also entirely based on your characters preferences. So that is all context adding to the game that isn't there by RAW. The proficiency specifically states medium armor without any exceptions tied to that medium armor. There is also no reason to wear medium armor if you can't wear metal as all the light armor is better, hide is completely worthless and has 0 reason to ever take it. Druids won't wear metal, yea but they wear metal as long as it isn't armor or shields? That doesn't make any sense, making it clearly a lore bit, and lore can be completely ignored. Mechanics on the other can't. There is not a mechanic stopping druids from wearing metal armor. The material of your armor is also lore based. The armor can be whatever you want it to be, as that is a cosmetic change, not a mechanical one. Before you even bother, certain materials do have mechanical differences, and those mechanical differences are listed, thus using those materials is a mechanical change, and the rules for doing so are in their relevant places. As long as you are observing the mechanical aspects, the cosmetic ones don't matter. There are no mechanics for a druid telling the taboos to shove it. This goes doubly for AL, in which cosmetic aspects of your character are completely flexible and the material your armor is made out of is cosmetic.
RAW states,"druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal)"
RAW only states that druids can wear medium or light armor. RAW also doesn't state any consequence for wearing armor made of metal, other than Shocking grasp gets advantage against you. Any dm can homebrew a consequence for wearing metal armor as a druid. The excerpt that states "will not" is nothing more than lore/flavor text, the designers have said so themselves. That being said, none of the rules really matter, the dm has final say on everything in their own game. Dm says no metal armor on druids? Fine. Dm says eight actions a turn? Fine. Your only recourse is to not play in those games if you don't like it.
Respectfully, I don't think that's helpful. One, this topic has been discussed ad nauseum not only here but EN World, Reddit, Stack Exchange, and more. Two, it comes across as overly dismissive. The RAW text for their class proficiencies reads as follows:
Proficiencies
Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields (druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal) Weapons: Clubs, daggers, darts, javelins, maces, quarterstaffs, scimitars, sickles, slings, spears Tools: Herbalism kit Saving Throws: Intelligence, Wisdom Skills: Choose two from Arcana, Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Religion, and Survival
If the words in parentheses don't carry any weight, then they wouldn't be there in the first place. So, clearly, they hold significance. If you're going to so easily jettison "lore/flavor text", then how do you determine what is and isn't. Are clerics free to not follow a deity, even when their "lore/flavor text" explicitly says they gain their power from a deity?
If we're really going to adhere to the point that the DM is free to ignore whatever they want and set their own rules, then these forums serve no purpose. Nothing matters, including this question or any of the many many answers given in response to it.
Including, paradoxically, your own post. I don't think we should be so hasty to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Interestingly enough, I also believe clerics don't have to follow a diety. In some official DnD settings there aren't any gods at all, but there are still clerics. Separating mechanics and lore is pretty important when you're writing your own settings or helping a player with a character concept that doesn't fit the strict lore in the books. People love this game because it's flexible, it let's them play the character they've always wanted but never saw in any other media.
Interestingly enough, I also believe clerics don't have to follow a diety. In some official DnD settings there aren't any gods at all, but there are still clerics. Separating mechanics and lore is pretty important when you're writing your own settings or helping a player with a character concept that doesn't fit the strict lore in the books. People love this game because it's flexible, it let's them play the character they've always wanted but never saw in any other media.
The PHB sets out general rules for play. Various settings may provide specific overrides, but those need publication. In 3.5, druids of Mielikki didn't have a taboo on wearing metal armor, but that no longer seems to hold true. At least, not officially. Any DM who knows this and wants to look it up is free to say otherwise.
And, yes, there are no deities in Dark Sun. But every cleric still draws power from the inner planes (or elemental chaos, depending on cosmological model). It has to come from somewhere, so you're not seeing atheist clerics running around. It's important to remember that in many settings, deities aren't just ideas. They're real. They've taken physical form on the prime material, either before ascending to divinity or after. Sometimes both.
Even in Eberron, where there is some doubt about divinity, clerics are everywhere. There are even state-sponsored religions.
Settings don't need publication, you can just play them. Dark Sun is also lacking the inner planes and the elemental chaos, it only has The Black and The Gray.
I'm just saying that DnD is a about telling a story and being creative. In order to do those things you're allowed to throw out as much of the lore as you want and start from scratch. Classes are just a bundle of mechanics and abilities that can be reflavored endlessly to fit your story. If you're only supposed to play official content and follow all the rules exactly as presented in the books then I think very few people would actually enjoy the game.
Dungeons and Dragons is not Fate, GURPS, Savage Worlds, or any other bare-bones system that relies heavily on reskinning to make up whatever setting you want. It's pretty rigid. It always has been. There is an emphasis on "rulings, not rules" with this edition, but even then...what makes D&D D&D is its consistency.
King, if you want to talk about throwing out any/all rules you want to tell your world story your way that’s fine. But, this isn’t the forum for it - the homebrew forum is the place for that. This forum is for discussing Druids according to the RAW & RAI of the game. In that since Druids as nature priests don’t normally wear metallic armors since the working of them to refine them and shape them removes them from their “natural” state. Can exceptions be made? Possibly, hammering into shape without heating is potentially possible for a few native element metals (copper and meteoric iron/steel) but these would be extremely rare and difficult and therefore so should such Druidic armors be. Effectively it is probably easier for a Druid to create a magic armor than to find and work a “purely natural” metallic armor. Nothing stops them from wearing a +3 nonmetallic studded leather with a cloak and ring of protection for an AC of 17+DM. They don’t need to be wearing metallic armor when they can reach into the AC 20+ range without it with a high Dex all staying inside of RAW & RAI. If you want to discuss clerical spellcasting without the presence of deities that too should be in a different forum (either the Cleric forum or, again, the homebrew forum).
Notably, earlier editions of the game had the Ironwood spell, that turned wood into something as hard as steel. Combined with Wood Shape and a good craft skill, Druids could have full plate made of wood.
But, 5e decided not to have that spell, perhaps for the better.
RAW: DMG Chapter 9, Page 287, Modifying A Class, Paragraph 3 states, "You can also change armor and weapon proficiencies to reflect certain aspects of your world." There, verbatim, from a rulebook, if you feel strongly about your druid wearing metal armor then talk to your dm and they can make that happen.
Yes the DM can, but not the character ( or the player). This not a character option but a DM/World option. So yes you can speak to the DM and ask but no you can’t just rule it so yourself (unless you are the DM) and make it stand. Yes the DM CAN change things to suite their world, BUT it also doesn’t mean the DM WILL change to suite the player. That rule - as many others have stated, is where you switch from RAW/RAI to homebrew. When invoked by a DM you are no longer in a purely RAW/RAI game you are now in a homebrew however slightly.
RAW: DMG Chapter 9, Page 287, Modifying A Class, Paragraph 3 states, "You can also change armor and weapon proficiencies to reflect certain aspects of your world." There, verbatim, from a rulebook, if you feel strongly about your druid wearing metal armor then talk to your dm and they can make that happen.
To back up what WildBill just wrote, this gives the DM license to deviate from RAW for the game. Now some DMs will follow that guidance to appease an insistent player. I wouldn't call that good DMing, at least if you're doing a long form campaign. Maybe for a one shot. However, that section of the DMs Workshop you're talking about is about integrating rules and worldbuilding. In other words, a best practices IMHO DM would consider this it terms of how Druids work in their game. But the spirit of the guidance is "for the game" consideration not "indulge a player who doesn't want to play by the rules."
King, if you want to talk about throwing out any/all rules you want to tell your world story your way that’s fine. But, this isn’t the forum for it - the homebrew forum is the place for that. This forum is for discussing Druids according to the RAW & RAI of the game. In that since Druids as nature priests don’t normally wear metallic armors since the working of them to refine them and shape them removes them from their “natural” state. Can exceptions be made? Possibly, hammering into shape without heating is potentially possible for a few native element metals (copper and meteoric iron/steel) but these would be extremely rare and difficult and therefore so should such Druidic armors be. Effectively it is probably easier for a Druid to create a magic armor than to find and work a “purely natural” metallic armor. Nothing stops them from wearing a +3 nonmetallic studded leather with a cloak and ring of protection for an AC of 17+DM. They don’t need to be wearing metallic armor when they can reach into the AC 20+ range without it with a high Dex all staying inside of RAW & RAI. If you want to discuss clerical spellcasting without the presence of deities that too should be in a different forum (either the Cleric forum or, again, the homebrew forum).
Slight tangent, but I preferred back when we called rules derivations "house rules" not "home brew." For me "homebrew" is a "thing" with a presence in the game world (subclass, race, feat, spell, magic item, monster). Something like saying "ok, Druids can wear metal armor" to me is a house rule (with the expectation of consistency from there on). Now saying something like "Druids can wear heavy armor, but only armors made of this bordering on enchanted lava rock" that's sort of both a house rule and a homebrew material.
Anyway, back on track, the default RAW druid armor rule has a lot of friction with the rest of the default game world rules. The druid is deprived of metal armor (because it is forged? because the metal smithing or ore smelting process take a "natural" material and moves it too far from that natural state? Yet in W!ldB!ll's counter example for giving a high AC to a Druid, no one has any pause allowing a Druid to wear magical jewelry, even though the most IRL popular conceptions of jewelry (which produces jewelry reflective of the magical jewelry illustrations in the DMG and elsewhere) goes through similar "removed from nature" processes, sometimes even more extensive. So the "logic" seems to be for the sake of enchanted item bonuses, the Druid is allowed to wear a little bit of taboo matter to gain the enchanted effect? I dunno, at that point it seems like the design isn't so much robust but ill-considered or wishy-washy.
I might experiment with a house rule that allows the Druid to go heavy metal BUT wild shape complicates things. A classic wild shape shift would abandon the metal armor (and maybe metal magic) so only "rough organic materials" reconstitute, and when the wild shape brings forth an entity like wildfire or spores, some impediment would be suffered on the manifestation or the armor (haven't fully thought it out). I guess "the point" of either maintaining the restriction, or pushing more severe restrictions, or abandoning the restrictions would require a deeper analysis of the class mechancially which I'm not altogether certain has actually happened over the years in this thread.
A quick note to follow up on metallic magic items. I do recognize the inconsistency of not allowing metallic armor then allowing metallic magic jewelry so let me address that somewhat. In a game where most magic is some lost and found ancient item that can’t be created today you sort of have to make some exceptions in rules and so yes I would allow the enchantment process to overrule the human worked effect creating 3 classes of materials - “natural”, refined/worked by humanoids and enchanted/magical. In a world where you can still create magic items it can be stricter but then the Druid could be making their own cloak, boots, rings, wands, staves etc from natural materials and then enchant them themselves getting around most of the problem. That still leaves metallic weapons but there a case can be made that the Druid is normally not coming in contact with the metal directly nor are they trying to cast magic thru it ( sword grips etc are typically wrapped in leather, sometimes shark/ray leather that is naturally “grippy”.
Armor like scale mail doesn't need to be made from metal. The default version in the PH says it is made with metal scales, but that's it. Druids can always go questing to find natural materials to craft armor from. A nonmetallic version of mariner's scale mail could be made with the scales of a Large sea creature. It might be appear golden, like Aquaman's.
There are published adventures with nonmetallic armor expressly usable by druids. It's possible in Storm King's Thunder to acquire a breastplate made from stone. There's an AL adventure for Rage of Demons that has half-plate of poison resistance made from petrified giant mushrooms.
I know this thread is seven pages deep, but this has all been reiterated before.
Armor like scale mail doesn't need to be made from metal.
You won't get the performance of metal out of mundane alternatives available at a D&D level of technology, though monster parts (such as the traditional ankheg armor) or magic items can have whatever performance the DM wants. I think the easiest D&D interpretation is just
Monster Hide Armor (Uncommon or Rarer) Uncommon armor made from monster hide has the performance of any regular armor type except breastplate, half plate, or plate. Magic armors made from monster hide have the performance of magic armor with a base type allowed for monster hide armor, and the DM may choose to declare any armor with an allowed base armor type to be monster hide.
That puts a small tax on being non-metal (as it can't match the best armor types), and rationalizes magic items somewhat (since by RAW there is no sane reason to create magic armor with a base type other than studded leather, breastplate, half plate, or plate, though if you look on the random magic item tables it turns out that that +2 armor of an inferior type is the same rarity as +1 armor of the best types).
I think some of the problem people are having with the concept is because they do not understand why the rule is there. There are many fey in the realms who are either vulnerable or have a strong aversion to cold iron. When they are talking metal the are talking about iron or steel for the most part. All armor is assume to have Iron in it even Mithril and Adamantium. The druid gets its power from nature which is supported by the fey. That is the connection. Druids are an extension of the fey, they can wear jewelry cause most are not made from iron or steel.
I will put the question out like this. Superman can not wear armor made from a red sun or green kryptonite. He can wear jewelry made from the yellow sun or blue kryptonite. What happens when he dons his red sun armor? he loses his power.
We need to try not make druid wear steel and iron and focus on what they can wear. There are so many other materials out there not needing iron of steel that is almost laughable.
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At least strange materials is a property that any magic item might have in 5th edition. That stuff about Mielikki is all from different games.
At least as far as the forgotten realms third edition is concerned, the fandom article on Mielikki says "Generally, druids of Mielikki took on the abilities of rangers, including the ability to wear all kinds of armor usable by rangers, including metal armor (unlike other druids who were not allowed to wear metal armor).
On the somewhat limited basis of this text, decisions may still be left with a DM as to what's "generally" covered and how the abilities might get taken.
Can't wear metal cause faith stuff and taboos...
Druids aren't required to follow a deity or have any margin of faith. Taboos are also entirely based on your characters preferences. So that is all context adding to the game that isn't there by RAW.
The proficiency specifically states medium armor without any exceptions tied to that medium armor. There is also no reason to wear medium armor if you can't wear metal as all the light armor is better, hide is completely worthless and has 0 reason to ever take it.
Druids won't wear metal, yea but they wear metal as long as it isn't armor or shields? That doesn't make any sense, making it clearly a lore bit, and lore can be completely ignored. Mechanics on the other can't. There is not a mechanic stopping druids from wearing metal armor. The material of your armor is also lore based. The armor can be whatever you want it to be, as that is a cosmetic change, not a mechanical one.
Before you even bother, certain materials do have mechanical differences, and those mechanical differences are listed, thus using those materials is a mechanical change, and the rules for doing so are in their relevant places. As long as you are observing the mechanical aspects, the cosmetic ones don't matter. There are no mechanics for a druid telling the taboos to shove it.
This goes doubly for AL, in which cosmetic aspects of your character are completely flexible and the material your armor is made out of is cosmetic.
RAW states,"druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal)"
RAW only states that druids can wear medium or light armor. RAW also doesn't state any consequence for wearing armor made of metal, other than Shocking grasp gets advantage against you. Any dm can homebrew a consequence for wearing metal armor as a druid. The excerpt that states "will not" is nothing more than lore/flavor text, the designers have said so themselves. That being said, none of the rules really matter, the dm has final say on everything in their own game. Dm says no metal armor on druids? Fine. Dm says eight actions a turn? Fine. Your only recourse is to not play in those games if you don't like it.
Respectfully, I don't think that's helpful. One, this topic has been discussed ad nauseum not only here but EN World, Reddit, Stack Exchange, and more. Two, it comes across as overly dismissive. The RAW text for their class proficiencies reads as follows:
If the words in parentheses don't carry any weight, then they wouldn't be there in the first place. So, clearly, they hold significance. If you're going to so easily jettison "lore/flavor text", then how do you determine what is and isn't. Are clerics free to not follow a deity, even when their "lore/flavor text" explicitly says they gain their power from a deity?
If we're really going to adhere to the point that the DM is free to ignore whatever they want and set their own rules, then these forums serve no purpose. Nothing matters, including this question or any of the many many answers given in response to it.
Including, paradoxically, your own post. I don't think we should be so hasty to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Interestingly enough, I also believe clerics don't have to follow a diety. In some official DnD settings there aren't any gods at all, but there are still clerics. Separating mechanics and lore is pretty important when you're writing your own settings or helping a player with a character concept that doesn't fit the strict lore in the books. People love this game because it's flexible, it let's them play the character they've always wanted but never saw in any other media.
D&D is not a notably flexible game system.
The PHB sets out general rules for play. Various settings may provide specific overrides, but those need publication. In 3.5, druids of Mielikki didn't have a taboo on wearing metal armor, but that no longer seems to hold true. At least, not officially. Any DM who knows this and wants to look it up is free to say otherwise.
And, yes, there are no deities in Dark Sun. But every cleric still draws power from the inner planes (or elemental chaos, depending on cosmological model). It has to come from somewhere, so you're not seeing atheist clerics running around. It's important to remember that in many settings, deities aren't just ideas. They're real. They've taken physical form on the prime material, either before ascending to divinity or after. Sometimes both.
Even in Eberron, where there is some doubt about divinity, clerics are everywhere. There are even state-sponsored religions.
Settings don't need publication, you can just play them. Dark Sun is also lacking the inner planes and the elemental chaos, it only has The Black and The Gray.
I'm just saying that DnD is a about telling a story and being creative. In order to do those things you're allowed to throw out as much of the lore as you want and start from scratch. Classes are just a bundle of mechanics and abilities that can be reflavored endlessly to fit your story. If you're only supposed to play official content and follow all the rules exactly as presented in the books then I think very few people would actually enjoy the game.
Dungeons and Dragons is not Fate, GURPS, Savage Worlds, or any other bare-bones system that relies heavily on reskinning to make up whatever setting you want. It's pretty rigid. It always has been. There is an emphasis on "rulings, not rules" with this edition, but even then...what makes D&D D&D is its consistency.
Your argument is not a winning one.
King, if you want to talk about throwing out any/all rules you want to tell your world story your way that’s fine. But, this isn’t the forum for it - the homebrew forum is the place for that. This forum is for discussing Druids according to the RAW & RAI of the game. In that since Druids as nature priests don’t normally wear metallic armors since the working of them to refine them and shape them removes them from their “natural” state. Can exceptions be made? Possibly, hammering into shape without heating is potentially possible for a few native element metals (copper and meteoric iron/steel) but these would be extremely rare and difficult and therefore so should such Druidic armors be. Effectively it is probably easier for a Druid to create a magic armor than to find and work a “purely natural” metallic armor. Nothing stops them from wearing a +3 nonmetallic studded leather with a cloak and ring of protection for an AC of 17+DM. They don’t need to be wearing metallic armor when they can reach into the AC 20+ range without it with a high Dex all staying inside of RAW & RAI. If you want to discuss clerical spellcasting without the presence of deities that too should be in a different forum (either the Cleric forum or, again, the homebrew forum).
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Notably, earlier editions of the game had the Ironwood spell, that turned wood into something as hard as steel. Combined with Wood Shape and a good craft skill, Druids could have full plate made of wood.
But, 5e decided not to have that spell, perhaps for the better.
RAW: DMG Chapter 9, Page 287, Modifying A Class, Paragraph 3 states, "You can also change armor and weapon proficiencies to reflect certain aspects of your world." There, verbatim, from a rulebook, if you feel strongly about your druid wearing metal armor then talk to your dm and they can make that happen.
Yes the DM can, but not the character ( or the player). This not a character option but a DM/World option. So yes you can speak to the DM and ask but no you can’t just rule it so yourself (unless you are the DM) and make it stand. Yes the DM CAN change things to suite their world, BUT it also doesn’t mean the DM WILL change to suite the player. That rule - as many others have stated, is where you switch from RAW/RAI to homebrew. When invoked by a DM you are no longer in a purely RAW/RAI game you are now in a homebrew however slightly.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
To back up what WildBill just wrote, this gives the DM license to deviate from RAW for the game. Now some DMs will follow that guidance to appease an insistent player. I wouldn't call that good DMing, at least if you're doing a long form campaign. Maybe for a one shot. However, that section of the DMs Workshop you're talking about is about integrating rules and worldbuilding. In other words, a best practices IMHO DM would consider this it terms of how Druids work in their game. But the spirit of the guidance is "for the game" consideration not "indulge a player who doesn't want to play by the rules."
Slight tangent, but I preferred back when we called rules derivations "house rules" not "home brew." For me "homebrew" is a "thing" with a presence in the game world (subclass, race, feat, spell, magic item, monster). Something like saying "ok, Druids can wear metal armor" to me is a house rule (with the expectation of consistency from there on). Now saying something like "Druids can wear heavy armor, but only armors made of this bordering on enchanted lava rock" that's sort of both a house rule and a homebrew material.
Anyway, back on track, the default RAW druid armor rule has a lot of friction with the rest of the default game world rules. The druid is deprived of metal armor (because it is forged? because the metal smithing or ore smelting process take a "natural" material and moves it too far from that natural state? Yet in W!ldB!ll's counter example for giving a high AC to a Druid, no one has any pause allowing a Druid to wear magical jewelry, even though the most IRL popular conceptions of jewelry (which produces jewelry reflective of the magical jewelry illustrations in the DMG and elsewhere) goes through similar "removed from nature" processes, sometimes even more extensive. So the "logic" seems to be for the sake of enchanted item bonuses, the Druid is allowed to wear a little bit of taboo matter to gain the enchanted effect? I dunno, at that point it seems like the design isn't so much robust but ill-considered or wishy-washy.
I might experiment with a house rule that allows the Druid to go heavy metal BUT wild shape complicates things. A classic wild shape shift would abandon the metal armor (and maybe metal magic) so only "rough organic materials" reconstitute, and when the wild shape brings forth an entity like wildfire or spores, some impediment would be suffered on the manifestation or the armor (haven't fully thought it out). I guess "the point" of either maintaining the restriction, or pushing more severe restrictions, or abandoning the restrictions would require a deeper analysis of the class mechancially which I'm not altogether certain has actually happened over the years in this thread.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
A quick note to follow up on metallic magic items. I do recognize the inconsistency of not allowing metallic armor then allowing metallic magic jewelry so let me address that somewhat. In a game where most magic is some lost and found ancient item that can’t be created today you sort of have to make some exceptions in rules and so yes I would allow the enchantment process to overrule the human worked effect creating 3 classes of materials - “natural”, refined/worked by humanoids and enchanted/magical. In a world where you can still create magic items it can be stricter but then the Druid could be making their own cloak, boots, rings, wands, staves etc from natural materials and then enchant them themselves getting around most of the problem. That still leaves metallic weapons but there a case can be made that the Druid is normally not coming in contact with the metal directly nor are they trying to cast magic thru it ( sword grips etc are typically wrapped in leather, sometimes shark/ray leather that is naturally “grippy”.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Armor like scale mail doesn't need to be made from metal. The default version in the PH says it is made with metal scales, but that's it. Druids can always go questing to find natural materials to craft armor from. A nonmetallic version of mariner's scale mail could be made with the scales of a Large sea creature. It might be appear golden, like Aquaman's.
There are published adventures with nonmetallic armor expressly usable by druids. It's possible in Storm King's Thunder to acquire a breastplate made from stone. There's an AL adventure for Rage of Demons that has half-plate of poison resistance made from petrified giant mushrooms.
I know this thread is seven pages deep, but this has all been reiterated before.
You won't get the performance of metal out of mundane alternatives available at a D&D level of technology, though monster parts (such as the traditional ankheg armor) or magic items can have whatever performance the DM wants. I think the easiest D&D interpretation is just
That puts a small tax on being non-metal (as it can't match the best armor types), and rationalizes magic items somewhat (since by RAW there is no sane reason to create magic armor with a base type other than studded leather, breastplate, half plate, or plate, though if you look on the random magic item tables it turns out that that +2 armor of an inferior type is the same rarity as +1 armor of the best types).
I think some of the problem people are having with the concept is because they do not understand why the rule is there. There are many fey in the realms who are either vulnerable or have a strong aversion to cold iron. When they are talking metal the are talking about iron or steel for the most part. All armor is assume to have Iron in it even Mithril and Adamantium. The druid gets its power from nature which is supported by the fey. That is the connection. Druids are an extension of the fey, they can wear jewelry cause most are not made from iron or steel.
I will put the question out like this. Superman can not wear armor made from a red sun or green kryptonite. He can wear jewelry made from the yellow sun or blue kryptonite. What happens when he dons his red sun armor? he loses his power.
We need to try not make druid wear steel and iron and focus on what they can wear. There are so many other materials out there not needing iron of steel that is almost laughable.