What would a Light Armor Master feat look like?

[crabwizard77]

I was working on a system to make martials stronger and to actually give reasons to use different weapons, and I noticed that there are Meduim and Heavy armor master feats, but no Light Armor Master. I was wondering what you guys thought it should look like.
Maybe something like

Light Armor Master
You have mastered moving in light armor.
While wearing light armor, you gain the following benefits:


When knocked prone, you can spend only 5 feet of movement to stand up.

You can add your acrobatics modifier instead of your dexterity modifier to your AC

[JNAProductions]

I was working on a system to make martials stronger and to actually give reasons to use different weapons, and I noticed that there are Meduim and Heavy armor master feats, but no Light Armor Master. I was wondering what you guys thought it should look like.
Maybe something like

Light Armor Master
You have mastered moving in light armor.
While wearing light armor, you gain the following benefits:


When knocked prone, you can spend only 5 feet of movement to stand up.

You can add your acrobatics modifier instead of your dexterity modifier to your AC


The first bit is from Athlete, and doesn't make sense as an ability for this feat.
The second is absolutely bonkers-at a minimum, it's +2 to +6 to AC from Proficiency, but add on Expertise (which is not hard to get) and you could, without a single magic item or shield, have an AC of 23 at level 8, and 25 at level 9+.

[Deepbluediver]

The armor-mastery feats mostly seem to be about letting you overcome disadvantages imposed by armor in the first place, and/or making you better at the things characters wearing those types of armor would want to be doing anyway. Medium Armor Mastery (http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/feat:medium-armor-master) lets you gain more advantage from your Dex bonus and not suffer a penalty to Dex-based skills, and Heavy Armor Mastery (http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/feat:heavy-armor-master) boosts your Str score (for more attacks and damage on non-Finessable weapons) and lets you be a better tank.

But the issue here is that Light armor basically doesn't give too many disadvantages in the first place that need to be overcome:

Padded armor is basically +1 to AC at the cost of disadvantage to Stealth (which is kinda odd because how loud is a bunch of fabric, really?)
Leather is +1 to AC without Padded armor's penalty
and Studded Leather is just +2 to AC


That's basically it- so there aren't a lot of penalties to counter or an obvious niche to fill, and most people tanking would want better armor for the improved AC boost without having to invest heavily in Dex. So maybe go back to the beginning- which kind of characters are likely to be wearing Light armor in the first place, and what would they want? Or, how can we benefit them?
Answer: It's probably mostly spellcasters and gishes, classes that don't have great defenses and also have a middling-to-poor HD to begin with. And since Medium armor is apparently Dex-based and Heavy armor boosts Str, why not have Light armor boost Con? Or effectively boost Con, if you prefer (as I do).


Rather than just boosting stats, which is boring IMO, how about something like this:
Light Armor Master
Prerequisite: none (modify to suit your tastes and/or balance the feat)

You gain a pool of extra HP (kinda like a Druid's extra HP from Wildshape) that is lost first when taking damage. This pool is equal to 3 + half your level, and is fully recovered on a Long Rest. On a short rest you can restore 1d6+Con bonus points to this pool. (if you have a con-penalty negative results don't detract from the pool, you just don't gain anything) If your character level is 6 or greater you can instead restore 1d8+Con, if it's 11 or greater 1d10+Con, and if 16 or greater 1d12+Con.
When wearing light armor you gain a +1 bonus to saves against spells. If your level is 11 or greater this bonus increases to +2.
(optional) If you don't like either of the previous 2 bonuses, just replace them with "Increase your Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20."



So basically if you have the proficiency or stats for Medium or Heavy armor, those are probably still better, but for anyone who doesn't this helps with their survivability in all situations. And the HP-bonus is best at lower levels, when casters tend to be at their most vulnerable anyhow.

[crabwizard77]

The first bit is from Athlete, and doesn't make sense as an ability for this feat.
The second is absolutely bonkers-at a minimum, it's +2 to +6 to AC from Proficiency, but add on Expertise (which is not hard to get) and you could, without a single magic item or shield, have an AC of 23 at level 8, and 25 at level 9+.

Those are both really good points. I don't homebrew often, so I am not very good at balance. I was just kind of throwing in some random things that I felt would maybe make sense.

[JNAProductions]

Those are both really good points. I don't homebrew often, so I am not very good at balance. I was just kind of throwing in some random things that I felt would maybe make sense.

That's fair. My advice is compare to existing options, and see what you can come close to without brew-at least for starting out.

My other advice is listen to the third post in this thread, because it has some good stuff.

[crabwizard77]

Rather than just boosting stats, which is boring IMO, how about something like this:
Light Armor Master
Prerequisite: none (modify to suit your tastes and/or balance the feat)

You gain a pool of extra HP (kinda like a Druid's extra HP from Wildshape) that is lost first when taking damage. This pool is equal to 3 + half your level, and is fully recovered on a Long Rest. On a short rest you can restore 1d6+Con bonus points to this pool. (if you have a con-penalty negative results don't detract from the pool, you just don't gain anything) If your character level is 6 or greater you can instead restore 1d8+Con, if it's 11 or greater 1d10+Con, and if 16 or greater 1d12+Con.
When wearing light armor you gain a +1 bonus to saves against spells. If your level is 11 or greater this bonus increases to +2.
(optional) If you don't like either of the previous 2 bonuses, just replace them with "Increase your Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20."


So basically if you have the proficiency or stats for Medium or Heavy armor, those are probably still better, but for anyone who doesn't this helps with their survivability in all situations. And the HP-bonus is best at lower levels, when casters tend to be at their most vulnerable anyhow.

This looks really good! Thank you for coming up with something. I agree that just boosting stats is boring, but couldn't think of anything.

[Vogie]

All of the other Master feats are trying to enhance the armor or remove disadvantages with the armor type. Since there really aren't any disadvantages with most light armor, we can look at how the other armors work to get ideas.


Medium and Heavy Armors augment or eliminate the dexterity bonus to AC, mechanically hinting about damage absorption rather than evasion
Heavier armors have strength requirements that must be met or the creature's speed is reduced by 10
Some armors have disadvantage to stealth. For heavier armor, this disadvantage comes from the noise of the armor alongside the limited range of motion due to the inflexibility in metal. In padded armor, it instead represents only the latter - limited range of motion as the creature is wearing layers of padded material.

While the armor/rest issue didn't come up until XGtE, and it isn't explicitly referenced in regards to climate, I've always ruled that padded armor is the easiest to sleep in, and has advantage in checks against extreme cold while it's dry. You can upgrade to Cold Weather clothing for auto-successes against extreme cold, and upgrade to leather or studded leather for higher AC bonuses.

So, using those 3 points, we can figure out some potential benefits that align with what we see from armors. Light armor mastery could include

bonuses to athletics rolls when it comes to grapples, climbing and jumping, showing their speed helping in normally strength-required rolls
making the character faster if they have 13 or more strength (this could be a flat increase to speed, or a limited one that could be used only X times a day, only when dashing, or only during overland travel)
making the character more evasive - mechanically, this could be bonuses against trip, shove, or disarm attempts; alternatively, an additional AC bonus against Attacks of Opportunity, or when they use the Dodge action - more evasive than the average adventurer.
allowing the character to don and doff the armor faster, although this would have to include a reason to do so. Perhaps someone in light armor could remove it as an action then use a bonus action to use their armor to put out a fire; have an advantage grappling their target; ring the water out of their armor to dry it off; or some other reason that can you can think that would come up fairly regularly.
better defenses against certain types of attacks. I actually agree with your idea of using 5ft of movement to stand, but only if it's paired with the ability to drop prone as a reaction. This is important, because that means all ranged attacks have disadvantage when prone. Anyone can use it, but doing it as a reaction could be a LAM thing.


There are other things that could also work in concept but not in practice - specifically, allowing a Light Armor Master (possibly with a certain amount of strength) to have a stealth bonus. It makes sense, but then you remember that Rogues have light armor, expertise, and a mechanical inclination to put that expertise in stealth - they don't need to be more stealthy.