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

[DND_Reborn]

Shield master only applies if the PC is the only target. The only way that makes sense if it's a dex save for something that has only a single target, so it almost never happens.

At least that's how I interpret it because it doesn't make sense if you get a bonus if you happen to be the only target of a fireball but not if someone else happens to be standing 20 feet away and also in the fireball.

Oh well, hardly the only issue I have with that feat.

Oh, sure, with that feat you have to be the only target (such as Disintegrate), but the only times you aren't (that I can think of anyway) are AoE spells and those you can take no damage from if you make the save (or of like Evasion, but costs your reaction).

I remember for a while we had a house-rule for Defensive Fighting Style that you could use your reaction to take half damage from a weapon attack when you were wearing your armor. Not quite as good as Uncanny Dodge, but along those lines.

 

[billd91]

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

<snip>

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

In a sense, you're right. Adversaries are more competent, in no small part because of 3e innovations like adding strength bonuses to combat, regularizing the attack bonuses, and having regular advancement rules for the monsters rather than the hodgepodge of humanoid leadership that varied widely from creature to creature. Those changes do alter the relationship between humanoids and character ACs a bit.

One of the reasons I'm enjoying 5e is that some of the armor assumptions are restored in the way that they max out to an easily managed range and produce reasonably predictable hits/misses without excessive number bloat, widely varying attack bonuses, and ACs that increase with level "just because" - much more like 1e/2e than either 3e or 4e.

 

[Dausuul]

From a pure numbers perspective I don't see a reason to ever focus on strength for a fighter or paladin unless you want to grapple. Not even sure I see it for any class other than maybe barbarian.

Depends on whether feats are allowed. GWM and Polearm Master are among the best combat feats in the game, and both require Strength-based weapons.

In a featless game, I would tend to agree with you.

 

[Oofta]

Depends on whether feats are allowed. GWM and Polearm Master are among the best combat feats in the game, and both require Strength-based weapons.

In a featless game, I would tend to agree with you.

They're okay feats, I just don't think it counterbalances enough when you take everything into consideration. I also don't remember seeing anyone that actually used them except for a monk that had PAM, but then he use dex and a quarterstaff. It certainly doesn't help the iconic sword-and-shield type fighter.

In my home campaign I can house rule shield master into something useful and then the strength build is justified. But as is the shield master with the "clarification" that the shove can only happen after all attacks have been completed is largely pointless IMHO.

In any case, I just think someone in full plate with a shield should be significantly better than any other person that isn't relying on supernatural abilities. Just like longbows should be strength based.

It's just one of those things that I'd change, dex builds are over-compensated IMHO. YMMV.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I think medium and heavy armour should offer some form of damage reduction (which a lot of non-D&D RPGs do), or temp HP. But I feel that it might mess around the the basic math of the game.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yeah, that is the trend, for better or worse.

Ayup.

Connect HP to STR and remove CON from the game... that would fix it.

Just undo some of the eleven* changes boosting Dex builds between 5E and 3E.

Just look at Pathfinder 2 for a mainstream game where you simply can't ignore Strength as a martial character, and where range carries a definite cost.

So, no you don't have to add in changes someone might find esoteric or drastic. You can just have D&D use certain basic rules it has successfully used for decades.

*) I really can't find the old post where I enumerated the ways 5E took away the long-standing mechanisms that were keeping range and dex in check, and came up with no less than 11 of them...

 

[Ancalagon]

Back in the 80s that was decently realistic burly men like Schwarzenegger.

I'm going to stop you there - Schwarzenegger was not realistically burly. very few people were burly like that, ever.

That being said, yes, dex is OP in 5e.

 

[Blue]

The Increasing Effectiveness of the Orc across Editions

• 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.

We can see that from needing a 9 or higher to hit an unarmored opponent and averaging 4.5 hp of damage in AD&D, the mighty orc now needs a 5 or higher to hit an unarmored opponent and averages 9.5 HPs. That's a massive increase in expected damage against AC 10 from 2.7 (60% of 4.5) up to 7.6 (80% of 9.5). Truly, the orc has grown mighty.

Armor, on the other hand, has stayed about the same. Plate in AD&D was 8 steps better than unarmored, and in 5e it is also 8 steps better than unarmored.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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

I'm pretty certain it's this.

Why? Because countless games with randomized attacks have found the same exact thing - whiff-fests are boring and annoying. If you go around the table and it's just miss miss miss, it's like, why are we even here? It doesn't even fit the fiction. Hence most MMOs, ARPGs, CRPGs and the like have a 96-100% hit rate when fighting "appropriate" creatures. Some it is lower but it still tends to be pretty high for the PCs.

 

[Derren]

I'm pretty certain it's this.

Why? Because countless games with randomized attacks have found the same exact thing - whiff-fests are boring and annoying. If you go around the table and it's just miss miss miss, it's like, why are we even here? It doesn't even fit the fiction. Hence most MMOs, ARPGs, CRPGs and the like have a 96-100% hit rate when fighting "appropriate" creatures. Some it is lower but it still tends to be pretty high for the PCs.

Which causes other problems like for example in Starfinder were people start to come to the conclusion that there is no point in investing much resources into armor because the enemy will hit anyway thanks to the way monsters are build for "fun" (= very high attack, low AC).