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Towards a Story Now 4e
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7440928" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Right, so we have 3 basic routes which D&D has taken in the past</p><p></p><p>1) absolute restrictions (all versions of classic D&D, though mysteriously elves don't count, lol).</p><p>2) Disadvantages (actually has any version simply relied on this? I don't think so, but its an option).</p><p>3) Proficiency (only 4e did this).</p><p></p><p>Personally I'm not fond of #3 because it both quashes the notion of gearing up appropriately for different situations, AND its pretty hard to understand what sort of a proficiency wearing armor is. I've worn some reproduction armors of various sorts. Yeah, putting them on certainly takes a bit of figuring out, but EVERY SUIT IS UNIQUE so having 'plate armor proficiency' makes zero sense in this respect. Beyond that there's just really nothing TO wearing armor, you just friggin wear it! Obviously reality is no obstacle to FRPG rules, but still! </p><p></p><p>Disadvantages sounds promising as a way of driving some sort of calculation of trade-offs, both between PCs habitual wearing habits, and any situations where characters might change up for specific scenarios. However, DR is REALLY REALLY potent. In a game where your average level 1 monster is going to do something like 6.4 DPR, then 4 points of DR is a HUGE win. Even 2 points is a big win! This means either you have a very small range of armor types, or you're going to need some humongous and entirely unrealistic disadvantages, or a lot of realism to capture the more subtle but realistic reasons people don't traipse around in suites of armor all day. I'm not super fond of any of those.</p><p></p><p>That leaves absolute restrictions, or variations thereon such as your "magic doesn't like metal" kind of rule. In basic terms I kind of hate it because its so arbitrary. I want choices to be driven by logic, not by fiat, when possible. This makes the world seem more natural. Magic doesn't like metal OTOH at least is a consistent rule (elves get the shaft!) and nobody can complain about its realism, that's for sure. </p><p></p><p>I dunno. Maybe its just best to assume that most of the time most PCs will just all turtle up! You'll still get the odd outlier, and always possible to code in an exception like barbarians that just get their DR for chutzpah or something and go around half naked. If Conan wants to armor up, well it can still work, it just doesn't stack with his natural armor. Wizards could then be forced to choose between powers and armor, not a hard choice to make. Rogues might still choose light armor to avoid some check penalties that might not deter a fighter, but could well change the mind of a guy who likes to sneak around and isn't planning to hang around in the faces of any brutes. I guess there COULD still be something like a proficiency for heavy armor that you need to get in order to remove some basically ridiculous penalty. That would probably deter your average rogue and maybe some others a bit more. </p><p></p><p>So far, TBH, I've found that players pretty much went with armor based on their idea of their character, and since they've all played a good bit of D&D they tend to have internalized that. As it stands it isn't really well enforced in HoML though, encumbrance is a thing, but not super important, and there isn't an easy way to do a check penalty, nor is movement rate reduction a very potent deterrent in reality.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7440928, member: 82106"] Right, so we have 3 basic routes which D&D has taken in the past 1) absolute restrictions (all versions of classic D&D, though mysteriously elves don't count, lol). 2) Disadvantages (actually has any version simply relied on this? I don't think so, but its an option). 3) Proficiency (only 4e did this). Personally I'm not fond of #3 because it both quashes the notion of gearing up appropriately for different situations, AND its pretty hard to understand what sort of a proficiency wearing armor is. I've worn some reproduction armors of various sorts. Yeah, putting them on certainly takes a bit of figuring out, but EVERY SUIT IS UNIQUE so having 'plate armor proficiency' makes zero sense in this respect. Beyond that there's just really nothing TO wearing armor, you just friggin wear it! Obviously reality is no obstacle to FRPG rules, but still! Disadvantages sounds promising as a way of driving some sort of calculation of trade-offs, both between PCs habitual wearing habits, and any situations where characters might change up for specific scenarios. However, DR is REALLY REALLY potent. In a game where your average level 1 monster is going to do something like 6.4 DPR, then 4 points of DR is a HUGE win. Even 2 points is a big win! This means either you have a very small range of armor types, or you're going to need some humongous and entirely unrealistic disadvantages, or a lot of realism to capture the more subtle but realistic reasons people don't traipse around in suites of armor all day. I'm not super fond of any of those. That leaves absolute restrictions, or variations thereon such as your "magic doesn't like metal" kind of rule. In basic terms I kind of hate it because its so arbitrary. I want choices to be driven by logic, not by fiat, when possible. This makes the world seem more natural. Magic doesn't like metal OTOH at least is a consistent rule (elves get the shaft!) and nobody can complain about its realism, that's for sure. I dunno. Maybe its just best to assume that most of the time most PCs will just all turtle up! You'll still get the odd outlier, and always possible to code in an exception like barbarians that just get their DR for chutzpah or something and go around half naked. If Conan wants to armor up, well it can still work, it just doesn't stack with his natural armor. Wizards could then be forced to choose between powers and armor, not a hard choice to make. Rogues might still choose light armor to avoid some check penalties that might not deter a fighter, but could well change the mind of a guy who likes to sneak around and isn't planning to hang around in the faces of any brutes. I guess there COULD still be something like a proficiency for heavy armor that you need to get in order to remove some basically ridiculous penalty. That would probably deter your average rogue and maybe some others a bit more. So far, TBH, I've found that players pretty much went with armor based on their idea of their character, and since they've all played a good bit of D&D they tend to have internalized that. As it stands it isn't really well enforced in HoML though, encumbrance is a thing, but not super important, and there isn't an easy way to do a check penalty, nor is movement rate reduction a very potent deterrent in reality. [/QUOTE]
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