D&D 5E Armor in D&DNext

[Stalker0]

That means everyone would use the best (heaviest) armor he can afford.

Important note here. In real life, armor is balanced by cost. Everyone wants plate, but only the rich could afford it.

Cost is a terrible balancing mechanic in dnd as loot will be gained from adventuring to the point where normally the PCs can afford anything that is available.

For that reason, we have to have other balancing mechanics so that everyone just put on the plate.


Proficiency potentially could be one if they are stingy about how you get it.

 

[Gorgoroth]

proficiency

should be required to maintain dex bonus. wearing plate should be possible, untrained, ala 4e. Maybe you get a to-hit penalty like 4e, too. That would be very tricky for a player to decide if they want +2 ac for -2 to hit...not at all an obvious choice in general (though I can see a rogue putting on plate to fool other guards, or to run through a poisoned bamboo trapped corridor)

I love all this info about plate!! I do think cost in gp should be balanceable, because it means in the first few levels, a fighter just can't afford it. If he find it on an enemy, it probably won't fit, unless he's extremely lucky. Or if you loot an ancient knight's tomb for his armor...

I'd say a balancing factor should be that it takes a month to make a tailored suit for a knight, and the 1500gp should not be given out lightly by DMs.

The ONLY way a rogue should have a higher AC than a fighter is if the rogue is much higher level and has taken all sorts of defensive gear such as Tomes of Dex or whatever. A standard Dex score range should not be equivalent to something most peasants could never even dream to afford.

I have a friend who makes plate armor, and even though I earn a ton of money, I need a layaway plan just to buy it. We're talking tens of thousands of real dollars, all told. It's 2k just for a helmet. Cost SHOULD be a balancing factor...just balance the treasure you find.

In in DDN the proportion of your time spent in-combat vs out of combat is way less apparently than in 4e or 3e, because things run faster generally, so that means the out of combat drawbacks of plate suddenly become huge.

Exploration is definitely hindered with plate on, over the long haul. I'd rather a fighter learn to overcome the speed penalty of plate -- and dex limits, if any -- with levels, similar to Pathfinder. It gives you a good reason to keep your dex up, b/c a fighter should be good with a bow too, IMO. Or at least throwing a handaxe or a spear

 

[Hautamaki]

Shields get short shrift in D&D, always have. For my games (5e or not) I am considering dropping their tiny AC bonus and instead giving them a percentile chance to simply block an attack. It works for Blur and Displacement.

Alternately, I am considering boosting Shield AC up higher than it has been traditionally.

2 houserules I use for shields:

1: Shields don't give AC bonus, instead they allow you to roll 2d20 and keep the higher. (same as their advantage system I guess). Basically 1 d20 represents the character using his normal dodge/parry defense and the other represents him using his shield; ultimately he uses whichever defense is more suitable for that particular attack.

2: If the player wishes, he can use his shield to absorb damage. Standard shields absorb 1d6 though better ones may absorb 1d8, or d6+1, or whatever. The downside is that if you roll the maximum (6 on a d6) then the shield absorbs so much damage that it becomes too damaged to use again until repaired.

 

[BobTheNob]

Important note here. In real life, armor is balanced by cost. Everyone wants plate, but only the rich could afford it.

Cost is a terrible balancing mechanic in dnd as loot will be gained from adventuring to the point where normally the PCs can afford anything that is available.

For that reason, we have to have other balancing mechanics so that everyone just put on the plate.


Proficiency potentially could be one if they are stingy about how you get it.

This is exactly my experience as well. Money is a terrible balancing mechanic. Its not that hard to get the funds together, and once you do...boom, forevermore you have a higher AC (and the party member who takes it off your corpse afterwards should it prove the armor wasnt enough)

To me, armor is about
a) Advantage. The fighter gets heavier armor...that is an advantage of the class
b) Play style = the ability to trade off between protection and versatility

Every type of armor in the game should have a usefulness based on its attributes during play, not difficulty of acquisition (excluding enchantments).

 

[Libramarian]

The weight distribution of a well-tailored plate harness is better than that of "chainmail," which mostly hangs from your shoulders. Plate is well-distributed and self-supporting to a greater degree. It is much more fatiguing to wear mail for long periods than plate.

I feel that I speak with some authority on this issue: I own and participate in medieval combat re-enactment while wearing a set of plate that weighs twenty pounds more than D&D's typical set of fifty-pound plate. I also own a great deal of mail of varying qualities. I would much rather wear the plate all day unless it's terribly hot out.

I'm thinking of a scientific study where they measured the energy expenditure of people in plate armor walking on a treadmill, and found it to be much higher than when they were carrying the same weight on the trunk of the body.

Heavy Armor Gave Knights a Workout - ScienceNOW
Limitations imposed by wearing armour on Medieval soldiers' locomotor performance

Abstract

In Medieval Europe, soldiers wore steel plate armour for protection during warfare. Armour design reflected a trade-off between protection and mobility it offered the wearer. By the fifteenth century, a typical suit of field armour weighed between 30 and 50 kg and was distributed over the entire body. How much wearing armour affected Medieval soldiers' locomotor energetics and biomechanics is unknown. We investigated the mechanics and the energetic cost of locomotion in armour, and determined the effects on physical performance. We found that the net cost of locomotion (Cmet) during armoured walking and running is much more energetically expensive than unloaded locomotion. Cmet for locomotion in armour was 2.1–2.3 times higher for walking, and 1.9 times higher for running when compared with Cmet for unloaded locomotion at the same speed. An important component of the increased energy use results from the extra force that must be generated to support the additional mass. However, the energetic cost of locomotion in armour was also much higher than equivalent trunk loading. This additional cost is mostly explained by the increased energy required to swing the limbs and impaired breathing. Our findings can predict age-associated decline in Medieval soldiers' physical performance, and have potential implications in understanding the outcomes of past European military battles.

​

Spreading the load across the body feels more comfortable but is more fatiguing when walking/running.

That is a beautiful suit of armor though.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

I'm thinking of a scientific study where they measured the energy expenditure of people in plate armor walking on a treadmill, and found it to be much higher than when they were carrying the same weight on the trunk of the body.

I am familiar with that study. Note that it addresses only the performance of plate armour, and does not take into account the differences between how a suit of plate and a suit of mail wear. A full suit of mail isn't carried only on the trunk of the body either.

Mail chausses can be heavier than plate legharness, and drag terribly, especially if they're not laced on tightly. Here is where the plate harness's greater degree of self-support proves superior to the mail, IMO.

My trapezius muscles will be sore the next day after a whole day of wearing my heavy mail. A whole day of wearing and walking in my plate, on the other hand, will leave me with no muscle soreness the following day unless I get hit really hard.

I still maintain that a full harness of plate is less exhausting to wear than a full harness of heavy mail. When heat is taken into account, however, the plate begins to look less attractive, and even that is dependent on how thick an undergarment (if any) is worn beneath the mail.

 

[illwizard]

Just out of interest and on the topic of realism, how hard is it to deliver a wound with a sword or other weapon against someone wearing full plate in real life. Do you absolutely have to find a gap in the plate or can you actually part the steel with conventional weapons?

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Is it really a problem if characters tend to drift toward plate mail as they gain wealth? We could let light armor be for traveling and periods where combat is less likely, and heavy armor be for expected combat.

Let's use cars an an analogy. Leather armor is a Civic. Plate armor is a Land Rover. Once you can afford it, you buy a Land Rover for those time when you need to do serious off-roading. But you still drive the civic to work.

Is there an armor equivalent to a Lexus?

 

[jadrax]

Is it really a problem if characters tend to drift toward plate mail as they gain wealth?

For some people, yes, it really is. If your character concept is a lightly armoured duellist, its hard to pull that off if its intrinsic inferior to wearing heavy plate.

Now, the answer to that may well be to tell those people they need to play another game or just suck it up, but I think we should at least try to explore if its possible to make the light armoured fighter concept work in D&D first.

 

[Gorgoroth]

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Lexus = Dwarven Mithril Fullplate of Agility