D&D General What would you do? (Example from my game)

[Horwath]

It's also worth considering what the magic item (in this case armor) represents in the setting. Plate may be an option for PCs now, but it may not have been an option for the lost empire that crafted it for a famous warlord who served their monarch well in a troubled time.

this IS the only option that would be viable, why +1 chainmail exists.

One of the things I notice in these discussions of what is an optimal choice is the relative lack of trade-offs. With respect to armor, there's cost, strength requirements, weight, and whether or not stealth is at disadvantage to differentiate them and offer any reason to NOT go for the best AC on the subtable you have access to by training. And both weight and cost are minimal factors since almost nobody seems to use encumbrance as a rule and PCs blow past the cost restriction quickly in their adventuring lives. All heavy armors impose disadvantage on stealth, so that's not a factor either. So why opt for chainmail instead of plate? Presumably because your strength topped out below 15. And that's IT. That may be a factor for a cleric who has proficiency in heavy armor, but is it really a factor for a fighter or paladin? Probably not. And frankly, splint armor might as well not even be on the table, right?
Unfortunately, basic pluses for magic armor aren't really a help here since they just shift the AC of the armor. And this is where D&D's evolution tends to work against itself. In several prior editions, magic armor's weight was ignored in calculating encumbrance or it stopped reducing movement rates. But those are functionally irrelevant in 5e. So why would anyone wear +1 splint armor when plate armor is available? The +1 splint armor is worth a lot more to sell, even with downtime rules, than wear.

+1 splint mail is just a full plate and extra bag of 2700GP

Unless you find other reasons for it to be interesting... at least for the types of players who like that sort of thing.

extra properties could be nice, but then, you could give those properties to fullplate.

in the end this is a 5E problem of over-simplifying armors that came from 4E.
3.5e had better armors except ACP and move penalties were over the top.
variable max dex and variable ACP(if normalized) make a case for every armor if made correctly.

OFC you can make trash armor for every category for basic grunt that no one will care after 1st level.
like no once cares for chain mail in 5E after 1st level.

 

[el-remmen]

like no once cares for chain mail in 5E after 1st level.

Heh. In one of the games I run, the 5th level paladin still uses chainmail because he can't afford better right now, nor have the party traveled anywhere where plate mail would be available to buy even if he could.

 

[Horwath]

Heh. In one of the games I run, the 5th level paladin still uses chainmail because he can't afford better right now, nor have the party traveled anywhere where plate mail would be available to buy even if he could.

this can happen, and can be a good plot twist, but still a 5th level player is trapped in boot camp grunt gear.

I would as a heavy armor user expect to have a full plate by 3rd or 4th level.
Knight is a CR3 opponent and has a plate armor to loot.

 

[greymist]

Paladin drinks the healing potion; druid casts Cure Wounds on Rogue and self.

Short rest in the safest place they can find; those who can, expend HD.

Druid wildshapes into a inconspicuous creature (rat, bat, etc) that roam the dungeon; to scout ahead as party books it to safe place for long rest.

 

[el-remmen]

Last night we finally got to play again (after an extra week delay). The party chose to risk a short rest and successfully did so, but I rolled an encounter right at the end. So they emerged from the room they had hid in to find a monstrous swarm of rats and a few other giants rats eating some of the bodies of the goblins and bugbears. In a feeding frenzy, the rats attack but were easily defeated.

The party then fled the dungeon via the secret passage and heard an alarm behind them but hurried out of there. They Druid cast Pass without Trace and they made their way to a different spot for camping that was closer because it was snowing.

The long rest went by without a event (though it snowed more overnight and they risked a fire) but when they awoke they discovered the rogue/fighter was diseased, and hadn’t healed at all or regained HD and lost 3 hps from his max.

The Druid cast lesser restoration, curing him. But they weren’t gonna wait around for another long rest, so between second wind and his last two remaining HD used on a short rest he healed up as much as they could and returned.

On the way back they found signs that some “wolves nearly as big as horses” had been going up and down the road (presumably searching for them). But the ranger was able to determine they had last passed a few hours earlier moving away from their own direction.

When they got back to the moathouse, they found that the gnolls (and one bugbear) they had steered animated as zombies and were ambushed by mercs while busy with the undead and we ended about 4 rounds into the fight.