Land Druid and it's AC problems

[Tetrasodium]

I will give you a natural form of scale mail.

Why not?

Its not OP, its the same AC as in the end as chainmail. 14+2=16 good enough call it a day.

It also has the same AC & dex cap as a breastplate but punishes the druid by adding disadvantage to stealth

Perhaps it only lasts for a week and then you have to re-gather supplies. It can only take so much damage before it degrades.

there is no armor in the game that works this way. Be honest, your suggestions are all about how to punish the druid.

Be creative and think out of the box.

Yea by speaking out loudly against the cartmanesque punish the druid advice like this nonsense.

Base it off you survival skill, you roll a certain number you can make tortoise shell armor

Again, no other class needs a particularly good roll on a given skill that they may or may not be proficient with in order to obtain base rmors they have proficiency in.... so we go back to punish the druid.

Fair enough. I bigger problems, my team-mates thought it was a good idea for my fighter with winged boots to try and capture a dragon turtle with a mirror of life-stealing. IT DID NOT WORK AT ALL. WHY THEY CAME UP WITH THIS IDEA I WILL NEVER KNOW. AND WHY I SAID YES? IT COST 75HP, INITIALLY, broken mirror and everything came out into the ocean.

Not every party has a a fighter or someone else even capable of saying "I have medium armor proficiency" without also adding something like "but my plus 6 dex mod means it would hurt me bad, so I'm not interested in it" expecting a druid with a thematically appropriate reason for trivially justifying its use like the kobold/underdark (half?)orc/dwarf/etc ones already mentioned to say "oh no I will not wear it because... um just because... it doesn't actually say why, let me fight with the rogue(s) & caster type light armor squishies for light armor instead" if a bit of magical medium armor drops. Even in parties with fighter types that have medium armor proficiency, there very well be no desire for it there on account of having equal or better heavy armor already. Another possibility is that those fighter types might be feeling that having the druid being more confident about charging forward with them immediately & casting spells up closer is in the best interests of those fighter types for whatever reason.

The metal armor & using the other 4 medium armor options above hide isn't always about taking the spotlight from the fighters, the bizarre "punish the druid" mentality that so often rises to greet it is little more than an obscene attempt to punish druids over memories of them being "too good" in 3.5. Don't act like you are being magnanimous & doing them a favor while thinking up ways to punish them for that.