Certain types of armor are never worn.

[WARPED1]

It's for flavor, or the role playing aspect. Unfortunatly, it sounds like you're "roll" playing instead, looking at all the rules to exploit and all. Maybe not all areas have plate armor. I myself prefer a King Arthur type game, where peasants can't afford and most not allowed to wear a suit of plate. Not to mention, plate is very noisy for sneaking in unnoticed.

 

[Felon]

Why would someone perhaps not wear full plate? Because they don't have 1500 gp, perhaps.

Go back and read the initial post. The very first line already covered that exception.

Ummm, 3E (and 3.5E) armour is designed based on historical armour - not the other way around. I guess you missed that.

Actually, you're the one who seems uninformed, and thus your snideness is out of place. D&D is not designed with historical accuracy as any major priority. If you flip through the DMG for a little while, you'll catch them mentioning that the game design places little importance on simulating some sort of pseudo-medieval world. They are, in general, much more concerned about offering a balanced system with lots of options for PC's. Otherwise, many things about the game would be different, such as the aforementioned way that the weapons were designed. You wouldn't see weapons like "two-bladed swords" and "dire flails", and spike chains certainly wouldn't be as popular as they are. They just dropped the ball here.

Even allowing for some big commitment to being true to "history", using your logic it seems rather senseless for all of those inferior armor types to show up on the magic armor generation tables at all, doesn't it? Why would someone bother making +3 scale mail when for a negligible cost increase they could make it a breastplate?

The analogy to D&D weapons falls apart on several levels. First, D&D weapons are NOT all balanced. Some are obviously better than others for most purposes. As one handed weapons, the bastard sword and dwarven waraxe are clearly the best although they require a feat to use (well, they do for everyone except dwarves who can use waraxes as long as they have martial weapon proficiency). Among martial one-handed weapons, the longsword, battle axe, and warhammer are clearly class 1 weapons with the scimitar filling in the "I want to crit a lot" category and the rapier filling in the "for finesse fighters" category. Rapiers are generally superior to shortswords or throwing axes. Longswords, etc are clearly superior to heavy maces, morning stars, and clubs. Similarly, among the two handed weapons, the greatsword is clearly the damage king with the falchion and greataxe filling niche roles and the spear for those who aren't proficient in martial weapons.

You're actually doing a pretty good job of showing how well-balanced the weapon system is. The only problem is, you (oddly) seem to think "balanced" has to mean every weapon has to be about as good as another. The distincion between simple, martial, and exotic weapons allows for a bastard sword to be a better one-handed weapon than a longsword, and for a longsword to be better than a club. The warrior classes get access to better weapons than other classes, and if they are willing to spend a feat they get access to even better stuff. That's reasonable and balanced. The armor system is not.

As for your notion that a weapon that trades off a lower damage die type for a better crit threat range is somehow an inferior, "niche" weapon compared to other weapons of the same category, I don't see you providing any support for that assertion. It's certainly a subjective statement.

As far as armor goes, you and others are missing the point about the mechanical balance. The difference between chain mail and a breastplate, for instance is max dex and armor check penalty. For a lot of characters--especially NPC fighters who tend not to have a high dex, the "optimal" breastplate is NOT significantly better than the "suboptimal" chainmail.

It is hands-down superior, and 50 gp does not account for that difference.

Similarly, for most NPCs (who rarely have dexterities above 18), the "optimal" mithral chain shirt is not significantly better than an ordinary chain shirt. And when one does account for other differences, they are generally not more than one or two points of AC. A PC who chose to wear studded leather instead of a chain shirt would not suffer much. Even the PC who chose to wear banded mail instead of fullplate would not be too disadvantaged. The disadvantage would be real but probably not much more than that encountered by the fighter who uses a morning star instead of a longsword or a longspear instead of a glaive. (And I've seen both).

I'm still waiting for you to explain where folks have "missed the point" with regards to mechanical balance. All you keep saying is that we're right: a couple of armor types clearly do outlcess the other armor types mechanically. Your only rebuttal seems to be "it's not all that bad". The point is, most are worse and not in any significant way better.

Now, as to PCs using the armors, it's important to remember that there are a lot of corner cases. The low-strength spellcasting cleric isn't an uncommon character type and frequently can't afford the weight of fullplate. (Mine wears leather armor at 5th level and has no intention of changing--no matter what she does, she won't even have a decent AC so there's no point in bothering). Fighters with a 14 or 15 dex really gain no advantage from the breastplate over their initial chain mail so until they get whatever armor they're finally shooting for they may not change.

And still you're still not offering any kind of counter-arguement. The fact that a character is apathetic about upgrading his or her inferior armor type does not really rebutt our position, now does it?

It's for flavor, or the role playing aspect. Unfortunatly, it sounds like you're "roll" playing instead, looking at all the rules to exploit and all.

This sort of condescending elitism is pretty annoying to encounter so often on these boards. It's rather ignorant to look down on other gamers because they're thinking in practical terms instead of just doing whatever "feels" right. You toss around the word "exploit" just because someone is taking a rational look at which types of armor are optimal, like they're doing something wrong. Instead, fighters should just arbitrarily wear whatever their whims dictate, regardless of whether it gets them killed later. Ridiculous.

Maybe not all areas have plate armor. I myself prefer a King Arthur type game, where peasants can't afford and most not allowed to wear a suit of plate.

Then you should realize that your campaign deviates sharply from D&D as presented in the core books, where characters can be expected to afford any basic suit of armor out of the PHB by the time they're about 4th level. Essentially, it sounds like you're running the pseudo-medieval campaign that the designers have rejected. And since you're not running a standard campaign, it doesn't make sense to suggest that other posters here are in error for not considering how hard it may be to obtain full plate.

 

[Malin Genie]

The current armour table lists armour that covers a number of eras historically and a number of regions geographically. In most locations in most eras only a few of the DnD armour types would have been represented.

Restricted availability is the key. In the character's starting region maybe the technique of knitting chain has not been developed, and so chain mail and chain shirts are not available. Characters would have to travel, or find a skilled blacksmith who knows the art and just might be willing - for a lot of money - to custom-make a suit for one of the characters. And wearing it will immediately draw attention to the character as an oddity or outlander.

And even masterwork doesn't have to be a universal choice - an era could have only basic metalworking skills and poor alloys and so while metallic armour can be bought, masterwork versions of metal armour are just not available. This could lead to an interesting situation where apart from rare finds from ancient civilisations with now-lost skills or similar, the only magical armour is at best hide!

Perhaps only dwarves have the skill and knowledge to make full plate (making half plate the 'best human approximation') and only a character who has done a great service to the dwarven nation could hope to buy one.

Even using the default rules and availability, thoughts like this can help explain magical 'inferior' armour. The armour dated from an era or came from a region where that armour was the best available. A character with a good Appraise (or Craft(Armoursmith)) skill might be able to give a good guess as to where/when it came from, adding flavour to the campaign ('Ah yes, this dates from the era of King Horvax the Mad, who declared that fish were superior to humans and thus any armourer creating armour other than scale mail woud be executed...')

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

You're actually doing a pretty good job of showing how well-balanced the weapon system is. The only problem is, you (oddly) seem to think "balanced" has to mean every weapon has to be about as good as another. The distincion between simple, martial, and exotic weapons allows for a bastard sword to be a better one-handed weapon than a longsword, and for a longsword to be better than a club. The warrior classes get access to better weapons than other classes, and if they are willing to spend a feat they get access to even better stuff. That's reasonable and balanced. The armor system is not.

Well, first things first. I'm not defending the idea that the armors are all equal. I'm defending the idea that there's nothing wrong with it (except the max dex on half-plate).

Now, to use the weapons table as our source, a quick look at it will reveal that there is no simple balance such that all simple weapons are equal and all martial weapons are equal, etc.

To list a few in the simple weapons category:
The light mace and sickle clearly superior to the punching dagger. The morning star is clearly the best one-handed weapon. (Although the heavy mace comes close (and may equal it if you consider metal-hafted to equal P/B), shortspear and club are far behind). Similarly, the javalin is better than the dart and the light crossbow better than the sling.

Among martial weapons, the light hammer is clearly the weak sister of the light weapons. The only thing to recommend it is its throwing range. Similarly, an unspiked shield is simply inferior to a spiked one.

Moving into one-handed weapons, the trident and flail are generally inferior to the longsword, battle axe, and warhammer. (They may be useful for corner cases like the warrior who wants to be able to throw his primary weapon or the warrior focussed on trips or disarms but those are not most warriors). In the two handed category, the greatclub, halberd, and heavy flail play second fiddle to the greatsword and greatclub.

Among the exotics, the gnome hooked hammer and dwarven Urgrosh are strictly inferior to the Orc Double Axe and Double Sword.

Admittedly, most of the suboptimal weapons (although not the greatclub) have unique advantages that may be interesting to some characters--trip/disarm bonusses or double damage when set against a charge for instance, but, IME, these are very rarely sufficient to make the weapons optimal. (Trip weapons are probably the only ones I think sometimes worthwhile).

The weapons may be balanced so that there is no clear winner but there are pretty clear losers in most situations. I don't see how this is that different from the armors.

As for your notion that a weapon that trades off a lower damage die type for a better crit threat range is somehow an inferior, "niche" weapon to comparable weapons of the same category, I don't see you providing any support for that assertion. It's certainly a subjective statement.

As for my contention that damage dice are better than crit range, the math backs me up. In terms of average damage per round, you need some very large plusses to damage before the higher crit ranger (or multiplier for that matter since it's mathematically similar) equals the higher damage dice. The only weapon likely to reach those numbers in the hands of many characters is a falchion in the hands of a power attack addict. Scimitars and Rapiers are very rarely equal to longswords, etc. And, even then, that only applies against creatures who are not immune to crits. And as fortification, constructs, and undead become more common at high levels, that makes a difference.

It [Breastplate] is hands-down superior [to chain mail], and 50 gp does not account for that difference.

Not for a 14 dex NPC fighter, paladin, or barbarian. Unless the character has a +3 or higher dex bonus, the only relevant differences between chain mail and a breastplate is one point of armor check and 50gp. For many characters the only one of those differences that matters is the 50gp.

The same is true of scale mail vis a vis a chain shirt. For a mounted fighter with a 16 dex, they end up with the same AC either way. The only differences are 50gp, the ability to sleep in the chain shirt (but lets face it, realistically, most people would not want to sleep in their armor anyway), manueverability (not very relevant if the character in question is primarily a mounted combatant), and one point of armor check penalty (which would be relevant when quickmounting or dismounting).

I'm still waiting for you to explain where folks have "missed the point" with regards to mechanical balance.

The point is that armors aren't "optimal" in a vacuum. They're optimal for a particular character in a particular situation. And many characters (like the 14 dex fighter deciding between a breastplate and chain mail) do not have the relevant abilities to make the difference between "optimal" and "suboptimal" significant.

The optimal armor for an 8 strength cleric is probably not a 50lb suit of fullplate. For a cleric who is staying out of melee combat, controlling weight may well be more important than maximizing armor class. And for a 10 strength cleric who does enter melee from time to time under the influence of various buffs, fullplate may still not be the optimal choice since its weight would be too much of an encumberance to allow him to carry a sword and shield without being heavily encumbered.

Armor class is not always the deciding factor when determining which armor type is best for a particular character at a particular time.

All you keep saying is that we're right. The chain shirt and full plate do outlcess the other armor types mechanically. Your only rebuttal seems to be "it's not all that much worse". The point is, they are worse and not in any significant way better.

I think you misunderstand what claim I'm rebutting. I'm rebutting the claim that the armor system is bad and that, under it, there is no reason for armor types other than chain shirts, fullplate (and, depending upon who's making the claim, leather, studded leather, or breastplates) to exist.

That the armor class afforded by the lesser armors is not always significantly worse than that afforded by the better armors is certainly relevant to the question of whether there's a reason for them to exist.

Same thing here. The fact that a character is apathetic about upgrading his or her inferior armor type does not really constitute any kind of counter-arguement, now does it?

That depends upon what you think it's countering. There are a lot of different semi-interconnected claims floating around in this thread and lumping all arguments against any of them together is bound to distort the argument. That characters might be apathetic about upgrading their defenses does nothing to counter the claim that there are clear optimal armors. It does, however, go a long way towards countering the claim that no PC or NPC above 3rd level has a reason to own/wear suboptimal armors.

And, I think the other implicit claim that I advanced--namely that optimizing a PC or NPC's equipment is not necessarily the same thing as optimizing their armor class is also relevant. The High Priest of Heironeous I described may well have optimized equipment for his position--despite having banded mail.

The positive claim that I and others have also advanced is also worth addressing. Since not all armor types have to be present in every region of every campaign world, the inferior armors may also serve a purpose

It seems to me that the grounds of the great armor complaint--the claim that armor types can only justify their existence if they are proven to give the optimal armor class for very broad classes of high level PCs in the circumstances of a standard dungeon crawl--is highly dubious. It ignores corner cases like the fighters and clerics I described, low level (poor) characters, NPCs with very limited resources, NPCs with limited access to high tech armors (like fullplate or even chain shirts in some cases), NPCs with equipment priorities not in line with dungeon crawling, and any cost/benefit analysis of animal barding (where cost is a far more significant factor and max dex is a far far less significant factor).

 

[Majere]

Money and Classess restrictions aside:
It depends on the Mobs you are fighting and the Dex of the character. Obviously low Dex characters will tend to the heavier armors, but for a high dex fighter in general you want the armor that gives you the highest dexterity bonus possible. Why ? Because this will give you the same ac or one point less, but will increase your touch ac. This is espcially important if you suspect you are going into undead heavy areas where giving up 1 ponts of ac for 3/4 points on your touch ac is almost essential due to the masses of touch attacks.

If some armors are better than others well thats part and parcel of any game, you wouldnt expect to be able to have the best armor in the game at level 1, so why look upset that not all armor are identical. Its like complaining that a +5 sword is better than you one you started with.
Out of all the classes the only two with complete choice are fighter and cleric, so full plate isnt really that openly available to PC's. and the other classess are generally Dex Bunnies because of this which leads nicely back to my first point.. touch AC.

Further all our PCs have a set of leather armor for moving about in because metal armor is noisey And sneakiness can be good at times.

Majere

 

[Nightfall]

I wouldn't wear plate mail if I didn't have to. And so far I don't.

Course I still say Clothborn RAWKS!

 

[kirinke]

from the sound of things, clothborn in the D&D equivalent to kevlar. (thin, sturdy sheets of steel or mithril sewn into cloth etc.

but then i've never heard of clothborn until this thread.
you learn somethin new every day lol

 

[Tatsukun]

Well, another way to look at it is to think of it as giving the players something to buy. When I play, I really like trying to save up for and get what I really want. Many times I have stood in town thinking “If I buy one less healing potion, I can get that full plate sooner”.

Weapons are different because people take feats / proficiencies in them. If you are ‘the long sword guy’, you are not saving up for a great sword. You have sunk feats into long sword and you are not going to change.

Armor, on the other hand, has clear winners for various uses. That’s what gives people motivation to buy them. People don’t have to sink feats into specific armors (you can take ‘light armor, you don’t have to take ‘studded leather’). This gives you flexibility over your early few levels to change what you wear.

At mid levels, it’s usually a case of whatever the best thing you found so far is. If you have a choice between +2 studded leather or a chain shirt, you will take the leather. Other adventurers might think you are poor and can’t afford a chain shirt, but you know the truth!

Finally, at high levels, the difference is very little. The difference between AC 34 and 35 doesn’t seem as big as the difference between 15 and 16. At this point, it’s all about the enchantments. Also, the other factors become important (spell failure, skill mods, whatever).

Well, that’s my 2 yen

-Tatsu

 

[Agent.0.Fortune]

My players have the same problem, only everything has to be magical. I think it is a flaw with the 3.0/3.5 system that all the players in my campaign want magical armor and magical weapons.

I think WotC needs to take a closer look at balancing to make all items equally useful magical or not.

 

[kirinke]

it depends.
magical weapons and armor are only really needed if the bad-guys are numerous and or have magical arms and armor.
at lower levels, you can get by on non-magical weapons/armor if the dm is adjust the encounters for it.

and wanting the sparkly magical toys is perfectly natural. Getting your hands on them is a difficult proposition at best.