Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 445817" data-attributes="member: 3146">And this is different from previous editions of D&D how?1&2e, there were only three worthwhile types of armor: leather (because rogues couldn't wear anything better), elven chain (because elven multiclass mages could cast spells in it), and plate mail.Now we have four which is an improvement on this from your perspective (more variety is better).Historically, it's worth pointing out that the variety of armor types was largely a function of cost rather than effectiveness. Japanese Samurai all tended to wear a certain type of armor (which changed as technology advanced).In Europe, 12th century knights wore chain mail.By the 15th century, they almost universally wore full-plate if they could afford it.By the 16th century, half-plate was more common among the ruling class (as the increasing effectiveness of firearms required the breastplate, etc to be heavier and greaves were discarded due to weight considerations).In the 17th century, breastplates, guantlets, and helmets were about all that was left of upper-class armor.During all this time, there was a certain amount of variety in the types of armor worn by the hoi polloi because they couldn't afford the armors that were generally acknowledged to be the best and made do with what they could afford. This kind of development seems well represented in D&D. Starting characters who favor heavy armor often start with chain or scale mail, buy splint or banded mail next, perhaps stopping at half-plate, until they can afford full plate. Once characters can afford the best armor, there's a lot less variety. The same is true of high dex characters (although they tend to favor chain shirts, leather armor, studded leather, and breastplates until they can afford mithril chain shirts or breastplates).</blockquote>

Verification