Low armor world and game mods?

[Greybar]

Folks,

My campaign world has a couple of themes that drive it away from the plate-mail-wearing warrior. I think my PCs have been doing okay with this thus far, but their ACs are starting to get too easy for enemies to hit. It's also relatively low-magic at this point, but they've managed to collect a couple rings of protection and amulets of natual armor and the like.

* Metal armor in their world is rare (good steel is something semi-secret)
* The temperature generally runs hot, so heavy armor is ill-advised for summer fighting.
* I like the image of a celtic-ish warrior for the primary culture.

What I'm looking for is suggestions on how to help them boost their AC. The alternative is to drop opponent's to hit bonuses but that way leads madness it seems.

I'm thinking:
* Improved Dodge feat chain, feats that allow you to take a bonus from other stats (Canny Dodge - take Int as insight bonus, Sacred Aura - take Cha as sacred bonus), but that means people can only gain them as they take feats (every three levels!)
* PrCs that have above bonuses
* More items like I mentioned earlier
* encourage use of Total Defense as a tactic (???)

I'm looking for other advice. Surely someone else out there is running a celtic/conan/primitive type campaign and hitting this as PCs hit mid levels.

thanks!
John

 

[Bug]

Low-Armor World

Currently, I'm running a low-armor campaign that's worked out pretty well. Only one player has full plate. The rest are either using Leather or nothing at all. There are a few things I changed around in order to achieve this:

1. All metal armor costs ten times what is listed in the PHB.

2. I have a Defense Bonus by Class chart. Players may choose to increase their AC by either their Defense Bonus by Class or their normal Armor bonus. If a player chooses to wear armor, they give up their Defense Bonus by Class. The only shields that count as armor in this instance are Tower Shields. So a character could still use a shield and no armor and receive his/her Defense Bonus by Class. Defense Bonus by Class is lost if a character is flat-footed.

3. I have all firearms add the AC bonus of a target's metal armor to their damage roll to represent shards of metal being blown back into the target by the slug. Suddenly, plate mail isn't so useful when a Hobgoblin whips out a musket.


These were pretty simple fixes that have worked out well so far. The players seem to really like the Defense Bonus by Class rules. It is sort of a win-win situation for them. It also really helps out classes like the Bard, Wizard and Sorcerer, especially at lower levels. Some defense bonus is certainly better than none at all.

 

[Greybar]

2. I have a Defense Bonus by Class chart. Players may choose to increase their AC by either their Defense Bonus by Class or their normal Armor bonus. If a player chooses to wear armor, they give up their Defense Bonus by Class. The only shields that count as armor in this instance are Tower Shields. So a character could still use a shield and no armor and receive his/her Defense Bonus by Class. Defense Bonus by Class is lost if a character is flat-footed.

What kind of rate of increase does this give for the fighter types? 1/3levels or so?

thanks for the ideas,
John

 

[seasong]

I'd recommend 1/2 the BAB bonus, rounded down. 1/3 is still too easy to hit. A dodge feat chain, perhaps giving +1 AC per feat taken, also sounds good to me.

However, make sure if you use these to enforce the "low armor" aspect of the world. With armor, both solutions can lead to nearly unhittable characters.

 

[Destil]

A combination of low armor and low magic will hurt ACs over the long run. However one thing to note is that "too easy" to hit is a reletive term, and in standard 3E attack bonus outstrip ACs rather quickly, anyway. Eventualy even default magic & armor levels will bring many PCs not foused on defense fall into the 'too easy to hit' catagory for some people's sense of what too easy to hit is.

That said, I'd agree that defense bonuses are the best way to counter balance both issues. I'd, personaly, apply the defense bonus as a dodge bonus to AC, and have it count towards maximum dex bonus for armor, rather than keeping the two exclusive. (otherwise at high levels no armor is almost always the best way to go. Though if that's what you're going for it can work, too.)