Making armor viable at epic levels

[Biggus]

So I was statting out a 30th-level team of adventurers and I discovered that the Rogue who doesn't wear armor but does have a Monk's Belt, Bracers of Armor +8 and an Animated shield coupled with a Dex of 42 had an AC that was 15 points higher than the Fighter in mithral full plate. To make it worse, the Rogue's Dex can be boosted even further by spells which give non-enhancement bonuses but the Fighter's can't.

Which got me thinking about how to make armor a more worthwhile choice at epic levels. I had a few ideas:

1) Make the Nimbleness armor special ability (MiC) a fixed-price add-on rather than a +1 enhancement bonus, and allow it to be increased up to a +5 maximum Dex bonus to AC/ -10 ACP. This would allow warriors with Dex of around 20-25 to increase their AC relatively cheaply while still not making it worthwhile for the Dex 40 types. I wasn't sure how to price it though, I thought maybe something like 4,000-5,000GP for the +1 max Dex/ -2 ACP then increase as the square of the bonus, so if it was 5,000GP for +1/-2 it would be 20,000GP for +2/-4, 45,000GP for +3/-6 etc. Does that look about right?

2) Use the PF version of Animated shield rules where it only stays animated for 4 rounds then drops like a Dancing weapon, and either not have permanently Animated shields at all or substantially increase the cost for them. Given that most fights don't last much more than 5 rounds this isn't that much of a limitation though.

3) Introduce an epic feat which increases your max Dex bonus for armor and which can be taken multiple times. I thought maybe +2 or +3 max Dex for each time taken (if it's much higher than this, it becomes practical for high-Dex types to wear armor, which defeats the object).

4) Introduce some extremely expensive (but reasonably affordable at epic levels) special material which gives double the AC bonus when substituted for steel in making armor.

Do these seem like workable solutions? Do you have any other ideas for how to stop armor-wearers to falling far behind high-Dex characters?

[Seerow]

So I was statting out a 30th-level team of adventurers and I discovered that the Rogue who doesn't wear armor but does have a Monk's Belt, Bracers of Armor +8 and an Animated shield coupled with a Dex of 42 had an AC that was 15 points higher than the Fighter in mithral full plate. To make it worse, the Rogue's Dex can be boosted even further by spells which give non-enhancement bonuses but the Fighter's can't.

Which got me thinking about how to make armor a more worthwhile choice at epic levels. I had a few ideas:

1) Make the Nimbleness armor special ability (MiC) a fixed-price add-on rather than a +1 enhancement bonus, and allow it to be increased up to a +5 maximum Dex bonus to AC/ -10 ACP. This would allow warriors with Dex of around 20-25 to increase their AC relatively cheaply while still not making it worthwhile for the Dex 40 types. I wasn't sure how to price it though, I thought maybe something like 4,000-5,000GP for the +1 max Dex/ -2 ACP then increase as the square of the bonus, so if it was 5,000GP for +1/-2 it would be 20,000GP for +2/-4, 45,000GP for +3/-6 etc. Does that look about right?

2) Use the PF version of Animated shield rules where it only stays animated for 4 rounds then drops like a Dancing weapon, and either not have permanently Animated shields at all or substantially increase the cost for them. Given that most fights don't last much more than 5 rounds this isn't that much of a limitation though.

3) Introduce an epic feat which increases your max Dex bonus for armor and which can be taken multiple times. I thought maybe +2 or +3 max Dex for each time taken (if it's much higher than this, it becomes practical for high-Dex types to wear armor, which defeats the object).

4) Introduce some extremely expensive (but reasonably affordable at epic levels) special material which gives double the AC bonus when substituted for steel in making armor.

Do these seem like workable solutions? Do you have any other ideas for how to stop armor-wearers to falling far behind high-Dex characters?

I recommend leaving the animated shield out of it. The Fighter can take advantage of that as well as the rogue.


The issue is you have the Fighter with Mithral Full plate (+8 Armor +5 enhance + 3 dex = +16)

against the Rogue with Bracers of Armor + Monks Belt (+8 enhance, +1 monk + ??? dex + ??? wis). So anything from Dex+Wis that exceeds 7 points is going to set the rogue ahead. And at this level the rogue is probably rocking at least a +12 dex, and I'd guess a +7-10 wis, so comes out ahead by like 12 points.

You want the fighter in heavy armor to catch up, let him apply a second stat, preferably one that is a primary for him, to his AC. There's a few classes out there that give Con to AC. He's epic, give him that as a custom armor enhancement, or as a Fighter epic feat that applies while he wears heavy armor.

Boosting the max dex of his armor is probably a good idea as well. Either through armor enhancements, or by giving him the Pathfinder armor training as a bonus (it's not great but does basically what you're asking for, and he's playing a fighter in an epic game, so why not?).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I like +5 morphing/defending shurikens. 50 of them can get you to +250 AC pretty easy.

[animewatcha]

I never did epic levels in any of the sessions I was in ( yet ). However, I spotted a slight error. Animated shield + monk's belt are not compatible. WOTC being stupid and it is sometimes houseruled as being compatible. Animated shield considers you as still using a shield. Monk's belt acts like Monk's class feature in that you can't 'use a sheild.'

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Having a shield equipped, animated or not, will prevent the Monk AC bonus from functioning. Only effects that grant a shield bonus which don't actually count as using a shield, such as the spell Shield or the psionic power Force Screen, are compatible with the Monk AC bonus.


Let's say you have a good aligned Cleric with the Spell domain and Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell, plus a few items. A conservative estimate of his AC at level 16 is as follows:
Wis 16 base, +4 levels, +6 enhancement, total 26; Dex 16 base currently, +6 enhancement, total 22; Monk's Belt; Standard Strand of Prayer Beads; +1 Defending Spiked Gauntlet; Ring of Protection +3; Enhancement to natural armor +3. He has Persistent Draconic Polymorph via Greater Anyspell into a War Troll, for Dex 16 base, +14 natural armor base, and large size.

Persistent Holy Star: +6 circumstance
Persistent Shield via Anyspell, Magic Vestment on it: +9 shield
Greater Luminous Armor, Magic Vestment on it: +13 armor
Monk's Belt: +9 unnamed
Ring of Protection: +3 deflection
Natural Armor Enhancement: +17 natural armor
+1 Defending Spiked Gauntlet, Greater Magic Weapon on it: +5 unnamed
Dex 22: +6 Dex
Size Large: -1

Total AC at level 16: 77, touch 38, flat-footed 71

[ExLibrisMortis]

If you want heavy armour to be useful at epic levels, you'll have to take drastic measures. Give the fighter an epic feat that adds their epic attack bonus to the AC bonus and DR received from medium armour, or twice that bonus to heavy armour, while also increasing their max dex and reducing ACP by the same number. At level 30, that means the fighter gets +10 AC, +5 max dex, -5 ACP, and DR 13/- from using adamantine heavy armour.

[Khedrac]

Another problem the rogue is having with the animated shield that may have been forgotten is this:

A character with an animated shield still takes any penalties associated with shield use, such as armor check penalty, arcane spell failure chance, and nonproficiency.
.
.
.
A character who wears armor and/or uses a shield with which he or she is not proficient takes the armor’s (and/or shield’s) armor check penalty on attack rolls and on all Strength-based and Dexterity-based ability and skill checks.

So unless the rogue has taken steps to reduce the shield's ACP, they are taking a -2 penalites (assuming heavy shield) to their primary skills.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

For an armored character at high levels, there's a few things to include:

1. Deflective Armor feat (RoS) allows you to add the armor bonus to your touch AC.
2. Greater Heavy Armor Optimization (RoS) with the prerequisite increases the armor bonus by 2 and reduces the armor check penalty by three.
3. Mithral armor counts as one category lighter for purposes of movement and other limitations, but not proficiency or whether feats or other effects can be applied. Mithral heavy armor still benefits from the above feats, and the max Dex bonus is two higher.
4. If you're wearing armor you'll also use a shield, whether animated or not. Shield Specialization and Shield Ward increase the shield bonus by 1 and adds the shield bonus to your touch AC and to your rolls to resist grapple and trip attempts.

Let's say you Dark Chaos Shuffle all those feats on to the character, because by level 30 you should be able to easily afford NPC spellcasting for that, along with multiple visits to the sites in CS that grant bonus feats to shuffle out.

If you've got a Dwarf with Deepwarden you're adding your Con bonus to your AC, but not your Dex bonus. This is technically not limited by the max Dex bonus of your armor, so mithral doesn't even matter in this case.

Let's say you've got the best pre-epic AC items: +5 deflection, +5 enhancement to natural armor, +6 enhancement to each ability score, +5 inherent bonus to each ability score and let's say natural armor as well, +5 enhancement to your armor and shield, and one +5 Defending weapon such as armor spikes or a spiked gauntlet (Defending stacks with all other bonuses, including other Defending weapons, but we're not looking to see how many knives we can juggle).

So a Dwarf who starts with Con 18 gets +2 for race, +6 enhancement, +5 inherent, and +7 from level-ups, for 38 total or a bonus of +14.
Mountain Plate (RoS) is +10 armor and 0 max dex, between Greater Heavy Armor Optimization adding +2 and the enhancement bonus, the armor bonus is +17.
Races of Stone has Extreme Shields, which have a +3 bonus and none of the drawbacks of a tower shield. With shield specialization and the enhancement, the shield bonus is +9.
Deflection bonus is +5.
Natural armor bonus has +5 inherent and +5 enhancement, total +10.
Defending weapon grants +5.

Total AC: 70, Touch 60, flat-footed 56
That's without any epic items, persistent spells, or polymorph/shapechange effects.

[zfs]

If you use #3, don't make it a feat, just bake it into the epic Fighter progression. A high enough level fighter should be able to wear full plate the way a normal human wears a t-shirt and yoga pants.

[tyckspoon]

For an armored character at high levels, there's a few things to include:

3. Mithral armor counts as one category lighter for purposes of movement and other limitations, but not proficiency or whether feats or other effects can be applied. Mithral heavy armor still benefits from the above feats, and the max Dex bonus is two higher.


This is a Pathfinder change/clarification of how Pathfinder's designers wanted it to work - for 3.5, it's just a category lighter, full stop. The various 'magic' items whose most notable/only property is being made of mithral back this up. Which unfortunately means the heavy armor specific feats and abilities don't work with it.

Unfortunately I think the best solution for 'Heavy armor is bad when you can afford very high Dex' is 'stop wearing heavy armor.' The Fighter should probably be looking at getting something like this instead of trying to wear his tanksuit.. which makes perfect sense from an optimization perspective, but I can understand is not desirable for the in-character image (..although as that goes, for epic levels it is very very cheap to make your armor look like whatever you want regardless of what it actually is.) "The Rogue is getting an additional stat to AC, find a way to get that for the Fighter too" is also a very valid point and approach to consider.


Armor of the Celestial Battalion
This+7 chainmail is so fine and light that it can be worn under normal clothing without revealing its presence. It has a maximum Dexterity bonus of +10, no armor check penalty, and an arcane spell failure chance of 10%. It is considered light armor, and it allows the wearer to fly at will (as the fly spell). Furthermore, the wearer is at all times surrounded by a magic circle against evil effect (as the spell) which, if dispelled, can be created again as a free action.

Caster Level: 20th; Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Epic Magic Arms and Armor, creator must be good, magic circle against evil; Market Price: 616,300 gp; Cost to Create: 308,300 gp + 16,160 XP.

[Biggus]

Boosting the max dex of his armor is probably a good idea as well. Either through armor enhancements, or by giving him the Pathfinder armor training as a bonus (it's not great but does basically what you're asking for, and he's playing a fighter in an epic game, so why not?).

Armor Training is a good idea, I think I'll adapt that into a feat. Maybe +1 Max Dex, -1ACP as a nonepic feat and twice that as an epic one?


I never did epic levels in any of the sessions I was in ( yet ). However, I spotted a slight error. Animated shield + monk's belt are not compatible. WOTC being stupid and it is sometimes houseruled as being compatible. Animated shield considers you as still using a shield. Monk's belt acts like Monk's class feature in that you can't 'use a sheild.'

That's a good point, that reduces the difference to 8 points. However, I still want to improve the armor-wearing types, as I feel that someone who's taken the expense and disadvantages of buying heavy armor should at least have an equal AC to someone who doesn't wear any.


Let's say you have a good aligned Cleric with the Spell domain and Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell, plus a few items. <snip>
Total AC at level 16: 77, touch 38, flat-footed 71

Yeah, I know Cleric AC can be really silly if they want to make the effort, not so long ago I found that a 20th-level Cleric of Mystra can temporarily get their AC up to 104 with equipment worth a total of 1SP. Other than possibly limiting their access to noncore spells, I'm not sure what to do about it.


If you use #3, don't make it a feat, just bake it into the epic Fighter progression. A high enough level fighter should be able to wear full plate the way a normal human wears a t-shirt and yoga pants.

The problem isn't Fighters specifically, it's that anyone who wears heavy armor at epic levels ends up with an AC considerably lower than someone with no armor at all who just boosted their Dex as hard as they can.


Armor of the Celestial Battalion
This+7 chainmail is so fine and light that it can be worn under normal clothing without revealing its presence. It has a maximum Dexterity bonus of +10, no armor check penalty, and an arcane spell failure chance of 10%. It is considered light armor, and it allows the wearer to fly at will (as the fly spell). Furthermore, the wearer is at all times surrounded by a magic circle against evil effect (as the spell) which, if dispelled, can be created again as a free action.

Caster Level: 20th; Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Epic Magic Arms and Armor, creator must be good, magic circle against evil; Market Price: 616,300 gp; Cost to Create: 308,300 gp + 16,160 XP.

I'd never noticed that, thank you, I might adapt that for other types of armor.

[Seerow]

Armor Training is a good idea, I think I'll adapt that into a feat. Maybe +1 Max Dex, -1ACP as a nonepic feat and twice that as an epic one?


No, that's a terrible feat. The idea is to adapt the whole armor training ability either baseline into the class, or into a feat if you want it to be more generalized. You can already spend a feat for a flat +1 AC and reduce ACP by 1, that doesn't require you to also boost your dex (Heavy Armor Optimization). It's so weak it hasn't even been mentioned here as a potential way for your fighter to keep up. And your homebrew variant is even weaker.

For comparison the class feature I referenced gives +4 max dex -4 ACP by level 20, and removes the movement speed penalty from heavy armor. He can also choose to give up +1 max dex -1 ACP from that to instead get a flat +1/4th level to his AC. So a level 20 PF fighter in non-magical Mithral Full Plate is looking at 13 AC, 6 max dex, 0 ACP. This still doesn't fully close the gap with a monk belted rogue if their dex/wis are high enough, but it's a good starting point.

[Aracor]

One other option that you can combine with those you're already working with: Rule that the Monk's Belt doesn't give +Wis to AC. It's not an unreasonable ruling, and it means without burning class levels, NO ONE is getting multiple stats to their AC. That also keeps the Monk's Belt from being such a no-brainer at high levels for anyone who doesn't use conventional armor.

That means for 13k gold, it would still give Improved Unarmed Strike (with the ability to threaten while unarmed and threaten adjacent creatures when using a reach weapon) with 1d8 damage and a +1 unnamed bonus to AC, touch AC, and flat-footed AC. Overall, not a bad price for what it gives, but it's not an "idiotically good bang for your buck and gets better every time your wisdom modifier goes up".

[Bronk]

So I was statting out a 30th-level team of adventurers and I discovered that the Rogue who doesn't wear armor but does have a Monk's Belt, Bracers of Armor +8 and an Animated shield coupled with a Dex of 42 had an AC that was 15 points higher than the Fighter in mithral full plate. To make it worse, the Rogue's Dex can be boosted even further by spells which give non-enhancement bonuses but the Fighter's can't.

There are a number of legit ways to boost your fighter, especially since it sounds like you're making the party from scratch.

You could have the fighter wear celestial armor, which has a +8 dex bonus.

Making the armor out of mithral would add another +2.

They could go for spider silk or shadow silk armor.

They could also wear a dastana, a chahar-aina, and a gorget.

They could become proficient in gnome twist cloth, which doesn't have a max dex bonus.

They could get a ring of protection.

They could get a necklace of natural armor.

They could, since they're level 30, get epic bonuses to their armor and all their magic items instead of just a +5.

They could be a nymph, which has a charisma bonus to AC.

They could also go for miss chances instead of straight AC.

Maybe don't make a straight 30th level fighter and take at least a couple of levels of swordsage for a wisdom bonus while wearing light armor?

[zfs]

The problem isn't Fighters specifically, it's that anyone who wears heavy armor at epic levels ends up with an AC considerably lower than someone with no armor at all who just boosted their Dex as hard as they can.


So give it for free to anything with Full BAB. Some classes won't care, a lot will appreciate it (Knight absolutely needs higher AC in Epic to even try doing its main shtick), and it won't break anything. Or, instead, to everything that has built-in heavy armor proficiency. That way you wouldn't be leaving out, say, the Marshal.

Basically, I think it's a needed quality of life improvement for mundanes in Epic and shouldn't cost a feat.

[AvatarVecna]

The specifics put forth in the OP obfuscate the problem by putting forth various extra things the rogue is doing. The problem is that heavy armor is kinda just trash by default, and the bigger Dex mods get, the less armor really matters. Ignoring absolutely everything else, we're talking a heavy armor user with Dex 22 vs an unarmored character with Dex 42. Assuming you change it so all armor in the game has no max Dex by default for fighters only, you have the fighter's AC=16+Armor, vs the rogue's AC=26+Armor. Best armor bonus in the game has you barely caught up, before the rogue has even spent a single copper. And still, the rgogue's gonna have better Touch, and thanks to Improved Uncanny Dodge will probably have a better FF AC too.

Fighter has AC 50/Touch 21/FF 44 for 153080:
0/+10: Base AC
0/+6: Dex 22
26900/+15: Mechanus Gear +5
26180/+9: Tower Shield +5
50000/+5: Amulet Of Natural Armor +5
50000/+5: Ring Of Protection +5


Rogue has AC 44+Wis/Touch 32+Wis/FF 44+Wis for 159000:
0/+10: Base AC
0/+16: Dex 42
64000/+8: Bracers Of Armor +8
32000/+4: Amulet Of Natural Armor +4
50000/+5: Ring Of Protection +5
13000/+1+Wis: Monk's Belt


So fighter probably has slightly better normal AC (assuming the rogue doesn't have a huge Wis, but if they do then it probably cost them another 36000), with FF slightly behind, and Touch significantly behind. And that's with spending an extra 6k.

And all this, all this, was just giving the fighter infinite max dex on all armor. That's +5 he didn't have to finagle onto a tower shield, and +7 he didn't have to finagle onto mechanus gear armor. And still, it's just barely feasible for heavy armor folks to have better armor class...in one category...assuming they're fine doing sword n board.

Honestly, given all the above, it probably wouldn't break anything super-hard if you just said "classes with full BAB ignore the max dex and ACP columns for armor stats". Who cares, right?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Honestly, given all the above, it probably wouldn't break anything super-hard if you just said "classes with full BAB ignore the max dex and ACP columns for armor stats". Who cares, right?So a single dip into fighter and the rogue gets to ignore all those penalties to his skills? Awesome.

[Biggus]

No, that's a terrible feat. The idea is to adapt the whole armor training ability either baseline into the class, or into a feat if you want it to be more generalized. You can already spend a feat for a flat +1 AC and reduce ACP by 1, that doesn't require you to also boost your dex (Heavy Armor Optimization). It's so weak it hasn't even been mentioned here as a potential way for your fighter to keep up. And your homebrew variant is even weaker.

For comparison the class feature I referenced gives +4 max dex -4 ACP by level 20, and removes the movement speed penalty from heavy armor. He can also choose to give up +1 max dex -1 ACP from that to instead get a flat +1/4th level to his AC. So a level 20 PF fighter in non-magical Mithral Full Plate is looking at 13 AC, 6 max dex, 0 ACP. This still doesn't fully close the gap with a monk belted rogue if their dex/wis are high enough, but it's a good starting point.

Actually it was mentioned, by Biffoniacus_Furiou.

As I said in my last post, the problem isn't Fighters specifically, it's that all heavy armor wearers (except Clerics) can't keep up with non-armor wearers.



They could go for spider silk or shadow silk armor.

They could also wear a dastana, a chahar-aina, and a gorget.

They could become proficient in gnome twist cloth, which doesn't have a max dex bonus.

What are these? What books are they in?




They could get a ring of protection.

They could get a necklace of natural armor.

Already has both of these at +5.


They could, since they're level 30, get epic bonuses to their armor and all their magic items instead of just a +5.

While this is technically true, epic AC bonuses are so expensive that they rapidly eat up the wealth of even 30th-level characters for quite a small return.


So give it for free to anything with Full BAB. Some classes won't care, a lot will appreciate it (Knight absolutely needs higher AC in Epic to even try doing its main shtick), and it won't break anything. Or, instead, to everything that has built-in heavy armor proficiency. That way you wouldn't be leaving out, say, the Marshal.

Basically, I think it's a needed quality of life improvement for mundanes in Epic and shouldn't cost a feat.

Hmm, this isn't a bad idea. Knights and Marshals could certainly use the help too.

[AvatarVecna]

So a single dip into fighter and the rogue gets to ignore all those penalties to his skills? Awesome.

Golly gee willickers it sure would be hard to close that loophole to fit the intent. *rolls eyes*

[zfs]

So a single dip into fighter and the rogue gets to ignore all those penalties to his skills? Awesome.

"You lose this ability if more than half your class levels are in a class other than [full BAB things/things with heavy armor proficiency/whatever]"

There are any number of ways to avoid giving this to anything that dips one level of a full BAB class.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Golly gee willickers it sure would be hard to close that loophole to fit the intent. *rolls eyes*


"You lose this ability if more than half your class levels are in a class other than [full BAB things/things with heavy armor proficiency/whatever]"

There are any number of ways to avoid giving this to anything that dips one level of a full BAB class.How does that make sense, though? "You trained really hard in wearing armor so it doesn't impede you, but because you decided to be a little too sneaky today, you lose all that."

Um, what?

[AvatarVecna]

Because there's certainly no existing ways to lose class features due to arbitrary violations of absurd ethical codes. I dunno what game you're playing but the one I play in is 100% internally consistent with what's realistic.

Losing particular features because you let your training fall too far lax isn't nearly as nonsensical as you're making it out to be. But more to the point, it's about the intent of the thread: the goal is finding a way to make heavy armor on-par or superior to just cranking your Dex for the characters that are more inclined towards armoring up. Regardless of whether that goal is a good one to have, and whether it's realistic or not, anything we're suggesting would end up at best being a houserule for this particular person. It doesn't have to be written in legalese to prevent unwanted cases, because the exact words are less important than "here's a way to accomplish the goals of the guy running the game".

Who exactly qualifies for it isn't "well technically you said X but Y could look like X if you did Z", "who exactly qualifies" is "whoever the OP says qualifies". We're not required to make suggestions that are rules-lawyer-proof, because we're not actually crafting official games rules, we're suggesting houserules that will only be implemented by somebody who has a solid idea of the effect they want it to have on the game. Responding to a suggestion with "well technically the way you wrote it could be taken advantage of" is kinda irrelevant because the OP is under no obligation to use the suggested ability exactly the way we wrote it.

[zfs]

How does that make sense, though? "You trained really hard in wearing armor so it doesn't impede you, but because you decided to be a little too sneaky today, you lose all that."

Um, what?

Oh no - a houserule meant to buff mundanes might not make sense if it imposes arbitrary restrictions on people trying to optimize with it? Well we can't let that happen, every single other piece of 3.5 makes perfect logical sense.

[Maat Mons]

Before we go too deep into this, what AC does the Rogue you statted up have? Because, if it's not higher than the attack bonuses of the CR-30 monsters he's supposed to be fighting, it really doesn't matter.

[Bphill561]

I don't think there is any easy fix. I cannot think of a single character in 3.5 I made, including my clerics, that wore anything above a mithril breastplate. Dex just outpaces armor so I pair armor with whatever max dex I need. Nightscale from the Underdark (2 AC Max Dex 10), Gnomish Twist Cloth mentioned previously (AC 1 Max dex unlimited), Mithril chain shirt etc. There are also some mastercrafting options in dragon 358 that can increase Max dex by 1 and AC value by 1. Dastana and add-ons have already been listed above for certain light armors (I like to Assume Nightscale is like leather since it just a different kind of leather).

The easiest solution I can think of would be an Epic Feat that requires 25 (or whatever) Strength and Heavy Armor Proficiency. The feat granted bonus would be to double AC values from all Medium and Heavy Armor plus remove any movement penalties to speed. Now your super dex monkey's will not be going anywhere near medium or heavy armor, so you would not have to worry about them picking it up or being able to use it effectively.

Lets take Mechanus armor since it is the heaviest I remember off-hand and is not listed as being made of special stone (ie, materials) like mountain plate.

AC 10, Max Dex 0... Add Mithril for a max dex of 2 … Throw in Master crafting for +1 AC and +1 Dex

Now you have mundane armor of 11 with a max Dex of 3. With the feat you can double AC to 22+3 from Dex. Still nothing stops you from going dwarf and using Con to AC instead of Dex.



Fell free to add in an armor check penalty reducer if you think it is needed.

[Biggus]

Before we go too deep into this, what AC does the Rogue you statted up have? Because, if it's not higher than the attack bonuses of the CR-30 monsters he's supposed to be fighting, it really doesn't matter.

Based on the CR 28-32 monsters in the ELH: a few of them have attack bonuses lower than his AC, and most of the ones who have higher bonuses also have Power Attack, so yes it does matter more often than not.


There are also some mastercrafting options in dragon 358 that can increase Max dex by 1 and AC value by 1.


Thank you, I wasn't aware of these, I'll be incorporating them into my games (epic and otherwise). It's always bothered me that there are basically no options for nonmagical crafters to go beyond masterwork quality other than "be a dwarf", this is exactly the sort of thing I wanted.

[Elkad]

It's not just epic levels. It's every level.

3nd level (when the fighter can probably afford or scrounge some plate) he ties the rogue. He loses at every single other level.
Plate, 12 dex. AC19

L3 rogue spends the same amount as the plate on a +1 shirt.
shirt+1, 18 dex. AC19. Unless he's a Halfling (small and +2 dex), then he buys a mithril shirt instead, and it's 20 (until he gets it enchanted a level later).

Raise the armor bonuses for medium armor 1 point each.
Raise the armor bonuses for heavy armor 3 points each.
Raise all max dex bonuses by about 4 points.

Nerf the monk belt as listed upthread. (no wis bonus). If you feel its overpriced now, throw in 5 monk levels of Slow Fall or something.

And it wouldn't hurt to throw in a class bonus as well.
Something like.

Every odd level gained in a class with both armor proficiency and full BAB gets you a +1 circumstance bonus to armor AC when wearing armor. Cannot exceed the armor bonus (including enhancements) of the armor worn.
Every even level gained in a class with both shield proficiency and full BAB gets you a +1 circumstance bonus to Shield AC when wearing a shield. Cannot exceed the shield bonus (including enhancements) of the shield worn.
(and then I'll be a jerk and disallow both bracers of armor and animated shields from getting the bonus)

[Yogibear41]

Natural armor bonus has +5 inherent


What gives an inherent bonus to natural armor?

[Asmotherion]

Just use the armor slot for a bunsh of enhansments and use activated abilities; AC becomes obsolate at high levels. Stuff will always have either a touch attack, save or suck or have such an insane attack bonus you'll have to break the game through a series of loopholes in Raw to compete with. Possibly all 3 of them.

Get a good miss chance, a respectable touch AC and a series of immunities and resistances.

[Khedrac]

Another thing to consider here is the larger picture. Most PCs will optimize one stat and boost the others when they can...

So the rogue boosts his Dex, this shoves his AC into the stratosphere and his attack bonus with ranged weapons (and finessable if he took the feat).
Adding dex to damage is supposed to be very very hard - because Dex is doing other things (like boosing AC and initiative) - I think there is just the 1 feat for shadowhand weapons only, and that's if ToB is in play.

Now consider the fighter with his much lower AC. If he has boosted his strength primarily he has a bigger to-hit than the rogue and it applies to damage for all melee and thrown weapons (and for 2H melee weapons he's getting another 50%). With an un-optimized Con he should have a lot more HP than the rogue - so he can take the hits the rogue cannot - and if he boosts both he has far mre hit points if a similar (or slightly lower) to hit.
Also the rogue will make any reflex save - the least important category but will have problems with Fort and Will, the fighter will make his Fort saves (the most important category) and have problems with reflex and will - so they both need mind-control blocks.

If the rogue's higher AC really wrong as described? He is putting in far more effort to not being hit than the fighter, while the fighter just takes the hits and smashes the enemy under the ground. It's a bit like comparing The Hulk and Hawkeye in The Avengers - The Hulk is fairly easy to hit, it just doesn't do very much when you do, Hawkeye is much harder to hit, but much less able to take the hits.

I am not saying that D&D is balanced, but they did try and it's not as unbalanced as it could be. It is a case of think twice before allowing custom anything into the game, the decisions WotC staff took had reasons, they did not get all of them right (e.g. half orc stat mods) but their reasoning should be considered before changing things - you should be able to do better with your experience of your group, but only if you think it through.

Oh yes, and check that your players are not unintentionally breaking the rules - I have seen lots do this, and it is nearly always an innocent mistake, e.g. monk's belt + animated shield, but as DM it really is your responsibility to check that your players have got the rules for their characters right.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

What gives an inherent bonus to natural armor?

My old group always allowed it via Wish and similar. It's easier to improve natural armor (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsterFeats.htm#improvedNaturalArmor) than it is to improve ability scores, so it's reasonable to allow a Wish to add +1 to that the same as it can for ability scores.

[Biggus]

It's not just epic levels. It's every level.

3nd level (when the fighter can probably afford or scrounge some plate) he ties the rogue. He loses at every single other level.
Plate, 12 dex. AC19

L3 rogue spends the same amount as the plate on a +1 shirt.
shirt+1, 18 dex. AC19. Unless he's a Halfling (small and +2 dex), then he buys a mithril shirt instead, and it's 20 (until he gets it enchanted a level later).

Yes and no. A low-level fighter can have a heavy shield if they care about AC (I know that's not optimal, but they can if they want, but the Rogue can't unless they're willing to spend a feat).

Also, for a low-level Rogue to have Dex 18, unless they're either built using very high point-buy or are a race which gives a Dex bonus, their other stats lose out by doing so, so if they're willing to invest that much into it they should get some return.

Finally, I don't have a problem with Rogues who've maxed out their Dex having similar AC to warriors in heavy armour, but I do object to it being ~8 points higher.



Raise the armor bonuses for medium armor 1 point each.
Raise the armor bonuses for heavy armor 3 points each.
Raise all max dex bonuses by about 4 points.

Nerf the monk belt as listed upthread. (no wis bonus). If you feel its overpriced now, throw in 5 monk levels of Slow Fall or something.

And it wouldn't hurt to throw in a class bonus as well.
Something like.

Every odd level gained in a class with both armor proficiency and full BAB gets you a +1 circumstance bonus to armor AC when wearing armor. Cannot exceed the armor bonus (including enhancements) of the armor worn.
Every even level gained in a class with both shield proficiency and full BAB gets you a +1 circumstance bonus to Shield AC when wearing a shield. Cannot exceed the shield bonus (including enhancements) of the shield worn.
(and then I'll be a jerk and disallow both bracers of armor and animated shields from getting the bonus)

Hmmm, interesting ideas, thank you, I'll give them some thought.


Just use the armor slot for a bunsh of enhansments and use activated abilities; AC becomes obsolate at high levels. Stuff will always have either a touch attack, save or suck or have such an insane attack bonus you'll have to break the game through a series of loopholes in Raw to compete with. Possibly all 3 of them.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, a lot of epic monsters which have a very high attack bonus also have Power Attack, so a high-but-not-astronomical AC does still significantly reduce the amount of damage you take.



Get a good miss chance, a respectable touch AC and a series of immunities and resistances.

The characters in question already have all of these.


Another thing to consider here is the larger picture. Most PCs will optimize one stat and boost the others when they can...

So the rogue boosts his Dex, this shoves his AC into the stratosphere and his attack bonus with ranged weapons (and finessable if he took the feat).
Adding dex to damage is supposed to be very very hard - because Dex is doing other things (like boosing AC and initiative) - I think there is just the 1 feat for shadowhand weapons only, and that's if ToB is in play.

Now consider the fighter with his much lower AC. If he has boosted his strength primarily he has a bigger to-hit than the rogue and it applies to damage for all melee and thrown weapons (and for 2H melee weapons he's getting another 50%).

In my experience the vast majority of Dex-focused Rogues do take Weapon Finesse, so the Fighter only really comes out ahead on attack by their BAB difference, and Rogues get the vast majority of their damage from sneak attack, which by mid-levels they've generally found ways to get pretty reliably (and with the Penetrating Strike ACF they can even get half of it against creature normally immune to sneak attacks).



With an un-optimized Con he should have a lot more HP than the rogue - so he can take the hits the rogue cannot

Not really true at epic levels. By level 30, most characters will have a +6 enhancement bonus and a +5 inherent bonus to Con, so the difference between a d6 and d10 HD is much smaller in proportion.

For example, a 3rd-level rogue with a Con of 12 has 17HPs on average. A 3rd-level fighter with a Con of 14 has 27 on average, or over 58% more.

The same rogue at 31st level with the above-mentioned bonuses now has an average of 307HPs, while the fighter has 392HPs, or less than 28% more.

The exception to this is a raging barbarian, who does have a ****load more HPs even at epic levels.

[skunk3]

So I was statting out a 30th-level team of adventurers and I discovered that the Rogue who doesn't wear armor but does have a Monk's Belt, Bracers of Armor +8 and an Animated shield coupled with a Dex of 42 had an AC that was 15 points higher than the Fighter in mithral full plate. To make it worse, the Rogue's Dex can be boosted even further by spells which give non-enhancement bonuses but the Fighter's can't.

Which got me thinking about how to make armor a more worthwhile choice at epic levels. I had a few ideas:

1) Make the Nimbleness armor special ability (MiC) a fixed-price add-on rather than a +1 enhancement bonus, and allow it to be increased up to a +5 maximum Dex bonus to AC/ -10 ACP. This would allow warriors with Dex of around 20-25 to increase their AC relatively cheaply while still not making it worthwhile for the Dex 40 types. I wasn't sure how to price it though, I thought maybe something like 4,000-5,000GP for the +1 max Dex/ -2 ACP then increase as the square of the bonus, so if it was 5,000GP for +1/-2 it would be 20,000GP for +2/-4, 45,000GP for +3/-6 etc. Does that look about right?

2) Use the PF version of Animated shield rules where it only stays animated for 4 rounds then drops like a Dancing weapon, and either not have permanently Animated shields at all or substantially increase the cost for them. Given that most fights don't last much more than 5 rounds this isn't that much of a limitation though.

3) Introduce an epic feat which increases your max Dex bonus for armor and which can be taken multiple times. I thought maybe +2 or +3 max Dex for each time taken (if it's much higher than this, it becomes practical for high-Dex types to wear armor, which defeats the object).

4) Introduce some extremely expensive (but reasonably affordable at epic levels) special material which gives double the AC bonus when substituted for steel in making armor.

Do these seem like workable solutions? Do you have any other ideas for how to stop armor-wearers to falling far behind high-Dex characters?

First, make sure the character is an Outsider, and if it is not, figure out how to turn it into one. Next, and this will be way harder to pull off, but see if there is any way that character can attain divine rank. The AC boost is pretty nuts.

[Max Caysey]

So I was statting out a 30th-level team of adventurers and I discovered that the Rogue who doesn't wear armor but does have a Monk's Belt, Bracers of Armor +8 and an Animated shield coupled with a Dex of 42 had an AC that was 15 points higher than the Fighter in mithral full plate. To make it worse, the Rogue's Dex can be boosted even further by spells which give non-enhancement bonuses but the Fighter's can't.

Which got me thinking about how to make armor a more worthwhile choice at epic levels. I had a few ideas:

1) Make the Nimbleness armor special ability (MiC) a fixed-price add-on rather than a +1 enhancement bonus, and allow it to be increased up to a +5 maximum Dex bonus to AC/ -10 ACP. This would allow warriors with Dex of around 20-25 to increase their AC relatively cheaply while still not making it worthwhile for the Dex 40 types. I wasn't sure how to price it though, I thought maybe something like 4,000-5,000GP for the +1 max Dex/ -2 ACP then increase as the square of the bonus, so if it was 5,000GP for +1/-2 it would be 20,000GP for +2/-4, 45,000GP for +3/-6 etc. Does that look about right?

2) Use the PF version of Animated shield rules where it only stays animated for 4 rounds then drops like a Dancing weapon, and either not have permanently Animated shields at all or substantially increase the cost for them. Given that most fights don't last much more than 5 rounds this isn't that much of a limitation though.

3) Introduce an epic feat which increases your max Dex bonus for armor and which can be taken multiple times. I thought maybe +2 or +3 max Dex for each time taken (if it's much higher than this, it becomes practical for high-Dex types to wear armor, which defeats the object).

4) Introduce some extremely expensive (but reasonably affordable at epic levels) special material which gives double the AC bonus when substituted for steel in making armor.

Do these seem like workable solutions? Do you have any other ideas for how to stop armor-wearers to falling far behind high-Dex characters?

1) use a +5 Mithral Battleplate

2) Take Heave Armor Optimization and Greater Heavy Armor Optimization

3) Have said armor be reinforced and segmented (DM#358)

4) Have said armor have the Nimbleness enchantment

Now your battleplate grants +17 armor, allows +5 dex.

Then you take a Towershield, give it +5 enchantment and take the feats Shiels Specialization and shiels Ward. That way your +10 shield armor adds to your touch ac as well.

If thats not enough, get a ring of +5 deflection, natural, luck, morale, sacred, competence... etc... that way you can at least get another +20...

[Elkad]

That's only ac42, plus your misc 20, for 62.
A CR 30 elder Titan (a very easy encounter for a l30 party) has +87 to hit. He'll be PAing for at least 30 points and not missing.
At L30 a fighter needs an AC of at least 90 to even bother with armor.

[Biggus]

That's only ac42, plus your misc 20, for 62.
A CR 30 elder Titan (a very easy encounter for a l30 party) has +87 to hit. He'll be PAing for at least 30 points and not missing.
At L30 a fighter needs an AC of at least 90 to even bother with armor.

1) If the Elder Titan power attacks for 30 points against AC62, he has an 80% chance to hit on his first attack per round, but this then drops to 55%, 30% and 5% on the following ones.

2) The Elder Titan has by far the highest attack bonus of the CR ~30 monsters in the ELH, the majority of them are between +45 and +64, so it's completely untrue to say that an AC of less than 90 is not worth bothering with.

[AvatarVecna]

1) If the Elder Titan power attacks for 30 points against AC62, he has an 80% chance to hit on his first attack per round, but this then drops to 55%, 30% and 5% on the following ones.

2) The Elder Titan has by far the highest attack bonus of the CR ~30 monsters in the ELH, the majority of them are between +45 and +64, so it's completely untrue to say that an AC of less than 90 is not worth bothering with.

A slight aside about the first point, it's only really valid because the Elder Titan is taking -30 to attack. If they take -12, that's +75/+70/+65/+60 - 5% failure chance on all attacks, and dealing 6d6+54 (avg 75). That's probably not going to kill the Fighter 30 (Con 30, avg HP rolls...maybe 484 HP, so requires ~7 hits worth of damage...and that's assuming no DR), but it's still going to be a pretty significant bunch of hits.

(Of course, how accurate any of that info actually is depends on how much "casts as a Wizard 29 or Cleric 29" changes the elder titan's combat routine.)

(Counterpoint: "heavy armor isn't viable in epic because casters" wow scalding hot take there, AV.)

[Max Caysey]

That's only ac42, plus your misc 20, for 62.
A CR 30 elder Titan (a very easy encounter for a l30 party) has +87 to hit. He'll be PAing for at least 30 points and not missing.
At L30 a fighter needs an AC of at least 90 to even bother with armor.

Go Dwarven Defender, use Improved Combat Expertice... haste, dodge, fighting defensively... Monks belt, if pc has high wisdom... I seem to remember having a level 30 Dwarven Defender at around 80 AC...

[AvatarVecna]

Go Dwarven Defender, use Improved Combat Expertice... haste, dodge, fighting defensively... Monks belt, if pc has high wisdom... I seem to remember having a level 30 Dwarven Defender at around 80 AC...

This kinda gets away from the point of the OP. It's not necessarily about fighters specifically, but heavy armor wearers. A dwarven defender is a heavy armor wearer, but a dwarven defender with a monk's belt very much isn't.

[Max Caysey]

This kinda gets away from the point of the OP. It's not necessarily about fighters specifically, but heavy armor wearers. A dwarven defender is a heavy armor wearer, but a dwarven defender with a monk's belt very much isn't.

I thought it was simply about reaching the highest numbers...

if only armor is allowed... then just increase its enchantment bonus

[AvatarVecna]

I thought it was simply about reaching the highest numbers...

if only armor is allowed... then just increase its enchantment bonus

It's also not about "how do I get high AC using heavy armor", although that's at least closer.

The problem, as noted in the OP, is that one person chooses to focus heavy armor, and one person chooses to focus no armor, and the latter person consistently has better armor class, basically without real effort, and this is particularly true in epic when high dexterity and lots of money make it a lot easier to go without armor. They are seeking either mechanics within the edition that challenge this (that make heavy armor more viable compared to the alternative), or failing that, advice on homebrew/houserules that can make heavy armor worth investing in.

(and of course, OP is free to correct me if I've misjudged things here.)

[Elkad]

Exactly.
Every mortal but Iron Man has to dodge the Hulk.
Iron Man can take the hit. Because of his armor.
We want that.

[Aracor]

Well, you can start with the best non-magical armor in the game: Thaalud Stone Armor

It's from Anauroch the Empire of Shade

It's +12 AC, 0 Max Dex, and -8 ACP. 40% ASF if anyone cares, and weighs 180 pounds. Unfortunately, it's made of stone so it can't be made into mithral.

Mountain Plate is +10 AC with 0 Max Dex, but it CAN be made of mithral, which makes it comparable if you have a 14 dexterity or higher.

If you're psionic and take Heavy Armor Optimization and Deflective Armor, that makes it +13 (+18 at +5 enhancement), and it applies to touch AC as long as the character is psionically focused.

[Biggus]

A slight aside about the first point, it's only really valid because the Elder Titan is taking -30 to attack.

Absolutely. I wasn't saying that an Elder Titan can't make good use of power attack against an AC62 opponent, I was just arguing that the sentence "He'll be PAing for at least 30 points and not missing" overstates the case somewhat.



if only armor is allowed... then just increase its enchantment bonus

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, epic AC bonuses are so expensive that they only become worthwhile at quite high epic levels. For example, if my level 30 Fighter wanted to upgrade his +5 heavy fortification armor to +10 heavy fortification armor it would cost him 2,150,000GP, which is half of his total wealth, and he'd still be trailing the Rogue by 3 points (and this is assuming he can find someone with a caster level of 30 and the Craft Epic Magic Arms and Armor feat to make it for him, no mean feat in most settings).


It's also not about "how do I get high AC using heavy armor", although that's at least closer.

The problem, as noted in the OP, is that one person chooses to focus heavy armor, and one person chooses to focus no armor, and the latter person consistently has better armor class, basically without real effort, and this is particularly true in epic when high dexterity and lots of money make it a lot easier to go without armor. They are seeking either mechanics within the edition that challenge this (that make heavy armor more viable compared to the alternative), or failing that, advice on homebrew/houserules that can make heavy armor worth investing in.

(and of course, OP is free to correct me if I've misjudged things here.)

No, that's pretty much exactly it.


Exactly.
Every mortal but Iron Man has to dodge the Hulk.
Iron Man can take the hit. Because of his armor.
We want that.

Again, exactly this.


Well, you can start with the best non-magical armor in the game: Thaalud Stone Armor

It's from Anauroch the Empire of Shade

It's +12 AC, 0 Max Dex, and -8 ACP. 40% ASF if anyone cares, and weighs 180 pounds. Unfortunately, it's made of stone so it can't be made into mithral.


That's a new one on me, thanks. The character in question has a semi-decent Dex so it wouldn't gain him much compared to mithral full plate, but I'll keep it in mind for the future (being able to dump Dex is handy if you're relatively limited on ability scores).

[Aracor]

That's a new one on me, thanks. The character in question has a semi-decent Dex so it wouldn't gain him much compared to mithral full plate, but I'll keep it in mind for the future (being able to dump Dex is handy if you're relatively limited on ability scores).

And you could still buy Nimbleness for it, which would be +1 max dex (12 is easy) and then a -6 ACP. The fact that it has such a high bonus makes it ideal for something like a Wild enchantment for a druid - since only the armor bonus transfers. A dire bear that has a +17 armor bonus in addition to their natural armor can be a nasty surprise that's eating your face.

[Goaty14]

What about some kind of an absurdly high DR/- that scales with the category of the armor? (Let's just say the houserule adds a special material that is to adamantine as adamantine is to iron, <fluff text>. It gives DR 10/20/30 when made into Light/Medium/Heavy armor, or it even increases the weight category of the armor, because the material is SUPER heavy and we hate rogues :smallyuk:) I like where Adamantine was going with this, but I also think that 3.5 really over-estimates the power of DR.

And although every point of AC will effectively lower the enemy's PA, saving 2 damage, and a point of DR 1/- will save... 1 damage, there's a few exceptions that I think are notable:
-In situations where enemies don't PA or your AC is above their attack (by a difference of less than 20), AC reduces their effective damage by 5% (-1 per 20 damage), but DR is a flat -X.
-In situations where the DM abstracts damage taken given your AC is 20+ higher than their atk and you are vastly outnumbered (ie "There's a battalion of 100 low-level archers on the hill. 5% crit and hit automatically. 5 arrows hit, and you take 5d8 damage"), pumping AC doesn't do anything, but having at least DR 8/- will render you nigh-immune.
-I guess an enemy hitting you with a Stone Dragon maneuver will bypass your DR, but they're also giving up their iterative attacks, so I guess it balances out?

These are my jumbled thoughts.

[darkdragoon]

At higher levels and further in epic there are so many dangers that ignore most forms of AC to begin with.

Even with the titan example, you'd much rather it be swinging its hammer or chucking javelins than remembering it has 29th level casting, three epic spells and several SLAs.

That said, having a good shield and with spikes (for defending etc.) can help.

[Biggus]

At higher levels and further in epic there are so many dangers that ignore most forms of AC to begin with.

Even with the titan example, you'd much rather it be swinging its hammer or chucking javelins than remembering it has 29th level casting, three epic spells and several SLAs.


Well, yes and no. If you have a Cleric in the party you're likely immune or highly resistant to many effects and have a huge bonus to saves (or even if you haven't got a Cleric, but more so if you have). Physical damage is one of the few things that still hurts epic characters.

Also while many epic opponents will have special abilities some are still just straightforward bruisers even at very high CRs.

So while AC may be less important than at low-mid levels, it's far from entirely useless even at level 30+.