D&D (2024) Time to add new Armors to the table.

[Yaarel]

There is no "specialize" if Str adds to both damage and AC.

You don't get a choice between offense and defense. Your taking +2 and nothing else.

Compare the tropes of the 5-Guy Band

• Strong Guy (Strength-Constitution)
• Rebel Guy (Dexterity-Athletics)
• Smart Guy (Intelligence-Perception)
• Heart Guy (Charisma-Wisdom)
• Jock Guy (generalist)

Strength is intentionally the go-to ability to build the Strong Guy character type, that is the big one-person-army brute. It includes both heavy weapons and heavy armor.

D&D has never done swashbuckling athletic stunts well. For example, it is absurd to separate jumping from falling, climbing from balancing, and so on. Where Athletics is a separate ability to all these things, it is the go-to ability for the agile daredevil Rebel Guy character concept.

Dexterity is very much offense − including finesse and two-weapon damage, but most importantly sniping safely from a distance.

 

[Minigiant]

If what you want is armor as reward then best to ignore the types altogether and go for magical armor alternatives, like enchantments and special materials and the like. Basic equipment as reward is not very, well, rewarding.

For actual types you only need poor/ok/superior quality for each weight category, and a subcategory of 'superior' which is 'special'. You don't need a different "type" for each. Then go to town on the fluff/special materials/enchantments etc...

You want flameproof armor? Sure you can have gambeson armor (light) made from the wool of the flame sheep of Tarterous, scale mail (medium) carved from the legendary light-but-no-heaty stones from cool mountain, or plate (heavy) wrought in the iceforges of the shadowfell. Or you could skin a (sentient) red dragon and make light/medium or heavy armor out of it depending on your preference (you monster).

None of this requires seven types of heavy armor, and it avoids the pitfall of magical versions of crap armor (oooh +1 ringmail).

If you are going for a low magic world then this approach works even better. You make one type of armor for each weight level, fluff them however best suits your world, and then replace magical "+x armor" with superior mundane versions. For example, make normal chainmail the default for heavy armor, +1 heavy armor could be superior chain, splint or brigidine, and plate could be the equivalent of +2 or +3 heavy armor. You also make the price and availability of these superior armors the same as their magical versions - so in this example splint mail would be the equivalent (in terms of price and availability) of +1 plate.

Anyway that is how I would do it.

You are completely missing my point.

In traditional D&D a strength warrior goes:
Half plate to Plate to Plate +1 to Plate +2 to
Plate +3 to Plate +4 to Plate +5

5e does
Half plate Ringmail to Plate to Plate +1/Splint+2 to Plate +2/Splint+3 to
Plate +3 to Plate +4 to Plate +5

Because armor is worn for AC. Flavor magical bonus almost never trumped AC increases. Only major always on always useful magic bonuses like stealth and speeds might trump AC. 5e armors have these tied to armors directly.

So my idea was to have players choose between:

1. +1 AC & Stealth penalty
2. +1 AC & Speed penalty
3. No penalty

 

[Yaarel]

You don't get a choice between offense and defense.

An other approach might be, to key the armor training prereq off of Constitution rather than Strength.

It isnt so much that the armor is super-heavy, it isnt. It is that armor is uncomfortable and fatiguing to wear over time.

Then Strength gains the offensive attack and damage bonus, while Constitution gains the defensive armor bonus.

For example, Chain (training prereq +3 Constitution) grants +3 AC.

(Likewise Dexterity gains the offensive attack bonuses, while a separate Athletics gains the defensive dodge bonus.)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I would like to see chain allow for more Dex than scale does.

As almost always, I want to less complexity in the rules, not more (aside from optional rules).

man these two ideas both appeal to me and I am SOOO conflicted.

I hate that we have good, better, best armor, and I really would prefer more choices that matter. But yeah it makes it hard to remember.

 

[Blue]

I'm the other way. The idea of giving out mundane mid-level armor of a type is pretty narrow of a time it's worthwhile, and magical armors that give +X that mechanically duplicate better mundane armor is really never a big deal. So having more levels of variation seems a complete waste.

So I'd rather not have inferior types of each armor that have a narrow band of play where they are useful and mechanical differentiation doesn't add a lot. I'd rather just have light, medium, and heavy armor, and the players can define details of what it looks like within the class to fit their character theme - for this character has layers of rough boiled hides covered by a lion skin, and this one has a chainmail shirt. And mechanically they are just "medium armor" with the medium armor AC.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

"Other Ways" i.e. Push PCs past bounded accuracy & deal with the resulting fallout one way or another when monsters can't keep up and your the GM you homebrew a solution other than giving out objectively better & better equipment like more resistances on the best AC armor the player already has. 6e needs to do a better job with fitting a core subsystem like armor within the player expectations & GM needs of a game called d&d.

What I'm saying is that the dials don't need to be on the armour.

 

[tetrasodium]

What I'm saying is that the dials don't need to be on the armour.

You don't seem to actually be saying anything other than improvements are needed because they could be done through "other" ways a RealGM would be able to solve. Moving them somewhere else isn't impossible but there where how & what impact the design considerations. Without the where how & what there's no way to discuss them.

 

[Charlaquin]

Up until 5e it was accepted and even spelled out explicitly in more than one edition that awarding players with treasure to make them more powerful was an important part of keeping players interested as a GM. 4e made the mistake of taking that role out of the GM's control & giving it to the players

No it didn’t. It made the perfectly reasonable suggestion that players be able to request that the DM include specific magic items they wanted in the adventure. Something players have always done, and DMs have always had the power to agree to or not, and still had that power in 4e.

 

[Yaarel]

When

AC = Constitution (Armor) + Dexterity (Dodge)

The Armor has effectively five gradations (rather than three), with prereqs ranging from +1 to +5.

(I remain undecided if the prereq should be Constitution or Strength. Normally, Strength relates to Encumbrance. However, there are reasons for Constitution. Even the heaviest armors are less than 70 pounds, and even a Strength 8 character can carry 120 pounds without Encumbrance. The difficulty comes from the Armor being fatiguing and constraining to wear. Hence, Constitution can make sense to overcome the difficulty of Armor, and Constitution is generally defensive making this Ability a convenient go-to for combat defense.)

There are "typical" examples of Armor for each gradation, but the player and DM can agree on an other appropriate flavor for the Armor of the character concept. If the armor is atypical, there needs to be a narrative explanation for how the character acquired it, whether gift, purchase, or find.

If one meets the prereq, one can additionally add the Dexterity Dodge bonus to the AC.



Prereq: +1 Constitution
• Helmet (metal)
• Padded (fabrics including leather)
• Leather (hard boiled leather)

Prereq: +2 Constitution
• Leather Suit
• Padded Suit ("hide")
• Padded and Helmet
• Leather and Helmet

Prereq: +3 Constitution
• Chain
• Leather Suit and Helmet
• Padded Suit and Helmet

Prereq: +4 Constitution
• Scale (brigandine, squamata, lamellar, segmentata, etcetera)
• Breastplate
• Chain Suit
• Chain and Helmet

Prereq: +5 Constitution
• Scale Suit
• Plate Suit ("half plate")
• Scale and Helmet
• Plate and Helmet
• Chain Suit and Helmet

Prereq: +6 Constitution
• Scale Suit and Helmet
• Plate Suit and Helmet

Prereq: +7 Constitution
• Renaissance Full Plate Suit

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

You don't seem to actually be saying anything other than improvements are needed because they could be done through "other" ways a RealGM would be able to solve. Moving them somewhere else isn't impossible but there where how & what impact the design considerations. Without the where how & what there's no way to discuss them.

I'm just saying these proposed armour modifications add more complexity than they do benefits. So I'm suggesting that, yes, there are other areas where this granularity could be added without forcing granularity onto armour which (IMO) takes away more than it adds.