Armor and Extended Rest

[Kerranin]

If any of my players think I protect them, I would be very surprised. And in general I see a pretty high level of tactical skill from my players. It's not their fault I'm a bit of a killer DM.

I can testify that none of us think Simon tries to protect us.

We were told at the very start that some encounters would be harder than we could manage, however, it is often difficuly to determine that.

- The orc encounter was early on in our adventuring and we really didn't understand the potential dangers. (We went back at higher level, and minced them. Our tactics and prepared spells worked pretty much flawlessly.)
- The fire giant encounter, we probably should have avoided since there were only 3 of us, but we expected to just face a fire giant and instead faced a fire giant + 3 hellhounds + 6(I think) high level minions. We really had no chance to escape once we realized this since the minions were summoned behind us. I think we were positioning to take a single fire giant as it came through a gate, to limit its mobility, the three hellhounds limited our mobility(to unconscious) instead.

 

[S'mon]

I can testify that none of us think Simon tries to protect us.

We were told at the very start that some encounters would be harder than we could manage, however, it is often difficuly to determine that.

- The orc encounter was early on in our adventuring and we really didn't understand the potential dangers. (We went back at higher level, and minced them. Our tactics and prepared spells worked pretty much flawlessly.)
- The fire giant encounter, we probably should have avoided since there were only 3 of us, but we expected to just face a fire giant and instead faced a fire giant + 3 hellhounds + 6(I think) high level minions. We really had no chance to escape once we realized this since the minions were summoned behind us. I think we were positioning to take a single fire giant as it came through a gate, to limit its mobility, the three hellhounds limited our mobility(to unconscious) instead.

Hi Steve - the Orcs that killed 4/6 of you were the White Fists, mostly Orc Drudges (min-4s), and you actually killed all but 3 of them too (the Chief, the Shaman, & 1 Drudge). The Orcs you initially fled from, then returned later & wiped out, were the Crushed Skulls, a tougher tribe, mostly Orc Warriors (min-7s).

With the fire giant encounter, initially he wasn't alert, but you attacked the lair/retreated/attacked again, all within about 10 minutes or so. If you had reached him quickly on the initial attack you could have faced him alone. By the time you did face him, having wiped out his salamanders and most of his goblins, he took you as a serious threat and had mustered his best forces, the hell hounds and the summoned azers.

Since I RP the NPCs dynamically, it's usually better either to press on while you still have the element of surprise, or if not, then retreat *far* away and only return much later, when the enemy will typically either have left the area or returned to non-alert status. OTOH in 4e it's often worth grabbing a short rest in a newly taken position, too. So I guess there's no easy answer.

Edit: It was 4 hellhounds & 4 Azer minions, AIR. Only 3 hellhounds breathed on you, though.

Edit 2: Arguably perhaps using a converted Necromancer Games module was a bit too tough for my first ever 4e campaign!

 

[Zuche]

I'm fine with letting players make any sort of Athletics check while wearing any sort of shield, as long as the other hand is free, just as I'm fine with how wearing a heavy shield makes it harder to hold your breath. There are more important concerns.

I''m more leery about leaving a paladin without heavy armour. As long as there's balance between what they're suffering and what everyone else is suffering, that's fine. If it's going to be done, it should be done where the entire party is similarly disadvantaged: at a public bath, for example, where implements and weapons would be as much out of the question as armor.

If you absolutely must force a character to take a -6 or higher penalty to AC for the occasional encounter, you owe the player a favour somewhere else. It's not a matter or roleplaying or roll-playing. It's a matter of being fair.

Now if the paladin's opted to entertain... guests overnight, by all means, consider the occasional ambush if that would be part of the fun for the player. If not, then leave them in peace at such times that they have to put their defenses aside.

 

[Gondsman]

Since I RP the NPCs dynamically, it's usually better...

That's all well and good as long as there is transparency and the Players have some reasonable chance of figuring out your justification of bad guy tactics. When you deliberately make it harder when the Players don't do what you would have done.....I can't say anything nice about that.


Ultimately, i have a hard time listening to someone tell me that REALISTICALLY the Fire Giant and Hell Hounds wouldn't have done it differently, when Realistically there is no such thing as a Fire Giant or a Hell Hound. I think people who get hung up about games not agreeing with their own personal logic on mechanics need a new hobby.

I'm not trying to be a (insert noun here) about this, but I started this thread just to ask if there was an obscurely published rule and ask for some good ideas, but i picked a rule to ask about that was one of these "realism" debates. my feeling is that if the publishers of a game didn't make a rule about it, then whatever gets decided should be intended to make the game more fun for the players, not the GM, and if the players really want to screw themselves over for realism sake, let 'em, otherwise....


Personally, I'm fully capable of not thinking about whether my make-believe paladin is sleeping in something that hasn't been designed for comfort. It doesn't bother me at all. I play for interesting puzzles, tactical situations, and looting cool stuff, but more than that, I'm playing for the fun of a bunch of guys around a table making stupid noises and talking in funny accents and eating junk food late into the night, not arguing about the rules.


And i'll tell you what, I ever play with a DM who always targets the leader first and basically ignores the defender, I'm never sacrificing dps for anything else again. We'll just roll parties of int or dex based strikers and focus on a healing power here and there and blow all our money on healing potions. You want to take away my fun? I'll take the game right back at ya, and if you change tactics to spite me? I'll take my game somewhere else.




**I just want everyone to know, i'm tired, i've had a rough day, but I ask no excuse whatsoever for my comments, it's the way i feel.

 

[Zuche]

Well, sure, it's got to be fun for the players. It's also got to be fun for the DM, especially when no one else wants to host the table. That shouldn't come at anyone's expense: not DM, not player, not the roommate or spouse who doesn't share your interest in the game, and certainly not the client that expects your report to be submitted first thing in the morning.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I can't be bothered to go look up the numerous threads wherein someone who's actually slept in the open in armor (there's been at least one of both chainmail and plate) has said that it was no worse than any other form of sleeping in a less-than-comfortable bed. It seems clear to me that the DMs who propose penalties, rolling checks etc simply want to mess with their armored players at night with verisimilitude as a plausible but completely spurious excuse.

Now OTOH, I noticed that someone recommended instead of penalising players for sleeping badly, we should assume that's the norm and instead give a bonus for being well rested. I think that's brilliant. I will henceforth institute the following rule in my games:

If you take an extended rest in a comfy bed without your armor and weapons (ie - like a normal person), you regain an additional surge beyond your normal maximum. This surge remains until it is expended. Additionally you gain a +2 bonus to all skill and ability checks (but not attacks) which lasts until you expend a healing surge or take an extended rest.

 

[S'mon]

my feeling is that if the publishers of a game didn't make a rule about it, then whatever gets decided should be intended to make the game more fun for the players, not the GM...

The GM's not entitled to have fun? Boy, I'd hate to have you as a player.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Like I said. Feat tax. You asked for an example, I gave you two.

No, you gave me one. The Warlock is perfectly viable in light armor, save for a very particular build that is not recommended. If we're going to get into nitty gritty arguments about particular builds then why can't I make my Roman Legionaire in Leather armor with STR/CON totally viable? This game cannot account for every possibility, and if a PC decides to take a perfectly viable class and use a particular build that requires some extra feats, then that's their problem, no the system's.

So that leaves one class for which there actually is a bit of an AC problem. That's one out of how many? Let's see...Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Ranger, Wizard, Warlock, Warlord, Druid, Shaman, Sorcerer, Warden, Barbarian, Bard, Swordmage, (That one Eberron Leader I can't think of), Battlemind, Ardent, Runepriest, Paladin, Avenger, Psion, Monk, Assassin and Seeker? So, that's 24 classes, not counting Essentials stuff. And out of all of that (and assuming I didn't miss any), there's one with a legitimate problem? I hardly think that requires houserules that mess with the entire armor system, when you could just houserule the Barb instead.

PS. I think that Psions and Wizard and Sorcerers (and some others) limited to Cloth armor only are prime candidates for AC feat tax. Very few players of these types of PCs play the game without feat boosting their AC because it is so low straight out of the box that the PC can easily die if the DM decides to focus fire on him.

And? I also know quite a few that don't do that. More importantly though, why is it necessary for everyone to have some unassailable AC? If we boosted up the Wizard and Sorcerer AC, then they would be approaching Defender AC, which would mean we'd probably have to boost Defender AC in order to compensate so that they can retain their higher AC that creates the choice when they mark. And then the party would basically become unhittable, which would mean boosting the monster's to-hit.

You know what a lot of Wizards and Sorcerers also take? Toughness and/or Durability, since they have low HP and Surges. Maybe we should boost those too? See the problem here? It just escalates a bonus war between the squishies, the Defenders an the monsters.

The reason I pointed out Warlock was because although such a PC is basically forced to put Dex second (more or less), it totally gimps the versatility of a Warlock for some Warlock powers. I've put together a few Warlocks where I go "Damn, I cannot get this Con power because it's a Cha Warlock".

Yeah, and my Dragon Magic Sorcerer can't get a lot out of powers with Cosmic Magic riders. My STR/CON Fighter using Axes can't really take the Polearm Master Paragon Path. Builds have tradeoffs. If you want a CHA/CON Warlock the tradeoff is that you don't have INT for riders and AC (They use INT, not DEX, BTW. Which is why they can do things like MC Wizard and Swordmage). If you want to build a Feylock that's actually good at using his powers and their riders though, you pump a lot into INT and voila! You have good AC and good riders, no feats required. I know, because my friend build one, and it was sick. He did take Leather armor for a bit, but once he learned how to keep moving so that he could keep Shadow Walk up, he retrained it for something else because he didn't need the AC bump.

A Cha/Str Paladin is easily possible. No feats required for AC. He gets almost any Cha or Str Paladin power he wants and he gets high AC. Because of his heavy armor, he can be a two ability score PC and neither of those is Dex or Int.

I never said it wasn't. We had a CHA/STR Pally in our party at one time. Then he spent his one Lay on Hands for the day in the first encounter. He never healed again. He also didn't get some of his riders, which relied on WIS. So again, they do have a tradeoff, it's just not to AC. The PHB also recommends for most of the builds to either CHA or STR and then use WIS as your secondary.

Warlock, it's not really feasible to do both Con and Cha ability scores well shy of actually buying Chain Proficiency and again, it's feat (and Str ability score) tax.

I'm not saying that it's not possible, I'm saying that the player has to spend a minimum of a single feat to get semi-decent AC and manage the two ability score model that he wants. That's totally a feat tax compared to the Paladin.

You can avoid the feat tax, but then you avoid the versatility of the class as well.

Again, no, you don't. You can choose to spend a feat on AC because you wanted maximum versatility. When I make a Fighter I don't put points into DEX, CON and WIS, and then complain about it. I pick one of the builds and stick with it. The versatility in the class is in the initial build choices, not every single level. Every class is like that. There are usually riders with a particular stat boost (Look at Ardent, they can go CON or WIS, and have riders based on one or other for their powers and feats) that make trying to straddle both score less effective, but more versatile. You're basically proposing that they should have their cake and eat it too. Maximum versatility, and no feats required to compensate.

Yes, they do. But should the DC be the same, or more difficult when it's done one handed? In real life, I can climb a rope with two hands. I cannot do it at all one handed. Why would I even consider that one handed rope climbing in a roleplaying game should be easy when it's extremely difficult for most people in the real world? That's just plain illogical to me if I'm trying to run a plausible appearing game.

I personally hate dropping vermisilitude and saying "Don't worry, rope climbing one handed is magical in my world, everyone can do it". Gag.

Again, you said she was descending a rope, not climbing. I merely said that one can descend a rope one handed, because people do it all the time.

This is DMing 101. The DM picks the DC based on his understanding of his world, the player isn't entitled to say "but there's no rule on one handed climbing, so you have to allow me to climb one handed with the same DC as the rules say for Climb". Err, no. As DM, I don't. It's perfectly within RAW for a DM to adjudicate more difficult DCs for more difficult attempts at a skill.

I never said you couldn't make the DC more difficult. Honestly, the only thing I ever said was that you should have warned your player, and that there was nothing in RAW that said she couldn't descend one handed.

I'm doing nothing of the sort. What's the problem with losing 1 or 2 healing surges a day for some of the PCs IF the players decide to camp out in the wild? It's the wild. It's cold and damp and unpleasant. If they PCs want a warm fire in a nicely walled shelter, they should go to an inn.

You're giving your Defender's a fool's choice. Lose their AC and protection, or lose their surges, each of which are basically what makes a Defender. If I were a Defender in your game, I wouldn't do a heavy armor build. I like to play heavy armor builds though, which means by your definition I'm "rollplaying" because I'm making my decisions solely on mechanics. Oh, and it also means my surges will suck, so I end up losing those anyway (since STR/CON Fighters need heavy armor due to the lack of DEX). Either that, or I'm gonna tank the crap out of Endurance in order to avoid the loss, which means a feat tax. So explain how that isn't "rollplay" there?

Wearing armor 24/7 is no different, to me, then putting yourself into any other environmental hazard. For example, high altitude.

Yeah, you know what happens at high altitude? You get shortness of breath, you tire easily, etc... Then you get used to it, just ask the Denver Broncos.

And actually, the more I think about it, I think that Infiniti2000 has a good point. A set DC makes more sense cause it agrees more with the Environmental Hazard rules and would make this an issue at Heroic and somewhat at Paragon, but it wouldn't affect Epic too much.

DC 10 + core armor bonus would be DC 12 for Leather, DC 18 for Plate. Totally reasonable house rule.

So, in other words, you're placing the worse part of the penalty at low Heroic, which is where most games are played and the players have very few ways to actually deal with said penalty? Very few players even plat at Epic, and at those levels there's sooooooo many other ways to deal with these issues, like having bags of holding full of +6 Summoned Armor that they put on and send away so that they're ready to summon it back if needed. How is that reasonable?

Oh, and again, how is that fair to say, the STR/WIS Fighter? 18/18 STR/WIS, 12 DEX to keep the REF up (high WIS usually means Polearm, which means no shield, so the 12 DEX is necessary for REF), and that would leave a 10, possibly a 12 for CON (defends on whether he goes 13 DEX for feats, or wants points in CHA). He'll pretty much have to be in Scale, because he's gonna die in Hide. So now he's got a DC 17 check to make, and if he trains Endurance (After Athletics and probably Heal, he'll only have one choice, and something like Perception is very good for Fighters, so that's a guarantee that he will) he'll have a +5 or +6. If he doesn't, then it will be a +0 or +1. And he's got a DC 17 to make. How often do you think that will happen? It's not as trivially easy as you make it sound.

When Battlerage Vigor first came out, people immediately pointed out that it totally ignored the minion rules and that such a Fighter could basically ignore minions completely. When a given rule has any sort of issue for your particular game, you should look for adjustments. This house rule doesn't prevent a player from playing an Adamantine Soldier, it just means that he should talk to the DM about an exception because of the flavor of the Epic Destiny. On the other hand, I've never been in an Epic level game where any of the players took Adamantine Soldier, so it's really a moot point until it actually comes up.

Battlerager Vigor has nothing to do with this. That was a broken build that got errata'd. I was talking about rollplay versus roleplay, which you brought up. If someone wanted to play a Defender known for their armor, which was as a second skin, and actively wanted to rollplay that they never took it off, even to the point where possibly no one actually saw their true face (think of Master Chief for a modern example, or any number of ancient Greeks for a classical), then they're actively at a disadvantage in your campaign.

I brought up the Epic Destiny as an example of the ultimate form this would take, but someone truly looking to play that, then they're actively being discouraged by your houserule. Either it will be harsh enough to force people out of their armor, or it will be so weak that it doesn't even matter except for a few builds that get shafted (the STR/WIS Fighter I mentioned). So I just don't see the point of putting something into the game that's so unbalanced purely to preserve some sense of "vermisilitude" that doesn't even actually match up with people who actually slept in heavy armor have said about it!

Honestly, and I'm not saying that you're looking to do this, but most of the DM's that do bring such things up, tend to be the same ones that like to spring stuff on their players unawares. Where, the moment the PC's are in a situation where they're out of they're out of their armor, they're attacked. Such DM's are the very reason why so many heavy armor players are so loathe to actually step out of it.

In 4E, I would call this handwaving territory. It is too minor of a thing to worry about, and is IMO, like counting arrows.

This. Unless you're planning on springing some "gotcha" moments on your players, then it really doesn't matter. If the PC's are at a banquet, then they're not in their armor. If they're somewhere that they might get attacked, then they are. As long as it's not made into a big deal, then it won't be.

Honestly though, a lot of this argument seems to boil down to some sort of perceived issue with Defenders having higher armor. Thing is, that's not an issue, that's the way the system is designed. Defenders will get attacked more than any other player under normal circumstances, unless the DM always ignores them (in which case, there are other problems). If a Defender is doing their job, then they will help to make to make up for the low AC, HP and Surges of their allies. There's no need to balance this, because it's already balanced in the system. Attempting to layer on some other rule about armor and extended rests messes up this balance, and will unfairly target the heavy armor players. It adds nothing to the game that can't be accomplished via handwaving, and only serves to create the potential for bad situations.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I don't think I agree that high AC is the exclusive purview of defenders, nor that it is wise for non-melee characters to ignore their AC. It works OK usually at lower levels. I can recall a warlock in one game that pretty much avoided being hit for a couple levels in mid-heroic, but he also had to devote some resources to that, it didn't come free. Eventually he discovered that as you get up in levels you simply cannot afford that approach, you NEED a decent AC. Likewise many defenders aren't really well advised to crank up the AC too much. You need to make sure your punishment is up to par or else you're just decoration. Sure, you'll be able to stand in the line of fire, but without devoting a couple feats to things like CC enhancement and buffing up your MBA the monsters will just walk past you eventually.

There are also subtleties you're missing there. For instance a CON secondary shaman needs to deal with his AC issues, and that is going to require putting some extra points into either STR and or DEX depending on the exact solution chosen. This makes it very tricky to maintain a reasonable AC and you will find that no matter what solution you pick it will imply taking several 'mandatory' feats. Exactly which ones you go for is up to the player, but once he picks a stat layout he's pretty well committed to taking them.

Likewise the Swarm Druid is pretty well hosed without ANY options when it comes to AC, and he NEEDS AC. Resistance is all well and good, but it simply isn't sufficient, and the entire build is currently moribund and basically unplayable since the nerf to Hide Expertise.

Again with wizards, you can theorize that you can kind of ignore AC and just rely on a good INT bonus, but that really won't work for long. Pretty soon you will need something like Unarmored Agility, or Leather Armor Proficiency, and probably Staff Expertise or some other trick, which again involves some form of mandatory feat expenditure.

The problem is no amount of excellence in your defenders can stop incoming artillery fire and other AC targeting attacks, nor can you stop all attackers from slipping past. At higher levels you simply have too many flying, teleporting, etc monsters, and there are always those pesky lurkers waiting to ruin the day. Not every second rank character needs bonzo AC, but if you're 5 or 6 points behind the defender, which you will be without some feat investment, you're going to be in a world of hurt.

 

[mneme]

Indeed--the two big unmentioned feat tax/oops classes are the Swarm Druid and the con Shaman. The shaman has basically two choices: Cowardice (try to stay out of combat, lout of LoS of enemies, etc) or heavy armor proficiency.

The swarm druid has no options at mid levels that preserve her full class features/mode of operating, but one can build a viable swarm druid. Unfortunately, the way you do it is to give her a decent but not great con (probably balanced con/dex out the gate) and then always bump your AC stat, not con. Lame, but lets you have a reasonable AC and some useful resistance and riders. I suppose another reasonable (ish) build is to paragon hybrid druid and warden, taking swarm druid and warden's armored might for your hybrid talent feats, and letting you use con for both AC and resistance. But this just gives you MAD for your attacks.

Regardless, though, if you look at the actual classes in the game, it's clear that most of them are roughly balanced against the rest, without regard to implement vs weapon (that gulf has closed, if not entirely, pretty close to same) and heavy armor vs light (fighters and paladins actually have worse AC than optimized wardens, swordmages and barbs, but they arguably have more broken class features and options--although a Paladin of Corellion can have a completely ludicrous AC). As such, it's not arguable by any -sane- poster that stripping heavy armor wielders of their armor doesn't hurt them badly -- in almost the same way that stripping weapon users of their weapons hurts them much more than stripping implement users of their implements; and in a way that is dispurportional to any perceived difference between the classes. You can't do anything to a wizard out of the box that's equivalent to knocking 15+ points of AC off an epic paladin, or making a barbarian go from using a gouge with an accompanyting feat chain to hitting things with a chair (or worse putting him in a situation where he can't find a two handed weapon.

On the other hand, having the occasional undergeared fight/adventure is a lot of fun in concept -- and if you can make it fair, execution. So what's to be done? After all, the problem isn't really that you can make a level-3 or worse fight a challenge for some classes by denying them gear in the storyline -- it's that you -can't- do the same for other classes, and that the classes that are hit are hit so hard. So..

Hitting them less hard: Summoned armor (as backup armor), of course. In a game where players know that this is an issue, the players should spend some attention making sure they have summoned armor for "sleep wear" that's converted from their old armor, or that's comissioned at -1 to -2 (or so) below their normal armor's bonus. The nice thing about summoned armor (or better, Imposter's Armor, which is both better and heavy only) is that it's always at the minimum cost for that level of enchantment, so it's pretty cheap, and while it's "uncommon", you should really treat it as if it's common or make it findable if the players are going to need sleepwear in the campaign. For weapons, the best approach is an open hand to improvised cover, weapons, and actions to let players cover somewhat for being out of their element.

Hitting the light armor wearers where it hurts: if the campaign frequently (or infrequently, but frequently enough to be an issue) forces the heavy armor wearers out of their comfort zone and/or forces the weapon users to make do, it's only fair to also provide situations that disadvantage light armor wearers. Introduce terrain that is free to walk on if you're wearing heavy armor, but that requires a skill roll if you're wearing less protective garb to not get hurt (acids, hot rock, that kind of thing). Re-introduce limited anti-magic (a little goes a long way) -- zones of antimagic will make all implement users except monks and assassins have to scramble to find a way to be relevant, just like the fighter does in the sleepwear or kidnap scenario. Monks and assassins are an issue (assassins less so, as a lot of what they do is magic), but then, neither class is over the top.