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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Storm Raven" data-source="post: 3900003" data-attributes="member: 307">Chance has an effect because if you have a system in which there is a chance that someone might get injured or killed, then the pragmatic choice driven by that system is to take the steps necessary to avoid that. If the system gives any kind of benefit to wearing armor and using weapons or other magical equipment, then players will want them for their characters to raise their chances of survival. If magic arms and armor increase those chances, players will want them for their characters.The only ways to make equipment not have this effect are to (a) make equipment have little or no effect on the survivability of the characters, which I don't think will be feasible, or (b) eliminate chance as a factor.D&D is not a reality simulator, but you do have to have a system that people are willing to accept the premises of. And as a premise, "weapons and armor don't make you substantially better in combat" is something I think people will simply not accept.No, it really isn't a way to play out cinematic adventures. For that, you have to look at other systems. D&D is a system that is a genre unto itself, and attempts to make it something else (realistic, grim, gritty, cinematic, and so on), usually fail, because players have gotten used to D&D being D&Dish. And there likely wouldn't be a point where wearing amror was pointless. Because armor would likely increase their AC even further. Or some sort of magic would. Or some combination of magic and armor would likely end up being better.(For the record, there is a point right now in 3e D&d where armor stops being valuable - for very high Dexterity characters their Dexterity bonus to AC can potentially exceed the max Dexterity bonus of all types of armor sufficiently that wearing armor is a net negative for them, but that's a corner case).For the most part, in the "real world" there has never been a situation in which wearing no armor was better, in general, than wearing some armor. And if you think mobility in combat isn't a valuable thing in 3e D&D, then I'm not sure if we have been playing the same game at all. In point of fact, the criticism I have seen for the game has generally been that heavy armor types aren't worth using, with everyone using light armor, and sometimes (rarely) medium armor.And the 3e rules generally reflect this. I'm not sure what sort of change you are advocating with this line of argument.No. Not if you want to emulate Conan. Why? Because in the books, Conan wore armor. Often, and almost always when he had advance warning that he was going to be fighting someone. Because Howard wasn't silly enough to think armor was of no value. I see the "Conan doesn't wear armor" trotted out all the time, and it is nonsense, because it doesn't accurately reflect how Conan behaved in the books.</blockquote>

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