Is heavy armour still the Cinderella?

[Quartz]

Let's face it, no one in 3E uses heavy armour if they can possibly help it. Mithril breastplate is the business in 3E. The penalties for wearing heavy armour vastly outweigh the few pips of extra AC you get.

I'm wondering if this will hold in 4E?

 

[keterys]

Heavy armor is disfavored mostly due to stat bloat (+6 Dex item, high point buy, etc)... with no stat bloat, heavy armor looks to be very useful. You'd need at least a 20 Dex/Int to match the basic bonus that you get from heavy armor in the new system. You're more likely to have 10-14 as a beater class.

 

[Mirtek]

Heavy armor is disfavored mostly due to stat bloat (+6 Dex item, high point buy, etc)... with no stat bloat, heavy armor looks to be very useful. You'd need at least a 20 Dex/Int to match the basic bonus that you get from heavy armor in the new system. You're more likely to have 10-14 as a beater class.

Actually I have seen many characters in mithril fullplate, because it just looks better in the imagination of their players

 

[HP Dreadnought]

Let's hope heavy armor has a renaissance in 4E. Heavy armor is cool. . . its past time it got rules to match!

 

[frankthedm]

Speed was just too valuable and standard mounts could not carry enough nor were they durable enough. Medium or heavy armor cost the average character 1/3rd thier movement and probably put thier mount into medium load if they had one at all..

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

Armor as Damage Resistance has been the only way through my games I could ever encourage people to pick up and wear heavier armor. Then again, I don't penalize movement by armor type, I only penalize skill ranks.

 

[Voadam]

Huh,

2/3 characters with heavy armor proficiency in my 17th level group are in full plate and have been since 7th/10th level when they respectively joined the group. The third is an elven fighter archer build who switched from ranger to fighter when we converted to 3.5.

 

[Xethreau]

With the removal of "medium" armor, I suspect that heavy armor will get a bit better, especially the special "masterwork" armors.

I mean, sure, Fullplate removes your Dexterity/Inteligence mod from your AC/Reflex, but if speed penalties are only one or two, and Mithral makes the armor count as "light," then I would say that there has been an improvement.

For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, go here .

 

[jaelis]

Armor as Damage Resistance has been the only way through my games I could ever encourage people to pick up and wear heavier armor. Then again, I don't penalize movement by armor type, I only penalize skill ranks.

You don't penalize movement, but you still couldn't get people to wear heavy armor? That must have been an RP choice, not an optimization one. I can't see ACP mattering all that much to a typical fighter... certainly not enough to turn down a free +3 to AC.

 

[Sir Brennen]

I thought I saw it mentioned somewhere that a fighter class feature or power was going to allow them to either ignore ACP or add their stat bonus when using Heavy Armor. Maybe both. Would definitely been a good benefit for the beat-on guy.