Druids and metal

Why do druids not wear metal in D&D5e? What's the reasoning?

Followup: why are metal tools/weapons okay but not armor?

Only reason I can think of is quarries and mines "rape the land".

As for why they can use metal tools, who knows. 5e doesn't seem so well thought out sometimes.

Because some autist was all "metal is a refined material!" without thinking about the refinement behind leather.

Basically nerds thinking they're super smart and astute when in fact they are literally retarded.

because popular culture makes druids robe-wearing hippies that get all their protection from the tree bark and smegma consuming their bodies
followup: because the pop culture influence on druids makes them retarded

You've got a bunch of choices.

1. Metal upsets their natural harmonics and dampens their ability to connect with nature. It's a thoroughly artificial product, and it interferes with things like magnetic leylines. Weapons use less material, so less interference.

2. Metal production is very taxing on the environment, and druids refuse to support that level of damage. Weapons can be potentially made with little to no harm to the environment because they use far less material.

3. Religious reasons. These can be as simple as "Our God believes armor is too taxing on the environment" or something like "Our Spirit Ancestors prohibit us from wearing armor because we believe it corrupts us when we change form" or just "Our God's main adversary is the God of Metal Armor."

4. Metal armor upsets wild animals and attracts lightning during storms, and these little reasons added up to the point where druid orders said "Eh, we're better off learning how to become bison. No more armor for us."

Because Gygax had no fucking idea what he was talking about. He basically took a little bit of pop culture knowledge about a ton of topics and regurgitated them verbatim without thinking about it.

That's why D&D has such retarded things like Druids not having armor and Clerics not using bladed weapons.

Druids use the magic of the land, associated with fey creatures. Iron has served a superstitious ward against these kinds of beings.

As for metal tools/weapons being OK, I don't think there's a good answer aside from it being too much trouble to make them work without it.

Just use a cleric with a morning star.

I think you miss my point.

Because including bullshit half-ass'd restrictions to "balance" powerful classes is part of the D&D tradition.

Use human shields.

No, still don't understand what point you're trying to make.

I've always imagined it's because whatever natural force Druids are connected to refuses the idea that a Druid would rely on metal for protection. The reasoning goes that animals and trees don't need metal to fend off the predators or the elements, and if a Druid wants to stay in tune with them, metal defenses are out.

On the other hand, metal weapons are no problem because the idea of worked tools serving destructive ends fits nicely with nature's viewpoint. Those tools kill, chop wood, skin animals, etc, so thr natural world can rationalize them as weapons. There's no defensive analogue for metal armor, and the druidic nature-bond refuses that alien concept.

glad I'm not the only one who thinks that about Gygax, as great as the achievement of starting this hobby is D&D is chock-full of poor reasoning on basically everything...

"Don't get mad, get sadistic" is the point I'm trying to make.
>Druid has to use an alternative to body armour
The answer to this is simple. Hostage shield.

Nope. It's due to old european folklore about Iron having anti-magical properties.

It would likely have the same affect of a faraday shield/cage but on magic.

Even then, I seem to recall previous editions limited druid's weapon choices as well. I think 3.5 limited them to basically various wooden weapons plus scimitars because lel.

You think that a stiff, inorganic iron plate is gonna shapeshift with you when you turn into a bear?

The leather was at least part of something living once, as processed as it is. It can be joined to life again. Iron never had that kind of life in it.

>Why do druids not wear metal in D&D5e? What's the reasoning?
>Followup: why are metal tools/weapons okay but not armor?

See, now, I'm a big dumb fucking idiot who don't read 'nothing and always just thought druids couldn't wear metal, but could still USE metal tools simply due to the issues it causes during shapeshifting. Like, it had absolutely nothing to do with promises or covens, it's just if you turned into a bear while wearing a metal piece you'd at the best of times ruin your armor and at the worst of times suffocate from having the metal pinch your bear-sized collar.

So as long as a druid didn't shapeshift while wearing metal I was okay with it.

I believe druids are permitted to fashion their own metal armor if they can get the raw metal without mining.

Yet that same restriction doesn't affect clerics or wizards. Are druids the cucks of the magic game?

Animals naturally die. It's a part of life to kill and be killed.

Tearing down the foundation of our different environments destroys the potential of life and only dose harm!