D&D 5E Legends & Lore Archive : 12/9/2013

[ccooke]

Right. So, who wants to wear medium armor? And, if the answer is "just those who cannot afford heavy armor, or who are prevented or limited from wearing heavy armor due to their class", maybe that was a sign to change something to make all three armor types attractive, or eliminate medium armor?

In 5e right now, anyone who is primarily a melee fighter who wants to be decent enough at ranged weapons to do both can benefit from medium armour.

Actually, just thinking about this, I'm suddenly intrigued by the idea of a Mountain Dwarf Fighter specialising in handaxes and shields.

Take the Shield Master and Dual Wielder feats at levels 4 and 6, and you have a fighter in medium armour with AC 21, three attacks doing 1d6+str each and the possibility to be decent with the handaxe as a thrown weapon. They're small enough that a good few can be carried, too, so you have some interesting tactical options

(The fact that this character would also be pretty good at targeted Dex saves would be nice, too - with at least +2 from DEX and +2 from a shield, +4 to DEX saves against projectiles and directly targeted spells would really help a front-line fighter)

 

[Minigiant]

Right. So, who wants to wear medium armor? And, if the answer is "just those who cannot afford heavy armor, or who are prevented or limited from wearing heavy armor due to their class", maybe that was a sign to change something to make all three armor types attractive, or eliminate medium armor?

Light armor doesn't become btter than medium armor untill your Dexterity is higher than 17. At +3, both give about the same AC at the same cost with not stealth disadvantage.

And if you don't care about stealth, medium is better than heavy until you can afford plate if you have Dexterity between 14-17. Cheaper and no speed penalty.

Really it's the other way around. Only those with 18+ DEX or can't wear better armor due to class should wear light armor. Which is Mearl's point.

 

[variant]

They need to just get rid of the medium armor category. It's kind of pointless. Just divide up the medium armor into light and heavy.

 

[Sage Genesis]

I agree that DDN facilitates these builds (and I love it!), I was just commenting on the notion that no previous edition allowed for an "archer-survivalist" (Human Fighter starts with three feats: Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Skill Focus [Survival] and you're good to go).

A +3 bonus to a cross-class skill is a fairly poor excuse for a real "cunning archer and survivalist", if you ask me. Where is spot, listen, move silently, hide, use rope, or any of the mobility feats (your survivalist can surely swim and climb trees)? Also, the bonus from the skill focus feat offsets the half rank cross-class penalty... at level 1. And then it falls behind.

What you describe as "good to go" I'd describe as "inadequate and a good example of 3e's trap choices".

 

[Quartz]

You had 44 homebrewed prestige classes in 3e? Wow. That seems HUGE to me.

Why? A long while ago I wanted something like a Mystic Theurge for an Assassin / Blackguard BBEG but MT didn't give me what I wanted, so I invented one. A few notes on a piece of paper (now lost) for a 5-level PrC and job done. Repeat as necessary.

 

[Sadras]

Why? ... snip... A few notes on a piece of paper (now lost) for a 5-level PrC and job done. Repeat as necessary.

44 seems like a rather large number, but ok to each their own. As a DM I just couldn't spare that kind of time creating Prestige Classes. Perhaps I'm too pedantic. I'd much rather pass the time designing adventures, thinking up story hooks and tinkering with the rules to suit our playstyle.

If I ever went back to 3.x/Pathfinder it would have to E6/P6 rules. I just get exhausted looking at all that detail. It easier for me to hamstring a baddie together in D&DNext than using 3.x/Pathfinder systems to compute the different ACs, scouring through feats, allocating skills point...etc

Never again.

 

[Gadget]

Right. So, who wants to wear medium armor? And, if the answer is "just those who cannot afford heavy armor, or who are prevented or limited from wearing heavy armor due to their class", maybe that was a sign to change something to make all three armor types attractive, or eliminate medium armor?

Agreed. This is precisely what they did in 4e, because by the end of 3e, everyone was either in a mithril shirt (light), or plate with the most bonus they could afford. I think they changed the math a little in the play test to make this less likely, but I can't remember off the top of my head. I hope they have taken this into consideration.

 

[I'm A Banana]

A +3 bonus to a cross-class skill is a fairly poor excuse for a real "cunning archer and survivalist", if you ask me. Where is spot, listen, move silently, hide, use rope, or any of the mobility feats (your survivalist can surely swim and climb trees)? Also, the bonus from the skill focus feat offsets the half rank cross-class penalty... at level 1. And then it falls behind.

I get that this doesn't do it for you, but it's totally possible that this does it enough for a lot of people. Have a decent STR and WIS score, and with the DC's you have to roll against, you'd be a fine model of a guy who lives in the forest and kills wild animals for food and makes homes out of logs. You'd be able to have a good chance of success at anything that this person would be assumed to do (climbing trees and swimming most waterways don't require high skill bonuses to have a good chance at accomplishing; even better with 3e's Take 10 rule).

I'm not disputing the fact that this isn't enough for you, I'm just disputing your assumption that this shouldn't be enough, period.

I mean, that's part of the difference, here. For some people, being an OD&D fighter and using a bow and saying "I live in the woods" is enough. For others, having at least 6 discrete character elements that individually or in total say "I am a survivalist archer!" might not even be enough. There's no one true way to represent this, and there's no way that's inherently better or worse than another, it's just different for different needs.

The needs are driven by what you need the rules to model. I'm of the opinion that the things you need a lot of rules for (a lot of character options for) are the things your characters will be doing a lot of. In a generic Gygaxian hex-exploration-and-dungeon-survival kind of game, a survivalist bow-using fighter would basically need something that says "I can hunt for my rations and shoot things good with bows." That might just mean "Have non-crappy Wis, Str and Dex scores." Any "e" of D&D can have that. You don't need ranks and skills and feats and class features and these elements, necessarily. You don't even need HIGH ability scores (since 10 represents a typical human's typical ability scores, and a typical human can survive in the forest with a bow, it's a pretty safe bet that a PC can, too).

So put me down for "you can have a survivalist bow-using fighter in any edition." It's just that editions like 3e offer more detail for representing that. Whether or not that detail is constructive is a matter of individual preference, not objective reality.

 

[Brock Landers]

Compromising gets you a lot further than sticking to your guns and bull-headedly plowing through to get your way.

That could also be marriages based on deception.

I refuse to use the word "Obfuscate" this year.

 

[Sage Genesis]

I get that this doesn't do it for you, but it's totally possible that this does it enough for a lot of people.

Of course. I never claimed otherwise. When I start a post with "if you ask me", it's a sign that I'm stating my personal opinion. Apologies if anyone thought I was making a statement about objective reality.

I did, however, make an objective statement when I said that the Skill Focus feat falls behind at later levels when compared to having a class skill, but that's not really an opinion open to debate. It's just how the numbers work. Perhaps to objective tone of that statement bled into the preceding one.