Armor & Coins - please, No.

[Khuxan]

The problem is I should have bolded 4/5 of the quote I was replying to, but I didn't think that would be necessary, really. The idea of including rules for stuff that is largely ignored by the PCs is a quaint one, these days.

But you can still do what WheresMyD20 talked about in 4E. It's just now chainmail isn't largely ignored by the PCs. Everyone wins.

 

[small pumpkin man]

But you can still do what WheresMyD20 talked about in 4E. It's just now chainmail isn't largely ignored by the PCs. Everyone wins.

Let's be honest here, we don't actually whether real world players will use chain, since it's exactly the same as plate, but with -2 AC. Maybe it has cool useful powers, maybe it's just not worth the feat(s) for a Cleric to get Plate, but as it looks, Full Plate is just better, so it's quite possible nothing has changed.

 

[Khuxan]

Let's be honest here, we don't actually whether real world players will use chain, since it's exactly the same as plate, but with -2 AC. Maybe it has cool useful powers, maybe it's just not worth the feat(s) for a Cleric to get Plate, but as it looks, Full Plate is just better, so it's quite possible nothing has changed.

Aye, there's the rub. There's a cost for chain that didn't exist in earlier editions. So something has changed.

 

[Maltrok]

Me personally, I'm not buying 4e until they bring back Ring and Splint mail!
[/tongue in cheek]

In reality, I always thought "the great wheel" syndrome took over after the list grew beyond None, Shield, Leather, Chain and Plate mail. Chain shirt? Plate Armor versus Plate Mail vs Full Plate, etc. I'll give ya Scale mail looks cool. But Hide? Buckler versus Small Shield, Large Shield, Tower Shield. And people wonder why it's hard to get new people into D&D.

Personally, I'm a fan of KISS:
None = Casters, Leather = Strikers, Chain = Controllers, Plate = Tanks
Call them or draw them as you like, but a reduction in complexity for complexity's (or simulationism's) sake seems like a good move to me.

 

[Khuxan]

Personally, I'm a fan of KISS:
None = Casters, Leather = Strikers, Chain = Controllers, Plate = Tanks
Call them or draw them as you like, but a reduction in complexity for complexity's (or simulationism's) sake seems like a good move to me.

I like having one armor per AC bonus, or thereabouts. It means armor proficiency can be easily balanced. Plus, why would would wizards (controllers) wear heavier armor than rogues (strikers)?

I believe they've gotten rid of bucklers and tower shields (I could be mistaken) so that'd be a step in the right direction.

 

[The Sword 88]

Getting rid of bucklers and towershields is a bad thing, not a good thing.

Bucklers were great for a light fighter who used two weapon fighting and took improved buckler defense and a tower shield was nice if the party tank just wanted to tank and not worry so much about doing damage. A MW buckler was perfect for the tumbling sneak attacking rogue since it gave him a bit more AC with no real drawback since it had a check penalty of 0. I liked having those options in the game.

I dont see how removing them keeps things simple enough to offset an actual loss in useful things.

As for the loss of medium armor, I really wont miss it, I only used it until I could afford full plate anyways.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Personally, I'm a fan of KISS:
None = Casters, Leather = Strikers, Chain = Controllers, Plate = Tanks
Call them or draw them as you like, but a reduction in complexity for complexity's (or simulationism's) sake seems like a good move to me.

I think I agree with you here, for the most part. But it remains to be seen whether or not your choices in 4e have been reduced all the way down to two: Light or Heavy.

It's boring (most obviously) for the simulationists, but coming at it (as I usually do) from a gamist perspective, I'm bored with just two categories.

It's a given that players are going to push their AC as high as possible as soon as possible, but using that as an argument for reductionism you might as well just start all players at AC20 and hand-wave all of the fluffy, simulationist details-- leather and buckler and DEX is indistinguishable from the lumbering tank in plate and heavy shield. By 3rd or 4th level, all characters/armors are indistinguishable except for how many magical bonuses they've managed to accumulate.

 

[WheresMyD20]

The problem is I should have bolded 4/5 of the quote I was replying to, but I didn't think that would be necessary, really. The idea of including rules for stuff that is largely ignored by the PCs is a quaint one, these days.

I think I may not have stated my point very well. Chain mail won't be ignored by the PCs if they want to equip and field an army. Even if they don't, there's a good reason why NPC soldiers would wear chain instead of plate. There's a niche for chain in the game. It's the low-cost alternative to plate. Just because PCs might not have a reason to wear chain mail armor doesn't mean that it should just be tossed out of the game.

 

[Maltrok]

I like having one armor per AC bonus, or thereabouts. It means armor proficiency can be easily balanced. Plus, why would would wizards (controllers) wear heavier armor than rogues (strikers)?

I believe they've gotten rid of bucklers and tower shields (I could be mistaken) so that'd be a step in the right direction.

Sorry, I didn't mean controllers, obviously. What I mean is heavy, medium, light, none categories to fit the front line, support, ranged and casters categories.

Generally, people get the best armor they are allowed to/can afford to get. You won't see many fighters past their first adventure failing to don plate the second they get back to the big city (unless they are two weapon fighters or the like in which case they'll take whatever the best armor they can get and not compromise their attacks).

Having a different armor per AC is excessive because people don't tailor to a particular AC; imagine having a player say, I could be at AC 12, but I'm going to stick with these furs and shield instead, even though it keeps me at AC 6. Yeah, people dedicated to keeping their player fully in character no matter the cost might do this, but that's a relatively small portion of players (well, that I've ever played with).

Also, with ACs able to go to whatever they like now, it's clearly not practical to have one per AC anymore. Granted back in the 1e days there were 9 or so achievable ACs from non-magical means and they filled out the wheel and had a different armor combo for basically all of them. How many people used Padded, Studded Leather, Ring or Splint mail, though? Magic-Users wore nothing, Thieves wore Leather, and everyone else wore Plate as soon as they could. So, in effect there were two armors that people chose to wear (unless you houseruled chain onto some classes, etc.). 2e basically didn't change this at all but added Full Plate, which those who could started wearing. I can't speak for 3/3.5 with any expertise, so I won't.

Though there could be a very large number of different armors, the reality is there are only about 3-4 types that people use. I say, better to have the system support the reality than fill the wheel.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

To me, Light and Heavy armour kind of makes more sense than having Medium as well. Astral diamonds seem fine too. They're just a measure of exchange, not necessarily "froooom the AAAAAASSSSTRAAAAAL PLAAAYYYYNEEE! in the sense of being mined there, or springing into being perfectly cut. I can certainly seem them being a Sigilian measure of exchange.

However, Godplate? Spiritmail? Starweave? Starleather?

GUYS.

DUDES.

WTH...

These are professional game designers and these are HONESTLY the best names they could come up with? Uh, I'm pretty sure ENworld or RPG.net could have given you some better ones if you'd just asked. Those names are EASILY worthy of that "board of bad names" that they have up at WotC. No doubt they will be on it, as of Fifth Edition.

I also think it's hilariously "Diablo 2"-ish that you clearly go from Chainmail to Forgemail to Spiritmail (and so on) as you go from Heroic to Paragon to Nightmare or whatever it's called. I mean, jeez, that's pretty lame. I like the idea of having "better" armour types, but making them, like, a necessity and linked to the "tiers"? Eugh.