Heavy Armor penalizing Reflex defense

[Triangleman27]

I'm considering this house rule:
Armor’s Speed Penalty also applies to the wearer’s Reflex defense.

The rationale is that if armor can slow your movement speed (as opposed to fine motor coordination as represented by Check penalties), it makes sense that it would hamper your ability to jump out of the way of something.



Need a metagame perspective.

 

[Deodanth]

Well there's no precedent in previous editions for it. Armor never penalized saving throws of any kind. But it makes sense, and would not damage the game, other than possibly making your players think twice about taking heavy armor.

*player raises hand* "Umm, can I shift 2 points from Con to Dex? I'll be wearing hide armor for the rest of the campaign."

 

[FireLance]

At the end of the day, it probably isn't going to make very much difference. You might get grumbling from chainmail and plate mail users (especially when a monster gets exactly enough to hit their now-lower Reflex defence), and scale mail specialization will become even more popular, but it probably isn't going to ruin your game.

 

[RabidBob]

I'm considering this house rule:
Armor’s Speed Penalty also applies to the wearer’s Reflex defense.

The rationale is that if armor can slow your movement speed (as opposed to fine motor coordination as represented by Check penalties), it makes sense that it would hamper your ability to jump out of the way of something.

Need a metagame perspective.

Well you've got a rational, but ... why? It's a shift towards "making things more realistic", which, IMNSHO probably isn't a good idea (because I spent 10 years "making things more realistic" only to suddenly realise it was making RPGing boring).

I think the question to ask is "What purpose would adding this house rule fulfill?"

 

[generalhenry]

Meta game wise there's no need for it since heavy armor users already have low ref defenses due to stat dumping.