Is Heavy Armor good?

[5eNeedsDarksun]

So obviously if you're building a melee martial and you're going to pump strength you'll get the associated benefit of being a real beast with grappling, GWM, or whatever. In that case you probably should be wearing heavy armor, at least the vast majority of the time if you're able.

But what about multi-classes, Clerics (which I'm currently playing and sparked this thought), and anyone else who might have the option to build around medium or heavy? What are the benefits of each?

Heavy Armor/ 15+ Strength Benefits

1. +1 AC. This is significant with Bonded Accuracy
2. Maybe builds around PAM + Sentinel or something like this are worth it for classes that only get 1 attack??? I really don't know as I've never seen this in action, but that seems like a lot of investment. Also this gets into issues of being MAD, so I'm really wondering if this is a benefit.
3. I'm struggling to come up with much

Medium Armor/ 14 Dex Benefits
1. +2 Initiative. This is significant. Another 10% of the time you're now ahead of the baddies
2. +2 Dex saves. Again this is significant. 10% more saves to common problems vs. ones you're seldom going to see.
3. Less investment in Dex (14) vs Str (15), besides Dwarves. Also this is significant. At creation this is valuable point that might go into Con, depending on creation method. Maybe this is +1 hp initially or maybe this is the extra point you need to get Res Con to bump you to an even number, likely 16.
4. Option to drop down to a Breastplate, only lose 1 additional AC and be Stealth competent. Clearly this is party, table, and adventure dependent, but with PWT available achieving surprise becomes a lot more achievable (without seriously impacting AC further).
5. Better at more skill checks. With the option to substitute Acrobatics for Athletics most of the time this one is pretty one sided.

Anyway, my current Medium armor Cleric is enjoying the laundry list of benefits I listed in the second list. Would I trade it for the AC point even if I had access to Heavy? No. Somehow I'd need a build that gave a lot more, and I'm not sure what that would look like.

[animorte]

Anyway, my current Medium armor Cleric is enjoying the laundry list of benefits I listed in the second list. Would I trade it for the AC point even if I had access to Heavy? No. Somehow I'd need a build that gave a lot more, and I'm not sure what that would look like.

This. I very much agree with this. I value Dexterity far too much (probably literally) on just about every PC I’ve ever played. It’s always a top 2 stat and nothing that Strength + Heavy Armor provides is worth giving that up, as far as I’m concerned.

Oh, on another note, I’ve never particularly been a fan of GWM or PAM (except when cooking).

[Bobthewizard]

I agree. Unless you are going for a PAM/GWM build, I prefer to play a Dex-based character. Even sword and board, I'd prefer rapier and shield over a longsword. It also gives you a better ranged option. A longbow or light crossbow is much better than a javelin.

There is one good reason to go STR at character generation. It opens up all weapons to you. A Dex build might not be able to use the flame-tongue longsword you find along the way, but a strength build could still use the rapier. If you don't know what magic items you'll come across, and don't think your DM will cater to your character, a Str-based character is more flexible. It depends on the campaign and the DM.

If you are starting at a higher level, and can pick your magic rapier, then Dex all the way.

[LostBenefit]

The biggest issue with heavy armor is the gold cost and the time it takes to don/doff it. Plate mail costs 1500gp and in a campaign where the DM doesn't provide exorbitant amounts of loot or accept money-making shenanigans like Distort Value, it will be difficult to earn before tier 2.

Unless you sleep in your armor, you'll have lower AC if you are ambushed and cannot realistically don it during battle as that takes 10 minutes and if a caster uses Heat Metal on you, it will take 5 minutes to doff it which is longer than the spell lasts.

Medium armor with 14 DEX is great for multiclass builds as it doesn't restrict you to STR (STR builds usually take GWM and PAM) and has 1 less AC if using a shield.

[stoutstien]

It's a lateral move from medium barring feat investments or odd ball builds with multiple low stats/race combos.

[JackPhoenix]

There's a misconception that you need Str 15+ to use heavy armor. You do not. Getting around the speed penalty isn't hard, assuming you even care about it in the first place.

[diplomancer]

There's one further benefit to medium armors. If you're going for heavy armor, you're probably giving up on stealth, not taking it as a skill or having half-way decent Dex. Which means that if you have the good fortune of finding a coat of Mithril Plate Mail, you won't be able to really take advantage of it. Sure, getting rid of disadvantage is nice, but with your +0, maybe +1, you're not stealthing around. On the other hand, if you've built for Medium Armor, and thus probably invested somewhat in stealth, and find a suit of Mithril Half-Plate, you're going to be very happy. Ironically, this applies with even more relevance if you're a class that has Heavy Armor proficiency but decided to go for Medium Armor instead. Now if you find a Mithril Plate Armor, you get to use it with no penalty and keep your superior stealth.

[GeoffWatson]

So Medium armour gives free Stealth proficiency?

[Unoriginal]

So obviously if you're building a melee martial and you're going to pump strength and get the associated benefit of be a real beast with grappling, GWM, or whatever. In that case you probably should be wearing heavy armor, at least the vast majority of the time if you're able.

But what about multi-classes, Clerics (which I'm currently playing and sparked this thought), and anyone else who might have the option to build around medium or heavy? What are the benefits of each?

Heavy Armor/ 15+ Strength Benefits

1. +1 AC. This is significant with Bonded Accuracy
2. Maybe builds around PAM + Sentinel or something like this are worth it for classes that only get 1 attack??? I really don't know as I've never seen this in action, but that seems like a lot of investment. Also this gets into issues of being MAD, so I'm really wondering if this is a benefit.
3. I'm struggling to come up with much

Medium Armor/ 14 Dex Benefits
1. +2 Initiative. This is significant. Another 10% of the time you're now ahead of the baddies
2. +2 Dex saves. Again this is significant. 10% more saves to common problems vs. ones you're seldom going to see.
3. Less investment in Dex (14) vs Str (15), besides Dwarves. Also this is significant. At creation this is valuable point that might go into Con, depending on creation method. Maybe this is +1 hp initially or maybe this is the extra point you need to get Res Con to bump you to an even number, likely 16.
4. Option to drop down to a Breastplate, only lose 1 additional AC and be Stealth competent. Clearly this is party, table, and adventure dependent, but with PWT available achieving surprise becomes a lot more achievable (without seriously impacting AC further).
5. Better at more skill checks. With the option to substitute Acrobatics for Athletics most of the time this one is pretty one sided.

Anyway, my current Medium armor Cleric is enjoying the laundry list of benefits I listed in the second list. Would I trade it for the AC point even if I had access to Heavy? No. Somehow I'd need a build that gave a lot more, and I'm not sure what that would look like.

Heavy Armor and Medium Armor are both good, just for different things.

Something to consider, though: if you want to use anything in melee better than a rapier, you're going to need STR. If you go STR, is it worthwhile for this specific PC to invest significantly in DEX too?

For some characters, the answer is yes. For many, though, lower DEX letting them invest their stats elsewhere is more welcomed.

[diplomancer]

Heavy Armor and Medium Armor are both good, just for different things.

Something to consider, though: if you want to use anything in melee better than a rapier, you're going to need STR. If you go STR, is it worthwhile for this specific PC to invest significantly in DEX too?

For some characters, the answer is yes. For many, though, lower DEX letting them invest their stats elsewhere is more welcomed.

On the other hand, if we're talking casters, they simply don't care about weapons that much. And there's also the case of Hexadins, or just straight Hex Blades.

But thinking more about your point makes me reach the conclusion: no, Heavy Armor is not good, but if you decided to build for Str for other reasons (usually for the big melee weapons, maybe for grappling), they're definitely your best choice, unless you roll particularly well for stats.

[Tanarii]

Yes. It's a 3 pt advantage on Light Armor in the early game, and let's you dump the chars Dex compared to Medium armor. The classes that want it are the Str classes / subclasses, so the latter is great (Fighters, Paladins, some Clerics). It's also noticeable effect for classes that would love to do Str builds, but are stuck with Medium armor and a Dex 14 requirement, such as Barbarians, Valor Bards, Str Rangers, and Mountain Dwarf Bladelocks.

[RogueJK]

There's a misconception that you need Str 15+ to use heavy armor. You do not. Getting around the speed penalty isn't hard, assuming you even care about it in the first place.

Indeed. There are a number of races who get a base movement speed of 35', and who can happily dump STR and still wear Heavy Armor while having the same 25' movement speed as a Dwarf:

Air Genasi
Dhampir
Leonin
Satyr
Wood Elf
Wood Half Elf

And Centaurs have a 40' base movement speed (as do Swiftstride Shifters for short periods while Shifted), so they can still have the standard 30' movement speed while wearing Heavy Armor and dumping STR.

[diplomancer]

I think the simpler answer is:
1- you want to invest in Dex- Light Armor is your best choice, though you migh want Medium Armor at some points of your progression
2- you want to invest in Str- Heavy Armor is your best choice, and those who do want to invest in Str but don't have access to Heavy Armor feel the difference.
3- you don't want to invest in either Str or Dex (you're probably a full caster, though there are other possibilities)- Medium Armor is your best choice. There might be some weird exceptions- for instance, you're playing with rolled stats, and rolled 2 stats well enough but very mediocrely for the other stats. You can play a Dwarf Cleric with Heavy Armor with decent Wis and Con, dumping both Str and Dex with no big issue.

[LudicSavant]

Heavy armor proficiency is frequently mistaken to be worth more than it actually is.

- As a Cleric, heavy armor means you either take an inferior statline, or drop your speed (even if you're a dwarf, it's going to 25 -- basically they only take "half the penalty" for heavy armor + low str). And that statline is costing you defensively, just like having a lower AC would. (And offensively too, because initiative and stealth are good like that)

- It is only ever at most worth +1 AC, and sometimes it's worth +0.

For example at level 1, 50gp medium armor and 75gp heavy armor provide the same AC. For another example, if magic items are in play then (according to all of the various magic loot guidelines and variants) +1 AC magic items are cheaper than going from medium to full plate, until your attunement slots are full. It's not uncommon for a character to vacillate between +0 and +1 AC during their progression.

___

Basically, while medium+shields is a big feature, the further jump to heavy armor proficiency is a minor feature. So minor, in fact, that some players will go for medium even while playing a Cleric subclass that grants heavy. That's why Heavily Armored is a bad feat. Unlike Moderately Armored, it's not giving shield proficiency (which is big) or enabling a better statline. Moderately Armored is a jump from 14 to 19 AC for a 14 Dex character, as half a feat. Heavily armored doesn't do anything close to that.

[LostBenefit]

So Medium armour gives free Stealth proficiency?

No, it doesn't. And with the exception of scale mail and half plate, it doesn't impose disadvantage on Stealth checks.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Indeed. There are a number of races who get a base movement speed of 35', and who can happily dump STR and still wear Heavy Armor while having the same movement speed as a Dwarf (25').

Fair enough that people can, but has anyone actually seen this in play (at a table that regularly uses a grid)? I do take issue with the word 'happily' here. I'm trying to imagine picking a Wood Elf and then immediately building so that movement is under par rather than over par.

[LostBenefit]

Indeed. There are a number of races who get a base movement speed of 35', and who can happily dump STR and still wear Heavy Armor while having the same 25' movement speed as a Dwarf:

Air Genasi
Dhampir
Leonin
Satyr
Wood Elf
Wood Half Elf

And Centaurs have a 40' base movement speed (as do Swiftstride Shifters while Shifted), so they can still have the standard 30' movement speed while wearing Heavy Armor and dumping STR.

You do still need heavy armor proficiency otherwise you suffer from disadvantage on all ability checks, saving throws, and attack rolls using STR or DEX, and you can't cast spells.

[Tanarii]

I think the simpler answer is:
1- you want to invest in Dex- Light Armor is your best choice, though you migh want Medium Armor at some points of your progression
2- you want to invest in Str- Heavy Armor is your best choice, and those who do want to invest in Str but don't have access to Heavy Armor feel the difference.
3- you don't want to invest in either Str or Dex (you're probably a full caster, though there are other possibilities)- Medium Armor is your best choice. There might be some weird exceptions- for instance, you're playing with rolled stats, and rolled 2 stats well enough but very mediocrely for the other stats. You can play a Dwarf Cleric with Heavy Armor with decent Wis and Con, dumping both Str and Dex with no big issue.
Well said.

Possible exception to #2 would be if you are willing to invest in Str, Dex 14, and Con, at the cost of dumping the mental stats. In that case it might be worth the -2 AC to be able to use Stealth effectively. That was a fairly common build for Fighter Champion Henchmen IMC. They didn't need mental stats because it was thematic, and also from a metagame perspective they were secondary PC meatshield/heads anyway. :smallamused:

I have noticed in the past there's a large chunk of folks around here that seem to think Clerics are casters only who should never be built using Str / Heavy Armor. But that doesn't match either my experience with the preferences of players nor several of the domains. If they have Heavy Armor from domain, they're usually willing to hit something with a Str-based beat stick.

[diplomancer]

Indeed. There are a number of races who get a base movement speed of 35', and who can happily dump STR and still wear Heavy Armor while having the same 25' movement speed as a Dwarf:

Air Genasi
Dhampir
Leonin
Satyr
Wood Elf
Wood Half Elf

And Centaurs have a 40' base movement speed (as do Swiftstride Shifters for short periods while Shifted), so they can still have the standard 30' movement speed while wearing Heavy Armor and dumping STR.

Having a higher movement speed is a racial feature, and you "pay" for it with your racial choice; dumping str and wearing heavy armor is not without cost in that case. Of course, races are not perfectly balanced, so maybe it's still worth it (or still good enough)- but the price is there.

No, if you want to remove the "cost" of Str for wearing Heavy Armor, your best bet is probably a small race that has a sturdy mount friend. You can use it regularly in any environment without giving up anything on your speed.




I have noticed in the past there's a large chunk of folks around here that seem to think Clerics are casters only who should never be built using Str / Heavy Armor. But that doesn't match either my experience with the preferences of players nor several of the domains. If they have Heavy Armor from domain, they're usually willing to hit something with a Str-based beat stick.

That a choice is common in no way shows that it's the best choice. I do grant that the choice is indeed common (and that I have used it in the past, and might use it again in the future- but not for mechanical reasons, and only if there's another party member that's already wearing Heavy Armor. I hate being the one party member that spoils the party's stealth capabilities. And even in that case, I wouldn't invest in Str- meaning, spending ASIs on it-, but might find it useful to use Str weapons in the early game).

[RogueJK]

Fair enough that people can, but has anyone actually seen this in play (at a table that regularly uses a grid)? I do take issue with the word 'happily' here. I'm trying to imagine picking a Wood Elf and then immediately building so that movement is under par rather than over par.

I've done it, with a Wood Elf Samurai Fighter whose primary stat was WIS, with CON, INT, and CHA as secondary stats, taking the Wood Elf Magic feat and using Shillelagh as their primary attack option.

He was a Wise Wandering Warrior-Diplomat, who first attempted to negotiate (+CHA and +WIS to Persuasion), and then resorted to using his walking staff (Shillelagh) if that failed.

He wore Heavy Armor but lacked a 15 STR, so had a 25' movement speed. At times when I wanted extra speed, like a chase, Longstrider was an option to boost me back up to 35' for an hour. And he could even be sneaky, with Pass Without Trace compensating for the Heavy Armor Disadvantage plus his middling DEX.

It was a nice change from the standard "Strong/Dexterous Fighter" trope, with someone who was a warrior but who focuses on the mental stats foremost.

[Leon]

Its good enough for what it does. Its not something that's generally worth going out of your way to get if you don't natively get it. The cost for the best version can be a problem particularly in 5e's native state of wealth and gear starvation.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Well said.

Possible exception to #2 would be if you are willing to invest in Str, Dex 14, and Con, at the cost of dumping the mental stats. In that case it might be worth the -2 AC to be able to use Stealth effectively. That was a fairly common build for Fighter Champion Henchmen IMC. They didn't need mental stats because it was thematic, and also from a metagame perspective they were secondary PC meatshield/heads anyway. :smallamused:

I have noticed in the past there's a large chunk of folks around here that seem to think Clerics are casters only who should never be built using Str / Heavy Armor. But that doesn't match either my experience with the preferences of players nor several of the domains. If they have Heavy Armor from domain, they're usually willing to hit something with a Str-based beat stick.

Your last section jives with why I started the post. Common practice on most of the Cleric ranking sights tends to give the Heavy Armor a blue rating and the default Medium a green, and/ or note that it's and upgrade to get the Heavy. Maybe in 1 or 2 cases where other subclass abilities support Str based attacks it could be, but in most cases I can't say I'd rate even having the option. Perhaps if character generation looked like having three 14s and three 15s and you could leave the option open for a magic suit down the road then sure, but in almost all cases you're not building a Cleric with 14 Dex and 15 Str. I do take the point made that 15 Str isn't a need, so there might be cases, like gaining a strong mount, where using Heavy without the Str is viable.
The other thing that brought this post on was that we usually (houserule) omit Dex from Initiative at our table, which eliminates one of the benefits to Medium. One guy, who usually plays, is trying his hand at DMing and decided to go back to RAW. So my Cleric is getting the initiative benefit as well as the rest. We're only a few sessions in, but I'm remembering why we houseruled it out.

[Amechra]

Heavy armor has some real advantages over medium armor if you look at it from the perspective of "what do I need to do to get to AC X?", especially if you pretend that you started with a 13 in your relevant AC stat:



AC

Light Armor Requirements
Medium Armor Requirements
Heavy Armor Requirements


16
Dex 18 and 45gp for Studded Leather
Dex 14+ and 50gp for Scale Mail
Str 13+ and 75gp for Chain Mail


17
Dex 20 and 45gp for Studded Leather
Dex 14+ and 750gp for Half-Plate
Str 15+ and 200gp for Splint


18
---
Dex 16+ and Medium Armor Master and 750gp for Half-Plate
Str 15+ and 1500gp for Plate





At first, Heavy Armor has an advantage — you're paying 25gp more for the privilege of not having to spend an ASI (or half-ASI in this case) on your AC stat.
When you hit AC 17, it's a little more mixed — if you go for heavy armor, you're effectively trading some ASI flexibility (since you had to spend it on +2 Str and not a Dex half-feat or on bumping up two odd stats) for big gold savings. This is probably the point where medium armor has the advantage, since PCs tend to swim in money after a certain point.
AC 18 is no real contest, though — the heavy armor user can upgrade by paying a bunch of gold, while the medium armor user has to spend two extra ASIs to get an equivalent bonus.


The thing is that Medium Armor is so much better than Light Armor for a character that isn't turbo-focused on Dexterity and Stealth that it'd be worth it to pick up Moderately Armored just for that sweet +2/+3 boost... and then the feat also gives you proficiency in shields (which are another +2 to AC). No other ASI can remotely compare the hilariously big boost to AC that Moderately Armored can give you (for reference, spending an ASI is generally going to cap out at giving you a +2 to AC, and is usually going to give you a +1).

It also doesn't help that Dexterity is way stronger than Strength, simply in terms of what it adds to. If you aren't taking advantage of heavy weapons, Strength is mostly ignorable even if you're using the encumbrance rules. Just buy a mule or whatever to carry your extra stuff (they cost 8gp).

...

Which actually suggests some really simple house-rules if you want heavy armor to be more attractive:



Splint now costs 400gp but only has a Strength requirement of 13.
Plate also gives you the benefits of using a shield without taking up your off-hand, for a total AC of 20. You can still use a shield if you really want to (for example, a magic shield), but your AC is going to be 20 or 18+(bonus from shield), whichever is higher.


I also personally like skewing magic armors towards the heavier end — you'll get some magical light/medium armor, but the vast majority of it is some flavor of shield or heavy armor. Because the people who are going to have the resources to make something like Adamantine Armor are also the kinds of people who are going to go the extra mile of getting a full suit of gleaming adamantine plate. This is mostly an aesthetic thing for my settings, though.

[LudicSavant]

Your last section jives with why I started the post. Common practice on most of the Cleric ranking sights tends to give the Heavy Armor a blue rating and the default Medium a green, and/ or note that it's and upgrade to get the Heavy. Maybe in 1 or 2 cases where other subclass abilities support Str based attacks it could be, but in most cases I can't say I'd rate even having the option. Perhaps if character generation looked like having three 14s and three 15s and you could leave the option open for a magic suit down the road then sure, but in almost all cases you're not building a Cleric with 14 Dex and 15 Str. I do take the point made that 15 Str isn't a need, so there might be cases, like gaining a strong mount, where using Heavy without the Str is viable.
The other thing that brought this post on was that we usually (houserule) omit Dex from Initiative at our table, which eliminates one of the benefits to Medium. One guy, who usually plays, is trying his hand at DMing and decided to go back to RAW. So my Cleric is getting the initiative benefit as well as the rest. We're only a few sessions in, but I'm remembering why we houseruled it out.

Such sites should be taken with a big grain of salt. They often do things like rate Durable Blue for Barbarians because "Barbarians like HP, right?" Even though A) Durable is a bad feat in general and B) it's even worse for Barbarians, because the higher your HD size is, the less Durable does (to a point where at d12 HD, it does virtually nothing).

Or even worse, rate Wolf 6 higher than Elk 6, even though Elk 6 does everything Wolf 6 does plus more (it's a rare case of a strict buff in 5e).

[Ogun]

Is heavy armor good for a mounted caster?
A small caster can be mounted most of the time, attack using spells and max out their casting stat and constitution before anything else.
The two full casters that have pets earliest are both druids Wildfire and Primeval, which bumps into the metal armored druid issues.
Affording the armor also makes it an issue.
I honestly don't know if it should cost that much, from a game balance standpoint.
Its already sub par in many ways, gating it with money is kind of adding insult to injury.
Artificers and Forge clerics might get the most out of heavy armor, regardless of their strength.

[Amechra]

To be a little fair to those sites, Durable was one of a Barbarian's only choices if they wanted a Con half-feat back when the PHB was the only source of feats... since their other choices were Resilient (Con) and Tavern Brawler. Notably, both of those feats are dubiously useful for Ye Olde Generic Barbarian — they already have proficiency in Con saves, and Tavern Brawler is good but compares poorly with PAM and/or GWM. At least Durable does something unique, right? Who cares that that unique thing is basically inconsequential?

Now, though, they have no excuse, since stuff like Crusher and Skill Expert are right there. I'm kinda convinced that most of those sites are still operating off the assumptions they made when the edition first came out.


Its already sub par in many ways, gating it with money is kind of adding insult to injury.

Gating stuff behind money is generally way easier to overcome than gating stuff behind stats, simply because you're going to see way more money than you are going to see stat increases.

Like... unless your game is going to reach high levels, you're generally going to see two-to-three ASIs over the course of the entire campaign — it's entirely possible that you'll only see one. Spending even one of those on just boosting your AC is a massive cost, unless you're using it to go from light armor to medium armor + shields (because that's a +4/+5 boost to AC).

I feel like a lot of people underestimate how precious ability scores and ability score increases are in 5e.

[Pex]

Dexterity is overrated. Initiative is good, but it's swingy. There are advantages to going first in combat, at least before the enemy, but it's not an absolute necessity.

Go heavy armor or don't go heavy armor. Do what you want, but the ones who choose the other are not doing it wrong.

[Greywander]

So the numbers actually shake out really well to make all three viable options for different types of characters, ending up roughly 1 AC apart at most.

Strength builds obviously want heavy armor, as it allows them to maximize their AC without needing to invest in DEX. The question then is why you'd want to build a STR character instead of a DEX character, which is a fair question. Generally, a STR character is going to be using a two-handed weapon such as a polearm or greatsword, or they may be a grappler. Heavy armor also gets you the highest possible AC without a feat, so for that reason it might be appealing to a sword'n'board build even though they could use a rapier for their weapon.

Dexterity builds obviously want light armor. Studded leather is super cheap comparatively, and offers the same AC as half plate once DEX is raised to 20, but without the stealth penalty. DEX generally gives better benefits than STR does, particularly for ranged weapon users, but can't use the heavier melee weapons as effectively. Light armor is also most heavily influenced by stats, as it needs a 20 in DEX to get the full amount of AC, whereas both heavy and medium armor can get you to full AC sooner, if you can afford the most expensive armors.

Builds that eschew both Strength and Dexterity generally want medium armor, though heavy is a close second. 14 DEX is a lower investment than 15 STR, and confers the better benefits of DEX over STR. The other thing that makes medium armor interesting is that with Medium Armor Master you can get the same AC as heavy armor but without the Stealth penalty. Though at that point we have to compare it to plate with Heavy Armor Master, which changes the equation a bit. If you consider these two feats, heavy armor probably edges out medium armor for those not wanting to invest much in STR or DEX, both because MAM requires now a 16 in DEX and because the benefits of HAM are a little bit better. It does depend, though; builds that put a high priority on Stealth might favor MAM over HAM.

[LudicSavant]

Now, though, they have no excuse, since stuff like Crusher and Skill Expert are right there.

Yeah, said sites are rating it right alongside stuff like Crusher and Skill Expert... and rating Durable higher. It's pure silliness.


I'm kinda convinced that most of those sites are still operating off the assumptions they made when the edition first came out.

I think the problem is that they're just rating things off of assumptions, period.

These sort of sites never mention the math for Durable, and are likely completely unaware of it. If they had actually checked, they would have noticed that if you have a d12 HD, Durable doesn't even shift the needle on your average short rest healing. For example, if you have a 16 Con, it's worth only 1/4th of a hit point per die.

The implication is of course that a lot of these sites don't do any math or testing or really any kind of critical evaluation at all, which raises the question of why the heck they're even publishing a guide.

[animorte]

The implication is of course that a lot of these sites don't do any math or testing or really any kind of critical evaluation at all, which raises the question of why the heck they're even publishing a guide.

I’ve had my suspicions for some time whether many of these sources actually play the game.

[Corran]

There's one further benefit to medium armors. If you're going for heavy armor, you're probably giving up on stealth, not taking it as a skill or having half-way decent Dex. Which means that if you have the good fortune of finding a coat of Mithril Plate Mail...
Stealth proficiency is still good to pick up even in heavies. Equipment aside, there is pass without trace. But even without these, stealth points are still useful given both how often the check can come into play with noticeable/significant effect and given that checks use a d20 and that many monsters have low or mediocre perception/senses anyway.

[Tanarii]

Your last section jives with why I started the post. Common practice on most of the Cleric ranking sights tends to give the Heavy Armor a blue rating and the default Medium a green, and/ or note that it's and upgrade to get the Heavy. Maybe in 1 or 2 cases where other subclass abilities support Str based attacks it could be, but in most cases I can't say I'd rate even having the option. Perhaps if character generation looked like having three 14s and three 15s and you could leave the option open for a magic suit down the road then sure, but in almost all cases you're not building a Cleric with 14 Dex and 15 Str.
Clerics are a special case. Various domains are encouraged to default to weapons or cantrips by their 8th level Divine Strike or Potent Cantrips feature. 6 out of 9 domains through Xanathars have blessed strikes encouraging weapons use, and 5 of those get Heavy armor. Those 5 are designed to (and IMO should) start with decent Str, dump Dex, and can occasionally thwap something with a Str-based weapon.

The only Domain that should be thinking about if they want to do Str 14 and Dex 14 so they can use a wider variety of Str-based weapons is the Trickery Rogue. Or they can act like the 3 Potent Casting domains: Dex 14, stick with Daggers, and drop Str to whatever level is required to carry their Medium armor (which isn't that light, especially in a Variant Encumbrance game). (Edit: IIRC I mostly saw the latter from players of Trickery Clerics, because they also liked background with Stealth.)

And while the difference between a Dagger and a Mace or Hand Axe or even a spear or staff is pretty negligible, one possible (but not required) consideration is if the campaign uses randomly determination for what type of magic weapons are found, you might be cutting your access to a large proportion of them.

[Ogun]

Gating stuff behind money is generally way easier to overcome than gating stuff behind stats, simply because you're going to see way more money than you are going to see stat increases.

Like... unless your game is going to reach high levels, you're generally going to see two-to-three ASIs over the course of the entire campaign — it's entirely possible that you'll only see one. Spending even one of those on just boosting your AC is a massive cost, unless you're using it to go from light armor to medium armor + shields (because that's a +4/+5 boost to AC).

I feel like a lot of people underestimate how precious ability scores and ability score increases are in 5e.

I agree and I still think heavy armor costs a lot in terms of money.
It maybe the campaigns I've played but as a Nature Cleric and Forge Cleric, we went to level 8 without me getting to buy the heaviest armor I could wear.
After dying as a high strength low hit point +dex forge cleric, I started favoring natural armor/sheild and Dex~Con/Casting stat builds, and they feel way more durable.

Of course, I also avoid melee, move faster and use more cover than when I was playing a Strength based character.

Even a Tortle caster might want to chose Dex as their third highest stat, just for saves.

Making heavy armor cheaper, and/or giving PCs more money earlier shouldn't do much to affect balance in a world without magic shops.

As an aside, why do Nature clerics get heavy armor proficiency?

[RogueJK]

Clerics are a special case. Various domains are encouraged to default to weapons or cantrips by their 8th level Divine Strike or Potent Cantrips feature. 6 out of 9 domains through Xanathars have blessed strikes encouraging weapons use, and 5 of those get Heavy armor. Those 5 are designed to (and IMO should) start with decent Str, dump Dex, and can occasionally thwap something with a Str-based weapon.

The only Domain that should be thinking about if they want to do Str 14 and Dex 14 so they can use a wider variety of Str-based weapons is the Trickery Rogue. Or they can act like the 3 Potent Casting domains: Dex 14, stick with Daggers, and drop Str to whatever level is required to carry their Medium armor

Divine Strike vs. Potent Cantrip is functionally moot, post-Tasha's. You no longer have to worry about whether your domain is pushing you to use weapons or to use cantrips.

Any domain can get bonus damage to either weapons or cantrips now, via Blessed Strikes. And it's Radiant damage too, so you also don't have to fret about your specific domain getting a subpar type of bonus damage.

So now, rather than the Trickery Cleric trying to decide which STR/DEX weapon they're less bad at using so that they can try to squeeze out a few points of bonus poison damage, they can instead stick to using their auto-scaling damage cantrips that key off their undoubtedly higher WIS plus also get bonus radiant damage.

Blessed Strike's 1d8 averages out to +4.5 damage, which is basically the same as Potent Cantrip with 20 WIS.

[JackPhoenix]

Indeed. There are a number of races who get a base movement speed of 35', and who can happily dump STR and still wear Heavy Armor while having the same 25' movement speed as a Dwarf:

Air Genasi
Dhampir
Leonin
Satyr
Wood Elf
Wood Half Elf

And Centaurs have a 40' base movement speed (as do Swiftstride Shifters for short periods while Shifted), so they can still have the standard 30' movement speed while wearing Heavy Armor and dumping STR.

Yep. Even if you don't go for those races, there are various speed increases elsewhere, feats, spells, magic items, mounts and other ways to avoid relying on your movement speed (Broom of Flying), and Gauntlets of Ogre Power (and Str belts) can get you the Str you need. Mithral armor is a thing, and many characters who would pick heavy armor are casters and likely don't need to move that much during combat in the first place... and the speed penalty doesn't matter for exploration and overland travel.

[Tanarii]

Another point is that IMX, medium armor usually means a 2 pt drop in AC in practice.
Because more often than not players want Stealth as an option in their back pocket.


Divine Strike vs. Potent Cantrip is functionally moot, post-Tasha's.
Tashas is a splat with optional DM controlled rules, and not a well received one at that. It can't be assumed to be in play. But if that rule is allowed, yes it will change the dynamic for Clerics. Especially Trickery Clerics

[Amechra]

After dying as a high strength low hit point +dex forge cleric, I started favoring natural armor/sheild and Dex~Con/Casting stat builds, and they feel way more durable.

Of course, I also avoid melee, move faster and use more cover than when I was playing a Strength based character.

I've bolded two very important things — first of all, you got the Con and Dex on your Forge Cleric backwards. :p If you were worried about Dexterity saves, Resilient (Dexterity) is going to give you a way bigger bang for your buck than actually boosting Dexterity. Second of all, of course you felt like your Dex-based characters were tougher if you used more cover — cover is an amazing boost to your AC and Dex saves.

I bet you that, if you prioritized Str/Con instead of Str/Dex and made good use of cover, your Strength-based Forge Cleric would feel way tougher. In general, focusing on both Strength and Dexterity is a bad idea unless you have to (looking at you, Barbarians!)

[strangebloke]

Heavy armor - and the strategies it incentivizes - are pretty bad overall.


Do you care about stealth? Well, too bad. You either need mithral armor, or huge modifiers that can overwhelm your disadvantage. Stealth is important! Surprise is a lot of free damage! Note that a medium armor build can switch between breastplate and halfplate depending on what is relevant.
Plate incentivizes investment into STR. STR is not a very useful stat. Athletics is sort of useful, sometimes, but compared with Stealth + better ranged options + initiative + dexterity saves, its clear which one wins. You don't have to invest in STR, but losing 10 feet of movement is another serious cost. Yes you can get improvements to your movement speed, but losing 10 feet of movement range is losing 10 feet of movement range, no matter how you slice it. Movement speed is important! I can't take anyone seriously who just dismisses losing movement speed! And yes you can get Gauntlets of Ogre power but... that's an attunement slot and a magic item! Wouldn't you rather be picking up boots of flying and amulets of mind reading and weapons of throwing and such?
If you are using encumbrance rules, most STR builds end up with less carry capacity free than light armor builds.
Vulnerability to random things like heat metal and rust monsters.
You can't get most benefits of rage.
Plate is expensive. Medium armor costs half as much across the board, and light armor or natural armor is free. Mage armor requires non-monetary resources but also can be very good.
You need proficiencies to use plate, that are relatively hard to come by.
What are the upsides?


Well, uh.

You get to be 1 AC ahead of the medium armor bros, and maybe 2 AC ahead of the light armor bros at some levels if they don't have mage armor.
You're less MAD if you're building for STR already (itself a dubious proposition).
...
...
Heavy armor master is good sometimes?


It's just not good! There's little upside here! It's marginally ahead in a very straightforward beatstick competition but every possible externality shows heavy armor to be the worse option. I love STR characters. I have played many STR characters. Melee fighters, melee rangers. Big beefy cleric dudes. But the heavy armor is, almost strictly, a concession to the aesthetics I want, not something I'm picking for the sake of power.

[Tanarii]

Do you care about stealth? Well, too bad. You either need mithral armor, or huge modifiers that can overwhelm your disadvantage. Stealth is important! Surprise is a lot of free damage! Note that a medium armor build can switch between breastplate and halfplate depending on what is relevant.Surprise is hard to achieve even with a full Stealth oriented party. Because every one of the party has to beat all of the enemies PP. Unless the DM is like me, and allows fairly short distances (60ft in my case) between separate groups, in which case a smaller 1-2 person scout element can be involved in trying to achieve surprise.

What's really impacted hard is being eliminated from scouting roles, and non-surprise non-group stealth checks where the layers didn't get a choice, and to a lesser degree non-surprise group stealth checks. YMMV on how often those come into play though.


Plate incentivizes investment into STR. STR is not a very useful stat.It is if you don't want to be restricted to a small subset of melee weapons. Although IMO finesse weapons should probably take a 1 die size reduction when used with Dex.


Plate is expensive.But Splint is cheap. Cheaper than getting AC 16 with stealth or AC 17 without stealth using Medium armor.


You need proficiencies to use plate, that are relatively hard to come by.This one is a real pain for some Str builds that would really love to be able dump Dex. Especially Valor Bards and StRangers.
But really, two of the three classes Str classes start with it (Fighters and Paladins), Barbarians get Rage resist instead. And Melee-oriented Clerics start with it as well.
They really did but some thought into it.


What are the upsides?
- Access to all weapons. Important if you want to use 2H weapons or something other than a Rapier / shortswords / dagger. Especially important if found magic items are random types.
- A cheap bump to AC 17 in Tier 1, and an expensive one to AC 18 in Tier 2.
- If feats are allowed: Heavy Armor Master. A great (but not OP) feat.

Is it worth it for a Wizard or Sorcerer or non-blade Warlock? Probably not. Medium + Shield is a huge enough upgrade already.

It really is a class dependent discussion. Fighters, Paladins, some Clerics, Bards, Rangers and Blade Warlocks would love it. The important three start with it.

[Witty Username]

Generally speaking you want at least one strength invested character. Unless you want the party to be stonewalled by otherwise minor obstacles.
Note: I consider a 300 pound iron gate, a minor obstacle.

Heavy armor vs medium armor depends on how your party comp is made and what tools they have, If everyone else is using medium armor, and you have no barbarians, then you likely need a strong arm character (a summoner or wild shaper can handle that as well but so can a heavy armor fighter or paladin type character).

For casters, if you don't need movement speed, heavy armor is cheaper in both gold (until you get to plate) and ability scores. 20 ft move can definitely be enough for a sedimentary character like a control caster or summoner. Mounts like phantom steed can muck with this as well (YMMV).


Heavy armor is ok, medium armor is definitely reasonable.

[Ogun]

I've bolded two very important things — first of all, you got the Con and Dex on your Forge Cleric backwards. :p If you were worried about Dexterity saves, Resilient (Dexterity) is going to give you a way bigger bang for your buck than actually boosting Dexterity. Second of all, of course you felt like your Dex-based characters were tougher if you used more cover — cover is an amazing boost to your AC and Dex saves.

I bet you that, if you prioritized Str/Con instead of Str/Dex and made good use of cover, your Strength-based Forge Cleric would feel way tougher. In general, focusing on both Strength and Dexterity is a bad idea unless you have to (looking at you, Barbarians!)

Let me clarify.
My hit points were low, because of poor rolls.
My Dex wasn't even in my top 3, stats, it was just low.
I went Strength/ Con/Wisdom, because I wanted to toss a Bless and then hit things in melee.
He died from dragons breath while attempting to take cover.

My characters that dump Strength for Dex get better at hitting, hiding,ambush, Dex saves and escaping grapples.
I never choose resilient, it's boring and it also doesn't do everything that a strait +2 to Dex does.
But mostly it's boring, I prefer more options to strait utility.

Strength based characters who want to use cover a lot won't get to melee very much, unless they skirmish maybe?
In 3.5 I would have carried a Tower or Hide Sheild, but that's not an option now.

If you could start out actually using your heavy armor proficiency for the best in mundane heavy armor, I could see choosing it more.
Right now it feels like not being able to aquire a greatsword from the beginning, despite having proficiency.
The better AC part of high Strength is money gated, and may not even show up in play.

[Amechra]

Honestly, it's like no-one read the very clear and not at all confusing chart that I posted earlier in this thread! :smalltongue:

Splint and Half-Plate give you the same AC for roughly the same investment (Dex 14 vs. Str 15), except Splint costs 200gp and Half-Plate costs 750gp. On top of that, they have very different penalties for not hitting the "stat minimum" — Half-Plate gives you a scaling penalty to AC, while Splint gives you a flat -10ft movement speed.

Plate lets you effectively spend 1,300gp instead of spending two ASIs — one to increase your Dexterity to 16+, and another on Medium Armor Master.

It's all a matter of perspective! :p

[Ogun]

I feel seen...
Yeah, splint seems like the sweet spot.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Another point is that IMX, medium armor usually means a 2 pt drop in AC in practice.
Because more often than not players want Stealth as an option in their back pocket.


Tashas is a splat with optional DM controlled rules, and not a well received one at that. It can't be assumed to be in play. But if that rule is allowed, yes it will change the dynamic for Clerics. Especially Trickery Clerics

Regarding the Stealth, as you say in your other post, mileage may vary. And it will not just vary from table to table, but party to party, and location to location. So the Dex 14 character may have times they don the 1/2 plate and also have opportunities where they will just have the breastplate on in order to potentially get surprise. When surprise works, the extra AC point is definitely worth the trade off. To me this provides more viable options for the Med armored character and is a good thing.

[diplomancer]

Divine Strike vs. Potent Cantrip is functionally moot, post-Tasha's. You no longer have to worry about whether your domain is pushing you to use weapons or to use cantrips.

Any domain can get bonus damage to either weapons or cantrips now, via Blessed Strikes. And it's Radiant damage too, so you also don't have to fret about your specific domain getting a subpar type of bonus damage.

So now, rather than the Trickery Cleric trying to decide which STR/DEX weapon they're less bad at using so that they can try to squeeze out a few points of bonus poison damage, they can instead stick to using their auto-scaling damage cantrips that key off their undoubtedly higher WIS plus also get bonus radiant damage.

Blessed Strike's 1d8 averages out to +4.5 damage, which is basically the same as Potent Cantrip with 20 WIS.

The one exception is the Arcana Cleric; having native class access to GFB/BB, his weapon attacks are actually cantrips, and cantrips that can double up on damage, which Tasha's feature doesn't allow for, so he still prefers Potent Cantrip.

[LudicSavant]

The main advantage of Potent Cantrip is that it can activate multiple times per turn, such as on a Word of Radiance or an Arcana Cleric's BB/GFB/Bonfire or on a Warcaster OA.

Divine Strikes is basically obsolete these days, Blessed Strikes is better in just about every way until level 14, and even at level 14 it's often better since it can apply to cantrips and off-turn attacks.

[Tanarii]

It's all a matter of perspective! :p
Absolutely. And the problem with pushing back on "Heavy Armor is always worse/useless" is you start to look like you're claiming "Medium is always worse than Heavy" when you're not.

All three armor types have their places, and for the most part they lined up appropriate proficiencies in the PHB. There's a few pain points, especially if Multiclassing and Feats are allowed so ou get Armored Arcane Casters.

[Witty Username]

Regarding the Stealth, as you say in your other post, mileage may vary. And it will not just vary from table to table, but party to party, and location to location. So the Dex 14 character may have times they don the 1/2 plate and also have opportunities where they will just have the breastplate on in order to potentially get surprise. When surprise works, the extra AC point is definitely worth the trade off. To me this provides more viable options for the Med armored character and is a good thing.

That seems unrealistic, for one it takes 6 minutes to switch armor sets to this isn't something you can necessarily do responsively, for two that makes up almost all the gains the medium armor user makes up over plate in terms of cost and weight.
I will give heavy armor doesn't have that option as much (although there is nothing stopping a character having a splint and a breastplate, for a point loss in AC for better stealth capacity) so it is a benefit, but that sounds very minor.

[diplomancer]

That seems unrealistic, for one it takes 6 minutes to switch armor sets to this isn't something you can necessarily do responsively, for two that makes up almost all the gains the medium armor user makes up over plate in terms of cost and weight.
I will give heavy armor doesn't have that option as much (although there is nothing stopping a character having a splint and a breastplate, for a point loss in AC for better stealth capacity) so it is a benefit, but that sounds very minor.

It's true you can't do it responsively, but there are plenty of situations where you can know in advance whether Stealth will be viable or not. Have a mule carry your extra set of armor.

Also, going from Splint to Breastplate is only a 1-point loss in AC if you have Dex 14; which, if you're a Heavy-Armor wearer, you probably won't have (Insert standard disclaimer of "unless you've rolled well).

[stoutstien]

HaM is a decent feat which is locked into H armor.

[RogueJK]

HaM is a decent feat which is locked into H armor.

Decent primarily at lower levels, when you're most likely to frequently encounter non-magical B/P/S, and 3 points of damage makes a bigger difference.

But can remain decent for a bit longer on specific builds, like a Goliath Clockwork Sorcadin wanting to squeeze every last drop out of their upcast Armor of Agathys to keep the retributive damage going as long as possible.

But outside niche builds like that, HAM isn't anywhere near good enough to make Heavy Armor a must-have.

[Keltest]

Decent primarily at lower levels, when you're most likely to frequently encounter non-magical B/P/S, and 3 points of damage makes a bigger difference.

But can remain decent for a bit longer on specific builds, like a Goliath Clockwork Sorcadin wanting to squeeze every last drop out of their upcast Armor of Agathys to keep the retributive damage going as long as possible.

High level encounters tend to rely on multiattacks, and many monsters surprisingly do not do magical damage with their attacks. Even at high levels knocking ~10 damage off an attack sequence can be non-trivial.

[stoutstien]

Decent primarily at lower levels, when you're most likely to frequently encounter non-magical B/P/S, and 3 points of damage makes a bigger difference.

But can remain decent for a bit longer on specific builds, like a Goliath Clockwork Sorcadin wanting to squeeze every last drop out of their upcast Armor of Agathys to keep the retributive damage going as long as possible.

But outside niche builds like that, HAM isn't anywhere near good enough to make Heavy Armor a must-have.

Must have no but also not as short lived as it looks at first glance. Even in T4 it's a huge pile of a mitigation.

[strangebloke]

Surprise is hard to achieve even with a full Stealth oriented party. Because every one of the party has to beat all of the enemies PP. Unless the DM is like me, and allows fairly short distances (60ft in my case) between separate groups, in which case a smaller 1-2 person scout element can be involved in trying to achieve surprise.

What's really impacted hard is being eliminated from scouting roles, and non-surprise non-group stealth checks where the layers didn't get a choice, and to a lesser degree non-surprise group stealth checks. YMMV on how often those come into play though. Something like +13 to +15 Stealth is relatively easy to achieve thanks to PWT, and if the map is relatively open and longbows are in play, its really not hard to beat the PP of most enemies and get an opening salvo off.

The Plate guy will have to stay behind, and will lose a turn in combat 5-20% of the time because of lower initiative. These are drawbacks.


It is if you don't want to be restricted to a small subset of melee weapons. Although IMO finesse weapons should probably take a 1 die size reduction when used with Dex.
Sure, but if the question is optimization, STR-based melee hyperspecialists using PAM/GWM aren't very good outside of a whiteroom. They end up marginally better in melee and absolute biscuits at ranged play, while the ranged builds are marginally behind in melee and leagues ahead at range, while also getting ahead in all the utility areas as outlined above.

As soon as you start looking at combats starting at distances greater than 30 feet these builds fall way behind. It may be aesthetically important to have a greatsword, but mechanically there's little reason, and a lot of the melee builds you can think of that focus strength don't even get the proficiency to begin with or straight up CAN'T use heavy armor (barbarians lol) so... one questions what th.

I will concede the point regarding magic item selection. That is one case where STR bros do genuinely win out, but again, that's if and only if random magic item generation is in play, which is either all you see or not something you see at all.


Generally speaking you want at least one strength invested character. Unless you want the party to be stonewalled by otherwise minor obstacles.
STR characters do have a role, but I'd not really consider them a 'quota' character. You don't NEED a strength bro almost ever. There's no stopping the druid from turning into a bear and lifting the gate, or the wizard casting shatter, or the thief from scaling the wall and opening the gate from inside.


Heavy armor is ok, medium armor is definitely reasonable.
Yeah I would agree with this. Heavy armor is 'bad' but not obscenely worse than medium armor. It just generally has more drawbacks than you'd expect, given that heavy armor proficiency is treated as a premium class feature.


But Splint is cheap. Cheaper than getting AC 16 with stealth or AC 17 without stealth using Medium armor.[/COLOR]

Honestly, it's like no-one read the very clear and not at all confusing chart that I posted earlier in this thread! :smalltongue:

I'm not ignoring it, its just a non-sequitor. I'm giving heavy armor credit for "+1 or +2 to AC" but you can't give it credit for improving AC without mentioning the drawback of high cost. You can ignore the high cost, but that also means ignoring the only real benefit plate armor has to begin with.

Splint does end up being better overall for a couple levels, but it is technically more expensive than the option it has +1 AC in comparison to, which is scale.


Decent primarily at lower levels, when you're most likely to frequently encounter non-magical B/P/S, and 3 points of damage makes a bigger difference.

But can remain decent for a bit longer on specific builds, like a Goliath Clockwork Sorcadin wanting to squeeze every last drop out of their upcast Armor of Agathys to keep the retributive damage going as long as possible.

But outside niche builds like that, HAM isn't anywhere near good enough to make Heavy Armor a must-have.

HAM is what I would call "rock solid." It's arguably broken at level 1. A level 1 Clineage fighter with HAM and 18 STR is going to slaughter most early game threats that would challenge a party, but even at level 14 or so that fighter is going to remain resilient.... depending on the set of monsters being used. A lot of newer monsters have pure elemental damage, which does suck, but even against something like an ancient red dragon you'll be mitigating 6-9 damage a turn, which is pretty good for a half-feat. And if your DM is fond of hordes, well, you're even happier.

Not good enough to auto-lock plate, but definitely a plus to the archetype IMO.

[Keltest]

Something like +13 to +15 Stealth is relatively easy to achieve thanks to PWT, and if the map is relatively open and longbows are in play, its really not hard to beat the PP of most enemies and get an opening salvo off.

The Plate guy will have to stay behind, and will lose a turn in combat 5-20% of the time because of lower initiative. These are drawbacks.

If youre using PWT, then you still end up with a stronger stealth bonus than you would from stripping naked before stealthing without PWT. Its only disadvantage. Its annoying, but with a large enough flat modifier, you can still easily beat most monsters' passives.

[Telwar]

Decent primarily at lower levels, when you're most likely to frequently encounter non-magical B/P/S, and 3 points of damage makes a bigger difference.

But can remain decent for a bit longer on specific builds, like a Goliath Clockwork Sorcadin wanting to squeeze every last drop out of their upcast Armor of Agathys to keep the retributive damage going as long as possible.

But outside niche builds like that, HAM isn't anywhere near good enough to make Heavy Armor a must-have.

Would be nice if it instead, say, removed (1+PB) damage from non-magical B/P/S hits, so it scaled.

[sithlordnergal]

Hmmm, I've always been a fan of heavy armor over Medium, and I consider Light Armor to be worthless for everyone except a pure Dex build. From what I've seen, most of the Cons for Heavy Armor apply to Medium Armor as well:

- Disadvantage on Stealth? Unless you decide to stick with Breast Plate or downgrade from Scale Mail, you'll have Disadvantage on Stealth Checks as well. Meaning the price of no Disadvantage is being 2 points lower than what Plate gives you instead of 1

- Higher Dex score? You can do that with Heavy armor as well. You can have the same bonuses to Stealth, Dex Saves, and other Dex Skills as a Medium Armor user.

- Vulnerability to Heat Metal and Rust Monsters? Last I checked, Medium Armor is still metal, and is vulnerable to both of those things.

- Donning/Doffing times? People do have a point that its easier to put on and take off Medium Armor. However, the times are so long for both that it doesn't actually matfer. If you're ambushed, you're not going to be able to use your Light, Medium, or Heavy Armor unless you're sleeping in it. If you're hit by Heat Metal, the spell lasts 1 minute and it takes 1 minute to remove Medium Armor. You'll be taking the full damage from the spell anyway.


The only Cons that solely apply to Heavy Armor is the price, and the Strength requirements. However, I have some thoughts on those too:

- Price: Yes, Heavy Armor is more expensive than Medium. But you're getting a +1 to AC, which is a big deal in 5e's Bounded Accuracy system. Not only thay, but its just a monetary price. In order to get the same AC with Medium Armor you need a 16 Dex and a not so great Half-Feat. That's an investment of two ASIs, versus some Gold.

- Strength Requirements: Technically speaking, you don't need to meet the Strength Requirement. You do lose 10 feet of movement, but as long as you're not playing some sort of mobility build then you're fine. This is especially true for Casters. When was the last time you, as a Caster, wante to be right in melee range of your enemy? Perosonally, I tend to hang back and let the enemy run to me. Additionally, there are ways around that penalty. Obviously you could get 15 Strength, but you can also use a mount or play a Dwarf. All in all, not nearly the major penalty people say it is.


Meanwhile the benefits speak for themselves. Consider what sort of builds we're talking here. From what I can see, we're talking about casters, be they Wizards or Clerics. Consider the spells that buff AC, they work best when you have a high base AC. Now, Clerics are somewhat limited, in that they only have Shield of Faith. But even then, a 22 AC is nothing to scoff at.

Wizards fare far, far better. Given you need to multiclass to get Heavy Armor on a Wizard anyway, there is no reason not to go Fighter and take the Defense Fighting Style. Once you have Plate, you're looking at a base 21 AC, with a 26 AC via Shield, no magic items what so ever. And yes, Medium Armor nets you a 25 AC once everything is added together, but in 5e that +1 to AC can be really important due to bounded accuracy. And its not like I did some crazy build here either, where I had to work hard for 21 to 26 AC. No, this is a basic build path, cause Wizards aren't really going to use the other Fighting Styles.

[Pex]

STR characters do have a role, but I'd not really consider them a 'quota' character. You don't NEED a strength bro almost ever. There's no stopping the druid from turning into a bear and lifting the gate, or the wizard casting shatter, or the thief from scaling the wall and opening the gate from inside.



Aside from the rogue with Mr. Strong Man they wouldn't have to and save the resource use for something more potent. Even with lenient or no encumbrance rules strength uses happen in a campaign. I have no issue it happens less often than stealth is needed, but that's not to say strength characters just shouldn't bother existing. Lifting and shoving are a thing out of combat. As with any out of combat thing usefulness is dependent on the DM. Some games dark vision is super important and you're The Suck for not having it. Other games it doesn't matter but having it is a convenience once in a while. Some DMs make Medicine matter to figure out how an NPC died or how close to 0 hit points an enemy is (raises hand). Other games Medicine might as well not exist. Strength use is not the outlier here.

[TaiLiu]

Honestly, it's like no-one read the very clear and not at all confusing chart that I posted earlier in this thread! :smalltongue:
I really liked your table! It was super helpful. :smallsmile:

[Amechra]

I'm not ignoring it, its just a non-sequitor. I'm giving heavy armor credit for "+1 or +2 to AC" but you can't give it credit for improving AC without mentioning the drawback of high cost. You can ignore the high cost, but that also means ignoring the only real benefit plate armor has to begin with.

Splint does end up being better overall for a couple levels, but it is technically more expensive than the option it has +1 AC in comparison to, which is scale.

I mean, it isn't a non sequitor?

The idea that heavy armor is supposed to be an improvement in overall AC over medium armor is one possible way to interpret the armor list, but it's just as valid to look at heavy armor from the perspective that it's supposed to be a way for Strength-based characters to end up with comparable AC to Dexterity-based characters. Heck, if you look at the "free" starting armor that your class gives you, medium armor users get scale and heavy armor users get chain mail. That implies that those two armors are supposed to be comparable — after all, if heavy armor is supposed to give you better AC, why isn't that the case with starting armor?

It's kinda like... medium armor isn't inherently a big AC boost over light armor for dex-focused characters, since someone with Dex 20 gets the same AC in studded leather and half-plate unless they spend an ASI on Medium Armor Master. The reason why it's a big deal for spellcasters (and Barbarians) is because they usually aren't super-focused on Dexterity, so the fact that they only need Dex 14 to get that "Dex 20" equivalent AC is pretty nice. Heavy armor is similar — if you only have a 13 to stick in an AC-boosting stat, heavy armor is going to give you the biggest bang for your buck, since Str 13 chain mail gives you the same AC as Dex 13 half-plate for 10% of the cost.

If you do want to look at the top-end instead, heavy armor has a different advantage — if you start with Dex 16 (for light and medium armor) or Str 16 (for heavy armor) and the free armor from your class, you have a situation where the following is true:


You can upgrade your AC twice over the course of the game before accounting for magic armor.
Light armor's upgrades are purely through ASIs (assuming that the cost for studded leather is negligible).
Medium armor upgrades once through money (scale → half-plate) and once through an ASI (Medium Armor Master).
Heavy armor upgrades twice through money (chain mail → splint → plate).


Medium armor is arguably the most expensive in terms of character resources, since you have to spend a feat to effectively turn half-plate into a +1 breastplate (with no other benefits). Light armor asks you to do something you were going to do anyway (and you "pay" for it with a reduced AC cap), while heavy armor just costs money. And, honestly? I feel like plate's cost is deceptively high, since gear is pretty inexpensive otherwise and it's something that's probably in your party's best interests to pool money for. If you only have one heavy armor user in your party, it's entirely possible to put them in plate by the beginning of Tier 2 if you're all willing to chip in some cash.

[LostBenefit]

Decent primarily at lower levels, when you're most likely to frequently encounter non-magical B/P/S, and 3 points of damage makes a bigger difference.

But can remain decent for a bit longer on specific builds, like a Goliath Clockwork Sorcadin wanting to squeeze every last drop out of their upcast Armor of Agathys to keep the retributive damage going as long as possible.

But outside niche builds like that, HAM isn't anywhere near good enough to make Heavy Armor a must-have.
Heavy Armor Master is useful for Fighters—who tank using AC and don't get resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage like other classes do (the exception being certain Fighter subclasses and multiclassing).

And as others before me have mentioned, encounters scale by increasing enemy numbers and/or adding additional attacks and there aren't as many monsters (unless homebrewed) that attack using magical weapons.

[strangebloke]

Aside from the rogue with Mr. Strong Man they wouldn't have to and save the resource use for something more potent. Even with lenient or no encumbrance rules strength uses happen in a campaign. I have no issue it happens less often than stealth is needed, but that's not to say strength characters just shouldn't bother existing. Lifting and shoving are a thing out of combat. As with any out of combat thing usefulness is dependent on the DM. Some games dark vision is super important and you're The Suck for not having it. Other games it doesn't matter but having it is a convenience once in a while. Some DMs make Medicine matter to figure out how an NPC died or how close to 0 hit points an enemy is (raises hand). Other games Medicine might as well not exist. Strength use is not the outlier here.
It is the same, but even in such scenarios its not a quota scenario. You don't NEED the strongman. It's a marginal advantage to have a strongman sometimes because it saves you a resource.

I mean, it isn't a non sequitor?

The idea that heavy armor is supposed to be an improvement in overall AC over medium armor is one possible way to interpret the armor list, but it's just as valid to look at heavy armor from the perspective that it's supposed to be a way for Strength-based characters to end up with comparable AC to Dexterity-based characters. Heck, if you look at the "free" starting armor that your class gives you, medium armor users get scale and heavy armor users get chain mail. That implies that those two armors are supposed to be comparable — after all, if heavy armor is supposed to give you better AC, why isn't that the case with starting armor?

It's kinda like... medium armor isn't inherently a big AC boost over light armor for dex-focused characters, since someone with Dex 20 gets the same AC in studded leather and half-plate unless they spend an ASI on Medium Armor Master. The reason why it's a big deal for spellcasters (and Barbarians) is because they usually aren't super-focused on Dexterity, so the fact that they only need Dex 14 to get that "Dex 20" equivalent AC is pretty nice. Heavy armor is similar — if you only have a 13 to stick in an AC-boosting stat, heavy armor is going to give you the biggest bang for your buck, since Str 13 chain mail gives you the same AC as Dex 13 half-plate for 10% of the cost.

If you do want to look at the top-end instead, heavy armor has a different advantage — if you start with Dex 16 (for light and medium armor) or Str 16 (for heavy armor) and the free armor from your class, you have a situation where the following is true:


You can upgrade your AC twice over the course of the game before accounting for magic armor.
Light armor's upgrades are purely through ASIs (assuming that the cost for studded leather is negligible).
Medium armor upgrades once through money (scale → half-plate) and once through an ASI (Medium Armor Master).
Heavy armor upgrades twice through money (chain mail → splint → plate).


Medium armor is arguably the most expensive in terms of character resources, since you have to spend a feat to effectively turn half-plate into a +1 breastplate (with no other benefits). Light armor asks you to do something you were going to do anyway (and you "pay" for it with a reduced AC cap), while heavy armor just costs money. And, honestly? I feel like plate's cost is deceptively high, since gear is pretty inexpensive otherwise and it's something that's probably in your party's best interests to pool money for. If you only have one heavy armor user in your party, it's entirely possible to put them in plate by the beginning of Tier 2 if you're all willing to chip in some cash.

Yeah I'll freely grant that it gives you the cheapest 'max' AC, but I just don't think that outweighs the downsides. AC is very important, but a +1 or +2 to AC isn't worth being strength focused.

[Amechra]

Yeah I'll freely grant that it gives you the cheapest 'max' AC, but I just don't think that outweighs the downsides. AC is very important, but a +1 or +2 to AC isn't worth being strength focused.

You know what? I give up. Like, entirely.

Goodbye everyone, I hope you enjoy talking in circles at each-other.

[Witty Username]

It is the same, but even in such scenarios its not a quota scenario. You don't NEED the strongman. It's a marginal advantage to have a strongman sometimes because it saves you a resource.


Yeah I'll freely grant that it gives you the cheapest 'max' AC, but I just don't think that outweighs the downsides. AC is very important, but a +1 or +2 to AC isn't worth being strength focused.

+2 to stealth isn't worth the AC loss and the damage cut from a dex build vs a strength build.
+2 to saves is pretty meaningless if not proficient, which most characters that get this choice won't be.
We do have an initiative loss, which is impactful, but we also have less feat tax for heavy, which can open up the Alert feat, which eliminates the gap entirely.

[animorte]

The idea that heavy armor is supposed to be an improvement in overall AC over medium armor is one possible way to interpret the armor list, but it's just as valid to look at heavy armor from the perspective that it's supposed to be a way for Strength-based characters to end up with comparable AC to Dexterity-based characters.
This is exactly what I think. Personally Dex will almost always be more valuable, but if one prefers a Str build for whatever purpose, mechanical or otherwise, it’s not a bad option because of this design.

Speaking of which:

but we also have less feat tax for heavy, which can open up the Alert feat, which eliminates the gap entirely.
See it’s not so bad, it’s just not my preference. I don’t have a problem with others going for it and I’ve tried it just enough to know that it’s there for a specific niche, if I should choose to fill it.


I hope you enjoy talking in circles at each-other.
Didn’t you know, that’s people’s favorite thing to do here. It’s why I don’t get too much in depth on these discussions unless I’m particularly passionate about the subject at hand.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

+2 to stealth isn't worth the AC loss and the damage cut from a dex build vs a strength build.
+2 to saves is pretty meaningless if not proficient, which most characters that get this choice won't be.
We do have an initiative loss, which is impactful, but we also have less feat tax for heavy, which can open up the Alert feat, which eliminates the gap entirely.

I don't really understand the logic that +2 to saves is meaningless without proficiency. There are almost no cases where characters will be in auto-make or auto-miss territory, so +2 is 10% more made regardless. Or it's likely 10% more to put you in range of Inspiration Dice or other mechanics your group might have running.
The whole equation is AC vs. Initiative, Saves, Skills, Stealth, increased Attribute commitment and so forth. I was surprised at those pointing out the gp cost impact of this decision as well. I didn't include cost in my OP, mostly because I didn't think about it too much as I have only seen it as an impact that happens very briefly in mid/ late tier 1. But I take the point of cost being a relevant consideration for some groups.

I also thought about, but didn't bring up, the Tasha's rule concerning Clerics that give you the option of taking the bonus damage on your cantrip whatever the default says. If the group is playing this rule, that's just one more tick in the Med column for some builds.

Overall I remain unconvinced that Heavy is good beyond martials and a few very specific builds (mostly listed upthread), or with groups where initial stats are high enough that 14 Dex + 15 Str are achievable along with maxed primary attribute and good Con.

[JackPhoenix]

In order to get the same AC with Medium Armor you need a 16 Dex and a not so great Half-Feat.

Worse: Medium Armor Master isn't a half-feat.

[Pex]

Yeah I'll freely grant that it gives you the cheapest 'max' AC, but I just don't think that outweighs the downsides. AC is very important, but a +1 or +2 to AC isn't worth being strength focused.

That is your personal aesthetic taste, but it's not universally true. In my taste I don't value initiative as much as others, so I don't have that need for Dexterity. Damage spells are a thing, but so is healing. As an also personal aesthetic I don't have fun using bows. I prefer melee, and when I need range I like to use a cantrip if possible. I know it's not perfect and it bit me in the tuchus one time playing my barbarian, but despite that incident of uselessness I have not changed my preferences. I got a bow that campaign so it wouldn't happen again and just deal when I must use a bow for whatever reason.

[JNAProductions]

+2 to stealth isn't worth the AC loss and the damage cut from a dex build vs a strength build.
+2 to saves is pretty meaningless if not proficient, which most characters that get this choice won't be.
We do have an initiative loss, which is impactful, but we also have less feat tax for heavy, which can open up the Alert feat, which eliminates the gap entirely.

And note that it's Dexterity saves.

The most common effect of failing a Dex save? Take full damage instead of half. Which isn't nothing, but isn't nearly as bad as many other save types can dish out.

[da newt]

"And note that it's Dexterity saves.

The most common effect of failing a Dex save? Take full damage instead of half. Which isn't nothing, but isn't nearly as bad as many other save types can dish out."

Fair point - well made, but what are we comparing the +2 DEX save to? A +2 on ST saves. Off the top of my head there aren't that many of those out there (seems less common as you progress to higher levels) and the standard consequence for failing one of those is restrained until you break free or similar - not much. (also, assuming 15 ST this costs a bit more than 14 DEX)

But yeah - this is a silly argument all the way around. It's really just 6 of one a half dozen of the other. Each has some benefits and some drawbacks but both are just fine. You do you, and enjoy it.

[Ogun]

I am convinced.
Heavy armor, splint in particular, is certainly worth using.
A forge cleric will be my one level dip preference over fighter, and investing in strength is still not for me, but heavy armor does seem like a good choice for casters.

[Witty Username]

So a bit to unpack, with the +2 to saves:
+2 is better than +0, but without being paired with other effects it doesn't scale well as the game progresses into greater threats. And note we are talking +2 to dex saves or strength saves.
Dex saves are more valuable than strength saves, it is true, but recall that +2 on str saves on top of a strength proficiency is more valuable to guaranteeing success. Less common save for greater gains is a factor here. This is a point for fighter multiclasses primarily, as the are the only heavy armor class proficient in Str saves.
This is more about perspective though, +2 to dex saves, doesn't good saving throws make, it can mean for not bad saving throws in Tier 1, or take decent saves to make good.
And what is this being weighed against +1 to +2 AC, dex saves are fairly common, but attack rolls more so, AC is already something with resources invested, for AC 16 as a minimum (true for both medium and heavy), so a plus 2 gets us a pretty hard to hit AC.
This is all to say the better dex save isn't the big boon that it is made out to be.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Worse: Medium Armor Master isn't a half-feat.

MAM is probably only decent if you're also using the 2nd part of the feat and getting regular Stealth/ Surprise while in 1/2 plate. Then it's an effective +2AC vs trying to Stealth with Breastplate and no feat.
I would say at this point that you've achieved AC parity with Heavy and still have every single benefit for Med Armor users except the bonuses are +3.

[LudicSavant]

For Clerics, heavy armor gets you +0 or +1 AC, at the cost of a weaker overall statline and more monetary investments.

Medium Armor Master shouldn't even enter the conversation unless we're talking about a character who wants to boost stealth, because that's the reason the feat would be taken if it's taken at all (as opposed to other feats).

[RogueJK]

For Clerics, heavy armor gets you +0 or +1 AC, at the cost of a weaker overall statline and more monetary investments.


Or a slightly lower movement speed (unless Dwarf) with no effect on your statline.

[diplomancer]

Or a slightly lower movement speed (unless Dwarf) with no effect on your statline.

Sometimes a battle turns against you and you need to book it. That "slightly lower" movement speed will be fatal. I think it's extremely risky to consider it if you don't at least have "panic buttons" that you can hit when neccesary, like Expeditious Retreat.

[Corran]

Medium Armor Master shouldn't even enter the conversation unless we're talking about a character who wants to boost stealth, because that's the reason the feat would be taken if it's taken at all (as opposed to other feats).
Ultimately there is no difference, but it's funny how perspective can vary, cause I always thought of it as a feat that a stealthy character may look at if they wanted added tankiness.

Most likely a character with 16 starting DEX and for whom MAM + something else is better than 2 DEX bumps, all the while MAM still deserving a feat slot compared to any other choice. With the latter being difficult, since the AC boost alone is very unlikely to save you unless you stack it with more defensive buffs. Which for a caster would be difficult (ie stacking it enough to justify opportunity costs), while someone like a DEX based EK who would be a good candidate for it, is(?) better served by the two DEX bumps.

MAM has some extremelly situational value, as a sort of disguise feat. Look like a knight but move like a rogue. With feats though being what they are, it would probably be very rare to find a campaign where this situational value adds enough weight to remain happy with MAM as one of your feat choices.

It has some potential to be a decent early level feat, when the enemies' attack bonuses and the pcs' hp are low, also during which time AC and HP are your most usual form of final defense, but you better find that halfplate soon cause it wont be long until it starts dropping in value.

[Keltest]

Ultimately there is no difference, but it's funny how perspective can vary, cause I always thought of it as a feat that a stealthy character may look at if they wanted added tankiness.

Most likely a character with 16 starting DEX and for whom MAM + something else is better than 2 DEX bumps, all the while MAM still deserving a feat slot compared to any other choice. With the latter being difficult, since the AC boost alone is very unlikely to save you unless you stack it with more defensive buffs. Which for a caster would be difficult (ie stacking it enough to justify opportunity costs), while someone like a DEX based EK who would be a good candidate for it, is(?) better served by the two DEX bumps.

MAM has some extremelly situational value, as a sort of disguise feat. Look like a knight but move like a rogue. With feats though being what they are, it would probably be very rare to find a campaign where this situational value adds enough weight to remain happy with MAM as one of your feat choices.

It has some potential to be a decent early level feat, when the enemies' attack bonuses and the pcs' hp are low, also during which time AC and HP are your most usual form of final defense, but you better find that halfplate soon cause it wont be long until it starts dropping in value.

The only two classes I can think of who would really want MAM are the bard and cleric, who both have access to medium armor (bards only with some subclasses) but might still want to invest in Dex without making it their main stat.

[diplomancer]

The only two classes I can think of who would really want MAM are the bard and cleric, who both have access to medium armor (bards only with some subclasses) but might still want to invest in Dex without making it their main stat.

Or maybe a Dex Hexadin or Shillelagh Ranger. Or some corner cases like a Dex Fighter that finds a Suit of Scale Mail +2; But it is overall a poor feat.

[Keltest]

Or maybe a Dex Hexadin or Shillelagh Ranger. Or some corner cases like a Dex Fighter that finds a Suit of Scale Mail +2; But it is overall a poor feat.

I dont know that a Dex Hexadin would want MAM either, by virtue of being really MAD unless you roll for stats and get lucky. Youre looking at a low con score, which is really not a good sacrifice for that level of protection when you could just go heavy armor and/or use a shield and not have to worry about that, and a wisdom penalty is never fun even if you pick a balance that gives you the good paladin auras.

[diplomancer]

I dont know that a Dex Hexadin would want MAM either, by virtue of being really MAD unless you roll for stats and get lucky. Youre looking at a low con score, which is really not a good sacrifice for that level of protection when you could just go heavy armor and/or use a shield and not have to worry about that, and a wisdom penalty is never fun even if you pick a balance that gives you the good paladin auras.

A Half-Elf with point-buy can just manage Str 13, Dex 16, Cha 16, Con 14, which is decent. Yes, Wis 8, but with Prof+Auras you're still having very nice Wis saves (and Advantage if it's against charmed).

Still, MAM would be a quite late feat, around Pal 12 at the earliest, probably.

[Keltest]

A Half-Elf with point-buy can just manage Str 13, Dex 16, Cha 16, Con 14, which is decent. Yes, Wis 8, but with Prof+Auras you're still having very nice Wis saves (and Advantage if it's against charmed).

Still, MAM would be a quite late feat, around Pal 12 at the earliest, probably.

Youre not wrong, but I think going heavy armor and shields (youre a paladin, you dont need to focus on two handed weapons for damage) just results in a tougher character since you can invest more in con and get equivalent AC anyway. And you can use the feat you save to get shield expert, which is a much better feat and helps you keep up in the dex save department.

[diplomancer]

Youre not wrong, but I think going heavy armor and shields (youre a paladin, you dont need to focus on two handed weapons for damage) just results in a tougher character since you can invest more in con and get equivalent AC anyway. And you can use the feat you save to get shield expert, which is a much better feat and helps you keep up in the dex save department.

I'm not sure if what you're saying here is "don't be a Dex Hexadin" or "be a Dex Hexadin but use Heavy Armor anyway". If it's the first, that may be good advice, but it's not relevant as to whether a Dex Hexadin would want to take MAM. If it's the second, though the steed can help deal with the movement cost of wearing Heavy Armor, you can't really rely on that all of the time, and you're still dealing with the disadvantage.

[Keltest]

I'm not sure if what you're saying here is "don't be a Dex Hexadin" or "be a Dex Hexadin but use Heavy Armor anyway". If it's the first, that may be good advice, but it's not relevant as to whether a Dex Hexadin would want to take MAM. If it's the second, though the steed can help deal with the movement cost of wearing Heavy Armor, you can't really rely on that all of the time, and you're still dealing with the disadvantage.

The first one mostly, though I guess the second one is valid takeaway too. Although frankly if you have to build so suboptimally you get to the point of being counterintuitive, I dont think its even worth considering anymore. Dex Hexadins might as well be a meme given what you have to give up to call yourself that, IMO. Its not the worst meme build you could do, but frankly there are better, more straightforward ways to do everything it would get you.

[RogueJK]

Sometimes a battle turns against you and you need to book it. That "slightly lower" movement speed will be fatal. I think it's extremely risky to consider it if you don't at least have "panic buttons" that you can hit when neccesary, like Expeditious Retreat.

The functional difference between 25' movement and 30'/35' movement is negligible.

Otherwise, nobody would ever play a Dwarf, Halfling, or Gnome, all of which have a native 25' movement speed. PCs of those races don't automatically get slaughtered any time they try to flee a battle.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

The functional difference between 25' movement and 30'/35' movement is negligible.

Otherwise, nobody would ever play a Dwarf, Halfling, or Gnome, all of which have a native 25' movement speed. PCs of those races don't automatically get slaughtered any time they try to flee a battle.

I wouldn't really call it negligible; I'd say it's balanced with some of the other goodies those classes get.

In the context of this discussion, with a focus on Clerics and mostly multi-classes with some casting I'd agree that the reduced movement is usually less problematic as they have options for ranged cantrips, buff spells, movement spells, etc when they want to attack from distance or flee. IMX reduced movement for full strength martials with few other good options beyond chucking a javelin is a somewhat regular pain in the butt.

[sithlordnergal]

MAM is probably only decent if you're also using the 2nd part of the feat and getting regular Stealth/ Surprise while in 1/2 plate. Then it's an effective +2AC vs trying to Stealth with Breastplate and no feat.
I would say at this point that you've achieved AC parity with Heavy and still have every single benefit for Med Armor users except the bonuses are +3.

The issue is that in order to achieve that parity you need to spend at least one ASI and start with a 16 Dex, you need to spend two ASIs, or you need to be a Variant Human. And all you get is the same AC that you could get from spending some gold, which adventurers tend to have plenty of anyway, and you no longer have Disadvantage on Stealth, which doesn't really matter much anyway since stealth only matters to certain characters.



I wouldn't really call it negligible; I'd say it's balanced with some of the other goodies those classes get.

In the context of this discussion, with a focus on Clerics and mostly multi-classes with some casting I'd agree that the reduced movement is usually less problematic as they have options for ranged cantrips, buff spells, movement spells, etc when they want to attack from distance or flee. IMX reduced movement for full strength martials with few other good options beyond chucking a javelin is a somewhat regular pain in the butt.

Eh, the movement penalty is pretty negligible, even if you just take the -10. Though you're right that it does heavily depend on the build. Casters don't really care about being in melee as much as other characters, and have plenty of ways to improve their movement from spells.

As for martials, usually the ones that want to be in melee will have a high strength, or has a special subclass/class that prevents them from using Heavy Armor.

[da newt]

True, 25' speed is only 25% worse than the standard 30', but this is compounded if you are trying to dash away (a 10' penalty) and is especially significant for melee combatants who need to get close to enemies to attack.

But then again, the penalty for wearing heavy armor without the required ST is a -10' movement speed, so it limits your racial choices to faster species (wood elf for example) or dwarf.

It all depends on play-style and personal preferences. I'm a big fan of strategic maneuvering and I'm drawn to PCs with extra mobility (tabaxi, flyers, dhampir, wood elves, monks, rogues, barbarians, etc), but I can totally understand why a spirit guardians cleric might be perfectly happy to stand in the middle of stuff and dodge too.

[RogueJK]

True, 25' speed is only 25% worse than the standard 30'

25' is only 16.6667% worse than 30'.


30-25=5
30/5 = 6
100/6 = 16.6666% repeating

Or, to put another way:

25/30=0.83333 repeating
1-0.83333=0.16667
0.16667*100=16.667%

[da newt]

Sure, if guy A can move 25' and guy B can move 30' then guy A can move only 83.3% of guy B's movement, or guy B can move 25% further than guy A. Isn't math fun?

(Yup - I messed up my math something fierce - embarrassing. Guy B can move 20% further.)

[RogueJK]

Sure, if guy A can move 25' and guy B can move 30' then guy A can move only 83.3% of guy B's movement, or guy B can move 25% further than guy A. Isn't math fun?

Math is fun, but yours still doesn't add up.

25' + 25% = 31.25'


It'd be accurate to say that guy B can move 20% further than A.

25' + 20% = 30'


But even that's not the same as saying A's movement is 20% worse than B's (following your original wording), because 30' - 20% = just 24'.

[strangebloke]

The functional difference between 25' movement and 30'/35' movement is negligible.

Otherwise, nobody would ever play a Dwarf, Halfling, or Gnome, all of which have a native 25' movement speed. PCs of those races don't automatically get slaughtered any time they try to flee a battle.

I think this kind of misses the point. If you have 35 foot movement, its because you picked a race (like wood elf) that gives you a movement bonus. You're getting that bonus in lieu of getting other bonuses. You could have picked a race without a movement bonus but other stronger effects (like say a half-elf), but because you're choosing to use plate you're behind even a baseline character in movement speed.

At the end of the day 10' movement reduction is 10' movement reduction. If you've got 35' base walking speed, you go down to 25' walking speed, a 28% reduction. If you've got a 30' walking speed, you go down to 20', a 33% reduction.

Those are significant downsides! Not downsides that are impossible to overcome, but they are there. Just because playing a 25' movement speed character is possible, does not mean that it isn't a negative. The only heavy armor class that wants to wear heavy armor and dump STR is the cleric, and even then, a cleric still has effects like spirit guardians that makes them want to advance and move.

And note: if your DM uses encumbrance rules a low-STR plate character actually suffers a 20' movement reduction. Plate weighs 65 pounds, meaning that unless you have more than 13 STR, you're going to be encumbered as well.

Basically while I do think people can wear plate while not being str-focused, its still correct to say that there are significant downsides. Even an archer will want to do things like run away.

[stoutstien]

Movement rarely cares about ratios or percentages. All that matters is if you can get to your goal or away from something. In other value of movement that matter is 'enough'. For some 25 is plenty where others anything less than 30 is risky. It's more personal task than anything but it is a factor that is weighed.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

This 5' is reminding me that you don't need to be faster than the bear, just faster than the slowest person in your group.

[diplomancer]

This 5' is reminding me that you don't need to be faster than the bear, just faster than the slowest person in your group.

Which means, you don't want to be the slowest person in your group.

There have been a few times my party had to run from an encounter. The one time I died I was playing a Dwarf. Does that mean that Dwarves suck and are unplayable? No, and in fact I'm playing another one right now. But it does mean that if things go south they are in bigger trouble than the faster characters. 25' speed means that even if you're dashing, your regular 30' speed enemies can not only reach you, they can surround you. And then you die.

[LudicSavant]

Movement rarely cares about ratios or percentages. All that matters is if you can get to your goal or away from something. In other value of movement that matter is 'enough'. For some 25 is plenty where others anything less than 30 is risky. It's more personal task than anything but it is a factor that is weighed.

Indeed, the percentage that actually matters is the percentage that you can achieve any given tactical maneuver.

This is why a 200 foot movement speed generally isn’t twice as good as a 100 foot, but a 20 foot might be *more* than twice as good as a 10 foot.

Also noteworthy is that race choices don’t so much negate speed penalties so much as shift the cost elsewhere. Like, you can be a full plate 8str centaur that moves 30 feet, but this is worse than being a medium armor simic hybrid or warforged or beasthide shifter or goliath or githzerai or (etc). Likewise, dwarves are paying for their ability to take -5 rather than -10, it ain’t free. Race competition is stiff in a post-MPMM era.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Fair enough that people can, but has anyone actually seen this in play (at a table that regularly uses a grid)? I do take issue with the word 'happily' here. I'm trying to imagine picking a Wood Elf and then immediately building so that movement is under par rather than over par.

I played an Aasimar that did this. Even 20ft movement isn't terrible, especially if you can get a mount (and I was planning to go Paladin for Find Steed later in the build to be able to summon a mount even indoors). In small spaces, the 10ft less movement is noticeable but not crippling; in large spaces, a mount negates the problem.

[sithlordnergal]

You guys are retreating from combat? O_o I think the only time I and my party have ever retreated from a fight was when we weren't intending to fight, and were accidentally found while scouting. Even then we decided to stay a few rounds.

I've also only had a party fully retreat from a fight once while DMing.

[Thunderous Mojo]

You guys are retreating from combat?.

This is dependent upon the game, but to channel the Kenny Rogers song, “The Gambler”, knowing when to hold them, when to fold them, when to walk away and when to run..can be essential D&D skills. 🃏

Difficult terrain, being Knocked Prone, Mounting or Dismounting from a ridding animal all either double movement costs, or cost half of one’s movement.

Movement penalties when using the 5e Grid rules can result in being unable to be in range of beneficial abilities, and unable to escape the deleterious effects of harmful powers.

I have seen a party, “Pull up the rope” on a Rope Trick spell, on a slow moving PC when facing an overwhelming amount of Orcs.

It is the classic tough decision in submarine films. Seal the hatch, and sacrifice some, while protecting the many.

[sithlordnergal]

I won't lie, I've never really seen any of my groups do that, ever. I've only ever been a part of one retreat, and I can honestly say I've never seen a fellow player get left behind. Doesn't matter what the odds are either, we could be facing a deity and we'll end up fighting to the death anyway.

And its not like the DMs I've had go easy on us, and I certainly don't go easy on my players. Heck, I've had games where we alerted an entire orc hoard, in their own cave system, and instead of running we just found a room with only one door and no windows, and proceeded to fight to the bitter end. We ended up winning by the skin of our teeth. Half the party was downed, wizard and cleric were out of spells, and we had no potions left. But we won. Which is good...since I was the one that alerted the entire hoard and drew them to our location with Thunderwave.

As for the classic tough decision, no decision to be made. We leave the door open, no matter what. I think the only time a player even suggested leaving a fellow PC behind, the entire table looked to them and informed them they would get to decide if they wanted to fight the hoard, or fight the party.

[strangebloke]

You guys are retreating from combat? O_o I think the only time I and my party have ever retreated from a fight was when we weren't intending to fight, and were accidentally found while scouting. Even then we decided to stay a few rounds.

I've also only had a party fully retreat from a fight once while DMing.

while full retreats are more table-dependent. One table I was in full retreated five times a session. Another only did it a few times. But besides that, tactically moving to stay out of reach of the enemy is a very good strategy for many casters and ranged characters.

To put it another way, for melee characters or casters who want to be melee-adjacent (like clerics) movement speed is an offensive tool that makes you more consistent. +10 feet of movement makes you more likely to get in on turn 1, makes you better able to chase down a retreating enemy. For ranged characters and casters, the script is flipped. They don't need to move to get in, but they might need to move to avoid being targeted / take advantage of cover.

IMO movement is more critical for melee types, and most classes that have heavy armor proficiency are (more or less) melee types. So the scenario of a character who wants plate but also wants to dump STR and also doesn't care about the -10 foot movement penalty never materializes.

Again! Plate is 'good' for STR builds. But overall I'd say it has more drawbacks than positives and I don't see heavy armor proficiency as being that important. I've played a STRanger in medium armor through 8th level, and I really never found myself wishing I was in plate.

[Tanarii]

Again! Plate is 'good' for STR builds. But overall I'd say it has more drawbacks than positives and I don't see heavy armor proficiency as being that important. I've played a STRanger in medium armor through 8th level, and I really never found myself wishing I was in plate.Ive played two Str rangers in medium armor, and one of them I basically never used Stealth and would have loved yo have traded that Dex into more Int and Cha. The other Stealth was far more important than Int or Wis and I would not have been willing to make the trade.

[Ogun]

I recall playing a dwarf and having an enemy outrun me.
I was chasing him, and simply couldn't get close enough for any attack or spell I had to affect him.
Poor planning on my part, I was all melee.
The druid finally wildshaped into something fast and ran him down from the other side of the field.
It was hilarious and appropriate.

[Gignere]

I recall playing a dwarf and having an enemy outrun me.
I was chasing him, and simply couldn't get close enough for any attack or spell I had to affect him.
Poor planning on my part, I was all melee.
The druid finally wildshaped into something fast and ran him down from the other side of the field.
It was hilarious and appropriate.

Yeah I’ve been in several sessions where the dwarf melee got seriously kited. Basically did nothing but dashing every turn. If your DM doesn’t use kiting tactics you’ll be fine.

[Particle_Man]

How do the calculations change for games that do not allow feats or multi class characters?

[Tanarii]

How do the calculations change for games that do not allow feats or multi class characters?HA and MA wearers are king of the game through Tier 1 and the first half of Tier 2. Fighters and Paladins just hulk smash all through Tier 1 and Tier 2.

Barbarians just Rage they kick ass. But when they run out they can be in trouble if they're trying to bare chest it. MA usually considered mandatory.

Clerics get MA or HA, so the calculation doesn't change for the OP's focus at all. But short version is Clerics are intentionally meant to be in melee as positional blocker tanks.

Druids survive due to Wild Shape being amazing, even for Land Druids.

Rangers are MA as long as they don't need to stealth, so they're good. Otherwise see Rogue above. (They can MA and stealth, but usually rangers that want to stealth go all in Dex and LA.)

Monks and Rogues suffer a bit out of Martials as usual early on, starting with AC 13 for Rogues and AC 14 for monks is rough. Racial pick might give you a +1 bump, which is nice but still low is AC at first.

The four full Arcana Casters are actually squishy, and lag behind significantly in power in Tier 1 and low Tier 2 adventures, until they finally start to catch up. (Except Valor Bards, they do great starting at level 3.)

-------

The main difference between HA and MA wearers those that want to stealth really start to noticeably fall behind. -2 AC is actually a heavy price to pay. The difference between AC 15 and AC 17 around level 3 is very noticeable. Ac 16 vs AC 18 at level 6 is likewise noticeable.

[Pex]

Monks and Rogues suffer a bit out of Martials as usual early on, starting with AC 13 for Rogues and AC 14 for monks is rough. Racial pick might give you a +1 bump, which is nice but still low is AC at first.
.

You don't need to be a regular optimizer player for a monk at have AC 16 at level 1. WI 16 and DX 16 is easy to get with point buy and racial modifiers. I've seen way too many 8 ST and/or 8 CH monks to believe only optimizers would do that. It takes a brand new player to any RPG whatsoever to not have that, and even then they can stumble on it because brand new players don't understand the significance of an 8 so won't even question or consider not having one let alone two in their array.

That doesn't preclude someone having less than that, but I don't find it happens often enough to be used a general assumption of example.

/nitpick

[Tanarii]

You don't need to be a regular optimizer player for a monk at have AC 16 at level 1.
Unless we're assuming point buy (which means regular optimizer), it requires Wood Elf, which means optimizing.

AC 15 for standard humans, high elves, and halflings, and hill dwarves is pretty normal. That's enough that it's probably reasonable to consider AC 15 the norm rather than AC 14. That's still medium-low for monks. But not as bad as rogues, who are looking at 13-14.

[JellyPooga]

But not as bad as rogues, who are looking at 13-14.

Um...what? Studded Leather + 16 Dex = AC 15. Leather with 16 Dex is 14, but I've never personally played or known a Rogue to actually start (lvl.1) with less than the former, or a plan to multiclass for Medium armour.

You are very much downplaying the difference between Heavy and Lighy armours. Lvl.1-3 is a crap shoot of survivability regardless of Class and even into the latter half of Tier 1 there's more focus on actual build than Class choice as to how tanky you are. A Wizard built for melee is fully as capable in tanking damage as a Fighter that isn't. Your statement about Fighters/Barbarians hulking through encounters in any way compared to other Classes in Tier 1 just doesn't track IME.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Can't really agree with Paladins being good at tier 1. They're bottom of the barrel at level 1, slightly better at 2, and better again, but still mediocre at 3 and 4. In the context of this conversation, the sooner they get out of chain and into splint/ plate helps a bit.

I think glossing over of Paladins shortcomings at tier 1 comes from A) groups not playing or basically handwaving the first few levels, and B) Short adventuring days that don't highlight how limited slots they have, and C) how good they are from level 5 on; getting both extra attack and doubling the number of slots (including two 2nds) is massive.

[Pex]

Unless we're assuming point buy (which means regular optimizer), it requires Wood Elf, which means optimizing.

AC 15 for standard humans, high elves, and halflings, and hill dwarves is pretty normal. That's enough that it's probably reasonable to consider AC 15 the norm rather than AC 14. That's still medium-low for monks. But not as bad as rogues, who are looking at 13-14.

Human and Variant Human can have 16 DX and CO. Yes, I have seen a lot of wood elf monks. That's not optimizing. That's simple observation of the race. It's why there are so many tiefling warlocks, half-elf bards, halfling rogues, dragonborn paladins, hill dwarf clerics, etc. New players play them a lot.

[Tanarii]

Human and Variant Human can have 16 DX and CO.
Best possible for a human with standard array is one 16 and one 15. So AC 15 for a starting monk, AC 14 for a starting rogue.

I've seen plenty of least optimized race Monks (rock gnomes and half orcs especially) at AC 14, but like I said to be fair AC 15 is a better standard. And tons of non-dex-race Dex 15 AC 13 starting Rogues.

They can all be overcome fairly quickly of course. By level 4 they're usually in okay shape for AC, especially with other class features. They just start quite a bit behind the AC 16 Chain/Scale (18 with shield) Martials, or Barbarians toughness when raging.

[Skrum]

This is at least partially an aesthetic thing, but I would *never* take a movement penalty to wear armor. Movement matters a lot more than it seems like it would (especially for melee characters, for obvious reasons), and taking a hit like that to jam on plate...nah. That ain't the way.

In my time playing a Dhampir, their sneaky best ability is the 35' movement speed. It's almost uncanny. Similarly, one of the other players plays a dwarf with 25' movement. Again, the amount of times it comes up is pretty surprising.

I don't really get the arguments about the "best" ability. They're always removed from the context of the character, which is very weird. I would agree that Str is the most *polarized* of the abilities (most characters are either going to have as high of a Str score as possible, or dump it), but I don't think that adds up to it being a "bad" ability. Athletics >>> acrobatics, heavy armor is really good, and melee combat is more fun than ranged. Ok that last point is subjective of course, but I stand by it xD.

[Tanarii]

, and melee combat is more fun than ranged. Ok that last point is subjective of course, but I stand by it xD.
Also more common. With limited ability to kite at range without effectively running away from the fight, and line of sight constantly blocked by allies giving partial cover to your target. And less common but still frequently getting attacked from behind or the side by enemies that have circled around, or been drawn by the sounds of combat.

Also highly subjective of course. :smallamused:

[Pex]

Best possible for a human with standard array is one 16 and one 15. So AC 15 for a starting monk, AC 14 for a starting rogue.

I've seen plenty of least optimized race Monks (rock gnomes and half orcs especially) at AC 14, but like I said to be fair AC 15 is a better standard. And tons of non-dex-race Dex 15 AC 13 starting Rogues.

They can all be overcome fairly quickly of course. By level 4 they're usually in okay shape for AC, especially with other class features. They just start quite a bit behind the AC 16 Chain/Scale (18 with shield) Martials, or Barbarians toughness when raging.

Variant human can get 16/16 with a half-feat, but I was talking Point Buy not Standard Array.

[Witty Username]

Unless we're assuming point buy (which means regular optimizer), it requires Wood Elf, which means optimizing.


Well I am certain most optimizers use point by, I doubt that most people that use point buy are optimizers. It seems that it is pretty popular among the crowd that finds standard array lacking but don't like rolled stats.
Then again, I wouldn't know first hand (the groups I have been in prefer rolling), that is mostly observing the people that talk about it.

Unless you mean to say a person using point buy is an optimizer even if the lack interest in optimization generally?

--
As for the real topic, I would say that 15 is fair AC for a monk, up to 16 if the Tasha's rules are in play. When it is not, I tend to assume 14-15 in primary ability scores when making general statements (so AC 14 assumed for monk), but I will admit that is a low bar to clear for most classes. So not my ususual metric, but still a reasonable one.

This does get into a positive I have with the Tasha's rules, it doesn't feel like players are punished as much for playing a monk that isn't wood elf. But that is a discussion for another thread.

As for Tier 1, I think this definitely applies to monks, rogues tend to assume range to some extent in a way that isn't the usual for monks and that takes some of the edge out of the AC problem. Also, cunning action not costing ki, that monk doesn't have enough of yet for step of the wind. Put plainly, rogue and monk both can't tank well, but rogue tends to be more aware as a class that it can't tank well.

[Tanarii]

All my comments were in context of answering a question about no Multiclassing and no feats, but I was also answering in the context of PHB & Xan with no variant rules in general. Since that was the experience I had.

If ya'll want to take them out of context, please feel free to continue.

[Angelalex242]

Whoever heard of a Paladin running around without his full plate? (and his defense style, and his later +3 Armor/+3 shield so he rocks his AC 27...)
If he's Vuman, he might've even taken Heavy Armor Master so his str can start at 16.

...My Paladins have a habit of doing this, as I build for defense (And Oath of Ancients for magic defense)

[animorte]

Whoever heard of a Paladin running around without his full plate?
I’ve only ever played one Paladin in heavy armor. I just don’t care for heavy armor (or Strength-focused builds). Of course, most of my Paladins are duelists and have been multi-classed with various combination of Bard or Rogue or Sorcerer (once each Hexblade, Barbarian, and Fighter).


...My Paladins have a habit of doing this, as I build for defense (And Oath of Ancients for magic defense)
Good idea!

[Tanarii]

Whoever heard of a Paladin running around without his full plate?
Yup. As much as this forum likes to talk about Dex-adins, I can't recall ever seeing one in AL. And I don't think any were made in my open table campaign, although I'd have to go dig through copies of character sheets to be sure.

Edit: And it's not like they don't instantly jump out, being restricted in weapon to the Rapier.

[JellyPooga]

Yup. As much as this forum likes to talk about Dex-adins, I can't recall ever seeing one in AL. And I don't think any were made in my open table campaign, although I'd have to go dig through copies of character sheets to be sure.

Edit: And it's not like they don't instantly jump out, being restricted in weapon to the Rapier.

The 1st Paladin I played in 5e (PHB only) wore light armour and wielded a quarterstaff two-handed. Defence FS gave me AC 16 at 1st lvl. Could have had a Shield for AC 18 had I chosen to. Don't have to be a Dexadin in the optimal sense to wear light armour. Could I have worn medium or heavy armour and been more optimal? For sure, but it didn't fit the aesthetic I wanted, which was a "simple", humble but likable wanderer.

[As I recall, my 27 point-buy stats as a Half-elf looked something like Str 14+1, Dex 15+1, Con 12, Wis 10, Int 10, Cha 12+2. I rounded out Str to 16 @4th and then planned on focusing on Cha for the rest of the build. If only he hadn't fallen off a cliff before I got to see the latter end of Tier 2!]

[RogueJK]

The 1st Paladin I played in 5e (PHB only) wore light armour and wielded a quarterstaff two-handed. Defence FS gave me AC 16 at 1st lvl. Could have had a Shield for AC 18 had I chosen to. Don't have to be a Dexadin in the optimal sense to wear light armour. Could I have worn medium or heavy armour and been more optimal? For sure, but it didn't fit the aesthetic I wanted, which was a "simple", humble but likable wanderer.

I know it was a deliberate thematic choice, but from a purely mechanical standpoint, 1H Staff+Shield+Dueling is superior in every way to 2H Staff+Defense, with both higher damage as well as higher AC.

2H Staff + Defense fighting style
1d8 (4.5 average damage before STRMOD)
+1 AC

1H Staff + Shield + Dueling fighting style
1d6+2 (5.5 average damage before STRMOD)
+2 AC

[JellyPooga]

I know it was a deliberate thematic choice, but from a purely mechanical standpoint, 1H Staff+Shield+Dueling is superior in every way to 2H Staff+Defense, with both higher damage as well as higher AC.

2H Staff + Defense fighting style
1d8 (4.5 average damage before STRMOD)
+1 AC

1H Staff + Shield + Dueling fighting style
1d6+2 (5.5 average damage before STRMOD)
+2 AC

It also would have been better to drop Dex to 14, allowing Str to go up to 16, to wear Medium Armour and wield a longsword/rapier/battleaxe to increase both AC and To-Hit/Damage.

Str 16/Dex 14 Longsword, Scale Armour, Shield + Dueling FS VS. Str 15/Dex 16 2-H Q.staff, Studded Leather + Defence FS
1d8+2+3 (9.5) vs. 1d8+2 (6.5)
AC: 18 (14+2+2) vs. 16 (12+3+1)

Purely mechanically, I chose sub-optimally. At least in terms of damage/AC. On the other hand, I made gains in equipment weight and cost, as well as stealth, Initiative and some other incidentals.

[Angelalex242]

I do have to brush off stealth, but in practice, that's...

"Sir Clankeyclank Smitesalot stays back here with the cleric and the fighter while the sneaky types go sneak."

[Dr.Samurai]

This question is really "is Dexterity better than Strength" masquerading as a question about armor.

Chances are that for anyone that is proficient with Heavy Armor, the answer is... probably not.

Strength saves are more common, especially on the front lines and at the most common levels of play, than Dexterity saves, unless you're constantly fighting dragons. So unless you want to be pushed around, knocked down, dragged, grappled, and restrained at the enemy's leisure, a high strength score is preferable to dexterity. Strength opens up better melee weapon options as well. It also controls your movement options in swimming, climbing, and jumping via Athletics, and determines how far you can jump without a check in the first place. You're also pretty easily able to Shove/Knock Prone/Grapple anything Large or smaller.

If you're on the backline using spells or ranged weapons and thinking to yourself "literally none of these things are a concern for me", then yeah, of course, go with the "godstat" Dexterity.

But if I'm on the frontline, am I going to give all of this up so I can sneak better and win Initiative 1 out of 10 times? No. It's not even a question. Melee characters, specifically frontliners, need mobility, they need to resist enemy movement control, they benefit from reach and heavy weapons, etc.

[animewatcha]

Would it be too much if Heavy armor (probably with a feat) provided DR equal to half your total AC?

[JNAProductions]

Would it be too much if Heavy armor (probably with a feat) provided DR equal to have your total AC?

Yes. Ten Characters.

[Witty Username]

Would it be too much if Heavy armor (probably with a feat) provided DR equal to have your total AC?

So like 8-10? DR, so like CR 5 enemies can barely damage you outside of crits?

[animewatcha]

That is a bout the time that one can somewhat afford heavy armor, yes? Just around the time of magical weapons start saying 'hi'. Not to mention the disadvantages of heavy armor that come with.

[animorte]

So like 8-10? DR, so like CR 5 enemies can barely damage you outside of crits?

I would think that, to remain relevant but not too ridiculous, it would likely scale with proficiency bonus instead.

[Tanarii]

Would it be too much if Heavy armor (probably with a feat) provided DR equal to half your total AC?
DR 3 is already worth a half Feat. A good one too.

[animewatcha]

DR 3 is already worth a half Feat. A good one too.

For non magical BPS damage. Which falls away as you get higher in levels. Versus say prof. bonus or 'half your total AC'.

[Dr.Samurai]

I think the DD1 version, where it maps to Prof bonus and includes magic damage is good.

[animewatcha]

It is better but it stays with BPS. Wouldn't it be better with 'any' damage?

[OvisCaedo]

There are just some types of damage that it doesn't strictly make sense for heavy armor to help with. With some it could even make things worse. But, admittedly, "logic" like that might not have much place in the design decision for a fantasy game! From the game's perspective, non-physical damage types are *usually* effects that are either save-based or additional damage on physical attacks. Heavy armor is already suggested by the game mechanics to not help avoid elemental damage baseline in most cases, and for attack riders you can still diminish the physical attack a bit, elemental resistance would be double-dipping. There ARE some attack rolls that deal pure non-physical damage, but they tend to be pretty uncommon and niche. Not much worth designing an exception for, perhaps?

Personally I think it's fine just being for physical damage only, but that the "non-magical weapons" part is unnecessary, even if it's debatable how often it actually does or doesn't come up at higher levels. It's still a sword doing sword things at you, making the most of your armor shouldn't really change or stop working because it has a little magic on it.

[Unoriginal]

Strength saves are more common, especially on the front lines and at the most common levels of play, than Dexterity saves, unless you're constantly fighting dragons. So unless you want to be pushed around, knocked down, dragged, grappled, and restrained at the enemy's leisure, a high strength score is preferable to dexterity.

I have to point out that most of those effects are pretty often opposed STR checks (or STR vs DEX checks) with relevant proficiency, rather than saves, while DEX saves are probably the second most commonplace saves.




But if I'm on the frontline, am I going to give all of this up so I can sneak better and win Initiative 1 out of 10 times? No. It's not even a question. Melee characters, specifically frontliners, need mobility, they need to resist enemy movement control, they benefit from reach and heavy weapons, etc.

Quite true.

Strength is good for what it does, Dex is good for what it does, trying to use one for the other is possible to an extant but still limited.

And that's a good thing.


I think the DD1 version, where it maps to Prof bonus and includes magic damage is good.

Because DD1 will remove all BPS magic damage from monsters and NPCs unless they specifically wield a magic weapon. They've already made the changes for all post-MM monsters.

[Dr.Samurai]

I have to point out that most of those effects are pretty often opposed STR checks (or STR vs DEX checks) with relevant proficiency, rather than saves, while DEX saves are probably the second most commonplace saves.
Yes and no, but I think opposed checks are in the minority.

There are traits that call specifically for Strength saving throws under the right conditions, and these are things like Charge and Pounce. Then attacks like Tentacle and Constrict, and many Bites/Claws have a rider that calls specifically for a Strength saving throw to avoid usually being grappled or knocked prone. These grapples can often impose Restrained as well. Finally, some attacks just simply say you are grappled if the attack lands a hit.

Assuming Heavy Armor is giving you the highest AC, then you'll have the best chances at avoiding the attack landing in the first place, and therefore outright avoiding the rider effect. Then actually having a primary Strength score, and probably proficiency in Strength saves and Athletics, will give you the best chances at resisting the rider effects if/when you do get hit.

For the attacks that auto-grapple, I think Strength still has an edge in that medium armor requires only a 14 dex to maximize AC (meaning you'll only ever have a +2 bonus), and the Strength character, under the right conditions, can spend an Action on the Attack action and Shove the target out of reach to break the grapple, allowing them to move forward and still attack with Extra Attack. This only works if the target is Large or smaller, and doesn't have Reach, but it's an option Strength characters will have over non-strength characters.

What follows is not in response to you, just stuff that I remembered while typing.

That said, you have reminded me that Strength has another advantage over Dexterity in that some monsters call for Strength checks even outside of opposing grapples/shoves/etc. And I don't think that any monsters call for a Dexterity check, though I haven't really looked into it. Pulling someone out of a gelatinous cube, unsticking your weapon from a kuo-toa shield, removing a cloaker from someone's face, or detaching a darkmantle, these all call for Strength checks. Web attacks from various spider monsters also require Strength checks to escape from, as do difficult terrain effects such as from Lair Actions or monsters like the Gibbering Mouther.

And then finally, the heavy armor character grappling monsters can prevent Flyby attacks, skirmishers, those traits like Pounce, Charge, Aggressive, Dive, etc. It can also negate a Displacer Beast's Displacement, prevent monsters from Burrowing, or move monster auras/gaze attacks away from the party. These are options not available to a Medium Armor character that dumps Strength.

It seems to me that Strength characters are simply much more versatile than Dexterity characters once you actually engage in combat, and specifically melee combat (Dex rules ranged combat). Being able to Finesse a melee weapon is nice, but, as Unoriginal put it, it's not an all out replacement of the Strength melee option. Dexterity has its place, but Strength also certainly has its place.


Because DD1 will remove all BPS magic damage from monsters and NPCs unless they specifically wield a magic weapon. They've already made the changes for all post-MM monsters.
Ah, then that makes sense.

[animorte]

It seems to me that Strength characters are simply much more versatile than Dexterity characters once you actually engage in combat, and specifically melee combat.
Oh, so basically what you’re saying is: Somehow, the majority have succumbed to the “strength is superior” shenanigans.

Keeping up with this, I was suddenly reminded that I haven’t tried to grapple, and have successfully avoided attempted grapples, for probably the last three years of playing.


(Dex rules ranged combat)
I mean, I’d much rather sit on the couch with my remote in order to control the television as opposed to walking across the room every time it needs an adjustment. Or, you know, standing next to it. :smalltongue:

To be fair, that control more often relies on your casting stat…

[stoutstien]

For non magical BPS damage. Which falls away as you get higher in levels. Versus say prof. bonus or 'half your total AC'.

Not really. Flat out magical BPS is extremely rare. Usually with NPCs it's not magical damage with a *insert type* rider on it. Spells are the primary source and even then BPS based options are in the minority.

HaM is consistently one of the highest forms of mitigation available for H armor users over the entire game length. it's just not flashy and avoidance is cheap(and gettig cheaper) so reduction is hard to justify sometimes.

[LostBenefit]

For non magical BPS damage. Which falls away as you get higher in levels. Versus say prof. bonus or 'half your total AC'.
It doesn't fall away as much as you think—damage from enemies is scaled by increasing the number of their attacks and the majority of enemies (NOT homebrewed) do not have magical BPS damage.

[Unoriginal]

It doesn't fall away as much as you think—damage from enemies is scaled by increasing the number of their attacks and the majority of enemies (NOT homebrewed) do not have magical BPS damage.

There used to be more, but now they do force damage or the like. Or will do it in 2024.


Still, it's true Angels and Demons aren't the majority of enemies by a wide margin.

[Dr.Samurai]

Oh, so basically what you’re saying is: Somehow, the majority have succumbed to the “strength is superior” shenanigans.
I'm saying that there's a difference between "Dexterity can govern to-hit and damage with weapons, and also improves AC, Initiative, Stealth, and Reflex saving throws" and "Dexterity is a better stat for fighting in melee".

In other words... there are things that you will like to have while you are primarily engaging monsters in melee. Strength is one of those, and therefore Heavy Armor. Just because you can consolidate a bunch of stats through Dexterity, doesn't mean that it is outright the superior option to Strength when you're wading into melee combat.


Keeping up with this, I was suddenly reminded that I haven’t tried to grapple, and have successfully avoided attempted grapples, for probably the last three years of playing.

Well, you literally said that you don't care for Strength builds, so it doesn't surprise me that you've never tried to grapple anything. The forum, generally, and for whatever reason, derides grappling as a mostly useless tactic.

The second claim though tracks with my suspicions in these types of conversations; people just aren't engaging with the Strength side of the game. Grappled is the one condition that can be imposed on you most commonly without even being contested outside of AC (hit=grappled). The fact that you haven't been grappled in three years is remarkable, and suggests to me a few things: your DM doesn't use monsters that grapple, your DM only uses creatures that trigger an opposed check (therefore allowing for Acrobatics), or you're not really on the frontline. Alternatively, maybe you're rolling for stats and have a high Strength and Charisma combo that allows your Dexadin to successfully save against Strength saves.

But I said in my first post... if you don't have to worry about these things, then go for Dexterity. But not having to worry about Strength targeting attacks/obstacles is very much a playstyle thing, as much as suggesting that people are going to be using Pass Without Trace, Stealth Prof, and Initiative Optimization to get Surprise regularly.

I mean, I’d much rather sit on the couch with my remote in order to control the television as opposed to walking across the room every time it needs an adjustment. Or, you know, standing next to it. :smalltongue:
That's all fair. But a preference doesn't negate the advantages that Strength gives in melee. My fighter or barbarian needs to be able to reach his targets, so he can't be impeded by Difficult Terrain, restraining or grappling effects, shoved around, etc. He may want to use Reach weapons that allow him to hit someone from further away. As a tougher character, he may want to hold onto a monster and trade blows with it and prevent it from moving away and targeting other party members.

For most of this, Strength is the superior stat over Dexterity. It's not to take away from what Dexterity provides, but simply to put it into context. If combats are only ever "keep away from enemy and target it with ranged attacks/spells" then yeah, no need for Strength.

[stoutstien]

There used to be more, but now they do force damage or the like. Or will do it in 2024.


Still, it's true Angels and Demons aren't the majority of enemies by a wide margin.
Ironically since I started testing the *new" stat blocks it made single damage type resistance/immunity more powerful so in some cases the effectiveness of NPCs drops. (Of the three base damage types piercing saw a big jump in the *new* blocks).

*Note that all types are fairly evenly spread out CR 5-10. For most tables that means it's all on equal footing.

*Note psychic is almost as prevalent as force as a primary type until CR 17+*

*Note note* hard to really value any of this due to small sample sizes of some CRs.see note on CR 5+10*

[Thunderous Mojo]

This question is really "is Dexterity better than Strength" masquerading as a question about armor.

I believe this is a mistaken assertion. The original post was inquiring if Heavy Armor is “worth it” for a cleric.

A character devoted to Strength or Dexterity, has essentially already decided if Heavy Armor is an option for them.

A cleric, with only a single attack, simply does not derive that much value from having a very high Strength score. The Spirit Shroud spell, that is in TCoE, is the only spell that cleric’s have access to to enhance their weapon damage.

A baseline Spirit Shroud spell when combined with the 8th level version of Blessed Strikes is adding 2d8 damage of varying types for the cost of a 3rd level spell and the use of a more versatile class feature, that is Blessed Strikes.

This does not strike me, as an amazing return on investment.

While the notion of a Grappling Cleric has some appeal, we should not forget the fact that Grappling is dependent upon creature size. Most clerics lack the means to alter their size, and thus are limited to Grappling only Large, (or smaller) creatures.

The cleric subclass that does have access to Magic that alters their form, is the Trickery cleric, whom is using the Polymorph spell. One consequence of the Polymorph spell is that the cleric’s native Strength score is not germane to their King Kong Grapple option.

Also, when looking at Grappling, Expertise is vastly more impactful then one’s Strength score. A 10 Strength PC, that has taken the Skill Expert Feat from TCoE, and gained Expertise in Athletics, is almost as good of a grappler as a PC with an 18 Strength.

Expertise in Athletics can shore up an area of gameplay for low strength characters while still providing a +1 Ability score increase to any ability. On a high Strength character, Expertise in Athletics makes Grappling checks almost too easy.

Just this last Saturday, my 14th level, (now 15th level), Psi Warrior, whom has a +15 bonus to Athletics checks due to Expertise and Strength modifier, pushed Grazz’t, (and his patchouli stink), through the one way door of a Gate spell created by a Adventuring Companion’s Cubic Gate, (a magic item).

A Life Cleric with 14 Strength using Medium Armor and a Shield, is not substantially far behind in AC terms from a 15 Strength Life Cleric that is using Heavy Armor and a shield.

[animorte]

Well, you literally said that you don't care for Strength builds, so it doesn't surprise me that you've never tried to grapple anything. The forum, generally, and for whatever reason, derides grappling as a mostly useless tactic.
You got that right!
As far as the forum goes, I’ve seen plenty accounts of grappling being mentioned.


1. your DM doesn't use monsters that grapple
2. or you're not really on the frontline.
3. Alternatively, maybe you're rolling for stats and have a high Strength and Charisma combo that allows your Dexadin to successfully save against Strength saves.
1. Not far from the truth. He isn’t quite as experienced. But… I also DM more than anybody else, as I’m the most experienced. I’ve used some grappling monsters, to be fair.
2. This is most accurate. I’m like my mobility, kiting tactics, and battlefield control.
3. This has been the case before. Let’s not forget how many classes have proficiency with Strength saves though. Off the top of my noggin: Barbarian, Monk, Fighter, and Ranger.


That's all fair. But a preference doesn't negate the advantages that Strength gives in melee.
Absolutely, thanks for making the note. There’s nothing wrong with preferences, and I have no problem admitting when something is accurate, whether or not it suits mine.


For most of this, Strength is the superior stat over Dexterity. It's not to take away from what Dexterity provides, but simply to put it into context.
Agreed. Everything has its place and it’s a good thing that they have some notable differences.

[Pex]

I believe this is a mistaken assertion. The original post was inquiring if Heavy Armor is “worth it” for a cleric.

A character devoted to Strength or Dexterity, has essentially already decided if Heavy Armor is an option for them.

A cleric, with only a single attack, simply does not derive that much value from having a very high Strength score. The Spirit Shroud spell, that is in TCoE, is the only spell that cleric’s have access to to enhance their weapon damage.



It depends on cleric Domain and player preference. A cleric domain that gives heavy armor means a cleric can have AC 20 with full plate and shield. Spirit Guardians and Dodge is classic. A cleric can get two attacks with Spiritual Weapon along with his weapon attack and gets an extra d8 damage with weapon on top of that at 8th level (Domain dependent). If not bothering with Spirit Guardians then Shield of Faith gives AC 22. The cleric is not good at melee combat as a warrior nor should he be, but he can be the back-up warrior should he need to.

[Dr.Samurai]

I believe this is a mistaken assertion. The original post was inquiring if Heavy Armor is “worth it” for a cleric.
Well, nothing about Medium Armor grants bonuses to Initiative or skill checks or Reflex saves. In essence, people are taking the requirement of a 14 Dexterity to maximize Medium Armor Proficiency, and turning it into a boon of Medium Armor, saying "look at all the stuff medium armor gives me". So, in essence, this comes down to talking about the advantages of Dexterity compared to those of Strength.

A character devoted to Strength or Dexterity, has essentially already decided if Heavy Armor is an option for them.
Indeed. But if a cleric is going to make a consideration between the two, it's best to consider all the advantages they have to offer. Then, as I've said, if you think some or most of those advantages don't apply, you can make your determination. But the OP reads essentially like "Medium Armor boosts all of these amazing attributes, and Heavy Armor gets me Disadvantage on Stealth", and the situation is more than that.

I played in a two year campaign with a cleric that dumped Strength. It was brutal. DiA has a lot of encounters with difficult terrain and/or vertical mobility, and also that start at long distances. The cleric simply had trouble keeping up and getting into melee. Rooftop fights, leaning towers where the slope was difficult terrain, rubble, patches of lava, vertical fights in giant hives... all of these proved a significant challenge for the cleric that just wanted to get into melee and use touch spells and cast aura spells and stay within range to use his class features. Had the cleric had a 15 Strength and Heavy Armor, he could jump over 10ft of lava, or difficult terrain, or from one roof to another, or leap vertically and reach a height of 12ft in the air. Or resist the monsters a bit better that knocked him down or shoved him. (It's worth noting that he was a Grave cleric, so heavy armor wasn't a native option, but the observation of dumping Strength in a campaign with dynamic terrain still stands.) Instead, he had a +2 to Initiative, Reflex saves, and Stealth. Nice bonuses to have, but I suspect the higher Strength would have done more for the cleric in the 2 years of gameplay.

In a PbP I'm in now, in our very first encounter my barbarian was the only one that could reach the demon on turn 1 because he leaped over 2 squares of difficult terrain. He wound up "faster" than the monk because the monk dumped Strength and the difficult terrain chewed up their speed.

While the notion of a Grappling Cleric has some appeal, we should not forget the fact that Grappling is dependent upon creature size. Most clerics lack the means to alter their size, and thus are limited to Grappling only Large, (or smaller) creatures.
For a cleric I think it would be the opposite consideration; resisting or breaking free from grapples.

Also, when looking at Grappling, Expertise is vastly more impactful then one’s Strength score. A 10 Strength PC, that has taken the Skill Expert Feat from TCoE, and gained Expertise in Athletics, is almost as good of a grappler as a PC with an 18 Strength.

Expertise in Athletics can shore up an area of gameplay for low strength characters while still providing a +1 Ability score increase to any ability. On a high Strength character, Expertise in Athletics makes Grappling checks almost too easy.
My point though is that Strength opens up these options. Ignoring hazards/difficult terrain, grappling enemies, holding your position, reach weapons and highest damage on weapons, best AC. It's not just grappling, but rather a combination of things that make you a versatile and optimal melee combatant.

If we open up feats and only focus on one aspect of the attribute, then Alertness blows 14 Dexterity out of the water.

Just this last Saturday, my 14th level, (now 15th level), Psi Warrior, whom has a +15 bonus to Athletics checks due to Expertise and Strength modifier, pushed Grazz’t, (and his patchouli stink), through the one way door of a Gate spell created by a Adventuring Companion’s Cubic Gate, (a magic item).
That's awesome! I love grappling :smallcool:. In that same Avernus game I mentioned, half the party was stuck in a diving bell at the bottom of a river. The ranger was trying to work the contraption to bring them up. A glabrezu swooped down from the sky to challenge us, and my barbarian grappled him and dunked him into the Styx. Good times!

Athletics Expertise on Strength characters can be overkill. In your case, it's providing the same benefit as your Strength score, so forgoing Strength for Expertise is just achieving the same result but costs you a feat.

A Life Cleric with 14 Strength using Medium Armor and a Shield, is not substantially far behind in AC terms from a 15 Strength Life Cleric that is using Heavy Armor and a shield.
Not only is the one behind the other on AC, but also on the saving throws and checks most relevant to being in melee combat. Again, that's for anyone to consider and make the determination themselves. But as I've already said, if I'm going to be in melee, I'd prefer the benefits of Strength over better reflex, stealth, and Initiative. (And, if Stealth is really a strong advantage of medium armor, then we're really talking about Breastplate vs Full Plate, so 2 points behind, unless we're investing in feats and higher Dexterity.)

[Tanarii]

I have to point out that most of those effects are pretty often opposed STR checks (or STR vs DEX checks) with relevant proficiency, rather than saves, while DEX saves are probably the second most commonplace saves.
Are they? Certainly many of the low level monster knock down / grapple effects are Str saves.

[Skrum]

I do have to brush off stealth, but in practice, that's...

"Sir Clankeyclank Smitesalot stays back here with the cleric and the fighter while the sneaky types go sneak."

My current Dex 8 paladin recently said " Stealth is for peasants." He's kind of a jerk, but on this I think he's right. Stealth is very marginally useful, and far outmatched by Athleticism.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My current Dex 8 paladin recently said " Stealth is for peasants." He's kind of a jerk, but on this I think he's right. Stealth is very marginally useful, and far outmatched by Athleticism.

Stealth is, in my experience, either something one single person is great at (and becomes somewhat of a solo game) OR something that the whole party has specialized in and uses things like pass without trace...and then is only useful when the DM enables it. And PWoT covers for both disadvantage (~-5) and not having proficiency (-2 - -6). If you have proficiency or don't have disadvantage, you end up with effectively expertise.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Stealth is, in my experience, either something one single person is great at (and becomes somewhat of a solo game) OR something that the whole party has specialized in and uses things like pass without trace...and then is only useful when the DM enables it. And PWoT covers for both disadvantage (~-5) and not having proficiency (-2 - -6). If you have proficiency or don't have disadvantage, you end up with effectively expertise.

We had one campaign where everyone was very good at stealth, with the exception of one character. Even with PwT, bringing him along meant our chances of surprise went from an almost certainly down to a coin flip. He was faced with either hanging back 60', not great for a martial when the swinging starts, or losing enough armor to get rid of the disadvantage. When 4/5 of your party can regularly get surprise, that 5th member can become a liability.

[GeoffWatson]

We had one campaign where everyone was very good at stealth, with the exception of one character. Even with PwT, bringing him along meant our chances of surprise went from an almost certainly down to a coin flip. He was faced with either hanging back 60', not great for a martial when the swinging starts, or losing enough armor to get rid of the disadvantage. When 4/5 of your party can regularly get surprise, that 5th member can become a liability.

Not if you use the Group Check rules - i.e. you only need half the party to succeed at stealth for the whole party to succeed.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Not if you use the Group Check rules - i.e. you only need half the party to succeed at stealth for the whole party to succeed.

Agreed, if you use those rules. Group check rules never made sense to us in that situation. The loud guy in armor is still the loud guy in armor, no matter how many quiet people you put around him.

[Tanarii]

Not if you use the Group Check rules - i.e. you only need half the party to succeed at stealth for the whole party to succeed.
Except you're not supposed to do that for Hiding or Suprise. Explicitly for both of those, each creature must beat all other creatures PP to succeed.

DM might choose to anyway, but it's clearly not what's intended in those cases. Nor does it make any sense. One person should be able to give away the entire party.

I can think of several other scenarios where it might make perfect sense for the better folks in the party to carry the worse however. Just not ambushes or hiding.


Stealth is, in my experience, either something one single person is great at (and becomes somewhat of a solo game) OR something that the whole party has specialized in and uses things like pass without trace...and then is only useful when the DM enables it. And PWoT covers for both disadvantage (~-5) and not having proficiency (-2 - -6). If you have proficiency or don't have disadvantage, you end up with effectively expertise.
All that's required is a DM to rule a reasonable distance is "separate party" and you can have several stealth operate in advance and attempting ambush, possibly even luring the ambushed creatures back in. No need for separate mini game or entire party.

I've experimented with 30ft separation, on the basis that the attempting to ambushing group is 30ft from the enemy and the non stealthers were 60ft, and 60 ft is plenty of distance to have no chance of hearing someone moving around without yelling and making excess noise, but not quietly. I found that wasn't really enough separation from it being a constant tactic though, as opposed to a choice to be considered. Eventually I settled on 60ft between scouts and main party.

Key was, it wasn't a mini game for the scouts. We played as a table, with the assumption that scouts would occasionally report back (especially using Message cantrips), wait for party to catch up, etc. The risk was they might get ambushed and the party would be 60ft away. The advantage was the party got to use scouts without being bored, and the scouts occasionally got to launch ambushes when it made sense.

Without something like this, agreed there's no reason to invest in stealth unless everyone does, or you're pop up hiding during combat.

[Witty Username]

Not if you use the Group Check rules - i.e. you only need half the party to succeed at stealth for the whole party to succeed.
I need to reread those rules, I thought they were you roll for the person with the lowest modifier than use that for group.

I.E. just roll for the heavy armor guy, if she can't get past, this ain't working.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Except you're not supposed to do that for Hiding or Suprise. Explicitly for both of those, each creature must beat all other creatures PP to succeed.

DM might choose to anyway, but it's clearly not what's intended in those cases. Nor does it make any sense. One person should be able to give away the entire party.

I can think of several other scenarios where it might make perfect sense for the better folks in the party to carry the worse however. Just not ambushes or hiding.


All that's required is a DM to rule a reasonable distance is "separate party" and you can have several stealth operate in advance and attempting ambush, possibly even luring the ambushed creatures back in. No need for separate mini game or entire party.

I've experimented with 30ft separation, on the basis that the attempting to ambushing group is 30ft from the enemy and the non stealthers were 60ft, and 60 ft is plenty of distance to have no chance of hearing someone moving around without yelling and making excess noise, but not quietly. I found that wasn't really enough separation from it being a constant tactic though, as opposed to a choice to be considered. Eventually I settled on 60ft between scouts and main party.

Key was, it wasn't a mini game for the scouts. We played as a table, with the assumption that scouts would occasionally report back (especially using Message cantrips), wait for party to catch up, etc. The risk was they might get ambushed and the party would be 60ft away. The advantage was the party got to use scouts without being bored, and the scouts occasionally got to launch ambushes when it made sense.

Without something like this, agreed there's no reason to invest in stealth unless everyone does, or you're pop up hiding during combat.

I've basically used the same separation for groups; 60' is also a handy distance for those with darkvision. 30' I've used to provide advantage (or remove disadvantage) for the follow group. Some characters are able to take advantage of this, and for melee martials it gets them into the fray sooner.

[Tanarii]

I need to reread those rules, I thought they were you roll for the person with the lowest modifier than use that for group.

I.E. just roll for the heavy armor guy, if she can't get past, this ain't working.Everyone rolls against a fixed DC provided by the DM, and 1/2 or more succeeding is a group success.

Which means it doesn't even really work systematically for surprise, since there are multiple values to compare against. You can kind of kludge it by comparing all party rolls to the highest rolled or passive perception though. That's close enough to the normal procedure.

Of course, there's still the problem it's overriding an specific rule instead of a general rule. More importantly that it doesn't really make sense in the fiction. And even more importantly it makes something that's supposed to be hard to achieve (surprise for the whole party, probably with HA guys in front of squishies and scouts) fairly easy to achieve.


I've basically used the same separation for groups; 60' is also a handy distance for those with darkvision. 30' I've used to provide advantage (or remove disadvantage) for the follow group. Some characters are able to take advantage of this, and for melee martials it gets them into the fray sooner.Thats not a bad rule. The group would have to decide if Dex 8 no stealth prof chars roll with -1 to their check and are one round out from the front lines, or no check and 2 round out. (Assuming ambush scouts don't draw the battle back to them.) It'd also make not completely dumping Dex or even better taking stealth prof far more worth it.

[Dr.Samurai]

My current Dex 8 paladin recently said " Stealth is for peasants." He's kind of a jerk, but on this I think he's right. Stealth is very marginally useful, and far outmatched by Athleticism.
Wholeheartedly agree.

Stealth is, in my experience, either something one single person is great at (and becomes somewhat of a solo game) OR something that the whole party has specialized in and uses things like pass without trace...and then is only useful when the DM enables it. And PWoT covers for both disadvantage (~-5) and not having proficiency (-2 - -6). If you have proficiency or don't have disadvantage, you end up with effectively expertise.
Emphasis mine. It seems to me that if parties are "regularly" getting Surprise on their enemies, the DM is essentially just granting it. I'd also bet that these parties are probably very focused on Stealth/Surprised rules, but probably not tracking other parts of this like:

1. Travel Pace. You have to be traveling slowly to be able to Stealth while traveling. This eats away at Spell durations or class feature durations. There is a give and take here of eking out the most of your shorter duration buffs, and trying to get Surprise on every encounter. And taking advantage of Stealth+PWT while ignoring the passage of time or always allowing time to be inconsequential seems pretty cheesy.

2. Your own poor Perception. A light source would give away your own Stealth, so you're sneaking around in the dark, which imposes Disadvantage on your own Perception checks to ferret out enemy ambushes. So maybe you're being super duper quiet, but if you're creeping down a corridor with no cover, you might have missed the hidden guard keeping a lookout for intruders through a murder hole. And remember, when traveling there is a Marching Order, and depending on terrain and what is needed to be Stealthy, you may be traveling in single file. The DM can determine that only certain characters can actually have a chance at perceiving certain enemies. Similarly, someone might be Navigating/Tracking, while another is Foraging or drawing a map. So in many cases, it isn't the entire party that is contributing their Passive Perception to detect hidden enemies, but maybe two, or more likely one party member, and now it's with Disadvantage.

I'm also skeptical that the terrain regularly favors Surprise/Ambush tactics without the DM just basically saying "and here on the map is where I put your ambush strike point where you can all get a clear view of the enemy combatants and be within striking distance without having to break your cover".

Stealth is nice for when you need it. But actively pursuing Surprise all the time seems to me to be a special type of playstyle that isn't really assumed. And either way, you have to choose an argument to make; either you're behind 2 points of AC because you're favoring Stealth, or you're behind only 1 point of AC and suffering the same Disadvantage on Stealth checks as Heavy Armor.

Scouting ahead for information is a-okay. Scouting ahead to initiate combat 60ft ahead of the martials just smacks of the same sort of attitude as wizards trying to solve everything with spells and warping the game around their specific power suite.

[Angelalex242]

If the Scouts can communicate with heavy armor...

A better idea for the scouts is, let the heavy armor clash with the enemy first, then take your surprise round.

Make sure to discuss with your DM how the Assassin in particular has to do this to get his autocrit.

[Particle_Man]

Yeah I remember my cranky paladin was often the bait for the enemy, who would attack me and *then* the rest of the party would swoop in.

[Segev]

Where are the rules that say group checks don't apply to stealth?


And as for procedure, the way group checks really work is that the whole group's check result is the median, or the lowest roll above the median if no roll equals the median. (This happens only with even numbers of participants, because the median in an even number of results can be the average of the two middle results.) I like to frame it as "rounding up the median to the nearest rolled result." One could argue that's mathematically incorrect, in terms of expressing it, but I think it gets the point across.

This is what the "if at least half the party succeeds on the check" rule amounts to, and allows you to more easily compare it to multiple different DCs if needs be. For example, if a party rolled a 25, 17, 12, and 2 on their group check, the group's result is 17.

[Dr.Samurai]

Where are the rules that say group checks don't apply to stealth?
I’m away from books but I think Tanarii may be referring to the rules for Hiding and Surprise, which stipulate that if any single member is observed, then the enemies are alert to danger and no longer surprised. The group check would make getting Surprise a lot easier than probably intended by removing the lower results that might be observed with passive perception.

[Segev]

I’m away from books but I think Tanarii may be referring to the rules for Hiding and Surprise, which stipulate that if any single member is observed, then the enemies are alert to danger and no longer surprised. The group check would make getting Surprise a lot easier than probably intended by removing the lower results that might be observed with passive perception.

Ahh. I wonder if a good compromise to fit both elements of the RAW would be that sneaking past them uses group checks, but to establish surprise, you use the lowest check.

[Keltest]

Ahh. I wonder if a good compromise to fit both elements of the RAW would be that sneaking past them uses group checks, but to establish surprise, you use the lowest check.

As I recall, group checks are an optional rule. I think the best solution is to just use whatever format works best at your table and not worry about it too much. IME groups will very rarely try and stealth as a single unit unless theyre all capable, either through proficiency or PWT, anyway.

[Segev]

As I recall, group checks are an optional rule. I think the best solution is to just use whatever format works best at your table and not worry about it too much. IME groups will very rarely try and stealth as a single unit unless theyre all capable, either through proficiency or PWT, anyway.

Without proficiency, PWT is barely a band-aid, given the swinginess of rolls.

[stoutstien]

Without proficiency, PWT is barely a band-aid, given the swinginess of rolls.

Well it adds 10 to the minimal roll and the most common PP is that or lower so as long as you don't have a negative modifier it bypasses the roll all together. Won't be sneaking past a beholder or anything but your average denizen of most setting it's going to work.( When stealth is a valid option of course)

[Witty Username]

Without proficiency, PWT is barely a band-aid, given the swinginess of rolls.

I would hope a 20 dex with expertise in stealth (+9 to +10) would have some utility.
PWT makes those numbers the minimum.
How offen do you have enemies of passive perception 20+?

[Tanarii]

Where are the rules that say group checks don't apply to stealth? Group checks can apply to a stealth roll, and there's definitely a use for it. For example, a DM using variant abilities rule might use group Intelligence (Stealth) check to pick the best route through a dark city to not draw the attention of the guard. (Or just Dexterity Stealth without the variant rule.)

But the Hide and Surprise rules have specific rules. The latter in particular requires all members of an ambushing party to beat any given ambushee's PP to surprise it.


Without proficiency, PWT is barely a band-aid, given the swinginess of rolls.It's an automatic pass against PP 10 with Heavy Armor, Dex 8. PP 15 if the enemy is in Dim Light and using sight instead of sound to detect you.

OTOH it's also a resource and concentration used.

[Angelalex242]

Where you're sneaking also matters.

A heavily armored Knight 'sneaking' through the king's palace isn't rolling stealth, he's rolling deception to act like he belongs there...which, given the king has a bunch of knights running around for security, it pretty much looks like he does.

[GeoffWatson]

If everyone needs to succeed, the odds drop dramatically, four PCs rolling means four chances to roll a low number.

[Tanarii]

If everyone needs to succeed, the odds drop dramatically, four PCs rolling means four chances to roll a low number.
Yup. Working as intended IMO. Increasing group size should make it significantly harder with each person added. Even if they are fairly skilled, overall chance should drop adding another person.

[tokek]

Wholeheartedly agree.

Emphasis mine. It seems to me that if parties are "regularly" getting Surprise on their enemies, the DM is essentially just granting it.

Granting hidden status at the start of combat is one thing - granting surprise should be much rarer and harder.


The DM determines who might be surprised.

Any creature set as a lookout or on watch should basically never be surprised. They might not specifically see the attack coming but they were generally expecting to be attacked, its a dangerous world out there in D&D land.

Similarly any defensible spot gives no cover to sneak up on people. Actual real castles didn't have trees around them, the owners made a point of having all trees withing several hundred feet cut down to give a clear unobstructed view. Anything designed to be defensible will have clear lines of sight making stealth impossible without the use of invisibility or similar magics.

So the discussion of the value of stealthy armor is really dependent on a set of DM decisions that they have made to highly promote stealth and make it particularly powerful in their games. If you play a game where stealth reigns supreme then of course any armor that inhibits stealth is a bad idea. If you play a rogue/assassin themed campaign then don't wear heavy armor I guess.

[Amnestic]

Any creature set as a lookout or on watch should basically never be surprised. They might not specifically see the attack coming but they were generally expecting to be attacked, its a dangerous world out there in D&D land.

That's not how Surprise works.


A band of Adventurers sneaks up on a Bandit camp, springing from the trees to Attack them. A Gelatinous Cube glides down a dungeon Passage, unnoticed by the Adventurers until the cube engulfs one of them. In these situations, one side of the battle gains Surprise over the other.

The GM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the GM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone Hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.


"Being on lookout" doesn't mean you negate surprise (you need the Alert feat for that). A dungeon party will of course be on alert as they're roaming a dungeon, but a gelatinous cube can still surprise them in the example given.

If everyone's stealth beats your PP, you're surprised, not matter how aware you are of potential threats. A lot of monster's PP is pretty mediocre - usually averaging 10-15. A party with Pass Without Trace running will be able to consistently surprise the majority of monsters if they're trying to - heavy armour might impact that due to disadvantage, but even a no proficiency 8 dex heavy armour fighter is going to be rolling a minimum of 10 (-1, +10, rolls 1 with disadv), which equals (and therefore beats) a not small amount of creature's PPs. And that's the absolute worst situation. Usually you'd expect them to be getting ~14 or so (disadv dropping the average roll from 10 to 5, +9).

[Thunderous Mojo]

It depends on cleric Domain and player preference. A cleric domain that gives heavy armor means a cleric can have AC 20 with full plate and shield. Spirit Guardians and Dodge is classic.

A 14 Dexterity cleric in Half Plate has an ability score requirement that is one less than the Strength requirement of Heavy Armor, and consequently is only one point behind, in terms of AC.

A 20 or 21 AC is immensely impactful at 5th level, presuming the party is facing level equivalent CR opponents. 5e D&D, however, was not designed with that particular assumption in mind. The ‘flattening’ of the math, through bounded accuracy, means a party can take on opponents with a much higher CR rating, compared to their level.

I would expect players to face foes with +12 or higher to hit modifiers, in late T2 play. WotC Modules, would seem to support this assumption.

As an aside, D&D largely ignores the impact of weather and armor. Yet, wearing Gambeson quilting plus Plate Mail in the heat of a desert, or in the steamy confines of environments that have high humidity, is not that practical.

Same is true for cold environments. How many people in Green Bay, WI want to encase themselves in cold, cold metal when it is below freezing outside?



Not only is the one behind the other on AC, but also on the saving throws and checks most relevant to being in melee combat. Again, that's for anyone to consider and make the determination themselves. But as I've already said, if I'm going to be in melee, I'd prefer the benefits of Strength over better reflex, stealth, and Initiative. (And, if Stealth is really a strong advantage of medium armor, then we're really talking about Breastplate vs Full Plate, so 2 points behind, unless we're investing in feats and higher Dexterity.)

The 14 Strength Life Cleric is not substantially behind the 15 Strength Life Cleric in any of these areas. How large of an investment are you imagining a cleric places into Strength?

I like how the 5e Jumping rules rewards Strength by making jumps automatic, (which of course recent 1D&D Playtest rules eliminated), but by RAW, one’s jump distance can be increased by an Athletics ability check.

A 10 Strength Cleric could still jump a 15’ stream of lava in Avernus, with a sufficiently large enough Athletics check, (cue Skill Expert). Magic can also help in the form of the Jump spell, or Levitate, or Gust of Wind, etc.

Encumbrance issues, for having a low strength score can be addressed with a pack mule, or a Sherpa, or a Bag of Holding.

Also let us not ignore the potential impact Magic Items can play. There are more Strength boosting items then Dexterity boosting items. One of the Starter/Essential Sets does indeed have Gauntlets of Ogre Power in it.

My experience is that Strength based characters often gain no benefit from 5E’s Gauntlets of Ogre Power, due to having an 18 or higher Strength score, which could very well result in the 10 Strength cleric being able to grab the item.

(That actual happened with my own 10 Strength, Trickery Cleric).

A Strength Cleric, lacks Proficiency in Strength Saving Throws, and lacks Athletics as a potential Class skill. Dr. Samurai, we agree on the value of Strength, (especially in melee combat), but it takes the 5e cleric quite a bit of Feat/ASI/Background investment to be a useful melee attacker.

(Even then, with a single attack, the Grappler cleric is probably the best bet, which almost requires Warcaster/ Resilient: Constitution for the Concentration checks the cleric is going to have to make to keep spells going).

The 5e cleric is not, (generally), the old AD&D Backup Fighter Cleric …..(sorry fellow grognards).

[tokek]

That's not how Surprise works.


If everyone's stealth beats your PP, you're surprised, not matter how aware you are of potential threats. A lot of monster's PP is pretty mediocre - usually averaging 10-15. A party with Pass Without Trace running will be able to consistently surprise the majority of monsters if they're trying to - heavy armour might impact that due to disadvantage, but even a no proficiency 8 dex heavy armour fighter is going to be rolling a minimum of 10 (-1, +10, rolls 1 with disadv), which equals (and therefore beats) a not small amount of creature's PPs. And that's the absolute worst situation. Usually you'd expect them to be getting ~14 or so (disadv dropping the average roll from 10 to 5, +9).

That's not how stealth works

Unless the lookout is an absolute fool you simply cannot sneak up on them. The stealth roll is just not possible. You cannot roll stealth if there is no heavy cover. There is no way to open a watched door without it being noticed and negating surprise, you can sneak up to the door but not though it. Many reasonable and common situations just don't permit any stealth - because the guards were on guard and set themselves up accordingly.

Now if you have magic you might be able to sneak. Invisibility allows you to bypass the trivial but fairly universal technique of just having open sight lines. Similarly a teleport might jump you to the other side of that closed door if you can gain a way to teleport without making a noise.

The DM who allows regular surprise rounds is basically just handing a gimme to certain styles of play and giving huge advantage to them. If course if you play in that sort of game go ahead and give priority to stealth.

[animorte]

Same is true for cold environments. How many people in Green Bay, WI want to encase themselves in cold, cold metal when it is below freezing outside?
Of course not. They’ll just paint their skin and wear nothing, which is arguably worse, especially considering that armor wearers are typically known for having layers beneath the skin and armor itself.


Now if you have magic you might be able to sneak. Invisibility allows you to bypass the trivial but fairly universal technique of just having open sight lines. Similarly a teleport might jump you to the other side of that closed door if you can gain a way to teleport without making a noise.

The DM who allows regular surprise rounds is basically just handing a gimme to certain styles of play and giving huge advantage to them. If course if you play in that sort of game go ahead and give priority to stealth.
I agree it shouldn’t be all the time, but restricting a specific character’s niche feels like attempting to remove that character from the game in a way. It should be regular enough that they feel their concept isn’t wasted, provided that’s what they were going for.

It’s the same as spells. Why let the spells consistently bypass circumstances and then restrict surprise? Looks like favoring the caster, as if they need it.

[Keltest]

That's not how stealth works

Unless the lookout is an absolute fool you simply cannot sneak up on them. The stealth roll is just not possible. You cannot roll stealth if there is no heavy cover. There is no way to open a watched door without it being noticed and negating surprise, you can sneak up to the door but not though it. Many reasonable and common situations just don't permit any stealth - because the guards were on guard and set themselves up accordingly.

Now if you have magic you might be able to sneak. Invisibility allows you to bypass the trivial but fairly universal technique of just having open sight lines. Similarly a teleport might jump you to the other side of that closed door if you can gain a way to teleport without making a noise.

The DM who allows regular surprise rounds is basically just handing a gimme to certain styles of play and giving huge advantage to them. If course if you play in that sort of game go ahead and give priority to stealth.

The DM decides when stealth is appropriate. Yes, I would personally agree as a DM that its unreasonable to sneak in an area with no cover, active guards and an open line of sight, but if a DM allows for MMO style stealth where its just an effect that toggles on and makes you undetectable under any circumstances except a better perception check, thats allowed by the game too, and more power to people who enjoy playing that way.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The DM decides when stealth is appropriate. Yes, I would personally agree as a DM that its unreasonable to sneak in an area with no cover, active guards and an open line of sight, but if a DM allows for MMO style stealth where its just an effect that toggles on and makes you undetectable under any circumstances except a better perception check, thats allowed by the game too, and more power to people who enjoy playing that way.

Sure, but there is very much a rule that says that to be Hidden you need to be unseen and unheard and that you can't be unseen if you're not invisible and not behind "substantial" cover. So open line of sight toggle-sneaking is, in my mind, strongly disfavored as a default rule set.

[Keltest]

Sure, but there is very much a rule that says that to be Hidden you need to be unseen and unheard and that you can't be unseen if you're not invisible and not behind "substantial" cover. So open line of sight toggle-sneaking is, in my mind, strongly disfavored as a default rule set.

Sure, absolutely. As I said, as a DM personally I dont allow for stealth without visual obstruction of some kind. But there is a school of thought that says stealth checks imply that you are making efforts to stay out of sight even without direct cover, and your success at such is represented by the roll. Which is a legitimate way to run it even if its not necessarily the most realistic one.

[strangebloke]

That's not how stealth works

Unless the lookout is an absolute fool you simply cannot sneak up on them. The stealth roll is just not possible. You cannot roll stealth if there is no heavy cover. There is no way to open a watched door without it being noticed and negating surprise, you can sneak up to the door but not though it. Many reasonable and common situations just don't permit any stealth - because the guards were on guard and set themselves up accordingly.

Now if you have magic you might be able to sneak. Invisibility allows you to bypass the trivial but fairly universal technique of just having open sight lines. Similarly a teleport might jump you to the other side of that closed door if you can gain a way to teleport without making a noise.

The DM who allows regular surprise rounds is basically just handing a gimme to certain styles of play and giving huge advantage to them. If course if you play in that sort of game go ahead and give priority to stealth.
sort of.

You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, and you can't surprise a creature if you aren't hidden, but "heavy cover" isn't required. You're thinking of "heavily obscured area" which is present wherever total cover is, but is also present in a lot of other places. For example, even creatures with darkvision are completely blind outside of 60/120 feet or so. You can notice them first via sound, and make them surprised. Even if you can't see them on the first round, you can move toward them attack them while they're still surprised.

But heavily obscured areas may not even be required, depending on how your DM rules it. You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, but "see you clearly" implies no obscured area at all. A plain reading of the rules says that lightly obscured area can be sufficient for purposes of hiding. Its pretty hard to argue that you can be "clearly seen" if the enemy has to take penalties to see you. Obviously you still need your DM's approval for this! The rules are clear that the DM needs to approve any hiding that occurs - the "clearly see" bit is just another standard in addition to DM approval that you need to pass. Your DM will also be factoring in things like hearing and tremorsense and smell and such, and probably won't let you hide ten feet away from someone you just stabbed.

But from what I've seen, most DMs will allow people to hide in lightly obscured areas if they're somewhat distant from their opponent. The hardcore position that enemies ALWAYS notice PCs unless they're completely blind is not supported by the rules. Skulker and Mask of the Wilder let you ALWAYS hide in certain kinds of lightly obscured areas no matter what your DM says, which is absolutely as bogus as it sounds.

So how often can surprise come up? Well, pretty often, if the players want it to. PWT + moving stealthily over land at night is going to get you surprise on a lot of enemies you might face (though sometimes you'll need to have good PP yourself to avoid mutual surprise, lol) Having a negative to stealth and disadvantage does make this a lot harder to do consistently past early levels though, which is a drawback of plate IMX, especially if there's multiple people like that in your party.

And your example of a door is simply incorrect. If you are hiding and moving stealthily in a hall, and you notice there are ogres behind the door, and the ogres don't hear you... Combat starts with the doors closed! Those ogres are surprised!

So yeah, surprise by RAW comes up all the fricking time, though a smart DM can turn it again the players too. Ambushes in particular are really nasty since the hiding ambushers can take 20 on their dexterity(stealth) checks to hide.

[Dr.Samurai]

So the discussion of the value of stealthy armor is really dependent on a set of DM decisions that they have made to highly promote stealth and make it particularly powerful in their games. If you play a game where stealth reigns supreme then of course any armor that inhibits stealth is a bad idea. If you play a rogue/assassin themed campaign then don't wear heavy armor I guess.
It's a good point. A lot of these discussions come with a set of assumptions, play styles, and preferences that inform the conclusions. If the game is such that your party can, if they choose to, reliably get Surprise, then yes, a turn where the enemy can't act is a huge benefit to seek.

If everyone's stealth beats your PP, you're surprised, not matter how aware you are of potential threats. A lot of monster's PP is pretty mediocre - usually averaging 10-15. A party with Pass Without Trace running will be able to consistently surprise the majority of monsters if they're trying to - heavy armour might impact that due to disadvantage, but even a no proficiency 8 dex heavy armour fighter is going to be rolling a minimum of 10 (-1, +10, rolls 1 with disadv), which equals (and therefore beats) a not small amount of creature's PPs. And that's the absolute worst situation. Usually you'd expect them to be getting ~14 or so (disadv dropping the average roll from 10 to 5, +9).
True. I would just add that you have to be hidden as well in the first place. So to Tokek's point about there not always being cover, you're going to break Stealth and not have Surprise. Alternatively, things like stuck doors that have to be forced open might alert enemies nearby, or traps going off (especially with Disadvantage on your own Perception checks), or monsters that are hidden if they remain motionless as sentries (ropers, piercers). There's a lot of reasons that a party might alert nearby enemies of their presence even if they're trying to be stealthy, including fighting other monsters.

Finally, Pass Without Trace lasts 1 hour. Inspecting a room at Slow pace might take 10 minutes. Going down a long corridor might be another 10 minutes, and so on and so forth. The chances that you're going to go through a dungeon and engage in multiple encounters all close enough that you can maintain a Slow pace for Stealth, but not close enough that one is alerted by your encounter with the other, are slim IMO.

The 14 Strength Life Cleric is not substantially behind the 15 Strength Life Cleric in any of these areas. How large of an investment are you imagining a cleric places into Strength?
Sorry, I took your comment as including a typo, where you meant to compare a 14 Dex (medium armor) life cleric with a 15 Str (heavy armor) life cleric. I see now this is more a comment about the 2 points of point-buy required to wear the heavy armor, is that right?

I like how the 5e Jumping rules rewards Strength by making jumps automatic, (which of course recent 1D&D Playtest rules eliminated), but by RAW, one’s jump distance can be increased by an Athletics ability check.
Agreed. I did point this out as well (I feel like a cheerleader for Jump at times lol). But the player was risk averse. I would probably say rightfully so, as DCs set above 10 and with the swingyness of the dice, a failure could mean falling in lava, or falling from a big height. Leaping over difficult terrain should have been worth the risk in my opinion, but he just adapted his playstyle to hover nearer the ranger or wizard.

These types of calculations come up often in martial/caster threads as a reason the skill system should have more guidance, so martials aren't discouraged from trying to do stuff.

A 10 Strength Cleric could still jump a 15’ stream of lava in Avernus, with a sufficiently large enough Athletics check, (cue Skill Expert). Magic can also help in the form of the Jump spell, or Levitate, or Gust of Wind, etc.
Our experience in Avernus is that there was a lot of terrain challenges, so magic can't be the solution each time or even most of the time. The wizard did use Fly once to overcome a cliff, and the wizard and horizon walker ranger did use Misty Step themselves several times. But the cleric and I were mostly left to our own devices as far as buffs went. The cleric did use Bless on us though.

Encumbrance issues, for having a low strength score can be addressed with a pack mule, or a Sherpa, or a Bag of Holding.

I don't think I mentioned Encumbrance because, again, it seems like more people (at least on the forums) don't engage with this part of the game. But your suggestions are ideal, if not always practical. We hung on to our infernal war machines in that campaign as long as possible precisely because we could cart everything around. We never got a Bag of Holding though.

Also let us not ignore the potential impact Magic Items can play. There are more Strength boosting items then Dexterity boosting items. One of the Starter/Essential Sets does indeed have Gauntlets of Ogre Power in it.

My experience is that Strength based characters often gain no benefit from 5E’s Gauntlets of Ogre Power, due to having an 18 or higher Strength score, which could very well result in the 10 Strength cleric being able to grab the item.

(That actual happened with my own 10 Strength, Trickery Cleric).
We never got one of these either. But I wouldn't dump Strength expecting to get one of these; seems like a big risk to take if you really want to have a decent or high Strength.

A Strength Cleric, lacks Proficiency in Strength Saving Throws, and lacks Athletics as a potential Class skill. Dr. Samurai, we agree on the value of Strength, (especially in melee combat), but it takes the 5e cleric quite a bit of Feat/ASI/Background investment to be a useful melee attacker.

(Even then, with a single attack, the Grappler cleric is probably the best bet, which almost requires Warcaster/ Resilient: Constitution for the Concentration checks the cleric is going to have to make to keep spells going).

The 5e cleric is not, (generally), the old AD&D Backup Fighter Cleric …..(sorry fellow grognards).
Well, the cleric in my party used his touch spells, which key off Wisdom, but he needed to be in melee range. I'm not suggesting that the cleric is going to tank everything the way a Strength primary fighter or barbarian would. But having 2 points of Strength modifier is going to go a lot further in melee than 2 points of Dexterity modifier. Those 2 points mean nothing when you're not actively trying to Stealth, when you're not rolling Initiative, and when you're not making a Reflex saving throw. The times the Strength modifier come up will be much more likely if you're in melee combat. All generally speaking of course. If enemies never force Strength saves/checks and you never have to jump over stuff, etc. then go Dexterity.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Sure, absolutely. As I said, as a DM personally I dont allow for stealth without visual obstruction of some kind. But there is a school of thought that says stealth checks imply that you are making efforts to stay out of sight even without direct cover, and your success at such is represented by the roll. Which is a legitimate way to run it even if its not necessarily the most realistic one.

Here's the thing. That doesn't make any sense relative to the rules. It's the same school of thought that says that you can target whatever you want with spells no matter what they say or that spells can do all sorts of unlisted stuff. It's possible (DMs can rule in any way they want), but it has less than zero rules support. And just like super-expansive rulings on spells make spell-casters that much more powerful, that ruling makes Stealth (and thereby Dexterity) even more powerful. It's like the "invisible == Hidden" ruling people like to make.

I can rule that every time someone attacks using Strength they deal 10x damage. That's exactly as legitimate way to run it as running Stealth with "no, you don't really need cover and can hide on a flat plane with people watching you". Both devalue a lot of features, cause odd interactions, and dramatically change the weighting of various other choices. But they're "legitimate" or not.

[strangebloke]

sort of.

You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, and you can't surprise a creature if you aren't hidden, but "heavy cover" isn't required. You're thinking of "heavily obscured area" which is present wherever total cover is, but is also present in a lot of other places. For example, even creatures with darkvision are completely blind in darkness outside of 60/120 feet or so. You can notice them first via sound, and make them surprised. Even if you can't see them on the first round, you can move toward them attack them while they're still surprised.

But heavily obscured areas may not even be required, depending on how your DM rules it. You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, but "see you clearly" implies no obscured area at all. A plain reading of the rules says that lightly obscured area can be sufficient for purposes of hiding. Its pretty hard to argue that you can be "clearly seen" if the enemy has to take penalties to see you. Obviously you still need your DM's approval for this! The rules are clear that the DM needs to approve any hiding that occurs - the "clearly see" bit is just another standard in addition to DM approval that you need to pass. Your DM will also be factoring in things like hearing and tremorsense and smell and such, and probably won't let you hide ten feet away from someone you just stabbed.

But from what I've seen, most DMs will allow people to hide in lightly obscured areas if they're somewhat distant from their opponent. The hardcore position that enemies ALWAYS notice PCs unless they're completely blind is not supported by the rules. Skulker and Mask of the Wilder let you ALWAYS hide in certain kinds of lightly obscured areas no matter what your DM says, which is absolutely as bogus as it sounds.

So how often can surprise come up? Well, pretty often, if the players want it to. PWT + moving stealthily over land at night is going to get you surprise on a lot of enemies you might face (though sometimes you'll need to have good PP yourself to avoid mutual surprise, lol) Having a negative to stealth and disadvantage does make this a lot harder to do consistently past early levels though, which is a drawback of plate IMX, especially if there's multiple people like that in your party.

And your example of a door is simply incorrect. If you are hiding and moving stealthily in a hall, and you notice there are ogres behind the door, and the ogres don't hear you... Combat starts with the doors closed! Those ogres are surprised!

So yeah, surprise by RAW comes up all the fricking time, though a smart DM can turn it again the players too. Ambushes in particular are really nasty since the hiding ambushers can take 20 on their dexterity(stealth) checks to hide.

quoting my own post because it got widowed on the last page.

You absolutely can hide in light obscurement. Your DM has to approve it, as with any hiding, but it can occur. This isn't a "houserule," its literally part of the game that the DM decides when this particular thing works.

[Keltest]

quoting my own post because it got widowed on the last page.

You absolutely can hide in light obscurement. Your DM has to approve it, as with any hiding, but it can occur.

Building off of this, the idea of a successful stealth check counting for the purposes of not being clearly seen is not outlandish.

Stealth is a system that could stand to be given a bit more depth and made more robust, mostly in the field of detection. But it does currently allow for deriving that a character cannot be seen due to being hidden rather than the reverse.

[strangebloke]

Building off of this, the idea of a successful stealth check counting for the purposes of not being clearly seen is not outlandish.

Stealth is a system that could stand to be given a bit more depth and made more robust, mostly in the field of detection. But it does currently allow for deriving that a character cannot be seen due to being hidden rather than the reverse.

Yeah, the basic flowchart is

If the creature can't see you (invisibility or heavily obscured area) and you don't do something loud or give away other signs of passage, you can hide / stay hidden if you beat the enemy's passive perception.

If there's any obscured area (light or heavy) the creature can't clearly see you and the DM can rule that you can hide / stay hidden if you beat the enemy's passive perception.

If the creature can clearly see you, you are no longer going to be hidden. However, even then the rules for hiding allow for "special circumstances" where you might remain hidden while approaching a distracted creature.

So if the guard is talking to her friend dave, I can potentially sneak up on her and dave in broad daylight.

[Dr.Samurai]

The language of the Invisible condition, Skulker feat, and Wood Elf race would suggest that you CANNOT, in fact, attempt to Hide while only Lightly Obscured.

Unless a DM says you can. But a DM can say you can do anything.

[strangebloke]

The language of the Invisible condition, Skulker feat, and Wood Elf race would suggest that you CANNOT, in fact, attempt to Hide while only Lightly Obscured.

Unless a DM says you can. But a DM can say you can do anything.

Saying "The DM can say you can do anything" implies this is some special pleading on the part of the player, like asking for a reroll or a magic amulet that lets them turn into superman, when in reality the rules say "the DM must decide if conditions are appropriate for hiding." The DM doing their basic job of adjudicating rules isn't the DM giving you special privileges.

Skulker and Mask of the Wild let you bypass that and hide in lightly obscured areas regardless of whether the conditions are deemed to be appropriate or not..

What is inaccurate to say, is that the rules prohibit hiding in lightly obscured areas. They do not say this. It (and all hiding, even hiding while invisible) are subject to DM approval. Sometimes you can even hide without an obscured area, but the rules do say that this is unuusal.

[Tanarii]

That's not how stealth works

Unless the lookout is an absolute fool you simply cannot sneak up on them. The stealth roll is just not possible. You cannot roll stealth if there is no heavy cover.
Surprise checks do not require being hidden or unseen. They just require attempting an ambush and trying to be stealthy.

[Keltest]

Surprise checks do not require being hidden or unseen. They just require attempting an ambush and trying to be stealthy.

More specifically, surprise requires convincing your DM that they should be surprised. Things like being hidden make the argument substantially easier.

[Dr.Samurai]

Saying "The DM can say you can do anything" implies this is some special pleading on the part of the player, like asking for a reroll or a magic amulet that lets them turn into superman, when in reality the rules say "the DM must decide if conditions are appropriate for hiding." The DM doing their basic job of adjudicating rules isn't the DM giving you special privileges.
Well, my initial point on this was "if you're regularly getting Surprise on enemies, then the DM is essentially just granting you Surprise all the time". It seems to me that that is exactly what you are saying here; sure sure, it's unusual or rare for you to stay hidden without obscurement or cover, but the DM can rule in your favor.

Yes, that's the point. If the DM allows your party to approach the enemy without cover or obscurement and maintain stealth and surprise because "the guard is talking to Dave", that's quite a bit of leeway and not something I'd assume for every table or when discussing the merits of Dexterity vs Strength.

EDIT:


Surprise checks do not require being hidden or unseen. They just require attempting an ambush and trying to be stealthy.
Do you mind elaborating on this? Because it seems to me getting Surprise does in fact require being hidden:

The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.

If you're not hiding, you're automatically noticed. "Stealthy" and "hiding" are synonymous here. The DM is specifically checking the Stealth checks of anyone that is hiding vs the Perception checks of the opposing side.

[strangebloke]

Well, my initial point on this was "if you're regularly getting Surprise on enemies, then the DM is essentially just granting you Surprise all the time". It seems to me that that is exactly what you are saying here; sure sure, it's unusual or rare for you to stay hidden without obscurement or cover, but the DM can rule in your favor.

Generally, yeah, I'd agree you need lightly or heavily obscured area. But that's pretty common.

Dim light lightly obscures you if you're approaching a creature without darkvision
outside the 60/120 foot range of darkvision, darkness makes you heavily obscured.
darkness is treated as dim light for a creature with darkvision, so you can still often hide within 60/120 feet
Any time you have a wall/door between you or the opponent, you can hide as long as you stay quiet.
Any time there's rain or light ground cover, or fog.

Most parties I've had at my table don't bother with stealth. Those that do, are able to create situations for surprise pretty frequently. Fun fact! Silence is a ritual and the radius is stopped by walls. Meaning that you can actually slaughter a whole garrison room-by-room in total silence. Kick down the door, people yell to alarm, but suddenly they... can't. Of course there are a variety of ways in which you can still get detected while doing this, but for something that a 3rd level party can pull off for free with ten minutes prep its pretty nuts.


IYes, that's the point. If the DM allows your party to approach the enemy without cover or obscurement and maintain stealth and surprise because "the guard is talking to Dave", that's quite a bit of leeway and not something I'd assume for every table or when discussing the merits of Dexterity vs Strength.

Its not some weird variant rule from the DMG, its in the PHB and is a recommendation for how a player should expect hiding to work. I really don't see how its unfair to bring it up as something that might happen sometimes.



If you're not hiding, you're automatically noticed. "Stealthy" and "hiding" are synonymous here. The DM is specifically checking the Stealth checks of anyone that is hiding vs the Perception checks of the opposing side.

Mostly agree. Small quibble! Even if you're not hiding, you are not automatically noticed unless you're close enough to be perceived by one of the enemy's senses.

So for example, if you're invisible, someone might hear you if you're right next to them. But they're not going to hear you they're standing next to a waterfall and you're 5000 feet away. That "distance of detection" is purely down to DM discretion.

[Dr.Samurai]

Generally, yeah, I'd agree you need lightly or heavily obscured area. But that's pretty common.

Dim light lightly obscures you if you're approaching a creature without darkvision
outside the 60/120 foot range of darkvision, darkness makes you heavily obscured.
darkness is treated as dim light for a creature with darkvision, so you can still often hide within 60/120 feet
Any time you have a wall/door between you or the opponent, you can hide as long as you stay quiet.
Any time there's rain or light ground cover, or fog.

Most parties I've had at my table don't bother with stealth. Those that do, are able to create situations for surprise pretty frequently. Fun fact! Silence is a ritual and the radius is stopped by walls. Meaning that you can actually slaughter a whole garrison room-by-room in total silence. Kick down the door, people yell to alarm, but suddenly they... can't. Of course there are a variety of ways in which you can still get detected while doing this, but for something that a 3rd level party can pull off for free with ten minutes prep its pretty nuts.

I can't go through the Stealth rules right now but I don't think lightly obscured conditions can be assumed to allow for Stealth.

Its not some weird variant rule from the DMG, its in the PHB and is a recommendation for how a player should expect hiding to work. I really don't see how its unfair to bring it up as something that might happen sometimes.
Sometimes? Sure.

But if every time you want to Stealth without obscurement or cover you need DM approval, that's not guaranteed or consistent, so how can we assume it as a functioning play style? You need to assume that the DM allows it, which is what I said at the beginning.

Mostly agree. Small quibble! Even if you're not hiding, you are not automatically noticed unless you're close enough to be perceived by one of the enemy's senses.

So for example, if you're invisible, someone might hear you if you're right next to them. But they're not going to hear you they're standing next to a waterfall and you're 5000 feet away. That "distance of detection" is purely down to DM discretion.
Sure but generally if you're trying to get ambush you're relatively close to your enemy.

[tokek]

quoting my own post because it got widowed on the last page.

You absolutely can hide in light obscurement. Your DM has to approve it, as with any hiding, but it can occur. This isn't a "houserule," its literally part of the game that the DM decides when this particular thing works.

Wood elf characters can, its a racial feature.

Same for Nature's Mantle magic item

Allowing it as a general thing makes less sense either narratively or with how the rules work - but if your DM allows it and you are all happy with it then dump the armor and enjoy all your easy wins with surprise rounds. There is no such thing as wrong fun - but I don't think that set of approaches to the game is typical enough to really help with a much broader conversation about the relative merits of heavy and medium armor in the game.

[tokek]

Surprise checks do not require being hidden or unseen. They just require attempting an ambush and trying to be stealthy.

Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side.

If you are not hiding you don't even get to roll.

If you ignore that part of the rule in your games then that's fine for you - but as general advice for anyone out there its pretty bad advice. You must be hiding in order to even make the stealth check as per the wording of the rule.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

re: Stealth vs. needing some kind of cover... I think is is realistic that characters can do this. People are not looking in 360 degrees all the time, perhaps a third of that. Perhaps disadvantage could be applied when there's no cover, but surely a stealth based character would be adept at exploiting moments where foes are distracted. Consider 4 enemies playing cards; 1-2 of those would be looking in the right direction most of the time. Would there be moments where they're looking down or otherwise occupied? Absolutely.

The only time I'd completely bar characters from attempting stealth without cover (baring creating some other distraction) would be A) if guard(s) are clearly looking the right direction, like down a hallway, and unlikely to look elsewhere, or B) there are so many enemies that some are going to be looking in the characters' direction at all times.

Of course, applying disadvantage levels the playing field between those in heavy and med armor in the context of this thread.

[Tanarii]

Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side.

If you are not hiding you don't even get to roll.

If you ignore that part of the rule in your games then that's fine for you - but as general advice for anyone out there its pretty bad advice. You must be hiding in order to even make the stealth check as per the wording of the rule.
I stand corrected. Except hiding doesn't require total cover. It just requires not being able to be seen clearly.

That's often fairly easy to achieve in terms of getting to 30ft away from the enemy, which is the average starting distance for an encounter when you get surprise. Not always of course. But if it was always easy, players would far more frequently split the party and attempt an ambush.

Conditions need to line up:
Know where the enemy is and they don't know where you are.
Able to approach within ambush distance without being clearly seen.
Willing to split the party so tanks aren't in front.

I agree that many people seem to assume it's more easily achieved than my experience shows. And remember, my experience is I allow a split party with 60ft (about 2 rounds movement). That at least gives parties that aren't all in on stealth a fighting chance to sometimes attempt an ambush with at least some of their group, instead of making it effectively impossible or taking a chunk of the party out of play (which is boring).

[strangebloke]

Wood elf characters can, its a racial feature.

Same for Nature's Mantle magic item

Allowing it as a general thing makes less sense either narratively or with how the rules work - but if your DM allows it and you are all happy with it then dump the armor and enjoy all your easy wins with surprise rounds. There is no such thing as wrong fun - but I don't think that set of approaches to the game is typical enough to really help with a much broader conversation about the relative merits of heavy and medium armor in the game.

If you are obscured, by definition you cannot clearly be seen. That is what the word 'obscure' means. "keep from being seen; conceal."

Ergo, the clause "you cannot hide if a creature can clearly see you" does not apply to lightly obscured characters, certainly not as a strict rule. The DM can decide that hiding is or is not appropriate based on context, but the "can clearly see you" clause does not apply if you are obscured. This is what the plain english of the rules say.

The argument that a creature can clearly see everything unless its effectively blind seems to be unsupported.

[Dr.Samurai]

Characters suffer no penalties to attack and hit someone that is lightly obscured, suggesting to me that, while they are lightly obscured, it's still very obvious exactly where they are, to the point that you can literally reach out and smack them.

Not sure how you are easy enough to see that I can wallop you, but so obscured that you can hide from me.

[Keltest]

Characters suffer no penalties to attack and hit someone that is lightly obscured, suggesting to me that, while they are lightly obscured, it's still very obvious exactly where they are, to the point that you can literally reach out and smack them.

Not sure how you are easy enough to see that I can wallop you, but so obscured that you can hide from me.

Off hand, hiding behind a curtain. Or somebody sitting still in some light fog. Not that I agree with the position necessarily, but I can envision situations where my ability to locate something is dependent on my knowing that something is there before hand. Its not that I cant see them as such, but I cant identify them as being a threat.

[JNAProductions]

If being Lightly Obscured doesn’t let you hide, what DOES it do?

[Unoriginal]

Characters suffer no penalties to attack and hit someone that is lightly obscured, suggesting to me that, while they are lightly obscured, it's still very obvious exactly where they are, to the point that you can literally reach out and smack them.

Not sure how you are easy enough to see that I can wallop you, but so obscured that you can hide from me.

You ever seen those pics of cats standing on items/in front of a background the same color as their fur?

It's like that. Hard enough to find if you give a distracted glance, but if you see them you can definitively put your finger where they are.

[Dr.Samurai]

Off hand, hiding behind a curtain. Or somebody sitting still in some light fog. Not that I agree with the position necessarily, but I can envision situations where my ability to locate something is dependent on my knowing that something is there before hand. Its not that I cant see them as such, but I cant identify them as being a threat.
In this case though the curtain is blocking line of sight to you. I would say that is more than "lightly obscured".

If being Lightly Obscured doesn’t let you hide, what DOES it do?
It imposes Disadvantage on Perception checks. So you're harder to notice, but I don't think it defaults to allowing for Hide checks. The wording of the mechanics already mentioned (wood elf, skulker, invisible) heavily imply that you can't even attempt a Hide check if only Lightly Obscured, while being Heavily Obscured allows for it (see Invisible).

You ever seen those pics of cats standing on items/in front of a background the same color as their fur?

It's like that. Hard enough to find if you give a distracted glance, but if you see them you can definitively put your finger where they are.
Agreed. But in this case it's a bunch of human-sized cats, moving toward you, and you're a sentry potentially expecting trouble.

I understand that it doesn't explicitly say "you can't hide if only lightly obscured" and "the DM determines if circumstances allow for it". But I think this is being read favorably. I think it is more the case that the DM can decide that even if you think you can hide, maybe you can't. As an example, all of this talk about obscurement only matters for hiding visually. But noise might still give you away; in fact the books say if you make any noise you're not hidden. It's up to the DM to decide if your efforts can allow you to hide, but the other rules heavily imply that Lightly Obscured is not enough normally.

Is there anywhere that says Heavily Obscured allows you to Hide?

[JNAProductions]

If you cannot hide, what purpose does disadvantage on Perception have?

[Boci]

If you cannot hide, what purpose does disadvantage on Perception have?

No one said you cannot hide, just that lightly obscured alone doesn't let you do that. If you manage to hide whilst lightly obscured, you get the additional benefit of other creatures having disadvantage on their perception checks.

If being lightly obscured alone let you hide, what purpose would mask of the wild have, which reads: "You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena."

[Dr.Samurai]

Adventurers have to perceive threats like hazards and traps, or find clues, etc. Darkvision lets you see in the dark but you treat it as Dimly Lit, which is Lightly Obscured, which imposes Disadvantage on your Perception checks to see things. Hence the point I made earlier that if they are sneaking around all the time in the dark to preserve Stealth, they are themselves dungeoneering with Disadvantage on Perception, which is not ideal.

Unless of course you never have to worry about hidden hazards, traps, doors, etc. and can just waltz at a Slow pace through any dungeon and just expect to Ambush your enemies because you rolled a Stealth check when you started walking.

Also, someone else may still be able to hide, but you will have Disadvantage because you're in a spot that is lightly obscured.

[strangebloke]

Characters suffer no penalties to attack and hit someone that is lightly obscured, suggesting to me that, while they are lightly obscured, it's still very obvious exactly where they are, to the point that you can literally reach out and smack them.

Not sure how you are easy enough to see that I can wallop you, but so obscured that you can hide from me.

Now who's going with a very specific DM ruling?

My argument is based on a "plain english" reading of the rules. Something that is clearly seen is not obscured. Something that is obscured is not clearly seen. By definition. QED. There is nothing more to say here, as far as I am concerned. If you're deviating from that because you think it "feels wrong" then you've left the rules and are now in the realm of houserules.

The rules for hiding do not discriminate between lightly obscured and heavily obscured.


In this case though the curtain is blocking line of sight to you. I would say that is more than "lightly obscured".

....that doesn't favor your argument.

If someone is behind a curtain, and is heavily obscured, its obvious that they can hide, yes? Well, if you know where they are you can hit them without penalty! Neither of you can see the other, so the advantage and disadvantage cancel out. They can hide, and there's no penalty for attacking them.

But more to the point, consider what a lightly obscured area is and what the "you can't use lightly obscured areas to hide" argument means. It means that laying in wait behind a bush is pointless. The enemy can see me instantly the moment there's any clear line of sight. Even if I'm wildshaped into a spider on the ground and they're riding a giant eagle a mile above me, and I'm partially obscured by foliage, and the light quality is poor, and its raining, they instantly see me. Actually every enemy in the forest sees me, and I see every enemy.

Is this.... in keeping with the fiction? Does this feel right to you? It doesn't to me.

One might wonder, at that point, why anyone would need to make a perception check based on sight, if that were the rule. If everyone just instantly sees everything they can see, and is aware of it and knows its location, then why would I ever make a perception check based on sight? When would an eagle use its keen vision ability? When would the "light obscurement imposes disadvantage on wisdom(peception) checks to see" come up?

[animorte]

Imagine somebody standing still 20 feet away in the fog and you are just walking by. As long as they’re standing still, they might easily just be a small tree or a lamppost in your peripheral. The second they move to do anything though, it’s a bit more obvious.

[Boci]

Now who's going with a very specific DM ruling?

My argument is based on a "plain english" reading of the rules. Something that is clearly seen is not obscured. Something that is obscured is not clearly seen. By definition. QED. There is nothing more to say here, as far as I am concerned. If you're deviating from that because you think it "feels wrong" then you've left the rules and are now in the realm of houserules.

The rules for hiding do not discriminate between lightly obscured and heavily obscured.

Then what does a wood elf's Mask of the Wild do? Is it a useless feature?

[Dr.Samurai]

Now who's going with a very specific DM ruling?

My argument is based on a "plain english" reading of the rules. Something that is clearly seen is not obscured. Something that is obscured is not clearly seen. By definition. QED. There is nothing more to say here, as far as I am concerned. If you're deviating from that because you think it "feels wrong" then you've left the rules and are now in the realm of houserules.

The rules for hiding do not discriminate between lightly obscured and heavily obscured.
Hang on... I literally asked in my post if the rules reference either type of obscurement at all. I didn't find it EXCEPT where exceptions tell us this now allows you to hide in lightly obscured conditions, and treat Invisible as Heavily Obscured for the purposes of Hiding.

You are making the argument that a lightly obscured creature can't be seen clearly, assuming that clearly means "completely unobscured". Meanwhile, I can clearly see someone standing in patchy fog, and in game terms, I can see them so clearly that when I aim my bow at them and loose an arrow, I have no penalty to hit them.

I literally just played Hide and Seek with my 3 nephews lol. Someone can stand behind patchy bushes and think they are hiding and yet clearly be seen. I think you are taking "clearly" to mean "I can visibly see every part of them and no part of them is hidden from me". Whereas even if you're standing in a dimly lit room I can clearly see you even if it's somewhat dark.

[strangebloke]

Then what does a wood elf's Mask of the Wild do? Is it a useless feature?

I already addressed this. MotW and Skulker are not useless, they're insane, and many people straight up don't believe you when you tell them how those features work.

Normally, in a lightly obscured area, you can ask your DM if you're allowed to hide. They might say yes or no depending on conditions. Maybe the DM judges that the particular obscuring effect you're using isn't sufficient at the distance you are from the enemy. Maybe the enemy just clearly knows your location because you stabbed them 5 seconds ago and they saw you run behind a bush. (note, this all applies for heavily obscured areas too. Just because you're under a blanket doesn't mean people forget you exist)

MotW and Skulker bypass that.

You just. Hide. Lighly Obscured area? You hide. They can't see you. Done. You can stand in the middle of a dimly lit room and just. Make people forget you're there. You do have to beat their perception check, and you do need the lightly obscured area, but that's all that matters. You can hide from creatures with true sight, tremsorsense, whatever. You're just gone.

You become the crowbegotten bogeyman


You are making the argument that a lightly obscured creature can't be seen clearly, assuming that clearly means "completely unobscured". Meanwhile, I can clearly see someone standing in patchy fog, and in game terms, I can see them so clearly that when I aim my bow at them and loose an arrow, I have no penalty to hit them.
Yeah, if you know where they are, you can look at where they are and see them and shoot them.

But hiding covers the "knowing they're there" thing.


I literally just played Hide and Seek with my 3 nephews lol. Someone can stand behind patchy bushes and think they are hiding and yet clearly be seen. I think you are taking "clearly" to mean "I can visibly see every part of them and no part of them is hidden from me". Whereas even if you're standing in a dimly lit room I can clearly see you even if it's somewhat dark.
Sure, and as I've said, if you're trying to use Dim Light to hide and you're ten feet away, the rules give your DM discretion to say "nah, conditions aren't right for you to hide."

But what if you're a hundred feet away? Or a thousand? Ten thousand? At some point they won't be immediately noticeable.

I would add: your nephews probably have poor stealth modifiers. Imagine instead you're playing this with a group of elite army rangers.

[Dr.Samurai]

Normally, in a lightly obscured area, you can ask your DM if you're allowed to hide.
I think the logic you are using here applies to Heavily Obscured as well. Unless you can quote where it explicitly says Heavily Obscured enables hiding. I checked and didn't find it, so happy for someone to show me.

But otherwise, then this applies to any obscurement; the DM always gets to make the call and you always have to ask.

Mask of the Wild, Skulker, and Invisible only make sense if you can only Hide with heavily obscured. If you always have to ask permission, then 1) Mask of the Wild and Skulker are major leaps in skill, since they straight up bypass Heavy Obscurement and 2) Invisible doesn't make sense, since you still have to ask permission.

If the book specifically says that Heavily Obscured allows for hiding, then I can see your point. But if it doesn't, I don't think you can call out "Lightly Obscured" as an exception needing DM permission.

But hiding covers the "knowing they're there" thing.
But you can't even attempt hiding in the first place. Just because you are lightly obscured doesn't mean it isn't plainly clear and obvious that there is a person in your space.

I would add: your nephews probably have poor stealth modifiers. Imagine instead you're playing this with a group of elite army rangers.
Well, they probably wouldn't hide behind patchy bushes. Or, more likely, they have the Skulker feat...

[Tanarii]

I already addressed this. MotW and Skulker are not useless, they're insane, and many people straight up don't believe you when you tell them how those features work.

Normally, in a lightly obscured area, you can ask your DM if you're allowed to hide. They might say yes or no depending on conditions. Maybe the DM judges that the particular obscuring effect you're using isn't sufficient at the distance you are from the enemy. Maybe the enemy just clearly knows your location because you stabbed them 5 seconds ago and they saw you run behind a bush. (note, this all applies for heavily obscured areas too. Just because you're under a blanket doesn't mean people forget you exist)

MotW and Skulker bypass that.

You just. Hide. Lighly Obscured area? You hide. They can't see you. Done. You can stand in the middle of a dimly lit room and just. Make people forget you're there. You do have to beat their perception check, and you do need the lightly obscured area, but that's all that matters. You can hide from creatures with true sight, tremsorsense, whatever. You're just gone.

You become the crowbegotten bogeyman
Yup. Lightly obscured or partial cover doesn't mean you can automatically attempt to hide. But it does mean it's not automatically ruled out, because it's quite possible you cannot be clearly seen either. The DM determines if the conditions are right to hide.

Whereas a Lightfoot Halfling or Wood Elf can always hide using their racial abilities.

Similarly, it follows that being able to approach close enough to attempt an ambush isn't a sure thing if you've only got lightly obscured or partial cover. But neither is it ruled out.

[Boci]

I already addressed this. MotW and Skulker are not useless, they're insane, and many people straight up don't believe you when you tell them how those features work.

Normally, in a lightly obscured area, you can ask your DM if you're allowed to hide. They might say yes or no depending on conditions. Maybe the DM judges that the particular obscuring effect you're using isn't sufficient at the distance you are from the enemy. Maybe the enemy just clearly knows your location because you stabbed them 5 seconds ago and they saw you run behind a bush. (note, this all applies for heavily obscured areas too. Just because you're under a blanket doesn't mean people forget you exist)

MotW and Skulker bypass that.

You just. Hide. Lighly Obscured area? You hide. They can't see you. Done. You can stand in the middle of a dimly lit room and just. Make people forget you're there. You do have to beat their perception check, and you do need the lightly obscured area, but that's all that matters. You can hide from creatures with true sight, tremsorsense, whatever. You're just gone.

You become the crowbegotten bogeyman

But you said: "The rules for hiding do not discriminate between lightly obscured and heavily obscured."

So then do you also need to ask your DM if you can hide when heavily obscured? Because if not, then it sounds the rules do discriminate between light and heavy obscurement when it comes to hiding, in that only one of them requires DM permission to then hide but the other doesn't.

[tokek]

I think the logic you are using here applies to Heavily Obscured as well. Unless you can quote where it explicitly says Heavily Obscured enables hiding. I checked and didn't find it, so happy for someone to show me.

.

You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly


A heavily obscured area—such as Darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely.

They cannot see you clearly when their vision is blocked unless they have some special sense that sees through the obscurement. So heavily obscured generally enables hiding (but there can be exceptions and the DM adjudicates)

But back to the main point here which was not about ambushes it was about armor

All 3 classes of armor have their utility - yes even Light Armor does have its uses. What I think is true is that Medium Armor is rather more middle of the road and is often more suited to a slightly wider set of character builds than either Light or Heavy. In particular when multi-classing it is not likely that either Str or Dex are the primary ability score chosen but Dex is very often a 3rd choice ability score so will be good enough to make Medium Armor a good pick.

That is not to say that Heavy Armor is bad, just that it fills a role that suits rather fewer multiclass builds.

[Dr.Samurai]

@Tokek: I think Obscurement governs how well you can see. It's only mentioned in the last sentence of the Hiding sidebar, and specifically about how it impacts your ability to FIND a hidden person, as opposed to whether you can hide or not.

That said, I also think that the other mechanics we've mentioned point to the intention of the rules (heavy obscurement allows you to Hide, light obscurement doesn't). I think the language about DMs having the ultimate say is because they always have to adjudicate.

As an example, a goblin in a pitch black cave is in complete darkness and so Heavily Obscured. But someone with Darkvision treats Darkness as Lightly Obscured. So from the goblin's perspective they can hide, but from the observer's perspective they can't. If there's one observer with darkvision and one without, the goblin can hide from one and not the other (assuming it's in plain view).

But I don't take it to mean that DMs can generally allow light obscurement to work. Light obscurement isn't supposed to mask your presence sufficiently to allow hiding. It's not cover. It's still obvious where you are. Allowing this would mean that DMs can turn their players into Batman, vanishing in plain sight all the time, and that's part of the reason people think PWT and Surprise can work so regularly.

DNDONE's Hide rules specifically say you have to make a Stealth check WHILE HEAVILY OBSCURED or in total cover or 3/4 cover. I don't know if this is an indication of the intent of the current rules, or a change from the current rules. It's obviously much more explicit.

[strangebloke]

But you said: "The rules for hiding do not discriminate between lightly obscured and heavily obscured."

So then do you also need to ask your DM if you can hide when heavily obscured? Because if not, then it sounds the rules do discriminate between light and heavy obscurement when it comes to hiding, in that only one of them requires DM permission to then hide but the other doesn't.

There is one sense in which heavily obscured areas differ, which is that they effectively make you invisible (by blinding the person trying to see you) and thus trigger the "an invisible character can always hide" clause. But in practice its still down to DM discretion, because of the "signs of their passage may still be noted" bit. So it doesn't amount to much of a difference in the end.

What I was trying to highlight by saying that the hiding rules don't discriminate between heavily and lightly obscured, is that there's no text saying "you MUST be unseen to hide." If you are unseen you have a better argument for being able to hide, but that's it.


That is not to say that Heavy Armor is bad, just that it fills a role that suits rather fewer multiclass builds.
Yeah, this is my point. Plate is at best a side grade with some advantages or disadvantages. It's better for STR builds, but definitely not a reason to prefer STR builds unless you're optimizing for something specific like AC.


@Tokek: I think Obscurement governs how well you can see. It's only mentioned in the last sentence of the Hiding sidebar, and specifically about how it impacts your ability to FIND a hidden person, as opposed to whether you can hide or not.

That said, I also think that the other mechanics we've mentioned point to the intention of the rules (heavy obscurement allows you to Hide, light obscurement doesn't). I think the language about DMs having the ultimate say is because they always have to adjudicate.

As an example, a goblin in a pitch black cave is in complete darkness and so Heavily Obscured. But someone with Darkvision treats Darkness as Lightly Obscured. So from the goblin's perspective they can hide, but from the observer's perspective they can't. If there's one observer with darkvision and one without, the goblin can hide from one and not the other (assuming it's in plain view).

But I don't take it to mean that DMs can generally allow light obscurement to work. Light obscurement isn't supposed to mask your presence sufficiently to allow hiding. It's not cover. It's still obvious where you are. Allowing this would mean that DMs can turn their players into Batman, vanishing in plain sight all the time, and that's part of the reason people think PWT and Surprise can work so regularly.

DNDONE's Hide rules specifically say you have to make a Stealth check WHILE HEAVILY OBSCURED or in total cover or 3/4 cover. I don't know if this is an indication of the intent of the current rules, or a change from the current rules. It's obviously much more explicit.
I agree that DMs always have to adjudicate, that's never been in question.

I don't think that relying on an entirely different game system to make your argument is at all compelling.

In 5e, there is no prohibition in the rules against hiding in lightly obscured areas. You generally need DM approval, and DMs will probably be more favorable if you're heavily obscured rather than lightly.... but assuming that characters can never hide in lightly obscured areas would seem to not be the intent of the rules.

And - to get back to the question of stealth - the circumstances for heavily obscured areas are common. Consider the following scenarios

You are stealthily creeping through the forest at night. You hear a troll eating a deer but 150 feet away. You can't see it, but you know its there and It doesn't seem to have noticed you.
Goblins have overcome your party watchman's passive perception, and they storm out of the dark at the edge of the campfire light, weapons raised. You are surprised!
You're creeping quietly through the castle. You hear a couple of guards in the next room arguing. They don't seem to have heard you. Do you want to break down the door and surprise them?

These are all classic adventuring scenarios. These are all scenarios where having more people in the party using heavy armor would be a disadvantage.

Is this the only important thing? No. Will every party leverage this kind of ability? No. But a lot of players do, and it is worth mentioning.

[Dr.Samurai]

There is one sense in which heavily obscured areas differ, which is that they effectively make you invisible (by blinding the person trying to see you) and thus trigger the "an invisible character can always hide" clause. But in practice its still down to DM discretion, because of the "signs of their passage may still be noted" bit. So it doesn't amount to much of a difference in the end.

What I was trying to highlight by saying that the hiding rules don't discriminate between heavily and lightly obscured, is that there's no text saying "you MUST be unseen to hide." If you are unseen you have a better argument for being able to hide, but that's it.
Which I don't think is enough to escape the point that "if you're getting surprise regularly then the DM is just basically giving it to you".

"Heavy obscurement will provide a better argument for being able to hide, but that's it"... well, that's a lot in and of itself. If you're constantly making worse arguments to hide and the DM is regularly granting it, that's called leniency.

I agree that DMs always have to adjudicate, that's never been in question.
It actually is in question because what I am saying is "DMs adjudicate, of course, but generally you can't hide if you're only lightly obscured".

You're saying "you can hide under any conditions if the DM says you can".

That's a different degree of "adjudication".

I don't think that relying on an entirely different game system to make your argument is at all compelling.
Huh?

In 5e, there is no prohibition in the rules against hiding in lightly obscured areas.
Under your interpretation that being lightly obscured means you can't clearly be seen. I don't agree with that. I think you can be lightly obscured and still be very obviously visually in your space for anyone with eyesight to determine that you're there. And I think that is what the rules intend.

You're basically saying there's no difference between the two obscurements but for the impact they have on vision. Someone in a patchy fog is just as difficult to see as someone in a solid fog cloud. As opposed to someone in a patchy fog having wisps of fog and mist around them but they are still very clearly standing right in front of you, and no, there isn't enough mist for them to vanish from sight, because otherwise they would be heavily obscured.

There's a difference between "it's difficult to make out if this is the guy you're looking for because he's lightly obscured" and "you had no idea he was standing right there because he's lightly obscured".

You generally need DM approval, and DMs will probably be more favorable if you're heavily obscured rather than lightly....
This is your interpretation. Let's read Mask of the Wild:

Mask of the Wild. You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena.

Under your interpretation, you could always attempt to hide even when only lightly obscured, so the wording of the ability doesn't make sense. An attempt was never prohibited in the first place, and the DM could still stop an elf from hiding with Mask of the Wild (say if they're glowing with Faerie Fire, or maybe a manacle around their ankle is clanging around as they move). In other words, the wording of this ability is not sufficient enough to support your claim that you can always try to hide in lightly obscured conditions but for the DM's approval.

Similarly with Skulker, which reads: You can try to hide when you are lightly obscured from the creature from which you are hiding.

According to you, this was always the case. I can always try to hide when lightly obscured. Your claim is that this sentence is meant to imply "and the DM can't say no". And that's a pretty big claim that is entirely unsupported.


And - to get back to the question of stealth - the circumstances for heavily obscured areas are common. Consider the following scenarios

You are stealthily creeping through the forest at night. You hear a troll eating a deer but 150 feet away. You can't see it, but you know its there and It doesn't seem to have noticed you.
Goblins have overcome your party watchman's passive perception, and they storm out of the dark at the edge of the campfire light, weapons raised. You are surprised!
You're creeping quietly through the castle. You hear a couple of guards in the next room arguing. They don't seem to have heard you. Do you want to break down the door and surprise them?

These are all classic adventuring scenarios. These are all scenarios where having more people in the party using heavy armor would be a disadvantage.

See? Breaking down a door to get surprise... how does that work? Who are you aware of? When does Initiative get rolled? The players in back are not even aware of who is in the room, so how do they get surprise?

Assuming you can even break the door down in 1 turn, only that person that can see into the room MIGHT have Surprise on the others, but only on the ones he can see. Your allies behind you that can't see into the door won't have Surprise because they don't know what's inside. Like... how do you see this working?

These are the sorts of assumptions that I think make this tactic more powerful than it's meant to be. So even if you have to cross an area with no cover or just light obscurement, your party can still get surprise, and now even if a barrier has to be destroyed to get to the enemy, your party can still get surprise.

Is this the only important thing? No. Will every party leverage this kind of ability? No. But a lot of players do, and it is worth mentioning.
I don't have an issue with this being mentioned. But you'll note that several things were mentioned for Dex and hardly any were mentioned for Str. And it seems to me that some of the things mentioned for Dex are inflated, such as "always getting surprise".

[strangebloke]

"Things that are Clearly Seen" excluding "Things that are Lightly Obscured" is just really basic English and I'm not interested in arguing this point. It's not a matter where there is room for interpretive differences, but even if there was, the blurb that covers hiding asks the question "what can you see?" and directs you to the section on Lightly and Heavily obscured areas.

Leaving aside RAW, the idea that you always notice everything that is within your range of vision is silly and I also won't respect it as a viewpoint. Not every character is Hyuuga Neji


See? Breaking down a door to get surprise... how does that work? Who are you aware of? When does Initiative get rolled? The players in back are not even aware of who is in the room, so how do they get surprise?

Assuming you can even break the door down in 1 turn, only that person that can see into the room MIGHT have Surprise on the others, but only on the ones he can see. Your allies behind you that can't see into the door won't have Surprise because they don't know what's inside. Like... how do you see this working?

These are the sorts of assumptions that I think make this tactic more powerful than it's meant to be. So even if you have to cross an area with no cover or just light obscurement, your party can still get surprise, and now even if a barrier has to be destroyed to get to the enemy, your party can still get surprise.

I don't have an issue with this being mentioned. But you'll note that several things were mentioned for Dex and hardly any were mentioned for Str. And it seems to me that some of the things mentioned for Dex are inflated, such as "always getting surprise".

Combat doesn't start when you and the enemy see each other. It starts when you become aware of each other. If you are aware of the enemy, and they are not aware of you (Because you are hiding) then they are surprised. And vice versa for you.

So again, if you're moving quietly through the hallway, you have total cover and are thus heavily obscured - the enemy can't see you. This means you can hide from them. But they aren't hiding, they're making noise. So you're aware of them. So you have surprise. You will have to spend part of your first "surprise" turn opening the door, sure, but they're still surprised.

[Dr.Samurai]

"Things that are Clearly Seen" excluding "Things that are Lightly Obscured" is just really basic English and I'm not interested in arguing this point.
You don't have to argue with me, but I'm disagreeing with the point either way. It's not basic english.

I take "clearly" to mean "without doubt" or "obviously". This means that something can be lightly obscured but still obviously in its space. That seems to make the most sense to me, and helps to explain Mask of the Wild and Skulker, which explicitly do not mention anything about DM approval, despite your contention that this is what distinguishes them from the normal rules.

It's not a matter where there is room for interpretive differences, but even if there was, the blurb that covers hiding asks the question "what can you see?" and directs you to the section on Lightly and Heavily obscured areas.
Yes, because if YOU are in a lightly obscured area, you have Disadvantage to notice a hidden creature. If YOU are in a heavily obscured area you are effectively blinded and can't see. Not sure what the discrepancy is that you're seeing here.

Leaving aside RAW, the idea that you always notice everything that is within your range of vision is silly and I also won't respect it as a viewpoint. Not every character is Hyuuga Neji
The sidebar clearly says that when you hide, there's a chance of someone noticing you even if they aren't searching. That's Passive Perception. In order to hide, you have to meet the conditions for hiding. If you're not hiding... why wouldn't they notice you? You want the benefits of hiding without actually hiding? Remember, vision isn't the only way to detect people approaching.

Honestly this all sounds like favorably interpreting the rules and then claiming that this SurpriseAllTheTime play-style is actually a thing. Sure, if Passive Perception isn't a thing, Stealth rules. Yeah, if everyone can be Batman and hide in plain sight whenever there's a flurry of leaves in the air or it's drizzling, Stealth rules. But I don't think that's how we're meant to interpret the rules.

[Keltest]

You don't have to argue with me, but I'm disagreeing with the point either way. It's not basic english.

I take "clearly" to mean "without doubt" or "obviously". This means that something can be lightly obscured but still obviously in its space. That seems to make the most sense to me, and helps to explain Mask of the Wild and Skulker, which explicitly do not mention anything about DM approval, despite your contention that this is what distinguishes them from the normal rules.

Ok, but the corollary there is that something can be lightly obscured and also not obviously in its space. Hiding doesnt have to mean literally preventing them from being able to see you under any circumstances, it just means keeping them from noticing you.

Youre basically discounting the idea of camouflage functioning at all here. MotW and Skulker are blanket permission slips. If youre lightly obscured, you are always able to hide. As opposed to the default where you are sometimes able to hide while lightly obscured.

[Tanarii]

"Things that are Clearly Seen" excluding "Things that are Lightly Obscured" is just really basic English and I'm not interested in arguing this point.
Agreed. Lightly obscured doesn't automatically = clearly seen. If anything it strongly implies the opposite.

[strangebloke]

Ok, but the corollary there is that something can be lightly obscured and also not obviously in its space. Hiding doesnt have to mean literally preventing them from being able to see you under any circumstances, it just means keeping them from noticing you.

Youre basically discounting the idea of camouflage functioning at all here. MotW and Skulker are blanket permission slips. If youre lightly obscured, you are always able to hide. As opposed to the default where you are sometimes able to hide while lightly obscured.

And to be clear, being lightly obscured imposes disadvantage on checks to perceive you via sight, which means that on top of being able to hide, the enemy has a -5 to their passive perception if they aren't close enough to hear you or smell you or whatever. So if you're approaching a group of orcs under cover of dim light, their passive perception is 5. Of course, you need to hide every turn as you approach, and their PP goes up to 10 once you get close enough to be heard, but its still very easy to get within longbow range.

In many cases, PWT is just a victory lap.

And this is very consistent with the fiction! Stealthily creeping up on a numerically superior foe is something rangers and rogues and such are supposed to be doing! One might wonder what the purpose of all these class features is, if you're only supposed to be able to use them in conjunction with invisibility spells.

[Dr.Samurai]

Ok, but the corollary there is that something can be lightly obscured and also not obviously in its space.
Forgive me Keltest if you think I'm being obtuse here but... how? I don't really see it. If someone can't see you, it seems clear to me that you've gone from lightly obscured to heavily obscured. Light rain doesn't make people disappear just because they try to disappear. Some sparse bushes with clear gaps between the shrubbery doesn't allow a person to vanish behind it just because they try to. The edges of a campfire still illuminate you enough to see you, but if you go further then you enter darkness and you can no longer be seen.

Correct me if I'm wrong but you are reading the word "clear" to mean "without any obstruction", and therefore you're treating Lightly Obscured as equivalent to something like 3/4 Cover, as if it something that you can hide behind or within.

But I believe "clear" is meant to be read as "obvious". You can hunch over, walk slowly, and tip-toe all you want, but if you're in dim lighting, I can see you clearly and it's obvious that you are standing there moving toward me.

This is also in line with virtually everything ever said on the forums ever. No handbook that I've read online treats Dim Lighting/Lightly Obscured as grounds for hiding.

Hiding doesnt have to mean literally preventing them from being able to see you under any circumstances, it just means keeping them from noticing you.
Yes, and to be kept form being noticed, something has to stop them from noticing you. Light rain or dim lighting is not enough. Just because it's harder for you to see in these conditions doesn't mean people can vanish from sight.

Youre basically discounting the idea of camouflage functioning at all here.
The ranger gets a feature literally called "Hide in Plain Sight" that allows them to make camouflage and it doesn't require being Lightly Obscured. But that's beside the point. I'm not discounting camouflage. There are no rules for camouflaging yourself outside of the Ranger feature, so it's up to the DM and the DM can do whatever, as we all know.

But I think you're making my point for me. You need something MORE than simply standing in some light brush in order not to be noticed. Being camouflaged lets you do that.

MotW and Skulker are blanket permission slips. If youre lightly obscured, you are always able to hide. As opposed to the default where you are sometimes able to hide while lightly obscured.
The way that you are using "clear" would mean that someone under the effects of the Blur spell can attempt to hide because they can't be seen "clearly". I feel confident that that is not the intention.

[Keltest]

Forgive me Keltest if you think I'm being obtuse here but... how? I don't really see it. If someone can't see you, it seems clear to me that you've gone from lightly obscured to heavily obscured. Light rain doesn't make people disappear just because they try to disappear. Some sparse bushes with clear gaps between the shrubbery doesn't allow a person to vanish behind it just because they try to. The edges of a campfire still illuminate you enough to see you, but if you go further then you enter darkness and you can no longer be seen.

Correct me if I'm wrong but you are reading the word "clear" to mean "without any obstruction", and therefore you're treating Lightly Obscured as equivalent to something like 3/4 Cover, as if it something that you can hide behind or within.

Are you familiar with how camouflage works? Not specifically military camo, but the basic idea behind it. The whole principle is that you can have an unobstructed (or nearly unobstructed) view of the thing being camouflaged and still not notice it because it isnt so visually distinct to let you actually identify it.


You're right, light rain doesnt make people disappear, but if youre in some mist, and somebody doesnt already specifically know youre there, they might not identify you as a person either. Theres more to hiding and being unseen than just putting up a big dumb wall between you and whoever youre hiding from. In fact, the point of the skulker feat and the wood elf trait is that they allow you do to just that, consistently, all the time. They take the uncertainty out of the equation.

[Tanarii]

And this is very consistent with the fiction! Stealthily creeping up on a numerically superior foe is something rangers and rogues and such are supposed to be doing! One might wonder what the purpose of all these class features is, if you're only supposed to be able to use them in conjunction with invisibility spells.
I tried to find it in SAC, because until Crawford clarified on it I remember the arguments on this forum, but the overall consensus was that it required total cover or invisibility or darkness. That all shifted after clarification. But I couldn't find it in SAC, so it must have been tweets.

Or possibly it was errata. I'll check that too.

Edit: It was errata. So these were added specifically to make it possible to sometimes hide without total cover or heavy concealment, pending DM judgement. Which was clarified by Crawford at the time, somewhere.

"Hiding (p. 177). The following sentence has been added to the beginning of this section: “The DM decides when circum- stances are appropriate for hiding.”
The first sentence of the second para- graph now begins, “You can’t hide from a creature that can see you clearly ...”"

[Dr.Samurai]

Are you familiar with how camouflage works? Not specifically military camo, but the basic idea behind it. The whole principle is that you can have an unobstructed (or nearly unobstructed) view of the thing being camouflaged and still not notice it because it isnt so visually distinct to let you actually identify it.
Yes, but how are you relating it to this? I think it's perfectly reasonable for a PC camouflaging themselves to attempt a Hide check without heavy obscurement. Makes sense. But I don't think that's what we're talking about.

You're right, light rain doesnt make people disappear, but if youre in some mist, and somebody doesnt already specifically know youre there, they might not identify you as a person either.
I read this and I think "well if they don't know you're there, wouldn't this apply whether there was mist or not?".

If someone isn't paying attention and not looking in your direction so they aren't aware of you, yeah, okay. At some point you'll have to roll Stealth just to make sure you're being quiet, at the very least. But if they turn around and see a big amorphous form in the mist approaching them, I don't think they'll be Surprised anymore. They may not know who or what you are, but they will see that something is there.

Theres more to hiding and being unseen than just putting up a big dumb wall between you and whoever youre hiding from. In fact, the point of the skulker feat and the wood elf trait is that they allow you do to just that, consistently, all the time. They take the uncertainty out of the equation.
But there's uncertainty with Heavily Obscured too. The natural progression would be to remove uncertainty from that first, before leaping to Lightly Obscured. Think about it... you're saying there's still uncertainty with Heavily Obscured, but the elves can DEFINITELY pull it off when only Lightly Obscured.

Skulker/Mask of the Wild is meant to be like the scene in Fellowship where the elves ambush the Fellowship in Lothlorien. The heroes are walking in the woods under shadow, leaves falling through the air, and then BAM! Elves with arrows pointing at them out of nowhere. The default rules is that people can't perform this extraordinary feat of stealth and surprise. But wood elves can, and people trained as Skulkers can as well.

[Keltest]

Yes, but how are you relating it to this? I think it's perfectly reasonable for a PC camouflaging themselves to attempt a Hide check without heavy obscurement. Makes sense. But I don't think that's what we're talking about.

I read this and I think "well if they don't know you're there, wouldn't this apply whether there was mist or not?".

If someone isn't paying attention and not looking in your direction so they aren't aware of you, yeah, okay. At some point you'll have to roll Stealth just to make sure you're being quiet, at the very least. But if they turn around and see a big amorphous form in the mist approaching them, I don't think they'll be Surprised anymore. They may not know who or what you are, but they will see that something is there.

But there's uncertainty with Heavily Obscured too. The natural progression would be to remove uncertainty from that first, before leaping to Lightly Obscured. Think about it... you're saying there's still uncertainty with Heavily Obscured, but the elves can DEFINITELY pull it off when only Lightly Obscured.

Skulker/Mask of the Wild is meant to be like the scene in Fellowship where the elves ambush the Fellowship in Lothlorien. The heroes are walking in the woods under shadow, leaves falling through the air, and then BAM! Elves with arrows pointing at them out of nowhere. The default rules is that people can't perform this extraordinary feat of stealth and surprise. But wood elves can, and people trained as Skulkers can as well.

I guess I dont understand the concern. Resolving which of the possible circumstances it is, is what the DM is there for. Youre right, it could be either/or, but theres never going to be a situation where it would be uncertain, because when the player asks "is it possible to Hide here" or whatever variation they use, the DM will just make a decision and then say yes they can hide or no they cannot. If theres just a fog bank with a big silhouette approaching them, thats probably not suitable for stealth. If its the same fog bank but in a forest where youre already surrounded by amorphous blobs anyway, then you can get away with it as long as you dont just go charging in at him screaming a battle cry.

[strangebloke]

I tried to find it in SAC, because until Crawford clarified on it I remember the arguments on this forum, but the overall consensus was that it required total cover or invisibility or darkness. That all shifted after clarification. But I couldn't find it in SAC, so it must have been tweets.

Or possibly it was errata. I'll check that too.

Edit: It was errata. So these were added specifically to make it possible to sometimes hide without total cover or heavy concealment, pending DM judgement. Which was clarified by Crawford at the time, somewhere.

"Hiding (p. 177). The following sentence has been added to the beginning of this section: “The DM decides when circum- stances are appropriate for hiding.”
The first sentence of the second para- graph now begins, “You can’t hide from a creature that can see you clearly ...”"
Yeah thanks for the context.

The other notable question is if moving between hiding spots reveals you to the opponent. Personally I would say no, there's plenty of rules that specify an ability to move stealthily, including the surprise rules themselves. But not everyone would agree with this.

Overall my more general feeling is that "one side notices the other first" is the condition for surprise, and that's necessarily going to be pretty common.

I guess I dont understand the concern. Resolving which of the possible circumstances it is, is what the DM is there for. Youre right, it could be either/or, but theres never going to be a situation where it would be uncertain, because when the player asks "is it possible to Hide here" or whatever variation they use, the DM will just make a decision and then say yes they can hide or no they cannot. If theres just a fog bank with a big silhouette approaching them, thats probably not suitable for stealth. If its the same fog bank but in a forest where youre already surrounded by amorphous blobs anyway, then you can get away with it as long as you dont just go charging in at him screaming a battle cry.

Yeah, as an example of this, in my theros campaign I had a pair of flitterstep eidolons hanging out in an abandoned house. The party approached without hiding or concealing their sound, so the eidolons heard them and hid. One of them rolled poorly though so the ranger's PP was enough, and I roleplayed this as them overhearing the ghost knocking over an amphora. No surprise, but it easily could have been!

The main problems with this system are that

the rules for obscured areas are genuinely unclear (see the whole VantaBlack Darkness debate)
everything is left to the DM's discretion even while things like audible distance and "the range at which you can determine a creature's location via smell" are unclear and vary between monsters.


IMO, a system that simply said "the group with the highest passive perception notices the other first" would be more accurate as a baseline from a simulation perspective, but it might cause other problems

[Dr.Samurai]

I guess I dont understand the concern.
The concern is with the assumptions these conversations are operating under.

To my mind, being able to reliably sneak up on your enemies and Surprise them so that it is a regular tactic with character builds and resources devoted to it, smacks of DM leniency. The DM just wants you to get Surprise all the time, so you get Surprise all the time.

In having this conversation, we realize that we're operating under different assumptions. I think the dim light 20ft from a torch might make it so that my character might not recognize immediately if its the cleric or the fighter approaching, but its clear that there is someone there. You and others think its obscured enough to allow people to hide without cover (in other words, hide in plain sight).

Given that in all my years playing the game, and in reading posts on this forum, I've never come across this interpretation, and there's mechanics in the game that contradict this interpretation (as they do not mention anything about side-lining the DM, as no mechanic in the game is going to say "the DM has no say anymore"), it's good (IMO) to have these conversations when someone is prioritizing one stat over another.

Given how much of the Strength portion of the game appears to be ignored, and how much the Dexterity portion of the game appears to be amplified, it is easier to see why people make the arguments they do.

[Keltest]

The concern is with the assumptions these conversations are operating under.

To my mind, being able to reliably sneak up on your enemies and Surprise them so that it is a regular tactic with character builds and resources devoted to it, smacks of DM leniency. The DM just wants you to get Surprise all the time, so you get Surprise all the time.

In having this conversation, we realize that we're operating under different assumptions. I think the dim light 20ft from a torch might make it so that my character might not recognize immediately if its the cleric or the fighter approaching, but its clear that there is someone there. You and others think its obscured enough to allow people to hide without cover (in other words, hide in plain sight).

Given that in all my years playing the game, and in reading posts on this forum, I've never come across this interpretation, and there's mechanics in the game that contradict this interpretation (as they do not mention anything about side-lining the DM, as no mechanic in the game is going to say "the DM has no say anymore"), it's good (IMO) to have these conversations when someone is prioritizing one stat over another.

Given how much of the Strength portion of the game appears to be ignored, and how much the Dexterity portion of the game appears to be amplified, it is easier to see why people make the arguments they do.
Emphasis mine.

Uh, no. We think that sometimes, in some circumstances, being lightly obscured is enough to hide. Sometimes, inconsistently.

I cannot emphasize this enough. Its not just "lightly obscured is enough to hide, period." Thats not what anybody is saying. Youre right, the dim lighting of a torch is not enough on its own to hide in. But nobody said it was, and its a misrepresentation of the argument to say we did.

[Dr.Samurai]

Good to know. So when I say "Correct me if I'm wrong but you're treating lightly obscured as 3/4 cover", that would be a good time to clarify that point :smalltongue:.

[Keltest]

Good to know. So when I say "Correct me if I'm wrong but you're treating lightly obscured as 3/4 cover", that would be a good time to clarify that point :smalltongue:.

I mean, I thought I had. Hence my confusion at your confusion.

Then let me be clear. No, lightly obscured is not cover. Its lightly obscured. Any overlap between the two is incidental and circumstantial. Not every circumstance viable for hiding needs to be intrinsically linked to a condition or effect.

[PhoenixPhyre]

For me, hiding when lightly obscured (and not with any feature that explicitly assists) is "possible, but highly unlikely and entirely up to DM leniency". That is, the default is no, you can't possibly succeed. The exceptions are things that are not at all under the players' control--stuff like "this enemy is particularly not paying attention/distracted by other circumstances." So if you're routinely getting to hide and ambush with only light obscuration, then yes, the DM is bending over backward to let you do that. And in doing so is devaluing multiple features (including chunks of feats), devaluing strength tremendously, and pumping extra importance into something that's already stronger than it should be (dexterity). So in my opinion, doing so is bad for the game. Just like letting spells do lots of unwritten things "because magic" is bad for the game. It reduces the allowed solution space by making it a dominated game. It's like Skyrim, where stealth archery effectively removes any challenge because it's so trivial to pump and hide in front of people. In a single-player game, that's...if not great, at least tolerable. In a multi-player cooperative game, not so much.

[Dr.Samurai]

I mean, I thought I had. Hence my confusion at your confusion.

Then let me be clear. No, lightly obscured is not cover. Its lightly obscured. Any overlap between the two is incidental and circumstantial. Not every circumstance viable for hiding needs to be intrinsically linked to a condition or effect.
Understood and I agree.

As an example of what I'm imagining when people say the enemy might not be paying attention or might be distracted, I think of when Conan infiltrates the temple with Subotai and Valeria. I think this is a great example of stealthing without really hiding. This successful infiltration has really very little to do with "hiding" and much more to do with the fact that no one is paying any attention whatsoever, whether its the guys making the stew, or the people engaging in... relations... on the temple floor. Often the heroes are not under any cover at all, just hugging the wall and being quiet (being quiet being the key here as Plate would undoubtedly have an impact).

In circumstances like these, I know well enough to probe the DM and get a sense that I can follow the guys carrying the pot of stew, or cross from cover to cover without being noticed. Some people I play with, especially if we're on a grid, won't attempt these things because if you're looking at the grid, it's clear as day that you're out in the open and anyone can see you. One of my DMs I know for sure would be like "yeah, you're exposed and get noticed, roll Initiative".

[strangebloke]

For me, hiding when lightly obscured (and not with any feature that explicitly assists) is "possible, but highly unlikely and entirely up to DM leniency". That is, the default is no, you can't possibly succeed. The exceptions are things that are not at all under the players' control--stuff like "this enemy is particularly not paying attention/distracted by other circumstances." So if you're routinely getting to hide and ambush with only light obscuration, then yes, the DM is bending over backward to let you do that. And in doing so is devaluing multiple features (including chunks of feats), devaluing strength tremendously, and pumping extra importance into something that's already stronger than it should be (dexterity). So in my opinion, doing so is bad for the game. Just like letting spells do lots of unwritten things "because magic" is bad for the game. It reduces the allowed solution space by making it a dominated game. It's like Skyrim, where stealth archery effectively removes any challenge because it's so trivial to pump and hide in front of people. In a single-player game, that's...if not great, at least tolerable. In a multi-player cooperative game, not so much.

The DM is supposed to judge if conditions are appropriate for hiding, and is given loose guidelines

Invisibility (and by extension, heavily obscured areas) are usually sufficient
areas with no obscured terrain are usually insufficient.

The line for "conditions appropriate for hiding" is somewhere between "heavy" and "no" obscuring area. That's the guidance we're given. Your argument appears to be that a DM who gives players any leeway beyond the absolute minimum is a total pushover. I think that's nonsense.

Sneaking up on the enemy camp and/or moving stealthily through the cave is a core part of the fiction. Bilbo and Frodo and Faramir and Aragorn and Gandalf and Legolas all did this all the time.

As for play... Working together to get the drop on the enemy, either by setting up an ambush or stacking Guidance/BI/Expertise/Silence/PWT, is a very fun thing. It is, by necessity, extremely tactical and cooperative. Its rewarding and makes for faster, punchier combat. It incentivizes characters to be cautious and look out for threats while exploring. It incentivizes being aware of the terrain and realizing there is an opportunity. It rewards feats like Alert and Observant and Skill Expert.

And like, ultimately.... People run the game this way. And enjoy it. Sorry, but stealth and surprise are in the game and relevant to discussions of optimization.

[tokek]

For me, hiding when lightly obscured (and not with any feature that explicitly assists) is "possible, but highly unlikely and entirely up to DM leniency". That is, the default is no, you can't possibly succeed. The exceptions are things that are not at all under the players' control--stuff like "this enemy is particularly not paying attention/distracted by other circumstances." So if you're routinely getting to hide and ambush with only light obscuration, then yes, the DM is bending over backward to let you do that. And in doing so is devaluing multiple features (including chunks of feats), devaluing strength tremendously, and pumping extra importance into something that's already stronger than it should be (dexterity). So in my opinion, doing so is bad for the game. Just like letting spells do lots of unwritten things "because magic" is bad for the game. It reduces the allowed solution space by making it a dominated game. It's like Skyrim, where stealth archery effectively removes any challenge because it's so trivial to pump and hide in front of people. In a single-player game, that's...if not great, at least tolerable. In a multi-player cooperative game, not so much.

That pretty well sums up my feelings on it which is why I unintentionally rather derailed this discussion.

I think if you want to play an assassin/commando style game then that is fine. Everyone goes into it knowing to build a Dex character and to avoid clanky armor and its fine. This is classic session zero stuff.

But the existence of that sort of highly themed game does not alter the general value of feats and/or equipment in the game that don't happen to suit it. If light obscurement is enough to hide and ambush then straight away the wood elf race ability is pointless as - to a large extent - is the Skulker feat. Other than as a side-note to discussion I don't think its very valuable when we look at the value of those things or of heavy armor etc.

[Dr.Samurai]

For me, hiding when lightly obscured (and not with any feature that explicitly assists) is "possible, but highly unlikely and entirely up to DM leniency". That is, the default is no, you can't possibly succeed. The exceptions are things that are not at all under the players' control--stuff like "this enemy is particularly not paying attention/distracted by other circumstances." So if you're routinely getting to hide and ambush with only light obscuration, then yes, the DM is bending over backward to let you do that. And in doing so is devaluing multiple features (including chunks of feats), devaluing strength tremendously, and pumping extra importance into something that's already stronger than it should be (dexterity). So in my opinion, doing so is bad for the game. Just like letting spells do lots of unwritten things "because magic" is bad for the game. It reduces the allowed solution space by making it a dominated game. It's like Skyrim, where stealth archery effectively removes any challenge because it's so trivial to pump and hide in front of people. In a single-player game, that's...if not great, at least tolerable. In a multi-player cooperative game, not so much.
This goes without saying but... yeah, this is my take as well.

The DM is supposed to judge if conditions are appropriate for hiding, and is given loose guidelines

Invisibility (and by extension, heavily obscured areas) are usually sufficient
areas with no obscured terrain are usually insufficient.

The line for "conditions appropriate for hiding" is somewhere between "heavy" and "no" obscuring area. That's the guidance we're given. Your argument appears to be that a DM who gives players any leeway beyond the absolute minimum is a total pushover. I think that's nonsense.
I think the line is what does your "usually insufficient" and our "highly unlikely" mean?

Are we all saying the same thing, or not? Because it seems we all agree that lightly obscured probably isn't going to work most of the time. And yet we're arguing how often Surprise is going to come up and if it's being appropriately considered when discussing Dexterity.

[strangebloke]

I think the line is what does your "usually insufficient" and our "highly unlikely" mean?

Are we all saying the same thing, or not? Because it seems we all agree that lightly obscured probably isn't going to work most of the time. And yet we're arguing how often Surprise is going to come up and if it's being appropriately considered when discussing Dexterity.
I mean if everything you'd said so far had been about "unobscured" characters then sure I would agree.

"Clearly seen" or "Unobscured" if you like is generally insufficient, barring "certain circumstances". That's what the rules say.

"Lightly obscured" is everything in the ambiguous space between an effectively invisible person and someone who's just standing in the open. It's obvious that there are contexts, in that range, where its possible for someone to hide. We can dispute which cases are reasonable or unreasonable to allow hiding, but the position of "lightly obscured is never enough" seems extreme to me.

Obviously, if you have a guy 5 feet away in a dimly lit room they can't hide. But if that person is 50 feet away in a forest at night with only the moon to go by, what about them? 100 feet away? 1000 feet? 10 miles away on a distant mountain? At some point its obviously possible to hide, even if you aren't effectively invisible. Everyone who's been outdoors at night has experience a moment where they turn their head and realize there's a deer within 30 feet of them.

Really like most issues with sight in this edition it comes down to how "Obscured" is defined. It's currently defined by area, where a space is or is not obscured, rather than as a person-to-person thing. So if you're hiding in a bush, it would seem ridiculous to call that 'obscured' if the person looking at you is five feet away. If you were 1000 feet away though, 'obscured' feels like a more legit thing to say.

[Dr.Samurai]

If we're talking about ranges of 100ft and beyond, it almost seems pointless to even discuss. Getting surprise at that distance is going to amount to spellcasters and archers getting some shots in while the martials hurry to be relevant. Same with the "split the party by 60ft". You'll get 1 turn where enemies can't act, and melee martials "can't act".

The discussion about lightly obscured, to me at least, has been about when you're closing in to make the ambush. If your DM doesn't care about maintaining cover, or if there's always cover or heavy obscurement right up to the point of the ambush, that seems very generous to me.

Extreme distances and saying someone might not be looking in your direction all sort of go without saying as far as I'm concerned. Turning your head and noticing a deer means you weren't looking in that direction in the first place.

Picture the iconic scene of Michael Meyers emerging from darkness behind the babysitter. That's moving from heavily obscured to lightly obscured. Like the deer might have before you turned your head to notice it.

But lightly obscured can work because "people are super far away" or "people are not paying attention", it's like, sure yeah. Camouflage? Yeah, agreed. Is all of this the case when parties are sneaking up on enemies?

[strangebloke]

If we're talking about ranges of 100ft and beyond, it almost seems pointless to even discuss. Getting surprise at that distance is going to amount to spellcasters and archers getting some shots in while the martials hurry to be relevant. Same with the "split the party by 60ft". You'll get 1 turn where enemies can't act, and melee martials "can't act".

The discussion about lightly obscured, to me at least, has been about when you're closing in to make the ambush. If your DM doesn't care about maintaining cover, or if there's always cover or heavy obscurement right up to the point of the ambush, that seems very generous to me.

Extreme distances and saying someone might not be looking in your direction all sort of go without saying as far as I'm concerned. Turning your head and noticing a deer means you weren't looking in that direction in the first place.

Picture the iconic scene of Michael Meyers emerging from darkness behind the babysitter. That's moving from heavily obscured to lightly obscured. Like the deer might have before you turned your head to notice it.

But lightly obscured can work because "people are super far away" or "people are not paying attention", it's like, sure yeah. Camouflage? Yeah, agreed. Is all of this the case when parties are sneaking up on enemies?

:frown:

I mean yeah, surprise and long range go together like peanut butter and jelly. That's part of why I'm saying dexterity-based builds, or builds with at least passing decent dexterity, have an advantage. But I also provided lots of examples for how you could have surprise with heavy obscurement in relatively narrow confines. You hear a troll eating its gruesome dinner, just around the corner as you creep through a cave. That's a very normal thing to have happen. If you're being stealthy and they're not, and you beat their passive perception.... well, you can start your surprise round within 30-40 feet.

[Tanarii]

.... well, you can start your surprise round within 30-40 feet.
DMG screen guidelines:
Normal encounter range without surprise is 2d6x10ft
Normal encounter range with surprise is 2d6x5ft

Obviously this is constrained by the encounter space. And ultimately the DM decides the starting range.

Personally I just went with, opportunity and situation allowing, attempted ambushes start at 30ft and otherwise at 60ft. That wasn't based on the DMG, it was based on those being reasonable distances (using dB scales) at which talking loudly sounds like a whisper (60ft), and the distance at which a normal indoor conversation sounds like a whisper (30ft). But it lines up nicely with the averages from the DMG screen, 35ft and 70ft. The split party to 30ft/90ft is therefor an alternative to everyone at 60ft.

Of course, this is all baseline details, specific details of adventuring environments can vary wildly. For starters, it assumes the party can't be clearly seen before that. Nor can any light sources if it's dark.

[tokek]

Overall my more general feeling is that "one side notices the other first" is the condition for surprise, and that's necessarily going to be pretty common.




This I think is the core difference of opinion here.

I would characterise surprise as "One side is caught off guard". Being surprised represents being caught unawares and unprepared. A guard in a watch tower should be on guard and ready for trouble even if they don't specifically see that trouble coming - they have their weapons to hand and are in a ready state to use them. This is different to a bunch of off-duty guards sitting and eating their soup who I would regard as vulnerable to surprise if they don't see the attackers coming. This is beside the point (already made) that a watch tower is by design hard to sneak up on and there should be insufficient cover to do so without magic.

I don't like the lack of granularity in the assumption that anyone who spots the other side is under surprise. It leaves no room for difference between those narratively and reasonably on guard and somewhat expecting trouble and on the other hand those who are clearly off guard.

But yes if you play in a game where surprise is the result of getting that perception roll in first and pretty much most combats have one side or the other surprised (only ties for timing do not) then stealth and perception are by far the most important things in the game and its not even close. In a game with that theme any armor that affects stealth is not worth it. I would argue that building for anything other than stealth and perception is terrible in that game.

[strangebloke]

This I think is the core difference of opinion here.

I would characterise surprise as "One side is caught off guard". Being surprised represents being caught unawares and unprepared. A guard in a watch tower should be on guard and ready for trouble even if they don't specifically see that trouble coming - they have their weapons to hand and are in a ready state to use them. This is different to a bunch of off-duty guards sitting and eating their soup who I would regard as vulnerable to surprise if they don't see the attackers coming. This is beside the point (already made) that a watch tower is by design hard to sneak up on and there should be insufficient cover to do so without magic.

I don't like the lack of granularity in the assumption that anyone who spots the other side is under surprise. It leaves no room for difference between those narratively and reasonably on guard and somewhat expecting trouble and on the other hand those who are clearly off guard.

But yes if you play in a game where surprise is the result of getting that perception roll in first and pretty much most combats have one side or the other surprised (only ties for timing do not) then stealth and perception are by far the most important things in the game and its not even close. In a game with that theme any armor that affects stealth is not worth it. I would argue that building for anything other than stealth and perception is terrible in that game.

Spoken like someone who's never been on guard duty.

[JellyPooga]

A guard in a watch tower should be on guard and ready for trouble even if they don't specifically see that trouble coming - they have their weapons to hand and are in a ready state to use them.

And my KP's at work should be cleaning or prepping something any time they run out of dishes to wash and I'm not there to tell them what to do - they have their sprays and sponges to hand and are in a ready state to use them...
...
...that doesn't mean they do, or that I don't catch them frequently watching the footie (soccer) when they should be working!

Never underestimate the human psyche's ability to do anything and everything except what it should. Especially when said should is repetitive, unexciting or otherwise uneventful. Guard duty is a clear example of a task that will frequently be done inefficiently, particularly in low-traffic, night-shift and/or (assumed) low-risk circumstances. "Stand here and watch X direction for the next 4 hours" is a good instruction to make someone look in direction Y, daydream, pick their nose or any number of activities except look in direction X with anything but disinterest.

Even if our erstwhile guard does spot someone, absolutely nothing guarantees they're in a state of readiness; armour loose or off, weapon on a rack or propping up a wall, playing cards/sandwhich/book in hand, etc. Unless there's a hard-a** superior there maintaining discipline (and even then, still no guarantee), even a partner or worse, a group will provide distraction. Not to mention the "Hey what's that?" reaction of having to put your brain in gear to recognise a threat for what it is; for some, this can take a shockingly long time.

The perfect guard that always negates the possibility of surprise? Yeah, that guy is not alive (note the possibility of them being unalive...).

That said, I tend to agree with your overall point that simply being the party to notice the other first is an insufficient condition for surprise. There are many more factors involved. Heck, there are even circumstances where a party could notice an enemy first, be ready and still be surprised (e.g. they spot the enemy knight in armour at 200yrds, go 'weapons hot', but don't see the assassin about to shank their mage in back...surprise muddy fuggle!)

[tokek]

The perfect guard that always negates the possibility of surprise? Yeah, that guy is not alive (note the possibility of them being unalive...).

That said, I tend to agree with your overall point that simply being the party to notice the other first is an insufficient condition for surprise. There are many more factors involved. Heck, there are even circumstances where a party could notice an enemy first, be ready and still be surprised (e.g. they spot the enemy knight in armour at 200yrds, go 'weapons hot', but don't see the assassin about to shank their mage in back...surprise muddy fuggle!)

Guards are generally effective. That is why every remotely disciplined military has had them throughout recorded history and probably before that too. So I don't go along with the idea that you can generally get surprise on them. Or that they are routinely surprised and ambushed while actually on guard.

[stoutstien]

Guards are generally effective. That is why every remotely disciplined military has had them throughout recorded history and probably before that too. So I don't go along with the idea that you can generally get surprise on them. Or that they are routinely surprised and ambushed while actually on guard.

Guards are where a single guard isn't. Single or even double personnel postings or patrols are almost 100% psychological. It's a numbers game.
This is a factor that d&d doesn't particularly work well with. There really should be features that allow overlapping creatures preforming repetitive tasks (like being on watch or guarding a particular location) should have some interaction.
As long as there are two or more creatures on guard that aren't particularly distracted by something I tend to give them advantage on PP and PI.

[Keltest]

Guards are where a single guard isn't. Single or even double personnel postings or patrols are almost 100% psychological. It's a numbers game.
This is a factor that d&d doesn't particularly work well with. There really should be features that allow overlapping creatures preforming repetitive tasks (like being on watch or guarding a particular location) should have some interaction.
As long as there are two or more creatures on guard that aren't particularly distracted by something I tend to give them advantage on PP and PI.

At its most basic, thats the Help action, which means a +5 to passive or advantage on an active roll. Not unreasonable IMO. A partner can help watch during things like a sneeze, but then any more people start being as distracting as they are helpful.

[Dr.Samurai]

Here we see again where at one time we're told "D&D isn't a simulation", but now we're being educated on the supposed real life deficiencies of guards as justification for guards in the game regularly not paying attention and therefore vulnerable to Surprise.

I love this forum pendulum that swings back and forth all the time.

Look, the game I'm in now required getting into a giant steading. Recon done by the monk and then druid confirmed the giant lookout was fast asleep on the floor with any empty tankard next to him. I'm not saying that this could never be the case (it's also a trope).

But to assume that this is regularly going to happen... why even have the guards there in the first place then? To keep up appearances? For who?

If this is where we are, then just have someone use the Help Action on the plate armor martial to cancel their Disadvantage on Stealth, and just roll with a +9 or +10 since PWT is assumed to be running. Problem solved.

[Tanarii]

This I think is the core difference of opinion here.

I would characterise surprise as "One side is caught off guard". Being surprised represents being caught unawares and unprepared. A guard in a watch tower should be on guard and ready for trouble even if they don't specifically see that trouble coming - they have their weapons to hand and are in a ready state to use them. This is different to a bunch of off-duty guards sitting and eating their soup who I would regard as vulnerable to surprise if they don't see the attackers coming. This is beside the point (already made) that a watch tower is by design hard to sneak up on and there should be insufficient cover to do so without magic.

1) PCs can be caught off guard with weapons and shield in hand while traveling down an adventuring site hallway even when hey are looking for danger. This is in the adventuring rules chapter for noticing danger while exploring. Pp 182-183
2) Guard duty is infamous for how hard it is to maintain a steady state of watchfulness. And that's far less than #1.

The rules are clear that even equipped and paying attention for danger PCs have to use passive perception to determine if they notice danger. If they're doing something other than paying attention, they don't even get to use passive perception at all.

[stoutstien]

At its most basic, thats the Help action, which means a +5 to passive or advantage on an active roll. Not unreasonable IMO. A partner can help watch during things like a sneeze, but then any more people start being as distracting as they are helpful.

Minor distractions are actually useful for people in stationary guard positions due to saccadic effects like masking, and forced perspective. 5eis very far away from the simulation side of things but little nuances like that are nice to breathe some life into the game. Like sneaking up on a few guards arguing if three slices of bread is considered a sandwich.

In d&dvirse I like 3 just because it's a good balance of complexity and impact. Two goblins and a bugbear or two dwarfs and a guard goat.