D&D 5E No Armor: Addiing Proficiency to AC

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

If I did it, I might do it this way... Proficiency bonus to AC, but Monks and Barbarians lose their Wisdom and Constitution to AC.

Monks would get their Wisdom modifier to hit points for every level.

Barbarians (of the proper archetype) would get double their Constitution modifier to hit points.

I'm pretty sure that's how I'd do it.

 

[Parmandur]

One way to approach this would be on a class by class basis:

-Classes that would normally get heavy armor can add their proficiency bonus

-monks and barbarians get their normal abilities

-other classes just get a dex bonus, or rely on spells etc.

 

[DracoSuave]

Classes designed around heavy armor [paladins, clerics] will languish. They will be playing catch-up the entire game, until finally, at level 20, they have the AC of a level 1 character in most games.

Classes designed around finesse or ranged weapons, on the other hand, will start with higher AC, and will only increase as they gain levels. Eventually they'll have access to an AC no character can attain in the game without magic.

Dexterity becomes a God Stat, Strength becomes a dump stat.


As for monks and barbarians, just remove the class feature and that's all you need to do. The proficiency bonus is replacing Wis/Con for them so they're not losing out. There's no reason to give them additional defensive benefit for no reason.

An alternate solution: Have each class have a class feature, like the Monk and Barbarian, that can give them AC instead of the proficiency bonus. Fighters NEED to have AC to do their job, so having their AC be 10 [Str or Dex]+Con modifier would be fair. Rangers, on the other hand, do not, so they'd have Str or Dex for their AC.

Basically, rewrite each like this:

Heavy Armor Proficiency: This character can calculate her AC using 10+Constitution modifier+Strength modifier.
Medium Armor Proficiency: This character can calculate AC using 12+the higher of Dexterity or Strength
Light Armor Proficiency: This character can calculate AC using 12+their Dexterity modifier.
Shield Proficiency: This no longer exists. Classes that give it, instead, give Parrying Proficiency. At the beginning of each round, if a character is wielding a one-handed weapon in one hand but the other hand is empty, that character gets a +2 bonus to AC. The character ceases parrying if they activate the versatile trait on their weapon to use it in two hands, or if they wield a two-handed weapon.

References in class features, feats, etc to using a shield are replaced with parrying. For example, a monk who parries cannot use their Unarmored Defense feature.

 

[Kai Wren]

With gunslingers especially, it feels to me like just having relatively low AC works fine; in westerns, the person who shoots first usually also shoots last, making initiative king and only mooks tend to miss if they have a clean shot. I don't think you need to add proficiency to AC there, but I might be tempted to add proficiency to initiative.

For other genres, I don't think it breaks anything to have proficiency adding to AC, but again I'd be tempted to ask whether it is really necessary. Generally, people aren't wearing armor; but generally, combat is also far deadlier than your average D&D game presupposes. Look at the relative levels of lethality between D&D and Call of Cthulhu or Unknown Armies and you'll see what I mean!

 

[Li Shenron]

The title says it all.

In a setting which armor is impractical (say, a more modern-world setting) would adding your proficiency bonus to AC break bounded accuracy? (AC would range from 12 to 16 before dex, capping at a max of 21 with a 20 dex).

Very good question...

I think I would not use proficiency bonus, simply because it's the same for everybody, so every character will have the same base AC.

Instead, I think character classes are designed on purpose to have different base AC.

I would at least differentiate depending on each character's armor proficiencies. Maybe something like:

- medium/heavy armor prof = full prof bonus
- light armor prof = half prof bonus
- no armor prof = no prof bonus

That said, I don't think a setting with firearms would necessarily work fine with the current combat rules at all.

 

[Stormonu]

I'd like to see this work in the regular iteration of D&D, where if you want a "light" fighter you could use Prof bonus + Dex to have a competitive AC, and it work alongside the fighter in Plate armor. Alas, D&D's AC system doesn't work well in that regard unless perhaps you can implement some sort of DR-like solution, I believe.

For a modern game, using Prof bonus + Dex I would think would work very well.

 

[fuindordm]

I thin you're talking about a setting where the weapons have so far outstripped the available armor that no one bothers to wear any. Think not just Wild West or Victorian England, but also Star Wars (barring stormtroopers, whose armor doesn't seem to do them any good anyway).

In such settings, STR is a dump stat, and that's OK. Let's face it, STR is a dump stat in real life for most people, even cops. There isn't much call for STR-based fighters when most mooks have guns (or light sabers, or legendary katanas)--professions adapt with the times. The viability of the STR fighter (inc. barbarian, etc.) in this kind of setting depends then on the prevalence of guns and the occasional need to dominate hand-to-hand combat where guns are not available, or grapple so as to take prisoners. So with STR fighting reduced to corner cases like this, most people who learn to fight will learn dex-based fighting.

The point of all the above, is that I think that players avoiding STR-based fighters is a feature of such settings, not a bug, and I don't think PCs that would normally have heavy armor proficiency should be given extra AC to make up for it. I wouldn't want to artificially push characters into a fighting style that is ineffective for the period.

In such settings, HP are really 90% luck, and I agree with prior posters that the 5E solution is that HP are essentially your character's main (ablative) source of protection, much more than AC. Most characters who want to fight will put points in Dex and Con, and those who want Str will take it because they want to be brawlers.

In short, I think your idea of adding prof. bonus to AC for all characters will work fine. Rather than removing Unarmored Defense completely, you can just allow Barbarians to use Con rather than Dex if their Con bonus is higher, and allowing Monks to use Wis rather than Dex.

Then there a few optional rules you can consider to flavor the setting:
* A feat/class/skill that gives a sneak attack bonus for attacking first in duels (e.g. Iajitsu in 3E Oriental Adventures, which also works OK for wild west).
* "Wounds": every time you drop to 0 HP, and every time you take a critical hit, you lose a HD from your reserve.

 

[Chocolategravy]

Armor proficiency is such a big thing in 5E it is literally easier to learn to be a wizard and cast spells than it is to pick up heavy armor proficiency and be able to wear heavy armor properly! No armor in the game means losing the benefit of a fairly significant class feature. This is the least modular game we've gotten in the D&D line, you can't just not have armor, it brings the whole house of cards tumbling down. Maybe removing the class abilities from monks and barbarians is equivalent to losing heavy armor proficiency, but what about classes with no proficiency like wizard or with lesser proficiencies like rogue? It would seem those classes are coming out ahead. It's hard to make changes that will end up maintaining the same balance and without making DEX way too good.

 

[Salamandyr]

I really like the thought behind this idea, but it seems to place too much emphasis on a favorable dexterity score. It just doesn't seem logical to me that every PC in a Modern game is an Olympic gymnast or the Cisco Kid. Also, it re-aligns who gets the higher AC's in the game. Warrior types would wind up with lower AC's than Rogue types. And then it messes up the math at lower levels. PC's who don't prioritize Dexterity will wind up with AC's 2-4 points lower than they would have in standard AD&D.

I'm not really worried about Barbarians and Monks losing their schtick; they're both fantasy archetypes that don't really make sense outside that fantasy archetype (well, monks sort of fit in modern day kung fu movies, which are really just a specific kind of superhero film-and I don't think it's fair to say that only one player gets to be a superhero-so some of their schtick should spread around to every class in a kung fu style modern day campaign).

One d20 based pulp adventure series gave AC stats to standard pulp adventure clothes...a fedora gave +1 AC, a trenchcoat gave +2 (they stacked), et cetera. Or perhaps look at the expected AC of the classes you're going to use (I think I'd use only the classic, archetypal classes for a modern game) and just give them a flat AC that they can use instead of Dex if they choose to. So

Fighter: 16 or 2+Dex (with maybe bullet-proof vests offering a further +1 or 2 to AC)
Wizard: 10+Dex (the usual)
Rogue: 12+Dex
Cleric 14 or 2+Dex, or 16 if they're a focus that grants heavy armor proficiency.

 

[Remathilis]

I really like the thought behind this idea, but it seems to place too much emphasis on a favorable dexterity score. It just doesn't seem logical to me that every PC in a Modern game is an Olympic gymnast or the Cisco Kid. Also, it re-aligns who gets the higher AC's in the game. Warrior types would wind up with lower AC's than Rogue types. And then it messes up the math at lower levels. PC's who don't prioritize Dexterity will wind up with AC's 2-4 points lower than they would have in standard AD&D.
{...}
One d20 based pulp adventure series gave AC stats to standard pulp adventure clothes...a fedora gave +1 AC, a trenchcoat gave +2 (they stacked), et cetera. Or perhaps look at the expected AC of the classes you're going to use (I think I'd use only the classic, archetypal classes for a modern game) and just give them a flat AC that they can use instead of Dex if they choose to. So

Fighter: 16 or 2+Dex (with maybe bullet-proof vests offering a further +1 or 2 to AC)
Wizard: 10+Dex (the usual)
Rogue: 12+Dex
Cleric 14 or 2+Dex, or 16 if they're a focus that grants heavy armor proficiency.

I'm not concerned with over-emphasizing Dex or underestimating Str (firearms/ranged combat will do that enough) and magic-users will surely emphasize caster stat over Dex. Fighters (or the equivalent) would want to emphasize dex more anyway due to its duel nature as ranged stat and AC stat. Yeah, Dex is King, but that was almost a given.

Speaking of which, Masque of the Red Death uses four classes (Soldier, Tradesman, Adept, Mystic) which correlate to the Core Four classes. (Kits make up differences, which would be nicely balanced between background and subclass). d20 Modern uses six classes, one per ability score. (Strong, Fast, Tough, etc). So as this project moves on, I'm really less concerned with breaking barbarian, monk, or sorcerer as I am breaking the base system.

That said, Your idea of giving classes a "base AC" based on armor proficiency has merit. A fighter getting a a small boost, clerics and rogues getting a smaller boost, and wizards getting none would fit well. (Perhaps Fighter: 12 + Prof + Dex, Rog/Clr 10 + Prof + Dex, Wiz 8 + Prof + Dex?)

The unknown factor would be how to change classes to fit the setting. However, it seems that using proficiency might be a good starting point.