So, various different armors. Some additions and removals along the way.
Light armors: Studded leather is removed. Instead, Brigandine (both cloth and leather) is available as a medium armor. "Cloth" and "Leather" become "Padded Cloth" and "Padded Leather". The price scaling seems to assume +4 from Dex, but an extra tax because it can still go higher with higher Dex.
Medium armors: Half plate is moved to heavy armor. Brigandines are added, and the base AC for Hide seems to have been bumped up to 13.
Heavy armors: Ring mail and Chain mail have been removed. Hauberk was added instead. "Splint" was misspelled as "Split".
Pricing seems to be mostly scaled so that all armors with the same AC have roughly the same price. Any differences from this seem to suggest some extra bonus or penalty from the armor type.
The streamlining of prices looks good, and the armor updates are appreciated. Nothing problematic other than the misspelling. I do have to wonder about what benefits there are among the different armor types to justify choosing a different armor when it otherwise looks like you're just paying for the AC you want.
Assuming you want to buy new armor using a large portion of your starting level wealth (using
@Morrus's table, and figuring you're also wanting to consider weapons and other stuff), you're looking at AC 16 by 3rd level, AC 17 by 5th level, AC 18 by 7th level, and AC 19 by 10th level. Heavy armor users should be able to hit AC 20 by around 13th-14th level. With the usual guesstimating caveats, overall it feels reasonable.
Light armors:
Padded Cloth [11]
Padded leather [12]
Medium armors:
Hide [13]
Chain Shirt [13]
Cloth Brigandine [13]
Leather Brigandine [14]
Scale Mail [14]
Breastplate [14]
Heavy armors:
Hauberk [16]
Splint [17]
Half Plate [17]
Full Plate [18]
Medium armor AC includes +2 from Dex. Light armor AC includes +4 from Dex.
| Armor | Bonus | Type | AC | Cost |
|---|
| | | | |
| Padded cloth | 0 | Light | 15 | 5 |
| Hide | 0 | Medium | 15 | 10? |
| Chain Shirt | 0 | Medium | 15 | 50 |
| Cloth Brigandine | 0 | Medium | 15 | 50? |
| | | | |
| Padded cloth | 1 | Light | 16 | 65 |
| Padded leather | 0 | Light | 16 | 10 |
| Hide | 1 | Medium | 16 | 150 |
| Scale mail | 0 | Medium | 16 | 50 |
| Chain Shirt | 1 | Medium | 16 | 150 |
| Cloth Brigandine | 1 | Medium | 16 | 150 |
| Leather Brigandine | 0 | Medium | 16 | ??? |
| Breastplate | 0 | Medium | 16 | 400 |
| Hauberk | 0 | Heavy | 16 | ??? |
| | | | |
| Padded cloth | 2 | Light | 17 | 500 |
| Padded leather | 1 | Light | 17 | 400 |
| Hide | 2 | Medium | 17 | 500 |
| Scale mail | 1 | Medium | 17 | 250 |
| Chain Shirt | 2 | Medium | 17 | 500 |
| Cloth Brigandine | 2 | Medium | 17 | 500 |
| Leather Brigandine | 1 | Medium | 17 | 400 |
| Breastplate | 1 | Medium | 17 | 500 |
| Hauberk | 1 | Heavy | 17 | 450 |
| Splint [sp] | 0 | Heavy | 17 | 200 |
| Half plate | 0 | Heavy | 17 | 750? |
| | | | |
| Padded cloth | 3 | Light | 18 | 2,500 |
| Padded leather | 2 | Light | 18 | 2,500 |
| Hide | 3 | Medium | 18 | 2,000 |
| Scale mail | 2 | Medium | 18 | 2,000 |
| Chain Shirt | 3 | Medium | 18 | 2,000 |
| Cloth Brigandine | 3 | Medium | 18 | 2,200 |
| Leather Brigandine | 2 | Medium | 18 | 2,200 |
| Breastplate | 2 | Medium | 18 | 2,000 |
| Hauberk | 2 | Heavy | 18 | 1,500 |
| Splint [sp] | 1 | Heavy | 18 | 1,500 |
| Half plate | 1 | Heavy | 18 | 2,000 |
| Full plate | 0 | Heavy | 18 | 1,500 |
| | | | |
| Padded leather | 3 | Light | 19 | 10,000 |
| Scale mail | 3 | Medium | 19 | 8,000 |
| Leather Brigandine | 3 | Medium | 19 | 8,000 |
| Breastplate | 3 | Medium | 19 | 8,000 |
| Hauberk | 3 | Heavy | 19 | 6,000 |
| Splint [sp] | 2 | Heavy | 19 | 6,000 |
| Half plate | 2 | Heavy | 19 | 8,000 |
| Full plate | 1 | Heavy | 19 | 6,000 |
| | | | |
| Splint [sp] | 3 | Heavy | 20 | 24,000 |
| Half plate | 3 | Heavy | 20 | 32,000 |
| Full plate | 2 | Heavy | 20 | 24,000 |
| | | | |
| Full plate | 3 | Heavy | 21 | 96,000 |
So this pricing pattern has the problem that it makes having heavy armor proficiency pretty damn useless.
You get the same AC for the same amount of gp as someone without that class feature.
Higher armor proficiencies should be useful.
To make it sensible, lets make each level of armor proficiency "worth" 1 AC.
Cloth: 10 AC
Light armor proficiency gives Leather: 11 AC (+1 over cloth), but really 14-16 AC (dex 16-20) and no armor check penalty.
Medium armor proficiency should then give 15-16 AC, with the advantage you only need 14 dex instead of 20. (Note here I didn't give a full +1 AC at the top end).
With disadvantage on stealth, that should be 16-17 AC.
Heavy armor proficiency should give 17-18 AC with disadvantage on stealth. It has strength requirements to compare to the medium armor's dex requirements.
At low levels, characters in light armor are expected to have lower Dex, and lower-tier mundane versions of medium/heavy armor. But by around level 4-8, we should assume top-tier mundane armor, or magical armor, and maxed out dex for light armor wearers.
We can work out the rough budget of a PC by adding up the accumulated acquired wealth and say halving it at each tier.
L 5: about 2000 gp is "expensive"
L 11: about 20000 gp is "expensive"
L 17: about 100000 gp is "expensive"
In T2, +1 leather should be expensive, on the order of 2000 gp. It grants an AC of 17.
+1 medium armor with an AC of 14+1 and 2 dex cap should grant an AC of 17 as well, so should cost about 2000 gp.
With disadvantage on stealth, this becomes 18 AC, so base 15+1.
Heavy armor should grant 19 AC for about 2000 gp, one point more than medium.
These are all approximate. We can halve or double these values and be in the right ballpark.
Light armor can have half the price.
Cloth: 10(+dex) AC is 0 gp,
Leather: 11(+dex) AC is 10 gp, +1 is 1000 gp, +2 is 10000 gp, +3 is 50000 gp
Cheap medium: 13(+2 dex) AC is 50 gp, +1 is 500 gp, +2 is 2000 gp, +3 is 15000 gp
Cheap bulky medium: 14(+2 dex) AC is 100 gp, +1 is 500 gp, +2 is 2500 gp, +3 is 20000 gp
Expensive medium: 14(+2 dex) AC is 200 gp, +1 is 2000 gp, +2 is 15000 gp, +3 is 75000 gp
Expensive bulky medium: 15(+2 dex) AC is 300 gp, +1 is 2500 gp, +2 is 20000 gp, +3 is 100000 gp
Cheap heavy (13 str): 16 AC is 100 gp, +1 is 500 gp, +2 is 2000 gp, +3 is 8000 gp
Medium heavy (13 str): 17 AC is 200 gp, +1 is 2000 gp, +2 is 8000 gp, +3 is 80000 gp
Expensive heavy (15 str): 18 AC is 1000 gp, +1 is 3000 gp, +2 is 30000 gp, +3 is 150000 gp
So:
Leather is 1/2 price for similar AC with capped dex to top tier medium armor.
Cheap versions of armor have cheaper magical versions as well. There is a premium for your armor being magical (at the +1 level) (I'm presuming "item is magical" has mechanical benefits in a few cases), but after that the cheap version (-1 AC) has the price of the more expensive version with 1 less plus. Wearing a +2 item with 1 less AC is flavor compared to the +1 higher tier item.
"Woo my armor is magical, but no better than a higher tier mundane" is priced at 500 gp in the above chart (regardless of how much the higher tier armor costs).
Bulky (disadvantage on stealth) is worth +1 AC, but also bumps prices up a bit. This is both reflected in the mundane prices and in the magic item prices.
Heavy armor has 3 tiers -- cheap medium and expensive. For heavy armor, cheap/medium has a lower str requirement, so the same AC as the heavy version (full plate)
costs more by a factor of 2 to 3.
Someone in bulky medium armor with 14 dex pays 25% more than someone with 13 strength in heavy armor for the same AC.
Someone in magical full plate with 15 strength pays 50% more than someone in expensive medium bulky with 14 dex for 1 more AC. For the same AC, they pay 16% to 50% of the price, as they can get it 1 plus lower.
This means that Mithral needs to be expensive. Any fixed amount added will make it a bargain at certain points, or way over priced. Maybe 5x price?
Mithral full plate (no strength requirement, no bulk) at +1 is then 15000 gp for 19 AC. To pull off 18 AC with 14 dex in medium is you need +2 expensive gear, so 15000 gp. "Heavy armor proficiency" and "+1 AC" vs "14 dex" is a decent tradeoff I think.
OTOH, anything but full plate in heavy mithral is over priced, as the difference between 13 and 15 str requirement no longer matters. Possibly Mithral X armor should have its own rows, rather than a raw multiplier.
So you'd have specific items:
Mithral Chain Shirt (14+2 dex AC, requires no armor proficiency)
Mithral Breastplate (15+2 dex AC, requires light armor proficiency)
Mithral Chainmail (16 AC, no bulk, requires light armor proficiency)
Mithral Half Plate (17 AC, no str, requires medium armor proficiency)
Mithral Heavy Plate (18 AC, no str, no bulk)
as special suits of armor, and work out what their price should be in the above matrix.
(Mithral then drops any stealth penalties, and effectively reduces your stat requirements to hit an AC target.)
