(MME) Is it just me...

[keterys]

Yeah... I'm not a big fan of the current elven chain. Light armor users who are using the system well don't need any more bonus, and those who are in bad shape should get it a different way. And Rare is easy to truly restrict, but many games allow Uncommons freely enough because that's how the system worked forever and the selection of Commons is fairly low.

I'd not mind making chainmail not require proficiency, as one partial fix.

For a magic item, I'd not mind the idea of a magic armor like...

Warded Armor
Common 2/7/12/17/22/27
Armor: Any light
Property: For the purpose of determining AC, the wearer's Dex or Int is treated as 2 + the enhancement bonus of this armor.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Yeah... I'm not a big fan of the current elven chain. Light armor users who are using the system well don't need any more bonus, and those who are in bad shape should get it a different way. And Rare is easy to truly restrict, but many games allow Uncommons freely enough because that's how the system worked forever and the selection of Commons is fairly low.

That would be a solid argument, if they didn't just put out a book with quite a few common items in it. I wouldn't have been willing to implement the rarity rules before MME, but not there is at least a reasonable selection. The Chain Shirt is basically just equivalent to the Iron Armbands of Power. Some rarity, same static bonus that most people who can benefit from it will want, etc.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

IAoP though provides a type of bonus (damage) that you can get MANY other ways. It is certainly the best item available in its slot for most PCs, but the elven chain provides a bonus to AC, which for ALL characters is even more important than a Damage Bonus, and is entirely unavailable by any other means. Worse, it excludes heavy armor users from having this bonus at all. Nothing but bad there, and far worse than IAoP, which are a bit 'too good' because they compete with other choices, but don't actually create a mechanical issue with the game.

 

[keterys]

Chain shirt is slotless and adds to the upper bound of the game. More importantly, it modifies a d20 based resolution (attacks/defenses) which is _MUCH_ more fragile than damage rolls.

Ie, unhittable PCs is a very different problem than 'Your PC happens to do 2-6 more damage'. See things like the swordmage/warlock build that eldritch strikes every time you attack one of its allies (making them largely immune to melee and close attacks) and has ridiculous defenses via various +2 bonuses and -2 penalties.

Without the chain shirt.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

and still, i like to have such an item available. Maybe rare would have been the right classification though...

 

[keterys]

Yeah, as a rare - say with a daily or encounter power to absorb some damage, sure. Rares can break system assumptions.

 

[SSquirrel]

Someone earlier mentioned the spacing issue. That has honestly been a problem all thru 4E in my book, but it has gotten especially bad since Essentials. WotC seems to be assuming that the people reading their books are all 80 years old with Coke bottle thick glasses. Seriously, is all our vision so bad? I know some people thought some previous editions got cramped, but they really went overboard with that change. There is so much wasted space in this edition. I know that also means they can pad the books out b/c they would have to write a LOT more to fill them otherwise, but seriously. The original PHB could have easily had a couple more classes if the fonts were a bit more like past editions. Just an example.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Someone earlier mentioned the spacing issue. That has honestly been a problem all thru 4E in my book, but it has gotten especially bad since Essentials. WotC seems to be assuming that the people reading their books are all 80 years old with Coke bottle thick glasses. Seriously, is all our vision so bad? I know some people thought some previous editions got cramped, but they really went overboard with that change. There is so much wasted space in this edition. I know that also means they can pad the books out b/c they would have to write a LOT more to fill them otherwise, but seriously. The original PHB could have easily had a couple more classes if the fonts were a bit more like past editions. Just an example.

My take on it is like this. The 1e books are pretty readable, though the font is on the small side for my eyeballs at this point, but it is a nice typeface on actual white matte paper, not hard to read. The 2e books are OK too, though maybe not 100% as readable. The 3e books are tougher, the PF books I can't read at all, except carefully in good light. The 4e books OTOH are definitely quite readable, though matte paper would be better than the gloss everyone so loves these days.

The fonts are larger, and the layout is more expansive. OTOH up to a certain point sheer page count isn't that large a factor, it is more the need to lay things out and set up for printing. The real cost is likely more generating the material to start with. If they condensed the layout it would probably just mean the books would be slightly more expensive or slightly smaller in page count (and possibly slightly cheaper).

I would at a guess imagine that WotC has considered the relative merits of a slightly cheaper book vs a more readable one, at least from their perspective. Frankly readability is attractive to me at this point. Even if I wanted to play PF I'd be rather discouraged by the lesser legibility of the rules text (and man is there a lot of it!).

 

[SSquirrel]

Admittedly, at 35 my vision is still perfect and I'm one of about 4 people on my mom's side that don't wear glasses, so I'm certain my experience isn't the same as everyone else's. I think it would still be plenty readable if they made things a bit smaller tho and reduced whitespace.

 

[Incenjucar]

I'm fine with the default 4E format. It's more spacious than my extremely good vision needs, but there are plenty of gamers who are legally blind. Really quite annoyed with the jumbo size text of Mord's fluff commentary, though. It's cute when you do short quotes every once in awhile, ala Planescape, but it often takes up more space than a magic item.