Armor and Encumbrance

[Sadrik]

I have never really been a fan how armor was treated with spellcasters and with encumbrance. So here is my thought:
Encumbrance should dictate if you are under the effects of heavy armor (-5 speed and no dex bonus)
Encumbrance should dictate if you are able to cast arcane spells

One other thing armor training could reduce the effective weight of armor, ie make it less likely to affect your encumbrance.

If you are a magically endowed 25 strength fighter, you should not be affected by heavy armor, period. It should be like wearing clothes, albeit slightly more bulky and noisy but this should not affect your speed, just squeezing through passages and trying to sneak past guards.

So I don't know what the numbers should be and what the points are that you are considered not encumbered but this is a very sound approach in my opinion.

 

[delericho]

One other thing armor training could reduce the effective weight of armor, ie make it less likely to affect your encumbrance.

This is a good thought. Encumbrance isn't just a matter of raw weight - how the weight is distributed is also a key factor. And so, it makes a lot of sense that armour training could reduce, not the weight, but the effect of that weight.

If you are a magically endowed 25 strength fighter, you should not be affected by heavy armor, period. It should be like wearing clothes, albeit slightly more bulky and noisy but this should not affect your speed, just squeezing through passages and trying to sneak past guards.

This I don't agree with, however. There's a reason professional athletes wear the clothes they do - constrictive clothing, even made out of light materials, will significantly impact your ability to do acrobatics. If those constrictive 'clothes' are made out of heavy metals, the impact is going to be much more telling - if anything, the armour check penalties should be much higher than they are, at least for some applications.

Now, conceivably a character's strength could reach a point where plate armour is no worse for them than normal clothes for a normal person. But if we're using a 3e-like scale for strength, that point comes way above 25 Str. And even in that case, that's likely better modelled by just letting them apply their much-increased Str bonus to the roll, rather than reducing the penalty - the effect is the same, but the math is that much cleaner.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I do like the idea of using encumbrance to dictate when your movement is penalised and whether or not you can cast arcane spells - it correctly makes strong characters gravitate towards heavy armour and wizards to just robes. Proficiency reducing the effective weight is also good.

I do think that 'check penalties' though should be based on the armour itself - at the end of the day, clanking platemail is always going to be noisier than leather.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I do think that 'check penalties' though should be based on the armour itself - at the end of the day, clanking platemail is always going to be noisier than leather.

Platemail does not clank! (But it can clatter. ) And leather can be a lot noisier if it isn't properly oiled, often. Oh, and the quietest armor you can wear is mail. It rustles! (It is, after all, a weave. A metal weave, but still a weave.)

 

[Derren]

Platemail does not clank! (But it can clatter. )

And quite a lot
Gladiatoria : Part 1/6 : Swordfight in Armour : Hammaborg - YouTube

 

[Sadrik]

I do like the idea of using encumbrance to dictate when your movement is penalised and whether or not you can cast arcane spells - it correctly makes strong characters gravitate towards heavy armour and wizards to just robes. Proficiency reducing the effective weight is also good.

I do think that 'check penalties' though should be based on the armour itself - at the end of the day, clanking platemail is always going to be noisier than leather.

I agree, perhaps something very simple could work, x2 strength compared to armor weight to determine if you get 0 dex and -5 speed.

Example: 16 strength fighter treats armor + shield of 32 lbs. or less as light and everything else as heavy.

Very clean. In this way the 25 strength fighter is good in 50 lbs. or less of armor/shield.

 

[howandwhy99]

Encumbrance covers bulk as well as mass weight carried. Armor is designed to not be bulky per the wearer, but the weight is still carried. It doesn't dissipate depending on how you wear it. It's about were the weight is being supported. Weight is determined normally for armor during creation, but its coin encumbrance is lessened in part due to the shaping of the armor. Armor Proficiency removes the penalty to operating with more or less restrictive armors.

I agree armor training should probably reduce bulk encumbrance as well, but it's probably too fiddly to ask for in core.

Strength effects(sic) Encumbrance, so a STR 25 character isn't worried about the weight. OTOH, they are acting like Superman with Lois to not treat the steel armor like flaxen cloth. Steel doesn't wear well as an oft-flexed material, so wearing it like clothes (which this guy could do) actually destroys the armor.

Speed historically wasn't affected by armor in D&D, so maybe that could be brought back? Or maybe speed maximums by armor instead? (Barring a Mr. Storm Giant Strength above pulling a Run, Forest, Run)

Also, there is something to be said about how arcane spell casting required unrestricted movement, but armor did not historically alter or limit DEX adjustments to AC. I think another explanation could be created.