mach1.9pants
Hero
Very good points
D&D 5E Armor in D&DNext
Izumi
First Post
Further Thoughts:
I consider my Okegawa Dou to be a Medium armor. Half Dex is actually about right. To compensate, stances become very low, and you try to keep your shoulders in line with the foes fists. Considering this, A heavier armor would further reduce dex. The question becomes does the protection of heavier armors compensate equally? I think it does, and therefore the values given in the playtest do indeed reflect reality of one-on-one combat. Again, against Arrow fire (The need to defend against projectile weapons may be just as much a driving factor in the development of armor as the melee) and for mass battle between units of different ACs your Dex mod shouldn't apply to any armors. I see an awful lot of assumptions and fixes to a problem that doesn't exist on the one-on-one scale. Ingrained preconceived perceptions have became reinforced from the game since it's creation too, I've noticed. The game's need to validate a choice as better is at odds with the reality as well.
I consider my Okegawa Dou to be a Medium armor. Half Dex is actually about right. To compensate, stances become very low, and you try to keep your shoulders in line with the foes fists. Considering this, A heavier armor would further reduce dex. The question becomes does the protection of heavier armors compensate equally? I think it does, and therefore the values given in the playtest do indeed reflect reality of one-on-one combat. Again, against Arrow fire (The need to defend against projectile weapons may be just as much a driving factor in the development of armor as the melee) and for mass battle between units of different ACs your Dex mod shouldn't apply to any armors. I see an awful lot of assumptions and fixes to a problem that doesn't exist on the one-on-one scale. Ingrained preconceived perceptions have became reinforced from the game since it's creation too, I've noticed. The game's need to validate a choice as better is at odds with the reality as well.
(Regarding one's Dexterity bonus to AC being only applicable against 1 enemy per turn while one's Armour bonus is applicable against all enemies every turn)
To me it makes perfect sense. You can only concentrate your attention on one attacker a time. If you dodge out of the way of one attacker's blows you may be dodging right into the way of the next ones.
Players of Rogues have a much superior defense against a single opponent (in my houserules) and thus in a duel situation can easily go toe to toe with most fighter builds so they don't feel cheated at all (grappling-based fighters can negate the rogue's superior defenses with brute strength though). However they are no good as tanks because they are much weaker defending a position against a group of 3 or more goblins than a fighter. The rogue can easily take one goblin down with each attack, but the remaining goblins have a much bigger chance of hitting and doing real damage to the rogue if they concentrate their attacks on him. The fighter meanwhile probably won't get hit by the goblins unless there are enough to completely surround and dogpile him (in my games when surrounded by enemies they usually group-grapple you and then coup-de-grace you while three or four of them hold you down) so the fighter is much better if you need to defend an area or individual while the rogue is much better for hit-and-run attacks or taking down single BBEGs.
To me it makes perfect sense. You can only concentrate your attention on one attacker a time. If you dodge out of the way of one attacker's blows you may be dodging right into the way of the next ones.
Players of Rogues have a much superior defense against a single opponent (in my houserules) and thus in a duel situation can easily go toe to toe with most fighter builds so they don't feel cheated at all (grappling-based fighters can negate the rogue's superior defenses with brute strength though). However they are no good as tanks because they are much weaker defending a position against a group of 3 or more goblins than a fighter. The rogue can easily take one goblin down with each attack, but the remaining goblins have a much bigger chance of hitting and doing real damage to the rogue if they concentrate their attacks on him. The fighter meanwhile probably won't get hit by the goblins unless there are enough to completely surround and dogpile him (in my games when surrounded by enemies they usually group-grapple you and then coup-de-grace you while three or four of them hold you down) so the fighter is much better if you need to defend an area or individual while the rogue is much better for hit-and-run attacks or taking down single BBEGs.
Last edited:
Do we really need to add dex to AC?
Why not just say No Armor AC 13, Light Armor AC 15, Heavy Armor AC 17 and -1 speed. Shield adds +1. Superior armor adds +1 and costs 10,000 gp. Describe your armor however you like, it's all cosmetic. Forget all this dex bonus to AC that seems to be driving everyone up some mathematical wall. Dexterity is already figured in as a defense, since apparently stats are defenses now anyway.
Once you've got the flatter math figured out, you can potentially start playing with adding game mechanical flavor to the individual armors, either at the base level or via feats.
Why not just say No Armor AC 13, Light Armor AC 15, Heavy Armor AC 17 and -1 speed. Shield adds +1. Superior armor adds +1 and costs 10,000 gp. Describe your armor however you like, it's all cosmetic. Forget all this dex bonus to AC that seems to be driving everyone up some mathematical wall. Dexterity is already figured in as a defense, since apparently stats are defenses now anyway.
Once you've got the flatter math figured out, you can potentially start playing with adding game mechanical flavor to the individual armors, either at the base level or via feats.
Dex
should add to AC...but plate should be superior
If I see another edition with a 1st level rogue in studded leather beating out the 5th level fighter's AC with after having spent 1500gp, I am not even gonna buy the books at all. Seriously f/k up. No more rogue battle supremacy. They said the fighter should be best at fighting. How so if the only thing he has going for him is HP ?
A rogue will out damage him, out manoeuver him, get advantage easier, cost less money to equip, AND have higher AC?
Really? say it ain't so.
Fighters should have the best AC, period.
should add to AC...but plate should be superior
If I see another edition with a 1st level rogue in studded leather beating out the 5th level fighter's AC with after having spent 1500gp, I am not even gonna buy the books at all. Seriously f/k up. No more rogue battle supremacy. They said the fighter should be best at fighting. How so if the only thing he has going for him is HP ?
A rogue will out damage him, out manoeuver him, get advantage easier, cost less money to equip, AND have higher AC?
Really? say it ain't so.
Fighters should have the best AC, period.
Izumi
First Post
Not in all cases.
Rogue could beat the AC, but those hp represent a lot of fighting skill, he can't hold out for long, and the additional expense is worth it if the fighter rolled a low dex ability score. I don't have any interest in what you will or won't buy that's up to you.
Pretty awesome possiblity isn't it? A lucky Rogue having rolled exceptional stats will finally live up to it's source material.
I hope it's so, and hp will compensate your precious Fighters. HP does reflect the fighting skill after all, not AC.
Usually they will, but not necessarily, and that mimics reality quite a bit better than your desires, I think.
while i agree armor still needs work. i also think part of their design goals was to keep things kinda simple. lets be honest do we need 30 types of armor when in the end we are only going to use the best of each group? i think all we need is maybe 2 types for each class and then upgrade versions of each for higher levels.
variant
Adventurer
I am pretty sure the armor is meant to scale with how much gold a character is suppose to obtain. You are going to upgrade to what you can afford. I like the different types of armor for various reasons, but they need to be balanced. I think having penalties in the form of Dexterity restrictions and movement speed just make that more difficult to balance.
Similar Threads
