Also, how are you calculating an AC of 21? The highest AC you can get from nonmagical armor is 18, even if you go light armor and have really high dex, there's (in the source books I've read) only 9 Wild shape ability modifier scores above +4, but none of those are dex, so the highest with nonmagical light armor is 16.
Here's the kicker for me (from the Wildshape rules):
You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so. However, you can't use any of your SpecialSenses, such as Darkvision, unless your new form also has that sense.
You choose whether your Equipment falls to the ground in your space, merges into your new form, or is worn by it. Worn Equipment functions as normal, but the DM decides whether it is practical for the new form to wear a piece of Equipment, based on the creature's shape and size. Your Equipment doesn't change size or shape to match the new form, and any Equipment that the new form can't wear must either fall to the ground or merge with it. Equipment that merges with the form has no Effect until you leave the form.
Basically the ruling on this is up to the DM. Personally I would say no. I don't agree that "form-fitting" means anything other than its basic size fits your (normal) body well enough to not be noticeable under clothing (which is, btw, the context in which that term is used), and I don't agree that it would change shape as your body transitioned during wildshape. Secondly, while you can don and doff armor, I would rule that the vast majority of beasts (if not all of them) would not have the manual dexterity (or limbs) to manipulate the armor to don it (which rules out the "expands to cover" possibility).
In general, I would discourage this particular multiclass combo (Druid/Armorer Artificer anyway...it does not seem fitting for a druid with a taboo on wearing metal to wear a suit of expanding armor, and I can't justify natural armor materials being manipulated in the way described by arcane armor and the artificer descriptions for how they generate magical effects. Thats just me, others may differ.
"A smile crossed the armorer’s face, just wide enough for one of her stubby tusks to pop out from behind her lips. She strode across the room and placed her hand on the chest piece of her Mark 1 Guardian. Its plates shuddered at her touch, then sprung to life and rolled down her arm like an army of dully glinting beetles. In seconds, there was a click as the metal plates which had slithered over her body snapped into place. The tiny runes engraved around the edges of each plate glowed with faint white light, and her heavy gauntlets thrummed with barely restrained thunder."
I do agree, that, as in all things, the GM decides. However when you reference beasts not being dexterous enough, I would say based on the way the above lore states an armorer puts on their arcane armor, almost like little animated creatures, dexterity has no bearing. As for the armor material, armor can be made from many things, Bone, Chitin, Darkwood, leather, tiles of which engraved with the right runes would be animated in the same way. Also nowhere does it say that an armorer artificer loses all features when wearing nonmetal armor.
Also, the other person mentioned form fitting, which I agree on your usage in this context.
I'd allow it, armored bears and magical armor reshaping to fit its wearer are hardly earth shattering concepts in a fantasy setting. There's a clear investment in build and concept, it uses up action economy resources, compromises class progression in both classes, and the end result is.... a beast form with 18-21ish AC, which is what 5E expects melee characters to have anyway.
You've got my stamp of approval from a balance perspective, and I think that the RAW certainly allows this interpretation within the scope of "practical to wear" and "expands to cover your entire body" language in Wild Shape and Arcane Armor.
Well, we could also ignore the metal part since that doesn’t really matter. I’d be hard pressed to believe an artificer armorer couldn’t use a different material. Id also have trouble caring about what exactly material a PC can use to wear equipment or not.
druids not wearing metal feels like a left over game restriction that doesn’t matter much, like alignment or racial attributes.
Again, we are at an impasse because we have conflicting rules and different opinions about which is more specific and thus overrides the other one.
The armor says it "expands to cover your entire body."
Wild Shape says "Your equipment doesn't change size or shape to match the new form."
They are at odds and one of them has to come out on top.
the end result is.... a beast form with 18-21ish AC, which is what 5E expects melee characters to have anyway.
But this is not a melee character. This is a full spellcaster who has access to a temporary feature that gives them a large pool of hp above and beyond what they already had. That extra hp is offset by the fact that these shapes have terrible AC. If adding armor to Wild Shape was balanced in any way, why is it worded so strictly to avoid that very thing?
During the bonus action it takes to wild shape your equipment does not change size, because that is not a function of wild shape. Instead you choose for it to fall to the ground. After that, during the action that you activate your arcane armor it attaches and expands to cover your entire body, because that is a function of that class feature (which as noted wild shape retains class features). because they happen in that order, and must occur in that order, the rules do not conflict.
take this example. Druid wild shapes into bear. Party dons bear’s barded armor onto bear (presuming that armor is not metal or that the dm ignores druids not being able to wear metal armor). What is the difference between the druid’s party putting the bear’s armor on, and a squire donning a knight’s armor for him? Aside from the knight having others do what he can do for himself and the Druid wasting valuable wild shape time, Nothing. Now that knight is an artificer armorer and using an action the arcane armor can don itself. A wild shaped artificer can do the same, but only after they have already wild shaped. Because they happen sequentially it’s like slapping down a blue armor uno card on top of a red armor uno card, the original uno card is still there, it just no longer applies because, due to the order of the action economy, they already finished wild shaping.
But I think what most people are arguing against is the balancing. That’s why god (dm) invented DMs (gods?) for the players to work with. When I came to my dm with this I offered a weakness; wood has a chance to catch on fire. Hell, a dm did that to me in the past to make me discard a shield.
if your using bone armor maybe extra radiant damage (since wearing the dead is considered sacrilege). I don’t think leather is much of an issue since the ac doesn’t get too high, though why a Druid would choose to wear dead animals but shuns metal makes no sense to me.
Considering I’m coming in with a wooden breastplate (AC of 14 +[dex<= 2], which is the max my armor proficiency allows) and I’m a 3/4 caster that won’t get higher level spells, I think it will be ok, my dm agrees (so far)
If nobody minds I’m sharing a bit of my PCs background. my artificer was living in the wilderness, being a hermit, when he started developing a friendship with a tree. He couldn’t really talk to it, but since by human standards he was practically ageless, over time he could understand this one particular tree. Some men came to chop it down, but after he heard the axe blows he chased them away. The tree survived, but the open wound made it become ill. It would live for some time yet, but if it emerged from winter and into next spring, it’s disease would spread throughout the forest. He spent his days with the tree until the end of spring, through all of the summer and most of autumn, but then, at the trees request, he fell it. Through his tears and in the rain, the forest mourned. At the end the artificer felt the spirit of the tree leave, bequeathing it’s body to the land, a land the artificer was now a part of. That’s how he became a Druid. Speaking with the land, he was allowed to take some of the wood to make his armor. He carved it in winter as he hibernated with his bear room/cave-mate.
Beginning at 3rd level, your metallurgical pursuits have led to you making armor a conduit for your artificer magic. As an action, you can turn a suit of heavy armor you are wearing into power armor, provided you have smith’s tools in hand. You gain the following benefits while wearing the power armor:
If the armor normally has a Strength requirement, the power armor lacks this requirement for you.
You can use the power armor as a spellcasting focus for your artificer spells.
The power armor attaches to you and can’t be removed against your will. It also expands to cover your entire body, and it replaces any missing limbs, functioning identically to a body part it is replacing.
The armor continues to be power armor until you doff it, you don another suit of armor, or you die.
Beginning at 3rd level, your metallurgical pursuits have led to you making armor a conduit for your magic. As an action, you can turn a suit of armor you are wearing into Arcane Armor, provided you have smith's tools in hand.
You gain the following benefits while wearing this armor:
If the armor normally has a Strength requirement, the arcane armor lacks this requirement for you.
You can use the arcane armor as a spellcasting focus for your artificer spells.
The armor attaches to you and can’t be removed against your will. It also expands to cover your entire body, although you can retract or deploy the helmet as a bonus action. The armor replaces any missing limbs, functioning identically to a body part it is replacing.
The armor continues to be Arcane Armor until you don another suit of armor or you die.
the difference between the former and the latter is that the latter does not specify heavy armor. That means heavy, medium and light are on the table. Only one light armor actually has metal, but nowhere does it state that the armor must have metal, so I believe RAI means you can use any type of armor.
As to whether the gauntlets cover your claws (if in bear form) removing your capability to use natural claw attacks, or enhancing them with thunder damage would be up to your dm. Whether or not you need to retract the helm to bite depends on the type/coverage of the helm, which I would say is dependent on the armorer’s design. Though, I think I’d use the infiltrator model instead. Most wild shapes don’t have ranged, so the lightning launcher (crystal mounted on hands or chest I think) might be more useful.and the advantage on stealth is great for spying/surprise attacks.
You’re ignoring the part that makes it ring mail: “with heavy rings sewn into it.” If you take the metal out, it is just leather armor, with an AC of 11 + Dex mod.
You realize chainmail and plate armor also have cloth or leather underneath, right?
Ring mail contains about as much metal as studded leather, and there's an SAC entry explicitly allowing studded leather on druids, so ring mail should also be within their religion. We don't have clear RAW on how the religion works, but we do know - from the same SAC article - that druids are considered balanced provided they obey the armor proficiency rules, and the religious objection is considered flavor. There's no intrinsic balance problem with a DM allowing access to non-metallic half plate, for example. If there was, Druids even having proficiency in medium armor would be questionable at best, since hide armor is studded leather but worse. As a corollary, a Druid in plate - if proficient in plate - is also balanced, it's a flavor thing that they won't willingly wear it unless it's not metal.
As for OP: bear in mind barding weighs more than normal armor, so don't forget to account for that if you're applying the Armorer rules to barding for your wild shape.
Again, we are at an impasse because we have conflicting rules and different opinions about which is more specific and thus overrides the other one.
The armor says it "expands to cover your entire body."
Wild Shape says "Your equipment doesn't change size or shape to match the new form."
They are at odds and one of them has to come out on top.
the end result is.... a beast form with 18-21ish AC, which is what 5E expects melee characters to have anyway.
But this is not a melee character. This is a full spellcaster who has access to a temporary feature that gives them a large pool of hp above and beyond what they already had. That extra hp is offset by the fact that these shapes have terrible AC. If adding armor to Wild Shape was balanced in any way, why is it worded so strictly to avoid that very thing?
This is not a full spellcaster, it's a multiclass of a full caster with a half caster.
If this multiclass combo works the soonest it can be done is character level 5. 3 levels of Artificer (armorer) and 2 levels of Druid.
This 5th level character would have the spell slots of a 4th level full caster (since Artificer levels are rounded up when determining spell slots) but could still only prepare first level spells from either the druid list (Wisdom based) or the artificer list (INT based) at that point. A single class 5th level druid could prepare and cast 3rd level spells at this point. Further, while wildshaped you're still unable to cast spells, regardless of whether they are artificer or druid spells.
Effectively what this gives the Druidic Armorer is a non-concentration limitless duration version of barkskin with AC that can be increased over time (with money and/or adventuring), a special weapon (part of the armor), and a couple of active infusions.
It might be wildly overpowered, it might not be. I don't feel qualified to make that decision.
But the best thing about it is it's interesting. So for that reason alone I like and support the idea.
I don't like quoting big blocks, but the downside is that I occasionally lose some context. What I was talking about there was the intended balance of Wild Shape as a feature of the druid class, which is a full spellcaster. Regardless of how you get it, you shouldn't just assume +6-9 AC on Wild Shape forms is balanced simply because other classes can achieve it. That kind of reasoning is how the Mystic was born. So while you are correct that this particular build is something like a 75% caster, I was looking at the expected balance of the druid class feature with respect to the druid class.
Class power is not just about what you can do in the moment, but about the amount of resources you have to spend between rests. Wild Shape being equivalent to an armored Fighter is not balanced because once the Wild Shaped druid loses all their hit points, instead of dying like the Fighter would they revert to their normal, full hp spellcaster self with all the resources that entails. This is why Wild Shape needs weaknesses.
The best MC combinations often work to remove the weaknesses of their classes, and this proposed combo would certainly do that. For me, the question of whether it actually works is totally up to the DM since we have two specific rules that are incompatible with each other. Since I can't say which is "more specfic" in this case, my personal adjudication would be influenced by whether allowing it would introduce an overpowered character. This is just too strong for my liking, and I consider myself to be pretty lenient.
And armor still takes 1-10 minutes to don and double that for someone else to do it for you, unless the artificer ability changes that too.
From the ability description:
You can doff or don the armor as an action.
Of course that doesn’t *say* it changes how long it takes for another character to don or doff the armor from you, and you certainly aren’t doing it yourself in animal form.
And armor still takes 1-10 minutes to don and double that for someone else to do it for you, unless the artificer ability changes that too.
From the ability description:
You can doff or don the armor as an action.
Of course that doesn’t *say* it changes how long it takes for another character to don or doff the armor from you, and you certainly aren’t doing it yourself in animal form.
Why not? It's magic. If you can do it in an action, you're probably not making much use of your opposable thumbs.
Also, how are you calculating an AC of 21? The highest AC you can get from nonmagical armor is 18, even if you go light armor and have really high dex, there's (in the source books I've read) only 9 Wild shape ability modifier scores above +4, but none of those are dex, so the highest with nonmagical light armor is 16.
Barding
Here's the kicker for me (from the Wildshape rules):
Basically the ruling on this is up to the DM. Personally I would say no. I don't agree that "form-fitting" means anything other than its basic size fits your (normal) body well enough to not be noticeable under clothing (which is, btw, the context in which that term is used), and I don't agree that it would change shape as your body transitioned during wildshape. Secondly, while you can don and doff armor, I would rule that the vast majority of beasts (if not all of them) would not have the manual dexterity (or limbs) to manipulate the armor to don it (which rules out the "expands to cover" possibility).
In general, I would discourage this particular multiclass combo (Druid/Armorer Artificer anyway...it does not seem fitting for a druid with a taboo on wearing metal to wear a suit of expanding armor, and I can't justify natural armor materials being manipulated in the way described by arcane armor and the artificer descriptions for how they generate magical effects. Thats just me, others may differ.
"A smile crossed the armorer’s face, just wide enough for one of her stubby tusks to pop out from behind her lips. She strode across the room and placed her hand on the chest piece of her Mark 1 Guardian. Its plates shuddered at her touch, then sprung to life and rolled down her arm like an army of dully glinting beetles. In seconds, there was a click as the metal plates which had slithered over her body snapped into place. The tiny runes engraved around the edges of each plate glowed with faint white light, and her heavy gauntlets thrummed with barely restrained thunder."
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/912-artificer-101-armorer-from-tashas-cauldron-of
I do agree, that, as in all things, the GM decides. However when you reference beasts not being dexterous enough, I would say based on the way the above lore states an armorer puts on their arcane armor, almost like little animated creatures, dexterity has no bearing. As for the armor material, armor can be made from many things, Bone, Chitin, Darkwood, leather, tiles of which engraved with the right runes would be animated in the same way. Also nowhere does it say that an armorer artificer loses all features when wearing nonmetal armor.
Also, the other person mentioned form fitting, which I agree on your usage in this context.
I'd allow it, armored bears and magical armor reshaping to fit its wearer are hardly earth shattering concepts in a fantasy setting. There's a clear investment in build and concept, it uses up action economy resources, compromises class progression in both classes, and the end result is.... a beast form with 18-21ish AC, which is what 5E expects melee characters to have anyway.
You've got my stamp of approval from a balance perspective, and I think that the RAW certainly allows this interpretation within the scope of "practical to wear" and "expands to cover your entire body" language in Wild Shape and Arcane Armor.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I think the idea is that the kind of armor an artificer can create using "your metallurgical pursuits" is thematically incompatible with a druid.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Well, we could also ignore the metal part since that doesn’t really matter. I’d be hard pressed to believe an artificer armorer couldn’t use a different material. Id also have trouble caring about what exactly material a PC can use to wear equipment or not.
druids not wearing metal feels like a left over game restriction that doesn’t matter much, like alignment or racial attributes.
Again, we are at an impasse because we have conflicting rules and different opinions about which is more specific and thus overrides the other one.
The armor says it "expands to cover your entire body."
Wild Shape says "Your equipment doesn't change size or shape to match the new form."
They are at odds and one of them has to come out on top.
But this is not a melee character. This is a full spellcaster who has access to a temporary feature that gives them a large pool of hp above and beyond what they already had. That extra hp is offset by the fact that these shapes have terrible AC. If adding armor to Wild Shape was balanced in any way, why is it worded so strictly to avoid that very thing?
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
If I'm honest, I feel this way about a lot of rules.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
During the bonus action it takes to wild shape your equipment does not change size, because that is not a function of wild shape. Instead you choose for it to fall to the ground.
After that, during the action that you activate your arcane armor it attaches and expands to cover your entire body, because that is a function of that class feature (which as noted wild shape retains class features).
because they happen in that order, and must occur in that order, the rules do not conflict.
take this example. Druid wild shapes into bear. Party dons bear’s barded armor onto bear (presuming that armor is not metal or that the dm ignores druids not being able to wear metal armor). What is the difference between the druid’s party putting the bear’s armor on, and a squire donning a knight’s armor for him? Aside from the knight having others do what he can do for himself and the Druid wasting valuable wild shape time, Nothing.
Now that knight is an artificer armorer and using an action the arcane armor can don itself. A wild shaped artificer can do the same, but only after they have already wild shaped. Because they happen sequentially it’s like slapping down a blue armor uno card on top of a red armor uno card, the original uno card is still there, it just no longer applies because, due to the order of the action economy, they already finished wild shaping.
But I think what most people are arguing against is the balancing. That’s why god (dm) invented DMs (gods?) for the players to work with. When I came to my dm with this I offered a weakness; wood has a chance to catch on fire. Hell, a dm did that to me in the past to make me discard a shield.
if your using bone armor maybe extra radiant damage (since wearing the dead is considered sacrilege). I don’t think leather is much of an issue since the ac doesn’t get too high, though why a Druid would choose to wear dead animals but shuns metal makes no sense to me.
Considering I’m coming in with a wooden breastplate (AC of 14 +[dex<= 2], which is the max my armor proficiency allows) and I’m a 3/4 caster that won’t get higher level spells, I think it will be ok, my dm agrees (so far)
If nobody minds I’m sharing a bit of my PCs background. my artificer was living in the wilderness, being a hermit, when he started developing a friendship with a tree. He couldn’t really talk to it, but since by human standards he was practically ageless, over time he could understand this one particular tree. Some men came to chop it down, but after he heard the axe blows he chased them away. The tree survived, but the open wound made it become ill. It would live for some time yet, but if it emerged from winter and into next spring, it’s disease would spread throughout the forest. He spent his days with the tree until the end of spring, through all of the summer and most of autumn, but then, at the trees request, he fell it. Through his tears and in the rain, the forest mourned. At the end the artificer felt the spirit of the tree leave, bequeathing it’s body to the land, a land the artificer was now a part of. That’s how he became a Druid. Speaking with the land, he was allowed to take some of the wood to make his armor. He carved it in winter as he hibernated with his bear room/cave-mate.
I’m not aware of a rule that says arcane armor can’t be leather armor, or padded, or hide, etc.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Power Armor (Unearthed Arcana)
Beginning at 3rd level, your metallurgical pursuits have led to you making armor a conduit for your artificer magic. As an action, you can turn a suit of heavy armor you are wearing into power armor, provided you have smith’s tools in hand. You gain the following benefits while wearing the power armor:
The armor continues to be power armor until you doff it, you don another suit of armor, or you die.
Armor types
1,500 gp
now, in the armorer update
Arcane Armor
Beginning at 3rd level, your metallurgical pursuits have led to you making armor a conduit for your magic. As an action, you can turn a suit of armor you are wearing into Arcane Armor, provided you have smith's tools in hand.
You gain the following benefits while wearing this armor:
The armor continues to be Arcane Armor until you don another suit of armor or you die.
the difference between the former and the latter is that the latter does not specify heavy armor. That means heavy, medium and light are on the table. Only one light armor actually has metal, but nowhere does it state that the armor must have metal, so I believe RAI means you can use any type of armor.
As to whether the gauntlets cover your claws (if in bear form) removing your capability to use natural claw attacks, or enhancing them with thunder damage would be up to your dm. Whether or not you need to retract the helm to bite depends on the type/coverage of the helm, which I would say is dependent on the armorer’s design. Though, I think I’d use the infiltrator model instead. Most wild shapes don’t have ranged, so the lightning launcher (crystal mounted on hands or chest I think) might be more useful.and the advantage on stealth is great for spying/surprise attacks.
And gets an ally to help him don it at double the time? That sure ruins the 1 Bonus Action cast of wild shape for moon druids.
Ring mail contains about as much metal as studded leather, and there's an SAC entry explicitly allowing studded leather on druids, so ring mail should also be within their religion. We don't have clear RAW on how the religion works, but we do know - from the same SAC article - that druids are considered balanced provided they obey the armor proficiency rules, and the religious objection is considered flavor. There's no intrinsic balance problem with a DM allowing access to non-metallic half plate, for example. If there was, Druids even having proficiency in medium armor would be questionable at best, since hide armor is studded leather but worse. As a corollary, a Druid in plate - if proficient in plate - is also balanced, it's a flavor thing that they won't willingly wear it unless it's not metal.
As for OP: bear in mind barding weighs more than normal armor, so don't forget to account for that if you're applying the Armorer rules to barding for your wild shape.
And armor still takes 1-10 minutes to don and double that for someone else to do it for you, unless the artificer ability changes that too.
This is not a full spellcaster, it's a multiclass of a full caster with a half caster.
If this multiclass combo works the soonest it can be done is character level 5. 3 levels of Artificer (armorer) and 2 levels of Druid.
This 5th level character would have the spell slots of a 4th level full caster (since Artificer levels are rounded up when determining spell slots) but could still only prepare first level spells from either the druid list (Wisdom based) or the artificer list (INT based) at that point. A single class 5th level druid could prepare and cast 3rd level spells at this point. Further, while wildshaped you're still unable to cast spells, regardless of whether they are artificer or druid spells.
Effectively what this gives the Druidic Armorer is a non-concentration limitless duration version of barkskin with AC that can be increased over time (with money and/or adventuring), a special weapon (part of the armor), and a couple of active infusions.
It might be wildly overpowered, it might not be. I don't feel qualified to make that decision.
But the best thing about it is it's interesting. So for that reason alone I like and support the idea.
I don't like quoting big blocks, but the downside is that I occasionally lose some context. What I was talking about there was the intended balance of Wild Shape as a feature of the druid class, which is a full spellcaster. Regardless of how you get it, you shouldn't just assume +6-9 AC on Wild Shape forms is balanced simply because other classes can achieve it. That kind of reasoning is how the Mystic was born. So while you are correct that this particular build is something like a 75% caster, I was looking at the expected balance of the druid class feature with respect to the druid class.
Class power is not just about what you can do in the moment, but about the amount of resources you have to spend between rests. Wild Shape being equivalent to an armored Fighter is not balanced because once the Wild Shaped druid loses all their hit points, instead of dying like the Fighter would they revert to their normal, full hp spellcaster self with all the resources that entails. This is why Wild Shape needs weaknesses.
The best MC combinations often work to remove the weaknesses of their classes, and this proposed combo would certainly do that. For me, the question of whether it actually works is totally up to the DM since we have two specific rules that are incompatible with each other. Since I can't say which is "more specfic" in this case, my personal adjudication would be influenced by whether allowing it would introduce an overpowered character. This is just too strong for my liking, and I consider myself to be pretty lenient.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Of course that doesn’t *say* it changes how long it takes for another character to don or doff the armor from you, and you certainly aren’t doing it yourself in animal form.
Why not? It's magic. If you can do it in an action, you're probably not making much use of your opposable thumbs.
I mean, on the same line, you might not need to do anything but put the armor on in a few seconds then sit around without this feature.
Maybe you need a thumb to press the thumb button.