Armor & Coins - please, No.

[nutluck]

Hmm. I can't think of any situation where the PCs were counting minutes to don armor.

If they were attacked while sleeping/not wearing armor (at a party, for example), they fought without it.

If they had time to prep, they put it on easily.

The different armor don times WERE realistic, but they also NEVER showed up in play, at least in my experience. Given that very few combats last even ten rounds, a character who spends a minute putting on armor might as well not show up. The only thing that tended to matter was putting on/taking off *shields*, whether to aboid the skill penalty or switch to a two handed weapon.

I have had it happen many times as a GM or as a player. As been stated if the PC's are in a place that is being attacked but are not the specific targets themselves. Then they have to debat. Take time to put on armor and maybe innocents die or take a risk and rush into combat with out armor and maybe get cut down to fast to be able to stop the attack.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

In 3E, adventurers accumulated gobs of wealth in order to afford the most expensive magic items. I was hoping that 4E would be moving away from that.

And previously, they accumulated cash and had nothing useful, in-game, to spend it on. I distinctly recall the AD&D2 PHB or DMG (one, I forget which) recommending castles and land grants as useful money sponges because they'd obviously generate far less in revenue than they cost to upkeep (...how everyone else in a castle afforded it was deliberately left unclear...).

Presumably money'll still be useful in some way, at least in commerce (buying ships, land, magic items, ale, hookers, etc).

Certainly, having super-high-value-gems makes large transactions simpler. Remember, gold pieces are heavy, at 50/pound. That means a 2000 gp +1 longsword is worth as much as 40 pounds of gold, which is a really big pain in the rear end to move around.

(I just had this image of a magic item mart combined with a bank, that allowed financial transactions without the hassle of renting out carts and donkeys to move bricks of gold around...think like how the major auto manufacturers have their banks associated with them...)

Brad

 

[Sir Sebastian Hardin]

Warforged Warlord in Warplate with a Warhammer on a Warhorse... all of it illustrated by Wayne Reynolds (aka "WAR")

Don't forget he dipped a level in Warlock for a Star pact....


And that he like's Andy Warhol's art

 

[Moon-Lancer]

Well yeah, it literally says so on that page... Read the lower part of the utmost left paragraph.

Light armor: Int or Dex modifier
Heavy armor: no modifier at all

lol

 

[Wolfspider]

I would, but I don't have enough spunk.

By which I mean courage, obviously.

Come, come! Enough of this innuendo!

 

[HarbingerX]

And previously, they accumulated cash and had nothing useful, in-game, to spend it on. I distinctly recall the AD&D2 PHB or DMG (one, I forget which) recommending castles and land grants as useful money sponges because they'd obviously generate far less in revenue than they cost to upkeep (...how everyone else in a castle afforded it was deliberately left unclear...).

That was one thing I really missed in 3e. In BD&D, 1st (and I guess 2nd), once certain classes reached the class' 'named' level (around 10th) they started to attract followers - whether they liked it or not. So inevitably they started becoming a power center of their own and became involved in politics of 'the realm'. A whole new range of play opened at this point in the character development. 3e seemed to very heavily discourage hirelings/henchmen (you had to use one of your feats) and instead focused the game on the individual instead of the campaign setting. While I doubt we'll see those rules re-appear, I think I'll house rule them back in.

 

[Pbartender]

What upsets me... why does WotC have this fetish with 'lightning bolt' shape shields? Can't a feller just get a blue circular shield with a red yellow cross on it? Sheesh!

That and asymmetrical clothing and armor. Guh. "I just bought a full suit of plate armor... It protects everything except my left elbow. Good thing I've got my lightning-shaped shield to cover that up." Blecch. :\

 

[jaer]

Makes sense to me; quick wits rather than quick hands. Judging your opponents attack pattern; thinking through your defense; not doing anything stupid.)

I don't see it as having anything to do with judging attacks and thinking through defense. It has everything to do with reaction time and mental chronometry.

In order to reaction to anything, there is a mental aspect to it. Recognizing a threat, identifying stimuli. This is subconcious, and in D&D terms, I can understand how such a purely mental act would be given unto Intelligence. It shows speed of thought. Think of this as the immediate "fight or fligh" response in the mind...or in the case of combat, "dodge or block." Your brain controls the impulse.

To react physically to something, you need physical movement, obviously. Raising the shield, jumping out of the way, what have you. This movement cannot happen before a mental process has occured and the brain has stimulated the muscles into action, or rather, into reaction to the interrepted stimuli. This movement is represented by Dexterity.

Therefore, total reaction time = mental reaction + physical reaction.

Initative, Reflex saves, and Armor Class make sense being dictated by either Intelligence or Dex, and in fact, would make greater sense to have them be adjusted by both. Someone who is exceedingly nimble and graceful might not react quickly to stimuli because of slow mental reaction, even though once the brain processes, he can physically move very quickly.

So a high int wizard can be as good at dodging a fireball or sword strike as a high dex rogue, but not because he quickly calculated the trajetory and knew how to get out of the way. His sharper mind reacted to the threat of the attack even before the rogue did, so he was moving to dodge the attack before the rogue does. The rogue, once he starts to react, physically moves faster. But the time the fireball explodes, they have "caught up" to each other and safely ducked out of the way, the wizard because he moved a second or so before the rogue, and the rogue because he moved with greater speed.

 

[Khuxan]

By my calculations there is the equivalent of 50,000 astral diamonds in Fort Knox. The amount of gold represented by an astral diamond is not a huge amount in today's money: $2,800,000 US. It's reasonable that adventurers would be millionaires and, in a world without cheques or banks, would find a portable way of carrying wealth.

(My maths may be way off - I was using a computer calculator and got distracted sometimes)

 

[GnomeWorks]

I don't see it as having anything to do with judging attacks and thinking through defense. I has everything to do with reaction tmioe and mental chronometry.

I really like this reasoning.