It's just that several people in this discussion just seem to be arguing for the sake of a buff.
With regard to "people looking for a solution" that may typically correspond to people just looking for a route to a druid in armour with few, if any, other considerations in mind.
I was also in error in regard to the nature of druidic magic in Faerun. I'd not looked into this and was running on my old ad&d mindset that druidic magic came from nature itself rather than from a deity as turns out to be the case.
Silvanus is the major nature deity but Millikki is noted as having popularity and I can see a draw.
Personally, I'd still look for a way to balance the buff of being able to wear armour with any reasonable nerf. Otherwise, the "suitable roleplay reason" for choosing a roleplay direction will always consistently track back towards the route to a free buff.
It's a little bit of both, to be honest. Druids aren't required to venerate a deity, but it's technically "divine" magic and many to anyway.
And a single level dip into one of the two most maligned classes in the game seems like an appropriate payment for being a druid in metal armor. Again, I'm of the mind they should just go questing for something better.
I think you missed the part where Jeremy Crawford said: " 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."
That's not sneaking any buffs in. Them making a BS call saying what my character will and will not do, is absolutely them determining my RP for me. If they didn't want me to wear metal armor, they shouldn't have given me proficiency in it. If they only wanted me to wear light armor and hide, that's what my proficiencies would state.
Sorry, I didn't realise that Jeremy Crawford was your DM.
(Of course, if Jeremy Crawford is not your DM then the basic rule is that "druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal" until your DM decides otherwise).
Will not and cannot are not the same thing. One more time...WILL NOT is an RP reason, nothing mechanical. My complaint is 100% that they are trying to dictate flavor, and doing a crappy job. Flavor is the province of RP and I don't need Wizard's help with that.
I can rules lawyer straight around this with dwarven spiked armor which is medium, equivalent to scale, and while usually metal doesn't have to be. This debate is because WOTC is trying to dictate fluff. It's unnecessary and irrelevant. It also makes it harder to use WOTC's first rule, that reskinning things is OK provided you don't change the system math. The nazish devotion from so many people here to wotc's botched effort at fluff makes it nearly impossible to reskin druids into say a shaman (which it's a perfect chassis for) because some moron DM is going to read the entry for druid, not understand what it's really trying to do, and say "that's cheating".
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Woah, dude. Calm down. No need to resort to name calling. We get it, you want a mechanical advantage at the cost of destroying the fluff built into the game.
'Will not' may be different words than 'cannot', but the two phrases are effectively identical: the character is unable to do the thing. If you wear metal armor, according to the printed page, you are at that point not a druid.
We all get it: You want that mechanical advantage and are willing to resort to the nuclear option of internet arguments to get it. But you're not willing to work with your DM to try to get ANY of the thematically appropriate alternates that have been brought up over the last 7 pages of discussion? I see where your priority is. Consider your dominance asserted.
Kinda curious as to why it would be flavored as "metal is not natural" when a druid can easily come to the conclusion that "even if it's worked into a different shape, it is still a natural element".
That's the same as not wanting to use a healing potion because it is effectively wrapped in sand that has been put through a smelter. Or a staff or spear because it's been fletched in someone's workshop.
Seems a rather confusing for WOTC to determine the mindset of a character if there is no mechanical reason, other than mental, that Druids can't or wont use metal armor (but will still use metal weapons) simply because it's been "worked" into a different shape...
I mean, would it make a difference if the Druid filled the interior of some full plate with vines or grass before putting it on? It's not like you can't just rig your own full plate out of rocks or wood or whatever the heck a Druid would feel comfortable wearing underneath the actual armor.
So, is there a mechanical reason for this? Does the metal not form into the animal shape when a Druid transforms? And if that's the case, doesn't the metal weapons a druid uses meld into the animal form anyways? Seems a bit inadequate to just say "they wont wear metal armor or use metal shields".
Per the Sage Advice Compendium, the history of druids using metal weapons, but not metal armor, dates back to Eldritch Wizardry (1976) from the days of OD&D. They prefer to clothe and protect themselves with natural materials like animal skins and wood, and that's a tradition. It's considered part and parcel of having membership in this mystical order. There also used to be a finite number of archdruids in the world and to become one yourself you had to kill an archdruid in single combat and assume their position. Not everything from yesteryear has carried over into today. And, again citing the SAC, if you think your druid's order should permit metal armor then talk to your DM. There is some precedent for this in 3rd edition, so it isn't unheard of. The PHB is a jumping off point for playing D&D. It's setting agnostic, so it has to lay out the ground (i.e. general) rules. Setting rules that are more specific will always trump them; like having a Fateful Moment in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount that gives your rogue proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons (along with a form of indefinite madness) because you were press ganged into military service; despite your background.
To impart some real-world some knowledge, the ritual of oak and mistletoe goes a long way explain why druids have an "exception" for wielding metal weapons. Sickles, especially gold ones as it's a soft metal, also suck as primary weapons. This is led Gygax let them use the scimitar; reasoning that it's just a bigger curved blade. It was also more than a little...problematic of him, to say the least. But this is who he was, and we have to reconcile that part of the hobby's past with its present. This also makes me think the druidic scimitar should be a sickle-sword like a khopesh, but I don't want to get all appropriational and that's a discussion I think best left to another thread.
I think you missed the part where Jeremy Crawford said: " 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."
That's not sneaking any buffs in. Them making a BS call saying what my character will and will not do, is absolutely them determining my RP for me. If they didn't want me to wear metal armor, they shouldn't have given me proficiency in it. If they only wanted me to wear light armor and hide, that's what my proficiencies would state.
Sorry, I didn't realise that Jeremy Crawford was your DM.
(Of course, if Jeremy Crawford is not your DM then the basic rule is that "druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal" until your DM decides otherwise).
Will not and cannot are not the same thing. One more time...WILL NOT is an RP reason, nothing mechanical. My complaint is 100% that they are trying to dictate flavor, and doing a crappy job. Flavor is the province of RP and I don't need Wizard's help with that.
I can rules lawyer straight around this with dwarven spiked armor which is medium, equivalent to scale, and while usually metal doesn't have to be. This debate is because WOTC is trying to dictate fluff. It's unnecessary and irrelevant. It also makes it harder to use WOTC's first rule, that reskinning things is OK provided you don't change the system math. The nazish devotion from so many people here to wotc's botched effort at fluff makes it nearly impossible to reskin druids into say a shaman (which it's a perfect chassis for) because some moron DM is going to read the entry for druid, not understand what it's really trying to do, and say "that's cheating".
Are you this passionate about the flavor WotC tries to dictate for other classes? We get the word cleric from the Latin clericus, for those belonging to the priestly class, but what does this mean in D&D? Do all clerics need to be priests, or are they just a member of this class? Are there social and/or economic classes, and if so how many and what are they?
Should all monk's be ascetic Shaolin martial artists? Should all paladins stick to their chosen oath, or can they break it without consequence? For rangers, just what does it mean to be a bulwark between civilization and the wilds?
Why does druids not wearing metal armor stick in your craw so much?
You are way too invested in this if you think that is a appropriate comparison.
As many people have noted, there is a non-mechanical RP element in many of the classes & subclasses, "druids choosing to not wear metal" is not exceptional. And you don't have to rules lawyer around it either. Many people, including prior & current designers, have pointed out all the medium armors that druids can wear, no rules technicalities or shenanigans required.
I always thought the prohibition was based in folklore: magic being interrupted by worked cold iron.
I was kinda thinking the same thing, but if that were the case, then why would a Scimitar be an option. Worked metal around the body maybe interfering with their abilities... but then why wouldn't all worked metal be banned? It pretty much is a personal preference rather than mechanical limitation.
Per the Sage Advice Compendium, the history of druids using metal weapons, but not metal armor, dates back to Eldritch Wizardry (1976) from the days of OD&D. They prefer to clothe and protect themselves with natural materials like animal skins and wood, and that's a tradition. It's considered part and parcel of having membership in this mystical order. There also used to be a finite number of archdruids in the world and to become one yourself you had to kill an archdruid in single combat and assume their position. Not everything from yesteryear has carried over into today. And, again citing the SAC, if you think your druid's order should permit metal armor then talk to your DM. There is some precedent for this in 3rd edition, so it isn't unheard of. The PHB is a jumping off point for playing D&D. It's setting agnostic, so it has to lay out the ground (i.e. general) rules. Setting rules that are more specific will always trump them; like having a Fateful Moment in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount that gives your rogue proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons (along with a form of indefinite madness) because you were press ganged into military service; despite your background.
To impart some real-world some knowledge, the ritual of oak and mistletoe goes a long way explain why druids have an "exception" for wielding metal weapons. Sickles, especially gold ones as it's a soft metal, also suck as primary weapons. This is led Gygax let them use the scimitar; reasoning that it's just a bigger curved blade. It was also more than a little...problematic of him, to say the least. But this is who he was, and we have to reconcile that part of the hobby's past with its present. This also makes me think the druidic scimitar should be a sickle-sword like a khopesh, but I don't want to get all appropriational and that's a discussion I think best left to another thread.
That is a far better explanation; WOTC should add some of that detail into the explanation to give a bit of background for people to work off of. Going by the basics (that being their barebones clip about wearing metal), it leaves a lot left unsaid.
So, ultimately, it really is a druids personal preference as they are certainly not barred from utilizing worked metal or other such creations. Even by "mystic order requirements", its not like they are stripped of their powers for wearing it, unless whatever god they worship (if that is their source of power) says otherwise. If it's not power given by a deity, then there's really no restriction other than what other Druids would consider "taboo".
A lot of what I wrote about came straight from the SAC, so WotC has given a detailed explanation. I only added a few things more for additional context.
Now, if the thought here is, "Why didn't they just have all this in the PHB?" then why should they? It's a rulebook, so it's purpose is to lay out what the rules are. It doesn't need to say why the rules are what they are.
If the next edition of the game decided to dump the D20 and go back to 2D6 rolls, they don't need to tell us why. That's just the rule now.
To be clear: Players have a handbook of rules which, so long as they fit in with any houserules sanctioned by their DM, they follow. DMs have a guide and advice that they can opt into if they so choose.
Players do take the rules as given in their handbook and which are customised by their DM. DMs can take anything from anywhere in any way that they want.
To be clear, even if you take the SAC entry on druid armor as RAW, you are changing the game to allow druids to wear metal and explicitly need DM permission to deviate from your class. Just like with changing any rule.
Both of you copied my phrasing while ignoring the conversational context, so I'm unclear what your main point is. Let's recap.
GergKyae said this, in response to crzyhawk:
Sorry, I didn't realise that Jeremy Crawford was your DM.
(Of course, if Jeremy Crawford is not your DM then the basic rule is that "druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal" until your DM decides otherwise).
I.e. the conversational context is that GergKyae is taking crzyhawk to task for claiming that a quote from the SAC is only applicable if JC is your DM. That is incorrect. I clarified things, to help establish that crzyhawk was quoting an official source.
Both of your responses were technically correct and contextually irrelevant.
To be clear: Players have a handbook of rules which, so long as they fit in with any houserules sanctioned by their DM, they follow. DMs have a guide and advice that they can opt into if they so choose.
Players do take the rules as given in their handbook and which are customised by their DM. DMs can take anything from anywhere in any way that they want.
To be clear, even if you take the SAC entry on druid armor as RAW, you are changing the game to allow druids to wear metal and explicitly need DM permission to deviate from your class. Just like with changing any rule.
Both of you copied my phrasing while ignoring the conversational context, so I'm unclear what your main point is. Let's recap.
GergKyae said this, in response to crzyhawk:
Sorry, I didn't realise that Jeremy Crawford was your DM.
(Of course, if Jeremy Crawford is not your DM then the basic rule is that "druids will not wear armor or use shields made of metal" until your DM decides otherwise).
I.e. the conversational context is that GergKyae is taking crzyhawk to task for claiming that a quote from the SAC is only applicable if JC is your DM. That is incorrect. I clarified things, to help establish that crzyhawk was quoting an official source.
Both of your responses were technically correct and contextually irrelevant.
Thank you.
The SAC entry says: "... If you want to depart from your class’s story, your DM has the final say on how far you can go and still be considered a member of the class. ..."
With this optional advice as with everything else in d&d, "your DM has the final say". Otherwise, "you might undermine the story and the world being created in your campaign".
No DM is ever required to explain or justify their interpretation of the rules at their table to anyone. Not to you. Not to other DMs. Not to DNDBeyond. Not to WotC.
You do it your way at your table.
If someone else does something differently at their table, let them.
No DM is ever required to explain or justify their interpretation of the rules at their table to anyone. Not to you. Not to other DMs. Not to DNDBeyond. Not to WotC.
You do it your way at your table.
If someone else does something differently at their table, let them.
Let it go.
It's a game.
How is this even still an argument?
This isn't a "at my table" discussion, it's a RAW discussion. Everyone is well aware that every table has it's own rules that do not need to be accepted anywhere else. But if you go into a game at another table, and especially at a AL event or convention, and have your Druid casually suit up in half plate "I have medium armor proficiency. That thing about metal armor is just fluff.", I suggest you be ready to get shut down hard before you can finish your sentence.
Druids can have metal buckles and such on their armor. The studs of studded leather are pretty small, and spaced out, and surrounded by [somewhat] natural material. My personal take for my druid is that she doesn't want to scare cute forest critters with metal clanking around.
Druids can have metal buckles and such on their armor. The studs of studded leather are pretty small, and spaced out, and surrounded by [somewhat] natural material. My personal take for my druid is that she doesn't want to scare cute forest critters with metal clanking around.
Sooo, scared of metal armor but not metal weapons?
Note, this silly "won't" nonsense goes away in the next edition. You can wear all the metal you want as long as it is light armor.
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Yeah, I'm sorry I came in hard there.
It's just that several people in this discussion just seem to be arguing for the sake of a buff.
With regard to "people looking for a solution" that may typically correspond to people just looking for a route to a druid in armour with few, if any, other considerations in mind.
I was also in error in regard to the nature of druidic magic in Faerun. I'd not looked into this and was running on my old ad&d mindset that druidic magic came from nature itself rather than from a deity as turns out to be the case.
Silvanus is the major nature deity but Millikki is noted as having popularity and I can see a draw.
Personally, I'd still look for a way to balance the buff of being able to wear armour with any reasonable nerf. Otherwise, the "suitable roleplay reason" for choosing a roleplay direction will always consistently track back towards the route to a free buff.
It's a little bit of both, to be honest. Druids aren't required to venerate a deity, but it's technically "divine" magic and many to anyway.
And a single level dip into one of the two most maligned classes in the game seems like an appropriate payment for being a druid in metal armor. Again, I'm of the mind they should just go questing for something better.
Will not and cannot are not the same thing. One more time...WILL NOT is an RP reason, nothing mechanical. My complaint is 100% that they are trying to dictate flavor, and doing a crappy job. Flavor is the province of RP and I don't need Wizard's help with that.
I can rules lawyer straight around this with dwarven spiked armor which is medium, equivalent to scale, and while usually metal doesn't have to be. This debate is because WOTC is trying to dictate fluff. It's unnecessary and irrelevant. It also makes it harder to use WOTC's first rule, that reskinning things is OK provided you don't change the system math. The nazish devotion from so many people here to wotc's botched effort at fluff makes it nearly impossible to reskin druids into say a shaman (which it's a perfect chassis for) because some moron DM is going to read the entry for druid, not understand what it's really trying to do, and say "that's cheating".
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Woah, dude. Calm down. No need to resort to name calling. We get it, you want a mechanical advantage at the cost of destroying the fluff built into the game.
'Will not' may be different words than 'cannot', but the two phrases are effectively identical: the character is unable to do the thing. If you wear metal armor, according to the printed page, you are at that point not a druid.
We all get it: You want that mechanical advantage and are willing to resort to the nuclear option of internet arguments to get it. But you're not willing to work with your DM to try to get ANY of the thematically appropriate alternates that have been brought up over the last 7 pages of discussion? I see where your priority is. Consider your dominance asserted.
Kinda curious as to why it would be flavored as "metal is not natural" when a druid can easily come to the conclusion that "even if it's worked into a different shape, it is still a natural element".
That's the same as not wanting to use a healing potion because it is effectively wrapped in sand that has been put through a smelter. Or a staff or spear because it's been fletched in someone's workshop.
Seems a rather confusing for WOTC to determine the mindset of a character if there is no mechanical reason, other than mental, that Druids can't or wont use metal armor (but will still use metal weapons) simply because it's been "worked" into a different shape...
I mean, would it make a difference if the Druid filled the interior of some full plate with vines or grass before putting it on? It's not like you can't just rig your own full plate out of rocks or wood or whatever the heck a Druid would feel comfortable wearing underneath the actual armor.
So, is there a mechanical reason for this? Does the metal not form into the animal shape when a Druid transforms? And if that's the case, doesn't the metal weapons a druid uses meld into the animal form anyways? Seems a bit inadequate to just say "they wont wear metal armor or use metal shields".
I always thought the prohibition was based in folklore: magic being interrupted by worked cold iron.
Per the Sage Advice Compendium, the history of druids using metal weapons, but not metal armor, dates back to Eldritch Wizardry (1976) from the days of OD&D. They prefer to clothe and protect themselves with natural materials like animal skins and wood, and that's a tradition. It's considered part and parcel of having membership in this mystical order. There also used to be a finite number of archdruids in the world and to become one yourself you had to kill an archdruid in single combat and assume their position. Not everything from yesteryear has carried over into today. And, again citing the SAC, if you think your druid's order should permit metal armor then talk to your DM. There is some precedent for this in 3rd edition, so it isn't unheard of. The PHB is a jumping off point for playing D&D. It's setting agnostic, so it has to lay out the ground (i.e. general) rules. Setting rules that are more specific will always trump them; like having a Fateful Moment in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount that gives your rogue proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons (along with a form of indefinite madness) because you were press ganged into military service; despite your background.
To impart some real-world some knowledge, the ritual of oak and mistletoe goes a long way explain why druids have an "exception" for wielding metal weapons. Sickles, especially gold ones as it's a soft metal, also suck as primary weapons. This is led Gygax let them use the scimitar; reasoning that it's just a bigger curved blade. It was also more than a little...problematic of him, to say the least. But this is who he was, and we have to reconcile that part of the hobby's past with its present. This also makes me think the druidic scimitar should be a sickle-sword like a khopesh, but I don't want to get all appropriational and that's a discussion I think best left to another thread.
Are you this passionate about the flavor WotC tries to dictate for other classes? We get the word cleric from the Latin clericus, for those belonging to the priestly class, but what does this mean in D&D? Do all clerics need to be priests, or are they just a member of this class? Are there social and/or economic classes, and if so how many and what are they?
Should all monk's be ascetic Shaolin martial artists? Should all paladins stick to their chosen oath, or can they break it without consequence? For rangers, just what does it mean to be a bulwark between civilization and the wilds?
Why does druids not wearing metal armor stick in your craw so much?
You are way too invested in this if you think that is a appropriate comparison.
As many people have noted, there is a non-mechanical RP element in many of the classes & subclasses, "druids choosing to not wear metal" is not exceptional. And you don't have to rules lawyer around it either. Many people, including prior & current designers, have pointed out all the medium armors that druids can wear, no rules technicalities or shenanigans required.
I was kinda thinking the same thing, but if that were the case, then why would a Scimitar be an option. Worked metal around the body maybe interfering with their abilities... but then why wouldn't all worked metal be banned? It pretty much is a personal preference rather than mechanical limitation.
That is a far better explanation; WOTC should add some of that detail into the explanation to give a bit of background for people to work off of. Going by the basics (that being their barebones clip about wearing metal), it leaves a lot left unsaid.
So, ultimately, it really is a druids personal preference as they are certainly not barred from utilizing worked metal or other such creations. Even by "mystic order requirements", its not like they are stripped of their powers for wearing it, unless whatever god they worship (if that is their source of power) says otherwise. If it's not power given by a deity, then there's really no restriction other than what other Druids would consider "taboo".
A lot of what I wrote about came straight from the SAC, so WotC has given a detailed explanation. I only added a few things more for additional context.
Now, if the thought here is, "Why didn't they just have all this in the PHB?" then why should they? It's a rulebook, so it's purpose is to lay out what the rules are. It doesn't need to say why the rules are what they are.
If the next edition of the game decided to dump the D20 and go back to 2D6 rolls, they don't need to tell us why. That's just the rule now.
Both of you copied my phrasing while ignoring the conversational context, so I'm unclear what your main point is. Let's recap.
GergKyae said this, in response to crzyhawk:
I.e. the conversational context is that GergKyae is taking crzyhawk to task for claiming that a quote from the SAC is only applicable if JC is your DM. That is incorrect. I clarified things, to help establish that crzyhawk was quoting an official source.
Both of your responses were technically correct and contextually irrelevant.
Thank you.
The SAC entry says: "... If you want to depart from your class’s story, your DM has the final say on how far you can go and still be considered a member of the class. ..."
With this optional advice as with everything else in d&d, "your DM has the final say". Otherwise, "you might undermine the story and the world being created in your campaign".
"Won't" holds an immensely different meaning from "don't" and "can't".
Druids won't wear metal armour.
That said, it's a silly thing to spend time arguing about. Just leave it up to the DM.
Folks.
Stop yelling at each other.
Neither side is going to change the other side's mind.
This is a game. Remember that.
It's just a game.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
Sure, but we might hope that all might recognise the potential validity of the other side's points of view when fitting with DM choices.
No DM is ever required to explain or justify their interpretation of the rules at their table to anyone. Not to you. Not to other DMs. Not to DNDBeyond. Not to WotC.
You do it your way at your table.
If someone else does something differently at their table, let them.
Let it go.
It's a game.
How is this even still an argument?
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
This isn't a "at my table" discussion, it's a RAW discussion. Everyone is well aware that every table has it's own rules that do not need to be accepted anywhere else. But if you go into a game at another table, and especially at a AL event or convention, and have your Druid casually suit up in half plate "I have medium armor proficiency. That thing about metal armor is just fluff.", I suggest you be ready to get shut down hard before you can finish your sentence.
Druids can have metal buckles and such on their armor. The studs of studded leather are pretty small, and spaced out, and surrounded by [somewhat] natural material. My personal take for my druid is that she doesn't want to scare cute forest critters with metal clanking around.
Sooo, scared of metal armor but not metal weapons?
Note, this silly "won't" nonsense goes away in the next edition. You can wear all the metal you want as long as it is light armor.