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Mike_G
2009-07-14, 06:56 PM
Or is it just me?

The way 3.5 AC rules work, the better your armor, the worse your maximum Dex bonus to AC is, generally the total is around 8, with a few at 9, and a few at 7.

So, a guy in a Chain shirt with an 18 Dex is as tough to hit as a guy in Plate with a 10 Dex.

Alright, I suppose, considering that AC combines "avoiding the blow" with "the blow bounces off," so I guess you could make an argument that landing a telling blow on the quick lightly armored guy is about as tough as landing a telling blow on the tank.

But if he buys plate, the quick guy in plate is no harder to hit than when he was wearing his Chain Shirt. One would think that he should be able to use some of that Dex. Even in Half Plate, the 18 Dex guy should parry better than the 10 Dex guy.

Now, I get the logic behind not being as dodgy when wearing a lot of heavy, bulky armor, but it seems that boosting Dex is a much better investment than Plate. Better skills, better move, better Ref save, better ranged attacks, and no skill check penalty.

Sure, in heavy armor your Flatfooted AC will be higher than in light armor, but you Touch AC will be worse. And what kills more Fighters, surprise attacks or Touch Attacks with tough saves or no save?

Add the reduced move, the armor check penalty to skills, and the cost, and heavy armor seems to bite. It seems to me that you should limit your armor type to whatever allows your full Dex bonus, since that gives all the advantages and no real drawbacks.

Historically, better armor tended to save a lot of lives, but in D&D it seems to make you easy bait for the Ray of Enfeeblement.

Eldariel
2009-07-14, 06:58 PM
Mostly the characters who can't afford überhigh Dex (seriously, your Touch AC doesn't suffer at all if your Dex is 12 or worse anyways, which most characters have; 16 for Mithril Full-Plate). Which is most of them. And Full-Plate (especially Mithril) still has the best composite AC for characters with Dex under 26. No, heavy armor is nice, especially early on, and Mithril Heavy Armor is nice later on.

That said, a boost wouldn't hurt; I like the DR = AC bonus rule. Makes heavy armor truly worth something, and any armor better than unarmored.

KillianHawkeye
2009-07-14, 06:59 PM
Not everybody's got a high Dex? :smallconfused:

GoatToucher
2009-07-14, 06:59 PM
I agree. I had a character with a 16 dex and a chain shirt, and came to the same realization.

AslanCross
2009-07-14, 07:00 PM
Classes that rely on light armor tend to have Uncanny Dodge to help them keep their Dex bonus to AC. Classes that rely on heavy armor don't have Uncanny Dodge and can thus be denied their Dex bonus to AC, so even if they wore light armor, they'd still lose their boosted AC.

Being denied your Dex bonus affects your touch AC as well.

I think it's a lot better to boost your Deflection bonus, which is kind of easy to get. Hey, cleric, pass me a shield of faith, will ya?

kjones
2009-07-14, 07:04 PM
For some classes with heavy armor proficiency (namely, clerics), Dex is a dump stat.

Kol Korran
2009-07-14, 07:13 PM
dex 18?

you can't always put a high stat on dex. this is especially true in a point buy system, even more so with the lower point buy (25 or 28). don't forget some of the heavy armor wearing classes have other more importent attributes to assign their best score to. in those cases, heavy armor is a very good and quite affordable investment.

besides, investing in dex boosting items is more expensive then armor and shield boosting items. a +2 to dex (+1 to AC) costs 4000 gp, while the same amount of money get you a +2 ac to armor. and lets not forget that you can get enhancments for armor AND shield.

deflection bonus spells are easy to come by, but require you to be prepared enough. but yeah, they work quite fine. and bonus points- they protect from both touch and flat footed. permanent deflection however (rings) are fairly expensive, costing twice of armor.

those are my thoughts anyway.
Kol

Tehnar
2009-07-14, 07:21 PM
I have the same feeling as the OP. Wearing heavy armor has several drawbacks while gaining a few perks such as a slight increase in AC versus lightly armored foes. When you count in spells, ways to add stat X to AC it comes out that heavy armor gives the least amount protection at higher levels of play. I'm thinking of introducing a houserule that increases or eliminates the max dex bonus of most armors to counteract this.

Umael
2009-07-14, 07:22 PM
Sure, your chain shirt + 18 Dex makes you as tough to hit as the other guy with plate + 10 Dex.

Then you both get surprised by rogues. Denied your AC bonus, you become a Sneak Attack pincushion while the other guy gets away with only a bad wound or two.

Someone already mentioned Dex as a dump stat, so let's not forget that. With a 10 Dex, that other guy isn't going to be interested in your chain shirt.

But if the whole "heavy armor" issue bothers you, why don't you look into the variant rules that converts some of the AC bonus from armor into DR (the rule is found in Unearthed Arcana, I believe).

Matthew
2009-07-14, 07:25 PM
This has always been an issue with D20/3e, Mike, are you just noticing it now? :smallbiggrin:

Seriously, though, yes, for characters with a high dexterity heavy armour is more of an encumbrance than an advantage. Even in AD&D, the decreased movement rate of splint armour often made it a poor choice as compared to mail. I would be inclined to just release the dexterity caps and let movement rate be the deciding issue with regards to heavy or light armour in D20.

Sinfire Titan
2009-07-14, 07:43 PM
Not everybody's got a high Dex? :smallconfused:

Any Chain Tripper or character that makes use of Robilar's Gambit disagrees.


The ones who usually make use of Full Plate are Clerics, because they don't care about Dex scores or AoOs. Even a Ranged Cleric doesn't need their Dex score thanks to Zen Archery.

Thane of Fife
2009-07-14, 07:59 PM
Even in AD&D, the decreased movement rate of splint armour often made it a poor choice as compared to mail.

I assume that you're talking about 1st edition, because I can find no such rule for 2e? As such, splint is superior to mail in almost every way (or I'm missing something).

erikun
2009-07-14, 07:59 PM
Your math is correct. The combined Max Dex bonus + Armor bonus for most (good) armors comes out to +8, with Padded and Full Plate becoming +9. Exotic Armors are frequently +10.

I like it. It makes equipment a great equalizer in martial combat. Sure, the elves can prance around in the undies and be nigh-impossible to hit, but you can stick even a level 1 Warrior into full plate and get the same AC. That's honestly how real wars in history were fought: the side who was able to mass-produce troops and equip them best frequently won.

As others have said, heavy armor has it's downsides - lower touch AC, lower speed, higher skill penality, swimming qualities of a rock. It's balanced by the fact that anyone can wear said armor, higher flat footed AC, and you can take DEX as a dump stat. (Contrary to apparent popular belief, every fighter is not a chain-tripper.) And while heavy armor fighters are frequently killed by magical ray-of-suckiness, low level wizards are frequently killed by knife-to-the-back rogues. (low flat-footed AC + low Spot = quick damage)

Matthew
2009-07-14, 08:08 PM
I assume that you're talking about 1st edition, because I can find no such rule for 2e? As such, splint is superior to mail in almost every way (or I'm missing something).

As you surmised, it is a first edition thing. I think in some later supplements for second edition splint mail was listed as "bulky", but it had no discrete effect as far as I am aware. MikeG used to play first edition, but not second, if I recall correctly.

Zergrusheddie
2009-07-14, 08:13 PM
Well, you could just as easily argue that armor is useless because a Bracer of Armor provides no penalty. Of course, BoA 8 is a whole hell of a lot more expensive than just Full Plate. Heavy Armor is pointless because of Light Armor in the same sense that a big fat, defensive linemen is pointless because the quarterback is too fast. Light Armor is based on your class more than anything else. Why does a Druid want to where Studded Leather when they can wear a Ironwood Breastplate? And not every class is going to have a high enough Dex to make the most out of a Chain Shirt.

Talon Sky
2009-07-14, 08:22 PM
I usually houserule that base speed stayed the same, and I houserule for players to subtract their Str modifiers from the Dex penalties for heavier armor. After all, it makes sense to me that if you're unusually strong, the armor shouldn't weigh you down as much.

Cubey
2009-07-14, 08:25 PM
I'm amused at assumptions that everyone has high DEX, or that everyone but Clerics should have it.

I like it how it is, rather than making plate a better option for both high and low dexterity characters and making lighter armor redundant.

SirKazum
2009-07-14, 08:25 PM
One great benefit of heavy armor is its cost-to-benefit ratio on AC. Good luck getting AC bonuses from magic as cheaply as from armor.

Thane of Fife
2009-07-14, 08:31 PM
As you surmised, it is a first edition thing. I think in some later supplements for second edition splint mail was listed as "bulky", but it had no discrete effect as far as I am aware. MikeG used to play first edition, but not second, if I recall correctly.

Combat and Tactics had encumbrance types by armor, as an alternative to general encumbrance rules, but listed splint and mail as both being of "light" encumbrance. Complete Fighter's Handbook had Dex check penalties by armor type, and again had splint and mail as equivalent.

Really, I can find no reason to wear mail over splint in 2e (other than a desperate need to save 5 gp). But yeah, I can see how a movement penalty might change that.

Alleine
2009-07-14, 08:35 PM
I'm amused at assumptions that everyone has high DEX, or that everyone but Clerics should have it.

Indeed. Heavy armor is completely pointless if your DM like to give everyone a free 18 in dexterity. However, I get the feeling that few, if any, DMs do this.

My characters can rarely afford the luxury of putting an 18 in dex considering how poorly I roll for stats, and that point buy requires me to put that 18 into, oh, say, the stat that the class relies most heavily upon?

Mike_G
2009-07-14, 08:58 PM
OK, pointless may be overstating the case, but...

First up, my point doesn't require a "free 18 Dex for everybody" to apply. A guy with a 12 Dex gets boned in Half Plate.

The difference in AC between getting Plate versus a Chain Shirt, before enchantments, which cost the same regardless of what armor you put it on, is 4. That's not bad but not great. That difference gets smaller the better the 12 your Dex gets, so it pales a bit. +4 AC is the best difference for making the leap from Light to Heavy armor.

Now, for that fairly unimpressive bonus, you get to lose move speed, get hammered on skill checks, and pay more.

Now, for the guy who dumps Dex, sure, it's gonna be a few points better, but Dex isn't a very good dumps stat, in my experience, since it's good for so much besides AC. Initiative, ranged attacks, Reflex saves, a boatload of skills, and so on. For a Fighter, I'd put it just behind Str and Con in usefulness.

And I don't think one can overstate the superiority of Touch AC to Flatfooted AC. Yeah, you can get surprised and hit. For HP damage, which is the Fighter's strong suit. Even better for a Barbarian or Warblade, who get class features so they aren't caught flatfooted anyway. A low Touch AC means you are the casters' bitch, and melee types almost always do better against a sword in the kidney than a Save or Suck.

And to Matthew, I knew the rule existed, but since I tended to be the designated Skill Monkey, it never affected me. I just recently had a Fighter get some Plate and after doing the math, he gained very little and gave up quite a bit. I think he got a net of +2 AC, lost speed, and lost Touch AC, plus skills, not that a Fighter uses them often, but it's nice to be able to make a skill roll once in a while.

I agree on losing the max Dex cap and just having the loss of movement and skills checks be the tradeoff. Rogues would still stick with light armor, but it would make Plate a more reasonable upgrade for the Fighter or Cleric with a positive Dex modifier.

I don't think it's all that unrealistic, since if they both armor up, I think the 12 Dex guy will not be just as hard to hit as the 25 Dex guy, which, right now, he is. Maybe half your Dex mod in heavy armor or something, but capping it at 0 or +1 seems harsh.

GoatToucher
2009-07-14, 09:15 PM
You don't need max dex. You just need decent dex.

Let us consider a sword and board fighter with 14 dex, which is relatively inexpensive in a point buy system, and reasonable for a fighting class.

With a chain shirt, large shield, and dex bonus, he comes up with an AC of 18. This is better than or equal to the AC of a dex 10 fighter with all but the two heaviest armors, which only provide ACs of 19 and 20, respectively.

The chain shirt fighter moves at full speed, and takes a -4 armor check penalty.

The full plate fighter moves at reduced speed and takes a -8 armor check penalty, in addition to spending fifteen times as much on his armor.

The full plate fighter has the advantage when flatfooted, which can be deadly if a rogue catches you thus. Rogues, however, will most often get their sneak attack bonus when flanking, not when the fighter is flatfooted.

The chain fighter has the advantage with touch armor class, which can be deadly when a caster or creature with appropriate supernatural abilities directs a touch or ranged touch spell at the fighter.

So a full plate fighter sacrifices 10' of movement and a -4 armor check penalty for 2 points of AC.

edit: ninja'd. curses.

erikun
2009-07-14, 09:18 PM
I don't think there's a question as to which armor the DEX 16 guy should put on - he should wear Breastplate or Mithral Full Plate, or something equilivant. You could argue the advantages between +4 Bracers of Dex/Chain Shirt vs. Anti-Magic Fields, but it basically boils down to the same answer: you should always (or virtually always) wear the lightest armor that your Dex modifier will allow.

I think the point I was trying to make is that some people don't have good Dex, and thus Heavy Armor is a good idea.

And to be fair, Half Plate sucks compared to everything, not just Full Plate. :smallwink: Well, a Dex 10 character would be better in Half Plate than lighter armor, but still...

Rhawin
2009-07-14, 09:24 PM
Don't forget about special materials, such as Mithral, which boost maxDex on most Heavy Armor to what a trip fighter would reasonably have. Heavy Armor also benefits more from some enchantments and from other special materials (usually).

tiercel
2009-07-14, 09:52 PM
What I find amusing is that this thread is wondering about *heavy* armor -- what about *medium* armor? Seriously, who wears this stuff? ("Sure, I'll drop my speed by 2/3 for an extra +1AC at most, whoopee!") Maybe if you're a cash-strapped low level *dwarf*....

Okay, sure, fine, you could wear a mithral breastplate, but the point of mithral is that it basically isn't medium armor anymore, is it?

Get up a few levels and your adventuring set is pretty much only wearing chain shirts and full plate (depending on your Dex). If you're a sneaky type, get your chain shirt in mithral; if you are a full caster with no armor proficiency, just get a mithral twilight chain shirt of cheese to go with your mithral buckler of cheese.

I agree that if you can swing it, it's generally preferable to have high Dex for almost any character, but honestly what stat generation mechanism are you playing with? Unless you have really high point buy 14 Dex is the most you'll see on most PCs, and unless you are really lucky on the dice / have a very generous dice-based generation system, you probably won't see too many non-rogue types with a roll much higher placed in Dex.

deuxhero
2009-07-14, 09:55 PM
Doesn't some item somewhere (Bunko's has it listed) give you the ability to ignore speed peneltys for armor/loads at a very cheep cost?

ColdSepp
2009-07-14, 10:12 PM
Tooth of Savok, 2000 GP, Magic of Incarnum... Slotless, lets you ignore movement penalties for medium and heavy loads and armor.

Making Full Plate perfectly viable. With Mithral, you can get a DEX score of 16 and have it all count toward AC.

Special Qualities can also depend on the type of armor, making heavy a good choice in some cases.

Person_Man
2009-07-14, 10:14 PM
Depends on your level and build.

At ECL 1-2ish, heavy armor too expensive. So the best way to get high AC is a combination of high Dex, light armor, and a shield.

At ECL 3-10ish, the best AC is usually had by the guy with heavy armor and lots of moderate enchantments/buffs. +1/2/3 Mithral Mechanus Gear, +1/2/3 animated heavy shield, +1/2/3 amulet of natural armor or Barkskin, something that boosts your deflection AC, something that gives you an insight bonus to AC, lots of spells that provide minor/moderate AC bonuses that last 10 minutes per level (buy wands and give them to party members to use on you if you have to), etc. Wearing lots of different heavy armor and gear is a lot cheaper and more efficient then boosting your Dex, because stat boosting items are a lot more expensive and usually don't stack.

And beyond that point, I've found that optimizing AC is pretty pointless. Eventually most of the enemies you face will either have an absurd To-Hit, or will target your Saves. So you're better off getting a Miss Chance somehow and boosting your Saves and hit points.

Matthew
2009-07-14, 10:24 PM
Combat and Tactics had encumbrance types by armor, as an alternative to general encumbrance rules, but listed splint and mail as both being of "light" encumbrance. Complete Fighter's Handbook had Dex check penalties by armor type, and again had splint and mail as equivalent.

Really, I can find no reason to wear mail over splint in 2e (other than a desperate need to save 5 gp). But yeah, I can see how a movement penalty might change that.

Skills & Powers was what I was thinking of, where splint armour is listed as having 4 "bulk points", as opposed to banded armour, which has 3, and mail, which has 2. Apparently this affects the total bulk a character can carry, but I am not familiar with the rules referenced.



I knew the rule existed, but since I tended to be the designated Skill Monkey, it never affected me. I just recently had a Fighter get some Plate and after doing the math, he gained very little and gave up quite a bit. I think he got a net of +2 AC, lost speed, and lost Touch AC, plus skills, not that a Fighter uses them often, but it's nice to be able to make a skill roll once in a while.

I agree on losing the max Dex cap and just having the loss of movement and skills checks be the tradeoff. Rogues would still stick with light armor, but it would make Plate a more reasonable upgrade for the Fighter or Cleric with a positive Dex modifier.

I don't think it's all that unrealistic, since if they both armor up, I think the 12 Dex guy will not be just as hard to hit as the 25 Dex guy, which, right now, he is. Maybe half your Dex mod in heavy armor or something, but capping it at 0 or +1 seems harsh.

I think that the dexterity cap for half plate armour was the first WTF? moment for me in D20/3e. Part of the problem is the open ended way that dexterity increases, but I am pretty much convinced that the best solution is to release the caps. Worst case scenario some dexterity focused fighter or cleric types get from +1 to +10 (at high level) additional AC. Not a big deal in my estimation.



And beyond that point, I've found that optimizing AC is pretty pointless. Eventually most of the enemies you face will either have an absurd To-Hit, or will target your Saves. So you're better off getting a Miss Chance somehow and boosting your Saves and hit points.

Exactly so.

Mongoose87
2009-07-14, 11:02 PM
I've always found the heavy armor stuff silly. Yes, it's heavy, but it was actually designed to be quite mobile. Some knights could do flips in armor.

Myrmex
2009-07-14, 11:08 PM
Getting your dex higher than 16 past level 10 is fairly trivial, so even mithral full plate won't be worth it.

Thurbane
2009-07-14, 11:13 PM
Medium armor always struck me as pointless - breastplate is only 1 AC better than a chain shirt, but hampers your movement. :smallfrown:

Starbuck_II
2009-07-14, 11:15 PM
Tooth of Savok, 2000 GP, Magic of Incarnum... Slotless, lets you ignore movement penalties for medium and heavy loads and armor.

Making Full Plate perfectly viable. With Mithral, you can get a DEX score of 16 and have it all count toward AC.

Special Qualities can also depend on the type of armor, making heavy a good choice in some cases.

Tome of magic you mean?

Berserk Monk
2009-07-14, 11:17 PM
Or is it just me?

The way 3.5 AC rules work, the better your armor, the worse your maximum Dex bonus to AC is, generally the total is around 8, with a few at 9, and a few at 7.

Not everyone has a ridiculously high dex. Fighters, clerics, and paladins usually have more important stats to max out. Also, some types of armor have an increased dex bonus (like mithril).

ColdSepp
2009-07-14, 11:17 PM
Tome of magic you mean?

Yep. Exactly what I meant. I always get those two mixed up.

woodenbandman
2009-07-14, 11:23 PM
The AC system is borked, because the players usually hit the monsters and the monsters usually hit the players, and there's no swing in either direction. It's pointless to have an AC as a player, and my AC in high level play was routinely hovering at around 17 before shock troopering back down to -1. Miss chances are the way to go.

Thurbane
2009-07-14, 11:36 PM
Even at higher levels, a decent AC is good to have, especially against iterative attacks...

John Campbell
2009-07-15, 12:30 AM
I've always found the heavy armor stuff silly. Yes, it's heavy, but it was actually designed to be quite mobile. Some knights could do flips in armor.

Yes. I can't quite do a flip in full plate (I've tried; I can't quite get far enough over to stick the landing), but I can't quite do one out of full plate, either. I can do cartwheels and somersaults, both front and back, in it, and get up from the ground without using my hands, because both arms were busy with my defense - and with a 12-pound kite shield strapped to one arm, at that. I've turned getting knocked over backwards by a charge into a backwards roll back onto my feet - and then ganked the guy who knocked me over with a greatsword to the face while he was still busy looking surprised.

Screw Dex caps.

Heavy armor should be Just Better than lighter armor. At least AC-wise... if you're trying to sneak around, or swim, then, yeah, you probably don't want to be wearing the full plate, but if your primary concern is getting hit with weapons, there should be no reason not to be wearing the heaviest armor you can get your hands on. This is both from a versimilitude standpoint and a game balance standpoint... those Heavy Armor Proficiency classes really ought to be getting something from that class feature...

ACPs need to be tweaked, too - a lot of the relative values are on crack. But just tweaked, not tossed out completely.

Myrmex
2009-07-15, 12:34 AM
Medium armor always struck me as pointless - breastplate is only 1 AC better than a chain shirt, but hampers your movement. :smallfrown:

Get it in mithral. 2 more AC and just as fast. For those of us with 20 dex.


Even at higher levels, a decent AC is good to have, especially against iterative attacks...

And against high BAB monsters with power attack.


Heavy armor should be Just Better than lighter armor. At least AC-wise... if you're trying to sneak around, or swim, then, yeah, you probably don't want to be wearing the full plate, but if your primary concern is getting hit with weapons, there should be no reason not to be wearing the heaviest armor you can get your hands on. This is both from a versimilitude standpoint and a game balance standpoint... those Heavy Armor Proficiency classes really ought to be getting something from that class feature...

ACPs need to be tweaked, too - a lot of the relative values are on crack. But just tweaked, not tossed out completely.

Here's a set of homebrew that ties BAB to your ACPs and max dex values:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=681572

Saph
2009-07-15, 12:43 AM
This is one of those areas where the method of stat generation makes a BIG difference.

If you're playing with ridiculously high point buy values so that everyone has at least one or two 18s and a 14 is considered 'low', then Heavy Armour is pretty much a waste of time. Everyone has a 16 dex at minimum and light armour is the rule.

On the other hand, if you're playing with 25 point buy Elite Array, then getting even as much as 14 in Dex is a major investment. If you're playing a cleric or a paladin, or even many kinds of fighter, odds are you won't have the points to get a good Dex score.

If you've got a 10 or 12 Dex, then full plate over chain shirt is a +4 improvement. Not amazing, but if you're going to be on the front line of every combat, it'll make a difference.

That said, I usually go for light armour over heavy, but that's just my style of play. It's the same reason I'm not a fan of races with a 20' movement speed - I like to be able to get around the battlefield fast.

- Saph

Myrmex
2009-07-15, 12:47 AM
This is one of those areas where the method of stat generation makes a BIG difference.

If you're playing with ridiculously high point buy values so that everyone has at least one or two 18s and a 14 is considered 'low', then Heavy Armour is pretty much a waste of time. Everyone has a 16 dex at minimum and light armour is the rule.

On the other hand, if you're playing with 25 point buy Elite Array, then getting even as much as 14 in Dex is a major investment. If you're playing a cleric or a paladin, or even many kinds of fighter, odds are you won't have the points to get a good Dex score.

To a certain point, I agree. But if you have enough wealth, the 4k for +1 AC is worth it, if you already have a +2 ring of prot, and a +4 belt of strength. Dropping 12k more for +4 dex is often more worthwhile than 20k for +6 str.

When you start getting into any buffs that give you enhancement bonuses (bite of X, animal's characteristic of Y, divine whatsit, etc), you are almost guaranteed to have 20s in all your physical stats.

Saph
2009-07-15, 12:57 AM
True, but if you can afford that, you can probably spring for Mithral Full Plate. That has a max dex bonus of +3, so unless your Dex is over 17, you're still benefiting from it. (The more powerful Bite of the Whatevers only give you +2 or +4 Dex, and they don't stack with Gloves of Dex, so there's only so far you can conveniently boost the stat.)

- Saph

Alleine
2009-07-15, 02:00 AM
I'm still not really seeing how it is such a problem. If you have a dex of 12, just don't be an idiot and go buy armor with a 0 dex bonus. You buy something like fullplate or banded mail, both of which I consider to be superior to half plate.

I'm not sure about everyone else, but most of the builds I make simply can't afford a high dex. My group uses pb, thankfully because I can't roll well at all, and we constantly use 32 pb. Despite this, I still have other things to worry about, although I'll admit my builds are not exactly optimized in the best sense, and they are usually pretty convoluted. They have more to worry about, like having enough str to believably carry a normal load and not be slowed, a good casting/manifesting/key ability, a decent int for skills to actually pull off the build I want, a decent con so that I can survive the hits I do take...

Maybe I'm just terrible at building characters, but when there are so many other ways to boost AC(like armor and cheap magic items), ways to boost movement, initiative(super easy to do), ways to render ACP's moot. Most of these things do regularly. Although I've never played a dex-centric character so I can't say that it is such a superior choice over what I normally play or vice versa.

mistformsquirrl
2009-07-15, 02:03 AM
Medium armor always struck me as pointless - breastplate is only 1 AC better than a chain shirt, but hampers your movement. :smallfrown:

Agreed.

Really, for me, everything between Chain Shirt and Full Plate has struck me as "... why would I ever use this outside of a specific magic item?"

I mean, Leather and Studded Leather I can understand, since for some characters any skill penalty (especially at low levels) could be a big problem. Also for characters with really ridiculous dexterity, they allow them to keep that big dex bonus.

However once you get above Chain Shirt, the penalties are rapidly outweighing the advantages.

Scale Mail - Why? It's a chain shirt, but worse in every way. The ONLY advantage it has is cost - which only matters for the first level or two.

Or Banded, Splint or Half Plate? Cheaper than Full Plate, true, but starting with any of them is usually rather difficult.

I mean, when these items are "Special" items where they give unusual or unique bonuses - I can understand. I can also understand Hide armor from an RP point of view (for a barbarian character who's village is largely Stone Age)... but what's the point of the rest of them, really?

True in RL some armors are "just better"; but D&D isn't really about realism; it's about wish fulfillment and fantasy. So there really aught to be some reason to go below Fullplate but above Chain Shirt.

/grumble (This has been brought to you by "Guy that's been annoyed with armor since he first started playing")

Saph
2009-07-15, 02:18 AM
True in RL some armors are "just better"; but D&D isn't really about realism; it's about wish fulfillment and fantasy. So there really aught to be some reason to go below Fullplate but above Chain Shirt.

It's the simulationist element of D&D. IRL, some armour types really are just better, and the rules try to represent that.

I'm not an expert on how much better the better ones are, though; you'll have to ask someone like Fhaolan or Swordguy for that.

- Saph

Killer Angel
2009-07-15, 02:52 AM
True in RL some armors are "just better"; but D&D isn't really about realism; it's about wish fulfillment and fantasy. So there really aught to be some reason to go below Fullplate but above Chain Shirt.


The same should be said about a lot of D&D weapons. Some are clearly better than others, so why have all of them?


About the OP, no, heavy armors (full plate) are not pointless.
Dex>12 is not so easy to obtain for a fighter or a cleric: they have others stats to invest into: str, con, wis... dex is good, but not the first choice.
If you can afford (through good luck in dice rolls or magical items) a decent dex, you can go for mithral full plate, still keeping your +4 AC Vs chain shirt.
Yes, you'll have malus on swim, move silently, hide... well, i don't know so many clerzilla that bother about moving silently.

mistformsquirrl
2009-07-15, 03:12 AM
I have a fair (though not quite as extensive) knowledge of armor myself hehe; so I very much 'get' what's going on with it... but because of the type of game it is, I don't feel it fits particularly well honestly.

Plate was the pinnacle of protection for it's time period for a reason. It puts less stress on the shoulders than chain, is more resistant to all forms of attack... late period plate can even stop early firearms. It's top of the heap for a good reason hehe >.<

But this is a fantasy game; and so at least from my perspective, if we're going to spend time statting equipment out, there ought to be a reason we'd use that equipment, right?

Another problem I just remembered, in addition to the obvious AC/movement disparities...

A lot of classes have features that rely on Light armor. So you end up with a situation that looks like this:

A) Light armor - If you have class features that need it or a high dexterity/lots of skills; this is what you use.

B) Plate - You don't have super-high dex and don't need light armor for a class feature.

C) Everything else - No reason to use whatsoever. Not only are they flatly inferior for AC and movement comparative to the other options; but you've only got a very few (to my knowledge 1; Barbarian Fast Movement; but I'm sure there may be another) class features that require Medium or lighter.

And if you're in that situation, you'll probably be aiming for Mithral Full Plate anyway.

So I guess ultimately I just ask: Why bother statting out armors that are not worth using at all and, unlike sometimes inferior weapons (which in some cases have classes devoted to improving their use, or some sort of 'other' utility) - don't even serve as much of a roleplay enticement?

I guess if it were mine to do, I'd make sure that the further down the chart you go, the better your movement. So, although not realistic, Full Plate would make you relatively slow (as it does now); whereas lighter armors, even within the same category, would let you move a bit faster. I could see trading a point of AC or two for some extra mobility after all. (Again, explicitly not historically accurate; merely a gamist concern I have. One of my few in that category <,<)

<,< I'll also freely admit this is a pet peeve of mine and one that I'd really hoped would be fixed in the 3.0 -> 3.5 change.

*edit*

@KillerAngel - I see a difference there however.

Some seemingly inferior weapons serve other purposes - some grant bonuses to trip, others can be set against a charge, some can be thrown (dagger is also Simple proficiency, so easiest to come by) - and when it all comes down to it, weapons are also an easy RP enticement too.

An inferior, but cool looking weapon can capture the imagination and be entirely worth it from an RP standpoint.

Armor on the other hand... I mean maybe it's just me, but I've never heard anyone designing a character around what kind of armor they'll use. I've heard people designing characters around what armor they *won't* use (Light-only); but never over a specific kind of armor.

They aren't as much of a character focal point as a weapon is; at least as I see it.

Plus the existence of feats and prestige classes that can compensate for otherwise inferior weaponry also exists.

An example:

I use a katana a lot in-game. Now, being a Bastard Sword, the katana is functionally inferior as I wield it (2handed) to the Great Sword. I mean literally there is no in-game advantage to be had by wielding a katana in this fashion.

But I do it anyway, because it's a weapon I like and think is cool. Weapon choice is a focal point of the character to me anyway.

Armor though? All of the armors I consider emblematic are either non-standard (from non-core sources), or are Full Plate or Light.

I've never heard someone say "I really really want to use splint mail... I know it's not as good as plate; but I like it.". I've heard plenty of people say the same about weapons however >.>

(Again, pet peeve <'x'> I'm not at all pretending I'm being entirely logical here)

*edit edit*

... haven't eaten, spelling and grammar are suffering <x.x> apologies.

Jan Mattys
2009-07-15, 03:30 AM
Historically, better armor tended to save a lot of lives, but in D&D it seems to make you easy bait for the Ray of Enfeeblement.


Plate was the pinnacle of protection for it's time period for a reason. It puts less stress on the shoulders than chain, is more resistant to all forms of attack... late period plate can even stop early firearms. It's top of the heap for a good reason hehe >.<

Uhm no.
Historically, heavy armored knights (practically the only ones wearing full field plate armor) were superbly protected only as long as they were riding. If they fell from their horseback, they were dead meat because they were unable to even stand up.
Field plate was uncommon because it was EXPENSIVE. But the average flatfooted grunt would have always preferred chain and leather to plate. And for good reasons, I'd say.

In a world with magic, which if anything RAISES the chance that you get knocked down, I'd say it's totally reasonable that being quick and able to move is better than being a tin can man.

So yes, heavy armor is kinda pointless compared to being naturally agile, and no, this doesn't contradict common sense.

Killer Angel
2009-07-15, 03:33 AM
So I guess ultimately I just ask: Why bother statting out armors that are not worth using at all and, unlike sometimes inferior weapons (which in some cases have classes devoted to improving their use, or some sort of 'other' utility) - don't even serve as much of a roleplay enticement?


Well, there certainly truth in this.
The Scale mail gives the same armor bonus than the Chain shirt, but Scale has a worst size, dex bonus and armor check.
At least, a mithril breast plate gives a +1 AC and count as a light armor and so it's not totally awful.
Still, sometimes "bad" armor can have some roleplaying in it: Chainmail is the typical "complete" armor for viking type, so it's good to use chainmail for cold giants, or for northern barbarians.
Those are the kind of armors that a DM use for the bad guys, exactly for a role-playing reason.
But you'll rarely see a pc using them (unless they found one with costly magical enchantment)

Killer Angel
2009-07-15, 03:38 AM
In a world with magic, which if anything RAISES the chance that you get knocked down, I'd say it's totally reasonable that being quick and able to move is better than being a tin can man.
So yes, heavy armor is kinda pointless compared to being naturally agile, and no, this doesn't contradict common sense.

In D&D, if you are prone, to stand up there's no difference if you wear a light or an heavy armor. You have no bonus beeing "agile".
Still, light armor and high dex: good for touch AC; heavy armor: good when anything negates your dex bonus.
Mithril full plate? almost the best from both worlds.

Noble Savant
2009-07-15, 03:47 AM
For the record, the medium armors do have a use. Kind of anyway. Bards, Duskblades, and the other "cast in light armor" classes all benefit from Mithril Breastplates. And each point of AC count for them. Also, these kinds of classes probably don't have much if any points to spend on Dex. Money is worth a lot less then stat points after a certain point in the games. It's easier to cough up 10k for better AC then it is to get +4 to Dex/Find a slot for Dex Gloves.

Deadmeat.GW
2009-07-15, 03:54 AM
I am at the moment experimenting with a house ruling in which armour gives penalties to endurance and to skills while the there is a dex penalty based on the type of armour.

Light Armour -1 to your Dex bonus unless specified for the armour (max Dex bonus +10).
-1 to endurance rolls

I.e. Padded armour does not give the penalty but chain shirt does.

Medium Armour -2 to your Dex bonus unless specified (max Dex bonus +6).
-3 to endurance rolls

Heavy Armour -3 to your Dex bonus unless specified (max Dex bonus +3).
-6 to endurance rolls
I would put an extra penalty on exceptionally stiff armours or very cumbersome ones like the exotic Dwarven stone armours.

People who are very strong and have the appropriate Feats can reduce penalties.

Strength bonuses higher then the Dex penalty reduce the penalty by 1.

Having the Armour Specialisation feat (reworked feat) reduces the endurance penalty by half rounding down and grant you a minimum Dex bonus of 1, regardless of actually Dex penalty (It does not grant you a +1 bonus if you do not have a Bonus).
This represents that the armour is second nature for you and you move around in it far more agilely then most people would expect but that an extremely agile person will still be limited due to restrictive movements.

As an example a Fighter with Str 16, Dex 14 would be getting no penalty in light armour and a minus 1 penalty to his Dex bonus in medium armour. In heavy armour he would get a minus 3 penalty to his Dex bonus.
With the Armour Specialisation feat he would have no change in light or medium armours but he would have a +1 Dex bonus in heavy armour instead of total penalty of -1 to his AC.

Skill check penalties stay the same as they are currently.

Sofar this seems to be received well by the players.

I wanted to make armours more a problem over long periods of time, when you wear them non-stop, then simple weight based issues (I would reduce the weight of a whole lot of the armours, the historical weight of some of that stuff is lighter then the D20 versions) and to represent that a very agile and/or trained fighter would be quite agile even wearing heavy armour.

Kaiyanwang
2009-07-15, 03:56 AM
Further, if you have low dex but profession (miner) and/or craft (armorsmithing), if you put your hand by plane travel or other means on some Astral Driftmetal, you can add up to + 9 to your touch AC.

+5 AD artisan craftsman towershield and +5 AD full plate is +23 to touch AC. I'm sure you could reach it by enchats, but maybe you are not available in the setting, or you don't have the spell to enchant with, or you want to save slot for other enchants..

Deadmeat.GW
2009-07-15, 04:01 AM
Uhm no.
Historically, heavy armored knights (practically the only ones wearing full field plate armor) were superbly protected only as long as they were riding. If they fell from their horseback, they were dead meat because they were unable to even stand up.
Field plate was uncommon because it was EXPENSIVE. But the average flatfooted grunt would have always preferred chain and leather to plate. And for good reasons, I'd say.

In a world with magic, which if anything RAISES the chance that you get knocked down, I'd say it's totally reasonable that being quick and able to move is better than being a tin can man.

So yes, heavy armor is kinda pointless compared to being naturally agile, and no, this doesn't contradict common sense.

Hum, ABSOLUTE <censured>!

Knights did NOT have any problems getting up if they were knocked off their horses as long as they were not injured by the fall or something else prevented them from getting up.

I.e. falling in 5 inches of mud when thrown by a horse and you would indeed have trouble getting up wearing armour, but in that case even without armour you would have trouble.

Specialised tournament armours that were almost made out of solid plates which were strapped to you AFTER you mounted is not what you should call heavy armour. That stuff was designed purely for the 'Sport' of jousting and not for combat. that is the same as compairing display weapons and actual proper two-handed swords designed for combat. The first ones are big, often blunt, and designed to look impressive so that all can see them. The weight of a proper sword and proper armour was less then people seem to want to believe. Please do look on Youtube for cartwheels in plate video's. There are enough of them now out there to finally get rid of this foolish Victorian idea that full plate was nothing but cumbersome and useless in war.

P.s. I did jousting in full plate when I was 16 untill I was 18 (being a tall fellow I was allowed and since I forked over the money for my own armour myself...the rest of the team was willing to let me try). I have fought on horse back in full plate and on foot and the problem is NOT agility but endurance. How long can you run around in what feels like a small oven strapped tightly to your body while swinging weapons and ducking blows with a shield strapped to your arm is the big defining factor.
I was damn fit at the time and could not last more then an hour in a foot fight tourney.
And by the end of the hour I would be close to collapsing because you had to keep moving, standing still is lethal in combat with melee weapons.

mistformsquirrl
2009-07-15, 04:04 AM
Jan - I don't mean this to be mean but; you haven't studied armor very much have you?

Plate armor is substantially more mobile than you seem to believe.

First off - it weighs less (yes less) than most modern infantry combat loads. It's also substantially better distributed across your entire body than such a load (which is centered on your back and shoulders). Plate is designed to allow the entire body to bear the weight evenly distributed. Think of moving in rain soaked clothes, rather than lugging a heavy backpack.

As others have noted both in this thread and others, it is entirely possible to do cartwheels and run at good speed in full plate.

Knights also sometimes had to dismount and fight afoot for many reasons; horse injury, or terrain could both preclude mounted combat as a possibility, and either could occur in the course of a battle where the knight started off on his mount. Now: Realistically, why would you build armor that locked you so firmly into being mounted when the battlefield can change to make being mounted a liability?

Well you wouldn't.


==

As for it's actual protective ability:

Plate armor is quite difficult to penetrate. Can it be done? Well sure; nothing is impregnable. However it's strong enough that late period plate could often withstand early firearms. (Some suits of late period plate have proof marks where the armor was shot to make certain it would protect its noble and thus very important wearer.)

I could go on for a very long time - but suffice to say there's a very very good reason Plate armor was used: It worked, and extremely well at that.

It fell out of favor of course due to the advance of firearms, which had the advantage of being easier to use than bows. Even this was not an immediate change however, as guns and knights coexisted for a time. More advanced firearms are what did it.

There only situation where your interpretation of plate armor may be correct is tourney-specific Jousting armor. Which is of course designed to allow someone to survive a sport where you run a pair of heavily armored individuals with lances on top of 2000lb war horses at each other.

Some of those suits were indeed, incredibly heavy; but that's because they were purpose built for tournaments, not the battlefield.

JellyPooga
2009-07-15, 04:08 AM
I've always thought that heavier armours should give a bonus to Intimidate to counter-balance ACP; someone bearing down on you clad head to foot in steel is a lot more scary than someone bearing down on you wearing a padded jacket...

Leon
2009-07-15, 04:33 AM
Uhm no.
Historically, heavy armored knights (practically the only ones wearing full field plate armor) were superbly protected only as long as they were riding. If they fell from their horseback, they were dead meat because they were unable to even stand up.
Field plate was uncommon because it was EXPENSIVE. But the average flatfooted grunt would have always preferred chain and leather to plate. And for good reasons, I'd say.


Eh?
Tournament Plate is the type of armour that if you fall off your horse your not getting back up
Plate made for War was custom made for the wearer and allowed for a great deal of movement, its much much better than a Hauberk of chain that hangs the weight off your shoulders

Oh and given that falling off a horse can cause injury without wearing armour its a given that falling off a horse while wearing armour is still a chance for injury

Matthew
2009-07-15, 06:25 AM
Whilst I agree broadly with what everyone is saying about plate armour in response to Jan Mattys assertion, it is worth bearing in mind that fatigue does play a huge role, and is probably behind the "myth" of the cannot get up again knight. There is at least one early thirteenth century medieval text (the Old French continuation of William of Tyre, for those who are interested) that criticises heavy armour on the grounds of mobility, and Joinville does a good job of depicting the effects of fatigue towards the end of that century.

Bottom line, plate armour is perfectly mobile, but continuous combat exertion for more than a few minutes will immobilise the combatant if there is no opportunity for rest.

[edit]
Here is the passage in question:

The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, p. 119.


He and his knights and sergeants went lightly armed. At that time hardly anyone had a bacinet, shoulder pieces, pointed coif, grieves or a helm with a visor unless he were a king, count or a great lord. Because they were lightly armed, if by some chance a sergeant lost his horse he could manage on foot, may God be merciful! But now their armour is so tight and heavy that if a knight falls from his horse he can do nothing to help himself.

Of course, in 1250 they weren't wearing plate harness, but at least one thirteenth century writer regards the armour of his time to result in a "cannot get up again knight".

mistformsquirrl
2009-07-15, 06:55 AM
Yes, but if it's a source focused on the Crusades (which given the title, I'm inclined to assume); there's the immediate heat index increase to deal with.

I mean, how many Europeans are at all well adapted to the desert? Especially in their armor? Also assuming chain being the major portion of the armor, a big chunk of the problem with chain is the way it sits. (Chain "hangs" on the body, where plate is in some ways self-supporting)

I only mention that because I think the statement you're making might be misunderstood without accounting for other aspects.

Matthew
2009-07-15, 07:09 AM
Yes, but if it's a source focused on the Crusades (which given the title, I'm inclined to assume); there's the immediate heat index increase to deal with.

I mean, how many Europeans are at all well adapted to the desert? Especially in their armor? Also assuming chain being the major portion of the armor, a big chunk of the problem with chain is the way it sits. (Chain "hangs" on the body, where plate is in some ways self-supporting)

I only mention that because I think the statement you're making might be misunderstood without accounting for other aspects.

That is an outside possibility. However, the continuation was not likely written in the Levant, probably more likely in France, and if the heat of a foreign clime was the problem it seems likely it would be specifically mentioned (as it is in other crusade texts). In the context in which it appears this is a general comment about armour "now and then", rather than its drawbacks in the far east.

More likely it is fatigue that is being referred to (and a fair bit of poetic hyperbole is likely involved), I think "escape" is primarily in the author's mind here, rather than really being able to get back up again (as the passage seems to imply). Such a view makes more sense when it is borne in mind that the majority of medieval warfare consisted of sieges and raids, and that this passage appears in the context of a caravan raid.

I should add that I think it an insane idea that a knight would not be able to fight on foot, since he was required to do so at every siege in which he fought, and that later period knightly armies fought primarily on foot in heavy armour, such as at Crécy (or do I mean Agincourt? I often forget... ah English on foot at both, French on foot at the latter).

mistformsquirrl
2009-07-15, 07:20 AM
Ahh, I see - that makes some sense hehe <^_^>

I mostly just wanted to make sure there was some clarification - as stuff like that can be misleading without being intended to be <x,x> just wanted to make sure I was on the same page hehe <^.^>b thankies for the clarification

Farlion
2009-07-15, 07:49 AM
I use the alternative Armor rule from Unearthed Arcana (iirc) where half of the armor bonus goes to AC, the other half turns into damage reduction. So your fullplate will give +4 AC and DR 4/-. I homebrew it a little and changed the DR to 4/ranged piercing. But thats just my sense of realism ;-P

I have to add, my setting is low magic and a military campaign. My concern with high AC was, that 20 level one soldiers could not hurt my one PC knight, with the alternative rule, they still can wear him down, which comes closer to my sense for realism.

Using this rule some high Dex characters have similar AC than the knight, but much less DR. (And by high Dex I mean 16)

Cheers,
Farlion

JeenLeen
2009-07-15, 07:59 AM
Most of the characters in the game I'm in have taken a level dip into Monk or Ninja for the Wisdom-to-AC boost. If one is doing that, it makes heavy armor much more pointless.

We've got two Clericzilla and a Druidzilla doing so; their increased AC seems to be worth the caster level so far.

Edit: I'm not sure how worth it it is since our DM houseruled that any armor or shield with no dex limit, no skill point penalty, and no arcane failure chance can be worn by monks/ninja without them losing their abilities.

mcl01
2009-07-15, 08:01 AM
I honestly don't see what the argument is about.

If you have high dex, use lighter armor to maximize your AC.

If you have low dex, use heavier armor to maximize your AC.

There we go, problem solved.

Yes, ACP and dex restrictions are problems, but hey guys. They're real. You can complain all you want that you can be perfectly mobile in full plate armor, but are you as mobile as you could be without it? Can you as quickly, as fluidly, as easily, and as freely move yourself? Can you run at the same speed? During combat, are you as able to dodge blows? Will you be able to move around, jump, tumble, swim, move silently, etc. as easily?

You may say ACP and dex restrictions are overexaggerated in DnD, and granted they may be. Still, DnD is in itself an overexaggeration of life. It tries to create a simulacrum of life using abstract and arbitrary rules, and from what I can see, it does a pretty decent job mirroring AC when compared to other things (falling damage, I'm looking at you).

To each his own. Sure, ACP + dex restrictions + lowered speed may be downsides to heavy armor, but what does the fighter or cleric or paladin care so much about that for? Even if he did care - yay for twilight mithril armor and the likes.
ACP? They already won't be doing too many skill checks. They already have too few skill points to bother making a bunch of those skills decent anyway.
Dex restrictions? Most fighters are str-centric, and like others have said, won't be able to afford too many points/won't roll well enough to get more than 14 in dex. Clerics have wisdom to worry about. Paladins have both wisdom and charisma. Sure, you can pump up dex, but there are better ways of pumping your touch AC. Being able to theoretically do it with magic items isn't too much of a worry when it's cost inefficient to do so.
Lowered speed? Magic takes care of that well enough. Furthermore, the fighter or paladin won't be moving much anyway. Most of the time, a full-attack is preferetial anyway.

Oh, and as a side note, adamantium heavy armor has a better DR. A minor (if expensive) benefit.

Overall, I don't see there being too huge of a discrepency. Sure, heavy armor gives penalties in several areas, but they're in areas that don't get too much play too often. Light armor has its place - so does heavy armor.

Matthew
2009-07-15, 09:07 AM
I honestly don't see what the argument is about.

If you have high dex, use lighter armor to maximize your AC.

If you have low dex, use heavier armor to maximize your AC.

There we go, problem solved.

Yes, ACP and dex restrictions are problems, but hey guys. They're real. You can complain all you want that you can be perfectly mobile in full plate armor, but are you as mobile as you could be without it? Can you as quickly, as fluidly, as easily, and as freely move yourself? Can you run at the same speed? During combat, are you as able to dodge blows? Will you be able to move around, jump, tumble, swim, move silently, etc. as easily?

You may say ACP and dex restrictions are overexaggerated in DnD, and granted they may be. Still, DnD is in itself an overexaggeration of life. It tries to create a simulacrum of life using abstract and arbitrary rules, and from what I can see, it does a pretty decent job mirroring AC when compared to other things (falling damage, I'm looking at you).

Except, that is not how it works in D&D. Characters do not suffer dexterity penalties from wearing heavy armour, they suffer dexterity caps to their defence. That means that heavy armour does not affect everyone equally, but rather only penalises characters with a high dexterity. That is a rather silly way of going about things, and yeah D&D is silly, but it is not really much of an excuse.

In effect heavy armour only penalises the defence of characters with heroic levels of ability, which means that you are far less likely to see heroes in plate than you are heroes in mail or some other lighter armour type. If that appeals to your sense of aesthetics all good and well, but for some folks it will run counter to their expectations of the value of armour. A character with dexterity 14 will actually lose a point of armour class when moving from breast plate to half plate regardless of how strong or well trained he might be, and that is in addition to all the other penalties for wearing heavy armour.

For what it is worth, in previous editions the mobility hindrance of armour in defensive ability was said to be subsumed in the armour class bonus [i.e. armour affected everyone equally].

Random832
2009-07-15, 09:19 AM
For what it is worth, in previous editions the mobility hindrance of armour in defensive ability was said to be subsumed in the armour class bonus [i.e. armour affected everyone equally].

Right, but it can't "subsume" the mobility hindrance of armor in other skills (even combat-relevant skills like tumble) - it's a simplification that had to go as the game became more expressive.

Matthew
2009-07-15, 09:24 AM
Right, but it can't "subsume" the mobility hindrance of armor in other skills (even combat-relevant skills like tumble) - it's a simplification that had to go as the game became more expressive.

It doesn't even in previous editions. Movement rates are determined by armour (or encumbrance, depending on which edition) and "bulk" (depending again on edition and supplement) affected other things more nebulously (well, thief abilities directly). In any case, it is really the dexterity caps to armour class that are the issue, skill penalties seem reasonable to me and dexterity caps to armour class should have followed the same model. Of course, I would say the game became more proscriptive (or prescriptive), rather than expressive, but that depends on your point of view. :smallbiggrin:

Tengu_temp
2009-07-15, 09:39 AM
I've always thought that heavier armours should give a bonus to Intimidate to counter-balance ACP; someone bearing down on you clad head to foot in steel is a lot more scary than someone bearing down on you wearing a padded jacket...

I don't see how a guy in armor is scarier than a musclebound, woad-covered barbarian with a huge axe, or a vortex of arcane energies with a wizard somewhere inside.

xPANCAKEx
2009-07-15, 09:39 AM
i usually play rogues. What is this... "heavy" armour you speak of?

but the few times i've played tanks, dex has definately been a dump stat, and heavy armour is a wonderful thing

Talya
2009-07-15, 09:43 AM
The mechanical point of heavy armor in D&D (from a gamist perspective) is to allow a character to "dump" dexterity--to make it irrelevant. That way a heavy fighter type doesn't need more than 10-12 dexterity in order to be just as hard to damage as a lightly armored melee type with 18 dexterity. You pay for this dump stat with mobility penalties.

The reason you don't remove the max dex bonus is you don't want that same lightly armored melee type with 18 dexterity suddenly deciding to wear plate armor, then dex is no longer a dump stat. (Although with Mithral, they can do that to a degree anyway.)

Yes, Half Plate is stupid and useless. There are only a few relevant armors and weapons because the rest suck in comparison. That was a bad design decision.

mcl01
2009-07-15, 09:44 AM
Except, that is not how it works in D&D. Characters do not suffer dexterity penalties from wearing heavy armour, they suffer dexterity caps to their defence. That means that heavy armour does not affect everyone equally, but rather only penalises characters with a high dexterity. That is a rather silly way of going about things, and yeah D&D is silly, but it is not really much of an excuse.

In effect heavy armour only penalises the defence of characters with heroic levels of ability, which means that you are far less likely to see heroes in plate than you are heroes in mail or some other lighter armour type. If that appeals to your sense of aesthetics all good and well, but for some folks it will run counter to their expectations of the value of armour. A character with dexterity 14 will actually lose a point of armour class when moving from breast plate to half plate regardless of how strong or well trained he might be, and that is in addition to all the other penalties for wearing heavy armour.

Ah, but it works fairly similarly in real life as well. No matter how agile you are, your armor limits your range of movement and your movement speed. Someone very dextrous and agile who can easily dodge doesn't nearly have as much finesse in his/her movements in heavy armor. Arms can't stretch to the same degree or move as quickly. Balancing, flipping, jumping, and tumbling are harder, etc. Someone who doesn't have such dexterity never had such advantages to begin with, so he is in effect less hindered by wearing heavier armor.

Think of an acrobat versus a normal person. An acrobat has such freedom of movement while simply clothed compared to a normal person. When wearing heavier armor, the acrobat is comparatively more hindered than the normal person who never had such range of movement before. The normal person will still be hindered and restricted, but is less so than the acrobat by virtue of having less to lose.

In effect, the armor places the same restrictions on movement (Dex cap) on both a dextrous and non-dextrous person. A more dextrous person however can still can be more effective in armor than a less dextrous person both IRL and in DND. This is analogus to a dextrous person using his dexterity modifier up to its dex cap, while the other person having a dex modifier less than the dex cap.

Matthew
2009-07-15, 09:53 AM
Ah, but it works fairly similarly in real life as well. No matter how agile you are, your armor limits your range of movement and your movement speed. Someone very dextrous and agile who can easily dodge doesn't nearly have as much finesse in his/her movements in heavy armor. Arms can't stretch to the same degree or move as quickly. Balancing, flipping, jumping, and tumbling are harder, etc. Someone who doesn't have such dexterity never had such advantages to begin with, so he is in effect less hindered by wearing heavier armor.

Think of an acrobat versus a normal person. An acrobat has such freedom of movement while simply clothed compared to a normal person. When wearing heavier armor, the acrobat is comparatively more hindered than the normal person who never had such range of movement before. The normal person will still be hindered and restricted, but is less so than the acrobat by virtue of having less to lose.

In effect, the armor places the same restrictions on movement (Dex cap) on both a dextrous and non-dextrous person. A more dextrous person however can still can be more effective in armor than a less dextrous person both IRL and in DND. This is analogus to a dextrous person using his dexterity modifier up to its dex cap, while the other person having a dex modifier less than the dex cap.

Either armour hinders somebody's defence or it does not. The idea that it only hinders characters with a high dexterity is just not very sustainable. When I was trying to rationalise the design choice I pretty much followed the line of reasoning you outline, but it just creates way more conceptual problems than it solves within the abstraction. Why would somebody who is more dexterous than another be equal to that individual in heavy armour? If armour hinders the ability to use dexterity the character with higher dexterity should still be better able to defend themselves than one with lower dexterity. That is to say, the analogy you suggest only really works so long as the less dexterous character is not already at the dexterity cap.

Deadmeat.GW
2009-07-15, 09:59 AM
That is an outside possibility. However, the continuation was not likely written in the Levant, probably more likely in France, and if the heat of a foreign clime was the problem it seems likely it would be specifically mentioned (as it is in other crusade texts). In the context in which it appears this is a general comment about armour "now and then", rather than its drawbacks in the far east.

More likely it is fatigue that is being referred to (and a fair bit of poetic hyperbole is likely involved), I think "escape" is primarily in the author's mind here, rather than really being able to get back up again (as the passage seems to imply). Such a view makes more sense when it is borne in mind that the majority of medieval warfare consisted of sieges and raids, and that this passage appears in the context of a caravan raid.

I should add that I think it an insane idea that a knight would not be able to fight on foot, since he was required to do so at every siege in which he fought, and that later period knightly armies fought primarily on foot in heavy armour, such as at Crécy (or do I mean Agincourt? I often forget... ah English on foot at both, French on foot at the latter).

If you have ever fought for more then a quarter of an hour in a full-contact bout you will know what that refers to. After fifteen minutes of full-contact fighting a great many fit people will be sweating an awfull lot, have elevated body temperatures and will be suffering from lactose build up (not sure if I wrote that correctly, I mean the acids that build up in the muscles when you exercise a lot).

What armour, or actually any clothing, does is to stop you from being able to cool your body effectively so you start suffering from heat exhaustion. In the far east this was even more pronounced for Westerners.

Fighting on foot with a mace and a shield in field plate is quite ok for the first few minutes. When you start sweating however you start slowly getting uncomfortable, and this will increase faster and faster the longer you keep pushing yourself.

I wanted in the rules I made to represent (loosely to be honest) that fatigue is big effect on wearing armour and that it encumbers people while fighting but that you can still be fairly agile.

Deadmeat.GW
2009-07-15, 10:01 AM
Either armour hinders somebody's defence or it does not. The idea that it only hinders characters with a high dexterity is just not very sustainable. When I was trying to rationalise the design choice I pretty much followed the line of reasoning you outline, but it just creates way more conceptual problems than it solves within the abstraction. Why would somebody who is more dexterous than another be equal to that individual in heavy armour? If armour hinders the ability to use dexterity the character with higher dexterity should still be better able to defend themselves than one with lower dexterity. That is to say, the analogy you suggest only really works so long as the less dexterous character is not already at the dexterity cap.

Which is why in my house rule armour reduces your dex bonus with a cap to what lvl of dexterity is possible in the armour type.

This way a highly dextrous person would still be better then most people when they wear the same armour.

JellyPooga
2009-07-15, 10:05 AM
I don't see how a guy in armor is scarier than a musclebound, woad-covered barbarian with a huge axe, or a vortex of arcane energies with a wizard somewhere inside.

Woad-Covered Barbarian isn't scary 'cos of his woad though and nor is the Wizard scary because of his robe...the former is scary because he's a raving nutter hurtling toward you swinging an axe around his head and the latter is scary because he has arcane energies flowing around him.

Now picture both these examples dressed in full-plate armour...suddenly you have a larger (that plate adds just a little to your stature) barbarian still raging toward you swinging the same axe, except he's now has a whole lot more momentum, isn't going to be deterred by pretty much anything you can bring to bear because in all likelihood it will just bounce off. Hell, he doesn't even have to hit you with the axe because if he runs into you, it's going to hurt you a lot more than it'll hurt him. The wizard in full-plate now becomes a lot more scary because before, he was a wizened old man commanding the arcane energies...now you can't see his face, his stature has increased and the colours and lights of his magic arcing off of his steel encasement is going to be visually impressive (that and if he's a wizard in full-plate, he's probably a nutter too and charging towards you, flashes of magic forming a corona of energy trailing behind him, lines of magic streaking from his outstreched hand as he swings a glowing sword at your head...:smallbiggrin:)

There's no two ways about it, as far as I'm concerned; heavier armour is more intimidating than lighter or no amour. It's just that thought that with more armour comes more invulnerability and with that comes more aggressive potential. I'm not saying that you can't be intimidating without armour,that's obviously absurd, just that armour should give a bonus because, well, armour is intimidating.

mcl01
2009-07-15, 10:06 AM
Well, like I said earlier, armor restricts your movement. Not simply hinders - it actually restricts you to a certain range of motions. No matter how dextrous and agile you are, you can't make that full plate armor bend out of shape. Therefore, you are DENIED any extra dexterity above what the plate actually allows. If you never had that extra range of motion to begin with, then technically the armor doesn't restrict anything.

Matthew
2009-07-15, 10:10 AM
If you have ever fought for more then a quarter of an hour in a full-contact bout you will know what that refers to. After fifteen minutes of full-contact fighting a great many fit people will be sweating an awfull lot, have elevated body temperatures and will be suffering from lactose build up (not sure if I wrote that correctly, I mean the acids that build up in the muscles when you exercise a lot).

What armour, or actually any clothing, does is to stop you from being able to cool your body effectively so you start suffering from heat exhaustion. In the far east this was even more pronounced for Westerners.

Fighting on foot with a mace and a shield in field plate is quite ok for the first few minutes. When you start sweating however you start slowly getting uncomfortable, and this will increase faster and faster the longer you keep pushing yourself.

I wanted in the rules I made to represent (loosely to be honest) that fatigue is big effect on wearing armour and that it encumbers people while fighting but that you can still be fairly agile.

Exactly so, but in this particular instance the author does not appear to have the far east particularly in mind. The demonstrations I have seen suggest that exhaustion sets in within a few minutes of fighting in full harness (or even half harness) without rest. But it is likely that in this instance that the knight's main problem is mobility, since his comrades will be continuing their ebb and flow order of battle, whilst he tries to extract himself from the fighting without being overtaken by the enemy. That is to say, he is vulnerable because he is not part of a formation and his armour too oppressive to make good an escape.



Well, like I said earlier, armor restricts your movement. Not simply hinders - it actually restricts you to a certain range of motions. No matter how dextrous and agile you are, you can't make that full plate armor bend out of shape. Therefore, you are DENIED any extra dexterity above what the plate actually allows. If you never had that extra range of motion to begin with, then technically the armor doesn't restrict anything.

There are limitations to the range of movement possible in armour, even in mail to some extent, but a high dexterity doesn't necessitate a full range of movement nor a low dexterity restrict one to narrower range of movement, it is just an abstract measurement of "hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance". Otherwise we would surely expect more things to be affected in the same way by armour than just defence.

Tengu_temp
2009-07-15, 10:11 AM
There's no two ways about it, as far as I'm concerned; heavier armour is more intimidating than lighter or no amour. It's just that thought that with more armour comes more invulnerability and with that comes more aggressive potential. I'm not saying that you can't be intimidating without armour,that's obviously absurd, just that armour should give a bonus because, well, armour is intimidating.

I guess that's a fair point. Now, if Intimidate was actually useful in combat...

JellyPooga
2009-07-15, 10:22 AM
Well, like I said earlier, armor restricts your movement. Not simply hinders - it actually restricts you to a certain range of motions. No matter how dextrous and agile you are, you can't make that full plate armor bend out of shape. Therefore, you are DENIED any extra dexterity above what the plate actually allows. If you never had that extra range of motion to begin with, then technically the armor doesn't restrict anything.

But the point is, is that the guy that doesn't have the extra range of movement should now have even less...I've not experienced it with full-plate but doing Roman re-enactment, I have worn segmentata (probably about the equivalent of Banded Mail) and the restriction of movement that it imposes affects me as much as it effects the 50-odd year old guys I re-enact with...I, being a young man in good health and physically fit and agile, can literally run rings around these older guys whilst I'm in armour whilst they struggle to tie their laces when they're out of armour.

Using game terms and RAW, I could be said to have, let's say, a +3 Dex mod whilst they have -1. In (banded mail) armour, I drop to a mere +1, whilst they're not affected at all. This is simply not the case. In armour, if I'm dropping to +1, they're dropping to -3; they couldn't tie their laces out of armour but in it they can barely bend to pick up something that's a 2ft off the ground.

From my experience, what makes more of a difference is the strength and build of whoever is wearing the armour. Someone big and strong has an easier time of coping with the penalties inflicted by wearing a given armour type. I, being quite short and slight, have a hard time wielding the large tower shields of the era we portray. They're simply too big and unwieldy for me to do much with whilst other, larger and stronger, guys than me don't have nearly as much trouble.

Deadmeat.GW
2009-07-15, 10:56 AM
Well, like I said earlier, armor restricts your movement. Not simply hinders - it actually restricts you to a certain range of motions. No matter how dextrous and agile you are, you can't make that full plate armor bend out of shape. Therefore, you are DENIED any extra dexterity above what the plate actually allows. If you never had that extra range of motion to begin with, then technically the armor doesn't restrict anything.

I disagree, full plate does allow you a serious amount of flexibility but if you are about as agile as steel plate yourself you are going to struggle doing things.
A well trained and agile fighter in the same armour would be able to do things other people cannot.

I never managed to do a kip-up in armour, i can do it without encumbering clothers or armour. However one of my mates can do a kip-up wearing chainmail from head to toe or half plate (which incidently is more encumbering then full plate...).
He simply is far more agile and you can still see it when he is also wearing armour.

Milskidasith
2009-07-15, 10:56 AM
Why do you guys caring so much about how it "penalizes" dexterity? It's a design decision; full plate allows somebody who dumped dexterity to have the same armor as somebody who has an 18 in dex, but with a bunch of penalties (lower movement speed [which can be negated for 2k. >_>]) and some armor check penalties. People with high dex can just wear lighter armors and not have penalties.

Yes, maybe it wouldn't be realistic for somebody with 12 dex (which is significantly above the human average, according to D&D) to be as good as dodging as somebody with 18 dex when they are both in full plate. But honestly, does it matter? It's more of a gameplay decision than a realism based one. And the developers decided that forcing people to always have a good dexterity score just to have a decent AC was not the way to go.

Matthew
2009-07-15, 11:06 AM
Why do you guys caring so much about how it "penalizes" dexterity? It's a design decision; full plate allows somebody who dumped dexterity to have the same armor as somebody who has an 18 in dex, but with a bunch of penalties (lower movement speed [which can be negated for 2k. >_>]) and some armor check penalties. People with high dex can just wear lighter armors and not have penalties.

Yes, maybe it wouldn't be realistic for somebody with 12 dex (which is significantly above the human average, according to D&D) to be as good as dodging as somebody with 18 dex when they are both in full plate. But honestly, does it matter? It's more of a gameplay decision than a realism based one. And the developers decided that forcing people to always have a good dexterity score just to have a decent AC was not the way to go.

It is partly because of the game play that it matters. An agile fighter in plate armour is a bad decision in D&D, which means your "good" game choices are arbitrarily limited. The other side of it is pure aesthetics, which is to say I might want to play an agile fighter in plate armour because it appeals to me without it having to be a bad decision. The up and down of it is that the dexterity cap is a subjectively bad design choice [i.e. for some folks it appeals to their sense of cool or historical authenticity, whilst for others it repels on the same basis].

ChaosDefender24
2009-07-15, 11:10 AM
Really, what's the point of all this when there's such a thing as greater luminous armor? Only for good parties, yes, and the average 6 points of strength damage (assuming a 4-person party) is obnoxious to heal, but still, it's really scary.

Eldariel
2009-07-15, 11:14 AM
It is partly because of the game play that it matters. An agile fighter in plate armour is a bad decision in D&D, which means your "good" game choices are arbitrarily limited. The other side of it is pure aesthetics, which is to say I might want to play an agile fighter in plate armour because it appeals to me without it having to be a bad decision. The up and down of it is that the dexterity cap is a subjectively bad design choice [i.e. for some folks it appeals to their sense of cool or historical authenticity, whilst for others it repels on the same basis].

It's worth noting though that an 18 Dex-character in Full-Plate still has better AC than in any other armor. He also has better Initiative, Reflex-save, feat access & ranged attack than a guy in Full-Plate with 12 Dex.

I think it works out just fine; high Dex characters can choose Full-Plate giving up some mobility and touch AC for higher composite AC and flat-footed AC, while low Dex types who wouldn't be dodging anyways can pick up heavy armor and go to town.

Yora
2009-07-15, 11:17 AM
He also has better Initiative, Reflex-save, feat access & ranged attack than a guy in Full-Plate with 12 Dex.
Wrong. Armor only limits the maximum number of the Dexterity modifier that is added to AC. It does not reduce any other applications of the Dexterity modifier.

Eldariel
2009-07-15, 11:19 AM
Wrong. Armor only limits the maximum number of the Dexterity modifier that is added to AC. It does not reduce any other applications of the Dexterity modifier.

*blinks* That's what I said? See the word "better" in the quote?

Matthew
2009-07-15, 11:21 AM
Wrong. Armor only limits the maximum number of the Dexterity modifier that is added to AC. It does not reduce any other applications of the Dexterity modifier.

I think you have misunderstood what he was saying. :smallwink:



It's worth noting though that an 18 Dex-character in Full-Plate still has better AC than in any other armor. He also has better Initiative, Reflex-save, feat access & ranged attack than a guy in Full-Plate with 12 Dex.

I think it works out just fine; high Dex characters can choose Full-Plate giving up some mobility and touch AC for higher composite AC and flat-footed AC, while low Dex types who wouldn't be dodging anyways can pick up heavy armor and go to town.

Right, but... that same character is better off in breast plate armour (or a mail shirt), as he gets all the same advantages and more (barring one point of AC, I think). The only drawback is being flat footed (if I remember correctly). That is to say the trade-off between, say, mail armour and banded armour, splinted armour, or half plate is not worth it to any character with dexterity 14+. Indeed, it is debatable whether it is worth going with full plate.

Random832
2009-07-15, 11:22 AM
Wrong. Armor only limits the maximum number of the Dexterity modifier that is added to AC. It does not reduce any other applications of the Dexterity modifier.

Um, that's what he said.

Eldariel
2009-07-15, 11:30 AM
Right, but... that same character is better off in breast plate armour (or a mail shirt), as he gets all the same advantages and more (barring one point of AC, I think). The only drawback is being flat footed (if I remember correctly). That is to say the trade-off between, say, mail armour and banded armour, splinted armour, or half plate is not worth it to any character with dexterity 14+. Indeed, it is debatable whether it is worth going with full plate.

Yeah, the reason to go Full-Plate is maxing out AC. Whenever I have a character who truly plans on having AC that matters, he tends to look closely at Mithril Full-Plate unless he has sick Dex (like, 26+). I'll say, the three most common armors my characters use are Celestial Armor, Mithril Full-Plate and Mithril Chain Shirt, in that order. Mithril Breastplate has annoyingly -1 ACP, so I vastly prefer Chain Shirt as you only need 1 more point of Dex to max it out.

But yeah, this problem fundamentally comes down to the fact that once you're past level ~3 and the price of mundane items begins to be trivial, the only worthwhile armors are:
- Full-Plate
- Breastplate
- and all light armors
because of how the tables are designed. They simply give better numbers than the remaining armors, 'cause for whatever reason, the designers wanted to make Chainmails and company suck (Celestial Armor is the only exception to this rule, being a Chainmail but offering insane stats anyways).

And I rarely use Thistledown Padded Armor for anything but enchantments except for early game, since with a Dex high enough for that, I'm usually better off just getting Bracers of Armor already.

Yora
2009-07-15, 11:34 AM
*blinks* That's what I said? See the word "better" in the quote?
Ah, because of his better Dex score. I somehow assumed because of his lower Max. Dex to AC of light armor.

Twilight Jack
2009-07-15, 11:50 AM
Okay, so how do we fix heavy (and medium) armors to reward their use mechanically?

Since melee is already considered to be weak in comparison to spellcasting, I'm thinking that the best solution is just to make armor better, while reworking that whole Max Dex thing.

If nothing else, it gives the Fighter a tiny boost in power (and a bunch of tiny boosts in power can add up to a playable class).

Eldariel
2009-07-15, 11:57 AM
If nothing else, it gives the Fighter a tiny boost in power (and a bunch of tiny boosts in power can add up to a playable class).

And Cleric, who I'm sure will thank you while smiting the "buffed" Fighter's ass once again. Anyways, I like giving armor bonus as DR to the characters. That means a high armor bonus is gonna be helpful, and it means you can have meaningful DR with Full-Plate (incidentially, this also means a character in Full-Plate can only take damage from critical hits from a guy with no bonuses wielding a Longsword; this is historically more accurate than the current representation).

There's Armor as Damage Reduction (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm)-variant, but it mostly shoots AC bonuses in the foot while giving you some token DR for your troubles. Best thing to do is to rework the tables so the "middle choices" aren't strictly worse and then apply some DR as appropriate to all of 'em (DR/Critical works).

Matthew
2009-07-15, 12:09 PM
Best thing to do is to rework the tables so the "middle choices" aren't strictly worse and then apply some DR as appropriate to all of 'em (DR/Critical works).

Yes, indeed.

Mr.Moron
2009-07-15, 12:10 PM
Really, what's the point of all this when there's such a thing as greater luminous armor? Only for good parties, yes, and the average 6 points of strength damage (assuming a 4-person party) is obnoxious to heal, but still, it's really scary.

Greater Luminous Armor is pretty awesome, but it isn't the final word for everyone.

+8 AC, -4 Attacks is a total of 12 in my favor.
+12 AC, (Mechanus Gear, Magic Vestment'd to +2) is also +12 in my favor.

Certainly I'm slowed to a comparative crawl, and if I had a Dex bonus of greater than +0 (I don't) it would be further behind in terms of protection. However, more importantly it doesn't chew up a precious 4th-level spell slot.

mcl01
2009-07-15, 12:14 PM
Greater Luminous Armor is pretty awesome, but it isn't the final word for everyone.

+8 AC, -4 Attacks is a total of 12 in my favor.
+12 AC, (Mechanus Gear, Magic Vestment'd to +2) is also +12 in my favor.

Certainly I'm slowed to a comparative crawl, and if I had a Dex bonus of greater than +0 (I don't) it would be further behind in terms of protection. However, more importantly it doesn't chew up a precious 4th-level spell slot.

But a cloistered cleric use it without penalty on top of wearing a monk's belt :)

Mr.Moron
2009-07-15, 12:17 PM
But a cloistered cleric use it without penalty on top of wearing a monks' belt :)

That they could. I don't deny that greater luminous armor is awesome, and the top choice for many people (If not most) who have access to it. That doesn't mean there aren't still some cases where a big metal suit makes sense.

Sinfire Titan
2009-07-15, 12:19 PM
Greater Luminous Armor is pretty awesome, but it isn't the final word for everyone.

+8 AC, -4 Attacks is a total of 12 in my favor.
+12 AC, (Mechanus Gear, Magic Vestment'd to +2) is also +12 in my favor.

Certainly I'm slowed to a comparative crawl, and if I had a Dex bonus of greater than +0 (I don't) it would be further behind in terms of protection. However, more importantly it doesn't chew up a precious 4th-level spell slot.

Abjurant Champion+Greater Luminous Armor>>Mechanus Gearplate. +13 to AC, -4 to attack rolls, +full Dex to AC is far better than a flat +10 (plus enhancement).

Mr.Moron
2009-07-15, 12:28 PM
Abjurant Champion+Greater Luminous Armor>>Mechanus Gearplate. +13 to AC, -4 to attack rolls, +full Dex to AC is far better than a flat +10 (plus enhancement).

Very true, for Abjurant Champions. However some people are not Abjurant Champions or even Arcane Casters. Again, I'm not trying to say "Greater Luminous Armor is bad". What I'm saying is "In some cases, traditional armor may still prove to be a more appealing option."

Tehnar
2009-07-15, 01:05 PM
Luminous Armor
Doesn't the strength penalty (damage) apply only when the spell ends? Making it a much more friendly to the user. A wand of lesser restoration solves that problem easily unless you are in mid combat when that happens.


I think the fix is to remove the maximum dex bonus on armors, but keeping the speed and ACP penalty restrictions there.

Starbuck_II
2009-07-15, 01:21 PM
And Cleric, who I'm sure will thank you while smiting the "buffed" Fighter's ass once again. Anyways, I like giving armor bonus as DR to the characters. That means a high armor bonus is gonna be helpful, and it means you can have meaningful DR with Full-Plate (incidentially, this also means a character in Full-Plate can only take damage from critical hits from a guy with no bonuses wielding a Longsword; this is historically more accurate than the current representation).

There's Armor as Damage Reduction (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm)-variant, but it mostly shoots AC bonuses in the foot while giving you some token DR for your troubles. Best thing to do is to rework the tables so the "middle choices" aren't strictly worse and then apply some DR as appropriate to all of 'em (DR/Critical works).

OOh, so DR that applies against critical hits equal to base armor bonus of armor?

Hey, we could even give it to sneak attack/sudden strike since armor is supposed to block vitals from wounds.
It only covers actual armor not spells.

So full plate is better than Chain shirt because you get more protection from Crit damage and sneak attacks even if your AC might be higher if have enough dex in the shirt.

The issue with armor as DR variant is it weakens AC at same time.
If we keep the benefit specific then it will be balanced.

Random832
2009-07-15, 01:32 PM
OOh, so DR that applies against critical hits equal to base armor bonus of armor?

"DR/critical" = "DR that applies against non-critical hits".

Starbuck_II
2009-07-15, 01:35 PM
Oh, so DR for non-Crits.

Then sneak attacks should bypass it too as that is more realistic too.

John Campbell
2009-07-15, 02:30 PM
Well, like I said earlier, armor restricts your movement. Not simply hinders - it actually restricts you to a certain range of motions. No matter how dextrous and agile you are, you can't make that full plate armor bend out of shape. Therefore, you are DENIED any extra dexterity above what the plate actually allows. If you never had that extra range of motion to begin with, then technically the armor doesn't restrict anything.

That's really not how it works. Armor that's designed to be used in combat is carefully and deliberately designed to allow the full range of motion that's actually useful in combat. There may be some things that you can't do because your armor binds, but you probably didn't really need to do them anyway. Like, okay, I can't sit in lotus with my greaves and knees on. But sitting in lotus isn't exactly something that has any utility in the middle of a fight. If this is not the case, you need to fix your armor.

Armor does reduce speed and agility, but that's because it's heavy, or, more accurately, massive. The same muscular force acting on half again the mass will result in slower acceleration. Many people, including whoever wrote the 3E armor rules, overestimate how much, though. There also seems to be a tendency to overestimate just how useful a contortionist is in a fight.

I'm an SCA heavy fighter. (I probably should've mentioned that in my earlier post; I tend to forget that I'm probably not active enough on these forums that people recognize me and remember that.) I fight, these days, in what D&D describes as "chain mail". In the past, I've fought in kits that'd probably be "full plate" and "half plate" in 3E terms ("field plate" and "plate mail" in AD&D terms).

Now, my mail slows me down some - not much in straight-line speed, but maneuverability and acceleration/deceleration - and reduces my agility and my dodge speed. Under D&D rules, the fact that I'm slowed down implies that I'm hitting that Dex cap. The Dex cap for "chain mail" is pretty low, and I'm pretty fast and agile to begin with, so that's not totally out of the question... though I wouldn't have honestly rated my Dex as higher than 14, and probably not that high; I'm slowing down in my old age. But it's at least not ridiculous on the face of it. (Though the low cap on "chain mail" is.)

However, there's another local fighter - Master Revlin (and that's not how his name is really spelled, but I can never remember the proper spelling... silly Celts and their bizarre orthography) - who is, uh, fast. Reflexes of a mongoose on a Red Bull binge fast. I've seen him do things that I would've sworn beforehand were not humanly possible. In D&D terms, he's definitely an 18 Dex.

On the other hand, I'm considerably stronger than he is... I've got about sixty pounds on him, and most of that, even taking into account the padding around my middle and that I'm just built on a bigger frame than he is, is muscle mass.

Rev recently moved from fighting in not much of anything - helm and enough plastic and leather to be list-legal - to fighting in actual steel mail like mine. This has slowed him down noticably, and by more than my mail slows me down. This would make sense if we were both hitting that Dex cap. We'd both be capping at +2, which would be -2 for him, and -1 for me. However, he's still way faster and more agile than I am, which is totally incompatible with us both capping a +2 Dex modifier.

The truth is that it doesn't matter if you're Rev, or me, or some slow and clumsy guy with an 8 Dex... carrying an extra forty or fifty pounds of steel around is going to slow you down a bit. (Though, again, not as much as D&D thinks... as I mentioned in my earlier post, I've done things that can only be described as Tumbling while wearing full plate.) The reason I don't get slowed down as much as Rev does isn't because he has more to lose... it's because I'm bigger and stronger than he is, and so that extra mass is a smaller percentage of my overall mass, and I've got more muscle with which to overcome that extra mass.

Tehnar
2009-07-15, 03:08 PM
Deriving from John Campbells post how would this houserule work:

You add half your STR modifier (round up) to your armor's maximum dex bonus. So a character with 18 STR would add +2 to the max dex bonus of the armor he wears. So if he is using full plate armor, his maximum dex bonus would be +3.

ChaosDefender24
2009-07-15, 03:31 PM
IMO for good parties, then, GLA would become the standard, while heavy armor would be something like weapon finesse - something that is invested in by many builds, but still is not as popular as just using your strength to hit.

Thurbane
2009-07-15, 04:39 PM
In a similar thread once before someone suggested armor types be changed as follows (not sure if this really fixes the problem):

Padded AC +1 Max Dex +10
Leather AC +2 Max Dex +9
Studded Leather AC +3 Max Dex +8
Chain Shirt AC +4 Max Dex +7
Chainmail AC +5 Max Dex +6
Breastplate AC +6 Max Dex +5
Splint Mail AC +7 Max Dex +4
Banded Mail AC +8 Max Dex +3
Half-plate AC +9 Max Dex +2
Full Plate AC +10 Max Dex +1

mistformsquirrl
2009-07-15, 05:21 PM
Mechanically it doesn't seem like it's too bad honestly Thurbane.

Everything evens out at a +11 to AC (before enhancements) if you have max dex for your armor.

I'm assuming Scale was rolled in with Chain Shirt? (I don't see this as a problem at all)

The only issue here (and I personally think it's rather minor) is that now, it's possible to wind up with a situation where if you have below-max dexterity, Plate is just better. That said: I don't think that's necessarily wrong. Plate is also expensive early on after all, and Heavy Armor proficiency isn't usually something the light armor wearers are going to be using anyway.

I also like that AC on the whole for heavier armors is higher. Plate being flat out "the best" for anyone with average dexterity (Including most normal humans) makes a lot of sense. Adds to the "Heroic" aspect of being able to wear lighter armor and being *just* as resilient as a guy in a tin-can; while still leaving the tin-can valuable.

Overall... I like.

I also like the idea of adding some DR; but I suppose combining the two ideas would kind of reverse the problem we have at-present. >.< So we'd need to pick one or the other; unless I'm grossly missing something (which is entirely possible.)

Matthew
2009-07-15, 05:27 PM
Depends on how much damage reduction you allow, I reckon. Back when I was heavily into house ruling D20/3e, I went with:

{table=head] Type | Cost | Armour[br]Class | Damage[br] Reduction* | Dexterity[br]Cap | Skill[br]Modifier | Running[br]Speed | Spell[br]Failure
1 | 5 | +1 | 0 | +9 | −1 | x4 | 5
2 | 10 | +2 | 0 | +8 | −2 | x4 | 10
3 | 20 | +3 | 0 | +7 | −3 | x4 | 15
4 | 40 | +4 | 1 | +6 | −4 | x3 | 20
5 | 80 | +5 | 1 | +5 | −5| x3 | 25
6 | 160 | +6 | 1 | +4 | −6 | x3 | 30
7 | 320 | +7 | 2 | +3 | −7 | x2 | 35
8 | 640 | +8 | 2 | +2 | −8 | x2 | 40
9 | 1,280 | +9 | 2 | +1 | −9 | x2 | 45[/table]

* Optionally apply twice against critical hits and against each die of bonus damage.

Hadrian_Emrys
2009-07-15, 05:34 PM
The way armor is dealt with in 3.5 can only be described as 'special'. I'd complicate it some for accuracy and reason. First of all, I'd break the single armor slot into 3 stacking slots: padded, mail, and plate.

Each armor type would grant a form of damage reduction rather than adding to one's defense:

Padded grants DR x/piercing or slashing.
Mail grants DR x/bludgeoning or piercing.
Plate grants DR x/bludeoning or slashing.

I'd then throw out the stupid max dex notion, and instead break the three branches of armor down into ranks with numerical values based on difficulty of use. This number would then be subtracted from the character's Str bonus. If the total is negative, the number is treated as a penalty to the character's Dex bonus. If multiple armor slots are equipped, their values are added before being subtracted from the character's Str bonus.

So. Just for the sake of conversation:
Padded Armor: DR 5/ piercing or slashing, Value 1
Chainshirt: DR 5/ bludgeoning or piercing, Value 1
Breastplate: DR 5/ bludeoning or slashing, Value 1
Total: 3

John Meatbag
Str: 16 / +3
Dex: 14 / +2

Jane Meatbag
Str: 14 / +2
Dex: 16 / +3

Both would have an effective +2 Dex bonus with their universal DR 5.

Mike_G
2009-07-15, 06:26 PM
Wow.

Lots happened while I was at work.

My issue is, basically, the Dex caps mean that if you put Jackie Chan and Andre the Giant in Half plate, they will both be exactly the same difficulty to hit.

Jackie still has a better Reflex save, so reconcile that.

Now, in reality, armor does restrict you a bit. That is explained by the lower move rate and ACP. Heavy Armored Jackie Chan, while less agile than Naked Jackie Chan would still be more agile than Heavy Armored Andre the Giant, who would in fact, be less agile than Naked Andre. Talk to anyone who's sparred in armor.

Now, a realistic fix would be a penalty to Dex while in armor, so both characters would lose the same amount of dodgyness. High Str could offset this. Some systems do just that, but it's a bit complex for D&D.

A D&D fix would be to lose the Dex Bonus caps. That way, Plate improves everyone's AC equally, it's always nice to have more Dex, and the trade off for Heavy armor is that it slows you down and impedes certain skills, which seems pretty reasonable to me.

Matthew
2009-07-15, 06:29 PM
Now, a realistic fix would be a penalty to Dex while in armor, so both characters would lose the same amount of dodgyness. High Str could offset this. Some systems do just that, but it's a bit complex for D&D.

Not to beat a dead horse (who am I kidding?), but you can always just assume that this is already subsumed in the armour class rating, as the first edition DMG suggests. I would probably still want to apply some sort of DR to abstractly represent heavier armour being more difficult to penetrate than lighter armour, though.

Mike_G
2009-07-15, 06:41 PM
Not to beat a dead horse (who am I kidding?), but you can always just assume that this is already subsumed in the armour class rating, as the first edition DMG suggests.


I'm fine with that premise, so long as you lose the Dex Bonus caps.



I would probably still want to apply some sort of DR to abstractly represent heavier armour being more difficult to penetrate than lighter armour, though.

This makes logical sense. We tried the DR rules in Unearthed Arcana, but discarded them as decent armor became Immunity to Goblins at low level but the loss of AC screwed you against Ogres and so on at higher level, where you got hit more and that lousy 2 or 3 DR didn't take the edge off.

It makes sense, as I said, but in a game where some enemies do 1-4 points of damage and some do 2d8+14, a DR of 4 can be both overpowered and useless, depending on encounter. It actually highlights the Fighter's problems, by making him strong er at low levels, where he's already strong, but weakening him at mid to high, when he's pretty boned as is.

Mr.Moron
2009-07-15, 06:45 PM
If you really wanted to stick with the "DR" theme, without the goblin immunity worthless vs Ogre. You could make it a % based reduction.

Something like

Light Armor: 10% Base Damage Reduction
Medium Armor: 20% Base Damage Reduction
Heavy Armor: 30% Base Damage Reduction.


If you wanted to take it further, you could do things like make plate's % reduction even higher vs Slashing, but lower vs Bludgeoning.


It's a bit a math heavy but seems to do what you're attempting.

Personally, I probably wouldn't bother mucking with the armor system at all. But if you're going to, that's one suggestion.

Mike_G
2009-07-15, 06:54 PM
If you really wanted to stick with the "DR" theme, without the goblin immunity worthless vs Ogre. You could make it a % based reduction.

Something like

Light Armor: 10% Base Damage Reduction
Medium Armor: 20% Base Damage Reduction
Heavy Armor: 30% Base Damage Reduction.


If you wanted to take it further, you could do things like make plate's % reduction even higher vs Slashing, but lower vs Bludgeoning.


It's a bit a math heavy but seems to do what you're attempting.

Personally, I probably wouldn't bother mucking with the armor system at all. But if you're going to, that's one suggestion.

That's not a terrible idea, but too much math for me.

If I was to propose a fix at all, and hope to use it, I'd just drop the Dex Bonus cap.

Matthew
2009-07-15, 06:57 PM
I'm fine with that premise, so long as you lose the Dex Bonus caps.

Indeed.



This makes logical sense. We tried the DR rules in Unearthed Arcana, but discarded them as decent armor became Immunity to Goblins at low level but the loss of AC screwed you against Ogres and so on at higher level, where you got hit more and that lousy 2 or 3 DR didn't take the edge off.

It makes sense, as I said, but in a game where some enemies do 1-4 points of damage and some do 2d8+14, a DR of 4 can be both overpowered and useless, depending on encounter. It actually highlights the Fighter's problems, by making him strong er at low levels, where he's already strong, but weakening him at mid to high, when he's pretty boned as is.

Yeah, it is troublesome. In AD&D I go with 0, 1, 2, but damage dice and hit points tend to be lower. I quite like the idea of armour defending against critical hit damage or something like that. The alternative is "randomised" DR, but that would be a bit dice heavy.

Mike_G
2009-07-15, 07:11 PM
Indeed.


Yeah, it is troublesome. In AD&D I go with 0, 1, 2, but damage dice and hit points tend to be lower. I quite like the idea of armour defending against critical hit damage or something like that. The alternative is "randomised" DR, but that would be a bit dice heavy.


I like the concept of armor as DR. It makes sense that agile guys don't get hit often, but when they do, they get hurt, while tanks get hit a lot but shrug it off.

I like knowing "The arrow hit, but glances off your breastplate."

The only problem is, the huge damage range for D&D is problematic for this idea. I've seen other systems try it, with varying success. It can run into issues where armor makes you immune to daggers, but vulnerable to broadswords, which really should be the other way around. You could break everything into 3 DR values, for blunt, edged, and piercing. Harnmaster did that, as well as Constricting, Tearing, Fire, and maybe some more, but that's a lot of numbers on the sheet.

Matthew
2009-07-15, 07:16 PM
I like the concept of armor as DR. It makes sense that agile guys don't get hit often, but when they do, they get hurt, while tanks get hit a lot but shrug it off.

I like knowing "The arrow hit, but glances off your breastplate."

The only problem is, the huge damage range for D&D is problematic for this idea. I've seen other systems try it, with varying success. It can run into issues where armor makes you immune to daggers, but vulnerable to broadswords, which really should be the other way around. You could break everything into 3 DR values, for blunt, edged, and piercing. Harnmaster did that, as well as Constricting, Tearing, Fire, and maybe some more, but that's a lot of numbers on the sheet.

*Brainwave* What if it worked by weapon type? That is to say Light, One Handed, Two Handed? Say for medium armour 1 DR versus light, 2 DR versus one handed, and 3 DR versus two handed? Heavy armour is DR 2/3/4, Light Armour 0/1/2?

Maybe a bit too complicated; I know the 0/1/2 system works great in AD&D, but it is probably too little for D20/3e.

Mr.Moron
2009-07-15, 07:20 PM
*Brainwave* What if it worked by weapon type? That is to say Light, One Handed, Two Handed? Say for medium armour 1 DR versus light, 2 DR versus one handed, and 3 DR versus two handed? Heavy armour is DR 2/3/4, Light Armour 0/1/2?

Maybe a bit too complicated; I know the 0/1/2 system works great in AD&D, but it is probably too little for D20/3e.


DR 3/ doesn't mean much in the long run.

Hell, even at level getting [Die Damage]+14 out of a Level 1 barbarian hardly requires any hardcore optimization. (18 STR Base, Orc, Raging, Power Attacking for 1).

EDIT: Hell. Even a ultra-mook, 15 base STR Orc will have [Die Damage]+11. 2d4+11 if you go with the falchion they're said to favor in their monster entry. 13-19, average 16.

Low amounts of fixed-DR will only become rapidly more useless as numbers scale up. It really is only ever effective against those who try to kill with death-by-1000 cuts.

Mike_G
2009-07-15, 09:46 PM
DR 3/ doesn't mean much in the long run.

Hell, even at level getting [Die Damage]+14 out of a Level 1 barbarian hardly requires any hardcore optimization. (18 STR Base, Orc, Raging, Power Attacking for 1).

EDIT: Hell. Even a ultra-mook, 15 base STR Orc will have [Die Damage]+11. 2d4+11 if you go with the falchion they're said to favor in their monster entry. 13-19, average 16.

Low amounts of fixed-DR will only become rapidly more useless as numbers scale up. It really is only ever effective against those who try to kill with death-by-1000 cuts.


You could maybe scale the DR with level, which makes game sense if not simulationist sense.

The problem is still that it winds up making you immune to the shower of Goblin arrows at low level, or is no help against the raging Ogre Barbarian, or both. In most of the systems that use armor as DR, weapon and Str damage is a much smaller range.

A chance of Crit reduction a la Fortification would work, but now we're making this a lot more work than it needs to be.

Diamondeye
2009-07-15, 11:23 PM
This is the chart I came up with and use in my games. My goal wasn't specifically to fix heavy armor but more to make armors other than chain shirts, full plate, and occasionally studded leather or breastplates, worth wearing.
ARMOR Cost AC Bonus Max Dex check pen. spell failure

Light
Padded 5 1 8 0 5%
Leather 25 2 7 0 10%
Studded Leather 50 3 5 -1 15%
Chain Shirt 200 4 4 -2 20%

Medium
Hide 15 3 5 -2 15%
Scale Mail 100 4 4 -3 20%
Chainmail 400 5 3 -5 25%
Banded 600 6 2 -6 30%

Heavy
Breastplate 200 5 3 -4 25%
Splint 300 6 2 -5 30%
Half Plate 700 7 2 -6 35%
Full Plate 1500 8 2 -7 35%

The purpose of this chart was to give some small benefit to every piece of armor versus every other. Take hide armor for instance. It is comparable or inferior to a chain shirt in most respects - except that it costs less and has a 5% lower chance of spell failure. A mithril chain shirt might be better in most cases, but at least this wasy it has something to recommend it, especially at low levels.

The real key, however, was reclassifying a breastplate from the heaviest medium armor to the lightest heavy armor. This might be counterintuitive, but since the armor categories are at least somewhat arbitrary, I just go with it.

This allowed a nice, smooth AC increase progression in each armor type. While it does raise the spectre of mithril banded mail armored "light" characters, the extra point of AC isn't much of an issue. I took some liberties with certain D&D assumptions (splint mail now has a slightly lower skill check penalty than banded, but pays for it by being "heavy" armor) but overall I think it evens things out nicely. The heavier armors also got a boost to their DEX cap, making them somewhat more attractive overall.

edit - my apologies that the chart sucks. it looks great on the screen where you type it.

Random832
2009-07-15, 11:34 PM
Here's your table with better formatting:
{table]ARMOR|Cost|AC Bonus|Max Dex|check pen.|spell failure
{colsp=6}Light
Padded|5|1|8|0|5%
Leather|25|2|7|0|10%
Studded Leather|50|3|5|-1|15%
Chain Shirt|200|4|4|-2|20%
{colsp=6}Medium
Hide|15|3|5|-2|15%
Scale Mail|100|4|4|-3|20%
Chainmail|400|5|3|-5|25%
Banded|600|6|2|-6|30%
{colsp=6}Heavy
Breastplate|200|5|3|-4|25%
Splint|300|6|2|-5|30%
Half Plate|700|7|2|-6|35%
Full Plate|1500|8|2|-7|35%[/table]

Twilight Jack
2009-07-16, 01:22 AM
Okay, here's what I'm toying with now.

First things first, drop the damn Dex Caps. We can replace them with something similar but more reasonable if we ever find that bastards with Dex 22 and full-plate are making a nuisance of themselves.

Second point of order, all medium and heavy armors provide damage reduction x/precision. The exact amount of DR differs from one armor to another. Armor Class values for all medium and heavy armor are also increased by 1.

Third, certain weapons will be given "armor piercing" qualities, which halve armor-based DR when used against certain types of armor (in general, the weapons will be those with critical multipliers in excess of x2, but that's not hard and fast). This will help to mitigate "goblin immunity."

The net effect of all of this is that characters will have reason to leave behind the chain shirt without jumping straight to full-plate. The various medium armors now have something worthwhile to bring to the table.

The only things I've yet to determine is how much DR the various armors should grant, what - if any - effect enhancement bonuses should have on that DR, and what weapons should gain the armor piercing qualities against which armors. I'll post a table once I figure it out.

EDIT: Okay, how do I post a table? :smallredface:

Milskidasith
2009-07-16, 01:36 AM
By dropping the dex caps, it seems like you are just going to wind up with everybody who doesn't require skills or casts arcane spells buying full plate; it's strictly better once you consider it takes a 2000 gp slotless item to negate the penalty to movement speed.

Twilight Jack
2009-07-16, 01:37 AM
By dropping the dex caps, it seems like you are just going to wind up with everybody who doesn't require skills buying full plate; it's strictly better once you consider it takes a 2000 gp slotless item to negate the penalty to movement speed.

Agreed. I'm a bit concerned about it, but I'm at a loss for a more reasonable way to model it, since Max Dex doesn't seem to please anyone. Got an idea?

Milskidasith
2009-07-16, 01:40 AM
Well, though it would annoy the realism crowd a bit since apparantly armor really isn't heavy at all, a simple solution would be something like this.

For light armors, you apply your full dexterity bonus.

For medium armors, your max dexterity bonus is your STR bonus x 2 +1, to a minimum of 2 or 3 (not sure, and it still probably wouldn't matter unless you dumped dex and str).

For heavy armors, your max dexterity bonus is your STR bonus +1, minimum 1.

There; now, depending on how your str/dex spread is, you can choose the best armor, although it will still be the armor giving the highest AC in either light, medium, or heavy.

Twilight Jack
2009-07-16, 02:22 AM
Well, though it would annoy the realism crowd a bit since apparantly armor really isn't heavy at all, a simple solution would be something like this.

For light armors, you apply your full dexterity bonus.

For medium armors, your max dexterity bonus is your STR bonus x 2 +1, to a minimum of 2 or 3 (not sure, and it still probably wouldn't matter unless you dumped dex and str).

For heavy armors, your max dexterity bonus is your STR bonus +1, minimum 1.

There; now, depending on how your str/dex spread is, you can choose the best armor, although it will still be the armor giving the highest AC in either light, medium, or heavy.

My problem with it isn't that I believe armor isn't heavy (it is). But that people weighted down with armor are still more agile than clumsy people weighted down with armor, assuming everyone is equally capable of bearing the weight.

Milskidasith
2009-07-16, 02:29 AM
But that's the thing! The strength bonus is for characters of differing strength; and it's basically how well you can carry the armor. I admit, after a certain point it really gets trivial; if you have 18 strength full plate armor probably isn't going to hinder you, at all, but you still couldn't get your full dex 20 with my system. I don't really know how to improve it, besides maybe have a point where you don't have any dex penalty.

Maybe something like this: There is no dexterity cap on armor. If you are wearing heavy armor, every two points of str below 16 gives you a -1 to your dex armor bonus (so if you have str 15/14, it's a -1, 13/12, it's a minus -2... I need to word it better, though). For medium armor, it's either below 12 or below 14, I'm not sure which. Light armor would either impose no penalty, or only a penalty for people who have below 10 strength.

With that system, a character with an arbitrarily high dex (let's say 30) would still get a +10 for his dex bonus in any armor, but if he dumped strength he's going to have trouble with the armor (so if it's 8, his dex bonus to AC would be 6).

Deadmeat.GW
2009-07-16, 05:48 AM
In my system I put a max cap on dex which was pretty high depending on the armour category totake into account the encumbrance and the limitation on movement but it was pretty high so as to not make it completely unfeasible to do so.

Light Armour -1 to your Dex bonus unless specified for the armour (max Dex bonus +10).
-1 to endurance rolls

I.e. Padded armour does not give the penalty but chain shirt does.

Medium Armour -2 to your Dex bonus unless specified (max Dex bonus +6).
-3 to endurance rolls

Heavy Armour -3 to your Dex bonus unless specified (max Dex bonus +3).
-6 to endurance rolls
I would put an extra penalty on exceptionally stiff armours or very cumbersome ones like the exotic Dwarven stone armours.

People who are very strong and have the appropriate Feats can reduce penalties.

Strength bonuses higher then the Dex penalty reduce the penalty by 1.

Having the Armour Specialisation feat (reworked feat) reduces the endurance penalty by half rounding down and grant you a minimum Dex bonus of 1, regardless of actually Dex penalty (It does not grant you a +1 bonus if you do not have a Bonus).
This represents that the armour is second nature for you and you move around in it far more agilely then most people would expect but that an extremely agile person will still be limited due to restrictive movements.

As an example a Fighter with Str 16, Dex 14 would be getting no penalty in light armour and a minus 1 penalty to his Dex bonus in medium armour. In heavy armour he would get a minus 3 penalty to his Dex bonus.
With the Armour Specialisation feat he would have no change in light or medium armours but he would have a +1 Dex bonus in heavy armour instead of total penalty of -1 to his AC.

Skill check penalties stay the same as they are currently.


And this does not take into account exotic materials so you can increase the Max dex bonus still.

Diamondeye
2009-07-16, 06:27 AM
By dropping the dex caps, it seems like you are just going to wind up with everybody who doesn't require skills or casts arcane spells buying full plate; it's strictly better once you consider it takes a 2000 gp slotless item to negate the penalty to movement speed.

This isn't entirely true, although it's something to be mindful of. Not everyone is proficient in heavy armor, and you can't always take 1 level in a class that is because of EXP penalties, giving up caster levels, or a number of other reasons. Many classes have abilities that won't function at all in heavy or even medium armor of any sort -swordsage, ranger, etc. and multiclassing into a class with the proficiency doesn't help. If you make it mithril, you mitigate the problems and make it available to more people, but they might be better served with medium armor made of, say, adamantium. The DR it grants can be more valuable than its AC.

Mathius
2009-07-16, 07:12 AM
Heavy armor is actually very pointless in 3rd and 3.5. That is why I utilize the Pathfinder system. Fighters gain the Armor Training feature that allow them to gain bonuses to their AC through knowledge of extended armor use.

Aedilred
2009-07-16, 07:18 AM
The assumption seems to be that because all players will choose a high Dexterity for their characters, heavy armour is useless. But has it occurred that some people (as I did) will use Dexterity as a dump stat *because* the AC difference can be recovered using armour? As a paladin, cleric, etc., you need those stats more urgently elsewhere. Low touch AC is the price you pay for that.

Talya
2009-07-16, 08:29 AM
Isn't arguing about whether "max dex bonus to ac" in armor is realistic rather pointless in a system that uses strength-to-hit for bladed weapons to begin with? D&D isn't an attempt at simulating the real effects of armor, strength, or dexterity in combat.

This is close enough to comparing game rules to real life physics that I'm sure this thread is killing dozens of catgirls.


The assumption seems to be that because all players will choose a high Dexterity for their characters, heavy armour is useless. But has it occurred that some people (as I did) will use Dexterity as a dump stat *because* the AC difference can be recovered using armour? As a paladin, cleric, etc., you need those stats more urgently elsewhere. Low touch AC is the price you pay for that.

Yeah, this has been posted several times (albeit worded in a different way), and I agree totally. If you remove the max-dex-to-ac on armor, you screw over those who would normally have worn the plate armor to begin with. The point of heavy armor is to create a dump stat. All of a sudden your clerics, fighters, crusaders, duskplates, paladins, etc. can no longer dump dexterity if they want to keep up, because your rogues all take heavy armor proficiency to go with their 18 dex. But pity your rangers and swordsages, who are still limited to light armor. And like the monk needed a further stab in the back...

Calmness
2009-07-16, 09:26 AM
Paladins don't need dexterity, clerics don't need dexterity, most fighters don't need it either, unless you want to abuse combat reflexes. So, instead of spending resources on a stat which isn't that useful they can buy magical armor, or increase their strength or constitution, which are far more important for a melee fighter, or they can invest in charisma and wisdom, in the case of paladin and cleric.

Besides, with full-plate you can get an AC bonus of +9 adding armor and dexterity. With the rest of them you only get a +8. A point of AC is a point of AC, and yes it can make a difference.

Talya
2009-07-16, 09:34 AM
Paladins don't need dexterity, clerics don't need dexterity, most fighters don't need it either, unless you want to abuse combat reflexes. So, instead of spending resources on a stat which isn't that useful they can buy magical armor, or increase their strength or constitution, which are far more important for a melee fighter, or they can invest in charisma and wisdom, in the case of paladin and cleric.

Besides, with full-plate you can get an AC bonus of +9 adding armor and dexterity. With the rest of them you only get a +8. A point of AC is a point of AC, and yes it can make a difference.

Correct. But if you removed the "max dex bonus to AC" from armor, paladins, fighters, and even clerics suddenly do need dexterity to keep up to the high dexterity types who are also suddenly wearing full plate.

The point of the armor was to create a way of getting more armor class that is available only to those without very high dexterity.

Calmness
2009-07-16, 10:09 AM
Heh. A rogue in full-plate wouldn't be able to use half her skills correctly. There's still that little armor check penalty, you know.

I'll grant you though, she'd be quite scary in a fight.

Matthew
2009-07-16, 10:25 AM
Isn't arguing about whether "max dex bonus to ac" in armor is realistic rather pointless in a system that uses strength-to-hit for bladed weapons to begin with? D&D isn't an attempt at simulating the real effects of armor, strength, or dexterity in combat.

This is close enough to comparing game rules to real life physics that I'm sure this thread is killing dozens of catgirls.

No, not really. Plenty of things in D&D are based on "real life", such as movement rates and designation of certain effects as extraordinary or magical. The DMG is pretty clear about what role "real life" has in D&D, and also that it is very flexible. There is absolutely nothing wrong with complaining about something not meeting expectations of realism, just as there is nothing wrong with the counter argument "I don't care". It is exactly the same argument as you get over spiked chains and orc double axes ad nauseum. Totally preferential.

That said, the second issue is not one of aesthetics, but simply of game design. Whatever the "reality" it seems unnecessary to undercut characters with a high dexterity in this way, effectively forcing them down a narrow road.



Yeah, this has been posted several times (albeit worded in a different way), and I agree totally. If you remove the max-dex-to-ac on armor, you screw over those who would normally have worn the plate armor to begin with. The point of heavy armor is to create a dump stat. All of a sudden your clerics, fighters, crusaders, duskplates, paladins, etc. can no longer dump dexterity if they want to keep up, because your rogues all take heavy armor proficiency to go with their 18 dex. But pity your rangers and swordsages, who are still limited to light armor. And like the monk needed a further stab in the back...

Dexterity is just another method of increasing defence from resources, whether gold or class advancement. If a rogue wants to take a level in fighter and wander around in full plate, that's pretty much up to him. He won't best the fighter or cleric from doing so, he'll still be a rogue, just with a better armour class and some skill/movement penalties (depending on what he spends his gold on turning the armour into). Same can be said for all the "light armour" focused characters.

AstralFire
2009-07-16, 10:31 AM
1) Borrow SW Saga's rules on multiclassing - specifically the part about bonus feats. Only let a player take -one- feat they qualify for from a class that grants proficiencies at level 1 if they are not taking the class at level 1. Prevents Roguey McSwashninja from 1 level dipping Fighter and becoming Metal Roguezilla McSwashstompymon. Sparky here now has to, instead, dip Ranger and then Fighter, or spend some feats - and that's without getting the added Martial Weapon punch.

2) Have armor impose a dexterity -penalty- rather than a max dex bonus. Medium armor subtracts 1 point from your dexterity, Heavy armor subtracts 2, the superheavy exotics subtract 3. These penalties can never bring your effective Dex below 10 or your actual score, whichever is lower. Throw that in with ACP and the attractiveness of high init to low health characters, and there's some deterrence to everyone walking around with plate.

3) Mithril and Glassteel reduce the Dex penalty by one.

4) Make Evasion, Improved Evasion, and similar abilities across the board require the user to be in medium armor or less, depending on the class granting it. More deterrence.

Ta~da~

Talya
2009-07-16, 10:37 AM
1) Borrow SW Saga's rules on multiclassing - specifically the part about bonus feats. Only let a player take -one- feat they qualify for from a class that grants proficiencies at level 1 if they are not taking the class at level 1. Prevents Roguey McSwashninja from 1 level dipping Fighter and becoming Metal Roguezilla McSwashstompymon. Sparky here now has to, instead, dip Ranger and then Fighter, or spend some feats - and that's without getting the added Martial Weapon punch.

2) Have armor impose a dexterity -penalty- rather than a max dex bonus. Medium armor subtracts 1 point from your dexterity, Heavy armor subtracts 2, the superheavy exotics subtract 3. These penalties can never bring your effective Dex below 10 or your actual score, whichever is lower. Throw that in with ACP and the attractiveness of high init to low health characters, and there's some deterrence to everyone walking around with plate.

3) Mithril and Glassteel reduce the Dex penalty by one.

4) Make Evasion, Improved Evasion, and similar abilities across the board require the user to be in medium armor or less, depending on the class granting it. More deterrence.

Ta~da~

Once again, that removes the point of heavy armor: to create a dump stat out of Dexterity for heavy melee types.

Seems to me all these are an attempt to allow high dex characters (which, btw, are my standard melee types) to "have their cake and eat it to," so to speak, and cheese their way into getting massive AC bonuses in addition to their dexterity.

I did rather like the idea someone had of allowing strength score to raise the max dex penalty somewhat...then a moderately dextrous type, if they spent the points on strength, could still benefit from armor, so there's still a tradeoff. But other than that, I don't see the need for any of this.

AstralFire
2009-07-16, 10:46 AM
Once again, that removes the point of heavy armor: to create a dump stat out of Dexterity for heavy melee types.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you distinctly there. What we have here are two distinct and different concepts: Multiple Ability Dependency, and Multiple Ability Utility. MAD is bad - MAD is when you need multiple high ability scores that are non-synergistic in order to perform at a functional level. Introducing more stats as functional options rather than mandated requirements is, in fact, good design.


Seems to me all these are an attempt to allow high dex characters (which, btw, are my standard melee types) to "have their cake and eat it to," so to speak, and cheese their way into getting massive AC bonuses in addition to their dexterity.

That may be how it seems, but there's that whole maxim about assumptions and all, not to mention there's that whole slew of things I threw in to make light armor remain attractive in addition to the standby of ACPs. No, I just think this is:
- Bad design for unnecessarily punishing someone who doesn't want to fit the stereotypes associated with Heavy Armor wearers
- Bad design for those interested in epic or high-powered play, where even light armor can become an unnecessary hindrance after a while
- Bad design for achieving psuedoverisimilitude with how armor actually works.

Talya
2009-07-16, 10:51 AM
Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you distinctly there. What we have here are two distinct and different concepts: Multiple Ability Dependency, and Multiple Ability Utility. MAD is bad - MAD is when you need multiple high ability scores that are non-synergistic in order to perform at a functional level. Introducing more stats as functional options rather than mandated requirements is, in fact, good design.


Same thing. The only time something becomes a dump stat is if by raising it, you no longer gain much of anything important to you.

If you allowed dexterity to still matter beyond the max-dex-to-ac limit of armor, every heavy melee type would suddenly "need" dexterity in addition to strength and constitution, and dextrous types would be pumping their armor class into the stratosphere comparitively. Every single fighter would end up with maxed dexterity, full plate, weapon finesse and be power-attacking with Elven Courtblades. Mithral would no longer be used--everyone would get a cheap +8 to armor class, giving up only mobility and ACP in return.

No, don't like it at all. The only way to create a dump stat ability score is to remove that ability score's utility to you.

Star Wars Saga Edition was referenced somewhere, and it does this well with Weapon Finesse/Ataru making strength almost entirely irrelevant to jedi if they take it. In any system that allows any level of optimization, this is a good thing. If you're not on some insanely high point buy, you want to be able to find ways to maximize your strengths while minimizing your weaknesses, because the generalist with 12's in everything is going to suck. That is the entire purpose of heavy armor in D&D.

AstralFire
2009-07-16, 10:59 AM
Same thing. The only time something becomes a dump stat is if by raising it, you no longer gain much of anything important to you.

Here's the thing - you don't want mandatory dump stats. You want a stat that is required (because it makes design easy), then you want a handful of stats that are all optional, allowing the player to choose and design what his or her dump stat will be based on their concept of the character. Since you brought Saga back into this, allow me to demonstrate with a Jedi:

- Pump Str and Con or Str and Wis, multiclass with Soldier, take Elite Trooper and Jedi Knight, you are are breaking people's faces at close range and hard. Several builds of this type don't even include Force Powers.
- Pump Dexterity and Wisdom, take support Force Powers that have easy to meet DCs and focus on mobility and utility while still doing good damage and being damn hard to hurt.
- Pump Wisdom and Charisma, forget your lightsaber even exists, shoot them with lightning and telekinesis until they're dead.

Yet, the Jedi hardly suffers from MAD. The Jedi is extremely versatile and has MAU. He will improve more relative to other classes if given high stats across the board, but he can function more than competently by dumping everything but two stats.


If you allowed dexterity to still matter beyond the max-dex-to-ac limit of armor, every heavy melee type would suddenly "need" dexterity in addition to strength and constitution, and dextrous types would be pumping their armor class into the stratosphere comparitively. Every single fighter would end up with maxed dexterity, full plate, weapon finesse and be power-attacking with Elven Courtblades. Mithral would no longer be used--everyone would get a cheap +8 to armor class, giving up only mobility and ACP in return.

Footspeed, ACP, a -1 to initiative, Evasion... AC is not that good a stat past early mid-levels, sorry. Miss chances are a lot more relevant. You're confusing someone's perception of what they need with what they actually need. The 10 Dex Fighter is not screwed by this system at all, and you don't actually get a benefit comparative to the base system until you're at 16 dex or higher, which is not going to happen easily due to body slots, money shortages, and lower stat arrays.

Twilight Jack
2009-07-16, 11:17 AM
Once again, that removes the point of heavy armor: to create a dump stat out of Dexterity for heavy melee types.

Seems to me all these are an attempt to allow high dex characters (which, btw, are my standard melee types) to "have their cake and eat it to," so to speak, and cheese their way into getting massive AC bonuses in addition to their dexterity.

I did rather like the idea someone had of allowing strength score to raise the max dex penalty somewhat...then a moderately dextrous type, if they spent the points on strength, could still benefit from armor, so there's still a tradeoff. But other than that, I don't see the need for any of this.

You don't see the need because you've let the Dex part of the thread overshadow the larger discussion. Namely, whether the armor rules as written make chain shirts and full plate the only armors worth getting, mattering on whether or not Dex is a dump state for you.

The Dex caps are a part of that, but it has already been admitted that they might be the toughest part to fix.

The bigger problem on everyone's mind is how to make medium and heavy armor worthwhile, rather than just a waste of column inches in the Player's Handbook.

Talya
2009-07-16, 11:18 AM
- Pump Str and Con or Str and Wis, multiclass with Soldier, take Elite Trooper and Jedi Knight, you are are breaking people's faces at close range and hard. Several builds of this type don't even include Force Powers.
- Pump Dexterity and Wisdom, take support Force Powers that have easy to meet DCs and focus on mobility and utility while still doing good damage and being damn hard to hurt.
- Pump Wisdom and Charisma, forget your lightsaber even exists, shoot them with lightning and telekinesis until they're dead.

Yet, the Jedi hardly suffers from MAD. The Jedi is extremely versatile and has MAU. He will improve more relative to other classes if given high stats across the board, but he can function more than competently by dumping everything but two stats.



Well, this is getting off topic, the problem is then none of the jedi actually resemble a jedi, because generalists suck and everyone should specialize, but jedi in the stories aren't like that. I understand why they did that, but we generally run saga with very high point buys for this reason...there's no way to be Obi-wan or Anakin without them. The jedi in the movies do not have to specialize...they're great at everything.

Anyway, I believe that in general, unless you're playing a game where nobody optimizes at all, feats and talents and equipment that remove (or move) the need for a particular ability score are very useful things, and D&D was "balanced" (hahaha) around it. You cannot change one without vastly changing how everything else works if you want to maintain that.



You don't see the need because you've let the Dex part of the thread overshadow the larger discussion. Namely, whether the armor rules as written make chain shirts and full plate the only armors worth getting, mattering on whether or not Dex is a dump state for you.

No, that's not true. This just means you didn't read my post earlier here:


Yes, Half Plate is stupid and useless. There are only a few relevant armors and weapons because the rest suck in comparison. That was a bad design decision.

That's really a separate issue though, and easily rectified. Every mundane armor should be the same in that regard - adding max-dex-to-AC and the AC of the armor itself should be equal. The amount of ACP and arcane spell failure (and movement) is the compensator for how much dexterity you're allowed to dump. (eg. So half plate would become 6AC, +3 max dex, and have a lower ACP and arcane spell failure than full plate.) But the point of this thread is not reworking the useless armor (and weapon!) types in the game, but rather whether armor should have "max-dex-to-ac." Special cases might still exist for armors that grant some other bonus or penalty, but for the most part, they should follow a pattern.

AstralFire
2009-07-16, 11:30 AM
Actually, Wisdom and Dex pumped Jedi match the movie Jedi the closest. You pretty much have to use Unleashed feats to keep up with EU, Clone Wars microseries, and TFU, though.

At no point did Dexterity -ever- become required for Fighters with my suggested variant. None. What you're doing is tantamount to saying that Strength is a MAD stat for Bards (and Bards can actually do decently with 2HF Power Attack and Inspire Courage optimization - not optimally, but pumping Dex over Str and Con - especially if you're trying to make 13 Int - isn't optimal either), which is simply not true. Note that a swordsage - a well-loved class - gets a notable mechanical benefit from four of six stats, leaving out Charisma and Intelligence. Doesn't change that they still focus on two.

Compare these to the Monk or Paladin, the posterchildren for MAD. Monk requires, I'd say... 12 Str, 16 Dex, 18 Wis, 12 Con to do his job, and he still does it more poorly than any other core class. The Paladin requires 16 Str, 14 Wis, 14 Con, 16 Charisma-ish. And these are just to do the job moderately well.

It -is- quite possible to make a class that is balanced and -benefits- from multiple ability scores rather than -depending- on them. Yes, switching Z Stat in for X Stat for Y Ability improves even their strength usually, but the majority of those abilities are fairly obscure and hard to put in play for your average player, in my experience. If you did a sweep of D&D players and asked them to name as many of those feats and class abilities as they could, I'd be surprised if your average one can recall three of them that she or he would ever want to take.

Talya
2009-07-16, 11:39 AM
At no point did Dexterity -ever- become required for Fighters with my suggested variant. None. What you're doing is tantamount to saying that Strength is a MAD stat for Bards (and Bards can actually do decently with 2HF Power Attack and Inspire Courage optimization - not optimally, but pumping Dex over Str and Con - especially if you're trying to make 13 Int - isn't optimal either), which is simply not true.



It does, actually, since it changes the balance in armor class between high dexterity players and heavy armor players. If your change did not in any way alter the relative final armor classes and/or abilty score distribution they needed to get them (meaning, no sacrificing strength or constitution to maintain the difference), i'd agree with you. If a formerly 12 dexterity fighter with heavy armor would still automatically match the same armor class as an 18 dexterity fighter, who went from a chain shirt to heavy armor, I'd agree with you. But as it stands, you change the balance all around.

AstralFire
2009-07-16, 11:43 AM
It does, actually, since it changes the balance in armor class between high dexterity players and heavy armor players. If your change did not in any way alter the relative final armor classes and/or abilty score distribution they needed to get them (meaning, no sacrificing strength or constitution to maintain the difference), i'd agree with you. If a formerly 12 dexterity fighter with heavy armor would still automatically match the same armor class as an 18 dexterity fighter, who went from a chain shirt to heavy armor, I'd agree with you. But as it stands, you change the balance all around.

I change the balance in a way that is ultimately fairly meaningless for most players. With 28 PB, you can get a Fighter with 16 Str, 16 Dex, 14 Con, 8 Int, 10 Wis, 8 Charisma. Congratulations, you can't trip and you have one skill out of an already poor skill list, but on the upside, you now have 1 more AC than a Fighter in Full Plate under the old system. However, it is now at least something of an option, and when you get to epic levels, you no longer have to discard your chainmail for sucking your AC down.

Power overwhelming. You could get Mithril, bump that Dex up to 17, and now you have 2 more AC and increased movement - under the new system - instead of Damage Reduction 3/- under the old. 1 DR does not equal 1 AC. Ask any optimizer if they'd substitute the Barbarian's DR 5/- for +5 Deflection Bonus AC. Then ask again about DR 3/- versus Dodge AC 1 and some movement.

Talya
2009-07-16, 11:57 AM
I change the balance in a way that is ultimately fairly meaningless for most players.


Well, right off the bat your change results in a dex 12 Fighter having 2 less armor class than they had before. In fact, they need to pump their dex up to 15 (at a cost of 4 point buy points) to even match what they had before. That's not good at all...especially as that 17 dex fighter is getting a 2 point boost to their armor class without giving up a thing just by switching from a breastplate to full plate...that's a 4 AC difference. I don't see 4AC as meaningless, especially at the levels where people are using unmodified breastplates and full plate of no special material.

AstralFire
2009-07-16, 12:05 PM
Well, right off the bat your change results in a dex 12 Fighter having 2 less armor class than they had before. In fact, they need to pump their dex up to 15 (at a cost of 4 point buy points) to even match what they had before. That's not good at all...especially as that 17 dex fighter is getting a 2 point boost to their armor class without giving up a thing just by switching from a breastplate to full plate...that's a 4 AC difference. I don't see 4AC as meaningless, especially at the levels where people are using unmodified breastplates and full plate of no special material.

1) 1 less armor class than before. At a level when full plate is incredibly beefy. A change - a nerf, even - but hardly a gamebreaker.
2) Can't trip. Will never be able to trip in anything approximating a reasonable campaign - and if you switch his Str to Int, he's not going to be able to actually pull off any trip attempts. And it's 10 AC (8+2) versus 8 (5+3) - your math is off.

Moreover, mind that the number of level 1 characters who can afford Fullplate? low. Level 3 at the earliest, if you let people spend all of their money on one thing. If you follow the guidelines, in fact, which suggest not allowing someone to spend more than 1/3 or 1/4 of their wealth on one item, they can't afford it until level 4 - which is also the level at which you can begin affording permanent magic items and special materials of note.

In order for this to make a significant difference, people are going to have to be walking around with 19, 20 Dex plus. If they want to make that choice, they should be allowed to. Not going to deny that you're going to want a higher Dex to get a higher AC now, but the trick has never been about focusing on your AC to begin with, except up to about level 5.

aarondirebear
2009-07-16, 12:12 PM
{Scrubbed}

Talya
2009-07-16, 12:16 PM
1) 1 less armor class than before. At a level when full plate is incredibly beefy. A change - a nerf, even - but hardly a gamebreaker.

Did you not advocate each level of armor have a higher dex reduction? -1 for light, -2 for medium -3 for heavy?

12 dex fighter with full plate before change AC 19 (10+1+8)
12 dex fighter with full plate after the change AC 17 (10-1+8)





2) Can't trip. Will never be able to trip in anything approximating a reasonable campaign - and if you switch his Str to Int, he's not going to be able to actually pull off any trip attempts.

I lost something there, we're not talking about tripping or intelligence, if you're going for specific build differences there will of course be new issues.


And it's 10 AC (8+2) versus 8 (5+3) - your math is off.

No, my math is right. I said his AC would go up by 2 -- exactly as you just stated (8ac vs. 10ac) -- compared to the heavy fighter with 12 dex who'd have his AC go down by 2. That's a 4 AC difference between the two different characters.

AstralFire
2009-07-16, 12:20 PM
Did you not advocate each level of armor have a higher dex reduction? -1 for light, -2 for medium -3 for heavy?

12 dex fighter with full plate before change AC 19 (10+1+8)
12 dex fighter with full plate after the change AC 17 (10-1+8)

10 Dex doesn't give you a penalty to AC. I advocated -1 for Medium, -2 for Heavy, -3 for Exotic Heavy, none for Light.


I lost something there, we're not talking about tripping or intelligence...

Generally accepted to be the simplest way to make a decent Fighter build - tripping focus. By focusing on Dex to any significant (read: enough to make a major AC difference) extent with your average build, you're shutting yourself out of that. You'll pick up maybe 3-4 AC by 20th level. And with a defensive build, losing the valuable HP you could be getting when you will get hit at higher levels, and not just by things targeting your AC.


No, my math is right. I said his AC would go up by 2, compared to the heavy fighter with 12 dex who'd have his AC go down by 2. That's a 4 AC difference.

3 AC difference - 10 Dex is +/- 0 penalty - if the Dex Fighter is even interested in dumping that much money in full plate at a low level and not a +1 shield and mithril or +1 breastplate for only slightly more. Dex already is the way to go for AC at low levels. It just doesn't play nice with ever increasing levels. Hence why I say, the solution is ultimately meaningless for the conventional defensive Fighter.

Also - self admitted nerf earlier? Easy to fix. Instead of 'unable to drop below 10 or natural score, whichever is lower'? Make it 12 or. There's already plenty of reasons if you've got 12 Dex to kick it up to 13, so it creates a passable deadzone between conventional "I want AC" and "I starve for AC."

John Campbell
2009-07-16, 02:09 PM
I lost something there, we're not talking about tripping or intelligence, if you're going for specific build differences there will of course be new issues.

The key is that someone who pumps Dex for AC purposes has to dump something else to get the build points. That Dex isn't free; it's costing you points in some other stat. Whether that's Int - so you can't take Combat Expertise and Improved Trip - or Str or Con or whatever doesn't matter; it's still costing you something. And the classes that tend to pump Dex anyway have other reasons not to wear heavy armor... ACP, ASF, the loss of other class features, the lack of proficiency...

The heavy armor isn't free, either... full plate is one of the few mundane items that has a cost that remains significant after about your first adventure. And mithril or adamantine inflate the base price, before any enchantments, into the range usually associated with decent magic items. Plus there's that proficiency.

So, yes, someone who's invested character-building resources in both a high Dex and heavy armor will have a better AC than someone who's invested in only one of those. This is not a bug.

Aedilred
2009-07-16, 02:11 PM
With 28 PB, you can get a Fighter with 16 Str, 16 Dex, 14 Con, 8 Int, 10 Wis, 8 Charisma.
And for the Cleric or Paladin who needs a good Wisdom in addition to a respectable Strength, Charisma and Constitution? They're boned unless they can make up for their crappy Dexterity with heavy armour. If Dex remains important no matter how much armour they're wearing, then they're really getting screwed over.

Some classes don't have access to the same number of dump stats as the fighter. Increasing the stats that they're going to need to rely on can only hurt them.

Talya
2009-07-16, 02:13 PM
So, yes, someone who's invested character-building resources in both a high Dex and heavy armor will have a better AC than someone who's invested in only one of those. This is not a bug.

Well, it's a bug because the system as intended does not have it. I don't agree with the change in the slightest. Speaking of melee balance alone, it is not required. The current system is fine.


And for the Cleric or Paladin who needs a good Wisdom in addition to a respectable Strength, Charisma and Constitution? They're boned unless they can make up for their crappy Dexterity with heavy armour. If Dex remains important no matter how much armour they're wearing, then they're really getting screwed over.

Some classes don't have access to the same number of dump stats as the fighter. Increasing the stats that they're going to need to rely on can only hurt them.

More good points.

John Campbell
2009-07-16, 02:32 PM
And for the Cleric or Paladin who needs a good Wisdom in addition to a respectable Strength, Charisma and Constitution? They're boned unless they can make up for their crappy Dexterity with heavy armour. If Dex remains important no matter how much armour they're wearing, then they're really getting screwed over.

Some classes don't have access to the same number of dump stats as the fighter. Increasing the stats that they're going to need to rely on can only hurt them.

Oh noes, the weak and underpowered Cleric stands to benefit less from losing the Dex cap than the totally über Fighter!

Um. Yeah. Cry me a river.


Well, it's a bug because the system as intended does not have it. I don't agree with the change in the slightest. Speaking of melee balance alone, it is not required. The current system is fine.

Actually, the system as intended worked just fine for decades without nonsensical Dex caps on armor.

AstralFire
2009-07-16, 02:33 PM
And for the Cleric or Paladin who needs a good Wisdom in addition to a respectable Strength, Charisma and Constitution? They're boned unless they can make up for their crappy Dexterity with heavy armour. If Dex remains important no matter how much armour they're wearing, then they're really getting screwed over.

How is opening up another option for Fighters hurting Clerics and Paladins? Neither of you have managed to answer this. Improving options for one class does not hurt another class in any environment with the exception of one on one player versus player, which is not an intended major purpose for the system. It's not even a particularly optimal option, considering they all have better things to invest in.

Eldariel
2009-07-16, 02:34 PM
Oh noes, the weak and underpowered Cleric stands to benefit less from losing the Dex cap than the totally über Fighter!

Um. Yeah. Cry me a river.

More the Paladin. Cleric still has the "Monk's Belt"-option, and frankly, enough magic to boost his Dex skyhigh. Paladin though is gonna go right through the sewer along with Fighter. And honestly, guys with good Dex already benefit a ****ton. I don't oppose making Dex slightly more useful, but making it necessary for characters who care about AC? I'm not prepared to sign that; low Initiative, ranged attacks, Reflex & bunch of skills are already punishment enough for a poor Dex...

GreatWyrmGold
2009-07-16, 02:40 PM
don't forget some of the heavy armor wearing classes have other more importent attributes to assign their best score to.
A: I like it when people capitalise letters. Minor thing.
B: Some? Most (sword-and-board typess) find Str and Con more useful. Divine spellcasters find their primary ability more important. Paladins find Cha more important. The only one I can't think of one for is Int.


besides, investing in dex boosting items is more expensive then armor and shield boosting items. a +2 to dex (+1 to AC) costs 4000 gp, while the same amount of money get you a +2 ac to armor. and lets not forget that you can get enhancments for armor AND shield.

deflection bonus spells are easy to come by, but require you to be prepared enough. but yeah, they work quite fine. and bonus points- they protect from both touch and flat footed. permanent deflection however (rings) are fairly expensive, costing twice of armor.

those are my thoughts anyway.
Kol
True on all accounts.

John Campbell
2009-07-16, 04:02 PM
More the Paladin. Cleric still has the "Monk's Belt"-option, and frankly, enough magic to boost his Dex skyhigh. Paladin though is gonna go right through the sewer along with Fighter.

Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, Paladins can die in a fire. But that's a different argument.

More relevantly, I don't think returning to the pre-3E status quo, where Paladins were rare because hardly anyone had the stats to pull it off, would be a bad thing.


And honestly, guys with good Dex already benefit a ****ton. I don't oppose making Dex slightly more useful, but making it necessary for characters who care about AC? I'm not prepared to sign that; low Initiative, ranged attacks, Reflex & bunch of skills are already punishment enough for a poor Dex...

Removing the Dex caps doesn't actually penalize anyone. No one's AC gets worse than it currently is because of it. People who want AC so badly that they're willing to invest in both a high Dex and good armor get better, and you never end up in a situation where putting on better armor makes your AC worse - which is the part of the current system that I object to.

I should make clear that I don't support the across-the-board Dex penalty, either. Yeah, realistically, armor does make you a little slower and less agile, but the non-combat part of that is covered by the ACP, and the combat part, slowing down your dodge, is counterbalanced by the fact that being armored actually makes dodging easier.

It's not uncommon for incoming blows that would, if I weren't armored, require me to move my center of mass a foot or more to get clear of them so they wouldn't strike me damagingly hard anywhere, to only need me, in armor, to tip my head maybe two inches, to present a sloped helmet surface from which the blow will glance clear without hitting me anywhere else (my helm is specifically designed to do this). In general, being armored doesn't just mean that a direct hit has to be harder to penetrate your armor and hurt you (which is why the Str bonus to hit, BTW), it also means that you can be a lot sloppier about what constitutes a "dodge", because a glance won't flay the top half-inch of flesh off your shoulder; it'll just maybe ding the finish on your pauldron up a little bit.

Eldariel
2009-07-16, 05:13 PM
Removing the Dex caps doesn't actually penalize anyone. No one's AC gets worse than it currently is because of it. People who want AC so badly that they're willing to invest in both a high Dex and good armor get better, and you never end up in a situation where putting on better armor makes your AC worse - which is the part of the current system that I object to.

It never makes your AC worse except with the inferior armors (fixing which I entirely sign); it merely keeps it even at different composition, or better when going to Full-Plate. I just don't want to end up in a situation where Rogue/Fighters in Full-Plate have way higher AC than straight Fighters who focus on Str instead. Better at dodging touch attacks, sure, but better at deflecting swordblows?

As it stands, they're both equal as long as the Rogue/Fighter wears armor which he meets the maximum Dexterity bonus for (in other words, in case both wear Full-Plate, they'll have equal AC; wearing lighter armor results in lower AC but also lower ACP for the Rogue/Fighter). With the suggested change, the Rogue/Fighter would just plain kick Str-Fighter's ass in this regard.


Right now, the composite AC for maxed out standard armor is 8 (9 for Padded & Full-Plate). With this everyone is best off wearing Full-Plate if they want meaningful AC-based defense. It's a good trade-off for Dex-types; ACP and speed for AC, but the non-Dex types are way worse across the board at dodging hits, making AC even less useful than it is presently since unless you have maxed out Dex, you basically have no way of reaching a meaningful level of AC.

In the end this leads to monsters that have a decent shot at hitting high Dex types and autohit rest or have a decent shot at hitting normal types and can't hit high Dex types. A high Dex Rogue/Fighter has ~10 points higher AC (getting 36 Dex with inherents, level-ups and item) than the average Fighter (with +6 item and nothing else); how do you go about balancing melee opponents for that?

Matthew
2009-07-16, 05:18 PM
I dunno, the rogue/fighter thing doesn't bother me particularly. Possibly because the AD&D fighter/thief is exactly like that. The thief might have better AC than the fighter, but he'll not have a better AB (even with weapon finesse) or HP. And when it comes down to it, that's what we're looking to model in any case, that characters with a high dexterity have a better AC in heavy armour than characters with a low dexterity.

hamishspence
2009-07-16, 05:19 PM
It's quite easy for a pure Dex rogue to run into the cap- even with the lightest armour around, gotten primarily for the ability to have plusses, your Dex can end up outruning the Dex cap.

In this case, the best I've found is Thistledown Padded armour from Races of the Wild (+1 AC, Dex cap +10) but with an Dex of 24 at level 9, pretty soon, gloves and stat boosting items will bring it to the cap and beyond.

Hadrian_Emrys
2009-07-16, 05:20 PM
:smallannoyed: All this bickering when the base concept of a fix I tossed out is both balanced and accurate-ish.

Diamondeye
2009-07-16, 05:24 PM
I really don't think rogues running around in heavy armor would be much of a problem with DEX bonus caps; they lose evasion in anything but light armor and there's skill penalties to contend with.

That said, my issue with DEX caps isn't that they exist but that they're too low on medium and heavy armor.

Matthew
2009-07-16, 05:28 PM
:smallannoyed: All this bickering when the base concept of a fix I tossed out is both balanced and accurate-ish.

At a guess, and based on what I recall of your post, I would say it was probably too radical for the purposes of this thread.

warrl
2009-07-16, 05:46 PM
Hm... how about, instead of heavy armor eliminating the Dex bonus, it merely restricts it:

------------------------
(First draft, subject to revision)

With heavy armor, add your level and your highest permanent attribute bonus (not including any spells or spell effects that are an ongoing emanation from something other than your person, or can be dropped by you or another character, or have duration other than permanent) and divide by 4, rounding down. Your dex bonus to AC cannot exceed this value.

Medium armor, do the same except divide by 3.
---------------

Most first-level characters will get no more than a 1-point dex bonus, since it would take an attribute 20 to do better with medium armor or 24 with heavy armor; some will get 2 with medium armor; quite a few will get none, because of course you must actually HAVE a dex bonus before it matters.

Also with this formulation the character who has dex as a secondary stat can increase his AC dex bonus (to a point) by pumping his primary stat no matter what it is. The cleric who increases wisdom realizes that he should take good care of his armor, clean and oil the joints thoroughly, ask a dwarf or smith to do just a touch of hammer-work on this one shoulder that is a bit stiff... same for intelligence... the character with increasing dexterity learns how to move within the armor so as to move it more effectively... the character that gets stronger is better able to just plain shove the mass around... (charisma and constitution are tougher to justify)

Twilight Jack
2009-07-16, 05:51 PM
Hm... how about, instead of heavy armor eliminating the Dex bonus, it merely restricts it:

------------------------
(First draft, subject to revision)

With heavy armor, add your level and your highest permanent attribute bonus (not including any spells or spell effects that are an ongoing emanation from something other than your person, or can be dropped by you or another character, or have duration other than permanent) and divide by 4, rounding down. Your dex bonus to AC cannot exceed this value.

Medium armor, do the same except divide by 3.
---------------

Most first-level characters will get no more than a 1-point dex bonus, since it would take an attribute 20 to do better with medium armor or 24 with heavy armor; some will get 2 with medium armor; quite a few will get none, because of course you must actually HAVE a dex bonus before it matters.

Also with this formulation the character who has dex as a secondary stat can increase his AC dex bonus (to a point) by pumping his primary stat no matter what it is. The cleric who increases wisdom realizes that he should take good care of his armor, clean and oil the joints thoroughly, ask a dwarf or smith to do just a touch of hammer-work on this one shoulder that is a bit stiff... same for intelligence... the character with increasing dexterity learns how to move within the armor so as to move it more effectively... the character that gets stronger is better able to just plain shove the mass around... (charisma and constitution are tougher to justify)

My concern there is that it gets more math heavy than just about anything else in 3.5.

Mike_G
2009-07-16, 06:05 PM
Then he should wear FULL plate.
And BONED is hardly the word I would choose to describe him. 7 AC is nothing to sneeze at, BOO FECKING HOO that he can't use his dex bonus for a GREAT AND MIGHTY total of +1!

Optimization snobs make me sick.


Holy ****!

I got called an "optimization snob!"

First time for everything, I guess.

Imma go put that on the bottom of my Dodge, Weapon Focus, Sword and Board Fighter with a better Dex than Con character sheet.


I have arrived.

AstralFire
2009-07-16, 06:42 PM
I wouldn't take it too seriously. *claps a hand on your shoulder* I'm seriously not sure where that came from either.

Tehnar
2009-07-16, 06:54 PM
How about to keep things simple we add a part (all?) of a STR modifier to the maximum dex bonus of a armor. To represent that as you are stronger it is easier to move in heavier armor.

It could be something like STR modifier DIV 2 for medium armor and STR mod DIV 3 for heavy armor. Just need to play around with the numbers a bit. So with 16 STR while in full plate you would have a maximum dexterity bonus of armor equal to +2. With 22 STR that would go up to +3.


So if you want a very good AC you need both high STR and DEX.

Mike_G
2009-07-16, 07:29 PM
I don't see how letting Dex count at full hurts anyone.

It helps the high Dex fighter. It doesn't change the low Dex fighter/Cleric/ Paladin etc.

Rogues still lose out in heavy armor just due to ACP. The Skill Monkey class should, I dunno, not impede their skills if they can avoid it. Sure, you could be a high AC Sneak Attack machine, but you aren't really a skill monkey at that point.

And as far as Dex not being a possible dump stat, I disagree. It has more use if you don't dump it, but it all is a trade off. The high Dex melee guy dumped something else, and has to live with that. The low Dex guy doesn't gain more AC, but Ac is the most easily overcome defense anyway.

A high Str and Con fighter who dumps Dex would have a lower AC than a high Dex an Con fighter, if we eliminated the Dex bonus cap. This is true. But the High Dex fighter needs to blow a feat on Weapon Finesse to keep up his chance to hit on par with the high Str Fighter, plus he needs to use a light weapon, which screws his Power Attack, and he will have a lower Damage bonus, even more so since the high Str guy will get base 1.5 Str bonus for THF.

So, buffing Dex gives you a better AC, but buffing Str gives you better damage. Buffing Con, obviously, gives more HP, which is nice for everybody.

I think it comes down to preferrence, offense or defense. And in D&, offense usually wins, so the Dex dump fighter hasn't really lost any ground.

The Agile, Finesse, TWF or light weapon Fighter is generally a pretty weak build. I don't see why the Clericzilla or Power Attack tank feel threatened by his ability to gain some AC.

GreatWyrmGold
2009-07-16, 08:47 PM
Yes. I can't quite do a flip in full plate (I've tried; I can't quite get far enough over to stick the landing), but I can't quite do one out of full plate, either. I can do cartwheels and somersaults, both front and back, in it, and get up from the ground without using my hands, because both arms were busy with my defense - and with a 12-pound kite shield strapped to one arm, at that. I've turned getting knocked over backwards by a charge into a backwards roll back onto my feet - and then ganked the guy who knocked me over with a greatsword to the face while he was still busy looking surprised.

:eek: Get a safer job/hobby!

Talya
2009-07-16, 10:38 PM
The existing 3.5 rules for armor work fine. Nothing advocated above is a "fix" because they aren't broken. They work as intended. With all the minor quibbles that could use some tweaking in 3.5, this isn't one of them. It's good as it is.

As to the original question: is heavy armor kinda pointless? No! 9 out of 10 fighters, as well as all paladins, clerics, crusaders, etc. are going to be wearing it as it is. How is something pointless when most people who already can wear it do so? Removing the dex penalty would just make light and medium armor mostly pointless.

Zeful
2009-07-16, 11:06 PM
Removing the dex penalty would just make light and medium armor mostly pointless.

I agree with this point, but really, heavy armor isn't the problem, mithral is.

I would suggest homebrewing a special material that increases the class by one step (light-to-medium) with no change to heavy armors, doubles the armor bonus to AC, increases ASF, and maybe something else(DR?). Then price it the same as mithral.

warrl
2009-07-16, 11:08 PM
Removing the dex penalty would just make light and medium armor mostly pointless.

I doubt that armor which DOESN'T slow down the fast, DOESN'T disable the skill monkeys, and DOESN'T mess up the spell casters, will ever really be pointless, as compared to armor which DOES all those things.

Talya
2009-07-17, 08:01 AM
I agree with this point, but really, heavy armor isn't the problem, mithral is.

I would suggest homebrewing a special material that increases the class by one step (light-to-medium) with no change to heavy armors, doubles the armor bonus to AC, increases ASF, and maybe something else(DR?). Then price it the same as mithral.

Meh. By the time one can afford Mithral heavy armor, one should have access to +4 gloves of dexterity. I do believe that this is why it exists...those 12 dex fighters will have found ways to raise their dex to 16 or so by the time they can afford mithral. By then, those rogues are pushing dex 24 and throwing away studded leather.

Aedilred
2009-07-17, 02:04 PM
How is opening up another option for Fighters hurting Clerics and Paladins? Neither of you have managed to answer this. Improving options for one class does not hurt another class in any environment with the exception of one on one player versus player, which is not an intended major purpose for the system. It's not even a particularly optimal option, considering they all have better things to invest in.
Because NPCs don't exist, and even if they did they'd never have PC classes, obviously.

Zeful
2009-07-17, 02:13 PM
Meh. By the time one can afford Mithral heavy armor, one should have access to +4 gloves of dexterity. I do believe that this is why it exists...those 12 dex fighters will have found ways to raise their dex to 16 or so by the time they can afford mithral. By then, those rogues are pushing dex 24 and throwing away studded leather.

Exactly, but not every fighter will necessarily have the resources for gloves of dex. Or might have something else occupying that slot. Mithral is an Asymmetrical reward, it only benefits half of the equation. With nothing to balance it, fighters not getting gloves of dex is being punished by a lack of options.

Talya
2009-07-17, 02:41 PM
Exactly, but not every fighter will necessarily have the resources for gloves of dex. Or might have something else occupying that slot. Mithral is an Asymmetrical reward, it only benefits half of the equation. With nothing to balance it, fighters not getting gloves of dex is being punished by a lack of options.

It's also used by dextrous types. When you can get enchanted Mithral Chain Shirts up to max dex +7 or +8, it's not like it only helps that one build. Furthermore, there are (non-SRD) special materials for leather and other armor types, too.

AstralFire
2009-07-17, 02:50 PM
Because NPCs don't exist, and even if they did they'd never have PC classes, obviously.

Actually, I use NPCs almost exclusively as opponents. Here's the thing - D&D is a -team- game. Ergo, an improvement to your teammates that does not prove overpowering helps you, too. I specifically deemphasized 'one versus one' for a reason.

Fiendish_Dire_Moose
2009-07-17, 03:11 PM
Historically, better armor tended to save a lot of lives, but in D&D it seems to make you easy bait for the Ray of Enfeeblement.
Historically, there was no ray of enfeeblement. Just guns.