Is heavy armor overblown?

[Thanee]

Yep, the big advantage of heavy armor (read: full plate) is, that you do not need a high Dex to get a good AC.

For a scout or an archer this might be less of an issue, since they typically have a decent Dex, anyways.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Zappo]

What Tatsukun said. You can make a light-armor character with the same AC as a heavy-armor character, but he won't be able to deal as much damage or he won't have nearly as many hit points, due to either low STR or low CON.

As for the point buy value of 4d6 drop lowest, it is somewhere between 29 and 30 IIRC. This is balanced by the fact that with random rolls you're going to get inefficiencies, such as odd stats that you have no use for. A 17 which you aren't going to raise to 18 at 4th, or having no stat under 10 but also no stat over 14. Overall, I find that 4d6 drop lowest characters and 25 PB characters are about equal in strength. If the random generation method averaged to 25 PB, it would produce underpowered characters.

Naturally, that's assuming that you use the 4d6DL to the letter, no exceptions save for "worthless characters" as defined in the PHB. Most - heck, all - DMs I've played with would let you reroll two sets and choose the best, or reroll one low stat, or let you rearrange points, or simply cave in to a whining player that hasn't got his 17 or 18 he "absolutely needs or he'll be useless". Those practices, of course, make "4d6DL" characters much stronger than 25 PB.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

What Tatsukun said. You can make a light-armor character with the same AC as a heavy-armor character, but he won't be able to deal as much damage or he won't have nearly as many hit points, due to either low STR or low CON.
...
Most - heck, all - DMs I've played with would let you reroll two sets and choose the best, or reroll one low stat, or let you rearrange points, or simply cave in to a whining player that hasn't got his 17 or 18 he "absolutely needs or he'll be useless". Those practices, of course, make "4d6DL" characters much stronger than 25 PB.

Seconded. Heavy armour allows the heavies to concentrate on str (& con) and not feel like they're gimping themselves. Light armour forces 3 good stats to compare but come the higher levels, even a good base set of stats doesn't cut it as wealth becomes scarce when spread over these stats.

I play in a 25pt buy campaign & run a 4d6dl or 25pt buy game (no whining tolerated)- heavy armour rules supreme.

 

[Thanee]

As for the point buy value of 4d6 drop lowest, it is somewhere between 29 and 30 IIRC. This is balanced by the fact that with random rolls you're going to get inefficiencies, such as odd stats that you have no use for. A 17 which you aren't going to raise to 18 at 4th, or having no stat under 10 but also no stat over 14.

Yep, that's somewhat true, but if you use the ability point every four levels to even the odds, so to say, which supposedly most non-wizard/sorcerers will do, then you will get the most out of those higher stats.

Overall, I find that 4d6 drop lowest characters and 25 PB characters are about equal in strength.

For the reason mentioned, basically that you have less control over the distribution, I also think, that PB should be a bit lower than the average of the 4d6dl method. But 25 PB is too low, 28 PB is more like it IMHO.

Naturally, that's assuming that you use the 4d6DL to the letter, no exceptions save for "worthless characters" as defined in the PHB. Most - heck, all - DMs I've played with would let you reroll two sets and choose the best, or reroll one low stat, or let you rearrange points, or simply cave in to a whining player that hasn't got his 17 or 18 he "absolutely needs or he'll be useless". Those practices, of course, make "4d6DL" characters much stronger than 25 PB.

Heh. Yep. That's somewhat part of what I meant above, that balancing for 25 PB makes no sense, since most groups tend to fit that pattern, supposedly, and extremely few will actually play in the 25 PB level. Most campaigns will be more like 28 PB or even 32 PB.

If the rules fail in this more common range, and only work with 25 PB, then they are badly balanced.

But... I don't think they do, that's just hypothetical. Heavy armor is definitely not bad, even with decent stats, because they allow you to cover a weakness and thus enhance your strengths in other areas (Str/Con/Wis for a fighter). Full plates will always have their place. The real liability is medium armor, which is almost completely pointless.

Bye
Thanee

 

[unleashed]

Okay, just ran a test of 100 4d6 drop lowest and came up with the following results. These results take into account the point buy cost of ability scores above and below the range of 8-14, and only count non-hopeless characters.

From 100 rolls, 85 character were viable by both criterea in the RAW.

Those 85 characters averaged a PB of 31.27 (was 18.73 originally, very strange though that I got 85 viable characters in each test ).

But don't forget a PB of 15 (10 [+0/2pts],14 [+2/6pts],12 [+1/4pts],6 [-2/-2pts],7 [-2/-1pt],14 [+1/+6pts] = +1/15pts total) can be a viable set of stats by the RAW.

Sorry if anyone has posted after the original post who was refuting the original figures, but my calculator had a few messed up figures. These have now been changed with the originals reflected in brackets where change was required.

 

[S'mon]

I find, like Thanee says (Trust Thanee. Thanee is Wise) that 28 PB gives PCs about as viable as most of what I as a moderately strict GM doing 4d6 drop lowest get from random rolled PCs. After begging I allowed reroll where rolled stats total bonus was 'only' +3 (I think that +3 character would have cost 27 points).

Edit: I've had 7 players IMC, 6 rolled, 1 28 PB. Of the players who rolled, the 4 non-diehards rolled PCs all around 30-31 points (1 was allowed to reroll), the 2 diehards (y'know, those guys...) rolled both over 40 points. The non-diehard PCs look about the same as the 28-point PC to me.

 

[Stalker0]

Even with high dex mods, its still very expensive to get your AC to the level of full plate.

You need an 18 dex and then some other ac mods to get to that +8....normally you need enhancement bonuses on your chain shirt, gloves of dex, rings of protection, etc. All of that stuff isn't cheap...meanwhile the fighter can get amulets of con, cloaks of resistance, etc.

Of course, the dex fighters big advantage is against touch attacks, most heavy fighters often have 10 or 11 touch ACs.

As for medium armors, AE uses a great idea to make this more viable. All of the ACP for medium armors are adjusted into the -3 or -4 range (with one exception). In addition, sleeping in armor doesn't fatique you if the ACP is -4 or lower. This means that in AE you can sleep in almost all medium armors and you don't take fatique penalties. This is a way for fighters to use medium armors when they are normally the most vulnerable...during those ambushes while your asleep.

 

[VirgilCaine]

With a +3 Dex mod and a +1 chain shirt, you've got 18 right there. With an 18 and the same you're up to +1 plate mail. Matching large shield + plate mail is harder.
But any way you choose, you can make 20 AC or more just with a good Dex mod and magic (heavy/light/medium) armor.

 

[Celebrim]

In my opinion, the drawbacks of platemail out wiegh its advantages to adventurers.

1) You are slow. You can't run away from danger, and you have a hard time running to it, if ambushed by foes using ranged weapons.
2) You are awkward. You can't jump. You can't climb. You can't swim. You fall over (balance) anytime you have to hustle through broken or steeply sloped terrain (cave interiors for example).
3) You are unstealthy. Enemies always hear you approaching. You rarely if ever generate surprise, while are continually at risk of surprise yourself.
4) You are heavy. You break through rotting wooden scaffolding and old suspension bridges. You risk drowning any time water is nearby. Between not being able to swim or climb, bullrushing foes can take you right out of the combat with ease.
5) You can't sleep in your armor. You are extremely vulnerable to night ambushes because it takes forever to get heavy armor on.
6) You have severe problems with adverse temperature environments. Wearing platemail in a desert can be suicidal.

You can negate problems #1 and #2 with a good mount, but a mount is itself a problem in a typical dungeon environment. A generous DM will provide feats to mitigate some of the above problems, but those feats could have been spent on feats to improve your protection anyway.

Now, for a mounted horseman fighting on open ground in predictable times and places, or a castle defender waiting out a seige, platemail is a really good deal. For an adventurer in hostile wilderness environments, lighter armor is the way to go.

 

[gizmo33]

In my opinion, the drawbacks of platemail out wiegh its advantages to adventurers.

My opinion as well. I don't like it, I don't think it's historical, and I think the dex limit is overly harsh. I think the skill penalties are harsh enough.