D&D 5E D&D Next Q&A: 03/28/2014

[Remathilis]

I'm REAL curious to see the armor table now...

If you remove the exotic armors (yay, btw), then there are only two light armors (both 11+dex),, three mediums (12/13/14 +1/2 dex) and five heavy (14-18). That makes heavy very top-heavy, light almost pointless, and medium kinda a wash. While I realize they want bounded accuracy/low numbers, they need to revise that table to even it out.

I wouldn't be surprised if hide or studded leather doesn't end up light, chain or ring ends up medium, and the chart steams from 11 to 18 (plus various amounts of dex, determined by type).

 

[Ruzak]

I'm REAL curious to see the armor table now...

They say they have "done a lot of work to tweak the flavor of the armors". I hope this means there is something to differentiate them other than increasing bonuses.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm REAL curious to see the armor table now...

If you remove the exotic armors (yay, btw), then there are only two light armors (both 11+dex),, three mediums (12/13/14 +1/2 dex) and five heavy (14-18). That makes heavy very top-heavy, light almost pointless, and medium kinda a wash. While I realize they want bounded accuracy/low numbers, they need to revise that table to even it out.

I wouldn't be surprised if hide or studded leather doesn't end up light, chain or ring ends up medium, and the chart steams from 11 to 18 (plus various amounts of dex, determined by type).

It would almost make sense to chope the med armors out as a category and do 5 light 5 heavy

 

[Derren]

1. Good.

2. Even better. The notion that for example dragon leather was just a regular upgrade which can be bought in every better store was just silly. Unless of course in your setting they were really herding dragons for commercial skinning.

3. Now if monsters/NPCs would be build like PCs this would not be a problem.

 

[Klaus]

In 2e, if you came across a goblin, you knew they were likely using whatever weapon was listed in the Monster Manual, they all had the same hitpoints and bonuses to hit.

You say that like it was a good thing.

In 4e, the goblin in front of you might be attacking and doing more damage while flanking or casting AoE damaging spells. They could have any bonus to hit and any number of hitpoints depending on whether they were an elite, solo, and what level your DM decided to scale them to.

You say that like it was a bad thing.

One of the best parts of 4e was the ease of monster customization (3e started the trend, but it was more work-intensive). Based on the playtest, it seems that aspect will continue in DDN. If creating a "goblin warrior" is as easy as slapping a couple of HD and adding +1 to its attack rolls, I'll be happy.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I'm REAL curious to see the armor table now...

If you remove the exotic armors (yay, btw), then there are only two light armors (both 11+dex),, three mediums (12/13/14 +1/2 dex) and five heavy (14-18). That makes heavy very top-heavy, light almost pointless, and medium kinda a wash. While I realize they want bounded accuracy/low numbers, they need to revise that table to even it out.

I wouldn't be surprised if hide or studded leather doesn't end up light, chain or ring ends up medium, and the chart steams from 11 to 18 (plus various amounts of dex, determined by type).

This is a good point. Hopefully, it will force them to change the armor tables. I never liked studded leather as medium armor or chainmail as heavy, for example. That, and I never liked how some armors are just plain better than others. For example, why would anyone in their right mind buy padded armor when leather is just plain better and only 5 gp more? Only the poorest character would ever buy padded armor instead of leather, and even then, odds are pretty good he's going to make at least 5 gp in his first adventure and then never wear padded armor ever again.

I'd prefer for each type of armor to have pros and cons that make them all worth considering, rather than just a race to buy the "best" type of armor in whatever category you wear. I'd rather they do something like this:

Medium Armor
Hide armor: AC 12 + Dex modifier (maximum +2)
Chainmail: AC 13 + Dex modifier (maximum +2), Disadvantage on Stealth
Scale Mail: AC 14 + Dex modifier (maximum +2), -5 ft. speed, Disadvantage on Stealth

By doing it this way, there are some advantages to wearing the lighter and cheaper type of armor within that same category (fewer penalties), rather than being compelled to upgrade as soon as you can afford it because the more expensive and higher AC armors are in every way better than the others.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm REAL curious to see the armor table now...

If you remove the exotic armors (yay, btw), then there are only two light armors (both 11+dex),, three mediums (12/13/14 +1/2 dex) and five heavy (14-18). That makes heavy very top-heavy, light almost pointless, and medium kinda a wash. While I realize they want bounded accuracy/low numbers, they need to revise that table to even it out.

I wouldn't be surprised if hide or studded leather doesn't end up light, chain or ring ends up medium, and the chart steams from 11 to 18 (plus various amounts of dex, determined by type).

They say they have "done a lot of work to tweak the flavor of the armors". I hope this means there is something to differentiate them other than increasing bonuses.

My guess it that we'll get a smaller armor table than e.g. in 3e, maybe 6-8 armors and that's it.

Which is actually quite the opposite of what I would like... I would like a good 15-20 armors to choose from already in the PHB. It shouldn't really be hard to design that at all, but I suppose the topic is not especially popular among players and the designers believe it's not worth the design effort.

15-20 armors allows both a wide range of narrative choices (e.g. player #1 chooses armor based on the image of a movie character he likes) and tactical choices (e.g. player #2 chooses armor based on minor interesting properties), pretty much like weapons.

A long list is not a problem for beginners: they have starting packages which choose default weapons and armors for them, so they don't have to go through the list if they don't want to.

With no fantasy armor in the PHB, the armor list will definitely contain anachronistic armors, i.e. armors which did not exist at the same time in any historical period. But I think this anachronism is actually very "D&D", which itself is always a hodgepodge of stuff from different cultures, historical period, and mythologies. I mean, seriously it bothers you to have a "bronze plate" armor warrior in your party but it doesn't bother you to have a Shaolin-based Monk?

Definitely many of those armors would have the same AC. Minor properties will make them different. It's really easy to design them: take a reference armor with AC=x, then derive new armors with AC=x-1 (or even AC=x-2) but an additional property such as extra protection against critical hits, better for stealth, lesser speed penalty etc. Just as easily, you can derive armors with AC=x+1 if you add a penalty.
Or just take a look at armors already designed in 3e (between the PHB, the early splatbooks, and the Equipment Guide, there were surely more than 20 armors) and adapt them to 5e.

There can easily be one armor per category without any additional property, for those who want a low-complexity armor that only grants AC.

Don't use market price as a balancing factor! Given the 5e assumptions on treasure and wealth, this would be wrong! Use it only as a narrative factor, such as if armor X is typically very expensive then it means only the rich or the veteran adventurers are expected to afford it. In any case, after a few levels the costs become irrelevant, and such balancing factor disappears, thus better to avoid altogether.

 

[Blackbrrd]

You say that like it was a good thing.



You say that like it was a bad thing.

One of the best parts of 4e was the ease of monster customization (3e started the trend, but it was more work-intensive). Based on the playtest, it seems that aspect will continue in DDN. If creating a "goblin warrior" is as easy as slapping a couple of HD and adding +1 to its attack rolls, I'll be happy.

Defcon1 explains it better in the next post:

...over time it did come to a point with me where it made levels almost superfluous. When I could easily have a Level 1 Minion kobold and a Level 15 Solo kobold... the game lost any semblance of levels having meaning. It made distinguishing tiers more difficult because the same monsters you might have fought in Heroic tier you would still often fight in Paragon and Epic tiers (and vice versa), and as Majoru said, I lost any sense of monster power. Higher levels meant players and monsters had more... stuff... but it didn't mean anything much in terms of the world around us.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?353944-D-amp-D-Next-Q-amp-A-03-28-2014#ixzz2xLNrqp6p
​

Just because the rules make it easy to scale monsters shouldn't have made it the norm for the game, because of the highlighted quote above.

It's not really an inherent flaw in the rules of 4e, but of how the rules were used to create the monster manual and the adventures. In other words, it's something you can relatively easily work around as a DM.

Typically you could:
- Use less solo monsters that where medium or smaller
- Don't scale traditional humanoid monsters that look the same at level 1 and level 15.
- Avoid using minions

This would give you a less gamey and more simulationist game if that's your thing. If you like your game to be gamey, sure just use everything as it is.

In my own game, I am doing the things above and basically using bounded accuracy. That is, when looking at what the monster to-hit/defences should be, I consult a chart which has 5 entries that compares the PC level to the monster level. +2, +1, 0 , -1 and -2.

If the monster is outside this chart it ends up using the to-hit/defences of the +2 or -2 (if it's higher/lower level than the PC's). It uses the original damage though. This makes it relatively likely that a level 1 Kobold will hit a level 10 PC, but the damage will be very low. So, a few such Kobold's won't be an issue, but 10-20 of them can be a problem, but nothing a daily or two won't solve.

I have done it this way because it's just easier for me as a DM to adjust these numbers on the fly, instead of recalculating everything. It also makes large orc armies quite scary on their own, even if they are all quite low level, and the same holds for the human/elf/dwarf armies defending against them. Numbers actually count for something.

My conclusion: having good tools doesn't mean you don't have to be careful when using them, otherwise you can end up with a game that feels completely different from what you set out to create.

 

[Derren]

That, and I never liked how some armors are just plain better than others.

I have no problem with that as it mirrors reality. Why must every armor be balanced? I don't want to see a wet towel armor be given some arbitrary and questionable bonuses just so it is exactly as powerful as other armors in the game.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

The biggest problem D&D has with armor is the general AC system itself. All you want with the AC system is a higher number and the best combo has always been the high dex plus medium armor that allows the most use of dex. Certain types of armor should grant abilities outside of AC. I would like to see heavy armor grant you some kind of resistance to damage while the lighter stuff gives you better movement etc... I also wouldn't mind seeing some resistance to specific types of weapons like plate mail granting you resistance to slashing weapons.