Is heavy armor overblown?

[Poster Bard]

Because being flat-footed sucks.

Yeah. I think the penchant for the most recent version of D&D to be about fighting and resting and fighting and resting, rather than to be more about just living in a dangerous environment most of the time and never really knowing when you might be called on to fight, encourages people to shrug off the idea that you might often be caught flat-footed.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Hrm. I've found, personally, that after about lvl 5, AC is almost useless anyway.

You can spend loads and loads of GP to get your AC from 23 to 28, but a monster with a +15 attack bonus is still going to tag you pretty often anyway. High strength beasties, in particular, and large high strength beasties especially, which become more common, have attack bonuses that scale all out of proportion to AC.

I've recently come of the opinion that Barbarian is the best class in the game after around levels 5-8. After that it's all about hitting the other guy harder and faster than he can hit you. Add an initial level of Monk (for Save increases) and take all three save increasing feats, spend your cash on a massive damage dealing Greatsword (best weapon in the game) and you can wail on wayward son. It's all about HP, Saves, and dishing damage. Spellcasters are pretty broken, but they're one-sided: All the damage, but one good whap away from crumpling.

--fje

 

[iwatt]

Hrm. I've found, personally, that after about lvl 5, AC is almost useless anyway.

You can spend loads and loads of GP to get your AC from 23 to 28, but a monster with a +15 attack bonus is still going to tag you pretty often anyway. High strength beasties, in particular, and large high strength beasties especially, which become more common, have attack bonuses that scale all out of proportion to AC.

I've heard this argument, and it doesn't hold that much water with me. High AC is useful. Oponents with power attack miss if they try to use this feat. Secondary attacks miss because of your high AC.

The purpose of high AC is not to make you unhittable (that is impossible due to the way attack bonus stack). It's to make you more durable. And IMHO opinion, focusing on amping AC is as valid a tactic as others.

By the way, I've played two different tanks: Dwarf pally with divine shield always fighting giants aided by druids and clerics for AC. This guy is unhittable most of the time. I've also played the human duelist. His AC was even higher, but it was a tough proposition to hit anything meaningfully. I say tank because his purpose in the party is to be the shield while others lay on the smack.

Of both characters, the higher "tank" was the duelist, but the more fulfilling characetr in combat was the palladin, who could actually hit stuff.

 

[takyris]

I believe that heavy armor can be useful, primarily because, as I see it, everything comes from somewhere.

If the guy with light armor slaps on an amulet to make his AC as high as the guy with the heavy armor, then the guy with the heavy armor has an amulet slot free, so he can have the same AC and, say, fire resistance.

In practical terms, this only works out well if the group divides things fairly. I have seen that, generally speaking, the people in the group likely to play light-armor or no-armor people are also the people who will be able to talk their way into getting the best stuff "because they need it" to overcome their character's "weaknesses," and my group would sometimes end up with the party bard or sorcerer having all kinds of great magical items while the fighter and cleric pretty much got magical armor, magical shields, and any magical weapons that couldn't be finessed.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I believe that heavy armor can be useful, primarily because, as I see it, everything comes from somewhere.

If the guy with light armor slaps on an amulet to make his AC as high as the guy with the heavy armor, then the guy with the heavy armor has an amulet slot free, so he can have the same AC and, say, fire resistance.

And you can get past some of the problems of heavy armor with fly, special armor qualities that remove the armor check penalty to certain skill groups, etc.

 

[satori01]

The notion that AC at higher levels is not important is incorrect, and the notion that the difference between 23 AC and a 28 AC is less important then between 13 AC and a 18 AC is also inaccurate.

I would even venture a guess and say the difference between an AC of 23 vs AC of 28 is actually more signifigant.
At higher levels you need those itterative attacks to really hurt creatures, and if you are missing on your first attack you generally miss on the rest of your attacks.

Also the number of effects that can go off at higher levels from even a single extra hit per round is quite large, from negative levels from a slam attack, to improved grab, posion, swallow whole etc, etc.

I have found that generally +2 over the AC sweetspot* really start increasing the misses. +4 over the AC sweetspot and spells, debuffs, and tacticial coordination become the order of the day to even hit the monster.


* The AC sweetspot to me, is the AC number where players are not guarenteed automatic hits, nor automatic misses,(ie have to roll a 20), and the monster can last long enough to be a challenge to the group and do its schitck. This number will vary from group to group, generally I think for a party of 10th level it is around 26 AC.