Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gargoyle" data-source="post: 5924462" data-attributes="member: 529">Just like there should be reasons for a fighter to want to use different weapons, there should be reasons for them to want to use different types of armor.  I want to see fighters wearing plate, scale, leather, and even no armor.  The problem is that basing their decision of what armor to wear solely on one stat, AC, eliminates the decision making on the part of the player.  They will always choose whatever gives them the highest AC, so there really isn't a choice, except when generating ability scores.Damage disadvantage to those hitting heavy armor seems like a good solution at first, but you always have to consider what happens when the bad guys wear it. It seems like giving such an ability to heavily armored foes would be logical, but it also makes many monsters more complex, and having it on both sides of a battle could slow things down.DR has the same implications as damage disadvantage.  Dragons, iron golems, and other heavily armored foes should have DR if the guy in plate gets it, but the solution for monsters is, and should be, a slightly higher AC and more hit points.  It's simpler and faster, with the same end effect.Allowing a full Dexterity bonus for all armor types seems like a bad idea, giving no incentive for wearing a lighter type of armor for fighters or clerics, as well as making Dexterity even more of a "god stat".So my thinking is to simply give whoever wears heavy armor a slightly higher AC than medium armor, no bonus to AC for Dexterity, and a bonus to maximum hit points, say +3 to +5.  Feats could improve this bonus.   Taking off the armor reduces your maximum hit points, and wouldn't kill you if you only had a couple of hit points left. I chose not to call this "temporary hit points" because I don't really care for maximum hit points going up and down during an adventure.  It's additional bookkeeping, but with armor modifying maximum hit points, there really isn't much bookkeeping.  Armor tends to stay on most of the time.With heavy armor giving a bonus to maximum hit points, fighters have more choices.  Even if they have a decent Dexterity, they might want those extra hit points and go for heavy armor.  But if they have a good Dexterity, they may choose to be more of a swashbuckler and go for leather and a buckler, or even no armor at all in certain campaigns without feeling like they are completely ignoring a class ability.  It's a small perk, not a must have.  Even low Dexterity fighters might want to stick with medium armor because of the speed penalty of heavy armor, and situations like pits full of water. (welcome back to old school dungeons!)I'm sure they'll figure out something cool to do with heavy armor, but I'm hoping it will be something simple that encourages players making choices, as these type of strategic choices are what makes fighters fun for me.</blockquote>

Verification