Armor & Coins - please, No.

[delericho]

Medium armor simply was not used enough to warrant inclusion in 4e (at least, that is the way all my games have played out).

By the same token, they should remove all heavy armours except full plate, because I never saw those used. Likewise bucklers, tower shields, and padded armour.

I did see elven chain, breastplates and (less commonly) hide armour fairly often.

 

[Pale Jackal]

The special armor names suck horribly. Other than that, this all looks pretty good to me.

Yeah, the 5 minutes thing isn't entirely realistic, but how often is that actually going to come up? Why waste player cognitive space on it? The important point is that you can't don armor in the middle of combat.

As for medium armor--good riddance. Except where mithral versions and 1st-level characters were concerned, medium armor was just wasted space in 3E, and I don't see the point in trying to fix it. Just let the light and heavy armors kill it and take its stuff.

What he said.

 

[Cadfan]

By the same token, they should remove all heavy armours except full plate, because I never saw those used. Likewise bucklers, tower shields, and padded armour.

You're misunderstanding. Its not that the "armors which were medium" were removed. The category "medium armor" was removed. The category "medium armor" was something to be tolerated because you couldn't afford better, or avoided through the use of Mithril.

What does seem to have been removed are the partial armors. "Breastplate" and "Chain Shirt." Plus a little consolidation seems to have taken place on certain other armors.

 

[Saishu_Heiki]

By the same token, they should remove all heavy armours except full plate, because I never saw those used. Likewise bucklers, tower shields, and padded armour.

I did see elven chain, breastplates and (less commonly) hide armour fairly often.

Fair enough. Your players used different armors than any of mine. I have run games literally from coast to coast (due to being in the Army), and I always saw medium armor jettisoned after 1st or 2nd level. It was an unnecessary addition for the people that I played with, they would not have missed it if I houseruled it out.

I do agree, though that half-plate was used even less.

 

[Steely Dan]

So, it looks like copper pieces are still in…joy.

 

[RandomCitizenX]

Fair enough. Your players used different armors than any of mine. I have run games literally from coast to coast (due to being in the Army), and I always saw medium armor jettisoned after 1st or 2nd level. It was an unnecessary addition for the people that I played with, they would not have missed it if I houseruled it out.

I do agree, though that half-plate was used even less.

From personal experience medium armor was usually only a stop gap until heavy armor could be afforded.

 

[delericho]

You're misunderstanding. Its not that the "armors which were medium" were removed. The category "medium armor" was removed. The category "medium armor" was something to be tolerated because you couldn't afford better, or avoided through the use of Mithril.

Actually, since they've dropped to only six armour types (cloth, leather, hide, chain, scale, plate), they have removed almost all of the armours I cited.

As for the Medium category, I found it very useful. It created a mid-way point between the lightly-armoured Rogues and the heavily-armoured Fighters - a mid-way point that was ideal for Barbarians and Druids.

The only problem I had with Medium armours took for form of Mithral Full Plate, which was one of the factors rendering the Barbarian overpowered (alongside the Animated shield and two-handed Power Attack).

 

[Mr Jack]

Since it looks like they got ride of Armor Check Penalty for 4E, there's no mechanical benefit to having the old 3E version of "masterwork" in the game

Where are you getting the notion that Armour Check Penalty is gone from? I can't see anything to support that; and the sample characters for DDXP certainly look like they've had armour check penalties applied to some of their skills.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Technically dragonskin armor is always a bit creepy. D&D dragons are a sentient race, so its about up there with an elf skin jerkin or a cloak made of ripped off fairy wings.

I don't have problems with it for two reasons.

First, dragons can and do eat people in myth and in game. I have no issue returning the favor and using their useful bits, especially since they're not anthropomorphic.

Second, it has been stated numerous times that dragons shed scales. As such, it's a simple* matter to gather the scales and use those in armor construction.

* - For varying values of simple, from "strip off the carcass" to "pay the dragon for his castoff scales".

Brad

 

[delericho]

Where are you getting the notion that Armour Check Penalty is gone from? I can't see anything to support that; and the sample characters for DDXP certainly look like they've had armour check penalties applied to some of their skills.

The sidebar in the sample pages makes reference to a "Check Penalty", so I would have thought it was still there.