Is medium armor worthless?

[Rahdjan]

Is it just me or does medium armor seem worthless. A chain shirt has an AC of +4 with max dex at +4. The breastplate which is supposed to be the best medium armor is only a +5/+3. As a duskblade with only a +1 to dex and can only wear medium armor and still cast at 100%. What are my options?

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Mithral Full Plate counts as medium armor.

[the_tick_rules]

yeah medium armor gets a bad rap of the forum. Mithrilizing it is popular, mithril breastplate is in my opinion the finest base armor type in the game. medium great for dwarves. well it really depends on ya characters play style, if ya don't have an 18 dex and don't mind the speed reduction, why not go medium?

[Closet_Skeleton]

Barbarians can wear it.

[Saph]

It's not so much that medium armour is worthless, it's that any kind of armour is worthless except for mithral chain shirts, mithral breastplates, and suits of mithral full plate. Once you can afford one of those three, there's no reason ever to wear anything else.

Mithral is really too good, it makes everything else obsolete.

- Saph

[brian c]

Barbarians can wear it.

Quite true; medium armor is the best that Barbarians can wear without losing class features. Basically, the only people who wear medium armor are barbarians, or people who can't wear heavy armor but don't have very good dex (I know you'd want good dex, but sometimes you just roll really badly, or get drained, or whatever)

[daggaz]

It's not so much that medium armour is worthless, it's that any kind of armour is worthless except for mithral chain shirts, mithral breastplates, and suits of mithral full plate. Once you can afford one of those three, there's no reason ever to wear anything else.

Mithral is really too good, it makes everything else obsolete.

- Saph

Unless you are a dwarf, who doesnt really give a damn about heavy armor movement penalties. In which case, its adamantium full plate all the way, baby!

[Saph]

Unless you are a dwarf, who doesnt really give a damn about heavy armor movement penalties. In which case, its adamantium full plate all the way, baby!

Heh. I knew even as I wrote that that someone would have a counterexample I hadn't thought of. :P

I do think Mithral's too good for what it does, though. It would be nice if all the armour types had some kind of use, instead of three-quarters of them becoming obsolete after the first two or three levels.

- Saph

[Tor the Fallen]

Is the damage reduction 3/- really worth the gold?

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Well if you make random treasure rolls some very useful non-mithral, non-shirt/breast/plate might present itself and it could be too expensive for the PCs to part with.

[Knight_Of_Twilight]

Mithral Full Plate counts as medium armor.

Much to the Glee of my Warblade. :D

[Ramza00]

Is the damage reduction 3/- really worth the gold?

Combine with that new Magic Item Compedium Crystal that gives an additional DR of 5/- that stacks with your existing DR, yes.

Note the crystal has limited amounts of DR it does before you need to replace it (the limited amount refreshes each day). You can replace it as a move action. Furthemore you can't add the DR 5/- crystal to non heavy armor. You can add the DR 3/- crystal to medium or heavy, and the DR 1/- crystal to light medium or heavy.

[daggaz]

Not to mention, who ever said you had to pay outright for the armor? You could find it, (as posted above) or you could find the adamantium and craft it yourself.

[BardicDuelist]

Mithral is really too good, it makes everything else obsolete.

Actually, I prefer GLASSTEEL from Races of Faerun, or BLUE ICE from Frostburn. They still make it lighter, but have better properties. They don't rust either, which is a plus to me (rusting our good equipment is a hobby of my DM in soem adventures).

[Miles Invictus]

I think Cold Iron and Silvered armors should give DR or AC against vulnerable enemies. For example, Cold Iron could give a bonus against certain Outsiders, while Silvered armor helps against shapeshifters.

It'd have to be a fairly hefty bonus, though, to compete with the benefits from Mithril or Adamantine.

[Merlin the Tuna]

I don't think the problem is that Mithral is too good so much as the problem is that Adamantine is so bad. By mid levels, I expect characters to be using better than your average armor, and given the choice between magic-ing up some steel and just getting some fine supermetal, anyone with any foresight will grab the latter. So you take a peek in the back of the DMG for special materials and see Mithral (woot!), Adamantine (bleh!), Dragonhide and Darkwood (either perfect or pointless!), and Cold Iron and Silver (not even options!). Mithral does what it ought to - the problem is that nothing else does.

[Indon]

Adamantine does have one advantage over Mithral, and that is that it's harder to destroy (due to a higher hardness and hit points).

But yeah, there needs to be more options for armor materials. Are there any books with a compilation, perhaps?

[Darkxarth]

I think Cold Iron and Silvered armors should give DR or AC against vulnerable enemies. For example, Cold Iron could give a bonus against certain Outsiders, while Silvered armor helps against shapeshifters.

It'd have to be a fairly hefty bonus, though, to compete with the benefits from Mithril or Adamantine.

Cold Iron armor (which I think would be an interesting idea) should have grant some sort of percentage for a spell that would affect you (not including area spells or friendly touch spell, assuming that they would touch a part of you not covered by armor) not to work. For instance, Medium Cold Iron armor would grant a 15% chance that any spell cast on the wearer would simply fizzle out on contact. Light armor might be a 10% chance and heavy might be 20% or 25% chance to fizzle out.

I can't think of anything clever for silvered armor. Especially since silvered weapons are already kind of lame. (-1 to damage, for what?)

[Orzel]

Why everyone forgeting rouges and rangers in padded armor hopping around with 26 Dex?

Yeah, medium armor is bad unless it's forced or free.

[reorith]

Barbarians can wear it.

and rangers
and mounted pallys concerned with their acp

[Nebo_]

Rangers can only use their combat style in light armour. Paladins needn't worry about that because the ride skill isn't effected by armour check penalty.

[Innis Cabal]

its good for people that can only wear it, like the duskblade and several other class's with the armored caster feat...so ya its worth it

[Matthew]

It is also a perfectly good Armour for people with low Dexterity and limited access to wealth and magic - i.e. the vast majority of NPC Warriors and low level Player Characters.

[Morgan_Scott82]

Adamantine does have one advantage over Mithral, and that is that it's harder to destroy (due to a higher hardness and hit points).

This supposed "advantage" of adamantine armor is mitigated by the fact that you cannot sunder armor, therefore its only an advantage when your armor is not on your body, at which point it doesn't really matter if the armor is more resiliant because you're in trouble anyways.

[AtomicKitKat]

I wish I could be clever and compile the different materials, but it's getting late here.

Aside from the Glasssteel and Blue ice, there's also Chitin from Sandstorm/Races of the Dragon, which might be any category(IIRC. I mean, different arthropods have different shells. Compare Spider to Scorpion to Lobster). Libris Mortis may have Bonemail, I think.

[Assassinfox]

Libris Mortis may have Bonemail, I think.

Two different bone armors. One's a magic armor, the other's a graft that gets attached directly to your body.

[JellyPooga]

Two different bone armors. One's a magic armor, the other's a graft that gets attached directly to your body.

The graft being really naff 'cos it grants natural armour, rather than a bonus to your natural armour. The armours a bit naff too IIRC...wish there were more Undead Armours or some hard and fast rules for crafting them.

[Assassinfox]

The graft being really naff 'cos it grants natural armour, rather than a bonus to your natural armour. The armours a bit naff too IIRC...wish there were more Undead Armours or some hard and fast rules for crafting them.

... naff? As wordly as I am, I'm unfamiliar with that term.

Does it mean something like bad or horrible?

[JellyPooga]

... naff? As wordly as I am, I'm unfamiliar with that term.

Does it mean something like bad or horrible?

Yes. It is a derogatory term of the mild variety. Saying something is 'Not good' is about the same sort of level of crapness as 'Naff'.

[Assassinfox]

Wouldn't glassteel armor have a problem with... decency?