Heavy armor barbarian?

[keterys]

I'd be okay with there just being Fort, Reflex, Will and 'Armor' bonus which gave a small bonus to each except for Armor Piercing attacks.

Course, Reflex might be targeted an awful lot under such a system... but it effectively already is under a different moniker. And people would rebel at not having 'AC' in D&D

That said, for a standard game the actual thing that would fix it is to not increase ability scores every 4 levels at all. Just stop that and a bunch of things actually fix themselves.

 

[Garthanos]

If you would go back to a saving throw system instead of defense (having bot active and passive defenses)

I now play with all defenses being "active" from the player perception
and all attacks being active from the player perception.

If you are saying D&D shouldn't be differentiating reflex versus ac?... maybe have "passive defense" - ac ... all be damage resistance?

So your heavy armor gives you damage resistance and a penalty on reflex defense.

 

[Roger]

Armor works just fine without taking the proficiency feat.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[keterys]

Armor works just fine without taking the proficiency feat.

Dunno, a -2 to Attacks is pretty horrible for any character, and a -2 to Reflex defense in trade for a couple to AC isn't a complete win.

 

[BlightCrawler]

A better alternative (from Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Excerpts: Primal Power Feats) ) for Rageblood barbarians is the upcoming Hide Armor Expertise -- which lets any Primal with at least a 15 Con and Hide prof. character use Con instead of Dex/Int when wearing hide.

Sigh. There goes the advantageous trade-off in making my barbarian an elf instead of a minotaur.

 

[Destil]

Doesn't look like there's much to prevent you from playing a barbarian armored like a battleship. You don't get your free point per tier of AC. . . but the heavy armor vastly outclasses that. Costs you a feat, but oh well.

Any particular reason why you shouldn't do this? Seems like you get all the fun of a massive striker, without any "glass cannon" effect.

Yeah, people who complain that barbs have low AC must either be playing thaneborns or not care, because they have no problem taking feats to improve it. Thaneborns I feel for, though, as they're pretty damn cool...