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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Derren" data-source="post: 6171451" data-attributes="member: 2518">Some threads in the D&D and Pathfinder forum I recently read showed how different the expectations of the workings armor and also general equipment progression is. Out of interest I want to hear from you what you prefer and if there is a broad consensus about it or if the opinions are mixed.ArmorOne complain from the latest D&D playtest is that light armor users can get a better protection than someone with heavy armor and shield while also having less disadvantages. But even when this is fixed, in recent D&D editions light armor users were always able to be nearly as hard to hit/damage than heavy armor users. The protection newly generated characters had were most of the time equal as long as the armor was matched to the dexterity score of the user.Personally I think such systems are a result of the popularity of swashbuckler characters like Jack Sparrow or even Indiana Jones. Such archetypes are very easy to emulate when you can keep up with the protection of frontline fighters while wearing no armor or just very little at all.On the other hand there are the heavily armored knights. People in plate armor, sometimes also with a shield, who are immune to many forms of attacks. At least that is the expectation of many players. And it is also not all that unfounded in history either as unless you had specially designed weapons, getting through plate armor in combat was quite tricky. In most RPGs there is also a downside to wear heavy armor. They often tend to be slower, have troubles doing some actions because the armor hinders them, the armor itself is expensive and not socially appropriate in many situations. And because of all those limitations, some born out of the urban myth that plate armor did turn knights into lumbering hulks hardly able to stand or walk, people expect characters wearing heavy armor to be much better protected than people without.What is your opinion on this divide? Should light armor protect as good, or nearly as good, as heavy armor or should heavy armor offer much more protection than light armor no matter the situation?Equipment progressionThis ties a bit into the armor debate but can be expanded to include all equipment or rather the statistics of characters. Again in the playtest package there were different tiers of armor for people to progress through. You had regular leather, dragon leather, etc. so basically the same system as in 4E where you kept your armor type but made it stronger by trading it for one with more prefixes.Some people were not too happy with that money is used for progress and rather wanted only a skill progression for characters, meaning that the armor or general equipment do not change over time but that the character gets better with inherent bonuses.If you answered that heavy armor should always be better than light armor above, then there is a third type of progression. Like the first type presented here it is a money progression, but instead of buying the next prefix you buy the next heavier type. Your leather armor turns into chain, your chain into plate, etc.Again I ask on your take on this. How much should money be used for progression and how much skill? And how should equipment get better, if at all, by getting better versions of the equipment you have or by getting better types of equipment?</blockquote>

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