[UPDATED] WotC Gives You Some Official 5E Modern Armor!

This took me rather by surprise - WotC has just posted statistics for D&D 5E versions of modern armor types, including leather jackets, tactical vests, forced entry units, and other items straight from d20 Modern. The article is titled "Firearms", but its focus is adding armor to use alongside the existing firearms in the Dungeon Master's Guide.

UPDATE: WotC has just renamed the article from 5E Firearms to My New d20 Modern Campaign.

Find the article here.

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[Paraxis]

I'm afraid you missed it in the PHB.
More to the point, I like the Aim bonus action and the basic idea of how to spread out the weapons. I'm surprised people aren't commenting on those more

The aim action is not a good idea either.

Why nerf firearms users like this. A fighter using a gun has to use his bonus action to get prof to hit with just one of his attacks, while the others would not get the bonus. Compare to an archer who gets proficiency bonus to attack on all attacks, and has a bonus action to use other great abilities like second wind, cunning action, or all kinds of options when considering feats and multi-classing.

 

[ccooke]

The DR doesn't even work like normal DR.

DR in 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder works where the key word damage type after the / is what gets through the damage reduction. So as written if using d20 modern rules the DR 2/ballistic armor would reduce damage from everything except ballistic damage by 2 points and ballistic damage would do full damage.

But by the article,

"As you can see from the table, many of the heavier armors grant damage reduction (DR) or resistance to several damage types, including a new damage type: ballistic damage."

and the fact that these are kevlar vests it seems the intent is that the vests provide reduced damage against ballistic damage.

The whole thing is kind of odd.

Technically, the term "Damage reduction" does not appear in the PHB, IIRC.

However, there are several things that provide DR effectively. The example I used earlier in the "Heavy Armour Master" feat goes "While you are wearing heavy armour, bludgeoning, peircing and slashing damage that you take from non-magical weapons is reduced by 3"

The chapter on Damage and Healing ("Damage Resistance and Vulnerability", page 197) also mentions an example where the player has "A magical aura that reduces all damage by 5", using that to show how to apply damage reduction effects along with resistance.

The Monk's Deflect Missiles ability gives them some variable damage resistance (use their reaction to reduce the attack's damage by 1d10 + Dex mod + Monk level).

There are probably other examples - those are a few I vaguely recalled seeing it and flicked to.

Basically, the 3e style DR notation doesn't work in 5e, nor does "DR" as a named concept... but damage reduction is alive and well.

 

[ccooke]

The aim action is not a good idea either.

Why nerf firearms users like this. A fighter using a gun has to use his bonus action to get prof to hit with just one of his attacks, while the others would not get the bonus. Compare to an archer who gets proficiency bonus to attack on all attacks, and has a bonus action to use other great abilities like second wind, cunning action, or all kinds of options when considering feats and multi-classing.

I disagree.

If you're going all-in with firearm rules, melee combat and bows are going to have a very different flavour. In an urban setting such as the article describes, you're often going to be using concealed weapons, which will heavily favour pistols and other small guns.

In a world where most characters have pistols and a bow is just too bulky to conceal, the advantage is going to go to the characters who can kill you from range, and making aiming take a bonus action is a nice bit of genre emulation - you have a clear difference between those who can aim and those who spray and pray.

Would I use it in a fantasy game that happens to use firearms? No. It would unbalance things in the wrong direction.

In this specific example, though, I like it a lot.

 

[Morrus]

The DR doesn't even work like normal DR.

DR in 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder works where the key word damage type after the / is what gets through the damage reduction.

That's a different game. This article is for D&D 5th Edition.

 

[Zaran]

Why not?

Because it's just stuff for the author's game that he was nice enough to post for us. It's not a statement of 5e's direction. It's not rules that are now part of core. It's just what he did for his game. If you have a problem with something then change it.

 

[Mistwell]

Because it's just stuff for the author's game that he was nice enough to post for us. It's not a statement of 5e's direction. It's not rules that are now part of core. It's just what he did for his game. If you have a problem with something then change it.

Everything not in the core books is just non-core stuff that you can use with your Core stuff. But you can and still might want to ask questions about it! I mean, the artificer isn't in the core books, but lots of people ask questions about it. Same thing with the various new races recently released, and the alternate spell-less Ranger and new sub-class they released. People don't ask questions necessarily because they have a "problem" with it, they just usually want something clarified. Twitter is one tool WOTC welcomes for asking such clarification questions.

 

[Morrus]

Because it's just stuff for the author's game that he was nice enough to post for us.

You make him sound like a charity worker! I'm sure he's a lovely person. That said, he's a contracted writer producing copy for publication on the official website, not a guy writing stuff for us out of the goodness of his heart.

I know WotC is weird about what is announced or not, but this is a thing published by them on their website.

 

[Zaran]

Everything not in the core books is just non-core stuff that you can use with your Core stuff. But you can and still might want to ask questions about it! I mean, the artificer isn't in the core books, but lots of people ask questions about it. Same thing with the various new races recently released, and the alternate spell-less Ranger and new sub-class they released. People don't ask questions necessarily because they have a "problem" with it, they just usually want something clarified. Twitter is one tool WOTC welcomes for asking such clarification questions.

The difference is , the artificer is Unearthed Arcana while this article is "Behind the Screen" Just because the first BTS article gave us a map with some names and places on it doesn't mean it's part of the "official" multiverse. The same should be said for any rules from BTS. It's not official content.

 

[Umbran]

I know WotC is weird about what is announced or not, but this is a thing published by them on their website.

Yes, but there is still a valid point here about the implied level of support. As in, I am not sure we should think there is any implied support for this material, as there might be for a books they sell.

 

[Morrus]

Yes, but there is still a valid point here about the implied level of support. As in, I am not sure we should think there is any implied support for this material, as there might be for a books they sell.

They don't like it when we infer things.