Crafting/CNR gathering with restricted items

[HooD!uM]

what if the druid could forage for stones? just like wood but for metal (not gems as they can use tools for this) this way you dont need new gloves n such and works the same for wood, and druids cannot exploit this. and i dont mean they harvest a whole vein but a few bits here and there type thing.
              or perhaps a item in the craft vendor only usable for druids like a stone..and like foraging with tinder it has a time limit. and as a rp thing it could me made that a druid calls forth a elemental to shift the ground to give chunks of metal or something along them lines..i was going to say custom make a spell or wand to similar effects but this would most likely be exploited unless theres a time frame intergrated somewhere....

[Dorganath]

Druids can equip an gem chisel, so I don't see why this would be necessary. The chisel is just as effective for gem mining as the small pick, which druids cannot equip.

[HooD!uM]

yes i know that..i meant for metal etc copper, tin etc...

[Dorganath]

Oh...in that case...why would a druid pursue metal crafting? It's pretty artificial, when it comes down to it, and I'd think it was pretty odd for a druid to engage in a craft like that.

[HooD!uM]

i dont see why they cant use it for rings and such..as there were rings only druids could use if i remember correctly.

[Dorganath]

They can wear rings just fine. That wasn't the question.
  Why would a druid, knowing what druids are all about, pursue a craft as artificial as metal working (smelting, weapon crafting, armor crafting)? I don't see how it fits into druidic dogma, really. Foraging wood at least makes a certain amount of sense. Coaxing ore out of the earth to refine in an inherently destructive process seems rather undruidic to me.
  What am I missing?

[HooD!uM]

oh no i know what u mean..but then wouldnt rings of natural slendor be well redundant? only the druid can make them, but if smelting the metal into a mold is against the dogma..who could possibly make such a item??. also burning wood to make charcoal so you can cast neutralize poison would be a inherently destructive process also wouldnt it?

[Rayenoir]

It's not really whether worked metal is natural or not.  the argument can be made that it is a natural process, as metal is a part of nature, intelligent creatures are a part of nature, so intelligent creatures being part of nature using part of nature means that such tools are part of nature.  The key factor here is that druids take oaths to not use metallic armor and weapons save for the scimitar.  It's about the oath, it's not about the nature-y or not nature-y-ness of it.  Also, jewelry is fine.

[HooD!uM]

yeah, i didnt say anything about armour or weapons( or jewellery)..but making ingots in a mold still requires a bit of smelting to bend metal even tho its not considered smelting in the NWN mechanics. all i was say really is maybe there could be a way for druids to be able to pick up some metal without hiring others to do it for them. some people say a druid shouldnt chip at a vein for metal, yet they chip at gems in the ground...but yeah its not about druids making armour or weapons but rings and such...

[Dorganath]

The gold isn't smelted into a mold, it needs to already be smelted into ingots. However, in order for someone to get up to actually be able to smelt gold to ingots, one has to smelt a lot of copper, tin and iron. So the druid would have to knowingly do a whole lot of smelting to get to that point. It would be more dogmatically appropriate to have someone supply the pre-smelted gold.
  Charcoal is created by the burning of wood yes, but there's also a very natural process involved, one that nature does on its own with great frequency in the form of forest fires. Destructive, yes, but in that destruction is an important component to renewal of the forests themselves.
  Removing ore from the earth takes from it without giving anything back. There is no balance. Smelting removes impurities from the ore but those impurities are discarded. There is no balance. Burned wood serves a purpose, whether it is for a spell component or to simply refertilize the soil.

[Talan Va'lash]

In other words, buy the rings from someone else and enchant them if you want to make rings of natural splendor.

I could very much see a druid shaping gems (there are many other uses of gems than just in metal like wands and such.) And you can always buy ingots from people.

probably more than half of classes can't mine ore unless they take special feats for it. Druids have a special work around for wood since it's very much fitting with the concept of the class. Since working metal is the antithesis of the concept of the class they definitely won't get a special work around for it.