If you adopt the suggestion, only a moron would ever wear any armor other than mithral chain shirts in your campaign. Why?
Because the only reasons to wear armor other than Mithral chain shirt, Breastplate, mithral breastplate, mithral fullplate, or fullplate in the current system are cost and availability (both of which cease to be factors by level 6-8). The total armor class bonus of any of these armors is within a few points:
Type Armor Dex Total
None 0 no limit
Breastplate 5 3 8
Mithral Chain 4 6 10
Mithral breastplate 5 5 10
Fullplate 8 1 9
Mithral Fullplate 8 3 11
Obviously, the choice will depend upon the character's dexterity, how much they invest in dexterity enhancements, and how much they value mobility. So, characters with low dex usually opt for fullplate (occasionally choosing a breastplate or chain shirt if they want manueverability). Characters with high dex usually go for the mithral chain shirt--occasionally opting for a mithral breastplate if they have a 14-16 dex. Mithral fullplate is too expensive for most characters but would be chosen by high level characters who could afford gloves of dex to boost their dex to 16. Most other characters are better off opting for the mithral breastplate.
Under your proposed system, the low dexterity fighter is shafted in two signficant ways:
1. Since his armor check penalty is applied to the opposed dex check, he will usually end up rolling at -4 to -6 in attempt to beat a dextrous character rolling at +4 to +6. He will usually fail. This will deprive him of attacks and, in particular, deprive him of the opportunity to respond to the spring attack+improved trip combo.
2. Improved trip is a valuable option already. This change, however, will make it more attractive. As a result, it will usually be easier to hit a character in fullplate (after tripping him) than a character in a chain shirt. (AC 19 for the fullplate warrior at +4 to hit is easier than AC 17-20 for the chain shirt (or mithral chain shirt) warrior who you know better than to try tripping).
A few other effects:
1. At the moment, trip attacks are one of the better ways to counter archers and rogues who actually (I've seen this happen once or twice) fail their tumble checks. It's not easy but at least characters aren't too likely to be tripped in return if they fail. This change makes characters very likely to be tripped in return. Thus, it increases the effectiveness of Tumble (by making it almost absolutely impossible instead of simply impractical to stop the movement) and increase the effectiveness of archers (who are plenty effective enough in my experience).
2. It will decrease the options for the type of fighter with the least options while increasing options for the type of fighter with the most options. Light fighters and rogue/duellist types already have the most combat options of any fighter type. Spring attack only works in light or medium armor. Tumble only works in light armor. Whirlwind attack only works in light or medium armor. Multiclassing with monk only works for a light fighter. Fighting defensively is a much better option if you've ranks of tumble (and duellists get bonusses while doing it already). Ranger TWF works only in light armor, etc. And few if any of the strength based options (power attack, cleave, improved critical, sunder, etc) are denied to the light fighter (who usually has a 13+ strength).
The tank type fighters who wear heavy armor are the ones whose low movement, inability to run or tumble, etc and typical sub 13 dex (if they had more dex, they'd be wearing lighter armor) precludes a multitude of options to.
I suppose there's one other effect this will likely have: instead of being a tactic like sunder or disarm which are occasionally useful but rarely so obviously advantageous as to be automatic, trip will become advantageous enough to be automatic for most rogues. Thus, in an attempt to make combat more diverse, you will actually make it less diverse as the pattern becomes less situation dependent (because trip is now useful in most situations instead of only a few).
The trip mechanics do need work, but I think this change would be a change for the worse rather than a change for the better. The fact that it's as easy to trip a 20th level monk or fighter as it is to trip a 1st level wizard with the same stats (and, even if the wizard has a 10 strength, it's not too much harder) is what needs changing--not the stats. A mechanic that involved BAB or the number of iterative attacks would be a much better idea than basing it entirely off of dex.
bmcdaniel said:
I'm considering changing trip attacks into opposed Dex rolls (including armor check penalties) instead of opposed Str rolls. I have two reasons.
First, opposed Dex just seems more cinematically appropriate. Tripping should be done by the quick and smart against the lumbering hulks.
Second, as a Str-vs-Str contest, I find people rarely make trip attacks. The only people it makes sense for are high-Str characters, namely fighters, who are often better off just wahcking the enemy. Making trip attacks opposed Dex rolls will open up combat options for the non-tanks (I'm thinking rogues and light fighter/duelists here).
Has anyone else done this? Any thoughts?
BMM
