Praise Pelor, an Armor Epiphany!

[Tequila Sunrise]

I just had an epiphany as a result of reading Space Coyote's 'Help Me Convince My Players to Wear Heavy Armor' thread!

Part of the problem with heavy armor I think is that it has no more AC progression than any other armor. No matter if you're level 3 or 30, full plate is still only 4 bonuses better than a chain shirt.

Well lucky for me, I'm revamping d&d anyway so it's not much bother to add a little more dynamic to this armor issue. In my revamp armor (in terms of protection) is as follows:

Light
Leather Shirt:+1 Defence, 1 DR
Chain Shirt: +1 Defence, 2 DR
Scale Shirt: +1 Defense, 3 DR
Plate Shirt: +1 Defence, 4 DR
Medium
Full Leather: +2 Defence, 1 DR
Full Chain : +2 Defence, 2 DR
Full Scale : +2 Defence, 3 DR
Full Plate: +2 Defence, 4 DR
Heavy
Leather Mail: +3 Defence, 1 DR
Chain Mail: +3 Defence, 2 DR
Scale Mail: +3 Defence, 3 DR
Plate Mail : +3 Defence, 4 DR
Shield
Buckler: +1 Defence
Light: +2 Defence
Heavy: +3 Defence
Tower: +4 Defence

So this makes heavy armor even suckier for characters that don't know how to use it right, but I've created a new feat tree:

Armor Focus: When wearing medium armor add 1 to your Defence. When wearing heavy armor add 2 to your Defence. When using a shield add 2 to your Defence. Required: 4 ranks in Combat.
Improved Armor Focus: " " Required: 9 ranks in Combat.
Greater Armor Focus: " " Required: 14 ranks in Combat.
Supreme Armor Focus: " " Required: 19 ranks in Combat.

Combine these feats with the fact that the Warrior class in my revamp gets a bonus feat at each level, and suddenly heavy armor doesn't suck nearly so much! As a fringe benefit of this system, it makes armor generally unapealing to spellcasters without resorting to the Spell Failure system which I've been trying to find a way around forever!

 

[Hawken]

I'm not really sure you've created a compelling argument for heavy armor.

Light armor still provides the same protection (DR) that the medium or heavy counterparts offer. You haven't listed maximum Dexterity bonuses or armor check penalties, so I'm not sure what you're doing with those either. I don't understand how your med and hvy armor and feats increase defense either while they all provide the same DR. The more a person wears or carries, the slower they are and thus easier to hit. If you reduce the defense or cap it on the heavier armors, while increasing their DR, then it gives characters reasons to want heavier armor (more DR over light armor). Instead of pushing defense unrealistically through the roof (someone with all your feats in your plate mail with a tower shield would have +23 defense, 4 dr), you could maybe offer an increase to defense against critical hits by providing an increase to defense against rolls to confirm a critical hit. Someone wearing your plate mail should be better protected from critical hits than someone in a leather shirt.

Also, I'm not sure about your armor types either. A 'plate shirt' would be a breastplate, and that is medium armor as I recall. I also do not remember leather or scale 'shirts'. Also, your 'mail' armors should probably be medium and 'full' armors as large. Full plate was always more protective than Plate mail, but I've never heard of full chain, scale or leather either.

Even with your sky high defense a mid-high level warrior is still going to hit at least 1/round unless a 1 is rolled. This would seem to make spending 4 feats kind of a waste if you know you're going to get hit anyway.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I'm not really sure you've created a compelling argument for heavy armor.

Light armor still provides the same protection (DR) that the medium or heavy counterparts offer. You haven't listed maximum Dexterity bonuses or armor check penalties, so I'm not sure what you're doing with those either. I don't understand how your med and hvy armor and feats increase defense either while they all provide the same DR. The more a person wears or carries, the slower they are and thus easier to hit. If you reduce the defense or cap it on the heavier armors, while increasing their DR, then it gives characters reasons to want heavier armor (more DR over light armor). Instead of pushing defense unrealistically through the roof (someone with all your feats in your plate mail with a tower shield would have +23 defense, 4 dr), you could maybe offer an increase to defense against critical hits by providing an increase to defense against rolls to confirm a critical hit. Someone wearing your plate mail should be better protected from critical hits than someone in a leather shirt.

Also, I'm not sure about your armor types either. A 'plate shirt' would be a breastplate, and that is medium armor as I recall. I also do not remember leather or scale 'shirts'. Also, your 'mail' armors should probably be medium and 'full' armors as large. Full plate was always more protective than Plate mail, but I've never heard of full chain, scale or leather either.

Even with your sky high defense a mid-high level warrior is still going to hit at least 1/round unless a 1 is rolled. This would seem to make spending 4 feats kind of a waste if you know you're going to get hit anyway.

My armor types are loose--I'm no history buff, I just wanted to make a simple way to create armor mechanics. The GM and players can describe armor in more detail with whatever knowledge or style they have for the topic.

The reason that Armor Focus provides better Defence in heavy armor than in medium is because it doesn't represent better speed or agility--it represents experience in just how to move and fight in your armor to get its maximum benefit. Obviously, heavy armor has more protection with which to utilize.

You are correct in thinking that heavy armor sucks even more in my system than it does in d&d, but I think you're missing the small print. A character who knows how to use armor in my system is much more badass as you pointed out--with the entire Focus tree he'll end up with heavy armor that is 10 bonuses better than light armor rather than a mere 4 as in d&d.

I like your suggestion about critical resistance, though I've never been a fan of adding a percentile dynamic to any situation. Maybe I'll double an armor's Defence bonus in relation to critical confirmation rolls to represent the extra protection.

 

[smootrk]

It is an interesting idea. I believe you should have an Armor feat chain, and a separate Shield feat chain, to allow for more mixing and matching. I would also try to add in a variety of feats that further modify other factors, like movement rates, armor/shield spike weapons. My rationale is that with your system 'as-is' every fighter would likely look very mechanically alike without additional choices to direct these feats towards.

For spellcasters, maybe you should incorporate a Spell Casting skill (like in Deadlands D20). Each spell caster has a distinct skill they must keep up ranks in, and the DC for successfully casting a spell is 15 +(2*Spell Level) with 20's & 1's having special success/failure consequences. The DC could be skewed down a bit to make all casters essentially automatically successful while casting appropriate level spells assuming they keep the skill ranks up, but with the addition of Armor Penalties to the skill check, the casters would have a hard time casting. Maybe use a 2 or 3 times the DR value you use to figure out the check penalty.

Anyway, just some ideas to help you along.

 

[Quartz]

Regardless of the other stuff, I don't like your requiring a Combat skill: fighter types have so few skill points anyway. Make it a BAB requirement instead.

 

[ValhallaGH]

It is an interesting idea. I believe you should have an Armor feat chain, and a separate Shield feat chain, to allow for more mixing and matching. I would also try to add in a variety of feats that further modify other factors, like movement rates, armor/shield spike weapons. My rationale is that with your system 'as-is' every fighter would likely look very mechanically alike without additional choices to direct these feats towards.

This sounds like someone that has never run out of feats, with fifteen still needed to pick.

It is an interesting idea. It doesn't address many of the issues central to why people don't wear heavy armor but it does address one of them, so it's a start. Reminds me of the Armor Focus feat(s) I've seen before.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

It is an interesting idea. I believe you should have an Armor feat chain, and a separate Shield feat chain, to allow for more mixing and matching. I would also try to add in a variety of feats that further modify other factors, like movement rates, armor/shield spike weapons. My rationale is that with your system 'as-is' every fighter would likely look very mechanically alike without additional choices to direct these feats towards.

For spellcasters, maybe you should incorporate a Spell Casting skill (like in Deadlands D20). Each spell caster has a distinct skill they must keep up ranks in, and the DC for successfully casting a spell is 15 +(2*Spell Level) with 20's & 1's having special success/failure consequences. The DC could be skewed down a bit to make all casters essentially automatically successful while casting appropriate level spells assuming they keep the skill ranks up, but with the addition of Armor Penalties to the skill check, the casters would have a hard time casting. Maybe use a 2 or 3 times the DR value you use to figure out the check penalty.

Anyway, just some ideas to help you along.

Part of the reason I've been trying to find a way around the armored mage issue is that I think it's irrational. I'm toning magic down in my revamp so the viable option to wear armor should be a balancing factor.

I built a skill check into the spellcasting process, but only for wizards because they have no MPs or spells/day. All others work on the MP system.

As other posters have dropped similar comments on the feat tree deal, I'm changing it to armor-type specific feats.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Regardless of the other stuff, I don't like your requiring a Combat skill: fighter types have so few skill points anyway. Make it a BAB requirement instead.

I gave all classes 2 more skills to balance out turning BAB into a skill.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

It is an interesting idea. It doesn't address many of the issues central to why people don't wear heavy armor but it does address one of them, so it's a start. Reminds me of the Armor Focus feat(s) I've seen before.

Never seen others, myself. Any marked differences from mine? I'm assuming they were made for regular old d&d, not a revamp?

 

[airwalkrr]

My armor types are loose--I'm no history buff, I just wanted to make a simple way to create armor mechanics.

Your armor system doesn't appeal to me personally, but that doesn't mean it is bad. To each his own. However, if you have any interest in historical accuracy, you might want to swap the scale and chain. Chain armor was enormously more effective than scale armor in most cases, except when fighting an opponent with a bludgeon such as a mace or club. Scale armor had weaknesses, particularly from piercing attacks, and the scales could be broken off much easier than the links on a chain. Even when the links did break, they often exposed much less than a broken scale did.