Land Druid and it's AC problems

[Tetrasodium]

It's not a false equivalency at all. It's not a perfect analogy, but that's the case with all analogies. the overarching point is that in both cases the rules are trying to match the archetype of the traditional character. The traditional rogue doesn't use a greatsword to sneak attack so thats how the rules are set up. Meanwhile, the traditional druid doesn't wear metal armor so that's how the rules are set up.

In both cases the DM could (maybe even should) work with the player to make their game best for all, but the rules are there trying match the normal archetype.

The original line being argued over as false equivalency is "It's the same reason that rogues can't use sneak attack with a great sword. Thematically it doesn't fit what a rogue is supposed to be. "

While you are probably right that it is not false equivalency, for all the reasons that both you & tieren noted against the original statement & his/her reasons for calling it out it is unquestionably & without doubt an obnoxious and downright dishonest level of Reductio ad absurdum. Unfortunately this level of condescending behavior is far too common in this thread.

Ok, a lot to respond to here; though a lot of repetition...

Yes, unfortunately we keep arguing the same battles as reaching a consensus on point A & then moving on to point B seemingly invalidates point A.

When I look at PC spell lists, I see a lot of the same spells; even though in theory there is no reason to believe any spell in the Player's Handbook is any more 'rare' than another... why? I see a lot more Rapiers than Shortswords on equipment lists, but one might think a Short Swrod is a more common weapon... why? Because this is a game, a game with mechanical components, and it is human nature to attempt to maximize mechanical benefits. While a few players might jump on the 'roleplaying' idea of non-metal armor, just like I see a few players using spears and not longswords, pikes and not halberds, or making other non-optimal choices; by and large I would expect Druids to be wearing Breastplates and Half-Plate even if the non-rules said 'druids generally don't like that'.


Yes, my campaign is pretty low magic; and there is virtually no equivalent of a 'magic mart' or place to get magic items of your choice. Several of those characters are still using non-magic equipment in many slots. Magic items tend to come from ancient hordes, or are created through the church of the Forge God (which is a impassive God with a small following). The three pieces of magic medium armor they have found: A breastplate +1 that was 'blessed' by the Forge God (along with a bunch of other pieces of equipment) that they were actually wearing at the time; the Half-Plate of Piercing Resistance that a big town guard captain was wearing (he died in a Giant attack, and a less scrupulous party member looted him); and a set of Adamantine Scalemail on a dwarven adventurer (given to them as a gift for resurrecting him when they found him dead in a dungeon that had killed a bunch of adventuring parties attempting to explore it). Nothing popped out of a barrel when it was kicked over Diablo-style, nothing rolled on a random chart. All organically placed in the locations it was found, because that is how I run my campaign.


Right, the idea being that I was highlighting how some equipment is more rare than others naturally. Most settings, enchanted pistols are not common; nor asian weaponry; and expecting to find it everywhere isn't likely to occur. In my setting, and in my perception most 'pseudo-medieval European fantasy settings', non-metal armor fills that same space (though not likely *as* rare as a pistol may be): not non-existent, but unexpected


While certainaly *more* people would know how to make non-metal armor in a fantasy setting than in a real setting (especially if there is a significant druidic market for it), I just can't reconcile the normal setting's visuals and technology levels with a set of crystal full plate or wooden breastplates hanging on the average shopkeep's wall. Most people are not serving exotic adventurers as the norm, they are outfitting the Baron's soldiers or selling blades on the side to the local bandits.

The most common source of non-metal armor would likely be the Druid circle itself, a druid looking to purchase armor might have to track down their local circle; but once there they probably can make (or know the source of) a good 'druid-friendly' armorsmith. There are a few other places as well, anywhere that is 'metal light' for whatever reason will turn to other materials... I have 'olmec' inspired dwarves on one continent that make stone weapons and armor, for example, and there is an equivalent of 'ironwood' that the more feral wood-elf tribes use. If a player is interested in investigating, I'm sure there are other examples we can make collaboratively. Again, I'm not saying 'rare doesn't mean you will never find it', I'm saying 'rare means you will need to make extra effort to find it in most circumstances'


I'm... not exactly sure what you are saying; but if I am interpreting you right then my answer is that players rarely adhere to roleplaying suggestions that get in the way of mechanical strength without a penalty in place to encourage it. No line of 'blowguns are the ancestral weapon of halflings on the southern continent' text would ever make me expect a halfling PC to use one as their primary weapon; and similarly I wouldn't expect most player druids to refuse to wear half-plate even if the book said 'almost no druids will ever ever ever wear metal armor ever, but some can if they really want to' in any 'fluff' section of a class description.


I would argue, to a degree, that *any* druid is rare... most 'druid circle members' are just like most members of a church: acolytes and priests without any significant magic ability. Similar to a sorcerer player who asked me for some non-sorcerer spells added to their spell list so they are not a 'boring old sorcere like any other': there is no such thing as a boring old sorcerer (or druid) from a setting perspective, they don't need something else to differentiate them. Any person with any class levels are already 'rare'; wanting to make yourself 'even more special than the already super special person' in a setting sense is often one step too far for me (but not always, I'll always listen to the argument at the very least)]

]A few people have pointed out the importance of raw, and those are nowhere near a full catalog of them or only the most forceful ones.
The problem repeatedly striking this thread comes when someone makes a point that amounts to "by RAW, x is effectively equal to 2Y" and switches to "[but I would say 3Z in my campaign...] That sort of rebuttal is two statements but there is a refusal to separate them. by raw, the player of a druid physically can choose to make up all sorts of reasons why his or her character has no issues with wearing metal armor or views it as acceptable because by raw there is nothing to prevent them so much as a list of what exactly is metal armor or why they "will not" wear it. This is not like a player choosing to jump from the ground to the top of the tower as some have likened it to, because that situation is covered both by logic & skill checks such as "Ok give me an athletics check">"well you ddn't roll eleventy billion & instead of reaching the top make a jump that might get you as far as knee level with the doorknob before landing on your feet". A player or gm going for a pulpy feel could describe all the jumps, lunges, & leaps made in the process of making continual athletics checks to climb the tower, but the end result is virtually indistinguishable from a more gritty setting going into the perfect handholds, crumbling footholds, & cold jagged rocks on a mechanical level because they are just two ways of accomplishing "a player climbs a tower" If the player were to make clear that they want to try to climb the tower, a perfectly reasonable desire, and the gm simply says "well you can't, the module says nobody ever does that" rather than pointing out how powerfully warded it no doubt is, how smooth & perfectly fitting the stones are, or any number of other things... they have embodied the absolute worst possible form of GM'ing & deserve to be called out for it. That deserving of being called out goes triple if they double down on dismissing the player's reason with something that amounts to "because RAW says".

a player who feels like their character should have no trouble wearing metal armor, has no bearing on if that player is also interested into dragging the group all over on quests just to gather/collect/craft/find crafters for the level of gear most everyone else just finds here & there as they go, or even. If a GM says that nonmental armor will be harder to find/less common/etc, it effectively means that it will probably not exist unless the player is also willing to drag the group around like that.

To underscore that, take my druid for example, he wears metal armor, he drags the group around convincing people everywhere they go to let his people(kobolds) dig tunnels under their cities/towns in a win win situation of mutual harmony between surface & subsurface worlds where the locals get a proper/setting incredible level sewage system & more of his people get a reasinably safe place to live where they can dig tunnels & trade subterranean work/found shiny things for fiood or useful tools & such they cannot make well themselves. I'm not willing to drag the group around looking for nonmetal armor though. If my GM had given reasons for saying no instead of somethiing like "pfft, go for it because I think it's a stupid rule with the 3.5>5 barkskin changes, plus I like that reason" it effectively would not exist for me unless I was willing to abandon any pretense of him being a kobold and an interesting druid that himself has spawned significant hooks & plots for the gm in the process of being interesting to the group in order to run around looking for better & better armors instead like some two dimensional cutout. If my GM had said "no because RAW" and followed "but what about ..." with "RAW says you will not wear metal armor & thus it will NEVER happen", I'm pretty sure the whole table would have found or nominated a different GM for obvious reasons.

My kobold druid's choice to wear armor was not "I'm gonna minmax this twinky munchkin way out",; but simply "wait did nobody in the group want that dragonguard breastplate we just found[early on while starting in lmop], are you sure you don't? and you? and you? etc " In my kobold druid's particular group. As a fun note, the only metal noted in the dragonguard breastplate is "a gold dragon motif worked into its design", but since that is either "a gold dragon motif" or " a dragon motif that is made of gold", it can just as easily be made of dragonbone or something if you are averse to metal.

In your campaign where you talk about how scarcity & such are cornerstone parts of the plot & such, if the level of difficulty for a druid to find base nonmetal medium armor was on par with the level of difficulty a fighter/cleric/paladin/etc had in finding metal equivalents... then it is entirely irrelevant to a raw discussion & wrong to say is is less common/rare/etc because the only rarity in your campaign would just be "armor in general". If the level of effort is not at all close to being the same, then it's actually punishing the druid over all of those other classes & using an excuse like "armor is scarce" while ignoring the fact that it's far more reasonably available to everyone else.

Operating under the reasonable assumption that you are probably not punishing the druid who would like better armor with hardships beyond those of any other player who would like better armor but is not interested in making a huge ordeal out of it... then your objections over less common==effectively none serve no purpose other than to lower the signal & lower the noise. If that assumption is wrong, then you are proving the less common==none comparison to reasonably close to accurate at worst. We really don't need more noise given all the Reductio ad absurdum, false equivalencies, table pounding circular logic, & so on. The simple fact of the matter is that much like how you can be jewish/muslim & eat pork for whatever reason while still being jewish/muslim, there is not actually anything that prevents a druid's player from deciding that their character will decide similar & wear metal armor for whatever reason due to the fact that by strict raw there is nothing to prevent them from looking at their reasons & making that choice.

By strict RAW there is no reason why a druid would not wear metal armor & by both RAW and story fluff there are lots of reasons why a particular druid might consider it far more reasonable solution to not getting stabbbed than some bizarre ironwood/stone/shell/etc armor that comes from a far off place with no connection to anything they might consider normal