Controversial Heavy Armor Position

[LibraryOgre]

Using a shield should give you your Dex bonus, even in heavy armor. It should not double your dex bonus in lighter armor, but it should apply it if you are using heavy armor.

[Dork_Forge]

Your full Dex bonus instead of the flat +2? Why do you think that should make sense?

It kind of throw bounded accuracy out of the window if you're talking full mod, a Dex based character in HA would suddenly make complete sense and any sniff of a magical shield will put them in crits only territory.

If you mean like medium armor, your Dex mod up to +x for a buckler or something I could see that.

[zinycor]

Would still apply if you have a penalization to dex?

[Unoriginal]

Using a shield should give you your Dex bonus, even in heavy armor. It should not double your dex bonus in lighter armor, but it should apply it if you are using heavy armor.

So you want the shield mod to AC to be smaller for heavy armor users?

[TyGuy]

Intriguing. What if shield AC was 1+ 1/2 dex mod (minimum of +1 total)?
13 & under Dex plate with shield goes from 20 to 19 AC
14-17 Dex plate with shield remains 20 AC
18-21 Dex plate with shield goes up from 20 AC to 21 AC
20 Dex studded leather with shield goes up from 19 to 20 AC
18 Dex half plate with shield goes up from 19 to 20 AC

[Tanarii]

Interesting. Other than maybe a buckler, I've never thought of a shield as something requiring exceptional agility and balance to use well. Just training.

Now if you were arguing for proficiency bonus ...

[MaxWilson]

Using a shield should give you your Dex bonus, even in heavy armor. It should not double your dex bonus in lighter armor, but it should apply it if you are using heavy armor.

Should you lose the Dex bonus if you are paralyzed?

[da newt]

So an unarmored 20 DEX PC w/ shield will have 20 AC.

Studded leather armor, shield and 20 DEX = 22 AC.

Breast plate, shield, 20 DEX = 21 AC.

Full plate, shield and 14 DEX = 20 AC.

1/2 plate, medium armor master, shield and 16 DEX = 21 AC

Naked barbarian w/ 20 DEX, 16 CON and a shield = 23 AC

Full plate, shield and 8 DEX = 17 AC (the shield 'adds' -1 to AC)

I'm not sure I follow what you are trying to do here.

[Frogreaver]

Using a shield should give you your Dex bonus, even in heavy armor. It should not double your dex bonus in lighter armor, but it should apply it if you are using heavy armor.

Do you mean in lieu of the regular +2 AC or in addition to it?

[Zhorn]

Should you lose the Dex bonus if you are paralyzed?

I see this quickly turning into 3.5e's AC system

[Dienekes]

Using a shield should give you your Dex bonus, even in heavy armor. It should not double your dex bonus in lighter armor, but it should apply it if you are using heavy armor.

Realistically it’d depend on the type of shield. Some lighter round shields, heaters, and bucklers sure but makes little sense for the larger kites, aspis, and scutum. But then D&D models combat horribly anyway.

Can I ask what the goal is here? I don’t think Dex builds need an AC buff personally. Nor do I think Str builds need a nerf in general.

[LibraryOgre]

Your full Dex bonus instead of the flat +2? Why do you think that should make sense?

No... your full dex bonus AND +2.

Because while the argument for heavy armor not including your Dex bonus is its weight and lack of maneuverability, a shield changes that calculus, by giving you a sizable piece of cover under your control.

[Dienekes]

No... your full dex bonus AND +2.

Because while the argument for heavy armor not including your Dex bonus is its weight and lack of maneuverability, a shield changes that calculus, by giving you a sizable piece of cover under your control.

And that argument is actually really dumb. A lot of wearing heavy armor is stepping about and adjusting your positioning so the enemy can’t hit the weak points and if they do hit you it’s against the strongest part of your armor. So even in heavy armor Dex should really be a part of the equation. Just like in combat it doesn’t really matter how agile you think you are, if you don’t have some strength behind your blows it’s going to be easy to parry or if it hits only do some surface level damage. Unless something goes crazy wrong those flimsy fencing rapiers and epees aren’t really going to kill anyone. Sting like a bitch, leave some scars, and might poke an eye out. But not really what you want in a death match.

But D&D is all about abstractions that look well enough to people who don’t know what they’re talking about. So we instead go to what mechanical effect you want to have happen vs what is actually happening.

Because your actual effect is that now Dex builds are kind of just the best at everything, compared to Str builds. The one exception being two-handers still have the best damage since they didn’t care about shields anyway.

[LibraryOgre]

Because your actual effect is that now Dex builds are kind of just the best at everything, compared to Str builds. The one exception being two-handers still have the best damage since they didn’t care about shields anyway.

This does not follow.

At 20 Dex, Leather armor and a shield would be 11 (leather armor) + 5 (Dex) + 2 (shield), or 18.

Whereas Chainmail would be 16 (chainmail) + 2 (shield) + 5 (Dexterity modifier, allowed by the shield), or 23.

As I said in the OP, it would NOT allow double-dipping in the Dexterity.



Using a shield should give you your Dex bonus, even in heavy armor. It should not double your dex bonus in lighter armor, but it should apply it if you are using heavy armor.

[Dork_Forge]

No... your full dex bonus AND +2.

Because while the argument for heavy armor not including your Dex bonus is its weight and lack of maneuverability, a shield changes that calculus, by giving you a sizable piece of cover under your control.

That calculation has no place in 5e unless the AC system was changed beyond recognition.

A Dex based Fighter under that system could hit AC 26 with mundane gear up to 32AC with magic gear, not including the +1 items like Ring/Cloak of Defense and then there's the chance of that Fighter being an EK or a multiclass to shield it up to 39AC with items, then there's the Warforged and Simic Hybrids that give racial +1s etc.

It just throws bounded accuracy out the window and takes a steaming dragon dropping on everything else.

Edit: It's also odd to me that you think it unreasonable to double dip dex on light armor when you think this is okay for Heavy.

[sithlordnergal]

...Gonna be honest, this is a baaad idea. A very, very bad idea. It'll break AC bounded accuracy far more than it can already be broken. Lets snag a standard Hexblade/Paladin that uses Point Buy:

A Half-Elf can start with a 15/12/14/8/12/16 ability score spread. They can use Plate Armor with that 15 Strength, and since they're going Hexblade then they are SAD. They only need to use two ASI's to reach 20 Charisma. Even if their build only gives them 4 ASI's, that's two extra ASI's they can use to put anywhere they want. Meaning they can get War Caster, and put an ASI into Dex for a 14 Dex.

Now, without your rule they would have a base AC of 21, provided they have the Defense Fighting style, a Shield, and Plate Armor. They can use the Shield spell and Shield of Faith to boost that up to 28. 28 AC without any magical items, and just by using two spells.

With your homebrew rule in place, they now have a base AC of 23, and can boost their AC to 30 the moment they get their hands on some Plate Armor. And then if you start adding magical gear into the mix...well...Let me put it this way. I have a Paladin/Sorcerer that is AL legal, and has an AC of 36 when they cast Shield of Faith and Shield due to her magical gear. An Ancient Red Dragon has a +17 to hit, they need to roll 19 or higher to hit me. And if I asked a wizard to cast Haste on me while I had Shield of Faith going, my AC would suddenly jump to 38. You would need to have a +19 or higher in order to hit me at all.

[Frogreaver]

IMO. It will change very little. Heck giving every character with a shield +2 additional AC would change very little.

[Dienekes]

This does not follow.

At 20 Dex, Leather armor and a shield would be 11 (leather armor) + 5 (Dex) + 2 (shield), or 18.

Whereas Chainmail would be 16 (chainmail) + 2 (shield) + 5 (Dexterity modifier, allowed by the shield), or 23.

As I said in the OP, it would NOT allow double-dipping in the Dexterity.

Ahh I missed that bit. My bad.

That does counter-intuitively make Dex focused Medium Armor builds now the most defensive. Which is a bit odd. 15+5+2 for 22 starting AC.

I mean sure the heavy armor guy can theoretically have more AC, but only by getting 15 Str and then 20 Dex for a 25 AC (26 with Protection). And that’s 2.5 ASIs worth of wasted stats there.

I’m still uncertain what the goal is here. Do you just want light armor wielders to be worse? Trying to make melee classes more Dex dependent than they already are? Or is it just supposed to be a realism?

[Mercureality]

Using a shield should give you your Dex bonus, even in heavy armor. It should not double your dex bonus in lighter armor, but it should apply it if you are using heavy armor.

If I'm understanding this correctly, this would only add armor to heavy armor users, and provide no bonuses at all to lighter armor users who already gain their dex bonus.

Not to play the irl game, but using a shield does not require much agility irl. You really are not moving your shield around, so much as attacking around it, and keeping it interposed between yourself and your target. (If anything, it's fatiguing, and using a shield at all should carry a minimum str requirement.)

I think heavy armor is already the best option. While more AC is welcome from a pure power perspective, I'm not sure that heavy armor needs further improvement over the lighter armors. This also prevents Dex from being a dump stat for heavy armor users, effectively making them a little more MAD for optimization. It also more severely penalizes the defenses of anyone choosing a 2-handed weapon. You'd be a fool to sacrifice that much AC. As others have mentioned, it also wrecks bounded accuracy, making heavy armor, already very good, one of the absolute best traits in the entire game.

These are my thoughts as a player who favors heavy armor classes.

[rlc]

Interesting. Other than maybe a buckler, I've never thought of a shield as something requiring exceptional agility and balance to use well. Just training.

Now if you were arguing for proficiency bonus ...

Or, all armor could work like the ua warforged's?
There could still be different types of armor (9+dex+prof for paddee, etc), but the point would be that higher skill = harder to hit?
Or maybe hp already does that, if you go with the theory that it isn't all meat.

[Keravath]

Should you lose the Dex bonus if you are paralyzed?

If you are paralysed, you are already being attacked with advantage. Why would you penalize them further?

You could go with
1) Advantage against AC (current RAW)
2) Normal roll against AC without dex modifier (means that hitting a paralysed target in heavy armor is the same as hitting one that can move)
3) Advantage against AC without dex modifier - this is a substantial penalty for anyone not wearing heavy armor - and it otherwise the same as RAW if you are wearing heavy armor.

Overall, such a change would be a nerf to wearing anything but heavy armor.

[Unoriginal]

A Dex based Fighter under that system could hit AC 26 with mundane gear

That's actually possible with the current content of the PHB. Haven't checked if it's possible without multiclassing though.

[Dork_Forge]

That's actually possible with the current content of the PHB. Haven't checked if it's possible without multiclassing though.

I know that getting high AC is possible, but you usually need to build specifically for it and then it's usually not always on. This change just opens up a flat +5 AC without really trying or needing to invest in it.

[sithlordnergal]

That's actually possible with the current content of the PHB. Haven't checked if it's possible without multiclassing though.

Its possible, but you have to expend some things to do it and have a certain build. Without multiclassing or magical items you need:

-Eldritch Knight for Heavy Armor Proficiency and spells

- Defense Fighting Style

- Plate Armor and Shield

- The Shield spell

So again, totally do-able to get 26 AC with mundane gear, but it required the Shield spell to do it. 21 is your Base AC in that case. If you have a Base AC of 26, then now you can get 31 AC with Shield as an Eldritch Knight.

[Unoriginal]

Without magic at all you can also go max Dex, a shield, studded leather, Defense fighting style, and the Defensive Duelist feat.

Dork_Forge is right that it's not always on, though.

[cutlery]

This would make a hexblade dip even more bonkers useful.

[Seclora]

Interesting. Other than maybe a buckler, I've never thought of a shield as something requiring exceptional agility and balance to use well. Just training.

Now if you were arguing for proficiency bonus ...

I'll second this one. Mostly from the realism standpoint that properly trained active shield use is more effective than a flat +2, which leads me to agree that Proficiency makes more sense than adding Dex. From a mechanical standpoint, it also keeps the current Str/Dex AC balance, in addition to allowing AC to scale better into the higher levels of play for those who choose to prioritize it. At best, this gives a +4 at level 17, when any character still investing in armor should really be allowed to feel pretty untouchable anyways.

Armor would cap out at 44 [+3 Plate(21), +3 Shield(+9), +1 Defense Fighting Style, +1 Warforged Race, +1 Ring of Protection, +5 Shield spell, +2 Shield of Faith spell, +2 Ceremony Spell, +2 Haste spell]. Which, given the existing cap is 40, does not feel like a substantial difference.

Now some of those bonuses require party cooperation and DM generosity, so without either proficiency to Shield AC or help from the rest of the table you end up with a cap of 36[+2 Plate(20), +2 Shield(+4), +1 Defense Fighting Style, +1 Warforged Race, +1 Ring of Protection, +5 Shield spell, +2 Ceremony Spell, +2 Haste spell], which is still in the crit only range for nearly every published creature, and pretty much all of them below CR 17.

I think the question should be less about what this change would bring the ceiling to, and more about the ease with which it would make this ceiling possible for non Warforged Armorers who burned a feat on picking up Ritual Casting for a RP heavy 1st level spell, all their 1st level slots on Shield, a 3rd level slot on Haste, two levels on a fighting style, and 3 of their Infusions on AC. Let That Guy have his AC, let's worry about the Eldritch Knight who is still shy the +5 from Magic Items and has fewer spell slots to sling at his AC.

[Sparky McDibben]

Just reading the thread title, my first thought was missionary.

[sithlordnergal]

Armor would cap out at 44 [+3 Plate(21), +3 Shield(+9), +1 Defense Fighting Style, +1 Warforged Race, +1 Ring of Protection, +5 Shield spell, +2 Shield of Faith spell, +2 Ceremony Spell, +2 Haste spell]. Which, given the existing cap is 40, does not feel like a substantial difference.
.

You're missing Cloak of Protection and Staff of Power. Cloak of Protection works with Ring or Protection and grants +1 to AC and Saves, and the Staff of Power grants +2 to AC and Saving throws. So you'd cap out at 47.

[Mikal]

Here’s the most important question:

Why? What gap within the rules does this plug? How does this make the game better, and balance the stats out?

In other words, how is this anything except boosting dex more and making strength based fighters require dex as well even if they don’t want to use it, thus making a stat tax on them, while also breaking bounded accuracy and making enemies weaker against high dex PCs even more?

How does this make the game BETTER?

[MeeposFire]

It feels like an odd runabout attempt to go back to pre 3e AC. Back then heavier armor was used as a strict power up where having better armor was strictly better and you got your full dex in all armors. Today the game is based around more of an idea that there is a general level of AC expected by all characters and the armor is more about how much you need to invest to get that level of AC. Heavy does not need to have any stats to get teh AC (though needs higher strength to eliminate a speed penalty), light requires you to fully invest in dex, while medium armor requires a smaller investment in dex.

The game is different now and mechanically I do not see this making the game work better. In terms of how the game does the abstraction of AC I do not see this being worth adding either at least to me.