Improving Heavy Armor

[Endur]

Heavy Armor in D&D 3e doesn't seem to be valued by many adventurers.

I see lots of adventurers wearing chain shirts.

And, why shouldn't they?

chain shirt gives light movement, low dex penalty, armor +4, dex max +4.

full plate (the best armor) gives armor +8, dex max +1

So a high dex character can wear a chain shirt and have an ac only one less than a Knight type character in full plate. And you have many benefits, low dex penalty, full movement, run x4 instead of run x3, etc.

I think to make full plate the dominant armor on the battlefield, it really needs enhancements.

Either add to ac, or add to DR. DR makes sense, given that the reason heavy weapons (heavy x-bow, great sword) were developed was to defeat heavy armor.

So I think what I'm going to do is add DR +2 to heavy armor. To improve medium armor, I'd probably add DR +1 to medium armor.

Tom

 

[Chacal]

That's a brilliant idea !
But I might be biased , because we actually use this exact rule IMC

We used it even in 2e (but it was based on AC, not armor type) because we were tired of
seeing fighters preferring bracers and capes to real armor.


Chacal

 

[Anabstercorian]

www.montecook.com

In the new thing he's putting out, one of the primary classes (the warmain) has a lot of abilities devoted to letting him take better advantage of HEAVY, HEAVY armor. That might be something you'll want to take a look at.

 

[Azure Trance]

Green Ronin Hammer & Helm has Exotic Armor Proficencies for those rare, +10 armor types (and light +1 AC leather types which allow for high DEX). I'm a bit mixed on that. While it makes sense to balance it from a game point of view, is it really worth a feat?

 

[SamuraiY]

I like the idea, but it might create some confusion about mithril armor. since mithril full-plate is medium instead of heavy would that make its DR 1 or 2? it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the use of a better metal to reduce the strength of the armor.

 

[Wolf72]

something like this?

[edit: DR column is on the far right, and only for heavy armors ... regardless of material]

[color=white]
Modified Armors
ARMOR		COST	AC  DEX  CHK 	ASF	SPEED 	WGT	DR
[light]
Padded *	         5gp	+1  +8	 0	5%	full	10
Leather *	10gp	+2  +6	 0	10%	full	15
Cord *		15gp	+2  +5	 -1	5%	full	15
Bone * 		20gp	+3  +4	 -3	15%	full	20
Ashigaru	         25gp	+3  +5	-2	15%	full	20
Studded 	         25gp	+3  +5	-1	15%	full	20
Leather Scale *	35gp	+3  +6	 -2	15%	full	20
Ring Mail  	50gp	+3  +3	 -3	10%	full	20
Sea Leather *	75gp	+3  +5	 0	10%	full	15
Chain Shirt	100gp	+4  +4	 -2	20%	full	25
Leather-Wood *	120gp	+4  +5	 -3	20%	full	20

[medium]
Hide *		65gp	+5  +4	-3	20%	20/15	25
Dhenuka *	80gp	+6  +1	-5	25%	20/15	25
Brigandine	80gp	+6  +2	-5	30%	20/15	40
Scale Mail	100gp	+6  +3	-4	25%	20/15	30
Partial Armor	125gp	+6  +4	-3	25%	20/15	30
Chainmail	200gp	+7  +2	-5	30%	20/15	40
Lamellar	         225gp	+7  +3	-5	30%	20/15	35
Breastplate	250gp	+7  +3	-4	25%	20/15	30

[heavy] 
Splint Mail	400gp	+8  +0	-7	40%	20/15	45	1
Banded Mail 	500gp	+8  +1	-6	35%	20/15	35	1
Improved Mail 	700gp	+8  +2	-6	40%	20/15	40	1
Half-plate	800gp	+9  +0	-7	40%	20/15	50	1
Great Armor	1,200gp	+9  +2	-5	40%	20/15	45	1
Field Plate 	1,700gp	+10  +1	-6	35%	20/15	50	1
Full Plate	1,850gp	+10  +1	-6	35%	20/15	50	2
High Plate	5,000gp	+12  +2	-4	20%	20/15	40	1
 
[/color]

Melnibonean Plate is always MW and only available through Melnibonean craftsman. It can also be used to represent any Ancient/High form of armor (Valheru, Solamnic ...). Alternate name: High Plate. ... of this incredibly rare armor, no known suits are made of mithral, adamantine, or any other special material. High Plate incurs double the price modifier if it is made out of special materials (+20k adamantine, +18k mithral).

[option] Heavy Armor can only withstand so much before it needs to be repaired. It can take 25 hits before needing repair (craft DC 10 +base armor bonus, costs 10gp per hit up to 250gp). If allowed to go beyond this it will cost an add’t 100gp (350gp total), the armor will loose it’s DR rating, and the wearer will suffer a –2 circumstance/equipment penalty to AC ... until the armor is adequately fixed. (by TrentonJoe and Wolf72).

[footnotes]
1 Ej’s conversion (ring mail)
2 When running in Heavy Armor you move only 3x speed, not 4x.
3 Improved Mail by Drowdude
4 Ej’s conversion (full plate)
5 Dragonlords of Melnibone: Melnibonean plate, Leather-wood, Sea Leather

Sea leather only has a –2 to swim checks (instead of –3) because of weight, it resists saturation with water.

Leather-Wood armor soaks up water readily, it has a –6 to swim checks instead of a –4.

*= natural armors (usable by druids)

[edit]some prices have been modified:

Sea Leather, Leather-wood (converted and modified from bronze pieces in DLoM)

Partial, Lamellar, Banded

[edit: stooooopid spaces]

 

[Spatzimaus]

Wow, that's what I already do, glad I'm not the only one. Except it's more than just a flat +2.

Heavy armors give DR (Hardness/5)/-. Steel, for reference, has hardness 10, giving DR 2/-.

Medium armors and large/tower shields give DR (Hardness/10)/-. It stacks, of course, and all fractions get rounded down before adding.

These only apply if the armor actually remains heavy/medium; a Mithril BP won't get any DR, because it's now a light armor. In my mind it's not really a true "breastplate", it's more like "mithril chain shirt that protects as well as a steel breastplate would." (Think LotR)

Why does it scale with material hardness? Well, for one, it helps it scale with level. DR 2/- isn't much at high levels, but presumably by that point you'll have access to better materials. For another, it's not just that the armor is absorbing the blow, it's that the wielder consciously USES the armor to absorb blows. Some strong guy attacks me with a huge sword; with a large shield, I'd worry about it breaking so I'd try to turn the attack into a glancing blow instead of an outright block, or maybe I'd try to sidestep or something; if my armor was virtually unbreakable I could just let it hit straight on.

Besides, it helps keep things interesting. Wearing heavy adamantite plate (Hardness 30?) would give DR 6/-; not something to sneeze at.

To help offset this, most materials now have various "material bonuses" that now stack with magical weapon enhancement. "Fine Steel" is the analog of 3E Masterwork and gives a +1 attack bonus, while adamantite becomes pretty significant.

The only people hurt by this sort of balancing are Monks (since they won't use physical weapons but now face higher DR), but we've heavily modified Monks IMC so it's not an issue. The 3.5E Ki Strike modification (bypasses DR 5, bypasses DR 10, etc.) seems perfect for this sort of system.

The important point, as others have pointed out, is that this gives physical armors a benefit that isn't duplicated by Bracers of Armor or Shield+Mage Armor. It always annoyed me that a pure caster could have a consistently high AC, that worked against incorporeals, that didn't fatigue you, and that wasn't obvious to casual observers, and yet STILL gave the same effect.

 

[Clay_More]

Hmm, good discussion. Not one fighter, except at low levels, uses Heavy Armor. It's simply not worth it. I would even say that the Damage Reduction offered by Medium and Heavy Armor should be 1 or 2 even against any magical weapon. Most critters and NPC's at level 5 or above will have magical weapons and/or claws/teeth. Yet, armor gives damage reduction through it's pure blocking power, by the force of the thick layer of metal that encases the fighter. Thus, I would say that the damage reduction might be 1/+5 and 2/+10.
You could even say that a magical medium or heavy armor adds to the damage reduction, but im not sure if a simple +1 should add to damage reduction or if you would need special magical armor that has higher damage reduction.

 

[Staffan]

The thing is that most people don't have the Dex to make full use of the potential AC bonus from the chain shirt, and thus they'd go for heavy armor instead. That's especially true if you use some kind of point-buy system: do you buy Str 13 and Dex 18 so you can get full use of the chain shirt, or do you buy Str 18 and Dex 13 so you can hit really hard and wear a full plate?

 

[Grendel]

Or do you go 18 str and 18 dex
and get the mithral chainshirt of haste.