D&D General The diminishing effectiveness of armour across the editions

[Derren]

It is you know. You can't mass produce HD realistic full plate.

Realistic in what way? That it looks realistic? Thats easily done. Just press a bit of metal sheet and you are done.
As a consumer you can buy a full plate armor for $3000-$5000. Actual movie productions would get it cheaper and thus it would be in line with many other medieval outfits and props. Thats hardly a big limiting factor considering the usual budgets movies have.

 

[jasper]

If an SCA armourer is still in business his full combat plate was around $750. More if you went with finger gaudlets.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think you're introducing some error by comparing first-level characters across the board.

OK, let's look at ogres then - which are about when I'd expect to see plate appearing..

• AD&D: THAC0 17 (so 16 to hit field plate + shield), and either 1d10 or [weapon] + 6 damage AC5, 4+1hd (19ish)
• 3.X: +8 to hit (so 12s to hit full plate + shield), 2d8+7 damage. Or +1 to hit at range, d8+5 damage. AC16 29hp
• 5e:+6 to hit (so 14 to hit full plate + shield), 2d8+4 damage melee, 2d6+4 ranged. AC11, 59 (!) hp.

That 5e ogre is a bit of a bullet sponge compared to the rest.

In 5E, particularly, the attack bonuses of enemies don't increase all that quickly, so someone with full plate and a shield can be very difficult to hit regularly, even around 12th level.

A 5e cloud giant is CR9 and has a +12 to hit with two attacks at 3d8+8. Admittedly a 3.5 cloud giant is rolling at +22/+17/+12 to hit, doing 4d6+18 damage (and a cloud giant has a THAC0 of 5).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Realistic in what way? That it looks realistic? Thats easily done. Just press a bit of metal sheet and you are done.

It also neads to be realistic enough for the actor to be able to move and not broil alive.

As a consumer you can buy a full plate armor for $3000-$5000. Actual movie productions would get it cheaper and thus it would be in line with many other medieval outfits and props. Thats hardly a big limiting factor considering the usual budgets movies have.

Out of the reach to have more than a couple on a TV budget. And for lead roles you need half a dozen copies of each costume. The gear was a major part of the budget of LotR, and even then the cheated with plastic rings for mail and lots of CGI. They used to use wool-knitted mail sprayed silver, but improved definitions make that out of the question now.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It's just struck me how much less effective armour and especially plate armour has got since WotC bought out TSR.

• In AD&D field plate is AC2 (and full plate is AC1). A basic orc has a THAC0 of 19 and so needs a 17 to hit field plate, doing 1d8 damage per attack vs a rolled 1d10 hp for a fighter.
• In 3.0/3.5 plate armour is AC+8 for AC 18. A basic orc is listed as having a +4 to attack, needing 14s, and doing 2d4+4 damage vs 10+con hp.
• In 4e with the extra starting hp and orcs being slightly higher level the situation isn't comparable. But plate armour is still pretty useless; AC 18 and a first level monster is at +6 to hit.
• In 5e our plate armour is still AC 18 (and with no dex possible) but our orc is now +5 to hit, needing 13s, doing 1d12+3 damage vs 10+con hp.

In AD&D and 3.X you could get some dex bonus to add to this. In 4e and 5e you can't. AD&D shields were +1 and WotC shields +2. Despite being comparatively rarely used together except with lances you want a shield with plate.

The situation is even more interesting with the humble kobold and its damage.

• The AD&D kobold has a THAC0 of 20 (one worse than the orc) and does 1-4 or 1-6 damage depending on weapon. A hail of slingstones need a few lucky hits to take down a fighter in plate and with a shield as they need 19s to hit.
• 3.X kobolds are +1 to hit (needing 19s on a shielded fighter) and do 1d6-1 damage with spears or +3 to hit and do 1d3-1 damage with slings. A fighter can tank both for quite a long time. The kobolds can hit with the slings of outrageous numbers, but the damage is puny.
• 4e kobolds again are non-comparable, especially as 4e separates the actual fighters from the miners (and makes kobold miners minions).
• 5e kobolds are +4 to hit at melee and range (needing 16s to hit our plate armour and shield fighter) and do 1d4+2 damage. That's gonna leave a mark, especially as they get advantage when mass-ganking someone. And it also means that whereas in both 3.5 and 5e you wanted to rush the shooters to force them into melee it won't do a lot here.

So why does WotC D&D have almost no respect for armour at all? I've two theories - the first is that a whiff-fest is boring and annoying, and the second is that it was a bug accidentally introduced in 3.0 when they moved monsters to effectively using PC rules. But I'm really not sure.

You are pretty correct IME on all of this.

But it is more because attack bonus (along with damage) have gone up (the idea that hitting is "more exciting" but for me the opposite is true) more so while armor has remained static. The counter to balance this was to bloat HP.

As others have said it was also to make lighter-armored PCs more on par with heavy armors. While pretty much historically false, this was to allow players to play the swashbuckling rogue (boo! hiss!) instead of the valiant knight (yeah! ).

Heavy armors do offer better protection and should still, while penalizing movement and other factors. In the quest for simplicity, such things just got lost IMO.

 

[prabe]

@Neonchameleon Fair enough. I'm not next to my books and didn't have the comparisons handy, and it seemed like a potential path to error. It occurs to me that 3.x is probably the only edition-family where you can look at the game and tell when the designers expected full plate to be available (treasure by level).

 

[Oofta]

Personally I think people in heavy armor should have much better AC than someone with a good dex unless it's Spider-Man levels of dexterity.

I understand why they did it but people just aren't physically capable of dodging fast enough to get out of the way of an arrow. Dex is way too powerful in 5E, there really isn't a good reason to wear heavy armor. With rapiers there's not even much of a reason to play a strength based character, even though I still do.

Oh well, it doesn't bother me enough to make house rules to compensate.

 

[DND_Reborn]

OK, let's look at ogres then - which are about when I'd expect to see plate appearing..

• AD&D: THAC0 17 (so 16 to hit field plate + shield), and either 1d10 or [weapon] + 6 damage AC5, 4+1hd (19ish)
• 3.X: +8 to hit (so 12s to hit full plate + shield), 2d8+7 damage. Or +1 to hit at range, d8+5 damage. AC16 29hp
• 5e:+6 to hit (so 14 to hit full plate + shield), 2d8+4 damage melee, 2d6+4 ranged. AC11, 59 (!) hp.

That 5e ogre is a bit of a bullet sponge compared to the rest.

A 5e cloud giant is CR9 and has a +12 to hit with two attacks at 3d8+8. Admittedly a 3.5 cloud giant is rolling at +22/+17/+12 to hit, doing 4d6+18 damage (and a cloud giant has a THAC0 of 5).

Right, but you might as well go all out and do full plate and shield for AC 0, since that is equal to plate and shield (AC 20) in 5E.

Then in AD&D (2E) you need 17 to hit AC 0, assuming d8 weapon would make 2.325 average DPR.
5E you need 14 or better to hit AC 20 for an average DPR of 5 points, over twice the DPR.

Compare that to say Studded Leather and DEX 17.

In AD&D, that would be AC 7 - 3 for AC 4. With the THAC0 17, the ogre needs 13 or better to hit, averaging 4.425 DPR.
In 5E, that is AC 12 + 3 for AC 15. With +6 attack, you only need a 9 to hit, averaging 8.25 DPR. Not quite twice the DPR, but close.

So, yes, armor counts for less (all armor really, but less so with lighter armors), and they counter it by boosting HP (easier CON bonuses in 3rd edition on), more healing to recover from the extra damage after each fight, etc.

And in general they did the same to ACs for the monsters. The ogre went from AC 15 (equivalent to AC 5 in AD&D), to AC 16, to AC 11, but hit points exploded increasing by 50% and then another 100% (19, 29, 59!). Damage output increases in each edition as well overall IME.

The net result, people hit more (yeah??) and get hit more (yeah???) but can take more (more yeah????) and dish it out more (even more yeah?????). Another side effect is since you are getting hit more in later editions, HP have to present abstract concepts even more so than in AD&D.

 

[Laurefindel]

To me, it seems that the observations you made are more about adversaries being more competent than armor being less useful.

Full plate had AC 1 in AD&D, full plate is now +8, the equivalent of AC 2 in AD&D.

Full plate is also 750gp now vs 4000 gp then, and shield bonus is +2 now vs -1 AC then. So full plate + shield is equivalent in 5e and AD&D.

What changed to most is monsters to hit % and damage (+5 is equivalent to THAC0 15 (or 16?), significantly higher than AD&D equivalent creatures.

Mind you, PC have more hp as well.

Still, I don’t feel the hatred for armor that you see in recent editions vs older editions

 

[FrogReaver]

Personally I think people in heavy armor should have much better AC than someone with a good dex unless it's Spider-Man levels of dexterity.

I understand why they did it but people just aren't physically capable of dodging fast enough to get out of the way of an arrow. Dex is way too powerful in 5E, there really isn't a good reason to wear heavy armor. With rapiers there's not even much of a reason to play a strength based character, even though I still do.

Oh well, it doesn't bother me enough to make house rules to compensate.

if you max any stat other than dex then heavy armor is useful