.
Perhaps I should have specified that the poll was for those who thought that plate armor was underperforming in D&D (various recent editions) compared to light armor.
"1. Why doesn't the poll have a "no, because it adds needless complexity" option? Yeah, it's just one rule, but it's a rule that you have to keep remembering, and mention to every new player (even those who have played other versions of D&D) and explain why it exists when the new player says it doesn't make any sense."
Not needless, if you are one who agrees that plate armor gets the shaft in most editions of D&D, (see innumerable other polls on the subject). There needs, IMO, to be something more than just AC boost to differentiate it. Why? Because of the Dex scaling issues.
Until we see the re-jigged AC values and their allowed Dex bonuses, this is all rather moot.
But if I see another edition of D&D where cheap-o-McStabby the rogue spends 20gp on studded leather at level 1 and has the same AC as a fighter who clanks around the dungeon, waking up every monster in the place, falling into more traps, getting run down by faster enemies or allowing others to escape...I ..am...going...to...scream! *metaphorically.
If this is the case, then the coverage of armour really needs to be taken into account. Because at the moment you have a 5% chance of finding a gap in platemail and a 5% chance of finding a gap when your opponent is nekked.
Not only that, but plate armor would, by the end of its reign, cover every inch of your body. I just watched a show on the topic. They had little clatches to keep the visor shut, there wasn't ANY gap under the arm pits, or behind the legs, or the groin, or anything. In D&D parlance that would be full plate vs normal plate.
Tell me how you'd narrate critting someone in full plate. Seriously. A tiny slit in your visor to see...NO arrows can get in there. They were designed that way. The regular plate in the image I posted might have some gaps...but those gaps were still smaller than the wide open space between your chin and your shoulders without armor on at all. +1 AC is not balanced vs all the negatives plate armor has out of combat.
That said, I would be willing to add -1 to your attacks though, compared to light or no armor. Tanks are slower and less capable of turning on a dime than light infrantry, or aiming due to the restricted visibility. I do think it should grant less dexterity, in the form of to-hit bonus.
Anyway the polls have spoken.
It's amazing for me to read Herschel's posts though...I disagree with pretty every single thing he's ever written on this board. Wide tents and all that.
That said, I'm happier with DDN playtest rules than what I was playing for three years between 2008 and 2011...by a huge margin. Let's hope they throw a bone to heavy armor users...or I'll just wear light armor and reflavour it like it's plate armor (as I did in the end of my playing..that other edition where Dex was a god-stat....)
I'd love to see what the fatality rates would have been for unarmored jousters...If you model a crit as a lance splinter in your neck, or your eye through the tiny slit in your visor, and your HP is between the average damage of a hit and a crit...then you begin to see that knights would be killed quite often. I don't know what the stats are, but I do know that Henry the VIII jousted for many, many years and died a ripe old man.
Getting blinded or fatally wounded, every 1/20 times you joust...Does not compute. (to me).
