D&D 5E Charlaquin’s revised weapon and armor tables

[Charlaquin]

Combine any suitable weapon with PAM and Sentinel and you've got an extremely effective character. Without those feats, the small damage die results in the spear rapidly being outdamaged by more or less any other weapon. The idea that a spear would be outdamaged by a club is utterly nonsensical;

It’s only 1 DPR behind a club, and for that it gains Reach, which is quite valuable. We can see that RAW considers Reach to be worth a damage die, which is precisely the tradeoff between clubs and spears. Spears are also the only Reach weapon on this table that can be used one-handed (unless you are mounted), which gives a unique niche as the weapon of choice for characters who want to take advantage of polearm master and use a shield. It’s also a simple weapon. If you want a martial polearm, go for a poleaxe or a lance.

as for that matter the idea that a flail is outdamaged by a mace. And again, contrary to established history.

Whoo, boy. So first of all, flails are not outdamaged by maces. They have Finesse, which again is well worth the whopping 1 DPR tradeoff. Second, flails were extremely rare historically, so we have little to no evidence by which to judge their historical effectiveness, but modern scholars suggest that the key advantage of a flail is that the joint allows the head to reach a high velocity (thereby delivering a lot of force) without a great deal of strength driving the acceleration - hence the finesse property.

Sure - imagine two identically armored characters in a breastplate, all the plate pauldrons, greaves, helmet, and the like. Except that one is wearing only cloth underneath it all rather than mail...and yet somehow is better armored.

Remember that AC represents how difficult a character is to hit as well as how well-armored they are, which is why Dexterity adds to AC when wearing light armor (or in this case, when wearing a textile arming coat.) In this model, it makes sense for the character wearing a textile arming coat to have higher AC than the one wearing mail, because being decked out in a full plate harness renders the under-armor unnecessary extra weight. There’s a reason that arming garments began incorporating less and less mail as plate armor technology improved. Under my system, a very agile character (16+ Dex) is better off wearing a padded or quilted jack because it allows them to take full advantage of their mobility. A moderately agile character (12-14 Dex) is better off wearing a gousseted jack or a buff coat, because they’re not nimble enough to avoid a well-aimed strike between the plates of their armor. A clumsy character (8-11 Dex) is better off wearing mail because they ain’t dodging squat anyway.

WRONG. That's 25 before anything like Shield of Faith or other spells, blur, any sort of magic armor or shield, the protection fighting style, or any further buff. 25 AC itself breaks bounded accuracy - that's higher than the strongest demon lords, the most ancient dragons; that's better than creatures made entirely of armor, or wind, or metal.

If this is a criticism of my system, it is an equally valid criticism of RAW, wherein 26 AC is achievable by any character with heavy armor proficiency. My system actually reduces the maximum achievable AC and ties its achievement to the character’s abilities instead of the luck of the dice on the loot tables.

If your system allows a common soldier to beat Demogorgon's AC with only mundane gear, you've gotten something wrong.

Once again, this system replaces +X bonuses on magic armor. The best AC a common soldier can ever achieve is 18 before shield bonus, same as RAW. If this common soldier wishes to improve, he needs to improve his Dexterity, at which point he can no longer accurately be described as “common.” The 20 Dexterity required to reach 25 AC is the pinnacle of human agility.

I have acknowledged that I overdid it with kite shields. This is the only place where it is possible to exceed what is possible under RAW without using ability score improvements and/or Feats, and I am looking into toning these shields down.

 

[Blue]

Cuirasses require Jack, but Guards don't. I assume Guard can add any place shields can - Mage Armor, etc. Do Guards take up the bracers and/or gloves spot for magic items?

Do Guards work with things that do not normally allow shields? Monk Unarmored obviously not since they are armor, but how about Bladesinging?

Just confirming, you can mix-and-match across armor types. For example the equivalent of the PHB Plate would be Mail (Heavy), Plate Guards (Heavy) and a Breastplate (Medium), correct?

Comment about shields: they are both weaker and stronger. They add to DEX saves as cover, which makes sense. They overlap with other cover, which doesn't as much since you should be able to position them to protect parts not covered with cover. If you are standing behind a waist high wall, or partially blocked by a tree trunk, you should be able to use shields in such a way to protect the vulnerable parts. But then again D&D shields have never been as good as reality, this may just be a reasonable alternative.

Not having magic armors puts more priority on DEX, an already very overloaded ability score, to the detriment of non-DEX characters. If someone was interested in integrating magic armors in, would you see them only on Jack, or on anything but only the best applies? How about other non-plus magical armor mods?

I know you are looking for real world feedback, but holding a distain for how good DEX is, I would suggest that Max Dex be set not by your jack, but by the heaviest piece you wear.

 

[Charlaquin]

Cuirasses require Jack, but Guards don't. I assume Guard can add any place shields can - Mage Armor, etc.

I hadn’t actually considered this, so thank you for bringing it up. My instinct is to say no, guards are armor, so while they can be worn on their own, they do not stack with abilities that require you to not be wearing armor.

Do Guards take up the bracers and/or gloves spot for magic items?

That is the intent.

Do Guards work with things that do not normally allow shields? Monk Unarmored obviously not since they are armor, but how about Bladesinging?

Bladesinging ends early if you are wearing medium or heavy armor, and both splint guards and plate guards are heavy armor, so they would end bladesinging. I suppose if you adapted this homebrew and added a set of light guards to the mix, there is no reason those wouldn’t work with bladesinging.

Just confirming, you can mix-and-match across armor types. For example the equivalent of the PHB Plate would be Mail (Heavy), Plate Guards (Heavy) and a Breastplate (Medium), correct?

Correct, though as per RAW, if you wear (any piece of) armor you are not proficient with, you have disadvantage on Strength and Dexterity checks, saves, and attacks, and can’t cast spells.

Comment about shields: they are both weaker and stronger. They add to DEX saves as cover, which makes sense. They overlap with other cover, which doesn't as much since you should be able to position them to protect parts not covered with cover. If you are standing behind a waist high wall, or partially blocked by a tree trunk, you should be able to use shields in such a way to protect the vulnerable parts. But then again D&D shields have never been as good as reality, this may just be a reasonable alternative.

Yeah, it’s definitely clear from the feedback I’m seeing that shields need work.

Not having magic armors puts more priority on DEX, an already very overloaded ability score, to the detriment of non-DEX characters. If someone was interested in integrating magic armors in, would you see them only on Jack, or on anything but only the best applies? How about other non-plus magical armor mods?

I know you are looking for real world feedback, but holding a distain for how good DEX is, I would suggest that Max Dex be set not by your jack, but by the heaviest piece you wear.

Making Dex an important component of AC for all characters was one of my design goals, along with making armor proficiency and strength important components, making Dex less offensively potent by capping Finesse weapons at 1d6 one-handed or 1d8/2d4 two-handed. If you are interested in using these tables but don’t share those design goals, then I would say basing Dex restriction on the heaviest category of armor worn instead of jack would be a good idea.

To clarify, I didn’t want to replace magic armor entirely, just to eliminate the AC bonus from magic armor. Other abilities on magic armor are still very much on the table, and I even have some magic armors that are functionally +X. For example, elven mail is a magic jack with base AC 14 + Dex (Max 2) that can be worn under normal clothing and without penalty even if the character lacks proficiency in heavy armor. It’s functionally just the elven chain magic item (plus the “can be worn under clothing” part from mithral), but written to be a unique armor piece instead of a chain shirt with a +1 AC bonus.

If you wanted to use this table and include +x magic armors, I would recommend first of all capping Dex to AC based on the heaviest armor worn, and second of all limiting AC bonus from magic armor to the highest bonus among armors worn. This is probably the simplest and most flexible way to do it.