House Rule Feats to plug AC holes

[eamon]

Re- Hide Armor Expertise: Already banned (they conveniently keep grouping every feat that upsets my sense of balance and fun into the 'expertise' pile). Max AC twinks in PHB was already a point ahead for hide vs. plate, with plate's speed and check penalty this always seemed wrong to me.

But hide armor expertise fixes most of the same things you're trying to fix. It's not perfect; and if I were designing from scratch, I'd say, your idea is probably easier to eventually get right (even if there are some teething troubles). But, right now, banning it and replacing it with something else looks like a big change for a minor fix. Sure, it's lame that Con-barbarians get too much AC this way. Lame, but livable - and if it really offends your sense of balance, wouldn't it be better to simply fix hide armor expertise instead?

For instance, I could imagine the fix being: no Primal prereq (let the Warlock join in), not limited to hide armor, and the armor counts as heavy despite adding the Con mod for the purposes of class abilities (i.e. no stacking with the avenger or barbarian's class features). That's a little harsh, but less intrusive than an entire redesign. Frankly, if you're going to microbalance things like this you'll never finish, there's just a thousand and one things you could fix. Where does it end?

 

[Destil]

I've updated these as I actually have them set out in my house rules doc. I'm pretty happy with them, and would really like to thank eamon for the 'lower of Cha and Con' idea on Eldritch armor.