Improving Heavy Armor

[Endur]

Eliminating Chain Shirt

This is such an easy solution to the armor problem. I wish I had thought of it.

Just eliminate the chain shirt and leave all the other armors the same.

This should work fine. The people who like mobility will stick with studded leather, but they'll notice an armor difference versus those who wear a breastplate or full plate.

Tom

 

[Wolf72]

Re: Eliminating Chain Shirt

This is such an easy solution to the armor problem. I wish I had thought of it.

Just eliminate the chain shirt and leave all the other armors the same.

This should work fine. The people who like mobility will stick with studded leather, but they'll notice an armor difference versus those who wear a breastplate or full plate.

Tom

very simple and elegant ... I like it too!

 

[Eldorian]

The problem with eleminating chain shirt is that chain shirts are really cool! In 2e, most chain mail worn by characters was closer to chain shirt (like Drizzt's armor). Even with chainshirt out of the picture, medium and heavy armors take too much of a hit to be used by anyone other than point-buys that dump dex. And even if you dump dex, eventually you're gonna want to raise your dex with magic for the reflex saves at least, and you feel the bite of your armor again. I'm playtesting the 2 feats I posted, and the changes to movement to see how it works. My players looked at the rules with funny faces at first, then remembered that none of them had worn heavy armor in 3 campaigns (ie, not after our first 3e game.) Unfortunatly, the fighter/barbarian, the character i would see most taking those feats, is using an orc double axe, so his limited number of feats is ate up by two weapon fighting feats, and other offensive feats. We're thinking of starting an epic game soon, cause we get tired of our characters and/or adventures around mid levels, and I'm gonna try a character in full-plate with those 2 feats, I'll let ya know how it goes.

Eldorian Antar

 

[Khorod]

I actually thought the eliminating chain shirt was a joke...

Chain Shirt might be mishandled by the game mechanics, but it as extremely important piece of armor. It was the best armor for a long time, and was only surpassed by plate mail because, IIRC, the guys with the plate rode horses. A walking warrior really shouldn't be wearing plate mail into combat. If that is clearly the best choice between the two, the mechanics might need tweaking...

I like the way chain and plate was depicted in David Eddings' Sparhawk books- for general wandering, sleeping, and fortress infiltration the knights all wore chain. For serious direct battle or cavalry formations they put on the plate, and that's when they became the combat death machine. But they never even tried to adventure in the plate, that would be silly.

Possibly the solution is to increase the advantages of heavy armor even more- and do the same to the penalties.

 

[Khaalis]

Part of the point of Heavy Armor, as has been stated, is that it is not really meant for "general wear". It is designed for Fighters who either are NOT DEX fighters or that have no use for their DEX, like while Riding a horse into combat. If the Heavy Armor really doesnt meet up to personal snuff in your game, the "Easiest" thing to do is Rule 0 it and simply increase the AC appropriately.

Technically "Half Plate" as listed in the PHB is nothing more than combining Metal Plates over Chain Mail. SO if you follow that you could do the following.

Chain Mail = +5 AC
Breast Plate = +5 AC

Thus Half-Plate = +10 AC

This is better than the "Stacking" rule originally used:
Chain Mail = +5 AC
Breast Plate = +5 AC (divide by 2 - round down = +2)
Thus Half-Plate = +7 AC


Full-Plate is literally a metallic shell that covers the body and should provide at least 50% more protection than Half-Plate.

Thus Full-Plate = +15 AC

(Even if you use the Half-Plate as is, Full Plate should be 50% more effective and thus +10 AC [7/2 - round down to +3]).


Just a quick and dirty way of increasing the use of heavy armor and making them grant the additional protection everyone seems to want from them.


PS: To KHOROD - I WANT A LOCHIBAR!!!!

 

[Spatzimaus]

Heavy adamantium? Adamantium by itself is only Hardness 20, and I don't know where heavy feature comes from. Magic of Faerun?

Sorry, I meant "heavy armor using adamantine as a base". I had to specifiy "heavy" to know which equation to use for the DR. And my numbers won't match up with the DMG, exactly, since I've changed what many of these materials actually DO. In this case, I bumped up adamantine's hardness, and made it more expensive.

After all, right now the exotic materials are no-brainers. If you can get Mithril for your armor, why wouldn't you? So, I wanted the materials to be more expensive and more useful, so that you'd have to decide: do I want a +2 fine steel plate armor, or +3 adamantine?

Now, as others have pointed out, this only works if you give corresponding bonuses to weapons. This leads to the "material bonus" thing I referred to in my first post. So, it's not a small change.

 

[Pickaxe]

I was very interested in this thread, because only a few weeks ago I had a spirited discussion with a couple of my fellow gamers about whether or not chain shirt is broken.

Frankly, the suggestion to eliminate chain shirt is an attractive solution, but let me ignore that for the moment, in part because I just like having chain shirt in my campaigns. Here are a few other remarks about chain shirt and the heavier armors:

1) I like chain shirt in part because it does seem balanced within the light armor category, especially at low levels. It costs a lot more, so a first level character gives up a lot if he opts for chain shirt. For me, it often seems to be an issue of chain shirt vs. longbow at first level.

2) Even though chain shirt is the best light armor, and even though it is superior to at least some of the medium armors, I think it's only the slam-dunk choice for two classes, ranger and barbarian. You might think rogues and bards, but the armor check penalties and arcane spell failure, I would think, would steer them towards masterwork studded.

3) I think there are two other factors in 3e that skew the world towards chain shirt. One has been discussed pretty thoroughly, namely mobility, which really does have a big impact on combat. The other is, in my opinion, that Dexterity has equalled if not exceeded Strength as the most important stat. Dex impacts AC, initiative, ranged attacks, and reflex saves. In addition, compared to 1e (I never really played 2e), damage in 3e is actually greatly increased, and the consensus I get from other players is that it's better to have a high AC than high hit points. So, players are tending to keep Dex high, and they don't want to lose that Dex bonus.

4) One thing that might help heavier armors recoup some of their value is if max Dex and armor check did not drop together. It may make sense, in that any armor that limits your agility would affect both, but it means that the discrepancies between light and heavier armors in these two respects is startlingly large.

5) Another idea I had is to make masterwork armors more significant in the medium and heavy categories. For instance, say that all masterwork medium and heavy armors decrease the check penalty by one *and* increase max Dex by one.

6) Finally, one reason I'm ultimately not too bothered by this issue is that I like it better than the 1e situation, where everyone who was allowed to wear metal armor had platemail or something even heavier. A ranger would strive to have platemail as soon as he could get it, and your local adventurers' tavern had a flotilla of ironclads sitting at the bar.

Anyway, thought I'd share these ideas and encourage this discussion to continue.

--Axe

 

[Eldorian]

I'd just like to chime in and say that AC in our games has been pretty much ignored in character development. AC doesn't protect you against armor, or improved grab, or the many other very dangerous aspects of adventuring. Hit points, however, are a buffer against everything. Hence, I advocate Con as the most important stat in dnd; every character needs hit points.

Eldorian Antar