Monsters and Armour...

[Spatula]

If you like (kinda smart-alecky, I know). Take a moment to clear your head of 3rd edition. Monsters/NPCs don't have to be reverse engineered to every last point of AC, attack bonus, skills, etc. You give the creature any kind of armor you like (whether it's in the PH or not), and adjust its armor value by whatever amount you deem necessary. If you want to keep it to the differences in actual armor types for ease, go for it (just keep appropriate values for your party's level range in mind (using the table on p184 of the DMG as a guideline).

I love how nearly every rules question is now met with, "what's written in the books doesn't matter, do what you want." I mean, thanks for the advice, but we already know that. People are looking for information on how to interpret what's written in the books that they purchased (with the expectation that their contents would be usable as-is).

 

[PeelSeel2]

If that were the strategy, I'd be fine with it ... but they went and gave a procedure in the DMG (subtract these things, compare, add back up ...). So I'd expect the procedure to actually work.

A rule-of-thumb approach is perfectly acceptable. But IMO it's poor design to provide a specific procedure when the intent is to use a rule-of-thumb.

The procedure in the DMG is more of a Rule of thumb thing.

 

[Spatula]

I'm trying to wrap my head around equipping monsters with different armour and I need some double-checking here..

Ex.

Drow Warrior [MM p. 94]
- AC 24 [wearing chainmail].

Following the rules for adding equipment [DMG p. 174]:
- Its effective AC is 14 [24-10] (because chainmail is heavy, Dex/Int mod not used here).
- So now I subtract its effective AC from its actual AC and get 10 [24-14]
- That means that if I give it forgemail instead, its AC doesn't change since the +9 of forgemail is less than the +10. If I gave it Spiritmail, its AC would become 26 (since the spirit mail is +12 - 2 higher than the original 10).

Is this right?

If it is, then couldn't I also just give this Drow say, Starleather and add its Dex bonus of +9 to its AC; making it 35? [the +4 of the leather is below the 10 as well.. but it is light armour).

A few mistakes. The effective armor of the drow warrior is +14, not +10. The DMG says to subtract 10 from the monster's AC to find this number, and to also subtract Dex/Int if the armor is light (not the case here). You only subtract the "effective armor" number from the monster's AC to find the monster's "base AC", which you then add the new armor to (and possibly Dex/Int). If the new number is higher than the original, use the new number. If not, I guess you still use the original AC.

I was going to say that the drow's Dex bonus isn't really +9, but it seems from the example in the DMG that you do include the 1/2 level bonus to the attribute mods. Given that, I am thinking the "base AC" will always end up being 10, so I'm not sure why they just didn't say that.

So, Drow Warrior AC = 24.
Effective Armor bonus = 24 - 10 = +14
Base AC = 24 - 14 = 10
Hide Armor = 10 + 9 (dex) + 3 (armor) = 22 (not good enough)
Hide Armor +2 = 10 + 9 (dex) + 3 (armor) + 2 (magic armor bonus) - 2 (11th lvl monster magic threshold) = 22 (same result!)
Darkhide Armor +4 = 10 + 9 (dex) + 4 (armor) + 4 (magic armor bonus) - 2 (11th lvl monster magic threshold) = 25 (1 point better!)

Of course, the darkhide armor is at least a level 16 item, so it's not likely to be found on a level 11 monster... With heavy armors, you'd need at least Spiritmail, Elderscale, or Godplate (all +6 armors) to improve the drow's AC.

 

[Stogoe]

More than a few of the people complaining would rather tear down and reject suggested workarounds than actually think for half a second about the power in question. They are more concerned with making an anti-4e point than with recognizing an obvious intent or accepting help.

Game language is not a legal document, nor should it try to be.

 

[Zurai]

Game rules should be applied consistently by the game, though. Otherwise they're useless.

 

[lejanius]

wouldn't it be easier to just add on the difference in the type of armor to the AC? so if the drow is using chain mail, and you want him to use plate, just subtract the chain mail value from plate mail and add in the difference?


sort of simplistic but seems like it would work

 

[Spatula]

wouldn't it be easier to just add on the difference in the type of armor to the AC? so if the drow is using chain mail, and you want him to use plate, just subtract the chain mail value from plate mail and add in the difference?

Sort of simplistic but seems like it would work

Simple yes. A little too effective, though. The thing is, the drow (for example) is not really wearing chainmail. It has an AC of 24 because that's around what an 11th level lurker is supposed to have - it's all fudge factor with some flavor thrown in. Doing like you propose would up its AC by 2 - which is significant - but not give anything in return - it's still worth the same XP, and 11th lvl PCs have no real use for non-magical plate armor. The thrust of the guidelines for improving a creature's equipment is basically, different equipment has little to no effect unless the item is really powerful; i.e. something the PCs would have a use for if they looted it.

 

[FourthBear]

Game rules should be applied consistently by the game, though. Otherwise they're useless.

Well, I wouldn't go that far. Consistency is useful for establishing fairness and helping to support verisimilitude. However, game rules are often abstractions that are meant to facilitate enjoyable play and emulate genres. I also think that before a DM begins significant reverse engineering or construction of game elements, they should always ask themselves if the resources they are putting towards this will be paid off for in what happens at the table.

You can spend entire evenings deconstructing and generating stats for every member of a village, but if in likely play, the characters never see any outcome of those stats, your hard earned efforts would have been better served thinking more about the plots and personalities going on in town.

I think this is an excellent case. Why does a DM need to reverse engineer anything to justify a change in AC? Unless you're grossly off the appropriate AC, is there going to be an audit of opponent stats at some point?

 

[Zurai]

I think this is an excellent case. Why does a DM need to reverse engineer anything to justify a change in AC? Unless you're grossly off the appropriate AC, is there going to be an audit of opponent stats at some point?

Presumably there are reasons for the AC formulas. The DMG gives us methods to reverse-engineer the formulas so that we can apply them ourselves for non-cookie-cutter creatures/NPCs. Unfortunately, they don't use their own rules.

It's like making spaghetti. In general, you follow a recipe, at least the first few times you make it. The recipe's pretty simple (boil water, add spaghetti, cook ~8 minutes, stirring occasionally), but if you don't have the recipe, only the end result, you're stuck throwing spaghetti at the wall until it sticks to determine when it's done.

 

[FourthBear]

In this case, I would say the recipe is both very clear and very direct: the appropriate stats for a given opponent of a specific role and level are given in the DMG. Those are the numbers that playtesting has presumably shown results in the best chance of the opponent behaving as expected in a given encounter. If they are much higher or lower than those given target numbers, it is reasonable to posit that the opponent has a higher chance of not resulting in the desired effect in the encounter.

In 3e, the DM was encouraged to play a mini-game of enemy construction, using classes, equipment, base monster stats, monster advancement, templates and special exceptions to generate opponents that the system would supposedly output as reasonable. If this mini-game resulted in numbers outside acceptable ranges, the DM didn't play the mini-game well enough. Gave the gargoyle barbarian magical full plate and now the appropriately leveled party can't hit him? Better luck next time! Heck, many DMs regard that kind of optimization as a win, since you've managed to construct really high numbers out of the mini-game, despite the fact that the PCs can't hit it.

I think the 4e system, where they give you clear, transparent target numbers is far superior. That way, the DM knows if they're outside the expected values quite easily. Certainly you can start deconstructing opponent stats, calculate AC stats, realize that they could afford better armor, supply them with such armor and then recalculate all of their ACS with the improved values. I hope any DM who does so realizes that doing has a significant likelihood of giving the opponent ACs inappropriate for the level and role. And to my mind, what actually happens at the table matters enormously more than a highly consistent armor system.