D&D 5E (2014) Any One Have Variant Armor Rules?

[Zardnaar]

As the title says. I would like some where the numbers tave been tweaked and medium armor is not so crap.

Also where studded leather and plate is not automatically the best and you get rewarded for dumping strength or dexterity all of the time.

 

[l0lzero]

I am working on expanding the mundane armors list, and this is what I have come up with so far, if this helps. Mostly light armors, a couple medium, and one heavy which is a more flexible at the cost of an AC platemail, removing the disadvantage on stealth in exchange for a 17 ac base. Think samurai armor. Not 100% this is what you're looking for, but I too was looking to expand armor (and weapon) options to be more diverse and representative of historical armors across more than just European cultures, so I figured I'd throw it up for you. I can also add the weapons if you want, but both the weapon and armor tables are merged into a single document which I can also attach later if you'd like.

View attachment New Mundane Armors.docx

Edit: You could also make the armors out of special materials, for instance, the hide armor could be made of dragonhide (or another similarly tough beast), or that it is made from a more flexible material that would let you use more of your dex (at the cost of being priced higher, obviously). Like, for instance, say that mithral half-plate lets you use dex up to +3 (or 4, or 5, whatever, your game, do whatever), or that you can get rhino-hide studded leather and it's 13+dex, or something along those lines. It's a fantasy game so hell you could say that there's an amulet that creates a suit of full plate out of force that lets you have the 18 ac of full plate but still apply your dex bonus to AC. If you're playing, it'd probably be a tough sell for a DM, but some kind of wondrous item that puts up a mage armor effect (base 13+dex+shield+misc) in lieu of actual armor wouldn't be too powerful. Hell, lizardfolk, dragon sorcs, warlocks, and wizards all have access to a 13+fulldex ac calculation, that doesn't break the game, so an item that does it shouldn't break anything either. Just depends on the style of game you play.

 

[jaelis]

Just a small tweak: the crap armors of each type (padded, hide, ring) can be used without penalty by a character with one level lower proficiency. So a wizard could use padded armor effectively with just the stealth penalty.

 

[Blue]

Medium armors are some of the best on the list.

At the tables I play at, a moderate (+1-2ish) investment in dex seems very reasonable. Cheap in point buy, grants init, AC, dex saves, good skills, etc.

So let's look compare the armors. Light armor loses out to medium armor unless you are doing a heavy dex focus. Let's say 20% of characters are Dex-all-the-way.

Heavy armor requires not only the rarest armor prof, but also Strength. Sure, you can dump Dex but you got to spend the same points into Str to avoid the movement penalty, and Str is a lot less useful than Dex. Let's say another 20% of the party is Strengthbound.

That leaves the majority of the party with medium armor as their best choice. If you improved it, even the Dex-focus and Str-focus people would want it and everyone who end up with the same armor.

Best if it's a hair worse then the others to encourage diversity.

 

[Horwath]

Medium armour is crep tbh.

only one usefull is breastplate to a degree.

When you get 18 dex it evens out with studded leather in AC value but studded leather is better in any other category then.

If you boost your dex to 14 then you want to use it, i.e. stealth, so that burns half medium armours right away.

Medium armour is a bad category and should be deleted.

Light and heavy only.

 

[cbwjm]

I agree with Blue and believe medium armour is fine as is. I have a dwarven ranger with 14 Dex running around in half-plate which is as good as studded leather with a 20 Dex and is only 1 off the AC of full-plate. I often feel that people hate on medium armour due to wanting to boost Strength or Dexterity with no points in the other one.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I often feel that people hate on medium armour due to wanting to boost Strength or Dexterity with no points in the other one.

To me it seems more that people are operating under the assumption that a score will either be at it's maximum possible value, or it will be 10 or less - so they just don't think that any character would have a +2 dexterity modifier.

 

[TallIan]

To me it seems more that people are operating under the assumption that a score will either be at it's maximum possible value, or it will be 10 or less - so they just don't think that any character would have a +2 dexterity modifier.

I think this. Also I miss the move penalties imposed by heavier armour.

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[AaronOfBarbaria]

Also I miss the move penalties imposed by heavier armour.

Most heavy armors do have move penalties, assuming the players involved aren't outright refusing to use heavy armor on characters that don't meet the strength requirement to avoid them (a cleric in one of my campaigns wears heavy armor because he doesn't have a great dex, and suffers movement penalty because he also doesn't have a great strength, but he still wants the best AC he can manage so he wouldn't dream of downgrading to medium or light armor).

 

[discosoc]

Only alternate rules I use is I allow players to "break" armor or shields to ignore crits. Breaking results in a -2 to AC, and has to be repaired (1/4 gold value of item, or with smithing tools).