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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9206635" data-attributes="member: 6799660">There are certainly game systems which do this. GURPS is a relatively well-known one -- Everyone can use armor*, but the cost (financial and encumbrance) are significant. Being able to manage those costs (without penalties elsewhere) requires additional investment. D&D certainly could go this route**. I guess the question for me would be how do we do this without making every 10+ str wizard who is not wearing leather armor utterly mad (because then we are simply excluding one playstyle preference for the other)?*or shields, but like weapons doing so without skill has diminished returns compared to someone more dedicated to physical combat **it already kinda does with weapons, in that just having proficiency in them isn't that meaningful without high attributes and maybe class features like extra attack and such.D&D has definitely not been known for adhering closely to realism. Particularly with skill systems (including 'proficiency') where you either are or are not skilled in something (possibly with some level-based granularity in that). Also time it takes to get from unskilled to 'could start using in applied situations' varies wildly. Wearing armor is a skill, but one you can get to relative competence in a relatively short order with consistent training (basic training for modern armor, or number of sessions into SCA/HEMA training before you're allowed to put on your own gear and people can swing things at you). Learning to use a shield or many weapons requires maybe a bigger hurdle to get past the fighting-impulses-which-are-actually-detrimental phase Dyson Logos mentions with shield, and then a slow lifelong trajectory of skill increase. Slings and Longbows**, yeah, how much time do you have? *maintenance of, and maybe even putting on and off of plate armor and the like, maybe taking longer to get to 90% competent.**this one inextricably entangled with overall physical conditioning in ways most games aren't set up to model. Honestly, if realism were the primary metric, I would make wearing armor something anyone could learn with downtime like a language, but shields would be like weapons in that you would need build-mechanic parcels like initial class/multiclassing/feats to gain them (these at least being a consistent circumventing of modelling training time). </blockquote>

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