Chain Shirt - too good?

[Shard O'Glase]

And this is different from previous editions of D&D how?

And there not be much of a difference in 2nd edition and now means what?

I don't care that 2nd ed sucked in this regard as well, it sucked with armor in 2e and 3e still sucks with armor. Though maybe not quite as much.

The thing with history is:

Tons of things in d&d are historically inacurate, and I hope they stay that way if it makes it a better game. I don't want to weaken the game to make the armor more like it was IRL. I want the game to be fun, and IMO armor rules that increase armor variety increase fun and rules that decrese armor variety decrease fun. Now for those of you who like to play historically accurate games, war games, pseudo medival games etc. I'm sure having historically accurate armor increases your fun. But for me it doesn't.

If a character sees his character in chain mail I don't want him to wear a breastplate because mechanically chain mail is just a inferior breastplate. I want them to just wear the cahinmail and not feel stuipid about it. And if this can be done without completely blowing realism like having leather amror provide the same proteciton as plate, or daggers doing 2d6 then I'm for it. I don't think it would of broken realism(maybe stretch it a bit) to just have the stats for all medium armors be the same or very close to it.(closer than they are now)

 

[mmu1]

"Items not normally made of wood or only partially of wood (such as a battleaxe or a mace) either cannot be made from darkwood or do not gain any special benefit from being made of darkwood."

Barring a house rule, your armor is just expensive junk. It didn't occur to anyone that wearing wooden armor would be rather inefficient? Darkwood is meant for spears and shields and stuff like that.

My personal fave is the Mithril Chain Shirt of Nimbleness. With the +8 max dex bonus, it's better than being unarmored until you get a dex bonus of at least +14 (AC-wise). But, if I were playing a straight fighter or paladin type, instead of a rogue, I would probably go with fullplate.

He means a Duskwood breastplate. Counts as light armor, has a reduced chance of spell failure, reduced armor check penalty and allows a +4 Dex bonus. Of course, it's a FR thing, so not Core Rules either.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

The good medium armors (chain mail and breastplate) are very close already. The only difference is armor check penalty (which comes up very rarely), one point of max dex bonus, and cost. Unless a character has dex 16+, there's no reason to prefer a breastplate to chain mail. Even if the character has dex 16+, it's still only one point of AC. (And two points of AC vis a vis fullplate).

The same is true of the other armors. (The difference between banded and half-plate is 1 point or 0 if the character has dex 12+ and the difference between either and fullplate is 1 or 2 points of AC).

I don't see how you can achieve what you want without changing the rules so as to eliminate all differences between the statistics of various armor types. At the moment, a character who chooses chain mail over a breastplate will only be slightly suboptimally equipped. Certainly not stupid or hopeless. The same is true of a character who chooses studded leather over a chain shirt. If you change the rules to make them more equivalent, I don't see that there would really be much of any difference left.

Tons of things in d&d are historically inacurate, and I hope they stay that way if it makes it a better game. I don't want to weaken the game to make the armor more like it was IRL. I want the game to be fun, and IMO armor rules that increase armor variety increase fun and rules that decrese armor variety decrease fun. Now for those of you who like to play historically accurate games, war games, pseudo medival games etc. I'm sure having historically accurate armor increases your fun. But for me it doesn't.

If a character sees his character in chain mail I don't want him to wear a breastplate because mechanically chain mail is just a inferior breastplate. I want them to just wear the cahinmail and not feel stuipid about it. And if this can be done without completely blowing realism like having leather amror provide the same proteciton as plate, or daggers doing 2d6 then I'm for it. I don't think it would of broken realism(maybe stretch it a bit) to just have the stats for all medium armors be the same or very close to it.(closer than they are now)

 

[Chacal]

Re:Medium armor useless

IMC, we found out that medium armor wasn't very usefull (bias : we seldom dungeon crawl and use skills a lot)



We use the following simple house rule : medium armor give DR 1\- and Heavy DR 2\-
Now, the PC think the difference between light and medium is worth the skill penalties.
except for tanks, the PC's strength makes the difference between medium and heavy

Chacal

 

[mmu1]

(...)
If a character sees his character in chain mail I don't want him to wear a breastplate because mechanically chain mail is just a inferior breastplate. I want them to just wear the cahinmail and not feel stuipid about it. And if this can be done without completely blowing realism like having leather amror provide the same proteciton as plate, or daggers doing 2d6 then I'm for it. I don't think it would of broken realism(maybe stretch it a bit) to just have the stats for all medium armors be the same or very close to it.(closer than they are now)

I tend to do something very much like that with weapons and armor for the sake of not requiring players to handicap themselves if they want to use a more unique weapon.

Want to make a character who uses a two-handed spear with a foot and a half long blade and greatsword stats? Fine. Have a miniature you really like that's clearly wearing scale mail but we're playing a 10th level game and it makes sense your character would have much better equipment than that? Pay for and use the stats of Mithril Full Plate, and make the reason why your character has a unique suit of armor a part of his background. As long as the changes provide no mechanical advantages, it's fine.