Blog (A5E) Armor & Materials

[Morrus]

my money, piercing weapons gave an expertise die when attacking that armor

Also incorrect!

 

[Stalker0]

Also incorrect!

Armor loses half its AC bonus against those weapons! hehe I'll get it eventually

 

[Darkwynters]

Maybe it has something to do with crits… I am looking back through the creature posts… The Ruthless ability that black dragons have is sick… “Jimmy, your dwarf bard takes a critical and you lose one of your pinkies” / Jimmy: “Glad he is out of attacks” / “No the dragon is Ruthless and since it got a crit…… it attacks again!”

 

[Faolyn]

Morrus implied that bone armor could break and that also has the brittle trait, so I imagine that brittle armor can break in certain circumstances? I'm having a hard time with weakness though. Maybe it has something to do with weapons that have the breaker trait?

 

[Darkwynters]

Bone armor (brittle) destroyed on a crit… padded (weakness) is broken on a crit.

 

[tetrasodium]

Also incorrect!

an inversion of DR like +N or +1dX to damage when struck with that damage type perhaps?

 

[King Brad]

Considering there is a repair mechanic, I'm guessing it means that damage of that type cause x2 as much degradation.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Kind of concerned that with half-plate moved to heavy the best + Dex mod light armor can give you a better AC than the best + Dex mod (max 2) medium (unless mithral’s high quality property deals with that, but mithril seems like not really an ordinary material either, so I‘m not sure that‘s a solution). Maybe those negative traits on the light are really a big deal.

And as a general commentary on both Level Up and O5e, why the hate for scale mail?

It‘s way too heavy in either edition relative to other armors. It just doesn‘t make sense in either version. In O5e they want to describe it like it’s almost a heavy armor level of coverage, make it heavier than all the medium armors and the lightest heavy armor, and yet give it less AC than the best medium armor. Level Up makes it heavier than splint, but really, splint/banded/metal lamellar are fairly similar to a heavy scale anyway. Also not sure why it should have Stealth Disadvantage when a mail hauberk doesn’t.

With the AC they are giving scale (either edition), it ought to be treated as a light scale and have its weight dropped according. A heavy scale should just use the splint/banded stats. Scale is my favorite armor type based on aesthetics, but D&D seems bound and determined to make it crap.

I might end up just making my own armor table and if I like the properties from Level Up using them on it.

 

[tetrasodium]

Kind of concerned that with half-plate moved to heavy the best + Dex mod light armor can give you a better AC than the best + Dex mod (max 2) medium (unless mithral’s high quality property deals with that, but mithril seems like not really an ordinary material either, so I‘m not sure that‘s a solution). Maybe those negative traits on the light are really a big deal.

And as a general commentary on both Level Up and O5e, why the hate for scale mail?

It‘s way too heavy in either edition relative to other armors. It just doesn‘t make sense in either version. In O5e they want to describe it like it’s almost a heavy armor level of coverage, make it heavier than all the medium armors and the lightest heavy armor, and yet give it less AC than the best medium armor. Level Up makes it heavier than splint, but really, splint/banded/metal lamellar are fairly similar to a heavy scale anyway. Also not sure why it should have Stealth Disadvantage when a mail hauberk doesn’t.

With the AC they are giving scale (either edition), it ought to be treated as a light scale and have its weight dropped according. A heavy scale should just use the splint/banded stats. Scale is my favorite armor type based on aesthetics, but D&D seems bound and determined to make it crap.

I might end up just making my own armor table and if I like the properties from Level Up using them on it.

It's more nuanced than your giving it credit. Look at fine & masterwork. It's a whole lot cheaper to stack armor properties that apply a multiplier to the base price when sticking them on something like 50gp scale mail & you have a better AC than you would with light armor. With an actual economy & expected wealth by level tables the choice between raw AC and cool features adds a lot of subjectivity to things.

Medium armor classes & even heavy armor ones that decide armor properties are more benefit for their role than a couple points of AC could drop to medium armor without feeling entirely naked like if they dropped to light armor. Quite a few of those classes & builds are likely to be the types that attempt to limit the odds of being in direct melee as something the party could describe as "the tank" yet still need to be there at times too.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

It's more nuanced than your giving it credit. Look at fine & masterwork. It's a whole lot cheaper to stack armor properties that apply a multiplier to the base price when sticking them on something like 50gp scale mail & you have a better AC than you would with light armor. With an actual economy & expected wealth by level tables the choice between raw AC and cool features adds a lot of subjectivity to things.

Medium armor classes & even heavy armor ones that decide armor properties are more benefit for their role than a couple points of AC could drop to medium armor without feeling entirely naked like if they dropped to light armor. Quite a few of those classes & builds are likely to be the types that attempt to limit the odds of being in direct melee as something the party could describe as "the tank" yet still need to be there at times too.

You’re right, there’s a lot of nuance I won’t know about until I have the full rules.

My reaction is primarily based on my general dissatisfaction with how 5e has done medium armor. The 5e rules treat armor categories as being tiered in their power: you need light armor proficiency as a prerequisite for the moderately armored feat and medium armor proficiency as a prerequisite for the heavily armored feat. Everyone who has proficiency in medium armor also has proficiency in light. Medium is supposed to be straight up better than light, and heavy than medium. (I‘ve discovered that disagreement on that specific point (for example, assuming primary combatants should wear either light or heavy, and medium is designed for characters who aren‘t intended to be primary combatants) is at the root of differences of opinion about the way medium armor should work in general.) If that is the case, then it should remain true at all levels of play, and it should not be the case that while a light armor character (whose primary stat is likely Dex) has an AC of 17, a heavy armor character (whose primary stat is Str) has an AC of 18, and a medium armor character (whose primary stat is anything other than Dex, because if it were Dex you should be wearing light armor, that‘s its niche; so say a Str ranger which should totally be a thing) will only be able to get a 17 AC (equivalent to light armor) if they invest in a 14 Dex as a tertiary stat. So I was just sort of hoping that Level Up might have fixed medium armor for me, and it doesn‘t look like it’s likely to be the case.

Since I’m basically jumping into the Level Up discussion for the first time, I should point out that this is the thing that looks the least appealing to me, and the other stuff all looks much better . It’s just easy for that one thing I don’t like to stand out to me, but I don’t want it taken as an overall assessment of the system. I actually pledged for the Kickstarter, which I wasn’t planning on doing until a couple mechanical changes in 5e going forward hit me as so depressingly dissapointing and dis-enabling of my playstyle that I started looking for other options. Right now I‘m considering using Level Up as my base system going forward, adding in the older 5e content I already have and like.