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cfalcon
2011-05-06, 03:31 AM
Ok, first, what I am trying to accomplish:


First, I think that the baseline AC of armor is a bit too weak at the high ends. I also don't like chain shirt being the best armor. And, given historical data, I really think that the speed thing is overdone. Those arguments are reality based, but they also sync up with a flavor thing: I don't like that no one messes with medium armor, and unless I tie the PCs to a sharp point buy (and I did not, nor have I in the past), they all have enough for Dexes of 12 to 14, with many of the melee guys grabbing a 16 or 18.

The advantages of chain shirt (and light armor in general) are so many: you don't move slow, your touch AC is about as good as your Dex says it should be, you can sleep in it and never have to look up the rules about "don" and "don hastily". Later, you don't really ever upgrade to another armor type: you just grab mithril breastplate.

Mechanically, I don't have many places to tweak. The AC max of the armors are all 18-19, or at least, the ones you might care to wear. The armor bonus goes up with the price, weight, encumbrance, and inability to walk much. The armor check penalty is not normally an issue, but it's pretty tied down too.


One of my friends suggested three things: first, that a high strength can ignore movement penalties. Second, have an init penalty on the heavier armors. Third, that the base move of medium armor from 30 be 25.

So, here's what I have thus far for the original armors.
1- Medium armors reduce your move from 30 to 25, or from 20 to 15.
2- Heavy armors reduce your move from 30 to 20, or from 20 to 15.
3- If you have a Strength 15 or greater, you can reduce the movement penalty by one step: heavy armor reduces your move from 35 to 20, or 20 to 15. Medium armor has no penalty.
4- If you have a Strength of 17 or greater, you suffer no movement penalty from armor.

{table]Armor |AC |Max Dex |ACP |Init Penalty
Padded |+1 |+8 |-0 |-0
Leather |+2 |+6 |-0 |-0
Studded Leather |+3 |+5 |-1 |-0
Chain Shirt |+4 |+4 |-2 |-1
Hide |+4 |+4 |-3 |-1
Scale Mail |+5 |+3 |-4 |-1
Chain Mail |+6 |+2 |-5 |-1
Breastplate |+6 |+3 |-4 |-2
Splint |+7 |+1 |-7 |-2
Banded |+7 |+2 |-6 |-2
Half Plate |+8 |+1 |-7 |-2
Great Armor |+8 |+3 |-5 |-3
Full Plate |+10 |+2 |-6 |-3[/table]


Great Armor is from Oriental Adventure's: it's basically samurai armor, and was originally +7 / +2.


Ok, so here's my gripe: I don't know if that init penalty fits. It seems really hurtful.


Does anyone have any other suggestions? I set out to buff armor, not nerf it.

Spiryt
2011-05-06, 03:40 AM
If you seek to buff armor, initiative penalty is kind off bad way to do it, it could hurt a lot on any level.

Still, there's a lot of straight out "optimal" choices here, which leave not much choice as far as armor goes, aside of "grab plate or breastplate and flavor it if you want".

And:


2- Heavy armors reduce your move from 30 to 20, or from 20 to 15.
3- If you have a Strength 15 or greater, you can reduce the movement penalty by one step: heavy armor reduces your move from 30 to 20, or 20 to 15. Medium armor has no penalty.

It seems that there's actually no reduction for Strength of 15 in case of HA.

Also, Constitution would probably fit better here, and scores perhaps should be a bit more "supernatural" for ignoring it like that.

cfalcon
2011-05-06, 03:52 AM
Sorry, typo. I corrected that. Str 15 would make you move 25 in heavy and 30 in medium. Str 17 would remove the speed penalty.

There's a lot more AC to go around this time, at least, so there's room to tweak.

The problem is that the init penalty is, indeed, steep.

By the budget of how supposedly good AC is versus Init, it's fine. But I don't think that budget is that helpful mostly.

cfalcon
2011-05-06, 04:16 AM
Still, there's a lot of straight out "optimal" choices here, which leave not much choice as far as armor goes, aside of "grab plate or breastplate and flavor it if you want".

Well, not quite. Note that scale and chainmail offer 1 less init penalty compared to breastplate, which is an offset for their 1 less armor. By WotC budget, one point of AC is better than a point of init. Of course, that's not always true.

Meanwhile, Chain Shirt offers its old advantages besides the movement (which the others can have with high strength), but if you want to trade away a point of AC for the init penalty removal, studded leather could do that.

Full Plate remains top tier for the big guys, but I'm ok with that for flavor and reality reasons- however, you can still make a point to go and grab one of the other armor types, again, the init penalty offering a motivation.


I guess what I'm saying is, is there something else that can give me that same leverage the init penalty does, without being an init penalty?

Armor Check Penalty doesn't really swing it for me that great.


I could go for things like:

Saves versus certain kinds of spells.
DR versus certain kinds of weapons.
+AC versus certain kinds of weapons.

But I don't know how to apply those. Plus, it's something confusing to remember, whereas the init thing is pretty easy, cause it would go on a line you already look at.

Dryad
2011-05-06, 04:42 AM
I don't really know about this. For one, full plate armours are made for people who were very, very rich, and spent most of their time doing noble things: Feasting and oppressing the poor.
They're not made for actual experienced warriors.

It's true that full plate armours should be better than any other armour at first level, but slowly become less powerful when a character progresses. Eventually, the best bang for your buck should be a supple armour.
But the rules change on a huge battle-field. Unable to dodge, damage soaking should be the first thing you look for in an armour. And D20 isn't really the best system for that, because AC represents your chance not to be hit, while DR gives you the value of your ability to soak damage. In terms of this, a Full Plate should actually get you a penalty to armour class, but grant a high DR in return. Which then leads us to assume that the term Armour Class is simply wrong, since all any armour really does is increase the likelihood of being hit, but making the hits themselves less punishing.

Basically, Armour Class is a sub-optimal solution to the hit and miss tables, and I don't really see your house-rules counteracting that fact, apart from making armour even less desirable by adding an initiative modified.
Instead, you could indeed grant armours a damage reduction. Padded: 1/-, leather 2/-, chain 3/-... And so on. However, this pretty much means that at some point, certain creatures won't be able to overcome the DR at all, which greatly diminishes the fun from a combat. What good is it if you can (easily) be hit while wearing a full plate if the enemy can't damage you? The rest of the system simply doesn't comply.

So I say: Just don't fix it.

cfalcon
2011-05-06, 05:17 AM
I don't really know about this. For one, full plate armours are made for people who were very, very rich, and spent most of their time doing noble things: Feasting and oppressing the poor.
They're not made for actual experienced warriors.


I'm really, very much, not certain that this is true at all.


In fact, I'm going with the assumption that this is not the case. No one in the real world who was unarmored and equivalently armed with a melee weapon could prevail against someone in full plate.


Eventually, the best bang for your buck should be a supple armour.

Is there real world evidence of this, or is this just based on game stuff, and the assumption that you get really good at dodging and batting aside blows? Because if it's the latter, I would interpret those things as being, in part, correct use of your armor, as blows that would skin you instead just do nothing, and the field of actual killing blows shrinks entirely.


The AC bonus was originally meant to represent that better armor could actually shut down entire classes of attacks- for instance, a strong cut that would cause a fatal wound in someone without armor could be ineffective against someone in plate, and a wild swing that could still be dangerous could be deflected safely, but a fast thrust to, say, an eye, would be equally effective to all. That's what AC was originally for.


DR is another way of saying the same thing, sort of, but it works better within the game world, and I totally agree with you here: I could give better armors strong DR. The problem is that this totally destroys simulation of low level combat, and is coincidentally really unbalancing. How much DR can you give a piece of armor that could, in theory, be in the hand of a level 1-3 guy? DR 3/- wrecks that game entirely (and sort of wrecks a solid shot with a dagger being effective too). DR 1/- seems to be damned near the highest, with 2/- in there as well.

But does that help from the mechanics perspective, of keeping these things desirable?

Dryad
2011-05-06, 05:36 AM
I'm really, very much, not certain that this is true at all.
Really? Because full plates were made for very wealthy people who usually couldn't really fight all that well. They were extremely well protected because of their armour.

No one in the real world who was unarmored and equivalently armed with a melee weapon could prevail against someone in full plate.
I completely agree. That was my point.

Is there real world evidence of this, or is this just based on game stuff, and the assumption that you get really good at dodging and batting aside blows? Because if it's the latter, I would interpret those things as being, in part, correct use of your armor, as blows that would skin you instead just do nothing, and the field of actual killing blows shrinks entirely.
The answer is just one sentence below:

But the rules change on a huge battle-field. Unable to dodge, damage soaking should be the first thing you look for in an armour.


But does that help from the mechanics perspective, of keeping these things desirable?
No; it doesn't. Mechanically, it works, but it would more or less destroy the actual game. The rest of the system is simply not built to be able to keep that balanced. Of course; these armours were historically meant nót the be balanced, and that is the great divide: Plate armours aren't balanced in real life, and if you want them to be balanced in a game environment, then you'll have to twiddle around with their (lack of) usefulness.
Pathfinder (and DDO) came up with some solutions for this, based in the Fighter class. They gave class progression options to armours, which reduced their armour check penalty and maximum dexterity bonus to AC, making the best armours scale positively with level, instead of becoming worse and worse. Of course; as you progress in DnD, all armours become less good. But this level-scaling method does have some merit.
Instead of making it a class feature, you could make it a feat:

Heavy Armour Savvy:
Prerequisite: Proficiency: Heavy Armour.
Benefit: This feat reduces the armour check penalties from heavy armour by 1 for each three character levels. The armour check penalty can never be reduced to less than zero. Heavy Armour Savvy also increases the maximum dexterity bonus to armour class by 1 per three character levels.
Normal: Without this feat, a sleeping wizard will have a higher AC than you.

Spiryt
2011-05-06, 06:12 AM
Really? Because full plates were made for very wealthy people who usually couldn't really fight all that well. They were extremely well protected because of their armour.


Urgh....

They were usually made for people who were best at fighting out there.

Knights, who were actually trained in many, many form of combat since very young age.

Whole evolution of armor happened because of constant demand from people who were fighting for living or because the very sense of their existence was fighting for their sovereign.

There were many, many examples were people who weren't really good at fighting obtaining rather full armor, but everything varies.



Well, not quite. Note that scale and chainmail offer 1 less init penalty compared to breastplate, which is an offset for their 1 less armor. By WotC budget, one point of AC is better than a point of init. Of course, that's not always true.

That's because I've said that I don't like - to Init idea in the first place. :smallwink:



I could go for things like:

Saves versus certain kinds of spells.
DR versus certain kinds of weapons.
+AC versus certain kinds of weapons.

I would just give some 1 or 2 points of DR. 1 point of DR is not really worth 1 point of AC AFAIUnderstand, so it would be still slightly worse, but fun and varied for purposes of low level game.

At high level, fortunately or not, what matters anyway are enhancements, and some cosmically magic materials, because that's the way of D&D.

Dryad
2011-05-06, 07:03 AM
Knights, who were actually trained in many, many form of combat since very young age.

Whole evolution of armor happened because of constant demand from people who were fighting for living or because the very sense of their existence was fighting for their sovereign.
Since we're arguing history, I have to disagree. Brigands, hirelings and other people who fought for a living (and I mean fighting, not tournaments for prizes) rarely wore full plates. The people who fought for a living could not afford such armour, and were wealthy people indeed if they could afford a breast-plate.

Knights weren't warriors, with the exception of certain orders like the Knights Templar. Knights were people wealthy enough to afford the best of the best, and who waged a lot of wars in the name of their sovereign. But in an actual battle, there were specific rules that excused knights from partaking in the many more dangerous aspects of warfare. Knights did not, for instance, form a cavalry unity as modern fancy suggests they did.

The misconception I find here is a romanticising of medieval combat. Brigands wore piece-mail armours and usually wielded axes. Cavalry wore mostly leather, and in some cases also piece-mail, and wielded spears and axes or cheap maces. Large swords were extremely rare, and wielded nearly exclusively by high nobility.

In sports, however, things were somewhat different. But again; only the nobles partook of jousting sports, fisticuffs (which is a more civilized form of fistfighting) and swordfighting. But these were people who could afford the equipment, and they weren't trained in fighting at all. They were trained in martial sports, which is completely different.

But all of this is, of course, besides the point of the topic. Yes; plate armour is really, really, really good stuff. And yes; I agree that it should retain its value through character progression instead of the steady decline it sees. All armour sees decline in DnD, though; it's just that heavy armour has a steeper line of decline than light armour.

Spiryt
2011-05-06, 07:46 AM
I hate to turn it into another "history topic", but....


Since we're arguing history, I have to disagree. Brigands, hirelings and other people who fought for a living (and I mean fighting, not tournaments for prizes) rarely wore full plates. The people who fought for a living could not afford such armour, and were wealthy people indeed if they could afford a breast-plate.

Generally, no matter what period, not true at all. Some very, very much professional soldiers were wearing breastplates and similar equipment since early 15th century.




Knights weren't warriors, with the exception of certain orders like the Knights Templar. Knights were people wealthy enough to afford the best of the best, and who waged a lot of wars in the name of their sovereign. But in an actual battle, there were specific rules that excused knights from partaking in the many more dangerous aspects of warfare. Knights did not, for instance, form a cavalry unity as modern fancy suggests they did.

:smallconfused:

Knights were warriors, some from literally late teenage years, some not.
Differences in whole class trough period and place doesn't change that fact.


Cavalry wore mostly leather, and in some cases also piece-mail, and wielded spears and axes or cheap maces.

Pretty much any, even really good quality breastplate would be much cheaper than horse suitable for fighting in melee, so professional soldiers could be very well armored pretty well.

More wealthy knights were forming cavalry unit, this was the whole point of their existence.

These units could very well be made of only knights, because it was not unusual at all when poorer knight was shooter or or another memeber of greater lords lance, unit, or however you call it.

Absolutely never all, or even most knights in most of the Europe were weatlhy enough to afford the best.

Similarly, it's not that any of them followed any kind of rules exludging them from battlefield. :smallconfused::smallconfused:



The misconception I find here is a romanticising of medieval combat. Brigands wore piece-mail armours and usually wielded axes. Cavalry wore mostly leather, and in some cases also piece-mail, and wielded spears and axes or cheap maces. Large swords were extremely rare, and wielded nearly exclusively by high nobility.

There are literally no account of leather being used as armor in medieval Europe, outside of being mostly the construction part of coat of plates, gambeson or similar stuff.



In sports, however, things were somewhat different. But again; only the nobles partook of jousting sports, fisticuffs (which is a more civilized form of fistfighting) and swordfighting. But these were people who could afford the equipment, and they weren't trained in fighting at all. They were trained in martial sports, which is completely different.

Training in martial sports isn't so different from fighting at all, and it was part of preparation of knigthly class to partake in war as obligation to their landlords since early feudal times. :smallconfused:

They were trained in fighting indeed, some weren't, some were send to be monks or scholars or whatever, but big part of boys being pages, squires etc. Were spending literally whole their youth learning fighting, riding, arms, armor, caring for horse, equipment and supplies, and general reality of battlefield.

Knights like Zawisza Czarny were famous for great performances in tournaments and battlefield alike.


All in all the whole point of knights state was to be people of war, and the obvious fact that many of them weren't warriors or whatever doesn't change this fact.

Towards the end of the medieval period more and more members of small land owners, townsfolk etc. were more and more prevalent in professional fighting forces, which doesn't change the fact that vast majority of knightly state were too.

Up to the 15th century, lower class rarely was the part of more valuable fighting force, with exceptions like Scottish Schiltrons, Courtrai, Crecy etc. etc. slowly becoming more prevalent.

Still we can pretty offen see archers in full plates, save gauntlets and closed helmets that would impare shooting the bow.

Crossbowmen generally didn't have the same problem, due to obvious differences in shooting, so we can often see them with gauntlets, salades etc.

http://home2.btconnect.com/Crusader-Product/Various-pics-1/english-capture-caen.jpg

http://www.zgapa.pl/zgapedia/data_pictures/_uploads_wiki/b/Battle_of_crecy_froissart.jpg

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/4242/84350170.jpg




In short, in say 1420 Silesia, for example, one could relatively easily sport some mercenary infantry in full armor, perhaps of more meager sort, maybe still with mail or covered breastplate, and more "scarce" leg armor.

And a knight with very incomplete and old fashioned equipment as a mounted crossbowman in service of some much more powerful magnate.

Dryad
2011-05-06, 08:08 AM
You're forgetting that the largest part of an army was actually made up of recruited peasants, followed by the second-largest part, which was mercenaries.
Peasants were equipped with tough leather jerkins and usually whatever weapons they could lay their hands on. Usually, these were axes, and, in case of pikemen, pikes.
Mercenaries were a lot better off, but still not well equipped.

Martial arts are not fighting. I'm sorry; martial arts don't help much in a real fight.

Yes; knights were people of war. And yes; they did receive training. But they weren't the kind of warriors that mercenaries were.

Equipment for war was extremely expensive, and equipping a large army was simply too expensive. That's why they didn't. Peasants were mostly used as shock troops, and fell by the bundles. Unprepared, untrained, unequipped. Mercenaries fared much better, but the general rule of thumb for them is to remain behind the peasants.
Soldiers were often about as well equipped as mercenaries, but did not make up the larger part of an army.

War was bloodier and worse, back then. That's what I meant with 'romanticising.' People often look at those paintings, and pretend that, in those days, people cáred. But they didn't. The largest part of an army was sent in to die. Honour was only for those that could afford it.

Anyway; I'm not going to alter my stance on actual armour being rare, or that of Knights being actual warriors (I have already allowed for the exception of the Knights Templar, which only makes sense. They were absolutely renown for their fighting prowess, and their strict moral code made it impossible for them to exploit others).

Edit for clarity: It may very well be that my history lessons concerning that period were simply vastly different from yours. So maybe the truth lies somewhere in between. However, since the Dark Ages were a really, réálly bad time for people all across the board (which I doubt you will dispute) I will remain biased towards my classes.

Spiryt
2011-05-06, 08:28 AM
And you're telling me that I'm romanticizing? :smalltongue:



You're forgetting that the largest part of an army was actually made up of recruited peasants, followed by the second-largest part, which was mercenaries.

Except when there were no mercenaries in army.



Peasants were equipped with tough leather jerkins and usually whatever weapons they could lay their hands on. Usually, these were axes, and, in case of pikemen, pikes.


Leather jerkin wasn't even very popular clothing in any particular period of medieval.

Peasant would be equipped in gambeson, or similar quilted, padded garment, sometimes jack out of many layers of linen, although those are certain only in 15th century from the lack of evidence.


Mercenaries were a lot better off, but still not well equipped.

Except when they were armored from face to toes, had crossbows and their own horses and people to cover them with pavises. It all depends on what mercenaries you're talking about.


Martial arts are not fighting. I'm sorry; martial arts don't help much in a real fight.

My favorite theory, completely destroyed by reality.

If you say so, I wonder what's the point of martial arts then, and what is the training for "mercenary" to be achieve prowess in fighting. Rugby?

And what was the point of all squire and similar institutions? People were trying to not be proficient at what they were supposed to do?

Guy training raiding stuff, often alive (hunting, clashes with 'safe' weapon) with lance, wouldn't be able to do it?

Guy training fighting with sword wouldn't be able to fight with sword? :smallconfused:




Yes; knights were people of war. And yes; they did receive training. But they weren't the kind of warriors that mercenaries were.

As good as those Genoese mercenaries at Crecy that didn't do anything and were ridden over?

And you do understand that knights were very often mercenaries indeed and dividing you try to do is very weird and not historical at all?


Equipment for war was extremely expensive, and equipping a large army was simply too expensive. That's why they didn't. Peasants were mostly used as shock troops, and fell by the bundles. Unprepared, untrained, unequipped. Mercenaries fared much better, but the general rule of thumb for them is to remain behind the peasants.
Soldiers were often about as well equipped as mercenaries, but did not make up the larger part of an army.

No one was "equipping" their armies back then, save for town garrison from time to time. And no one was using peasant as "shock troops" because they simply wouldn't do it. Shock troop that runs away won't really do the trick.


War was bloodier and worse, back then. That's what I meant with 'romanticising.' People often look at those paintings, and pretend that, in those days, people cáred. But they didn't. The largest part of an army was sent in to die. Honour was only for those that could afford it.

Anyway; I'm not going to alter my stance on actual armour being rare, or that of Knights being actual warriors (I have already allowed for the exception of the Knights Templar, which only makes sense. They were absolutely renown for their fighting prowess, and their strict moral code made it impossible for them to exploit others).

That's completely ridiculous, medieval battles in Europe were in general much less bloody than other in this period, and battles in other periods.

In bloody battles of Hussite wars, casualties of defeated site ranged from 300 1500 people. Massacre at Usti probably had brought at most 4000 people out of ~ 15000 crusading forces to death or capture.



The largest part of an army was sent in to die.

It wasn't, because even simple possibilities of commanding people to do such things were low.



since the Dark Ages were a really, réálly bad time for people all across the board (which I doubt you will dispute) I will remain biased towards my classes

I will dispute. "Bad" is completely subjective, and as much people were feeling 'bad' as pretty much ever.

Some were free peasants living at yet not urbanized and poluted plains, making living out of their cattle, plains and all.

Some were nobles ruling over vast lands with fun at tourneys, hunting, good old women and killing.

Some were poor serfs in plagued, dirty cities, with terrible diet and living conditions.

Same story as always, some things better than today, or in XIX century, or paleolithic hunting, some worse.

That would be topic for 419 other discussions.

Dryad
2011-05-06, 08:54 AM
And you're telling me that I'm romanticizing
Looking at the above.. Yes. :tongue:

As opposed to that, I might be demonizing.

Spiryt
2011-05-06, 09:00 AM
Looking at the above.. Yes. :tongue:

As opposed to that, I might be demonizing.

:smalltongue:

With all that, I'm not suggesting that you didn't have few points, but in short, fighting prowess and state of armor would depends on many, many factors, and knight/not knight would be somewhat secondary among them all.

And more importantly, we probably should bail out and stop ruining TS thread. :smalltongue::smallwink:

FatJose
2011-05-06, 09:22 AM
Bump down "Great" Armor to medium. Samurai armor is gaudy like Heavy armor but it being made mostly of bamboo, leather and maybe some metal plates makes it pretty light and easy to move in. It would be weaker in the AC department because Samurai armor was only effective in deflecting slashing strikes but it would have a much lighter Init. penalty.

cfalcon
2011-05-06, 12:12 PM
Bump down "Great" Armor to medium. Samurai armor is gaudy like Heavy armor but it being made mostly of bamboo, leather and maybe some metal plates makes it pretty light and easy to move in. It would be weaker in the AC department because Samurai armor was only effective in deflecting slashing strikes but it would have a much lighter Init. penalty.

Ok, that is good reasoning. However, mechanically, I need more to do that. For instance, the "best" armor in the medium category is Breastplate. That by default has +5/+3, and I currently have it at +6/+3/-2. Competing with it are things that look like +6/+2/-1 and +5/+3/-1. I would have a hard time shoving it into medium armor.

The justification we used behind losing the speed penalty is that while there are accounts of people doing basically acrobatics in their armor, they are presumably pretty strong people doing this. Currently I have a 15/17 Strength required for this, but should I involve numbers like 11,13, or 19 as well? Should each armor type have something different, or would that not buy me much?

I *do* use the Armor Training from Pathfinder on the fighter class. This starts kicking in at level 3, and removes 4 points of penalties by about 13ish or so. However, that's a fighter class feature as Pathfinder has it (and as I have it), and I would expect other classes to use armor too- and they shouldn't all have that as a class feature. The feat would work, of course, but while the fighter would have no problem buying that, a paladin does not have as many feats. And, at the end of the day, if you have Heavy Armor Proficiency, you should probably WANT to wear heavy armor, assuming you have a set available. Just ditching the move speed penalty with the Strength scores should accomplish that. That you'll be worse at jumping, climbing, swimming, etc. is a price you'll be paying, of course.

In the way I used it, the init penalty steps up at the end of each tier, affecting the one (or two) that is "best". An init penalty is considered "less expensive" than the AC bonus you get in exchange, so in theory, you'd want that. In practice, I'm not as sure. By 15th level, you want your init high, because if you go first not only do you get one extra attack in the cycle, you also have a shot of being in front of the caster's nose, or behind a massive rock slab out of line of sight. Not eating forcecage or a save-or-rofl effect is usually more helpful than 1 or 2 AC.


I hate to turn it into another "history topic", but....

It's not out of place. I've appreciated the debate, at least.


I would just give some 1 or 2 points of DR. 1 point of DR is not really worth 1 point of AC AFAIUnderstand, so it would be still slightly worse, but fun and varied for purposes of low level game.

I can, of course, do that. The problem is that 2 points of DR can swing stuff a lot at level 1-3. However, I could have DR 1 on some of the medium armors, and DR 1 or 2 on the heavy armors.

One moment and I'll edit this post to include that:

{table]Armor |AC |Max Dex |ACP |DR
Padded |+1 |+8 |-0 |0
Leather |+2 |+6 |-0 |0
Studded Leather |+3 |+5 |-1 |0
Chain Shirt |+4 |+4 |-2 |0
Hide |+4 |+4 |-3 |0
Scale Mail |+5 |+3 |-4 |1
Chain Mail |+6 |+2 |-5 |1
Breastplate |+6 |+3 |-4 |0
Possible Great Armor?? |+? |+? |-? |?
Splint |+7 |+1 |-7 |2
Banded |+7 |+2 |-6 |1
Half Plate |+8 |+1 |-7 |2
Great Armor |+8 |+3 |-5 |2
Full Plate |+10 |+2 |-6 |2[/table]


This doesn't give you any incentive to wear studded over chain shirt except the 1 ACP. There's also no subtle incentive to choose a lighter form of heavier armor, but that's probably ok, given that the price difference is probably a deterrent to the average non-adventurer, and adventurers would pick the best.

I'm also not entirely sure how realistic it is, so it probably needs some tweaking.

Spiryt
2011-05-06, 12:45 PM
Bump down "Great" Armor to medium. Samurai armor is gaudy like Heavy armor but it being made mostly of bamboo, leather and maybe some metal plates makes it pretty light and easy to move in. It would be weaker in the AC department because Samurai armor was only effective in deflecting slashing strikes but it would have a much lighter Init. penalty.

Historically samurai or in general Japanese armor wasn't made out of bamboo, or anything like that, at least for the greater part of Anno Domini era.

It was made out of iron or steel, and because of problems they had in acquiring any bigger, pure pieces of those, armor was usually lamellar made out of thousands of relatively small scales or plates.

See here (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=22602&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=22) or here (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=20368&highlight=) or here (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=22017&highlight=) for some authentic ones.


I'm also not entirely sure how realistic it is, so it probably needs some tweaking.

Making something "realistic" out of those 3 modifiers and other things we have to work with in 3.5 (or pretty much any other system though) is rather hard thing to do....

It's good enough if it works nice and give players some reasonable options.

MesiDoomstalker
2011-05-06, 01:05 PM
Heavy Armour Savvy:
Prerequisite: Proficiency: Heavy Armour.
Benefit: This feat reduces the armour check penalties from heavy armour by 1 for each three character levels. The armour check penalty can never be reduced to less than zero. Heavy Armour Savvy also increases the maximum dexterity bonus to armour class by 1 per three character levels.
Normal: Without this feat, a sleeping wizard will have a higher AC than you.

I would say increase the number of levels between increasing Max Dex. ACP has a limit, in that it would eventually cap out at 0 but Max Dex will go up indefinatly. Or have a Max Max Dex.

cfalcon
2011-05-06, 03:31 PM
One of my friend's other suggestions was to increase the Max Dex Bonus with the wearer's Strength. I'm just worried about the ramifications that would have on everyone's stat choices though.

Jjeinn-tae
2011-05-06, 04:10 PM
One of my friend's other suggestions was to increase the Max Dex Bonus with the wearer's Strength. I'm just worried about the ramifications that would have on everyone's stat choices though.

That might be reasonable, but with how easy it is to boost strength, you probably need large numbers. It's easy to get 30 strength and still have a decent dexterity.

My suggestion: Light Medium and Heavy have their own table.

{table=head]Bonus Max Dex|Light|Medium|Heavy
+1|15|20|25
+2|20|30|40
+3|25|40|55[/table]

hmm... looking deeper, not sure if I have a good suggestion :smallconfused: I'm not sure if you need to be able to lift a truck to be able to dodge 37.5% better in just padded armor than someone who can't...

Mayhem
2011-05-07, 03:43 AM
If fullplate gives you a max of +12AC, then I think padded armour should too.

I'm not so sure about the idea of strength giving you more max dexterity, since you run into the physical limitation of the armour's ability to flex, but it does help you get rid of heavy armour being suboptimal. I don't buy the initiative penalty at all, it doesn't have any basis( however shaky) on reality.


1- Medium armors reduce your move from 30 to 25, or from 20 to 15.
2- Heavy armors reduce your move from 30 to 20, or from 20 to 15.

I love that, much nicer than the current system.:smallsmile:

cfalcon
2011-05-12, 10:59 AM
To revisit this thread, this is what I went with for my game:


Armor encumbers a character. By default, any character wearing armor has their normal base movement reduced by 10 feet if their movement is 30 or greater, or by 5 feet if their normal base movement is 20 or less. Characters in armor run at x3 instead of the normal x4.
These penalties can be negated if the wearer of the armor is physically strong enough. The table below lists the strength required to improve movement speed by one step, the strength required to improve movement by two steps, and the strength required to run at x4 instead of x3.
The values listed are for small characters, reduce all of these values by 2. For large characters, increase them by 4. For each step beyond large, increase them by an additional 4. Magical size changes (such as an enlarge spell) do not normally change these values at all. A character with a base movement of 30 feet or greater who has strength required to improve movement by one step has a movement of 25. A character with a base movement of 20 feet or less who has strength required to improve movement by one step is not modified. Any character with strength required to improve movement by two steps ignores the penalty to movement completely.

The chart below lists:
Name: The common or abbreviated name of the armor.
Common In: These are the areas in Caligo that the armor is common in. Armors can be found outside of their locales in some cases.
Cost: Normal cost in GP.
AC: This is the armor bonus to AC that the armor gives when worn normally.
MDB: The Max Dex Bonus is the maximum amount of dexterity bonus that can be applied to AC. Note that exotic materials (such as mithral) can improve this.
ACP: The Armor Check Penalty. This applies to Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand, and Tumble checks. Double the normal value is applied to Swim checks.
DR: Wearing the armor may grant a damage reduction, as listed. This DR stacks with any others.
ASFC: The Arcane Spell Failure Chance is the flat percentile rolled when casting spells in armor.
STR1: The amount of Strength necessary to reduce the movement penalty by one step, from 20 to 25 for a character with base movement of 30. It does not modify the movement of a character with a base move of 20 (it remains at 15).
STR2: The amount of Strength necessary to ignore the movement penalty. Characters move at their normal base movement if they possess this amount of strength.
STR-run: The amount of Strength necessary to run at x4 in the armor.
Weight: Weight in pounds.
Spcl: A code that can be referenced below to explain a further detail about the armor

Many types of plate do not exist except as masterwork. While all armor (except hide) is available as masterwork, some are very rare, or have no known crafters: padded, cord, and splint are not normally available as masterwork. The armor types that are not available except as masterwork are marked (n/a). The heavy armor table is printed twice, once for normal, and once for masterwork. The normal values are listed for ease of applying templates. Masterwork armor costs 150 extra gold pieces, and reduces the armor check penalty by 1. It has no affect on AC or weight, or the Strength necessary to reduce movement penalties.

The "Common In" field refers to the continents in-game: Arcata is similar to Europe, Pallia is a vast two-empire version of Asia, Voriph is a small series of magically advanced islands with airships and vailix, Queris is a wild land with spots of civilization, and Umbra is a land where the sun never rises, and are frequently one of the foes in the game world.

{table]Name| Common In| Cost| AC| MDB| ACP| DR| ASFC| STR1| STR2| STR-run| Weight| Spc
- LIGHT-
Padded| A P V| 5| 1| 8| 0| 0| 5%| 3| 5| 5| 10
Quilted| A V| 75| 1| 7| 0| 3*| 10%| 5| 7| 5| 15| PRC
Silk| P| 450| 1| 7| 0| 3*| 5%| 3| 5| 5| 8| PRC
Leather| A P V Q U| 10| 2| 6| 0| 0| 10%| 5| 7| 5| 15
Studded Leather| A V U| 25| 3| 5| -1| 0| 15%| 7| 9| 7| 20
Cord| P Q| 15| 2| 5| -1| 0| 5%| 5| 7| 5| 15
Bone| P U| 20| 3| 4| -3| 0| 10%| 5| 7| 5| 20
Ashigaru| P| 25| 3| 5| -1| 0| 15%| 5| 7| 5| 20
Leather Scale| P Q| 25| 3| 5| -1| 0| 15%| 7| 9| 5| 20
Wooden Armor| A P Q| 20| 3| 3| -1| 0| 15%| 5| 9| 7| 25| FLT
Chain Shirt | A P V Q U| 100| 4| 4| -2| 0| 20%| 9| 13| 7| 25
- MEDIUM-
Hide| A P Q U| 5| 4| 4| -3| 0| 20%| 13| 17| 13| 25
Layered Leather| A P Q U| 25| 4| 4| -3| 0| 20%| 13| 17| 13| 25
Armored Coat| A| 50| 4| 3| -2| 0| 20%| 9| 15| 9| 20| DON
Scale Mail| A P V Q U| 50| 5| 3| -4| 0| 25%| 11| 15| 9| 30
Partial Armor| P| 110| 5| 3| -3| 0| 25%| 11| 15| 9| 30
Brigandine| A P V Q| 100| 5| 3| -4| 0| 30%| 9| 13| 9| 40| SIL
Lamellar| P| 150| 6| 3| -4| 0| 30%| 15| 17| 13| 35
Chainmail| A V Q| 175| 6| 3| -5| 1*| 30%| 15| 17| 13| 40| SLS
Breastplate| A V Q U| 200| 6| 3| -4| 0| 25%| 15| 17| 13| 30
Agile Brst.Plt| A| 400| 6| 3| -4| 0| 25%| 15| 17| 13| 25| AGI
- HEAVY-
Splint Mail| A V U| 200| 7| 1| -7| 1| 40%| 17| 21| 23| 45
Banded Mail| A V U| 350| 7| 2| -6| 1| 35%| 17| 21| 23| 35
Field Plate (n/a)| A V U| 1350| 7| 2| -5| 1| 35%| 15| 19| 25| 50
Half Plate (n/a)| A V U| 600| 8| 1| -7| 1| 40%| 15| 21| 25| 50
Agl.Hlf Plt.(n/a)| A V U| 850| 8| 1| -7| 1| 40%| 15| 21| 25| 45
Great Armor (n/a)| P| 1050| 8| 3| -5| 1| 40%| 17| 23| 25| 45
Full Plate (n/a)| A V U| 1850| 10| 2| -6| 1| 35%| 19| 25| 27| 50
-M.work Heavy-
Splint Mail (mw)| A V U| 350| 7| 1| -6| 1| 40%| 17| 21| 23| 45
Banded Mail (mw)| A V U| 500| 7| 2| -5| 1| 35%| 17| 21| 23| 35
Field Plate (mw)| A V U| 1500| 7| 2| -4| 1| 35%| 15| 19| 25| 50
Half Plate (mw)| A V U| 750| 8| 1| -6| 1| 40%| 15| 21| 25| 50
Agl.Hlf Plt. (mw)| A V U| 1000| 8| 1| -6| 1| 40%| 15| 21| 25| 45
Great Armor (mw)| P| 1200| 8| 3| -4| 1| 40%| 17| 23| 25| 45
Full Plate (mw)| A V U| 2000| 10| 2| -5| 1| 35%| 19| 25| 27| 50
[/table]


Quilted Armor has DR 3/- versus small piercing weapons (arrows, bolts, darts, shuriken, thrown daggers, but not sling bullets or firearm bullets)

Chainmail has DR 1/- versus slashing weapons that lack bludgeoning and piercing.

(mw) armors only exist as masterwork. It is included in the stats.
(n/a) armors are not available as non-masterwork. The stats are included for ease of calculating templates, but armor of this quality is always masterwork.

PRC is the damage reduction versus piercing ranged weapons that quilted and silk armor get.
SLS is the damage reduction versus slashing weapons that chainmail gets.
FLT represents the wooden armor's natural buoyancy : the armor check penalty does not apply to swim checks in any material wood would float in (such as water) for wood armorl.
DON is the ability to don an armored coat as a move action.
SIL is easier to silence: the armor check penalty for hide and move silent checks is reduced by 3. Brigandine has a check of -1 instead of -4 for hide and move silent.
AGI is the specially engineered agile breastplate or half plate: the armor check penalty for climb and jump checks is reduced by 3. Agile Breastplate has a check of -1 instead of -4 for climb and jump, and Half Plate has a check of -4 instead of -7. Masterwork or special materials (such as mithril) can reduce this further, to a minimum of 0.


My sources for this also included the 3ed Oriental Adventures, Pathfinder, the 2nd and 3rd edition Arms and Equipment Guides. The ones introduced in closed content (Ashigaru, Cord, Leather Scale,Great Armor) are modified a bit or at least don't include their entire original line. The Agile lines, as well as the cool Armored Coat and the mechanic for Quilted (that I also used for silk) is Pathfinder open content- but I think everything from them is open. It's certainly on their SRD thingy.


For those that didn't click open the spoiler, the assumption is that ALL armor encumbers you to move at 20 (if your base in 30) or 15 (if your base in 20), and to run at x3. But, you can avoid this! The three columns listed for "Strength" are:
STR1- If you have this Strength and your base move is 30, in the armor, you will move 25.
STR2- If you have this Strength, your movement is not hindered by this armor.
STR-RUN- If you have this Strength, you can run at x4.

The reasoning behind only having many of the more expensive armors ONLY available in masterwork is based partly on the message I'm trying to send with my game world, and partly on the fact that with the ability to pop Tura Gems (gems that carry enchantments) into armor at a later time, non masterwork armor would be even less desirable among those who traded in such things- masterwork armor has two Tura gem slots, which works into my magic item system, and otherwise modifies the stats as per normal (+150 GP, ACP reduced by 1). With 150 GP being a trivial part of the most expensive armors, I assume that almost all armor of that sort will be masterwork. I've included the rest of the chart, of course, ostensibly because my players might want to apply templates, but also because anyone here might actually want to use the baseline versions as well, as you probably won't be playing with the exact set of rules I am.

And for where I keep this campaign specific stuff:
My post on my actual houserules, still in progress:http://www.thegreenhat.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=108

ericgrau
2011-05-12, 12:14 PM
You're looking at +3 AC which is a bit much in a well made build. Simply spreading money into armor, maybe shield, ring of protection, amulet of natural armor, and various misc. things (dusty rose prism ioun stone, mithril, etc.) gives you 20 to 25 AC over 20 levels. On average you have a 25-45% chance of being which drops to 10-30% under your system; a lot of monsters will only hit PCs on a 19 or 20. If you want to beef up armor a bit I'd go for a +2 tops and consider boosting the lighter armor by at least +1 (if not +2) as well as the poor rogues are already fragile enough as it is. If your group tends to lag behind on AC then advise them of the second sentence of this paragraph to help them fix that.

Increasing movement speed is also a small benefit that won't break anything but keep in mind that every melee with half a brain will accomplish this quickly as the strength requirements aren't hard to meet. You're effectively removing the speed penalties altogether for most PCs.

cfalcon
2011-05-12, 12:34 PM
You're looking at +3 AC which is a bit much in a well made build.

I'm not above baking in a +1 to hit to most book stuff (enemy NPCs with class levels of course, wouldn't need the help). That would net a nerf for the light armor (which I'm fine with), while still helping out medium and heavy. For now I'll go with normal stuff. I've ran with heavy armors at +2 AC and mediums at +1 in the past and felt things were ok, but I also haven't had a PC pumping ACs in awhile.



Simply spreading money into armor, maybe shield, ring of protection, amulet of natural armor, and various misc. things (dusty rose prism ioun stone, mithril, etc.) gives you 20 to 25 AC over 20 levels. On average you have a 25-45% chance of being which drops to 10-30% under your system; a lot of monsters will only hit PCs on a 19 or 20.

Well no, they would have low odds of hitting the fully armored PCs, assuming no circumstance bonuses / flanking.

Overall, I just don't think the +3 is going to break me. But of course, it could, and your concerns are valid.


If you want to beef up armor a bit I'd go for a +2 tops and consider boosting the lighter armor by at least +1 (if not +2) as well as the poor rogues are already fragile enough as it is.

I have zero interest in improving the already overbudget light armor. Class specific issues I'll handle be munging the classes and incorporating some Pathfinder in sprinkles.

Quite honestly, chain shirt has been overbudget, but I didn't want to get rid of it- it's been a crowd favorite for so long because of its favorableness and don-and-forget nature that nerfing or removing it would make people feel alienated.


If your group tends to lag behind on AC then advise them of the second sentence of this paragraph to help them fix that.

Not every PC will chase down all of those things, and some might not be available at any given time- though you are correct, over the course of a campaign, a shield wielding fighter with a high dexterity, full plate, a decent number of enchantments (or tura gems, which cost a bit more for the same benefit but will often be lying around spare by 12th level), maybe a feat, and some natural armor bonuses, will be justifiably really hard to hit. I'm probably ok with that. Maybe they'll just go fight something that hits even harder!

There's also the issue where AC sort of diminishes at high levels regardless, as more attacks ignore AC entirely.


Increasing movement speed is also a small benefit that won't break anything but keep in mind that every melee with half a brain will accomplish this quickly as the strength requirements aren't hard to meet. You're effectively removing the speed penalties altogether for most PCs.

Yes. That's mostly intended. However, it does give any individual a choice among armors, and the ones for the heavy armors are not trivial to meet (while I do give a slightly enhanced initial stat budget and a couple more stat ups than are typical, enhancement bonus items are almost nonexistent, and their creation cost is definitely higher: obtainable, but no longer as cost effective and seemingly mandatory). So while reaching a 23 Strength should not be difficult by mid game for most PCs, a 25 should require a bigger investment for most of the game. However, almost everyone should be able to keep a movement of 25 if they started with 30, and in anything but the biggest, most PCs will still be moving at 30.

Thank you for your input!

ericgrau
2011-05-12, 12:44 PM
stuff
Ok, ya, that works (yes I read it all :smallbiggrin:).

What I mentioned does keep AC going until high levels though, as long as you remember to include boring AC stuff in the treasure and give PCs time to shop. I know it's dull treasure and shopping but that's how AC falls behind otherwise. It becomes especially good at making sure all or nearly all the secondary attacks miss.