House Rule Feats to plug AC holes

[Destil]

Just some small bits and pieces I put together to fix the issues where AC for some falls way behind at high level (or even just starts too low). Issues come up when it requires more than one feat or dividing scores quite a bit. Getting enough strength for a bear shaman to wear heavy armor they have to pump Str, which does nothing else since you've already got Con for fort. Oddly primal power 'fixed' the least broken of these (Str/Con barbarians, who can just take a heavy armor feat and already have +1 per tier), which finally prompted me to actually fix it myself.

Mostly looking for feedback on if these 'feel right' and fix the problem. The cost of a feat I'm happy enough with that I won't bother to consider a problem, 4E has bigger rule messes that I'd rather fix first and keeping my house rules list very small is my primary concern.

Second Skin [changed from Primal Power]
Prerequisite: None (heroic).
Benefit: You can choose to don a suit of hide armor as heavy armor, you make this choice when you first put on the armor and it can not be changed without removing and redonning it. The AC bonus increases by +2 but you can not add your Dexterity or intelligence modifier to AC. The AC bonus in Feyhide or darkhide is instead +3; the AC bonus in Stalkerhide or Voidhide is instead +6.

Protection of the Spirits
Prerequisites: Shaman, Con 15, Protecting Strike as an at-will power (Heroic).
Benefit: When wearing no armor or light your Constitution bonus to AC instead of Dexterity or Intelligence.

Eldritch Armor
Prerequisites: Warlock, Cha 17, Con 17, Eldritch Blast as an at-will power (Heroic).
Benefit: When wearing no armor or light armor you add the higher of your Charisma or Constitution bonus to AC instead of Dexterity or Intelligence.

These feats fix the following builds:
Str/Cha Barbarian
Con/Cha Warlock
Wis/Con Shaman
Str/Wis Ranger
Wis/Con Druid

They're generally hard to pick up in an 'abusive' manner with multi-classing. Half-elves can get Elderich Armor at paragon with a few feats, but it's an interesting enough quirk that I actually like it (and taking eldritch blast is pretty sub-optimal, anyway).

[Starfox]

Second Skin is basically chainmail proficiency with no stat prerqs. This might not be a bad idea; it lets you keep using class-specific armors while getting the mechanical benefits of chainmail. But overall, I feel many of these problems are by fixed by increasing more than 2 stats at level 4, 8, etc.

[Stalker0]

Eldritch Armor's prereqs seem a bit high to me. 17 in both con and cha is hard to come by. Maybe drop to 15 each.

[Destil]

Originally Posted by Starfox

Second Skin is basically chainmail proficiency with no stat prerqs. This might not be a bad idea; it lets you keep using class-specific armors while getting the mechanical benefits of chainmail. But overall, I feel many of these problems are by fixed by increasing more than 2 stats at level 4, 8, etc.

Is my math off? I thought I put this as always being 1 point behind chain, with the same check and speed penalty...

Originally Posted by Stalker0

Eldritch Armor's prereqs seem a bit high to me. 17 in both con and cha is hard to come by. Maybe drop to 15 each.

They do 'look' high. But I've been crunching numbers, and they seem right, in that they pretty much limit this to warlocks who put points into both Cha and Con. If you have no bonus to either stat you can take two 16s and pick it up at 4th. If it takes you longer than that than you should have at least some Int, and should be able to get it by paragon. I'm not looking to make the rules full-proof so you can't gimp yourself, just make all builds faily even as far as gettig a reasonable AC. As is at epic a single-stat half-elf only needed to have started with a 13 in their off stat to pick this up with their racial + tier bonuses...

[Starfox]

Originally Posted by Destil

Is my math off? I thought I put this as always being 1 point behind chain, with the same check and speed penalty...

I didn't check your math, I was assuming it was the same - and it should be. Making an alternate feat path and making it in all ways inferior, while at the same time more thematically correct, is not generally a good idea. You punish players for sticking to their concept.

[Destil]

Originally Posted by Starfox

I didn't check your math, I was assuming it was the same - and it should be. Making an alternate feat path and making it in all ways inferior, while at the same time more thematically correct, is not generally a good idea. You punish players for sticking to their concept.

Of course the idea is it's greatly superior if you don't have 13 Con/Str, which is the idea...

[keterys]

I'd suggest removing the speed penalty from second skin. That'd leave it as 1 AC less than chain, but 1 speed better for non-dwarves.

[Destil]

I was going back and forth on that point. I didn't include it here, but my original write-up included making the Hide Armor Specialization feat remove the speed penalty...

But you're probably right. That makes both appealing...

[eamon]

I think your version of second skin has a decent approach. Personally though, I don't think it's good enough to warrant a house rule. The balance change is pretty small, and it requires yet another feat for the shaman and warlock, that can just use hide armor expertise (admittedly unhandily for the warlock).

There's also a technical issue here; this version of second skin counts as heavy armor - that means it conflicts with the barbarian's class feature. In heroic tier at least, I can hardly imagine it's worth giving up +1AC, +1Ref, the ability to add Dex or Int to AC and a feat just to get a flat +2AC bonus. Also, this version might be misconstrued to stack with hide armor expertise, the wording is a little overcomplicated.

I think I'd just keep only Eldritch Armor, with the following change:

Prerequisite: Warlock
Benefit: When wearing no armor or light armor you add the lower of your Charisma or Constitution modifier to AC instead of adding Dexterity or Intelligence.

This avoids finicky stat prereqs, weird prereqs just to keep multiclassers out, and it unlikely to be abusable - and even if the odd multiclasser takes it; that's costing him a warlock multiclass feat, this feat, and still nets him an AC bonus that'll be lower than any Dex/Int primary class - i.e, no big balance problems.

Thaneborns don't really need an AC booster since they don't actually need a particularly high charisma; and if you happen to raise all stats at levels 4/8/14/18/24/28, then even a very cha-focused barbarian isn't an issue.

[Destil]

Originally Posted by eamon

There's also a technical issue here; this version of second skin counts as heavy armor - that means it conflicts with the barbarian's class feature. In heroic tier at least, I can hardly imagine it's worth giving up +1AC, +1Ref, the ability to add Dex or Int to AC and a feat just to get a flat +2AC bonus. Also, this version might be misconstrued to stack with hide armor expertise, the wording is a little overcomplicated.

Arg!!! I totally missed that. If anything I'd rewrite the barbarian ability to read 'no, cloth, leather or hide' instead of light armor. Kluges upon kluges... likewise makes me think I should actually make the Avenger's AC bonus shouldn't work with hide, just cloth/leather. sigh.

Re- Hide Armor Expertise: Already banned (they conveniently keep grouping every feat that upsets my sense of balance and fun into the 'expertise' pile). Max AC twinks in PHB was already a point ahead for hide vs. plate, with plate's speed and check penalty this always seemed wrong to me.

[eamon]

Originally Posted by Destil

Re- Hide Armor Expertise: Already banned (they conveniently keep grouping every feat that upsets my sense of balance and fun into the 'expertise' pile). Max AC twinks in PHB was already a point ahead for hide vs. plate, with plate's speed and check penalty this always seemed wrong to me.

But hide armor expertise fixes most of the same things you're trying to fix. It's not perfect; and if I were designing from scratch, I'd say, your idea is probably easier to eventually get right (even if there are some teething troubles). But, right now, banning it and replacing it with something else looks like a big change for a minor fix. Sure, it's lame that Con-barbarians get too much AC this way. Lame, but livable - and if it really offends your sense of balance, wouldn't it be better to simply fix hide armor expertise instead?

For instance, I could imagine the fix being: no Primal prereq (let the Warlock join in), not limited to hide armor, and the armor counts as heavy despite adding the Con mod for the purposes of class abilities (i.e. no stacking with the avenger or barbarian's class features). That's a little harsh, but less intrusive than an entire redesign. Frankly, if you're going to microbalance things like this you'll never finish, there's just a thousand and one things you could fix. Where does it end?