Urban Druid in Heavy Armor?

[Yogibear41]

Is there a way I can keep my Urban Druid Spells in heavy armor, specifically as a warforged with the Adamantine Body Feat. I care nothing about Urban Shape, but want to keep scaling the urban companion and spells. Want to do something like this:

Lawful Neutral

Fighter1/Urban Druid4/BeastMaster1/Warforged Juggernaut5/Some other class 9?

Focusing Primarily on melee combat and divine casting support.

Alternatively I could say forget about the Druid Casting since the Companion is an EX ability and I won't lose it anyway, and just go into a prestige class that has similar spells.

[Red Fel]

As I recall, the Urban Druid shares the standard Druid's taboo against wearing armor. The Adamantine Body feat is quite clear on this point:
Warforged druids who take this feat cannot cast druid spells or use any of the druid's supernatural or spell-like class features. Warforged characters with this feat do not gain the benefit of any class feature prohibited to a character wearing heavy armor.

I would instead suggest the Ironwood Body feat, which counts as light armor, and explicitly works with Druid (and Urban Druid) abilities. It also gives you DR 2/slashing, which isn't DR/adamantine, but it's helpful.

[Yogibear41]

I know this. The entire point of this thread is to find away around that restriction.

[Troacctid]

Urban Druids allegedly lose their class features if they wear prohibited armor, but unlike "Druid" Druids, there aren't actually any armors prohibited to them. The class description doesn't mention any. It just says they find armor to be generally distasteful and rude and they prefer not to wear it at all except when adventuring--and this restriction includes armor with which they're proficient. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, there's a reference to what happens if you wear prohibited armor.

It's dysfunctional. Ask your DM.

[Crake]

I know this. The entire point of this thread is to find away around that restriction.

That feat is pretty clear that it stops all druid abilities. There's nothing out there that lets a druid bypass the metal armor restriction, so you're just gonna have to do without it. If you really want to wear heavy armor, pick up some chitin, dragonhide or blue ice armor, a druid can wear any of those.

[Troacctid]

That feat is pretty clear that it stops all druid abilities. There's nothing out there that lets a druid bypass the metal armor restriction, so you're just gonna have to do without it. If you really want to wear heavy armor, pick up some chitin, dragonhide or blue ice armor, a druid can wear any of those.

Urban Druid is a completely separate class. It doesn't have the same armor restriction.

[torrasque666]

The DM may allow urban druids to wear other forms of light armor that provide less than a +4 armor bonus as well.

This implies that "padded, leather, and studded leather armor, " are the only allowed armors.

[animewatcha]

There may be. Note that this feat is sourced in faerun where divine spellcasting ability ( for any class casting as divine ) requires a deity. Can't remember for arcane.

http://dndtools.eu/feats/power-of-faerun--31/heretic-of-the-faith--1379/

It can atleast provide a foundation.

[Noldo]

RAW one could argue that a warforged druid with Adamantine Body loses druidic spellcasting irrespective of whether the limitations to wear metallic armor would apply or not and a method that would remove the restriction to wear metal armor would not help warforged druid with the feat. Silly, literal reading of the feat, but RAW none the less.

[shaikujin]

How attached are you to the Adamantine Body Feat?

I can suggest a convoluted way for a Warforged Druid to wear heavy armor without penalty, including metal armor. But it's sort of a work-around.

1) Take the Unarmored Body Feat from RoE so that you can wear a set of normal armor

2) Be a Druid of Mielikki.
FRCS pge 23 - Druids of Mielikki can use any of the standard armor or weapons that rangers normally use (all simple and martial weapons, all light and medium armor, and all shields) without violating their spiritual oaths. This includes metal armor, though not heavy armor.

3) Enchant a set of adamantine full plate with the Halfweight property (+3 Enchantment from Underdark pg 70). This reduces the full plate to light armor. You are now a Warforged druid armor in a suit of full plate, and have no penalties to your oath. Or just go with Tessallated adamantine full plate, mithril full plate or any other way to reduce it to medium.

Extra step:
4) ECS pg 268 - Any magic item can be made as a Warforged component. Make the full plate in step 3 as a warforged component. So you once again have an integral "adamantine body".

If you take step 4, you can actually disregard step 1 and free up your 1st level feat.



Possible cheese, use AE&G rules to get an item (maybe even the adamantine full plate armor itself) to grant you the Unarmored Body Feat for 15,000 gp (5,000 plus an additional 10,000 for the 2 prereqs).

Even with the component adamantine full plate built into your composite body, by RAW, the Unarmored Body Feat says you lose the normal +2 armor bonus and light fortification common to warforged characters, but can wear armor or magic robes and gain their full effects.

Hence you can wear another suit of armor on top of your component adamantine full plate. I think...

[Darrin]

I can suggest a convoluted way for a Warforged Druid to wear heavy armor without penalty, including metal armor. But it's sort of a work-around.


One more method, even more convoluted:

If you can stick it out for 10 levels with no spellcasting, qualify for Fochlucan Lyrist , and get your adamantine plates enchanted with the Half-Weight property, then the Fochlucan Lyrist's "Unbound" ability will allow you to wear light metal armor without breaking your Druid oath.

Have you considered Spirit Shaman instead? Druid casting, but no armor restrictions.

[nedz]

It's dysfunctional. Ask your DM.

Agreed, noted.

The trouble with Urban Druid is that it's not very well supported — so there's not much you can do with the class outside of stuff in the DrComp.

[Troacctid]

RAW one could argue that a warforged druid with Adamantine Body loses druidic spellcasting irrespective of whether the limitations to wear metallic armor would apply or not and a method that would remove the restriction to wear metal armor would not help warforged druid with the feat. Silly, literal reading of the feat, but RAW none the less.

But by that same reasoning, the RAW clearly says it applies to Druid spellcasting and Druid spellcasting only. So it should have no effect for an Urban Druid, which, remember, is not a subclass or variant class, but a completely separate class of its own.