Armor & Coins - please, No.

[Stoat]

I gotta put Freud on the same level as Einstein, world-changing historical figure wise.

So: Sigmund Freud vs. the Pirates!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I never liked how 3E really only really had three armors, total: mithril chain shirt, mithril breastplate, and mithril full plate. Everyone pretty much just used the best armor for each category. Sure, Druids wore Hide, but that's the exception.

Here's a novel thought: Don't give every player at the table everything he wants.

 

[Eldorian]

I gotta put Freud on the same level as Einstein, world-changing historical figure wise.

If you honestly believe that, it makes me sad. Einstein revolutionized how we view reality. No doubts about it. Space and time linked with mass? That's Einstein. I think most psychologists, even ones who think Freud had something to say and wasn't full of crap (which many believed then and now), will say that Einstein contributed more to humanity than Freud.

Enough hijack. Einstein is almost worshiped by scientists for a reason.

 

[DandD]

And what if they simply buy the armor they want with their money?

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

*Raises Hand*
I worship Einstein, and the Wright Brothers, Darwin, Oppenheimer, Hawkings, Magellan, Kant, the nameless Indian mathmatician who invented 0, vonBraun. I even have a little shrine with pictures.
*What it's not that strange, I've seen shrines to the Wright Brothers on aircraft carriers so I know I'm not alone.*
Back to the actual topic, I think they may have reduced the armors a bit too far and will be forced to add more back in with subsequent books. Removing masterwork is also probably not so great an idea given the purpose it served.

 

[wgreen]

Removing masterwork is also probably not so great an idea given the purpose it served.

The purpose it served was to be expensive and reduce armor check penalties by one. No big deal. You can still put fancy armor in treasure piles and say it's worth more than usual.

-Will

 

[Lizard]

Since NPC in 4e don't "really" wear armor -- they just have an AC appropriate to their level and role -- you can just describe the town guard as wearing studded leather or the local mercenaries as breastplate wearing roman-type dudes, and not bother with making sure they have on "real" armor.

This just falls into the category of "Who asked for this?". I really want to see WOTC's marketing surveys some time, just to see how many people said "There's too many kinds of armor" or "halflings are too short!"

(Lizard says, this was probably done to simplify the DDI virtual tabletop-- fewer armor types==fewer different models...)

 

[Charwoman Gene]

"halflings are too short!"

People have been saying that consistently since 3E. They shrunk their height by a foot, and got rid of the "chunkiness" (In limb proportion) and it made them ridiculous.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

Here's a novel thought: Don't give every player at the table everything he wants.

Here's a novel thought: it's not the job of the DM to fix bad game design. If the PHB has a lot of armor types that no one would choose to use after level 4, that's the designer wasting space in the core rules.

 

[hong]

Since NPC in 4e don't "really" wear armor -- they just have an AC appropriate to their level and role -- you can just describe the town guard as wearing studded leather or the local mercenaries as breastplate wearing roman-type dudes, and not bother with making sure they have on "real" armor.

This just falls into the category of "Who asked for this?". I really want to see WOTC's marketing surveys some time, just to see how many people said "There's too many kinds of armor" or "halflings are too short!"

I do recall quite a few people saying there's too many kinds of armour, or at least not enough meaningful differentiation between armour types. But adding more meaningful differentiation sets us on the road to 1E-style AC bonus vs damage type, which no sane person wants.