Simple Solution to the Ubiquitous Breastplate and Chain Shirt

[Azlan]

With the arrival of D&D 3.0, breastplate and chain shirt quickly became the ubiquitous armors among PCs, given the AC bonus for those two armors, along with their Max Dex Bonus and Skill Check Penalty, when compared to other armors.

I mean, why choose chainmail over chain shirt, when the former gives only 1 step better AC than the latter, but with a Max Dex Bonus that is two steps worse and a Skill Check Penalty that is three steps worse? (Really, out of the dozens of PCs who have come through my campaigns, in the past three years since D&D 3E came out, I don't think I've seen one PC who wore chainmail.)

The only other armor I see with frequency among PCs is full plate. (Half-plate is shunned almost as much as chainmail is.) I also sometimes see masterwork studded leather among rogue PCs who absolutely cannot abide having any skill check penalty. (Although, I find masterwork chain shirt more common among rogue PCs.)

Anyway, the solution I'm now implementing in my campaigns is this: Simply increase the AC bonus by 1 for the following armors: scalemail, chainmail, splintmail, banded mail, half-plate, and full plate. This makes these armors a little more desirable, given their stiff penalties to Max Dex Bonus and to Skill Checks.

Now, lest those PCs who wear light armor or none clamor, "Unfair! You're giving a bonus to the tanks, but not to us!", I'm also implemented the following changes to the Dodge and Mobility feats...

Dodge: This feat gives a +2 dodge bonus to AC if you're wearing light armor or none, or a +1 bonus if you're wearing medium armor. This feat does not give any bonus if you're wearing heavy armor.

Mobility: This feat gives a +4 dodge bonus to AC against AoO's if you're wearing light armor or none, or a +2 bonus against AoO's if you're wearing medium armor. This feat does not give you any bonus if you're wearing heavy armor.

Note: With Dodge and Mobility, a condition that causes you to lose your Dex bonus (if any) to AC also causes you to lose any dodge bonuses. (No change, here; just a reminder.)

Well? Comments or criticisms are welcome.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Another thing I've noticed is that making armor out of exotic materials is a lot more common. Mithral chain shirts and the like. This improves the weight category by one (light armor gets no improvement) and eases the dex and skill point penalties.

Do you have a similar experience? If so, do you think this is a problem? If not, have you made special materials difficult to get, or do many PCs have them and that's ok?

 

[Urbannen]

You are right, the armor system as it stands forces certain choices over others.

I agree with increasing the AC bonuses for the heavier armors.

I think that increasing the bonuses from Dodge and Mobility is fine for a home campaign.

My favorite solution to this issue comes from somebody on Monte Cook's board whose name I did not save. Here is what he wrote:

---Armors
A combination of the armors as follows might work for you as well. You could have some slight weight/cost/max dex/arcane spell failure/check penalty differences between armors of the same AC. This basically puts 3 AC values in each of Light, Medium, and Heavy.

Padded +1
Leather +2
Studded Leather/Hide +3

Chain shirt/Scale mail +4
Breastplate +5
Chainmail +6

Splint mail/Banded mail +7
Half-plate +8
Full plate +9

As for movement, I use:

Light: 30/20
Medium: 25/17.5
Heavy: 20/15

These are just some good ideas, not a set in stone system. The basic theory is that light armors are +1 to +3, medium are +4 to +6, and heavy are +7 to +9, similar to your idea. Medium armor is made more attractive by lowering the movement penalty, although I'm not sure what the best way to implement that would be.

 

[Azlan]

Another thing I've noticed is that making armor out of exotic materials is a lot more common. Mithral chain shirts and the like. This improves the weight category by one (light armor gets no improvement) and eases the dex and skill point penalties.

Yes, I've noticed this trend too.

When DM'ing a campaign where the PCs start at around 3rd-5th level, and when those PCs are given starting wealth to buy equipment comensurate with their level, I see the ubiquitous mithral breastplates and chain shirts.

So, my solution is to make mithral cost more. Supply and demand, you know.

 

[KarinsDad]

These are just some good ideas, not a set in stone system. The basic theory is that light armors are +1 to +3, medium are +4 to +6, and heavy are +7 to +9, similar to your idea. Medium armor is made more attractive by lowering the movement penalty, although I'm not sure what the best way to implement that would be.

I've set up this exact system as a house rule and posted it a long time ago (but I did not post on Monte's boards, so you didn't directly get this from me).

Since then, I dropped the first part (ACs 1-3, etc.), but I kept the movement rates for my current system.

It basically came down to the book armor not being that big of a deal.

The advantage of +1 AC for chain mail over chain shirts is great for NPC guards and such where they do not get to decide which armor they wear (i.e. the lord buys it for them).

For PCs, I came to the conclusion that them min maxing on the armor was ok, even desirable. I want the PCs to take every advantage they can and could care less that they do not take certain armor types. I found out from my experience with changing the armor rules that many armors will still not be taken by PCs (the perceived problem I was trying to solve). So, it only matters for NPCs and for NPCs, I'm not going to bother to change the rules.

As for the 17.5 movement, it basically is 4 five foot hexes (or squares) for a normal move, 7 hexes for a double move, and 14 hexes for a full out run.

 

[Spatzimaus]

The flat price (or nearly flat, anyway) for "exotic materials" doesn't mesh with the exponential pricing of magical bonuses. At low levels a few thousand GP may be prohibitive, but at high levels it's pocket change. To go from a +4 to +5 armor costs 9000 gp, which is what Mithral costs for heavy types. If I had plate armor, which would I rather have: +1 AC, or (+2 Max DEX, +3 Armor Check Penalty, -10% Arcane Failure, and counts as medium armor)? The Max DEX increase alone would be worth it for heavy armors.
So, logically all high-end armors and weapons should be made from Mithral or Adamantine.

IMC, the price isn't so flat; each material has a cost multiplier, so Mithral costs 120 times the listed (non-Masterwork) PHB price. In theory, this'd favor light armors, but the bonuses are slightly different for each class of material (Soft (leather), Flexible (chain), or Hard (plate)). Armors made from hard materials give heavier DR, for example. So, it balances well.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

First, I don't think that certain types of armor being ubiquitous is necessarily a problem.

In ancient Greece, "armor" meant a bronze breastplate with bronze greaves and a large hide shield. The Persians might wear different types of armor but not the Greeks. Similarly, chain shirts (byrnies) were pretty much ubiquitous during the Viking era. And during the Roman era, Lorica Segmentata, Lorica Hamata, leather armor, and the odd chain shirt were pretty much the kinds of armor available. During the time of the third crusade, chain mail was de rigour among European knights. In the early renaissance, fullplate was the armor of choice. By the time of the English civil war, a buff coat with or without a breastplate and gauntlets was pretty much what everyone wore. Historically, people in every era have gravitated towards certain kinds of armor. Heck, even these days, American soldiers in Iraq never refuse a suit of modern body armor to continue to wear a Vietnam era flak jacket. Among those who can get it, one kind of armor is ubiquitous. Why characters behaving the same way in your campaign should be a problem is beyond me.

Second, if you want to change the mechanical advantage of certain armors, you need to begin with a realistic assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of the optimal armors.

So:
Chain Shirt=+8 (+4 armor, +4 max dex)
Breastplate=+8 (+5 armor, +3 max dex)
Fullplate=+9 (+8 armor, +1 max dex)
Mithral Chain Shirt= +10 (+4 armor, +6 max dex)
Mithral Breastplate=+10 (+5 armor, +5 max dex)
Mithral Fullplate=+11 (+8 armor, +3 max dex)

From this, you can see that there is very little difference in the AC offered by the optimal armors. (IME, breastplates are very rarely worn because most characters don't think the +1 armro bonus to be worth the movement reduction). Other armors offer less (Chain and scale mail and half-plate weigh in at +7). In the standard D&D game, they fill corner cases.
Leather armor is for starting rogues and rangers who want to maximize their skills and for druids who want to keep a 30' move.
Masterwork Studded leather is for rogues who want to maximize their skills but don't have access to mithral.
Scale Mail is for starting adventurers who don't have enough money to buy something better and don't feel a need for the mobility that a chain shirt provides.
Chain mail is for starting fighters who have enough of a dex bonus that their AC is better than it would be if they had splint mail.
Splint mail is for starting characters without a dex bonus.
Banded mail is the logical stepping stone between scale or chain mail and the fullplate that starting characters can't afford. It's also occasionally worn by low-strength clerics who don't want to deal with fullplate's weight.
Half-plate is pretty much worthless but I've seen a few characters buy a suit because it's decent protection for less money than fullplate and they don't have a dex bonus anyway.

And, when it comes to barding, you'll see a lot more of the intermediate armors since cost can be prohibitive and armoring a mount is a secondary priority.

All of the various armors are also good for NPCs--especially studded leather, scale mail, chain mail, splint and banded mail--all of which can offer low-level NPCs a decent AC without providing the PCs with an overabundance of loot or making them wonder how all the guards and brigands have that much more money than they do.

But apparently you want to change that. You want chain mail to be a more popular armor choice. Your suggestion is increasing the armor bonus for medium and heavy armors other than the breastplate. I don't think that's necessarily a bad idea but I'd increase the breastplate's armor bonus as well. It's supposed to be good armor (and in most campaigns it doesn't see a whole lot of use). What, IMO, would be a more effective way of making medium armors attractive in general would be to leave the AC bonusses alone but to change the movement restrictions--medium armored characters still move 30' but can only run x3. The Arcanis setting made medium armor the most popular type of armor in the Living Arcanis campaign by introducing an a medium armor with +5 armor bonus, +4 max dex, -2 armor check, 20% spell failure, and 30' movement. The movement makes a big difference.

Increasing heavy armors by one point across the board would also make full-plate more popular but wouldn't increase the popularity of banded, splint and half-plate significantly--they'd still be stepping stones on the way to full-plate since any character who wears them is accepting the movement restrictions and low-max dex inherent in heavy armor and might as well get the best AC he can out of the deal. If you want characters to wear them, you'll need to either make them as good or better than fullplate (not really a good idea all things considered--logically fullplate, ought to be better since it was better historically) or give out enchanted suits of heavy armor as treasure. If you can't just buy any armor you want (a necessary restriction since it's worth almost enough to buy +3 fullplate with the proceeds from the sale), a suit of +3 called banded mail compares favorably with +1 fullplate. A suit of good "lesser" armor that can't be easily sold (perhaps it reputedly bears a curse or perhaps selling it would be an insult to the giver or perhaps it has special significance as a knight's armor or something) would most likely be worn. Alternatively, a suit of lesser armor enchanted to give greater mobility (30 foot move or with the function of boots of striding and springing) might be more attractive than full-plate that offers a superior AC.

One thing I would urge against, however, is your proposed feat modifications. Dodge and mobility are already very very heavily skewed towards lightly armored characters because of their dexterity requirements and the fact that Spring Attack (the jewel of that feat tree) doesn't function in heavy armor. Increasing that skewing would only make light armors more attractive than they already are (and you seem to think that that's a problem). In fact, your version of dodge would eliminate the AC advantage that a character wearing fullplate can theoretically enjoy over a dex-maximized character in a chain shirt. And your version of mobility would mean that lightly armored characters will generally enjoy a higher AC against AoOs than characters in medium or heavy armor. Hardly the steps to take if you want to encourage characters to wear medium and/or heavy armor.