Are they fixing medium armor in the revision?

[diaglo]

Chain Shirt +4 AC +4 Max Dex (light armor) -2 skill check
Breastplate +5 AC +3 Max Dex (Medium Armor) -3 Skill check
Full Plate +8 AC +1 Max Dex (Heavy Armor) -ungodly amount skill check

i basically agree. and for other reasons too. sleeping in armor. donning armor. encumberance.

plus add MW and/ or mithril and you really see the bennies even before you start adding magic.

 

[kenjib]

Basically there are only three types of armor that generally get worn just because they are optimal.

Chain Shirt +4 AC +4 Max Dex (light armor) -2 skill check
Breastplate +5 AC +3 Max Dex (Medium Armor) -3 Skill check
Full Plate +8 AC +1 Max Dex (Heavy Armor) -ungodly amount skill check

I guess I've just never seen anyone go with breastplate. Why let your mobility be so drastically cut back for only 1 AC benefit over chain shirt? Another way to spread it out more smoothly might have been to have breastplate grant a +6 +2 Max Dex benefit. It might have made the movement hit more worth the benefit.

 

[Hardhead]

I've seen people go with Mithral Breatplate before, but that's it.

Of course, most of my group wears mithral chainshirts at the moment. I, personally, feel that mitral is too cheep for chain shirts.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

If you want a campaign where medium armor is useful, try Arcanis. By adding Lorica Segmentata as a medium armor (+5 armor, +4 max dex, -3 armor check penalty, 20% spell failure, Special ability: still allows 30' movement), they made medium a very popular armor category. Essentially they attract the characters with enough dex bonus and movement features not to want fullplate but without evasion (which would commit them to chain shirts of some kind or other).

Based on that, I would say that the best ways to make medium armor useful would be to allow 30' movement or to increase the max dex. Kicking the armor bonus up to +6 for breastplates would also do the trick.

Without that, the kinds of optimal armor are much more limited:

Low level:
leather, mwk studded leather (for high dex rogues who don't want an armor check penalty)
Chain Shirt (for rogues who don't care about the check penalty, barbarians who want fast movement, and archers)
Chain Mail (for starting fighters with dex bonusses)
Splint Mail (for fighters, clerics, paladins, etc without dex bonusses)

Low-mid level:
leather, mwk studded leather (rogues who can't get a mithral chain shirt)
Mithral chain shirt (archers, rogues)
Chain Shirt (Barbarianas who want fast movement)
Breastplate (Fighters with mediocre dex going for spring attack)
Fullplate (Everyone with proficiency and low dex)

Mid level:
Mithral Chain Shirt: very high dex characters
Chain Shirt: low-mediocre dex barbarian types
Mithral Breastplate: Mediocre dex characters
Fullplate: everyone else

High level:
Bracers of Armor (Characters with very high dex and/or Bladesong/Canny Defense, etc)
Mithral Chain Shirt (Characters with modified 22+ dex)
Mithral Breastplate (Characters with modified 20 dex)
Mithral Fullplate (low dex characters with gloves of dex)
Fullplate (low dex characters who don't invest in dex items)

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I asked AC this exact question a couple weeks back, and the answer I got was (paraphasing):

"No. Medium armor will remain the armor of choice for low-level characters, spring attacking fighters, and barbarians everywhere."

 

[mmu1]

I guess I've just never seen anyone go with breastplate. Why let your mobility be so drastically cut back for only 1 AC benefit over chain shirt? Another way to spread it out more smoothly might have been to have breastplate grant a +6 +2 Max Dex benefit. It might have made the movement hit more worth the benefit.

I've seen it used - it's ok for archers, for example, since they don't care nearly as much about their move as other characters.

It also becomes a good choice when people actually start paying attention to carrying weight, because more characters then you'd think are actually at Medium Load and 20' move when you add it all up, so why not go for the +1 AC without the added weight and huge armor check penalty of Heavy armor?

Both of these were only a factor in games with characters created with low point-buy values, though... With higher stats, archers will be better off with Chain Shirts, and load stops being an issue.

 

[gariig]

IMC everyone did chain shirts, mithral chain shirts, leather or MW studded. One thing is that encumberance wasn't enforced.

I kind of like the idea of medium being full speed, x3 run, and maybe high dex penalty/high check penalty.

Gariig

 

[Sejs]

The way I've seen it go down in various games is that people like the added protection from medium armor, but the mobility hit is just problematic. Mithral is the easy solution to that, as it lightens the armor one category, but .. uh.. I can't speak for everyone, but I don't like the idea that everyone as their mom has mithral armor the second they can afford it. I thought it was supposed to be rare, mysterious stuff.


So to that end, I took a note from Quint Dwarf and added in a couple of additional armor options that could be included with a suit of armor when it's being made: namely, Articulate. +400gp to the price of the armor, craft Dc 25 to produce it, treat the armor as being one category lighter for the purposes of movement.

Seems to have worked out pretty well.