Certain types of armor are never worn.

[CCamfield]

All the replies so far appear to not contradict the initial post except in the case of druids and people with 6+ dex bonuses. PCs will wear the best armor of each weight class as soon as they can afford it, those being chain shirt, breastplate and full plate.

Yes, well, players don't tend to be stupid. If the armor ratings weren't set up in such a way as to define three or four armours as the best, money permitting, things might be different.

A small additional factor related to leather armour - proficiency and armour check penalty. We currently have a lizardman in our party who has yet to get a class level. As such he doesn't know how to use any armour properly; leather is the best he can wear without taking penalties to his attacks and so on - well I guess masterwork studded would be best.

However, if you were a lord who actually equipped your peasant levies or just some hastily gathered recruits, who still count as commoners, leather would probably be what they'd get.

Finally, two things
- it is important to provide armour types for everyone, including NPCs of all types
- the definite scale of armour types which are better than others does or at least can provide opportunities to upgrade your equipment, which can be satisfying. If each of the armour types in the three categories were basically equivalent, that wouldn't be there. On the other hand, if that was the case, the difference in costs were higher, or if there were different associated costs (I don't know, what if breastplates and full plate had a higher armour check penalty?) then "lesser" armours would be used more.

 

[Nightfall]

Simple, he'd wear them if he's a dex monkey AND had them all be clothborn too.

 

[Darklone]

Clothborn.... the silliest "enchantment" ever.

 

[Nightfall]

Clothborn.... the silliest "enchantment" ever.

Why? Because it turns platemail into something useable by Dex monkeys?! I know I enjoy it.

 

[Gumby]

Other than at very low levels where the characters have little or no money, why would a character ever wear the following types of armor?
QUOTE]Only for style purposes, with the exception of leather. Although leather itself is outclassed by a mithril chain shirt. Also, while breastplates are the best medium armor, they still suffer from being medium armor, which sucks.

It'd be nice to add DR to some armors to make everything "balanced," but a more effective long-term solution would be to start everything over and re-create an armor list from the ground up. Ideally, every type of armor would provide a total of +9 protection between armor bonuses and dex bonuses. Greater armor check and spellcasting penalties would be made up for with DR. And personally, I'd eliminate speed penalties as well, but I don't think that's a popular opinion.

But yes, armor in 3.x is borked, and has been since the PH came out.

 

[kirinke]

*winks

ahh my bad.
but some clerics do have 'taboos' against wearing certain types of armor. *shrugs.
and like i said, any kind of armor is better than a padded shirt and a big smile.

 

[Nightfall]

Krin,

It depends on the clerics and their relationship with their god.

 

[pawsplay]

Who cares about the exceptional case, or a flavor choice?
The fact of the matter is, and HAS been for years, that 3E armor is badly designed, with obvious optimal choices.

I'd like to point out that when the Spaniards landed in the New World, they were wearing breastplates, not chainmail. Breastplates are better, they're also a little more expensive. That's as it should be. PCs tend to walk around with hundreds of gold pieces and probably don't care, but they are exceptional.

There is more than one optimal armor in each category, depending on what you are trying to optimize. There are some armors that are attractive only to paupers, but that's only to be expected.

"M'lord."
"Yes, Captain?"
"My men and I were wondering..."
"Yes? Spit it out?"
"Could we have glaives instead of longspears? We could use the extra damage."
"Glaives are expensive, Captain."
"Yes, but my lord, it's a larger die type."
"You're just going to have to make do. If if makes you feel any better, I'll give you a 15 gp bonus so you personally can go buy something that suits you better."
"How about a spiked chain?"
"Do you even have proficiency in that thing?"
"Well, er, I've been working on it. I can't practice without something to practice with, you know."
"How do I even know you're going to stick with it? It's a whole Feat, and from what I've heard, you've got your eye on a couple of Prestige Classes, already. How about a nice martial weapon? A glaive, a greatsword?"
"Very well, my lord. And the men?"
"See that the sergeants are fitted with chain shirts."
"Thank you, m'lord."

 

[kirinke]

Krin,

It depends on the clerics and their relationship with their god.

*nods
yupyupyupyup!

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

What I don't understand is why "obvious optimal choices" make 3.x armor poorly designed.

To some degree, at least, obvious optimal choices reflect reality. In the era of Beowulf and the sagas, the heros tended to wear a mail shirt or byrnie--the best armor available. In the high middle ages and early renaissance, everyone who could afford it wore fullplate because it was the best armor available. In the Norman/Crusades era, chain mail was the best armor available and that's what everyone wore--except those who started experiementing with adding plates to it (which I would classify as Splint Mail). Later, when gunpowder weapons began to become effective, fullplate became too heavy to be effective and so the most expendable parts were jetissoned resulting in halfplate (the only real gripe I have with the armor table is half-plate which probably should have a +1 or +2 max dex bonus and no more armor check penalty than fullplate). In ancient Greece, the heavy infantrymen all wore bronze breastplates and greaves. In Japan, the samurai class generally all wore the same kind of armor too.

In nearly every historical period, the choice of armor has been identical among those who can afford it based upon the availability and effectiveness of the armor. Why anyone would want a world in which leather armor was as good as a chain shirt and scale mail as effective as a breastplate is beyond me.

If you want a different flavor than the rules currently offer, that can easily be achieved by altering the availability of armor (for instance, a crusades era setting might have chain mail, splint mail, leather, padded, hide, brigandine (Arms and Equipment guide or just use Scale Mail stats), and studded leather armors. (The chain shirt is left out because the high max dex and good AC would make it optimal in an era where it was historically obsolete). A slightly more advanced society might have developed the breastplate. And PCs travelling to the strange island across the sea might run into warriors wearing banded mail. The someone invents fullplate and everyone wants to get a suit but only a few armorers can make it.

If you don't want to bother with altering availability, you could just eat the one or two points of AC that taking the flavor you want will cost. At worst, a rogue loses one point of AC by wearing studded leather over a chain shirt and a fighter two points of AC by wearing banded instead of fullplate.

The world where there is no difference between scale mail and a breastplate seems far less desirable to me than the one where there is actually a reason why people might choose one over the other.

This seems to me to be rather obvious.

Why would anyone bother wasting time denying this very obvious generalization?

Who cares about the exceptional case, or a flavor choice?
The fact of the matter is, and HAS been for years, that 3E armor is badly designed, with obvious optimal choices.