Bouncing blades off my armored pecs

[ZenBear]

Would it be in any way unbalanced to grant Barbarians the ability to use CON instead of DEX for their AC when wearing medium armor? It's always bothered me a little that you can't really be an effective Barbarian if you're not graceful as well as brawny. It would also be nice to have a bit of freedom with their ASIs if they were less MAD... wait, that doesn't sound right... BOUNCING PECS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh5f7mLTaaI)

[Protato]

Personally, I'd allow it to work, but I tend to allow all sorts of stuff at my tables. My newest PC in the Lost Mines game I'm running is a Barbarian Tiefling with the Barbed Tiefling racial feat to replace their spells, I'm allowing Battlerager with unarmored defense and not Spiked Armor, and I'm giving everyone both an ASI and a Feat at fourth level. I give everyone 18/16/14/12/10/8 plus racials for starting stats. As such, my advice should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, other than reducing MAD and maybe letting them take more Feats and pumping fewer stats? I don't see much of a reason not to allow 14 Constitution to give +2 for Medium Armor. Also, you get more HP but that's relatively minor.

[MeeposFire]

Personally, I'd allow it to work, but I tend to allow all sorts of stuff at my tables. My newest PC in the Lost Mines game I'm running is a Barbarian Tiefling with the Barbed Tiefling racial feat to replace their spells, I'm allowing Battlerager with unarmored defense and not Spiked Armor, and I'm giving everyone both an ASI and a Feat at fourth level. I give everyone 18/16/14/12/10/8 plus racials for starting stats. As such, my advice should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, other than reducing MAD and maybe letting them take more Feats and pumping fewer stats? I don't see much of a reason not to allow 14 Constitution to give +2 for Medium Armor. Also, you get more HP but that's relatively minor.

I changed the spiked armor to be special spiked pieces that can be strapped to you or over your armor. Works exactly the same but allows you to use whatever armor you find or even no armor.

[Unoriginal]

Would it be in any way unbalanced to grant Barbarians the ability to use CON instead of DEX for their AC when wearing medium armor? It's always bothered me a little that you can't really be an effective Barbarian if you're not graceful as well as brawny. It would also be nice to have a bit of freedom with their ASIs if they were less MAD... wait, that doesn't sound right... BOUNCING PECS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh5f7mLTaaI)

Yes, of course it'd be unbalanced.

You're telling the Barbarian "you don't have to worry about DEX, just pump CON".

Now if you're asking "would it be game-breaking?", then no, it wouldn't. It's still a free power boost for the Barbarian without any cost.

[Kadesh]

This is the equivalent of free +2 Armour for the player, so it's up to you, to decide if 'balance' trumps verisimiliture for you. If the Barbarian is notably falling behind and taking far too much damage, a suit of Armour that allows Con mod to work (perhaps only when raging) in place of Dex. If it's not, and the Barbarian is performing fine without Con+Armour to AC, knock yourself out.

That said, Unarmoured Defence is largely a trap anyway, a Str20/Dex 14/Con 20 (requires 4 ASI's with a Barbarian supporting race, and some dump stats from a point buy) Barbarian has the same AC as a Str20/Dex14 guy in medium armour.

It just makes you better if you don't have any armour (early game) or stylistically choose to run that way.

I have a DM who will give us +2 Armour Plate, only to then put up the Attack Bonus by +2 of the monsters we face, so there is always that option.