D&D 3E/3.5 Reworking 3e armour; need help!

[Terath Ninir]

The longer I play 3e D&D, the more it becomes clear that there are only a few optimum armour choices. At first level, your poor character has leather armour. Maybe banded if she's a tank.

As you go up in level, everyone switches to mithral shirt or mithral plate. (Note: in a Warlock-related question, WotC has clarified that mithral plate is medium armour for *all* intents and purposes, which makes it even sweeter.) There's no good reason to use any other type of armour. Oh, sure, if you're a druid, you'll have to come up with some other exotic type of armour -- I'm not sure what's best -- but that's only a slight complication.

Most of the other types of armour, especially the Medium armour types, are just not worth it. They suck, from a min/maxing point of view. The only way I'd even consider them is if the DM was restricting access to mithral armour.

What can be done to make the other armour types viable, if anything? Especially the medium types.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Other armors are better when ability scores are low, so use a harsher rolling method or a lower point buy.

Drop the speed reduction for medium armors.

Increase the armor bonus of (natural) medium armors by 1.

Make mithral less common and/or more expensive.

Give benefits to armors made of materials other than mithral, or downsides to mithral armors.

 

[Terath Ninir]

Other armors are better when ability scores are low, so use a harsher rolling method or a lower point buy.

For me, the ability scores are a more core rules section than armour. In any conflict between the two, if one makes the other look bad, the less core section is at fault. So armour has to change, not the ability scores.

Drop the speed reduction for medium armors.

Makes sense to me. A breastplate, for one, doesn't even cover the legs. Whilst leather armour *does*...

Increase the armor bonus of (natural) medium armors by 1.

I'll have to tinker with that. That might produce more the results I want.

Make mithral less common and/or more expensive.

Give benefits to armors made of materials other than mithral, or downsides to mithral armors.

Yeah, I think mithral is a bit too cheap and all the other special materials are a bit too suck. Mithral is the only good material for armour; adamantine is the only good material for weapons. In both cases, a bit too good. So I think those need some revision, as they are even less core than the armour rules.

 

[maggot]

Yeah, I think mithral is a bit too cheap and all the other special materials are a bit too suck. Mithral is the only good material for armour; adamantine is the only good material for weapons. In both cases, a bit too good. So I think those need some revision, as they are even less core than the armour rules.

One way I've done this in my campaign is equate special materials to a + bonus for armor. So for example mithral would count as +2. This means that many characters don't want to have +1 mithral plate, but would prefer +3 normal plate. Unfortunately, the Magic Vestment spell messed with this, but still it became a choice of +1 mithral plate or +1 fortified plate.

Still at the highest level, everyone had either full plate or a mithral breastplate. Well maybe the bard didn't spend so much on armor and had a chainshirt or something. Still it was light or heavy armor, no medium. Even the barbarian didn't go with medium armor, and barbarians are the only class encouraged to use medium armor.

I've also seen 30ft move for light, 25ft for medium, and 20 for heavy. That encourages medium armor a bit, but it doesn't work so well with smaller characters.

 

[Nifft]

IMC, I swap the speed reductions from Medium and Heavy.

Medium: normal tactical, can only run 3x base speed
Heavy: slow tactical, can only run 3x base speed

I've seen a few Breastplates.

The only Fullplate in the game so far was on an NPC Night Hag who rode a Nightmare. Generally, I don't expect to see Heavy armor on anyone who's not mounted.

-- N

 

[Liquidsabre]

(Note: in a Warlock-related question, WotC has clarified that mithral plate is medium armour for *all* intents and purposes, which makes it even sweeter.)

Quote please?


Maggot: that sounds like a pretty decent way to handle special materials in general, though I'd put Mithral at +1 and Adamantine at +2 likely, retaining the material cost and relative rarity.

Medium: normal tactical, can only run 3x base speed
Heavy: slow tactical, can only run 3x base speed

Gah, snag! That helps medium armors alot! With all of the armor check penalties that heavy armor comes with I rarely see PCs taking them, most opting for light armors. Currently in the 11th-12th level range the fighter in the group is more than a little appalled how bad his AC is what with wearing a chain shirt lol. He just hates the idea of drowning, not being able to jump, or climb...

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I think you're shortchanging adamantine armor, Cyberzombie. Though DR 3/- doesn't seem like much initially, it can add up pretty quickly--something I noted when playing around in the rules forum on the Psywar/Fighter comparison thread. In my experience, I see mostly mithral chain shirts and mithral fullplate, but normal fullplate (among those who don't have the dex to take advantage of mithral armor--I've seen it fairly often in the RPGA's Green Regent campaign where (supposedly core) 25 point buy takes a lot of the advantage out of a higher max dex) and mithral breastplates (more efficient gp/AC once you go past a +2 enhancement bonus) make appearances. I'd see more mithral breastplates, I'm sure, except for the fact that it's somewhat difficult to get access to them in Living Greyhawk (which is where I see the most diversity of characters).

That said, you're still not seeing true medium armors other than the mithral breastplate on anyone. So, what to do to make the normal medium armors more attractive? I think the suggestion of swapping the medium and heavy armor movement restrictions is a good one. 30 foot move but X3 run in medium and 20 foot move and x3 run in heavy armor makes medium armors a lot more attractive to characters. I saw something similar in action in Arcanis which had a medium armor with +5 armor bonus, a +4 max dex, and a 30' move until the Player's Guide to Arcanis revision. It was the armor of choice for barbarians. The Player's Guide to Arcanis made that armor exotic but added another exotic medium armor with a +6 armor bonus and a +3 max dex (25' movement with the exotic armor proficiency). That immediately became the armor of choice for my fighter/barbarian.

So, I think you've got a number of good options.
1. Leave the rules alone and you're still likely to see mithral chain shirts, mithral breastplates, mithral fullplate, adamantine fullplate, and normal fullplate on characters.

2. Switch the movement rules and you're likely to see breastplates become the preferred barbarian and mobile fighter armor until they can afford mithral fullplate which will become an even better deal (mostly at the expense of the mithral breastplate and mithral chain shirt).

3. Add to the AC bonus of medium armors and you're likely to see them become a fair amount more popular with barbarians and rangers. Mithral versions of them will also start to win out over mithral chain shirts with a lot of characters.

 

[CRGreathouse]

For me, the ability scores are a more core rules section than armour. In any conflict between the two, if one makes the other look bad, the less core section is at fault. So armour has to change, not the ability scores.

The rules were balanced with the assumption of stats in the neighborhood of a 25-point buy, and games in that range see more armor diversity than those with higher equivilences. That's (one of the reasons) why armor seems insufficiently diverse in most games -- too high stats.

Yeah, I think mithral is a bit too cheap and all the other special materials are a bit too suck. Mithral is the only good material for armour; adamantine is the only good material for weapons. In both cases, a bit too good. So I think those need some revision, as they are even less core than the armour rules.

I think that pricing armor materials by the pound rather than the category (and generally increasing their prices) helps. Then again, I haven't really seen people take mithral full plate and it often seems "everyone" has mithral shirts.

I've seen more adamantine armor than weapons.

 

[Nazerel]

I've entertained thoughts of bumping up the ACs for medium and heavy armor by using the chart progression.

Light Armor
Padded +1
Leather +2
Studded Leather +3
Chain Shirt +4

Medium Armor
Hide +4
Scale +5
Chain +6
Breastplate +7

Heavy Armor
Splint +7
Banded +8
Half Plate +9
Full Plate +10

It never made sense to me that a chain shirt (just the torso and a cap for the head, not even the forearms are covered!) protected a character as much as a full suit of scale mail (torso, arms, gauntlets, a skirt or leggings, maybe a cap) did. As for breastplate, they do protect the legs; metal greaves cover the front of the lower legs, and it came with a metal helmet (though no bracers or gauntlets). And a breastplate by RAW still only has a +1 AC bonus over chain shirt despite all of this (would a thin shirt made of maille stop weapon blows better than a breastplate made of molded metal?). Lightening up on the speed restrictions of medium armor is a good way to make them more attractive too. I'm sure it's been brought up before, but in reality the problem with heavier armor such as full plate wasn't so much weight (which is better distributed over the body than a suit of chain maille whose weight hangs off from the shoulders), but heat exhaustion (all that padding to prevent chafing). The D&D system doesn't handle exhaustion very well (though it tries).

Then again, I think the problems with armor is only a symptom of a much larger problem with the current D&D system, in that BAB goes up but AC for most classes (including combat oriented ones with full BAB) stays the same. Why does offense scale with level but defense doesn't? It makes little sense. The game assumes that characters will be rewarded with and load up on AC boosting magical items. Much like characters can fall into golf bag syndrome with carrying a bunch of different weapons to bypass damage reduction, they're usually forced to have a veritable collection of magical doo dads and knick knacks to keep their AC up just to survive encounters. Unless PCs take a bunch of defensive feats like Dodge, Mobility, Combat Expertise, etc., keeping your AC up in a low-magic campaign will be more of a challenge, and feat slots are rare enough as they are already unless you're a fighter.

 

[monboesen]

The rules were balanced with the assumption of stats in the neighborhood of a 25-point buy, and games in that range see more armor diversity than those with higher equivilences. That's (one of the reasons) why armor seems insufficiently diverse in most games -- too high stats.

A point soooo many people seem to ignore completely. And yes, the game is very different if you use that 25pt buy compared to roll 4d6, 32pt buy and so on.

Good suggestions on the movement thing for medium armors. I think I'm going to use that.